"Bors!" panted Morgan's voice. "There were three ships of our fleet hanging about, on watch for Mekinese. They expected one. Twelve came. The observation-ships attacked. They got eleven of the twelve. The last one went into overdrive and got away! Bors! Do you see what that means?"
"It means," said Bors coldly, "that Mekin won't be accepting surrenders this week. Destroying the first division was bad enough. I got one off Meriden. Now that a third squadron's wiped out, Mekin will insist on somebody getting punished—and plenty! All right! We're leaving for Kandar now."
He nodded to the young man at the control board. He noted with approval that he'd kept the Liberty's aim exact while Bors talked to Morgan.
"Proceed," Bors ordered.
The young man said, "Five, four, three, two, one—"
There was the familiar dizzying sensation of going into overdrive. The Liberty wrapped stressed space about itself and went hurtling into invisibility.
This was one voyage in overdrive which was not tedious. Bors had to organize the ship for combat. He had to train launching-crews to work like high-speed machinery. He had to teach the setting of missiles for ranges he had to show how to measure. Once he stopped the ship between stars and all the launching-crews took shots at an inflated metal-foil target. The Pretender of Tralee displayed an unexpected gift for organization. He divided all space outside the ship into sectors, assigning one launcher to each sector. If an order to fire came, the separate crews would cover targets in their own areas first. There would be no waste of missiles on one target.
The Pretender would have made an excellent officer. He was patient with those who did not understand immediately. He had dignity that was not arrogance. In five days the Liberty was a fighting ship and a dedicated one. There were rough edges, of course. Man for man and weapon for weapon the ship would not compare with a longer-trained and more experienced fighting instrument. But the morale on board was superb and the weapons were—to put it mildly—inspiring of hope.
The Liberty broke out of overdrive and the sun of Kandar shone fiery yellow in emptiness. The gas-giant planet had moved in its orbit. It was more evenly in line than before with a direct arrival-path for a fleet from Mekin. Bors was worn out from his unremitting efforts to turn the ship into a smooth-running unit. He looked at a ship's clock.
"The Mekinese," he said over the all-speaker circuit, "will break out in two hours, forty minutes. And we're going to set up a dummy fleet for them to deal with."