The Praetor picked up an electro-analyzer and carefully began checking his armor. It beeped by the right elbow-joint. He adjusted, frowning at the tiny screen. It flashed red and showed the words: photonic coupling.
The Praetor set aside the analyzer and opened his battleoid-kit. Like all Highborn, he could take apart and rebuild any weapon. The same held true for a battleoid-suit. He set to work, immersing himself in the task, momentarily forgetting his rage.
Later, he clicked each tool back into its foamed indention. Then he took up the electro-analyzer and continued to sweep it over the armor.
Short by two months—time conspired against him. Worse, Grand Admiral Cassius continued his sly tricks.
The Praetor showed his horse-sized teeth in a feral grin. It lacked all humor and lacked any warmth. He—the Praetor—had won the Battle for Mars with his missiles. He had risked his life later to bring the High Fleet critical intelligence concerning the enemy. Because of his courage, the Thutmosis III had almost left the Solar System forever. Only through cunning, relentless fervor and an indomitable will had he saved his ship and crew.
Now the Grand Admiral dashed his dream of Jovian conquest. He must throw away the Thutmosis III on a mad attack against a heavily fortified moon. Meanwhile, in the inner system, the cyborgs outmaneuvered the foolish Jovians. The premen had already lost Callisto and Io. Now the cyborgs lunged at Europa as the Jovian fleet vainly waited at Ganymede.
The Praetor shook his head. Social Unity possessed several clever tacticians. It appeared the Jovians didn’t even have those.
He cracked his knuckles and flexed his big fingers. He was tempted to disregard the Grand Admiral’s orders. The old man was cunning, however. During the lightguide transmission, the Grand Admiral had sat among the High Command, and their accompanying vote had been unanimous. To disregard the order would now mean acting against the unified will of the High Command.
The Praetor squinted at his battleoid-suit. He must use what he had. He must twist fate and time into his service. If the cyborgs won here because the premen lacked even basic tactical skills, it still meant he could fight gloriously.
An insightful preman, General George S. Patton, had once said: As a man thinketh, so is he. The fixed determination to acquire the warrior soul and, having acquired it, to conquer or perish with honor is the secret of success in war.
The Praetor made a fist. He’d been born with a warrior’s soul. Since then, his determination had become legendary.
The cyborgs accelerated Carme. But an asteroid-moon, even a small one, had immense mass, much more than the combined Doom Stars and the Highborn orbital stations of Venus and Earth. It would take the cyborgs time to build-up velocity, giving him time enough to configure his attack.
The Jovian’s original plan to storm Carme had been suicidal folly. With his ship and genius, victory became a possibility.
“Conquer or perish,” the Praetor rumbled. His chest swelled. “I will conquer, and I will set my foot on the Jovians and on the cyborgs. Then—”
The Praetor smote his chest. “Then I will return to Earth and deal with you, Cassius. On that, I vow the essence of my warrior soul.”
-13-
Marten paced in the Descartes’ rec-room. Mechanics had dragged out the exercise mats and set up rows of folding chairs.
Osadar waited by the main door. She wore combat-armor, hiding her cyborg body and limbs. With her greater height, her plasti-flesh head almost reached the ceiling.
Omi opened the door. He wore a Gauss needler and a stern expression. Behind him were the squad-leaders. They filed into the room, filling up the back rows first.
The meteor-ship was under half-a-G of deceleration. After the meeting, Yakov would increase the Gs, slowing the ship even more. The taskforce already followed the Praetor’s instructions. The decisive moment was fast drawing near.
Earlier, Marten had stood to the side, out of camera range, as the Praetor had given Yakov his orders. The voice had sent a chill of loathing down Marten’s spine. The Praetor was the same arrogant prick from the Sun-Works Factory. Nothing had changed about the lordly Highborn. Hearing the Praetor’s voice had confirmed Marten’s decision that he’d remained hidden.
In the rec-room, the last space marine sat down. Most stared blankly. A few scowled. A few gave him a deathly stare. Their muscles showed as they shifted in their seats, tightening the fabric of their tunics.
