Stephen Berry - Final Assault

"Give me back my body!" demanded KTran, looking from A'Tir to N'Trol and back.

"It's been reduced to carbonized dust," said the machines. "We've given you the body of an Imperial Marine lieutenant whose brain was destroyed in stasis flux, some years ago. We would point out, Captain KTran, that this body is twenty years younger than your original, perhaps more aesthetically pleasing, and in excellent condition. And as a compensation for your loss, we have enhanced the genitalia."

The shock fading, K'Tran looked down again. "Good God!"

"We can live with it, Y'Dan," said A'Tir, following his gaze.

N'Trol cleared his throat. "K'Tran, we've got about a half watch to prepare this fleet for battle. Please cover your splendid new self."

He tossed a bundle of clothes at the corsair captain. "You're needed on the bridge."

"You're Implacable's engineer," said K'Tran, pulling on a pair of black pants. "N'Trol. You death-tripped my cruiser off Terra." He slipped on the matching black shirt, frowning at the single gleaming comet on the collar. "This is an Imperial admiral's uniform." His new voice disconcerted him-it was too deep, and somehow made his polished, old line Academy intonation sound affected.

N'Trol nodded. "Win this battle, all your crimes are pardoned and the rank is permanent."

"Who are you to go around handing out a dead empire's flag ranks, Engineer?" said K'Tran, sitting to pull on the boots that sat by the bedside.

"He's your bloody damned Emperor," said A'Tir, looking at N'Trol.

N'Trol laughed. "If we win-probably. If not, well, K'Tran, you get to be an admiral for a while."

K'Tran stood, looking around the mind-slaver's sickbay. It was an immense hall that seemed to go on forever: row upon row of beds, and each bed had an occupant. K'Tran looked back at N'Trol. "You're restoring them all," he guessed.

N'Trol nodded. "The computers are-on this and the twenty-one other ships of this

Beet. And, to avoid bedlam, each brain in its brainpod is now being briefed on our situation and given an option-help us fight, or remain off-line until after the battle. There're representatives here from every dynasty since the fifth, plus people dragooned off a slew of lost colonies in Blue Nine. Imagine the mess we'd have trying to brief them all separately." He turned back to K'Tran. "Now, sir, will you stand with us, or await the outcome?"

"If you win, and I haven't fought?" asked K'Tran, knowing the answer.

N'Trol shrugged. "You'll be tried by the Fleet you betrayed and given loser's options: Death by hanging, death by firing party, death by poison, death by spacing, death by…"

K'Tran clenched a large new hand to his breast. "An honor to serve you, My Lord."

"You see what they're doing," said Admiral L'Guan, pointing to his left. He, D'Trelna and L'Wrona stood in Line's war center, looking at the tri-dee projection of a slice of space inside Line's. Cruisers marked with the emblem of Combine T'lan were taking up station off Prime Base.

"They wouldn't dare," said L'Wrona.

"Why not?" said L'Guan. "Fleet's scattered throughout the Confederation. Those mechanical slime know Line can't fire on the planet. And with Councilor D'Assan virtually owning FleetOps, no one's going to recall so much as a single class-E destroyer."

"Sir, I think you underestimate the integrity of the FleetOps command," said L'Wrona.

"I hope so," said L'Guan. "But with no Fleet, FleetOps is just a hole in the desert."

"What if the Fleet were recalled?" asked D'Trelna, looking at L'Wrona, then back at the admiral.

"Line?" asked the admiral.

"Eighty-two percent return rate in one week," said Line. "The balance scattered over two months. But only in a bona-fide state of siege, as proclaimed by Council edict, may FleetOps issue a recall."

"With your permission, Admiral?" said L'Wrona, indicating a complink.

"Certainly," said L'Guan, "but what…"

"He's going to recall the Fleet, I think," said D'Trelna as L'Wrona sat down at the terminal.

"If you'll stop shouting, I'll try to explain," said the tech officer.

Commodore A'Wal stopped shouting. "Explain, then," he said. Outside, beyond the armorglass wall of his office, FleetOps was in chaos-officers running like frenzied insects from station to station, comm officers frantically issuing and reissuing unheeded instructions to units scattered across millions of light-years; the worried faces of flotilla and sector commanders mirrored in the skipcomm screens.

"All of our machines are Imperial," said the tech officer, running a hand through his hair. He pointed to the operations floor. "Everything out there, right down to the lighting panels, is just as it was five thousand years ago-except that some of it doesn't work quite as well."

"Tell me something I don't know," said A'Wal, sitting on the outer edge of his desk, arms folded. "So?"

"No one's rewritten the computer programs since the Fall," said the tech officer. "We know their machine code, but we don't have their security protocols. If we…"

"If we tamper with it, we might wipe the whole combat command system," said A'Wal, eyes on the operations floor. The tech officer turned, following his gaze: Admiral I'Tal was engaging in a shouting match over the skipcomm with an admiral second. I'Tal ended the discussion by stabbing a finger at the younger officer and hitting the disconnect. Unaware that he was being watched, he sank into his chair, shaking his head.

The tech officer and A'Wal returned to their discussion. "You remember Implacable''s encounter with Imperial machine code and that stasis algorithm out in Blue Nine?"

The commlink on A'Wal's desk began to chirp. Ignoring it, he said, "Tell me quickly, Commander-without the background briefing. Why are over eight thousand starcruisers making for here at flank-corsairs as well as Fleet? Why are their crews and we unable to stop this unwanted return?"

"Someone has bypassed our programming overlay," said the tech officer. "They've activated a section of the old Imperial programming last used at the Fall."

"What portion?"

"The recall, sir. Someone with access to FleetOps channels and knowledge of an authentication sequence sacred to the last Royal House has recalled the Fleet. If the crews try to tamper with the recall programming, those sturdy old Imperial jump drives will self-destruct."

There was a loud knock on A'Wal's door. He ignored it. "Who and why?"

"Who?" The tech officer shrugged. "There being no Heir…"

A'Wal held up a forefinger. "Do not assume that."

The tech officer raised an eyebrow. "Sir? May I ask if you know. ..?"

A'Wal shook his head. "Just rumors -vague rumors over the past five years or so. Continue, Commander." The knocking had stopped, but not the commlink's chirping.

"Absent an Heir," said the tech officer, "I would assume the Hereditary Lord Captain of the Imperial Guard-except that he's dead. Or," he said, seeing something in A'Wal's expression, "should I not assume that either?"

"Perhaps not," said the commodore. "But why the recall?"

With a hiss and a pop of shorted electronics, the door to A'Wal's office slid open. Stepping past a technician and her scattered tools, Admiral I'Tal came in. "I need you out there, A'Wal. Now."

"What…" began the commodore as the tech officer slipped out.

"We're receiving an invasion alert on an old High Imperial watch channel," said the admiral.

"Is it authenticated?" asked A'Wal as the two men hurried down the stairs onto the operations floor.

"Archival match," said the admiral. "Imperial battlecode of the House of T'Rlon, coming from a mindslaver fleet off the Rift-a fleet allegedly commanded by one Admiral K'Tran."

"The galaxy's bloodiest butcher commanding a fleet of the dead and the damned," said A'Wal. "The Last Days are here.