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."
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.
"Don, do you remember that young Starwolf we had up for dinner?" he asked casually.
"What, Velmeran?" Trace asked without looking up from the report he was reading. "What of it?"
"Well, he seems to be paying us a return visit."
The Sector Commander glanced up, and saw at once what he had meant. It seemed that wolf ships were coming out of nowhere to fill the interior of the cavern. And he knew exactly what it meant. He leaped from his seat and was out the door before his uncle could do a thing to stop him.
"Don! Wait!" Councilor Lake called after him. "You are running into a trap. What do you think you can do about it?"
He paused, aware that it was already too late. Donalt Trace was running to meet his fate at the hands of a Starwolf he owed a life. It did not matter that he knew where to find Velmeran, for that knowledge in itself did not give him the power to stop it. Would he realize that in time to save his life?