Engaging her star drive momentarily, she jumped past the Fortress and out of range in a matter of seconds. Coasting at just sunlight, she made a slow retreat out of the system to give her fighters a chance to overtake her, still engaged with the hundreds of stingships that had already altered their course to follow. It was humiliating for a Starwolf carrier, beaten and battered, to turn and run, unprecedented in recent memory.
“All fighters close to five hundred kilometers and remain on defensive alert,” she began her instructions. “Damage control and engineering, begin immediately repairs. Engineering, take a look at that damaged engine. All nonactive personnel will remain at standby until further notice.”
“How bad is it?” Tryn asked.
Schayressa brought her camera pod back to the upper bridge. “Not so bad, really. Aside from the wrecked engine, I have no mechanical damage. I just need acres and acres of new plating.”
“So? Are you thinking about going back to fight that thing?”
“Oh, I can fight again,” she assured him. “But I am not going to until I figure out how… Hello?”
Commander Tryn glanced up at her. “What is it?”
“A message coming in,” she explained, looking bemused. “Sector Commander Donalt Trace wants to talk to us.”
“Oh?” The Commander sat back in his chair, pondering that. “Surely he has more on his mind than just gloating.”
“It cannot hurt to listen to what he has to say,” Keldryn offered. Like all good second-in commands, she was certain that the upper bridge needed her advice to function best.
“Very well, put him on,” Tryn agreed. “Do you have a picture?”
“Audio only.”
“Good. I do not have to look at him.”
“Commander?” a voice asked over the static of an open channel. The Union did not have good achronic communications.
“This is Commander Tryn of the Kalvyn.”
“Yes, this is Commander Donalt Trace on board the Fortress Marenna Challenger. So, what do you think of my new ship?”
“Very impressive,” Tryn agreed, very noncommmital in his reply. He meant to learn all he could while not giving away any information… not even an opinion. “You are the Captain of this ship?”
“Me? No! I designed the Fortress; but Maeken Kea is the Captain of the Challenger,” Trace continued. “You know, I was hoping that it would be the Methryn that would come blundering into the trap you sprung. Still, it might be better this way. I knew that the first ship to run up against my Fortress would turn tail and run until it knew what it was fighting. The second time around will be a fight to the death. Now you, of course, are thinking that you are going to find a way to defeat my Fortress, while I know you cannot. We shall see who is right.”
“I suppose we shall.”
“Better yet, why not send for Velmeran and the Methryn,” Trace suggested. “He is the best you have. This is the best I have. Why not just have it out, and settle that question once and for all?”
“This is the Kalvyn’s sector, not the Methryn’s,” Tryn said to avoid a direct reply.
“Perhaps, but Velmeran has often fought where he is needed,” Trace reminded him. “Still, whatever you think best. My Fortress has already given you a minor mauling. I would just as well finish you off now and deal with Velmeran next. He should come running in a hurry when he hears that my Fortress destroyed one of his own carriers.”
“As you said earlier, we shall see,” Tryn replied.
“Yes, so we shall,” Commander Trace agreed. With that the channel went abruptly dead.
Tryn looked up at Schayressa’s camera pod. “Well, what do you make of that? He seems very sure of himself.”
“He might have reason to be,” the ship answered. “I have been reviewing the scan of his ‘Fortress’… a very apt name, I might add. It has a defense for everything we could throw against it. The only way to beat it is by superior strategy.”
“Superior strategy?” Tryn sat for a moment, musing on that. He looked up at Keldryn, waiting patiently at his side. “You go and take a look at our damage and report back to me. Schayressa, park yourself outside this system and do what you can with your damage. Send out two or three drones to scout out what they can. I want to know where those warships and stingships came from, and what else they might have in hiding. And warm up the achronic.”
“The Methryn?”
Tryn shrugged. “If he wants Velmeran so badly, I suppose that we should send him Velmeran.”
The weather at the port of Kallenes had turned bad during the night. A wet mixture of hail and sleet was driven by a fitful gale, whipping down out of the mountains now hidden behind a blank wall of mist and clouds. Dawn came late and warmed only to a dim twilight. The port field was transformed into a glacial expanse of damp, heavy snow that had gathered in crusty banks on the backs of the black wolf fighters and transports huddled like langies against the winter blast in the near corner of the field.
The Mall that morning was cold, damp, and dark, the skylights covered over with snow so that the dim lighting gave the appearance of late night. To add to that, no one was about the narrow streets that morning except those who had no choice, and a few dozen Starwolves who had the place entirely to themselves. One of the few travelers about the Mall that morning was Velmeran, waiting impatiently for the tailor to open his shop so that he could collect his armor.
After two days in regular clothes, the heavy, restrictive suit was actually a welcome comfort. He had never felt so vulnerable as he had these past two days without it. It had been a confused, violent port leave, he reflected as he untied his braids and brushed out his long, thick hair. Still, he did not regret a moment of it.
The Feldennye tailor packaged up his new clothes and he left with the bundle under one of his lower arms. Although he had not expected it, still he was not surprised to find Lenna waiting for him outside, pacing against the cold. She glanced up expectantly as he opened the door, and he could tell by her astonishment that she did not recognize him.
