The Starwolves (2 page)

She had paused a moment to run a hand lovingly over the sleek hull of the
fighter. Watching her, he had realized that these little ships were more than
just toys or machines to the pilots, but a part of themselves. And Mayelna had
been there to say farewell to her own, knowing that she would be going up to
the bridge to stay in a matter of hours.

"Someday you will most likely fly one of these ships," she had
continued. "I almost wish that you will not. It is a terrible life, and
often a short one. But you are a Starwolf and made to fly, and you will have
only half a life if you do not. You will know what it is like to become one
with this machine. To outthink and outreact your on-board computer and never
need to look at scan because you can feel in the back of your mind the singing
of the crystal engines of all the ships about you. The fear for your own life,
the remorse and guilt for what you must do as a warrior, the sorrow for
those you will lose along the way. All the heavy prices you must pay, and still
it is worth it all. Because this is what you exist for. One day you will understand."

He had listened, and he remembered every word. But he had not understood. He
had known only a growing, impatient desire to have one of those sleek little
ships for his own.

* * * *

Now Velmeran understood only too well. He had been content as a mere pilot.
Now he was pack leader. With that came the responsibility for eight lives
beyond his own, the greater responsibility to defend his ship, and the fear of
failure in those duties. He dared not fail. With that also came the relentless
need to know that he was doing the right thing whenever he led his pack into
battle, that there really was some justification for the death and destruction,
the lives that were risked and sometimes lost; and above all else he needed to
know, for his own satisfaction, that he was not just a machine made for war,
with no life or will of his own.

He had no answers to any of those questions, but still he took his pack out
and fought. Perhaps that in itself was answer enough, but he did not yet have
the experience to understand what it meant.

Velmeran paused when he saw his reflection in the black monitor screen that
dominated the upper part of the fighter's console. The Starwolves, the
Kelvessan, were a race apart, vaguely human in appearance but not derived from
human stock. They were small in size, disproportionately long of limb with
powerful arms and legs that looked to have been matched to a body several sizes
too small. Far more than just an extra set of arms and unnatural strength
separated Kelvessan from men.

Indeed, as he peered at his reflection, he thought that he could never pass
as human. His eyes, outsized for good light sensitivity, were more than twice
as large as they should have been. His ears, equally outsized and set farther
back on his head, had been tapered to a delicate point for purely aesthetic
reasons. He also thought that his nose was about half the size it should have
been, and his mouth was too wide. And he had always been told that a Starwolf's
shaggy mop of brown hair, remarkably thick and soft, was natural padding
against helmet and collar.

Other, more extensive refinements were not visible. His bones were not
calcium but precipitates of iron, and quite as hard as iron bars of equal
thickness. His cartilage and tendons could withstand tons of stress and his
nervoussystem was electrical rather than electrochemical, allowing
reflexes that were thousands of times faster than those of humans. His strength
was tremendous, to allow him to not just withstand but function under forces
that would kill an ordinary man. He was a machine, the living control center
for an equally remarkable starship.

But was there also a person within that carefully engineered machine?
He certainly was not human. He accepted that. But if not human, then what was
he? He was a Kelvessa, a Starwolf. His only hope was that those simple words
described something more than just a fighting machine.

The Vinthra military complex was by far the largest free-orbiting station in
the Rane Sector, an immense, imposing structure that sprawled across
several kilometers of space. Over a thousand ships, from tiny couriers to the
vast, threatening hulks of battleships and heavy carriers, could be docked
and serviced there, while another fifty could slip into its airdocks for
extensive repairs. Between the firepower of the ships stationed there and the
shields and cannons of the planetary defense system, not even a Starwolf
carrier could approach this world in open hostility. For this was Vinthra, and
Vannkarn, its port, housed the government and military command for this entire
sector.

A single ship moved swiftly toward the station, braking gently with its
forward engines. Its lines were those of a Union destroyer, sleek and powerful,
with a slender hexagonal hull and armor plates concealing its drives. Now
it was the private yacht of the High Councilor of the Rane Sector, a fact that
was proven as other, sometimes larger ships moved quietly out of its way. Its
path was centered upon a single portion of that vast station, a set of moorings
near the shuttle bays set aside for diplomatic vessels.

A single figure stood at the window of the carpeted and paneled corridor
that adjoined those mooring berths.

He was a tall man, at two meters a giant by modern standards, lean and
well-muscled. Although no longer young, he was far from being old. Indeed he
was well thought of as handsome in a rugged way that was now rare in his
diminished race. And yet there was a sense of darkness about him, a ruthless,
mercenary quality reflected in the hard, measuring glare of his black eyes. His
physical presence was far more threatening than his rank, so that those
who crossed that section of corridor passed through quietly.

A muted vibration ran through that portion of the station as the
incoming ship nudged cautiously into its moorings. Attendants assembled
quickly but quietly to service that ship as soon as its one, infinitely
important passenger was discharged. A last metallic clang announced the opening
of the ship, and a moment later the inner doors of the airlock rolled back. A
pair of guards with rifles stepped out to take positions to either side,
followed a moment later by an older man pursued by the automated carrier that
bore his luggage. He was a tall man as well, not as tall as the Sector
Commander – even allowing for his slightly bent back – but still
far taller than anyone else within sight. And like the Sector Commander, he was
clearly of older, purer Terran stock, his features rougher and more
clearly defined than the norm. But there the resemblance ended. He wore no
uniform but rich if subtle civilian dress, with an unruly mane of long white
hair and deep blue eyes that were alert and held a glint of skeptical humor, as
if he was amused with his own pretensions.

"Hello, Don!" he exclaimed when he saw the one who awaited him.
"How nice of you to come all this way up here to meet me."

