Thorarinn Gunnarsson - Tactical Error

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.

“Even Don suspected that the Starwolves would confound him in the end,” Maeken Kea said, as she stood with Velmeran and Councilor Lake after Keflyn related her story a second time. “I feel sorry for him, more than anything.”

“And yet he kept you in reserve, for this,” Velmeran said.

She shook her head firmly. “He never knew that the High Council meant to offer surrender if he failed. He honestly believed that, no matter how things turned out, he had put you at too many disadvantages for you to recover. Too many of the errors in tactics were his own.”

“We were lucky,” Velmeran told her. “He never expected the defection of his own Starwolves even before the battle began. And none of us expected the recovery of the Valcyr and her defeat of an entire Fortress fleet.”

He turned abruptly to Richart Lake. “Why do we not go for a short walk, just you and I?”

“What, now?” Lake was surprised, but obviously not reluctant to the idea.

“What better time?” Velmeran asked. “I am not a diplomat or a politician, yet I find myself the temporary ruler of an interstellar empire. You seem to be speaking on behalf of the Union. The things that we are about to decide have to serve hundreds of worlds for a very long time, so we have to get it right.”

Leaving the others to stare, they turned and walked slowly along the wide promenade deck, occasionally glancing out the wide bank of windows to one side. If Richart Lake had been taken by surprise by this remarkable approach to interstellar diplomacy, he also seemed quietly impressed. For his own part, Velmeran was beginning to suspect that there was more of the old Jon Lake in his grandson Richart than anyone had credited. “I am going to make a deal with you,” the Starwolf continued. “The first problem with such negotiations is that each side must figure out what the other wants, then work to some mutual agreement. That slows things down and adds too much opportunity for error. I am going to tell you what I want out of this, and you are going to tell me what you want.”