The Starwolves (32 page)

Valthyrra turned her pod to Mayelna, who sat well back in her chair, deep in
thoughts of her own. "Commander?"

Mayelna glanced up sharply, at first surprised. But she also nodded in
agreement. Consherra offered no opinion, aside from a very bewildered stare;
this whole affair left her speechless.

As soon as the council was over, Velmeran made as inconspicuous a retreat as
he could manage. His problem was compounded by the fact that his only way out
lay through the middle of the gallery, so that he was caught between the crowd
of pack leaders and officers gathered there and Mayelna behind. Noticing the
look that Mayelna gave him, he knew that he would do well to flee. And being a
first-rate Starwolf, he was unequaled in his talent for dodging and evading. He
had made it to the corridor outside before Baress stepped out of the crowd
before him.

"Velmeran, I would like that place in your pack, if you will have
me," he said. That was not only enough to bring Velmeran up short, but
make him forget that he was being pursued.

"That position off my right wing tip does not seem to be a lucky place
to be," he remarked. "But if you will have it, then I would be glad
to have you. I am sure that Valthyrra would agree."

"Of course I do," she replied for herself. She had managed to be
the first out the door by having a probe lying in wait, ready for her immediate
use.

At that moment he was grabbed and spun about, tightly pinned by four arms in
a fierce hug, and soundly kissed on the mouth. Startled, he drew back as far as
he could, only to find himself in the arms of the Karvand's
Commander-designate, Daelyn.

"Velmeran, you are fantastic!" she declared. What was this?

"I know," he replied uncertainly, still too surprised and confused
to know what he was saying. "I mean, I have to be... I try."

She released her hold on him, and he remembered too late that he was
supposed to be running for his life. Mayelna caught both of his right arms and,
with Daelyn holding his left arms, he was herded quickly down the length of the
corridor, up a flight of steps and into Mayelna's office. Valthyrra followed,
none too close, while Daelyn remained on guard by the closed door.

"Do you have any idea what you have gotten us into?" Mayelna
demanded as she backed her prey across the room. "Do you even know what
you are doing?"

"Of course I know what I am doing!" he replied hotly. Having been
brought up short by a corner, he decided that it was time to counterattack.
"Three entire ships agree that I indeed know what I am doing. You are the
only one who is dissatisfied. Do you want me to call everyone back and tell
them that I cannot play this game, that my mother says that it is too rough for
me?"

Mayelna blinked in confusion, taken off her guard by his determination.
Momentarily at a loss, she turned on Daelyn, an easier target. "You! I
thought that you were on my side."

"You told me that I was on your side," Daelyn replied, undaunted.
"I decided otherwise. He is right, you know."

"Of course he is right!" Mayelna exclaimed in frustration,
throwing up her hands. "He has a disturbing habit of always being right.
He is also the only one capable of getting away with this. But I still do not
have to like it."

"What do you not like?" Velmeran demanded. "Is it the
Commander who objects to me, a young and inexperienced pack leader taking
entirely too much upon myself? Because I want us to be more aggressive when you
would have us remain defensive? Or is it the overprotective mother who refuses
to accept that I am quite grown up and able to decide these things for
myself?"

"Under the circumstances, I am equal shares of both," she
answered. "Velmeran, I no longer question your abilities. You are already
a far better leader in battle than I ever was or will be. Your ability to never
miss a trick amazed me. But I question your motives. What are you trying to
prove?"

"You tell me," Velmeran said in return.

"Very well. The last time we talked, you were afraid that you were just
a machine, a weapon of war built for one specific purpose. Now I wonder if you
are willing yourself to become that machine. Dveyella might be gone, but you
still have life. Are you trying to deny that?"

"Is that what you think?"

"You are not the same person you were before," she said. "I
did not really understand you before. But I hardly even know you now."

"To the contrary," Valthyrra interrupted. "This is the real
Velmeran that I always knew existed."

