BATTLE for the STARS
By ALEXANDER BLADE
Kirk had never seen the distant planet
called Earth, yet his squadron was now ordered
there--to stem the outbreak of a galactic war!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was well called the Dragon's Throat, thought Kirk. Throat of fire,
of burning suns, a cosmic blind-alley into danger!
You made your decision. You threw a ship, a hundred men, your officers,
your friends, your own Commander's badge you threw them all down on the
gamble. But when the stakes were stars....
He said to himself, "The hell with it, we're committed."
He said aloud, "Radar?"
Joe Garstang, standing on the bridge beside him, answered without
turning. "Nothing has been monitored yet. Not _yet_."
Kirk's palms itched. If they were running into an ambush, if Orion
heavy cruisers were waiting for them, they'd soon know it. There could
be ships all around them. Radar wasn't too dependable, in the howling
vortices of force-field energy flung out around this jungle of stars.
Through the broad bridge-windows--the "windows" that were really
scanners cunningly translating faster-than-light probe rays into visual
images--there beat upon his face the light of a thousand suns.
It was Cluster N-356-44, in the Standard Atlas. It was also hellfire
made manifest, to starmen. It was a hive of swarming suns, pale green
and violet, white and yellow-gold and smoky red, blazing so fiercely
that the eye was robbed of perspective and these stars seemed to crowd
and jostle and rub each other. Up against the black backdrop of the
firmament they burned, pouring forth the torrents of their life-energy
to whirl in terrific cosmic maelstroms. The merchant ships that boldly
drove the great darks between ordinary star-worlds would recoil aghast
from the navigational perils here. Only a fool--or a cruiser--would go
in here.
There was a narrow cleft between cliffs of stars, with the flame-shot
glow of an immense nebula roofing it. The only possible way into the
heart of the cluster, this Dragon's Throat of starman legend. But
others had gone in this way. At least, so said the rumors, rumors
that had reached the squadron as far away as the Pleiades. Rumors too
factual, too alarming, to be ignored.
Rumors of cruisers from the squadrons of Orion Sector, that had gone
into this cluster. Rumors of a secret base, on a hidden world. The
ships of Orion Sector had no business here. Neither, for that matter,
did the ships of Kirk's own Lyra Sector. This cluster was no-man's
land, part of the buffer zones that were supposed to reduce friction
between the five great Sectors of the galaxy. Actually, these stellar
wildernesses were the scenes of constant, nameless little wars.
The five governors of the five great Sectors were, all of them,
ambitious men. Solleremos of Orion, Vorn of Cepheus, Gianea of Leo,
Strowe of Perseus, Ferdias of Lyra--they watched each other jealously.
Five great barons of the galaxy, paying only a lip-service allegiance
to the shadowy Central Council far away on a half-forgotten world
called Earth, in reality independent satraps of the stars, hungry for
space, hungry for power. Yes, even Ferdias, thought Kirk. Ferdias was
the man he served, respected, and even loved in a craggy sort of way.
But Ferdias, like the others, played a massive game of chess with
men and suns, moving his squadrons here and his undercover operatives
there, laboring ceaselessly to hold on to what he had and perhaps
enlarge his domain, just a little, a solar system here and a minor
cluster there....
And the game went on. Right now, Kirk thought he was probably heading
into a trap. But if Orion cruisers _were_ in here, he had to know it. A
hostile base here, if left to grow, could dominate all the star-lanes
from Capella to Arcturus. It was up to him as a squadron-commander, to
go in and find out.
Kirk looked at the looming, overtopping cliffs of stars that went up
to the glowing nebula above and down to the black pit of absolutely
nothing below.
He thought of Lyllin, waiting for him back at Vega. A starman had no
business with a wife.
He said again, "Radar?"
"Still nothing," said Garstang. His square face was no less grim than
Kirk's. He was captain of this flagship _Starsong_, and what happened
to her was important to him. "If there is a base here," he said, "we
should have come in with the whole squadron."
