The FCO's masklike face began to acquire a sheen of perspiration in the glowing lights of the control room as he watched the screen and punched methodically at the fire control board. It was work that no robot could do; it required the shrewdness, intuition, and foresightedness that is a peculiar quality of the human mind. Without warning, the FCO jabbed violently at the white stud that stood at the edge of his panel. He jerked his finger off, and his hand seemed to freeze for a second. He had done the irrevocable; he had fired every torpedo in the ship. The X-69 now possessed no armament except the _aJ_ guns. * * * * * The first volley of screenbusters left the ship and slammed suddenly into the ultravelocity that only an unmanned torpedo is capable of. Even an antiacceleration field isn't one hundred per cent perfect. In no-space drive, a ship can accelerate at the spatial equivalent of better than a hundred thousand gravities without hurting the crew. But the tremendous acceleration of a war torpedo would crush any human body to a monomolecular film. The torpedoes had to be small; only a very small no-space generator could achieve such velocities in so short a time. But their small capacity was capable of carrying enough subnuclear explosive to smash through the energy screens of the enemy ship. They could not, however, breach the vodium hull itself or kill personnel within. That was where the "flies" came in. Their job was to smash through the breach in the energy screen, open the hull, and destroy life within. The only trouble was that the enemy could detect the torpedoes. If the Enlissa could act fast enough, they might be able to avoid them. The hope of the human ship was that the englobement would be too much for the robot computers of the Enlissa. The first wave of torpedoes left the X-69, spearing in the general direction of the Enlissa vessel. For a fraction of a second, they maintained their original course. Then they became erratic--purposely so. They flashed on and off in the detector screens as their no-space generators cut in and out, and they switched courses with dizzying rapidity. They had been on their way only for hundredths of a second when the second volley let go. Then the third blasted out. The whole thing was over before an eyelid could flicker. Roysland glanced at the chronometer; the whole operation had taken slightly over ninety seconds. The silence lasted only for a moment. One of the observers called out: "Torpedo at twelve thirty-seven!" The data had already been picked up by the robot pilot, and the X-69 shifted course. Roysland could feel the slightly sickish feeling in his stomach under the heavy acceleration as the angular acceleration of the ship changed. There was nothing to do now but wait. It was up to the robot defenses and the screens to make sure that no enemy torpedo hit the X-69. The ship lurched again.