Final Assault Read online

  Final Assault

  by

  Stephen Ames Berry

  “Space opera in the Grand Ol’ Tradition.” Other Realms

  “Kickbutt military science fiction.” Amazon reader review

  Dedication

  To the Biofab Legion, loyal fans of this series through the march of the years. “Upshield! Upship!”

  Stephen Ames Berry’s novels have been published by Ace/Berkley and Tor/Macmillan. His latest novel is The Eldridge Conspiracy.

  Author’s Note

  This Kindle edition differs from the original Tor Books’ edition: it’s been rewritten with enhanced characterization that neither greatly alters the plot nor suppresses the blaster fire. Kronarin vowel markers denote retention of High Kronarin spelling conventions.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Also by Stephen Ames Berry

  The Biofab War

  The Battle for Terra Two

  The AI War

  The Eldridge Conspiracy

  Copyright © 1987 by Stephen Ames Berry

  Revised edition © 2011 Stephen Ames Berry

  All rights reserved

  Publishing History

  Tor Books edition July 1988

  Biofab Publishing LLC revised Kindle edition November 2012

  v. 5.1

  Acknowledgements

  Editing

  Last Draft Editing

  Formatting and Conversion

  Paul Salvette

  BB eBooks

  Cover

  Linda Jane

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ALSO BY STEPHEN AMES BERRY

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  FINAL ASSAULT

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  ENDNOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BERRY’S BOOKS

  Final Assault

  I led five battle cruisers into Quadrant Blue 9 after the renegade Kotran. Detrelna and Implacable preceded us. Not since the Fall had a Fleet ship entered Blue 9. We all found what we wanted.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Sagan, Admiral Second

  Commanding Special Force 18

  Extract, Final BattleOps Report (538B902)

  Chapter 1

  “Last jump point, Commodore,” said Lawrona from the navigation station.

  Detrelna nodded, looking at the data trail threading across the bottom of the main screen. “And our last chance to turn back, Hanar.”

  “And do what?” said Lawrona, his long fingers playing over the console, entering the jump coordinates. “Live like real pirates? No, I’ll take my chances with the vorg slime.”

  FleetOps couldn’t have cast two more dissimilar figures as Implacable’s senior officers: Detrelna short, fat, middle-aged, with the sharp nose and piercing dark eyes of a Shtarian trader, and Lawrona, younger, slender, with the aquiline good looks of the old aristocracy. They’d fought and won across half the galaxy only to learn all might yet be lost to an ancient foe nestled at the heart of galactic humanity—and Implacable corsair-listed, a pirate ship.

  Detrelna looked around, eyes going from empty station to empty station. The cruiser’s big bridge usually had fifteen crewmen. She had four now: Lakan, manning communications; Natrol, chief engineer, hovering over the jump status board; Lawrona, manning Kiroda’s old station; and himself, now seated at the captain’s post—his for seven years before they made him a flag officer.

  “Commtorps ready, Lakan?” he asked the petite brunette.

  “Jump-tied, Commodore.”

  Detrelna touched the commlink. “This is it,” he said, voice echoing through the long, almost empty miles of Implacable. “We’re jumping home now. Luck to us all.” He switched off. “Jump at will, Captain Lawrona,” he said, clasping his hands over his belly, eyes on the screen.

  “Jumping,” said Lawrona, touching the Execute icon.

  A slight tugging at the stomach, the stars on the main screen red-shifting to familiar constellations. The data trail winked out, returning with fresh figures. As Detrelna watched, three silver missiles streaked away, scattering.

  “Commtorps launched,” reported Lakan.

  The screen rippled, changing from outside scan to a tactical view of the Kronarin home system. Natrol whistled softly. “They must have half of Home Fleet on picket duty.”

  “Flattering,” said Detrelna, looking at the hundreds of points of light standing between Implacable and the innermost planet. Three of those lights began converging on the green blip denoting Implacable.

  “Unknown ship. This is Kronarin warcraft Asingu. Identify,” came a brusque voice over the deck speakers.

  “Unknown my ass,” said the commodore. “Lakan, we’re sending our standard ID on standard ID frequency?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A brief show for FleetOps records,” said Lawrona. “‘Suspected corsair detected and destroyed.’” He glanced at the datatrail. “Their shields are at battleforce. They’re closing at flank, batteries locking on. They won’t be firing salutes.” He touched a gunnery control icon.

  “We’re going to shoot it out with our own people, Hanar?” asked Detrelna. “Their ships fully crewed, ours not? Absurd. Remember why we’re here.”

  “I do,” said the captain, folding his hands. “My first instinct’s always to fight.”

  “That would be with at full complement and not against our own. It’s just as well we’re down to a skeleton crew. They’re well out of this.”

  “Unknown ship, identify,” repeated the challenge. “Final warning. Identify or we fire.”

  “Plenty of fighting ahead,” sighed Detrelna, touching his chair’s commlink. “Cruiser Implacable, returning from Quadrant Blue 9. Advise FleetOps we’ve launched commtorps set to all media. If we don’t make Prime Base, our mission debriefing will skip-send forever. Luck finding those transmitters.” He waited, seeing fusion canon streaming fire on Implacable, her shield flaring dead, hull breached, corpses manning her bridge in mute defeat as the missile salvo touched her.

