"Baldwin, Bill - The Helmsman 07 - The Defiance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baldwin Bill)
"Got you," I said, absently scanning the flowing, constantly altering colors and hues of my readouts. Odors of a new starship everywhere: hot metal, sealants, logics, polish, food, people. Too new. We weren't ready to put up much of a fight today. Of course, the Dampiers over there didn't know that... maybe wouldn'tЧif I could be clever enough.
In these perilous days, all of Emperor Onrad V's subjects needed to be cleverЧbecause cleverness was nearly all we had to fight with. Our ancient Empire stood defiant, but nearly alone and friendless in the Home Galaxy, with only the Great Federation of Sodeskayan StatesЧherself under attackЧto help counter the onslaught of Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars. One by one, I'd watched the great allied star domains capitulate before these lightning attacks: A'zurn, then Gannet, then Lamintir, then Korbu, then even powerful Effer'wyck, the latter in concert with a final, humiliating retreat from old Dankir by General Hagbut's Imperial Expeditionary Forces. Now, fully half the galaxy lay prostrate beneath Triannic's jackbooted feet.
As the League advanced, other would-be tyrants followed its success with great interest. One, Grand Duke Rogan LaKarn of The Torond, had quickly determined he could likewise extend his own empire beyond certain portions of the Dominion of Fluvanna he had seized previously. But he would need help. To this end, he'd ingratiated himself with the dictator Triannic until, ultimately, he, too had declared war on the Empire, thus placing all remaining free Fluvannian planetary systems in deepest jeopardy, along with some of the Empire's most precious, and critical, resources.
In my new assignment, I was supposed to do something about all that... somehow.
Glanced through the forward HyperscreensЧafter nearly half a standard day on the repair list, they were once more translating Hyperspeed-jumbled photons to comprehensible vision. Nothing yet. The Dampiers were still too far away. Nearer at hand, the other Starfuries had already opened from our normal, long-distance ferry formation into four groups of four shipsЧ"quads," two-by-two combat formations on which we'd recently standardized. "Red" quadЧthe only four ships with activated disrupter cannonЧwas mine.
"Red One from Blue One: got a visual on four unknowns at Blue Apex. Thirty c'lenyts and closing fast."
Squinted through the Hyperscreens over my left shoulder. Gradually, a formation of faint sparks emerged in the distance high to port, moving at an angle to the stars rushing past in the "spaceman's tunnel". "Got them, Blue One, bogies at Blue Apex." I acknowledged, edging the ship right for a better tracking position while I considered my next move. Even though The Torond's fleets were mostly manned by ill-trained bullies drawn from the ranks of gangstersЧtalent at a helm wasn't necessarily linked to honesty: look at our own great FleetЧthe ships they flew were good, very well armed. Underestimating their capabilities might well be fatal because it only took one lucky hit and... pfft, good-bye buttocks. Needed to face these ships down right away. "We'd better go see what they're up to," I said, turning our half-armed Starfuries to the attack. Made me nervous when I thought about it! But no more than a few clicks after we changed course, the six Dampiers abruptly set me at ease by veering away onto a parallel track with the convoyЧwell out of disrupter range. I could have cheered!
Continued on course a few moments more to make them sweat. Then I, too, turned, aligning my quad on a course separating the two groups, relievedЧbut not at all surprised by the Toronders' reaction. Our tri-hulled Sherrington Starfuries were graceful, 330-iral-long killer ships that could top 75M LightSpeed and tussle with anything the galaxy could throw at them. They were reduced in size by nearly half from the Mark 1C Starfury "pocket battlecruisers" that were their immediate ancestors, yet they retained the identical main battery of twelve 406-mmi disruptor cannons and required a crew of only fifteen. In their intended role as short-range interceptors, they were renownedЧand fearedЧthroughout the galaxy. Most likely, the enemy commanders out there had no idea that twelve of our convoy were not armed. Or for that matter, that the four of usЧthe so-called escortЧcarried only a partial suite of disrupters.
Our regrettable lack of firepower was a sad fact of life. The very success of these Sherrington interceptors was also an undoingЧat least for some roles. In spite of the finest 'Grav and Drive systems in existence, their atmospheric-sleek, tri-hulled spaceframes and power generators had been optimized from the start for short missions of less than a Standard Day's duration.
