Robert Asprin – Tambu

Another few minutes…

“Whitey?” Tambu asked abruptly.

“Yes, captain?”

“Am I set with a hailing frequency?”

It was a needless question, one that he had asked before. Tambu was no more immune to the strain of nerves than any of the others in his crew.

“Sure are, captain. They should be able to hear you now if you want to start.”

They were within the range of the Scorpion’s armaments now. Tambu knew that if he waited much longer, they would be vulnerable to return fire from the other ship. Licking his dry lips, he reached for the hailing microphone.

“Captain!”

At least two voices called to him from the ship’s intercom, their exact identity lost in the garble of their overlap.

“I see it!” he barked. “Open fire!”

One of the turret guns on the functional ship they were approaching had begun to move, swiveling toward them in smooth silence.

Even as Tambu gave the order, the guns of the Scorpion opened up, the orange beams of slicers darting out like striking snakes toward their would-be assailant.

Though the crew of the Scorpion had practiced often and long with their slicers in mock attacks on small asteroids and occasionally on the face of an uninhabited planet, they had never seen the actual effect of their weapons on another ship. Now they had a front-row seat.

There was no explosion, no shower of sparks or flame. The portion of the rival ship which came into contact with the orange beams simply melted away like thin plastic before a soldering iron. One of the beams hit a sail, severing the tip. The remaining portion of the sail crumpled slowly as the severed tip began to drift away into open space. Both turret guns simply vanished, erased completely by direct hits from the slicers.