ern Empire ten days ago. Two Gern
cruisers have attacked us and their blasters have destroyed the stern
and bow of the ship. We are without a drive and without power but for a
few emergency batteries. I am the _Constellation_'s only surviving
officer and the Gern commander is boarding us to give me the surrender
terms.

"None of you will leave your compartments until ordered to do so.
Wherever you may be, remain there. This is necessary to avoid confusion
and to have as many as possible in known locations for future
instructions. I repeat: you will not leave your compartments."

The speaker cut off. She stood without moving and heard again the words:
_I am the _Constellation_'s only surviving officer...._

The Gerns had killed her father.

He had been second-in-command of the Dunbar expedition that had
discovered the world of Athena and his knowledge of Athena was valuable
to the colonization plans. He had been quartered among the ship's
officers--and the Gern blast had destroyed that section of the ship.

She sat down on the edge of the bed again and tried to reorient herself;
to accept the fact that her life and the lives of all the others had
abruptly, irrevocably, been changed.

The Athena Colonization Plan was ended. They had known such a thing
might happen--that was why the _Constellation_ had been made ready for
the voyage in secret and had waited for months for the chance to slip
through the ring of Gern spy ships; that was why she had raced at full
speed, with her communicators silenced so there would be no radiations
for the Gerns to find her by. Only forty days more would have brought
them to the green and virgin world of Athena, four hundred light-years
beyond the outermost boundary of the Gern Empire. There they should have
been safe from Gern detection for many years to come; for long enough to
build planetary defenses against attack. And there they would have used
Athena's rich resources to make ships and weapons to defend
mineral-depleted Earth against the inexorably increasing inclosure of
the mighty, coldly calculating colossus that was the Gern Empire.

Success or failure of the Athena Plan had meant ultimate life or death
for Earth. They had taken every precaution possible but the Gern spy
system had somehow learned of Athena and the _Constellation_. Now, the
cold war was no longer cold and the Plan was dust....

* * * * *

Billy sighed and stirred in the litt