Dreadnought (25 page)

Valthyrra
was so surprised by that sudden loss of power that she brought her camera boom
up sharply, cracking the pod against the ceiling. “Rashah ko ve’ernon! Val
traron de altrys caldarson!”

If
she had been able, Captain Tarrel would have taken notes for Walter Pesca’s
language lessons.

“Are
we hit?” Gelrayen asked anxiously..

“No,
damn it all,” the ship snapped, cursing in Terran now. “I just ran out of
fuel.”

“Varth!”
Gelrayen exclaimed. “Valthyrra, you happen to be a new ship. You could not have
run your entire supply of water through your conversion generators in just the
last few days.”

“No,
I have twenty tons of distilled water in my main tanks,” the ship said.
“Unfortunately, no one back at the station ever thought to switch me over from
my reserve tank to the main line. Right now, all I have is just enough power to
hold my shields at stealth intensity for a few minutes more, and some field
drive maneuvering left over. The line has to be switched manually. It is not
something I can do for myself.”

“Oh,
this really is stupid,” he commented, then turned to the engineering officer.
“Gheldyn, do you know where to find this reserve tank and switch the line
over?”

“Yes,
I believe that I do,” she answered, with slight uncertainty.

“I
will deliver your lift as close as possible, then talk you through it over your
suit com,” Valthyrra told her, and Gheldyn hurried to the waiting lift.

“Val,
this is going to take time,” Gelrayen reminded her. “What do you propose to do with
yourself until then? Can you call the Maeridan back to cover us?”

Valthyrra
brought her camera pod back around. “No, I sent her away. For some reason, the
Dreadnought has not attempted to open fire or even to track me by impulse
scanner. I might have hurt it more than I thought, or else it has some
programmed priority to secure any damage before continuing to fight. I can
still see its shadow following my original escape path. It has not yet noticed
my change of course.”

“Well,
where are you going now? We seem to be descending back into the ring.”

“I
am taking us back to that moonlet where we were. I intend to back myself into
that cubby and sit there until I have full power.”

Commander
Gelrayen did not have to think about that for very long. “Val, is that really a
good idea?”

“No,
but it is the best idea we have.”

Whether
it was a good idea, a bad idea, or just, plain stupid, this was what Valthyrra
intended to do. It seemed like a longterm solution to what sounded like a
fairly simple problem, but no one felt like taking her to task over the matter.
Her plans seemed complex, unorthodox and rather extreme, as Captain Tarrel had
pointed out, but they did work fairly well. She had taken on the Dreadnought
and actually seemed to have gotten the better of the argument, and she was the
only carrier who’d managed that. It was hard to fault her after that.

She
was still able to track the Dreadnought as its shadow passed over the stars and
minute sparks discharged against its shield, which led her to wonder why, with
a very large and colorful planet just below, it did not see her own black hull.
Of course, both ships were right on the very edge of the plane of the ring. Her
shape might not have been quite as obvious as it passed just above that
clutter. Then she realized that the Dreadnought was blind. That shield
swallowed light, so there was nothing coming through for visual identification.
The only thing it seemed to have was its impulse scanner, and yet she knew that
it employed that only at rare intervals. It had to be using some type of common
scanner, passive and active, although less effective than her own because of
the difficulties of seeing through that shield. It had not used impulse scan
since her attack, which led her to wonder if she had damaged it more than she
would have expected.

She
reached the moonlet, braking very gently with her field drive, both to spare
her very limited power resources and to avoid detection as the Dreadnought
passed only sixteen hundred kilometers above her. As it happened, both ships
were actually moving opposite the orbit of the planet, so that the use of
braking thrust actually increased the Methryn’s speed to match that of the
moonlet.

“Gheldyn
reporting,” said the chief engineering officer. Valthyrra kept the message on bridge
audio so that the others could hear.

“What
do you have?” Valthyrra asked.

