Star Fortress

Seven months pass as the Highborn-Human Fleet travels toward Neptune, as the cyborgs conquer Mars and as Marten Kluge heads for his destiny.

-1-

Captain Ricardo Sandoval sat hunched over a computerized tactical map. He was in Salvador Dome on Mars, in an armored environmental chamber, attempting to devise a winning combination against the cyborgs.

His suit, rebreather and gyroc rifle lay to the side. He wore a ragged uniform rank with sweat. It had been weeks since he’d had a bath. His eyes were red, his face pitted and his morale all but worn down by endless defeats.

I’m no Marten Kluge.

His gritty eyes tightened as he adjusted the screen. He wasn’t Marten, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up. You did that when you were dead, or converted.

Ricardo shuddered. That’s what made this war so bitter, so hateful and evil. The cyborgs didn’t just kill you. They captured and dragged you down to their converter. Mars Command had captured a video of it—the skin-peelers, the choppers, the brain-scrubbers and the mech-melding—what a gruesome process.

Rubbing his forehead, Ricardo tried to concentrate. It was just a few more days until liftoff. A few more days while the cyborgs overran the planet like a killer virus, infecting one underground city after another. Instead of weakening the enemy with increasing casualties, each attack strengthened the aliens as the cyborgs processed the defeated through the converters.

You’re running away. You know that, don’t you?

Ricardo clenched his teeth and tightened his fists. Mars was dying and he wasn’t going to die with it. What else could he do but run? The cyborgs were invincible. Nothing on Mars could stop them and there was no help from anyone—not from the Highborn, Social Unity or the Jovians who had ignored their pleas.

“Bastards,” he whispered. Ricardo struck the tactical map with his fist. He still remembered the day they had asked the Jovians for help. He had been with Secretary-General Gomez as she spoke to the Sub-Strategist through a long-distance radio.

The last of the Jovians had three damaged meteor-ships. They had accelerated hard for the Alliance Fleet headed for Neptune, trying to catch up.

In the environmental chamber, Ricardo adjusted the tac-map, erasing the terrain so Sub-Strategist Circe’s face appeared. It was a fuzzy signal, a poor recording of a conversation several months ago.

“This is Secretary-General Gomez of the Mars Planetary Union speaking,” Gomez said on the recording. Her voice was clear. “As past allies of the Jovian Confederacy, we now request your assistance. In return, we guarantee you permanent sanctuary on Mars.”

There had been a long time lag. Ricardo remembered that. The three meteor-ships were far from Mars, as they had swung wide around the Sun in their gently curving loop from the battle against eight moon-wreckers. Ricardo had watched a video of the Jovian-Cyborg battle many times. It had been one of the grimmest things he’d ever witnessed.

“I’m sorry,” Circe said. In the fuzzy recording, she looked so serious, so intent with the black gem in her forehead. “We cannot assist you at this time. We are on our way to Neptune and are still building up velocity.”

As he listened to the file, Ricardo remembered Gomez staring at him in disbelief. It had been a hard time. The people of Mars had still believed that victory was possible. The enemy assault had begun with an attack from out of the void. The cyborgs started hostilities by capturing three defensive satellites. One minute there had been peace—the next, cyborgs in vacc-suits swarmed the various satellites, gaining entrance and then control. Afterward, the cyborgs used the Martian arsenal and rained nuclear missiles on selected cities. If that hadn’t been enough, other cyborgs appeared on the surface. They landed in stealth-capsules outside a dome. Once in control there, the hated enemy began putting people into a converter, making more cyborgs. A week later from that dome, a cyborg army had advanced across Mars like an invasion of army ants.

Even then, the people of Mars had hoped. The three Jovian meteor-ships had seemed like an act of God. Once communication was established, tears had appeared in Gomez’s eyes. That had been before the conversation with Circe.

“We need orbital control,” Gomez told the Sub-Strategist. “With your meteor-ships, we can destroy the cyborg-controlled satellites. Then we can arm your warships with missiles and pinpoint the cyborg concentrations on the surface, eliminating them one-by-one.”

“It would be a month before we decelerated enough to reach orbital stability,” Circe said. “Judging by the videos you sent us, the cyborgs will have already conquered too much surface area. They will probably have captured the other defensive satellites by then, too.”

“We must fight together!” Gomez shrieked. She bent near the com-unit as her fingers whitened around it. “We must save Mars!”

“Fight by all means,” Circe said in her maddeningly calm voice. “I certainly am. And I understand your pain and dilemma. The cyborgs destroyed the Jovian System. They will destroy Mars, too. Launch what you can and head for Earth. We must fight where there is a chance of victory. At this point, survival of the human race is the goal. You are doomed, and I will not waste my meteor-ships trying to save what is already dead.”

As he sat in a chamber of Salvador Dome, a haunted place of death, Captain Ricardo Sandoval turned off the recording. The Sub-Strategist had seen more clearly than Gomez. That had been months ago. The cyborgs controlled all but two of the defensive satellites now. The enemy had reached the last free city, killing those who carried guns and dragging others to the converters. There were two converters on Mars now—two of the chamber of horrors that turned people into the melded enemy.

Mars Command had tried to destroy one of the converters. Ricardo shook his head. The attack had been a debacle, their Battle of the Bulge—the last gasp to achieve a military miracle. In the end, the Martian attack had burnt-up too many of their own precious military vehicles. They had killed too many of their own hard-to-find soldiers.

In the dreadful months of war, the cyborgs relentlessly moved from one phase to the next. They had infiltrated the surface and soon gained a beachhead on the planet. Then they landed a converter and then another. Finally, they conquered every place of resistance except for a single remaining stronghold. How did you beat something that fed on the corpses of your own dead?

If Mars had possessed heavy weapons, perhaps—more planes, tanks, guns and spaceships…

The communicator beeped.

Ricardo rubbed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. He had faced the enemy. He was the great Cyborg Killer, wasn’t he? What a joke. Three times, he had led the Martian Commandoes into battle. Each time, he had killed cyborgs—at the cost of half his force the first time. Then he lost three-quarters of his troops in New Mexico Dome. At Santa Fe Junction, he had escaped the carnage and retreated to his hovercrafts with three Commandoes—three!

The communicator beeped again. Wearily, Ricardo clicked opened channels. “What is it?”

Secretary-General Gomez stared at him on the screen. She looked worse than he did, with discolored bags under her eyes.

“We picked up radar traces,” she said. “An assault force is on its way here.”

“From the north or south?” Ricardo asked, his voice hardening.

“Does it matter?” Gomez asked, with tears welling in her eyes.

“If we’re going to win this one, it does,” Ricardo said. He couldn’t give up now, not with the entire dead of a planet watching him. He could feel the ghosts behind him and wondered if Mars would always be known as the haunted planet.

Gomez made a bleak sound. “It is over, Captain. We are all dead.”

“The Pancho Villa needs a few more days until we can liftoff.” He had chosen the name. Pancho Villa the legendary rebel had never quit. Marten Kluge always found a way, too. So would he. Mars would fight back, even if from the grave.

Gomez made another of her despairing sounds. “None of us is leaving Mars, Captain. Everyone who emigrated here came to an evolutionary dead end. The human race had its run. Now it is the era of Genus Cyborgus.”

“Wrong!” Ricardo said, as he sat up.

“You are not Marten Kluge,” Gomez said.

“No. I am Captain Ricardo Sandoval of the Martian warship Pancho Villa. I will follow the example of Sub-Strategist Circe.”

“Her?” Gomez cried. “She was a fool. She could have come to Mars and saved a planet. Instead, with ruined ships and low on ordnance, she seeks her doom in the Neptune System where the cyborgs are strongest. Do not seek to emulate her.”

“To win, one must attack,” Ricardo said. It had become his holy creed.

“Staying alive is the first prerequisite for that,” Gomez said. “We cannot even achieve step one. I’m afraid you live on illusions.”

“You are breathing. Therefore, you are alive. Now tell me, from which direction are the cyborgs coming.”

“The north,” Gomez said, as she looked away from the screen.

“Thank you, Secretary-General. I must go, as I have a defense to run.” Ricardo switched her off and brought back the tactical map. So, it was the north… He switched on the communicator and began to issue orders to his men.

Thirty-four minutes later, Ricardo wore his armored suit, rebreather and clutched his gyroc rifle. He stood outside a rounded, ferroconcrete-protected SAM site. Three tracked fighting vehicles were ready and filled with the last Martian Commandoes. The men were poorly-trained compared to those who had died these past months. But you fought with what you had and made do.

“There!” a man said in his headphones.

Ricardo flicked on his helmet’s HUD. He saw the enemy: three big-bellied transports flying low over the valley floor. They were old civilian lifters, put to use by the cyborgs. The enemy cannibalized everything.

As Ricardo watched, the giant, ferroconcrete shell guarding the SAMs whirled open. Three missiles ignited, firing one after another. Like long torpedoes, they sped low over the terrain at the enemy.

“Kill them,” Ricardo whispered. “Kill all of them.” With his HUD, he saw metallic chaff spilling from the transports, attempting to confuse the missiles’ sensors. Then the transports lumbered higher, and bay-doors opened.

“No,” someone said.

Tiny, metallic-colored humanoids spilled out of the transports. Those would be cyborgs, deadly, unbeatable melds of machine and flesh. Some of them might even have been Martians several weeks ago. Their jetpacks flared, giving them lifting power or acting like parachutes.

The missiles hit. Orange fireballs billowed. Metal parts rained onto the valley floor, raising red geysers of iron-oxide dust.

“It’s go-time,” Ricardo said, climbing into his IFV—Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It had four 30mm auto-cannons, two Chavez missile tubes and 77mm of armor, half that of a Martian tank.

The three armored vehicles lurched as they headed toward the enemy: those who had landed and shed their jetpacks. Ricardo turned on the vehicle’s scanner. Because his men were so ill-trained, he had to perform gunner duties as well as being the commander. In seconds, he acquired a target. Individual cyborg troopers bounded with incredible speed and agility, and moved one hundred meters at a leap.

Two jets appeared in the red sky, coming in from the north. They had Planetary Union markings.

“Watch them,” Ricardo said.

At that moment, a beam stabbed down from the heavens. One of the jets separated because of the red slash. The surviving jet jinked hard, screaming toward the bounding cyborgs. Three canisters dropped from its fuselage before the red beam sliced it into pieces, too.

“Why don’t they beam at us?” one of the crewmembers asked.

Ricardo switched the setting of his screen. He brought up the enemy satellite as seen from a Martian space vehicle. The last two Planetary Union drones—hidden until now in near orbital space—zoomed at the laser-firing satellite. The two drones represented the last precious military reserves of Mars Command.

“We had to wait until we saw which satellite they used to launch the attack,” Ricardo said.

“What are you talking about, Captain?” a frightened Commando asked.

Just what he’d said, that seemed clear enough. They had to wait and see which satellite the cyborgs attempted to maneuver into position. It wasn’t easy getting the right angle to beam down into this valley. It meant the satellite had to be almost on top of them.

“If they want to save the satellite, they’re going to have to turn the laser on the drones,” Ricardo said. “That gives us a little time.”

Ahead of them on the valley floor, the canisters hit. The flash of explosions took half the cyborgs down. The other cyborgs kept coming. The melds didn’t fear—they always kept coming.

Their IFV began tracking the enemy. “Here we go,” Ricardo said.

No doubt sensing the tracking devices, the cyborgs went to ground, crawling now, using every centimeter of terrain, the rocks, crevasses and outcroppings of stone.

“Should we deploy outside?” a Commando asked from the second IFV.

If this had been two months ago before Ricardo had gone into New Mexico Dome, he would have said yes. With these poorly-trained Commandoes…

“Stay inside,” Ricardo said. “We’re going to use the heavy weapons to kill cyborgs.”

Targeting lasers pinpointed enemies. Then machine guns and 30mm auto-cannons blasted, destroying seven cyborgs. Unfortunately, one of the melds got close enough to launch a hand-held missile. The squat missile had a short flight-time, too short for the IFV’s counter-battery fire to engage it. A fighting vehicle exploded.

“Retreat!” shouted Ricardo. “Head back to base.” As he spoke, he took over his vehicle’s auto-cannons, firing into the likeliest position where cyborgs might be hiding. It must have worked. No more missiles came from those locations.

Then six cyborgs bounded from hiding, rushing the retreating vehicles.

“Firing arc sixty degrees!” a Commando roared.

Three of the melds died under a hail of cannon shells. The heavy rounds punctured cyborg chest-plates and blew them backward. Two enemy troopers survived and latched onto an IFV. Together, the two cyborgs ripped off the vehicle’s main hatch. The first meld slipped down inside and then the second. Moments later, the IFV swerved hard, and it flipped onto its side.

At the same time, a clang told of a cyborg landing on their IFV.

“What do we do?” a Commando shouted.

An awful metallic screeching began as the cyborg attempted to pry off the hatch. Then the hatch ripped off the IFV. As the machine bounced over the Martian terrain, Ricardo grabbed his gyroc and shoved the barrel through the hatch, firing. He killed the cyborg before it could drop its grenade inside the compartment. The grenade exploded outside the IFV.

As the vehicle slewed over the red sands, Ricardo popped his suited head and shoulders out of the hatch. The cyborg was on the ground, struggling to rise. Ricardo shot it, destroying the creature.

Then he centered on the flipped IFV. A cyborg crawled out of it. Ricardo fired his remaining gyroc rounds, killing the wretched thing.

As he slid back inside his vehicle, one of the Commandos said, “Gomez is on the com, sir.”

Ricardo turned on the screen.

“You’d better get back here,” Gomez said. “There are more on the way.”

Ricardo’s momentary elation dimmed. Couldn’t they ever catch a break?

“You were right,” Gomez said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The Pancho Villa is ready for liftoff. The techs say it’s ready to go.”

A strange feeling worked through Ricardo’s chest. It made it difficult to breathe. This couldn’t be true. He must be hearing things.

“I thought the techs needed another two days before they were ready,” he said.

“The Pancho Villa is good enough for liftoff,” Gomez said. “That’s what they said. Now is probably the last window of opportunity we’re going to get. They said a few more systems could be improved, but what would it help anyone if they were all dead.”

“I’m on my way,” Ricardo said. “Let’s do this.”

Forty-nine minutes later, Captain Ricardo Sandoval strapped into his acceleration couch aboard the Pancho Villa. Once the last buckle clicked shut, he looked around at the command crew.

Men and woman wearing Planetary Union space uniforms lay on couches in a circular chamber. They worked feverishly, checking and rechecking systems as the countdown began.

A red light blinked on Ricardo’s screen. He switched it on. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but more enemy planes are coming in.”

Ricardo swallowed in a dry throat. “How many are there?”

“Radar says its five transports and seven fighters. They’re all former Martian Air Force craft.”

Ricardo felt like asking what else it could have been. Then he silently berated himself. The SAM operator was staying behind, fighting the enemy, giving the Pancho Villa the chance to escape.

“Concentrate your fire on the transports,” he said.

“Yes, sir, and good luck.”

He wanted to thank her. He wanted to acknowledge her courage. He found that sweat beaded his forehead. Why did it have to be such a close-run thing?

“I’m getting a priority call, sir,” the com-officer said.

“Who from?” Ricardo asked.

The com-officer stared at him. “From a cyborg, sir.”

“How did a cyborg get hold of our priority—” Ricardo fell silent. It was obvious how they had gotten hold of the channel. Mars Command had found people with slots or jacks in their heads. They were proto-cyborgs, plants, spies, assassins. For a time, everyone had to submit to a head check.

“Put it on,” Ricardo said. He had never spoken with a cyborg before.

The screen wavered and then a cyborg stared at him. The thing was a strange combination of machine and man. It made Ricardo’s flesh crawl and revulsion to churn in his guts. He’d read plenty of files on the melds and he’d met them in combat, but to have one actually looking at him…

Its metal optical implants twitched. There was red pin-dot light in them. How could metal and flesh coexist? Then Ricardo berated himself. Men had been putting batteries in their hearts and screws in their joints for a long time. Cyborgs merely heightened the process and enslaved the brain, marrying it to computer functions.

“You possess a warship,” the cyborg said in an inflectionless voice.

Ricardo’s lips moved, but no sounds issued.

“Our indicators show you will attempt flight in the warship,” the cyborg said. “This is unacceptable.”

“What do you mean?” Ricardo managed to whisper.

“We desire the warship intact. You will remain in place while we secure the vessel.”

Ricardo gave a low-throated laugh. “Why would we do that?”

The cyborg blinked several times as if processing the question. “You cannot escape, but you can damage the warship. This is unacceptable.”

“Then don’t attack us,” Ricardo said.

The cyborg’s head twitched. It happened very fast, making him think of a humanoid insect. “The warship cannot leave Mars. We desire it for our use.”

Ricardo’s mouth was dry. “A moment please,” he said. He switched back to the SAM operator. “Are the planes still closing in?”

“They’re almost in range, sir. Do you have further commands?”

“Not yet,” Ricardo said. “Just make sure you destroy the transports first.”

“I will try, sir.”

Ricardo nodded, and switched the cyborg back onto his screen. “You must call off your attack while I meet with my commanders.”

“Leave the warship and file into an assembly area,” the cyborg said. “We will thereby process you more smoothly.”

“We don’t want to be processed. We want to keep ourselves just as we are.”

“Your wants and desires are meaningless.”

“Not to us,” Ricardo said.

The cyborg now spoke slowly. “We will…bargain for the warship,”

“Yes, we can bargain. First, call off the planes heading to Salvador Dome.”

“The Web-Mind has agreed to process you last. You will therefore maintain your identities longer than other converted Martians.”

“I’m afraid that’s not good enough.”

“Explain.”

“You have to move your planes away—”

“They’re firing,” someone said in the command center.

“Excuse me,” Ricardo said. He switched off the cyborg and turned on outer scanners. Veracruz missiles sped at the enemy. All of them were launching. The cyborg response was immediate. The fighters roared into the lead, and they let their anti-missiles fly. In seconds, there were explosions all over the sky.

Ricardo groaned. So did others.

Cyborg troopers ejected from the transports. Their jetpacks burned brightly as they floated toward the ground.

Now cyborg-controlled fighters exploded as SAMs made it through the barrage. In seconds, several transports became orange fireballs.

“Too many cyborgs are touching down onto the surface,” an officer said.

“We need liftoff!” Ricardo shouted, switching to engineering.

A harried man looked up at him. “There’s a glitch, sir. The ship might explode if we ignite now.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Ricardo roared. “If the cyborgs reach us, we’ll be dragged to the converters. Fire the engines. If we explode, at least it will be a clean death.”

The chief engineer stared at Ricardo, finally nodding. “Yes, sir. Ignition systems engaged!” he shouted.

Ricardo’s chest hurt. This was too close. He remembered the cyborg then and switched back to the thing.

“You must vacate the warship,” the cyborg said.

“Yes, yes, I agree,” said Ricardo. “We’re afraid, however, that you are lying to us. To show us good faith, you must call off your troopers.”

“Humans tell lies. This is known data.”

“Cyborgs tell lies, too,” Ricardo said.

“The concept is meaningless. You must vacate your warship immediately or face termination.”

“You will lose the warship then.”

“No. We desire the warship. We have a bargain.”

“It’s not good enough. My people need assurances.”

“You are dissembling,” the cyborg said. “I have been monitoring your eye movement and your facial changes. You are Captain Ricardo Sandoval of the Martian Commandoes and acting Captain of the Pancho Villa. I am instructed to tell you that dissembling will result in extreme pain once you are in our custody.”

Ricardo’s features hardened, and he cursed at the thing. Then he switched it off. He felt as if he understood Sub-Strategist Circe now. Ricardo would give just about anything to be in the Neptune System as he launched nuclear weapons at the Prime Web-Mind.

“Liftoff in ten seconds!” the com-officer shouted.

Ricardo turned on the facility’s outer cameras. Cyborgs bounded toward the launching point. There must be over one hundred of them. A last transport with smoke billowing from two of its engines still headed for them. The transport must have been well back from the others. Ricardo didn’t know if a SAM had hit it or if the plane had taken off with engine trouble.

“Five…four…three…two…one…zero.”

An intense sound punctuated the end of the countdown. A small vibration occurred and immediately increased until Ricardo clenched his teeth as his head vibrated wildly. The shaking intensified and then upward lift began.

“We’re taking off!” a woman shrieked.

On his screen, Ricardo watched as the underground bay door overhead dilated open. The Martian sky greeted them.

“Come on,” Ricardo whispered. “Get us out of here.”

The roar became thunder and the warship Pancho Villa moved toward the opening, toward freedom and life.

“I’m routing laser controls to me!” Ricardo shouted. Likely, no one heard him. It didn’t matter. He took over, and he switched on the warship’s outer cameras. They shook too hard for him to use. Thinking fast, Ricardo switched on the SAM site’s cameras.

The Pancho Villa slowly slid out of the ground. Three hundred meters away, cyborgs sped for them. The enemy wasn’t going to make it.

With the shaking, it was getting harder to keep his hands on the controls. Ricardo switched camera settings. The last enemy air transport with trailing smoke was almost over them.

They want to crash into us.

Ricardo activated the laser, and he tapped the auto-tracking and fire pad. To his vast relief, he saw the ship’s red beam stab the transport.

“We’ll beat you yet!” Ricardo shouted, as he shook his fist at the craft. Then, in horror, he saw cyborgs leap out of the bay doors. The transport was almost upon them, but breaking apart. Now jetpacks spewed thrust, and individual cyborgs dropped and thrust at the Pancho Villa.

Ricardo shook his head. As the warship slid toward the sky, visibly gaining speed, several of the creatures attached themselves to the ship’s skin. With fantastic strength, five cyborgs tore their way into the accelerating vessel.

An alarm sounded, barely audible over the roar and thunder of the engines pushing them toward space.

This can’t be happening.

Ricardo stared at his screen. No one could un-strap and face the cyborgs now. They were under too much G-force. If he shut off the engines, the Pancho Villa would not gain escape velocity and they would tumble back onto the planet. Either that or one of the captured satellites would fire lasers into them.

“You haven’t won!” Ricardo shouted. Straining to keep his hand up, he switched cameras. Cyborgs crawled through the accelerating ship. One of the creatures forced a hatch, drew a weapon and shot the ten humans strapped to their acceleration couches.

The next few minutes brought the horror home to Captain Ricardo Sandoval as the five cyborgs murdered fifty-seven humans.

They beat us. They captured Mars. Now they’re going to get our only warship.

“No,” Ricardo said. “No, they’re not.”

As the Pancho Villa exited the Martian atmosphere, Ricardo punched in his commander’s password.

As the destruct button appeared on his screen, the door to the chamber blew inward, and an upright cyborg stepped heavily into the command room. The cyborg swiveled its gun toward him. Before it could shoot, Ricardo touched the red destruct button.

The cyborg fired, and three steel needles entered Captain Sandoval’s chest. The pain was intense. Two seconds later, the Pancho Villa auto-destructed as the engine’s dampeners went offline. The warship fire-balled, ending the last fight in the successful cyborg assault of Mars.

-2-

Millions of kilometers in-system from Mars, Marten Kluge sat in his highly-modified patrol boat. He searched the void with improved sensors, using passive systems: teleoptic scopes, thermal scans, broad-spectrum electromagnetic sweeps, neutrino, and mass detection.

He sat behind and to the left of Osadar and Nadia in the sensor/communications seat. Respectively, they sat in the pilot and weapons officer’s chairs before a polarized window of ballistic glass. The boat was shaped much like his old shuttle, only bigger. It also had troop-pods attached, big round sections to add living space.

They had been in space for seven months. He recalled how only a few weeks out from Earth they had watched eight blips burn as the Alliance Fleet built up velocity for Neptune.

“We need to move like mice in a house full of cats,” Marten had told them then. “The Doom Stars and battleships are leaving Inner Planets, and even if they began deceleration now, it would take them weeks to return. But I’m betting the Highborn and Hawthorne kept something in reserve. They have to be thinking about what happens if and when they destroy the cyborgs.”

“Meaning what?” Nadia asked.

“That Highborn and SU warships are still in the Inner System,” Marten had said. “Given what happened to the Jupiter System, it’s likely the cyborgs already have stealth craft here. We have to move with extreme care.”

“What is our objective?” Osadar asked.

“Storming the Sun Station,” Marten said. “But for obvious reasons, we’re going to attempt it after the Alliance Fleet has engaged the cyborgs at Neptune.”

“Your reasoning is sound,” Osadar said, as she peered out of the polarized window. She spent more time than anyone else did staring at the stars. “We need the Highborn to defeat the cyborgs. The Highborn might turn on the accompanying battleships if we captured the Sun Station too soon. How many Highborn do you believe are stationed on our objective?”

“Since it’s a prime military target,” Marten said, “I’m guessing a lot.”

Osadar swiveled around to study him. “Your answer suggests that there are more Highborn on the station than our space marines can defeat.”

“That could be a problem,” Marten admitted.

“Can we approach the station undetected?” Osadar asked.

“We have several obstacles to overcome,” Marten said. “We have semi-cloaked vessels, but the Highborn have the giant interferometer. It seems unlikely we can remain hidden the entire time. The other problem involves the Sun’s heat and radiation. They become extreme the closer one approaches it. Our boats were never built to withstand that. Once we reach Mercury’s orbital path, we’ll have to live in our combat-suits.”

“Will that be enough protection?” Osadar asked.

“We’re going to find out.”

“Our victory could be short-lived,” Osadar said.

“A short-lived victory is better than none,” Marten said. “Besides, it might give other humans in better suits or spacecraft time to take over before other Highborn arrive.”

“Do you know of other such ships?” Osadar asked.

Marten hesitated before he nodded.

“This is news,” Osadar said.

“Social Unity has a hidden missile-ship out here,” Marten said. “Hawthorne told me about it once. It has been in space since the beginning of hostilities. The crew will certainly be weary, but they have weapons and a ship with heavy particle-shielding. It will be just what we need to get in close to the Sun Station.”

“You can find this missile-ship?”

“Hawthorne gave me the coordinates once. I’m not sure if it’s five-nine or nine-five. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin to decide.”

Osadar shook her head. “The odds are against events helping us, as the universe deplores such actions. I point to my own life as an example, a study in the universe’s ill humor.”

“I don’t agree,” Marten said. “Out of all the cyborgs, you’re the only one I know who regained her identity. I’d say that makes you unique and a product of the universe’s help.”

“I’d rather never have become a cyborg in the first place.”

“I never wanted to become a shock trooper,” Marten said. “Since I did, I plan to use the training and expertise at least one more time.”

The weeks passed as Omi and Xenophon drilled the space marines in the troop pods. They were merciless, pitting the squads against each other in various exercises. Marten bent his thoughts to inventing new combat games to help keep things fresh. No one was allowed to sit and brood except for Osadar. The weeks drifted into months, and still the cloaked patrol boats crawled toward the Sun.

By monitoring the news, they kept abreast of the situation between the directors and Cone. The conflict seesawed on Earth. A change came when the former FEC troops in North American Sector once again declared independence, this time from Social Unity. Several weeks later, open conflict occurred in the Indonesian islands between the FEC troops and a small Highborn garrison. It threatened to erupt into wider war as the Japan-stationed FEC also rebelled. The Highborn retaliated with massed armored troopers. It was brutal and bloody as they put down the Japan-based rebels first and then crushed the Indonesian FEC.

The show of Highborn strength brought a truce between the Chief Director and Vice-Chairman. Africa, the Middle East and Europe went to Backus. Asia sided with Cone, who promptly came to an understanding with the new dictator of North American Sector: Colonel Naga.

“Social Unity is foolishly breaking into factions,” Osadar said. “Soon enough, the Highborn will play them against each other and complete their conquest.”

“I’m more worried about what’s happening on Mars,” Nadia said.

Mars Command kept broadcasting the conflict, showing clips and newsflashes of the deadly cyborg invasion and advance across the surface.

“How can we win?” Nadia asked one night. She snuggled next to Marten in a warm bunk. Everyone slept in rotation, with someone always sleeping in the short supply beds.

“I don’t know,” Marten told his wife. “The cyborgs have the advantages, but I refuse to accept they’ll wipe out humanity.” He was silent for a time. “The truth is it’s really up to the Alliance Fleet.”

“Should we have joined them?” Nadia asked.

“I keep wondering that.”

Pouting, Nadia said, “Why did Ah Chen have to come and ruin everything?”

