CHAPTER IIt was well called the Dragon’s Throat, thought Kirk. Throat of fire, of burning suns, a cosmic blind-alley into danger!
You made your decision. You threw a ship, a hundred men, your officers, your friends, your own Commander’s badge you threw them all down on the gamble. But when the stakes were stars….
He said to himself, “The hell with it, we’re committed.”
He said aloud, “Radar?”
Joe Garstang, standing on the bridge beside him, answered without turning. “Nothing has been monitored yet. Not yet.”
Kirk’s palms itched. If they were running into an ambush, if Orion heavy cruisers were waiting for them, they’d soon know it. There could be ships all around them. Radar wasn’t too dependable, in the howling vortices of force-field energy flung out around this jungle of stars.
Th
