The Starwolves

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  The lift slowed to a stop and its doors snapped back, opening upon the forward observation deck. The wall across from the lift was lined with windows, now opaque from the glare of some external radiance. Directly ahead were the wide doors of the airlock, leading out onto the observation platform, the very tip of the Methryn's bow. Velmeran paused, bending slightly so that Mayelna could secure his helmet, while Dyenlerra quickly replaced Dveyella's. Then the others secured their own suits as they approached the airlock.

  When the outer doors of the airlock opened, it was upon a blinding glare. The Methryn had shot inward to the heart of the system during her short jump into starflight, so that its sun loomed just off her bow. The observation platform was crowded with scores of silent, motionless suits, the white of officers and the black-trimmed white of other crewmembers, all except for the armored forms in solid black. All about the bow of the Methryn hovered nine packs of fighters and the remains of a tenth, so steady and still that they appeared suspended motionless.

  Velmeran glanced down again, toward the slender tongue of the platform that extended out over the black bulk of the shock bumper which housed the Methryn's main battery. He walked slowly to the very end of that platform, down the narrow aisle formed by the ship's most senior officers. Mayelna and Consherra, as Commander and first officer, remained close behind him and to either side. Valthyrra's probe had remained behind, her presence felt in the ship itself.

  Velmeran stood for a long moment in silence. Perhaps there should have been words, but he felt that anything of real importance had already been said. Even as he wondered where he would ever find the strength for this final act, he released his hold upon the lifeless form he carried. At the same moment the Methryn began to brake gently, so that it seemed that Dveyella's body was drifting away with increasing speed, welcomed into the fiery radiance of the star ahead and quickly lost in its blinding glare. The fighters broke away to either side, engines flaring, in their own salute. Then the Methryn herself began to turn slowly, the crewmembers on the platform turning in small groups to retreat back inside. Velmeran did not notice. As far as he was aware, he was alone.

  As he would always be alone.

  A short time later, Velmeran stood at the window of the rear observation platform, watching as the last of the fighters returned to the ship. Dveyella's star was now a point of tight far behind, but he meant to stay and watch it recede into the distance until it was gone. Just as her body was long since gone, consumed by its fiery touch.

  He had returned to the bay and had waited long enough to see that his pilots were safe. But he did not approach them or allow them to know that he watched. They were frightened and confused, for this was the first time that they had seen death. And he knew as well that they grieved with him, and for him. They would not have known what to say if they had had to face him, and so he spared them that pain.

  Something had occurred to him, almost as a shock, as he had stood there in that dim corner of the bay. The crewmembers hurried about their duties. The fighters had come in, and the pilots had departed to their own cabins. Life did go on, just as time had not hesitated for an instant. The life that had been Velmeran and Dveyella was dead and past. But the life that was Velmeran alone remained, with duties and tasks to be done. Even if he had met death with her, or in her place, little else would have changed. That simple, self-evident realization had the ability to surprise, and he had taken it with him to the observation platform to gnaw upon in his thoughts as he waited out the Methryn's departure.

  Dveyella had said that he should recall her in happiness and joy, not in bitterness and sorrow. And as much as he was consumed in grief, as much as he would have liked to indulge in the self-pity of the belief that he would grieve forever, he knew that it would not always remain so. He had been surprised that life continued after her death because he had never envisioned a future without her, and he had tried to deny that he could live without her even as that dreaded future became present reality. As long as he continued to live, he would continue to be challenged by the future just as he was stalked by the past.

  Below he could hear the closing of those big doors as the bays were sealed, the distant vibration as fighters in their racks were being transported up to their storage bays. He looked back at the distant star a final time, striving to impress that vision forever upon his memory, aware that this glimpse would be his last. A moment later the Methryn leaped into starflight.

  In the time that followed, as his grief became numbed by acceptance, Velmeran came to realize that he regretted most the lack of something real and solid that stood for the short time that he and Dveyella had spent together. At least, if he had nothing material to stir his memories, he still had the memories themselves. Cherished memories.

  And a dream.

  Gradually he became aware of that dim, curious feeling that had underlain his pain and confusion from the start, like the drone note of a song on the balladeer's instrument. Surprisingly, he found it to be courage. Not the thing that he had always assumed to be courage, the bravery required to get inside a wolf ship and face danger and death. This courage was an inner strength, a confidence that was new to him. Dveyella had made him content to be Kelvessan and a Starwolf. Curiously, that contentment remained. Together with courage, he wondered if it gave him the strength to face what he had always feared. To face himself, what he was, what he did not like in himself and what he wanted to be. Indeed, he was certain of that strength, and it delighted him.

  Courage of this sort was the seed of resolution. And resolution combined with a dream was the foundation of the future.

  At last he slept, exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally. Kelvessan never slept unless they were very tired. Ordinarily he did not much like it, this unfamiliar and disquieting retreat into oblivion, but this time he welcomed it as a temporary escape from his torment.

