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“Did you say inner and outer
sides of the ring?” Park asked.

“Well, I said ‘inside’ and
‘outside,’” Marisea responded, “But I guess that’s pretty much the same thing.”

“That ring looks like a giant
hula hoop to me,” Park observed “By that I mean it’s not relatively thin and
flat like the rings of Saturn or Jupiter, it’s three dimensional as deep as it
is wide. Show me where the Premm and Dark Ships are, please.”

Marisea and her assistant fiddled
with their boards for a few second and then
 
colored dots, red and orange appeared on all the monitors that were
displaying the asteroid ring. “That’s what I thought,” Park commented. “They’re
thinking two dimensionally. After a quarter of a billion years you would think
people might have stopped doing that.”

“Not necessarily,” Ronnie
disagreed. “Solar systems are vaguely disk-shaped. Nearly everything of
interest is going to be on the same plane. Okay, sure comets and some asteroids
might be off the ecliptic as may an escaped moon or two, but for the most part
all the matter will have been part of the original protoplanetary disk. So
unless flying off to another system, most travel is also going to be along the
same rough plane.”

“Sure, but inside the system,
shouldn’t they be thinking three dimensionally?” Park asked. “Look at where we
are. Twenty-one degrees off the local ecliptic and yet those first ships found
us immediately.”

“We arrived at the same point the
other Alliance ships arrived at,” Garro pointed out. “That was by design.”

“I see,” Park nodded. “Just a few
ships to try to pick off anyone who followed after the others. Still, I would
have thought that after this much time in space we wouldn’t think that way.”

“Most of us still grew up on
planets, Park,” Iris pointed out. “You can’t help but think of the ground as
down and relatively flat and, as Ronnie said, most of the matter in a stellar
system is going to be found on the same plain. Besides, we can use this to our
advantage, maybe.”

“I was thinking the same thing,”
Park commented, “but I doubt it would work. I’m pretty sure those ships know
we’re here and at just holding their positions looking for the larger force.”

“I suspect they are hiding inside
the ring, Park,” Ronnie told him. “It’s dense, seems to inhibit radio signals
and there are a lot of objects to hide behind.”

“Then maybe we should get really
noisy,” Park decided. “Marisea, record the following; Attention: all ships of
the Premm worlds and their allies. This is Black Admiral McArrgh of Earth. Your
position is untenable, you cannot hope to win, but I am merciful in victory.
Surrender now and no one will be hurt.” He paused then added, “Send that in a
continuous loop until they respond.”

“We’re only six ships plus the
fighters, Park,” Iris pointed out. “Even with our records I doubt we look like
an overwhelming force.”

“Good,” Park chuckled. “I was
hoping that sounded like even more hot air than it was. The idea is to draw
them away from the asteroid ring and toward us. Then, if our ships are in
there, they can attack from behind.”

“If they are in any shape to do
so,” Ronnie added.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Park
told her. “Let me know if and when they respond to the challenge.”

Neither the Dark Ships nor the
Premm vessels verbally acknowledged Park’s demands, but over half left their
patrol orbits to meet
Tawatir
and the
other Earth ships half way. “They’re getting cocky,” Park laughed not long
before the first ships got to within range. “They only out-number us three to
one.”

“Long range missiles off,” Iris
announced.

“All ships reporting the same,”
Marisea added. “Fighters are launching.” And then the battle proceeded.

To Park’s surprise there was no
sound of screeching metal on the first pass, but the flickering images on the
screen kept changing so rapidly without an easily discernible pattern that he
realized that the Premm must have hit them with gravity cannons. As they passed
out of range from the enemy, Tragackack, expertly brought their tumbling flight
back under his control. “Another pass, Admiral?”

“Hold up,” Park told him. “Battle
reports?”

“Six Dark Ships destroyed,” Iris
reported. “Three more appear to be moving erratically, probably badly damaged.
Five Premm Ships are no longer in my scopes. The others are turning to attack
again, including several that are in really bad shape.”

“Marisea, open a channel again,
please,” Park told her. “Premm and allies, you have fought well and valiantly.
There is no disgrace in surrendering to a superior force. Disable your drives
and we shall spare you.”

