Dreadnought

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  “Yes, Commander.”

  They looked around as Valthyrra lifted the fighters in their racks and began moving them in a neat parade toward the storage bay. The members of Teraln’s pack gathered about in a loose group, having collected their things from the storage compartments of their fighters.

  “We will have more packs coming in here any moment now, since we have only two bays operational,” Gelrayen observed. “I should at least make certain that the packs get settled into their cabins.”

  “I should go settle into my own cabin and then present myself on the bridge,” Kayendel added as she began to gather up her rather large bundles, which a member of the bay crew had brought her.

  “I think that I will go along,” Captain Tarrel added. “Would you like for me to take one of those?”

  She tried to lift the case that was still on the ground, only to find that it probably weighed as much as herself. Kayendel took the case in her one remaining hand, although she was already carrying bundles at least as large in her other three hands. “I really should have warned you that these are all my worldly goods, all quarter ton of them. Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No, I could have lifted it,” Tarrel insisted. “I just wouldn’t want to carry it far. I haven’t seen much evidence of Starwolves doing the things that make them legendary, so I forgot about your strength.”

  They had started toward the side of the bay and the lift that would take them to the bridge. Kayendel carried her load easily, as if so much weight was still of small consequence to her, even though she also wore her armor. Tarrel had sometimes felt tempted to dismiss much of what she had always been told about Starwolves as mythical, the product of fear and exaggeration. They were not cruel and they did not engage in strange practices. They were very pleasant and intelligent, but in some ways very innocent. But certain claims about their tremendous strength were probably true.

  “You can certainly tell that Commander Gelrayen came up from the packs very recently,” the Kelvessan remarked. “Theralda Vardon warned me that a new Commander will find every excuse to stay near the packs and the fighters for a long time afterward.”

  Tarrel pressed the button to call the lift, but one was waiting for them. Valthyrra Methryn had probably anticipated the need. They entered and began their long ride to the bridge. Kayendel took the sharp acceleration of the lift with complete ease, in spite of her burden.

  “I obviously don’t need to ask if you are getting tired,” Tarrel observed. “Just how strong are you, anyway?”

  “Oh, I would never want you to think that I am just showing off,” Kayendel said. “I am really not as strong as some of the pilots; part of the reason I did not stay with the packs.”

  “Please brag a little.”

  She smiled. “We do have to exercise regularly, just to live with these muscles. I can lift about four tons with either set of arms. Using both sets of arms and putting my back into it, I can move about ten.”

  Tarrel frowned. “I used to be proud of that ninety kilo bench press.”

  The Kelvessan watched her pensively. “If I can speak freely without fear of being insulting, I must admit that you are not at all what I expected. I was prepared to dislike having you aboard my ship.”

  “Is that a fact?” Tarrel asked, quietly amused.

  “In the last seventy years, I have probably had port leave on more Union worlds than even you have ever visited,” she explained. “Until now, I have never had much reason to think that your people were either very interesting or well-mannered.”

  “It was probably the circumstances. I suspect that you Starwolves tend to forget just how frightening you can be, stalking about in that heavy armor. It makes you look twice as big.” Kayendel looked confused. “Our armor keeps us cool in your warm environments. But I suppose I know what you mean. Actually, we try to keep your people afraid of us. There are many times that we do not have to fight because our reputation keeps us safe.”

  The lift stopped in the corridor outside the left wing of the bridge, and they followed that corridor back behind the bridge itself, past the various meeting rooms, to the block of visitor’s cabins. Kayendel selected a cabin that was adjacent to, but smaller than the suite that Captain Tarrel had been given.

  She looked around in great curiosity. “This is a remarkable thing. You can live on a ship all your life, and yet there are places aboard where you have never been.”

  “This is not the Vardon,” Tarrel reminded her. “But since everything seems to correspond, I suppose that I know what you mean. Of course, the size of this ship has a lot to do with that. There isn’t a corner of my own little battleship that I don’t know intimately.”

  Kayendel set down her cases and bundles in a neat row. “Perhaps, but I have lived aboard a carrier all my life. You would expect to get to know any ship intimately in ninety years.”

  Tarrel stared. “Just how long do your people live anyway?” “About three hundred standard years,” Kayendel explained as she opened the chestplate on her armor and began shutting down the cooling system. “Sometimes a little less. Sometimes quite a bit more. Around here, anyone less than a hundred is still considered young.”

  “I’m beginning to envy you people,” Captain Tarrel remarked, then realized that the Starwolf was in the process of removing her armor. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “Only if you want to,” Kayendel told her, unconcerned. “That depends upon how you react to naked Starwolves. I was hoping that you would take me to the bridge and introduce me to Valthyrra Methryn. You know her already, and I doubt that Commander Gelrayen will return any time soon. He wants to spend some time with his packs, I am sure.”

  “You arrived aboard in a fighter,” Tarrel observed. “And you have fighting armor.”

