Battle for the Stars

CHAPTER 6

The squadron took off and the blue flare of Vega dropped behind it. The cruisers and scouts and auxiliaries and transports, eighty-three in all, dwindled suddenly in scale from great ships to mere metal motes that huddled together in their flight through infinity. For two hundred years, humanity had been pressing outward through the stars. Now some thousands of men and women and children were taking the road back.

The course was familiar, at first. Straightaway from Vega to the Triple Crown, three white suns which were a famous starmark in Lyra Sector. Then the Fifth bore westward and nadir, taking its sights on a dying red star to make the so-called Dark Passage between two vast dust-clouds that looked down like frowning cosmic mountains at the tiny passing ships. And now Lyra space began to narrow into a long salient between Orion and Perseus Sectors. Far away upon their left marched a distant bastion of clotted clusters and nebular mists that was like a great rampart guarding Perseus. They went on past that, and drew closer to the vague boundary between Lyra and Orion, and ahead there lay to the left the cemetery of dead suns and to the right that vast sprawl of tangled filamentary nebulae.

Birrel studied the vista on the big radar-screen. The cinder-cemetery to the left was fuzzy from minute particles of drift, so fuzzy that ships could indeed hide from long-range radar in there. The other region, that of the filamentaries, was an absolutely blind area on the screen, its terrific radio-emissions blanking out long-range radar completely.

"I think,” said Garstang, frowning down at the screen, “that they'd be hiding in the drift, not the filamentaries. Those would foul up their own communications pretty badly."

"Not if they held a tight enough formation,” said Birrel. “But it's no good guessing. I've got to send in scouts."

He called Grenard, the leader of the scout division. Those swift midgets were far out in front of and on either side of the big cruisers and transports.

Grenard, a comparatively young man, was as reckless and restless as a good scout-commander had to be.

"Fine,” he said instantly. “I'll go into the filamentaries and send Nearing into the drift. If they're in there, we'll find them."

"Just a minute,” Birrel said hastily. “You may find them but you won't be able to call all the way back here through that stuff. String out scouts at regular intervals with at least one on each side close enough to pick up and relay from you and Nearing."

Grenard understood at once. “You think they may knock us off if we do spot them?"

"It's possible,” Birrel answered curtly.

'Well, this begins to sound interesting,” said Grenard cheerfully. “We'll set it up that way."

Birrel looked at Garstang. “Were we ever like that? Hellbent for trouble and excitement, and never mind the risks?"

Garstang said mildly, “I expect we were."

The Fifth moved onward. Its way lay down a parsec-long avenue of clear space between the filamentaries and the drift. The squadron changed formation as it went, the mighty cruisers closing in around the transports. Far ahead, darting at speeds no cruiser could reach so swiftly, the tiny scouts flung right and left toward the two radar-blind regions.

The visual screens in the radar-room came on. By means of pick-up and relay chains, what was seen by the scouts of Grenard and Nearing came through.

"Nothing yet,” said Grenard's voice. “It's quite a mess, as you can see for yourself. I'm going into search-pattern. Hold on."

The screen showed little but a twisted blur of light. At moments it would take form as a vista of long, glowing filaments in the darkness. Long ago a star had exploded with inconceivable violence and sent these threads of gas flying out through the universe. They were still flying, though compared to the scout's ultraspeed they seemed to stand still. And the utterly tenuous, cool hydrogen they passed through was generating radio-emissions that kept the picture a nightmare blur despite the relays that picked it up and amplified it and passed it on.

Grenard's little ship was quartering this howling radio storm like a restless hound. He had so far found nothing. Then Nearing's voice came from the other screen and Birrel turned his attention to that.

"Not a thing but drift so far,” drawled Nearing. “Molecular, most of it."

Nearing's screen showed nothing but dark space and distant stars. Transmission was better but there just wasn't anything to see, the tiny particles of the drift and the dark, cindery, dead suns being practically invisible. But Nearing's powerful short-range radar was probing, as he, too, went into search-pattern.

The Fifth moved on, down the strait between the filaments and the drift. In every cruiser, the men were at battle-stations. In the transports, they wouldn't even know there was any danger. Birrel wondered what Lyllin was doing, what she was thinking, right now, right this moment.

"Nothing yet,” said Grenard's voice.

"You know,” said Garstang, “both these regions are well inside Lyra space. Would Orionids really risk coming into them in force?"

