“If you don’t mind…” Commander Asandi suggested, rubbing his face. “Captain, you need to be careful when you play games with my Starwolves.”
“It was Valthyrra’s idea,” Tarrel insisted.
“Was not!”
“If you don’t mind,” Asandi interrupted, then shook his head slowly. “I would like to give Valthyrra what she wants, but I just do not feel that this is the time to stick out our necks and take a risk. I really believe that we should arrange a more conventional attack on the Dreadnought, at least this first time. Commander Daerran, the Kerridayen is in her bay, ready for battle. What do you think?”
“It seems to me that the question really comes down to deciding between two options,” he answered. “No matter who leads the attack, the first question we have to ask is whether we plan to throw a majority of our resources into this first battle with the Dreadnought in the hope that it will be the last, or do we take only the ships here in station and leave the rest of the carriers running their patrols. ”
“Exactly,” Gelrayen agreed. “Just how many carriers do we have here?”
“The Kerridayen, the Destaen, and the Mardayn are fully functional and ready for battle,” Commander Asandi explained. “We have nearly completed work on the Vardon’s hull, and the Methryn seems to think that she can be out again in four or five days. That gives us five fighting ships here at Alkayja, as well as the freighter Taerregyn to carry replacement components.”
“I should probably add at this point that we only have operational sets of auxiliary shield generators for four ships,” Dalvaen, the leader of the Kelvessan research team, told them. “At the same time, the Kerridayen is now fitted with a fully functional impulse scanner.”
“That settles matters for me,” Daerran said. “My own suggestion is that this group of five fighting ships should go out as soon as possible, locate the Dreadnought and try to arrange an ambush. The Kerridayen and the Methryn can direct the attacks of the other ships. If we feel like we need more help, we can call in two or three of the carriers on patrol near that area.” “Do you need the Methryn?” Commander Asandi asked.
“I honestly believe that we should pool our experiences before we go, and the Methryn’s experience fighting the Dreadnought will certainly be valuable. But I doubt that we are going to have any idea of just what is best to do until we find the Dreadnought. As for having the Methryn come along, I would certainly like to have her at hand.”
The other Starwolf ships and Commanders were quick enough to agree with his judgement, and that seemed to settle the matter. Commander Asandi looked thoughtful, but not necessarily upset or annoyed as he capitulated to their wishes. Still, Captain Tarrel was certain that he had his own ideas about the Methryn’s immediate future, and not necessarily just to have her in reserve, as he had said. But, whatever his real reasons might be, they were nothing that she could guess.
The final decision was to send out the main battle fleet con-sisting of the Mardayn, the Destaen, and the Vardon, supported by the Kerridayen and the Methryn. They would be able to direct the other carriers with their impulse scanners, since those three ships would actually be fighting blind. This arrangement was actually to their advantage, since the attacking ships would be able to correct the impulse images transferred to them by the surveillance carriers that would be standing off, but without betraying their own presence with beams. These three ships were to receive a pair of auxiliary shield generators each, with the Kerridayen receiving the last available pair in the event they were needed. The fact that the Methryn was passed over for receiving a pair seemed to indicate that she was held to be inferior in status to the older carriers. The Starwolf freighter Taerregyn would accompany this fleet, carrying a wide variety of replacement parts, extra drives and construction crews from Alkayja station, and she would be standing by to tow any carrier that could not be repaired in space.
Commander Asandi intercepted Tarrel in the hallway once the meeting had been concluded. “Captain, I was wondering if I might speak with you privately for a moment.”
“Certainly,” she answered, falling into step beside him. “First, I should tell you that I appreciate the difficulty of the decision you made when you ordered Valthyrra to fire that missile, and I commend your ability to act quickly and decisively,” he began, then hesitated. “If it is your intention, however, to go out with the Starwolves yet again, then I feel that I should warn you about the danger of tampering with their social self-image. ” “Danger?” Tarrel asked. “That was actually Valthyrra’s doing, and it began only as a joke. They were trying to call each other’s bluffs, and that young machine out-bluffed them all. I just happened to observe the results.”
Commander Asandi looked uncomfortable. “Those Starwolves are insidious. They can be so candid and good-natured that you find yourself compelled to love them. Even you, an honored Union Captain; you are beginning to love them yourself. You want to help them. I want to help them, and that makes it only that much harder to deny them. But the fact remains that we have been working to keep their self-image in balance for tens of thousands of years, and this is certainly not the time to upset things.”
“Pardon?”
“That happens to be my real job, you understand,” he told her. “What real good am I to the Starwolves otherwise, the human senior commander of a Kelvessan fleet? I supervise what they think and do, as far as I am able. I limit their numbers as best I can, and they do not seem inclined to reproduce when you send them down to a planet. I take their best scientific minds from the carriers and assemble them here, then I give them busy-work. We do not want them making technical advances, and their carriers are essentially the same machines they were thirty thousand years ago. They could have perfected the jump drive long ago, and any number of new weapons. We are satisfied that they have everything they need as it is.”
He indicated for her to precede him into the tram, then waited until they were away. “The Kelvessan were designed to be naked. The Aldessan of Valtrys meant things that way. That is all part of the balance, keeping them between two cultures and never really a part of any. They use the Aldessan language and names, but with the Terran alphabet. They do not look very human, but we encourage them to dress themselves as if they were human. Everything they have amounts to bits and pieces of other cultures, and very little is entirely their own.”
“But what possible danger could they be?” Tarrel asked, frankly shocked by what she was hearing. “The Kelvessan are the most amiable people I’ve ever met, at least to have as friends and allies. Would they ever have reason to turn on us?”
“Oh no, they would never be a danger to us in that sense, unless we do something to deserve it,” he agreed. “Captain, the Republic and the Union might be opposing camps, but consider this. Together our worlds define a very specific region of space, and we are not interested in looking beyond those boundaries. Although we are not the only civilized race within those limits, we are certainly the preeminent race in numbers, power and prestige. Neither side really wants to see that change.”
“No, I suppose not,” Tarrel admitted. “Still, I don’t see how they can be a threat to us even in that sense. They aren’t prolific and I don’t see them as being interested in establishing commercial empires.”
Asandi nodded. “Yes, but consider this. Our interplanetary systems of commerce are dependant upon trade and travel through space, and space is the element the Kelvessan were designed to conquer. If they were free to pursue their own future, they would control a large portion of interstellar space because their ships are larger and faster than anything we have. They would take the responsibility of seeing that the space lanes and the frontier are safe. In addition to that, all new technology would be coming from Kelvessan researchers. We would come to be dependant upon the Kelvessan. Although we would prosper under their leadership, our prosperity would be dependant upon their leadership.”