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Authors: Bill Baldwin
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or two this morning, Brim,” he allowed emotionlessly. “I shall take over now and let you watch the scenery.”
Jolted, Brim suddenly understood he had just received rare praise from this taciturn officer and groped for something appropriate to say. Then he brought himself up short with the sure realization that words were tools Gallsworthy simply didn't understand. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said matter-of-factly. “I should be glad for a moment to relax.”
When control was subsequently restored to the left-hand console, Brim settled back in his recliner and closed his eyes for a moment, smiling inwardly. It was a morning of two victories so far as he was concerned, though few of the Imperials on Truculent's bridge could have logically explained why. As thralls to Avalon's Galactic Empire, Carescrians were rarely praised for anything they accomplished. Most became highly adept at ferreting out life's little triumphs wherever and whenever they could be found. And even Gallsworthy's acceptance of his flying skills could in no way match Brim's satisfaction in the sour look still manifested on Amherst's long, homely face.
Truculent was well on her way to war — so was Wilf Brim.
* * * *
Blockades in intergalactic space were mounted for pretty much the same reasons they were mounted anywhere else: starve a critical component of a civilization into collapse and other, dependent components suffer with it. Starve sufficient critical components, and the whole civilization suffers. To this end, I.F.S. Truculent was assigned patrol duty off the periphery of the League's great Altnag'gin hullmetal fabricating complex orbiting the star Trax. Without imported metallic zar'clinium, a rare trace element, its mills could forge no hull metal plate, and without hullmetal plate, dependent shipyards could turn out no more warships.
The actual implementation was as simple as it was effective: transport starships cruising HyperSpace at roughly ten to thirty light years each metacycle were simply not “maneuverable” in any normal sense of the word. It was first necessary to exit HyperSpace before approaching anywhere near a space anchorage, and this meant Hypolight runs of at least two or three metacycles at the end of each journey. During this interval, “runners” (enemy ships headed in either direction) were quite visible in the normal spectrum — and vulnerable to attack from predators like the Empire's specially equipped T-class destroyers. Truculent was one of six patrol craft assigned to sealing Altnag'gin; she relieved a smaller N-class destroyer, which had been constantly on station for three Standard Months.
It came as no particular surprise to Brim when the duty quickly broke down to mostly hard work and boredom; a lot of work in deep space was like that. However, the routine was often enough punctuated by periods of deadly action, and Truculent found herself immersed in one of these no more than a few Standard Days after the ship she replaced gleefully turned her bow homeward and surged off into deep space at full thrust.
A chance break in one of the region's interminable gravity storms some thousand or so c'lenyts off the Nebulous Triad (a key departure point from one of the Cloud League's most important manufacturing centers) had just revealed two fast transports racing in from deep space.
Besides metallic zar'clinium, blockade runners in this part of the League nearly always carried other basic commodities to fuel the maw of Nergol Triannic's war machine: food ripped from starving farmers of Korvost, freshly mined crystal seedlings, and always quantities of life-sustaining TimeWeed from the Spevil virus beds — frequent drafts of the latter were necessary for addicted members of the dreaded Controller class and their rulers, expatriates from Triannic's royal court in far-off Tarrott city.
Only cycles out of HyperSpace, the enemy ships had run out of luck.
Gallsworthy and Pym worked briskly at
Jolted, Brim suddenly understood he had just received rare praise from this taciturn officer and groped for something appropriate to say. Then he brought himself up short with the sure realization that words were tools Gallsworthy simply didn't understand. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said matter-of-factly. “I should be glad for a moment to relax.”
When control was subsequently restored to the left-hand console, Brim settled back in his recliner and closed his eyes for a moment, smiling inwardly. It was a morning of two victories so far as he was concerned, though few of the Imperials on Truculent's bridge could have logically explained why. As thralls to Avalon's Galactic Empire, Carescrians were rarely praised for anything they accomplished. Most became highly adept at ferreting out life's little triumphs wherever and whenever they could be found. And even Gallsworthy's acceptance of his flying skills could in no way match Brim's satisfaction in the sour look still manifested on Amherst's long, homely face.
Truculent was well on her way to war — so was Wilf Brim.
* * * *
Blockades in intergalactic space were mounted for pretty much the same reasons they were mounted anywhere else: starve a critical component of a civilization into collapse and other, dependent components suffer with it. Starve sufficient critical components, and the whole civilization suffers. To this end, I.F.S. Truculent was assigned patrol duty off the periphery of the League's great Altnag'gin hullmetal fabricating complex orbiting the star Trax. Without imported metallic zar'clinium, a rare trace element, its mills could forge no hull metal plate, and without hullmetal plate, dependent shipyards could turn out no more warships.
The actual implementation was as simple as it was effective: transport starships cruising HyperSpace at roughly ten to thirty light years each metacycle were simply not “maneuverable” in any normal sense of the word. It was first necessary to exit HyperSpace before approaching anywhere near a space anchorage, and this meant Hypolight runs of at least two or three metacycles at the end of each journey. During this interval, “runners” (enemy ships headed in either direction) were quite visible in the normal spectrum — and vulnerable to attack from predators like the Empire's specially equipped T-class destroyers. Truculent was one of six patrol craft assigned to sealing Altnag'gin; she relieved a smaller N-class destroyer, which had been constantly on station for three Standard Months.
It came as no particular surprise to Brim when the duty quickly broke down to mostly hard work and boredom; a lot of work in deep space was like that. However, the routine was often enough punctuated by periods of deadly action, and Truculent found herself immersed in one of these no more than a few Standard Days after the ship she replaced gleefully turned her bow homeward and surged off into deep space at full thrust.
A chance break in one of the region's interminable gravity storms some thousand or so c'lenyts off the Nebulous Triad (a key departure point from one of the Cloud League's most important manufacturing centers) had just revealed two fast transports racing in from deep space.
Besides metallic zar'clinium, blockade runners in this part of the League nearly always carried other basic commodities to fuel the maw of Nergol Triannic's war machine: food ripped from starving farmers of Korvost, freshly mined crystal seedlings, and always quantities of life-sustaining TimeWeed from the Spevil virus beds — frequent drafts of the latter were necessary for addicted members of the dreaded Controller class and their rulers, expatriates from Triannic's royal court in far-off Tarrott city.
Only cycles out of HyperSpace, the enemy ships had run out of luck.
Gallsworthy and Pym worked briskly at
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