He went to the command console. The Action key was set to the top right of the tri-level keyboard. "This it?" he said, pointing.
"Press it and the ship is yours," said the whisper.
"What's on this commwand?" asked John, touching the end of a small white cylinder protruding from a port on the other side of the keyboard.
"The message of Poesym-Six," said the Seven. "Play it if you wish."
"How do I eject it?"
"Just pull it."
It came out easily. Slipping it into his pocket, John left the tier, beginning the long walk to the deck. Behind him there was a sigh.
L'Wrona squatted beside the corsair shuttle, touching an n-grav nodule. "Still warm," he said, rising.
"K'Tran's ahead of us then," said D'Trelna. "And with his original force intact." He drew his side arm. "Let's go get him."
"I will remain with this craft," said Egg, hovering near the airlock.
D'Trelna shook his head. "You will stay with us. In fact, you'll take point."
"But, Commodore, I have no combat skills."
"And I have no weight problem!" He jerked a thumb toward where the corridor made a sharp turn toward the bridge. "Take point."
They moved quickly up the corridor, D'Trelna behind the computer, L'Wrona and S'Til off to either side. Unlike most they'd passed, this passageway was lined with doorways-featureless slabs of gray, set deep into the bulkheads. L'Wrona briefly tried one of the doors, pressing in all the usual places. It remained shut.
A moment later, as the three humans and the slaver machine reached the turn, K'Tran and his corsairs appeared, stretched out in a long skirmish line. D'Trelna hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt as both parties halted, twenty meters apart.
"You get lost, K'Tran?" he asked.
"A problem with the navigation interlink," replied the corsair, walking slowly to his right, eyes on D'Trelna. "Where's the rest of your force?"
"Right behind us and coming at the double," said D'Trelna, aware of L'Wrona and S'Til edging toward opposite doorways. Hopelessly far from cover, the commodore tried to buy them some time. He had a fleeting vision of his gut-shot body stretched out on the deck.
"You're under arrest, K'Tran," he said as L'Wrona and
S'Til reached the doorways. "Have your thugs lay down their arms." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I have a trooper in your shuttle, manning the fusion turret. One of you so much as blinks and he'll-"
"Fats is whistling through his asshole," said A'Tir. "The airlock's code-set."
K'Tran leaned against a doorway, smiling. "Do you remember, D'Trelna, when you were going to execute me, and offered me death preferences?"
D'Trelna nodded. "Off Terra Two. Regrettably, events interceded and you butchered your way free.''
"I'm reciprocating now," continued the corsair. "Blaster, blade or garrote-your choice."
"Lay down your arms," repeated the commodore.
"It would be best if you did as the commodore suggests, Captain K'Tran," said Egg. It had been drifting slowly back and now hovered to D'Trelna's right.
K'Tran moved, drew and fired. As with all good art, it appeared effortless, the blaster blurring into his hand, the deadly red bolts spitting straight at D'Trelna's heart.
No gunman, D'Trelna had his side arm only half out of its holster when K'Tran fired. Golden light filled his eyes. Dead? he wondered for an instant, then understood and ran.
Noting the minuscule movements of eye and muscle that signaled attack, Egg had moved into K'Tran's line of fire. The bolts intended for the commodore struck it, exploding in a shower of red and gold sparks. Moving erratically, the machine veered away, distracting the corsair fire long enough for D'Trelna to reach L'Wrona.
"That v'org slime's a good shot," said D'Trelna, dropping a corsair with two quick bolts, then ducking the return fire that bracketed the doorway. "Blessings on Egg," he added.
The slaver computer had stopped moving. It hovered against a bulkhead, tilted at an odd angle, apparently dead. Way across the corridor, a blaster in each hand, S'Til was engaging A'Tir and three others as they bobbed in and out of doorways and instrument alcoves, advancing steadily.
"They're going to charge, J'Quel," said L'Wrona over the din of shrilling blasters and exploding beams. He snapped off a bolt, then pulled back in, the return fire crashing around him.
"And wipe us," said D'Trelna, teeth clenched in anger. He shook his head. "K'Tran wins here, then the AIs win everywhere and this galaxy dies."
The lights went out.
"Charge!" called K'Tran, seizing the moment.
