Tactical Error

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  “Even allowing for five hundred centuries of planetary drift, there is only one planet it could be,” she explained, turning her camera pod to the large viewscreen on the wall to one side of the table. A simple schematic of the Union and Republic space came up. “It is located here, in territory held by the Republic but near to Union space. This was once quite near a fairly active region of human space, near the center of that one cone of human expansion that led into what was to become Union space. But those were ancient colonies, dating well before the Act of Unification, and they were all destroyed in the early years of the war. It has always been a remote region of the Republic.”

  “Remote?” Consherra asked. “It is almost off the chart.”

  “That is hardly surprising,” Valthyrra commented. “We know that the Republic was struggling to survive in those days. When Terra was lost, they withdrew to their major colonies that had not been ravaged by the war, those most remote from Union space. I would guess that Terra herself would lie somewhat nearer to the heart of the present Republic, and deeper in from the regions of Union space.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Theralda agreed, continuing this duel of the data processors. “Of course, Home Base was later severely damaged in an attack by a Union assault force that had wandered upon its secret location entirely by chance. That led to the destruction of the computer libraries that held a considerable amount of this old but no longer important information, such as the location of former major worlds like Terra and Alameda. And yet, while those worlds were abandoned for reasons that even I cannot guess, I do know that the evacuation was sudden and quick, and that the Union never completely destroyed them or attempted to hold or plunder them.”

  “They were unlivable,” Keflyn reminded them needlessly.

  “Exactly,” Theralda agreed. “But we now know the probable location of the planet Alameda, and somewhere on that world may still exist important clues for finding Terra herself.”

  “Yes, a brilliant deduction,” Valthyrra approved.

  “Thank you very much,” she responded amiably, turning her camera pod toward the Methryn’s probe and dipping her lenses as if taking a bow. “Now I do not expect such clues to be obvious, unfortunately. I recall no record of the climate of Alameda before it was abandoned, but it is now a mountainous, heavily forested world just recovering from a long, hard ice age, with great sheets of continental glaciers still in retreat. It is really too cold for human habitation, but has since been settled as a Feldenneh colony.”

  “Feldenneh?” Velmeran asked, surprised. The Feldenneh was a race feral in appearance, long-lived, and intelligent, but not very populous, quiet and very peaceful in nature. They had no sympathies for the Union, but their home world and colonies were within Union space and so subject to its dictates. “That makes this a Union-held colony by default.”

  “Yes, but there is no Union representation, diplomatic or military, on the planet,” Theralda explained. “The colony was only settled in the past decade, and there is still only the one, main settlement. The Feldenneh are not great explorers, which would explain why they have not found traces of any previous settlement.”

  “That and the effects of heavy glaciation,” Valthyrra added. “Continental glaciers can sweep away the ruins of even extensive modern civilizations in a relatively short amount of geologic time.”

  “A most astute observation,” Theralda approved.

  “You are most gracious,” Valthyrra purred with delight, dipping her own armored camera pod.

  “Oh, enough!” Velmeran exclaimed, smiling. “You two are incorrigible. It seems to me that we have discovered this lead only just in time. If there are any remaining ruins, the Union would know about it soon enough. I suppose that you have not been there yourself.”

  “No, we dare not,” Theralda agreed. “The presence of a Starwolf carrier, or Starwolves in general, would call undue attention to this planet. I would not care to have to fight the Union for possession of this world, once they learn of its importance. And above all else, I would not have them discover the location of Terra before us.”

  “Yes, that is what I have to do!” Keflyn declared suddenly.

  When everyone turned to stare at her in mystification, she made a vague shrugging gesture and sat down self-consciously.

  Velmeran thought he understood what she was talking about. “Yes, your premonition that you have some important task to perform. You assume that I should send you to this colony, to find out what you can.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that does sound like a good idea.”

  Velmeran turned to Venn Keflyn, sitting back on her tail to one side of the table. “Have you had anything to do with this?”

