"So, Line," said D'Trelna as the admiral disappeared into the tropical twilight, "what do you think our chances are?"
Line spoke after a moment. "The situation is more complex than the admiral cares to believe," it said. "If all factors now in play are resolved in our favor, we will win. If even one of them is not resolved in our favor, we will lose."
"Wouldn't care to say what all those factors are, would you?" said the commodore, reaching for the decanter.
Beside him, the guide sphere vanished and twilight stood suspended. "Certainly," said Line, as D'Trelna poured himself another glass. "One. The captured battleglobe must reach AI space and foment revolt. Two. The Margrave of U'Tria must find S'Yal's last citadel and retrieve the recall device. Three. The last fleet of the House of S'Yal must be recalled from the stasis in which it's snared. Four. Combine T'Lan and all its minions must be destroyed, chaos or not. And five…"
"Five?" The commodore frowned, glass almost to his lips.
"Five," said Line. "The Emperor must return."
"You crazy bitch!" shouted N'Trol into the pickup. "You can't keep pushing her this hard-she'll overload, tear herself apart!" Behind him, in engineering, the high-pitched vibration of machinery at the breaking point filled the air.
"You really love this old hulk, don't you, Engineer?" said A'Tir with a vicious little smile. The smile vanished. "Final jump point by watchend or I start spacing your crew." The commscreen went blank.
N'Trol turned to his four engineering techs, standing behind him at the master panel, watching. "You heard her, lads," he said. "Let's do it." Glancing at the armed corsair pacing the catwalk above, he lowered his voice. "Now's our chance to do a little tinkering. Come look at the drive schematics-I'll show you what I mean."
"Line," said D'Trelna, setting down his empty glass. "What do you think of Admiral L'Guan?"
"A classic noble patriot-indeed, almost classical. He might have stepped out of some High Imperial epoch, battleflags snapping in the breeze behind him. His conduct during the Biofab War was beyond reproach."
"And now?" said the commodore, watching the waterfall.
"I fear," said Line after a moment, "that the admiral has been maneuvered into a position of seeming impotence. Wisely, he plays a waiting game."
"Seeming impotence?"
"The position of Line Duty officer is not quite the empty formality it seems, Commodore," said Line.
"What is it, then?" said D'Trelna.
"It's a potential, Commodore," said Line. "A potential awaiting just the right word."
"Standby to jump," said S'Yatan, watching the tacscan data thread across Dawn's main screen. Devastator hadn't moved, remaining off Terra as though nothing had happened.
L'Nar, the first officer, glanced at his complink. "Jump plotted and set. Engineering reports…" He stopped, staring at the small screen. "Captain, the jump coordinates have been changed!"
S'Yatan had turned from the screen. "I know. I changed them," he said.
"But this will take us away from K'Ronar, not toward it," protested L'Nar.
The entire bridge crew was watching, all uneasy at having disobeyed Captain P'Qal, uneasier still at the way the senior officers' conversation was going.
S'Yatan lowered his voice. "I've received special orders regarding this contingency."
"How?" said L'Nar. "Devastator took out the skipcomm buoy."
All eyes followed S'Yatan as he walked to where Dawn's first officer stood, beside the tactics station. "You will jump this ship, Mr. L'Nar," he said softly. "Or you will die."
"As soon as you answer my question, Captain," said L'Nar, folding his arms across his chest and looking resolutely into S'Yatan's cold blue eyes-a resolution that changed to shock as the captain's eyes turned a gaze-searing, fiery red.
"Yes, how did you get the message?" said a different voice. Ignoring the sudden shriek of an alarm and the rasp of blasters being drawn, an attractive blonde in a white jumpsuit stepped up to the two officers.
"S'Cotar," said S'Yatan, facing Guan-Sharick. "No wonder they didn't pursue." He turned to his crew who stood blasters leveled at the blonde. "That's a S'Cotar," he said, pointing. "A biofab. Shoot!"
L'Nar's eyes had only briefly left the captain's face. "AI," he said finally, hoarsely. "You're an AI combat droid." He drew his sidearm. "Where's the captain?"
"A long time dead, probably," said Guan-Sharick. Her gaze went from face to face. "As you'd all be killed the instant you made that jump to his waiting ship." A small pistol appeared in the S'Cotar's hand, pointed at S'Yatan. There was a triangular device set in the weapon's grip, a single blue eye set in each corner of it, two black parallel lines in its center.
