Battle for the Stars: The Space Opera Classic Page 12

  A uniformed man appeared in the faint, blue light of the airlock, and stood in a waiting attitude. That would be the captain of the scout-vessel, Birrel thought. He surely would be there to meet Tauncer on a mission so important as this one. He did not see anyone else, but he knew very well that one crewman would be standing just inside, at the air-lock panel.

  Birrel walked forward in the darkness. He raised his voice, in as good an imitation of Tauncer's as he could muster, speaking in sharp complaint.

  "You should have been earlier! Don't show any lights—we've got to get out of here fast!"

  "Earlier?” said the man in the airlock. “Why, you said yourself—"

  Birrel drew the shocker from his pocket and let go with it, at eight paces distance. The man who was speaking shut up and fell.

  Now was the time, the decisive moment. Birrel ran forward the few yards to the airlock, his feet almost tripping in the briars. He ran into the lock just as an Orionid crewman with an incredulous expression on his face stepped in from the other side, staring at the officer lying on the floor. Birrel dropped him with a burst from the shocker and leaped over him as he fell, heading for the inner door.

  His luck suddenly ran out. There was another crewman in the corridor, just beyond the lock panel, and he was drawing his side-arm. Birrel fired and ducked. He did not duck fast enough and the burst from the other's shocker grazed his right side and that whole part of his body went numb and be started to fall.

  He would not fall, damn it. He lurched against the smooth metal wall, leaning to support himself. The shocker had fallen from his hand, and, while he had dropped the man in the corridor, he could hear voices, somewhere beyond, now raised in alarm. Where were Garstang and the others? What were they doing out there, anyway?

  Then he heard them in the darkness outside, thrashing like cows through the brush and high grass. He also heard an alarm siren go off forward in the scout. He ought to do something, to move, but, for the moment, he was as helpless as an old woman, leaning against the wall and trying not to fall down on the unconscious man, who had done this to him.

  Garstang and Vinson came pounding into the lock, carrying the heavy shocker between them. Garstang looked professionally worried, but Vinson was the excited amateur at fighting, his eyes popping.

  "Get it in here!” Birrel said. He meant to shout it, but his voice came out as a croak.

  The big shocker was no more use in the airlock than it would have been from outside. Even a small scout had enough shielding in its hull to stop stuff like this, and the shielding in any ship was continued through the inner wall of its airlock.

  "Are you hurt?” said Vinson. “What—"

  Garstang said, “Come on.” He hauled Vinson after him, the heavy squat machine precariously carried between them, past Birrel and the sprawled figure on the floor.

  He slammed the thing down on the floor, with its projection-grid facing down the corridor, and flipped the switch. As though they had timed it for that, two men, who wore the striding warrior on their jackets, popped into the farther end of the corridor. They had weapons in their hands, but did not use them. They seemed to skate and slide majestically forward before they crumpled up under the soundless and invisible blast.

  With an effort, Birrel croaked to Garstang, “Sweep it, Joe, what's the matter with you?"

  "The damn thing's heavy, didn't you know?” panted Garstang. The shocker was still on, still humming, and Garstang was trying to pivot it around so that its blast would sweep the interior of the whole scout, through the light bulkheads that could not shield against it. Vinson was trying to help him, but he did not understand exactly what Garstang was doing and he was more hindrance than help. Birrel tried to get down to help, but his numbed leg instantly gave way under him and he sat down and thought what a ridiculous leader he made, sitting here on his backside, in the corridor. Then, as Mallinson's men came running in from outside, he got his voice enough to yell at them, “Help Garstang!"

  Kane understood instantly what Garstang was doing. He sprang forward, shoving Vinson out of the way, and grabbed one side of the big shocker. He and Garstang rocked and tilted the heavy thing.

  In the farther parts of the scout-craft there was bedlam going on, a sound of things breaking and men's voices raised in inarticulate cries. A tall man, with a lieutenant's tabs on his shoulders, came at a staggering run into the passage. Vinson raised his old shocker, but there was no need, the man fell and lay still. Birrel, struggling to scramble again to his feet, felt the metal floor and walls quivering with the jarring force that was blasting through the whole ship.

