The Single Ship

by Alan Barclay

  Next day, precisely twenty-four hours later, Jason reported to Admiral Dickenson and agreed to undertake the job. Dickenson looked at the fair-haired youngster, the sensitive features, the slender hands and thin fingers. The ancient warrior nearly burst into tears.

  “Very well, Jason,” he said gruffly. “Any comments on the scheme as a whole?”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like to have that dummy D-ray removed and one of the genuine articles fitted instead. I understand that with a bit of luck one may survive a short squirt of radiation and a short squirt might be just the one thing necessary to insure my safe return home.”

  “Very well, Jason. I’ll get Hayes to fix it.”

  Even in these modern times, and even though the United Nations had been managing human affairs for several hundred years, human nature was still human nature; Italians, Russians, Germans, Spaniards, Americans and even Eskimos each considered themselves to be finer, braver, handsomer, more intelligent, or perhaps merely cleaner than other races. This oddity of human thinking had its consequences even out at Advanced Fighter Base, where the squadrons of one-man scouts were organized on a national basis. The Spanish Squadron was captained by a large individual named Louis Alvarez—or Lucho to his friends—and was entirely Spanish speaking, although only one member besides Alvarez was actually Spanish. There were two Peruvians with traces of Indian blood in them, a Mexican, a Chilean and a character called Don Miguel MacDonald, whose existence was due to the Scotsman’s prospensity for leaving his native land, settling down elsewhere, and marrying a local girl.

  The Spanish Squadron monopolized one corner of the mess hall where it habitually talked Spanish with much gesticulation. It had recently been ordered to stand by to undertake a special and particularly difficult task; it thought it quite proper to be given the most difficult and dangerous work, but this opinion did not hinder its members from grumbling and complaining about the matter.

  They were so much occupied with this job of grumbling that they scarcely noticed a newcomer who came into the mess. He asked a question of someone near the door, then drifted over in their direction. Captain Alvarez gave him a cold and haughty look, and went on talking. The newcomer went to sit down in the empty chair. Alvarez put out a large hand to restrain him.

  “Your pardon, hijo,” he said, “here we are all Spaniards together; this corner is exclusive to us. And in addition, that seat is reserved for one whom we expect here presently.”

  The newcomer did not make any objection to being called sonny. He said in an extremely casual sort of way: “Sorry, pal, I hadn’t the slightest intention of intruding. What’s the name of the man you’re keeping the chair for?”

  Alvaez paused dramatically, gesticulating hand still in midair. He gave an imitation of a man interrupted in some serious business by an ill-mannered child. He looked the questioner up and down.

  “Boy,” he said, “you are new here so I excuse you. When you have been with this group for some time, and if we think well of you, we may then invite you among us, but for the present you do not interest us.”

  “This’ll surprise you,” the other told him calmly. “I’m the fellow you’re expecting. My name’s Jason—I’ve just got here. We’re to carry out an operation together.” He twitched the chair round and sat down on it, smiling round the group.

  Alvarez recovered himself swiftly. “But, señor,” he exclaimed, “A thousand apologies. For this project we expected a seasoned fighter, some grandfather of forty with a hundred kills to his credit. I do you no insult when I say you are almost a child.”

  “Don’t blame me, Captain,” Jason smiled. “I was asked to do this job and said yes. That’s the whole story from my end.”

  They looked at him—young, fair-headed, boyish, smiling. Alvarez was forty; MacDonald just a little younger. The youngest of the Spanish Squadron was twenty-eight. Jason was twenty-two and looked eighteen.

  Alvarez swore rapidly in Spanish, and muttered his opinion of Headquarters, who chose to send children on dangerous tasks.

  “No doubt Headquarters knows its business,” he said, “and one does not of course question your courage,, or determination. But, have you encountered these Jackoes before, señor?”

  Jason told him. They settled down to discuss the maneuver which they had to perform together.

  Jason went out several times during the next week with the squadron to rehearse. After a number of trials, Alvarez asked to have two additional men attached to his squadron.

