THE HELMSMAN
BY BILL BALDWIN
CHAPTER 6

    So absorbed was Brim with the unfolding battle that the ascent onto the bridge, when it came, nearly took him by surprise. Fragonard had the big disruptor in action before they climbed fifty irals. The noise was deafening, as was the concussion. Higher and higher they rose, traction system roaring and dense white vapor streaming from the cooling fins. Brim watched the ground below erupt in gigantic explosions as the wiry little gunner switched to rapid fire and fairly peppered the right-of-way around the speeding enemy tanks. He counted ten of the lopsided enemy machines and thanked whatever powers had dissuaded him from stopping to battle the tanks in place. His second fieldpiece soon-added its fire to the holocaust below, then the third. The cable pitched and swayed from dozens of frenzied discharges. Without warning, a particularly bright blast on the ground was followed first by a cloud of peculiar-looking debris and then by frenzied cheering from the COMM cabinet.
    "A hit!" someone yelled.
    "I nailed the bastard, I did!"
    "Good on you, Ferdie! Give 'em wot for!"
    Soon all seven of the captured fieldpieces were firing rapidly and wildly-as often as their disruptors could recover. Below, the Leaguers maintained a furious barrage in return-although two more of their number were now carbonized junk mounds smoldering at the base of towering smoke columns along the right-of-way. Beneath Brim's straining vehicle, the rampaging cable was bucking violently in two axes, making Barbousse lean desperately on the rudder pedals in a frantic attempt to keep from plunging off into the considerable abyss that now separated them from the surface.
    "Sweet bloody Universe!" someone screamed in panic from the COMM console. "I'm losin' it!"
    Horrified, Brim looked back along the wire to see one of his fieldpieces skid up and off the writhing cable, its projector still firing spasmodically. Momentum carried the awkward vehicle perhaps twenty irals higher before it peaked, rolled lazily to port, and plunged like a stone through the suspension wires, disappearing in a great splash that spread rapidly in all directions from the point of impact. Heartbeats later, a single explosion rent the lagoon in a giant glowing bubble that burst with a massive eruption of smoke and greasy flame-quenched almost instantly in a plume of steam and slowly tumbling debris.
    Ahead, the apex of the great arch was now visible through the windshield-no more than a few hundred irals distant. Aft and below, the remaining enemy gun layers were finally warming to their jobs-space around Brim's convoy was suddenly alive with explosions and concussion. Three of the armored windows above his head shattered, filling the control cabin with a swarm of whirring glass splinters that buzzed harmlessly along the armored fabric of his battle suit and helmet, but shredded the tough upholstery of his seat. He shook his head. Another near miss tore a huge access hatch from something near the cooling mechanism-which was itself beginning to glow again from the strain of the long, steep climb and the insatiable demands of the disruptor, now firing almost constantly. Renewed clouds of steam billowed in their wake from the cooling fins, and as he looked down along the weaving, swinging cable, he could see his other fieldpieces were in no better shape at all. It was now or never. He bullied the COMM cabinet back to "broadcast" and yelled over the noise, "Now I hear this, all hands! Switch targeting immediately to the buried cableway five hundred irals in front of the bridge. I repeat, in front of the bridge." The disruptors went silent momentarily I as he talked. "Dig up the cable so the tanks can't follow right away," he enjoined the ordnance men. "But don't touch the bridge. We need that for our own trip home!"
    "Right ya are, Lieutenant!" someone called back over the noise.
    "We'll be careful, sir," someone else echoed.
    In short order, the six disruptors directed a new frenzy of ft flame and concussion onto the buried cableway-no more accurate than before, but now at least concentrated. The bridge began to sway again, but Barbousse was now mastering the big machine, and he tracked the cable flawlessly as it pitched and yawed like a pendant flying in the breeze.
    Suddenly Fragonard's thundering disruptor went silent. Brim looked up from his COMM cabinet-over the top! The big fieldpiece could no longer bear on the approach ramp to the bridge. Soon the next cannon topped the bridge, then the next. When the sixth left off firing, Brim leaned out of the cabin in the roaring slipstream. Two thousand irals below, wide areas fronting the bridge approaches looked like they had been plowed by a large asteroid. Gaping holes here and there told of many near misses, but the area through which the cable had to pass was now a gigantic crater that glowed from within and vomited forth a dense smoke pillar as the underlying rock formations themselves burned from the hellfire of Brim's disruptors. While he watched, the first enemy tank pulled to a halt well short of the zone of destruction, firing off a desultory round now and ft then toward its escaping quarry.
    Brim frowned as he drew his head back inside the cab.
    "They're stopped," he told Barbousse.
    The big rating expressed no surprise at Brim's announcement. "Makes sense, Lieutenant," he said. "I figure in their eyes we've made ourselves out to be a lot more trouble than ft we're worth." He grinned as the fieldpiece roared between two pylons and the cable disappeared once more into the ground.
    "I suppose that's right," Brim said, watching the other machines regain the surface.
    "It is, sir," Barbousse assure4 him. "If you can't beat somebody you're fightin', it never hurts to convince him he can't beat you, either." He grinned. "Besides," he added, "anybody who's spent his life followin' a cable isn't going to be too happy about pickin' his way through that mess of craters-probably fall in and never get out."
    "Let's hope," Brim agreed, settling wearily back in his uncomfortable seat at the COMM console. "Now all we've got to do is catch up with Colonel Hagbut."
    "Beggin' the Lieutenant's pardon, but that bird's liable to be all the way to Avalon by now," Barbousse said.
    Brim smothered a laugh-just as the landscape ahead erupted in flashes of light. Ticks later, the cascading, rolling thunder of high-energy artillery reached them. He looked at Barbousse and frowned. "Another battle?" he whispered.
    "Sounds like it to me, sir..." Barbousse started, then he was cut off by the screech of an emergency channel running overload on the-COMM console.
    "Brim! STAY CLEAR! WE'RE PRISONERS! Target is map locus 765jj. Everything up to you now..." The display globe went out in a manner similar to Fronze's demise.
    Galvanized, Brim displayed the coordinates of the message on the COMM console. "Nine thirteen point five by E9g. Can you help me remember that, Barbousse?"
    "Nine thirteen point five by E9g. I'll remember it, sir."
    "Good," Brim said, his mind working furiously as he peered off along the cable right-of-way. "Now get reedy to stop us in that patch of trees coming up to starboard. We've got some serious thinking to do before we go any farther."
    Scant cycles later, the convoy was hidden under the dense foliage of a large forest glen. Brim clambered onto the cool, fern-carpeted ground and motioned for the rest of the crews to stand down for the remainder of the day, then he leaned on a stump and-breathed the clean fragrance of the trees, pondering what he ought to do next.
    Suddenly, he found he was in total command.
    

    Late into the long summer evening, Brim sat alone on the cool forest floor, back to a stump, hands/around his knees while he desperately tried to assemble a coherent mental picture of his predicament. Reduced to absolute basics, the situation appeared to consist of no more than three primary elements, which he absently counted on his fingers for the hundredth time: (1) his chances for calling anyone to assist him, (2) his mission (and what to do about it), and (3) the meager resources at his disposal.
