"Why three levels?" asked Zahava, following him down the center aisle. "And why twice as many lifepods as needed?"
"Three levels to conform to Implacable's design. So many pods because she probably carried a larger complement five thousand years ago." He leaned forward, reading a report as it flashed onto a telltale. "Maintenance log says we're the first to enter this pod since the ship left Terra."
"Is that true?" she asked.
"It's true that the log entry reads no access since Terra." R'Gal stood as the telltale winked off. "It's also true that a S'Cotar transmute could have telekinetically reprogrammed this pod's computer.
… Check the upper levels," he said, motioning toward the stairway.
"For what?"
"Anything that looks out of place. Everything should be as spare and as orderly as on this level. Check the storage lockers and bins, food processors-anywhere something small could be hidden. If you find anything unusual, anything at all, use your communicator and call me. I'll be checking number two. Meet me in front of three when you've finished."
She nodded and was halfway up the stairs, blaster in hand, by the time R'Gal reached the exit.
"Anything from Alpha PrimeT' asked L'Wrona as K'Raoda relinquished the command chair.
"Nothing," said the first officer, resuming his station.
Both men looked at the main screen-the mindslaver hung there, a great dark menace out of legend, intimidating by its very existence.
"Fine," said the captain. "Let's fill our empty moments with a tactical exercise."
"Sir?" said K'Raoda, exchanging puzzled glances with T'Ral.
"Assume," said L'Wrona, fingertips pressed together, "that there's a third ship close by, a warship about our size. It's sitting dark and camouflaged, watching. Assume further that our sensors have picked it up, but are unable to correlate key data because of Fleet's restrictive programming overlay. How do we get a readout?" He looked at T'Ral.
"N-gravs," said the third officer. Turning to his console, he busied himself at the complink. No one noticed D'Trelna enter the bridge.
"Of course," said K'Raoda. "He has to be using them to counter his drift. Just a burst, now and then, but-"
"But enough," grinned T'Ral, looking up. "Five-one-seven, mark four-one. Previously charted as an asteroid."
"Tight-beam transmission to that asteroid, please," said D'Trelna. He took his seat, oblivious to the stares that followed his hovering companion. "Use alpha channel, and transmit in battlecode."
"Sir," said K'Lana, "alpha channel's a Fleet intership tactical band. And…"
A glance from D'Trelna stopped her. "Do it," he said.
"Transmitting," she said a moment later.
L'Wrona walked to the commodore's station. "I can think of only one man who'd come into this quadrant after us, J'Quel."
"Before us," said D'Trelna. "Had to be. Otherwise, we'd have made him." He flipped the commswitch. "Implacable to unknown ship-acknowledge."
On Victory Day, A'Tir turned to K'Tran, shaking her head. "Incoming transmission on the tactical band. Implacable's made us."
The other corsair shrugged. "Much good it'll do them." He touched his commkey.
The image on Implacable's main screen changed from that of the mindslaver to the smiling face of Captain K'Tran. He wore the standard brown K'Ronarin uniform with the stylized silver ship of a starship captain on the collar. "Victory Day on your flank, Commodore. How stands the Fleet?"
A ripple of anger swept Implacable^ bridge-just about everyone had lost friends to the K'Tran's killers.
"K'Tran, you renegade butcher," growled D'Trelna. He stood, face flushed, eyes blazing with hate. "How dare you render the greeting of honorable men? How dare you wear the uniform of your victims? You parasitic v'org slime-''
"You're being wearisome, D'Trelna," said K'Tran easily. "You've made us, but I fail to see what you can do about it. Start blasting away, that slaver's going to wipe you."
The commodore sat down, recovering. "It'd be worth it, to dispose of you… Some scum paying you slime to follow us?" he asked, dialing up a fruit drink.
"Now, D'Trelna, you know I can't betray a client's confidence," said the corsair. "Though, had I known about the mindslaver, we'd have found an easier mark. Like Prime Base. And as soon as it breaks your command up for parts, we'll be on our way."
D'Trelna shook his head. "We go, you go. My word on it." He swiveled his chair. "Egg," he said to the slaver machine, "by how much must we boost signal power for Alpha Prime to detect the third vessel, Victory Day?"
