The Mercenaries

by Bill Baldwin

  "Fire!" Meesha shouted over the thundering generators.

  All twelve of Starfury's monster 406-mmi disrupters discharged forward in a salvo, juddering the big starship like a giant hammer. Their forward Hyperscreens abruptly dimmed and the Universe itself dissolved for a moment into a great coruscating eruption that seemed to envelop the whole Universe. When the 'screens began to transmit again, it was immediately clear that toe other three Starfuries had fired at the same time—and at the same general target. A quartet of tremendous eruptions was in process near the fort's power center that made a good imitation of some volcanic activity Brim had seen a few years back on Tolland-32.

  "Good shooting!" he whooped as he pushed up Starfury's nose and skimmed the top of the fort with only a few irals clearance. But the Leaguer's great disrupters were clearly tracking him, so instead of continuing straight on, he hauled Starfury straight up in relation to the fort. Return fire began immediately, with a welter of huge explosions that tossed the cruiser around like a leaf in a windstorm. But Brim continued to raise the nose until—as he passed vertical—he started rolling to starboard and went over the top inverted with MacAlda in Starspite keeping close formation to port. As he did so, McKenzie and Dowd, his wingman, kept going straight across the track, then crossed over him as he went on his back. Immediately, the firing became sporadic. League gunners were only superb when firing at predictable targets.

  Brim and MacAlda kept rolling back in a flat spin on the steering engines alone while McKenzie and Dowd passed over them. Then Brim led back to port with Starfury's nose falling through at the end of the spin, while McKenzie and Dowd turned back to starboard and let their noses fall through underneath him. As the four starships rolled out, they ended up in perfect finger-four formation again, but going in the opposite direction from the way they came in—and by happenstance, directly on course for the six Imperial escorts. The sight of four hard, sleek Starfuries flying at tremendous speed in superb formation—seemingly out of nowhere—must have unnerved the astonished CIGA firing crews, for they began discharging in panic, sending disruptor beams everywhere.

  "That's it," Brim broadcast through clenched teeth. "Get the zukeeds. They fired first!" Immediately, each of the four Starfuries picked a particular ship and—with the accuracy born of long, brutal practice—poured a devastating salvo right down into their guts with devastating results. Imperial destroyers were powerful starships in their own rights, but no match whatsoever for cruisers. Especially cruisers armed with battleship-size disrupters. Even near misses were enough to rip open their thin-skinned hulls from stem to stern. Considering the quantums of energy blasted at them, the first four ships perished with surprisingly little radiation fire. They simply came apart at the seams. The surviving two ran for open space without firing a shot.

  Brim bit his lip. It wasn't that the little ships had been without teeth. Small as they were in relation to a cruiser, all classes of Imperial destroyers carried the same huge torpedoes as did Starfuries, And they were powerful weapons. Had he gone by the book, after hitting the fort, he would have pulled out straight ahead, then started jinking around to set up for the next run in on the fort. And that would have made the Starfuries targets for six salvos of the powerful weapons. Properly fired, they might have knocked out all four of his ships at the end of their very first run. He shook his head bitterly. CIGAs....

  As he swung around to starboard for a second run, he watched the firing crews preparing their big weapons. E turret was always fastest, and as he switched a display to its interior, the crew had already completed their test procedures and the big weapons were ready to fire. Moments later all six turrets reported a status of READY.

  Off in the distance, the fort was still battling huge radiation fires where the Starfuries' powerful salvos had landed. And as he watched, Moulding's four Starfuries made their first pass—this time from the direction the fort had originally expected: along the rim of the asteroid shoal. However, now the great batteries were still tracking Brim's four-ship element, which was presently out of range. And before the big disruptors could be retrained on the new threat, forty-eight more 406-mmi disruptors were blasting away at the fort, resulting in a second area of huge radiation fires that quickly spread over nearly a quarter of the fort's irregular surface.

