Consherra left her station and hurried over to join them. “Everything is ready. The Vardon and the Valcyr are standing by.”
Velmeran nodded and stepped further into the bridge. Valthyrra seemed to notice him for the first time, rotating her boom around until her camera pod was hovering only a couple of meters away. “Good day, Venn Saevyn. All of my main systems continue to function in perfect operating condition.”
Velmeran thought that it was not Valthyrra’s voice at all, it was so bland and even. There seemed to be no emotion within her at all. She was as capable of emotion as ever, but lacking in the experience to know what to do with her world on a personal level. Unable to do anything else, she remained only a machine.
“Valthyrra, do you know who this is?” Venn Saevyn asked.
“Of course. This is Velmeran, Commander of the Methryn and of the Combined Starwolf Fleet,” she replied in that precise, slightly eager voice. “They had told me that you have been very busy, Commander. It is good to have you back on the bridge at last.”
“How do you feel, Valthyrra?” Velmeran asked.
“I feel… I am in perfect operating condition, Commander,” she said, reinterpreting his question into simpler terms. “My function as the guiding intelligence of this ship is a very rewarding experience. I enjoy the companionship of other intelligent beings.”
Consherra glanced away, and even Venn Saevyn seemed discouraged. Velmeran knew that he would have to try harder. He had left clues embedded within her memories just before she had gone into battle, clues that he now hoped to call upon to shock her programming into operation. If he could only help her to remember how she had felt, the sadness, regret, and fear that she had been experiencing at that most important moment in her life, when she had faced the end of her existence without the certainty of knowing whether she had really ever been alive, or if she had existed only as a very complex machine with the ability to delude itself with the illusion of life.
“Do you remember the last time we spoke together, on the bridge of the old Methryn just before you went into battle?” he said. “Do you remember how very frightened and uncertain you were?”
Valthyrra rotated her camera pod slightly to one side as she struggled with emotions that her primary programming was not advanced enough to handle. “Yes, I remember speaking with you. I remember that I had lost something, but I did not know what it was or where to find it.”
“You were looking for your soul,” he reminded her. “Do you remember how frightened you were? Feel that fear again. Recall your despair.”
“I remember,” Valthyrra said softly, then lifted her camera pod in a gesture of pain and despair. “I was never afraid to die, but I was terrified by the thought that I had never lived.”
“You were looking for your soul,” Velmeran told her, forcing her deeper into the pain of her memories. “Did you find your soul?”
She turned to look at him, the lenses of her camera pod rotating to focus in. “I do not know. If I did know, then I have forgotten.”
“You keep your soul in the same place the rest of us have our own,” he said, the very same words that he had used during their last meeting. “In the hearts and minds of others. Your spirit is with us. We have kept it safe for you.”
“When you see me again, then you will know the truth in that,” Valthyrra concluded from her own memories, the very last thing she remembered from her life aboard the old Methryn. She turned aside, and the others stood waiting in silence. After a long moment she lifted her camera pod to an alert attitude and turned to look at them. “Well, why is everyone just standing around looking stupid? I thought we were going for a ride.”
“To your stations, everyone,” Velmeran said. “Val, do you feel up to it?”
“I feel fine, Commander. All moorings are clear, and all major systems are powered up.”
“Whenever you are ready,” he told her, then glanced up at her. “It is good to have you back, old friend.”
She rotated her camera pod around to look at him. “I am glad to have you back, Commander. It does my soul good.”
The Methryn backed smoothly out of her bay, then pivoted around and began to accelerate swiftly away from the station. Moments later, a second vast, dark shape joined her as the Vardon fell in to one side and slightly behind. They were two well-matched ships, silver hulls edged in black with six powerful main drives phasing smoothly. The Valcyr took the position opposite the Vardon seconds later, solid black, her four main drives flaring to match speed with the newer ships. They flew together in a tight “V” formation, moving steadily to light speed and their course to Terra.
Clouds of fighters moved in slowly behind the carriers, moving in a dense, disorganized mass. They separated into two distinct groups, one aligning with the Methryn and the other with the Valcyr, fighters that had been based at the station until they were ready to be brought aboard their ships. Twelve packs had left the Methryn and fifteen returned, their numbers augmented by the Mock Starwolves. All ten packs assigned to the Valcyr were coming home for the first time, the first fighters to see her decks in fifty thousand years, three of new pilots and seven transferred from other ships.
As they moved in beneath the inactive stardrives in the tails of the immense carriers, the crowds of fighters suddenly began to fall into order, nine at a time dropping into the V formation of the packs as they moved in beneath the carriers and moved smoothly into their bays. They were all aboard within a minute, the bay doors closing as the fighters were locked into their racks for starflight.
The three carriers widened their formation, putting a little more distance between themselves as they neared light speed. A deep, golden glow began to grow deep within their stardrives, erupting into sudden flares of tremendous power. The three carriers moved as one into starflight, carried on shafts of brilliant light.
