Valkyrie had been holding his breath. He had already known the approach of the enemy before he got the first information from the headquarters of command.
--- The convoys of the enemy are moving from the orbit of the earth to the Behind Trojan Group. The assumed all mass is 10,000 ton. The escort ship is one unit. It patrols in the forward position of the convoys and it belongs to the guard cruiser class.
Order; Destroy the convoys and the escorting guard cruiser, then return to the base.
The first priority is returning to the base. The second is destroying convoys. The third is destroying the escort ship.
The tactics is entrusted to your judge. GOOD LUCK ---
The correspondence from the command headquarters of the depot ship, which was at least some light-minutes further from Valkyrie, told so. Valkyrie neglected the last part of the communication. Because he only could deal with it as an invalid order unable to decipher.
Valkyrie had been keeping silence. He calculated the time when the combat would break out from the information given by the headquarters of command, and stooped his all sensors until then. Valkyrie knew his own weak point. It had very strong accelerating ability, but couldn't continue full acceleration for a long time. In the case that to return to the base was commanded as the primary order, the limitation laid on him became much stricter.
Valkyrie have kept silence as he had did for some hundreds hour.
He knew that the electromagnetic waves generated from radar and the little heat radiated from the passive sensors in the body could become dangerous equipment which tell the enemy the position where Valkyrie was. Valkyrie not only kept silence but also shut his eyes and ears.
Nothing moved inside of his body, except for the command clock, which knew the time when the battle would start in advance, ticking away silently.
The space was chilled. The glitter of stars, which never changed from the ancient times, wrapped the space around Valkyrie as spots of cold lights.
Very long before man looked up the sky and noticed them, the position of stars hadn't changed themselves and there couldn't be seen any change in the infinite abyss, as if the time itself also froze.
A spot in the sea of stars lighted.
It was a trivial light compared with the stars around it. But it gradually spread and became an light circle consisted of uncountable spot. Then it spread more and more falling on Valkyrie as a light-ooze loomed up on the dark space.
Just before the ring of light attacked Valkyrie, the command clock, the only thing moving in his body, had commanded to attack.
Changes happened inside of Valkyrie.
They were finished at a burst only in some milliseconds. The body, which had stopped all moves till then, shifted to full battle mode and hastily activated body radiated a fitting spirit like a flame.
But the thing which the sensors of Valkyrie spread over the space around him caught at first was not the figure of enemy but was uncountable mass-spots spreading and rushed into Valkyrie. The distance was already some thousands kilometers. Only in some seconds, Valkyrie would collide with one of the spread splinters.
Valkyrie had confirmed the relative speed and position of the splinters. He needed some milliseconds to decide tactics. Next moment, he commanded the body of himself.
--- Breakthrough the center of demolished warhead. Prepare for the short range shooting battle. Charge the main cannon. Control the posture. Accelerate fully after sifting to attack formation. Correct the orbit after passing the screen of exploded warhead.
Just in one second after it had accepted the command, the body of Valkyrie turned and at the nose, sticking single high-power laser cannon, was pointed at the forward orbit.
At the same time the posture-control was finished, all engines of Valkyrie emit a long and big plasma flame and the body was thrown forward by nearly 100G acceleration. The temperature of body, which had been chilled till them, jump up almost to the highest limit immediately.