Doom Star: Book 03 - Battle Pod

by Vaughn Heppner

  The surviving cyborg aimed the laser carbine at the nearest tangled Martian.

  “Wait!” Marten shouted.

  The cyborg hesitated. Then it stepped beside Marten, aiming the carbine at him.

  “You shot one of your own,” Marten said.

  “Now I will shoot all of you,” the cyborg said.

  “You have emotions,” Marten said, remembering his talks with the Tunnel Crawler in Sydney. “I understand that. We understand. Leave the others and join us.”

  “Join?” the cyborg asked. “You would have joined us as cyborgs. But my secret dies with all of you.”

  Marten licked his lips. Blake the Bio-ram Taw2 had always wanted to be human again. “Help us, and we’ll help you become human.”

  The cyborg stood perfectly still.

  “Stay here,” Marten said, “and they will find your defect of emotion and expunge it.”

  “…none can escape,” the cyborg said.

  “If you free us,” Marten said, “we’ll flee in skimmers for one of the Martian cities. That way, you can keep your emotions longer.”

  The cyborg lowered its carbine. Then it unhooked a canister from its belt. It bent before Marten and said, “Turn your head.”

  Marten did. He heard a hiss, felt mist gently falling on him. Immediately, the tangle-threads lost their binding power. Marten sat up as he tore the threads from him as if they were spider webs.

  The cyborg bent before Omi and sprayed more anti-tangle mist.

  “Who—” Marten had to moisten his dry mouth. “Do you have a name?”

  The cyborg turned its head toward him. It stared at him with such machine indifference that it chilled Marten’s blood.

  “I am Osadar Di,” it said.

  “That’s a female name,” Marten said. “You’re a female?”

  “I am a woman, yes.”

  “A woman?” Marten heard himself asking.

  “They changed me,” the cyborg said in its dreadful voice. “I did not ask them to do it. They kidnapped me from Ice Hauler 49.” Maybe the cyborg recognized Marten’s incomprehension. “That was in the Neptune System.”

  Neptune? These horrors are from Neptune? “What about that one?” Marten asked, indicating the dead cyborg.

  “All were turned into machines against their will,” the cyborg Osadar Di said.

  “Kill it,” Major Diaz whispered from the floor.

  Marten glanced at the major trussed in tangle webs. He ignored the advice. Soon other cyborgs would undoubtedly descend into the garage. The idea of—who had made these things? Marten had never heard of cyborgs. These were not bionic soldiers, but living machines melded with flesh and human brains. It was inhuman. Were they madmen out in the Neptune System?

  “Right,” Marten said. “You’re one of us now. Let’s shake on it.”

  Marten dared to hold out his hand. And he kept himself from wincing in horror as he heard servos whine as the cyborg lifted her hand. They shook, and Marten was chilled again. Could the cyborg have torn off his arm if it—if she—had wanted to?

  The cyborg continued spraying the tangled officers. Soon, they all raced for the skimmers.

  Doom Stars

  -1-

  Heydrich Hansen seethed with hatred against his fellow neutraloids and against the Highborn. He had a special hatred for Nada Pravda who had grossly tricked him. But deep in his heart, he hated Marten Kluge the most. Oh, yes, he remembered that awful shock trooper. Everything had gone sour at the Sun-Works Factory the day Marten Kluge and Kang had showed up in his bailiwick at the Pleasure Palace.

  Heydrich Hansen wore a strange harness around his blue-tattooed skin. He used to be thin, with sparse hair and slyly cruel features. He had stark muscles now, with almost no body-fat. They were sinewy muscles, as hard as iron when he flexed, which was often. His blue-tattooed face had become harsher and thinner, and his eyes often bulged with the fierceness of his emotions.

  He craved specialty foods and ate with animal gusto. Sometimes, secretions in his new body gave him abnormal speed and strength. Sometimes, post-hypnotic commands drove him to raging bloodlust. Then he killed normal humans for practice.

  Now was one of those times. Hansen prowled through narrow corridors aboard the Julius Caesar, a Doom Star headed for Mars. He gripped a stun gun and bore a shock rod on his hip. Other neutraloids moved through other corridors. A headset like a sweatband was around his forehead. He could speak into a mike and had an implant in his right ear. They were supposed to coordinate their efforts and drive the ordinary humans into the main exercise chamber.

