“More than I seem, I assure you.”
“Prove it, then!”
Whatever Lesries thought of his tiny adversary, he still did not intend to fight fair. He struck with a lightning swiftness meant to catch his enemy off guard, launching himself with remarkable grace to deliver a fatal kick to the base of the neck. His martial cry of attack turned to one of surprise when he felt himself plucked out of the air. He found himself suspended like a doll, two hands holding his wrists while two more held his ankles.
“Oh, shit!” he muttered in quiet despair as he realized his mistake. It was his last conscious thought.
Iyan Makayen stepped aside as medics hurried out of the room with the body, then turned back to survey the damage. He had seen some very strange things in his short career, but this was surely the strangest. It was inconceivable that this tiny off-worlder had thrown Treck Lesries across the length of the room, through an inner wall of the restaurant, across a second room, and halfway through the outer wall. And Lesries might well have gone through that second wall, except that it had a solid brick outer facing. Heavy wooden studs were scattered like matchsticks, and a fine, white powder from shattered plasterboard covered everything.
Den Ohlera, proprietor of the pub and owner of these shattered walls, also stared in disbelief, but it was the disbelief of an almost childlike delight. “A bull langie couldn’t have knocked him harder. Look at the hole he left! Just as neat as neat.”
“You’ll have a bit of a mess to tidy up, that’s for sure,” Makayen said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ohlera speculated. “Thought I might leave that one hole. Give the gang something to talk about, how that little off-worlder damn near pitched Treck Lesries into orbit. A regular conversation piece, as they say. He was bad for business in life, the way folks would scatter when he walked in. In death, he might be uncommonly good for business.”
“What about the damages, all the same?” Makayen asked.
“Oh, he made good on that right away,” the proprietor said, displaying a piece of jewelry worth at least twice the costs of repairs. “Surely you’ll not be arresting him for this. If you do, I’ll be the first to hire him a lawyer.”
“And I’ll be the second,” Makayen agreed. “I don’t expect I’ll have to, as long as he can give me fair answers to a couple of questions.”
They returned to the adjoining room, where Velmeran was sitting at a table with a cold drink, looking unconcerned.
“Let me get right to the point,” Makayen began unceremoniously. “Last night my sister came home half drunk and worried about some off-worlder she had met. A Trader by the name of Sergei Rachmaninoff. She said that he had run afoul of Treck Lesries, and Lesries was looking to kill him. Would you be that person?”
“I might.”
“Well, I thought that odd from the start, since there is no independent freighter on the ground or in system at the moment. No ship of any kind, for that matter, except the Methryn. So I ran a computer check on the name Sergei Rachmaninoff, and it told me something quite amazing.”
Velmeran shrugged. “It is hard to be original on short notice.”
Makayen nodded thoughtfully. “I figured as much. Well now, if you can give me an honest accounting of who you are, where you might be from and what you’re doing here, I’ll call it good and trouble you no more.”
“My name is Velmeran, Commander-designate of the Methryn,” he said, drawing aside his cape to reveal his lower arms — and the guns he wore. “I am trying to enjoy port leave.”
“Bless me, I’ve something cooking in the kitchen!” Den Ohlera exclaimed and ran from the room.
“Well, you can see why I would want to take a vacation from that name… and the reputation that goes with it,” Velmeran said, amused.
“I suppose I can,” Makayen agreed. “I was a little peeved at you, I must admit, for doing what I could never allow myself to do. You were waiting for him to come, weren’t you? Why did you do it?”
“Well, for any number of good reasons. Because he was a Union agent, for one. Because the Union cannot retaliate for his death if a Starwolf was responsible. To give Lenna something in exchange for the one thing she wants most and I cannot give her. And to keep you from having to sacrifice your career, your freedom, and possibly even your life trying to handle the matter yourself.”
“Then I owe you a lot, I suppose,” Makayen said. “And taking care of Treck Lesries for her makes up for your deception. But it will still break her heart when you go, for she’s expecting you to take her with you.”
“Yes, I know. This much, however, I can do. The Traders are a race apart, and they take care of their own. I can put the word out that someone with the training to be an apprentice in helm and navigation wants a place on a ship. Someone will come for her.”
“Fair enough,” Makayen agreed. “I think she’s a fool, but I can also see that she’ll never be happy here. Now be on, before I arrest you for possession of illegal arms.”
Velmeran smiled as he smoothed his cape into place. “Is there such a thing?”
“Sure, and that’s what we call it,” the Kanian replied. “For that matter, those jack-snappers you wear probably qualify… not that I would try not take them from you. Just promise me that you’ll try not to kill anyone else this visit.”
“Except Unioners,” Velmeran said on the way out.
“It’s open season on them!”
Velmeran had only just stepped outside the small cafe when he saw Lenna racing toward him down the narrow street of the Mall. He hurried to intercept her, although he suspected that she already knew something about his morning’s activities. She stopped just short of him and walked around him in a slow circle, inspecting him for damage.
“I saw the medics taking someone away just now,” she said. “I was afraid that Lesries had caught up with you.”
“He did,” Velmeran explained. “That was his body they were hauling off.”
“His body, did you say?” Lenna demanded, turning momentarily white in that curious way she had. “You killed him, did you now? And why the hell didn’t you wait for me? You sat in that pub until he came for you, didn’t you?”
“Sure, and I did,” he replied lightly. “I did not want you to be there when it happened.”
“Spare me not your barbarity, Mr. Rachmaninoff!” she exclaimed in exasperation as they started down the street. “I hope they plant him fast, so that I can have the pleasure of dancing on his grave.”
The Challenger left starflight reluctantly, her vast bulk refusing to lose momentum. The moment she dropped to sub-light speeds she sent out her riders, a hundred destroyers and twenty battleships she carried in bays hidden within her outer hull. They quickly fanned out ahead, forming a protective cone about the larger ships. A fleet of stingship carriers followed close behind, and then the supply convoy with spare engines and cannons transported in long racks. A planetary invasion force brought up the rear, then regular carriers and five battleships with a score of destroyer escorts. Two separate forces, one to deal with the rebellious planet they had come to tame, and the other to deal with the Starwolves who would come to protect it.
The Challenger’s bridge was a scene of organized confusion. It now seemed that Maeken Kea was the only Captain of this ship. Commander Trace clearly deferred to her in the operation of the ship, staying completely out of her chair and, for the most part, off the bridge as well. That did not mean, however, that she was not under his orders, and she waited now for him to tell her what he expected.
“All secure, Captain?” Trace asked suddenly over com, obviously still in his cabin. She bent over the unit in her console to answer.
“All secure, Commander. She fought us a little coming out of starflight, but I understand that you’ve see that before. What are your orders?”
“My orders?” Trace asked. “I brought you along to give the orders. What do you think we should do?”
Maeken Kea sat back in her chair a moment to consider that. “Actually, there are not just a great many options. First, we send in the invasion force immediately, standard procedure, and get that out of the way. It seems to me that this ship will fight best alone. Send the convoy into hiding and give it all our fighting ships for protection, since it is the weak link in our defenses. When the Starwolves realize that they cannot fight us directly, they will go after the convoy to rob us of our advantage in damage control.”
