The tiny officer nodded grimly, then switched on the blower. "All hands close up battlesuits and stand by for firing run in three cycles," she broadcast as her own battlesuit began to seal.
An almost palpable wave of relief swept the bridge—when the order came to seal battlesuits, things had really started. Brim heard Barbousse talking reassuringly to the novices at the tracking console.
"Calmly, lads," he warned, the sound of his voice tinny inside a helmet. "Calmly now. You've important jobs today; you'll do them better if you take a little extra time with the battlesuits...."
A row of consoles nearer, Meesha and his firing crews were making last-moment calibrations, while Strana' Zaftrak filled the bridge with strobing light from her huge power displays. Ahead, through the Hyperscreens, the mammoth Leaguer space fort floated squat and ugly against the undulating backdrop of the asteroid shoal, a malign pustule bristling with KA'PPA antennas and huge disrupters—speckled everywhere by the winking crimson glow of director beams. And directly fronting the grotesque structure hovered Queen Elidean. Her CIGA crew had turned the grand old ship's majestic bulk broadside, making it impossible to attack the fort without hitting her first. Additionally, six Imperial attack ships—"escorts''—were moored in a spiral pattern that extended out at least a c'lenyt past the Queen. If Amherst's lackeys truly intended to protect the Leaguer fort, then the Imperial ships represented a dangerous gauntlet that would have to be run with each pass at the fort. Unless they were somehow neutralized—or destroyed.
Brim watched a whole new set of director beams wink into life on the knobby surface of the fort.
Secondary barbettes, he guessed. His mind's eye conjured rows of black-suited Leaguers at firing consoles, tensely charging their disrupters for close-in combat.
"Open fire only at my command," Meesha broadcast to his turret crews.
Brim noticed how quiet the bridge had become now that Starfury was committed to the attack.
"Xaxtdamned Leaguers are in for a hard time today," one of the gunnery mates observed aloud.
Brim knew the man was especially anxious for the attack to begin; he'd been gravely—and agonizingly—wounded when Starfury was brought down. He had a large score to settle.
"Steady, there in C turret..." Meesha whispered tensely to one of his displays.
Brim felt the blood lust rise within him. It was always like this in the final moments before battle.
He was ready. Clearly, so were the Leaguers and their perfidious CIGA colleagues.
"All hands, stand by for maximum acceleration in ten clicks..." Tissaurd announced, "Nine..."
Brim studied the fort as he carefully lined up Starfury on what the Bears had described as its power center. He poised his hands above the controls....
"five... four... three..."
Opening the waste gates, Brim fed power to the generators until his damper beams turned a glaring scarlet and begun to pulse just below the danger level. The Leaguers would be certain to spot that, but now it wouldn't matter.
"Two... one... GO!"
At Tissaurd's word, Brim dumped the waste gates and Starfury leapt forward like some giant viper after its prey. Through the port Hyperscreens, he could see two other graviton plumes burst into life. To starboard, still another blanked the starscape with its glare. And then they were moving fast, accelerating at the ragged edge of the ship's performance envelope in finger-four formation. They skimmed past the first Imperial escort on her port side... and beneath the second. Brim could see no visible reaction whatsoever from these clearly surprised crews. But as the little formation sped past the third escort, this time to starboard; the ship's disrupters were unparked and had begun indexing to port.
She was much too late to do anything about this run, but her crew would be ready for the next.
As they raced above the fourth, no more than two hundred c'lenyts beyond her KA'PPA mast, the CIGAs were tracking and ready to fire. But it quickly became apparent that the Imperial turncoats might be bound by their own set of rules—they failed to shoot. Was it possible, Brim wondered, that they were banned from using their disrupters until a possible adversary actually opened fire on the fort?
Almost in mute answer, the fifth and sixth escorts also disappeared in the Starfuries' raging graviton wake without opening fire. Brim almost cheered aloud. He was getting at least one "free" run. After that, he surmised, things would become considerably different!
Then only the old Queen stood between them and the fort itself. Compared to her escorts, she looked like a mountain, bristling with the same immense 406-mmi disrupters carried by me Starfuries themselves. And these CIGAs were ready. Eight monstrous quad-mount barbettes tracked Brim and his speeding attackers as if their director systems had been locked on for a metacycle. Only once before had Brim looked at the business end of an Imperial disrupter ready to fire—as a prisoner aboard a Leaguer ship. And that time, old I.F.S. Truculent's disrupters were pointing his way in an attempt to save his life.
He had the definite impression that none of these CIGAs had his welfare in mind at all.
They skimmed the huge battleship's bow area at tremendous speed. Brim had an impression of a great blurred expanse of Hyperscreens as they coursed past the big ship's bridge. And at last, only the void of space stood between them and the fort.
"Fire!" Meesha shouted over the thundering generators.
All twelve of Starfury's monster 406-mmi disrupters discharged forward in a salvo, juddering the big starship like a giant hammer. Their forward Hyperscreens abruptly dimmed and the Universe itself dissolved for a moment into a great coruscating eruption that seemed to envelop the whole Universe.
When the 'screens began to transmit again, it was immediately clear that the other three Starfuries had fired at the same time—and at the same general target. A quartet of tremendous eruptions was in process near the fort's power center that made a good imitation of some volcanic activity Brim had seen a few years back on Tolland-32.
"Good shooting!" he whooped as he pushed up Starfury's nose and skimmed the top of the fort with only a few irals clearance. But the Leaguer's great disrupters were clearly tracking him, so instead of continuing straight on, he hauled Starfury straight up in relation to the fort. Return fire began immediately, with a welter of huge explosions that tossed the cruiser around like a leaf in a windstorm. But Brim continued to raise the nose until—as he passed vertical—he started rolling to starboard and went over the top inverted with MacAlda in Starspite keeping close formation to port. As he did so, McKenzie and Dowd, his wingman, kept going straight across the track, then crossed over him as he went on his back. Immediately, the firing became sporadic. League gunners were only superb when firing at predictable targets.
Brim and MacAlda kept rolling back in a flat spin on the steering engines alone while McKenzie and Dowd passed over them. Then Brim led back to port with Starfury's nose falling through at the end of the spin, while McKenzie and Dowd turned back to starboard and let their noses fall through underneath him. As the four starships rolled out, they ended up in perfect finger-four formation again, but going in the opposite direction from the way they came in—and by happenstance, directly on course for the six Imperial escorts. The sight of four hard, sleek Starfuries flying at tremendous speed in superb formation—seemingly out of nowhere—must have unnerved the astonished CIGA firing crews, for they began discharging in panic, sending disruptor beams everywhere.