"Your helm, Lieutenant Brim," Collingswood replied from a display, thumb raised to the Hyperscreens—just as a nearby COMM globe flashed its priority pattern and displayed the Harbor Master's face.
"Harbor Master to DD T.83," he announced. "Hold your position at marker buoy 981G for cross traffic." Collingswood chuckled from her display and smiled understandingly.
"Holding," Brim grumped. "Full speed reverse, both," he said to Ursis' image.
"Full speed reverse, both," the Bear echoed. Truculent glided to a hovering stop just short of the tossing buoy.
"All stop."
"All stop."
"Steering engine's amidships," the Chairman announced.
In the driving rain outside the ship, Brim could see neither sky nor horizon; but twenty-five irals below, the sea's great swells were thick and black looking, peppered with ice rubble. Abruptly, a chance break in the downpour revealed the specter of another mass looming from the grayness—this one infinitely larger than Audacious. It quickly defined itself as the profile of a monster starship moving rapidly in Truculent's direction near the surface of the water. Scant moments later, she fairly burst from the storm, majestic and powerful, sea creaming away ahead of the roiling, foaming footprint she punched deep in the flattened surface, a haze of spray lifting hundreds of irals in her wake to rival the clouds themselves. Brim gasped in spite of himself. Perhaps no one in the galaxy could mistake that grand panorama of stacked bridges, great casemated turrets, and wide-shouldered, tapering hulclass="underline" Iaith Galad, one of the three greatest battlecruisers ever constructed—and sister ship to Nimue, in which the famous Star Admiral Merlin Emrys was lost (nearly two years ago now, if Brim's memory served him). Waves of chill marched his back in icy regiments. To serve as Helmsman on something like her! He shook his head in resignation.
Carescrians didn't get assignments like that.
But what a dream.
"We shall require a salute, Lieutenant Amherst," Collingswood's voice prompted.
"Aye, Captain," Amherst replied. Immediately, glowing KA'PPA rings shimmered out from Truculent's beacon in the age-old Imperial salute, "MAY STARS LIGHT ALL THY PATHS."
Brim had to crane his head back to see Iaith Galad's beacon when she made her traditional reply:
"AND THY PATHS, STAR TRAVELERS." He glimpsed tiny figures peering down from the vast panoply of Hyperscreens atop her towering bridge as she passed. One of them waved. Then, quickly as she appeared, she was gone, swallowed again in the gloom. Truculent bounced heavily in her gravity wake while a deluge of spray from the warship's backwash cascaded in sheets over the Hyperscreens and decks below. Then the destroyer steadied and the sea rolled again beneath the hull as if the great starship had never passed.
*DD T.83: you now are cleared for immediate takeoff," the Harbor Master announced. "Wind is zero four at one oh three. Heavy battlecruiser just landed reports considerable turbulence on finaclass="underline" your path."
"Thank you very much," Brim acknowledged, then looked Ursis' image in the eye and winked.
"Finally," he whispered, then louder, "Full speed ahead."
The Bear nodded. "Good luck," he mouthed silently. "Full speed ahead." Immediately, Truculent's two oversized gravity generators began to thunder deep in the starship's hull, shaking the whole spaceframe.
While thrust built, Brim held the bucking, vibrating starship in place with gravity brakes. He got a definite feeling the devices were only just adequate for the job, and was distinctly glad to hear Gallsworthy's voice when it came.
"Lights are on—you've got takeoff thrust!"
Brim released the brakes. "Full military ahead, both, Nik!" he bellowed over the roar of the generators.
"Full military ahead, both," Ursis answered. The noise intensified and Truculent began to creep forward.
Brim managed a last glance aft through the rain. Gimmas Haefdon's huge rolling waves were now flattened in a wide, flowing trough that extended out from their stern to a huge cloud building skyward at the very limits of his vision. Then the ship was suddenly racing over the water and no time remained for thoughts, only reflexes and habits. Stabilizers and lift modifiers, helm and thrust controllers. And even his long afternoon simulating on the bridge was poor preparation for the destroyer's astonishing acceleration.
"Great-thraggling-Universe!" he gasped.
"Moves right out, doesn't she?" Ursis commented through a grinning mouthful of teeth.
Awed, Brim watched the surface rush by for only ticks before Gallsworthy's voice beside him announced, "ALPHA velocity." Then he carefully rotated the destroyer's nose upward a specified increment for lift-off. Truculent was smooth and responsive on the controls—almost skittish. She was his first real thoroughbred, a hundred light-years beyond even the best of the training ships he had flown.
"BETA velocity," Gallsworthy announced a few moments later, then, "Positive climb." Within ticks, Truculent was thundering through Gimmas Haefdon's heavy cloud cover, bumping heavily in the everlasting turbulence.
"Haul 'em both back to full speed ahead, Nik," Brim ordered.
"Full speed ahead, both," the Bear verified. Generator noise in the bridge subsided considerably.
"DD T.83: contact departure one two zero point six," the Harbor Master called. "Good hunting, Truculents!" The transmission faded quickly as they broke out in smooth air above the overcast—dirty gray billows that extended forever and forever in Ginmmas Haefdon's weak sunlight.
"Departure Control to DD T.83," said a woman's face in the display. "You are cleared Hypolight to the Lox'Sands-98 buoy, zone orange—with immediate transition to Hyper-Drive on arrival. Good-bye from Gimmas Haefdon. And good luck, Truculent."
"T.83 to Departure Control," Brim seconded, "proceeding Lox'Sands-98 buoy, zone orange with immediate Hyperlight transition on arrival. Thanks, Gimmas Haefdon. See you next time." Before he finished speaking, Truculent swept through the planet's atmosphere and was streaking along in darkness on the edge of outer space. He busied himself with additional checkout routines and monitored the ship's systems for the next few cycles, keeping a wary eye on his LightSpeed indicator as the ship accelerated.
"Let's cut in the Drive, Nik," he said presently. "Lieutenant Gallsworthy, will you call out the readings?"
Ursis winked and kissed his fingertips. "Drive shutters open. Activating Drive crystals," he echoed.
"Firing number one." A single shaft of green light extended far out into the blackness aft. Instantly, Hyperscreens dimmed to protect the bridge occupants while a deep, businesslike grumble joined the roar of the gravity generators.
"Point seven five LightSpeed. Point eight," Gallsworthy called out.
"Readouts normal," the Chairman reported.
Ursis nodded, cross-checking his own instruments. Apparently satisfied, he went on to the next: "Firing two. Firing three."
"Point eight five LightSpeed," Gallswoithy continued. "Point nine."
"Firing four."
Truculent's light-limited gravity generators were now just about played out. In the forward Hyperscreens, the first glowing sheets of Gandom's ve effect were already crackling along the starship's deck when Brim turned his attention outside.
"Point nine seven LightSpeed."
Presently, the visible Universe became laced by a fine network of pulsing brilliance spreading jaggedly from the last visible stars as if the whole firmament were about to shatter into the very pebbles of creation. Now all he had to do was pass the Lox'Sands-98 buoy. The ship would have to tell him when—until the Drive could be deployed, Truculent's bridge crew was virtually blind to the outside Universe.