The golden spheroid drifted to D'Trelna's side, coming within pickup range of the transmission. "Increase by a factor of three," it said.
D'Trelna turned to the comm officer. "K'Lana, I seem to be having a problem. Increase signal strength by a factor of three, please."
"Wait!" K'Tran's smile was gone. "What do you want?"
"Hold, K'Lana," said D'Trelna. He turned back to K'Tran. "Can't you guess, K'Tran?"
A'Tir had pulled an ID from Victory Day's archives. She sent it over to K'Tran's station. He stared at the data for a surprised instant, then looked up. "Where'd you get a slaver computer, D'Trelna? TNil's Revenge!"
"Where I got it isn't important," said the commodore. "What we'll be using it for is."
"We'll?"
"Yes," said D'Trelna. "It'll be conning our combined battleops. We're going to penetrate that mindslaver's defenses and storm her bridge, K'Tran. You and me, yours and mine, side by side. Victory or death."
There was a long silence on both bridges. "You're mad, D'Trelna," said the corsair.
"Am I?" said D'Trelna. "You're a superb tactician. Consider the situation tactically, K'Tran."
He did, fingers softly drumming the chairarm, eyes distant. When he looked back at the pickup, both his and D'Trelna's crew were watching. "Victory or death, Commodore," he said. "There's no other way. What are your orders?"
"Maintain position, be prepared to link battleops on my command," said D'Trelna.
"As the commodore orders," said the corsair, switching off.
"You're serious?" said A'Tir as D'Trelna's face vanished. "We're taking orders from Fats?"
K'Tran nodded slowly. "We're too close to run, but near enough to attack. Only a coordinated assault has even a remote chance of success. That slaver computer may give us an edge."
"Or betray us utterly," said A'Tir.
"It's a fluid situation," said K'Tran slowly. "And it may yet favor us." His old self-assurance, blunted for a moment, was returning. "We're not burdened by duty, ethics or conscience." He nodded toward the screen. "They are… Stand by to link battleops. And give me shipwide so everyone can share in the good news."
Stephen Ames Berry
The AI War
6
The slaver's bridge was big, cold and empty, a soft-lit, multitiered cavern beneath a transparent dome.
Perfect temperature for preserving meat, thought John. Shivering, he rubbed his hands together, then thrust them back into his pockets.
Hundreds of consoles lined the tiers, lights twinkling, alarms chirping. Nowhere was there a chair, nowhere a sign that any living being had ever ere wed Alpha Prime. The Terran stared up at T'Lan, one tier above him. One thing's for sure, he thought-I'm the only human on this bridge.
Floating along at eye level, the translucent blue globe had led them from the shuttle out across the dark hangar deck. It had been a long, cold walk, their footfalls echoing distantly, John keenly aware of T'Lan striding beside him, a precise, unfaltering tap-tap-tap. T'Lan would sometimes look right or left, eyes seeming to focus… on what? John wondered. No matter. T'Lan can see in the dark. He filed it away, another bit of data.
Going up a ramp, they'd gone down a short passageway, through a door that moved noiselessly aside, and into a brightly lit anteroom. John stood blinking, squinting in the sudden glare as T'Lan followed the globe to one of a score of open-topped, two-seat cars that rested in power niches along the ro
om's circumference.
Turning to John, T'Lan had pointed toward the first car, the one over which the blue globe hovered. He'd stood there, waiting until the Terran had slid over the siderail into the seat.
Once T'Lan was in, the globe vanished. Without a sound, the car turned, rose and streaked from the room, moving at high speed down endless gray corridors.
Doorways, intersections and the occasional instrument panel had flashed by; then they'd shot up a long, spiraling ramp to the bridge. Slowing, stopping, the car had settled before the faint glow of a forcefield. Stepping from the vehicle, the two had followed another blue globe through a sudden opening in the field, across the broad sweep of the bridge's deck and up a series of ramps, halting at last before the single black console that occupied the highest tier. As T'Lan spoke, the blue globe vanished. "Commander T'Lan and John Harrison, from Implacable."
"We have a commwand for you, from Pocsym Six." Velvet soft and as cold as this ship, thought John of the voice. It spoke contemporary K'Ronarin and seemed to come from between him and T'Lan, rather than from the console.
