Chapter 20

The first torpedo hit the Utorian spaceship on the left side, and that was followed so quickly by the second torpedo hitting the ship on the right that it seemed like only one impact. There were two massive explosions, one on each side of the spaceship. Then the whole thing seemed to disintegrate into a mass of small pieces. Those "small" pieces were actually hundreds, if not thousands, of feet across, but the distance made them seem tiny.

Of course, what we were seeing had taken place minutes ago. The speed of light just could not do justice to the destruction that had taken place. Some of those pieces would go into orbit around Utor and take days, weeks, months, or even years to fall back onto the planet. Some of the pieces would go wandering in space and never be seen again, while others would rain down on Utor, making life difficult for the people down there. I just hoped that this made an adequate object lesson.

A few minutes after the destruction of the spaceship, a message came over the FTL radio to the effect of "Can't we discuss this?" Jake warned me to be very careful because one of the strong points of the Utorian credo was to use any dirty trick necessary to win. She said that the bosses were even now trying to figure out a way to destroy us. They would never give up, because that would be a sign of weakness that their underlings would pounce on to take their places. It was her contention that we were going to have to destroy every one of the Utorian spaceships before we could get any meaningful action from the bosses.

I took her advice to heart and radioed back, "You have already shown your perfidy, and we will not take chances with you. I will destroy another spaceship every 15 minutes until you surrender. Nothing else will be acceptable!"

There was no answer to that message, so I asked Jake to point out a spaceship that she thought would be worth destroying. Her answer was that the destruction of any spaceship would make my point, so I should just pick out one at random and hit it with a resounding punch.

That sounded good to me, so I radioed to the rest of my battleships for them to pick out a target and to destroy it if we did not hear from the bosses with a surrender. They should act at 15-minute intervals in the order of their construction. That is, B-2 was next, then B-3, B-4, etc. If they still had not surrendered after B-8 had destroyed its target, then we would go around again. I was sure that the Utorians could hear what I said, but I was also pretty sure that they could not understand me.

We still had not heard anything after 15 minutes, so B-2 fired a ray gun blast at a ship that was reasonably close to it. The ship broke in half and exploded. None of us knew why it had done that, but the effect was what we wanted, so we didn't care.

After another 15 minutes, B-3 fired a ray gun blast at the largest ship near it. This time, the effect was more artistic. Was that because the captain was a woman? Anyway, this time, the spaceship target was cut into five pieces as the four ray gun turrets fired at a different place along the length of the spaceship. It was fascinating to watch the pieces break apart and assume slightly different orbits. All kinds of things began to spill from the damaged ship pieces, and one of the pieces blew up.

Apparently, this was the last straw. Every ship orbiting Utor boosted toward us, and we assumed that they were shooting as they approached. There was no way to tell for sure because there were no muzzle flashes from the gun ports. We didn't worry about that. Hostile action was hostile action. All of the airmobiles were sent into action and the battleships opened up with their quad-mounts.

It was as if the Utorians were not shooting at us because we did not receive a hit. However, the same could not be said for our fire. Between the tiny airmobiles and the huge battleships, there was a tremendous amount of energy being beamed at the Utorian ships. They were blowing up or breaking apart at an almost unbelievable rate.

At last, A-27 wandered into a beam and vanished before our eyes. We were shocked because that was our first casualty of the battle. Seconds later, B-5 had a section cut from her bow, but that was all of the damage. Only seconds later, we learned that her air-tight hatches had all sealed and they were not losing air. Two humans and one Utorian had been lost with that hit.

These two hits seemed to boost us into even more frenzied action. More and more hits were scored on the enemy ships, and their fleet was breaking up. They had never had a chance to get organized, but fought us as if each ship was acting independently. Jake said that might have happened anyway because each captain would want to appear to be the most intent on hitting us. That sort of attitude was sure to spell disaster against a force as well coordinated as we were.

In any case, it took us almost 45 minutes to chase down every ship that had taken a shot at us. However, when we were finished, the Utorian space fleet stationed at Utor had ceased to exist. Once that was done, I sent a message to Utor demanding their surrender. It did not take long to get a reply. They were surrendering, and Jake said that it was a new voice that had transmitted that message.

Jake was sure that there had been a palace revolt that had resulted in the death of the supreme leader. That was the way things were usually done, and she could see no reason for this situation to be any different. The message from the ground was suitably deferential, and she was sure that they would acknowledge me as the new supreme boss as soon as I showed up. However, I still needed to be careful.

Normally, I would not have considered stepping into the lion's den by going to the surface. But Jake said that the only way that I could firmly establish my superiority was to show up in person, thereby proving that I was not afraid of any thing that the Utorians might do. Okay, under those circumstances, I would take a chance and go to the palace on Utor. However, I was going to take along my assault team to act as bodyguards. Also, I was going to take along Jake and Al to advise me on how I should act and how much I should believe of what was said to me.

The team was assembled and we went to the surface in an armed flying box, HAF-2. We were guided to a landing spot on the roof of the palace, and my bodyguards deployed before I exited the craft. I came marching down the ramp to the mental tune of Pomp and Circumstance. Only I could hear it, but I acted as if it were playing over loud speakers.

Apparently, I made the right impression because the Utorians who were there to meet me stood in their version of the surrender pose. I turned to Jake and asked in my most sarcastic tone of voice, "Who are these cretins?" that was almost too much because I could see Jake struggling to keep from laughing, and let me tell you, a laughing Utorian is truly a sight to see.

She did the equivalent of a Utorian bow and said in a most obsequious voice, "Boss, Sir, these are the current rulers of Utor. They have displaced the previous boss by killing him, and they wish to surrender to your rule."

"Very well, then present them to me."

Jake went through the whole formal rigamarole, giving the full names of each of the four Utorians who were standing before me. They looked to me like they were about to shit in their pants if they had been wearing pants. I was holding one of the Utorian versions of a ray gun as if I knew how to use it, which I did, and I must have made a very intimidating sight, even if I was two feet shorter than the Utorians.

I nodded to Jake and looked directly at the four Utorians. "As of this moment, you four are reduced to the lowest social status. Furthermore, if I ever see any of you again, I will peel off your skin an inch at a time. Now, get out of my sight!"

Jake had supplied the older form of the universal translator to each of the four Utorians, so they had no trouble understanding everything that I had said. As soon as I said that last sentence, they took off at a dead run to escape from me. She managed to wait until they were out of sight before she let loose, but Jake began to laugh, and she laughed for a solid five minutes, only with pauses to breathe.