THE HELMSMAN: Director's Cut Edition (41 page)

Off to starboard, the third destroyer was turning with them. Two of her turrets were out of commission, with disruptors pointed at useless angles. The other seven, however, were firing rapidly and accurately, matching
Truculent
shot for shot. Brim wondered if
she
might be the ship carrying Valentin, then decided at the moment he had no time to care.

Soon the two ships were racing parallel courses across the bright disk of Lixor, Truculent silhouetted against the light, her opponent in the much-more-enviable position of blending with the darkness of space, at least so she appeared from Brim's console. Below, his own decks were a ruin, littered with debris and punctured in at least a hundred locations. Fires were reported in three damage-control zones. A nearby display presented the heavily armored sick bay crowded with more than twenty bloody bodies waiting for healing machines that were already full. Flynn could be seen feverishly rushing to this one and that, trying to handle the sudden overload. He was a fine doctor, Brim knew that from experience. But a lot of Truculents were going to die before this day was over, despite all the man could do.

He didn't opt for a closer look in the sick bay since the bridge itself was beginning to fill with acrid black smoke from fires raging in what was left of Collingswood's cabin. Metal fires, for certain, he noted. Nothing burned like metal once it caught.

Another explosion jarred the deck: This one in the Communications cabin joining A turret to the lower part of the bridge. Miraculously, the voice circuits held, but the deck buckled dangerously beneath his boots. And soon the smoke was worse than ever.

“I'll have a square pattern of five torpedoes,” Fourier ordered. Moments later, five torpedoes flashed from the launcher: two high, two low, one in the center.

“Torpedoes running,” Barbousse intoned.

“That ought to show them!” somebody yelled in the ruby glow.

“And how!” another started.

“Oh, no!” a third voice exclaimed in dismay as the enemy destroyer reacted with unbelievable speed, executing a series of tight maneuvers that cleanly evaded four of the speeding missiles. The fifth torpedo — evidently unexpected in a square salvo — excised a small deckhouse from the hull just aft of her small superstructure in a cloud of flying debris. It did not, however, encounter anything sufficiently solid in the framework to set off its charge, and continued on into space without inflicting any important damage.

“Afraid of that,” Fourier snapped angrily. “Still, it didn't hurt to try.”

Another welter of shots erupted close to the starboard bow, smashing the forward docking cupola and sending jagged hullmetal splinters whizzing through the Hyperscreens in a dozen places.

“Voof!” Ursis roared through clenched teeth as he grabbed his left forearm. Brim could see his battle suit sealing off a ragged wound in a spray of blood. The Bear pounded his console in high dudgeon.
“Now,”
he pronounced solemnly, “that bastard Triannic is
really
in trouble!”

“Look out!” somebody else yelled. “Jubal's caught it…”

Brim glanced to his right in time to see Theada slump facedown onto shards of crystal littering his console, the Hyperscreens shattered in front of his station. Blood flowed freely from somewhere beneath his head and dripped in a puddle at his feet. “Somebody get a pressure patch up here!” the Carescrian yelled, then cranked
Truculent
around in a climbing turn as the first ship desperately took evasive action to escape his attack. The Leaguers acted only
just
in time. The space they would have occupied erupted in a deadly salvo of closely spaced blasts as Fourier growled in displeasure.

On the bridge aft, Brim glimpsed a crew with laser axes and power pries fighting three smoky radiation fires in what was left of the chart room and trying to free somebody pinned to the deck by a fallen support. Deep in the hull, he scanned a generator room turned to near chaos. Huge, charred holes had been opened by hits on either side of the keel, but miraculously, Borodov kept the oversized Admiralty N-types churning out their enormous output of raw antigravity waves.
Truculent's
speed was a major reason she was still in one piece now that the enemy ships had at last joined forces. Near one shattered power console, part of a rating still sat in the recliner, burned completely away from the waist up. Beside one of the blast holes, a leaking body hung limply impaled by three long needles of hullmetal, melted then thrust inward at the time of impact.