* * * * *
Kirk shook his head. He had made his decision and he was not going to
start doubting it now, no matter how lonely and exposed he felt.
"That could be exactly what Solleremos wants. With the right kind of
ambush, a whole squadron could be clobbered in this mess. Then Lyra
would be wide open. No. One ship is enough to risk."
"Yes, sir," said Garstang.
"The hell with you, Joe," said Kirk. "Say what you're thinking."
"I am thinking that the rumor mentioned cruisers, plural, indefinite.
We'd better catch them while they're all asleep."
The _Starsong_ forged her way onward toward the two red suns at the end
of the Dragon's Throat. And Kirk thought that if he had made the wrong
decision, if the _Starsong_ never came back again, Ferdias would be
very angry. But that would not then make any difference to him.
Looking up at the flaring, tumbling waves of the nebula, like the
underside of a burning ocean, Kirk said to Garstang:
"Does it seem to you the pace is speeding up? I mean, this jockeying
for power between the Sectors has gone on a long time, ever since Earth
lost real authority. But it seems different lately, somehow. More
incidents, more feeling of something driving ahead toward a definite
goal, a plan and a pattern you can't quite see. You know what I mean?"
Garstang nodded "I know."
The computer banks clicked and chattered. Relays kicked, compensating
power, compensating course, compensating tides of gravitic force quite
capable of breaking a ship apart like a piece of flawed glass. The two
red binaries gave them a final glare of malice and were gone. They were
clear of the Throat.
A star the color of a peacock's breast lay dead ahead.
"Ready for approach," said Garstang.
"Stand by," said Kirk. "We'll wait until the last possible minute to
shift. If they haven't picked us up already, maybe they won't."
Garstang gave his orders. Kirk watched the blaze of peacock-blue grow
swiftly. No ambush in the Throat, so now what? Ambush on the world of
the blue star? Or nothing? A wild-goose chase, time and money wasted?
Or maybe Solleremos had planted those rumors to draw Kirk's attention
while a strike was made somewhere else.
Suddenly Kirk felt very old and very tired. He had been in the squadron
for twenty years, ever since he was sixteen, and in all these twenty
years the great game of stars, the strain, the worry, had never let up.
It must have been nice in a way, Kirk thought, in the old days a
couple of centuries ago when Earth still governed in fact, and all the
star-squadrons were part of the Galactic Navy, and the great battle was
with the galaxy itself and not with one another.
"We're getting close," said Garstang.
Kirk shook himself and got down to business. There followed a few
minutes of split-second activity, and then the _Starsong_ had shuddered
out of overdrive and was plunging toward a bright world almost
dangerously close to her. There was still no sign of any enemy, and the
communicators remained silent.
* * * * *
An hour later by ship's chrono they had located the one port of entry
listed for the planet and they had set the _Starsong_ down in the
middle of a large piece of natural desert that served well enough for
what space traffic ever came here.
It was night on this side of the planet. There was no moon, but on a
cluster world a moon is a useless luxury. The sky blazes with a million
stars, so that day is replaced not by darkness but by the light of
another sort, soft and many-colored, full of strange glimmers and
flitting shadows. In this eery star-glow a town was visible about a
mile away. Otherwise there was nothing. No ships.... No legions of
Orion Sector.
"The ships could be hidden somewhere," Garstang said. "Maybe halfway
around the planet, but waiting to jump us as soon as they get word."
Kirk admitted that was possible. He put on his best dress uniform of
blue-and-silver, and strapped a portable communicator between his
shoulders. It rather spoiled the effect, but there was no help for
that. Garstang watched him.
"How many men will you want?" he asked.
"None. I'm going in alone."
Garstang's eyes widened. "I won't come right out and say you're crazy."
"I was here once before," said Kirk. "When old Volland was commander
and I was an ensign. These people are poor but proud. They have
traditions of long-ago splendor, claim their kings ruled the whole
cluster and so on. They dislike strangers, and won't let many in."
