Chapter 1
ELEANDOR-BESTIENNE
Wilf Brim pointed into the shimmering globular display and glared across the drafting console, angry now in spite of himself. "If Nik Ursis says a waveguide installed like that could short the Vertical Generators," he insisted to a determinedly unpliant Senior Engineer, "then a xaxtdamned waveguide installed like that could short the Vertical Generators. Nobody understands antigravity like Sodeskayan Rears, and you bloody well know it!"
"Bears or no Bears, I was not placed in my position of trust and authority to question Admiralty plans, Lieutenant," the engineer sniffed haughtily. He was a tall, aristocratic man whose expression was the perfect physical manifestation of bureaucratic arrogance, though his features themselves were indifferent to the point of banality. "I build starships strictly to specification," he said, "and I greatly resent the interruption of my busy day with complaints from flight crews. You may be certain your superiors will hear of this insubordination.
Imagine, summoning a senior engineer—with wild tales of design flaws. Certainly you do not believe we meet production quotas by challenging Admiralty design teams, do you?"
"Voot's beard!" Brim exclaimed. "This has nothing to do with a challenge." He pointed to a drafting console. "Look for yourself—your design diagrams are just plain wrong! A hit anywhere near the KA'PPA tower could cripple both Vertical Gravity Generators—trip 'em out completely. And Verticals are the only things I know about that keep starships from falling outof the sky, at least when they're anywhere near something that's got gravity—like for instance the planet we're standing on.
Beside him, Ursis, a Great Sodeskayan Bear, frowned, shifted his peaked officer's cap between furry russet ears, and thrummed six tapered fingers on the console—clearly struggling with his own temper. Presently, he smiled, diamond fang stones gleaming in the bright lights of the quiet drafting room. "I thank you for your support, friend Wilf," he said in deep, carefully measured words, "but we have reasoned fruitlessly for more than twenty cycles, and I for one possess sufficient of this nonsense." With that, he gripped the massive drafting console and ripped it from its mountings in a cloud of sparks and acrid smoke.
"Perhaps now, my good man," he said, turning to the startled engineer, "you will have an easier time shifting your mind from symbolic diagrams to reality, eh? In spite of what you might think, starships have no lifting devices such as wings, or the like—only Vertical Gravity Generators keep them up. They are of critical importance, yet these could be disabled by as little as a chance lightning strike on the KA'PPA tower." Before the civilian could recover, Ursis lifted him by his ornately embroidered lapels to a position no more than a milli-iral from his huge, wet nose. "When I replace you on your feet, Mr. Senior Engineer," he growled ominously, "you will locate a workable drafting display and carefully study what Lieutenant Brim and I have attempted to explain this afternoon. Do you understand?"
The man's face drained of color. "B-but the p-plans s-show..." he stammered, pointing to the darkened drafting console as if it were still a functioning instrument. All the bluster had suddenly gone from his voice.
" Defiant is the first warship of her class," Uruis stated firmly. "The imaginary machine pictured by your precious plans has never so much as lifted from the image of a globular display, much less east off for deep space. There are bound to be errors. That is what you engineers are for—to catch mistakes before they hurt someone...." His laugh returned again, this time with a little of his normal humor. "It wouldn't be so good if one of your creations lost its Verticals and fell out of the sky, now would it? Someone could be hurt!"
The man only stared into the huge Bear's eyes, mesmerized.
"Well, civilian engineer?"
"N-no...."
"No, what?"
"N-no... ah, I, ah, w-wouldn't want a starship t-to f-all out of the sky..."
"And what will you do to ensure this does not happen?"
"F-fix it-t—the waveguide so the Verticals are b-better insulated from energy strikes...."
"Excellent," the Bear exclaimed, gently placing the engineer on his feet. "Your cooperation is most gratifying, civilian. I shall mention it favorably to my superiors. But," he added, "your equipment here is poor. Behold, Wilf, this very drafting display is not functional."
Brim could only nod as he fought the gale of laughter that threatened to overwhelm his control. "I'd noticed that," he choked.
"You should endeavor to find a workable instrument" Ursis advised the man seriously. "
Immediately. Otherwise, by the time you order this waveguide to be reversed, it will be a difficult operation—every metacycle that passes sees new equipment installed in Defiant's already crowded machinery spaces. Eh?"
"Of c-course, Lieutenant," the engineer whispered as if he were badly out of breath.
Suddenly, he turned and ran madly along the consoles until he disappeared through a door at the end of the room.
Ursis pursed his lips and frowned. "I only hope he really will do something about that waveguide," he said, "instead of just covering the mistake with a minor insulating job. Once the hull is buttoned up, there will be no way I can check." Then he smiled wryly and shook his head. "Groaning trees and growling wolves are all the same in a spring snowstorm, eh?"
"Huh?" Brim responded, looking up from the wreckage of the drafting table.
"An old saying from the Mother Planets," the Bear answered with a grimace, "and—it seems that I shall never learn to hold my temper," he observed. "Now we are probably both in trouble."
Brim shrugged. "A little, maybe. But it's at least possible now that something may be done to protect the Verticals. If we'd kept our mouths shut, nobody would even had looked.
Besides," he chuckled as they boarded an elevator for the observation balcony, "I've dealt with bullies all my life. Once you scrape away their rank, as you did so well, they're all the same sort of cowards." He winked. "Now, if you want to talk about real trouble, imagine us fighting a dead ship after something like a lightning strike tripped the Verticals at low altitude—maybe during a landing. Universe...."
Nergol Thannic's all-consuming galactic conflict seemed terribly remote that day among the ancient starship yards of EleandorBestienne. Outside a lofty Engineering Tower in the Orange-Eight district, cobalt skies and soft puffs of summer clouds ruled the late afternoon over Construction Complex 81-B. On an open balcony, a warm breeze rustled the blue Fleet Cape at Brim's neck and raised whitecaps out on Elsene Bay. It carried with it the clean fragrance of green vegetation—tempered by frequent whiffets of hot metal and fused logics from the frantic wartime construction below.
The object of Brim's attention—emerging from the waterfront clutter of bowing, swinging shipyard cranes—was the flattened teardrop shape of a half-finished starship hull that rested on a tangle of rusting construction stocks: I.F.S. Defiant Imperial hull designator CL.921, and the first ship in a whole new class of light cruisers. As such, she was new in many ways—and subject to all the ills of each. The morning's waveguide Incident was only one—albeit the most serious—of a hundred-odd irregularities and disorders uncovered since the starship's keel was laid. In spite of her great promise for the future, Defiant was starting life as a most troublesome ship....
While Brim mused, he overheard the voice of Lieutenant Xerxes O. Flynn joking with Ursis. Flynn was Defiant's medical officer—the position he had previously filled aboard I.F.S. Truculent. Ho was short, fair, and balding, with a reddish face and a quick smile. "I say, Nikolai Yanuarievich," he said, "do you suppose yonder Principal Helmsman has become Inpatient to fly already? He shows up this time every day to watch them build our ship."