We All Died at Breakaway Station

by Richard C. Meredith

  “Yes, sir,” the first officer said, rising from the chair, leaving a half-empty glass of brandy sitting on the table.

  Bracer watched him leave, and then slowly turned back toward the communicator, and wondered just what he was going to do, and wondered how he was going to go on living with himself if he made any decision at all.

  A few minutes later he took a pill and hoped that it would enable him to get a little sleep before he had to call the captains of the Pharsalus and the Rudoph Cragstone and put the question to them.

  8

  Behind him the fleet had dwindled to twelve tiny points of light, dim now, reflecting the stars, though the reflections from the shimmering force screens would grow brighter soon, far brighter than the nearest stars when Jillie energy cannon and nuclear missiles and plasma torpedoes began their assault. Even now, though, becoming small as it was, the fleet was a beautiful sight to Lieutenant Commander Kamani Hybeck’s eyes. He loved the sight of a war fleet enfolded in its shimmering fields, for there was something godlike and ethereal about it, something strong like the beings in the ancient myths his people had told so long ago back on the homeworld. And like the gods of those myths, the starships of mankind alone were keeping humanity alive‌—‌though for how much longer, Hybeck did not want to guess. Especially if the fleet behind him did not make it back to Adrianopolis.

  “All systems are Go, sir,” said Lieutenant Daqusin from his left, sitting in the co-pilot’s acceleration cot, watching the meters and scopes before him as the tiny scout and its companions headed toward the approaching enemy.

  “Roger,” Hybeck said automatically, scanning his own counterpart of his co-pilot’s controls.

  Behind him, viewing their images in the tank that showed the rearward view, Hybeck saw the remainder of his squadron, tiny needles of metal and ceramics and paraglas, rushing away from the fleet on tails of broken atoms, nuclear drive units pushing them to speeds that would soon become appreciable fractions of that of light.

  And before them the Jillie fleet became more and more visible, now out of star drive, moving at sub-light speeds, though still faster than the scouts. As yet the Jillies had not raised their screens. They probably wouldn’t until the scouts were almost within firing range. Hybeck and his squadron‌—‌and the other squadrons of scout ships that followed his‌—‌would do the same. There was no point in reducing drive to a minimum because of the screens yet‌—‌time enough to do that when they were closer. Though Hybeck wondered just how much good the scout’s feeble screens would do when the Jillies really hit them. Not much, he knew, but they were better than nothing, a little anyway.

  “Message coming in from the admiral, sir,” Baqusin said. “Shall I take it?”

  “Cut me in,” Hybeck said, shifting his headphones into position.

  For a moment the headphones crackled meaninglessly, and then the admiral’s voice came through, recorded moments before by the computer and then played back at a speed compensating for both the dopplering of the signal and the slight time dilation of the scout’s velocity.

  “Men and women of the scouts,” Admiral Mothershed began. “I am aware of the risk and danger I am asking you to encounter.” The words came slowly as if the admiral were choosing them with great deliberation. “And I want to thank you. If your efforts can slow the approaching enemy warships for a few minutes, you can give us a little time to prepare the battle cruisers for combat. We ask that you give us that time, and then we will be at your sides. We will leave you alone to face the enemy only as long as we must. Then we shall join you. We shall not forget you. Thank you.”

  As the admiral’s voice ceased and then the carrier beam clicked off, leaving Hybeck’s ’phones filled only with stellar static, he thought how rhetorical the admiral had sounded. But, somehow, he knew that it hadn’t been just rhetoric to him. He had meant what he said‌—‌and he would come to the assistance of the scouts as soon as possible.

  Soon enough? Hybeck asked himself. A handful of scout ships armed with dual energy cannon and two nukes a piece couldn’t possibly last very long against a full fleet of Jillie battle cruisers. And that was a fact as clear as any in the universe. Most of them would be dead before the admiral could engage the Jillies. Well, he told himself, that’s what we’re here for. And we’re expendable. At least the admirals back on Adrianopolis and Earth seem to think so. Wish I could agree with them. Might make me feel a little bit better about it.

