"Augmenters at fourteen," Aram reported. "Checklist: continuous high-energy flow to the gravs, Nik?"
"On," Ursis reported, "and locked."
"Navigation switches?"
"Switches set-and reset."
"Auto flight panels?..."
"Fleet CL.921," the Center controller broke in, "as soon as you have reduced your speed, descend to five thousand."
"CL.921 slowing to one ninety, going to five thousand," Brim acknowledged. "Did you say Auto flight panels, Aram?"
"Auto flight panels."
"Checked."
"Airspeed EPR bugs?"
"One thirty-nine and cross-checked," Brim answered, altering course slightly while a powerful downdraft caught the starboard deck and threw the big ship on her side.
"Speed brake controls?"
"Neutral," Brim answered after he tolled back onto an even keel. He frowned; it was looking bad ahead again. Aft, the atmospheric radiators were now trailing thick clouds of condensation in the damp air.
"Lotsa lightning," Aram commented, looking up from the checklist display panel. "ILS check...."
"ILS is tuned and identified," Brim answered, continuing to monitor the storm ahead with growing concern. Bad enough flying through something like that at such low altitude, but with Verticals he didn't trust into the bargain... "This is Fleet CL.921," he transmitted to the Center "We'd like to go around a buildup we have directly ahead of us, Can we turn to port a little bit and go on the other side of it?"
"Negative, CL.921-traffic separation regulations. Please maintain present course.
Contact Complex eighty-one tower on one one nine four."
Brim grimaced in disgust. "Here's your xaxtdamned regulations," he muttered to himself.
"Say again, CL.921?"
"CL.921 maintaining present course," Brim grumped in embarrassment, "Checking in to Complex eighty-one-and good day."
"Good day, sir."
"I think we're going to give Defiant a bath," Aram said, staring out the forward Hyperscreens.
"And how," Brim answered. "Just look at that storm." It was getting downright difficult keeping the big cruiser on course, much less maintaining any sort of accurate descent-and he still couldn't see the surface of the water. "Complex eighty-one Tower: Fleet CL.921 with you at five thousand," he said, shaking his head.
"Good day Fleet CL.921," Complex eighty-one replied. "Reduce speed one seven zero and turn port two seven one."
"Fleet CL.921 going to two seven one at one seven zero," Brim answered. The clouds broke for a moment to starboard, and he spied a cruiser steering a parallel path no more than three c'lenyts away. He smiled. No wonder they hadn't let him deviate!
"Fleet CL.921: turn port to two four zero, descend and maintain three thousand,"
Complex eighty-one broke in.
"CL.921 is two four zero out of five for three," Brim said, glancing across Aram's console to lJrsis. The Bear was peerring at him with a concerned expression on his face. "How're those Verticals?" the Carescrian asked, guessing what was bothering his friend.
Ursis shook his head. "I debated raising an alarm, Wilf," he said, "Your question has saved me the trouble of a decision." He pursed his lips. "Somewhere the spirit of Voot is at work today-in this most damned of all damned mechanisms, something is yet amiss; I know it is. But I cannot isolate where or what it is."
"Well, at least we're almost down," Collingswood interjected. "You've had bad feelings about those Verticals since Defiant came off the stocks. This time, we're going to get them cleared up to your satisfaction before we leave the ground again. The war can wait long enough to make this a reasonably safe ship."
Ursis grinned and shrugged his broad shoulders, "For all we know, Captain, she may well be safe," he said, "So far, it is only me who raises alarms."
Brim nodded as an icy surge of misapprehension coursed along his spine. Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis was rarely bothered by problems that had no real existence. " I'll listen to your concerns, Nik," he said. "Anytime..."
"In that case," the Bear answered, "you will be ready to react if lose one or both Verticals as they take the full load of the ship. It is my guess that if we are destined for a failure, it will occur then."
"I'll watch it," Brim promised as the cruiser bumped through another series of powerful updrafts. Then further conversation was interrupted from Complex 81.
"Fleet CL.921 is six c'lenyts from the marker," the controller reported. "Turn port heading one eight zero; join the localizer at or about two thousand three hundred; you are cleared for instrument landing vector one seven."
Brim could visualize that particular stretch of Elsene Bay. The vector was as close enough to shore that you could see the construction cranes of Area B from the bridge. It didn't give him much room for error. "Fleet CL.921 acknowledges all that. Many thanks," he answered as he bent Defiant on to her new course.
Overspeed warning horns for the atmospheric radiators sounded five times in close succession due to violent oscillations in the roiling air.
"Wants to rip the radiators off," Aram observed calmly.
Tell me about it," Brim grumbled as he struggled with the controls.
"Fleet CL.921: reduce your speed to one six zero, please."
"CL.921 will be glad to do that," Brim answered over the continuing noise of the radiator overspeed. "One six zero."
"One six zero," Aram repeated.
"Got the vector-one-seven glideslope and localizer," Brim reported presently. Then the warning horn sounded again, during another horrendous downdraft.
"The stuff is really moving in on us now," Aram said. "Lookout ahead...."
"You look," Brim joked. "I'd rather keep my eyes shut." Beside him, Wellington was no longer smiling. She was now sitting bolt upright and staring silently out the Hyperscreens, her hands suddenly gripping the armrests until her knuckles were white.
"Fleet CL.921 eighty-one-B Tower here; you are cleared to land; vector two five right, wind from nine zero at three five, gusts to nine zero."
"Thank you, sir," Brim said, mentally cringing at the potential turbulence ahead. This was not the time for trouble with anything, especially the Verticals. "Let's do the prelanding check, Nik," he said over his shoulder to Ursis.
"Atmospheric radiators?" Ursis prompted.
"Locked: two green lights."
"Vertical settings?"
"Thirty-three, thirty-three."
"Normal operation," Ursis commented.
"Lightning coming out of that one," Aram interrupted calmly.
"Huh?" Brim asked, looking up from his glideslope indicator.
"Lightning," Aram repeated, "coming out of that cloud."
"Where?"
"Right ahead of us."
"Oh, thraggling WONderful," Brim grouched.
"Faith, but ye sure get the gr'at landin' vectors, chield," Calhoun joked over his shoulder,
"Did ye tell 'em ye war' a Carescrian, perhaps?"
"That's got to be it," Brim laughed over his shoulder as the storm cloud loomed in the forward Hyperscreens. There was no avoiding it now. "Here comes that wash-off you were talking about, Aram," he said. "Better call out the altitudes for me." Suddenly everything turned black outside as Defiant plunged into the storm cell. Immediately a torrent of rain and hail began to hammer the ship, filling the bridge with the roar of its impact-an angry, bewildering, sense-shattering cascade that seemed to obliterate every other noise in the Universe. The starship bumped and bucked as if she were alive. It was all Brim could do to maintain any sort of glidepath at all. He pulled back on the forward vector and increased the Verticals to maximum in preparation for set down.
"Thirteen hundred irals," Aram intoned calmly.
Brim ground his teeth as he fought the storm with all his flying skill. At least the Verticals west running smoothly.
"Twelve hundred.... Eleven hundred...."