"Shit," said D'Trelna, firing blind.
Strobing bursts of blaster fire lit the corridor, disjointed instants of illumination showing the corsairs coming in behind a fierce barrage of red fusion fire.
Golden blaster bolts crossed with the red as Egg, suddenly alive, rushed to meet the corsair charge. The slaver machine was whirling like a top, glowing fiercely from the hits it was taking as it raked the corsair line with thick yellow bolts. To the three officers, crouching low, the corridor seemed to explode with blaster fire, gouging the battlesteel, sending L'Wrona and D'Trelna pressing even deeper into the doorway.
Corsairs and computer met in a blinding thunderburst of red and gold that ended abruptly.
It was dark again, silent except for someone moaning softly. The sweet and acrid scents of burnt flesh and scorched metal fouled the hot, dry air.
"Let's go," whispered L'Wrona.
"We're blind, H'Nar," said the commodore. "No flares, no torches."
"No guts, no glory," said the captain, stepping into the corridor. D'Trelna joined him. Blindly they stumbled forward, seeing only the red and gold specks that clouded their sight.
The lights returned as suddenly as they'd gone.
"Gods," said D'Trelna, looking at the carnage.
A trail of dead corsairs, bodies burnt and torn, led to where Egg circled, wobbling above a small tumble of corpses, its yellow skin blackened and pockmarked by blaster hits.
Egg was mumbling, words that became audible as D'Trelna and L'Wrona reached it. "Mutinous scum. Death to traitors. Empire and Destiny." It kept repeating the mad litany.
D'Trelna rapped sharply on the machine, blaster butt ringing on the metal. "Egg!"
The chanting stopped, though not the movement. "Commodore… D'Trelna?"
"Yes. Are you badly damaged?"
"A moment." The machine jerked to a halt. "Not irreparably," it said after a long silence. "I shall have to return to embryonic state for self-regeneration. I can function until we reach Implacable.'"
S'Til and L'Wrona were finishing a quick survey of the dead. "K'Tran and A'Tir aren't here," said the captain.
"They just ran past me," called a familiar voice, "heading for the bridge."
Startled, the K'Ronarins turned. "John!" cried D'Trelna.
"With a gift," said John, holding up the commwand.
D'Trelna snatched it eagerly. "This is it?"
"That's it," nodded the Terran. "Pocsym discoursing on the Trel Cache. What's that mess?" he asked, pointing to Egg.
"This mess just saved your companions' lives," said Egg primly.
"Egg has been our guide and guardian through this horror," said the commodore with a vague wave of his hand.
"And T'Lan?" asked L'Wrona.
"An irreversible stasis," said John. "From this." He handed the pistol to L'Wrona. "You'll see something familiar there."
"The weapon's certainly not familiar," said the captain. Turning it around, he saw the triangular device. His eyes lit. "This, though. .. Terra Two."
"Of unpleasant memory," said John. "The AIs carried that symbol."
"Where did you get this?" asked L'Wrona, handing it to D'Trelna. "Did T'Lan have it?"
"This can wait," interrupted D'Trelna. "I want K'Tran. Where…"
"Alert!" called S'Til, aiming past them toward the bridge corridor.
A'Tir was walking toward them, blaster held limpl
y at her side. Oblivious to her dead shipmates and the leveled weapons, she stopped in front of D'Trelna. "May I return to my ship?" she asked dully.
A face without hope, thought John.
"That ship belongs to the Fleet from which you stole it," said D'Trelna as S'Til took the blaster. "And so do you. You're under arrest-Fleet articles of War. I'd cite charges, but I want to be out of here before my retirement date.
"Where's K'Tran?"
A'Tir looked at D'Trelna. "Not dead, I'm afraid," she said. "We reached the bridge and the shield was down. K'Tran left me at the entrance-he went in alone, commlink open. When he climbed the command tier, they-"
"The R'Actolians?" asked John.
A'Tir nodded. "They invited him to take command- something about the AIs and the ship's cybernetics. K'Tran pushed the button they indicated, then nothing for a long time, then a scream…" She looked at them, the shock still in her eyes. "I've never heard a human scream like that-it went on and on. I tried to go in, but the shield came back when I moved."
