Claudia smiled as she planted a peck of a kiss on his lips.
Brim grinned. "At some time later, however, we might..."
"Some time later," she said as she led turn toward her skimmer, "will be time enough to talk about some later time...."
Less than fifteen cycles following that, they were once again in the delivery lot before Defiant's gravity pool. In the half-light of false dawn, Brim looked deeply into Claudia's tired eyes. She was totally disheveled by now, yet her natural beauty remained unquenchable.
"One more kiss?" be asked. "You know that Defiant leaves again tomorrow, and I don't know when I'll be back...."
Suddenly she was in his arms, with her mouth, wet and open, covering his. He held her that way for a long moment before she pushed him firmly away.
"As I said before, Lieutenant Brim," she murmured, "some time later will be time enough for us to plan some later time."
Brim nodded stepped to the ground and saluted. "Here's to then," he said.
Claudia blew him another kiss as she turned the little skimmer around and glided out of the lot.
Then she was gone, and Brim found himself again standing in a great deal of confusion as he watched the taillights of her skimmer fade into the distance. He shook his head.
Perhaps it was best to stay confused about this most beautiful woman-and let Lady Fate chart his course. Claudia Valemont might very well spell trouble, but, as he had lately discovered, he definitely had no desire to end things, either. Time, he discovered, would tell....
Early the next morning, he made detailed reports of his bender sightings to a number of surprisingly high-ranking-and very attentive-Fleet Intelligence officers. Then, two metacycles into the Midday watch, he piloted Defiant back into space on another convoy run. War and the Admiralty's tight provisioning schedule for Hador permitted little time to catch one's breath at all.
Chapter 5
THE BENDER
EMERGENCY PRIORITY: SHIPS APPROACHING CONVOY DIVISION TWO FROM
SECTOR GREEN NADIR AT HIGH SPEED; CONSIDER HOSTILE UNLESS OTHERWISE
NOTIFIED. INDEPENDENT UNITS STAND BY TO REPEL. The Leaguers were making a run on the convoy from dead astern and below. Dressed in his battle suit, Brim smiled grimly as the familiar litany flashed in his KA'PPA display. This time, Defiant was a designated "independent," cruising in the gap between the two widely separated convoy divisions to the left front of Division Two in its blue sector. And even though he was limited to operating in a specific zone, he could at least do something when the attackers caught up to him. He listened impatiently for Collingswood's voice directly behind him....
"You may call action stations, Number One," she intoned calmly to Calhoun.
"Aye, Captain," the older Carescrian answered. He'd clearly been waiting for the order too, for he immediately began to issue commands throughout the ship.
Brim gritted his teeth. Come on, he thought....
Finally, amid the clamor of alarms sounding below and a confusion of boots pounding on hullmetal decks, Brim felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Targets of opportunity when they reach our zone, Wilf," Collingswood declared. "Go to it."
"Aye, Captain," a relieved Brim answered over his shoulder. Then peering across Cohelmsman Galen Fritz, he nodded to Ursis at the systems console. "Combat energy, Nik," he said.
"Combat energy," Ursis repeated, moving his six-fingered hands surely among an orderly confusion of systems controls. Immediately, the sound of Defiant's four DDB-19.A7 Drive crystals began to intensify. Aft, their greenish wake took on a brighter glow as the accelerating ship shrugged off more and more L-units of relativistic mass.
Brim winked at Wellington, then glanced at his intraship display reflecting Provodnik and his team of Crystal lenders stoking the cruiser's eight antimatter power chambers. He shifted to the sick bay and Flynn's last-cycle preparations mere, then to the interior of each major turret. Everything and everyone appeared to be ready. In the last few months, actual combat experience had fine-tuned Defiant and her crew into a spectacularly efficient fighting unit. Brim smiled. Somehow, be. wasn't surprised. "I'll take the helm now, Mr. Chairman," he said, placing his hands over the controls.
"Aye, Lieutenant Brim," Defiant's Chairman intoned over me mounting roar of the crystals. "Steering vector is null and amidships-you now have the helm."
Outside, Brim watched Defiant's disruptors training balefully back and forth as he turned in toward the convoy. Light from a nearby star swarm lit her decks for a moment as she butted past at nearly twenty-five thousand LightSpeed.
In total, Convoy J18/9 extended more than fifteen c'lenyts from the van of Division One to the rear of Division Two. Each division was a full c'lenyt wide, nearly two deep, and contained fifty merchant starships escorted by thirty-odd warships. The latter ranged in size from the convoy flagship, I.F.S. Heroic, a heavy cruiser of the Hostile Class, through two light cruisers and a number of destroyers, to a small trawler squadron.
The other light cruiser was I.F.S. Perilous, one of the three Petulant-class light cruisers from which Defiant's design was derived. Like all Petulants, she was fast and reliable with eight 155-mmi disruptors in four twin-mounts. But she was also virtually unarmored. Brim had always appreciated the thick, 75-to 120-mmi armor that protected Defiant's inner chamber and bridge.
Nine of the twenty-two destroyers attached to Convoy J18/9 were T-class ships like old Truculent, tough scrappers all-and worth their weight in firepower when it came to a fight.
The others were a mixed bag of newer K-and N-class ships.
All in all, Brim considered that Defiant was in powerful company. Yet losses among the merchant starships had begun the first day out and continued to mount despite everyone's best efforts. It was a tough war-and no doubt about it....
Far astern, Brim could now see the attackers through Defiant's aft Hyperscreens: fifteen speeding traces of green grouped into three elements, and closing rapidly. He recognized the hard-edged silhouettes immediately against a star swarm-and COMCONVOY could forget about any recall notice. These were Leaguers, all right: fast, maneuverable Gorn-Hoff 380A-8s with big rapid-firing 137-mmi disruptors that could crumple a merchant ship's hull by a hit anywhere near the Drive-chamber structures.
With at least half the escorts protecting Division One, Defiant and the remaining Imperial ships would soon be considerably outnumbered-as usual. Wars that extended over the better part of a galaxy left only so many ships to go around on either side. He shrugged to himself and checked his instruments while he slightly increased his rate of turn. The Leaguers had started their war with vastly superior numbers of warships, and the convoy runs to Hador-Haelic were a good indication that the Empire had a long way to go before it caught up in that department.
Brim peered out over the plodding merchant ships as Defiant streaked toward the constantly zigzagging convoy: a long, cylindrical formation of ten "wheels," each made up of four merchantmen surrounding a fifth. The "rims" rotated around their "axis" ship with slow and majestic precision, randomly changing speeds and direction. He could only imagine what it must be like in the unarmed cargo ships as the crews watched impotently for another wave of deadly attack ships.
The Gorn-Hoffs were growing bigger every cycle as they approached the convoy. At this distance, Brim could make out their four turrets mounted on outriggers in a crosslike arrangement. Each mounted two rapid-firing Schwanndor 137-mmi disruptors. His mind's eye recalled the captured performance tables he'd seen about them at Menander-Garand: