“All primary and secondary functions are powered up and ready,” a disembodied voice announced. The voice was female, not dry and emotionless but unmistakably mechanical. “All systems are ready.”
“Very well,” Maeken replied uncertainly, ill at ease since there was nothing she could physically address. “Your destination, course, and speed are listed in your records. Have you scanned your flight information?”
“Yes, Captain. We are clear to proceed.”
“Then you may get under way when ready,” Maeken instructed. “Please inform your support convoy to follow at the prescribed distance.”
“Yes, Captain. I am beginning acceleration now.”
The beast was moving? Maeken glanced about the bridge; wondering if they were going to maintain this leisurely pace all the way into light speed. Officers were seated at their consoles on the main bridge, several steps lower than her own raised platform, watching attentively as the machine ran itself.
“We are under way and moving toward our assigned flight path,” the ship reported. “System control reports all clear. Do you have any additional orders?”
“No, that is all,” Maeken replied, hoping that she had told the beast everything it needed to know to get itself under way. “Get me Commander Trace on the com.”
“One moment.”
“Trace here,” he answered almost immediately.
“Yes, Commander, the ship informs me that we are under way,” Maeken said, leaning over the microphone in the arm of the chair. “Everything seems to be functioning perfectly.”
“Excellent! What do you think of her?”
“Ah… ask me again when I have seen if it can fight.”
Trace laughed. “Too slow for a warship? I’m afraid that the Starwolves still have us beat in that regard. If she gives you any problems, just tell her to explain herself.”
“Yes, Commander,” Maeken answered, and hoped that she did not sound too dubious in that reply. She shrugged to herself and leaned back in her oversize chair, watching numeric and graphic displays flash across the main viewscreen superimposed on the starfield that was the ship’s forward view. Most of it was beyond her present understanding.
“Computer?” she asked suddenly, remembering one important omission.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes, Captain. I have a name for my own use, as does the ship itself,” it explained. “I am Marenna Challenger.”
Maeken nodded to herself. This ship was a perfect antithesis of a Starwolf carrier. She was impressed, although not greatly. But she was hopeful. Soon they would see if the theory behind this ship was as sound as Commander Trace obviously believed. The Fortress was going out to hunt.
3
Consherra knew that something was wrong when she saw Velmeran enter the bridge, fully dressed in armor. The Methryn was hunting, laying in wait beside a major lane, and her on-duty personnel had to remain suited and ready for battle. But that did not include Velmeran, since his pack was not due to go out. She slipped out of her seat on the middle bridge and hurried to him, leading him back from the bridge into the outer corridor. She was surprised when he responded to her attentions by holding her close and kissing her. Velmeran turned to her in open affection of his own initiative only when he felt troubled and insecure.
“Trouble?” she asked, reluctant to end this rare moment.
“The worst,” he answered. “Do you recall when I was laying plans for our raid on Vannkarn? I was uncertain that anyone would believe in me.”
“I remember,” Consherra said. “Valthyrra came to your rescue.”
“Well, she might not support me so willingly this time, since what I am going to say is even more outrageous. Sherry, do you believe in me?”
“Of course,” she assured him.
“Then turn down your thermostat and follow me.”
He led her quickly to the upper bridge, where Mayelna and Valthyrra were conferring on some matter. They both looked up immediately, well aware that something was wrong by the purposeful manner of this delegation.
“Is there some problem?” Valthyrra asked.
“Perhaps,” Velmeran said. “A ship will come into scanner range in about five minutes, a freighter of the new Class M type and a very tempting target. Although you will find no indication of a trap, it is a tremendous danger to us. We must let it go or we stand a very good chance of losing ships — perhaps even you.”
“And how do you know this?” Valthyrra asked without a pause.
“Do not ask me how I know,” he snapped, irritated and desperate. “I do not believe in precognition — I cannot. And yet the fact remains. I know that if we capture this ship, it will blow up in our faces. Do you believe me or not?”
Valthyrra did not answer at once. She glanced at Mayelna, but the Commander offered no advice. After a long, uneasy moment she came to some decision, for her camera pod moved in a negative gesture.
“No, I do not,” she said. “I know that I encouraged you to explore your talents. But there will be times when you are wrong, and it seems to me that even you are reluctant to believe this. I cannot afford to indulge your whims and hunches.”
Velmeran looked hurt and betrayed. He had thought that Valthyrra believed in him, even loved him in her way. He was not prepared for her to so quickly judge him a fool and tell him so to his face. But if he was hurt, Consherra was outraged.
“You listen to me, you steel-plated ass!” she declared, approaching the pod menacingly. “His untried and oh-so-inexact talent has already saved you from one incident when your befogged scanners could not tell an independent freighter from a company ship.”
Valthyrra considered that. “You are right. Very well, I will make this concession. If a Class M freighter sails past in the next few minutes, then I will scan it as thoroughly as I possibly can. If I detect nothing wrong, then I will permit you to run guard. That way you can be out there in the middle of things, where you might be able to tell us just what is wrong. And when you can explain a little better, then I will listen.”
