The Biofab War

by Stephen Ames Berry

  * * * *

  "Tight little coffin," said John, looking about the tiny cell into which the Terrans were crammed, deep within Nasqa. The gray of the surrounding walls was broken only by the slight shimmer of the force field securing the doorway. A small, oval-shaped hole in the corner of the floor was the only amenity.

  "They were expecting us," said Zahava after a moment's glum silence.

  "How, though?" asked John, tentatively feeling the force field with his fingertips. The shimmer became a blur and he could move his hand no further. Giving up, he turned back to his companions.

  "Maybe we triggered their intruder alert system after all," suggested Sutherland.

  "They'd have cut us down as we arrived," John said. "No. Zahava's right—it was a trap, carefully laid. Nasqa's crew had some lead time."

  "Well, what now?" asked Bakunin. "They're probably going to interrogate us as they did your late President."

  "We've got to escape—soon," said Zahava.

  "Surely, Andre," Sutherland said, eyeing the Russian with a certain satisfaction, "the KGB must have a technique for breaking out of jail? Or do you just concern yourselves with keeping people in them?"

  "Not my department, Bill," responded Bakunin with a negligent wave of his hand. "And a cheap shot, too, after all we've been through."

  Their conversation was ended by the arrival of two warriors and a transmute. The doorway barrier vanished.

  Come with us. The S'Cotar pointed their blasters at John, their leader motioning him away from the others with a flick of his pistol.

  Silent till now, Greg elbowed his way past John. "We're all idiots," he said irritably, stepping in front of the leveled weapons. "We forgot about the warsuits—and so did they!"

  With a shout, he threw himself on the aliens, dragging them down even as they fired.

  "Take 'em!" barked John.

  It was short and messy, the humans kicking and gouging for the eyes, the insectoids fighting back with tentacles and mandibles, Zahava ending it with a captured blaster.

  The victors stood, a collection of bruises and cuts. All but Greg. The lanky geologist lay unmoving between two of the enemy dead. Gently turning him, John saw why: most of Greg's stomach was gone. His warsuit had failed, as he must have known it would, beneath the close fire of several weapons.

  John gently closed his friend's sightless eyes and stood, face grim and set. "I say we still have time to take the bridge. Agreed?''

  * * * *

  From somewhere deep within Descartes, McShane half noticed the mindslaves' attack waning, the once-sharp buzzing now muted. Distant but distinct, a voice called his name.

  "D'Trelna to McShane. S'Cotar forward elements are coming within range. See if you can activate the Weapons systems. Bridge monitors still show them down."

  With a small mental sigh, Bob carefully shelved Descartes, then called, Brothers, sisters, I call upon you to right ancient wrongs.

  The buzzing stopped.

  I exhort you by the names of all those whom you condemned to your fate, right the wrong you've done. Destroy the enemy now before you.

  The whisper that was one-yet-many sounded again.

  Bob pondered his reply.

  Yes, he finally answered. I promise. Help us now and it shall be done.

  When?

  When the enemy is destroyed.

  It is agreed.

  The battleboard came alive, transformed into a three-dimensional projection of the solar system. The advancing S'Cotar were now well inside the orbit of Mars, deployed in a great wedge pointed straight at Earth.

  They are within our range, comrade. You have but to give the command.

  He spoke it aloud. "Fire."

  * * * *

  The Terrans had almost reached Nasqa's bridge when the alarm sounded, this time for them.

  Not that the four could hear it. A passing group of warriors whirled and fired. Thanks to the warsuits and Zahava's vigilance, the insectoids died in the exchange, not the humans.

  Then it was a desperate, running battle the rest of the way to the bridge. John leading, they weaved through a maze of corridors, blasting down the enemy before them, keeping those behind at bay.

  A mixed party of warriors and transmutes guarded the bridge, weapons ready. They opened fire just as John and Zahava lobbed the small spheroids taken from their utility belts.

  A pulsating red glow filled the corridor. Blaster fire crackled from both sides.

  The aliens died, their aim distorted by spectral grenades keyed to their vision. But the bridge was sealed.

  Undeterred, John and Zahava busied themselves before the massive doors. Sutherland and Bakunin kept their pursuers back.

  "Hug the wall!" John ordered. They braced themselves against the bridge's bulkhead as Zahava pressed a button on her belt.