"You keep out of this, chips-for-brains!" Mayelna snapped
impatiently. "You put him up to this. You put the idea in his head."

"Actually, he was the one who gave me the idea," Valthyrra
countered.

"This is something that I must do," Velmeran added. "But for
my own reasons."

"And what are your reasons?" she demanded. "Do you think that
you can avenge yourself and Dveyella upon the ones who killed her? Vengeance is
a human passion, and I am not sure that even they found quite the satisfaction
in their revenge as they always thought they should. But you are not human, so
stop pretending. Revenge will not help her death sit any easier in your
conscience; it will not help you to forget, and it certainly will not bring her
back. She was beyond your help the moment she died, so you cannot say that this
is something you want to do for her."

"No, not for her. For me, Mayelna! This is what I must do for me, and
for every Kelvessan alive today and who will live in days to come!"
Velmeran declared so fiercely that Mayelna was driven back by his wrath.
"I am Kelvessan, and I want that to mean something. I want my kind to be
able to go where they want without fear of being shot. I want my people to be
whatever they want, to have worlds of their own, to write their own music and
their own stories and build their own monuments. I want this war to end now,
not for the sake of some alien race but for my own. Someday I think that I
might even like to have children, but children who will be free to be whatever
they want.

"I know now what I am, what I want to be. Yes, I am a warrior, a
Starwolf, but that is now my decision based upon my talents and desires, and
not just because it is expected of me. Let me do what I can... what I must.
Help me, if you dare, because I need all the help I can get. But if you are
afraid, then kindly get out of my way. I know what I have to do, and I can do
it without you."

The silence that followed came almost as a shock. Valthyrra was so startled
and cowed by that violent outburst that she had drawn the probe's camera pod
into its protective cowling and was peering out cautiously. Daelyn, on the
other hand, was smiling with satisfaction. Mayelna simply stood where she was,
staring aimlessly at the floor, deep in thought. After a moment she glanced up
at him, searchingly.

"Is this what you have decided, those long days you spend alone in your
room?" she asked gently.

Velmeran nodded slowly. "I have faced death as I never have before.
Dveyella's life was dearer to me than my own. I could not face life alone
without first coming to terms with it."

"Yes, I suppose so," Mayelna agreed. She reached out and took up
his hands in hers, urging his attention. "Meran, I always knew of the
conflict in your heart and soul, your dissatisfaction with your inability to
choose your own lot in life. I hated to have to force a fate upon you. You said
it yourself, that you want children who are Kelvessan and free to be what they
want. That freedom is one thing that I could never give my own children, and
that hurt me. But now I think that I am satisfied after all. Daelyn found her
own life, even if she had to leave this ship to do it. Now I trust that you
have found yours, and I am sorry that your lesson had to be such a bitter
one."

"Daelyn?" Velmeran asked suddenly, and stared at the girl. She
grinned and waved at him.

Mayelna smiled. "I believe that you have met your sister. Half sister,
at least."

"Sister?" he asked. "Nuts! I was hoping for another
kiss."

"You can talk to Consherra about that. Right now you will listen to
me," Mayelna said, in the Commander's voice. "Meran, I see something
of the future that you must face. I suppose that is what everyone must see in
you, that your life is tied up in some great and terrible fate, and that is why
it is so easy to believe in you. I believe you, and I will give you all the
help I can."

Velmeran stared at her in surprise. "You do?"

"Have I not said so from the first?" she demanded in exasperation.
"I know who led the counterattack against that fleet. And I know as well
who took over leadership on that expedition to retrieve Keth when Dveyella
thought that it was time to pull out. Did you think that Valthyrra was the only
one listening to every word that went over your com? Someday, left to your own
devices, it might even occur to you how much I love you. And I hope that you
will make the equally amazing discovery that you might just have some love for
me in return."

"You love me?" he asked. "I do not recall that you have ever
said that to me before."

