The Battle for Terra Two (17 page)

"Odd, Admiral." His glazed eyes stared at the wispy, pink-streaked stratocumulae now catching the first light. "I remember dying this way. Before . . . dawn." Blood-frothed lips.

"Perhaps you have, Erich," said Hochmeister. "Maybe we're fated to live forever that which we first became." He would have said more, but zur Linde was dead.

Standing, blaster in hand, the admiral had seen the S'Cotar and their machines vanish.

Stunned, the gangers had stood for an uncomprehending instant, then broken into a ragged cheer—a cheer dying with them in fierce white flare; a tiny nova gone almost before it came.

Blinded, thrown back into the ditch, Hochmeister had been picked up by the S'Cotar and locked in Detention. His sight returning, he could see through the small, thick glass window the black-scorched earth where the gangers had died; killed, Shalan-Actal had told him, by something called a photon mortar.

After a week, they'd moved him into the Maximus CO's quarters, letting him roam the base unguarded. Knowing he couldn't escape, he'd tried anyway, believing they'd expect it of him, wanting to seem predictable. They'd caught him trying to slip through the neatly restored defenses and shooed him back to his quarters.

"The machines," said Hochmeister. "Those horrible slicing things. Those are your allies?"

"Yes. From yet another reality."

"You'll bite off more than you can chew, bug. It's a tyrant's fate."

"One that's befallen you, Admiral?"

"I'm merely a servant of the State," he shrugged, "a nineteenth-century man with a seventeenth-century philosophy, trapped in this poor and bloody time." He turned back to the window.

"You have one day to consider my offer," said Shalan-Actal. "If you won't accept, I'll turn you over to our allies. They want a human specimen. Do I make myself clear?"

Hochmeister only half heard the biofab. He was watching the men and women running from the Maximus portal building, leaping over two dead warriors. They carried blasters, wore black uniforms, backpacks, bootsheathed knives and purposeful looks. The last one out turned to throw something small and round back in. Hochmeister stepped casually to one side of the window.

"I said, Admiral, do I make myself clear?"

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Hochmeister leaned against the cement wall. "I'm clear," he said. "But before you plan too far ahead, you might want to look out the window."

It was only five paces. Shalan-Actal walked it, reaching the window just as the explosion across the courtyard blew it in, spraying the room with razor-edged glass. Hochmeister pressed against the wall, arms across his face.

When he looked again, seconds later, Shalan-Actal was gone, a few drops of green blood marking his passing. Seeing it, Hochmeister smiled. Blaster fire and the hooting of the old British alert klaxon resounded through the complex.

Shaking the glass from his writings, the admiral locked them in the desk, then left the room, carefully shutting the door.

There were two S'Cotar warriors near the portal when L'Wrona stepped through. The transmute lay beside the portal, a blaster bolt through its thorax. Two warriors were bending over it.

Firing two quick bolts, L'Wrona killed both warriors, then shattered the transmute's head with a third bolt. The last shot was still echoing when the rest of his contingent arrived.

John looked around. "You got him."

"He was just a bit too sure of himself. "Follow Harrison," he ordered. "Skirmish order." The corridors were well lit and empty, blaster hits and bullet holes unrepaired from the ganger assault. "Where are they?" asked S'Til, running the prescribed distance behind John.

"Near," he said.

Soft-soled boots moving silently across yellow linoleum, they reached the edge of the sun-filled lobby. John stopped, staring at the plate-glass windows and the sentries beyond, then motioned everyone back into the corridor, against the wall.

"Those windows are new," he whispered. "Probably battle repairs. We really shot this place up."

L'Wrona risked a quick look. Two warriors stood outside, backs to the double glass doors, rifles over their shoulders.

"S'Til," he said, drawing his knife. "You and me."

Nodding, the blonde commando officer pulled her own blade. The two dropped to the floor and began low crawling, hugging the wall.

"They can't see in, H'Nar," said John. "The whole complex is mirror glass."

Rising, the two K'Ronarins ran low across the lobby, burst through the doors and knifed the startled biofabs. The other humans charged after them.

"Do it," said L'Wrona to Harrison.

John already had the round demolition grenade out of his pack. Pressing the arming stud, he rolled across the lobby, back the way they'd come.