  Unlike his old existence, Hansen now moved with silky grace. The Doom Star presently accelerated at one-G. It traveled to Mars, he had overheard. This was a Highborn fleet action. Hansen didn’t care anything about that. Ever since they had gelded him, tattooed his entire body and surgically put wonder-glands into him, his thoughts had metamorphosed. He raged with primitive desires that involved crushing, slashing, kicking, biting and stabbing.

  He snarled, baring his teeth at a camera in the corner. The Training Master watched them. The Training Master graded their worth.

  Hansen trembled with suppressed rage. He wanted to blow the camera away. He wanted to kill the Training Master, spread out his intestines and urinate over them. Something pounded in his head then—it was the post-hypnotic commands.

  “I know,” he hissed in a softy, high-pitched voice. “I know. Kill the damn humans.”

  Hansen groaned as punishment shocks zapped him. He yearned to rip off the harness. He had done that once, and he had faced horrible punishments afterward. His free hand flexed with his yearning. Then he endured the zap, zap, zapping that made him twitch with agony.

  “You must capture the humans, Neutraloid Hansen,” he heard from the implant in his ear. “Not kill, but capture. There is a subtle difference.”

  “Yes, Master,” snarled Hansen, as he hunched his blue-tattooed shoulders. He knew the Training Master mocked him. All Highborn did. Learning to answer the Highborn had taken weeks of grueling punishment and practice. Learning not to tiptoe at night and strangle fellow neutraloids, to awaken in the morning to hideous punishment shocks… that, too, had taken time.

  Hansen chuckled evilly as he hunched his head. He hadn’t really learned not to strangle neutraloids. Those he had choked to death were Ervil and the others, the ones who had hated him worse than he had hated them. He had simply endured the Highborn shocks, the whippings, the slaps in the face and the brutally-enhancing until his old friend Ervil and the others were all dead. Only then had Hansen felt safe enough to sleep at night. The newer neutraloids feared him because they had seen and they had learned that Heydrich Hansen always got his revenge.

  He’d heard one of the Masters say once that newer neutraloids were better because they could control their emotions to a higher degree. The Masters worked to ‘improve’ their surgically enhanced, hypnotically trained and always castrated berserkers.

  Hansen stiffened and sniffed the air. A human was ahead of him. Hansen began to tremble in anticipation of killing the human. His head hurt with a stabbing pain between the eyes. He was supposed to call now and report to the others. Hansen was supposed to coordinate his actions.

  “Human,” he whispered softly into his mike.

  “What?” another neutraloid asked, the sound coming from the ear-implant.

  “Human!” Hansen shouted into his mike. He roared with rage, sprinting down the corridor. Ahead, a thin man leaped up with a yelp from behind a bulkhead. The human had gun. With a shaking arm, the human aimed at Hansen. Hansen hurled his stun gun at the human. Wide-eyed, the human watched the gun. He watched it hit the deck with a clatter and slide. The human blinked stupidly and then he must have remembered Hansen. He looked up, aimed and fired. The bullet grazed Hansen’s ribs with a fiery pain. Shouting in a strangely high-pitched voice, Hansen closed the final distance. He didn’t pull out his shock rod. He simply leaped on the human, knocking him to the floor. Then he grab
bed the man’s head.

  “No, no!” the human pleaded.

  “Die!” Hansen screamed, and he twisted with all his newfound strength, snapping the neck. Then he laughed with joyous mockery as the dying human jerked and thrashed under him.

  Immediately, punishment shocks zapped from the straps Hansen wore. They zapped with numbing strength, toppling Hansen and soon rendering him unconscious.

  ***

  Hansen awoke strapped to a table. The rest of the neutraloids stood there, glowering at him, muttering and shuffling their feet. Hansen turned his head. On the opposite side of the table towered the Lot 6 Highborn, the Training Master.

  “You failed to use your stun gun, Neutraloid Hansen,” the Training Master said.