While two blood-covered medical ratings gently eased Theada from his console, Brim watched the second enemy ship turning toward him again. Fourier's disruptor crews wasted no time in blanketing it with a barrage of shock and radiation. The Leaguer's KA'PPA tower went in a blinding flash of light and a shattered launch sailed straight down from its mountings, only irals from a direct hit beneath the bridge. Brim smiled grimly. They'd felt
those
salvos, all right.

Then, with a blinding flash,
Truculent's
spaceframe again heaved convulsively, gravity pulsed, and loose debris bounced around the interior of the wrecked bridge like a swarm of heavy insects. A second explosion followed on its heels, this one all the way forward in the hull. It spun the destroyer like a toy. Brim fought the controls with all the skill he could muster. Flames and angry sparking radiation obscured the bow and boiled into their wake. When it cleared,
Truculent's
A turret was replaced by a jagged, blackened hole from which clouds of radiation swirled along the top decks. No hope for that crew, Brim thought as he followed the deadly billowing mist aft where it passed the wreckage of W turret, still apparently intact except for an innocuous-looking hole near the slot for the disruptor, which pointed uselessly off to port.

Then a third tremendous hit battered the ship. Brim grabbed his console as the gravity pulsed again and more loose debris cascaded across the wrinkling deck plates. This time, the steady thunder of the generators began to fade into hoarse, staccato rasping. He glanced around the decks through the Hyperscreens: No new damage topside, at least none he could recognize. The hit was on
Truculent's
bottom. And it didn't require much imagination to understand she'd taken serious damage. Fresh radiation was already curling into the wake from below, and their speed was beginning to fall!

Everybody seemed to be shouting on the voice circuits. All over the smoldering bridge, damage-control teams were desperately clearing debris. Smashed figures desiccating in torn battle suits were stacked like cordwood in the shredded remains of the chart room.

Instinctively, Brim ducked as more violent explosions went off close overhead, lighting the shattered wreckage on the decks below with a dazzling glare. He scanned Borodov's power exchange in a nearby display. Heavy clouds of radiation billowed overhead, and in the background, actual flames fed on some source of combustion from another wrecked systems console. Borodov's soot-covered helmet appeared in the display.

“How bad is it, Chief?” the Carescrian asked.

The old Bear shrugged and considered a moment.
“Truculent
has seen better days,” he pronounced slowly. “Last hit destroyed important control logic for starboard generator; it runs pretty much out of control now. But it runs.”

“And... ?” Brim asked.

“And,” Borodov went on, “we can still steer and run full speed. But doing the latter will quickly destroy the damaged generator. “

Brim felt the speed drop noticeably. He watched the third enemy ship again turning toward him. Moments later, the first ship also turned. Both Leaguers could see he was in trouble. “Full speed, if you please, Lieutenant Borodov,” he said quietly.

Borodov shrugged. “Full speed it is, Wilf Ansor,” he said, busying himself at his console.

Fourier urged her disruptor crews to even more exertion, and somehow the rate of firing did increase, with telling effect. Bright flashes winked all over the enemy hulls. Additional metal fires began to belch clouds of sparks on the third enemy ship, but she continued to employ her disruptors with the same deadly accuracy. Return fire sprayed
Truculent
everywhere; her hull jumped and pounded as they burst aboard.

Somebody started screaming over the voice circuits again, but a long time passed before the bloodcurdling sound registered in Brim's mind above the general pandemonium. He turned in his seat to confront a medical team pulling Fourier from her console. Her suit was horribly burned at the neck, and her hands desperately tore at the shredded hole in her shoulder. One of the medical ratings placed a pressure patch over the opening while two others held her arms. The screaming abruptly turned to a liquid gargle, then stopped altogether. Brim turned back to his controls, gritting his teeth as the team dragged her limp figure aft toward the chart room.

“Starboard generator will fail within three cycles, Wilf Ansor,” Borodov reported from below. Brim glanced at Ursis.

The Bear nodded confirmation.

“I suppose it will have to fail then, Chief,” Brim said. “Keep it going as long as you can.”

Borodov smiled broadly. “Give 'em great grief, Wilf Ansor!” he yelled over the din as he returned to his readouts.

In the corner of his eye, Brim caught Ursis grinning, too. His thumb was raised in the Universal human sign of approval.

