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including
the really good ones he had learned from his mother. But the matter was decided
for him; he reversed course, and the two fighters joined him.
    "Keth, there is a drone on your ship," Velmeran called back while
he could. "We will come to get you."
    "Do not worry about me," the older pilot replied. "They want
me alive, so I am in no danger. You just keep those kids out of trouble. Tell
the Commander that I'm sorry."
    Their com link faded as the carrier moved out of range, screaming out of the
system at her best speed. The tiny drone followed it at a discreet distance,
silent and unobserved.

-3-
    The odds were worse than ever, just three fighters against fifteen warships
and two score stingships. Velmeran had no idea who the third member of his
group was; he hoped that it was one of Baressa's pilots and not his own. He had
to overtake that second fleet and stop it short; if it caught up with the first
group, his students, now tired and quickly reaching the limits of their
endurance, would be outnumbered and vulnerable. There were enough stingships
with this second group to be effective, especially against pilots who might be
growing inattentive and careless.
    "Valthyrra Methryn, do you have packs out yet?" he asked a final
time.
    "Two packs just moved into starflight and can reenforce your
pilots in perhaps two minutes," Valthyrra responded. "Another
two packs can be there within another minute."
    "Listen. I am going to try to get this second group of warships out of
starflight before they join the first," Velmeran explained quickly.
"We will have a greater advantage if we can keep them apart. Send
these two packs to reenforce me. Send the next two to relieve the packs already
in battle."
    "Anything you say," she agreed. "Meran, that first group is
driving directly at me."
    "Do you prefer to reenforce the pilots there and stop it?"
    "No, I can fend for myself if anything comes through. I need the
practice. Barman. Shayrn. Take your packs and reenforce Velmeran's
position."
    "We are on it," Barman agreed.
    On board the Methryn, Valthyrra moved the standby alert up to full battle
alert. Crewmembers looked up apprehensively from their stations or paused
in her corridors, awaiting orders. The Methryn had not gone into battle in many
long years, for most not even in their lifetimes. They had played out this
alert in test runs so often that the reality was something of a shock. But the
ship was to be protected at any cost and no one dared to cross a Starwolf
carrier. And yet for some, those who tended the machines or sorted supplies or
taught the young, it was the first time in many years that they had felt like
real Starwolves.
    "All crewmembers stand by," Valthyrra announced through her maze
of corridors and many decks. "This is a class one battle alert. All
on-duty personnel to their posts. All damage control parties stand by. All
nonactive personnel will remove to the inner sections."
    "That second fleet just left starflight to fight," Velmeran
reported. "We need reenforcements. Baressa and I are up to our... necks in
stingships."
    "You can have two packs in two minutes," she assured him.
"Can you hold on?"
    "Do we have any choice?"
    "No," Valthyrra said. "We will have matters well in hand
shortly."
    Velmeran paid her excuses little mind. He was getting tired of excuses, and
at the moment he was too busy to care. He had not exaggerated; three fighters
among all those stingships were simply too few targets for too many guns.
Stingship cannons were powerful but slow to fix on target. By keeping close in,
they were not allowed the time they needed to get off a good shot. Indeed, the
stingships had to be careful to avoid shooting or even ramming each other.
    The two packs had been left to their own designs for several minutes now,
and they were finally bringing their own part to an end. Of the original fleet
there remained only a battleship and two destroyers as well as several tenders
and transports, themselves no threat but