“Call me a lift, then.”
“I left it waiting for you,” Valthyrra said. “By the way, Schayressa reports that she discovered the conversion devices quite sometime ago and quietly removed them.”
“Send her my compliments on being so alert,” Velmeran said as he entered the lift. Privately, he wished that those devices had not been there.
He found Consherra and the members of his special tactics team waiting for him in the corner of the landing bay where the lift opened. Consherra had been crying; even the boundless energy and optimism of Tregloran was subdued by sadness and a sense of defeat, and he had been crying nearly as much as Consherra had. They looked up at him expectantly as the door opened, and he could guess their thoughts. An age in the history of the Methryn was passing. Mayelna had been the last of her pirate commanders. Velmeran was a warrior, not a pirate, and he required a warship to serve him.
“I am sorry for not telling you at the time,” he began. “I wanted you to concentrate on watching out for yourselves.”
“Of course, Commander. You had the success of the mission and the lives of your crewmembers to consider,” Trel, the oldest, answered for them all.
The lift doors snapped open again and Keth stepped out to join the small group. “Commander?”
“Yes, I need your help,” Velmeran said. “I believe that you have students who are ready to join the packs.”
“Yes, Commander. Ten in all.”
“I will take them off your hands right now,” Velmeran said, and turned to Barress. “I want you to take Gyllan, Merkollyn, and Delvon with five of those students to form a new pack. The remaining five will serve as replacements for our old pack. Treg, do you think you can handle that?”
“Can I?” The younger pilot seemed about to jump for joy, but caught himself and attained an exaggerated air of mature dignity. “I would be happy to oblige.”
“It is a bother, but someone has to do it,” Velmeran agreed, and turned back to Keth. “You know your students best, so I will leave it up to you to divide them between the two packs.”
“And what of the special tactics team?” Baress asked.
“That stays exactly the way it is,” Valthyrra insisted, cutting Velmeran off, as her camera pod pushed its way to the middle of the group. “Meran, the better part of your business is conducted through special tactics. And you have to admit that you could not very well sit back and direct a special tactics team from the bridge.”
“That is true, but Commanders are not allowed to fly,” he protested.
“Allowed? Where is that written? You kept a special tactics team in addition to your pack for two years, and there was no problem with that. Who is going to say you cannot?”
“Treg and I will be busy with our own packs, but we have no intention of giving up special tactics,” Baress said.
Consherra frowned. “I suppose that I would even be willing to go out with you again, if you ever need me.”
“Which brings us to the subject of lost members,” Valthyrra said, drifting slowly into the bay while bending her long neck to peer out the rear door. The others looked as well; they saw nothing, but they could all sense the approach of a single fighter.
“Lenna?” Velmeran asked as he came to stand beside the probe.
“Who else?” she asked in return. “She accepted landing instructions but says that she is too busy to talk. I am going to signal a crash alert and summon Dyenlerra to the bay.”
The three demanding beeps of the alarm sent the bay crew into immediate action, securing fighters in their racks so that they could be carried away. Half a minute later the incoming fighter ducked beneath the Methryn’s tail as it began its final approach. At the same time that it dropped its landing gear, the watchers in the bay noticed something unusual about the little ship. A curious white object could be seen standing upright in the hull between and just ahead of the two vertical fins. Velmeran’s first thought was that the fighter had been transfixed by a piece of wreckage hurtled from the explosion of the Challenger.
Then the fighter slipped smoothly into the bay and the strange object was revealed to be a passenger. Bill, the sentry, stood atop the ship, his powerful legs braced with his magnetic pads locked to the metal hull. Lenna brought the fighter to the front of the bay and landed gently, and Valthyrra immediately brought in a set of handling arms to pluck the automaton from atop the ship. Lenna opened the cockpit and climbed out just as Velmeran walked over to join her.
“I will not ask you why you brought that machine back with you,” he said slowly. “I will not even ask you if you are crazy, or simply foolish. But I would like to know how you managed to get it on top of your fighter and still get away in time.”
“Oh, I sent him on ahead,” Lenna explained as if it was some trifling matter. “In free-fall like that, the hardest thing was for him to climb out of the lock. He just walked up the sloping part of the wing and was waiting when I got there. And it was a near thing, I can tell you. The shield went up just as I was about to light out of there, so I had to wait it out or risk being caught in the Methryn’s fire. But I had to run for hell when that shield came down because I knew that the Fortress was going to blow in a matter of seconds when it did. Scared me half to death when it did, too. Even Bill commented on it.”
