"We have a commwand for you, Commodore," said the mindslaver. "We will await your courier."
In a single fluid movement, the engineering tech rose from his console, drew his blaster and fired through the back of D"Trelna"s chair.
The briefing ended abruptly as the battle klaxon"s awooka! awooka! sparked a rush for the door. sparked a rush for the door.
John and Zahava were just behind D"Trelna and L"Wrona, running for the lift as the battle klaxon continued.
Zahava grabbed John"s arm. "T"Lan," she said, pointing to where a door marked Ladder Access 17 was sliding shut.
"Maintenance and emergency use," John shouted above the klaxon. "Goes to every deck." Crew members ran past them, heading for battle stations.
The Terrans pressed against the wall, moving toward the access door. "Think T"Lan"s battle station is on the ladder?" said John.
"No."
The battle klaxon stopped as they stepped through the doorway.
They were on a round ap.r.o.n of gleaming duralloy. A ladder of the same material ran as far as they could see in both directions, narrowing to a distant smudge. A warm air current tousled their hair.
There was no sign of Commander T"Lan.
John touched the communicator at his throat. "Computer. Advise if any doors from the access ladder seventeen have been opened in the last three t"lars."
"Deck seven twice," said the machine. "And hangar deck once, one z"lin later."
The two Terrans looked at each other. "That"s five decks in about a minute," said Zahava. "What"d he do, fly?"
"Let"s get to hangar deck," said John, stepping onto the first rung.
D"Trelna and L"Wrona burst onto the bridge, then halted, staring at the frozen tableau: Colonel R"Gal, in engineering white, standing with his weapon pointed at the charred, empty ruins of the flag chair, half a dozen blasters leveled at him; the great black bulk of the mindslaver filling the main screen; K"Raoda looking uncertainly at D"Trelna.
"What"s going on here?" said L"Wrona.
Animation returned. Everyone tried to speak at once.
"Silence!" snapped the commodore. "You first, R"Gal." He pointed to the intelligence officer. "And put that thing away," he added. He looked around the bridge. "All of you, back to your posts."
Nodding, the colonel holstered his Mil A. "I was manning the bridge engineering station. A person we believed to be you entered the bridge, a.s.sumed command and saved us from that mindslaver, using an authenticator only you, I and L"Wrona know. As a Watcher, I felt a growing conviction it was a S"Cotar trans.m.u.te. I allowed it to save us, then drew on it. It flicked away as I fired. I"ll need a force of commandos to scour the ship. It"s probably-"
D"Trelna cut him off, pointing to K"Raoda. "Next."
The commander gave a succinct report, adding, "What"s happening, Commodore?"
"Good question," said D"Trelna. "We were sent to meet a navigation beacon. Instead, we get a mindslaver." He looked at R"Gal. "Fleet Intelligence prepared our mission specs." He turned to the bridge crew. "Gentlemen, this is Colonel R"Gal, of our ill.u.s.trious Fleet Intelligence.
"You slime set us up, didn"t you, R"Gal?"
The colonel nodded, nonplussed. "Would you have gone if we"d told you what Pocsym actually said? That you"d have to face a slaver?"
"We go where we"re sent, R"Gal," said L"Wrona, turning from the damage control reports. "We do what we"re told."
"What is that?" D"Trelna jerked a thumb toward the mindslaver.
"Let"s let the computer tell you," said R"Gal, touching a complink. "Computer. Tactical-Imperative. Authentica-tor Prime One Four Nine. R"Actolian biofabs, history."
The computer"s pleasant contralto spoke for a time.
"Alpha Prime," said K"Tran, almost to himself. "Of course." He swiveled the command chair. "A"Tir, Blue Nine"s the R"Actol Quadrant." said K"Tran, almost to himself. "Of course." He swiveled the command chair. "A"Tir, Blue Nine"s the R"Actol Quadrant."
"The what?" she said, busy trying to drift them closer to Implacable Implacable and the mindslaver, now almost back to their original positions. and the mindslaver, now almost back to their original positions.
"The Empire suppressed the information. So did the Confederation." He shook his head. "Had I known this a.s.signment was in the R"Actol Quadrant, A"Tir, we"d have done something safer-like raiding FleetOps."
