Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Tactical Error

“Scatter!” he ordered sharply. “Duck down any tunnel you can find. We will have to trust Valthyrra to find our way for us.”

He turned and headed down the nearest tunnel, hoping that a majority of the others would be able to follow either himself or each other into the same tunnel. Valthyrra would be able to scan a map of the tunnels and the locations of the ships themselves, directing them to a rendezvous. Then he would be able to put Venn Keflyn in the lead, using the greater power of the corvette’s weapons to clear a passage through any barrier.

“Commander, Donalt Trace has been calling for you for the past couple of minutes,” Valthyrra reported. “He wants to talk to you.”

“I happen to be very busy at the moment,” Velmeran answered impatiently. He also happened to be very frustrated.

“He says that he will let you go, if you just talk to him.”

“I wonder… as if I do not know,” Velmeran muttered to himself as he considered the situation furiously. It was not so much that they were at Trace’s mercy; they could force their way out. But Trace obviously had a secret that he wanted very much to share. He brought his fighter to a complete halt, hovering above the tracks. “Very well. Put him through.”

“You have a through channel,” Valthyrra reported.

“Ah, yes. Commander Velmeran. It’s been — what? — twenty years or so. It is so good to hear from you again.”

“Not many are that glad to see me,” Velmeran answered. “Then again, you did extend the invitation, did you not?”

“It was still very good of you to come. Will you speak with me on neutral ground?”

“Does such a thing exist in this place?”

“Relatively neutral ground,” Trace corrected himself. “The observation deck of landing bay twenty. I will be alone.”

“You will let the others go?”

“Do we have a private line?”

“You do now,” Valthyrra answered for him.

“Proceed forward at a moderate pace,” Trace instructed. “I will guide you, and also make arrangements to divert the others to an open bay. Whether or not they leave is entirely up to them, and being Starwolves they probably will not. But they are not invited to our little meeting.”

The tunnel lights came back up, illuminating a narrow access tube leading away into an indeterminate distance. Velmeran eased his fighter forward, accelerating to about half the speed that they had been maintaining through the tunnels. He knew that he was most likely heading into a trap, but he still had to go.

Commander Trace stood at the far end of the observation deck, its wide bank of windows looking out across a large bay that was dark and empty except for a single abandoned Starwolf fighter. Velmeran entered the observation deck cautiously, protected from harm by the heavy armor of the suit he wore, the black of the regular pilots rather than his usual white so that he would not be singled out. For the moment, he wore even his helmet, his gun belt strapped to his waist, until he was more certain of the peaceful intentions behind this meeting.

Donalt Trace was the largest human that Velmeran had ever met, still as tall and straight as the last time they had met two decades past. He was becoming an old man now, yet his appearance did not greatly convey that fact. The features of his face were heavier, his hair beginning to gray. Yet the years had given him a far greater presence than before, a maturity and experience that lent him a sense of tremendous nobility, and of danger. He seemed almost like a statue, larger than life, immobile and impervious to harm, and at the same time possessing the hidden tenseness of a tightly-coiled spring.

He had in many ways become the man he had wanted to be, merged with the worst that Velmeran had feared he would become.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “I am alone and unarmed. It suits my plans for the moment just to talk with you.”

“I wanted to be sure,” Velmeran said as he released the throat clips and removed his helmet.

Trace seemed even more surprised by the Kelvessan who stood before him, staring for a moment of open amazement before he mastered himself. “So, you have not changed at all. I knew logically that you would not. You Starwolves live for so long that twenty years out of your young life must be nothing to you. Yet seeing you here, looking exactly as you did then, it makes all of those years between us evaporate as if they had never been.”

“Talk to me, Trace,” Velmeran said. “Tell me what was so important that it required this. I have things to do.”

“Oh, I imagine that you do,” Trace said almost eagerly, taking a step forward. “Perhaps you do not yet know just how much you have to do.

“It’s all very simple, don’t you see,” Trace continued as he turned to look out the window, drawing his arms inside the long, heavy cape he wore. “We’ve made the same mistake since the start. We build some new weapon or invent some new tactic, and then we send it out against you to see if it will work. Often it does work, once or twice, but then you find some new way to deal with it and we are right back where we started. I’ve made that mistake with you a few times myself, but then I understood. I’ve learned to save my tricks for when they will do the most good.”

He glanced at Velmeran then, a pleased and knowing look like someone who has understood the magician’s tricks. “That was the answer, you see. I had always wondered how a handful of Starwolves could always defeat us, with all the vast resources and manpower that the Union has. That is because everything about you, the design of your ships and the way that you operate is designed for maximum efficiency, to be where you are needed and to be ready for anything on a moment’s notice. We’ve tried to beat you at your own game, and we always loose. I’ve tried to beat you at my game, and again I lose.

“So then I sat myself down and thought about it.” He paused a moment, and laughed to himself. “Hell, I was flat on my back, recovering from my last little meeting with you. But I had that hand of yours, you see. I had the ability to make Starwolves of my own. And I was determined that this time it was not going to be a simple exercise in futility, that this time I was not going to allow you the chance to find a way to defeat my newest weapon. I was going to save it until I could use it to the most good.”

He turned back to Velmeran, his voice becoming fierce and harsh. “That is the trick, you see. The way to defeat Starwolves, I realized, was to simply give them too much to handle all at once, more than they can manage. Then those petty bureaucrats from your Republic approached us secretly, wanting to talk peace. We never thought for a minute that the Starwolves would surrender under any terms short of their own, but the opportunity to make trouble for the great Commander Velmeran was too great. Oh yes, we would gladly have an honorable peace with the Republic, but those trouble-making Kelvessan would have to go. We demanded your surrender and elimination, or at the very least your exile from Republic support.”

He turned away, his arms crossed as he began to pace. It seemed that he was very obviously trying to maintain his distance from Velmeran, but not out of fear. “I got all I could have asked from those negotiations. Now the Starwolves are estranged from their own government, from their main source of maintenance and supplies. I’ve left you with enemies on both sides, in front as well as behind. And now I know the location of the home worlds of the Starwolves.”

He turned to Velmeran, standing behind the short desk to one side of the communications console, his powerful arms braced on its surface. His stance was dominating, almost predatory. “Where are the Mock Starwolves, Commander Velmeran? That question must be very much on your mind just now. They are on their way to Alkayja right now, in the company of ten Fortresses and a fleet of battleships and troop transports. Their mission is to destroy your great base and devastate all Republic worlds. The Starwolves will be exiles indeed, with no place to call home. No place to retreat for supplies and repairs as the Mock Starwolves begin to chase them out of the stars. And it is too late for you to do anything to stop it. In seven days, they are to attack.”