THE HELMSMAN: Director's Cut Edition (40 page)

“Testing alarm systems,” Maldive's voice sounded from the chart room, and the bridge jolted as the Chairman verified functioning of
Truculent's
steering engine. “Thrusts in all sectors, Lieutenant.”

“Very well,” Brim said. He raced through the remaining pretaxi checks, then turned to Theada. “Jubal,” he ordered, “you finish the rest of the preflighting with the Chairman while I taxi her out, because if she'll fly at all, we're going up.”

Theada nodded silently. He knew…

“Mr. Chairman,” Brim ordered next, “have the men in the cupolas single up all moorings; then immediately switch to internal gravity.”

“Aye, Lieutenant.”

“Stand by for internal gravity!” Maldive warned from her console. The sickening transition passed quickly; Brim was nearly too busy to notice as he watched mooring beams wink out all around the ship.

“I'll speak to the Harbor Master now,” he said.

Nearly a full cycle passed before an ashen-faced Lixorian ground controller appeared in one of Brim's displays. “Ground to Imperial DD T.83,” she said in a shocked voice. “We... we're u-under attack near Tandor-Ra, and they won't let us…”

“Imperial DD T.83 to Ground,” Brim interrupted. “I've already heard. I am about to taxi out for immediate takeoff on Becton tube 195.8.”

“Ground to T.83: you are cleared to taxi,” the Controller said. “No traffic in the pattern.”

“T.83 to Ground,” Brim replied evenly. “I intend to
shoot
any traffic I find in the pattern, so you will clear no one until after I'm gone. Do you understand?”

“Ground to Imperial DD T.83: we understand. You are cleared to Becton tube 195.8 for immediate takeoff; wind five forty-five at thirty-eight.”

“Imperial T.83 copies,” Brim answered, then peered at Theada. “How's the old rustbucket check out, Jubal?” he asked.

“She'll taxi, Wilf,” Theada said, “but I'm not done with the lift-off checks yet.”

Brim smiled. “Don't let
me
keep you, then,” he said, and turned back to his COMM display. “Imperial T.83 to Ground,” he continued as he peered into the fog. “Proceeding to Becton tube 195.8 for immediate takeoff.”

“Helm's at dead center,” the Chairman prompted.

“Stand by to move ship,” Brim warned on the blower as he checked his readouts and control settings. “Let go all mooring beams, Mr. Chairman. Dead slow ahead both, Nik.”

“All mooring beams extinguished,” the Chairman reported.

“Dead slow ahead both,” Ursis acknowledged.
Truculent
moved smoothly off the gravity pool.

“I'll take the helm now, Mr. Chairman,” Brim ordered, steering a course for the Becton tube.

“You have the helm,” the Chairman acknowledged.

“Lift-off check's complete, Wilf,” Theada reported presently. “Chairman claims she'll fly.”

Brim nodded and continued picking his way through the foggy maze of dark taxiways. No border lights guided his path this morning, only hints of direction from the bleakness beyond the Hyperscreens and the glowing instruments before him. When he finally reached the tube, he immediately pivoted the ship into line and locked the brakes. “Full military ahead, Nik,”

he shouted. All other noise on the bridge was quickly drowned by the sudden rush of the generators.

“Ground to Imperial DD T.83: Becton tube is active — go get the bastards,
Truculent!”

“Imperial T.83 to Ground: we'll do our best,” Brim promised, watching the brake indicators go out on his console; at once, the powerful destroyer began its astonishing acceleration along the tube. Airborne in a matter of clicks, Brim maintained a nearly vertical climb through 960,000 irals before he nosed over and headed straight for the horizon, still under maximum acceleration.

“What're you
doing,
Wilf?” Theada asked with a concerned frown. “We just
got
to this altitude; now you're down again?”

“Relax, Jubal,” Brim answered without turning around. “It's only a
relative
altitude. I'm going to skim the horizon. It's an old smuggler's trick I picked up at the mines years ago. We're now heading
straight
for the
opposite
hemisphere, the one closest to Hogath-37, where the Leaguers are trying to tear up our Tandor-Ra conference. What I'm doing is getting a good running start while I keep as much of the planet between them and us as I can.”

“A smuggler!” Theada exclaimed, pointing across the center console in mock horror. “I
knew
it!”

Brim laughed. “Too true, Jubal, my friend,” he said. “We Carescrians just naturally get mixed up in all sorts of evil deeds!”

