The Starwolves (34 page)

"Don, do you remember that young Starwolf we had up for dinner?"
he asked casually.

"What, Velmeran?" Trace asked without looking up from the report
he was reading. "What of it?"

"Well, he seems to be paying us a return visit."

The Sector Commander glanced up, and saw at once what he had meant. It
seemed that wolf ships were coming out of nowhere to fill the interior of the
cavern. And he knew exactly what it meant. He leaped from his seat and was out
the door before his uncle could do a thing to stop him.

"Don! Wait!" Councilor Lake called after him. "You are
running into a trap. What do you think you can do about it?"

He paused, aware that it was already too late. Donalt Trace was running to
meet his fate at the hands of a Starwolf he owed a life. It did not matter that
he knew where to find Velmeran, for that knowledge in itself did not give him
the power to stop it. Would he realize that in time to save his life?

It took less than two minutes to get all the packs inside the city. By that
time the streets of Vannkam were completely deserted; if modern man was not as
intelligent as his predecessors, he was also less brave. The Starwolves prowled
the passages of the city that, by all appearances, was completely empty, a
marked contrast to the Vannkam they knew on port leave. As long as they did not
fire directly into the shops and buildings, there was little danger of hurting
anyone.

The city was not completely defenseless, although it might as well have
been. Scores of automated sentries began to amble out of the many buildings,
alerted to the attack by their master controllers. These machines were never
intended to fight; they served police duty, walking the halls of empty buddings
at night or strolling dimly lit walkways. Even their biggest guns were
inadequate against the defensive shields of the black fighters. Once the
Starwolves realized what was firing at them, they began to use the automatons
for target practice.

As soon as all of their ships were inside the cavern, three of the packs
broke off from the rest to gather in loose formation above the city. The
transport, the last ship to emerge from the lake, hurried to join them.

"Baress, are you ready?" Velmeran asked over ship's com. In a
sense, Baress had the most important task. They could leave without the memory
cell if they got into serious trouble. But they could not easily get away until
he destroyed the generators that powered the dome shield and planetary
defenses.

"Ready and willing," he replied, breaking away from Velmeran's
pack to set himself in the lead position for the others.

Baressa and Kalgeran led their own packs as they followed him, shooting
across the city. The entrance of the corridor leading to the power complex lay
in the north wall of the cavern, down at street level. It was a tight fit for
the fighter, but no more than the underwater tunnel. Here, however, they could
expect some opposition, sentries and guards with guns, and blast doors that
could be secured. Baress would go in first to lead the way, and his fighter had
enough firepower to clear any obstacle except solid rock. He found the entrance
and dropped down to street level, beginning his run.

The power complex lay a kilometer to the north of the city, an artificial
cavern cut well back into the rock of the mountain above it. Self-contained,
the complex had only this one entrance. Double sets of massive steel doors
served to guard the passage at either end. The doors at this end were still
open, and he made sure that they would stay open before he began his ran. He
brought the big accessory cannon to bear on the walls to either side of those
portals, wrecking the locking mechanism and tracks.

The next instant he was inside the passage, ignoring the steady barrage of
light-energy bolts that streamed down its length as he focused his telescopic
vision on the doors at the far end. After a moment he could see that they were
closing, the halves moving slowly inward. He had no intention of racing them,
but slowed until they were closed and securely locked. Then a hail of bolts
from his accessory cannon ripped those doors apart in an instant.

The generator chamber of the power complex was a rectangular cavern,
bisected by a main corridor. A second corridor ran the length of the chamber,
lined on either side with a total of fifty massive generators, each adequate to
serve the needs of the largest battleship. The two packs fanned out as they
entered, drifting slowly through the installation as they centered their lesser
cannons on the computer controls of each generator. They had to insure that the
generators were safely shut down, since a damaged and malfunctioning computer
could force an overload. As safe as total conversion was for general use, a
forced explosion of one of these generators would rip out a large section of
this range, leaving a gaping crater several kilometers across. A chain reaction
of several could destroy this entire world. Once the generators were stilled,
their big cannons would insure that the planetary defenses would remain down.

At the same time Velmeran led his own pack west across the city, to where
the government budding stood massive and gray in the dim lighting of early morning.
Their task was in truth an easy one, and Velmeran expected no trouble. The pack
spread out to circle the building, while Velmeran searched the top of the
building for the proper chamber. There were several such chambers in that same
area, all a part of the sector museum, with very similar design and window
patterns. At last he was forced to draw back and turn his ship's scanners on
that area of the budding.

Centering on the indicated chamber, he drifted in slowly, hardly more than a
walking pace, and cautiously pushed the nose of the fighter through the window.
The glass shattered easily, falling away. He drifted on inside that opening and
brought the ship to a motionless hover as he made a quick inspection of the
room, then brought the fighter down to floor level. Tregloran came in through
the opposite window and settled in as well. Chance had put the younger pilot on
the side of the chamber where Velmeran wanted him, the guns of his ship facing
down the short corridor toward the double doors that were the only entrance.

Finally the transport approached the side of the budding, hovering before a
section of the wall indicated by its own scanners, the end of the short alcove
branching off the main chamber. While Threl held the transport steady, Marietta
made use of a special weapon, a unique combination of energy bolt and projected
held. She played it across the outer wall. The wall shook, splintered and
crumbled away beneath the blasts as if it were being beaten by an immense
hammer. Two large slabs of polished gray marble were reduced to rubble beneath
those blows and the inner wall quickly followed, leaving only a twisted steel
framework. She sliced that away with an ordinary cutting laser, and the
transport drifted through that rough opening.

