Stephen Berry - Final Assault

"Hello, Dad," said the captain. He stepped onto the catwalk, the door sliding shut behind him. Below, nestled in its berth, lay a trim little O'Lan-class scout ship, the subdued lighting of the berth glinting dully along its silver hull.

To the casual observer, the ship would have seemed just another surplus scout, sold off after the A'Ran Police Action of a decade ago. And so it had been, until the previous Margrave of U'Tria, L'Wrona's late father, had gotten his hands on it.

"Green-light the door, would you, Dad?" asked the captain, turning to clamber down the access ladder to the ship. "Got some unfriendlies looking for me."

"You in trouble again, son?" said the ship.

Out in the hallway the red light over 9-42-A changed to green.

L'Wrona walked across the narrow apron of the berth, then scrambled up the ship's boarding ladder. Reaching the top, he grabbed the support bar above the airlock and pulled himself in, feet first. The outer door hissed shut behind him. He stood in the coffin-sized space between inner and outer door-an area equipped with an array of miniaturized scanners that could discreetly explore the contents of a guest's garments, analyze his or her physiology for anything from infectious diseases to narcotics, and, if necessary, dispatch unwanted visitors with a brief needier burst.

There was no needier burst. The inner door opened on to a short, well-lit corridor. "It seems you are H'Nar, H'Nar," said Dad.

"You sound disappointed," said L'Wrona, walking down the corridor to the bridge. On his way he passed an alley-shaped galley on his left, and a bedsitting room on his right. Had he turned left at the hatchway instead of right, he'd have come to the engine room.

"You try sitting on standby for ten years and see how you like it

… son. I led a robust life-I crave action."

"Action is why you're dead," said L'Wrona, sliding into the left seat. The bridge was small, just the two flight chairs, but crammed with instruments. Fleet compliance inspectors would have been astounded to see that the original gunnery controls not only were intact-a very serious illegality-but had been augmented by the best combat command and information system available. The CCI was a salvaged Imperial model, unmatched since the Fall. When L'Wrona had asked the old man where he'd gotten it, the margrave had merely touched his fingers to his lips and winked.

"You're lucky to still have me, H'Nar," said the ship. "Not every parent would have been so thoughtful."

Twelve years ago, smiling happily, accompanied by a pair of twenty-year-old female companions, the margrave had departed on his annual jaunt aboard one of the jump-equipped cruise liners that catered to the affluent. Done in by too much companionship somewhere off A'Gal IV, the old man had come back in a bodybag-still smiling. Family and Confederation had consigned his body to space with full honors, the guns of the Home Fleet saluting him as he was launched -still smiling-toward galactic north.

Behind him, the margrave had left titles and estates stretching back to the T'Rlon Dynasty and this one heavily modified "pleasurecraf t."

Calling up the preflight checklist prompt on the commscreen, L'Wrona was reviewing the jump drive status-green/on-call-when Dad said, "Cleared straight through, son, but with a suspicious delay. K'Ronarport was checking with someone."

"Any idea who?"

"They had me on hold. Not smart-there's a lot of electronic sieve on those circuits. Our controller punched out to a priority line at the Combine T'Lan liaison office. The rest was in code."

There was a barely audible whirring from outside. L'Wrona threw a switch, and what had been a dark band of armorglass was suddenly clear. Outside, the berth doors were cycling open, revealing the stars of a cloudless desert night.

"And away," said L'Wrona, moving the control stalk forward. With a faint whine of n-gravs, Rich Man's Toy moved out into the night.

"Control Central orders you to return to berth and await clearance," said Dad as they banked sharply away from the lights of the spaceport.

"Do not acknowledge," said L'Wrona, tying in the CCI, just in case. Outside, the hull suddenly sprouted weapons blisters.

"Tower's on fire," said Dad as they climbed toward Line.

"What?!" L'Wrona checked the rear scan. Flames were leaping from the topmost level of the ancient fortress, a beacon that burned like a sentinel fire over the low skyline of the city. Below and from the west a V-shaped formation flew toward the Tower. Firecraft, advised the tacscan.

"Prime Base has turned out the fireguard," said Dad.

"Looks like the commandant's level," said L'Wrona. "D'Trelna's somewhere in that pile of stone."

L'Wrona hadn't been to the Tower since he was a kid, going with his father to visit an old friend who'd just been appointed Commandant-then a mostly symbolic post for aging aristocrats. There'd been no gray uniforms then, no Imperial Party, no war. He remembered it as a pleasant, musty old place of antique weapons and crenellated battlements built for small boys to leap along, far above oblivion. The future margrave had had a wonderful time jumping and running before his father intercepted him, bade his friend a gracious good-bye, then taken him back to their townhome and administered a fierce paddling.

Toy was too high now for visual, forcing the captain to contend with a relayed pickup from one of the commercial vid stations. The sharp image showed the firecraft form into a single line and come in low, green tinted snuffer gas spewing from the big tanks, then turn for home. Below them, deprived of oxygen, the fire died.

"D'Trelna's the fat one you work for, isn't he?" said Dad.

How did he know that? wondered L'Wrona. Must have been tapping into the vidchannels. "As competent as he is fat," said the captain, automatically laying in the jump coordinates for U'Tria, his mind on other things. The commodore's arrest and removal to the Tower at the same time as a fire in the commandant's suite was too big a coincidence. Dark deeds adoing, he thought as they cleared the atmosphere, and no time to stop. Luck, J'Quel, wherever you are.

"Line challenges," said Dad.

L'Wrona flipped open the commlink.

"Pleasurecraft Rich Man's Toy outbound for U'Tria," said L'Wrona.

"Acknowledged, Rich Man's Toy," came Line's voice. "You are cleared for jump point." Then, after L'Wrona switched off, it added softly, into the void, "And may fortune grace your sword, My Lord Captain."

"Armaments check," said L'Wrona as they swept through the shield wall, making for jump point at max. "Run the diagnostics now, then once we clear jump point, we'll do a little target practicing out by the J'An Belt."

"Think there'll be trouble?" said Dad.

"Count on it," said the captain.

The FleetOps duty officer was Admiral I'Tal. His hopes for a quiet evening shift had dissolved with the first action report: yet another task force in grave trouble, going up against the corsairs in Quadrant Red Seven. Dispatching what help he could, the admiral shunted all subsequent reports of the growing debacle to a lesser level. Then all hell had broken loose at the Tower, stirred up by L'Guan himself-the commandant relieved, a battalion of commandos sent in, sudden Council orders to withdraw the Tower guard, then fragmented reports of a firefight. FleetOps handled it all with its usual quiet efficiency-except for the Council liaison team, five excitable members of the Imperial Party who ran from monitor to monitor, making a nuisance of themselves.

It was as the firecraft reached the Tower that Admiral I'Tal-indeed, all of FleetOps -had his biggest surprise since the war: computer spoke-something it only did if no other source had detected an emergency. Admiral I'Tal had heard computer speak once, when he was a cadet.