The Starwolves (14 page)

"Yes? What would you like most?" Dveyella prompted him when he
hesitated.

"I want to fly – I have to fly – for a time yet to
come," he explained haltingly. "I would prefer to be Baressa's
Commander-designate when she takes command of the Methryn after Mayelna
retires. I would be her present age before she is ready to retire. But that
would be asking too much."

"Not at all," Dveyella insisted. "In fact, that sounds very
good to me. This is what we should do. You fly with me this time. Then, if
things work out and it is still what you want, we will get together with
Baressa and Valthyrra and work out a deal."

"Do you think that they would agree to that?"

"I imagine so, as long as you are willing to return when Mayelna
retires."

Velmeran nodded thoughtfully. "Fair enough. But is that fair to you,
that I should fly with you only twenty years?"

Dveyella shrugged, unconcerned. "Twenty more years and I will be more
than willing to retire from special tactics myself. Then we will return."

Velmeran glanced up at her. "We?"

"The Methryn seems like a good ship to retire to," she said
quickly, reluctant to be too forward out of fear of frightening the boy. But
that plan suited her very well indeed. She could have him entirely to herself,
away from the Methryn and Consherra, for twenty yearsor until he grew up. The
only remaining question was why she thought she needed him so much in the first
place.

Sector Commander Trace handed the message file to Councilor Lake and leaned
back against the edge of his desk as he considered the problem. In his
possession was one Starwolf, old but undamaged from his impact with a carrier,
as well as one fighter that had not fared as well. A damaged fighter was
unimportant; Union technicians could understand and appreciate Starwolf
technology, but they could not reproduce it. They could build fighters that
were a rough approximation of the black wolf ships, but no pilot could fly such
a ship and even the best computer guidance systems were inadequate. He needed
his own genetically engineered pilots. And he needed this captured Starwolf to
show him how to make his own.

"Sir?" the messenger prompted him gently.

"Be patient, son," Donah Trace said. "It will take you a few
days to overtake that carrier, so we can spare a few minutes to find the best
answer."

"Well, at least they showed more sense than I thought they would,"
the Councilor said as he shut the lid on the message file. "Not such a bad
plan, actually. A very good plan, in fact, if you make the mistake of
underestimating the abilities of the Starwolves."

"But not good enough, since we're not going to make that mistake,"
Donalt answered, and struck the edge of the desk in frustration. "Damn!
While they were trying to use their brains, why didn't they just stick him in
this courier. He could have been right here now, in the one place in the entire
sector where the Starwolves cannot get at him. Was that idea even
mentioned?"

"Yes, sir," the messenger admitted reluctantly, fearful of the
Sector Commander's displeasure.

"And there was, I suppose, some reason why that was not done?"

"Yes, sir. It was felt that the five guards my courier can carry would not
be enough to keep the prisoner under control. There was no military escort to
protect my ship, and no cargo facilities for the wreckage of the fighter."

"The fighter? That fighter is of no value to me. But no one has ever
kept a five Starwolf." He paused and glanced shrewdly at his uncle.
"If they are following at a discreet distance, is it most likely that they
are using a silent beacon?"

"Yes, that is a possibility," Lake agreed.

"And such a beacon would be located on the ship rather than in the suit
of the pilot?"

"They do carry a distress beacon in both the ship and the suit, but
those we know about. A secret tracking beacon, however... certainly in the
ship. They could not hide a long-range beacon in the suit."

"Then this is your message," Trace said as he turned back to the
messenger. "Make your best time back to Bineck. The prisoner is to be
transferred into your ship, along with two sentries and as many live guards as
will fit. Then have the fighter put aboard a destroyer that is to make best speed
for... shall we say the big sector shipyards at Karran? Do you have that?
Do you need written orders?"

The messenger shook his head. "Verbal will be enough, under the
circumstances."

"Good. Remember to say nothing of your orders over radio, since there
may be ears you know nothing about."

