Chapter X

One instant the fleet of the Delban Empire was assembling about the vital Tjadlinn discoid in an orderly fashion. An instant later all hell broke loose amid its massed ranks.

Glayne's cruiser division popped out of sub-space at two hundred kilometers per second and flailed through the Delbans like a giant scythe. His eyes glued to the small battle screen in front of him, Glayne clipped off rapid commands over the ship-to-ship communicator that kept him in touch with the rest of his group.

Three Delban warships--one a battle-ship--had been caught with their shields down and were now exploding enthusiastically in nova-fashion. A dozen others had been heavily damaged by the slashing miatron beams as they vainly sought to lift their shields.

The _Algol_ screamed in protest as the pilot flung her around to bore in again. Her armored hide seemed to crawl in squealing agony at the twenty G turn. Glayne panted, on the verge of blacking out. Dimly he glimpsed the strained features of the pilot wracked with spasms of coughing that flung lobs of blood and lung tissue against the terraced banks of instruments at his side....

Then they were among the Delbans again, slashing right and left with Kellander miatron beams. This time the Delbans were ready for them and replied with a vengeance. Torrents of energy smashed at the _Algol's_ shield which shuddered like a live thing under the impact. Behind Glayne a knot of sweating gunnery officers rattled off firing data to waiting Kellander crews before the mammoth battle screen. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship the accumulators were screaming as they fed the Jewel energies from the antenna to the smoking banks of shield generators and the ravenous Kellander condensers. But dominating the ear-splitting crescendo of the _Algol_ in full fighting stride was the continuous, ravening thunder of Kellander projectors as they flung their blasts at the Delban warships.

Glayne saw that his division had scattered widely--but, at the same time, the disorganization of the Delbans was even more evident. Unaware that the sudden attack was a feint to draw them away from Tjadlinn, a dozen Delban fleet divisions abandoned the Jewel to join the fray.

As the Guardian Captain scanned the screen, he saw that the tide was fast running in favor of the Delbans. The _Anza_ was finished for the day. A flotilla of swift Delban destroyers had darted in with mines and torpedoes, one of which had gotten through her shield and exploded with a devastating energy concussion against her stern, sheering off plates and jet tubes by it force. The _Altor_ and _Astrid_ were cornered by a dozen Delban Galactics and Clusters and their shields coruscated in brilliant hues as they trembled on the point of collapse. A third Guardian ship, the _Aesir_, blasted in to offer aid and even as Glayne watched, hurled her energies in a concerted salvo at a point just below the jets of one of the Delban Clusters. Its shield coruscated brilliantly, tottered, and suddenly it was strewing its guts, nova-fashion. Almost immediately the _Aesir_ followed her example as a salvo of Galactic beams struck her amidships, rupturing her shield. A torpedo ripped into the bridge of the _Astrid_ and she exploded in an eye-searing nova. The _Altor_ managed to limp away in the confusion, her beralloy hide mangled and torn from a near miss.

The _Algol_ herself was in trouble. Two Delban Stellars were hurling torrents of energy at her shield, making it coruscate in a blaze of overloaded power foci. A pack of destroyers was circling hungrily, looking for a chance to dart in and plant their seeds of destruction. The pilot maneuvered desperately, but the overloaded power lines could not shunt sufficient power through the drivers to pull them out of their difficulty.

Glayne swore, wondering where the rest of the fleet was. It couldn't go on much longer. The _Akkad_ had novaed; the _Ashlar_ and _Asgard_ had disappeared without leaving a trace. Only six of his original thirty were in fighting shape--and even as he watched he had to revise it to five. The _Atlas_, surrounded by a dozen enemies, exploded in nova-fashion as her shield collapsed.

And then the void was suddenly full of great warships bearing the Guardian and Terran insignia, appearing magically in the midst of the Delbans. What had appeared to be triumph suddenly turned into a rout for the Delbans. Badly disorganized, they attempted to flee back to the safety of the mighty Kellander projectors of Tjadlinn.

