 What was Knof Junior’s plan to defeat the attackers?
In the last hours the star ahead had grown brighter by many magnitudes, and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the normal yellow, of a GO sun. That was the Doppler effect as the star's radial velocity changed relative to the Quest III , as for forty hours the ship had decelerated. But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the Quest III's crew. Knof Llud, the Quest III's captain, came slowly down the narrow stair from the observatory, into the big rotunda that was now the main recreation room, where most of the people gathered. The great chamber, a full cross-section of the vessel, had been at first a fuel hold. At the voyage's beginning eighty per cent of the fifteen-hundred-foot cylinder had been engines and fuel; but as the immense stores were spent and the holds became radioactively safe, the crew had spread out from its original cramped quarters. Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud; he met them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, "We've sighted Earth." After all, it's only been nine hundred years." He had already set up on the calculator a course that would carry them to Earth. From his private office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear; then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts. The ship's automatic mechanisms had scant need of tending; Knof Llud found himself wishing that he could find some back-breaking task for everyone on board, himself included, to fill up the hours that remained. As the Quest III's fuel stores and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost empty and Captain Knof Llud felt tired and old. Perhaps, he thought, he was feeling the weight of his nine hundred Earth years—though physically he was only forty now, ten years older than when the voyage had begun. That was the foreshortening along the time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and months had passed for the Quest III in interstellar flight while years and decades had raced by on the home world. "One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time since leaving Earth. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time.
 Wait for the attackers to make a mistake in anger
 Talk to the attackers  Replenish with fresh crew to fight  Wait for the attackers to make a mistake in anger  Release the gravity impulses