"Still," Corinne said.
The big man mused. "All right, the day is young.Let's have another go at it. This time you changeto any tactic you care to use."
"I'm not very imaginative in that way," she said.She smiled, brightened. "And besides, you know me too well, so well you'd be able to figure outwhat I was going to do in advance. Let Pat direct the fleet."
"How about it, future brother-in-law?" the Brenden asked.
Pat had been trying to think up some way oflessening the effectiveness of the disrupters. "Fine,"he said. "I have got a couple of ideas I want to tryout. The situation is that there have been at leasttwo engagements, in which all UP ships were destroyed without loss to...us." He started to say"you," amended it just in time.
"How much time do you need?" the Brendenasked.
"Give us an hour after we withdraw to maximum detection distance," Pat said.
Pat gave his orders to the fleet communicationscontroller. Corinne's ships formed, started awayfrom Dorchlunt's sun.
"How good are your pilots?" Pat asked Corinne.
"Not as quick as you, but well trained. They canfollow orders," she said.
"Get me Brenden," Pat told the communicator,and when he heard the big, rowdy voice, "Brenden,I'm going to give orders to my boys on intershipchannel nine, in the open because we don't want to take the time to set up scramblers. Tell yourships to stay off that channel."
"Right," Brenden said.
"And no cheating," Corinne said, over Pat'sshoulder.
Brenden laughed. "If I cheated that would destroy the effectiveness of the exercise," he said.
Pat went to work, giving orders to the computer operator, and to the control officer. The Brenden'sfleet was just at detection distance, a distance whichcould be measured down to an accuracy of a fewfeet. He had already scouted that area of space, forBrenden had not moved from the site of the former exercise, so it was perfectly safe to blink hisfleet.
It took a while to program all computers oneach individual ship, to set blink coordinates, to brief the pilots and crews on what Pat expected.
On the Brenden's flagship, men were tense, not knowing exactly what to expect. The dictator was pleased, because there was a feeling of real emergency in the air, just as there would have been hadthat fleet out there been UP. He figured he wasgetting a pretty smart brother-in-law, after all,and then suddenly alarms began to clang and theship's shield sizzled with multiple laser hits andthe computers began to sing out warnings of anincoming swarm of missiles from 360 degrees.
Brenden roared with pleasure. Pat had blinkedhis fleet, positioning his ships in a containingsphere, and Brenden's half of the fleet was beingattacked from all directions, the attacking ships so carefully positioned that misses did not strike afriendly ship but sizzled harmlessly through gaps in Pat's formation.
Brenden lost twenty ships before his cool, efficient gunners decimated Pat's fleet, leaving lessthan four hundred ships to blink, after an initialflurry of fire, back to safety. Brenden's fleet washit again, and again, by the waves of simulated missiles which were still registering on his computer screens, and then, with his losses at justunder one hundred ships, he sighed with relief andstarted to get on the communicator to congratulate Pat. He didn't have a chance to speak.
They came back, the survivors, the flagship with Pat and Corinne aboard, in a wild melee of corkscrewing, hot-dog, individual attack, the pilots yelling in delight, experiencing a freedom of actionthey'd never known before, slamming into the midst of the Brenden's ships and taking a toll.
Gorben, at the disrupter aboard Brenden's flagship, also acting as coordinator for the fleet gunners, was giving calm, swift orders as he jerked hisweapon from target to target, taking out ship aftership, knowing that his own ship was disabled by enemy laser fire, but still alive and fighting, andthen there was quiet, all ships in the attackingfleet tagged by the disrupter beams, all their men dead.
"My God, boy," Brenden roared, when he was,once more, back aboard Corinne's flagship, "where'd you get such ideas? You took out almost two hundred of my ships. Some of them can be repaired,but the computer estimates that we lost over ahundred and fifty for good, along with about fifteen hundred men."
"I just put myself in the position of a UP fleetcommander," Pat said, "and wondered what I'ddo if I'd lost a couple of fleets without doing anyreturn damage. They're not stupid, Brenden. They'lladapt."
"Well, thanks to you, we'll be more ready for surprises when the real thing starts," Corinne said.
"Pat," Brenden said, "I hereby appoint you, butonly temporarily, the official enemy. I want you tospend the time between now and day after tomorrow putting yourself in UP shoes. Think up somemore surprises for us."
"I'll do my best," Pat said.
"Well, let's gather up the scattered chicks andhead for home," Brenden said. "Oh, I want you onthe reviewing stand tomorrow with us, Pat." Pat nodded.
"You did well, darling," Corinne said, when theywere alone, back aboard theSkimmer on the padbehind the temple. He had told her that he didn'tthink it was a good idea for him to go to herapartment with her, that he wasn't sure his willpower would be strong enough a second time.
"Coward," she'd said.
"You bet," he had told her.
She was tired. She admitted that the strain ofbeing in command of half the fleet drained her.She told him she was pleased that he'd be in command during the final training exercise. She was,he thought wryly, willing to give him all the battleglory, so long as she had her throne, her worlds,with him beside her.
He walked her to her apartment, kissed her, justonce, and pushed her inside. Then, back on the Skimmer,he searched among the spare parts andtools stored in the mate's cabin until he found asmall hand-held cutting tool. Time was runningout, and the only plan he'd been able to come up with was a far-fetched, hare-brained one which, ifit succeeded, would have some drastic effects thathe didn't even want to think about. He didn't thinkhe'd have to worry about it working, however,because it depended upon his setting the scene properly and then getting a chance to speak privately with Gorben, and if he was lucky with a fewof the other Dorchlunters.
He didn't know exactly how he'd be able tomanage that, but there was a step which had to becompleted before he'd be in a position to talk withGorben and the others anyhow, and if he gotthrough that one alive he'd worry about the restlater.
TWELVE
Pat set a wake-up alarm for three a.m. He'd thoughthe'd have difficulty falling asleep, but he didn'teven finish his drink before his eyes became heavy,and then the soft bell of the wake-up was in hisears and he was dressing.
The temple doors were never locked. He went inthrough the back door and made his way towardthe interior. The corridors were well lit, but allwas quiet. Within five minutes he stood in frontof the golden door to the priests' inner sanctuary,the most secret of places, the sanctuary of the god whose name was so sacred it could not be spoken,except within the confines of the sanctuary itself.
The door had an old-fashioned lock which required a mechanical key. He used a more modernkey, the small cutter he'd brought from theSkimmer,slicing the bolt neatly as he played the cutting beam into the small crack between door andjamb.
The priests had done all right for themselves.The sanctuary was a storehouse of treasures, of artand gold and incongruous mechanical items fromthe old colony ship. What he was looking for stoodon a dais at the far end of the room.
There must have been, he thought, some pretty good artists aboard that old ship, for the statues inthe main entry to the temple were realistic andvery well done, and the statue of the god whosename couldn't be spoken aloud was still morerealistic.
He stood there as if alive, in the gaudy uniformof a Zede admiral of the fleet. His name was engraved in stone on the pedestal on which he stood,Admiral Torga Bluntz.