"I name no names on microwaves," he told her. "Get going, will you?"
"_To hear_," said Gwenlyn cheerfully, "_is to obey_."
Her communicator clicked off. The _Sylva_ showed on a radar-screen, but had not been near enough to be sighted direct. The blip shot out from the planet.
Bors growled to himself. The _Isis_ floated a hundred thousand miles off Garen. There was no challenge. There was no query from the planet. But Gwenlyn said that there were riots down below. They could be serious enough to absorb the attention usually given to routine. But there was another reason for this inattention. Garen was a part of the Mekinese empire which was not encouraged to trade off-planet except through Mekin. Very few non-Mekinese ships would ever land there, and therefore wouldn"t be watched for. It was unlikely that a long-range radar habitually swept s.p.a.ce off Garen. The battleship should be more alert, but again there was no danger of s.p.a.ce-borne rebellion, and the affair of Kandar might not have been bruited so far away.
But the s.p.a.ceport would respond to calls, certainly. Bors considered these circ.u.mstances. A large cargo-ship loaded with foodstuffs requisitioned to be sent to Mekin. A population which had been rebellious before--witness the battleship aground to overawe resistance--and now was rioting.
Bors called for the extra members of his crew. He uncomfortably outlined the action he had in mind. There was one part that he disliked. He had to stay on board ship. The important action, as he saw it, would take place elsewhere. It was so obviously painful for him to outline a course of action in which other men must take risks he couldn"t share, that his men regarded him with pleased affection which he did not guess at. In the end he asked for twenty volunteers, and got fifty.
He swung the _Isis_ around to the night side of the planet. Its two port blisters opened and two boats floated free in the orbit Bors had established. The ship moved on ahead.
Just at sunup where the s.p.a.ceport stood, a voice growled down from outer s.p.a.ce.
"_Calling ground!_" it said contemptuously. "_Calling ground! This is the last ship left of the fleet of Kandar. We"re pirates now and we"re looking for trouble! There"s a battleship down there. Come up and fight or we blast you in your s.p.a.ceport! Just to prove we can do it--watch!_"
Bors said, "Fire one," and a missile went off toward the planet. It was fused to detonate at the very tip of the fringes of the planet"s atmosphere.
It did. There was light more brilliant than a thousand suns. The long low shadows of sunrise vanished. The new-rising sun turned dim by comparison.
The voice from s.p.a.ce spoke with intolerable levity. "_Come up with your missiles ready! We"ll give you ten thousand miles of height. And if you try to duck out in overdrive...._"
The voice was explicit about what it would do to the Mekinese-occupied areas of Garen if the battleship fled.
It came up to fight. It could do nothing else.
Chapter 8
The trick, of course, was in the timing, and the secret was that Bors knew what he was doing, while those who opposed him did not. Bors had declared himself a pirate on Tralee, and here off Garen he"d claimed the same status. But no Mekinese, as yet, knew why he"d outlawed himself, nor his purpose in challenging a line battleship to fight. It seemed like the raving, hysterical hatred of men with no motive but hate. But it wasn"t. The _Isis_ could have sent down a missile with a limited-yield warhead if its only purpose had been to kill or to destroy. He could have blasted the warship without warning and it was unlikely that it was alert enough to send up counter-missiles in its own defense. But he"d have had to smash everything else in the s.p.a.ceport at the same time.
Therefore he"d left his two s.p.a.ce-boats in low orbit on the night side of the planet. In thirty minutes or so they"d arrive near the s.p.a.ceport, where there was a large cargo-ship loaded with foodstuffs, for Mekin.
Bors wanted that cargo.
So when the Mekinese battlewagon came lumbering up to s.p.a.ce, with her missile-tubes armed and bristling, Bors withdrew the _Isis_. It was not flight. It was a move designed to make sure that when the fight began there would be no stray missiles falling on the planet.
Unseen, the _Isis"s_ s.p.a.ce-boats floated in darkness. They carried ten men each, equipped with small arms and light bombs. They listened to such bits of broadcast information as came from the night beneath them.
Boat Number One picked up a news broadcast, and when it was finished, the petty officer in command pulled free the tape that had recorded it and tucked it in his pocket. There were items of interest on it.
The _Isis_ came to a stop in s.p.a.ce. The battleship rose and rose. It did not drive toward the _Isis_. There was a maximum distance beyond which s.p.a.ce-combat was impractical; beyond which missiles became mere blind projectiles moving almost at random and destroying each other without regard to planetary loyalties. There was also a minimum distance, below which missiles were again mere projectiles and could not greatly modify the courses on which they were launched.
