The Starwolves (7 page)

"I am sorry, Captain," Tregloran said. "We would have gotten
her, if we had not been forced to turn back."

Velmeran stared at him in surprise. "Treg, was that you flying with
Baressa and me?"

"Of course," the younger pilot answered. "I saw you go after
her, and I thought that small help was better than none."

"Hardly small help," Velmeran said. "Not when we were flying
wing to wing in a herd of stingships. You earned your pay today."

"And a bonus," Consherra added. "Double bonuses, in fact, for
your entire pack and Baressa's, while everyone else will get only a stern
lecture on tardiness. As for yourself, you are wanted in the left holding
bay immediately."

"Me? What did I do?" Tregloran asked nervously, looking alarmed
and surprisingly guilty.

"You were the one who plugged that freighter?" she asked, and he
nodded. "Well, she is a real freighter and full of cargo. Since you
brought her out of starflight, you get first pick of her goods."

With a cry of delight, Tregloran tried to force his way through his
packmates on the steps ahead of him. When that proved impossible, he was
reduced to trying to hurry diem on ahead; Fortunately for his patience, the
others were nearly as eager as himself to get to that bay. This was the first
big ship that they had brought down by themselves, a minor accomplishment
compared to fighting a fleet of Union warships, by themselves and outnumbered.
Now they remembered, and wanted to get to the bay to see what they had caught.
Velmeran smiled, and decided that he would very much like to go with them.

"So the students have fought with the big boys now," Consherra
remarked as she walked beside him. "Perhaps they are no longer
students."

"They still have much to learn," Velmeran said. "But they are
learning."

"So, I believe, are we all," Consherra added, then looked over at
him. "Meran, do not take it so hard. You did what you had to do, and you
did it very well. That is real trouble."

She indicated the council table, where Valthyrra and the Commander were
busily bombarding the erring pack leaders with a variety of threats and dire
promises. But Velmeran lacked the courage to stay and listen. Despite
everyone's assurances, his own conscience was not clear. He had lost a pack
member, a life that was his responsibility. Ultimately he had only himself
to blame for his failure to solve a problem that he had known existed.

Tregloran's recent run of luck nearly failed him, for the big freighter
contained mostly clothes, tons upon tons of clothes being shipped to the port
ahead for redistribution to the colonies and fringe worlds. All worthless to
Starwolves, who needed an extra set of sleeves. He did find a few things
that he took for use by the entire pack, and Veyndayk allowed him a small
fortune in jewelry.

Tregloran might have sold the jewelry in their next port to purchase
something he could use, but he decided to put most of it into keeping. Wealth
meant little to Starwolves. There were practical limitations to what they
could have; whether it would fit into their cabins, or withstand the stresses
of shipboard accelerations, or whether it even had any practical use in their
lives. Jewelry they used as a type of universal currency, since they could not
wear it (gold interfered with their high-speed nervous systems). They certainly
were not poor, as Union propaganda tried to make them out to be. Piracy was
their weapon against Union trade tyranny. They did not have to depend upon it
for a living.

Velmeran stayed to watch as the captured ships were brought in and stored in
the bays. He was interested in them, for he and his students had fought these
ships and yet it was the first clear look that he had of them. They had seemed
big enough outside, but when four were packed inside one of the Methryn's bays
they looked small and pitifully inadequate. After a time the damage, the
shot-out turrets and wrecked bridges, began to bother him. Starwolves were
well-trained to think of themselves as fighting machines; in the name of duty
they seldom considered the consequences of their acts. Looking at these ships
up close, however, it was too easy to remember that people had been inside
their battered hulls. Not his own kind, perhaps, but even humans were people.

After a time Velmeran retreated to a forward observation deck. The
Methryn had few windows, and none at all in her armored hull sections. She had
only two pairs of observation decks, directly over the fighter bays, the forward
windows showing the holding bays and the rear windows allowing crewmembers
to view incoming fighters, and a fifth platform in her bow directly above her
shock bumper.

