Ensign Joe Rate, captain of the experimental Navy yawl Alice, figured that everything that could happen to him in one day had already happened. First, after a freak electrical storm at sea the Alice had somehow been thrown a thousand years back in time, and it looked as if they were stranded in the past. They had provisions for two weeks at most. Then there was the voluptuous barbarian girl they'd saved from captivity - her presense on board a ship full of normal sailors wasn't likely to lessen the problems of the situation.

Then he saw the four Viking raiding ships bearing straight for him, and in a few minutes the first spear thunked into the Alice's foredeck...