Chapter 21
Laguan turned to Captain Sinar. “Signal Commander Lawrona ‘Away All Boats.’ All ships standby gunnery crews.” His outer calm was in sharp contrast to his feelings. Laguan hated sending his people into harm’s way. Old friends who told him it was but part of the “mantle of command” he quietly lost touch with. He stood watching the assault boats form up beneath his fleet’s guns, backdropped by the stark shadows and pale yellow of Terra’s moon.
For political expediency, Erlin Laguan was an Imperial. “Restore the Empire, restore our strength!” “Empire and Destiny!” Secretly he loathed the movement and its jowly councilors, fascistic brother officers, unctuous politicos.
The Grand Admiral had become a Fleet officer because it was the family tradition. He’d worked hard, done well and risen slowly—they’d all risen slowly in the cozy sedateness of the prewar Fleet. Then the Scotar came—came early on a weekend morning he’d never forget: the initial contact reports, the cascading alerts from FleetOps, Planetary Guard action reports as fragmented as they were unbelievable—beings appearing and disappearing, slaughtering at will, defenses destroyed, key personnel perfectly mimicked. Confusion, defeat, silence. He’d put his flotilla on high alert and rushed from one wasted planet to another. Ambushed at first, he’d learned to be the hunter, lurking near Scotar supply routes and likely next targets. Others had died stupidly, leading their crews to death in gallant suicide runs on the vastly superior Scotar fleets, as though they were part of the great Imperial Fleet of yore, not its hollow heir.
One thing had led to another and now here he was, sending a lot of hard-nosed kids off to die because it was the only way to win, to finally end it and take his people home—some of them.
Lawrona received the attack order aboard one of the assault boats holding station between the fleet and lunar surface. “Take her in,” he ordered the pilot. The stubby little craft banked, dropping toward the moon’s dark side. The other boats followed in W formation. After five thousand years the Imperial Guard was returning to battle, led by its hereditary Lord-Captain. As the engines whined higher, Lawrona recalled his briefing by the admiral.
“So that’s it, Commander. I’m risking the entire Commando to end this war. You’re clear on your orders?” Laguan’s image filled Implacable’s bridge screen.
“Yes, sir. Leading the Fleet Commando, I’m to assault a Class One Imperial Citadel, fight my way down two miles to POCSYM’s Central Control area and secure it. I’m to then quickly repair any damage done to vital systems by Scotar sabotage and activate the biofab destruct module, killing the Scotar and ending the war. There’s been no mention of how we’re to return, sir.”
“If they’re dead, Commander, you walk out. If they aren’t, you are. POCSYM will get you through the shield, keeping it open for us to give you some surface cover. After that you’re on your own. We’re sending over a briefing scan, furnished by POCSYM. It shows the best route in, defenses and probable ambush points. It’s the best we can do.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“I served with your father, long ago—we were cousins, you know.”
“My mother often spoke of you, sir.”
“Did she?”
“Father spoke of your tour together on the old Steadfast, sir.”
“Gods. That hulk! He had nothing good to say about anyone, I’m sure.”
“Not a word.”
“That was him,” said the admiral, sparing Lawrona his insincere condolences. “The assault is yours, Commander My-Lord-Captain Lawrona,” Laguan said formally, saluting. “Bring them hell. And bring them home.”
“Yes, sir.”
A sharp jolt broke the commander’s reverie. “Ground defenses have opened up.” The pilot’s voice sounded thinly over the commnet.
“You should’ve stayed behind,” said Lawrona, turning to the three figures strapped next to him in the boat’s crash webbing. The rest of the boat’s contingent were similarly suspended, a nest of warsuited spiders. The assault boats had no room for such frills as gravity generators or g-chairs.
“John’s down there,” said Zahava, tightening a strap. “I agree that Bill and André shouldn’t be here—they’re too old.”
“I’m not too old,” Sutherland said, his glare filtered out by the helmet’s tint. “I jog two miles every morning, not deluding myself that I hate every step. Besides, if I live through this, I can retire.” Another sharp jolt interrupted him, swinging the passengers in their webs. “If I live through this,” he repeated.
Another near hit shook the boat.
“Missile,” noted Lawrona.
“Two minutes to target, Commander,” the pilot called. “We’re through their shield. Landing zone in sight.”
“Attention, all boats,” said Lawrona. “Two minutes to target. Subcommander, once we hit, get your sections in position on the double. We’ll follow through on Fleet’s salvo, overcome outside resistance and penetrate the citadel before the enemy rallies. Luck to you.”
