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it. He crossed the gun level to where hard-bitten soldiers waited at a gigantic and gleaming
lever, in anticipation of an order that had to come soon or never.
The distance between opponents was now only a matter of one or two miles almost
contact from the viewpoint of space warfare and then that order shot over the shielded
etheric beams from ship to ship.
It reverberated through the gun level:
"Out needles!"
A score of hands reached for the lever, Sanat's among them, and jerked downwards.
Majestically, the lever bent in a curving are to the floor and as it did so, there was a vast
scraping noise and a sharp thud that shook the ship. The dreadnaught had become a
"needle ship!" At the prow, a section of armor plate had slid aside and a glittering shaft of
metal had lunged outward viciously. One hundred feet long, it narrowed gracefully from a
base ten feet in diameter to a needle-sharp diamond point. In the sun- light, the
chrome-steel of the shaft gleamed in flaming splendor.
And every other ship of the Human squadron was likewise
equipped. Each had become ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty thousand tons of driving rapier.
Swordfish of spacel
Somewhere in the Lhasinuic fleet, frantic orders must have been issued. Against this
Oldest of all naval tactics old even in the dim dawn of history when rival triremes had
maneu- vered and rammed each other to destruction with pointed
prows the super-modem equipment of a space-fleet has no defense.
Sanat forceol his way to the visiplate and strapped himself into an anti-acceleration seat,
and he felt the springs absorb
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the backward jerk as the ship sprang into sudden accelera- tion.
He didn't bother with that, though. He wanted to watch the battle! There wasn't one here, nor
anywhere in the Galaxy, that risked what he did. They risked only their lives; and he
risked a dream that he had, almost single-handed, created out of nothing.
BLACK FRIAR OF THE FLAME
He had taken an apathetic Galaxy and driven it into revolt against the reptile. He had taken
an Earth on the point of de- struction and dragged it from the brink, almost unaided. A
Human victory would be a victory for Loara Filip Sanat and
no one else.
He, and Earth, and the Galaxy were now lumped into one
and thrown into the scale. And against it was weighed the out- come of this last battle, a
battle hopelessly lost by his own
purposeful treachery, unless the needles won.
And if they lost, the gigantic defeat the ruin of Humanity
 was also his.
The Lhasinuic ships were jumping aside, but not fast
enough. While they were slowly gathering momentum and drifting away, the Human ships
had cut the distance by three- ^ quarters. On the screen, a Lhasinuic ship had grown to
colos- sal proportions. Its purple whip of energy had gone out as every ounce of power had
gone into a man-killing attempt at
rapid acceleration.
And nevertheless its image grew and the shining point that
could be seen at the lower end of the screen aimed like a glit- tering javelin at its heart.
Sanat felt he could not bear the tension. Five minutes and
he would take his place as the Galaxy's greatest hero or its greatest traitor! There was a
horrible, unbearable pounding
of blood in his temples. Then it came.
Contact!! The screen went wild in a chaotic fury of twisted metal
The anti-acceleration seats shrieked as springs absorbed the shock. Things cleared slowly.
The screenview veered wildly as the ship slowly steadied. The ship's needle had broken, the
jagged stump twisted awry, but the enemy vessel it had pierced
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was a gutted wreck.
Sanat held his breath as he scanned space. It was a vast sea ;
of wrecked ships, and on the outskirts tattered remnants of the enemy were in flight, with
Human ships in pursuit. There was the sound of colossal cheering behind him and a
pair of strong hands on his shoulders.
He turned. It was Smitt Smitt, the veteran of five wars,
with tears in his eyes.
"Filip," he said, "we've won. We've just received word
from Vega. The Lhasinuic Home Fleet has been smashed and also with the needles. The
war is over, and we've woo
You've won, Filip! You!" 154
BLACK FRIAR OF THE FLAME His grip was painful, but Loara Filip Sanat did not mind
that. For a single, ecstatic moment, he stood motionless, face transfigured.
Earth was free! Humanity was saved! THE END
For some reason, possibly because of the awful title, for which I emphatically disclaim [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]