It was a very hard time for Velmeran, and he was privately grateful to be spared the need to carry his mother to her final rest. He never looked upon her again after his return from the Fortress, preferring to keep as his last memory of her their final words in the landing bay. He had been so happy then, thinking that he had accomplished something good for her in his offer to command the Methryn in her place. Now the Methryn was his, but all his hopes and good intentions had been for nothing.
Velmeran was distracted from his grief afterward when his return to the crowded observation deck became an unexpected reception for his confirmation as the Methryn’s new Commander. All of the officers, pack leaders, and various other crewmembers, including many from the Kalvyn, presented themselves to offer their condolences and quietly affirm their loyalty. Tryn slipped away early, responding to Schayressa’s subtle pleas for his return, and Consherra disappeared with Lenna and Dyenlerra soon after. At least Valthyrra’s probe stayed dutifully at his side the entire time.
“It is normally the case that you appoint a Commander-designate younger than yourself,” he told Baressa privately as the crowd began to thin. “That is not very practical for me, under the circumstance. And, since I am keeping my special tactics team, I do need to have a replacement ready. As far as I am concerned, you are the only choice.”
“For now, perhaps,” Baressa answered. “Treg will never be your equal, but he is quickly becoming a reasonable facsimile.”
“And I plan to begin his training immediately,” Velmeran agreed. “But I do have other plans for him.”
She looked at him questioningly. “Other plans?”
Velmeran shrugged. “The Vardon will be coming out of construction airdock in a few years. I might not have the authority to make such an appointment….”
“But who would dispute the recommendations of Commander Velmeran of the Methryn?” Valthyrra inquired.
Velmeran looked annoyed. “You be discreet about how you use my name — or your own — with your sister ships or home base. Where did Consherra get to?”
“Oh, Dyenlerra appropriated her and Lenna several minutes ago,” the ship replied. “She told them to get out of their armor and report for a medical scan.”
“I think that I should join them,” he decided. “Can you call me a lift?”
“On the way. I will put away this remote and join you there.”
Velmeran returned to his cabin and removed his armor for the first time in well over a day. He dressed quickly and hurried to the medical section, where he found Consherra and Lenna occupying separate diagnostic beds in the same room. Valthyrra had commandeered another probe and had arrived with Baressa, Tregloran, and Baress just before him. They stared at him in surprise as he entered, and he could imagine why. He was now dressed in the white of an officer, clothes that Valthyrra had hurriedly prepared for him. His thick, shaggy mane of wood-brown hair tumbled over his shoulders and halfway down his back, his large eyes glittering behind the fringe of that brown curtain.
Dyenlerra afforded him only the briefest glance before turning back to the readout for Lenna’s scanner. “You seem to be well, for all I can tell. These readings mean nothing to me. I am not a veterinarian.”
“Then how do you know that I’m well?” Lenna asked as she sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Because they are the same readings I got a couple of days ago.”
“I have a very good question to propose, if this is the time,” Consherra began suddenly.
“This is not the time,” Dyenlerra insisted. “But ask, if it will shut you up long enough for me to run a scan on you.”
“What happened to the Challenger?” she asked, ignoring the medic. “My reprogramming was an obvious failure, so what did cause that ship to explode? I am sure that it blew several seconds after Valthyrra fired.”
“Oh, that was Lenna’s work,” Velmeran explained, and continued when he saw five astonished stares. “While you were playing with her programming, Lenna was running about the ship setting nuclear missiles to explode. How many did you set?”
“Six in all,” Lenna explained, blushing slightly in uncharacteristic modesty. “I set them on a ten-second delay after the ship brought up its full shield. Good thing, too. About the delay, I mean. I was still inside the shield when the Methryn fired. I guess those warheads caused a chain reaction through just about every generator on that ship.”
“But the Challenger had already shielded once,” Valthyrra pointed out.
