Chaining the Lady (31 page)

The hostage seemed unperturbed. She wished she could see his face, though she didn't even know what type of host he occupied; it might have no face. “As you prefer. Your ships shall be destroyed without quarter until such time as you yourself yield the remainder of your fleet.”

“Uh, wait,” Melody said. This Andromedan was one tough negotiator. She did not want to condemn all the loyal entities of her fleet to violent extinction. “Will you consider as alternate mode of settlement?”

“Identify it.”

“Single combat of champions.” That was straight out of the legends of Thousandstar. “One ship from each fleet.”

There was a pause. Good. At least Hammer's mind was not a complete calculator. “Melody of Mintaka, your mind intrigues me. However, I must point out that a one-to-one ratio would not reflect the relative strengths of our fleets. I would consider a contest of two of our champions against one of yours.”

“The :: is right,” Melody muttered. “The contest has to reflect the fleets. I suppose that's better than having dozens of ships and thousands of lives destroyed, though. If one of our ships can't take two of theirs, how can thirty three of ours expect to take sixty-six of theirs?”

“Except we're all sunk if our one ship loses,” Yael said. “And if they lose, how do we know they'll honor it? They're playing by the rules only because they're winning.”

“True,” Melody agreed. “They talk of Intergalactic Conventions, but look at the way they took over their ships! Precious little honor in
that
. Any way we look at it, we're in serious trouble.”

“Maybe one at a time,” Yael said.

“That's it!” Aloud, Melody said: “Hammer, suppose we pit one of our ships against two of yours—in turn? If yours wins either match–”

“I personally am inclined to agree,” Hammer said. “I am extremely curious about the merits of individual types of fighting ships, as these are similar to ours of Andromeda. But I am constrained to point out two things: First, I do not believe I have authority to surrender a superior fleet, in the event your single ship has the fortune to prevail twice; my next-in-command might well have me deposed for treason to my galaxy. Second, individual combat does not necessarily reflect group-combat potential; the ship that wins singly might lose in a mass-action. I therefore must qualify this matter. I will send ships singly against yours in a line match, but will not permit my fleet to be bound by the result. The victor of each contest will meet the next ship from the other side. After a ship has won twice, it may retire from the field if it chooses, since limitations of fuel and ammunition prevent indefinite continuation. Each encounter will affect the strength of the fleets, however, and this might lead to renegotiation of terms after several actions. Should the first twenty victories be yours, your position would be considerably strengthened both on the field and in negotiations. But chance still gives us an advantage commensurate with our total force.”

“A remarkably cogent analysis,” Melody agreed. This entity was no dummy, unfortunately. “I shall honor the prior truce until the individual encounters desist.”

Privately she discussed the matter with Skot. “Are you able to select a champion? I don't know how the types of ships rate against each other.”

“
No
one knows how they rate against each other,” Skot replied. “Similar types exist in many segments. When one type demonstrates superiority, refinements are made on the others to counter it. There has been very little inter-sphere conflict in the past few centuries. This would seem to be a unique opportunity to test the merits of design in the field, and the Andromedans are probably just as curious about it as we are. I would guess, however, that the competence of individual captains and crews is the decisive factor.”

“I wonder if a natural captain should do better than a hostage captain.”

He shrugged. “That, too, remains to be tested.”

“Then it's up to my neuter intuition. Let's survey what we have, first.”

The totals were not encouraging. There were six Solarian Swords, including the flagship, in the loyalist fleet, while the hostages had fourteen. Melody had seven Canopian Scepters to the hostages' thirteen. The enemy also had two Wands of Mirzam and two Rods of Bellatrix. She had five Spican Cups to fourteen of the enemy's, buttressed by three Chalices from Antares. There were ten loyalist Polarian Disks, and nine Andromedan, but three of the five Nath Disks were hostage, and both Coins of Sador. She fared best with the Atoms of Knyfh, having three of the four, but both Mintakan Atoms were hostage, a special indignity. No matter what type of ship was deemed best, she had no advantage.

