"Incoming messages, Lieutenant," a rating yelled.
"I'll take 'em here," Brim ordered, reluctantly abandoning his search. Whatever escaped Valentin's doomed flagship had long since disappeared among the stars. Momentarily, a globe materialized a familiar head and shoulders on his console.
"Your Highness," Brim stammered.
"Wilf Brim, as I live and breathe," Prince Onrad drawled from the display while he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Certainly glad you take better care of my blond cousin than you do of His Majesty's ships."
He raised his eyebrows in mod disapprobation. "Poor Truculent's a proper mess."
Brim felt a rush of emotion. A choked laugh of relief escaped his throat. "Couldn't help it, Your Majesty," he sputtered. "They just showed me how to fly 'em at the Academy—didn't say anything about taking care of 'em."
"Ha, ha! Good point, Brim," Onrad laughed. "We ought to send you to teach the class, then, for I meant what I said about the proper mess you've made. It's totally proper. You've saved much more than just a conference, you know, and I am told you faced three enemy ships. I saw only one badly damaged survivor fall victim to our disruptors. So if my count is accurate, you must have destroyed two others while you were at it. Correct?"
"Correct, Your Highness," Brim answered, "but two were one too few. That third ship you destroyed nearly got us."
Onrad grinned. "Just like you xaxtdanmed Carescrians. Always biting off more than you can chew."
Then his face became serious. "I thank the Universe we arrived in time," he said slowly. "You and your crew have accomplished much important work today—more than I suspect most of you know. It will be good to see you suitably rewarded." He smiled again. "Right now, I'm going to turn you over to Admiral Penda here, but I shall expect to see you in person back on Avalon as soon as it can be arranged. Good work, Brim—and share those words with your crew. Today, each of you is a hero, in the fullest sense of the word."
Brim's display faded, then returned with the gray visage of Star Admiral Sir Gregor Penda, Imperial Fleet—no mistaking that round face and medium beard. The man had been part of almost every important news summary for the past five years—good and bad. His piercing eyes looked as if they had never admitted to a moment's doubt about anything—nor had they remained long shadowed by unanswered questions. Bold, decisive, and brave beyond all question, be was generally acknowledged to be the greatest tactician in the known Universe—as much by his enemies in the League as by Imperial colleagues. "Congratulations. Brim," he said with a pleased smile on his face. "You seem to have saved much of the Empire's face as well as the conference. However, from the looks of Truculent, your medical officer would probably welcome a hand with the wounded. Am I right?"
Brim thought of the crowded nightmare in Flynn's sick bay. "I'm sure he would, Admiral," he said.
Penda nodded. "We'll make the diplomats wait while we do something about that," he said. "The Empire needs all the crews like yours it can get—alive." He passed instructions quietly to someone out of view, nodded a few times, then turned back to Brim. "I shall have Benwell alongside in a moment, Brim.
We'll stow the protocol this time and do the maneuvering on this bridge. If I'm not mistaken, your own steering gear is shot to pieces."
Brim looked outside and felt the color rise in his face. Truculent was weaving all over the sky. He pulled back on the power until his course steadied.
"You look surprised, Lieutenant," Penda laughed.
"Universe," Brim groaned, his eyes raised to the shattered overhead Hyperscreens.
"That's all right, Brim," the Admiral chuckled. "Judging from the hole in Truculent's bottom, I doubt if the Fleet can come up with many Helmsmen who could have done as well—old Borodov's already notified our engineers you have performed a navigational miracle."
In moments, the colossal battlecruiser was carefully pulling alongside—towering over Truculent's tiny frame like a great mountain range. Brim shook his head in wonder—one brush with that immense bulk would reduce his little destroyer to a wrinkled piece of hullmetal foil. Momentarily, he succumbed to a flash of galloping claustrophobia that passed rapidly when he considered that even assistant Helmsmen aboard Benwell were among the finest in a whole galaxy. He grinned at himself while a brow extended from the giant hull. Far overhead, he could make out tiny figures looking down from the bridge. He stood and saluted. They all returned his gesture. It was one of the proudest moments of his life.
The TRANSpool skimmer drew to a halt in a cloud of swirling ice particles—which quickly dispersed in Gimmas Haefdon's everlasting wind. "Thanks," Brim said, stepping into ankle-deep snow despite recent efforts by one of the base's ubiquitous (and largely unsuccessful) pavement scrubbers. Early evening chill was raw on his face as he scanned the bleak inland repair yard. He'd got only a fleeting impression of it in the darkness the previous night after a frightful landing between the two deep-space tugs that towed Truculent home. Now, after a desperately needed rest, he had returned to sign Collingswood's destroyer over to the ship salvagers.
Salvage berth 189-E itself was a typical clutter of weather-beaten buildings in faded gray, heavy machinery, rusting wave guides, wheels of snow-covered cable—all surrounded by the requisite forest of ever-moving shipyard cranes. And what remained of Truculent hovered inertly on an oversized gravity pool, swaying uncertainly in the veering wind, centered on a tangle of mooring beams rigged by indifferent salvage-yard laborers. A rusty, oversized brow squeaked and rasped on unkempt bearings as she moved.
"Want me to wait, Lieutenant?" the driver probed gently from behind.
Brim guessed the woman had a lot of experience with people like himself. Ships could work their way into a person's soul. And when they were... 'Thanks, but this may take awhile," he lied, turning back to the skimmer. "I'll call for another ride when I'm finished." In truth, little more remained for him to accomplish at all so far as Truculent was concerned. A cycle or two at most, then she was no longer a part of his life—except for the memories.
The driver nodded. She understood. "There's COMM gear in the shack with the metal roof over there," she said, pointing off across the pool. Then she saluted (almost as if she meant it) and drove off into the snowy evening silence, her navigation lights persisting like ruby wraiths in the darkening grayness.
Brim pulled the Fleet Cloak closer around his neck and shivered as he turned once more toward the ship. When he'd viewed her from one of the tugs on the way home, she hadn't seemed quite so—damaged. Not out in space where she was meant to be. But here in the waning moments of a dreary Gimmas day, she was dreadfully transformed. Power chambers extinguished, her whole structure had cooled. Ice and snow dulled even the Hyperscreens over her buckled and warped bridge (or, rather, what remained of those Hyperscreens). Her decks were everywhere mottled by the bright blue of temporary pressure patches, and unsightly braids of thick multicolored cables ran through temporary holes punched in her hull from ugly machines blinking evilly on the periphery of the pool. She'd been despoiled of most everything that could be removed before the long tow home even began—including the workable disruptors. Now, during his absence, they'd taken even her one remaining launch. Except for a great throng of memories, the stout little ship had become a lifeless, stripped hulk.