S'Yatan stared at the weapon, then at the blonde. "Guan-Sharick," he said slowly. The AI shook his head. "Impossible. You're dust-a million years dead. I saw your ship blown apart in the Revolt, a dozen battleglobes reduce it to nothing."
"Time's been good to me, S'Yatan," said Guan-Sharick. "It won't be as good to you."
The alarm stopped its shrieking and the silence deepened as the crew looked on uncertainly, watching the strange tableau. "You call it, Commander L'Nar," said an engineering tech at last, eyes and blaster shifting between S'Yatan and the blonde.
"Reset jump coordinates for K'Ronar," said the first officer.
"Not necessary now," said Guan-Sharick, glancing left as the bridge doors opened, admitting John and Zahava. Crossing the deck, John placed a black, walnut-sized crystal in the blonde's outstretched palm. "Drive nexus," he said.
The crystal vanished, flicked elsewhere by Guan-Sharick. "You'll have to proceed back to Terra and await a replacement," said the S'Cotar.
"A diversion," said S'Yatan to the blonde.
"You were a diversion while your friends pulled my drive nexus!"
He fired, a stream of red bolts flashing from his eyes only to dissipate inches from that perfect blond hair.
Guan-Sharick squeezed the trigger, immobilizing the AI in an invisible field stasis that left S'Yatan a statue in the middle of Dawn's bridge.
"Where is it?" said the blonde, holstering her weapon and turning to L'Nar.
The first officer looked at S'Yatan for an instant, nodded curtly and went to the captain's station. Quickly keying a combination on the complink's touchpad, he watched as a small panel slid open on the console pedestal, then removed a square black cube. "What about him. .. it?" he said, handing the cube to Guan-Sharick.
"Put him somewhere and dust him occasionally," said the S'Cotar, pocketing the portal device. "He's in an irreversible stasis field, perceiving, thinking, but unable to move. Eventually, he'll go mad-in an endlessly looped, robotic way."
L'Nar looked at the AI-S'Yatan stared unblinking at where Guan-Sharick had stood, eyes still red with frozen flame. "How long will he…?"
The blonde looked at the young officer, her eyes blue and distant. "Till the stars wink out, Commander, and all matter's just an ethereal memory." Guan-Sharick smiled wearily. "And a better fate than he deserves.
"Luck to you, Commander L'Nar."
The S'Cotar and the Terrans were gone.
"Come," called A'Tir as the door chimed.
N'Trol stepped into what had been D'Trelna's old office.
"Yes?" said the corsair, looking up as the engineer crossed the carpet.
"We've entered the Ghost Quadrant and are proceeding on course toward the Rift," said N'Trol, stopping in front of the big traq desk and the deceptively small woman.
"So?" said A'Tir, returning to the desk's complink and the ship's status report. "You think I need a progress report from you to know where we are?" She looked toward the door, frowning. "Where's your escort?"
"Vigilantly guarding my cabin door," said N'Trol. "I used the ventilation and light conduits."
A'Tir pressed a commkey. "K'Lana, two crewmen to my quarters, please. They're to remain outside unless called."
She switched off at the acknowledgement.
"What do you
want, N'Trol?" said the corsair, leaning back in the big chair.
"May I?" He jerked his head toward the sofa.
A'Tir shrugged.
"You've cleared last jump point," said
N'Trol, sitting. "You're within sublight of some of the Empire's lost colonies-D'Lin, notably. You can gang-draft people there, run them through forced training. So even if you don't rescue K'Tran or anyone else, you can still crew this ship. I think you'd rather chance the inconvenience of impressing and training a bunch of groundies than risk our hatred just for our experience. Am I right?"
The corsair looked at N'Trol with new eyes, silent for a moment. "I keep underestimating you, Engineer. I used to think you were a brilliant, misanthropic technical officer. Yet you've held your men together, and now you've anticipated me."
She nodded. "Yes, I don't need you or your crew anymore. You're all going to take a short jump into hard vacuum at first watch."
N'Trol's face betrayed nothing. "I have a deal for you, Commander A'Tir," he said.
"Dead men don't deal, N'Trol," she said, reaching for the door switch.
