The Mercenaries

by Bill Baldwin

  "I, er, scrutinize the beam, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd acknowledged with a grin. "You may now activate its side lobes."

  As Brim watched from his station on the port side of Starfury's bridge, the beam began to separate into vertical lines. He knew that it would remain steady for Tissaurd in her more central console, but for Powderham, the Navigator seated behind the starboard Hyperscreens, it would now be broken into horizontal lines.

  "Side lobes, ah, how do you say... ?"

  "Activated," Tissaurd prompted.

  "Ah yes, activated," the Fluvannian reported a moment later.

  "Thank you, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd replied, nodding to herself as if she had just completed some internal checklist. "All docking cupolas: stand by your mooring beams," she ordered over the blower. When each had acknowledged, she began to nudge the ship forward with deft thrusts of her fingers over the power console, then applied full gravity brakes almost immediately.

  Starfury came to a stop nearly halfway over the pool with her stern still extending out over the roiling strand, kicking up a hail of rocks from the shallow bottom.

  Abruptly Tissaurd rose and stood with hands on hips, surveying the situation for nearly half a cycle, before appearing to reach some decision. "Send the bow beam over," she commanded. Instantly a powerful shaft of greenish-yellow light shimmered out from Starfury's bow and contacted a great optical bollard centered in the inland wall of the pool. "Send over the forward bow springs, too," she ordered after a further moment of study, "port and starboard." Instantly the forward springs crackled to matching bollards on the side walls.

  Brim nodded in approval. Tissaurd was playing it safe. Starfury could winch herself onto the old gravity pool. With the primitive docking devices available, it was an intelligent course to follow. Even at their lowest power settings, the ship's gravity generators were clearly too powerful for this kind of maneuvering without high-precision tracking devices these ancient pools clearly lacked.

  "Take the bow and forward springs to the warping head and heave 'round," Tissaurd continued in terms that considerably predated star flight itself. The first three mooring beams flashed brilliantly as they took the strain and began to draw the big ship forward onto the pool. A moment later the diminutive officer ordered both aft bow springs sent over and followed these with the two sets of quarter springs as the optical cleats came in range of their particular bollards on the pool walls. Only when Starfury's stern approached the seaward wall did she give the order to avast heaving on the three beams forward. The cruiser now had sufficient headway to coast the rest of the way into the pool on her own.

  At last, with the stern just inboard of the wall, Tissaurd projected the stein beam to the seaward wall and immediately called for a "check," holding heavy tension on the blazing shaft of light, but letting it slip as necessary to prevent it from overloading the projector circuits and possibly blowing a fuse. Moments later, Starfury snubbed to a gentle halt—amid a round of applause on the bridge. The ship was almost perfectly centered over the six generators beneath her hull. "Double up all beams," the grinning Tissaurd ordered as she secured her helm and joined hands above her head in a little sign of victory.

  Brim smiled to himself as a rust-mottled brow squeaked and squealed out from the ancient control shack. Tissaurd richly deserved the applause. She had done a magnificent job.

  * * *

  During the next week, Brim's worst concerns proved far too conservative. Had the base been only "somewhat deteriorated," as advertised, things might have been reasonably manageable. Unfortunately, "nonexistent'' did a better job of describing many of the critical services necessary for sustaining a fleet of up-to-date starships like Starfury.

  He had been reasonably prepared, for example, to deal with the remote area's dearth of up-to-date medical facilities, and had made certain that Starfury's sickbay was crowded with medical supplies. In addition, the first ED-4 was already on its lumbering way with much of its cargo hold dedicated to healing machines and life-support systems. But he still had to find somewhere to house the whole medical complex. Good as they might be, starship sickbays could offer temporary care at best. Unfortunately, he had few choices outside the ruined castle itself.

  At least housing and administrative spaces posed no problem to operations. Nor did sustenance for the crews. Ships that could operate for extended periods in deep space simply provided these amenities as part and parcel of their essential operations. Repair and maintenance facilities were, however, totally lacking, and those constituted another matter completely. He'd dispatched his other three ED-4s to Bromwich for spare parts the day he'd lifted Starfury for Fluvanna. But maintenance parts were not the same as maintenance facilities, and both would be necessary if there were any chance at all of keeping the IVG ships spaceworthy— especially under combat conditions.

