Early in 52010, after CIGA-inspired frustration of numerous Imperial attempts to defend the important Dominion of Fluvanna (supplier of nearly one hundred percent of the Empire's Drive crystals), Emperor Greyffin IV formed the Imperial Volunteer Group (IVG) from the first eleven Starfury starcruisers delivered, "leasing" not only the warships but their crews to Fluvanna for a year. Shortly thereafter. League forces invaded and occupied the Dominion of Beta Jago, ignoring protests from throughout the galaxy. Two months later—on trumped-up charges, Triannic also declared war on Fluvanna, thus supplying a spark that would eventually reignite war itself.
Until well into 52011, CIGAs throughout the Imperial Parliament prevented implementation of the Empire's mutual-assistance treaty with Fluvanna. However, with the abdication of Greyffin IV, Onrad V became Emperor and declared war on the League even as IVG forces destroyed huge League space fortifications at Zonga'ar and set Triannic's timetable for conquest back nearly a Standard Year. Within a month, the new Imperial Emperor dissolved the IVG, ordering his battle-proven crews back to a newly expanding Imperial Fleet, where the veterans would be spread throughout the Home Fleet in preparation for the inevitable Battle of Avalon. Wilf Brim—commander of the Zonga'ar raid—formed the vanguard of this historic migration.
Later, after a luxuriously long shower and shave in a washroom large enough to turn around in, Brim donned the only clean uniform he had with him and headed for the lobby. A hodgepodge of officers in military dress from all over the Empire relaxed here and there in the low-ceilinged room, some dozing in battered couches, others puffing on spice-filled pipes while they idly sifted the news on global displays.
Like lobbies of the other thousand-odd VOQs Brim had seen—all painted in the same two tones of wearisome green—it was one of two escapes from the ultimate boredom of a lonely transient's cubicle.
He was headed for the other. ...
"Bar's down the road, Captain," a desk clerk said perspicaciously. "Shall I call a skimmer?"
"Thanks, starsailor," Brim answered, "but after a week in a destroyer..."
"Aye, sir," the rating said with a smile. "You'd rather walk. I know the feelin.' About a half c'lenyt to starboard on your left. Can't miss it."
Brim nodded and headed for the door. Unless you liked snow—a lot of snow—Gimmas Haefdon offered little else than vast amounts of work and drinking. Bars for all ranks tended to be large and crowded.
Outside, the wind had lost some of its intensity and the snow was falling less heavily. He returned the salute of a rating who was operating one of Gimmas's ubiquitous snow shovels—the little machine chirped and scurried off to the side of the parking lot as he passed—then he started down the dark street, boots crunching on the fresh powder. No odors on Gimmas Haefdon, he thought for the millionth time as he walked in the muffled stillness. Smells of all kinds been frozen solid for centuries.
Ahead, through gently falling snow, the street dwindled in perspective to diminishing circles of light cast by a long column of Karlsson lamps placed in military precision along the center divider.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of big gravity generators spooling up. Ancient, shadowed goods houses, one more massive than the next, loomed on either side, darkened reminders of past Imperial might. Here and there, however, lights appeared in odd windows. Onrad V's hoary old Imperial Fleet was once again on the upswing after more than ten years of intentional neglect, caused from within by a traitor's organization, the Congress for IntraGalactic Accord.
A starship thundered invisibly close overhead, its gravs at full lift-off power. It was already lost in Gimmas's swirling clouds. Brim laughed softly to himself, remembering his early days at the base as a green Sub-lieutenant, fresh from the Helmsman's Academy on balmy Ariel. Even discounting the miserable weather of Carescria, his homeland in one of the Empire's poorest sectors, after four Standard Years on balmy Ariel, he'd found himself quite unprepared for Gimmas's fulsome climate. Yet he'd eventually come to think of the great base as home. He certainly didn't consider his native Carescria as any kind of home. And besides, at the time, Margot was here....
He sighed wistfully as the snowy darkness merged through nearly seventeen years to the night he met Her Serene Majesty, Margot Effer'wyck, Princess of the Effer'wyck Dominions and first cousin to Onrad, the present Imperial ruler. It had been a routine wardroom party aboard little I.F.S. Truculent.
She was there as an ordinary Lieutenant—a hardworking one at that, he'd quickly discovered. And if the tall, amply built woman were not the most beautiful he'd ever encountered, she'd still appealed to him in a most fundamental manner. Even after all these years, he could picture her that night: artfully tousled golden curls and soft, expressive blue eyes, flashing with nimble intelligence. Skin almost painfully fair, brushed lightly with pink high in the cheeks. And when she smiled, her brow formed the most engaging frown he could imagine. Moist lips, long, shapely legs, small breasts, and... He bit his lip.
They'd become lovers long after they'd fallen in love. She a princess of Effer'wyck, the Empire's most influential dominion—he a commoner from the shabbiest sector imaginable. For a while, the desperate absurdity of galactic war had canceled out that awesome gap in status. But reality intervened soon enough, forcing a political marriage between Brim's Princess and Rogan LaKarn, Baron of the Torond—a union designated to cement the bond between his massive palatinate and the Empire.
Afterward, the two star-crossed lovers continued as best they could, carrying on a tawdry affair filled with endless stretches of longing punctuated by brilliant flashes of their own special passion. For a while it had worked—even after ersatz peace forced a return to "normal" canons of class and status. But eventually distance, a child, and Margot's growing addiction to the Leaguers' devastating narcotic TimeWeed ate away their ties until only longing remained, buried deep within Brim's psyche to mask the pain it brought. Now, he didn't know if she were even still alive.
Twin convoys of immense lorries droned past, loaded with massive shapes under billowing tarpaulins; their traction engines whipped the fresh snow into swirling eddies. The rushing columns were gone in a moment, swallowed up by the night and the snow as if it had never existed. Not even tracks in the snow marked the passage of the big gravity skimmers.
He snorted. The lorries were a lot like Margot and himself, he thought, wryly brushing snow from his face. As if they'd never met. Even the Emperor's sacrifice of their love had come to nothing, for in spite of a marriage linking LaKarn to the royal family itself, the preening bully eventually allied himself with the League of Dark Stars and took Margot to the side of the enemy—or so it sometimes seemed to those who kept track of such things. Until little more than a month ago, that is, when she'd laid her own life on the line to save his, then disappeared from the face of the Universe in the explosion of a giant space fortification.
Grinding his teeth, he put that from his mind. Much as he wished to the contrary, there was nothing he could do about Margot Effer'wyck-Lakarn at present, and he had a number of other pressing matters on his mind, not the least of which was his new assignment....
"Hoy! Brim! Only Bears walk on Gimmas when they can ride."
The voice yanked his mind back to the present. Beside him, a command car hovered at curbside with its door open. Inside, illuminated only by instrument lights, he could see a long, thin nose terminating in an enormous mustache. Behind it were the rheumy eyes and painfully thin physique of Mark Valerian, designer of I.F.S. Starfury, name ship for a whole class of light cruisers that had revolutionized space warfare. In Brim's estimation, the man was easily the premiere starship designer of his times. "Bears and Carescrians, Mark," he replied with a grin of pleasure. "We're both a little daft."