Back Cover
Ships have been disappearing in Quandon Sector, and the Commandos planet on Omrai to discover why. Formidable wildlife and bitter cold almost end the mission and their lives with it, but Connor discovers the horrifying answer to the puzzle. A gigantic Arcturian battleship had crashed some ten years previously and is using slave labor and material from the captured vessels to reoutfit itself and return to a war its crew cannot know has ended. To Sogan’s horror, he learns the workers are held, not by physical force, but by mental compulsion, and the mind slaver can only be a kinsman of his. If this almost spaceworthy war craft and its renegade commander return to the starlanes, the results will be disastrous, but how can the unit and their on-world ally stop the twin menace?
Excerpt
Varn Tarl Sogan knew his enemy well enough to guess his intention. He realized there was no hope of reaching Islaen’s blaster, but he had known from the beginning this would be settled between them with another weapon, one forged in them by some strange, unwelcome quirk of birth, a weapon that set them apart from all the rest of their race and from the remainder of humankind as well.
Varn tried to compose himself, to concentrate on what he must do. He had used the analogy of a spear to describe the force with which he had killed that poor yeoman. So it was, a spear fashioned of the mind’s invisible, potent energy. He set himself to forming another like that first.
Fortune had favored him greatly in sending him that earlier encounter. Tragic and nearly fatal as it was, it had taught him not only how to summon and fashion his weapon but how to use it as well, how to direct it against that part of his enemy’s brain controlling his life systems. If he could do that here and strike true with it, death would come instantly, more mercifully than this man before him deserved.
Accomplishing that would be no easy matter, and victory was by no means guaranteed. This was Aleke Tarl Sogan’s talent, apparently the prime channel or one of the major channels of it, whereas it was but a secondary and newly awakened aspect of his own. He would be hard-pressed to overcome so expert a killer with it, and only the fact the captain had never before encountered a true shield or any sort of active opposition gave him real hope.
Victory was too uncertain for either of them to depend upon it, but perhaps it was not necessary that he actually conquer. If Aleke was deeply enough absorbed in their duel, Islaen or Barak might then jump him or go for the Commando’s blaster. He would not be capable of taking any such action himself…
A sudden blast of force smote violently against his mind. It was strong, his kinsman’s sending, but he had anticipated its coming. His shields held firm.
Realizing his first wild rush had failed, Aleke withdrew and began seeking for some weakness in the War Prince’s defense, even as Varn searched his.
The former admiral realized his opponent was trying to elicit physical aid from the other prisoners, and he knew a moment’s fear, but he relaxed again in the next. Too much of Aleke’s power was tied up in the duel itself to seriously threaten either. Islaen’s shields were as strong as Varn’s own, and as long as he could keep the captain occupied at least on their present level, even Barak would not be overcome a second time.
Soon the Arcturian commander recognized the futility of his efforts and ceased all attempts to go beyond the fight itself. The strain of this silent combat was too great to so squander his resources.
Barak seized the blaster, but neither he nor the Commando made any attempt to interfere with the strange warfare being waged by the two Arcturians. Not only would it be difficult to avoid burning down both if the boy fired, but they were afraid to distract their champion or to inadvertently do him injury while his mind was so closely engaged with the other’s. Not unless it was obvious his defeat was upon him would they move.
Varn had at first been concerned that Aleke’s shields would be equal in strength with his power or nearly so, but he soon found this not to be the case. They had been clumsily erected and even now were deeply fissured and of uneven strength, a readily understandable weakness, since the captain had never had any reason to develop them and had had no experience in their use. That he had attained this degree of facility gave testimony to his innate strength.
Whatever the imperfections of his defense, it did little to damage his cause. Such was the power of Aleke Tarl Sogan’s mind and the ease with which he could harness it to take the offensive that the former admiral dared not make a direct attack against his shields. He knew he could not meet the force his cousin could generate head-on.
What frontal assault could not accomplish might sometimes be gained by stealth. A very small part of his mind crept through one of the fissures scoring his enemy’s defense. It was risky work, but if he could bring enough of himself inside the other’s mind to form his own spear there, he should be able to strike the death blow quickly and from such short range as to finish the duel.
Aleke’s spear slammed against his cousin’s shields again with a hard, angry blow, growing frustration adding both keenness and determination to it. Once more, the War Prince’s defenses held firm, but he had been concentrating so heavily on formulating his own attack that he instinctively returned the strike.
Too late, Varn recognized his error. He had not been ready, not nearly ready, to show his hand. His opponent gasped and reeled back, but surprise more than injury had unbalanced him. He was wounded, aye, but his life centers remained intact, and Aleke whirled on the invader as would a pain-maddened wild thing.
Before he could act either to withdraw or to defend himself, Varn Tarl Sogan was struck such a blow that he was driven to his knees.
Another followed it and another, strike after strike slamming into him with ever-increasing fury and effect until Varn fled his cousin’s mind to the security of his own in a near panic.
Temporary security. His shields were beginning to crumble under the constant hammering and strain.
