The Starwolves (9 page)

"But there was no way that they were going to fool the Captain,"
Tregloran continued blissfully. "He was on her tail the moment that
carrier broke from the rest. And Baressa was right behind him."

Velmeran rose quietly and began to slip away, unobserved. He edged out
the door, thinking that he had made his escape, only to find a small delegation
of his fellow pack leaders. Then he knew he was in trouble. Barthan, young and
cynical – for a Kelvessa – was the obvious leader of this group,
with the older Train a close second. He was surprised to see Shayrn rounding
out this group of malcontents; she had always been supportive of him in the past.

"Off to save a world, Captain?" Barthan inquired, radiating
sarcastic displeasure. "We want to have a word with you. We would like to
know what you thought you were doing out there."

"My duty," Velmeran replied evenly. "And I would like to know
what you thought you were doing while I was out there."

"That is beside the point..."

"Is it?" Velmeran demanded. "My pack and I did your duty as
well as our own. If you believe that you are better than I am, then you tell me
why you were not there when you were needed."

"So we made a mistake," Barthan snapped impatiently.
"Well, you made a bigger one when you decided that you could give us
orders."

"You are not a senior pack leader," Train added. "In fact,
you are the most junior pack leader on this ship. Baressa was senior, and
she was out there with you. Why was she not giving the orders?"

"Perhaps because Baressa is smart enough to recognize a superior
leader when it counts," Baressa answered for herself, seeming to appear
out of the very air behind the three disgruntled pack leaders. She walked
around them to stand beside Velmeran, obviously casting her support with him.
"All this talk about junior and senior pack leaders is foolish. A few
extra years of sitting in a fighter or wearing a rank does not make you better
than anyone else. A good leader comes that way, ready-made, and you know it because
you listen when he or she gives an order. And from now on I listen to
him."

Shayrn was so moved by that endorsement that she abandoned her previous
group, edging around to stand close to Baressa. Even Train looked doubtful.
Only Barthan remained unconvinced.

"You could be Commander-designate if we pushed it," he reminded
her.

"I know that," she agreed. "But if Valthyrra says that he is
the one, then I believe her. You will see. Or else you will find yourself
another ship."

"I will not take orders from him," Barthan insisted.

"Yes, you will," she said with icy firmness. "If Valthyrra
or the Commander indicates that he can, then you are going to listen. Refusing
his orders under those circumstances is the same as refusing their own.
You know that. You would lose your rank, and you might find yourself without a
ship, if Valthyrra turns you out, because no one else will take you in. If you
do not like the way things are, then get out while it is your idea."

"But things do not have to be that way," Barthan argued with
equal force. "If we stand together on this..."

"You still do not understand," Baressa interrupted him, her tone
cold enough to be intimidating. "Management wants it this way, and I
agree. Too many of the senior pack leaders – which you are not –
stand with him in this matter. You cannot gather enough support to have your
own way, so you had better shut up before you get yourself in trouble."

"I believe that I have had enough of your game," Shayrn agreed.

"Train, you need to take your young friend aside and make a few matters
clear to him," Baressa continued. "I thought that you, at least, were
old enough to know better."

With that she took Velmeran by the arm and led him down the broad corridor
toward the pilots' apartments. The younger pilot was too stunned to know what
to think. He could only recall that Baressa had been his stern teacher only a
few years before. For her to champion him so firmly left him speechless.

"Barthan is a fool and he always will be," she complained
aloud, more to herself. "Rank and seniority are all-important to him, now
that he has a measure of his own, and he would like to forget that the only
pack leader he is senior to is you. I guess that means a lot to him, since he
does not have a fourth of your talent or quick wits. You threaten him, you
might say, not that I am offering that as an excuse. And I certainly do not
want you worrying about trouble from him. Train is our other resident fool, but
he just needed to have things spelled out for him. He will keep Barthan under
control now."

