Stephen Berry: The Biofab War

"Mr. N'trol," said Captain J'Quel D’Trelna, "how much longer on the shield, please?"

"Watchend, Captain," replied Implacable's Engineer, his distraction clear over the commnet. "We'll have it up by watchend."

"You've been telling me that for the last three watches, N'Trol."

"We've gotten the security shielding on line, Captain. The two systems shouldn't be interdependent, but they are. Someone must have run out of parts just before the Fall, so they jury-rigged repairs, and that's the way she went into stasis. Only now can we concentrate on the external system."

"Thank you, Engineer," said D’Trelna sardonically, "for the insight into Imperial ingenuity. But I'm not concerned with security shielding. There's not much chance we'll have a S'Cotar assault force to localize this far from home. Will you guarantee me external shielding by watchend?"

"No, sir, I will not. And Captain, if you wouldn't keep asking me for a progress report every time I pick up a spanner, the shield might be up now. Of course, if you'd care to come down from the bridge and lend a hand…"

D'Trelna switched off with a snort. Swiveling the command chair back toward the big screen, he caught sight of H'Nar L'Wrona's grin.

"Something funny, Commander My Lord Captain?" he asked, exaggerating the title.

"You can't bait me with that anymore, merchant," the XO said good naturedly, turning back to his console. "And you really shouldn't harass N'Trol. He's the best engineer in Fleet-probably the only one who could have kept this relic moving across the galaxy."

D’Trelna sighed. "I know. But we'll be coming out of hyperspace soon and I feel naked without a shield."

L'Wrona bent toward a telltale, hiding his amusement at the sudden vision of D'Trelna naked. Half again the slim aristocrat's age and three times his size, the Captain's image would never adorn a recruiting poster. Luckily for them all, the ex-S'Htarian trader was as brilliant as he was large.

L'Wrona looked up. "Ecological, J'Quel. We're a long way from the war. There's no reason for the S'Cotar to be this far out. Probably no reason for us to be, either."

"L'Guan called this a vital mission, H'Nar," said D'Trelna, invoking Fleet's Grand Admiral. "If Archives thinks there's a chance of finding an intact Imperial matter transporter anywhere in this galaxy, then a ship must be sent. Look on it as a shakedown cruise."

"Maybe." L'Wrona shrugged. "But how many missions sent at Archives' request have turned up anything? Two? Four? Out of how many? A hundred?"

"Yes, but one of those was an Imperial citadel with a flotilla of cruisers in stasis."

"A badly functioning stasis field, J'Quel. And at least one still badly functioning ship. Our communications, our weapons, and our defenses are unreliable."

"No need to remind me." D'Trelna dialed up a cup of steaming hot t'ata from the chair arm. "At least the beverager works." A chime sounded.

"Coming up on space normal, gentlemen," said K'Raoda, the very young, very bright Subcommander manning Navigation. If they get any younger, thought the Captain, suppressing an urge to check with N'Trol, we'll have to toilet train.

"Very well, Mr. K'Raoda.

"Shipwide," he said over the commnet. "This is the Captain." His voice echoed through the long miles of Implacable. "We're about to enter a star system unexplored since the Fall. As we're far from home and the S'Cotar, I expect no trouble. Just to be safe, though, we'll be going to battlestations. All personnel will don warsuits. Captain out."

Accepting the silvery packet from a yeoman, D'Trelna rose, unbuckling his long-barreled blaster and setting it aside. Shaking open the warsuit, he tugged it on over boots and brown duty uniform as did the rest of the bridge crew.

It didn't look like much, that bit of silver foil. A recently recovered product of the millennia dead Empire, its secret still a mystery, the warsuit could briefly absorb ion fire and doubled as vacuum and pressure suit.

Feeling slightly foolish in the safety of the great old ship's big bridge, D'Trelna twisted on the transparent bubblehelm. Snapping his blaster on, he sat back down. "Let's do it, Commander L'Wrona," he ordered.

"Battlestations. Battlestations," L'Wrona intoned, the klaxon briefly seconding him.

"All sections report ready," said L'Sura from the Tactics station.

"Stand by for space normal," K'Raoda said. All eyes turned to the big screen, now showing only the gray of hyper-space.

"Space normal… now!"

A tugging at the stomach, slight pain in the head, and it was over. Swirling nebulae and a billion hard points of light filled the screen, set among the obsidian of space normal.

"So. Here we are," said D'Trelna. "Anything, H'Nar?"

The XO's long, tapering fingers flew over his board. "Nothing," he said finally, looking up from the telltales. "At least nothing hostile. Primitive radio signals from insystem somewhere. Too fragmented for immediate analysis. I'll put computer on it. Alright to launch a homing probe?" At D'Trelna's nod, he gave computer the order.

What looked like one of the many small hull instrument pods detached itself from the cruiser. Following the transmission traces, it shot away toward the small sun.

"What have you for me, Mr. K'Raoda?" asked the Captain.

"Class five sun, seven to ten planets-I'll firm that up soon. No ships' traces. No functioning Imperial commbeacons or navbeacons."

Trying to scratch his balding head, D'Trelna's hand met the helmet. Grunting, he twisted it off, setting it in his lap.

"Which means we'll have to probe from planet to planet, looking for Imperial remains."

"Best chances are with the inner planets, given this system's configuration and those signals," said L'Wrona.

"Agreed." The Captain nodded. "Follow that probe, Mr. K'Raoda.

"H'Nar," he said, rising, "have them stand down to alert condition. I'm going to get some sleep. Call me if anything, anything at all, happens.

"You have the conn, Commander," he added formally, relinquishing his chair and his ship to L'Wrona and heading for the closed armored doors. "And check on N'Trol."

Leaning back from the deskscreen, D’Trelna reread the diary entry:

Arrived today in star system unexplored since Imperial dreadnoughts kept the Pax Galactica a very long time ago. I'm beginning to believe this is yet another stupidity conceived by the morons in Archives and implemented by the cretins of Intelligence. Have detected no Imperial traces. Have detected possible primitive civilization farther in-system. Have launched and am following survey probe.

Ship in need of sundry repairs-hasty nature of refit becoming painfully obvious. Main shield has been down for eight watches, two fusion batteries couldn't heat a cup of t'ata and our anti-ship missiles have twice homed in on Recreation Deck's lavatory.

Only really dangerous problem is shield. If we met a S'Cotar task force now that did not obligingly teleport into a security shielded zone, such as Hangar Deck, they'd have us for dinner.

Ever-sensitive to his weight, he changed "for dinner" to "by the shorts."

Filing the diary back into computer, D’Trelna punched up and devoured two large helpings of calorie-laden o'rna, then dropped into bed, hands clasped contentedly over the swell of his belly, blaster tucked under his pillow.

Awakening at midwatch, he called Engineering. "Well?"

"Fine, thank you, sir. And yourself?"

"N'Trol, no one likes a smart mouth. Shield status, please."

"Still down, but…" He continued hastily, forestalling an awesome tantrum, "we've traced the flaw. A relay behind some Hangar Deck bulkheads. I've got two techs on it. Should have heard from them by now."