At first, they were not very effective as a crew. Individually, many were extraordinarily talented, but they had yet to form a coordinated team-and to experience the excellence that only synergy can produce. Little by little, however, they progressed. They smoothed off their rough edges and learned to work with each other. Moreover, it was a sort of progress that all could see, for the ship herself functioned better-on a daily basis. Soon, they were more often than not declared winners in the vicious hunter-killer games staged daily by professional "aggressor" crews aboard captured League warships.
Not only did they learn each other, they also learned the ship-all her little idiosyncrasies and quirks. And her strengths. Wellington was overjoyed at the disruptor batteries she had to work with. Perhaps her crew showed the most marked improvement, right from the beginning. Something about the woman's personality welded her weapons experts into effective teams first off. In only a few days, they were destroying targets even ships that had nearly completed the course could hardly track. And Defiant became known as a ship of marksmen-extraordinary marksmen. Before long, 152-mmi disruptors became known as "Wellingtons" throughout the huge training complex.
It was little enough time to prepare for what a few-like Collingswood-had known for some time now: that the war was about to enter a new and even deadlier phase. Brim learned about it one morning more than two-thirds of the way through the course when a scheduled maneuver was abruptly canceled for Defiant's officers and senior enlisted personnel. Half dead with fatigue, they were marched from their duty stations into huge skimmers and bussed overland to the central training complex.
There-in a most secret briefing-they learned that all was not well within the League of Dark Stars. Nergol Triannic, it seemed, had promised his nobles at the war's outset that mastery of the galaxy would be theirs in no more than two years. To that end, he sent his minion Kabul Anak on a bloody march of conquest across the stars that-at its zenith-reached out its claws for Avalon herself. However, since those first dark days, the rolling storm from the League had largely been stemmed-held to almost a deadlock as the Imperial commonwealth gathered itself into a war footing, then began to force Anak and his invaders to pay dearly for each star and planet, battle for each asteroid.
Now, more man eight years after the first savage attacks, Triannic found himself under intense pressure to make good his promise-however late. The League's most important ports were securely blockaded; the overall economy was almost totally stifled; and maintenance of his Controllers with their ever-burgeoning military empire was bleeding the economy white.
In a desperate attempt to accomplish his original covenant-and thus preserve his sovereignty-Triannic had ordered a sharp revision in strategy. The first inkling of this manifested itself when Anak's attacks became increasingly less frequent, then, in the last months, ceased almost entirely. Simultaneously, League shipyards nearly doubled their output-sacrificing whole cities for raw materials to feed the new building programs.
Working round the clock, Imperial intelligence gathering-and-analysis units had pieced together interlocking bits of information revealing Triannic's newest ploy. In one great throw of the conqueror's dice, he planned to send Kabul Anak and his new fleets on a direct attack at Avalon with an armada so powerful the Empire could not place sufficient counterforce in its path to save the capital before defenses crumbled and the government itself finally came under the League's collective thumb.
As a secondary objective, most of the Imperial squadrons would also be destroyed in the process, ground into space debris by concentrated fire from the most powerful starfleet in the known Universe.
A major complication in the League plan, however, was Avalon's location within the tempestuous galactic center. The five Home Planets and their triple star, Asterious, were surrounded by a nearly impregnable sphere of mighty asteroid shoals and blazing ramparts of drift, swarms of neutron stars, celestial debris, free atoms, and cosmic deserts-all of it swept by treacherous gravity storms and particle avalanches. Only one reasonable invasion path existed. This was an opening very much like the iris of an eye-with the great star harbor and military base of Hador-Haelic at its very center. A very powerful fleet would be required to force this passage, but such was precisely what Triannic-and his minion Admiral Kabul Anak-planned to bring about in the minimum time possible.
To that end, in heavily defended star harbors near the League capital of Tarrott, powerful battle groups were already assembling-under cover of great secrecy. Triannic had no idea that so much of his plan was already compromised. But now it was the Empire's task to fortify Hador-Haelic before the attack came. The one key item of information Avalon's forces lacked was when the attack might take place.
A great, historic clock was inexorably counting off cycles-and only the Leaguers knew how long it would run. But when Anak did choose to launch his great thrust, it was clear to Brim that Defiant would be on hand for the titanic struggle to contain it. And that was precisely where he wanted to be.
During the last hectic week of training, Defiant was pitted against a group of three captured League warships; this time she was cast in a role of an attacker. It was clear that the highly trained "aggressor" ships were ill-prepared to cope with the new light cruiser's surprising speed. And Collingswood used the ship's advantage brilliantly, forcing her "enemies" to fight by her own rules, attacking when they least expected it and never remaining in one locality long enough for them to use what would amount to their superior firepower. Unfortunately for the "aggressors," each time they did maneuver into a position to benefit from their combined disruptors, the wily Collingswood used her speed-plus Brim's extraordinary helmsmanship-to outmaneuver them, thus sustaining only minor "damage" to Defiant while Wellington scored sufficient "hits" to win the desperately fought mock combats.
At the end of the training period, the tired "aggressors" good-naturedly KA'PPAed a surrender.
"We give up," they messaged. "We'd rather fight Anak's people any day!"
Brim smiled to himself as a signal officer read off the message on the ship's blower.
Tough as they'd made things seem, he well knew that Defiant's real test would not occur until she faced actual combat. Nothing could quite simulate the real threat of death....
Two days after the mock battles-and following a ceremonial flyby of the week's graduating ships for Rear Admiral (the Hon.) Nabonasser K. Comtist, Commander of the Escort School- Defiant and her crew were granted a short leave before reporting for convoy duty at Hador-Haelic. Brim had been half expecting this might happen, and had somehow found time-and energy-during the hectic curriculum to form his plans accordingly.
He got a civilian KA'PPA message off only cycles after Defiant was safely moored and he had personally secured her helm:
TO: MARGOT EFFER'WYCK, LT., I.F. ® ADMIRALTY
AVALON 19-993.367
FROM: WILF A. BRIM, LT, I.F. @ MENANDER-GARAND
341.98-R31
personaclass="underline"
MARGOT: FIVE DAYS' LEAVE AND A ROUND-TRIP HOP
TO AVALON ALLOW NEARLY A FULL DAY ON
AVALON! I.F.S. ALBATRON MAKES LANDFALL TWO
DAYS FROM NOW AT ZECHLEY FLEET BASE ON LAKE
MERSIN: NINE BELLS OF THE AFTERNOON WATCH. I
SHALL CONTACT AMBRIDGE. YOUR CHAUFFEUR AT
THE EFFER'IAN EMBASSY.
ETERNALLY-WILF
Afterward, he frantically packed a small traveling bag and-with Ursis and Provodnik driving an open skimmer at breakneck speed through the base-arrived at Albatron's gravity pool while they were just about to collapse the brow. He was last aboard the little LK-91, a fast packet he had learned to fly at the Helmsman's Academy, squeezing through a half-closed hatch on his way to the cramped bridge. There, he traded places with the ship's regular pilot-a tall fellow with wispy moustaches, a great woolly head of hair, and a most relieved look on his face.