“The tower will be ready ahead of schedule,” Mayelna added. “The construction crew reports that they will be finished and back inside by the end of the hour. Which is good, since we need to have them in well before we come deep enough into system for any activity to be scanned on our outer hull.”
Valthyrra made some curious, noncommittal sound. She approved of Velmeran’s plan completely. The tower was constructed of slender aluminum rods, light enough to escape detection by Union scanners even at close range. Valthyrra did not object to the tripod, but what went atop it.
“Speaking of scanning, Don has to know that we are moving into system by now,” Velmeran said. “And he also has to know that we are stalling for time. Has he given any indication of a threatening gesture to hurry us on?”
“No, not yet,” Valthyrra answered. “But then, we have been under way only the last three minutes. I will be keeping a very close watch.”
Velmeran paused for a long moment, so obviously in the grips of a new idea that the others waited patiently for him to finish. Whatever it was, he did not need long to decide.
“Call me a lift, Valthyrra,” he said as he turned and hurried away. “I have to talk to someone.”
“And they are off!” Valthyrra remarked softly. “It is Mayelna’s Folly ahead by a length, followed by Out of Time, with Lost Patience a close third.”
“Do you ever stop?” Mayelna asked as she started up the steps to her own station.
“Never. Keth is calling for you.”
“Very well.” Mayelna sat down heavily and rolled the seat to its forward position, then leaned over the intership com. “Yes, what is it, Keth?”
“Commander, I wish to report that I have discovered an intruder.”
Mayelna looked up at Valthyrra, who only stared back in return. She turned back to the com. “I understand. Send her up to the bridge.”
“Should I provide escort?”
“No, she knows the way.”
“But what if she escapes?”
Mayelna frowned. “I should be so lucky.”
The unexpected but relatively minor problem of the intruder was forgotten within minutes. The Kalvyn was now ready to move herself into position, where she would be ready either to assist the Methryn or, according to plan, move in to stand watch over Tryalna. She would have liked to have consulted with Velmeran a final time, but he had not yet returned. Mayelna and Valthyrra did their best to advise her.
“As I see it, you should go ahead as planned,” Mayelna said, watching the scanner images on the main console at her own station. “Velmeran is certainly busy over here, but as far as I can tell he has no intention of changing his original plan.”
“Very well, then,” Schayressa replied. “I will pace myself with your attack so that I do not get ahead of you. Be careful.”
“We will keep that forever in mind,” Mayelna assured her, and glanced up at the figure in black armor waiting patiently at the top of the steps.
“Yes, what is it?” she asked absently. The Starwolf was no one she recognized, but she assumed this tall girl to be a pack leader from the Kalvyn. Then she did a double take and nearly jumped out of her seat. “Heavenly days! Lenna Makayen!”
Valthyrra spun her camera pod around so fast that something inside the hinge made an odd noise.
“Just me,” Lenna said, grinning sheepishly. She carried the heavy armor with no problem, in spite of the fact that it weighed fully as much as she did. “You are the trusting sort.”
“I knew you would come,” Mayelna told her. “My problem is not keeping you, but getting rid of you. I must compliment you on your disguise.”
“I’m back in makeup,” she said, obviously pleased with herself. “All I have to do, it seems, is make my eyes look bigger. And hide my ears. All the Starwolves on this ship have pointed ears poking through their hair, but no one seems to notice that I have none.”
“I see what you mean,” Mayelna observed. “Then what gave you away this time?”
Lenna shrugged helplessly. “I just overlooked the fact that when you walk around a Starwolf ship looking like a Starwolf, the other Starwolves expect you to speak Starwolf.”
“Tresdyland,” Mayelna corrected her.
“Anyway, I thought it safe enough to go down and use the simulator. I never thought that Keth would still be lurking about. I expected him to have gone to the Kalvyn with his students like he was supposed to.”
“Yes, some people do that,” the commander remarked dryly. “Where did you get that suit?”
