Final Assault (14 page)

"We?" said A'Tir.

The pickup shifted to a tacscan—nineteen red blips fronting an oncoming tide of silver ones.

"You can't possibly stop them," said N'Trol. "What are they, a hundred thousand battleglobes?"

"Merely the vanguard of their main fleet," said the overmind.

"And your strategy?" asked N'Trol.

"Enough." A'Tir stood. "You will reassemble Captain K'Tran, mind and body restored to the condition he was in when you took him. You will let him and me leave this ship and withdraw from this sector aboard
Implacable."

There was a brief silence, N'Trol watching A'Tir as he might watch an interesting bug.

"Why?" asked the overmind. "K'Tran's a tactical genius, corsair. It's unlikely we'd ever let him go. Certainly not at this time of need."

"You will do as I say," said A'Tir.

"Really," said the overmind. "Is this where you threaten us?"

"Or I will take command of this ship," she said.

"That's about where we left off with Captain K'Tran," said the overmind. "The genius that designed, built and crewed this ship
would never have been so stupid as to place in it the tool of their own undoing."

"J'Yay k'antal a'ktay,"
said A'Tir defiantly, hand to her sidearm.

The overmind laughed—a faintly hysterical, high-pitched laugh. N'Trol buried his head in his hands.

"What?" said a confused A'Tir, looking at N'Trol as the laughter died.

The engineer raised his head. "You just ordered a vegetable, extinct, creamed—in a very old, very dead language. Where in all the hells did you get that?"

"I bribed an archivist on K'Ronar," she said, turning to look at the rampway and the components. Too many, her eyes said.

"I hope you all enjoyed that," said N'Trol.

"We did," chuckled the overmind. "We certainly did."

"Good. Now, how about answering my question?"

"Our strategy?"

"Yes."

"Quite simple," said the overmind. "Two ships will be left to engage the AIs. The rest will jump through the Rift and make ourselves at home in the AI universe."

"I see," said the engineer softly. "And how will you prevent the Fleet of the One from coming back and blowing you into noxious vapors?"

"The Rift can be sealed from the AI side

—we have the means. The AIs and humanity can battle here till the stars die, while we convert the AIs' home worlds to our needs."

A'Tir looked at N'Trol. "Can they do that?"

He nodded slowly, looking through the armorglass.
"Alpha Prime's
original cybernetics were salvaged from ships' computers left in the care of the Imperial governor on D'Lin —parts of the original fleet that brought humanity to this universe, fleeing the AIs, about a hundred thousand years ago." He looked at her. "You know about S'Hela R'Actol?"

"Everyone knows about R'Actol and her biofabs."

Twelve thousand years ago, geneticist S'Hela R'Actol used her family's influence to be appointed Imperial governor of Quadrant Blue Nine, out on the fringes of the Realm. Taking advantage of her rank, her all but absolute authority and the relative isolation of her post, R'Actol had conducted illegal experiments in the life sciences—experiments culminating in the creation of a race of psychotic geniuses, the R'Actolian biofabs—biological fabrications. Quickly disposing of R'Actol and her forces, the biofabs had gone on to build a fleet of mindslavers that took an all but unsuspecting Empire in the rear and almost toppled the Sceptered Throne. Only when the Empire had built its own mindslavers in overwhelming numbers were the R'Actolians defeated. Seeking the immortality of their own brainpods, the last seven R'Actolians had put their surviving ships in stasis and retreated to the depths of Blue Nine, biding their time.

"Know this, then, corsair," said N'Trol. "With the equipment on this ship, they can do it—the Seven can pull through the Rift and shut it as easily as closing a door. That won't be allowed." He stood, facing the deep-shadowed bridge and a hundred empty stations. "You will keep your word," he said. "You will fight."

The overmind spoke. "The Seven concur that you are both very foolish and will be brainstripped. The question arises, however, Engineer ..."

"Yes?"

"How do you know the old Tongue? How do you know about this ship's cybernetics? Only the AIs remember those things, and bioscan shows you're not an AI."

