"Message from the enemy ship," somebody yelled above the confusion. "Full video an' all, if you please!"
Brim cleared a display. "I'll take it at this station," he growled, guessing who was on the other end. The globe flashed, glowed, then manifested the image of a handsome masculine face—blue eyes, blond hair, dimpled chin. The Carescrian grimly nodded to himself. The Valentin.
"Ah, Brim," the elegant visage hissed, peering out of the display with a look of amused surprise. "I thought it might be you from the first transmission."
"Well, hab'thall?" Brim snarled as be kicked the steering engine. It was just sufficient to surprise the opposite Helmsmen and get in a brief volley from C turret. Three shots landed with bright explosions—Valentin's port-side launch arched away in a series of tight loops trailing flame like a small comet. The Overprefect's image jumped wildly in the display.
"That foul trick, Brim," Valentin snarled, "was the last—lucky—gasp of your contemptible existence."
He glowered from the display in high dudgeon. "Today, I shall finish what I started more than two years ago. For Dame Fortune has finally deserted you, Carescrian—and your thrice-damned ship!"
Brim kicked the steering engine once more, but the Leaguer a Helmsman was wary this time. Now there were no more tricks left from the Carescrian mines. With Valentin's execrable laughter ringing in his ears, he desperately scoured his mind for a way to prolong things until the battlecruisers arrived. "Well, hab'thall," he commented derisively, "I see they demoted you after your last blunder."
Valentin's eyebrows shot upward. "Demoted?" he protested. "You would have done well to study League Fleet ranks, fool." He pointed proudly to the ornate device embroidered in metallic thread on his perfectly tailored cuff. "I," he pronounced, "have been made an overprefect—promoted, Brim. Not demoted! The same rank as your full commanders— Lieutenant."
"Is that right?" Brim said derisively. "Old Triannic must xaxtadamned well be scraping the bottom of his bedchamber slops bucket if he's forced to promote the likes of you—Voot's beard, Valentin, you've never been able to complete a mission when I'm around." He peered into the display with mock concentration, wrinkling his nose. "Something about me sets you on edge, doesn't it, hab'thall?"
"Capcloth! Carescrian scum!" Valentin raged in a high, choked voice. "I shall show you what it means to be on edge." He turned to someone outside the display and nodded. "Carefully, though," he panted. "I want this to be slow. Make certain our Imperial friends have plenty of time to savor their agony. He laughed nervously. "Yes," be hissed in clear anticipation, "so they enjoy every shot!" Then he raised his hand and Brim's display went blank.
"Apparent end of transmission, Lieutenant," a rating reported.
Brim nodded. "Very well," be said to himself. He turned to face the enemy ship and waited grimly, wishing he had even some of Fourier's rocks to throw. They would have been every bit as effective as his disruptors now, and a thousand times more satisfying!
He glanced around Truculent's battered bridge, littered with bodies and Hyperscreen shards. Not many of the old crew alive now—only Ursis and a few scattered ratings waited defiantly at their consoles, staring into the enemy disruptors. Clearly Valentin was keeping his promise to draw things out—enjoying his moment of triumph. Brim nodded. Let him! The battlecruisers were on their way, and even if he were not around to see it, the Overprefect's predilection for torture might cost him dearly.
As he sat watching the enemy ship, he thought about the Lixorian forts. In Truculent's present position, at least three of them could bring their big disruptors to bear—save the ship doing a job they were built to accomplish. But all were silent, watching as the Leaguers prepared to cut his now helpless destroyer to pieces. He took a deep breath. Though he would soon be blasted all over the Universe, he would die with disdain for every preening businessman who sucked sustenance from the troubles of others. Much as he hated the black-suited Leaguer Controllers, he could easily generate more respect for them than for the rapacious bastards who lived on the planet below. At least Controllers had moral fortitude to cleave to some cause other than pure avarice.
Across the emptiness, a single disruptor flashed. Truculent's deck jumped as the bolt of energy crashed home just forward of the bridge in a shower of sparks. A second flash, and the 'midships deckhouse erupted in a cloud of radiation. Through a display, Brim scanned the glowing wreckage of the wardroom. Most of it was now open to space—great starry holes yawned where Greyffin IV's picture used to hang. He wondered momentarily about the fate of old Grimsby, but couldn't see the pantry in his display—and the damage-control sensors there seemed to have lost any ability to function. In the long, shocked silence that followed, he thought of Margot—his mind's eye saw her as she was the night they met in that same wardroom. And their only night together on Avalon. Then the softness of that memory was blown away by a stunning jar as a bolt landed in the petty officers' mess directly below his feet.
More Hyperscreens shattered beside him—splinters tweaked his battle suit in a dozen places. A sharp pain burned his arm. He looked down to watch a charred hole sealing itself on his right forearm. The deck bucked again as three direct hits destroyed the torpedo launcher behind him.
"Sorry, Nik," he yelled to the Bear. "I did the best I could."
Ursis shrugged and smiled fatalistically. "I am not troubled by impending death, Wilf Ansor," he growled. "I only regret I did not tear that hab'thall from limb to limb when I had the chance."
"Universe!" somebody exclaimed in a trembling voice, "why doesn't he get it over with?"
"Do not attempt to speed Lady Fate," Ursis laughed over the voice circuits. "She often requires time for her miracles—which we need, as the Universe knows."
"I can't stand any more of this!" somebody else shrieked, but her voice stopped abruptly, interrupted by a blinding light that erupted just aft of Valentin's ship. The spreading burst of raw energy sent the enemy destroyer tumbling out of control like a child's toy and laid Truculent on her beam ends.
Terrorized screams filled the voice circuits—many of the Imperials no longer had visual access to the outside. Stunned, Brim automatically eased the destroyer back on to her original orientation—just in time to watch the NF-110 hesitate in its flight for a moment, then angle off into space at top acceleration amid a whole barrage of the huge flare-ups—the battlecruisers had finally arrived.
It was about xaxtdamned time!
CHAPTER 10
Brim ultimately missed destruction of the third enemy ship (except to note a great pulsing light coming from somewhere off to starboard). Instead, he had been searching the darkness for a large object that appeared to separate from the doomed starship in its moment of hesitation before the attempted escape.
Debris or possibly a cutter? Or had he imagined the whole thing? Whatever it was, it failed to register on any of his displays. Shaking his head, he reluctantly abandoned his search to watch the great Imperial battlecruisers Benwell and Oddeon heave majestically into view, their glowing disruptors returning smoothly to parked positions on their foredecks as they approached.