The Starwolves

Valthyrra Methryn slipped smoothly out of starflight to cruise at a speed
that was just sublight, paralleling the freighter lane, just far enough out to
avoid being seen. She was as vast and black as space itself, three kilometers
long and more than one across the short wings of her arrowhead shape. Flaring
main drives were tucked protectively beneath her wings; her upper hull was
a smooth, armored shell that she could turn toward enemy fire. She moved like a
warship, with the smooth, graceftil control of a big ship with more than enough
power for its size. She was beautiful and frightening to behold.

By design, the Methryn was a destroyer of immense size, all engines and
weapons and very little crew. She could turn and accelerate like a ship a
fraction her size, while the cannons in her shock bumper were more than a match
for a fleet of heavy cruisers. On the underside of her tapered nose was a
cannon that could turn an entire planet into dust.

By definition the Methryn was a carrier, existing to provide for her handful
of fighters. Tucked up against her belly, insignificant against her total bulk,
were a pair of bays which housed ninety fighters, a fifth of what she could
allow. In truth, for all her speed and power, the Methryn had not seen actual
battle in more than half a century. Her fighters ran down and captured her
prey, and defended her against the occasional warship daring and foolish enough
to take her to task for her discreet piracies. She carried a crew of barely two
thousand, existing only to tend her fighters and their own needs. Valthyrra
Methryn took care of herself, and she was more than capable of that. There were
only twenty-two like her in known space.

For now, Valthyrra Methryn settled in to wait. Company freighters,
still running in starflight toward the system only two light-days ahead, would
never see her cruising barely five thousand kilometers to one side of their
lane. In starflight, their scanners were confined to a narrow cone immediately
ahead, and were effective only in avoiding collisions. The first indication
that they had wandered into a trap came when nine swift fighters descended upon
their tail. Valthyrra had learned patience during her long career and this
laying in wait did not bother her. That was not the case with her young pilots.

For Velmeran, this was a time he dreaded as much as the run itself. He was
the youngest pack leader on the ship; at twenty-five, a leader when most were
still just students. Seven of the eight pilots in his pack were indeed the
youngest on the ship, most having never flown with a pack when he had received
them four months earlier. His last pilot was too old to fly a transport, let
alone a fighter. His was a pack that should not have been, all students thrown
together and expected to fight. It badly needed strong leadership, but
that was something Velmeran not only lacked but feared.

At times like this, Velmeran was led to wonder if the Commander hated him.
Of course, he had always been on the best of terms with the Commander, and he
knew that she thought well of him. He had the ability, he had to admit, but
neither the experience nor the inclination to make the most of those abilities.
He also knew that the Commander would have never done this to him. This was all
Valthyrra's idea, because she believed in him too much.

The lift lurched to an uncertain stop, and Velmeran smiled to himself in
anticipation of revenge. Valthyrra would soon be in need of a complete
overhaul, an involved process that took half a year in airdock and resulted in
partial dismemberment of the unfortunate ship. Valthyrra disliked being
dismantled almost as much as she disliked being confined in dock.

Velmeran entered the wide bridge from the left wing. Bridge crewmembers in
white armored suits sat at their stations or hurried about their duties.
Consherra glanced up at him from the helm console on that side of the raised
middle bridge, and an instant later Valthyrra quickly rotated her camera
pod around and focused both lenses on him before turning her attention back to
the Commander's console on the upper bridge. Velmeran frowned. The three of
them together, Commander, helm and ship herself, was entirely too much motherly
attention, and it only seemed to him like an accusation of his inability to
make a pack of students fly like veterans.

He hurried – as well as his armor would allow – up the steps to
the upper bridge. Consherra was scrupulously bent to her screen, and his
disposition was soured all the more to find the Commander in exactly the same
position. Valthyrra was all but peering over her shoulder, her boom extended
well back into the recess of the upper bridge. Velmeran wondered whose idea
this was. Valthyrra and Mayelna were a pair; they were schemers, and seemed to
take turns dreaming up ideas. The ship was audacious enough to be pleased with
herself. The Commander simply had no conscience.

"This one is yours, Meran," the Commander remarked without
looking up.

"So I had heard," Velmeran replied evenly.

"I am sorry to have to send you out again so soon," Mayelna
continued absently. "Opportunities come rarely, and it is rarer still when
we can afford to make our own opportunities."

Velmeran shrugged both sets of arms, an exaggerated gesture. "Did I
complain?"

"We can catch a bulk freighter in this lane," Valthyrra explained
with bad timing. "A big, slow ship, all holds heavy with cargo. Something
your students should be able to take without trouble."

Mayelna glanced up in annoyance. "They are not students."

"I cannot imagine what else they may be!" Velmeran exclaimed in
disgust. "In our last two runs, we wrecked one cargo and allowed the other
to escape. Escape! A Starwolf pack never misses its prey, never!"

"You put your least experienced pilots on a ship that was too fast for
them," Mayelna pointed out. "Let your pilots make a run or two, for
the practice. Then you get on that ship's tail and bring her out of starflight
for them to work over in their own good time. They only get frustrated if they
run too long without success... you lost your last two ships to that."

Valthyrra glanced from the Commander to Velmeran and back again so quickly
that her lenses hardly had time to focus.

"Try to be patient," Mayelna continued when he did not answer.
"That is a large part of your problem. You are – you always have
been – too good of a pilot to understand the limitations of those
who lack your talent, and too young to understand that. Be patient and work
with them. If they think that you believe in them, then they will learn to
trust in their own abilities."