  “Our suits are all very much the same, even for those who never fly with the packs,” the Kelvessan explained. She unbelted the middle section of her suit, disconnected the leads and pipes connecting the top half with the bottom, and stepped out of the lower part. Not only was the lower part a single section, it stood upright on its own. “But as first officer, I am also the ship’s helm and I can fly her manually. Of course, you can hardly ever convince a ship to allow you to fly her, so we keep a fighter of our own to stay in practice.”

  She separated the top half of the suit and pulled it off, also in a single piece. Fully naked, she looked far less human that Tarrel had anticipated. Large, bony hips, and a chest and back that were massively muscled to support the structure of her double set of arms, were joined by a middle section that was only a slender tube, her single pair of small breasts being her most human feature. The bones of Kelvessan looked deceptively light, but were in fact precipitates of iron, capable of bearing tons of stress. Without the unifying factor of clothing, even Kayendel’s facial features appeared far less human. There was some subtle difference to her cheeks and mouth, suggestive of an animal’s delicate muzzle, and her eyes appeared unnaturally large, like those from some cartoon drawing. Her pointed ears peeked out through her typical Starwolf s mane of soft brown hair. Tarrel was surprised to note that Kayendel’s hair was actually not as long as it appeared, but simply grew in a strip down the full length of her spine.

  “I am told that we actually look far less human than we first did,” she said, seeming to know what her companion was thinking. “We were also originally less than half as strong. We evolve in steps about once every ten thousand years.”

  Kayendel opened one of the cases and took out the uniform of a command officer, white tunic and pants, with cuffs trimmed with a black band, and began dressing quickly.

  “The Starwolves don’t use a real uniform with emblems of rank?” Tarrel asked.

  “Why should we bother?” Kayendel asked. “Most of us stay aboard the same ship our entire lives, so we know each other by sight. And yes, we really can tell each other apart quite easily.”

  Captain Tarrel tried not to laugh. There were indeed only a very limited number of physi
cal differences between Kelvessan, including size.

  “There are compensations for being Kelvessan, but precious few. Races of artificial origin do not have much sense of identity, and about all that we have ever been allowed to do is fight. Perhaps you can understand why we hope very much that the war does not resume,” she continued, pulling on her boots. “Well, I suppose that I am ready to present myself to Valthyrra. I have been told that even Commander Gelrayen has reservations about her adaptation.”

  Captain Tarrel did not comment, recalling how the ship had seemed almost about to panic with fear and guilt after the misfire of the impulse cannons. She knew that she might be attaching too much significance to the incident because she did not think of machines as being given to panic. But she was certain that she would find it hard to trust a helm officer of her own ship who had behaved in that manner.

  “Main conversion generators are fully operational,” Valthyrra reported as she began the process of powering herself up for flight. “Main scanners, shields and environmental support are all on-line. Main drives are standing by. All systems ready for flight.”

  Commander Gelrayen had been pacing the bridge, checking the readings on the monitors at station after station. Everything was actually going very well. The Methryn was leaving the construction bay a full day ahead of her proposed schedule, in spite of the problems she had encountered. Her long, tapered nose was fully plated, and her scanner was as ready as it was going to get, short of full testing. The Methryn finally had a full crew, although she carried almost no non-active personnel, and a compliment of ten packs. She had never flown herself before, but she had done this often enough with other carriers by a remote link. If she could fly another carrier, it seemed reasonable to expect that she could fly herself without the slightest difficulty. “Do you feel ready to go?” Gelrayen asked.

  She brought her camera pod around. “Yes, I feel ready.” He nodded. “Contact bay control. Tell them to release the braces.”

  Captain Tarrel was watching from the Commander’s station on the upper bridge. Although a jump seat had already been installed for her, Gelrayen had insisted that he would not be able to sit through this first flight. Kayendel was at the helm station on the middle bridge, standing ready at her manual controls if Valthyrra had any trouble controlling the ship.

  “Docking braces are released,” Valthyrra reported. “The ship is standing free to maneuver.”

  “Back yourself out of the bay under field drive,” Gelrayen told her. “And be very, very careful.”

  “I see no reason to worry about my embarrassing myself,” Valthyrra assured him.

  Hie Methryn began to push herself straight back, drifting completely free the moment her shock bumper slipped away from its docking bracket. The field drive was a non-reactive drive, so low-powered that it was effective only for steering the ship and for precise maneuvering in close proximity, such as moving through dockings. She backed out of the construction bay much farther than she needed, just to be completely certain of her clearance, then turned and began to move away. System control granted her consent to free flight, and she engaged her main drives cautiously to move out of orbit into open space.

  “The ship is clear and away,” Valthyrra reported. “All major navigational systems are in perfect order. Navigational shields and standard scanners are functional. Main drives are phasing properly. Acceleration dampers are at high efficiency. I am ready to begin additional testing.”

  “Very well, then,” Gelrayen agreed. “Begin a series of low-speed tactical maneuvers. Keep our passengers in mind.”

  The Methryn began her series of rapid turns and dodges, leaving Captain Tarrel grateful to be strapped into a well-padded seat. Because the Starwolves had better acceleration dampers, the ride was seldom any worse than it often could be aboard her own battleship. Union crewmembers wore their own armored suits, protection against both high G’s and sudden decompressions from a breached hull. The only difference was that the vast Starwolf carriers made routine accelerations greater than she cared to consider. The present series was only moderate, even by her own standards.

