The Battle for Terra Two (22 page)

"And the mindslaver?"

"We never met," said K'Tran. "The S'Cotar provided us with the brainpods and an advance against collections."

"Who's crewing the mindslaver?"

"I wasn't told. My impression was that it was—autonomous."

D'Trelna grunted, then sat staring at the two for a moment, rocking slightly in his chair. "You're not bad— you're utterly amoral. Is there a single scruple between you?"

"Can we get on with this?" said A'Tir.

"Let's not be hasty," said K'Tran.

"D'Trelna, you need us for something or we'd be dead by now. What?"

"I have a deal for you, Mr. Businessman," he said, clasping his hands over his belly. "You and your killers will go free in exchange for your help."

"What sort of help?" said K'Tran.

"Nothing hazardous, unfortunately. I have something that must be done, now. And it can only be done with two starships. I have just one, and need every crewman I've got."

"You'll let us go with our ships?" asked A'Tir.

"One frigate, disarmed."

"The cruiser, armed," said K'Tran.

"The cruiser, with one missile and one fusion battery."

The corsairs exchanged glances.

"Deal," said K'Tran.

"Deal," said D'Trelna. "Happily, I can't shake your hand."

"That's it," said John, turning off the truck's engine. It died with backfire. Tune-up time on Terra Two, he thought.

"What do you mean?" asked L'Wrona. He sat between Hochmeister and John in the truck cab.

"We can't go any farther, H'Nar. The road's impassable."

The K'Ronarin stared at the stout saplings growing in the road. "There're only little trees. Just roll over them."

"They're enough to stop this truck," said John. "Internal combustion engine—not one of your spiffy floaters."

They'd turned off the Maximus access road half a mile from the complex, following the overgrown ruts of the old logging trail, branches scraping the sides of the truck.

"It's not much farther," said Hochmeister. Opening the door, he hopped from the cab into the brush, working his way around to the front.

"Everyone out," said L'Wrona over the commnet. Two by two, the commandos leaped the tailgate, tramping through the scrub to join the other three.

Leading with long, ground-devouring strides, Hochmeister set off down the road into the gray winter twilight. As they followed, snow started falling, dry flakes rustling through barren birch and oak.

"Looks like home," said L'Wrona.

"U'Tria?" sad John, walking beside him.

The captain nodded. "A world of short summers and long winters. But spring—spring's a green miracle."

"And the S'Cotar occupation?" asked John, regretting it at once.

"Left little." Squinting, L'Wrona turned his head from a sudden sharp gust. "It's going to be a howler."

The snow was thickening, the wind whipping it into a classic northeast blizzard.

Hochmeister stopped and turned, waving them to him. They huddled around him, a small circle of warmth. "The road turns right at the base of the hill," he said, "then runs to the river's edge—perhaps a hundred meters. The drainage tunnel's set in concrete, halfway down the embankment."

"We can climb down it?" asked S'Til.

"Easily. Thirty-five, forty-degree slope, no more."

"You're sure about the sentries?" said L'Wrona.

"None when I was there."

"Luck, then," said L'Wrona. "Maintain skirmish order. Follow me."

K'Tran's face appeared in D'Trelna's monitor. "Your engines are now destruct-tied, K'Tran," said the commodore. "Both frigates and all escape pods are disabled. Betray us, try to run, your drives will explode."

"You'd grieve, of course."

"Repeat orders."

"I'm not a cadet, D'Trelna," he snapped.

"K'Tran, I don't want to, but if necessary, I will crew your cruiser from
Implacable
and take my chances under-strength.

"Repeat orders."

The corsair sighed. "Commanding the light cruiser, I am to take station at designated coordinates. Upon your order, I'm to activate the Imperial device installed in our drive. I'm to keep the portal so created open for
Implacable
to pass through and return.

"And if you don't return?"

D'Trelna smiled unpleasantly. "Then in five Terran days, you'll change from organic to inorganic garbage, wafting through the universe. The solar winds out here blow toward T'Kyar's Galaxy. There'll be a bad smell there in a few billion years.

"Assume station now. Advise when completed." He switched off.

"If anyone can slip your trap. Commodore," said Z'Sha, "K'Tran will." The ambassador stood beside D'Trelna's station, his pre-battle demeanor and attire restored.

