"Me? What did I do?" Tregloran asked nervously, looking alarmed and surprisingly guilty.
"You were the one who plugged that freighter?" she asked, and he nodded. "Well, she is a real freighter and full of cargo. Since you brought her out of starflight, you get first pick of her goods."
With a cry of delight, Tregloran tried to force his way through his packmates on the steps ahead of him. When that proved impossible, he was reduced to trying to hurry diem on ahead; Fortunately for his patience, the others were nearly as eager as himself to get to that bay. This was the first big ship that they had brought down by themselves, a minor accomplishment compared to fighting a fleet of Union warships, by themselves and outnumbered. Now they remembered, and wanted to get to the bay to see what they had caught. Velmeran smiled, and decided that he would very much like to go with them.
"So the students have fought with the big boys now," Consherra remarked as she walked beside him. "Perhaps they are no longer students."
"They still have much to learn," Velmeran said. "But they are learning."
"So, I believe, are we all," Consherra added, then looked over at him. "Meran, do not take it so hard. You did what you had to do, and you did it very well. That is real trouble."
She indicated the council table, where Valthyrra and the Commander were busily bombarding the erring pack leaders with a variety of threats and dire promises. But Velmeran lacked the courage to stay and listen. Despite everyone's assurances, his own conscience was not clear. He had lost a pack member, a life that was his responsibility. Ultimately he had only himself to blame for his failure to solve a problem that he had known existed.
Tregloran's recent run of luck nearly failed him, for the big freighter contained mostly clothes, tons upon tons of clothes being shipped to the port ahead for redistribution to the colonies and fringe worlds. All worthless to Starwolves, who needed an extra set of sleeves. He did find a few things that he took for use by the entire pack, and Veyndayk allowed him a small fortune in jewelry.
Tregloran might have sold the jewelry in their next port to purchase something he could use, but he decided to put most of it into keeping. Wealth meant little to Starwolves. There were practical limitations to what they could have; whether it would fit into their cabins, or withstand the stresses of shipboard accelerations, or whether it even had any practical use in their lives. Jewelry they used as a type of universal currency, since they could not wear it (gold interfered with their high-speed nervous systems). They certainly were not poor, as Union propaganda tried to make them out to be. Piracy was their weapon against Union trade tyranny. They did not have to depend upon it for a living.
Velmeran stayed to watch as the captured ships were brought in and stored in the bays. He was interested in them, for he and his students had fought these ships and yet it was the first clear look that he had of them. They had seemed big enough outside, but when four were packed inside one of the Methryn's bays they looked small and pitifully inadequate. After a time the damage, the shot-out turrets and wrecked bridges, began to bother him. Starwolves were well-trained to think of themselves as fighting machines; in the name of duty they seldom considered the consequences of their acts. Looking at these ships up close, however, it was too easy to remember that people had been inside their battered hulls. Not his own kind, perhaps, but even humans were people.
After a time Velmeran retreated to a forward observation deck. The Methryn had few windows, and none at all in her armored hull sections. She had only two pairs of observation decks, directly over the fighter bays, the forward windows showing the holding bays and the rear windows allowing crewmembers to view incoming fighters, and a fifth platform in her bow directly above her shock bumper.
The crews were all hard at work securing and cataloging salvage and the pilots were standing by their fighters, with two packs still out. Velmeran was seated alone, except for an automated floor-cleaning machine that sat idle a short distance away.
"I thought that you might be here," Mayelna said suddenly, and he turned to find her approaching from the entrance to his right.
"Valthyrra told you I was here," Velmeran said in return.
Mayelna smiled. "Valthyrra Methryn sees all and knows all… at least everything that passes within her own thick shell. Do you suppose that we tickle her insides?"
"I imagine that the feeling is one of nausea," he replied glumly, and immediately wished that he had not. It sounded a little poutish, even to him. If he could not even evoke self-pity, then he certainly could expect no sympathy from the Commander.
Mayelna sat down on the bench beside him. "Why are you still in armor? Meran, what is wrong?"
Velmeran glanced down, frowning. "Mayelna, what is right? I have done my best to make pilots out of that pack of children, and then I lose my most experienced member. I wonder if there is something more, something that I have yet to learn about leading."
"Yes, I suppose that there is something you have yet to learn. The knowledge of what you can and cannot do, the confidence to act when you must, and the courage to seek help when you need it." She paused a moment and looked at him. "Your pilots are no longer students, not after today, even if they still have much to learn memselves. And Keth is a problem of his own making. He should have had sense enough to retire, or I should have told him. But not you. There are too many years between the two of you for you to have been able to tell him that, and I doubt that he would have listened."
"I still feel responsible for him." Mayelna nodded.
"I know. I would be concerned if you did not. You know, we had thought to give your pack to Keth, after your old pack was nearly destroyed. We knew that he would have to retire very soon, but by then he would have the students half-trained and you would be more ready to become pack leader. But Valthyrra said no. She said that he has no sense of responsibility toward others, that he is too self-centered and showed off more and more as his abilities began to fail. She was right, as always. Keth would have been too busy with himself to have taught those students a fourth of what they have learned from you. And if he had led that pack out today, I do not doubt that he would have lost half of them."
A short distance away, the cleaning automaton quietly, carefully moved its camera around for a better view of the pair.
