The lines about Glayne's mouth deepened. He let his gaze travel over
Harbin's troubled face and the impassive faces of the rest of the
ship's officers. He saw accusation in their eyes along with resentment
and veiled hostility. He knew what they were thinking. Why should he be
the only one to return. Why had he abandoned the others? And now they
wanted to know what had happened to the girl. So he told them.
"She is still alive." Bitterly he wondered why Fate had designated her
to be the only one left to face Gort Bro-Doral's vengeance. He looked
up again at the silent cluster of officers. "If your curiosity is
satisfied, gentlemen, suppose we get on with the war?"
"If Tjadlinn is without Jewel power," persisted Harbin stubbornly, "why
can't we attack? We might be able to rescue Lieutenant Chodred. It's
the least we could do--"
"Follow my orders!" Glayne cut in savagely. He turned on his heel and
mounted to his shock seat in the Captain's Station. Yes, he thought
bitterly, they could attack Tjadlinn, incur heavy damage on the
discoid--perhaps even accomplish a miraculous rescue of Niala. But
weighed against that was the possibility that the _Algol_ might be
heavily damaged or destroyed by the highly potent secondary Kellanders
of the discoid. Unless he got through to Garstow, the conservative
Grand Admiral of the Stellar Guardians was likely to delay his attack
on Karkara--and such a delay would be suicidal.
Gradually a floor began to build under his feet and the _Algol_ got
under way. As the thrust increased, the discoid began to shrink
in the distance. Glayne stared at its image grimly in the battle
screen. He didn't say farewell because he knew he would be back. He
rubbed his bristly cheek. He saw success now. He felt it on the tips
of his clutching fingers. But something else was beyond his grasp
now--something that made success dry and unpalatable. He covered his
eyes with his hand as the thought stabbed him: The laughing, green-eyed
Niala....
* * * * *
The Stellar Guardian fleet lay motionless across forty thousand
kilometers of space when the _Algol_ reached the rendezvous at Scone
III. Admiral Garstow's anxious face formed rapidly in the featureless
grey surface of Glayne's ship-to-ship communicator screen.
"Give me a fast, verbal report on the Jewel, Glayne," ordered the
Admiral.
The Guardian Captain complied, rapidly sketching the main details of
his sabotage and providing a rough outline of the Delban defense of
the discoid.
When he finished, Garstow nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think it
advisable to risk an immediate attack on the discoid on the chance that
we can knock it out before they repair the power drains?"
Glayne frowned, then said, "No. It's too long a chance. They will mass
their fleet at Tjadlinn immediately. Under normal circumstances we
could lick them, but if they repair that Jewel faster than I expect,
then we'll be sitting ducks."
Garstow nodded again. "Lieutenant Brodis informed me of the plan you
had in mind of attacking the Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III and
thereby acquiring the Jewel power-receiving antennae. On the whole, I
think that is the shrewder move. Since you've managed this show up to
now, Captain, I think you might as well organize the attack."
"Thank you, sir," Glayne replied. "I'll take my own cruiser division in
first to clear away what little resistance they'll put up. That will
be the simplest part about it. The real difficulty will come when we
install the antennae. As Brodis probably told you, we were unable to
get any technical information from General Ganser."
Garstow rubbed his fleshy nose thoughtfully, then said, "It's in your
hands, Captain." Then he cut out.
Rapidly Glayne organized the attack, placing his own cruiser division
at the point of the spearhead. Smoothly the Stellar Guardian striking
force flashed down on Scone III. As Glayne had anticipated, their
sudden assault was little more than an armed landing. The Delbans were
caught completely off guard. They put up a fanatical resistance with
the auxiliary-powered Kellander secondary batteries, but the superior
weight of Glayne's miatron blasters soon crushed every last shred of
opposition.
As soon as the _Algol_ had jetted down on the immense space-port of
the Karkara Fleet Station, a group of technicians in addition to the
landing party raced off to confiscate an antennae unit for the big
ship. Glayne set up an operations unit in the glassene dome of the
_Algol_ to assign landing patterns to the other Guardian fleet units.
The heaviest Cluster and Galactic class warships he assigned to fast
orbits about Scone to defend the ships which had already landed.
