by Bill Baldwin
"What?" Onrad growled. "Haven't I already said it?"
"Begging Your Highness's pardon," Brim retorted, "but I know what it's like to be legislated out of the Fleet. And believe me, so do a lot of other people. Nearly everyone on today's active-duty roster has seen how easy it is to find one's self on the outside, including the CIGAs who are going to consider this to be the most beneficial purge of the organization possible—lots of the best old-time fighters gone in one easy sweep. Were I a CIGA, I'd do my utmost to make sure none of them ever got a chance to serve again. Much as we all dislike the fact, Puvis Amherst heads up a very powerful, Empire-wide organization—enough to make me awfully leery about putting my commission in any kind of jeopardy."
Onrad frowned in sudden understanding. "Yes," he said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I see what you mean now. It's going to take some sort of tangible guarantee, isn't it?"
"To my way of thinking it is," Brim replied. "Oh, there will be a number of us who will go along without one, but I suspect we won't be enough to staff eleven Starfury-class ships."
"For what it's worth, I think he's right, Your Highness," Drummond seconded.
"What sort of guarantee would they want?" Onrad demanded.
Calhoun smiled. "Like in a game of cre'el, Your Highness," he said. "Something that beats a CIGA resource."
"Like what?" Onrad persisted.
"These days, only Emperors beat CIGAs," Drummond said, "begging the Prince's pardon, of course."
Suddenly Onrad closed his eyes and nodded. "Now I understand," he said. "They'd want something 'in writing,' to coin an ancient phrase."
"That's the way I see it, Your Highness," Brim said, relaxing in his chair. He'd done his part; the rest was now up to Onrad.
The Prince leaned an elbow on Drummond's desk and stroked his short beard again, deep in his own thoughts. After a long pause, he nodded to Brim. "It's reasonable," he said. "The damn CIGAs are going to lose their power shortly after we find ourselves in a war with the League again. But until they are shown up for the wrong-headed idiots they are, we'll need that guarantee. And I'll provide it—through my father, the Emperor, of course. Some sort of immutable warranty that people can carry with them." He nodded his head. Count on it, gentlemen." Then he looked up and smiled. "Do we have that out of the way, now?"
"Next topic, Your Highness," Calhoun said with a lopsided grin.
"How about you, Brim?" Onrad demanded.
"I'm ready, Your Highness."
"Drummond?"
The General's nod was all Onrad needed. "All right, then," he chuckled to Calhoun, "To continue with the original purpose of my visit, it appears that you and Brim have sold the Fluvanna concept. I can find almost no active opposition among the people who count. In fact, there even seems to be a groundswell building for its implementation, although as you have eloquently pointed out no one is clamoring to staff the ships."
Calhoun began to speak, but Onrad pointed a finger at him.
"You're going to tell me about the idiots in the Fleet who fear the CIGAs and won't back you because they think you might fail. Right?"
"Aye, Your Highness," Calhoun said with a grin. "I figured you had a right to know everything, e'en if some of it was na good."
"I always try to understand the downside issues first," Onrad said. "Often, that's the quickest way to see the bright side."
"Xaxtdamned cowards don't bother Your Highness?" Calhoun demanded hotly.
"Oh, they bother me, I suppose," Onrad replied. "But people like that are usually just weak, not disloyal. I pretty well know who they are, now—largely through your fortuitous efforts the last few weeks. Not so much threats as empty spaces that need to be filled." He nodded thoughtfully. "We'll simply never assign them a position of responsibility again. That way, they can still be useful to us without putting anyone in danger during times of stress."
"In that case," Calhoun said with a nod, "it's probably time to involve the Fluvannians, too. We've made a lot of assumptions aboot their willingness to be part of this wee scam."
"They'll come through for us," Drummond assured him. "I've known the Nabob since he was a child and I had just joined His Majesty's Foreign Service." He frowned. "A singular sort of person. But you know that, Your Highness. You've met him."
Onrad nodded. "Mustafa's 'singular,' all right," he said. "But only in how he reflects a society very much unlike ours. And of course, he's an absolute ruler. Feels he's Nabob by divine pronouncement—from the Universe itself. He doesn't have to put up with a legislature at all. He calls all the shots he wants to call; delegates the rest."
''Luckily, he's delegated considerable power to a real friend of the Empire," Drummond observed.