"Our pilots are no better than the people who teach them, and who lead them," Mayelna continued. "And a person who does not really care will never be his best at what he does. After today, I wish that many more of my pilots had your devotion and sense of duty. Perhaps Valthyrra is right. Perhaps we do not fight often enough."
"Why?" Velmeran asked suddenly, looking up. "Why do we fight? Why should we fight, except to satisfy a need that was probably bred into us anyway?"
Mayelna frowned. "I do not suppose that you want another history lesson."
"No, you gave me that fifteen years ago," he answered. "We judge the Union unfit, and we seek to destroy it. Why? Are we the keepers of humanity's conscience, when we are not even human ourselves? Why should we continue to fight when we cannot win. And what would we do if we did win?"
Mayelna nodded slowly, almost sadly. "Very few of us question the reason for our own existence. Valthyrra considers it an encouraging sign if you do, and I do see the wisdom in that."
She sat, deep in thought, for so long that the automaton turned its camera slightly to focus in on her, and even Velmeran began to wonder. At last she sighed heavily and shook her head. "I cannot tell you. There is an answer, but you must find it for yourself. Your own reason… not just to fight, but to work toward the day that the fighting may end. My whole life, as pack leader and then Commander, has been to do what I can to shape the future that I would like to see. But I will not live to see the end of this war. For today, I am satisfied to know that matters would be worse without our contribution, that the colonies would all be slave camps for the fat inner worlds." She turned to look at him. "Nor do I believe that you really question the value of what you do. You are too good of a pilot to be filled with doubt, for that doubt would always be holding you back."
The automaton turned its camera back to Velmeran and adjusted its focus. He shook his head. "No, I suppose not. But that still does not make it any easier to accept the fact that I have no choice."
"Do you want to leave this ship?" Mayelna asked so suddenly that both Velmeran and the automaton looked at her in surprise.
"No," Velmeran said without hesitation. "Flying with the packs means everything to me. I suppose all I really want is the chance to have decided that for myself."
Mayelna nodded. "Meran, every one of us desires, more than anything else, to fly with the packs. But only one in twenty is good enough. All the rest must serve those fighters and the ship that carries them, and they can only dream of what you have. I flew with the packs for nearly three hundred years and I had to give it up, not because I want to command this ship but because I was needed. You have what you want most. Would you be willing to give it up, even if you were needed somewhere else?"
Velmeran considered that and shook his head. "No. At least not yet."
"I know," Mayelna said gently. "I will not tell you to accept what you are and make the most of it. Soon, I hope, you will find that it fulfills your needs as well, and you will be happy."
"I suppose that you're right," Velmeran agreed. "I am not dissatisfied with what I have, but perhaps with what I am. Sometimes I feel like a machine, genetically programmed to seek and destroy."
"Valthyrra Methryn is a machine," Mayelna pointed out. "She was built a fighting ship, and that is all she can be. Compared to her, you have all the choices you could want to be whatever you want. But she is happy with what she is, and I could hardly deny that she has both life and free will, as much as anyone."
"Yes, that is true," Velmeran agreed. The automaton dipped its camera, almost a gesture of relief. Velmeran saw that movement, and looked at the machine in mystification. "I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that cleaning unit is taking an unusual interest in us."
The unit glanced up with a startled look, only to see Mayelna peering at it intently. The machine executed a quick turn and made a hasty retreat across the observation deck as fast as its padded magnetic tracks would carry it.
"Valthyrra Methryn, you nosy machine!" Mayelna declared, leaping up in wrath.
Velmeran laughed. "Valthyrra Methryn knows all and sees all, however she can contrive it."
"You would think that I would know all her tricks too well by now," Mayelna said, watching the machine until it disappeared out the opposite door. She turned back to Velmeran. "I would not be foolish enough to ask you not to worry, but I do wish that you would not worry so much."
Mayelna returned to the bridge in time for their departure. Valthyrra had estimated forty hours to making their meeting with the Delvon. The Methryn could have made that jump in far less time. But she was fat with plunder and she was not about to risk having something break loose and damage itself, or her. She had even cast out her transports and capture ships to fly under their own power, so that she could stuff their holds with salvaged engines.
Mayelna paused for a moment in the right wing of the bridge. Tresha saw her and left her place at the forward console, indicating for her assistant to watch the screens.
"Commander, all systems are functioning well with recommended tolerances," the engineering officer reported. "This ship is in good order and battle-ready."
"Especially considering her age," Mayelna added. "You do not fool me! 'All systems functioning within recommended tolerances.' Indeed! You mean to imply that Her Worship could be better."
"I do not mean to imply that the ship is in need of repairs, nor unfit for battle," Tresha insisted. "But we should give serious thought to a complete overhaul in the next two or three years, especially if she means to fight hard and often."
"That has occurred to me already," Mayelna said. "If I can…
"All crewmembers stand by," Valthyrra announced suddenly. Everyone paused as they stood or sat and glanced up at the camera pod, but Valthyrra was staring unfocused at the main viewscreen, her attention on her scanners. "All crewmembers stand by. This is a class one battle alert. All on-duty personnel to their posts. All pilots to the bays. All damage-control parties stand by. All nonactive personnel will remove to the inner sections." She paused to switch channels. "All free transports and capture ships are to scatter immediately. Do not attack or approach any ships."
All the bridge crewmembers were already hurrying to their stations. Mayelna climbed the steps to her own station on the upper bridge, just behind Consherra. After all her words on laxness and inefficiency, she was only too aware that she was the only one on the bridge not in armor.