  In spite of the obvious damage, Brim wondered how much real harm his ships had actually accomplished with their first passes. Radiation fires occurred when collapsiums were subjected to high-energy impingement—usually by disrupter fire—and began to "un-collapse." The system of reactions gave off tremendous heat and light as a by-product, and thus earned the soubrette "fire." Sustaining such a reaction required significant additional energy, and if other, undamaged collapsiums were available nearby, it could spread rapidly. However, more often than not, such conflagrations were controlled by saturating the runaway reaction with N rays—the very same rays that were used to spot benders in spectral mode. And that is precisely what Brim suspected the Leaguers might be doing at the fort: controlling the radiation fires in an attempt to convince their attackers they had inflicted much more damage than was actually the case. Somehow, he had the feeling that they'd yet to land a telling blow....

  Then Moulding's ships cleared the target area, and it was time to line up again. This time, the fort would be triggering off every weapon they could bring to bear, and all eyes were on the Queen. Would she open fire, too? Her big turrets were clearly tracking Brim's four Starfuries as they sped toward her. The cruisers' only defense now was to keep jinking: moving up and down, rolling slightly from one side to the other, slipping, skidding—anything to aggravate the enemy's problem of tracking as they aimed their weapons.

  But jinking also aggravated the problem of aiming from the starships as well. So at some point, the jinking had to stop, replaced by smooth, precision tracking while the IVG's firing crews got ready to do their work. That was the payoff, the only reason for being there in the first place. And both the Leaguers and their CIGA lackeys knew it as well as anyone....

  It was just as Brim rolled over the top and acquired the fort that old Queen Elidean—grand symbol of a proud empire— opened fire on her own kind with a tremendous barrage of raw energy that smashed MacAlda's port pontoon and blasted Starspite nearly a thousand irals sideways in a huge eruption of flame and debris. Brim's wingman was out of the fight—and perhaps out of the war.

  The Carescrian immediately signaled Starterror and Starspirit to continue jinking on their run in—and damn the accuracy— then he hauled Starfury hard to port. "All right, Chief!" he said angrily into his display, "it's you and me again. Let's get it over with!"

  "I'm ready, Cap'm," the big rating said. "Just like in ol' Truculent."

  Brim smiled grimly as he began to jink violently—all the time lining up for a torpedo run. Barbousse understood. So far as this run was concerned, they were the only two on the ship. "Meesha," he growled, "I want you to keep firing those disruptors of ours at the Queen as fast as they'll recover. Aim for the bridge if you can. Keep those zukeed CIGAs plastered with plenty of energy. Got that?"

  "Got it. Captain," Meesha answered. Moments later Starfury's big disrupters went into rapid-firing mode turning space outside the speeding cruiser into a colossal inferno of tight and concussion—and peppering the battleship's thickly armored hide with a barrage of hits that would literally pulverize a lesser ship.

  The Queen was returning fire in deliberate, deadly salvos. Her CIGA disrupter crews were trying for accuracy; Brim had counted on that—and their deliberation might just save his mission. Up... down... roll... skid... slide... His jinking had become violent, now. He was literally racing for the great eruptions that marked the battleship's latest salvo, trusting that the fatuous, "peace-loving" CIGA crews would never aim for the same place twice.

  The Queen...proud and beautiful. Brim loved her. Everyone who loved the Fleet loved her!

  "Outer doors open," Barbousse reported.

  Brim blinked awa
y bitter tears and glanced at his instrument panel where eight indicators had abruptly changed from red to a flickering green. "Outer doors open," he seconded.

  At that moment one of Meesha's random salvos hit a section of the Queen's bridge that exploded in a blinding flare of radiation fire, sending wreckage flying in all directions. That would hurt the zukeeds who'd stolen her. Brim thought. Maybe they'd quit. "Keep it up, Meesha!" he yelled—just before he was nearly knocked from his recliner by a near miss that pulsed Starfury's gravity system and threw everyone violently against their mechanical restraints. Startled shouts of pain filled the bridge, and Tissaurd turned in her recliner with eyes big as saucers. Reedwich from Damage Control came on immediately, his long, narrow countenance unruffled by the blast. "Clean miss, Captain," he said as calmly as if he were reporting something no more threatening than a burst soil pipe.

  "Inner doors open," Barbousse reported through tight lips as the eight flashing lights went to steady green.

