Stephen Berry - Final Assault

"I don't know how," said the muffled voice, "but you got S'Ti and M'Tra-so you'll go slow, from the bottom up."

She twisted the M59A's muzzle, converting the device from a weapon to a precision cutting torch.

"Who hired you?" said L'Wrona as the Tugayee aimed the weapon at his groin.

Before she could do or say anything, the captain's blaster appeared around the corner of an instrument cluster and blew the top half of the assassin's head away, returning to his grip as she fell.

The heraldic device in the grips blinked twice-all clear-then, after a brief pause, the trigger guard closed.

L'Wrona took a deep breath and looked up. The storm was gone, the air smelled sweet and new and he could see the stars. Turning, he walked quickly to the lift.

Two small specks of brightness against a great black sphere, Repulse and Dawn matched speed with the AI battleglobe, maintaining position between it and Terra.

"Big," said Captain P'Qal, looking at the image of the battleglobe filling his main screen.

"Big?" said S'Tat, looking at the captain. "It's a monster! Give me ten of those things and I'll break through Line and storm K'Ronar."

"Why hasn't it fired yet?" said Captain S'Yatan, face small but distinct in P'Qal's commscreen.

"Maybe they don't have anything small enough to stop us with," said P'Qal wryly.

"Let's play this out, Number One," he continued, turning to the first officer. "By the book. Challenge and stand by all weapons."

S'Tat nodded and turned to her console. "Confederation cruiser Repulse to unknown vessel. Identify and prepare to be boarded."

Silence, then a burst of static as the main screen flickered. The image of the battleglobe vanished, replaced by that of a smiling young man in brown K'Ronarin duty uniform, commander's pips on his collar. "You did say board, Commander?"

"Identify," said S'Tat tightly.

The man shrugged. "Sure. Commander T'Lei K'Raoda, attached AI battleglobe Devastator under the command of Colonel R'Gal, K'Ronarin Fleet Counterintelligence Corps, with other indigenous personnel as prize crew."

P'Qal was out of the command chair, staring incredulously at the screen. "You're telling us you took that mother, Commander? Captured that thing?"

"Yes, sir."

"And your previous ship?" said the captain.

"L'Aal-class cruiser Implacable under Captain His Excellency H'Nar L'Wrona."

P'Qal sat back down. "What the seven hells is going on here, K'Raoda? Implacable'^ corsair-listed-shoot-without-challenge. And where's your commodore, D'Trelna, who now owes me 432,581 credits, including accrued interest, from a b'kana game on S'Htar?"

"You know the commodore, sir?" said K'Raoda.

P'Qal nodded. "Shipped together as merchanteers for a few years. And we were in the same reserve unit on S'Htar, before the war."

"What about our skipcomm relay?" said S'Tat. "Taking a little target practice with your new toy?"

"We thought it best to talk with you before you sounded invasion alert," said K'Raoda. "Both the AIs and Fleet are after us."

"We are Fleet," grumbled P'Qal.

"I know, sir. Please come aboard." K'Raoda glanced offscan. "Vector in on homer frequency AAlRed. You can land on n-gravs right next to the operations tower."

"We'll be logging that as a boarding, of course," said P'Qal.

"Of course, sir," said K'Raoda. "You'll be just in time for dinner."

S'Rel spoke into his communicator. "R'Gal is on board?"

"In command," said the voice. "It's a battleglobe, all right-Devastator-Binor's flagship."

"His no longer, it seems," said S'Rel. "Get us a shuttle up there. Now. I'm at CIA headquarters. Have New York clear it through Washington-set down on the roof. And bring everyone in our unit. I think we may be going home."

Pocketing his communicator, S'Rel turned to find Sutherland staring at him across the desk. "Just what are you, S'Rel?" said the CIA director quietly, fingertips templed before his chin. "AI battleglobes have been seen only once in this galactic epoch-a mercifully brief appearance. Almost nothing's known about them, yet one shows up after lunch on a warm August day and you're familiar with its command history."

"Fleet doesn't tell all its secrets, Bill," said S'Rel with a shrug. "No government does, as you well know."

"Bullshit, buddy," said Sutherland, standing. "While you were supervising the cleanup of our Amazon village, I took two squads on a last sweep of the area. Just for the hell of it, I decided to have another look at that anaconda. And guess what? It must have just been killed before I shot it-crushed. What I saw and reacted to were its death throes."

"So?" said the K'Ronarin.

"So what are you, S'Rel?" continued Sutherland calmly. "Not human, certainly. Not a S'Cotar or the alarms would be ringing. That leaves only one known possibility."

S'Rel leaped the desk-an effortless, standing broad jump, done with only a slight flexing of the knees, the landing soft and silent. "An AI, right, Bill?" he said as Sutherland pressed against the glass wall, face as white as the ceiling tiles.

"God deliver us from monsters," whispered the CIA director.

Laughing, S'Rel stepped back a pace. "You're a paunchy, middle-aged bureaucrat, Sutherland," he said. "But you have style and you have guts." He held out his hand. "Welcome to the Revolt."

"Well, we've boarded her," said S'Tat as Repulse settled onto the steel surface of the battleglobe. Two miles long and of proportional length and breadth, the K'Ronarin ship was just another machine on the bleak, airless surface of the machine fortress: fusion batteries with cannon half the cruiser's length, ugly black snouts pointing toward the shimmering blue of the shield; instrument pods and the domes of missile turrets, the largest of them the height of Repulse, interspacing the fusion batteries in row after serried row all the way to the horizon.

"Nice place," said Captain P'Qal, watching the outside scan move across the bridge's main screen. "That, I gather, is the operations tower," he said, as the scan stopped, holding on the great black structure dwarfing the hull structures. Square and windowless, it seemed almost to touch the shield.

"What's that on the top?" said S'Tat, frowning as she zoomed the scan. A stiff duraplast flag leaped into focus-silver and black, with a single golden dagger lying horizontally in its middle. "That looks familiar," she said uncertainly.

"It's the battle flag of our Confederation," said P'Qal. "Find out if they're sending someone to get us, or if we have to walk. And tell S'Yatan to maintain position."

They sent someone to get them: K'Raoda. He arrived in a transit tube that extended its serpentine self from the sheer wall of the tower to the cruiser's emergency bridge access. "Sorry about this," he said, leading P'Qal and S'Yatan through the luminescent green tube. "There're selective atmospheric controls, but they took hits in the fighting -we've been busy repairing the fusion batteries and power leads."

P'Qal shook his head, not sure which had impressed him more about K'Raoda-the boyish features and easy grin or the crimson-hung silver Valor Medal around the Commander's neck. The captain shook his head. "Amazing."

A few moments later they entered the tower and began trudging up a broad circular ramp, passing men and women in K'Ronarin uniform who nodded hastily and hurried by, distracted, or ignored the newcomers, intent on battle repairs.

Every level bore signs of recent combat: walls and floors gouged by the black gashes of blaster hits, shattered instrument alcoves, and here and there, missed in the hurried cleanup, the shattered remains of what must have been complex mobile machinery-AIs? wondered P'Qal. He was about to ask when they topped the ramp and reached the heart of the battleglobe, the bridge of the operations tower.