    The first element-assistance-was simply unattainable. ~ He immediately dismissed it as such. The Fleet certainly couldn't help him. Even if he asked his BA1TLE COMMs to call, any starships they might find were powerless against his target-at least until he could contrive to achieve Hagbut's original mission and remove the A'zurnian hostages imprisoned there. And from the flood of combat messages that presently filled every B-range channel on his COMM cabinet, he knew full well he could expect little assistance from the hard-pressed I Imperial Expeditionary Forces attacking other research centers around him.
    The second element, his mission, was a different proposition altogether-in which the word "impossible" had no meaning ~ whatsoever. It represented a commitment to duty he absolutely intended to fulfill. Of course, that involved no less than capture of a major research facility (which he had never so much as seen), freeing a sizable group of hostages who unwillingly-but effectively-protected that same facility from attack, delivery of the hostages to safety (wherever that was), and, finally, getting himself and his charges back to Magalla'ana in time to escape before the mission terminated. All this, of course, had to be accomplished notwithstanding his secondary obligation to search for the captured Colonel Hagbut-if he found himself with spare time on his hands.
    The third element, unfortunately, threatened ill for everything else. His resources were nowhere near to being suitable to the requirements of his mission-and that included himself. His fewer than twenty BAITLE COMMs, for example, had superb equipment for calling in destroyers-but before they could use any of it, they first had to double for 180 of Hagbut's highly trained foot soldiers!
    The combined lack of help, impossible task load, and inadequate resources might have daunted many a normal Imperial. Carescrian Imperials, however, shared a unique background of adversity-one in which even the best of circumstances normally required making do with whatever expedients came to hand. He shrugged. He knew a way had to exist for getting the job done; no doubt about it. All he had to do was discover what that was.
    

    He began early in the first watch of the night with Barbousse, poring over a three-dimensional map, scouring dusty corners of his mind to remember everything he ought to know about field operations from exercises at the Academy. As photo-mapped by an orbiting reconnaissance craft the previous morning, his research center sat astride the cableway in a wooded location at the extreme limits of Magalla'ana. A wide, narrow building, it cascaded down a hillside in three levels of attached terraces, courtyards, and glass-enclosed laboratory structures. Significantly, its doors were on the ground story. Surrounding this structure was a huge campus area protected by a Stout fence with gates at two opposing cable crossings. Clearly, the big facility also doubled as a key checkpoint controlling the cableway-both gates appeared to be protected by large guardhouses. Inside the campus and considerably removed from the gates (as well as the research center itself), a rectangular compound with separate guardhouse was set off by its own double fence. The compound contained approximately ten rectangular buildings in two rows of five each.
    "The hostages," Brim declared grimly, pointing with the magnifier for Barbousse.
    "Looks like, sir," Barbousse said. "And only one entrance to the compound." He pursed his lips. "Makes things a lot easier for us with all the guards concentrated in one place."
    "First," Brim warned with a grin, "we've got to get there."
    Barbousse nodded gravely. "I've been thinkin' about that, Lieutenant," he said with a frown.
    "What's on your mind?" Brim asked.
    "Well, sir," the big man said, "hasn't been much traffic on the cableway since we hid in these woods this afternoon-and during that firefight we had comin' up to the bridge, you just know somebody got a warning off to the lab." He frowned and shrugged. "So by now it pretty well stands to reason they've fixed a special welcome for anyone arriving at this side of the research center. I mean, we know they've got tanks around, so there's no tellin' what else they have in store."
    "You're right," Brim agreed gravely. "I guess I've given that some serious thought myself. And I think I've found something that might help." He pointed on the map to an overgrown path that formed, a rough semicircle around the campus and connected to the cableway at both ends approximately five thousand irals from the gates.
    "I see, sir," Barbousse said dubiously, studying the map. "What do you suppose it is?"
    "Looks like a construction road to this ex-miner," Brim pronounced. "Couple of years old at least. Might well have supplied gravel from these pits it runs beside. The research center probably used plenty, the way it's built." He laughed. "Whatever they used to use it for, that old right-of-way just might make our job a whole lot easier and less risky tonight."
    "How's that, sir?" Barbousse asked, scratching his head.
    "Because," Brim explained with a smile, "we could leave the main cable and use that road to go around to the other side of the research center. Then we'd simply get back on the cable again-coming from the opposite direction-and arrive where they're not even looking for us. Like a convoy of Leaguer reinforcements. After all, that's why Hagbut says he brought these captured cannon in the first place."
    Barbousse nodded his head and smiled. "And if they've got most of their troops at the other gate like we think they do, Lieutenant, it evens the odds a little better." He laughed darkly. "We aren't exactly the best substitute for the Colonel's hundred and eighty foot soldiers."
    Brim chuckled. "You've noticed?"
    "I've noticed," Barbousse agreed, "but it's yet to worry me, sir." He laughed quietly. "We'll make a go of it, Lieutenant. You've already figured out a good way to get at the bastards. Catch a little sleep now, and th6 rest of your answers will come in the morning."
    Brim nodded sleepily and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair as the big rating switched out the light on the map table. He remembered nothing more until the first crimson rays of dawn filtered through the trees.
    

    Following an early morning assembly, Brim set the various crews to searching their fieldpieces for anything of possible value to the task at hand. Not surprisingly, they found each vehicle had been well equipped at Gimmas Haefdon. Emperor Greyffin IV was a steadfast Army man, and consequently, the Imperial Expeditionary Forces were known everywhere for the wealth of equipment they carried in the field.
    With the sound of distant artillery grumbling through the morning air, Barbousse and Fragonard lowered a number of heavy packing cases to the ground with two cables, then broke the seals with a power draw bar. From these, they lifted packages of blast pikes, oversized power cartridges, cartons of proton grenades, and a brace of battle lanterns-wiping each clean of "proof" grease and preservative gel.
    "Gantheissers, no less," Fragonard said admiringly, turning one of the big blast pikes in his hands. "Not bad for emergency-pack stuff." He slotted a power cartridge in place and grinned with pleasure as the self-test finished. "All ready to fire, too," he said. "Got to give those weird Ganthers credit. If they do nothing else well, they surely can build weapons." He departed shortly to make sure the other crews had their weapons under control.
    When all the stores were prepared and distributed, some of the orphaned BATFLE COMMs set to unpacking one of the portable KA'PPA sets. "Sooner or later we'll need it to call in. the destroyers, sir," Barbousse explained to Brim. "I suggested they get their testing over with now."
    "Good idea," Brim agreed, watching two ratings reverse a large plate in the packing crate-which soon became a control panel. Others attached an auxiliary power unit via heavy cables with complex connectors, while nearby a third team unfolded the antenna lattice from a slender silver container. These tasks complete, everyone pitched in to lever the longish structure into the air and guy it in place with a triad of insulated wires. Immediately, operators busied themselves with integration tests using equipment contained in a third pack the size of the power unit. Operation of the complete assembly was verified in half a metacycle, then the whole bulky unit was restored in five more. A'zurn's star was high in a hazy, cloud-dappled sky by the time the BATTLE COMMs replaced the unit aboard Brim's fieldpiece, then marched off toward still another task with Barbousse in the lead.
