The Starwolves (33 page)

Trace stared at him disbelief. "The dome shield has to remain up. It
will delay them long enough for our fleet to move in."

"And let them fry this city in the process?" the Councdor asked,
and shook his head. "I will not sacrifice this entire city for a block of
metal. Also, we have to get our people out. I will warn Richart and everyone
else to get to the sub the moment we see a Starwolf carrier coming in. Both of
the sea gates will remain open from now on. Fortunately we should have a few
weeks before they can put together an attack."

Preparations for the attack were made even before the Starwolves left
Altiolandh. The nine packs that were to accompany Velmeran's own into Vannkam
were quickly selected and transferred to the Methryn, where they were serviced
and fitted with the big auxiliary cannons they would carry on their raid. The
Methryn's packs that would not be a part of the attack force were divided
between the Delvon and the Karvand for their own servicing. Everything had to
be ready before their arrival at the Vinthran system.

Velmeran wanted to lead his attack force down just before dawn, local time,
so that they would be coming up into the city early enough to catch most of its
population still at home and in no real danger. He thought that a courier would
have taken three days to arrive with news of the attack, and he wanted to make
his raid before any major countermeasures could be arranged.

He was certain that Councdor Lake at least suspected the possibility of a
counterattack on Vannkam. But he still believed that the element of surprise
remained on his side, simply because Lake would not be expecting anything so
soon. Hopefully he would also be expecting the Starwolves to come in the
obvious way, through the dome. Velmeran doubted that he would do anything
drastic to block the sea door even if he did suspect the possibility, since
that was his own bolt hole. And even if he did, Velmeran would simply take his
packs airborne to the port, where they would blast away the roof of the port
building and fly down the tram tunnels, using their big cannons to clear the
tracks. The plan was as nearly foolproof as he could hope.

The plan was that the Methryn would go in alone, coming in as close to
Vinthra as she could to launch her packs. Then came the tricky part, for the
assault force had to drift in almost powerless to avoid detection, at a speed
slow enough that the most gentle braking would prepare them for planetary
entry. They would be six hours in space and two more underwater, eight hours and
more before they would return to their ships. Fortunately they would have to
rely upon hypermetabolism only during the battle itself, only about twenty
minutes before they were clear of the planet. The problem was that, for
Kelvessan, that was entirely too long without eating.

Mayelna hurried down to the landing bay for a final word with Velmeran
during the short jump into system. Valthyrra, in the form of one of her
hovering probes, was there ahead of her. They waited beside his fighter as he
made a final check of his pack.

"All ready?" Mayelna asked as Velmeran approached.

"Ready and eager, in fact," he replied. "It is hard for me to
remember now how they were only green students only a short time ago. Now I
trust them enough to take them with me into Vannkam."

Mayelna smiled. "To tell the truth, not that long ago I wondered if you
would ever be a good pack leader. Now here you are, leading three entire ships
on one of the greatest raids the Starwolves have ever attempted. In fact, I
believe that you have assembled history's largest special tactics team."

Velmeran shrugged, as if it were unimportant. "I know better than to
ask you not to worry."

"Just as I know better than to ask you to be careful," she said.
"When you come back, there is something else that I must talk to you
about."

"I understand," he answered, glancing down shyly. "It occurs
to me that I should thank you – both of you – for making me what I
am today. All your best efforts have paid off, it seems."

"Or in spite of our best efforts?" Valthyrra asked pointedly.

Velmeran laughed. "I am not sure how you did it, but I am what you have
always wanted me to be."

"You are what you want to be," Mayelna corrected him. "That
is the only thing I ever wanted. I never really doubted you, nor do I expect less
of you than you are."

"It is time," Valthyrra interrupted gently.

"No long speeches," Mayelna promised, and turned back to Velmeran.
"You have never asked me about your father...."

"I am my mother's son," he said, smiling. "I hope it does not
surprise you to learn that I have always been satisfied with that."