"I have always told myself that actions speak louder than words,"
she replied gently. "That is just a coward's excuse, and I have had a hard
lesson in how actions can be misinterpreted. Therefore I will say it plainly: I
love you, Meran. Not because you are my son, or my best pilot, or because you
are the most unique person I have ever met. No excuses or conditions. I love
you just because of yourself, for you are special to me."

Velmeran nodded and swallowed nervously. "You are my mother...."

"And sometimes we need the help of someone who loves us," she
finished for him. "I understand. Meran, there is no one here who does not
love you. I have shed tears for you, because I shared your grief. Many of us
did, more than you might imagine. Others would have, if glass eyes could weep.
But you never did. Something was lacking, I suppose. Something that still
needed to be done."

He smiled uncertainly. "Ghosts of more than one nature will rest more
easily now."

"Then let them rest," Mayelna said. She took him in her arms and
held him tightiy while he cried.

Even as the Starwolf carriers were gathering for their council of war, Jon
Lake received some very disturbing news. News that frightened him as nothing in
his life had frightened him before. With the packet containing the report in
one hand, he stormed into the Sector Commander's office. The secretary and two
guards in the outer office, under strict orders to admit no visitors, were
undecided as to whether or not that applied to the Councilor as well. During
the moment of hesitation, he was already past.

"Idiot!" the Councdor spat like an angry cat at the startled
Sector Commander as he came through the door. "What are you trying to
do?"

"Hello, Jon," Commander Trace said casually as he sat back in his
chair, waving the astonished guards out of the doorway so that it would shut.
"Yes, I ordered that test moved up three weeks. What of it? We lost the
freighter because her captain did not get the hell out while he had the chance.
But we did get Starwolves."

"A Starwolf!" Councilor Lake corrected him.

"Oh?" the Commander asked innocently. "My report said three.
Ah, well, we will improve. Even one was a good start."

"The wrong one!" Lake declared. "You moved that test up so
that you could send your trap after the Methryn, knowing where she was and that
she would probably be hunting again. Why, Don? Were you trying to get
Velmeran?"

"And why not?" Trace demanded. "He made me nervous. Too
damned smart."

The Councilor did not reply to that, but opened the package he held and pulled
out a photograph, which he threw down on the table. "Do you know who this
is?"

"Starwolf," Commander Trace replied, hardly bothering to glance at
it. "I cannot tell one from another."

"You should know, since you dined with her only a week and a half ago.
There was a two-man prospector poking around the asteroid debris in the system,
surveying for metals. Suddenly they saw a Starwolf carrier coming into system
fast, and it seems that they recognized a Starwolf funeral when they saw it.
They kept the body on scan until the carrier left, then rushed in and snatched
it up at the last moment. And, being a company prospector, they turned the body
over to Farstell rather than to the military. Since they sent the report on a
military courier, it came to me instead of to you."

"What became of the body?" the Sector Commander demanded, almost
greedily. Alive or dead, a Starwolf was a valuable possession.

"You needn't concern yourself, even though I can imagine you hanging
her head from a post as a warning to all Starwolves. I have already ordered
that body destroyed in our own sun, according to their own honors," Lake
said with considerable heat, then grew cold and menacing. "Are you too big
a fool to realize the consequences of your actions? Velmeran knows that you
were after him. Now he is going to demand payment."

"What can he do, just one Starwolf?" the Commander asked,
unconcerned, even contemptuously.

"Have I not taught you to understand them better than that?" the
Councilor demanded. "They accept a certain amount of risk, but they always
make us pay. They made us pay through the teeth for that last trap, and that
was nothing personal. But you have made it something personal. Damn it, that
girl was his mate. He is going to make us pay for her death if he has to take
apart this entire planet, and the Starwolves are going to give him all the help
he needs."

Councdor Lake walked over to stand before the window, staring out over the
city. "I am going to take what steps I can to prepare for their attack.
The first thing that they are going to have to do is crack the dome to get
their fighters in. I am going to arrange to have the dome shield fail after
only one or two determined hits from their big cannons. That power will be of
more use in the planetary defense system."