    

    By midafternoon, the clouds had changed to a low overcast and a brisk wind was rustling the treetops. Brim stood at the edge of the cable right-of-way, inspecting a larger portion ft of sky than he could view from the forest floor. It was the fourth time he'd come; each time he did, he became more confident than the last. This time, it even smelled like rain. He smiled. Had he ordered the weather himself, he could scarcely have done a better job.
    Later, rejoining the mobile fieldpieces, he visited the ordnance men adjusting their disruptors. "Probably get a mite better performance out of 'em this time," Fragonard assured him from one of the boarding ladders. "None of 'em was ever fine-tuned before-thank the bloody Universe they were ready to fire, even if we couldn't hit anything, in a manner of speakin'" He chuckled mirthlessly. "We'd all be dead by now."
    "Or worse," Barbousse added under his breath.
    Inside the quietly humming turret, Brim watched two ratings concentrating their efforts on the big disruptor, aiming the heavy weapon indirectly by means of a rigged index point-a hatch cover tied in a distant sapling-just visible through the trees. Leveling devices and compensators whirred and hummed, dizzily (to Brim) changing the attitude of the huge turret as the ordnance men fine-tuned elevation and transverse targeting controls in both automatic and manual modes. "This time," Fragonard said confidently, "if we need 'em, we'll know better how to use 'em."
    By late afternoon, everything appeared to be ready eluding the rain. A few drops filtered through the trees while Barbousse patched broken glass in the control cab and Brim completed his equipment checkout with Fragomird.
    "Got the map," the rating declared.
    "Check."
    "Blast pikes?"
    "Nine. One of 'em couldn't run diagnostics, so I pitched it."
    "Good. Positron grenades?"
    "Forty-six energized, Lieutenant. Four duds with no power."
    Brim nodded. "That's it," he said as the gathering storm began to drum loudly against the fieldpiece's metal flanks. "The KA'PPA's tested, everybody's armed in one way or another, and you've got the disruptors tuned. I think we're about ready as we're ever going to be." A smell of rain filled the control cabin, fresh and damp to his nose. He peered around at the other fieldpieces. Probably it was his imagination, but somehow each one looked much more deadly new that he knew the disruptors were tuned. Then he closed his eyes and forced his racing mind to relax. Tonight would be a long night indeed.
    Later, when storm-gray daylight faded to the near darkness of A'zurnian evening, the rain-which was previously, only falling lightly-now began to come down in torrents. "We're not going to make much speed with visibility like this," Barbousse observed, peering through the water streaming along the windshield, "even with all the lights on."
    Brim nodded agreement. It was raining with a vengeance. "At least we don't have far to go," he observed. "And anyway, it'll make it harder for them to spot us.
    'Through optical sights, sir," Barbousse grumped with a smile.
    "Those jammers in the hull ought to confuse their other sensors some." Brim offered.
    Barbousse smiled. "They won't believe it if they do pick us up, Lieutenant," he said. "Nobody would go out on a night like this."
    "Absolutely," Brim agreed as he stretched forward and opened the phase converter. "You make sure the traction gear works and I'll test the COMM. After that, we'll get started and find out."
    Five display globes again hovered above the shifting light patterns of the COMM cabinet as Barbousse gunned the traction engine from the driver's seat. "Everybody ready?" Brim asked this time in short-range "secure" mode.
    Five versions of "Aye, sir" provided his answer from the other fieldpieces.
    "Fragonard?"
    "Ready, sir," came his answer on the interCOMM from the turret.
    Brim peered around the hunched form of Barbousse in the driver's seat. The big rating had his windshield cleaners in action, and the trees appeared like specters in the dim illumination of the battle headlights. "All set?" he asked.
    "All set, sir."
    "Let's move out."
    "Aye, sir." Barbousse nodded and carefully lowered the thrust sink. The big machine lumbered into motion, its traction system throttled back just above idle. Brim swung in his seat, watching five pairs of battle headlights follow in a serpentine track among the trees. "There," the rating muttered, manhandling the heavy vehicle into a sharp left turn.
    "Cableway?" Brim asked.
    "Aye, sir," Barbousse answered. "But I'm not lockin' on the cable-just as you ordered, Lieutenant." He cocked his head momentarily. "Do you suppose they can track who's followin' the cable?"
    "Don't know for sure," Brim admitted. "But it's always possible-and besides, the construction road isn't that far away."
    "Aye, sir," agreed Barbousse, peering out into the rain ahead.
    To Brim, the raging torrent looked like a meteor shower in the battle headlights' dull glow.
    They drove in silence, Barbousse picking his way carefully with the trees a bare ten irals to his left. "Break in the woods coming up, sir," he said tensely.
    Brim peered past the man's shoulder. "About the right time," he confirmed. "Try it." Then he turned to the five COMM displays. "Hard right coming up," he warned the others. "Watch for a break in the woods to starboard." The landscape abruptly skidded to the left and the fieldpiece tipped precipitously, then righted, Barbousse swearing under his breath. Then they were once more under control, picking their way slowly along the overgrown construction road.
    Considerably time elapsed before the six vehicles completed their circuitous route around the research center-successfully avoiding nine open quarry pits along the way. By the time they drew to a halt at the cableway again (this time on the far side of the campus), neatly half the night had passed.
    "Everybody still with me?" he asked the COMM cabinet.
    "Aye, sir," five voices replied.
    "Barbousse?"
    "Doing fine, sir," the big rating assured him.
    "Very well," Brim said. "Let's be at it-just as if we'd been coming this direction all day."
    "Aye," Barbousse called over the roar of the traction engine. He swung the heavy vehicle left onto the cableway. "Picking up the cable now," be reported as a trio of green lights began to pulse on the panel before him. "Lock on."
    "Good," Brim replied. "Let's put the lights on-we might as well get it over with and be done for once and all."
    Barbousse switched energy to the three big forward illuminators and all the running lights. The other five fieldpieces followed suit. Brim mentally shuddered as trees bordering the cable right-of-way stood out in sudden detail. He imagined the lighted machines looked a lot like six oversized refugees from a Gambian Feast of Lights.
    In due time, they coasted to the foot of a lengthy downgrade, then began what the map promised was a short climb to their first view of the research center at the bottom of the hill.
    

    Just before they crested the rise, Barbousse drew to a halt, hovering in place over the cable. Outside, the right-of-way was now lined with a row of tall night illuminators like Karlsson lamps. They made hazy orange circles in the driving rain. "All right, Fragonard, it's time," Brim called into the interCOMM.
    A moment later, the turret hatch opened and the ordnance man scrambled down a ladder, raced across the deck, and fairly burst into the control cab in a spray of rain. "Universe!" he sputtered as he struggled out of his battle helmet. "Make sure you've got your suit dogged down tight; otherwise it could fill up and drown you."
    "I'll do that," Barbousse laughed. "And we've got a long way to walk."
    "All set?" Brim asked.
    "Aye, sir," Barbousse answered.
    "Remember to flash the signal three times-soon as you can see my lights," Brim reminded them.
    "Three times it is, sir," Barbousse assured him. "If the map's right, we shouldn't need more'n twenty cycles to get there." He pulled his helmet over his head, then followed Fragonard over the hatch coaming and out into the storm.