"Motorpool," said L'Wrona. Abandoning stealth, they ran, following Harrison from the courtyard, toward the rear of the compound. They were well clear when the grenade exploded, collapsing the building's roof, burying the portal beneath tons of steel and concrete.

Reverting to its basic programming, the Maximus device closed the portal, diverting full power to its shield.

Green blood oozing from dozens of deep wounds, Shalan-

Actal stood in the Maximus command center. Hochmeister wouldn't have recognized the room, stripped of illusion. The equipment was alien, not designed for hands with opposable digits. The chairs were flat-topped platforms, supported by fluted stems set into the floor. Transmutes squatted atop them on folded, double-jointed limbs. Tentacles moved with blurring speed, flicking over controls and telltales.

The portal, Glorious! The portal's been destroyed!
The watch officer's mental wail of anguish swept through every mind in the room.

You are a fool, Bator-Akal.
Shalan-Actal swayed, then steadied himself against a console.
Look.
He pointed to a telltale.
The machine is intact, to be dug out later. There is the real danger.
He pointed to a screen. The scan showed the raiders entering the rectangular motorpool building.

But Glorious, they are so few—probably a suicide squad.

The tall one is the Margrave of
U
'Tria. They will find a way to come for him.

Eight assault clusters ready to counterattack, Glorious,
reported Bator-Akal.
Allied commander offers assistance.

Shalan-Actal's antennae weaved a firm resolve-commitment pattern.
No. We need what warriors are left. Activate that building's self-destruct device,
he ordered, then slumped to the floor.

Bator-Akal glanced up just long enough to flick Shalan-Actal over to Medical, five buildings away, then returned to his board and the self-destruct programming.

They fanned out through the motorpool, Harrison and five commandos going through the maintenance bays on into the small helipad out back. L'Wrona and S'Til went into the office, weapons ready.

"Who are you?" said L'Wrona to the thin, gray-haired man sitting at the motorpool officer's desk, polishing his wire rimmed glasses.

The stranger smiled at him blankly.

L'Wrona repeated the question in English.

"My name is Hochmeister," said the admiral, putting his glasses back on. "I thought you might come here."

John came in. "Just Hochmeister's chopper out back.

"Admiral!"

"Major," nodded the admiral. "You've brought help."

"Where's Heather MacKenzie?" asked Harrison.

The admiral shook his head. "I haven't seen her since you both went into the portal."

"Later," said L'Wrona. "Let's get out of here before they counterattack. Can we all fit aboard one aircraft?"

"Too small. We'll have to take one of the trucks."

Opening a drawer, Hochmeister took out a flat, oblong block of what looked like dull-red plastic. He handed it to L'Wrona. The Margrave's eyes widened. "It's a destruct pack—remotely keyed. If they trigger this now we're . . .

"The S'Cotar placed these inside the electrical junction box of every building," said the admiral. "Are these each assigned a different detonation frequency?" he asked.

"Yes. The command center just enters location and firing code," said L'Wrona.

"We've been here three minutes," said John. "Why are we still alive?"

"What do the S'Cotar do with their old?" asked the admiral.

L'Wrona frowned. "Their old? They eat them. Why?"

"I wondered why they had no respect for age. They gave me the freedom of the base. Harmless old coot, watching the big bugs.

"I took the liberty of gathering the destruct packs and putting them in the unused dumpster behind the command center." He looked at his watch. "I should think
..."

"Drop!" shouted L'Wrona.

Whump!
The explosion rocked the motorpool, shattering the wire mesh window behind L'Wrona, tumbling the yellow field manuals from the gray utility shelves.

Hochmeister stood, unruffled.

L'Wrona rose, extending his hand. "Captain H'Nar L'Wrona, commanding
Implacable.
Welcome to our war, Admiral."

Admiral and Margrave shook hands. "Welcome to our friendly little world, Captain L'Wrona."

T'Ral looked at the time. Smiling evilly, he punched into the commnet. "Commander K'Raoda," he called softly. "Wake up. We have company."

Five decks below, K'Raoda mumbled, turned over on his stomach and pulled the pillow over his head.

"Computer," said T'Ral, keying the complink, "where is the alert klaxon nearest Commander K'Raoda's quarters?"

