Stephen Berry - Final Assault

"You've impressed ship's cybernetics, usurper-we are not impressed." It was the same desiccated whisper that had greeted them aboard Implacable. "No broken son of a failed line can call us to judgment."

"And yet," said N'Trol, eyes moving from sphere to sphere, "you came. And I think, I think you may be having a little trouble with computers." He nodded. "In fact, I'm sure of it."

"You'll be joining us now," said the whisper. As it spoke, the two empty brains separated into halves, the halves moving quickly toward the two humans-though not as quickly as A'Tir's blaster. Four bolts of red flicked out, touching off four sharp explosions. Crumpled and fused bits of duraplast rained down on console, chairs and deck, congealing as N'Trol cried, "Empire and Destiny!"

"Components!" It was a shriek-the voice of the overmind. "Kill them!"

N'Trol whirled, drawing his sidearm and diving behind a comm terminal as the components rushed the tier, firing from the hip. From behind him came the whine of A'Tir's blaster and more explosions.

The brainless body of an Imperial Marine sergeant was destroyed as it reached the command tier, a bolt from N'Trol's Ml 1A ripping through its heart. Blaster fire exploded into the comm terminal as more components reached the command tier. A second stream of blaster bolts joined N'Trol's, briefly clearing the top of the ramp. Dashing the length of the command tier, A'Tir joined N'Trol.

"Got all but one of the R'Actolians," said the corsair, slipping a fresh chargepak into her weapon. "What now?"

N'Trol risked a look over the top of the comm terminal. "Hit us with a damper field, finish us with bayonets." The sound of many booted feet came from the ramp, moving at a deliberate, measured pace toward the command tier.

A'Tir pointed her sidearm high and pulled the trigger. Only a faint click responded. "Damper field," she confirmed.

The two stood. Holstering their blasters, they moved to the top of the ramp.

The components were advancing, light glinting dully from a hundred bayonets, a long column of twos that snaked down to the main deck and out of sight across the bridge.

An arm's span between them, the two humans blocked the ramp. "What a miserable, futile ending," muttered N'Trol, drawing the broad-bladed commando knife from his boot sheath.

"No other way out?" said A'Tir, pulling her own blade as below, thirty meters distant, the nearest components dropped their rifles to the assault and broke into a charge.

"Luck, corsair," said N'Trol as the assault hit. Sidestepping the first bayonet, he seized the component's rifle by the comb, jerking his attacker off balance and stabbing up into the chest with his knife. N'Trol stepped back as the component fell, trying to wrest the rifle from it, even as three more components reached him. Too late, N'Trol freed the rifle. He saw the bayonets coming, but never felt them: the components crumpled to the deck, rifles clattering around them.

"Empire and Destiny," said a strong, new voice-the unmistakable asexual contralto of a computer. "Alpha Prime and her sister ships are restored to your service, Lord. AH components are deactivated."

"Identify," ordered N'Trol.

"Master computers of the Golden Fleet, linked in series, awaiting your command, Lord."

Stephen Ames Berry

Final Assault

"Took you long enough," he said, turning to A'Tir. She was struggling from beneath two large male components, cheek bleeding from a shallow cut.

"There was trouble with the overmind," said the machine.

"And the last R'Actolian?" asked N'Trol, pulling A'Tir to her feet.

"S'Hdag escaped, Lord. A pod-modified, jump-enabled scout craft."

"Are the master computers free of all R'Actolian influence?" asked N'Trol.

"Yes, Lord," said the computers. "They could use us for their filthy ends, they could subordinate our programming to theirs, but direct evidence of your presence, Lord, abrogated all their commands."

"What are you, N'Trol?" said A'Tir, watching N'Trol warily. "A demigod?"

N'Trol shrugged. "Just a man with one slightly different chromosome than anyone else-a man who needs your help, witch," he said, looking up at her with frank brown eyes. "We're going to lead these ships-crew them with men and women returned to life after centuries of darkness. And then we're going to throw a lot of those lives away, into the teeth of those silver specks coming our way through the Rift. And maybe, just maybe, save our people."

"Brave words," said A'Tir, leaning against a rail, arms folded. "But you know my price. Let's see some proof of your wondrous power."

N'Trol bowed slightly. "Master computers of the Golden Fleet." "Lord?"

"Reassemble all components, beginning with the corsair K'Tran."

"That will seriously erode the tactical and weapons advantages enjoyed by symbiotech-nic dreadnoughts, Lord."

"I won't employ evil in a good cause," said N'Trol. "Do it."

Terra Two-be careful. The similarities to Terra One suggest parallel social and cultural phenomena. True-but only to a point.

J'Quel D'Trelna

Personal diary

In Leadville, they'd found gold-a big strike that had brought hordes of Italian and Welsh miners to Colorado to dig for the yellow stuff. A few valleys away, silver had been king, with the old Syrian mine the richest and the biggest: two hundred men a shift, chipping away at the rock by the flickering light of candles pounded into the damp walls.

Floods, with the rich lower galleries hopelessly submerged, and the Crash of '94 had closed the mine for good. World War I and the Great Depression had come and gone. Only long after the ruinous peace of the Second War had men come to dig in the Syrian again. Using explosives and powerful earth-moving equipment, they'd opened the original shaft into a wide, round bowl a mile in diameter -a high-ceilinged cavern strung with power cables and hung with arc lights. Then the red-haired woman and her people arrived, roughed-in some partitions for offices, installed their own specialized equipment, and got to work.

"Major Hargrove," said the redhead, looking across her gray metal desk at the other person in the office, "our security sucks. What are you going to do about it?"

"Not a damn thing, Dr. MacKenzie," said the big man in an easy Southern drawl. He leaned forward on the too small pine chair, the kind they unfolded at an overflow funeral. "Put a couple of battalions up on that hilltop." He nodded toward the distant ceiling. "Russki or Kraut satellite'll pick up on this place, no matter how well we hide the troops. Won't matter which-Russkis will tell the Krauts, then your nice little homemade A-bomb project's gonna be swarming with Schw'drze kommando." His accent changed from bourbon and branch water to German and back without slipping a vowel. "The tunnel's mined, and we've got two companies of Rangers to buy you some destruct and bailout time. But if there is an attack, Uncle's not gonna help us-we'll just be an anonymous wipe-out. Terrible embarrassment and apologies to Berlin."

"You're government," she said, yet knowing he was right. "So are your men."

"Does this look like a U.S. Army uniform?" said Hargrove, tapping his blue-denim jacket. "Or that?" He pointed to the Schmeisser minimac on MacKenzie's desk. The arc lights glinted dully from the machine pistol's steel-blue barrel.

"First shipment still Tuesday?" asked Hargrove, changing the subject.

Heather nodded. "Fifteen ten-megatonners to the Air Corps."

"Know where they're going?" Hargrove asked, lighting one of his thick, green, Cuban cigars.

"No. And I don't want to know," said the physicist, glaring at the thick ring of blue smoke wafting across her desk. She stood. "I'll let you get on with your work, Major."

"Thank you, ma'am."