Sci-fi book where a human is taken from Earth to help man an alien ship in a fight against other aliens and rises through the ranks to command [duplicate] The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are In Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Planned maintenance scheduled April 17/18, 2019 at 00:00UTC (8:00pm US/Eastern) Latest Blog Post: Highlights from 2019 – 1st Quarter Favorite questions and answers from first quarter of 2019Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invadersSci Fi short story with aliens who only mate every 7 yearsA book from the 60s or 70s about a crashed spaceship and their colonySci-fi story where a pilot transfers his consciousness into his ship and explores the territory of an “enemy” alien raceSci-fi book about overwhelming psychic space critters where each chapter is written in a different writing structure?Story ident : Alien scout-ship crashesStar Wars Intergalactic Alien InvasionAlien race (possibly feline) takes human captive en route to final battle for Earth, fleet uses relativistic velocity to destroy alien armada?Alien race recruits military personnel from the American, Soviet, and Israeli armed forcesShort story where Earth submits to alien warriors but a Terran admiral dooms Earth by trying to ambush alien fleetHumans travel to earth-like planet to colonize but find peaceful aliens

How to politely respond to generic emails requesting a PhD/job in my lab? Without wasting too much time

system() function string length limit

How is simplicity better than precision and clarity in prose?

Can a novice safely splice in wire to lengthen 5V charging cable?

How can I protect witches in combat who wear limited clothing?

What was the last x86 CPU that did not have the x87 floating-point unit built in?

Do working physicists consider Newtonian mechanics to be "falsified"?

Sort a list of pairs representing an acyclic, partial automorphism

How to pronounce 1ターン?

Did the new image of black hole confirm the general theory of relativity?

Are my PIs rude or am I just being too sensitive?

Is it ethical to upload a automatically generated paper to a non peer-reviewed site as part of a larger research?

First use of “packing” as in carrying a gun

How to stretch delimiters to envolve matrices inside of a kbordermatrix?

How did the audience guess the pentatonic scale in Bobby McFerrin's presentation?

Does Parliament need to approve the new Brexit delay to 31 October 2019?

Semisimplicity of the category of coherent sheaves?

How to remove this toilet supply line that seems to have no nut?

The variadic template constructor of my class cannot modify my class members, why is that so?

Make it rain characters

Can undead you have reanimated wait inside a portable hole?

Take groceries in checked luggage

Who or what is the being for whom Being is a question for Heidegger?

How to split my screen on my Macbook Air?



Sci-fi book where a human is taken from Earth to help man an alien ship in a fight against other aliens and rises through the ranks to command [duplicate]



The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are In
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 17/18, 2019 at 00:00UTC (8:00pm US/Eastern)
Latest Blog Post: Highlights from 2019 – 1st Quarter
Favorite questions and answers from first quarter of 2019Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invadersSci Fi short story with aliens who only mate every 7 yearsA book from the 60s or 70s about a crashed spaceship and their colonySci-fi story where a pilot transfers his consciousness into his ship and explores the territory of an “enemy” alien raceSci-fi book about overwhelming psychic space critters where each chapter is written in a different writing structure?Story ident : Alien scout-ship crashesStar Wars Intergalactic Alien InvasionAlien race (possibly feline) takes human captive en route to final battle for Earth, fleet uses relativistic velocity to destroy alien armada?Alien race recruits military personnel from the American, Soviet, and Israeli armed forcesShort story where Earth submits to alien warriors but a Terran admiral dooms Earth by trying to ambush alien fleetHumans travel to earth-like planet to colonize but find peaceful aliens



.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;








7
















This question already has an answer here:



  • Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invaders

    1 answer



The story is about an alien race that comes to Earth and takes a single Earthling to help man a ship to fight an invasion from another people. The human is a psychic as is everyone else on the ship. The main fleet is made up of the alien race, but the ship the human is sent to is crewed by single psychics from different planets. The human has to fight his way up the chain to eventually command the ship. He refuses to retreat when ordered to do so and leads an attack on the invading aliens.










share|improve this question









New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











marked as duplicate by Otis, DavidW, Bellatrix, amflare, Rand al'Thor 21 hours ago


This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.













