"And," Onrad continued, "when I saw you in the lobby just now, I thought, what the xaxt, without a Starfury to fly, he doesn't have much else to do—especially since Chief Barbousse handles all the admin garbage." He laughed at his own joke. "Besides that, you and the Ambassador seem to have become fast friends, so we'll both cheer him up. What do you say, Brim?"
Chuckling silently to himself—who turns down his Emperor just because he's tired?—Brim smiled gamely. "I'd love to, Your Majesty," he said. "I'll have Aram go back without...."
"Aram?" Onrad asked. "You mean that young A'zurnian you put in charge of your Defiants?"
"Aye, Your Majesty," Brim answered. "Aram of Nahshon. His ship was shot up yesterday, too."
"Well, Bully!" Onrad exclaimed. "Unfortunate that he got shot up, and all that, but a fine opportunity to cement relations between the two dominions. Bring him along, too. Nime," he said to a shapely aide, "have a staff skimmer take Captain Brim and his A'zurnian friend out to my shuttle. Brim, we'll meet you in about two metacycles." With that, he started off across the lobby.
"Aye, Your Majesty," Brim chuckled to the receding Imperial party.
"Where would you like to meet that skimmer, Captain Brim?" Mime asked, a small note recorder in her hand. She now had a smile on her face that let Brim know she understood how he felt—and a whole lot more.
"How about the front steps?"
"You'll have it," she said. "Front steps, at"—she checked her timepiece—"Brightness, two, and fifteen. All right? I'll have battlesuits for both of you waiting at the shuttle."
"Thanks, Mime," Brim said ruefully, checking his new Effer'wyckean timepiece against hers. "I can hardly wait."
Mime laughed. "I can tell you're simply dying to climb into a battlesuit, Captain. I'm sure you have very little chance to wear one otherwise."
"Yeah," Brim replied, shrugging gamely. "Just one of life's little pleasures, as they say." He winked. "Brightness, two, and fifteen," he said and started off across the lobby to find Aram. By the time he messaged Barbousse and took care of a thousand details he had planned to handle in person, it was going to be a long day indeed.
Dressed in borrowed—if elegant—Imperial battlesuits, the two Helmsmen boarded the shuttle just moments before Onrad and his party arrived. From his window in the passenger compartment, he watched five huge limousine skimmers pull past with small, self-important flags fluttering from either side of their burnished prows. Only cycles later, Ambassador Beyazh dodged his head under the low hatchway and burst into the cabin. Erect, fierce, and patriarchal in every feature, he could well be mistaken for some heroic statue come to life. He wore a white shirt with lace ruffles at the neck and cuffs, an expensive-looking gray business suit, and a crimson fez around which was tied a white turban. Great, dense eyebrows, glowering, deep-set eyes, and an ebony mustache with stilettolike ends twisted nearly vertical provided a unique visage for this entirely unique individual. Nodding to Aram, he seized Brim's hand and grinned. "How excellent to see you again, Captain," he exclaimed. "So few months have passed since I saw you off to Gimmas Haefdon, yet how terribly much has come to pass." Turning to the A'zurnian, he nodded. "You must be Aram of Nahshon, The Emperor has told me of your bravery."
"The Emperor exaggerates," Aram replied, coloring to an even deeper shade of red than he was accustomed.
"So does Aram," Brim added, "the opposite way."
Beyazh winked at Aram. "Keep up the good work, young man," he said. "And know that you are appreciated in every corner of the Empire." As Onrad entered the cabin and took a seat behind the Helmsmen, the ambassador turned to Brim. "As usual, Onrad speaks highly of your exploits, also," he said.
Brim chuckled grimly. "We're all in this thing up to the neck," he said, "mostly trying to stay alive."
"Sounds all too familiar," Beyazh said, settling into a seat across the aisle.
"How are things at home, Mr. Ambassador?" Brim asked, not daring to ask about Raddisma or her pregnancy—which by now must have become quite visible.
"Not good," Beyazh answered. "I wish I could say otherwise, but I cannot. The thrice-damned Leaguers appear over Magor five or six times a day, blasting and burning at will. Our shelters are filled with people who have lost their homes. And for some reason, their accuracy has improved at least tenfold, even when they fire at nearly LightSpeed. Sometimes I think that they have some new kind of aiming system."
Brim bit his lip. Poor Raddisma...."Ah, how is Nabob Mustafa holding up?" he asked.
"Good of you to ask, Captain," Beyazh said. "So far, His Majesty seems to be weathering the storm well enough." He chuckled. "Why, the old rake has even fathered a child on Raddisma, his Chief Consort. You remember her, don't you?"
"Er, yes," Brim said, feeling his cheeks burn in spite of all his efforts to remain calm. "She's doing, ah, well also, one h-hopes."
"So far as I can see," Beyazh replied with a gruff chuckle. "She's the size of a house, yet she is still one of the most beautiful women I have seen anywhere in the galaxy. Mustafa keeps her hidden in the deepest shelters during the raids. The old boy seems quite proud of his accomplishment." He laughed.
"You'd think he'd done the whole thing by himself,"
Brim swallowed hard. "Y-yes," he agreed, feeling his face flush even more, "he's c-certainly had some help in that department."
Even as he spoke, the Helmsmen sounded an alert and the Imperial launch was quickly on its way to Early Warning Station 19, orbiting nearly a thousand c'lenyts above the planet Avalon.
Compared to the huge FleetPort satellites that based whole squadrons of starships and their crews, the BKAEW station was not much more than a dust mote in space. Consisting of four small globes joined into a four-sided structure by connecting tubes, the little satellite was dwarfed by a huge parabolic antenna formed of Queldon mesh and pierced by a complex array of directional KA'PPA emitters, the latter developed in secret during a crash project at the distinguished Allied Radiation Center research laboratories on Proteus, the science planet. Brim had noticed the little orbiter a number of times on his way to and from patrol, but had never had occasion to pass closely enough to observe details.
After a silky-smooth docking at the globe directly behind the large parabolic antenna—Onrad's Helmsmen had to be good, Brim considered—they entered the structure through a long, transparent tube that served as both vestibule and brow. In the background, Proteus's disk was divided nearly in half by light and darkness, and to port the Triad blazed forth at full radiance. In the golden brilliance, Brim could see that each of the station's four globes was equipped with a single boarding tube that could accommodate two small space vehicles. Three other moored shuttles were visible, while a tiny HSTS (Hyperspeed Torpedo Scout) occupied the second set of mooring optics on their own tube. Four figures in battlesuits stood at rigid attention on the deck of the deadly scout ship, which consisted of little more than a Drive crystal surrounded by five 533-mmi torpedo tubes, all contained within a stiletto-shaped hull whose mostly transparent nose of Hyperscreen crystal housed its crew of four. A brace of forward-firing, superfocused 225-mmi disruptors protruded from winglets on either side of the bow, completing an armament package all out of proportion to the ship's actual size. Onrad and Beyazh stopped for a moment to return the salute through the transparent walls, then Onrad himself led the way inside, with the station master—a nearsighted wisp of a Commander named Ismay who was clearly more comfortable in the sheltered confines of a lab—following as if he were the one who had arrived for a tour.