"Damned if I know--but they've got some idea."
"Well two can play at this jamming game--and we'll deal with the other
thing when it comes." Fiske dialed Sandoval. "Sandy"--he said as the
engineer's face appeared on the screen. "Can your boys build an all
wave subetheric broadcaster?"
"Yes and no," Sandoval said. "We can build one--but we're not able to.
No components."
"How about modifying the Lorcom?"
"That wouldn't be too tough. But you can't be thinking of--"
"How long would it take?"
"Twenty hours minimum. You realize, of course, that it's going to
deprive us of long range communications."
"All right, so we lose them. They're worthless anyway. We're being
jammed. Now get going on that conversion, and cut all the time you can."
"Aye sir."
* * * * *
Sandoval's boys must have sweated blood, Fiske thought, for it was
barely twenty two hours before the Chief's heavy voice came over the
intercom. "It's finished, sir," Sandoval said. "We're ready to roll."
"Good," Fiske replied. "What's the output?"
"A kilowatt across the board."
"Hmm--not so good.--We're not going to blanket much with that."
"You'll get through all right; but you can't expect any more than that.
If you want to jam you'd better concentrate on the 1400 band. You can
smother anything in that area."
"No. I'd rather have full coverage. I think the noseys are laying for
us, and I want something that'll affect every Eglan in range, not just
part of them. If we confuse them enough we can crack straight through
before they recover."
"What do you intend to use to cause this confusion?" Sandoval asked.
A grin crossed Fiske's face. "We might put a signalman on the mike and
give them the latest box scores in the Tri World league mixed with
double talk. Or our linguist could issue phoney orders in Eglanese."
Sandoval grinned in answer. "Sneaky, isn't it?--this business of
hoisting the engineers on their own petards. Personally, I favor
music--some of these squirm combos the boys listen to would drive a
saint out of Heaven."
Fiske chuckled. "It's an idea--and not a bad one at that. Angelo
Bordoni in the signal section has some progressive squirm recordings
that'd make your hair curl. We'll make him a disk jockey as soon as we
have some Eglani to try it on."
"You won't have to wait long, sir," Pedersen said, as he swivelled his
chair to face Fiske. "Detectors report a disturbance in C-green about
ten hours ahead. Looks like a couple of class one cruisers. Not ours."
"What's their bearing?"
"They're moving along our line slightly under our component."
Fiske leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. He
looked at Pedersen and nodded.
"Battle Stations, condition two," Pedersen said to the talker. "Well,
there's two of them down there to try your gadget on."
"Gives us one break at least," Fiske said. "We're not too outnumbered."
Pedersen shrugged off the pun. "In your shoes, sir," he said, "I'd be
tempted to run like hell."
"Sure, so am I. But just where could we get a better chance than this?
If we're going to fight we might as well get decent odds."
"You call two to one decent?"
"I'll tell you more when their drive patterns are analyzed. If they're
cruisers we can outgun and outrun them,--and if they're battlewagons
they'll never catch us. Not even--"
"Objects register as enemy heavy cruisers," the talker said. "Drive
intensity point oh two over ours."
"Well," Pedersen remarked. "You're wrong on one point. We're not going
to outrun them."
"Seems that way," Fiske agreed. "They must be new models,--probably
ones like those that chewed up Ed Albertson's ship. But they can't be
any more heavily armed than we are."
"Maybe not, but there's two of them," Pedersen said drily. "I would
imagine this changes things."
"Naturally. We'll run for awhile. I'm not risking my ship against those
odds if I can help it." Fiske turned on the command circuit. "One
eighty gyro turn," he said. "Execute!"
The "Dauntless" swapped ends and virtually without delay began
backtracking across the warps of Cth space. Since inertia didn't
exist in hyperspace the change in direction was made instantaneously.
At maximum blast the "Dauntless" began to put space between her and
her pursuers, who at once changed course to overtake the fleeing
Confederation ship.
* * * * *
Hour after hour the three ships drove through the harsh blue monochrome
of upper Cth, and slowly the distance between pursuers and pursued
lessened. Travelling in a great curve that would ultimately take them
into Confederation territory Fiske and Pedersen watched the telltale
dots in the spotting tank come closer.
"We're not going to make it," Fiske said finally. "They'll catch or
pass us before we hit the frontier."
"Nice," Pedersen replied. "With one ahead matching our component and
sowing mines, and the other behind and above us just in case we try to
drop out. We've got about the same chance as a snowball in hell."
"It's not quite that bad. We have weapons and we've got the
broadcaster. They won't be expecting it, and if we drop into normal
space looking like we want to fight, I'll bet they'll follow us."
"Sure they will."
"They'll get a surprise then. How'd you like to be wearing one of those
cute little communicators and get a blast of Bordoni's progressive
squirm the minute you made breakout?"
"I wouldn't."
"I'm betting that they won't either." Fiske turned to the talker--"all
hands--Battle Stations! Full armor. Condition one. Bordoni--stand
by with your recordings--report when ready." A cold ball bounced
in Fiske's stomach as the reports snapped in. Up until now the
Confederation ships had been individually superior to the aliens, an
advantage that barely counterbalanced the Eglani's coordination, but
these ships were superior to his own in speed at least, and what they
might lack in firepower they made up in numbers.
No skipper in his right mind would tackle two to one odds in favor of
the aliens. But it was unavoidable now. Fiske shrugged. If he was right
about the effect of his broadcaster, he had a chance--but the chance
was a slim one anyway you looked at it. Sure--he knew the secret of
Eglan coordination, but could he disrupt that coordination? It was a
distinct possibility that his attempt at jamming would only be a minor
annoyance, and if it was, the secret of the Eglani would die with him.
