He was conscious of their eyes on him, knew that if Kril would permit it any one of them would cheerfully rip his flesh from his bones. But they would not dare act without Kril’s permission, and Kril knew better than to allow his emotions to gain control of his mind.
So when he spoke to them he was not afraid, and he enjoyed their discomfort.
“My Ko-Dan friends. Lest you forget, allow me to remind you that it was your own Emperor who in his wisdom gave me command of this armada. Only I know the secret of the Frontier and the shields which protect the League worlds, just as only I know the location of the ancient Starfighter base and the shield projector. Only my people on Rylos can execute the critical maneuvers necessary to ensure our triumph.
“Therefore only I will give the order to fire!” He let them stew in their own fury for a long moment before adding, “Is that understood? By all of you?” He looked squarely at Kril as he spoke.
It was not in the nature of the Ko-Dan to tremble, out of either fear or fury, but the effort it took for Kril to reply without losing control was self-evident to every officer in the command center, and their already high admiration for their Commander rose proportionately.
“Forgive my presumption, Xur.” It was voiced in a tone barely above a whisper, but it satisfied the Rylan. It also pleased him to be magnanimous, knowing that such treatment could only humiliate the Ko-Dan Commander further.
“You are forgiven, Commander Kril. We are all anxious to begin the final battle.” Unable to watch any longer, several of Kill’s senior officers turned back to their instruments, fighting to suppress their own anger at this Rylan upstart’s actions.
Having prolonged Kril’s debasement long enough, Xur turned grandly to the proper station. “Now is the time to use the mass driver. Fire!”
The fire control officer hesitated just long enough to glance at his Commander. Kril gestured imperceptibly. This infuriated Xur, but there was nothing to be done about it. He could never prove that the officer had requested permission first from his own Commander before engaging the driver.
“Fire!” Xur screamed at him, trying to regain the domination so recently won and offhandedly lost.
Taking care that the Rylan could not see his expression, the Ko-Dan fire control officer passed along the requisite orders.
There seemed no need to build a starship the size of the Ko-Dan command vessel. Traditional weaponry could be mounted on much smaller, more maneuverable ships, including world-threatening atomics.
But there were sophisticated methods of rendering atomics harmless, just as there were ways of diverting energy and particle beams or small explosive projectiles. Rylos possessed such defenses in abundance.
Yet if an attacking ship could get into position near enough to a target world, there was a weapon so ancient and overpowering it could overwhelm any traditional defense. A weapon which had been in use since the beginning of all civilizations. Advanced technology merely upgraded that weapon in scale.
The weapon was mass.
The chunk of heavy metal ore which was moved from one end of the command ship to the other passed through a line of immense supercooled magnets. They accelerated the hunk of platinum-iron to tremendous speed. As soon as it left the command ship’s forward hatch on its carefully calibrated course, a second mass of similar size and shape was moved into position at the command ship’s stern. It was soon following the first toward Rylos.
It had taken some time for the Ko-Dan to locate a local planetoid of sufficient composition and size to fit their need, longer still to section it into chunks small enough to fit into the mass driver which ran through the longitudinal axis of the command ship. The resulting pieces were still very large indeed.
Superfast heavily armed fighters might still have intercepted the incoming masses safely out in empty space and destroyed them, except that the League had relied on its shield system for so long it no longer kept such vessels active. The League had nothing ready to counter the Ko-Dan threat with . . . save some half-rumored rebuilt old ships called gunstars.
Awesome as the power posed by the mass driver was, however, the Ko-Dan did not intend to rely on it alone. A second attack was about to make itself felt on Rylos.
A far more subtle one.
It had been too long since that world had been required to deal with anything more solid than a theoretical assault, so the technician in charge could have been excused for his delay in reporting the objects that suddenly appeared on his screen. Once their reality had been confirmed, though, he displayed no reluctance to file his report.
“I show incoming solid objects, largely metallic, in sector three-one.”
A subofficer ambled over while other technicians glanced up from their stations.
“Track them,” ordered the subofficer. Together the two Rylans watched the screen. “Composition?”
The tech scanned his readouts, waited briefly for a computer analysis. “Heavy metals, unrefined. Not starship hulls. Too much mass in too small an envelope and shape does not conform to any known Ko-Dan or League match. Furthermore, mass seems to vary slightly among incoming objects.”
“Course deviation?”
“None. Is the shield still functioning?”
The subofficer looked across the room, receiving positive replies from several stations.
“So it would seem. Then why no course deviation?”
“Could they be coming in on some new kind of drive? Or even without using drives?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” Around the room, instruments and consoles began shouting for attention. “Whatever they are, they’re heading straight for Rylos. No question about that. Give me an impact approximation.”
Another long minute of study and subsequent analysis. “Right for the base, sir. For this portion of the continent, anyway.”