  He said in a moment, “That should be enough. Shut it off and go on in. You help me, Vinson."

  Garstang and Kane and the rest of Mallinson's men went down the corridor in a rush. Mallinson himself was behind Birrel, looking a little white-lipped, as though violence was a new and upsetting thing to him, but looking determined, also.

  Vinson was shaking a little as he helped Birrel up and steadied him with a husky arm. He kept babbling, “Have we done it? Have we taken the ship?"

  "Depends if the big shocker caught them in time,” said Birrel. “Help me forward."

  There were sounds from forward and overhead, men's voices calling, but whether they were the voices of Mallinson's men or of Orionids he did not know.

  "Up this companionway,” he told Vinson. “Damn this leg!"

  Vinson and Mallinson helped boost him up the companionway and Birrel could not help thinking what a totally unheroic leader of an attack force he made. “I should have a sword to wave,” he thought disgustedly.

  Up in the communications room behind the bridge of the scout, two of the Orionid crew lay sprawled where they had fallen from their chairs. There were splinters of glass and plastic where the sonic wave had shattered equipment.

  "The question is, did it stop these communist men in time?” said Birrel. “If they got a flash off to their parent squadrons—"

  Mallinson ran back out of the room, shouting for Kane. When the technician came, he was puffing and looked excited and triumphant.

  "I think we've swept the craft,” he said. “Two men still half-conscious, but they couldn't do anything. The boys are searching—"

  Mallinson interrupted. “Look at this communic stuff. Was a message being sent when we hit them?"

  Kane lost some of his excitement and went over and started to examine the bank of controls in front of the two empty chairs. They waited, Birrel leaning heavily on Vinson.

  Kane said finally, “No. The settings show they didn't even have a carrier wave on yet."

  "All right,” said Birrel. “You'd better secure all prisoners before they come around. Mallinson, you might look through the log, though I doubt you'll find anything there to help us. What we need to know is probably in that captain's brain and nowhere else."

  As Mallinson nodded and hurried out, Birrel turned to Vinson. “Help me into one of those chairs."

  Vinson, as he did so, said excitedly, “We did all right, didn't we?"

  Birrel looked at him and managed to grin. “We did fine. You did fine."

  Joe Garstang, still sweating from his exertions, came in. He said, “Those lads weren't playing, their shockers were all set on lethal. It's a good thing you only caught a graze.

  "I've had enough good things tonight to last me,” Birrel said sourly. “Rub my side."

  Garstang did so, and, after a number of minutes, the stunned nerves recovered enough so that Birrel could stand on his own. With Vinson and Garstang, he limped back down through the scout to the airlock. The Orionid captain, senseless as a log, was propped in a sitting position against the wall and two of Mallinson's men were watching him.

  Birrel looked at him for a moment. Then he went outside. It was somehow astonishing, after the noise and fighting and running inside the ship, to find that the dark woods were as silent as ever. The breeze blew soft with the unfamiliar smells of Earth, and far away, across the starlit valley, an ala
rm dog was still yelping querulously.

  Birrel took the porto out of his pocket and talked into it for a few minutes. Then he put it back, and limped back to the blue-lighted airlock.

  Mallinson was there now. “Not a thing in the papers.” He glanced at the unconscious Orionid captain. “But he'll know how and when those squadrons plan to come. We'll get him down to New York and probe him there, fast."

  Birrel nodded. “I'll go with you. I've just called my squadron. The Fifth is going on Alert."

  Mallinson looked up sharply. “Oh, no. Not without Council sanction. I've made it clear that we don't trust Lyra one bit more than Orion, and it will be up to the Council whether you're allowed to act in this."

  "Council be damned,” Birrel said. “My squadron is not going to be caught flatfooted. Our scouts will take off in an hour. Our light cruisers in two."

  Mallinson said grimly, “If any of your ships attempt to take off without permission, they'll be hit by our missiles."

