Tactical Error (24 page)

He turned back to Velmeran, his voice becoming fierce and harsh. “That
is the trick, you see. The way to defeat Starwolves, I realized, was to simply
give them too much to handle all at once, more than they can manage. Then those
petty bureaucrats from your Republic approached us secretly, wanting to talk peace.
We never thought for a minute that the Starwolves would surrender under any
terms short of their own, but the opportunity to make trouble for the great
Commander Velmeran was too great. Oh yes, we would gladly have an honorable
peace with the Republic, but those trouble-making Kelvessan would have to go.
We demanded your surrender and elimination, or at the very least your exile
from Republic support.”

He turned away, his arms crossed as he began to pace. It seemed that he was
very obviously trying to maintain his distance from Velmeran, but not out of
fear. “I got all I could have asked from those negotiations. Now the
Starwolves are estranged from their own government, from their main source of
maintenance and supplies. I’ve left you with enemies on both sides, in
front as well as behind. And now I know the location of the home worlds of the
Starwolves.”

He turned to Velmeran, standing behind the short desk to one side of the
communications console, his powerful arms braced on its surface. His stance was
dominating, almost predatory. “Where are the Mock Starwolves, Commander
Velmeran? That question must be very much on your mind just now. They are on
their way to Alkayja right now, in the company of ten Fortresses and a fleet of
battleships and troop transports. Their mission is to destroy your great base
and devastate all Republic worlds. The Starwolves will be exiles indeed, with
no place to call home. No place to retreat for supplies and repairs as the Mock
Starwolves begin to chase them out of the stars. And it is too late for you to
do anything to stop it. In seven days, they are to attack.”

Velmeran tried very hard not to show his surprise and dismay, but he had not
considered this turn of events. He had not believed that President Delike and
the other traitors would have even considered giving away the secret of their
exact location, their one remaining defense after they had exiled the
Starwolves. Velmeran needed to kill this man and get back to the Methryn, and
every minute was precious. But Trace was obviously not finished, and he had to
know the worst.

“Diverting you here at just the right time was the next phase of my
plan,” Trace continued as he resumed his slow pacing, watching the
Starwolf half over his shoulder. “It kept you distracted from solving
your problems at home, and from being there to meet my invasion force when it
reaches Alkayja. None of your carriers will be there, since they are currently
outlawed.”

He paused, watching Velmeran closely. “Is that complicated enough for
you? It gets worse, and this time I have you to thank. You see, I am perfectly
aware of your mission to find lost Terra. We found it some two thousand years
ago. Of course, we knew that we could not hold it against you, and the best
solution was for us to largely forget that it existed. Then those troublesome
Feldenneh found it, and they had a colony established before anyone who knew
better could stop them. But we watch them more closely than they are aware. We
have a secret spy planted right in the middle of them. He is under orders to
kill your own little spy at the proper moment. And to make matters even more
interesting, there is a fleet of nine Fortresses on the way there at this very
moment, with orders to hold the planet or to destroy it.

“So now what do you do, Commander Velmeran? Do you try to save your
home worlds, knowing it is too late, or do you try to save Terra against
impossible odds?” He brought his fist down on the table with force enough
to crack its top. “Damn you, Starwolf! Don’t you know that it was
your own kind that has kept this war alive for an impossibly long time? You
would have had peace under your own terms if you had just left us alone long
enough. Dictatorships do not exist in a vacuum of peace. It would have been to
our advantage to end the monopolies, open trade, and free settlement. Take that
thought with you into hell.”

He suddenly drew a large gun out from beneath the heavy folds of his dark
cape, a move that was quick and precise beyond human responses. Velmeran had
not identified the weapon, for it possessed no power sources for him to sense,
no crystals singing as they focused energy. A burst of flame erupted from the
muzzle of the gun, and a thunderous crack. No handheld weapon could have
produced a bolt powerful enough to harm Starwolf armor, but this used none. The
armor-piercing bullet crashed through the armor below Velmeran’s upper
left shoulder, knocking him backward to crash heavily against the cold floor.
Trace’s arm had remained rock steady through the powerful shot, held by
unnatural strength.

