The Starwolves

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  The Starwolves

  Starwolves 01

  By Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  -1-

  Valthyrra Methryn slipped smoothly out of starflight to cruise at a speed that was just sublight, paralleling the freighter lane, just far enough out to avoid being seen. She was as vast and black as space itself, three kilometers long and more than one across the short wings of her arrowhead shape. Flaring main drives were tucked protectively beneath her wings; her upper hull was a smooth, armored shell that she could turn toward enemy fire. She moved like a warship, with the smooth, graceftil control of a big ship with more than enough power for its size. She was beautiful and frightening to behold.

  By design, the Methryn was a destroyer of immense size, all engines and weapons and very little crew. She could turn and accelerate like a ship a fraction her size, while the cannons in her shock bumper were more than a match for a fleet of heavy cruisers. On the underside of her tapered nose was a cannon that could turn an entire planet into dust.

  By definition the Methryn was a carrier, existing to provide for her handful of fighters. Tucked up against her belly, insignificant against her total bulk, were a pair of bays which housed ninety fighters, a fifth of what she could allow. In truth, for all her speed and power, the Methryn had not seen actual battle in more than half a century. Her fighters ran down and captured her prey, and defended her against the occasional warship daring and foolish enough to take her to task for her discreet piracies. She carried a crew of barely two thousand, existing only to tend her fighters and their own needs. Valthyrra Methryn took care of herself, and she was more than capable of that. There were only twenty-two like her in known space.

  For now, Valthyrra Methryn settled in to wait. Company freighters, still running in starflight toward the system only two light-days ahead, would never see her cruising barely five thousand kilometers to one side of their lane. In starflight, their scanners were confined to a narrow cone immediately ahead, and were effective only in avoiding collisions. The first indication that they had wandered into a trap came when nine swift fighters descended upon their tail. Valthyrra had learned patience during her long career and this laying in wait did not bother her. That was not the case with her young pilots.

  For Velmeran, this was a time he dreaded as much as the run itself. He was the youngest pack leader on the ship; at twenty-five, a leader when most were still just students. Seven of the eight pilots in his pack were indeed the youngest on the ship, most having never flown with a pack when he had received them four months earlier. His last pilot was too old to fly a transport, let alone a fighter. His was a pack that should not have been, all students thrown together and expected to fight. It badly needed strong leadership, but that was something Velmeran not only lacked but feared.

  At times like this, Velmeran was led to wonder if the Commander hated him. Of course, he had always been on the best of terms with the Commander, and he knew that she thought well of him. He had the ability, he had to admit, but neither the experience nor the inclination to make the most of those abilities. He also knew that the Commander would have never done this to him. This was all Valthyrra's idea, because she believed in him too much.

  The lift lurched to an uncertain stop, and Velmeran smiled to himself in anticipation of revenge. Valthyrra would soon be in need of a complete overhaul, an involved process that took half a year in airdock and resulted in partial dismemberment of the unfortunate ship. Valthyrra disliked being dismantled almost as much as she disliked being confined in dock.

  Velmeran entered the wide bridge from the left wing. Bridge crewmembers in white armored suits sat at their stations or hurried about their duties. Consherra glanced up at him from the helm console on that side of the raised middle bridge, and an instant later Valthyrra quickly rotated her camera pod around and focused both lenses on him before turning her attention back to the Commander's console on the upper bridge. Velmeran frowned. The three of them together, Commander, helm and ship herself, was entirely too much motherly attention, and it only seemed to him like an accusation of his inability to make a pack of students fly like veterans.

  He hurried – as well as his armor would allow – up the steps to the upper bridge. Consherra was scrupulously bent to her screen, and his disposition was soured all the more to find the Commander in exactly the same position. Valthyrra was all but peering over her shoulder, her boom extended well back into the recess of the upper bridge. Velmeran wondered whose idea this was. Valthyrra and Mayelna were a pair; they were schemers, and seemed to take turns dreaming up ideas. The ship was audacious enough to be pleased with herself. The Commander simply had no conscience.

  "This one is yours, Meran," the Commander remarked without looking up.

  "So I had heard," Velmeran replied evenly.

  "I am sorry to have to send you out again so soon," Mayelna continued absently. "Opportunities come rarely, and it is rarer still when we can afford to make our own opportunities."

  Velmeran shrugged both sets of arms, an exaggerated gesture. "Did I complain?"

  "We can catch a bulk freighter in this lane," Valthyrra explained with bad timing. "A big, slow ship, all holds heavy with cargo. Something your students should be able to take without trouble."

  Mayelna glanced up in annoyance. "They are not students."

  "I cannot imagine what else they may be!" Velmeran exclaimed in disgust. "In our last two runs, we wrecked one cargo and allowed the other to escape. Escape! A Starwolf pack never misses its prey, never!"

  "You put your least experienced pilots on a ship that was too fast for them," Mayelna pointed out. "Let your pilots make a run or two, for the practice. Then you get on that ship's tail and bring her out of starflight for them to work over in their own good time. They only get frustrated if they run too long without success... you lost your last two ships to that."

