The Starwolves (18 page)

"Good enough," she decided as she jerked out the leads. "At
least until I can get you out of that armor and properly checked."

"I am all right?" Keth asked with both impatience and concern.

"You are not ill," Dyenlerra said as she bent over the device and
pointed toward the lift, indicating for it to put itself away. It turned and
rolled off at a quick pace. "Like so many of us, you are getting
old."

Keth's reply was a moment of thoughtful silence. Obviously the matter of his
age did bother him, whether he chose to believe it or not.

"They did not mistreat you?" Mayelna asked.

"No, certainly not," Keth answered quickly. "They were scared
to death of me, although I did nearly starve on their rations. They eat like
birds."

"We eat like wolves," Dyenlerra corrected him. "At least they
did keep him cool."

"They let you keep your suit?" Velmeran asked.

"Not at first, but I convinced them that I had to have it," Keth
replied, obviously pleased with his ingenuity. "I thought that I would
need it, since I knew that someone would be coming after me. Actually, it was
quite comfortable in those caves."

"We will need a complete report later," Mayelna said. "For
now, you report to sick bay for a complete checkup. I want to see you in my
office as soon as you are finished."

"Immediately, Commander," Keth agreed with only minor reluctance,
well aware that he had been given an order. He departed alone. Some of the
others watched him leave but no one was inclined to go with him, no doubt to
his annoyance. They were waiting for their pack leader.

"Dyenlerra," Mayelna said softly. "Just what is his
condition?"

"About the same as when he left, less about two kilos from light rations,"
the medic replied. "As I said, he is getting old – fast."

"Would you be willing to declare him unfit to fly with the packs?"
she asked suddenly.

"I might have to." Dyenlerra did not seem surprised by that
question.

"Valthyrra and I already have, although I would like to have your
support on that. Is he capable of being an instructor?"

Dyenlerra nodded. "Yes, he should be up to that for another twenty
years, certainly ten."

"Then so it shall be," Mayelna said, and glanced over her shoulder
at the younger pilots waiting silently as a group. "I trust that the lot
of you can be counted upon to be more discreet than your superior officers. Let
this business serve as a lesson to you on the virtues of honest introspection,
but do not make the mistake of thinking that foolishness will always be
forgiven. I have a present need for an instructor, and as such Keth will be
useful to this ship. He might be foolish enough to refuse. Now, forget what you
have heard."

No one answered, but there was no question that they took the point to
heart. They had matured enough in recent days to recognize a threat when they
heard one, although most of them still did not realize that they had been meant
to overhear what had been said.

"Then I must leave you," the Commander continued. "There is a
war and, unlike Valthyrra, I can only be in one place at a time. Just now I am
needed on the bridge."

"I am calling the packs in," Valthyrra said. "We will be
under way as soon as they are secure."

"Make it quick, then," Mayelna said as she left with Dyenlerra.

"Well, children, the last order of business is port leave,"
Valthyrra continued. "There are two packs and several other members of
this crew, not to mention our hardworking visitors, who are to be rewarded with
leave. There are also eight packs and a large portion of this ship's crew whose
tardiness and lack of devotion will be punished by being denied leave. What
will be your choice?"

"Kanis!" Tregloran exclaimed, answering for them all. Kanis was
one of three places that all Starwolves liked best; the climate was good
– meaning cold and dry – the port was interesting but tame enough
that they did not have to worry, their kind was very well liked by the locals,
and there was no Union base. The others were quick to nod in agreement.

"You are all agreed on Kanis?" Valthyrra asked. "Very well,
then Vinthra it is!"

Velmeran looked at the machine questioningly. "Vinthra? Why
Vinthra?"

"I have business in Vinthra," she answered simply.

"And since Vinthra is also the capital world of this sector, you also
have a lot of brass – if you will pardon the pun – poking your big
nose there immediately after your last two encounters with the military."

"So it would seem," Valthyrra agreed. "All the more reason,
in my estimate, for going to Vinthra."