After he saw that landing operations were proceeding smoothly he
descended to the engine room of the _Algol_ to see how the installation
of the antenna was progressing. Massive cables snaked across the deck
in confusions, waiting to be hooked into the heavy buses which the
technicians were jockeying into place. Outside on the hull, gangs
of men were welding in the mesh antenna. Fuming, he looked at his
wrist-chrono repeatedly.
"How much longer?" he asked Harbin impatiently.
"Thirty minutes at the most, sir," replied Harbin stiffly, refusing to
meet Glayne's eyes.
Glayne rubbed his bristly cheek thoughtfully as he turned away. The
young officer was determined to give him the silent treatment along
with the rest of the officers in his crew. Word would spread; soon the
whole fleet would hear of his cowardly negligence. He smiled thinly as
he made his way back up to the navigation bridge. He had seen it happen
before. There were just two ways to escape it. One was retirement. The
other involved a Cardy gun placed at the temple....
The red light of his personal communicator was blinking intermittently
when he regained the bridge. It was Garstow.
"Glayne!" he barked abruptly, "Bardled is on his way in with the fleet
of Imperial Terra. And a dozen other Sectors have massed their fleets
and are on the way, too."
"Excellent," said Glayne. "We're working faster now. We've put the
Delban technicians to work and repaired the damage to their assembly
lines. We ought to be able to handle a thousand ships an hour. How long
before Bardled will arrive?"
"Four hours ... maybe six."
"I'm lifting in a few minutes," Glayne said. "When Bardled arrives,
install the units in his heavy ships first. Those tubs will smash the
Tjadlinn anti-shield if anything will."
Rapidly Glayne went on to sketch his plan of attack. When he finished,
Garstow nodded ponderously. "Then we will sub-space as soon as we pick
up the power broadcast. A sound strategy, Captain. Good luck!" His
face faded from the screen.
* * * * *
The first of the big Cluster class battleships were easing down on vast
fingers of flame when Harbin reported that the work of installation
was complete. In quick succession the other cruisers of his division
reported readiness and he gave the command to blast off.
The _Algol_ was almost two hundred million kilos below Scone System's
plane of ecliptic when the hastily installed antenna unit began to
pick up the first surges of power from the Tane Jewel. Cautiously the
_Algol's_ pilot experimented with it, accustoming himself to unlimited
power at his finger tips. One by one, the ship's atomic drivers fell
silent as the pilot gained confidence.
"Raise the anti-shield, Lieutenant Harbin," Glayne said crisply over
his inter-ship phone. "We'll sub-space right now."
Harbin's image stared at him incredulously from the communicator screen
for an instant but he fought down the words that trembled on his lips.
"Aye, sir," he snapped.
Glayne was grimly amused at his anxiety but said nothing to relieve it.
They were dangerously close to mass, he knew, but if Gort Bro-Doral
could blast into sub-space directly from Sterle II with a shield
supported by Jewel power, then he ought to be able to get away with it
at two hundred million kilos from mass.
Briefly Glayne communicated his intent to the commanders of the thirty
other cruisers in his division and their anti-shields began to build.
At his curt command they dropped smoothly into sub-space, their shield
generators heating up slightly as the sudden strain hit them.
They plunged on through sub-space, building up to incredible velocities
in that nether dimension where such commonplace things as mass and
light did not exist. Glayne's mind worked rapidly, analyzing his plan
of battle for any defects. Obviously the enemy would mass his fleet
at the all-important Tjadlinn. If his calculations were correct, his
cruiser division would pop into normal space right among them. If they
struck fast enough, they could disorganize the Delbans sufficiently for
Garstow and Bardled to get in among them with the heavy units of their
fleets. And that, he knew, would be the end of the Delban Grand Fleet.
The discoid was another matter. Paradoxically, it contained within it
the very source of the power which they would use to destroy it. The
only possible way the Delbans could deprive them of the Jewel power
would be to turn off the non-directional broadcast entirely. That,
however, would leave them open to an attack by the regular miatron
batteries of the heavy Guardian and Terran battleships. They could
not possibly hope to beat off such an attack with their Kellander
secondaries. Hence, Glayne reasoned, they would keep up the power
broadcast at all costs.
