"Oh Universe, but they're t-taking their own sweet time getting here," a nervous voice stuttered from the rear of the bridge. "They must really be tearing things apart up ahead this time."
Brim recognized the high-pitched voice immediately. Tina Rasnovski was not only a first-trip midshipman, she was also the junior navigator of the crew. He couldn't blame her for the outburst. Tired as he was, he found himself almost desperate to get back to Defiant's controls. At times like this, he needed to do something. Anything. The day-in, day-out passiveness of a navigating console would quickly drive him out of his mind, and he knew it.
"Thank your lucky stars we've been sharing their favors, lady," a sarcastic voice grated anonymously from the weapons area. "We might have them all to ourselves before you know it." Scanty laughter trickled from other points of the bridge, but it lacked real substance-like thin sunlight on a winter afternoon. Brim understood that, too....
From experience, he also knew that complex, three-dimensional zigzag maneuvers-aligned on the galactic disk-would begin during the next few moments. He was just tightening his seat restraints in preparation when three blinding lights suddenly exploded from aft in a giant, convoy-straddling triangle of brilliance. One of the enemy scouts actually eclipsed its own Hyperflare for a heartbeat before it disappeared among the flowing stars.
The blazing illuminators surged wildly forward along the convoy as they picked up speed, scalping the thin camouflage of darkness from nearby merchantmen, and tracing their outlines in the dazzling over-spectrum most visible to League target directors.
Default's Hyperscreens darkened protectively on the instant, but not before a chorus of groans and curses escaped the bridge crew, now half-blinded in the streaming brilliance.
Outside, more than three hundred irals of graceful armored deck and smoothly indexing disruptors appeared below in ghostly brilliance, disclosing radiation-blackened patches from hits already suffered since the convoy set out from the port of Harmon-21 nearly a quarter-galaxy distant.
"Stand by to begin zigzag pattern E-28 in five clicks," Calhoun intoned.
Brim shook his head grumpily. They didn't have a lot of choice- Defiant was presently
"attached" to the convoy itself, and had been for the last three watches. At any given time, only a few of the escorts could be released to "independent" roving and attack. The majority were required to maintain position within the convoy, ensuring that the major defensive firepower remained among the merchantmen that were being protected.
Stars skidded abruptly toward low port as each ship in the large convoy executed the course change simultaneously. At the same instant, a great pulsing flareup toward the van marked another unarmed merchant ship that would never reach port. Brim clenched his fists in a paroxysm of angry helplessness. The Leaguer ships just kept attacking, no matter how many of them were destroyed-and the odds were clearly on their side. During the preceding year, 1,299 unarmed merchantmen-totaling forty-four million milstons-had been reduced to burned-out space wreckage, and then' critical cargoes lost, at a cost to the Leaguers of only eighty-seven attack craft. The escorts could try to minimize the toll-but not even a squadron of battlecruisers could completely protect the slow-moving convoy: its overall speed was limited by the slowest members to only 12,000 LightSpeed.
As if triggered by Brim's dismal thoughts, every disruptor mounted by two "independent"
escorts off to low port opened up at lengthening fingers of green light in the distant blackness: drive plumes of attack ships headed their way. On the far side of the bridge, he could see Wellington's gunlayers grimly setting up their disruptors, faces lighted from below by tile flowing colors of the readouts.
"Just coming on the bearing now. Commander: Red 332, range 1778..."
Another skidding turn by the convoy; this time the stars slid to high starboard. Still no command for independent action from COMCONVOY, the Escort Commander. Brim gritted his teeth with helplessness. He wanted something to be done....
"Range 1650..."
Suddenly one of the green traces in the distance welled into a huge pulsing light.
"A hit! Somebody got a hit!..."
"By the bleeding Universe-look at 'im tern!"
"Still comes the attack," Ursis intoned, breaking his grim silence as the attack ships-visible now as long-range NF-110s-steadied on course toward the two near escorts.
One was I.F.S. Obstinate, easily recognizable by her squared-off silhouette: an old but long-legged O-class escort destroyer. Behind her moved the distinctive outline of a powerful CJ-class frigate, probably I.F.S. Perillan. "Bastards are out to get the escorts, this trip, eh?" the Bear asked.
Brim nodded mute agreement as others in the bridge began to shout ineffectual encouragement to the Imperial gunners-and still no release from COMCONVOY for Defiant.
He watched in silence, reflexively angling his head as the cruiser slid into still another violent course change with the squadron.
Off to port Obstinate and Perillan flew as if tethered in line, turrets indexing smoothly and firing as if neither had just altered course at all. Abruptly, the leftmost NF-110 exploded in a molten burst of flame and wreckage. A moment later, debris struck the attack ship beside her. Immediately out of control, that ship pitched convulsively, launched her unprepared torpedoes far beyond the speeding destroyer, then exploded in a great flash of quivering brilliance. The deadly missiles themselves, however, described a wild spiral, then suddenly wobbled toward Defiant herself....
Brim and the bridge crew watched in fatalistic silence as the confused swarm of torpedoes steadied on course. It looked to Brim as if each was individually targeted on his particular jump seat.
"There's time to take care of those, Alpern," Collingswood said sharply in the still bridge.
"Aye, Captain," the ECW Officer responded in a quiet voice. Abruptly, Defiant began to radiate with a glimmering web of bluish fire. Presently, a lustrous pseudopod formed to port, hesitated for a moment, then detached itself and shot up over the bridge, pulsing with a life all its own.
Immediately, the torpedo swarm pivoted and lit off after the decoy, eventually disappearing in a vivid fireball that nearly engulfed Defiant herself. Despite the cruiser's powerful built-in gravity, her bridge deck seemed to lift and shake until it threatened to shatter the Hyperscreens. Something heavy smashed into the starboard corner of the superstructure, cracking the corner Hyperscreen directly beside Provodnik's console, then battering itself along the deck until it disappeared into the wake.
And suddenly, they were in the clear again, flying on an even keel as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Voof!" Ursis commented with a phlegmatic shrug of his shoulder. "Close! As we say in the Mother Planets: 'Boulders and trees seldom rock a Bear's cradle willingly,' eh?"
"You bet, Nik," Brim replied with a tired grin. He was keeping his eyes on the remaining four NF-110s as they pressed home their assault on Obstinate, now weaving violently along her course and continuing her deadly fire with every disruptor that would train. At maximum distance, three of the Leaguers released their torpedoes, then stampeded out of range in a hail of disruptor fire from both escorts. The fourth, however, continued its run, boring in through an almost solid wall of concentrated energy. "Obstinate's not using her decoy," Brim whispered.