'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.
