Chapter IX

The _Algol's_ officers formed a silent group beneath the huge glassene dome of the navigation bridge. They looked expectantly at Glayne as the elevator port dilated and he approached them, weary and unshaven, his face covered with blood.

Ignoring their unspoken questions, Glayne said brusquely, glancing at the navigation chrono, "Lieutenant Harbin: Compute an orbit for Scone III. Get the ship under way immediately ... drop into sub-space at three ten to the seventh kilos from Jorger Sun. Thrust--eight G's."

He was about to turn on his heel when Harbin's hesitant voice stopped him.

"Sir ... what ... what about Commander Graysen and the others?"

Glayne stared at the youngster bleakly. "Graysen is dead," he said with a flat voice. "So is Ganser. And I presume that our escort has been executed."

Harbin's youthful jaw tightened. "And Lieutenant Chodred?"

The lines about Glayne's mouth deepened. He let his gaze travel over Harbin's troubled face and the impassive faces of the rest of the ship's officers. He saw accusation in their eyes along with resentment and veiled hostility. He knew what they were thinking. Why should he be the only one to return. Why had he abandoned the others? And now they wanted to know what had happened to the girl. So he told them.

"She is still alive." Bitterly he wondered why Fate had designated her to be the only one left to face Gort Bro-Doral's vengeance. He looked up again at the silent cluster of officers. "If your curiosity is satisfied, gentlemen, suppose we get on with the war?"

"If Tjadlinn is without Jewel power," persisted Harbin stubbornly, "why can't we attack? We might be able to rescue Lieutenant Chodred. It's the least we could do--"

"Follow my orders!" Glayne cut in savagely. He turned on his heel and mounted to his shock seat in the Captain's Station. Yes, he thought bitterly, they could attack Tjadlinn, incur heavy damage on the discoid--perhaps even accomplish a miraculous rescue of Niala. But weighed against that was the possibility that the _Algol_ might be heavily damaged or destroyed by the highly potent secondary Kellanders of the discoid. Unless he got through to Garstow, the conservative Grand Admiral of the Stellar Guardians was likely to delay his attack on Karkara--and such a delay would be suicidal.

Gradually a floor began to build under his feet and the _Algol_ got under way. As the thrust increased, the discoid began to shrink in the distance. Glayne stared at its image grimly in the battle screen. He didn't say farewell because he knew he would be back. He rubbed his bristly cheek. He saw success now. He felt it on the tips of his clutching fingers. But something else was beyond his grasp now--something that made success dry and unpalatable. He covered his eyes with his hand as the thought stabbed him: The laughing, green-eyed Niala....

* * * * *

The Stellar Guardian fleet lay motionless across forty thousand kilometers of space when the _Algol_ reached the rendezvous at Scone III. Admiral Garstow's anxious face formed rapidly in the featureless grey surface of Glayne's ship-to-ship communicator screen.

"Give me a fast, verbal report on the Jewel, Glayne," ordered the Admiral.

The Guardian Captain complied, rapidly sketching the main details of his sabotage and providing a rough outline of the Delban defense of the discoid.

When he finished, Garstow nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think it advisable to risk an immediate attack on the discoid on the chance that we can knock it out before they repair the power drains?"

Glayne frowned, then said, "No. It's too long a chance. They will mass their fleet at Tjadlinn immediately. Under normal circumstances we could lick them, but if they repair that Jewel faster than I expect, then we'll be sitting ducks."

Garstow nodded again. "Lieutenant Brodis informed me of the plan you had in mind of attacking the Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III and thereby acquiring the Jewel power-receiving antennae. On the whole, I think that is the shrewder move. Since you've managed this show up to now, Captain, I think you might as well organize the attack."

"Thank you, sir," Glayne replied. "I'll take my own cruiser division in first to clear away what little resistance they'll put up. That will be the simplest part about it. The real difficulty will come when we install the antennae. As Brodis probably told you, we were unable to get any technical information from General Ganser."

Garstow rubbed his fleshy nose thoughtfully, then said, "It's in your hands, Captain." Then he cut out.

Rapidly Glayne organized the attack, placing his own cruiser division at the point of the spearhead. Smoothly the Stellar Guardian striking force flashed down on Scone III. As Glayne had anticipated, their sudden assault was little more than an armed landing. The Delbans were caught completely off guard. They put up a fanatical resistance with the auxiliary-powered Kellander secondary batteries, but the superior weight of Glayne's miatron blasters soon crushed every last shred of opposition.

