The Mercenaries

"Commodore Calhoun requests your sweaty presence in the Communications Room," he said, "immediately."

Brim nodded, suddenly aware of the cold, gray morning around him—it seemed appropriate—then he stepped into the brow. Moments later he and Ursis were striding along a passageway deep within the hull of the great vessel. "Kind of laid out like a warship with the COMM room down here between the Drive bays," Brim commented with a smile.

"A warship?" Ursis gasped, his eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "But how could that be? We Sodeskayans are always peaceful."

"Except when you're angry," Brim said.

"Is true," Ursis admitted with a grin, then held up a tutorial finger. " 'Lightning and snug caves seldom bleach fur of young crag wolves,' as they say."

"As they say..." Brim averred, his eyes raised to the heavens.

"I knew you'd understand," the Bear said, fastidiously examining his claws.

When they arrived at Litvinov's COMM room. Brim was ushered directly into the ultra-secret transmission chamber. Calhoun sat at one of the big KA'PPA consoles, busily operating the complex mechanism himself from an old-fashioned keyboard. Beside him in chairs hastily drawn up to form a temporary conference room, Moulding and McKenzie sipped steaming hot cvceese'. Motioning Brim to a third chair drawn up beside the console, the Commodore completed his KA'PPA conversation—if interactive transmission of ancient symbolic characters could be considered "conversation"—then he turned and scowled. "For your information, Brim," he said angrily, " 'tis but a few metacycles afore Nergol Triannic begins war on Fluvanna." He shook his head. "And mere is nothin' any o' us can do aboot it."

"I don't understand," Brim said.

"You wull in a moment," Calhoun growled. "An' shortly after that, you'll need to hae your ships out in space. I've already ordered Tissaurd to ready your Red squadron for immediate liftoff."

"I still don't know what..." Brim started, but Calhoun cut him off with a wave of the hand.

"Neither do these two gentlemen with me," the Commodore said. "I've been waiting for you, laddie." He sat back in the console's recliner for a moment, studying a screen full of characters from the KA'PPA, then swiveled to face the three Captains. "When you've got mair time, gentlemen, you'll be able to read the whole thing, just as it unfolded on the KA'PPA," he said. "But for the nonce, you'll have to do with my personal synopsis. Otherwise, you might miss the first event. An' I don't think any of you wull want to do that." With that, he launched into such an account of double-dealing and treachery that Brim found himself absolutely staggered.

CHAPTER 8

Prelude to Chaos

"Turns out," Calhoun began, "that auld R.F.S. Rurik ne'er was lost, at least so far as the bloody League was concerned. They captured her the day she was reported missing—and she's in their hands right noo."

"Why?" Brim asked in astonishment. "What in the name of Voot would they want with that antique?"

"And how did they manage to snatch her before she at least got off a couple of messages?"

Moulding interjected.

Calhoun laughed. "Young Brim, we'll get to the question aboot why they did it in a moment. Your friend's how is a lot easier." He turned to Moulding. "They blew away the auld ship's KA'PPA mast with their first salvo, then before she could slow enough for a normal transmission, they blanketed her with a bubble of free electrons. Rurik never had a chance."

"They got her KA'PPA with the first salvo?" Brim gasped. "But they must have fired at fantastic range; otherwise, the Fluvannian crew would have done a lot of broadcasting when they saw the Leaguer cruiser bearing down on them,"

Calhoun nodded his head. "All too true, laddie," he said. " 'Twas definitely a lang-range shot.

Nergol Triannic hae fine gunners in his fleet; we've known that since the last war. But there's still anither part o' the story," he added. "Through Mustafa, we've learned that Leaguers weren't prevaricatin' aboot one thing, at least. Rurik actually was on a spy mission. That's another reason her captain waited too long afore she called for help." For a moment, his gray eyes focused on another time and another place. "A fine woman, she was," he growled quietly. "The zukeeds will pay in blood for the likes o' her, A lot o' blood."

"I suppose she was spying on that new Leaguer space fort on the Zonga'ar asteroid shoal," McKenzie said.

"That's what Nik Ursis tells me, but there's a lot more to it than that. So I'll let him tell you about the rest in person—it's his Intelligence service that's supplied most of the information."

Everyone turned toward the huge Sodeskayan who was sharing a workstation with a smaller female Bear whom Brim guessed was very attractive. She was small, reddish in color, and had a most compelling sparkle in her eyes. She also had large, furry ears, a mark of exceptional beauty among Sodeskayans he had met so far.

" Rurik was indeed spying," Ursis declared while he slowly rose to his feet, "on that new space fort at Zonga'ar the Leaguers have constructed just outside the fifty light-year demarcation between Fluvanna's occupied planets and intragalactic space. It seems clear now that they're building it as a base for their campaign against Fluvanna—and that will make it one of our principal targets. The squadron that took Rurik embarked from that base, so it is already serving limited use. Eventually, we shall have to take it out." He pursed his lips. "Indications are that they've initially housed three squadrons of Dampier cruisers from The Torond there. You'll be fighting those ships first."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Moulding said. "Leaguers have a history of letting other people fight their wars for them. At least in the beginning."

"I guess it all leads back to my first question, then," Brim persisted. "Why did they bother to capture the old spy ship anyway? If they had good enough fire control to blow off a KA'PPA mast at long range, why didn't they simply put a salvo right through the hull? I can't imagine an ancient armored cruiser being much use to a squadron of new Dampiers."

The Bear nodded. "That is where the real treachery comes in," he growled, glancing up at a time display mounted over the KA'PPA console. "In little more than two metacycles, a Leaguer crew of Agnords flying old Rurik will attack and destroy the S.S. Lombog, a small passenger liner run by the League's own Central Bureau of Transport. The little vessel is traveling with every stateroom booked.

She lifted three days ago from Tarrott, bound for Voso Gola, the Fluvannian vacation planet. Triannic's Pan-Dominion Tour Service offered special low prices to government employees on furlough."

"Sweet thraggling Universe," Moulding whispered in horror. "Now it makes sense. Triannic will use the attack on S.S. Lombog to..." He couldn't finish his sentence.

"Nergol Triannic will use the attack as an excuse to declare war on Fluvanna," Ursis said, taking control of the conversation again, "for as everyone knows, starships are considered sovereign territory just as if they were part of a planet somewhere. So when it seems that S.S. Lombog is destroyed on direct orders of Mustafa himself, it will be just as if he had ordered an attack on one of the Leaguer planets."

"And Rurik will be crewed by Agnords,'' McKenzie groaned, still wide-eyed with horror.

"Only at first, my friend," Ursis replied. "Those bloody Leaguers are a lot more unscrupulous than that. At their orders, the Agnords murdered everyone aboard Rurik soon after she was boarded, then towed her back to their new space fort and preserved the bodies. As soon as they patched up Rurik enough to fly—evidently, that was late yesterday—they lifted off and are now ready for their 'attack' on Lombog. When that's done, they'll put those same corpses back in Rurik at the exact stations where they were killed. Then they'll exit the old cruiser in a launch while a couple of The Torond's new Dampiers burn it, in turn—leaving just enough debris for positive identification."

"After that," Brim interjected, "Hanna Notrom's Ministry for Public Consensus will shriek that a 'hideous crime' has been perpetrated by Fluvanna, and shortly thereafter, Nergol Triannic will declare war in the name of defense."

"You've got it, laddie," Calhoun broke in. "That is precisely how they wull prevent Prince Onrad from quickly invoking our Mutual Assistance Treaty wi' Fluvanna. The crime wull be so heinous—literally hundreds of innocent civilians burned to death aboard the harmless Lombog—that the CIGAs wull have little trouble tying the Admiralty in political knots, at least long enough for the Leaguers and their allies to make a guid start on things here in Fluvanna."

"Eventually the CIGAs have to lose that fight," Brim interjected. "They won't be able to hold back the treaty forever."

"Aye," Calhoun agreed grimly, "but such a day wull come only after lang parliamentary debates.

That, o' course, is why we are here." He glanced up at the time display again. "Well," he said grimly, "if the Leaguers are punctual as they are normally, the attack on Lombog wull begin precisely two cycles from now, give or take a few clicks for gravity corrections out there." He nodded toward the door, "It's high time the three o' you get your Starfuries out in space; no telling what kind of timetable they're on.

The first Dampier attacks could come quickly." He nodded. "You'll be able to follow this travesty as it unfolds thro' the news media. Today, I'll ride with Brim; Nik wull keep us posted by KA'PPA as the Sodeskayans come up with new information. Oh and, McKenzie, you and Brim will trade one starship each mission we fly. That way, nobody will be left behind without a bit of combat experience. Any questions?"

"Only one, Commodore," Moulding said. "How will we find out when Fluvanna has declared war back? I assume we oughtn't to go around blowing up Toronder warships until all the paperwork's done."

Calhoun made a cold smile. "Your assumption's dead wrong, my friend," he said dourly. "After the first media announcements, feel free to blast any Toronders you see, as well as any ship that belongs to their bosses, the Leaguers. Certain enemy vessels wull be off limits during the next week or so, like the anes that carry their diplomatic staff back home. But I'll specifically identify those for you. From noo through the end o' the war, consider them all fair game—and shoot before you find yourself bein' shot at.

Got mat?"

"Got it," Brim said, getting up from his chair. He turned to Moulding. "Toby, I'll see you out on the bay at... let's make it Dawn:2:50."

"Dawn:2:50," Moulding confirmed. He grinned. "Don't be surprised if I'm there a little early. I think I started getting myself ready for this a long time ago...."

Less than two metacycles later, at precisely Morning:1:17, Brim lifted R.F.S. Starfury from Penard Bay under a heavy overcast with Stefan MacAlda's R.F.S. Starspite tucked close to starboard and half a length astern. Moments later they thundered over Varnholm Hall. Below, Brim glimpsed a small crowd waving from the keep, then abruptly the outside Universe was swallowed by a gray blanket of cloud. On the other side of the Hyperscreens, only a radiance in the whiteness marked the planet's star, Ephail, but a good Helmsman could judge the angle of climb by that alone.

At about twelve thousand irals they came out into clear air, and Brim, almost blinded by the brilliant whiteness on all sides, glimpsed deep blue sky above him. Soon, they were climbing steadily through a crystalline-clear atmosphere. Below, the receding planet speedily became a plain of white cotton where nothing stirred. As far as the eye could see—for hundreds, soon thousands of square c'lenyts—stretched soft cloud-continents with occasional crevasses between them like wide rivers. Brim never tired of the spectacle; it was part and parcel of the milieu called space flight.

As Starfury climbed out toward space, Ephail kept the whole bridge wrapped in brilliant gold light. Brim held it in the same position on his right, flying with the exhilaration that landsmen could only imagine, occasionally turning his head to insure that MacAlda was still keeping R.F.S. Starspite in position to starboard. Off to port, the second pair of Starfuries, R.F.S. Starvengeance and R.F.S.

Starconstant, were climbing at the same speed as MacAlda and himself, all four ships at different relative altitudes. Looking back along their shimmering flight path, he watched Moulding in R.F.S.

Starsovereign lead the second four-ship quad out of the clouds. Then the brightness outside began to fail with the atmosphere, and they started into the utter darkness of space.

Just after they thundered past the ninety-five-thousand-c'lenyt flight level—still well below LightSpeed—he heard Calhoun's globular display beep for the arrival of an urgent, top secret transmission. Moments later, his did, too. He passed his hand over a blinking enabler on the console beside him. Instantly, Ursis's furry visage filled the globe.

"The war has begun," the Bear announced grimly. " Lombog transmitted a series of urgent calls for assistance only moments before she was actually attacked. Clearly, Rurik's captors learned her old disrupters quickly and thoroughly. They worked ever so slowly, nibbling away at the liner's hull until only the control and COMM chambers were intact. It gave the poor crew a maximum time to scream for help—and KA'PPA word of the 'attack' all over the Universe."

Immediately after the Bear signed off, Calhoun's visage filled the display, eyes narrowed with a look of determination. "As Ursis put things, it's started noo," he growled. "Make nae mistake. Probably we'll see no action for the next few days, but you'll want to keep someone mannin' the search gear at 'Action Stations' from now on."

As Calhoun predicted, within a metacycle, Hanna Notrom's Ministry for Public Consensus began to KA'PPA streams of invective to every news bureau in the Universe, These transmissions were accepted by Starfury's KA'PPA-COMM at the same instant they were received everywhere else in the Universe. By this manner, Brim and the crew of Starfury followed the carefully orchestrated scenario as it rapidly unfolded.

Using the Lombog's broadcast pleas for assistance as "proof of Fluvannian transgression, the League's military Chiefs immediately ordered "full mobilization of forces." All this by KA'PPA-COMM before "normal" messages could be transported by mail aboard starships that could outspeed radio waves. Clearly, the event had been planned well in advance and thoroughly rehearsed throughout the League and its network of allies.

Early the next Standard Day, Triannic's huge Ministry of Diplomacy produced a long list of impossible demands the Fluvannians must immediately satisfy.

In Avalon, it was clear that Puvis Amherst and his minions had been well prepared for their part of the action. Hastily organized but superbly coordinated CIGA demonstrations occurred simultaneously at the palace and the Admiralty, only metacycles following the first KA'PPAed announcement of the declaration. These neatly strangled all initial demands for invocation of the mutual defense pact with Fluvanna. And when voices of reason refused to be silenced, powerful CIGAs in the General Parliament—who doubtlessly had been well rehearsed for such an event—smothered the whole matter in an absolute morass of governmental debate.

Among the IVG, the days following delivery of Triannic's demands to Fluvanna were an unending test of everyone's patience. It was clear that an attack would follow shortly after any declaration of war, and the strain of patrolling became a double-edged sword: day after day, the routine never changed from watch to watch, yet the anxiety of waiting for the unexpected was almost unbearable. Moreover, each time Calhoun urged Mustafa to let the IVG go after the Leaguers' space fort with a "surgical" strike in anticipation of attacks on the Fluvannian homeland, the Nabob deferred, maintaining that "We shall let history record that Leaguers delivered the first blow."

"What if it's the Leaguers who write the history?" Calhoun asked time and time again.

"Then so be it," the Nabob replied, folding his arms in a symbol of finality. And thus it was that when the declaration of war finally came—just ninety-seven Standard Days following Rurik's initial disappearance—Brim was leading Quad One on a roving orbital patrol, some two thousand c'lenyts out from Ordu and nowhere near the fort. Moulding led the second quad, keeping to the opposite hemisphere. Close in, McKenzie's three ships hovered in synchronous orbit, approximately seventy-five c'lenyts above Magor itself. Between them, at about one thousand c'lenyts distance, six quads of Mustafa's pristine antiques cruised in a roughly spherical pattern. Calhoun, who had ordered the defensive pattern on a tip from the Sodeskayans, today was riding aboard McKenzie's Starglory. All the ships were traveling well below LightSpeed; if an attack against the planet were imminent—as the elder Carescrian strongly suspected—the enemy would have to slow considerably to fire their disrupters at a "stationary" target.

Just prior to the Dawn watch, Brim was finishing breakfast in the wardroom and going through a stack of routine KA'PPA dispatches when the deck vibrated slightly under his boots. Simultaneously, the whine from Starfury's power primaries raised in pitch—followed at once by a substantial boost in the thunder from Zaftrak's big Admiralty generators out in the pontoons. Moments later sirens whooped throughout the ship.

"General quarters! General quarters—all hands man your action stations! General quarters!

General quarters—all hands man your action stations!" Brim's calm was shattered as he raced for the bridge. Boots thumped on the deck as running figures scampered to their posts, groping for antiradiation gear and battlesuit helmets, making sure at least two air cartridges were secured loosely around their waists.

"Special duty starsailors to your stations! Secure all airtight doors! Down all deadlights!"

"I'll take the con, Number One," he said to Tissaurd, sliding breathlessly into the left-hand helm.

"You're welcome to it today, Skipper," Tissaurd said with a grin—as if it were just another exercise.

It passed Brim's mind that the tiny woman enjoyed perhaps the strongest character on the ship.

She was positively unflappable. He checked his helmet and air cartridges, then tightened his seat gravity to maximum and ran a quick systems check. Behind him, the whole bridge hummed with similar checkouts: power, propulsion, fire control, damage control, communications, sensing systems, medical.

Outside on the pontoons, he watched A and B turrets swing and elevate their twin 406-mmi disrupters as firing crews ran final systems checks. Overhead, the business ends of two more 406s, these belonging to E turret, traversed past the dorsal Hyperscreens. He knew that three other emplacements performed similar oblations out of sight beneath the pontoons and hull. In the distance, nearly out of range, a few suspicious lights were now moving improperly against the great canopy of stars.