N'Trol moved quickly, reaching across the desk to stop her hand as it touched the switch. "Spare my crew, and I'll get K'Tran back for you."
A'Tir looked at the blunt, competent fingers circling her wrist. "You have nice hands, Engineer," she said, brown eyes meeting his green ones. "Can you do something with them besides fix jump drives?"
"What did you have in mind?" said N'Trol, letting go and stepping back a pace.
A'Tir stood and nodded toward D'Trelna's bedroom, just the other side of the bulkhead. "I'll show you," she said and turned for the connecting door, unfastening her tunic as she walked.
"What about my deal?" said N'Trol, not moving.
"We'll discuss that while you work, Engineer," said the corsair. She turned to face him as the door hissed open. "Coming?" Her breasts were small, firm and tanned, with large, dark areolae, her belly hard and flat.
"I'm not a piece of meat, A'Tir."
She shook her head, smiling coldly. "You are what I say you are, N'Trol. And if you don't fix my problem, Engineer, we don't talk a deal."
N'Trol sighed. "I suppose I could look at your problem," he said, and followed her into the bedroom.
"D'Trelna's still asleep," said Line.
L'Guan nodded, staring out at K'Roponar, hands clasped behind his back. He stood in the asteroid's observation bubble, a small black pip on the jagged surface. Above him, K'Ronar rose, its eastern hemisphere turning to meet a new day.
L'Guan turned from the view. "Will you redeploy as prescribed in your prime directive?"
"Of course," said Line. "When so ordered by the Emperor in his capacity as Supreme Commander."
"There is no Emperor," said L'Guan. "He has no command. Just a comparative handful of us against a whole universe of AIs."
"Wrong," said Line as L'Guan, tired of the familiar exchange, stepped toward the lift.
The monument had no name. Time had wiped it from the memory of U'Tria as slowly and as inexorably as the stiff winter winds off the lake had rounded the obelisk's sharp edges. A weathered, silver shaft, it rose above the choppy night waters and its own dim, uncertain reflection, a testament to forgotten men and dead ideals.
The old man stood in front of the monument, looking out on the lake, then up at the Stalker, just rising in the west. Wrapping his thick winter cape tight against a sudden chill, he turned toward the monument and the village beyond.
"Blood moon," said a voice.
The old man froze for an instant, then turned. A man in Fleet uniform stood beneath the monument, the silver starship on his collar now reflecting the Stalker's ocher tint.
"My Lord Margrave," said the old man with a slight bow.
"Freeholder K'Sar," said L'Wrona, walking over to the other. "Long time." He held out his hand. "Well met, Freeholder."
The old man smiled a thin smile as he took L'Wrona's hand. "Well met, My Lord. I'd hoped you'd have been back long before now. We need you."
"War," said L'Wrona, looking at the monument. "It never ends. We defeated the S'Cotar, now it's the AIs, one the precursor to the other." He looked up at the stars, toward Quadrant Blue Nine. "The Rift has opened and they're coming."
"And you've nothing to stop them?" said the freeholder.
L'Wrona looked into eyes deep set beneath the high forehead, a face seamed by decades of care. "Millions of ships the size of the Stalker," he said. "All coming our way, backed by millennia of carefully nurtured hate. We're held responsible, it seems, for all the AIs' failures since…"
"Since the Revolt," said K'Sar.
L'Wrona looked at him, startled. "I thought only the AIs retained that bit of history. Or do you still have friends in FleetOps?"
An even stronger wind buffeted them from the lake, sending leaves swirling around the monument. K'Sar hooked his arm through L'Wrona's. "Walk me home, H'Nar. I promise you a good meal, a better brandy and a warm fire."
A few moments and they were crossing the village plaza. What L'Wrona recalled as a bustling marketplace was now a row of gutted shops, their windows smashed, broken glass and congealed duraplast puddling the scorched paving stones. Fires flickered among the ruins, people huddling around them, silently eating from Fleet survival packs, not bothering to look as freeholder and margrave walked by.
"What happened here?" asked L'Wrona.
