"Why don't they fire?" Melody inquired aloud.
"The range is too great," Skot explained. "Each employs a form of missile, and accuracy decreases with distance. Also, even an accurate shot from too far out could be avoided or intercepted by a needle. They must come close enough to strike without giving the other ship opportunity to maneuver clear. Wasted shots are trouble; each one represents a sizable investment of material and/or energy."
"You make it very clear," Melody said. And inwardly, to Yael: "It is like two gunslingers! They need to save their ammunition for when it counts."
"Space opera," Yael agreed.
Then, almost simultaneously, the two ships jerked in space, or at least they seemed to shiver in the viewglobe, which probably exaggerated the effect. "They both fired," Skot said. "But neither will score. They're still five thousand miles apart."
Melody translated the figure into Mintakan units. "Why, that's the diameter of a small planet!"
Skot smiled. "You get acclimatized to spatial distances. It is close, in terms of space. Normally ships within the fleet are separated by that amount, so they don't get in each other's way. To hit a target one mile thick from that distance requires an accuracy of one part in five thousand, which is about all a physical projectile from a moving ship is good for. Even when the missile travels at a hundred thousand miles per hour, it takes about three minutes to cover the distance. The target ship knows about the shot in a fraction of a second, so—"
"So it has three minutes to dodge," Melody finished. "Yes, I understand, now. Five thousand miles is the fringe of the action range. Why did they fire so early, then?"
"Well, it is very hard to track a missile, and some of them have homing devices. So it is better to destroy the missile in flight; but it takes a lot of concentration. While the target ship is preoccupied with that, the attacking ship is coming closer, improving its chances for the next shot. So the first shot is not really wasted; it may facilitate the effective followup."
"So they keep coming closer, until one scores on the other."
"Approximately. The difference in weapons complicates this, though."
"I thought you said they both fired missiles."
"The Canopian Scepter uses proximity-explosive missiles, yes; a near-miss can shake the target and perhaps disable it. But the Spican Cup uses water bombs, otherwise known as nebula envelopment. The bomb explodes into a cloud of liquid that surrounds the target ship, cutting off its light-input, fouling its broadcast mechanism, interfering with its control over its satellites, and corroding its hull. A direct hit normally doesn't kill the crew, but it leaves the ship helpless."
"How clever," Melody said with a shudder. "The Wand strikes physically, and the Cup pours water. We cannot escape the Tarot relevance."
"I assumed the Tarot was patterned after the cluster fleet," Skot said.
Typical ignorance! He knew a tremendous amount about space tactics and armament, and nothing about Tarot.
Now the two ships were quite close together, within a thousand miles. Melody knew that was approaching point-blank range for accuracy, and cut missile-avoidance time to thirty-six seconds or less. Was that enough, for a mile-thick ship? One or the other had to go!
The Cup squirted again. Immediately the Scepter used its chemical propulsion to jump aside. "It'll never make it!" Skot cried. "It'll have to maintain five or six gravities to clear its own diameter in that time—and it takes more than that to escape a cloud."
Melody was too tense to ask for further explanation. She watched as the seconds passed.
There was a puff as the vapor-cloud formed, sooner than she expected. But it was not at the Scepter. "Premature formation!" Skot exclaimed. "What a break; some Cupper will be hung for that—"
Then the Cup exploded. A sudden new cloud developed, as its life-water puffed into vapor in the vacuum of space. The ship was through; none of the Spicans within it could have survived.
"What happened!" Melody demanded. "The Drone didn't even fire!"
"I see it now," Skot said, awed. "Very sharp tactics! The Scepter waited for the Cup to fire, then honed one of its needle scouts in on the missile. That set it off early. The Scepter accelerated to conceal its true defense, and to cover the recoil of its own firing. So the Cup didn't catch on, and stood still for a direct missile hit. Beautiful!"
"Yet those are home galaxy entities, the great majority of them nonhostage crew," Melody said, shuddering again. "All horribly dead of decompression."
"That's war," he said. "They knew the risk when they signed on. We face the same risk."