  Commander Gelrayen ascended the steps to the upper bridge, ignoring the shifts and jerks that kept Tarrel pinned to her seat. “Comfortable?”

  “I wish I had my flight suit,” she said. “If these straps break, don’t expect me to stay in this seat.”

  “Our seats and straps are designed to hold through two thousand G’s more than we can take ourselves,” he told her. “We will have to build a suit of armor for you, to give you better protection when the time comes to fight. If you want, we can put you off for the duration of these tests.”

  “Perhaps you should,” she agreed. “You don’t have much time to complete these tests, and I get the impression that you’re holding back for my sake.”

  Valthyrra brought her camera pod into the upper bridge. “Actually, I will not be doing anything more energetic than a basic test of all my mechanical systems. I hardly see any point in stress-testing my frame and drives, since everything is new. Besides, I might actually break something, and then where would we be?”

  Gelrayen looked up at her impatiently. “Are you paying attention to what you are supposed to be doing?”

  “Of course I am. I keep one aspect of awareness on the bridge at all times, but all the rest of me is very hard at work.” Tarrel looked very confused. “I beg your pardon?”

  The camera pod moved slightly closer. “My conscious mind has multiple simultaneous aspects, as well as dozens of subconscious aspects for monitoring the ship’s automatic functions.”

  “How very convenient,” Tarrel remarked. “Can Starwolves do that also?”

  “We do not have the need,” Gelrayen said. “Besides, our brains are much smaller than those of a human, and separated into several bony compartments as protection against accelerations. We have nothing to spare. We do, however, have a built-in mathematical function that operates independently.”

  Valthyrra rotated her camera pod around to face the main viewscreen. “I register some fluctuations in the right inboard drive. I am making adjustments in power distribution until mechanical modifications can be made. Ready to proceed with highspeed maneuvers.”

  “Are you satisfied with that drive?” Gelrayen asked.

  “Yes. That drive is not a problem; it is just not running as efficiently as I would like.”

  “Then begin your high-speed tests. Just be prepared to back off that drive if it gives any trouble.”

  “That drive is not a problem,” Valthyrra repeated in curiously hurt tones.

  After all that this ship had been through in the past couple of weeks, she was probably becoming a bit defensive about having her abilities questioned. Captain Tarrel could sympathize, but something about that simple, plaintive protest led her to suspect that Valthyrra still had some work ahead of her in developing a complete personality forceful and decisive enough to effectively command this ship. For the moment, however, Tarrel was distracted from her thoughts, as the stress of the Methryn’s maneuvers returned, more forceful than before.

  “We will be climbing to transition under evasive maneuvers,” Gelrayen told her. “The jump into starflight will be the hardest part, but relatively brief in duration. That will be the end of it.”

  “I have to get used to it,” she insisted. “I do know one thing. After flying with Starwolves, I won’t be afraid of childbirth. It can’t be as rough as this.”

  Gelrayen looked mystified. “I had not thought of you as maternal. Were you considering children?”

  “No, never. So I never had any real reason to be afraid of childbirth. I suppose you people have your own way of doing that.”

  “No, but I have never heard that it is painful.”

  “I am taking myself on into starflight,” Valthyrra announced, bringing her camera pod back into the upper bridge. “This ship is behaving so well, I am almost disappointed with the lack of excitement.”

  “I doubt that
,” Gelrayen remarked. “But do what you think best, esteemed one. We might as well test all of your systems quickly, so that we will have more time to go back to the bay if something does not work. Signal the other carriers to prepare themselves for the test of your impulse scanner.”

  The Methryn made the transition into starflight flawlessly and went on to execute various directional changes, about the only thing she could do in starflight that was not potentially damaging to the ship. After about an hour of maneuvering, she was prepared to make a very quick, deep penetration into the Alkayja system, normally a very aggressive approach. The other carriers that were in port at that time, at least those which were not presently in the refitting bays, had moved out into the system on courses of their own choosing and were running quietly with their shields at stealth intensity. Under other circumstances, not even another carrier would have known they were there. The Methryn’s task was to find them, using her scanner, and also discover to what extent the other ships were able to identify her own location by her impulse emission traces.

  “We are out of starflight,” Valthyrra announced, as if there was really any need. “Scanner is at stand-by state. Ready to begin testing.”

  Captain Tarrel watched as best she could, although the Methryn’s sharp deceleration made that difficult. She was pushing back on the arms of her seat, trying to relieve some of the crushing pressure that was thrusting her forward into the straps. A suit with a solid chestplate did a lot to distribute that stress, which felt worse at the moment than the downward pull. The carrier always kept her artificial gravity one or two G’s above that of any acceleration, so that her Starwolves could continue to walk about only by the means of their tremendous strength and accurate balance.

  “Any time,” Gelrayen told Valthyrra.

  He had returned to the main bridge and was standing behind the surveillance station, where he could observe the process on the impulse scanner’s own group of monitors.

  “I will supply a system schematic on the main viewscreen,”