She paused, noticing that Velmeran was staring at her, and smiled. "I
would not have you intimidated by me, either. It was one thing for me to
be a little strict with you when I was teaching you how to run a pack. The time
for teaching is past, but there are still some things that I can do to help
you. And if I am standing firmly behind you, the other pack leaders will too.
Seven of them, at least. That seems like a good percentage to me, certainly at
this point."

"Help me what?" Velmeran asked.

Baressa paused and regarded him closely. "You are no fool, Meran. And
you are certainly no coward. Now you tell me what I am talking about."

"I think that you mean to make me Commander-designate," he
answered cautiously, afraid that she would scorn him if he guessed wrong. Up
until Consherra's very blatant bints, he had always thought of Baressa as
filling that role, officially or not.

She nodded firmly. "So you do understand. I know that it was understood
that I was the only candidate for that position. And I would have taken it for
the same reason that your mother did, because I was needed. But I do not want
it."

"And you think I do?" Velmeran asked.

"No, but you will take it. You are better than I am," she replied
as she turned to leave.

"But I am not ready to command this ship!" he protested.

Baressa paused to glance back at him. "You will be."

In Donalt Trace's experience there was nothing so boring and pointless
as a formal dinner party. These were the battles that young Richart Lake had
been brought up to fight; in his opinion, he could do more good for trade and
commerce by fighting Starwolves, subduing unaffiliated fringe worlds and
chastising the colonies. He had to admit that the old Councilor and his
grandson did fight and win major battles armed with only hors d'oeuvres and
wineglasses, hammering out sweet deals for Farstell Trade or alliances
between the allegedly unified sectors. The only thing he failed to understand
was why he was expected to have any part of it.

Tonight he had retreated into a dark corner. Councilor Lake's suite was
spacious, occupying two-thirds of an entire level of the Sector Residence.
He preferred the cavernous halls and chambers of the Lake Mansion, some
distance down the coast from Vannkarn, where it was easy to lose one's
self without committing the social felony of simply disappearing. Quarters
were too close in this apartment, but for the moment he was left alone, a
glass of warm, flat wine in his hand, as he watched young Richart, seemingly a
boyish figure surrounded by the old fools he was deftly maneuvering into trade
agreements that were not to their best advantage.

Just then he saw the Councilor's personal servant approaching in a very
purposeful manner and used that as an excuse to remove himself, suspecting that
there must be some message. Only an attack of Starwolves would get him out of
this entirely, and he knew that he would never be so lucky, but any respite
would be welcome.

"A courier is in," Javarns explained. "There is a messenger
who wishes to speak with you, sir."

"Here?"

The older man nodded. "He is waiting in the hall, sir."

"Thank you, Javarns," Trace said, handing him the half-empty
glass. "I will speak with him outside."

The messenger was indeed waiting for him in the hallway just outside the
suite's double doors, shifting nervously as he eyed the armed guard who
had escorted him up. He was a young officer, no doubt captain and crew of the courier
that had brought him (couriers were really stingships, their sophisticated
attack systems removed to make room for a pocket-sized cabin and a tiny hold).
One of Trace's greatest regrets was that the Union lacked an effective
long-range achronic transceiver such as the Starwolves possessed, their
own being barely good enough for in-system use.

"So?" he asked impatiently. "Are you out of Tallin?"

"Yes, sir!" The young officer snapped to attention and presented
him the locked metal folder bearing the report. The Sector Commander only
stared at it and shrugged.

"I have no time right now. You were there?" he asked, and the
messenger nodded. "So you tell me, quick and simple, what happened. Did it
work?"

"No, sir," the officer explained. "Apparently there was some
malfunction in the decoy ship. It evaded but did not respond to contact from
the station. It certainly did not explode."

Trace shrugged again. "Doesn't sound like my ship, if it evaded. The
one we sent out wasn't that smart. I suppose we got whipped in the
process?"

