believe her good fortune when she discovered what she was going to do now.
The delegation from the Kalvyn stepped off the right bridge lift, where Mayelna, Velmeran, and Consherra were waiting to meet them, their unexpected guest standing to one side. And everyone stopped short to stare in disbelief. Even Lenna could see clearly that Velmeran was almost a exact duplicate of Commander Tryn, nearly three hundred years his senior. Everyone was amazed. Everyone, that was, but Mayelna, the only one who had known both Velmeran and Tryn before this meeting. Tryn was himself as surprised as anyone.
“Hello, Mayelna,” Tryn said at last, turning to her. There was a curious look of both fear and satisfaction in his eyes. “It has been a long time.”
“Eighteen years,” she agreed, then turned to her son. “You know Velmeran, I suppose. He runs this ship now, although he still keeps me around to handle the trivialities.”
“Do you remember me?” Tryn asked. “I met you once, a long time ago.”
“I had forgotten,” Velmeran replied uncertainly.
“Well, I do recall this girl,” Tryn continued briskly. “Consherra, if I remember correctly. I know that you are the Helm.”
Consherra smiled and nodded. “Yes, I do remember you. Velmeran is my mate now.”
“Is that so?” Tryn replied to that rather odd admission, then glanced over at Lenna. “Your passenger, I suppose?”
“Hello,” Lenna said in one of her rare self-conscious moments.
“Lenna Makayen, our artist in residence and expert Starwolf impersonator,” Mayelna said.
“Well, I can see how she could get away with it,” Tryn said, smiling reassuringly in the mistaken belief that Lenna was shy. If he had not been distracted by other thoughts, he would have realized that shy people did not sneak aboard Starwolf carriers. He glanced around quickly. “Oh, this is our Helm Keldryn and our Commander- designate Denlayk.”
“Hello,” the pair said in unison.
Mayelna frowned, deciding that matters had deteriorated from bad to ridiculous and that she had better put a quick end to this before the conversation drifted into areas she had no wish to explore. “I suppose that we should get down to the business that brought us here. Valthyrra is waiting.”
They retreated quickly to the third and smallest of the council rooms behind the bridge. Valthyrra was indeed waiting, the camera on its short boom above the oval table glaring as they took their seats.
“Were you aware that Daelyn has been made Commander-designate of the Karvand?” Mayelna asked suddenly. “The Karvand fought with us at Vannkarn, and again a few months later.”
“I had heard that she had been made Commander-designate,” Tryn replied. “And Velmeran’s raid into Vannkarn is a matter of legend. But then, everything Velmeran does assumes legendary proportions.”
“Then I suppose that we have the making of another here,” she said, and turned to Velmeran. “Tryn is Daelyn’s father.”
“Is that a fact?” Velmeran answered guardedly.
Valthyrra, who had missed the previous conversation out in the hall, glanced about in complete mystification. Her gaze passed over Commander Tryn and she did a quick double take, then looked at Velmeran and back again. Several of the others, observing her, were trying not to laugh.
“Ah… if we could get on with the business at hand,” she began uncertainly, her camera pod rotating around to center on the Kalvyn’s probe, seated astride the arms of the chair beside Lenna. “If you will begin.”
“Yes, we will start with an analysis of this machine that Donalt Trace has built himself,” Schayressa said, and employed a video link with Valthyrra to project her intricate scans of the Challenger on the large viewscreen beside the table. Using this to illustrate her explanations, she began a very careful accounting of the Fortress and how its various systems functioned… and why it was so invulnerable.
Lenna, watching from the edge of the discussion, noticed that Schayressa was directing her explanation at Velmeran, and that there was some unspoken consent among everyone present that he was very much in command. As she watched, he seemed to grow in character, evolving from the little boy she had met in Kallenes to become the person that legend argued he must be. Perhaps not the daring, devil-may-care hero of her romanticized image but the capable and responsible Commander-designate that his fellow Starwolves trusted and respected.
Schayressa concluded with a step-by-step analysis of her battle with the Challenger, the complex nature of the trap that she had wandered into, and how the Union Commander had quickly and effectively blocked her every move.
“Meran, what do you think?” Mayelna asked as Velmeran sat in thoughtful silence for a long moment.
“Somehow that does not sound to me like the Donald Trace I knew two years ago,” he explained. “Weapons design is his strength, but his idea of strategy is a strong, straightforward drive that either succeeds or fails in its initial thrust. Such subtlety and refinement of strategy simply is not his style.”
Tryn and Schayressa stared at him in amazement.
“Well, you do know your business,” Tryn remarked. “Trace talked to us the moment it was over. He said that he was ‘just along for the ride,’ to use his own words, that a Maeken Kea is the Captain of this ship.”
Velmeran looked up at Valthyrra. “Maeken Kea?”
“A prominent fleet commander of this sector,” she explained. “She outmaneuvered a Starwolf attack force some time ago and actually forced them to withdraw. That probably impressed Don a great deal.”
Velmeran sat back in his chair, both sets of arms crossed, and sat for a long time in silent contemplation. “The problem with this Fortress, even if it did not have quartzite shielding, is that it is simply too big to make a run at the thing and expect to destroy it with regular cannons. Either we find a way to take it apart piece by piece without getting blasted in the process, or we find a way to get past its heavy shielding. What about simultaneous firing of conversion cannons from several ships?”
“That would work, but it would take a simultaneous firing of seven ships to overload that ship,” Schayressa replied. “But there is some hope for sequential firing. The Fortress can only maintain that shield for a few seconds. Two strikes at full power would bring it down, and a third strike would penetrate the quartzite shielding and destroy the ship. But you need three carriers for that.”
“Will a shielded fighter or missile penetrate that outer shield?”
“Oh, certainly. But you need a good, strong shield of your own to guard against being fried by the backwash of energy your ship is going to pick up by induction. But you have to have a thirty-five-megaton explosion directly against the hull to crack the quartzite shielding.”
“Then we are back to the starting point on that problem,” Velmeran said. “We really have no choice. We sit here and wait for another carrier to show up and help us with sequential firing.”
“Two more,” Schayressa corrected him. “I fried the conversion generator in my cannon when I fired it earlier, and nothing short of airdock repairs is going to make it operate again. I anticipated this and sent out the call for additional ships. The Karvand will be here in thirty-six hours, and the frighter Lesdryn twelve hours behind her. The freighters have the same forward battery and conversion cannon, even if they lack our armor.”
“Is this the only way to fight it?” Mayelna asked.
“No, not the only way.” Velmeran said, “We could probably go in and take it apart piece by piece. But lives would be lost and the Methryn would be half wrecked in the process. That is too high a price when we can deal with this matter easily in just two days.”
“I would rather not get my nose shot up if there is an easier way,” Valthyrra agreed.
“There still remains the problem of Tryalna,” Velmeran continued. “If we cannot go through that beast, at least our fighters can go around it. I would like…”
His voice died away into silence as he sat tensely, as if staring at something that no one else could see. He had the same unfocused look of a camera pod while the ship’s attention was elsewhere. For that matter, Valthyrra and Schayressa had the same distant look.
“What is it?” Tryn asked softly, afraid to disturb his concentration.
“The Challenger is moving toward Tryalna,” Velmeran answered. “Perhaps it means to turn its big cannons on planetary targets.”
Everyone paused to listen, although only Velmeran and Consherra had the superior senses to detect the droning of the Fortress’s powerful engines from this distance. Lenna sat looking about in complete