My sixteen ships had already been in continuous flight more than two Standard Days, and it had been necessary to disable numerous ancillary systems in order to make even that possible. The additional one and a half Standard Day's flight from our present position to Atalanta had required either disconnecting all the disrupters or many of the control systems. We'd come to a tricky compromise with the four ships that would be manned exclusively by Fleet personnelЧsix active disruptors (out of twelve) per ship and only the most basic control systems. Nobody, especially me, was very happy with the result, but the squadrons posted to Atalanta would need reinforcement within a very short time. So I'd agreed to lead a convoy; I was on my way there in any case. After this trip, however, replacements would have to come by transport, at least until someone on our side invented a good long-range interceptor.
Decided to re-form into one unit. Increasing the size and apparent firepower of our little flotilla was nothing but pure fakery. but even looking more capable than we were could be worth something. Broadcast "join me" orders to the other Starfuries by KA'PPA communicationsЧin the clear so the Toronders would read it aboard the Dampiers, too. KA'PPA transmitters instantaneously deliver information "packets" to all "listening" receiver nodes in the known Universe. In turn, the receivers ordinarily ignore packets addressed elsewhere, but I knew the Toronders couldn't resist scanning everything that came their way. If nothing else, my little ruse might mean a moment's hesitation over an attack. And I'd been saved by a moment any number of times during my career as a combat Helmsman.
As the others took up station, I kept a wary eye on the six Dampiers, imagining their messages to and from some Sector Headquarters as they KA'PPAed with Controllers. Not much for independent action, those Toronders. It was a flaw I intended to exploit, both now and during the battles that were certain to come, if, of course, I got to Atalanta in the first place.
My new assignment: take command of the military base on Atalanta's Grand Harbor, including the Starfuries of 71 GroupЧprimary Sector Space Defense for the planet Haelic. The present commander, Rear Admiral W. Groton Summers, a known Triannic sympathizer and member of the League-sponsored Congress for Intra-Galactic Accord (CIGA), had deliberately allowed the base to deteriorate. I'd been briefed that he was protected from indictment by powerful, League-leaning CIGA politicians in the Imperial Parliament.
For a number of years now, Grand Harbor had been under dual management: a Military Commandment responsible for operation of the Fleet Base and a civilian Harbor Master who operated the commercial port. Both officesЧin theory, if not in practiceЧreported to the largely ceremonial office of Port Governor, appointed directly from our distant Imperial capital on the planet Avalon. However, that tradition was about to changeЧat least for the duration. The last civilian Governor, Photius I. Gr№nwald, an elderly, disinterested academic, had passed away some weeks hence in office. He would not be replaced. Instead, the Military Commandant and Harbor Master would both report directly to Avalon. In this manner, the Admiralty would be more directly in charge of both civilian and military operations during this rather difficult interval in history.
My first task: restore the base to a wartime state of affairs in the shortest possible time. Summers has let things reach an exceptionally miserable state there, they'd told me, chucklingЧall of them chucklingЧso it's not going to be a plum assignment. But then, you've never had a plum assignment, Brim, so you're more or less the best man for the job, eh? They'd relented after thatЧonly for a moment. We think you'll like the second part of the job a lot better, they'd added, even though it will be infinitely more difficultЧand dangerous. But until I got the first one accomplished, they'd refused me any more information about itЧonly something about a rapidly ticking clock and the code word Sapphire....
It was food for a lot of thought. So far, Negrol Triannic's plans for his League of Dark Stars had been focused on a largely unsuccessful attack against our five Imperial capital planetsЧnow known as the Battle of AvalonЧfollowed by his invasion of Sodeskaya, an enterprise that was also slowly running into trouble as the Great Sodeskayan Bears, commanded by my old friend Marshal Nikolas Yanuarievich Ursis, gained the necessary strength and confidence to defend their homeland.
Meanwhile, half a galaxy distant, the sprawling base at AtalantaЧdespite its tremendous size and strategic locationЧhad been allowed to become little more than a backwater in the fast-expanding Second Great War. It wasn't as if our War Cabinet in Avalon considered Atalanta unimportant; but Imperial resources were low after years of League-backed opposition to defense spending by powerful CIGA interest groups. Until home production caught up with demand, our limited forces would necessarily be concentrated in locations that were under active attack.