  • 2





    If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

    – Otis
    Apr 10 at 15:54






  • 1





    See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

    – Otis
    22 hours ago

















7
















This question already has an answer here:



  • Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invaders

    1 answer



The story is about an alien race that comes to Earth and takes a single Earthling to help man a ship to fight an invasion from another people. The human is a psychic as is everyone else on the ship. The main fleet is made up of the alien race, but the ship the human is sent to is crewed by single psychics from different planets. The human has to fight his way up the chain to eventually command the ship. He refuses to retreat when ordered to do so and leads an attack on the invading aliens.










share|improve this question









New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











marked as duplicate by Otis, DavidW, Bellatrix, amflare, Rand al'Thor 21 hours ago


This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.













  • 2





    If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

    – Otis
    Apr 10 at 15:54






  • 1





    See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

    – Otis
    22 hours ago













7












7








7


3







This question already has an answer here:



  • Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invaders

    1 answer



The story is about an alien race that comes to Earth and takes a single Earthling to help man a ship to fight an invasion from another people. The human is a psychic as is everyone else on the ship. The main fleet is made up of the alien race, but the ship the human is sent to is crewed by single psychics from different planets. The human has to fight his way up the chain to eventually command the ship. He refuses to retreat when ordered to do so and leads an attack on the invading aliens.










share|improve this question









New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.













This question already has an answer here:



  • Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invaders

    1 answer



The story is about an alien race that comes to Earth and takes a single Earthling to help man a ship to fight an invasion from another people. The human is a psychic as is everyone else on the ship. The main fleet is made up of the alien race, but the ship the human is sent to is crewed by single psychics from different planets. The human has to fight his way up the chain to eventually command the ship. He refuses to retreat when ordered to do so and leads an attack on the invading aliens.





This question already has an answer here:



  • Sci-fi novel about man picked up by aliens to represent earth in battle against galactic invaders

    1 answer







story-identification books






share|improve this question









New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Apr 10 at 13:18









TheLethalCarrot

51.5k20285323




51.5k20285323






New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









asked Apr 10 at 13:13









user113996user113996

361




361




New contributor




user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






user113996 is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.




marked as duplicate by Otis, DavidW, Bellatrix, amflare, Rand al'Thor 21 hours ago


This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.









marked as duplicate by Otis, DavidW, Bellatrix, amflare, Rand al'Thor 21 hours ago


This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.









  • 2





    If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

    – Otis
    Apr 10 at 15:54






  • 1





    See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

    – Otis
    22 hours ago












  • 2





    If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

    – Otis
    Apr 10 at 15:54






  • 1





    See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

    – Otis
    22 hours ago







2




2





If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

– Otis
Apr 10 at 15:54





If the answer below is correct, please formally accept it using the green checkmark at the top left of the answer. This will help with site management by letting it be linked to other questions about the same book. Welcome to the stack!

– Otis
Apr 10 at 15:54




1




1





See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

– Otis
22 hours ago





See OP confirmation comment for answer below.

– Otis
22 hours ago










1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















15














This sounds a lot like Gordon R. Dickson's 1970 novel Hour of the Horde, which was previously asked about and answered here.



The protagonist is selected by aliens as Earth's sole representative in an intergalactic war. He does have a kind of sensitivity that is not typical, and which is essential to operate the weapons to be used in an upcoming battle to divert an enemy fleet from our galaxy.



After his selection, the protagonist is placed on a very small fighting ship in the dregs of the defense fleet, where he is basically told to stay out of the way. Each crew member of the ship is also a single representative from their planet:




The room was full. On its furniture and around its walls, stood and
sat a variety of different-appearing beings. All were four-limbed,
standing upright on the lower two and with hand-like appendages at the
end of their upper pair. They were all roughly the same size and
proportion and general shape. But there was tremendous variety.