  “We had discussed the nature of premonitions earlier,” she agreed. “Since my people are not subject to such admonitions, it is not my problem.”

  That left Velmeran to contemplate what he had’accomplished by having this Valtrytian on his ship for the past twenty years. They were full of advice, but they never seemed to give any of it.

  He glanced at his daughter. “Could you give me one good reason why I should agree to such a thing?”

  “I can give you five,” Keflyn answered. “First, you have a ship to care for and cannot go yourself. The same is true for Consherra, and for Commander Tregloran. And Lenna Makayen is previously occupied. And it was my idea in the first place.”

  “And give me one good reason why I should send you instead of one of the experienced members of my special tactics team like Baress?”

  “Because I want to go?”

  Velmeran considered that for a moment, watching her closely. “I suppose you can go, if you are smart enough to figure out a way to get yourself on that planet undetected.”

  Keflyn thought about that for a long moment. “Well, there is a colony on that planet, and that means a supply ship of some type. The Feldenneh have always been supportive of the Starwolves. A colony that small might not be served by a regular freight line or a company ship, and that would mean a small, independent freighter. The independents have always been on our side as well, since we protect their shipping from Union monopolies. I suppose that we could work something out.”

  “Now that is an interesting suggestion,” Tregloran remarked. “Theralda, would you happen to know anything about that?”

  “Oh, I just might,” the ship replied, as pleased with herself as her Commander was that they had anticipated this. “The ship that services the colony is the Thermopylae, a small, very old, and slightly impoverished Free Trader under the command of a Jon Addesin. She makes this run every six weeks, since the Feldenneh colony is presently exporting a fair amount of specialty wood products back to their own worlds. If arrangements can be made quickly, you can be on that next run.”

  “Are you still interested in going?” Velmeran asked.

  “Oh, certainly,” Keflyn insisted. “I mean, it could hardly be dangerous, compared to Lenna’s expeditions. And it would be nice to see other worlds outside the Methryn for once.”

  - 3 -

  Kanis was a neutral world, at least in theory. A cold, mountainous planet of dark forests, it supported only a small population that thrived on the export of one luxury item, the immense, soft pelts and downy wool of the native langies, beasts of small wits and large tempers. Being independent of Union rule, there was no trade monopoly for that one product, and Free Traders shared the market with smaller Company ships. Since it was now late summer in the north and late winter in the south, the second of the biannual export of wool and pelts was still weeks away. There would be no Company ships down in the port of Kalennes or orbiting the planet itself, nor had there been in several months.

  Kanis was a favorite world of the Starwolves, both because of its cool climate and its relative unimportance to the Union. It was one of the rare worlds where they could come for port leave and not have to wear their heavy armor, or fear attack from fanatics and assassins. Of course, the benefits were mutual. The consta
nt presence of Starwolf carriers in the skies above this world helped to insure that the Union maintained an attitude of polite indifference. And with every ship in the Wolf fleet calling here for brief vacations, as well as the regular patrols of the Methryn, Kanis was the best protected independent world in Union space.

  It seemed like a good place for Keflyn to find a Free Trader that would take her to Vannkarn for her meeting with the Thermopylae. It seemed unlikely that Union spies would observe her transfer from the Methryn, at least as long as they were discreet. Kanis was by no means immune to Union spies. Velmeran had once faced both a Union operative and an assassin in the port of Kalennes, on the same day.

  In order to maintain the necessary discretion, the Methryn had settled quietly into orbit and immediately began putting packs and transports down to the surface as she would during any other port leave. Keflyn followed several hours later, after nearly half of the Methryn’s crew had already been down and spread out through the town for some time.

  Keflyn had to wonder if she was doing the right thing. A large part of the strength of the Starwolves lay in their numbers and organization. A Starwolf was never alone, yet she would be completely alone for several weeks. If she got into trouble, she would be on her own. She would be without the defense of her armor, or the very important cooling it provided to protect her from the oppressive heat of human environments. Above all else, her safety would be completely dependent upon the trust she had to give to a great many people who would help her along the way, aliens all.