  Now in the big tank that showed space before the scout, Hybeck could count the distinct dots that represented the warships of the Jillies. Sixteen of them. Oh, the computer and its scanners and all had already told him that, but it made him feel a little better to do the counting himself, not that he really knew why. Maybe he just didn’t trust computers.

  Sixteen of them, he said to himself again. And twelve of our battle cruisers. The odds aren’t too bad in our favor, but they could be a hell of a lot better. Like maybe twelve of us against eight of them. But it hadn’t worked out that way. The Jillies were coming in force, and that’s the way it was.

  He didn’t like the looks of the Jillies’ ships now that he could see them better. He never liked the looks of a Jillie ship. He wasn’t sure why, other than the fact that they were the enemy and they were out to wipe mankind from the universe. But there was more to it than that if he could just put his finger on it. Well, there was something about the way they built their ships that wasn’t right, he told himself. Something wrong, something he thought of as evil, though that probably wasn’t what he meant. Alien. Yeah, that was probably it. Just plain alien and ugly. They had been built by minds that didn’t work the way the minds of men worked. That was it, he guessed.

  The sixteen dots in the tank suddenly began to shimmer and for an instant Hybeck thought that they had gone into star drive again. Then the shimmering died down a little and the Jillie warships took on the appearance of sixteen bullet-shaped mirrors. Their screens were up and something like 99 per cent of the electromagnetic radiation reaching the fields that enfolded the Jillies was reflected, just enough penetrating the screens for the Jillies to see and to navigate.

  Okay, boy, get ready, he said to himself and keyed the microphone that pressed against his throat. “Scout leader to squadron. This is it. Screens up and prepare to engage the enemy. Acknowledge.”

  One after another the scout ships of the small squadron replied, and their force screens came up, and they too sped through space like oddly shaped mirrors.

  In the tanks Hybeck saw that the ships of the other scout squadrons behind him had followed his lead. All had their screens up now and were preparing their weapons.

  Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes, he said to himself, and then smiled. No, that wasn’t the way it was. Hell, Jillies don’t even have white to their eyes. Well, we’ll just let them get their first shot off before we do anything.

  “Scout leader to squadron,” he said again. “Hold your fire for a while. Let them make the first move. Watch your wing man”‌—‌God, that’s an old term, he thought‌—‌ “and give him what assistance you can. And keep your distance. Scout leader out.”

  Hell, he said to himself, that was a pretty poor pep talk. I guess the admiral did better than I did.

  The Jillies swelled in the tanks, larger and larger, and now were almost within energy cannon range.

  Why the hell don’t they use nukes? he asked himself. Got a longer range even if they are a damned sight slower‌—‌well, slower if they’re not under pseudospeed. He snorted through his nose. I guess they figure they don’t need to waste their nukes on the likes of us. We’ll show ’em.

  Faster than his eyes could follow it, the screens of the leading Jillie warship flickered out and then back in, though in the microsecond that the field had been down an energy cannon had been fired, directly at Hybeck’s scout. For an instant the tanks darkened; the small ship’s screens took the force of the beam, deflected most of it back into space, absorbed a por
tion of it.

  “Nukes!” he said into his throat mike. “Hit the lead ship with nukes and then follow up with energy cannon. Let’s see if we can take them one at a time.”

  Like gnats the scout squadron fell toward the lead warship. The following squadrons angled outward, seeking other battle cruisers.

  God, that’s a big bastard, Hybeck said to himself. No bigger than the San Juan, another part of his mind told him. Hell, it looks bigger! he replied to himself and keyed the toggle switch that would fire one of the scout’s two nuclear missiles.

  Hybeck’s screens went down for an instant as the missile rocketed away from its mother craft, out through the gap in the screens, toward the huge enemy ship that swelled larger and larger in the tank.

  For a few moments Hybeck’s eyes could follow the needle shape of the missile; then it vanished from sight, lost in distance and speed. An energy beam leaped from the Jillie, intercepting the path of the missile, detonating it‌—‌nuclear fire exploded in space midway between Hybeck and the Jillie.

  But there were other nukes on the way, Hybeck thought. They won’t stop them all.

