Next morning, at the weekly Squadron Leaders' briefing, a badly hung-over Wilf Brim learned from Imperial staff planners that Triannic's promised invasion—which his jackbooted Controllers had code-named Operation Death's Head—might be only a matter of weeks, perhaps days, away. Hundreds of thousands of Avalonian civilians on all five planets had already been put to work under General Hagbut in what was euphemistically called the "Home Guard," making defensive preparations—while CIGAs demonstrated stridently against them. A number of fights had broken out between the workers and their noisy opposition, slowing the defensive preparations and causing general upheaval. But as General Drummond, Commander of the Home Fleet, noted in his midmorning address, CIGA membership did appear to be evaporating by the day.
His observation was the only completely positive note in a generally troubled gathering, for within Imperial military circles, it was recognized that the Emperor's ability to resist invasion was riding at absolute nadir. Even the irrepressible Hagbut admitted in secret session during the afternoon that his ill-trained and ill-armed Home Guard could do no more than delay Triannic's victory march in Avalon by perhaps three Standard Weeks—if that.
Within a week, the Triad began to feel the full might of Admiral Hoth Orgoth's Military Space Arm. It was almost a relief to Brim when the first actual blows fell, and for the remainder of the forty-day Standard Month—while Triannic gloated during visits to the sites of his conquests—Brim flew constant patrols with each of his two squadrons in the vicinity of Avalon.
As the month of Heptad began, the Imperial situation was only slightly improved from the beginning of the previous month. However, definite progress was being made, and each passing day made it a little more difficult for the Leaguers to launch a successful invasion. On the First, the number of Imperial killer ships totaled 607, an increase of 189.
Unfortunately, they were nearly alone in their defense of Avalon against what many Sodeskayans estimated to be in the neighborhood of thirty-five hundred League warships. Almost half of these consisted of GH 262s and 270s, the latter a larger and somewhat clumsier version of the 262. These killer ships were to protect little more than a thousand long-range attack ships, and approximately three hundred Zachtwager precision attack craft. ("Zachtwager" was short for the Vertrucht word Zachtwagerheizenforst, or simply "precision shooter.") According to Ursis, many important Leaguers felt that the ratio of attack craft to killer ships was much too high (approximately one to one), but Triannic continued to concentrate on building attack ships.
During the following week, invasion evidence continued to accumulate as Leaguer forces practiced landing operations on Memel, another Effer'wyckean planet. At the same time, fat Admiral Hoth Orgoth's star fleets pressed their attacks on intra-Triad shipping to the utmost—causing a noticeable strain on the Imperial Defense Fleet that now found itself flying more than three hundred sorties a day....
Leaguers everywhere! Yellow bellies, crimson dagger insignias, and chevron-profiled starships swarming like great insects around a convoy of light-limited space barges and interplanetary packets.
Great eruptions of energy flashed in the darkness like new stars. Space was crisscrossed with a veritable rainbow of disrupter beams. On patrol today in newly acquired Starfury D7436, Brim instinctively blinked as he dived close by a disabled Gorn-Hoff trailing black ribbons of smoke on its way toward destruction below—no point in wasting energy, the zukeed was already finished. Swallowing hard to clear a bitter taste from his mouth, he pulled out violently and took off after another Leaguer. Moments later, Gordon, the Gunnery Officer, pressed his triggers and the whole Universe seemed to explode as fourteen big disrupters salvoed with a preposterous roar, shaking the spaceframe and dimming the Hyperscreens.
Missed!
Clearly surprised, the Leaguer fell away. Off to starboard, Moulding fired on him and missed too—but now a gray Gorn-Hoff, its turrets ablaze with disruptor fire, was after him.
"Look out, Toby!" Brim broadcast on the short-range Helmsman network. "Break starboard!"
Quickly he skidded the Starfury around, but too late. The Gorn-Hoff was already out of range. Inside his battlesuit, Brim was drenched in sweat.
In front of him, two Gorn-Hoffs were converging to attack an ancient interplanetary packet—so old that its bridge was still decorated in the burnished gold of the Guild. Brim glanced in the rearview screen. Moulding was still there, flying as if the two ships were attached by cables.
From the rear of the bridge, Brim could hear Gordon calling off firing parameters. Outside on the decks, the turrets were swinging just left of center. Once again, R6595 shuddered from the hammerblows of its own disrupters. Three flashes, a belch of radiation fire, and an angry trail unfurled in the Leaguer's wake.
Just then, Brim spied a roiling sheet of radiation fire just where Moulding's Starfury ought to have been at that moment. His heart skipped a beat—but in that same moment it was Moulding's triumphant voice that shouted in the Helmsman's network.
"Did you see that, Wilf? I got the bloody zukeed!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Brim could see Moulding's Starfury keeping station two hundred irals off his starboard pontoon. What a relief! He opened his mouth to congratulate his friend when...
suddenly a thunderclap. A burning slap through the faceplate of his helmet. His eardrums felt as if they had just been pierced by a shriek of air exiting through a hole just melted through his forward Hyperscreen.
Another!
This blast carried away his whole forward Hyperscreen assembly in a rush of painful brilliance and concussion. He broke frantically; the Leaguer was so close that the flash of his big disrupters was blinding without the Hyperscreens for protection. But half his own turrets whirled as they opened return fire, and the Gorn-Hoff was forced to break away.
In the first moments after the explosion, Brim lost all notion of what was going on. For ten cycles at least, he blindly followed Moulding's instructions over the Helmsman's network. When he finally picked up a thread of sensibility again, R6595 was halfway back to Avalon. His head was swimming and there was a warm trickle from his nostrils. Blood? He could vaguely hear someone—the BKAEW director or Moulding?—in his helmet phones, but the COMM system was obviously damaged, and he couldn't make out what was being said. Miraculously, a check throughout the ship revealed only superficial casualties and major damage apparently limited to the bridge area. Nevertheless, Brim decided to put down at the nearest FleetPort rather than chance a really serious mishap due to battle damage that might have gone undetected. "Nesbitt, you still alive after all that?" he asked.
"More or less, Captain," the Navigator reported in a shaken voice. "What's on your mind?"
"Getting this bus into some solid, friendly berth," Brim replied. "Soon as possible and with minimum maneuvering."
"Aye, sir," Nesbitt responded. "Sounds like a great idea to me."
Moments later Brim's nav panel reconfigured with a new course. "Ariel, eh?" he muttered.
"At our present sidereal, Captain," Nesbitt replied, "FleetPort 19 seems to be the most direct route to a friendly base."
"We'll take it," Brim said, then switched a global display to the systems officer. "Thompson," he ordered, "keep an extra close watch on the steering-engine controls. I'll want to know immediately when anything shows out of tolerance. Understand?"
"Uh... understand, Captain," Thompson replied in a nervous voice.
Brim nodded and returned to his controls with a grimace. So much for green crews. He hated to think what would happen when they took some real damage. Then he shrugged. This was an easy initiation. They were bloodied now, so to speak, and wouldn't have to face their "first time" again. Maybe it was all for the best.