by Bill Baldwin
“All mooring points singled up, Lieutenant,” the Chairman reported.
“Very well, Mr. Chairman,” Brim announced quietly, “you may now switch to internal gravity — Quartermaster Maldive on the interCOMM, please.”
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant,” Maldive answered from a display.
“All hands stand by for internal gravity,” Maldive's voice echoed from the ship's interCOMM as alarms clattered in the background.
Brim braced himself as the first sudden rush of nausea swept his stomach. He swallowed hard, forcing his gorge back where it ought to be. Loose articles all over the ship rattled and clanged. He felt sweat break momentarily from his forehead. Then, quickly as it struck, the sensation passed. A muffled thump announced detachment of the ground umbilicals; the ship sagged precariously to port, then righted as her stable platforms adjusted to independent operation. From a corner of his eye, he watched the brow swing away from the hull and retract into the top of the jetty. He glanced at the tracked vehicle; its lenses were still perfectly lined up with his console but now glowing cool green. A white cursor was centered on the foremost surface. He flexed his shoulders and shook his head, smiling to himself — another gravity switch without losing his breakfast. “I'll speak with Ground Control now, Mr. Chairman,” he said, glancing quickly at the waiting vehicle on the jetty wall.
“Ground Control,” a narrow face with huge, bushy eyebrows announced from a display.
“T.83 to Ground,” Brim replied. “We're ready to taxi out when you are.”
“Ground to DD T.83,” the Controller said. “You're cleared to taxi. And you've got a destroyer standing off your stem.”
“T.83 to Ground: I see that one,” Brim replied.
“DD A.45: hold your position,” the Controller warned Audacious through another display in the tracked vehicle. Brim overheard Davenport's curt “Holding” through the same roundabout means. It provided scant comfort; the waiting destroyer could hardly have drawn up any closer to Truculent's gravity pool — nor been placed in a more inconvenient position with regard to the wind. Starships were forbidden to fly low over any land areas because overpressure from their gravity generators simply caused too much damage and noise. That ruled out exiting the gravity pool in a normal, forward-running attitude. The same overpressure (and resulting noise levels) also prohibited altitudes higher than thirty irals anywhere within a c’lenyt of land. And because Audacious blocked any chance for a snubbed swing with mooring beams rigged as old-fashioned spring lines, it was now Brim's difficult task to back the starship around the other destroyer — in a high-wind situation. Moreover, he was painfully aware that if he so much as grazed Davenport's spotless new escort, the resulting board of inquiry would destroy his career before it had much of a chance to begin. Wrestling his jangled nerves to a tenuous draw, he shrugged and smiled to himself. Best to be on with it. In the next few cycles, he'd either win all the maneuvering room he wanted, or he would be on his way back to the ore carriers. And in no way did he intend a return to Carescria’s C-97s!
“Ground to DD T.83: wind zero four zero at ninety-one,” the Controller reported..
“T.83 copies,” Brim acknowledged, shaking his head. “I'll have a balance on the forward gravity generator, Nik,” he said. “Then give me a point ninety-one gradient at zero four.” That would at least give him a chance with the wind.
“Ninety-one gradient at zero four,” Ursis repeated.
The low rumbling of Truculent's forward generator increased as it shouldered the weight of the ship. “Balanced,” Ursis reported.
“Helm's at dead center, Lieutenant,” the Chairman announced. “We are ready to move.”
“Stand by,” Brim warned. He checked the control settings once more, feeling a balm of resignation soothe his nerves. Truculent could never — in his wildest nightmares — be as difficult to control as a loaded ore carrier. And he'd mastered them. “Let go all mooring beams,” he ordered quietly, eyes glued to the cursor in the center of Ground Control's lenses. Instantly, the beams vanished. “Dead slow astern all,” he ordered, feeling sweat break out on his forehead.
“Dead slow astern,” Ursis echoed tensely; the ship began to move.
With one eye on Audacious, Brim struggled to keep the cursor centered, but in spite of every effort, it started across the glowing lens — sure indication Truculent was drifting upwind. Brim's heart leaped into his mouth. “Too much gradient, Nik!” he warned. “We're sliding into Audacious.”
“I've got fix on it,” Ursis answered tensely. “Sorry.”