But there was a wide area in between, in which combat was practical. The Mekinese battleship reached a height where it could maneuver on solar-system drive without rockets. It might, of course, flick into overdrive and be gone thousands of millions of miles within seconds. But that would be flight. It would not return accurately to the scene of the fight. So overdrive could not be used as a battle tactic. It could be used only for escape.
Near the planet, where the two s.p.a.ce-boats floated, the dawnline appeared at the world"s edge. The s.p.a.ce-boats swung about, facing backward, and applied power for deceleration. They dropped into the atmosphere and bounced out again, and in again--more deeply--and then swung once more to face along their course. They began a long, shallow, screaming descent from the farthest limits of the planet"s atmosphere.
Out where the sun of Garen was a disk of intolerable brilliance and heat, the battleship b.u.mbled on its way. It would seem that its commander scornfully accepted the _Isis"s_ terms of combat and moved contemptuously to the position where his weapons would be most deadly.
His ship"s launching-tubes were at the ready. It should be able to pour out a cloud of missiles. In fact, a sardonic voice came from the battleship.
"_Calling pirate_," said the voice.
"Yes," said Bors.
"_If you wish to surrender--_"
"We don"t," said Bors.
"_I was about to say_," said the sardonic voice, "_that it is now too late._"
The radar-screen showed tiny specks darting out from that larger speck which was the battleship. They came hurtling toward the _Isis_. Bors counted them. A ship of the _Isis"s_ cla.s.s mounted eighteen launching-tubes. She should be able to fire eighteen missiles at a time.
The Mekinese ship had fired nineteen. If the _Isis_ opened fire, by all the previous rules of s.p.a.ce-combat, she would need to use one missile to counter every one of the battleship"s, there would still be one left over to destroy the _Isis_--unless she fired a second spread of missiles, which was virtually impossible before she would be hit.
It was mockery by the skipper of the battleship. He was doubtless much amused at the idea of toying with this small, insolent vessel. But Bors did not try to match him missile for missile. He said evenly,
"Fire one. Fire two. Fire three. Fire four."
He stopped at four. His four missiles went curving wildly, in the general direction, only, of the enemy.
On the planet Garen two shrieking objects came furiously to ground. Men leaped swiftly out of them and trotted toward a small town, a settlement, a group of houses hardly larger than a village. One man delayed by each grounded s.p.a.ce-boat, and then ran to overtake the others. Local inhabitants appeared, to stare and to wonder. The two landing-parties, ten men in each, did not pause. They swarmed into the village"s single street. There were ground-cars at the street-sides. The men of the landing-parties established themselves briskly. One of them seized a staring civilian by the arm.
"To h.e.l.l with Mekin," he said conversationally. "Where"s the communicator office?"
"Wha--what--?"
"To h.e.l.l with Mekin," repeated the man from the _Isis_, impatiently.
"Where"s the communicator office?"
The civilian, trembling suddenly, pointed. Some of the landing-party rushed to it. Four went in. There were the reports of blast-rifles.
Smoke and the smell of burnt insulation drifted out. Others of the magically arrived men went methodically down the street, examining each ground-car in turn. One of them cupped his hands and bellowed for the information of alarmed citizens:
"Attention, please! We"re from the pirate ship _Isis_. You have nothing to fear from us. We"re survivors of Mekin"s invasion of Kandar. You will please co-operate with us, and no harm will come to you. Your ground-cars will be disabled so you can"t report us. You will not be punished for this! Repeat: you will not be punished!"
He repeated the announcement. Others of the swiftly-moving landing-parties drove the chosen ground-cars away from the streets. The remaining cars received a blaster-bolt apiece. In seven minutes and thirty seconds from the landing of the small s.p.a.ce-craft, a motley a.s.sortment of cars roared out of the village, heading for the capital city of Garen. As the last car cleared the houses, there was a monstrous explosion. One of the s.p.a.ce-boats flew to bits. Before the cars had vanished, there was a second explosion. Another s.p.a.ce-boat vanished in flame and debris. The landing-party had no way to return to s.p.a.ce. The inhabitants of the village had no way to report their coming except in person and by traveling some considerable distance on foot. They were singularly slow in making that report. The men of the s.p.a.ce-boats had said they were pirates. The people of Garen felt no animosity toward pirates. They only hated Mekinese.