Abruptly, one of the gun layers broke the relative silence of the bridge. "Look out, chaps. Here they come." His voice was strangely calm, as if he had been giving that same sort of warning for years. At one time, he had, of course, during the last war. As Emperor Greyffin IV once so succinctly pointed out, experience counted. Moments later, a proximity alarm sounded.

Brim banked Starfury in a slight left turn and looked up to confront at least twenty-five starships coming at them, slowed below LightSpeed for a ground attack. Even though he couldn't identify them, they were uniquely from The Torond. The untidy formation and nervously juddering graviton plumes were unmistakable. As the disrupters swung up to meet them, his thoughts momentarily touched on his unresolved feelings for Margot Effer'wyck. Then, before he could concentrate, an old Helmsman's Academy instructor's voice echoed ancient Fleet doggerel: "Beware the ships wot bear out of a glare, me boy."

Brim closed his mind to all of it. This was his very purpose for being. Nothing else mattered. "All killing systems energize," he ordered over the blower.

As his muscles keyed to the oncoming challenge, he pictured Chief Baranev and his Sodeskayan Propulsion Engineers out in the pontoons with their gravity generators, sealed in a brightly lit hell of noise and hair-raising energy. He switched his COMM to the work chambers. "You people in the pontoons," he ordered grimly, "take to your lifeglobes if I give the word. No heroics; got that?" He didn't wait for an answer. He'd seen too many people burn in streams of escaping energy from radiation fires. It was a slow, painful death.

Everybody would be at his action station now... waiting. There were no passengers aboard warships; even people like cooks and disbursing clerks would be down with the damage-control parties.

He thought about Penelope Hesternal back at the base hospital. She'd be getting ready for the first casualties of the war. On the far side of Tissaurd's station, the Navigator was correcting a HoloChart in his oversize globular display. The firing crews in the next stations aft were busily tracking possible targets in their arcane language of pure mathematics. Beside him, Tissaurd followed his every move, ready to take over instantly should he be disabled.

"Warn the generator rooms, Strana'," he said into a display, "I'll want maximum thrust when I give the word."

The Bear nodded silently and turned to her own displays.

Suddenly Brim's introspection vanished. He altered course toward the squadron of graviton plumes and called out, "All gravity generators, full power." He was ready to fight.

A moment later Zaftrak's furry visage appeared in a COMM display, her mouth open to speak.

Brim spoke up before she could utter a word. "I know what the Chief and his Drive crews are saying down there, Strana'," he said, "but I want everything they've got— now!" Baranev—hefty, even for a Sodeskayan—was the best Drive crew supervisor in the business, but sometimes he loved his equipment a little too much.

Zaftrak's race disappeared from the display and moments later the whine from all ten K-P K23971 plasma generators simultaneously rose in pitch while rolling thunder from the big Admiralty A876s shook the very deck; stars began to cascade past the Hyperscreens in an insane flood. Starfury was made for tearing along like this, above and below LightSpeed. She was in her element now.

Ahead, the squadron of graviton plumes fanned out and veered to meet them.

"Break port!" Brim commanded to the other starships in his quad. "Climbing!"

At nearly the same instant, Brim's power indicators reached their rated maximum three thousand standard thrust units. Outside, the oncoming ships had defined themselves into Dampier D.A. 79-IIs, driving in toward Magor. He made for the first group, and all space seemed to explode as the big 406s discharged. An instant later the leading Dampier lit up with explosions—but the focus was 'way short.

Three or four shimmering energy puffs nonetheless appeared in the Dampier's wake. Even near misses from a brace of 406s could be deadly.

Two more Dampiers made a tight turn, bringing themselves head-on. Energy beams from their 280-mmi disrupters formed long, glittering tentacles snaking remorselessly toward Starfury, at the last moment curling down just under her hull. In the next instant, all space became a swimming kaleidoscope of The Torond's black triangle insignias. At half the speed of light, Brim sensed rather than saw the presence of starships circling 'round until suddenly his eyes fixed on one of them. "There's one!" he shouted.

Immediately half the battery swung aft. "We see him, Captain," a deep voice called tensely from a display.

Brim didn't even acknowledge. The big Dampier was still circling, its black triangles edged with yellow, Hyperscreens glittering in Ephail's bright starlight as she banked back and forth, settling on an opponent.

"Tracking...."

"Out of range and closing...."

Suddenly the Dampier appeared to spot them.

"Good proximity alarms," Tissaurd commented dryly.

The enemy ship fell off to starboard in a tight turn. Two shimmering streamers of gravitons appeared at her extremities from the steering engines. Without warning, she climbed vertically at tremendous speed, then violently flipped over on her back, disrupters firing spasmodically as their director systems tumbled. Brim flinched. In a moment of frenzy, her Helmsman had overcontrolled and outrun the steering engines. Now the big ship continued in the same direction, flat, on momentum alone.

Such a mistake was easy to make with the new breeds of powerful ships that had begun to appear subsequent to the final Mitchell Trophy races. This mistake, however, would also be fatal. Starfury was narrowing the distance quickly.

Brim listened to one of the Director crews behind his helm. "Range nine thirty-one Green and closing...."

He watched the long-nosed Dampier grow in the Hyperscreens. She was so close now he could see the blue radiation flames close in where her graviton plumes began. She was almost factory new. The electron waste gates abaft her crystal chambers were hardly stained. Too late, her turrets were beginning to swing!

"Bearing one one nine...."

"Steady...."

Brim held Starfury on course as if she were on rails.

"Fire!"

The graceful Sherrington cruiser shuddered as if she had encountered some great cosmic wall, while eight huge disrupters tore at the warp and woof of space itself. Simultaneously, the Dampier's sharp, clear image ahead shook and began to disintegrate. Her bridge Hyperscreens burst into glittering fragments and the two forward turrets spun into the slipstream like toys. The hits advanced aft toward her inactive Hyperspeed Drive section in a series of disastrous explosions and sparks that glittered along her hull until a spurt of radiation fire and debris erupted just aft of her main deckhouse. In the wink of an eye, a blackish-red cloud of raw energy mingled with the burning collapsium particles.

Brim pushed over on the controls and veered out of the way. As Starfury flicked off, he had a last vision of the big Dampier exploding in a cloud of energy and light. Then he was past, Calhoun 's voice thundering in his mind: Slash and fire, lad. No toe-to-toe!

The whole episode had lasted no more than a few clicks.

To the right, Brim watched another Starfury break off and head behind a Dampier. He caught a glimpse of its markings: K5058. Moulding. Swerving to cover him, the Carescrian avoided several determined attacks by going into a tight spiral—but Starfury was traveling too fast to follow. Ahead, Starsovereign began to fire, her disrupters disgorging long trails of glittering energy.

Of a sudden, proximity alarms went off all over the bridge, while a series of terrific explosions blasted Starfury sideways. A near miss from somewhere! The starboard turrets swung violently, loosing huge bolts of energy that shook the speeding cruiser even farther off course. Brim fought the controls as a great shadow momentarily blanketed the overhead Hyperscreens. A Dampier's enormous, heat-streaked belly flashed only a few irals above the bridge. He had missed Starfury and was going after Moulding.

"Watch out. Skipper," Tissaurd exclaimed, "that zukeed's taken a real dislike to Toby!"

Instinctively, Brim hauled back on the power, listening to the disruptor trainers and watching the forward tubes elevate, then immediately open fire. The mighty fusillade of raw energy belched forth by six 406s at point-blank range hammered into the Dampier precisely where the forward dorsal turret pierced her armored hull—with devastating results. Shaken in its course, the big starship skidded violently to the left as its whole bow from the bridge forward folded up in a shower of sparks and hullmetal fragments that smashed her aft Drive shields and whizzed past Starfury in a hail of debris.

The Carescrian had hardly recovered from his surprise when Starfury was attacked by six other Dampiers. The whole Universe seemed to go wild again in an insane turmoil of monstrous explosions and lurid flashes of light, while the gun crews defended the ship as if they were possessed. Brim felt sweat pouring off his face. He had to keep turning constantly, with the Dampiers dogging his every move.

Then one of the Dampiers took a moment too long recovering from its attack. Four of Starfury's big disrupters fired immediately with murderous effect. A cluster of tremendous explosions blasted its main deckhouse just beneath the bridge, and the cruiser faltered as if it had smashed into a large asteroid.

Brim never looked back. Slash and fire. Slash and fire....

Then, abruptly, the Dampiers showed signs of flagging and soon thereafter turned on their heels.

Brim and the other Starfuries gave chase for a moment to start them on their way, then all turned and headed for Varnholm Hall—just as the first of the "regular" Fluvannian Fleet units reached the battle area.

Brim left them with orders to continue their patrol, another thousand c'lenyts out. They'd at least make a good early warning group.

On the way home from the rout, they passed at least three squadrons of elderly Fluvannian warships clawing their way into space. "A day late and a credit short, if y' ask me. Skipper," Tissaurd commented.

Brim laughed grimly and took a deep breath. His adrenaline was only now coming under control.

"I suppose that's true, Number One." he said. "But how would you feel about flying out to meet a squadron of Dampiers in one of those antiques?"

The tiny officer thought for a moment and gave her own grim little snort. "You're right," she said angrily. "Were I aboard one of those pitiful antiques, I think I might be a day late myself, now that you mention it—because clearly that poor excuse for a fleet is a lot of credits short." She scowled bitterly.

"Mustafa has undoubtedly saved himself, and his treasury, a lot of wealth over the years by buying up everybody else's cast-off warships. But guess who's making up the difference now that he's got a war on his hands...."

During the next Standard Month, Calhoun's superbly equipped and trained IVG—"assisting powerful units of the Fluvannian Home Fleet," as the media reported almost daily—handily repulsed a score of raids from the Leaguer space fort, with disastrous results for the Toronder starfleets and "acceptable" damage to the leased Starfuries.

The IVG's advantage was the Starfuries' superior speed combined with awesome firepower and generous armor. These enabled them to swoop into enemy formations, produce devastating harm in a matter of moments, then speed away before their quarry could effectively react. According to the Sodeskayans, the unorthodox tactics actually rattled Toronder crews, who were trained for more conventional warfare. Despite the ample firepower of their Dampiers, the big ships were no match for Starfuries, and they were usually easy victims for the aggressive IVG crews. But every one of the ex-Imperials knew that sooner or later, the League would tire of its thralls' overlong effort to subdue Fluvanna; then there would be Gorn-Hoffs to deal with as well.

And indeed, the change began less than a week later, manifesting itself in revised enemy tactics called "doubling," whereby escorting squadrons of Dampiers were escorted by a squadron of the League's powerful new Gorn-Hoff 262A-1As, first production version of the P.1065. These stood off maddeningly from the battles until it was certain that the Dampiers had fought themselves into a corner (as they usually did). Then the Leaguers would jump into the fray, effectively tripling odds against the IVG, To no one's particular surprise, the new Gorn-Hoff 262s were superb warships; in many ways the equal of Mark Valerian's Starfuries—in some, superior.

Happily, during the months imposed between Calhoun's initial briefings on the Leaguers' new, chevron-contoured prototype and Brim's first personal encounters with production versions, Sodeskayan intelligence sources were able to provide considerable data on the new Leaguer ships. So their startling performance came as no surprise. It was a fortunate thing, too. For unbeknown to the ex-Imperials, the squadrons of "easy" Dampier opponents had been making them moderately lax. And even with ample forewarning, they still turned out to be a nasty surprise on the day they first showed up.

Brim had Starfury in the middle of a frenzied melee well below LightSpeed. With his quad outnumbered three-to-one by Dampiers, the Carescrian had been flying for all he was worth, twisting and turning, trying to set up shots for his disrupter crews while nursing the generators, scanning the instruments, and watching for the few scrappy Toronder skippers who yet remained among their savaged squadrons. Just as the enemy crews appeared to be getting ready to pack it in for another day, his eyes caught a second group of ships cruising high off the port bows. These, however, were making curious, oscillating Drive wakes—like ones he recalled from the endless Gorn-Hoff P.1065 briefings he'd been forced to sit through in Avalon, "Everyone on his toes," he broadcast to the bridge crews, "we've got some special company, Purple Apex."

Tissaurd needed only a glance through the forward Hyperscreens. "Bloody Gorn-Hoffs," she swore under her breath. "The new 262s! We've got to take out that xaxtdamned fort somehow."

Brim nodded grimly. "If we ever have a moment when we're not fighting for our lives." Abruptly, the Drive wakes flickered out and the enemy starships slowed to Hypospeed. He switched on the COMM and set it for general. "Special threat alert, all firing crews!" he announced throughout the ship.

"Hands prepare for unknown enemy warships. Special threat alert, all firing crews. Hands prepare for unknown enemy warships!"

A moment later the Dampiers literally evaporated in breakneck retreat and the Leaguer warships surged forward to replace them. Brim no sooner disengaged from the last fleeing Toronder than he was immersed in a fight where suddenly life and death hung in the balance. He pulled Starfury into a half loop, passing so close to a pair of the big Gorn-Hoffs that for a moment he could see through their bridge Hyperscreens—but the three ships passed so closely to each other that none could bring its disrupters to bear. The Gorn-Hoffs followed in their own half loop, but by this time, Brim had cranked Starfury into a tight turn and the IVG disrupter crews were able to get off two good volleys from eight 406s that sparkled along the left-hand Leaguer's starboard "wing" and blasted one of its 375-mmi turrets out into space like a top.

A hail of return fire smashed the Sherrington cruiser aside like a cork in a millrace, blanking the Hyperscreens momentarily and pulsing the cabin gravity so that Brim's restraints constricted painfully around his body.

The Carescrian tightened his turn, Starfury's rugged spaceframe groaning in protest as the steering engines struggled to bring the speeding ship onto a new course. But they had him cold, sitting on his tail as if they were under tow. As he angrily ground his teeth, he realized that they had probably been watching him for several cycles and planning the whole thing.

From their position, he guessed they would expect him to tuck Starfury's nose under and try to run for it. Instead, he twisted upward and toward them in a corkscrew. He'd guessed right! As he thundered at them, it was they who had had to turn.

But the zukeeds had been ready for that, too! Two more Gorn-Hoffs suddenly appeared directly in his path; clearly they'd been waiting on the chance that he might do the unexpected.

Brim was a brave starsailor—and survivor of more than his share of battles against "impossible" odds—but those battles had also made him smart. Clearly, anytime one ship was up against four that were flown by crews of that caliber, the prudent thing to do was to execute a well-known maneuver known as "getting the xaxt out of there." As an old Carescrian proverb put things: It's no disgrace to run if you are scared.

He was!

Accelerating to the upper limits of Starfury's Hypospeed envelope, he zigzagged and skidded like a madman in an attempt to break for home. But the four Gorn-Hoffs hung on like Drive cement, two high and two low—just out of lethal range....

Why didn't they fire?

Spasms of anxiety danced up and down Brim's spine like ice. He glanced at Tissaurd who was sitting bolt upright in her seat, her forehead beaded with sweat.

"Aren't the zukeeds going to fire?" she growled through clenched teeth. "We could thraggling die of old age!"

Starfury had become easy meat, sandwiched between two pairs of expert crews. Her main armament was divided among four attackers, and the percentage certainty of destroying one of the Leaguer ships with a salvo of only three disrupters was a little less than fifty percent. Sooner or later, somebody would make a mistake, which at least one of the Leaguers would spot instantly. After that....

And then it came to him. "A mistake!" he half shouted. "Wow I remember!"

"Mistake?" Tissaurd asked, glancing his way for a moment. "What do you remember? Whose?"

Brim grunted, hauling the big starship around in a tight curve with the four Leaguers still hot on his tail. "Gorn-Hoff's design team made the mistake," he growled, checking the rearview display on his panel.

"They didn't build enough power into those new ships of theirs to fly at top speed and simultaneously fire all fourteen of those new superfocused Theobold disrupters at maximum power."

Tissaurd met his eye. "Voot's beard!" she exclaimed. "That's true. I remember it from somebody's briefing—yours, probably."

Brim nodded. "Like right now," he said, "those four ships on our tail can probably muster no more than eight of their Theobold 375s apiece. I figure that gives each of them something like a forty-five percent certainty of destroying us, per salvo: about the same chance we have of getting one of them with three of our 406s. But since that certainty percentage isn't additive among the four ships, those twenty-four big Theobolds behind us still share only a single ship's forty-five percent chance of stopping us." He laughed grimly as he steered into yet another extreme maneuver. "It's a standoff, so long as I can keep them from catching up. At this speed, if they fire, they'll also deprive their generators of energy, cutting into their ability to maneuver." He chuckled. "Of course, they could fire a bigger salvo at lower power—and change the percentages significantly. But with a proportional decrease in range, they'd come closer to our 406s. And then they might not get off any shots— ever."

