At the same time, another laser burned through Victory’s pitch-dark shield. It was going to collapse any second. The Juggernaut poured out an incredible wattage of laser fire. Valerie had seen nothing like it since the Destroyer.
“The lasers are becoming hotter,” Galyan reported.
“Have you destroyed the enemy missiles?” Valerie shouted.
“Negative,” Galyan said. “The alien missiles are resistant to the neutron beam.”
“Weapons,” Valerie said. “Target those missiles with the disrupter cannon. Don’t let them get in range.”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” weapons said.
Valerie wanted to weep as another enemy laser burned through the shield. She couldn’t understand why the shield hadn’t collapsed yet. Maybe one of Andros Crank’s modifications to the shield kept it intact thus far.
“Hit,” sensors said.
Valerie stared at the woman.
“Another antimatter missile has struck the Juggernaut,” sensors said.
“Why aren’t the antimatter explosions weakening the enemy vessel?” Valerie asked in an agonized voice.
No one responded.
Valerie realized with shock that her fear had gotten the better of her. She lurched to her feet. “We’re not done yet,” she said in as calm as voice as possible.
“Got one,” the weapons officer said.
Valerie studied the main screen. The disrupter beam had exploded an enemy missile.
“Chief Technician Crank,” Valerie said. “I am amazed our shield is still up, as weak as it is.”
“Their lasers are weakening,” Andros Crank said.
Valerie wanted to believe that. Galyan had just said otherwise. “Are you certain?” she asked the Kai-Kaus technician.
“Positive,” Crank said.
Abruptly, no enemy lasers made it through the shield. The electromagnetic shield seemed a touch less dark, as if it had begun dissipating the terrible energies it blocked.
“Is this your doing, Chief Technician?” Valerie asked.
The Kai-Kaus Chief Technician shrugged modestly.
That proved to be the turning point in the battle. The shield steadily strengthened, becoming brown by the time the weapons officer had destroyed the last alien missile. He now retargeted the twenty-kilometer war-vessel.
“I’m getting strange readings,” the sensor officer said. “According to this, there are severe internal explosions taking place over there. Lieutenant. I think the antimatter missiles did more damage than we realized. That may have proven to be a brilliant stroke on your part.”
Valerie nodded calmly enough. Inside, she was cheering. It was like the time at the Academy when she had played hockey. She had flicked a backhanded shot that went through the goalie’s skates. During the second period, a shot had bounced off the goalie’s stick right to her stick. She had flicked the puck past his side for a second goal.
At that point, she had skated, silently praying to God that He let her score one more goal so she would make a hat trick.
During the third period, she did score the third goal. At the point, her prayer changed. They were ahead 3-2. She asked God to let that be the last goal scored by anyone. She wanted to win the game with her hat trick.
By the end, that’s exactly what happened. It was her greatest sporting moment.
Now, Valerie wanted to destroy the Juggernaut, and have it be her combat trick that had done it. With a start, she realized that her stomach no longer churned. It seemed as if they might actually win this one.
“Let’s get to work,” Valerie said. “Find a weak point in the armor and hit it with the disruptor and neutron beams.”
The final antimatter missiles struck the twenty-kilometer vessel. Not even its fantastic alloy and giant size could resist direct antimatter hits one right after the other.
The enemy lasers quit altogether. The Juggernaut began to accelerate for space, leaving Sind II’s atmosphere behind.
That allowed Victory to fire at the enemy vessel in leisure. Finally, the disruptor beam broke through the alloy, beginning to chew through lesser bulkheads. By that point, the battle was over and the butchery began. Five minutes and thirty-two seconds later, the Juggernaut self-destructed.
Luckily for Victory, the shield had shed enough power to take the blast and EMP. The shield went all the way down to black again, but not as close to collapse as before.
