The AI War

274 Pages·2016·0.9 MB·English

by  Berry Stephen Ames

The AI War

Biofab War
Book III

Stephen Ames Berry
Tor
ISBN-13: 9780812531930
ISBN: 0812531930
Order of Battle
Fleet of the Republic
Admiral Second S'Gan—Senior field officer leading the hunt for the corsair
KTran.

Commodore H'Lor A'Wal—A subordinate of Admiral S'Gan, also hunting
KTran.

Commodore J'Que! DTrelna—Commanding officer, the Trel task force; aboard
Implacable.

Captain Y'Kor—Commander of Admiral S'Gan's flagship.

Captain T'Lak—Commander of Glory Run, a ship in S'Gan's task force.
Captain His Excellency H'Nar L'Wrona—Commanding officer, the L'Aal-class
cruiser Implacable.

Commander T'Lei K'Raoda—First officer, Implacable.

Commander Y'Gal T'Ral—Tactics officer, Implacable.

Commander S'Tyr T'Lan—Alien Artifacts Officer, assigned Implacable.

Commander N'Trol—Engineer, Implacable.

Lieutenant S'Til—Senior Fleet Commando officer, Implacable.

Medtech Q'Nil—Senior Medical officer, Implacable.

Colonel R'Gal—Fleet Intelligence officer, assigned Implacable.

Lieutenant T'Laka—Master gunner, Implacable.

Zahava Tal—Ex Mossad agent. A guest aboard Implacable.
John Harrison—Ex CIA officer and Tal's husband, also on board Implacable.

Symbiotechnic Control Unit 7438 (Replicant), or Egg—One of a series of
machines used as the primary inorganic computers aboard mindslavers.
The Corsairs
Y'Dan KTran—Ex-captain, Fleet of the Republic—A man of many talents and
no perceptible morality. He commands Victory Day, a stolen Fleet cruiser.

S'Hlo A'Tir—Ex-commander, Fleet of the Republic— KTran's second-in-
command.

K'Lal—Victory Day's bridge officer.
The R'Actolians
Alpha Prime—First of the mindslavers.
The D'Linians
Major S'Ta L'Kor—Commanding officer, 103rd Border Battalion, D'Lin.

Captain S'Yin G'Sol—Executive officer, 103rd Border Battalion.

Exarch Y'Gar—Ruler of a small archipelago on the planet D'Lin.

