Dveyella reluctantly agreed and joined Keth on the lift as it went by. Velmeran positioned himself by the doorway, carefully out of sight. He did not have long to wait. The sentry had been near enough to fire a quick volley of bolts at the lift as it went by. It charged out onto the landing, slowing as it came out of the passage and finally stopping beside its motionless companion. The lift was ascending, still only two flights up, so it leaned out over the rail and tilted its head back to shoot.
Velmeran had been behind the sentry since it had stepped out onto the landing, unseen in its haste. Dveyella was correct in her guess that they were blind to the rear; they apparently did not even see to the sides very well. Careful to stay immediately behind it, Velmeran watched the sentry's movements carefully. As it leaned out to look up the shaft, he simply crawled between its long legs, lifted it up and heaved it over the rail. The machine fell heavily straight down the center of the shaft, never once bouncing off the sides. He watched until the automaton disappeared into the gloom, and a long moment later a sound like a small explosion echoed back up the shaft. Pleased with his efficiency, he hurried to join the others.
8
Dveyella peered cautiously around the edge of the doorway, and swiftly drew back in alarm and surprise. "I find it hard to believe! There it is, waiting for us, right in front of the door. They must be getting smarter."
"They are getting smarter," Velmeran agreed. "They have learned too many lessons the hard way."
"We have to get that thing out of the way," she said. "Valthyrra Methryn, how much time do we have?"
"Those two wings of fighters are just now beginning to descend," Valthyrra reported. "You have perhaps three minutes."
"Wonderful!" Dveyella muttered, pausing only a moment to think. "Marlena, are you out there?"
"Ready and waiting."
"That machine is backed up to the outer door with its tail in the crack, facing inward."
"Ah, I follow you. Half a moment."
A few moments passed and then one of the heavy doors began to open, slowly and silently, and a single arm reached through to attach a heat charge to the rear hull of the sentry that stood before it. The machine jumped away from the door and spun around. But the heat charge was already glowing and the automaton's legs locked up even as it turned, causing it to fall heavily on its side. The three Starwolves were running for the door immediately.
"Not so smart after all," Velmeran commented as they slipped past the smoking hulk.
He had expected to see violent clouds towering over the city, but the leading edge of the storm had already passed. A seething mass of dark clouds hid the sun, bringing dusk at midday and adding to his feeling that he had been underground for a long time, not less than half an hour. Low clouds and fog already concealed the ledge where they had landed. There was only a light wind here in the valley, although the roiling clouds overhead suggested violent winds within the storm itself.
Marlena and Baress waited just outside the door. Dveyella pushed Keth into their care. "One last task. Pack in those boxes as fast as you can and get out of here."
"Captain?" Keth asked, reluctant to be dragged away to the waiting transport. Baress and Marlena seemed likely to carry him if he delayed any longer.
"Go with them, Keth," Velmeran directed, trying to assume a calm, authoritative voice. "They have your ride out."
Keth allowed himself to be led to the larger ship, although still somewhat reluctantly, and Velmeran and Dveyella hurried to their fighters. Velmeran had hoped that this incident would have cured Keth, that the older pilot would have done enough soul-searching during the last few days to face the truth. Instead it seemed that he had been waiting for rescue so that he could return to the packs; he had apparently assumed that they would have brought a fighter for him. Of course, his real problem had never been age but conceit.
Velmeran climbed into the cockpit of his fighter and sealed the canopy against windblown dust and mist before he began to strap in. The transport lifted immediately. It rose just high enough to pass over the fighters and drifted toward the east, following the perimeter of the city to the landing platform where the boxes containing the remains of the fighter were kept.
"Have you ever fought inside a storm before?" Dveyella asked over ship's com; Velmeran's worthless helmet had gone with Keth.
"I have never fought inside an atmosphere before," he reminded her.
"You will find it remarkably the same," she said. "The greatly reduced speeds are offset by the greatly compressed distances. Union fighters are more of a match for us here; you will find them about as quick and tricky as stingships. But we still outclass this lot."
The two ships rose together into the threatening sky, heading southwest to meet the approaching wings of Union fighters. They went slowly, waiting for their attackers to come to them. Staying within the storm was to their advantage; Starwolves fought by feel under any circumstances, so the lack of visibility made no real difference to them. Blinded by the clouds, however, the Union pilots had to depend entirely on their scanners.
But Velmeran did not forget his own disadvantages. He was used to sudden speed changes of tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers per hour, and velocities that were more easily discussed as percentages of light. He was concerned that he might accidentally give his throttle the long throws that he would use in open space. Trying to evade and chase within the confines of this storm, with mountains only a few hundred meters below, would be like trying to fight inside an airdock. There was not much room to run.
The first wing of Union fighters descended into the storm, driving directly at the pair of Starwolf fighters rising to meet them. The wing widened and the fighters launched missiles, four from under the short wings of each ship. And that was a serious tactical error. Union missiles were not very smart — they saw no point in investing much money in something that was going to explode — and therefore they were too easily jammed, evaded or destroyed. The missiles looked about and found nothing. The wolf ships, fully cloaked, were invisible to their rudimentary scanners and heat sensors. As a group the missiles continued on, searching the storm for their prey. Soon they saw the ground approaching and arched back up. Now they saw fighters, but these were their own, bearing warn-off devices. Deprived of legitimate prey, the missiles took themselves straight up to safely self-destruct.
Now the fighters themselves dispersed and closed to attack. Two oriented on each of the Starwolves, while the remaining three continued on toward the city. Ignoring the fighters moving in on their tails, Dveyella and Velmeran dove after the three strays, intent upon stopping them before they found the transport. Velmeran nudged his ship on ahead, centering a heavy barrage on the three fighters and destroying two before the third evaded and ran. He quickly dived after it, while Dveyella obligingly shot a fighter off his own tail before turning her attention to the pair following her.
Velmeran's remaining pursuer moved in close, trying to penetrate his shields with its ineffective cannons. He ignored it for the moment, concentrating on the fleeing fighter ahead. Its pilot, reckless with either determination or fear, dove straight toward the rocky heights above the city. Velmeran clipped its rear engines just short of that dubious safety, sending the little ship spinning out of control. Velmeran skimmed the barren edge of a ridge, pulling up abruptly as a towering peak rose suddenly out of the darkness. The fighter behind tried to mimic that move, only to find that it could not match the precise control. It deflected off a wall of rock to fall end over end into the valley below.