The Battle for Terra Two

DTrelna 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."

The desk screen blinked, then presented the first portion of his status report to Fleet. "Scroll," said DTrelna. He read the report as it slowly rolled up.

TO: Grand Admiral K'Lor L'Guan

FleetOps, K'Ronar FM: Commodore J'Quel D'Trelna

Special Task Force One Seven, Terra

Sir,

Task force is now at authorized strength, with two capital ships: the Y'Tal-class destroyer,
V'Tran's Glory,
just arrived, and the L'Aal-class cruiser
Implacable,
under the command of Captain H'Nar L'Wrona, Margrave of U'Tria. Task force is ready to proceed to the coordinates of the Trel cache, given by the Imperial cyborg, Pocsym Six. We may not leave the Terran system, however, until the arrival of our relief force.

May I again urge, Admiral, that such a force be sent at once? I realize that with the virtual annihilation of the S'Cotar, 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 danger of invasion from a parallel reality, it would be utter folly for us to not. . .

The door chimed.

"Computer hold," said D'Trelna, pressing the entry tab.

Captain L'Wrona came in.

"Ah, you're just in time to finish this report, H'Nar. It needs an aristocrat's touch."

L'Wrona sank into the room's other armchair. Younger, taller, much thinner than DTrelna, 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, H'Nar!" Pushing himself from his chair, DTrelna paced the carpet in front of the armorglass. "All we need are two ships—a S'Kan-class frigate will do. Just something with missile and fusion cannon to sit up here in case the S'Cotar 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 S'Cotar detectors in most public buildings now, J'Quel," said L'Wrona. "They're stamping out thousands more every day. One firm's even manufacturing a combination smoke-S'Cotar 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 D'Trelna sat down. "The S'Cotar 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, J'Quel, is free of the S'Cotar. Let's get on with our mission."

D'Trelna slapped the desk. "No, H'Nar. If I felt we could leave Terra undefended, we'd have left last month. And until fresh ships arrive on station
..."

They looked up as the door chimed. D'Trelna 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.

"S'Tanian brandy, gentlemen," she said, setting the tray on the light brown traq-wood desk.

D'Trelna's eyes lit. "H'Nar, you never cease to surprise me." Eagerly, he unstopped the decanter. "I thought we wiped the last of this after the G'Tal raid."

"We did," said the captain, rising, looking at the yeoman.

"Will that be all, sir?" she asked D'Trelna.

"There are four hundred and seven crew on this ship," said L'Wrona. "We've all been together at least two years. I know every face, every name.

"I don't know you, yeoman. That bothers me. And we're long out of S'Tanian brandy. That bothers me."

D'Trelna watched, unmoving, a goblet in each hand.

"I'm a replacement, sir," she said, cool green eyes meeting the captain's cold blue ones.

L'Wrona's black leather holster was suddenly empty, his long-barreled
Mil
A pointing at the blonde's heart. "We've had no replacements."

"Your mind's always been slower than your blaster, L'Wrona," said the yeoman. "Your victory over us was a gift from Pocsym. You should be hanging from a meat hook, my Lord."

"It's Guan-Sharick," said D'Trelna, carefully setting down the goblets. "I recognize the sarcasm."

"Impossible," said L'Wrona. "Guan-Sharick died beneath the Lake of Dreams."

"The Margrave would like to see a green carapace," said D'Trelna.

A six-foot-tall green insectoid stood where the blonde had been, antennae swaying, tentacles falling from the base of the pipestem. It shuffled two of its four long, three-toed feet.

A jig perhaps, L'Wrona?
hissed a cold voice in both men's minds.

"No." said L'Wrona, grimacing.

"I preferred the woman," said D'Trelna.

The blonde reappeared.

"Any reason the captain shouldn't put a big ugly hole through your big ugly self?" asked the commodore.

"If he kills me," said Guan-Sharick, pointing at L'Wrona, but looking at D'Trelna, "all intelligent life in this galaxy dies."

D'Trelna'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, D'Trelna held one out to L'Wrona. "Brandy, H'Nar?"

"I'd rather shoot the bug," said L'Wrona, tight-lipped.

"Captain L'Wrona, you will holster your weapon and join me in a drink. That's a direct order, H'Nar."

Reluctantly holstering the blaster, L'Wrona took the goblet in his left hand. "Direct, not lawful," he said, sipping. His right hand stayed on the MllA's silver-inlaid grips, his eyes on the S'Cotar.

"How is it, Margrave?" asked the S'Cotar.

"Potable."

"Why isn't every intruder alarm on this ship screaming?" asked D'Trelna.

"I'm wearing a device that foils your sensors, Commodore. A prototype developed at war's end."

"And the shield?" said L'Wrona, still facing the S'Cotar 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 S'Cotar's features rippled, bosom swelling, face becoming oval— "whom you so gallantly offered to guide through
Implacable."
The original blonde reappeared. "An effective technique, I imagine?"

The captain blushed.

D'Trelna put his empty glass down. "Excellent brandy, dear bug. Prewar?"

The S'Cotar nodded. "From the A'Lor vines of T'Kal."

"The best, indeed."

"Now, anthropomorphic v'org slime," D'Trelna continued easily, "what's this about all intelligent life in the galaxy?"

"You don't mind if I sit?" said the S'Cotar. "I mind," said L'Wrona.

Without apparent transition, the blonde was seated on the small gray sofa to DTrelna's left, slender legs crossed at the ankles. "I need your help."

"Help? Us?" L'Wrona 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 L'Wrona. "Eight billion corpses rotting on scores of planets isn't a conditioning exercise."

The S'Cotar shrugged. "If we hadn't wiped most of your corrupt fleet and your rotting republic, something else would have—the invasion Pocsym predicted, some unpleasantness 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 lesson," said L'Wrona, pulling his blaster.

"H'Nar!" snapped D'Trelna. "No!"

' 'Please, J'Quel," said L'Wrona softly, weapon on Guan-Sharick. "They killed my world."

"Captain my Lord L'Wrona," said D'Trelna, voice flat and hard, "you will holster your weapon or I will relieve you and charge you, sir."

"As the commodore orders." L'Wrona slid his blaster back into its holster, then clasped his hands behind his back, expressionless.

"If this isn't convincing," said D'Trelna to the S'Cotar, "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."

D'Trelna 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. D'Trelna marveled as always at the S'Cotar transmute's flawless mimicry of its dead victims' mannerisms. "As this base was not part of the war, we placed it in charge of a troublesome Tactics Master.''

"Tactics Master?" said D'Trelna.

"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. Can't interrogate wall scrapings."

"A Tactics Master is—was—roughly the equivalent of a second admiral—the senior-most insystem commander.''

"Leader of a heavy task force," said L'Wrona.

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 U'Tria, Margrave."

L'Wrona's face seemed graven in stone.

"He was a zealot, though," continued the S'Cotar. "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 worse and finally was relieved, sent into what we thought was a harmless exile."

"Terra Two," said DTrelna.

"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 opposing 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 L'Wrona.

The S'Cotar faced L'Wrona. "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 D'Trelna.

"No." The S'Cotar shook its head. "I don't trust you— 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 L'Wrona. "You've said the machines are few. And how many bugs could this Shalan have been allowed in his exile?''