Satisfied with his plan, Glayne let his mind relax and drift where it
wanted. Abruptly it turned to thoughts of Niala Chodred and he winced
at the pain which filled him. Grimly, he realized that if the silent
treatment by his fellow officers failed to ruin him, the bitter acid of
remorse which burned his soul would certainly accomplish the job.
X
One instant the fleet of the Delban Empire was assembling about the
vital Tjadlinn discoid in an orderly fashion. An instant later all hell
broke loose amid its massed ranks.
Glayne's cruiser division popped out of sub-space at two hundred
kilometers per second and flailed through the Delbans like a giant
scythe. His eyes glued to the small battle screen in front of him,
Glayne clipped off rapid commands over the ship-to-ship communicator
that kept him in touch with the rest of his group.
Three Delban warships--one a battle-ship--had been caught with their
shields down and were now exploding enthusiastically in nova-fashion. A
dozen others had been heavily damaged by the slashing miatron beams as
they vainly sought to lift their shields.
The _Algol_ screamed in protest as the pilot flung her around to bore
in again. Her armored hide seemed to crawl in squealing agony at the
twenty G turn. Glayne panted, on the verge of blacking out. Dimly he
glimpsed the strained features of the pilot wracked with spasms of
coughing that flung lobs of blood and lung tissue against the terraced
banks of instruments at his side....
Then they were among the Delbans again, slashing right and left with
Kellander miatron beams. This time the Delbans were ready for them and
replied with a vengeance. Torrents of energy smashed at the _Algol's_
shield which shuddered like a live thing under the impact. Behind
Glayne a knot of sweating gunnery officers rattled off firing data to
waiting Kellander crews before the mammoth battle screen. Somewhere
in the bowels of the ship the accumulators were screaming as they fed
the Jewel energies from the antenna to the smoking banks of shield
generators and the ravenous Kellander condensers. But dominating the
ear-splitting crescendo of the _Algol_ in full fighting stride was the
continuous, ravening thunder of Kellander projectors as they flung
their blasts at the Delban warships.
Glayne saw that his division had scattered widely--but, at the same
time, the disorganization of the Delbans was even more evident. Unaware
that the sudden attack was a feint to draw them away from Tjadlinn, a
dozen Delban fleet divisions abandoned the Jewel to join the fray.
As the Guardian Captain scanned the screen, he saw that the tide was
fast running in favor of the Delbans. The _Anza_ was finished for the
day. A flotilla of swift Delban destroyers had darted in with mines and
torpedoes, one of which had gotten through her shield and exploded with
a devastating energy concussion against her stern, sheering off plates
and jet tubes by it force. The _Altor_ and _Astrid_ were cornered by
a dozen Delban Galactics and Clusters and their shields coruscated
in brilliant hues as they trembled on the point of collapse. A third
Guardian ship, the _Aesir_, blasted in to offer aid and even as Glayne
watched, hurled her energies in a concerted salvo at a point just
below the jets of one of the Delban Clusters. Its shield coruscated
brilliantly, tottered, and suddenly it was strewing its guts,
nova-fashion. Almost immediately the _Aesir_ followed her example as a
salvo of Galactic beams struck her amidships, rupturing her shield. A
torpedo ripped into the bridge of the _Astrid_ and she exploded in an
eye-searing nova. The _Altor_ managed to limp away in the confusion,
her beralloy hide mangled and torn from a near miss.
The _Algol_ herself was in trouble. Two Delban Stellars were hurling
torrents of energy at her shield, making it coruscate in a blaze of
overloaded power foci. A pack of destroyers was circling hungrily,
looking for a chance to dart in and plant their seeds of destruction.
The pilot maneuvered desperately, but the overloaded power lines could
not shunt sufficient power through the drivers to pull them out of
their difficulty.
Glayne swore, wondering where the rest of the fleet was. It couldn't
go on much longer. The _Akkad_ had novaed; the _Ashlar_ and _Asgard_
had disappeared without leaving a trace. Only six of his original
thirty were in fighting shape--and even as he watched he had to revise
it to five. The _Atlas_, surrounded by a dozen enemies, exploded in
nova-fashion as her shield collapsed.