No two of them had the same skin color. No two of them had the same
facial appearance. All had roughly similar features, as far as
possessing two eyes and a single nose and a mouth was concerned. But
from there on everything was different. Their appearance ranged from
that of the completely innocuous, to the completely ferocious — from
one being who seemed as round and inoffensive as a toy bear to one who
seemed a walking tiger, equipped with a pair of ripping teeth
projecting over his lower lip from the upper jaw.




Dissatisfied with these instructions, and unhappy with the acceptance of this by the other aliens in his ship's crew, he battles each one on one in order to rise through the ship's informal command hierarchy.



Eventually, he secures the cooperation of everyone else on the ship. When the climactic battle comes, the commanding aliens order a general retreat, which he ignores and instead charges the enemy fleet alone:




“Retreating?” echoed Miles. "Retreating — you mean just we little
ships are retreating? Or more than just us?”



"Haven’t you been informed?” roared the harsh voice, above him. “The
Center’s computational devices have calculated and found an answer
that predicts defeat if we try to stop the Horde. All are leaving. All
— ”



The voice was cut off suddenly, as Miles jabbed at both voice and
sight communication controls. Abruptly, in the screen before them,
formed a schematic of the whole Battle Line. It showed the whole Line
from end to end, and the ships in all their sizes and varieties, but
as if only a few yards separated them. As Miles, Luhon and Eff
watched, ships were winking out of existence in that Line. Even the
huge globular Dreadnaughts of the Center Aliens were disappearing.



It was true. After everything — after all their work and the work of
the Center Aliens and others to set up this Battle Line — now just
because of some cold answer given by an unliving device, the greatest
strength the galaxy could gather was not going to face the Horde after
all. They were all going to turn tail and run, save themselves, and
let the Horde in to feed upon the helpless worlds they had been sent
out here to protect.



...



Before Miles, in that moment, there also rose up a picture of his
people and his world — the world as he had seen it, during those last
days when he had moved like a ghost from spot to spot about its
surface, and among its many people. He saw it, and at the same time in
his mind’s eye, he saw the picture of the world that the two Center
Aliens had shown him — the world that a million years before had been
cleaned to the point of barrenness by the Horde.



In his mind’s eye now, he saw Earth like that. One endless,
horizon-wide stretch of naked earth and soil, with nothing left.
Everything gone — all gone. The cities, the people within them, their
history, their music, their paintings, Marie Bourtel...



I won’t!"



...



Miles hands slapped down on the console in front of him. To his right,
Luhon’s flashing gray fingers were already blurring over his controls,
and Eff was busy at his left.



Like a living creature with one mind, the Fighting Rowboat lifted
from its cradle and flashed into shift — single-handedly and alone
into attack against the uncountable numbers of the Silver Horde.




This throws off the enemy fleet's configuration enough that the defensive commander sees an opportunity to attack and reverses the retreat, subsequently winning the battle.



Per ISFDB, the story was originally published in the May 1969 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and it can be read online in the context of its original publication courtesy of archive.org.






share|improve this answer

























  • Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

    – user113996
    Apr 11 at 0:48






  • 2





    @user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

    – Null
    2 days ago

















1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









15














This sounds a lot like Gordon R. Dickson's 1970 novel Hour of the Horde, which was previously asked about and answered here.



The protagonist is selected by aliens as Earth's sole representative in an intergalactic war. He does have a kind of sensitivity that is not typical, and which is essential to operate the weapons to be used in an upcoming battle to divert an enemy fleet from our galaxy.



After his selection, the protagonist is placed on a very small fighting ship in the dregs of the defense fleet, where he is basically told to stay out of the way. Each crew member of the ship is also a single representative from their planet:




The room was full. On its furniture and around its walls, stood and
sat a variety of different-appearing beings. All were four-limbed,
standing upright on the lower two and with hand-like appendages at the
end of their upper pair. They were all roughly the same size and
proportion and general shape. But there was tremendous variety.



No two of them had the same skin color. No two of them had the same
facial appearance. All had roughly similar features, as far as
possessing two eyes and a single nose and a mouth was concerned. But
from there on everything was different. Their appearance ranged from
that of the completely innocuous, to the completely ferocious — from
one being who seemed as round and inoffensive as a toy bear to one who
seemed a walking tiger, equipped with a pair of ripping teeth
projecting over his lower lip from the upper jaw.