  “I see it like this,” he explained. “The Jackoes know we operate in squadrons of seven. If they see less than this number, they will begin to be suspicious. Therefore we will have seven operating together, plus two in hiding. We will engage a Jacko squadron, we will allow ourselves to be split up, and we will turn and run. Out of seven it is certain that one of us will have a Jacko on his tail. Let the Jacko think his guns are jammed, or what he will. In any event, our man runs, the Jacko pursues. Our man makes for the rocks. Nothing surprising in this. Quite usual under the circumstances. Behind one rock there is lurking,” he paused and looked round the group, “… there is lurking our two additional ships, and Señor Jason also. As our man approaches the hiding place he signals ‘I come.’ He sweeps behind the rock—following him comes the Jacko—the two in ambush leap upon him. Before he can turn, before he can signal his companions, pam!—he is gone. Then a moment later, an apparent Jacko ship emerges from cover and joins his companions—our job is done.”

  Alvarez was an able and determined commander. Using another squadron to take the place of Jackoes, the maneuver he had described was rehearsed again and again until they felt themselves ready to try it in earnest.

  Five days later the maneuver went off without a hitch. Behind a screen of rock Jason saw a Jacko ship pounced on by those two ancient and skillful killers, Alvarez and MacDonald, and destroyed in an instant. Immediately, he fired his jets and slid out into the open. The Jacko Squadron had been scattered by the engagement, but as it began to reform he moved in and took position in it.

  The Jacko ships accepted him without question. They turned and headed—outwards.

  Alvarez sent off a signal which in due course reached Dickenson and Hayes at Moon Base.

  “Well,” the old warrior sighed, “the boy’s on his way. Good hick to him. Now let’s make sure they’re getting a screen of ships out to pick up his television broadcast when he sends it, and I think we’ll have some patrols well forward in case he comes back with a hoard of Jackoes swarming on his heels.”

  “D’you really think he’ll get back?”

  “There are times when I think his chances are good. He hasn’t been spotted at the start, so why should he be spotted later? He need only keep along with them, spend ten or fifteen minutes filming, then blast for home, and his ship’s faster than theirs. Nevertheless, playing war is not like playing chess. Unknown factors invariably crop up—plans begin to go wrong and get out of hand.”

  The Jacko squadron decelerated hard for half an hour, then cut its jets. The ships lay about half a mile apart. Though their actual speed relative to the sun was now several thousands of miles an hour they appeared to be quite motionless. Jason’s ship had a radio receiver and for a little while he was able to hear his strange companions communicating with each other in their rattling, chattering tongue. No doubt they made attempts to call him, but to any fighter pilot his silence would be immediately explained by the sight of the long groove in his hull and the ruined aerial. No move was made to investigate him closely.

  The chattering stopped after a while. Perhaps like human pilots they were accustomed to sleeping during periods of coasting. At any rate, Jason had a chance to relax from his first state of anxious vigilance. After several hours of silence, a sudden babble of chattering woke him to alertness. He deduced that some object had been sighted, but as he had no radar detector he was blind to everything outside visual range.

  Watching anxiously he saw flickers of flame from nose-jets. Imitating
the maneuvers of his neighbors, he managed to keep in formation while the ships turned through ninety degrees. Immediately after this turnabout the squadron formed itself into line astern. Jason did not need to wonder what was happening; some group of earth ships must have come into range, some squadron which had no business to be so far out, which ought not to be operating in this sector at all. Thus he found himself in the middle of an enemy formation rushing to attack his fellow humans.

  There was nothing he could do about it without spoiling the plan; he must stay with the Jackoes, and hope that none of his friends got in position to take a shot at him.

  Things began to happen with bewildering speed. In a moment seven familiar-looking shapes were in sight, rushing towards him. Jason knew the Jackoes always tried to maintain their line-astern formation so he kept his eye on the ship ahead of him. The two formations met. Jason’s field of vision was filled with wheeling ships and flaring jets, and the stabbing blue flame of D-rays. He saw the Jacko leader blow up. He saw—a thing he had often heard of but never seen before —a Jacko turn out of line and destroy one of his own companions who had been seriously damaged by gunfire. Then, how it came about he could not say, but he found himself pursuing an earth ship.