  Brim glanced at Barbousse in his COMM display; the big rating was hunched over his torpedo console, concentrating for all he was worth, while his face and eyes reflected the patterns of information traversing his displays. "Steady as she goes, Cap'm," he said, without taking his eyes from the displays.

  "Steady as she goes," Brim seconded. Starfury was now scudding through a hellish cross fire of disruptor fire from both the fort and the battleship, and all he could do was grind his teeth, keep on course—and wait....

  "Torpedoes armed..." Barbousse announced.

  Another near miss blasted Starfury's nose high. Brim fought the controls to another standstill.

  "Steady as she goes, Skipper...."

  "Steady...."

  By now, Queen Elidean had grown huge in the Hyperscreens. Chief, Brim thought, are you planning to ram her?

  "Launcher circuits energized," the big rating reported as Brim's second set of eight indicators changed from red to green. "Keep 'er steady, Cap'm...."

  The cross fire was so terrible now that Brim had to fight the controls with all his concentration to keep Starfury on any semblance of his intended track. The director stabilizing mechanism could make some allowances for tracking inconsistencies, but...

  "Ten," Barbousse announced grimly. "Nine... eight... seven..."

  By now, it seemed as if they were riding through a single drawn-out explosion. Only Voot's own luck would bring them through a fire storm like this. Come on, Barbousse!

  "Four... three... two... one... Torpedoes running, Cap'm!"

  In the wink of an eye, eight dark spindles—each trailing a coruscating beam of ruby red light—flashed out from beneath Starfury's bridge and headed squarely for the battleship. Instantly Brim threw in full military power, pulled the nose up and rolled out into a violent jink. But he was moments too late. With unbelievable concussion and sound, the whole forward tip of Starfury's starboard pontoon—including A turret—disappeared in a tremendous blast of radiant energy that must have carried away the KA'PPA antenna as well, for the display winked out. Great sparks of molten hullmetal trailed into the starship's wake, while Starfury reared up arid to the right like a wounded Careandellian riding lizard. Her hull jumped and quivered for a long moment and the generators skipped a beat as Brim fought to bring the skewed ship back under control.

  Then, without warning, they were again blasted off course—this time by an even more stupendous explosion. The whole Universe seemed to light up from aft by the birth of some hellacious new star.

  "Sweet thraggling Voot!" someone cried aloud. "Look at the Queen!"

  Suddenly the bridge was alive with startled cries of alarm. And dismay.

  "Universe!" Tissaurd cried aloud as she stared into an aft-view display. "She's gone. The Queen's just... thraggling... disappeared!"

  Brim had no time for displays or the Queen, no matter. Starfury was hurt herself. He cranked the cruiser to port and then to starboard testing the controls. She was trailing clouds of glittering radiation haze and definitely more sluggish to starboard—but controllable and still very much in the fight.

  "A turret's... gone," Reedwich reported presently from a station near the damaged area. In the background, Brim could see two battle-suited cooks working desperately at a pile of wreckage that appeared to have pinned a disrupter technician to the deck. The man was screaming weakly over the voice circuits. Two more figures sprawled in awkward positions on the deck nearby—motionless. One lay facedown in a huge puddle of blood that was vacuum boiling to dried solids even as it leaked from a huge gash in the helmet. While he watched, a medical team jogged into view.

  "Stand fast!" one of the medics yelled at the cooks. "Don't move that man yet!" He bent over the groaning, half-buried figure and prepared a SuperHypo that would safely penetrate a battlesuit.

  "How many casualties?" Brim asked, jinking desperately as he searched for his other two ships among the tremendous blasts pouring from the fort.

  "Three dead, six wounded, Captain," he answered, "And, of course, the whole A-turret crew."

  "Take care of things the best you can, Reedwich," Brim ordered, his mind already switched over to the problem of joining Starfury with her surviving consorts—and then getting back to the business at hand: silencing the fort.

  And once again, space came alive with a welter of powerful explosions. The CIGAs might be gone, but the Leaguers were very much alive in their space citadel.