Velmeran began to say something, then paused and turned away. Valthyrra
lifted her pod in alarm, and even Mayelna sat up straight.

"Velmeran, what about Keth?" the Commander asked quickly.

He stopped and turned slowly. "I have no one to replace him. Not
this late."

"You will have to tell him," Mayelna insisted. "Before
your pack goes out again. Or I will."

"But Keth is the only experienced pilot I have," Velmeran
protested weakly. "He is still better than most of the others."

"But that is the point," the Commander insisted. "The others
will continue to improve. Keth will only get worse."

"Do you suppose that I do not know what happens out there?"
Valthyrra asked. "Keth hesitates in his runs, and he cuts his turns wide.
He tries to show off, but he only gets in the way. Pilots who refuse to retire
usually end up running into something, like their target, or one of their
own. Or me."

Velmeran did not reply at once, but stood looking down. At last he nodded
reluctantly. "Very well. But we cannot fly short. Let him fly this last
time, and I will tell him when we come back. Just give me an experienced
replacement."

Mayelna looked up at him skeptically.

Velmeran shrugged and turned to walk away. "Do what you want, then. You
will anyway."

She nodded. "Granted. By the way, Baressa's pack will fly watch for
you."

Velmeran stopped short and stared in utter astonishment. This was the
insult added to injury. "Baressa?"

"She is under strict orders not to offer so much as a word of
advice."

Velmeran, with a final gesture of hopelessness, turned away a last time.

Mayelna turned back to her monitors, but Valthyrra made no secret of
watching him go. Several of the others, Consherra in particular, watched him
just as closely. Valthyrra swung her boom back around to the Commander's
console.

"Is he still your choice?" Mayelna asked without looking up.

The pod itself nodded in agreement. "More than ever."

Mayelna looked up sharply. "He is a good pilot, I will grant you that.
But that does not make him a good leader."

"No, the two are not related," she agreed. "But I still
believe that when he learns to lose his fear of being a leader, then he will
make a very good one."

Mayelna leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms defiantly. "How can
you know that better than me? I am his mother..."

"And I have been a carrier for nearly twenty thousand years,"
Valthyrra replied firmly. "I should know who I want to command on my
bridge. He will prove himself soon enough."

The landing bay was dark and silent, empty except for the nine fighters
seated in their racks just inside the forward bay door. They were
starships in their own right, large for single-seat fighters, with main drives
tucked under down-swept wings and a large star drive in their tail. In color
they were a dull, nonreflective black – even their cockpit windows deeply
tinted – like swift shadows against the darkness of space. They were
sleek and powerful, built for speed and maneuverability, and there was
nothing, neither piloted nor computer-driven, that could outfly them.

For now they sat poised for flight, landing gear retracted, ready to
leap from their racks into battle. They lacked only their pilots, who were as
finely crafted by genetic engineering for their specific task as the ships
themselves. The wolf-pack pilots had been made with the accelerated
reflexes needed to fly their ships at tremendous speed, the strength and
endurance for harsh accelerations and heightened senses to feel the locations
of the ships about them. Together, a Starwolf pilot and ship made the most
deadly and efficient war machine known.

Velmeran completed his inspection of his ship and climbed to the rack's
boarding platform, using the overhead supports to lift himself into the
outthrust cockpit. He often came alone to the bay to be with his ship when his
thoughts troubled him. The ship was the other half of his life; being with it
reminded him why he flew with the packs, catching company freighters for the
carrier he served. Too often he found the same answer. This had been decided
for him a very long time ago. He could have no plans of his own because, like
this ship, he was too specialized for his task to do anything else.

He thought then, as he often did, of the first time he had sat in the cockpit
of a wolf-pack fighter. It had been his mother's ship, sitting on its stiltlike
landing gear centermost of its pack of nine, just in from a hunt. The
pilots were always exhausted then, barely able to walk for fatigue and the
dreamlike concentration of flight. But she had been alive and alert, eager to
say to him the things she had to tell. She had stood for a long time, watching
him without expression, and the intensity of that stare had demanded his full
attention.

"Listen well, Meran," she had said suddenly. "The Commander
is old and very sick, and I will likely be called to take over his duties at
any time. After that I will never fly with the packs again, and so I wanted to
say this to you now.

"Fifty thousand years ago we owned these stars we now haunt. But then
the Union came like a sickness from within, a group of fringe worlds who
thought that they would be happier and wealthier if they could run everything
for themselves. And we fought them, back in the days when we were the old
Terran fleet. But all of our bases were swallowed up, and our little ships were
destroyed. We withdrew for a time to the one base that the Union never
found, and tried to think of how so very few could fight something so large.

"Our friends, the Aldessan of Valtrys, did what they could. They gave
us these big carriers, self-contained worlds, and these fast little ships that
can run down anything. And they made us better, so that we can fly these
ships. The Union learned very quickly to leave us alone. They always think in
terms of cost and profit, and it costs too much to fight us. They prefer to pay
us ransom in the company freighters we take.

"But it was a trap of our own making. They cannot defeat us without
destroying themselves, and we cannot defeat them with the few carriers we have.
We survive the only way we can, preying upon their freighters and protecting
the fringe worlds. Four-fifths of the colonies are fringe worlds, not a part of
the Union but dominated by it, and the companies steal away their lives and sell
them back with transport charges attached. If we do any real good, it is in the
fact that we keep the Union humble and the companies from making slaves of
the minor worlds."