For the first time that Brim could remember, His Highness, Prince Onrad looked positively stunned. "I-I don't know what to say," he stammered.
Jaiswal made a little bow. "A simple thank you will be most welcome, Your Majesty," he said simply. "In spite of a few erroneous rumors to the contrary, both Calhoun and I deeply believe that any true Imperial would rather sell his last shirt than admit the Empire could not afford to defend her reputation." He shook his head angrily. "We are not worms to be trampled under the heels of the CIGAs, but true Imperials with a heart for any battle!"
Spontaneously, the room erupted in applause while Onrad rushed up the aisle to clasp the dark little man's hand.
Brim clapped until his hands ached—and long afterward. In the background, Pam Hale was standing with a proud smile, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Less than half a year following the historic Dityasburg Conference, Brim and Moulding—once more permanently stationed at the sprawling Fleet base in Atalanta—traveled to Lys, where they immediately began "flights" in M-6B simulators. The new ship, itself, appeared little changed from its M-6 origins, being lengthened slightly to accommodate both a more powerful Wizard/2
Drive and the radiating surfaces to cool it. Both Helmsmen found the graceful racing machines were serendipitously even better than their predecessors with a lighter, more accurate feel at the controls. And, of course, they were much faster. According to the Sodeskayans' best intelligence, speeds in excess of 100M LightSpeed would be needed to win the race, and Valerian had aimed his sights past this mark. Krasni-Peych engineers accordingly managed to wring 21 percent more thrust from their reworked Wizard of 52007 without appreciably increasing its mass.
For Brim, however, much greater excitement resided in a secured laboratory toward the center of Sherrington's design house where a one-twentieth-size model of I.F.S. Starfury, Fleet number K 5054, had been placed under a large crystal case. Although she was the name ship for Onrad's "new class of warships," the Prince had never been consulted on what she would be called. When informed of the company's selection, he laughingly commented that it was "just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose." Regardless, Starfury was a handsome warship of extremely clean exterior configuration designed for enhanced highspeed atmospheric maneuvering. She was trihulled in the Valerian tradition: a main fuselage complemented on either side by "pontoon" units mounted slightly below the centerline. Housing three Admiralty A876 gravity generators each, these connected amidships through characteristic Sherrington "trousers." A raked, low-set bridge/deckhouse protruded some third of the way back from her sharply tapered bow, and except for blisters housing her main battery, this constituted the only slipstream disturbance anywhere.
Inside, control systems had been exhaustively updated according to radical new discoveries in ergonomic science. This was especially true in the bridge area, where traditional offices of Commanding Officer (Captain) and Principal Helmsman had been combined at the same console—a move Brim thoroughly applauded.
At HyperLight velocities, the thirty-four-thousand milston starship would be powered by four Krasni-Peych Wizard-C Reflecting HyperDrive units mounted directly on either side of the main-hull keel, each half again as powerful—in nonreflecting mode—as the experimental Wizard Drive that had wrecked Ivan Ivanov. The potent quartet would draw enormous energy from a network fed by eight massive Krasni-Peych K23971 plasma generators.
She would carry twelve specially designed, rapid-firing 406-mmi disrupters—the same awesome weapons mounted as main armament by Imperial battleships—in six unique turrets that were placed to furnish total global protection but permit maximum concentration of firepower forward in attack mode. An additional pair of K23971 plasma generators in the main power network would provide sufficient energy to salvo the main battery every twenty clicks.
Best of all, Starfury was already a'building in the main Sherrington yards at Bromwich on Rhodor.
Clearly, the new ship had been subject of much secret, long-range planning by Sherrington, because her keel was laid no more than a month following Dityasburg. And unlike I.F.S. Defiant, Starfury was under construction in a private yard. Because of this, Brim expected that she might be finished earlier than generally anticipated, and experience fewer of the problems associated with name-class ships.
Brim flew the M-6B on her maiden flight and proved without a doubt that the little ship would live up to Valerian's promises—as well as his own expectations. Unfortunately, because of chronic funding problems, she was available for testing a great deal closer to the actual race date than either the M-5 or the M-6. Therefore, the Carescrian found himself spending most of his waking metacycles in space, wringing out the new ship in every possible flight regime.
And because of it, he was taken quite by surprise by the course of political events that began to transpire soon after Triannic returned himself to power.
With autumn largely passed in the boreal hemisphere, most of Woolston was under gloomy cloud cover the morning news began to trickle in. Hampton Water had been swept by driving rain since long before dawn, forcing Brim to delay for a break in the showers before taking his morning jog by the lakefront. Endless ranks of breakers drove relentlessly across the dirty gray water while he sprinted around a million puddles with fresh wind stinging his cheeks. Ahead, where ramps from the laboratory hangars crossed Lakefront Trail, a tall figure wrapped in a tightly fastened Fleet cloak waited in the intersection. It was Moulding—and even with his great collars raised, Brim could see that he clearly had something of tremendous import on his mind. He held up his hand as Brim approached.
"Sorry to interrupt your run, old chap," he called out, "but I've got some rather unpleasant news."
"What's wrong?" Brim demanded with a frown, cold wind chilling his sweaty running togs like some baneful warning. "Has something happened to Anna?"
"No," Moulding began, shaking his head. "Another part of your life this time." He pursed his lips.
"It seems that our old friend Triannic has finally begun his dirty work in earnest. We've just gotten word through the media that a fleet of Leaguer warships and transports made landfall this morning—Darkness:3:0, our time, I think—in Rudolpho. The bloody bastards met only token resistance there, as you might imagine, and immediately deposed LaKarn's mother."