Battle of the Ring (13 page)

“Who... ?” she asked as she accepted the gun hesitantly.

“Kuari assassin,” he replied simply.

Lenna understood what he meant. The Kuari were an odd, barbaric religious
sect occupying three frontier worlds, a small empire in themselves since not
even the Union wanted them. The assassins were the elite of their priesthood,
their purpose to earn the favor of their death-god with the innocent lives they
took. The more lives they took, the greater their prestige and power in the
death-god’s spirit guard, but they themselves had to meet an honorable
death to win their place. The Assassin’s sect did not, for any reason,
accept a pact on a Starwolf, but older assassins would sometimes cross a
Starwolf to win the honorable death they needed.

“Do you hear me?” Velmeran demanded.

“I hear you, Lord,” the boy answered, gasping in pain.

“Have you killed before, boy?”

“I have, Lord,” he said, smiling grimly with pride. “I
have assured myself some small place in the spirit guard, if you will give me
honorable death.”

“That remains to be said,” Velmeran said. “I have two
claims upon you. I have beaten you fairly, and I am your only hope for
honorable death. The police will be here in a moment. Your injuries are not so
great that they cannot steal you back from death. If you desire honorable
death, then you must give me something in return.”

“I hear you, Lord,” the boy answered. “What would you
know?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“And what led you to attempt the foolhardy?”

“My lord, a pact was offered. An agent of your enemy came half a year
ago, offering impossible riches for your death. He knew that the pact would be
refused, but the reward was very tempting. And the honor.”

“And so you came hunting?” Velmeran asked.

“No, Lord,” the boy insisted. “I was here when your ship
arrived, hunting by pact the chief of the Trade Association. When your ship
came, I watched the port for you. I knew that I could never kill you while you
wore your armor. But when you came from the tailor’s shop dressed as you
are, I began to hope that I could do the impossible if I was very careful. But
not careful enough, it would seem.”

“Sergei,” Lenna interrupted softly. “My brother’s
coming and he’s in a hurry.”

“The police?” the young assassin asked fearfully. “Lord, I
have answered truthfully. What else would you know?”

“Nothing else.” Velmeran placed his hand on the assassin’s
throat, and the sound of snapping bone filled the small, dark room. Lenna drew
back fearfully. She had never before seen death, certainly not given so
casually and received so eagerly.

Velmeran rose and indicated for her to precede him out the broken door. He
stepped outside just as Iyan arrived, stepping through the small crowd that had
gathered at a cautious distance.

“You again?” he asked wearily.

“It was a Kuari assassin,” Lenna told him, still pale and shaken
from what she had witnessed.

Iyan rolled his eyes and muttered some colorful local obscenity before
looking at Velmeran. “And you shot him?”

“Self-protection,” the Starwolf offered calmly.

Makayen frowned and shook his head slowly, like a superior reluctantly
conferring a deserved punishment. “What am I going to do with you?”

Velmeran regarded him questioningly. “You are not going to do anything
except mind your own business. Under no circumstances are you to presume
any authority over a Starwolf.”

Makayen drew back in alarm, suddenly aware that he was indeed asking for
trouble. But Lenna, predictably, would not let the matter rest.

“Oh, come off it, Iyan,” she said indignantly. “That
assassin was here to get Allon Makvenna. Said so himself. So you should be glad
he got distracted with our friend here.”

“Then I suppose he deserves our heartfelt gratitude,” her
brother said sarcastically.

“Sure, and I suppose you’d have been happier if he had gone
ahead and shot old man Makvenna?” She demanded in return. “Then
you’d have a nice crime to solve, and everything would be as it should
be.”

Iyan opened his mouth to protest, then noticed the Starwolf watching them
both in a mildly amused manner, like a tolerant parent watching two children.
He closed his mouth and smiled. “You’ll have to excuse me, but
it’s my sister I’m arguing with, not you. And I’m a terrible
one for wanting the last word.”

“If you will forgo the last word, I will gladly forget the entire
matter. And you,” Velmeran turned abruptly to Lenna, “will please
shut up and come with me.”