“Sergei?” she asked hesitantly, drawing back a fearful step.
“Sure now, and you were expecting Pack Leader Velmeran?” he asked, affecting the local dialect to reassure her teasingly. She still did not know who he really was, assuming the name he had given her to be his own, and he preferred matters that way. “You are out early this morning, considering that you put away my complimentary drinks as well as your own last night. Come to see me off?”
“You’ve been called away, then?” Lenna asked, frowning, as she stared at the ground.
“There has been trouble, barely an hour past, and I must go,” he explained simply. “The rest of the pilots will be recalled to the ship before the morning is over. I must go back immediately.”
“And you are needed so badly that they could not spare you a few minutes more?”
Now Velmeran frowned, wondering if he could spare her that much. “Perhaps we could walk — slowly — to the port together. That would be a few minutes.”
“And all I’m going to get, it seems,” Lenna muttered as they started off together.
“If you were human, then I would love you,” Lenna mused quietly as they walked. “And I do regret that you didn’t take me to bed last night. Just between friends, and I had thought that we were friends enough for that.”
“I have a mate, Consherra the Terrible, and I love only her,” he reminded her. “But I will not forget my promise. I will find a ship for you. Do you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you,” Lenna insisted, although that thought no longer filled her with the excitement it once had. There was now only one ship for her, and that was the Methryn. “You’ll be coming back? I’ll see you again?”
Velmeran shook his head. “I doubt that we will ever meet again. You will be gone long before I ever make it back to this place. Valthyrra Methryn will be going home for her overhaul after this, and that means half a standard year in airdock.”
“W
ell, I’ll miss you,” Lenna said. “Friends we may be and nothing more, but you’re certainly the most interesting friend I’ve ever had.”
“Thank you,” Velmeran replied, smiling. “You are a little strange yourself.”
Lenna laughed. “I didn’t mean it quite that way, but you have it right after all. At least now I know what we have in common. Is this it?”
The Starwolves had landed their ships in the corner of the field less than a hundred meters from the door where they now stood. Velmeran pushed open the door and stepped out into the dim light and swirling snow. Here, in the corner of the building, the storm did not seem so bad. But they had not gone ten steps when a violent blast of wind struck with hurricane force. Velmeran, anchored by the weight of his armor and his great strength, hardly noticed, but Lenna had to hold his arm to keep from being blown away.
“Perhaps you should stay here,” he told her. “You are not dressed to go out in a storm like this, not all the way out to the fighters and back.”
“This is good-bye, then?” she asked. “So, take care of yourself, Mr. Rachmaninoff.”
“Vol lerrasson vyen de dras schyrrassalon,” Velmeran said, then turned and walked away into the storm. Lenna stood for a long moment looking as if she might call to him or run after him. But his black form disappeared quickly into the blowing snow, and he was gone.
After a moment more she turned and hurried back inside. Not because of the cold, but because she had resolved to go through with her plan and time was of the essence. Using the shelter of the Mall as much as she could, she cut diagonally across its length to that section of town where she shared a wood-frame house with her brother. He was not there, and she hurried to take advantage of his absence.
Fortunately she had what she needed in her own meager wardrobe, one of the three good sets of clothes she kept for special occasions. One suit was in most ways identical to the one Velmeran had worn, the pants a dark brown with a shirt of a somewhat lighter shade. The cape was a slightly darker brown, a size too large to accommodate her length so that it hung too loose and full from the shoulders. But that, she reflected, was all the better. The boots and belt were leather dyed to match the cape.
Once dressed, Lenna looked at herself appraisingly in the mirror. She was fortunate that she reflected her mother’s space-faring race rather than her father’s pale, stocky folk. She was just a little taller than most Starwolves, but she had the same wiry build, long of limb and small of body. Her eyes were large, if not quite large enough, and her small nose was not quite small enough. But proper use of makeup corrected most of her shortcomings, and her artistic skills were equal to the task. At least her skin was the same medium tan, her eyes dark, and her hair the same curious wood-brown.
She combed the front portion of her hair down over her face and carefully cut and trimmed until she had the typical long, heavy bangs of a Kelvessa. Satisfied that she had her hair right, she divided its length into two parts and tied it into the thick, loose braids that Velmeran had worn.
Finished, she returned to the mirror to admire the results. Obviously she could not pass herself off as a Starwolf, but she did make a passable Starwolf pretending to be human. It was a disguise that would not work long, but it should be enough to get her into a transport and aboard the Methryn. Once on the ship, she could surely keep herself hidden until they were under way.
Realizing suddenly that she had spent a full hour on her disguise, she hurried to collect a few things she meant to take with her, mostly extra clothes. She added to this her helm and navigation manuals and all the Union credits she had, over eight thousand in all. She was still packing when she heard her brother enter.
“It’s me,” he called. “Bit of an accident down at the warehouses, and I got my pants thoroughly soaked helping to clear boxes.”