“'S all right,” Brim croaked with relief as the drifting slowed and finally ceased, but he didn't breathe again until Truculent was backed all the way off the gravity pool. “Stop together,” he ordered. She was now directly beside Audacious, separated at the stem from Davenport's spotless decks by no more than a score of irals.
“Stop together,” Ursis echoed.
Now came the tricky part.
Screwing up his courage again, he ordered, “Dead slow astern, port.”
“Dead slow astern, port.” Truculent's bow began to swing sharply toward disaster waiting only irals away.
“Brim! What in the Universe are you…?” Gallsworthy growled beside him.
“It is Lieutenant Brim's helm, Lieutenant Gallsworthy,” Collingswood interrupted. “By your orders.”
Brim put them both from his mind. The next clicks were critical. He tensed, waited... “Quarter astern starboard, dead slow astern port,” he uttered with a dry mouth.
“Quarter astern starboard, dead slow astern port,” Ursis echoed. Truculent's bow stopped its swing only an iral or so from Audacious, then slowly began to draw away to safety. This time, the gravity gradient held and — as Brim planned — she continued in a wide turn to port. But an eternity passed before the starship's needle bow finally pointed out on to the rolling waters of the basin.
Brim never so much as looked back. “Ahead one-quarter, both,” he ordered weakly.
“Ahead one-quarter, both,” Ursis echoed, this time with an ear-to-ear grin. He knew.
At that moment, a display winked into life with the image of Sophia Pym touching thumb to forefinger. “Too bad you can't see Amherst's face,” she whispered gleefully. Beside her, Theada's look of astonishment had grown to one of total disbelief.
While Truculent moved into the relative freedom of the basin, the Controller called once more from the jetty: “Ground to DD T.83: you're cleared for taxi out to sea marker 98lG. See you all next time you're in port. Good hunting!”
“DD T.83 to Ground,” Brim replied. “Proceeding to marker 98lG. And thanks.” He peered into the driving rain ahead. “I am taking the helm, Mr. Chairman,” he announced.
“You have the helm, Lieutenant Brim,” the Chairman acknowledged. For the first time that morning, Brim's hands touched the directional controls. He was now in direct command of the ship itself. Inadvertently, he glanced at Gallsworthy — who was now staring back with unconcealed curiosity.
“Yes, sir?” Brim asked.
“Mind your own business, Carescrian,” Gallsworthy replied expressionlessly. But somehow the coldness had gone.
Brim nodded and turned away silently. Now was not the time to work out his basic relationship with this taciturn individual. “Taxi checks, Mr. Chairman,” he said. “Lift modifiers?”
“Fifteen, fifteen, green,” the Chairman replied.
“Yaw dampers and instruments?”
“Checked.”
“Weight and balance finals?”
“One sixty-nine five hundred; no significant changes, Lieutenant.”
“Twenty-one point two on the stabilizer. Engineer's taxi check, Nik?”
“Complete,” Ursis growled.
“Taxi checklist complete,” the Chairman pronounced.
With a feeling of relief, Brim watched the opening to the basin slide past. Truculent was now over open water. “Half ahead, both,” he said, setting a course for marker 98lG across the ranks of
marching waves.
“Half ahead, both,” Ursis echoed.
During the nearly ten cycles required to taxi into place, Brim made his own final checks of the starship's systems, finishing only moments before the flashing buoy hove into view ahead in the Hyperscreens. “DD T.83 to Harbor Control,” he announced. “Starship is in sight of marker 981 G. Heading two ninety-one.” He grinned in spite of himself. “Lift-off checklist, Mr. Chairman,” he ordered.
“Transponders and 'Home' indicator on. 'Fullstop' cell powered. All warning lights off,” the Chairman reported.
“Engineer's check?”
“Complete,” Ursis said.
“Configuration check... Antiskid?”
“Skid is on,” replied the Chairman.
“Speed brake?”
“Forward.”
“Stabilizer trim — delete the gravity gradient, Mr. Chairman.”
“Gravity gradient eliminated. Ship carries normal twenty-three one on lift-off.”
“Very well, Mr. Chairman. Course indicators, Mr. Gallsworthy?” Brim prompted politely.
Mind clearly elsewhere for the moment, Gallsworthy jumped in his recliner. “A moment, Lieutenant,” he mumbled with a reddening face and busied himself frenetically at the course controls. “Set and checked,” he croaked at length.
“Lift-off check complete, Captain Collingswood,” Brim announced. “At your command.”
