In that position neither the forward nor stern blasters of the battleship could touch it. There remained only to convince the commander of the battleship that further resistance was futile.
This he did with a simple ultimatum to the commander:
"This cruiser is firmly attached to your ship, its acceleration limitator disconnected. Its drives are of sufficient power to thrust both ships forward at a much higher degree of acceleration than persons from one-gravity worlds can endure. You will surrender at once or we shall be forced to put these two ships into a curve of such short radius and at an acceleration so great that all of you will be killed."
Then he added, "If you surrender we'll do somewhat [p. 155] better by you than you did with the humans two hundred years ago—we'll take all of you on to Athena."
The commander, already sick from an acceleration that would have been negligible to Ragnarok men, had no choice.
His reply came, choked with acceleration sickness and the greater sickness of defeat:
"We will surrender."
Narth regained consciousness. He saw Humbolt sitting beside him as before, with no Gern rescuers crowding into the control room with shouted commands and drawn blasters.
"Where are they?" he asked. "Where is the battleship?"