With his hands behind his back, Marten stared at the assembled squad-leaders. It caused him to recall Training Master Lycon, the day of the briefing of the Bangladesh assault. That seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d been in the Mercury System then, now he was in the Jupiter System. Now he was a free man, a commander of shock troopers. Well, they weren’t shock troopers, but they were space marines. They were about to engage in the greatest assault of the war, stopping a planet-wrecker. It was too bad most of them were going to die. Maybe they were all going to die. Who could defeat cyborgs on the ground?
Marten stood at attention and he snapped off the crispest salute of his life.
Squad-leaders stirred, and there was a murmur of whispering among them.
He backed beside the screen on the wall and touched a button. A grainy shot of Carme appeared with its long plasma tail.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” he began, “this is our objective. As you know, the cyborgs accelerate one of your Jovian moons. They call it a planet-wrecker. If Carme builds up enough velocity, it will be able to break Jupiter’s gravitational grip and leave its orbit. The name suggests the cyborg tactic: to ram Carme into a large moon or a terrestrial planet. The outcome of such a collision is obvious: total extinction for the humans and animals on the target world.”
Many eyes narrowed.
“Imagine for a moment what it means if a planet-wrecker smashes into Earth,” Marten said. “Imagine what it means if everything on Earth dies. No event in human history will have ever wiped out more people. It would be an unparalleled catastrophe.
“It may be that we’re the only hope for billions of humans. Our task isn’t to defeat the guarding dreadnaught, but to slip past it in the patrol boats. We’ll land on the surface and we’ll fight our way into Carme’s engine rooms. Once there, we’ll destroy everything.”
“What about the cyborgs?” a man in back asked sharply. “Everyone knows that one cyborg is worth ten men? How are we supposed to defeat them?”
“Stand up!” Marten said.
The man hesitated. Then he shot to his feet. He was shorter than average and had larger ears that stuck outward.
“Squad-Leader Tass,” Marten said. “Do you care to expand on that?”
“How can we win?” Tass asked belligerently.
“It’s true that cyborgs normally butcher men,” Marten said slowly. “I knew that truth and still accepted the responsibility of taking out the planet-wrecker. I accepted for a critical reason. Omi and I stormed onto the Beamship Bangladesh. You’ve studied our tactics. You know we’re shock troopers and that we know more about infantry space-combat than anyone else in the Jovian System does. I also had Osadar slap each of you across the face. I closely studied your reactions, looking for the fighters among you.”
More than a few space marines scowled.
“I needed first class soldiers,” Marten said. “During our trip, I’ve tried to teach you critical skills. Space walking under hard Gs led to Pelias’s death. That death might have seemed pointless, but it wasn’t. You know more today than you did at the start of the journey. Does that mean you can defeat cyborgs?” Marten shrugged. “I doubt the shock troopers fired at the Bangladesh could take out cyborgs.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Tass shouted.
“If we don’t try,” Marten said, “the cyborgs win. If we do try, there’s always a possibility that a miracle occurs.”
“By Plato’s Bones!” swore Tass. “Miracles are myths. Everyone knows Brand’s Axiom proving that.”
“Maybe,” Marten said. He had no i
dea who this Brand was or his axiom. He didn’t care.
“So you’re saying that this entire attack is hopeless?” Tass asked.
Marten touched the wall-switch. The grainy shot disappeared, replaced by the Praetor’s face.
“Is that a Highborn?”
“His name is the Praetor,” Marten said. “He also happens to be our new commander.”
“What?” several squad-leaders asked at once.
“Chief Strategist Tan has bargained with him,” Marten said. “To gain the aid of his ship and his battleoids, she agreed to give him tactical command. We’re following his plan, and he’s using us ruthlessly.”
“You mean he plans to kill us?” Tass asked, outraged.
“He’s Highborn,” Marten said. “He believes we’re subhumans. Of course, he plans to kill us. He wants the prize for himself.”
“And we’re just going to lie down and die for him?” Tass asked.
“Those bastards killed my father and uncles at Mars thirteen years ago,” a squad-leader hissed.