"Well, K'Tran's traded ships for the last time," said D'Trelna after a moment. "Let's go home."
Stephen Ames Berry
The AI War
11
"You're both very clever," said R'Gal. His gaze shifted between Q'Nil and K'Raoda. "But"-he raised a finger- "didn't it occur to you that T'Lan might have adjusted his life readings to correspond to mine?"
"Absurd," said K'Raoda. "He didn't know you, he had no contact with you. No, I prefer the more direct explanation."
"All right," said R'Gal mildly. "So I'm an AI-a combat droid like T'Lan. Why haven't I perforated your frail bodies and blasted my way out of this room? Why didn't I go with T'Lan to the mindslaver?"
"Doing one or the other would end your usefulness," said K'Raoda. "Our acceptance of you as human is probably necessary to your mission, R'Gal. Failing to convince us, you can always try to blast your way out." He paused. "Perhaps you are a counterintelligence officer- just not a human one."
"You've taken precautions against my making a dramatic exit?"
K'Raoda nodded. "Except for this room, Sick Bay's been evacuated. The door to this room and all decks and bulkheads surrounding it are blastpaked. Any disturbance will trigger them."
"Even with one of you as hostage?" asked R'Gal.
"With either or both of us as hostage," said K'Raoda.
R'Gal pulled his legs up on the bed and put his arms around them. "Let's assume, K'Raoda, for discussion's sake, that this fantasy of yours is true. What then?"
"Assuming it is," said K'Raoda, "I'd like to know what you AIs want. I'd like to know how deeply you've infiltrated the Republic. I'd like to know what T'Lan wants on that mindslaver. But most of all, R'Gal, I want that stasis algorithm." '
"That's all?"
There was a stony silence.
"Very well, Commander," said R'Gal after a moment. "I'll match your small fantasy with a larger one-a tale of death and treachery spanning two universes and a million years. This will take a while-better pull up a chair. You too, Q'Nil."
"What about the algorithm?" asked the commander, not moving.
"Listen," said R'Gal, "and you'll understand why T'Lan might have that algorithm, and why I wouldn't."
Commander T'Ral stood before an armorglass wall, his survival jacket closed, the hood up, watching Alpha Prime through a pair of small field binoculars. Cursing softly, he lowered and reversed them, using a thickly gloved finger to scrape the skin of ice from the lenses.
"Anything?" asked K'Lana, her breath a thick, cottony streamer. She sat behind the gray bulk of the ship's main- and now nonoperative-gunnery control console, an earpiece tying her into the oblong nexus of a tactical commweb. The little machine's surface was aglitter with green status lights.
T'Ral shook his head and raised the binoculars. "You'd think she were some monstrous derelict, except for that damned light." He trained the binoculars back on the hangar deck entrance. It had flashed on a few moments before-a sudden wash of yellow-white coming from what had been a yawning black pit.
T'Ral had been watching ever since, hoping for the welcomed sight of two silver shuttles flashing into space- well, one of them welcomed. "Anything from Commander K'Raoda?" he asked, keeping vigil.
"Still in Sick Bay, with R'Gal," she said.
"How's life systems doing?"
"Still losing ground to the algorithm." She looked down at her blue-lined notepad. "Bridge and surrounding area is now heated into red zone. Fire snuffers have malfunctioned in hydropics, icing the plant life. Decks four, five and six from sections red five forward aren't getting recycled air. And it continues to snow on hangar deck." K'Lana looked at the second officer's back. "Flight Control again requests additional personnel for snow removal."
"Denied," he said. "I'm not pulling crew out of gun harness to sweep snow."
"It's a bit beyond the sweeping stage."
"All right," T'Ral sighed, lowering the glasses and rubbing his eyes. "Send them whatever commandos are now free from courier duty."
"Snow removal," he muttered as K'Lana took another status report.
"Next right," said Egg. It could no longer fly the shuttle-the firefight had left its light tendrils operable but unreliable. Relegated to giving directions, it sat at the navigator's station.
L'Wrona tugged the control stalk to the right, sending the shuttle soaring down the same broad ramp they'd ascended on their way to the bridge.
"Commchannels are still jammed," said D'Trelna, tapping off the commlink. "Everything all right back there?" he called through the open cabin door.
