that she was ultimately a machine was to her disadvantage in this matter. In the end she could trust only what she could see.
“Velmeran, I am not going to argue with you,” she decided at last. “You have given your warning, and that is the limit of your responsibility. I am bringing it in.”
“Now I know how Cassandra felt,” Velmeran muttered in disgust.
And, like Cassandra, he was ignored to the end. The crew and a fair number of passengers had just escaped in a pair of launches, and now the Methryn’s capture ships approached. Two of the curious machines moved in to either side of the silent drive housing, unfolding their three pairs of handling arms to lock themselves tight against the hull. Velmeran remained close the entire time. Valthyrra might have relieved him of responsibility in this matter, but his own conscience had not. The two capture ships, working in unison, used their own engines to accelerate their burden gently back toward the Methryn.
“Clear out!” Velmeran ordered suddenly. “That ship has a sentient computer system, and it is waking up to carry out its final orders. Get away from it now!”
His warning was no longer necessary, for every Starwolf inside the Methryn and out could sense the main generators of the ship as they powered up. A moment later the freighter fired its engines and began to fight the capture ships for control. In spite of their best efforts to turn it away, the freighter began to accelerate straight toward the Methryn.
“Get clear!” Valthyrra ordered. “Get away from that thing so that I can blast it.”
The two capture ships needed no warning; their crews had begun the task of casting loose the larger ship the moment they realized they could not control it. One of the capture ships leaped clear immediately, but the second had only just released its hold as the freighter came about to orient on the Methryn. Pinned against the freighter, it slipped down the length of her hull, fending off actual collision with its three pairs of handling arms. Suddenly it was brought up short as one of its arms became firmly trapped in the open hatch of a launch bay. The mechanical arm was too tightly pinned to pull free, and too powerfully constructed to rip loose at its joints.
“Methryn, hold your fire!” the pilot of the capture ship called frantically. “I have an arm caught in something. I cannot pull free.”
“Valthyrra, keep your distance from the thing,” Velmeran advised. “Try to get it to chase after you. Buy us time. Capture ship, maneuver around to stretch that trapped arm out to its full length. Retract the others out of the way, and stand ready to run.”
Velmeran darted in beside the massive drive housing of the freighter, orienting on the relatively small shape of the pinned capture ship. As he closed, he sighted on the outstretched arm that pinned the capture ship and fired. Bolts from his fighter’s cannons bit into the hard metal of the arm, blasting through in an explosion of superheated metal. Velmeran knew that he had run out of time; the freighter had cut acceleration, which meant that it was working its generators to a forced overload. The capture ship shot away as the arm snapped and Velmeran circled around to follow. In the next instant the freighter exploded with a force that would have shattered a small planet.
That blast of raw energy expanded outward in a fiery sphere, for an instant assuming the size and brilliance of a star before it began to dissipate rapidly. With nothing left to feed those flames, it was gone in almost the next instant. The freighter itself had been vaporized in that blast, leaving only a scorched capture ship still running under its own power, and the battered shell of a single fighter. It tumbled end over end, its wings and fins ripped away and its hull cracked and broken, so hot that twisted portions of it glowed dull red.
“Velmeran?” Valthyrra called anxiously.
“Is that him?” Mayelna asked softly, watching the image on the main viewscreen. The entire bridge crew waited motionless and silent for the reply they did not expect to come. That explosion had taken a wolf ship and thrown out only a twisted mass of broken metal, with little chance that anything could have remained alive. Valthyrra knew that Consherra was watching her, silently demanding that she do something, but she did not dare look at the girl.
“Yes, that is him,” she answered. “Velmeran, do you hear me?”
“We are going in to get him,” the pilot of the undamaged capture ship said.
“Hurry, then,” Valthyrra replied. “Velmeran, do you hear me? Help is on the way.”
“Will you stop pecking at me, you tin-plated bitch!” Velmeran snapped in return. “I am doing the best I can.”
Valthyrra brought her camera pod around so fast the gears creaked. “Meran? Are you alive?”
“I seem to be,” he replied. “No damage that I am aware of, but I must have taken my limit of G’s.”
Mayelna leaned back in her seat and sighed heavily, while Consherra was already running toward the lift that would take her down to the landing bay. Valthyrra watched her go, then brought her camera pod around to look at the Commander.
“You have been very quiet,” the ship observed.
Mayelna rolled her seat back from her console, then shrugged as she rose. “What can I say? I had no idea how matters would turn out, so I had to allow it to remain between you and him.”
“Do you think that he will forgive me?” Valthyrra asked cautiously.
“Knowing Velmeran as I do, I suspect that he blames only himself in the first place,” Mayelna said, pausing on her way to the lift. “I will probably forgive you in a day or two. Consherra is quite another matter. I suspect that she will remain in an unforgiving mood. And you might do well to court her forgiveness, or you may find that she has the power to take him away from you.”
The capture ship brought Velmeran’s fighter directly into the landing bay and deposited it gently on the deck before passing on out the forward door. Those who saw it brought in could hardly believe that Velmeran could have ridden it through the blast unharmed, for the little ship was nearly ripped apart. It began to smoke lazily as it was brought through the containment field into the atmosphere of the bay; Valthyrra had to direct a blast of icy air at it from a pair of blowers for two minutes before it was cool enough to approach. Only the cockpit area remained reasonably sound, and the windshields, although cracked and glazed, were intact.
As soon as they could, Benthoran, the crew chief, and an assistant moved in to open the ship by simply breaking the canopy free and lifting it away. A good deal of smoke poured out and continued to do so until Benthoran blew it out with a heavy dose of carbon dioxide. When Consherra would have rushed in to aid her mate, Dyenlerra was there first to wave her away. The medic helped Velmeran remove his helmet but indicated for him to remain where he was while she opened his chestplate to attach the leads of a portable medical scanner. The machine needed only a moment to decide that he was sound enough to get out under his own power. The interior of the cockpit was burned out and his suit was badly scorched, his last line of defense against that terrible heat.
Consherra tried to take hold of him as soon as he was out, only to find that he was still too hot to touch without the gloves that she had left on the bridge. Dyenlerra waved her away a second time and made Velmeran stand beneath one of the cold-air blowers until the damaged suit was cool enough to remove.
Valthyrra had been hovering nearby in the form of one of her remotes. Now she brought the machine in cautiously. “I am sorry, Meran. I should have believed you. I knew at the time that I should have, but the machine in me could not. This is new to me, and I handled it badly.”
“That is something of an understatement,” Consherra remarked coldly, moving in protectively beside her mate. Dyenlerra, oblivious to all else, was busily checking the joints of Velmeran’s armor to see if the suit beneath, which was exposed only at these points, had been penetrated.
“He warned me. I refused to listen,” Valthyrra admitted, aiming her remarks at Consherra. “I am not infallible, although I have been around long enough to learn from my mistakes. I will not make that mistake again.”
“You may not have a second chance,” Consherra said darkly, taking hold of Velmeran’s left arms as if to assert her claim on him. “Perhaps another ship will have greater respect for his abilities.”
Dyenlerra impatiently slapped her hands away, forcing her to release her hold on Velmeran. “You people can air your grievances later. Just now he is on his way to the medical section for a complete scan.”
She physically turned her bemused patient and led him toward the lift. Consherra followed uncertainly; she was well aware that she would not be allowed inside the medic’s examination room, but she meant to stay as close as possible. Valthyrra remained where she was, watching, and equally aware that she was not welcome.
