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Updated: June 21, 2025
With contragravity, of course, terms like "escape-velocity" and "mass-ratio" were of purely antiquarian interest. "How long," he asked Pearson, "would it take to fit that vehicle with a full set of detection instruments radar, infrared and ultraviolet vision, electron-telescope, heat and radiation detectors, the whole works and spot it about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles above Keegark?"
He was short and round-bodied and bald-headed, but he was old Terran Federation Regular Army through and through. "Well, general, we've been finding out quite a bit about the genesis of this business, lately," he said. "From up North, it probably looked like an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But the whole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild.
"I wonder if the idea back of that spaceport proposition isn't to get us concentrated at Keegark, where Orgzild could wipe us all out in one surprise blow," somebody down the table suggested, and others nodded. "Oh, Orgzild wouldn't be crazy enough to try anything like that," Commander Dirk Prinsloo, of the Aldebaran, declared.
You'd better make sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed, your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want to be about fifteen miles from where that thing goes off." "No, I'm not," von Schlichten agreed. "I saw the Jan Smuts on the TV-screen." The Elmoran pointed her bow, and the long blade of the figure-head warrior's spear, toward Keegark.
King Orgzild had four tons of plutonium, and with Prince Gorkrink probably able to build A-bombs, Keegark would be set to bring Ullr its first taste of nuclear warfare. Von Schlichten shuddered as he pictured that happening. At the moment, shuddering was about the only thing he could do.
This thing is to the weapons they faced then as those weapons were to the old Kragans' spears and bows.... And when the geeks from Grank come here, tell them that we are winning and that if they fight well, they can share the loot of Konkrook and Keegark." Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen.
"We were hanging on by our fingernails here till his people started coming in. And then, after you sent the Aldebaran...." "Where is the Aldebaran, by the way? I didn't see her when I came in." "Based on Kankad's, flying bombardment against Keegark, and keeping an eye out for those ships.
We'll need to keep some kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can deal with that. We'll have to get to work on Keegark, as soon as possible; after we've reduced Keegark, we'll be able to reorganize for a campaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore." "Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what we ought to do to Keegark," Hans Meyerstein said.
He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark by TV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about direct reconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreaves reported that a couple of privately-owned aircars were being fitted for the job.
The Aldebaran, he knew, was west of Keegark; the Northern Lights, now fitted with a pair of 155-mm guns, in addition to her 90's, had just arrived at Kankad's.
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