Maybe....
"All hands secure from deep-space quarters," squawked the blower, "man your berthing stations, special mooring details. All hands secure from deep-space quarters; man your berthing stations, special mooring details...."
FleetPort 19 appeared identical to FleetPort 30, except for the name emblazoned in old-fashioned characters below its upper antenna field. And of course its planet Ariel orbited farther out from the Triad than did Avalon. At present, only a few ships were moored about the periphery, indicating that some of its squadrons had yet to return from their sorties. Brim began his approach as soon as the controller assigned him a berth. He shook his head; if it wasn't the smallest berth on the periphery, it was certainly in the running for such a distinction—between two heavy cruisers nearly a third again as large as his Starfury.
For a moment his mind's eye remembered his days in the Carescrian ore barges when all that mattered was unloading quickly, and if you banged into a neighbor in your haste (or perhaps "accidentally" disabled a competitor that way), so be it. He chuckled grimly, What an introduction to the Fleet! At the Academy, he quickly learned that so much as a single collision—anywhere—could ruin a Helmsman's entire career. And the rule was still in effect. Imperial Helmsmanship standards tolerated only perfection. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would substitute.
With the generators at dead slow he came abreast of the berth. The two heavy cruisers and their great, frowning bridges on either side made it look half as large as he knew it was. And framed by jagged shards of the blasted Hyperscreens, the scene to port would have assumed on a character of impending danger had it not been for the superb docking systems winking at him for his shadows.
Reversing the starboard gravity generators, he applied gentle power to those in the port pontoon and...
Wait!
Instead of coming to a halt and twisting her stern to port, the ship was swinging her head to port and picking up speed—in a tight curve away from the berth! Instantly, he fed more reverse to the starboard generators, but nothing happened. Meanwhile, the damaged Starfury had continued all the way around her curve and was now heading toward the center of the station—picking up speed every moment.
Instinctively, Brim put all four generators into reverse and poured on the power while alarms beamed from the satellite jangled in his helmet.
Still nothing! Except that the ship was no longer curving, Instead, it now seemed intent on pinioning the nearest of the two cruisers beside his intended berth—dead center. The reverse actuators had failed!
"Stand by for collision bow on," the blower howled. "Stand by for collision bow on. All hands close airtight doors forward of frame thirty-four. All hands close airtight doors forward of frame thirty-four."
Grinding his teeth, Brim put the helm over hard to starboard and threw half power to both port generators while someone behind him in the bridge crew began mumbling Gradygroat litanies.
Litanies or no litanies, prayer wasn't going to be enough!
"Collision alarm, bow on! Collision alarm, bow on!"
In desperation, Brim literally stood on the right gravity brake actuator. That did it! With a grinding roar that could be heard as if it were in the next compartment, both starboard gravity generators jammed themselves into full power reverse, sending the ship into a violent cartwheel that nearly ripped the right pontoon and trouser from the main hull. Every weld in the spaceframe groaned and creaked while hullmetal on the main deck actually wrinkled before his very eyes. A cataract of stars flashed diagonally across the broken Hyperscreens and the voice circuits filled with startled shouts and screams of panic as they again headed precipitously on a collision course for the main station.
"Belay the noise, you xaxtdamned jellyfish!" Brim shouted angrily above the raucous clamor.
Coming off the brake and the power at the same time, he leaned into the helm, skidded the ship slightly to port, and passed over the boreal antenna field with nearly ten irals to spare. Then, with a little maneuvering room, he banked carefully into a vector to both cancel his orbital speed and permit gravity to bring him to a halt. Finally, rolling the ship onto its back, he headed up and over, again matching the satellite's orbital speed and using his gravity-brake circuits to activate the reverse. Only when he had regained stable control of the ship did he notice that the bridge—indeed the whole voice circuit network—had gone completely silent.
"N-nice m-m-maneuvering, Captain," the FleetPort 19 Controller stammered as Brim approached at no more than a crawl.
"Thanks," Brim said through his teeth. Inside his battlesuit, he was drenched in sweat and vexed as a wet crascon—both with himself for letting the ship get away from him and with the unseasoned crew for openly displaying their fear. Grinding his teeth until he got control of his temper, he called Barbousse at a gunnery console aft, "Chief, I'll need both GravAnchors immediately. You handle 'em, and put a good man at the aft docking cupola."
"Aye, Cap'm," Barbousse answered as if this were the normal manner of mooring. "We'll be makin' the Atalantan mooring?"
"That's it, Chief," Brim affirmed. "Drop 'em at my command." The "Atalantan" maneuver was old-fashioned ship handling—and difficult—but absolutely essential in space when working room was scarce and automatic facilities were missing. This time, the missing facility was the very ability to maneuver!
He concentrated. GravAnchors were little more than small, powerful tractor units with optical cleats for mooring beams. Once activated, their only purpose was to automatically maintain a point in space by exerting thrust in the opposite direction from any force applied to them. He'd situate both out from the satellite to secure the starship's bow while he used the stern mooring beams to draw the ship backward into her berth. Easier said than done—but achievable nonetheless.
Rapidly calculating, he worked the parameters in his head. The forward mooring projectors had a maximum range of little more than four hundred irals, so he picked three hundred as a workable scope and allowed for a good thirty-three percent margin of error.
Now, with 300 irals maximum between the anchor, and the bow, a 664-iral ship, and her stem close in to the satellite when he was finished, he ought to drop the anchors about 1400 irals out.
Narrowing his eyes, he made a small correction to starboard, but since he was eye-balling everything anyhow, "close" was as good as he was going to get.
Approaching with the satellite off to port, he waited until the ship had coasted to about 150 irals short of a position abreast the berth. "Drop starboard, Chief," he ordered tensely. "And let the beam surge as we move away." That would hold moderate tension on the beam but let it slip enough to permit the ship to move.
"Starboard GravAnchor out with surge, Cap'm," Barbousse replied.
Immediately Brim put the helm over full while twisting the nose of the ship away from the satellite with generators and gravity brakes. In the corner of his eye, he could see a torrent of gravitons streaming from the GravAnchor as the mooring beam tried to drag it along. Things were a lot easier when you could predict what was going to happen!
While Barbousse eased out distance from the first GravAnchor, inertia continued to move the slowly twisting ship along its original path until about 150 irals past their berth, he ordered Barbousse to drop the second GravAnchor.