The Biofab War Read online

  The Biofab War

  The Biofab War

  Book I

  Stephen Ames Berry

  To my wife, Linda, and our small Zahava, with love.

  I'm indebted to my friend Crazy the Spy for much that went into Sutherland and Bakunin. And I'm very fortunate to have so fine an editor as Beth Meacham.

  Thanks to Janice Kaidan for all that typing— blessings on her band.

  No storm is so Insidious as a perfect calm,

  And no enemy is so dangerous

  As the absence of enemies.

  —Saint Ignatius Loyola

  Man-In-Seed, In seed at zero

  From the star-flanked fields of space,

  Thunders on the foreign town

  With a sand-bagged garrison...

  Dylan Thomas

  "The seed-at-zero"

  CONTENT

  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 1

  "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 begin
ning 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."

  "Check and advise. Bridge. H'Nar? Noble Captain here. Where are we?"

  L'Wrona switched the screen to plot. The red dot of Implacable was projected between the fifth and fourth green orbs from the big yellow disk occupying screen center. "Halfway between the fifth and fourth planets, J'Quel. The smaller planets are insystem. We've confirmed radio signals coming from number three. Otherwise, sensor probes negative. The outer worlds we've passed so far would probably not have attracted the Imperials—unfit for habitation. Number three's our best chance." He glanced at his board. "Coming up on number four now. Several small moons. Little atmosphere. Just another dead—" He broke off, blinking.

  "K'Raoda, L'Sura, check radiation sensors. Mine just swept off scale." He ran it back. "N seventeen."

  "Confirmed."

  "Confirmed."

  Computer broke in with an asexual urgency. "Alert! Alert! N seventeen. N seventeen. Request battlestations. Request battlestations."

  "Captain, an N seventeen sweep," L'Wrona said tersely.

  "Peak, down, off?" D’Trelna rolled out of bed.

  "Yes. That could only be—"

  "I know what it is," he said, pulling the warsuit on over his rumpled underwear.

  "But this far out?"

  Another voice came into the commband. "Bridge. Engineering officer. I'm unable to raise anyone on Hangar Deck."

  "Captain here. Stand by, N'Trol.

  "That's it, H'Nar. Hangar Deck. It's their standard assault pattern—vector on the largest open part of a ship." He tugged on his boots. "Apologies to you, N'Trol. Thank fate you got security shielding on line.

  "Very well, H'Nar. Speed, not subtlety." He stood, bolstering on the blaster. "Shield and seal Hangar Deck. Battlestations. I'm closer; I will command the counterattack. You trace that N seventeen to their base and take it out."

  "J'Quel," the XO protested, "you're too old for a firefight. That's my duty."

  "I am not too old, I am too heavy. But there's no time to change places. If nothing else, I'll draw fire from the assault. Out." With that, he ran into the corridor, covering the ten paces to the nearest lift as the battle klaxon rattled off the walls, sending bleary eyed officers running for their posts.

  * * * *

  Sealed behind the bridge's thick battlesteel, L'Wrona sat in the Captain's chair, softly drumming his fingers on the arm. "Well?" he demanded, unknowingly mimicking D'Trelna.

  K'Raoda looked up, shaking his head. "I need another transmission for a fix. It could be either the planet or one of its satellites."

  "Bridge, Engineering," came N'Trol's unmistakable gravel voice. "We've bypassed that faulty relay. I can give you seventy-five percent external shield now."

  L'Wrona shook his head, eyes still on the screen with its tactical scan of nearby space. "Negative, Engineer. Leave the shield down. And drop Hangar Deck's security shield. Be prepared to raise both instantly on my order."

  The challenge came at once. "Flanking Councilor two to Imperial seven."

  "Arcon five to Flanking Councilor seven." Nonsensical as an i'worr move, it made a good authenticator.

  "Very well, sir. We'll await your order."

  K'Raoda looked up from the half-finished trace pattern threading across a telltale. "What are you doing, sir, if I may ask?"

  "Getting you your N seventeen, Subcommander. They know we're at battlestations. But we haven't moved on Hangar Deck yet, and I've dropped security shielding, so they may well think it a drill. I'm hoping they'll take the opportunity to flit reinforcements aboard before moving deeper into the ship. When they do, complete your trace."

