Outside, the little station was a shambles. One of the globes was utterly gone; the only clues to its previous existence were the jagged ends of three connecting tubes. Another globe blazed with the hellish, coruscating light of a radiation fire. The monster antenna system was crooked off at a hopeless angle, and it was only too obvious that no warnings would come from Station Ventnor for a long time to come.
Pulling their way along handholds set into the walls of the brow, the four could see their Imperial shuttle had also been wrecked as well. The HSTS had survived by good fortune alone, miraculously sheltered by the brow itself from the blast that had shattered the scanning chamber wall. In relation to Brim, it was floating stern outward and upside down, anchored by a single emergency mooring beam that must have activated when the station's power failed. And although there was considerable flash melting over its port bow area from the blast, the little ship appeared to be in a relatively good condition. Her unfortunate crew, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Brim turned to Aram as they reached the end of the brow. "How does it look to you?" he asked, taking his emergency lifeline from its packet on his battlesuit. He activated its anchor end, watched it self-test successfully, and slammed it smartly against the side of the tube.
After a long pause, the A'zurnian laughed grimly and attached his own emergency lifeline. "Well, right now, anything looks better than playing target for a bunch of thraggling Leaguers."
Brim nodded, wondering how long they had before the Leaguers returned to finish their job. "I'll check it out, then," he said. "Your Maj...er, Onrad. Oodam, wait here with Aram while I go have a look. No sense trapping us all out there if it's got damage we can't see from here."
"Right," Onrad agreed.
With that, Brim pushed off across nothingness toward the HSTS, landing feetfirst between the dorsal torpedo tubes beside the open bridge hatch. From his new vantage point, the space station was now directly overhead with his three companions appearing to protrude horizontally from the curved wall.
It was precisely the reason why a local "up" was always established in relation to any large space object.
People simply worked better that way. Ignoring a momentary feeling of vertigo, he forced his orientation to the ship itself and started down the ladder, feeling local gravity take hold as his boots reached the third rung. After that, things became a lot easier. He motioned to Aram to follow and continued into the little starship as its automatic proximity alert sent alarms to his helmet.
"Unidentified targets approaching at high speed; ETA in four point five one cycles," the voice warned. "Unidentified targets approaching at high speed; ETA in four point five one cycles."
They needed to be on their way quickly!
On the cramped little control bridge, Brim immediately ran a systems verification: everything shipshape except for some mooring elements damaged by the Leaguer blasts. Then, popping his torso out of the hatch, he motioned the other three to board. "On the double!" he shouted into the voice circuit. "We've got more visitors."
By the time they scrambled aboard, he had connected power to the main bus and was watching the remainder of the readout panel come alive with flowing patterns of color. "Looks like she'll fly," he said as Aram thumped breathlessly into the systems seat beside him.
The A'zurnian ran his own sequence from the systems console. "She'll fly," he acknowledged tensely, "but the gravs took some damage. They're down to the last redundant control elements."
Onrad chuckled over the voice circuits. "Not to worry," he said. "You're safe as long as you stick with me. Emperors never get killed in combat. Besides," he added, winking from his faceplate, "I'm a crack shot with these disruptors which"—he paused momentarily—"have just completed all their diagnostics."
"Target ETA in one point five one cycles."
The deck trembled under their feet as Brim spun up both gravs at the same time—ignoring vociferous complaints from the power system. "Sounds good to me," he said presently. "Oodam, how about the torpedoes?"
"All five check out with no problems, Wilf."
"Target ETA in point five cycles."
"Everyone set?" Brim queried. He called up energize on the control panel and directed it to propulsion just as the proximity alarm sent a shrill screech into each of their helmets.
"Go!" replied three voices in unison.
The gravs caught immediately; Brim swiped the lone mooring beam into oblivion and eased the little starship away from the ruined brow. As the distance increased, a number of figures in battlesuits appeared at the crack in the side of the globe waving their arms in the universal sign of "Good Hunting!" then dodged back behind the shelter of the wrecked sphere's wall.
With proximity alarms shrill in his ears, Brim simply mashed the thrust damper to maximum output and pivoted the nose up and around its pitch axis, skidding to within a few irals of the wrecked station before the little starship reversed course and shot off directly into the face of the Leaguers. Not a moment later, the station disappeared behind them in three brilliant discharges of energy followed by the blurred images of three Zachtwager attack ships. Three more direct hits in no more than a dozen shots, yet the Leaguers passed with such speed they couldn't possibly have taken time to fire after slowing from LightSpeed. How the xaxt had they done that!
Cranking the HSTS around a second time, he took off in pursuit, heedless of the enemy's sudden—devastating—prowess with their disrupters. "Let's get the bastards!" he yelled with blood lust coursing into his veins. "Oodam, I'll need torpedo tubes one and two."
Two small icons as an overhead panel turned from red to green. "Done," Beyazh declared.
Pushing the HSTS to maximum acceleration, Brim planned to overhaul the Leaguers as they circled in for a second attack, firing across the tangent of their curve, but instead the two Zachtwagers continued to accelerate in a straight line toward the 'Wyckean Void, and opening their Drive doors, sped quickly into Hyperspace. "Gorksroar!" he cursed, but his voice was drowned out by the proximity alarm with another indication of targets approaching from aft and clearly heading toward the damaged BKAEW station. Hauling the little ship around in a semicircle, he lined up on the Leaguers' predicted path. "All right, Oodam," he said into the voice circuits, "there's two more of the zukeeds. Do you have 'em?"
The Ambassador hesitated for only a moment. "Got "em," he declared. "Coming on the target display now. Two more Zachtwagers. And from the way they're moving, they've just come out of HyperSpace. Hold 'er steady for a moment. I'll have to really lead the bastards...."
After what seemed like ten million Standard Years, a brilliant flash just above Brim's console dimmed the Hyperscreens for a moment. A second followed close on its heels. As the view cleared, Brim could see the torpedoes streaking out into the darkness at the head of glowing trails of gravitons that vanished quickly as they appeared. Only after a few moments did he glimpse the Zachtwagers streaking in from starboard, no more than glowing motes against the starry sky, flying straight and level with the calm assurance that no Imperial starships were in the area.
Abruptly the closest Zachtwager burst into a roiling puffball of radiation flame. At the same time, its partner skidded to starboard, throwing a tremendous wave of gravitons forward as its gravity generators were reversed, slowing—but not stopping— the angular ship along its flight path. Then, in the blinking of an eye, the, graviton plume reappeared at its stem, and the Leaguer began to accelerate once more, this time at an oblique angle away from the station.