Valerie sat in the command chair stunned. She couldn’t believe it. She had done it. She had won as clean a victory as any of them had ever done during any of their missions. She had destroyed two Juggernauts at no damage to the starship, although she had used up eighteen percent of the antimatter missiles.
Strand was coming with five Juggernauts chasing him. The captain was still missing, but Valerie began to believe that maybe they were going to win this one after all. Now it was time to see if she could rescue the landing party.
-56-
Strand studied the battle in detail in his holographic chamber.
The wizened Methuselah Man sat in a chair on a hydraulic arm. The arm had raised him into the middle of the room, and holoimages encircled him. He saw everything up close and personal. Strand had found over the centuries that such scrutiny led to insights. These insights allowed him to pierce his opponent’s strong and weak points.
Lieutenant Valerie Noonan was a keen tactician. There was no denying it. The decoy starship had been a brilliant maneuver, particularly with the following antimatter missiles.
He wished Star Watch had never gotten hold of those. They could make the coming encounter more troublesome than otherwise.
“Commander,” a New Man said over an ear implant.
“Yes,” Strand said into a microphone.
With a few taps of his fingers, Strand erased the space battle program and stared into the giant holographic face of the golden-skinned superman talking to him. Strand could see the pores and a hair peeking out of a nostril.
“We have destroyed the first missile,” the New Man said.
“Were there any complications?” Strand asked.
“None, Master,” the New Man said.
“Continue with the targeting and destruction,” Strand said.
“Yes, Master.”
Strand tapped another control. The New Man hologram vanished. This time, the Methuselah Man studied the five following Juggernauts.
They continued to launch missiles, but not in a deadly barrage. It felt as if they were herding him toward Sind II. They continued to emit the dampening field. Perhaps that took a high percentage of their power.
Strand hadn’t asked Rose about that. He hadn’t believed it was important at the time.
The Methuselah Man smiled. He would speak with Rose soon. She was in a special room, receiving greater emotional stimulation. He wanted her in a highly agitated state. He wanted this for two reasons. Firstly, it was sheer fun to torment a smug android. He had begun to look forward to capturing more of them. Primarily, though, she would need to be in such a state for the interrogation to proceed along the needed lines.
Rose belonged to the androids that ultimately controlled the Juggernauts. Strand wanted the codes so he could control the giant vessels. It was too early to implement that, though. He had to make sure Victory remained where it was. He wanted the dampening field to catch the pesky starship. Strand wanted that crew. He wanted Ludendorff, and he wanted the Adok ship for himself.
This was a dangerous maneuver, to be sure. Yet, the prize was worth so much. If he could gain all the items he hoped to get, he could use them to turn everything around with the Emperor of the Throne World. More than anything, Strand wanted the smug Emperor aboard the star cruiser. He wanted to become emperor of the Throne World and remold humanity along the proper lines. He would make a super-race such as the galaxy hadn’t seen for a long, long time.
First, though, he needed to crack the vault inside Sind II.
Strand laughed. He recalled an ancient custom from Earth call
ed Halloween. Kids went from house to house, with open bags, begging for candy. Adults dropped tidbits into each bag. After a night’s work, the child had quite the haul.
The real winners on Halloween were older, slyer children. They robbed a younger child, adding the bag of candy to a vast haul of loot.
Strand planned on being the older, wiser child, stealing from the androids, stealing from the Vendels and most certainly stealing from Professor Ludendorff. Strand would gather a mighty haul of Builder artifacts, and he would do so by outthinking the tactician aboard Starship Victory.
Before he did that, he must continue to decipher Lieutenant Noonan’s personality by studying this last and most interesting battle. Strand thus turned on the holoimage and went over the battle one more time.
-57-
Down inside Sind II, Maddox made it back into the subterranean dome in time for the first round against floating fighting robots.
The professor detected them and alerted Sims. The marine lieutenant waited strategically with the battle group. The exoskeleton-suited space marines lay on their armored bellies, with their shredders ready.
“Down,” Meta radioed to Maddox. She was wearing a headset and microphone.
