Hell Rock, a giant sphere or artificial planetoid orbiting Avalon and attended by small spacecraft, has awesome firepower, instruments and computers. Enemy ships attack but do not damage her. When she turns off a screen to launch missiles, energy weapons defend her temporarily exposed surface. Rays cannot be held steady long enough to penetrate her heavy plates. Radiation from exploding bombs has to pass through so many layers that it does not seriously harm the crew within.
Hell Rock blasts so many small ships that the Terran Admiral sends five capital ships with their attendants to destroy her. Many of her compartments are burst open to space. She fights on automatically as her crew leave when her command capabilities are no longer needed because the Avalonians have lost so many craft.
The Admiral has sent his five capital ships into a trap, doing exactly as the Avalonians had wanted. A massive megatonage of missiles hidden underground is launched simultaneously.
"Avalon struck...The skies erupted in radiance."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), pp. 535, 537.
Terra defeats the entire Domain of Ythri, except this one planet, Avalon.
2 comments:
Hi, Paul!
And Poul Anderson was inspired by the siege of Belfort during the Franco/Prussian War for how he worked out the Avalon campaign during the Ythrian War. And Terra COULD have wrested Avalon from the Domain, IF the Imperium had decided the cost was worth the effort.
Fortunately for the Empire itself, Terra decided not to press matters so far. If Avalon had been annexed by the Empire, then there would not have been an Ythrian intelligence agent from Avalon, working for both the Domain and the Empire, playing a crucial role in thwarting Merseian designs some two centuries later.
Again, we see an example of the Empire being far sighted and showing self restraint. That is, refraining from destroying the Domain and settling for, say, 60 percent of the loaf of bread, rather than insisting on all of the loaf. Merseia, as we know, had far more grandiose ambitions and was willing to rise all out war if she thought the Roidhunate would win. Such as the Imperial navy being fatally weakened at Starkad.
Sean
Another excellent synopsis of the interstellar situation and a Terrestrial historical precedent.
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