“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 accurate, 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.
The hostage bolt missed. Now the Four of Swords fired —and scored. There was a bright splay of light as the globe amplified the reflecting beam. But though struck, the hostage was not dead. The trouble with lasers, she realized, was that unless they struck a vulnerable section, they didn’t do much damage. It took several scores to put away an opponent, and in that time the enemy might reverse the advantage by a good or lucky shot of his own.
So there really was no inherently superior weapon, she concluded. The lasers had speed and range, being impossible to avoid or intercept, but no punch. The missiles had plenty of punch, but could be dodged or triggered prematurely. The magnetic fields were fast and could not be avoided, but their range was short. So it all came out even, with a good sharp ship of any type able to overcome a sloppy one of any other type. Chance was a considerable factor. Ideally, ships should fight in sets, with a Sword to snipe long distance and an Atom to handle any enemy ship that tried to move in close, and—but that led right back to the present mixed-composition fleet.
The two Swords were very close now, within a thousand miles of each other. Both were firing and scoring, but neither was disabled. In moments one of them would die, though both had been built in the shipyards of Sphere Sol and were crewed primarily by Solarians. Whoever won, Solarians would die. Friend was killing friend.
Suddenly her sickness of it all overcame her. “Call it off!” she cried aloud. “I can’t stand this ritual slaughter!”
But Skot was away on his assignment, the Knyfh officer had other jobs, and the net was off. She was talking to herself. Her hand went out to activate the net—and she saw the hostage ship explode. Its air gouted out. Though the hull remained almost intact, the ship was dead.
Then the same thing happened to the Four of Swords.
Both had been destroyed… seconds before she had been able to call a halt. “Damn my indecision!” she cried, gritting her teeth. Her host’s leg started hurting again, and she felt very tired.
Now she activated the net. “Melody of Mintaka here,” she said. “Terminate the contests of champions. Abate truce.”
The sixty-six-thirty-three ratio of hostage to loyal ships had shifted to sixty-one-thirty-one; an improvement, but still highly disadvantageous. Would the Andromedan command have gone along with the one-to-one battles much longer?
“Truce terminated,” Hammer of :: said. “Intergalactic Conventions not in force.”
Skot hurried up. “I have the volunteers. What’s this about terminating the truce?”
“We are about to get down to the real combat,” she told him. “In fact, let’s give our project a code name, so we don’t have to risk enemy interception of the details. Call it… call it the Lan of Yap.”
Skot looked at her strangely. “I don’t even know what the program is.”
“That’s all right. Transfer over to the Ace of Atoms and tell Captain Mnuhl to implement the Lan of Yap. He’ll understand.”
Skot hesitated, then departed again. But Melody’s eyes were still fixed on the two drifting, leaking hulks, the Swords of Sol. She shook her head. What a waste!
16. Lan of Yap
*progress report*
:: proceed ::
*the following segments have fallen: lodo, bhyo, fa¿, novagleam progress in freng and thousandstar continued resistance in qaval, etamin, knyfh and weew*
:: knyfh and weew I comprehend they are center galaxy cultures, sophisticated lodo is a surprise I thought it would be another center of resistance, and perhaps bhyo too instead we encounter trouble in the lesser regions! what is there about qaval and etamin? ::
*they are centers of the cult of tarotism, said to have originated in etamin prior to the first war their spheres orient on tarot symbolism, and the name of qaval derives from qabalah*
:: does this cult study transfer science? ::
*not as such but it makes use of animation*
:: that relates prepare reserves ::
*POWER*
:: CIVILIZATION ::
“That’s some strategy!” Skot said as he returned. “Mnuhl gave me the details.”
“I thought he would,” Melody said. “Now let’s review. Each Knyfh ship has a long-range transfer unit aboard, but three of the four Atoms stayed loyal, and the fourth was destroyed in single combat. So the chances are they can’t do it back to us.”
“They would have removed the transfer unit to another ship before risking it in single combat,” Skot pointed out. “Mnuhl says it would have to be on one of the two Mintakan vessels, as Knyfh transfer units do not operate outside an Atom-type ship. Something about the magnetic fields—”
“May my Sphere by sundered by a sour note!” Melody swore. “I’d like to get into one of those ships and find out what happened.”
“Mintakan Atoms are pretty much like other ships of the fleet,” Skot said mildly. “They even have a few magnets. Some spheres won’t touch magnets, but Mintaka feels they go well with the type of ship. So probably their capture by the hostages was just the luck of the draw. And since the secret of hostaging remains in Galaxy Andromeda, we shouldn’t have much to fear from that particular unit.”
Melody touched his hand. “You are more generous to my Sphere than I am.” She returned to business. “Now we have four transfer units, and your volunteers should be arriving soon. Best to have Solarians for the Swords and Spicans for the Cups.”
“Yes. And if I may suggest, we should first initiate distractive action, so that the enemy will not be aware of our real thrust.”
“Yes, of course! What do you have in mind?”
“A conventional long-range bombardment. If we reset our ships’ missiles for fixed-range detonation, they will explode among the ships of the hostage fleet. It is highly unlikely that any will score, but it would resemble an attack.”
“Good enough,” Melody agreed, though she was concerned about the waste of irreplaceable munitions. “We can time our Lan of Yap effort to coincide with the arrival of the first missiles.” She glanced across the room, her eye attr
acted by the arrival of four crew members. “Do they understand this will be hazardous?”
“They do,” Skot said.
“I shall make sure,” Melody said. She beckoned them over. Two were female Solarians, but of course she had known that crews were of mixed sexes. Single-sex confinements were unhealthy for a double-sexed species, especially for prolonged tours in space.
“You are about to become transfer agents, which is what I already am,” Melody said. “You will transfer to available voluntary hosts aboard the enemy ships. You will acquaint the members of these crews with the fact that their ships are controlled by enemy officers. You will incite mutiny, which will really be a restoration of management to the proper authorities. If you are unable to take over a ship, you will sabotage it so that it is unable to fight. I estimate your chances of surviving this mission are less than fifty percent. However if this tactic does not work, the chances of the Ace of Swords surviving are also less than fifty percent. You may now withdraw from this assignment if you so choose.”
She looked at each, but no one withdrew.
“We know the fleet is in bad trouble; Officer Skot briefed us,” one of the men said. “That’s why we’re here.”
Suddenly Melody recognized him. “Gary!” He was the man who had taken her out to fix the light-collector trough, hullside.
“I qualify,” he said defensively. “My Kirlian aura is two point five.”
“Yes, of course.” She could not exclude him simply because she knew him. “Do you realize what happens to you if the hostages discover what you’re up to?”
“The same thing that happens to our whole galaxy if the Andromedans win,” he replied evenly.
Melody nodded. “If you do manage to take over your ship, try to conceal that fact from the hostage command. When you hear the code phrase ‘Lan of Yap’ on the fleet net, identify—”
Gary snorted with laughter. “Lan of Yap!” Then he was contrite. “Sorry, sir.”
Melody smiled. “Don’t be. I picked a code name that no hostage would understand, and that every crewman would appreciate. I am aware of its original meaning.”
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