Tactical Error

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  “Yes, we found those long ago,” Jaeryn admitted thoughtfully. “Those things are no longer in our ships. How did you know?”

  “A simple, logical deduction, based upon a long history of associating with Commander Donalt Trace,” he explained. “So there you are, I suppose. You can no longer trust the Union, and you have reason to doubt just about everything they ever told you. Now you are wondering if you belong anywhere. That is why you held back from the battle.”

  “Exactly,” Jaeryn agreed, regaining some authority of his own. “Of course, the fact that they betrayed us does not automatically make you our friends. They raised us to believe in a great many high ideals that they apparently do not believe in themselves, and they told us many things about you that appearances argue could be true. It seemed to me that the best way to prove matters was to arrange a confrontation under circumstances that we could control.”

  Consherra, seated at the helm station, rolled her eyes. “You would almost think that he is talking to himself.”

  “Listening to your communications has also been very informative,” he continued. “Actually, we arrived before you did, so we have overheard quite a lot. It seems that we are both orphans in this universe. Are we people or are we property, Commander Velmeran?”

  “I was just about to stress that very point,” Velmeran answered. “I would like for you to declare your intentions and be done with it. I have some very important business to attend right now. For one thing, I am going to make certain that Kelvessan are not treated like property again. Are you going to help me?”

  Jaeryn considered that briefly. “Are you asking me to surrender to you?”

  “I am asking you to join your ships to the Starwolf Fleet and help your own people in a time when we need you most,” he answered. “If you are not yet certain that you can trust us, then remove your ships until you have enough evidence to decide.”

  “I think that we will take the chance, Commander,” Jaeryn said. “What can we do?”

  “Move your cruisers in to guard those captured Union ships and give my poor carriers a rest. Have this channel stand by.” He sighed heavily, leaning back in his seat and permitting himself a moment of looking incredibly relieved. There was a limit to how many miracles even a Starwolf could pull off in one day. Then he looked up. “Get President Delike back on the channel. We were discussing a surrender.”

  Velmeran had the Maeridyen and the Karvand returned to their bays, to act as an occupation force within the station itself. The military, under Admiral Laroose, was loyal to the Starwolves and following Velmeran’s orders. The civilian Kelvessan were otherwise in command of the station, and they had kept the situation there from falling into confusion and panic during the battle.

  The president and leaders of the Senate, or at least those who had not already been arrested, had retreated to the government compound within the station, not daring to leave for fear of the crowds, mostly human, who wanted nothing more than to administer their own justice to the traitors. President Delike and his friends feared the Kelvessan, and with good reason. But it was their own kind, people who now felt that they had been deceived into embracing philosophies they now detested for the promise of simple greed and hate, who would have gone into the compound after the traitors except for Starwolf intervention.

  Fearing unexpected trouble to come, Velmeran ordered work to begin on the Maeridyen immediately. At least none of the three remaining ships had taken any damage during the battle, even though both of the two new ships had taken missiles directly against their shielded hulls. Velmeran’s first task was to formalize the surrender of the Republic to Starwolf authority. That was a rather desperate act on his part, and one that was not strictly necessary. But he considered the act itself most important, the ability to begin fresh with a new Republic, bound by the laws of a new constitution that would guarantee the irrevocable rights and freedom of the Kelvessan.

  Velmeran had never realized the hollow, pointless lives that all Kelvessan were forced to lead. They were an entire race of people eternally waiting for something they could not name to begin. The time had come for him to win this war, so that they could be united in purpose rather than bound to the service of need and duty, so that others could have the freedom they surrendered. Sixteen new cruisers, once they were modified for Kelvessan technology and their crews trained, would make all the difference.

  He went to the Government Compound for the signing of the treaties of surrender in the company of Admiral Laroose, who was standing in as representative of the new Republic. With him went Commanders Tregloran and Daelyn and also Jaeryn of the Avenger, so that he could see for himself what to make of his choice. President Delike signed the papers reluctantly, still accepting the weight of his duty enough to dislike the circumstances. Marten Alberes and First Senator Saith only looked upon it as a tedious necessity. They were already packed and ready to be taken to the ship that they had been promised in exchange for their cooperation.

  “This isn’t justice,” Laroose complained, glaring as he watched Alberes put the final signature to the treaties. “If you ever return to Republic space, you’ll answer to me.”

  Alberes afforded him only a brief glance of contempt.

  “We will keep the letter of our agreement,” Velmeran said as he reached across the table to close the last of the portfolios that held the treaties. Then he leaned back in his chair, watching the three traitors closely. “You have just lost your jobs. Your authority ended when you signed those papers. So, do you expect that the Union will show you the gratitude you expect? They sent an invasion force to destroy you.”

  “We have a certain bargaining force,” Saith explained. “Since you are obliged to let us go, then I feel free to tell you. We intend to sell out you Starwolves and your little Republic. I expect that the Union will be very grateful for all the secrets we have to sell.”

  “Yes, it had occurred to me that you would think of that eventually,” Velmeran remarked, unconcerned. “Well, we should detain you no longer. Here is the clearance ident to your ship’s bay.”