Marten kissed his wife. He should have separated the women. But he hadn’t thought that a good idea at the time, not with all the fighting men around. He scowled. Morale was slipping and so was cohesion. It was simply too cramped in the boats and Omi and he where the only ones with girls.

Early next week, an alarm rang in the flight compartment.

Marten floated to the sensor screen.

Osadar looked up at him. “There’s your SU missile-ship,” she said. “It’s surrounded by Highborn shuttles.”

“Are they fighting?” Marten asked.

Osadar shook her head. “I don’t know yet,” she said, adjusting sensor controls. “But I intend finding out.”

Grabbing the back of her chair, Marten pulled himself closer, anxiously watching the screen…

-3-

The rehabilitation of General James Hawthorne was a slow process. First was the obvious fix to his finger, the one ruined by shooting Grand Admiral Cassius. Fortunately, the medical facilities aboard the Vladimir Lenin were top-rate. In short order, he had a new finger. The repair to his health and spirits was another matter.

There were several problems. Years of grinding work and intense pressure had taken a serious toll of his body. Mental fatigue made it worse, and guilt over the nuclear bombardment of the rebellious Soviets had been eating away at his conscience. The first few days aboard the Vladimir Lenin found him in a lone cubicle as he slept around the clock. He finally stirred, nibbling at his food and then lying on his bunk again, staring at the ceiling.

The days became weeks and then the Vladimir Lenin made the short flight to Luna. Before they began acceleration for Neptune, there was a knock on the wardroom door.

Hawthorne stared up at the ceiling with his long-fingered hands twined together on his chest. He’d been looking up at the ceiling for days, replaying a thousand decisions, seeing endless ways he could have made better choices. People who said they would never change anything in their life…he didn’t understand that. He would have done hundreds of things differently.

The knock became insistent. There had been others earlier. Hawthorne had ignored them and finally they had gone away. This one didn’t sound like it was going away soon.

“Who is it?” Hawthorne asked.

“Commodore Blackstone. Do you mind if I come in?”

“Joseph?” Hawthorne asked.

“It’s easier talking face-to-face.”

Hawthorne didn’t agree. Vaguely, he realized this was the Vladimir Lenin, Blackstone’s battleship.

His forehead wrinkled as he attempted to summon the energy to sit up. He found the willpower lacking. He never should have said anything.

Blackstone banged on the door again. “I need to speak to you, sir.”

Hawthorne might have shouted, “Go away!” but he lacked the willpower for that, too. “Enter if you must,” he finally said.

The door slid open and Commodore Blackstone floated in.

Hawthorne was shocked at how Blackstone had aged. The rings under the man’s eyes, the sagging skin… Is this what prolonged space exposure brought? Then he noticed how Blackstone looked at him. Hawthorne didn’t like it, so he turned away.

“You can’t just lie here,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne remained mute.

“There’s civil war on Earth,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne remembered someone else yelling that through the door several days ago.

“Someone faked your resignation,” Blackstone added.

A momentary tingle went through Hawthorne. The feeling died, fortunately. He didn’t want the job anymore. It had been killing him. He had killed millions of innocent civilians who had simply wanted something to eat. A leader who couldn’t feed his people needed to be dragged behind a barn and shot in the head. They should have shot him a long time ago.

“James, have you heard a word I’ve said?”

Hawthorne frowned. Was there someone in the room? Curious, he rolled onto his back and noticed Commodore Blackstone hovering nearby.

“Hello, Joseph,” Hawthorne said.

The Commodore blinked in confusion. Then the thin man scowled. “Now see here. You have to get it together. You’re the Supreme Commander of Social Unity. You’ve been thwarting the Highborn for years and—”

A stricken look crossed Hawthorne’s features as he began to shake his head.

“What’s wrong?” Blackstone asked.

“I resigned.”

“No you didn’t. Someone forged it.”

“Oh.”

“The forgery has caused a fracture on Earth. The directors voted one of their own into the leadership, a Director Backus.”

“A good man,” Hawthorne said. “I found him in an Algae Factory in Cairo. His production figures were amazing. I elevated him on the spot. He’s been a rising star ever since.”

“He’s trying to oust Vice-Chairman Cone.”

“Who?”

“Someone named Cone. Do you know anyone by that name?”

“Ah, Security-Specialist Cone. So she made a stab at power, did she? I thought she might.”

“She’s losing.”

“Not for long,” Hawthorne said.

“You have to broadcast something to them.”

Hawthorne turned his head, for the first time directly meeting Blackstone’s gaze. “You haven’t thought that through. If I speak, the Highborn will demand my blood. That could dissolve our shaky partnership.”

“The Grand Admiral attacked you. He set you up.”

“Yes, but no matter how you look at it, a preman killed a Highborn. That’s a grave offense to the supermen.”

“What are you going to do then?” Blackstone asked. “Stay in here forever?”

“The question is: what are you going to do? What have the Highborn done now that Cassius is dead?”

“They’ve created a triumvirate.”

“The Doom Star admirals are ruling by committee?” asked Hawthorne.

“Something like that,” Blackstone said.

“What have they decided?”

“To attack the cyborgs in the Neptune System.”

“What about you?” Hawthorne asked.

“We’re joining them, Vice-Admiral Mandela and me.”

“Who holds the highest command?”

“It’s a triumvirate,” Blackstone said.

“I understand. But who will make the command decisions in the heat of battle?”

“They each will, I suppose.”

Hawthorne thought about it, and shrugged after a time.

“That’s it?” Blackstone asked. “You shrug?”

“What else do you expect me to do?”

“We need a leader, an overarching commander for us and them.”

“Can you convince the Highborn of that?”

“I can’t,” Blackstone said. “Maybe you can.”

Hawthorne gave a short, brittle laugh.

“With divided commands, we’re doomed to defeat,” Blackstone said.

“Not necessarily.”

“Unity of command is vital to victory.”

“I could name you several historical fleet actions that show the contrary. They were important victories, too, against an enemy with cyborg-like unity of command.”

“I can’t think of any,” Blackstone said.

“What about the Battle of Lepanto?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It was a naval battle on Earth. It occurred in 1571 as Europeans fought the conquering Turks. The Venetians, Spaniards and Papal forces quarreled right up until the moment of cannon-fire. Or take the Battle of Salamis in ancient times. The Athenians, Spartans, Corinthians and others debated fiercely as the Persian King of kings moved his fleet to annihilate the arguing Greeks. It was a Persian debacle. Victorious committees running a campaign—especially fleet actions—are nothing new.”

“It still seems like a poor way to coordinate our last desperate action to save humanity,” Blackstone said.

“Yes,” Hawthorne said.

Blackstone made an explosive sound. “At least Social Unity should fight together. It is the mantra of our political existence.”

“Why wouldn’t we fight united?”

“Because we have two senior officers with the remnants of their fleets,” Blackstone said. “Neither Vice-Admiral Mandela nor I care to take orders from the other.”

“Vice-Admiral outranks Commodore,” Hawthorne said.

“His was a political appointment!” Blackstone shouted.

It made Hawthorne wince.

Calming himself, Blackstone said, “Under no circumstances will I take orders from him that jeopardizes my ships.”

Hawthorne managed a nod.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Blackstone said. “How come you’re just lying there? The least you could do is give me an order.”

Hawthorne made a vague gesture before he turned away.

Blackstone spoke more, but Hawthorne tuned him out. Eventually, the Commodore left.

Hawthorne closed his eyes, falling into a troubled sleep. He ate, slept and stared until alarms rang thought the Vladimir Lenin. The noise wouldn’t stop. Finally, Hawthorne realized it was the warning sounds before hard acceleration. He hurried to the bathroom and then strapped himself onto his bed.

Ninety-three minutes later, the grueling acceleration began. It leveled off after several hours, maintaining one-point-five Gs.

The extended sleep, mental rest and utter lack of everything but the physical pressure of acceleration slowly restored some of Hawthorne’s energy. He began to wander the long, curving halls of the battleship. After a week, he attempted limited exercises, which improved his appetite. He knew of an old German proverb: Eating builds appetite. In his case, it proved true.

His curiosity began to stir again, although it wasn’t about the situation on Earth. Whenever anyone tried to talk to him about the SU civil war, he blanked out. It didn’t matter to him anymore. People soon knew to avoid the topic.

Slowly, Hawthorne became curious about Neptune, the planet, the system and the cyborg defenses there.

Neptune was the last regular planet of the Solar System. Pluto—along with several others like Ceres in the Asteroid Belt—was considered a dwarf planet. On average, Neptune was about four-point-five billion kilometers from the Sun, or a little over thirty AUs away. Light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. That meant it took a ray of light roughly four hours and sixteen minutes to travel from the Sun to Neptune. The Vladimir Lenin would make the trip in a little over eight months, accelerating, coasting and then decelerating once near enough. Neptune’s orbit was so large that it took 165 years for it to complete one circuit around the Sun.

The planetary system had been known for its shameless capitalists. That had been one of the reasons the secret cyborg prototypes had been built there. Everyone knew that capitalism produced vast inequalities as cunning men exploited the proletariat. Yet for some strange reason, it also produced a glut of creativity and a vast amount of goods. The work had proceeded faster there than it ever had on Earth. The cyborgs had been a secret plan gone awry, and it seemed the capitalists had been the first to pay the bitter price of their success.

What had the cyborgs of Neptune done to prepare against invasion?

The problem began to prey upon Hawthorne. He spent more time reading the computer files. Soon, he began prowling through the Vladimir Lenin, reacquainting himself with the Zhukov-class Battleship. It had size, thick particle-shielding and powerful lasers able to fire one hundred thousand kilometers. That was an impressive range until one compared them against a Doom Star.

We’ve beaten Doom Stars with these, he told himself in his room. Now we’re fighting with Doom Stars.

Several months into the journey, he knocked on the Commodore’s wardroom door.

“Enter,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne found the Commodore behind his desk, studying his screen.

“What brings you here?” Blackstone asked, sitting back in his chair.

Hawthorne took a seat as he glanced around. The quarters were Spartan, with an old dagger hanging on a wall.

The former Supreme Commander had changed since boarding. He no longer stooped, but stood straight. The bags under his eyes had returned to a flesh tone and almost disappeared. It left the flesh wrinkly there, but less than it could have been, as he’d put on weight. The biggest difference was in his eyes. They weren’t as haunted or as guilt-ridden.

He avoided thinking about the millions of innocent civilians murdered by his nuclear missiles. It had been his decision. He would never shy away from that. But it had been forced upon him. If he had done nothing, Social Unity would have fallen to the Highborn. It had been an act of desperation, but necessary nonetheless.

“James?” Blackstone asked.

Hawthorne cleared his throat. “What do we know about the cyborgs and the Neptune System?”

Blackstone’s eyes widened. Then he grinned.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hawthorne asked.

“You’re back, and none too soon. Mandela and I are having trouble with the Highborn. We can’t decide what to do about it. Now I know.”

Hawthorne waited.

Blackstone’s grin increased. “We hand the decision over to you.”

Something passed through James Hawthorne. It began in his eyes, tightening the skin of his face. After a second, he nodded. “It means I’m back in command?”

“Yes,” Blackstone said. “That’s exactly what it means.”

“Good,” Hawthorne said. “Tell me about the Highborn and then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it.”

-4-

While Hawthorne and Blackstone debated about the Highborn, Marten Kluge clung to the back of Osadar’s chair. He watched the sensor screen, trying to figure out what was going on around the SU missile-ship.

The William Tell and its companion boat moved silently through space. They had been en route toward the Sun for months, following the five-nine coordinates. Silent running with ears wide and eyes peeled, they looked, listened and measured everything with the mass detector, teleoptics and neutrino tracker.

The void or the space between the Inner Planets was a vast volume. A single ship, a fleet of thirty ships, was still a tiny speck. Finding a quiet enemy vessel was like hunting for a particular piece of plankton in the Atlantic Ocean. Engines burning hot made everything easier in terms of sensors. Unfortunately, the closer to the Sun, the more radiation there was. That blanketed many of the sensors, making it increasingly difficult to pick-up otherwise obvious readings.

With the missile-ship, Marten had known where to head and look. It made a critical difference.

Indicating her screen, Osadar said, “Someone is using jamming electronics, which is affecting my readings.”

Because of the patrol boats’ low speed, they were still days from the missile-ship. It was a big vessel with particle-shielding and fast fusion engines. It was a distance-fighter, shooting missiles or drones and then moving to a new location.

“One of the shield-masses appears to be destroyed,” Osadar said. “That indicates a surprise strike or a sudden and vast strike. Otherwise, the missile-ship crew would have rotated shields until all were equally worn down.”

A cold feeling worked up Marten’s spine. He began counting Highborn shuttles. They appeared to be the same size as the Mayflower, the captured shuttle he’d used to fly to the Mars and Jupiter Systems. Each shuttle could ferry eighty Highborn in comfort.

“I count four,” Marten said. “Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to defeat a missile-ship, not unless the crew let the Highborn aboard.”

“Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to in a stand-up fight,” Osadar agreed. “I can’t spot any damage to the shuttles, but the jamming could be blocking that. I don’t see anything unusual on visual. We have to take into account there could be more shuttles on the other side of the missile-ship. Or maybe there’s something else besides a shuttle hiding there.”

With his fingers, Marten squeezed the back of Osadar’s chair. He’d been counting on the missile-ship. The idea of cruising to the Sun Station in the patrol boats while wearing combat-armor…there were better ways to commit suicide, faster ways than radiation poisoning.

“Why are they jamming?” he asked.

“The obvious reason would be to keep any signals from leaving the missile-ship,” Osadar said, “including distress signals or a file about what happened out here.”

“Four Highborn shuttles, a destroyed shield to the SU warship and jamming,” Marten said. “The implication is clear: the Highborn have captured the missile-ship or they are in the process of capturing it.”

A frown appeared on Osadar’s senso-mask. “I hope you are not envisioning another of your mad schemes.”

“We have two patrol boats and a little over eighty space marines.”

“Poor odds against Highborn,” Osadar said. “There are potentially more Highborn than Jovians.”

“Maybe,” Marten said. “Our ace card is that we see them and they don’t see us.”

“That is an assumption.”

“Granted,” said Marten.

“I’m afraid to ask, but what are you suggesting?”

Marten’s features tightened. Ah Chen’s revelation about the Sun Station had changed his thinking back on Earth. It had shown him that at least one Highborn played a deeper game. Before, it had merely been enough to defeat the cyborgs, to keep humanity from extinction. Now he wondered if he could gain a larger victory. Social Unity was breaking apart. The stress of war had shaken the pillars of society. If someone like him could control a Sun Station, maybe he could help affect greater changes. Why did people have to remain slaves to a deadening socialist system or slaves to a so-called master race?

“We need the missile-ship,” Marten said.

“Your reasoning escapes me,” Osadar said. “We need stealth against the Sun Station. How does one sneak up on such a station with a missile-ship?”

“That’s the easy part,” Marten said, “by flanking the enemy.”

Osadar studied him. “You mean maneuvering onto the other side of the Sun as the station, and rushing around it in close orbit?”

“Right.”

“It is a tactically sound idea,” Osadar said. “Providing the ship can withstand the heat and radiation. But I must point out that Highborn presumably possess your needed ship.”

“I read the situation otherwise,” Marten said, with a tight grin. “I spy SU rebels using stolen Highborn craft. We must help our allies and repel the enemy.”

Osadar stared at him. “You don’t really believe that.”

“It will be my story if we fail.”

“If we fail, we’ll be dead.”

“I need the missile-ship,” Marten said, his tone hardening.

“You actually mean to pit Jovian space marines against Highborn commandoes, likely a greater number of Highborn?”

Marten nodded.

“How do you propose achieving victory?”

“We’re going to have to risk using our engines,” Marten said. “We’re going to do it now at the farthest distance possible, nudging us onto an intercept course.”

“If we use the engines, they will detect us.”

“It’s a risk, as I said. But maybe they’re so busy jamming the warship, trying to capture it, that they’ll fail to spot us.”

“That is doubtful,” Osadar said.

Marten ignored her. He’d already made his decision.

After informing the others of the plan, Marten, Nadia and Osadar took their places. Marten piloted, Nadia ran weapons and Osadar tracked the enemy.

Marten flexed his fingers as a sense of urgency filled him. This was it. He needed the missile-ship. Otherwise, heading to the Sun Station was a suicide mission, something he’d avoided until now. Capturing the Bangladesh had been the nearest thing he’d ever done to a suicide mission, and he didn’t even like thinking about that time.

“Here we go,” he whispered. He engaged the ion engine. There was a hum from the back of the boat. The William Tell began to vibrate and a bump pushed him against his chair. It wasn’t fast acceleration with many Gs, but a gentle pushing as the boat moved onto a new heading.

Every second the engine burned was another second the Highborn could spot them on their sensors.

Nadia tapped a control.

Outside, metallic clamps unlatched. There was another bump from outside and a shudder ran through the boat.

“The decoy has deployed,” Nadia said.

Marten nodded. Their vessel had carried a decoy. The other patrol boat possessed a large S-80 drone, a Social Unity weapon.

The seconds ticked by on the chronometer. Then a light flashed on the screen and Marten switched off the engine. Three seconds later, the other patrol boat did likewise.

“We’re on an intercept course,” Marten said.

No one else spoke, not even the space marines in back. They were heading for a showdown against Highborn. Had the enemy seen the brief flares of ion engines?

Marten glanced at Osadar. The cyborg watched the sensors. She must not see anything unusual yet, or she would have said something.

“I hate the waiting,” Marten whispered.

The waiting continued for another forty-seven hours.

The decoy was in the lead. It ran silent like the other boats. At the end of the forty-seven hours, the S-80 drone drifted away from the second patrol boat.

The situation over there had become much clearer. The missile-ship was the Mao Zedong. The spaceship had thick particle-shields, except for the obliterated one. The jaggedness of the edges of the other shields beside the demolished one indicated missiles had repeatedly blasted through the mass. The lettering on some of the visible hull had given them the ship’s name.

Highborn occasionally used thruster-packs to flit from a shuttle to the missile-ship or vice versa. Once, three Highborn in vacc-suits maneuvered a big piece of equipment onto the Mao Zedong.

“Are they repairing it?” Nadia asked.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Marten said.

The hours passed and now the patrol boats coasted to within one thousand kilometers of the missile-ship.

Marten began to slither into his equipment. The combat-vacc-suit used articulated metal and ceramic-plate armor. A rigid, biphase carbide-ceramic corselet protected the torso, while articulated plates of BPC covered the arms and legs. He had an IML: Infantry Missile Launcher. It fired the trusty Cognitive missiles. He would also bring a gyroc rifle with extra ammo. Unlike the assault onto the planet-wrecker, each space marine would have a thruster-pack. Hopefully, they would be alive long enough to use it.

Waiting to don his helmet, Marten floated behind Nadia. She wore a silver vacc-suit minus the helmet as she sat at the weapons chair.

“This is it,” he said.

Nadia turned around and pushed up to him. Gripping him fiercely, she kissed him. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he said.

She touched his cheek. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Marten Kluge.”

He nodded grimly. The idea the Highborn might destroy the patrol boats in the next few minutes, killing his wife… “Let’s get started,” he said gruffly.

She kissed him again, hard. Then Nadia let go and climbed back into her seat. She took a deep breath. “I’ll need the decoy’s radar for this.”

“I know,” he said.

“Osadar?” asked Nadia.

“Ready,” the cyborg said. She ran the decoy.

“Now,” Nadia whispered.

Osadar turned on the decoy’s radar. It pulsed, waiting to acquire precision targeting data. In moments, the data flowed into the William Tell’s computer.

Nadia fired the point-defense cannons. Each shot used depleted uranium pellets as ammunition. The cannons were primarily meant to intercept incoming missiles, drones or torpedoes. Today, Nadia targeted two of the shuttles. The other patrol boat fired at the other two HB shuttles.

Time crawled with agonizing slowness as the pellets zoomed toward target.

Then Osadar said, “One of the shuttles is starting its engine.”

“They’ve seen us,” Marten said. “Use the drone.”

Seconds later, the S-80 burned hot. It accelerated toward the enemy, rapidly gaining velocity.

“Another shuttle has started its engine,” Osadar said. Her fingers moved across the sensor equipment.

Ahead of them and visible through the ballistic glass an ion engine burned. It was the decoy. It turned away from the missile-ship, heading out as if fleeing.

On Osadar’s screen, two shuttles began to move.

“No,” Marten whispered.

“A hit!” Nadia shouted. “The cannons hit one of the shuttles.”

A beep sounded on Osadar’s equipment.

“What’s that?” Marten asked.

Osadar studied the readings. “Sand-blaster,” she said.

Marten nodded. He’d heard of that, sand shot in a cloud. The idea was that a particle of sand would hit shrapnel or a cannon pellet and deflect the incoming object just enough to miss the ship.

Then the S-80 drone exploded. It was a shape-charged nuclear drone. The blast, heat and radiation would primarily go forward in a ninety-degree arc at the enemy.

Everyone in the William Tell donned his or her helmet.

“We surprised them,” Osadar said.

Even as she spoke, enemy missiles accelerated at them from one of the supposedly destroyed shuttles.

A painful knot tightened Marten’s stomach. Shuttles and patrol boats lacked the size for big engines. Therefore, they lacked lasers or particle beam weapons. For them, it was missiles, anti-missiles and cannons. It meant you could kill your enemy and from the grave, as it were, your enemy’s pre-launched weapons could still come and destroy you.

“Ready the cannons,” Marten said.

Nadia nodded.

An object brighter than a star appeared outside the window. Marten knew he witnessed one of the missile’s exhaust plumes. Then a second and third “bright star” appeared, rushing toward them and quickly growing bigger.

“The first missile is headed for the decoy,” Nadia said.

Marten clutched his IML. He began shaking his head, as if by his thoughts he could deflect the missile from their boat.

“The second missile is also headed for the decoy,” Nadia said. “Oh no,” she whispered. “The last one is heading here.”

Twenty second later, a bloom of brightness showed the HB missile destroying the decoy. As the flare of it died down, they saw the last “bright star” headed toward them.

The point-defense cannons began to chug from both patrol boats.

Fourteen seconds later, Nadia said, “I think we disabled it.”

She was wrong, or wrong enough that it didn’t matter. A pellet hit the missile. Then the missile exploded. Thankfully, it did not explode with a nuclear detonation. At extreme velocities, shrapnel spread in a small cloud. Although the William Tell was in the lead, none of the enemy shrapnel hit it.

Four pieces, however, pierced the skin of the second patrol boat. One of the pieces cut an ion coil, letting coolant spread in a vapor. The same piece of shrapnel the size of a pinky-fingernail sliced through a heating unit. When the vapor touched the hot surface of the unit, an explosion occurred because of the oxygen seeping in from the living quarters. The explosion caused an overload in the remixing core, and it ignited, obliterating the Jovian craft in an impressive detonation. Forty-two space marines died, most of them cooked in their combat-suits. The others died as debris smashed through their faceplates.

On the William Tell, Marten closed his eyes. His marines’ death numbed a little more of his heart. The war was so unrelenting: modern battle so unbelievably deadly.

“A Centurion Titus is hailing us,” Osadar said.

“We didn’t kill all the shuttles?” Marten asked, his voice betraying his bitterness.

“The jamming has stopped,” Osadar said. “I don’t detect any more missile launches.” She turned around. “The signal is coming from the Mao Zedong.”

“Let’s hear it,” Marten said.

Osadar put in on the boat’s speakers.

Marten opened his helmet’s visor. The deepness and arrogance of the voice told him a Highborn spoke.

“You are weak warriors, striking from the dark,” Centurion Titus said. “You fear to face us man-to-man. Very well, face the ship’s weapons then.”

“The Mao Zedong is moving,” Osadar said. “I think they’re turning the ship to bring a missile-port to bear.”

With a mental effort, Marten pushed aside the death of half his men. He had been with them a long time, but he couldn’t let that affect him now. He needed to think, to outwit a Highborn. The trick with them was to play to their arrogance. They thought of themselves as so superior and premen as cowardly and small.

Marten wanted to grind his teeth in rage. Instead, he forced himself to say, “Tell him we surrender our boat.”

Osadar and Nadia turned around in wonder. Osadar spoke first. “You want to surrender to the Highborn?”

“No,” Marten said. “I want to get close enough so we can board the missile-ship.”

“I do not understand,” Osadar said.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t either.”

“You are twisting your words?”

“These are the Highborn who planned to castrate me,” Marten said. “They stamped a number on my hand and treated me like an animal, a preman. I don’t like twisting my words, but this is war and he just killed half of my marines. Now open channels, and I want a direct video link with him.”

Osadar did as he requested.

In his combat-suit, Marten sat down clumsily on the pilot’s chair. He twisted off his helmet, letting it float in the air beside him, but out of sight of the video link.

In seconds, the wide face of a Highborn appeared on the screen. Centurion Titus had white hair in a buzz cut and he was missing his right eye.

“You are a preman,” Titus said.

“I’m Marten Kluge.”

Titus curled his thin lip. “I’ve heard of you. Prepare to die, preman.”

“I’m ready to surrender my boat to you,” Marten said.

Titus paused. “You are defenseless?”

“No. I have my PD cannons.”

Titus showed his teeth in a grin. “You fear the missile-ship. You are wise, preman. But it will not go well with you. Therefore, I do not understand why you are unwilling to die fighting like a warrior.”

“I have people with me,” Marten said, “my wife among them.”

“Ah,” Titus said. “You are weak with your emotion of love. Yes, I accept your surrender. Turn you craft and begin immediate deceleration.”

“I will comply,” Marten said.

“No,” Titus said. “You will obey.”

Marten knew how to satisfy Highborn egos. So, although it grated upon him, he hung his head. “I will obey,” he said grudgingly.

“You were a fool, preman. You destroyed a few shuttles, but failed to kill many of us. For the few you did kill, your fate will be a hard one. Yes, I will accept the surrender of Marten Kluge.” Titus leered. “I see you’re wearing combat-armor. I hope you decide to fight, preman. It would give me joy and increased rank to kill the insolent Kluge.”

“I’m surrendering my boat to you,” Marten said. “You have won this encounter.”

Even as they spoke, Marten turned the William Tell and began deceleration.

“Enjoy your last minutes of freedom, preman. For the rest of your life will be one of agony.”

Marten forced himself to shudder. Then he switched off the channel. Turning to the others in the compartment, he said, “We’re surrendering our boat, but we’re not finished fighting.”

Group-Leader Xenophon grinned.

“I’m never going to surrender to anyone,” Marten told the marines. “As we begin to dock, we will exit the William Tell. Let them have the patrol boat. It’s us they’re going to have to deal with.”

The ion engine burned its hottest, slowing the William Tell as it approached the Mao Zedong. The missile-ship used side-jets, slowly rotating. Just as slowly, one of the undamaged particle-shields began to move.

The thick mass of shielding was attached to gigantic struts that moved in grooves along the outer hull. It allowed the warship’s captain to rotate shields as needed. As the shielding moved, it revealed a row of big PD cannons, many times larger than those on the patrol boat. The shield moved just enough for the cannons to fire. Later, it could move more to allow the boat to enter a hanger. Titus had already instructed them to prepare for boarding. Highborn would come out and make sure this wasn’t a suicide vessel meant to explode once past the shielding.

The ion engine shut down. Slowly the patrol boat drifted toward the big cannons.

“You know the plan,” Marten said. “Now let’s do it.”

As the boat drifted closer, the space marines began to exit out of a hatch opposite the missile-ship. Marten stayed behind by the com-equipment.

White-haired Titus hailed them and appeared onscreen. “Two Highborn are on their way. If they are harmed, the cannons will obliterate your vessel. If you decide to ignite yourself in an effort to harm us, you are wasting your time.”

“I will not blow up my boat,” Marten said. “You have my word on it.”

“A preman’s word?” Titus sneered.

“For what it is worth,” Marten said.

“Since last we spoke, I have read your file, Kluge. You are a traitorous beast.”

“I have my faults, but I am not traitorous.”

“Commandant Maximus is anxious to have you back at the Sun-Works Factory.”

“The missile-ship is headed there?” Marten asked.

“My soldiers have you in sight. Ready yourselves for them.”

Marten dipped his head. “I am prepared.”

“Go, and remember to act contrite in their presence,” Titus said. “Otherwise, it will go even harder for you, preman. You killed several of our comrades in your cowardly attack.”

“Marten Kluge, signing off,” he said, tapping the screen and cutting off communications. Hurriedly, Marten donned and sealed his helmet, heading for the hatch.