    - Brim slammed the hatch shut in a shower of flying rain, watching the two men scramble down the ladder. At the bottom, Barbousse waved, touching his thumb and forefinger together, then the two figures set off through ankle-deep puddles toward the top of the hill and soon disappeared into the gloomy downpour.
    Brim hovered, idling a full thirty cycles just to be sure, then settled in the driver's seat, lowered the thrust sink, and drove the lumbering cannon up over the crest of the hill, locked on to the cable. Behind, five more brightly lit vehicles followed.
    Interminable cycles later, a ruby glow clawed its way through the deluge three times in succession. He stepped up his speed along the downgrade until a number of high illuminators began to show through the rain ahead: Hagbut's target-now his own-was less than a cycle away. He forced himself to relax. Now was the time for calm, not mind-numbing tension.
    He pulled up sharply just outside the guard~shack, adjusting the big vehicle's traction system to its highest-and noisiest-power level. Then, taking his cue from the officers aboard Valentin's ill-fated corvette, he boldly activated the external amplifiers. "Well?" he broadcast imperiously in Vertrucht. "Hurry, fools. We have little time to dawdle here at your gate. Enemy vehicles are in the area."
    "P-Please identify yourself, s-sir," a voice responded unsurely from the guard shack.
    Brim smiled to himself. Just as he guessed. "Identify myself, indeed!" he growled. "You will present yourself immediately to open the gate in person, fool."
    "But w-we have orders..."
    "How long," Brim interrupted, "has it been since your last fire-flogging, fool?"
    "But sir..."
    "You will immediately present me with your name for the Center's flogging roster or you will, alternatively, open the gate."
    "A moment, sir."
    "Immediately."
    The door to the guard shack opened and a fat, slack-jawed guard waddled onto the stoop as if his feet hurt. His hand was palm up in a very unnecessary verification of the teeming rain. Behind him, Brim saw a second guard struggling into some sort of foul-weather suit. As the first stepped all the way out into the storm, a great arm materialized suddenly from the shadows and wrapped itself around his face. In the next instant, a jeweled knife flashed in the glare of the headlights. Then the guard's tunic was covered with a rain-thinned curtain of red before everything disappeared again in the shadows. Brim gunned the traction system to muffle any further noise when the second guard met a similar fate. Abruptly, Barbousse and Fragonard scrambled around the corner-battle suits surprisingly free of stains-and disappeared inside the guardhouse. Each carried a big Gantheisser ready at his hip. Light flashed explosively for a few heartbeats from the half-open door, then the two reappeared at a dead run for the main gate.
    The huge one-section gate must have been heavy, for Barbousse and Fragonard struggled considerably before it grudgingly slid aside. Extinguishing his running lights, Brim began to move through the opening. He slowed to a crawl while the two ratings boarded on the fly, then shoved the big traction system to its highest speed and roared into the campus toward their second objective: the hostage compound.
    Moments later, Barbousse and Fragonard yanked the hatch open and clambered over the coaming, dripping rain.
    "I think it's lettin' up," Fragonard declared, popping off his helmet.
    "Has to," Barbousse agreed. "Can't be much left up there anymore." He peered through the windshield. "They've got a map in the guard shack back there, Lieutenant," he said. "We guessed right-that square fenced area is marked with the Vertrucht symbol for prisoners you taught me."
    "Good," Brim said, nodding out ahead and to his left. "That's it, just off the port bow." He switched off two of the three cable followers. "How'd it go back there?" he asked.
    "Like it was programmed, Lieutenant," Barbousse declared. "They never got the first warning out."
    Brim smiled to himself. So far, so good, he thought-but the business was far from finished. At about three thousand irals, he eyed the entrance to the hostage compound. He could just make out the rooflines beyond against the sky, and in that instant, the last details of his plan fell into place. "Second and third fieldpieces follow me!" he yelled at the COMM cabinet. "Last three shear off and take out anybody you find at the city-side gate. Got that?"
    Five voices returned a confusion of assent just before the last three fieldpieces pulled out of line. The Carescrian grinned and flexed his shoulders. Then he disengaged the third cable follower and leaned hard on the left rudder pedal. His big machine banked wildly and skidded around until it was racing full speed for the gate. The roar of the traction system was deafening in the cab. A glance over his shoulder assured him the other two fieldpieces were in close formation behind him, bobbing and swaying ponderously as they galloped over the uneven ground, battle headlights like the eyes of great steam-breathing nocturnal monsters.
    "Halt and identity yourself!" someone yelled over a loud hailer from the guard shack ahead.
    Brim opened the phase gate farther and the speed increased again. The big machine was barely under control now, swaying and skidding from side to side, clouds of steam belching from the cooling system and the rain streaming from its sodden flanks. "Buckle in!" he warned.
    Ahead, a cluster of figures burst from the guard shack with blast pikes, kneeled, and began to fire, their charges pattering harmlessly against the armored plate of the rampaging field-piece.
    "Hang on!" Brim yelled over the howl of the straining traction system. Simultaneously, the guards seemed to realize what was about to happen. As one, they dropped their pikes and scattered in all directions-but much too late. Every one disappeared beneath the front of the vehicle into the thrashing torrent of gravity from the raging logic lens. An open-mouthed head suddenly bounced forward into the glow of the battle headlights, rebounded from a rock, and trailed a smeared string of dark red offal across the armored windshield as it joined a ragged upper torso that spun lazily in their wake like a thrown rag doll. Then, with a tearing, shrieking crash, the fieldpiece burst wildly over the guard shack, throwing a torrent of flying debris in all directions.
    Brim jammed the thrust sink into full detent amid screeching protest from the traction system; they shuddered to a stop not more than fifty irals from the first four hostage barracks. He glanced over his shoulder again as the other two fieldpieces drew to a skidding halt nearby-the last spun dizzily out of control for a moment before coming to rest precariously against a solid-looking utility building. At the same moment, the sky to his right lit, blazing forth with terrific flashes of disruptor fire, followed by waves of concussion as the last three cannon went to work on whatever League forces they found marshaled at the city-side gate.
    Leaving the controls set at a fast idle, he joined the two ratings at the hatch. "You know what to do," he yelled over the hiss of the cooling system. "Each of you take a building-get the hostages out quick as you can. Any of 'em can't fly, get 'em on one of the fieldpieces-anywhere. Understand?"
    "Understand, Lieutenant," Barbousse answered, then he disappeared over the coaming, followed by Fragonard. Brim clamped his helmet firmly in place and climbed down the ladder after them. Outside, the storm appeared to have run its course. Only a few drops spattered against his faceplate before they were instantly cleared. Ahead, Barbousse was already inside the first building of the first row. Fragonard was heading for the second. To his right in the darkness, Brim made out six other figures heading in a low crouch for the second row of barracks. All the buildings appeared to be dark, both outside and inside.
    Unexpectedly, a group of figures dashed from the third building, firing wildly in all directions. One discharge flashed blindingly beside Brim, knocking him from his feet and rolling him across the muddy turf. He lay low for a moment while deadly beams of energy crisscrossed only fractions of an iral above his helmet. Proton grenades flashed coldly in the darkness and guttural shouts filled the air. Then his vision cleared and he clambered stiffly to one knee, took his great side-action blaster from its holster, and, in an Academy-perfect two-hand crouch, blew the nearest Leaguer completely in half. Sadeskayan Bears, he observed, built powerful hand weapons. Moments later, a number of thundering Gantheissers suddenly joined his blaster, and the defenders rapidly disappeared, screaming in a welter of flame and concussion.