Her probe turned and drifted off at a sedate pace toward the lift door, no
doubt to return itself to its rack; Valthyrra had transferred immediately to
the bridge the moment she was finished there.

"Then we are not going to Kanis?" Tregloran asked, as mystified as
the rest of the pack.

"Copperbottom asked us where we would like to go," Velmeran
explained the ship's odd sense of humor. "She never promised to take us
there. Some of her jokes are older than she is."

Tregloran only shrugged. "The underground city of Vannkarn should be
just as much fun."

Dveyella frowned. "Actually, I have had quite enough of underground
cities for now."

"You wish to speak to me, Commander?" Keth asked hesitantly,
standing in the doorway of Mayelna's office behind the upper bridge.

Mayelna quickly put away her computer terminal, swinging the monitor around
on its support arm until it locked into place on the arm and flipped the
keyboard over so that the wood grain of its bottom matched inconspicuously with
the rest of her desk, while using one of her free hands to indicate the two
chairs before her. Although she seemed distracted, she watched Keth closely as
he crossed the room slowly to take his seat. It seemed that he was at last
beginning to understand how matters stood in regard to his future. Understand,
perhaps, but not necessarily accept; he still wore his black armor.

"So, how did your visit to the medic go?" she asked casually.

"I thought that you might tell me," Keth replied nervously.
"You have the report. There is something wrong?"

"No, there is nothing wrong for someone your age," Mayelna said,
with slight emphasis on that final word. "Keth, Valthyrra and I have a
small problem that you might be able to solve for us. We have some busy times
ahead of us, and we want more packs for those two bays we are reopening. We
have a whole class of students, fourteen in all, just waiting to begin flight
instruction. They can be fighting in two years, with another class of twelve
ready to begin when they are finished. All they need is an instructor. I
thought that you might want to do that."

Keth looked at her in surprise and mild confusion. "There must be
someone else. I do not have that many years left, and I would prefer to spend
them in the pack. Surely you can understand that."

"That is not your choice," Mayelna said. "I will not force
you to be an instructor, but you will either instruct, or you will be retired.
Valthyrra and I have decided, and your physical has proven us correct. You can
no longer endure the stress of hard accelerations. I will not have a repetition
of this previous fiasco, nor will I allow you to be a menace to the other
pilots."

"Commander, that was not my fault!" Keth protested. "I saved
myself when that ship turned in front of me... "

"There is nothing wrong with your reaction time, I will grant you
that," Mayelna interrupted him. "But the fact remains that if you had
time to find that corridor to try to poke through, then you also had time to
turn. Any other pilot would have missed that ship. I have been waiting for you
to retire since I put you in Velmeran's pack two years ago. If it is too much
for you to admit to yourself, then you force me to decide for you."

"Commander, it is not fair!" Keth declared in anger, although he
did not look up and Mayelna wondered if he might cry. The most bitter lies can
be those a person tells himself.

"No, it is not fair," Mayelna agreed. "The great scheme of
life seems to have no respect for a three-hundred-year career. Nature has no
respect for seniority. Do you think that I do not understand what this means to
you? Flying was my life, all that I ever cared about. I have not seen the
inside of a fighter in the eighteen years since I came up to the bridge. Day
after day I sit in that chair and watch this ship fly herself and nothing hurts
me more than to see the packs go out, knowing that I will never fly again. I
was young and strong the night Valthyrra called me to the bridge. But I have
grown old, sitting in that chair while the packs fly without me. And I do not
much like to think about it, because I feel like I have lost something that has
been very important and dear to me forever. Every day that passes is a treasure
lost."

She paused, rubbing her nose absently as she sat back. Then, noticing Keth
staring at her, she crossed both sets of arms. "Do not get me wrong. I
know that tending the bridge is very important, and I am proud to do it. The
fact is, I am of more use to this ship on the bridge than in a fighter. And I
quite intend to stay there another thirty years. But I will retire, when the
time comes, and Velmeran is going to have to follow me up there. And yet, Great
Spirit of Space help him, he will still be very, very young when that time
comes, and flying is no less his life than it was mine."