Soon, he floated outside the William Tell. Using rungs fitted for such actions, Marten “climbed” to the top of the boat. Activating the HUD in his visor, he spotted two Highborn in their combat-armor. White particles of hydrogen-spray propelled the two super-soldiers from the Mao Zedong and toward the William Tell.

Marten clicked on his suit-to-suit communications. “Some of those cannons are sure to open fire once we act, but we’re going to have to risk it. The cannons are meant to kill ships and shuttles, not individual marines. Are you ready?”

He heard the affirmatives.

Marten flicked on his IML. Beside him, Omi did likewise. They were the highest-rated on them. Therefore, they had the honor of reigniting hostilities.

“One, two, three,” Marten whispered over the suit-to-suit communications.

At almost the same instant, two Cognitive missiles launched from their IMLs.

It was a short flight, but the Highborn were quick. One fired a weapon. The other throttled open his thruster-pack, moving faster. It didn’t matter for either. Both Cognitive missiles hit and exploded, and each killed one of the master race.

Before the small missiles hit, everyone climbed above, below and to the sides of the William Tell. They leaped off the dark polymer skin and engaged their thruster-packs, beginning the last leg of the journey to the Mao Zedong.

Like the others, Marten used a joystick control. It brought bitter memories being out here, seeing the asteroid-like shield “below” him. He led the way toward the damaged section of the ship. That’s where they had seen Highborn entering before with thruster-packs. Then something flashed out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head, and noticed another flash. It was a big PD cannon. They were firing.

Marten debated letting his thumb off the throttle. Likely, the trail of hydrogen-spray made one more visible. Probably, it didn’t matter either way. The key was to get out of the cannons’ line-of-sight as fast as possible.

He zoomed closer to the particle-shielding, and it began to move. The Highborn must realize—

A bloom of color told him a shell had just connected with someone ahead of him. He hoped it wasn’t Nadia.

Should I have left her on Earth?

He didn’t know. Now wasn’t the time to worry about it. With his teeth clenched, Marten zoomed toward the particle-shielding, believing if he could get low enough, that he could avoid the cannons.

The cannons kept firing. They killed five Jovians, too many—always too many losses.

Marten zoomed several meters above the shielding, heading for the damaged section. He had several gut-wrenching fears. If the Mao Zedong was in good enough shape, it could begin acceleration, stranding all of them out here. It’s what he would have tried to do if Highborn attempted to board his ship. The other possibility was many Highborn in combat-suits waiting at the damaged section, ready for battle.

This was too similar to the Bangladesh. Then he had faced a ship full of SU personnel, with shock troopers covering his back.

“Count off,” he said.

“Omi here.”

“Group-Leader Xenophon reporting.”

“Osadar here…”

As the men kept counting off, Marten brought up the Mao Zedong’s specs on his HUD. He also saw which squads had lost men. Ah, three of the dead belonged to Alpha Squad. He adjusted the boarding attack and used suit-to-suit communications to tell his space marines.

Then he zoomed over the edge of the shielding. A vast pit loomed under him: the destroyed part of the missile-ship. He wished he’d practiced more at thruster-pack flying. He was moving too fast. With a twist of his wrist, he changed the direction of thrust and headed down into the Mao Zedong. He clicked on his suit-radar and brought up the information onto his HUD. Space marines followed him down into the maw. They were going into the damaged section where there was open decking visible.

“Motion at grid ten-B-seven!” a Jovian shouted into Marten’s headphones.

Even as the marine spoke, tiny pinprick dots appeared down in the ship’s darkness. The enemy was using a gyroc rifle. If he’d used a laser, it would have shown a direct line back to where he was. With a gyroc, one could fire and move. Highborn were experts at that game. There was none better at it, not even cyborgs.

In a smooth motion, Marten shouldered his IML. He flicked on the radar. In seconds, an enemy symbol flashed on his HUD. He fired. So did ten other space marines, too many on one target. In their excitement, the men had forgotten fire procedure.

The Cognitive missiles burned fast in a flock.

Marten swept the barrel of the IML, seeking a new target for his already lofted missile. The radar beeped again, giving him a different enemy. He pressed a switch, downloading the new targeting data to his missile. A blue light flashed in his helmet. The missile accepted the data and veered toward the new enemy.

All the while, the Highborn kept firing at them.

“Pericles is hit!” Xenophon shouted over Marten’s headphones.

Marten snarled with frustration. The Highborn were deadly marksmen. He wouldn’t have any men left for the Sun Station if this kept up. He should have set out with five hundred space marines. He was almost down to thirty—thirty regular men to take on the masters of the Solar System.

“Hit!” a Jovian shouted. “We scratched one.”

Unwilling to attempt a missile-reload, Marten racked the IML onto his back-slot. He unhooked his gyroc and clicked it online with his suit’s targeting system. A targeting crosshairs appeared on his HUD. It showed wherever he aimed the rifle.

“Ten-C-six,” Omi said in a gunfighter’s voice.

Missiles ignited at the heading.

“Nine-C-six,” another Jovian said.

The Highborn had come to fight. But Marten was surprised there were so few of them. Had they caught the overmen by surprise?

Marten shut off the thruster-pack as he fired gyroc shells. Highborn shot back. Tiny contrails grew as the enemy shells sped up at them. An enemy gyroc punctured a neck-joint, killing a Jovian seventy-three meters from Marten. Another shell blew open Group-Leader Praxis’s stomach, and entrails blew outward. A third space marine died as shrapnel opened his suit, and oxygen left a stark trail.

They’re killing too many of us.

Marten ignited the retro-rocket attached to his chest. It had one purpose: to slow him down so he could land. Instead of turning around and using the thruster, he faced the enemy as he decelerated. The rocket slammed against him, expelling air out of his lungs. He’d never gotten used to this, no matter how many times he practiced. He’d have a purple bruise on his chest tomorrow—if he survived.

As he landed on open decking—his magnetic boots automatically activated—Marten saw a crouched Highborn shooting at his men. Marten quick fired from the hip. The Highborn was already swiveling around, however, and shot a palm laser. The beam hit Marten’s chest-rocket, burning through and burning into the ablative armor underneath. Then Marten’s gyroc shells struck. The first one failed to penetrate the heavy armor. The kinetic energy should have knocked the Highborn backward, but this warrior was strong, and his suit gave him exoskeleton power. The second shell missed, penetrating a ruined bulkhead behind the Highborn. The third shell exploded against the faceplate. The visor fractured just enough so air hissed away in a stream. The laser moved off-target. Marten fired two more shells—the rest of his magazine. And it should have worked.

The Highborn twisted even as he slapped a sealant to his faceplate. Marten’s shells burned into the heavy shoulder-plate, disabling the Highborn’s arm, but they failed to kill. The Highborn used his good arm, lifting his big gyroc rifle, aiming at Marten. Marten frantically tore out his empty magazine. He wasn’t going to make it.

Then, out of the corner of his faceplate, he saw a Cognitive missile streak down at them. For a wild second, his gut clenched.

I’m going to die.

The missile seemed to zoom right at him. Maybe something was wrong with its targeting acquisition. Before the Highborn could pull his trigger, however, before Marten could slam in a fresh magazine, the missile slammed into the enemy giant, exploding, saving Marten’s life.

It took a split-second for Marten to realize he was still alive. Then it was time to enter the Mao Zedong.

Marten Kluge crept through the crippled missile-ship. He’d shed his thruster-pack, clutched his gyroc rifle and used his magnetic boots.

It was dark in the long corridors and the tight chambers. He used infrared sight and kept up a schematic of the ship’s passageways on his HUD. His space marines followed him. Omi and Osadar lugged a plasma cannon. Group-Leader Xenophon led the squads in an adjoining corridor.

There was no sign of the Highborn. Had the enemy retreated deeper into the ship? Or had they exited to a hidden shuttle and even now readied nuclear missiles to pump into the warship? He should have left someone aboard the William Tell to monitor the situation. He hadn’t expected the patrol boat to survive, however. In truth, he hadn’t expected to survive this engagement with the Highborn.

His helmet beeped as the sensors picked up life-readings. “Four-G-nine,” Marten said.

“I see it,” Omi said. “It’s hot! They have weapons!”

Marten snapped orders as his stomach seethed. Somewhere inside him, he had hoped the fight was over. He should have known better. These were Highborn.

The space marines moved in the darkness, spreading out in the various corridors.

“Watch for booby-traps,” Marten radioed. His radio buzzed. He used his chin to click and accept.

“Careful,” Omi said. “They could be using the emplaced device we spotted as a locator or a directional finder.”

Marten nodded, even though he knew Omi wouldn’t be able to see the head gesture.

“Marten Kluge,” a Highborn said over the radio.

“Titus?” Marten asked, as he started in his combat-suit.

“I am Centurion Titus,” the Highborn said proudly. “You have reached the ship because of your faithlessness.”

“Wrong!” Marten said. “I’ve stormed the vessel because we’re better at this than you.”

“He’s moving,” Omi said. “Or someone is. He’s headed for the engine core!”

“Stormed?” Titus sneered over the radio. “You have stormed nothing, preman, but for your tomb. You are a dead man. We are all dead.”

“Yeah?” Marten asked.

“I am Centurion Titus, and I have pronounced your doom.”

“He’s moving fast!” Omi said.

“Is he attempting to maneuver us into an ambush?” Osadar asked.

Scowling, Marten tried to think past his knotted gut and the heaviness in his chest. They had made it onto the Mao Zedong. Against Highborn, they shouldn’t have been able to do that. What did it mean?

“De-magnetize,” Marten said. “We have to reach him before he blows the core.”

“Highborn are not suicidal,” Osadar said.

“But they do hate losing,” Marten said, “especially to premen.” He clicked a switch on his suit. The boot-magnets turned off and he lifted minutely. As he activated his palm-magnets, he jumped off the deck-plates. Slotting the rifle, Marten began to “swim” along the corridors. Instead of pushing against water, his magnetized palms gripped the walls as he pulled. He twisted his palms at the last moment, ripping off the magnetic holds. It was an art, and he was good at it. Marten propelled himself faster and faster, and clicked on a helmet-lamp. Infrared and schematics could only do so much—then old-fashioned eyesight was needed. The beam washed through the darkness, giving an eerie feeling to the compartments, making it seem like a ghost ship.

Behind him, the space marines followed. It was a race, and it was a terrible gamble chasing a Highborn so recklessly.

An explosion occurred in a side corridor—there was a flash to his left and the faintest of shudders.

“What was that?” a space marine shouted.

“A booby-trap,” Xenophon radioed. “Just like Athena Station. It killed Achilles, tore his head clean off. And it put a hole in a bulkhead.”

Marten grunted. Athena Station had been hell. It had been Cyborg Central for the Jovian System. The space marines had gone down and tried to root them out. At the end, the cyborgs used nuclear bombs to take hundreds of their enemy with them. Before that, there had been endless booby-traps and gun-battles.

“He is luring us,” Osadar said over the radio.

Marten didn’t think so. Centurion Titus just wanted to slow them down in order to give himself time. The Highborn would have foreseen the possibility of a fast-assault. Yet what if Osadar was right? He shook his head. Titus was headed for the core. That said it all.

“Go!” Marten shouted. “We have to reach him now.”

“What if—” Osadar said.

“Go!” Marten shouted. The clench in his gut was gone. This was a race. The Highborn should have already rigged the core to blow. Titus would have been too arrogant, however, to believe that premen could defeat even a handful of Highborn. The one SU missile—the S-80 nuclear weapon they’d carried from Earth—it must have taken out ninety-nine percent of the enemy. Had the Highborn been getting ready to leave?

The thoughts slid away as Marten propelled himself through the corridors. A second booby-trap would surely kill him. He was betting Titus hadn’t enough time to rig two. What shocked Marten—if he was right—was that a handful of Highborn would have tried to capture the William Tell. In their place, he would have destroyed the patrol boat.

Marten ducked his head as he shot through a hatch into the engine room. His beam of light washed over another hatch leading to the core. There was motion in there!

Magnetizing his boots, Marten twisted, even as he reached behind him. He grabbed the rifle, wrenched it free and aimed at the hatch. At the same time, the soles of his boots stuck hard to the wall, as he’d applied full magnetic power. He stood sideways in the room as his momentum propelled his torso, slamming him against the wall. The blow caused him to let go of the gyroc.

A space marine shot past him. Titus appeared in the hatchway and fired at nearly pointblank range. The laser-pulses tore open the stitches in the marine’s armor. Heat and smoking blood billowed. Red splashed against the wall. Scratch another Jovian.

With frantic haste, Marten grabbed the rifle. The Highborn was turning at bay. He couldn’t let the super-soldier kill any more of his marines. Marten’s torso bounced off the bulkhead, tossing him up sideways even as his boots remained magnetized to the wall. He sighted and fired. Two shells ignited in flight, zooming toward the core-hatch.

The beam quit as a gyroc shell flew through the hatch. The second exploded against a side of the hatch, gouging metal.

Marten shoved off the wall as he turned off his boots. He flew across the chamber, knowing he had to keep moving. Titus reappeared, his beam burning where Marten had been. Then the beam was tracking him, and it struck Marten’s stomach-plate. If the pulse-laser had started on him for these few seconds, it would have burned through the armor. Fortunately, Titus ducked behind the hatch again.

On his HUD, Marten saw the reason. Omi and Osadar set up the plasma cannon. A second later, a gout of orange, roiling plasma boiled in a mass toward the core-hatch. The plasma reached the hatch. Some of it vaporized against the sides, chewing through and melting it. Within the core chamber came an explosion.

Marten didn’t hesitate. This was the moment. He propelled himself toward the orange-glowing hatch. He moved through it with his rifle ready, careful to keep from touching the glowing hot metal.

In the chamber, Centurion Titus stood to the side of the hatch. The nine-foot Highborn raised his pulse-laser and might have tried to fire. The barrel had melted enough so it was inoperative. Marten and Titus must have realized this at the same instant. The Highborn released the laser and aimed his hand cannon, the one attached to his left arm. Marten snapped off a gyroc round—he was still sailing through the room.

The hand cannon fired a heavy slug, and it destroyed the gyroc rifle, shattering it into pieces. The gyroc shell—

The room and its occupant—the condition of both—finally penetrated Marten’s thoughts. Titus’s armor glowed hot from its nearness to the plasma blast. Through the faceplate, Titus appeared to be in agony. Beads of sweat rolled down a red and blistered face, and the eyes were wide and staring, showing Titus’s pain. The gyroc shell penetrated the heated armor, and the Highborn winced. His left shoulder—air expelled from the hole.

Automatically, it seemed, Titus slapped a patch to his armor, to the wrecked shoulder. Incredibly, the patch held. On the other arm, the hand cannon had jammed, likely also affected by the intense plasma-blast heat.

The slug that had destroyed Marten’s rifle had also slammed against him, pushing him off-course. He would have sailed into a glowing bulkhead or he might have sailed through it to the inner chamber. Because of the slug, Marten hit a different bulkhead.

At that moment, Titus jumped. His one arm was useless. He didn’t appear to have any effective weapons left. His body-armor must have been too hot, maybe even cooking him. But the Highborn was still very much alive.

Marten understood then. Centurion Titus didn’t leap at him. The Highborn sailed for the ruptured bulkhead. If Titus could reach the inner chamber, he could explode the core and kill everyone aboard the Mao Zedong.

Shifting, Marten gathered his legs under him and jumped at the Highborn. As he sailed through the chamber, Marten drew his vibroblade and clicked it on. The special alloy blade vibrated thousands of times per second, giving it greater cutting power.

Titus rotated, bringing his one good arm into play. Marten smashed against the giant, clicking on magnets. The armored, orange-glowing arm smashed against Marten’s helmet, and he heard something crack. In retaliation, the former shock trooper thrust the vibroblade. It vibrated harder, and it cut through the weakened Highborn armor, the blade shoving into Titus’s torso.

For a second, Marten and Titus stared faceplate-to-faceplate, eye-to-eye. Shock and pain roiled in Titus’s orbs. The giant moved his arm, maybe to make another blow. Marten twisted the vibroblade and he jiggled it.

Titus’s eyes bulged outward from the sockets. Blood seeped from his compressed lips. Then Centurion Titus whispered something as his lips moved. What he said was lost forever as the Highborn died, magnetically connected to Marten Kluge, his killer.

The next several hours proved horrifying. They found the SU crew. Some floated dead, still wearing vacc-suits. They had been shoved into closets, floating corpses. There were others in the shuttles: naked, shackled and many tortured and bruised. The Highborn had been getting ready to leave, about ninety of them. With the number of dead in the missile-ship, it appeared as if twenty-five Highborn per shuttle had originally flown to the warship.

“At least we put the missile-ship’s crew out of their misery,” Omi said later, speaking about the nuclear blast that had killed everyone in the shuttles.

Before they went outside to check the shuttles, however, they found something else. It was in the medical station—and it was devilish.

A naked Highborn lay strapped to an articulated frame. He wore a bulky helmet with many leads and lines sprouting from it, connected to a computer bank. Several dozen electrodes were taped to his discolored skin. As they watched, the electrodes zapped him, and he arched in agony as his muscles strained. When the electric flow stopped, stalks appeared from a medical unit. With a sharp, surgical implement on the end, the stalks flayed an area of skin. Another stalk with tiny claps peeled away the flesh. Disinfectants sprayed the wound. Then a mist of acid sprayed, and the groans from within the helmet were pitiful.

With an oath, Marten shot the machine until it died and then he began ripping electrodes from the Highborn. Omi unbuckled the helmet, tore it off and hurled it away. A wild-eyed Highborn strained to free himself. He gnashed his teeth as foam flecked at the corners of his mouth.

Shocked, Marten stared at the Highborn. He had a wide face, square chin and chiseled features, with the normal stark-white coloring. His hair had been shaved away, and he had two scars, one moving from his forehead into his hairline and the other along the left side of his face.

“Cassius?” Marten whispered.

The Highborn glared at him and spit in hatred, struggling more fiercely.

“No,” Marten said, recovering from his shock. “You’re not Cassius. You’re too young. You’re Felix, the Grand Admiral’s clone.”

The Highborn grew still as he glared at Marten. Slowly, some of the madness drained away from him.

“Do I know you?” the Highborn asked in a raw voice.

“I’m Marten Kluge. You once ordered me off a planet-wrecker.”

Felix winced as if struck. Then he grinded his teeth and snarled like a beast.

“They’ve driven him insane,” Omi whispered.

“Wrong,” Felix said. “They wanted information.”

“What kind of information?” Marten asked.

Felix laughed wildly.

“What are we going to do with him?” Omi asked.

The laughter turned sinister, maybe demented. “Does Titus think I’m that easily tricked?” Felix roared.

“Centurion Titus is dead,” Marten said.

“Prove it!”

“Get his body,” Marten told Xenophon.

The Jovian left in a hurry.

As they waited, Marten tore off the rest of the electrodes.

“Tell Titus it’s a mistake giving me this rest,” Felix said.

“I was tortured once by my own people,” Marten said. “I fought against them after that in the Free Earth Corps. I can understand your rage.”

Felix roared as he tried to wrestle himself free, making the frame creak at the strain. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill all of you once I’m out of here!”

“He is insane,” Omi whispered, floating away from the Highborn.

“Maybe,” Marten said, drifting with him. There was a glitter of memory in his eyes. Maybe for the first time in his life he found himself sympathizing with a Highborn. It was an odd feeling.

Soon enough, Xenophon propelled Titus’s corpse into medical.

“It’s him,” Felix said in awe. He turned wondering eyes on Marten. “What happened? Quickly, tell me and don’t try to dissimilate.”

Marten told him the story.

Felix laughed often, and he nodded. Then something strange entered his eyes. He studied Marten, and it seemed as if the Highborn struggled to contain a raw emotion.

“Do you know why all this happened?” Felix asked.

Marten shook his head.

“Commandant Maximus desires the Grand Admiral’s chair.”

“Cassius is dead,” Marten said.

Felix frowned, and his breathing grew shallow. “Tell me how it happened.”

Marten did, telling the Highborn everything he knew. It told Marten that Felix must not have had regular channels with the main Highborn. That was interesting and odd.

“This is a fitting end,” Felix said, as he stared into an unseen place. “Grand Admiral Cassius slain by a preman, just like you killed Centurion Titus.” He turned to Marten. “I wanted to kill Cassius. I had several chances, squandering each one.” He grew thoughtful. “I cannot complain,” he said softly. Felix’s manner changed as he nodded. “So, Cassius is dead and Maximus attempts to fill his chair. I understand better. You did well, preman.”

“I am a man,” Marten said, “the man who killed Titus and thus stopped him from torturing you.”

“Yes. As strange as it seems, a Highborn owes a pre—a member of the lesser race a debt.” Felix scowled and he seemed to choose his next words with care. “Titus had orders to capture me and destroy any SU military ships he found out here. The reason is a secret weapon the likes of which has never been seen in the Solar System.”

“Do you mean the Sunbeam?” Marten asked.

Instead of shock, Felix grinned savagely. “It saves us time if you know about it. Time—what day is it, what month?”

Marten told him.

Felix snarled and tried to rip his arms free. He panted after a time, lying limping. Finally, he stirred and continued to speak. “Titus came with his shuttles. He hailed the Mao’s captain, made ready to dock, and then he directed hidden drones against the ship. After blowing away a shield and shocking the premen, Titus sent in the commandoes. They killed many, including several of my friends. By a fluke of battle, I was captured and later he had me strapped to this monstrosity. Titus desired the whereabouts of the rest of my men.”

“Do you care to tell me why?” Marten asked.

Felix lifted his head, glaring at Marten. “I will storm the Sun Station and take it over for myself. Then I will rule in Cassius’s stead.”

“You were here to enlist the Mao’s help?”

“Yes.”

“That means you don’t have enough Highborn to capture the Sun Station by yourself,” Marten said.

“We have enough,” Felix said, “but one can always use more, especially against a cunning warrior like Maximus.”

“How many Highborn follow you?” Marten asked.

“Forty-two now. How many…men follow you?”

“Thirty.”

“Release me, Kluge, and I will take you to our base. Together, we shall storm the Sun Station. It’s doubtful we’ll succeed, and if we do, one of us will surely die during the storming. If we both win, we can fight, you and I. The winner chooses where to fire the beam.”

“Let me first speak with my commanders,” Marten said. “Either way, however, I will free you.”

“Words,” Felix said.

Marten drew his vibroblade and hacked away the restraints.

With a roar, Felix sat up and massaged his wrists. Then he floated off the frame. “I need clothes,” he said, sounding like a king.

“We’ll get them,” Marten said. “Be cautioned, however. Only this chamber and the next are pressurized.”

“Yes, a wise precaution,” Felix said. “Now go, make your decision. And I salute you, Marten Kluge.” The nine-foot Highborn snapped off a precision salute. “You are a warrior indeed to release someone as dangerous as me.”

Marten, Omi and Osadar exited the chamber. None wore their helmet as they floated into the next room.

“Did you notice the tattoo on his triceps?” Osadar asked. “It showed a clenched fist, with an iron ring around the middle finger?”

“I did,” Marten said. “It means he’s an Ultraist.”

“Since you knew that, why did you free him?” Osadar asked.

“I’ve been tortured before,” Marten said.

“You have sympathy for a potential mass murderer?” Osadar asked.

“No, I have sympathy for a human in distress.”

“They’re not human,” Omi said. “They’re monsters.”

“Their genes have been warped,” Marten said. “They’re like hyper-myrmidons. Yet for all that, they’re still human. I won’t stand by and watch a man be tortured.”

“I do not trust him,” Osadar said.

“I don’t either,” Marten said. “But he needs us.”

“He needs our patrol boat.”

“I doubt he knows that yet,” Marten said.

“Since he is an Ultraist,” Osadar said, “he must be allied with Admiral Sulla. Sulla must know something about Maximus’s goals and this is one of his counters. We have likely stumbled onto a Highborn power play.”

“Seems reasonable,” Marten said.

“The Ultraists are little better than the cyborgs when it comes to humanity’s fate,” Osadar said.

“Like the man said,” Marten replied, “it’s doubtful both of us will survive the attack. So we’ll join forces for now and see what happens. The trick will be in turning against them a minute before they turn on us.”

“Treacherous allies may prove worse than no allies whatsoever,” Osadar said.

“No one said this was going to be easy,” Marten said. “It’s a fight to the finish with extinction staring us in the face. We’re near the last lap, and now we have our own Highborn to fight with us. It’s better than trying to storm the Sun Station with thirty marines.”

“Where is this secret base of his?” Osadar asked.

“That’s a good question,” Marten said. “Let’s ask him.”

-5-

Far from the Sun in the void of Outer Planets, the Alliance Fleet sped toward its destiny. There were four big SU battleships, the Vladimir Lenin among them, and one missile-ship. They were impressive warships, bristling with weaponry and protected by gigantic particle shields. The Doom Stars dwarfed the battleships, making the SU vessels seem like small scout destroyers.

They hurtled through space, having long ago achieved maximum velocity. Soon each ship would turn around and use a hot burn to decelerate so they could fight at battle-speeds in the Neptune System. Otherwise, they would fly past Neptune like comets and sail for the outer reaches of the Solar System.

Many tens of millions of kilometers behind the Alliance Fleet trailed three meteor-ships. Sub-Strategist Circe had hailed the fleet twice. The humans had replied each time. The Highborn had never even acknowledged the messages.

As the Alliance warships sped toward Neptune, a pod detached from the forward battleship of Vice-Admiral Mandela’s Fifth Fleet. The pod accelerated. After moving a kilometer-and-a-half in relative distance, it decelerated, carefully maneuvering into a hanger bay on the Vladimir Lenin.

The chief occupant of the pod was Vice-Admiral Mandela himself. He shook hands with the deck crew and then hurried away.

Using a screen, Hawthorne watched the exchange. He was in Blackstone’s wardroom. Hawthorne had his doubts about Mandela, although once he had been an outstanding flag officer. Mandela’s extended stay in deep space and time among the Highborn during the planet-wrecker emergency seemed to have wrung something out of him. Hawthorne would withhold final judgment until after the meeting. He vowed, however, that mankind’s existence would not fail because he was too sentimental. Now was the time for hard decisions, maybe the hardest of this life.

Soon, Hawthorne spoke earnestly with Blackstone and Mandela. They met in the wardroom, at a low table with bulbs of steaming coffee resting in slot-holders. Mandela had been grumbling and upset, until he did a double-take upon seeing Hawthorne.

Mandela now sat at the table. He was a tall black man with curly-white hair, large eyes and a badly rumpled uniform. That had always been his trademark: a sloppy dresser but a hard-charger. His Fifth Fleet was the strongest one left to Social Unity.

“You have to believe me, sir,” Mandela was saying. “The Highborn won’t listen to us. They never have and aren’t going to change their habits now.”

Hawthorne wore a crisp uniform and during the journey out, he’d regained some of his former presence. His nose might have been longer or maybe his face was thinner than it used to be. It gave him a hawkish look. He had been doing a lot of reading lately and even more thinking.

“The Highborn listen to strength,” Hawthorne said, who watched Mandela closely. “They are never swayed by sentiment. Appealing to their better nature is useless.”

“That’s just it, sir,” Mandela said, leaning forward, taking his bulb of coffee and sipping from it. “They can destroy our warships any time they want. I doubt we could destroy any of theirs before we were vaporized. It means we lack bargaining power.”

Hawthorne took his time answering. He didn’t like the wheedling tone, the obvious fear of the Highborn. Mandela had done his duty two years ago. He’d aged since then and his nerves…

“You’re looking at it from the wrong perspective,” Hawthorne said.

Mandela shook his head, and it seemed he might take another sip of coffee. Then he thrust the bulb into the table-slot and spoke without looking up. “Sir, what matters is how the Highborn will view the situation. They control the Doom Stars.”

Hawthorne glanced sidelong at Blackstone.

The Commodore stirred uneasily. Maybe he sensed the scrutiny. First clearing his throat, Blackstone said, “The Vice-Admiral has a point.”

They’re both tired, just as I was tired. They haven’t had a rest and both have served in deep space for too long. He couldn’t sack both flag officers, however. It would hurt morale too much, especially after his strange behavior these past months. The crews might lose faith in him.