"Yes, sir. We lost all the system fleet," the messenger reported
in a quiet voice, then brightened. "We did take a prisoner."

"A prisoner?" the Sector Commander asked himself, and glanced up.
"Did you say a prisoner?"

"Yes, sir. A Starwolf rammed a carrier and became trapped inside, alive
and well. Being empty, she was quick enough to whip around and break from the
battle, and we covered her escape. Her pursuit gave up just as she was heading
out of system."

"At least her captain had sense enough to take her out of system,"
Trace mused. "Do you know where they were bound?"

"No, sir. They refused to say over com, for fear it would be overheard.
They did promise another courier as soon as they arrived."

"That was all they could do, I suppose," he told himself,
then glanced down at the messenger. "Put that report on my desk and leave
the key with me now. Then wait in port until I dismiss you. I might have a
message for you to take back."

The messenger saluted smartly and turned to leave. Trace returned to the
apartment, closing the door quietly. A prisoner? A live Starwolf? He had never
heard of such a thing happening before. As soon as he entered the dining room,
he found that Councilor Lake, with his uncanny talent for sensing trouble,
was already moving to intercept him. Richart, the well-trained apprentice,
appeared a moment later from another direction. Trace turned abruptly to
the bar, seizing that as their excuse for a few quiet words.

"Courier from Tallin?" the elder Lake inquired quietly as he
inspected the stock of wine on hand. "So how did it go?"

"They took the bait, but the conversion device failed to detonate for
some reason. We lost the system fleet as a result," he reported quickly,
then grinned. "We did take a prisoner."

The Councilor stared at him, wide-eyed. "A what?"

Donalt quickly explained all that he had been told. The elder Lake obviously
did not know what to make of it, seeming to weigh whether it was good news or
not. Richart, however, had no such trouble deciding, his boyish face
uncharacteristically solemn. Since Trace expected only some advantage to come
of it, he was somewhat dismayed by their cautious reactions.

"Have you ever heard of our taking a Starwolf prisoner
before?" he asked.

"No, I haven't," Lake admitted, still distracted by his own
thoughts. "We have managed to acquire a body from time to time, which is
how we know as much about them as we do. But we've never had a live body
before."

"Why not?"

"Mostly because the Starwolves would rip this sector apart to find
him."

"But what can they do about it, if they have no idea where we have
him?" the Sector Commander demanded. "That is the trick, isn't it? We
just need to keep him in hiding until we're finished with him. We did it
before, with the Vardon's memory cell. We kept it hidden for thousands of
years."

"That is a completely different case," Lake replied, brushing that
impatiently aside. "For one thing, they weren't even aware it existed
until we finally put it on public display here in Vannkarn. And the memory cell
is also an imperishable good; you can bet that they plan to come for it in
their own good time. But a prisoner is altogether something else. They
know that we have him, where we got him, and they are going to do whatever they
must to get him back."

"You think they can trace him?" Richart asked.

"I am willing to bet on it," the Councilor said firmly. "They
have technology we can only dream about. For all we know, their scanners can
track a ship across stellar distances. And just as likely, they can follow
its trail of energy-emission residue. How should I know?"

"Here comes trouble," Richart said suddenly, having spied one of
their distinguished guests approaching. "Let me distract him for a
moment."

With that he shot off like a missile to intercept his intended target. Trace
stared after him for a moment, surprised at such a magnanimous gesture on
his part. Trace had always held the younger Lake in mild contempt. He was small
for one of old Terran stock, hardly any taller than most modern humans, stocky
and plump. His boyish looks had now followed him into his thirties; he was
cherub-cheeked, with curly brown hair and the eternally amused look in his eyes
that he had inherited from his grandfather. But Donalt did not let personal
dislike interfere with his judgment. Richart was an administrative genius
exceeding even his formidable grandfather.

"You want this prisoner, don't you?" Lake asked.

"Of course I do."

"Why?" the Councilor asked, eyeing him shrewdly.
"Prestige?"