“Yes, but I had only just started. It was a near thing, too. Half a minute more and it would have exploded in my face. Scared the… devil out of me, so it did.”
Consherra was practically speechless. “You mean that I did an hour of reprogramming for nothing, while Lenna just walked in and destroyed that monster of a ship with no trouble at all?”
Lenna glanced at her. “No trouble at all, did you say? Remind me to tell you how much trouble it was to have someone swinging a wrench at my head on the one hand while a sentry was aiming all its guns at me from behind.”
“Well, you’re a real Starwolf now, even if you have only two hands,” Velmeran said. “Which is only one less than I have. That is what I needed to talk to you about.”
Dyenlerra glanced up from her monitor. “What is it. Did you hurt yourself?”
Velmeran stepped over to her side and held up his handless lower arm for her inspection. It was the first time the others had realized that the hand was actually missing, since he had kept the glove of his suit on earlier. Tregloran made some exclamation of outrage; Consherra, who was lying on the table next to him, reacted even more sharply. Ignoring her, the medic pulled back the sleeve for a closer look.
“How did this happen?” she asked with professional detachment.
“Donalt Trace wanted it,” he explained. “The ship’s medic took it off with a laser scalpel.”
“He did? What did he want it for?”
“He wanted to make lots of little Starwolves.”
“Rashah ko veernon, what a horrible thought!” she remarked softly. “Just imagine Donalt Trace surrounded by half a million Velmerans. Sounds like something from his own worst dreams.”
“Donalt Trace is dead, and the hand was destroyed,” Velmeran said. “Can you make me another?”
“I could, but I’m not going to. All Kelvessan can fully regenerate skin, muscle, teeth, and any organ, but my studies of mutant genetic structure indicate that you can replace missing limbs as well. This is my first chance to test this. If it does not work, well… you know that you can always come to me for a hand.”
Velmeran was spared the need to answer that when the medical scanner beeped imperiously and Dyenlerra turned to the monitor. She nodded in satisfaction. “The two of you are perfectly well.”
“I could have told you that,” Consherra remarked, then paused when she saw that Velmeran was staring at her. He bore a look of deep hurt and disappointment — even betrayal — that she had not expected.
“It is true,” she said simply, cautiously. “I am sorry, but I did not know how to tell you.”
“Well, yes,” he stammered uncertainly. “But I had just thought that when you wanted… that you and I…”
The sudden realization of what worried him was nearly enough to knock her off the table. “Dearest ass! You are the only mate that I have had in several years now. How could you possibly imagine that you are not the father?”
“But we had not planned…”
Dyenlerra laughed aloud. “This is one of the little things that may happen when two people fool around for fun. Has no one ever explained these things to you?”
Velmeran was startled by some sudden revelation. “Mayelna started to have that little talk with me just as I was about to leave. It was not the best time, and I had no idea what she was talking about.”
“So now you do,” the medic remarked. “And while we are on the subject, you owe me a duty mating.”
Velmeran began to make some eva
sive reply, but he was distracted by Lenna as she leaped from the bed in her excitement. “Hey, I’m a Starwolf now! How do I get in on this?”
Dyenlerra regarded her tolerantly. “We are not the same species. Velmeran cannot get you pregnant.”
“Who cares?” Lenna demanded. “I just want to screw around!”
Consherra regarded her for a moment, then took Velmeran by one hand and led him off to one side of the room, as private as they were going to get in such close quarters. “Are you pleased?”
“I could not be happier,” he assured her. “And no regrets?”
Velmeran frowned. “Only one, and we can do nothing about that.”
Consherra nodded slowly. “She knew. And I believe that she was pleased. I know that I am. He will be just like you, I am sure.”
“She,” Velmeran corrected her gently.
“She?” Consherra asked, and looked questioningly at Dyenlerra.
The medic shrugged helplessly. “She.”
“Varth!” Consherra muttered. “I do all the work, and yet I am the last to know.”
