The Mercenaries

by Bill Baldwin

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  Build Starfuries!

  In Defense Of Our Empire,

  There Can Be No Second Best!

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  Courage And Starfuries:

  The Fleet Team!

  Brim smiled dourly. There weren't many of them, certainly not in comparison to the thousand-odd CIGAs who had shown up for the main demonstration. But everything had to start somewhere. The very fact that even a small segment of the population was now sufficiently aroused to take definitive and visible action in the face of overwhelming odds said a lot about the state of the Empire.

  * * *

  Once in the historic Beardmore Section—as always abounding in reconstruction scaffolding and derricks—Felicity slowed at two heroic marble statues of Cerenian asteroid wizards done in the classical Barrett style, turned onto ancient, tree-lined Gregory Street, and pulled to the curb before a half square of fusty old office buildings done in the flamboyant style of a bygone age. The rainy gloom made them look gray and tired, their gallant colonnades and statues out of place in these shameful days of CIGA-induced privation within the Fleet. Brim recognized the structures instantly: the old Admiralty Annex buildings. If they could only speak!

  He scaled the massive front staircase while his hovering umbrella dodged this way and that in a plucky (but ineffective) struggle to outguess the chancy air currents set up by the huge stone edifice before them. With cold rain dripping from his nose, he returned a salute by four imperious-looking guards at the portico, then followed his two companions across a sculpted colonnade and into a lofty room encircled by five levels of balconies. Overhead, a vaulted ceiling holographically depicted cavalcades of historic starships that soared off toward destinations so far removed in time that some now existed only in memory.

  Brim recognized many of the famous vessels at a glance: graceful I.F.S. Valorous, the renowned battlecruiser that cleared the Lorandal Cluster of space pirates for the first time in recorded history; S.S. Pericole Enterprise, a plucky little freighter that ran the deadly Qu'oodal blockade thirty times; even little I.F.S. Idrovolante, a classic example of Mario Castoldi's fine hand that to this very day held the speed record for starships powered by old-fashioned Agello Drive systems.

  "Hey, Wilf," Drummond called out with a guffaw. "That's a great way to trip over your feet or run into a wall!"

  "Oh, right," Brim said, feeling his cheeks burn as he lowered his gaze. "I always was an easy mark for old starships."

  "Makes sense," Drummond chuckled. "Who else would the Admiralty put in charge of their newest Fleet iron?"

  At the elevator lobby, a frosted-glass partition slid back and two pairs of eyes scrutinized each of the three before they passed into the lifts. On the seventh floor, they were stopped by three marines checking fingerprints and retinal images before they passed into a high-ceilinged hall whose length was clearly designed to foil intruders. The guard at the far end would have extra moments to activate whatever safety devices he deemed necessary before potential threats could move from one end to another. A truly ancient device. Brim considered with a smile. But effective for all that.

  Once past that guard station, he found himself in a large, rectangular room like all the others he had seen in the complex over the years: row upon row of workstations, quietly humming electrical equipment, the occasional clatter of switches and keystrokes, a muffled cough or the creaking of a chair. The air was filled with odors from hot electrical equipment, whiffets of perfume, Hogge'Poa smoke indicating Bears somewhere in the area, and the all-pervading odor of mustiness from the ancient building itself. Brim's sense of history even imagined the brittle redolence of paper, though that primordial substance had been available only in museums for more than five hundred years.

  "In here," Drummond said, keying open the door to a side office with his holobadge.

  Brim found himself mildly shocked as he entered. Unlike the other offices he'd seen, this room was bright and airy. Tall windows with ornately rounded tops and high ceilings completely dwarfed both desks and a huge conference table that dominated the room. The latter had been carefully lined with decanters, ready for whatever libations accrued to various Admiralty dignitaries who would be briefed in the office.

  "Executive office," Drummond explained to Brim's raised eyebrows. "It's also one of the best briefing rooms in the complex. I'll demonstrate soon as you've had a chance to look around. You'll want to know what the Leaguers have come up with to counter Starfury."

