"Well, Doctor," observed the Bear, "either impatience guides his actions—or a well-known compulsion to single-handedly confound the League of Dark Stars. As we say on the Mother Planets, 'When the mountain dances with ice maidens, cold wand comes quietly at the hearth.'" He grinned suddenly. "One imagines anything is possible of persons who spend most waking hours flying a simulator—even Helmsmen.
Brim turned to grin at his old shipmates, fellow survivors of Regula Collingswood's battle-shattered destroyer I.F.S. Truculent. "You're both right," he asserted, "I do spend most of my time flying 'The Box.' But I am clearly not the only one impatient to get back into space—or the war. In fact, I personally know a certain Great Sodeskayan Boar who spends most of his time checking starship plans—and I'm sure he has the same thing in mind.
Besides, it's rarely lonesome here on the balcony, as you both well know." He chuckled. "I understand people are starting to call it 'Point Defiant.'"
"Actually," Flynn admitted, "I might just prefer a battle zone if I had my choice—some place where I could occasionally contribute to the war effort by treating disorders more serious than meem hangovers." He shook his heed. "That one task seems to occupy most of my duty time while we wait for those bloody civilians to build our ship."
Ursis laughed as he charged the bowl of his Zempa pipe with Hogge'poa. "You must never underestimate your contribution here, my dear Doctor," he asserted, tamping the weed with a professional countenance. "Hangovers are important on worlds like EleandorBestienne. Especially since meem—and the drinking thereof—remains the principal diversion." He nodded sagely while he puffed a glow into the bowl of his pipe. "You will soon enough be up to your elbows in battle blood again."
Flynn nodded. "That's why I drink meem," he said wrinkling his nose as a cloud of smoke momentarily enveloped his face. "And they're my own hangovers, by the way."
While the two continued their salty banter in the lengthening shadows, Brim returned his attention to the stocks. For the thousandth time, he traced Defiant's convexed upper deck as it gently arced from a pointed bow and peaked a regulation thirty irals from four Drive outlets in her ponderously rounded stern. Dramatically larger than old Truculent, her very size seemed to Symbolize—dauntingly—the new responsibility Brim was about to shoulder as her Principal Helmsman. Abaft the forward mooring cupola, work gangs were energetically fishing heavy-gauge cable of some sort between two circular access hatches.
Farther back, a pair of surveyors appeared to be checking the hull's loft lines against a fat book of blue-prints. The ship's ebony hullmetal was everywhere marred by bright blue of welding, and her upper decks were littered with cuttings, fastener cartridges, cables, and general sweepings. Apparently a great deal of the morning's construction effort had been expended preparing for installation of the two ventral turret assemblies. With the acrid smell of Hogge'poa burning his nostrils, Brim watched a heavy mounting ring glide slowly beneath the starboard beam, towed by one of the ubiquitous yellow shipyard locomotives. The two dorsal twin-mounts had been in place abaft the bridge for a week now; they required only installation of their long-barreled 152-mmi disruptors. The final turret, however, a single-mounted 152 that would complete the ship's primary armament, was still marked by little more than a circular opening in the hullmetal directly forward of the skeletal bridge.
Presently, a fourth voice joined the others on the balcony. Elegant and polished, it belonged unmistakably to Commander Regula Colllngswood, Defiant's Captain and commanding officer. She was a statuesque woman, tall and well-shaped with a long, patrician nose, piercing hazel eyes, and soft chestnut hair that she wore in natural curls beneath her peaked uniform hat. An extraordinary commander of military warships, her appearance never for a moment let anyone forget she was also a woman, every milli-iral of her, She was known throughout Kabul Anak's fleets as a very dangerous adversary, and had lived with a price on her head for years. She seemed to enjoy the distinction. Brim saluted wit the others.
"I rather expected I might find the three of you here," she pronounced with a fatigued smile. "I too need tangible evidence that someday we shall find ourselves back in space.
Especially since I presently spend most of my life staring at desiccated verbiage in a display." She grimaced at the portfolio under her arm. And making peace with angry shipyard bosses," she added hotly, scowling first at Brim and then at Ursis. "What in the name of the Universe did you do to that poor engineer? His manager found him reduced to tears at a drafting display and mumbling nonsense about lightning strikes and Bears— as well as Carescrians. Wilf Ansor Brim."
Brim and Ursis began to speak at the same time, but Collingswood held up a perfectly manicured hand. "Don't bother, either of you. There was also the matter of the reversed waveguide that they installed—everybody in the yard was overjoyed that I declined to fuss to the Admiralty about that little blunder—a damned serious problem as I am given to understand."
"We, ah, did bring it to the engineer's attention," Brim stammered.
"Indeed," Ursis seconded, "one of the senior types initially found it difficult to separate his diagrams from the reality of hullmetal."
Collingswood closed one eye and wrinkled her nose. Then she nodded pointing an accusing finger at the Bear. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "You helped him understand how to do it, didn't you? That probably explains the uprooted drafting table. We all sort of wondered about that bit of mayhem." She shook her head again, then chuckled. "At any rate, now that the two of you have finished dealing with recalcitrant civilians on your own side of the war, I trust you have saved a little violence to counter the promises of our opposites from the League as well."
Her voice trailed off. Everyone in the Fleet knew Emperor Nergol Triannic's boast of slavery and death—at best—for every Imperial Blue Cape who stood in the path of his plans to sack and subjugate the galaxy for his League of Dark Stars. And for eight grim years, the badly outnumbered Fleets of Emperor Greyffin IV had spoiled those plans out of all proportion to the meager resources at their disposal. Now, thanks to efforts like the one in the shipyard below, those fleets were growing larger—and more powerful....
Sudden thunder boomed and crackled overhead as two pairs of starships plunged in formation from among the clouds. Brim identified them even before they entered the shipyard's landing pattern: Sinister-class light cruisers. At 315 irals overall, they were only a little smaller than Defiant and carried 150-mmi disruptors. Although they were known as handy ships with excellent habitability, experts considered that placement of blast deflectors near the aft deck house provided an ungainly appearance.
Ungainly-looking or not, these certainly could maintain formation. Perfectly synchronized, they banked into an abbreviated base leg, then rolled out on final, antigravity generators bellowing as they drew into line abreast and descended toward the bay. Cycles later, they were skimming the whitecaps, cooling fins whistling in the slipstream. Brim watched with professional judgment while their speed dropped and the ships gently unloaded mass onto the Verticals buried 'midships in their hulls. Each of the cruisers came to a hovering stop twenty irals or so above the thrashing footprint it pushed into the surface of the water, then turned smartly to taxi toward the wharves beyond the shipyard. Still in line abreast, they crossed between Brim and EleandorBestienne's close-set trio of suns, now setting on the horizon. For an instant, every hull plate stood highlighted in the rippled path of blazing colors; then the starships continued on their way and disappeared into the forest of gantry cranes.