The astrogator turned with an apologetic shake of his head. “Sorry, sir. He’s on to us. He slowed as we did. He’s right behind us, and I can’t give you enough speed to ditch him. I’m…sorry, sir.”
Death. He could taste it. He could see in the faces of his crew that they, too, knew. Again, he fought the pain inside his head for a strategy, any strategy, that might spare the ship. But that, too, was a losing battle.
Wearily he looked around at the somber, set faces of the bridge crew. He sighed wearily. “If we die,” he said, “we do it like men. Any argument?”
The officers and crewmen shook their heads wordlessly.
He nodded. “Turn the ship, astrogator,” he said quietly.
“Course, sir?”
“Straight down the Rojok’s throat,” he replied, “with every ounce of speed you can manage.”
“Yes, sir.” The astrogator’s fingers whipped the controls into position. “Ready, sir.”
Stern fixed his eyes on the screen, at the oval Rojok ship hanging there in space like a fish waiting for a worm. His heart was climbing into his throat, and he felt a fear he hadn’t known existed. Familiar, this feeling. As if he’d been through that narrow door once before and dreaded repetition of it. The fear simulated panic, and he had to fight the urge to get up and run.
The pain, the searing pain in his mind, grew steadily. Something alien in his brain was fighting this decision. Trying with pain to force him to countermand his own commands.
His hands gripped the arms of his chair. He remembered Madeline and Hahnson down below and tried not to think about them. He straightened with a tremendous effort. Dignity first. It was the credo of the SSC. Even in death, he had to have the dignity of his command.
Almost blind with pain, he drew in a heavy sigh. “Astrogator,” he said in a gruff whisper. “Ahead full!”
The astrogator turned and met his eyes with a somber, resigned ghost of a smile. In it were admiration and honor. “Aye, sir.”
The flagship Morcai sliced through the stars like a giant metallic blade, her massive engines making far less noise than her first officer. Komak’s usual high spirits did as much for the weary bridge crew as the promise of shore leave. Only the Morcai’s stoic commander seemed to be unaffected by it.
Dtimun, sitting in his spoollike command chair, listened only halfheartedly. His mind was a galaxy away, on Enmehkmehk, home planet of the Rojok Dynasty. It was there that Chacon would surely take his captive—to Ahkmau, the infamous death camp on one of its moons where political prisoners were kept. The thought of Lyceria in such a place was torture, even to a career soldier’s trained mind.
“ETA Trimerius?” he asked the helmsman.
“Two mekkam, Commander,” was the reply.
Komak joined the older Centaurian, and the laughing green light left his eyes. They grew blue with concern. “Your eyes speak for you,” he told Dtimun, careful lest the others hear him. “I regret Lyceria’s capture. I know that the commander’s heart was soft for her.”
“My heart is soft for no one.” Dtimun’s darkened eyes belied the words. His gaze went to the main viewscreen. “Maliche, I could make more speed in a crippled scout! Are your gravs malfunctioning, helmsman?”
The pilot glanced at him. “I have not fired them, Commander,” he said, and his eyes went to Komak.
“I assumed,” Komak told the commander, “that you would wish a lesser speed to keep the Earth ship under surveillance. Should it encounter a Rojok patrol, its defense systems would render it incapable of a counterattack. Human ship designers make no allowance for stabilizing BEK gyros and reflectors such as ours.”
Dtimun glared at the younger Centaurian. “I will not play parent to an inferior shipload of aliens. I have no more love for humans than does the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo, or his field marshal, Chacon.”
“Were it our race that Mangus Lo persecuted in his death camps,” Komak said quietly, “instead of the humans, I think your sympathies might find more interest in them.”
“By Simalichar, you try my patience!” Dtimun stood up. His chameleon eyes faded from a concerned blue to a questioning gray. “What merit can there be in a race whose entire history is preoccupied with pride in cruelty and contempt for life?”
Komak’s eyes went green with mischief. “I had not known that the commander’s library included textdiscs on human history.”
Dtimun ignored him.
Komak studied the older alien with respectful eyes. In a society where Clan was life itself, the commander wore no Clan insignia and claimed no allegiances. He was as mysterious as he was feared and respected by his men. In his years of commanding the Holconcom, no challenge to his authority had ever been given. Not even by the emperor, whom Dtimun treated with utter disdain. His ongoing feud with old Tnurat Alamantimichar, head of the Dectat, was legendary in the space services. No one knew what had started it. No one dared ask. But Komak knew things about him that the other crewmen didn’t. Dtimun was aware that Komak’s odd outbursts of insight had a basis in fact. It had been disconcerting when he realized that Komak knew more about him than he’d anticipated. As he thought about it, Dtimun glared at Komak.
“Commander,” the comtech called out, “the Earth ship has disengaged her lightsteds and is slowing to a crawl. I show two Rojok destroyers trailing her.”
Dtimun turned his angry eyes from Komak to the viewscreen at his semicircle console. The Rojoks were already firing when he engaged the video. The Earth ship hung as if dead in space, offering no resistance as salvo after salvo connected with her hull and sent her reeling to and fro. Then, with the suddenness of a cosmic storm, she turned slowly and began to pick up speed as she began a run that would take her on a collision course with the lead Rojok vessel.
“Is that black-eyed captain of theirs a madman?” Dtimun growled. “What use can this strategy serve? Komak, check the energy scanner.”
Komak’s hands flew over the scanner switches on the command console. “His weaponry is useless,” he reported. “His fuel output reads less than one-quarter capacity and his repulsers are almost gone. I estimate two more hits will finish him.”
Dtimun watched the sleek starship bear down on the Rojok, so quickly that the enemy ship couldn’t possibly get out of the way in time. “I understand his motive,” he said. “A laudable last resort, but a hollow victory. Helmsman, hard about and prime main batteries!”
“Aye, sir.”
Dtimun dropped into the command chair with his long fingers barely touching the master weaponry control panel. It was going to require precision timing, this maneuver. If he fired too soon, the second Rojok vessel would have time to destroy the Earth ship. If he fired too late, the spray pattern would destroy both ships.
The Morcai began to bear down on the Rojoks like a flash of light, and the stars around her seemed to be speeding in the opposite direction in her wake.
“I register a scan,” Komak said quickly. “The Rojok has spotted us.”
Dtimun’s fingers tensed on the firing switch. “If he changes course,” he said tightly, “I may cost the human his ship. Helmsman, take me in on a deflect pattern, close range. Time will allow me only one shot. I want the best I can manage.”
“Yes, Commander. Leaving over now on deflect course. Engines ahead, full-drive.”
Dtimun focused his huge eyes on the screen. His long fingers curled around the firing switch. Out in space, the Rojok grew like a suddenly inflated balloon, filling the viewscreen.
Holt Stern sat quietly in his chair, watching the Rojok flash toward the Bellatrix, with a deceptive