Гарри Гаррисон - To The Stars

Not a window broke the grim facade. The headquarters of Security in Britain, and now possibly the whole world. A prime target. If the calculations were correct the launching charge should be just enough to put the thing onto the roof of the first setback on the front of the building, Only one way to find out. Fryer put the gun to his shoulder, aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger.

The gun cracked and the butt smacked him hard in the shoulder. He saw the black speck arc up and over the edge. Perfect. Another grenade dropped down the barrel and when he fired this time he saw white smoke beginning to billow up from the roof of the setback.

“Well done, me old son,” he said cheerfully, then put round after round as close to the same place as he could. The thermite in the grenades would burn through anything, that’s what the boffin had said. He was absolutely correct.

Alarms were going now and armed men were beginning to appear in the street below. Fryer drew back from the window so they couldn’t see him, then lay prone on the floor and continued to fire from that position.

The next time he pulled the trigger there was only an angry hiss from the gun.

“Bloody hell!” he muttered savagely as he rolled over and inverted the gun to bang the muzzle on the floor. The misfired grenade slid out and dropped free, smoking and sputtering. He clutched at it, grabbed it up cursing at his burnt hand, then threw it through the window. There was an explosion just below followed by screams of pain.

Serve the bastards right, he thought, getting too close. He scrambled to the door, ignoring the pain in his hand, and fired the next one down the stairwell. There were more shouts and a spray of bullets that passed over his head. That would keep them busy for a bit.

There were only two grenades left when they broke the door down. He fired one of them at the attacking men and was reaching for the very last grenade when the bullets tore through him. He died quickly, lying on his back under the window, looking up at the clouds of smoke blowing by outside.

Admiral Comrade Kapustin felt very secure, very secure indeed. He whistled lightly through his teeth while he pulled his high leather boots on, then stood and smoothed down his tunic before the mirror, pulling at it so it bloused out nicely above the wide leather belt. The rows of medals and decorations clinked gently when he strode to the door and threw it open. There was a clatter and a stamp as the marine guard outside drew himself up to attention. The Admiral touched his fingertips idly to the visor of his cap to return the salute as he strode by. The great day was here at last! His heels slammed into the deckplates even more heavily than usual so that his spurs jingled lightly. If anyone saw anything incongruous in boots and spurs in a spaceship, 200,000 miles from the nearest horse, they made no comment. The fate of anyone who dared to even smile in the direction of Admiral Comrade Kapustin was too awful to even consider.

When he entered the War Room the Admiral’s aide, Onyegin, was ready as always. Clicking his heels and bowing slightly as he held out the silver tray. The Admiral downed the little glass of frigid vodka in a single gulp, then took one of the papirossi cigarettes; the aide produced a burning wooden taper to light it.

“Today is the day, Onyegin,” the Admiral said, expelling a cloud of aromatic smoke. “The first space battle in history will be taking place soon, and I shall be the first officer ever to win one. A place in the history books. Any change in their course?”

“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.