Dreadnought (27 page)

“Of
course. There are four perfectly good main drives facing forward to provide
braking thrust, the exact same size and power as the drives we lost. We can
take the two inner drives from the front and mount them in place of the outer
drives aft. Any two drives can move this carrier perfectly well, even if it
takes a little longer to build to speed.”

“I
really don’t want to go fast for a while,” Tarrel commented. “What about
Wally?”

“He
came around a few minutes ago, in an enormously bad mood. He refuses to talk to
anyone. At least we had already given him a room of his own.”

Kayendel
shortly had to return to her duties, since she was the second in command of
this ship. Captain Tarrel got herself up and dressed very soon after that. The
normal environment of the ship was just a little too cold for her, after the
Starwolves had taken her out of her armor. And she felt responsible for Lt.
Commander Pesca, although that responsibility was mostly directed toward
keeping him from being a bother to the Starwolves. But she wanted to check his
condition for herself, since she did not trust the Kelvessan to completely
understand just how serious his problems might become. Unfortunately, he was
already gone by the time she was dressed, and she did not find him in his cabin
when she looked there.

After
that, she got distracted by the efforts to get the Methryn back in flight
condition. She knew from one of her previous tours of the carrier that she
could see all of the holding and transport bays and much of the forward main
drives from the observation decks above either of the fighter bays, which
extended below the lower hull of the ship. As it happened, she was treated to a
far more spectacular sight than she had anticipated. The Maeridan drifted
belly-up only two hundred meters directly below the Methryn; considering the
relative size of the carriers, they appeared to be very close indeed. The armor
had already been pulled off the Methryn’s two forward drives that were to be
removed, although the actual process of physically removing the first drive appeared
to be some time off yet.

Since
nothing was actually happening on the outside, even a really great view became
rather boring after a while, and Captain Tarrel understood that the view would
probably be there for a couple of days. The whole trouble, she realized, was
that she wanted to return to duty and had none. She was an advisor with no
advice to give under the present circumstances, and the only thing she could do
to help was to stay out of the way. She decided to go back to the bridge, where
she could be in the middle of things and still remain out of the way.

Since
their cabins were in the corridors behind the bridge, she decided to stop by on
her way and see if Lt. Commander Pesca was about. She was almost surprised that
he was there. He was locked inside his cabin and refused to come out at first,
although the various thumps and bumps to be heard through the door indicated
that he was busy at something. He could hardly be moving the furniture, unless
he had unbolted it from the floor. Either his mood improved after the first few
moments, or his curiosity got the better of him. He came out of his cabin
dressed in armor, looking worn and beaten as if he had not recovered from the
ordeal of the Methryn’s battle.

“The
ship seems nearly deserted,” he observed, watching her closely.

“You
just have to look in the right places,” Tarrel told him. “The ones who are not
trying to rebuild the star drives are probably outside the ship dismantling the
main drives. They seem determined to take this carrier apart right here, in the
middle of space.”

“How
long do they expect to take?”

“The
first officer told me to expect a couple of days, but I suspect that she’s
being optimistic,” she said. “There’s no guarantee yet that the star drives
will ever work, although I don’t know what happened to them. We might get to
see how you tow three kilometers of Starwolf carrier into starflight. I have
been curious about that.”

Pesca
gave her another of his disquieting, calculating stares. “You like these
Starwolves, don’t you, Captain.”

Tarrel
shrugged. “They are interesting, I have to admit.” “Monsters,” Pesca muttered
under his breath as he turned back to his room.

Tarrel
looked up at him sharply, realizing that things had gone far enough already.
“Wally, I’m going to put you off the ship as soon as possible, back at Alkayja
station if we don’t meet one of our own sooner. There’s no point putting you
through all of this. The Starwolves aren’t going to let you have what you want
anyway.”

“No,
they probably won’t,” he agreed, looking embarrassed. “I guess I never was
meant for this.”

