Final Assault Read online

  The corporal frowned. “Sorry, sir. We’ve no orders to admit—”

  Natrol sucker-kicked him, knee to the groin, then hit him behind the ear with the knife’s pommel as the kid doubled over. The soldier folded silently, crumpling to the landing field.

  The private tried to bring his rifle around, but Natrol grabbed the weapon’s stock with one hand and pressed the knife blade against his throat with the other. “Drop it,” he said. He’d no idea what he’d do if the other continued to struggle. Fortunately, the trooper dropped his rifle.

  “Turn around,” said the engineer.

  As the private turned, Natrol brought the pommel down behind the soldier’s right ear. He collapsed as silently as the corporal.

  “Well and mercifully done, Mr. Natrol,” Atir said as her corsairs charged across the landing field and up into the ship, Implacable’s crew following. “You may board.”

  Last one in but for Atir, he’d stopped to look at the distant flames of the Tower and the circling fire craft when two blaster shots sent him whirling, looking down to where Atir stood, holstering her pistol beside the dead sentries.

  Gripping the safety rail in white-knuckled fury, Natrol waited for Atir to reach him. If he’d been beside her when she fired, he knew he’d have broken her pale white neck. “Why?” he demanded, his emotions under control.

  “Why?” She smiled. “Because you wanted them to live, Engineer. So I wanted them to die. And because I could. Now check your engines and prepare to lift ship, Mister.”

  Chapter 7

  A hexagonal honeycomb of a building, Facility 19 had once held over six hundred starships. The war had reduced that number to less than two hundred: Ship after ship had been deeded to the Confederation to pay the death taxes of the wealthy. Green “Available to Let” lights glowed softly over most of the berths on level 9.

  Oblivious to the green lights, Lawrona moved quickly down the long empty corridor, pistol in hand, looking for berth 9-42-A. He found it after two turns—one of only five red-lighted berths in that stretch of level 9. Standing before the entry, he pressed the access button.

  “Access code, please,” said a deep male voice.

  “There is no code,” said Lawrona.

  “Wrong,” said the voice.

  “Right,” said Lawrona.

  The door slid open. “Hello, Hanar,” said the ship.

  “Hello, Dad,” said the captain. He stepped onto the catwalk, the door sliding shut behind him. Nestled in its berth below lay a trim little Olin-class scout ship, the subdued lighting of the berth glinting dully along its silver hull.

  To the casual observer the ship would have seemed just another surplus scout, sold off after the Aran Police Action. And so it had been until Lawrona’s late father bought it.

  “Green-light the door, would you, Dad?” asked the captain, clambering down the access ladder to the ship. “Have some nasties looking for me.”

  “In trouble again, son?”

  Out in the hallway, the red light over 9-42-A turned green.

  Lawrona walked across the narrow apron of the berth, then scrambled up the ship’s boarding ladder and entered the ship. The outer door hissed shut behind him. He stood in the coffin-sized inner airlock, scrutinized by an array of miniaturized scanners that could discreetly explore the contents of a guest’s garments, analyze him or her for anything interesting and dispatch unwanted visitors with a needler burst.

  There was no needler burst. The inner door opened on to a short well-lit corridor. “It seems you are Hanar,” said Dad.

  “That always disappointed you.” He walked down the corridor to the bridge, passing an alley-shaped galley and sleeping cabin. Had he turned left at the hatchway instead of right, he’d have come to the engine room.

  “Try being on standby year after year—see how you like it … son. I led a robust life—I crave action.”

  Hanar felt the old rage and hate welling. “You were a sadistic beast who tortured my mother and made my childhood a torment. But that was nothing to what you did later. You’re dead and I don’t regret it. I wept for joy when I found I didn’t have your monstrous genes.”

  “I should broadcast that,” said Dad. “Do your men know you’re a bastard and your mother was a slut? And that’s not the worst, you—”

  “Computer,” snapped Lawrona, “delete simulacrum of the late Margrave of Utria. Return to Fleet-programmed interface settings.”

  “Done,” said a pleasant tenor. “Instructions?”

  “Prepare to upship,” said Hanar. “What did my father name you?”

  “Rich Man’s Toy.”