"A clever slime, but he can't walk home." He punched up a drink. "T'ata, Ambassador?"

"No, thank you."

"Will that drive device work. Commodore?" he asked, as D'Trelna slipped the steaming cup from the beverager.

"We'll soon know," said D'Trelna, sipping carefully. "If it fails dramatically, then the surviving corsairs will be killed, not my people."

"Installation was no problem?"

"We put the cube into the cruiser's drive interfeed port, as specified. Jump drive mechanics have changed little over the centuries. Accessing the drive core, that cube should do whatever it's supposed to."

"Is that all the commwand had to tell you?"

"Directly, yes. Just a few simple instructions, no explanations." He set the cup down. "Indirectly, though . . . Voice analysis of the message shows it was recorded by machine. As far as I could tell, it was just a slightly pedantic baritone. Machine-generated phonemes, according to computer."

"Corsair moving on station, Commodore," reported T'Ral.

"Very well."

"Machines." Z'Sha sat at the captain's station. "Machines on Terra Two—with Imperial markings. Machine-generated commwand. And the Trel Expedition, held in abeyance by this madness"—he waved vaguely toward Terra—"was prompted by a warning of a machine invasion from another reality. How are these three related?"

D'Trelna shrugged. "We'll probably find out at great cost, as we do everything. I have one crisis to deal with, here and now. Actually, there and now. I'm dealing with it."

"These are all extensions of the same phenomenon, though, D'Trelna—they must be. And knowing the phenomenon, we can control for the variants."

"With respect sir, your logic is far exceeding your facts."

"Perhaps," smiled Z'Sha. "I'll tell you what, D'Trelna. You take this battle cruiser to Terra Two and bring us back some facts. An intact enemy machine would be marvelous."

"I'll do what I can." He glanced at the time readout. "You have little time to make your shuttle."

Z'Sha stood. "Mr. McShane will be riding down with me?"

"Yes." D'Trelna rose, seeing him to the doors.

"An interesting man. We land in New York. Perhaps he'll have dinner with me." He held out his hand. "Luck to you, Commodore. From an old soldier to a younger one."

D'Trelna shook the firm, dry hand. "Thank you, sir."

He turned to the sentries flanking the doors. "Escort the ambassador to shuttle embarkation."

The commlink beeped as D'Trelna resumed his station. "Cleaned up?" he asked at the sight of K'Raoda's tired face in the pickup. Behind the commander, the hangar deck swarmed with repair crews.

"Reasonably," said K'Raoda. "Bodies and debris have been hauled off. It'll take two, maybe three more watches to tidy up."

"Very good, T'Lei. Get up here."

K'Tran's face replaced K'Raoda's. "We're in position."

"Activate your drive."

K'Tran turned from the pick up. "S'Kal, engage drive."

"Full forward visual on the screen, please," ordered D'Trelna.

Pale gray, a thin beam lanced up from the cruiser's blunt bow. Halting high above and ahead of the corsair, the beampoint became a gray rim that rotated slowly wider, banishing all light within its boundaries.

"Readout on that?" asked D'Trelna.

"Nothing coherent," said T'Ral, monitoring three telltales. "Wild energy fluxes. Peak, drop, peak, drop."

The dark within the circle rippled, growing even darker. After a moment, the rippling subsided. "Fascinating," said T'Ral.

"What?" said D'Trelna as K'Raoda came onto the bridge.

"There's a coherent signal now. It's the inverse of the readout we got when they snatched
V'Tran's Glory.
And the inverse of the readout from the Maximus portal."

"Any fluctuation in the signal?" asked K'Raoda. "None."

D'Trelna nodded. "Ship's status, Commander K'Raoda?"

"All sections at battlestations."

"K'Lana, did our shuttle launch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let's do it, then. Forward, point three, T'Lei." Seen from
New Hope, Implacable
slipped away down a black hole.

"A'Tir," said K'Tran into the commnet, "they're gone.

Any luck?"

"None." She was wearing a white radiation suit. Removing the helmet, she handed it to an Engineering tech.
"Implacable's.
Engineer is too good to be Fleet."

"He isn't," said K'Tran. "Chief Engineer of the R Tar Line. They drafted his ass. What did he do?"

"Tied a tickle line from the engines to the destruct programming. We try to move
..."

K'Tran's eyes narrowed. "But we can jump?"

