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“Captain Cullan, this is Captain Janus Tarrel,” she began quickly, giving him no chance to talk. “I am the Union’s special diplomatic envoy and military advisor to the Starwolves. I carry a special diplomatic pass and I am calling upon you to honor it or face immediate charges of insubordination and high treason. You are employing Union warships against direct orders.”

“The very soul of discretion and tact,” Valthyrra remarked softly.

“You seem to have gotten very cozy with your Starwolf friends in a hurry,” Cullan observed disdainfully, noticing her armor.

“You either wear the best protection you can get on this ship or you end up plastered to a wall,” she answered. “I can tell you beyond any doubt that there is a Dreadnought, and that it is not a Starwolf weapon. I’ve fought the Dreadnought twice myself, and I was aboard the carrier Kerridayen when she fought it and was severely damaged. I’ve seen Starwolf carriers with their hulls ripped to shreds from trying to fight that thing. And now this ship is going out to draw its fire in the hope of finding a way to fight it.”

“I have no way of knowing that I can trust you,” Cullan responded, although he no longer seemed quite so sure of himself.

“Yes, you do,” Tarrel insisted. “Every ship’s captain and System Commander has been told who I am. You know damned well what your orders are. You and your friends aren’t as smart as you seem to think, because you don’t know what’s really going on. You’ve already bought yourself a court martial, since I am going to report this. Right now, I’m trying to save your damned life.”

Captain Cullan suddenly looked very surprised and turned away after muting the channel, leaving Tarrel to wait.

“Tactical re-enforcement,” Valthyrra reported. “They were keeping most of their ships behind us, away from my forward battery. The carrier Maeridan just moved in behind them. Discretion and tact were losing ground.”

“You have to hit an idiot like that right between the eyes or he doesn’t even hear you talking,” Tarrel commented sourly.

“We are in no danger,” the ship insisted. “They carry a light compliment of very ordinary weapons, and my defensive battle shields can turn aside anything they have to throw at me. If they do attack, I will simply push through them.”

She shook her head impatiently. “Cullan has not attacked, and he has not returned to his monitor. I believe that he has just collapsed into complete indecision. Let’s make the decision for him and push on out of here very slowly.”

“That sounds fair to me,” Gelrayen agreed.

The Methryn turned toward an opening through the wreckage and the smaller ships surrounding her, then began to move forward slowly with her running lights engaged. It was a move that was as bold as it was casual in appearance. Captain Tarrel had guessed right, knowing her own people better than the Starwolves or their ships ever could. Whatever Captain Cullan and his cronies had been telling themselves, she had been certain that most of the junior captains were not as willing to believe Cullan’s rather simplistic conspiracy theory. They were certainly hesitant to join in deliberate mutiny on such an insubstantial excuse.

“We are free and clear to run,” Valthyrra reported. “I am taking the ship out of orbit and beginning the climb to threshold. We might as well press on to our next projected target system.” “Yes, we should stay on top of it,” Gelrayen agreed. “Is the Maeridan away as well?”

“Right behind us.” Valthyrra brought her camera pod closer. “Khallenda Maeridan wants to follow us. She says that she will stay well out of system while we do our work, but she would still be there to come running if we got into trouble. I can even share impulse scanner images with her. After she corrects the image from her own perspective, she will see as well as we can.” “If you both like the idea, then I agree,” Gelrayen said as he ascended the steps to the upper bridge. “Captain, we owe* you something for that.”

Tarrel shook her head. “I should have warned you when I heard that our ships were in the system. We’ve been at war for so long that suspicion of Starwolves has become almost an instinct. Hell, my first job was to make sure that the new threat wasn’t Starwolves. Small minds are going to react to their fears. ”

“Well, I hope that is the end of it,” Valthyrra said as she brought her camera pod into the upper bridge. “I would hate to think that the first enemy I ever engaged was the wrong one.”

8

The Methryn dropped out of starflight well inside the system, keeping her speed nearly to that of light, in a manner that was becoming standard in the task of stalking the Dreadnought. The only difference was that this time she expected to find it. Unless it had broken its latest pattern and moved on to its next target, or had moved at random, then it had attacked this system the day before and was still lurking about to see what else might show up. If it indeed was waiting here, then Valthyrra Methryn knew that it would sweep space at unpredictable intervals, looking for Starwolf carriers like herself that were running under stealth. She had to find it before it found her.

On the Methryn’s bridge, the tension was like a storm threatening to break at any moment. Captain Tarrel was again at the Commander’s station on the upper bridge, watching the preparation for battle with the calm objectivity of an observer. The Starwolves were all experienced and professional; they knew what to expect and what was expected of them. The concern was for the ship herself, for they knew beyond any doubt that the Methryn would certainly take a beating in the coming battle. Tarrel wondered if, like herself, they were worried whether Valthyrra Methryn was ready for this battle. The ship was like a half-grown child, sometimes very mature and complex, sometimes uncertain and fearful, occasionally sullen or defensive. She had handled the situation with the Union fleet well enough, but that had involved an enemy she had no reason to fear. The Dreadnought had a proven ability to hurt her, and there was no way to predict how she would react when she was actually fired upon.

When the time came, Valthyrra would have to be calm, clever, and brave; qualities that she had never had to demonstrate in her life.

She tried a new tactic, one that she had discussed with her Commander and Helm as a suitable alternative for her present situation. Taking the risk that she could slip in during the interval between the Dreadnought’s routine sweeps, she kept her impulse scanners silent as she made a quick run toward one of the larger planets in the system. She began braking fairly hard at the last moment, knowing what the stress was doing to her human passengers, and began her first low-intensity scanner sweep just as she was looping in for a tight orbit. Then she swung abruptly out from the planet, engaging her main drives until she had matched speed for a more or less synchronous orbit.

“Contact,” she announced. “The Dreadnought is here, sitting off a short distance from the inhabited third planet. I have moved quickly to place this gas giant between it and myself. I have detected no impulse scanner contact so far.”

“Do you suppose it did not detect your own sweep?” Gelrayen asked.

“If it had, I believe that it would have reacted immediately with a sweep of its own.” She rotated her camera pod to glance into the upper bridge. “Commander, will you attend to Captain Tarrel? She was not able to stay with us through that braking.” “What did you puli, twelve G’s?” he asked as he hurried up the steps.