Dissatisfied with these instructions, and unhappy with the acceptance of this by the other aliens in his ship's crew, he battles each one on one in order to rise through the ship's informal command hierarchy.



Eventually, he secures the cooperation of everyone else on the ship. When the climactic battle comes, the commanding aliens order a general retreat, which he ignores and instead charges the enemy fleet alone:




“Retreating?” echoed Miles. "Retreating — you mean just we little
ships are retreating? Or more than just us?”



"Haven’t you been informed?” roared the harsh voice, above him. “The
Center’s computational devices have calculated and found an answer
that predicts defeat if we try to stop the Horde. All are leaving. All
— ”



The voice was cut off suddenly, as Miles jabbed at both voice and
sight communication controls. Abruptly, in the screen before them,
formed a schematic of the whole Battle Line. It showed the whole Line
from end to end, and the ships in all their sizes and varieties, but
as if only a few yards separated them. As Miles, Luhon and Eff
watched, ships were winking out of existence in that Line. Even the
huge globular Dreadnaughts of the Center Aliens were disappearing.



It was true. After everything — after all their work and the work of
the Center Aliens and others to set up this Battle Line — now just
because of some cold answer given by an unliving device, the greatest
strength the galaxy could gather was not going to face the Horde after
all. They were all going to turn tail and run, save themselves, and
let the Horde in to feed upon the helpless worlds they had been sent
out here to protect.



...



Before Miles, in that moment, there also rose up a picture of his
people and his world — the world as he had seen it, during those last
days when he had moved like a ghost from spot to spot about its
surface, and among its many people. He saw it, and at the same time in
his mind’s eye, he saw the picture of the world that the two Center
Aliens had shown him — the world that a million years before had been
cleaned to the point of barrenness by the Horde.



In his mind’s eye now, he saw Earth like that. One endless,
horizon-wide stretch of naked earth and soil, with nothing left.
Everything gone — all gone. The cities, the people within them, their
history, their music, their paintings, Marie Bourtel...



I won’t!"



...



Miles hands slapped down on the console in front of him. To his right,
Luhon’s flashing gray fingers were already blurring over his controls,
and Eff was busy at his left.



Like a living creature with one mind, the Fighting Rowboat lifted
from its cradle and flashed into shift — single-handedly and alone
into attack against the uncountable numbers of the Silver Horde.




This throws off the enemy fleet's configuration enough that the defensive commander sees an opportunity to attack and reverses the retreat, subsequently winning the battle.



Per ISFDB, the story was originally published in the May 1969 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and it can be read online in the context of its original publication courtesy of archive.org.






share|improve this answer

























  • Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

    – user113996
    Apr 11 at 0:48






  • 2





    @user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

    – Null
    2 days ago















15














This sounds a lot like Gordon R. Dickson's 1970 novel Hour of the Horde, which was previously asked about and answered here.



The protagonist is selected by aliens as Earth's sole representative in an intergalactic war. He does have a kind of sensitivity that is not typical, and which is essential to operate the weapons to be used in an upcoming battle to divert an enemy fleet from our galaxy.



After his selection, the protagonist is placed on a very small fighting ship in the dregs of the defense fleet, where he is basically told to stay out of the way. Each crew member of the ship is also a single representative from their planet:




The room was full. On its furniture and around its walls, stood and
sat a variety of different-appearing beings. All were four-limbed,
standing upright on the lower two and with hand-like appendages at the
end of their upper pair. They were all roughly the same size and
proportion and general shape. But there was tremendous variety.



No two of them had the same skin color. No two of them had the same
facial appearance. All had roughly similar features, as far as
possessing two eyes and a single nose and a mouth was concerned. But
from there on everything was different. Their appearance ranged from
that of the completely innocuous, to the completely ferocious — from
one being who seemed as round and inoffensive as a toy bear to one who
seemed a walking tiger, equipped with a pair of ripping teeth
projecting over his lower lip from the upper jaw.




