by Bill Baldwin
Brim and Moulding conferred for only a moment before they agreed to the mission, and even before the Evening watch was under way, plans were sufficiently complete that Beyazh could leave for Magor to alert the Fluvannian Fleet for a midmorning departure two days hence. He chuckled as Brim accompanied him to his ship. "For years I have searched for some way to make use of the wiring job the bloody Leaguers sneaked into our palace grounds," he said. "It's been most difficult composing small talk so they would think we hadn't discovered the rather amateur job they did."
Brim frowned, unwilling to reveal he'd learned about the wiring job from Saltash on his first day in Fluvanna. "I wasn't aware that the grounds had been wired," he lied.
Beyazh laughed. "In a pig's eye you weren't aware, my good Captain," he said. "But your denial makes you a good soldier in anybody's book—as well as the reason I have more than once been willing to share information with you." He smiled. "And all my patience will be worthwhile tonight—rewarded when I walk in that garden briefing the Nabob with information we actually want the Leaguers to hear."
They stopped for a moment at the brow to the fast packet that had brought the Ambassador to Varnholm, and Beyazh turned to grip both of Brim's upper arms. "Captain," he said with a very serious look on his face, "I realize that this mission may well turn out to be one of the most difficult and dangerous of your career."
Brim nodded. "It certainly isn't shaping up to be any kind of a joyride, Mr. Ambassador."
Beyazh looked down at the long, curled tips of his boots. For the first time since Brim had met the man, he seemed to be at a loss for words. "I hope you come back, Wilf Brim," he said finally. "Your bravery makes you a most valuable man—not just to Fluvanna or your beloved Empire, but to the whole of Civilization."
"Thank you, sir," Brim replied with emotion. "You honor me." Then he offered his hand. "I shall be back, Mr. Ambassador. You can count on it."
"A number of us will be counting on that, Captain," Beyazh replied, grasping Brim's hand in his. Then he turned and started out across the brow.
As Brim retraced his lonely way along the rows of gravity pools, he reflected on his own words: "I shall be back, Mr. Ambassador. You can count on it." He hoped to the Universe he was right....
* * *
Three Standard Days later. Brim was there, scanning the distant asteroid shoal and trying to overlook the excited commotion around him. Starfury's bridge had succumbed to excitement shortly after they slowed through LightSpeed—it wouldn't have been noticeable to everyone; his bridge crew was professional almost to a fault. But he could tell. He was excited himself. And in spite of the detour when they started out with the old ships of Force CLEAVE, they'd made the best of Starfury's astonishing Hyperspeed capability, arriving off the asteroid shoal at about the same time the Leaguers would be expecting to see the real Fluvannians. Now, as they crept toward the still-distant fort at dead slow, he brought his charts to the global display and studied them for the ten-billionth time. Cendar, the glowing asteroid, was barely visible against the distant curve of the shoal when he called up Ulfilas Meesha on a display. "Ready, Lieutenant?" he asked.
Meesha's spectral gray eyes peered out of the shimmering globe like malevolent wraiths. "Full charges at the turrets, and plasma is running max below, Captain," the Gunnery Officer answered quietly.
"Very well," Brim said, "you may enable the disrupters." "Aye, Captain," Meesha acknowledged. Brim listened to the litany that would bring the ship's powerful main armament into life, while outside the turrets unparked and their big tapered firing tubes began to index like athletes limbering themselves before a workout.
"Main battery has completed self-test and is in firing mode, Captain," Meesha reported presently.
Brim nodded, scanning the starry blackness beyond the shoal. Moulding and his four ships were out there somewhere—he hoped. Nudging Starfury slightly to starboard, he made a mental note that she was responding well to the low-speed steering-engine update Tor's crew had downloaded via KA'PPA from Gimmas Haefdon two days before. He'd mention it when he got back. If he got back.
In a panel display, he absently watched Chief Kowalski out in A turret patting a massive firing block as if it were alive. Six consoles aft on the bridge, Barbousse stood beside his torpedo station with a foot on the firing console as he helped two novice ratings at a tracking station beside him.
