by Bill Baldwin
"Caught you daydreaming, Skipper," Tissaurd said at the rim of the gravity pool.
Brim nodded and pursed his lips. "Yeah," he said, experiencing a definite visceral thrill at feeling her small, soft bulk close beside him. Shipmate or not, he laughed to himself, Tissaurd was a mighty attractive package—in any middle-aged man's book.
"That was awfully nice," she murmured as they stepped onto a heated walkway. After a moment, she released his arm. "I'll remember to keep my eyes peeled for slippery spots every time we walk someplace together," she said with a little smile.
Brim felt himself blush. "Me, too," he said awkwardly, then quickly peered up at Starfury's huge snow-cloaked silhouette standing out against the darkened sky. Docking beacons swung long beams of blue light through the falling snow while dim battle lanterns bobbed and hovered over her entrance hatches. Multicolored points of light glowed and blinked through the bridge Hyperscreens, and from the high mast, KA'PPA rings radiated lazily out to the far corners of the Universe as someone hi the COMM center kept touch with the reality of everyday business.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Tissaurd said quietly, her words breaking into his thoughts.
"Beautiful, at least," he mused. Somehow, it took another Helmsman to understand the way people could relate to starships. But then, Tissaurd seemed to understand lots of things about him. That's what made them such an effective team.
"Deadly, too..." she added. "Strange how such a graceful shape could have been created for the sole purpose of destruction."
" 'Protection' might be a better word," Brim offered.
"A nicer word, perhaps, Skipper," Tissaurd allowed softly, "but Starfury's primary purpose is still destruction, pure and simple. No matter how harmless we'd like to make her seem. Those ungodly disruptors give her true purpose away."
Brim nodded agreement as they walked. "Yeah," he said at length, "and our purpose as well. Just like those space forts the League seems to be putting up all over the galaxy." He took a deep breath of cold air. "One begets the other, I suppose...." Behind them, the graceful ship had already dwindled to a pattern of blurred lights. They continued wordlessly through the cottony solitude until Enterprise began to appear through the falling snow.
* * *
Brim never did have an opportunity to attend Commodore Tor's party. At the entry port, a message awaited him from Starfury. A top secret KA'PPA dispatch had just been received that required his personal receipt. Immediately directing Tissaurd to make his apologies, he trudged back to the ship only to discover that his urgent KA'PPA was merely notification of a state visit by one of the few influential politicians who remained untouched by the CIGAs. Nevertheless, it did require a direct personal answer, and he made it. After that he retired to his cabin for one of the few full nights of sleep he got during the trials.
* * *
Throughout the next fourteen Standard Days, some of their time was spent on dilapidated gravity pools, merely loading torpedoes, mines, and other expendable munitions. Other days' passed while they accomplished simplistic harbor exercises, while still others were devoted to actual space trials and the preliminary target exercises that would prove the ship's ability to fight. There could hardly have been more desolate surroundings in which to test the ship. The colossal maintenance yard to which they were assigned was occupied by gaunt, weatherworn figures of mammoth derricks and cranes silhouetted against storm-gray skies in the grip of perpetual winter; everything was covered by uniform layers of unceasing snow that had been unsullied by the tracks of living creatures for nearly a decade. The dying star Gimmas was long since dim beyond supporting any of the sentient life forms known in the Home Galaxy. There was a gaunt dignity to the surroundings, almost as if they were some gigantic vestige of a primordial civilization that pulled up cosmic stakes and departed long before the dawn of recorded history.
The crew had little enough time for pondering their surroundings and, for most, scant inclination to poke about the stormy landscape. Eyes and thoughts were constantly turned toward the ship and their tasks within her. Valerian's creation was already coming alive as more than ninety individual temperaments shook down together, melding into the single, unique personality that would become the mature Starfury. This was not only true in her wardroom—where the ship's leadership made the effect even more pronounced—but among the ratings as well. Like the cells of some bantling organism, they were beginning to work in concert, dedicating their energies and intellects on one exacting goal: operation of a powerful warship whose deadly function was important to them, and the ancient nation that they called home. Their battles were in the future; in an as-yet-undeclared war. But each of the specially chosen crew understood that sometime in the near offing there would be dangerous work to do, and it would be worth doing.
