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She is not the property of either one
of you.”
    Both Velmeran and Valthyrra stared at her, looking too surprised to be hurt.
    “I know you both,” she continued sternly, glaring at Velmeran.
“You get so caught up in your schemes that you begin to give orders as if
you were in command of the entire Wolf fleet. While that ship of yours always
has been willing to try anything she can get away with, she has also acquired
some of your bad habits.”
    Velmeran shrugged helplessly with both sets of arms. “I am in
command of the entire Wolf Fleet.”
    “You can still be polite.”
    Valthyrra had tracked the main viewscreen around to observe the approach of
the other ship, and they looked up in time to see the almost breathless
approach of the Vardon, appearing suddenly under the ring and braking sharply
with her forward engines to pull to a sudden halt barely twice her own length
away. There was a certain amount of blatant showing off in such a maneuver,
although Valthyrra had to think that fifteen million tons of ship was a lot of
weight to throw around so casually for a machine that was still making her
trial flight.
    The Vardon advertised herself willingly as the new Starwolf supership. Her
hull employed a new type of armor, a silver-titanium fusion that could disperse
most direct cannon strikes in itself, but which could be infused with a
structural shield to become harder even than the heavy quartzite used by the
Union on their Fortresses. Because the ship was still under her trials, the
black polymer impact layer that gave other Starwolf ships their distinctive
appearance had not yet been installed. Her hull was still the bright silver of
the original metal, except for a wide border of black impact shielding around
the edges where her upper and lower hulls met along her lateral groove. There
had been some discussion of leaving her in that form, a clear warning of the
special threat she represented. She hardly needed that complete coat of impact
polymer.
    Although the Vardon was still the same size and shape as her older sisters,
she did possess some other subtle differences. She had six main drives in a
slightly larger housing under each of her short, slightly downs wept wings
rather than the usual four. Her stardrives were the same size as previous
ships, since she depended more upon her jump drive for interstellar distances,
and she was the first carrier to have twin conversion cannons, a pair of the
large muzzles protruding just slightly from beneath her nose.
    “She is a pretty thing,” Velmeran commented softly. He still
regretted the fact that other business had caused him to miss her launch.
    “Everything a ship could ever want to be,” Valthyrra agreed
wistfully.
    Velmeran glanced at her. “They have one just like that with your name
on it, waiting for you. It should be ready soon now.”
    “It would be nice, just to feel young again,” she replied
vaguely.
    Velmeran did not answer, knowing that she was tearing herself apart in the
duty he required of her, using the jump drive that was destroying her to keep
his schedule. He had wanted for her to transfer into this ship, let Theralda
wait for the one that would soon be coming out of her construction dock, but
the time for going home had never been convenient, and it had seemed more
important to have that twenty-third carrier in operation as soon as possible.
    “Could you find out if Tregloran wants to talk to me?” Velmeran
asked.
    “He is standing by already,” Valthyrra reported; she had already
been in private communication with the other ship. She moved her camera boom
closer. “I will put you through on my own pickup.”
    “Treg?” he asked, addressing the camera pod.
    “Tregloran here. We are ready to go to work, Commander.”
    Velmeran glanced at Consherra. “He still knows his master’s
voice. Treg, we will be coming over for a little talk.”
    “Do not trouble yourself, Commander. Theralda and I will come over to
the