  He'd first attempted to find help in Fluvanna itself. However, shortly after the Leaguers found out about Starfury's affiliation with the Fluvannian Fleet, all attempts to procure heavy equipment from local sources fell on deaf ears. Beyazh had used his considerable influence to change the situation, but Nergol Triannic's minions had a powerful presence in Magor, and they were now exerting every scrap of influence they could muster to insure failure of the new "Imperial base" so close to the capital they coveted.

  Likewise, procurement efforts from home produced little in the way of results—except that these refusals were at least sent with sympathy. Even Drummond's best efforts had been stopped cold by the enraged Puvis Amherst and his CIGAs, whose anti-Fleet efforts had been further galvanized when the Emperor's IVG offer became public. Some of their demonstrations had even become violent, including one in Courtland Plaza on the Admiralty stairs that left seven Fleet officers and fifteen riot police injured—along with fifty-nine hospitalized CIGAs.

  Brim had just returned from a hike to the ruined manor and was sitting disconsolately in the wardroom nursing a short meem when Tissaurd slid into a chair beside him and signaled the Steward for a goblet of her own. "You don't look happy, Skipper," she said with a serious mien. "And you haven't since we got here. Want to talk?"

  Brim grimaced. "I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings, am I?" he said.

  "Not from somebody who's gotten to know you as well as I have," she chuckled. "And that doesn't even count my little verbal indiscretion at the Mustafa's party a while back."

  "I wish it were as easy as admiring your décolleté, Number One," he replied with a grin, "Unfortunately, this problem has to do with heavy maintenance equipment."

  "I kind of thought that might be it," she said, lifting her goblet from the Steward's tray. "Especially since the manor's old meem cellars will serve nicely as our base hospital. So what's the problem? Barbousse's work crews have already repaired five gravity pools. And except for Starfury herself, you'll be starting off with brand-new starships and all the spares you can use for a while."

  "What's the problem?" Brim demanded in a harried voice. "Tissaurd: an easier question might be what isn't a problem. Gravity pools are only the beginning of starship maintenance— especially in combat situations. What we need are machine shops, gantry cranes big enough to change Drive crystals, gravity pads." He thought for a moment. "You know," he said presently, "the kind of heavy equipment Refit Enterprise provided at Gimmas Haefdon. They couldn't have changed our space radiators without that kind of support."

  Tissaurd shrugged and sipped her meem. "Sorry, Skipper," she said gently. "I guess I knew all that. I simply wasn't ready to start tackling those problems yet. They're too far in the future."

  "Problems are never too far in the future," Brim said didactically.

  "They are if there's nothing you can do about them," Tissaurd countered firmly. "I've found that when I've reached a brick wait about a problem that's still off in the future, it's a good idea to simply step back and wait for something to change. It usually does, and then I can go at the problem again using a different set of parameters—with perhaps a be
tter chance of doing something about it."

  Brim nodded. "Tell me about brick walls," he grumbled. "I've done everything I could think of today and achieved no perceptible results at all."

  "Oh, you may have gotten more results than you imagine," Tissaurd said with a little nod. "Maybe you started that very something that will eventually make everything work out the way you want. Of course, you may not have, either. The only thing you know for certain right now is that nothing is for certain. And that's good, because if nothing changes, then you're still at your brick wall. Right?"

  "Right," Brim admitted sheepishly. After that, they sat in silence for a long while with nothing to say.

  "Good meem," she said at last, staring into her goblet.

  "Yeah," Brim replied.

  "Too bad we're shipmates," Tissaurd said quietly, draining the last of her meem.

  "Why do you say that, Number One?" Brim asked.

  "Because," the petite officer answered, setting her goblet on the table and getting to her feet, "with your problems, you need a woman to take you to bed for a spell—and it can't be me."

  Brim looked up and shook his head. "I think you're right, Nadia," he said wryly. "Twice."

  "I'm sorriest about the second part," she said as she started for the hatch.

  "So am I," Brim called after her, then she was gone.

