Dreadnought (32 page)

“Pardon?”

“That
happens to be my real job, you understand,” he told her. “What real good am I
to the Starwolves otherwise, the human senior commander of a Kelvessan fleet? I
supervise what they think and do, as far as I am able. I limit their numbers as
best I can, and they do not seem inclined to reproduce when you send them down
to a planet. I take their best scientific minds from the carriers and assemble
them here, then I give them busy-work. We do not want them making technical
advances, and their carriers are essentially the same machines they were thirty
thousand years ago. They could have perfected the jump drive long ago, and any
number of new weapons. We are satisfied that they have everything they need as
it is.”

He
indicated for her to precede him into the tram, then waited until they were
away. “The Kelvessan were designed to be naked. The Aldessan of Valtrys meant
things that way. That is all part of the balance, keeping them between two
cultures and never really a part of any. They use the Aldessan language and
names, but with the Terran alphabet. They do not look very human, but we
encourage them to dress themselves as if they were human. Everything they have
amounts to bits and pieces of other cultures, and very little is entirely their
own.”

“But
what possible danger could they be?” Tarrel asked, frankly shocked by what she
was hearing. “The Kelvessan are the most amiable people I’ve ever met, at least
to have as friends and allies. Would they ever have reason to turn on us?”

“Oh
no, they would never be a danger to us in that sense, unless we do something to
deserve it,” he agreed. “Captain, the Republic and the Union might be opposing
camps, but consider this. Together our worlds define a very specific region of
space, and we are not interested in looking beyond those boundaries. Although
we are not the only civilized race within those limits, we are certainly the
preeminent race in numbers, power and prestige. Neither side really wants to
see that change.”

“No,
I suppose not,” Tarrel admitted. “Still, I don’t see how they can be a threat
to us even in that sense. They aren’t prolific and I don’t see them as being
interested in establishing commercial empires.”

Asandi
nodded. “Yes, but consider this. Our interplanetary systems of commerce are
dependant upon trade and travel through space, and space is the element the
Kelvessan were designed to conquer. If they were free to pursue their own
future, they would control a large portion of interstellar space because their
ships are larger and faster than anything we have. They would take the
responsibility of seeing that the space lanes and the frontier are safe. In
addition to that, all new technology would be coming from Kelvessan
researchers. We would come to be dependant upon the Kelvessan. Although we
would prosper under their leadership, our prosperity would be dependant upon
their leadership.”

“Is
that so bad?” Tarrel asked, watching the corridors of the station pass by the
tram’s windows.

“Perhaps
not, but would we be able to accept that?” he asked. “One of our greatest
strengths, and also one of our greatest needs, is to command our own destinies.
We are human. However much you might like them, the Kelvessan are still only
highly advanced biological machines. Perhaps some day they might evolve into a
real sentient, free-willed race. But right now they are still guided by the
instincts of compassion and duty that they were given. Their eagerness to
defend even their old enemies from the Dreadnought is proof of that. I
certainly was not in favor of that. I knew that they would need new weapons to
fight that thing, and I knew that it would be difficult to maintain the old
balances through all of this. The Starwolves are happy with what they are.”

“Slaves,”
Tarrel commented sourly.

“Slaves
are people held in bondage against their will,” he told her. “The Kelvessan are
satisfied to be exactly what they are, fulfilling the needs and goals that they
were given. Do not teach them expectations of themselves that they are not yet
ready to confront.”

“No,
I don’t feel qualified to teach them anything; it just seemed to me that the
process was beginning naturally,” she said, and smiled wryly. “That was
certainly the last thing I expected to find. ”

“What
is that?”

She
glanced at him. “I was just thinking how alike your side and mine really are.
We both seem willing to nominate someone else to make sacrifices for our
benefit.”

Once
the Starwolf fleet had found the Dreadnought, preparing an ambush for it proved
to be simple enough. After determining which system it was most likely to
strike next—and they had certainly proven their ability to predict its
movements—they had hurried to arrive first. The Methryn and the Kerridayen
positioned themselves well out at opposite sides of the system where they could
sweep it with their impulse scanners very efficiently, and the Methryn had
already shown that low-intensity pulses were effective at showing up the
Dreadnought’s location without alerting it that it was being scanned. The other
three carriers had hidden themselves behind planets deeper within the system,
where one of them might easily be able to slip in close behind the Dreadnought
on its sub-light approach. Captain Tarrel had used her authority to order the
local station abandoned, but not removed or powered down, with the Union’s
System Fleet of twenty-three large ships still moored at their docks. With bait
like that to hold its attention, the Dreadnought would run straight in to
attack.

Once
the carriers were in position, they had no way of knowing if they would be
waiting hours or days for the Dreadnought to arrive. At this point, there was
little else for them to do. Once the alien weapon was identified, and assuming
that it was not alerted to their presence in the process, then one of the three
carriers deeper in the system would try to move in close behind it and match
the frequency of its shield with her impulse cannons, repeating the Methryn’s
successful attack earlier. This time, however, that trick would be attempted
from a greater distance, at least a thousand kilometers, so that the attacking
carrier would have time and room enough to hit the Dreadnought again with
either missiles or a low-intensity discharge from her conversion cannon. That would
surely disable the Dreadnought long enough for the other carriers to move in
for the kill. If everything went according to plan, the Methryn and the
Kerridayen would never even enter the fight.