“Sanprash!” The subofficer grew livid. “They must be aimed at us. There’s nothing else of military importance for a thousand milots along this coast. It has to be the Ko-Dan, attacking! Somehow they managed to pinpoint this location!”
“Xur’s underground at work,” muttered another technician angrily. The subofficer ignored him.
“Never mind. We can handle it, no matter what they’re throwing at us. It’ll be a good test for the revamped gunstars and their crews. We ought to thank Xur for the target practice.” He turned to a voice pickup and his words were broadcast throughout the defense complex.
“Alert! We are under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!” Alarms began to sound as he continued. “Incoming spheroids of varying metallic composition. Intercept and destroy, intercept and destroy. Navigations prepare for onboard reception of intercept coordinates.” He looked back to the technician.
“Make sure the intercept point is at least two-dozen planetary diameters out. We want them to have plenty of time.”
“Understood. Schematics forthcoming.” Like everyone else in the room the tech was relaxed, confident. They’d been preparing for this attack for over a year now. “Incoming objects have passed through a destabilized section of the shield. They must be driveless. We may not have enough time for a two-dozen diameter intercept.”
“Make it a dozen, then. We’ll still have plenty of time to stop the first ones.”
Out in the hangar, Starfighters and Navigator/Operators were donning helmets and running last-minute equipment checks. Gunstars were prepared for final powerup, computers detached from central control.
The subofficer’s information was relayed to the command center nearby. An engineering officer made a last check of a certain console before speaking to the technician working next to him.
“Deflector shield powerup?”
“On-line. Standing by, sir.”
“Activate.”
“What about Plomerr Precinct, sir?”
The officer’s expression never wavered. “We’re the target here, not Plomerr. Our first priority is to protect the gunstar base. We’ll just have to hope those pi
lots can get to these incomings first.”
“Yes sir,” said the technician slowly. He had family in Plomerr Precinct.
Around them others worked smoothly at tasks long rehearsed. Everything was functioning according to design. Everyone was at their proper post.
Everyone except the monitor making his way along the service conduit that ran behind the main warboard. He did not long belong there, nor was the small package he carried so gingerly part of the intricate maze of circuitry and components that combined to provide the Rylan Defense Command with necessary intelligence.
Selecting a site, he placed the package in a gap between two fluid-state junctions. Then he retreated as fast as his feet would carry him.
Not far away, on the other side of the board, the general officer in charge of defense was feeling confident. He was in the process of requesting an update on the trajectory of the incoming objects with an eye toward sending a few of the gunstars racing back along that path in search of the Ko-Dan armada.
He was preparing to issue the necessary orders when the console he was studying exploded in his face, shredding it along with that of the technician manning the instrumentation.
Considering the small size of the explosive package, the resultant detonation was substantial. It effectively demolished the warroom along with all local communications.
A second similar package exploded simultaneously in a heavily guarded power station buried deep within the same mountain range. When the station went up, the power to the defensive shield protecting Rylos evaporated.
In the ruined warroom the technician who’d initially detected the incoming attack staggered clear of his demolished console. He was bleeding and dazed, as were most of his colleagues.
There was another console nearby, away from the central command area. It looked relatively intact. The technician stumbled over to it and flailed at the controls. At first it ignored his insistent demands, responding only after emergency power gave it life.
The technician worked with it until he had produced a duplicate of the plot he’d had on his own console. It showed the incoming masses with emotionless clarity. They were as big as first suspected and traveling very fast.
When the first one reached a certain point on the screen, it disintegrated, along with most of the flank of the mountain in which the command base was located. Succeeding masses of heavy ore reduced rubble to powder. Mixed in with the ruined rock were the gunstars, their pilots, and the unlucky technician, together with the hopes of the League.
Other eyes watched avidly as pinpoints of light representing the heavy masses impacted one after the other on the surface of Rylos. There was measured, restrained jubilation on board the Ko-Dan command ship. Then the crew bent to their tasks. There was still much to do.
In addition, by concentrating on their work they were able to shut out the sight of the strutting, bombastic Rylan in their midst. To hear Xur talk one would have thought he’d reduced Rylos’s defenses all by himself, down to hurling the pieces of moon at the planet’s surface with his bare hands. Those forced to listen longed for the day when permission might be granted to expose the interloper to the sight of his own intestines.
They said nothing, keeping their desires concealed. One of their number had already been reprimanded by the Commander. None of the crew intended to tempt Kril’s anger a second time. Such were the rules that the Ko-Dan lived by.
Those rules were worth adhering to. They had made the Ko-Dan masters.
By now the invading armada had moved close enough to Rylos to show the planet and its satellites on high-powered visual scanners. They were not yet near enough to see the extent of the damage they’d inflicted on the surface, but further confirmation was unnecessary. Abstract imaging was documentation enough.
“A direct hit, Commander,” reported the fire control officer. “All strikes successful in succession. No manifestation of a defense, either ground-based or spatial. It appears that we can attack at will.”