  Calhoun nodded, "Aye," he said. "We'll need to know that, all right." He looked around the room appreciatively, men frowned and peered over the top of his eyeglasses, "I assume you won't hae time to personally escort us in and out for the next couple of weeks," he added.

  "Your IDs ought to be here within the metacycle," Drummond countered. "I've got to get some army work done, after all." He nodded toward the door. "Just so you don't get too homesick for deep space, you'll find the office cvceese' brewer behind the panel outside with the usual tin for credits. There are reasonably clean mugs on the shelf. Standard rules: when you're done here, leave 'em the way you found 'em."

  "The place is secure?" Calhoun asked.

  "Electronically: as perfect as we can make it Actually, it's secure as the Bears can make it. Xaxtdamn CIGAs have the same clearances as we do, but the Sodeskayans... well... they have a few extra levels all their own, so they swept the room. It's clean."

  "How about the people outside?" Brim asked.

  Drummond thought about that for a moment. "Most of them have higher clearances than either of you," he said. Then he frowned and pointed a finger at Brim. "What's the most reliable way you know of to tell a CIGA from an ordinary starsailor?" he demanded without warning.

  Startled, Brim frowned. "I don't know, General," he said, rubbing his chin, "Unless I have some personal knowledge, or a tip from somebody I trust, there's no reliable way I can tell—at least until someone does something overt."

  "That's the point, Wilf," Drummond answered with a serious look. "We can't, either. That's why we've got a good door, a good lock, and Bears to do a daily sweep. Most of the real security will be up to you Fleet types." Then he glanced through the door. "You're lucky, though. Cal let us re-recruit one of your old shipmates about a month ago. He's had most of the duty setting up an office here and working with the Bears."

  Brim noticed Calhoun break into a wide smile. "He'll also be your new Master Chief Petty Officer when you get back to Starfury," he added with a wink. "Come in, Chief, while I help brother Drummond set up his League briefing."

  "Aye, aye, Commodore," an oddly familiar voice replied from the hall.

  Suddenly Brim caught his breath as a tall, powerfully built figure strode into the room. "Barbousse!" he shouted, a huge grin breaking across his face. "Utrillo Barbousse!"

  Chapter 3

  The Annex

  Brim returned the huge man's salute, then strode across the floor to shake hands. "There were times I thought I'd never see you again. Chief," he said, fighting back a wince as his fingers were crushed in a viselike grip. "What ever became of you?"

  Barbousse smiled wryly. "That's a long story, Cap'm," he said.

  "Something in the neighborhood of ten years long," Brim replied, his mind rushing back in time like a whirlwind. He'd just received a transfer as First Lieutenant aboard I.F.S. Thunderbolt; Barbousse was off to the Helmsman's Academy; Nergol Triannic was on the run; and the future had at last begun to show some promise after nearly five years of military disasters. "Seems like a couple of lifetimes since you dropped me off at the Atalanta Terminal," he said. "Will you ever forget how we sighted our first bender?"

  "Couldn't forget that, sir," Barbousse said with a faraway grin. "By accident it was. You, Polkovnik Ursis, an' me—aboard old S.S. Providential. She'd been abandoned close to some gas giant... um...."

  "Yeah," Brim said, pursing his lips "...yeah... Zebuton Mu! That's w
hat it was called."

  Barbousse snapped his fingers. "Right you are, sir! Zebulon Mu. And you just got us out of there in the nik of time!" His eyes looked off somewhere into a distant past. "Those were promising days," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, they simply... stopped...."

  "What happened to you at the Academy?" Brim asked quietly.

  "I lasted awhile," he said, taking a deep breath. "Did pretty well, too, sir, if I do say so. But they RIFed me out, in the first Reduction... not long after the Treaty of Garak." He pursed his lips. "I imagine you must have lost your commission in the same RIF—they were cuttin' 'way back on everything at the time."

  "You've got that right," Brim said. "It seemed like everyone in the Fleet was out of work those days—all looking for those few jobs I thought I could land myself." He grinned wryly. "I must have gone through a hundred of 'em, each a little worse than the last."

  Barbousse nodded. "My life started to go that way, too," he said, "but I got lucky. The Governor, er, Commodore Calhoun signed me on one of his ships. Things got considerably better afterward—and exciting."