According to our best intelligence, the planet of Hador-Haelic was next on Triannic's schedule of conquest, although no one had yet been able to determine precisely when. I personally suspected this dearth of information wasn't so much a failing of our intelligence services as the fact that Triannic had assigned this particular enterprise to his flunky from The Torond, Grand Duke Rogan LaKarn and the slipshod, unprofessional military organization he had put in place since his ascension toЧcall it "theft of"ЧThe Torond's throne.
Peering out the Hyperscreens, I was about to risk another feint with all sixteen ships, when the Dampiers suddenly turned tail and disappeared among the stars. Probably, they were heading to The Torond's big Fleet base at Otnar'at, less than half a day distant from Atalanta. I shrugged, my little deception had worked well enough, but the xaxtdamned Toronders could easily guess where we were going. It was a foregone conclusion thatЧsooner or laterЧI would encounter them again... and again and again.
Chapter 1
Entirely New Management
Interplanetary Space, near Hador-Haelic
The star Hador had grown from a flickering pinpoint of light to the dazzling jasmine star presently looming in the blackness off to port. Ahead, Haelic's planetary disk occupied most of the forward Hyperscreens as my haggard ferry crew prepared the Starfury for landfall, KA'PPA channels were filled with traffic from ships entering and leaving the colossal port of Atalanta and its sprawling Fleet Base. "All hands to stations for landfall! All hands man your landfall stations." I called into the blower. "Secure from HyperLight Operations...."
From below, the Starfury's cramped navigation bridge filled again with the distant thuds of airtight doors and hatches, crewmen dashing to their stations, and the semi-ordered confusion associated with securing a starship from deep space.
Waiting for the Transition, I glanced forward as the ship slowed toward LightSpeed. Presently, all 'Screens were still projecting their HyperLight simulation of the view outside. But there... even as I watched, they got more and more transparent while our big Wizard 60 Drives fought the terrific momentum that had taken us a quarter of the way across the galaxy from the great Imperial space citadel of Braltar.
As we passed through LightSpeed, I switched to the six powerful Admiralty-391 gravity generators the ship used when flying HypoLight, then shut down the Drive. Presently, photons began to arrive at speeds my human eyes could translate, and the 'Screens came over to full transparent, revealing an ocher planet with overtones of ultramarine cloaked here and there by filmy white cloud banks. I'd first seen that panorama something like a thousand eons ago, it seemedЧduring an altogether different war.
Tried to force the past aside while I went through the rigmarole of securing approach clearance from Planetary Center. Got the clearance; the other didn't work. A woman with long brown hair I'd known thenЧface had never gone completely from my memory. She was still thereЧI'd made it my business to check. Would she remember me after all these years? Or would she even care to? Shouldn't think about her just now, but...
I'd always found Atalanta fascinating, and not just because of her. The city had been a vital anchorage of one sort or another since time immemorialЧlong before the Age of Star Flight, when only seaborne ships called at her already age-blackened stone jetties and piers. HyperLight travel changed the very warp and woof of civilization on Haelic, and gradually, Atalanta's identity merged with that of the whole planet. Advent of the militant Gradgroat-Norchelite Order and, later, their huge, hilltop monastery with its orbital forts gave the city-planet yet another identityЧone that would ultimately save the Empire itself during the final battle of the First Great War. That clash effectively destroyed much of the ancient city as well as the League's fleet, the latter causing Emperor Nergol Triannic to sue for amity with his double-dealing armistice and subsequent Treaty of Garak. Now: another war had come, with Atalanta once more slated for the pain and misery associated with a major strategic role.
AheadЧactually, below, nowЧHaelic had taken on added dimension. My Starfuries were descending through ever-thickening atmosphere like meteors while they beamed directed-energy plasma torches out ahead to shield their hulls from the heat of reentry. At the edge of vision, I checked my other quadsЧall keeping perfect station in echelon to port.