  He handed a small, yellow ident card across the table. Saith picked it up and read the bay number on the front surface, then stared at the Starwolf in disbelief. “But this is nearly halfway across the station and fifteen levels down.”

  “Yes, but we are not obliged to be convenient,” he answered. “I suggest that you should go, before I have you thrown out.”

  “Without an escort?” Alberes protested. “There is a crowd out there just waiting to tear us apart.”

  “Yes. Well, that is your own fault,” Velmeran said. “I would like nothing better than to help, but I would hesitate to interfere in your destiny. The letter of our agreement requires that I make a ship available to you, not that I must get you to it safely. Of course, I would not want the three of you to be torn apart in the halls of this ancient station. That would set an unhappy precedence for the new Republic, much less make a terrible mess.”

  He took several small, red capsules from his pocket and tossed them to the center of the table. “You have two, and only two, alternatives. You can go to your rooms and take your little pills, or you can take your chances with the crowd. You have no agreements with them, and they have already expressed their intentions. But you must decide now.”

  Velmeran played a brittle game with words, but his meaning was plain. He was ordering these men to surrender themselves to a very sudden and unexpected execution, and then to play the part of their own executioners. Alberes glanced at the others, then reached out to take one of the red capsules and rose to leave. Saith frowned as he considered his options a final time, then took a capsule of his own and joined him. Delike only sat where he was, looking at each of them in turn for support, confused and very frightened like a lost child.

  “Come along, old man,” Alberes told him. “We took the chance. Now we have to pay the price.”

  Delike took the final capsule and joined his companions, although his shaking
legs would hardly carry him. They left through a door in the back of the room, accompanied by Starwolf pilots in black armor who would escort them to their rooms. Even that was a bluff. If they could have found another way out, Velmeran was required by his agreement to allow them to go.

  “Pathetic creature,” Laroose muttered in disgust. “He called me up a few hours before the battle began, all enthusiastic about this great plan for how he would help me prove that the other two were the real traitors and he was an honest man who had just been used. He believed that, too. Of course, he also asked me to help them betray you to the Union attack force. He said that the Starwolves were certain to lose anyway. I’m not sure that he was entirely sane there at the end.”

  Velmeran had been watching Jaeryn closely, wearing a rather bulky suit of white and blue armor. The Mock Starwolves had been brought up in a very controlled environment, designed to keep them innocent and biddable. They had been very pleased with themselves after their secretive defection, but Jaeryn had seen quite a lot in the past few hours and he was beginning to realize just how naive they were. Velmeran was thinking about putting all sixteen of the cruisers in the bays for modification right away, to give his ten thousand new children a chance to grow up.

  “I’m actually surprised that they did choose the pills over the crowd in the end,” Laroose continued. “They were gamblers. They should have chosen the almost non-existent chance of getting past the crowds instead of no chance at all with the pills. Considering that I’m in the company of Kelvessan, I’m almost embarrassed to use the word, but I am given to wonder if they did still possess some small measure of human dignity.”

  “Nothing in life became them as well as the leaving of it,” Tregloran quoted, then shrugged when Daelyn turned to stare at him. “Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Another man who would be king.”

  “Well, I have no wish to imitate Macbeth myself and take on more than I can manage,” Velmeran said. “I am reminded that I now own an interstellar empire, and I am responsible for it all by my little self. I intend to turn the Republic over to new management as soon as possible.”

  “What is it?” Velmeran asked as he hurried into Alkayja Station’s command section. It was in form like the bridge of some immense ship, circular in shape with viewscreens facing in from all directions to provide a complete image, although many sections were devoted to magnified images or scanner maps. Velmeran had been using the station’s various command sections to conduct his business.

  Laroose looked up from where he and the Watch Commander had been standing at the bank of communication consoles. “Three ships coming rather sedately into system, making themselves known well out. Scanners classify them as Union cruisers. Our new Starwolves want to go out and exchange words with them.”

  “Fighting words, I am sure,” Velmeran remarked. “Well, they have done everything but wave a white flag. Are they willing to talk?”

  Laroose nodded. “Oh yes. Very quick to talk. They say that they’re a diplomatic mission.”

  “Is that so?”

  “They want to talk to you. A Councilor Richart Lake, in particular. He says that you once had dinner with his grandfather.”

  Velmeran’s first thought was to wonder if this could be another trick. Two more Starwolf carriers had arrived in the two days since the end of the battle. With the formidable protection of the Starwolf cruisers at hand, he had ordered the rest of the fleet to return to their patrols.

  He still could not imagine how this could be a trick. Of course, it was also hard to imagine why Richart Lake might have come himself. Jon Lake, his grandfather and the previous Councilor for the Rane Sector, had been a very different sort of man and one of the very few humans anywhere that Velmeran respected. Jon Lake had been a politician with the heart of a philosopher. Richart Lake was a businessman, and he made absolutely no mistake about it. He treated his rule of the Rane Sector as a necessary evil and a distraction from his proper management of Farstell Trade.

