To The Stars

“None, Comrade Admiral. You can see for yourself.” He snapped orders at the Tank operator who activated the hologram field to show the course of the approaching enemy fleet. The Admiral stamped over to stand before the glowing display. It occupied a space of almost thirty cubic meters, taking up the entire center of the War Room. The display was of course three dimensional and could be viewed from any side. A group of glowing symbols sprang into view in the Tank, terminating in a dotted white line that ran up and out of sight.

“Their course so far,” Onyegin said, “and the projection into the future.” A second broken line of light, this time red, extended down from the enemy fleet to end at floor level.

“Good,” the Admiral grunted. “Now where will this take them?”

The small blue sphere of the Earth snapped into existence, surrounded by her captive satellites and orbiting Moon. The line of the course passed them all by.

“That is the projection as of this moment, not taking into consideration any future changes,” Onyegin said. “However there are still course alterations possible. Like this.”

The red line fanned out into a number of arcs, each one of them terminating at one of the objects in space. The Admiral grunted again.

“Earth, the Moon, power satellites, colonies, anything. Well that’s why we are here, Onyegin, learn that lesson. We defend Earth. Those criminals must pass us to work their mischief, and that will not be an easy thing to do. And my old friend Skougaard is leading them. What a pleasure! I shall personally execute the traitor when he is captured. Vodka!”

He downed another glassful, then seated himself in his command chair where he had a perfect view of the Tank, the pickup microphone beside his head swiveling automatically to follow his every move.

“The fighting so far has been sordid, just filthy stabs in the back. Bombs and mines and treachery. They have not only been traitors, but cowards as well who have fled our wrath, then sent us packing with missiles from planetary bases. That is all over now. We have had enough time to lick our wounds, to organize and regroup. Now we are on the defensive and they must come out and meet us. What a shock they will get when they do that. Let me see the latest photographs.”

The astronomers on the Earth-orbiting 13-meter optical telescope had protested when ordered to photograph the approaching fleet. Their enormous metal reflecting mirror was designed for completely different purposes, they said. Shielded from the sun, with no atmosphere to dim its vision, it could penetrate the mysteries of the incredibly distant galaxies, examine closely the separate star systems thousands of light years beyond our own. Important research was in progress; this was no military toy to spy out invaders. Their attitude had changed abruptly when a score of Security men had arrived on the next shuttle from Earth. Ways were found to look at the attacking fleet.

The rebel spacers filled the tank now. Fuzzy and gray, but still distinct, stretched out in a long arc.

“The flagship, the Dannebrog,” Admiral Kapustin ordered.

The ship in the center of the attacking line swelled up until it was a meter across, fuzzy and unclear, just its outline distinct enough to see.

“Is this the best you can do?” The Admiral was displeased.

“We have been doing some computer enhancing,” Onyegin said. He did not add that most of the enhancing had been done by letting the computer see a photograph of the flagship. The three dimensional image blurred, changed and cleared. An apparently solid image now floated there.

“Better,” the Admiral condescended. He walked over and stabbed his finger into it. “I have you Skougaard, you and your precious Dannebrog. You shall not escape. Now, let me have a display of our converging courses.”

The image changed again — with the symbols of the enemy fleet at one side of the Tank, the Earth forces on the other. First a broken line sprang across the Tank from the invaders, then one from the defenders. Where the two lines intersected sets of number appeared, one green, one yellow. The last digits flickering and changing constantly. Green represented the distance in kilometers to the intersection from their present position, yellow the time to get there at their present speed. The Admiral studied the figures closely. Still too far.

“Show me ten and ninety.”