At that moment, one of the low Gorn-Hoffs became vulnerable as it attempted to follow Brim's wild maneuvering and blocked his partner's field of fire. But for only an instant.

That was all it took.

Straightaway, Brim pushed over, drew back on the power, and as Starfury's nose came down, the disrupter crews fired a terrific salvo ahead of the errant Leaguer. Perhaps the enemy Helmsman didn't even see the thick bolt of energy sizzling past in front of him, but at any rate, he flew right into it, with devastating effect. The concentrated firepower of six 406-mmi disrupters tore her entire bow away, along with the bridge, then rippled along the hull until it blasted her Drive section open like an overripe fruit. Rescue globes popped into the doomed ship's wake as the few surviving crew ejected. Then clicks later, the big Gorn-Hoff exploded in a blinding flash, bombarding its partner with a hail of hullmetal shards and whirling debris.

When the Hyperscreens cleared, Starfury's twelve main disruptors were now tracking four apiece among the remaining Gorn-Hoffs, and his kill probability had now risen to fifty-eight percent.

Moreover, the surviving low Leaguer had clearly been damaged by its exploding partner. Huge areas along its starboard "wing" had been shattered and raked with debris.

Had Brim been either of the two high Leaguers above him in such a situation, he would have attacked at that very moment, counting on surprise for extra protection. They didn't, hesitating for one fateful moment while he decided to attack. In the wink of an eye, he pulled back on the nose and judiciously applied full power, coming over at them in a complete renversment with Starfury's steering engines howling in protest.

The Leaguers were caught with their battlesuits at half mast. Before Starfury's disrupter crews could set up for another salvo, they turned and fled, accelerating toward LightSpeed on maximum output.

Brim supposed that the sight of their exploding colleague might have taken much of the fight out of them.

It didn't take any fight out of Brim. He lit off after all three of them—annoyed with them and downright angry at himself.

Starfury was faster, especially so after they passed into Hyperspeeds. And the damaged Gorn-Hoff immediately began to fall behind, clearly experiencing Drive trouble. Remorselessly, Brim continued to close in until, at about five thousand c'lenyts distance, the laggard began stunting. It didn't do any good. Starfury easily stuck with him, just out of range, until Ulfilas Meesha's disruptor crews fired a burst directly into Gorn-Hoffs stern that blasted through her Drive tubes and directly into the power chambers.

There were no rescue globes before or after that explosion. The ship and everything associated with it passed directly to subatomic particles in a single hellish detonation.

Afterward, Brim sullenly headed for home to report that he had blundered into a trap and had come out of it with two victories. Starfury now had nineteen confirmed kills, but—to himself—he felt that the two Gorn-Hoffs should have counted at least double. And now the IVG would have to take out the fort whatever the costs might be. It had become a simple matter of survival. He resolved to take it up with Calhoun as soon as he made landfall. Then, as he readied the ship for reentry, a globular display on Brim's COMM unit winked into life with a three-chime priority signal.

"Incoming Precedence-One message for you, Captain," a KA'PPA rating announced, "from Polkovnik Ursis back at Varnholm."

"A KA'PPA message?" Brim demanded. "We're below LightSpeed."

"It's a KA'PPA, Captain," the rating said.

"Very well," Brim said with a frown. "Put it on the display." He glanced at Tissaurd. "What could be so important that he needs to tell us before we land—and by KA'PPA?"

The tiny officer shrugged. "Beats me, Skipper," she said, leaning across her left-hand console to watch the old-fashioned characters appear on Brim's KA'PPA screen.

BNO-987HO97BFD GROUP Z98V09 13/52011

[UNCLASSIFIED]

FROM: N. Y. URSIS, CAPTAIN, R.F.F. @VARNHOLM HALL, ORDU

TO: B. O. CALHOUN, COMMODORE, R.F.F. COMMANDER, VARNHOLM

HALL IVG DETACHMENT @ R.F.S. STARGLORY

COPIES:

W. A. BRIM, CMDR, R.F.F. @ R.F.S. STARFURY

F. L. MCKENZIE, CMDR, R.F.F. @ R.F.S. STARGLORY

T. D. MOULDING, CMDR, R.F.F. @ R.F.S. STARSOVEREIGN

IS OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION I.F.S. QUEEN EUDEAN ARRIVED VARNHOLM

HALL PRECISELY FIFTEEN CYCLES PAST. LOCAL ABSENCE LARGE

GRAVITY POOLS REQUIRES RETURN TO PARKING ORBIT

APPROXIMATELY 150 C'LENYTS ALTITUDE. NO OVERT ACTION

TOWARD VARNHOLM BASE IMPLIED, HOSTILE OR OTHERWISE. QUEEN

CARRIES [NOTE RANK] VICE ADMIRAL PUVIS AMHERST DEMANDING

IMMEDIATE MEETING UPON YOUR RETURN TO BASE. LEAGUE

PASSENGERS POSSIBLE.

WITH MOST CHEERFUL REGARDS

N. Y. URSIS, CAPTAIN, IVG

[END UNCLASSIFIED]

BNO-987HO97BFD GROUP Z98V09 13/52011

"Sweet thraggling Universe," Brim swore softly. "Puvis Amherst—scum of the Empire and a Vice Admiral to boot." He shook his head angrily and scowled at Tissaurd. "The CIGAs are sure up to something, sneaking a battleship to Varnholm—and I'll bet none of our people knew about it. We'd have been warned, otherwise. No wonder Nik KA'PPAed—and in the clear."

"Yeah," Tissaurd agreed with a nod, "everybody in the Universe who wants to pick up that message will read it."

Brim glowered as he scanned his instrument panels. "The Commodore's got trouble now," he growled. "Amherst might be a scoundrel, but he's quick as a whipsnake—and a thousand times more dangerous."

"I sort of got that idea," Tissaurd said, backing away from his obvious rage.

"That's what I like about you, Number One," Brim chuckled, focusing through the forward Hyperscreens as an altitude warning began to flash on his nav panel. "You catch on fast." He switched on his COMM and contacted the Varnholm traffic controller. "Fleet K5054 descending through two hundred c'lenyts," he said.

"Fleet K5054: fly heading two thirty-five," the base replied. "Orbital traffic, fifty c'lenyts ahead of you: Imperial battleship."

"Two thirty-five heading; orbital traffic in fifty," Brim acknowledged. He glanced at Tissaurd.

"Universe," he said, "the Queen herself. Amherst brought heavy support with him."

"Yeah," Tissaurd responded, squinting through the Hyperscreens. "I think I have her in sight."

"Fleet K5054," the controller broke in, "not to exceed forty-five hundred on the run-in; there's quite a bit of returning traffic right now; you'll probably have an eight-or nine-c'lenyt final it looks like."

Brim activated Starfury's powerful retarders and the ship began to slow. "OK, forty-five hundred on the speed, Fleet K5054," he replied, then peered ahead into the distance to a colossal, wedge-shaped form that was growing by the moment in the Hyperscreens as they approached. "Yeah,"

he said, "I see her. We'll pass within c'lenyts."

Tissaurd peered ahead as if she were mesmerized. "Sweet thraggling Universe, but she's beautiful. Skipper," she whispered aloud.

Brim nodded. The grand old ship had always been a symbol of everything worthwhile about the Empire she represented. "We'll have the salute. Number One," he said,

"Aye, Skipper," Tissaurd replied, touching a portion of her COMM console.

Overhead, KA'PPA rings shimmered out from Starfury's KA'PPA mast in the age-old Imperial salute; Brim had no need to check his console for the message, "may stars light all thy paths," nor the answer that shimmered forth from the battleship's lofty transmitter, "and thy paths, star travelers." As Starfury swept past no more than five or six c'lenyts from that majestic panorama of casemated turrets and wide-shouldered hull, the old warship looked powerful simply idling in orbit. He felt hairs tingle on the back of his neck. Queen Elidean and her four consorts were from another age—one that was dying even as the present war began. The future belonged to newer, smaller, more powerful breeds like Starfuries, and all too soon great ships like the Queen would fade into Universal darkness.

With the battleship receding in the distance, Brim's COMM panel came alive again: "Fleet K5054, check in with Varnholm Approach one one nine point four."

"One one nine point four, Fleet K5054," Brim acknowledged. Then he put the Queen from his mind. He had a starship to land, and afterward, it was very probable that he would have to help deal with Puvis Amherst. There was much to prepare....

As Brim swept over Varnholm Hall on final, he spotted a launch on one of the gravity pools that was bigger than anything Starfuries could carry. Clearly, Puvis Amherst had arrived. McKenzie's Starglory was nearby, already moored on her own gravity pool, so Calhoun was there as well. Brim took a deep breath to calm himself. He could imagine the conversations that were taking place.

Setting Starfury down with a minimum of runout, he hauled the big ship around in great cascades of spray, and taxied back to the pool area at high speed. Well-practiced docking crews quickly had the big cruiser secure on her pool, at which time Ursis arrived at the foot of the brow, shading his eyes and squinting up at the bridge. He beckoned emphatically when Brim waved.

"Take care of her, Number One," the Carescrian ordered, sliding out of his recliner and heading back through the bridge at a trot. He took the companionways two steps at a time and arrived at the entry chamber even while the hatch was sliding aside. Ursis met him on the other side.

"The Commodore wants both of us in his office on the double," the Bear said. "Moulding and McKenzie are there already with Amherst. I saw an additional human emerge from their launch and join them, but I could not tell who it was."

Brim nodded, and the two trotted along the maze of stone catwalks that led to what was once an assay laboratory: leftover from Varnholm's original existence as a mining port. Two IVG guards— big Sodeskayan Sergeants, originally from the Special Security Corps—stood watchfully on either side of the door. Dwarfed at their sides were two human guards, wearing Imperial Fleet Cloaks embellished by large CIGA crests, who were casting worried glances at their IVG counterparts. As Brim and Ursis approached, one of the Bears opened the door, then both came to attention and saluted. The Imperials did not... until one of the Bears growled something in a low, menacing voice. At that, both humans immediately sprang to attention and saluted as if their lives depended on it. Brim stifled a laugh and returned their salutes. The terrified CIGAs were probably correct!

Inside the cramped "lobby," Barbousse and a third CIGA starsailor stood side by side, each holding a blast pike at the trail-arms position. Barbousse and the CIGA both saluted at the same time—smartly. Either Barbousse already had this one trained, or they'd actually run across a CIGA with some class. Barbousse opened the door and nodded. "Polkovnik Ursis, Cap'm Brim," he announced,

"Commodore Calhoun asks that you go right in." Then he looked Brim directly in the eye and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

Frowning, Brim nodded, and deferring to Ursis's superior rank, strode in first—nearly stumbling in surprise as their entry interrupted Amherst in the middle of a sentence. So that was what the big rating silently tried to warn him about! Seated before the glowering Calhoun's makeshift workstation were four men, not three: Toby Moulding, Fortune McKenzie, Puvis Amherst, and Kirsh Valentin—the latter smiling as if he were specially pleased to see the look of astonishment on Brim's face.

"Well, Brim," Amherst growled through clenched teeth, "it is high time you returned from your bloodthirsty work, war lover!"

The Carescrian glanced at Valentin only just in time to see him wipe a look of amusement from his face. Tall, slim, and handsome in his jet-black tunic, shirt, jodhpurs, and glossy riding boots, the cavalier Provost knew full well what Amherst was; Leaguers had no more respect for him or his CIGAs than did most Imperials. "What was that, Amherst?" Brim demanded.

"How many times must you be reminded, low-life Carescrian, that I am to be addressed by my title?" Amherst whined, indignantly jumping from his chair.

"More times than you've got," Brim replied calmly. "I have better respect for your Leaguer friend Valentin, here—at least he's never tried to be anything more than an enemy. The best you'll ever hear from me is 'traitor.' "

When Ursis finally lost his battle to stifle a guffaw, Amherst swung on his heel and confronted Calhoun. "Commodore!" he screeched, his face turning a livid red, "do something about these men of yours!"

Calhoun only shrugged. "I doubt if I can noo, Admiral," he said. "They're all a wee out o' control, you know. Especially Brim."

That was more than either Moulding or McKenzie could suffer. They covered their mouths while their faces turned red as zago-beets.

By now, even Valentin was struggling to maintain his composure. "Admiral Amherst," he suggested uneasily. "Perhaps you should not—as you yourself suggest—lower yourself to intercourse with such despicable tatterdemalions as these... mercenaries.'' He pronounced the latter as if it were an especially vile scurrility. "Might it not be more fitting that I—who have not yet reached true flag rank—deal with your inferiors?"

Amherst frowned, considering this. "Yes," he agreed at length, gathering his injured pride into a heroic pose, "I believe that might be appropriate."

"Excellent," Valentin said, rising slowly. He stood for a few moments in silence while Amherst continued to pose, then cleared his throat pointedly.

Amherst started slightly and turned to peer down his nose at the Leaguer.

"If you please, Admiral," Valentin said coldly.

"Oh," Amherst said, almost in surprise. "Ahem... yes...." He resumed his seat with great dignity.

"Commodore," Valentin said, turning to face Calhoun, "my Imperial colleague, Admiral Amherst, has brought your venerated battleship Queen Elidean to Fluvanna not by request of the League of Dark Stars, but by acclaim from an equally peace-loving segment of your own Empire: the Congress of IntraGalactic Accord." He paused for a moment to look around the room. "We do not address you here today in your guise of Fluvannians but as the members of Greyffin's Imperial Fleet that you assuredly are.

Do you understand?"

Calhoun nodded. "You may continue, Valentin," he said noncommittally.

The Leaguer sneered and turned to Brim. "To think that once you might have been legitimate, Brim, as an officer in the League Fleet," he said. "Instead, your foolish prejudice has led to this berth working for a low-life pirate—hiding your shame behind the uniform of the corrupt Nabob of Fluvanna."

Brim steepled his fingers together and forced himself to relax. "Time will tell, Valentin," he said,

"which of us turns out to be legitimate. But meanwhile, I feel a lot more comfortable right where I am than serving as toady to a contemptible kennel of butchers like the Leaguers I've met so far."

Amherst gasped, and started out of his chair, but Valentin pushed him back without even taking his eyes from Brim—as if the CIGA were nothing more than a bothersome child. The Leaguer's eyes flashed with cold rage. "Those words will someday cost your life, Carescrian," he hissed through clenched teeth.

"I've heard you promise that a number of times, Valentin," Brim replied calmly. "But you'll have to work faster than you've worked so far. Otherwise, I'm liable to die of old age first."

Calhoun interrupted. "Valentin," he growled, "you claim you have some sort of message for all of us. Alright, let's have it. You can let Brim make a fool of you later, when you aren't wasting time for so many other people."

Valentin's eyebrows rose in rage and he opened his mouth to speak, but Calhoun cut him off with a scowl that would shred hullmetal. "An' remember this, you black-suited punk," he growled, "I'll grant that it took a lot of intestinal fortitude for you to show up here alone. You've never been anythin' if you haven't been brave, Kirsh Valentin. But you are sittin' here as my guest. It's not the other way around. So say what you have to say an' then get you an' your recreant friend out o'here the fastest way you can. Do you understand, Provost?"

"I understand. Commodore," Valentin said quietly, his whole expression dripping with enmity.

"Then begin, mon," Calhoun prompted.

"First," Valentin said, glancing around the room, "I shall remind you all that no state of war exists between the League and your Empire." Then he turned to Calhoun. "Oh, you were clever in leasing these Starfuries to the Fluvannian government," he said in a low, menacing voice. "We can do nothing about that—nor the fact that we will have to contend with your defense of this wretched dominion. However," he continued with a droll smile, "in the interests of conciliation, our harmony-loving Imperial colleagues have gathered a full battle crew of heroic reconciliators aboard I.F.S. Queen Elidean. And—in the interests of peace—these brave men and women from all walks of Imperial life are prepared to give their lives protecting the new space fortifications we have recently completed just off the shoals of Zonga'ar."

Brim felt a chill cut wickedly along his spine while he ground his teeth in rage.

"They wha' ?" Calhoun demanded angrily.

