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 leased Starfuries
were significantly outnumbered, not a single volunteer had been
killed.
That ended immediately following Brim's first, admittedly providential,
triple 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 attempted a simultaneous
raid against Varnholm Hall, but were all badly damaged by McKenzie's
reserve force before they could fire a single bolt at the gravity
pools.
And week later, it was Brim's turn for damage His Starfury
was alone on a regular defensive patrol roughly five thousand
c'lenyts out from Ordu when he came on at least twenty-four Gorn-Hoffs
in four groups of six. Broadcasting his position, he went in to
attack, hitting at least two on his way through the Leaguers'
formation. He was about to rejoin for a second attack when Moulding
called with the other six Starfuries to say he was in the same
general area. Spotting six shimmering graviton contrails, Brim
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 ofDampiers!
Peeling off in a violent maneuver, he raced directly away from
the planet's disk to lower his visibility, then swung rapidly
to port and kept his Starfury turning as tightly as he
possibly could. For a few cycles, Brim, the Dampiers, and at least
half the Gorn-Hoffs spun around in a crazed furball perhaps five
c'lenyts in diameter until Brim threw maximum power to the gravs
and tried another maneuver-a steep drive toward the surface.
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 the Starfury shuddered while half his energy display
turned bright red.
"Direct hit in a starboard power chamber," Zaftrak reported
from the power distribution center; she 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 radiation fire in one of the 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, his two radiation-suited systems
techs scurried here and there, dragging portable N-ray mains and
struggling with half-melted control systems.
A moment later Brim heard Zaftrak counting over the intercom.
"Thirteen crag wolves, fourteen crag wolves, fifteen crag
wolves..." she counted, as if she hardly dared to take a
breath.
Tissuard glanced across at him with raised eyebrows. "W-what's
she counting, Skipper?" she demanded nervously.
"Clicks, Number One," Brim replied, his own heart in
his mouth. "We just took a hit in a power chamber. 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 wolves, twenty-two crag wolves, twenty-three
crag wolves..."
"Power's out to all weapons systems, Skipper!" one of
the Weapons Techs warned.
"Very well," Brim said between clenched teeth. He careened
the ship to port again; she 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 either the 505's or the HyperTorp
launcher going again-if the Starfury didn't first blow them all
to kingdom come.
"Twenty-six crag wolves, twenty-seven crag wolves, twenty-eight
crag wolves..."
Brim held his breath
"Thirty crag wolves! VOOF!"
There was an immediate and simultaneous exhalation from all over
the bridge. Now, they needed weapons!
And so the fracas continued: a few turns and then a flat-out
run for it, some more turns and then another bout of straightaway.
He managed to lose two of the Dampiers, but the other three hung
on tenaciously, sensing the Starfury was somehow disabled.
After what seemed like an age-but was in fact only five or so
cycles after the Toronders first spotted his Starfury-the red
lights on Brim's power panel suddenly went out.
"We've got power to the weapons," Zaftrak whooped triumphantly.
Brim nearly shouted for joy. They'd made it! He let the Dampiers
catch up, and approximately three clicks later, Barbousse lashed
out at their pursuers with a salvo of free-flying HyperTorps.
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
draw for a limited time. Already they were overheating.
Working in spite of grave wounds, Navigator Huugo managed to
locate a remote Fluvannian base: R.F.F. Station Calshot on frigid
Lake Solent near Ordu's Boreal pole. Tissuard immediately 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 20.66 milstons of hullmetal and
assorted, more-or-less sentient crewmembers down on the surface
of the planet gently enough so that nobody got seriously 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, the damaged 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,
lighted in patches by thin, wintry sunlight. Everywhere else were
shades of white and gray, broken only by occasional green expanses
of dense conifer forest.
Brim checked his readouts for the ten-thousandth time-the power
quadrant was edging back into the red. His lift would last
only a few more cycles now. And although the Starfury's 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.
"Starfury Sigma-one AA: Calshot Tower clears for one nine
right landing approach; wind zero nine zero at fifteen, gusts
to forty-five."
"Starfury Sigma-one AA," Brim replied absently, totally
absorbed with landing the stricken astroplane. "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
stammeredthundered on for a momentthen 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
toward a dead-stick landing on momentum alone. A tiny shore-side
village disappeared beneath the bow as Brim willed the 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 hill in a cloud of
spray and was thrown in the air again. This time, she swung hard
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 slush, 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 in one piece, more or less.
"Voot's beard," Tissuard said in a shaky voice, opening
her helmet in mock disgust, "you'd think there was a war
on, or somethin'!"