Her humor was appreciated by all but Lt. Commander Pesca, who was pale.
As it happened, she had almost guessed wrong. The Starwolves were there before her. The carrier appeared suddenly on scan almost directly behind them, passing swiftly over the Carthaginian before matching speed barely twice her own great length ahead of the battleship, clearly visible now on the main bridge viewscreen. Then she rotated slowly, until she was facing them, a vast black hull vaguely in the shape of an arrowhead, her short, slightly downs wept wings protecting her main drives. Her color was an unreflective black, difficult enough to see against space, even at close range. There were no windows to betray her presence with their glow, although she did have her recognition lights burning as a courtesy. That was actually encouraging.
If there was trouble, Tarrel decided that the Starwolves could not have been more obliging in stationing their immense carrier directly in front of her missile racks. She doubted that those missiles could do the great ship any harm, but they might provide enough distraction to get her own ship to the vague safety of starflight.
“Message coming in,” communications reported. “No visual.”
“I’ll take it at my station,” Tarrel said.
“I should take it,” Pesca offered in his excitement. “I am the linguist.”
“You’re also an asshole, and neither attribute qualifies you for this,” she snapped, then addressed the communication unit at her station. “This is Captain Tarrel of the battleship Carthaginian. We wish to parlay on an urgent matter.”
“This is Trendaessa Kerridayen,” the response came, a strong female voice. “Just what seems to be the problem?”
Tarrel was surprised at that lack of concern. It made her wonder if the Starwolves found her battleship at all threatening. “Some large ship is moving through our systems, destroying every ship and station it finds. The situation is very alarming to us.”
“So?”
No sympathy there. “So, we were wondering if the Starwolves were behind this, or if we have an alien threat to deal with.” “No. It is not Starwolves.”
Tarrel was grateful that this was not a visual link, since she could not stop herself from making faces. “I have encountered this machine on three separate occasions. My opinion is that this is an automated weapon designed to seek out and destroy all power sources it encounters in space. It is also my opinion that a single Starwolf carrier could not fight it.”
“Is that a fact? You seem to expect us to do something about it.”
“This monster is efficient and absolutely merciless,” she said. “We cannot fight it. Damn it, we can’t even see it. Our military ships might be one thing, but this beast eats commercial ships and stations, both our own and the independents, without discrimination, and we can’t protect them. System Commander Lake has empowered me to negotiate for your help, even to the point of declaring a truce between us.”
“On our terms?”
“On just about any terms.”
“My word, this thing does have you people rattled. I suspect that I would do best to call Commander Daerran to the bridge. That way, you only have to explain all of this once.”
“I can wait,” Tarrel agreed.
She muted the communication unit and leaned back in her seat, thinking that she had not started out at all well. She decided now that the Starwolf ship’s odd manner had been deliberate, intended to keep her from presenting a prepared speech in the way she might have meant, possibly flustering her enough to say things she did not intend. She would have to be more oh her guard.
“I thought that Starwolves didn’t have last names,” Pesca commented.
“They don’t,” she said. “That was the ship.”
“The ship?” He was obviously greatly surprised. “Do you mean that their ships can talk?”
“They use sentient computer systems completely integrated into their carriers,” Tarrel explained; “That way, their captains can circumvent the need to.ever talk to knock-headed crew-members.”
At least that first tense moment of contact had passed, and the Starwolves were willing to talk rather than shoot first and ask no questions at all. She considered that a professional accomplishment, since one of her primary goals as the captain of a battleship was to avoid all fights that she had no way of winning. One of the greatest problems about being a Union captain was always being out-classed, not only in technology but also in raw size, and she was pragmatic enough to realize that Goliath won most of the time. There had once been a time when she had thought her seven hundred meters of battleship to be quite large. “Captain Tarrel?”
She opened the line. “This is Captain Janus Tarrel.”
“Yes, this is Commander Daerran of the Kerridayen,” he responded. “My ship has played back for me the record of your communication to this point, and I agree that you have a most serious problem. Do you have reason to fear, that your civilization, or at least large segments of your civilization might be in danger of destruction if we do not intervene?”
“Yes, I do,” Tarrel insisted. “Very few of our worlds, or the independent colonies for that matter, are self- sufficient to any high degree. The destruction of ships and commercial stations could bring interplanetary shipping to a halt on a regional scale, causing technological collapse.”
“Actually, the problem is rather more serious than I suspect your people are even aware,” the Starwolf said. “Your interplanetary economy is a very fragile one at best. That is why we have always been very selective in the type and amount of shipping we capture or destroy.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she remarked, trying unsuccessfully not to sound too critical.
“Do not mention it. If it had ever been our intention simply to destroy your civilization, we could have done that in a matter of weeks, at any time.” There was a short pause. “Captain, would you be willing to come aboard the Kerridayen with any information you might have on this machine? I believe that Trendaessa should have a good look at what you know and we will see what she can make of it.”
Captain Tarrel had to consider that very quickly. “Yes, I believe that I should come aboard. What is the recommended method for that?”
“We can receive your shuttle, or send one over to collect you,” the Starwolf said. “The simplest thing in the long run would be to take your ship directly into one of our holding bays, so that you can have access to your own ship at any time you wish. But we can understand if you are not willing to trust us that much.”
“Thank you, Commander. Perhaps it would be easiest all the way around to have you take Carthaginian into your bay. What should we do to prepare?”
“Just close down your drives, shields and navigational systems, and your main generators. The Kerridayen will position herself and bring your ship into the holding bay with her handling arms. I will see you in the bay in a few minutes.”
Tarrel was not entirely pleased at allowing her ship to be taken aboard the Starwolf carrier, but she did not fail to recognize what a gesture of trust this was on both sides. The Union had laid too many traps and decoys for Starwolves in the past, a rare few of which had actually been effective. Commander Daerran was being rather gracious, not conceited, in his pretense that he and his great ship had nothing to fear. Such indications were very encouraging. She could see, however, that certain members of her crew were not so willing to trust. Chagin, for one, obviously thought that going aboard the carrier was one thing, but going aboard, ship and all, was quite another.
“We’re safer there, even if things do turn out badly,” she told him. “As long as we remain outside, their safest and quickest way of dealing with us is to shoot. Once aboard, we’re completely at their mercy, and I do trust their mercy. They might keep the ship, but they will keep us safe and return us soon enough. But I don’t see any reason why things should fall out at this point. You have command. No heroics, and no suicide attacks. You might be able to destroy this carrier from the inside by exploding the generators — and don’t think they don’t know that — but we might need every one of these ships to defend our worlds. What if more Dreadnoughts turn up?”
“I understand, Captain,” Chagin assured her. “As you say, they won’t want to do anything to scare us once they do have us in that bay.”
“I’m supposed to go along this time,” Pesca suggested brightly. “That is my primary mission objective now, you know. If we meet with Starwolves, I’m to listen to them and try to learn their language.”
Tarrel turned to glare at him. “Wally, if the Starwolves use their own language around us so seldom that linguists haven’t figured it out before now, then what the hell is the use of knowing it?”
