- by Tara Maya
Military SF story
Two big battleships around Saturn (or Jupiter)
Orbiting ship tosses asteroids from rings, ship below is firing laser up (they have to surface to fire) asteroids are like depth charges (delay)
(Smaller ships from guard fleet fighting other individual battles further out in orbit; one falls and the submerged ship takes a risk to save it even though it’s an enemy)
One had fuel from the planet but a broken ship, the other has a good ship but no fuel
They each send the other a “You’re side has lost, surrender.”
The captain of orbiting ship realizes both will die unless they pool resources, but knows other captain will never surrender
He tells other captain his side won
Other captain takes prisoners on board and leaves planet grav well to go home — finds out it was a fake, the orbiter’s side actually won
