BATTLE for the STARS
By ALEXANDER BLADE
Kirk had never seen the distant planet
called Earth, yet his squadron was now ordered
there—to stem the outbreak of a galactic war!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was well called the Dragon's Throat, thought Kirk. Throat of fire,of burning suns, a cosmic blind-alley into danger!
You made your decision. You threw a ship, a hundred men, your officers,your friends, your own Commander's badge you threw them all down on thegamble. But when the stakes were stars....
He said to himself, "The hell with it, we're committed."
He said aloud, "Radar?"
Joe Garstang, standing on the bridge beside him, answered withoutturning. "Nothing has been monitored yet. Not yet."
Kirk's palms itched. If they were running into an ambush, if Orionheavy cruisers were waiting for them, they'd soon know it. There couldbe ships all around them. Radar wasn't too dependable, in the howlingvortices of force-field energy flung out around this jungle of stars.
Through the broad bridge-windows—the "windows" that were reallyscanners cunningly translating faster-than-light probe rays into visualimages—there beat upon his face the light of a thousand suns.
It was Cluster N-356-44, in the Standard Atlas. It was also hellfiremade manifest, to starmen. It was a hive of swarming suns, pale greenand violet, white and yellow-gold and smoky red, blazing so fiercelythat the eye was robbed of perspective and these stars seemed to crowdand jostle and rub each other. Up against the black backdrop of thefirmament they burned, pouring forth the torrents of their life-energyto whirl in terrific cosmic maelstroms. The merchant ships that boldlydrove the great darks between ordinary star-worlds would recoil aghastfrom the navigational perils here. Only a fool—or a cruiser—would goin here.
There was a narrow cleft between cliffs of stars, with the flame-shotglow of an immense nebula roofing it. The only possible way into theheart of the cluster, this Dragon's Throat of starman legend. Butothers had gone in this way. At least, so said the rumors, rumorsthat had reached the squadron as far away as the Pleiades. Rumors toofactual, too alarming, to be ignored.
Rumors of cruisers from the squadrons of Orion Sector, that had goneinto this cluster. Rumors of a secret base, on a hidden world. Theships of Orion Sector had no business here. Neither, for that matter,did the ships of Kirk's own Lyra Sector. This cluster was no-man'sland, part of the buffer zones that were supposed to reduce frictionbetween the five great Sectors of the galaxy. Actually, these stellarwildernesses were the scenes of constant, nameless little wars.
The five governors of the five great Sectors were, all of them,ambitious men. Solleremos of Orion, Vorn of Cepheus, Gianea of Leo,Strowe of Perseus, Ferdias of Lyra—they watched each other jealously.Five great barons of the galaxy, paying only a lip-service allegianceto the shadowy Central Council far away on a half-forgotten worldcalled Earth, in reality independent satraps of the stars, hungry forspace, hungry for power. Yes, even Ferdias, thought Kirk. Ferdias wasthe man he served,