“I’ll never fight for a Highborn,” another squad-leader yelled.
“Attention!” Marten shouted.
Reflexively, the squad-leaders shot to their feet.
“Sit down,” Marten said coldly, using his training voice.
The squad-leaders sat. A few looked confused. Some seemed abashed. Tass was still angry.
“This is war,” Marten said. He clicked the grainy Carme shot back onto the screen. “That is a planet-wrecker. We must destroy it. If that means we all die doing it, then we die.”
“Just like our fathers died in the Mars System?” Tass growled.
“First we destroy the planet-wrecker,” Marten said. “Then we stay alive, and maybe, just maybe, we kill some Highborn.”
The squad-leaders stared at him.
Marten clicked the Praetor back onto the screen. “This Highborn wanted to castrate all the shock troopers under his command in order to turn us into Neutraloids. The only thing that stopped him was the surprise attack by the Bangladesh. Perhaps you can understand then that there is no love in my heart for him.”
A few squad-leaders grinned.
“The Praetor and his battleoids are killers,” Marten said. “His cunning might help us win the fight. Then again, it might not. Remember, cyborgs are even deadlier than Highborn.”
“What chance do we have then?” a squad-leader asked.
This was the point Marten had been waiting for. He took three steps toward them as he hunched his shoulders. In detail, he told them the story of the Bangladesh. He told them how he’d escaped off the beamship with Omi and how Lycon had picked them up in the shuttle. Then he told them how he’d spaced the three Highborn and gained control of the Mayflower.
“Bluntly stated,” Marten said, “your chance is me. I’ve outsmarted Highborn before and killed them. I’ve trained you, and you know my ways. Your one chance, my one chance, is that you now learn to obey me because you want to, not just because of duty.”
Slowly, short Tass stood up.
“Yes,” Marten said.
Tass glanced at his fellow squad-leaders. “Marten Kluge is a….” Tass licked his lips. “He’s a killer, and so are the Highborn. So are the cyborgs. But Marten Kluge is our killer. He’s a man just like us. I’m going to follow him onto Carme, and I’m going to obey his orders so we can win, so we can survive.”
Another squad-leader stood up. “I agree with Tass. I didn’t like getting my face slapped. But I can see now why he ordered it.”
Marten glanced at his chronometer. “Carme is rushing near and A-hour is almost here. Good luck, and Godspeed. We’re all going to need it.”
-14-
As the Thutmosis III decelerated hard, the Battle for Carme began with a barrage from Demeter. Four Voltaire Missiles left the lifeless rock, igniting and quickly accelerating for the asteroid-moon.
The Praetor had planned the attack, using lessons learned from the Third Battle of Mars and from lessons learned by studying Hernan Cortez, the greatest conquistador of them all.
He was the Praetor, Fourth-ranked in the ultra-competitive world of the Highborn. He would risk everything to win everlasting glory. Besides, his ship lacked particle shielding. The Thutmosis III had been designed for a precise mission in the greatest battle of the war. Given time, he could have employed the ship using its stealth-sheathing. First, he’d first burned hard to catch up with Carme, and now he decelerated hard so he could land on the surface. The cyborgs had detected their approach. The Praetor knew because Canus reported sensor lock-on.
Wearing battleoid-armor, the Praetor sat in his command chair. The other Highborn on the bridge were also encased in their battleoid-suits.
“Why haven’t you told me about our lock-on?” the Praetor boomed.
“We see them with teleoptics,” Canus said. “But their ECM is still too good for us.”
“It’s better than Highborn tech?” the Praetor asked.
“Yes,” Canus admitted.
The Praetor leaned forward. Damn the cyborgs. The Thutmosis III decelerated hard enough that the ship likely appeared as a nova star on enemy screens.
“The dreadnaught is slipping behind Carme,” Canus said.
The Praetor nodded. It was the obvious move.
“I’m detecting—missiles are lifting off from Carme,” Canus said.
“Fire everything,” the Praetor whispered.
Canus and com-officer turned toward him.