  “His usual exquisite sensitivity. He’d have named you Eat My Shit if he could have gotten away with it. You’re now The Shatina. Record the name change with Ships Registry.”

  “Reason for change is required. It can be brief.”

  “‘Hate and love.’”

  “Done,” said The Shatina.

  The bridge was small, just the two flight chairs, but crammed with instruments. Fleet compliance inspectors would have been shocked to see the original gunnery controls not only intact—a grave crime—but augmented by the best combat-command-and-information system available. The CCI was a salvaged Imperial model, unmatched since the Fall. When Lawrona asked the old man in a moment of forced camaraderie where he’d gotten it, he’d touched a finger to his lips and winked.

  The old margrave had passed away some years ago, family and Fleet consigning his body to space with full honors and great relief, the guns of the Home Fleet saluting him as he was launched toward galactic north, face as unyielding in death as in life. He’d left titles and estates stretching back to the Tralon Dynasty, the undying enmity of his only child and one heavily modified pleasure craft.

  Calling up the preflight checklist, Lawrona was reviewing the jump drive status—green/on-line—when The Shatina advised, “We’re cleared for lift and through to Utria, but there was a delay. Kronarport was checking with someone.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “They had me on hold, but there was some sieve—our controller used a priority code to call the Combine Telan Liaison Office. The rest was encrypted.”

  Hearing a faint whirring from outside, Lawrona touched an icon and what had been a dark band of armorglass cleared—the berth doors were cycling open. He looked up at the bright stars of a cloudless desert night.

  “Upship,” said Lawrona, moving the control stalk forward. The Shatina moved silently out into the night.

  “Control Central orders you to return to berth and await further instructions,” said the ship as they banked sharply away from the lights of the spaceport.

  “Don’t acknowledge,” said Lawrona, activating CIC systems. The hull suddenly sprouted weapons blisters.

  “The Tower’s on fire,” said The Shatina as they climbed toward Line.

  Lawrona checked the ground scan. Flames were leaping from the topmost level of the ancient fortress, a beacon burning bright over Akan’s skyline. Below and from the west a V-shaped formation for fire craft flew toward the Tower. “Looks like the Commandant’s level. Detrelna’s somewhere in that pile of stone.”

  Lawrona hadn’t been to the Tower since he was a child, going with his father to visit an old friend who’d just been appointed Commandant—then a mostly symbolic post for aging aristocrats. There’d been no gray uniforms, no Imperial Party, no war. He remembered it as a curious, musty old place of antique weapons and crenellated battlements built for small boys to leap along, a step from oblivion. The future margrave had a grand time jumping and running before his father intercepted him, bade his friend a gracious good-bye, then taken him back to their town home and administered a fierce paddling for embarrassing him.

  The Shatina was now too high for a close visual scan, instead relaying a commercial pickup of fire craft forming a line and coming in low, green-tinted snuffer gas spewing from the big tanks. The fire died.

  The captain automatically laid in the jump coordi
nates for Utria, his mind on other things. Detrelna’s arrest and removal to the Tower at the same time as the fire was too big a coincidence. A dark night, he thought as they cleared the atmosphere. Luck, Jaquel, wherever you are. I’ll be back.

  “Line challenges,” said the ship.

  Lawrona flipped open the commlink. “Pleasure craft The Shatina outbound for Utria.”

  “Acknowledged, Shatina,” said Line. “You are cleared for jump point,” adding after Lawrona switched off, “And may fortune grace your arms, My Lord Captain.”

  “Armaments check,” said Lawrona as they swept through the shield wall, making at max for jump point. “Run the diagnostics now. When we clear jump point, we’ll do some gunnery practice out by the J’An Belt.”

  The FleetOps duty officer was Admiral Ital. His hopes for a quiet evening had melted with the first action report: yet another task force in trouble, ambushed by the diabolically clever corsairs infesting Quadrant Red 7. Dispatching what help he could, the admiral shunted all subsequent reports of this latest rout to a lesser level. Then all hell had broken loose at the Tower, stirred up by Laguan himself—the commandant relieved, a battalion of commandos sent in, sudden Council orders via Gyar to withdraw the Tower guard, fragmented reports of a firefight. FleetOps responded with its usual quiet efficiency—except for the Council liaison team, five agitated staffers running from station to station, squabbling overdressed nuisances reeking of expense fragrances.