Valentin smiled cruelly. "I believe you heard me, Commodore," he purred, once more in possession of the upper hand. "A group of highly patriotic CIGAs in the Imperial battleship Queen Elidean will take up station orbiting our newest deep-space fortification located in the shoals of Zonga'ar," He peered down his nose at Brim. "I'm certain you know where that is, gentlemen." Then he laughed. "And if you dare to attack it, you will first have to deal with one of the most powerful battleships in the known universe—with her normal complement of escorts." He stopped for a moment to inspect his perfect manicure. "Of course, you will also be attacking your own Empire, and—should any of you survive such a fight—might eventually have to answer to retaliation from other Starfuries. A great irony, gentlemen, is it not?"

Calhoun's face grew red, but aside from that, he evinced no other emotion. "Are you quite finished?" he demanded at length.

Valentin nodded and motioned to Amherst. "Did I cover that well, Admiral?" he asked solicitously.

"With excellence," Amherst said, looking around the room as if he himself had uttered the words.

"Do any of you have questions?" he asked.

"Only one," Calhoun said.

"And that is?"

"How soon do you twa think it will take to get your loathsome bodies off this planet?" he growled. "Because if it takes you any mair than ten cycles—at the outside—I shall personally blow you away myself. Understand?"

"How dare you, Commodore?" Amherst demanded hotly.

Calhoun rose from his desk and moved like lightning. In the flash of an eye, he had Amherst's lapels in his fists, and he was shaking the lanky CIGA like a rat in a terrier's mouth. "This is how I dare, you miserable traitor." He lifted the terrified CIGA to his feet, spun him toward the door, and propelled him through with a tremendous kick to the posterior. Then drawing himself to his full height, he turned on Valentin. But the Leaguer was already on his way.

"I shall leave without your assistance, Commodore," he said. Then he turned to Brim. "But you, Carescrian—and you, Toby Moulding—you will remember what I have said despite this lickspittle...er... colleague of mine. To attack that fortification, you will have to deal first with your own Queen Elidean." He laughed. "That ought to send a few N rays to dampen your plans, my perennial Carescrian adversary."

Brim smiled grimly. "It does, Valentin," he admitted. "You've done a good job—so far. But this war's only begun." He turned to Moulding. "Do you recall what it was you said to this gentleman just before the Mitchell Trophy race back in Oh-four?"

Moulding smiled. "You mean there in front of the Leaguer shed, just after you'd driven the skimmer through all those flower gardens?"

"Yeah," Brim replied. "That's it."

" 'Races are never won,' " Moulding quoted didactically, " 'until the finish line is crossed.'

Remember?"

"I remember," Valentin said, flashing a smile that fairly dripped with contempt, "but you must certainly also recall that I not only crossed the finish line that day, I won."

Brim nodded. "That you did, Valentin," he agreed. "But that was one race among many. And it put the trophy in your possession for only a single year. I am certain you also remember who finally retired the Mitchell permanently."

"You do have a point," Valentin said. Then, surprisingly, he saluted. "Gentlemen," he said, "we shall eventually meet again in space—and there continue our... race... for the lack of a better word." He smiled grimly. "The trophy we retire in that competition will be considerably more consequential than the Mitchell." Then, turning on his heel, he strode through the door....

Amherst's launch was airborne well before Calhoun's ten-cycle deadline.

With the coming of the new Leaguer ships, Nergol Triannic's second war took a considerably more dangerous twist. Toronders and their Dampiers had been a minimal threat to IVG Starfuries.

Clearly, they had inflicted damage; no one fights a war without inflicting some injury. But most of it had been minor, and even though the eleven leased ships were significantly outnumbered, not a single volunteer had been killed.

That ended immediately following Brim's first, admittedly providential, double victory. The Leaguers were natural warriors, superbly trained and equipped. Their very next raid left three Starfuries crippled, one for more than a week because of the IVG's primitive repair facilities. Moreover, during that raid, five Dampiers got through to Magor, where they caused the first significant ground damage of the war. Five additional Dampiers that attempted a simultaneous raid against Varnholm Hall were all badly damaged by McKenzie's reserve force before they could fire a single bolt at the gravity pools.

A week later, however, it was Starfury's turn for damage....

Brim was leading both attack quads on a regular defensive patrol roughly five thousand c'lenyts out from Ordu when they came on at least twenty-four Gorn-Hoffs in four groups of six. Immediately, he went in to attack, hitting at least two on their way through the Leaguers' formation. Then he remembered that he had no faithful MacAlda guarding his tail, as Starspite had turned back with grav trouble shortly after takeoff. He was about to rejoin for a second attack when Moulding called with the other six Starfuries to give his rough position. Brim said that he was in the same general area. Spotting six shimmering graviton contrails, he immediately climbed toward them. He was little more than five c'lenyts away when—instead of graceful, three-piece Sherrington hulls—he sighted the angular shapes of...

Dampiers!

Peeling off in a violent maneuver, he raced directly away from the big planet to lower his visibility, then swung rapidly to port and kept Starfury turning as tightly as he possibly could. For a few cycles, they all spun around in a crazed globe perhaps five c'lenyts in diameter until Brim threw maximum power to the gravs and tried another maneuver—a steep drive toward Ordu. Five of the Toronder Helmsmen stuck grimly behind him, and as he reached fifteen hundred c'lenyts, he could see eruptions of blinding light from very near misses. The deck bucked from their energy waves. Suddenly, he heard a faint, rapid, two-beat thud and Starfury shuddered while half his energy display turned bright red.

"Direct hit in the starboard power chamber," Chief Baranev reported from the power distribution center, deep within Starfury's hull. The indefatigable old Bear spoke as if he were announcing some sort of sporting event.

"Flood both starboard power chambers with N rays!" Brim ordered, switching one of his view globes to the view below decks. He winced. The Aft chamber had been opened to space like an old-fashioned tin of fish. A huge radiation fire in one of tire Krasni-Peych plasma generators was just coming under control as the N rays saturated its collapsium fuel. However, great bolts of runaway energy were still arcing to the chamber walls, bathing the chamber in lurid reddish-yellow light as if it were a scene from the Gradygroats' vision of Hell. And through it all, burly figures of Sodeskayan Bears scurried here and there, dragging portable N-ray mains and struggling with half-melted control systems. .

A moment later Brim heard Strana' Zaftrak counting over the intercom.

"Thirteen crag volves... fourteen crag volves... fifteen crag volves..." she counted, as if she hardly dared to take a breath .

Tissaurd glanced across at him. "What's she counting, Skipper?" she demanded.

"Clicks, Number One," Brim replied, his heart in his mouth. "We just took a hit in power chamber eight. If she can count all the way to thirty, the N rays will have damped any radiation fires and we probably won't blow up."

"... Twenty-one crag volves... twenty-two crag volves... twenty-three crag volves..."

"Power's out to the main disruptors, Skipper!" Ulfilas warned.

"Very well," Brim said between clenched teeth. He careened to port again. The ship now felt heavy and difficult to maneuver, as if a delay had been thrust into her normally supple reactions to his control inputs. And the Dampiers were catching up quickly. Clearly, the only hope was to get the main battery going again—if Starfury didn't first blow them all to kingdom come.

"... Twenty-six crag volves... twenty-seven crag volves... twenty-eight crag volves..."

Brim held his breath....

"Thirty crag volves! VOOF!"

There was an immediate and simultaneous exhalation from all over the bridge. Now, they needed disrupters!

And so the battle went on: a few turns and then a flat-out run for it, some more turns and then another bout of straightaway. They lost two of the Dampiers, but the other three hung on tenaciously, sensing that Starfury was somehow disabled. As soon as Brim sensed they were about to open fire, he had to start turning again. Occasionally Meesha got in a burst with the secondary armament, but the 127-mmi disruptors were more a gesture than a determined attack.

After what seemed like an age, but was in fact only five or so cycles after the Toronders first spotted Starfury, the red lights on Brim's power panel suddenly went out.

"We've got power to the disruptors," Meesha whooped triumphantly.

Brim nearly shouted for joy. They'd made it! He let the Dampiers catch up, and approximately three clicks later, all twelve of Starfury's 406s lashed out at her pursuers. By the fourth salvo, two of the Toronders were reduced to space refuse and the third had limped off with fierce radiation fires blazing in at least three locations along her hull.

Brim glanced back at the burning Dampier with a sense of relief. So far, so good. Now, however, he had to set his own damaged starship down as quickly as he could. The overworked plasma generators that remained operable would only run her gravs against the planet's gravity for a short time.

Already they were overheating. Working quickly, Omar Powderham, Starfury's navigator, expeditiously located a remote Fluvannian base: R.F.F. Station Calshot on frigid Lake Solent—near Ordu's Boreal pole, and Tissaurd radioed ahead for permission to set up a straight-in approach, direct from space. Not surprisingly, they were immediately granted permission. Now, all he had to do was set thirty-four thousand milstons of hullmetal and assorted, more-or-less sentient crew members down on the surface of the planet gently enough so that nobody got hurt. He ground his teeth. It wasn't going to be as easy as he liked to make things appear....

After what seemed like at least a Standard Year, Starfury was finally beneath the confused layers of dirty clouds, descending in a graceful glide despite her flagging gravs. A mottled landscape passed rapidly beneath the ship's nose: snow in every direction Brim looked, lighted in patches by thin, wintery sunlight. Everywhere else were shades of white and gray, broken only by occasional green expanses of dense conifer forest. He checked his readouts for the ten-thousandth time—the power quadrant was edging back into the red. Starfury's lift would last for only a few more cycles now. And although her glide ratio was better than a rock—it was only slightly so. Hunching his back to stop the knot that was forming in the middle of his shoulders, he frowned. The next few cycles might well challenge his worth as a Helmsman.

Ahead, sunlight glinted momentarily from ice covering a slender lake, foreshortened by the angle of their descent. A ruby landing vector shone steadily from the left-hand shore, directly centered on a boiling strip of water melted in the frozen surface.

"Fleet K5054: Calshot Tower clears for one nine right landing approach; wind zero nine zero at fifteen, gusts to forty-five."

"Fleet K054," Brim replied absently, totally absorbed with landing the stricken cruiser. "One nine right. Thank you, ma'am," he grunted. The wind didn't much matter. One way or another, he was coming in. Period.

He was no more than five c'lenyts from touchdown when Voot's Law struck—as somehow he knew it might. Without warning, the generators stammered... thundered on for a moment... then abruptly quit altogether as his instruments indicated zero thrust!

The bridge went deadly silent, except for the slipstream howling past the Hyperscreens. At this altitude, there was no escape from the hull; everyone knew his life was entirely in Brim's hands—and whatever deities he might personally accredit.

With the determination and nerve that had brought him through a thousand metacycles of mortal danger, the Carescrian guided the big cruiser toward a dead-stick landing on momentum alone. A tiny shore-side village disappeared beneath the bow as Brim willed Starfury's nose a few degrees high.

Nearly there....

"HANG ON!" Brim gasped into the blower. "We're going in!"

Less than a click too late, he spotted the small hill of ice shards that caught his right pontoon and violently slewed the big machine around to the right. Loose equipment cascaded across the bridge in a cacophony of shattered cvceese' mugs and tumbling equipment. More by instinct than anything else, he kicked hard left rudder just as the cruiser smashed through the ice in a cloud of spray and was thrown in the air again. This time, she swung badly to port, and, rolling dangerously, fell heavily to the melted landing strip with a resounding thud on the left pontoon—but pointed the proper direction. He sensed the tail coming up as the tips of the pontoons plunged into the waves, but miraculously, the starship righted itself and glided to a stop, her overheated plasma generators pinging and crackling throughout the main hull. Moments later he glimpsed what appeared to be a squadron of land tractors racing over the ice toward him. The ship might be touching the water, with all the mischief that promised, but she was down. And safe....

"Voot's beard," Tissaurd said in a shaky voice, opening her helmet in mock disgust, "you'd think there was a war on, or somethin'!"

CHAPTER 9

Strike Force

Clearly, Starfury was not the first ship to have crashlanded on Lake Solent. Calshot Station was much too practiced in rescue/salvage operations for such an event to be any sort of rarity. Even before Starfury surged to a halt, eight big traction engines were thundering along each side of the melted landing vector, smartly projecting mooring beams to salvage points in the hull as they traveled. At a prearranged signal, they stopped to tension the beams; moments later Starfury was firmly moored at sixteen points, stable, although floating helplessly in the water.

"HoloPhone signal from the Base, Skipper," a communications technician reported from Brim's display panel.

Brim nodded and peered out the forward Hyperscreens toward a tall, uniformed man and a slim woman wearing an ankle-length cape who were standing beside a staff skimmer parked at the edge of the ice. "Very well," he said. "I'll take it here."

Presently, the technician was replaced by an angular face with high hollow cheeks, thinning hair, a long nose, and the sensible, intelligent eyes of a born Engineer. "Commodore Atcherly, here, Commander," the man said. "If you're talking from the bridge, I'm over here by the staff skimmer," he said with a little smile.

Brim glanced up to see one of the distant figures wave its arm. "I see you. Commodore,'" he said.

"Too bad about the ice hill there off the end of the runway," Atcherly mused. His eyebrows raised for a moment as he peered out past his portable communicator. "You've taken considerable battle damage," he added, returning his eyes to the display. "Offhand, I'd say you did an admirable job landing with no propulsion—nearly made it, you know. Anyone hurt on board?"

Brim ground his teeth. "We've a number of casualties, Commodore," he declared while a portable brow clanked into place two decks below at the main boarding lobby. "And... many thanks for the fast assistance," he forced himself to add, as medical teams rushed through the crystal tube toward Store's sickbay.

Atcherly nodded, as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired at all. "Next," he mused, "I suppose we'll have to see how quickly we can get that ship of yours out of the water," He scratched his head and frowned. "She's a big one for the salvage equipment we've got to work with here." Abruptly be looked off to his right, mewing unintelligible words in Fluvannian.

Brim again glanced through the Hyperscreens at the two figures. From the HoloPhone, he could hear the woman's voice in the background—familiar, somehow—although her words were also in Fluvannian.

A moment later Atcherly peered into the display again. "I say, Commander," he muttered with a grin, "is your name Brim by any chance? I don't think I've given you much of an opportunity to tell me."

Brim felt his cheeks burn. In all the excitement, he'd never even thought of introducing himself—poor manners indeed. "My name is Brim, Commodore," he said. "Wilf Ansor Brim of Mustafa Eyren's Imperial Volunteer Group."

Atcherly nodded and once again looked to his right, saying something to the unseen woman about "Commander Wilf Ansor Brim" and the "IVG."

Suddenly, Atcherly's visage disappeared from the HoloPhone. It was immediately replaced by a glorious combination of oval face, patrician nose, full lips, and enormous, almond-shaped eyes that could only belong to Raddisma, the Nabob's favorite Consort. She wore a loose, fur-trimmed hood that revealed some of her black, shoulder-length hair. Even in his small panel display, she was beautiful—gorgeous was probably a better word, he decided.

"Well, Commander Brim, we meet again," she said in the dusky voice he remembered so well.

Her smile alone was enough to melt most of the Station's ice. "It is... regrettable," she said pointedly, "that Mustafa has not accompanied me on this trip. But then. Lady Fortune offtimes chooses strange circumstances and localities for the fulfillment of debts, wouldn't you agree?"

Brim's mind raced. Yes! He clearly recalled her words the day he had shielded her body with his: Someday I shall see to it that you are appropriately rewarded— in a personal manner, of course. "Most strange, madame," he agreed cautiously, "but all the more delightful because of them." In the corner of his eye, he could see Tissaurd studiously ignoring the proceedings. She was making a bad job of it.

"Indeed," Raddisma said, her eyes narrowing to a presence that could only be described as carnal. "You were unharmed in the, er, difficult landfall I watched."

"Completely unharmed, madame," Brim assured her, "although a number of Starfury's crew sustained casualties in a recent battle that, I fear, I must tend to without further delay." He hesitated for a moment, then decided that even a Principal Consort could only say "no." "Might I have the honor of continuing this conversation later in the day?" he asked, heart in his mouth.

Safely beyond the HoloPhone's field of view, Tissaurd wordlessly grinned and pumped her fist in encouragement.

Raddisma's face colored visibly at his words, and she looked genuinely taken aback for a moment.

Brim felt his face begin to color. He'd blown it this time! He braced himself....

" Casualties?" she queried with a distraught look—while completely ignoring his proffered invitation. "Commander, I must beg your indulgence that I could lack the basic compassion to inquire about casualties." She shook, her head in obvious mortification. "What can I do to make amends?"

"G-E-T L-A-Y-E-D!" Tissaurd mouthed soundlessly.