  “Your contact on the surface will be Iyan Makayen, Lenna’s older half-brother,” Velmeran told her as he helped to carry her bags to the transport that would take her down. She was dressed in human manner, in clothes of dark, heavy cloth, and a cape to hide her Kelvessan form and lower set of arms; her hair was worn in two loose braids to hide her pointed ears.

  “Is he anything like Lenna?” Keflyn asked as she began tossing her bags into the open hatch of the transport.

  “I have not seen him in over twenty years,” Velmeran said. “He is not of Trader stock, as Lenna’s mother was. I remember that he was a quiet, practical man, more cautious than Lenna, but one to be trusted. He has made arrangements for you to travel on the Free Trader Karabyn, which will take you through two scheduled stops before she leaves you in Vannkarn. The Karabyn’s captain will put you in touch with the underground in Vannkarn, and they should be able to get you on the Thermopylae.”

  On the way down, Keflyn had a few minutes to think hard about her own future. She looked upon the role of a pilot, even a pack leader, as dull and repetitive. She certainly did not want to give up her command status as a pilot to become an officer like her mother, but centuries could pass before she might have a ship of her own. The only answer for her seemed to be special tactics, and she was contemplating stepping into the role that Lenna Makayen would be forced to vacate in only a few years. Although Keflyn did not know it, she was cursed with her father’s leadership abilities. She possessed a quick wit and insatiable curiosity that could never be satisfied in any role short of the one making the rules, and if she could not be the leader then she was much better off working on her own. She did not know that Velmeran had himself nearly left the Methryn for special tactics, only that he had acquired such a team in addition to his own pack in some manner that she had never considered.

  She knew only that things had apparently been handed to Velmeran to comfortably fill up the limits of his considerable abilities, not that he had sometimes paid a bitter price for his accomplishments.

  The transport landed in the small port field outside the town of Kalennes. It was night, and they planned to use the darkness combined with the dark clothes that Keflyn wore to cover her departure from the transport. As soon as the hatch opened, she grabbed her things and made a rush for the concealment of the shadows at the edge of the port buildings.

  “Miss Keflyn?”

  The voice had come out of the shadows of one dark corner, a rich, warm baritone that was deeper than any male Kelvessan voice could ever be, and holding a curious accent that she recognized instantly as being the same as Lenna’s. She ducked into that same dark corner, her large, sensitive eyes able to pierce the shadows and see the tall, broad-shouldered man who waited for her.

  “You are?” she asked cautiously.

  “Iyan Makayen,” he answered briskly. He was wearing the uniform of the local police; Keflyn remembered Lenna saying that he was a port constable.

  “You look like Velmeran, for all that you’re a girl,” he observed, peering at her closely.

  She nodded. “He is my father.”

  That seemed to startle this tall man, but he made no comment of it. He reached to take a couple of her bags. “I should think that we would be well advised to get you under cover as soon as possible. It’s a slow time in the season here in town, with the rangers still in the wild and only the one ship in port.”

  He turned and backed his way through a wide, double door into the hallway beyond, gallantly holding the door for her. He had by chance taken the heaviest of the bags, and he was having some trouble with their weight. She could have carried all of the bags easier than he carried the two, but they had to maintain appearances. He was a head taller than her and weighed more than half again as much.

  The main, commercial district of Kalennes was enclosed into a single structure known as the Mall, although the heavy, timber-supported roof was meant more to keep out wind and weather than the cold itself. As her companion had said, there were few people about even though the hour was still early. These people were of a purer Terran stock than most humans, tall, light of skin and hair, and heavy of build. Small and dark, Lenna was plainly of a very different racial stock from these people. She was obviously an outworlder, in spite of her disguise.