“Just be careful!” Iyan called after then as they made their way
through the small crowd that had gathered at a respectable distance. The medics
had just arrived, effectively breaking up the congregation.

Lenna cringed. “Damn! He had the last word after all.”

Now that they were beyond the small crowd, Velmeran quietly returned his
guns to his belt and folded his lower arms behind his cape, retreating into his
assumed role. Lenna, observing him, tucked her own gun back inside her
jacket. Then the delayed shock caught up with her. She wavered, pale and
shaken, and paused to lean against a heavy wooden post.

“Great Spirit of Space, you shot him,” she muttered uncertainly.
“You shot him and you broke his neck.”

“A moment later he would have been shooting at us,” Velmeran
said gently, as if that was supposed to have been reassuring. To a Starwolf
it would have been, but somehow Lenna did not quite see it that way. She stared
at him in disbelief.

“I don’t even want to think about that!” she declared, and
closed her eyes as she trembled at the thought. She blinked and looked at him
again. “You. You have no regrets.”

“Of course I regret,” he insisted. “I regret every life
that is lost, whether I had any part in it or not. But that is the way life is,
and I do what I have to do.”

“Sergei, he was only a boy.”

“So am I. But he would have shot me in the back and been pleased with
himself for doing so. At least I am not pleased with myself for what I
did.” He paused, frowning. “Lenna, you know what I am. I make a
career of shooting warships and freighters, and most of the time I do not think
that there are lives – innocent lives – on those ships. Later, when
I do think about it, I regret what I have done. I have killed twice today, and
for once I have the reassurance of knowing that the lives I took were not
innocent. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Lenna shrugged without looking up. In truth, not a word of what he said made
a bit of sense to her, although she could tell that it sounded perfectly
reasonable to him. Just as her thoughts had earlier been alien to him, now his
own thoughts were alien to her. But he was alien, she reminded herself, a
member of a race designed for war, with their own thoughts and emotions that
kept the peace between their conscience and their duty as warriors. Even if she
could not follow his exact reasoning, she did understand the greater intent of
what he was trying to tell her. At least he did have firm, logical reasons for
his actions, even if his reasons were outside her comprehension. And she could
trust him.

“Sorry about that,” she said, needlessly straightening her clothes.
“You’ve been brought up to it, I suppose. But I’ve never seen
anything like that before, and it hit me all of a sudden. I’m fine now,
though. Are you ready to go on?”

“You do not object to my company?” Velmeran asked.

“And why should I, now?” she asked in return. “I knew that
you were something different from the start, and I was beginning to catch
on near the end. I would have caught on sooner, I think, if I hadn’t been
so busy making you out what I wanted you to be.”

“I never meant to deceive you,” he said dejectedly. “I
just thought...”

“So did I,” Lenna agreed, and looked at him in desperation.
“Sergei, you cannot leave me. I...”

Velmeran silenced her quickly. “Do not say that. You know that it is
not the truth, however hard you try to convince yourself of it. You do not
love me, and I certainly do not love you. You are a friend, a casual
acquaintance I have met on port leave. And that is all.”

“You already have someone of your own, don’t you?” she
demanded, almost accusingly.

“Yes, I do have a mate. Her name is Consherra. She is the
Methryn’s helm and first officer, and she has a temper nearly as sharp
and quick as your own. And she also has all the love I have to give.”

Lenna made a rude noise. “Sure, and that’s all the happiness
that you could want. But where does that leave me?”

Velmeran took her chin in his hand, his irresistible strength forcing her to
look up at him. “Tomorrow morning I will be gone, I am sure of that now.
But I have made you a promise, that I will find you a ship as soon as I can.
Trust me?”

Lenna smiled reluctantly. “It’s hard not to. But I’d
rather be a Starwolf.”

Ten packs of Starwolf fighters were closing quickly on their target, the
Union invasion force above Tryalna. Behind them cruised the vast, menacing
shape of their carrier, three kilometers of sleek, powerful fighting ship.
And the Union forces appeared to be waiting for them. Their handful of
warships pulled back instantly, not in retreat but to assume a battle
formation.