"A message from the dead," said T'Lan. "Who are you?"
"We have no names, Commander," said the voice. "The centuries burned them away. We have only purpose."
"Do you know what's on the commwand?" asked T'Lan.
"Data relating to the Trel Cache," said the R'Actolian.
T'Lan held out his hand. "You may give it to me."
John glanced over the slender railing, gauging the distance to the deck: about two hundred feet. I'm going to save us some travel time back to the deck, thing, he thought, shifting his weight. The instant you get that commwand, over we go.
"Don't do anything quixotic, Harrison," said T'Lan in perfect English, his eyes still on the console, hand extended. "The commwand," he said in K'Ronarin.
"Pocsym," said the R'Actolian, ignoring the demand, "kept us supplied over the centuries. There were items we needed that we couldn't manufacture, but that Pocsym could. In return for these things, we pledged to remain in this quadrant, Blue Nine. Very recently, as we judge time, Pocsym entrusted us with the commwand, asking that we give it to the first K'Ronarin Fleet ship to reach these precise coordinates."
"We are here," said T'Lan.
John tensed himself, ready to jump.
"We're not giving you the commwand," said the R'Actolian.
"Why not?" said T'Lan, dropping his hand.
John laughed-a short nervous laugh. "They've tumbled to you, T'Lan."
T'Lan half turned toward the Terran. "Harrison…" he hissed.
"You're not a true emissary of K'Ronar, Commander T'Lan," continued the R'Actolian. "You're something out of Imperial prehistory, an AI combat droid-a survivor of that almost mythic war between man and machine."
"It's no myth," said T'Lan. "I was there."
"You are here to intercept the commwand," said the R'Actolian. "Why?"
"The Trel defeated us once. Legend says they left a weapon to be used against us."
"You wish to destroy the commwand."
T'Lan nodded. "Logically, it must hold the location of the Cache. No location, no weapon. The Fleet of the One triumphs."
The voice sighed, a legacy of lungs and bodies long cast off. "We are both man and machine, T'Lan, and love neither. It isn't out of malice that we deny you what you want, but because we've given our pledge."
"You cannot deny me," said the AI, walking around the console. "The cybernetics of this vessel were taken from Quadrant Fleet inventory on D'Lin, after you wiped Governor R'Actol." He looked down at the instruments.
"How did you know that?"
"Your first- and second-level computers," said the AI, ignoring the question, "the golden egg and its retinue of secondaries, were machines originally entrusted to the Governor of Blue Nine for safekeeping-machines salvaged from our defeated ships, centuries before. The designs were copied first, of course, and sent to K'Ronar. When reproduced later, in Fleet's own mindslavers, there was no trace of us in them. But here-" He reached out a finger, "Here is different."
"Touch the command console," said the soft voice, "and you die."
John watched with a sense of unreality as T'Lan began entering a command, fingers flying over the keyboard.
From high above, blasters shrilled, fierce red bolts tearing at the droid. John threw an arm across his eyes as T'Lan staggered away from the console, his body a blinding pillar of raw red-blue energies-energies that rippled over the AI, leaving him unharmed.
The blasters snapped off. John lowered his arm.
"You have a subcutaneous personal shield," said the R'Actolian as T'Lan, unfazed, returned to the keyboard.
"I'm a Class One Beta Infiltration-Combat unit," said the AI, typing. "My series is impervious to blaster and projectile fire. We can only be destroyed by large-load atomics."
Straightening, T'Lan reached up and removed his left ear. Peeling it open, he discarded the husks and inserted the silver wafer they'd guarded into a small slot in the console. "This ship is now a forward unit of the Fleet of the One," he said, pressing a final switch.
Alpha Prime said nothing.
"What've you done?" asked John, hearing his voice tremble.
T'Lan turned to him, smiling, a dark hole where his ear had been. "I've taken the R'Actolians off-line, Harrison. Their lesser functions are now run by ship's computer, which obeys the commander." He bowed. "Me."
"You're one of those ghastly robots we stopped on Terra Two," said John.
T'Lan shook his head. "Comparing me to a robot is like comparing yourself to an amoeba, Harrison. As for Terra
Two, our force there was small, cut off from its own dimension, and led by an inexperienced commander."
"And now?" said John.
