Abruptly, the COMM light blinked green. Tissaurd was in contact with Blue District Departure Control. "K5054, climbing through fifteen thousand on two thirty radial/" he reported.
"K5054," Control replied. "You are cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Advise slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off your bow. Contact Blue Planetary Control."
"K5054 cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Contact Blue Planetary and acknowledge slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off bow. Good day."
"Much success with the trials, Commander."
"Thanks, District," Brim acknowledged. "We'll give them our best shot." He nodded his head. A lot of people believed in Starfury and the royal orders that had put her into production. But that belief was by no means universal among the diverse peoples of the Empire. Since the year 52000 when the delusory Treaty of Garak ended open warfare between Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars and Greyffin IV's far-flung Galactic Empire, a sinister and powerful antimilitary organization had infiltrated the Imperial Government as well as the Admiralty itself.
Known as the Congress for Infra-Galactic Accord, and almost openly funded by the League itself, it was chaired by a one-time shipmate of Brims, Commodore Puvis Amherst. The CIGAs' avowed goal was dismantling—from within—the mighty Imperial Fleet that had nearly annihilated League Admiral Kabul Anak's spaceborne armadas. All, of course, in the name of "Peace."
Unfortunately, during almost nine-odd years of false truce, the craven Amherst and his CIGAs had been all too successful at their task—at the same time their League masters secretly rebuilt war-decimated battle squadrons at a feverish pace. And now they were working on their xaxtdamned space forts....
Brim had seen Onrad's courageous move raise a predictable hue and cry from CIGAs all over the Empire, but the Prince remained undeterred, indefatigable in his belief that the new ships constituted the absolute minimum counterforce necessary to insure survival of civilization. Clearly, he trusted that eventually he would be vindicated—and meanwhile, each new Starfury added to the possibility that the Empire might persevere into the second phase of a war that was coming as surely as helium follows hydrogen on the chart.
Brim's LightSpeed meter read .86 when he passed the three F.7s at nearly double their speed, leaving them tossing wildly in his graviton wake. He smiled briefly, imagining the consternation aboard the fast little ships as Starfury swept past them as if they were still sitting on a gravity pool.
Again, the COMM light flashed on the panel before him. "K5054 at two eighty c'lenyts on two thirty outbound and climbing," he reported.
"K5054: cleared direct to deep space and light speed. Knock 'em dead, Starfury!"
"Count on it," Brim answered. Then, moments later, the LightSpeed meter passed 1.0 and normal radio communications ceased.
They were fourteen Standard Days at Starfury's space trials, conducted for reasons of secrecy at the gigantic—and nearly abandoned—Fleet base on Gimmas Haefdon. Gimmas had been Brim's first duty station out of the Helmsman's Academy, nearly sixteen years previously, when he was assigned to Regula Collingswood's old T-class destroyer I.F.S, Truculent. Closed for nearly ten years now by CIGA-contrived "economic" concerns, the great base—covering much of the planet's land mass—would already be yielding to the corrosive effects of Gimmas's brutally frigid climate. Brim had been in contact with the trials party for nearly half a cycle when Starfury thundered down out of perpetually dense storm clouds over the tossing Sea of Garnatz; however, nothing could have prepared him for the barren, frozen wasteland that lay below. The base's great, ocean-spanning causeways appeared to be intact, but they were covered with snow and ice, and seemed to be no more navigable than the gray, ice-strewn sea they surmounted. Nothing moved as far as his eye could see. The planet's wearisome flatness was broken only by vast complexes of forlorn structures that looked as if they were constructed of nothing more permanent than the ice and snow that covered them.
Closer to the surface, Tissaurd pointed out vast compounds of battleship-sized gravity pools covered with drifted snow and locked in ice that must now extend all the way to the bottom of their feeder canals. In sprawling scrap yards, hundreds of discarded starships lay in slipshod rows beneath the drifted snow. Some of the hulls, by their very shapes, were obsolete. But far too many were clearly serviceable, modern starships, relegated prematurely to abandonment by industrious CIGAs—citizens of the Empire who were causing more damage to their own Fleet than all the powerful squadrons of warships Nergol Triannic had been able to effect in a fully declared war.
Within half a metacycle they were sweeping low past the colossal structures that were once the Base's Central Complex: lofty glass and metal towers so tall their exaggerated perspective gave Brim a brief feeling of vertigo as he sped past. Nearby was the enormous parade ground where he received his first medals from Crown Prince Onrad so many years ago—just before he'd been transferred to I.F.S. Defiant. From thirty thousand irals, the great tract appeared to be no larger than his thumbnail.
Broad—empty—avenues extended out from the deserted complex like c'lenyts-long spokes of some gigantic wheel whose interstices were filled by jumbles of odd-shaped structures, soaring conduits, rows of ship-sized tanks, huge mushroom-shaped reactor sites, and a maze of empty tram lines. All were covered by unblemished layers of drifted snow—except, strangely, the reactor sites. Every one of these appeared to be free of snow and clearly operational. Surrounded by soaring energy-transmission towers and topped by blazing beacons, their enormous collapsium domes gleamed as if they had only just been installed. Odd, Brim considered, that so much power was necessary for a purely maintenance effort, even if one counted the enormous energy needed to protect some of the base's larger, more valuable structures. But the Admiralty never had been noted for its logic —especially in peacetime.
Near the shore, and verging a prodigious expanse of half-buried maintenance structures, two small groups of buildings fronted six active gravity pools in a tiny aggregation of cleared streets and melted snow. Five of the pools were already occupied. As Tissaurd piped landing cautions throughout the hull, Brim picked out two speedy-looking V-class destroyers—those would act as chase ships during the trials. A large supply vessel in the colors of AkroKahn, the Sodeskayan space line, clearly housed shops and facilities for tuning Starfury's Drive components. On the next two gravity pools, a huge repair and salvage vessel and a smaller commissary transport completed the little squadron. He shook his head.
All for testing a single ship.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Tissaurd's voice broke into his thoughts.
"I was thinking 'wasteful,' myself," Brim muttered as Starfury bumped through turbulence over the shoreline. "But I'm sure it's ironic, too," he allowed grimly. Ahead, a five-c'lenyt-long section of ice was melting into a landing strip as he watched. Clearly, the reactors here were operating flawlessly, too.