Attacks began early, with Brim, himself, reporting back to FleetPort 19 just under the wire—but more rested than he could remember. On patrol that afternoon, he mused that the strain on Defense Command was probably reaching some sort of a peak. In each of the past three weeks, the Imperials had flown more than four thousand sorties—and the previous week, nearly five thousand, a record. This compared with an average of one thousand per week not more than a month and a half previously. The latest Leaguer tactic of flying large numbers of small raids was wearing on men and machines both. But the fact that the valiant crews of Defense Command had not cracked—nor had retreated into self-pity—showed that the once-unseasoned Imperial defenders had ultimately evolved into a fighting force at least as good as—and often far better than—their so-called "professional" adversaries from the League.
During the next day, Attack Command launched another successful raid on the League capital of Tarrott before regional gravity became turbulent again, causing a welcome, two-day lull in the fighting.
According to Brim's TSIB, Laga'ard Testetta, Foreign Minister of the Torond—home following talks with Hanna Notrom—had informed Grand Baron LaKarn that "doubts now seem to hang over the Leaguer offensive against Avalon." Similarly, Zoguard Grobermann, League Minister of State, officially blamed the prolonged delay both on hazardous gravity storms and League forces diverted to assist The Torond in Fluvanna. Even Triannic was reported to have growled that at least two more weeks of calm gravity were necessary before he could hope to neutralize the Imperial Home Fleet.
If the Leaguers' invasion of Avalon had been temporarily postponed, however, their intent to destroy much of it continued unabated as soon as the regional gravity moderated. FleetPort 30 was attacked early on the third morning and damaged in spite of heavy losses inflicted on the enemy. Brim's Starfury was also hit during a dogfight during that same attack and just made it back to the base before the Drive power failed completely. Raids continued throughout the day, and a second attack on the FleetPort caught him without a ship to fight in.
Repairing in disgust to the tracking room, he quietly took a seat at the back of the low-ceilinged chamber and watched a group of Leaguer attack ships emerge out of Hyperspace, then speed directly for Proteus, the science-colony planet. Suddenly, a dozen or so swung off course and headed directly for FleetPort 30, arriving within firing distance while the clutter from the previous raid was still being cleared.
Starfuries immediately closed in and engaged the small squadron, but not in time to avert a second savage attack.
With alarms clanging stridently in his ears, Brim donned the helmet to his battlesuit—lately, he seemed to be living in it—then sprinted for Defense Central where Barbousse already would have taken command. But he was no more than halfway there when the deck buckled violently, throwing him from his feet as heavy disrupter fire again tore into the satellite. At either end of the corridor, airtight doors slid closed automatically, trapping him halfway through the big satellite's dormitory section. Before he could get up, the atmosphere filled with smoke—which cleared with a mighty roar as somewhere the damaged hull vented to open space. Simultaneously, the lights went out, replaced instantly by the dim glow of battle lanterns. Sealing his visor, he struggled to his feet and began to stumble blindly toward a wall phone when another savage blast took out the satellite's local gravity and launched him sideways through a cabin doorway where a wet and virtually naked woman struggled blindly to don a battlesuit—she'd obviously been showering when the raid began and had only heard the alarms when it was much too late. Heaving and gasping silently for air, she collapsed as he pulled himself to her side. Grabbing her battlesuit helmet, he jammed it over her staring, grimacing head and turned up the air—only clicks before a pitcher of liquid exploded beside her bunk and boiled in the vacuum of space.
Moments later, she ceased her wild struggles and her terror-goggled eyes clouded over.
Abruptly, he recognized her as one of the BKAEW operators, and wondered how many more of the satellite's occupants had just died similar deaths. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the helmet from her head, then gently closed her eyelids and finished pulling on her suit—a difficult task now that gases from boiling body fluids had swelled her body at least a third again in volume like some grotesque balloon.
When finally he stood, he reverently thanked Lady Fortune that the poor woman never regained consciousness while her blood was boiling. He'd seen that once: it was simply too horrible to contemplate.
After the attack subsided he activated the suit's voice communications system; his helmet immediately filled with groans and screams of those who survived. "Barbousse!" he demanded over the noise. "Barbousse! Can you hear me? Are you all right?"
"I hear you, Cap'm," said Barbousse's voice. "I'm safe. Where are you?"
Shaking his head in wonderment of yet another last-moment miracle, Brim gave Barbousse general instructions on where he could be found, after, he demanded, rescue crews first took care of the wounded. Then he sat back under a battle lantern and pondered on how he—Wilf Brim, Carescrian—had managed to stay alive for so long through so much trouble. He came up with no rational answers as he stared at the floating, bloated corpse for nearly two metacycles before Barbousse and a rescue team cut through the twisted wreckage to release him.
All told, more than sixty hits had scored on the satellite, each placed with an accuracy that Brim still found hard to believe. And even though he was certain he now knew part of how they were achieving it, the knowledge wasn't doing anybody much good until someone devised a way to counter it—or better still, to use it to the Empire's own best advantage. The Leaguers damaged workshops, repair hangars, stores, dormitories—even offices—ripping up service bays, severing service mains, and generally reducing the big satellite to a shambles. Sixty-five people had been killed or seriously injured—among them five flight crews. They'd finally destroyed the dock where he'd inadvertently concealed the Gorn-Hoff 219. But for all that, they didn't get what they were after. The little ship had been safely underground on Proteus for days.
At day's end. Defense Command crews had flown a record 1054 sorties—the previous record had stood only six Standard Days. Moreover, before the last watch was finished, 109 additional attack ships raided targets on Melia and Helios, in addition to smaller raids elsewhere. League losses totaled thirty-six starships to the Empire's twenty-five, but Brim and the other doughty Imperials were clearly approaching the limits of their strength and endurance as they struggled to sustain their part of Avalon's defense amid the twisted wreckage of FleetPort 30.
On the last day of Octad, Leaguer raids against Imperial starbases continued uninterrupted, with at least eight hundred starships of all types taking part. FleetPort 30 took even more punishment, but miraculously, the big satellite continued in operation, although none of the remaining Starfuries or Defiants based there remained completely serviceable. Brim often flew with reduced armament and propulsion, doing the best he could with what he had. From his all-too-infrequent rendezvous with an equally fatigued Eve Cartier, he knew that things were at least as bad in FleetPort 19—and, by inference, throughout Defense Command in general. His only comfort was the knowledge that the Leaguer crews were taking the same kind of punishment themselves.