"But if Solleremos' men are already here--"
"That's the reason for the porto." Kirk frowned, trying to plan ahead.
"Exactly twenty minutes after I enter the town I'll contact you, and
I'll continue to do so at twenty-minute intervals. If I'm so much as a
minute late, take off and buzz hell out of the place. It'll give me a
bargaining point, anyway."
Garstang said dourly, "A lot can happen in twenty minutes. Suppose
you're not able to bargain?"
"Then you're on your own."
In the airlock, open now and filled with a dry, stinging wind, Kirk
paused, looking toward the distant town, a lonely blot of darkness
between the star-blazing sky and the gleaming sand. Here and there in
it lights burned, but they were few and somehow not welcoming.
"She's all yours," he said to Garstang. "If anything looks wrong to
you, don't wait for me. Take her away."
"Yes, sir," said Garstang.
Kirk smiled. He climbed down into the sand and began to walk.
The town took shape as he approached it. The stone-built houses, mostly
round or octagonal, were scattered out with no particular plan. Under
the red and gold and diamond-colored stars that burned above them as
bright as moons, they looked curiously remote and evil, like old
wizards in peaked hats, peering with little winking eyes. The dry wind
blew, laden with alien scents. Apart from the wind there was no sound.
* * * * *
Three men met him at the edge of the town. They wore pale cloaks and
carried long staffs tipped with horn. They were all of seven feet tall.
They wore their hair high on their heads to accentuate this height, and
they were slender and graceful as reeds, walking along with a light
dancing step as though the wind blew them. But their faces in the
star-glow were smooth and secret, their eyes as expressionless as bits
of shiny glass.
"What does the man from outside desire?" asked one of them, in the
universal speech.
Kirk said, "He desires to speak with those others from outside who
enjoy your hospitality."
But they were not going to make it that easy for him. Their faces
remained impassive, and the one who had just spoken said coolly, "Our
lord has wisdom in all matters. Perhaps he will understand your words.
I do not."
They fell in around Kirk and moved with him into the wide sandy space
that went between the wandering houses. The nerves tightened up in
Kirk's belly, and his back felt cold. He looked at his wrist chrono,
carefully. There was no sound but the whispering of sand under their
feet. Garstang would be watching with the 'scope, but once he was in
among the houses he could no longer be seen.
That was almost at once. The tall men walked on with their light
swaying stride, so that he had to move at an undignified trot to keep
up. The stone houses with their high roofs closed in behind him. This
dark and brooding town ill accorded with old tales of cluster-kings, he
thought. Yet the past held many things.
When they were close to the center of the town, the leader stopped
beside a round structure from whose open door came light.
"Will the man from outside enter the dwelling of our lord?"
Kirk breathed a little easier as he went through the door. Apparently
there was no truth to the rumors that....
A chopping blow took him on the back of the head. He fell forward. He
was stunned but not unconscious, and he tried to roll over, thrashing
out blindly with his fists and feet. But at once there were men on top
of him, heavy solid men grinding his face into the gritty carpet,
pounding the wind out of him, holding him down.
In a minute his hands were tied tight behind him and his ankles lashed
together. They cut the straps of the porto and pulled it off him. Then,
like a sack of meal, he was dragged to the wall and propped upright.
In an absolute fury of rage, he spat blood out of his mouth and looked
up dizzily into the light.
There were three or four men here, obviously not natives of this
planet, but he did not pay much attention to them. The one he looked
at stood apart, directly in front of Kirk, a lean dark iron-faced man
with very alert eyes, and the easy, dangerous manner of one who enjoys
his work because he is so admirably well fitted for it, as a cat enjoys
hunting.
He said to Kirk, "My name is Tauncer."
Kirk nodded. He looked with feral interest at this most famous of
Solleremos' agents. "I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"
Tauncer shrugged. "We all do what we can, Commander. Each in his own
way."
"Well," said Kirk. "What do you want?"
"The answer to one simple question."
His face came closer to Kirk's, very tense, very keen, searching for
any sign of evasion.
He asked his question.
"What is Ferdias planning to do about Earth?"
CHAPTER II
There was a long moment of complete silence, during which Kirk stared
wide-eyed at Tauncer, and Tauncer probed him with a gaze like a scalpel.
On Kirk's part, it was a silence of sheer astonishment. No question
could have taken him so unexpectedly. He'd been prepared to be grilled
on squadron dispositions, forces in being, bases, all the things that
the men of Orion Sector would like to know about Lyra. But this--
It didn't make sense. Earth was not part of the present-day star
struggle. That old planet, so far back in the galaxy that Kirk had
never been within parsecs of it--it was history, nothing more. It had
had its day, its sons long ago had spread out to the stars and their
blood ran in the veins of men on many worlds, in Kirk himself. But its
great day had long been done, and the Sector governors who played the
cosmic chess-game for suns paid it no heed at all.
"I'll repeat," said Tauncer softly. "What's Ferdias planning to do
about Earth?"
"I haven't," said Kirk, "the faintest idea what you're talking about."
Tauncer sighed. "Possibly." He straightened up. "Even probably. But
I've been sent here to make the inquiry, and I'll need more than your
word and an expression of innocence. Brix!"
One of the other men came forward. Tauncer spoke to him in a low voice,
and he nodded, and went into the shadows across the room. Kirk's heart
pounded in alarm. He tried to get up, but he had been too well bound.
He could not see his chrono, but he did not think that more than seven
or eight minutes had elapsed since he had entered the town. Plenty of
time for mischief. He said to Tauncer,
"I didn't walk into this with my eyes completely shut. My men have
instructions."
"I'm sure they have. And don't feel too badly about this, Commander.
The details of the trap were based on a minute study of your psychology
and past record. It would have been almost impossible for you to avoid
falling into it. Can't you hurry that up Brix?"
"All ready." Brix came back carrying a light tripod with a projector
mounted on it. And now Kirk's heart sank coldly into the pit of
his stomach. He had seen that particular type of projector before.
It was called a vera-ray, and it beamed electric impulses in a
carefully-controlled range that absolutely stunned and demoralized a
man's brain, making him temporarily incapable of lying or resisting
questioning.
Kirk had no information about Earth to give away. But there were plenty
of other things in his mind, things of military importance to Lyra
Sector that Solleremos would be only too glad to get hold of.
How long now? Ten minutes more? Too long. Even five minutes would be
too long, with that projector pounding his skull.
He couldn't get up, but he could roll. He rolled, acting on a
split-second reflex that caught even Tauncer by surprise. The projector
was only four or five feet away. Brix and the other men were on top of
him again almost at once but not quite in time. He fetched the tripod
a thrashing kick, with both his feet bound together. It fell over. He
could not hope that it was broken, not on this soft carpeted floor, but
it would take them time to set it up again.
He tried to keep them busy as long as he could, but Tauncer understood
perfectly well what he was up to. He pulled his men off and set Brix to
adjusting the projector again, and turned to Kirk.
"You may as well spare yourself, Commander. I have my mission, and
the military have theirs. There are three cruisers standing off and
on, just out of radar range--they got word the moment you landed, and
they're already on their way."
He smiled briefly. "The price you pay for fame, Commander. The Fifth is
Ferdias' elite squadron, and nobody gets command of it unless he's in
Ferdias' special favor."
"Friendship is one thing," said Kirk hotly, "and favor is another. I
don't like your choice of words."
* * * * *
He was just talking, words, sounds with no meaning. Inside he was
thinking of Garstang and the _Starsong_, and all the lives of all the
men in her. He had led them here.
He looked at Tauncer, and he began now to hate him, with a hate as deep
and cold as space.
"Ferdias will tear your heart out," he said.