  Admiral Dickenson knew that any military plan, however good, will inevitably show signs of breaking down during its evolution under the impact of chance factors. He knew that nothing but resourcefulness, decisiveness and intelligence could repair such breakdowns and keep the plan in being. He understood human nature and had picked Jason for this job because he believed the young man had the necessary qualities. He had picked him in preference to other more experienced and more dashing and picturesque pilots.

  Jason marked time while the problem revolved swiftly in his mind. From the point of view of a Jacko pilot, he had a sitting target just ahead. Behind him, watching him closely, were a couple of real Jackoes. They were waiting to see him do his job. The ship ahead jerked back and forth on its lateral jets but there was no excuse for holding fire, and very little excuse for missing.

  If Jason refrained from firing, would the Jackoes suppose that his D-ray was out of action? If so, would they refrain from investigating him closely? Jason concluded that he could not hope to get away with it. He would be examined, discovered, and destroyed, and the project which had taken so much time and effort to plan would be destroyed also—and destroyed finally, for it could not be made to succeed at a second attempt once the enemy had discovered the ruse.

  His problem was clear. Either spare the unknown young man in the ship ahead, and lose his own life and ruin the plan, or kill him and save the plan.

  At this moment Jason demonstrated that Admiral Dickenson had made no mistake in selecting him. His fresh young face was calm as he sighted along the tube of the unfamiliar weapon. His finger pressed the button without hesitation. A long thin ray lanced out ahead of him and licked the rear end of the ship in front. A brief instant, and then it blew up.

  As Jason maneuverd his ship into line again, a sudden wave of heat poured through him. This hot sensation passed quickly, but the unpleasant prickling continued. He realized that he had been subjected to a backlash of hard radiation from the D-ray apparatus.

  The fighting broke off. There were only four Jacko ships left, counting Jason’s ship as one. They reformed and resumed their journey—outwards.

  The ships coasted forward, outwards, away from the sun. Jason had no doubt that his Jacko companions lay half-asleep as did all pilots in such circumstances. But Jason was not asleep. Although he had acted without hesitation, although his brain still assured him that he had made the right decision, he was filled with horror at what he had just done. He would be court-martialed, of course. For a moment he contemplated the fact that no one need ever know, but he knew he would have to confess and take the consequences—if he got back. A wave of prickling discomfort assailed him again and he began to wonder whether a man could really survive such a dose of hard radiation as he had experienced. If he did not, he reflected, his fate would have a flavor of classic justice.

  As the ships slid forward through the velvet dark these thoughts went round and round in his mind.

  Jason must have slept finally. He was awakened after what seemed like a long interval by bursts of Jacko chatter coming over the radio. He looked out around and ahead. His three companions’ ships were still in position beside him. A vast area ahead was filled with points of light. Not the haphazard, many-colored, variable brilliance of stars, but uniform reddish points of light lying in orderly rows. He was unable to attach any meaning to what he saw, but he pressed the button of the camera and let the machine take this in for three seconds.

  He continued to watch. Passing like ghosts above him a squadron of Jacko ships accelerated inward. He heard further bursts of chatter, presumably from one of his companion ships. There was no impression of motion, but nevertheless the rows of lights ahead slid swiftly nearer. The pattern of them across the sky swelled till it filled his view.

  A flicker of flame from the nose of the ship alongside, and for a few moments he was occupied matching speed and changing course. When he had time to look again, the picture had clarified. He saw that each point of light marked the position of a ship. The glow of starlight pouring through the emptyness of space shone dimly on their flanks, while each ship’s bulk made a patch of dark against the curtain of the stars. He pressed the button of the camera, and swept it slowly round the array. The supersensitive film would record this scene better than his eyes could see it.