    An instant later, he was back on his feet and at the entrance to one of the barracks. He blew the latch from the door and U burst into the poorly lighted room-where he stopped short shuddering in absolute horror. The stench of rotting flesh alone was almost enough to drive him gagging into the fresh night air. The far end of the room was filled by a pitiful knot of cadaverous things he guessed once were like the flighted people he had seen aboard Prosperous. Now they were unbelievably emaciated-with shriveled stumps where once there had been wings. No wonder he'd seen no one aloft! He'd been warned-characteristic Triannic pragmatism. He stood for a moment, transfixed, then forced his mind once again into action. "Can any of you walk?" he choked.
    "Y-You...an Imperial!" one of them stammered from be-hind starved, deep-set eyes. "Our hopes are answered."
    "Have you come to set us free?" a spectral woman asked in a thin voice.
    "Yes," Bum said, his eyes filling with tears. "Can any of you...walk?"
    "We can walk if our steps lead to freedom," a gaunt old man with a white beard and spindly, ill-matched wing stumps pronounced somberly. "Freedom of any kind."
    Brim fought his emotions back under control. 'Three League fleldpieces wait outside," he said. "Climb aboard-anywhere. They're not very suitable, but..."
    "They will serve, young man," another haggard prisoner said. "We shall carry our comrades who can no longer walk. Come, my friends. We make our way to more useful employment."
    Brim nodded as the fleshless mass of humanity untangled itself from the end of the room and began to shamble for the door. Outside, he could see other halting lines of people already struggling to reach the waiting vehicles. Barbousse and Fragonard were both in the adjacent barracks as he ran along the walkway. The next building-opened by someone else by now-was a repeat of the last, emptying a pitiful remnant of emaciated bodies with blackened, deep-set eyes and torn, snapped-off wings. Some were already dead, as were many others in the remainder of the barracks he visited.
    Then, once all the buildings had been opened, he found himself running headlong through the pitiful lines of shambling hostages. The wind had picked up now and the rain came in spurts. Nearby, Fragonard and Barbousse were boosting hostages gently up the ladder and onto the vehicle's broad back. All three machines were filling rapidly with pitiful knots of what once were graceful flighted men and women. "Get 'em up there quick as you can," he yelled to the ordnance man. "I want us out of here before the Leaguers bring up some real reinforcements!"
    As the six machines lumbered back through the gate and up the hill-running lights darkened this time-stars were showing through the clouds. Brim glanced at his timepiece and nodded. They were almost precisely on the schedule he had set. Less than a metacycle remained before dawn.
    

    The first recall signal was broadcast from Prosperous not long after Brim and his party rejoined the other three fieldpieces just over the crest of the hill. "Battlecruisers, Lieutenant," Fragonard reported with a look of concern. "Operations gives us less than four watches before Prosperous leaves-ten metacycles at most."
    Brim pursed his lips, thinking of Sandur's warning, then he shrugged and smiled. "Ten metacycles gives us plenty of time," he answered in what he hoped was a voice of confidence.
    "If you say so, Lieutenant," Fragonard muttered, but his face gave the lie to his words.
    "Count 'em yourself," Brim reasoned. "It took us only three to drive to the high bridge-so four metacycles will certainly get us back from here. And with another for shuttling up to Prosperous, we still have most of five metacycles to use looking for Colonel Hagbut."
    Fragonard's eyes looked as if someone had just slapped him on the side of the head.
    Brim smiled sympathetically at the ordnance man's discomfort. "I understand how you feel," he said honestly. "And I am also well aware of how close that could be cutting things. But we can't just desert those men without at least giving our best shot to bring them home. Remember, once we're gone, they have no hope at all."
    "You're right, sir," Fragonard agreed. "I understand. I'd surely want it that way if I were in their shoes."
    Brim nodded. "Besides," he said with a grin, "we'll have some potent help locating 'em soon as we call in the Fleet."
    Fragonard knuckled his forehead. "Sorry. I..."
    "Sorry nothing," Brim interrupted with a smile. "You gave me a chance to review my plans. Everybody needs a sanity check once in a while." Then he winked and made his way to where the BA1TLE COMMs were busily rigging a portable KA'PPA.
    "Ready in a moment, Lieutenant," a signal rating said. "By my timepiece, it's just about time to make your call."
    Brim nodded, remembering his last view of the research center as he had crested the hill just before dawn. All the lights had been blazing-too late, he had noted with satisfaction. Now, in the early cycles of the morning, the clouds of the spent storm were disappearing rapidly and a cool breeze rustled ft the grass outside the fieldpieces. Everything smelled of A'zurn's rich, wet soil. The sirens were again quiet-he could hear chirps of morning birds and a low babble of conversation from the A'zurnians over the idling rumble of nearby traction systems.
    "All ready to call the Fleet in from orbit, Lieutenant," the rating declared. "Your time window begins...now."
    Brim nodded. "Call 'em," he ordered.
    Instantly, patterns of light changed position and hue on the console while overhead KA'PPA rings spread lazily from the beacon on its portable tower. "Sent," the rating reported. Then, only ticks later, he added, "And acknowledged, Lieutenant. They're ready."
    Brim nodded. "Pack it up then, ladies," he said to the BATTLE COMMs. "We'll be moving out momentarily. Then he trotted across the field and hoisted himself up the ladder. Climbing over the coaming, he turned to stare out the open hatch-listening.
    He waited only cycles before he heard the distant rolling thunder. Nothing else in the Universe made a sound like that. Big, deep-space antigravity generators, a number of them, if his ears heard correctly. As far as his eyes could see, the overcast was shredded now into distinct layers of gray and white cloud tinged here and there by the gold of a still-hidden dawn. Below these, visibility was perfect. The rumble quickly grew to a crackling, pulsing thunder he could feel as well as hear. Soon the very air was steeped in it, a palpable, physical sensation that seemed to shake the very warp and woof of the planet itself. Direction was obvious now. Brim peered into the fleecy clouds-any moment now. From the research center, he caught the overwhelmed wail of sirens. He grinned to himself. Too late for those, too!
    Presently, the ships came arcing down among the distant clouds, growing rapidly as they steered directly for his bill. At the same time, the entire Universe dissolved in an unbelievable storm of raw, physical sound that physically throbbed against the massive fieldpieces and blasted the forest on either side of the cable right-of-way in a cloud of dead leaves. For a moment, the sky itself darkened, then the three big K-type Fleet destroyers glided overhead not more than two thousand irals high, their slipstreams whistling shrilly past bridges, deck-houses, and casemates as they came. Each hatch and housing on their undersides was visible as twelve long-barreled 200-mnm~disruptors indexed smoothly downward, targeted on the research center.
    An instant later, all discharged in crackling waves of blinding green plasma and incredible concussion. Brim felt his hair stand on end. Trees glowed and sparked with globs of ball lightning-and the buried cable itself writhed burning from the ground in a traveling burst of soil and debris. Then a monstrous black cloud erupted over the hill with a vivid core of crimson and yellow flame as the three destroyers banked away to port into a gentle climbing turn, their disruptors returning to fore-and-aft parked position. When the noise level     dropped again, Brim could hear wild cheering from the A'zurnians. No one remained alive down there, and they knew    it as well as he.