“A
problem. All of the tubes are here, but the actual line leading from the main
tanks to the pump, and the distribution grid to the ship’s conversion
generators was never built. I have several hours of work here, if I try to do
it myself. Perhaps half an hour or less if you send me an engineering team to
assist. I could certainly use another pair of hands.”

“Where
would you keep them,” Tarrel asked quietly, finding the thought amusing even
under the circumstances.

“I
anticipated the need, and a damage control team will be there to assist you any
moment now.”

“I
will be as quick as I can,” Gheldyn promised.

“Did
you know that line was not completed?” Gelrayen asked.

Valthyrra
brought her camera pod around. “I knew that it would have been done in the last
few hours before my launch, and I do not recall it happening. Considering our
situation, I had good reason to suspect that it might not be. Anticipating the
other part of your question, that is also why I wanted some place where I could
hide for some time.”

They
noticed then that Captain Tarrel was easing herself down the steps from the
upper bridge. The actual weight of the armor was less a problem to her than the
fact that she found it more awkward then she had expected, at least descending
the steps when she could not see where she was going. Once on level ground, she
was able to carry herself fairly well.

“Do
you feel safe?” Gelrayen asked.

“I
was given to understand that this ship could not generate the power to send
herself anywhere if she had to,” Tarrel answered. “I thought that I had better
move about a little while I can. And I’m dying of curiosity. What did you do to
the Dreadnought? I was blinking too much to see anything.”

“It
lost its shield for a moment when my cannons matched frequency and were able to
penetrate,” Valthyrra said. “That serves as an important lesson on the virtue
of stupid ideas. It was a risk, but it worked. If I had had power for my
conversion cannon, and a little more time, I could have destroyed it.” “Remind
me never to play cards with any of you people,” Tarrel commented. “The gods
smile upon fools and Starwolves with stupid ideas.”

“They
also play their little tricks,” Gelrayen added. “Valthyrra, I hope that you
were able to record what you saw.”

“I
did get a good contour scan of what I could see, which was unfortunately only
about twenty percent of the Dreadnought’s total area,” she answered. “The fact
that it began to swing around before the shield went back up was the only thing
that allowed me to see more than just its tail end.”

“I
could sense its conversion generators while that shield was down,” Gelrayen
said. “Apparently the shield itself is able to suppress even that psychic
response.”

“Psychic?
Are you trying to tell me that you Starwolves are mind-readers? I had assumed
that your ability to sense high-power systems was a function comparable to
ordinary scanner.” She paused a moment, thinking about the matter carefully.
“No, pardon my skepticism, which was misplaced. Nothing you could tell me about
Starwolves would ever surprise me again.” Gelrayen wisely treated the matter as
settled. “I did not, however, sense any drives in operation. Is that because
they simply were not engaged at that moment?”

“No,
not entirely,” Valthyrra said. “I simply did not see any main drives or star
drives of any conventional sense. In fact, I saw nothing that I would consider
an external drive of any type. Of course, that is not a surprise.”

“No?”
Tarrel looked surprised.

“We
had already guessed that the energy flare of conventional drives could not be
contained within that shield,” the ship explained. “I do not have to remind you
that our own shields must have openings for the drive flare, or the wash will
overload and bum out the shield itself. That is part of the reason why our
packs almost always attack a ship at the drives first.”

“That,
and to take the ship mostly intact,” Tarrel added. “Yes, there is that. If the
Dreadnought had conventional drives in any sense, it would have had shield
vents. If such drives were vented through the shield, the Starwolves would have
been able to sense them, and shoot through those vents.”

“Do
you have any better idea of just what sort of drive it must possess?” Gelrayen
asked. “Would it be a highly refined jump drive?”