“If
it’s any consolation, I feel worse than I look,” she assured him. “You might as
well come out of that armor. Unless you plan to go outside with the Starwolves,
you hardly need it in a ship that can’t move.”

In
spite of the advice that she had just given, Captain Tarrel put herself back
inside her own armor. When the Starwolves got around to moving one of those
massive drives, she did indeed intend to go outside for a look. For as long as
she had been in space aboard ships, she had actually been outside only very
seldom, and that was true of just about everyone. Ship to station transfers
were done through docking tubes, and most repairs were done inside pressurized
repair bays not unlike the one where the Methryn had been built. Except for
salvage and some emergency repairs, there was simply never any need to go
outside a ship.

As
she had expected, the bridge was nearly deserted. There was hardly any need for
even a token watch, since Valthyrra herself would always be there anyway.
Kayendel was on the bridge and apparently acting as the officer in charge,
although the Kelvessan hurried over to join Tarrel as she shuffled her armored
self onto the bridge. To her surprise, the first officer stopped before her and
performed a reasonable facsimile of a salute.

“Captain,
can you be on the bridge for the next few hours?” she asked.

Tarrel
was almost too surprised to know what to think. “Yes, I suppose that I could
be.”

“Well,
I was wondering if you would mind taking the watch on the bridge,” Kayendel
explained. “You do have command experience. And since you are a captain, you
have the same technical rank as myself or any of the pack leaders and that
makes you qualified to take the watch.”

“What,
me? Command a Starwolf carrier?” Tarrel asked, and smiled. “I can hardly make a
mess of things, under the circumstances. I don’t suppose that a Union Captain
ever commanded a Starwolf carrier before. What does her worship think about
this?”

“It
was her idea,” Kayendel said very softly. “There is no trick to this, since
Valthyrra is in charge of the ship anyway. In theory, your only concern is to
advise the ship and watch over the crew. Valthyrra knows what she needs to be
doing and most of the crew is outside with Commander Gelrayen, and still under
his command.”

“Well,
if I’m going to sit in the chair, I might as well earn it,” Tarrel commented.
“My word, I wish circumstances could have been different. When I think of how
much fun it would have been to go sliding into the Vinthra space complex in
this ship—and a new ship at that, with less than a hundred light years on her—I
feel better already.”

“You
do not get to keep her,” Kayendel said on her way to the lift.

As
far as it went, Captain Tarrel knew that she was only just sitting in the
Commander’s seat, but she could still appreciate the irony of the situation.
The perfect complement to an inexperienced carrier unable to move herself was,
of course, a captain from the enemy fleet. She certainly could not imagine her people’s
protocol allowing someone like Gelrayen or Kayendel to command a Union military
ship, no matter what the circumstances; Starwolves were so refreshingly
practical. But it made for a remarkable situation, just the same.

She
carried herself up the steps to the Commander’s station, aware that Valthyrra’s
camera pod was turning slowly to watch her, every heavy step of the way.
Ignoring her for the moment, Tarrel secured her helmet in the rack behind the
seat, before lifting herself in. She adjusted the angle of the seat until she
was fairly comfortable, then settled back to enjoy her brief tour of duty as
the Commander of a Starwolf carrier. After serving in hell, she now had a
chance to rule in heaven.

Valthyrra
moved her camera pod well into the upper bridge, holding it just above the main
console of the station. “What course, Captain?”

“Right
up the middle of the Rane Sector,” Tarrel told her boldly. “I want to make life
miserable for some incompetent Union Captains and their backward little ships.”

“You
know, I might be the only carrier who will never have fired upon a Union ship,”
Valthyrra observed, almost wistfully.

“You
worry me,” Tarrel remarked. “That’s not the first time you’ve said something to
that effect. But cheer up! The truce will never last. You’ll be hunting Union
ships within two months, after you destroy the Dreadnought. Just do me one
favor. If you ever run across the battleship Carthaginian, you might think
merciful thoughts.”

“Then
you honestly believe that the war will return?”

