Chapter 1
Detrelna finished the last line of his report. Sighing, he clasped his fingers over his ample belly and leaned back in the big chair. “Computer, top of text, please,” he said, reading from the beginning:
TO: Grand Admiral Erlin Laguan
FleetOps, Kronar
FM: Commodore Jaquel Detrelna
Special Task Force, Terra
Sir:
Task force is at authorized strength, with two capital ships: the Yatal-class destroyer, Voltran’s Glory, just arrived, and the Laal-class cruiser Implacable, Captain Hanar Lawrona commanding. We are ready to proceed to the coordinates of the Trel cache, but are still awaiting the arrival of our relief force.
I again urge Admiral, that our relief force be dispatched. I realize that with the destruction of the Scotar many of the liberated quadrants are in a state of near anarchy. I realize that Fleet is scattered on urgent missions of relief and rescue throughout the Confederation. I realize that this expedition, founded on the word of an ancient, possibly demented cyborg, must have a low priority. Yet, Admiral, if there is the smallest chance that POCSYM was telling us the truth, that this universe is in peril of invasion from a parallel reality, it would be utter folly . . .
The door chimed.
“Computer hold,” said Detrelna, pressing the entry tab.
Captain Lawrona came in.
“You’re just in time to finish this report, Hanar. It needs an aristocrat’s touch.”
Lawrona sank into the room’s other armchair. Younger, taller, much thinner than Detrelna, his aquiline features and flawless uniform were a sharp contrast to the commodore’s double chin and unbuttoned tunic. “Nothing from FleetOps yet?”
“Two ships, Hanar!” Pushing himself from his chair, Detrelna paced the carpet in front of the armorglass. “All we need are two ships—Sekan-class frigates will do. Just something with missiles and fusion cannon to sit up here in case the Scotar survivors down there try anything.” He turned to look beyond the armorglass to the soft blue-white world below. Three hundred miles beneath Implacable, most of North America was wreathed in cloud.
“The Terrans have Scotar detectors in most public buildings now, Jaquel,” said Lawrona. “They’re stamping out thousands more every day. One firm’s even manufacturing a combination smoke-Scotar detector. Don’t you think that limits the bugs?”
Shaking his head, the commodore turned from the armorglass. “I suppose the handful that are left should be cowering in the jungles, yet…”
“Yet what?” said the captain as Detrelna sat down. “The Scotar high command is dead. The Illusion Master Guan-Sharick is dead. Their fleet is wiped, their warriors killed. Their citadel on Terra’s moon is just another crater. The galaxy, Jaquel, is free of the Scotar. Let’s get on with our mission.”
Detrelna slapped the desk. “No, Hanar. If I felt we could leave Terra undefended, we’d have left last month. And until fresh ships arrive . . .”
They looked up as the door chimed. Detrelna opened it with the flick of a thick finger.
A young blonde yeoman entered, carrying a silver tray with two crystal goblets and a decanter of amber liqueur.
“Satanian brandy, gentlemen,” she said, setting the tray on the light brown traq wood desk.
Detrelna’s eyes lit. “Hanar, you never cease to surprise me.” Eagerly, he unstopped the decanter. “I thought we wiped the last of this after the Gatal raid.”
“We did,” said the captain, rising, looking at the yeoman.
“Will that be all, sir?” she asked Detrelna.
“There are four hundred and seven crew on this ship,” said Lawrona. “We’ve been together at least two years. I know every face, every name. Yours I don’t know, yeoman. That bothers me.”
Detrelna watched, unmoving, a goblet in each hand.
“I’m a replacement, sir,” she said, cool green eyes meeting the captain’s cold blue ones.
Lawrona’s black leather holster was suddenly empty, his long-barreled M11A pointing at the blonde. “We’ve had no replacements.”
“Your mind’s always been slower than your blaster, Lawrona,” said the yeoman. “Your victory over us was a gift from POCSYM. You should be hanging from a meat hook, my lord.”
“Guan-Sharick,” said Detrelna, carefully setting down the goblets. “I recognize the sarcasm.”
“Impossible,” said Lawrona. “Guan-Sharick died beneath the Lake of Dreams.”
“The margrave would like to see some green carapace,” said Detrelna.
A six-foot-tall green insectoid stood where the blonde had been, antennae swaying, tentacles falling from narrow shoulders. It shuffled two of its four long, three-toed feet.
A jig perhaps, Lawrona? hissed a cold voice in their minds.
“No,” said Lawrona, grimacing.
“I preferred the woman,” said Detrelna.
The blonde reappeared.
“Any reason the captain shouldn’t put a big ugly hole through you?”
“If he kills me,” said Guan-Sharick, pointing at Lawrona but looking at Detrelna, “all sentient life in this galaxy dies.”
Detrelna’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Perhaps we should talk,” he said. “Is this any good?” He held up the decanter.
“The best, Commodore,” smiled the blonde.
Half filling two goblets, Detrelna held one out to Lawrona. “Brandy, Hanar?”
“I’d rather shoot the bug,” said Lawrona, tight-lipped.
“Captain Lawrona, holster your weapon and join me in a drink. That’s a direct order, Hanar.”