“That
is my best guess at this time,” Valthyrra said. “I cannot believe that even the
most powerful field drives would be able to take a ship into starflight, unless
it also employs an acceleration damper of almost flawless efficiency. It might
also use a type of drive unlike anything we know. All I do know now with any
reasonable certainty is that it does not use conventional drives.” “Well, it’s
a shame that we weren’t able to destroy it while that shield was down,” Tarrel
remarked. “Do you think that we might be able to use that same trick again?”

“That
depends upon how well the Dreadnought learns from its mistakes. We might be
able to set up some variation of that same trick that might fool it.” She
paused, lifting her camera pod slightly as if listening to some distant sound.
“Gheldyn, do you have any estimates for me?”

“Another
five minutes at least,” the engineering officer responded over the bridge
audio.”

“Do
the very best you can. We are running out of time.” She turned her camera pod
back to the others. “The game begins again. The Dreadnought seems to have
recovered from whatever I did to it and is moving through the outer edge of the
ring detonating some manner of concussion discharges.”

“Trying
to shake us loose?” Tarrel asked.

“Perhaps.
Those concussions are creating some very intense plasma shock waves that would
react sharply with my armor, producing a very clear signature on passive
sensors. They are not a direct danger to me, however.”

“But
if it finds us, we should be able to run,” Gelrayen added.

“I
certainly hope so,” the ship agreed. “If I pull myself well back into this
hole, the moonlet will shield me from any shock wave unless both the concussion
and the Dreadnought itself were somewhere in front of the opening. We might
just be able to ride this out.”

“Famous
last words,” Gelrayen remarked to Captain Tarrel.

She
nodded. “I think that I’m going back to your seat before anything else
happens.”

Tarrel
took herself back to the upper bridge and strapped in for battle, fairly
certain that it would come without warning. She could not believe that they
were going to get out of this one. The Dreadnought was a weapon that possessed
tremendous abilities, and she doubted that the Methryn’s one lucky shot had
damaged it all that much. For that matter, she did not entirely trust
Valth-yrra’s belief that it was only trying to chase them out with concussion
discharges. It knew, within a relatively specific area, just where they were
hiding, and it probably meant to destroy everything along that portion of the
ring to have them.

She
strapped herself into the seat on the upper bridge and watched as the
Starwolves continued about their business with a frustrating lack of concern.
For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Tarrel was reminded of the
rumors and legends about Starwolves that she had lived with all her life. They
were said to be nothing more than coldly efficient weapons of war, incapable by
design of either compassion or fear. Since meeting them, she had lain aside all
of those old beliefs and suppositions. There was certainly no reason why they
would be risking their lives and their ships to protect Union worlds, except
compassion. But she wondered now if their calm reaction to danger was something
they had by design, or if it was something they had learned with experience.

Their
first warning that the Dreadnought was close was the sound of the concussion
discharges, rolling along the hull of the ship like distant thunder. The lack
of an atmosphere meant that they were hearing the passing of the shock wave
itself, and the absence of air also allowed the shock wave to travel farther
before dissipating. Just the same, if those shock waves were still rolling
through, then their point of origin must be very close.

“Gheldyn,
we really do need to be going,” Valthyrra said.

“Another
minute,” the senior engineer answered.

“We
really do not have a minute,” the ship insisted.

“You
also do not have a complete main line.”

Captain
Tarrel decided at that point that they were in serious trouble. The next
concussion thundered in, this one strong enough to shake the immense carrier.
Valthyrra was turning her camera pod from one station to the next, where
members of the bridge crew waited patiently at consoles controlling systems
that still lacked the power to respond.

“Gheldyn,
are you accurate in your estimate?” she asked at last.

“Yes.
We are making the final connections now.”

“Then
I am going to move the ship quickly, even if it uses all the fuel elements left
in the lines. You keep working straight through this, since I am going to need
that power immediately. This tactic will not get us out of danger, but it will
buy you that time.”

“I
understand,” Gheldyn promised her.

“Commander,
I am going to do something stupid,” she said, turning toward Gelrayen. “Stupid
times demand stupid gestures. May the gods pity us one more time.”