their tolerances, and she was correct. We lost three drives to burn-out. The fourth is damaged, and that drive is on the outside. If we try to engage that one, the ship would be pushed so hard on that one side that the field drive steering would not be able to correct the uneven balance. So you see, Valthyrra actually came through this worse off than you did.”
“Serves her right. So, what happens now? Is there any hope of getting the ship repaired enough to take her home again under her own power, or are we waiting for a tow?”
“Well, we do have some hope of getting the star drives running again,” Kayendel explained. “The Maeridan is standing alongside and we have her repair crews on board. They expect to know something very quickly. Unfortunately, pulling off and replacing those damaged main drives will take a couple of days. ” Tarrel glanced over at the Kelvessan. “You have replacements?”
“Of course. There are four perfectly good main drives facing forward to provide braking thrust, the exact same size and power as the drives we lost. We can take the two inner drives from the front and mount them in place of the outer drives aft. Any two drives can move this carrier perfectly well, even if it takes a little longer to build to speed.”
“I really don’t want to go fast for a while,” Tarrel commented. “What about Wally?”
“He came around a few minutes ago, in an enormously bad mood. He refuses to talk to anyone. At least we had already given him a room of his own.”
Kayendel shortly had to return to her duties, since she was the second in command of this ship. Captain Tarrel got herself up and dressed very soon after that. The normal environment of the ship was just a little too cold for her, after the Starwolves had taken her out of her armor. And she felt responsible for Lt. Commander Pesca, although that responsibility was mostly directed toward keeping him from being a bother to the Starwolves. But she wanted to check his condition for herself, since she did not trust the Kelvessan to completely understand just how serious his problems might become. Unfortunately, he was already gone by the time she was dressed, and she did not find him in his cabin when she looked there.
After that, she got distracted by the efforts to get the Methryn back in flight condition. She knew from one of her previous tours of the carrier that she could see all of the holding and transport bays and much of the forward main drives from the observation decks above either of the fighter bays, which extended below the lower hull of the ship. As it happened, she was treated to a far more spectacular sight than she had anticipated. The Maeridan drifted belly-up only two hundred meters directly below the Methryn; considering the relative size of the carriers, they appeared to be very close indeed. The armor had already been pulled off the Methryn’s two forward drives that were to be removed, although the actual process of physically removing the first drive appeared to be some time off yet.
Since nothing was actually happening on the outside, even a really great view became rather boring after a while, and Captain Tarrel understood that the view would probably be there for a couple of days. The whole trouble, she realized, was that she wanted to return to duty and had none. She was an advisor with no advice to give under the present circumstances, and the only thing she could do to help was to stay out of the way. She decided to go back to the bridge, where she could be in the middle of things and still remain out of the way.
Since their cabins were in the corridors behind the bridge, she decided to stop by on her way and see if Lt. Commander Pesca was about. She was almost surprised that he was there. He was locked inside his cabin and refused to come out at first, although the various thumps and bumps to be heard through the door indicated that he was busy at something. He could hardly be moving the furniture, unless he had unbolted it from the floor. Either his mood improved after the first few moments, or his curiosity got the better of him. He came out of his cabin dressed in armor, looking worn and beaten as if he had not recovered from the ordeal of the Methryn’s battle.
“The ship seems nearly deserted,” he observed, watching her closely.
“You just have to look in the right places,” Tarrel told him. “The ones who are not trying to rebuild the star drives are probably outside the ship dismantling the main drives. They seem determined to take this carrier apart right here, in the middle of space.”
“How long do they expect to take?”
“The first officer told me to expect a couple of days, but I suspect that she’s being optimistic,” she said. “There’s no guarantee yet that the star drives will ever work, although I don’t know what happened to them. We might get to see how you tow three kilometers of Starwolf carrier into starflight. I have been curious about that.”
Pesca gave her another of his disquieting, calculating stares. “You like these Starwolves, don’t you, Captain.”
Tarrel shrugged. “They are interesting, I have to admit.” “Monsters,” Pesca muttered under his breath as he turned back to his room.
Tarrel looked up at him sharply, realizing that things had gone far enough already. “Wally, I’m going to put you off the ship as soon as possible, back at Alkayja station if we don’t meet one of our own sooner. There’s no point putting you through all of this. The Starwolves aren’t going to let you have what you want anyway.”
“No, they probably won’t,” he agreed, looking embarrassed. “I guess I never was meant for this.”
“If it’s any consolation, I feel worse than I look,” she assured him. “You might as well come out of that armor. Unless you plan to go outside with the Starwolves, you hardly need it in a ship that can’t move.”
In spite of the advice that she had just given, Captain Tarrel put herself back inside her own armor. When the Starwolves got around to moving one of those massive drives, she did indeed intend to go outside for a look. For as long as she had been in space aboard ships, she had actually been outside only very seldom, and that was true of just about everyone. Ship to station transfers were done through docking tubes, and most repairs were done inside pressurized repair bays not unlike the one where the Methryn had been built. Except for salvage and some emergency repairs, there was simply never any need to go outside a ship.
As she had expected, the bridge was nearly deserted. There was hardly any need for even a token watch, since Valthyrra herself would always be there anyway. Kayendel was on the bridge and apparently acting as the officer in charge, although the Kelvessan hurried over to join Tarrel as she shuffled her armored self onto the bridge. To her surprise, the first officer stopped before her and performed a reasonable facsimile of a salute.
“Captain, can you be on the bridge for the next few hours?” she asked.
Tarrel was almost too surprised to know what to think. “Yes, I suppose that I could be.”
“Well, I was wondering if you would mind taking the watch on the bridge,” Kayendel explained. “You do have command experience. And since you are a captain, you have the same technical rank as myself or any of the pack leaders and that makes you qualified to take the watch.”
“What, me? Command a Starwolf carrier?” Tarrel asked, and smiled. “I can hardly make a mess of things, under the circumstances. I don’t suppose that a Union Captain ever commanded a Starwolf carrier before. What does her worship think about this?”
“It was her idea,” Kayendel said very softly. “There is no trick to this, since Valthyrra is in charge of the ship anyway. In theory, your only concern is to advise the ship and watch over the crew. Valthyrra knows what she needs to be doing and most of the crew is outside with Commander Gelrayen, and still under his command.”
“Well, if I’m going to sit in the chair, I might as well earn it,” Tarrel commented. “My word, I wish circumstances could have been different. When I think of how much fun it would have been to go sliding into the Vinthra space complex in this ship — and a new ship at that, with less than a hundred light years on her — I feel better already.”
“You do not get to keep her,” Kayendel said on her way to the lift.
As far as it went, Captain Tarrel knew that she was only just sitting in the Commander’s seat, but she could still appreciate the irony of the situation. The perfect complement to an inexperienced carrier unable to move herself was, of course, a captain from the enemy fleet. She certainly could not imagine her people’s protocol allowing someone like Gelrayen or Kayendel to command a Union military ship, no matter what the circumstances; Starwolves were so refreshingly practical. But it made for a remarkable situation, just the same.
She carried herself up the steps to the Commander’s station, aware that Valthyrra’s camera pod was turning slowly to watch her, every heavy step of the way. Ignoring her for the moment, Tarrel secured her helmet in the rack behind the seat, before lifting herself in. She adjusted the angle of the seat until she was fairly comfortable, then settled back to enjoy her brief tour of duty as the Commander of a Starwolf carrier. After serving in hell, she now had a chance to rule in heaven.
Valthyrra moved her camera pod well into the upper bridge, holding it just above the main console of the
