"Yeah," Brim said, pursing his lips "...yeah... Zebuton Mu! That's what it was called."
Barbousse snapped his fingers. "Right you are, sir! Zebulon Mu. And you just got us out of there in the nik of time!" His eyes looked off somewhere into a distant past. "Those were promising days," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, they simply... stopped...."
"What happened to you at the Academy?" Brim asked quietly.
"I lasted awhile," he said, taking a deep breath. "Did pretty well, too, sir, if I do say so. But they RIFed me out, in the first Reduction... not long after the Treaty of Garak." He pursed his lips. "I imagine you must have lost your commission in the same RIF—they were cuttin' 'way back on everything at the time."
"You've got that right," Brim said. "It seemed like everyone in the Fleet was out of work those days—all looking for those few jobs I thought I could land myself." He grinned wryly. "I must have gone through a hundred of 'em, each a little worse than the last."
Barbousse nodded. "My life started to go that way, too," he said, "but I got lucky. The Governor, er, Commodore Calhoun signed me on one of his ships. Things got considerably better afterward—and exciting."
Brim knew enough about Calhoun to resist asking any more about that job.
"You worried a lot of people when you disappeared, beggin' the Cap'm's pardon," Barbousse continued. "We all breathed a sigh of relief when you surfaced in Atalanta."
The Carescrian felt his cheeks burn. After smashing up a clapped-out ED-4 (through no fault of his own), he'd fallen on such hard times he literally fled from Avalon. Shipping out as a Slops Mate on a liner, he ultimately jumped ship in the great starport of Atalanta—his friends caught up with him there. "I learned a couple of big lessons on that trip," he said reflectively.
Barbousse smiled. "I learned a few myself before I left the Fleet, sir," he said. "But the most important one of all I learned at the Academy."
"What was that?" Brim asked. The big man was seldom conspicuously introspective.
Barbousse furrowed his brow. "It's hard to put into words, Cap'm," he said. "I did well at the Academy; number two in my class toward the end. But, well, even then I was askin' myself if I really was in the right place—doin' the right thing. And I kept coming up with 'no.' "
"Second in your class and doing the wrong thing?" Brim asked. "How could that be?"
"There's them whose lot is to be officers, Cap'm," he said, "and them that's happier bein' a rating. I'm one of the ratings, that's all."
Awestruck, Brim looked the big man directly in his face. Not many people knew themselves that well. "You were the greatest Chick in the Fleet when I knew you," he said with genuine admiration.
"Thank you, Cap'm," Barbousse said, meeting Brim's eyes with a steady gaze. "I've always tried t' do my best."
"Ah... when you two ancient veterans finish comparing war stories, I'm ready to begin my briefing," Drummond interrupted with a chuckle.
"Aye, sir... I'll cover the door. Commodore," Barbousse said, immediately restored to his normal decorum.
Brim quickly took a seat opposite Calhoun at the forward end of the table.
"About time I got the two of you back on the same ship," the elder Carescrian chuckled gleefully.
"I can't think of much worse that could happen to the League."
As the room lights began to dim, Drummond looked up from his podium controls and smiled. "All right, gentlemen," he announced in a theatrical voice, "presenting Gorn-Hoff's new light cruiser prototype, the P.1065." He was immediately obscured by the three-dimensional, holographic representation of a rocky desert just before dawn—or just following sunset; it was impossible to tell. After a few moments, the distant rumble of spaceborne gravity generators overlaid the lonesome sound of wind moaning along a rocky desert floor. In the narrow band of lighter sky above the right horizon, Brim's trained eye immediately caught a distant speck of movement traveling toward him at high velocity—a starship making landfall. As the form resolved itself, he could see that the Leaguers had built their new ship in the angular silhouette of a double chevron, the smaller one nestled inside its considerably larger counterpart.
"Sorry to say that none of us are sufficiently cleared that the Bears would divulge where these holograms were taken"— Drummond's voice intruded over the rising thunder—"but unless I miss my guess, it's close to one of their remote test ranges in the Gelheim Sector. At any rate, the content ought to more than make up for other information we tack."
Before the angular Gorn-Hoff could pass "overhead," it gently reversed course over a pulsing crystal tower that cranked rapidly into the air from the desert floor. During straight and level flight, the ship appeared to carry yellow lights at each tip of the large chevron and a red light mounted at its apex.
The latter was visible from both fore and aft. When the new cruiser changed course over the tower, however, a bright red ventral strobe began a flare that illuminated its entire underside.
"You'll note white belly markings during the strobes," Drummond pointed out. "The Leaguers have put a pair up front and a few more arranged asymmetrically aft. We don't know what they are, yet, but we think they might be part of a new weapons system. Wilf, that separation line at the midspan trailing edge break: what does that look like to you?"
Brim squinted as the display froze in place. "Hard to tell from this distance," he said, voice booming at first in the abrupt silence, "but by the shape, I'll wager it's some kind of outboard control emitter for the steering engine; especially if that's a Drive exhaust area at the trailing edge of the smaller chevron."
"Our feelings exactly," Drummond said, starting the display—and the sound—again. "Our on-site observer thought so, too. And for the record, he estimated its altitude at about eight thousand irals, with a speed of maybe four hundred fifty to five hundred c'lenyts per metacycle. Probably not ground-shaking information by itself, but you'll note the lack of a shock wave anywhere. That means that the Gorn-Hoff designers are finally starting to pay attention to planetary performance. In an atmosphere. ''
Abruptly, the desert dissolved into a classic starscape somewhere in deep, silent space. "Now," the still-invisible Drummond said in a much lowered voice, "we'll show you what the ship looks like out in its real element. We took these shots ourselves, from one of our newest benders: I.F.S. Apparition, the first ship we've built that can transmit all spectra through her hull, even N-rays." He laughed. "Don't get your hopes up for her, gentlemen. Even though she's really quite imperceptible to every detector we know about, Apparitions only marginally better in performance than the rest of the benders: theirs and ours. Her extra transmission capability takes its usual toll in power. So a lot of the shots were made while she was simply dodging out of the way."
As Brim watched, fascinated, the angular Gorn-Hoff appeared again, this time at the left side of the display, moving slowly across the starscape at a much-increased LightSpeed number.
"This sequence was taken during one of the earliest flights," Drummond explained. "The crew appeared to be getting her ready for some sort of trials. You'll notice Brim's 'control emitter' is partially deflected downward, and four auxiliary cooling panels mounted over what we think are the Drive chambers have deployed."
Moments later two Gantheisser 380 chase ships appeared at the edge of the display, moving much faster than the Gorn-Hoff in the same direction.
"Those two are going in for a 'rolling pickup,' " Drummond commented as the new cruiser began to gain speed with her control surfaces moving slowly to a fair position. After a few moments only the outboard steering emitters displayed any detectable movement while both chase ships moved into place on her flanks.