“It’s too soon,” Canus dared say.
“No one challenges me on my bridge!” the Praetor roared. “Fire everything and then heat up the laser.”
“Yes, lord,” said Canus. “But it is still too soon.”
“We’ll hit them with a mass barrage,” the Praetor said coldly. “We’ll inundate them as we attempt to land on the moon. Everything is timed with the Jovians.”
“Carme can obviously absorb our drones and lasers,” Canus said.
The Praetor rose to his feet. Amplified, exoskeleton strength gave him the ability in the high Gs. He began clanking toward Canus.
The Highborn officer concentrated on his weapons board as he began launching the Zenos they’d stolen from Demeter.
Soon, the Praetor loomed behind Canus’s armored back.
Canus activated the ship’s lone laser. Without turning around, he said, “As per your orders, I’m saving the rail-guns as a last surprise, lord.”
While docked at Demeter, they’d welded weapons pods to the ship.
The Praetor studied Canus’s board. One after another, Zenos left the tubes.
“Shut down the engines,” the Praetor whispered. “Begin deploying the defensive fields.”
Canus’s armored fingers roved fast, his reactions startling quick. Outside the ship, masses of prismatic crystals chugged out of various pods. Shielding gels sprayed out in turn.
The mighty engines stopped, bringing weightlessness to the ship.
“Enemy lasers—” Canus shouted.
The Praetor grinned tightly. He’d studied the cyborgs. They were melded creatures, governed by computer-like logic parameters. It had seemed obvious to him when they would begin firing at his ship. What he hadn’t counted on was the laser’s strength. The Praetor had expected stolen Jovian technology, not the laser long ago built inside the hollowed tunnels.
Carme’s main laser now stabbed at the triple-hulled missile-ship. It burned through the gel cloud and the prismatic crystal field. In seconds, the laser burst through the hull, chewing through the ablative foam sandwiched between hulls. It hit the second hull, heating the alloy, stabbing through the foam behind it. Seconds ticked away as more crystals and gels sprayed from the ship. Before they drifted into place, the laser burned through the last hull. Then the heavy laser burned coils, sliced through inter-ship bulkheads, burst through empty wardrooms, empty rec-rooms and hit the number three fusion-shield.
“Lord!” Canus shouted. “We have an emergency.”
The Praetor had been reading a damage control board, and his decision was instantaneous. “Foam the number three engine room.”
Canus moved fast.
Deep in the Thutmosis III, ablative foam poured from wide-gage nozzles, filling the number three fusion engine. Before an explosion could destroy the ship, the ablative foam first absorbed the laser fire that burned through the fusion-shield. Secondly, the ablative foam damped the fusion reaction. By that time, Carme’s laser no longer cut through the ship. The prismatic crystals floating in space protected them. The heavy laser burned crystals, slagging many and causing others to melt and vaporize. As that occurred, the sparkling, mirror-like crystals redirected laser light and thereby weakened the beam’s power.
All the while, more crystals and gels sprayed from the Thutmosis III’s tanks, building a thicker protection. It was a battle between the amount of crystals the ship held against the laser’s energy requirements and possible overheating. Eventually, however, the contest always went to the laser, given that the laser continued to beam. There were only so many prismatic crystals that any ship could hold.
“Estimate time of the second burn-through?” the Praetor said.
“Eighteen minutes,” Canus said.
The Praetor turned away. With the crystals and gels in place and pumping to replace losses, their own laser was useless. The cyborgs had emplaced at least one heavy laser on the moon. That was going to make things difficult. Missiles launched from Carme sped toward them in the meantime. They would arrive in less than an hour.
“We’re going to need the rail-guns sooner than expected,” the Praetor said.
“Lord?” asked Canus.
“In seventeen minutes, the rail-guns, the lasers and the activated Zenos will attack in conjunction,” the Praetor said.
“We can’t storm our way onto the moon,” Canus said. “They’ve clearly decided that we’re the primary threat. Now if we had a SU battlewagon with heavy particle shielding—”
Doom Star: Book 04 - Cyborg Assault Page 28
