He also could not hear their warnings, because he was completely deaf without the medium of air to carry sounds from the com built into his collar. He was suddenly aware of the presence of a warship immediately behind him, and turned to see a destroyer emerging from a concealed lock perhaps seven kilometers ahead. As soon as it slipped from its rack, it began to drift rapidly toward them as the Challenger continued to accelerate past, skimming the black hull of the larger ship with just meters to spare.
Velmeran stood beside the fighter as he watched. The smaller ship was facing in their direction, and he was able to see the guns open and charged below the extended bridge. Suddenly it stopped, or rather it fired its forward engines to match speed with the Fortress and hover alongside not fifty meters from where they stood. Then the destroyer began to move laterally away from the hull of the larger ship until it was clear to navigate.
As the tension of the moment passed, Velmeran felt himself begin to grow cold and dizzy and broke contact with the hull to pull himself in free-fall into the cockpit of his fighter. Maeken Kea had rescued her crew from the doomed Fortress. If she had seen Velmeran’s party on the hull, then she had returned the favor. Even so, he left one of his own behind. The Methryn was closing, and Lenna had run out of time.
Officers hurried to take their places on the Methryn’s auxiliary bridge, a smaller copy of the one that lay in ruins. Cargin paused on the way to the weapons console to catch a bright orange cord and jerk loose the pin that freed Valthyrra’s camera pod. The boom immediately dropped down to a comfortable level and the twin lenses spun in unison as they focused. She turned to Cargin, who remained waiting.
“I am going to charge to eighty-five percent of overload on the conversion cannon,” she explained quickly. “Back me up on the gauges so that I do not exceed that.”
“Right.”
The Challenger had turned abruptly to head straight out of the ring, running for open space where she could shield effectively. Valthyrra accelerated rapidly, closing quickly on the Fortress after its initial gain on the smaller ship after leaving the ring.
The Challenger was building to speed barely ten thousand kilometers ahead, trying to get up to a speed where even minor shifts in field-drive steering would throw her tremendous bulk into wide, evasive turns, making her a difficult target for the Metryn’s conversion cannon. It might have been that she was trying to survive long enough to get into starflight. But that was a poor defense at best, for the smaller, quicker Starwolf ship could follow her in and shoot out her exposed engines. She had to stay and fight.
The Methryn leaped forward as she unshielded the aperture of her conversion cannon and began charging the powerful weapon. There could be no hiding such a tremendous surge of power. The Challenger scanned it and cut acceleration as she made ready to divert her full power to her shields.
Valthyrra could wait no longer, even though she was still three thousand kilometers short of her target. She aimed herself quickly and fired. The Challenger threw up her shield, full and strong from the first instant, forming a misty white sphere around the ship. Only a fraction of a second later that concentrated blast of raw energy struck squarely in the middle of the shield and parted around it, like a wave breaking over a rock. For three full seconds the Methryn turned the power to destroy a world against that shield, and it was still intact when she found nothing else to throw against it.
For a moment Valthyrra was at a loss to know what to do. She could not fire the conversion cannon again; although undamaged, the thick walls of the containment chamber and the kilometer-long throat of the weapon glowed white-hot. Then the dense shield came down and she saw that the Challenger was already pivoting to face her, and she knew that she had no choice. Even as she closed to attack, she turned sharply to head away at a right angle.
As it turned out, that was perhaps the only thing that saved her. The Challenger altered her path to follow the fleeing carrier, opening fire while her target was still in range. In the next instant she turned into a rapidly expanding nova of blinding light and heat and millions of tons of vaporized metal. The Methryn all but leaped into starflight to stay ahead of the shock wave that put a sizable dent in the ring and for a short time added a white glaze to its normal dirty brown as the haze of trapped ice crystals was vaporized by the stellar heat.
Within minutes the Methryn was setting herself into a wide, slow orbit around the planet well outside the ring. Six of the seven fighters of the special tactics team closed quickly on final approach to her landing bay. Velmeran brought his fighter in quickly, landing in the center of the bay. He leaped out as soon as the canopy was open and ran for the lift that was waiting for him, landing-bay crewmembers moving silently out of his way.
Even though he knew what had happened, he still was not prepared for the destruction he saw on the deserted bridge. Temporary patches had been set in the hull so that the atmosphere could be restored, and all of the loose debris had been cleared away. Most of the bridge showed some damage; both of the stations of the middle bridge were in ruins, while the blasted pit of the upper bridge was lost in darkness. This was the worst shock for Velmeran, even above the sight of the Methryn’s wrecked nose. His earliest cherished memories were of his privileged visits to the place, the Methryn’s heart, when his mother had still been Commander-designate and the best pack leader on the ship.
“Valthyrra?” he called hesitantly.