She turned from her work. "You going to tell me what a R"Actolian is?" she asked, pushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. "And what it has to do with that monstrosity?" She nodded at the screen.
"What do you know about mindslavers?"
"Built and abolished by the Empire. Run by brains ripped from living bodies. Twenty miles of magical death, capable of engaging and destroying a modern sector fleet. Weapons, navigation and computation systems far in advance of anything we have now."
"And all made possible by those living human brains," said K"Tran. "Brains preserved in variable stasis and bathed by a constant nutrient flow."
"And the R"Actolians?"
"You won"t read it in Archives, but the R"Actolians built the first mindslavers. And a woman, Number One, made the R"Actolians."
"S"Helia R"Actol," said Implacable" Implacable""s computer, "was the sector governor of Quadrant Blue Nine under the Emperor H"Tan. She was also one of the finest of the High Imperial geneticists. A woman with Imperial ambition, R"Actol took advantage of her position and the relative isolation of her post to conduct illegal genetic experiments on a grand scale. She wanted a superior, self-propagating warrior race, obedient to her. She was able to achieve all but the last goal. Never more than a thousand, the R"Actolian biofabs quickly dispatched R"Actol and her forces, then went on to invent the symbiotechnic dreadnought-""
"Mindslaver," said K"Raoda.
"Mindslaver," agreed the computer. "A fleet of mindslavers that almost toppled the Empire, striking without warning from Blue Nine. Only when the Empire built their own mindslavers in overwhelming numbers were the R"Actolians believed exterminated."
"And this quadrant, Blue Nine?" asked D"Trelna.
"Abandoned," said the computer. "Some one hundred and forty-three inhabited planets had been stripped of their people by the R"Actolians, the people then stripped of their brains for use in the mindslavers.
"By the time the last R"Actolians sought the braincased immortality of their last mindslaver, the struggle had all but bankrupted the Empire. The R"Actolian War marked the end of the High Imperial epoch and the beginning of the Late, with its decay and decadence."
"We are waiting," whispered the mindslaver.
"What is manning that ship, R"Gal?" demanded D"Trelna, turning from the screen to the colonel.
"The disembodied brains of psychotic geniuses sixty centuries dead," said the colonel.
"And we have to send someone over there," said L"Wrona.
"I"d go, but I"ve a S"Cotar to catch," said R"Gal.
"Go catch it then," said D"Trelna. R"Gal headed for the door.
"Sometime between this crisis and the next, Colonel, you and I are going to have a long talk," added the commodore. "Clear?"
"Clear," said the colonel with a curt nod. The doors closed behind him.
"I"ll go, sir," said K"Raoda.
"Actually, it"s my turn, sir," said T"Ral.
Other voices vied with his as the whole bridge crew volunteered.
D"Trelna help up his hands. "Wait. The only fair thing is to draw-"
An alarm beeped. "Weapons fire, hangar deck," said the computer. "Weapons fire, hangar deck."
"Commandos are responding, Captain," said K"Lana after a moment. "I"m unable to contact flight control."
"Keep trying," ordered L"Wrona. "You and you"-he pointed at the two black-uniformed commandos flanking the doors-"with me. J"Quel?"
"Go," waved D"Trelna. "I"ll entertain Alpha Prime." Alpha Prime."
"Won"t . . . budge," grunted John, pulling with all his strength on the recessed door grip. Hangar deck lay just the other side.
The descent down the ladder had seemed interminable. It"s got to be less than a mile, John had kept a.s.suring himself.
"Unless you"ve a better idea ..." said Zahava, drawing her blaster. "Do it."
She twisted the muzzle as they stepped back, aimed carefully at the center right edge of the door frame and fired. The red bolt lanced through the metal with a satisfying crack and shower of sparks.
"Now try it."
The door groaned open. They eased through, blasters held high and two-handed, eyes searching for movement.
Hangar deck was almost a mile long and half a mile wide. Stars twinkled through the faint shimmer of the atmosphere curtain at its launch end. Silver shuttles, stub-winged fighters and squat, black a.s.sault craft nestled in soft-lit berths beneath the distant ceiling. The vaulted silence was as deep as a cathedral"s.