  The huge blast doors didn't so much blow up as disintegrate in a fierce white heat, frames buckling.

  The Terrans charged in and killed the deck crew.

  "Gentlemen, if you'd guard our rear," John asked, and Bakunin and Sutherland ran out again.

  Going to the communications console, John tapped withdrawal orders into Nasqa's computer. He and Zahava watched as, a moment later, the S'Cotar fleet began obediently dispersing.

  "Time to leave, I think." Bill's voice was tense over the commnet. "Lots of company." He and the Russian dived through the doorway, energy bolts rending the air above them. Crouching to either side of the door, they fired back.

  "POCSYM, pull us out in one minute," John ordered.

  "Acknowledged."

  He ran to the command console, pressed an isolated button, then shot a finger at Zahava, standing by the XO's station. She carefully typed a few characters, using keys never meant for human digits, then nodded at John.

  A great bolt of raw, red energy tore through the navigation console, ochre flame and blue sparks exploding in its wake.

  "Heavy weapons!" Zahava turned toward the door as a solid wave of S'Cotar swarmed the bridge, overrunning Sutherland and Bakunin.

  "Now, POCSYM!" shouted John, blasting two warriors and grappling with another.

  Battered, singed and exhausted, four Terrans stood on Implacable's bridge.

  Chapter 17

  A transparent blister atop the great ship, Revenge's bridge was the size of Implacable's Hangar Deck. D’Trelna found its cavernous, many-tiered vastness even eerier than the still, dead corridors he'd just traversed, conveying McShane to the mind-slaves.

  Only ten of Implacable'^ crew could be spared to man the mindslaver and they were scattered, effectively swallowed by the huge bridge.

  Despite having done it before, the Captain took the command chair, center of the fifth and highest level, with great reluctance. T'Nil had sat in that chair, and S'Tar and Q'Nor— the legendary Emperors of the Second Dynasty, men whose sagas were inseparably interwoven with the rich tapestry of Empire.

  "You may lift ship, POCSYM," he said quietly.

  After fifty centuries, T'Nil's Revenge was spaceborn again.

  "All systems except Weapons operational," reported K'Raoda from the XO's station, next to the Captain's. "We don't enjoy the degree of maneuverability we would with a full crew, but we can move."

  "We don't need her for more than an orbital fort," said D’Trelna.

  "Is that Implacable?" he asked, looking up to his right. A silver ship made tiny by distance hung there.

  "Sure is," confirmed the young officer. "I'd know that old hulk anywhere." His eyes returned to his console. It was a marvel, infinitely more sophisticated than anything aboard Implacable.

  "Speak with respect, Subcommander," said D’Trelna softly, still looking up. "She's the best ever made without brainstrip technology. She's fast and she's clean—unlike this wondrous horror." He dropped his gaze, gesturing about the still, shadowy bridge.

  The two men retreated into silence.

  It only seems a long time, D’Trelna reassured himself, watching the S'Cotar fleet on his scr
een. It really hadn't been that long since the assault team left—untrained friends sent against the mother ship of a cruel and crafty foe.

  Nor that long since he'd sent McShane alone into that metallic shaft of a room, an old man pitted against five millennia of intelligent, festering malevolence.

  It has too been a long time, fat man, sneered a voice deep within him. A long time. They're dead. And you've lost. You should have run while you could, but no, the hero of T'Qar doesn't run. He—

  As he squelched the voice, everything broke.

  "Nasqa party returned. Mission accomplished," reported an elated L'Wrona from Implacable.

  A dot in the center of the enemy fleet projection winked out. A new and distant sun flared briefly in the direction of the now-scattering S'Cotar, then vanished forever.

  "Hang on to your chinstraps up there," said a tired voice on the commnet. McShane's voice.

  "We've lost the helm, Captain." Alarmed, K'Raoda pressed a series of unresponsive controls.

  "Shield's up," called a familiar voice. "Weapons systems arming."

  "What's the effective range of an Imperial mindslaver, K'Raoda?" asked the Captain, unperturbed.

  "No idea, sir." The Tactics Officer gave up on the console, turning to face D’Trelna. "The Annals tiptoe around a lot of this."

  "I think we're about to find out." He looked up at the waves of sleek, deadly missiles pouring away from them.