* * *
During a rare hiatus from the trials. Brim checked out an elderly launch from what remained of Base Operations and flew to the deserted Eorean Starwharfs, his home for nearly three Standard Years at the beginning of his career. Touching down near an abandoned skeleton of what was once an elevated tram station, he labored through knee-deep snow beneath rows of dark Karlsson lamps, past the staring, broken windows of a half-tumbled guard station, then along nearly a c'lenyt of stone jetties and crumbling gravity pools to a small sign that had nearly disintegrated with rust. "Gravity Pool R-2134," it read. Once—nearly an eon ago as Brim reckoned time—his life in the Fleet had begun here.
For a moment his mind's eye carried back across the years to that snowy dawn when he had first laid eyes on the wedge-shaped form of starship T.83, I.F.S. Truculent, testing her moorings in the amber glow of repulsion generators thundering steadily within the gaping walls of this now-empty pool. Only Gimmas's perpetual wind broke the lonely stillness as it wailed 'round emaciated forms of towering cranes, rattled corrugated sheets in dilapidated sheds, moaned through the yawning mouths of broken windows, and hurried powdery snow ghosts among the run-down jetties. Out of sight somewhere, an unsecured door slammed against its frame to a totally irrational rhythm. CIGAs had destroyed Gimmas Haefdon with politics mightier than the League's most powerful disrupters.
Brim shivered in his heated Fleet Cloak. Despite the loneliness, this place—the whole colossal ruin for that matter—was far from empty. Every square iral was peopled by ghosts of one sort or another. And in the silence of the deserted complex, he could still hear the shrill whines of gravity generators spooling up before thundering into ground-shaking reality. As if it were yesterday, he recalled ice-blue tongues of free ions shooting back from open waste gates, great ships marching ponderously out onto the half-frozen bay, then soaring into the overcast, heroic comrades of all races striving together to turn the tide of a war that initially cast them in the role of underdogs. He sighed. So many of those brave men and women had paid the supreme toll, and for what? When fortunes began to reverse, Emperor Triannic quickly duped the Empire and her allies with his deceitful Treaty of Garak, then set up cowardly Puvis Amherst as chief of the CIGAs to destroy his nemesis Fleet from within.
Now, the great ships had departed, replaced by lonesome wind and a banging shutter. All that presently stood between Triannic and his dreams of conquest were the tag ends of a once-mighty war fleet, the handful of half-finished Starfuries a'building at Sherrington's, and the dogged resolution of a few remaining warriors who still believed dial freedom was worth fighting for—to the death.
As afternoon shadows lengthened in the stillness, Brim grimly retraced his steps to the launch and took off into the scudding gray clouds. But instead of setting a direct return course for the Central Complex, whimsy guided him only a short distance through the darkening sky before he set down again, this time in a wide courtyard fronting a snow-covered jumble of peaked roofs and tall stone chimneys. Over the great boarded-up doorway, a weathered sign swung to the wind on rusted chains that were clearly in their last days of existence. "mermaid tavern," the faded letters blazoned in the gray twilight. "established 51
690." Opposite, through the rusting metal gate, he could see what was once a country road, now buried irals deep in everlasting snow. On either side, tangled forms of long-dead treetops wound away in snowy perspective, mute reminders of summers now gone forever as the dimming star Gimmas continued its long march toward ultimate death.
He hadn't been here in years, but the ghost of his earliest love affair was inextricably linked to this abandoned country inn. Its once-cozy, candle-lit interior was the place of his first liaison with Her Serene Majesty, Princess Margot of the Effer'wyck Dominions and Baroness (Grand Duchess) of The Torond. A lot of snow had fallen on the old building during those intervening fifteen years, and clearly, it had served its last patron sometime previously, probably with the closing of the base. Inside, he could imagine me huge fireplaces dark and cold, with only swirling soot marks from the last fire to serve as evidence that the rooms had ever known life-giving warmth.