Lieutenant S'Lat—A line officer of the 103rd Border Battalion.
TheAIs
Admiral Binor-—Commander of the AI's invasion vanguard. U'Kal—AI
commander on D'Lin.
The Biofabs
Guan-Sharick—Illusion Master of the Infinite Hosts of the Magnificent. Lan-
ASal—A comrade of Guan-Sharick's.
Others
Crew and officers of the Fleet of the Republic, Planetary Defense Command—
S'Tak, Victory Day and the 103rd Border Battalion; men, machines and creatures
of Combine T'Lan, the Fleet of the One and Alpha Prime.
Content
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1
The faint chirp roused D'Trelna from a light sleep. Lifting the long-barreled
blaster from the night table, he slipped to the side of the door, bare feet silent on
the carpeting.
The chirp sounded again, closer. D'Trelna clicked off the weapon's safety.
The door hissed open. Someone came into the bedroom, features and clothing
indistinguishable in the dark. Moving with feline grace, the figure stole to the
bedside, steel glinting dully in its upraised hand.
The lights flared on. "Drop it!" snapped D'Trelna. He stood blocking the door,
a short, fat man in a rumpled red sleep gown, blaster leveled.
The broad-bladed commando knife fell with a thud to the floor.
"Turn—slowly."
The intruder was young and wiry-framed, wearing the black uniform of a
Fleet commando, corporal's hashes on his collar. D'Trelna noted the callused
palms and wary, balanced stance of a fighter. Calculating gray eyes gauged the
distance to D'Trelna. Too far. "How'd ya know?"
Combine production world, thought D'Trelna. Slum kid, grew up tough. He
touched an ear. "If you were a real commando, you'd know—every sound on a
starship is self-tagging. A lock on override is like a battle klaxon. You're not
crew. Who are you? Who sent you?'"
A noise from behind sent D'Trelna stepping to one side, half turning to cover
both sides of the doorway. As his eyes flickered toward the office, the killer
leaped—and died, shot through the heart.
A second black-uniformed figure, a woman's, lay sprawled on the office floor,
knife in her hand, a neat hole in her forehead.
"Two out of two," said the man facing D'Trelna across the woman's body. He
held a Terran pistol pointed at the floor—a blue-chromed Italian automatic
capped by a round cast-aluminum silencer.
"Two what?" said D'Trelna, blaster centered on the man's chest.
"Assassins, Commodore. These two were for you." Thin and balding, he wore
an engineering tech's white jumpsuit.
"And who are you?"
"Colonel R'Gal, Fleet Counterintelligence Command. I came in with your
replacements last watch. As did those two." He nodded toward the bodies. "Shall
we step into your office?"
R'Gal turned and walked to D'Trelna's big traq-wood desk. Laying down the
pistol, he took the commodore's chair, swiveling about to look through the
armorglass wall at Terra and the North American continent, eight hundred miles
beneath. A low front was moving across the Midwest—a cottony, gray-white
mass busily adding another foot of snow to the Great Plains.
"Nice view," said the colonel, swinging back around. "'There're no windows
in the engineering techs' bay."
"I'll have some put in," said D'Trelna, standing in front of his own desk, and
not liking it. "You got an ID, CIC hotshot?"
R'Gal smiled sarcastically. "A covert agent, carry an ID? Really,
Commodore."
"And the Terran weapon?"
"Ship's internal security is not programmed to read a gunshot. Had those
thugs come for you with pistols, we wouldn't be talking now."
"Why were they after me?"
The colonel stared past D'Trelna at the gray bulkhead. "D'Trelna, J'Quel.
Officer commanding, Task Force One
Nine Seven, currently standing off Terra. Born S'Htar. Mother engineer, father
merchant. Was himself S'Htarian merchant for a number of years, engaged in
independent trade. Served in prewar Fleet as fighter pilot during the A'Ran
Action. Awarded the Meritorious Commendation. Offered services during the
third year of the S'Cotar War. Appointed captain, commanding the L'Aal-class
cruiser Implacable. Figured prominently in discovery and destruction of the
main S'Cotar citadel. Promoted commodore. Figured prominently in the
discovery and destruction of a S'Cotar fallback point in an alternate universe.
Eight battle ribbons, four unit citations, the Valor Medal, with cluster, the Cross
of S'Dal, with cluster."
R'Gal looked at D'Trelna. "You must be as competent as you are fat—-they're
pretty stingy with the Cross. Cool, too. Murderers come for you in the night, but
the only thing you seem upset by is my sitting in your oversized chair.''
"I'm impressed by the way you killed those two" —D'Trelna jerked his head
toward the bedroom—"not by your memory or your manners. And the chair is
standard issue," he lied. "Who sent them?"
The colonel shook his head. "You line officers. You really don't know, do you,
D'Trelna? Sit down."
"I'll stand."
R'Gal shrugged. "Important people want you out of the way, Commodore.
Dead, brainwiped, disgraced—whatever. An order for your arrest is being sent
from K'Ronar to Admiral Second S'Gan. The fact that I stopped our fun couple
here will only hasten the order."
D'Trelna sat, bulk perched on the edge of the small office sofa, blaster beside
him. "Arrest? On what charge?"
The intelligence officer shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Suspicion of sabotage, I
think. It's political—an excuse to imprison or brain wipe you."
"Political?"
"Haven't been home for a long time, have you, D'Trelna?" The commodore
shook his head.
"You and Captain L'Wrona came out of the war as our chief heroes—there's a
docudrama based on your exploits running in four quadrants." He smiled,