The Vinthra military complex was by far the largest free-orbiting station in the Rane Sector, an immense, imposing structure that sprawled across several kilometers of space. Over a thousand ships, from tiny couriers to the vast, threatening hulks of battleships and heavy carriers, could be docked and serviced there, while another fifty could slip into its airdocks for extensive repairs. Between the firepower of the ships stationed there and the shields and cannons of the planetary defense system, not even a Starwolf carrier could approach this world in open hostility. For this was Vinthra, and Vannkarn, its port, housed the government and military command for this entire sector.
A single ship moved swiftly toward the station, braking gently with its forward engines. Its lines were those of a Union destroyer, sleek and powerful, with a slender hexagonal hull and armor plates concealing its drives. Now it was the private yacht of the High Councilor of the Rane Sector, a fact that was proven as other, sometimes larger ships moved quietly out of its way. Its path was centered upon a single portion of that vast station, a set of moorings near the shuttle bays set aside for diplomatic vessels.
A single figure stood at the window of the carpeted and paneled corridor that adjoined those mooring berths.
He was a tall man, at two meters a giant by modern standards, lean and well-muscled. Although no longer young, he was far from being old. Indeed he was well thought of as handsome in a rugged way that was now rare in his diminished race. And yet there was a sense of darkness about him, a ruthless, mercenary quality reflected in the hard, measuring glare of his black eyes. His physical presence was far more threatening than his rank, so that those who crossed that section of corridor passed through quietly.
A muted vibration ran through that portion of the station as the incoming ship nudged cautiously into its moorings. Attendants assembled quickly but quietly to service that ship as soon as its one, infinitely important passenger was discharged. A last metallic clang announced the opening of the ship, and a moment later the inner doors of the airlock rolled back. A pair of guards with rifles stepped out to take positions to either side, followed a moment later by an older man pursued by the automated carrier that bore his luggage. He was a tall man as well, not as tall as the Sector Commander — even allowing for his slightly bent back — but still far taller than anyone else within sight. And like the Sector Commander, he was clearly of older, purer Terran stock, his features rougher and more clearly defined than the norm. But there the resemblance ended. He wore no uniform but rich if subtle civilian dress, with an unruly mane of long white hair and deep blue eyes that were alert and held a glint of skeptical humor, as if he was amused with his own pretensions.
'Hello, Don!' he exclaimed when he saw the one who awaited him. 'How nice of you to come all this way up here to meet me.'
'Richart couldn't make it,' Commander Trace said tightly, but with no regret. 'But how did it go?'
'Well enough. But not here,' the Councilor said, with a subtle gesture for him to remain silent.
Donalt Trace nodded in agreement. 'I understand. I have a shuttle waiting.'
'Your ship?' Councilor Lake asked. He knew that Trace would have flown himself in a launch borrowed from the pool. If so, there was little chance that anyone would overhear, accidentally or otherwise, what they had to discuss.
'I had one called up for servicing this morning — and then I chose another at random,' he explained as they started toward the shuttle bay.
The Councilor laughed. 'Don, you are the suspicious type!'
'I learned from you, Uncle Jon,' Commander Trace replied.
The shuttle was indeed a small one, hardly large enough to seat six. An in-system fighter would not have been much smaller. Donalt Trace slipped the tiny shuttle out of the bay and shifted easily into their designated path of descent. Since the military station was on the opposite side of Vinthra from the port, they had to make a fairly quick descent in only half an orbit. That added somewhat to the roughness of the ride, since they would be braking most of the way down. But Councilor Lake had anticipated this, and two glasses of his favorite wine beforehand helped smooth the bumps somewhat.
'Well, they bought it,' Lake said, leaning back in a seat that was too small.
Commander Trace made a derisive sound. 'They bought it, after the problem became so bad that it could no longer be ignored. Then they accept your theories and plans? All of it?'
'Nearly all of it,' Lake replied, grinning. 'They certainly bought more of it than I thought they would. You will get your weapons, Don. Even the big, expensive one. And I get my plan of genetic population control. The only thing we don't get is a Union Fleet Commander. A High Council of Sector Commanders, yes. But the sectors are by no means ready to give up their old political and military autonomy. We will cooperate for the good of all, but we live or die by our own efforts.'
'But that was the most important part!' Trace protested. 'We cannot fight the Starwolves separately. They have a unified command…'
'We assume.'
'Jon, you know they do. They will fight together, when there is need. They just seldom have to, since a single carrier can take on anything an entire sector can throw at it.'
'And there are more carriers in the Wolf Fleet than we have sectors,' the Councilor added. 'Obviously we cannot fight them, one on one or all together, not the way we have been going about it. We have to find new ways to fight them. That's why I consider that a small loss. You have only one carrier to worry about, and her name is Methryn. You find a way to destroy her, and then we can go after the rest.'
Which was much easier said than done, Councilor Lake reflected. And just the beginning of his own problems. The human race was dying, or at least degenerating to the point that it could no longer care for itself. The genetic message that made a human was deteriorating; random, detrimental mutations were not only occurring at an alarming rate but were being passed into the common genetic pool. There was no determining the exact cause, although the Councilor preferred to believe that mankind had been too long removed from the laws of natural selection that had guided its evolution.
People were smaller than they had been in the first days of space flight, slighter of build and gentler of mood and feature. Unfortunately, people were also less intelligent than they had been, less able to reason and remember. Mental deficiency and imbalance claimed a fourth of the population, and another fourth was genetically sterile. It was a problem that had been a very long time coming, but it had finally become so bad that the High Council could no longer ignore it. For in another thousand years the machinery of the Union, of huthan civilization itself, would grind to a halt for want of maintenance. That might seem like a very long time, but for a problem fifty thousand years in the making, it was already too late.
Still, Councilor Lake wanted to save what he could. And if stern measures were taken now, a large part of the Union could be saved. The only solution was to enforce the sterilization of large segments of the population, intervening where nature had failed. The general population would not take such controls lightly. The military would be needed to enforce order, especially on those worlds that bore little love or loyalty for the Union from the start. And for that, the problem that the Starwolves represented would have to be eliminated. Or at least reduced to a thanageable level.
That was Donalt Trace's responsibility as Comthander of the Sector Fleet. Never before had the Union been able to fight the Starwolves effectively. They had technology that the Union did not and now would never have, ships that were faster and pilots that were better. The Union's only advantage lay in its seemingly inexhaustible resources, its ability to replace ships, supplies and personnel as fast as they were lost. But the old resources were disappearing, and new ways had to be found to fight and win.
It was up to Donalt Trace to find those answers. He had been selected for that task at an early age. Every aspect of his training, all of his education in strategy and military concepts, had been selected and guided by the elder Lake, just as the Councilor had selected and trained his grandson Richart to be his replacement. But there was that element in Trace that was unpredictable, a blind, self-righteous confidence in his own abilities and his hatred for his enemy. Councilor Lake was aware that his weapon was flawed, but he had no choice. The fact remained that if Don could not do this, no one could.
'Then everything is ready here?' Lake asked, roused from his reflections when the shuttle began to buck as it slipped into the upper air.
'The trap is laid,' Trace assured him. 'I don't give this old ploy a chance of working, but it will put the Starwolves off their guard.'
