The Star Fox

Heim didn’t know if his cry had been transmitted through his helmet jack to the others. Likely not. Circuits were ripped asunder. The fusion reaction in the power generator had guttered out. Darkness, weightlessness, airlessness flowed through the ship. It didn’t matter. His men knew what to do. He undid his harness by feel and groped aft to the gun turret he had chosen for himself.

Most of the Aleriona crew must be dead. Some might survive, in spacesuits or sealed compartments. If they could find a gun still workable and bring it to bear, they’d shoot. Otherwise they’d try for hand-to-hand combat. Untrained for space, the New Europeans couldn’t withstand that. The controls of Heim’s laser had their own built-in illumination. Wheels, levers, indicators glowed like watch-fires. He peered along the barrel, out the cracked glasite, past wreckage where shadows slid weirdly as the system rotated; he suppressed the slight nausea due Coriolis force, forgot the frosty glory of constellations, and looked for his enemy.

It came to him, a flicker across tautness, that he had brought yet another tactic to space warfare: ramming. But that wasn’t new. It went back ages, to when men first adventured past sight of land. Olaf Tryggvason, on the blood-reddened deck of the Long Serpent.

No. To hell with that. His business was here and now: to stay alive till Fox picked him up. Which wouldn’t be for along time.

A weapon spat. He saw only the reflection of its beam off steel, and squinted till the dazzle passed. One for our side. I hope. A heavy vibration passed through the hull and his body. An explosion? He wasn’t sure. The Aleriona might be wild enough to annihilate him, along with themselves, by touching off a nuclear warhead. The chances were against it, since they’d need tools that would be hard to find in that mass out yonder. But—Well, war was mostly waiting.

A spacesuited figure crawled over a girder. The silhouette was black and unhuman against the stars, save where sunlight made a halo on the helmet. One survivor, at least, bravely striving to—Heim got him in the sights and fired. Vapor rushed from the pierced body. It drifted off into space. “I hated to do that,” Heim muttered to the dead one. “But you could have been carrying something nasty, you know.”

His shot had given him away. A beam probed at his turret. He crouched behind the shield. Intolerable brightness gnawed centimeters away from him. Then more bolts struck. The enemy laser winked out “Good man!” Heim gasped. “Whoever you are!”

The fight did not last long. No doubt the Aleriona, if any were left, had decided to hole up and see what happened. But it was necessary to remain on guard.

In the dreamlike state of free-fall, muscles did not protest confinement, Heim let his thoughts drift where they would. Earth, Lisa, Jocelyn … New Europe, Danielle … there really wasn’t much, in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.

Hours passed.

It was anticlimax when Fox’s lean shape closed in. Not that Heim didn’t cheer—so she had won!—but rendezvous was tricky; and then he had to make his way through darkness and ruin until he found an exit; and then signal with his helmet radio to bring a tender into safe jumping distance; and then come aboard and get a shot to counteract the effects of the radiation he had taken while unscreened in space; and then transfer to the cruiser—

The shouts and backslappings, bear hugs and bear dances, seemed unreal in his weariness. Not even his victory felt important He was mainly pleased that a good dozen Aleriona were alive and had surrendered. “You took Inisant?” he asked Penoyer.

“Oh, my, yes. Wizard cum spiff! One pass, and she was a cloud of isotopes. What next sir?”

“Well—” Heim rubbed sandy eyes. “Your barrage will have been detected from New Europe. Now when Inisant is overdue, the enemy must realize who lost. He may have guessed you went after Savaidh next, and be attempting an interception. But it’s most likely that he’s stayed pretty close to base. Even if he hasn’t, he’ll surely come back there. Do you think we can beat Jubalcho?”

Penoyer scowled. “That’s a pitchup, sir. According to available data, she has more teeth, though we’ve more acceleration. I’ve computed several tactical patterns which give us about an even chance. But should we risk it?”

“I think so,” Heim said. “If we get smeared, well, let’s admit that our side won’t have lost much. On the other hand, if we win we’ve got New Europe.”

“Sir?”