  * * * *

  You must help us. The sibilant whisper came again into Bob's mind. But it's never really left, he thought tiredly.

  How?

  Join your mind with ours. The enemy is many. Only with your help can we prevail.

  Hesitantly, Bob sent out a tentative tendril of thought.

  Something dark and strong coiled around it, pulling the rest of him into a swirling vortex of white-hot hate. Before he could feel more than a twinge of terror, the vortex coalesced into a surging river of incandescence. The river became thousands of raging streams, each pushing a small, cold point of light toward a larger one.

  Bob was one burning stream. He was all streams. A lifetime's hostility, sublimated to the dictates of civilization, was being called forth.

  Seen from Revenge, the new suns lived just long enough to become a great fireball, then died. The mindslaves had kept their word.

  "Gods of our fathers!" exclaimed L'Wrona from Implacable's command chair as an ensign deactivated series after series of dead sensors. "What was in those warheads?" he asked over the commnet.

  "Maybe we could pry one open," suggested K'Raoda, looking out through Revenge's again transparent dome. It had opaqued in instant response to the blinding light, clearing just as quickly once the danger passed.

  "Maybe we won't," grumbled D'Trelna.

  "Did you track those missiles, L'Wrona?" he asked. "The detectors here are still a mystery."

  "We couldn't, Captain. They vanished a few seconds after launch."

  ''Check your hyperspace gear on point one-one-zero scale.''

  "They went into hyperdrive!" came the startled response. "But hyperdrives aren't that small—why, even the Imperials—"

  K'Raoda broke in excitedly. "The mindslaves! It must be! Somehow they can hurl weapons through hyperspace and drop them on target. But those detonations? What's in those warheads?"

  "Minute quantities of matter/antimatter, held in stasis." POCSYM spoke for the first time in hours. "The stasis field is released when the weapons arrive on target. You've just witnessed the result."

  A low, keening moan interrupted them.

  The Captain rose. "Professor, can you hear me?" he called anxiously.

  Another moan was the only response.

  "K'Raoda, you have the con. Medtech Q'Nil with me." D'Trelna made for the door. A slight figure detached itself from a chair two tiers down, scrambling up an access ladder to join the officer, medkit strapped across from a bolstered blaster.

  * * * *

  Bob broke free of the ebbing stream. Or was shoved from it, he could never remember.

  His next recollection was of something shining—the helmet?—lifting away from him. Then an all-consuming pain invaded his skull.

  "They're eating my brain!" he cried, or so D'Trelna later swore.

  Q'Nil was sure the Captain would kill them, racing the ho.vercar around sharp corners at full speed, recklessly banking and swerving.

  They were at the mindslave chamber in minutes, D'Trelna charging through the door and down the stairs to kneel over Bob. The Terran lay stretched out on the floor, ominously still, his breathing shallow. He opened his eyes, blinking weakly as Q'Nil examined him.

  "Captain," he managed to croak. "Captain. The mind-slaves . . . you must kill them. My word . . . agreed to help us ... let them die."

  D'Trelna blinked, then avoided the injured man's piercing gaze. "Well?" he asked as Q'Nil administered a hypo.

  "Shock, fever, exhaustion. I've given him a sedative. He'll need lots of rest, but barring complications he should be all right."

  "Captain," Bob whispered hoarsely. Seizing D'Trelna's tunic with both hands, he pulled the K'Ronarin's face to within inches of his own. "Your word!"

  "I can't!" cried the officer, pulling away. He stood, his face set. "You did a great and wondrous thing, my friend. But you exceeded your authority when you made that promise. Hell, man, you exceeded mine! Without those brainstrips, Revenge is just another toothless relic. And we may still need her."

  "If you could only have felt their anguish—and the terrible catharsis that's their only pleasure, J'Quel," said Bob, rallying voice and mind for a final plea. "They desire only oblivion— deserve it as a mercy!"

  "You're suggesting, Bob," came the gentle rejoinder, "that we can only save those brainstrips—legally centuries dead, their names forgotten—we can only save these dead things by killing them."

  He bent down and lifted one of McShane's arms. "Help me get him to sick bay, Q'Nil. He's delirious."