At that moment he passed by the door of her room on the way to his own, then paused and backed up to stand in the doorway. He did not need to ask what she was planning; that was obvious enough. He also knew better than to try to talk her out of it, although he did make a token effort.
“Do you really think they’re going to permit that, now?” he asked. “They’ll throw you out the nearest airlock when they find you.”
“As that may be,” Lenna agreed. “But I’d rather take an hour of heaven than stay planet-bound a moment longer. I was born up there, and it may be that I’ll die up there soon enough. But you worry for nothing. They’ll not do a thing to hurt me.”
“You’re sure of that, now? You’ve only met the one, and he threw Lesries through a wall and then shot another to pieces and broke his fool neck. Some friend you’ve got there, Lenna Makayen, to go betting your life on his mercy.” He paused a moment to regard her closely. “Well, I can see for myself that you’re resolved all the same. Be off with you, then, but hurry. This last hour you couldn’t tell the howling wind from their little ships going up.”
Lenna stared at him in disbelief. “You’ll not stop me?”
“I thought I made that plain.”
Lenna returned to her hurried packing. “There’s a fair number of things in the studio I’ve been saving. You can sell them to the next buyer to come through. Remember that there will be some money coming in on those limited-edition representations. Keep it.”
“How do I explain your disappearance?”, Iyan asked. “‘Lenna? Oh, she ran off to join the Starwolves’?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said as she tied the bundle together. “Say I went back to the Traders. That’s where I’m likely to end up, so it will likely be the truth in the long run. Tell the Trade Association to replace me with that kid they’ve had me training.”
“He’s ready?”
“Good enough.”
“And will I be seeing you again?”
She paused and sighed heavily. “How can I say at this time? Don’t count on it. But if I don’t go out the door now, you’ll be seeing me again soon.”
“On your way, then,” Iyan said as he stepped back to allow her out the door. “You be careful, now. What you have in mind is dangerous enough. But then, you know who you’ve taken up with.”
The problem, of course, was that she did not. She knew that the Methryn was the abode of such legendary figures as Velmeran, Mayelna, and Valthyrra Methryn herself, but she also had Sergei to protect her from them. In her own overactive imagination, Velmeran was a towering, dashingly handsome hulk with sophisticated wit and daredevil nerve, while Sergei was gentle and pensive.
Her clothing, adequate for a Starwolf, was by no means sufficient to keep her warm in this weather, and the large bundle under her right arm was a wearisome burden. She crossed the Mall and left through the door where she had parted from Velmeran an hour earlier. She could not see five meters ahead for the snow and mist, and she had no way of knowing if Starwolf transports were still parked out there, or even for certain where they might be. The Kelvessa sensed the secondary generators idling in the ships, but she knew only the direction in which she had seen Velmeran go. Dressed as she was, in this wind and bitter cold, she would not survive long if she became lost.
Lenna had gone perhaps three-quarters of the distance when she heard the dull, bone-shaking roar of a transport heading straight up. Seconds later the curtain of snow parted before her, revealing the right side of a transport buried up to its hull in a drift. She ran up to the airlock door just behind the forward cabin and pounded on it with a numbed fist. The door opened immediately, and a startled Starwolf in black armor stared down at her.
“Are you going up soon?” she called over the wind.
“Right now, in fact. They just called down to say that everyone was accounted for. Another minute and you would have been left behind.”
He reached down for her bundle. Although it was nearly a third of her weight, she did her best to lift it up with the contemptuous ease a Starwolf would have displayed. By the time that she had climbed aboard, the pilot had gone to stow her package. A lucky guess showed her which button
closed the airlock. She collapsed in one of the four seats behind the forward cabin, too cold to be properly frightened.
“Did you miss the call?” the pilot asked as he returned.
“I was not in armor, and I did not have a radio,” she explained, hoping that was a valid excuse. She slipped into the curious Starwolf accent with amazing ease.
“That must be the best disguise that I have ever seen,” he said as he passed. “You look almost human.”
“Thanks,” Lenna muttered. The truth was that she was fearful that melting snow caught in her hair was threatening her makeup.
The pilot took his seat in the forward cabin and she heard him strapping in, so she did the same. Moments later she felt the transport lift straight up on its field drive. Then she was flattened into her seat by at least twenty-five G’s as the little ship climbed steeply. Her space-bred ancestry allowed her to endure this with little discomfort; no true human could have remained conscious under that unrelenting stress. Some would not have survived.
It did not last more than five minutes, presumably all the time it took to get this ship into orbit. She released her straps and searched the rear cabin until she found a small mirror. Quickly reassured that her disguise had not suffered, she went to the forward cabin for a look out its wide windows.
The first thing she saw was the Methryn, no more than twice its own length away and completely filling the forward view. She had seen pictures of the carriers and knew their specifics, but nothing could accurately convey the true size, power, and majesty of these vast ships. The transport overtook the larger ship rapidly, passing beneath its broad belly, making for the small bay that stood open near the front, a pocket of intense light against the blackness.
“Who are you, anyway?” the pilot asked as he maneuvered into position.
“Consherra.” She offered the name of the only female Starwolf she knew, the one that Velmeran had named his mate.
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