“You three,” he added to the Terrans, “stay close to me.”
Deep within the citadel lay Defense Control, nestled behind ten-foot walls of battlesteel, accessible only by teleport or transport. Tier upon tier of consoles filled the bowl-shaped room, screens flickering above them.
Guan-Sharick arrived in answer to an urgent summons.
They appear to be enemy scout craft, Glorious, reported the Watch Leader, antennae wavering uncertainly. Their configuration is unknown to us.
Commando attack craft. The ion emission patterns are similar. And that’s an Imperial assault formation. Note the double prongs. Idiots. It wasn’t clear if he meant his warriors or the commandos. Sound the alert. Reinforce our units in POCSYM’s central area. All cannon commence fire.
The alarm went out, orders and responses flashing back and forth. Unwelcomed responses.
Impedance on all command-control circuits, Glorious. We cannot fire.
POCSYM. It was a dry curse. Shield status?
Maximum.
Start rerouting missile battery nexus beginning with those nearest Sector Yellow 12.
Nearer the surface, in hardened defense clusters, technicians began the laborious task of recalibrating scores of shipbuster batteries.
Have no concern, Glorious. The shield will stop them. If they live long enough to retreat, we’ll have enough firepower to destroy them.
Carry on, Watch Leader. I’m going to oversee the reinforcing of Yellow 12.
Nothing happened. Guan-Sharick remained where he was, unmoving. Then his thoughts came to every Scotar in the citadel.
Do not be alarmed. Some of our special ability is temporarily blocked. We of Command will soon remove the impediment. Swarm Leaders, Blue 30—move your forces into Yellow 12. Use the old tube system. A Kronarin assault force is trying to reach POCSYM’s Central Control. Counterattack and destroy. Surface Guard, Yellow 12, deploy and counterattack.
Missiles firing in Yellow sector, Glorious. The Watch Leader’s tentacles flew over his console. Counter-jamming now. We are attempting to restore telekinesis.
On thousands of frequencies in ever-changing codes, creator and created fought.
The boats landed amid churning dust in the small lunar valley. The webbing automatically retracted, bulkheads dropping away. All but engines and pilot modules lay open to the moon’s harsh light.
“Deploy!” called Lawrona, leading the rush to the nearest cover. In moments his commandos were in position, a long thin line of silver-suited warriors extending along the base of a ridge.
Lawrona signaled the advance. Cresting the ridge in a series of graceful leaps, the troopers threw themselves prone in the ancient dust. Awkward, bounding at first in every direction, the three Terrans joined them, their bodies uncertain in the light gravity.
Below them lay a large box canyon. Suited figures with too many limbs moved about at the far end, emerging from an entrance in the farthest wall. As the humans watched more warriors poured i
nto the canyon, leaping to take up positions on the flanking ridges, one of which now had human tenants.
“Bring it!” said a voice.
“Sutherland, maintain tactical comm discipline,” ordered Lawrona.
“Which is what?”
“Shut it. Admiral, we’re in position.”
“Acknowledged, Commander,” came Laguan’s voice. “Incoming fusion fire.”
A brilliant beam of red flashed down. Stayed by an invisible hand, it halted above the canyon. Hesitating briefly, the Scotar continued their advance, still seemingly unaware of the commandos.
More beams joined the first, forming a great cone of energy whose focal point began to glow red, crimson, finally cherry as it overloaded the Scotar shield. Too late the biofabs turned, scurrying back toward the gate. In a soundless blast of showering rock, the fusion beams won through, becoming a hundred dancing spears that touched the Scotar then vanished.
For a long moment, nothing moved in the canyon. Then Lawrona stood, a lone silver man shining in silhouette against the rising Earth’s soft pastels.
Lying in the dust, Sutherland watched as the Lawrona raised his long-barreled blaster above his head. Despite his helmet’s darkened glass, Bill had to squint against the fierce golden reflection from the inlay just below the weapon’s safety: crossed swords beneath a five-pointed star, a device soft-burnished by the hands of the Margraves of Utria. A young Daniel come to judgment, thought Sutherland even as Lawrona cried, “Assault!” his voice long, wavering. It sounded to Bill more like an invocation than an order.
Gaining the canyon floor in a few long leaps, the humans passed the Scotar ashes, heading for the portal. Closing on the entrance, Lawrona called, “Fleet. Initiate Red Arrow.” A quick red lancet flashed down, blasting away the portal’s battlesteel. Beyond stretched a brightly-lit empty corridor.
A warning shout whirled the troopers about as blasters flared, a hidden squad of biofabs taking the rear guard by surprise. Three men died before return fire swept the warriors away.
