"Well, sir--we won't lose them entirely," Halloran said comfortingly.
"Some cruiser will investigate them. Chances are they're ours
anyway--and if they aren't there's no sense in us risking our nice shiny
skin stopping them--even though we could take them like Lundy took
Koromaja. Since the book doesn't say we have to investigate, we won't."
His voice was bitter again.
At 0840 hours on the fourth day out, my annunciator buzzed. "Sir," the
talker's voice came over the intercom, "Lieutenants Marsden and Allyn
are wanted in the Captain's quarters."
* * * * *
Chase was there--toying with the seals of a thin, brown envelope. "I
have to open this in the presence of at least two officers," he said
nodding at Allyn who came in behind me. "You two are senior on the ship
and have the first right to know." He slid a finger through the flap.
"Effective 12, Eightmonth, GY2964," he read, "USN 'Lachesis' will
proceed on offensive mission against enemy vessels as part of advance
covering screen Fleet Four for major effort against enemy via sectors YD
274, YD 275, and YD 276. Entire Scouting Force IV quadrant will be
grouped as Fleet Four Screen Unit under command Rear Admiral SIMMS.
Initial station 'Lachesis' coordinates X 06042 Y 1327 Betelgeuse-Rigel
baseline. ETA Rendezvous point 0830 plus or minus 30, 13/8/64.
"A. Evars, Fleet Admiral USN Commanding."
There it was! I could see Allyn stiffen as a peculiar sick look crossed
Chase's dry face. And suddenly I heard all the ugly little
nicknames--Subspace Chase, Gutless Gus, Cautious Charley--and the dozen
others. For Chase was afraid. It was so obvious that not even the gray
mask of his face could cover it.
Yet his voice when he spoke was the same dry, pedantic voice of old.
"You have the rendezvous point, Mr. Marsden. Have Mr. Esterhazy set the
course and speed to arrive on time." He dismissed us with the
traditional "That's all, gentlemen," and we went out separate ways. I
didn't want to look at the triumphant smile on Allyn's face.
We hit rendezvous at 0850, picked up a message from the Admiral at 0853,
and at 0855 were on our way. We were part of a broad hemispherical
screen surrounding the Cruiser Force which englobed the Line and supply
train--the heavies that are the backbone of any fleet. We were headed
roughly in the direction of the Rebel's fourth sector, the one top-heavy
with metals industries. Our exact course was known only to the brass and
the computers that planned our interlock. But where we were headed
wasn't important. The "Lachesis" was finally going to war! I could feel
the change in the crew, the nervousness, the anticipation, the adrenal
responses of fear and excitement. After a year in the doldrums, Fleet
was going to try to smash the Rebels again. We hadn't done so well last
time, getting ambushed in the Fifty Suns group and damn near losing our
shirts before we managed to get out. The Rebs weren't as good as we
were, but they were trickier, and they could fight. After all, why
shouldn't they be able to? They were human, just as we were, and any one
of a dozen extinct intelligent races could testify to our fighting
ability, as could others not-quite-extinct. Man ruled this section of
the galaxy, and someday if he didn't kill himself off in the process
he'd rule all of it. He wasn't the smartest race but he was the
hungriest, the fiercest, the most adaptable, and the most unrelenting.
Qualities which, by the way, were exactly the ones needed to conquer a
hostile universe.
But mankind was slow to learn the greatest lesson, that they _had_ to
cooperate if they were to go further. We were already living on borrowed
time. Before the War, ten of eleven exploration ships sent into the
galactic center had disappeared without a trace. Somewhere, buried deep
in the billions of stars that formed the galactic hub, was a race that
was as tough and tricky as we were--maybe even tougher. This was common
knowledge, for the eleventh ship had returned with the news of the
aliens, a story of hairbreadth escape from destruction, and a pattern of
their culture which was enough like ours to frighten any thinking man.
The worlds near the center of humanity's sphere realized the situation
at once and quickly traded their independence for a Federal Union to
pool their strength against the threat that might come any day.
But as the Union Space Navy began to take shape on the dockyards of
Earth and a hundred other worlds, the independent worlds of the
periphery began to eye the Union with suspicion. They had never believed
the exploration report and didn't want to unite with the worlds of the
center. They thought that the Union was a trick to deprive them of their
fiercely cherished independence, and when the Union sent embassies to
invite them into the common effort, they rejected them. And when we
suggested that in the interests of racial safety they abandon their
haphazard colonization efforts that resulted in an uncontrolled series
of jumps into the dark, punctuated by minor wars and clashes when
colonists from separate origins landed, more or less simultaneously, on
a promising planet, they were certain we were up to no good.
Although we explained and showed them copies of the exploration ship's
report, they were not convinced. Demagogues among them screamed about
manifest destiny, independence, interference in internal affairs, and a
thousand other things that made the diplomatic climate between Center
and Periphery unbearably hot. And their colonists kept moving outward.
