"Fleet CL.921," the tower commanded, "turn port around City Mount Hill to heading zero five three and reduce speed one nine zero."
"Fleet CL.921 turning City Mount to zero five three at one nine zero," Brim repeated.
Behind him, the four massive battleships followed his gentle turn in perfect formation-completely unperturbed by any crosswinds. Bow on, they presented squared-off silhouettes with pairs of super-firing turrets centered on each of four surfaces and the top deck surmounted by a frowning bridge and KA'PPA tower.
Below on the ground, damage to Atalanta begged description. The great Norchelite crag atop City Mount Hill was now a shallow crater lined with obsidian glass that had dribbled and crystallized along the outside like an overfilled bowl. Brim shook his bead sadly as the Gradgroat-Norchelite words echoed in his mind: "In destruction is resurrection..."
Resurrection from this kind of destruction was going to take a long, long time.
Downhill from this area of total destruction, the once-beautiful city was now a patchwork of burned-out, cratered deserts amid portions that appeared to be relatively untouched-although Brim was hard-pressed to locate any section of town that had been spared at least some devastation. Great fires still burned in many places, sending towering columns of sooty smoke into the sky. He shuddered. The landscape was literally strewn with wrecks. One monstrous hulk-probably a battleship from the size of its burned-out skeleton-had crashed into a neighborhood of large estates taking at least a thousand dwellings in its final detonation. Another starship-this one clearly a Gorn-Hoff cruiser-perched almost vertically in the center of the city's huge J.C. West Memorial Coliseum. Still another had attempted a crash landing along a wide avenue, replacing the pavement by a deep trench that continued nearly a c'lenyt to a huge depression ringed by an area in which no one stone appeared to remain upon another. He took a deep breath and tried to purge Claudia's lovely face from his mind's eye. How anyone could have survived such a searing, radiating holocaust...
At last on her assigned heading of one two five, Defiant started out over the austral end of the base toward the bay. Destruction appeared to be even worse here-if that was possible. The great seawall had been breached in a dozen places, and much of the gravity-pool area lay beneath the waters of the bay. Masts and half-submerged hulls rose from the shallows like beached sea monsters from some child's story, although the flooding had at least extinguished the tremendous fires that must have started from the wrecked ships.
"Fleet CL.921 is five c'lenyts from the outer marker," the tower reported. "Turn port heading zero zero five-localizer is at or above one thousand five hundred; you are cleared for landing vector three seven one."
"CL.921 turning zero zero five to localizer at fifteen hundred, cleared for vector three seven one-thank you, ma'am," Brim answered. The battleships were keeping formation behind him as if they were attached to Defiant's stern by cables.
Little more man a cycle later, Waldo reported capture of the localizer and glideslope beams. Then Brim began his final letdown. Far ahead and to port, two long piers jutted out into the bay from the mouth of the Grand Canal. He frowned. He didn't remember anything like those when he'd taken off-and they certainly hadn't been constructed during the battle!
He squinted as he peered into the distance-they were two lines of starships! Then, he was at the outer marker beacon, and there was little time to consider anything but the helm until Defiant was down and taxiing on her gravity gradient.
"CL.921: use port taxiway channel three one and proceed directly to escort at Grand Canal entrance," the tower instructed.
Another escort? Clearly, Brim considered, this was serious business! "CL.921 to port three one and Grand canal escort," he repeated, swiveling in his recliner to check the battleships-they had stopped.
Behind him, Collingswood ordered Wellington and Ursis to the main hatch. "You may want to freshen up a bit on the way," she cautioned. "I think you are both in for a hero's welcome you won't soon forget."
"Go to it, Dora," Brim whispered as Wellington slipped out of her recliner.
"I think I'd rather face Triannic's whole fleet," the weapons expert replied with a grimace,
"except I guess there's not much of it left, now, is there?"
Brim kissed his clustered fingertips when Ursis glanced his way.
The Bear raised his eyes to the heavens. As a rule, he avoided large gatherings-and from the descriptions of the one waiting to start in Atalanta, "large" was not an adequate term.
Brim turned off the landing vector between two orange buoys painted with the numerals
"31," then lined up on a progression of similar markers that extended... He could scarcely believe his eyes. Channel 31 led directly into the mouth of the base's main canal, between the two long lines of starships he had seen from the air-all visibly survivors of the battle for Hador-Haelic.
As Defiant passed with her great banner snapping in the wind, the decks of each warship were packed with wildly cheering Blue Capes-many of whom were clearly wounded.
Brim had never seen such a collection in his life. Destroyers, cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships-every fighting vessel that had managed to return from the conflict. Many were grievously damaged-missing whole turrets and sections of their superstructures. Others seemed hardly touched by the battle except for their mottled disruptors. But no matter now grim the damage, their crews were on deck to cheer for Wellington and Ursis-and some to weep.
When they came to the mourn of the canal, the ancient stone seawalls on both sides were similarly crowded by literally thousands of civilians who cheered and waved wildly when the cruiser passed. Many ended up falling into the water. Brim found himself wondering about Claudia for the millionth time that morning while docking parties wearing huge protective mittens spread out over Defiant's decks uncovering optical cleats and opening hatches where additional mooring gear was stowed. He'd soon know if his beautiful Atalantian friend had survived the battle for her beloved city-or if she had not....
Defiant's assigned gravity pool was in a special compound adjacent to the headquarters complex. He'd suspected they'd use it when he first saw the waiting throngs. Otherwise, Wellington and Ursis faced the eminently real peril of being trampled by the very people who had come to cheer them. While he eased the cruiser through a set of canal gates and onto the pool, he could see a great expanse of faces and waving arms outside the compound's stout fence. He scanned the nearer crowd of dignitaries-all holding their ears against the noise-as he braked the starship to a final halt in a cloud of dust and blowing soot. No sign of Claudia. But then, she wasn't all that tall, he remembered-she'd easily been swallowed by the crowd when he'd met her train. "Finished with generators." He called to Gamble at the systems console.
"Aye, Lieutenant Brim," Gamble answered, "finished with generators." He passed his hands over a sequence of tiny colored lights on his overhead panel and the rumble of the generators immediately abated-to the clear relief of the welcoming committee. As a brow extended from the lip of the pool to connect with Defiant's main hatch, the throng pushed immediately to the entrance-except for the diminutive figure of a woman with long, brown hair who remained in place and continued to wave toward the bridge.