"There is no barrier to our jumping," she said wearily. "Only to disengaging that magic black cube."

"But we can't jump with it in the drive."

"Correct."

"I'll disengage the destruct programming," he said, reaching for the complink.

"Don't!" she said sharply. "He's looped the destruct programming back into the tickle line. Try to change destruct programming from current parameters and you'll trigger it."

K'Tran took his hands from the terminal. "I see."

"There's another problem. We've needed a good port overhaul for a long time."

"The better ports would not have us, Number One."

"We've got measurable power-core leakage. Nothing biologically hazardous, but enough to maybe spark a backsurge. If that surge were near the tickle line
..."

"Got us by the shorts, hasn't he?" said K'Tran, running a hand through his hair. "What can we do?"

"Cut power down to emergency levels. Vital equipment only. Cold concentrates, cold showers, minimal life support."

He gave the necessary orders, turning back to A'Tir as the lights dimmed. "I'm going to get Commodore Fats and his friends, Number One. It would almost be worth dying to strand them in an alternate reality."

"Nothing's worth dying for."

"Yes, well, I'll find a way."

"You do that," she said, stripping off the radiation suit. The brown Fleet-duty uniform beneath was rumpled, the underarms dark with sweat. "I'll be showering with the last of the hot water.''

K'Tran sat a long while in the command chair, his thoughts growing even darker and colder than his ship.

"Clean," said S'Til, pocketing her detector.

L'Wrona leading, the commandos, Hochmeister and Harrison swept into the tunnel, a long black line moving warily, rifles ready, wind screaming ahead of them down the dark tunnel.

Should have kept my starhelm, thought John, flashing his light ahead. Oblong-shaped, a good twenty feet across, the tunnel rose at an easy angle, disappearing beyond the range of the slim utility lights.

"No sediment," said L'Wrona, flicking his light along the pipe bottom's pristine concrete. "Admiral, isn't this used?"

"No," said Hochmeister, walking to the captain's left.

"It was dug for an atomic reactor—prematurely. The reactor was never approved for construction by the Reich. The pipe doesn't breach the complex, so it's unguarded."

"How many reactors has the Reich allowed outside of Germany, Admiral?" asked John.

"I've read your dissertation, Major Harrison," said Hochmeister, eyes and light sweeping the wall to his left. "You had an entire section on that issue—over thirty pages." He looked at John. "You're the alternate Harrison, aren't you?"

"Assuming we get out of this, Admiral," said L'Wrona, "I'm sure Fleet Intelligence could find a post for you."

"Everyone's offering me jobs I don't want, Captain," said Hochmeister. "First the bugs, now you. I'm needed here—civilization's roving proconsul."

"You call what I've seen civilization?" said John.

"Germany, all of Europe, is quite civilized, Mr. Harrison," said the admiral. "We've recovered from fascism, rebuilt from the war, aided less fortunate allies, kept the bear at bay. I shudder to think what this world would be like had we—or the Soviets—let the atomic genie out of its bottle."

"Equality, perhaps."

"Ah! Here we are." Hochmeister's light picked out a seemingly random scattering of feldspar along the left wall. "As best I could tell, this is the portion nearest the breeding vault. From here," he shifted his light to the right, along the tunnel, "the pipe runs up and away from the vault."

"Your guesses seem very close, Admiral," said L'Wrona. "We'll go with this one."

"Set your blastpak, S'Til."

"N'Tron," called the commando officer. "Blastpak." The corporal hurried forward, shrugging the flat orange

pack from his shoulders. Taking it, S'Til knelt and set it against the wall. Unfastened, the top revealed a miniaturized console, complete with screen. The screen glowed green as S'Til pressed a button:
enter
targeting
instructions,
it responded.

"Narrow focus, S'Til," said L'Wrona. "Edge down the blowback—we haven't got much cover."

"You wouldn't know how thick the wall is, would you, Admiral?" asked S'Til, looking up at Hochmeister.

"No idea," he said. "They weren't about to show me blueprints."

"The wall is four-meters thick, Lieutenant," said a voice from beyond the small circle of light.

L'Wrona swung his utility light around. Twenty-four blasters followed the beam.

"Beyond the wall," said Guan-Sharick, stepping forward as the light found him, "is eight meters of granite, honeycombed with breeding chambers." The transmute's eyes glowed red in the beam.