Cheeks burning while he stifled a grin that threatened to break forth all over his face, Brim considered for only a moment. "Madame Raddisma," he said, glancing at the procession of covered GravLitters that were gliding through the brow to ambulances that hovered at the edge of the ice—many contained the bandaged figures of Bears. "Perhaps you would do me the honor of accompanying me through the base hospital tomorrow, once Starfury has been secured," he said. "I know the IVG casualties there would consider your presence a particular honor,"

The woman's face slipped for a moment from its regal mien to one of genuine astonishment.

"Me?" she asked with a frown, "tour the base hospital with you?"

"But yes, Madame Raddisma," Brim said, bemused at her evident surprise.

"Why... I... should be honored to accompany you on such a tour. Commander Brim," she said, her eyes momentarily flashing with considerable emotion, "at your convenience. I shall await your call tomorrow with great anticipation." Then, turning to Atcherly, she quickly reverted to her accustomed bearing as the Nabob's Principal Consort. "Commodore Atcherly," she directed, this time in faultless Avalonian, "may I assume that Commander Brim and his officers will be requested to attend the reception in my honor tomorrow evening?"

Tissaurd nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Y-E-A-H!" she mouthed.

"Aye, that you may, madame," Atcherly said, replacing Raddisma in Brim's display. He spoke as if he hadn't noticed that she had switched to Avalonian for her query—but clearly he had. "You'll all attend, Commander?" he asked with a little smile.

Brim grinned in spite of himself, fighting to keep his eyes from Tissaurd. "As many of us will attend as possible, Commodore," he replied, "depending, of course, on Starfury's condition by that time." He laughed grimly to himself. Only a few cycles ago, they had been fighting for their very lives.

Here at Lake Solent, without Starfury's battle-damaged presence, it might have seemed as if the war had never started.

"I understand your concern, Commander," Atcherly said, "but I think we shall be able to move Starfury, in spite of her size." Then he frowned. " Repairing her, however," he added, "may turn out to be an altogether different problem—much as I hate to say it."

Nobody hated those words more than Brim....

Judicious application of Calsnot's big snow tractors and a miraculous performance by crews deftly operating all six of the Station's medium-duty gravity barges (at a risky 115 percent levitation factor) finally managed to wrestle the light cruiser onto one of the base's five "large" gravity pools. When they concluded their work, Brim, who had watched the delicate operation all afternoon from the bridge, found himself soaked in sweat. Though he was only a helpless bystander, he had probably traveled ten c'lenyts pacing back and forth across the bridge from Hyperscreen to Hyperscreen. It felt as if he had hefted the cruiser on his own shoulders.

"Commodore Atcherly reports the ship is secure, Commander," Barbousse announced, his normally deep bass voice at least an octave higher with the tension on the bridge.

"Very well," Brim replied. "How much time do you suppose the Bears will need for their damage report?"

"I asked Chief Baranev on my way to the bridge," Barbousse said. "He sent his compliments and asked me to tell you that it's at least as bad as it looked when you were there about a cycle ago, but he'll need at least all day tomorrow and perhaps more for a detailed report."

Tissaurd took Brim's arm. "In that case, Skipper..." she Started.

"In that case what. Number One?" Brim asked suspiciously.

"In that case," she repeated, "it is my studied suggestion that you command every officer who has no immediate duty— including yourself—to stand down till morning when we have a better idea of how bad things really are."

"Good idea," Brim admitted. "Put those orders on the blower, if it's still operational, and I'll run over to headquarters and get us set up for the repair effort."

" Skipper," Tissaurd said with her hands on her hips, "you didn't hear what I said. You need rest as much as anybody. Doesn't he, Chief?" she asked, turning to Barbousse.

The big rating raised his eyes to the overhead Hyperscreens. "Um... beggin' the Cap'm's pardon," he stammered, "but... um... that sounds like good advice to me. Most of us in the Petty Officers Mess are... um... headin' for our bunks as soon as we can. It's been a long day."

"There, Skipper," the tiny officer declared as Barbousse lumbered off toward the companionway.

"And you certainly won't be much help to anybody tomorrow if you can't think straight."

Brim nodded. "Thanks, Number One," he said. "That makes sense. I guess I could stand some R and R, couldn't I?"

"More than anybody else I know, right now," she said. "And who knows, maybe after the hospital tour tomorrow, this green-eyed 'Consort' can get your mind off that LaKarn woman."

Brim smiled sadly and took a deep breath. "Somehow," be sighed, "I doubt if that will happen."

"It certainly won't if you don't let it," she stated firmly, "or if you fall asleep while you're trying to...

Well, you get my point."

"Yeah," Brim chuckled, as if she were making a joke, but somehow he knew she meant every word she said. He retired to his cabin shortly afterward.

When a COMM rating woke him before dawn the next morning with a high-priority message, Brim couldn't even remember crawling into his bunk. Clearly, he had slept like a burned-out star, for he felt unusually refreshed—as he often did after pushing himself nearly to the brink of exhaustion.

He spent most of his day inspecting damage and frantically swapping messages with Varnholm—especially Calhoun—and it was late afternoon before he was finally able to leave word for Raddisma that he would meet her in the lobby of the Station hospital at Aftemoon:3:00, early enough that they would have time for both a meaningful tour and an appearance later at Atcherly's reception.

Following that, he hurried to his cabin where Barbousse had already laid out a fresh uniform.

In the hospital lobby, Mustafa's Consort was even more alluring than Brim recalled. She entered wearing her same black woolen cape with the fir-trimmed hood; white, high-heeled, ophet-leather boots; and matching gloves. The Carescrian shook his head in admiration. Even largely covered up she was beautiful. No wonder the Nabob—who clearly enjoyed his pick of Fluvanna's courtiers (as well as courtesans)—had chosen her above all others! He smiled while two ladies-in-waiting helped her slip out of her cape. Instead of the flowing robes he anticipated, she had dressed in contemporary Imperial style, wearing a silky gold crepe cocktail suit (whose backless jacket opened all the way to her slim waist) and a short, shaped skirt that revealed long, very shapely slim legs. "Madame Raddisma," he said, "how good of you to come."

She drew off a glove and presented her hand. "It is my pleasure. Captain Brim," she said in a dusky, modulated voice, her lips forming a little smile as she nodded to the small coterie of physicians gathered nervously at the entrance to the wards. With her hair pulled back from her face and tied in a loose knot at the back of her head, she was more than just stunning. Huge golden rings dangled from her earlobes and she wore an enormous sapphire ring on her left hand. She had that enigmatic brand of natural assurance that goes hand in hand with influence. Brim surmised she would have an intelligence as sharp as anyone he had ever encountered. She'd need it to merely survive the cutthroat machinations that he understood characterized the inner circles of Mustafa's court.

He bowed and kissed the soft, warm tips of her fingers. "If I may be so bold," he said, straightening, "you look magnificent this afternoon."

She smiled, obviously pleased. "You may always be so bold, Captain," she answered. Her gaze was like an inspection: outwardly cool and composed—but absolutely complete.

Brim nodded to the physicians, then turned to Raddisma. "Shall we begin, then, madame?" he asked, offering his arm.

Nodding to dismiss her maidservants, she grasped his elbow and they proceeded on to the wards. In the cycles since Starfury had landed, three of the most gravely wounded Bears and seven humans had already died; however, healing machines were steadily working their magic on other casualties. Six of the throbbing cylinders had opened, and their occupants were even now in various stages of rousing. Raddisma immediately captivated a Sodeskayan Chief who had been working only a few irals from the point of detonation, yet had been miraculously saved by the chance deflection of a falling control panel, in the machine beside him was a pretty electronics technician whose left arm and leg were being regenerated beneath pulsating layers of healing plastic tissue. Saved by her imperial battlesuit, she had been blown through three vaporized hullmetal bulkheads and remembered nothing of the disaster—which she laughingly agreed was probably the best thing that could have happened under the circumstances. Two machines farther along was a quartermaster's mate who had been attached to a damage-control unit stationed in the power chamber itself. He had actually missed the main force of the hit, but had been caught in the outer margin of a secondary explosion when one of the big plasma generators blew up. The healing machine was rebuilding the top half of his face—but be considered himself lucky. The other nine members of his crew were dead—vaporized. A number of generator technicians in adjoining chambers had been burned through their battlesuits, but were still ambulatory and undergoing antiradiation treatments. Many of them would be available for duty in the morning. All in all, twenty-four of Starfury's crew had been killed or wounded as a result of the hit.

As always, the hospital tour was a sobering experience for Brim. He had been wounded a number of times himself, both in war and in peace—and seriously enough that he could appreciate what it was like to be on the other end of his visit. But Raddisma completely astounded him. Throughout the grisly tour, she acquitted herself like a veteran, as if she encountered such wounds as an everyday occurrence. Moreover, she was witty when she could be, sympathetic when necessary, and even coquettish with some of the wounded crew members. More than once, Brim stood back and marveled at the woman's aplomb. Doubtlessly, she had experienced nothing to match the horror of these hideously wounded individuals. Yet she made each of them feel special in her eyes—as if she personally appreciated the sacrifice they had made for her and her domain. When the tour finally ground to a halt, she showed little more wear than if she had just spent an afternoon entertaining at the royal palace at Magor.

In Brim's view, whatever else Raddisma happened to be, she was also a trooper, pure and simple.

"Might I offer a lift to the reception, Captain?" she asked in the lobby while her handmaids placed the cloak around her shoulders. "When Mustafa bids me tour in his place, he invariably includes a small fleet of cars."

"I should be honored to ride with you, Madame Raddisma," he replied, shrugging into his Fleet Cloak. The evening was still his to enjoy—he had just finished talking to Chief Baranev, and as predicted, there was still no complete estimate of Starfury's damage—except "bad." At the door, he offered Raddisma his arm and they stepped out into a clear, wintery evening agleam with starlight. As the cold air nipped his cheeks, he felt her grip tighten.

"Do not for a moment think that I have forgotten my pledge to repay you personally, Wilf Brim," she whispered without aiming her head. "I never—how do you Imperials say—'renege' on a promise."

Then she giggled in her husky voice. "Especially when Lady Fortune practically ordained such an assignation for us tonight."

Brim felt a surge of excitement. Did she mean what he thought she meant? He took a deep breath and waved off Barbousse waiting in the staff skimmer. Then he turned to look the beautiful Consort straight in the eye. "An assignation with you, Raddisma, would be the crowning glory of a man's life," he said. "But if something of the sort ever came about, I should certainly hope that it was not granted entirely in a spirit of... compensation—especially for a debt that I shall never acknowledge in the first place."

She stopped and raised her eyebrows for a moment. "Why, Captain!" she murmured with a look of astonishment. "You saved my life. Remember?" Then, while a tall, alluring chauffeur with fiery red hair and long, gorgeous legs held the door of her limousine skimmer, she stepped gracefully into the passenger compartment and smiled with an expectant look in her huge, almond-shaped eyes. "Come in here, Wilf Brim," she urged, patting the seat beside her, "I want to make certain you understand about my so-called 'debt.' "

Frowning, Brim stepped inside, and as soon as the door had shut, she took his hand and looked deep into his eyes.

"Do you have any idea what it is to be a Consort?" she asked.

"No," Brim admitted. "I suppose I'd never thought much about it."

She smiled, this time a little sadly. "You are not alone, my handsome Captain," she said. "We Consorts are taken more or less for granted throughout the court—most glamorous and successful of all the courtesans. And I am the most successful of all—for I have clawed and scratched my way to the top." For a moment her eyes grew hard. "You must understand that one does not reach my position by being a lady, Captain. I used the word 'courtesans' with great care, because Consorts are first and foremost whores. And one maintains her position by competing with other whores—on whore's terms."

Brim felt his eyebrows rise. Of course, he'd guessed as much. It was just that, in Fluvanna, Consorts were considered as a rather extraordinary class. Like wives, only much more significant, in a political sense. It was simply astounding to hear the Principal Consort calling the shots as he imagined they really must be.

"Oh, don't get the wrong idea," she continued. "Each of us who holds the title of Consort is also highly educated. We have to be. I myself have earned three academic degrees." She said this with a proud little nod. "One of them in Avalon itself—at your prestigious Estorial Library near the Imperial palace."

"Impressive," Brim said, "but not at all surprising, not after watching you in conversation with the Drive engineers this afternoon. No wonder you so completely mesmerized them. Your long metacycles of study certainly manifest themselves well."

She smiled sadly. "But after all that brain work, it was still only vigorous application of a far different organ that first installed me in Mustafa's court."

Brim pressed her hand. "You can't blame him for that," he said. "You are a most beautiful woman."

"Thank you, Captain," she said. "I know I am. And—strange as it must sound in light of my, er, profession—I still find myself with very normal urges in the proper circumstances, and with the proper man."

"Such a man would be very fortunate indeed," Brim said. He meant every word.

"That," Raddisma said with a smile, "brings us back to our original conversation, then—about debts."

"It does?" Brim asked.

"It certainly does," she said with a little smile. "Because, while your eyes tell me that you obviously crave my body, you also evidence at least some respect for Raddisma the woman. And that respect makes you very special, my friend. It also changes the whole complexion of our relationship."

Brim raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, not that kind of change, silly," she said with a little laugh. "You must certainly realize you are very attractive in your own right, Wilf Brim, and that alone was enough to draw me to you in the beginning." She laughed in her husky voice. "While your body covered mine in the palace that day, I found myself becoming... intensely stimulated. And I decided that very day that we, someday, should share a bed, as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Which, of course, it did today. The kind of 'debt' I spoke about this morning had to do with sex, pure and simple. However," she said with a very serious expression, "my attitude changed radically when you invited me to tour the hospital this afternoon. It turned our relationship into something very much more deeper and meaningful—at least to me. Do you understand?"

Brim frowned. "I think I may, Raddisma," he said, recalling most of the other women in his life.

Her intellect made her even more desirable—high intelligence nearly always had that effect on him.

"We seem to have arrived at the Officers Club," she said presently, peering out the window. "I feel most fortunate that Dame Fortune has granted us time for this little conversation before we dilute our intellects with... hormones, and the like. It has become somehow very important to me that you understand."

Brim had no words for the rush of emotion he felt for the beautiful woman who had just bared her soul to him. He scarcely had time to kiss her hand before the door opened and a blast of cold air stung his cheeks. Stepping to the pavement, he took a deep breath and bowed with all the dignity he could muster. "Madame Raddisma," he said, offering his hand, "please allow me."

Gently taking his fingers, she stepped gracefully from the limousine and nodded regally. "Thank you, Captain," she said in her public voice. "I look forward to continuing our conversations later this evening." Then she winked. "In somewhat more private circumstances," she added in a whisper. With a surreptitious rise of flawlessly plucked eyebrows, she then swept regally through the door as if she were the Nabob himself.

Brim followed in her perfumed wake with an internal frown. Just whose "private circumstances" did she have in mind, he wondered. Then he grinned to himself. Lady Fortune would work something out. She'd already invested too much in this particularly magical evening to miscarry so late in the game.

Commodore Atcherly's reception was a small but quite gracious version of a thousand-odd receptions Brim had attended all over the galaxy. He endured a receiving line consisting of Calshot's senior staff officers and their wives—most of whom were anxious to brag that they had spoken to officers from Mustafa Eyren's now-celebrated IVG. Commodore Atcherly occupied the position of honor with his charming and famous wife, a thought creator known far and wide for her delightful historical treatises on the curious artifacts left behind by Fluvanna's previous civilizations.

Tissaurd had clearly stationed herself near the end of the line, and was in deep conversation with a handsome Fluvannian Army officer who sported great bushy mustaches, wide shoulders, and a huge chest. The man was, of course, as good as seduced already. Brim fought back a grin as he passed them on his way to the bar. Suddenly Tissaurd reached out and snagged his arm. "Captain Brim," she said, as if she were surprised to see him, "may I present... er."

"C-Capitan-Comandor Photius," the Fluvannian stumbled with a deep bow.

Brim shook the man's hand—it was soft and warm, like a woman's. Clearly, Mustafa's Army spent little time on maneuvers. "Pleased to meet you, Capitan," he said.

"Well, Skipper," Tissaurd demanded before either man could utter another word, " so how are things going tonight?"

Brim could only grin. "Tonight, Number One," he said, "things seem to be going... ah... swimmingly—at least so far."

"You don't say?" Tissaurd commented, her eyebrows raised. "So you're going to... a..."

"Would the word 'score' be appropriate to your question?" Brim asked caustically.

"What was that?" Photius asked, struggling in vain to keep abreast of the conversation in Avalonian.

" 'More,' " Tissaurd replied with a serious nod of her head. " 'More.' "

"Oh, I see," the man said. "My Avalonian is far from perfect."

