retreat and then a surrender and
an end to the carnage, and some kind of sanity that never came,
fighting and dying and waiting for an order to retreat and then a
surrender and some kind of sanity, then simple deliverance, that never
came---except in death.

The Commonwealth lost eighty ships, mostly fighters and destroyers, in
annihilating the entire Coalition Fleet. Ten hours later the last
evacuation vessels left the planet, though many inhabitants remained
behind of their own volition. The four Battleships took up their
equidistant points about the equator of the Friedrich Schiller, firing
a long and continuous heat and shock laser burst into its core. The
planet's surface writhed and convulsed with earthquakes and eruptions
for perhaps two hours, till the outer crust was broken into crumbling
islands in a molten sea, and what was left of the face fell apart. The
Battleships ceased their barrage, leaving it to die its final death of
fire, lava and smoke. The Secretary chose to leave it thus, rather
than blow it apart, to further anger the Soviets and goad them into
reprisals. That such a decision might have other consequences he knew,
but at that moment his mind was driven by a single impulse only. He
wanted, with all his soul, a full-scale World War.

Several hours later in prearranged rendezvous, the Third Fleet's
engineering vessels followed the earlier course of the Dreadnought
through the star gate. Immediately upon arrival (and finding that
things had gone their way), they turned about and began to construct a
second entrance, leading back the way they had come. Since the
corridor itself was already in existence, needing only a return inlet,
this took less than forty-eight hours. Then, all Commonwealth vessels
tucked up safe inside the mother, the Third Fleet returned to the
limits of the Athena system, destroying the further gate, dismantling
the nearer, behind them. The Dreadnought then proceeded, at just above
tracking speed, to a new and untraceable location.

Hayes had won again.

VI

News of the Battle of Schiller did not reach Earth (those
portions controlled by the United Commonwealth) until July 3, one week
after the fact, and one day before the annual celebration of the
nation's Independence. The President received from Hayes at that time
a three line, uncoded message:

THE COALITION FIRST COMBAT FLEET IS NEUTRALIZED AND THE PLANET SCHILLER
DESTROYED. THE PUPPET G