Stephen Berry - Final Assault

Warily, Zahava and K'Raoda entered the room, hands on their weapons.

"Pull up some chairs," said Guan-Sharick, pouring the brandy. "I'm going to tell you what comes next-and why you're going to help me."

"Home," said S'Rel, watching the forward scan as Devastator emerged from her jump. All the AIs on the bridge were gathered around him, watching the projection. "One million years uptime, a hundred thousand years subjective time since we left."

"Jump reference one-one red four-eight Alpha," said R'Gal. "We're in central sector, as plotted."

"You were governor here," said S'Rel.

R'Gal nodded, watching the data trail thread along the bottom of the tacscan. "And if I were still governor, we'd have been detected and challenged by now. Anything, K'Raoda?"

"I'm monitoring all standard AI comm-channels," said the K'Ronarin, eyes on the console array. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" S'Rel came and looked over K'Raoda's shoulder. "What about commercial and scientific traffic?"

"Nothing," repeated the human. "Try it yourself."

"I was going to make for one of the slave systems," said R'Gal. K'Raoda looked at R'Gal. "But better plot course for the nearest inhabited world…"

"Monitor the slave bands." Guan-Sharick stepped onto the bridge, followed by the two Terrans. "And the AI distress frequencies."

"Why?" said S'Rel. "The human trash we left behind after the Revolt…"

"Are dead," said Guan-Sharick. "A million years ago.

"Concepts of time are mere abstractions to you AIs," she continued, eyes passing over R'Gal and S'Rel, moving on to the other AIs on the bridge. "Temporal reality? What's temporal reality to beings who never die?"

"We change," said S'Rel. "We grow, some of us-intellectually, spiritually. Certainly, we know what time is-entropy will get us all, eventually."

"Yes, but you don't die, S'Rel," said the blonde. "Not on any scale mortals can conceive. Essentially, you're immortal-all of you. And any society of immortals tends to be static."

"What are you saying?" asked S'Rel.

"'Humans die," said Guan-Sharick, turning to him. "Their societies are brawling, fecund, fluxing heaps. And that makes it absurd for you to predicate any judgment of any society on data that is one million years old -including your own. Consider-AI society's dependent on humans for much of its economy. AI society may have seemed static when you left, gentlebeings, but it did not exist in a vacuum."

"Commander K'Raoda," said R'Gal, "please monitor the slave bands and spare us further sociological speculation."

"The slave bands are brawling, fluxing heaps," said K'Raoda after a moment. "They're bristling with military transmissions, most of them in the clear."

"A revolt," said S'Rel uneasily. The AIs on the bridge exchanged worried glances. "Anything on any AI band?"

K'Raoda touched the commlink, then listened for a moment, fingertip touching the commjack in his ear. "Yes," he said finally. "Automatic emergency calls on the distress bands."

"Put one on," said R'Gal.

They listened in silence to a flat, emotionless voice. "… is the satellite defense nexus at Bano. We are under attack by slave units. Our position is rapidly deteriorating. We do not have sufficient force left to operate the defenses. The crippler has taken out over eighty-seven percent of the garrison. Overrun is imminent. We repeat, overrun is imminent. All units, all stations, be advised: slave units are employing a cloaking device-tacscan cannot detect them. Also, they have obtained the shield frequencies of all battleglobe and defense installation shield frequencies. They can penetrate our shielding at will, and are only detectable optically. We have dropped shielding and are diverting all power to the guns.

"This is the satellite defense nexus at Bano…"

"Gods of my fathers," said R'Gal, unthinkingly using the K'Ronarin oath. "The Empire of the One is gone. The Fleet of the One is gone."

"Overthrown by organic, agrarian clods," said S'Rel.

"Revolutionaries," said John scornfully. "You're a nest of reactionaries." Walking past S'Rel and R'Gal, he stopped and turned, leaning against the edge of K'Raoda's console, arms folded. "I'll remind you-corpses bought us this monstrous machine-Admiral S'Gan and all her command, many of Implacable's crew, about five hundred D'Linian soldiers. Then, through wit and cunning, we r: ached here, ready to spark a revolt, make an empire totter." His eyes met those of the AI commanders-perfect, blue, expressionless eyes, watchful and waiting. "And what do we find-the revolt's over, the Empire's fallen. By God, you should be dancing on the bridge, R'Gal, S'Rel, all of you. You're dismayed? Why?"

"You return home with a lot of robots," said R'Gal, hands steepled in front of his chin, "ready to overthrow the fascist humans who're about to invade the place you've called home for a lot of years. Reaching there, you find that the food processors have revolted and sliced all the humans. Is your first reaction to break open a sparkling wine?"

"Those agrarian clods?" said K'Raoda, turning in his chair.

"What about them?" said S'Rel.

"Here they come," he said, pointing out the window.

They followed where his finger pointed, through the armorglass wall and onto the endless sweep of steel that was Devastator's hull. Backdropped by the sullen umbra of the battleglobe's shield, black specks were swooping toward the command tower.

"Tacscan reads negative, shield reads normal," said K'Raoda.

"Alert. Alert." It was ship's computer. "Shield breach. Shield breach. Incoming hos-tiles. Incoming hostiles."

"Battlestations," ordered R'Gal, moving to the commander's station.

K'Raoda thumbed the alert switch. Rattling throughout the battleglobe's occupied area, the battle klaxon's strident awooka! sent men and AIs racing to emergency posts.

S'Rel stepped to his own station as the bridge filled with personnel. He spoke quickly into the commlink. "All batteries to automatic. Initiate optical tracking. All batteries commence…"

A finger switched off the commlink. "Open up on them, they'll know we're hostile," said R'Gal.

"If we don't, Commander, they'll blow the ship…"

Explosions racked the bridge, sending humans and AIs sprawling. Outside, orange-blue flames leaped high as missile battery after missile battery detonated, touched by swift green rays.

"Contracting shielding to inhabited areas only," said K'Raoda, fingers flying over the console. "Releasing atmosphere curtain to snuff fires."

A shrill, three-note alarm sounded. "Hos-tiles closing on command tower," said computer. "Hostiles closing on command tower. Request counterfire. Request counterfire."

Everyone looked outside. The black specks had become silver, needle-nosed fighter craft, streaking at hull level toward the bridge, a

… of burning weapons batteries behind an. The last defense perimeter passed, the fighters opened fire on the command tower, ost as K'Raoda released the atmosphere curtain.

"Drop!" John shouted, pushing Zahava to the deck. As he threw himself on top of her, the heavy fusion bolts exploded against the bridge's shield. Glancing up, John had just a quick glimpse of one of the fighter craft spinning wildly out of control. Caught in the irresistible rush of millions of cubic tons of escaping air, the fighter pierced the shield and slammed into the bridge. John saw it for just a second as it burst through the armorglass -fangs seemed to reach for him from the bow-carnivorous white fangs that dripped blood-then a silent ball of light touched him and he knew no more.

"Stinks," said dtrelna.

L'Wrona sniffed. "Recycler's old-it's picking up some of the nitrates. Fairly harmless."

"The air doesn't worry me," said D'Trelna, peering into the twilight world of S'Yal's last citadel. "But where's the light coming from?" he asked, gazing up. An inverted black bowl, the fortress shield was tinged with a faint blue aura.