“Is it really so necessary?” Dr. Wriestler asked in feeble protest in response to the request.
“Yes, it is,” Maeken Kea insisted. “You have saved his life, but it won’t be worth a damn unless I can save his career. I must speak with him before we reach port, and he has to remember what I tell him. You indicated that he is alert enough at this time.”
“Yes, he will understand and remember what you tell him,” the physician agreed reluctantly. “If you consider it absolutely necessary…”
“It is so ordered,” Maeken said with enough firmness to make him understand that she was not offering him a choice. “If you would care to go up to the galley for something to drink, I will call you when I’m finished. This will not take long.”
Wriestler recognized the implicit order that he was to make himself scarce in a hurry and withdrew. Maeken watched until he was gone before entering the room that he had been guarding bodily. The cabin was small, dominated by a curious apparatus that was half bed and half low-walled tub, fed by a maze of opaque plastic tubes connected to a series of machines and tanks. A dark figure lay in the tub, encased in a cocoon of microscopic tubes that covered the burnt upper half of the body like a pelt of long white hair. She braced herself and approached slowly.
She could not imagine how Commander Trace could have survived. Dr. Wriestler had plucked the bits of metal out of his chest and face and had set him in the tank to regenerate his burnt skin. Once that was done, teams of specialists would be able to concentrate on making replacements for his right eye and the arms that had been quite literally ripped to shreds in the explosion of his gun. Maeken had not been able to look upon him when the medical automatons had come to collect him on the Challenger’s auxiliary bridge. At least most of his body was now mercifully hidden within the machine.
“Commander?” she called softly.
He responded more quickly than she had anticipated, opening his one good eye to stare up at her.
“My ship?” he asked weakly, his voice a faint, hoarse whisper.
“I lost the Challenger,” she replied simply. “The Starwolves had her fixed too many ways. Velmeran gave me fifteen minutes to abandon ship.”
Trace closed his one good eye and nodded weakly. “He fooled us both. You did what you had to do. How… how did you get me away from him?”
“I recalled something I had heard about Starwolves being gullible,” she explained. “I told him a sad, sad tale and he bought it. Of course, neither of us had any idea that you had actually survived. As far as that goes, he probably still thinks you’re dead.”
She paused a moment, leaning even closer. “Listen carefully, now. The High Council might be ready and willing to descend upon you like scavengers for losing that very expensive ship, but we can still turn this into a victory. We lost the Challenger, but the experiment was a success. The Starwolves could not destroy a Fortress from the outside, and we sure as hell won’t give them a second chance to destroy one from within.”
“Very encouraging,” Trace remarked. “What about…”
“Wriestler brought it,” she assured him. “Now this is the plan, at least as we will present it. We continue to build Fortresses but hold them back, adding to the fleet and using the ships only to defend the inner worlds. We build our own big, fast carriers full of quick little fighters. And in about twenty years we will have thousands of our own Starwolves grown up and ready to fight.”
Donalt Trace sighed heavily. “Twenty years. At this rate, I should last so long.”
“For now you stay well away from Starwolves,” Maeken said firmly. “You have no good sense where Velmeran is concerned. Twenty years, and you can retire successfully. You let me do the talking, and I’ll start talking as fast as I can as soon as we reach port. You rest now. We’ll talk again as soon as you’re up to it.”
“Do the best you can,” he answered weakly.
Maeken withdrew quietly and hurried to the galley. After the spaciousness of the Challenger, the compactness of the destroyer was confining. There were no lifts, but the galley was less than half a minute’s walk from the cramped sick bay. She found Wriestler seated at a small table, leaning over the hot drink he had ordered.
“Finished,” she said as she took the opposite seat. “Shouldn’t you hurry back?”
Wriestler shrugged. “He’s in no danger now that he’s on the machine.”
“Then why were you so reluctant to let me speak with him?”
