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"Ten."
Barbousse announced grimly.
"Nine... Eight... Seven..."
Brim had to fight the controls with all his concentration. Come on, Barbousse!
"Four... three... two... one... Torpedoes running, Cap'm!"
In the wink of an eye, eight dark spindles flashed out from beneath Starfury's bridge and headed squarely for the battleship. Instantly Brim threw in full military power, pulled the nose up and rolled out into a violent jink. But he was moments too late.
With unbelievable concussion and sound, the whole forward tip of Starfury's starboard pontoon disappeared in a tremendous blast of radiant energy. Her hull jumped and quivered for a long moment and the generators skipped a beat as Brim fought to bring the skewed ship back under control.
Then, without warning, they were again blasted off course—this time by an even more stupendous explosion. The whole Universe seemed to light up by the birth of some hellacious new star...
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WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1991 by Merl Baldwin
All rights reserved.
Questar is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.
Cover illustration by John Berkey
Cover design by Don Puckey
Warner Books, Inc.
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N. Y. 10020
A Time Warner Company
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: June, 1991
The Mercenaries
Bill Baldwin
CHAPTER 1
Bromwich, 52009
Commander Wilf Brim, I. F., scanned a mass of polychrome data cascading over his four readout consoles—then checked the panel clock, "It's time, Number One," he said, nodding to Lieutenant Nadia Tissaurd at the CoHelmsman's station beside him. "Let's pipe it on the blower."
"Aye, Captain," Tissaurd replied; a deft pass of her index finger triggered the starship's intercom.
"Hands to liftoff stations," she announced, her voice resounding into every cubic iral of the big starship.
"Hands to liftoff stations. Stand by mooring and fender beams!"
Abruptly, the bridge filled with noises of imminent departure: running footfalls, airtight doors slamming, the cadenced babble of thirty different checklists. Brim settled into his recliner with a full measure of excitement. Beneath his boots, I.F.S. Starfury's deck trembled to the steady beat of six Admiralty A876 gravity generators running at fast idle in long pontoons at either side of the main hull.
Above it all, he sensed (more than heard) the treble rush of steering engines as Engineering Officer Strana' Zaftrak carried out her last-moment checklist at the Systems Console behind him. No need for worry there. The Sodeskayan woman was thorough.
A scraping thud announced the brow had been swayed back to the edge of the gravity pool; anyone aboard now was on his way to the space trials—whether that was what he intended or not.
"Hands stand by for internal gravity," Tissaurd announced on the blower. A woman in her early forties from the Lampsen Provinces with laughing eyes, jet-black hair, and a compact figure, her matter-of-fact competency had been an asset since the day she signed on as First Lieutenant—only metacycles following Brim's own arrival as Commanding Officer. With the million-odd tasks to be accomplished before the new ship was commissioned, her kind of cheerful willingness had been doubly appreciated. Besides, she was sexy in her own way.
Once more Brim verified the flow of information over his console, then swallowed hard and nodded to Zaftrak's furry visage in a display. "Switch it, Strana'," he ordered quietly.
The Sodeskayan winked and passed a delicate, six-fingered hand over the gravity console beside her, changing sixteen flashing red indicators to steady blue—and savaging Brim's stomach in an avalanche of nausea as gravity cycled from planetary to the ship's artificial gradient. During twenty-nine years in space he had never become inured to the change, especially if it happened abruptly.
When his vision cleared, he shunted one of his displays to the PoolMaster in a control cupola on the rim of the gravity pool, twenty-five irals beneath Starfury's levitated hull. "Single up the moorings, if you please, Master Scirri, " he ordered.
"Singling up moorings, " replied Scirri's bearded face from the display. He had narrow lips, a sharp nose, and the humorless, close-set eyes of a sharpshooter. He was the best PoolMaster at Sherrington's.
Through the Hyperscreens—normally transparent crystalline windows that simulated conventional vision at Hyperspeeds—Brim watched a network of greenish mooring beams wink out one by one.
Presently, the ship was tethered by a single set of four springs projected from the corners of the gravity pool, flaring up and abating as Starfury moved to the wind.
Outside, the weather was moderating—at last. Bromwich city (indeed all of Rhodor's boreal hemisphere) had been stormy that winter. But at present, the air was clean and crisp over squalid, whitecapped Glammarian Bight. Brim looked out across the ship's snub-nosed prow, drinking in the pair of graceful ebony pontoons that jutted almost fifty irals beyond. From the tip of each, two 406-mmi disruptors continued forward for another seventy-five irals. Once exclusively reserved for use on the largest battleships, twelve of these deadly and brutally efficient ship-killing mechanisms could now be mounted on light cruisers like Starfury—but only by dint of recent technology, developed not a moment too soon. A sad, fragile peace that doggedly persisted among the Galactic dominions reminded Brim of the thin winter dayshine outside: it still managed a pallid light, but all the heat had long ago escaped. Even as he sat in his Helmsman's seat, the old enemy was constructing new, deep-space fortifications in a score of locations. War was about to break out all over the galaxy, and with a sadly depleted Imperial Fleet, only Starfury and the sister ships that would follow her from the Sherrington Works held any genuine promise for a bleak-looking future....
The bridge had grown quiet now, every console manned and active. "Ship's buttoned up, Captain," Tissaurd reported with a grin. "All hands are at stations and pretaxi checklists are done," she said. "Ready to proceed...."
"Good work, Nadia," Brim replied. He touched the COMM panel at his right hand. "Bromwich Ground," he sent, "Fleet K5054 requests immediate G-pool departure."
"K5054: affirmative. Cleared immediate G-pool departure."
"K5054," Brim acknowledged. Then, into the display: "Master Scirri, stand by springs!" He checked fore and aft through the Hyperscreens—all clear. Starfury had a quartering wind on her starboard bow. No particular problem, but it never hurt to be careful.... Narrowing his eyes, he waited for the proper balance of wind and mooring beams, before "Let go port springs!"
"All clear port, Captain," the bearded PoolMaster reported from his console.
The crosswind meant that Brim would have to go ahead on the back spring and get the stern to swing out to port. He touched his power console. Immediately two narrow amethyst damper rays warmed the palm of his hand, each controlled three of the ship's six gravity generators on its respective side. Nudging the starboard glow forward without altering its color, he called up only enough power to move the ship. "Let go the forrard spring!" he barked.
"All clear forrard, Captain," Scirri acknowledged.
Starfury's deck throbbed steadily to the increased beat of her Admiralty A876s; a mug of cvceese' rattled on a nearby console.
"Stow that mug," Brim snapped quietly.
"Aye, Captain," came someone's embarrassed reply. The mug disappeared immediately.
Brim regarded the spring tightening below. Too much strain and the poolside projectors would override—letting Starfury skid downwind into a sleek destroyer moored on the next gravity pool.