“Good enough,” Velmeran agreed. “I think that I can get us out of the trouble that you are determined to get us into. I sent my pack on to the landing bay. I trust that you will have our fighters sent down to the deck.”
“It is so ordered,” Mayelna said softly, glaring at Valthyrra.
Velmeran turned and walked away without a second glance.
Consherra seemed likely to follow. She hurried to the edge of the upper bridge to watch him until he left through the lift corridor. Then she turned to Valthyrra in raw, unrestrained fury.
“What do you think you are doing?” she demanded. “What could have possibly gotten into your circuits for you to turn against him like that, after all that he has done for you?”
“Now you just wait a moment,” Valthyrra returned with equal force. “I cannot for one moment believe that he can see the future. It may be that trying to deal with his frightening new talents has unsettled him. I can only hope that he will recover from these fantasies, but I certainly cannot afford to indulge him.”
“Well, you just suit yourself,” Consherra replied. “I am going to take Velmeran to another ship as soon as I can arrange it.”
“You can do that, and I will be rid of both of you. But I can tell you now that no other ship… Oh, dear!” Valthyrra ended ominously. The others looked at her questioningly, but she offered no explanation. Instead her lenses unfocused as her concentration shifted elsewhere. “Velmeran, are you still near a com?”
“I was just getting off the lift,” he replied. “So, you finally found that Class M freighter. Will you let her go?”
“No. Not unless we find a good reason. I suppose that I will have to learn the hard way.”
“Very well, then. I expected no more.”
“Do you still refuse to believe?” Consherra demanded.
Valthyrra turned her camera pod to look at her. “If Velmeran is going to star
t making predictions, then he is going to have to prove his accuracy before anyone can trust him completely. Even when it means taking a risk.”
Part of the reason that Velmeran found such reluctance to his call to let this one go lay in the fact that Starwolves dreamed of catching Class M freighters. These unique vessels were the freight versions of the big colony and passenger ships. They were rich prizes in themselves, for they carried only the cream of the company trade, as well as bringing a healthy ransom.
Velmeran’s pack was to fly guard for Barman. That, in Velmeran’s estimation, only complicated matters all the more. Barthan was the youngest pack leader except for Velmeran himself, and he was as well the only pack leader on the Methryn who opposed Velmeran’s appointment as Commander-designate. Their enmity, although strong for Kelvessan, was relatively tame by human standards. But it was enough that Barthan would be recklessly eager to prove the younger pilot wrong.
“My scanners detect nothing to cause any concern,” Valthyrra reported as the two packs closed on the unsuspecting freighter. “No bombs. No missiles. Not much in the way of rich cargo, either. Barthan, are you willing to go after this thing?”
“Of course,” Barthan replied. “I am not concerned with false prophets.”
“Just remember that he has not been wrong yet,” Valthyrra reminded him.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Velmeran answered. “They are going to drop out of starflight and abandon ship the moment you show yourself. You will not have a chance to fire a shot.”
Barthan did not answer, since he was already moving in on the freighter’s tail. The ship’s crew must have been aware of the pursuit, but they did nothing to evade. Instead the big ship began to drop speed quickly, falling out of starflight. That was the age-old gesture of surrender, the crew offering the ship intact in exchange for their lives. Barthan honored the request, falling back slightly from his attack position. Taking a ship intact was a rare and welcome occurrence, but this once Barthan regretted it. He disliked having to see Velmeran’s prediction prove true.
“They are giving up without a fight,” he reported. “Have the capture ships move in.”
“No, let it sit!” Velmeran interrupted. “It is going to explode if we try to move it.”
There followed a long, uneasy silence as Valthyrra considered that. The odds were getting uncomfortably high against her now. Velmeran had called it twice in a row on this ship, and it seemed logical to suppose that he really did know what he was talking about. Logic also told her that he could not possibly know. The unavoidable fact that she was ultimately a machine was to her disadvantage in this matter. In the end she could trust only what she could see.
“Velmeran, I am not going to argue with you,” she decided at last. “You have given your warning, and that is the limit of your responsibility. I am bringing it in.”
“Now I know how Cassandra felt,” Velmeran muttered in disgust.
And, like Cassandra, he was ignored to the end. The crew and a fair number of passengers had just escaped in a pair of launches, and now the Methryn’s capture ships approached. Two of the curious machines moved in to either side of the silent drive housing, unfolding their three pairs of handling arms to lock themselves tight against the hull. Velmeran remained close the entire time. Valthyrra might have relieved him of responsibility in this matter, but his own conscience had not. The two capture ships, working in unison, used their own engines to accelerate their burden gently back toward the Methryn.
“Clear out!” Velmeran ordered suddenly. “That ship has a sentient computer system, and it is waking up to carry out its final orders. Get away from it now!”
His warning was no longer necessary, for every Starwolf inside the Methryn and out could sense the main generators of the ship as they powered up. A moment later the freighter fired its engines and began to fight the capture ships for control. In spite of their best efforts to turn it away, the freighter began to accelerate straight toward the Methryn.
“Get clear!” Valthyrra ordered. “Get away from that thing so that I can blast it.”
The two capture ships needed no warning; their crews had begun the task of casting loose the larger ship the moment they realized they could not control it. One of the capture ships leaped clear immediately, but the second had only just released its hold as the freighter came about to orient on the Methryn. Pinned against the freighter, it slipped down the length of her hull, fending off actual collision with its three pairs of handling arms. Suddenly it was brought up short as one of its arms became firmly trapped in the open hatch of a launch bay. The mechanical arm was too tightly pinned to pull free, and too powerfully constructed to rip loose at its joints.
“Methryn, hold your fire!” the pilot of the capture ship called frantically. “I have an arm caught in something. I cannot pull free.”
“Valthyrra, keep your distance from the thing,” Velmeran advised. “Try to get it to chase after you. Buy us time. Capture ship, maneuver around to stretch that trapped arm out to its full length. Retract the others out of the way, and stand ready to run.”
Velmeran darted in beside the massive drive housing of the freighter, orienting on the relatively small shape of the pinned capture ship. As he closed, he sighted on the outstretched arm that pinned the capture ship and fired. Bolts from his fighter’s cannons bit into the hard metal of the arm, blasting through in an explosion of superheated metal. Velmeran knew that he had run out of time; the freighter had cut acceleration, which meant that it was working its generators to a forced overload. The capture ship shot away as the arm snapped and Velmeran circled around to follow. In the next instant the freighter exploded with a force that would have shattered a small planet.
That blast of raw energy expanded outward in a fiery sphere, for an instant assuming the size and brilliance of a star before it began to dissipate rapidly. With nothing left to feed those flames, it was gone in almost the next instant. The freighter itself had been vaporized in that blast, leaving only a scorched capture ship still running under its own power, and the battered shell of a single fighter. It tumbled end over end, its wings and fins ripped away and its hull cracked and broken, so hot that twisted portions of it glowed dull red.
“Velmeran?” Valthyrra called anxiously.
“Is that him?” Mayelna asked softly, watching the image on the main viewscreen. The entire bridge crew waited motionless and silent for the reply they did not expect to come. That explosion had taken a wolf ship and thrown out only a twisted mass of broken metal, with little chance that anything could have remained alive. Valthyrra knew that Consherra was watching her, silently demanding that she do something, but she did not dare look at the girl.
“Yes, that is him,” she answered. “Velmeran, do you hear me?”
“We are going in to get him,” the pilot of the undamaged capture ship said.
“Hurry, then,” Valthyrra replied. “Velmeran, do you hear me? Help is on the way.”
“Will you stop pecking at me, you tin-plated bitch!” Velmeran snapped in return. “I am doing the best I can.”
Valthyrra brought her camera pod around so fast the gears creaked. “Meran? Are you alive?”
“I seem to be,” he replied. “No damage that I am aware of, but I must have taken my limit of G’s.”
Mayelna leaned back in her seat and sighed heavily, while Consherra was already running toward the lift that would take her down to the landing bay. Valthyrra watched her go, then brought her camera pod around to look at the Commander.
“You have been very quiet,” the ship observed.
Mayelna rolled her seat back from her console, then shrugged as she rose. “What can I say? I had no idea how matters would turn out, so I had to allow it to remain between you and him.”
“Do you think that he will forgive me?” Valthyrra asked cautiously.
“Knowing Velmeran as I do, I suspect that he blames only himself in the first place,” Mayelna said, pausing on her way to the lift. �
�I will probably forgive you in a day or two. Consherra is quite another matter. I suspect that she will remain in an unforgiving mood. And you might do well to court her forgiveness, or you may find that she has the power to take him away from you.”
The capture ship brought Velmeran’s fighter directly into the landing bay and deposited it gently on the deck before passing on out the forward door. Those who saw it brought in could hardly believe that Velmeran could have ridden it through the blast unharmed, for the little ship was nearly ripped apart. It began to smoke lazily as it was brought through the containment field into the atmosphere of the bay; Valthyrra had to direct a blast of icy air at it from a pair of blowers for two minutes before it was cool enough to approach. Only the cockpit area remained reasonably sound, and the windshields, although cracked and glazed, were intact.
As soon as they could, Benthoran, the crew chief, and an assistant moved in to open the ship by simply breaking the canopy free and lifting it away. A good deal of smoke poured out and continued to do so until Benthoran blew it out with a heavy dose of carbon dioxide. When Consherra would have rushed in to aid her mate, Dyenlerra was there first to wave her away. The medic helped Velmeran remove his helmet but indicated for him to remain where he was while she opened his chestplate to attach the leads of a portable medical scanner. The machine needed only a moment to decide that he was sound enough to get out under his own power. The interior of the cockpit was burned out and his suit was badly scorched, his last line of defense against that terrible heat.
Consherra tried to take hold of him as soon as he was out, only to find that he was still too hot to touch without the gloves that she had left on the bridge. Dyenlerra waved her away a second time and made Velmeran stand beneath one of the cold-air blowers until the damaged suit was cool enough to remove.
Valthyrra had been hovering nearby in the form of one of her remotes. Now she brought the machine in cautiously. “I am sorry, Meran. I should have believed you. I knew at the time that I should have, but the machine in me could not. This is new to me, and I handled it badly.”
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