"Only one, Commodore," Moulding said. "How will we find out when Fluvanna has declared war back? I assume we oughtn't to go around blowing up Toronder warships until all the paperwork's done."
Calhoun made a cold smile. "Your assumption's dead wrong, my friend," he said dourly. "After the first media announcements, feel free to blast any Toronders you see, as well as any ship that belongs to their bosses, the Leaguers. Certain enemy vessels wull be off limits during the next week or so, like the anes that carry their diplomatic staff back home. But I'll specifically identify those for you. From noo through the end o' the war, consider them all fair game—and shoot before you find yourself bein' shot at.
Got mat?"
"Got it," Brim said, getting up from his chair. He turned to Moulding. "Toby, I'll see you out on the bay at... let's make it Dawn:2:50."
"Dawn:2:50," Moulding confirmed. He grinned. "Don't be surprised if I'm there a little early. I think I started getting myself ready for this a long time ago...."
Less than two metacycles later, at precisely Morning:1:17, Brim lifted R.F.S. Starfury from Penard Bay under a heavy overcast with Stefan MacAlda's R.F.S. Starspite tucked close to starboard and half a length astern. Moments later they thundered over Varnholm Hall. Below, Brim glimpsed a small crowd waving from the keep, then abruptly the outside Universe was swallowed by a gray blanket of cloud. On the other side of the Hyperscreens, only a radiance in the whiteness marked the planet's star, Ephail, but a good Helmsman could judge the angle of climb by that alone.
At about twelve thousand irals they came out into clear air, and Brim, almost blinded by the brilliant whiteness on all sides, glimpsed deep blue sky above him. Soon, they were climbing steadily through a crystalline-clear atmosphere. Below, the receding planet speedily became a plain of white cotton where nothing stirred. As far as the eye could see—for hundreds, soon thousands of square c'lenyts—stretched soft cloud-continents with occasional crevasses between them like wide rivers. Brim never tired of the spectacle; it was part and parcel of the milieu called space flight.
As Starfury climbed out toward space, Ephail kept the whole bridge wrapped in brilliant gold light. Brim held it in the same position on his right, flying with the exhilaration that landsmen could only imagine, occasionally turning his head to insure that MacAlda was still keeping R.F.S. Starspite in position to starboard. Off to port, the second pair of Starfuries, R.F.S. Starvengeance and R.F.S.
Starconstant, were climbing at the same speed as MacAlda and himself, all four ships at different relative altitudes. Looking back along their shimmering flight path, he watched Moulding in R.F.S.
Starsovereign lead the second four-ship quad out of the clouds. Then the brightness outside began to fail with the atmosphere, and they started into the utter darkness of space.
Just after they thundered past the ninety-five-thousand-c'lenyt flight level—still well below LightSpeed—he heard Calhoun's globular display beep for the arrival of an urgent, top secret transmission. Moments later, his did, too. He passed his hand over a blinking enabler on the console beside him. Instantly, Ursis's furry visage filled the globe.
"The war has begun," the Bear announced grimly. " Lombog transmitted a series of urgent calls for assistance only moments before she was actually attacked. Clearly, Rurik's captors learned her old disrupters quickly and thoroughly. They worked ever so slowly, nibbling away at the liner's hull until only the control and COMM chambers were intact. It gave the poor crew a maximum time to scream for help—and KA'PPA word of the 'attack' all over the Universe."
Immediately after the Bear signed off, Calhoun's visage filled the display, eyes narrowed with a look of determination. "As Ursis put things, it's started noo," he growled. "Make nae mistake. Probably we'll see no action for the next few days, but you'll want to keep someone mannin' the search gear at 'Action Stations' from now on."
As Calhoun predicted, within a metacycle, Hanna Notrom's Ministry for Public Consensus began to KA'PPA streams of invective to every news bureau in the Universe, These transmissions were accepted by Starfury's KA'PPA-COMM at the same instant they were received everywhere else in the Universe. By this manner, Brim and the crew of Starfury followed the carefully orchestrated scenario as it rapidly unfolded.
Using the Lombog's broadcast pleas for assistance as "proof of Fluvannian transgression, the League's military Chiefs immediately ordered "full mobilization of forces." All this by KA'PPA-COMM before "normal" messages could be transported by mail aboard starships that could outspeed radio waves. Clearly, the event had been planned well in advance and thoroughly rehearsed throughout the League and its network of allies.
Early the next Standard Day, Triannic's huge Ministry of Diplomacy produced a long list of impossible demands the Fluvannians must immediately satisfy.
In Avalon, it was clear that Puvis Amherst and his minions had been well prepared for their part of the action. Hastily organized but superbly coordinated CIGA demonstrations occurred simultaneously at the palace and the Admiralty, only metacycles following the first KA'PPAed announcement of the declaration. These neatly strangled all initial demands for invocation of the mutual defense pact with Fluvanna. And when voices of reason refused to be silenced, powerful CIGAs in the General Parliament—who doubtlessly had been well rehearsed for such an event—smothered the whole matter in an absolute morass of governmental debate.
Among the IVG, the days following delivery of Triannic's demands to Fluvanna were an unending test of everyone's patience. It was clear that an attack would follow shortly after any declaration of war, and the strain of patrolling became a double-edged sword: day after day, the routine never changed from watch to watch, yet the anxiety of waiting for the unexpected was almost unbearable. Moreover, each time Calhoun urged Mustafa to let the IVG go after the Leaguers' space fort with a "surgical" strike in anticipation of attacks on the Fluvannian homeland, the Nabob deferred, maintaining that "We shall let history record that Leaguers delivered the first blow."
"What if it's the Leaguers who write the history?" Calhoun asked time and time again.
"Then so be it," the Nabob replied, folding his arms in a symbol of finality. And thus it was that when the declaration of war finally came—just ninety-seven Standard Days following Rurik's initial disappearance—Brim was leading Quad One on a roving orbital patrol, some two thousand c'lenyts out from Ordu and nowhere near the fort. Moulding led the second quad, keeping to the opposite hemisphere. Close in, McKenzie's three ships hovered in synchronous orbit, approximately seventy-five c'lenyts above Magor itself. Between them, at about one thousand c'lenyts distance, six quads of Mustafa's pristine antiques cruised in a roughly spherical pattern. Calhoun, who had ordered the defensive pattern on a tip from the Sodeskayans, today was riding aboard McKenzie's Starglory. All the ships were traveling well below LightSpeed; if an attack against the planet were imminent—as the elder Carescrian strongly suspected—the enemy would have to slow considerably to fire their disrupters at a "stationary" target.
Just prior to the Dawn watch, Brim was finishing breakfast in the wardroom and going through a stack of routine KA'PPA dispatches when the deck vibrated slightly under his boots. Simultaneously, the whine from Starfury's power primaries raised in pitch—followed at once by a substantial boost in the thunder from Zaftrak's big Admiralty generators out in the pontoons. Moments later sirens whooped throughout the ship.