flaring, the three fighters leaped from their racks and thundered out the forward door. Instead of moving boldly into flight formation, the fighters cut thrust as soon as they cleared their racks, drifting out from beneath the Methryn’s vast nose as they waited for the other two ships to come in close beside their tight formation. Gathered close, the small group of ships engaged thrust and turned slowly until they were moving toward the planet, not yet even visible except as a minute point of light in the distance. They moved under low power, staying within the shadow of the Methryn’s hull as the carrier herself now came around, moving slowly over them. The larger ship’s cloaking shields would hide their approach until they were within low orbit, ready to make their final run into the atmosphere.
“Any word?” Velmeran asked.
“Nothing yet,” Valthyrra answered immediately. “No word or indication from Lenna at all. Bill says that we are not to worry. When I asked him why, he simply explained that Lenna has never failed to come through before and so statistics bear out that she would come through again. It worries me that my brain and his are essentially just alike.”
“On a vastly different scale,” he was quick to assure her, grateful that sentient computers were not telepathic. He had always found Bill’s dull ramblings to be disquietingly similar to Valthyrra’s complex eccentricities, if on a vastly different scale all its own.
“Personally, I have thought that Lenna has been overdue to screw one up really badly for a long time,” the ship continued. “The luck of the Irish is one thing, but it could hardly have bred true over five hundred centuries. Strictly speaking, Lenna Makayen is theoretically a Scot. And even so, the Irish were historically never that lucky…. “
“Val, you are babbling.”
“Great Spirit of Space, I am!” Valthyrra declared in a stricken voice, and paused for a moment of deep reflection. “Do you suppose that means that I have a soul?”
“I suppose it means that you have a problem.”
The planet grew in size quickly and the Methryn began to brake cautiously, careful to avoid engaging too much power all at once that would give away her approach on scan. The carrier made a rapid pass at a very close orbit, arcing around the curve of the planet before moving away into open space. At her closest approach, the five smaller ships shot out from beneath her hull, rolling as they dropped down toward the planet.
Encased in shells of thin flame as their atmospheric shields pierced the thin, upper atmosphere, the small group of ships plummeted toward a landscape that grew rapidly beneath them. They were coming down at a steep angle on a path that would bring them directly over the Union installation, rather than a remote approach, then a long, low-level run toward their destination. Time was the only factor in their favor, and they were able to cross the three hundred kilometers between the shadow of the Methryn’s hull to the hidden base in just under five minutes. That strained the abilities of the transport’s shields to the limit, subjecting the little ship’s hull to some rather extreme temperatures. At least those very few minutes of heat were no real danger to the sturdy little transport.
“Does Bill have that bay open?” Velmeran asked.
The ships were braking sharply now, closing the final few kilometers in a hurry. They were almost certain to have been detected on either scanners or conventional radar by now, and perhaps even visually. They needed to have that bay standing open so that they could land immediately, or the installation’s remote defenses would be opening fire on them.
“Bill says that the bay is standing open,” Valthyrra told him. “He also says that Lenna Makayen has yet to make herself known.”
“Thank you for anticipating my questions,” he responded. “Maybe you do have a soul.”
“At least a sense of humor.”
“We should not push it.”
Then Velmeran paused, seeing the state of the Union base as it became visible below and just ahead. Lenna’s little distraction must have been one of her best efforts, if a little overdone. Thick black smoke rose from several points clustered along one section of the installation; it looked as if fully an eighth of the place, as massive as it was, was on fire. Then he looked closer, and he realized something that made him very apprehensive. With Lenna’s fire threatening to get completely out of control, the base personnel had opened all the landing bay doors over a large area to vent the smoke.
“Val, let me try something on that remarkable sense of humor of yours,” he said after a moment, wondering how long he had before automatic weapons began to make a mess of his little invasion. “Ah, we have no way to tell which of the three dozen or so bays standing open could possible be the right one.”
Valthyrra must have afforded the place a quick, detailed scan of the immediate area, for she treated them to an intense barrage of invectives in at least five major languages. Had she a soul, it was surely damned.
“Spare our ears!” Velmeran exclaimed, interrupting her. “Can you identify which of those landing bays contains Bill?”
“I can trace his achronic transmissions, yes.”
“Then come around and put a low-power bolt right down the middle of that bay,” he instructed. “I hardly care how much, just so long as we can see it. Tell Bill to stay under cover, and we will hold back just a bit.”
“I am in position now. Are you ready?”
“Standing by.”
A pale blue beam shot down from above, striking through the center of the open doors of one of the nearer bays. It lasted only an instant and resulted in no explosions or smoke from within the bay, but it was enough.
“Got it!” Velmeran declared, then addressed his pilots. “Follow me now, fighters first to clear the way. Perhaps we can get ourselves under cover before they begin shooting at us.”
The three fighters rolled over and dove within the opening of the bay, a move copied by Venn Keflyn’s corvette. The transport followed somewhat more cautiously. Once they were within the bay, the ships dropped their landing gear and dropped quickly to the floor of the immense bay. Velmeran left his fighter idling, ready for immediate flight, as he opened his canopy and began unstrapping from his seat. He was still pulling himself from his cockpit when he saw a sentry hurrying toward him across the bay floor. Since it had not opened fire, he assumed that it must be Bill.
“What word, Bill?” he asked.
“Haste,” the sentry offered. He was, as always, a very literal bastard. It was always reassuring to find that some things never changed.
“I keep that always and ever in mind,” Velmeran commented, mostly to himself. “What about Lenna?”
“Lenna Makayen is not here,” Bill answered. Strike two.
“Any word from Lenna Makayen?” Velmeran asked, putting the two parts of his previous question together in what seemed to be a precise and reasonable manner.
“Careful.” Strike three.
Velmeran frowned, for all the good that did machines. “What were Lenna’s last words to you?”
“By the balls of Saint Peter!” Bill obliged, speaking in Lenna’s own voice before returning to his own. “Then there was a very big explosion, and the channel went dead.”
Velmeran sighed — very loudly — and very studiously ignored the fact that all the members of the special tactics team were staring at him expectantly. The end of civilization as they knew it was hidden somewhere in this ice-bound warren. But unless someone was here to lead them to it, they might as well go home. He just wished that Lenna had been there to meet them. Although Bill probably knew as much on the subject as Lenna, somehow he just could not bring himself to ask the sentry to lead them. Perhaps because he felt that dealing with the collapse of civilization as they knew it would be easier for him to deal with than the automaton’s obtuse logic. He also felt obliged to wait as long as he could for Lenna, since he was her only ride home.
“Are we going to look for Lenna?” Baressa asked.
“I was just wondering about that,” he admitted.
Well, there was no hope for it. Time was of the essence. The essence of what, Velmeran could hardly guess, but time was passing and important matters could not wait, and they had to be on with it. Even if it meant matching wits with Bill the automaton, who had the cold, calculating intellect of a machine and the conversational talents of an ape.
He looked up at Bill, his reluctance very plain. “Bill, will you take us to where you would expect to find