“Oh, it’s Velmeran’s, to be sure.” Lenna beat her head forward to look at the armor. “He’s the tallest Starwolf on this ship, so I thought his suit might fit me. And I knew that he had an old suit standing on a rack in his cabin.”
“And the lower arms?”
“Empty, of course. So what do you propose to do with me? If it’s all the same to you, I would as well remain in the simulator. It is in a heavily protected part of the ship. And the artificial gravity simulates the G’s in a fighter, so that I’m increasing my tolerance for accelerations. I can hold the controls through a fifty-G turn now. You show me an ordinary human who can do that.”
Mayelna regarded her speculatively. “Just what is your fascination for the simulator?”
“It’s not a matter of fascination, Commander. Velmeran and I both know what he’s going to have to do to destroy that big ship, and he’s going to need my help. I’ll need to be good enough to fly with him, and I haven’t so long to practice.”
Mayelna frowned thoughtfully. “I think I know what you have in mind, and you may be right. Very well, then. Lenna Makayen, you are now a Starwolf. Valthyrra, how long will it take to make her a suit?”
“The better part of a day,” the ship replied. “For now, it would take only fifteen minutes to pull the lower arms off that suit and set some plugs in the holes.”
“All right,” Mayelna agreed, and turned back to Lenna. “You are now a pilot on board this ship. It is impossible for you to fly with the regular packs, but I am assigning you to Velmeran’s special tactics team. First, you will go immediately to have that suit modified. Keth will meet you there, and take you to the fighter assigned to you. That will give you perhaps two hours of practice in a real ship, with emphasis on launching and landing. Is that agreeable?”
“Very,” Lenna replied, trying vainly to hide a triumphant smile.
“This solves a couple of problems,” Mayelna continued. “It is not safe to send you away… safe for either you or us. If the Union learned that you had been aboard a Starwolf carrier, they would take you apart for any information you might have. Also, I suspect that Velmeran’s special tactics team will prosper from having a human spy. And to keep you busy between missions, I am also going to assign you to Consherra as an assistant helm. Now, is there anything special you might need?”
Lenna thought for a moment. “For now, I will probably need a Union officer’s uniform of intermediate rank. I will certainly need other disguises in the future, including a suit with four arms for when I need to be a real Starwolf. Could we possibly mechanize the lower arms?”
“It can be done,” Valthyrra agreed.
“Consherra told me that you are an experienced pilot,” Mayelna said. “We will be giving you a cabin on the pilot’s level, and do what we can about giving you a little more heat. And just what do you find so amusing?”
“It’s my father, Commander,” Lenna explained, grinning broadly. “He didn’t even want me to be a Trader. If he was still around, he would blow a gasket if he knew that I was a Starwolf. But I wonder if Velmeran is going to be agreeable to all these plans.”
“He anticipated this, and it was his idea. He had already discussed it with me,” Mayelna said with a sly grin. “Get on with you, now. We have work to do, and so do you.”
“Yes, Commander!” Lenna turned quickly and almost ran down the steps. Smiling with amusement, Mayelna thought that this might not be such a bad idea. After al
l, it was not every day that a problem became a potential asset.
Three hours later, the Methryn was ready to begin her attack run. Originally, Velmeran was to lead the fighters against the Challenger’s support fleets, but he had decided at the last moment to remain aboard the Methryn. It was the carrier, after all, that would be doing the actual fighting in this battle; the packs were going out just to provide a diversion.
Still, Velmeran thought it best to encourage Donalt Trace to believe that he was away with his pack. The packs were divided into two groups. A smaller, under Baressa, would go after the supply ships orbiting the fifth planet. The larger group, which was to have been his, was to attack the fleet of warships stationed at the seventh planet. Baress was given command of both Velmeran’s pack and this attack force, and Lenna Makayen was elected to fly replacement in the pack. Although she could never equal real Starwolves in either skill or endurance, she could run a good bluff.
