15: An Armageddon of Universes
As Jhul din's cry rang out I stood for an instant quite still, my eyes fixed on the chart upon which that great, out-rushing swarm was drawing nearer to our own each moment. It was the vast fleet we had seen building in the dying universe, I knew, that had carried all their hordes across the void to our galaxy, to the Cancer cluster, and that they were flinging out now to meet and halt us here in outer space while in that cluster they labored to complete their giant cone of death. Before ever we could attack the cluster, now, we must come to death-grips with the titanic fleet rushing out toward us, a fleet that in size and power was at least as great as our own, and for that instant hope sank within me. Then, as the two fleets rushed ever closer, my doubts dissolved into a fierce determination.
"They've come out for battle," I cried, "and battle we'll give them. A battle this time to the end."
At the same moment I turned swiftly toward the bank of keys before me. On the space-chart I saw that the serpent-fleet was driving toward us in a long, rectangular formation, our own fleet racing in its pyramid-formation to meet it. Both tremendous armadas were moving at their utmost speeds, toward each other, but as I pressed a key that slackened the speed of our own fleet I saw the other slowing also. Then, in swift succession, I touched other keys, and out from the great mass of our fleet behind me sprang two thousand of our swiftest ships, driving out from our fleet in a great fringe, ahead of us and to each side and above and below; and in a few moments more there leapt from the approaching serpent-armada a similar line of scouts.
Tensely I gazed out into the void as our two fleets neared each other, the scouts of each driving far ahead and to the sides, while steadily our own speed was slowing as I touched one after another of the keys before me. On the space-chart I could see the foremost scout-ships of each fleet almost meeting, now, but even in that moment of suspense the strangeness of my position and of all about me struck home to me-the tremendous gloom of space about us, the blazing suns of our galaxy stretched across the firmament ahead, the Cancer cluster a brilliant ball of close-massed suns among them, the two tremendous fleets that were rushing through the void toward each other. With every moment the speed of the oncoming serpent-fleet was slackening, though, and smoothly that of our own was lessening as my fingers moved upon the bank of keys before me that held the control of all our hundred thousand ships. Surely never in any struggle in all time had any commander directed thus, with swift-changing finger-touches, such a colossal force as moved now behind my flag-ship, responding swiftly to every touch upon the keys before me. As I stood alone there in the little pilot room, save for Jhul Din at the controls, the tremendous responsibility that was mine seemed weighing down upon me tangibly, crushing me, but I gripped myself, peered tensely ahead.
Smoothly still our great fleet shot through the void of darkness, and then upon the space-chart I saw our most advanced scout-ships creeping toward the advancing serpent-scouts and meeting them, touching them. At the same moment, in the darkness far ahead, there glowed out here and there long, pale shafts of misty white light, appearing and disappearing, hardly to be seen against the flaring suns of the galaxy beyond. All along a broad, thin line ahead those little beams of pale light were showing, like ghostly, questing fingers of death, and as they glowed and vanished there far ahead, soundlessly, the big Spican beside me twitched with eagerness.
"The scouts," he exclaimed. "They've met-they're fighting."
I nodded, without speaking, straining my gaze into the void ahead, where our scouting-ships and those of the serpent-fleet were, I knew, already whirling and stabbing at each other, while in toward them were moving the main masses of the two vast armadas. Hardly more than an inch's gap lay between those two fleets on the space-chart, now, and as I gazed ahead I saw the fighting scout-ships coming into view before us, a long, thin line of battle extending across the void before us and made up of gleaming oval serpent-craft and flat Andromedan ships, dipping and striking and soaring there before us. Fiercely those advance-ships of the two mighty fleets were grappling there, scores of them reeling aimlessly away as the pale beams swept them or crumpling suddenly up as the invisible but deadly force-shafts struck them. But I was looking beyond them, now, looking beyond them to where, between them and the galaxy's suns, a gigantic, far-flung swarm of shining light-points was rushing toward us.
"The serpent-fleet," I whispered.
On it was coming toward us, even as we moved toward it, the long line of struggling, raging scout-ships between our advancing fleets. Swiftly it was changing from a swarm of innumerable light-points to a swarm of vaguely glimpsed shapes that grew larger, clearer, with every moment that they neared us, thousands upon tens of thousands of great oval ships, flashing toward us in a mighty rectangle. Toward it our own vast pyramid of ships was rushing in turn, and then the struggling scouts ahead had flashed back to rejoin their respective fleets, and with only empty space between them now the two titanic armadas were thundering toward each Other. The Armageddon of our universes had begun.
Swiftly, as our vast fleet leapt forward through the void, my fingers were pressing the keys before me, and instantly our massed thousands of ships had shifted from their pyramidal formation into one of two long and mighty columns, racing forward side by side. Nearer the colossal rectangle of the serpent-fleet was rushing toward us-nearer with each instant, until it seemed that the two vast armadas must crash into each other and destroy each other. Bending tensely over my keys I saw their huge fleet looming before us, an enormous, close-massed swarm of great oval hulls rushing lightning-like toward us. Then, just before they reached us, I pressed a single key.
Instantly our two great racing columns of ships divided, one to the right, our own ship at its head, and one to the left, splitting from each other and flashing past the great mass of the serpent-fleet on each side! And as we thus flashed past there leapt from the cylinders of our ships toward the serpent-fleet between our columns countless deadly shafts of invisible force, shafts that in the instant that we flashed past had crumpled and smashed to twisted wrecks of metal a full three thousand or more of the great mass of the serpent-ships! From their fleet's edge the pale beams sprang out in answer to us, wiping the life from scores of our racing ships; but caught as they thus were between our flashing columns they could not loose those beams effectively, and in a moment we were past them. Then with the galaxy's suns before us our great fleet was halting, turning, its columns closing again together, while toward those distant suns were drifting all about us the crumpled wrecks of the serpent-ships that had fallen before us.
"First blood!" cried Jhul Din, and I nodded without speaking, bending again over my keys as our fleet raced forward again toward the enemy.
The serpent-fleet, too, had turned, and was moving cautiously back toward us, and I knew that not again could we execute upon them the maneuver which we had just used. As we rushed again upon them, though, their fleet racing again to meet us, my fingers pressed swiftly again on the keys and our long columns of ships shifted swiftly into another formation, a long wedge with our own flag-ship at its point. Just before we again raced into the serpent-ships our fleet assumed this formation, for it was my plan this time to tear by main force through the serpent-fleet, shattering it before us. But in the instant before we could do so, before our mighty wedge's point could crash into them, their own fleet had divided suddenly, some fifteen hundred ships from its center driving upward and far above us while the remaining gigantic mass drove down under and beneath us. And in the next moment I saw that five hundred of the fifteen hundred ships above were great disk-ships, and that they were glowing with sudden, flickering radiance.