He saw that the chief medic Dyenlayk had entered. He moved quietly to one side of the bridge to meet her, but both Valthyrra and Consherra the Everpresent saw him and invited themselves.
“How is Lenna?” he asked softly, knowing well why she had come.
Dyenlayk looked tired and at the end of hope. “The same as always. I can keep her alive forever, but I have to ask myself why. There is certainly nothing that I can do to put her back together, and I doubt that anyone can. All the same, I still plan to keep her alive until I can hand her over to the human medics at Alkayja. They know their own kind better than I ever will. If they say that nothing can be done, then we have to let her go.”
“I never thought that she would make it back to the ship,” Velmeran said, mostly to himself. “What can I possibly say to Tregloran?”
“What can you possibly say to Bill?” the medic asked. “That big, stupid automaton is just standing there beside her bed like a ghost.”
“Throw him out, if he gets in the way.”
“I do not have the heart,” Dyenlayk said as she turned toward the lift.
“I would have never thought that Bill was that aware,” Valthyrra remarked.
“Bill exists for a very limited purpose,” Velmeran said. “His existence is measured by his service to Lenna Makayen.”
He glanced up at Valthyrra’s camera pod, and she turned away in a haughty gesture. “I most certainly will not at this time attempt to council a grieving automaton.”
“Unfortunately, Lenna’s was only the first life of a friend that I might have to throw away to save this war,” Velmeran said as he turned to stare absently at the main viewscreen. “I just hope that the price buys us what we want.”
“Could they really win?” Consherra asked.
“That depends very much on those Mock Starwolves,” Velmeran admitted. “The one thought that occurs to me is that Donalt Trace fears the very sight of Kelvessan, to the extent of an actual phobia. I am responsible for that, I fear. I doubt very much that he would have trusted his own Starwolves enough to give them as free a hand as he said. I expect — and hope — that they will be very carefully directed only into very specific parts of the battle. I am also remembering that they will have no actual battle experience, and they are flying ships, no matter how good, that were still built by Union technology. With all of those factors combined, I still expect that one of our pilots should be as good as two or possibly three of their own.”
“Even three to one, they could still outgun us by numbers alone,” the ship reminded him.
“It also depends very much on what help we have,” he continued. “Right now, I am only counting on two ships and the fighters of the Methryn to carry this battle, plus whatever else we can find at the base. With those odds, we have to lose. We have to have at least one more ship with fighters come in before it starts.”
“I just hope that our friends back at the base have not decided to break up that incomplete ship in their construction bay for scrap,” Valthyrra said. “If that carrier is not in condition to fly and fight, then we are in trouble indeed. The extra engines and guns and the special armor of that new ship will mean a lot.”
Velmeran frowned. “If Lenna had been able to retrieve the codes that will cause the Mock Starwolf cruisers to self-destruct, then we would have little to worry about. We could have gone hunting for those Fortresses and met them on our own terms. Of course, I am only assuming that those self-destruct codes even exist. Donalt Trace might well be contemplating a long and profitable partnership with his own Starwolves, just as he said.”
“I hope that Venn Keflyn did get him,” Valthyrra muttered in a rather dire voice.
“In a way, Trace has already done his worst to us,” he continued. “I do not like the thought of Kelvessan fighting Kelvessan, no matter what the circumstances.”
The Methryn dropped out of starflight well inside the system and continued her run quickly and under concealment, her main shields brought up to stealth strength. She was already well past the inner line of automated defenses, which had not even taken note of her passage. Circling tightly in her final approach, she braked sharply at the last moment and pulled to a stop barely ten kilometers short of the immense orbital base at the same time that she dropped her cloaking shield. Her appearance was sudden and completely unexpected, designed to use the vast, menacing form of the giant carrier in a subtly threatening gesture.
The Republic had forgotten just how frightening its own Starwolves could be.
“Get me President Delike on the line, and make certain that they understand that I mean now,” Velmeran ordered, watching the main viewscreen. Most of the ships that had been in the area of the station were heading very quickly in the other directions, but one audacious little cutter, painted bright orange for easy visual recognition, was moving to intercept the Methryn. “What does that bold little twit think he is doing?”
“That, Commander, is an automated escort,” Valthyrra explained. “The Port Authority is demanding our surrender.”
“Is that so? Double-check that ship for life signs and destroy it in the most spectacular manner that you can contrive.”
Valthyrra was happy to oblige; she had always considered the bright orange escorts to be a rather officious gesture anyway. She spared it only a single shot from the largest cannon from the main battery in her shock bumper, and the escort disappeared in a flask of bright flame.
“Message delivered and understood,” Valthyrra remarked with deep satisfaction. “President Alac Delike is awaiting your pleasure.”
She moved her camera pod closer, so that Velmeran could speak through her own leads. He elected to follow her lead, launching into an immediate and unrelenting assault. “President Delike, you are caught between a rock and a hard place. You have the Kelvessan angry with you, and you may have just noticed that we have almost all of the Republic’s weapons. And now you have Donalt Trace and the Union coming down on you. An attack force of five Fortresses and sixteen of their new Mock Starwolf cruisers will be here in two days, and their orders are to destroy the Republic.”
“But that’s impossible!” Delike protested. “We have a treaty with them.”
“That treaty was a ploy. Their only interest was using you to get at me. Let me explain things carefully, since you obviously do not have the wit to figure things out for yourself. This is the only supply base for the Starwolves, and the homeworld of the Kelvessan race. They knew that we would not accept exile, but force your surrender, and they have already gotten all they ever wanted from you. They finally know the location of Alkayja, and you have chased away the carriers that could have protected you. Now they plan to destroy you, so that the carriers will have nowhere to turn.”
“What am I going to do?” Delike asked desperately.
“I will make that simple for you,” Velmeran told him. “I am giving you only two choices. You give the Starwolves complete control of defending this base and do everything you can to help us, or I will come in there and pull you out.”
Delike considered that for a long moment, and Velmeran was by no means certain that he would agree. Delike seemed foolish enough to believe that he might still salvage the situation. He could as easily make the Starwolves work to take the base, and attempt to disappear in the confusion. Very much depended upon whether First Senator Saith and Party Chairman Alberes were there to advise him. Velmeran remembered that Delike was only a simple, very impressionable man who thought he was doing the right thing. The other two had impressed him as a pair of crooks out for all they could get from this scheme.