ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05 GROUP 35291 31/
52010
[SECRET]
FM: ADMIRALTY COMFLEETOPS, AP34T
TO: W. A. BRIM, COMMANDER, I.F. @K 5054 INFO: DRUMMOND
@AG-9200J
<AW09N7019925VPQ3994T8Q23558714988>
DEPARTURE ORDERS
1. YOU WILL PREPARE FOR DEPARTURE BROMWICH SOON AS
PRACTICABLE. IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY AP34T ESTIMATED DATE/TIME
OF LIFTOFF.
2. SET DIRECT COURSE FOR MAGOR CITY, ORDU, DOMINION OF
FLUVANNA. PREPARATIONS YOUR ARRIVAL ARE CURRENTLY UNDER
WAY.
3. YOU WILL BOARD SPECIAL DIPLOMATIC PASSENGER AT
GALACTIC COORDINATES
ZC931/460:19.
[END SECRET]
ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05
Brim showed the brief message first to Morris, then to Tissaurd. "How soon can we lift ship, Number One?" he asked.
The tiny officer frowned for a moment. "Move over, Skipper," she said. "I'll need to check a few items at the workstation."
Brim slid aside, then stood to watch over her shoulder.
"The ship herself is ready," Tissaurd said absently, calling floods of multicolored data cascading over the workstation's display, merging it with other streams, then blending elements into synthesized journals. "We're missing a second spare-parts kit for the K-P Drives and a few supplies the Admiralty considers critical—like gortam sealant."
"Gortam sealant?" Brim exclaimed. "Ridiculous. I use gortam sealant around the ion-chamber window on my gravcycle. That stuff's been around for a millennium."
Tissaurd smiled over her shoulder. "I know," she said with a shrug. "But that didn't stop K-P from using it in their newest reflecting Drives. And we have to stock it—with some other out-of-the way stuff that has me pretty well stymied. I've got a couple of search parties out combing the city. But if we can't find it in Bromwich, then we'll probably have to lift ship without it."
Brim stepped back from behind the workstation chair. "You'd lift ship without a full complement of Admiralty stores?" he asked in feigned horror.
"Maybe not the Drive spares," Tissaurd said calmly, "but I'd damned well hate to hang up a whole starship over a case of gortam sealant."
"You mean that, don't you?" Brim asked with a frown, looking the tiny officer directly in the eye.
"You bet,'' Tissaurd answered. "Would you have it any other way. Skipper?"
"Not on your life, Number One," he replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"That's a relief," Tissaurd laughed. She looked up at Morris. "Owen, my friend," she said, "you could have been witness to the destruction of a budding career just now."
"I wasn't terribly worried," the COMM Officer said with a grin.
"Either was she"—Brim chuckled—"I think she can read my mind."
"You'd be surprised what I can read," Tissaurd bantered.
"Hmm," Brim said theatrically, "do you suppose you can read the whereabouts of a spare-parts kit?"
Tissaurd closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yee-e-e-s-s," she said, "it is coming to me." Suddenly she was busy with the workstation again. "Ah yes!" she exclaimed. "The answer magically springs to life in the crystal before me. Behold!"
" 'This evening, Darkness:45,' " Brim quoted from the workstation display. "Truly conjured magic."
"What can I say?" Tissaurd said modestly, examining the perfect manicure of her right hand.
"Madame Tissaurd foretells all, especially with the workstation before her."
"I wouldn't have believed any of this if it hadn't gone on before m' very eyes," Morris said in feigned amazement.
"Either would I," Brim said, glancing out a Hyperscreen port where a large, old-fashioned skimmer had just pulled up to the brow entrance at the side of Starfury's gravity pool. On its side, large letters proclaimed:
interstellar sealants
SERVING BROMWICH SHIPWRIGHTS SINCE 51005
Moments later, he watched the huge figure of Utrillo Barbousse returning through the brow with a large carton balanced on his broad right shoulder. gortam sealant was stamped prominently along the side. "How does tomorrow morning sound for lifting ship?" he asked.
Tissaurd thought for a moment. "Moming:2:00?" she offered presently.
"Sounds good to me," Brim said. "Morris," he said with a nod, "send that as an estimated time of departure to AP34T, the Admiralty. Got that?"
"Aye, Skipper," Morris acknowledged. "ETD of Morning:2:00 to Admiralty AP34T. I'll get out the word."
Starfury departed precisely on time the next morning—with all required stores in place.
Less than five Standard Days later, Dawn:3:10 found the new cruiser charging through the blackness of space a few hundred c'lenyts aft of perhaps the most distinguished Imperial battleship of all times, I.F.S. Queen Elidean, name ship of the five massive battleships that first mounted 406-mmi disrupters and, on completion thirty years previously, were considered to be the finest, most powerful warships in existence. Now fresh from a two-year refit, the grand old starship looked even more splendid than ever, with a multifaceted, box-type superstructure that housed everything that her old-fashioned stacked bridges had carried: navigating room, communications center, and conning tower topped by a powerful HyperLight rangefinder on the top. Even the KA'PPA tower was reduced in height and repositioned aft, yet there was no mistaking the huge, superfiring casemates with their monstrous disrupters that had blasted Kabul Anak's super-battleship Rengas to tangled wreckage in the great battle for Atalanta. Despite his many years in space, Brim had yet to see a starship that approached her beauty in simple perfection of line and layout. At the time she was launched, she quickly gained a reputation as the best-looking warship of her day, with none able to match the perfect balance of her design. He had loved the old ship the moment he laid eyes on her.
And no matter how often their paths crossed afterward, he never failed to be awestruck by her colossal dimensions. Steadying himself, he began the ticklish business of conning Starfury to the old battleship's starboard boarding aperture. He'd sent Tissaurd to the extreme port side of the bridge with bearing scanners as soon as he had solid visual sighting of the old battleship—and, of course, KA'PPAed a proper Imperial salute. For the last few cycles now, he'd checked the Queen's course and speed with his own eyes, steering a few degrees from the signaled course and a bit faster.
Some Helmsmen he knew considered close-in approaches to a target ship as exhibitions of prowess at the helm, often bragging that such maneuvering facilitated the rigging of optical moorings and
"pipes," as midspace connecting brows were called. During his early career on Carescrian ore barges, that kind of precarious maneuvering was part of his workaday existence, so it represented nothing special to him. However, over the years, he'd proven to himself that it seldom had any beneficial effect on the time required for docking evolutions. And in the Fleet it was foolish to get unnecessarily close to any other ship, since the only serious mistake one could make was getting so close as to cause a collision. If the years had taught Wilf Brim anything, it was pragmatism when it came to driving starships.
As demanded by protocol, Starfury, in her role of junior ship, would moor to the Queen's pipe, and to that end, he presently watched hatches sliding open in the battleship's flanks to uncover an array of fender projectors centered on the boarding aperture. "Ready, Number One?" he asked.
"Ready on the starboard wing," Tissaurd reported. Save for the velvet thunder of the Drive from below, her voice was the only sound in Starfury's bridge—the other occupants were either completely immersed by their duties or themselves enthralled by the very drama of the moment.
"STARFURY CLEARED TO APPROACH QUEEN ELIDEAN, STARBOARD