“No trouble,” she was quick to assure him. “But I was wondering where we are going?”
“We are going nowhere,” he explained. “We are thinking.”
“From my position, we are encouraged to think a little quicker.”
“Do you suppose that you might shoot them off the tracks?”
“We will think about that.”
Venn Keflyn apparently did not have to think about it for very long. Soon after they came around a final turn into a long straight section, she opened fire with her rear cannons. The first set of bolts went wild, as difficult as it was for her to aim to the rear and fly the large interceptor through the narrow tunnel at the same time. Then a lucky shot connected with the forward magnetic truck of one of the two trams. There was a small explosion well beneath the front of the tram and the truck disintegrated in a thick cloud of smoke and sparks, causing the cab of the tram to collapse heavily onto the track. Unable to push against the drag of this massive weight with only the rear truck in operation, the tram began to slow quickly.
By the time they came to the next long straight section of tunnel, the crew of the remaining tram knew that they had to take out the Valtrytian ship before it destroyed them. They had no idea what they faced, for they had never seen a ship at all like the corvette and they likely would have dismissed any mention of the Aldessan as a myth. They opened fire in force as soon as they had a clear shot. Fortunately Venn Keflyn had a better feel for her ship and weapons by that time. Several of her own shots crashed through the cabin of the security tram, which disappeared in a series of explosions.
“We are clear from behind for the moment,” she reported. “Are we still thinking, Commander?”
“We are thinking that running through these tunnels will get us nowhere,” Velmeran responded. “They have closed all the doors on us. We will have to stop somewhere along here and… Varth!”
He brought his fighter to a stop in a hurry, having to trust that the others had been paying more attention to their flying than himself and would not run over him. More doors were closed than he had anticipated, for a very solid, metal barrier now blocked their path, sealing off the entire tunnel. His fighter bobbed to a sharp halt, its nose hovering barely a meter short of that barrier. Hardly any more room separated the other ships.
“Drop down, then follow me in order,” Velmeran ordered tersely as he spun his fighter around and accelerated quickly in the other direction.
He did not go very far, but this time at least he was expecting it. He passed one of the occasional storage and maintenance areas for the large freight trams and then a last wide turn, finding himself almost on top of another of the barrier doors. If he had returned to their previous speed, he might have never stopped his ship before it crashed through that massive portal; at least the impact would have probably opened the way for the other ships to escape. Unfortunately, there were no side tunnels in the section where they were now trapped.
Directing the other ships to move clear, he backed several meters away from the door and turned the full force of his fighter’s cannons against its thick metal. The lighter onboard cannons of his fighter had no effect, and he did not dare to use the powerful accessory cannon in such close quarters. A quick scan proved what he had expected, that there was an energy-absorbing shield in the metal of the door itself, just enough to drain away the power of the bolts as they hit. Nothing was meant to be simple, it seemed. Donalt Trace would stop the Starwolves from leaving, if he could. At the very least, he would slow them down.
“Stay here for a moment,” he directed the others.
Rotating his ship, he retreated back up the tunnel a short distance to the maintenance platform. A large, flatbed carrier sat alone in temporary storage on the side track. The cars were designed to take all the power they needed to levitate their magnetic trucks from the track itself, so they were always in a functional mode at any time they were on the track. Velmeran dropped the landing gear of his fighter and settled the small ship onto the bed of the carrier, applying some downward force through the fighter’s field drive to hold it down. Then he accelerated rapidly.
The carrier moved willingly, floating effortlessly on a thin cushion of magnetic force. The barriers that sealed the sections of this tunnel were shielded against energy weapons, but that shielding did not protect it against physical harm. The flatbed carrier was large and weighed several tons. Accelerated to over 200 kilometers, it made a very effective battering ram. Velmeran lifted his fighter from the deck and slowed, allowing the carrier to hurtle on past. Riding frictionless, magnetic rails, it lost very little speed before it crashed into the barrier.
Velmeran followed cautiously, bringing his fighter close to the shattered barrier. The force of the impact had ripped the massive door completely clear of its mounting, wrapping itself around the front of the carrier. At least the tunnel itself was completely clear, although it took a fair amount of caution and some directions from the others before Venn Keflyn was able to slip her larger ship between the wreckage and the low ceiling. Once they were all clear, Velmeran led the way forward through the tunnel.
They came within a couple of hundred meters to a major junction of two tram tunnels, one track disappearing down a tunnel that branched away to the right. That left the tunnel much narrower than it had been, causing enough concern for the Starwolves but nearly closing in upon the tapered wings of the Valtrytian ship. The slightest mistake now would have been disastrous, and still Velmeran could find no side tunnels leading into one of the bays. He thought that they must be in another long passage between the various sections of the installation.
“Commander, we have visitors again,” Venn Keflyn reported. “They are keeping a respectful distance this time, but they are still there.”
“You will have to deal with them eventually,” he told her. “We will need a few minutes of peace, if we are to find a way out of here and get it open. Lenna?”
“Nothing I can do,” she insisted. “I didn’t have to navigate the tunnels often, and then I always had a map and a guidance computer. Besides, they have control of the place.”
Velmeran had not been wondering how things might have gotten worse, but he found out anyway. Every light in the tunnel suddenly went out. The pilots had to navigate on scan and blind chance for a moment as they dropped their landing gear to bring up their landing lights. And even that was inadequate, illuminating only the ghostly edges of the walls, the tunnel disappearing into a well of darkness. They dared not reduce their speed for fear of the security trams closing on their tails. The trams were locked to their tracks, a guarantee of their safety even if they ran without any guidance in the dead of darkness. Their only danger lay in actually bringing down one of the ships, since they would then have the wreckage on the track ahead and no way to stop in time. Velmeran was not about to test that vague insurance of their own safety; he did not trust the Union crews of the trams — assuming there were any — to be aware of their danger.
Velmeran was about to give Venn Keflyn further instructions when they suddenly burst upon a chamber of vast size and the darkness exploded in a storm of bolts. Velmeran ignored fitful sight and trusted for the moment to scanner images, and even then it took a long moment for him to realize where they were. They were in what seemed to be a large central switching depot for the entire tram system, a maze of intersections and loops of elevated tracks, and dozens of security trams were taking aim at them from every direction. For the moment, the abilities of the Starwolves to sense the crystal engines of other ships had prevented collisions. But that could not go on for long, and Venn Keflyn did not have that ability under any circumstances.