She brought her camera pod around to look at him, the twisted hinges of her boom creaking. Only one lens focused in on him, the leads of the damaged camera hanging loose.
“I am sorry,” she said softly. “I let you down.”
“No, not you,” he assured her as he walked over to join her. “It was my fault, if anyone’s. My careful plans simply were not good enough.”
Velmeran collapsed wearily into the nearest of the two seats of the navigational console. Valthyrra brought her camera pod in closely to look at him. “There is a matter of truth that I would discuss with you. I suspect that you knew that this fight would cost a life. You meant it to be your own.”
“I wish that it had been,” he said despondently. “I guess I believed that I had made some bargain with fate, that I could trade my own life to protect a world and save my ship. If nothing else, I have been taught that fate is only a word for what will be, and that I cannot bargain with chance. And that, for all my special talents, I cannot see the future, only hints of what might be. I would rather see nothing at all.”
“No, you are wrong,” Valthyrra insisted. “Twice now you have been warned, and twice you have used that warning to shape a future of your own making. But shaping a future and controlling it are two very different things. It is only natural to blame yourself when something goes wrong, but that really does not make it your fault.”
Velmeran said nothing, nor would he even look up at her. Still, she thought that he had listened to her, and that his grief would not turn inward to guilt and self-doubt. “I feel very alone just now,” he said at last.
“I think you know that you are not,” she told him. “You are surrounded by a great many people who love you and think very highly of you. There is a girl down in the landing bay just now who is crying as much for you as for her former Commander. I hope I do not have to tell you how much you mean to me.”
Velmeran sighed heavily with regret at the mention of Consherra. He had not told her and the others, saving that bad news for when they were clear of the Challenger. He had meant to be the one to tell them upon their return, but he had forgotten in his haste to reach the bridge.
He shook his head slowly. “What have I won? Mayelna is gone. My ship is wrecked. I had to leave Lenna in that ship after she came back to help us. Donalt Trace is dead, and even that gives me no satisfaction. I am tired of war and destruction. For once I would like to know that I have done something positive, something of value.”
“But you have,” Valthyrra insisted. “In years to come you will make an end to this war, and free
the Kelvessan to seek worlds and lives of their own. Before she died, Mayelna spoke these final words. She said that we must not grieve for her, for her life was long and full and nearly all that she had ever hoped to see had come to pass. She said that I must watch over you, and help you in every way I can to use your special talents to make the best future you can imagine. For no one has ever done a tenth as much to shape a new future for the Kelvessan as you have.”
Velmeran looked up at her suspiciously. “Did she really say all that?”
“Well, no,” the ship admitted reluctantly. “All she said was, ‘Save yourself, you old fool.’ In her own way, that meant very much the same thing.”
Velmeran made an odd noise, and Valthyrra glanced quickly away in the thought that he was going to cry. Then, to her astonishment, she realized that he was laughing softly. She turned to stare at him, and then the humor of that struck her as well.
“Commander?” she said gently.
Velmeran glanced up at her, momentarily shocked to receive that title and its awesome burden of responsibility for the first time. Then he found that, while the title might be new, the mantle of responsibility had a familiar, almost comfortable feel with little power to frighten him. He rose and shrugged the shoulders of his armor into place.
“Progress report.”
“I have already sent the packs to assist the Kalvyn in breaking the invasion force over Tryalna,” Valthyrra reported. “Capture ships and other support vessels are also on their way to assist.”
“Donalt Trace said something about conversion devices in low orbit.”
“I will consult with Schayressa on the matter immediately.”
“Call me a lift, then.”
“I left it waiting for you,” Valthyrra said. “By the way, Schayressa reports that she discovered the conversion devices quite sometime ago and quietly removed them.”
“Send her my compliments on being so alert,” Velmeran said as he entered the lift. Privately, he wished that those devices had not been there.
He found Consherra and the members of his special tactics team waiting for him in the corner of the landing bay where the lift opened. Consherra had been crying; even the boundless energy and optimism of Tregloran was subdued by sadness and a sense of defeat, and he had been crying nearly as much as Consherra had. They looked up at him expectantly as the door opened, and he could guess their thoughts. An age in the history of the Methryn was passing. Mayelna had been the last of her pirate commanders. Velmeran was a warrior, not a pirate, and he required a warship to serve him.
“I am sorry for not telling you at the time,” he began. “I wanted you to concentrate on watching out for yourselves.”
“Of course, Commander. You had the success of the mission and the lives of your crewmembers to consider,” Trel, the oldest, answered for them all.
The lift doors snapped open again and Keth stepped out to join the small group. “Commander?”
“Yes, I need your help,” Velmeran said. “I believe that you have students who are ready to join the packs.”
“Yes, Commander. Ten in all.”