    "Ships're calling for you, Lieutenant," Barbousse yelled, pointing to the COMM cabinet.
    Brim ripped himself from his near trance and stepped into the control cabin. "Sublieutenant Wilf Brim here," he shouted.
    "Commander Englyde Zantir here, Wilf," a voice boomed from among the flashing lights. "We're at your service as long    as you need us. What else can we do to brighten your morning, Lieutenant?"
    Brim stiffened. Englyde Zantir-everybody knew that name: dashing hero of a thousand hard-won battles. At his service. He was stunned. "Th-Thank you, sir," he stammered, then quickly recovered. Hero worship could wait. "We need to find Colonel Hagbut's men, Commander," he continued. "They've been captured. If they're still in the area at all, they ought to be near their personnel carriers-six of them, I think. Last transmission came from nine thirteen point five by E9g."
    "Personnel carriers," Zantir repeated thoughtfully. "Well, we'll have a look for them." In the distance, the rumble from the destroyers ceased to fade.
    Brim looked toward the top of the hill, beyond which huge chunks of molten rock and debris were still falling through the    towering column of smoke. "You people up to traveling some more this morning?" he called to the A'zurnians. "We need to move up the hill."
    "Oh, we're all right, Lieutenant," a voice called out from the pitiful collection of rags and starved flesh. "You Imperials worry about driving this thing, and we'll worry about hanging on."
    "Yeah," another called out. "We've got a few scores to settle."
    Brim nodded to Barbousse, the traction system roared, and the fieldpiece lumbered ahead. At the crest of the hill, Brim gasped first in astonishment, then in dumbfounded horror. Even the A'zurnians hushed with awe. Below, in the place where the research center once stood, all that now remained at the base of the towering smoke column was a glowing, bubbling crater perhaps two thousand irals wide and a hundred irals deep. Around this, a charred circle of smoldering, melted destruction extended outward another thousand irals. The blackened cable trench ran from the top of the bill and disappeared into the lurid incandescence below. He shook his head-a single salvo! So much for map locus 765jj.
    It was the renewed A'zurnian cheering that brought him back to reality. The broken-winged shreds of once-flighted beings were now on their feet, clapping each other on the back and pointing toward the destruction like men possessed (which, in retrospect, he supposed they were).
    He smiled grimly. Thus grew the seeds of Nergol Triannic's eventual downfall!
    "Commander Zantir for you again, Lieutenant," Barbousse interrupted.
    Brim nodded. The rumble of the destroyers was getting louder again.
    "Believe we've found old Hagbut for you, Wilf," Zantir's voice chuckled from the COMM cabinet. "Six armored personnel carriers-Imperial built. Is that right?"
    "Yessir," Brim replied. "Six of them."
    "Not far from you, then," Zantir said. "Two hills distant, near a quarry of some sort. Do you have a chart?"
    "I've got one, Commander," Brim answered. "An A971FF."
    "Good," replied Zantir. "Like mine-with the late research center at the top. Your hill is the next one down. Right?"
    "Aye, sir."
    "Two hills to the left of you is what looks like a stone quarry. See that?"
    "I see it, Commander," Brim acknowledged.
    "That's where they are, Wilf," Zantir said. "The six troop carriers are parked on the paved apron you see surrounding the pit. The whole thing's guarded by eight big Leaguer tanks of some kind-shouldn't be much of a problem for those fieldpieces you're in. They're pulled up close around the pit so they can aim at the prisoners."
    "Thank you, sir," Brim replied as he studied the chart. No cableway connected him to the enemy position, but his BATTLE COMMs by now were adept at handling the big machines with rudder pedals alone, and the path to the quarry looked as if it were clear of obstructions for most of the way. "We still need your help, Commander," he added.
    "Name it, Wilf," Zantir replied. "We've got more than nine metacycles to get you back to Prosperous."
    "Aye, sir," Brim answered. "And what I need more than anything else right now is your noise."
    "Our what?"
    "Your noise, Commander," Brim repeated. "While you're orbiting the area, we can sneak up on anything, even riding these roaring monsters."
    "Aha," Zantir exclaimed, laughing. "Good thinking, Wilf! Regula Collingswood said you were a bright lad, and she's seldom wrong. We'll be back in half a moment-at which time nobody will so much as hear himself think!"
    Brim looked Out at the A'zurnians-no battle suits for them. No protection from anything-and in a very few cycles, a pitched battle was a distinct possibility. He slid the window open beside him, leaned out, and explained the situation in as few words as possible.
    "What that means," he concluded, "is that we can leave you here in the safety of the forest or you can go with us. The choice is yours."
    Not a moment of hesitation elapsed. They roared back in mass, "We go. We go against the League!" In moments, A'zurnians on the other fieldpieces had also taken up the shout and turned it into a litany. "We go. We go against the League! We go!" Then the stillness of the skies shattered once again as Zantir's destroyers returned.
    The next cycles were the noisiest Brim could remember in his lifetime. Once he gave orders to move out, the three destroyers took up station around the quarry, circling at a constantly diminishing radius that brought one of them blasting low over Brim's galloping fieldpieces every fifteen cycles. Even in the protection of his battle helmet, the noise was absolutely deafening. He marveled that the A'zurnians could stand it out on the unsheltered flanks of the vehicle, but all were flapping their pitiful wing stumps excitedly and pointing ahead like children on a holiday outing.
    The six bellowing, steam-spewing vehicles covered the distance to the quarry in what seemed to be no time at all. They were soon charging up the last hill toward a wide opening in the surrounding ring of dense forest. On either side of the opening, two huge-and incredibly old-looking-carved columns rose into the morning sky, each topped by the figure of a huge flighted warrior, wings outspread as if in gliding flight.
    "Double up!" Brim yelled at the COMM cabinet, wondering if anyone on the receiving end could hear anything he said.
    His answer came in moments when the second fieldpiece in line pulled abreast on his starboard side and thundered along in tandem with him, hostages grinning and laughing in the slipstream as they clung to the vehicle's bucketing deck. The convoy exploded between the two columns, scattering Leaguers left and right as they came. "Stand by," he yelled into the COMM cabinet. "Starboard column takes the starboard side of the pit, port takes port-and have your disruptors aimed at one of those tanks!" As they burst onto the apron, he saw a score of Leaguers sprinting for their tanks, but already they were much too late. The big fieldpiece careened wildly to port as Barbousse skidded out onto the apron, then again to starboard as they raced along the periphery of the pit. He watched the disruptor indexing smoothly this way and that as Fragonard compensated for Barbousse's wild maneuvering-but it was always aimed for one of the enemy tanks. The ordnance work done in the forest had not been wasted. Then the traction engine bellowed in reverse while the big vehicle shuddered to a stop in a boiling cloud of steam.
    As the other five fieldpieces skidded into place, Zantir's voice boomed from the COMM console. "Looks as if that went well, Wilf."
    "Aye, sir," Brim answered. "So far..."
