Lenna was hardly aware of muttering her thanks; her mind was already on her next problem. Actually, her problems existed very much in the significant plural. She had Starwolves waiting for her to create a diversion in a hurry, and she hardly knew how she could arrange that while she was very much in the eye and mind of Base Security. She was considering whether she should go ahead and arrange that same power outlet to short when she put it back together. Maintaining her cover would no longer be important, once Starwolves entered the base. Then this whole installation would explode into confusion, and Valthyrra’s cannons would finish the task soon after.
“Told you there was nothing to worry about,” Barg said as he bent to remove her handcuffs. She braced herself for the inevitable, knowing what was to follow when the guard looked awkward and uncomfortable. “You know, I really hate to have done this to someone your age.”
“Oh, I... “ It suddenly registered with Lenna just what he was saying, and her mouth fell open. She had never felt more insulted in her life, all the more so for knowing that those words had been impolite but hardly untrue. And she had been sitting there, waiting for this polite young man to put the moves on her old bones.
A sentry unit thundered through the main door of the tram at that moment, turning to bring all of its weapons to bear on the control cabin. Lenna glanced over her shoulder, harboring certain nasty suspicions about just whose sentry that was.
“Freeze, bastards!” Bill roared.
That left absolutely no doubt at all. Lenna had years of experience with the quirky logic of the semi-intelligent, at least where that term applied to automatons, and she threw herself to the floor.
As she had predicted, the two guards did not freeze. They were too confused and startled out of their wits to freeze, and Bill was not prepared to accept anything less. He opened fire with his forward arsenal, a deadly barrage of weapons powerful enough to bring down a Union fighter. Fortunately he had not seen the need to use full power, but his bolts still made quick work of the control panel. The two guards ducked their heads and, by some miracle, escaped out the small forward door.
Bill had, of course, been listening through Lenna’s comlink, which had not been removed from the pocket of her uniform’s tunic. In all of the many possibilities that she had considered, Lenna had never dreamed that Bill would elect to run to her rescue like some four-legged knight in ceramic alloy armor, just in time to turn an unexpected victory into resounding defeat. Bill talked a line about machine efficiency, but he always seemed to do everything the hard way.
When the two guards ran out the forward door, Bill, for reasons that were equally mysterious, elected to run after them. Lenna continued her own crawl into the safety under the main control panel, which was already beginning to spark and burn, as the sentry crashed through the forward cabin and out the door. Lenna paused a moment to listen. She heard a few more scattered shots from Bill’s main battery, but she assumed that he must have missed his target when the ponderous thumps of his heavy legs continued.
Musing what the two guards must be trying to make of this matter of being chased by one of their own sentries, Lenna braced herself against one of the chairs as she tried to rise. It was awkward enough handcuffed, although much less so than if her hands had been behind her back. Then she hesitated a second time, feeling the vibrations of machinery through the metal floor. The tram was moving.
Lenna had always been particularly fascinated by that aspect of her work, how little things could go wrong in unexpected ways. So far she had found a way to get herself out of even the worst trouble but, as her young friend had recently reminded her, she was also getting old. She looked around, finding the key that the guard had dropped in his surprise and haste to get out of the line of fire. Fortunately it was a simple mechanical lock, still the most difficult type to force open without the key but about the easiest to open with one. Even so, it took a certain amount of dexterity and experimentation to get the key into the lock. Sitting with her back against the driver’s seat, she was at last able to hold the key in her teeth as she carefully maneuvered it into the lock.
Tossing aside the handcuffs, Lenna rose quickly and slipped into the seat. She could not immediately determine whether the tram was being directed remotely or was simply out of control. At least the major portion of the tram’s operating controls had been spared from Bill’s rather indiscriminate attack. The com station, where she had been seated only moments before the attack, was a complete ruin. Just thinking about it made her a little nervous, although she was certain that Bill knew his business with the precision of a machine and would not have hit her.
All the same, the wreck of that half of the control panel assured her of one thing. This tram could not have been under remote control even if they had wanted. The internal control indicator light was clearly lit, but certain other readings were contradictory. The tram was supposedly locked into predetermined settings, but other indicators insisted that it could not possibly be in motion. For not being in motion, however, it was already doing a very healthy, if not hair-raising, 140 kilometers per hour, and all efforts to disable or slow the machine on her part proved hopeless.
Well, when travel became inevitable, one could always attempt to determine the course. She called up the map for the freight tunnels on the main monitor, and saw a clear junction coming up in a matter of seconds. When she selected the alternate course, the tram very obligingly turned off the original track onto that new heading. Encouraged by her success, Lenna bent closer to the map and chose a destination. For the sake of speed and simplicity, she decided to make a quick loop and go back to where she had started. She began selecting junctions that would take her back, reasonably certain that the main routing computers would not switch her down a tunnel that was previously occupied. Theoretically, she knew that the traffic was invariably one way. She was less certain that even the computers could slow this monster if it was about to overtake another tram.
