“Six of them to five of us,” Dragoika counted. “Well, the odds are improving. And then, we have a bigger ship, this one, than remains to them.”
Flandry watched the green lights deploy. The objective was to prevent even one of the red sparks from getting through and attacking the scouts. This invited annihilation in detail, but—Yes, evidently the Merseian commander had told off one of his destroyers to each of Einarsen’s. That left him with his cruiser and two destroyers against Sabik and Umbriel, which would have been fine were the latter pair not half crippled. “I’d call the odds even, myself,” Flandry said. “But that may be good enough. If we stand off the enemy for … a couple of hours, I’d guess … we’ve done what we were supposed.”
“But what is that, Domma-neek? You spoke only of some menace out here.” Dragoika took him by the shoulders and regarded him levelly. “Can you not tell me?”
He could, without violating any secrecy that mattered any longer. But he didn’t want to. He tried to stall, and hoped the next stage of combat would begin before she realized what he was doing. “Well,” he said, “we have news about, uh, an object. What the scouts must do is go to it, find out what it is like, and plot its path. They’ll do that in an interesting way. They’ll retreat from it, faster than light, so they can take pictures of it not where it is at this moment but where it was at different times in the past. Since they know where to look, their instruments can pinpoint it at more than a light-year. That is, across more than a year of time. On such basis, they can easily calculate how it will move for the next several years to come.”
Again dread stirred behind her eyes. “They can reach over time itself?” she whispered. “To the past and its ghosts? You dare too much, you vaz-Terran. One night the hidden powers will set free their anger on you.”
He bit his lip—and winced, for it was swollen where his face had been thrown against a mouth-control radio switch. “I often wonder if that may not be so, Dragoika. But what can we do? Our course was set for us ages agone, before ever we left our home world, and there is no turning back.”
“Then … you fare bravely.” She straightened in her armor. “I may do no less. Tell me what the thing is that you hunt through time.”
“It—” The ship recoiled. A drumroll ran. “Missiles fired off! We’re engaging!”
Another salvo and another. Einarsen must be shooting off every last hyperdrive weapon in his magazines. If one or two connected, they might decide the outcome. If not, then none of his present foes could reply in kind.
Flandry saw, in the tank, how the Merseian destroyers scattered. They could do little but try to outdodge those killers, or outphase them if field contact was made. As formation broke up, Murdoch’s Land and Antarctica closed in together on a single enemy of their class. That would be a slugfest, minor missiles and energy cannon and artillery, more slow and perhaps more brutal than the nearly abstract encounter between two capital ships, but also somehow more human.
The volleys ended. Dragoika howled. “Look, Domma-neek! A red light went out! There! First blood for us!”
“Yes … yes, we did get a destroyer. Whoopee!” The exec announced it on the intercom, and cheers sounded faintly from those who still had their faceplates open. The other missiles must have been avoided or parried, and by now were destroying themselves lest they become threats to navigation. Max Abrams would have called that rule a hopeful sign.
Another Merseian ship sped to assist the one on which the two Terrans were converging, while New Brazil and a third enemy stalked each other. Umbriel limped on an intercept course for the heavy cruiser and her attendant. Those drove straight for Sabik, which lay in wait licking her wounds.
The lights flickered and died. They came back, but feebly. So there was trouble with the spare powerplant, too. And damn, damn, damn, Flandry couldn’t do a thing except watch that tank!