"Military escort, sir?"

"Hell, no! You might as well broadcast your plans aloud! Your only hope
is in secrecy and speed. Besides, the sector fleet couldn't save you if they
want you bad enough. Hurry, now."

The messenger saluted quickly and disappeared out the door of the Sector
Commander's office. Donalt shook his head slowly at the stupidity of the human
race in general and underlings in particular. Councilor Lake stood by the
window, his hands in his pockets as he stared out across the underground city
of Vannkarn. But his thoughts on the matter were plain enough. He was smiling
as if at some private joke, amused with his own thoughts.

"It's too late, you know," he remarked after a long moment.

"Yes, I know that. These long delays in travel time are working against
me. I've only just now found out what's going on, and for all I know it might
already be over." Trace glanced over at him, irritated. "You don't
have to look so damned pleased by it all."

"I'm not exactly pleased," Lake answered. "I'm as frustrated
as you to realize that we can never deal with Starwolves on their own terms.
And yet, where Starwolves are concerned, I have learned to never be too hopeful
or depend too much on luck."

"They make their own luck," Trace said. "That is what I want
for us."

"You want your own Starwolves?" Lake asked, turning to look at
him. "What if our people cannot duplicate their genetic design?"

"Then we clone the one we have," Trace insisted.

"We can surely tamper with his genetic material enough to make use of
the information it contains to create our own viable race."

Lake nodded thoughtfully. "Good idea. But what then? Will your new
Starwolves serve you willingly?"

"It's not a question of will. As long as we bring them up from the
start without a thought in their head except for what we put there, they will
be machines to serve us. But I can see that you don't like the idea of using
real Starwolves."

"I prefer that we learn how to make our own," the Councilor
admitted. "Then we can order their obedience to our will. What if real
Starwolves have some instinctive urge to fight us? You could find that your own
weapon has turned against you."

The late morning sun hung just over the horizon far to the south. Summer was
nearing its end and the long day would end with it, for the sun would soon fall
below the edge of the world and not rise again for half a year.

The northern polar region of the planet Bineck was in most ways like that of
any other world where human life could dwell. Both poles were open ocean,
bordered only in part by continents that lay mostly in warmer climates. Bineck
was a cool world; even the equator was only temperate and the poles were
bitterly cold even in the height of summer, with massive floes of thick ice.
Nothing lived on those icy plains, not when the little life that did exist on
that world struggled for survival in warmer regions. A few fish did swim below
the ice but they were, in truth, only colonists, no more native to that world
than the people who had planted them there.

Three small ships shot down through the clear, cold sky through the very
center of the magnetic pole, only a few hundred kilometers from the planetary
axis. They fell with tremendous speed, nose down with their engines idling to
hide them from scanner detection. The transport and two fighters descended
wrapped only in the protection of their atmospheric shields, allowing them to
move at tremendous speeds with little bother from atmospheric friction.
They had begun their approach well outside detection range, building to speed
and then drifting along a carefully plotted course that permitted them to
complete their run without having to develop the engine power that would give
their presence away, braking gradually with minimum reverse thrust.

They entered the upper atmosphere as fast as even wolf ships would dare,
nearly seventeen thousand kilometers per hour, dropping down from the very
fringe of space to ground level in less than a minute. Leveling out at the very
last moment, the three ships engaged their engines just enough to maintain
their speed. They flew as low as they could, until their atmospheric shields
began to press against the ice only five meters below. At fifteen times the
speed of sound, the shock wave created by their shields pulverized the thick
ice, throwing it up in a towering plume of snow and splintered crystals.

Flying wing to wing, the ships casually dodged pressure ridges and icebound
glaciers that appeared out of the hazy whiteness of the horizon with blinding
speed. After a couple of minutes the ice floe began to break up, ending
abruptly only seconds later. The ships shot out over open water, a vast curtain
of white vapor rising like a storm cloud behind them. Still hundreds of
kilometers short of their goal, they began to apply braking thrust to drop
speed quickly as they prepared to land.