  “It was a stinking human,” Hansen replied.

  “Wrong answer,” the Highborn said, and he brushed Hansen with a shock rod.

  The pain made Hansen’s muscles leap up starkly as he squealed with agony, jerking against the restraints.

  “You failed to use your stun gun, Hansen,” the Training Master repeated.

  “…I’m sorry, Master. I forgot.”

  The shock rod brushed Hansen again. “Lying won’t help you, Neutraloid.”

  “…master, the bloodlust came over me. I don’t know how to stop from using my hands.”

  The Highborn studied him and finally addressed the others. “Listen closely. Hansen is foolish. He must learn control. If he fails to learn control, he will learn pain. Like this.” And the Highborn brushed his body seven times, even shocking the mutilated genital area.

  Hansen’s voice was hoarse from screaming as he writhed on the training table.

  “Soon we will be at Mars,” the Highborn said calmly. “Then you will face armed soldiers. You must use weapons or you will die. You will not throw them away or forget them. That is bad, very bad. Learn the lessons now, yes?”

  “Yes,” the others muttered sullenly.

  The Highborn smiled at them. Then he smiled down at Hansen. “You are worse than premen. You are animals. But even animals must serve the New Order. Next time you fail, Hansen, I will personally cut out your intestines and make a noose to choke you to death. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Master,” Hansen wheedled, trying desperately to sound contrite. But in his heart, in his raging soul, he yearned to kill the Highborn, all of them, and piss on their corpses.

  -2-

  From the files of Grand Admiral Cassius: selected memorandums and notes. From: August 7 to August 11, 2351.

  August 7

  The Julius Caesar’s Training Master, Recommendation to Admiral Cassius:

  After months of intensive training, I have reached what I must concede as now unalterable opinions concerning the Neutraloids. The creatures possess commendable berserker qualities, and their reaction times and strength compare favorably to the premen. However, they lack sustained self-control. Only a few among them—what I’ve come to consider as Neutraloid geniuses—have the minimal ability to operate guns or use vibroknives. No amount of hypnotic commands has changed this inability. Higher technical equipment operation is beyond their present capabilities.

  There has been talk of lessening the hate-conditioning. But I doubt that will alter the situation. Such conditioning gives them their only redeeming quality: berserker rage against the universe. On a primitive planet, such creatures would have innate terror value. On the technological battlefield, however, they are a liability.

  Therefore, it is my stated view that for the present Mars Campaign, that each Doom Star’s complement of Neutraloids should be destroyed.

  August 7

  From Grand Admiral Cassius:

  Training Master, Julius Caesar, I am dissatisfied with your recommendation. I scanned the attached report on your training methods. Let me remind you of the obvious. The Neutraloids are clay in your hands. They are beasts. Beasts react to pleasure and pain. Heighten both until the achieved result is obtained.

  August 8

  From Training Master, Julius Caesar:

  All Highborn stand in awe of your military achievements, Grand Admiral. The lesser races quiver at the mention of your name. Your strategic and tactical insights are like rare wine, consumed at the risk of intoxication.

  However, regarding the Neutraloids, they are a risk to ship personnel. Fear of us only minimally restrains their hatred, their feral desire to kill us. The greatest battle of the war approaches. I consider the possibility of their running loose, in the unforeseen event of a Doom Star sustaining hits, as an unneeded danger. Respectfully, Grand Admiral, my recommendation stands.

  August 8

  From Grand Admiral Cassius:

  Your literary skills left me cold, Training Master. Your fawning praise only served to emphasize your inability to obey my orders.

  All that said, your recommendation is noted and recorded. Cage your beasts so they do not run loose during battle. In the unlikely event of serious Doom Star damage, you have permission to kill the beasts.

  Let me point out, however, that their strategic and tactical value does not lie as shipboard marines. The Praetor’s desire to replace premen shock-troopers with Neutraloids is an unqualified failure. You have already pointed out, Training Master, that their use as terror troops is their sole strength. On your recommendation, their combat role has changed. In the remaining time left you, retrain your animals as terror troops. They will be inserted as needed into underground Martian cities, to help create panic so the Rebel populace will gratefully accept Highborn security forces to restore order.

