acMaine's flagship out of
as much of the fighting as possible.

When the first contact was made, MacMaine was certain of the outcome.
His voice became a steady drone as he called out instructions to the
staff officers; his mind was so fully occupied with the moving pattern
before him that he noticed nothing else in the room around him.

Spaceship against spaceship, the two fleets locked in battle. The
warheads of ultralight torpedoes flared their eye-searing explosions
soundlessly into the void; ships exploded like overcharged beer bottles
as blaster energy caught them and smashed through their screens; men
and machines flamed and died, scattering the stripped nuclei of their
component atoms through the screaming silence of space.

And through it all, Sebastian MacMaine watched dispassionately, calling
out his orders as ten Earthmen died for every Kerothi death.

This was a crucial battle. The big push toward the center of Earth's
cluster of worlds had begun. Until now, the Kerothi had been fighting
the outposts, the planets on the fringes of Earth's sphere of influence
which were only lightly colonized, and therefore relatively easy to
take. Earth's strongest fleets were out there, to protect planets that
could not protect themselves.

Inside that periphery were the more densely populated planets, the
self-sufficient colonies which were more or less able to defend
themselves without too much reliance on space fleets as such. But now
that the backbone of the Earth's Space Force had been all but broken,
it would be a relatively easy matter to mop up planet after planet,
since each one could be surrounded separately, pounded into surrender,
and secured before going on to the next. That, at least, had been the
original Kerothi intention. But MacMaine had told them that there was
another way--a way which, if it succeeded, would save time, lives, and
money for the Kerothi. And, if it failed, MacMaine said, they would be
no worse off, they would simply have to resume the original plan.

* * * * *

Now, the first of the big colony planets was to be taken. When the
protecting Earth fleet was reduced to tatters, the Kerothi would go on
to Houston's World as the first step in the big push toward Earth
itself.

But MacMaine wasn't thinking of that phase of the war. That was still
in the future, while the hellish space battle was still at hand.

He lost track of time as he watched