Chapter 10
The Mekinese did not display a sporting spirit. There were four heavy cruisers and eleven lighter ships of the Horus's size and armament. According to current theories of space-battle tactics, two of the light cruisers should have disposed of the Horus with ease and dispatch. It might have seemed sportsmanlike and certainly sufficient to give the Horus only two antagonists at a time, which would have been calculated to provide odds of six hundred to one against it. Two light cruisers would have fired eighteen missiles apiece per salvo, which would have demanded thirty-six missiles from the Horus to meet and destroy them. She couldn't put thirty-six missiles into space at one firing. She would have disappeared in atomic flame at the first exchange of fire. But the Mekinese were not so generous. They came up in full force loaded for bear. They obviously intended not a fight but an execution. Mekinese tactics depended heavily on fire-power of such superiority that any enemy was simply overwhelmed.
Their maneuvering proved that they intended to follow standard operation procedure. Light ships reached space and delayed until all were aloft. They formed themselves into a precise half-globe and plunged at top solar-system drive toward the Horus. This was strictly according to the book. If the Horus chose, of course, she could refuse battle by fleeing into overdrive—which would be expected to be the regulation many-times-faster-than-light variety. If she dared fight, the fifteen ships drove on. Mekinese ships never struck lightly. The fifteen of them could launch four hundred missiles per salvo. No single ship could counter such an attack. But even Mekinese would not use such stupendous numbers of missiles against one ship unless that ship was famous; unless rumors and reports said that it was invincible and dangerous and the hope of oppressed peoples under Mekin.
The Horus received very special attention.
Then she vanished. At one instant she was in full career toward the fleet of enemies. The next instant she had wrapped an overdrive field about herself and then no radar could detect her, nor could any missile penetrate her protection.
When she vanished, the speck which indicated her position disappeared from the Mekinese radar-screens. The hundredth of a second in overdrive as known to the Mekinese should have put her hundreds of millions of miles away. But something new had been added to the Horus. The hundredth of a second did not mean millions of miles of journeying. It meant something under three thousand, and a much more precise interval of time could be measured and used by her micro-timer.
Therefore, at one instant the Horus was some two thousand miles from the lip of the half-globe of enemy ships. Then she was not anywhere. Then, before the mind could grasp the fact of her vanishing, she was in the very center, the exact focus of the formation of Mekinese battle-craft. She was at the spot a Mekinese commander would most devoutly wish, because it was equidistant from all his ships, and all their missiles should arrive at the same instant when their overwhelming number could not conceivably be parried.
But it was more than an ideal position from a Mekinese standpoint. It was also a point which was ideal for the Horus, because all her missiles would arrive at the encircling ships at the same instant. Each Mekinese would separately learn—without information from any other—that those projectiles could not be intercepted. No Mekinese would have the advantage of watching the tactic practiced on a companion-ship, to guide his own actions.
The Horus appeared at that utterly vulnerable and wholly advantageous position. She showed on the Mekinese screens. They launched missiles. The Horus launched missiles.
The Horus disappeared.