He stood before the derelict inn only a few cycles before something drove him away. The cold? The snow? Perhaps the lonesomeness? Whatever it was, he soon climbed back into the launch and departed shortly thereafter for the warmth and fellowship of Starfury's wardroom. Certain memories were simply too painful to countenance.
* * *
As the days passed. Brim began to settle more comfortably into his role as commanding officer. It was a proprietary sort of feeling, and it became more firmly established as the ship proved herself. She was all he'd expected, and then some. Quite apart from her prodigious turn of speed, she was enormously easy to fly and maneuverable at nearly any speed. Her only major snag, if a major snag really existed, was with her new reflecting Drive units: three crystal shells grown around a central core in layers. During normal operation, all layers fired aft as a unit, with the shells contributing nearly thirty percent of the unit's total thrust. However, when short bursts of speed were necessary, the outer shells could be reversed, firing forward into a ring-shaped focusing reflector that fed back this specially modulated energy directly to the core and increased the power output by nearly fifty percent.
The process, of course, exuded tremendous heat as a byproduct, and it had to be radiated quickly lest its blistering presence damage portions of the hull; collapsiums like hullmetal had physical limits like everything else. But therein lay a problem. Even Starfury's prodigious radiating surfaces were insufficient to continuously dissipate heat energy from four Wizard Cs running flat out in reflecting mode. And because of it, speed runs at absolute flank speed had to be suspended when the Drive crystals passed maximum operating temperatures, usually after no more than fifteen cycles. The situation also required a great deal more diligence at the helm, especially at high speeds. Brim had no problem managing the situation. Except when running under unusual or dangerous conditions, he flew with a sixth sense anyway. But not every Helmsman was so fortunate to be born with his perfect eyesight and coordination. The Sodeskayan engineers from Krasni-Peych would have to do something about that minor flaw before combat conditions changed it to "major."
And fix it they did, in a most amazing manner. No more than a fortnight after Strana' Zaftrak's first complaints, a new and much-more-efficient space radiator system had been fabricated and was waiting for installation when Starfury made landfall after her second series of disrupter trials. The starship was laid up only two days while the immense system was installed—by a much larger party of technicians than Brim had guessed were housed aboard the Sodeskayan supply vessel. But then the huge system had been fabricated in a seemingly miraculous fashion also. Besides, it worked, and that was the only important point, anyway. Years ago he had learned that unnecessary questions could be a matter of embarrassment for everyone concerned.
* * *
The morning before their last day on Gimmas, Brim found a large notice on the ship's bulletin board:
NEW ABSOLUTE VELOCITY RECORD SET
The Imperial HyperDrome
Alcott-on-Mersin, Avalon, 369/52009
Today, nearly a year after the Mitchell Trophy was permanently retired here at the Imperial HyperDrome near Avalon, Commander Tobias Moulding, I.F., set a new absolute speed record over the Standard three-light-year course at 111.97M LightSpeed. Moulding, a member of the Imperial Fleet's High-speed Star Flight Team, set the new record in the same Sherrington M-6 Beta that he would have flown as backup, had Commander Wilf Brim, then Principal Helmsman to the Imperial Starflight Society, failed to capture the trophy himself. Moulding's M-6B was powered this year by a specially prepared Krasni-Peych Wizard-S (for "sprint") Drive.
The Carescrian smiled as he read the brief bulletin. Toby Moulding was one of his closest friends, and he was genuinely glad the man had a chance at the record. But even more, it made him aware of Starfury's potential. During her final trials, she reached 80.723M LightSpeed, approaching seventy-five percent of Moulding's new absolute speed record! If Sodeskayan intelligence estimates were correct, this easily made her the speediest warship in the galaxy.
