“I don’t even want to think about that!” she declared, and closed her eyes as she trembled at the thought. She blinked and looked at him again. “You. You have no regrets.”
“Of course I regret,” he insisted. “I regret every life that is lost, whether I had any part in it or not. But that is the way life is, and I do what I have to do.”
“Sergei, he was only a boy.”
“So am I. But he would have shot me in the back and been pleased with himself for doing so. At least I am not pleased with myself for what I did.” He paused, frowning. “Lenna, you know what I am. I make a career of shooting warships and freighters, and most of the time I do not think that there are lives — innocent lives — on those ships. Later, when I do think about it, I regret what I have done. I have killed twice today, and for once I have the reassurance of knowing that the lives I took were not innocent. Do you understand what I am saying?”
Lenna shrugged without looking up. In truth, not a word of what he said made a bit of sense to her, although she could tell that it sounded perfectly reasonable to him. Just as her thoughts had earlier been alien to him, now his own thoughts were alien to her. But he was alien, she reminded herself, a member of a race designed for war, with their own thoughts and emotions that kept the peace between their conscience and their duty as warriors. Even if she could not follow his exact reasoning, she did understand the greater intent of what he was trying to tell her. At least he did have firm, logical reasons for his actions, even if his reasons were outside her comprehension. And she could trust him.
“Sorry about that,” she said, needlessly straightening her clothes. “You’ve been brought up to it, I suppose. But I’ve never seen anything like that before, and it hit me all of a sudden. I’m fine now, though. Are you ready to go on?”
“You do not object to my company?” Velmeran asked.
“And why should I, now?” she asked in return. “I knew that you were something different from the start, and I was beginning to catch on near the end. I would have caught on sooner, I think, if I hadn’t been so busy making you out what I wanted you to be.”
“I never meant to deceive you,” he said dejectedly. “I just thought…”
“So did I,” Lenna agreed, and looked at him in desperation. “Sergei, you cannot leave me. I…”
Velmeran silenced her quickly. “Do not say that. You know that it is not the truth, however hard you try to convince yourself of it. You do not love me, and I certainly do not love you. You are a friend, a casual acquaintance I have met on port leave. And that is all.”
“You already have someone of your own, don’t you?” she demanded, almost accusingly.
“Yes, I do have a mate. Her name is Consherra. She is the Methryn’s helm and first officer, and she has a temper nearly as sharp and quick as your own. And she also has all the love I have to give.”
Lenna made a rude noise. “Sure, and that’s all the happiness that you could want. But where does that leave me?”
Velmeran took her chin in his hand, his irresistible strength forcing her to look up at him. “Tomorrow morning I will be gone, I am sure of that now. But I have made you a promise, that I will find you a ship as soon as I can. Trust me?”
Lenna smiled reluctantly. “It’s hard not to. But I’d rather be a Starwolf.”
7
Ten packs of Starwolf fighters were closing quickly on their target, the Union invasion force above Tryalna. Behind them cruised the vast, menacing shape of their carrier, three kilometers of sleek, powerful fighting ship. And the Union forces appeared to be waiting for them. Their handful of warships pulled back instantly, not in retreat but to assume a battle formation.
Schayressa Kalvyn did not like what she saw. Something about that quick defense made her suspect that the Unioners had been waiting for her. Surely they should have expected Starwolves to come sooner or later. But it seemed almost that their attack on Tryalna had been a ruse, that their real objective was to fight her. And that simply made no sense. Something else that was not normal was that armored battle station that sat parked in remote orbit. It was far larger than anything she had ever seen, heavy with armor and cannons, and that made her very uneasy. At least it was slow enough to be harmless.
“Is anything wrong?” Commander Tryn asked. He could always tell when Schayressa was worried by the furtive movements of her camera pod.
“I do not like it,” she answered. “Too many things simply are not quite as they should be.”
“Is it that battle station?” Tryn asked.
“What do you think?” the ship asked in return. “That thing is five times larger than any mobile battle station I have ever seen. What are they doing with something like that?”
“They mean to hold on to Tryalna whatever the cost. If this world goes free, five more will revolt in the coming month. Their entire forced sterility program will face a major setback.”
“Which is why we have to make sure that Tryalna stays free,” Schayressa agreed. “Still, I do not like that machine. I am going to check it out.”
She changed course abruptly to intercept the thing. She would not willingly call it a ship. At twenty-five kilometers in length and wider than she was long, it was by far the largest machine she had ever seen moving under its own power. She had seen mobile stations before, but nothing this big. It was certainly the first thing she had seen in a long time that made her feel dainty. Her intention was to come close enough for a thorough scan, then proceed to blow it to bits.
“We are going to full battle alert,” she announced over inter-ship com. “Everyone to your stations. Stand by your monitors and manual controls. We will be coming into firing range in less than a minute.”
“Does it worry you that much?” Tryan asked.
Schayressa brought her camera pod around to the upper bridge. “I can see from here that it has the shields and cannons of a planetary defense system. There is certainly going to be a fight.”
“Bad?”
“Well, I am going to prime my conversion cannon, just in case.”
Commander Tryn stared at her in surprise. “If it worries you that much, then leave it alone. Break off.”
“I cannot,” she answered. “If that thing is a mobile planetary defense system, it might take half the wolf fleet to crack that nut once they get it into operation.”
“Then we have no choice,” the Commander agreed reluctantly. He had been a first-rate fighter for most of his three hundred and ten years, a fearsome pilot and pack leader and the best strategist in the fleet… at least until Velmeran had come along. But he did not like unknowns, and he thoroughly disliked anything that made his ship nervous.
Schayressa banked sharply as she came into good scanning range, dropping down nearly to the plodding crawl of her target as she began a careful scan. What she saw surprised and frightened her. But still she held on, probing every bolt and circuit of that ship. For it was indeed a ship, a fighting ship the likes of which she had never seen.
“Commander!” Keldryn, the helm, warned suddenly.
“I see it,” Schayressa answered. Her power sensors leaped off the scale as the immense ship engaged its drives and threw up its shields. Schayressa brought up her own battle shields and targeted her largest cannons.
In the next instant she was under fire. A steady barrage of bolts centered on the Starwolf carrier with deadly accuracy, deflecting off the battle shields with a sound like hailstones ringing against the hull. Occasional shots penetrated the shields to skip off the gentle curve of the armored hull, sounding like strikes even though the bolts deflected harmlessly. Then one shot hit at just the right attitude, biting into the thick armor. The achronic carrier beam discharged its full load of raw energy and superheated metal exploded. It was a minute tear against the vast, featureless expanse of the armored upper hull, but it was only the first of many scores.