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He'd returned to Onzar but had fled at the time of the Candar revolution. On Earth, he'd married and gone on with his research work. Now, after twenty-five years, he was the key figure in the development of the drive. Undoubtedly his knowledge was enough to allow Darzent to develop the drive if he should fall into their hands. And he was not susceptible to the protective, anti-interrogatory drugs.
Seven of the battle cruisers fired as one, and were joined by all the firepower of their escort ships. The disrupter blasts, joining together, created a blinding sun in empty space. It was there. It was gone. And then just dead, empty space again, but without the slightest hint that the lead squadron of the mighty Darzent Fleet had ever been there.
His vision became a red blur, then grey.... He came out and looked down. The house and the Darzent ship were tiny blurs in the storm, three kilometers below. He looked back at Astrid. "Make it all right?" he asked anxiously. Her face was white and strained but she managed a smile. "Still with you, skipper. Let's get back down." "Here we go. Hang on and hope. Keep the screens up till I nod.
Garth also began fastening his straps. Thane glanced over, with curiosity. "Sounds like the usual story, with some interesting variations. Where do I come in?" "The thing that makes Onzar uniquely important," Garth said, "is its position. Space fleets from Darzent or from the A.S. will have to pass within a parsec of Onzar, because of the confluence of warp-lines in that part of the system.
The only term Thane could think of for their expression was cynical compassion. She sat by a small writing table in one of the traditional, intricately carved chairs of Onzar. "The developments of the past few days, Priestess Selan, are of extreme importance to Onzar and the church. The tracer device has already confirmed our belief that Darzent is preparing to attack.
He's safe. He's much too valuable to be mistreated by the Darzent Empire. But they will get everything they need from him with their interrogatory drugs." In the laboratory nothing had been touched. Once the Darzent force had Reine they must have left at once. Astrid's shoulders were shaking as Thane led her to a chair. "We've got a lot to plan and a lot to do.
Nothing else will stop a Darzent Robot. And even the screen probably won't last long. That ship looks as though it has enough high powered stuff to breach any screen we can put up." Astrid looked up at him. "We do have the jet, Roger. It's armed, but it will take time to get it ready for take-off." "Let's get the force screen up now, then." Pyuf snapped switches.
All nine of the principal ones, crossing the Galaxy between the Allied Systems and the Darzent Empire, pass within a parsec of Onzar. A faster-than-light fleet going either way has to surface at the Onzar Confluence. And Candar, no matter how he sounds to you or me, is no fool. He, you can bet, has taken some long quiet looks at a map like this and he knows his position. So does Darzent.
It would immobilize whatever power Darzent had in reserve while Candar turned on the Allied Systems. Already, confused and blinded Darzent ships were drifting in space, with Onzar wrecker tugs swarming in on them. Thane turned to the old priestess Selan. "Don't you see the crisis that is shaping? Don't you see what Candar intends?
"There have already been leaks enough so that if Manning Reine falls into Darzent hands, they would have the drive in operation within a few days. Then immediate attack, and defeat. Your job is to protect Reine, or to kill him if there is danger of his loss to Darzent." Manning Reine, a native of Onzar, had been educated at the Systems University at Beirut, Earth.
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