The Mercenaries

by Bill Baldwin

  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, th
e 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.r />
  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.