The crews were all hard at work securing and cataloging salvage and the
pilots were standing by their fighters, with two packs still out. Velmeran was
seated alone, except for an automated floor-cleaning machine that sat idle a
short distance away.

"I thought that you might be here," Mayelna said suddenly,
and he turned to find her approaching from the entrance to his right.

"Valthyrra told you I was here," Velmeran said in return.

Mayelna smiled. "Valthyrra Methryn sees all and knows all... at least
everything that passes within her own thick shell. Do you suppose that we
tickle her insides?"

"I imagine that the feeling is one of nausea," he replied
glumly, and immediately wished that he had not. It sounded a little poutish,
even to him. If he could not even evoke self-pity, then he certainly could
expect no sympathy from the Commander.

Mayelna sat down on the bench beside him. "Why are you still in armor?
Meran, what is wrong?"

Velmeran glanced down, frowning. "Mayelna, what is right? I have done
my best to make pilots out of that pack of children, and then I lose my most
experienced member. I wonder if there is something more, something that I have
yet to learn about leading."

"Yes, I suppose that there is something you have yet to learn. The
knowledge of what you can and cannot do, the confidence to act when you must,
and the courage to seek help when you need it." She paused a moment and
looked at him. "Your pilots are no longer students, not after today, even
if they still have much to learn memselves. And Keth is a problem of his
own making. He should have had sense enough to retire, or I should have told
him. But not you. There are too many years between the two of you for you to
have been able to tell him that, and I doubt that he would have listened."

"I still feel responsible for him." Mayelna nodded.

"I know. I would be concerned if you did not. You know, we had thought
to give your pack to Keth, after your old pack was nearly destroyed. We knew
that he would have to retire very soon, but by then he would have the students
half-trained and you would be more ready to become pack leader. But Valthyrra
said no. She said that he has no sense of responsibility toward others, that he
is too self-centered and showed off more and more as his abilities began to
fail. She was right, as always. Keth would have been too busy with himself to
have taught those students a fourth of what they have learned from you. And if
he had led that pack out today, I do not doubt that he would have lost half of
them."

A short distance away, the cleaning automaton quietly, carefully moved its
camera around for a better view of the pair.

"Our pilots are no better than the people who teach them, and who lead
them," Mayelna continued. "And a person who does not really care will
never be his best at what he does. After today, I wish that many more of my
pilots had your devotion and sense of duty. Perhaps Valthyrra is right.
Perhaps we do not fight often enough."

"Why?" Velmeran asked suddenly, looking up. "Why do we fight?
Why should we fight, except to satisfy a need that was probably bred into us
anyway?"

Mayelna frowned. "I do not suppose that you want another history
lesson."

"No, you gave me that fifteen years ago," he answered.
"We judge the Union unfit, and we seek to destroy it. Why? Are we the
keepers of humanity's conscience, when we are not even human ourselves? Why
should we continue to fight when we cannot win. And what would we do if we did
win?"

Mayelna nodded slowly, almost sadly. "Very few of us question the
reason for our own existence. Valthyrra considers it an encouraging sign
if you do, and I do see the wisdom in that."

She sat, deep in thought, for so long that the automaton turned its
camera slightly to focus in on her, and even Velmeran began to wonder. At last
she sighed heavily and shook her head. "I cannot tell you. There is an
answer, but you must find it for yourself. Your own reason... not just to
fight, but to work toward the day that the fighting may end. My whole life, as pack
leader and then Commander, has been to do what I can to shape the future that I
would like to see. But I will not live to see the end of this war. For today, I
am satisfied to know that matters would be worse without our contribution, that
the colonies would all be slave camps for the fat inner worlds." She
turned to look at him. "Nor do I believe that you really question the
value of what you do. You are too good of a pilot to be filled with doubt, for
that doubt would always be holding you back."