"Lucky for you, soldier," Tissaurd mumbled in a grinning underbreath, "that it's not your Avalonian I'm interested in tonight." Then she winked at Brim. " 'Score' is most adequate, Skipper," she said. "And... well?..."

"Looks promising, Number One," Brim replied. "If the lady can once disengage from all the social climbers who want to rub elbows with a palace favorite."

"She'll disengage, Skipper. I'd bet on it," she said, clapping him on the arm.

Brim winked. "We'll see," he equivocated. "You'll be on the bridge in the morning?"

"Probably late in the morning, Skipper," she said with a sidelong glance at the big Fluvannian at her side.

"We'll carry on somehow, Number One," Brim said, manifesting a theatrical look of concern. "I don't think Starfury will be ready to fly for quite a while yet.'' Then be nodded to Photius and continued on toward the bar.

During the next metacycle, he bought rounds of Logish Meem for Omar Powderham, Owen Morris, and Ulfilas Meesha, but went easy on the spirits himself. Unless Raddisma were in the midst of a tremendous practical joke—to be inflicted on him—he would need to be in command of all his faculties later on that evening.

He stared across the gaily decorated ballroom, watching the tall, alluring Consort in spirited conversation with a half-dozen groups of local spouses who looked as if they were about to swoon from the very proximity of so much glamor. He shook his head in admiration. During a single day, this magnificent woman had shown him three very disparate—very real—personalities: one imperious as Mustafa's Consort; one affably gracious in her role as representative of her nation; and one as a most pragmatic human being, making her way in a tough, uncompromising world. He found they all delighted him, each in its own way.

While he sat at Calshot's cozy Officers Club bar passing time until Raddisma could free herself, Tissaurd and Photius strolled by on their way to the door. She winked as they passed; then they were gone. Atcherly and his wife stopped to regale him with some of the more preposterous aspects of maintaining a base in the polar regions of the planet. Their warm humor revealed a most genuine love for the frozen land in which they made their home.

Later, after checking Starfury's condition with Baranev for what seemed to be the eleventh million time—and still receiving no final assessment of actual damages—Brim joined a group of Fluvannian space officers as they discussed combat techniques against the new Gorn-Hoffs. In spite of their ancient starships, the audacious Fluvannians had developed effective ways to counter the ultra-modern warships they now faced on a daily basis. They had just begun to question him about uprating some of their existing disrupters when Raddisma abruptly appeared at his side, dressed in her long cape and clearly prepared to depart. Surprised—and not a little concerned about their plans—he introduced her to the group, then took the hand she extended to him.

"Commander Brim," she said, "it has been a long day for me, and my ship departs for Magor in the morning. Therefore, it is with considerable regret that I must leave the reception much earlier than I had planned." She glanced around the little group and smiled apologetically. "I have rarely enjoyed such a warm, gracious reception—anywhere. However," she added, turning to Brim as if she were issuing a command, "I need to allow time for availing myself of your kind offer to tour Starfury. The Admiralty would be sorely vexed if I blinked away such an opportunity." She met his eyes and for one instant betrayed the hint of excitement he had seen earlier in the limousine.

Brim grinned to himself. So it was Starfury that constituted the "discreet circumstances" she had in mind! Well, Lady Fortune was taking a lot for granted tonight—especially in view of the rule that required everyone to sign an entrance/exit log! "Madame Raddisma," he replied, his mind racing to overtake the new turn of events, "as I promised earlier, I... er... look forward with great pleasure to personally conducting your tour." He turned to the clearly envious officers and bowed soberly.

"Gentlemen," he said, "duty calls." Nothing more was necessary. Then, with Raddisma on his arm, he made his way directly to the cloakroom.

"I took the chance that you might volunteer, Captain," she whispered while he struggled into his white Fluvannian Fleet Cloak. "I have already dismissed my handmaidens for the evening and summoned a limousine."

Brim considered Starfury's sign-in/out register—that Raddisma simply could not sign—and put it out of his mind. By the time they got to the ship, he planned to think of something. After all, he was the captain. He smiled mischievously. "Madame Raddisma," he said with a theatrical frown as they strolled to the parking area under a canopy of cold-looking stars, "since nearly everything aboard is classified, the Captain's cabin may be the only part of the ship we can tour. Will such a highly restricted tour disappoint you?"

She paused some distance from a huge limousine and regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, men frowned. "Strangely enough, Captain," she said, her breath condensing into puffs of steam, "I believe it would." She pressed his arm. "I find that when I am with you, life takes on a much more serious aspect—as it did when I visited your wounded crew members in the hospital this afternoon."

"I don't understand," Brim said, suddenly confused. "...I thought you wanted to..."

Raddisma smiled sadly and peered into his eyes. "Dearest Wilf," she said, "I have been ready—anxious, even—to lie with you since our chance conversation on the Commodore's HoloPhone this morning. And I look forward to making love yet tonight. But this afternoon you made me feel as if I might have some value beyond my existence as a fetching bedmate." She touched his hand with an impassioned look. "I already know that I am beautiful," she said, "and I thank the Universe each day for such a gift. But beauty is only that: a legacy from one's parents. I crave to be more than that: to achieve a certain significance on my feet—fully clothed, even. Can you understand, Captain Wilf Brim of Avalon's vaunted Imperial Fleet? Or are you so jaded by your own prestige that you cannot envision the unfulfilled yearnings of others?"

Brim closed his eyes for a moment. "Sorry," he muttered presently. "Believe me, Raddisma, I am no stranger to those same yearnings—or the frustration that goes with them." He took her hand. "You were magnificent raising morale in the hospital this afternoon, and will clearly have the same effect on the exhausted teams laboring in the ruined power chambers. Sometimes," he admitted, "my brains tend to hang between my legs. Will you tour the damaged areas with me tonight before we...?"

"I want that tour very much, Wilf Brim," the beautiful woman interrupted. "And then, I shall expect you to carry me off to your cabin where we can ravish each other—for the remainder of the night."

"You've got a deal, Raddisma," Brim said. He grinned. "Somehow, I think I would wait a long time for the privilege of ravishing a woman like you."

"Strange," she said with a peculiar look in her eyes, "I feel the same way about being ravished by a man like you."

"Let's go inspect a couple of damaged power chambers," he said, and handed her into the limousine again. Moments later they were on their way.

Now, all he had to do was somehow get her to his cabin without recording Raddisma's name on the xaxtdamned register. It wasn't the sign-in time that worried him; her tour of the power chambers would justify that. The sign-out time, however, might prove to be embarrassing in the extreme. Especially if someone decided that Mustafa ought to read it!

As the limousine pulled into the parking area beside Starfury's gravity pool, the cruiser's dark bulk made her seem even more massive than she was. Especially with most of her lights extinguished and only a cluster of battle lanterns tossing uneasily in the breeze near the brow portal. Brim stepped out and helped Raddisma to the pavement as guards on either side of the opening snapped to attention.

"You may return to the ship and retire, Tutti," she directed her red-haired chauffeur. "I shall summon you should I desire to be picked up."

"Aye, Madame Raddisma," the woman said, bowing deeply. She quickly stepped into the driver's compartment and the big limousine whirred into the darkness like some great wraith.

Brim pressed Raddisma's hand as she took his arm. "It won't be very pretty in the wrecked chambers," he said quietly. "But then you've already seen worse in the hospital this afternoon."

"I'm prepared, Captain," she said, her voice calm and steady.

"All right," Brim said, wishing that he could say the same. Returning the guards' salute, he led her way into a moving staircase while he furiously attempted to come up with any even halfway plausible way to finesse Raddisma on board without signing. As they neared the top, however, his mind remained a very frustrated blank.

Only one alternative was left to him, now: brute force (better known as "Captain's privilege").

Unfortunately, if he resorted to that, eventually everyone would know what he and the Princess were up to.

Then, suddenly, it was too late. He took a deep breath, smiled reassuringly at Raddisma, and was just about to storm through the boarding hatch when he spied... He couldn't believe his eyes! There was Barbousse, manning the sign-in desk as if it were his normal duty station,... "Good evening, Chief," he said, calmly as he could.

"Evenin', Cap'm," Barbousse returned with a most routine countenance.

"Um... Madame Raddisma," Brim said, "m-may I present Master Chief Petty Officer Utrillo Barbousse, who has saved my life on so many occasions that I have lost count. Chief—Madame Raddisma, Principal Consort to the throne of Mustafa Eyren."

Barbousse rose to his feet and bowed formally. "Madame Raddisma," he said, "I am deeply honored."

"As am I, Chief Barbousse," she said, returning a graceful curtsy. Tall as she was, she still had to look up at the huge man.

Brim's eyes strayed to the sign-in log. How in the name of Voot's filth-dripping beard was he going to bluster past somebody like Barbousse? Talk about bad luck. Universe!

"Um, Cap'm," Barbousse intruded on his discomfort, "I'm 'fraid you an' Madame Raddisma will have to go on board without signin' in this evening." He frowned. "Somehow the whole mechanism went out of commission less than a metacycle ago. I just stationed myself here in case someone unauthorized tries to come on board. Never can be too careful, as you say, sir."

Suddenly Brim understood. He closed his eyes in silent thanks. "Chief," he said when he had recovered the ability to speak, "I shall probably never be able to thank you sufficiently for taking over this duty tonight."

"All part of m'job, Cap'm." Barbousse said, knuckling his forehead as Brim and Raddisma started toward the main corridor of the ship. "I'll be here as long as... um... I'm needed."

Brim nodded; there was nothing else to say.

"It has been a pleasure meeting you. Chief," Raddisma said, stopping to touch the big rating's arm. "Your name comes up often among the ladies at court," she said with a broad smile.

Barbousse blushed. "Um... well... those fine ladies always make me feel... um... pretty wonderful."

Raddisma grinned while her own face colored. "I'm certain they do, Chief," she commented.

"And I can see why." Reaching over the desk, she put her hands on his cheeks and gently pulled him down to where she could plant a quick kiss on the tip of his nose. "I think you're pretty wonderful, too."

Then she turned to Brim. "Now, Captain," she said, "I am ready to see those damaged power chambers."

Their visit probably cost Brim an aggregate fifty metacycles of work among the damage-control engineers who were totally captivated by Raddisma's natural intelligence and glowing, sympathetic personality. The badly ruptured chambers had been exposed to Lake Solent's damp, cold atmosphere without heat for almost a Standard Day and Raddisma never even had the chance to get out of her great black cloak. Yet wherever she went, she dispensed her own brand of sunny charm that uniquely warmed everything she touched, both physically and spiritually. Sodeskayans nearly always exhibited an appreciation for human women, and the normally rancorous Chief Baranev was no exception. After a few moments conversation with the beautiful Fluvannian, the old Bear would clearly have eaten from her hand.

After a while, Brim found himself daydreaming about their talk in the limousine and wished that she weren't making quite so thorough a job of her visit. But he had to admit that nothing he could ever have done himself would have resulted in such a beneficial effect on the tired crews—who still faced working well into the morning. He followed patiently while she listened with great care to each tale of horror and endured a thousand descriptions of damaged systems, from mangled, two-story generators and wave guides to melted electronic circuit assemblies. She must have inspected each linear iral of the jagged tear in Starfury's side, leaning out over the frozen lake literally dozens of times to inspect every major (and minor) detail that someone in the crew deemed important.

Eventually, however, she stopped at Brim's side and smiled at the admiring crowd that had gathered nearby. "My friends," she began in a tired voice, "it has been a long day. Will you please accept my deepest thanks—and Mustafa's appreciation —for the patience you all have shown while you described Starfury's damage to me?" She shook her head and opened her hands. "Only when allowed to witness something like this firsthand," she said, "can one begin to comprehend the terrible power of the weapons you face—and understand the prodigious stature of your bravery. Every Fluvannian is deeply in your debt—and I perhaps most of all."

As the ruined chamber echoed with applause and cheering, she took Brim's hand. "Now, my dear Captain," she whispered, "I should rather like to take you up on that offer of a 'highly restricted tour,' as I believe you put it. Do you suppose that might still be arranged?"

Once more. Brim offered his arm. "I can think of nothing more important in the Universe," he said, looking into her great blue eyes.

As they passed through the hatch, Raddisma turned to wave—and caused still another round of applause and cheering.

Outside, Brim looked at her with real approbation. "You were a sensation," he said earnestly.

"They loved you."

With power shut off to most of the ship, the only lighting in the long corridor was provided by an occasional hovering battle lantern. She smiled as they walked slowly through the artificial twilight. "Thank you, Wilf," she said in her dusky voice. "I guess I love them, too." Then she winked and pulled his arm around her waist. "And speaking of love," she said, "is there much traffic along this corridor?"

Brim looked around and smiled. "Not at this time of the night," he said, "especially with the power off the way it is."

"Good," she said, stopping in the semidarkness between two of the dim battle lanterns. She turned to face him and slowly began to unfasten her cloak, "I've had a surprise waiting for you since we left the reception," she said as she pulled the garment completely open. "Do you like it?" she asked.

Brim felt himself gasp. Beneath her cloak, the long-legged woman was stark naked. "Raddisma," he mumbled, "you are... magnificent!" She had small, youthfully upturned breasts with light-colored nipples that pouted from modest, knobby aureoles. Her waist was tiny, with only the merest swelling for a midriff. And as he had guessed, her legs were superb—all the way to her spike-heeled ankle boots!

But what absolutely set him on his ear was her crotch. It was completely shaven, featureless except for its great dark cleft that looked all out of proportion without its customary thatch. He simply couldn't take his eyes from it.

"You have never been with a shaved woman before?" she asked, opening her stance provocatively. "It is more or less a trademark with me."

"Never," Brim said bemusedly, running his fingers gently over the smooth flesh. She must have had herself shaved during the reception, for his own chin had already grown more stubble since before their hospital visit.

"Well?" she prompted. "What do you think of my little surprise?"

"U-Universe," Brim stammered, urging her toward the next battle lantern. "Had I guessed what you had in store, I'd never have let you near the power chamber."

She laughed, slipping the cloak off completely and handing it to him as she turned her back.

"That's why it had to be a surprise, my lover to be," she called over her shoulder while she shook her buttocks. "I don't think you yet have any idea how much that little visit meant." Then she winked.

"Enough talk," she said with a giggle. "Do you think I can make it all the way to your cabin wearing only my boots, or shall I put my cloak back on? I've enjoyed showing you what you want to see, but now I'm getting a little chilly—and more than a little anxious to discover what it is that makes such a protrusion in the front of your trousers."

Brim grinned as he held the cloak for her to put on. "Much as I hate to cover all that female elegance," he said, "it will be only for a few moments while we cross some of the busier parts of the ship."

He laughed ruefully. "And believe me, Raddisma, the sooner I can show you what it is that makes that, er, protrusion, the more comfortable I shall be."

She squeezed his arm as they hurried along the corridor. "I'll bet I can show you what to do with that protrusion of yours that is a lot more comfortable than just letting me see it."

"You can?" Brim asked in mock interest. "Really?"

"Trust me," Raddisma laughed.

He did.

And so did she....

Brim awoke the next morning to a gentle tapping on the door to his cabin. "Yes?" he demanded as Raddisma sleepily drew him even closer to her perfumed warmth.

"Cap'm," the deep voice of Barbousse intoned in a stage whisper from the corridor outside. "It'll be light in another metacycle an' a half, sir. I have one of our staff cars waitin' at the brow, and—beggin' both your pardons—but Petty Officer Tutti says that Madame Raddisma ought to be back aboard S.S. Andenez before the watch changes."

Brim frowned. "Does that make sense to you?" he asked, looking into great, almond-shaped eyes—that were presently a little out of focus. "Do you know a Petty Officer Tutti?"

Raddisma grimaced and hugged him tighter. "We all have special people we can trust," she said sleepily. "Petty Officer Cosa Tutti—that absolutely stunning, red-haired chauffeur you couldn't help oogling—is also my personal Barbousse. I can trust her with anything, and she's quite correct. I need to be aboard Andenez before the watch changes."

Brim nodded to out-of-focus eyes and grinned. "I understand, now," he said. Pushing himself up on his elbow, he turned toward the door. "Many thanks, Chief," he called out. "You may tell Ms. Tutti that we will be on our way in..." Suddenly Raddisma placed her hand over his mouth.

"At the very most, it can take no more than ten cycles to drive between our two ships," she whispered. "And I for one have not had nearly enough of you to last until Lady Fortune once more sees fit for us to share a bed."

Brim felt gentle fingers deftly exploring his crotch, and discovered that his own hand had become curved around a most intriguing, moist shape—one that was just now developing the merest beginnings of a rough stubble. "You're right, of course," he said, kissing her gently on the lips. "Chief," he called out, "we'll be ready for that staff car in about a metacycle—or so."