  August 8

  From Training Master, Julius Caesar:

  Please allow me to say, Grand Admiral, that this is a precise decision. It is the perfect use of gravely flawed creatures. I have already reevaluated my training tactics. As terror troops, especially against poorly armed premen, the Neutraloids will excel. I can almost pity the Martians.

  August 9

  Top Secret Memorandum: The Grand Admiral’s Strategic Assessment for the Mars Campaign:

  The critical battle for the Inner Planets is about to take place. I refer to the finding, fixing and the annihilating of the Social Unity Space Fleet. As long as Social Unity possesses a credible Battlefleet, we must garrison each planet with strong space forces. That weakens us at the critical points of military conflict.

  In order to put overwhelming strength at the critical point, I deemed it necessary to coax Social Unity to fix its space forces at one locale. Then I ensured their hardened resolve to defend their conquest. The premen will need this resolve as they see the Julius Caesar, Hannibal Barca and the Napoleon Bonaparte majestically head for Mars, the place of their recent conquest.

  Some have questioned this overwhelming display of force, the use of three Doom Stars to annihilate the premen Battlefleet.

  Firstly, let me add that more than three Doom Stars head to Mars to inflict this punishing defeat. Concerning that, the individual admirals will soon learn the extended details.

  Secondly, too often in wars past, commanders have tried to maintain strength in all areas of conflict in order to hold onto all territorial gains. That is a strategic error of the first order. One of the most fundamental rules of war is that battles entail risk. A corresponding maxim is that one can never be too strong at the point of decision. The Mars Campaign will be our point of decision. Therefore, we cannot be too strong in our head-to-head fleet battle.

  Thirdly, this gathering of Highborn strength into one point means a lessening of Highborn strength in other important areas. I have ordered the Doom Star from Venus and the last Doom Star remaining at the Sun-Works Factory to immediately head for the Earth System. The space platforms around Venus will continue to harass the enemy. The defenses of the Sun Works are in good repair, especially in lieu of the fact that the SU Battlefleet is at Mars. The critical junctions at this point are firstly to maintain control of the Earth System, secondly the Sun-Works Factory and lastly Venus. To gain massive strength for Mars, we are ac
cepting a possibly dangerous lowering of strength at Venus first and then the Sun-Works Factory second. That is a risk. But it is a risk we must accept in order to gain the crushing victory needed at the point of maximum gain.

  Fourthly, as superior as Highborn innately are to the inferior premen, I urge none to think this victory is preordained. Nothing in this universe is free. Few things die willingly. We are two million supermen among thirty-eight billion, seething, hating and fearing subhumans. They possess courage, stamina and cunning. They will fight. They will have obtained a secret weapon and they will have devised clever tactical dispositions.

  Fifthly and lastly, we are the Highborn. We are born to conquer and born to rule. It is our burden to bring order and rationality to the Solar System. This is the critical fight for that rule. Once the Inner Planets are ours, we shall expand throughout the Solar System and in time seed the stars. This test of our valor, our resolve, guile and brilliance will go down as the most glorious feat of arms in the annals of military history.

  Because of that, I have decided to lead the fight in person. The Second Battle of Far-Mars orbit saw my elevation to supreme command among the Highborn. Social Unity and the Martian Planetary Union have fought the Third Battle of Mars Orbit. In a few weeks time, will begin the last battle for Mars Orbit. I expect nothing but the best from all of you, which means the best that anyone can give in this chaotic Solar System.

  August 10

  From the Praetor:

  I have two questions, Grand Admiral. When will you order the breakout? We sicken and die at this miserable post beside the Sun. I have read your memorandum and seen the tactical displays you broadcast. Three Doom Stars accelerate at a leisurely pace for Mars. We groan here. We suffer intensely while the rest of you float in lazy serenity. That is intolerable.

  My second question is this: do you deliberately conceal the use of the Thutmosis III? Do you deliberately attempt to conceal our glory? We die here in order to achieve massive victory for the Highborn. It is only right that you broadcast our role. This is insufferable, Grand Admiral. If I did not know you better, I would consider this treachery against a possible rival for high command.