“All packs away,” Valthyrra reported. “Both assault forces have formed under their leaders and are ready to advance.”
“You may relay to them their order to advance,” Velmeran responded as he stood leaning over the front console of the Commander’s station, watching the forward viewscreen. “Close and secure the landing bays and ready your primary and secondary batteries.”
“Yes, Captain,” Valthyrra answered with martial formality.
Velmeran turned quickly as he became aware that Mayelna was standing behind him.
“This is your first time to fight from the bridge,” she began. “It seems to me that you should be sitting at the Commander’s station. It has all the monitors and controls you need to keep an eye on everything.”
“But… that is your place,” he protested.
“That seat is for the Commander of this ship,” Mayelna insisted. “I will assist you in every way I can, but just now you are the Commander.”
“Oh, no. I could not,” Velmeran objected as she physically pulled him over to the seat, retracted back on its runners. “I do not feel up to that seat just yet.”
“Nonsense. It fits you just fine, I am sure.” Mayelna managed to force him into the seat and activated the control to roll it forward. “You see, it fits just fine.”
“I feel like a pretender to the throne.”
“Heir apparent, I believe they used to say,” Mayelna corrected him, smiling. “You know, it has been just about twenty years since you used to come up to the bridge and sit in my seat. I never suspected that you were trying it on for size. But you have certainly grown into it. I am glad that I am here to see it.”
Velmeran smiled shyly, glancing down, well aware of her deep sincerity. Then he noticed Valthyrra’s camera pod hovering not two meters away.
“What are you waiting for? Begin your attack run,” he ordered sharply. “This is where you get your lumps.”
“Here she comes now,” Maeken Kea warned, looking up from the monitors of her own console.
Donalt Trace turned sharply from the forward viewscreen to look at her. “Is she? They were taking so long, I was beginning to think that they must be up to something.”
“That remains to be seen,” Maeken remarked. “There is something about the way she just jumped up and started a run straight at us that makes me think she knows exactly how to handle us. Marenna Challenger?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Turn your forward battery to meet that ship, then shield your engines,” she ordered sharply. “Give full power to your hull shields. Open fire as soon as the Methryn comes into range.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Maeken sat back for a long moment, staring in silence at the Methryn’s projected path on the central monitor of her console. Donalt Trace became curious about what she could be thinking, and slowly walked over to stand looking unobtrusively over her shoulder. He thought he understood. The Methryn was moving fast, and projected to pass at one-half light speed. And she would pass only two thousand kilometers to one side. That was not very far, not at that speed, and much nearer than he would have expected.
“Do you know what they are up to?” he asked at last.
“Perhaps,” Maeken mused. “They might be thinking — with some justification — that their weapons track better than our own. Or rather, that they can move too fast for our weapons to track. By moving fast enough, they can sneak through an attack run with little risk of serious damage.”
“For all the good it does them,” Trace remarked contemptuously. “A few seconds of cannonfire each run will get them nowhere.”
“True, but it does waste time for more ships to arrive,” Maeken pointed out. “Or, if she is carrying nuclear or conversion missiles, this is exactly the type of run she would make. And where is the Kalvyn? We hurt her, but she is still perfectly capable of a stiff fight.”
Commander Trace did not reply; there was hardly any need. If Velmeran knew that help was coming, he needed only to keep the Challenger occupied until a number of carriers converged on the vast warship. And if the Methryn was carrying a score of high-energy warheads, this battle would be a short one. The quartzite shielding could turn such an explosion, but not a sustained barrage. Quartzite shielding was incredibly brittle; the smallest crack would spread in seconds to peel the shell off the entire ship. And the heavy outer shield was useless against missiles.
“Stand by,” Maeken warned the bridge crew. “Marenna Challenger, remember to fire as soon as possible. The Methryn is going to be moving into your bolts.”
