Heart in his throat. Brim simultaneously jammed the gravs wide open, hauled the helm hard right, and slammed the steering engine to starboard. R6595 rolled precipitously onto its back in the beginning of a split-S maneuver—but instead of arcing over into a dive, Brim held the inverted starship on course, alternately kicking his helm and swerving violently from side to side.
The enemy pilot also whipped his Gorn-Hoff inverted—but in the excitement of the chase, he actually completed his maneuver and continued through into another power dive.
One long heartbeat later, Brim completed his own split-S— now carefully calculated to bring him out of its diving half loop at a point in space directly behind his opponent's tail, where his disrupters could do the most damage. Within moments, the Starfury was in position, and Goreman fired from no more than 150 irals.
This time, bits and pieces flew from the fleeing Gorn-Hoff. It slowed and a large panel fell into down position. Somehow the Leaguer Helmsman managed to keep his ship in the air....
From years of habit, Brim moved in close to finish the job. The Gorn-Hoff was still weaving desperately, but not so nimbly as before. In the background, he could hear Goreman preparing his disrupters... .
Suddenly, he shook his head angrily. "Enough death," he whispered, grimacing to himself. "Don't shoot!" he ordered. That Gorn-Hoff was going nowhere. It would soon either land, or disintegrate in the air. Either way, it and its crew were out of the war.
Instead, he coasted alongside the stricken starship. It surprised him that he had no feeling at all for the Leaguers— neither hate nor compassion. His emotions were numb. Glancing across into the bridge, he saw one of Triannic's elite Controllers in a black battlesuit at the controls. From a transparent helmet, the Leaguer gazed warily back, waiting. His hair was so blond, it appeared almost white.
Brim raised a fist with his thumb down in the universal sign of "Get out of the sky."
The Gorn-Hoff's Helmsman clearly understood. He hesitated for only a moment, saluted across the few hundred irals that separated the two starships, then gingerly swung off toward the surface.
With a casual glance backward, Brim lifted his Starfury's nose into a gentle climb and took up a heading back to his assigned station. The Leaguers were on their own now.
Only clicks later his proximity alarms went off again, followed almost immediately by the thunder of disruptor fire. As Goreman whirled his turrets sternward, R6595 shuddered convulsively, and Brim was nearly knocked senseless against his seat restraints when a near miss shattered the overhead Hyperscreens in a stunning explosion and filled the bridge with whirling crystal shards. Heart pounding in his throat, he rolled instinctively right and glanced aft, There was the Gorn-Hoff, its control panel still hanging in the slipstream, its disrupters pounding away at him as if their combat had never ended.
Brim saw red. "Get the bastard!" he growled deep in his throat, then horsed the Starfury around in a tight turn that the Gorn-Hoff's riddled spaceframe could never again possibly match. As Goreman fired. Brim closed to within a few hundred irals of the Leaguer's swept-back hull. With icy precision, he skidded slightly to one side while the Starfury's powerful disrupters fired a long, deafening salvo at the bridge area from so close it was impossible to miss. The shattered Gorn-Hoff faltered in midflight as if smashed by some giant hammer, and debris bounced noisily against the Starfury's Hyperscreens.
Suddenly, the Gorn-Hoff nosed over and hurdled down toward the undercast. Brim followed in hot pursuit, wind thundering through the shattered overhead Hyperscreens as R6595 plunged completely through the clouds, matching the Gorn-Hoff's headlong dive as if the two starships were now physically attached.
Perilously low, the enemy Helmsman suddenly pulled up into a turn—but this time, his crippled Gorn-Hoff could no longer gain altitude. Grinding his teeth, Brim closed in with relentless determination.
Goreman launched off salvo after salvo until suddenly brilliant red and yellow flames vomited back over the Gorn-Hoff's "wings," highlighting the red daggers painted at the tips.
Now trailing thick clouds of black oily smoke, the Leaguer faltered once more, stalled vertically, then cartwheeled, spinning lazily to port like a blazing leaf. Incredibly, it leveled off at the last possible moment loosing a small flurry of lifeglobes in its wake before it skimmed shakily along a rocky hillside, then sank to the ground at high speed, blossoming at last into a giant puffball of lurid flame and starship parts.
Brim circled the rising column of smoke while the fire—and his anger—burned themselves out together. As the lifeglobes bounced to the surface, he thought about the other Helmsman: singularly brave and capable, but programmed to a totally different set of moral rules. And he'd known that. He shook his head angrily. What a fool he had been! After years of dealing with Leaguers, he, an Imperial, had allowed himself to deal with those rules on Imperial terms—and he had prevailed. But only just. A scant few clicks more and.... He shivered. Never again would he risk a ship and crew by showing mercy to Leaguers. People like that didn't want mercy because they didn't really understand what it was.
After long moments of contemplation, he called in Search and Rescue crews—the prisoners would have valuable information— climbed back through the overcast into bright morning sunlight, and once more set course for his assigned station. Moulding would be waiting, and he was anxious to claim both Gorn-Hoff prizes for the ship. One glance at his KA'PPA display told him that similar battles were taking place all around the Triad. True to Sodeskayan predictions, the war had abruptly become very serious in the neighborhood of Avalon.
For the next two Standard Weeks, the Imperials guarded their five planets 'round the clock while Nergol Triannic's Generals drilled the huge army of jackbooted Controllers, land crawlers, and siege engines they had assembled on the nearby planets of occupied Effer'wyck. Yet despite all conjecture—Imperial as well as Leaguer—they only drilled. The promised invasion failed to come.
Moreover, intelligence data from Sodeskaya quoted the League Emperor as stating that his decision as to whether the operation should take place during the Standard Month of Nonad or be delayed until next Pentad would be made after his Attack Forces had carried out more powerful forays against the Avalonian Home Planets. If these had caused "significant damage," he would invade.
Ursis's critique from Sodeskaya: Triannic had become a frustrated Emperor—to his own considerable distress. The present inactivity of his huge land forces was a constant drain on his resources that could not continue indefinitely. And for once, he had apparently lost his usual vision about how to bring his actions to a conclusion.
It was also fairly clear he had diminished confidence in Admiral Hoth Orgoth's claims that all-out war from space could provide the answer. Three of his most trusted advisers had recently told him in secret that such an offensive could take as much as two Standard Years. His strategic program for the present, then, was to continue unrestricted space warfare against Avalon in preparation for possible land operations and conceivably begin an actual invasion during the Standard Month of Nonad—if conditions and preparation were all satisfactory. Otherwise, he would probably postpone the invasion until the following year.
It was good news for the hard-pressed Imperials. At least the immediate threat of invasion had become more remote. But they were a long way from declaring their beloved Triad secure, and they knew it.