Lawrona led the attack into the Scotar citadel, racing down corridor. Adjusting to the restored Earth-normal gravity, the commandos surged into the base.
“Ship lift ahead,” advised Lawrona after a moment, halting the column. He took his point squad forward, stopping before the mammoth steel doors at the passageway’s end. He pushed the call button.
The elevator arrived quickly, doors sliding noiselessly open. It was empty. The blasters raised to greet it slowly lowered.
“Varta,” said the Commander, “Remain here with your section to cover our withdrawal.” His friend nodded.
“How do you know it’s not booby-trapped?” asked Zahava, laying a restraining hand on the commander’s shoulder.
“I don’t,” he said, stepping into the elevator. The first section trooped in past him. “But the Scotar are too arrogant to think we’d ever penetrate their home base. Coming?”
The Terrans boarded.
The lift plunged in controlled descent, the levels flashing by on the big overhead indicator—levels marked in an uncial script Zahava found she understood. “High Kronarin,” Lawrona explained. “The mother tongue of us all. Kiroda thinks your own Indo-European root language one of its descendants.”
“And he knows this how?”
“Tolei’s very bright and has an eidetic memory. Makes up for his poor taste in wines.”
“There are over two hundred levels so far!” exclaimed Bakunin.
“It was an Imperial citadel, Colonel, not a granary. The Empire had money to burn and burn it they did. Make ready!” ordered Lawrona as the lift slowed. “This is POCSYM’s command level.”
The commandos fell into three ranks—prone, kneeling, standing—rifles at the assault as the elevator stopped.
The shooting started before the doors fully opened, blue and red bolts flashing past each other, tearing into the opposing ranks. Blasters whining, men screaming, biofabs hissing, the cloying stench of burnt flesh and everywhere the light: the beautiful killing light from the weapons, the rippling, rainbow aura of warsuits failing.
Bill had believed nothing could be as bad as that last battle under Goose Hill. He was wrong. This was an interminable moment of hell, a battle tableau out of Bosch.
Lawrona brought them out of it, leading a charge into the biofabs, firing and clubbing with his pistol, stabbing with his knife. Short and vicious, the fight ended with the few surviving Scotar breaking for the safety of a cross-corridor. None made it.
“Without these warsuits, they’d be feasting on our corpses now,” he said to Zahava as the humans regrouped and evacuated their wounded. The remainder of their force had now joined them.
“Do they really eat . . . us?” she asked, skeptical.
The Kronarin gazed for a moment at the heaped biofab remains, then took Zahava by the hand to a body. A well-aimed shot had ended the warrior’s life, shattering its abdominal sack and deepening the viscous green ooze covering the floor. Rolling the corpse over with his foot, Lawrona pointed at a string of withered objects strung about the short neck. Zahava leaned closer, peering. “Baby’s feet!” she gasped, recoiling.
“Human infants are especially prized as a delicacy by the Scotar,” said Lawrona, turning and walking away. “The necklace is a symbol of wealth and status. Perhaps the commander of our reception party. Let’s go before they counterattack. Section leaders, move your units out on the double.”
The golden, hovering sphere wavered twice before blinking out for good. Detrelna spoke hopefully into his communicator. “POCSYM?”
“. . . jam . . . cations . . . right . . . next . . .”
“We’ve lost our guide,” said John, looking down the long empty corridor, counting fifteen intersection passages.
“Detrelna to Lawrona. Do you receive?”
Static filled the commnet. “Perhaps he said ‘next right,’” guessed Lawrona
The next right led down a narrow curving corridor that ended at a door marked in the cursive Scotar script.
“Can you read that?” asked the Terran.
“‘Spare Parts’ . . . No.” Detrelna’s brow wrinkled in concentration. “Provisions, maybe.” He shook his head.
“Shall we take a look?” John leading, they burst through the door. It was pitch-black inside. And very cold.
“Must be food storage,” said the Kronarin. “Ah!” he exclaimed as brilliant light flooded the room.
The horror shock of Greg Farnsworth’s dead blue eyes staring into his own haunted John’s sleep for the rest of his life. The geologist’s naked corpse hung head down from the ceiling, suspended to a simple block-and-tackle system. John stepped back dazedly, looking about.
Cindy’s body—the Cindy Greg had never known—hung to the geologist’s right. Behind them were Fred Langston’s and over a hundred other corpses, hung like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Only Greg’s cause of death was apparent: the hideous stomach wound from the Nasqa raid.