Hardly a minute later the three ships finally dropped to subsonic speed just
as a fortress wall of towering cliffs rose before them. The lead fighter moved
to the front as Dveyella took them by a concealed path. The weather had been
less kind to the hills since they had been alive; a canyon had cut deep into
the unprotected land, providing a hidden passage for the ships until they
reached the cover of the high ridge. Dveyella led them at almost a crawl along
the back of the ridge, finally slipping through a tight pass that put them
almost on top of the wide ledge where they would land.

The transport settled gently to the very center of the ledge, and the two
fighters nestled in close to either side. Velmeran left his fighter as Dveyella
had instructed, with the generator idling just enough to keep itself cycling,
the energy cells charged and the major systems powered up. They might not be
able to spare the time for a prestart on the way out. He unstrapped and lowered
the boarding ladder; jumping was the easiest way down, but the hinged canopy
prevented pilots from jumping back into the narrow opening of the cockpit, and
it was a long jump. Fighters had a very long-legged stance to accommodate their
turned-down wings and the big main drives they protected.

Dveyella walked around the front of the transport just as he leaped down.
She was still fastening on the thick belt that held her guns and a row of heat
charges. She turned as the door of the transport slid open. Baress stuck his
head out, frowning fiercely. "Do you know how hard it is on a good pilot
to have to make the ride down as a passenger?"

"No, but I will surely ask the first good pilot I find," Dveyella
replied.

Baress's frown deepened as he stepped down to join them. "Spare me. I
came to tell you that a storm is due. A late season warm front is pushing up a
line of about the worst weather this place ever sees, and it should be on us
about the time you return."

"I can see that for myself," Dveyella said, glancing up at the
wall of dark clouds that was beginning to climb above the ridge behind them.
Lightning rippled up and down its length, and distant thunder rumbled faintly.

Baress only shrugged. "I am only trying to be useful. Are you sure that
you will not need any help?"

"No, we will likely need all the help we can get. But I am sure that
you will not leave this ledge."

"I will sit on him if he as much as looks over the side," Marlena
offered from the transport door. "By keeping Baress here, the rescuers
will at least outnumber the people needing rescue."

"Whatever it takes. Velmeran, we have to hurry," Dveyella said as
she fastened down her helmet. Velmeran fastened down his own and hurried to
join her at the edge of the shelf, looking out over the ancient city. It was an
impressive sight, seen from above, filling the valley from rim to rim and
extending far to the north. The sprawling structure was composed of a series of
massive, featureless stone blocks joined by connecting halls and corridors,
unbroken by doors, windows or visible vents. But the greatest part of the city
lay below, carved deep into the heart of the mountains.

"Keep your helmet on and your systems to normal," Dveyella warned.
"Life has been gone from this world for so long that the oxygen level is
still a bit low. Too low to sustain us for what we have to do. Ready?"

"Of course."

"Stay close, then," she said, peering over the ledge to the ground
below. "And remember that this is real gravity, not the stuff you
practiced in. You will fall faster."

Dveyella casually hopped off the ledge, jumping out just far enough to keep
well clear of the cliff face, although she took most of the twenty-meter fall
straight down. She landed easily and quickly stepped out of the way, and
Velmeran followed. As she had warned, he fell faster than he would have
expected. But he was prepared and maintained his balance effortlessly. Dveyella
waited until he indicated for her to go ahead.

They kept up a fairly good pace the rest of the way down the slope, running
where they could and clearing the more difficult sections in short leaps. Since
most of this ridge was composed of tumbled slabs and boulders of solid rock, a
good deal of their descent was spent jumping from one massive stone to another.
Velmeran was hard pressed to keep up the pace that Dveyella set with ease. But
he did not complain, since he thought that he would improve quickly with
practice.