Reluctantly holstering the blaster, Lawrona took the goblet in his left hand. “Direct, not lawful,” he said, sipping. His right hand stayed on the M11A’s silver-inlaid grips, his eyes on the Scotar.
“How is it, Captain?” asked the Scotar.
“Potable.”
“Why isn’t every intruder alarm on this ship screaming?” asked Detrelna.
“I’m wearing a device that foils your sensors, Commodore. A prototype developed at the war’s end.”
“And the shield?” said Lawrona, still facing the Scotar as he put his goblet on the desk. “You can teleport through a class-one shield?”
“Yesterday’s visitors’ shuttle,” said Guan-Sharick. “I was the well-endowed professor of physics”—the Scotar’s features rippled, bosom swelling, face becoming oval—“whom you so gallantly offered to guide through Implacable.” The original blonde reappeared. “Effective.”
Detrelna put his empty glass down. “Excellent brandy. Pre-war?”
The Scotar nodded. “From the Alor vines on Tykal.”
“The best indeed. Now, anthropomorphic vorg slime,” Detrelna continued easily, “what’s this about all sentient life in the galaxy?”
“May I sit?” asked the Scotar.
“No,” said Lawrona.
Without apparent transition, the blonde was seated on the gray sofa to Detrelna’s left, slender legs crossed at the ankles. “I need your help.”
“Help? Us?” Lawrona laughed bitterly. “You monsters wiped out billions of defenseless people, torched planets, mind-wiped whole populations . . .”
“Not precisely monsters, Captain,” said the blonde. “Biofabs—biological fabrications of the Imperial cyborg POCSYM Six. A society of aggressors designed to test your mettle, condition you against the enemy which POCSYM and his long-dead designers believed were coming at you from an alternate universe. A hypothesis your expedition is about to test.”
“You’d have wiped us if we hadn’t wiped you,” said Lawrona. “Eight billion corpses rotting on scores of planets isn’t a conditioning exercise.”
The Scotar shrugged. “If we hadn’t wiped much of your corrupt fleet and your rotting republic, something else would have—the invasion POCSYM predicted, some nastiness out of the old Imperial Marches. Life’s a quirky gift, Margrave—you often have to risk it to keep it. We reminded you of that.”
“Too costly a lesso
n,” said Lawrona softly, weapon on Guan-Sharick. “You killed my world.”
“Captain my Lord Lawrona,” said Detrelna, voice flat and hard, “you will holster your weapon, sir.”
“As the commodore orders.” Lawrona slid his blaster back into its holster, then clasped his hands behind his back, expressionless.
“If this isn’t convincing,” said Detrelna, “you’re dead.”
Guan-Sharick shrugged. “During the war,” it began, gaze shifting between the two men, “we found an Imperial device in this system that could access alternative realities.”
Detrelna mumbled something. The other two looked at him. He shook his head. Nothing. “Continue.”
“Gaining a crude understanding of this machine, we used it to establish a base on an alternate Terra—Terra Two, we called it. This covert base was to continue research into the use of the device and serve as a fallback for us in the remote chance that we lost the war.” The blonde smiled wryly—an engaging smile. Detrelna marveled as always at the transmute’s flawless mimicry of its dead victim’s mannerisms. “As this base was not part of the war, we placed it in charge of a troublesome Tactics Master.”
“Tactics Master?” said Detrelna.
“Ten years you fought us, Commodore,” said Guan-Sharick, surprised, “and you don’t know what a Tactics Master is?”
“Your command structure was mostly a mystery. Whenever we captured one of you, you’d blow up. Hard to interrogate deck scrapings.”
“A Tactics Master is—was—roughly the equivalent of a second admiral—the senior-most in-system commander.”
“Leader of a heavy task force,” said Lawrona.
Guan-Sharick nodded. “Shalan-Actal distinguished himself early in the war. It was he who planned and executed the assault on your home world of Utria, Margrave.”
Lawrona’s face was graven in stone.
“He was a zealot, though,” continued the Scotar. “As the war dragged on, we saw the need to conserve resources. Shalan did not. He’d rather torch a planet than capture it, shoot humans rather than use them as labor, burn cities in reaction to minimal guerrilla activity, rather than convert their industrial plant to our war effort. He grew more erratic and finally was relieved, sent into what we thought was a harmless exile.”
“Terra Two,” said Detrelna.
“Terra Two,” said Guan-Sharick. “There he conducted unauthorized experiments with the device. During one such experiment he contacted entities in another parallel universe—entities with a similar device. It was like two opposite tunnels meeting.”
The blonde stood, pacing in between desk and sofa. “When you won the war, Shalan formed an alliance with these entities. They’re silicon-based life forms—machines of beings long-dead. They’re now on Terra Two, a small force of them, trying to reestablish the connection between that world and their own universe. When they do that, they’ll come pouring through their portal, take Terra Two and then Terra One.”
“How do you know that?” said Lawrona.
The Scotar faced Lawrona. “I was there. I heard, I saw. And I escaped, Margrave. Even now Shalan’s transmutes are hunting me.”
“Where’s their portal on Terra?” asked Detrelna.
