The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
Publisher: Winston
Published: 1958-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

On the table beside the bunk was a tangled pile of tapes, reports from the scoutships. From time to time an orderly would appear in the doorway with more.

"No doubt about it now," Marsh said. "They know there's a big Terran force in their back yard, and they're organizing a fleet to crush us."

"More than one fleet," Jeff said.

With characteristic impatience, Terry burst, "Well, what are we gonna do about it? Do we fight or run?"

"Which would you prefer?" Jeff grinned.

Terry opened his mouth to answer, shut it, thought a minute, then said merely, "Depends."

Jeff laughed. "Right, old hothead. We know there's a lot of movement going on in several enemy bases . . . but we don't know enough to act on yet."

Slowly the information accumulated, and it all, looked bad. As the reports came in from scoutships several of which never returned to the fleet - they were processed through the data computers, which built up a picture of enemy moves, probable intentions, and the probabilities of success for various possible Terran countermoves.

Briefly, the picture was this:

The Terran Force was sailing toward Epsilon Orionis, the second of the "belt" stars, which harbored a big enemy base. Within two days we would be there, ready to attack. According to our scouts, the Epsilon base was manned, not by Saurians, but by the humanoids who had participated in the final battle for Scandia.

When Terry heard this, he was all for hitting the base as soon as possible, regardless of the cost.

But the scouts had also reported a huge enemy fleet heading for Epsilon from the opposite direction, from Rigel. And a smaller enemy force had already left Delta Orionis, the third of the three "belt" stars, and taken up a position off the flank of the Epsilon system.

"They're building a trap," Marsh said, "and those humanoids are the bait."

But the information that electrified us was that an even bigger enemy fleet was following us - about a week's flight behind.

"There's nothing behind us but blasted enemy bases," Jeff told us, "and the Confederation. This third enemy fleet must be their invasion fleet!"

Jeff had accomplished what he had set out to do: the fleet that had been attacking Terran star systems was now outside the Confederation, hunting for the expeditionary force!

Commander Daguerre shook his head as he looked over the computer's estimates of the enemy's strength. "Too many," he said. "We can't face them all at once . . . there are just too many of them."

Jeff said nothing. He stayed in his cabin almost the entire day before we were scheduled to reach the Epsilon system. Outside, on the bridge, the communications ticker chugged out fresh report tapes, and the computers digested and analyzed them; men went through their duties automatically; you could feel the tension building up all through the ship.

In subspace, flying faster than light, it was impossible to communicate with the whole fleet at once; orders had to be relayed from ship to ship. We were scheduled

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