Down we swept toward shapeless, smoothed-over cloud banks that quickly became moving, grayish masses fringed with color as the horizon lost its curve and I made my personal transition from navigating the vast emptiness of deep space to flying in crowded, controlled airspace. Glancing at an altimeter, I keyed the radio, "Atalanta Center," I sent, "Fleet ST-337F with Convoy ART-19 requests approach clearance."
"Fleet ST-337F," a civilian controller responded promptly, "Convoy ART-19 is cleared to Orbital Buoy nine nine one, Frequency seven eight four three. On arrival, continue descent to two five zero c'lenyts and decelerate to velocity twenty-five zero zero."
"Fleet FA-337 acknowledges direct routing to HoverBuoy nine nine one. Convoy is presently at five fifty c'lenyts and thirty-one zero zero velocity. Decelerating to velocity of two five five zero."
Within twenty cycles, I had the HoverBuoy in sight to starboard, radiating a coded pattern in flashes of ruby light. We were now well within Haelic's atmosphere and measuring altitude in irals rather than c'lenyts. Out ahead, a departing merchantman crossed our path on the way to outer space. As the Starfury bounced through its churning gravity wakes, the head and shoulders of a young woman appeared in a globular display over my right-hand console. "Fleet FA-337," she said, "Convoy ART-19 may descend and maintain flight level three hundred."
"Convoy ART-19 will continue descent to flight level three hundred," I acknowledged, checking the Hyperscreens for local traffic. From long experience, I understood that the Center's traffic controllers were severely overworkedЧand used equipment that was rarely uprated. Been around long enough to understand that one of the first items to be rationed during wartime was safety, with every commander on both sidesЧincluding myselfЧdeceitfully preaching some brand of safety gospel as if we actually believed a word of it.
Came through a solid bank of clouds nearly as large as the continent it covered. Only a few hundred irals below, I picked out at least four more layers of dirty, gray-looking cloudsЧdetritus of a frontal system moving slowly down from the polar regions of the planet.
"Fleet FA-337 with Convoy ART-19, descend and maintain one zero thousand irals with a heading of three one five to join the Blue-five radial inbound," a new controller directed. She had pretty blue eyes.
"Many thanks," I replied. "Convoy ART-19 descending to one thousand irals and a heading of three one five for radial Blue." I listened to the steady beat of the 'Gravs thundering in the Starfury's lower two hullsЧ"pontoons" was the builder's termЧon either side of the Starfury's main fuselage. Thought about the ferry crew, at least as anxious to be down as I was.
I set the lift augmenters, listening to the 'Gravs spooling up as they shouldered the extra load. Clicks later, the ship trembled as finned cooling radiators deployed from either side of the main fuselage and roared in the slipstream.
"Fleet FA-337 with Convoy ART-19: proceed direct to intercept Blue beacon on the three nine three radial," the blue-eyed controller intoned. "Cross the threshold at eight five thousand and maintain altitude."
"Convoy ART-19 flying direct to Blue radial three nine three to cross threshold at eight five thousand and maintain altitude." Eyeballed the altimeters and turned on the landing lights just as the autopilot disconnected. It was the only automatic system still online in the Starfury; actually I often flew with the automatic systems disconnected, especially during lift-offs and landfalls. Wasn't alone, either, at least among the better Helmsmen....
During the next minutes, the controller reduced our speed to 200 cpm (c'lenyts per metacycle), then 150 before turning us onto an instrument vector for landing. Silhouetted ahead in the evening light was an unmistakable cityscape and glowing harborЧAtalanta! My eyes followed the great upsweep of City Mount Hill as fading daylight illuminated the Gradgroat-Norchelite's reconstruction of their colossal monastery. In spite of myself, I felt a growing sense of excitement. Twice before this legendary city had assumed critical importance in my life. It was clear a third instance had already commenced....
A different controller appeared in my globular display: this time a young man with short, fiery red hair. "Fleet FA-337 with Convoy ART-19," he advised, "your ships are cleared for landfall by quads line abeam; vector ninety-eight left. Wind from three hundred at four six with gusts to five nine."
"Thank you, Atalanta Tower," I replied. "Convoy ART-19 is cleared for landfall by quads line abeam: vector ninety-eight left." He switched to the convoy frequency. "Quad leadersЧyou noted all that?"
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