Threl brought his ship into the main portion of the chamber and edged it
over until its cargo bay was even with the memory cell. Marlena had opened the
large bay doors and now extended the handling arms out to receive it. The arms
took firm hold of the unit and Marlena tried to lift it from its display stand.
But the unit did not rise. Instead, the transport shifted slightly, tilting
dangerously off center. Marlena quickly released the pressure and Threl fought
to regain control of the ship before it slipped sideways off its field drive
suspensors.

"Velmeran, that thing is fastened down," Marlena said over com.

"I suspected as much," he replied. "Give me half a
moment."

He brought his ship down to the floor, landing gear up so that the cockpit
was tilted down. He quickly climbed out and signaled to Marlena, who threw him
a light and a hand-held cutting laser. With these in hand, he walked quickly to
the end of the unit and flashed the light underneath it. The memory cell had
inset tracks running down all four of its long sides by which it was locked
into its cradle inside the ship. The Union official who had overseen the
installation of the unit had made use of the bottom set of tracks, installing
mechanisms that locked it down to the dais. He quickly cut loose the two
locking bolts, then crossed quickly to the other end to free those bolts. He
had just finished when Tregloran interrupted him.

"Captain, we have company," the younger pilot announced casually,
even amused, so that Velmeran knew that he was in no real danger. If there had
been any real trouble, he would have fired at first sight.

Velmeran turned slowly. Not five meters away stood a towering figure of a
man, his legs braced as he held a gun centered on the Starwolf. He might have
almost been a law officer making an arrest, so sure he seemed to be that he had
the situation well under control. But that was hardly the case, for Velmeran
knew that the little gun could not so much as dent his armor. He stood for a
moment, regarding the intruder with an appearance of mild surprise and patient
tolerance, even though he was securely helmeted.

"Commander Trace," he acknowledged at last, switching on the com
link that gave him contact with the world outside his suit.

"Pack Leader Velmeran," Trace answered coldly. "I knew that I
would find you here."

"So?" Velmeran asked, drawing his own gun. "What do you
expect to be able to do about it?"

Commander Trace hesitated as that very question occurred to him. Somehow he
had thought that if he could just get here in time Velmeran would be defeated
and he would win, as if those were the rules of the game. But that was not the
case at all. This game went to the player with the greatest advantage, and just
now Velmeran possessed every advantage. His confusion gave way to real fear,
for he knew that he was facing his own death. And when the Starwolf raised his
gun to take aim, he turned and fled in open terror. He knew that his one,
remote chance for life depended upon getting himself out of that chamber.

Velmeran hesitated, astonished at this turn of events. Defeated and fearing
for his very life, the plight of this man evoked his sympathy. For once
Velmeran saw him as he was, not a personification of evil or the enemy of the
Kelvessan, but a man. In spite of his prejudices, his blind hatreds and his
disregard for the lives and rights of others, he also possessed rare courage
and a selfless devotion to duty. For good or ill, he was human. And for the
first time Velmeran understood what being human really meant, both the familiar
and the alien.

Velmeran realized something about himself – what he was in comparison,
and what he believed himself to be. Killing this man would give him no
satisfaction, nor would it restore some balance in his own sense of justice.
Dveyella's death would not be vindicated in blood, but by the accomplishment of
her dream. Vengeance was his for the taking, and he did not desire it. He could
not hate this man, not as Commander Trace hated him.

He shot anyway, because it was his duty.

Commander Trace's back exploded in a sheet of flames, and the force of that
explosion threw him forward to land with bone-crushing force just short of the
open doorway and the safety he sought. He lay there motionless, the material of
his uniform burning lazily. Velmeran had no more time for that matter. Turning
back to the transport, he saw that Marlena had done nothing to load the memory
cell.

"Get that thing on board!" he called impatiently. "We have to
get out of here now."

"I did not want to be a distraction," she replied, working the
controls of the handling arms. The unit lifted easily from its cradle where it
had lain for thousands of years, and the arms retracted it back into the ship,
drawing it into the bay. The fit was so tight that it did not appear likely to
go, although the measurements Valthyrra had provided insisted that it would
slip in with a third of a meter to spare. Velmeran tossed the cutting laser and
the light into the bay even as Marlena began to close the door.

"He is gone!" Tregloran warned suddenly.

Velmeran turned quickly to see that Trace's body had indeed vanished. He had
either revived enough to drag himself out the door, or someone had quietly
collected him, dead or alive. Velmeran suspected the latter. Either way, there
was nothing that he could do about it. He wanted Donalt Trace dead for the same
reason that he would want to deprive the Union of any valuable weapon. But at
that moment he had to get his attack force away.

"We have to be on our way out," he said, and waved the transport
out of the chamber. "Swing that ship around and get out of here, Threl. We
will guard your back."

The transport spun around in a half circle as Threl cautiously pivoted the
ship to face back the way it had come in. He then led the transport down the
side corridor and out the impromptu entrance of the gaping hole in the outer
wall. Once the larger ship was clear of the budding, the two fighters rose to
the ceiling and passed out through the broken windows. It might have seemed
easier for them to have followed the transport out, but they could not. As
small as they were in comparison, their wingspan was too wide for that opening;
the boxlike hull of the transport had no wings or fins.

What they found outside appeared at first glance to be absolute confusion.
The government building had apparently been replete with automated
sentries. Scores of them had appeared on terraces and rooftops to shoot at the
circling wolf ships. And the Starwolves had been entertaining themselves with
picking off those sentries. But the sentries were a self-sacrificing diversion,
occupying the Star-wolves' attention while the inhabitants of the budding fled.
Indeed, the Sector Residence and the Farstell Trade building had been evacuated
as well; Velmeran applauded Councdor Lake's wisdom in guessing his next move.