Grinding his teeth in angry frustration, he absently glanced through the Hyperscreens into the vast starscape ahead. Would there even be an Atalanta when they arrived at Hador? And if there was, whose flag would it fly? While he ruminated despondently, a new message filled his COMM paneclass="underline" ALL CONTACT LOST WITH TEAM B. ONE TEAM-A SURVIVOR
LOCATED: MAY LIVE. MONASTERY LAUNCH APPARENTLY SUCCESSFUL IN ALL
RESPECTS. LOCAL TRACKING STATIONS PREDICT IMPACT ON HADOR IN 3.5
METACYCLES. LEAGUERS AVOIDING IT. CAN WE BE OF FURTHER HELP? JOEL
SENDS.
In spite of the sacrifice, Brim felt his spirits rise a little. Any chance against the Leaguers was better than none at all.
"Great thundering Universe," Wellington suddenly exclaimed through the muted uproar that had started up on the voice channel again. "Now that the thing really is on its way toward Hador, we've got to do something about contacting the Gradygroat gunners. They'll need to remove the cones in their orbital chapels before the flare begins. Otherwise..."
"I wonder if this Joel person at the Intelligence office might know," Collingswood speculated. "They're supposed to keep track of that sort of minutiae, aren't they?"
"Doesn't cost anything to ask," Wellington answered. "And I seriously doubt if their circuits are overloaded with intelligence-data requests right now."
"Nik, you'll be the one who explains it to the Gradygroats, if we get through," Collingswood asserted.
Ursis took a deep breath. "I think I am ready, Captain," he said stoically, "even for Gradygroat gunners."
"COMM," Collingswood ordered, "send this to the Intelligence people: 'Can you help us contact the Gradgroat-Norchelite orbital forts?'"
Only after considerable delay did an affirmative answer arrive. To Brim's surprise, be discovered that none of the orbital forts was equipped with KA'PPA gear-The Order no longer operated its own deep-space starships, so they communicated by ordinary LightSpeed radio link. Ultimately, the situation resulted in long and very cumbersome, two-legged communications. One leg-via KA'PPA-was between Collingswood and Joel in the Intelligence office. The other, between Joel and the Gradgroat-Norchelites, was via radio-and just setting it up required considerably more than a metacycle of careful haggling among Gradygroat Administrators. Barely two more remained before the monastery's impact when contact was finally made with the Chief Gunner of orbital fort number one.
At this point, a weary Nikolas Ursis took over again-demonstrating beyond a doubt why he had been so singularly successful as a professor at Zhiv'ot's Dityasburg Institute on Sodeskaya. When necessary, he could draw on an infinite supply of patience, and the Chief Friar required nearly a metacycle of delicate persuasion before he reluctantly agreed to
"desecrate" the chapel of his fort. "Knowledge may have its limits," the Bear observed afterward, shaking his great furry head, "but not so with ignorance."
The second fort, however, was far easier to deal with. Fortunately, Ursis had the presence of mind to enlist the first Chief Friar when he began his talks with the next. In turn, these two helped convince the Chief Friar of fort number three. By the time Ursis and his four Chief Friars completed negotiations with fort number five, the Gradygroats decided-in the interests of a highly volatile time frame-to contact the remainder of the forts themselves.
Following that, no more was heard from the Friars for nearly three-quarters of a metacycle-at least according to Brim's timepiece. By his own reckoning, he had personally watched every click and cycle that passed. Slowly....
At last, however, the critical message arrived-scant cycles before the monastery's calculated plunge into Hador: GRADYGROATS F-I-N-A-L-L-Y REPORT All ORBITAL
FORTS READY TO FIRE WHEN POWER AVAILABLE. LITTLE WONDER THE
XAXTDAMNED POOLS FORGOT HOW TO WORK THEIR RIDICULOUS CANNON! JOEL
SENDS.
At approximately Morning:3:50 on Defiant's ninth day oat from Atalanta, the colossal Gradgroat-Norchelite monastery-more than 1700 irals long with an estimated weight of three hundred ninety thousand millstons-impacted the star Hador at a velocity of nearly 0.46
LightSpeed. In the last nanoclicks of its existence, the whole prodigious energy charge of its Kaptnor G-seed was released in a single, monumental explosion. On the instant, a gigantic prominence of pure, glowing energy looped violently upward from the star's surface in a writhing fabric of crimson and yellow brilliance that extended merely half a million c'lenyts out into space-toward Haelic and its waiting orbital forts. The rolling waves of particles it released began to wash over the orbital forts a little more than a metacycle later, and at Brightness:0:26 the Norchelite space cannon spoke for the first time in nearly a millennium....
GREAT GODS OF PELLETIER! Joel reported in a long message from Atalanta, THE
GRADYGROATS ARE FIRING EVEN AS I TRANSMIT. FLASHES BURN THROUGH THE
PALL OF DRIFTING SMOKE LIKE GREAT WHITE FLARES. AMAZING! ONE HOPES
THE CRAZY FRIARS DO SOME GOOD AFTER ALL THIS. BY THE BYE, A RESCUE
PARTY HAS LOCATED TEAM A ABOUT 1.3 C'LENYTS FROM THE RUINED
MONASTERY GROUNDS. ALL DEAD-JOEL SENDS.
Brim shook his head silently. With Defiant running on autohelm, his mind quickly reverted to thoughts of Claudia. Was she still alive? Dead? Worse-was she injured somewhere beyond the reach of rescuers? He shuddered, powerless to satisfy any of his anxieties-or forget them.
Not long afterward, reports began to arrive concerning an abrupt swing in the tide of battle. Even a near miss by one of the Gradygroat cannon was enough to severely cripple a battle ship-and after literal centuries perfecting their tactics, the Gradygroat gunners were superlative. Within a metacycle, the Leaguers found themselves falling back to regroup, and for the first time in two days. Brim began to receive bulletins describing Atalanta's sides as CLEAR OF ENEMY STARSHIPS.
During the next half-day, Kabul Anak sacrificed a major portion of his fleet in a vain attempt to overpower the Gradygroat forts. He ordered ship after ship-then squadron after squadron-against the deadly gunners and their prodigious space cannon. All forms of attack failed-even benders. The network of space forts was virtually impregnable. Attempts to saturate any single node invited instant devastation from at least three others-and the Leaguers had lost far too many of their powerful ships to even hope that they might saturate as many as four.
During the Evening watch-precisely at Evening: 1:21-the van of Prince Onrad's onrushing Task Force 16 encountered the first of Anak's disorganized squadrons, disabling two battleships, Posen and Ikat, while destroying the last of Anak's light cruisers. By Evening:2:0, the two fleets were joined in pitched battle, but this time, Anak fought at considerable disadvantage. His starships had been in ceaseless mayhem for nearly three days while Onrad's were relatively fresh after their headlong-and unopposed-dash across space. Soon, reports began to arrive in Defiant's COMM room regarding destruction of the League battleships Parang, Padom-Ta, and Debusin- all to the powerful disruptors of Erat Plutron's fast battleships. Then Indang fell to the superior firepower of Vice Admiral (the Hon.) Jacob Sturdee's old Conqueror. Kabul Anak found himself temporarily out of the battle when his great Rengas was crippled by three direct torpedo strikes in her steering units. He transferred his flag by destroyer to the smaller battleship Mondor, but his messages of command dwindled sharply after the incident-Collingswood guessed that the Leaguer Admiral was either gravely wounded or perhaps dead. Clearly, he was no longer in effective command, for the overall performance of the League Fleet rapidly deteriorated from that juncture.