  Valthyrra glanced from the Commander to Velmeran and back again so quickly that her lenses hardly had time to focus.

  "Try to be patient," Mayelna continued when he did not answer. "That is a large part of your problem. You are – you always have been – too good of a pilot to understand the limitations of those who lack your talent, and too young to understand that. Be patient and work with them. If they think that you believe in them, then they will learn to trust in their own abilities."

  Velmeran began to say something, then paused and turned away. Valthyrra lifted her pod in alarm, and even Mayelna sat up straight.

  "Velmeran, what about Keth?" the Commander asked quickly.

  He stopped and turned slowly. "I have no one to replace him. Not this late."

  "You will have to tell him," Mayelna insisted. "Before your pack goes out again. Or I will."

  "But Keth is the only experienced pilot I have," Velmeran protested weakly. "He is still better than most of the others."

  "But that is the point," the Commander insisted. "The others will continue to improve. Keth will only get worse."

  "Do you suppose that I do not know what happens out there?" Valthyrra asked. "Keth hesitates in his runs, and he cuts his turns wide. He tries to show off, but he only gets in the way. Pilots who refuse to retire usually end up running into something, like their target, or one of their own. Or me."

  Velmeran did not reply at once, but stood looking down. At last he nodded reluctantly. "Very well. But we cannot fly short. Let him fly this last time, and I will tell him when we come back. Just give me an experienced replacement."

  Mayelna looked up at him skeptically.

  Velmeran shrugged and turned to walk away. "Do what you want, then. You will anyway."

  She nodded. "Granted. By the way, Baressa's pack will fly watch for you."

  Velmeran stopped short and stared in u
tter astonishment. This was the insult added to injury. "Baressa?"

  "She is under strict orders not to offer so much as a word of advice."

  Velmeran, with a final gesture of hopelessness, turned away a last time.

  Mayelna turned back to her monitors, but Valthyrra made no secret of watching him go. Several of the others, Consherra in particular, watched him just as closely. Valthyrra swung her boom back around to the Commander's console.

  "Is he still your choice?" Mayelna asked without looking up.

  The pod itself nodded in agreement. "More than ever."

  Mayelna looked up sharply. "He is a good pilot, I will grant you that. But that does not make him a good leader."

  "No, the two are not related," she agreed. "But I still believe that when he learns to lose his fear of being a leader, then he will make a very good one."

  Mayelna leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms defiantly. "How can you know that better than me? I am his mother..."

  "And I have been a carrier for nearly twenty thousand years," Valthyrra replied firmly. "I should know who I want to command on my bridge. He will prove himself soon enough."

  The landing bay was dark and silent, empty except for the nine fighters seated in their racks just inside the forward bay door. They were starships in their own right, large for single-seat fighters, with main drives tucked under down-swept wings and a large star drive in their tail. In color they were a dull, nonreflective black – even their cockpit windows deeply tinted – like swift shadows against the darkness of space. They were sleek and powerful, built for speed and maneuverability, and there was nothing, neither piloted nor computer-driven, that could outfly them.

  For now they sat poised for flight, landing gear retracted, ready to leap from their racks into battle. They lacked only their pilots, who were as finely crafted by genetic engineering for their specific task as the ships themselves. The wolf-pack pilots had been made with the accelerated reflexes needed to fly their ships at tremendous speed, the strength and endurance for harsh accelerations and heightened senses to feel the locations of the ships about them. Together, a Starwolf pilot and ship made the most deadly and efficient war machine known.

  Velmeran completed his inspection of his ship and climbed to the rack's boarding platform, using the overhead supports to lift himself into the outthrust cockpit. He often came alone to the bay to be with his ship when his thoughts troubled him. The ship was the other half of his life; being with it reminded him why he flew with the packs, catching company freighters for the carrier he served. Too often he found the same answer. This had been decided for him a very long time ago. He could have no plans of his own because, like this ship, he was too specialized for his task to do anything else.

  He thought then, as he often did, of the first time he had sat in the cockpit of a wolf-pack fighter. It had been his mother's ship, sitting on its stiltlike landing gear centermost of its pack of nine, just in from a hunt. The pilots were always exhausted then, barely able to walk for fatigue and the dreamlike concentration of flight. But she had been alive and alert, eager to say to him the things she had to tell. She had stood for a long time, watching him without expression, and the intensity of that stare had demanded his full attention.

  "Listen well, Meran," she had said suddenly. "The Commander is old and very sick, and I will likely be called to take over his duties at any time. After that I will never fly with the packs again, and so I wanted to say this to you now.

  "Fifty thousand years ago we owned these stars we now haunt. But then the Union came like a sickness from within, a group of fringe worlds who thought that they would be happier and wealthier if they could run everything for themselves. And we fought them, back in the days when we were the old Terran fleet. But all of our bases were swallowed up, and our little ships were destroyed. We withdrew for a time to the one base that the Union never found, and tried to think of how so very few could fight something so large.

  "Our friends, the Aldessan of Valtrys, did what they could. They gave us these big carriers, self-contained worlds, and these fast little ships that can run down anything. And they made us better, so that we can fly these ships. The Union learned very quickly to leave us alone. They always think in terms of cost and profit, and it costs too much to fight us. They prefer to pay us ransom in the company freighters we take.