“Incoming coded KA'PPA, Lieutenant,” Applewood interrupted from a display. “From Cap’m Collingswood.”

“I'll have the KA'PPAs as they come,” Brim answered, “Just read ‘em…”

“Aye, sir,” Applewood said. “'Collingswood to Brim: Lost KA'PPA COMM temporarily,'“ he read. “'Hear you have taken off without my orders: good man. Good hunting! Imperial battlecruisers due to arrive in one to one point five metacycles should you require assist. Of interest to you and a few others: that
Overprefect
Valentin probably has a familiar face. Message ends.' “

Brim turned to nod at Ursis.

The Bear grinned back. “Possible …” He kissed his fingertips. “Even with poor odds, I personally welcome the opportunity to find out.”

An image of Barbousse suddenly materialized in a nearby display. The big rating silently grinned for a moment, then kissed his fingertips, too.

Brim smiled grimly, watching
Truculent's
apparent altitude diminish with perceptible speed. “We'll make a bit of trouble for the bastard, no matter who he is,” he growled into the displays as the destroyer surged forward through increasingly dense atmospheric layers. Livid orange tongues of plasma streamed from every protuberance on the hull. Aft, the whole ship trailed a fiery wake of disturbed atoms.

“Stand by all weapons systems,” Fourier warned on the interCOMM.

“Standing by,” a chorus of voices answered.

“How much ground clearance are we going to have?” Theada asked nervously from the side of his mouth as he stared in fascination through the forward Hyperscreens.

Brim chuckled. “Not much, Jubal,” he replied. “How close, Mr. Chairman?”

“On this heading,” the Chairman replied presently,
“Truculent
will clear the ground by a minimum seventeen hundred fifty irals.”

“Oh,
plenty
of room,” Theada said a little breathlessly.

Their actual perihelion occurred so quickly that Brim only sensed an instantaneous transition from apparent descent to ascent, although
Truculent's
control settings remained unchanged. Off to port, he'd glimpsed a small city for a moment — they’d have no glass in their windows anymore. Probably have a few caved-in roofs, too. Time to worry about paying for that damage later.

“I see 'em!” somebody exclaimed. “Six points to port and low to the horizon.”

“We're tracking,” another voice said quietly. “ Zagrail class ships all right. Long-range destroyers.”

“You've never seen one of
those,
have you, Wilf?” Fourier asked.

“Only read about 'em,” Brim admitted.

“Xaxtdamned fine ships. They can outmaneuver a scalded skarsatt. “

“I'll keep that in mind,” Brim said, lowering
Truculent's
bow until he could see three irregular shapes against the starry background. They were arranged along a staggered line formation and returning for their second attack on an arrogantly steady heading: Clearly expecting no more opposition than their first pass received from fort
or
starship. The Carescrian smiled with grim satisfaction. This time,
Overprefect
Valentin was in for a nasty surprise — whomever he might turn out to be. In his display, he watched the firing crews at their Director consoles, listened to their familiar litany of deflection and ranges. “We'll take them in order, Anastasia,” he said quietly as he adjusted course toward the leading enemy ship. “Closest first. “

“All disruptors prepare to engage forward,” Fourier said. “Target bearing red for five.”

“Range ninety-one hundred and closing rapidly.” “Steady…”

The enemy ship was long and cylindrical, built as a single hull instead of independent modules on a K tube. She had a high, thin bridge and nine turrets distributed evenly forward, 'midships, and aft in triads circling the hull. Brim wondered if he might be looking at his special adversary as he scanned the distant vessel. There was quite a score to settle.

“Shoot!”

Truculent's
deck bucked violently as all seven disruptors went off in a blinding eruption that lit space around the enemy destroyer like a tiny nova. A flame glowed for a moment abaft her bridge, then abruptly winked out.

“Got 'im, first shot!” somebody yelled gleefully as Fourier poured salvo after salvo at the enemy ship, starting a number of fires and blasting a large piece of debris into the wake.

None of the three attackers was fighting back yet, Brim noted. His tactics of surprise had served him well. He imagined the chaos Fourier's seven big 144s must be causing in the lead ship and wondered what the reaction would be in the two nearby asteroid forts whose big disruptors — quiet so far — nonetheless bore directly on his present position.

Finally, ragged return fire began to flash outside from the enemy ships. “It's mainly from the second one,” Brim yelled to Fourier. “We'll give them a bit of trouble next.” He put the helm over and hauled the ship on to a collision course with the next enemy destroyer.