“Thank you,” Kril replied. “Further use of the mass driver should not be necessary. I expect to begin negotiations leading to a formal change of government soon. They are clearly defenseless and have no choice but to submit or face progressive annihilation of population centers. The change-over to Ko-Dan administration should be brief.
“With Rylos subdued, the rest of the League should rapidly follow suit. This is a great moment for the Empire of the Ko-Dan.”
Xur wasn’t listening. At the moment he wasn’t listening to anything except the hatred in his own mind. He stared at the viewscreen which showed his now helpless home and exulted aloud.
“At last it is done! My return is complete. Soon all talk of a ‘Frontier’ will cease, as will the concept of the Frontier. It is revealed now for what it always was a screen consisting of nothing stronger than words.
“They will all bow to me, to Xur. They will bow to their new Emperor or I will darken the sky with their ashes! I will raze the cities of Rylos until all will to resist has been crushed. I will . . .!”
While Xur raved in the middle of the command center the Ko-Dan smiled to themselves and quietly worked at their stations. One communications officer was concentrating on a single, tight-beam coded channel that emanated from the surface of Rylos. It was the fleet’s only means of communicating with their Xurian allies below.
Now several monitors came alive on his console. He listened intently, waited for the computer to transcribe the code into Ko-Dan. As soon as this had been done he left his seat and hurried to report to the Commander in person.
“What is it?” Kril’s tone was relaxed now. The successful destruction of the secret League base enabled him to view Xur’s tantrums with contented detachment.
“The report is full of uncertainties, Commander. Our contacts on Rylos are having difficulty making observations while staying in touch with us because of the havoc caused in the sensitive area by our recent attack.”
“I sympathize. The destruction must be extensive. Yet it must be important or they would not take the risk of contacting us now.”
“Again, this observer wishes to make it clear he is not positive, but he thinks that one ship may have escaped from the Rylan base just prior to our assault. A very small ship, of indeterminate specifications. It could be piloted by a Starfighter.”
Xur whirled from the screen and the world it revealed.
“Could be? A Starfighter escaped?”
Kril sighed, held his temper. “It is only one small ship. What can one ship do against the armada?”
“You don’t know our history. You don’t know what these gunstars are capable of if directed by the right combination of instincts.”
Kril didn’t try to hide his contempt. “I was assured all such instincts had been bred out of your citizenry.”
“Out of most Rylans, yes, but not out of the more primitive peoples of the League.”
“Still, one ship . . .”
The deadly needle of disturbed air appeared in the air above the knobbed end of Xur’s scepter. “None must escape. None! None will escape. It is not a matter of concern, but our victory must be total, absolute. There must not be a suggestion of resistance left for the people to rally around!”
Kril turned to Detection and Surveillance. “Suspect escaping craft recently cleared destroyed Rylan base. Examine all potential flight tracks at atmospheric point of departure and initiate a search of the surrounding spatial vicinities.”
“Yes, Commander,” replied the Scanner in charge. “What are we to do if we locate evidence of passage?”
“Track it,” Xur snapped. “If it goes to supralight, take an energy reading and approximate place of re-emergence into real space. Report to me.” He turned to Kril, smiling. “I will handle this in my own way. With your concurrence, of course.”
“Of course,” murmured Kril, smoothly maintaining the sham of Xur’s dominance. As for dealing with the possible escapee, that did not concern the Ko-Dan Commander. He was content
to let Xur amuse himself with its disposition.
After all, as he’d already stated, what could one ship do against the armada?
7
It was dark at the crossroads. They had reentered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Southwestern United States after midnight, local time. They set down safely on an unused dirt road, rumbled out onto the highway heading toward the trailer park, and promptly broke down. Centauri’s hybrid vehicle had carried them halfway across the galaxy, only to fail a mile or so from Alex’s home.
Alex stood and watched as Centauri puttered around under the hood, wondering if the alien was fooling with a dummy internal combustion engine designed to fool curious mechanics. Either that or he was actually fixing a device capable of interstellar flight with the aid of a few hand tools. The old man’s spindly legs (was that flesh-colored makeup on those ankles a mate to the mask that covered the alien face?) and gartered socks were the only portions of him that were visible beneath the edge of the car.
Alex listened longingly to the crickets and frogs chirping in the nearby wash. He stared out into the familiar night, hands jammed deep in his pockets.
“Sure I can’t give you a hand?” He turned back to the stalled vehicle. The rear license plate said RYLOS; Centaurian humor at its most basic.
The old man spoke from beneath the car. “Ever done any work on a missealed sisendian toroid?”
“Uh, is that anything like a transmission?”
“Not really.”
“Then I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of much help.”
“I didn’t think so.” Centauri’s tone was rich with indifference. “You’ve done quite enough already, thank you. As for this blasted toroid, even your Einstein couldn’t figure it out. On the other hand, I can . . .”