    "I shall put up into orbit above the atmosophere, then." Zantir said, his voice amplified above the roar of his generators. "You'll be able to negotiate with them a bit more easily if they can hear what you have to say-and we'll stick around to back you." The roaring boomed momentarily, then Brim watched the triangular shapes disappear into the clouds and suddenly the landscape was saturated with a delirious silence.
    In the first tentative chirps from surrounding trees, Brim watched the stunned Leaguers begin to revive. Beyond, at the quarry pit, the Imperial prisoners started to wave and cheer.
    Beside him the ex-hostages only stared in deadly silence at their torturers. They sensed their time was near.
    Abruptly, the Carescrian was galvanized into action. "Fire up the outside amplifiers," he whispered, thinking furiously. "I have a game to play with these bastards-and I learned the rules from a man named Valentin."
    

    The amplifiers clicked on and hummed. Brim watched the dazed Leaguers freeze in place and warily turn toward his fieldpiece, waiting. Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught the turret of one of the enemy tanks as it surreptitiously began to creep around from its bearing on the prisoners. Squelching the amplifier input, he hit the turret intezCOMM. "Take that tank out, Fragonard," he ordered calmly. "Between those two piles of rocks-right now."
    "No problem, Lieutenant," the ordnance man said, "now that I've got these honkers calibrated." The stubby disruptor overhead moved smoothly to the left, dropped rapidly, then thundered, rocking the massive chassis back on its gravity cushion. Opposite, the League tank disappeared in a neat cloud of blackish flame, ragged chunks of debris wobbling over the trees and out of sight. The too-clean stench of ozone filled the air, but not a stone was disturbed on either side of the void where the tank had been.
    "Nice," Brim commented.
    "All in the setup, Lieutenant," Fragonard said modestly.
    Nearby, a Leaguer in a black suit had begun to emerge from one of the tanks. He stopped to peer at the empty space, turned for one quick glance at the glowing disruptor on Brim's field-piece, then disappeared again into the hatch.
    Brim lifted the squelch from the amplifiers. "Surrender, or we blast you all to atoms," he broadcast in Vertrucht. "As you can see, we've learned a thing or two about your cannon."
    Silence.
    "Four archestrals remain for your answer, fools," he said. "Then we destroy you." That gave them two full cycles to make up their minds.
    An amplifier clicked on at the black-suited Leaguer's tank. "Another shot from those fieldpieces, and we kill our prisoners, Imperial fool," a metallic voice warned.
    "So?" Brim inquired imperiously.
    Surprised silence ensued. "Well...ah...you know," the metallic voice said lamely. "We kill all these Imperial prisoners we have captured. Including your Colonel Hagbut. Make no mistake, Imperial. We mean what we say!"
    "Of course you do," Brim said laconically. "But that really doesn't have much effect on me-or my mission."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Listen, hab'thall," Brim chuckled into the amplifier, "my orders say to bring back the six personnel carriers you've got parked on the apron-they're expensive. We can get soldiers anywhere, and of course we've got to shoot old Hagbut anyway for getting himself captured." He looked at his timepiece. "You've got two archestrals left."
    More silence. Finally, the voice came again from the tank. "You say you can replace the soldiers anywhere?"
    "Well, of course, fool-just like you," Brim answered. He knew he had them now. "You kill those prisoners and we bring the personnel carriers back empty-with you dead, of course. Otherwise..."
    "O-Otherwise?"
    "Well, you certainly must know that," Brim answered. "Otherwise, we blow up your tanks without you in them. Either way, we get what we came for, understand?"
    "Yes...I ah, understand."
    "I was pretty sure you would," Brim said. "All right. Time's up. What'll it be? We have a busy day ahead of us." Above his head, he watched the big disruptor index toward the next enemy tank. "Ready..." he broadcast. "Aim...!" The other disruptors indexed slightly.
    "We capitulate! Don't shoot!" the metallic voice screeched, this time in broken Imperial Avalonian. "We capitulate!"
    Suddenly, the A'zurnians and the Imperial prisoners in the pit erupted into wild cheering. Brim took a deep breath, hoped his voice wasn't shaking too noticeably, then spoke again into the amplifier. "Very well," he broadcast. "Then I want those tanks of yours emptied immediately. Everybody out. Weapons on the ground in front of you. I'm sending the A'zurnians to make sure none of you retain any surprises." He watched the cheering ex-hostages pile off the fieldpieces and hobble toward the tanks-all of which were soon open, crews standing forlornly before them, weapons in the hands of their former A'zurnian captives. Brim silently wondered bow many of the Leaguers would be alive by the time the sun set. The lucky ones, he concluded, would not be among them.
    "And I've given the personnel carriers to the A'zurnian underground as well, Colonel Hagbut," Brim explained. "They'll take them over immediately with the Leaguer tanks, then send crews with us on the run to Magalla'ana so they can drive these fieldpieces back when we ship out." Two ragged A'zurnians stood quietly at the rear of the control cabin.
    Hagbut's eyes narrowed for a moment-Brim could almost swear he heard clockwork clattering nearby, then the man's    face broke into a wide grin. He put a fatherly arm around Brim's shoulders and thumped him on the back. "You make me PROUD of you, boy," he roared. "I KNEW you had it in you when I put you in charge. I shall write a favorable memorandum on your behalf."
    Brim felt his eyebrows raise-along with his hackles A half-stifled snort issued from Barbousse at the COMM cabinet.
    "I shall tell my high command that the success of the mission is actually a tribute to the fine training I received at old Darkhurst Academy," Hagbut continued, striking a heroic pose.
    He turned to address the A'zurnians. "This accomplishment, gentlemen, is merely the latest in the unbroken series of military victories which mark my career." He indicated Brim with his free hand-as if the Carescrian were his personal prodigy. "I provided this talented young man with the proper equipment     for his task, instructed him as to mission parameters, then COMMANDED him until I could no longer physically command. Once properly instructed and equipped, he merely followed my lead to insure the success of the mission." He turned again to Brim. "Yes, young man," he said, "I shall write, a highly favorable memorandum concerning your part in this successful operation. YOU FOLLOW ORDERS WELL!"
    "Four-metacycle departure warning from Prosperous, Lieutenant Brim," Barbousse interrupted in a choked voice.
    Brim winked at the big rating, then turned to Hagbut. "Perhaps we should consider starting out for Magalla'ana, Colonel," he suggested. "Took us a bit more than three metacycles to drive here in the first place, and we left a real mess to negotiate at the end of that high suspension bridge."
    They both stopped to watch the BATTLE COMMs hoisting a Fleet battle pennant to the top of the KA'PPA tower where it fluttered lazily just below the transmitter-more magic courtesy of Barbousse.
    Hagbut nodded his head and glared out of the corner of his eye. Then he took a deep breath. "All right," he conceded. "Lieutenant Brim, you may broadcast orders for my men to mount the fieldpieces immediately."
    They only just made it. When Brim's steam-breathing field-pieces charged into the pickup zone with battle flags flying, they became the last vehicles to return at all. The whole area was littered with abandoned equipment, most of it showing clear evidence that other segments of the raid also met with serious opposition. Only one large shuttle remained idling in the center of the lift-off area, crewmen at both hatches beckoning frantically with their arms.