Of course the Union was not about to cooperate in this potential race
suicide. We simply couldn't allow them to give that other race knowledge
of our whereabouts until we were ready for them. So we informed each of
the outer worlds that we would consider any further efforts at
colonizing an unfriendly act, and would take steps to discourage it.
That did it.
* * * * *
We halted a few colonizing ships and sent them home under guard. We
uprooted a few advance groups and returned them to their homeworlds. We
established a series of observation posts to check further
expansion--and six months later we were at war.
The outer worlds formed what they called a defensive league and with
characteristic human rationality promptly attacked us. Naturally, they
didn't get far. We had a bigger and better fleet and we were organized
while they were not. And so they were utterly defeated at the Battle of
Ophiuchus.
It was then that we had two choices. We could either move in and take
over their defenseless worlds, or we could let them rebuild and get
strong, and with their strength acquire a knowledge of cooperation--and
take the chance that they would ultimately beat us. Knowing this, we
wisely chose the second course and set about teaching our fellow men a
lesson that was now fifteen years along and not ended yet.
By applying pressure at the right places we turned their attention
inward to us rather than to the outside, and by making carefully timed
sorties here and there about the periphery we forced them through sheer
military necessity to gradually tighten their loosely organized League
into tightly centralized authority, with the power to demand and
obtain--to meet our force with counterforce. By desperate measures and
straining of all their youthful resources they managed to hold us off.
And with every strain they were welded more tightly together. And
slowly they were learning through war what we could not teach through
peace.
Curiously enough, they wouldn't believe our aims even when captured
crews told them. They thought it was some sort of tricky mental
conditioning designed to frustrate their lie detectors. Even while they
tightened their organization and built new fleets, they would not
believe that we were forcing them into the paths they must travel to
avoid future annihilation.
It was one of the ironies of this war that it was fought and would be
fought with the best of intentions. For it was obvious now that we could
never win--nor could they. The Rebels, as we called them, were every
whit as strong as we, and while we enjoyed the advantages of superior
position and technology they had the advantage of superior numbers. It
was stalemate,--the longest, fiercest stalemate in man's bloody history.
But it was stalemate with a purpose. It was a crazy war--a period of
constant hostilities mingled with sporadic offensive actions like the
one we were now engaged in--but to us, at least, it was war with a
purpose--the best and noblest of human purposes--the preservation of the
race.
The day was coming, not too many years away, when the first of the
aliens would strike the Outer worlds. Then we would unite--on the
League's terms if need be--to crush the invaders and establish mankind
as the supreme race in the galaxy.
But this wasn't important right now. Right now I was the Executive
Officer of a scout ship commanded by a man I didn't trust. He smelled
too much like a stinking coward. I shook my head. Having Chase running
the ship was like putting a moron in a jet car on one of the
superhighways--and then sabotaging the automatics. Just one fearful
mistake and a whole squadron could be loused up. But Chase was the
commander--the ultimate authority on this ship. All I could do was pray
that things were going to come out all right.
We moved out in the lower red. Battles weren't fought in Cth. There was
no way to locate a unit at firing range in that monochromatic madness.
Normal physical laws simply didn't apply. A ship had to come out into
threespace to do any damage. All Cth was was a convenient road to the
battlefront.
With one exception.
By hanging in the infra band, on the ragged edge of threespace, a scout
ship could remain concealed until a critical moment, breakout into
threespace--discharge her weapons--and flick back into Cth before an
enemy could get a fix on her. Scouts, with their high capacity
converters, could perform this maneuver, but the ponderous battlewagons
and cruisers with their tremendous weight of armor, screens, and
munitions couldn't maneuver like this. They simply didn't have the
agility. Yet only they had the ability to penetrate defensive screens
and kill the Rebel heavies. So space battle was conducted on the classic
pattern--the Lines slugging it out at medium range while the screen of
scouts buzzed around and through the battle trying to add their weight
of metal against some overstrained enemy and ensure his destruction. A
major battle could go on for days--and it often did. In the Fifty Suns
action the battle had lasted nearly two weeks subjective before we
withdrew to lick our wounds.
* * * * *
For nearly a day we ran into nothing, and such are the distances that
separate units of a fleet, we had the impression that we were alone. We
moved quietly, detectors out, scanning the area for a light-day around
as we moved forward at less than one Lume through Cth. More would have
been fatal for had we been forced to resort to a quick breakout to avoid
enemy action, and if we were travelling above one Lume when we hit
threespace, we'd simply disappear, leaving a small spatial vortex in our
wake.
On the "morning" of the third day the ships at the apex of Quadrant One
ran into a flight of Rebel scouts. There was a brief flurry of action,
the Rebels were englobed, a couple of cruisers drove in, latched onto
the helplessly straining Rebel scouts and dragged them into threespace.
The Rebs kept broadcasting right up to the end--after which they
surrendered before the cruisers could annihilate them. Smart boys.
But the Rebels were warned. We couldn't catch all their scouts and the
disturbance our Line was making in Cth would register on any detector
within twenty parsecs. So they would be waiting to meet us. But that was
to be expected. There is no such thing as surprise in a major action.
