Stephen Berry - The Biofab War

"Captain," said POCSYM urgently, "the biofabs have immobilized my destruct programming and transporter capability."

In a fluid movement of arm and wrist, John drew and fired. The S'Cotar vanished an instant before it would have died. Harrison cursed softly, warily shifting his gaze about the catwalk.

"You must retake my control facility, Captain."

"Why? What have you done for us, POCSYM?" asked the Captain, unmoved.

"You can kill most of the biofabs, Captain. But it will cost you. You'll have to blow them out of the asteroids and moons, fighting against excellent defenses. I doubt, though, if you can take this base-not without extinguishing all life on Terra. This is a Class One Imperial Citadel. The S'Cotar can sit here and blast your fleet to pieces. Only a planetbuster could take this installation out.

"A ground assault is your only hope. With my help, it will work. I've already sealed off a direct route from a surface entrance to Central Control. Restore my destruct capability and this war is over. Also, only I know the location of a Trel stasis cache. You haven't a chance against the Enemy without it."

"Not much choice, is there?" said John.

D'Trelna shook his head. "No. All right, POCSYM. But first transmit the location of this alleged cache to my XO. If it proves a hoax, I'll personally take you apart with a spanner wrench."

"Complying now."

After confirming L'Wrona's receipt of a series of star coordinates, D'Trelna sketched the situation for Admiral L'Guan.

"You've lost your mind, D'Trelna!" exclaimed the senior officer. "An unknown base swarming with enemy troops-our men would be slaughtered, warsuits or not."

"Admiral, it's our only chance," replied the Captain with equal force. "This installation can stand up to a full fleet bombardment forever. POCSYM's temporarily cut biofab reinforcements off from the control area. We must act now, though."

"Admiral, this is POCSYM. I can give your commandos protection from most ground fire and get them through the shield. But you must seize the moment. The S'Cotar will soon break into the access route."

There was a long pause on the comment, then a sigh. ' 'So be it. I'll dispatch the entire brigade. God help us all, D’Trelna," L'Guan added fervently, "if those boys walk into a trap."

"Thank you, sir."

"You've no transporter capability?"

"No."

"Very well. You'll have to come out with commandos. Rendezvous with them at POCSYM's Central Control. Good luck."

D'Trelna pulled his blaster. "We're going to need more than luck," he said, smiling lopsidedly at John. "POCSYM, show us the way to your control facility."

Stephen Ames Berry

The Biofab War

L'Guan turned to Captain S'Nar. "Signal Commander L'Wrona 'Away All Boats,' please, Captain. And stand by gunnery crews." His outer calm was in sharp contrast to his feelings. L'Guan hated sending men off to their deaths.

For political expediency, he was an Imperial-"Restore the Empire, restore our strength!" Secretly he loathed the movement and its leaders: jowly councilors, fascistic brother officers, unctuous politicos.

The Admiral had become a soldier because he was poor, and the only way up for a poor boy with smarts had been the Fleet. He'd worked hard, done well and risen slowly; they all had risen slowly till the S'Cotar came. When the war started, he'd been a commander with five ships that should have been scrap centuries before. Carefully hoarding his resources, L'Guan had distinguished himself in those first days by fighting sparingly, retreating slowly and buying time. Others-classmates, many-had died gallantly, throwing their lives away in suicide runs on the vastly superior S'Cotar fleets. Some few had broken and run.

One thing had led to another and now here he was, sending a lot of hard-nosed kids off to die because it really was the only way to win, to finally end it and take his men home. Most of his men.

L'Wrona received the attack order aboard one of the fifty assault boats orbiting between the fleet and lunar surface. "Take her in," he ordered the pilot. The stubby little craft banked, dropping toward the moon's dark side. Forty-nine other boats followed in W formation. After five thousand years the Imperial Guard, led by its hereditary Lord-Captain, was going into battle again. As the engines whined higher, L'Wrona recalled his briefing by the Admiral.

"So that's it, Commander. I'm risking the entire Commando to end this war. You're clear on your orders?" L'Guan's image filled Implacable''s bridge screen.

"Yes, sir. Leading the Fleet Commando, I'm to assault a Class One Imperial Citadel, fight my way down two miles to POCSYM's Central Control area and secure it. I'm then to quickly repair any damage done to vital systems by S'Cotar sabotage and activate the biofab destruct sequence, thus killing the S'Cotar and winning the war.

"Also," he continued in the same sardonic tone, "should anything go wrong-how could it, though?-there are no reserves to save us.

"Lastly, no one has mentioned our returning."

"At least you have no illusions, Commander My-Lord-Cap-tain," said the Admiral with a humorless grin. "POCSYM will get you through the shield, keeping it open for us to give you some surface cover. After that you're on your own. I'm sending over a briefing scan, furnished by POCSYM. It shows the way to his area, defenses, probable ambush points. It's very thorough."

"Thank you, Admiral."

"I knew your father, the late Margrave," continued L'Guan after a moment's hesitation. ' 'We served together as ensigns- God!-thirty years ago, during the A'Rem 'police action.'"

L'Wrona nodded, a melancholy smile tugging at his lips. "He spoke of you often, sir. And of his days on the old Steadfast under Captain B'Tul."

"What a tub she was, L'Wrona!" He smiled broadly, old memories briefly wiping away his worries. "Worst destroyer in a fleet of derelicts. And B'Tul, that old martinet! Your father and I once let a F'Norian stinkbird loose in his cabin. What an uproar! Had us at battlestations for two days." His smile faded.

"I was grieved when I heard of his death, Commander," he added simply, the old hurt in his eyes not visible in the screen.

"He died well, sir," said L'Wrona with quiet pride. "Leading the counterattack on a S'Cotar bridgehead. He was cut down from behind by transmutes appearing as Planetary Guardsmen."

"That was a black day for all of us. You held the U'Tria port, I recall, long enough for survivors to escape."

"They didn't clear the atmosphere, Admiral. Enemy interceptors were everywhere." The younger man's face was expressionless.

"May we all do better today. The command is yours, Commander My Lord Captain L'Wrona," L'Guan said formally, saluting. "Bring them hell."

A sharp jolt broke the Commander's reverie. "Ground defenses have opened up." The pilot's voice sounded thinly over the commnet.

"It would have been better if you'd stayed behind," said L'Wrona, turning to the three figures strapped next to him in the boat's crash webbing. The rest of the boat's contingent were similarly suspended, a nest of warsuited spiders. The assault boats had no room for such frills as gravity generators or g-chairs.

"John's down there," said Zahava, tightening a strap. "But I do agree that Bill and Andre shouldn't be here-they're too old."

"I'm not too old," Sutherland said, his glare filtered out by the helmet's tint. "I jog two miles every morning. Besides, if I live through this, I can go on the lecture circuit, write my own ticket.'' Another sharp jolt interrupted him, swinging the passengers in their webs. "If I live through this," he repeated less certainly.

"I admit I'm too old," said Bakunin, hanging next to Sutherland. "I should be in my modest office at Three Dhzershinsky Square-it has a view of the Lubyanka-reading reports and ogling my secretary's legs."