"Yes," Onrad agreed. "Old Beyazh, the Ambassador—one of the great rue' of our times, from what I hear."
"At least he'll listen," Drummond said. "Might have to find him a good-looking blonde for a while, but he'll come around."
Calhoun grinned conspiratorially. "I'll tell you how to gat on old Beyazh's guid side, in a hurry"—he chuckled—"aside from providin' him some guid-lookin' woman. He's an auld starsailor. Years ago, he commanded ane o' those antiques that make up their 'Fleet.' I'll wager he'd swap his eye teeth for a ride in a ship like Starfury."
"Hmm," Onrad said with raised eyebrows as he turned to peer at Brim. "How is our 'pocket battlecruiser' these days?"
Brim felt his cheeks burn. "I've only got secondhand news. Your Highness," he admitted, "but Lieutenant Tissaurd reports that Starfury's fit-out is almost complete—with all trials modifications finished last week."
"Would you like to get back to your ship?" Onrad asked.
Brim peered at Calhoun. "Would I, Commodore?" he asked histrionically.
"You'd think I'd dragged him from his own first-born child, Your Highness," Calhoun guffawed. Then he turned to Brim. "All right, my fellow Carescrian," he said, "I suppose it's time I let you go back and take over your ship. You've certainly done me proud here in Avalon."
"And I suspect we'll be needing Starfury soon for a bit of bribery after brother Calhoun here works his magic on Ambassador Beyazh,'' Onrad observed with a chuckle. "All very legal, of course."
"But of course, Your Highness," Brim said with as serious a mien as he could muster.
"Think you could come up with some quick transportation back to Bromwich for Commander Brim?" Onrad asked Drummond.
The latter looked up from his workstation. "Thought that might be coming, Your Highness," he said, winking at Brim. "S.S. Empress of Brockton embarks at midday tomorrow. Suppose you could be aboard?''
Brim smiled. "I could leave tonight," he said.
"Good," Drummond said. "In that case, I won't have to switch your tickets."
Brim frowned. "I don't understand," he said.
"Well," Drummond explained, "I thought you might be a little bored in the evenings, so I ticketed both you and your friend Barbousse on the S.S. Arkadia. She lifts in just five metacycles...."
* * *
A week later, with Barbousse thoroughly in command of Starfury's seventy-five nonrated starsailors, Brim had a chance to meet with Tissaurd in the newly carpeted wardroom, bringing himself up-to-date concerning the ship's fitting out. Like most wardrooms on major Imperial warships, Starfury's was divided into two richly wood-paneled compartments: a dining room and a lounge separated by a serving pantry with counter access to both. The dining area contained a U-shaped table hand-hewn from dark rennel oak, twenty-five matching chairs, and a number of wooden sideboards for serving. In the lounge, a score of leather armchairs and divans generally faced the ship's crest: a crimson shield outlined in gold containing stylized bolts of yellow lightning discharging from a blazing orange star. Above this, the ship's motto, "Go Boldly!" appeared in old-fashioned symbolic characters. On an adjoining bulkhead hung the same large portrait of Emperor Greyffin IV that Brim had encountered In his first ship at the beginning of his career. Below this was an array of workstations; Brim and Tiss
aurd sat at the leftmost display/interface, and from Tissaurd's exquisitely detailed records, the Carescrian could see that nearly a full complement of stores had already been stowed, and that nearly all Admiralty inspections had been passed with high grades. He looked at the woman beside him who had so ably shouldered his duties and shook his head in wonder. "You've done well. Number One," he said.
"Better than you expected, Skipper?" she asked, clearly daring him to admit he'd worried that she could handle the job without him.
Brim laughed in spite of himself. "Yeah," he admitted, looking around the comfortable room, "I suppose that's true." Was it because she'd caught him being himself, or was it because she was so damned cute—or a combination of both.
"It's all right," she said with a mysterious little smile. "I just wanted to make certain I could read you."
"Read me?" Brim asked.
"I read people," Tissaurd stated calmly. "I've been doing it for years."
"I don't understand," Brim said.
Tissaurd gently patted his shoulder. "You don't have to," she said. "I'll take care of it for both of us."
Owen Morris, Starfury's COMM Officer, strode into the wardroom before their conversation could continue. He handed Brim a sealed plastic envelope—the kind that usually contained ship's departure orders. "Hot from the crypto-KA'PPA, Skipper," he announced. "Untouched by human hands."