  “Is Lenna still on the Methryn?” Iyan asked quietly as they walked quickly through the nearly deserted corridor, most of the shops already closed.

  “No, she went over to the Vardon a year ago,” Keflyn replied, wondering how much she should say. No one had told her anything about this. “She is on an important mission of her own just now, or she would be here instead of me.”

  “I always thought that she would come to a bad end, running off with Starwolves like she did,” he remarked, mostly to himself. “It seems that she had been much better at delaying that bad end than I would have thought.”

  Out on the port field, a small, dark form skittered on spider’s legs through the night. It was no living creature but an automaton, a small mechanical device with a simple, box-like body and a single optical sensor for an eye, carried on six long, multi-jointed legs. It scurried rapidly from one patch of darkness to the next until it eventually disappeared into the blackness beneath the transport that had just brought Keflyn to the surface. It was still there when the transport lifted from the field a short time later.

  The transport moved back into its bay, hovering in place while the manipulator arms moved in to capture it, lifting the small ship directly to its berth in the racks so that the bay doors could remain open. Velmeran waited outside while the transport was locked down and secured for flight. After a long moment, the main hatch opened and Trel stepped out.

  “All set?” Velmeran asked.

  “I think so,” the special tactics pilot answered. “Everything went according to plan, and I could not see that we were observed.”

  “Well, we’ve done the best we can,” Velmeran remarked. “That freighter is due to leave port early tomorrow morning. We will have to wait a few more hours after that for the sake of discretion, and then we will be on our own way.”

  “Commander Velmeran, please come to the bridge,” Valthyrra’s voice echoed through the bay.

  “She said please,” Velmeran remarked. “It must be serious.”

  It apparently was serious, since Consherra hurried to meet him as soon as he stepped out of the lift onto the bridge. “We have just received an achronic message from Home Base. The
y have called us in, as soon as we can get there.”

  “What?” Velmeran could not have been more surprised, or confused. “Did they give any reason why? Is there some emergency, or have they just missed our charming presence?”

  “No explanation,” Valthyrra reported as they came to the center of the bridge. “We have simply been ordered to return. Ordered, I might add, in a very abrupt, even curt manner, that I for one found quite insulting.”

  Velmeran leaned back against the console of the central bridge, his arms crossed, obviously deep in thought. “We can hardly leave Union space at this time. Lenna will be signaling for us to come for her as soon as she finds what she is looking for, and now we have Keflyn off the ship as well. Two of the most critical missions that we have ever had running at the same time, and they expect us to drop everything and run home.”

  “Do we ignore the order?” Consherra asked. “You are the Fleet Commander. In theory, only you can give such orders.”

  “There is one higher authority,” Valthyrra reminded them. “This order has come directly from the Republican Senate.”

  “Oh, my!” Velmeran muttered thoughtfully. “Well, I have to assume that such an august body has a very good reason for doing this, although I would never bet money on it. Valthyrra, call up the Vardon and have her assume our patrol. Treg and Theralda are going to have to watch things here. If Lenna’s call comes in, we will just have to drop whatever we are doing. We will get under way as soon as the Karabyn leaves port tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, mercy!” Valthyrra exclaimed. “The powers that be will have to wait a few hours more.”

  “They will have to wait a few days,” he told her. “I refuse to wreck this ship rushing home for some unexplained summons. No jumps, and no excessively high speeds. We will hurry, but we refuse to hustle.”

  Hours later, after the transport bay had been secured for flight, a small, dark shape dropped down from beneath one of the little ships. It crouched low to the deck for a long moment, using its single optical sensor to probe the immediate environment. It was not a particularly intelligent machine, less so even than a sentry. It had only one purpose, to make its way into the heart of a Starwolf carrier. It had no clear idea of its goal or how to get there, nor even what it was looking for. Its primary logic function was to compare what it saw with its internal records of starship design, and to keep moving until it found what it sought. It was also programmed to keep itself under cover and avoid discovery.