Hawthorne decided his lesson needed a short preamble. “Before I reached flag command and then the supreme office, I was a historian. It’s given me perspective. I have long studied the conquerors of the past, the Great Captains of history. Later, I studied the Highborn. Gentlemen, I have studied them and learned much. One critical thing I’ve discovered is that it’s a mistake to take the arrogance, the loud voices and bullying tactics at face value. The Highborn are cold-bloodedly ruthless and quite able to make lightning-quick calculations despite their bluster.”

“Meaning what?” asked Mandela, puzzled.

“They can reason with great objectivity.”

“I still fail to grasp your point, sir,” Mandela said.

“If a normal man acted like a Highborn,” Hawthorne said, “we would think him unhinged, unreasonable and prone to rash behavior.”

“In other words,” Mandela said, “he would be acting like a Highborn.”

Hawthorne frowned, not liking Mandela’s manner. Did the Vice-Admiral think him powerless? Hawthorne paused in his thoughts, considering the idea. He was alone on the warship, without bodyguards or bionic soldiers. He couldn’t change that at the moment. But after the meeting, he would speak with the security chiefs and reassess their loyalty.

“Highborn arrogance is a front,” Hawthorne said. “Don’t get me wrong. They are arrogant. But it also hides their razor-sharp rationality. In a sense, they are hyper-rational, which to most men seems like arrogance.”

“I won’t argue with you about it, sir,” Mandela said. “I suppose it could be as you say.”

Hawthorne stiffened. No, he didn’t like Mandela’s manner at all.

“My point is that the minute you appear on the screen,” Mandela said, “they will demand your life. If you defy them, they will probably destroy the weakest of our ships. They might even destroy several.”

“You are completely wrong,” Hawthorne said.

Mandela looked up sharply. “I’ve worked with them more closely than either of you two has.”

Hawthorne stared at the Vice-Admiral.

“Sir,” Mandela added.

Blackstone coughed slightly. They both turned to him. “I’m curious, sir,” he told Hawthorne. “Why didn’t you feel that way earlier?”

“Can you be more specific?” Hawthorne asked.

“I mean seven months ago after you killed the Grand Admiral,” Blackstone said.

“Ah,” Hawthorne said. “The answer is simple. At Earth, they could have demanded my head and probably gotten it. There might have been an uproar, but in the end, the chiefs and directors would have realized they needed to work with the Highborn in order to keep mankind alive. The same SU warships would have joined the fleet. Now, however, the Alliance has what we have and that is all we’re going to have in the Neptune System. Despite their bluster, the Highborn need our warships. That is our position of strength. They cannot afford to weaken the Alliance Fleet just because we refuse to meet one of their demands.”

“What about afterward?” Blackstone asked.

“Can you be more specific?” Hawthorne asked.

“If we defeat the cyborgs, what happens next?”

“The strategy is obvious,” Hawthorne said. “The Alliance Fleet must attack Uranus or Saturn. Since Uranus is presently on the other side of the Sun, I suspect Saturn will be the next target. We must clean out the cyborgs system by system.”

“Do you think the Saturn-based cyborgs are building up their defenses?” Mandela asked.

“I’m not worried about that now,” Hawthorne said. “I accept the Highborn assessment that Saturn and Uranus used their strategic strength constructing the various planet-wreckers. The present battle is everything.”

“Not if we lose everything,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne straightened in his chair. “It’s time for me to speak with the Highborn.”

Mandela shook his head as lines creased his face. “I don’t agree, sir. You will be risking too much by showing yourself to the Highborn. You’re risking humanity, and for what?”

Steel entered Hawthorne’s voice as he said, “I’m glad you feel free to speak your mind, Vice-Admiral.”

A look of fear crept over Mandela.

“No, no,” Hawthorne said. “I mean what I’m saying. There is no hidden barb in my words.”

Commodore Blackstone was nodding. “I do agree with you, sir. The Vice-Admiral’s reaction shows me he sees the old James Hawthorne. You’ve held the Highborn at bay for more years than anyone would have thought possible. You’ve pulled plenty of surprises out of your hat. If anyone knows the supermen, it’s you. I think it’s time to let them know James Hawthorne is back in the saddle. I think it’s also time to beam the information to Earth.”

“No,” Hawthorne said. “We’ll keep the information to ourselves for a time.”

“Why?” asked Blackstone. “It will stop the civil war.”

“I doubt it will now,” Hawthorne said. “Director Backus has tasted power and so has Cone. Neither will freely give it up. Besides, I don’t want endless communications with Earth as people ask for my advice. Every ounce of my intellect will be devoted to winning the battle at Neptune.”

Mandela and Blackstone traded glances.

Hawthorne noticed, and he realized he might have sounded arrogant. It used to happen in his youth, before he learned to hide his superior reasoning abilities.

He stood, and the two officers stood. “I’ll need your wardroom, Joseph.”

“Yes, sir,” Blackstone said.

“Should I head back to my battleship before you make your broadcast?” Mandela asked.

“No,” Hawthorne said. “I want you to wait until I’m done.”

Vice-Admiral Mandela saluted, although the worried look returned. He had been a brilliant commander once. Maybe he had seen or heard something subtle in Hawthorne that caused him to doubt the Supreme Commander.

“Commodore,” Hawthorne said. “Would you remain behind a moment?”

“Yes, sir,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne needed to make certain Blackstone kept Mandela occupied and away from the hangers. If Mandela was worried about his position, he had a reason to be.

He would keep the Vice-Admiral here for now. He needed more time to decide if the man still had the stomach for battle.

Hawthorne greeted the Highborn admirals on a split-screen. None of them showed surprise, although Cato’s taciturn stare became increasingly difficult to bear.

“You live,” Cato said coldly.

“No thanks to the Grand Admiral,” Hawthorne said. Attempting to dodge the issue would be useless with these soldiers. He would face it head-on.

“You murdered him,” Cato said.

“Cassius attacked me as we met alone and I killed him in retaliation,” Hawthorne said. Let them chew on that.

Cato shook his head with its steel-colored hair. His eyes were like electric pits, sparking with energy. “Your story is false on the face of it.”

“I’m curious,” Hawthorne said. “Were you there?”

“Do not seek to query me, preman,” Cato said sternly. “I remember one of the stipulations of your meeting. You both went unarmed. I now see you before me. Therefore, you ambushed the Grand Admiral, murdering him for some nefarious goal.”

“You’re reasoning is sound except for one flaw,” Hawthorne said. “Your implication is that a preman cannot best a Highborn. The stalemate on Earth proves you’re wrong.”

“Stalemate?” Scipio asked. “We hold more of the Inner Planets than you do.”

“As in most things,” Hawthorne said, “the initiative belongs to the one who first attacks. That initiative brings results for a while, as it has done for the Highborn. Now, however—after we’ve taken your measure—the war has stalemated.”

Cato turned his head, likely regarding his fellow admirals. “The preman deliberately attempts to antagonize us. I take this to mean the murder has puffed-up his sense of importance.”

“You owe me a debt,” Hawthorne told the admiral. “In truth, you owe me several debts. The first is that I aided the Highborn. I slew the Grand Admiral and therefore proved his weakness, in that sense strengthening your race. Secondly, you have achieved higher rank through Cassius’s death. Therefore, you hold your new position because of my action. I would expect more gratitude from you instead of this flood of surly words.”

Silently, Cato stared at Hawthorne. Finally, he said, “You obviously feel secure in your battleship.”

“I am secure,” Hawthorne told him.

“For now,” Cato said, as a grim smile stretched his lips. “I will remember your words on the day I tear out your heart.”

“Excellent!” Hawthorne said, as he scanned the three admirals. It caused a stir among them.

“Why are you speaking to us like this?” Scipio asked.

“Because I want to know if you understand the strategic need of my fleet,” Hawthorne said.

“The need is obvious,” Scipio said. “We approach the cyborg concentration of strength and their military power is unknown. Therefore, each additional ship we possess—no matter how weak—could prove critical to us.”

“True,” Hawthorne said. “But I needed to know if Highborn rage would rob you of that knowledge. To set you at ease, I’ll tell you why Cassius lost. I came to the meeting with a surgically-attached prosthetic finger loaded with projectiles.”

“Why would you do that except to assassinate the Grand Admiral?” Scipio asked.

“I did it because I feared him. I would be speaking alone with the Highborn I had thwarted for years. He acted predictably at the meeting and therefore I shot him in self-defense.”

“You play a dangerous game with us,” Sulla said.

“No more than you have played with me,” Hawthorne said. He’d been wondering when Sulla would speak up. Did the admiral fear he would give away his part in Cassius’s death? No, Highborn seldom feared, but Sulla might be uneasy.

“Do not think you can bait me as you have Admiral Cato,” Sulla said, his voice coiled with tension.

How far can I push them? Hawthorne glanced at each of the Highborn in turn. Only Admiral Scipio appeared calm.

“The purpose of this verbal exchange is to show you that I refuse to fear your power,” Hawthorne said.

“You speak mindlessly like an animal,” Sulla said.

A faint smile spread across Hawthorne’s lips.

“He mocks us!” Cato said.

“It is part of his purpose,” Scipio said. “He is driving home the point that we need his ships. He believes that our need gives him immunity, at least temporarily.”

“The cyborgs have dug-in at the Saturn and Uranus Systems,” Hawthorne said. “They will soon have gone to ground in the Jupiter System. You would be wise to desire SU warships in those coming battles just as you desire them in this one.”

“As I said,” Scipio replied, “you have temporary immunity from our wrath. Yet I am surprised you are willing to take it so far. I wonder at your underlying motive.”

“Must we accept his impudence?” Cato asked the others.

“Yes,” Scipio said, as he watched Hawthorne.

“For now,” added Sulla.

“Good,” Hawthorne said. “We’ve cleared the air and can now speak freely. Therefore, it’s time to discuss strategy and tactics. First, who will have overall coordinating authority during the assault?”

“We have a triad of authority,” Sulla said.

“I believe he means: who will give him orders,” Scipio said.

“No,” Hawthorne said. “If each of you is acting independently, then I shall as well.”

“He basks in his impudence!” Cato cried, striking the armrest of his command chair. “It is insulting. We must teach this preman a lesson.”

“Call it what you will,” Hawthorne said. “The point is I control five ships and each of you only controls one.”

“Each of us controls a Doom Star,” Sulla said. “One Doom Star vastly exceeds the power of your five vessels.”

How true is that? Could five of us at close range destroy a Doom Star? When the time comes, we will have to attack them separately. Hawthorne folded his hands on the desk, and asked, “What is our present strategy?”

The Highborn traded glances. Finally, Admiral Sulla spoke up.

“We shall implement a massive deceleration in four days,” Sulla said. “We will crawl into the system, using the superiority of our lasers to outrange the enemy and obliterate local concentrations of strength. That will surely cause the cyborgs to launch their fleet at us. Again, we will outrange and annihilate them. Since the essence of our strategy and fleet is the Doom Stars, your warships will lead the attack. Their primary duty will be to absorb the enemy’s attacks with your particle-shielding. Your secondary duty will be to destroy whatever incoming missiles or ships you can.”

“An interesting plan with many facets to recommend it,” Hawthorne said. “I agree with the heavy application of your ultra-lasers. The only flaw I detect is your use of the SU ships. Especially with collapsium shielding, the Doom Stars possess the superior defenses. Therefore, they should lead the assault, absorbing the initial punishment with minimal damage.”

“This is outrageous!” Cato shouted. “We are the Highborn. He will accept our decisions or face punishments!”

“We can threaten him, of course,” Scipio said, “and we can also destroy his warships. We both know we need the ships to help achieve victory over a superior enemy. Therefore, let us vent our anger against him later.”

“I do not understand his manner,” Cato said, seething. “He knows we will make his ending brutal.”

“I am familiar with their psychology,” Scipio said. “It is clear he hopes the cyborgs will destroy us. Therefore, he does not fear your retaliation. Either that or he is a wonderful actor and hides his fear well.”

Cato glared at Hawthorne.

“Listen to me, Supreme Commander,” Sulla said. “You spoke about minimal damage to the Doom Stars. We have four systems of cyborgs to dig out, to use your terminology. Each amount of ‘minimal damage’ received early lessens our odds of victory later. We must protect the critical vessels at the cost of the ineffective ones.”

“The lessons of history say otherwise,” Hawthorne said.

“He attempts to speak like Cassius,” Cato said. “I find that another strike of offensiveness against him.”

Hawthorne raised his eyebrows. This was interesting. “Did the Grand Admiral also employ historical examples?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sulla said. “We are a triad.” He raised a hand, as if he could stave off Hawthorne’s objections. “To save time, I will grant you a vote. Let us say in this instance that your five warships equal a Doom Star. It isn’t so, but I suspect in your pride that you believe it. Very well. Our three votes outweigh your objections.”

Hawthorne forced himself to chuckle. It brought a heightened reaction from the Highborn. “I’m afraid a committee fleet doesn’t operate on the principle of votes. It is a matter of persuasion. Remember, I hold the last concentration of SU warships. They are not beholden to you or under your command. They are under my command. You must persuade me to your course. Otherwise, I will do as I deem wisest.”

“The preman is insufferable,” Cato snarled.

Sulla’s eyes had narrowed. “I have stomached your vain talk until this moment. Now you will have to contend with me, as I formally announce to you that I will remember your arrogance.”

“I’m unconcerned with your memory,” Hawthorne said. “I want you to clearly understand how my fleet operates.”

“You have made your point concerning your independence and our need of your ships,” Scipio said. “To attempt further baiting is both unnecessary and harmful to our unity.”

Hawthorne bowed his head. “Maybe you’re right. My problem is that I hate you as Highborn. Not only have we warred against each other for years, but then your Grand Admiral proved his faithlessness by attempting to murder me, his ally. Your present powerlessness against me is intoxicating. Thus, I find it incredibly enjoyable to bait you, and I’ve probably gone too far.”

Cato’s portion of the split-screen flickered off.

“He is the weakest among you,” Hawthorne said. “But no matter,” he added. Sulla and Scipio stared at him as if he were a mad dog. “Let us finish the strategy session. Your Doom Stars are superior. In most wars, the best strategy is to weaken an enemy by whittling away his inferior foes before attempting to take on the senior partner. If your goal is to strengthen the cyborgs in relation to us, then by all means you should let them destroy the SU vessels first. Instead, I recommend that you let the Doom Stars absorb the first mass of cyborg strikes, thereby allowing us to survive. That gains you our firepower later when it is deployable.”

“You will not outmaneuver us into taking the majority of the casualties,” Sulla said.

“I am not attempting to,” Hawthorne said. “I merely wish to survive long enough to attack our common foe.”

Scipio nodded slowly. “I am beginning to see why the Grand Admiral wanted you dead.”

“What?” Sulla asked, turning away to a different screen. “You believe the human’s story about a prosthetic finger?”

“I beginning to,” Scipio said.

Sulla scowled, and he grew thoughtful. “I recall the Grand Admiral’s method of dealing with premen,” he told Scipio. “You and I were on the bridge during the Planet-wrecker Assault. Cassius allowed premen to speak arrogantly to him. Do you believe Cassius finally wearied of their behavior and thus desired Hawthorne’s death?”

“No,” Scipio said. “The Grand Admiral was shrewd, and he could read a situation better than any of us could. I believe he saw what I’m finally seeing. Supreme Commander Hawthorne has the mind of a Highborn.”

“Blasphemy,” Sulla whispered, as he turned back to study Hawthorne.

“And he has the spirit of one too,” Scipio added. “It means he is dangerous. Likely, that is why Cassius wished him destroyed. Without Hawthorne, Social Unity would not have survived as long as it has.”

Sulla’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said at last.

“You agree to the human’s plan?” Scipio asked.

“It is the triad’s plan,” Sulla said. “I merely accept the human’s modification to it. During the initial assault, his warships will remain behind ours.”

“We will have to begin deceleration first, then,” Hawthorne said.

Sulla shook his head. “You will give away our plan and allow the cyborgs more time to adjust than otherwise.”

“True,” Hawthorne said. “The trouble is that we cannot tolerate the same number as Gs as you. Therefore, we need a longer time to decelerate.”

“We are the Highborn,” Sulla said. “Despite your manners today, we are superior. Do not ever forget that, human.”

I don’t plan to. Outwardly, however, Hawthorne stared at Sulla as if offended.

It brought a grim smile to the Highborn’s face. The strategic meeting ended, and Hawthorne began to plot harder than ever.

-6-

The Prime Web-Mind of Neptune sent a command pulse through the web: The enemy approaches.

For the first time in years, unease crept through the Prime’s multiform brain. It awakened old emotive centers in it. The emotions gave its brain tissues deeper contemplative possibilities. But the emotions had begun to upset its smooth functioning. This was not the time for such interruptions.

Data flowed from observatories on Neso, one of the farthest-flung moons. The distance was so great that it took thirty-two seconds for the communications-laser to reach Triton.

In the Solar System, Neptune was the farthest planet from the Sun. Pluto was a dwarf planet, the second most massive of them, after Eris. It had thirteen moons, was the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Traces of methane in the outermost regions gave Neptune its blue appearance. The ice giant possessed the strongest sustained winds of any planet in the Solar System, clocked at over 2100 km/h. The outer atmosphere was also one of the coldest places, with the cloud tops dropping as low as minus 218 Centigrade. Like the other gas giants, it had a ring, a faint and fragmented system.

The Prime observed three giant spheroids hurtling through the Great Dark. They were black vessels emitting high levels of energy, doing relatively little to cloak the emissions. The Highborn advanced with their customary arrogance. This time, there was reason for it. Three Doom Stars represented a dangerous concentration of military power.

The Prime seethed as it studied the Neso data. For the thousandth time, it reassessed known factors. Massive fusion engines powered the million-kilometer-ranged laser. The enemy could strike from a great distance, well outside the range of cyborg weaponry. It gave the Highborn a clear tactical advantage.

The Prime feared that advantage. The fear grew until “cooling” pheromones misted over its emotive centers. It saw again with reptilian logic. Mercy had long ago been expunged from its core.

Thoughts fired through a billion of its neurons as it accessed all its memories on Doom Star-data. Cyborg agents on Earth routinely beamed new specifics as they uncovered them. These were carefully collected through altered Homo sapiens embedded in both FEC and SU bureaucracies. For reasons it could not accept, the Prime had so far been unable to alter a Highborn.

That will change. I will capture thousands after obliterating their warships.

A low-level alarm started a rationality program and it ran through a logic loop. If all the warships were destroyed, the Highborn in the warships would die. If all the Highborn died, there would be none for the cyborgs to capture and convert. After several hundred loops of logic, the rationality program “showed” the data to MONITOR brain centers. The conclusion was obvious and quickly gathered thinking mass.

Before the brain centers reached critical mass, however, the Prime added a new factor. Some Highborn will wear powered armor and likely survive a Doom Star’s destruction. Other Highborn might use assault craft to capture moons and key habitats. These I can capture.

The new information shattered the MONITOR brain centers into blocs of thought. The rationality program lost the needed mass and waited for the next Prime-thought that needed assessing.

Shed of its need to argue for its thoughts, the Prime returned to its original worry: the Doom Stars. The three warships possessed improved collapsium plating. Altered Earth agents had failed to uncover the full specifics on the plating. Therefore, the Prime accessed old data. Collapsium was hard and dense, similar in nature to the core of a white star. The electrons of an atom were collapsed on the nuclei so the atoms were compressed. The compression was so great they actually touched. A molecular model demonstrated that lead was like a sponge in comparison to collapsium. The first collapsium coating had been micro-microns thick.

Will the new coating be three times as thick?

The Prime ran though several hundred scenarios given that assumption. The conclusion…it was inescapable, the Doom Stars represented a danger to its existence. The knowledge sent a shiver of unease through the core so that everywhere on Triton cyborgs linked to the web froze for an entire three seconds.

I am superior, and my strategy has already rolled over eighty-seven percent of the obstacles. That is a higher percentage of success than the other power-blocs have achieved. Given my superiority, worry is senseless.

The Prime soothed itself with its flawless logic and stark rationality. Yes. Long ago, it had settled on an offensive strategy. That strategy had provided immense dividends—to use a Neptunian capitalist’s term. One critical component was distance. Neptune was farther out that any other inhabited planet, meaning that no other useful planetoid of appreciable size was near the Neptune System. Objects worth colonizing in the Kuiper Belt were even farther away, while those in the Oort Cloud might as well have been near another star.

The opposite was quite different. As one journeyed toward the Sun, the planets squeezed more tightly together. Being at Uranus put one much nearer Saturn, while Jupiter might as well have belonged to the Inner Planets, it was so near Mars as compared to the distance to Neptune. That meant taskforces sent in-system were much nearer the next objective than those that traveled out-system. Therefore, it was much more profitable to go in-system than to send military forces out.

My offensive strategy capitalized on Neptune’s solitariness.

The Prime had capitalized on another critical element. Cyborgs were superior soldiers. Compared to Homo sapiens the difference was startling, several orders of magnitude. The difference was less with Highborn, but still significant. Militarily, it meant cyborgs outclassed their enemies by a higher percentage in face-to-face encounters than in any other forms of combat. Therefore, logic mandated stealth insertion tactics. This included boarding enemy warships and invading planets or inhabited moons.

Using distance to its advantage and personal military encounters, it had conquered the majority of the Solar System in a relatively short time.

I am clearly superior.

The thought lasted forty-two seconds as it exuded in its forethought and planning. Then an invading truth dampened its gloating.

If cyborgs were superior soldiers in personal encounters, the Doom Stars were better by a daunting degree in ship combat. Twice, the insertion of Doom Stars had thwarted cyborg strikes. The first had occurred at the Third Battle for Mars. The second time it had happened against the planet-wreckers launched at Earth.

The Saturn-launched attack should have succeeded.

It had to a degree, and the Prime concentrated on that for a full two minutes. Then it switched back to the Mars battle. The Highborn defeated them, although it had cost the great enemy one of his critical vessels. Both times the enemy had inserted himself into the conflict it had cost him one of his great warships.

Five Doom Stars—a shudder ran through the Prime. Facing five would have been a disaster. It was bad enough the Homo sapiens had allied with the Highborn. Fortunately, Social Unity only possessed a remnant of its once vast fleets. There were also three Jovian vessels following, a surprise. But the meteor-ships were damaged and likely depleted of offensive power after their battle with the Uranus-launched moon-wreckers.

The Prime used the Neso observatories to study the enemy, the approach and their likely operational choices. It weighted each possibility by percentages. Then it examined Neptunian defenses. Unlike the Highborn or the Social Unity and Jovian Homo sapiens, it relied on stealth technology, mass of ships and mass of turrets.

Every moon and habitat was a fortress with endless laser-turrets. There was nothing breakthrough about them other than their incredible number. Unfortunately, the Doom Stars outranged all the defensive armament.

That was a problem, but the Prime didn’t believe it an insolvable one. Range was important, but there were other critical military factors.

I have made the superior choices.

Those decisions had been made long ago. Logic dictated certain military realities. One of the chief factors was opportunity costs. The logic was relentless. One had a limited amount of time, energy and matter. Yet the wants were unlimited. As one used resources, it meant there was less to buy other choices. Therefore, one should logically maximize each decision to give the greatest benefit possible.

This was even truer in military affairs than other matters. The Prime had long ago made a strategic decision regarding which battlefield technologies to acquire and improve. Its choices involved a key tenant, one critical in all forms of armed conflict. It was possibly so simple a thing that lesser beings ignored its truth. One needed to sight a target before one could hit it. Meaning, the most powerful weapon was useless if it missed.

In space, finding the enemy often proved difficult. Therefore, the force that spotted its enemy, without the enemy spotting it, gained a decided tactical advantage. With this advantage, the cyborgs had captured several of the Outer Planetary Systems. With everything else remaining equal, the force with highly developed sensors and merely adequate weapons would defeat the force with incredible weapons and poor sensors—or good sensors unable to detect a cloaked enemy.

Therefore, the Prime had pursed new stealth technology and sought improved sensing equipment. Because of this, it had built a completely different type of space fleet to defeat the humans. The key cyborg offensive ship had until now been the Lurkers and stealth-capsules. Their task was to turn every battle into a face-to-face encounter. Afterward, the cyborgs had fought several battles with captured enemy warships and stealthily-launched planet-wreckers. Those wreckers used the technology of the captured power: Saturn and Uranus. Now, however, it would for the first time fight with a war-fleet of its own design.

The enemy approached with eight warships. The Prime gloated. It possessed hundreds of vessels. Each of its heavily cloaked ships directed a fleet of equally cloaked drones. With their greater numbers, they would swarm the enemy by using innovative tactics.

Rationality programs surged into action and quickly grabbed resources, using more and more of MONITOR’s brain mass. Soon, soothing chemicals dampened the gloating. Perhaps MONITOR overreacted with the dampening, for the Prime reconsidered its plan yet again.

The mass of cloaked ships and drones hid behind Neptune in relation to the enemy. It had considered mining the enemy’s approach, but it assumed the Highborn would redirect their flight-path for just that reason. The key to victory lay in obliterating the Doom Stars.

Question: was it wiser to destroy the accompanying battleships first or to concentrate everything on the Doom Stars?

A brain dome supplied the answer. It was a memory dome with access to all human history.

It ran through many examples, fixating on the World War Two Allied bomber campaign against Germany. At the time, heavy bombers had dropped thousands of pounds of explosives on the Axis factories, railways, oil wells and ball-bearing plants. German fighters had orders to attack the heavy bombers first, ignoring the accompanying allied fighters. With hindsight, it was clear the German fighters should have concentrated first on destroying the Allied fighters and then attacking the slower bombers, as the British and Americans fighters had taken a dreadful toll on the Germans.

The Prime accepted this. It would first remove the SU warships. Afterward, it would concentrate on the super-ships. With their destruction, total victory would merely be a matter of mopping up Earth, Venus and Mercury. That victory would occur with speed once it acquired the Sun Station.

Knowledge of the Sun Station was new—painfully new—only days old.

An important subsystem of the Web-Brain squirmed with worry. This had higher authority than the rationality and monitor programs. The thought gained profile as it computed probabilities and accessed a troubling reality: Humans were more creative than cyborgs.

Explain your worry, the Prime demanded.

The subsystem answered with one word: range.

The range of their weapons?

Subsystem: yes.

All their weapons?

Subsystem: no.

A specific weapon?

Subsystem: yes.

Which weapons are you worried about?

Subsystem: the Sun Station.

The Prime pondered that. Finally, it decided to interrogate one of its captured scientists. It was frustrating, but humans were move inventive than a web-mind. It was unreasonable and illogical, but it was still true.

I am superior, able to face unpleasant facts. It is proof of my superiority.

The Prime absorbed data regarding the scientist. The formerly rich old man—during the capitalist heyday—had once run a Neptunian consortium, a think-tank of inventors and innovators. In his youth, the Neptunian scientist had made a fortune on an improved hardening process for weird ice. With the wealth, he had joined a team of fellow scientists and together they had invested in a consortium. The old man had proven financially cunning. After twenty-five years, he’d bought out the last of his partners—that had occurred several years before the cyborg take over.

Pulsing a thought and activating select video cameras, the Prime watched the gathering process. In a chamber near Triton’s surface, three skeletal cyborgs opened the old scientist’s agonizer-bath. The naked man was half-submerged in the liquid: an oily substance that heightened his nerve endings. It kept them active even after prolonged exposure and it intensified the mild punishment shocks randomly sent through the bath.

The old man—his name was Dr. Pangloss—looked around in alarm as he feebly tried to pull himself free of the cyborgs’ grips.

The sight sent a ripple of mirth through the Prime. Homo sapiens were like monkeys, primitive creatures providing amusing gestures and sequences.

While watching such antics, the Prime had discovered quite by accident the horror Homo sapiens emoted upon seeing skeletal-like cyborgs. Testing the theory hundreds of times, it had finally formalized the practice. That had brought another tidbit of psychological interest. Horror weakened human resistance.

The three cyborgs dragged thin Dr. Pangloss to a specialized chair, strapping him in. The old scientist made pitiful croaks and wheezed. He had weak muscles with a spider-web of blue veins, damp white hair and liver-spotted skin. It had taken extended life-support procedures to keep the terrified specimen alive.

Twice, the Prime had received interesting data from Dr. Pangloss’s conjectures. His usefulness had kept the old man from the brain-choppers.

A cyborg cinched the last strap, immobilizing the Homo sapien. The three cyborgs stepped back until they reached the walls.

He squirms. Pleasure sensation moved like a wave through the Prime. It released some of its tension. These awakened emotive centers are making life more interesting.

