, we just landed suddenly, knocked out their
army, seized the center of government, before anybody could do anything.
If we'd landed the way you'd wanted us to, somebody would have resisted,
and the next thing, we'd have had to kill about five or six thousand of
them and blow down a couple of towns, and we'd have lost a lot of our
own people doing it. You might say, we had to do it to save them from
themselves."

Obray of Erskyll seemed to have doubts, but before he could articulate
them, Shatrak's communication-screen was calling attention to itself.
The commodore flicked the switch, and his executive officer, Captain
Patrique Morvill, appeared in it.

"We've just gotten reports, sir, that some of Ravney's people have
captured a half-dozen missile-launching sites around the city. His
air-reconn tells him that that's the lot of them. I have an officer of
one of the parties that participated. You ought to hear what he has to
say, sir."

"Well, good!" Vann Shatrak whooshed out his breath. "I don't mind
admitting, I was a little on edge about that."

"Wait till you hear what Lieutenant Carmath has to say." Morvill seemed
to be strangling a laugh. "Ready for him, Commodore?"

Shatrak nodded; Morvill made a hand-signal and vanished in a flicker of
rainbow colors; when the screen cleared, a young Landing-Troop
lieutenant in battle-dress was looking out of it. He saluted and gave
his name, rank and unit.

"This missile-launching site I'm occupying, sir; it's twenty miles
north-west of the city. We took it thirty minutes ago; no resistance
whatever. There are four hundred or so people here. Of them, twelve, one
dozen, are soldiers. The rest are civilians. Ten enlisted men, a non-com
of some sort, and something that appears to be an officer. The officer
had a pistol, fully loaded. The non-com had a submachine gun, empty,
with two loaded clips on his belt. The privates had rifles, empty, and
no ammunition. The officer did not know where the rifle ammunition was
stored."

Shatrak swore. The second lieutenant nodded. "Exactly my comment when he
told me, sir. But this place is beautifully kept up. Lawns all mowed,
trees neatly pruned, everything policed up like inspection morning. And
there is a headquarters office building here adequate for an army
division...."

"How about the armament, Lieutenant?" Shatrak asked with forced
patience.

"Ah, yes; the armament, sir. There are eight big launching cradles for
panplanetary