Dissatisfied with these instructions, and unhappy with the acceptance of this by the other aliens in his ship's crew, he battles each one on one in order to rise through the ship's informal command hierarchy.



Eventually, he secures the cooperation of everyone else on the ship. When the climactic battle comes, the commanding aliens order a general retreat, which he ignores and instead charges the enemy fleet alone:




“Retreating?” echoed Miles. "Retreating — you mean just we little
ships are retreating? Or more than just us?”



"Haven’t you been informed?” roared the harsh voice, above him. “The
Center’s computational devices have calculated and found an answer
that predicts defeat if we try to stop the Horde. All are leaving. All
— ”



The voice was cut off suddenly, as Miles jabbed at both voice and
sight communication controls. Abruptly, in the screen before them,
formed a schematic of the whole Battle Line. It showed the whole Line
from end to end, and the ships in all their sizes and varieties, but
as if only a few yards separated them. As Miles, Luhon and Eff
watched, ships were winking out of existence in that Line. Even the
huge globular Dreadnaughts of the Center Aliens were disappearing.



It was true. After everything — after all their work and the work of
the Center Aliens and others to set up this Battle Line — now just
because of some cold answer given by an unliving device, the greatest
strength the galaxy could gather was not going to face the Horde after
all. They were all going to turn tail and run, save themselves, and
let the Horde in to feed upon the helpless worlds they had been sent
out here to protect.



...



Before Miles, in that moment, there also rose up a picture of his
people and his world — the world as he had seen it, during those last
days when he had moved like a ghost from spot to spot about its
surface, and among its many people. He saw it, and at the same time in
his mind’s eye, he saw the picture of the world that the two Center
Aliens had shown him — the world that a million years before had been
cleaned to the point of barrenness by the Horde.



In his mind’s eye now, he saw Earth like that. One endless,
horizon-wide stretch of naked earth and soil, with nothing left.
Everything gone — all gone. The cities, the people within them, their
history, their music, their paintings, Marie Bourtel...



I won’t!"



...



Miles hands slapped down on the console in front of him. To his right,
Luhon’s flashing gray fingers were already blurring over his controls,
and Eff was busy at his left.



Like a living creature with one mind, the Fighting Rowboat lifted
from its cradle and flashed into shift — single-handedly and alone
into attack against the uncountable numbers of the Silver Horde.




This throws off the enemy fleet's configuration enough that the defensive commander sees an opportunity to attack and reverses the retreat, subsequently winning the battle.



Per ISFDB, the story was originally published in the May 1969 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and it can be read online in the context of its original publication courtesy of archive.org.






share|improve this answer

























  • Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

    – user113996
    Apr 11 at 0:48






  • 2





    @user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

    – Null
    2 days ago













15












15








15







This sounds a lot like Gordon R. Dickson's 1970 novel Hour of the Horde, which was previously asked about and answered here.



The protagonist is selected by aliens as Earth's sole representative in an intergalactic war. He does have a kind of sensitivity that is not typical, and which is essential to operate the weapons to be used in an upcoming battle to divert an enemy fleet from our galaxy.



After his selection, the protagonist is placed on a very small fighting ship in the dregs of the defense fleet, where he is basically told to stay out of the way. Each crew member of the ship is also a single representative from their planet:




The room was full. On its furniture and around its walls, stood and
sat a variety of different-appearing beings. All were four-limbed,
standing upright on the lower two and with hand-like appendages at the
end of their upper pair. They were all roughly the same size and
proportion and general shape. But there was tremendous variety.



No two of them had the same skin color. No two of them had the same
facial appearance. All had roughly similar features, as far as
possessing two eyes and a single nose and a mouth was concerned. But
from there on everything was different. Their appearance ranged from
that of the completely innocuous, to the completely ferocious — from
one being who seemed as round and inoffensive as a toy bear to one who
seemed a walking tiger, equipped with a pair of ripping teeth
projecting over his lower lip from the upper jaw.