"Aye, Cap'm," Barbousse acknowledged and Brim immediately found his mouth besieged by a great fusillade of wet kisses. Then before he could gain control of the situation, Raddisma silently rolled him onto his back and mounted his loins as if he were some sort of backward horse. Grinning as if she had just discovered something wonderfully new, she arched her back against his drawn-up knees, then threw her naked crotch forward, opening its great crevasse for his inspection with long, graceful fingers.

Instantly he felt himself grow ready, and she sank back on him with a huge sigh, enveloping his whole existence in wet, swollen flesh. After that, he found it most difficult to keep track of time.

Brim and Barbousse returned Raddisma to her starship with only a few moments to spare, but it was enough. The Consort's alluring chauffeur met their staff car at the foot of the brow. The woman blew Barbousse a long, impassioned kiss—as if she and the Chief had become extremely close friends during the evening. Brim nodded with an inward smile as she bundled Raddisma up into the moving staircase and disappeared. "Looks as if you might have enjoyed a little relaxation yourself last evening, Chief," he said.

Barbousse grinned—Brim knew he was blushing. "Aye, Cap'm," he admitted. "Lieutenant Tissaurd got us together by HoloPhone durin' the reception. Warned us we'd better be ready to coordinate things, an' I came straight over here to see her." He drove quietly for a moment, as if he were savoring his thoughts. "After that," he continued, "we just sort of got... well... friendly. An' after you two were squared away— beggin' the Cap'm's pardon, of course—why, she came over for her own visit to Starfury." He laughed quietly. "It was a beautiful evenin', it was," he said, "An' o' course, Ms. Tutti didn't have to waste a lot o' time schmoozin' with the folks in the power chamber...."

Precisely two metacycles later, S.S. Andenez embarked Raddisma for home. Brim listened to the thunder of its passage from Starfury's damaged power chamber, and for a moment he lost his ability to concentrate on the distressing details of Chief Baranev's report. A certain portion of his anatomy had become quite tender during the evening; he wondered if hers was, too.

"You look awfully relaxed this evening, Skipper," Tissaurd observed over supper in the wardroom.

Brim nodded. "I am," he said, "or, more correctly, I was, at any rate."

"I don't understand," the tiny officer said with a frown.

"Well," Brim said with a little smile, "let us say that Chief Baranev destroyed a great deal of last night's 'glow,' shall we say, with his cockeyed afternoon damage report," He shook his head as he sipped a third scalding mug of cvceese'. "I'm sure you know that Starfury's in a bad way."

"I'd heard," Tissaurd said. "Word got around right after the Chief released his report."

Brim nodded. "What hasn't gotten around is Commodore Atcherly's answer to that report."

Tissaurd frowned. "Hmm," she said. "From the look on your face, it wasn't very promising. What did he say?"

"Not a lot," Brim replied, taking a long, thoughtful sip of cvceese'. "Just that it will take a long time for Calshot's maintenance people to make the repairs we need. Starfury is simply too big for any of the local facilities. It was all they could do to have her drawn onto their biggest gravity pool. Everything else will have to be done practically by hand."

"I suppose things wouldn't have been much better had we set her down at Varnholm Hall,"

Tissaurd granted. "Because we certainly don't have any bigger facilities there."

Brim nodded. "That's it, Number One," he said. "And the damned CIGAs are still tying up facilities in all the other ports around Ordu. Calhoun KA'PPAed the situation to Avalon about a metacycle ago."

"Well, Skipper," she said, "then it's time to remind you of the talk we had on brick walls a while back."

Brim glowered at the tiny officer. "I remember,'' he grumped. "But how in xaxt sake can I just step back and wait for something 'different' to happen? There's a war on!"

"Yeah," Tissaurd said with a little smile, "I'd noticed the war."

"Well, then?"

"Then, Skipper," she said, "you probably ought to turn in for a few metacycles of sleep tonight, because, war or no war, everything about Starfury is stopped cold!"

Early the next morning, Calhoun messaged from Varnholm. Brim took it on the bridge, where he was helping run tests on a bank of flight controls.

"I'm aboot to send a launch for you, young Brim," Calhoun said. "You might as well be here helpin' me plan what we're going to do about yon xaxtdamme fort, for there's clearly nothin' much you can do there that Lieutenant Tissaurd can't handle for you."

Brim could only nod agreement. He hated sitting on his hands. Soon after Calhoun closed the connection, he slid from his seat and started aft to pack an overnight bag when he heard a great rolling thunder overhead, as if a capital ship were making landfall out on Lake Solent. Fighting down a moment's dread, he willed himself calm—had this been a raiding Leaguer, there would have been at least a little warning. He glanced up through the Hyperscreens just in time to see a colossal form materialize from the overcast in the still-dim light of dawn—and stopped in his tracks, flabbergasted. Great stowed cranes parked fore and aft like outsize disrupters, monstrous hatches, massive sheer flanks of streaked hullmetal plate, and a low glowering bridge. He'd only seen one Repair and Salvage vessel like that one, ever Commodore Tor's big Refit Enterprise, from Gimmas Haefdon! As the great form hurdled overhead, four familiar shapes descended with her: Starfuries, with whirling condensation contrails streaming from their pontoons. And the Imperial Comet blazed prominently from abaft their bridges. They were from home!

While the squadron settled toward the lake—that was even now boiling as landing vectors were cleared in the ice—a COMM rating bustled aft among the control toward him.

"Captain Brim!" he called. "Commodore Calhoun's on the HoloPhone for you again."

"I'll take it here," Brim said, reaching to activate a globular display on a nearby navigator's console. The elder Carescrian's visage appeared almost instantly.

"Well, Brim," he said with a smile. "I understand they made it."

"You mean Commodore Tor and the Refit Enterprise!" Brim asked.

"Faith!" Calhoun exclaimed happily. "An' who else were you expectin'?"

Brim grinned. "I wasn't expecting anyone, Commodore," he said. "But I'm sure happy to see Commodore Tor—and the Starfuries. Looks like the Fleet is finally taking some deliveries."

Calhoun nodded. "Those are the nineteenth thru the twenty-second, lad," he said. "An' e'en though they aren't permitted to help us in our efforts, they are authorized to defend the Enterprise while she puts Starfury back to rights."

As Brim watched, the colossal starship set down on the lake with a massive grace all out of proportion to her size. The Starfuries, however, continued on their way and soared effortlessly back into the clouds. "Enterprise is down safely, Commodore," he said.

"Good," Calhoun said, "sorry I wasn't able to give you more warnin'. I only found out myself just after I'd talked to you. Brother Drummond played this one mighty close to his vest."

"I'm not surprised, sir," Brim observed, "with the fuss the CIGAs are able to raise at home."

Calhoun nodded. "Weel, m'boy," he said. "You and that crazy Number One o' yours wull want to spend a wee time talkin' wi' Commodore Tor, so I'll temporarily counter my orders havin' you report immediately to Varnholm Hall," he said with a strange little smile. "The Commodore has some information that I'd like you both to hear from him. The man's produced an absolute miracle back at old Gimmas Haefdon."

"A miracle?" Commodore?

"You judge it for yourself, young Brim," the Commodore laughed. "An' I shall expect you to report as soon as you and Tissaurd have learned all Tor's willin' to tell you."

"Aye, sir," Brim promised. "I'll be there!" Then he struggled into his Fleet Cloak, turned up the thermostat, and made his way to the main hatch and Refit Enterprise.

Later that morning in the wardroom, Tissaurd and Brim met Commodore Tor for a late breakfast....

"How are you today, Nadia?" Tor asked.

"Terrible, Commodore." Tissaurd chuckled with a theatrically demented grin.

" That's nice," Tor answered, winking reassuringly at the Steward—whose jaw had suddenly dropped in consternation. "I feel horrible, too."

"Good! Glad to hear it!" Tissaurd exclaimed. "And you, Captain, how are you this snowy morning?"

"Worse than ever, Number One," Brim grumped spuriously. "You, Commodore," he remanded, "have clearly set a bad precedent in Starfury's wardroom."

"Why, Captain Brim," Tor protested, hand on his heart in a gesture of mock innocence, "how can you say that?"

"In Avalonian, mostly," Brim said with a grin. "And you're no better than the Commodore, Number One," he added, pointing an accusatory finger at Tissaurd. Soon afterward, the Steward recovered enough to serve steaming mugs of cvceese' and Starfury's own version of a dish called "battercakes," smothered in a pungent hot syrup—and for the next few cycles, everyone was much too busy for talk.

When conversation eventually resumed—with the third round of cvceese'—Brim learned that Tor had ordered out maintenance crews from both the Calshot Station and Enterprise long before dawn.

The huge salvage vessel was now hovering no more than ten irals from Starfury's side, using her own mighty levitating systems instead of a gravity pool. Moreover, huge cranes had already raised the damaged cruiser nearly twelve irals without disturbing anyone aboard. Even as the four officers sipped cvceese' and talked, massive new power chambers rumbled across a temporary bridge between the two hulls, and replacement hullmetal plates were taking shape on glowing collapsium forges deep within the big ship's hold.

"What I don't understand," Brim commented at length, "is how you managed to bring Enterprise here in the first place. Especially with an escort of four Starfuries. Since the CIGAs first got wind of the operation, I haven't been able to get help—anywhere."

Tor smiled. "That's probably the reason I'm here, then," he said with a cryptic little smile. "I'm from nowhere." He joined the tips of his fingers and appeared to be deep in thought for a few moments.

"What I am about to tell you," he said presently, "has been such a carefully guarded secret that even you, Wilf Brim, were kept in the dark about it. They sent you—and you, Lieutenant Tissaurd—off to too many places where you might fall into League hands." He frowned. "With the near-term resumption of hostilities, however," he continued, "the secret of Gimmas Haefdon will be revealed soon enough. So it is time both of you know the whole story."

Tissaurd smiled and nodded her head. "I thought something was strange about the 'closed-down' status of that planet every time we flew anywhere near the surface. Those big reactors were always active—everywhere. If the place had really been shut down, they would all have been cold."

"You were—and are—correct, Lieutenant," Tor said. "But the power was continuously in use."

"By whom?" Brim asked, frowning.

"Well," Tor said, "by the people who fabricated Starfury's new space radiators, for example."

Brim felt his face flush in embarrassment "Of course," he said, snapping his fingers. "I thought at the time that you people had pulled off true magic fabricating that in Enterprise."

Tor smiled. " Enterprise's crews are good," he said. "But even they can't work the kind of miracles something like that would have required." He sat back while the Steward filled his mug with more cvceese', then nodded, as if he had just made up his mind about something. "So far as the CIGAs are concerned," he began at length, "Gimmas Haefdon was closed down more than ten Standard Years ago—except for small-scale maintenance operations and some 'nonessential research.' " His eyes lit up with humor for a moment. "We were careful to make certain that Amherst and his coterie of traitors remained convinced that they made Gimmas into a certifiable nowhere. But shortly after its so-called closing, a number of colleagues and myself pulled certain strings to become that 'small-scale maintenance crew' and began turning the base into one of five covert somewheres that may yet help to save the Empire from its CIGA cancer."

"What you do there can be that critical?" Tissaurd asked.

"Well," Tor replied with a smile, "I'm not authorized to talk about everything, but we certainly build Starfuries at Gimmas. The four new ships that escorted Enterprise were built there—they completed their deep-space trials just before we departed for Fluvanna. And," he continued, cleaning his spectacles with a huge white handkerchief, "if you have not already guessed, all four ships are here at the direct orders of Prince Onrad."

"Universe," Tissaurd whispered. "Prince Onrad?"

"He and General Drummond have been keeping close tabs on the situation here in Fluvanna," Tor said. "They waited as long as they could before playing their hand, but with the appearance of the new Gorn-Hoffs, it quickly became clear that Baxter Calhoun would soon need heavy maintenance support.

There are five more Enterprise-class salvage and repair ships under construction, but they're far from complete. We were the only game in town, so to speak."

" Enterprise is one miraculous game," Brim said appreciatively. "But they certainly did wait until the last possible cycle to send her. If she hadn't already been on your way, Starfury would have been out of action for weeks!"

"I know," Tor said sympathetically. "I'm empowered to apologize for both the Prince and General Drummond."

"Doesn't really matter now," Brim allowed pragmatically. " 'All's well that ends well,' as somebody once observed."

"Actually," Tor said, "it really doesn't end, so to speak."

"I don't understand," Brim said.

"Well," Tor said, "only one of the Starfuries will depart when we've finished here. The other three—along with Refit Enterprise will be based at Varnholm Hall. Permanently—or as long as the IVG exists."

"Universe!" Brim exclaimed. "Now that's what I call help!" He grinned. "And we can certainly use three more Starfuries, even with rookie crews."

"Hmm," Tor said with a frown. "There, you're in for a bit of a disappointment.''

"Why?" Brim demanded.

"It has to do with the Imperial comets they have abaft their bridges," Tor explained with a grimace, "like the ones Enterprise wears. They are all ships of the Imperial Fleet—and the Empire isn't just now at war with the League." He peered over his glasses apologetically. "It's only a technicality, of course. But unfortunately...."

"I remember Calhoun telling me about it, now," Brim said, shaking his head in frustration. "So the Starfuries are here to protect Enterprise, eh?"

"I'm afraid that's about it—at least until the Emperor can get around the CIGAs in the General Parliament and declare war."

Brim nodded and grinned. "As they put things in Sodeskaya," he said, "it's a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp icicle."

Tor nodded sober agreement. "It certainly seems to be that," he observed.

Tissaurd nodded. "And getting back to Gimmas Haefdon for a moment, Commodore," she said, "unless I miss my guess, you're not just building Starfuries there, are you? I'll bet you're working on that stripped-down, killer-ship version of Starfury people have been whispering about!" She grinned and fixed him with one of her gazes. "I always wondered what somebody like Mark Valerian was doing there just for Starfury's deep-space acceptance trials. He already knew the ship would pass with flying colors."

Tor's face colored and he smiled. "Probably, we ought to discuss killer-ships at a more appropriate time, Lieutenant," he demurred. "But, as I said, we, ah, do keep busy out there...." At that moment, a singularly piercing thud sounded from deep within the hull. Tor's eyebrows shot up with real concern. "I think I'm probably needed down there," he said, pushing back his chair, then he stopped and held up his index finger. "Captain Brim," he said, "would it be possible to ask a favor of you and your ship?"

"We are at your service, Commodore," Brim replied.

"Good," the Commodore replied, "Then have your wardroom cook send over the recipe for those, er, 'battercakes' you fed me this morning and I shall be forever in your debt."

"I'll do it debt free. Commodore," Brim promised.

"Good," Tor said, "and I shall expect both of you in Enterprise's wardroom this evening," he said. "Evening and one on the dot."

"We'll be there, Commodore," Brim promised. "Could I bring a few bottles of Logish Meem with me?"

" Could you?" Tor asked in astonishment. "But of course, Brim," he said. "You didn't think I'd let you in without them, did you?"

"Well," Brim countered, "under normal circumstances, I'd probably admit that you had me over a barrel, Commodore."

"Well, I do, don't I?" Tor demanded.

"Oh, absolutely, Commodore," Brim answered, "unless you decide that you also want a recipe for the syrup that goes with the battercakes."

Tor looked stunned. "Captain Brim," he groaned in dismay, "do you mean to tell me that the syrup recipe isn't included with the one for the battercakes?"

"No, sir," Brim said. "It's an all-purpose syrup."

"I see," Tor said, frowning as if he were considering some complex engineering problem. "On the other hand," he added, "the cakes themselves are delicious. There's no getting around that. So you'd better bring the meem and the syrup recipe—just to be sure. You never know how the rest of my day will go." Then, with a grin, he disappeared through the hatch.

Next morning, a gravely hung-over W. A. Brim, Commander, R.F.F., and Captain of the Fluvannian cruiser R.F.F. Starfury, unabashedly pulled rank by placing an equally hung-over Nadia Tissaurd, Lt. Commander, R.F.F., in temporary charge of all ship's operations. He then staggered directly to his cabin and slept for nearly a full Standard Day. Privilege, he observed to the outraged Tissaurd, is an insidious endemic—but it is rarely a mortal malady....