"I told you,” said Birrel. “The pace is stepping up. I think they would."

Nearing's voice drawled, “Nothing."

And they went on. The filamentaries marched past on one side and the dark drift on the other, and the big ships of the Fifth never slackened, but there was still a long way to go before they would reach wide-open space again.

Before they had traversed more than half the distance, Grenard suddenly yelped like an excited terrier.

"Got them! They're here, all right. Two squadrons in tight formation. Moving on intercept course."

Steel bands seemed to tighten across Birrel's chest, but he kept his face composed. He picked up the mike and asked, “How far are you from them?"

Grenard told him, and added, “Too far for a visual, but there's no doubt at all on the radar."

"Hang on to them,” said Birrel. “Keep watching them."

Garstang, suddenly stiff and tense, said softly, “Intercept, eh? They're going to hit us."

"Are they?"

Garstang stared. “Why else would they be headed to intercept us? Shall I order action-formation and transports back?"

Birrel said, “No."

"Then what?"

"We go on,” said Birrel. “We just go on."

Garstang looked stricken and started to say something and then instead said, “Yes, sir."

"It's a bluff,” said Birrel. “It has to be a bluff. They don't quite dare to risk open war by hitting us. But they're trying to scare us back, prevent us from going to Earth."

Garstang shrugged. “You seem pretty sure."

Birrel said, “Look, if Grenard could radar-range them, they could range Grenard. If they were really going to hit us, they'd knock out Grenard first thing. Instead, they let him ride along, watching them. They want him to report to us, to scare us back."

"It sounds logical,” said Garstang. “But if you're wrong…"

"If I'm wrong, we're in big trouble,” Birrel said. “Ferdias told me to take this risk and I'm taking it."

The Fifth moved on, no ship slackening speed or changing its place in formation. At ten-minute intervals, Grenard continued to report on the two Orionid squadrons, and his report was always, “Intercept course.” Each time Birrel waited for it to be different, but it was the same.

The short hairs on the back of his neck began to bristle. The Fifth and the two mightiest squadrons of Solleremos were racing toward each other and intercept-point was less than an hour away. It began to seem as though both he and Ferdias could be wrong. It had not seemed possible that Orion would really hit them and turn the secret intriguing struggle between the Sectors into open war, for war was unthinkable and had been so for centuries. But if they were wrong, if Solleremos’ ambitions had overleaped his judgment—

There was still time to send the transports back, to fall back and cover them. But he knew well enough what would happen, if he did that and went back to Vega. He had to go on because to Ferdias he was expendable in a calculated risk, just as Grenard and Nearing were to him.

"Intercept course,” repeated Grenard's voice.

The next ten minutes were several eternities long. When Grenard finally spoke again, he said the same thing.

Garstang looked stonily at the radar-screens and said nothing. He thinks I'm wrong, thought Birrel. And it looks as though I am, and Ferdias has miscalled it this time.

Thirty-three minutes to go and if they don't change course now it is not a bluff and we are going to be for it. Thirty-two. Thirty-one. Speak up, Grenard, why don't you report, are you all asleep on that scout? Speak—

"Intercept course—” said Grenard, and Birrel felt his middle tighten and then he jumped as Grenard continued, “-now abandoned. New course of Orionid squadrons seventy-four degrees westward, five degrees zenith. Shall I follow?"

"No, don't follow,” said Birrel. “But range their course as long as you can."

He turned to Garstang. Garstang said, “Well.” And then he let out a long breath.

Birrel waited until soon Grenard reported that the Orionids had just passed out of his limited radar-range, still on the new course.

"Pull back to position,” Birrel ordered, and added, “Good work."

"They've sheered off,” he said to Garstang. “Ferdias was right, they're not yet quite up to attacking a Lyran squadron in Lyra space."

The Fifth went on and presently they were moving out of the strait into wide-open space. Ahead, there stretched a region with a few stars and fewer E-type worlds, and that distant region belonged to none of the Sectors but was the small area still ruled by the once all-governing United Worlds.

Garstang looked at the screen that showed the spaces behind them.

"We got by them coming in,” he said. “But they're still there. How will it be when we go back?"

Birrel said nothing. He had thought of that and he did not like the thought for he had a premonition that they had been allowed to go on to Earth because they were going into a trap.