He groaned in his soul. Once they went, the closing of the duel and the vile fate his kinsman had planned for him would be upon him.
Back Cover
Connor, Karmikel, and their former unit had served on the planet Anath for several months during the War. Now, they and their current comrades are back in response to a call for aid to combat another invasion. This time, the enemies are Britynons, old foes of Connor and Karmikel’s homeworld. They are out to take Anath to settle on her and to rape her resources, and they are prepared to annihilate the governmental and major population center of the premech native people in order to break any hope of resistance from that quarter. Can a near-suicidal raid by the Commandos prevent that assault, which will otherwise come before the help they have summoned from the Federation Navy can arrive?
Excerpt
The War Prince knew the chance he was taking in firing again so quickly—and predictably—from the same port, but if he did not take that fighter out now, he would lose the opportunity. He loosed a strong burst, then switched the laser off and leaped back and to the side.
Scarcely had he taken himself out of line with the weapon than the panel shattered in a blast of metal pieces and sparks that were half fire and half pure angry energy.
Sogan fell flat, allowing the fury to pass over him. Had that laser still been in operation…
Although shaken, he was unhurt, not so much as singed, but he had no time to revel in his narrow escape. The bridge was ablaze.
Not bothering to rise, he rolled to the nearest foam canister, whose position he had noted during his initial inspection of the cabin, seized and discharged it. He gave one sigh of relief as the specially formulated chemical first contained and then smothered the fire. A few seconds longer, and it would have been beyond such quick control.
More fire! Another laser, but this beam came from below! —The Britynon crew! He had forgotten those sealed on board with him.
The Arcturian’s body coiled into a crouch. It was easy enough to figure out what had occurred. The Britynons had managed to free one of the lower lasers from its bayand then had burned their way through each succeeding hatch until they reached the cabin beneath this one. They had probably judged his position by the simple expedient of listening to the havoc he was creating and their own side’s response to it and had decided to try to take him this way instead of alerting him to their intentions by a direct assault on the door. It was not a bad plan. He had not heard them at all in the general confusion. Had it not been for his own quick reaction to the hit on the flagship, he would now be a dead man.
The former admiral let them at it for another long three seconds, although the bridge was now rather seriously aflame. When he judged they had opened up enough of a hole in the deck for his purposes, he crawled toward the blue fountain. The heat forced him to stand. His feet were burning even through his boots, but he should be able to keep most of the rest of his flesh intact for a while longer. He had to do so if he was to continue to act effectively.
The laser light vanished, and he heard noise below. The invaders would be turning their weapon on another site, perhaps the hatch. He had to move fast. He would have but one chance, and surprise must be with him. A blaster against a laser was not an equitable fight.
Sogan squatted down, balancing on his toes to keep himself as much as possible away from the glowing metal, and peered through the narrow hole the beam had drilled.
Two men were below, a sergeant and a yeoman. Only two to manhandle and use that dismounted laser? —Whatever the failings of their government l, he would have been proud to have had that pair serve under him at the height of his power.
His face hardened. They had earned a better fate than he would give them.
It would be a soldier’s end, at least, preferable to the alternative, to years or a lifetime in a Federation penitentiary.
Hating himself, he fired, dropping both men with one broad bolt.
As he fell, the sergeant’s hand closed on the firing button in a convulsion so powerful that it jammed. The laser jerked away from his hold, discharging wildly, spinning and twisting under the whip of its own fierce energy. Within seconds, it had holed the hull in several places, and it would be only seconds more before it whirled upward to cut through the deck and into the bridge again.
The weapon’s erratic movements made it a poor target. The Arcturian fired once and then again. His second bolt struck its controls, fusing them so it lay still at last, as dead as the now-charred corpses of those who had tried to wield it against him.
The cabin was an inferno. Sogan first took care of the lesser blaze on the bridge, then threw open the hatch and poured canister after canister of foam into it, all he had available to him. It was enough, just enough, and once again he succeeded in extinguishing laser-started fire.
Sogan coughed violently. The air was bad, better here than in the cabin beneath but still foul.
Starship controls were fairly standardized, and he was not long in locating those directing air circulation and purification.
His mouth tightened when he saw them. The shrapnel from the exploding laser had spared him, but it had not shown any similar consideration for the instruments on the opposite side of the cabin.
So. He had only succeeded in trading one form of death for another, then, but he had come here expecting to die, had he not?
Varn Tarl Sogan went to the observation panel. Only a few ships remained, amazingly few out of all those that had stood here before his attack had begun, but then, he should hardly be surprised at the power of a well-coordinated Commando assault. He had fought to prevent a disaster like this for six long years.
The Arcturian doubled over in a spasm of coughing as his lungs tried to clear themselves of smoke and fumes. With the controls shattered, he could not close the vents giving that stuff access to the bridge.
He was already weakening badly and judged that he would not be able to finish off more than another couple of his foes.
No, he thought dully. Not even that. As a fighting force, he was finished.