The captain saw the marines in a prone circle around a hatch in the floor. He understood her suggestion and lay down just in time.
The hatch popped up, sailing against the ceiling. From there, the hatch bounced down against the floor and flipped hard against a wall. It landed on an armored marine, who shrugged it off his suit.
A floating metal cylinder rose from the hatch. It had a top-heavy body and a narrow point on the bottom. The thing hummed. No doubt, that was its gravity device propelling it. The robot had several metal skeletal arms with round buzz saws on the ends. Ports slid open and gun barrels poked out.
Sims directed the counter-fire, employing a strict usage of the remaining ammo.
Three shredders punctured the robot. One of the rounds must have hit a brain node. Lights flashed. The robot fired a few rounds back, which hammered the nearest wall, and then the cylindrical robot toppled onto its side. A final bullet in the upper portion caused the robot’s lights to dim and disappear altogether.
For the next several minutes, floaters kept popping up out of the hatch. Sims and his marines slaughtered the fighting machines. A few enemy shots struck exoskeleton armor. The bullets made dents, but none of them breached a suit.
Finally, Ludendorff—who had stayed well back—declared that the last fighting machine was dead. For now, no more were coming.
Forty-nine floaters were heaped around the hatch.
The marines waited for more fighting machines to appear just in case the professor was wrong.
“Did you hear me?” Ludendorff asked.
“I did,” Sims said. “We’re just making sure.”
“I am the one who warned you of the floaters. Believe me when I say no more are coming.”
“You mean you can’t detect anymore,” Sims said.
“Captain,” Ludendorff said in irritation.
Maddox climbed to his feet. He told them about the approaching Vendel war party.
Ludendorff brightened as he nodded. “This is extremely interesting from a psychological and sociological point of view. The priests must have driven the others. Perhaps they are on a crusade into the depths.”
“Some of the Vendels were wearing space marine suits,” Maddox said.
Ludendorff let his chin rest against his chest, seemingly deep in thought. Finally, he said, “I suggest we stay ahead of the war party, Captain. I wonder if the chief priest has broached the ancient stores, arming his men with highly potent religious articles.”
“I didn’t see anything religious about the suits,” Maddox said.
“You have not observed the Vendels as I have,” Ludendorff said. “Those must be old tech marvels, which they have come to believe are religious relics.”
“What should we do, sir?” Sims asked Maddox.
“Well, Professor,” Maddox said. “What have you learned through your speed reading?”
“The floor hatch leads to an access point,” the professor said. “We must clear a way and enter the maze beneath the dome.”
“The route leads to an elevator?” asked Maddox.
“I believe so,” the professor said.
“Then let’s go.”
***
With the exoskeleton suits, the marines cleared the shot-up floaters in no time. A scout lowered himself into the hatch. No surprises greeted him. The rest of the battle group and Keith, Meta and Ludendorff followed.
The lit corridors and ramps under the dome formed a giant maze. Without Ludendorff, it was questionable they would have found their way. The ceiling was too low for any marine to jump or lope, so they clanked single fire. Every so often, Ludendorff asked the captain to call a halt. The Methuselah Man took his bearings then and gave new directions.
For the next fifteen minutes, they traversed down a slanting ramp. The way widened for a time and then narrowed again.
Keith hitched an exoskeleton ride and finally Meta did likewise. Ludendorff had allowed a marine to carry him the entire time.
“I have to conserve my strength so that I remain alert,” the professor told Meta.
There were no more signs of fighting machines. Nor had the Vendel war party caught up with them. Once, Ludendorff informed Maddox that the Vendels had entered the underground maze.
“Do they know about the elevators?” Maddox asked.
“At the very least, I would imagine the chief priest does,” Ludendorff said. “Yes. I’m sure they do.”
The marines continued to clank. Earlier today, they had been carrying masses of munitions. Now, Sims and Maddox conferred on the best way to conserve the small amount of ammunition they retained.
