A savage shudder ran through the great ship as her ground-pointed batteries blasted in unison. Seconds went by and then suddenly the rocky expanse on the shoulder of the mountain directly below twinkled as blinding flashes of actinic light danced across it. Then as Kurt watched, great masses of rock and earth moved slowly skyward from the center of the spurting nests of tangled flame. Still slowly, as if buoyed up by the thin mountain air, the debris began to fall back again until it was lost from sight in quick rising mushrooms of jet-black smoke. Kurt turned and looked back toward Commander Krogson. Batteries must be the things that had torn the mountains below apart. And garrison— there was only one garrison!
“I ordered fleet fire,” barked Krogson. “This ship was the only one that cut loose. What happened?”
“Just a second, sir,” said the executive officer, “I’ll try and find out.” He was busy for a minute on the intercom system. “The other ships were ready, sir,” he reported finally. “Their guns were all switched over to our control, but no impulse came through. Central fire control must be on the blink!” He gestured toward a complex bank of equipment that occupied one entire corner of the control room.
Commander Krogson said a few appropriate words. When he reached the point where he was beginning to repeat himself, he paused and stood in frozen silence for a good thirty seconds.
“Would you mind getting a fire control tech in here to fix that obscenity bank?” he asked in a voice that put everyone’s teeth on edge.
The other seemed to have something to say, but he was having trouble getting it out.
“Well?” said Krogson.
“Prime Base grabbed our last one two weeks ago. There isn’t another left with the fleet.”
“Doesn’t look like much to me,” said Kurt as he strolled over to examine the bank of equipment.
“Get away from there!” roared the commander. “We’ve got enough trouble without you making things worse.”