“No.” The Scotar shook its head. “You might do something rash. If you attack that portal, you’ll spark a counterattack—one you may not stop with two ships.”
“Of course we’d stop it,” said Lawrona. “You’ve said the machines are few. And how many bugs could this Shalan have been allowed in his exile?”
“Few, but they’re breeding up to strength. Fast, using an untested growth accelerant.”
“Assuming this is true,” said Detrelna, “what do you want us to do?”
“Engineer Natrol requests permission to lower the shield for periodic maintenance,” reported Kiroda, Implacable’s third officer.
Detrelna sighed. “What did Natrol really say, Tolei?”
“He said, sir, ‘Tell Fatty and the Fop to let me fix the number eight shield generator or we’ll be eating meteors next watch.’”
“Understood,” said Detrelna. “Thank you, Tolei. I’ll advise Natrol directly.” He turned to Lawrona. “What do you think?”
“It has to be fixed,” said the captain. He looked at the blonde. “As long as slime here doesn’t flick an assault force on board.”
“I could do that very easily,” said Guan-Sharick. “You’re well within teleport range of the Terran surface. But I’ve no force left. If Shalan knew I was here, though, he’d try for me.”
“Does Shalan know?” asked Lawrona.
“I don’t know.”
Commodore and captain exchanged glances. “Let’s do it,” said Lawrona.
Detrelna nodded curtly. “Agreed.” He spoke into the commlink. “Chief Engineer.”
“Engineering. Natrol,” said a surly voice.
“Natrol. Fatty here. Fop and I agree that you may lower the shield.”
“About time.”
“Natrol, hard as it is to believe, there are other considerations than the care and feeding of your . . .”
The commlink telltale winked out.
“Well!” said Detrelna. “He’s getting worse, Hanar.”
“Why do you tolerate him?” asked the Scotar.
“The same reason you did your Shalan-Actal—he’s very competent,” said Lawrona.
“Natrol’s the finest engineer in Fleet,” said Detrelna. “He resents having been drafted from a very lucrative job.”
“He resents all humans,” said Lawrona. “He should have been a Scotar.” He touched his communicator. “Bridge. Captain. Shield’s going down for repair. Go to high alert, coordinate with Engineering on outage.”
“All sections, high alert.” Kiroda’s voice echoed through the great old ship. “High alert. Shield is going down for repair. Shield will be down. All sections to high alert. All sections acknowledge.”
“You won’t give us the portal location,” said Detrelna as the alert call ended. “What proof can you offer?”
A small white cylinder appeared in the blonde’s hand. “Everything is on this commwand. But all I need”—the Scotar smiled ruefully—“all we need, is one man. One special Terran who can stop Shalan-Actal. A man who’d never work for me, Commodore—but he’d work for you.”
“The shield is down,” announced the bridge. “The shield is down.”
Guan-Sharick rose, extending the commwand.
As Detrelna stepped around the desk, a transmute flicked into existence beside him, firing at Guan-Sharick. The blonde vanished. The blue bolts tore through the sofa, exploding against the bulkhead.
Lawrona drew and fired, two quick, red bolts as the battle klaxon sounded and Detrelna threw himself to the floor.
“All secure, Jaquel,” Lawrona called over the klaxon. The transmute lay dead on the floor, an arm’s length from the commodore, viscous green blood oozing from a hole in its thorax, staining the maroon carpeting.
Detrelna stood, pulling himself up by the desktop, the commwand in his other hand.
The door hissed open. Lawrona whirled, blaster ready. A reaction squad of black-uniformed commandos surged in, commando Lieutenant Satil leading. Captain and commandos faced each other over the dead Scotar, weapons leveled.
“Captain to Flanking Councilor Four,” said Satil.
“Concede,” said Lawrona, lowering his weapon.
“Sir.” Satil saluted, M11A to her chest. If Lawrona had given an actual game move she’d have killed him.
“Clean this up, Lieutenant,” said Lawrona. He spoke briefly with the bridge, then turned to Detrelna. “Just that one,” he said, as two commandos dragged the biofab’s body out. “The rest of the ship’s clean. Where do you think our visitor went?”
“To safety.” Back in his chair, Detrelna poured another drink for himself. “Join me, Hanar.” He indicated the captain’s almost untouched glass.
As Lawrona sat on the armchair, blaster in hand, Detrelna
slipped the commwand into the desktop reader. “Computer,” he said, “Scan, read aloud and file contents to main memory, command access only.”
They listened for the rest of the watch, Detrelna making an occasional note. When it ended, the shield was back up and the brandy half gone.
“So,” said Detrelna, setting down his pen, “if this is all true, we need Harrison.”
“If it’s true,” said Lawrona, “yes.”
“We’ll have to brief the Terrans,” said Detrelna.
“And our ambassador?”
“After the Terrans,” said Detrelna firmly.
“He’ll scream,” said Lawrona.
“Let him. Security of the Confederation—military priority.”
“Communications,” said the commodore into the commlink, “get me the American Central Intelligence Director, Bill Sutherland.” He glanced at the time readout, doing a quick conversion. “He’s probably at home, asleep. Get him up. Tell him we’ve one last world to win.”