“I’m not picking on you,” she told him. “That’s just the way the rules work for everyone aboard ship, although maybe it’s less formal when you work behind a desk.”
“Yes, Captain.”
She returned to the bridge, hoping that she was not late. The armor was somewhat heavy, usually an irrelevant matter since even such weight was of no consequence to Starwolves compared to the value of added protection and durability. But it was heavy to her, and she did not want to be caught in the corridors once the Methryn began two or three extra G’s of braking. She was appreciative that Commander Gelrayen was willing to surrender his seat to her, knowing that he welcomed the excuse to remain on the main bridge. He was still a pilot at heart; he wanted to be in the middle of things, not sitting on high and giving occasional directions to a ship that flew herself.
“We are ten minutes out,” Valthyrra told her as she walked carefully onto the bridge, still getting used to the weight of her armor. “What about your young friend?”
“He’s afraid of dying a virgin,” Tarrel commented sourly.
“There is nothing wrong with virginity,” the ship said. “I am a virgin, and I expect to stay one for a very long time. Monks die as virgins, and they are called holy. To be more specific, I was wondering if he is preparing himself for our transition out of starflight.”
“He was when I left him. If his sense of normal caution should become overwhelmed by baser instincts, it might do him good to spend some time on the floor. Or even the wall.”
“He seems to be having a hard time of it,” Gelrayen said, joining them at that moment. “I have told the crew to be gentle with him. His behavior is becoming rather odd.”
“I can have him put off the ship, as soon as we find someone to take him,” Tarrel offered. “I think it would be better for him if he does go. He seems to be a paranoid xenophobe.”
“Is he?” Kayendel looked up from her helm station. “Why would he want to become a linguist if he is afraid of aliens?” “Some morbid fascination to the unbalanced mind, I suppose. Half of all mental health professionals I’ve ever met were worse off than most of their patients.”
“I am bringing the ship up to full battle alert,” Valthyrra announced. “We have to be ready for anything. If this is the time, then we must move very quickly and get away.”
Captain Tarrel obediently hauled her armored self up the steps to the Commander’s station, allowing the Starwolves to attend to their last-minute duties. She was just a little annoyed that she was unable to wear her armor with the complete disregard of the Starwolves; they made it seem easy to look grand and powerful in their suits. The armor itself was only half the weight, covering the pressure suit, pressurization equipment, and a self- contained atmosphere designed to satisfy Starwolf needs for up to ten hours using a carbon dioxide converter system and solid oxygen supplement canisters. The heating was a simple wire mesh inside the pressure suit, and cooling — a more important matter under most circumstances — was a solid state unit assisted by a microcirculation network. The power, enough to supply auxiliary weapons or to run a companion’s damaged suit, came from a self-contained total conversion generator.
Her greatest problem with the suit was getting herself into the seat at the Commander’s station. In order to have the consoles with their controls, keyboards and monitors as close as possible, the station was enclosed. The seat could only be reached using the pair of bars built into the overhead console; it was a simple enough matter for a Starwolf to lift himself and his armor into that seat, even under hard accelerations, but not for her. Once she was in, her armor settled very comfortably into the seat, and the alternate set of straps attached directly to the chestplate. She set her helmet in its own rack, close at hand in case the hull lost pressure.
“Beginning deceleration from starflight,” Valthyrra announced a short time later. “Six minutes to sublight transition.” Changes of speed within starflight, although actually far greater, were far less stressful than those below light speed. The reason was simple enough; matter cannot be taken past the speed of light, but the acceleration dampers let the ship cheat by never allowing its bulk anywhere near that speed. Once the ship was moving through space faster than light, its relationship with the universe was altered and changes of speed and direction resulted in a greatly reduced energy of acceleration.
“Have you been looking at the system map?” Gelrayen asked. Valthyrra brought her camera pod around. “Let me put it up on the main viewscreen.”
She cleared the current image and installed a map of the system ahead as it appeared in her library, correcting the orbits of the seven planets by mathematical interpretation and laying in her own approach path. Like most of the systems in Union space, it was moderate in population, industry and importance. But if the Dreadnought had taken it by surprise, the damage could have been devastating.
“Captain Tarrel, do you know this system?” Gelrayen asked, looking up at her.
She found the button that released the pressure on the straps and leaned forward in her seat to look down over the front of the console. “I’ve been here a few times, but I really don’t know all that much about the system. I don’t recall anything unusual. ” He turned to Valthyrra, who had the advantage of knowing what every other ship had seen and filed. “Mining, both metals and hydrocarbon. The debris in this system is very rich. And there in a very large gas giant, which has two very large moons heated by gravitational stress, that have actual seas of hydrocarbons. Most of the plastics and other hydrocarbon products for the Rane Sector come out of the bulk processing plants in orbit here.”
Captain Tarrel made a vile face; it helped to keep her from saying certain things out loud. She remembered this system only too well now. Those orbiting bulk processors turned raw hydrocarbons into the base material for the making not only of regular plastics but hydrocarbon-based ceramics, many other synthetic materials and a variety of solvents and combustion fuels, so that only the finished products had to be shipped out of system. The Dreadnought would have ripped apart more orbital hardware here than it would have found in any ten normal systems, and the economy of the Rane Sector could well feel the effects for a century to come.
“Captain Tarrel, you seem to recall where you are now,” Valthyrra said, having witnessed her reaction.
“I do indeed,” she agreed. “You just don’t think about such places as being that important until you realize what will happen when they’re gone.”
“It could be even worse,” Valthyrra said. “My files indicate that two million people lived in orbit here. That is the reason why Starwolf attacks have been so selective here for centuries. ” “I doubt that any of them got to safety,” Tarrel said, settling her armor back into the seat. “The facilities for rapid evacuation just aren’t there. Station life is so completely free from hazard. ” Valthyrra called their attention back to the viewscreen. “If that is the case, then we must expect that major attacks took place on the second planet, the only inhabited world in this system, and at the stations on the moons of the fourth and fifth planet. This was a very slow-firing star in its early development, allowing gas giants to form close in, where lighter gasses are generally swept farther out by solar wind. Some two-thirds of the orbital facilities were located around the fourth planet, which had larger moons and warmer conditions as well as relative proximity to a belt of debris very rich in rare elements.” “What about the inhabited planet?” Gelrayen asked.
“Very little interstellar traffic was going in and out of there,” the ship explained. “There was quite a lot of specialty manufacturing, but most of that went out to the stations for shipment out of system. Most of the planet was colonized to feed the stations. As large as stations can be, it is still much easier and cheaper to farm planet- side.”
“And what if it is still in system?” Gelrayen asked. “If you were the Dreadnought, where would you be?”
“We have discussed the subject once already,” Valthyrra answered. “As it happens, that is more difficult to predict. Most of the system traffic and a large portion of the orbital hardware was at the fourth planet. We must now assume that those stations are gone and the personnel dead. A rescue mission is probably expected to press on to the only place where there is still anyone alive, the second planet.”
“Is that what the Dreadnought will decide?” he asked.
She made a curiously hopeless gesture with her camera pod. “I do not know what the Dreadnought will think. That depends very much upon the level of sophistication of its ability to plan, and we know now that we cannot predict that. If the stations and all traffic in-system was destroyed, then it would probably look to the inhabited planet. There would still be power sources there to draw its attention, if not its fire.”
“Commander,” Tarrel called to him. “Will you have any back-up on this? I know that a Starwolf freighter has been here once before.”
“Yes, another carrier arrived several hours ago and is standing by some distance outside the system.”
“And what about that freighter?” Tarrel asked. “Even if the Dreadnought has not been — or no longer can —
