“Ultimatum,” Griffith guessed. “Either we go back, or we get that thrown at us. They speak pretty plain language down there!” He punched the intercom quickly. “Bombardiers, ready your lithium bombs!”
These were the most feared weapon of the fleet, and it spoke volumes for the fears of Earth that Wing Nine should have been equipped with the deadly things. Ten of them would be enough to make any world uninhabitable.
“We’ll pass right through them,” Anderson commented. He was licking his lips now, and Bob found that his own were dry. “At our speeds, we won’t even see them when we cut through. They can’t do much damage.”
Griffith made no comment. “All ships on full emergency,” he ordered sharply. “Don’t attack first. If attacked, observe no restrictions. We may be saved by our speed, but don’t count on it!”
There would have been no chance to cut their speed and flee back to Outpost, even if they had tried. Their momentum would carry them near Planet X, even if they used the maximum braking power.
No further threat had come from the black ships, all of which seemed identical with the one they had seen before. They were rushing closer, seeming to leap ahead on the screen. Now they were visible to the naked eye through the quartz viewport. In a fraction of a second they should be diminishing behind Wing Nine.
Suddenly, at a distance of a few miles, they stopped advancing! From full speed ahead, they were instantaneously moving backward to match the speed of Wing Nine exactly, and then seemed to hover motionless in space.
Commander Griffith gasped, and Hoeck’s mouth hung open slackly. No amount of power could do that; no metal known could stand the strain, much less living beings inside them. It represented infinite gravities of acceleration—in fact, it was meaningless. All the laws of momentum made it impossible.
“Cut thrust to one gravity,” Griffith ordered. “Then wait at your battle stations. No hostile moves without orders! Anderson, try to contact them again.”
The black ships matched the change in acceleration at once. They gave no answer to Anderson’s signals for a period of perhaps ten minutes.
Then abruptly one of them flashed up to the Lance. There was a faint sound of metal on metal from the hull. The air seemed to grow tense, and a faint feeling of strain hit at Bob’s body. For a moment his eyes blurred. Then the black ship was leaping ahead to its original position.
But now they were turned around and headed back toward Neptune—and obviously speeding back at the speed they had been making toward X before! Only a fraction of a second had passed, but their speed had been reversed and the whole ship turned about!
Bob had barely time to gasp before the fear telescreen showed black ships swinging the other ships of Wing Nine after them.
Bob’s father had grabbed for the microphone, but he was too late. One of the Wing captains had taken that for an attack. The dazzling lance of a proton rifle struck against the black ship, driving its screen up to a blinding blue, and the other ships were instantly following suit.
“Stop it! Cease fire immediately!” Griffith called. But the fury had started, and it was too late to quit.
Now one of the black ships leaped for the Navy ship that had fired first. With it went one of the blue spheres of ball lightning that had been exploded in space. This time it seemed to sink into the Navy ship, leisurely and without fuss. The ship suddenly exploded, leaving only dust where it had been!
Commander Griffith groaned. “Lithium bombs!” he ordered tensely. It was too late now to hold off the battle. All they could do was to hope the dread weapons would end it in their favor.
At close quarters, the result was instantaneous. Fury beyond description blazed out as a lithium bomb hit one of the black ships. And even their screens couldn’t take that. The bulk of the Planet X ship seemed to slump and melt in on itself. Bob saw it eaten away in the radar screen; automatic screens had covered all other viewing plates and ports, to keep the fatal radiation out of the Navy ships. Even through airless space, the shock wave of exploding atoms hit the Lance, and made her buck under them.
Twenty lithium bombs had been released against the leading Planet X ships. Some targets were duplicated, but seventeen of the black ships disappeared on the first salvo.
The second salvo went off almost as quickly, but some of the black ships were leaping away at impossible speeds. This time less than a dozen of the aliens were destroyed. The rest were now at too great a distance for quick destruction.
But more bombs were on their way. Bright green streaks on the radar screen showed their paths—and suddenly showed them turning over and heading back toward the ships of Wing Nine!
Griffith yanked at the controls, and a full ten gravities of pressure hit at Bob as the Lance leaped ahead. Other ships were doing the same, but some had been too slow. They were abruptly caught in the inferno of their own exploding bombs.
There was no time to count damages. Griffith piled on the acceleration steadily, heading back for Outpost. “Full retreat,” he was ordering. “Break ranks and separate. Some ships have to get back to base to report!”
One ship from the Wing must have had a foolhardy captain, because another lithium bomb was launched then. From a black ship, a sphere of lightning touched it and exploded it harmlessly. Then more spheres came rushing toward the ships, the black ships diving after them.
Bob had had too much. He buried his eyes by turning his head into the seat, until the explosions were over. When he looked again, the black ships were massed solidly behind them, and there were only three of the twenty Wing ships still operating.
The black ships darted forward in a solid wall, then halted. But all the fools in Griffith’s command had already been killed off. There was no one left to go in for bravado or useless attack on the aliens. The three ships that were left of the Navy forces were all heading homeward at their top acceleration, spreading apart as they went.
The black ships re-formed into another flying wedge and began to fade back toward Planet X.
Bob’s father picked up his microphone as he cut the acceleration back to a bearable level.
“All ships report,” he ordered wearily.
“Carter of the Mimas Arrow, here.”
“Wolff of the Achilles Arrow, here.”
“Form up behind me,” Griffith ordered them. “And prepare your reports. Radio silence until we reach Outpost. We can’t let this leak out.”
He cut the connection. His face was worn and old and there was no life in his eyes.
Bob knew how he felt. His own mind was a turmoil of disbelief, fright, misery, and complete hopelessness. They had gone out to try to prevent a war. And now they were going back, completely defeated, to report that the war had already come as a result of their mission.
A war they obviously could never win!
CHAPTER 8
Preparation for War
THOUGH NOTHING HAPPENED, the trip back was a nightmare. They didn’t bother with rest periods, and there was no conversation in the control cabin. Nobody had the heart to talk. Bob could imagine himself a primitive bushman who had dared make war on a modern world; now he was crawling back to his hut to lick his wounds— not daring to think and not knowing what had hit him.
It grew worse during the next few hours, as the numbness wore off and he began to think and feel the few moments of that horrible battle all over again. Then they had been simply ships exploding; but now came realization that men he had met all his life were simply dust among the stars, gone forever.
There was no consolation in knowing they had also destroyed more of the black ships than they had lost. That had happened only because they had struck when the other ships were unready. And it could never happen again.
Even the original question was unanswered. He didn’t know whether the forces of Planet X
would have attacked or not; perhaps their trick of turning the fleet had been an attack, and perhaps it had