  Brim knew enough about Calhoun to resist asking any more about that job.

  "You worried a lot of people when you disappeared, beggin' the Cap'm's pardon," Barbousse continued. "We all breathed a sigh of relief when you surfaced in Atalanta."

  The Carescrian felt his cheeks burn. After smashing up a clapped-out ED-4 (through no fault of his own), he'd fallen on such hard times he literally fled from Avalon. Shipping out as a Slops Mate on a liner, he ultimately jumped ship in the great starport of Atalanta—his friends caught up with him there. "I learned a couple of big lessons on that trip," he said reflectively.

  Barbousse smiled. "I learned a few myself before I left the Fleet, sir," he said. "But the most important one of all I learned at the Academy."

  "What was that?" Brim asked. The big man was seldom conspicuously introspective.

  Barbousse furrowed his brow. "It's hard to put into words, Cap'm," he said. "I did well at the Academy; number two in my class toward the end. But, well, even then I was askin' myself if I really was in the right place—doin' the right thing. And I kept coming up with 'no.' "

  "Second in your class and doing the wrong thing?" Brim asked. "How could that be?"

  "There's them whose lot is to be officers, Cap'm," he said, "and them that's happier bein' a rating. I'm one of the ratings, that's all."

  Awestruck, Brim looked the big man directly in his face. Not many people knew themselves that well. "You were the greatest Chick in the Fleet when I knew you," he said with genuine admiration.

  "Thank you, Cap'm," Barbousse said, meeting Brim's eyes with a steady gaze. "I've always tried t' do my best."

  "Ah... when you two ancient veterans finish comparing war stories, I'm ready to begin my briefing," Drummond interrupted with a chuckle.

  "Aye, sir... I'll cover the door. Commodore," Barbousse said, immediately restored to his normal decorum.

  Brim quickly took a seat opposite Calhoun at the forward end of the table.

  "About time I got the two of you back on the same ship," the elder Carescrian chuckled gleefully. "I can't think of much worse that could happen to the League."

  As the room lights began to dim, Drummond looked up from his podium controls and smiled. "All right, gentlemen," he announced in a theatrical voice, "presenting Gorn-Hoff's new light cruiser prototype, the P.1065." He was immediately obscured by the three-dimensional, holographic representation of a rocky desert just before dawn—or just following sunset; it was impossible to tell. After a few moments, the distant rumble of spaceborne gravity generators overlaid the lonesome sound of wind moaning along a rocky desert floor. In the narrow band of lighter sky above the right horizon, Brim's trained eye immediately caught a distant speck of movement traveling toward him at high velocity—a starship making landfall. As the form resolved itself, he could see that the Leaguers had built their new ship in the angular silhouette of a double chevron, the smaller one nestled inside its considerably larger counterpart.

  "Sorry to say that none of us are sufficiently cleared that the Bears would divulge where these holograms were taken"— Drummond's voice intruded over the rising thunder—"but unless I miss my guess, it's close to one of their remote test ranges in the Gelheim Sector. At any rate, the content ought to more than make up for other information we tack."

  Before the angular Gorn-Hoff could pass "overhead," it gently reversed course over a pulsing crystal tower that cranked rapidly into the air from the desert floor. During straight and level flight, the ship appeared to carry yellow lights at each tip of the large chevron and a red light mounted at its apex. The latter was visible from both fore and aft. When the new cruiser changed course over the tower, however, a bright red ventral strobe began a flare that illuminated its entire underside.

  "You'll note white belly markings during the strobes," Drummond pointed out. "The Leaguers have put a pair up front and a few more arranged asymmetrically aft. We don't know what they are, yet, but we think they might be part of a new weapons system. Wilf, that separation line at the midspan trailing edge break: what does that look like to you?"

  Brim squinted as the display froze in place. "Hard to tell from this distance," he said, voice booming at first in the abrupt silence, "but by the shape, I'll wager it's some kind of outboard control emitter for the steering engine; especially if that's a Drive exhaust area at the trailing edge of the smaller chevron."

