Tactical Error

The Crew Of The Methryn

Velmeran:
The Methryn’s captain,
although called by the Star-wolf title of Commander. (Captain is the formal
title for a pack leader.)

Valthyrra:
The persona of the Methryn’s sentient computer
system. Although the ship itself is simply the Methryn, she is often referred
to as Valthyrra Methryn.

Consherra:
The Methryn’s first officer and Helm, she is the
ship’s second in command. She is older than Velmeran by several years,
and served in the same position before he became Commander.

Venn Keflyn:
A non-humanoid alien, a Valtrytian of Altrys, who has
been an advisor aboard the Methryn for the past two decades.

Keflyn:
The daughter of Velmeran and Consherra, and named after Venn
Keflyn. She is young, twenty years of age, and a very capable pilot in
Baressa’s pack.

Baressa:
A senior pack leader, she was a teacher and supporter of
Velmeran’s when he was younger.

Baress:
A member (male) of Velmeran’s special tactics team.

Tresha:
The Methryn’s (female) chief engineer.

Dyenlayk:
The Methryn’s (female) chief medic.

Cargin:
The Methryn’s Weapons Officer, his main weapon console
is adjacent to Consherra’s helm station.

Larenta:
The Officer (female) at the Methryn’s scanner station.

Korlaran:
The Methryn’s (female) Communications Officer.

Other Starwolves

Tregloran:
The Commander of the Vardon, and
a former student of Velmeran’s.

Theralda Vardon:
The sentient computer system of the Vardon.

Maeken Kea:
A Starwolf spy, although she is not herself a Kelvessan
but the sterile offspring of the mating of a true human and a female of Trader
stock, now a separate species adapted for the stresses of spaceflight. She has
been with the Starwolves for twenty years, having come aboard the Methryn as a
stowaway. She has lately been aboard the Vardon with her Starwolf mate
Tregloran.

Bill:
A sentry automation of Union construction and
‘reformed’ by Velmeran for Lenna Makayen’s use as a spy. In
form he is white and heavily armored, with a large main hull on four long legs,
no arms, and a small head. He seems to possess a crude personality, although
his actual sentience is limited.

Quendari Valcyr:
One of the first Starwolf carriers, she was lost
testing an experimental jump drive, and has been locked within a continental
glacier on Terra for thousands of years.

Denna:
The Vardon’s First Officer (female).

Daelyn:
Commander of the Karvand, and Velmeran’s older
half-sister.

The Republic

Admiral Laroose:
The elder commander of the
Republic’s military concerns, he is in theory Velmeran’s superior
but has deferred to the Starwolf’s leadership for twenty years. His
former title (in the previous story) was that of Fleet Commander, a title that
Velmeran now holds.

The Traitors

Alac Delike:
The President of the Republic,
a weak and fearful man.

Arlon Saith:
First Senator, therefore the elected leader for the
Republic Senate.

Marten Alberes:
Party Chairman, leader of the political party that
now controls the Republic Senate.

The Union

Donalt Trace:
Sector Commander of the Rane
Sector and now High Commander of the Combined Union Fleet, his specific duty is
to destroy the Starwolves.

Maeken Kea: A
shrewd Union Captain (female) and now Trace’s
assistant.

Richart Lake:
Councilor (political leader) of the Rane Sector, and
Donalt Trace’s cousin.

Barg: A
security guard on the ice planet.

Salgey: A
security guard on the ice planet.

Others

lyan Makayen:
Lenna’s full-human
half-brother, he is a constable on the independent colony of Kanis.

Jon Addesin:
Captain of the Free Trader tramp freighter
Thermopylae
;
which serves the Feldenneh colony on Alzmedz.

Derrighan:
A Feldennye of a feral, vaguely humanoid race. The
shipping master of the Feldenneh colony, and a secret representative of his
government.

Kalmedhae:
The elder leader of the Feldenneh colony.

The freighter slipped smoothly out of starflight well short of its target,
coasting into system at high speed. It was small for an interstellar cargo
craft, well under a hundred meters in length, looking more like a large tender
used to offload the immense bulk freighters than a starship in its own right.
Four main drives were tucked tightly within the fixed inner portion of its
variable-geometry wings, now swept full back for flight, while a deceptively
small but powerful stardrive was fitted neatly between the twin stabilizers of
its tail.

Swift and powerful, the ship was in fact the commercial variant of a
successful but antiquated missile carrier. And as such, it was the first cousin
of the freighter that Lenna Makayen had flown before she had left Kalennes to
join the Starwolves, the major difference being that her ship had not been
fitted with a stardrive. Sitting in the jump seat behind the pilot, she found
everything about this little ship refreshingly familiar. Perhaps surprisingly
familiar might have been a better phrase, since she had not seen that freighter
of her’s in twenty years.

The years had passed swiftly; they had been so busy, but it had still been a
long time. Starwolves never seemed to age, but she knew that she had. She was a
long way from being old, still in her mid-forties, but she was no longer young.
The crushing G’s that were an unavoidable part of their environment were
no longer quite so easy to take, and it was sometimes a little hard to get out
of bed in a ship where the temperature was kept as brisk as an autumn morning
for the comfort of its rightful inhabitant. Her remaining years with the
Starwolves were already numbered, so it was not too soon to think about what she
would do with herself after her retirement. She had been with them two decades,
and no one had said a word about pensions.

Lenna was herself the sterile offspring of a Terran descendant and a Trader,
a separate species that had evolved slowly from human stock during their long
adaptation to the crushing stresses of spaceflight. But as quick and strong as
she was, she could not begin to match the tremendous power and durability of
the Kelvessan, that space-faring race known as the Starwolves. Theirs was
an entirely artificial biochemistry, able to endure the flesh-ripping
accelerations of their swift fighters and carriers, possessing speed-of-light
reflexes and the strength to function under crushing G’s. Hers was only
nature’s best mimicry of their artificial perfection.

The Starwolves had been created in the depths of time five hundred centuries
before, as the last, desperate attempt of the fading Terran Republic to resist
the tyrannical conquests of the Union. And after all that time, both they and
their ancient war still existed, the Starwolves winning every battle, but
lacking the independent initiative to pursue the war to its conclusion. The
Starwolves had themselves been evolving with time, only now achieving the
self-possession to determine their own future plans, and the first thing they
desired was an end to this long, pointless war.

It seemed that both sides were equally determined to have a final end to
this long conflict. The Union was dying, ravaged from within by genetic
deterioration. It had its own brutal plan to save themselves, but they first
had to be rid of the distraction of the Starwolves. The last battle had begun,
and Lenna had been a part of it from the first when she had been a stowaway on
the carrier Methryn. She had stayed on as their expert spy, able to go places
where their elfin faces and double sets of arms would betray them immediately
for what they were.

But now times had changed, and the old days were gone forever. She had left
the Methryn over a year earlier, having decided to stay with her mate Tregloran
when he had gone over to be the captain of the newly-built Vardon, leaving
Velmeran and Consherra and all of her old friends. She thought that she would
still be seeing enough of them, considering how closely the two ships would
surely be working together. Tregloran was himself no longer the eager, awkward
boy she had first met, but the calm, rational leader he had been trained to
become, in most ways a lesser copy of Velmeran himself. It was hard enough to
have a relationship with someone of a completely different species, although
people in every sense of the word had been doing that for a very long time.
Part of the problem was in having a mate who was still very young, while she
watched her comparatively short time slipping by.

Lenna looked up, checking their approach on the scan monitor. The ship was
making a secret approach, dropping out of starflight well short of its
destination, then coasting in at high speed, braking gradually only near the
end of its run. As an atmospheric-capable missile carrier, the aging ship did
possess rather antiquated stealth capabilities, at least as far as Union
technology had been capable of achieving. Certainly it lacked the ability to
cloak like the big Starwolf carriers. They could not hope to remain undetected
all the way in, but this tactic might allow them to get fairly close. Then they
would break for a rapid dash in, accomplish their mission, and retreat as fast
as that small but spirited stardrive would carry them.

“There’s a lot of natural debris in this system,” the
captain offered, glancing at her over the back of his seat. “We could
still swing back out and hide ourselves, in case you need us.”

Lenna shook her head firmly. “They would know that you hadn’t
left and that would put them on their guard. Besides, they’re subtle, I
can tell you, waiting to pounce on you when you least suspect.”

He shrugged. “I just want it understood that we’re willing to do
that for you, if it would help. You’re a long way from home, and no one
has told me how you plan to get out again.”

“No?” Lenna was surprised; security dictated that outsiders,
even these allies, should know as little as possible of secret missions. But
things had gone a little too far. “Bill has an achronic transceiver all
his own. Once we discover what we’re after, we’ll call in the
Starwolves to take care of things.”

Lenna did not really care to talk about a coming mission this late in the
game. She knew the plan already, but even after all these years she was still
subject to stage fright. Things had been much easier when she had only worked
alone or with Starwolves, but that had not lasted long.

The Union was losing its internal battle of control; it’s bold but
wholely unnecessary program of mass sterilization had been predictably very
unpopular. More and more colonies and impoverished fringe worlds were turning
to the Starwolves to support their dangerous bids for independence. In the past
ten years, a broad underground network of rebellious spies and quiet saboteurs
had extended deeply into even the inner worlds.

This little freighter had been called up just for her use from the
underground; she had been working with their people quite a lot over the past
few years. Most often she pretended to be one of them, hiding her association
with the Starwolves. Rebels were occasionally caught, and she did not want the
Union to learn that the Starwolves were using a spy who actually lived and
worked with them. A large part of her unique advantage was that no one had ever
expected her existence, more than human but less than Kelvessan and well able
to live with either race. Even the two crewmembers of this little ship had no
idea of her name or past, just as she knew nothing about them.

As often as she had been through this before, she still worried about these
two. While she might be going into a secret enemy stronghold, it was possible
they had the more dangerous part. They had to get in close enough to put her
and Bill overboard and then disguise that landing by drawing attention to
themselves, leading the inevitable attack away by staying out of starflight
until the last possible moment. Only a stingship could follow this swift
freighter into starflight; at least they did not have to worry about those
vicious ships, which lacked the support of a local orbital base.

Of course, the Union was far from defeated, having made strong gains of its
own. The worlds it had lost were not missed, for the most part. It had been
more a case of trimming the fat, minor distractions that had been turned into
major liabilities for the Starwolves to protect. The consolidation of their
military command under Donalt Trace had been tremendously beneficial to their
defensive efficiency, and the new fleet of Fortresses was a threat even the
Starwolves had to consider. There were now twenty-five of the immense ships,
two more than the current number of operational Starwolf carriers, and
Trace was bringing them into the fleet at the rate of just over one a year.