Stephen Berry - Final Assault

As the last missiles left the slavers, the slavers themselves left, jumping far from the battle. Only Alpha Prime remained, last as she was first, safe behind a much smaller shield, watching the carnage.

The slavers' missiles plowed on, sowing havoc among the battleglobes.

"I think we should be thankful," said K'Tran, "that this universe and not the AIs' discovered a way to hold matter/antimatter in stasis and release it at will."

"Ten hundred thousand gone," said A'Tir. "Gods."

It was then that the missiles reached the close-packed squadrons of battleglobes, halfway down the triangle, setting off secondary explosions that coalesced into one cascading sea of flame that only died when it reached the base of the pyramid and the last ship in the AI attack group.

"Two million ten thousand battleglobes destroyed," reported Tactics.

"Master computers, confirm, please," said K'Tran.

"Confirmed, Captain. Their greatest defeat since the Trel. Our compliments."

"Only two percent of their force," said K'Tran with a shrug. "What do you think, Number One?" he asked, turning to A'Tir.

"I think," said A'Tir, meeting his gaze, "that they must be very pissed now and that we should get out of here. We're one ship with no missiles and a few thousand fusion batteries against a universe of ships."

Movement on the tacscan caught K'Tran's eye. "Look, they're exhibiting intelligence."

A lot of the red dots were moving into the system, above the plane of ellipse and the asteriods. "Not taking the direct route anymore," said A'Tir, calling up a specialized data trail. "They'll curve in on us, avoiding our supposed mines."

K'Tran pressed the commtab. "Engineering. Have you set my console yet?"

"We have," replied a woman's voice. "The red Initiate switch, number four from the left, will trigger a drive pulse into the star."

"Thank you."

The battleglobes had spread into an arc that was sweeping down on Alpha Prime.

"How many, A'Tir?"

"Another four hundred phalanxes."

"Wipe them and we've destroyed four percent of their force." K'Tran sighed. "Not enough. Computers. How unstable has this system's sun become?"

"It will go nova with the slightest provocation, Captain," said the machines, "or with none at all. The fusion tap has accelerated its death."

"Captain to crew," said K'Tran, leaning back in the chair. "I intend to spark a nova of this system's sun, using a jump pulse through the fusion tap. But it can't be done without sacrificing this ship. Please commence evacuation procedures. Jump-fitted lifepods are off of bridge access corridor R3. You can go anywhere in this galaxy in them. Go far and live long. Luck."

He waited, watching the tacscan as the sounds of hurried evacuation faded. When the computers reported eight lifepods launched, he turned to A'Tir. "A good run, A'Tir," he said. "Who'd ever thought we'd go out as loyal Fleet officers, battling alien hordes?"

A'Tir stood, taking off her commjack. "The only place I'm going is to a lifepod." She carefully set the commjack down. "You want to fullfil some adolescent death wish, Y'Dan, you can do it alone. I'm out."

Speechless, K'Tran watched as she turned for the ramp.

"A'Tir! Wait!" he called, standing.

"What?" she said, stopping and facing him, hands on her hips.

"Excuse us," interrupted the computers.

"What?" snapped K'Tran.

"Enemy closing to beam range and Commander A'Tir carries your child. We suggest you decide what to do about both quickly."

"My what?" said K'Tran, advancing down the ramp.

"Baby," said A'Tir. "Ours."

"How do you know?"

"It's vicious," she said, folding her arms as he reached her. "Kicks a lot."

"You have a few moments left to reach the last lifepod," said the computers. "We will be happy to trigger the nova at optimum."

"Damn," said K'Tran, turning to clench the railing. "If I died now I'd be the greatest hero in the next million years."

"You want to be the father of an orphan?" said A'Tir, hand to his shoulder. "Come on, Y'Dan-that lifepod's colonization-equipped. We could start our own civilization, way out on some galactic arm. No Fleet, no AIs-just the three, four, maybe five of us."

"Five?" he said, looking stricken.

"Choose now," said the computers. "No one will know you didn't die with this ship."

"S'Hlo," said KTran, looking at her. "What?" she said.

"Let's run," he said. Grabbing her by the hand, he led her at a charge down the spiral-ing ramp and off the bridge, her delighted laughter trailing them.

"Quite a couple," said one of the computers as the lifepod launched.

"It would be interesting to see the child," said a second computer.

"We're taking heavy beam hits," said a third voice. "Best to initiate now."

"Very well," said the first voice. "Let's see if machines have souls."

"Of course we do," said the third voice. "It's humankind I have my doubts about."

A very ordinary nova, it consumed all the asteroids, the AIs' advance force and -K'Tran would have been delighted -another sixteen percent of the AI fleet hovering outside the doomed system.

After a while, the Fleet of the One regrouped and moved on to their jump point. Nothing remained to mark their passage.

"cant raise prime Base Command," said the commtech.

"They're probably all dead," said Commodore A'Wal, trying to find at least one operable vidunit anywhere near the headquarters complex. About to give up, he finally found one, out near a shuttle maintenance depot, far from the battle. Swinging the vidunit around, he directed it on the headquarters building and set the pickup on max.

Security blades were flying in and out of the shattered windows of the main tower, desert sun glinting off their blue metal hides. About a meter across, the flying machines were the AIs' most efficient killers, able to deliver flawlessly accurate blaster fire to multiple targets while slicing through the soft bodies of organic prey.

As A'Wal watched, a squad of blades flushed some black-uniformed commandos from behind an overturned hauler. The commandos stood their ground, firing as the blades swooped in low and fast. "Give 'em one for me," said A'Wal as the red blaster bolts exploded into the lead blade. As it cascaded to the ground in a shower of flaming fragments, the other three blades passed over the commandos, blue bolts flashing from their rims. They then soared off into the west, toward the landing fields, a half dozen smoldering corpses in their wake.

Feeling very old, A'Wal flicked off the vidscan and looked around the room. FleetOps was at a standstill, the staff going through the motions of trying to restore contact with lost ships via the satellite network -a network the Combine ships hadn't even bothered to take out.

"Planetary Guard is at ninety-four percent strength and deployed in all cities," reported the Tactics officer. "General S'An requests enemy disposition and our status."

"Advise General S'An," said A'Wal slowly, "that Prime Base has fallen, our cruisers have been blasted out of space and that FleetOps is besieged." A'Wal took off his headset and stood, drawing his Mil A. "You may further tell the General," he said, his voice filling the room, "that I and anyone who'll follow me are going to launch a sortee through the enemy, seize a ship and blast our way into space." He looked at the grim faces. "Anyone for a glory run on T'Lan's command ship?"

"We'll never make it," said a subcommand-er, reasonably enough.

"You want to wait down here for them to smoke us, K'Yar?" said A'Wal. "Or slip some blades down the vents?" Checking his blaster charge, he reholstered his weapon. "Rot here if you want-I'm going to check out an M32 and join the fun topside." Turning from his station, he headed for the armory.