“And now the last part of my plan,” he said softly, as if to
himself, as he laid aside the hot, smoking gun on the desk. “The
finishing stroke of this whole complicated affair, for the Great Commander
Velmeran will not be there to untie the knot and make the impossible
happen.”

He paused to stand for a moment over the fallen Starwolf, gravely injured
and stunned by the impact. Then he knelt. “You know, I never expected
simple revenge. I always expected that it would be enough just to finally
defeat you, perhaps to know that you had died somewhere fighting the inevitable
defeat. Now I have this rare opportunity to crush the life from you with these
mechanical hands, your last little gift to me twenty years ago. I always
thought they should be good for something.”

He reached down, taking the Starwolf’s neck in his own large hands. No
human could have killed a Kelvessan in this way, but the cybernetics had
ironically given him some of the tremendous strength and speed of his enemy.
And yet, even as he locked both of his hands about Velmeran’s neck, there
was a stark flash of brilliant energy and Trace threw himself backward with a
cry.

Velmeran picked himself up slowly and painfully, leaning on the window ledge
for support. He glanced at Commander Trace, stunned by powers he had not
expected. “You always did underestimate me.”

Donalt Trace did not feel inclined to answer. Gasping for breath and
struggling with mechanical arms that were reluctant to obey his commands, he
retreated into the far end of the long, narrow room. He pulled himself up by
the edge of the desk, thinking to reach for the weapon that he had left there,
wondering why Velmeran had allowed him to live so long. Then he looked up, and
drew back in dread.

Starwolves had arrived, two in black armor, helping Velmeran to stand and
checking the monitors in the chestplate of his damaged suit. Standing between
the Kelvessan and himself was a creature unlike any that he had ever seen, an
armored form like a white dragon, standing on four long, rangy legs with four
triple-jointed arms with a weapon in each hand, centered on him. Its long neck
was bent in his direction, although the mirrored eyeplates of the helmet held
no expression. He knew what it was he faced, for all that he had never known
until that moment whether the Valtrytians were real, as Velmeran had told him
over dinner half a lifetime past, or if they were legend.

“So, it seems that I am denied that one small wish after all,”
he remarked wryly. “If my luck had been so perfect, I would have lost my
faith in it.”

“I think that I can still upset a great many of your schemes,”
Velmeran answered him.

“I do not doubt that you will try,” Trace said. “Well, I
doubt that we will ever meet again. You are probably on your way home, and I am
off to Terra. If you wish to finish this, join me there.”

Complete darkness descended heavily as the lights of both the room and the
landing bay outside suddenly went out. Venn Keflyn opened fire instantly, even
though she could not see her target, but with four guns she was able to lay
down an impressive barrage. Through her helmet, she was unable to hear the
closing of the heavy metal door between them, although the flare of her guns
and the deflection of her bolts showed her what had happened and she ceased
fire. The lights came up a moment later.

“He must be on his way out,” Velmeran said. “There is a
small lift in that part of the room. Trace was correct in believing that he is
paying stricter attention to details these days. He selected this place carefully,
just in case I still got the better of him.”

“Commander, our ships in the bay are under attack,” Barest
warned.”Light arms and sentries. Lenna is getting her mechanical pet
keyed in to the bay controls to get the overhead doors open.”

He nodded. “We will get out of here as fast as we can. You two go
ahead to help the others hold the bay. With Venn Keflyn’s help, I should
be along in a minute.”

The two pilots hurried to reinforce the others, protecting the ships that
were down in the bay. Velmeran was recovering quickly from his wound, his
highly efficient physiology compensating for the damage. The armor-piercing
bullet, as large and heavy as it was, had expended nearly its entire energy in
piercing the suit. It had struck the iron-based bone of the complex system of
struts of his double-shoulder almost immediately, by chance bouncing straight
back into the hole it had cut through the suit. Venn Keflyn helped him to
replace his helmet, mostly for its protection against enemy fire.

