"How about tomorrow morning?"
Brim consulted a pocket schedule he'd found in his lobby pickup box. "Yeah," he said, scanning the tiny globe as it displayed complex patterns of color in intricate rhythms and hues. He laughed. "After I finish at least four metacycles of appointments with a staff of temporary orderlies they've assigned to me." He shook his head. "Better plan on tomorrow afternoon, Mark. Late."
Valerian nodded. "Give me a call as soon as you have a firm schedule. The Sherrington crew has promised to have most of the cables off your ship by morning."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Brim said, blowing on his heated gloves as he followed the designer through bitterly cold darkness to the skimmer. He sighed to himself while Valerian coaxed the vehicle's tiny grav to life. Wing Commander, no less. An exalted title to be certain. The next step was certain to come with promotion to Commodore, or even Rear Admiral. Yet deep down he wondered if the new assignment was really right for a dyed-in-the-wool Helmsman like himself. Then he shrugged. With considerable assistance from his prodigious valet—and trusted friend—Master Chief Petty Officer Utrillo Barbousse, he'd survived the same sort of assignment when he set up the IVG's first headquarters during Baxter Calhoun's absence, and he hadn't been vetted any help there at all. This time, with real bean counters to take care of the details, maybe he could get even more time in space.
Then again maybe he couldn't....
Predictably, it took the long-anticipated arrival of Chief Barbousse to ultimately free Brim from his administrative shackles. But when he did finally slip away to fly his new Starfury 1C, the graceful ship was more than worth his wait. From the moment he taxied out onto Gimmas's tossing ocean for takeoff until he nudged her back onto a gravity pool, P7350 was everything Valerian had claimed—and a great deal more. With the new gravs, acceleration was phenomenal, and the extra speed only slightly affected maneuverability. Above the velocity of light, her characteristics were completely unchanged from the original Starfury he had flown in the Imperial Volunteer group.
Over the next three Standard Months, she was joined by others, as new ships began to arrive on a regular basis and crews assembled from all over the Empire in a gigantic training effort. Miraculously, the League of Dark Stars extended the interruption they had inaugurated after the Battle of Zonga'ar, still licking their wounds while they prepared for the next brutal attempt at conquest. And along with other unit commanders in the Imperial Fleet, Wilf Brim took every advantage of the hiatus, feverishly working to forge new organizations that could bear the terrible impact of renewed war when it inexorably came.
Through it all, CIGAs all over the Empire continued to press for peace with the League at any price, chanting their clever, empty slogans and heaping abuse on Emperor Onrad for provoking the war in the first place. But for all their sound and fury, the CIGAs had lost at least some of the popular support they once enjoyed. In the few months since Emperor Onrad's declaration of war over the League's attack on Fluvanna, counterdemonstrations had grown apace until the number of loyal citizens often matched the CIGAs they opposed. Occasionally, loyalist numbers were even larger.
Nevertheless, the CIGA protests made it doubly difficult to organize a workable system of home defense, even though devoted Imperials everywhere knuckled down and worked 'round the clock with whatever resources they could scrape together. Almost miraculously, new defense organizations began to function anyway—haltingly at first, but gaining form and momentum with every moment that passed.
Unfortunately, far too few moments remained....
CHAPTER 2
CIGAs Again
On 213/52011—little more than three Standard Months following Brim's arrival on Gimmas—the League began its long-impending attack on the Empire, ending the period of "Sham War" that had extended since their defeat the previous year at Zonga'ar. In a stunning onslaught across nearly 500 light-years of arc, armadas numbering more than 1,880 starships, 570,000 jackbooted Controllers, and 2000 giant land crawlers mounted a colossal offensive. The Imperial dominions of Lamintir, Korbu, and Gannat fell within two Standard Days, their planetary legislatures so weakened from within by CIGAs that their armed forces could offer only token resistance. The flighted people of courageous little A'zurn capitulated only after a bloody struggle—and a wild naval melee during which three gallant A'zurnian destroyers nearly demolished a Leaguer battleship before they, themselves, were wiped out by the big ship's surviving disruptors.
With astonishing speed, Triannic's seemingly invincible fleets and land armies conquered all before them until before long they were poised before the affluent collection of stars and habitable planets called Effer'wyck, a proud and powerful dominion with more than ten thousand Standard Years of history. Once this was subjugated, only the 'Wyckean Void, a narrow emptiness at the origin of a galactic arm, would separate the Leaguers from the great triple star called Triad of Asterious. Collectively known throughout the galaxy as "Greater Avalon," this triple star and its five planets—jointly capital of Onrad V's Grand Galactic Empire—were preeminent among the League's targets of conquest.
A month earlier, in the face of violent CIGA protests, powerful units of the Imperial Expeditionary Forces under Major General (the Hon.) Gastudgon Z'Hagbut had been rushed across the Void to bolster Effer'wyckean Defense Forces. But by the time these forces could be brought to bear, the League juggernaut had already gained tremendous momentum—as well as vast stores of materiel from its new conquests.
On Gimmas itself, Brim was viewing the latest dispatches— all bad news—when Master Chief Petty Officer Utrillo Barbousse stuck his bald head inside the temporary office Brim had designated Headquarters, 30 Wing. "An old friend o' yours, Cap'm," the big rating announced with a great smile.
Brim looked up with a frown. Hadn't Barbousse been out by the gravity pools overseeing a repair detail? Why was he here making the announcement... ? He'd always instructed the orderlies to let "special" friends simply walk in on him. "Send him in, Chief," he replied warily.
Immediately, a grand, prominentorial nose burst into the room, followed by a pair of humorous blue eyes with a droll, confident sort of smile that fairly shouted old, well-established wealth. Only one person Brim knew looked like that....
"Toby Moulding!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Great suffering Universe, I'd nearly forgotten you were due here today from Fluvanna." Leaping around the desk, he returned a brief salute, then grabbed the man's out-thrust hand.
Commander Tobias Moulding, I.F., was tall, blond, and essentially the same age as Brim. He was also immaculately attired in an Imperial Fleet uniform that looked as if it had been delivered that morning direct from one of the exclusive shops along Avalon's fabled Crispin Row. Like Brim, he wore the discreet red-on-blue insignia of the Imperial High-Speed Starflight team, and presently held the galactic speed record of 111.97M LightSpeed. He'd set that record in the same Valerian-designed M-6 Beta racing starship in which Brim retired the galaxy-famous Mitchell Trophy two years earlier. "I say, Captain," Moulding drawled, "so long as you're going to call in your friends to help with this new assignment, couldn't you at least locate yourself somewhere in a more temperate climate?"
Brim grinned and shook his head. "Can't blame me for this frozen mess, Toby. I just came here following orders."
"Sounds like a Leaguer's excuse from here," Moulding chuckled, "but it's good enough for me—as are you, old friend. I've missed you since we served together, if for no other reason than I've not had to fight for my life in almost four months now."