The automaton turned its camera back to Velmeran and adjusted its focus. He
shook his head. "No, I suppose not. But that still does not make it any
easier to accept the fact that I have no choice."

"Do you want to leave this ship?" Mayelna asked so suddenly that both
Velmeran and the automaton looked at her in surprise.

"No," Velmeran said without hesitation. "Flying with the
packs means everything to me. I suppose all I really want is the chance to have
decided that for myself."

Mayelna nodded. "Meran, every one of us desires, more than anything
else, to fly with the packs. But only one in twenty is good enough. All the
rest must serve those fighters and the ship that carries them, and they can
only dream of what you have. I flew with the packs for nearly three hundred
years and I had to give it up, not because I want to command this ship but
because I was needed. You have what you want most. Would you be willing to give
it up, even if you were needed somewhere else?"

Velmeran considered that and shook his head. "No. At least not
yet."

"I know," Mayelna said gently. "I will not tell you to accept
what you are and make the most of it. Soon, I hope, you will find that it
fulfills your needs as well, and you will be happy."

"I suppose that you're right," Velmeran agreed. "I am not
dissatisfied with what I have, but perhaps with what I am. Sometimes I feel
like a machine, genetically programmed to seek and destroy."

"Valthyrra Methryn is a machine," Mayelna pointed out. "She
was built a fighting ship, and that is all she can be. Compared to her, you
have all the choices you could want to be whatever you want. But she is happy
with what she is, and I could hardly deny that she has both life and free will,
as much as anyone."

"Yes, that is true," Velmeran agreed. The automaton dipped its
camera, almost a gesture of relief. Velmeran saw that movement, and looked at
the machine in mystification. "I might be mistaken, but it seems to
me that cleaning unit is taking an unusual interest in us."

The unit glanced up with a startled look, only to see Mayelna peering at it
intently. The machine executed a quick turn and made a hasty retreat across the
observation deck as fast as its padded magnetic tracks would carry it.

"Valthyrra Methryn, you nosy machine!" Mayelna declared, leaping
up in wrath.

Velmeran laughed. "Valthyrra Methryn knows all and sees all, however
she can contrive it."

"You would think that I would know all her tricks too well by
now," Mayelna said, watching the machine until it disappeared out the
opposite door. She turned back to Velmeran. "I would not be foolish
enough to ask you not to worry, but I do wish that you would not worry so
much."

Mayelna returned to the bridge in time for their departure. Valthyrra
had estimated forty hours to making their meeting with the Delvon. The Methryn
could have made that jump in far less time. But she was fat with plunder and
she was not about to risk having something break loose and damage itself, or
her. She had even cast out her transports and capture ships to fly under their
own power, so that she could stuff their holds with salvaged engines.

Mayelna paused for a moment in the right wing of the bridge. Tresha saw her
and left her place at the forward console, indicating for her assistant to
watch the screens.

"Commander, all systems are functioning well with recommended
tolerances," the engineering officer reported. "This ship is in
good order and battle-ready."

"Especially considering her age," Mayelna added. "You do not
fool me! 'All systems functioning within recommended tolerances.' Indeed!
You mean to imply that Her Worship could be better."

"I do not mean to imply that the ship is in need of repairs, nor unfit
for battle," Tresha insisted. "But we should give serious thought to
a complete overhaul in the next two or three years, especially if she means to
fight hard and often."

"That has occurred to me already," Mayelna said. "If I can...

"All crewmembers stand by," Valthyrra announced suddenly. Everyone
paused as they stood or sat and glanced up at the camera pod, but Valthyrra was
staring unfocused at the main viewscreen, her attention on her scanners.
"All crewmembers stand by. This is a class one battle alert. All on-duty
personnel to their posts. All pilots to the bays. All damage-control parties
stand by. All nonactive personnel will remove to the inner sections." She
paused to switch channels. "All free transports and capture ships are to
scatter immediately. Do not attack or approach any ships."