  "But it was a trap of our own making. They cannot defeat us without destroying themselves, and we cannot defeat them with the few carriers we have. We survive the only way we can, preying upon their freighters and protecting the fringe worlds. Four-fifths of the colonies are fringe worlds, not a part of the Union but dominated by it, and the companies steal away their lives and sell them back with transport charges attached. If we do any real good, it is in the fact that we keep the Union humble and the companies from making slaves of the minor worlds."

  She had paused a moment to run a hand lovingly over the sleek hull of the fighter. Watching her, he had realized that these little ships were more than just toys or machines to the pilots, but a part of themselves. And Mayelna had been there to say farewell to her own, knowing that she would be going up to the bridge to stay in a matter of hours.

  "Someday you will most likely fly one of these ships," she had continued. "I almost wish that you will not. It is a terrible life, and often a short one. But you are a Starwolf and made to fly, and you will have only half a life if you do not. You will know what it is like to become one with this machine. To outthink and outreact your on-board computer and never need to look at scan because you can feel in the back of your mind the singing of the crystal engines of all the ships about you. The fear for your own life, the remorse and guilt for what you must do as a warrior, the sorrow for those you will lose along the way. All the heavy prices you must pay, and still it is worth it all. Because this is what you exist for. One day you will understand."

  He had listened, and he remembered every word. But he had not understood. He had known only a growing, impatient desire to have one of those sleek little ships for his own.

  * * * *

  Now Velmeran understood only too well. He had been content as a mere pilot. Now he was pack leader. With that came the responsibility for eight lives beyond his own, the greater responsibility to defend his ship, and the fear of failure in those duties. He dared not fail. With that also came the relentless need to know that he was doing the right thing whenever he led his pack into battle, that there really was some justification for the death and destruction, the lives that were risked and sometimes lost; and above all else he needed to know, for his own satisfaction, that he was not just a machine made for war, with no life or will of his own.

  He had no answers to any of those questions, but still he took his pack out and fought. Perhaps that in itself was answer enough, but he did not yet have the experience to understand what it meant.

  Velmeran paused when he saw his reflection in the black monitor screen that dominated the upper part of the fighter's console. The Starwolves, the Kelvessan, were a race apart, vaguely human in appearance but not derived from human stock. They were small in size, disproportionately long of limb with powerful arms and legs that looked to have been matched to a body several sizes too small. Far more than just an extra set of arms and unnatural strength separated Kelvessan from men.

  Indeed, as he peered at his reflection, he thought that he could never pass as human. His eyes, outsized for good light sensitivity, were more than twice as large as they should have been. His ears, equally outsized and set farther back on his head, had been tapered to a delicate point for purely aesthetic reasons. He also thought that his nose was about half the size it should have been, and his mouth was too wide. And he had always been told that a Starwolf's shaggy mop of brown hair, remarkably thick and soft, was natural padding against helmet and collar.

  Other, more extensive refinements were not visible. His bones were not calcium but precipitates of iron, and quite as hard as iron bars of equal thickness. Hi
s cartilage and tendons could withstand tons of stress and his nervoussystem was electrical rather than electrochemical, allowing reflexes that were thousands of times faster than those of humans. His strength was tremendous, to allow him to not just withstand but function under forces that would kill an ordinary man. He was a machine, the living control center for an equally remarkable starship.

  But was there also a person within that carefully engineered machine? He certainly was not human. He accepted that. But if not human, then what was he? He was a Kelvessa, a Starwolf. His only hope was that those simple words described something more than just a fighting machine.

  The Vinthra military complex was by far the largest free-orbiting station in the Rane Sector, an immense, imposing structure that sprawled across several kilometers of space. Over a thousand ships, from tiny couriers to the vast, threatening hulks of battleships and heavy carriers, could be docked and serviced there, while another fifty could slip into its airdocks for extensive repairs. Between the firepower of the ships stationed there and the shields and cannons of the planetary defense system, not even a Starwolf carrier could approach this world in open hostility. For this was Vinthra, and Vannkarn, its port, housed the government and military command for this entire sector.

  A single ship moved swiftly toward the station, braking gently with its forward engines. Its lines were those of a Union destroyer, sleek and powerful, with a slender hexagonal hull and armor plates concealing its drives. Now it was the private yacht of the High Councilor of the Rane Sector, a fact that was proven as other, sometimes larger ships moved quietly out of its way. Its path was centered upon a single portion of that vast station, a set of moorings near the shuttle bays set aside for diplomatic vessels.

  A single figure stood at the window of the carpeted and paneled corridor that adjoined those mooring berths.

  He was a tall man, at two meters a giant by modern standards, lean and well-muscled. Although no longer young, he was far from being old. Indeed he was well thought of as handsome in a rugged way that was now rare in his diminished race. And yet there was a sense of darkness about him, a ruthless, mercenary quality reflected in the hard, measuring glare of his black eyes. His physical presence was far more threatening than his rank, so that those who crossed that section of corridor passed through quietly.