“Drive malfunction,” Skot agreed. “That’s unusual in a Canopian ship; they’re finicky about details. But those chemical boosters are tricky when they’re hot. Only one side came on.”
The Scepter shook. It was only a token, magnified by the imaging mechanism of the globe, but it loomed like a planetquake to Melody’s nervous eyes.
“He’s anchored!” Skot cried as if feeling the shock of contact himself. “And he never even fired back!”
The Scepter shook again.
“Second anchor,” Skot said gloomily. “That’s the end.”
The Canopian ship twisted in space, tugged by two missiles on strings. The Disk moved in close. “But the ship has not been destroyed,” Melody said hopefully.
“They’ll set hull-borers on him, or inject poisonous gas,” Skot said. “A ship anchored is a ship vulnerable. The Scepter will yield in a moment; pointless to stretch out the agony.”
Then the Disk exploded.
Melody and Skot both gaped. “What happened?” Melody demanded to know, staring at the fragments of ship spreading outward.
Skot shook his head. “Sabotage, maybe. I can’t figure—”
Something clicked in Melody’s mind. Sabotage…
A Knyfh looked up from his console. “The anchors fastened on opposite sides of the Scepter,” he said. “Their vectors canceled out. A very pretty maneuver on the part of the Canopian.”
“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.