The Biofab War (2 page)

Kiroda looked up, shaking his head. “I need another transmission for a fix. It could be either the fourth planet or one of its satellites.”

“Bridge. Engineering,” called Natrol. “We’ve bypassed that faulty relay from here. I can give you seventy-five percent external shield now.”

Lawrona shook his head, eyes still on the screen with its tactical scan of nearby space. “Negative, Engineer. Leave the shield down. And drop Hangar Deck’s security field. Raise both instantly on my order.”

“Flanking Councilor Two to Imperial Seven,” challenged Natrol.

“Archon Five to Flanking Councilor Seven.” Though nonsensical as an I’Wor move, it made a fine authenticator.

“Very well, sir. Awaiting your orders.”

Kiroda looked up from the half-finished trace pattern threading across a telltale. “What are you doing, sir, if I may ask?”

“Getting you your N17 source to peek out at us, Subcommander,” said Lawrona. “They know we’re at battle stations. But we haven’t moved on Hangar Deck yet, so they may think it’s a drill. I’m hoping they’ll take the opportunity to flit in reinforcements before trying to move deeper into the ship. When they do, complete your trace.”

“But we’re at battle stations,” protested Lasura. “They’ll think primary shielding has come up.”

“Don’t worry,” Lawrona said, “I’m about to tell them it hasn’t.” Before he could do anything, the commnet chimed.

“Hanar, we’re in position. Have you gotten a trace yet?” At the head of fifty commandos, the captain was pressed against the gray wall of corridor A-10. Around the next curve, the double access doors to Hangar Deck stood sealed.

“No, sir. I was about to inspire it.”

“Do so. Let’s get this over with. Computer, Captain. Leave this channel tied into Commander Lawrona’s and acknowledge.”

The machine beeped its response.

“First Officer to Hangar Deck,” Lawrona said casually.

“Hangar Watch. Ensign Urola,” replied a familiar cheery voice. A dead man’s voice.

“Shield’s still down, Ensign. Engineering wants a two-man maintenance shuttle readied. There’s a faulty hull repeater.”

“Very good, sir. It’ll be ready when they arrive.”

“Thank you, Mr. Urola. Bridge out.”

“Did you get that, Jaquel?”

“Why can’t we be that efficient?” said the captain coldly, checking his weapon.

Kiroda adjusted a tacscan setting. “Got the slime. Mark 7, 148. The nearer satellite. Standard defenses.”

“Well done,” Lawrona nodded. “Mr. Natrol, external and internal shields now, please. Mr. Lasura, flank speed for target. Stand by gunnery. They’re all yours, merchant.”

Peering cautiously around the corner, Detrelna saw the security field’s hazy overlay blurring the doors. “Computer,” he said, striding purposefully toward the doors, weapon leveled, “this is the captain.” Behind him the commandos fell into skirmish order, M-32 blast rifles at high-port. “On my command, override the seal on Hangar Deck access A-10 and breach security shield to admit my party and me. After we enter, seal and shield the access, opening only on my or the first officer’s direct, confirmed order. Acknowledge and confirm.”

“Acknowledged. Assault Leader Four to Admiral’s Phalanx Nine.”

“Imperiad Four to Admiral Two.”

“Order confirmed.”

Detrelna looked at Danir. The young commando sergeant nodded. “Computer, execute!”

Detrelna charged through as the doors pulled back, an angry bull heading straight down the center of the cavernous hangar. The familiar sight of shuttles, scouts, and fighters nestled in their soft-lit berths didn’t reassure him. Something was wrong: it was too quiet. Hangar Deck was never quiet. There should have been thirty crewmen on watch, performing the necessary drudgery of maintenance and security. Nothing moved. Only the troopers’ footfalls broke the uncanny silence.

Detrelna waved his weapon to the right. A squad broke off, running for the ramp to Hangar Control, recessed behind a great slab of one-way armor glass high above the gray deck.

Walking from behind a shuttle, commslate in hand, a cherub-faced ensign looked up, astonished at the sight of the advancing commandos. “Captain?” he asked, smiling uncertainly. “Why the invasion?”