“Bill, do you hear me?” she asked, speaking into her com link.
“Yes, Mistress Lenna?” he responded, his voice thin and weak through the minute speaker.
“I’m on my way back. You go back to bay twelve and get the overhead doors open as soon as you get there. I should have my diversion ready at just about the same time.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Damned fool robot,” she muttered as she guided the tram through the next junction, not particularly caring if he heard her.
The next problem was getting herself safely off the tram. Under the circumstances, she was actually rather proud, and relieved, that she thought of that particular item before she reached the end of the line. There was an emergency braking system that, she discovered, did work. Its only problems were that it could not bring the tram to a complete stop, and it worked only as long as she was there to hold down the button. Considering what she had in mind, she decided that it was just as well that it did work that way.
Coming up on the junction to landing bay twenty-eight, she held the brake until the tram slowed as much as it was able, easing the heavy machine around the rather tight turn into the tunnel that dead-ended beside the loading deck of the bay. As soon as the tram was locked onto this one-way path, Lenna released the brake and sprinted for the door, getting herself out of the tram as quickly as she could. The leap down was not very far, but it was made more difficult by the speed of the tram. She hit the ground in a roll and came up running, determined to get herself well away from that side tunnel while she still had time. If her plan was successful, she was likely to get herself killed.
As soon as the drag of the brakes was released, the tram began to accelerate furiously. It was moving at about two-thirds of its full speed when it reached the end of the tunnel, emerging like a shot into the vast landing bay. It came to the end of the track and hit the low rail bumper, which had only been intended to stop a freight tram that was moving at barely a crawl, and which had the effect of lifting this small but heavy unit completely
off the ground. Carried by the momentum of its tremendous mass, its trajectory arced well out into the middle of the landing bay. It might well have stayed airborne for the better part of a hundred meters or more, except that it suddenly connected with the munitions freighter sitting across the full length of the bay, plunging right through the middle of the small ship.
An instant later, the explosion of the entire cargo of munitions provided all the distraction that the Starwolves could have wanted.
- 8 -
“All pilots to their fighters,” Valthyrra’s voice echoed from the main speakers across the bay. “Stand by to launch fighters immediately.”
Velmeran had been looking up toward the ceiling as he listened to that brief message. He hurried to his fighter, ascended the boarding platform, and climbed into the open cockpit. Benthoran, the bay crew chief, assisted him with the straps of his seat, then slipped Velmeran’s helmet over his head and fastened the clips at the collar.
“What is it?” Velmeran asked, now that he had a private com link.
“Lenna just arranged her little diversion,” Valthyrra explained. “In fact, she just diverted a major portion of that base right out of existence. Bill says that we are to look for the open freight bay.”
“What about Lenna?”
“I have heard nothing from Lenna, and she is not presently with Bill,” the ship explained.
Velmeran frowned within the privacy of his helmet as he waited for the cover of his cockpit to close and lock down. Once they started down, their time was going to be very limited. He could not wait for Lenna to make herself known, and he could only hope that she would be there by the time they arrived.
The important things were never simple.
“All fighters are ready,” Valthyrra reported. “The Number Two transport bay is open, and both ships are standing by.”
“Launch the transport,” Velmeran said. “Order the fighters to power up.”
On the bay deck, the three fighters brought their powerful conversion generators on line, a faint, low-pitched humming surrounding each of the sleek machines as they cycled their power back into their generators. Black as space itself, the fighters were resting in their racks, massive metal frameworks that were locked down on the deck, their landing gear up and ready for flight. There were only three in the group rather than the usual nine, the three that represented the core of Velmeran’s special tactics team. This time only his two most trusted pilots, Baress and Pack Leader Baressa, would be going with him.
At that same time, a pair of small ships moved out of the second of the Methryn’s four transport bays. The first was the transport adapted for use by the special tactics team, a dark rectangular hull somewhat larger than a fighter, but without wings or fins. Following that was the larger form of Venn Keflyn’s Valtrytian interceptor, gleaming white rather than the dull black of the Starwolf ships, in form a flattened flying wing like some deep-sea skate or ray. The two small ships moved slowly away from the carrier’s dark hull and the bay doors began to close, slowly cutting off the bright interior lights.
As soon as the two ships were clear, Valthyrra counted down the launch for the fighters. In the bay, a series of flashing lights above the forward bay door converged on the single, large green light in the center. Engines flaring, the three fighters leaped from their racks and thundered out the forward door. Instead of moving boldly into flight formation, the fighters cut thrust as soon as they cleared their racks, drifting out from beneath the Methryn’s vast nose as they waited for the other two ships to come in close beside their tight formation. Gathered close, the small group of ships engaged thrust and turned slowly until they were moving toward the planet, not yet even visible except as a minute point of light in the distance. They moved under low power, staying within the shadow of the Methryn’s hull as the carrier herself now came around, moving slowly over them. The larger ship’s cloaking shields would hide their approach until they were within low orbit, ready to make their final run into the atmosphere.
