This Earth of Hours
THE ADVANCE squadron was coming into line as Master Sergeant Oberholzer came onto the bridge of the Novae Washingtongrad, saluted, and stood stiffly to the left of Lieutenant Campion, the exec, to wait for orders. The bridge was crowded and crackling with tension, but after twenty years in the Marines it was all old stuff to Oberholzer. The Hobo (as most of the enlisted men called her, out of earshot of the brass) was at the point of the formation, as befitted a virtually indestructible battleship already surfeited with these petty conquests. The rest of the cone was sweeping on ahead, in the swift enveloping maneuver which had reduced so many previous planets before they had been able to understand what was happening to them.
This time, the planet at the focus of all those shifting conic sections of raw naval power was a place called Calle.
It was showing now on a screen that Oberholzer could see, turning as placidly as any planet turned when you were too far away from it to see what guns it might be pointing at you.
Lieutenant Campion was watching it too, though he had to look out of the very corners of his eyes to see it at all.
If the exec were caught watching the screen instead of the meter board assigned to him, Captain Hammer would probably reduce him to an ensign. Nevertheless, Campion never took his eyes off the image of Calle. This one was going to be rough.
Captain Hammer was watching, too. After a moment he said, “Sound!” in a voice like sandpaper.
“By the pulse six, sir,” Lieutenant Spring’s voice murmured from the direction of the ‘scope. His junior, a very raw youngster named Rover, passed him a chit from the plotting table. “For that read: By the birefs five eight nine, sir,”