"Bearing one one nine...."
"Steady...."
Brim held Starfury on course as if she were on rails.
"Fire!"
The graceful Sherrington cruiser shuddered as if she had encountered some great cosmic wall, while eight huge disrupters tore at the warp and woof of space itself. Simultaneously, the Dampier's sharp, clear image ahead shook and began to disintegrate. Her bridge Hyperscreens burst into glittering fragments and the two forward turrets spun into the slipstream like toys. The hits advanced aft toward her inactive Hyperspeed Drive section in a series of disastrous explosions and sparks that glittered along her hull until a spurt of radiation fire and debris erupted just aft of her main deckhouse. In the wink of an eye, a blackish-red cloud of raw energy mingled with the burning collapsium particles.
Brim pushed over on the controls and veered out of the way. As Starfury flicked off, he had a last vision of the big Dampier exploding in a cloud of energy and light. Then he was past, Calhoun 's voice thundering in his mind: Slash and fire, lad. No toe-to-toe!
The whole episode had lasted no more than a few clicks.
To the right, Brim watched another Starfury break off and head behind a Dampier. He caught a glimpse of its markings: K5058. Moulding. Swerving to cover him, the Carescrian avoided several determined attacks by going into a tight spiral—but Starfury was traveling too fast to follow. Ahead, Starsovereign began to fire, her disrupters disgorging long trails of glittering energy.
Of a sudden, proximity alarms went off all over the bridge, while a series of terrific explosions blasted Starfury sideways. A near miss from somewhere! The starboard turrets swung violently, loosing huge bolts of energy that shook the speeding cruiser even farther off course. Brim fought the controls as a great shadow momentarily blanketed the overhead Hyperscreens. A Dampier's enormous, heat-streaked belly flashed only a few irals above the bridge. He had missed Starfury and was going after Moulding.
"Watch out. Skipper," Tissaurd exclaimed, "that zukeed's taken a real dislike to Toby!"
Instinctively, Brim hauled back on the power, listening to the disruptor trainers and watching the forward tubes elevate, then immediately open fire. The mighty fusillade of raw energy belched forth by six 406s at point-blank range hammered into the Dampier precisely where the forward dorsal turret pierced her armored hull—with devastating results. Shaken in its course, the big starship skidded violently to the left as its whole bow from the bridge forward folded up in a shower of sparks and hullmetal fragments that smashed her aft Drive shields and whizzed past Starfury in a hail of debris.
The Carescrian had hardly recovered from his surprise when Starfury was attacked by six other Dampiers. The whole Universe seemed to go wild again in an insane turmoil of monstrous explosions and lurid flashes of light, while the gun crews defended the ship as if they were possessed. Brim felt sweat pouring off his face. He had to keep turning constantly, with the Dampiers dogging his every move.
Then one of the Dampiers took a moment too long recovering from its attack. Four of Starfury's big disrupters fired immediately with murderous effect. A cluster of tremendous explosions blasted its main deckhouse just beneath the bridge, and the cruiser faltered as if it had smashed into a large asteroid.
Brim never looked back. Slash and fire. Slash and fire....
Then, abruptly, the Dampiers showed signs of flagging and soon thereafter turned on their heels.
Brim and the other Starfuries gave chase for a moment to start them on their way, then all turned and headed for Varnholm Hall—just as the first of the "regular" Fluvannian Fleet units reached the battle area.
Brim left them with orders to continue their patrol, another thousand c'lenyts out. They'd at least make a good early warning group.
On the way home from the rout, they passed at least three squadrons of elderly Fluvannian warships clawing their way into space. "A day late and a credit short, if y' ask me. Skipper," Tissaurd commented.
Brim laughed grimly and took a deep breath. His adrenaline was only now coming under control.
"I suppose that's true, Number One." he said. "But how would you feel about flying out to meet a squadron of Dampiers in one of those antiques?"
The tiny officer thought for a moment and gave her own grim little snort. "You're right," she said angrily. "Were I aboard one of those pitiful antiques, I think I might be a day late myself, now that you mention it—because clearly that poor excuse for a fleet is a lot of credits short." She scowled bitterly.
"Mustafa has undoubtedly saved himself, and his treasury, a lot of wealth over the years by buying up everybody else's cast-off warships. But guess who's making up the difference now that he's got a war on his hands...."
During the next Standard Month, Calhoun's superbly equipped and trained IVG—"assisting powerful units of the Fluvannian Home Fleet," as the media reported almost daily—handily repulsed a score of raids from the Leaguer space fort, with disastrous results for the Toronder starfleets and "acceptable" damage to the leased Starfuries.
The IVG's advantage was the Starfuries' superior speed combined with awesome firepower and generous armor. These enabled them to swoop into enemy formations, produce devastating harm in a matter of moments, then speed away before their quarry could effectively react. According to the Sodeskayans, the unorthodox tactics actually rattled Toronder crews, who were trained for more conventional warfare. Despite the ample firepower of their Dampiers, the big ships were no match for Starfuries, and they were usually easy victims for the aggressive IVG crews. But every one of the ex-Imperials knew that sooner or later, the League would tire of its thralls' overlong effort to subdue Fluvanna; then there would be Gorn-Hoffs to deal with as well.
And indeed, the change began less than a week later, manifesting itself in revised enemy tactics called "doubling," whereby escorting squadrons of Dampiers were escorted by a squadron of the League's powerful new Gorn-Hoff 262A-1As, first production version of the P.1065. These stood off maddeningly from the battles until it was certain that the Dampiers had fought themselves into a corner (as they usually did). Then the Leaguers would jump into the fray, effectively tripling odds against the IVG, To no one's particular surprise, the new Gorn-Hoff 262s were superb warships; in many ways the equal of Mark Valerian's Starfuries—in some, superior.
Happily, during the months imposed between Calhoun's initial briefings on the Leaguers' new, chevron-contoured prototype and Brim's first personal encounters with production versions, Sodeskayan intelligence sources were able to provide considerable data on the new Leaguer ships. So their startling performance came as no surprise. It was a fortunate thing, too. For unbeknown to the ex-Imperials, the squadrons of "easy" Dampier opponents had been making them moderately lax. And even with ample forewarning, they still turned out to be a nasty surprise on the day they first showed up.
Brim had Starfury in the middle of a frenzied melee well below LightSpeed. With his quad outnumbered three-to-one by Dampiers, the Carescrian had been flying for all he was worth, twisting and turning, trying to set up shots for his disrupter crews while nursing the generators, scanning the instruments, and watching for the few scrappy Toronder skippers who yet remained among their savaged squadrons. Just as the enemy crews appeared to be getting ready to pack it in for another day, his eyes caught a second group of ships cruising high off the port bows. These, however, were making curious, oscillating Drive wakes—like ones he recalled from the endless Gorn-Hoff P.1065 briefings he'd been forced to sit through in Avalon, "Everyone on his toes," he broadcast to the bridge crews, "we've got some special company, Purple Apex."