"Wrecked starship off the port bow, Captain," Tissaurd warned.
"Got it," Brim replied; he'd been keeping his eye on it. Even at a distance of two or three c'lenyts, Zonga'ar's colossal wreck was impressive. She'd been opened to space along one whole flank, exposing tiers of huge mined galleries and melted apparatus that once must have been an interstellar Drive. In other circumstances, the ancient wreck would have been fascinating. At dead slow, however, the threat from benders in spectral mode was enough to quickly blunt his interest. "Who's running the N-ray detector gear?" he demanded.
"The best, Skipper," Tissaurd replied. "I put Roy Hunt on duty as soon as we slowed through LightSpeed."
Brim nodded. "Hunt's the best," he allowed, scanning the distant shoal again. Ultimately he focused his attention on the target. They'd soon be close enough to spot the massive bulk of Queen Elidean in the Leaguer's gravity anchorage. If everything so far had gone according to plan, the grand old ship and her escorts would be practically alone.
Rawlings, an Electro-Optical Systems Officer, appeared in a maintenance display. "Shall I set the Hyperscreens to battle ready?" he asked.
Brim nodded. "Tint 'em down, Matt," he replied. In moments, the Hyperscreens darkened subtlely to the shade star-sailors knew as "Battle-Tint/331." During actual combat, the 'screens would automatically darken from this tint and return to it as necessary to protect the crew's eyes against the hellish glare of disrupter fire—incoming as well as outgoing.
Abruptly Starfury began to skid sideways and "up," in relation to the fort. Brim reset the trim and glanced out to port where he could just pick up the glow of an accretion beam coming off the nearby space hole. Its rush of gravitons was like a cross-wind on an old-fashioned aerodynamic vehicle, and he checked his instruments for the proper bearing—this was no time to lose control of the ship.
In a sickbay monitor, he caught Hesternal and her crew energizing banks of healing machines and laying out radiation dressings for the wounds that were certain to come about. For a moment, his mind strayed to Avalon. Did the people back there really appreciate the courageous Imperials he was leading? Could they understand the sacrifices that would soon be made? He snorted grimly. Doubtless mere was appreciation, for all that—but little comprehension. To comprehend what these starsailors would soon endure, one had to be there in Starfury's racing hull, listening to the disrupters fire and feeling the ship lurch when she was hit. One had to feel the fear in his own gut—to know that in the next moment, he could be blasted to atomic particles or the screaming in a ruptured battlesuit while his blood boiled in the vacuum of space. One needed to survive that hell of hells called "battle" to really comprehend. And few citizens of Avalon would ever experience that. It was why Starfuries and Wilf Brims and Nadia Tissaurds and Utrillo Barbousses and all the other brave starsailors on the mission existed at all: so ordinary folks weren't required to live through such an experience. And because of it, ordinary people would never—could never—appreciate, nor even understand, the very special breed of people collectively referred to as "military."
By now, the gravity "crosswind" from the accretion beam had become a problem. The ship was lurching violently in severe graviton turbulence. Brim set his jaw and finessed the controls with all the skill he could bring to bear. Ordinarily, he would have simply used Starfury's tremendous reserves of power to blast her free. However, doing that would also result in a greatly amplified wake from the generators—easily spotted from the base because it would be flowing at almost a right angle to the accretion current. And it certainly wouldn't look like one from a Fluvannian antique.
As the distance narrowed. Brim could see that the CIGAs in Queen Elidean had ominously lighted the great Imperial Comet Crests on either side of her bridge. Pretty evident what that meant—they'd been spotted. From the lack of firing, however, it was almost certain that the traitors were uncertain of whom they were facing. "We'll need all the power we can get soon, Strana'," he warned.
The Bear nodded in a display. "I'll tell the Chief," she said.
