Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Tactical Error

After Lenna’s dramatic posturings, they had expected the worst. Velmeran felt oddly disappointed, if this was supposed to represent the end of civilization as they knew it. It looked, for all practical purposes, to be only a copy of a Starwolf fighter, slightly larger with more massive engine housings under its wings and a larger stardrive, the same dull, nonreflective black. To Velmeran, it all came back to that same old problem that the Union had always faced. No human pilot had the reflexes to match the enhanced abilities of the Starwolves, and the Union had never possessed the genetic technology to engineer pilots of their own, nor could they build computer control systems that could outfly a Starwolf.

He frowned mightily. “Lenna Makayen, pull down your pants to give me an unobstructed target and bend over. I am going to kick you all the way to Vannkani, and you can tell Donalt Trace personally that it will not work.”

Lenna looked extremely hurt. “Trust me to know my business better than that, Commander. This is just another tool, the fighters that go with that big new carrier. The real secret weapon is already gone, and you’ll not be finding any examples of the art lying about this place just waiting to make your acquaintance.”

She turned and stalked off toward one side of the chamber, leaving both Velmeran and Venn Keflyn to hurry after her.

“Then what in the name of the great Spirit of Space is it?” he demanded.

“Donalt Trace figured it out all for himself twenty years ago. What in all the universe is the only thing that can fly and fight and think as good and as quick as a Starwolf?”

In answer to her own question, she pulled open the double doors of a metal cabinet standing against the wall just inside the room. Inside, hanging on its rack, was an armored suit very much like that worn by the Starwolves. Most importantly, it had the same double set of arms.

“Oh, so there have been Kelvessan here!” Venn Keflyn exclaimed with surprise and tremendous delight for solving that mystery. Then, realizing what she had said, she glanced over at Velmeran very contritely, her large ears laid back. “You know, it might very well be the end of civilization as we know it.”

“Bill was able to get these figures for us,” Lenna said as she began spreading papers across the table in the training room. “The Union has all sixteen of their Mock Starwolf carriers in operation. Each carrier has the capabilities of carrying 1,000 fighters. At the moment, of course, they have only about 200 pilots to each ship, making a total of some 3,350 pilots. The Starwolves, of course, have some 5,000 trained pilots, so you are ahead of them there. Now the Union refers to their Mock Starwolf carriers as Special Assault Cruisers. The ships are about a third the size and weight of a ship like the Methryn, about as heavily armed and armored. They are slower in starflight, and of course they have no jump drives. But there are indications that they are just a bit faster and more maneuverable than your carriers. They don’t have conversion cannons, but they do carry a much larger array of conventional, nuclear, and conversion warheads in starflight-capable missiles.”

“I suppose that they have no sentient computer control,” Velmeran dared to ask, wondering just how many surprises he was in for this day.

“They have the same semi-sentient computer complexes used in the Fortresses,” she answered. “Of course, the Mock Starwolves take complete control over their ships during battle. The Mock Starwolves and their carriers are designed to work, at least in major battles, as the perfect complement to the Union’s Fortresses.”

“Where did Donalt Trace get Kelvessan of his own?” Venn Keflyn asked.

“They all came from Commander Velmeran,” Lenna responded.

The Valtrytian twitched her ears with surprise, and turned to look at him. “My, but you have been busy.”

“Well, more specifically, they all came from the genetic material from that hand that Trace got from the Commander more than twenty years ago,” Lenna explained. “Rather than just endlessly cloning perfect replicas of Commander Velmeran, they decoded the genetic material to the best of their abilities to clone new individuals with a relatively wide area of genetic variations. There are more than ten thousand in all, about evenly male and female, and no two are exactly alike.”

Velmeran frowned. “How very convenient for them.”

Lenna nodded. “To make matters even more interesting, while they might be Mock Starwolves, they are real Kelvessan. They are beginning to successfully reproduce among themselves, and they could just as easily reproduce with other Kelvessan.”

Velmeran stood for a moment, staring at the diagrams of the Mock Starwolf cruiser. He had to admit that the ship did have its virtues. It possessed all of the advantages of the Starwolf Carriers, in a package more dedicated to the role of fighting ship, patrol cruiser, and scout. Over a third of a Carrier’s interior space was devoted to massive bays and cargo holds. By deleting much of that empty space and by carrying a smaller and less specialized fleet of support vessels, the cruisers were a third the size of a Carrier, but with engines and generators that were only half as large. In comparative scale, the Cruiser had the potential of being the faster, more maneuverable, and more efficient fighting ship. At least it also possessed the handicap of Union technology.

But just how much a threat were ten thousand Mock Starwolves in sixteen Cruisers? He had fifty thousand Starwolves or more in twenty-three Carriers. The answer, unfortunately, was hardly that simple. He might have twenty-three superior ships, but they were spread over a vast area of space. If sixteen Cruisers came all at once against a single Carrier, or even two or three, then he did not doubt he would lose ships.

Life just became much more complicated, and it was up to him to find the best possible answer in a hurry. What were his priorities? Did he call in Starwolf Carriers from their patrols, where they were needed to protect the small, independent worlds from Union expansion, so that they could hunt the false Starwolves in powerful packs? He also needed those Carriers behind him when he returned to Alkayja to force the resignation of the present government and save the Kelvessan from slavery and extermination. And where were those Mock Starwolves right now? Were they coming up behind the Methryn at that very moment?

“What manner of control is Donalt Trace using against his Starwolves?” he asked after a long moment.

“The most subtle and cunning,” Lenna answered, her voice hard and angry. “I suppose that he never completely trusted his ability to just order them around like machines, as much as he might have wanted. No, he brought them up with a lifetime of instruction to believe that they are the true Starwolves, created by the noble Union to finally destroy a band of renegade genetic mutants released by a vile, alien enemy during an ancient war. The only way to control Kelvessan, actually. You just encourage them to believe that they are doing the right thing. Like Trace has done, you give them their freedom and then ask them to help you. As a gesture of his supreme and benevolent trust in them, his Mock Starwolves are answerable to no human commanders short of the Defense Council, and no humans ever go on board their ships. Autonomy of this nature does more than anything to encourage them to believe that they are on the side of right.”

“Commander?” Venn Keflyn asked gently. She had been watching him closely.

He looked up at her. “Your people created us, and then you set us free. It worked once before. It could work again.”

“No, the situation is very different,” she assured him. “Commander Trace must take many things for granted that we never did. He has to contend with the truth that he must hide from them. How can he set them free, yet hide the truth from them forever?”