Of course, there was a possibility that one of the message torpedoes
would get through--but torpedoes travelling on a fixed course were
usually intercepted and destroyed. At best they were a forlorn
hope--sent Earthward more as a gesture than with any expectation of
arrival.
And with the Lorcom converted to a subetheric broadcaster he had no
exterior communications. The "Dauntless" was on her own--cut off from
help--wholly dependent upon the skill of her crew for survival.
"Stand by for breakout," Fiske ordered.--"Execute."
Smoothly the ship swapped ends, halted instantly, and dropped like a
stone through the Cth components as Sandoval cut the converters. With
scarcely a shudder the "Dauntless" slipped into normal space.
"Full ahead," Fiske ordered and familiar acceleration clutched at the
bodies of the crew. With every electronic and visual sense extended,
screens glowing on standby, drives flaring a fierce blue against
the dark of space the "Dauntless" swept forward toward the frontier
far ahead. Her speed was less than a snail's crawl compared to the
inconceivable velocities she had been travelling in Cth but in normal
spacetime weapons functioned and subetheric communicators worked. Here,
fighting was an art--refined by years of drill and practice.
"Bearing zero two four--enemy cruiser. Range two thousand--closing,"
the talker said. "Bearing one nine zero--nega--cruiser. Range fifteen
hundred--extending."
"Not too smart," Fiske observed. "That rear ship'll have to hyper to
get ahead of us, and by that time we should get a crack at our long
eared friends up ahead."
"Bearing zero one eight--range one thousand--closing. Bearing one nine
zero--negative," the talker interrupted.
"Our little follower's gone back into Cth," Pedersen said.
"Gives us three minutes at least, before he can adjust on us."
"Bearing zero one six--range five hundred--closing," the talker said.
"Stand by all stations," Fiske said calmly--"Bearing zero one six
steady--range four hundred,--three hundred,--two five zero,--two two
zero,--two hundred,--one eight zero," the talker's metallic voice was
flat in the tense silence of the ship.
"At my command," Fiske said as he poised his finger over a large red
button on the control console.
* * * * *
Over the complex network of spotting, ranging, and computing devices
electronic orders flowed into the gun, and torpedo stations. Servos
hummed as the weapons aligned on their target and gun crews alertly
followed the movements of the automatics ready for emergencies or
malfunctions.
"Bearing zero one three, range fifty--closing," the talker's
unemotional voice continued. Fiske's hand stabbed the button and an
instant later the "Dauntless" yawed violently to the blast of fire that
erupted from every weapon capable of bearing on the Eglan.
"Enemy has fired," the talker said. The "Dauntless" slewed violently as
the pilot took evasive action.
For a long second the Eglan hung in space, her screens blazing. Then
she began to turn,--but it was too late. The concentrated fury of
the "Dauntless" broadside erupted against her screens in blazing
pyrotechnics. The Eglan staggered and spun off at a tangent. A second
later the "Dauntless" bucked and jumped as the Eglan's fire crashed
home. The secondary screens flared and vanished. The primaries crackled
into the violet under the enormous load of dissipating the megatons of
energy that flared against them.
"Holy George!--what sort of stuff are those fellows carrying?" Pedersen
breathed, "They outgun us too!" A trickle of blood ran from his nose.
"No--we're about even there," Fiske said as another broadside erupted
from the "Dauntless" and another load of destruction hurtled towards
the Eglan.
"Enemy has fired," the talker said, and the "Dauntless" again turned
off to one side. This time the salvo missed by a comfortable margin.
"What's wrong with them?" Pedersen asked as he stared into the tank.
"They're not evading."
"Maybe they can't. We hit him near the drives."
"There they go--too slow, way too slow!"
The "Dauntless" salvo struck and for a moment an intolerable flame
lighted space, and when it died the Eglan cruiser had vanished.
"Bearing zero four five--enemy cruiser--range one hundred--closing,"
the talker's voice interjected. "Enemy has fired."
* * * * *
The "Dauntless" yawed violently as Fiske stabbed at the Cth switch.
The familiar quivering shook them as the ship clawed at the edge
of hyperspace--and simultaneously a pile-driver blow struck them
astern tearing crewmen from their safety webs and slamming them with
bonecrushing force against unyielding plates and bulkheads. The
"Dauntless" rang like a giant gong--the sound disappearing slowly with
shimmering reverberations that assumed tangible shapes as the harsh red
of lower Cth closed around them.
* * * * *
"Skipper!" the ship intercom rattled. "We can't hold her here! Number
three converter's dismounted and there's a hole in the engine room big
enough to drive a truck through!"
"Enemy cruiser Cth yellow dead ahead--dropping to our component," the
talker said.
"Well--we got one of them," Pedersen said. "Might as well take our
medicine like good boys. He'll be sowing mines in a minute."
"That Eglan was cold meat," Fiske said. "The broadcast worked!"
"That second ship wasn't. They came in on us like a hawk at a chicken,"
Pedersen answered.
"They didn't have time to get the full benefit of it."
"You going to give them another chance?"
"We'll have to. We can't stay here. We can't run, and up here the
broadcaster doesn't work. So we go down again. With that noise of
Bordoni's we should be able to jar their back teeth loose. Which
reminds me--I'd better see how he's doing. That broadcaster is pretty
near the engine room." He punched the intercom selector. "How's it
going, Bordoni?" he asked.
An anguished wail came out of the speaker. "I was just changing a
platter when we got struck. I sat on them! Even on my Stan Kenton
album, and that's a classic!! They're busted to hell! All of 'em!"
"Bordoni!" Fiske snapped.
"Sir?"
"Valve it off son. It can't be helped.--Have you any more?"
"No, sir."
"Can you sing or make noise, or something?" Fiske asked hopefully.
"Negative sir. I've got mike fright--always did have."