This brought forth neither questions nor gripes from the pontoons. The deep grumble of Chief Baranev's big plasma generators slowly began to build deep within the hull. That extra power would presently exhaust through waste gates. But when Starfury needed it, she wouldn't have to wait.
Then abruptly they cleared the gravity stream. Cheers sounded all over the bridge, even while the colors on Brim's power panel deepened with the increase of ready energy. He glanced outside as the other three ships re-formed in close formation—they'd somehow made it safely through the gravity torrent, too. Now came the hard part....
"They still can't be certain we'll attack at all, with the old Queen standing by like that," Brim muttered to Tissaurd as he peered at the distant Leaguer installation, "and surprise is the only edge we'll ever have against those fixed batteries in the space fort. So we'd better be on with this business quickly." He peered at Ulfilas Meesha. His gray eyes looked as if they might bore holes in the status displays before him. "Enable your disrupter triggers, Lieutenant," he said, feeling his breathing grow shallower as the tension mounted. "Now."
"Disruptor triggers are enabled, Captain."
"Check," Brim replied, as always, boggled by the prodigious quantums of energy ready to surge through the mains to the turrets. Outside, the tip of each disrupter began to glow as the mammoth weapons accepted their initial firing charges.
"The Queen's corning up at maximum firing range, Captain," Meesha said in a tense voice.
"Is she tracking us with her firing directors yet?" he asked.
"She is, sir," Meesha replied. "And the fort's main batteries are enabled, too. You can see the fire director beams from here."
Brim nodded. "Very well, Meesha," he said. In Sodeskayan terms, the fat was in the fire now. Next, he punched in Barbousse's torpedo console on a COMM display. "Chief—you going to have trouble putting a spread of torpedoes into the old Queen if we have to?" he asked.
"No trouble here, Cap'm," Barbousse replied. "The launcher's already armed with eight 533s, an' they're all energized."
"I mean—blasting an Imperial ship," Brim amended.
Barbousse shook his head. "I appreciate you askin' me, Cap'm," the big rating said. "An' I suppose I love that old ship as much as any Blue Cape. But, Cap'm, when you give an order, it's my duty to carry it out as long as I'm still alive to do it." Then he frowned. "Besides, sir," he said, "it's just like the old girl's been captured anyway—I mean, CIGAs aren't nothin' but Leaguers in Fleet Cloaks."
Brim smiled grimly. "If they fire on us, Chief," he said, "I'll break off Starfury's pass at the fort and we'll make a torpedo ran—just like we used to in old Truculent. Give 'em whatever it takes. Understand?"
"Understand, Cap'm," the Chief replied with a firm look. No other words were necessary.
Brim turned in his seat for a moment to look back over the bridge. Beside him, Tissaurd was running a last-moment systems check. The firing crews had already begun their litany of target acquisition: "Bearing eight nine; range nine nine one and closing; disruptors steady at two twenty-seven."
Brim nodded to himself. By now, Moulding would either be in position and key his attack on Starfury's—or he was going to miss the whole show. Activating the switch that would soon send an attack signal to his other three Starfuries, he glanced at Tissaurd. "Call it for three cycles, Number One," he ordered and pulled his helmet shut, toggling all five seals in his battlesuit.
The tiny officer nodded grimly, then switched on the blower. "All hands close up battlesuits and stand by for firing run in three cycles," she broadcast as her own battlesuit began to seal.
An almost palpable wave of relief swept the bridge—when the order came to seal battlesuits, things had really started. Brim heard Barbousse talking reassuringly to the novices at the tracking console. "Calmly, lads," he warned, the sound of his voice tinny inside a helmet. "Calmly now. You've important jobs today; you'll do them better if you take a little extra time with the battlesuits...."
