"All clear!" Tregloran answered for the rest. "We have them all."
"Valthyrra?"
"Coming!"
"Make certain of that freighter," he insisted.
"I am already on it," she replied. A pair of powerful bolts lanced out of the darkness of space, locking with deadly accuracy on the bulk freighter that cruised seemingly unconcerned into system. The vast ship was vaporized by the explosion of its own generator.
"Dveyella?" Velmeran asked again as he brought his fighter in close to her own. The damage was not extensive, but it was all concentrated on the right side of the cockpit. A gaping tear in the tough material of the hull ran from where the seat would have been to a point two meters back. The forward window as well as the one on that side were shattered but had not popped out.
Had Dveyella survived that? Was she dead, stunned or simply too busy at the moment to respond? Even as he watched, the fighter righted itself and swung around on a new course, back to the Methryn. The remainder of Velmeran's pack gathered protectively about the two fighters, and Shayrn brought her own pack in close behind.
"I have control of her ship," Valthyrra informed him. "I will bring her straight into the bay. Help will be waiting."
At that moment Valthyrra was putting packs into space with clockwork efficiency. In contrast with that, her bridge was a scene of confusion. She was silently giving special orders throughout the ship, but her conversation with the packs was open and the bridge crew was beginning to understand that something was very wrong. Mayelna stood tensely beside her seat, watching the main screen attentively. Valthyrra condensed her map of long-range scan to project a set of graphs beside it. They represented Dveyella's failing life, the vital readings from her suit.
"Do you have that?" she asked of someone not on the bridge.
"I do now," Dyenlerra, the medic, replied over inter-ship com. "Great Spirit of Space, what hit her? Valthyrra, I want total life support equipment moved to the bay immediately."
Mayelna stirred for the first time, pouncing on the com controls in the arm of her chair. "Dyenlerra, answer me. Can you save her?"
"I can save her, yes," the medic responded, then hesitated. "Commander, you know what tough little machines we are. To put it simply, that girl is dead right now. But I can save her yet, if we can get her in before she realizes that."
"Velmeran?" That weak voice, as though echoing from the dead, brought instant silence.
"I am here beside you," he answered. "Valthyrra is taking you home."
"Where are you?" Dveyella asked weakly, uncertainly. "My windows are glazed."
"I am just off your right side," he was quick to assure her.
"Dveyella, do you hear me?" Valthyrra cut in gently.
"Yes, of course."
"Can you tell me how you are hurt? We need to know what to do for you."
"There is a pipe… or a rod… that has come through the hull," she answered slowly. "It has penetrated the armor on my right side, just below my lower arms."
"Is it in very deep?" the ship asked.
"I suppose," she said uncertainly. "It… it comes back out the other side in about the same place."
Mayelna closed her eyes and sat down wearily. Dveyella's hope was almost gone. Her body had tightened hard against the rod that had transfixed her, even torn veins and arteries, so that her blood loss was minimal. Ordinarily she would have survived an amazingly long time with such damage, but with ship and suit penetrated her wounds were exposed to the harsh emptiness of space. The terrible cold stabbed at her through the breaks in her suit and the rod, at first red hot, was now a spear of burning ice. She was quickly freezing, and she knew it.
"It would seem that I was wrong, Meran, when I said that nothing could come between us," she said, seeming to gain both strength and awareness. "Nothing in our lives can be that certain."
"Please, I wish that you would not say such things," Velmeran pleaded helplessly. "We will be back on board in a moment."
"Oh, I have not given up all hope," she assured him. "I have a fairly good idea of what my chances are. Because they are not good, there are certain things that I would not have unsaid. Soon I may be only a memory to you. I want it to be a happy memory and not a bitter one. We did not have time for many happy memories, but I would prefer that you remember only those."
Velmeran did not know what to say, if indeed there was anything that he could say. On the Methryn's bridge there was silence, a tense, fragile silence as they waited for fate to decide this desperate race. Consherra wept silently but stayed at her post. Valthyrra was running at her best sublight speed and wishing that she dared a short jump into starflight. But she could not bring Dveyella in any faster, not without killing the girl with stresses that she could no longer endure. All of her packs were out now, for all the good they could do, and she was closing quickly.
"Commander Trace is to be complimented on his new weapon," Dveyella said after a long, uneasy moment. "He was so angry at you when he could not beat you at chess. And the balladeer's song was so beautiful. That night was worth a lifetime. I remember that you were so afraid… "
"You were quite enough to frighten anyone," he said when she seemed to falter. "You asked me that night if I loved you, and I was too confused to know. That is something I do not believe I ever told you. I hope that I did not have to."
Mayelna struck her armrest so hard that portions of it shattered. "Damn it, Valthyrra, you have to get that ship on board now!"
"Do you think that I am not doing my best?" Valthyrra demanded, swinging her camera pod around. Then she paused. Mayelna had to wipe her eyes to glare fiercely at the staring lenses. An instant later the Methryn began braking hard to match speeds.
"Meran, are you there?" Dveyella asked suddenly, urgently. "Meran? I have no control over my ship."
"Valthyrra is bringing you in," he reminded her gently, although there was no mistaking the raw fear in his voice. "She is turning in front of us now."
Valthyrra said nothing, but too many of the life signs that she had been monitoring were beginning to fail.
"Meran, where are we?" Dveyella asked, only partly reassured.
"We are coming up behind the Methryn fast now," he promised her. "She is perhaps fifty kilometers ahead now. If your windshield was clear you would be able to see her lights."
But Dveyella did not hear him. Too many of her vital signs had abruptly ceased and others were failing quickly; whatever reserve of strength or fierce determination that had kept her alive was gone. Mayelna buried her face in her hands for the moment's indulgence in grief that she could spare, wondering at the same time how she could tell Velmeran. Valthyrra watched her for a moment of silent pity before turning away.
At Valthyrra's silent command the nine packs broke their running formation to thunder past the two lead fighters, engines flaring as they broke away to either side, the ancient final salute of the wolf ships. Then Velmeran's own pack broke away in pairs, one to either side, leaving the two lead ships alone in their hurtling approach toward the waiting bay.
Mayelna rose and shifted her suit into place. "Valthyrra, prepare a new heading into system. We will be going to low starflight speeds."
Valthyrra stared at her in disbelief. "Commander…"
"This has all been too fast for Velmeran from start to end. It is best, for his sake, to be done with it now." She stepped to the edge of the upper bridge to address the crew. "All officers to the bow deck. Consherra, do you think that you can come with me?"
The second in command nodded quickly, wiping her eyes, and paused only to collect her gloves and helmet from their rack behind her seat. Valthyrra called a lift to the bridge and held it for them, ready to rush them to the landing bay. If Velmeran was comforted by their presence, and if he drew from them the courage to do what he must, then they must be there. Later, she knew, he would want to be alone.