The envelope was marked secret; all sortie orders were sent as classified documents in peacetime; classification rose precipitously during wartime. Both Tissaurd and Morris were cleared for top secret and better, so Brim opened the envelope immediately.
ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05 GROUP 35291
31/52010
[SECRET]
FM: ADMIRALTY COMFLEETOPS, AP34T
TO: W. A. BRIM, COMMANDER, I.F. @K 5054 INFO: DRUMMOND @AG-9200J
DEPARTURE ORDERS
1. YOU WILL PREPARE FOR DEPARTURE BROMWICH SOON AS PRACTICABLE. IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY AP34T ESTIMATED DATE/TIME OF LIFT-OFF.
2. SET DIRECT COURSE FOR MAGOR CITY, ORDU, DOMINION OF FLUVANNA. PREPARATIONS YOUR ARRIVAL ARE CURRENTLY UNDER WAY.
3. YOU WILL BOARD SPECIAL DIPLOMATIC PASSENGER AT GALACTIC COORDINATES ZC*931/460:19.
[END SECRET]
ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05
Brim showed the brief message first to Morris, then to Tissaurd. "How soon can we lift ship, Number One?" he asked.
The tiny officer frowned for a moment. "Move over, Skipper," she said. "I'll need to check a few items at the workstation."
Brim slid aside, then stood to watch over her shoulder.
"The ship herself is ready," Tissaurd said absently, calling floods of multicolored data cascading over the workstation's display, merging it with other streams, then blending elements into synthesized journals. "We're missing a second spare-parts kit for the K-P Drives and a few supplies the Admiralty considers critical—like gortam sealant."
"Gortam sealant?" Brim exclaimed. "Ridiculous. I use gortam sealant around the ion-chamber window on my gravcycle. That stuff's been around for a millennium."
Tissaurd smiled over her shoulder. "I know," she said with a shrug. "But that didn't stop K-P from using it in their newest reflecting Drives. And we have to stock it—with some other out-of-the way stuff that has me pretty well stymied. I've got a couple of search parties out combing the city. But if we can't find it in Bromwich, then we'll probably have to lift ship without it."
Brim stepped back from behind the workstation chair. "You'd lift ship without a full complement of Admiralty stores?" he asked in feigned horror.
"Maybe not the Drive spares," Tissaurd said calmly, "but I'd damned well hate to hang up a whole starship over a case of gortam sealant."
"You mean that, don't you?" Brim asked with a frown, looking the tiny officer directly in the eye.
"You bet,'' Tissaurd answered. "Would you have it any other way. Skipper?"
"Not on your life, Number One," he replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"That's a relief," Tissaurd laughed. She looked up at Morris. "Owen, my friend," she said, "you could have been witness to the destruction of a budding career just now."
"I wasn't terribly worried," the COMM Officer said with a grin.
"Either was she"—Brim chuckled—"I think she can read my mind."
"You'd be surprised what I can read," Tissaurd bantered.
"Hmm," Brim said theatrically, "do you suppose you can read the whereabouts of a spare-parts kit?"
Tissaurd closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yee-e-e-s-s," she said, "it is coming to me." Suddenly she was busy with the workstation again. "Ah yes!" she exclaimed. "The answer magically springs to life in the crystal before me. Behold!"
" 'This evening, Darkness:45,' " Brim quoted from the workstation display. "Truly conjured magic."
"What can I say?" Tissaurd said modestly, examining the perfect manicure of her right hand. "Madame Tissaurd foretells all, especially with the workstation before her."
"I wouldn't have believed any of this if it hadn't gone on before m' very eyes," Morris said in feigned amazement.
"Either would I," Brim said, glancing out a Hyperscreen port where a large, old-fashioned skimmer had just pulled up to the brow entrance at the side of Starfury's gravity pool. On its side, large letters proclaimed:
Interstellar Sealants
Serving Bromwich Shipwrights Since 51005
Moments later, he watched the huge figure of Utrillo Barbousse returning through the brow with a large carton balanced on his broad right shoulder. gortam sealant was stamped prominently along the side. "How does tomorrow morning sound for lifting ship?" he asked.
Tissaurd thought for a moment. "Moming:2:00?" she offered presently.
"Sounds good to me," Brim said. "Morris," he said with a nod, "send that as an estimated time of departure to AP34T, the Admiralty. Got that?"