  As Hybeck’s own energy cannon fired through another gap in the screens, licking at the fringes of the Jillie force screens, he thought incongruously about Lieutenant Naha Hengelo sitting back at her computer station aboard the San Juan. God, if I get out of this alive, he told himself, visualizing the girl, how she must look naked: those enormous tits of hers‌—‌they had to be real‌—‌and God, did his hands ache to get on them! He imagined her stretched out on the bed in his cabin, her skin, almost as dark as his, against the whiteness of the bed, her eyes looking up at him, her hands reaching for him. That was something he was just imagining now, but so help him, if he ever got back to the San Juan, that image would be more than just illusion. He’d strip her clothes from her and then look down at that luscious brown body and tell her he loved her‌—‌maybe, if that’s what it took‌—‌and then he’d make love to her like she’d never been made love to before. Yes, by God, if he came out of this alive she was going to be his reward, whether she wanted to be or not. And somehow, back in his mind, he kind of thought that she wanted to. He hoped so, at least. There was an aching in his loins and he decided that he better forget about her for a while and concentrate on what he was doing or he never would get back to do it.

  The Jillie was bigger and closer now, and a barrage of nuclear missiles and plasma torpedoes burst from her, spewing out into space like the broadside of an ancient man-o’-war, racing toward the attacking scouts. Hybeck gave his computer its head and let it anticipate the paths of the missiles, and then do its damndest to stop any of them from reaching him. A man couldn’t do that. We just aren’t that fast.

  Immediately before him, not more than a hundred kilometers away, his own energy cannon intercepted a missile that sought his scout. Tremendous light blazed across the distance, and again his tanks darkened as light and heat and nuclear radiation poured against his screens.

  “How we doing?” he asked his co-pilot. “Screens holding fine, sir.”

  “Good enough,” Hybeck replied, took the scout’s controls in his hands and altered course slightly, angling up in a path that would take him “above” the Jillie.

  “Sir!” Baqusin cried. “Four’s been hit by a plasma torpedo. Burned clear through the hull.”

  Hybeck glanced at the tanks. “That’s Day’s ship,” he said. And where the scout designated number four had been was now an expanding cloud of gas and debris. Johnny Day had had it‌—‌and he was just the first. There’d be others.

  “Close up,” he yelled, keying his throat mike.

  He glanced at the tanks again, especially the one that showed the rearward view. The human fleet was just barely visible now at extreme magnification, though something about it had changed. In an instant Hybeck realized what it was. The configuration was different. They had moved into battle formation‌—‌and their nuclear drives were glowing again. They were coming now. It wouldn’t be long.

  The main tank showed the lead Jillie warship, now “below” them.

  Well, Hybeck said to himself, might as well use my other missile while I can. And he fired it.

  All the scout squadrons from the fleet had now reached the Jillies, and all were in combat. Each Jillie was presently being attacked by at least six or seven scouts, though the Jillies batted them away like insects. And like insects, though they could do no great damage, they could at least be worrisome. The Jillies were slowing, if not stopping, and that’s what mattered.

  By the time Hybeck had fired his second nuke, he saw that he had lost another ship from his squadron, and still another exploded in nuclear flame before this fact had really sunk into his mind. The Jillies were unloading their big guns now, and the scouts just weren’t able to take very much of that kind of punishment.

  “Unload your missiles,” Hybeck told what was left of his squadron. “Give ’em all the hell you’ve got.”

  As he said that, and as nuclear missiles burst from the scouts, his own dual energy cannon took aim, fired through the gap in the screens, lighting the Jillie’s force screens a little brighter. She was taking a lot of punishment herself. Maybe, he said to himself, if we can hit her hard enough…

  “Commander,” cried his co-pilot as a Jillie energy beam lashed back at him. “The screens!”

  “What is it?” Hybeck asked, his eyes going to the meters on the panel before him, information registering immediately. They were nearing overload already. Much more and they’d collapse. And when they collapsed…

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “Scout leader to squadron. Break off. The fleet’s coming.”

