Brim felt a chill cut wickedly along his spine while he ground his teeth in rage.
"They wha' ?" Calhoun demanded angrily.
Valentin smiled cruelly. "I believe you heard me, Commodore," he purred, once more in possession of the upper hand. "A group of highly patriotic CIGAs in the Imperial battleship Queen Elidean will take up station orbiting our newest deep-space fortification located in the shoals of Zonga'ar," He peered down his nose at Brim. "I'm certain you know where that is, gentlemen." Then he laughed. "And if you dare to attack it, you will first have to deal with one of the most powerful battleships in the known universe—with her normal complement of escorts." He stopped for a moment to inspect his perfect manicure. "Of course, you will also be attacking your own Empire, and—should any of you survive such a fight—might eventually have to answer to retaliation from other Starfuries. A great irony, gentlemen, is it not?"
Calhoun's face grew red, but aside from that, he evinced no other emotion. "Are you quite finished?" he demanded at length.
Valentin nodded and motioned to Amherst. "Did I cover that well, Admiral?" he asked solicitously.
"With excellence," Amherst said, looking around the room as if he himself had uttered the words.
"Do any of you have questions?" he asked.
"Only one," Calhoun said.
"And that is?"
"How soon do you twa think it will take to get your loathsome bodies off this planet?" he growled. "Because if it takes you any mair than ten cycles—at the outside—I shall personally blow you away myself. Understand?"
"How dare you, Commodore?" Amherst demanded hotly.
Calhoun rose from his desk and moved like lightning. In the flash of an eye, he had Amherst's lapels in his fists, and he was shaking the lanky CIGA like a rat in a terrier's mouth. "This is how I dare, you miserable traitor." He lifted the terrified CIGA to his feet, spun him toward the door, and propelled him through with a tremendous kick to the posterior. Then drawing himself to his full height, he turned on Valentin. But the Leaguer was already on his way.
"I shall leave without your assistance, Commodore," he said. Then he turned to Brim. "But you, Carescrian—and you, Toby Moulding—you will remember what I have said despite this lickspittle...er... colleague of mine. To attack that fortification, you will have to deal first with your own Queen Elidean." He laughed. "That ought to send a few N rays to dampen your plans, my perennial Carescrian adversary."
Brim smiled grimly. "It does, Valentin," he admitted. "You've done a good job—so far. But this war's only begun." He turned to Moulding. "Do you recall what it was you said to this gentleman just before the Mitchell Trophy race back in Oh-four?"
Moulding smiled. "You mean there in front of the Leaguer shed, just after you'd driven the skimmer through all those flower gardens?"
"Yeah," Brim replied. "That's it."
" 'Races are never won,' " Moulding quoted didactically, " 'until the finish line is crossed.'
Remember?"
"I remember," Valentin said, flashing a smile that fairly dripped with contempt, "but you must certainly also recall that I not only crossed the finish line that day, I won."
Brim nodded. "That you did, Valentin," he agreed. "But that was one race among many. And it put the trophy in your possession for only a single year. I am certain you also remember who finally retired the Mitchell permanently."
"You do have a point," Valentin said. Then, surprisingly, he saluted. "Gentlemen," he said, "we shall eventually meet again in space—and there continue our... race... for the lack of a better word." He smiled grimly. "The trophy we retire in that competition will be considerably more consequential than the Mitchell." Then, turning on his heel, he strode through the door....
Amherst's launch was airborne well before Calhoun's ten-cycle deadline.
With the coming of the new Leaguer ships, Nergol Triannic's second war took a considerably more dangerous twist. Toronders and their Dampiers had been a minimal threat to IVG Starfuries.
Clearly, they had inflicted damage; no one fights a war without inflicting some injury. But most of it had been minor, and even though the eleven leased ships were significantly outnumbered, not a single volunteer had been killed.
That ended immediately following Brim's first, admittedly providential, double victory. The Leaguers were natural warriors, superbly trained and equipped. Their very next raid left three Starfuries crippled, one for more than a week because of the IVG's primitive repair facilities. Moreover, during that raid, five Dampiers got through to Magor, where they caused the first significant ground damage of the war. Five additional Dampiers that attempted a simultaneous raid against Varnholm Hall were all badly damaged by McKenzie's reserve force before they could fire a single bolt at the gravity pools.
A week later, however, it was Starfury's turn for damage....
Brim was leading both attack quads on a regular defensive patrol roughly five thousand c'lenyts out from Ordu when they came on at least twenty-four Gorn-Hoffs in four groups of six. Immediately, he went in to attack, hitting at least two on their way through the Leaguers' formation. Then he remembered that he had no faithful MacAlda guarding his tail, as Starspite had turned back with grav trouble shortly after takeoff. He was about to rejoin for a second attack when Moulding called with the other six Starfuries to give his rough position. Brim said that he was in the same general area. Spotting six shimmering graviton contrails, he immediately climbed toward them. He was little more than five c'lenyts away when—instead of graceful, three-piece Sherrington hulls—he sighted the angular shapes of...
Dampiers!
Peeling off in a violent maneuver, he raced directly away from the big planet to lower his visibility, then swung rapidly to port and kept Starfury turning as tightly as he possibly could. For a few cycles, they all spun around in a crazed globe perhaps five c'lenyts in diameter until Brim threw maximum power to the gravs and tried another maneuver—a steep drive toward Ordu. Five of the Toronder Helmsmen stuck grimly behind him, and as he reached fifteen hundred c'lenyts, he could see eruptions of blinding light from very near misses. The deck bucked from their energy waves. Suddenly, he heard a faint, rapid, two-beat thud and Starfury shuddered while half his energy display turned bright red.
"Direct hit in the starboard power chamber," Chief Baranev reported from the power distribution center, deep within Starfury's hull. The indefatigable old Bear spoke as if he were announcing some sort of sporting event.
"Flood both starboard power chambers with N rays!" Brim ordered, switching one of his view globes to the view below decks. He winced. The Aft chamber had been opened to space like an old-fashioned tin of fish. A huge radiation fire in one of tire Krasni-Peych plasma generators was just coming under control as the N rays saturated its collapsium fuel. However, great bolts of runaway energy were still arcing to the chamber walls, bathing the chamber in lurid reddish-yellow light as if it were a scene from the Gradygroats' vision of Hell. And through it all, burly figures of Sodeskayan Bears scurried here and there, dragging portable N-ray mains and struggling with half-melted control systems. .
A moment later Brim heard Strana' Zaftrak counting over the intercom.
"Thirteen crag volves... fourteen crag volves... fifteen crag volves..." she counted, as if she hardly dared to take a breath .
Tissaurd glanced across at him. "What's she counting, Skipper?" she demanded.