The Mercenaries Read online

  The Mercenaries

  The Helmsman

  Book IV

  Bill Baldwin

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1991 by Merl Baldwin

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by John Berkey

  Cover design by Don Puckey

  First Printing: June, 1991

  Content

  Chapter 1 Bromwich, 52009

  Chapter 2 Intrigue

  Chapter 3 The Annex

  Chapter 4 Showing the Flag

  Chapter 5 The Volunteer

  Chapter 6 Fluvanna

  Chapter 7 Command

  Chapter 8 Prelude to Chaos

  Chapter 9 Strike Force

  Chapter 10 Zonga'ar

  Chapter 11 The IVG Passes

  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 lift-off stations," she announced, her voice resounding into every cubic iral of the big starship. "Hands to lift-off 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. Unthinkable! He trained a second display aft, watching his gravity generators ram the view to shimmering haze, men remembered to breathe as afternoon light began to blank the blue glow of stationary repulsion units at the bottom of the pool. The stern was beginning to swing out, angling away while the solitary spring took the starship's slow thrust like a great leash.

  Starfury was soon skewed across the gravity pool at about ten degrees, with the PoolMaster's cupola hidden beneath the port pontoon. Brim drew the starboard damper ray back to idle. "Let go aft spring!" he ordered.

  "All clear aft, Captain!"

  At the precise moment the last spring beam disappeared, Brim moved both damper rays forward together. With only a moment's hesitation the big starship eased off her gravity pool and out over the strand, hovering a regulation twenty-five irals above the unique, three-element footprint she pus
hed into the surface of the dirty water thumping and foaming beneath her hulls. "Bromwich Ground," Brim sent, "K5054 requests taxi instructions."

  "K5054: cross one seven left without delay and hold at locus six five."

  "K5054," Brim acknowledged. He glanced off to starboard. A trio of Sherrington F.7/30 attack ships was running up at the landward termination of takeoff vector Seventeen Right, clouds of mist and spume mounting into the pale blue sky behind them. They'd have to salute Starfury, of course. "Ready to take fee honors, Lieutenant?" he prompted Morris at the COMM console.

  "Ready, Captain,"

  Presently, old-fashioned characters flashed across his KA'PPA display, "may stars light all thy paths."

  He looked up in time to see glowing KA'PPA rings shimmer out from Starfury's high beacon—the message would arrive instantaneously throughout the Universe, though all but the three F.7s would ignore it; "and thy paths, star travelers." Gradually moving both damper rays forward, he hurried across their path, then slowed and came to a hover with hold buoy number sixty-five off the tip of Starfury's port pontoon. Moments afterward, the malevolent-looking F.7s thundered past in close formation, trailing three lofty cascades of spray that doused Starfury's Hyperscreens like a waterfall before they abruptly subsided about a c'lenyt out on the bight, where the three ships soared gracefully into the sky.

  Brim grinned to himself. Cheeky rascals, those young Helmsmen, just about as cheeky as he'd been himself twenty-live years ago in his native Carescria—especially when he thought he had a faster ship. They clearly hadn't heard of Starfury's dazzling acceleration—yet. He relaxed in his recliner and listened to Tissaurd and Zaftrak completing their lift-off checklist.

  "Transponders and 'home' indicator?" Tissaurd asked.

  "On," Zaftrak responded.

  "Fullstop cell?"

  "Powered."

  "Warning lights?"

  "On."

  "Engineer's check?"

  "Complete."

  "Antiskid?"

  "Skid is on."

  "Speed brake?"

  "Forward."

  "Stabilizer trim—delete the gravity gradient, if you please."

  "Gradient null."

  "Course indicators?"

  "Set and checked."

  "Lift-off check is complete, Captain," Tissaurd reported.

  "Very well, Nadia," Brim responded, then used the next brief moments to make his own audits of the starship's systems, finishing only moments before Ground Control came back on line. "K5054; taxi into position, hold one seven right," the controller sent. "Contact Bromwich Tower. Good day."

  "Into position and hold, 5054. Good day," Brim acknowledged, easing forward again to follow a series of bobbing markers until a ruby light gleamed out of the distance. Then he put the helm over, turned into the wind, and centered the glimmer in a small circle projected on the Hyperscreen from his console. "Bromwich Tower K5054 in position and holding...."

  "K5054 is cleared for lift-off," the Tower sent. "Wind three one five at two seven gusts four seven."

  "Cleared for lift-off, K5054," Brim acknowledged. He flicked the blower. "All hands stand by for lift-off," he warned the crew, then glanced over his shoulder.

  Zaftrak was holding her left hand up, thumb in the air. Starfury was ready.

  In all his years at a helm, Brim had never outgrown the wild, almost-physical thrill of lift-off. "I'll have full military power, Strana'," he said.

  "One hundred percent military," Zaftrak replied.

  "Steering engine's amidships," Tissaurd added—the last item on Starfury's preflight checklist.

  Taking a deep breath. Brim stood on the gravity brakes and cautiously moved both damper rays forward until they passed from amethyst to blue, then to green... yellow... orange... finally to flashing red. The deep rumbling of the gravity generators changed voice to a thunderous bellow that shook Starfury's whole spaceframe and resonated deafeningly through the Hyperscreens as if the big ship were centered in the midst of some gigantic explosion. Astern, a long strip of the Bight had suddenly flattened into a madly flowing millrace that ended in a towering cloud of spray and ice particles soaring at least a c'lenyt into the pale winter sky.