  Chapter 18

  "This man"—Admiral L'Guan beamed, draping an affectionate arm about D'Trelna's broad shoulders—"once led me such a wild chase through an uncharted asteroid belt that I marvel to be alive." Chuckling, he slipped his arm away to hook a drink from a passing steward.

  The K'Ronarin fleet had shown up eight days after the S'Cotar's destruction. Standing well off Terra, its senior officers had flitted down—via POCSYM—to a series of meetings with the heads of all but one of Earth's most powerful nations. Although ignoring its invitation, the Soviet Union had sent a freshly debriefed Andreyev Bakunin to the conference as an observer, a continuing status he now shared aboard Vigilant with the two Americans and the Israeli, also just returned from home.

  The meetings, held on a secluded ranch in the high desert of New Mexico, had been cordial, reinforcing the existing groundwork of mutual trust. The K'Ronarin Ambassador, once he arrived, would find the Terrans receptive to a mutual aid pact.

  L'Guan was every inch the professional soldier-diplomat: tall, handsome, with silver-streaked hair and aquiline features, he stood resplendent in a bemedaled, jet-black dress uniform, a gracious, charming host to the Terrans and K'Ronarins thronging Vigilant's spacious reception hall.

  "You really couldn't catch me?" asked Implacable's skipper disbelievingly. "I thought you were toying with me!" Both burst into laughter.

  "Maneuvers?" asked John, sipping his drink.

  "Maneuvers? This old pirate? Ha!" the Admiral laughed. "He was a smuggler, running—what was it that time, J'Quel, null-grav spices?"

  "No, sir. Surface-to-space missile parts for the colonists on Q'Tul Seven. As you'll recall, Admiral, our myopic policy was to close our eyes and pretend that the S'Cotar would just—"

  "As you can see," interrupted L'Guan good-humoredly, "we've had our differences. When the entire Confederation finally came around to J'Quel's way of thinking, he came in one day and offered his services. It was because of his . . .ah . . . unusual background and subsequent record that I chose him to
lead this expedition.

  "You signed up when, Captain, six years ago?" he asked, draining his glass. A crewman whisked it away.

  "Yes, sir. Just after the debacle of U'Tria Nine. And a difficult six years it's been, Admiral," continued D’Trelna. He reminded Zahava of a pugnacious bulldog that had once hung around her apartment building, terrifying the neighborhood kids.

  "Oh, I think we have them now, Captain-' said the senior officer, exuding a quiet confidence. "Or rather, they no longer have us, thanks to all of you.'' His gaze swept the circle of his listeners: John, Zahava, Montanoya, Sutherland and Bakunin, the last of whom wore the dress uniform of a KGB colonel. "Our forces are already reoccupying the sectors they've pulled out of.''

  Sutherland, dressed in the Outfit's uniform—-two-piece designer suit, hand-finished white shirt, silk tie and Swiss cordovans—raised his glass, saluting L'Guan. "I'd like to thank you, sir, for a grand reception, and for my being the first Terran to enjoy a manhattan in Earth orbit."

  The Admiral gave a slight bow, then added mischievously, "Actually, someone from your country's diplomatic corps claimed that record over an hour ago." He glanced about the room. "Hmm. He seems to have gone off with one of the women of my bridge crew. Busy setting another new record, no doubt."

  Zahava, earlier unrecognized by Bill in a lavender Dior gown, turned to Montanoya. "How did you convince all these people to come, Jose?" she asked. Her long-stemmed crystal wineglass swept over the gathering.

  The hall thronged with military and civilians, K'Ronarin and Terran, all in after-dinner attire and wearing translators. The U.S. Marine Corps chamber orchestra, smartly set off in mess whites, was playing Bach. The Earth hung seemingly just beyond the transparent far wall, a green, brown and blue orb broken by swirling mists of white.

  "I wish I could say it was my diplomatic skill," replied Montanoya, his own eyes taking in the reception. "Credit where it's due, though. The recent ground, air and space actions lit up battleboards around the planet like a Christmas tree.

  "They probably didn't tell you, Admiral, but several idiots wanted to start lobbing nukes at both K'Ronarin and S'Cotar fleets. But when the morons saw the numbers and weaponry involved, cooler heads were able to prevail. Fortunately, one of those heads belonged to our then-Vice President, Pete Martin."