  * * *

  After the landfall of their first ancient ED-4 transport and its cargo of medical equipment, Commander Penelope Hesternal, Starfury's Medical Officer, immediately established an excellent field hospital in the deep, cool cellars of the ruined hall—staffing it with a bevy of handsome male nurses she recruited during a diplomatic run to Magor, Only days later, the other ED-4s arrived from Bromwich with spare parts literally cramming their holds. Within metacycles, Barbousse and three crews of starsailors (augmented by hefty teams of locals) commenced 'round-the-clock efforts to reactivate the site's ancient gravity pools. And for those not otherwise occupied, either Brim or Tissaurd took Starfury aloft twice a day for gunnery drills and "swapping" classes during which everyone got a chance to suffer someone else's duty station. It allowed little time to become bored with the desolate surroundings or grouse about the primitive conditions—or focus on any of the hundred and one troubles that can result from a combination of monotony and the close proximity of shipboard life.

  Almost before they knew it, a morning arrived when the first pair of Starfury MK-1s were due: R.F.S. Starsovereign and R.F.S Starglory. Brim and Ambassador Beyazh had just emerged from an inspection tour of the new hospital, and were standing alongside the crumbling stone walls of Varnholm Hall where the Ambassador's launch hovered, ready for takeoff.

  "Captain," the Ambassador prompted, cocking his head to one side and staring out to sea, "did you hear that?"

  Brim nodded. "Sounds like Admiralty-type gravity generators to me," he said, looking out over crested, gray-green rollers marching endlessly against the ancient gravity pools at the foot of the piebald slope. "It's either our first two Starfuries or the very grandfather of all thunderstorms, Mr. Ambassador," he replied. Starfury herself hovered quietly below on one of the inboard pools, testing her moorings in the gusty—and perpetual—wind.

  "So the adventure resumes," Beyazh said grimly, glancing up at Varnholm's perpetual overcast as if he could see the ships from where he stood.

  Brim nodded. "And the wounds and the deaths," he added.

  The Ambassador pursed his lips as the thunder swiftly rose in volume. "Why is it we always end up shooting at each other when we have disagreements?" he growled. "If mere really is a Universe who cares and loves, like the Gradygroats teach, then how can war be permitted to happen?"

  Brim had no response to the man's words—in any case, they were all but drowned out by the velvet thunder of two Starfury-class starships descending majestically out of the overcast little more than a c'lenyt offshore. The big ships paralleled the coast for a time, keeping close formation and tearing the cloud base into long tubes of furiously swirling tatters. Abruptly Starfury's KA'PPA beacon began to strobe from the pool site, and in perfect concert, the MK-1s heeled fifty degrees to starboard and swung out to sea, their massive shapes hazed by wild vortices of gravitons pouring from their pontoons before they disappeared in Varnholm's perpetual sea mist.

  Less than a cycle afterward, a siren wailed and the renewed section of gravity pools came alive with groups of people gathering here and there to don protective garments, start repulsion generators, move large wheeled cylinders about, and make last-moment adjustments to a multitude of tripod-mounted globes that glowed with every color of the spectrum. The prodigious figure of Barbousse could be seen at the end of an instrument jetty, his Fleet Cloak streaming in the wind as he activated one of Varnholm's ancient magnetic beacons with an enormous metal crank. Brim watched the operations with emotional fascination —almost pride. Imperial Blue Capes possessed a certain mystique: a whole set of skills and mettle that were never totally understood by landsmen. No matter what was required of them, they carried out their duties with an air of confidence and imperturbability that came as much from constant testing as it did from millenniums-old tradition. And it made them practically infallible.

  Far out to sea, the thundering generators abruptly changed pitch, then continued in a much reduced note. "Sounds as if they're down," Beyazh observed, "and you'd better be on your way to greet them, Mr. Base Commander."

  Brim laughed. "Not me," he protested. "I've got my hands full just trying to keep Starfury out of trouble."

  The Ambassador frowned. "Captain," he said in a very serious voice, "whether or not you like it—or even feel particularly ready for it—you are right now in command of this so-called base. It was set up on your orders by people from the starship you command. In other words, it's yours. At least until Commodore Calhoun finds his way back from Beta Jagow."

  Brim bit his lip. "I suppose you're right, aren't you," he said.