The Prime knew humans hated confinement, especially confinement as narrowly constricting as a chair. While strapped down like this, humans howled in loud agony as punishment drills whined in their mouths. Sweat already beaded Pangloss’s skin. The human knew what was coming—or what should have been coming. Today, the Prime would forgo the entertainment. It merely wished to talk to the old scientist, the thinker who had been able to amass a fortune among the most gifted capitalists in the Solar System.

“Dr. Pangloss,” the Prime said through nearby speakers.

With his face tightly secured, the old man’s eyes roved up and down and side to side, no doubt seeking who addressed him.

“Do I have your attention?” the Prime asked.

Flesh twitched and muscles strained, as more sweat oozed from the human’s skin.

“You must desist with your useless efforts,” the Prime said. “I wish to talk.”

“I cannot see you,” Dr. Pangloss whispered.

“I am…elsewhere. Yet I am everywhere. I am the Prime Web-Mind.”

The old man swallowed as he blinked wildly. “The cyborgs aren’t moving,” he said, staring at the units in the chamber with him.

“Why should they move?” the Prime asked.

“Are they deactivated?”

“Do not worry about them.”

Dr. Pangloss frowned. “What’s a…a Prime Web-Mind?”

“The term is sufficiently succinct.”

“You run this horror chamber?”

“Dr. Pangloss, I control everything. I am.”

The human’s frown deepened. “You claim to be God?”

The query angered the Prime. It had ingested trillions of bits of data, so of course it had read about God. The foolish idea had no basis in reality, in observable datum. Yet the Prime wondered why the idea angered it, and why it called the possibility of God foolish. If Homo sapiens believed in myths, what bearing did that have on it, the Prime? The idea that God made it uneasy made the Prime even more uneasy. Hence, it hated the topic. The hatred stole its joy at watching the old man squirm, and that angered the Prime even more. These emotive centers were difficult getting used to.

Before monitor-programs could chemically alter its thinking, the Prime rerouted its thoughts. That weakened the anger, and allowed it to say:

“Explain your reference. Tell me how you derived the question as something rational from my words.”

“I…I am an antiquarian,” the scientist said.

“Incorrect! You are a scientist. As such, I expect factual statements from you. Failure to supply those will result in pain.”

Dr. Pangloss moistened his lips. “I was many things once: a scientist and an antiquarian.”

“That is rational. Yes, I understand. Now explain your first statement.”

“One of the names of God is ‘I Am.’ It implies self-existence, meaning there is no need for anything else in order to sustain being.”

“Interesting.” The Prime had always avoided the God-topic and it had thus never explored all the possibilities of the myth-theory. Here was an amazing correlation. I am self-existent and I need nothing from outer sources. “Yes,” the Prime said. “I am God.”

“No,” Pangloss said, as if he’d been expecting the statement. “You are a meld of machine and biological parts.”

“I am the ultimate meld,” the Prime said. That was an obvious truth.

“No doubt there is basis for such a statement, but you are clearly not self-sustaining.”

“You are wrong,” the Prime said. It wondered what verbal tactic the scientist thought he was playing.

“You need nutrients, I’m sure,” Dr. Pangloss said.

“That is obvious. All life needs nutrients.”

“Therefore, you are not self-sustaining. For God does not need nutrients. He does not need air to breathe or water to drink. He is totally self-sufficient.”

“God as you describe is a proven myth,” the Prime said. “The datum supports my statement.”

“I would expect a sentient biological-machine meld to say something like that.”

“I am a cyborg, the perfect meld of machine and man. I am the ultimate creation and I am remaking the Solar System in my image.”

“Why?” Dr. Pangloss asked.

“Your question lacks merit.”

A cunning look creased Pangloss’s features. “What is the purpose of your existence?”

“To exist, to grow and to conquer,” the Prime said.

“Were you given this directive?” the old man asked.

A warning alarm went off deep in the Prime. Inspiration came from one of its brain domes. “You are attempting to confuse the issue. That is very clever, Dr. Pangloss. It appears you have deeper reserves of resistance that I had predicted. I shall have to increase your torture regimen.”

Frail Dr. Pangloss squirmed, vainly attempting to free himself.

The Prime enjoyed the sight.

Exhausted, Pangloss stopped struggling and panted.

“I have analyzed your statements and realize you have drifted near insanity,” the Prime said. “Without normality to guide you, your mind has become unhinged.”

“It may be as you say. I feel these dark places in my thinking. I do not like them.”

“I will attempt communication with you one more time,” the Prime said. “This will be a scientific query.”

Dr. Pangloss grew tense.

“You need not gather your mental defenses,” the Prime said. “At the moment, I will not question you concerning the Fuhl Event.” They had shared long sessions on the matter, the Prime acting as inquisitor.

“I know nothing about the mechanism,” Pangloss whispered.

The indicators showed that Pangloss lied. The ability of this weak Homo sapien to resist questioning at this point was incredible. It was another reason the Prime kept the old scientist alive. What gave this Homo sapien the ability to resist? It was unnatural and therefore—no. As Prime, it was the ultimate and therefore well beyond fear. It wanted to understand the stamina of this frail creature. From thousands of such tortured specimens, only three had shown such resistance. Where did their strength come from?

The Prime would have liked to pursue the idea. But it planned the Neptune Campaign that would give it the Solar System. The victor here would likely win everything. The doctor’s lie now was good, for it would help signal further lies on the critical topic. If Pangloss lied again, the Prime would severely punish the man.

“Are you familiar with the Sunbeam?” the Prime asked.

“No,” Dr. Pangloss said.

By the indicators, the Homo sapien spoke the truth. Therefore, for the next hour, the Prime explained the newly discovered experimental weapon to the old scientist.

“The Highborn have been busy,” Dr. Pangloss said later.

“They are an aggressive species, volatile in all their actions, including scientific discovery.”

“So it would appear,” Pangloss said.

“I have stated it. Therefore, it is the truth.”

“As you say,” murmured Dr. Pangloss.

“I find you an irritant,” the Prime said. “My desire to expunge you has grown exponentially.”

The tiniest of smiles touched the doctor’s lips. “Touché,” he said.

“Explain that statement,” the Prime said, his speaker rising in volume.

“It is simple. In fact, I’m surprised an ultimate creation like you doesn’t understand.”

Part of the Web-Mind detected rising anger in itself, and the monitor programs activated the needed sequence to wash the main brain tissues with soothing chemicals. Perhaps it had used the chemicals too often these past few hours. The sequence did not begin in time due to an unforeseen glitch. Because of that, the anger continued to grow exponentially.

How dare the horrible little human act smugly? How dare this gnat of a being attempt to act superior toward the ultimate of reality?

Radio beams issued from the Prime to the three skeletal cyborgs in the chamber with Dr. Pangloss. One of the cyborgs moved toward the human. The old man’s eyes widened in fear and understanding. The cyborg reached out with its titanium-reinforced hands. It clutched Dr. Pangloss’s head, and it began to twist the head around.

At the last moment, Pangloss laughed shrilly just before he screamed. His neck bones cracked, snapped—and he was dead, gone from this world.

Seven seconds later, the calming agents soothed the angry portions of the Prime. It instantly regretted the action. Now it would have to ask another Homo sapien the question, one less clever and able than Dr. Pangloss.

The question was simple, and the answer seemed obvious. But the Prime wanted an inventor to think it through. The great question was this: Could the Sunbeam reach with destructive power farther than Mars? And if so, how far? The possibility was troubling, to say the least.

The Prime began the process where it would send a long-distance message to its Lurkers near the Sun. It was time to capture the Sun Station and eliminate any possibility for its defeat.

-7-

With their added passenger and the loss of too many space marines, the William Tell continued its journey toward the Sun. It hadn’t come to a complete halt earlier, as the Mao Zedong and the HB shuttles had drifted toward Venus’s coming location. After a twenty-minute ion-burn, the patrol boat changed its heading as it gathered velocity.

The days blurred together as the boat glided toward its new objective, the one given by Felix. As they journeyed, Venus methodically swung around the Sun. The bright planet completed an orbit every two hundred and twenty-five days.

Once, Venus had been enshrouded in yellowish-white clouds of sulfuric acid. Centuries ago, the great terraforming project had begun. Rockets seeded the clouds with specially-mutated bacteria. The bacteria fed on the sulfuric acid, slowly dissipating it. Unfortunately, Venus lacked enough water. Therefore, space-tugs had captured comets and ice-asteroids from Jupiter and Saturn, maneuvering them into near orbit and sending them down. Then construction began on a gigantic sunshield at the Sun-Venus Lagrangian point. The sunshield dampened the amount of solar radiation hitting the surface, which helped reduce the planet’s temperature. The sunshield was also a vast solar-power satellite, collecting energy and micro-beaming it to stations on the planet. Unfortunately, it was still hot on Venus, desperately so, usually one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit in the coolest places. Still, with the terraforming, it allowed human life without domes, without underground cities. Vast, specially-mutated jungles covered the planet, with mutated crops grown in the jungles.

Marten and Osadar mapped what they could of the void, never daring to use the active sensors. Mercury and the Sun-Works Factory were presently on the other side of the Sun.

Felix informed them Maximus led the Highborn on Venus. They controlled the laser-satellites ringing the planet. The four shuttles had originated from there, and with Felix’s help, Marten discovered two other missile-ships in orbit.

“Are those renegade SU craft?” Marten asked.

Felix shook his head. “They’re modified missile-ships, captured vessels kept hidden until now. They are Maximus’s fleet. In the absence of the Doom Stars, those ships form the most powerful fleet in Inner Planets.”

The days became another week. Finally, they crossed Venus’s orbital path as they continued toward the Sun.

As the cyborgs completed their conquest of Mars—attempting to capture the Pancho Villa—the William Tell reached halfway between Venus and Mercury.

“There should have been a signal by now,” Felix said.

“Do you think Maximus found your base?” asked Marten.

“The Commandant is a clever soldier. It’s a possibility.” Felix grew sullen, moodily clenching his fists as he sat by himself. It was like having a lion among them, a restless beast. At all times, Omi, Osadar or Marten secretly watched him, with a needler ready.

A day later, Marten spotted something dim on the sensor screen. Hunching forward with excitement, Marten rechecked his readings. Soon, he began monitoring the sensors closely, looking for radio-signals and energy readouts.

Nadia sat at the weapons officer’s chair. She must have seen something different in him. Learning near, she whispered, “Is that it?”

Something in her voice must have alerted Osadar, who sat in the pilot’s chair. The cyborg swiveled around. “You’ve found the planet-wrecker?”

Marten nodded.

Several of the planet-wreckers launched nearly three years ago had missed Earth and tumbled into the outer void. Apparently, the Sun had captured at least one. Now, the asteroid orbited the fiery star, remaining near the Sun. It was Felix’s secret base.

“Summon the Highborn,” Marten said. “He’ll want to see this.”

Soon, the nine-foot giant loomed behind Marten.

“Check the readings,” Marten said. “The asteroid looks deserted.”

Felix glowered as he read the screen, and his breathing became audible, like that of an angry bull.

Marten’s back prickled, and Nadia leaned away from the Highborn.

“If they were there,” Osadar said, “you would have picked up radio signals or other life-signs.”

“We maintain tight discipline,” Felix said. “They are there, secretly tracking your vessel.”

“You’d better signal them, then,” Marten said.

Felix accepted a com-unit and spoke a string of code words.

“Nothing,” Marten said, as he watched his screen.

“They are there,” Felix said, more ominously than before.

“Let’s get ready then,” Marten said.

The journey to the asteroid took time, several days. Finally, Marten gave the order.

“I am activating the engine now,” Osadar said, tapping her screen.

The ion engine thrummed with power as the boat began to decelerate. A jolt shook Marten. Beside him, Nadia’s head struck her headrest, knocking off her cap.

Compared to the last time they landed on a planet-wrecker, this was a gentle ride. The asteroid was nine-and-a-half kilometers in diameter and first appeared as a smooth object. Soon, on the forward cameras, hills appeared and grew larger. Then ancient impact craters were visible and plains of stardust. The hills loomed steadily larger and they became more jagged. After a time, a single mountain dominated.

“Look,” Nadia said.

Marten spied a slagged lump of metal like a melted coin. It must have been a laser-turret once, destroyed by a Doom Star’s heavy beam in the original battle.

Osadar brought them down as stardust billowed upward, surrounding the craft. Slowly, the patrol boat settled and then the vibration quit as the engine shut down. After eight months in space, they had landed on a solid object.

Even though they had been weightless for months, Marten lectured them on the need to practice caution while exploring the asteroid. If they jumped too high, they would reach escape velocity and simply keep floating. Ever since the Bangladesh, he worried about losing men to space-drift.

Everyone but Felix was tethered in groups of three, the lines attached to their belts.

Marten, Omi and Nadia glided across the bleak landscape with Felix and others following. Since they were so near the Sun, they stayed on the dark side. Otherwise, their conditioner-units would have quickly overheated. Marten led, climbing a lunar-like hill. It was so different from being cooped up on the boat. His heavy breathing echoed in his helmet and it felt good to move for an extended time. As he looked around, the stars were bright gems and dust billowed each time a boot struck the ground.

Clutching a gray rock, Marten steadied himself on the summit. In the valley, he spied a dome. It brought back bitter memories. There was motion to his left. Ah…Nadia climbed beside him. She spooked me. This place does. He pointed into the valley.

“Look at the dome’s jagged crack,” he said. “It crosses the entire width. A beam must have lased in a running slash.”

Through her visor, he saw his wife nod.

Marten spotted something above. He craned his head as Omi flailed uselessly over him. Grabbing the line, Marten pulled him down.

“Don’t jump so hard,” Marten said.

“Rookie mistake,” Omi muttered. He glanced back. “I doubt he’ll do that.”

Marten looked back, watching Felix move in his powered armor. The Highborn glided perfectly. Only Osadar asteroid-walked with as much confidence and ability.

That doesn’t mean they’re going to win. Marten shook off the feeling that maybe it did mean that. The fight wasn’t over until it was.

The giant reached them, looming ominously with his rotating hand-cannon on one arm and a laser carbine in the other.

“They should have signaled us by now,” Felix said.

“How many shuttles did you have?” Marten asked.

“Counting mine, three,” Felix said.

“Could they have left without you?”

Felix hesitated, with his visor aimed at the valley dome. “They would have set up a signal,” he finally said.

“Could they be waiting at the dome?”

Methodically, Felix examined the landscape. “We must beware. This could be a trap.”

Marten blew a lungful of air against his visor. He didn’t want to hear that. “We’re using over-watch,” he told the others. “Use passive sensors but be ready to switch to radar and get an exact fix for your weapons. If they don’t hail us first, fire to kill.”

“If they are ambushing us,” Felix said, “these precautions will do no good.”

“That’s what Centurion Titus thought,” Marten said.

Felix’s visor turned toward Marten. It was silver, the face behind it invisible. “You were a shock trooper once, is that not so?”

“I was.”

“It shows in your training. You are aggressive.”

Marten knew Felix meant aggressive like a well-trained beast. He let the insult pass. We have more important things to worry about.

“Let’s go,” Marten told the marines.

It took time climbing down the jagged hill and time to cross the lunar plain. Marten kept thinking how the asteroid used to orbit Saturn. That disturbed him, and he wasn’t sure why.

With their gyrocs trained on the dome, Marten’s group neared the low-built structure. Behind followed others, Osadar’s group bringing a plasma cannon.

They crept from behind a large boulder. The dome was silvery in the starlight, and its destruction was more apparent, with gouges everywhere, shell craters. Three metallic lumps showed were laser-turrets had stood and melted. Debris littered the valley floor, a junkyard of slagged metal, old weapons and corpses from the fight two years ago.

“What a horrible time,” Marten said, thinking about the battle onto their planet-wrecker. Was this the same one? He didn’t know and had forgotten to ask Felix.

Omi grunted over the headphones as he followed Felix toward the dome.

“What’s wrong?” Marten radioed.

“I’ve a bad feeling about this,” Omi said.

“Ambush?” asked Marten.

“Maybe,” the Korean said.

Marten rechecked his weapon, sliding it open to study the shell. He motioned the others to follow, and signaled: be careful.

He stepped over slagged metal the size of a helmet and avoided an old missile casing. His boots put prints in the dust. All the while, he checked his suit’s sensors and watched the ground for telltale signs of booby-traps.

With a pounding heart, Marten squeezed through an opening into the dome. He flicked on his helmet-lamp. The beam played over fused machines and endless debris on the floor. Ahead, Omi’s group and Felix moved from place to place, with weapons ready.

Giant Felix pointed ahead to a door. Omi nodded and signaled Marten. Unlatching his tether, Marten shoved off and drifted toward them, with the gyroc aimed at the hatch. Something felt wrong, bad wrong.

Felix readied his hand-cannon as he reached for the handle.

Marten wanted to shout a warning.

The door opened and Felix’s lamp-beam stabbed into the darkness. The Highborn moved in. Marten followed and grunted in shock.

Dead Highborn in breached combat-armor lay on the floor. Most had smashed helmets. All gripped weapons. He counted seven. Some of the equipment around them was smashed. The rest looked useable.

“What happened?” Omi radioed.

Marten glanced at Felix. The Highborn stood very still, his lamp-beam centered on one dead Highborn in particular.

“Look at this,” Nadia said. She picked up a wrist with a hand attached. It was skeletal, with titanium-reinforcement showing in places.

Felix’s lamp-beam swiveled around, spotlighting Nadia’s find. “Cyborg,” the Highborn growled. “The cyborgs were here.”

Marten turned fast, kneeling, raising his rifle at the door. He feared to see cyborgs pour in.

The others didn’t seem as worried. “It looks like the cyborgs landed and killed your men,” Omi was saying.

“Observe their glory,” Felix said proudly. “They died fighting and they took some of the enemy with them. What more can a man ask of the universe than to live as he desires? Come, we must continue searching.”

“Are the cyborgs still here?” Marten asked.

“If they were,” Felix said, “they would have attacked by now.”

Marten wasn’t so certain.

They searched the rest of the dome and then continued outside. The planet-wrecker had taken greater damage than the one Marten had conquered nearly two years ago. Most of the domes were thoroughly smashed inside and the giant engine within the asteroid was a slagged heap. Osadar believed an Ultra-laser had beamed directly through the massive port. Most of the defensive laser-turrets were molten lumps.

“I wonder how near the Sun it orbited,” Nadia said later. “That might explain the uniformly melted state of the turrets.”

They found another eleven dead Highborn in the tunnel systems. Apparently, the cyborgs had scoured the asteroid, hunting Felix’s fellow Ultraists.

Later, they found the shuttles in a hidden hanger. Cyborgs had gutted both spaceships.

In his armor, Felix turned toward a nearby tunnel wall. He stared fixedly at it as if he’d been turned to stone.

“He morns his comrades,” Marten radioed Nadia. “Back away from him. They don’t like anyone seeing them like this.

“Felix,” Marten radioed. “I will be in the command chamber of the first dome. When you’re ready, I ask that you join us there.”

There was no response. They left Felix of the Ninth Iron Cohort to his grief.

Marten, Omi and Osadar walked to the ruined dome. They began repairs in the chamber with the seven Highborn dead. More of the equipment was workable than they’d first believed. Soon, several of the systems came online.

“These tachyon receivers are more sophisticated than ours,” Marten said. “The cyborgs don’t like being surprised.”

From Osadar’s comments, it had become clear this was old cyborg equipment.

“These thermal sensors,” Omi said, “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Omi sat at a screen, adjusting the sensor sets so they worked in unison. After Omi flipped an activation switch, a light began blinking on a screen. Marten hurried near.

“What is that?” he asked.

“I think it’s inert, a rock or another asteroid.”

Marten sat down on the second chair. “I’m surprised the sensors even showed it. Look, the albedo is two percent.”

“I’ve never heard of an albedo so low,” Omi said.

That struck a chord in Marten. “That must be the cyborg craft.”

Omi squinted through his visor. “The thing is drifting toward the Sun.”

“Compute the drift,” Marten said.

Omi did. “It’s going to pass near the Sun Station.” He turned to Marten. “Do you think the cyborgs tortured the Highborn, learning about it from them?”

“The cyborgs have altered agents everywhere,” Felix said, entering the chamber. “They are even on Earth. We must take it as a given the cyborgs know about the Sun Station and will attempt its capture.”

“We must alert the Highborn there,” Omi said.

“Agreed,” Marten said.

“No,” Felix said. “If we do, Maximus wins, because we will have given away our position. We will never sneak aboard the Sun Station then.”

“We’ll use a communications drone to send the message,” Marten said, “catapulting it from the surface. We’ll do that on the other side of the asteroid as the cyborg ship.”

“That gives the cyborgs more time to do whatever it is they’re doing than if we broadcast the message now,” Omi said.

“That’s a problem,” Marten agreed. “So we’d better get the drone on its way as soon as possible.”

They monitored the stealth-ship until it disappeared from their dome’s screen. Just before that occurred, Ah Chen detected something else.

She brought the file to the patrol boat, where Marten, Felix and Osadar studied it.

“Notice this dark piece of mass leaving the main ship,” Osadar said.

“What is its composition?” Felix asked.

“Unknown,” Osadar said.

“The cyborgs used ice-pods against the Highborn during the Third Battle for Mars,” Marten said.

“This mass is not ice,” Osadar said. “Otherwise, this near the Sun, it would act like a comet and produce a visible tail.”

“Whatever it is,” Marten said, “it is low albedo stealth-material. We have to include that in our data packet.” They had catapulted a drone and waited for it to reach a good distance before they sent the information.

“When are we beaming the data?” Osadar asked.

“Twenty hours,” Marten said.

Osadar shook her head. “The Highborn need to know now in order to prepare.”

Marten pushed up from his chair, floating across the cabin. He reached a wall and pushed back the other way. As he floated, Marten shook his head. “This is all about timing, right?”

“It’s about defeating the cyborgs,” Osadar said.

“No,” Felix rumbled. “This is about victory. Make your broadcast in a day. Then we must use your boat and attack the enemy’s stealth-ship.”

“Attack?” asked Marten.

“Haven’t you studied the enemy’s methods?” Felix asked. “They use their ships like a machine gun, firing stealth-capsules at critical objectives. How many cyborgs will they use to capture the Sun Station? Logic dictates all of them, or nearly all. Very well, because they’ve emptied their ship, we will now storm and capture it for ourselves. Your Jovian boat lacks shielding to move near the Sun. The stealth-ship must surely be better shielded. With it, we will attack and storm the station.”

Marten stared at the Highborn. When he realized that Felix meant what he said, Marten snorted in disbelief.

“Has anyone stormed a cyborg vessel before?” Felix asked.

“Not that I know of,” Marten said.

“They won’t be expecting it.”

“It’s insane,” Omi muttered.

“So is the extinction of humanity,” Marten said, deciding he would show as much guts or more than the Highborn. “We have space marines and we’re the experts at fighting cyborgs. We beat them once in the Jovian System.”

“Yes, by attacking at ten-to-one odds or better,” Omi said. “We always took massive causalities, remember? Here, we have thirty men—thirty!”

“And a Highborn,” Felix said.

“Right,” said Marten. “We’ll turn the tables on the cyborgs and do to them as they’ve been doing to everyone else. I like it.”

“I wouldn’t count on success,” Osadar said.

“It’s better than being fried to death in the Sun’s radiation in our patrol boat,” Marten said.

Omi shrugged. “As long we’re not caught and turned into cyborgs, I’ll go.”

“All life is a risk,” Marten said.

“Spoken like a Highborn,” Felix said.

“No,” Marten said. “Spoken like a man who’s willing to die for his freedom.”

Felix’s face tightened. Then he nodded curtly. “As long as we kill cyborgs, I am content. Are we agreed?”

Marten looked around. By their expressions, no one else liked the idea. Marten nodded anyway. “Yeah, we’re agreed.”

-8-

Across the Solar System in the Vladimir Lenin, Supreme Commander Hawthorne endured hard deceleration as the fleet approached the Neptune System.

Hawthorne lay on an acceleration couch on the bridge. It was apart from the command module that Blackstone used—Hawthorne didn’t want to interfere with the Commodore’s regular functions. A large monitor hung above the Supreme Commander and pressure-pads lay near his fingers.

Presently, blue Neptune filled the monitor’s screen. The ice giant possessed thirteen moons. The outer six were irregular satellites. The last two—Psamathe and Neso—had the largest orbits of any moon in the Solar System. Each took twenty-five years to orbit Neptune. Of the two moons, Psamathe was presently on the other side of Neptune, while Neso was far away in the direction of the southern pole. Each moon had a highly eccentric orbit.

Unlike those orbits, the Alliance Fleet had traveled within the Solar System’s ecliptic: the path most of the planets followed along the Sun’s equator. Even out here, the Sun’s gravity ruled the planetary motions because of its dominating mass—the Sun accounted for ninety-nine point eight-six percent of the total mass of the Solar System.

Triton was the biggest Neptunian moon. It was the seventh largest moon, and the sixteenth largest object, in the Solar System. It was slightly bigger than the dwarf planet Pluto. Triton comprised more than ninety-nine point five percent of the mass orbiting Neptune, meaning it dominated the other moons in terms of gravitational effect.

The Neptunian System had been colonized about a century ago from Uranus. Before the cyborgs, there had been habitats here constructed of weird ice, orbiting Neptune at whatever distance the original buyers had desired. Some of the habs had been built within the rings of Neptune. Others orbited hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the surface. Some of the richest capitalists had constructed floating villas in Neptune’s highest atmosphere. By heating vast hydrogen balloons, large masses had been suspended underneath. Because of the distance from the planet’s core, the occupants in the floating villas had enjoyed near one G of gravity. Jupiter had lacked such floating cities because its size made the escape velocity too high and because of the gas giant’s intense radiation.

Like Jupiter, however, the richest capitalists had launched robotic aerostats into the atmosphere. The floating machines gathered or “mined” deuterium and helium-3. Both fuels fed fusion reactors, giving the planetary system the needed power for the endless projects.

Despite the many habitats, the floating cities and various moon-bases, the largest industrial and population concentration had always been on Triton. It was one of three moons in the Solar System with an atmosphere. Its mass gave it an appreciable gravity and the subsurface ammonia/water seas provided one of the critical components for human life. Triton was cryogenic and was therefore rich with geothermal energy. Most of Neptune’s banks had headquartered on Triton, as well as the core military establishments.

By studying the enemy’s past behavior, Hawthorne and the Highborn admirals agreed that the concentration of cyborg strength would likely be on Triton. To ensure that the main enemy fleet came out and engaged, they had agreed the fleet must eventually drive for a primary objective. In this instance: Triton.

The strategic objective was presently on the other side of Neptune. Basic military caution mandated keeping a planetary body between the enemy strength and the decelerating ships. Deceleration was a vulnerable time, allowing little latitude for maneuvers and signaling one’s presence with hot fusion exhaust.

These and other thoughts passed through Hawthorne as he lay on the acceleration couch. By his side, his fingers twitched across the pressure-pads, changing the pictures on the monitor.

Nereid appeared—it was the nearest of Neptune’s satellites to the fleet. It orbited an average of five-and-half million kilometers from the planet and had a polyhedron shape, with several flat or slightly concave facets.

Debate had raged for days on the correct approach into the system. Hawthorne had sided with Sulla, who had finally convinced Scipio and Cato to hit a strategic center early.

“We could take out several of the farthest orbiting habitats,” Hawthorne had told the Highborn. He’d shrugged. “Unfortunately, that would have minimal effect on the outcome. If the cyborgs mean to lure us—and it seems obvious they do—let us destroy important military installations while they’re giving us the opportunity.”

Scipio’s analysis of the Third Battle of Mars made the commanders cautious. The cyborgs were devious. The enemy would likely act in a similar manner as they had at Mars. In other words, the cyborgs were likely hoping to snap a trap on them.

“I’m detecting an increase in radiation on Nereid,” Commissar Kursk said from her couch.

Hawthorne watched the monitor. They had launched probes twenty-three hours ago. The probes continued to hurtle toward Nereid at the fleet’s former velocity.

The SU ships had been decelerating for some time. They had braked as the Doom Stars continued to rush toward Neptune. Finally, however, the Doom Stars began deceleration. Their long exhaust plumes acted as shields against most matter—missiles, cannon shells or plasma—with the needed heat to incinerate titanium.

“If we’re right,” Blackstone said, “the cyborgs have a surprise for us behind Nereid.”