But the victory was scant comfort to Melody, who was thinking again of Captain Llono and their sudden mating. A whole shipful of unique triple-sexed Spicans, gone!
"There comes the second ship," Skot said. "A Polarian Disk."
No time for grief! The victorious Scepter now had to face a fresh enemy. "What's the weapon of the Disk?"
"Polarians think in terms of circularity. All ships must spin at the rate of one revolution every five and a half Solarian minutes in order to maintain gravity at the comfortable level in the officer's section. Slower for the Disks, of course, as they have larger diameters, but the principle's the same. "If that spin is changed—"
"All hell breaks loose!" Melody finished. "How ingenious!"
"Circular," Skot corrected her with a smile.
Melody looked around. The six human-hosted Knyfh officers were at the consoles, looking as competent as ever. She had little idea what they were doing, but she felt reassured. She returned to the globe. "But how can one ship change the spin of another?"
"Several ways. Generally, by anchoring a missile to the hull. A missile on a long line can exert considerable torque. Several can wreak havoc. The gravity changes make things fly about, and the crew gets sick, the instruments malfunction...."
"I can imagine. Trust Polaris to think of something like that."
The two ships came together. The Scepter, having expended two missiles in the first encounter, was far more cautious this time. "They have only six missiles," Skot explained.
"I told you!" Yael exclaimed. "A six-shooter!"
Melody closed her eyes. "I've doomed my friend the Drone of Deuce to destruction, then. Even if he wins every match, when he runs out of missiles—"
"Can't ever tell. Canopians are pretty sharp, and they have nerves like tungsten. Maybe the other ship will run out of ammunition too, and it'll be a standoff."
A standoff. Was there a possibility there for stopping the hostage fleet? Get them all to use up their ammunition uselessly? How?
Melody liked this situation less as she came to know it better. Yet the alternative was to throw all her ships into the fray against twice their number. To replace single slaughter by mass slaughter.
The Disk fired. The Scepter maintained course, not even firing back. "He's trying to intercept the anchor," Skot said. "I don't think that stunt will work again, though."
The Disk fired again. Now the Scepter jetted—but not evenly. Instead of moving out of the way, it began to turn end over end. "Something's wrong!" Melody cried.
"Drive malfunction," Skot agreed. "That's unusual in a Canopian ship; they're finicky about details. But those chemical boosters are tricky when they're hot. Only one side came on."
The Scepter shook. It was only a token, magnified by the imaging mechanism of the globe, but it loomed like a planetquake to Melody's nervous eyes.
"He's anchored!" Skot cried as if feeling the shock of contact himself. "And he never even fired back!"
The Scepter shook again.
"Second anchor," Skot said gloomily. "That's the end."
The Canopian ship twisted in space, tugged by two missiles on strings. The Disk moved in close. "But the ship has not been destroyed," Melody said hopefully.
"They'll set hull-borers on him, or inject poisonous gas," Skot said. "A ship anchored is a ship vulnerable. The Scepter will yield in a moment; pointless to stretch out the agony."
>
Then the Disk exploded.
Melody and Skot both gaped. "What happened?" Melody demanded to know, staring at the fragments of ship spreading outward.
Skot shook his head. "Sabotage, maybe. I can't figure—"
Something clicked in Melody's mind. Sabotage....
A Knyfh looked up from his console. "The anchors fastened on opposite sides of the Scepter," he said. "Their vectors canceled out. A very pretty maneuver on the part of the Canopian."
"That single jet!" Skot exclaimed. "That was deliberate! To twist the ship so that the anchor misplaced. It seemed like a malfunction...."
"So the Drone won with a single missile this time," Melody said wonderingly. "But he's playing it extremely close!"
"He has to. With three missiles left, and the entire fleet of Andromeda before him...."
But now the hostage fleet's sole Knyfh Atom came out of the enemy cluster. Melody sighed. "Poor Drone... I have sentenced him to death."
"We have the right to recall him; he has fought two battles," Skot pointed out.
