trust a great deal to the abilities of her bridge crew in that maneuver, and almost as much to luck. The echoes of that hard docking were still ringing through the ship as she left the bridge for the nose lock. Only a couple of minutes later she reached the military command post and the offices of the Sector Commander. Dan Varnoy was a man she had known well in the past, the captain of the first ship on which she had served as a senior officer, the same ship that was her present command. She knew that she could talk to him easily, and that he would believe her assessment of the seriousness of the situation. He had agreed quickly enough with her recommendation to close the system.
“Jan, what have you been doing out there?” he asked the moment she entered the main office. “We saw ships exploding in rapid succession, but there seemed to be something strange about the whole affair. We never recorded any weapon flashes. ” “Neither did we,” Tarrel said. “Nor did we see any attacking ships, as if we were being picked off by something still in starflight. No ships, and no weapons traces. It was as if we were being hit with a weapon that poured a tremendous amount of destructive power into a ship’s hull without the need for either the attacking ship or the download beam making itself known. But I am only guessing. There are certainly other possible weapons that might have had the same effect.”
“Could it have been mines made to escape scanner detection?” Varnoy asked.
“There seemed to be no detonation of any mine, unless it could have been drawn to a ship and discharged. But the nature of the energy discharge did not suggest that.”
“Did any of the ships survive the attack?”
“As far as I know, only the Carthaginian,” she explained. “We were hit just as we were on the edge of transition, and we shook off the discharge by escaping into starflight. I’ve had the data from the event shunted over to your main computers.” They retired to a terminal for a couple of minutes while Commander Varnoy looked over the report. The data was completely raw, not yet organized in any fashion, but the message was plain enough. “That was a clever move on your part, but you were still lucky.”
“I know that,” Tarrel agreed. “I still don’t see what we can do to defend ourselves against this attack, or even detect it. There’s just not enough data to suggest how it is being done.”
“You’re actually being fairly generous in your estimation of just how much hard data we actually have.”
She nodded. “If I can stick out my neck a little farther, I have to admit some doubt that this is even a Starwolf attack.” Varnoy glanced at her. “Just a suspicion, or can you be specific?”
“Suspicions on specific observations at this time,” she said. “This seems to be a sudden and very big jump in Starwolf technology. At the same time, I have to admit that fairly simple adaptations of existing techniques might be giving very dramatic results.”
“Granted, on both counts.”
“The attack also seemed pointlessly cruel,” she added. “Starwolves can be very cruel, when they have the need. But they make very certain that you get the message of whatever lesson they want to make. And they can be very compassionate as well. This was very casual and undirected, almost like an automated weapon picking off our ships at random.”
“An interesting point,” Commander Varnoy admitted. “I still believe that we will find Starwolves behind this, and that the cold, brutal manner of the attack was to satisfy the requirements of a field test of some new weapon. But if we can’t pin it to them any time soon, we have to consider the possibility of a new enemy. Any more ideas of what to do about it?”
Tarrel shook her head. “We recorded no data that could have been used as an indicator of attack or the location of the attacking ship, and no way to trace or even estimate direction of fire. They might be right on top of us, and they might be sitting light-years away. I just don’t see any way to fight back.”
“We need more data, and I don’t see any way of getting it except the hard way.”
The station alarm lit up at that moment, red alert proximity three. Something out in the system was happening, probably dangerous. Captain Tarrel looked up, knowing already what it must be. One of the commercial vessels still out in the system had just come under attack. Commander Varnoy looked up at her, his steady gaze unreadable, before he turned to the communications monitor.
“What have we got?” he asked briskly.
“A pocket freighter coming into system just exploded,” the response came immediately. “No indication of attacking ship or weapons, but we treated it as an attack under the circumstances. Should we send out the system fleet?”
“Negative,” he answered without hesitation. “Have the entire fleet move off from the station and stand by, cargo ships and tenders as well. Order all private and commercial ships out of the system in the opposite direction from the last attack.” “Your orders understood and relayed.” There was a momentary pause. “Sir, we just lost another ship, this one much closer than the first. We have moved up the alert status to proximity two.”
“Give me a system map indicating the sites of the two attacks.”
They glanced briefly at the system schematic that came up on the monitor, enough to see that the line of attack was moving directly toward the inhabited planet and the station.
“Commander, evacuate the station,” Tarrel urged him. “Send everyone down in any life boat and small shuttle with minimal energy emissions that can take them as quickly as possible to the planet.”
“We have over four thousand people up here,” Varnoy protested, then nodded with great reluctance and turned back to the communication monitor. “Order all major power systems on the station shut down. Order all civilian personnel to evacuate the station immediately. They are to proceed to planet surface. No ships will be standing by to evacuate personnel; use emergency pods and shuttles only. Order all private ships at station and unable to disembark immediately to be abandoned.”
“Your orders understood and relayed.”
“Commander, I have to get to my ship immediately,” Tarrel insisted. “We might be able to buy some time…”
“The hell you will!” Varnoy declared, turning on her. “You have to get your ship the hell out of here as fast as you can move. You have the only direct records and observations on this enemy, so your only concern is to get yourself intact to Sector HQ by any means possible. I haven’t yet decided whether to use our own ships to buy time. For as little effect as it would likely have, I think that I would rather send all ships to safety now. Can you protect yourselves in any way?”
“No, all we have on line are drives and partial navigational shields. No scanners except some passive, and no battle shielding.”
“Then time is the one defense you have,” Varnoy told her.
“I’ll call ahead and have Carthaginian standing by to move the moment you come aboard. Now go.”
Captain Tarrel left without a word of farewell or a glance back, and she did not even think to ask until it was too late whether he meant to join the evacuation or stay at his post. So much probably depended upon whether or not there was time to clear the entire station of inhabitants. The halls of the station were filled with people hurrying to find shuttle bays and life boats, many of them struggling to carry small children or valuable records. All in all, this was a relatively small station serving a limited colony. They might just all get away, especially if the unseen enemy was having to maneuver or decelerate to attack. And if the major power systems were shut down, there was some reason to hope that the station would be spared destruction. She still held to her pet theory that high-level emissions drew attention from the automated attack systems of their adversary.
She made it to Carthaginian’s nose lock quickly enough, in spite of the confusion in the station. She sealed the lock herself and released the docking grapples manually, and the battleship began sliding backward out of her berth only a few seconds later, drawing back somewhat faster than her usual habit. Tarrel approved completely, although she was given to wonder just who had the helm at that moment.
By the time she reached the bridge, they were already pulling clear of the station and turning about to maneuver clear. The area was full of ships; even the Sector Fleet was running, so there was no doubt that Commander Varnoy had considered them ineffective in covering the evacuation. The ships were moving up from the station, away from the planet below, while the shuttles and pods were dropping away quickly toward atmosphere. Anything else would have made navigation completely impossible.
“What does it look like outside?” she demanded, hurrying to her seat before accelerations put her against the walls.
“We have nothing absolutely certain since the station stopped relaying active scanner data,” the surveillance officer reported. “I have recorded the destruction of two more ships, one within two light-minutes of the planet and