  "But we're at battlestations," protested L'Sura. "They'll think primary shielding is up."

  "Don't worry," L'Wrona said, "I'm about to tell them it isn't." Before he could do anything, the commnet chimed.

  "H'Nar, we're in position. Have you gotten a trace yet?" At the head of fifty commandos, the Captain was pressed against the gray wall of corridor A-10. Around the next curve, the double access doors to Hangar Deck were sealed shut.

  "No, sir. I was about to inspire it."

  "Inspire it, then. Let's get this over with. Computer. Captain. Leave this channel tied into Commander L'Wrona's and acknowledge."

  The machine beeped its response.

  "XO to Hangar Deck," L'Wrona said languidly.

  ''Hangar Watch. Ensign U'Rola,'' replied a familiar, cheery voice. A dead man's voice.

  "XO here. Shield's still inoperative. Engineering wants a two-man maintenance shuttle readied. Seems we've a faulty hull repeater."

  "Very good, sir. It'll be ready when they arrive."

  "Thank you, Mr. U'Rola. Bridge out.

  "Did you get that, J'Quel?"

  "Good, aren't they?" said the Captain coldly, checking his blaster. "We'll see just how good in a moment."

  "N seventeen." K'Raoda adjusted a setting. "Got the little slime. Mark seven, one four nine three. The nearer satellite."

  "Well done." L'Wrona nodded. "Mr. N'Trol, both shields now, please. Mr. L'Sura, flank speed for target. Stand by gunnery.

  "They're all yours, merchant."

  Peering cautiously around the corner, D'Trelna saw the security shield's hazy overlay blurring the doors. "Computer," he said, striding purposefully toward the doors, weapon leveled, "this is the Captain." Behind him the commandos fell into skirmish order, long, lethal M-32s at highport. "On my command, you will override the seal on Hangar Deck access A-ten and breach security shield to admit my party and me. After we enter you will seal and shield the access, opening only on my or the Executive Officer's direct, confirmed order. Acknowledge and confirm."

  "Acknowledged. Assault Leader four to Admiral's phalanx nine."

  "Imperiad four to Admiral two."

  "Order confirmed."

  D’Trelna looked at D'Nir. The young commando Sergeant nodded. "Computer. Open access doors A-ten and breach shield."

  Before the doors were halfway back, D’Trelna charged through, an angry bull heading straight down the center of the cavernous hangar. The familiar sight of shuttles, scouts, and fighters nestled in their soft-lit berths did not reassure him. Something was wrong: it was too quiet. Hangar Deck was never quiet. There should have been sixty crew on watch, performing the necessary drudgery of maintenance and security. Nothing moved. Only the soft padding of the troopers' boots broke the uncanny silence.

  Not pausing, not turning, D'Trelna waved his weapon to the right. A squad broke off, running for the ramp to Hangar Control, recessed behind a great slab of one-way armor glass high above the gray deck.

  Walking from behind a shuttle, duty log in hand, a cherub-f
aced ensign looked up, astonished at the sight of the advancing commandos. "Captain?" he asked, smiling uncertainly. "Why the invasion?"

  As he stepped toward U'Rola, D'Trelna's communicator screeched. Unhesitating, the Captain fired a bolt straight into the Ensign's chest. His form rippling, U'Rola dissolved into a dark-green insectoid. It fell to the deck, a hole seared through its thorax. Bulbous eyes staring sightlessly at the distant ceiling, it lay with legs and tentacles twitching as the humans stormed past.

  From atop the flat-roofed shuttles and from behind landing struts, the distinctive indigo of S'Cotar blaster fire lashed out.

  "Assault!" D'Trelna shouted needlessly, snapping off a shot as his warsuit took a bolt. The commandos swept past him, closing with the shapes that flickered in among the shadows, angry red lightning blasting from their rifles. As they zigzagged in among the craft, blue ion fire touched but did not harm them, deflected by the warsuit's ancient magic.

  Unprotected by resurrected Imperial technology, the S'Cotar warriors fell back into an ever-tighter circle until, cornered before the great hangar doors, a final volley finished them. D'Trelna personally killed their last transmute, distinguishable from its warriors by a thinner exoskeleton and tapering upper tentacles.

  "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.