The Biofab War by Stephen Ames Berry Page B

on four long legs, its upper two limbs each splayed into four tapered tentacles. The tentacles were wrapped about a strange, long-barreled rifle. Bulbous red eyes and a pair of jutting, serrated mandibles lent the creature a hellish cast.
    “Mean looking beastie,” said John, queasy at the sight.
    “Warrior,” said the captain. “You can’t tell from the projection, but that horror’s my height, can outrun a man, live on nothing for weeks and will eat anything, including and especially humans.”
    What looked like a large praying mantis now stood before them. “Command caste,” Lawrona explained. “Unlike the warrior, it has telepathic abilities. It can transport itself and its warriors great distances. It can assume human guise and adapt to human conventions—well enough to infiltrate the hierarchy of an entire planet.”
    Lawrona turned away from the projection. “An ability initially and incorrectly defined as transmutation. The term stuck and has since become a noun. We first thought you were transmutes. When the Scotar attack, key people vanish, contradictory orders are given, and planetary defenses quickly fall. The red bulge extends further into the Confederation. That’s been the fate of scores of planets in the past ten years.”
    “You say you’re here searching for the remains of your Empire’s technology,” said Zahava. “What sort of technology? And why?”
    “Excuse me,” Detrelna said, reaching in front of his first officer. “We see enough of them in the flesh.” The Scotar disappeared replaced by the original star view. “We’re looking for an intact Imperial transporter web—they had them on all their Colonial Service bases. With it, we could overcome the Scotar’s telekinetic edge.”
    “We look for anything, though,” said Lawrona. “The war’s turned us into galactic scavengers. This ship, for example, dates from the Fall—the fall of the Empire—five thousand years ago. She was found in a stasis cache beneath a gutted Imperial Fleet base. Much of her equipment is Imperial. These warsuits,” he continued, indicating the shiny, form-fitting jumpsuits he and the captain wore, “are Imperial. They’ll absorb all but the most concentrated blaster fire and double as hard vacuum suits. They were only recently found in a warehouse on Kronar, forgotten thousands of years ago. Today they took hostile fire for the first time since the Fall.”
    “If they hadn’t, we would have,” Detrelna added.
    “And these?” Greg tapped his earpiece.
    “Imperial,” said Lawrona. “We’re not sure, but we think they send, receive and correlate thought patterns. We do know that they firmly instill the alien language in the wearer’s mind.” He paused, taking in their unbelieving faces.
    “Oh, it’s true,” Detrelna affirmed. “In a few days you won’t need the translators.”
    “I gather you plan on our company for a while, Captain?” asked John.
    “For a few days, no more. Then we go our separate ways. Provided events don’t overtake us.”
    “What events, Captain?” asked Greg.
    “There are Scotar in your solar system—we’ve already been attacked. And why you’re still alive, I don’t know,” he added, catching their exchange of alarmed glances. “Their usual pattern would have been to purge your planet of you, then expropriate your resources, turn the survivors into mind-wiped slaves. Although, as Commander Lawrona told you, sometimes the Scotar will infiltrate a planet, toppling it from within even as their fleet attacks. Perhaps your world’s not quite ready for harvesting.”
    John spoke into the silence. “Why do you need us at all, Captain?”
    “The only technology we know of that could have punched a hole in our Class One Imperial shield and reassembled your atoms on my deck is an Imperial transport system. One directed by a Colonial Service computer—at least a POCSYM Three. We look to the origin of your trip here for that transporter.”
    He continued