“Valthyrra Methryn directed us to this bay,” the Aldessan
explained as they made their way to the stairs that would take them down to the
bay floor. “She did not trust Commander Trace. It seems that she was
correct.”

Velmeran did not answer, but he could not help but think that he would have
killed Donalt Trace if it had not been for their sudden intervention and Venn
Keflyn’s assumption that she had the Union Commander captive. Velmeran
hoped that she did not sense his thoughts, but very much on his mind was the
realization that Trace was now on his way to destroy Terra. And the fact that
his own daughter was there, perhaps unaware of where she really was, certainly
unaware of her danger.

“Do you know what he told me?” Velmeran asked.

“Valthyrra was listening through your suit com,” Venn Keflyn
explained.

He reached inside the chestplate of his suit, shutting off his
communications to all but his close contact with the Aldessa. “We may
have just lost it, my friend. I hardly know what to think. Would your people be
likely to rescue us from this?”

“You are our children,” she told him. “We would not
hesitate. But the Aldessan are a very long way from here. I do not believe that
I could bring help before the destruction of Alkayja.”

“Could you go immediately?”

“I will be in starflight even before you are back aboard the Methryn.
But my ship does not have a jump drive, as fast as it may be.”

The overhead doors were open by the time they reached the bay, although the
battle continued as fiercely as ever. Venn Keflyn protected Velmeran as well as
she could, occasional bolts deflecting harmlessly off her own armor as they
hurried across the short open space to the knot of parked ships. The pilots
were already in the fighters, Trel taking Velmeran’s own, pivoting the
ships around to face outward to bring their more powerful guns to bear against
the sentries firing from the protection of distant doorways.

Venn Keflyn deposited Velmeran at the side hatch of the transport, then
hurried to her own corvette.

Velmeran sealed the hatch, then paused. Lenna Makayen lay in an unconscious
wreck on a medical stretcher strapped against the far wall, her left arm ripped
away at the shoulder by the hail of crossfire that had caught her as she and
Bill had hurried back to the ships after opening the overhead doors. That was
only the worst of her damage, and Velmeran was amazed that she was still alive.
Marlena was bent over her, furiously administering the best medical attention
she could give. Bill, his four long legs folded beneath him, was already strapped
to the floor nearby. He was scorched from the barrage he had endured,
protecting Lenna with his own armored hull until help had arrived. He looked
oddly forlorn.

“Valthyrra has the transport on remote,” Marlena reported
without looking up from her work. “I know that you were wounded yourself,
but can you take control of the ship, at least until we are clear of the bay?
We would all feel better for it.”

“Yes, I have it,” he agreed.

Entering the cabin, he eased himself into the pilot’s seat, tossing his
helmet into the other. He took the ship off remote direction.

“I have it, Val,” he said aloud. He brought the transport up,
lifting the unfamiliar ship straight up through the open overhead doors. He did
not engage the engines until he was in clear sky, and even then he accelerated
cautiously to spare Lenna the worst of the climb into space.

“Are you well?” Valthyrra asked hesitantly.

“Well enough,” he agreed. “I will bring the transport
straight into the fighter bay to save time. Have complete medical assistance
standing by. Lenna is not going to make it, but just in case.”

“Of course, Commander.” Valthyrra sounded as dejected as Bill
looked.

“Send out an achronic message to every ship immediately,” he
continued. “Order every carrier to return to Alkayja Base at once, best
possible speed. If no one is there to give them further orders, they are to
stand off and await the arrival of the Valtrytian fleet. As for yourself,
destroy this installation as soon as we are clear. Perhaps we can still catch
Donalt Trace on the ground, assuming that he was lucky enough to escape Venn
Keflyn. We will be going into starflight as soon as the ships are aboard. What
is the best speed you can give us?”

“I can make most of the run home in a series of long jumps, running at
high starflight speeds while the drive recovers and recharges between
jumps,” she answered. “Perhaps five days.”