“I doubt that will work,” Marisea
told him as she turned off his microphone and holographic camera. “The Premm
are religious fanatics, you know, and what few words we’ve heard from the Dark
Ship aliens makes them sound the same. Do you think they are converts to the
Premm religion?”

“Hard to say, considering we know
nothing about the Dark Ship aliens,” Park told her, “but I have trouble
believing an alien culture would see the Originals as gods. For now it doesn’t
matter. Any sign of our ships?”

“A large force is coming out of
the ring,” Iris told him, “They aren’t headed at us, however. Looks like
they’re after one of the two squadrons the Premm and their buddies left near
the ring.”

“Good,” Park nodded.

“Park, two of our fighters are
experiencing drive trouble, they’re asking for instructions,” Marisea reported.

“Can they dock at our current
cruising speed?” Park asked.

“Aye,” Marisea responded. “They
can, yes.”

“Have them do so if they can
before the fireworks start again,” Park replied. “What’s wrong with their
drives then?”

“They’ve lost a lot of power,”
Marisea replied. “They think it was the power draining weapon.”

“I had nearly forgotten about
that myself,” Park admitted. “Not as effective as the first time, was it?”

“Mixed weapons get in the way of
each other,” Iris reminded him, “or so we think. This must be a mixed
squadron.”

“Uh oh!” Marisea exclaimed
suddenly. “I’m picking up a large fleet coming out from Trohavn, or maybe her
moons. Can’t tell how many there are yet, from here it looks like a small
cloud.”

“Worry about them later,” Park
commanded. “We need to mop up this bunch. And they’re coming at us faster than
before.”

“Long range missiles primed and
ready to fire in twenty seconds,” Iris reported and then counted down from
there. At the end of the count she paused only a second before adding “Stasis
specials in five, four, three, two, one, launch. Gunners, fire at will.”

The stasis shields turned on
almost immediately after that but the flicker effect cause by stasis turning
off for a microsecond once per real second lasted on a short time. “All Dark
Ships have been eliminated,” Iris reported. “There are still eleven Premm ships
turning to face us, but they’re not looking good. Long range missiles queued up
and launched.” As she sent off those four shots, so too did the other Earth
Ships in the squad. The Premm did not survive to shoot again.”

“Damage?” Park asked.

“We’re fine,” Ronnie reported
instantly. “Ablative plating never did more than warm up in either wave. I thought
those Dark Ships were supposed to be tougher than ever before.”

“I suspect they were hampered by
their allies,” Iris remarked. “The Premm do not fight in a disciplined
formation like we or the Dark Ships do. They just seem to attack without regard
for whose gun they may be in front of.”

“I’m not surprised,” Park shook
his head, “Rebbert remarked on several occasions that the Premm donated ships
to the Alliance Fleet when they were members, but rarely did any actual Premm
serve on them. They may be religious fanatics, but their military experiences
is almost non-existent.”

“Expect suicide runs when we meet
the main force then,” Marisea commented.

“What?” Park asked, then what she
said registered and he realized that the young woman he had met years ago had
been studying all sorts of subjects while he wasn’t looking. “You may be right.
They’re fearless enough and that will be an effective tactic against ships that
do not carry stasis plating. How’s our fleet doing near the ring?”

“It will be another hour before
they engage the Dark Ships they are headed toward,” Iris told him. “We took
everyone that was near them, it seems.”

“A call coming in from Admiral
Yorro,” Marisea announced.

“About time you got here,
McArrgh,” Yorro’s voice came over the speakers. “No, don’t reply, I won’t hear
anything you say for over an hour. They ambushed us the moment we broke out. We
lost more than a few ships, but the rest of us made it to this big asteroid
field. Been holed up here until you could join us. Anyway, we’ll take the ships
off to widdershins of our position. If you can keep the others off our backs,
it would be greatly appreciated. If not, well, we’ll see what happens next.”

“Garro, set up an intercept
course,” Park ordered as Admiral Yorro’s voice clicked off. “Marisea, send him
an acknowledgement and tell him about the ships coming out from Trohavn. Garro,
are we in a position to intercept the Dark Ships on the other side of the ring
before they come up on Yorro’s tail?”