K'Sar shrugged. "The usual. When what was left of the Fleet fell back and the S'Cotar landed, we fought… we lost. Then they started conscription, brain wiping about a third of the survivors down to automaton level, using them to produce war goods in retooled factories. Now the S'Cotar are gone, and we're left with the ruins-physical, mental, spiritual. Fleet does what it can, but there are so many worlds in need…"
They reached the little stream whose venerable old bridge was now just a heap of hand-tooled masonry. Someone-Fleet engineers, Planetary Guard-had thrown a field span across it, twenty meters of gray duraplast strung with thick hand cables. Crossing the bridge, the two men turned right where the footpath forked into the forest-a primeval forest of thick-trunked trees whose high canopies cloaked the Stalker and the stars.
"Home," said the Freeholder as the outline of a tall, wood-beamed house rose out of the night, a single light in one of the lower windows. The footlights flanking the pebbled path were dark.
"When are they going to get the power grid back on?" said L'Wrona as K'Sar fumbled at the lock.
"When an Emperor sits on the sceptered throne again," groused the old man. The door clicked open and they stepped into the house.
It was the same room that L'Wrona remembered from before the war, but darker, shrouded in deep shadows that danced to the flickering light from the oil lamps and the hearth: a long, wide room of broad-beamed ceiling and wide wood floors that swept on into the dining area and the darkened kitchen beyond.
"If you'd stoke the fire," said the freeholder, "I'll heat the stew." Not waiting for a reply, he moved into the kitchen, turning up the oil lamps along the way.
Throwing the hardwood logs on the fire, L'Wrona replaced the mesh screen and stepped back, rubbing his hands. As he did so, he noticed the char marks burned into the floor in front of the stone fireplace. They were small, perfectly round and patterned into two rough clusters a few meters from each other, the sort of marks a hand blaster set on low would leave.
As the flames rose and the heat grew, L'Wrona unfastened his battlejacket and folded it over the back of a sofa. Unstopping the decanter that stood on a side table, the margrave poured the amber-colored brandy into two of the thin crystalline goblets. As he replaced the stopper, K'Sar appeared, wheeling a small serving cart.
"Best to eat in here," said the freeholder, unfolding a pair of floor trays and setting them before two chairs to either side of the hearth. "The dining hall's spacious but cold."
L'Wrona took a steaming bowl of v'arx stew from the cart, setting it at K'Sar's place, then took one for
himself as the old man doled out the black bread. Before he sat, he placed one of the brandy goblets on the freeholder's tray, taking the other for himself.
"All kinds of rumors reach here about you, H'Nar," said K'Sar, carefully sipping the stew.
"Oh?"
"Hero on the run. Fleet's afraid to arrest you, the Imperials and Combine T'Lan want you dead." The freeholder dunked his bread in the stew, nibbled the crust. "If anyone's after you and they know you're on U'Tria, they'll be here as soon as they run your biog."
L'Wrona nodded, half listening, his eyes roaming the room. He remembered a bright-lit house, always a party for this or that occasion, music, laughter, the sound of children. As U'Tria's de facto minister of culture, a Freeholder was necessarily a visible, gregarious person. Now the house was as cold and as bleak as a tomb, while the man…
L'Wrona looked at the freeholder. Like the house, he decided-a bright flame all but gone.
"Your family," said the margrave, "did they survive the occupation?"
K'Sar's gaze shifted to the burn marks on the floor. "No," he said after a long moment, his eyes returning to L'Wrona's. "My family are all dead."
"Your grandchildren?"
"All," said K'Sar softly.
"Why've you come, H'Nar?"
"I need your help," said the margrave.
"My family has stood by yours since the High Imperial epoch," said K'Sar, setting down his spoon. "How may I help?"
"Once upon a time," said L'Wrona, picking up his brandy and leaning back in the chair, "there was an emperor who sent a fleet to stop a revolt-a revolt of our own homegrown AIs. That fleet jumped and was never seen again."
K'Sar laughed-an empty brittle sound that echoed through the rooms. "H'Nar,
H'Nar. You want the recall device. You want the legendary Twelfth Fleet of the House of S'Yal."
"Surely it's possible?" said L'Wrona, sipping his brandy.
K'Sar shrugged. "Anything is possible, My Lord-but not necessarily wise.
"Why come to me?"
"Because you're an amateur archaeologist and a first-rate archivist. And the House of S'Yal's your area."
"And a difficult area it is." Pushing his tray aside, the Freeholder rose and stepped to the fire. "Information is fragmentary, and much of it still classified." He stood looking down at the fire.
Final Assault bw-4 Page 8
