PREVIEW OF PERIL

By ALFRED COPPEL, Jr.

Like shadows, the four ships of Flotilla Blue Three slipped through the patrol cordon of the powerful Martian Space Force. Only the crazy luck of their mad, medal-bedecked Commodore would ever get them out again.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories September 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The Second Martian War was three weeks old when the officers of the Terran destroyer Darkside found themselves assembled in Control and glumly aware that the Flotilla Commodore was sizing them up. It was hard to tell just what he was thinking, but whatever it was they had made up their minds to return it doubled in spades.

Having a Flotilla Commodore on board was actually a hardship, particularly if as in the case of the Darkside—the ship elected was unsuitable for a flagship. The Commodore needed cabin space for himself and for his staff, and that meant that five of the Darkside's nine officers would have to double up on what space was left. On board a destroyer that meant a good deal. But more important yet was the moral effect on the ship's company.

With a flag officer on board the easy life of an informal vessel would vanish and something of the formality of a big ship would take its place. The officers and crew would feel themselves under the scrutiny of higher authority no matter how hard the Commodore tried not to interfere with the working of the ship. And it naturally followed that the ship's commander would lose some of the joy in his independent command. Thus a happy ship would become a tight one ... QED. It was a situation as old as ships and men.

So there was little joy to be seen in the faces of Commander Scott and his officers when Commodore Hartnett stepped through the valve followed by his staff. Nor was their anything about Hartnett's appearance to suggest that they had been anything but right about the manner in which Flotilla Blue Three would be handled throughout the coming patrol. The Commodore was a model of military correctness, a martinet moulded in two Martian Wars and twenty years in space to a steely hardness that was disconcerting.

They saw a lean, leathery man in his late forties, dressed in immaculate Greys that sported an apalling amount of silver braid. Four stripes were rare aboard destroyers. Eyes that matched the hard grey of the uniform glittered in a spaceburned face, shaded by heavy black brows. Young Ensign Blake's heart sank as he took in the set of the shoulders and the smooth fit of the blouse. He made a mental note of the fact that from now on there would be no more standing watches in sweatshirt and sneakers. He also reflected sadly on the many pleasure jaunts that Scott was wont to let him make in the Darkside's skeeter-boat, and bade a mental farewell to those happy moments. The set of the Commodore's long jaw instilled more respect for Space Force Regs in the young reservist than all the ten orientation lectures he had received at Hamilton Spaceport. Plainly there was a new era beginning for the TRS Darkside!

There wasn't a man on board who hadn't heard of Hartnett, of course. A gambler in combat, he had always managed to come out ahead of the game. His record was the record of practically every major achievement of the Force. Most of it could be read from the four rows of ribbons under his Command Pilot's sunburst.

There was the pale blue of the Terran Honor Medal that he'd won by ramming a Martian dreadnaught of the Diemos class with his crippled corvette off Io in the first Cat war. There was the red bar of the DSM received for leading the first deep-space expedition to reach Ariel and Oberon in the Uranian system ... that, before Blake had been born. And the rainbow colored ribbon of the old UN patrol, the First Martian Victory Medal, the Venerian Exploratory Medal, the Spatial Cross; four rows of them ending up with the General Service and Martian Occupation Ribbon.

To say, that it impressed the Darkside's green personnel would be an understatement. The decorations showed Hartnett to be the gambler ... the lucky gambler ... that he was said to be.

All the way out to Luna Base from Hamilton Spaceport, the crew of the flagship had been muttering about the "damned brass-hat" who was going to disrupt the pleasant life of their beloved ship with his unwanted, high-ranking, stinking, presence, but the iron-hard reality of the man and the aura of confidence that emanated from him as he stood on the steel deck of the Control, spiked their guns too quickly. From the moments Hartnett stepped aboard, reflected Commander Scott bitterly, the ship tightened up. From here on in it was Hartnett's ship and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it.

Introductions were short and to the point. Most of the ship's officers had met Hartnett's staff at the Base Officer's Club after the Captain's Council, where the commanders of the four ships that made up Flotilla Blue Three had met their Commodore for the first time. Scott sighed as he thought of the evident relief on Lieutenant Morrow's face when he had found that the flagship was to be the Darkside and not his own ship, the Lysander.

"That Hartnett will take over your ship, Scott," Morrow had told him. "He can't help it. From the moment he steps aboard, it'll be his baby." And Hartnett was a gambler....

Scott presented his officers to the Commodore almost jealously, starting with the Executive, Lieutenant Commander Chavez and Lieutenant Horowitz, the Tactical Physicist; and ending up with Ensign Blake, the Junior Gunnery Officer, who was startled from his nervous fidgeting by the sound of his name.

"A reservist," was Hartnett's only comment, and though it was said in a friendly tone, Blake flushed furiously and wondered if it stuck like straw out of his ears.

"Mr. Blake is the Charles Blake who won the New York to Ley City amateur skeeter-boat race last year, Sir," explained Scott.

The Commodore nodded vaguely, his eyes wandering over the burnished chrome and steel of the Control panels. "Good sport, small ship racing, Mr. Blake," he commented.

Blake's cherubic face burst into smiles. "The best sir!"

Hartnett's men were presented to the ship's commander more as a formality than anything else, as he had met them before. Thorne, a full Commander, was Flotilla Astrogator, Wilson and Orsov, Lieutenants, were Flotilla Gunnery Officers, James, a jaygee, was Flotilla Signals Officer, and Ensign Ward, a thin boy about Blake's age, was the Commodore's Aide. He sported his single silver augilette proudly.

They didn't seem a bad lot, reflected Scott grudgingly. Maybe they wouldn't get in the way too much.

"We can lift ship as soon as convenient, Mr. Scott," said Hartnett, issuing his first order.

"Aye, sir."

Hartnett turned to his staff. "Get yourselves below and sort yourselves out. Try not to take up too much room." As they vanished down the ramp, he turned to take a seat at the visiplates.

Scott was taking a time check from the Tower Control, and the signalmen were relaying the lift-ship order to the three other ships of Blue Three. Outside on the airless field, the amber warning lights were spinning on the Tower mast, warning the spacesuited maintenance crews away from the blast pits.

Chavez was snapping orders into the intercom and the Darkside was awaking to activity smoothly. Five shielded decks below Control, Chief Jetman Collins and the black-gang were busily removing the seals from the cadmium dampers in the blast chambers. The "three-minutes-to-lift-ship" alarm blared and the lights dimmed, leaving Control lighted only by the reflected glow of the panel lights. On the visiplate screen, the slender shapes of the Lysander, the Argus and the fat, ungainly silhouette of the ironically named Artemis showed clearly in the earthlight.

The Artemis, thought Hartnett, was the only weak link in his command. The other three ships were modern, but the Artemis was an ancient alcohol burner, converted to atomics and pressed into service by the exigencies of an undeclared and treacherous war.

At best, she could stand no more than 5 Terran Gs and the rest of the Flotilla would be forced to keep to her reduced speed throughout the cruise. Her armament was lighter and her armor thinner than it should be. In fact, she was strictly Cat meat if she should ever be forced to stand and fight. And if they intercepted any Cats, that is exactly what she would have to do, since she was the only ship of Blue Three that could not outrun any comparable Martian ship.

Scott was giving his orders now, eyes fastened on the master chronometer. Hartnett was pleased to see that he did so without a sidelong look at his superior. He knew his business and did it. Good. Then Hartnett could stick to handling Blue Three and worrying about the Artemis without thought of how the ship under him was being managed.