ed to be the regulation
many-times-faster-than-light variety. If she dared fight, the fifteen
ships drove on. Mekinese ships never struck lightly. The fifteen of them
could launch four hundred missiles per salvo. No single ship could
counter such an attack. But even Mekinese would not use such stupendous
numbers of missiles against one ship unless that ship was famous; unless
rumors and reports said that it was invincible and dangerous and the
hope of oppressed peoples under Mekin.

The _Horus_ received very special attention.

Then she vanished. At one instant she was in full career toward the
fleet of enemies. The next instant she had wrapped an overdrive field
about herself and then no radar could detect her, nor could any missile
penetrate her protection.

When she vanished, the speck which indicated her position disappeared
from the Mekinese radar-screens. The hundredth of a second in overdrive
as known to the Mekinese should have put her hundreds of millions of
miles away. But something new had been added to the _Horus_. The
hundredth of a second did not mean millions of miles of journeying. It
meant something under three thousand, and a much more precise interval
of time could be measured and used by her micro-timer.

Therefore, at one instant the _Horus_ was some two thousand miles from
the lip of the half-globe of enemy ships. Then she was not anywhere.
Then, before the mind could grasp the fact of her vanishing, she was in
the very center, the exact focus of the formation of Mekinese
battle-craft. She was at the spot a Mekinese commander would most
devoutly wish, because it was equidistant from all his ships, and all
their missiles should arrive at the same instant when their overwhelming
number could not conceivably be parried.

But it was more than an ideal position from a Mekinese standpoint. It
was also a point which was ideal for the _Horus_, because all her
missiles would arrive at the encircling ships at the same instant. Each
Mekinese would separately learn--without information from any
other--that those projectiles could not be intercepted. No Mekinese
would have the advantage of watching the tactic practiced on a
companion-ship, to guide his own actions.

The _Horus_ appeared at that utterly vulnerable and wholly advantageous
position. She showed on the Mekinese screens. They launched missiles.
The _Horus_ launched missiles.

The _Horus_ disappeared.

She reappeared, beyond and behind the h