Keth laughed softly. "So that is the great secret! Valthyrra would blow
her breakers if she knew."

"I imagine that she knows already. I would spare him that fate, and yet
I know that it has to be." Mayelna shook her head regretfully. "This
is the talk that I should be having with him, if I had the courage. At least I
will have an end to the problem you represent."

"I will be your instructor," Keth agreed, still reluctant.
"We are, as you point out, slaves to duty. I am of more use to this ship
teaching others to fly than I would be in a pack, certainly more use than I
would be retired. I should be glad for the few more years that you are willing
to give me. Someday I may even feel grateful."

"Just now, I am sure, you only feel that you have lost something rather
than gained," she agreed. "Go move your things down to the
instruction bay and start setting things in order. And, if you are smart, you
will act like this was your idea as much as anyone's."

Keth smiled as he rose to leave. "Thank you, Commander."

He passed Valthyrra on the way out. She paused a moment to watch him,
twisting the remote's long neck around backward, before she drifted on into the
office.

Mayelna sat back in her chair, watching the machine closely.

"I take it that matters progressed smoothly," Valthyrra said.

"Very well, indeed," Mayelna said. "Your timing seems to be
as accurate as always."

"No, my timing seems to be rather off of late," Valthyrra said,
refusing to be teased. "Are you so spiteful that you are actually
encouraging Velmeran to join this special tactics team?"

"Velmeran thought that you were trying to get rid of him, arranging for
him to go with Dveyella."

"Why would I want to get rid of him?"

"Because he is too young to suddenly be so popular, and he is causing
dissension among the older pilots. I just wanted to show him that you have no
such plan. If you had a mouth, it would have been gaping."

"Then I quite forgive you," Valthyrra said contritely. "You
know, he might have been right... about the older pilots. But they gave a very
bad showing of themselves, and they have only themselves to blame."

"Just in time for Velmeran to move ahead through the gap of their own
incompetence?" Mayelna asked. "Either your timing is very good, or
you are about the luckiest ship in the heavens."

"Not so lucky, in the long run," Valthyrra said. "Velmeran is
probably going to leave us. My schemes have backfired."

Mayelna raised an inquiring brow. "Are you sure of that?"

"No, not absolutely. Dveyella knows why he must stay."

"And she will give him back to you?"

"No, it is not that simple. Dveyella and Velmeran are very much in
love, and they are about as well-matched a pair as I have ever seen. She is
going to be making him aware of that very soon now."

The approach of a Starwolf carrier on a Union planet was an event similar in
some respects to an all-out attack, since no one was ever certain that it was
not. The big ships would suddenly drop out of starflight halfway into system,
hurtling vast and silent into an orbit of their own choosing with no regard for
shipping lanes or frantic station controllers. As a rule they maintained com
silence unless they had instructions of their own to impart, although they
revealed themselves fully to scanners – mostly to insure that all traffic
would get out of their way – looming like a mountain on screen.

For the Starwolves, this was a venture into enemy territory, and all this
bluff was to insure that they would be left well alone. Their reputation was
their strongest defensive weapon, and they guarded it carefully. Freighters
scattered in their paths, while ships at station all but shook in their
moorings. Union warships discreetly withdrew like predators chased away from
their kill by something they did not dare fight. The Union had curious
loopholes in its laws to excuse the transgressions of Starwolves, who did not
legally exist and so could not be held accountable for breaking laws. It was an
uneasy truce at best, and one the Union hated with a passion. But at least they
kept their stations.

The fact that Vinthra was sector capital only made the situation all the
more dangerous. Sector capitals were the true inner worlds of the Union; they
were the Union, in a very real sense, the bare handful of planets that decided
policy for their vast economic empire. There was, at any time, a fleet ready in
this system large and strong enough to stand against a Starwolf carrier. Not
that they could hope to defeat one of the big ships, but they could drive one
away. But the inner worlds were also the homes of the Commanders who would
decide if they would fight, and they did not want such destruction brought down
upon their own worlds and stations.