“Of
course. The Union is fundamentally greedy and ruthless. Many of the colonies
are going to take advantage of our sudden misfortune to declare their
independence. People like me will be sent out to punish them by dropping a few
bombs on their heads, and people like you feel required to punish us in return
and protect their independence. Unless, of course, our interplanetary network
falls completely apart because the Dreadnought has destroyed so much.”

“And
then we end up having to take care of you on a longterm basis,” the ship
observed.

“Are
there enough of you?” Tarrel asked. “You know, if you people are smart about
this, you would move through as soon as you destroyed the Dreadnought and
disable every Union military ship you can find. Then you could tell us how you
expect us to behave, and we would have to listen. But I don’t believe that you
could make yourselves do that.”

“The
circumstances are different than they have ever been,” Valthyrra insisted.
“Perhaps they would agree that it would be best to end the war as soon as it
starts again, if you told them.” “Wait just a moment. You seem to forget just
whose side I’m on. As soon as you destroy the Dreadnought, my mission here is
complete and I’ll go back to my own ship.”

Valthyrra
actually seemed surprised. “I had thought that you did not approve of many of
the Union’s policies.”

“No,
I don’t,” Tarrel told her. “A lot of it is fairly nasty and ruthless, and all
for the sake of greed. But it does work fairly well. I’m not sure that anything
else would work any better, and there are a lot of systems that would be much
worse.”

“The
Republic works, and no one has to get hurt to make certain that it does.”

Tarrel
nodded. “That is true, and it has given me something to think about. In Union
space, we’re taught that the Republic ceased to exist a long time ago, and I’m
beginning to suspect that I now know why. But the situation there is just a
little different. The Republic has the strong influence of the Kelvessan and
your ships. You’re a lot more perfect than we are, but you were built that way.
We’re only mortal. I’ve always believed in the Union, in spite of its problems,
and I’ve been willing to enforce its policies. Did you think that the
Starwolves had liberated me, that I was the Captain of a Union battleship
because I was forced to be, or didn’t know any better?”

“Frankly,
I have had trouble remembering that you are not just another Starwolf,”
Valthyrra admitted. “You seem so much like them, far more so than I had ever
expected that a human could be.”

“Perhaps
you’re just not used to humans.”

“No,
I have seen humans often enough in my life. They are different from either you
or the Starwolves. Perhaps it is because you are both warriors.”

Captain
Tarrel realized at that moment that she was discussing points of personal
philosophy with a machine, and that they both seemed to be having some problem
keeping in mind just who they were talking to. Whether naturally or by design,
Valthyrra kept her camera pod always moving, changing angle, rotating lenses to
focus on some small gesture of expression, all helping to create a strong sense
of speaking with a real person who was actually there. In fact, Valthyrra was
physically very large and distributed throughout the secure core of the ship. But,
for the moment, Tarrel was more impressed with the complexities of Valthyrra’s
mind. She had expected the ship to think responsively in the same way as even
the most sophisticated computers, all her thought processes generated only in
reaction to external events and input. In truth, the ship seemed to engage in
quite a lot of independent thought and speculation, and many of her responses
seemed more emotional than logical.

“I
hesitate to say this, knowing that you could easily find offense in it,” Valthyrra
continued. “In my experience, which I have been accumlating now for nearly six
decades, I have generally found humans to be dull and very predicable in their
lack of sophistication. Kelvessan, and the other ships, are always thinking
beyond their own present concerns. They are more likely to tell you things that
you would not expert, and they speak more plainly and honestly about what they
really think and feel than humans, who seem mostly to feel some need to guard
the privacy of their thoughts carefully. Perhaps that is also why you remind me
more of the Starwolves.”

Captain
Tarrel chuckled to herself. “I could take offense at that, except that I’ve
been thinking much the same thing myself lately. It might have something to do
with being locked inside a ship with several thousand Starwolves, who are very
interesting, contrasted with one human, Wally Pesca, who is definitely not a
higher form of life.”