“No, I like it best right where I am. ”
The Dreadnought opened fire on the Maeridan, although it seemed to be having some trouble getting the carrier’s range by impulse scan alone. It was firing a series of sustained bolts of moderate power, obviously hoping to lock with the carrier’s shields and force an overload that would cause the carrier to lose her stealth capabilities. The Maeridan was responding by throwing everything she had in the direction of the Dreadnought, making herself an easy and obnoxious target. Her intention, no doubt, was to give a damaged Methryn a few moments to collect herself and get to safety any way she could.
Of course, Valthyrra Methryn was alive, well and ready to employ one of those complicated plans that so annoyed Captain Tarrel. She opened fire with all sixteen of the larger cannons in her forward battery, directly into the back of the Dreadnought’s shield. She could not hope to do any damage. Rather than the usual short, rapid bursts from her cannon, she maintained a steady fire as she tried to match frequencies with that shield, each cannon searching a different band of frequencies. Long seconds passed, and with each instant she feared that the Dreadnought would discover her before her experiment proved itself. Then one of the cannons found the right frequency and penetrated the shield. In only a fraction of a second she had matched the frequencies of all the other cannons with the first, and she poured all the raw power she could channel inside that shield.
The result was spectacular. The Dreadnought’s shield collapsed in a sudden, blinding flash, and for a single long moment the immense machine stood fully revealed before them, obscured somewhat in the flare as the Methryn’s powerful cannons continued to rip across its bulk. Surprisingly, its hull did not seem to be a massively armored shell like that of a carrier, as they would have expected, but a maze of machinery of tremendous size. If her conversion cannon had been ready, even at partial power, she could have destroyed it at that very moment. The Dreadnought began to turn slowly and then that black shield was up again, locking out the Methryn’s destructive beams and cloaking the alien weapon in the blackness of space.
Valthyrra knew when it was time to leave, and this was certainly the time. She pivoted herself about sharply until she was facing back the way she had come, then engaged her main drives in a single, sharp burst of speed. But the drives failed after only the first instant, leaving her drifting at a speed that was not taking her away from her enemy fast enough.
Valthyrra was so surprised by that sudden loss of power that she brought her camera boom up sharply, cracking the pod against the ceiling. “Rashah ko ve’ernon! Val traron de altrys caldarson!”
If she had been able, Captain Tarrel would have taken notes for Walter Pesca’s language lessons.
“Are we hit?” Gelrayen asked anxiously..
“No, damn it all,” the ship snapped, cursing in Terran now. “I just ran out of fuel.”
“Varth!” Gelrayen exclaimed. “Valthyrra, you happen to be a new ship. You could not have run your entire supply of water through your conversion generators in just the last few days.”
“No, I have twenty tons of distilled water in my main tanks,” the ship said. “Unfortunately, no one back at the station ever thought to switch me over from my reserve tank to the main line. Right now, all I have is just enough power to hold my shields at stealth intensity for a few minutes more, and some field drive maneuvering left over. The line has to be switched manually. It is not something I can do for myself.”
“Oh, this really is stupid,” he commented, then turned to the engineering officer. “Gheldyn, do you know where to find this reserve tank and switch the line over?”
“Yes, I believe that I do,” she answered, with slight uncertainty.
“I will deliver your lift as close as possible, then talk you through it over your suit com,” Valthyrra told her, and Gheldyn hurried to the waiting lift.
“Val, this is going to take time,” Gelrayen reminded her. “What do you propose to do with yourself until then? Can you call the Maeridan back to cover us?”
Valthyrra brought her camera pod back around. “No, I sent her away. For some reason, the Dreadnought has not attempted to open fire or even to track me by impulse scanner. I might have hurt it more than I thought, or else it has some programmed priority to secure any damage before continuing to fight. I can still see its shadow following my original escape path. It has not yet noticed my change of course.”
“Well, where are you going now? We seem to be descending back into the ring.”
“I am taking us back to that moonlet where we were. I intend to back myself into that cubby and sit there until I have full power.”
Commander Gelrayen did not have to think about that for very long. “Val, is that really a good idea?”
“No, but it is the best idea we have.”
Whether it was a good idea, a bad idea, or just, plain stupid, this was what Valthyrra intended to do. It seemed like a longterm solution to what sounded like a fairly simple problem, but no one felt like taking her to task over the matter. Her plans seemed complex, unorthodox and rather extreme, as Captain Tarrel had pointed out, but they did work fairly well. She had taken on the Dreadnought and actually seemed to have gotten the better of the argument, and she was the only carrier who’d managed that. It was hard to fault her after that.
She was still able to track the Dreadnought as its shadow passed over the stars and minute sparks discharged against its shield, which led her to wonder why, with a very large and colorful planet just below, it did not see her own black hull. Of course, both ships were right on the very edge of the plane of the ring. Her shape might not have been quite as obvious as it passed just above that clutter. Then she realized that the Dreadnought was blind. That shield swallowed light, so there was nothing coming through for visual identification. The only thing it seemed to have was its impulse scanner, and yet she knew that it employed that only at rare intervals. It had to be using some type of common scanner, passive and active, although less effective than her own because of the difficulties of seeing through that shield. It had not used impulse scan since her attack, which led her to wonder if she had damaged it more than she would have expected.
She reached the moonlet, braking very gently with her field drive, both to spare her very limited power resources and to avoid detection as the Dreadnought passed only sixteen hundred kilometers above her. As it happened, both ships were actually moving opposite the orbit of the planet, so that the use of braking thrust actually increased the Methryn’s speed to match that of the moonlet.
“Gheldyn reporting,” said the chief engineering officer. Valthyrra kept the message on bridge audio so that the others could hear.
“What do you have?” Valthyrra asked.
“A problem. All of the tubes are here, but the actual line leading from the main tanks to the pump, and the distribution grid to the ship’s conversion generators was never built. I have several hours of work here, if I try to do it myself. Perhaps half an hour or less if you send me an engineering team to assist. I could certainly use another pair of hands.”
“Where would you keep them,” Tarrel asked quietly, finding the thought amusing even under the circumstances.
“I anticipated the need, and a damage control team will be there to assist you any moment now.”
“I will be as quick as I can,” Gheldyn promised.
“Did you know that line was not completed?” Gelrayen asked.
Valthyrra brought her camera pod around. “I knew that it would have been done in the last few hours before my launch, and I do not recall it happening. Considering our situation, I had good reason to suspect that it might not be. Anticipating the other part of your question, that is also why I wanted some place where I could hide for some time.”