The Gorn-Hoff came out of its spin almost immediately, but Brim was already in position—and the Leaguer knew it, for he began hurling the big ship around in an effort to throw off Brim's gun layers.
However, his stunting availed him nothing. Alford, at the fire-control console, opened fire at about fifteen hundred irals, filling space with a blinding welter of tremendous explosions.
Even at a disadvantage, however, the enemy Helmsman flew his 262 with a certain familiar style—Brim wondered for a moment if they had tangled previously, perhaps in Fluvanna. Shifting his ship about and constantly varying the line of sight, the Leaguer obviously knew that the Starfury turned and accelerated better, so Brim guessed his only hope would be to dive. He was right!
Brim rolled the Starfury onto its back and followed, taking advantage of his quarry's regular trajectory while Alford opened fire again. They went down toward Ellivuaeb at blinding speed. As soon as Brim was just off the Leaguer's tail, Alford's firing correction became relatively simple, but the Imperials had to hurry. The Leaguer was slowly pulling away, luring them down toward the surface where other powerful weapons systems waited.
At Alford's next salvo, three flashes appeared along the Leaguer's starboard side near the edge of the rear chevron. The Imperial gunner fired again, this time hitting first on a level with the gravity generators and then working his way toward the bridge. For a fraction of a click, the ship seemed to hesitate in the middle of its dive.
The Drive doors suddenly popped open, only to disappear in a cloud of raw energy guttering out of the exhaust tubes. Then a more violent explosion at the base of the chevron and a thin black trail mingled with the energy gushing from his perforated energy chambers.
It was the end. A tongue of radiation fire appeared from the Gorn-Hoff's belly as the hullmetal began to uncollapse. It lengthened, licked at the trailing edge, and dispersed in incandescent shreds.
By this time, the two ships had plunged into the dark side of the planet. The Gorn-Hoff, however, was finished. Brim climbed up again in spirals, watching him. The enemy ship was nothing but a vague outline now, fluttering helplessly downward, shaken at regular intervals. An explosion. A black trail. A white trail. An explosion. A black trail. A white trail. Soon, it was no more than a ball of flames streaking toward the surface like a meteor that ultimately scattered into a shower of flaming debris and extinguished harmlessly before it hit the surface.
No lifeglobes had ejected; some sixty-odd Leaguers had smoked their last TimeWeed.
The KA'PPA chimed. "R6595 FROM KGL-32, LONG TRANSMISSION, PLEASE. DID YOU GET THAT LEAGUER?"
Brim answered immediately. "KGL-32 FROM R6595 ANSWERING AND TRANSMITTING FOR FIX. GOT HIM ALL RIGHT. ONE... TWO... THREE... FOUR. "
Afterward, the BKAEW Controller ordered them back to port. The spot was going to get unhealthy in a very short time.
Brim agreed wholeheartedly; it was time to head for home. Immediately, he set course for Avalon.
The next few days were momentous ones both for Brim and the Empire itself. Nergol Triannic, the League Emperor, moved headquarters all the way from his capital on Tarrott to the little town of Pechte on the Effer'wyckean agri-planet of Nemel. The move had a chilling effect in the Imperial Admiralty, for it revealed—as no other action could—the Leaguer's confidence that Effer'wyck was all but subdued.
Had he planned for effect—and there were many who suspected the Tyrant actually did make his move for that reason—Triannic's action could not have come at a worse time for the Effer'wyckean government. From the very beginning, Effer'wyckeans had mounted a great hue and cry for aid for the Empire—and to a large extent, that aid had been forthcoming, even after the miracle-debacle of Aunkayr. Their pleas had a special effect upon Emperor Onrad, whose ties with the beleaguered province were both political and personal. Grand Baron Reynard, the dominion's titular leader, was Onrad's second cousin, twice removed, and the two had been close friends since early childhood.
Now, however, Baxter Calhoun was developing second thoughts about aid for Effer'wyck—serious ones. It was one thing to help a friendly neighbor defend against his enemies, but quite another when that neighbor appeared as if he would shortly lose everything he had been given.
Especially now that "everything" would come in very handy when the same enemy attacked Avalon! Brim was present at the conference when Calhoun rose and shocked a small confab of wing leaders by saying, "If the enemy developed a heavy space attack on us this very afternoon, I could na' guarantee superiority around the Triad for more than two Standard Days. An' tha's the truth."
In the end, Onrad demanded that Calhoun allocate four more squadrons of Defiants to the flagging Effer'wyckean campaign, and the Carescrian Admiral at last had to give in. Afterward, however, Calhoun prudently allotted the ships and crews with the proviso that they must operate from bases on one of the Triad's five planets.
Still the Empire waited. Intelligence from Sodeskayan spy masters indicated that the League High Command had been seriously considering an invasion of Avalon since before the turn of the Standard Year. After their recent victories, only the disastrous whipping they received at Zonga'ar had made the opportunistic Triannic hesitant. That and the fact he'd won so quickly that his Generals found themselves well ahead of their ability to plan. Too, he retained hopes that the CIGA movement he surreptitiously funded over the years would effect Imperial capitulation before he had to fire a disrupter. So the war continued, but only in and around the cringing dominion of Effer'wyck. The rest of civilization watched—waiting for what would happen next.
Two days following Brim's arrival at FleetPort 30, the watchers were rewarded—this time with an act of cowardice and treachery that shocked even the most cynical among them. At approximately Night:4:76, Standard Imperial Time, Grand Baron Rogan LaKarn of The Torond declared war on Effer'wyck, stealing advantage from the apparently inevitable victory his League allies would soon obtain in that dominion. To Brim, perhaps the most offensive part of LaKarn's act was not its rank cowardice so much as its intrinsic cynicism in regard to The Torond's Grand Baroness Margot, who was also "Princess of the Effer'wyck Dominions." And although the mysterious noblewoman had been missing from public view since Brim's destruction of the Leaguer space fort at Zonga'ar, she was, after all, LaKarn's wife—if indeed she was still alive....
With this move, the Effer'wyckean situation became extremely confused. Soon afterward.
General Hagbut gave way to Onrad's prodding and landed Imperial troops of the First Protean Division on the Effer'wyckean planet of Breyst at the same time that elements of Imperial Fifty-first were being evacuated from planets circling the huge binary star at Havre. A day earlier, other units of the same Fifty-first retreated onto the barren planet of Va'lery when they found themselves cut off from a main Effer'wyckean division by advancing Leaguers. Now they were calling for evacuation, too. Early the next evening, Brim received a top-secret message from the Admiralty: TNY 3346-1-A16E GROUP 445Y 216/52012
[TOP SECRET-IMPERIAL PALACE]
SORTIE ORDER
FROM:
BU FLEET OPERATIONS;
ADMIRALTY, AVALON
TO:
W. A. BRIM, CAPTAIN, I.F., FLEETPORT 30
<QWE7EF475512-FQ90-CJ13245JGQA-LJG> SUBJECT: TRANSPORTATION
ARRANGEMENTS
TOMORROW AT DAWN:2:3I YOU WILL TRANSPORT EMPEROR ONRAD V,
TWO OTHERS, CLASSIFIED DESTINATION. H. MAJESTY PERSONALLY