As soon as the _Algol_ had jetted down on the immense space-port of the Karkara Fleet Station, a group of technicians in addition to the landing party raced off to confiscate an antennae unit for the big ship. Glayne set up an operations unit in the glassene dome of the _Algol_ to assign landing patterns to the other Guardian fleet units. The heaviest Cluster and Galactic class warships he assigned to fast orbits about Scone to defend the ships which had already landed.

After he saw that landing operations were proceeding smoothly he descended to the engine room of the _Algol_ to see how the installation of the antenna was progressing. Massive cables snaked across the deck in confusions, waiting to be hooked into the heavy buses which the technicians were jockeying into place. Outside on the hull, gangs of men were welding in the mesh antenna. Fuming, he looked at his wrist-chrono repeatedly.

"How much longer?" he asked Harbin impatiently.

"Thirty minutes at the most, sir," replied Harbin stiffly, refusing to meet Glayne's eyes.

Glayne rubbed his bristly cheek thoughtfully as he turned away. The young officer was determined to give him the silent treatment along with the rest of the officers in his crew. Word would spread; soon the whole fleet would hear of his cowardly negligence. He smiled thinly as he made his way back up to the navigation bridge. He had seen it happen before. There were just two ways to escape it. One was retirement. The other involved a Cardy gun placed at the temple....

The red light of his personal communicator was blinking intermittently when he regained the bridge. It was Garstow.

"Glayne!" he barked abruptly, "Bardled is on his way in with the fleet of Imperial Terra. And a dozen other Sectors have massed their fleets and are on the way, too."

"Excellent," said Glayne. "We're working faster now. We've put the Delban technicians to work and repaired the damage to their assembly lines. We ought to be able to handle a thousand ships an hour. How long before Bardled will arrive?"

"Four hours ... maybe six."

"I'm lifting in a few minutes," Glayne said. "When Bardled arrives, install the units in his heavy ships first. Those tubs will smash the Tjadlinn anti-shield if anything will."

Rapidly Glayne went on to sketch his plan of attack. When he finished, Garstow nodded ponderously. "Then we will sub-space as soon as we pick up the power broadcast. A sound strategy, Captain. Good luck!" His face faded from the screen.

* * * * *

The first of the big Cluster class battleships were easing down on vast fingers of flame when Harbin reported that the work of installation was complete. In quick succession the other cruisers of his division reported readiness and he gave the command to blast off.

The _Algol_ was almost two hundred million kilos below Scone System's plane of ecliptic when the hastily installed antenna unit began to pick up the first surges of power from the Tane Jewel. Cautiously the _Algol's_ pilot experimented with it, accustoming himself to unlimited power at his finger tips. One by one, the ship's atomic drivers fell silent as the pilot gained confidence.

"Raise the anti-shield, Lieutenant Harbin," Glayne said crisply over his inter-ship phone. "We'll sub-space right now."

Harbin's image stared at him incredulously from the communicator screen for an instant but he fought down the words that trembled on his lips.

"Aye, sir," he snapped.

Glayne was grimly amused at his anxiety but said nothing to relieve it. They were dangerously close to mass, he knew, but if Gort Bro-Doral could blast into sub-space directly from Sterle II with a shield supported by Jewel power, then he ought to be able to get away with it at two hundred million kilos from mass.

Briefly Glayne communicated his intent to the commanders of the thirty other cruisers in his division and their anti-shields began to build. At his curt command they dropped smoothly into sub-space, their shield generators heating up slightly as the sudden strain hit them.

They plunged on through sub-space, building up to incredible velocities in that nether dimension where such commonplace things as mass and light did not exist. Glayne's mind worked rapidly, analyzing his plan of battle for any defects. Obviously the enemy would mass his fleet at the all-important Tjadlinn. If his calculations were correct, his cruiser division would pop into normal space right among them. If they struck fast enough, they could disorganize the Delbans sufficiently for Garstow and Bardled to get in among them with the heavy units of their fleets. And that, he knew, would be the end of the Delban Grand Fleet.

The discoid was another matter. Paradoxically, it contained within it the very source of the power which they would use to destroy it. The only possible way the Delbans could deprive them of the Jewel power would be to turn off the non-directional broadcast entirely. That, however, would leave them open to an attack by the regular miatron batteries of the heavy Guardian and Terran battleships. They could not possibly hope to beat off such an attack with their Kellander secondaries. Hence, Glayne reasoned, they would keep up the power broadcast at all costs.

Satisfied with his plan, Glayne let his mind relax and drift where it wanted. Abruptly it turned to thoughts of Niala Chodred and he winced at the pain which filled him. Grimly, he realized that if the silent treatment by his fellow officers failed to ruin him, the bitter acid of remorse which burned his soul would certainly accomplish the job.