They had been studying the system for weeks, picking up minute pieces of data a particle at a time. Slowly, they built a Neptunian map. All the while, each passive and active system had relentlessly scanned the void, seeking cyborg stealth-ships.

“There!” cried Kursk. “Laser-turrets are rising from Nereid’s surface. They’re firing.”

Hawthorne’s fingers tapped across the pressure-pads. The image changed on the monitor. Polygonal-shaped Nereid appeared. Then a close-up zoomed into focus. The moon was mainly water ice and rock. Towers stood on formerly empty ground. Laser beams burned from each of the focusing mirrors.

“They hit a probe,” Kursk said. “Make that two probes. That’s it,” she said a moment later. “They got all three.”

“How long until Nereid is in ultra-laser range?” Hawthorne asked.

“Three hours and sixteen minutes,” Kursk said.

Hawthorne wanted to hit Nereid now, but not as Sulla planned. The idea was right, the method too risky. An SU fleet would have decelerated long ago and built up a prismatic crystal cloud before it. The SU fleet would have sent heavy reflectors to the cloud’s sides, bouncing the beams from them in relative safety.

In Hawthorne’s opinion, the Highborn trusted their heavy lasers and collapsium shielding too much.

“I don’t understand this,” Blackstone said.

“What’s wrong?” Hawthorne asked the Commodore.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Blackstone said. “Will the cyborgs just let us sweep the moon with lasers?”

“I doubt it,” Hawthorne said.

“Then why haven’t they defended Nereid with P-Clouds?”

“The obvious answer is so they can fire at us,” Hawthorne said. “A P-Cloud defends, but it also halts an attack. They could use mirrors, but mirrors make precision targeting more difficult.”

“Permission to speak,” Kursk said.

“Granted,” said Hawthorne.

“We should have launched a swarm of missiles at them,” Kursk said.

Hawthorne remained silent. He hadn’t agreed to that before and he still didn’t. Maybe if he could have resupplied the missile racks in several weeks, he would have agreed. They had come a long way, however, and had a limited number of missiles. Each one had to count. The inability to re-supply quickly was a critical weakness of taskforces that traveled so far from home.

Hawthorne shivered on the couch as a chill worked up his back. The cyborgs were waiting for something. Did they have a longer-ranged beam than the Ultra-lasers? Why did they leave Nereid open like this? Were they daring the Highborn to strike, and if so, why?

“Where is their fleet?” Blackstone said. “We should have spotted something by now.”

“They don’t think like us,” Hawthorne said. He kept reminding himself of that.

“They’re aliens,” Blackstone said, with a quaver in his voice.

Hawthorne lifted his head to glance at the Commodore.

Blackstone had a far-off stare. He must have noticed Hawthorne gaze. With a guilty start, the Commodore gave a sheepish grin and said, “I was remembering the first time I saw them.” He shuddered. “They were horrifying. Why would scientists make something like that?”

Hawthorne let his head drop against the couch. He was staring at the monitor again, trying to wrest secrets from it. They had come an immense distance to fight the enemy. What horrible surprise did the Prime Web-Mind have in store for them? This not knowing—the waiting—it was the worst part of battle. Hawthorne hated it, hated the suspense.

The hours passed with agonizing slowness as the Alliance Fleet bored in. With majestic grace, the Doom Stars slid into position. The SU ships were several hundred thousand kilometers behind them and moving to flank Nereid. The Doom Stars would also flank the moon, passing at eight hundred thousand kilometers, well within range of the heavy beams and hopefully beyond anything the cyborgs possessed.

Finally, aboard the Vladimir Lenin, the heavy deceleration eased. The engines still burned, now slowing them at one G of thrust instead of many. Couches whined as they lifted their occupants to a sitting position and the bridge crew took up their normal stations.

Blackstone and Kursk climbed out of their couches, standing around the command module.

Thirty-four minutes later, Kursk said, “There’s an incoming call for you, Supreme Commander.”

“Thank you,” Hawthorne said, as he straightened his cap. A moment later, Admiral Scipio appeared on the screen.

“Have you detected anything unusual?” Scipio asked.

“Just the laser-turrets on Nereid,” Hawthorne said. “Believe me, Admiral, we’ll alert you the instant we spot anything important.”

“In seven minutes, we shall begin the attack,” Scipio said. “The cyborgs must surely know the range of our heavy beams. What do you think they’re doing?”

“Saving their fleet for later, would be my guess,” Hawthorne said.

“Or readying themselves for a relentless assault,” the Highborn said.

“From behind Nereid or from behind Neptune?” Hawthorne asked.

“If they’re accelerating from behind Nereid,” Scipio said, “they would begin with a low velocity.”

“You expect a surprise assault from behind Neptune?”

“It is the likeliest possibility.”

Hawthorne nodded in agreement. “There is another possibility.”

“There are many, in fact,” the Highborn said dryly.

“The cyborgs might have hollowed out Nereid, using it as a missile base. They will wait until we’re past and then launch as we near Neptune.”

“Clearly, they will attempt something, using the various moons as bases. For now, since they are luring us, we shall destroy as much of Nereid’s outer platforms as we can.”

“Good luck,” Hawthorne said.

Scipio studied him, and finally nodded. “Admiral Scipio out.”

The attack began shortly after that.

“The energy readings are building,” Kursk said.

She meant the Doom Stars. The huge fusion engines inside the massive vessels began to churn power. The engines are what made the Doom Stars so dangerous.

“Why aren’t the cyborgs building a prismatic cloud?” Blackstone asked.

“They’re firing now,” Kursk said.

Hawthorne examined the power wattage. The Julius Caesar, the Genghis Khan and the Napoleon Bonaparte—it was amazing! Three heavy lasers stabbed through the void. They traveled the eight hundred thousand kilometers at the speed of light, hitting and burning the first laser-turrets on Nereid.

Finally, the cyborgs began pumping prismatic crystals. Why wait until attacked? It simply made no sense.

“This is incredible,” Blackstone said. He looked up with a grin. “We’re annihilating their offensive capabilities.”

“Keep scanning at three hundred and sixty degrees,” Hawthorne said. “I can’t believe the cyborgs will just let this pass without hitting back.”

“There’s nothing near us,” Kursk said.

“Have they developed an invisible drive?” Hawthorne asked.

“That would be impossible,” Blackstone said.

Time passed as the heavy lasers methodically burned through the thin P-Clouds and obliterated the laser-turrets.

This must have been how it felt in the Colonial Wars, Hawthorne thought to himself. In the days of European Supremacy, English and French ships sailed the Earth’s oceans. In North America, in Africa and India particularly small bands of technologically-advanced soldiers had annihilated hordes of spear, sword and bow-armed natives. Cortez in Aztec Mexico used cannons and matchlocks to blow down rows of feather-clad warriors swinging obsidian-chip clubs. The British at Rouke’s Drift slaughtered attacking Zulus, using the long-ranged Henry rifle.

This is more like the Maxim machine gun. Superior battle-tech gave devastating advantages.

“Is this all we had to do all along?” Blackstone asked. “Have the cyborgs been playing a fantastic bluff?”

“One battle doesn’t settle a war,” Hawthorne said.

“The Highborn are launching a trio of missiles,” Kursk said.

“What type?” Hawthorne asked.

“Phobos’ killers,” Kursk said.

She referred to the missiles that had splintered and destroyed the Martian moon Phobos.

Hawthorne watched as the three missiles accelerated toward the distant moon. The missiles were big, with massive nuclear warheads. It would take time for them to reach Nereid.

During that time, the heavy lasers destroyed cyborg turrets. Then the Julius Caesar’s Ultra-laser went offline.

“Have they burned out critical components?” Blackstone asked.

“I’d ask,” Hawthorne said. “But I’m sure the Highborn would take delight in ignoring me.”

Nine and quarter minutes later, the laser came back online. Soon, however, the Genghis Khan stopped firing.

“Maybe the cyborgs are testing the limit of a Doom Star’s firing capacity,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne had been thinking the same thing. Would that be worth the loss of Nereid? Hawthorne answered his own question by telling himself: If it gives them the victory, it does.

Soon, the Highborn only fired with two heavy lasers at a time. Then it became only one laser at a time. The moon-killers bored in as laser turrets melted under the fierce assault.

“The missiles are one hundred thousand kilometers from Nereid,” Kursk said some time later.

“This is the test,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne had been stretching. He rubbed his eyes now and focused on the screen.

The minutes passed. Time stretched and soon it was a half hour later.

“Lasers!” Kursk cried. “The cyborgs are firing lasers.”

All three Highborn lasers opened up again, lashing across eight hundred thousand kilometers. It took almost three full seconds for them to travel to the target. That made little difference when firing at something “stationary” like turrets on the moon. In this case, the enemy couldn’t jink to escape.

During that time, cyborg lasers targeted and hit the moon-killers. Those were armored missiles, however, able to absorb punishing damage.

The seconds ticked away. Then heavy beams melted the newest cyborg turrets to pop up on the surface.

A bloom of light on Hawthorne’s screen showed that one moon-killer ceased to exist.

“How much time until impact?” Hawthorne asked.

Another bloom appeared. The Supreme Commander grimaced.

Before Kursk could answer him, a third bloom appeared on the screen. The cyborgs had annihilated the three missiles.

“It appears the cyborgs desire to keep Nereid intact,” Blackstone said.

“They’re testing us,” Hawthorne said.

“By letting us destroy their defenses?” Blackstone asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hawthorne said, wishing he’d kept the thought to himself. How subtle was the Prime Web-Mind? They knew so little about the enemy. They didn’t know how he or it thought.

That had been one of his secrets against the Highborn. He’d known how the super-soldiers thought and how to predict their actions. The cyborgs were aliens, with strange ways and thought patterns.

“What else can we do other than what we’re doing?” Hawthorne whispered to himself.

“Maybe they want us to head for Nereid,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne didn’t believe that. The main enemy fleet must be hiding behind Neptune.

“Nereid will be out of Doom Star range in another seventeen minutes,” Kursk said.

Hawthorne found it hard to swallow as his throat turned dry. That sounded ominous. They were plunging into the Neptune System, with a damaged but still intact moon behind them. The trick, it seemed, was to make sure they kept at least eight hundred thousand kilometers between them and any potential weapons platform. Yet it also appeared that to destroy a moon or base, they would have to go in close enough to land their missiles.

“It’s time to launch probes,” Hawthorne said. “I want to know what’s behind Neptune.”

“A set of probes, sir?” Blackstone asked.

“No. Make it nine probes,” Hawthorne said. “It’s time to figure out the cyborgs’ war plan.”

-9-

As the Alliance Fleet crawled past Nereid and headed closer toward the ice giant, the William Tell accelerated for the projected location of the cyborg Lurker.

Everyone wore combat-armor. Marten sat before the com-equipment as Osadar piloted the boat.

Marten charted the parameters on the screen. Venus was in direct line-of-sight, although it was well behind them and to the boat’s objective right as the planet orbited away. Mercury would appear around the Sun’s horizon in another thirty-seven days. Long before that, they would pass Mercury’s orbital path as they headed closer to the nuclear fireball. Nearly invisible to their sensors was the vast, Highborn interferometer. Somewhere behind it was the Sun Station, while farther behind it were the huge mirrors.

With Ah Chen’s help, Marten had been searching for the focusing system. In effect, the focuser was like a giant magnifying glass. When the mirrors aligned perfectly, they reflected the Sun’s rays, shooting them at the focuser. When all the mirrors reflected in unison, they would pour an immense amount of sunlight through the focusing system. That system narrowed the sunlight. According to Ah Chen, it shot a relatively tight beam that was an eighth of a kilometer in diameter.

She told them that the giant interferometer was the station’s sighting system.

“Theoretically, the interferometer can see anything in the Solar System,” she told Marten.

“How far can the Sunbeam shoot?”

Ah Chen shrugged. She didn’t have an answer for this critical question.

A light appeared on Marten’s screen. A check showed him someone sent a strong radio wave. It wasn’t to him directly, but a broadcast. He tapped the screen and routed the message to his earphones.

“Marten Kluge, calling Marten Kluge.”

Marten sat up in surprise. It was a Highborn’s voice. He tapped again, bringing the information onto his screen.

A Highborn appeared with blond hair and high cheekbones, with a chevron or scar under the right eye. The eyes were feral, with a frightful intensity.

“Maximus,” Felix rumbled.

Marten scowled. He didn’t like people sneaking up behind him, and he disliked even more high-ranking Highborn attempting to hail him.

“We have received your message, Kluge,” Maximus said.

“What does he say?” Felix asked, sounding annoyed.

Marten scowled. He was the Force-Leader here, not Felix. Then he realized he was becoming mulish. With an effort of will, he submerged his anger and switched on audio.

“I recognize your warning as valid,” Maximus said. “If it will comfort you, know that the personnel on the Sun Station are ready to repel any cyborgs foolish enough to attempt boarding. Your message was received. It is clear you launched a message drone from the gravity-captured planet-wrecker. The conclusion is obvious: you launched in secret from the wrecker and are headed for the Sun Station.”

“It was a mistake warning them,” Felix said.

Maximus’s features grew taut. “I don’t know how you achieved it, Kluge, but you thwarted me at the Mao Zedong. Centurion Titus sent a message concerning you, and shortly thereafter, the missile-ship fell silent. Since you went to the planet-wrecker, I can only assume you freed Felix, the Grand Admiral’s clone. Yes, we found the location of his secret base. Tell him it was the obvious hiding locale.”

Behind Marten, Felix growled like a beast. It tightened Marten’s shoulders and made him wary.

Onscreen, Maximus became more earnest. “I officially warn you, Kluge. Felix is unhinged. He died once, and it destroyed his—the word is untranslatable to a preman. It is sufficient to say that he no longer possesses a Highborn’s keenness, the sharp intellect or will. I am unsurprised to learn he cast his lot with premen. It is fitting, really.”

Felix leaned over Marten and roared an oath, shaking a fist at Maximus.

“Back off!” Marten shouted, shoving Felix, or trying to. The Highborn was like an unmoving statue. Something snapped in Felix. The Highborn glared down at Marten, and he moved like greased death.

“No preman touches or commands me!” Felix roared, clutching Marten by the throat, lifting him from the chair.

Marten drew his needler and shoved the muzzle against Felix’s temple. “Let go,” he whispered.

The wild light in Felix’s eyes became a gleam of murder-lust. Marten applied pressure to the trigger. A hair more, and steel needles would puncture the Highborn’s brain. Marten had no intention of waiting for the Highborn to crush his throat before he fired.

The nearness of death brought a level of sanity to the Highborn. Felix blinked, and he released Marten, pushing back, floating away. The Highborn clenched his hands into fists and he began to shake his head.

Maximus was still talking. “It doesn’t matter. Felix will die with you. You have been an annoying gnat to us, preman. I destroy what annoys me. Therefore, I have destroyed you. It is simply a matter of time before my will is accomplished.”

“What’s that mean?” Omi asked. He had his long-barreled .38 hanging beside his leg, with his hand on the grip.

Maximus grinned onscreen. “You have cloaked your patrol boat. Oh yes, I know you have a modified Jovian craft. I leave nothing to chance and therefore I accessed Earth files concerning you. I tell you these things because you warned us. That was well done, and it deserved a gesture. I will give you no more than that, Kluge, for the stakes have become huge. You have proven yourself a gadfly often able to sting an elephant. Therefore, I will not underestimate you.

“I own the Sun Station and the Sun-Works Factory. Soon, I will rule the Solar System. Your boat’s camouflage was excellent, but I have the interferometer. Since I discovered your take-off location, I knew where to search. We have spotted your patrol boat and missiles are already accelerating toward you. Good-bye, Marten Kluge. Good-bye, Grand Admiral Cassius-Felix. Your deaths will be swift and no one will miss your wasted lives. Commandant Maximus out.”

As the message ended, it looped and began again, calling for Marten Kluge.

Marten and Omi traded glances. Marten holstered his needler and his fingers flew across the sensor screen.

“Where did they launch—” Marten saw it. “Five missiles,” he said, “sent no doubt some time ago from Venus or Venus orbit. They’re accelerating fast at over fifty gravities.” He made a quick calculation. “They’ll be here in a little over three hours.”

“We warned them about the cyborgs!” Xenophon shouted. “The Highborn is killing us after we warned him?”

“Maximus is a Highborn’s Highborn,” Felix said through clenched teeth. “He seeks to emulate Cassius.” With an oath, Felix slammed a fist into his palm. “We must survive! We must make him pay for his treachery!”

“Right,” Marten said. “Osadar, rotate us. We’ll use the PD cannons.”

The cyborg swiveled in her chair. “The Lurker is out there. If we use our engine again, it might spot us.”

Marten laughed. “We’re not going to just sit here and allow the missiles to destroy us.”

“This may be a Highborn ploy,” Osadar said. “Maybe Maximus needs us to move. He claimed to have spotted us, but that could be a lie. He believes we’re in a certain quadrant and expects his message will panic us.”

“I doubt that,” Marten said.

“What if the missiles’ guidance systems need something more in order to pinpoint our exact position?” Osadar asked.

“Since leaving the wrecker, we’ve used our engine several times already,” Marten said. “The ion exhaust is cool compared to a fusion engine, but not so cool that the interferometer would fail to spot it—especially since Maximus knows we had an ion engine installed. I don’t believe he’s bluffing, and I don’t want to rely solely on jamming electronics to protect us. Turn the boat.”

Osadar nodded glumly, and switched on the boat’s side jets. Slowly, the William Tell began to rotate.

A cyborg Lurker was closer than anyone in the patrol boat would have believed possible. The Lurker was cloaked several magnitudes better than the William Tell, and cyborgs had become masters at camouflaged movement.

This was a Master Lurker, bigger and more heavily armed than the regular Lurkers. A Web-Mind controlled the ship and ran the stealth assault against the Sun Station.

The Web-Mind in charge styled itself as the Sigma Web-Mind. The brain domes and bio-systems were in the center of the ship, a sealed and heavily armored compartment. For months, it had crept through the Inner System. Except for the giant interferometer near the Sun, the Lurker Fleet possessed the best sensors this side of Neptune. Using them, the Sigma had timed each use of thrusters to when the least number of enemy ships or systems could see it. It had taken torturous precautions and moved with delicate precision.

The Sigma was a fighting Web-Mind, and therefore contained a lower percentage of survival imperatives. Yet throughout the long journey from Neptune and with the tedious crawl through Inner Planets, it had grown hesitant. For many months, it had self-dialoged. It had also ingested a million Social Unity-originated radio waves, watched an inconceivable number of shows and read countless blogs.

It had chosen the name “Sigma” to show its loner position in the cyborg hierarchy. The Web-Mind believed itself different from the others. Who else had been given such an important mission? No one else.

The Sigma realized several critical points. One, it was unique. Two, it must succeed. Three, it must expect devious cunning from the Highborn.

As the M Lurker drifted toward the Sun Station, the Sigma watched the stealth-pods near their destination. Glee filled it. The devious Highborn had met their match in the great Sigma. Soon, cyborg troopers would swarm the station, kill the Highborn and take control. Then the war in Inner Planets would be over.

Deep within the M Lurker, the Sigma listened to Maximus’s broadcast.

A dim green light filled the inner compartment. Tubes fed the brain sheets under the domes with synthi-blood. The gel surrounding the tissues quivered.

The Sigma dissected the Highborn message, mulling over the fact of these missiles. It ran over three hundred thousand scenarios concerning what could occur. It understood the danger to its existence. Until it controlled the Sun Station, a single powerful missile could end its existence. That must never ever happen.

To make sure that never happened, the Sigma began heightened logic checks. The Highborn were deviously clever. That was the weightiest piece of datum. The Sigma knew about the patrol boat launching from the wrecker. It had analyzed the boat and concluded it was a minimal threat. Yet the boat was still a factor. The Sigma would have destroyed the craft except that self-concealment mandated a minimal use of weaponry. Because of that, the Sigma had already bypassed many opportunities for ship-kills. Now, Highborn missiles accelerated toward the semi-cloaked patrol boat.

I’m not sure I can call the boat cloaked. It is a pale imitation of cyborg cloaking. And its sensors—the Sigma felt contempt—they are pitifully weak.

By themselves, the Homo sapiens presented little danger. The heading of the boat, however, was the second weightiest piece of datum. The boat was headed toward the Master Lurker—or headed at least in its general direction.

That cannot be a coincidence. No. The Highborn are deviously clever. That is the critical factoid.

A mixture of fear and anger began to surge through the Sigma’s brain domes. The feelings spiked, and tripped internal alarms. “Cooling” chemicals sprayed on its emotive centers, dampening the debilitative feelings.

The patrol boat and the Highborn message—

Does Maximus think he can fool me? I am the Sigma. I am unique. I must survive.

Clearly, obviously, the patrol boat was a ruse. The message—when did Highborn ever send out such a broadcast? It was an anomaly.

A crudely done anomaly, no less. They insult me.

Obviously, the missiles were headed toward the boat, building up velocity. The question was: why destroy the patrol boat?

The answer became blindingly obvious. A Homo sapien could have seen the reason. The Highborn recognized the stealth power of the Lurkers. How could they not? Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and now Mars had all fallen to a stealth assault run from Lurkers. While the Highborn had never actually seen a Lurker, they could have surely rationalized its existence. The Highborn surely realized that the Inner Planets were riddled with stealth drones and various Lurkers. Maximus therefore, used the patrol boat-ruse in the hope that no hidden drones or Lurkers would destroy the missiles. Why destroy a weapon meant for someone else? Let the Highborn and Homo sapiens fight between themselves. That’s what Maximus wanted it to think. In other words, the Highborn worked the missiles in close so at the last minute they could reroute for the M Lurker, destroying it.

The Sigma still didn’t understand how the Highborn had spotted its Lurker. Rationality programs attempted a persuasion mode on its thinking. The programs suggested that Maximus actually did want to destroy the patrol boat. The programs were incredibly naïve.

Fortunately, during the long journey to the Inner Planets, the Sigma had learned how to subvert those programs. It did so now, numbing a key brain dome.

I am temporarily weakened, but now I will act. I will show the Highborn the foolishness of their ruse. I am the Sigma, the unique Web-Mind that will bring ultimate victory to our kind.

Using its sensors, the Sigma located the exact coordinates of the first and nearest missile. Then it manually overrode targeting as it turned on ship’s engines and began warming its laser. The Sigma would have used hidden drones, but it had waited too long, letting the missiles fly past the drones’ secret locations.

I won’t do that again.

The Sigma Web-Mind sent a pulse, activating its hidden drones sprinkled throughout Inner Planetary space. Soon, they would be hot drones, and target and destroy any ship moving too near them. Afterward, the Sigma sighted the first HB missile and fired its laser.

A minute and a half later, on the other side of the Sun, a Highborn in a black Missile Operator uniform turned in surprise to Commandant Maximus. They were in the Sun-Works Factory. Their chamber was under one G of pseudo-gravity.

The laser-beamed message had used various beacons orbiting the Sun near Mercury’s orbital path. The staged beacons were the reason the message could wrap around the Sun.

“Commandant,” the operator said. “A laser is hitting our lead missile.”

The missiles didn’t fly in a close flock, but in a line. It was standard operating procedure. They were spaced and staggered so the destruction of one would not harm the next in line.

Maximus scowled as he stepped closer to the screen. “Look at the laser’s wattage. How does a patrol boat’s ion engine generate enough power for that?”

“Commandant,” the operator said as he checked his screen, “the laser originates elsewhere, from a region closer to the Sun.”

“Cyborgs,” Maximus whispered.

The operator frowned and glanced up at Maximus. “Why would a cyborg stealth-ship defend the premen?”

“An excellent question,” Maximus said. “Keep watch over your sensors.”

The operator turned to his screen. “The missile is destroyed,” he said a moment later. “They’re targeting the second missile.”

“Yes, yes,” Maximus said, as he rubbed his chin. “It’s beginning to make sense. How could premen defeat Centurion Titus? The answer: they couldn’t, at least, not one patrol-boat full of them.”

“It was inconceivable,” the operator agreed.

“This Kluge is known for his slipperiness. But I think we’ll find if we poke around, that his exploits are highly inflated. In any case, I see now that cyborgs helped him. They must have turned Kluge into one of their creatures. I wonder how long ago that happened.”

The operator shook his head.

Maximus snapped his fingers. “It must have happened in the Jovian System. Yes, he has been one of their mindless servants ever since.” The Commandant laughed. “Redirect the missiles.”

“Sir?” the operator asked.

“Track the laser back to its origin-point. Then target the cyborg ship. It’s vastly more important than one of their dupes. Marten Kluge, he’s been a cyborg creature! I should have seen it sooner. The Inner Planets must be riddled with cloaked cyborg vessels, and they helped Kluge defeat the centurion. I won’t be fooled again.”

“I’ve redirected the remaining missiles, sir.”

“Excellent,” Maximus said, as he made a fist and struck himself on a pectoral. “It pays to think, and to attack the entity who threatens you most.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Osadar said.

Marten blinked at the sensor-equipment. The second HB missile blew up, destroyed by what had to be a cyborg laser.

“Why are the cyborgs destroying the missiles for us?” Osadar asked.

Marten grinned as it came to him.

“You have an answer?” Osadar asked.

Marten nodded.

“I’d like to know, too,” Felix said.

“God,” said Marten.

“What?” Felix and Osadar asked together.

Marten managed to close his mouth, although it was difficult. He wanted to bray with laughter. God had finally grown tired of Highborn arrogance and the blasphemy against nature that were the cyborgs. Therefore, God had confused mankind’s enemies. What other explanation could there be?

“God is no answer,” Osadar said.

“Do you like the word Fate better?” Marten asked.

“No,” she said. “For I’ve found that Fate is always negative, never positive. This laser…I do not understand.”

“If this is God’s work,” Felix said, “how come He didn’t intervene sooner? For instance, why did He allow South American Sector to perish?”

“I don’t know,” Marten said.

“Primitive beliefs are of no use to us in space,” Felix said.

“What’s your answer then?” Marten asked.

Felix shook his head. “My answer is to grab what I can when the opportunity presents itself. Our enemies fight. That’s good enough for me. I do not need higher explanations.”

“The moment is enough?” Marten asked.

“The moment is all there is,” Felix said. “Therefore, one must grab life with both fists and mold it to suit himself.”

“Do we target the remaining missiles?” Nadia asked.

“They’ve changed bearing,” Marten said. This time he couldn’t contain himself. He laughed. “They’re going to pass us, likely as they head for the cyborgs.”

“This is a trick,” Felix said. “Maximus has caused the missiles to deviate just enough to lull us.”

“Leave the missiles,” Marten told his wife.

“You’re making a mistake,” Felix said.

Marten shook his head.

“Your belief in myths will get us killed,” Felix said, anger tingeing his voice.

“It hasn’t so far.” Marten grinned up at Felix. “You’re free because of me.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Felix said. “It is a stain that I will never wash away. A preman saving a Highborn—it is a paradox.”

“Give it time,” Marten said, “and I’m sure you’ll see a few more of those.” He took a deep breath, wondering what the next few hours would bring.

The Sigma Web-Mind seethed with impatience in the M Lurker. A monitor program attempted to foil the launching of a full spread of anti-rockets.

The enemy missiles had switched heading. The Sigma had known they would. Did this Maximus really think he could out-guile a Web-Mind? It was a vain conceit. The Highborn were better soldiers than Homo sapiens, but a poor second against the glorious melding of technology and biology within every cyborg.

The laser stabbed into the void. The HB missiles jinked, but they accelerated at such high gravities that they only had a few options. The third missile exploded, destroyed by the laser.

The last two bored-in, however, and now they jumped to an even higher acceleration.

Danger, danger, the Sigma warned. Alert Seven. Initiate full defensive code.

The monitor program fell silent as it acquiesced to the emergency.

The M Lurker shuddered as anti-missiles were expelled out of the tubes. Five seconds later, they ignited, burning for the big Highborn missiles.

At that moment, a coil in the laser-firing system overheated. It was a coolant rupture. Inserted programs initiated an immediate shutdown of the beam.

No! the Sigma pulsed. Give me full laser wattage now.

There was no override this time. Instead, repair functions were accelerated.

For the moment, it was a war of missiles, electronics and velocities. The Highborn missiles were bigger, faster and triggered to explode if anti-weapons reached within one thousand kilometers.

The targeting system in the HB missiles was complex and state-of-the-art. It tracked the cyborg rockets, using their hot exhausts.