  "They will take off,” Birrel said. “You can accept that as a constant in your calculations. You'd better get on to Charteris and tell him so and have him send new orders to those missile-batteries."

  Mallinson looked at him, and then a fine sweat began to come out on his forehead. He said, “I can't do that."

  "If you don't,” Birrel said unyieldingly, “you'll have a first-class battle with the Fifth right there on the spaceport. You may clobber us. But if you do, all Solleremos’ squadrons will have to do is come in and pick up the pieces."

  Mallinson's control snapped and he gave way to a white anger. “You think, because there's a crisis, you can issue ultimatums—"

  Birrel broke in harshly. “The ultimatum was yours. And I'm calling it. Get one thing straight. The Fifth is not going to be caught down. I'll repeat that. The Fifth is not going to be caught down!"

  Whatever was in his voice finally got through to Mallinson. He looked at Birrel, a look of trapped frustration and pure dislike.

  "I'll call Charteris,” he said finally. “It'll be up to him."

  Birrel nodded. “I'd make it all very clear to him, if I were you.

  He went back out into the soft darkness, and Vinson and Garstang followed him. He said to Vinson, “You don't mind my wife staying with you a little? I don't want her alone here."

  "Lord, no, she's welcome,” said Vinson. “But you—"

  "I'll be busy for a while,” said Birrel, and added, “One way or another."

  Now began hurried movement around the scout. Kane's voice could be heard ordering some of the men to get flitters and bring them to this place, giving others instructions for the securing of the senseless men inside the scout.

  Birrel waited.

  Mallinson finally came to him.

  "I told Charteris,” said Mallinson. “It's up to him. If he considers Lyra a bigger threat than Orion, your ships will be hit when they take off."

  Joe Garstang said a coarse word. “In my eye! You won't take on us and Solleremos too!"

  Mallinson said nothing to that. He said stiffly to Birrel, “You're to return with us to New York. The flitters will be here in a minute."

  He strode away, and looking at his stiff, unyielding back, Birrel wished he was as confident as Garstang. There was an obstinacy about these Earthmen that he was beginning to recognize, and it worried him so deeply that, for a moment, he considered calling Brescnik and cancelling his order.

  No. Somewhere, out there in the starry sky, Solleremos’ sneak strike must be on its way, and no one knew how near. The Fifth was going out to meet it, even if it had to fight its way out.

  CHAPTER 17

  No missile had been fired.

  The scouts of the Fifth had taken off, and later the light cruisers, and the deadly launchers that ringed New York spaceport had remained silent. Now the scouts were well outside the system of Sol, quartering like restless hounds, while the light cruisers moved, in tight formation and at reduced speed, beyond the big ball of poison-and-ice that was called Saturn, all of them waiting for orders.

  Birrel was beginning to think that there would be no orders for anyone, if the argument went on much longer. He had been in this room high in the UW tower for almost an hour, expostulating, pleading, reasoning, and he had got nowhere. He was tired. His head still ached and his side was still half-numb. He was not sleepy, pills had taken care of that, but he felt sore and worn out. He was beginning to have a conviction that Earthmen were foredoomed by their own pigheadedness, and that it would bloody well serve them right.

  He looked along the table and saw hard unfriendliness and distrust in every face. Not only in the faces of Charteris and Mallinson but also in those of old Admiral Laney and his staff. He could understand politicians being stupid enough to sit around a table and gabble, even in a crisis like this. He could not understand naval officers doing such a thing. No wonder, he thought, bitterly, that the United Worlds had failed to maintain its sway, if this was the way it had faced up to crises.

  "The answer, again, is no,” Charteris said stonily. “The Fifth Lyra will act under UW command, or it will not act at all."

  "It's not a question of command,” said Birrel. “It's a question of strategy."

  "We will determine the strategy,” Charteris said.

  Birrel pushed his chair back and got up from the table. He repressed the things he wanted to say. He turned his back on them and went over to the window and looked out, fighting for self-control. If he blew his stack now, they were all in trouble.