A row of consoles nearer, Meesha and his firing crews were making last-moment calibrations, while Strana' Zaftrak filled the bridge with strobing light from her huge power displays. Ahead, through the Hyperscreens, the mammoth Leaguer space fort floated squat and ugly against the undulating backdrop of the asteroid shoal, a malign pustule bristling with KA'PPA antennas and huge disrupters—speckled everywhere by the winking crimson glow of director beams. And directly fronting the grotesque structure hovered Queen Elidean. Her CIGA crew had turned the grand old ship's majestic bulk broadside, making it impossible to attack the fort without hitting her first. Additionally, six Imperial attack ships—"escorts''—were moored in a spiral pattern that extended out at least a c'lenyt past the Queen. If Amherst's lackeys truly intended to protect the Leaguer fort, then the Imperial ships represented a dangerous gauntlet that would have to be run with each pass at the fort. Unless they were somehow neutralized—or destroyed.
Brim watched a whole new set of director beams wink into life on the knobby surface of the fort. Secondary barbettes, he guessed. His mind's eye conjured rows of black-suited Leaguers at firing consoles, tensely charging their disrupters for close-in combat.
"Open fire only at my command," Meesha broadcast to his turret crews.
Brim noticed how quiet the bridge had become now that Starfury was committed to the attack.
"Xaxtdamned Leaguers are in for a hard time today," one of the gunnery mates observed aloud. Brim knew the man was especially anxious for the attack to begin; he'd been gravely—and agonizingly—wounded when Starfury was brought down. He had a large score to settle.
"Steady, there in C turret..." Meesha whispered tensely to one of his displays.
Brim felt the blood lust rise within him. It was always like this in the final moments before battle. He was ready. Clearly, so were the Leaguers and their perfidious CIGA colleagues.
"All hands, stand by for maximum acceleration in ten clicks..." Tissaurd announced, "Nine..."
Brim studied the fort as he carefully lined up Starfury on what the Bears had described as its power center. He poised his hands above the controls....
"five... four... three..."
Opening the waste gates, Brim fed power to the generators until his damper beams turned a glaring scarlet and begun to pulse just below the danger level. The Leaguers would be certain to spot that, but now it wouldn't matter.
"Two... one... GO!"
At Tissaurd's word, Brim dumped the waste gates and Starfury leapt forward like some giant viper after its prey. Through the port Hyperscreens, h
e could see two other graviton plumes burst into life. To starboard, still another blanked the starscape with its glare. And then they were moving fast, accelerating at the ragged edge of the ship's performance envelope in finger-four formation. They skimmed past the first Imperial escort on her port side... and beneath the second. Brim could see no visible reaction whatsoever from these clearly surprised crews. But as the little formation sped past the third escort, this time to starboard; the ship's disrupters were unparked and had begun indexing to port. She was much too late to do anything about this run, but her crew would be ready for the next.
As they raced above the fourth, no more than two hundred c'lenyts beyond her KA'PPA mast, the CIGAs were tracking and ready to fire. But it quickly became apparent that the Imperial turncoats might be bound by their own set of rules—they failed to shoot. Was it possible, Brim wondered, that they were banned from using their disrupters until a possible adversary actually opened fire on the fort? Almost in mute answer, the fifth and sixth escorts also disappeared in the Starfuries' raging graviton wake without opening fire. Brim almost cheered aloud. He was getting at least one "free" run. After that, he surmised, things would become considerably different!
Then only the old Queen stood between them and the fort itself. Compared to her escorts, she looked like a mountain, bristling with the same immense 406-mmi disrupters carried by me Starfuries themselves. And these CIGAs were ready. Eight monstrous quad-mount barbettes tracked Brim and his speeding attackers as if their director systems had been locked on for a metacycle. Only once before had Brim looked at the business end of an Imperial disrupter ready to fire—as a prisoner aboard a Leaguer ship. And that time, old I.F.S. Truculent's disrupters were pointing his way in an attempt to save his life. He had the definite impression that none of these CIGAs had his welfare in mind at all.
They skimmed the huge battleship's bow area at tremendous speed. Brim had an impression of a great blurred expanse of Hyperscreens as they coursed past the big ship's bridge. And at last, only the void of space stood between them and the fort.