“Let's start with a Scepter,” she decided.

“The Canopians are certainly excellent craftscreatures,” Skot said. “They have inflexible will and responsive crews.

“Because their crews are Slaves, accustomed for millennia to taking orders from insectoid Masters,” Melody said. But she remembered the Drone of the Deuce
of Scepters
, and relented. “We'll send out the
Deuce
.”

She contacted the Drone on the net. “Yes,” he said, as if it were the only possible choice for such a mission.

The Scepter moved out of the fleet cluster, into the vacant space between the two forces. It was a rod with a ball one one end, like a cross between the handle of a Sword and the body of a small Disk. It traveled sidewise, maintaining its orientation to the sun. There was something so graceful, so elegant about that smooth progress that Melody hummed a chord of admiration, as well as the human vocal apparatus permitted. “Now if only it can fight!” she murmured fervently.

From the hostage fleet floated a Cup. It, too, maintained its attitude, the deep indentation toward the sun. it, too, was pretty as it spun. And surely it, too, could fight.

Suddenly her idea about the matching of champions seemed ludicrous. “I have to come up with something better than this!” Melody muttered. “Something. Anything!”

But her eyes remained on the globe. This horrible encounter was so important!

Melody had a general notion of the propulsion and weapons systems of segment spaceships, but that was all. She knew that most ships used mixed chemical and electric or “ion” drive, not atomic. Strict inter-sphere conventions regulated the discharge of contaminants into navigable space, and radioactive substances were inevitably associated with atomics. Even the Atom ships were not atomic, ironically. So these ships were both “clean,” depending on chemical drive for emergency maneuvers, and on electric for steady acceleration.

Several needle scouts and satellite ships were accompanying each champion, but they hardly showed in the globe at this range. No fleet ship operated alone; the skilled use of extensible eyes and expendable defenses was crucial. The scouts zoomed close to the enemy, pinpointing its position and enabling the mother ship to home in its weaponry. A ship without its scouts was virtually blind. The very globe she peered into was a function of the
Ace of Swords'
own satellites. But one tended to forget about the needles and shuttles, and to see the whole thing in terms of the single central ship.

“Skot,” Melody said. “My comprehension is imperfect. Will you stand by me and explain the match?” What she really wanted was the reassurance of his presence; she was afraid she had bargained the loyalist fleet into deeper trouble than before.

“Yes, Admiral,” Skot said. That startled her, but of course, though Llume had turned the ship over to him, Melody herself had assumed command of the entire fleet, so now ranked him.

“I need to understand the capacities and limitations of each type of ship. I don't know whether I can come up with a winning strategy, but ignorance certainly won't get me there.”

He did not comment. She watched the arena. The two ships moved steadily together, but not on a direct course; each followed a kind of curve. “Like two gunslingers walking down the street,” Yael said.

“Why don't they fire?” Melody inquired aloud.

“The range is too great,” Skot explained. “Each employs a form of missile, and accuracy decreases with distance. Also, even an accurate shot from too far out could be avoided or intercepted by a needle. They must come close enough to strike without giving the other ship opportunity to maneuver clear. Wasted shots are trouble; each one represents a sizable investment of material and/or energy.”

“You make it very clear,” Melody said. And inwardly, to Yael: “It
is
like two gunslingers! They need to save their ammunition for when it counts.”

“Space opera,” Yael agreed.

Then, almost simultaneously, the two ships jerked in space, or at least they seemed to shiver in the viewglobe, which probably exaggerated the effect. “They both fired,” Skot said. “But neither will score. They're still five thousand miles apart.”

Melody translated the figure into Mintakan units. “Why, that's the diameter of a small planet!”

Skot smiled. “You get acclimatized to spacial distances. It is close, in terms of space. Normally ships within the fleet are separated by that amount, so they don't get in each other's way. To hit a target one mile thick from that distance requires an accuracy of one part in five thousand, which is about all a physical projectile from a moving ship is good for. Even when the missile travels at a hundred thousand miles per hour, it takes about three minutes to cover the distance. The target ship knows about the shot in a fraction of a second, so–”

“So it has three minutes to dodge,” Melody finished. “Yes, I understand now. Five thousand miles is the fringe of the action range. Why did they fire so early, then?”