  "Our feelings exactly," Drummond said, starting the display—and the sound—again. "Our on-site observer thought so, too. And for the record, he estimated its altitude at about eight thousand irals, with a speed of maybe four hundred fifty to five hundred c'lenyts per metacycle. Probably not ground-shaking information by itself, but you'll note the lack of a shock wave anywhere. That means that the Gorn-Hoff designers are finally starting to pay attention to planetary performance. In an atmosphere. ''

  Abruptly, the desert dissolved into a classic starscape somewhere in deep, silent space. "Now," the still-invisible Drummond said in a much lowered voice, "we'll show you what the ship looks like out in its real element. We took these shots ourselves, from one of our newest benders: I.F.S. Apparition, the first ship we've built that can transmit all spectra through her hull, even N-rays." He laughed. "Don't get your hopes up for her, gentlemen. Even though she's really quite imperceptible to every detector we know about, Apparitions only marginally better in performance than the rest of the benders: theirs and ours. Her extra transmission capability takes its usual toll in power. So a lot of the shots were made while she was simply dodging out of the way."

  As Brim watched, fascinated, the angular Gorn-Hoff appeared again, this time at the left side of the display, moving slowly across the starscape at a much-increased LightSpeed number.

  "This sequence was taken during one of the earliest flights," Drummond explained. "The crew appeared to be getting her ready for some sort of trials. You'll notice Brim's 'control emitter' is partially deflected downward, and four auxiliary cooling panels mounted over what we think are the Drive chambers have deployed."

  Moments later two Gantheisser 380 chase ships appeared at the edge of the display, moving much faster than the Gorn-Hoff in the same direction.

  "Those two are going in for a 'rolling pickup,' " Drummond commented as the new cruiser began to gain speed with her control surfaces moving slowly to a fair position. After a few moments only the outboard steering emitters displayed any detectable movement while both chase ships moved into place on her flanks.

  The Gorn-Hoff continued to accelerate straight ahead and quickly outpaced the much slower Imperial spy ship. She seemed to maintain this constant acceleration for several cycles, trailing a strangely wavering green wake that was wider, but not so bright, as ones from the single-crystal Gantheisser chase ships. She had gained several c'lenyts when she started a shallow-banked turn to starboard: the first noticeable attitude change since the start of its run. This co
ntinued until she reversed direction completely, rolling level on a collision course with the bender—which rapidly moved out of the big ship's flight path as it passed close to starboard.

  Throughout this maneuver, the lead Gantheisser stayed some 250 irals away from the cruiser's starboard tip, closing briefly to a distance of perhaps half the span of the main chevron during the flight.

  The second Gantheisser maintained a much wider spacing throughout the trials, moving from one side to the other in maneuvers that Brim felt were clearly made to attain optimum holography angles.

  For the next few cycles, the Leaguers conducted standard stability, control, and handling maneuvers. Brim recognized pitch and yaw doublets, bank-to-roll performance checks, level turns, and a final "wind-up turn" before the Gorn-Hoff resumed its high-speed cruise—away from the clearly hard-driven bender.

  "She looks good to a number of our analysts," Drummond observed. "She's 'nimble,' in their words. Especially her roll rate, which appears excellent for such a big starship. They also characterize her as 'well damped—very good directionally.' "

  Brim silently agreed. He'd caught only a single overshoot in response to a yaw doublet. Clearly, she would be an excellent disrupter platform.

  The Leaguers were now making quarter banks and moving at a relatively high rate of attack when they turned once again into the path of the bender, flashed past, and headed off toward a small squadron of support ships that materialized off toward galactic center. To Brim, she looked rock solid—easy to control.

  "You mentioned disrupters a while back," Calhoun said. "I have na seen onythin' that luiks like ordnance to me. What do we know about her weapons systems?"

  "Very little," Drummond admitted. "Detailed analysis on these holograms has turned up mounting rings for seven large turrets, probably twin-mounts like Starfury's. But that's the only hard information we have.'' He nodded, as if making a decision. "My own guess says they'll carry the new 375-mmi disrupters they've licensed from Theobold Interspace in Lixor."