"Perhaps," said Tauncer. "But he may have other things to occupy his
mind."
"Earth? He's never been there. None of us have. It's only a name, and
a half-forgotten one at that. Why should Earth occupy his mind? Why,
Tauncer?"
How long is twenty minutes? How long does it take three cruisers to
come from Point X beyond radar range to Target Zero? How long does it
take a man to realize he's through at last?
Brix said again, "All ready."
Tauncer nodded.
Brix touched a stud on the projector.
As though that touch had done it, a dull and mighty roaring echoed from
the desert--the full-throated cry of a heavy cruiser taking off.
The men looked, startled, toward the door. Desperately, Kirk rolled
sideways, out of the force that was already battering at the edges of
his mind.
"You out there!" he shouted at the doorway. "The men from outside
avenge treachery! Call your lord--"
One of Tauncer's men kicked him alongside the jaw. Kirk shut up,
hanging with blind determination to his consciousness. Fore-thought had
provided this one chance. He would not get another. He did not dare to
miss it.
The cruiser came low over the town. Dust sifted out of the cracks of
the stone walls. The men fell to their knees, covering their heads
with their arms. The floor rocked under them, beaten by the rolling
hammers of concussion.
The ripped sky closed upon itself with a stunning, thundering crash.
After a minute or two the noise and the shock wave ebbed away.
Silence.
The men began to get up again. But Kirk did not move.
The cruiser came back. This time it was even lower. Garstang must have
tickled her belly on the peaked roofs. Christ, thought Kirk, he's
overdoing it. This time the stones were shaking loose. When it was
over, a long thin shape came in through the doorway. It was the leader
of the tall men who had brought Kirk here.
His face was a mask of fear and rage as he spoke to Tauncer. "You said
that if we helped you, you would keep all other outsiders away!"
"We will," said Tauncer. "Listen--"
"Yes, listen," mocked Kirk. "Listen to it coming back. It'll keep
coming back, unless I walk out of here--until your town is flattened."
The tall man stood hesitating. Then the _Starsong_ roared back over.
When it was gone, he picked himself up and with a knife cut the cords
around Kirk's wrists and ankles.
"Oh, no," said Tauncer, starting forward. "You can't--"
The tall man turned on him a face livid with frustrated anger. "Shall
the children of cluster-kings be destroyed to serve _you_? Shall I call
my people in?"
Kirk, scrambling to his feet, saw outside the door the crowd of tall,
pale-cloaked men who had gathered. Tauncer saw them too, and stopped.
As Kirk picked up the porto and started for the door, the man Brix
cried violently, "Are we just going to stand here?"
Tauncer said levelly, "Why, yes, there are times when you do just that.
But I think we'll see the Commander again."
* * * * *
Kirk went out through the door and through the crowd outside it. No one
followed him. He got the porto working and talked fast to Garstang,
then dropped the porto and sprinted out of the town toward the desert.
The cruiser dropped down ahead of him, as black and big against the
stars as a falling world. The lock yawned open, and Garstang was inside
it to meet him. He started to ask what had happened, but Kirk pushed
him bodily away down the corridor, heading for the bridge.
"Get in there and do your stuff, Joe. We've got three Orion cruisers on
our tail, as of the time we landed."
At that moment they heard the voice of the radarman crying out in
sudden anguish, "Sir!"
Garstang said in mild reproval, "You ought to give a man more time,
Commander. Radar, what's the bearing? All right, stand by--"
Orders crackled over the intercoms. Men moved swiftly at the
control-banks. The last thing Kirk heard before the howling roar of
take-off drowned everything was Garstang complaining that this sort of
thing was hard on a ship. Then there was a dull crash from somewhere
outside. The _Starsong_ was shaken as though by a great wind. Both Kirk
and Garstang had weathered enough fire to know that she had taken no
hurt. But the Orion cruisers were in range now, bearing down on them in
normal space at planetary speeds. The next shell would likely be a good
deal closer. They dared not wait for star-room to go into overdrive.