CHAPTER 10

Zonga'ar

Starfury was out of action for nearly seven Standard Days. Immediately afterward, however, Brim found himself back in furious—and deadly—combat with what seemed like the total combined fleets of Nergol Triannic and Rogan LaKarn. Though Commodore Tor's Refit Enterprise kept a significantly larger percentage of Calhoun's little fleet operational, the ever-increasing pace of battle was beginning to make itself felt—and within a month, they lost their first two Starfuries: I.F.S. Starwarrior and I.F.S. Stargallant. Thereafter, as shrewd Avalonian CIGAs in the General Parliament stretched out Fluvannian Defense Treaty deliberations, IVG conditions inevitably began to deteriorate. And though the ex-Imperials destroyed nearly fifteen Leaguer warships for each Starfury demolished, it didn't take a Drive scientist to understand they couldn't sustain that kind of pace forever—even with Commodore Tor accomplishing feats of maintenance wizardry every metacycle (on the metacycle) or courageous AkroKahn captains running spare parts through the Leaguer blockade in their unarmed civilian transport ships.

Replacements for IVG combat casualties, however, were in far shorter supply. Only a trickle of volunteers arrived from Avalon, and many of them had to be smuggled past zealous CIGAs who had infiltrated the Imperial Customs Service. As Brim's first anniversary in the IVG arrived, he and the other captains found themselves flying with reduced crews as a matter of course while the enemy fleets were clearly growing both in strength and experience. And although they vowed to fight until the last Starfury would no longer lift, that day was clearly on the time horizon, and approaching rapidly.

On the morning after R.F.S. Starviper was lost with all hands, Calhoun KA'PPAed an order for Brim and Moulding to report to his office the moment they made landfall. Brim was last in, and arrived from the gravity pool complex at a run. As he hurried through the door, he noticed a tall, grave-looking Bear in earnest conversation with Calhoun, Moulding, Ursis, and Ambassador Beyazh. Wearing a monocle fastened to a delicate gold chain, the Sodeskayan was dressed as a General-Mayor with sky-blue embellishments of the Intelligence Corps. Brim didn't know him, but Ursis and Beyazh clearly did.

"General Probyeda," the Bear said soberly in Avalonian, "is now meeting old friend and shipmate Commander Wilf Ansor Brim, Captain of Starfury."

Probyeda turned and extended his hand. "I have heard much that recommends you, Wilf Ansorovich," he said, "both from fryend Nikolai Yanuarievich and Grand Duke Anastas Alexi Borodov."

"General Probyeda," Brim said in surprise. "I am honored to meet you." His words were no empty courtesy. During the last war, Probyeda had distinguished himself in a number of daring covert missions, some of which had never been declassified. And he was also an old friend of the Empire; it was through his offices that the prototype Gorn-Hoff P.1065 had been discovered—and its data released to Drummond.

The Bear smiled and peered through his monocle. "When you and Commander Moulding hear information I bring," he said soberly, "you may revise opinion."

Calhoun placed his hand on the Bear's shoulder board. "General Probyeda isn't makin' small talk, gentlemen," he said, indicating six chairs that had been drawn up around a large globular projector in a corner of the office. "If you'll take seats aboot yon projector, we'll gat this meetin' under way directly."

Moulding grinned at Brim as he slid into an adjoining chair and rolled his eyes to the heavens.

"Sounds as if they're planning to make us work for a living," he whispered.

Brim shrugged. "Well," he muttered, "this Fluvannian vacation of ours could get to be sort of boring, after a while," Calhoun got to the point with no preamble whatsoever. "Tis high time, "he began, "that we take on the League's xaxtdamme space fortification immediately; they're beginnin' to hurt us bad. In addition to basin' their Gorn-Hoffs and Dampiers there, the zukeed space weasels have been stockpilin' ground supplies an' troops as well. An' noo it appears their invasion plans for Fluvanna are almost complete, so we hae little choice— Queen Elidean or nae." He paused. "We'll be doin' the mission in consort wi' units o' the Fluvannian Fleet, thanks to Ambassador Beyazh, who flew in a month ago from Avalon an' has worked miracles to coordinate things between the two governments."

Beyazh looked at Brim and Moulding. "My take is that the real miracles have been accomplished by these two gentlemen and their colleagues in the Starfuries," he said.

Calhoun pursed his lips. " They may need a few mair miracles afore you're finished dealin' wi' the fort," he continued, "'cause unfortunately the Leaguers hae gone aboot fortify in' the place beyond all measure." He nodded to Probyeda. "That's wha' the General's here to tell you about, so I'll ask him to start wi' his part o' the briefin'."

Probyeda also wasted no time getting to his point. "Gentlemen," he said, "we Sodeskayans have studied Leaguer fortifications for number of years now, ever since they began building fortified networks.

However," he added meaningfully, "they have been unusually careful with this one, going so far as to construct from outside in to preserve secrecy. Because of this, we know relatively little about interior layout, although we have considerable information concerning exterior features and armament." He touched a switch and a three-dimensional image of the Zonga'ar shoal itself materialized above the projector. Small as asteroid collections went, it was named for an enormous old starship, S.S. Zonga'ar, that came to ruin against the mass of rocks more than a thousand Standard Years in the past. The longish formation extended no more than eight hundred c'lenyts from tip to tip at the outside and was accumulated—as well as shaped—by the accretion beam of a neighboring space hole. Over the aeons, it had taken the slightly curved shape of a scythe blade, with a roughly triangular cross section that was perhaps ten c'lenyts on a side. The same accretion beam that amassed and shaped it also formed a wide, fast-flowing gravity ribbon that swept past its concave ends like a river. And it was between the accretion beam and the center of the scythe that the Leaguers had built their fortification, positioned near a huge glowing asteroid called Cendar and shielded from the beam itself by the shoal's slightly protruding ends.

The same beam, however, also protected the fort from frontal attack. The very act of crossing its treacherous graviton flow made such an assault highly difficult as well as dangerous, even without considering the fort's huge battery of disruptors.

As Probyeda focused his projector on the fort itself, he described great disrupter batteries, armored flanks, and nearly limitless energy supplies—along with rows and rows of parked Dampiers and Gorn-Hoffs, the ones that the IVG had been fighting since the outbreak of war. Before he was finished, the General described one of the most brilliantly conceived fortifications Brim had ever encountered.

"Shaping up to be some vacation, eh, Wilf?" Moulding muttered.

"Yeah," Brim agreed under his breath. "You'll be sure to let me know when we start having fun."

Calhoun overheard them and laughed. "I've taken personal steps to bring a little mair firepower to bear for the mission," he said, "but it may arrive a wee late—or not at alt. An' dis-fortunately, we've already put off the raid too lang. They're damme near too strong to deal with right noo." He glanced at Beyazh. "That's where the Ambassador and his Fluvannian Fleet come into the picture. They'll try to draw off the Gorn-Hoffs and Dampiers while we go after the primary target." With that, he and Beyazh launched into a description of a bold and ingenious scheme that left the others in the room nodding with admiration.

Brim was to take command of the eight remaining IVG Starfuries, which he would lead as a unit code-named CLEAVE. His ships would operate in conjunction with units of the Fluvannian Fleet, ostensibly speeding off to intercept a brace of Leaguer supply convoys that were known to be on the way with more ground troops and invasion supplies. At the same time, a second squadron, consisting wholly of ancient Fluvannian warships—Force SMASH—would deploy toward the space fort itself, clearly a suicidal mission against such a target. The key to the operation, however, lay in purposely leaking these plans to the Leaguers—while omitting one small, but significant, detail.

Success depended heavily upon two essential elements: the Leaguers' natural disdain for all but the most up-to-date military equipment and the colossal emptiness of intragalactic space itself. If everything went according to plan, the entire fleet of Dampiers and Gorn-Hoffs would light out after the Starfuries in CLEAVE, ceding the ancient Fluvannian ships of SMASH to the CIGAs in their Imperial battleship—and the powerful disrupters of the fort itself. Less than a cycle into the CLEAVE sortie, however, Brim and his Starfuries would secretly depart from their elderly Fluvannian consorts. Firing off their reflecting Drives, they would sprint through the trackless void on a direct course to the fort, thereby arriving in place of the Fluvannian antiques with weaponry all out of proportion to what the defenders had been led to expect. By the time IVG's ruse was discovered, it would be far too late to send reinforcements.

As the Commodore readily admitted, his strategy wasn't perfect—but it was a plan in being. And something had to be done right away if they were to have any chance of averting disaster.

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 starsailors 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 crosswind 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.

Brim bit his lip as the turbulence worsened and he struggled to keep on course without increasing speed. No wonder the Leaguers had picked this spot for their space fortification! It was damned near impossible to approach the area unless you came in along the very edge of the asteroid shoal—where they had concentrated extra firepower. The bridge was almost silent as the big starship bucked and pitched through the invisible violence. Beside him, Tissaurd cleared her throat with a look of concern, and he could hear anxious voices behind him. He brushed away a momentary sensation of annoyance. All of them were excellent starsailors, representing aggregate centuries of deep-space experience. As warriors, Voot Himself could not question their bravery. But for half a millennium now, starships had been designed with energy overload capabilities to power out of this sort of situation—and did so as a matter of routine. He ground his teeth and fought the turbulence. There was nothing he could do but endure—and trust that the other three Helmsmen would somehow make it through the storm as well.

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, he 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.

"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 the 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 byproduct, 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 away 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 and 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 battlesuited 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—"

"If you were being held hostage," Brim interrupted, "how'd you get into their COMM room—and where did you get those blasters for that matter?"

Margot's eyes hardened for a moment. "We took the blasters," she answered. "In spite of what I have become, Wilf Brim, don't ever forget my years as an agent." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I am no more a stranger to killing than you are. And this COMM room is a very special one—reserved for the private affairs of visiting ministers and high-level officers. It has its own power and transmission systems. Rogan used it when he brought me here."

Brim closed his eyes for a moment. "I understand," he said.

"You had better understand," she replied, "and quickly. Because if you continue to whittle away at this fort, long before you can silence its disrupters, all of your ships will have been destroyed. You must already suspect that yourself."

Brim nodded. "I do," he admitted.

"Then listen and listen well, Wilf Brim," Margot said, "for I shall have time to tell you this once, then we must take to a lifeglobe." She paused and glanced at Ambridge.

The man nodded. "But you will have to be quick, my Princess," he added.

Margot returned her gaze to Brim. "The fort's one weak spot—if such a thing exists at all—are the doors to the hangar deck. You'll easily recognize them five levels above the bottommost disrupter gallery. There are three of them, and the whole assembly has oversize Bilmes beacons at all four corners—you know, the ones with the big ruby globes."

"I think I can find it," Brim replied, suddenly beside himself with turmoil. Could he trust this woman?

"Good," Margot said, "because the designers centrally located the power chambers directly behind the hangar deck. You will need to blow the doors away first with your disrupters, then send in torpedoes so they can traverse the hangar to the power chambers. Get Barbousse to fire them," she said excitedly. "It's your only hope. Disrupter fire dissipates rapidly within a closed space—as you well remember from the Battle of Atalanta."

"Your Highness," Ambridge interrupted, "we must leave now. Either they will capture us again or we will be caught in the explosion!"

Margot nodded. "I'm coming, Ambridge," she said, then turned once more to face Brim.

"Good-bye for now, Wilf," she said, "the Universe speed your flight," Suddenly her retainers began to fire their blasters at something along the hallway, and young LaKarn attempted an escape by kicking the old chauffeur in the shins. "Try to remember that I have loved you always," she added, starting for the door, "even when I had no control of my mind."

Then, before Brim had a chance to reply, the little party was gone, and the display presented only an empty room. Shortly thereafter, three armed Controllers burst through the door shouting at each other in their guttural dialect. Immediately, one of the Controllers seemed to point at Brim. "Sondghast vellersahn vonell gannist!" he shouted in the Leaguers' language of Vertrucht: The machine is transmitting! Angrily, he smashed his hand somewhere behind the pickup lens, and the display went blank.

Totally spellbound by the incident, Brim had to force himself back to some sort of reality. If he decided not to trust Margot, there was a better-than-even chance that all five remaining starships would be lost while failing to destroy the fort at all. And even if he were successful in "whittling" the fort away, the odds were overwhelming that he would still lose two or even three more Starfuries—perhaps Starfury herself—in the process. On the other hand, if he did trust Margot and made a run for the hangar doors, he had at least some chance that he would indeed destroy the fort with no further IVG casualties at all. "Toby," he exclaimed, his mind working furiously, "here's what we're going to do."

"I say, old bean," Moulding said caustically, "you promised to tell me that at least five cycles ago.

And I'm still waiting."

"Sorry," Brim replied, "I've just been talking to Margot on another display. She's in the fort."

"How nice, Wilf," Moulding continued, raising his eyebrows theatrically. "You two certainly do find the oddest places for renewing that little friendship of yours...."

"No! Wait, Toby. This has nothing to do with friendship—she was a prisoner there." He shook his head—that wasn't going to do it. "I'll have to explain later," he said. "Just trust me that she may have given us the ticket to blowing that fort."

"Wilf!" Moulding objected, "she is the same Margot who tried to have you killed a while back, isn't she?"

"She is," Brim admitted, "but, well, I have this feeling that this time she's telling the truth."

"And so do I," Tissaurd interrupted, leaning over to talk with Moulding's aristocratic visage in the global display. "Sorry, Skipper," she said out of the side of her mouth, "but I've been eavesdropping.

Toby," she called, "I watched the whole thing, and unless Effer'wyck's better able to pull the wool over my eyes than she was a few months back, I think she's on the level."

Moulding's image stared at Tissaurd for a long time, but finally he shrugged. "I suppose there's only one way to find out, then," he acquiesced, his lopsided smile back in place. "Now, my old racing friend," he said, returning his gaze to Brim, "how about telling me what it is you want us to do...."

Brim came in fast along one bank of the shoal with Starterror and Starspirit above and behind him. Starsovereign and Stardemon were speeding in from the other direction, attempting to split the Leaguers' defensive fire before it began. The tactic might help a little, but Brim knew it wouldn't be enough.

"Maybe the zukeeds won't shoot quite so fast now that we've taken out some of their disruptors,"

Tissaurd observed hopefully over the whine and thunder of Starfury's big Admiralty generators.

Brim could only grunt out similar hopes as he concentrated on flying the ship; he was so close to the shoal now that its huge asteroids appeared to be rushing past only a few irals from Starfury's belly.

He could well imagine what the Leaguers must be thinking while they watched the five Starfuries home in on them. The remaining IVG ships were still a major threat, and the Leaguers knew it—but not so much as when there were eight of them. Both sides knew that.

"Coming up on their maximum range now, Captain," Meesha warned.

"Very well, Meesha," Brim said, sideslipping into his first jink. The fort had a few moments'

advantage before the Starfuries' shorter-range disrupters could focus in. And the Leaguers took advantage of every one as space went wild with massive barrages of detonations that blasted Starfury in every direction with near misses. Many of the near misses blasted in huge fountains of rock and debris as they hit the shoal. Then Meesha opened up with his own disruptors, bouncing the deck and every console on the bridge. "Ready, Chief?" Brim asked.

"Ready, Cap'm," Barbousse replied grimly. "I've got eight more torpedoes in the launcher, all of 'em enabled already. So if we get hit, it's good-bye Starfury."

"I'll try to avoid that if I can," Brim swore fervently. He took a deep breath. The hangar-deck doors were still out of sight, nearly a quarter of the way around the fort's circumference from Starfury's apparent aiming zone. Moments from now, while Starterror and Starspirit continued on their firing run, he would bank out to port and dive nearly to the surface of the fort where he would hug the wall until, at a predetermined point, he would pull away to minimum firing distance, reverse course abruptly, and make a torpedo run on the hangar. It seemed a lot like ancient dive bombing—only sideways. "All right, Meesha," he shouted. "Give it all you've got!" Curving slightly to starboard, he headed for a quartet of big disrupters while Meesha directed his fire at the big turrets with a vengeance. So did the other two Starfuries, with deadly accuracy—and results. The area quickly erupted into an absolute hell of energy from the concentrated fire of thirty-six big disrupters. Huge chunks of hullmetal and wreckage (including an entire turret) hurtled off in every direction from the rapidly expanding fireball while a chorus of cheers broke out around Brim on the bridge—who used the momentary lull to roll Starfury inverted, bunt under the other two ships, and set off for the wall with all the power he could feed to the generators.

Long moments later, the graceful cruiser was speeding along only a few hundred irals from the gigantic hullmetal plates, many cratered and burning fiercely as he passed. This time, he jinked only when it was necessary to avoid hitting one of the big disruptor turrets. He was moving far too rapidly for them to aim at him—much less fire. Soon, he was coming up on the array of heat exchangers Meesha's firing computers had calculated as his optimum breakaway point. "Ten clicks till the pop, Chief," he warned.