Nothing moved the length of the deck. There should have been at least ten crew on duty-maintenance techs, flight control personnel, commandos pulling security detail.
Right control was behind a concave sweep of black gla.s.s, set above the deck.
John touched Zahava"s shoulder, pointing toward the stairway running to flight control. A body lay crumpled at the bottom.
Approaching cautiously, they saw it was a crewman- young, half his face torn away, his weapon holstered.
John jerked his head toward the top of the stairs. "Alert the bridge," he whispered. "I"ll check around."
Nodding, she bounded silently up the stairs, disappearing into flight control.
John turned at a ripple of movement in one of the berths. A distant, brown-uniformed figure was slipping into a shuttle. Caution aside, he ran for the shuttle, boots ringing on the gray battlesteel.
It was a good hundred yards. He was halfway there when the n-gravs whined on. The ship lifted, pa.s.senger hatch slowly cycling shut.
Lungs bursting, he dived through the closing hatchway, sliding into the pa.s.senger section as the craft slid from its berth.
Bodies were sprawled throughout the small flight control area-three dead by blaster fire, two with their larynxes crushed, eyes bulging, tongues black and protruding.
Zahava was oblivious to the corpses. She stood watching helplessly as the shuttle silently traversed the length of the deck, pierced the atmosphere curtain and was gone.
After a long moment she called the bridge.
"There"s a shuttle headed for the slaver," said T"Ral.
D"Trelna"s head jerked up, looking at the screen. The silver craft was a quarter of the way out, heading for the darkened ma.s.s of Alpha Prime. Alpha Prime.
"Tal is on hangar deck," reported K"Lana. "The deck crew is dead. Commander T"Lan appears to have slaughtered them and stolen a shuttle. Harrison infiltrated the shuttle. His condition"s unknown."
"Slaughtered?" said D"Trelna.
"That"s what she said."
"Advise Captain L"Wrona. And respond a medical team to hangar deck."
"Do you want gunnery to . . ." began K"Raoda.
"No," said D"Trelna, shaking his head slowly. "I don"t want to excite the mindslaver. But I"ll bet you a month"s pay, Mr. K"Raoda, that that hideous relic isn"t through with us." He stared at the mindslaver and the shuttle for a moment, then touched the commlink. "N"Trol. D"Trelna. What"s shield status?"
The engineer"s worried face filled the pickup. "No status," he said. "No shield. Five major components are fused lumps. Some of the grid links are ash-never seen anything like it. And the hullside relay cl.u.s.ters ..."
"How long?"
N"Trol shrugged. "Two, three days."
"You have the balance of this watch, Engineer." He silenced the other"s protest with upraised forefinger. "Maybe. Once whatever is about to happen on Alpha Prime Alpha Prime happens, N"Trol, that monster"s coming for us. Believe it. Work on that shield as if all our lives depended on it. They do." happens, N"Trol, that monster"s coming for us. Believe it. Work on that shield as if all our lives depended on it. They do."
D"Trelna switched to the complink. "Computer. I want everything you have on tactical operations against mindslavers by non-symbiotechnic vessels-priority one to be L"Aal-cla.s.s cruisers, if any. Run it to hard copy, print to bridge flag station."
Waiting, the commodore sat brooding, eyes on the shuttie. Even at highest magnification, it was almost lost against the mindslaver.
R"Gal"s face appeared on the commlink. "The news about Harrison and T"Lan is all over your tactical network. What are you doing about it?"
D"Trelna glared at the screen. "Nothing, Colonel. There couldn"t be a better person on that shuttle if we"d run through the whole Fleet order of battle-except maybe Zahava Tal. Both were covert operations specialists on Terra. One or both of them always fought beside us, almost from the moment we entered the Terran system."
"Then your pet Terrans could be S"Cotar, D"Trelna."
"R"Gal, I haven"t time for your paranoia. Vanish."
The printer stopped as the commlink beeped off. An ensign brought D"Trelna the printout-it wasn"t long, but he lingered over it, reading it three times. Finishing, he saw the shuttle was gone.
"She"s inside the slaver, Commodore," reported K"Raoda.