Second stage Lensman by Edward Elmer Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

furnished by remote control. Indeed it is possible, although perhaps not entirely
    probable, that the shock-globe of the foe was similarly manned.
         That first frightful meeting gave time for the reserves of the Patrol to get there,
    and it was then that the superior Operations control of the Z9M9Z made itself tellingly
    felt. Ship for ship, beam for beam, screen for screen, the Boskonians were, perhaps
    equal to the Patrol; but they did not have the perfection of control necessary for unified
    action. The field was too immense, the number of contending units too enormously vast.
    But the mind of each of the three Second-Stage Lensmen read aright the flashing lights
    of his particular volume of the gigantic tank and spread their meaning truly in the
    infinitely smaller space-model beside which Port Admiral Haynes, Master Tactician,
    stood. Scanning the entire space of battle as a whole, he rapped out general orders
    —orders applying, perhaps, to a hundred or to five hundred planetary fleets. Kinnison
    and his fellows broke these orders down for the operators, who in turn told the admirals
    and vice-admirals of the fleets what to do. They gave detailed orders to the units of their
    commands, and the line officers, knowing exactly what to do and precisely how to do it,
    did it with neatness and dispatch.
         There was no doubt, no uncertainty, no indecision or wavering. The line officers,
    even the admirals, knew nothing, could know nothing of the progress of the
    engagement as a whole. But they had worked under the Z9M9Z before. They knew that
    the maestro Haynes did know the battle as a whole. They knew that he was handling
    them as carefully and as skillfully as a master at chess plays his pieces upon the
    square-filled board. They knew that Kinnison or Worsel or Tregonsee was assigning no
    task too difficult of accomplishment.
         They knew that they could not be taken by surprise, attacked from some,
    unexpected and unprotected direction; knew that, although in those hundreds of
    thousands of cubic miles of space there were hundreds of thousands of highly inimical
    and exceedingly powerful ships of war, none of them were or shortly could be in position
    to do them serious harm. If there had been, they would have been pulled out of there,
    beaucoup fast. They were as safe as anyone in a warship in such a war could expect,
    or even hope, to be. Therefore they acted instantly; directly, whole-heartedly and
    efficiently; and it was the Boskonians who were taken, repeatedly and by the thousands,
    by surprise.
         For the enemy, as has been said, did not have the Patrol's smooth perfection of
    control. Thus several of Civilization's fleets, acting in full synchronization, could and
    repeatedly did rush upon one unit of the foe; englobing it, blasting it out of existence,
    and dashing back to stations; all before the nearest by fleets of Boskone knew even that
    a threat was being made. Thus ended the second phase of the battle, the engagement
    of the two Grand Fleets, with the few remaining thousands of Boskone's battleships
    taking refuge upon or near the phalanx of planets which had made up their center.
         Planets. Seven of them. Armed and powered as only a planet can be armed and
    powered; with fixed-mount weapons impossible of mounting upon a lesser mobile base,
    with fixed-mount intakes and generators which only planetary resources could excite or
    feed. Galactic Civilization's war-vessels fell back. Attacking a full-armed planet was no
    part of their job. And as they fell back the super-maulers moved ponderously up and
    went to work. This was their dish; for this they had been designed. Tubes, lances,
    stillettoes of unthinkable energies raved against their mighty screens; bouncing off,
    glancing away, dissipating themselves in space-torturing discharges as they hurled
    themselves upon the nearest ground. In and in the monsters bored, inexorably taking up
    their positions directly over the