“Absolutely,” the navigator
replied. He grinned and added, “I worked that out as soon as the admiral
mentioned them. We can intercept them right here.” He indicated a light on the
display just inside the asteroid ring. “Of course, that assumes they’re going
to ignore us. I suspect they will instead rise to meet us, here.” Another dot
of light appeared directly on top of the ring of asteroids.. Then the image in
the display rotated until they could see the volume of space from another
perspective. Now the dot was roughly a quarter of the way between
Tawatir’s
position and the ring.
“Naturally we’ll keep our eyes on them and correct our course accordingly.

“Good,” Park nodded. “Do it.”

“Damage reports!” Park commanded.
There had been no shriek of tearing metal, but
Tawatir
had been rocked badly under pummeling from Premm gravity
cannons. Stasis fields had switched on immediately but half the crew had been
thrown out of their chairs, indicating to Park that the Dark Ships must have
been using the energy draining weapon at the same time. The stasis had been
incomplete, but they had survived. “Battle status?” he asked as a second
thought.

Ronnie’s voice could be heard
over the speakers, “Power’s out along the starboard aft of the ship, but it’s
coming back up as I speak.”

“Good work, Ronnie,” Park responded.

“I can’t take the credit,” Ronnie
told him, “Maybe Velvet can, but she’s back at Questo so I can’t ask. Because
we did not entirely lose power the circuits breakers had time to react. We’re
just resetting. I suspect the stasis plating and ablative layers might be lose
or even missing in that section, though. What happened to the enemy ships?”

“Missiles scored direct hits on
all Dark Ships, in that squadron,” Iris announced, “and about half the Premm,
the remaining ships used our time in stasis to start running for the inner
system.”

“Good thing too,” Marisea told
them, “because except for
Tawatir
,
You Looking at Me?
and two fighters, the
rest of our ships have been power-drained.
Grendel’s
Claw
is gone, I’m afraid,” she added with a choking sound in her voice.

“Do we have survivors?” Park
asked immediately.

“I detect large sections of the
Claw
out there,” Iris told them. “They
may be air-tight.”

“Getting there is top priority
then,” Park told them. “Garro, Trag, get us as near the wreckage of the
Claw
as you can safely. As for the rest,
well, I hope we have enough jumper cables to jump start the powerless ships up
again. Marisea, have
Looking
start
that with the three fighters. They won’t take long to start and heat loss will
be a problem with the small ships before it is with the big ones.”

“Call coming in from Admiral
Yorro,” Marisea told him.

“On speakers,” Park nodded.

“McArrgh,” Yorro’s voice
reported. “We lost two ships and another twenty-one were damaged, but none of
the Dark Ships nor the Premm survived.”

“That’s a lot of ships,” Park
remarked, forgetting there was still a fifteen minute lag in communications
between them.

“I know that sounds bad,” Yorro
went on as though he had heard Park’s comment, “but we do have just over a
thousand ships here. Not only are they hard to coordinate, but the Premm and
their friends have what we euphemistically refer to as a ‘target-rich’
environment. I would have been more surprised had we come through the fight
without any casualties at all. I’m ordering all ships to rendezvous with yours
and I’ll turn over command of the fleet to you then. Yorro out.”

“Why was Admiral Yorro in
charge?” Marisea asked. “Shouldn’t all the admirals in the fleet and its
divisions been acting as a council?”

“Someone has to be the one to
make the final decisions,” Park told her. “I wasn’t here when they were
initially attacked and Yorro must have been the senior officer so he took
charge. Internally, I’m sure all the admirals conferred with their captains and
each other. But at this distance it would have been chaos had any from Admiral
Yorro been communicating with us. Iris, how long do we have before the big
fleet from Trohavn arrives?”

“We have seven days,” Iris
reported.

“Plenty of time for repairs, I
guess,” Park replied, “but seven? We were only five days out from Trohavn when
we arrived just outside the Stierdach limit.”

“They are following a wide,
arcing trajectory,” Iris told him. “It will bring them at us from the outer
system.”