Then there was little time to notice anything except the battle. “Stand by to concentrate all fire on the number-three ship!” Brim yelled at Fourier's replacement. He noticed the man's gloves were almost instantly soaked in blood from the console. “Let's go, then!” he yelled. “One last try!” He skidded
Truculent
into a tight descending spiral, then suddenly hauled back on the helm until he was flying on a collision course — with all remaining turrets firing as fast as their crews could recharge the 144s.

This unexpected attack once again took the enemy ship by surprise. The Leaguer captain instinctively put up his helm and attempted to climb out of
Truculent's
way; it was the worst thing he could do. Brim's remaining 144s all concentrated their fire on the enemy's steering gear just forward of the Drive openings. Pieces of hull metal blasted loose as the big disruptors tore at her hull. Suddenly, a terrific explosion ripped the enemy's midsection, followed immediately by a second and a third. A deckhouse blew off in a shower of sparks and glowing clouds of radiation. Then, slowly but inexorably, the ship began to shear off course.

“Get another spread of torpedoes in there!” Brim yelled, skidding
Truculent
to open a clear line of fire for the torpedo launcher — which fired as soon as it bore on the target. Five ruby sparks flashed past the bridge from aft; Brim watched them on their way, noting that
this
time, his scalded skarsatt had done the outmaneuvering. Then the target was obliterated in a stunning ball of flame that pulsed rapidly four times before it defined itself into a roiling cloud of livid energy that consumed what remained of the enemy ship like a minute star.

Brim put his helm over only just in time to avoid the cloud of debris, then aimed the ship once again toward the first enemy vessel. “Give 'em everything we've got left!” he yelled — just as the damaged port generator gave out with a thunderous rumble that shook
Truculent's
starframe to its very keel.

In spite of his struggles with the controls, the destroyer slewed around out of control, stars sliding across the Hyperscreens like a billion speeding comets on parallel tracks. Brim almost had to bring the ship to a halt before the steering gear would accept its new offset parameters.

“B turret seems to be jammed,” someone reported.

“And we've no power to the torpedo flat,” Barbousse added. “That last salvo did it for my part of the power exchange.”

Brim nodded to himself as he carefully eased
Truculent
around to face his final opponent, now warily closing in for the kill. Seriously afire in a number of places, the Zagrail was not in much better shape than her Imperial adversary, but with propulsion systems evidently intact, she now had an insurmountable advantage. Brim shrugged grimly and continued to fly as best he could; if nothing else, he'd stopped the raid on Tandor-Ra. Perhaps that might make up for what was in store for the destroyer under his very temporary command.

He suddenly remembered Collingswood's mention of Imperial battlecruisers and glanced at his timepiece. He'd been fighting for more than a metacycle and certainly needed the “assist” she mentioned. The big ships were due any cycle now. He gritted his teeth. If he could just buy himself a little more time… Then he laughed ironically. Last-moment rescues only happened in fables to princes and kings. In all probability, Carescrians simply didn't qualify.

Outside, the enemy destroyer approached on an asymptotic curve, always toward the port side where
Truculent
had no operational disruptors to bear. Brim tried to turn with it for a forward shot, but to no avail. When he tightened up on the port helm, the steering engine created intense interference patterns with the operational generator and actually opened the effective radius. Helplessly, he stood by as the enemy ship positioned itself, watched the turrets index around to point directly at his bridge.

“Message from the enemy ship,” somebody yelled above the confusion. “Full video an' all, if you please!”

Brim cleared a display. “I'll take it at this station,” he growled, guessing who was on the other end. The globe flashed, glowed, then manifested the image of a handsome masculine face: Blue eyes, blond hair, dimpled chin. The Carescrian grimly nodded to himself.
The
Valentin.

“Ah, Brim,” the elegant visage hissed, peering out of the display with a look of amused surprise. “I thought it might be you from the first transmission.”

“Well,
hab’thall?”
Brim snarled as he kicked the steering engine. It was just sufficient to surprise the opposite Helmsmen and get in a brief volley from C turret. Three shots landed with bright explosions; Valentin's portside launch arched away in a series of tight loops trailing flame like a small comet. The
Overprefect's
image jumped wildly in the display.