“Your helm, Lieutenant Brim,” Collingswood replied from a display, thumb raised to the Hyperscreens — just as a nearby COMM globe flashed its priority pattern and displayed the Harbor Master's face.
“Harbor Master to DD T.83,” he announced. “Hold your position at marker buoy 981G for cross traffic.” Collingswood chuckled from her display and smiled understandingly.
“Holding,” Brim grumped. “Full speed reverse, both,” he said to Ursis' image.
“Full speed reverse, both,” the Bear echoed. Truculent glided to a hovering stop just short of the tossing buoy.
“All stop.”
“All stop.”
“Steering engine's amidships,” the Chairman announced.
In the driving rain outside the ship, Brim could see neither sky nor horizon; but twenty-five irals below, the sea's great swells were thick and black looking, peppered with ice rubble. Abruptly, a chance break in the downpour revealed the specter of another mass looming from the grayness, this one infinitely larger than Audacious. It quickly defined itself as the profile of a monster starship moving rapidly in Truculent's direction near the surface of the water. Scant moments later, she fairly burst from the storm, majestic and powerful, sea creaming away ahead of the roiling, foaming footprint she punched deep in the flattened surface, a haze of spray lifting hundreds of irals in her wake to rival the clouds themselves. Brim gasped in spite of himself. Perhaps no one in the galaxy could mistake that grand panorama of stacked bridges, great casemated turrets, and wide-shouldered, tapering hull: Iaith Galad, one of the three greatest battlecruisers ever constructed, and sister ship to Nimue, in which the famous Star Admiral Merlin Emrys was lost (nearly two years ago now, if Brim's memory served him). Waves of chill marched his back in icy regiments. To serve as Helmsman on something like her! He shook his head in resignation. Carescrians didn't get assignments like that. But what a dream.
“We shall require a salute, Lieutenant Amherst,” Collingswood's voice prompted.
“Aye, Captain,” Amherst replied. Immediately, glowing KA'PPA rings shimmered out from Truculent's beacon in the age-old Imperial salute, “MAY STARS LIGHT ALL THY PATHS.”
Brim had to crane his head back to see Iaith Galad's beacon when she made her traditional reply: “AND THY PATHS, STAR TRAVELERS.” He glimpsed tiny figures peering down from the vast panoply of Hyperscreens atop her towering bridge as she passed. One of them waved. Then, quickly as she appeared, she was gone, swallowed again in the gloom. Truculent bounced heavily in her gravity wake while a deluge of spray from the warship's backwash cascaded in sheets over the Hyperscreens and decks below. Then the destroyer steadied and the sea rolled again beneath the hull as if the great starship had never passed.
“DD T. 83: you now are cleared for immediate takeoff,” the Harbor Master announced. “Wind is zero four at one oh three. Heavy battlecruiser just landed reports considerable turbulence on final: your path.”
“Thank you very much,” Brim acknowledged, then looked Ursis' image in the eye and winked. “Finally,” he whispered, then louder, “Full speed ahead.”
The Bear nodded. “Good luck,” he mouthed silently. “Full speed ahead.” Immediately, Truculent's two oversized gravity generators began to thunder deep in the starship's hull, shaking the whole spaceframe.
While thrust built, Brim held the bucking, vibrating starship in place with gravity brakes. He got a definite feeling the devices were only just adequate for the job, and was distinctly glad to hear Gallsworthy's voice when it came.
“Lights are on; you've got takeoff thrust!”
Brim released the brakes. “Full military ahead, both, Nik!” he bellowed over the roar of the generators.
“Full military ahead, both,” Ursis answered. The noise intensified and Truculent began to creep forward.
Brim managed a last glance aft through the rain. The huge rolling waves were now flattened in a wide, flowing trough that extended out from their stem to a great cloud building skyward at the very limits of his vision. Then the ship was suddenly racing over the water, and no time remained for thoughts, only reflexes and habits. Stabilizers and lift modifiers, helm and thrust controllers. And even his long afternoon simulating on the bridge was poor preparation for the destroyer's astonishing acceleration. “Great — thraggling — Universe!” he gasped.
“Moves right out, doesn't she?” Ursis commented through a grinning mouthful of teeth.