    "I think they want us to hurry," Barbousse said as be braked the big machine to a halt.
    "So do I," Brim agreed. "If that League fleet is still on schedule, Anak and his battlecruisers can't be too far away anymore." He switched on the amplifiers. "End of the line, gentlemen," he announced to Hagbut's soldiers. "Everyone into the shuttle over there-on the double!" Instantly; the men began clambering to the ground. Hagbut was out of the control cab before Brim had even stopped speaking and led the sprint across the field. "Don't stop for anything," the Carescrian added, chuckling-then he turned to the pair of gaunt A'zurnians who would take his fieldpiece back into the hills.
    One wore the battered tricornered hat of a highly placed A'zurnian nobleman, the other was totally bald with a huge red welt from his prominent nose to his right ear. Both were filthy and disheveled. Their wings had been cruelly snapped from their backs, ripped away, leaving long, ragged blades that moved slowly-and uselessly-while they talked. Except for a few facial differences, they were alike as twins, he thought with a twinge of pity. But then, emaciated people all tended to look alike. He had discovered that long ago in Carescria sunken cheeks, joints swollen, dressed in tattered rags that hung in shreds from their bony frames. Yet in these hollow eyes burned sparks of hope and deep bitter anger. These wrathful men would soon make implacable enemies for the conquerors of A'zurn. No fear of death remained among them. Each long ago relinquished all hope for his life.
    Barbousse had just finished reviewing the controls one last time. "Any more questions, gentlemen?" the big rating asked with a grin. "We want to be sure you put these mechanical brutes to the best use possible."
    "Thanks to your patient instruction, we have none," said the one with the tricornered hat. "My colleague and I will master the machine with practice."
    "At one time," the second one croaked, holding up a spindly forefinger, "we were masters of many machines. Fine machines...."
    "But few weapons among them," the other said with surprising vehemence. "When we have scourged Triannic's plague from our homeland, we shall never again neglect that part of-our responsibilities."
    "Nor forget a brave Imperial lieutenant named Wilf Brim-to whom we credit all success of the mission," the scarred one added. "Someday," he said, "when a new generation of A'zurnians have regained our heritage of flight, we shall properly thank both you and Starman Barbousse. Meanwhile, there are ways to appropriately express our appreciation in a more current time frame."
    Brim smiled with embarrassment, fighting a lump in his throat. "Just keep on fighting," he interrupted. "Live and win! That's thanks enough for any of us." Then he saluted the two gaunt warriors before they could continue, and followed Barbousse down the ladder. "Good-bye and good hunting," he shouted as his feet hit the grass. An instant, after he cleared the hull, the traction engine roared and the fieldpiece lumbered off after the others toward the protection of the low hills that formed the lower boundary of the city. In the control cabin, the man with the tricornered hat was saluting him through the armored glass. Respectfully, he returned the salute, then turned and sprinted desperately after Barbousse for the shuttle-which was half buttoned up and clearly ready to lift. Only the aft hatch was still open, with a gaggle of BATTLE COMMs crowding up the ladder.
    "COME ON, you worthless Fleet types," Hagbut yelled from the opening. "Anak's ahead of schedule. GET A MOVE ON 1T!"
    Running for all he was worth, Brim glanced over his shoulder-nobody was there. He and Barbousse were the last off A'zurn! Somehow he found strength to run even faster.
    The shuttle was already moving forward when he followed Barbousse onto the ladder, shaking with exertion. It was climbing vertically when the big rating dragged him by his arms through the opening, panting desperately.
    The next days became a confused melange of wailing sirens and sprinting crew members-beginning with a full-emergency takeoff when Prosperous' powerful Drive crystals shook her massive hull like a storm-driven leaf. Every few metacycles, alarms clattered in the liner's bridge as sensitive detectors picked up long-range locator probes from the enemy battlecruisers-but the return signals were evidently too weak to betray the Imperials' location, and after a time the probing came less frequently, finally ceasing altogether On the morning of the third day.
    Raid Prosperous was over.
    

    During the return to Gimmas Haefdon, two personal messages from widely separated sources caught Brim's attention immediately. The first, from Effer'wyck/Gimmas, had been sent only metacycles after his release of the A'zurnian hostages. It contained the following lines penned-he assumed-by Margot herself. "Wilf the Helmsman flies faster than Fate: Wilf is he who rides early and late,/Wilf storms at your ivory gates: Pale king of the Dark Leagues, Beware!" Her short message ended with the cryptic sentences: "Today, Wilf, I begin to earn my own way in this awful war. Think of me." This time, it was signed simply "Margot."
    Brim wasted little time puzzling over the words during his return flight-he was relishing plans for discovering their real meaning (among other things) in person. Instead, he sent a short note of thanks, signed only "WiIf," then settled back to dream of his next rendezvous at the Mermaid Tavern.
    The second message, from Borodov/Gimmas @ Lo'Sodeskaya/983F6.735, contained another cross-reference to the Journal of the Imperial Fleet. This article was much nearer the front of the file and started:
    Gimmas Haefdon (Eorean Blockading Forces) 228/
    51995: Sublieutenant Wilf Brim from I.F.S. Truculent
    played a decisive role in the recent A'zurn raid. Lead-
    ing 25 men and eight captured mobile cannon under
    the command of Colonel (the Hon.) Gastudgon Z.
    Hagbut, Xce, N.B.C....
    The usual debriefing followed Prosperous' planetfall on Gimmas Haefdon-this time conducted by a dried-out commander who may well have been as skilled in his profession as Margot Effer'wyck, but infinitely less pleasant to Brim. It seemed as if the cycles crawled by before he returned to Truculent-and the base COMM system.
    He called up her code the moment he finally returned to his cabin, but found to his dismay that Margot was "temporarily ~ reassigned and unavailable for personal contact." Emergency messages, he read, could be directed to her usual address-so long as the sender harbored no illusions concerning time of delivery. And no date was set for her return.
    With a grim sense of foreboding, he now began to seriously question what she might have meant by earning her own way in the war. But his subsequent efforts to learn anything resulted in dismal failure-everywhere he tried. Personal inquiries wee turned away at the Technology Assessment Office by low-level clerks, and his own clearance was insufficient to gain him audience with anyone who might have access to further information. It was as if she had disappeared from the Universe.
    So he sent a number of messages to Effer'wyck/Gimmas-all remained unanswered-and he finished the remainder of Truculent's refit amid varying shades of gloom to match the weather outside. Not even the obstreperous return of the Bears from Lo'Sodeskaya really helped, though a sudden increase in his meem intake considerably dulled the worst pangs of loneliness.
    A brief ceremony celebrated Barbousse's promotion to Leading Torpedoman, then a few standard days later, Truculent's lengthy refit was complete. Two weeks of space trials proved out her new systems, and Gimmas Haefdon's perpetual storms once again ebbed to insignificance in the aft Hyperscreens. Collingswood wisely saw to it that Brim's responsibiity-and metacycles at the helm-were greatly increased during this, his second tour on blockade. And with this extra duty, the image of Margot Effer'wyck once more began to fade from his mind's eye. In time, her memory became bearable once more-but only just. Clearly, her "reset" had been much more successful than his.

Baldwin, Bill - The Helmsman Chapter 7