As he stepped toward Urola, Detrelna’s communicator screeched. Unhesitating, the captain fired a bolt straight into the ensign’s chest. His form ripping, Urola dissolved into a tall, dark-green insectoid. It fell to the deck, a hole seared through its thorax. Bulbous eyes staring sightlessly at the distant ceiling, it lay with legs and tentacles twitching as the humans stormed past.

From atop the flat-roofed shuttles and from behind landing struts, the indigo of Scotar blaster fire lashed out. “Assault!” Detrelna shouted needlessly, snapping off a shot as his warsuit took a bolt. The commandos swept past him, closing with the shapes that flickered in among the shadows, angry red lightning flashing from their rifles. Blue blaster fire touched but didn’t harm them, deflected by the warsuits’ ancient magic.

Unprotected by resurrected Imperial technology, the Scotar warriors fell back until cornered in Flight Operations, where a final volley finished them. Detrelna personally killed their last transmute, distinguishable from the warriors by its thinner exoskeleton and tapering upper tentacles.

“Lawrona,” coughed the captain, gagging on the stench of burnt bug. “The warsuits work. We’ve wiped out their assault force. No casualties. They got the hangar crew. Must have flitted their bodies into space. Have you hit their base?”

“We have.” The first officer stared at the blasted ruins mirrored in the screen. “They stopped the first missile wave, but the next took out their shipbusters and the third finished them. Medium-sized surface base—not hardened. We punched through their shield with the first fusion salvo. We avoided counter-fire, but I’d hate to shoot it out with another cruiser without max shield.”

“Very well. I’m on my way.” Turning, he headed for the corridor and the lift. “Well done, Sergeant. Tidy up,” he ordered, glancing at the Scotar corpses being stripped of weapons and heaped middeck for disposal. The viscous green ooze was spreading slowly across the black deck.

Stepping into the lift, Detrelna sketched his action report: alarm quickly sounded, target area sealed, and the ship’s reaction force, under his personal command, had killed the Scotar and wiped out their small base. The enemy destroyed,
Implacable
had resumed her mission. And yet disturbing issues remained. The captain voiced one as he sank into the command chair, dialing up a fruit drink. “What are the Scotar doing this far out on the galactic rim, Hanar?”

“Perhaps they’re also looking for Imperial gear?”

“Make as much sense as our doing so.”

Lawrona thoughtfully tapped the tip of the laser stylus against his teeth. “The question is, how long have they been out here?”

“Long enough to build a base and be annoying.”

“But why? Oh. Jaquel? While we were clearing out that Scotar nest, our survey probe’s been busy.” He nodded to where Kiroda sat reading a scan. “Those radio transmissions are confirmed—early cybernetic-age civilization on the third planet.”

“Cousins?” asked the captain.

“Probably, according to preliminaries. The Empire must have seeded half the galaxy.”

“Perhaps that makes them post-space rather than pre-space? Why haven’t the Scotar enslaved or exterminated those people?” Detrelna crumbled the empty cup between thick, blunt fingers, tapping it into the chair disposer. “The force we just beat could easily have taken one backward planet.”

“Let’s find out. If this system holds any help or any answers, that world is the place to begin.”

“Agreed. Mr. Kiroda,” said the captain. “I’ll take damage control and casualty readouts at my station. Mr. Lasura, resume original heading for the third planet. Commander Lawrona, stand down battle stations and maintain high alert.”

Triumphant from her first battle in five thousand years,
Implacable
left the molten ruins on Deimos and closed at speed on Terra, Mars fading behind her.

J
ohn Harrison looked up at the security monitor and groaned—Sutherland! Not now.

Impatient, the casually dressed, middle-aged man pressed the buzzer again.

“Coming,” John called over the intercom. Sutherland responded with a thumb raised to the camera.

Padding barefoot along his townhouse’s carpeted hallway, Harrison opened the door, letting in Sutherland and the smell of blooming lilac. Down the block, the first produce stands of the day were setting up on front of Capitol Hill’s Eastern Market. It was only eight, but already the air was moist, the sun too hot for April. It was going to be an early spring scorcher.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” asked John, leading the way back to his office.

“I’ve had myself cloned.”

