He made a brief gesture of acknowledgment. “I am Captain Larn Garkelley of the Velka, independent freighter.”
“I am Valthyrra Methryn,” the ship responded, and indicated right and left with her camera pod. “This is Commander Mayelna, and Commander-designate Velmeran.”
Garkelley was shaken at the mention of that final name, turning visibly pale as he stared at the young pack leader.
“I must inquire as to the condition of your crew,” Valthyrra distracted him subtly. “Does anyone require medical assistance?”
“No… No, we are all quite well,” Garkelley answered hesitantly.
“Then we will assist you in patching your hull and replacing the damaged plate, and deliver you to your destination,” Valthyrra continued briskly. “Also, we will ensure that your engines are recalibrated to phase at the proper levels.”
“Oh, there is no need for that,” Garkelley was quick to assure her. “We would not want to trouble you.”
“You have already caused us more trouble than you are worth, and your ship will not be released until the modifications are complete,” Valthyrra told him plainly. “You must be aware that your phase levels are how we are able to tell independents from company ships.”
“Of course, but that is not important.” His righteous indignation flared. “It seems to me that it is your responsibility to be more certain of the ships you pillage.”
“You seem to forget that the Traders owe their very existence to our protection of their trade rights,” Mayelna said in harsh warning. “The Union would not tolerate you if they could help it. We have always hunted them out of various freight lanes so that you can have the trade. The only responsibility you have in return is to properly identify yourselves.”
“Of course, Commander,” Garkelley was quick to agree.
“Why were your engines phasing out of sequence anyway?” Valthyrra asked.
“That is what we would like to know!” A young woman stepped from the hatch to join them. Angry mutterings of agreement from Velka’s airlock indicated that she was the leader of a potential mutiny.
“We had a bad star drive that barely got us into Tarvan Station,” the younger officer continued. “Garkelley was our freight and trade officer then. We had to leave Captain Wanesher to live out his last few days in the station hospital. Before we had a chance to refit, Garkelley arranged a deal with Dallord Trade for a new engine at a bargain price, free fitting and a five-year contract on a series of runs that their own ships would not dare to fight. It seemed a very good deal at the time, good enough for Garkelley to take the Captain’s chair.”
“You knew at the time that we were taking a risk,” Garkelley countered. “We had to get under way immediately. There was no time to recalibrate.”
“Yes, we did agree, but for just that first run. That engine was to be recalibrated at Laerdaycon Station. You told us that it was. But you put it off because you wanted to impress Dallord by making up the lost time on their schedule.”
“You are out of line, Mersans!” Garkelley said hotly.
“You are out of line,” Mersans retorted. “The crew is more than ready to call a meeting.”
Garkelley regarded her coldly. “You will not find it so easy to depose a Captain.”
“That is already decided, when a Captain nearly loses his ship to his own foolishness,” she declared, then turned abruptly to the Starwolves. “Speaking for the crew of the Velka, I ask you to no longer treat with this man as the Captain of this ship.”
“Your affairs are your own, and we want no part of it,” Valthyrra answered. “We will deal with your new Captain when one is selected.”
“That will not take half an hour.”
“Half an hour, then,” Valthyrra agreed as she turned to leave, followed by the Starwolves. Garkelley hurried back into the Velka’s airlock, upset but seemingly unconcerned about the outcome of this meeting.
But Mersans hesitated, then quickly laid a hand on Velmeran’s shoulder before he was gone. Then, remembering who she had touched, she withdrew the hand as if it had been burned. “Forgive me… “
“Do not be afraid of me,” he assured her.
“I am sorry that we are such trouble,” she began uncertainly. “I am Kella Mersans, helm and navigator of the Velka.”
“And would-be Captain?”
“No, I want nothing for myself,” she insisted sincerely. “Once we are rid of Garkelley, I intend to make my own nomination for Captain. But I must know, before this begins, if… when we were first aware of you, if we had tried to contact you instead of run, if you would have listened.”
“Of course,” he told her. “We are cautious, for our own safety. If you had not run, we would have stayed away until we found out why. Ships that do not run are usually traps. But when you sound like a company freighter and run like one, we can only assume that you are one.”
“Our mistake was in running, then?”
“Certainly. We used to tell Traders from Company ships by whether or not they ran. Traders would drop out of starflight to give us a close look at themselves, while the company ships had no choice. Then the Traders began to use a distinctive phase level.”
“Why do they not set their phase levels to fool you?” she asked.
“They still do for passenger ships, since we will not touch those. But that would not work very long, for we would go back to asking Traders to stop and identify themselves. Garkelley chose to run?”
Mersans nodded. “I was not on the bridge at the time, but I knew what was wrong when we began dodging. We must have been taking forty G’s into those turns, so I could only make progress toward the bridge between maneuvers. By the time I got there, it was over. He said that you contacted him?”
“Valthyrra did.”
“How did she know?”
“I told her,” Velmeran said. “That was my pack on your tail.”
“How did you know?”
“Trade secret,” he answered simply. “I am a pack leader and Commander-designate, and that means something. Mostly it means that I am not allowed to make mistakes.”
“That is something easier said than done,” Kella observed, then hesitated even as she turned to the airlock. “Commander, were you the one who shot us?”
“No, that was Baress, my second,” he said. “I would not have missed.”
Kella had no desire to dispute that, and hurried on into her own ship. Velmeran turned and followed the others down the docking tube, joining Mayelna and Valthyrra at the end.
“Interesting group of people,” Velmeran remarked, turning to the lift doors on the other side of the corridor.
“To say the least,” Mayelna agreed. “What did she want?”
“She wants to be certain of her charges against her Captain,” he explained. “She believes that he should have gotten on the com when he saw us coming, instead of running.”
“That goes without saying,” Valthyrra agreed.
“So I told her,” Velmeran said. “She says that she does not want the position herself. But whether she wants it or not, I have the feeling that it is hers.”
“Then we will consider that a fact,” Valthyrra remarked cryptically.
Before Velmeran could ask for an explanation, the lift doors snapped open.