3
The odds were worse than ever, just three fighters against fifteen warships and two score stingships. Velmeran had no idea who the third member of his group was; he hoped that it was one of Baressa's pilots and not his own. He had to overtake that second fleet and stop it short; if it caught up with the first group, his students, now tired and quickly reaching the limits of their endurance, would be outnumbered and vulnerable. There were enough stingships with this second group to be effective, especially against pilots who might be growing inattentive and careless.
"Valthyrra Methryn, do you have packs out yet?" he asked a final time.
"Two packs just moved into starflight and can reenforce your pilots in perhaps two minutes," Valthyrra responded. "Another two packs can be there within another minute."
"Listen. I am going to try to get this second group of warships out of starflight before they join the first," Velmeran explained quickly. "We will have a greater advantage if we can keep them apart. Send these two packs to reenforce me. Send the next two to relieve the packs already in battle."
"Anything you say," she agreed. "Meran, that first group is driving directly at me."
"Do you prefer to reenforce the pilots there and stop it?"
"No, I can fend for myself if anything comes through. I need the practice. Barman. Shayrn. Take your packs and reenforce Velmeran's position."
"We are on it," Barman agreed.
On board the Methryn, Valthyrra moved the standby alert up to full battle alert. Crewmembers looked up apprehensively from their stations or paused in her corridors, awaiting orders. The Methryn had not gone into battle in many long years, for most not even in their lifetimes. They had played out this alert in test runs so often that the reality was something of a shock. But the ship was to be protected at any cost and no one dared to cross a Starwolf carrier. And yet for some, those who tended the machines or sorted supplies or taught the young, it was the first time in many years that they had felt like real Starwolves.
"All crewmembers stand by," Valthyrra announced through her maze of corridors and many decks. "This is a class one battle alert. All on-duty personnel to their posts. All damage control parties stand by. All nonactive personnel will remove to the inner sections."
"That second fleet just left starflight to fight," Velmeran reported. "We need reenforcements. Baressa and I are up to our… necks in stingships."
"You can have two packs in two minutes," she assured him. "Can you hold on?"
"Do we have any choice?"
"No," Valthyrra said. "We will have matters well in hand shortly."
Velmeran paid her excuses little mind. He was getting tired of excuses, and at the moment he was too busy to care. He had not exaggerated; three fighters among all those stingships were simply too few targets for too many guns. Stingship cannons were powerful but slow to fix on target. By keeping close in, they were not allowed the time they needed to get off a good shot. Indeed, the stingships had to be careful to avoid shooting or even ramming each other.
The two packs had been left to their own designs for several minutes now, and they were finally bringing their own part to an end. Of the original fleet there remained only a battleship and two destroyers as well as several tenders and transports, themselves no threat but a considerable nuisance. The Methryn was still closing, now so close that her viewscreens were picking up cannon flashes. The battleship suddenly cut from the main group, driving directly at the Methryn, while the rest continued at a right angle to her approach.
"Go clear up whatever might be left," Valthyrra told the pilots when she saw them circle back to give chase. "I will take care of this one."
Mayelna glanced up from her screens. "Do you know what you are doing?"
"I should certainly hope so!" the ship replied indignantly as she swung her boom around to the helm and weapons stations on the middle bridge. "Cargin, I will operate the cannons. Consherra, stand by with your hands on the manual controls in the event something happens." She glanced around. "Do I know what I am doing? Do you think me a tottering wreck?"
"You are getting a little old," Mayelna commented as she sat back to watch, seemingly disinterested.
"Old?" Valthyrra asked incredulously. "Now I feel obliged, just to prove that I am still a very alert and capable fighting ship. Indeed!"
"Then shut up and do it."
Valthyrra quickly launched the two packs that stood ready in her bays and immediately brought in her carrier arms to remove the empty racks to make way for another pack. At the same time she prepared a single cannon for only one shot.
"Watch your controls. Consherra, stand ready," she warned, and glanced up at her main screens. "Ramming speed!"
Mayelna rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.
The Methryn fired one bolt directly into the nose of the approaching warship. In spite of the distance that remained between them, it caught the battleship dead center on her bridge, slightly below where her own viewscreens would have been. Content, Valthyrra cut speed and waited. Nothing seemed to happen at first. But with her main computer destroyed, the various systems aboard the smaller ship began to shut down, leaving her to drift helplessly. The crew might have restarted her easily enough, but they had already learned the futility in that. They began to evacuate her in launches and transports, leaving the ship itself like a token of appeasement to their conquerors.
"Simple, but effective," Valthyrra remarked smugly as the first launch cleared its bay.
"Why, you greedy old fool!" Mayelna exclaimed. "You want to capture as many of those ships as you can so that you can sell them back at a profit."
"Not me!" Valthyrra insisted, rotating her cameras around. "First you question my abilities, and then my motives. Actually, I want those ships so that I can sell them to non-Union colonies."
"Valthyrra?" Velmeran called in suddenly. "Those two packs have arrived and have matters well in hand. Baressa and I are on our way back to our own packs."
"Very good," Valthyrra acknowledged. "Two more packs will join you about as soon as you can get there. The rest will close up matters with that second fleet."
"Fair enough."
"You close up things out there," Valthyrra added quickly, ignoring Mayehia's look of protest. "But go ahead and get your pack out of the fight as soon as possible. You have done more than you should already."
"No problem."
"And why did you do that?" the Commander demanded as Valthyrra extended her camera well back into the upper bridge for privacy.
"Velmeran has had things well under control from the first; he should be allowed to finish," she said firmly. "Besides, he is going to want answers to a great many questions the moment he comes on board. And the fact is that I do not have all the answers myself. The battle is nearly over, but the trouble has just started."
Velmeran and Baressa were the first to lead their packs in, even though it was some time after the fighting stopped before they found the opportunity to do so. Chance had cast Velmeran in the role of leader, which everyone but he seemed to recognize and yet no one questioned. Although the Commander had remained silent, Valthyrra was deferring to his judgment. No one dared to question the situation. The other pilots had been late when they were needed, and had failed in their duty. They were in no position to protest.
The end of the battle saw the beginning of a process that was longer, more complicated and potentially as dangerous. Every usable part of the two wrecked fleets had to be collected, secured and brought in. Damaged ships were drifting over an area from the fourth to the seventh planet of the system, and to complicate matters, the survivors of the Union fleets were still in the early stages of what promised to be a very slow retreat. Hundreds of launches, escape modules and a fair number of tenders were heading back to base as best they could. Predictably, nothing moved out of the station to assist them.