"In corridor seven blue one-five, directly above his door," said the machine.

"Klaxon designation?"

"Seven blue one-five-six-zero."

"Mr. N'Trol," said T'Ral, turning toward the bridge engineering station, "please test battle klaxon seven blue one-five-six-zero. Three long bursts."

The first
awoooka\
brought K'Raoda out of bed. The second found him ripping his Mil A from a drawer. He was at the commpanel when the third ended, calling T'Ral.

"Disregard battle klaxon." T'Ral's voice carried the length of seven deck. "Disregard battle klaxon."

"V'org slime," hissed T'Ral's communicator. "Pig shit," it added in English.

"Better get up here, T'Lei," said T'Ral. "Scans picking up three ships just clearing jump. No ID yet, but probably our reinforcements. That gives us about one watch to prepare for visitors."

"On my way," said K'Raoda, reaching for his uniform.

"Two things," said T'Ral, relinquishing the captain's chair to K'Raoda, a few minutes later. "The skipcomm buoy's no longer putting out a mark. And Ambassador Z'Sha wants to be part of the reception for the new units."

"Skipcomm's out?" K'Raoda frowned.

"Just after those three ships arrived."

A ship could jump from any point. But the closer she jumped to strong gravitational fields—planets, stars, large moons—the greater the degree of error in the jump. All jump drives were therefore calibrated for jump at null point: that point far enough from a system's nearest large body for minimum jump error, but within reasonable distance from point of origin at sublight speeds. "Null point" was a telltale reading, not the total absence of either gravitational fields or jump error.

Employing the same principles as the jump drive, the skipcomm provided almost instant communication with any other system having a skipcomm, jumping or skipping a message to the designated receiver, treating all intervening space as a porous, two-dimensional surface. Deploying a skipcomm at null point upon entering a new system was standard procedure—
Implacable
had done it when first arriving in the Terran system, over a year before. The original skipcomm had been blasted by the S'Cotar, as had its replacement. The skipcomm in question was the third, and had operated flawlessly for over eight months.

"Computer," said K'Raoda, "incidence of failure of skipcomm buoys, current model."

"One one thousandth of a percent," said the machine, speaking from the chair arm.

"Amazing coincidence," said T'Ral.

"Have we challenged?" asked K'Raoda, looking at the analysis T'Ral had run on the new ships' ion trails: the usual conical spiral rotated on the small screen.

"No. You saw from the ion patterns—they're ours."

"K'Lana," said K'Raoda to comm officer, "ship-to-ship, fleet priority channel."

"All yours, Commander."

K'Raoda spoke into the commlink. "This is K'Ronarin Confederation cruiser
Implacable
to unknown ships. Identify, please."

K'Raoda grimaced at the high-pitched blast from the armchair. "K'Lana, what.
..."

The noise ended as the young subcommander did something at his console. "Sorry. He's using old code." The comm officer looked at a telltale. "Very old—wartime code."

"Have him repeat in clear, using one-time battlecode."

"Why is he using old code, Y'Tan?" K'Raoda asked T'Ral.

"He may have been sent here direct from deep patrol, without putting into base. FleetOps has done that before."

"You'd think they'd have couriered him new code."

"There's a tendency to get sloppy with the war over."

"Ship IDs received, in clear," said K'Lana. "The S'Raq-class light cruiser
New Hope,
the escort frigates
G'Lar Seven
and
P'Dir Four."

T'Ral gripped the back of K'Raoda's chair, knuckles whitening. "Repeat first ship."

"The S'Raq-class light cruiser
New Hope,
Commander."

"Wasn't that
..."
said K'Raoda.

T'Ral nodded curtly. "My brother's ship," he said. "Captain P'Rin T'Ral, lost at the battle of D'Lan."

"Computer," said K'Raoda, "last known disposition of the escort frigates
G'Lar Seven
and
P'Dir Four."

"Assigned eight squadron, Second Fleet. Lost, presumed destroyed at the battle of D'Lan."

"Three possibilities," said K'Raoda, fingers gently drumming the chair arm. "One, it's a S'Cotar ruse. Two, those three ships are who they say they are and did what other ships did, cut off by the S'Cotar advance—hit and ran through the S'Cotar sectors. And three"—he looked his friend in the eye—"they went bad."