The Biofab War by Stephen Ames Berry

dialing up another for himself.
    “You’ve done a great job, Engineer. My compliments to you and your team.” Natrol nodded, acknowledging with an all but imperceptible smile as he sipped the t’ata. “We no longer have to worry about Scotar flitting aboard. Only massed fusion or missile fire have ever penetrated a Class One Imperial shield.”
    “A telekinetic beam scatters against a shield like sand against a wall,” affirmed the engineer. He finished the drink. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to get some sleep.”
    “With my blessing. Go.”
    As Natrol left, Detrelna turned back around. “Time to the third planet, Mr. Kiroda?”
    “Shield penetrated!” Lasura cried. Alarms hooted as he pointed midway between Navigation and Weapons. “Life forms materializing. . . there!”
    “Shipwide!” snapped the captain, drawing his sidearm. “Intruders on bridge! Controls to auxiliary, reaction force to bridge! Battle stations! Battle stations!” The battle klaxons’ din joined the security alarms.
    Detrelna moved fast. Even as a searing white light burst over the bridge, he was on his feet, squinting against the fierce glare, listening for one more alarm before he pulled the trigger.
    When spots stopped dancing before their eyes, the Kronarins saw four very bewildered humans standing next to Navigation. The bridge Scotar detectors remained silent. “Hold fire,” ordered Detrelna. “They’re not transmutes. Identify yourselves!”
    The oldest of the four, a big, white-haired man, fell to his knees, gasping. “Bob!” cried John.
    He and Zahava knelt beside the professor as Kiroda called, “Medtech to the bridge.” Stripping off his field jacket, Greg bundled it under Bob’s head.
    The reaction force burst in, Danir at their head. The sergeant seemed disappointed by the absence of Scotar.
    “Get them off the bridge, Sergeant,” ordered Detrelna as a medtech brushed past him to tend McShane.
    “Let me go!” snapped John as a commando grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away from Bob. Zahava rose, seeming to comply, then dropkicked Danir, only to have her arms pinioned.
    “This is absurd,” Detrelna said, stepping past the doubled-over NCO. “Commandos, stand clear. Danir, you should be ashamed, sap-kicked like that.”
    “Well?” he asked Qinil, the medtech.
    The man looked up, putting away the med scanner. “Shock, minor stroke. Their heart and respiratory systems are slightly different from ours. A day or so in sick bay he’ll be fine.” Filling a hypo, he pantomimed injecting Bob, looking questioningly at the three other Terrans. They nodded.
    “We’ve got to communicate,” said Detrelna. “Danir, without injuring yourself further, escort them to Briefing Room Three, Five Deck. Commander Kiroda, have Survey bring five translators there on the run.” As he spoke, McShane’s breathing eased and he fell asleep.
    Reassured by Detrelna’s crude sign language that Bob was all right, the trio went reluctantly with the commandos. As they left, two crewmen arrived, wheeling a medcot.
    “Where are we?” Zahava asked in a tiny voice as the lift angled down and across the ship.
    “You’re asking me?” said John. “Wherever we are, though, how’d we get here? One instant we’re under Cape Cod, the next—zap!—we’re in this great gray metal womb.”
    “My God! We’ve been captured by the space patrol,” said Greg. He glanced at the commandos. They were young and fit, hair cut short and wearing black uniforms. Strapped to their belts hung the long, wide-bore pistols the Terrans had been staring into, offset by thick-bladed knives that even in their sheaths looked deadly. “I hope we’re on the same side,” he added uneasily.
    Exiting, the Terrans were hurried down a long, gray corridor, arriving shortly at an austere room: black metal table with matching straight-backed chairs and four blank gray walls.
    Detrelna and Lawrona arrived a moment later. The latter took a double