“I will take them off your hands right now,” Velmeran said, and turned to Barress. “I want you to take Gyllan, Merkollyn, and Delvon with five of those students to form a new pack. The remaining five will serve as replacements for our old pack. Treg, do you think you can handle that?”
“Can I?” The younger pilot seemed about to jump for joy, but caught himself and attained an exaggerated air of mature dignity. “I would be happy to oblige.”
“It is a bother, but someone has to do it,” Velmeran agreed, and turned back to Keth. “You know your students best, so I will leave it up to you to divide them between the two packs.”
“And what of the special tactics team?” Baress asked.
“That stays exactly the way it is,” Valthyrra insisted, cutting Velmeran off, as her camera pod pushed its way to the middle of the group. “Meran, the better part of your business is conducted through special tactics. And you have to admit that you could not very well sit back and direct a special tactics team from the bridge.”
“That is true, but Commanders are not allowed to fly,” he protested.
“Allowed? Where is that written? You kept a special tactics team in addition to your pack for two years, and there was no problem with that. Who is going to say you cannot?”
“Treg and I will be busy with our own packs, but we have no intention of giving up special tactics,” Baress said.
Consherra frowned. “I suppose that I would even be willing to go out with you again, if you ever need me.”
“Which brings us to the subject of lost members,” Valthyrra said, drifting slowly into the bay while bending her long neck to peer out the rear door. The others looked as well; they saw nothing, but they could all sense the approach of a single fighter.
“Lenna?” Velmeran asked as he came to stand beside the probe.
“Who else?” she asked in return. “She accepted landing instructions but says that she is too busy to talk. I am going to signal a crash alert and summon Dyenlerra to the bay.”
The three demanding beeps of the alarm sent the bay crew into immediate action, securing fighters in their racks so that they could be carried away. Half a minute later the incoming fighter ducked beneath the Methryn’s tail as it began its final approach. At the same time that it dropped its landing gear, the watchers in the bay noticed something unusual about the little ship. A curious white object could be seen standing upright in the hull between and just ahead of the two vertical fins. Velmeran’s first thought was that the fighter had been transfixed by a piece of wreckage hurtled from the explosion of the Challenger.
Then the fighter slipped smoothly into the bay and the strange object was revealed to be a passenger. Bill, the sentry, stood atop the ship, his powerful legs braced with his magnetic pads locked to the metal hull. Lenna brought the fighter to the front of the bay and landed gently, and Valthyrra immediately brought in a set of handling arms to pluck the automaton from atop the ship. Lenna opened the cockpit and climbed out just as Velmeran walked over to join her.
“I will not ask you why you brought that machine back with you,” he said slowly. “I will not even ask you if you are crazy, or simply foolish. But I would like to know how you managed to get it on top of your fighter and still get away in time.”
“Oh, I sent him on ahead,” Lenna explained as if it was some trifling matter. “In free-fall like that, the hardest thing was for him to climb out of the lock. He just walked up the sloping part of the wing and was waiting when I got there. And it was a near thing, I can tell you. The shield went up just as I was about to light out of there, so I had to wait it out or risk being caught in the Methryn’s fire. But I had to run for hell when that shield came down because I knew that the Fortress was going to blow in a matter of seconds when it did. Scared me half to death when it did, too. Even Bill commented on it.”
Velmeran turned to look at the sentry, which had just been lowered to the deck. Sentries were not known for their personalities, which rated somewhat above a toaster but well below a Starwolf carrier. Bill did seem to be developing one, but Velmeran was not sure if it was really his own or just a reflection of what Lenna believed him to be.
“He did save my life,” she added defensively, having noticed his stare. “Besides, I thought that I might use him in my spy work. Especially if he can always scan the security frequencies the automatons are linked on. He was very helpful.”
“The two of you have more than proved your worth,” Velmeran agreed. “But I want Valthyrra to completely rework his hardware to make him more intelligent and versatile.”
“Do I have a patient here?” Dyenlerra asked as she pushed her way to the center of the group, closing on Lenna.
“Not her, but you might have a look at Bill.”
“Bill? Who is Bill?” the medic asked. She glanced over her shoulder, and nearly jumped out of her armor.
-17-
As soon as Tryalna was secure and the remains of the human invasion force sent running for home, the Methryn and the Kalvyn made a short journey together. Surrounded by their packs, they dived side by side toward the fiery heart of that system. They came uncomfortably close to the warm yellow sun before they veered away, leaving behind an old friend on her brief sojourn to her final rest.
Commander Tryn carried Mayelna to her last rest, her broken body encased in white armor donated by Dyenlerra to replace her ruined armor. Nearly four thousand Starwolves, every crewmember of both ships who had a suit, crowded onto the broad platforms over the shock bumpers of the two ships, while those who did not watched from the windows of the observation decks.
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.
Battle of the Ring Page 25