"Aye, Skipper," Morris acknowledged. "ETD of Morn-ing:2:00 to Admiralty AP34T. I'll get out the word."
Starfury departed precisely on time the next morning—with all required stores in place.
* * *
Less than five Standard Days later, Dawn:3:10 found the new cruiser charging through the blackness of space a few hundred c'lenyts aft of perhaps the most distinguished Imperial battleship of all times, I.F.S. Queen Elidean, name ship of the five massive battleships that first mounted 406-mmi disrupters and, on completion thirty years previously, were considered to be the finest, most powerful warships in existence. Now fresh from a two-year refit, the grand old starship looked even more splendid than ever, with a multifaceted, box-type superstructure that housed everything that her old-fashioned stacked bridges had carried: navigating room, communications center, and conning tower topped by a powerful HyperLight rangefinder on the top. Even the KA'PPA tower was reduced in height and repositioned aft, yet there was no mistaking the huge, superfiring casemates with their monstrous disrupters that had blasted Kabul Anak's super-battleship Rengas to tangled wreckage in the great battle for Atalanta. Despite his many years in space, Brim had yet to see a starship that approached her beauty in simple perfection of line and layout. At the time she was launched, she quickly gained a reputation as the best-looking warship of her day, with none able to match the perfect balance of her design. He had loved the old ship the moment he laid eyes on her.
And no matter how often their paths crossed afterward, he never failed to be awestruck by her colossal dimensions. Steadying himself, he began the ticklish business of conning Starfury to the old battleship's starboard boarding aperture. He'd sent Tissaurd to the extreme port side of the bridge with bearing scanners as soon as he had solid visual sighting of the old battleship—and, of course, KA'PPAed a proper Imperial salute. For the last few cycles now, he'd checked the Queen's course and speed with his own eyes, steering a few degrees from the signaled course and a bit faster.
Some Helmsmen he knew considered close-in approaches to
a target ship as exhibitions of prowess at the helm, often bragging that such maneuvering facilitated the rigging of optical moorings and "pipes," as midspace connecting brows were called. During his early career on Carescrian ore barges, that kind of precarious maneuvering was part of his workaday existence, so it represented nothing special to him. However, over the years, he'd proven to himself that it seldom had any beneficial effect on the time required for docking evolutions. And in the Fleet it was foolish to get unnecessarily close to any other ship, since the only serious mistake one could make was getting so close as to cause a collision. If the years had taught Wilf Brim anything, it was pragmatism when it came to driving starships.
As demanded by protocol, Starfury, in her role of junior ship, would moor to the Queen's pipe, and to that end, he presently watched hatches sliding open in the battleship's flanks to uncover an array of fender projectors centered on the boarding aperture. "Ready, Number One?" he asked.
"Ready on the starboard wing," Tissaurd reported. Save for the velvet thunder of the Drive from below, her voice was the only sound in Starfury's bridge—the other occupants were either completely immersed by their duties or themselves enthralled by the very drama of the moment.
"STARFURY CLEARED TO APPROACH QUEEN ELIDEAN, STARBOARD EMBARKING APERTURE," Brim's KA'PPA display announced directly. "LOCAL GRAVITY INFLUENES NEUTRAL." Simultaneously, Queen Elidean's director lamps began to flash a pattern amidships.
"All hands to stations for deep-space mooring," he directed on the blower. "All hands to stations for deep-space mooring. Muster honor party to the main boarding chamber on the double." Then, turning to the KA'PPA system, he dispatched his own signal, "STARFURY ACKNOWLEDGES STARBOARD EMBARKING APERTURE." Now, it was time for the business of helmsmanship. Carefully increasing speed, he began by bringing Starfury's head a little more to port with deft control inputs that gently increased the Queen's relative bearing in reverse proportion to her distance ahead, checking every few moments with Tissaurd, who had glued her eye to the bearing scanners. When the old battleship was about a thousand irals ahead, Tissaurd reported a bearing of three points from course; by the time they narrowed the distance to approximately five hundred irals, the bearing had doubled. And while he flew, Brim also made his own checks, glancing aft to compare Starfury's flowing cobalt Drive plume with Queen Elidean's broad wake of emerald-green. Long ago he'd developed his own rule of thumb to cover such maneuvers: he was usually well positioned during an approach whenever he maintained some fifteen irals of space between the two wakes.