“Make way, make way!” Gruwert shouted angrily. “you are obstructing Imperial security!”
He charged into the dancing throng with head bent, coarsely butting people aside. The others followed through the path he cleared. Archier recalled being invited to the party himself—as Admiral, he was formally invited to all the more organised occasions on the flagship—and realised it had been arranged before the fact of a coming battle became known. Not that it would have made much difference. A fair proportion of the flagship’s population was scarcely aware of the Fleet’s official business. Many might not even have heard yet that there was a major space battle in progress.
The harried, desperate-looking face of a capuchin monkey greeted them at the door to the bridge. Archier felt momentary pity, knowing how much some of the more sensitive animals suffered emotionally at times of stress. The capuchin pressed a key to the plate of the door, which slid aside. They hurried in through an opening wide enough to take them all together.
The monkey scurried after Archier. “Is the battle lost then, sir?” it whispered.
“No, of course not,” Archier soothed. “I’m sure we are winning, though not as quickly as I would like.”
The bridge had an old-fashioned appearance, its working area horseshoe-shaped and lined with waist-high instrument and display boards. Above these were large, curved vid-windows that served the same purpose, though in a less sophisticated way, as the pool and the combat space of the Command Room. Archier lost no time in unlocking the boards. He knew it would take a few minutes to set up a network parallel to the one he had just lost, by calling up the redundant communicators. Meantime, the fleet was fighting without overall command.
The monkey had forgotten to lock the door behind him. People were coming in, high on incense. A withered-cheeked girl in a shimmering spectrum dress that converted infrared to visible tones flung herself on Archier as he stood at his board clamping her chin on his shoulder and draping an arm about him. Her intense perfume engulfed him.
“Oh, Admiral, is it true we’re having a space battle? That’s terrific, isn’t it? Let’s see the action, Admiral!”
As if he had instantly obeyed her request, the expanse of vid-window over the board came to life. Outlined large against blackness was the long form of a ship in glittering silver and gold, not by its natural colour but as a result of the colour coding system used to assist human vision. The vessel was a passenger liner, its outer surface spoiled by crudely emplaced weapons. Because the vid screen gave the impression of being a direct window onto space, the enemy ship seemed no more than yards away.
“Who’s paging this image?” he barked at his FMO, unable, for the moment, to make sense of the information glyphs on his board.
“It’s ours,” she screeched at him. “Distance, ten light-minutes!”
With a start he realised the rebel had crept up on them while he had been making the transfer from the Command Room. But at that moment the Escorian exploded, throwing out gouts and sprays in dazzling—and harmonious—colours. The girl clinging to him oohed and aahed in his ear, her appreciation echoed in wows and oohs by her friends who had also gathered to watch. Archier had to admit the show was pretty.
“Well done Turrets Eight, Fourteen and Twenty-Three,” Gruwert grunted. “They picked him up and fired at will,” he explained to Archier.
“That’s the stuff to give ’em!” the party girl shouted. She giggled, stroking Archier’s neck.
“Let’s have some more of it!” yelled a swaying young man behind her. “Come’n see, everybody!”
Then, with shocking unexpectedness, a dull, prolonged roar sounded through the bridge. It seemed to come from somewhere aft. It was followed by a jarring, undulatory vibration that made the floor of the bridge oscillate up and down.
The Damage Assessment Officer called out from her board. “Looks like they had time to get off a missile!”
“Get a report.”
It couldn’t be a direct hit or they wouldn’t still be here, Archier thought. Probably the ship’s defences had taken out the missile just before it struck, but had been unable to prevent the warhead from detonating. It must have been close: blast effects even of a fusion explosion did not travel far in space, and the force shields would have warded off most of the radiant energy.
Anxiously the DAO worked her board. Confirmation of Archier’s thoughts appeared quickly on the vid window above it. Scanning a section of Standard Bearer’s external hull, it found a gaping ragged hole through which a tangle of wreckage could be seen. Three decks seemed to have been affected, seen blurrily through the emergency gel that was preventing the escape of air.
“What’s the status of repair work?” Archier asked.
“At the start of the current shift, the robot repair teams still hadn’t given an assurance of cooperation, sir,” Arctus reminded him quietly. Archier watched while the window switched to an internal location. They saw an incredible scene: a gang of repair robots being driven along a broad corridor by enraged pigs and dogs. The animals had guns strapped to the tops of their heads: one robot, pausing to turn and protect, fell as a pink-glowing beam struck him square in the thorax.
A general-purpose corridor wagon, overladen with tools, bounced along behind the yelping, squealing beasts. The DAO cut the scene, glancing to Archier.
“I think we can take it repairs are proceeding, Admiral.”
“Now that’s the stuff to give them,” Gruwert pronounced. His little eyes swivelled to those who had invaded the bridge. “Get those layabout out of here!” he snorted loudly. “Go on, get out!”
The partygoers shuffled uncertainly, the girl stepping back from Archier. They seemed amazed by the behaviour of the animals on the vid-window, Likewise they were not accustomed to having a second-class citizen address them so.
Archier turned to face them. “Perhaps you had better leave,” he suggested politely. “We have our hands rather full at the moment.”
“Yes, of course, Admiral,” said a man, somewhat older than the others, after a pause. “Sorry if we’ve got in the way.”
He ushered the others out with placatory motions. At the door he suddenly turned round with a smile.
“Good luck with the battle!” he said brightly.
The capuchin monkey closed the door after him. By now the bridge had obtained contact with the rest of the fleet. On the vid-windows, the current assessment began to take shape.
The combat region had again expanded during the interim when the flagship had been unable to exercise control. Archier gave the order to contract the perimeter once more, to give Ten-Fleet the advantage of its gun range. At the same time he put a stop to the useless headlong flight.
But as the reports came in it became clear that the Escorians were already beaten; had, in fact, been doomed from the start to be beaten. Even with the partial success of their game plan—which had simply been to prevent Ten-Fleet from employing any fanciful tactics—even when fighting ship on ship or in small groups, even in the most favourable circumstances they could find, the terrible Imperial guns, the sheer size and power of the front-line-o’-warships that had emerged long ago out of Diadem, had taken their toll on them. They had been wiped out by the score. And now, as Ten-Fleet began yet again to gather itself together and take up one of the many geometrical dispositions outlined in the manuals, the opposition’s will to continue the conflict broke. It must have become clear to the Escorian commanders that they faced annihilation: those ships remaining—less than a third of the original force, many of them battered or even crippled—received the order to flee. They began to edge away from the area; then, like an exploding starburst, sped in all directions.