  So this was the answer to the problem of the Jackoes’ origin. They came not from one ship, but from many—from hundreds. And what ships! Immense fat cylinders lying in orderly rows and ranks and files.

  Another change of direction. Some ships of a shape he had never seen before slid past below.

  The group of four ships of which he was one slid in among the mother fleet. Like fishes in dim clear water they glided underneath a monstrous belly. Jason scanned it with his camera. Another lay ahead. A patch of its surface was brightly illuminated and three round objects were crawling upon it. Another shot of that.

  The four scouts slid among these monsters, with only an occasional short flick of jets to change direction. Mounted on top of one of the monsters he saw some unfamiliar object which had the appearance of being a weapon. A long shot of that. Underneath another a huge brightly illuminated hatch hung open; as he watched a Jacko scout of standard appearance emerged from it.

  A staccato burst of chatter on his radio, and a flicker of jets. The four scouts began to maneuver underneath the belly of one of the big ships.

  A section of the hull swung ponderously outwards disclosing a brightly lit interior. Jason had the camera running all the time now. On a ledge round the open hatch he saw spherical objects moving purposefully, slinging out grapples; further inside he caught a glimpse of rows of scout ships stacked closely side by side and one above each other.

  One of his companion ships edged forward underneath the open hatch. Grapples seized it and pulled it into the hold where it was maneuverd out of sight.

  And now Jason knew that his time was nearly up. Once inside that hold his chance of escape would be negligible. As he reached this conclusion, and as he began to consider the moves he must make to escape, he had an inspiration, a wonderful and terrible inspiration.

  A second ship was drawn into the hold. He heard a brief staccato rattle of Jacko speech. Just as certainly as if the words had been spoken in English, he knew this was an order to him to move forward.

  He took a quick look round to determine the position of the fourth ship which still remained, then gave a touch to his jets, to send the ship forward into the hold. He checked that the camera was running, and grasped the controls of his D-ray. He was sweating and trembling with excitement; his teeth ground together and his mouth was clamped tight shut in a sort of grimace of concentration.

  One of the row of stacked scout ships came into the line of his si
ghts—he aimed at its stern, at the motors and fuel tanks, and flicked the firing button. Instantly he swung the weapon and did the same to the next ship—then the next. Then he swung the ray round and about and up and down, slashing like a sword.

  At the final instant he pushed the nose-jet lever hard over, his ship shot backwards as if kicked out of the hold by a giant. When a ship has its fuel tanks hit by a D-ray, there is an interval of a second or so before it explodes. The scout he had hit first blew up just as Jason finished his backward run. He paid no attention to the chaos of bursting ships he had created, for there remained the fourth Jacko ship just behind him. He slid past underneath and gave it a short stab with the ray in the region of its motors, then he spun his ship round, glanced at his gyro to verify direction, and began to weave his way back among the big ships, accelerating hard.

  Behind him, reflected in the mirror, he saw flash after flash as the scouts exploded one after another in their racks. Finally there was a much bigger flash, as if a number of them had exploded simultaneously.

  He set a mechanism running in the camera which caused the film to undergo a developing process, and wound out his concealed transmitting aerial.

  A sudden awful wave of nausea overwhelmed him. For a moment he could do nothing but dig his fingers into his palms and try to master it.

  He switched on his radio and called, “Jason here! Jason here! Stand by! Stand by!”

  He was still sweeping in among the big ships. As he passed by the rear end of one of them he shot a long dose of D-ray at the bulge on its stern which he took to be a motor. After he passed something exploded.

  Just as he passed out clear of the fleet he was violently sick.

  Then he saw that the developing process had been completed and the film was ready for transmission.

  “Stand by! Stand by!” he called thickly. “Ready to transmit. Ready to transmit.”

  He was feeling sick in a way he had never known in all his life, but he continued to do his job carefully and thoroughly. He checked that his sending aerial was aligned correctly, that the film had engaged it self in the sending mechanism, and that the transmitter was live.