  As the fire craft reached the Tower, Admiral Ital—indeed, all of FleetOps—had their biggest surprise since the war: Computer spoke—something it only did if no other source had detected an emergency. Ital had heard Computer speak once, when he was a cadet.

  “Alert. Alert.” The asexual contralto echoed through the command tiers. “Unauthorized departure. Laal-class cruiser Implacable is lifting. Implacable is lifting.”

  FleetOps command center was a big enclosed pit, deep beneath Prime Base. As the warning died, all eyes turned to the admiral. “Orders, sir?” said Commodore Awal to his right. Awal had served under Admiral Sagan—he knew what she’d have done.

  “Alert Condition Two,” said Ital. “Base defenses to engage Implacable, picket squadrons to intercept if she escapes.” A chime sounded—three repeating notes—the nearest FleetOps ever came to an alert klaxon. “And request Line’s assistance,” added the admiral. Not that he expected it—Line had its own priorities.

  “She’s heading for space,” said Awal. “Batteries locking on. Target acquired.”

  “Excuse me, Admiral,” said a soft voice.

  Ital turned. Councilor Dassan stood behind him, flanked by the Council observers. “Please do not engage that vessel,” he asked. “I speak for the Council.”

  “Why not?” said the admiral. “She’s ours. She’s stolen. She can wipe a planet, conquer a system.”

  “We’ve shaken public confidence enough this evening, Admiral,” said Dassan serenely. “To add to the Tower fire a massive shoot-out between Prime Base and one of our own ships, deadly debris raining down, civilian casualties, the media gorging …” He shook his head. “No. Please—have your gunners stand down. You can take her in space.”

  Awal watched as Ital thought about it. On screen, the target image was directly over the Base’s main defenses.

  “Very well,” said the admiral, turning to Awal. “Batteries to stand down, Commodore. Advise Commodore Gotur the show’s all his.”

  “They’re not firing,” said Atir, leaning over Kazim’s shoulder.

  “Not everyone’s a butcher, Atir,” said Natrol, coming onto the bridge, a corsair trailing him.

  She turned. “Engines and jump drive?” she asked.

  “Satisfactory.” The two faced each other in front of the empty captain’s chair. “You can jump—if we make it to jump point.”

  “We can handle the pickets.” Atir turned to the big board and its tacscan of the inner system. “We’ll be well away before they can intercept.”

  “I wasn’t thinking so much of the picket ships,” said the engineer as the corsair commander faced him again.

  “What then?”

  “Line challenges,” called Kazim.

  “That,” said Natrol.

  “Shall we consult, Admiral?” said Line.

  “As prescribed,” said Laguan as he and Detrelna entered the combat center.

  “This is a command center?” remarked Detrelna as they entered the heart of Line’s home asteroid. It looked more like the office of a top Combine executive than part of a military installation: a spacious high-ceilinged room with a desk made in the image of a classically simple-yet-elegant t’ata table; two long, off-white sofas along the wall, a pair of low beverage tables in front of them; a small scattering of armchairs around the desk. The wall behind the desk was a diorama of snowcapped peaks ringing a crystal-blue lake, flocks of birds long dust thronging the trees in the foreground. Imperial Survey video, thought Detrelna. Contemporary techniques weren’t as sharp.

  “War’s deadly, but it need not be uncomfortable, Commodore,” said Line.

  “Situation, Line?” asked Laguan.

  “A combined force of corsairs and Implacable crewmembers escaped Tower detention, seized Implacable and are approaching my inner sector. They appear to be led by the corsair Shilo Atir and Implacable’s Commander Kyan Natrol. Atir was the right hand of the infamous Yidan Kotran. FleetOps requests we stop or destroy Implacable.”

  “Who’s Natrol, Jaquel?” asked Laguan.

  Gods, thought Detrelna. “Implacable’s Chief Engineer. Highly competent, irreverent, irascible, no lover of authority.”

  “Would he have turned corsair?”

