Enlissa attack on that medical supply convoy?"

The fleet commander nodded.

"Well," Roysland continued, "what would happen if you were in command of the cruiser and you found a trace on the scope that indicated an Enlissa ship?"

"The orders cover that," said the commander. "The cruiser cuts in with the aJ guns before the Enlissa ship gets within torpedo range."

"And this always works?"

The commander shrugged. "It always has so far, the aJ's knock them out of space before they can get close enough to launch screenbuster torpedoes accurately. But this new gadget they've got evidently has as great a range as the aJ projectors."

"Or greater," Roysland added.

"Yeah," said Allerdyce softly, "or greater."

"Is there any other possibility?" Roysland wanted to know.

The commander nodded. "One—if the Enlissa were lucky, that is. If the enemy ship could have approached the convoy by coming in directly from a star, the subetheric radiation from the sun behind them would blank out their own radiation, and they could get in pretty close before they registered on a screen.

"But in order to do that, they'd have to know the convoy's course and lie in wait for it. If they actually did use a star to hide themselves, it was probably pure luck on their part that they happened to be in the right place at the right time."

Roysland nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed in thought. "I wonder—" he said finally. "Would you do me a favor, commander? Would you check and see if that cruiser actually fired towards a sun? That might give us some information."

"I'll check," Allerdyce said. "It'll be on the recorders. I'll let you know what I come up with."

"Fine," said Roysland. "I'll see you later." He cut off, and his image disintegrated.

Roysland looked at the dark, blurred reflection of his face in the black plastic of his desk for a moment, then grinned. "All right, buster," he said to the face in the desk, "you're stuck for a while, anyway. Time to call in some help."

He touched a switch plate on his 

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