Dissatisfied with these instructions, and unhappy with the acceptance of this by the other aliens in his ship's crew, he battles each one on one in order to rise through the ship's informal command hierarchy.



Eventually, he secures the cooperation of everyone else on the ship. When the climactic battle comes, the commanding aliens order a general retreat, which he ignores and instead charges the enemy fleet alone:




“Retreating?” echoed Miles. "Retreating — you mean just we little
ships are retreating? Or more than just us?”



"Haven’t you been informed?” roared the harsh voice, above him. “The
Center’s computational devices have calculated and found an answer
that predicts defeat if we try to stop the Horde. All are leaving. All
— ”



The voice was cut off suddenly, as Miles jabbed at both voice and
sight communication controls. Abruptly, in the screen before them,
formed a schematic of the whole Battle Line. It showed the whole Line
from end to end, and the ships in all their sizes and varieties, but
as if only a few yards separated them. As Miles, Luhon and Eff
watched, ships were winking out of existence in that Line. Even the
huge globular Dreadnaughts of the Center Aliens were disappearing.



It was true. After everything — after all their work and the work of
the Center Aliens and others to set up this Battle Line — now just
because of some cold answer given by an unliving device, the greatest
strength the galaxy could gather was not going to face the Horde after
all. They were all going to turn tail and run, save themselves, and
let the Horde in to feed upon the helpless worlds they had been sent
out here to protect.



...



Before Miles, in that moment, there also rose up a picture of his
people and his world — the world as he had seen it, during those last
days when he had moved like a ghost from spot to spot about its
surface, and among its many people. He saw it, and at the same time in
his mind’s eye, he saw the picture of the world that the two Center
Aliens had shown him — the world that a million years before had been
cleaned to the point of barrenness by the Horde.



In his mind’s eye now, he saw Earth like that. One endless,
horizon-wide stretch of naked earth and soil, with nothing left.
Everything gone — all gone. The cities, the people within them, their
history, their music, their paintings, Marie Bourtel...



I won’t!"



...



Miles hands slapped down on the console in front of him. To his right,
Luhon’s flashing gray fingers were already blurring over his controls,
and Eff was busy at his left.



Like a living creature with one mind, the Fighting Rowboat lifted
from its cradle and flashed into shift — single-handedly and alone
into attack against the uncountable numbers of the Silver Horde.




This throws off the enemy fleet's configuration enough that the defensive commander sees an opportunity to attack and reverses the retreat, subsequently winning the battle.



Per ISFDB, the story was originally published in the May 1969 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and it can be read online in the context of its original publication courtesy of archive.org.






share|improve this answer















This sounds a lot like Gordon R. Dickson's 1970 novel Hour of the Horde, which was previously asked about and answered here.



The protagonist is selected by aliens as Earth's sole representative in an intergalactic war. He does have a kind of sensitivity that is not typical, and which is essential to operate the weapons to be used in an upcoming battle to divert an enemy fleet from our galaxy.



After his selection, the protagonist is placed on a very small fighting ship in the dregs of the defense fleet, where he is basically told to stay out of the way. Each crew member of the ship is also a single representative from their planet:




The room was full. On its furniture and around its walls, stood and
sat a variety of different-appearing beings. All were four-limbed,
standing upright on the lower two and with hand-like appendages at the
end of their upper pair. They were all roughly the same size and
proportion and general shape. But there was tremendous variety.



No two of them had the same skin color. No two of them had the same
facial appearance. All had roughly similar features, as far as
possessing two eyes and a single nose and a mouth was concerned. But
from there on everything was different. Their appearance ranged from
that of the completely innocuous, to the completely ferocious — from
one being who seemed as round and inoffensive as a toy bear to one who
seemed a walking tiger, equipped with a pair of ripping teeth
projecting over his lower lip from the upper jaw.




Dissatisfied with these instructions, and unhappy with the acceptance of this by the other aliens in his ship's crew, he battles each one on one in order to rise through the ship's informal command hierarchy.



Eventually, he secures the cooperation of everyone else on the ship. When the climactic battle comes, the commanding aliens order a general retreat, which he ignores and instead charges the enemy fleet alone:




“Retreating?” echoed Miles. "Retreating — you mean just we little
ships are retreating? Or more than just us?”