Velmeran turned to look at the sentry, which had just been lowered to the deck. Sentries were not known for their personalities, which rated somewhat above a toaster but well below a Starwolf carrier. Bill did seem to be developing one, but Velmeran was not sure if it was really his own or just a reflection of what Lenna believed him to be.
“He did save my life,” she added defensively, having noticed his stare. “Besides, I thought that I might use him in my spy work. Especially if he can always scan the security frequencies the automatons are linked on. He was very helpful.”
“The two of you have more than proved your worth,” Velmeran agreed. “But I want Valthyrra to completely rework his hardware to make him more intelligent and versatile.”
“Do I have a patient here?” Dyenlerra asked as she pushed her way to the center of the group, closing on Lenna.
“Not her, but you might have a look at Bill.”
“Bill? Who is Bill?” the medic asked. She glanced over her shoulder, and nearly jumped out of her armor.
As soon as Tryalna was secure and the remains of the human invasion force sent running for home, the Methryn and the Kalvyn made a short journey together. Surrounded by their packs, they dived side by side toward the fiery heart of that system. They came uncomfortably close to the warm yellow sun before they veered away, leaving behind an old friend on her brief sojourn to her final rest.
Commander Tryn carried Mayelna to her last rest, her broken body encased in white armor donated by Dyenlerra to replace her ruined armor. Nearly four thousand Starwolves, every crewmember of both ships who had a suit, crowded onto the broad platforms over the shock bumpers of the two ships, while those who did not watched from the windows of the observation decks.
It was a very hard time for Velmeran, and he was privately grateful to be spared the need to carry his mother to her final rest. He never looked upon her again after his return from the Fortress, preferring to keep as his last memory of her their final words in the landing bay. He had been so happy then, thinking that he had accomplished something good for her in his offer to command the Methryn in her place. Now the Methryn was his, but all his hopes and good intentions had been for nothing.
Velmeran was distracted from his grief afterward when his return to the crowded observation deck became an unexpected reception for his confirmation as the Methryn’s new Commander. All of the officers, pack leaders, and various other crewmembers, including many from the Kalvyn, presented themselves to offer their condolences and quietly affirm their loyalty. Tryn slipped away early, responding to Schayressa’s subtle pleas for his return, and Consherra disappeared with Lenna and Dyenlerra soon after. At least Valthyrra’s probe stayed dutifully at his side the entire time.
“It is normally the case that you appoint a Commander-designate younger than yourself,” he told Baressa privately as the crowd began to thin. “That is not very practical for me, under the circumstance. And, since I am keeping my special tactics team, I do need to have a replacement ready. As far as I am concerned, you are the only choice.”
“For now, perhaps,” Baressa answered. “Treg will never be your equal, but he is quickly becoming a reasonable facsimile.”
“And I plan to begin his training immediately,” Velmeran agreed. “But I do have other plans for him.”
She looked at him questioningly. “Other plans?”
Velmeran shrugged. “The Vardon will be coming out of construction airdock in a few years. I might not have the authority to make such an appointment….”
“But who would dispute the recommendations of Commander Velmeran of the Methryn?” Valthyrra inquired.
Velmeran looked annoyed. “You be discreet about how you use my name — or your own — with your sister ships or home base. Where did Consherra get to?”
“Oh, Dyenlerra appropriated her and Lenna several minutes ago,” the ship replied. “She told them to get out of their armor and report for a medical scan.”
“I think that I should join them,” he decided. “Can you call me a lift?”
“On the way. I will put away this remote and join you there.”
Velmeran returned to his cabin and removed his armor for the first time in well over a day. He dressed quickly and hurried to the medical section, where he found Consherra and Lenna occupying separate diagnostic beds in the same room. Valthyrra had commandeered another probe and had arrived with Baressa, Tregloran, and Baress just before him. They stared at him in surprise as he entered, and he could imagine why. He was now dressed in the white of an officer, clothes that Valthyrra had hurriedly prepared for him. His thick, shaggy mane of wood-brown hair tumbled over his shoulders and halfway down his back, his large eyes glittering behind the fringe of that brown curtain.
Dyenlerra afforded him only the briefest glance before turning back to the readout for Lenna’s scanner. “You seem to be well, for all I can tell. These readings mean nothing to me. I am not a veterinarian.”
“Then how do you know that I’m well?” Lenna asked as she sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Because they are the same readings I got a couple of days ago.”