“Why?” John managed, finding his voice. His breath hung steaming in the frigid air. “Why take his body—anyone’s body—and bring it here?”
“They’ve been brainstripped,” said Detrelna quietly.
John saw it then, the craniotomy scars where the skulls had been fused back together after the brains were taken.
Harrison had survived much of war’s meanness: napalmed children; nameless, massacred villages; limbless friends. But this was a higher order of evil, an alien horror of unknown purpose. Choking back a throat full of bile, he turned to Detrelna. “Why brainstrip them? Why save the bodies?”
“First, how?” said the captain. “POCSYM just transports the entire Institute staff here one quiet afternoon, instantly replacing them with Scotar transmutes. Like that.” He snapped a blunt finger.
“How’d you know they were from the Institute, Jaquel?” John asked.
The captain chuckled, staring down the wide bore of the Terran’s blaster. “You may yet survive this war, Joh
n. On the way here, you explained that the guise Guan-Sharick assumed on the catwalk was that of the Leurre Institute’s Director. When I saw the same face hanging from that meat hook over there, I drew the logical conclusion. Would you mind pointing that elsewhere? The M11A has a notoriously delicate trigger and your Scotar alarm isn’t buzzing.”
“Sorry.” He lowered his weapon.
“Don’t be. You’re developing new survival instincts. So why did POCSYM put a Scotar Nest on your planet?”
John stamped his feet, trying to warm them. “So we Terrans would discover the Scotar. The events at the Institute and Goose Cove were as carefully orchestrated as the attack on your Confederation. It required fewer resources but had to be timed with your arrival in this system.” He paused. “Could POCSYM have planted the clues in your Archives that led you here?”
“Possible. Archives is a vast, decentralized sprawl, run by machines and a handful of academics. Yes, it’s very possible.”
“But why brainstrip the corpses? What use could the Scotar have for human brains?”
They both saw it at the same instant. “POCSYM!”
“Of course!” exclaimed Detrelna. “Revenge wasn’t the last mindslaver!”
“So that’s how our little helper keeps going through the millennia—his key parts are infinitely renewable. And the corpses are saved . . .”
“As a treat for his creatures,” finished the captain. “Let’s go. My balls are frozen and I think I’m going to puke.”
“Rest in peace,” said the Terran as the door slid shut behind them. He stopped dead. “But they really can’t, can they?”
“Not while their minds are in thrall to POCSYM,” Detrelna said as they retraced their steps down the passageway.
“The only way to free them is to destroy POCSYM.” John carefully scanned an intersection.
“And POCSYM will be destroyed, my word on it. Now what?” asked the captain, eyes scanning the deserted corridor.
“Continue in the direction we were headed when we lost contact with POCSYM. It stands to reason that the control area’s off a main passageway. We know we’re on the right level. So . . .” He waved his blaster down the gray expanse of corridor.
“So we continue.” Detrelna sighed. “I’d travel easier in a warsuit.”
“We’re still alive.”
“There is that.”
Lawrona picked himself up from the cold alloy of the passageway. Waving his pistol, he signaled the battered advance section to follow him through the carnage. He picked his way through the blasted corpses of the Scotar ambush force, mingled with the bodies of far too many of his people. Dropping back between the quick-trotting double file of commandos, he let his new point squad take the lead as joined a figure slighter than the rest, her left arm swathed in a bandage.
“How are you doing?”
“OK,” Zahava said drowsily. “The medkit pumped me so full of painkillers I feel like I’m flying.”
The attack, first since the lift, was overdue. The time it had taken the biofabs to mount even minimal resistance to the assault had lent POCSYM some badly needed credibility. Perhaps it really had sealed off the enemy from the humans’ route, Lawrona thought. He hoped Detrelna and Harrison were finding it easy going to the rendezvous—the commandos’ attack should have pulled every Scotar left in the sealed area into the counter-attacks. But there’d been no contact with either the two men or Fleet since the troopers had penetrated the citadel.
“The painkillers will wear off in a few hours, then all you’ll want to do is sleep,” said the commander. “Sure you won’t change your mind, go back to the boats with the rest of the wounded?”
“No way,” the Israeli said. “Although I don’t think I’ll take the point again.”
She’d been leading the column when the biofabs hit from two side corridors. It had taken long minutes of fierce hand-to-hand fighting before the ambush was overcome. The only survivor of the point squad, Zahava had led the final charge despite her wound.
“Still intact?” Lawrona asked the two men protectively flanking Zahava.
“Physically, aren’t we, André?” panted Sutherland.