Fourier nodded. “I see him,” she said.

“Bearing orange nine forty-six.”

“Up a hundred.”

Brim watched the forward turret index a few degrees to port, rise slightly, then lower. Unseen, he knew the others were retracking to the same target.

“Steady…”

“Shoot!”
Truculent
was closer to this one, and the targeting was accurate. Great pieces of flaming wreckage began to fly off the enemy ship.

The first and third destroyers were now recovering from their initial surprise; to starboard, space erupted in a ragged welter of return fire.
Truculent's
deck kicked with the first long-range hits from the third enemy ship, but the effort was far too late for Brim's intended victim. A shattering explosion suddenly sent the second raider skidding off course to nadir, all but one of its turrets paralyzed or blasted to silence.

“Looks like he's had it,” somebody observed.

“I'll have a spread of torpedoes into him, Anastasia,” Brim ordered. In a matter of clicks, a salvo of five big Mark-19 torpedoes flashed past the bridge from the launcher, leaving a trail of blinding ruby fire in the starry darkness.

“Torpedoes running,” Barbousse's deep voice intoned on the voice circuit.

Brim immediately canted
Truculent
round toward the third attacker. “Give him everything we've got!” he yelled to Anastasia over the bellowing generators.

“New target bearing blue four forty-one at eleven ninety-two. “

“Shoot!”

Again,
Truculent's
powerful battery turned space into a concussive inferno, this time around the third enemy ship. Then the whole Universe lit from aft. Startled, Brim swung in his recliner, gritting his teeth. Were the Lixorian forts finally joining the fray? On whose side? He was immediately relieved to see what remained of the second League destroyer melt completely into a roiling cloud of livid energy from his torpedoes. Every port gleamed like a fiery eye along the hull before the ship burst again into a stupendous flowerlike pattern of flame and debris. He watched an entire turret assembly fly off into space like a runaway holiday rocket.

“That
got the Leaguer bastards!” somebody yelled jubilantly.

“Universe,” another whispered aloud, “look at that
burn.”

Suddenly, Brim was nearly knocked senseless against his seat restraints as a stunning explosion went off just abaft
Truculent's
bridge and caved in a corner of the chart room. The cabin atmosphere blew out in a single, tremendous draft that took two navigation consoles with it and filled the bridge with whirling shards of jagged hullmetal and Hyperscreen crystal. Chaos ruled momentarily as agonized screams filled the voice circuits and half a dozen consoles disappeared in great sparking eruptions of energy. The Carescrian felt a heavy weight bounce off the back of his recliner — his faceplate was suddenly covered with a spray of redness that smeared as he tried to wipe it away. He turned in time to see a headless corpse crumple in a greasy red puddle beside him, belly ripped from crotch to the shredded stump of a neck. Still I its helmet, the severed head bounced like a child's toy at Theada's feet as the gravity pulsed in the shock waves.

Truculent's
hull jolted and vibrated as more hits came aboard from the third enemy destroyer. One particularly powerful blast burst amidships, took the port launch with it, and opened the hull at the officers' quarters with a fiery plume. Brim knew instinctively he had just lost all he owned: His sister's picture in its little charred frame passed his mind's eye for an instant, then he snapped himself back to reality and hauled the destroyer around in a hard turn to port amid a howl of strikes from small weapons that shattered what remained of the aft Hyperscreens and filled the bridge with more jagged pieces of flying crystal.

In the corner of his eye, he saw someone crawling along the main corridor bubbling blood from a dozen holes in a barely recognizable battle suit. Suddenly, one of the larger rents unsealed in a red mist that sprayed nearby consoles a dark, sticky-looking crimson. Whoever it was stopped crawling and spasmodically reared upward before crumpling onto a tattered, blackened shred of star chart. Brim read the word Maldive on the name tag.

He bit his lip. At least he wasn't worried about the forts anymore. The Lixorians were clearly following orders and staying out of the action. He turned to watch the first destroyer they had encountered. Fourier had just redirected two of
Truculent's
ventral turrets at her. Burning in three or four locations along her hull, the Zagrail was returning the fire, but only intermittently; clearly, hits had been scored on critical control centers, though the ship's propulsion systems appeared to be undamaged. At least, Brim noted with satisfaction, the Leaguers were making no attempt to continue their attack on Tandor-Ra below.