"Now I destroy Implacable and keep this quadrant free of other ships until our forces come through the breach. Then into K'Ronarin space, repaying old debts by wiping your treacherous, parasitic species from the galaxy."
"Why this insane hatred?" said John, spreading his hands. "What did we-what did the K'Ronarins-ever do to engender such…"
"I have work to do, Harrison," said T'Lan. "You're a primitive from a backward world that got in the way. And I don't need you anymore." Seizing John by the tunic, he tossed him screaming over the railing, and turned for the commander's console. As he reached it, the high-pitched scream ended abruptly.
Leaving Pod 36, Zahava looked up and down the corridor; there was no sign of Colonel R'Gal. She hadn't seen the K'Ronarin since he'd entered 31, ten minutes before.
She walked back to 31 and stopped in front of it, frowning at the red downtime marker glowing over the airlock, indicating a maintenance problem. It hadn't been there when R'Gal went in.
Drawing her blaster, she opened the first door, stepped in, and waited an eternity as it closed behind her and the inner door slid open. There were no lights on in the pod. Being Zahava, she entered anyway. The door closed behind her, taking with it the light from the airlock.
Zahava moved to the right, back to the wall, feeling for the battletorch on her belt.
Something whipped by her face, sending her blaster clattering off into the dark. Before she could move, a searing pain pierced her head. Writhing, she tried to pry free of the cold pincers boring into her temples. It was futile. Waves of pain assailing her, Zahava slumped to the floor unconscious.
Hunched over her in the dark, the S'Cotar continued its work, unconcerned by her shallow breathing and weakening pulse.
"No!" snapped KTran. "No expeditions into that dark beast, D'Trelna! We penetrate the shield, plant a charge, and leave."
"We need that commwand, K'Tran," said D'Trelna. "We're going for the bridge."
"Enemy disposition, strength and intent?" said the corsair scornfully. "Where is the bridge? How do we get there? What's to stop us? Unless you have a plan, D'Trelna, we'd better jump for it-now."
"No one's jumping anywhere," said D'Trelna. "And there is a plan." He turned to th
e slaver computer. "Egg."
"Thank you, Commodore," said the machine. A multicolored hologram of Alpha Prime appeared between Egg and D'Trelna's station, well within range of the comm pickup. "This is from the Imperial Archives, R'Actolian War section. Unless the R'Actolians have radically altered the design of Alpha Prime, there will be a concealed sally port here." A short, red shaft appeared and penetrated the hull, halfway down the ship's port side.
"Define 'sally port,' " said K'Tran. He sat slouched in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him, looking at the hologram.
"I've been in one on T'Nil's Revenge," said D'Trelna. "On that ship, it was a tunnel through the hull, used to counterassault boarders who'd gained the hull."
"Thank you, Commodore," said Egg. "It served the same purpose in Alpha Prime. Indeed, Archives records that a brigade of Imperial Marine Death Commandos, under the personal command of one Admiral K'Yal, penetrated that very sally portal on Alpha Prime."
"To what effect?" said K'Tran.
"K'Yal was my many-times-removed maternal grandparent," said L'Wrona. "His faction having lost a power struggle within FleetOps, a suicide mission was arranged for him and his personal brigade. They penetrated the shield, reached the hull-took enormous casualties doing it-entered the sally port, and were never heard from again."
"Death Commandos, indeed," said K'Tran. He sat up. "How do we get through the shield?"
"Your ships must link shields," said Egg. "Interfaced with the computers of both attacking vessels, I will use a shield-shaping algorithm to mold the normal globular shield of each ship into a triangular-shaped shield. This shield will have both ships at its base, with its apex penetrating Alpha Prime's sally port." As Egg spoke a green triangle materialized beside the image of the mindslaver. Two diminutive cruisers sat one above the ether, just inside the base of the triangle. As everyone watched, the triangle and ships moved on the mindslaver. Penetrating the red haze marking Alpha Prime's shield, the tip of the triangle touched the space-end of the red shaft.
"Note," continued Egg, "that this maneuver places the two fusion batteries that could bear on the sally port within range of our weapons-weapons that will still enjoy the protection of our shield. Once those cannon are neutralized, a two-shuttle sortie should be launched through the port…"
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