"Good luck, Meran," she called as he turned and started toward his
fighter. She tried to ignore the fact that Valthyrra was staring at her, not
him. At last she had to gesture impatiently for the probe to remain silent.

"What if he had asked?" Valthyrra insisted. "You have no more
idea than he does."

"Shut up!" Mayelna hissed under her breath. They retreated across
the bay as the line of fighters began to power up for flight. "It was
something that I had to know."

Moving as one, the ten packs of the assault team penetrated the outer edge
of Vinthra's atmosphere, still braking gently with their forward engines.
Looking down, directly above the center of the magnetic pole and not too far
from the planetary axis, they might well have been descending toward a world of
ice. An endless, featureless expanse of white lay below them, disappearing into
the haziness of the horizon in all directions. The ice cap was not really all
that large, but their altitude was now less than two hundred kilometers and
they were coming down vertically.

They were able to brake harder as they penetrated deeper, now that they were
well within the protection of the magnetic corridor. And that was well, for
they had a lot of speed to lose before they reached the surface. They were only
a hundred meters above the icy plain by the time they were able to cease
braking and begin a wide, spiraling circle.

The lead fighter moved out from the rest, descending toward the solid ice
floe. Velmeran activated his auxiliary cannon, and the big gun swung down and
forward on its struts into attack position. These cannons were so powerful that
they were mounted below the cockpit so that their flash would not blind the
pilot, and moved a meter out from the hull to avoid searing it. In power they
were comparable to the main battery of a Union battleship; a single shot from
them could rip a smaller ship in half, and they could fire up to three shots a
second.

Velmeran did not dare concentrate too much firepower on the ice, since power
of this type could be detected. A two-second round of six shots left a steaming
crater a hundred meters across. The brisk wind had carried most of the steam
away by the time he circled back, and he could see that the center of the hole
was more than clear enough of debris for safe access. He retracted the cannon
and triggered the modified atmospheric shield for underwater travel, then dived
toward the center of the pit.

Penetrating below the surface was as easy as he had hoped, although he did
hear fragments of ice ring harmlessly against the hull as the shield filled
with water. For now he kept his speed well down, barely a hundred kilometers,
as he waited. His own pack followed as soon as they saw that he was safely
installed in underwater flight, moving up in single file directly behind him
until they were only ten meters apart, their overlapping shields forming a
single long corridor that reduced drag for the entire group.

The other nine packs continued to dive through the steaming passage,
assembling by packs beneath the ice in their own shield tunnels. These in turn
lined up side by side, so that any accident that might occur in one pack was
not likely to involve others. The single transport followed last of all, flying
alone behind and slightly below the packs. Once they were all in place,
Velmeran began to increase speed gradually, taking them up to the transport's
maximum safe speed of thirty-eight hundred kilometers. The gently glowing
ceiling of ice overhead began to streak past, and the packs dropped down to
avoid the massive icebergs trapped over the years in the floe. To the ptiots it
almost seemed as if they were flying upside down, passing over an inverted
landscape.

After a few minutes they passed out from beneath the cover of the ice floe
into open water. Now Velmeran had to be more cautious, watching his scanners
constantly for the presence of aircraft overhead. The nature of their
atmospheric shields was such that they absorbed in the tail any pressure wave
formed by the forward cone. But he knew from their test runs in the seas on
Alliolandh that they were leaving wide trails of dense bubbles, white trails
when seen from high enough. He doubted that anyone would figure out the meaning
of the trails themselves, not soon enough to matter, so long as they did not
observe that fast-moving leading edge. It was a necessary risk.

Two hours of flight time brought them to the shallow coastal waters west of
Vannkam. Now Velmeran relied upon the course plotted by his ship's computer,
using its guidance to bring him to a point where the underwater tunnel must
terminate. Submerged ridges of the coastal range made towering underwater
cliffs that stretched for hundreds of miles along this shore. Reducing speed to
five hundred kilometers, he began to cast about for that opening. The nine
other packs fell back to follow his own in single file.