  Meesha's gunners fired off a welter of long-range shots at the receding fort as Brim searched for his two consorts. In the midst of a crowded starship bridge, he suddenly felt very much alone. War had a way of doing that, he remembered. With death perched grinning on the back of your recliner, it was xaxtdamned easy to feel alone.

  The firing had stopped now that they had outflown the fort's disrupters, and Brim watched Starterror and Starspirit as they hove into view and rolled into formation on Starfury's starboard flank. Then he gasped as he turned in his seat to glance back toward the fort. Even in dissolution, what remained of the old battleship was magnificent. Barbousse was perhaps the greatest torpedo marksman in the known Universe, and all eight of his powerful missiles had unquestionably found their mark in vulnerable locations. Her once-proud hull was a blazing mass of radiation fire from stem to stern, clear evidence that at least one of the powerful weapons must have burst among the colossal power chambers. A shiver climbed his back like an icy spider. Queen Elidean had been destroyed as much by avarice and cowardice as by the torpedoes themselves. He bit his lip. As Ursis was fond of saying, "Life is never necessarily fair—just ongoing." In the distance, he watched another swarm of explosions erupt on the face of the fort as Moulding's four cruisers shot past, their disrupters flashing to meet the hail of return fire. And suddenly two great puffs of radiation fire blazed into incandescent life. Brim gasped and bit his lip. In that instant, he knew that two more Starfuries had been destroyed—and judging from the size of the fireballs, there would be no survivors.

  "Owen," Brim ordered, "get me a secure channel to Moulding... or whoever's in charge now over there."

  "Aye, Captain," Morris replied. After a significant stretch of clicks, Moulding's haggard visage filled a display on Brim's console. "Bloody bad out here, Wilf, old chap," he said. "I assume you saw what just happened to Starswift and Starduke."

  "I saw," Brim answered grimly. "Any survivors?"

  "Hardly."

  "What shape's the fort in after your last run?"

  "We've certainly hurt it," Moulding replied. "But it's far from being out of commission—as I assume you can also see."

  "Hard to miss that," Brim agreed. "We lost MacAlda a while back, although he may make it home."

  "What do you think, Wilf?" Moulding growled with his lopsided grin. "Will the fort buckle under to those radiation fires or will we run out of Starfuries first?"

  "It's a toss-up," Brim said, "The only thing for certain is that we do still have a chance—so we've got to try." He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Listen, Toby
, here's what we're going to do...."

  "Captain Brim!" a COMM rating interrupted from a second global display. "There's a message comin' in for you from the fort."

  "From the what?"

  "The fort, Captain. It's a woman, askin' for you... um... personally. I'm puttin' 'er on channel two—receive only. She says it can't wait, an' I believe 'er." Instantly the rating was replaced by the image of...

  "Margot!" Brim exclaimed.

  "Margot?" Moulding demanded incredulously from his display, "What in the name of Voot's greasy beard does Margot have to do with any of this?"

  "Hold off a moment, Toby," Brim ordered, staring at the second display in disbelief. Behind Margot, in what appeared to be a small conference chamber, was her lifelong guardian and chauffeur, Hogget Ambridge. The man was restraining a determined-looking child dressed in a miniature Controller's uniform that could only be Rodyard LaKarn, her son. It was the first time Brim had laid eyes on the boy. Five women—clearly Margot's retinue—had posted themselves at the door with drawn blasters. Forcing aside strong feelings of unreality, the Carescrian enabled transmit on his number-two COMM channel. "What in the name of Phil Storey's gray beard are you doing there?" he demanded.

  "Wilf!" she cried. "Thank the Universe—I knew you'd answer. They've held me hostage here in the fort for nearly a month, knowing full well you would someday lead an attack."

  Brim scowled. "Oh. A hostage, eh?" he said sarcastically. "After that little episode at the Palmerston, do you realty think I'm going to believe that?"

  "I know what you must think of me, Wilf," she said, a desperate look passing her eyes, "but you have to trust me now, or the fort will destroy you and alt your ships." She started in fright as distant explosions shook the floor and their COMM link was broken several times. "We escaped when your first attack ruptured the deck in our suite. It sprung the door and—"