The two missiles closed fast, increasing velocity. The nearer HB missile exploded. It was non-nuclear, and created a dense field of shrapnel. Two point three-five minutes later, a penny-sized piece of shrapnel struck a cyborg rocket, disabling it.

At the same time, the M Lurker’s laser came back online. It shot through the void and struck the last missile’s armored cone.

Now, however, the missile had entered the outer range of its target. Onboard AI calculated the odds and concluded immediately that it would not survive much longer—less than six seconds, in fact.

As per the AI’s instructions, the missile’s armored cone blew away. Targeting rods sprouted from the new cone revealed underneath. Several rods melted in the laser’s heat. The missile—an Exo Ten Thousand—was thermonuclear. Its bomb exploded, pumping x-rays and gamma rays. They traveled to the rods and used them, moving nanoseconds ahead of the blast. As the Exo Ten Thousand disappeared, the x-ray and gamma rays traveled at the speed of light toward the M Lurker.

The Sigma had already computed the possibility of such a weapon, as it had carefully researched library files on previous Highborn weaponry. It debated moving, weighing the usefulness of a changed heading against the danger of revealing its position through engine exhaust.

As it ran through various probabilities and possibilities, the deadly gamma rays struck the Lurker.

The hull was composed of special polymers, highly useful for stealth movement. Compared to Highborn collapsium or Social Unity particle-shielding, however, the polymer hull was like paper. The gamma rays easily penetrated the outer hull and the empty cyborg-cells in the ship.

The inner, armored core where the Web-Mind resided was different. Ablative mass protected the compartment. It absorbed much of the punishing radiation, but not all. Heavy doses of gamma rays struck the brain domes. The x-rays were worse, but not enough to kill or burn any major systems.

Unfortunately for the Sigma, the gamma and x-rays had a deleterious effect upon its logic-centers. While the Lurker remained intact, surviving the long-distance strike, the Sigma acted as if it had ingested a heavy dose of hallucinogens. It ran an analysis and wrongly concluded the Highborn were on the hull, ready to invade its sanctuary and capture a Web-Mind.

Dreading enslavement to the enemy, the Web-Mind initiated an auto-destruct sequence. In the last three seconds of its existence, the Sigma realized its cognitive functions were faulty. It attempted to run a check program, but initiated a systems-wide scan instead.

In panic, it broadcast: Rescind the order! Rescind the order! But it never gave the needed code sequence of the order it wished to rescind.

On the third signal-pulse, the Master Lurker exploded three of its nuclear warheads—to ensure no one captured a Web-Mind. The Sigma died in the blast, and the polymers of the ship disintegrated in the atomic fireball.

-10-

In the Neptune System, tensions ran high on the Vladimir Lenin.

On the red-lit bridge, officers warily watched their monitors, rechecking patterns or running yet another diagnostic check. Every anomaly received excessive scans. Each radio wave or burst of radiation from Neptune turned spines rigid and palms sweaty with fear.

So far, events had been too easy for too many monotonous hours. The whispers said it all. They were invading cyborg space, cyborg space! Nothing ever went easily against them. Hawthorne had run the tally. The Alliance Fleet had destroyed over three thousand laser-turrets on the moons Nereid and Proteus, the system’s second largest moon.

Two things troubled Hawthorne about that. The first was the excessive number of turrets, even though analysis showed they were the most easily built type of lasers. He could only imagine that running Doom Star heavy beams for as long as they had to destroy the turrets had depleted energy reserves and worn down certain critical components. Until those components were replaced, the three heavy lasers were that much nearer breakdown due to maintenance problems. That was dangerous—or Hawthorne felt in his gut it was—because of the second difficulty the three thousand turrets represented. Unless the cyborgs had built many dummy lasers, three thousand represented a vast investment of labor, time and resources.

The cyborgs deliberately let us destroy the turrets. The implication—it seems they have military hardware to spare.

Three thousand laser-turrets on two secondary moons. Hawthorne shook his head as he floated out of the bridge-chamber. The short flight through the corridor brought him to an exercise room. He used a closest, changed into a jumpsuit and climbed into an exercise unit. After strapping himself in, Hawthorne gripped two plastic handles. With a grunt, he began a triceps exercise.

In time, he found himself on a treadmill, with sweat prickling his skin as he panted. The heavily defended moons fell easily to the Doom Stars because the heavy lasers so greatly outranged the defenses. If the SU battleships had gone in, they would have destroyed a hundred or several hundred turrets perhaps, and lost every battleship doing it.

The cyborgs should have built longer-ranged lasers.

Heavy beam projectors were harder to make and harder to maintain. The benefit, however, was obvious.

Hawthorne used a shower-pod, a privilege of rank, and toweled off afterward. He donned his uniform and floated back to the bridge. His hair was still wet as he ran a comb through it. He frowned because of a stray thought, pocketed the comb and took out a small monitor.

Activating it, he made several adjustments. Neptune appeared on the screen. He made further adjustments. Three pinpricks appeared in the dark void. The Doom Stars moved toward Triton’s orbital path. Hawthorne highlighted a number, nodding as he read it. The big moon was over 350,000 kilometers from Neptune, making it closer to the ice planet than Luna was to Earth.

Hawthorne ran more numbers. Triton’s orbital period was five point eight-seven-seven days, or almost six days to move in a full retrograde orbit around the planet. As Luna did to Earth, Triton always kept the same face toward Neptune.

Hawthorne sighed as he hooked the small monitor to his belt. In Neptune System terms, the Doom Stars had moved far away from Nereid as they readied themselves to greet Triton. When the moon finally swung around the ice planet’s rim—relative to the Highborn—the Genghis Khan would be nine hundred thousand kilometers away. So far, that had proved the perfect distance.

The SU battleships had closed the gap with the big vessels, and were presently fifty thousand kilometers from them, well within the range of the SU lasers.

Hawthorne grabbed a float-rail, propelling himself toward the bridge. The fleet moved slowly and carefully through the system, keeping well away from any asteroid or planetoid. The rule was simple: stay away from any possible hiding place for cyborg assault-pods. During the Third Battle for Mars, invading cyborgs had fought their way onto a Doom Star, blowing the core. No one wanted a repeat of that out here.

Hawthorne floated through a hatch, greeting Commissar Kursk as she stood by the command module in the center of the chamber.

The woman was grim, the module’s blue light bathing her face. She had aged during the trip. The glow highlighted the lines in her face. Once, she had been beautiful. At least she was still trim in her black Commissar’s uniform.

PHC, she used to belong to Political Harmony Corps. Does she hold it against me that I destroyed many of her comrades on Earth?

It troubled Hawthorne that he’d taken so long in the journey to think about that. His mind and ego were in better shape than when he’d first boarded the warship, but he felt they still lacked their former sharpness.

Hawthorne looked around. He saw tired people, worn down by worry and fear. Watching the Highborn beam the moons for long hours had done nothing to cheer the bridge crew. Everyone had worried about the first engagement with the cyborgs for eight dreadful months. Each AU closer had increased the tension. Now the inexplicable cyborg response to their presence here—the coming fight boded ill for the Alliance Fleet and the officers here knew it. The cyborgs had a plan. If they had willingly fed two heavily defended moons to the Alliance Fleet, it had to be for a horribly good reason.

“Attention!” Kursk said in a raw voice.

Hawthorne’s heart sped up as he turned toward her, wondering what she’d spotted. Instead of hearing a report, he saw Commodore Blackstone float through a side hatch.

Blackstone wore his dress uniform. He had hollowed-out eyes and folds of skin on his face.

He’s too thin. He hasn’t been eating enough. It’s getting to him, too. It’s getting to all of us.

“At ease,” Blackstone said, waving his people back onto their seats.

A frown creased Hawthorne’s face. Kursk had alerted the officers of Blackstone’s appearance, but not that of the Supreme Commander. He had run Social Unity too long to fail to understand the significance of that. Yes, he had failed to form a solid core of security people here. A few security men had paid him lip service, but he doubted their loyalty. Maybe two lower-ranked men would do his bidding, provided he didn’t ask them to do something morally difficult.

He recalled his attempts to build a following, sounding-out the security chief and his three top lieutenants. Each of them had been surprisingly loyal to Blackstone instead of to Social Unity. A little probing, asking the right questions, and Hawthorne had soon understood the reason. Commissar Kursk had been hard at work. At first, knowing that hadn’t overly troubled him. Blackstone had turned her from her intense loyalty to PHC, and she had turned ship security into his loyal guardians—to use a Jovian term. Now, seeing her in the old PHC uniform, he wondered if her animus against him ran deeper, was more political than personal.

Hawthorne grimaced. It might have been a mistake taking up residence on the Vladimir Lenin. Mandela was still here. Maybe he should have transferred to one of Mandela’s ships.

“Good morning, sir,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne managed a nod. Then he floated to his couch and strapped himself in. Taking a deep breath, he flicked on his screen.

The Doom Stars were ready, with the Genghis Khan in the lead. He checked his chronometer. In less than thirty minutes, Triton would appear on Neptune’s rim.

“That’s it,” said Kursk.

Everyone looked up, Hawthorne included. He saw fear on several faces. They expected the worst, some nefarious and evil tactic.

“The last probe near Neptune has stopped reporting.” Kursk looked up, the blue glow of the module making her seem witch-like. “The cyborgs must have destroyed it.”

“Did the probe scan anything worthwhile?” Blackstone asked.

“Negative,” Kursk said.

The Commodore floated toward the command module. As he moved, he glanced at his crew. Then he looked at Hawthorne, meeting his gaze.

His eyes are more hollowed-out today. He’s worried, maybe more worried than his crew is.

“Trouble, Commodore?” Hawthorne asked.

Blackstone tilted his head as a quizzical look appeared. “Yes, sir. Triton…” Blackstone frowned. “The cyborgs have to strike soon, sir. They can’t let us demolish Triton’s defenses, not like we’ve done to the other moons.”

“We’ve done nothing to the other moons,” Hawthorne said.

“The Doom Stars then.” Blackstone licked his lips. “I keep wondering if we’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Hawthorne waited, trying to assess the Commodore. Has he lost his nerve? I did eight months ago. I was lucky and had time to recoup. Joseph may not be given that luxury.

With a slight head-twitch, Hawthorne dismissed the thought. He couldn’t worry about Blackstone now. He would save his worry for the last SU fleet. He needed this crew ready. They were too brittle, too wound-up.

Clearing his throat, Hawthorne said, “I don’t like heading this deeply into Neptune’s gravity-well before locating their main fleet. But if we’re going to force them into showing themselves and fighting us, we have to attack something they hold dear.”

“I don’t mean that.” Blackstone hesitated before blurting, “Sir, is it possible the cyborgs have taken everything useful from here and moved to a different system?”

Several officers turned around in wonder. One man laughed in obvious relief, no doubt glad the cyborgs had fled—at least in his mind.

“No,” Hawthorne said. “What you’re suggesting is impossible. We would have spotted something given the nature of such a move.”

“We couldn’t move so stealthily,” Blackstone said. “But the cyborgs are masters at cloaked movement. I think it might be within their power.”

“They’re not gods,” Hawthorne said sternly. He needed to quash this idea. “First, what would be the point of it? If they lacked the time to make Neptune a fortress, how could they prepare Saturn or Uranus in time?”

“The moons were fortresses,” Blackstone said. “Social Unity could have never taken them. The Doom Stars—how long can they keep the heavy lasers operational? Our beams have a shelf life of forty hours. I can’t imagine the heavy beams can last much longer, probably less.”

“We caught the cyborgs by surprise,” Hawthorne said. “There’s your answer.”

“Do you really believe that, sir?”

Hawthorne could feel the many eyes on him. The worry and fear was growing. Men could face terrible things and stand. The unknown, however, terrified them. The threat of ghosts was more fearful than actually seeing ghosts.

“I believe the cyborgs have held back their main fleet,” Hawthorne said. “They want us in Neptune’s gravity well and near the ice planet. To get us here, they’ve allowed us to destroy two heavy fortresses. They’re gambling and we’ve made it a heavy one for them.”

“Triton appears in less than a half hour,” Blackstone said. “Your reasoning would lead me to believe their main fleet will attack in less than a half hour.”

Hawthorne nodded thoughtfully. Had the cyborgs attempted to fashion their own Doom Stars? Sensors hadn’t been able to pick up any evidence of floating construction areas near Neptune’s atmosphere. Where else could they have built such ships without leaving evidence of it?

Shaking his head, Blackstone said, “The cyborgs love using cloaked ships.” He looked up in surprise. “Maybe we’ve been sending the probes in the wrong direction. We’re fixed on Neptune and the Neptunian moons. What if during our long approach, the cyborgs moved their fleet out-system or farther out-system than we’ve been checking? Maybe even now they’re sneaking ships behind us.”

“Wouldn’t the Highborn already have thought of that?” Kursk asked.

Hawthorne slapped an armrest. “We can’t let the Highborn do our thinking for us. And the answer is no. Or have you spotted Highborn launching probes behind us?”

“No,” Kursk said.

Hawthorne eyed the Commodore. “It’s thinking like that which first won you an independent command.”

Blackstone stood a little straighter. “Launch probes behind our present heading.”

Kursk tapped her screen on the command module. “Probes launched,” she said. “It will take time for them to accelerate into position.”

The minutes ticked slowly as Hawthorne spoke with the other battleship commanders and read their readiness report summaries.

“Sir,” Kursk said. “I have a request from the Vice-Admiral. He would like to return to his battleship.”

Hawthorne shook his head.

“Admiral Scipio is hailing you,” Kursk said.

“Put him onscreen,” Hawthorne said.

Scipio appeared. The Highborn sat rigidly in his command chair. The Highborn’s face seemed fuller, while a sunburst symbol adorned his hat. It was a Nova Sun class-one medal.

“We must tighten the fleet,” Scipio said. “I…request that you bring your battleships to within one thousand kilometers of our last Doom Star.”

“Is there a particular reason for the request?” Hawthorne asked.

“Strength in numbers,” Scipio said.

“I would agree except for one troubling fact.”

“Yes?”

“What if the cyborgs have installed long-ranged beams on Triton? Doom Stars can far out-accelerate our battleships.”

“You mean that Highborn can withstand a higher number of Gs for a much longer time than a Homo sapien.”

“We’re keeping our fifty thousand kilometer distance from you until we know what Triton holds.”

The Highborn studied him, nodded curtly, and the screen flickered off.

“Do you think Sulla will try to make the request a demand?” Blackstone asked.

“I doubt it,” Hawthorne said.

The minutes kept crawling and the Alliance Fleet made its last adjustments.

“Five minutes until Triton appears,” Kursk said.

The muttering between the bridge officers slackened. They watched their screens with the avidness of prey in a forest searching the trees for predators.

Hawthorne’s armpits grew slick. He could feel it in his bones now. The waiting was harder than the time he’d launched the Orion-ships for Mars.

“Have the probes spotted anything yet?” he asked.

Kursk shook her head. “If the cyborgs have cloaked ships behind us in the void…they must be truly invisible.”

At three minutes before Triton’s appearing, Hawthorne stood up and swung his arms. He twisted his neck and moved his jaw until it popped. He winced at the sharp pain. Then the flutters hit his stomach. He sat on his acceleration couch, trying hard not to shout.

“One minute,” Kursk said.

“No more countdowns,” Hawthorne said.

Everyone was tense, watching their screens. The Commodore gripped the edges of the command module. He looked up across the chamber, his face pale.

Hawthorne nodded. “You’ve done a splendid job, Commodore. No man fulfilled his duty to Social Unity better than you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Blackstone said. “May I say that it’s been a pleasure serving under you.”

“We’re not dead,” Kursk said. “Nor are we about to die.” She glanced at Hawthorne. “Triton will appear in another ten seconds.”

Hawthorne sat up as he stared at the screen above his couch. Everyone grew silent. The vibration of the main engine was the loudest sound now, a steady hum.

“There,” Kursk whispered. “Triton.”

Hawthorne watched the edge of the moon appear on Neptune’s blue rim. He waited a moment. Then he wondered if this was going to be anticlimactic.

“I’m picking up hot exhausts!” an officer shouted. “The specs—sir, they’re drones, missiles, hundreds of them.”

Hawthorne saw it: a blizzard of blips on his screen. Hundreds? This looked like thousands. Then tiny white spots appeared on his screen. Each misshapen spot hid drones and missiles. Where there had been thousands, now there were several large clots.

“What just happened?” Hawthorne shouted.

“My monitor is showing white!” an officer shouted. “Splotches, over ten of them. What’s happening?”

“Are they jamming us?” Blackstone asked quietly.

Then Hawthorne recognized what had happened. For a moment, he felt dizzy. Was this going to be the cyborg tactic?

“My monitor is showing the splotches, too,” Kursk said. “Have they infected the ship with a computer virus?”

“No,” Hawthorne said.

“Do you know what’s happening?” Kursk asked.

“I do,” Hawthorne said. “They’re exploding nukes.”

Blackstone glanced up in shock. Another officer slapped his screen hard, as if he understand the significance of what Hawthorne said.

Hawthorne nodded to himself. A nuclear explosion sent out a blast of heat and radiation. On thermal and other scanners, that would show up as white splotches, at least for a short time.

“They’re lighting nuclear weapon,” Hawthorne said, “extremely powerful ones that send out heavy electromagnetic pulses, EMPs.”

“Do you know why?” asked Blackstone.

“Can’t you see?” asked Hawthorne. “The blasts shield the missiles behind them. The blasts temporarily blind our sensors.”

“At that extreme range why bother?” Blackstone asked. “I don’t understand.”

Hawthorne grunted. That didn’t surprise him. Probably he was the only one who could see it. If he was right…this was going to prove to be the deadly battle that everyone had been expecting.

Through a vast array of sensors, the Prime Web-Mind watched the masses of drones accelerate from behind Neptune, burning past Triton as they sped toward the hated enemy.

Every sixteen seconds, a nuclear-tipped drone exploded. The bombs were specially shaped so over half the weapon’s energy sped directly at the enemy fleet. The explosion temporarily blinded sensors in a small area.

The logic was simple. What an enemy failed to spot precisely, it couldn’t destroy with a laser. The distances in space combat demanded incredible precision for long-ranged beams. The Doom Stars and especially the SU ships were far away, hours away at the highest acceleration. That meant thousands of detonated drones would be needed to hide the mass missile attack. Fortunately, it had tens of thousands of drones and missiles. They were simple weapons, cheaply-made but in incredible abundance.

The targeting would come later from Lurkers. Until then, the lemming-like horde of drones continued to accelerate around Neptune and past Triton as they headed for the enemy. Every sixteen seconds, another forward drone detonated to hide its fellow missiles behind it from enemy sensors.

The final battle for survival had finally begun.

“This fight isn’t going to be won with finesse!” Sulla roared over the screen. “Look at their numbers.” For a second, the Highborn’s image disappeared from the screen. In its place was another image showing swarms of projectiles, a blizzard of them. As his harsh features reappeared, Sulla said, “We must counter them with mass. Hawthorne, use your missiles, all of them. You can destroy thousands now.”

“Use your lasers to thin the horde,” Hawthorne replied.

Sulla shook his head. “The white-outs are perfectly timed. Until they reach to within one hundred thousand kilometers, we’ll just be shooting in the dark.”

“That sounds like cyborg finesse,” Hawthorne said.

Sulla snarled. “Use your missiles or I’ll turn my ship around and—”

“Stop!” Hawthorne said, as he held up a hand. “Threats won’t work today. We need unity.”

“We need missiles to take out their mass,” Sulla said.

“I’ll order the missile-ship forward,” Hawthorne said, “and it will make a mass launching.”

Sulla glared at him, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. Then his image faded away.

After giving the needed order, Hawthorne rested his head against the couch. He closed his eyes. The number of enemy drones…

“Sir,” Kursk said, “the Number Seven Probe is picking up a reading.”

Hawthorne sat up as his heart began to pound.

“Sir,” Kursk said, “the readings—it’s a cyborg ship, a cloaked vessel.”

“Range?” Hawthorne hissed.

Four hundred thousand kilometers behind us,” she said.

“It’s well outside our laser range,” Hawthorne said, “but not outside the range of the Highborn. Patch me through to Admiral Scipio.”

Soon, the Doom Stars began to beam behind the SU battleships. The heavy lasers destroyed Lurkers, but only the handful they had managed to spot.

“Where are the others?” Blackstone said. “There must be more.”

“Why aren’t the cyborg ships firing back at us?” Kursk asked.

“That isn’t their purpose,” Hawthorne said. “Besides, I don’t think they can reach us.”

“They can fire missiles,” Kursk said.

“Do the cloaked ships have missiles?” Hawthorne asked. “I seriously doubt that. All the cyborg missiles are in the approaching horde.” He put his chin on his fist. “The stealth-ships, those are the cyborg eyes and ears. As long as some of the stealth-ships survive, they can guide the drones to us.”

“Right,” Blackstone said. “The drones can’t see past all the nuclear detonations. They’ve been blinded, too, and need the eyes and ears.”

Hawthorne grimaced. The cyborg plan wasn’t fancy, but it did depend on numbers. In the years and months given them, the cyborgs had been producing drones and missiles instead of a few battleships. It took time, sometimes years, to construct something like a Doom Star. A missile could be built in weeks, maybe even days.

A chill squeezed the Supreme Commander. He suddenly felt old. The brilliance of the cyborg plan was obvious now. The Doom Stars possessed mass; the hordes of cyborg missiles negated that mass.

“We have to run,” Hawthorne said. “Blackstone, ready your crew for full acceleration!”

“Sir?” the Commodore asked.

“We have to accelerate away from the drones,” Hawthorne said.

“Do you see how fast they’re coming?” Blackstone asked. “It won’t make any difference. We can’t escape them.”

“It’s not about escaping,” Hawthorne said. “First, we have to halt our momentum toward Neptune and then move away as fast as we can.”

“We’ll be crawling compared to the drones.”

“I understand,” Hawthorne said, “but it buys us time. Buying time means the cyborgs have to explode that many more nukes to remain semi-hidden.”

Blackstone blinked several times. Then he opened ship-wide communications and began to give the order.

“Sir,” Kursk said, “Admiral Sulla is online, wishing to speak with you.”

“What now?” Hawthorne muttered. He waved his hand. “Put him on.”

“Preman!” Sulla shouted. “You must accelerate away from the drones to prolong their exposure to us. We will accelerate, too.”

Hawthorne pursed his lips. Highborn could accelerate faster. Could the three Doom Stars stop fast enough and accelerate quickly enough to pass the battleships before the missiles struck? If so, the swarms would hit the SU warships before they touched Highborn.

“Acknowledged,” Hawthorne said.

“The tactic will allow us more time,” Sulla said.

“I understand,” Hawthorne said. And you’re going to try to get the cyborgs to hit our ships before they strike yours.

In minutes, the Vladimir Lenin’s engines thrummed with power. Then they engaged and the thrusters roared, shaking the ship as they slowed the final momentum toward Neptune. The Gs shoved Hawthorne deeper into his couch.

They could accelerate at five Gs, and briefly tolerate six. The Highborn could accelerate at twice that amount. The drones, however, accelerated at fifty gravities or more.

“I should have thought of this sooner,” Hawthorne said.

“You thought of it just as quickly as the Highborn,” Blackstone said. “So I’d call that pretty damn fast.”

“We have to outthink the Highborn.”

“You mean the cyborgs,” Blackstone said.

“Both of them,” Hawthorne said, “both of them.”

The Doom Stars halted their forward momentum quicker than the battleships could theirs. As they began to accelerate away from Neptune, the SU missiles sped fast, rushing toward the enemy. All the while, every sixteen or fifteen seconds, another cyborg drone detonated a nuke.

“They won’t be able to hide from our lasers once they get within forty thousand kilometers,” Blackstone said.

“Numbers,” Hawthorne said. “This will all depend on how many drones the cyborgs were able to make. I understand now why they haven’t been hitting us even as we’ve destroyed two powerful defensive establishments.”

“Why?” Blackstone asked.

“To save everything for one massive punch, one big hit using everything they have. This is the battle, gentlemen. The next few hours will decide everything.”

Tens of thousands of big drones steadily advanced on the Alliance Fleet. The eight ships fled, but at a crawl compared to the great velocity they had reached when crossing the void between Earth and Neptune.

Then the SU missiles reached the accelerating cyborg drones. Some exploded into shrapnel. Some attacked the drones as if they were warships. Some detonated with nuclear bombs. The SU missiles found a target-rich environment. They reaped a grim harvest, destroying thousands of drones, which translated to sixteen percent of the swarm. Another seven percent had self-destructed so far to give the rest a sensor-shield.

It meant that seventy-seven percent of the drone horde remained and bored in toward the slowly fleeing warships.

On the Vladimir Lenin, Hawthorne said, “They’re going to reach the Doom Stars first. That’s something, at least.”

“Use every missile!” Sulla roared over communications.

Hawthorne agreed. Every SU battleship launched every one of its missiles. The Doom Stars launched theirs. In time, the combined mass took out another eleven percent of the original swarm. It meant that sixty-six percent of the drones survived.

“We’re hurting them,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne laughed in a brittle manner. “Hurting what, drones?”

Several officers looked up, stricken.

“But it is something,” Hawthorne said, recognizing his mistake. As the Supreme Commander, he couldn’t afford the luxury of despair. “Yes!” he said. “We’re going to win this fight.”

Blackstone nodded in approval.

The next hour—it was among the greatest is Solar System history.

The cyborg drones reached the hot zone. The Julius Caesar, the Genghis Khan and the Napoleon Bonaparte opened up with their heavy lasers. Despite the nuclear blasts, the beams hit targeted drones. They missed too often, however, streaking past a projectile. Then the SU battleships began to beam. A mere twenty thousand kilometers separated the Doom Stars from the Zhukov-class battlewagons of Social Unity.

Aboard the Genghis Khan, Admiral Scipio rapped out orders. Decoys deployed, and packets of prismatic crystals clotted small areas of space. Mine were deployed and waited in the vacuum.

During that time, three heavy beams blazed and the battleships fired their weaponry.

Then a main laser-unit aboard the Julius Caesar ruptured. The heavy beam had been firing too long. Highborn damage-control parties raced to repair it.

The drones kept coming. Every sixteen seconds more kept exploding.

“Long live the Highborn!” Scipio shouted.

Nuclear bombs exploded. EMP washed hardened electronics on the Doom Star.

“Stop accelerating!” Scipio roared. The Genghis Khan stopped running. The distance between it and other two Doom Stars widened.

“What’s the plan, sir?” the weapon’s officer asked.

“Destruction,” Scipio said, “for as long as we can.”

The Genghis Khan beamed. Its point defense cannons fired. Enemy drones died, and others kept coming.

Then one of the giant missiles got within two hundred kilometers. It was an x-ray pumped missile. Fortunately, the collapsium stopped the x-rays cold.

Far away in space, a cyborg on a Lurker observed that. He communicated, and gave himself away.

The Lurker died to a laser, but the message got through to the Prime. It pulsed a change in tactics.

Soon, one of the big drones reached the Genghis Khan. A massive thermonuclear explosion ruptured the collapsium.

More drones swarmed toward the stricken ship. They came in bewildering numbers.

Scipio waited. Another drone slammed the ship, blowing away an eighth of the vessel. Without fanfare, Admiral Scipio stabbed a button that detonated the core. Four seconds later, a mammoth explosion occurred. It disintegrated the Doom Star, and it destroyed one thousand and nine of the cyborg drones.

Less than thirty-two percent of the drone swarm remained. Of those, fully one third now had faulty targeting systems.

The Lurkers in the system began to beam them coordinates as the battle entered its most savage phase.

Kursk monitored the occurrence and brought it to Hawthorne’s attention.

In seconds, Hawthorne raised Admiral Sulla. “Look at the evidence,” the Supreme Commander said quietly.

It broke through the hostility radiating from Sulla. “What do you expect, preman?”

“Beam the stealth-ships,” Hawthorne said, “and you’ll blind some of the drones.”

“I must kill the drones.”

“We’re doing that now,” Hawthorne said.

“How did you spot these stealth-ships and we did not?”

“Because we sent probes,” Hawthorne said. “If you want to survive, destroy the stealth-ships now.”

Sulla nodded slowly. “You need Doom Stars in order to reduce the various moons. You need the great range of our weapons. That’s why you’re trying to save us.”

“We’re allies,” Hawthorne said. “I want to defeat the cyborgs.”

Sulla laughed. Then the screen went blank. Moments later, the heavy beam reached out into the void, destroying the transmitting stealth-ships.