“Any word?” Velmeran asked.
“Nothing yet,” Valthyrra answered immediately. “No word or indication from Lenna at all. Bill says that we are not to worry. When I asked him why, he simply explained that Lenna has never failed to come through before and so statistics bear out that she would come through again. It worries me that my brain and his are essentially just alike.”
“On a vastly different scale,” he was quick to assure her, grateful that sentient computers were not telepathic. He had always found Bill’s dull ramblings to be disquietingly similar to Valthyrra’s complex eccentricities, if on a vastly different scale all its own.
“Personally, I have thought that Lenna has been overdue to screw one up really badly for a long time,” the ship continued. “The luck of the Irish is one thing, but it could hardly have bred true over five hundred centuries. Strictly speaking, Lenna Makayen is theoretically a Scot. And even so, the Irish were historically never that lucky.... “
“Val, you are babbling.”
“Great Spirit of Space, I am!” Valthyrra declared in a stricken voice, and paused for a moment of deep reflection. “Do you suppose that means that I have a soul?”
“I suppose it means that you have a problem.”
The planet grew in size quickly and the Methryn began to brake cautiously, careful to avoid engaging too much power all at once that would give away her approach on scan. The carrier made a rapid pass at a very close orbit, arcing around the curve of the planet before moving away into open space. At her closest approach, the five smaller ships shot out from beneath her hull, rolling as they dropped down toward the planet.
Encased in shells of thin flame as their atmospheric shields pierced the thin, upper atmosphere, the small group of ships plummeted toward a landscape that grew rapidly beneath them. They were coming down at a steep angle on a path that would bring them directly over the Union installation, rather than a remote approach, then a long, low-level run toward their destination. Time was the only factor in their favor, and they were able to cross the three hundred kilometers between the shadow of the Methryn’s hull to the hidden base in just under five minutes. That strained the abilities of the transport’s shields to the limit, subjecting the little ship’s hull to some rather extreme temperatures. At least those very few minutes of heat were no real danger to the sturdy little transport.
“Does Bill have that bay open?” Velmeran asked.
The ships were braking sharply now, closing the final few kilometers in a hurry. They were almost certain to have been detected on either scanners or conventional radar by now, and perhaps even visually. They needed to have that bay standing open so that they could land immediately, or the installation’s remote defenses would be opening fire on them.
“Bill says that the bay is standing open,” Valthyrra told him. “He also says that Lenna Makayen has yet to make herself known.”
“Thank you for anticipating my questions,” he responded. “Maybe you do have a soul.”
“At least a sense of humor.”
“We should not push it.”
Then Velmeran paused, seeing the state of the Union base as it became visible below and just ahead. Lenna’s little distraction must have been one of her best efforts, if a little overdone. Thick black smoke rose from several points clustered along one section of the installation; it looked as if fully an eighth of the place, as massive as it was, was on fire. Then he looked closer, and he realized something that made him very apprehensive. With Lenna’s fire threatening to get completely out of control, the base personnel had opened all the landing bay doors over a large area to vent the smoke.
“Val, let me try something on that remarkable sense of humor of yours,” he said after a moment, wondering how long he had before automatic weapons began to make a mess of his little invasion. “Ah, we have no way to tell which of the three dozen or so bays standing open could possible be the right one.”
Valthyrra must have afforded the place a q
uick, detailed scan of the immediate area, for she treated them to an intense barrage of invectives in at least five major languages. Had she a soul, it was surely damned.
“Spare our ears!” Velmeran exclaimed, interrupting her. “Can you identify which of those landing bays contains Bill?”
“I can trace his achronic transmissions, yes.”
“Then come around and put a low-power bolt right down the middle of that bay,” he instructed. “I hardly care how much, just so long as we can see it. Tell Bill to stay under cover, and we will hold back just a bit.”
“I am in position now. Are you ready?”
“Standing by.”
A pale blue beam shot down from above, striking through the center of the open doors of one of the nearer bays. It lasted only an instant and resulted in no explosions or smoke from within the bay, but it was enough.
“Got it!” Velmeran declared, then addressed his pilots. “Follow me now, fighters first to clear the way. Perhaps we can get ourselves under cover before they begin shooting at us.”
The three fighters rolled over and dove within the opening of the bay, a move copied by Venn Keflyn’s corvette. The transport followed somewhat more cautiously. Once they were within the bay, the ships dropped their landing gear and dropped quickly to the floor of the immense bay. Velmeran left his fighter idling, ready for immediate flight, as he opened his canopy and began unstrapping from his seat. He was still pulling himself from his cockpit when he saw a sentry hurrying toward him across the bay floor. Since it had not opened fire, he assumed that it must be Bill.
“What word, Bill?” he asked.
“Haste,” the sentry offered. He was, as always, a very literal bastard. It was always reassuring to find that some things never changed.
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