When his ship and her companions pierced the comet cloud, Bryadan tapped an intercom button. The face that sprang into the small screen was youthful, handsome, the green of the complexion slightly yellow because of partial Lafdiguan ancestry. It was also startled. “Foreseer!” exclaimed Afal Uroch of the Vach Rueth. He slapped hand to breast and tail to boots in salute. “At the captain’s orders.”
“In the name of his Supremacy the Roidhun,” Bryadan responded with equal formality. “Are you prepared?”
“Yes, foreseer. The crew are ready and eager. Does the qanryf have some new word for us?”
“Yea and nay.” Bryadan leaned forward. “I want to lay stress upon certain details in your orders. Yours will be the most precarious part of this entire operation. If you carry it off well, it will be the very heartspring.”
Uroch dared grin. “Khraich, they don’t call me ‘the Lucky’ for nothing.”
“With due heed to your honor,” said Bryadan carefully, “I remind you that young, ambitious officers are apt to confuse courage and rashness. Your record of exploits has caused you to be chosen for your present assignment. Yet those same deeds required more dash than wisdom. Not that your judgment was ever unsound—in the particular circumstances you encountered. These will be different. We are to wield the surgeon’s knife rather than the sword. In your case, it is especially important to uphold the distinction. Exactly what will happen, only the God knows. You may find yourself taken by surprise, in desperate straits, and tempted to unleash your entire firepower—since you are responsible for your crews, and thus for their wives and children. Or else you may see the enemy wide open to total destruction. In either instance, afal, you will resist the lure. Die if you must, together with those who have trusted you; or retreat unsuccessful if you must, taking years to live down the scorn of brother officers to whom you are forbidden to explain; but confine yourself to the precise goal given you.”
A slight change of color and posture, a barely visible twitch of lips away from teeth, were all that Uroch revealed. “Yes, foreseer.”
Bryadan made the gesture of affection, rare from a senior to a junior, and softened his tone. “I repeat, afal, my regard for your honor is of the highest. And so is my regard for your intelligence. Would I otherwise have approved you for this task? The God willing, and I believe He is, you will return with glory upon you. True, we cannot proclaim it in the universe—not yet—but your peers will know, and perhaps even your Roidhun.”
Hurt in the face turned to stiffly controlled joy.
“I have this to add, and it is my real reason for addressing you now,” Bryadan went on. “Before we lost contact with the main force, Cyntath Gadrol issued an announcement. Scout-ships have reported Terran reinforcements approaching, but at such low strength that he can hold them, too, in play. We will have days, if necessary, to complete our task here, before the opposition can bring up sufficient power that we must withdraw. Therefore, afal, take your time. Explore the options before you choose. Remember that, useful though it be, our undertaking is only a fractional part of the great unrevealed plan by which our superiors direct us. The destiny of the Race reaches ahead through millionfold years. Good hunting, afal.”
“And to you, foreseer,” Uroch answered. As the screen blanked, exultation blazed from him.
The Merseians ran on hyperdrive as deeply into the gravity well of the Gorrazani sun as they dared. When they reverted to relativistic state, they assumed intrinsic velocities carefully arranged beforehand, aimed at the habitable planet of the system. They crossed the gap in less than three hours, under decelerations that would have made molecular films of living tissue if interior forcefields had not compensated.
The Gorrazanian home fleet got no chance to muster. Such units as were in orbit near the planet deployed and put up a gallant defense. Bryadan’s command smashed it. Squadrons began to arrive from farther away. He broke them in detail. Meanwhile his broadcasters trampled local transmissions underfoot as they blared in the principal languages of the region: