“Now hear this,” intones the intercom system of Zeta Sagitarii. A recording of Sir Olaf’s message to his crews follows. He expects that all will do their duty, and win a victory never to be forgotten. Surely Ensign Kittredge joins in the customary cheers. Thereafter, coolly above a hammering heart, she takes her station.
Since both leaders wanted to meet, they advertised themselves on the way, traveling in dispersed formation to maximize the sphere of detectability. Upon making contact, they deployed according to their respective plans. The gap closed rapidly.
Interstellar war bears no more resemblance to interplanetary than the latter does to planetside combat. Shuttling in and out of quantum multi-space at thousands or even millions of times a second, a ship under hyperdrive is essentially untouchable by an ordinary weapon. A concentrated energy beam or material barrage just might happen to intercept often enough to do significant damage, but the odds against that are huge, and in any event a warcraft has her protections, armor plate, absorbers, computer-controlled negafields to repel incoming matter. Only when the drives of two vessels are in phase do they become solid, vulnerable, to each other.
It is not extraordinarily difficult to match phase. There is a limited range of jump frequencies that are feasible to use, for any given type of ship; and they are not infinitely divisible, but quantized. Of course, a standard evasive tactic is to keep shifting the frequency. This requires the enemy to predict the next one. In that, high-speed stochastic analysis is valuable though not infallible.
Since the object is to harm the adversary, phase-change evasion is merely one maneuver among many. Indeed, not uncommonly, by eerie tacit consent, ships turn off their hyper-drives and slug it out in the relativistic mode, at speeds far below that of light.
When near enough, Blenkiron used quasi-instantaneous modulated hyperwaves to call Magnusson and demand surrender. The reply he got was polite and cold. The exchange had been a formality thoughout.
The fleets interpenetrated and began to fight. Rays and missiles flew. Nuclear detonations flowered in ghastly brief beauty. Where they connected, metal and flesh became incandescent gas. It whiffed away into space. Billions of years hence, some of it may minutely take part in the formation of new stars.
The old stars enclose everything in radiance. The Milky Way glows phantom-bright. Nebulae and sister galaxies glimmer mysterious. Glimpses go by, ships hurtling, graceful as dancers. None of this does Ensign Kittredge see. Her universe has shrunk to steel, meters, readouts, manual controls, brief commands from unseen lips. A reek of ozone is in the air. Once or twice the hull shudders to a distant burst.
N. Aquilae moved majestic at the center of Magnusson’s command. Her planetoidal size, and the hundreds of live crewfolk as well as thousands of machines that this required, these were not basically for offensive purposes—although she did have the capability of laying waste a world. They were to provide such a host of defensive missiles, projectiles, rays, such a density of shielding fields, that the admiral and his staff would remain alive to make their assessments and give their orders.
Zeta Sagitarii was much less protected. She existed for the purpose of directly killing enemies.
The saying is ancient, that the first casualty of any battle is your own battle plan. Magnusson knew this and allowed for it. He had a general idea of what he hoped to do, but was flexible about it and permitted his captains broad discretion.
Blenkiron, on the other hand, could think of nothing but to hold his armada in standard configuration, as nearly as possible. That did maximize the mutual defense of his ships. When they had reduced the foe sufficiently, the formation was to open up, englobe the survivors, and deal death on them from every quarter. Such was the theory.
Magnusson had lured him to this exact place, and prepared it beforehand. Ships of his lay in orbit about Battle Sun, in normal state, dark, powerplants throttled down to life-support minimum—virtually undetectable. The fleet that flaunted itself looked inferior. Blenkiron’s should have checked for hidden reserves, but found itself too busy; also, Battle Sun is surrounded by dust and gas, residue of a stillborn planetary system, which complicates surveyance. When Magnusson judged the moment ripe, he ordered the summons.