Melody activated the net. "Deuce of Scepters, you have completed your assignment. Retire from the field."
"Message declined," the Drone replied.
Skot stretched his mouth in a way that certain Solarians had to express mixed surprise and respect. "He's staying in the lists! That must be some entity!"
"He is that," Melody agreed. "I suppose technically this is mutiny, but I'd hesitate to call it that. I have a personal interest in his welfare, and I suppose he feels he owes me something. We'll just have to let him perform. He certainly has done well so far."
The Atom and the Scepter drew close together. This time the Scepter fired first.
"He doesn't dare get within magnetic range," Skot explained.
"True," a Knyfh officer agreed. The involvement of a Knyfh ship seemed to have excited their interest. The Knyfh contingent had the best record for loyalty in this fleet—another testimony to the formidability of the segment.
The Atom narrowed the distance, unaffected. "Its repulsive magnetic force makes the missiles shy away," Skot said. "You have to get very close to score with a physical missile on an Atom—and then you're in its power if you miss."
The Scepter fired again, without effect. "Only one chance left," Skot said. "If the Scepter can loose a missile just as the Atom starts its pull-phase—there!"
The ships drew together more quickly. Then suddenly they reversed. There was an explosion. "The Atom out-timed him," Skot said sadly. "The missile didn't make it before the field reversed. Now Knyfh will shake Canopus apart."
Sure enough, the two ships drew together, then apart, then together again. "But the Atom is shaking itself as badly as its opponent," Melody said.
"The Atom is constructed to take it," Skot said. "That nucleus and shell system, cushioned by magnetism—you could just about throw it against the wall and it would bounce."
"Like Slammer," Melody said gloomily, and the magnet bobbed behind her, thinking she was addressing it.
"Tougher than Slammer. You can hardly hurt a Knyfh by concussion."
Melody remembered how readily Captain Mnuhl had stopped Slammer, just as a Solarian with a club might handle an Earth-planet canine. If the hostages had been no more successful with the main fleet of Segment Knyfh than they had been with this small contingent, the loyalists would have a three-to-one advantage, and that segment would be secure. Perhaps it would then send out more aid to the other segments, and the Milky Way would be saved. So she was not disappointed to witness the power of the Atom, but, oh, why did it have to be demonstrated on the Deuce of Scepters?
No miracle strategy saved the Drone this time. He was finished. Finally the Atom hurled the Scepter away. It turned end over end, obviously dead. Andromeda had won this one. "Poor Drone," Melody said again, feeling the tears in her eyes. "I wish...."
"Let the Sword of Sol avenge him," Skot suggested. "The Four is with us; that's a bold ship...."
"Four of Swords to the lists," Melody said into the net. And privately to Skot: "I hope you're right. If I had any better way to stave off Andromeda...."
The Four of Swords moved out immediately, as if it had been expecting the call. Melody couldn't help experiencing a particular quickening of interest. She was aboard the Ace of Swords; just how good a ship was this type?
Sword and Atom moved toward each other. "Why don't any of these ships maneuver more?"
"It wastes energy and fouls up their spin," Skot said. "It's hard to turn a spinning ship in space; precession sets in and fouls it up. Better to orient on the target and knock it out fast, and only dodge when you have to."
Melody again visualized the two gunslingers of Yael's imagination walking toward each other. Dodging bullets was hardly worthwhile; better to shoot fastest and best. Yet she felt somehow disappointed. The contest seemed to lack flair.
The Atom exploded, startling her. "The Sword didn't even strike, did it?"
"Lasers don't make recoil," Skot said. "It was firing as soon as it got within the five-second range; and it scored before the Atom could get hold of it. A laser strike in the right place can fission an Atom."
Melody smiled, but Skot wasn't joking. He spoke with deep pride. Then she looked again at the fragmented ship of Knyfh, and shuddered. No joke at all! Captain Mnuhl was aboard an Atom. If Swords took Atoms so easily— the enemy fleet had over twice as many Swords as the loyalists did.
Now a Scepter came out from the Andromedan mass. Melody bit her human lip nervously. She had already seen what a Scepter could do! Somehow she had to stop this destructive exhibition. Thousands of sapient lives were being lost, and for what purpose? Why had Galaxy Andromeda ever set out to take what it had no right to— the binding energy of the Milky Way! Andromeda was surely wrong, and there had to be some way to stop it, to chain the lady and make her behave. Even these ships she used had been pirated from the Milky Way's own fleets, taken hostage....
That was it! She had assumed that the counterhostage effort had to be completed before the battle began. But the enemy was actually more vulnerable now than it had been before. With proper strategy, she could destroy its fleet without the loss of any more of her own ships.
"I have to go see Captain Mnuhl," she said, rising. "You keep an eye on things here; don't let on to the net that I'm gone."
Skot nodded. She hurried to the transfer unit, and a Knyfh officer activated it. She landed in the same host she had had before, and in a moment met with Mnuhl.
"I declined to honor the Galactic Convention," she reminded him. "Does that mean there are no rules to break?"
"Anything, as you Etamins put it, goes," Mnuhl agreed. "However, while the individual contests are in progress, we are under an understood truce."
"Yes, of course," she signaled. "But when that truce ends...."
"Only the practical laws of physics prevail," Mnuhl said. "No, I must qualify that. I would not condone treachery—"
"Nothing like that! Here is what I have in mind." And while she kept one perceptor current attuned to the Knyfh equivalent of the viewglobe, tracking the single combat of champions, she described her plan.
"That is legitimate," Mnuhl agreed at last. "I shall implement it the moment truce abates. I compliment you on an innovative strategy."
"It is a desperation strategy," Melody said. "I can't stand to see—"
The Scepter exploded. The sudden burst of magnetism made her shield blanch.
"One of its own missiles detonated before it fired," Mnuhl remarked. "Exceedingly apt laser accuracy at that range."
"The Sword of Sol strikes again!" Melody said, pleased in spite of her horror. She was slowly getting acclimatized to this sudden, massive killing. "That's four to one, our favor. Do you think our management is better than theirs?"
"It may be," Mnuhl pulsed. "A hostage probably is not as efficient or motivated as a natural entity or volunteer transferee. This could throw judgment off, make close decisions harder, gunnery less acc
urate, encourage errors under stress. I would not wish to take an examination in marksmanship with a hostile or insane host dephasing my surface."
"So maybe that two-to-one ship advantage of theirs is not so much as they think," Melody returned. "I'd better get back to my ship." She rolled to the transfer unit, and in a moment was back in Yael. She hurried to the control room.
"We won the last," Skot announced. "But now they're sending out another Sword." He licked his lips. "Sword against Sword!"
"You seem to enjoy the prospect."
He looked embarrassed. "At least this is fair play. If our handling is better, this will show it."
"I suppose it will," Melody agreed. "Skot, please get in touch with the crew's quarters and get some more volunteers. They'd better have Kirlians of at least two. Make sure they understand that this will be dangerous, uncomfortable work—but extremely important."
He looked curiously at her and left after a last glance at the viewglobe. Melody knew he wanted to watch this particular match, but her other project was more pressing. She could have set it up herself, but if Hammer of :: called her on the net while she was away he might catch on that she was up to something.
The two Swords approached each other, and again she watched compulsively. While she hated this destruction and loss of sapient life and the emotions it roused in her, she was nevertheless fascinated by the competitive aspect. All sapient species were highly competitive, she thought; that was how they got to be sapient. Every Spherical species lusted for death and glory, however much individuals disguised it with the veneer of civilization. If even an old neuter like herself felt the urges, what of the young males?
The hostage Sword fired first. Melody had learned to interpret the flash on the globe. It could not be a direct glimpse, for that would mean the laser had struck her own ship; but there was always some trace leakage and refraction that the instruments could pick up and amplify. Lasers were designed to diffuse with distance, so that those that missed their targets were not a menace to other ships of their own fleets. Missiles were also detonated or defused automatically after a certain number of minutes, for the same reason.