  "Never question a Diplomatic Officer," Beyazh chuckled. "Greatest bunch of know-it-alls in the galaxy. Sometimes, we're even right—as I am now."

  "I guess I hadn't been thinking about much else except how to get the base in shape," Brim replied. "And if I had thought of taking charge," he added with a chuckle, "I might have quit work on the spot."

  "Too late for that now," Beyazh said didactically, sending a perfectly horrid parody of the Fleet salute Brim's way. "You'd better get yourself down there so you can greet the newcomers when they arrive. Someone has to be in charge, my friend."

  Brim returned the salute and started down the hill. "See you again, Mr. Ambassador," he said.

  "Safely—in Avalon, one hopes," Beyazh called after him. "Once you take out that space fort the Leaguers are building."

  Brim laughed in spite of himself. Clearly, few secrets escaped the purview of His Excellency. In the next moments, two shadows, darker than the mist, loomed perhaps one and a half c'lenyts out to sea. These rapidly defined themselves into R.F.S. Starsovereign and R.F.S Starglory with their distinctive tri-hulls and great batteries of disrupters. The two starships were keeping close station abreast as they drove toward shore, majestic and powerful, the sea creaming away from triple footprints while shimmering KA'PPA rings spread deliberately from tall masts that remained serenely steady against the gray sky. Within cycles, Starsovereign had lined up on the number 23 gravity pool, and presently the big ship was secured. Moments later the noise of her generators died in a haze of stray gravitons that drifted away in the afternoon grayness in a big, shimmering cloud. Starglory moored on pool number 19 shortly afterward —just as Brim arrived at the brow.

  "You'll be goin' aboard, Captain Brim?" the brow operator, a leading Torpedoman, called over the noise of the repulsion generators while he guided a newly painted gangway toward the ship's main hatch.

  Brim considered for a moment, peering up at the bustle in Starsovereign's bridge, then he shook his head. "I don't think so, Garrivacchio," he said. "But when you have the
connections secure, make to the Captain... ah... 'Thanks in advance for... the bottle of Logish Meem you will bring with you to my cabin aboard Starfury at Evening:0:30.' Got that?"

  " 'Thanks in advance for the bottle of Logish Meem you will bring with you to my cabin aboard Starfury at'... um... 'Evening:0:30,' Captain," Garrivacchio repeated with a grin.

  "You've got it," Brim said. "And pass that same message on to the Captain of R.F.S. Starglory immediately you secure the brow."

  "Ave, Captain," the Torpedoman assured him with a quick salute. "I'll have the same message delivered within five cycles."

  * * *

  At precisely thirty cycles past the Evening watch, Barbousse answered a polite tapping on the door to Brim's stateroom.

  "Come in, gentlemen," Brim said, extending his hand to the first officer over the coaming, "Wilf Brim, here."

  "Fortune McKenzie, of Starglory," the other said with a grin, offering his hand while he turned over a bottle of obviously Logish Meem to Barbousse. He was a short man, stocky and powerfully built, who clearly had not an ounce of fat on his body. His foursquare face was framed by a close-cut beard and short gray hair. He had a small, rather common nose, a thin mouth, and the mortally precise eyes of a savant marksman. Brim recognized the man immediately. Long ago, Starglory's Master had served with Commander Englyde Zantir, the famous leader of Destroyer Flotilla 91, as an Imperial Marine. Indeed, there was nothing phony about the man's prowess as a military Helmsman, either. Two great scars ran from his forehead to his chin, souvenirs of a thousand-odd hand-to-hand skirmishes with the League—and he had applied the same fighting skills to piloting an E-Class destroyer in the Battle of Atalanta: keen eyes, swift reactions, and a dashing spirit. "I think the gentleman behind me will need little introduction to you," McKenzie added, grinning.

  Brim looked up just in time to see a tall, blond Commander in an impeccable uniform step over the coaming. He had blue eyes that sparkled with good-natured humor, a grand promontory for a nose, and the droll, confident smile reserved for the very rich. "I say," the man muttered with a fictitious look of confusion, "have you chaps any idea which way Avalon might be. I'm from Starsovereign, and our navigator got frightfully confused about a day ago...."