  Two of the pickets came within easy range—heavy destroyers, together a match for one Laal-class cruiser. The silence grew.

  “Someone down there’s making A Decision,” said Detrelna, thick fingers drumming a soft tattoo on his padded chair arm.

  “Implacable. FleetOps,” said a different voice, smooth, neutral. “You’re cleared for Prime Base and assigned a new landing area. Line is so advised.” A series of coordinates followed.

  As Detrelna acknowledged, the commlink ended in a sharp burst of static. “Welcome home,” said the commodore. “We’ve got a new landing spot, probably far from witnesses.”

  “Coordinates set,” said Lawrona. “On course.”

  “There’s nothing where they want us to land,” said Lakan, looking at a ground readout. “Less than nothing.”

  “
Not setting us onto a minefield, are they?” asked Natrol, looking over Lawrona’s shoulder. About Lawrona’s age, with blond hair beyond regulation length, Implacable’s chief engineer was capable of a rare but infectious grin.

  Detrelna shook his head. “The political situation’s unstable. They won’t risk crudity with our commtorps flitting about.” He pointed to the screen. “See?”

  The destroyers were withdrawing.

  As Implacable approached Kronar the tacscan changed, displaying first Prime Base highlighted in friendly green, then a line of red between ship and planet: Line.

  “Greetings, Commodore,” said a voice over the commlink. It held a hint of Court Kronarin, a virtually dead tongue.

  “Hello, Line,” said Detrelna.

  Thousands of years before at the Kronarin Empire’s height, a series of Twelfth Dynasty Emperors had built Kronar’s awesome Line and at awesome cost. Its name came from its two-dimensional image as seen on ships’ tacscans. Line was a great shield-sphere surrounding Kronar, a never-breached wall of orbital shield generators, approached through ever-shifting minefields, missile and gun platforms, all controlled from deep within miles of rock in geostationary orbit above the planet.

  “Did you have an interesting mission, Commodore?” asked Line.

  “Saved humanity again,” said Detrelna lightly, watching as the screen shifted to exterior scan, showing them approaching an endless sweep of silver set against the obsidian of space. “Encouraged and supported desertion.”

  “You’ve had an unusual career, sir.”

  “‘Had’ it is.” Detrelna punched up a steaming cup of t’ata from his chair arm. “Battled any alien hordes lately, Line?” Part of the Line’s shield wall briefly vanished as Implacable reached it and slipped through.

  “Sadly, no excitement since the Scotar tried that foolishness at the start of the last war. Most action’s political and planetside. The Assembly’s in disarray, Fleet units prematurely mustering out even as anarchy grows on our war-ravaged planets. The combines, notably Combine Telan, spreading their tentacles wide amid the power vacuum. Growing sentiment to restore the monarchy. It’s messy. Welcome home, Commodore.”

  “Thank you, Line,” said Detrelna, looking at the brown-green world ahead. “Sad everyone doesn’t feel that way.”

  “That machine’s friendlier than FleetOps,” said Laval.

  “Do you really think it’s a machine, Commander?” said the captain, joining Natrol at Detrelna’s station.

  “Many tales down the long march of the years,” said the engineer. “It’s a computer. A cyborg. A biofab. The cyber-core of a stripped Ractolian mindslaver. What we do know is it’s loyal to Kronar, whether empire or republic.”

  “And has a subtle wit,” said Lawrona, “easily missed.”

  “I’ve never understood why that thing has our lives in its hands,” said Lakan, monitoring their approach.

  “A reaction to his own treachery by a treacherous emperor,” said Natrol. “An Admiral Kyan became emperor by blockading Kronar and selectively bombarding it. He established Line as soon as he was Emperor. Gave the order on his way from the Amphitheater. Since then the defense of Kronar’s never been entrusted to any one person or group.”

  “Instead it was entrusted to single nonhuman entity. Flawless logic.”

  “History justifies our low opinion of ourselves, Commander,” said Lawrona.

  “Rejoice. We’re home,” said Detrelna.

  Brown, touched by just a hint of green and blue, Kronar lay before them, an arid planet of sweeping desert and rocky crags, its population clustered along the equator’s greenbelt. Once a lush rich world heavy in minerals, a world of tall forests and savannas, man had taken the forests and the minerals, then at his Imperial height sculpted the land into an arcadia of forested peaks and blue lakes, interspaced by cities wrought of gleaming alloys and subtly-hued duraplast, crafted by the same daring vision that had triumphed across a galaxy.

  A slow strengthening of Kronar’s sun even as the Empire ebbed had turned much of paradise to arid waste. Ruined cities of a hundred emperors lay forgotten beneath the sands, while from the towers of Akan, capital of empire and republic since the Founding Fleet, encroaching desert could be seen, held at bay by the constantly renewed barrier of lakes and parks.