  He grasped the controls again, altered course once more, swinging around and beginning a complete turn above and away from the battle cruiser. Around him space blazed with growing light and flame. The Jillie was still discharging everything she had at the dwindling squadron, and each time that Hybeck lost a ship, the Jillie had additional weapons superiority, could fire more nukes and beams and torpedoes at each remaining scout. Another five minutes and there’d be no squadron at all.

  A nuclear missile, avoiding Hybeck’s energy beams, approached to within a few scant kilometers of the ship’s screens before it detonated. The blast pushed the force screen generator and absorption banks to their limits. Needles moved into the red danger area. A few more ergs‌—‌that’s all it would take to overload the scout and blast it to vapor.

  Hybeck had never been a praying man. Had never put any stock in religion at all. But now‌—‌well, it sure wouldn’t hurt. And maybe‌—‌well, it was worth a try. Dear God, whatever you are…

  The tiny scout and what was left of the squadron that followed it moved out of range of the Jillie energy weapons, fled from the nuclear missiles and plasma torpedoes the Jillie threw after them.

  Then the Jillies quit firing at the scouts and turned their attention toward the approaching fleet. That was the real enemy. The scouts had just been target practice.

  Lieutenant Commander Hybeck sighed and wiped his brow and watched the needles fall from the danger zone, and thanked whatever gods there were, and thought about Naha Hengelo.

  9

  Jillies, said the half-conscious mind of Absolom Bracer as he rested in his cabin and tried to avoid making any decision at all. Jillies; that’s a hell of a name. How did we ever come up with that anyway? That surely isn’t what they call themselves. He couldn’t remember what it was. He thought of asking Roger, for either in the cells of his own organic brain, or in the memory units of the larger, electromechanical computer that he supervised, Roger would have that bit of information stored away. But he didn’t want to ask Roger. He didn’t want to know the answer that badly. Why they were called Jillies didn’t really matter. The fact that they were did matter. That mattered a hell of a lot.

  And how long ago did mankind first encounter them? Two hundred and some-odd standard years ago, as well as he could
remember. Maybe two and a half centuries. A long time. More than a human lifetime, even in this day when men normally live beyond a century and a half.

  So men had known of the Jillies for over a human lifetime, but what did they know of them, even now? How well did they understand them?

  Well, the basic facts were relatively simple; they could be found in any encyclopedia: the Jillies‌—‌whatever the hell their scientific name was‌—‌were the natives of a world in the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy, many light-years toward the Center from Earth, a planet a little warmer than Earth, but not so warm as Venus; a planet a little larger than Earth, but not so large as Neptune. This much we knew about the Jillie homeworld‌—‌though its exact location, its stellar coordinates were hidden from us until Mothershed went in to see for himself.

  Roughly, very roughly, the Jillies were humanoid, if by humanoid you mean a creature with a central, upright body, two upper appendages, arms, two lower appendages, legs, and a brain and sense organ housing head above the central body. Beyond that the resemblance to mankind virtually ended. The Jillies were like something out of a madman’s nightmare; hideous, monstrous things by any human standards, as humans must have been monstrous by their standards.

  Dark, leathery, hairless skin covered their bodies, skin that reminded Bracer of the leather of a very ancient and very worn book. Their large heads were rounder than a man’s, more nearly smooth, with fewer distinct features: two great eyes set deeply within heavily boned eye sockets, seemingly angled too far apart for stereoscopic vision; a tiny, mobile slit in place of a mouth; nothing that could be called a chin, nothing that could be called jaws; feathery, mobile appendages where men would have ears. Necks, seemingly too thin to support the large, heavy heads, flowed into broad, muscular shoulders, and from the shoulders dropped arms, two elbows apiece, “double jointed” wrists like a dog, six-fingered hands jointed so that any finger could serve the function of a thumb. Broad chests, thick ribs‌—‌and a boned and muscled cavity where a man would have his stomach and intestines! Bracer almost retched, then slowly went on with his catalogue of Jillie anatomy: rounded, womanlike hips, genitals that were too much like a human’s, though grotesquely combined so that a Jillie could be either male or female, depending upon his age and station in the clan, legs that were double-kneed, large, splayed feet. And all dark, coarse, leathery, alien. Yes, that was the word for them, alien.