* * * * *

But Glayne's annihilated cruiser division had done its work well; the Delbans, drawn too far from the discoid, were cut off by the fleets that opposed them. They fought desperately and fanatically, but there was only one possible outcome. One after another they exploded nova-fashion as the massed salvos of the tremendous Terran and Guardian battle ships swept aside their shields and touched destructive fingers to their beralloy sides.

Glayne's ship-to-ship suddenly crackled into life and Garstow's heavy face appeared on the screen. "My boy," he boomed, "I'm proud of you. Excellent work! We've bagged them all at almost no cost. Bardled tells me he didn't lose a ship."

Glayne gazed stupidly at him for a moment before he could adjust himself to the idea of victory. Then he said quietly: "I have five ships left out of a command of thirty."

"Oh! ... that's too bad," mumbled Garstow, his broad face becoming serious. "What I mean to say is--"

"The chaplain will say what needs to be said," Glayne cut in with unnecessary bitterness. "If you still want me to run this show, then I submit that we attack Tjadlinn without delay."

Admiral Garstow nodded, his face like a deflated balloon.

Quickly Glayne outlined his plan for the assault on the discoid itself. The battle would be fought between the Kellander accumulator and condenser capacity of the massed fleets and the total generator capacity of the mighty anti-shield which the Delbans would raise from the discoid. If the Delban shield capacity was less than the massed strength of the fleet, then the discoid would be destroyed. But if the Delbans held them off, they would try something else.

It took several hours to assemble the scattered and highly numerous Terran and Guardian warships into a closely-integrated formation. Matters were not helped by the appearance of dozens of warships from the fleets of other Sectors. They roamed about searching for enemy stragglers, but succeeded only in getting in the way. Finally, however, Glayne got them organized and the enormous fleet moved ponderously on Tjadlinn.

The Delbans waited behind their featureless grey shield, not firing a single Kellander blast at the advancing fleet. When it reached to within fifty kilometers of the discoid, Glayne gave the order to commence fire.

In the center of the huge discoid the Jewel, the Second Universe of the Elder Tane, blazed with a chill, golden luminescence. It did not waver a fraction as the tremendous energy demands struck it. The power drains fed voraciously of its infinite energies and flooded them into sub-space. The cumbersome mesh antennae on the hulls of the numberless ships in the massed fleet gulped it up and transmitted it to screaming accumulators which in turn fed it to the ravenous Kellander condensers. They, in turn, cast it through the miatron projectors at the shield of Tjadlinn from whence it had emerged.

For minutes on end those titanic torrents of energy blasted at that phenomenal shield. But it held. The inconceivable energies could not crack it. Not even when every single accumulator and condenser in the massed fleets of the Terran Combine labored at peak capacity did the shield so much as tremble. Not even to the extent of a tiny spider web of coruscation along the power foci.

Glayne barked a command to cease fire. He saw that the hail of torpedoes and mines which they had strewn had penetrated the shield. But they had been detonated by roving beams from the Tjadlinn secondaries before they could strike the surface of the discoid. If they could get through that mighty barrier, Glayne reasoned, then so could the _Algol_. He peered into the battle screen, attempting to locate the mammoth landing dock of the discoid through its shimmering grey shield.

He made his decision. Garstow's face came to life on his communicator screen. Briefly he communicated his intention to the Guardian leader. When he had finished, Garstow nodded soberly and mumbled farewell.

When he learned that the _Algol's_ Kellander batteries had been rigged to fire by remote control from the pilot's seat, Glayne contacted Harbin.

"Abandon ship!" he ordered laconically when the youngster's face filled the screen.

"Wha--what?" blurted Harbin incredulously.

"I said," Glayne repeated curtly, "abandon ship. Make haste!"

"Aye, sir," said Harbin. His face still mirrored astonishment as it faded from the screen.