Still, Brim reasoned, the zukeed bastards couldn't very well wage effective war against cities—or conduct interstellar invasions—with only squadrons of escort killer ships. So one way or another Hoth Orgoth was hurting in a big way. If the past were any indicator, Nergol Triannic was capable of seeing through any extravagant claims his fat Admiral might make.
While tired Imperial defenders regrouped to meet the Leaguers' next onslaught, Brim received word via scrambled data link that less than two hundred Loiterers remained—including those reclaimed by the second set of salvage operations. Not good, he thought to himself—but perhaps not that bad, either. It would be difficult for the Leaguers to conceal the horrendous losses sustained by their attack craft. When little more than a quarter of the ships returned home, people were going to notice—and word would spread. With that kind of losses, the next attackers were going to be spooked before they even arrived. They'd certainly guess that some sort of secret weapon was operating against them—but they wouldn't know what it was.
Because of the Imperials' own depressing-but-inadvertent losses to the Loiterers (Eve had once more checked in, tired but unscathed), all defending starships were now positioned in a thick arc out in the 'Wyckean Void to make early interceptions and keep themselves clear of the intersections area until the Leaguers had cleared out a few of the Loiterers. Of course with only two hundred or so Loiterers remaining, it wouldn't take long for that to happen.
The Leaguers' third attack followed the model set by their previous raid: waves of large formations with up to forty large attack craft in a group. Each wave consisted of three such formations with killer-ship escorts between them. Both main bodies of antagonists met in the 'Wyckean Void at about Evening: 1:0 nearly a quarter of the way out from Avalon. Again, the battle seethed toward Avalon City, but this time, the attack craft taking off from Effer'wyckean bases appeared to be infinite. Wave after wave were reported on the way until Brim simply shut off reception from that channel.
The two lead waves soaked up the last Loiterers with devastating casualties. After that, the city began to take significant damage, especially the ancient city center and the Imperial Palace (Brim mumbled silent thanks that Hope had been taken deep underground). Within a half metacycle, two more waves of Leaguers had been literally ripped apart. Unlike the total destruction inflicted on individual attackers by Loiterers, Leaguer casualties were now simply damaged—yet damaged enough to put them out of the battle as if they no longer existed at all.
But on came the replacements, each wave succeeded by another in a seemingly endless stream of destruction coming from Effer'wyck. Brim—who had been fighting almost constantly since midday—was nearing the end of his energy. Having crippled or downed at least five Leaguers since the battle resumed for the third time, he was now operating mostly by instinct. Off to his right, a lone Defiant broke off and headed behind two Kreissels. He caught a glimpse of the Imperial's tail number: P9137; it was Aram—or at least the ship he had been flying the previous day.
Brim decided to cover him, avoiding several determined attacks by going into a tight spiral—the Leaguers were going too fast to follow him. He saw Aram's turrets flash as they fired... then his own proximity alarms went off. Abruptly, the starboard disrupter turrets swung and fired at the same moment that huge bolts of incoming energy crackled past in the opposite direction. Moments later, a Gorn-Hoff's enormous, heat-streaked wing flashed below them. The careless Leaguer had missed Brim and was now going after Aram.
Instinctively, the Carescrian curved 'round to his left, listening to the gunlayers' litany behind him.
In the winking of an eye, four big starboard turrets indexed outward, elevated their eight powerful disrupters infinitesimally, then opened fire at nearly point-blank range. Eight superfocused bolts of raw energy caught the Gorn-Hoff amidships, about thirty irals outboard of the main crew compartment, literally blowing it in half and venting its energy chambers to the perfect vacuum of space. Shaken in its course, most of the big starship skidded violently to the left, then literally disintegrated in a veritable cloud of fluttering hull panels and blazing parts that showered the Starfury with fragments.
Brim had hardly recovered from that close call when he was suddenly attacked by six more Gorn-Hoffs—how had he missed them?
Shoving maximum energy to the Starfury's six big Admiralty gravs, he tried to power out of the trap, but he was caught in a three-way crossfire. Even while his own disrupters fired broadside to counter the threat, a great, blinding flash darkened the Hyperscreens and a muffled clanging sound reverberated through the whole spaceframe. The starship bucked wildly as if smashed by some gigantic hammer.
Readout panels flickered and gravity pulsed wildly, smashing him painfully against his mechanical seat restraints. Fighting the controls—which had taken on a powerful bias to port—he glanced out the Hyperscreens to see that the whole forward half of the left pontoon was simply gone—along with an entire turret and at least one of the ship's six gravity generators. Everything from the attaching "trouser" pylon forward was simply gone—and a serious-looking radiation fire was already gleaming evilly from the shredded forward stump of the pontoon.
Cranking the damaged starship into a vertical climb, he listened to the spaceframe creak and groan over the thunder of the straining gravs. The maneuver put him temporarily out of the Leaguers' range, but not for long. This time, it was going to be a xaxtdamned close thing. Lawrence threw up a constant fusillade with his remaining disrupters, futilely attempting to discourage the six Leaguers who had now taken up station astern and were slowly closing the range. Scant moments later, they opened up, turning space around the Starfury into a veritable hell of blinding flashes and concussion. Violent waves of raw energy smashed the big ship this way and that as if it were the gamecock in a racket match between a whole crowd of colossal opponents.
Just as Brim glanced into an aft-viewing display, one of the pursuing Gorn-Hoffs abruptly disappeared in a rolling cloud of radiation fire and tumbling parts—as if somehow it had run into a stout wall eight hundred c'lenyts above Avalon. Then a second Leaguer ship stopped abruptly, its graviton plume terminating in a great, glowing ball of flame. After that, the four remaining Gorn-Hoffs skidded off in four different directions, pursued by at least six Starfuries firing in salvo mode. Brim mentally wiped his forehead (encased for the moment in a battlesuit helmet). A damned close thing indeed! "Damage Control!" he shouted over voice circuits that were only now coming to life. "I want a report."
"Control here," a stunned voice replied.
"Report, xaxtdamnit," Brim growled.
A globular display flickered to life beside Brim's console showing the view into space from inside the ruined pontoon.
"We've accounted for eight dead, Admiral," the voice said wearily. "Our whole port generator crew. But we've got the radiation fires nearly under control, already." A silhouetted figure stepped into the display from starboard, pointing forward to the ragged, blasted edges of the hull where crews in battlesuits focused unwieldy, hoselike N-ray projectors on the blazing hullmetal while others dragged massive shoring clamps to secure shattered ribs and longerons from further damage.
"Good work, Belzer," Brim said, grinding his teeth. He checked the proximity alarms, then swung the view aft where he confirmed for himself that the Leaguers' fire had indeed carried away all three forward bulkheads, exposing the entire generator chamber to outer space. Surprisingly, however, the situation was much better than he'd even hoped. Welding sparks showed that repair teams were already sealing off the main power bus. For all the apparent damage, both surviving generators did seem to be operating normally, and the Starfury hardly seemed to notice the drop in thrust.