  “Prime Base has taken control,” said Lawrona, pointing to the helm, lights flickering in response to the distant nav computers.

  Piercing a wispy gray-white cloud layer, Implacable came in low over the Kazan Desert and turned north, following an ancient dry riverbed.

  “‘R’Shen, thirsty daughter, drinks the blood of slaughter,’” quoted Detrelna, watching a scan of the cracked brown wash.

  “You and your grotesque classical poetry, Jaquel,” said Lawrona.

  “I’m ashamed to say it’s all I remember.”

  “Prespace?” guessed Natrol.

  The commodore nodded. “A poem by S’Hko, commemorating a battle at that river. They fought with swords and bows and put an end to the Slavers’ Guild. The waters of the R’Shen ran red.” He looked up from the screen. “An important place, the R’Shen—people died there for a good cause.”

  “We’re being landed in 7 Blue, Area 139,” said Lakan. “Marked as Reserve Fleet Storage.”

  “What, no cheers, no band? And a hundred talars from FleetOps?” said the commodore. “Why not land us in the Kazan and have us walk out?”

  “It’s on the Kazan’s fringe,” said Natrol. “We could take the shuttles or one of the assault boats.”

  “And be blown out of the sky,” said Lawrona.

  They came in over Prime Base’s southern border, moving on silent n-gravs past the defense perimeters—line after line of missile and gun emplacements, hardened, shielded, deep-set in the sand—then over the landing field and ships of every size and class: cruisers, destroyers, scouts, interceptors, all sitting on the black duraplast field, sunlight shimmering on their hulls. Except for the occasional maintenance vehicle, nothing moved.

  “War’s over, the Confederation’s in ruins. So everyone’s sent home,” said Lawrona with a grimace. “Combine Telan’s efficient.”

  “Let’s kick this stingers’ nest,” said Detrelna.

  Ships and buildings disappeared. After a few moments, Implacable settled with a faint whine onto an isolated stretch of duraplast.

  “Admiral Gyar for the Commodore,” said Lakan.

  “Whom?” asked Lawrona.

  Detrelna touched the commlink. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said to the face in his commscreen.

  “You and Captain Lawrona will remain with the ship, Commodore,” said the admiral, a sharp-faced man with a thin disapproving mouth. “Your crew will dismiss and muster out—personnel carriers are en route.”

  “One will do, Admiral.”

  “They only hold fifty, Commodore.”

  “Perfect,” smiled Detrelna.

  “You lost over two hundred crew?!”

  “No, sir. We know where they are.”

  The admiral tried for words but failed, at last finding his voice, “You will remain with your ship.” The commscreen went blank.

  “Who is that rude rodent, Hanar?” asked Detrelna, swiveling his chair toward the captain’s station.

  Lawrona looked from the complink. “Gyar was Fiscal. He’s now number three in FleetOps. Reserve commission, no combat service.”

  “Combat’s dangerous and the food’s bland. Why is he Officer-in-Charge of our destiny?”

  “Surprise!” said the captain. “Former Chief Financist, Combine Telan.”

  “Ground vehicle approaching,” reported ship’s computer. “A personnel carrier, unarmed. Four others have broken off and are returning to base.”

  Detrelna opened the commlink. “Shipwide. This is the commodore. FleetOps says ‘Well done and welcome home!’ You’re to muster out. They’ve sent a carrier for you. Take your time, gather your things. The Captain and I will see you off from”—he glanced at the gro
undscan—“airlock 59, deck 8.”

  Lieutenant Satil stepped onto the bridge, doors hissing shut behind her.

  “Lieutenant,” said Lawrona.

  “Sir, commandos stand ready to disembark.”

  “Such unseemly haste, Lieutenant,” said Detrelna, sipping a fresh cup of t’ata.

  “All weapons accounted for and secured in armories?” asked Lawrona her.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well,” he said, eyeing the long-barreled M11A blaster slung low on her belt.

  Satil’s striking good looks and short stature belied her deadliness. She’d survived all of Implacable’s adventures unscathed, a red-haired, mahogany-hued daughter of Sorgite miners whose startling blue eyes often brought her more than second glances.

  “Journey’s end. I’ve got to bed down the engines,” said Natrol, leaving his station. “Care to join me, Lieutenant? A final walk around our old haunts?”

  “Certainly, Commander.”

  “See you at the airlock, gentlemen, lady,” said Natrol, leaving with Satil, the armored doors hissing shut behind them.

  “Why didn’t she use the commnet?” asked Lawrona, logging one of his final entries. “What?” he said, seeing Lakan and Detrelna looking at him.

  Detrelna shook his head as Lakan turned away smirking. “You’re my older son’s age, Hanar. Yet in some ways … They wanted to be alone. And walking wasn’t what we called it when I was their age.”

  “Oh. Nuances. How long has this been going on?”

  “Commander,” said Detrelna. “How long is their nuance?”

  “Two years,” she answered, not looking up.

  “And you didn’t tell me? I’m their captain, and Natrol’s her senior officer. That sort of relationship’s open to abuse, a violation of Fleet Regs.”