"Haven’t you been informed?” roared the harsh voice, above him. “The
Center’s computational devices have calculated and found an answer
that predicts defeat if we try to stop the Horde. All are leaving. All
— ”



The voice was cut off suddenly, as Miles jabbed at both voice and
sight communication controls. Abruptly, in the screen before them,
formed a schematic of the whole Battle Line. It showed the whole Line
from end to end, and the ships in all their sizes and varieties, but
as if only a few yards separated them. As Miles, Luhon and Eff
watched, ships were winking out of existence in that Line. Even the
huge globular Dreadnaughts of the Center Aliens were disappearing.



It was true. After everything — after all their work and the work of
the Center Aliens and others to set up this Battle Line — now just
because of some cold answer given by an unliving device, the greatest
strength the galaxy could gather was not going to face the Horde after
all. They were all going to turn tail and run, save themselves, and
let the Horde in to feed upon the helpless worlds they had been sent
out here to protect.



...



Before Miles, in that moment, there also rose up a picture of his
people and his world — the world as he had seen it, during those last
days when he had moved like a ghost from spot to spot about its
surface, and among its many people. He saw it, and at the same time in
his mind’s eye, he saw the picture of the world that the two Center
Aliens had shown him — the world that a million years before had been
cleaned to the point of barrenness by the Horde.



In his mind’s eye now, he saw Earth like that. One endless,
horizon-wide stretch of naked earth and soil, with nothing left.
Everything gone — all gone. The cities, the people within them, their
history, their music, their paintings, Marie Bourtel...



I won’t!"



...



Miles hands slapped down on the console in front of him. To his right,
Luhon’s flashing gray fingers were already blurring over his controls,
and Eff was busy at his left.



Like a living creature with one mind, the Fighting Rowboat lifted
from its cradle and flashed into shift — single-handedly and alone
into attack against the uncountable numbers of the Silver Horde.




This throws off the enemy fleet's configuration enough that the defensive commander sees an opportunity to attack and reverses the retreat, subsequently winning the battle.



Per ISFDB, the story was originally published in the May 1969 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and it can be read online in the context of its original publication courtesy of archive.org.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited Apr 10 at 15:50

























answered Apr 10 at 15:17









OtisOtis

7,1853070




7,1853070












  • Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

    – user113996
    Apr 11 at 0:48






  • 2





    @user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

    – Null
    2 days ago

















  • Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

    – user113996
    Apr 11 at 0:48






  • 2





    @user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

    – Null
    2 days ago
















Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

– user113996
Apr 11 at 0:48





Excellent, thank you. I appreciate your help.

– user113996
Apr 11 at 0:48




2




2





@user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

– Null
2 days ago





@user113996 Please accept this answer if it is correct by clicking on the checkmark to the left of the answer.

– Null
2 days ago



Popular posts from this blog

Tamil (spriik) Luke uk diar | Nawigatjuun

Align equal signs while including text over equalitiesAMS align: left aligned text/math plus multicolumn alignmentMultiple alignmentsAligning equations in multiple placesNumbering and aligning an equation with multiple columnsHow to align one equation with another multline equationUsing \ in environments inside the begintabularxNumber equations and preserving alignment of equal signsHow can I align equations to the left and to the right?Double equation alignment problem within align enviromentAligned within align: Why are they right-aligned?

Training a classifier when some of the features are unknownWhy does Gradient Boosting regression predict negative values when there are no negative y-values in my training set?How to improve an existing (trained) classifier?What is effect when I set up some self defined predisctor variables?Why Matlab neural network classification returns decimal values on prediction dataset?Fitting and transforming text data in training, testing, and validation setsHow to quantify the performance of the classifier (multi-class SVM) using the test data?How do I control for some patients providing multiple samples in my training data?Training and Test setTraining a convolutional neural network for image denoising in MatlabShouldn't an autoencoder with #(neurons in hidden layer) = #(neurons in input layer) be “perfect”?