We went on until we began to run into major opposition. Half a dozen
scouts were caught in englobements at half a dozen different places
along the periphery as they came in contact with the Rebels' covering
forces. And that was that. The advance halted waiting for the Line to
come up, and a host of small actions took place as the forward screening
forces collided. Chase was in the control chair, hanging in the
blackness of the infra band on the edge of normal space. But we weren't
flicking in and out of threespace like some of the others. We had a
probe out and the main buffeting was taken by the duralloy tube with its
tiny converter at its bulbous tip. With consummate pilotage Chase was
holding us in infra. It was a queasy sensation, hanging halfway between
normalcy and chaos, and I had to admire his skill. The infra band was
black as ink and hot as the hinges of hell--and since the edges of
threespace and Cth are not as knife sharp as they are further up in the
Cth components, we bucked and shuddered on the border, but avoided the
bone-crushing slams and gut-wrenching twists that less skillful skippers
were giving their ships as they flicked back and forth between
threespace and Cth. Our scouting line must have been a peculiar sight to
a threespace observer with the thousand or so scouts flickering in and
out of sight across a huge hemisphere of space.
And then we saw them. Our probe picked up the flicker of enemy scouts.
"Action imminent," Chase said drily. "Stand by."
I clapped the other control helmet over my head and dropped into the
Exec's chair. A quick check showed the crew at their stations, the
torpedo hatches clear, the antiradiation shields up and the ship in
fighting trim. I stole a quick glance at Chase. Sweat stood out on his
gray forehead. His lips were drawn back into a thin line, showing his
teeth. His face was tense, but whether with fear or excitement I didn't
know.
"Stand by," he said, and then we hit threespace, just as the enormous
cone of the Rebel Line flicked into sight. The enemy line had taken the
field, and under the comparatively slow speeds of threespace was rushing
forward to meet our Line which had emerged a few minutes ago. Our
launchers flamed as we sent a salvo of torpedoes whistling toward the
Rebel fleet marking perhaps the opening shots of the main battle. We
twisted back into Cth as one of the scanner men doubled over with agony,
heaving his guts out into a disposal cone. I felt sorry for him. The
tension, the racking agony of our motion, and the fact that he was
probably in his first major battle had all combined to take him for the
count. He grinned greenly at me and turned back to his dials and
instruments. Good man!
"Target--range one eight zero four, azimuth two four oh, elevation one
oh seven," the rangefinder reported. "Mass four." Mass four:--a cruiser.
"Stand by," Chase said. "All turrets prepare to fire." And he took us
down. We slammed into threespace and our turrets flamed. To our left
rear and above hung the mass of an enemy cruiser, her screens glowing on
standby as she drove forward to her place in the line. We had caught her
by surprise, a thousand to one shot, and our torpedoes were on their way
before her detectors spotted us. We didn't stay to see what happened,
but the probe showed an enormous fireball which blazed briefly in the
blackness, shooting out globs of scintillating molten metal that cooled
and disappeared as we watched.
"Scratch one cruiser," someone in fire control yelped.
* * * * *
The effect on morale was electric. In that instant all doubts of Chase's
ability disappeared. All except mine. One lucky shot isn't a battle, and
I guess Chase figured the same way because his hands were shaking as he
jockeyed us along on the edge of Cth. He looked like he wanted to vomit.
"Take it easy, skipper," I said.
"Mind your own business, Marsden--and I'll mind mine," Chase snapped.
"Stand by," he ordered, and we dove into threespace again--loosed
another salvo at another Reb, and flicked out of sight. And that was the
way it went for hour after hour until we pulled out, our last torpedo
fired and the crew on the ragged edge of exhaustion. Somehow, by some
miracle compounded of luck and good pilotage, we were unmarked. And
Chase, despite his twitching face and shaking hands, was one hell of a
combat skipper! I didn't wonder about him any more. He had the guts all
right. But it was a different sort of courage from the icy contempt for
danger that marked Andy Royce. Even so, I couldn't help thinking that I
was glad to be riding with Chase. We drove to the rear, heading for the
supply train, our ammunition expended, while behind us the battlewagons
and cruisers were hammering each other to metal pulp.
In the quiet of the rear area it was hardly believable that a major
battle was going on ahead of us. We raised the "Amphitrite," identified
ourselves, and put in a request for supply.
"Lay aboard," "Amphitrite" signalled back. "How's the war going?"
"Don't know. We've been too busy," our signalman replied.
"I'll bet--you're 'Lachesis,' aren't you?"
"Affirmative."
"How'd you lose your ammo? Jettison it?"
"Stow that, you unprintable obscenity," Haskins replied. "We're a
fighting ship."
"Amphitrite" chuckled nastily. "That I'll believe when I see it!"
"Communications," Chase snapped. "This isn't a social call. Get our
heading and approach instructions." He sounded as schoolmasterish as
ever, but there was a sickly smile on his face, and the gray-green look
was gone.
"Morale seems a little better, doesn't it, Marsden?" he said to me as
the "Amphitrite" flicked out into threespace and we followed.