The two black wolf ships hurtled through the rear portal of the bay, still wing to wing. The front landing gear of the damaged fighter would not respond. Valthyrra brought it in gear-up, blowing the bolts so that the down-swept wings folded up flat.
Velmeran was out of his ship almost the moment it touched the deck, leaping from under a half-open canopy. A single bound took him completely over the second fighter, so that he was the first to arrive. He pulled open a small panel in the hull and keyed the canopy release. The lock mechanism released and the canopy clicked open a fraction, but the damaged struts would not lift it. Impatient with the delay, he took hold of the edges of the canopy and pulled back until it ripped loose, then threw it well to one side. Benthoran and an assistant, hurrying to his aid, hesitated at that unaccustomed display of violent strength.
But Dyenlerra was undaunted. She had her head beneath the canopy even as he was pulling it loose, removing the helmet from Dveyella's suit and opening the chestplate for the leads of her own diagnostic equipment. She waved Velmeran aside, then took the leads offered to her by the silent automaton. But she did not need the judgment of the medical scanner, not after all the battered ships that she had attended in the Methryn's bays. She could save almost any life, but she could not give one back.
Velmeran waited so patiently, she wondered if he really understood that death was irrevocable. Dveyella's eyes were shut and her face was pale, but she seemed only to be asleep, leaning back in her seat. The rod had penetrated the suit by only two small holes, and the armor hid the terrible damage that it had done. Dyenlerra turned to the medical scanner for its verdict, only to wonder that Dveyella had stayed alive and alert for as long as she had. She looked up at Velmeran and shook her head slowly. This was not the time for excuses or regrets.
His reaction to that was the same calm acceptance, as if he had already surrendered any hope he might have had to the inevitability of fate. Then the Methryn thrust herself into starflight and he glanced about, confused. Mayelna stood silently behind him, unnoticed until then, Valthyrra hovering at her side in the form of a supple-necked probe. Consherra, standing farther away, would not turn to face him. No one spoke a word, but he understood that a final task remained.
Turning back to Dyenlerra, he nodded gravely. She bent to remove the leads of the medical scanner, and together they unstrapped the suit from its restraints. Velmeran carefully lifted Dveyella's body from the ruined cockpit, holding the lifeless form in his four arms for the medic to extract the deadly rod that had transfixed it. Then he started toward the lift, not looking back to see if the others followed.
That ride up to the Methryn's bow was the longest that he had ever known. The others could only guess what thoughts filled his mind as he held the body of his mate in his arms for the last time. Grief, certainly. Rage, or as much of that emotion as his Kelvessan nature would allow, and frustration at a fate he could not control. He was alone, left with only a handful of memories of the short time that he had shared with Dveyella, and vague, fearful visions of a future without her. But beneath all the hurt was something he could not yet recognize, something that was strong and reassuring. He thrust it from his mind, offended by something good in the depth of his misery. And yet it remained, the force underlying his will, giving him the strength to do what must be done and to face the future that would follow. Later, perhaps, he would try to discover what it was.
The lift slowed to a stop and its doors snapped back, opening upon the forward observation deck. The wall across from the lift was lined with windows, now opaque from the glare of some external radiance. Directly ahead were the wide doors of the airlock, leading out onto the observation platform, the very tip of the Methryn's bow. Velmeran paused, bending slightly so that Mayelna could secure his helmet, while Dyenlerra quickly replaced Dveyella's. Then the others secured their own suits as they approached the airlock.
When the outer doors of the airlock opened, it was upon a blinding glare. The Methryn had shot inward to the heart of the system during her short jump into starflight, so that its sun loomed just off her bow. The observation platform was crowded with scores of silent, motionless suits, the white of officers and the black-trimmed white of other crewmembers, all except for the armored forms in solid black. All about the bow of the Methryn hovered nine packs of fighters and the remains of a tenth, so steady and still that they appeared suspended motionless.
Velmeran glanced down again, toward the slender tongue of the platform that extended out over the black bulk of the shock bumper which housed the Methryn's main battery. He walked slowly to the very end of that platform, down the narrow aisle formed by the ship's most senior officers. Mayelna and Consherra, as Commander and first officer, remained close behind him and to either side. Valthyrra's probe had remained behind, her presence felt in the ship itself.
Velmeran stood for a long moment in silence. Perhaps there should have been words, but he felt that anything of real importance had already been said. Even as he wondered where he would ever find the strength for this final act, he released his hold upon the lifeless form he carried. At the same moment the Methryn began to brake gently, so that it seemed that Dveyella's body was drifting away with increasing speed, welcomed into the fiery radiance of the star ahead and quickly lost in its blinding glare. The fighters broke away to either side, engines flaring, in their own salute. Then the Methryn herself began to turn slowly, the crewmembers on the platform turning in small groups to retreat back inside. Velmeran did not notice. As far as he was aware, he was alone.
As he would always be alone.
A short time later, Velmeran stood at the window of the rear observation platform, watching as the last of the fighters returned to the ship. Dveyella's star was now a point of tight far behind, but he meant to stay and watch it recede into the distance until it was gone. Just as her body was long since gone, consumed by its fiery touch.
He had returned to the bay and had waited long enough to see that his pilots were safe. But he did not approach them or allow them to know that he watched. They were frightened and confused, for this was the first time that they had seen death. And he knew as well that they grieved with him, and for him. They would not have known what to say if they had had to face him, and so he spared them that pain.
Something had occurred to him, almost as a shock, as he had stood there in that dim corner of the bay. The crewmembers hurried about their duties. The fighters had come in, and the pilots had departed to their own cabins. Life did go on, just as time had not hesitated for an instant. The life that had been Velmeran and Dveyella was dead and past. But the life that was Velmeran alone remained, with duties and tasks to be done. Even if he had met death with her, or in her place, little else would have changed. That simple, self-evident realization had the ability to surprise, and he had taken it with him to the observation platform to gnaw upon in his thoughts as he waited out the Methryn's departure.
Dveyella had said that he should recall her in happiness and joy, not in bitterness and sorrow. And as much as he was consumed in grief, as much as he would have liked to indulge in the self-pity of the belief that he would grieve forever, he knew that it would not always remain so. He had been surprised that life continued after her death because he had never envisioned a future without her, and he had tried to deny that he could live without her even as that dreaded future became present reality. As long as he continued to live, he would continue to be challenged by the future just as he was stalked by the past.