"Admiral," spoke an officer, who had turned back to face his station. "Two enormous Carriers have just come out of warp. Super-Soviet configuration. Bearing 00, 666. "It's the Russians, sir." * "It's the Russians, sir." "Now look what you've done!" cried Hayes in his fury, unable to realize that all Frank had DONE was to keep him from killing a man untried. "Get him out of here." The MP's looked again at each other, then at Frank, not knowing who was meant or what should be done. The latter inclined his head swiftly, and they took the young officer away. As they left it, Calder entered the enclosure. Hayes whirled in fuming circles, ordering the chutes to be lowered and the attack-ships discharged. The officers at their stations either carried out his instructions or turned to Frank, who with a gesture of weary despair raised his arms as if to say, "What else can we do?" "We've got to move away from the gate, General," came the timid voice of the deployment officer. "Then do it, ass! Take us back and to port." And Hayes rattled off some meaningless coordinates. Like a gored lion he stalked back and forth, out of control, breathing too deeply and at intervals releasing desperate, maddened execrations. Another hesitant voice. "They've..... They've begun to discharge and form ranks." "Of COURSE they have! They didn't come here to talk!" In his earlier, false-confident musing, Hayes had said that it would take twice the Fleet's strength to overmatch him. And that was exactly what he now confronted---two Soviet Supercarriers, each nearly equal in girth and firepower to the Dreadnought queen, and each bearing a greater number of swarming killer bees. The Russians did not attack immediately, but remained at some distance, waiting perhaps for all their vessels to be deployed, or to be sure that Hayes was alone and the fight would go their way. Nor did the Americans make the first move, intimidated and dismayed by the sudden change in their fortunes, staring across the void at the ever widening fence of the opposing Armada. An army used to winning, rarely knows how to face defeat. The Dreadnought had drawn back and away from the remains of the broken Gate, so that now it lay ahead of them and far to the left. The out-ships as well, low on fuel and tentative, spread outward so that two almost parallel walls were formed, filled with eyes. The would-be combatants faced each other across the margin that they themselves created: the empty distance of war's chasm, that unholy no-man's land wherein, once entered, frightened men kill frightened men until one side has had enough. "Shall I try to contact them?" asked the young com officer pitifully. But at that moment the Russians started forward.