Neither
of those two ships were pleased with that arrangement, and not because it
failed to include them as anything except surveillance platforms. Trendaessa
Kerridayen was convinced that they were again underestimating the Dreadnought’s
strategic abilities. She believed that it had already proven itself too clever
to make the same mistake twice. Valthyrra Methryn agreed with her completely.
She strongly believed that she knew just how to attack the Dreadnought; she
believed that they had been making the same mistake from the first, trying to
fight it as one large ship against another. Captain Tarrel believed that
Valthyrra was taking the right approach, but she did not have a vote in the
matter and the other three carriers had overruled Valthyrra Methryn and
Trendaessa Kerridayen. The Starwolves themselves seemed reluctant to interfere
with the authority of their ships, allowing the carriers to decide the matter
among themselves.

In
the two weeks since these battle plans had been made at that meeting at Alkayja
station, Janus Tarrel had kept her counsels very much to herself. She found
herself having to do something that she had never expected: she was having to
reconsider her personal beliefs. What she could not figure out was why Fleet
Commander Asandi’s little speech about the Republic’s secret attitude toward its
Starwolves should be so upsetting to her, since it supported everything that
she had always believed. The Starwolves were property, genetically engineered
weapons of war to be used and discarded; her own kind came first. Justice had
to be weighed against the greater good, and even towering injustices were
sometimes necessary for the benefit of the greatest number. Those whose rights
and welfare needed most to be sacrificed for the benefit of a larger society
most often needed that judgement forced upon them, since they were not likely
to accept such sacrifices willingly. As a Union Captain, she had enforced that
very philosophy often enough in the past, always reluctantly, but always
comfortable in the belief that it was proper and necessary.

Now
she was beginning to wonder if there was ever any hidden justice in injustice,
and if any society that demanded the innocent to pay the price for someone
else’s benefit was inherently corrupt. She understood now why the Starwolves
believed in that philosophy, blissfully unaware that they were enforcing a
moral belief that was secretly denied to them. She could also understand why
that was such a driving force in luring the Terran colonies, raped of the
little wealth they generated, into making ill-advised attempts at independence.

Absolute
justice was always preferable, but she still had to remind herself that it was
not always possible. Although she was tempted to warn the Kelvessan about how
they were being used, she could not yet convince herself that it would be best
even for them if she did. Commander Asandi had warned her against teaching them
to expect something that they were not equipped to have, and in this case there
was indeed some justice in denying them the right of freedom and
self-determination because such things were meaningless to their present
existence. For good or bad, they were exactly what they were designed to be.

Of
course, the matter could well be out of her hands. Valthyrra Methryn had become
deeply fascinated with the Kelvessan and the development of their racial
consciousness. She had turned up her thermostats and ordered her crew out of
their clothes again as soon as they had left Alkayja, and she was now trying to
convince them to make that a permanent condition. Tarrel suspected that her
goal was to undress the entire Starwolf fleet, encourage them to think about
their racial identity, and eventually suggest that they should attempt some
additional, purely cosmetic tampering with their genetics. Valthyrra obviously
believed that external appearances were the key to encouraging the Kelvessan to
develop greater self-awareness and social independence, and she was most likely
correct.

But,
with battle threatening at any time, the ship’s temperatures went down more
than usual to cool the electronics and the Starwolves kept themselves inside
their armor at all times. Captain Tarrel stayed inside her own armor as well,
having developed an instinctive fear of being caught without it. When the time
came, it happened suddenly and sooner than they had expected. The Dreadnought
entered the system along the predicted approach and passed almost directly over
the Methryn, at least in relative distances. In fact, the two ships missed each
other by half a million kilometers. Valthyrra identified it even before it
dropped sub-light.

“Contact,”
she warned, sending the members of the bridge crew hurrying to their stations.
Then she spun her camera pod around in a circle. “Perdition! I never thought
about that.” “Thought about what?” Gelrayen asked as he helped Tarrel with the
straps of her seat. “This is no time for anyone to be making a mistake.”

“I
cannot warn the ships deeper in the system even with a tight beam, not without
the Dreadnought intercepting it.” She paused a moment. “I am relaying my
information to the freighter Taerregyn. Since she is sitting well outside the
system, she can relay the report to the other ships by tight beam from a
different angle.”

“Is
everything going according to plan?” Gelrayen asked as he descended the steps
to the main bridge level.

“It
does seem to be. The Dreadnought is going straight in toward the one inhabited
planet. Because I am closer than the Kerridayen, she has signaled that I should
provide the only surveillance contact for now. I am using a very low-level
sweep every twenty seconds, and I am now feeding the scanner images to the main
carrier fleet through my link with the Taerregyn. The Mardayn is beginning her
maneuvers that will eventually bring her slowly in behind the Dreadnought.”

“No
impulse beams from the Dreadnought?” Gelrayen asked.

*
“None that have been detected so far. The other carriers are now much closer,
and might be able to detect an impulse sweep on their own passive impulse
scanners. However, the Mardayn reports that she cannot detect my sweeps even
knowing that they are there, but she does not have sensors.”

“Then
you need to watch very carefully,” he reminded her. “Those ships are depending
upon you to tell them when to run.” Over the next few minutes, the Mardayn fell
in directly behind the Dreadnought and began to close the distance quickly as
the alien weapon continued to brake on its approach toward the colony.
Valthyrra was beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.
The Dreadnought was not using its impulse scanner on routine sweeps, as it had
in the past. She knew that it would never simply forget and she could not
believe that she had damaged its impulse scanners beyond repair during their
last encounter. That led her to the uncomfortable conclusion that it was up to something.
Could it have refined its own sensors so greatly that it was reading the
achronic echoes of her own sweeps? Even as the Mardayn moved in to attack, with
every outward indication that she remained undetected, Valthyrra felt certain
that the ambush was about to turn back on them.

“Commander,
we have to decide something immediately,” she said at last. “I want to
terminate this attack right now, before we get into trouble. This is not right.
The Dreadnought is not making regular precautionary impulse sweeps, as it has
been seen to do in the past. It knows.”