The Starwolves (12 page)

The Union carrier did not turn toward a new destination but dropped out
of starflight and rushed into port so fast that it barely slowed itself for
orbit. It was followed, discreetly and silently, by a machine hardly larger
than a transport's star drive. The drone was fast and very maneuverable,
and it had scanners and sensors of such range and sensitivity that the Union
could only dream about. It also had the intelligence to perform its tasks
efficiently, as well as judge new situations and act accordingly.

The drone watched patiently as the carrier settled into orbit, then it moved
quickly, evading detection as it probed the planet to its very core. At last
the little machine assembled all the information it had gathered into a
neat package, opened an achronic channel and transferred it all back to the
Methryn. Valthyrra quickly analyzed the information and was delighted with what
she found. She quickly called Dveyella and the members of her pack to a meeting
in one of the smaller conference rooms. The Commander left Consherra to watch
the bridge, much to the first officer's dissatisfaction.

"My drone reported that the carrier reached its destination a
short time ago," Valthyrra began. "It orbited just long enough to
discharge a passenger and the remains of a fighter by way of a freight shuttle
before moving on to the station to secure for repairs. The planet is called
Bineck, fourth planet of a system by the same name, so called after the captain
of the ship that first discovered it... a common enough ploy by otherwise
unknown and unremarkable Union officers to stake a claim for immortality."

"If we can dispense with the trivialities," Mayelna remarked
in her best patience-under-adversity voice.

"They seem to have decided upon stealth rather than security to hide
their prize," the ship continued. She activated the viewscreen at the
back of the small table where the group sat, turning her camera on its short
boom to watch also. She quickly drew out the schematic for the system in
question, showing the path of the carrier's approach, before moving on to
the planet itself, drawing in features as she described them.

"The planet is uninhabited and uncolonized. The Union maintains a small
orbital base, and there is also a major base on the planet itself, mostly a
supply and refitting station for small ships. There are no facilities for
larger ships, so they are dealing with the carrier as best they can. There are
about fifty fighters at the station and some two hundred more at the base.
There are also forty stingships and fifteen destroyers at the station. The
carrier is in no condition to fight, and she is so tied up with cables and
gantries that they could not have her free in time anyway."

"What about the carrier's fighters?" Dveyella asked.

"She lost those the last time we met," Valthyrra replied, and
continued. "The extinct natives were great builders in stone. Even though
they never developed a higher technology, they built fortresslike cities,
kilometers across and so far down that the drone had to scan with deep-probe.
Archeologists finished with these cities long ago and the Union has been using
them ever since as longterm storage shelters. The native race died out
about ten thousand years ago, long before the Union expanded into this area. We
knew of them but never made contact. They were gone before we knew of their
difficulties."

"Radiation traces?" Dveyella asked.

"No, the catastrophe was a natural one. A sudden, naturally mutated
virus stripped the planet of vegetation in a quarter of a year's time. It was a
type of super-virus, immense in size and complexity, that turned sugars into
alcohols. Even grains stored in the deepest levels of the cities were ruined.
The animal life either starved or died eating planet life that was infused with
toxic alcohols... or from simply ingesting too much alcohol of any type."

"Quite an interesting little bug," Velmeran remarked. "Did
the Union clear it properly?"

"They seeded a virus-chaser and imposed a full standard century of
quarantine, but we had already eradicated it nine thousand years before. You do
not leave nasty little things like that lying around for fools to blunder into.
Which was a good thing, since survey teams came and went for half a planet year
before they finally figured things out."

"But the Union is able to use these ruins, even after ten thousand
years?" Dveyella asked.

"Ruins might not be an accurate word, since very little is ruined.
These people built to last. And I will grant that the Union had to do a great
deal of cleaning and a few repairs to make those cities fit for storage
caches."

Valthyrra quickly pulled a file picture of a curious alien creature, short
and powerful of build, with four long legs on a short main body and a pair of
long arms attached to a small, vertical upper torso. Its eyes and ears were
immense. "The natives were nocturnal cave dwellers. The cities they built
are indeed more like caves, with few outer doors and no windows, and walls so
thick that the temperature does not vary much throughout the year even in
the levels aboveground. And most of the cities are well below the surface. They
would come out on the surface – by night – to farm, but they would
not dwell there by choice."

"The point of all this history and archeology is that Keth is being
kept in one of the supply caches, not in the main base. He is under very little
guard, and is in fact very easy to get at. There is nothing remarkable about
the cell he is in, just an ordinary storage room like millions of other rooms
in the eighty-seven major cities across the planet, but he is on a level so
deep that Union technology could not possibly scan for him.

"So they stuck him in a hole as quickly as they could and are trying to
pretend that nothing has happened, ready to feign bewilderment to any Starwolf
that might descend upon them. But they made two mistakes. They do not know that
we were aware of Keth's location from the moment they put him into
safekeeping. And they have that half-wrecked carrier tied up at the station for
repairs, right in plain sight. I can excuse the first, but hardly the second."

"Can you show me where they have Keth?" Dveyella asked.

"Simple enough," Valthyrra said as she began to display
graphics on the viewscreen, beginning with a map of the planet. "Because
of the great size of the major cities, the Union has always assumed that the
native population was between two and five million each. We know, from actual
observation, that few populations ever exceeded fifty thousand. Because of
their naturally stable temperatures, these cities are to be found from the
tropics to just within the arctic regions... just as long as a major crop could
be grown in the region. The only exceptions are a few that were more dependent
upon coastal fishing. They lived long lives, nearly as long as that of your own
kind. They built to last, and they were very careful in their building."

