Stephen Berry - The Biofab War

"L'Wrona," coughed the Captain, gagging on the stench of burnt bug, his bubblehelm prematurely removed, "I'm happy to report that the warsuits work. Saved my life about a dozen times.

"We've wiped out their assault force-and without taking any casualties. They got the hangar crew, of course. Must have flicked the bodies into space. Have you hit their base?"

"We have." The XO stared at the blasted ruins mirrored in the screen. "They stopped the first missile wave, but the next took out their shipbusters and the third finished them. Medium sized surface base; not hardened. Punched through their shield with the first fusion salvo. We avoided most counterfire, but I'd hate to shoot it out with another cruiser without max shield."

"Very well, H'Nar. I'm coming up." Turning, he headed for the corridor and the lift. "Tidy up, Sergeant D'Nir," he ordered, glancing at the S'Cotar corpses now being stripped of weapons and heaped middeck for disposal. The viscous green ooze that was their lifeblood spread slowly from the pile of bodies.

Stepping into the lift, D'Trelna sketched his action report: the alarm had been quickly sounded, the area sealed, and the ship's reaction force, under his personal command, had killed the S'Cotar and wiped out their small base. The enemy vanquished, Implacable continued her mission. And yet…

There were some disturbing issues raised by the attack. The Captain voiced one as he sank wearily into the command chair, dialing up a fruit drink. "What are the S'Cotar doing this far out on the galactic arm, H'Nar?"

"Perhaps they're also looking for Imperial gear." Thoughtfully, he tapped the tip of the laser stylus against his teeth. "Question is, how long have they been out here? And why?

"Also, J'Quel, while we've been fighting, the probe's been busy." He nodded toward Survey, where K'Raoda now sat, intently reading a telltale. "Those radio transmissions are confirmed. Early cybernetic age civilization on the third planet."

"Cousins?" asked the Captain, knowing the answer.

"As usual, according to preliminaries. The Empire must have seeded half the galaxy."

"Why haven't the S'Cotar enslaved or exterminated those people, as always?" D'Trelna crumbled the empty cup between thick, blunt fingers, tapping it into the chair disposer. "The force we just beat could easily have taken one backward planet."

"Well, only one way to find out," said the XO. "If this system holds any help or any answers, that world is the place to begin."

"Agreed.

"Mr. K'Raoda," he said, swiveling toward Survey, "if you can break away from those readouts for a moment, I will take damage control and casualty readouts at my station.

"Mr. L'Sura, resume original heading for planet three.

"H'Nar, please stand down from battlestations. Maintain high alert."

Triumphant from her first battle in five thousand years, Implacable left the molten ruins of Demos and headed in toward Terra.

Stephen Ames Berry

The Biofab War

Looking up at the small TV, John Harrison groaned. Sutherland! Not now! Why couldn't he ever call? This was carrying professional paranoia too damn far.

Impatient, the casually dressed, middle-aged man rang the doorbell again.

"Coming, Mother," John called over the intercom. Sutherland responded with a thumb ambiguously raised to the camera.

Padding barefoot along his townhouse's carpeted hallway, Harrison opened the door, letting in Sutherland and the smell of blooming lilac. Down the block, the first produce stands of the day were setting up in front of Capitol Hill's Eastern Market. It was only eight, but already the air was moist, the sun too hot for April. It was going to be an early spring scorcher.

"Don't you ever sleep?" asked John, leading the way back to his office.

"I've had myself cloned.

"You look like hell," added the CIA's Deputy Director for Special Operations, taking in the bleary eyes, rumpled shorts, dirty T-shirt and two days' worth of beard. "The eternal dissertation?" he asked, stepping into the sunny office.

"No." They sat, John at his desk, Sutherland on the white Haitian cotton sofa next to the fireplace. "Certain Aspects of the Interrelationship of Cartesian Dualism and Quantum Mechanics is finished.

"Coffee, Bill?"

"Please."

John poured from the grimy glass pot, handing Sutherland a white and blue mug. The CIA officer glanced at the caduceus etched into the front. "You on the KGB's Christmas list, John?" he asked, sipping cautiously.

"Christ, I hope not. No, that's from a little gift shop in McLean, William. It's run by an elderly DAR matron. A couple of your guys told her they were physicians at Georgetown and got her to special order a raft of these." He hoisted his own mug. "If she ever finds out the truth, it'll kill her." They chuckled evilly.

"So, the thesis is finished?"

"Yeah. And I think I survived my orals. We'll know next week."

"So why the midnight oil?"

John sighed. "My book. My unfinished book for which I unwisely accepted an advance." He swept his mug over the desk top litter: canary legal pads covered in an illegible scrawl competed for space with three by five cards, photos and a stale, gnawed bagel. "I've got seven weeks to finish-hell!-to write eleven chapters."

Sutherland's eyes widened. "Out of that rubble?"

"Yup."

He shook his head. "Always good at getting yourself in a bind, John." He smiled. "What's it about?"

Extracting a grainy eight by ten black and white glossy from the mess, he handed it to Sutherland. "It's about that debacle." Taken from a distance, the photo showed a charred, helmeted body amid the scattered ruins of shattered aircraft. All about, the stark Turanian Desert stood mute witness to chaos: weapons, radios, medical kits, intact choppers and code books littered the abandoned staging area.

"It has a title?" Sutherland asked with forced casualness, flipping the photo onto the desk.

"Thy Banners Make Tyranny Tremble. We're using that photo for the jacket."

"That's pretty damn cruel," snapped the CIA officer. "You know what happened. They cut and they cut and they cut until there was no redundancy-" He broke off, smiling ruefully. "Sorry, John. Old wounds. I'm sure it'll sell a million copies.

"As an alumnus you did clear this with us?"

"Harry Rosen in Liaison approved my sources and a brief outline."

Sutherland's eyes widened. "The Harry Rosen? 'No air cover' Rosen?" John nodded. "I'd heard he was running a catfish farm in Mississippi." He sipped his coffee.

"Okay, Bill," said John after a pause, "you didn't come here at the crack of dawn on a Sunday to shoot the breeze or drink day-old coffee. Level."

"I do have a small bit of nastiness that needs tending," he admitted. "As you knew when you saw my fine-chiseled face in your boob tube."

"I'd say 'blurring toward fat,' but go on."

"Any chance of Zahava's hearing this?"

John smiled. "No guarantee, but I'll try." Picking up the phone; he tapped a digit. A long moment later a mumble could be heard.

"Sorry to wake you, but Bill Sutherland's here and he wants to talk shop. Fine. Yeah, I'll tell him." He hung up.

"She'll be done in a few minutes. She says you're meshuga."

"Is that like crazy?" asked Sutherland, trying to kill the coffee's acridness with a dollop of cream. Even older than the coffee, it floated to the surface, small clusters of decay.

"That's like crazy."

Bill set the mug aside. "The cafeteria coffee's as lousy as when you left."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, you can always have your old cubicle back. Same old gray metal desk with the 1942 coffee rings. Squeaky, green, vinyl backed chair and basic black phone. And our current secretary's into primal scream."

"You make it sound so attractive."