Awed, Brim watched the surface rush by for only clicks before Gallsworthy's voice beside him announced, “ALPHA velocity.” Then he carefully rotated the destroyer's nose upward a specified increment for lift-off. Truculent was smooth and responsive on the controls, almost skittish. She was his first real thoroughbred, a hundred light-years beyond even the best of the training ships he had flown.
“BETA velocity,” Gallsworthy announced a few moments later, then, “Positive climb.” Within clicks, Truculent was thundering through Haefdon's heavy cloud cover, bumping heavily in the everlasting turbulence.
“Haul 'em both back to full speed ahead, Nik,” Brim ordered.
“Full speed ahead, both,” the Bear verified. Generator noise in the bridge subsided considerably.
“DD T.83: contact departure one two zero point six,” the Harbor Master called. “Good hunting, Truculents!” The transmission faded quickly as they broke out in smooth air above the overcast: Dirty gray billows that extended forever and forever in Haefdon‘s weak sunlight.
“Departure Control to DD T.83,” said a woman's face in the display. “You are cleared Hypo-light to the Lox'Sands-98 buoy, zone orange — with immediate transition to Hyper-Drive on arrival. Good-bye from Gimmas/Haefdon Fleet Base. And good luck, Truculent.
“T.83 to Departure Control,” Brim seconded, “proceeding Lox'Sands-98 buoy, zone orange with immediate HyperLight transition on arrival. Thanks, Gimmas/Haefdon. See you next time.” Before he finished speaking, Truculent swept through the planet's atmosphere and was streaking along in darkness on the edge of outer space. He busied himself with additional checkout routines and monitored the ship's systems for the next few cycles, keeping a wary eye on his LightSpeed indicator as the ship accelerated. “Let's cut in the Drive, Nik,” he said presently. “Lieutenant Gallsworthy, will you call out the readings?”
Ursis winked and kissed his fingertips. “Drive shutters open. Activating Drive crystals,” he echoed. “Firing number one.” A single shaft of green light extended far out into the blackness aft. Instantly, Hyperscreens dimmed to protect the bridge occupants while a deep, businesslike grumble joined the roar of the gravity
generators.
“Point seven five LightSpeed. Point eight,” Gallsworthy called out.
“Readouts normal,” the Chairman reported.
Ursis nodded, cross-checking his own instruments. Apparently satisfied, he went on to the next: “Firing two. Firing three. “
“Point eight five LightSpeed,” Gallsworthy continued. “Point nine.”
“Firing four.”
Truculent's light-limited gravity generators were now just about played out. In the forward Hyperscreens, the first glowing sheets of Gandom's Ve effect were already crackling along the starship's deck when Brim turned his attention outside.
“Point nine seven LightSpeed.”
Presently, the visible Universe became laced by a fine network of pulsing brilliance spreading jaggedly from the last visible stars as if the whole firmament were about to shatter into the very pebbles of creation. Now all he had to do was pass the Lox'Sands-98 buoy. The ship would have to tell him when; until the Drive could be deployed, Truculent's bridge crew was virtually blind to the outside Universe.
Suddenly: “Lox'Sands-98 buoy in the wake, Lieutenant Brim,” the Chairman confirmed. Brim smiled with anticipation. “That's it, Nik,” he said. “Half ahead, all crystals.”
“Half ahead, all crystals,” Ursis echoed. Quiet thunder from Truculent's four Drive crystals joined the roar of her straining gravity generators, the starscape wobbled and shimmered, then blended to an angry red kaleidoscope ahead until space itself came to an end in a wilderness of shifting, multicolored sparks. When this phenomenon (the Daya-Peraf transition) at last subsided, the LightSpeed indicator had moved through 1.0 and began to climb rapidly again as Truculent's Drive crystals took over the job of hurtling her through HyperSpace.
“Finished with gravity generators,” Brim announced.
“Gravity generators spooling down,” Ursis confirmed.
Immediately, the Hyperscreen panels darkened while their crystalline lattices were synchronized with the Drive, then they cleared once more, blazing with the full majesty of the Universe. On this side of the LightSpeed barrier, however, flowing green Drive plumes trailed the ship for at least two c'lenyts surrounded by a whirling green wake as Truculent's HyperSpace shock wave bled off mass and negative time (“T neg” of historic Travis equations) in accordance with the complex system of Travis Physics. In a few moments, the noise of the generators faded completely. Brim glanced at Collingswood. “Twenty-eight LightSpeed, Commander?” he asked.