“Just being the proper doctor,” he said. “A large part of your internship is just learning to be a self-important ass. They teach the same thing to officers, although you seem to have missed the point.”
“It never did anyone any good, as far as I can tell. But there is one extraordinarily tall ass that needs to be back to work as soon as possible.”
“Half a year at most,” Wriestler said, and smiled at her reaction of surprise. “Yes, it took him the better part of two years to recover from that last one. But, in a strange way, he’s not in nearly as bad a shape. The machine will have new skin on him in two weeks. The eye should be no problem, and we can fit him with a pair of mechanical arms as soon as a pair his size can be made.”
“Mechanical?” Maeken asked.
“He asked for it and, under the circumstances, it’s the best way to go. There’s a limit to how many regenerated parts you can stick in a person, and he’s pushing the limit right now. I once had a young officer who was half a year from receiving two legs, half an arm, and a rebuilt face. Halfway to nowhere he began to reject his new skin, and nothing would stop it. He screamed every waking minute… which I kept to a minimum.”
“In pain?” Maeken asked cautiously.
“In terror. I could block the pain.”
The Methryn remained with the Kalvyn over Tryalna for another day and a half until the Karvand arrived and the freighter Lesdryn had slipped unobserved into the fringes of the system. The Starwolves could not keep a ship in this system for very long, since the twenty remaining carriers had to adjust their patrols to allow for the two damaged vessels. The Lesdryn would be back in a couple of weeks, her caverous holds filled with rebuilt destroyers and battleships to replace the system fleet.
Daelyn was understandably shocked and saddened to hear that her mother was dead, although the rare opportunity to visit with both her father and brother distracted her from her grief and she went away with more good than bitter memories. Both she and Commander Schayranna thoroughly approved of the new Commander, but the strange girl with two arms who sat familiarizing herself with the helm controls on the auxiliary bridge took a little getting used to.
Lenna was at the controls when the Methryn, the Kalvyn, and the Lesdryn left orbit, an occurrence that took more than just a little getting used to for the ship, the regular helm, and the new Commander. The auxiliary bridge had no commander’s console, which gave Velmeran the excuse to loiter about and watch her
every move. Since it was Consherra’s responsibility to teach her young assistant, she also made it her business to watch over the girl. And since Valthyrra’s camera pod was mounted overhead, she had the best view of all. Besides that, she had the reassurance of having an override on every control.
Once she got the Methryn out of orbit and accelerating to starflight along the proper flight path, however, they began to relax. Lenna had grown up with the desire to be the helm on a starship, and now she had her hands on a bigger, faster ship than any Trader had ever hoped for.
This scene was repeated several days later as the three Starwolf ships decelerated in their approach on the planet Alkayja. They moved out of starflight together, the Methryn and the Kalvyn flying side by side with barely their own length between them while the freighter Lesdryn followed at about three times that distance.
Everyone on the bridge watched the viewscreen expectantly for their first glimpse of Alkayja and its immense orbital base. For many, like Velmeran and Consherra, this was the first time that the Methryn had been in port in their lifetimes. Valthyrra’s earliest memories were of this place. Her first run under her own power had been in this space, executing experimental trajectories around the four smaller and three larger planets. And yet even she had spent less than a score of years out of her eighteen centuries here, most of that time in refitting. Carriers never returned home except at need.
“Alkayja control, this is Methryn accompanied by Kalvyn and Lesdryn,” Lenna hailed at Valthyrra’s direction. “We are closing at twenty-two point eight million kilometers and anticipate Alkayja orbit in just over four minutes.”
“Affirmative, Methryn,” the reply came immediately. “We have your course projections and clear you to proceed as you are. Do you require assistance?”
“Negative, control. All systems are secure. We anticipate normal approach and docking.”
“We understand, Methryn. Table for three, right this way please. You are to take refitting bay one. The Kalvyn is directed to refitting bay two. The Lesdryn is to take berth five. Do you comply?”
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