“Excuse me a moment, sir,” Sims told the captain. “I have to take this report.” Several seconds later, the lieutenant said, “Something’s up ahead, sir. The scout said it looks big and must have plenty of juice. I’m guessing it has massive firepower too.”
Soon, Maddox and Sims spoke face-to-face with the scout. The scout had advanced sensors in his suit. The sensor report told the scout that the corridor led to a large chamber, which appeared to be a nexus. The problem was that there was something squat in the chamber, weighing possibly thirty tons or more.
“I don’t want the corporal to eyeball it,” Sims told Maddox. “It’s too damn dangerous for that.”
“Just a minute,” Maddox said. He opened his faceplate and shouted for the professor.
The Methuselah Man trotted from the waiting battle group to the three of them. Maddox explained the situation to Ludendorff as the professor nodded politely.
“Here’s the question,” Maddox said. “Can we bypass the nexus?”
“Let me check my notes,” the professor said.
The Methuselah Man pulled out a sheaf of folded papers he kept in an inner jacket pocket. He unfolded them, scanned one page, put it at the back, scanned the next page and put the next three to the back.
“Hmm,” Ludendorff said, as he read the needed page. Finally, he looked up. “That’s it. That’s the access node. It leads to a shaft that leads to the elevator. We must go there.”
“What about the waiting machine?” Maddox asked. “Do your notes say anything about it?”
“In Earth terms, I suspect it is a tank. I very much doubt we have the firepower to breach its armor.”
“What’s a tank doing down here?”
“Protecting the access point,” the professor said. “By entering the dome, we have woken an old program. At least, such is my belief. It’s possible the tank was asleep before we came. Now, it is awake.”
“Could the chief priest have a code to disarm the tank?” Maddox asked.
Ludendorff eyed the captain closely. “That is an astute guess. It’s possible, but I don’t know.”
“How do we defeat the tank?”
“That i
s your area of expertise, not mine. After all, you successfully entered Victory. It stymied me when I was in the Adok System.”
Maddox wondered if the professor still smarted from that. He had used the Methuselah Man’s notes to help him breach Victory, but telling the professor that wouldn’t make things any better.
“What do you think?” Maddox asked the lieutenant.
“A tank, eh?” Sims said. “You have to strike its weak point. That’s usually the top. We need an airstrike or an orbital strike to take it out.”
“What else?” asked Maddox.
“Does the tank have an AI to guide it?” Sims asked.
“I doubt it,” Ludendorff said. “If it did, the AI would likely have degraded by now.”
“Galyan didn’t degrade,” Maddox said.
For an answer, Ludendorff snorted. “There’s another problem I failed to mention. As you attempt to sneak up on the tank, I suspect motion sensors will tell it you’re coming. It will use its main gun to obliterate you long before you can see it.”
“We needed a floater,” Sims said.
“How so?” asked Ludendorff.
“Pack the floater with explosives,” the lieutenant said, “have it dodge the tank shots and put the high explosives against the tank’s main gun. The explosion might knock out the gun, allowing my boys to get in close and slap sticky mines to the treads or possibly rip off the hatch and drop inside.”
“That is a dubious plan at best,” the professor said.
“But it’s an answer just the same,” Maddox said.
“What do you have in mind?” the professor asked.
Maddox did not answer, but clanked back to the battle group.
***
Maddox climbed out of his exoskeleton suit. Afterward, he scratched several places that had been driving him mad. Finally, he began to pack the suit with high explosives. Once filled to the brim, and using the majority of the satchel charges, the captain sealed the suit and unhooked the remote control unit from the back. He activated the unit and explained the process to Keith Maker.
The remote control unit activated the suit’s interior motion circuits. The Kelchworth 350s did the rest, turning the armor into a semi-robot, able to move without the marine inside the suit.
The Lost Planet (Lost Starship Series Book 6) Page 31
