Stephen Berry - Final Assault

He turned at the door. "By the way, Doctor, G2 says Hochmeister's back."

Heather MacKenzie turned in her chair. "Define 'back,'" she said warily.

"Head of Allied Security and Intelligence in Berlin." He puffed thoughtfully. "He kept his word, you know."

MacKenzie nodded absently. "The gray admiral always keeps his word," she said. "Better hope to God he doesn't find out we broke ours."

Hargrove grunted and left, smoke trailing him.

"Sir, the Americans have broken their word."

Hans Christian Hochmeister looked up from the neat pile of papers on his red, leather-trimmed blotter. "Regarding what?" he asked the young captain in the feldgrau uniform. The sun was streaming into the big office along the Wilhelmstrasse. It was Friday of a quiet week-the day Hochmeister had hoped to finish the final draft of his memoirs.

"They are assembling nuclear weapons at a hidden plant in the Colorado Rockies," said Hauptmann Becker, handing over the report. He stood waiting as the admiral carefully read all eight pages.

"How is peace maintained, Captain?" Hochmeister asked, setting the report down.

"By a policy of mutual assured destruction between the great powers," said the young officer as Hochmeister removed his wire-rimmed biofocals and polished them with a white linen handkerchief. "We invented the bomb, the Russians stole it, we each built thousands of missiles, all pointed at each other. And here we sit, decades later, we in prosperity, they in… socialism."

"And now die Americans have gone and started making nuclear weapons." He tapped the report. "Did you see who's leading them, Becker?"

"Heather MacKenzie, the ganger leader you negotiated with," said the aide.

Hochmeister rose and walked to the window. He stood looking down on the broad avenue and the noonday traffic, a tall, thin, almost gaunt old man in a well-cut brown suit. "They wanted autonomy-I got it for them. We no longer meddle much in their internal affairs. They wanted peace in their cities, an end to class warfare. I saw that Urban Command was disbanded and money lent for restoration of the cities. They wanted a diminished role in the Southwest African problem. Granted."

"You couldn't have repulsed that alien enclave-those biofabs-without the gangers' help," said Becker.

Hochmeister turned from the window. "And those strange people from an alternate reality-Harrison, DTrelna. And now we're repaid by the Americans, under MacKenzie, setting up a bomb factory-a breaking of their promise to me." He returned to his chair. "Get me General Gueller of the Schwarzekommando," he said, neatly stacking his memoirs in the top drawer of his desk.

"What the hell happened?" demanded John.

"Our miraculous little cube selfobstructed," said R'Gal. He, John and Zahava stood watching as a mixed crew of human-adapted AIs and humans cleaned up the mess in engineering.

"Why?" asked K'Raoda.

R'Gal shrugged. "Gods, I don't know-I'll speculate if you want."

It was the first time John had ever seen the AI at a loss. "Please," he said.

"That reality linkage was made during the Revolt by beings fleeing battleglobes of this class." R'Gal paced the deck between the little group and the shattered console. "Is it any wonder they would have sequenced them for self-destruct in the event of capture? Remember, that technology was far ahead of anything the Fleet of the One had."

"Why didn't it blow up the ship?" said K'Raoda. "That thing's energy potential was enormous."

R'Gal stopped pacing and looked at K'Raoda with a sad old smile. "A cruder fate, don't you think, Commander, to maroon your enemy forever than to merely kill him?"

"You're telling us we're marooned in this reality?" said Zahava, a catch to her voice. "Forever?"

"Yes," said R'Gal.

"No," said Guan-Sharick, appearing between R'Gal and Harrison. "There's a way out."

"If anyone knows, it would be you," said

R'Gal to the transmute. "How?"

"Trigger a large enough nuclear explosion simultaneous with a jump sequence I'll provide."

"Devastator doesn't carry anything as primitive as nuclear weapons," said R'Gal. "Where are we to get fissionable material?"

"Terra Two has them," said the blonde. "Start running a surface tacscan."

"They're just going to give it to us?" said K'Raoda.

"After I talk with them, yes." The transmute nodded.

"The Fate of the Universe," said John, unbuckling his gunbelt and dropping it onto his bunk. "Good versus Evil." Wearily sinking into the room's sole armchair, he propped his feet up on the corner of Zahava's bunk. "Piss and Shit." Toe to heel, he pushed off one and then the other boot, letting them fall to the gray plating with a one-two thud.

Not asking, Zahava poured him a drink from the last bottle of Chivas in the universe. "Why so down?" she said gaily, pouring a neat dollop for herself. "We're stranded in this fine place, probably forever-our only refuge is Terra Two…"

"Refuse, you mean. America an impoverished haven of cryptofascism and class warfare," said John, and took a sip of his scotch. "The cities are rubble, the middle class an endangered species. Japan's a ruin, Russia a Stalinist paranoia ward. Western Europe's doing well." He raised his glass. "Here's to you, Hans Christian Hochmeister and the whole bloody Abwehr."

"No K'Ronarin Confederation here," said Zahava, sitting on the edge of the bunk. "They wiped themselves out way back when. So unless Guan-Sharick pulls another miracle, this is home." She neatly knocked back half her scotch.

"Guan-Sharick." John set his glass down on the deck and picked up a boot. "Let's have a Guan-Sharick seminar." He gave the temporary bulkhead behind him four hard pounds with the boot. "Hey, T'Lei! Seminar!" There was a long silence.

"Scotch is almost gone!" he added.

The corridor door hissed open and Commander K'Raoda came in, shoeless, his shirt unbuttoned.

"Lushes. V'org slime." He padded across the room to the bottle as the door closed. "Half gone," he said, picking it up and sadly shaking his head. "Why do they put it in such a small container?" He poured himself a generous ration.

"To charge more for less," said John, dropping his boot. "An old Terran tradition."

"You don't mind my sharing your bed with your wife?" said the K'Ronarin, sitting next to Zahava. John said nothing-the joke had grown old several hundred light-years and at least three bottles ago. "Why have you called us together, noble Terran?" asked K'Raoda, taking a small sip of whiskey.

"Guess," said Zahava dourly.

"Not the bug again," sighed K'Raoda.

"Now, just listen, both of you." John held up a hand. "Guan-Sharick calls all the shots here-R'Gal doesn't recharge his batteries without Guan's permission."

"So?" said Zahava. "Guan-Sharick's from the race that designed and built the AIs, millions of years ago. The two fought together in the revolt against the AIs, a million years downtime. Guan-Sharick was almost certainly number one boy to the Revolt's human leader."

"All of which we have from either R'Gal or Guan-Sharick," said K'Raoda. He refilled his glass. "We've been over this before, Noble Terrans. Questions of Guan-Sharick's nature or ultimate purpose are beyond available evidence. We have to wait."

"You K'Ronarins almost waited yourselves out of existence, back in the Biofab War," said John. "Hell, as far as we know, the Confederation's not going to worry about the AIs till they've stripped the Sceptered Throne for spare parts."

"We paid," said K'Raoda, looking at the liquor. "And my previous statement stands."

"Tell him," said Zahava.

"I decided to address a simple issue regarding Guan-Sharick," said John. "Which is?"

"Which is, Commander K'Raoda, where does the silly bastard sleep, eat, go to the head? This ship is not near any convenient rest stops, its actual living area's small and well peopled. Yet no one ever sees our blonde whatever unless it wants to be seen. Where, Noble K'Ronarin, is Guan-Sharick?"