“You look like hell,” added the CIA’s Deputy Director for Special Operations, taking in the bleary eyes, rumpled shorts, dirty t-shirt, and two days’ worth of beard. “The eternal dissertation?” he asked, stepping into the sunny office.

“No.” They sat, John at his desk, Sutherland on the white Haitian cotton sofa next to the fireplace. “
Certain Aspects of the Interrelationship of Cartesian Dualism and Quantum Mechanics
is finished. Coffee, Bill?”

“Please.”

John poured from the grimy glass pot, handling Southerland a white-and-blue mug. The CIA officer glanced at the caduceus etched into the front. “You on the Russian Intelligence’s Christmas list, John?” he asked, sipping cautiously.

“They don’t do Christmas. No, that’s from a little gift shop in McLean, run by a DAR matron. A couple of your guys told her they were physicians at Georgetown and got her to special order a raft of these.” He hoisted his own mug. “If she ever finds out the truth, it’ll kill her.” They chuckled evilly.

“So, the thesis is finished?”

“Yeah. And I think I survived my orals. We’ll know next week.”

“So why the midnight oil?”

John sighed. “My book. My unfinished book for which I unwisely accepted an advance.” He swept his mug over the desktop litter: canary legal pads covered in an illegible scrawl competed for space with three by five cards, photos and a stale, gnawed bagel. “I’ve got seven weeks to finish—hell!—to write eleven chapters.”

Sutherland’s eyes widened. “Out of that jumble? Ever heard of MS Word?”

“I have. But I’m a luddite.”

He shook his head. “Always good at getting yourself in a bind, John. What’s it about?”

Extracting a grainy eight by ten black-and-white glossy from the mess, he handed it to Sutherland. “It’s about that debacle.” Taken from a distance, the photo showed a charred, helmeted body amid the scattered ruins of shattered aircraft. All about, the stark Turanian Desert stood mute witness to chaos. Weapons, radios, medical kits, intact choppers, and code books littered the abandoned staging area.

“It has a title?” Southerland asked with forced casualness, flipping the photo onto the desk.

“
Thy Banners Make Tyranny Tremble.
We’re using that photo for the jacket.”

“You’re so damned cynical, Harrison. You know what happened. They cut and they cut and they cut until there was no redundancy . . .” He sighed and smiled ruefully. “I’m sure it’ll sell a million copies. As an alumnus, you did clear this with us?”

“Harry Rosen in Liaison approved my sources and a brief outline.”

Sutherland’s eyes widened. “That dinosaur? He’s still here? I’d no idea. I’d heard he had a catfish farm in Mississippi.”

“When I saw him, he was opening a guest house on Prince Edward Island. Though from the look of him, he’d better make it soon. Okay, Bill, you didn’t come here at the crack of dawn on a Sunday to shoot the breeze or drink day-old coffee.”

“I have a small bit of nastiness that needs tending,” he admitted. “As you knew when you saw my fine-chiseled face on your stoop.”

“I’d say ‘blurring into fat,’ but go on.”

“Any chance of Zahava hearing this?”

John smiled. “No guarantee, but I’ll try.” Picking up the phone, he tapped a digit. A long moment later a mumble could be heard.

“Sorry to wake you, but Bill Sutherland’s here and he wants to talk shop. Fine, yeah, I’ll tell him.” He hung up.

“She’ll be done in a few minutes. She says you’re daffy.”

“What did she really say?” asked Sutherland, trying to kill the coffee’s acridness with a dollop of cream much older than the coffee. It floated to the surface, small clusters of decay.

“It’d be worth my life to repeat it.”

Bill set the mug aside. “The cafeteria coffee’s the same as when you left.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, you can always have your old cubicle back. Same old gray metal desk with the 1942 coffee rings. Squeaky green chair and basic gray phone. Oh, and our current admin assistant’s into Yanov’s Primal Scream Therapy.”

“Fire her.”

“Him. He has a doctor’s note.”

“You make returning sound so attractive.”

Sutherland leaned forward, easing into his pitch. “It pains me to say it, but you’re the best case officer I’ve had since . . . well, since I was a case officer.”