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After the first cutting I expected a free combat, except insofar as the designated pairs of ships could continue to work together. - (Raiders of Gor, Chapter 17, Sentence #46)

The original pairs, of the fifty sets of sixteen tarn ships, after cutting the line and fighting, would, if possible, regroup with their sixteen and recut the line again, this time moving toward Port Kar, and repeat these tactics. I had, however, little hope that we could successfully, in many cases, cut the line more than once. By that time the ships of Cos and Tyros would have concentrated in their numbers and shortened their lines. After the first cutting I expected a free combat, except insofar as the designated pairs of ships could continue to work together. The predesignation of fighting pairs, incidentally, and my injunctions to refuse to engage singly if possible, even withdrawing from equal odds, I am told, was new in Gorean naval warfare, though the pairing principle, on a more informal basis, is as old as the triangle tactic, which may be remembered from the engagement of my nondiversion ships with the ships which had been left behind to guard the treasure fleet. I had also arranged signals whereby my ships, those of my task forces and others, might, if the pairs became separated, switch partners, thus retaining the possibility of pair-attacks on single ships even if the members of the original pairs should become separated. The first two waves of my attack consisted, thus, of fifty task forces of sixteen tarn ships apiece and, following each of the task forces, at an interval of half an Ahn, another pair of tarn ships. - (Raiders of Gor)