Part 27 (1/2)

”There!” Bors pointed. ”The king's s.h.i.+p's breaking out! Away over at the edge. I wonder if the Mekinese will notice!”

There were very tiny sparkles off at the side of the radar-screen. They increased in number.

There was a flash, like the sun brought near for the tenth of a second.

Another. Yet another. Then an overwhelming spout of brilliance as tens and twenties and fifties of the trajectiles went off together. It was an unbelievable sight against the stars. Missiles flamed and flashed and there seemed to be an actual sun there, now flas.h.i.+ng brighter and now fainter, but intolerably hot and s.h.i.+ning.

It went out, and left a vague and s.h.i.+ning vapor behind. Then, belated missiles entered it and detonated. Their flares ceased. Then there was nothing where there had seemed to be a fleet.

”Which,” said Bors, ”is that!”

Then a voice spoke coldly from s.p.a.ce.

”_Connect all speakers for a message in clear_,” it commanded. ”_Alert all personnel for a general order._”

There was a pause. The voice spoke again.

”_s.p.a.cemen of Mekin_,” it said icily. ”_The fleet of Kandar is now destroyed. Kandar itself will be destroyed also as an example of the consequences of perfidy toward Mekin. But it should be a warning to others who would conspire against our world. Therefore, in part as penalty and in part as a reward to the men of the Grand Fleet, you will be allowed to land during a period of two weeks. You will be armed. You may confiscate, for yourself, anything of value you find. You are not required to exercise restraint in your actions toward the people of Kandar. They will be destroyed with their planet and no protests from such criminals will be listened to. You will be landed in groups, each on a fresh area of the planet. That is all._”

There was silence in the control room of the _Liberty_. After a long time the Pretender said very quietly, ”I will not live while such beasts live. From this moment I will kill them until I am killed!”

”I suspect King Humphrey heard that,” Bors said, and drew a deep breath.

”Combat alert!” he ordered crisply. ”We're attacking the Mekinese fleet.

Handle your missiles smoothly and don't try to fire while we're in overdrive! We'll be going in and out.... Choose your targets and fire as we come out and while I count down. Overdrive point nine seconds. Five, four, three, two, one!”

The cosmos reeled and stomachs retched when the _Liberty_ came out in nine-tenths of a second. She was in the very midst of a concentration of the Mekinese fleet. Missiles streaked away, furiously, as Bors counted down. ”Two-fifths second, five, four, three, two, one!”

More missiles shot away. Bors almost chanted, while with gestures toward the radar-screen he picked out the objects near which breakout should fall.

”Point oh five seconds.” The s.h.i.+p went into overdrive and out. It seemed as if the universe dissolved from one appearance to another outside the viewports. ”Five, four, three, two, one! Hold fire!”

The _Liberty_ came out a good ten thousand miles from its starting-point and beyond the area occupied by the enemy fleet. Three thousand miles away a flare burst among the distant stars. A second. A third. Six thousand miles away there were flas.h.i.+ngs in emptiness.

”We're doing very well,” said Bors calmly into the all-speaker microphone. ”A little more care with the aiming, though. And read your ranges closer! They're not intercepting our missiles. We're not aiming them right. We try it again now....”

The universe seemed to reel and one felt queasy, but there was work to be done, while a voice chanted, ”Five, four, three, two, one!” Then it reeled again and the same voice continued to chant. Sometimes the crews saw where missiles. .h.i.t, but they could never be sure they were their own. Then, suddenly, the number of hits increased. They doubled and tripled and quadrupled.

”All hands!” barked Bors. ”The fleet of Kandar is wading into this fight. Be careful to pick your targets! No Kandar s.h.i.+ps! Save your missiles for the enemy!”

Someone, man-handling missiles for faster and more long-continued firing than any s.h.i.+p-designer ever expected, gasped, ”Come on boys! Missiles for Mekin!”

It became a joke, which seemed excruciatingly funny at the time.

n.o.body saw all the battle, or even a considerable part. There was a period when the _Liberty_, alone, fought like the deadliest of gadflies. It appeared in the middle of a Mekinese sub-formation, loosed missiles and vanished before anything could be intercepted. There was no target for Mekinese bombs to home on when they got to where the _Liberty_ had been.

Then the fleet of Kandar appeared. It broke out in single s.h.i.+ps and in pairs, and then in groups of fives and tens. The general order for the Mekinese fleet had been picked up, and the fleet of Kandar seemed to have gone mad.

The flags.h.i.+p tried to fight in orthodox fas.h.i.+on, for a time. It depended on the attraction its missiles had for Mekinese to keep it in s.p.a.ce. But presently it was alone, and the battle was raging confusion scattered over light-minutes, and somebody went down in to the engine room and brazed in a low-power overdrive unit--providentially made by a junior officer--and the flags.h.i.+p of the Kandarian fleet waded in erratically, never knowing where it would come out, but rarely failing to find a Mekinese s.h.i.+p to launch at.

The third phase of the battle was much more of an open fight, s.h.i.+p against s.h.i.+p, except that more and more Kandarian s.h.i.+ps were using low-power overdrive--clumsily and inefficiently, but to the very great detriment of Mekin's grand fleet. The Mekinese officers could not quite grasp that their antagonists were doing the impossible. They became confused.