Battle of the Ring Read online

  “As you were saying, Mr. Rachmaninoff?” she asked coolly.

  “Oh, you are a... here!” He thrust a gun into her hands. “Take this and stand guard.”

  “I have one of my own,” Lenna said, holding up a big Union service pistol, powerful enough to dent Starwolf armor. He stared in mild surprise, wondering where she had kept the thing hidden.

  He shrugged and turned toward the door, opening it cautiously. A young man, clearly an off-worlder, lay on the floor inside, panting in his pain. One bolt had discharged against his sternum, shattering his rib cage. The other had passed completely through his chest, just under his right shoulder. There was nothing remarkable about him, just a sandy-haired boy in his early twenties. A very businesslike gun in his right hand was the only thing to indicate his profession. Velmeran confiscated the gun, handing it to Lenna.

  “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.”

  -7-

  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.

  “Tryn, I cannot fight this thing,” she said, and paused a moment as a bolt struck almost directly overhead. “They are trying to hit my bridge, and they seem to have a fair idea where it is. And I cannot hurt them in return. That entire ship is covered by quartzite panels backed by a very firm shield.”

  “Break off!” he told her.

  “Not yet,” she said. “If nothing else. I have will work against this thing, I am going to give it my coversion cannon. I have already called back my packs to support me... damnation!”

  “What?” Tryn asked, perplexed.

  “Stingships! Wave upon wave of stingships. There must be a thousand in all, with battleships and destroyers closing from every direction. Val traron, have we wandered into a trap!”

  Another explosion rocked the entire ship. Tryn glanced around apprehensively, well aware that something major had been hit. “What was that?”

  “One of my forward engines,” Schayressa replied absently. “Prepare for firing. Keldryn, stand ready to take the helm.”

  Schayressa ceased firing as she readied her conversion cannon, opening the armored portal in the flattened hexagonal tube beneath her shock bumper. In the conversion chamber at the base of that tube, over half a kilometer back from the Kalvyn’s taper
ed nose, hundreds of liters of distilled water were being converted rapidly into energy, temporarily confined within heavy containment fields. Special field-projecting antennas dropped down to either side of the cannon’s muzzle, which glowed with the white-hot energy contained at its core.

  In the final seconds before firing, Schayressa centered the cannon by aiming herself at her target. At the same time the Fortress ceased firing and cut all acceleration as if calmly awaiting certain destruction. Then, even as the Kalvyn fired, the Challenger merged the full power of all her generators into the formation of a single defensive shield so powerful that it enveloped the entire ship in a solid white sphere. That devastating blast of raw energy from the conversion cannon struck the shield dead center... and was deflected harmlessly.

  From the Kalvyn’s point of view, that was not immediately apparent. For three full seconds she poured the power of a star against that glowing white shell. Seconds more passed as the glowing clouds of red, yellow, and blue dissipated and nothing could be seen. Then the Fortress emerged from that fiery mass, unharmed. The vast warship seemed to pause a moment to look around, then turned every gun it could on the Starwolf carrier.

  “Val traron de altrys caldarson!” Schayressa muttered in her surprise as bolts rang against her hull. After a moment she looked at her Commander. “Tryn, I am beaten. I am getting out of here as fast as I can.”

  Engaging her star drive momentarily, she jumped past the Fortress and out of range in a matter of seconds. Coasting at just sunlight, she made a slow retreat out of the system to give her fighters a chance to overtake her, still engaged with the hundreds of stingships that had already altered their course to follow. It was humiliating for a Starwolf carrier, beaten and battered, to turn and run, unprecedented in recent memory.