And suddenly there were no more Leaguers. It was only Brightness:1:43, forty cycles to the click since Wellington's first sighting-and they were out of the war! In the few cycles since his first reversing turn, the Leaguers had once more become a distant pattern of bright sparks against the starry blackness. Aft through the shattered Hyperscreen frames, he could now see the ghostly, HyperSpeed images of Onrad's task force bearing down at high velocity with Admiral Plutron's quartet of fast battleships in the van. Liat-Modal was about to lose much of his fleet-and a hundred thousand Leaguer troops had just been placed under an irrevocable death sentence.
"KA'PPA signal from Admiral Plutron in Queen Elidean to you personally," a COMM rating announced to Collingswood, her voice muffled by the emergency battle circuits. "I thought perhaps you might want it delivered by hand."
"Thank you," Collingswood answered-as if she expected the message. Presently, Brim heard her chuckle. "Return this to the Admiral, please," she ordered. "'Eyebrows somewhat singed, but essential parts intact. Will demonstrate in port.' I believe that will do for an answer."
"Aye, Captain...."
In the background, Brim could hear a struggling rescue officer. "Over here, lads," she puffed. "Lively now-there's two blokes trapped under this lot of rubbish."
Brim swiveled his seat while Queen Elidean blazed majestically past, followed closely by Ganriel, Daithom, and Barreg. Aft, in the hardest-hit portion of the bridge, rescue teams were chopping away with laser axes at the twisted remains of a heavy overhead Hyperscreen support. Beneath, half buried in blood-soaked debris, two obscene chunks of flesh protruded from a flame-blackened battle suit. He shivered in spite of himself as the horrible spectacle was obscured by two ratings carrying a dripping, blood-drenched stretcher piled with the remains of three shattered bodies-not one of them was more than two-thirds complete. He turned back to his console and waited for the damage report while he shook his head, the horror remained fixed in his mind's eye. War could be romantic only to those who had never experienced the realities of combat.
Suddenly, Ursis's brooding visage appeared in his intraship; behind him, the ruins of the Drive chamber continued to spark and flicker in scintillating clouds of free ions. Brim glanced over to the Bear's duty station on the bridge. It was now filled by the clearly human form of Gamble. He nodded to himself. Provodnik's loss would be appalling to his Sodeskayan friend. Bears tended to stick together. "Except for loss of lives here, Wilf Ansor," the Bear reported, "things are not so bad as they look." He motioned with a bloodstained arm to animated groups of ratings swarming over the feed tubes with bubbling dispensers of radiation sealant. " Defiant is probably finished with battle now, but we should be able to maintain almost half speed within the metacycle-and that will get us home."
"What about Provodnik?" Brim asked gently, but he already knew the answer.
Ursis raised his eyes and bit his lip. "My countryman Provodnik has departed to join his eternal ancestors," he said in a melancholy voice. Then he shrugged phlegmatically, "One always expects that the cost of war will be exorbitant, Wyilf Ansor-and one is seldom disappointed."
During the next metacycle, Prince Onrad himself ordered Defiant to set course back to Atalanta. WORST CASE, REGULA, he KA'PPAed just before his attack, WE SHALL NEED YOUR DISRUPTORS WHEN YOU ARRIVE-OTHERWISE WE SHALL NEED YOUR HELP CELEBRATING. Shortly after that, at Brightness:2:71 by Brim's watch, a series of tremendous flashes pulsed among the stars ahead, rapidly increasing in frequency and number until the entire starscape was blanked by a violent-constant-strobing that was punctuated here and there by glittering blossoms of pure color that marked a hit on some unlucky starship.
As the heavy firing continued-receding farther and farther into the distance ahead-incoming KA'PPA reports served as clear indication that Onrad was successfully pressing home his attack and the Imperials were winning the day.
In due time, Defiant's lookouts began to point out clumps of debris and glowing, burned-out wrecks along their path. Most were the remains of transports-still coasting along their last controlled flight path on momentum alone as they inexorably decelerated toward LightSpeed. Some were surrounded by pitiful clouds of glimmering lifeglobes, but many had none. Brim supposed it mattered very little either way. By the time League salvage vessels could fly to the rescue, the 'globes would long ago have exhausted their life-support systems.
One of the hulks they passed at close range was surrounded by no more than five 'globes, but appeared to be covered by thousands of tiny insects-each the shape of a human being-Collingswood's space garbage....
Among the Leaguer warships they passed, most were Gorn-Hoff attack cruisers and a few NF-110s. Those that could still move under their own power occasionally fired off a salvo or two, but most of these were efficiently dealt with by Wellington and Defiant's intact complement of 155s. The only benders they encountered were also total wrecks. Messages beamed back from Onrad indicated that the fragile starships were relatively helpless in major fleet actions when they could be spotted before they fired their torpedoes.
Collingswood and Calhoun gave wide berth to the three disabled Leaguer battleships they passed-one was the group flagship, Lempat, veteran of nearly all the war's early engagements. Colossal radiation fires were burning at three points along her corpulent hull, and she was clearly coasting down toward LightSpeed. Nothing remained of her massive tower bridge save a burned-out stump that emerged from the blackened skeleton of a forward deckhouse. If Liat-Modal had been anywhere near his duty station when that blow came, he had been reduced to atomic particles along with most of his staff.
Now and again, they slowed to pick up survivors of Imperial warships who had taken to their 'globes, but they bypassed those that-like themselves-were still underway or had deployed no 'globes for one reason or another. Support ships like Nimrod and Steele would eventually take care of them, along with their crews.
By Brightness:3:77, the flashes-now far in the distance ahead-began to peter out, and during the next metacycle subsided completely. From the stream of KA'PPA traffic recorded in the COMM station. Brim learned that the last of the transports had been destroyed-nearly forty cycles after the last Leaguer defenders fled from their charges at top speed. At Evening:00:05, Onrad himself KA'PPAed, ALL TASK FORCE 17 SHIPS RETURN TO CRUISING STATIONS NOW, then he set a diagonal course that would eventually bring his task force into contact with Penda's Task Force 16-if neither had spotted Anak's main battle groups first. Clearly, the opening stage of the battle had been resolved by the Imperials.
When the next stage would come, however, was anybody's guess....
It began a lot sooner than anyone suspected. During the very next watch, at Evening:1:10, reconnaissance scouts from Task Group 17 finally located Anak's battlecruiser fleet at long range. Both scouts were eventually destroyed, but not before they broadcast significant position information concerning the invasion fleet. Miraculously, Penda had placed his fleet directly in Anak's path. The Leaguer Admiral was now without the veil of secrecy that had protected him up until then. Onrad issued immediate orders setting Task Group 16 onto a converging course, but it was clear from the beginning that he could never hope to cover such a distance in time to coordinate his efforts with Admiral Penda's attack. Task Force 17 would have to go it alone....