“Yes, Captain,” the ship responded. “I calculate approximately seven seconds of effective firing time on the Methryn’s approach, with only about three as she passes. Beginning the count in five seconds from… now.”
It was as if the entire ship snapped to attention as console after console on the Challenger’s vast bridge leaped into life. Five separate scanning and tracking systems identified the target for hundreds of cannons, and each cannon locked on, not on the Methryn herself but where she would be. A moment later those same consoles hummed with frantic activity as over half the Challenger’s guns opened fire, shooting well ahead of their fast-moving target so that their bolts would be there in time to intercept the Methryn.
The two ships closed to range and, for two full seconds, exchanged a fierce barrage of fire. Then the Methryn was rocked by an explosion so intense that, for a moment, she actually disappeared from scan in the violent backwash of energy. The Challenger ceased fire immediately. Then the Methryn shot past, still and lifeless, her original course deflected slightly by the force of that explosion. She was tumbling already, her bow dipping as she began to roll end over end.
“We got her?” Commander Trace asked in the stunned silence that enveloped the entire bridge.
“I think…,” Maeken answered hesitantly in her disbelief.
“An apparent hit on the Methryn’s main generators amid-ship,” Marenna Challenger reported with her usual calm detachment. “I scan only emergency power in effect. The Methryn is drifting out of control.”
“Open fire!” Maeken snapped impatiently.
“The Methryn is out of my range.”
“Then follow her! Chase her down! Pursue at your best speed until you have her back in range,” Maeken ordered, repeating herself, in what was becoming a habit, to be certain that she was understood. She turned to Donalt Trace. “Hold on, Commander.”
Trace hurried to a spare seat at the rear of the bridge. Union ships did not increase their gravity to counter acceleration, since ordinary humans could not endure the extra stress. Instead they cut gravity and counted on everyone being in a seat. The Challenger swung her blunt nose around and began to accelerate, and she had a surprising amount of jump for her size. Even so, the Methryn, drifting at one-half light, was leaving her far behind.
“How long?” Trace asked.
“Marenna is pushing herself to the limit,” Maeken reported. “Even so, we’re looking at seven minutes to match her speed and another nine to overtake her. I have
already ordered the stingships to intercept her packs and keep them clear. Surveillance just reported that the Kalvyn is coming after us in a hurry, but we will overtake the Methryn first.”
“We have to disable the Methryn completely in time to meet the Kalvyn,” Commander Trace said. “Only missiles will catch her now. Give her a pair.”
“The Methryn has no shields,” Maeken informed him.
“I want that ship as intact as possible,” Trace ordered. “Set the missiles to explode close enough to give her a good, stiff jolt.”
“Right.” Maeken quickly relayed the order. The Challenger needed only an instant to ready and fire the two missiles, which shot away on flaring star drives.
“Two missiles are away,” the ship reported. “Estimated impact in three minutes, eleven seconds. The Methryn has restored directional control.”
“What?” Maeken demanded, and checked her own scanner monitors. The Methryn’s power levels remained practically nonexistent, although she had apparently found the power for field-drive steering. She had ceased her slow tumble and now flew straight and level, although she continued to drift. That meant that the Methryn was repairing herself, recircuiting auxiliary power back into her main systems. The missiles had already covered a third of the distance to their target; Maeken silently urged them on, hoping that they would disable the Methryn somewhat more permanently before she recovered any more control.
Seconds passed, and the two missiles gained steadily on their target. At fifteen seconds to detonation, they armed their warheads and moved into position so that one would pass below the carrier and one above, only a kilometer separating them, catching the Starwolf ship in the worst of the concussion between the two. That was hardly enough to destroy the Methryn, even without hull shields, mostly because space was a very poor conductor of energy, but it should slow down the repairs. But the situation resolved itself quickly. The Methryn caught both missiles just two seconds short of their target with a couple of precise shots from her rear cannons.
Maeken Kea muttered a favorite oath of her home world. “Well, that answers that. Now we have to catch her ourselves.”
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