Alan Barclay - The Single Ship

A flicker of flame from the nose of the ship alongside, and for a few moments he was occupied matching speed and changing course. When he had time to look again, the picture had clarified. He saw that each point of light marked the position of a ship. The glow of starlight pouring through the emptyness of space shone dimly on their flanks, while each ship’s bulk made a patch of dark against the curtain of the stars. He pressed the button of the camera, and swept it slowly round the array. The supersensitive film would record this scene better than his eyes could see it.

So this was the answer to the problem of the Jackoes’ origin. They came not from one ship, but from many—from hundreds. And what ships! Immense fat cylinders lying in orderly rows and ranks and files.

Another change of direction. Some ships of a shape he had never seen before slid past below.

The group of four ships of which he was one slid in among the mother fleet. Like fishes in dim clear water they glided underneath a monstrous belly. Jason scanned it with his camera. Another lay ahead. A patch of its surface was brightly illuminated and three round objects were crawling upon it. Another shot of that.

The four scouts slid among these monsters, with only an occasional short flick of jets to change direction. Mounted on top of one of the monsters he saw some unfamiliar object which had the appearance of being a weapon. A long shot of that. Underneath another a huge brightly illuminated hatch hung open; as he watched a Jacko scout of standard appearance emerged from it.

A staccato burst of chatter on his radio, and a flicker of jets. The four scouts began to maneuver underneath the belly of one of the big ships.

A section of the hull swung ponderously outwards disclosing a brightly lit interior. Jason had the camera running all the time now. On a ledge round the open hatch he saw spherical objects moving purposefully, slinging out grapples; further inside he caught a glimpse of rows of scout ships stacked closely side by side and one above each other.

One of his companion ships edged forward underneath the open hatch. Grapples seized it and pulled it into the hold where it was maneuverd out of sight.

And now Jason knew that his time was nearly up. Once inside that hold his chance of escape would be negligible. As he reached this conclusion, and as he began to consider the moves he must make to escape, he had an inspiration, a wonderful and terrible inspiration.

A second ship was drawn into the hold. He heard a brief staccato rattle of Jacko speech. Just as certainly as if the words had been spoken in English, he knew this was an order to him to move forward.

He took a quick look round to determine the position of the fourth ship which still remained, then gave a touch to his jets, to send the ship forward into the hold. He checked that the camera was running, and grasped the controls of his D-ray. He was sweating and trembling with excitement; his teeth ground together and his mouth was clamped tight shut in a sort of grimace of concentration.

One of the row of stacked scout ships came into the line of his sights—he aimed at its stern, at the motors and fuel tanks, and flicked the firing button. Instantly he swung the weapon and did the same to the next ship—then the next. Then he swung the ray round and about and up and down, slashing like a sword.

At the final instant he pushed the nose-jet lever hard over, his ship shot backwards as if kicked out of the hold by a giant. When a ship has its fuel tanks hit by a D-ray, there is an interval of a second or so before it explodes. The scout he had hit first blew up just as Jason finished his backward run. He paid no attention to the chaos of bursting ships he had created, for there remained the fourth Jacko ship just behind him. He slid past underneath and gave it a short stab with the ray in the region of its motors, then he spun his ship round, glanced at his gyro to verify direction, and began to weave his way back among the big ships, accelerating hard.

Behind him, reflected in the mirror, he saw flash after flash as the scouts exploded one after another in their racks. Finally there was a much bigger flash, as if a number of them had exploded simultaneously.

He set a mechanism running in the camera which caused the film to undergo a developing process, and wound out his concealed transmitting aerial.

A sudden awful wave of nausea overwhelmed him. For a moment he could do nothing but dig his fingers into his palms and try to master it.

He switched on his radio and called, “Jason here! Jason here! Stand by! Stand by!”

He was still sweeping in among the big ships. As he passed by the rear end of one of them he shot a long dose of D-ray at the bulge on its stern which he took to be a motor. After he passed something exploded.

Just as he passed out clear of the fleet he was violently sick.

Then he saw that the developing process had been completed and the film was ready for transmission.

“Stand by! Stand by!” he called thickly. “Ready to transmit. Ready to transmit.”

He was feeling sick in a way he had never known in all his life, but he continued to do his job carefully and thoroughly. He checked that his sending aerial was aligned correctly, that the film had engaged it self in the sending mechanism, and that the transmitter was live.

He moved the lever. Things inside the machine clicked and purred.

He laid his head on the cushion and was sick again. When he had recovered a little he tried to look around. He had no radar and so was unable to tell what ships might be con verging upon him, but he reckoned that by this time something must have been organized against him.

In between waves of nausea he kept a watch out rearwards, but at one point when he looked ahead he saw a squadron of jackoes across his path. They were some distance away, and judging by the flare of their jets, were changing course.

The film completed its run-through; he rewound it and set it to run a second time.

“Jason calling,” he transmitted. “Setting film for second run-through. Stand by.”

His stomach heaved dreadfully in an effort to be sick. This time nothing came up but blood.

The Jacko squadron ahead completed its turn-round, but did not appear to have spotted hint He continued on a straight course towards them while the film had its second run-through.

By the time this was completed he was almost among them. No doubt they had already been receiving instructions from some central control, but it was doubtful whether any of the jacko community knew exactly what was occurring. Perhaps they thought that there had been an accidental series of explosions, or more likely, that one of their own scouts had run amok. At any rate, this squadron let him approach without taking any action.

His head was swimming, and his eyes streaming with tears. He passed right among them and chopped the three foremost with quick stabs of the ray. They blew up one after another in rapid succession after he had passed.

Looking behind him again he saw a considerable number of the enemy streaming after him in no particular formation.

At this stage he was out ahead of his pursuers, and so far as he knew there was nothing between him and home except whatever outlying Jacko patrols could be brought onto his line of retreat. There was no reason why he should not make a run for it—except he knew he would never live to reach home now. Except that since he had killed one of his own comrades on the way out he had known he would never return, he had ceased to want to return.

His head cleared momentarily. He fumbled for levers, fired jets, and changed course back towards the Jacko mother ships. While-pursuing scouts were still uncertain abut what was happening, before they could react to this change, Jason was speeding back through their midst. None of them attempted, to hit him, but he hit two more.