"Fine," said John. He sat beside A'Tir, just behind the duralloy ladder to the gun turret.
The corsair spoke for the first time since they'd left the bridge area. "They'll hit us before we can get off the ship, Harrison," she said. "They know we have to leave the way we came in or be exposed to their main batteries. Do you think Fats knows that?"
"John," called D'Trelna. "Man the turret, please."
A'Tir rose as John left. She moved as far forward as the leg manacles would let her. "D'Trelna," she said, "I can work your forty-fours better than the Terran!"
"Good," said the commodore, watching intently as they left the ramp and shot down a corridor. "Hand-eye coordination is very important in brainwipe rehab. They'll be starting you off with simple, repetitive tasks-eating, wiping, whatnot."
He frowned when she didn't spit something back, then forgot about it as they reached the sally port.
"No way, J'Quel," said L'Wrona, bringing the craft to a halt before the sally port. The door was still the ruin they'd left it-and the disintegrator pods were on, throwing a shaft of blazing white light into the corridor. The shuttle's windscreen and turret darkened in response.
"There's the mouth of hell, H'Nar," said D'Trelna, pointing at the entrance.
"Where's hangar deck from here?" said the commodore, turning to Egg.
"Three decks down," said the battered machine. "But it has interior weapons batteries. Our nearest and best course would bring us to the end opposite the launch opening. We would be subjected to heavy fusion fire the length of the deck."
"We'll have to run it," said D'Trelna. "Unless someone has a better idea?"
No one did. "How do we get there?" asked L'Wrona.
"Retrace our course to-"
A warning klaxon sounded at the pilot's station. "Had to happen," muttered D'Trelna as L'Wrona flicked off the alarm and brought up the tacscan.
"Trouble," called John, arming the guns and swinging the turret about.
Three small, stub-winged interceptors were closing on them from the rear, moving wingtip to wingtip down the corridor.
L'Wrona took a quick look at them in the rear tacscan, then put the shuttle into full forward. They shot away from the sally portal, blue fusion bolts sizzling after them.
John slouched in the turret as L'Wrona took the shuttle high. Conduits and ventilator shafts flashed by, inches from the armorglass.
The shuttle dived as blaster fire angled up at them, burning parallel troughs in the ceiling.
John caught a fighter in sights. Thumb jamming down the fire stud, he sent a double stream of fusion bolts tearing into the center fighter's cockpit. The component-manned craft spun to the deck, exploding in a billowing pillar of blue flame.
As the shuttle passed the next intersection, five more interceptors joined the chase.
"Captain," said Egg, "next right."
The shuttle whipped around the corner, down a narrow side corridor, L'Wrona cutting their speed at the sight of the armored doors blocking the far end-doors that were buckled, their seam fused by congealed rivulets of battlesteel. Heat-peeled letters above the door, written large in High K'Ronarin, proclaimed: Battery 43.
The first interceptor rounded the corner. John blew it away. "Why are we stopped?" he called.
"Well?" demanded D'Trelna of Egg.
"Blow the doors," said the machine.
"Why?" said L'Wrona.
"No time," said the commodore, watching the rear-scan. "Do it, H'Nar."
Bringing up the targeting scan, L'Wrona skillfully adjusted the angle of the shuttle, bringing the doorway into the center of the red-ringed cross hairs.
A trio of fighters appeared in the intersection, one above the other. Cursing, John blasted at the middle one just as the interceptors fired and L'Wrona put a full rack of rockets into the doors.
The doors blew in-hot, sharp fragments sucked through the cavernous ruins of Battery 43, out the smashed turret and into space.
The shuttle, the fighters, everything in that part of Alpha Prime that wasn't secured, followed the door fragments-a jumbled, tumbling mass of machines and debris, pulled through the yawning ruins of the turret by air pouring into infinite vacuum.
After a moment, emergency bulkheads halfway down the access corridor trundled shut, sealing the mindslaver from space.
"Look!" cried K'Lana, rising. T'Ral turned right to where she pointed. Ships were spinning from one of the blasted batteries, just beyond the sally portal. As they watched, the larger vessel, a K'Ronarin shuttle, righted itself and made for Implacable, racing down the funnel-shaped shield.
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