“But what possible danger could they be?” Tarrel asked, frankly shocked by what she was hearing. “The Kelvessan are the most amiable people I’ve ever met, at least to have as friends and allies. Would they ever have reason to turn on us?”
“Oh no, they would never be a danger to us in that sense, unless we do something to deserve it,” he agreed. “Captain, the Republic and the Union might be opposing camps, but consider this. Together our worlds define a very specific region of space, and we are not interested in looking beyond those boundaries. Although we are not the only civilized race within those limits, we are certainly the preeminent race in numbers, power and prestige. Neither side really wants to see that change.”
“No, I suppose not,” Tarrel admitted. “Still, I don’t see how they can be a threat to us even in that sense. They aren’t prolific and I don’t see them as being interested in establishing commercial empires.”
Asandi nodded. “Yes, but consider this. Our interplanetary systems of commerce are dependant upon trade and travel through space, and space is the element the Kelvessan were designed to conquer. If they were free to pursue their own future, they would control a large portion of interstellar space because their ships are larger and faster than anything we have. They would take the responsibility of seeing that the space lanes and the frontier are safe. In addition to that, all new technology would be coming from Kelvessan researchers. We would come to be dependant upon the Kelvessan. Although we would prosper under their leadership, our prosperity would be dependant upon their leadership.”
“Is that so bad?” Tarrel asked, watching the corridors of the station pass by the tram’s windows.
“Perhaps not, but would we be able to accept that?” he asked. “One of our greatest strengths, and also one of our greatest needs, is to command our own destinies. We are human. However much you might like them, the Kelvessan are still only highly advanced biological machines. Perhaps some day they might evolve into a real sentient, free-willed race. But right now they are still guided by the instincts of compassion and duty that they were given. Their eagerness to defend even their old enemies from the Dreadnought is proof of that. I certainly was not in favor of that. I knew that they would need new weapons to fight that thing, and I knew that it would be difficult to maintain the old balances through all of this. The Starwolves are happy with what they are.”
“Slaves,” Tarrel commented sourly.
“Slaves are people held in bondage against their will,” he told her. “The Kelvessan are satisfied to be exactly what they are, fulfilling the needs and goals that they were given. Do not teach them expectations of themselves that they are not yet ready to confront.”
“No, I don’t feel qualified to teach them anything; it just seemed to me that the process was beginning naturally,” she said, and smiled wryly. “That was certainly the last thing I expected to find. ”
“What is that?”
She glanced at him. “I was just thinking how alike your side and mine really are. We both seem willing to nominate someone else to make sacrifices for our benefit.”
11
Once the Starwolf fleet had found the Dreadnought, preparing an ambush for it proved to be simple enough. After determining which system it was most likely to strike next — and they had certainly proven their ability to predict its movements — they had hurried to arrive first. The Methryn and the Kerridayen positioned themselves well out at opposite sides of the system where they could sweep it with their impulse scanners very efficiently, and the Methryn had already shown that low-intensity pulses were effective at showing up the Dreadnought’s location without alerting it that it was being scanned. The other three carriers had hidden themselves behind planets deeper within the system, where one of them might easily be able to slip in close behind the Dreadnought on its sub-light approach. Captain Tarrel had used her authority to order the local station abandoned, but not removed or powered down, with the Union’s System Fleet of twenty-three large ships still moored at their docks. With bait like that to hold its attention, the Dreadnought would run straight in to attack.
Once the carriers were in position, they had no way of knowing if they would be waiting hours or days for the Dreadnought to arrive. At this point, there was little else for them to do. Once the alien weapon was identified, and assuming that it was not alerted to their presence in the process, then one of the three carriers deeper in the system would try to move in close behind it and match the frequency of its shield with her impulse cannons, repeating the Methryn’s successful attack earlier. This time, however, that trick would be attempted from a greater distance, at least a thousand kilometers, so that the attacking carrier would have time and room enough to hit the Dreadnought again with either missiles or a low-intensity discharge from her conversion cannon. That would surely disable the Dreadnought long enough for the other carriers to move in for the kill. If everything went according to plan, the Methryn and the Kerridayen would never even enter the fight.
Neither of those two ships were pleased with that arrangement, and not because it failed to include them as anything except surveillance platforms. Trendaessa Kerridayen was convinced that they were again underestimating the Dreadnought’s strategic abilities. She believed that it had already proven itself too clever to make the same mistake twice. Valthyrra Methryn agreed with her completely. She strongly believed that she knew just how to attack the Dreadnought; she believed that they had been making the same mistake from the first, trying to fight it as one large ship against another. Captain Tarrel believed that Valthyrra was taking the right approach, but she did not have a vote in the matter and the other three carriers had overruled Valthyrra Methryn and Trendaessa Kerridayen. The Starwolves themselves seemed reluctant to interfere with the authority of their ships, allowing the carriers to decide the matter among themselves.
In the two weeks since these battle plans had been made at that meeting at Alkayja station, Janus Tarrel had kept her counsels very much to herself. She found herself having to do something that she had never expected: she was having to reconsider her personal beliefs. What she could not figure out was why Fleet Commander Asandi’s little speech about the Republic’s secret attitude toward its Starwolves should be so upsetting to her, since it supported everything that she had always believed. The Starwolves were property, genetically engineered weapons of war to be used and discarded; her own kind came first. Justice had to be weighed against the greater good, and even towering injustices were sometimes necessary for the benefit of the greatest number. Those whose rights and welfare needed most to be sacrificed for the benefit of a larger society most often needed that judgement forced upon them, since they were not likely to accept such sacrifices willingly. As a Union Captain, she had enforced that very philosophy often enough in the past, always reluctantly, but always comfortable in the belief that it was proper and necessary.
Now she was beginning to wonder if there was ever any hidden justice in injustice, and if any society that demanded the innocent to pay the price for someone else’s benefit was inherently corrupt. She understood now why the Starwolves believed in that philosophy, blissfully unaware that they were enforcing a moral belief that was secretly denied to them. She could also understand why that was such a driving force in luring the Terran colonies, raped of the little wealth they generated, into making ill-advised attempts at independence.
Absolute justice was always preferable, but she still had to remind herself that it was not always possible. Although she was tempted to warn the Kelvessan about how they were being used, she could not yet convince herself that it would be best even for them if she did. Commander Asandi had warned her against teaching them to expect something that they were not equipped to have, and in this case there was indeed some justice in denying them the right of freedom and self-determination because such things were meaningless to their present existence. For good or bad, they were exactly what they were designed to be.
Of course, the matter could well be out of her hands. Valthyrra Methryn had become deeply fascinated with the Kelvessan and the development of their racial consciousness. She had turned up her thermostats and ordered her crew out of their clothes again as soon as they had left Alkayja, and she was now trying to convince them to make that a permanent condition. Tarrel suspected that her goal was to undress the entire Starwolf fleet, encourage them to think about their racial identity, and eventually suggest that they should attempt some additional, purely cosmetic tampering with their genetics. Valthyrra obviously believed that external appearances were the key to encouraging the Kelvessan to develop greater self-awareness and social independence, and she was most likely correct.
But, with battle threatening at any time, the ship’s temperatures went down more than usual to cool the
