Planet Wrecker

-18-

The orbital fighter gushed licking flames as it landed on a Mexico City street. Around him, GEVs ground to a halt. In the distance, a siren wailed. The few premen on the streets had uniformly stopped, staring at his orbital in shock.

His hatch popped open as a ladder extended down from the canopy to the pavement fifteen feet below. Grand Admiral Cassius stood up. He gleamed in his silvery battleoid-suit. The camouflage unit was turned off. He looked like a giant robot of the action vids, with a mirrored visor. On his right arm was a rotating hand-cannon.

Climbing out of the cockpit and onto the stubby nosecone, Cassius leaped to the ground. The battleoid-suit had a powered exoskeleton. Twin Titan-5000s motors energized it. They purred, allowing him to make one hundred meter jumps.

Cassius landed heavily, the pavement under his shock-absorbers cracking and splintering. It had been some time since he’d worn a battleoid-suit. But it was just like being a jet-jockey, something you never forgot how to do.

Premen scrambled to get out of his way. A woman screamed. A young one, a child, staggered against the side of a building and began to cry.

Cassius snorted in disbelief. How could such weaklings as these stand against the Highborn? It was inconceivable. Only their mind-numbing numbers gave them long-term resistance.

Checking his HUD, locating the brothel—three streets over to the north—Cassius jumped two more times and then began to run. He moved like a magnetic train, picking up speed as he ran. He’d forgotten the joy of a battleoid-suit. Maybe he should do this more often.

“Is he present?” asked Cassius, using the suit’s radio.

“Yes, Grand Admiral,” a Highborn replied.

“Did you delay him as ordered?”

“Sir—”

“Answer my question!” Cassius thundered.

“Yes, sir,” the Highborn said. The soldier sounded truculent, but that didn’t concern Cassius. If the Highborn had whined, he’d have been surprised and concerned. It wasn’t in the nature of a Highborn to show fear. Even one caught in a flagrantly prohibited act would show courage to the end.

“Release the girl,” Cassius said.

“Sir, are you sure this is—”

“Release the girl!” Cassius roared. “And if he dies, you will die under SU agonizers.”

“Understood, sir,” the Highborn said. “Tech Sergeant Gaius out.”

Tech Sergeant, that meant he was from one of the newer batches. Yes, this was beginning to make better sense now. This demonstration was more needed than ever.

A four-story building rose up before him. It was red-colored on his HUD. Cassius grinned like a feral wolf, and he charged, activating the buffers.

He crashed through the main door of synthi-oak. Scantily-clad women screamed. Several FEC soldiers raised guns, most quickly lowering them. The inner area possessed red couches and thick shag rugs. A shot rang out. A bullet hit the battleoid-suit, and bounced off.

Cassius grunted. Then he fired a single round from his rotating hand-cannon. That took trained fire-control. The offender flew off his feet and against a wall, his chest a gory ruin. His gun tumbled over a shag rug until it struck a woman’s leg. She crumpled and began to wail in agony.

Ignoring them all, Cassius leapt, landing on an upper level. Wood groaned and a lamp shattered into pieces. The display on his HUD changed, showing him the building’s layout. He wondered if Felix had heard any of this.

Growling, the Grand Admiral of the Highborn crashed down the hall. He chin-clicked a sensor. The girl had entered Felix’s room. Yes, this was nearly perfect timing. That would add to the retelling of the tale.

Four seconds later, Cassius smashed through the door to Felix’s room. Unaccountably, the fool had heard nothing or even worse, he’d ignored it.

Felix was a big Highborn fresh from the Training Academy. He had blond hair, a wide face and a god-like physique. He lay on a huge bed and he was naked, with his arms behind his head. A woman with a towel around her waist stood ten feet from his bed. She might have been dancing for him, as dance music played in the room.

Felix scowled as he sat up. He looked like a clone of Cassius, just many years younger. There was a reason for that. The same chromosomes had been used in the birth tubes.

“Who are you?” Felix demanded.

Cassius raised his battleoid arm, aiming the hand-cannon at the woman. She was pretty, extremely so. Her eyes became wide.

“There is a proscription against prostitution,” Cassius said over his suit’s speakers.

“She’s clean,” Felix said. “I’ve used her before.”

“The premen have operatives among us. They might have kidnapped her between sessions and inserted a cortex bomb.”

“I don’t see how—” Felix started to say.

Cassius opened fire, letting the hand-cannons rotate as he shredded the woman into bloody chunks.

“No!” Felix howled. He rolled out of bed and charged Cassius.

The hand-cannons stopped as smoke drifted out of the barrels. The woman was a ruin of flesh, and blood smeared the wall as if someone had hurled a bucketful at it.

This mindless attack galled Cassius more than Felix’s taking of prostitutes. The youthful fool leaped at him. With contemptuous ease and exoskeleton strength, Cassius swatted him, batting the Highborn onto the floor and into unconsciousness.