"Hit it!" yelled Kirk. Garstang threw the relays open. Sirens shrilled
and the lights went dim. The _Starsong_ shuddered vertiginously.
And then they were in overdrive and racing out toward the twin red suns
that guarded the entrance to the Dragon's Throat.
The scanners and ultra-speed radar came into play, replacing normal
instruments, making an illusion of sight. And the voice of the radarman
said dismally,
"They're still with us, sir. F-Type cruisers, heavy-armed and plenty
fast."
For the next quarter of an hour the _Starsong_ gained velocity at a
suicidal rate, but the Orion cruisers would not be left behind. The
radarman called their coordinates in a steady sing-song and Garstang
ordered more power and more power, keeping one eye on the stress
indicators and the other on the overhanging star-cliffs of the Throat
that seemed to be leaping toward the ship.
There was a limit. You could not take the Throat too fast. In that
swarm of suns a ship's fabric could be torn apart in some swift tide
of gravity, or vaporized in collision. Garstang had already passed the
limit. But the Orionids were refusing to be bluffed.
Kirk said nothing. This was Garstang's job, and he let him do it.
But he watched the indicators as closely as the captain. Under his
feet and all around him he could feel the _Starsong_ quiver, wincing
and flinching like a live thing now and again as some wild current
wrenched at her. His gaze flicked upward to the nebula, like a fiery
thundercloud above the Dragon's Throat, and then to the shoaling suns
below, with the narrow pass between them. The twin red stars of the
binary flashed by and were gone.
Suddenly, in the screen that mirrored space astern, a tiny nova flared
and winked away. The _Starsong_ trembled, like a running deer that
hears the hunter's gun.
"Wide astern," said Garstang. He looked at the cleft of the Throat and
shook his head. "But we'll have to slow down for that, and they know
it. They'll have time to range us before they come in themselves. They
won't," he added grimly, "have to come in."
Kirk nodded. "So we'll fool them. We won't go into the Throat either."
Garstang stood silent for a moment. Then he said, "I was hoping you
wouldn't think of that."
"Have you a better idea? Or even a worse one?"
"No." Garstang took a deep breath and spoke into the communicator. "New
course, north and zenith, forty degrees. We're running the nebula. On
full autopilot. If anyone wants to pray, go ahead."
* * * * *
The _Starsong_ shot upward, plunging high into an area so choked with
stellar radiance that it made the Dragon's Throat seem like empty
space. The manual control-banks were dark and dead. From the calc-room
back of the bridge a new sound came, different from the normal
occasional outbursts of chattering. This was a steady sound, a sound of
authority, the voice of the _Starsong_ speaking. She was flying herself
now. The men aboard, Captain and Commander, able spaceman and ensign,
were her charges, dependent on her wisdom and her radar vision and her
strength. There was nothing they could do but wait.
The _Starsong_ spiralled higher, her radar system guiding her on a
twisting path between the clotted stars. Then Kirk saw a great glowing
edge slide onto the screen and grow into a vastness of dust and cosmic
drift illumined by the half-smothered stars it webbed.
The Orionid cruisers had altered course and were coming after them. But
the _Starsong_ was already skimming through glowing arms that reached
like misty tentacles searching for other stars to trap and feed upon.
Once in the cloud, she would be screened from the cruiser's radar beams
by the most effective scrambling device in space, the nebula itself.
Effective. Yes. But potentially as deadly as Orionid warheads. The only
difference was that with the nebula you had a chance. Against three
cruisers you had none.
Kirk strapped himself into the recoil chair beside Garstang. Nothing
moved now within the ship. The frail, breakable organism of breath and
heart and bone were encased in protective webs. This was the hour of
the ship, the hour of steel and flame and the racing electron, faster
than thought.
The _Starsong_ spoke to herself in the calc-room, and plunged headlong
into the cloud.