Schayressa Kalvyn did not like what she saw. Something about that quick
defense made her suspect that the Unioners had been waiting for her. Surely
they should have expected Starwolves to come sooner or later. But it
seemed almost that their attack on Tryalna had been a ruse, that their real
objective was to fight her. And that simply made no sense. Something else that
was not normal was that armored battle station that sat parked in remote orbit.
It was far larger than anything she had ever seen, heavy with armor and
cannons, and that made her very uneasy. At least it was slow enough to be
harmless.

“Is anything wrong?” Commander Tryn asked. He could always tell
when Schayressa was worried by the furtive movements of her camera pod.

“I do not like it,” she answered. “Too many things simply
are not quite as they should be.”

“Is it that battle station?” Tryn asked.

“What do you think?” the ship asked in return. “That thing
is five times larger than any mobile battle station I have ever seen. What are
they doing with something like that?”

“They mean to hold on to Tryalna whatever the cost. If this world goes
free, five more will revolt in the coming month. Their entire forced sterility
program will face a major setback.”

“Which is why we have to make sure that Tryalna stays free,”
Schayressa agreed. “Still, I do not like that machine. I am going to
check it out.”

She changed course abruptly to intercept the thing. She would not willingly
call it a ship. At twenty-five kilometers in length and wider than she was
long, it was by far the largest machine she had ever seen moving under its own
power. She had seen mobile stations before, but nothing this big. It was
certainly the first thing she had seen in a long time that made her feel
dainty. Her intention was to come close enough for a thorough scan, then
proceed to blow it to bits.

“We are going to full battle alert,” she announced over
inter-ship com. “Everyone to your stations. Stand by your monitors and
manual controls. We will be coming into firing range in less than a
minute.”

“Does it worry you that much?” Tryan asked.

Schayressa brought her camera pod around to the upper bridge. “I can
see from here that it has the shields and cannons of a planetary defense
system. There is certainly going to be a fight.”

“Bad?”

“Well, I am going to prime my conversion cannon, just in case.”

Commander Tryn stared at her in surprise. “If it worries you that
much, then leave it alone. Break off.”

“I cannot,” she answered. “If that thing is a mobile
planetary defense system, it might take half the wolf fleet to crack that nut
once they get it into operation.”

“Then we have no choice,” the Commander agreed reluctantly.
He had been a first-rate fighter for most of his three hundred and ten years, a
fearsome pilot and pack leader and the best strategist in the fleet... at least
until Velmeran had come along. But he did not like unknowns, and he thoroughly
disliked anything that made his ship nervous.

Schayressa banked sharply as she came into good scanning range, dropping
down nearly to the plodding crawl of her target as she began a careful scan.
What she saw surprised and frightened her. But still she held on, probing
every bolt and circuit of that ship. For it was indeed a ship, a fighting ship
the likes of which she had never seen.

“Commander!” Keldryn, the helm, warned suddenly.

“I see it,” Schayressa answered. Her power sensors leaped off
the scale as the immense ship engaged its drives and threw up its shields.
Schayressa brought up her own battle shields and targeted her largest cannons.

In the next instant she was under fire. A steady barrage of bolts centered
on the Starwolf carrier with deadly accuracy, deflecting off the battle
shields with a sound like hailstones ringing against the hull. Occasional
shots penetrated the shields to skip off the gentle curve of the armored hull,
sounding like strikes even though the bolts deflected harmlessly. Then one shot
hit at just the right attitude, biting into the thick armor. The achronic
carrier beam discharged its full load of raw energy and superheated metal
exploded. It was a minute tear against the vast, featureless expanse of the
armored upper hull, but it was only the first of many scores.

Schayressa Kalvyn fought back fiercely. Her own cannons were more accurate
and slightly more powerful, but she had only ten against thousands. And yet her
shots were deflected harmlessly by the hull of the giant warship. One of her
shots struck an unarmored section of a turret and the entire upper portion of
the gun exploded. Clued by that, she set her targeting computers to concentrate
on the Fortress’s guns, the only part of the ship she seemed able to
damage.