  As few as his hours of escape were, he awoke to a greater sense of peace than he had known, or at least a greater sense of acceptance. He was by no means free of the pain, nor would he ever be completely free of it. But this awakening was in some ways a rebirth, for this was the beginning of a new life. His short life with Dveyella had come to a sudden end. Nor was this a return to the life he had known before she had come, for he was by no means the same person. That Velmeran had been a child, unsure of himself, of what he was or what he wanted, afraid to try because of the greater fear of failure.

  The Velmeran he had become was still a child in many ways, he knew that, still afraid of others, perhaps even more afraid of being hurt. But he no longer needed others, certainly not someone braver and surer than himself to lend him strength. He knew for the first time what he was, as a Kelvessan and as a person, and he accepted it even if it did not completely satisfy him. He knew as well what he wanted. No longer would his existence be defined by what was expected of him, only what he expected of himself.

  The Methryn remained in starflight. Velmeran had no idea where she could be going, and he did not particularly care. Both Mayelna and Valthyrra stayed well away, and he was glad for that. For a time his only contact with the ship outside his cabin door was a simple remote that brought him food from time to time. As long as it appeared that he was to be left alone, at least he could take some advantage of it. Valthyrra, impatient to know what he thought and felt, was at first mystified and then delighted to discover that he was making extensive use of his access terminal to the ship's computers. She was even more surprised when she figured out what he was planning to do with the data he sought. Problems did have a way of working themselves out, she realized with satisfaction.

  The Methryn's destination was Alliolandh, a planet of a small system just on the fringe of the Rane Sector. Alliolandh was a rugged, barren world, cold and wet, empty of all but the most rugged life because nothing else could survive there. It was the type of place the Starwolves could appreciate, one of a few places in Union space they could visit without being concerned that Unioners were watching them.


  Velmeran was on the com as soon as he felt the Methryn leave starflight, asking to know where they were. Korleran, the communications officer, hardly knew what to make of that question, and she did hesitate when he asked her to relay his request that his fighter be brought to the deck as soon as possible. Apparently her delay was to consult with a higher authority, for Valthyrra herself came on a moment later to assure him that it would be done. The incident left him to wonder if the crew was beginning to think that he had fallen out of his orbit. Soon, he reflected, their suspicions would either be confirmed or denied.

  It was planet dawn over the area where Velmeran wanted to make his run, and so he landed his ship on a narrow stretch of beach backed by rugged peaks and ridges of broken rock to wait an hour or so for daylight. The morning wind was cool and fresh, so he took off his armor to sit naked in the sand and watch the rolling waves. This was a rare privilege, for the Starwolves had no planets of their own, only a very few places where they could put aside both their armor and their shells of remote dignity.

  Curiously, the Kelvessan did not consider themselves at odds with nature. As completely engineered as their own race was, they remained living animals. Although their own world was a machine, they welcomed planetside life with fascinated delight. There were, of course, many aspects of nature that frightened them: the unaccustomed openness that they normally associated with empty lifeless space, the great beasts in the wild and the strange sounds in the night. Those were unwarranted fears, born of unfamiliarity, since there were few things in nature that could harm them. Still they welcomed, even longed for it, perhaps because they recognized it as something they thought that they could never have.

  As soon as the morning sun was well up, Velmeran put himself back into his armor and returned to his ship. He realized, as he took his fighter above the tumbled heights, that he could not have wanted a better day, at least not on this turbulent world. For a time he flew along the coastal mountains, weaving around rocky peaks and up narrow valleys, just for the joy of flying. He told himself that this was an evasive maneuver, knowing that Valthyrra was surely watching, that her attention would soon turn to other matters if she thought that he was only prowling up and down the coast. The truth was that he was just a little frightened. His computer projections insisted that this could be done, but his doubts remained. Failure would surely mean his life; even if he survived the crash, he doubted that he could get out of his suit before he drowned. But this had to be done.

  He turned out over the open sea, still keeping his speed down and his attitude low. At the same time he fed his microdisk into the ship's computer, waiting nervously as it digested the instructions he gave it. But it was agreeable, quickly indicating that it was ready. At his order the on-board computer began to reform the atmospheric shield that protected the ship like an invisible shell. Slowly the shell narrowed and elongated, altering its already tapered form to become a slender shaft a hundred meters long and no wider than the tips of the fighter's down-swept wings.

  Velmeran made a final check of his scanners, insuring that he was indeed over open, clear water. Then he brought the nose of the fighter down gently, reducing speed, carefully inserting the dp of that reformed shield into the sea. There was no indication of contact except for a momentary loss of speed until the ship followed its shield under the waves. There was a smooth, rolling shock as the shield around the ship filled with water, and then it was completely under and leveled off perhaps thirty meters below the surface. He realized that he had succeeded, that the fighter was cruising at five hundred kilometers per hour underwater.

  Dveyella had been right. Water was just another atmosphere, considerably denser, to a ship that flew tucked within layers of water at graduated speeds. The fighter was not trying to force its way through a heavy medium, but flying within a bubble of water that was moving at a speed equal to its own. There was still considerable drag transmitted to the fighter from the forward cone of the shield, so that it took a larger portion of the wolf ship's considerable power to maintain the same speed. Already he was traveling faster than most unshielded vessels could have gone.