  "Six lights are on, Captain," Zaftrak called above the noise, "you've got one fifteen thrust!"

  Brim cleared his flight path visually, made another pass over his readouts. "Here we go!" he shouted, then released the brakes....

  Instantly, the big starship began to move forward—completely unlike generations of predecessors that took what seemed to be eternities at full power before they would even respond to their steering engines. In only moments Starfury was trailing lofty cascades of spray and plunging smoothly across the water at tremendous velocity. The enormous quantities of power available did little to interfere with the ship's naturally delicate, quick, and positive response to control manipulations. After a moment, her bows lifted slightly to the mighty beat of the generators, then fell again while speed increased through 165 c'lenyts per metacycle. At about 170, Brim eased back on the controls overcoming a slight tendency to nose down farther, then as she accelerated through 180, he lifted the bow and let the ship's weight transfer to the gravs, applying about a third rudder to check a normal swing to port during lift-off. A moment later she separated from her shadow and began climbing smoothly over the Sherrington Works on the way to the ultimate freedom of her native element: deep interstellar space.

  "K5054 is at one thousand and climbing," Brim reported.

  "K5054: turn port fifteen to join two thirty radial outbound blue, contact Blue District Departure Control," Sherrington Tower advised while Starfury bounced through light turbulence.

  "K5054: turning port fifteen to two thirty radial outbound blue. Good day," Brim replied.

  "Best o' luck on the trials, Commander."

  "Thanks, Control, we can always use it."

  As he trimmed the ship's head toward the assigned departure radial, Brim glanced down at fifteen Starfury-class warships on gravity stocks below—in various forms of completion. He'd inspected three of them the previous afternoon. Another fifteen —fitting out on bay-side gravity pools—were on hold status while Sherrington engineers awaited results of his prototype's space trials. He shook his head while the course indicator settled onto its new heading. Those ships down there were being put together on little more than faith alone: faith that I.F.S. Starfury's original design was sound—and a sincere hope that the mistakes she did embody could be easily and economically corrected. Major modifications to a fleet of thirty-one warships could actually spell financial disaster to the credit-strapped Imperial Fleet. They would almost certainly mean that Crown Prince Onrad would be deprived of his succession. The only son of Emperor Greyffin IV and heir to the Imperial throne at Avalon, Onrad had personally ordered Starfury's creation at the historic Dytasburg conference in Sodeskaya the previous year, then immediately funded thirty additional "prototypes" using discretionary development funds. He took these seemingly rash actions because he truly believed that war might soon engulf the "civilized" dominions of the galaxy, during a time when the once-great Imperial Fleet had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former might.

  Abruptly, the COMM light blinked green. Tissaurd was in contact with Blue District Departure Control. "K5054, climbing through fifteen thousand on two thirty radial/" he reported.

  "K5054," Control replied. "You are cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Advise slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off your bow. Contact Blue Planetary Control."

  "K5054 cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Contact Blue Planetary and acknowledge slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off bow. Good day."

  "Much success with the trials, Commander."

  "Thanks, District," Brim acknowledged. "We'll give them our best shot." He nodded his head. A lot of people believed in Starfury and the royal orders that had put her into production. But that
belief was by no means universal among the diverse peoples of the Empire. Since the year 52000 when the delusory Treaty of Garak ended open warfare between Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars and Greyffin IV's far-flung Galactic Empire, a sinister and powerful antimilitary organization had infiltrated the Imperial Government as well as the Admiralty itself.

  Known as the Congress for Infra-Galactic Accord, and almost openly funded by the League itself, it was chaired by a one-time shipmate of Brims, Commodore Puvis Amherst. The CIGAs' avowed goal was dismantling—from within—the mighty Imperial Fleet that had nearly annihilated League Admiral Kabul Anak's spaceborne armadas. All, of course, in the name of "Peace."

  Unfortunately, during almost nine-odd years of false truce, the craven Amherst and his CIGAs had been all too successful at their task—at the same time their League masters secretly rebuilt war-decimated battle squadrons at a feverish pace. And now they were working on their xaxtdamned space forts....

  Brim had seen Onrad's courageous move raise a predictable hue and cry from CIGAs all over the Empire, but the Prince remained undeterred, indefatigable in his belief that the new ships constituted the absolute minimum counterforce necessary to insure survival of civilization. Clearly, he trusted that eventually he would be vindicated—and meanwhile, each new Starfury added to the possibility that the Empire might persevere into the second phase of a war that was coming as surely as helium follows hydrogen on the chart.

  Brim's LightSpeed meter read .86 when he passed the three F.7s at nearly double their speed, leaving them tossing wildly in his graviton wake. He smiled briefly, imagining the consternation aboard the fast little ships as Starfury swept past them as if they were still sitting on a gravity pool.

  Again, the COMM light flashed on the panel before him. "K5054 at two eighty c'lenyts on two thirty outbound and climbing," he reported.

  "K5054: cleared direct to deep space and light speed. Knock 'em dead, Starfury!"

  "Count on it," Brim answered. Then, moments later, the LightSpeed meter passed 1.0 and normal radio communications ceased.