Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
The grand fleet will get to Kandar in five days, four hours, twenty minutes! My Talent on the Sylva is sure of it. It's Talents, Incorporated information!" "We haven't any time to spare, then," said Bors. "Bors!" panted Morgan's voice. "There were three ships of our fleet hanging about, on watch for Mekinese. They expected one. Twelve came. The observation-ships attacked.
"My uncle," explained Bors, "considers that he should have gotten killed when Mekin took over Tralee. It would have set a good example. Since we didn't do it for Tralee, we'll do it for Kandar. The king's going along too. After all, that's one of the things kings are for." "To get killed?" "When necessary," Bors told her.
But, if he hadn't trusted the information enough to check on it, why, the small space-fleet of Kandar would vanish in atomic flame when it tried to take off to fight. With it would vanish Bors, and his uncle, and the king and many resolute haters of Mekin. Gwenlyn said, "You're perfectly right, Captain." "What's that?" asked Bors, numbly. "It is stark-raving lunacy," said Gwenlyn pleasantly.
But a war-fleet could not depend solely on ground installations. The fighting ships of Kandar were allowed to use the planet's spaceport only for special reasons. Emergency rocket take-offs and landings were necessary training for war conditions anyhow.
The planet Kandar, in fact, made ready to receive its conquerors. It was not conquered yet, but there could be no hope. Bors was in the act of brushing off his hands again, in a sort of symbolic gesture of completion, when a ground-car stopped before the Ministry. A stout man got out. A rather startlingly pretty girl followed. They advanced to the door of the Ministry.
The Sylva had brought back news of a third defeat of Mekinese by Kandar ships and hot blood longed to make a full-scale test of its own deadliness. There were few ships of the fleet which did not have a low-power overdrive field unit ready to be spliced into circuit if the occasion arose.
With some luck, the news of the landing of a lone survivor of the Kandarian fleet might reach Mekin before it was aware of what had happened to its occupation force. With a little more luck, the attention of Mekin would be devoted more to a ship which dared to turn pirate than to Kandar itself.
But on Kandar they would also be despised. Bors found the ground-cars which waited to carry the king and those who would accompany him, to the fleet when the time came. He commandeered a ground-car and a driver. He ordered himself driven to the atmosphere-flier base of the fleet. On the way the driver spoke apologetically. "Captain, sir, I'd like to say something." "Say it," said Bors.
"I'll try you out on a concentration of Mekin ships that should be turning up at Kandar. How are you equipped for repairs and changes?" "We left Cela for a test trip, sir," said the young man at the controls. There were grins behind him. He chuckled. "Naturally we had materials to repair anything that went wrong on a trial run!"
"I've got some new settings for missiles," said Bors, "which make them hard to dodge. And we'll want to set up a special overdrive control, which makes it easy to dodge Mekinese ones. We can attend to it on the way to Kandar. How many aboard?" He asked other curt questions. They answered.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking