Tactical Error (36 page)

Velmeran had never realized the hollow, pointless lives that all Kelvessan
were forced to lead. They were an entire race of people eternally waiting for
something they could not name to begin. The time had come for him to win this
war, so that they could be united in purpose rather than bound to the service
of need and duty, so that others could have the freedom they surrendered.
Sixteen new cruisers, once they were modified for Kelvessan technology and
their crews trained, would make all the difference.

He went to the Government Compound for the signing of the treaties of
surrender in the company of Admiral Laroose, who was standing in as
representative of the new Republic. With him went Commanders Tregloran and
Daelyn and also Jaeryn of the Avenger, so that he could see for himself what to
make of his choice. President Delike signed the papers reluctantly, still
accepting the weight of his duty enough to dislike the circumstances. Marten
Alberes and First Senator Saith only looked upon it as a tedious necessity.
They were already packed and ready to be taken to the ship that they had been
promised in exchange for their cooperation.

“This isn’t justice,” Laroose complained, glaring as he
watched Alberes put the final signature to the treaties. “If you ever
return to Republic space, you’ll answer to me.”

Alberes afforded him only a brief glance of contempt.

“We will keep the letter of our agreement,” Velmeran said as he
reached across the table to close the last of the portfolios that held the
treaties. Then he leaned back in his chair, watching the three traitors
closely. “You have just lost your jobs. Your authority ended when you
signed those papers. So, do you expect that the Union will show you the
gratitude you expect? They sent an invasion force to destroy you.”

“We have a certain bargaining force,” Saith explained.
“Since you are obliged to let us go, then I feel free to tell you. We
intend to sell out you Starwolves and your little Republic. I expect that the
Union will be very grateful for all the secrets we have to sell.”

“Yes, it had occurred to me that you would think of that
eventually,” Velmeran remarked, unconcerned. “Well, we should
detain you no longer. Here is the clearance ident to your ship’s
bay.”

He handed a small, yellow ident card across the table. Saith picked it up
and read the bay number on the front surface, then stared at the Starwolf in
disbelief. “But this is nearly halfway across the station and fifteen
levels down.”

“Yes, but we are not obliged to be convenient,” he answered.
“I suggest that you should go, before I have you thrown out.”

“Without an escort?” Alberes protested. “There is a crowd
out there just waiting to tear us apart.”

“Yes. Well, that is your own fault,” Velmeran said. “I
would like nothing better than to help, but I would hesitate to interfere in
your destiny. The letter of our agreement requires that I make a ship available
to you, not that I must get you to it safely. Of course, I would not want the
three of you to be torn apart in the halls of this ancient station. That would
set an unhappy precedence for the new Republic, much less make a terrible
mess.”

He took several small, red capsules from his pocket and tossed them to the
center of the table. “You have two, and only two, alternatives. You can
go to your rooms and take your little pills, or
you
can take your
chances with the crowd. You have no agreements with them, and they have already
expressed their intentions. But you must decide now.”

Velmeran played a brittle game with words, but his meaning was plain. He was
ordering these men to surrender themselves to a very sudden and unexpected
execution, and then to play the part of their own executioners. Alberes glanced
at the others, then reached out to take one of the red capsules and rose to
leave. Saith frowned as he considered his options a final time, then took a
capsule of his own and joined him. Delike only sat where he was, looking at
each of them in turn for support, confused and very frightened like a lost
child.

“Come along, old man,” Alberes told him. “We took the
chance. Now we have to pay the price.”

Delike took the final capsule and joined his companions, although his
shaking legs would hardly carry him. They left through a door in the back of
the room, accompanied by Starwolf pilots in black armor who would escort them
to their rooms. Even that was a bluff. If they could have found another way
out, Velmeran was required by his agreement to allow them to go.

“Pathetic creature,” Laroose muttered in disgust. “He
called me up a few hours before the battle began, all enthusiastic about this
great plan for how he would help me prove that the other two were the real
traitors and he was an honest man who had just been used. He believed that,
too. Of course, he also asked me to help them betray you to the Union attack
force. He said that the Starwolves were certain to lose anyway. I’m not
sure that he was entirely sane there at the end.”

Velmeran had been watching Jaeryn closely, wearing a rather bulky suit of
white and blue armor. The Mock Starwolves had been brought up in a very
controlled environment, designed to keep them innocent and biddable. They had
been very pleased with themselves after their secretive defection, but Jaeryn
had seen quite a lot in the past few hours and he was beginning to realize just
how naive they were. Velmeran was thinking about putting all sixteen of the
cruisers in the bays for modification right away, to give his ten thousand new
children a chance to grow up.

“I’m actually surprised that they did choose the pills over the
crowd in the end,” Laroose continued. “They were gamblers. They
should have chosen the almost non-existent chance of getting past the crowds
instead of no chance at all with the pills. Considering that I’m in the
company of Kelvessan, I’m almost embarrassed to use the word, but I am
given to wonder if they did still possess some small measure of human
dignity.”

“Nothing in life became them as well as the leaving of it,”
Tregloran quoted, then shrugged when Daelyn turned to stare at him.
“Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Another man who would be king.”

“Well, I have no wish to imitate Macbeth myself and take on more than
I can manage,” Velmeran said. “I am reminded that I now own an
interstellar empire, and I am responsible for it all by my little self. I
intend to turn the Republic over to new management as soon as possible.”

“What is it?” Velmeran asked as he hurried into Alkayja
Station’s command section. It was in form like the bridge of some immense
ship, circular in shape with viewscreens facing in from all directions to
provide a complete image, although many sections were devoted to magnified
images or scanner maps. Velmeran had been using the station’s various
command sections to conduct his business.

Laroose looked up from where he and the Watch Commander had been standing at
the bank of communication consoles. “Three ships coming rather sedately
into system, making themselves known well out. Scanners classify them as Union
cruisers. Our new Starwolves want to go out and exchange words with them.”

“Fighting words, I am sure,” Velmeran remarked. “Well,
they have done everything but wave a white flag. Are they willing to
talk?”

Laroose nodded. “Oh yes. Very quick to talk. They say that
they’re a diplomatic mission.”

“Is that so?”

“They want to talk to you. A Councilor Richart Lake, in particular. He
says that you once had dinner with his grandfather.”

Velmeran’s first thought was to wonder if this could be another trick.
Two more Starwolf carriers had arrived in the two days since the end of the
battle. With the formidable protection of the Starwolf cruisers at hand, he had
ordered the rest of the fleet to return to their patrols.

He still could not imagine how this could be a trick. Of course, it was also
hard to imagine why Richart Lake might have come himself. Jon Lake, his
grandfather and the previous Councilor for the Rane Sector, had been a very
different sort of man and one of the very few humans anywhere that Velmeran
respected. Jon Lake had been a politician with the heart of a philosopher.
Richart Lake was a businessman, and he made absolutely no mistake about it. He
treated his rule of the Rane Sector as a necessary evil and a distraction from
his proper management of Farstell Trade.

He nodded at last. “Let me talk to him.”

The Kelvessan at that communication console gave up her place to him, and he
seated himself before the main monitor. A channel was already open, held on
standby. He released the hold, and the monitor lit up.

“This is Commander Velmeran,” he said.

The image cleared. He had never met Richart Lake, either in person or by
visual communications. He was in appearance fairly unremarkable, quite unlike
the very distinctive, long faces or larger-than-life manners of both Donalt
Trace and Jon Lake. But he did reflect his unmutated Terran ancestry, an
obviously tall man with relatively heavy features.

“Yes, this is Richart Lake,” he said. “To state matters
directly, I have come to offer our surrender.”

Velmeran considered it good fortune that he was already sitting down.

“Let me state our position simply,” Lake continued. “We
have just given it our best, last effort. We have weighed all of the social,
political, and material benefits, and we have come to the conclusion that, from
this point on, we stand to gain more from surrendering than in continuing to
deal with you on our previous terms.”

Velmeran was speechless. Five hundred centuries of war, and it had been
decided in committee that it was no longer expedient. Richart Lake made it
sound more like a merger than a surrender. He realized immediately that he was
going to have to watch the negotiations very closely, or certain habitually
gullible Starwolves were going to give away more than they kept. And what did
unemployed Starwolves do, anyway? It was interesting to consider.

“Commander?” Laroose interrupted him quietly, indicating the
scan map on a side monitor. “We have a problem. A carrier just dropped
out of starflight and is coming up behind those cruisers in a hurry.”

“Which carrier?” Velmeran asked. They had waited for this for
five hundred centuries, and now some fool was going to put a bolt up its tail.

“Well, that’s the funny part,” he explained.
“She’s no known ship in the fleet. Her recognition code hails her
as the Valcyr.”

If Admiral Laroose did not recognize that name, Velmeran certainly did.
“The Valcyr disappeared a long time ago. Get me a channel to that
ship.”

He turned back to the main monitor. “Councilor Lake, we have a little
problem right now. I will have Admiral Laroose direct your ships to the proper
docking bays in the diplomatic compound. Now if you will excuse me, I have to
stop someone from blasting your ass.”

“Yes, by all means.”

Velmeran quickly switched to the second visual channel. The image of Richart
Lake faded, to be replaced a moment later by a face he knew well. For one
thing, it could have easily been his own. Of course, nearly a fourth of all the
Mock Starwolves had his face, mostly because they also had his genes.

“Hello, Commander,” Keflyn said. “We have come to the
rescue.”

“Keflyn?” She was the last person he had expected to see.
“You are too late. And please leave those cruisers alone. They have come
to surrender.”

“Oh. Right, Commander.”

“Is that really the Valcyr?” he asked. “Where did you find
it?”

Keflyn frowned as she considered that. “Well, that really is a very
long story.”

“What about Donalt Trace? He was on his way to destroy Terra with half
a dozen or so Fortresses.”

“Oh, he is dead. We destroyed those Fortresses.”

“All by your little selves?”

“Well, that is another long story.”

“You are an absolute mine of information,” Velmeran muttered.
“Will you please allow me to speak with the Valcyr’s
Commander?”

Keflyn looked embarrassed. “I seem to be the Commander of the Valcyr.
You see, I am the only one on board.”

Velmeran sat for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “You seem to be
looking at the matter very optimistically. You think that being the only one on
board leaves you in command. I cannot see how that makes you anything more than
a passenger.”

“Quendari Valcyr says that I am the Commander,” Keflyn insisted
stubbornly. “I get to sit in the chair and everything.”

“Very well, then, Commander Keflyn,” Velmeran declared.
“Put your ship in a docking bay and bring yourself to the diplomatic
quarters. I am a very busy person these days, but I will make time for a few
long stories.”

The arrival of the diplomatic convoy at Alkayja Station proceeded much more
amiably and quietly than anyone would have expected of such an historic event,
and one so long awaited. There were no bands playing, no proclamations or ranks
of Starwolves in dark armor. The three cruisers docked side by side in the bays
reserved for diplomatic vessels, as seldom as those came, and a small group of
visitors filed out into the wide promenade corridor to meet Velmeran,
Tregloran, and Jaeryn of the Starwolves, and the former Republic represented by
Laroose and the Station Commanders.

The Union delegation was something of a surprise, and larger than Velmeran
would have expected despite the presence of the three ships. The entire Union
High Council was present, the High Councilors of all eighteen Sectors, and
nearly half of the Sector Commanders as well. Even Maeken Kea was there as the
acting High Commander of the Combined Fleet. She was in curious ways like a
Starwolf herself, a diminutive woman of almost elfin features, quiet and
seemingly innocent in manner, yet deceptively cunning and deadly.

The Valcyr had moved in quickly and docked herself well ahead of the slow
Union cruisers. Keflyn had found Velmeran soon enough, and she related her long
stories as quickly as possible. When the Union delegation arrived later, Maeken
Kea took the news very hard. They had not known of the defeat of Commander
Trace’s assault force, since news could not have come quicker to them
than the Valcyr herself.