* * *
Eventually, Brim presided over a small ceremony in the wardroom where he cleared all but a few minor Action Reports pending against the ship and her systems, then signed Sherrington's crimson Builder's Book on page 5054. Starfury was now ready for her official commissioning, which occurred promptly the following morning. At precisely Dawn:2;00, her entire crew plus most of the lonely base personnel assembled in the bitter cold outside her main hatch. In a simple ceremony. Brim formally muttered a few official platitudes concerning Emperor, Duty, Home, and Hearth. Then Tissaurd stepped to the bow and broke a bottle of meem against the docking cupola, after which two burly mechanics affixed a polished brass plate to the aft bulkhead just inside her main boarding hatch:
I.F.S. STARFURY
JOB 5054
SHERRINGTON STARSHIP WORKS
BROMWICH, RHODOR
388/52009
With that, Starfury entered the Fleet lists as a fully "commissioned" warship, and Brim led her crew back to their stations by stopping at the new nameplate and burnishing it with the sleeve of his Fleet Cloak. It was a tradition he'd learned on old Truculent, established by his greatest commander, Regula Collingswood herself. He swore to abide by it so long as he commanded a ship—any ship.
Immediately after the commissioning ceremony, activities got under way for the celebration Brim scheduled for the conclusion of Starfury's space trials. Tired as everyone was, the idea of a party, where everyone could let down their hair and relax for the first time in weeks, seemed to create its own energy. At least there was enough energy to clean and decorate the wardroom as well as ice down a great quantity of Logish Meem in the ship's freezers.
But once again, Brim never got to celebrate. This time, however, neither did any of Starfury's crew. Less than two metacycles before the first guests were to arrive, Brim received a secret transmission from Prince Onrad himself, in his persona as Commander in Chief of the Imperial Fleet. The ship was ordered immediately to Bromwich where an urgent, top-secret dispatch waited for personal delivery.
Onrad's message was met with considerable grousing from the exhausted crew, including a few choice words from Brim. But within a scant twenty cycles, Strana' Zaftrak connected her four Admiralty A876 gravity generators to the mains, and Starfury was spaceborne less than a metacycle afterward, coursing across the galaxy at maximum cruise velocity for Bromwich and the Sherrington plant. As Brim set the big starship on autohelm, he shook his head. Here we go again, he thought.
"What's going on. Skipper?" Tissaurd queried from the CoHelmsman's recliner beside him. "Nobody told us anything back there, except that we had to leave in one perdition of a hurry."
"That's about all the information I got myself," Brim chuckled. "Only, mine was marked 'secret.' "
"Oh, wonderful," Tissaurd fumed. "You mean this sort of thing happens all the time?"
''Sort of comes with the territory when you have the only ship like Starfury in the known Universe," he said with a grin. "But I can't imagine you'll be
any busier than you were when we were fitting out. There are just so many metacycles you can fit into a day."
Tissaurd nodded thoughtfully. "That's probably true," she said with a grin. "And I loved every cycle of it, too. Isn't that awful?"
Brim answered with a wink. Here's hoping you still feel that way a year from now, he thought. Life could be pretty exciting, as well as dangerous, when Prince Onrad was calling the shots. And all too often it was the latter.
Chapter 2
Intrigue
Once they'd secured Starfury at the Sherrington plant in Bromwich, Brim had hardly stepped clear of the brow when a face at the rear of the boarding room sent his mind racing far into a wartime past: gray beard, gray mustache, and ageless gray eyes sparkling with the keen wisdom and humor of a lifelong star-sailor. "Baxter Calhoun!" he gasped, detouring from his original course to the message center, "what in Voot's name brings you to Bromwich?"
"Tis you that brings me here, young Brim," the man answered, extending both his hand and a steely grin. "But afore I answer any mare of your questions, laddie, we'll both hie along to the message center an' collect the dispatch bonnie Prince Onrad ha' sent to you. It'll save a lot of explainin' once we begin to talk."
Brim sighed in capitulation. Of course Calhoun knew about the top-secret message. He always knew about things like that; nothing had changed at all over the years. At the far end of middle age, the man looked every inch a proper old starsailor: his chiseled countenance was handsome in a weather-beaten way and his eyes carried the imperious look of one long accustomed to command-—as well as the limitless depths of intragalactic space. He was dressed in an expensive-looking white linen suit of casual finery that appeared as if it had been tailored that very morning. Gossip had it that he was wealthy beyond all belief, and the enormous StarBlaze ring that flashed from his left hand as he pushed open the door lent powerful credence to the hearsay.