"What does the bioscan show of my chromosomes, my heritage?"

There was a very long wait. "What are you doing, N'Trol?" demanded A'Tir. "What in all the hells are you doing?"

"Empire and Destiny, witch," he said, nodding more to himself than to her. "The pieces of a failed vision may save us yet."

N'Trol stood and walked to the tier's edge, looking down on the great empty cavern of the slaver's bridge. "Seven of R'Actol, show yourselves," he ordered, gripping the rail.

Only the faint hum of equipment answered him. Loud, clear and strong, N'Trol's voice rang from the battlesteel. "Undead monsters! Murderers! I call you to judgment! Appear!"

Something stirred behind him. N'Trol turned as A'Tir said softly, "Now you've done it." She stepped slowly back, stopping next to the engineer as nine brainpods rose from inside the command console and waited, hovering above the console's open access hatch. Seven brainpods were full, with each transparent globe filled by the furrowed gray mass of a human brain. It was the two empty ones that held A'Tir's attention.

"You've impressed ship's cybernetics, usurper—we are not impressed." It was the same desiccated whisper that had greeted them aboard
Implacable.
"No broken son of a failed line can call us to judgment."

"And yet," said N'Trol, eyes moving from sphere to sphere, "you came. And I think, I think you may be having a little trouble with computers." He nodded. "In fact, I'm sure of it."

"You'll be joining us now," said the whisper. As it spoke, the two empty brains separated into halves, the halves moving quickly toward the two humans—though not as quickly as A'Tir's blaster. Four bolts of red flicked out, touching off four sharp explosions. Crumpled and fused bits of duraplast rained down on console, chairs and deck, congealing as N'Trol cried, "Empire and Destiny!"

"Components!" It was a shriek—the voice of the overmind. "Kill them!"

N'Trol whirled, drawing his sidearm and diving behind a comm terminal as the components rushed the tier, firing from the hip. From behind him came the whine of A'Tir's blaster and more explosions.

The brainless body of an Imperial Marine sergeant was destroyed as it reached the command tier, a bolt from N'Trol's Ml 1A ripping through its heart. Blaster fire exploded into the comm terminal as more components reached the command tier. A second stream of blaster bolts joined N'Trol's, briefly clearing the top of the ramp. Dashing the length of the command tier, A'Tir joined N'Trol.

"Got all but one of the R'Actolians," said the corsair, slipping a fresh chargepak into her weapon. "What now?"

N'Trol risked a look over the top of the comm terminal. "Hit us with a damper field, finish us with bayonets." The sound of many booted feet came from the ramp, moving at a deliberate, measured pace toward the command tier.

A'Tir pointed her sidearm high and pulled the trigger. Only a faint click responded. "Damper field," she confirmed.

The two stood. Holstering their blasters, they moved to the top of the ramp.

The components were advancing, light glinting dully from a hundred bayonets, a long column of twos that snaked down to the main deck and out of sight across the bridge.

An arm's span between them, the two humans blocked the ramp. "What a miserable, futile ending," muttered N'Trol, drawing the broad-bladed commando knife from his boot sheath.

"No other way out?" said A'Tir, pulling her own blade as below, thirty meters distant, the nearest components dropped their rifles to the assault and broke into a charge.

"Luck, corsair," said N'Trol as the assault hit. Sidestepping the first bayonet, he seized the component's rifle by the comb, jerking his attacker off balance and stabbing up into the chest with his knife. N'Trol stepped back as the component fell, trying to wrest the rifle from it, even as three more components reached him. Too late, N'Trol freed the rifle. He saw the bayonets coming, but never felt them: the components crumpled to the deck, rifles clattering around them.

"Empire and Destiny," said a strong, new voice—the unmistakable asexual contralto of a computer.
"Alpha Prime
and her sister ships are restored to your service, Lord. AH components are deactivated."

"Identify," ordered N'Trol.

"Master computers of the Golden Fleet, linked in series, awaiting your command, Lord."