moment notified him of itself. “Firing one!” There were no conflicting suggestions from the insectoid half of his mind. He felt the gentle lurch of his body field as the ship immediately executed an intricate, alloy-tearing maneuver that would confuse any return fire and at the same time allow them to take the remaining two enemy vessels between them. Without the field he would have been jellied.
The disappearance of a gravity well from the screen told him that the SCCAM projectile had taken the AAnn ship, piercing its defenses. A violent explosion flared silently in space. A SCCAM was incapable of a “near-miss.”
The SCCAM system itself was a modification of the doublekay drive that powered the ships of most space-going races. When human and thranx met it was found that the human version was more powerful and efficient than the thranx posigravity drive. It also possessed a higher power-conservation ratio, which made it more reasonable to operate. Working with their human counterparts after the Amalgamation, thranx scientists soon developed a number of improvements in the already remarkable system. This modified propulsive drive was immediately installed in all humanx ships, and other races began to order the components which would enable them to make their own modifications.
A wholely thranx innovation, however, had been the adaptation of the gravity drive as a weapon of irresistable power. The SCCAM projectiles were in actuality thermonuclear devices mounted on small ship drives, with the exception that all their parts other than those requiring melting points over 2400 degrees were made of alloyed osmium. Using the launching vessel’s own gravity well as the initial propelling force, the projectile would be dispatched toward a target. At a predetermined safe distance from the ship, the shell’s own drive would kick in. Instantly the drive would go into deliberate overload. Impossible to dodge, the overloaded field would be attracted to the nearest large gravity well—in this case, the drive system of an enemy ship. Coupled with the uncontrolled energy of a fusion reaction, the two intersecting drive fields would irrevocably eliminate any trace of the target. And it would be useless for an enemy vessel to try to escape by turning off its own field, for while it might survive impact with the small projectile field, the ship had not yet been constructed that could take the force of a fusion explosion unscreened. And as the defensive screens were powered by the posigravity drives. . . .
He felt the ship lurch again, not as violently this time. Another target swung into effective range. He fired again. Truzenzuzex had offered a level-four objection and Bran had countered with a level-two objective veto. The computer agreed with Bran and released the shell. Both halves of the ship-mind bad been partially correct. The result was another hit . . . but just barely.
The AAnn formation seemed to waver. Then the left half of the Tetrahedron collapsed as the ships on that side sought to counter this alarming attack on their flank. More likely than not the AAnn commander had ordered the dissolution. Penned up in a slow, clumsy troop carrier he was by now likely becoming alarmed for his own precious skin. Heartened by this unstrategic move on the part of their opponents the native defensive force was diving on the broken formation from the front, magnifying the confusion if not the destruction and trying to avert the attention of the AAnn warships from their unexpected ally.
Bran had just gotten off a third shot—a miss—when a violent concussion rocked the stinger. Even in his protective field he was jerked violently forward. The lights flickered, dimmed, and went off, to be replaced a moment later by the eerie blue of the emergency system. He checked his instruments and made a matter-of-course report upward.
“Tru, this time the drive is off for real. We’re going to go into loosedrift only . . . he paused.
The disappearance of a gravity well from the screen told him that the SCCAM projectile had taken the AAnn ship, piercing its defenses. A violent explosion flared silently in space. A SCCAM was incapable of a “near-miss.”
The SCCAM system itself was a modification of the doublekay drive that powered the ships of most space-going races. When human and thranx met it was found that the human version was more powerful and efficient than the thranx posigravity drive. It also possessed a higher power-conservation ratio, which made it more reasonable to operate. Working with their human counterparts after the Amalgamation, thranx scientists soon developed a number of improvements in the already remarkable system. This modified propulsive drive was immediately installed in all humanx ships, and other races began to order the components which would enable them to make their own modifications.
A wholely thranx innovation, however, had been the adaptation of the gravity drive as a weapon of irresistable power. The SCCAM projectiles were in actuality thermonuclear devices mounted on small ship drives, with the exception that all their parts other than those requiring melting points over 2400 degrees were made of alloyed osmium. Using the launching vessel’s own gravity well as the initial propelling force, the projectile would be dispatched toward a target. At a predetermined safe distance from the ship, the shell’s own drive would kick in. Instantly the drive would go into deliberate overload. Impossible to dodge, the overloaded field would be attracted to the nearest large gravity well—in this case, the drive system of an enemy ship. Coupled with the uncontrolled energy of a fusion reaction, the two intersecting drive fields would irrevocably eliminate any trace of the target. And it would be useless for an enemy vessel to try to escape by turning off its own field, for while it might survive impact with the small projectile field, the ship had not yet been constructed that could take the force of a fusion explosion unscreened. And as the defensive screens were powered by the posigravity drives. . . .
He felt the ship lurch again, not as violently this time. Another target swung into effective range. He fired again. Truzenzuzex had offered a level-four objection and Bran had countered with a level-two objective veto. The computer agreed with Bran and released the shell. Both halves of the ship-mind bad been partially correct. The result was another hit . . . but just barely.
The AAnn formation seemed to waver. Then the left half of the Tetrahedron collapsed as the ships on that side sought to counter this alarming attack on their flank. More likely than not the AAnn commander had ordered the dissolution. Penned up in a slow, clumsy troop carrier he was by now likely becoming alarmed for his own precious skin. Heartened by this unstrategic move on the part of their opponents the native defensive force was diving on the broken formation from the front, magnifying the confusion if not the destruction and trying to avert the attention of the AAnn warships from their unexpected ally.
Bran had just gotten off a third shot—a miss—when a violent concussion rocked the stinger. Even in his protective field he was jerked violently forward. The lights flickered, dimmed, and went off, to be replaced a moment later by the eerie blue of the emergency system. He checked his instruments and made a matter-of-course report upward.
“Tru, this time the drive is off for real. We’re going to go into loosedrift only . . . he paused.
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