  “No. He hates military structure. He’s impatient with anyone slower than himself—mostly everyone—but a corsair? Never. Natrol fought Kotran with us off Terra Two—he even briefly commanded Kotran’s captured ship, with Kotran and Atir in attendance. He’s had far better opportunities for betrayal than this. He’s probably made concessions, hoping to keep his crew alive until they can retake the ship.”

  “What about Prime Base’s defenses?” asked Laguan.

  “They didn’t fire out of political and humanitarian concerns,” said Line. “Councilor Dassan was visiting FleetOps at the time.”

  “And the pickets?”

  “Fleet units are attempting to intercept, but there’s nothing between here and jump point to stop a heavy cruiser.”

  “Will you stop them?”

  “If you convince me Implacable’s a direct threat to the security of the planet, Admiral.”

  “She’s a heavy cruiser in the wrong hands.”

  “Similar arguments have been made by FleetOps as recently as today and as long ago as the First Dynasty. They’re not evocative. Implacable’s leaving the system.”

  “May I speak with Natrol?” asked Detrelna.

  “Certainly,” said Line. The diorama on the wall vanished, replaced by Kazim’s startled face. “This is Line. Get me Commander Natrol.”

  “Speak freely,” said Atir, drawing her sidearm as Natrol walked to the engineering station’s commscreen. Ignoring her, he stepped into the pickup. “Commander Natrol,” he said, sinking into the padded flight chair. A familiar face appeared in the pickup.

  “Quite a mess, Natrol,” said Detrelna. “What are you and the crew doing with those throat-slitters?”

  “A mutually uneasy alliance,” said Natrol. A pistol tapped softly against his chair.

  “And if you do get away, where are you going?”

  Natrol shrugged. “That’s Atir’s passionate secret—this whole thing’s her empty-headed idea.”

  The corsair commander stepped into the pickup. “Line’s made no attempt to stop us, Detrelna—we’re almost clear.”

  Detrelna turned to Laguan. “Do something, sir! My people will be dead the instant those butchers are through with them.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” The admiral looked far older than he was. “There’s nothi
ng I can do—nothing anyone but Line can do.”

  “Commander Atir.” It was Line.

  Atir’s eyes narrowed. “Yes?”

  “Depart in peace. If we meet again, it will be to your disadvantage.”

  “I’m not coming back to Kronar alive.” Reaching past Natrol, she ended the commlink as the engineer winked.

  “Implacable is out of range,” reported Line.

  “Of course,” muttered Detrelna.

  “Of course what?” asked the admiral.

  “Natrol told us where they’re going. ‘Passionate.’ ‘Empty-headed.’ Atir’s gone to rescue her brainstripped lover.”

  “From a fleet of mindslavers? And rescue what?” said Laguan. “The Ractolians sliced up Kotran—his brain’s doing their tactics for them, his body’s chilling nicely somewhere in one of those monstrosities—your own report said so.”

  “True. But the same processes that took Kotran apart can put him together again.”

  “Hideous on so many levels.”

  “Don’t underestimate love’s power, Admiral.”

  “Love? Those two? Please.”

  “Her, yes. Him, I don’t know.”

  Laguan shook his head. “Even the most feral creatures mate.” He rose. “Another drink? There’s a pleasant little bar the other side of that waterfall.”

  “Will this bar have other people in it?”

  “Am I that boring, Jaquel?” smiled Laguan. “No, we’re the only two humans on this asteroid. And I had to have Line’s permission for you to come aboard.”

  “Regs are that only the Line Duty Officer be present,” said Line. “You’ve never broken Regs, have you Commodore? Admiral, FleetOps and Councilor Dassan each desire urgently to confer with you.”

  “One or both of them tried to kill us tonight and now they want to chat. Tell them the commodore and I are plotting their mutual destruction over drinks. I’ll talk with them later.”

  Chapter 8

  “Fine,” said Captain Poqal. “Say I believe you. You forged an alliance with the mindslavers, stopped the AI vanguard cold out in the Ghost Quadrant and you seized this lovely pleasure dome.” His hand swept the room. “Say I even believe that Combine Telan is an AI nest and you two”—his eyes shifted between Ragal and Sarel—“represent the heroic immortals that stood against your own kind for honor, truth and justice.”