And then the void was suddenly full of great warships bearing the
Guardian and Terran insignia, appearing magically in the midst of the
Delbans. What had appeared to be triumph suddenly turned into a rout
for the Delbans. Badly disorganized, they attempted to flee back to the
safety of the mighty Kellander projectors of Tjadlinn.
* * * * *
But Glayne's annihilated cruiser division had done its work well; the
Delbans, drawn too far from the discoid, were cut off by the fleets
that opposed them. They fought desperately and fanatically, but
there was only one possible outcome. One after another they exploded
nova-fashion as the massed salvos of the tremendous Terran and Guardian
battle ships swept aside their shields and touched destructive fingers
to their beralloy sides.
Glayne's ship-to-ship suddenly crackled into life and Garstow's heavy
face appeared on the screen. "My boy," he boomed, "I'm proud of you.
Excellent work! We've bagged them all at almost no cost. Bardled tells
me he didn't lose a ship."
Glayne gazed stupidly at him for a moment before he could adjust
himself to the idea of victory. Then he said quietly: "I have five
ships left out of a command of thirty."
"Oh! ... that's too bad," mumbled Garstow, his broad face becoming
serious. "What I mean to say is--"
"The chaplain will say what needs to be said," Glayne cut in with
unnecessary bitterness. "If you still want me to run this show, then I
submit that we attack Tjadlinn without delay."
Admiral Garstow nodded, his face like a deflated balloon.
Quickly Glayne outlined his plan for the assault on the discoid
itself. The battle would be fought between the Kellander accumulator
and condenser capacity of the massed fleets and the total generator
capacity of the mighty anti-shield which the Delbans would raise from
the discoid. If the Delban shield capacity was less than the massed
strength of the fleet, then the discoid would be destroyed. But if the
Delbans held them off, they would try something else.
It took several hours to assemble the scattered and highly numerous
Terran and Guardian warships into a closely-integrated formation.
Matters were not helped by the appearance of dozens of warships from
the fleets of other Sectors. They roamed about searching for enemy
stragglers, but succeeded only in getting in the way. Finally, however,
Glayne got them organized and the enormous fleet moved ponderously on
Tjadlinn.
The Delbans waited behind their featureless grey shield, not firing
a single Kellander blast at the advancing fleet. When it reached to
within fifty kilometers of the discoid, Glayne gave the order to
commence fire.
In the center of the huge discoid the Jewel, the Second Universe of
the Elder Tane, blazed with a chill, golden luminescence. It did not
waver a fraction as the tremendous energy demands struck it. The power
drains fed voraciously of its infinite energies and flooded them into
sub-space. The cumbersome mesh antennae on the hulls of the numberless
ships in the massed fleet gulped it up and transmitted it to screaming
accumulators which in turn fed it to the ravenous Kellander condensers.
They, in turn, cast it through the miatron projectors at the shield of
Tjadlinn from whence it had emerged.
For minutes on end those titanic torrents of energy blasted at that
phenomenal shield. But it held. The inconceivable energies could not
crack it. Not even when every single accumulator and condenser in the
massed fleets of the Terran Combine labored at peak capacity did the
shield so much as tremble. Not even to the extent of a tiny spider web
of coruscation along the power foci.
Glayne barked a command to cease fire. He saw that the hail of
torpedoes and mines which they had strewn had penetrated the shield.
But they had been detonated by roving beams from the Tjadlinn
secondaries before they could strike the surface of the discoid. If
they could get through that mighty barrier, Glayne reasoned, then so
could the _Algol_. He peered into the battle screen, attempting to
locate the mammoth landing dock of the discoid through its shimmering
grey shield.
He made his decision. Garstow's face came to life on his communicator
screen. Briefly he communicated his intention to the Guardian leader.
When he had finished, Garstow nodded soberly and mumbled farewell.
When he learned that the _Algol's_ Kellander batteries had been rigged
to fire by remote control from the pilot's seat, Glayne contacted
Harbin.
"Abandon ship!" he ordered laconically when the youngster's face filled
the screen.
"Wha--what?" blurted Harbin incredulously.
"I said," Glayne repeated curtly, "abandon ship. Make haste!"
"Aye, sir," said Harbin. His face still mirrored astonishment as it
faded from the screen.