  But this speed was nearly as worthless to him as complete failure. Slowly he fed power to the engines, gradually building speed to just below the four-thousand-kilometers-per-hour speed limit the computer had projected. He could tell that the ship was indeed approaching its limit; it continued to hold smooth and steady, but responsiveness had deteriorated to a dangerous level. He tried not to think of the danger of hitting something in the water, since he could not use the debris shield; it would not have acted upon the molecules of water itself, but there was enough suspended silt and microscopic life that the drag from the shield would have been tike opening a large parachute. He trusted that the atmospheric shield would throw anything like a fish away from the approaching ship.

  Satisfied that his plan could succeed, he reduced speed by half and brought the fighter back up into the sky, then applied speed again as he drove the ship straight up into the morning sky. The dream was still a very long way from being a reality, but now he knew that it could be done.

  -14-

  Velmeran made three practice runs before returning to the ship. The first order of business, he decided, was business, and that meant checking into the condition of his pack. He realized guiltily that he had not given his students a single thought since the attack. That was not exactly the truth, of course; he had thought of them often those last three days. Now was the time for him to be pack leader again.

  Finding the members of his scattered pack was no small task, for they had hidden themselves throughout various parts of the ship. Four had retreated to their mothers' cabins, the only place they could find in a hurry. Kelvessan maintained loose ties with their parents and many, like himself, did not even know their father. He was surprised to find that Baressa was the mother of the twins Tregloran and Ferryn; that not only served to explain where they had acquired their quickly developing talents as pilots, but also reassured him that he was not the only Starwolf on this ship with a disagreeable dame. Few pilots were offspring of mothers who were themselves pilots, since the pilots had less time to devote to having children than other female members of the crew.

  The other members of his pack had simply hidden themselves in holes of their own finding, and it took Valthyrra's special talents to locate them all. Velmeran had them in their suits and down to the landing bay before they were hardly aware of what was going on. He had begun to realize that his students were quickly becoming very accomplished pilots, but any pack that was going to fight with him needed to know a few special tricks. Returning to the same coastal region, they spent the rest of the morning, local time, practicing high-speed low-level runs over both land and water and stalking each other in mock combat.

  It was later in the morning when he became aware of a ship coming into the system, and moments later he recognized it as a Starwolf carrier. That surprised him, although he realized that, if he had not been so involved with himself, he should have expected it. Leaving his students to play on their own, he returned immediately to the ship. The incoming carrier was approaching fast, dropping out of starflight at the very last moment, so that it was braking into orbit even as he climbed out of the atmosphere.

  The strange carrier settled into orbit barely its own three kilometers' length behind the Methryn. Passing close beside her as he made his final approach, Velmeran looked her over as best he could. Since no Starwolf ship, from carrier to fighter, bore markings of any type, he still had no idea who it could be. He was somewhat annoyed with himself for not anticipating this. Even after such a disaster, the Methryn would not retire to such a place as this simply for a break. Warning the other carriers about the new weapon was a matter of priority, but she would have already sent word far and wide. There was only one reason why she would call other carriers to her here. A council of war was about to take place; the Starwolves were going to exact dire payment for Dveyella's death.
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br />   Just after he passed the second carrier, a single fighter shot out from beneath it to fall in line directly behind him. He wondered who would be in such a hurry; perhaps it was her Commander, coming to confer in person. Mayelna did not fly herself, mostly because it was too harsh of a reminder of what she had given up. But Commanders were always chosen among the pack leaders, and some kept their own fighters even if they did not fight. He knew that he would.

  Since Valthyrra must have directed the pilot to follow him in, he landed just to one side of his usual position in the center of the deck, allowing the second fighter to set down beside his own. Their racks were brought in together. Although Velmeran did not lack assistance, he saw Benthoran go to the aid of the visitor. He did not think about it until he was on his way to the lift, passing in front of the two fighters. He saw Benthoran speaking with the pilot, a tall, thin and rather good-looking girl. Benthoran called him over with a wave of his hand, although Velmeran joined the pair with some reluctance.

  "Captain, can you show our guest to Mayelna's cabin?" he asked.

  "I was not aware of any difference in the design of our carriers," Velmeran snapped, bad manners born of his preoccupation. Realizing that, he shrugged and attempted a smile. "Actually, I was on my way to the bridge anyway."

  Leaving her helmet with her fighter, the pilot joined him quickly. But they did not speak until they entered the lift. As soon as the doors snapped shut, she placed a hand on her chestplate and bowed her head in polite greeting. "Pack Leader Daelyn."

  "Pack Leader Velmeran," he replied. She stared at him, first in surprise, then with a curious intentness. "Pack Leader Velmeran? Your mother is Commander Mayelna?"

  "Yes," he replied uncertainly. Had he already acquired this kind of reputation? He thought it best to change the subject. "I had wondered if you were the Commander coming over to talk business."