“Stand by,” he said, and then we hit threespace, just as the enormous cone of the Rebel Line flicked into sight. The enemy line had taken the field, and under the comparatively slow speeds of threespace was rushing forward to meet our Line which had emerged a few minutes ago. Our launchers flamed as we sent a salvo of torpedoes whistling toward the Rebel fleet marking perhaps the opening shots of the main battle. We twisted back into Cth as one of the scanner men doubled over with agony, heaving his guts out into a disposal cone. I felt sorry for him. The tension, the racking agony of our motion, and the fact that he was probably in his first major battle had all combined to take him for the count. He grinned greenly at me and turned back to his dials and instruments. Good man!
“Target—range one eight zero four. Azimuth two four oh, elevation one oh seven,” the rangefinder reported. “Mass four.” Mass four:—a cruiser.
“Stand by,” Chase said. “All turrets prepare to fire.” And he took us down. We slammed into threespace and our turrets flamed. To our left rear and above hung the mass of an enemy cruiser, her screens glowing on standby as she drove forward to her place in the line. We had caught her by surprise, a thousand to one shot, and our torpedoes were on their way before her detectors spotted us. We didn’t stay to see what happened, but the probe showed an enormous fireball which blazed briefly in the blackness, shooting out globs of scintillating molten metal that cooled and disappeared as we watched.
“Scratch one cruiser,” someone in fire control yelped.
The effect on morale was electric. In that instant all doubts of Chase’s ability disappeared. All except mine. One lucky shot isn’t a battle, and I guess Chase figured the same way because his hands were shaking as he jockeyed us along on the edge of Cth. He looked like he wanted to vomit.
“Take it easy, skipper,” I said.
“Mind your own business, Marsden—and I’ll mind mine,” Chase snapped. “Stand by,” he ordered, and we dove into threespace again—loosed another salvo at another Reb, and flicked out of sight. And that was the way it went for hour after hour until we pulled out, our last torpedo fired and the crew on the ragged edge of exhaustion. Somehow, by some miracle compounded of luck and good pilotage, we were unmarked. And Chase, despite his twitching face and shaking hands, was one hell of a combat skipper! I didn’t wonder about him any more. He had the guts all right. But it was a different sort of courage from the icy contempt for danger that marked Andy Royce. Even so, I couldn’t help thinking that I was glad to be riding with Chase. We drove to the rear, heading for the supply train, our ammunition expended, while behind us the battle-wagons and cruisers were hammering each other to metal pulp.
In the quiet of the rear area it was hardly believable that a major battle was going on ahead of us. We raised the Amphitrite, identified ourselves, and put in a request for supply.
“Lay aboard,” Amphitrite signaled back. “How’s the war going?”
“Don’t know. We’ve been too busy,” our signalman replied.
“I’ll bet—you’re Lachesis aren’t you?”
“Affirmative.”
“How’d you lose your ammo? Jettison it?”
“Stow that, you unprintable obscenity,” Haskins replied. “We’re a fighting ship.”
Amphitrite chuckled nastily. “That I’ll believe when I see it!”
“Communications,” Chase snapped. “This isn’t a social call. Get our heading and approach instructions.” He sounded as schoolmasterish as ever, but there was a sickly smile on his face, and the gray-green look was gone.
“Morale seems a little better, doesn’t it, Marsden?” he said to me as the Amphitrite flicked out into threespace and we followed.
I nodded. “Yes, sir,” I agreed. “Quite a little.”
Our cargo hatches snapped open and we cuddled up against Amphitrite’s bulging belly while our crew and the supply echelon worked like demons to transfer ammunition. We had fifty torpedoes aboard when the IFF detector shrilled alarm.
Three hundred feet above us the Amphitrite’s main battery let loose a salvo at three Rebel scouts that had flickered into being less than fifty miles away. Their launchers flared with a glow that lighted the blackness of space.
“Stand by!” Chase yelled as he threw the converter on.
“Hatches!” I screamed as we shimmered and vanished.
Somehow we got most of them closed, losing only the crew on number two port turret which was still buttoning up as we slipped over into the infra band. I ordered the turret sealed. Cth had already ruined the unshielded sighting mechanisms and I had already seen what happened to men caught in Cth unprotected. I had no desire to see it again—or let our crew see it if it could be avoided. A human body turned inside out isn’t the most wholesome of sights.
“How did they get through?” Chase muttered as we put out our probe.
“I don’t know—maybe someone wasn’t looking.”
“What’s it like down there?” Chase asked. “See anything?”
“Amphitrite‘s still there,” I said.
“She’s what?”
“Still there,” I repeated. “And she’s in trouble.”
“She’s big. She can take it—but—”
“Here, you look,” I said, flipping the probe switch.
“My God!” Chase muttered—as he took one look at the supply ship lying dead in space, her protective batteries flaming. She had gotten one of the Rebel scouts but the other two had her bracketed and were pouring fire against her dim screens.
“She can’t keep this up,” I said. “She’s been hulled—and it looks like her power’s taken it.”
“Action imminent,” Chase ordered, and the rangefinder took up his chant.
We came storming out of Cth right on top of one of the Rebel scouts. A violent shock raced through the ship, slamming me against my web. The rebound sent us a good two miles away before our starboard battery flamed. The enemy scout, disabled by the shock, stunned and unable to maneuver took the entire salvo amidships and disappeared in a puff of flame.
The second Rebel disappeared and we did too. She was back in Cth looking for a better chance at the Amphitrite. The big ship was wallowing like a wounded whale, half of one section torn away, her armor dented, and her tubes firing erratically.
We took one long look and jumped back into Cth. But not before Haskins beamed a message to the supply ship. “Now you’ve seen it, you damned storekeeper,” he gloated. “What do you think?” Amphitrite didn’t answer.
“Probe out,” Chase ordered, neglecting, I noticed, to comment on the signalman’s act.
I pushed the proper buttons but nothing happened. I pushed again and then turned on the scanners. The one aft of the probe was half covered with a twisted mass of metal tubing that had once been our probe. We must have smashed it when we rammed. Quickly I shifted to the auxiliary probe, but the crumpled mass had jammed the hatch. It wouldn’t open.
“No probes, sir,” I announced.
“Damn,” Chase said. “Well, we’ll have to do without them. Hold tight, we’re going down.”
We flicked into threespace just in time to see a volcano of fire erupt from Amphitrite’s side and the metallic flick of the Rebel scout slipping back into Cth.