  It was two-forty-five in the morning, but the streets of the old city still glowed with vari-colored light, stretching away beneath the UW tower like a vast gridiron of gleaming lines. The pleasure places would be jammed again with the crowds that had flocked here for the commemoration. They had not the faintest idea what this commemoration was going to be like. Not one word of the situation had gone out in the newscasts.

  Just as well, Birrel thought. These Earth folk would not believe it anyway, they were so armored in obstinate pride. They thought of their world as the start of everything, the fountainhead, and they resented the fact that the outer worlds had fallen away, they disliked the Sectors. But they had never dreamed that one of the Sectors might turn against them, any more than a father dreams that his children may turn and attack him. Well, in a way, it was a true analogy. That thought took some of the rage out of Birrel and he turned back to the hostile, silent group around the table.

  He went past them to the big depth-chart of the Solar system and its immediate stellar environs, which filled the whole end of the room. Sol and its planets and the nearer stars were perfectly projected, so that, when Birrel stepped into the chart, he was like a giant shouldering through the galaxy.

  There was a line of red light in the chart, beginning out in the direction of Scorpio and extended toward Sol. The captured Orionid captain of the scout had talked, under the probe. The big computers two floors down had taken the coordinates he had yielded, and had extrapolated from them to show the approximate course of the two squadrons that were coming. The red line was like a dagger pointed at Earth's heart.

  "They've made a long circle around,” Birrel said. “They're coming in from directly opposite the direction of Orion, the least expected direction—"

  Admiral Laney interrupted. “We've gone over that. We'll meet them. But this is the UW's fight and your squadron will obey UW orders, if it goes with us."

  Birrel looked into the old admiral's frosty eyes and said, and meant it, “Sir, I would be proud to fight under you. But facts are facts. The UW fleet, no matter how long and honorable its history, cannot meet and match an Orionid squadron. This is a fact. Another fact is that there are few miracles in warfare. If your fleet and the Fifth meet the Orionids head-on, the odds are that we'll lose. I am just as proud of the Fifth Lyra as you are of your fleet and its traditions, but I still say we'll lose. We've only one chance to even the odds and that is surprise."

  "Surprise, in these days of long-rang
e radar?” said an officer incredulously.

  "It can be done,” Birrel said steadily. “It has been done, more than once, out in the fringe-clusters between the Sectors."

  He turned around to the depth-chart again and pointed to a blurred and speckled area lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

  "Here you seem to have a natural chevaux-de-frise, to borrow an ancient term. I'd like to make use of it. Do you know your way around in it?"

  "The Asteroid Belt?” said Laney. “Yes, we know it."

  "If you could bait the Orionids in there, entangle them, in the drift—” Birrel began.

  The old admiral interrupted. “Do you suppose that they're that simple? To follow us in there, knowing that the Fifth Lyra is, somewhere on their flank?"

  "They won't know that, if we can work it right,” Birrel said earnestly. He left the chart and came back to the table. “The Fifth's heavy cruisers will take off. Presently long-range radar will show the whole Fifth heading outside this system toward Orion as though to intercept a possible direct attack from that direction."

  "But—"

  "But it won't be the Fifth they range,” Birrel continued. “An equal number of ships—merchant-freighters, ore-tubs, anything you can grab together fast, will assemble beyond your fifth planet and move out impersonating the Fifth. Long-range radar can't tell the difference. And half of our fast scouts will go with this dummy squadron to keep Orionid scouts from getting close enough to use short-range radar."

  Charteris looked at Laney, a question.

  It might be done,” said Laney. “The dummy squadron, I mean. Let's have the rest of it."

  "Simple,” said Birrel. “Your UW fleet baits the Orionids so that at least a significant portion of their strength is tangled in the drift. The Fifth Lyra...” he strode back to the chart, his hand plunging in just above the gleaming globe of Sol, “will be lying up here, effectively masked from radar. When you have them hooked—"

  He made a downward, slashing motion with his hand.

  Charteris looked again at the admiral. “Well?"