“Well, it is very hard to track a missile, and some of them have homing devices. So it is better to destroy the missile in flight, but it takes a lot of concentration. While the target ship is preoccupied with that, the attacking ship is coming closer, improving its chance for the next shot. So the first shot is not really wasted; it may facilitate the effective followup.”

“So they keep coming closer, until one scores on the other.”

“Approximately. The difference in weapons complicates this, though.”

“I thought you said they both fired missiles.”

“The Canopian Scepter uses proximity-explosive missiles, yes; a near-miss can shake the target and perhaps disable it. But the Spican Cup uses water bombs, otherwise known as nebula envelopment. The bomb explodes into a cloud of liquid that surrounds the target ship, cutting off its light-input, fouling its broadcast mechanism, interfering with its control over its satellites, and corroding its hull. A direct hit normally doesn't kill the crew, but it leaves the ship helpless.”

“How clever,” Melody said with a shudder. “The Wand strikes physically, and the Cup pours water. We cannot escape the Tarot relevance.”

“I assumed the Tarot was patterned after the cluster fleet,” Skot said.

Typical ignorance. He knew a tremendous amount about space tactics and armament, and nothing about Tarot.

Now the two ships were quite close together, within a thousand miles. Melody knew that was approaching point-blank range for accuracy, and cut missile-avoidance time to thirty six seconds or less. Was that enough, for a mile-thick ship? One or the other had to go.

The Cup squirted again. Immediately the Scepter used its chemical propulsion to jump aside. “It'll never make it!” Skot cried. “It'll have to maintain five or six gravities to clear its own diameter in that time, and it takes more than that to escape a cloud.”

Melody was too tense to ask for further explanation. She watched as the seconds passed.

There was a puff as the vapor-cloud formed, sooner than she expected. But it was not at the Scepter. “Premature formation!” Skot exclaimed. “What a break; some Cupper will be hung for that.”

Then the Cup exploded. A sudden new cloud developed, as its life-water puffed into vapor in the vacuum of space. The ship was through; none of the Spicans within it could have survived.

“What happened?” Melody demanded. “The Drone didn't even fire!”

“I “see it now,” Skot said, awed. “Very sharp tactics! The Scepter waited for the Cup to fire, then homed one of its needle scouts in on the missile. That set it off early. The Scepter accelerated to conceal its true defense, and to cover the recoil of its own firing. So the Cup didn't catch on, and stood still for a direct missile hit. Beautiful!”

“Yet those are home galaxy entities, the great majority of them nonhostage crew,” Melody said, shuddering again. “All horribly dead of decompression.”

“That's war,” he said. “They knew the risk when they signed on. We face the same risk.”

But the victory was scant comfort to Melody, who was thinking again of Captain Llono and their sudden mating. A whole shipful of unique triple-gendered Spicans, gone!

“There comes the second ship,” Skot said. “A Polarian Disk.”

No time for grief! The victorious Scepter now had to face a fresh enemy. “What's the weapon of the Disk?”

“Polarians think in terms of circularity. All ships must spin at the rate of one revolution every five and a half Solarian minutes in order to maintain gravity at the comfortable level in the officer's section. Slower for the Disks, of course, as they have larger diameters, but the principle's the same. If that spin is changed–”

“All hell breaks loose!” Melody finished. “How ingenious.”

“Circular,” Skot corrected her with a smile.

Melody looked around. The six human-hosted Knyfh officers were at the consoles, looking as competent as ever. She had little idea what they were doing, but she felt reassured. She returned to the globe. “But how can one ship change the spin of another?”

“Several ways. Generally, by anchoring a missile to the hull. A missile on a long line can exert considerable torque. Several can wreak havoc. The gravity changes make things fly about, and the crew gets sick, the instruments malfunction...”