"Richart couldn't make it," Commander Trace said tightly, but with
no regret. "But how did it go?"

"Well enough. But not here," the Councilor said, with a subtle
gesture for him to remain silent.

Donalt Trace nodded in agreement. "I understand. I have a shuttle
waiting."

"Your ship?" Councilor Lake asked. He knew that Trace would have
flown himself in a launch borrowed from the pool. If so, there was little
chance that anyone would overhear, accidentally or otherwise, what they had to
discuss.

"I had one called up for servicing this morning – and then I
chose another at random," he explained as they started toward the shuttle
bay.

The Councilor laughed. "Don, you are the suspicious type!"

"I learned from you, Uncle Jon," Commander Trace replied.

The shuttle was indeed a small one, hardly large enough to seat six. An
in-system fighter would not have been much smaller. Donalt Trace slipped the
tiny shuttle out of the bay and shifted easily into their designated path of
descent. Since the military station was on the opposite side of Vinthra from
the port, they had to make a fairly quick descent in only half an orbit. That
added somewhat to the roughness of the ride, since they would be braking most
of the way down. But Councilor Lake had anticipated this, and two glasses of
his favorite wine beforehand helped smooth the bumps somewhat.

"Well, they bought it," Lake said, leaning back in a seat that was
too small.

Commander Trace made a derisive sound. "They bought it, after the
problem became so bad that it could no longer be ignored. Then they accept your
theories and plans? All of it?"

"Nearly all of it," Lake replied, grinning. "They certainly
bought more of it than I thought they would. You will get your weapons, Don.
Even the big, expensive one. And I get my plan of genetic population control.
The only thing we don't get is a Union Fleet Commander. A High Council of
Sector Commanders, yes. But the sectors are by no means ready to give up their
old political and military autonomy. We will cooperate for the good of all, but
we live or die by our own efforts."

"But that was the most important part!" Trace protested.
"We cannot fight the Starwolves separately. They have a unified
command..."

"We assume."

"Jon, you know they do. They will fight together, when there is need.
They just seldom have to, since a single carrier can take on anything an
entire sector can throw at it."

"And there are more carriers in the Wolf Fleet than we have
sectors," the Councilor added. "Obviously we cannot fight them, one
on one or all together, not the way we have been going about it. We have to
find new ways to fight them. That's why I consider that a small loss. You have
only one carrier to worry about, and her name is Methryn. You find a way to
destroy her, and then we can go after the rest."

Which was much easier said than done, Councilor Lake reflected. And just the
beginning of his own problems. The human race was dying, or at least
degenerating to the point that it could no longer care for itself. The genetic
message that made a human was deteriorating; random, detrimental mutations
were not only occurring at an alarming rate but were being passed into the
common genetic pool. There was no determining the exact cause, although
the Councilor preferred to believe that mankind had been too long removed from
the laws of natural selection that had guided its evolution.

People were smaller than they had been in the first days of space flight, slighter
of build and gentler of mood and feature. Unfortunately, people were also less
intelligent than they had been, less able to reason and remember. Mental
deficiency and imbalance claimed a fourth of the population, and another fourth
was genetically sterile. It was a problem that had been a very long time
coming, but it had finally become so bad that the High Council could no longer
ignore it. For in another thousand years the machinery of the Union, of
huthan civilization itself, would grind to a halt for want of maintenance. That
might seem like a very long time, but for a problem fifty thousand years in the
making, it was already too late.

Still, Councilor Lake wanted to save what he could. And if stern measures
were taken now, a large part of the Union could be saved. The only solution was
to enforce the sterilization of large segments of the population, intervening
where nature had failed. The general population would not take such controls
lightly. The military would be needed to enforce order, especially on those
worlds that bore little love or loyalty for the Union from the start. And for
that, the problem that the Starwolves represented would have to be eliminated.
Or at least reduced to a thanageable level.

That was Donalt Trace's responsibility as Comthander of the Sector Fleet.
Never before had the Union been able to fight the Starwolves effectively. They
had technology that the Union did not and now would never have, ships that were
faster and pilots that were better. The Union's only advantage lay in its
seemingly inexhaustible resources, its ability to replace ships, supplies
and personnel as fast as they were lost. But the old resources were disappearing,
and new ways had to be found to fight and win.

It was up to Donalt Trace to find those answers. He had been selected for
that task at an early age. Every aspect of his training, all of his education
in strategy and military concepts, had been selected and guided by the elder
Lake, just as the Councilor had selected and trained his grandson Richart to be
his replacement. But there was that element in Trace that was unpredictable, a
blind, self-righteous confidence in his own abilities and his hatred for his
enemy. Councilor Lake was aware that his weapon was flawed, but he had no
choice. The fact remained that if Don could not do this, no one could.

"Then everything is ready here?" Lake asked, roused from his
reflections when the shuttle began to buck as it slipped into the upper air.

"The trap is laid," Trace assured him. "I don't give this old
ploy a chance of working, but it will put the Starwolves off their
guard."

Valthyrra Methryn found her prey after five hours of waiting. It was, as she
had anticipated, a medium bulk freighter. Bulk freighters were about as big as
they came and generally ships of the inner lanes, while smaller ships of three
hundred meters or less ran the fringe. The packs caught one of the largest bulk
freighters, wallowing monsters of nearly six hundred meters, perhaps once
a year.

This was a bulk freighter of just over five hundred meters, and just the
right size for a pack of students. Designed to move heavy cargoes
inexpensively, she was too underpowered to ship a full load, and too slow and
barely thaneuverable under ordinary speeds. The difficult part of this task was
that the pack was not trying to destroy the ship but disable it with a minimum
of damage, and without touching the holds at all, so that her cargo and most of
her parts could be salvaged. Bringing down a freighter intact required some
very delicate shooting.