The testing of the Methryn presented Tarrel with far more interesting problems to consider, and she forgot about her companion soon enough. Dalvaen and his engineers had come back aboard the^carrier the moment she settled into her bay, and they had the answer to the problem quickly enough. The supercooling of the impulse scanner emitter coils was indeed the problem, as it had been before. lust as superconductivity had caused the cannons to fire prematurely, it was also causing the crystals that those coils influenced to continue to radiate achronic signals even after the coils themselves were no longer under power. The answer was simple. The solid-state super-coolers were removed, and the power needed to fire the impulse cannons was increased to the previous level.
The Methryn was ready to go out again only a few hours later. For the purposes of this second test, she had remained isolated in her bay while the two functional carriers and the Starwolf freighter that were presently in port took themselves to separate portions of the system hidden by stealth-intensity shields. In that way, Valthyrra could not have the slightest idea of where to look for them, and her ability to locate those three ships would be entirely dependant upon the effectiveness of her impulse scanners.
The Methryn backed out of her bay, this time with much greater speed and certainty, and moved slowly into the system to begin her search. If this test was not successful, she would begin to fall behind the schedule that she had been given to keep.
If it was successful, she would not be returning to the station but would turn her long nose toward Union space. Captain Tarrel was once again at the Commander’s station on the bridge, while Gelrayen watched from the surveillance station below.
“The ship is clear and away,” Valthyrra reported. “No contact on normal scan. Are those ships out there?”
“They should be,” Gelrayen told her. “I do not sense them, so they must have their drives shut down and their major power systems at low level.”
“Pardon?” Tarrel asked, mystified, although she had not meant to ask that question out loud.
In fact, she did not know about the hyper-sensitive hearing the Starwolves enjoyed. Seated at the helm station just below, Kayendel had heard her and turned to look up over her shoulder. “We have the ability to sense the size, direction and range of drives and large conversion generators, and without the lag of real-time. It saves us the trouble of having to consult our scan when we fly. We always know where all the ships around us are, even carriers running under stealth.”
“Well, you learn something every day around here,” Tarrel remarked. “That must mean that you cannot sense the Dreadnought, or all of this business would be unnecessary.”
“Exactly. Either its shields defeat even that, or else it uses a type of drive that we cannot sense. We had wondered if it could be a jump drive, but we are supposed to be able to sense even that.”
“You would be able to sense its generators at least,” Tarrel speculated. “It must be the shield.”
That completely upset any hopes she might have had about the possibility of Union warships with stealth-intensity shields. The Starwolves seemed to have answers for everything, except the Dreadnought.
“We are well away from the station,” Valthyrra reported. “I am ready to begin the first level of testing.”
“Have at it,” Gelrayen told her.
The Methryn leveled herself with the plane of planetary orbits and sent out a low-level pulse from all of her perimeter impulse scanners. A long, tense moment passed before they knew that the system schematic on the main viewscreen was not going to simply fuzz out in a backlash of radiation as it had before. Then, one by one, three additional contacts revealed themselves to the impulse scanner. One had been sitting idle, well above the planetary plane, where a perimeter scan had been expected to have trouble finding it.
“The target ships were supposed to report the moment that they detected my impulse beam,” Valthyrra said.
“They have not?” Gelrayen asked.
“No, at least not yet. That might be some indication that I use a less powerful beam than the Dreadnought. Then again, once it locates a ship with a general scan, it might be locking on a tighter beam to make a more detailed identification.”
“Try locking onto a single ship.”
Valthyrra turned slightly, aiming the beam of her main impulse scanner at the most distant target.
“No response from target at low intensity,” Valthyrra reported. “Scan indicates that this ship is a Starwolf carrier. I do get a response at medium intensity. The ship identifies herself as the carrier Baldaen.”
Gelrayen looked up at her camera pod. “What do you make of that?”
“I suspect that she is trying to trick me,” the ship insisted. “That scan indicates a ship that is much too light to be a carrier. There is no muffled return from contact with the heavy plate armor of the hull. I still believe that ship to be a freighter.” “Tell her that and find out what she says,” he suggested. Valthyrra paused. “She admits that she is a freighter. My interpretation of the impulse scan is accurate.”
“Congratulations,” Gelrayen said, and everyone seemed relieved. “Do you feel that the impulse scanner is operating efficiently enough to conclude your testing now?”
She rotated her camera pod fully toward him. “Yes, I do.” “Then contact the station and tell them that the tests have been concluded successfully, and that we will not be returning,” he said. “Tell them that the Methryn is going out to hunt.”
7
Captain Tarrel found herself again in familiar territory. The Rane Sector had borne the first series of attacks by the Dreadnought, and chances were good that the Methryn would find it there again. A Starwolf freighter, taking a patrol run to help support the limited carrier fleet, had found the Dreadnought taking apart a lesser system and had been forced to run after being fired upon from a distance. Since the Dreadnought had attacked a system two sectors over only two days earlier, there was reason to believe that it had only just changed its location according to its habit and would strike at least one more system in the immediate area before moving on. Since the Methryn had nearly crossed the gulf separating Union space from the Republic, she was actually the closest fighting ship at hand.
Because the Starwolves had no time to spend on being subtle, they were admitting to a lot of things that they probably would have otherwise wanted to have kept somewhat more secret. Given all that she had been able to infer so far, Captain Tarrel was fairly certain that she could have taken her own ship, set a course out from the Rane Sector, and found herself in Republic space in two or three weeks, even if finding Alkayja and the Starwolf base would not have been so easy. She had serious misgivings about what she should do with that information. The Starwolves were letting slip these clues for the sake of sparing her own people from the destruction of the Dreadnought as quickly as possible; they could have spent extra days to make this journey, giving the sense that the distance was greater, or swung around wide to approach from a different direction.
That left her with the uncomfortable feeling that she owed them a very great favor in return. Knowing the location, size and capabilities of the secret Starwolf base was a major tactical advantage, one that could possibly be exploited as the first step in their eventual destruction. And they knew what she could do to them with that information. But, because the Starwolves had willingly surrendered that information for the sake of protecting the Union, it seemed to her that they were due some equal consideration. At least the decision was entirely her own to make. She doubted very much that Wally Pesca could have found his way back to Starwolf space even if she had told him where to look, and he had no way of knowing much that she did.