Valthyrra paused to rotate her map of the planet, moving in on a single
city. "The place where they have Keth is on the far northern coast of the
larger continent, one of those fishing centers on the edge of the arctic sea.
The city itself is just a few kilometers inland in a fold between ridges of a
rather rugged band of mountains. The city is a fairly large one, for its
coastal cliffs had caves enough for a vast fleet." The image focused on a
section of the city. "Keth is here, in the southwest corner. You can land
your ships here on this wide ledge on the ridge overlooking the city, no more
than a kilometer from the southwest entrance."

Valthyrra indicated the ledge and drew out a careful map down from the
heights to the entrance and on into the interior of the city. "After
entering, you will proceed a short distance to the main stairs leading down.
Here you will descend twelve levels to the very bottom. That is a deceptively
far distance down, nearly half a kilometer, since there is considerable space
between levels. Fortunately there is a freight elevator installed in the
stairwell itself. The remains of the fighter are stacked together in shielded
boxes not far from the entrance, beside a landing pad used by freight
transports."

"So what we have is a round trip of three kilometers or more, one of
which is an elevator ride," Dveyella commented to herself before
looking up at the hovering camera pod. "How much time do we have?"

"The nearest fighters are at the main base on the other continent, and
much farther to the south." Valthyrra indicated the two locations on
her map projection. "That is just over nine thousand kilometers. The
fighters will undoubtedly go subballistic to make the best time. Count on
no more than thirty minutes, but be prepared if they only give you
twenty."

Dveyella nodded thoughtfully. "And we can enter through the polar
magnetic corridor and fly in low?"

"Yes, that is what makes this easy. There is not much in the way of
surveillance equipment, since there has never been any need. The Union has
always disdained radar because of its limited effective range due to its
speed-of-light time lag, and the planet has a strong enough magnetic field to
deflect achronic sensors and scanners."

"And what of guards?"

"There are no living personnel at the complex, although there are
perhaps a hundred automatons walking the halls." She quickly drew up the
schematics for a curious machine. Its heavy, rounded upper body was
carried on four spindly legs, with guns sprouting like antlers from its head
and upper back and a long whip of an antenna like an upraised tail. "They
are all of the new Shepherd design, smarter and quicker than the old Prowler
sentry model."

"I am familiar with the design," Dveyella said. "What do you
want done with the wreckage of the fighter? We cannot leave it, and I would
rather take it with us than try to destroy it. Our fighters are too well-built;
it would take quite an explosion to blow it to worthless bits, especially if it
is in shielded containers."

"Do you propose that we should haul it out on our backs?" Velmeran
asked. "Is that why you wanted to know if I was strong?"

"No, hardly," Dveyella said, smiling. It was a ridiculous
thought, even though they could lift twelve tons between them. "Our
transport has an oversized cargo door and heavy-duty handling arms. We can get
those boxes on our way out."

Threl nodded in agreement. "All I have to do is set us down beside it,
and Marlena can snatch them up in half a minute."

"There is surveillance equipment, visual and infrared scanners, at the
complex. That is why you cannot come in for that fighter until you are ready to
depart. Most of the planet's security is designed to guard the world as a whole
and keep anything from approaching too closely in the first place. That is why
you will not have to worry about automatic cannons tracking you. There are
none."

"Unfortunately, that is also why your packs are going to have to stay
well back," Dveyella added. "If they see fighters coming in, they are
going to be on their guard."

"That is true as well," Valthyrra agreed. "But my drone will
be watching you closely, and I can time matters close enough so that my packs
will be there to support you on your way out."

Dveyella nodded. "Our problem with fighters is going to be inside the
atmosphere, since we have to keep our speed down to their level. Outside it is
going to be stingships and destroyers. Out transport is good, but it is
still no fighter and it will be the most vulnerable to stingships. We have to
keep them off her tail."

"I will have nine packs there to help you by then," Valthyrra
said. Then, seeing Velmeran's look of dismay, she turned her camera pod to
stare at him. "Nine packs, not ten. I will not allow your children to
launch. Short one, perhaps..."

"But not without me, no," Velmeran agreed. "They already know
that they will not be going out, and they have been taking it fairly well. But
Treg wants to go with me so badly he is positively begging. I wonder if it would
not be easier to simply lock him in his cabin until this is over."

Mayelna laughed aloud. "Now perhaps you will be able to appreciate how
hard it is for me to try to tell you no!"

Velmeran sealed the last closure of his new suit and opened the chestplate,
flipping down the hinged mirror so that he could see to set the controls. The
visual display was cleverly designed; the monitor displayed normally for an
assistant's use and, at the touch of a button, backward and upside down so that
the wearer could see it in the mirror. He quickly set the controls and the
cooling unit cycled on strongly but silently. The one flaw in the Kelvessan's
impressive design was that they generated a great deal of heat even when
they were inactive, and reached dangerously excessive levels during
hypermetabolism. Outside the cool environment of their own ships, they depended
upon their suits for comfort or even life in temperatures that ordinary humans
found normal.

Valthyrra might not have been able to improve upon the construction of the
suit, but she made a vast improvement in the fit. The armor itself fit
much closer about the suit inside, and was no longer free to shift and turn
during swift or difficult movements. She had made suits for both himself and
Dveyella to very precise measurements, so precise that they would have to be
careful of both gaining or losing weight. And that was a problem in itself, for
Starwolves had to eat enormously to maintain their powerful metabolisms.

"Now this is the way it was supposed to be!" Dveyella declared as
she lifted both sets of arms high over her head and shifted her shoulders back
and forth. "It feels as if you have articulated the backplate."

"I have," Valthyrra said, hovering near in the form of a probe.
"Both the front- and backplates are split down the middle and joined by a
continuous hinge, with the protective plastic coating molded in one piece
over the top. All of our suits are built that way, although it seems that no
other ships have adopted the design."