Velmeran did not need long to find the tunnel entrance, for it bore its own
markers. Two red beacons pierced the murky water, below which shone the white
radiance of the tunnel's lights, illuminating the striking blue of the tunnel
walls. He aimed his ship toward that opening, aligning with the passage early
both to insure that his shields would be centered and to have a look up the
tunnel. Activating his accessory cannon, he began his run. He was committed
now. If he did find the passage blocked, the cannon had better be enough to
clear it. Otherwise the others would be alerted to his failure by the explosion
of his ship.

His fighter shot up the tunnel like a bullet within the barrel of a rifle.
Soon he could see that the passage was clear to its end, although the
illumination decreased to almost total blackness near the far end so that no
betraying glow would be seen from the inside. He had passed two sets of sea
doors, both invitingly open. Were the Lakes so confident that this way would
remain unknown that these doors were always open? Or were those doors for use
only in severe weather outside, isolating the underground lake from betraying disturbances?

Velmeran's fighter shot out into the lake and he arched up sharply before he
ran out of traveling room. The calm lake suddenly erupted into violence, a
massive column of water rising toward the cavern ceiling as it was carried
aloft in the atmospheric shield, collapsing back like a fountain as it was
discharged. Velmeran followed the curve of the cavern roof, dropping his
atmospheric shield altogether and bringing up his debris shield and defensive
screens. Even as the column of water collapsed it leaped back up again, each
time ejecting a black fighter.

At first the fighters flew high over the city as the packs reformed, then
dived down in groups to dodge and dart among the buildings and avenues. For the
first minute or so they might almost have been at play, slipping in and out
among the suspended walkways and elevated tramways, making it plain to anyone
about that Starwolves were here and they should take cover, which they did
quickly, the small, early morning crowds seeming to evaporate in an instant.

Now the Starwolves went to work, turning their lesser guns on unimportant
targets. Most of those packs were there just to create a diversion, darting in
and out so fast that the entire city seemed overrun by thousands of wolf ships,
keeping the population frightened and in hiding. Skyways and tram tracks
collapsed under their assault. Wooded parks and sculptured gardens exploded in
flames from the bolts of their larger cannons. The Starwolves had no complaint
against the civilian population, and they destroyed nothing that could not be
easily repaired.

Only the Unioners knew what they thought of the sudden plague of Starwolves
inside their impenetrable city. Only a very few knew of the underwater tunnel
and, with the dome still intact, there was no logical explanation for how they
might have appeared. And once inside the cavern, there was nothing that could
be done about them. All the planetary defenses lay outside. And Union pilots
could not get their own fighters and stingships inside, even if the Starwolves
had. For once they held an entire city for ransom, for as long as they dared.

The only thing that Councilor Lake could think about that morning was that
it was entirely too early to be up and about, especially after spending half
the night and a bottle of wine with a trade delegation. But this was the time
to act on getting these new missiles installed in a number of freighters for a
better test of their effectiveness. Especially since he and Donalt Trace were
in complete disagreement on the effectiveness of the last test.

"I consider it a success, since it did kill a Starwolf," Trace
argued. He was seated at his desk, reading the review of the incident, while
his uncle stood near the window that overlooked the city.

"And I consider it a failure, since we lost the freighter," Lake
countered. "Obviously our goals differ."

"Are you telling me that you would just as well abandon this entire
project?"

"No, not yet," the Councilor said, turning to look out the window.

The first thing he saw was a familiar black shape streak past. He blinked,
but it was already gone and he was not even sure that he had seen it. Had it
been only a manifestation of his fears come to haunt him? Of the wine? His
senility? But he looked again, this time more closely, and saw that his
beautiful city was being overrun with wolf ships. How could an invasion force
have gotten this far without his being aware? The dome shield was rigged to
fail, but only after a few determined shots that he would have heard. And yet,
when he glanced up, he could plainly see that the dome was still intact.
Suddenly he understood – only too well. He had left the door open for
them.