  He nodded at last. “Let me talk to him.”

  The Kelvessan at that communication console gave up her place to him, and he seated himself before the main monitor. A channel was already open, held on standby. He released the hold, and the monitor lit up.

  “This is Commander Velmeran,” he said.

  The image cleared. He had never met Richart Lake, either in person or by visual communications. He was in appearance fairly unremarkable, quite unlike the very distinctive, long faces or larger-than-life manners of both Donalt Trace and Jon Lake. But he did reflect his unmutated Terran ancestry, an obviously tall man with relatively heavy features.

  “Yes, this is Richart Lake,” he said. “To state matters directly, I have come to offer our surrender.”

  Velmeran considered it good fortune that he was already sitting down.

  “Let me state our position simply,” Lake continued. “We have just given it our best, last effort. We have weighed all of the social, political, and material benefits, and we have come to the conclusion that, from this point on, we stand to gain more from surrendering than in continuing to deal with you on our previous terms.”

  Velmeran was speechless. Five hundred centuries of war, and it had been decided in committee that it was no longer expedient. Richart Lake made it sound more like a merger than a surrender. He realized immediately that he was going to have to watch the negotiations very closely, or certain habitually gullible Starwolves were going to give away more than they kept. And what did unemployed Starwolves do, anyway? It was interesting to consider.

  “Commander?” Laroose interrupted him quietly, indicating the scan map on a side monitor. “We have a problem. A carrier just dropped out of starflight and is coming up behind those cruisers in a hurry.”

  “Which carrier?” Velmeran asked. They had waited for this for five hundred centuries, and now some fool was going to put a bolt up its tail.

  “Well, that’s the funny part,” he explained. “She’s no known ship in the fleet. Her recognition code hails her as the Valcyr.”

  If Admiral Laroose did not recognize that name, Velmeran certainly did. “The Valcyr disappeared a long time ago. Get me a channel to that ship.”

  He turned back to the main monitor. “Councilor Lake, we have a little problem right now. I will have Admiral Laroose direct your ships to the proper docking bays in the diplomatic compound. Now if you will excuse me, I have to stop someone from blasting your ass.”

  “Yes, by all means.”

  Velmeran quickly switched to the second visual channel. The image of Richart Lake faded, to be replaced a moment later by a face he knew well. For one thing, it could have easily been his own. Of course, nearly a fourth of all the Mock Starwolves had his face, mostly because they also had his genes.

  “Hello, Commander,” Keflyn said. “We have come to the rescue.”

  “Keflyn?” She was the last person he had expected to see. “You are too late. And please leave those cruisers alone. They have come to surrender.”

  “Oh. Right, Commander.”

  “Is that really the Valcyr?” he asked. “Where did you find it?”

  Keflyn frowned as she considered that. “Well, that really is a very long story.”

  “What about Donalt Trace? He was on his way to destroy Terra with half a dozen or so Fortresses.”

  “Oh, he is dead. We destroyed those Fortresses.”

  “All by your little selves?”

  “Well, that is another long story.”

  “You are an absolute mine of information,” Velmeran muttered. “Will you please allow me to speak with the Valcyr’s Commander?”

  Keflyn looked embarrassed. “I seem to be the Commander of the Valcyr. You see, I am the only one on board.”

  Velmeran sat for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “You seem to be looking at the matter very optimistically. You think that being the only one on board leaves you in command. I cannot see how that makes you anything more than a passenger.”

  “Quendari Valcyr sa
ys that I am the Commander,” Keflyn insisted stubbornly. “I get to sit in the chair and everything.”

  “Very well, then, Commander Keflyn,” Velmeran declared. “Put your ship in a docking bay and bring yourself to the diplomatic quarters. I am a very busy person these days, but I will make time for a few long stories.”

  The arrival of the diplomatic convoy at Alkayja Station proceeded much more amiably and quietly than anyone would have expected of such an historic event, and one so long awaited. There were no bands playing, no proclamations or ranks of Starwolves in dark armor. The three cruisers docked side by side in the bays reserved for diplomatic vessels, as seldom as those came, and a small group of visitors filed out into the wide promenade corridor to meet Velmeran, Tregloran, and Jaeryn of the Starwolves, and the former Republic represented by Laroose and the Station Commanders.

  The Union delegation was something of a surprise, and larger than Velmeran would have expected despite the presence of the three ships. The entire Union High Council was present, the High Councilors of all eighteen Sectors, and nearly half of the Sector Commanders as well. Even Maeken Kea was there as the acting High Commander of the Combined Fleet. She was in curious ways like a Starwolf herself, a diminutive woman of almost elfin features, quiet and seemingly innocent in manner, yet deceptively cunning and deadly.

  The Valcyr had moved in quickly and docked herself well ahead of the slow Union cruisers. Keflyn had found Velmeran soon enough, and she related her long stories as quickly as possible. When the Union delegation arrived later, Maeken Kea took the news very hard. They had not known of the defeat of Commander Trace’s assault force, since news could not have come quicker to them than the Valcyr herself.