“So far,” the Russian grunted, blast rifle held ready at high-port, eyes warily sweeping the side corridors as they trotted past. “I’d like more than that mendacious machine’s word that these passageways are ‘relatively secure.’”
“We’ve neither the time nor the force to secure them,” said the starship officer. “All we can do is throw a squad down them as we approach and pull it back after we pass. We’re not getting mired in an endless labyrinth. Everything depends on how fast we reach that control facility.”
“I preferred the reception aboard Vigilant. Give me canapés to carnage any day,” said Sutherland, hefting his rifle.
“You’re so decadent, Sutherland.” said Bakunin.
“You’re hardly a paragon of self-sacrifice, Colonel,” retorted the CIA officer. “As we were changing into the warsuits, I noted your uniform: ‘Chalmer, Savile Row.’”
The main counterattack materialized in the column’s center.
Figures seemingly Kronarin down to the last detail of insignia and equipment appeared with blasters firing. Pandemonium threatened as the troopers struggled to tell friend from foe in the ferocity of a head-on firefight.
The guard spheres saved the attack from annihilation. Their small floating presence all but forgotten, they poured a withering fire into the Scotar shock troops. Enjoying only the illusion of warsuits, the biofabs died. Seconds later the guard spheres self-destructed as programmed, settling to the floor in a sigh of melting circuitry.
“General assault from the side corridors!” crackled the commnet.
Lawrona and the Terrans turned to see a mass of Scotar warriors overrun the squad holding the nearest intersection—an action being repeated the length of the column.
“Push them back! But do not pursue!” ordered the Lawrona.
Rallying, the commandos sent a wall of flame into the biofabs, breaking their attack. Only at two points did the Scotar penetrate breaches quickly sealed with biofab bodies.
It was a costly victory.
Sutherland and Bakunin had joined a subsection attacking down a side corridor. The American, rifle chargpak empty, was laying into the warriors with his commando knife. Beside him, Bakunin lashed out with his rifle butt. The fighting was close, fierce and turning in the humans’ favor.
Suddenly the surviving biofabs broke for the safety of the next intersection. As they reached it, blast doors trundled shut in their faces.
“Nice!” Bill shouted to the Russian above the din. “Stand or die!”
The Scotar died—a desperate, hopeless charge. A few survived the blaster fire to throw themselves into the troopers’ ranks. They, too, died—but not soon enough.
Sutherland had just slipped a fresh chargepak into his rifle when the suicide wave hit. He shot the first few insectoids then went down under more. In seconds, Zahava and Bakunin had blasted the Scotar from atop him.
“Let’s go, Bill,” Bakunin said, wearily extending a hand.
There was only a hoarse whisper in response. “Don’t think so.”
Only then did they see where the knife had torn a gaping hole in his stomach. Crimson blood flowed, mingling with the biofabs’ green life stuff.
“Hang on, we’ll get you back to the boats,” said Bakunin as Zahava called for a medic.
“Forget it,” Bill whispered, face serene from his medcot’s drugs. “Funny, isn’t it, Tovarich Colonel? Think you’ve seen it all . . . spent final years pushing paper, then retire.” A cough racked his body, sending blood dribbling from his mouth. “What happens?” He smiled, more rictus than grin. “You end up fighting bug-eyed monsters with a FSB operative and some starship troopers.” He coughed again, not as deeply.
Arriving with a medic and two stretcher-bearing commandos, Lawrona overheard the last of Sutherland’s eulogy. “Touching, but you’re
not going to die today. You’re going back with the wounded and into a medical regenerator. Then you’re going to get well—fast. There’s a ship on the way with our new ambassador. The death of a senior Terran national under my protection would cast a definite pall over the treaty talks.”
“You can’t spare any more men to take out casualties,” countered Bill weakly from the stretcher.
“I don’t care if I have to storm that control area alone,” Lawrona snapped, eyes smoldering. “We always take out our wounded. Take him away. Safe trip.”
Sutherland waved limply as his bearers joined a long line of similarly burdened soldiers. Zahava, Lawrona and Bakunin watched as they disappeared around the corridor.
“Nor do we leave our dead for carrion eaters,” said the commander. “Help me. You know what to do.”
They’d watched before as the troopers had set their dead comrades’ weapons to delayed-destruct, placing them beneath the crossed arms of the fallen. This time they helped. It didn’t take long.
“Move out!” Lawrona ordered.
As his men double-timed by, he stood alone, saluting his dead for a long moment before joining the column.
Small shrill explosions and pure white light raced past them toward the enemy, a sense of benediction in their wake.