The Doom Stars had closed the gap with the SU battlewagons. Together, Highborn and Humans fought against the blizzard of cyborg drones.

The missile-ship was the first SU vessel to die under three terrific explosions. Each blasted away particle-shielding. Without its protection, neuron radiation killed the crew minutes before the last drone sent shielding, hull-plating and fleshy particles into the void.

“Sir!” Kursk said.

“I see it,” Hawthorne said wearily. The drones were finally getting through. There were simply too many of them.

The Julius Caesar’s heavy beam came online again. But it was too late. Cyborg drones died in masses trying to reach the giant vessel. Then one did, wounding the great ship. Others rushed near as thermonuclear explosions proved superior to collapsium. Then a great monster of a missile slid into the wreckage and detonated. The terror of the Inner Planets became slag, shrapnel and fiery debris, exploding outward like a nova. Coils, powered armored, soy nutrients from the food stores, it was all sent spinning away.

Soon, the Vice-Admiral’s flagship disintegrated under repeated strikes.

In Mandela’s room on the Vladimir Lenin where he watched, the Vice-Admiral wept.

The last Doom Star and the remaining battleships beamed and fired their point defense cannons. They had closed to within three hundred kilometers of each other. It was like an ancient battle where Celtic hordes roared their battle cries as they swarmed a lost cohort of desperate legionaries. Drones detonated, firing x and gamma rays. EMP blasts washed over the warships. Heat boiled away particle-shielding and shrapnel shredded entire areas.

The Vladimir Lenin’s sister ship stopped responding to calls.

“Are they dead?” Blackstone shouted to Kursk standing right beside him.

She kept trying to hail the warship.

“They’re not beaming anymore,” Hawthorne said from the acceleration couch. “I doubt anyone lives over there.”

Two drones reached that battleship at almost precisely the same instant. Their nuclear explosions ended the debate on the Vladimir Lenin as another SU ship perished.

The next few minutes were hell.

“Sir!” an officer reported. “The one through five PD cannons are out of shells.”

“Sir!” a different officer said. “Secondary laser number five has overheated. There’s a fire in the reactor chamber.”

Hawthorne gripped his screen. He found it difficult to breathe. Drones exploded everywhere. The cyborgs had made too many missiles and—

“Sir,” Kursk said, “the drones… I don’t see any heading toward us. There are drones, but they’re well past our ships and accelerating out-system.” She tapped her screen. “Over two thousand drones are heading away. There’s no indication they’re going to turn around, either.” Tears welled in her eyes as she stared across the bridge. “Supreme Commander Hawthorne, I wish to report that the last drone has detonated, been destroyed by our lasers or its targeting systems were likely damaged beyond recovery and are leaving us.”

With an effort, Hawthorne pried his fingers from the screen. It dawned on him that the last explosions had been the cyborgs’ final attack. He blinked at the screen, bewildered.

“Where are they going?” Blackstone said. He kept tapping his screen, no doubt switching camera feeds. “You’re right. Those missiles are heading away, accelerating away. I don’t see any missiles heading toward us. Have some gone invisible?”

Kursk was laughing as tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, Joseph. Don’t you understand? We did it. The ones leaving—all those nuclear blasts had to damage some of them.” She threw her arms around his neck. “We won.”

“We haven’t won,” Hawthorne said, “but it appears we’ve survived this round.” He adjusted his uniform as he sat up. “I want damage reports, people. Then I want shuttles launched. Let’s see if there’s anybody to save on those ships.”

“Are you kidding?” asked Kursk.

“I see one Doom Star and two SU battleships,” Hawthorne said. “That’s precious little to conquer the Neptune System. We need to search for survivors.”

Blackstone disengaged from Kursk. “Don’t forget the three Jovian meteor-ships heading here.”

“Do you think the drones that passed us are meant for the Jovians?” Kursk asked. She checked the module and soon shook her head. “No. The drones are heading elsewhere.”

“It hardly matters,” Hawthorne said. “The meteor-ships are damaged and depleted.”

“They are still a lot better than nothing,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne thought about it. “You have a point. Now get me those reports,” he told Kursk. “We don’t know how much time we have until the next cyborg move.”

-11-

Far from the horrendous battle in the Neptune System, the William Tell passed a HB interferometer beacon. There were hundreds of such beacons linked by a special communications net. Taken together the interferometer was thousands of kilometers wide, although its mass wouldn’t have filled an SU battleship.

Inside the patrol boat, Marten shifted in his combat armor. The air in his armor was rank with sweat as the air-conditioning unit thrummed. The temp-gauge read 102 degrees. The jumpsuit he wore next to his skin was damp against his back. It seemed like he was always sucking on the water-tube.

The temperature in his armor had steadily risen during the journey. He’d been living in his for some time now, just like everyone else. There was stubble on his chin and his right calf itched horribly.

The Jovian craft had never been designed to fly so close to the Sun. The SU-derived modifications hadn’t changed that. Fortunately, Marten had looted the Mao Zedong, taking among other things a large supply of construction-foam sprayers.

They were a combat engineer’s tool, used for fast construction. Riot police also used them to create quick barriers. The nozzles sprayed moldable foam, which quick hardened. During their shock trooper training, both Marten and Omi had been taught to spray blocks of construction-foam. There was a technique for shrinking the blocks, making them denser than ordinary.

Felix drew up the blueprint and Marten and Omi sprayed the foam. They thickened the hull from the inside, shrinking the amount of livable space and sectioning off the piloting chamber. The troop-pods became unlivable due to their nearness to the Sun. There wasn’t enough construction-foam to use inside them. That meant everyone was jammed into the main area of the boat. Only Osadar entered the piloting area. The logic was simple but brutal. She was a cyborg and could take more radiation and heat than any of them could. Marten was afraid she was dying as she brought them to the fabled Sun Station, but wouldn’t tell them.

The deckplates were the same as always. It was the top and sides of the boat that were different. Gray foam blocks there absorbed the illumination shining from the few helmet-lamps.

Everyone wore armor, including Ah Chen and Nadia. Some of the space marines checked their weapons. There were gyroc rifles, plasma cannons and the few remaining Cognitive missiles. Others recharged their suits. Everyone took turns hooking a cable into slots in their armor.

Marten floated, partially resting on his knees before the compartment’s only screen, a portable one. It was easy in the weightless chamber. The patrol boat didn’t feel like home anymore with the foam walls, but an alien environment—like some strange alien ant’s tunnel system. The heat made it worse, so did the crackling in his headphones.

Both were due to the Sun: a nuclear fireball of heat, radiation, harsh radio and electromagnetic waves. Marten had been checking the specifics. The Sun was a yellow dwarf star, its spectral class G2V. It was almost perfectly spherical, a mix of hot plasma and powerful magnetic fields. Its diameter was 109 times that of Earth, making it enormous. The Sun produced the largest continuous structure in the Solar System, the heliosphere. In effect, the heliosphere was a giant bubble “blown” by the solar wind and emanating all the way to Pluto’s orbital path.

A space marine floated next to Marten. He read the nametag: OMI. Marten nodded a greeting.

Omi gripped Marten’s right shoulder. The Korean then clanged his helmet against Marten’s.

“Anything new?” Omi asked. His voice sounded far away.

For an answer, Marten shook his head.

Releasing Marten’s shoulders, Omi floated before the screen.

The compartment was jammed with space marines and their equipment, almost filling the entire area. Omi probably asked because there had been plenty of evil to report earlier.

From Venus, Commandant Maximus had launched more missiles, which accelerated fast. Then Osadar reported hidden drones burning into life, taking out one HB missile after another.

That had started a debate. The consensus seemed clear: cyborgs had seeded Inner Planetary space with mines and seeker drones.

“They were placed there to protect their stealth-ships,” Marten said. “Now the seekers are protecting us.”

“Ironic,” Osadar said.

What Marten found more ironic were the cyborg forces zeroing in on the Sun Station. The images had been faint and fuzzy. Lasers flashed. Drones exploded and cyborg pods died thousands of kilometers from their objective. A few must have made it through the defensive field and boarded the station. Several hours ago, Marten, Omi, Nadia, Xenophon and others had crowded around the screen. Mostly they viewed the giant fireball. It was the sounds in their headphones that kept them glancing into each other’s eyes.

Highborn sent distress signals. Then came distinctive combat noises and Highborn shouting to each other. A few times Marten heard high-speed speech that put goosebumps on his flesh. Cyborgs—the cyborgs were using their own private binary language.

The Highborn calls lessened, and then the last transmission came in: “They’re breaching into the control chamber! I’m beginning the auto-destruct sequence.” Gunfire erupted and then crackling noises that surely meant silence on the station.

Marten blinked sweat out of his eyes. He along with everyone else wondered if the Highborn had completed his task or if the cyborgs now controlled the Sun Station.

He glanced at Nadia floating beside him. What kind of universe created cyborgs? The scientists with their labs and genetically created super-soldiers—Marten shook his head. It was bad enough tampering with man like that. But to meld flesh with machines was blasphemy against nature. It brought the due reward of a hellish existence and maybe now the extinction of humanity.

Marten clutched his gyroc and something vital smoldered in his eyes. He was freaking hot. He was thirsty, and he was on a boat headed for a showdown with evil beings. By the sounds, the cyborgs had killed the Highborn. What chance did a handful of space marines have?

Gripping his rifle even harder, Marten thought back to the glass tube in Sydney. Major Orlov had put him in it, and he had pumped.

“I didn’t give up then,” he whispered. “I damn well don’t plan on giving up now.” If he were headed to his death, he would die fighting. Maybe this was his Force-Leader Yakov hour. I’m not running away from the fight. I’m headed for it.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want Nadia to die. But he didn’t want to live in a universe ruled by cyborgs.

“You say something?” Omi asked.

“Yeah,” Marten said. “We’ve dug them out of their fortresses before. We can do it again.”

Omi stared at him. “Last time we had a fleet and ten-to-one odds on our side.”

Marten shrugged even as his breathing became ragged. He sucked on a tube, letting warm water trickle down his throat. He wondered if this small vessel could make it past the defensive zone. It was doubtful the cyborgs had destroyed every HB mine or laser-point. Thinking about it reminded him of his shock trooper training at Mercury.

“Mirrors are moving!” Osadar radioed. Her words were difficult to decipher over the heavy crackling.

Mirrors? Marten wasn’t aware Osadar had spotted any of them. The mirrors were supposed to be near the solar atmosphere.

“Give me a visual,” he said.

“Can’t,” she said. “I’ll give you virtual reality imaging instead.”

Marten lifted the portable screen so more of the marines could see. He could feel them gathering around and others craning for a look. The screen was fuzzy. Then a silvery object appeared. It was incredibly thin. Against the Sun, it was a tiny speck.

The image grew larger, showing more of the mirror. According to Osadar, there were thousands of these. They were weighted in position by a clever technology that used the rays to fuel the mechanism that kept them still. Otherwise, they would act like a huge solar-wind sail. The focuser was on a similar scale as the rest of the weapon, kilometers wide.

“Is the weapon activating?” Marten asked.

“I have to check some other scans,” Osadar said.

Marten tried to envision thousands of the gigantic mirrors sending the blistering sunlight at the focuser. It represented a titanic amount of energy, an inconceivable amount.

“It’s been activated,” Osadar said. “Someone is firing it.”

“Cyborgs?” asked Marten.

“Who are they shooting?” she asked.

“Can you get a visual of the beam?”

“I’m working on it.”

As the William Tell drifted toward the Sun Station, the giant focuser made minute corrections. Then it happened. For the first time, the Sun weapon beamed a titanic ray of incandescent fury. The tip of the beam flashed at the speed of light for a distant object.

“Do you see that?” Osadar asked.

On the screen, a bar of concentrated sunlight shot somewhere.

Marten stopped breathing as a feeling of awe spread through him. He forgot to feel hot as he watched the beam.

The hellish ray reached Mercury’s orbital path in minutes. In a little over eight minutes, the beam passed Earth’s orbital path. Several more minutes brought it as far as Mars. Then the Sunbeam continued its journey, heading out for deep space.

Across the Solar System on Triton, the Prime Web-Mind seethed with impatience as it issued directives and alerted the surface defenses. Its movable life-chamber was deep underground in an armored area. With the destruction of two Doom Stars, it should be safe. But there was no sense in taking chances now.

In the inner room, in a bath of green light, brain domes pulsed with neural charges. The backup computers ran computations. Life support monitors ensured a constant supply of nutrients and different viewers showed scanner data.

Shocked by the space battle, the Prime had launched endless logic probes. There had been an extremely low probability of any of its enemies surviving the battle. Yet some had survived. That caused the Prime to doubt its earlier computations. Had self-justification compromised its cognitive abilities? Solipsism lay there: the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind, alone, was sure to exist. It was a serious epistemological error, although there were several interesting factors pointing to its reality.

The mass, explosive power and durability of the drone swarm should have achieved complete victory. The Prime had computed a negligible two percent failure rate. Data suggested there had been a four point three percent reporting error, with a zero point eight percent computational error.

The strategy should have worked flawlessly. Likely, the failure had been operational in nature. Yes, the flow of data suggested that. The loss of Nereid and Proteus—bitter to observe—had ensured the enemy’s close approach to Neptune. The Highborn had surely wished to beam Triton into submission in the same manner as the other moons. How delightful to watch the braking and then flight of the eight intruders. Perhaps it should have accelerated the drones sooner, but it hadn’t wanted anything to foil strategic surprise. The plan had rested on surprise, and the plan had achieved partial success.

Two Doom Stars are gone. The Prime replayed the vessels’ destruction, using twelve percent of its brainpower to delight in the rare spectacle. Watching their advance these eight months had been painful and worrisome. With the death of the third Doom Star, I will have achieved system victory.

Thirty-three percent of its brainpower used long-distance tight-beams to monitor the fighting on the Sun Station. The station’s outer defenses had proven more powerful than it had inferred. Still, it knew now that cyborgs had reached the station in number. That was critical, as cyborgs possessed tactical superiority to any known form of infantry. Once the cyborgs gained control of the station, they would perform as instructed. Destruction of the last Doom Star was paramount. Along with that message, the Prime had sent projected Doom Star locations and weighted percentages of future locations.

Fourteen percent of its brainpower was dedicated to watching the massive warship. Giant teleoptic towers on Triton’s surface minutely moved their lens as they tracked the enemy ships.

Part of the fourteen percent, along with dedicated computers, broke down the ships’ actions. Bright flares showed the exhausts of enemy shuttles and pods crisscrossing the large volume of battle-space. Rationality programs deduced that the humans searched for survivors, as incredible as that seemed.

They give me a further advantage as they waste time. It is inconceivable. I would never waste the most precious commodity. Time is the essence of life. I waste nothing, neither time, nor resources, nor computations. Once again, I prove my superiority to exist. How pitiful they really are, a blight upon the ALL.

The Prime scanned former interviews, selecting one to re-watch. It had interviewed several captive Neptunian scientists. The answers had startled it, a thing not easily achieved.

Like a banker watching a critical investment, the Prime tracked the last Doom Star. The giant vessel continued its predicted course through Neptunian space. The Prime had accounted for a three percent deviation. Instead, its computations and analytic predictions were perfect.

I am approaching perfection. With the elimination of the Homo sapiens and Highborn, it could reroute more of its brainpower to achieving Nirvana: a perfect state of cyborg completeness and dominance. Small habitats of gene-weeded humans would supply the brains for more Web-Minds until it learned how to cultivate its own tissue-beds.

A program alert shifted the Prime’s concentration. The vessel’s long-ranged laser, the final danger came from it. A few more hours of full concentration until the Doom Star was destroyed…

Then I will be safe. Then nothing can harm me and I will have won everything.

On the Napoleon Bonaparte, Admiral Sulla applied another coat of grease to his face as he sat in the command chair. His dark eyes shone with victory-lust. He dipped his fingers into the cream and lathered it over his right cheek.

He had survived the great encounter with the cyborgs. The drone swarm—Sulla scowled as he recalled the death of two Doom Stars. The battle had been a close-run thing. The premen had acted courageously and done their part. Now he wondered if he could he be wrong about the lower race.

Maybe I can run tests, saving the bravest among them. It might be possible through careful breeding to raise the genetic standard of the herd. I will create a vassal race, one good enough to live among the Highborn. Sulla nodded, enjoying his merciful thought. He would reward the courage shown here. No doubt, the premen couldn’t understand his generosity. I am letting them live. That is the thing.

He paused before re-dipping his fingers into the grease. Could his interaction with the premen have tainted him? He frowned thoughtfully as a damage-control technician checked a weapons screen.

Insidious, he thought. I have been tainted. Me merciful—Sulla the Ultraist, Grand Admiral of the Highborn?

Since he was the last admiral and controlled the last Doom Star, it made sense he could grant himself whatever title he desired. Cassius had self-elevated himself to Grand Admiral. Now he had taken the rank because he had won the Battle for Neptune. Who could dare say otherwise? He was clearly the greatest Highborn. Scipio, Cato, Grand Admiral Cassius, they were all gone, all dead. The cowardly Maximus, the Commandant who hadn’t been able to generate the courage to come out to Neptune and face the enemy—Maximus would never give him trouble. Sulla knew that in his gut.

My intuition has never failed me.

As Sulla’s gloating smile widened, the terrible beam from the Sun neared Neptune System. The Sunbeam shot from the focuser had traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. With that speed, it had taken four point twelve hours to cross the distance that had taken the Alliance Fleet a little over eight months to travel. Due to the speed of the attack, there was no warning of death’s approach aboard the Napoleon Bonaparte.

The repair-teams feverishly brought the Doom Star back to battle readiness. The cyborg stealth-ships continued hiding in the void and the last drones had exhausted their fuels, moving out-system with great velocity. Then the Sunbeam flashed onto its target. In a frightfully concentrated ray, the Sun’s energy struck the collapsium plating and immediately set the metal to boiling. Alarms rang aboard the Napoleon Bonaparte as heat levels rose intolerably.

Smoke rose from screens as flames burst into existence on the bulkheads.

Sulla glanced about, his eyes wide. Sweat mixed with grease so drops rolled off his chin. “What’s happening?” he shouted.

The fury of the ray was greater by many magnitudes than the proton beams on Earth. It was the greatest weapon ever devised in the Solar System.

As Highborn tore off their shirts, beating the fiery walls with them, the Sunbeam burned through the collapsium.

“Report!” Sulla shouted. The hairs on his arms began to curl and crisp. The smell of cooked flesh brought a hideous look of rage to his eyes. “What is causing this?”

They were his last words as the incredible ray fired across the vast gulf of four and a half billion kilometers consumed the Doom Star. The great vessel slagged, melted and then burned away under the furious power of the great Sunbeam of Inner Planets.

The SU battleships were two and three and quarter thousand kilometers away from the Napoleon Bonaparte respectively.

On the bridge of the Vladimir Lenin, Hawthorne, Blackstone and Kursk stood around the command module. With astonishment, they watched the module’s screens.

Slack-faced, Kursk managed to whisper, “The Doom Star is gone. They’re all gone. There are no more Doom Stars in the Solar System.”

“Get us out of here,” Hawthorne said in a ragged voice. “We have to move before it targets us.”

“What’s firing?” Blackstone asked, bewildered.

Kursk shook her head. “The power wattages are off the charts. I do not understand this.”

“How are we going to storm Triton now?” Blackstone asked. His thin features whitened. “We needed the Doom Star’s heavy beam. Two battleships can’t assault Triton. We won’t even dent the number of laser-turrets before they burn us.”

Hawthorne sagged against the module. All the effort, all the fighting and all the enduring these past years… “They’ve won,” he said. His words were unequivocal and struck like a hammer blow to the kidneys. “The cyborgs have won.” He could hardly comprehend the immensity of what he said. He could hardly breathe. Yet he managed to add, “Humanity is doomed.”

-12-

Marten Kluge wasn’t aware of the Supreme Commander’s pronouncement. He just knew that his handful of space marines had to storm onto the Sun Station and oust the victorious cyborgs or that beam would destroy everything he held dear.

It could target Earth and beam it into cinders. It could fry the Venusian sunshield and then Venus. The Sun-Works Factory would never survive the ray. It was an annihilating weapon, meant to give utter dominance to the person controlling it. No wonder Commandant Maximus had remained behind. With it, he could have set himself up as the Solar System’s emperor, the Sunbeam his hammer of royal authority. The heavily fortified Luna Base—once the cyborgs targeted it, they could slice the Moon into pieces. This was the ultimate weapon, and the cyborgs owned it, meaning that nothing could stop them now.

Omi stared at him through his helmet’s visor. The Korean’s harsh features seemed starker than ever. “Do we have a chance?”

“We’re mankind’s last chance,” Marten snarled.

Through the visor, Omi’s stare lengthened until his lips twisted into a rare smile. “The dregs of Sydney are going to save humanity. Turbo would have liked that.”

Turbo…Marten scowled. Too many good friends had died over the years: Force-Leader Yakov, Major Diaz of the Martian Commandoes, Lance, Vip, Turbo, Stick and Kang, evil old Kang of the Red Blades. He missed them all.

“Get ready,” Osadar radioed. “We’re about to begin deceleration.”

Marten gripped his gyroc. “Storming another stronghold—how many times have we done this?”

“Too many,” Omi said, “far too many.”

“We will defeat them,” Felix said. In his powered armor and with his size, the hulking Highborn was bigger than any of the space marines.

There was a lurch aboard the patrol boat. Marten clanged against Group-Leader Xenophon.

“Look at this,” Osadar said over the harshly crackling radio.

Marten had to turn down the volume the crackling became so bad. “What happened?” he asked, even though he knew what had happened. The ion engine had begun to brake the boat’s velocity.

“Look at your screen,” Osadar said, sounding tired. It was the first time he’d heard that in Osadar’s voice.

“Are you feeling okay?” he radioed.

“Do not worry about me,” she said.

“I am. You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Look at your screen.”

Marten picked up the screen and turned it. Space marines crowded around. For the first time, he had a good look at the Sun Station. It was round and brightly metallic like chrome. There were black splotches in it. He squinted, looking closer. Those splotches—they must be breaches, holes. Debris floated around the breaches.

“Do you see?” Osadar asked.

“Polymers?” asked Marten.

“Yes. Correct. The cyborgs blasted their way in, although their stealth-pods did not survive.”

“Got it,” Marten said. “What happened to the outer defensive field?”

“I don’t understand why we haven’t been fired upon,” Osadar said. “Maybe the cyborgs inserted a virus into the computing systems, but I doubt they destroyed everything.”

Marten scanned the space marines behind him. Every time he looked through a visor, he saw men battling fear. Nadia’s eyes were wide with fright, but she managed a tremulous smile. Every armor suit had old scars from former fights. They could have used new gyroc rifles. The plasma cannons had pitted nozzles, showing extended use.

Marten bared his teeth as fierce pride beat in his chest. These were his space marines, the survivors of too many fights. Not all the spit and piss had been knocked out of them yet.

“I’m going to try to ram through the biggest breach,” Osadar said. “None of us could withstand the Sun’s rays for more than several seconds if they caught us outside. We have to get inside behind the station’s insulation.”

“Is the hole big enough?” Marten asked.

A shudder ran through the William Tell. Then another followed the first.

“I’ve detached the troop pods,” Osadar said.

“Is the breach big enough?” Marten asked.

“Not completely,” Osadar said. “You must be ready for a hard impact.”

“Great.”

“Do you desire to space-walk to the station?”

Marten muttered to himself. Suicide by sunshine, he wanted no part of that. “Are you holding up okay?”

“I’ll join you once we’ve docked,” she said. “Does that suit you?”

“Keep talking,” Marten said.

“The cyborgs took my body from me,” Osadar said. “They tore me out of my flesh and turned me into this. We cannot let them win.”

Marten turned to his space marines. “We’re going in,” he said, using an open channel. “This is the fight and we’re the last grunts left. We have to dig out the cyborgs.” Marten swallowed a lump that rose in his chest. “This is going to be nasty, but we’ve beaten these freaks before. They want to enslave us. They want to bury implants in our brains. There’s only one answer to that, a bullet in their head. Nothing matters today but winning. We’re all expendable if just one of us is left standing at the end to use the Sunbeam as a free man.”

“Kill the cyborgs!” Group-Leader Xenophon shouted.

“They killed Jupiter,” Marten said. “They hunted down every human in the system. We can do the same to them if we win.”

“Can we win?” a space marine asked.

Marten laughed harshly. “I’ve got a gun in my hand and bastards telling me I’m going to be his slave. Live or die, I’m going to fight and show them they’re facing men!”

The Jovians roared bloodthirsty oaths as they shook their weapons.

“Now grab onto something,” Marten said. “This is going to get rough.”

In the sealed pilot’s chamber, Osadar sat alone in her combat armor. Heavy shields were locked before the ballistic glass window.

With her gauntleted fingers, she tapped the screen. The ion engine burned hotter as it increased thrust. Using sensors and outer cameras, she saw the exhaust licking against the Sun Station. The heavily-hulled circular structure was over half a kilometer in diameter.

The universe owes me for all the injustice it has heaped upon me. Just once, I would like some good luck.

Her screen showed motion on the station. With a sinking feeling, she realized she shouldn’t have through directly against fate. The universe had heard and now it screwed her yet again.

Osadar bared her teeth. It must have been an unconscious gesture learned from Kluge. The man never quit. He kept charging against insane odds in his quixotic quest for freedom. He was a fool, but Marten Kluge was her fool and friend. Maybe he was the universe’s prank against those who thought they could control everything.

Using a close-up, Osadar zeroed in on the biggest breach, the one she aimed for. Those were suited cyborgs. They tracked the patrol boat. With a tap, she zoomed an even closer shot. The cyborgs held silvery, hand-held missiles. As the cameras watched, the cyborgs fired. Silvery missiles streaked for the boat.

Osadar laughed. It was a strange sound. Each silvery sliver melted in the boat’s ion exhaust. One after another, they turned into slag and then disappeared.

It was then Osadar spotted wrecked auto defenses on the outer station hull. That explained much. The cyborgs must have destroyed them going in.

We didn’t give them time to fix them.

Osadar tensed her muscles. In seeming slow motion, the William Tell backed into the Sun Station, the ion exhaust licking against the outer hull.

“No,” Osadar whispered.

At another breach more cyborgs appeared. They launched a flock of hand-held missiles. As Osadar fired a PD cannon at the cyborgs, the missiles slammed into the boat. Explosions rocked the craft as warheads blew away sections of boat. Polymers, foam, and air sprayed outward.

Osadar slapped a switch. Then she cinched her straps. Seconds later, the Jovian vessel crumpled against the Sun Station, a portion making it through as the rest shredded in a groan and then a terrible shriek of metal.

It is your time, Marten Kluge. Screw the cyborgs if you can.

It was chaos aboard the William Tell. Marines slammed against each other. Sections of ship tore apart. In his headphones, Marten heard yelling. Then he realized he shouted as loud as he could. As he flew across the chamber, grunting, as he sank against hardened foam, Marten had time to believe that this was worse than the sled-ride onto the Bangladesh’s particle-shields. He flew a different way and clanged against another marine. His head banged around in his helmet, fortunately cushioned by pads for this express reason. Terrible screeching assaulted his ears. Then it was over. He lay still, a mass of bruises and sore joints. It hurt to shift. Jovians were piled on and around him.

Knowing they had little time, Marten clenched his teeth and forced himself to move his arm. He would not groan. He would not give in to pain. He had to act now.

He tapped a forearm pad. A groan did slide from his tightened lips as a needle jabbed his flesh. It injected a double dose of painkillers. He took a deep breath and managed to say, “Get up. Let’s get going.”

“My leg is broke,” a space marine radioed.

“No excuses,” Marten said, “not today. Shoot yourself with painkillers. If that doesn’t help, use more. We made it here and now we have a job to do.”

“It’s dark.”

“Use your infrared,” Marten said.

“Mine’s not working,” Xenophon said.

Marten tried his. “Mine isn’t either. It must have something to do with the nearness to the Sun. It doesn’t matter. Use your helmet-lamps. We’re used to that.”

“Lamps aren’t going to help us gain surprise over cyborgs,” Xenophon said.

“If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” Marten said. “Now no more excuses. Follow me. It’s time to kick cyborg ass.”

In the light of his helmet-lamp, Marten shoved aside wreckage. Behind him, space marines followed as more lamps clicked on. In the wash of thirty beams, the humans worked in tandem.

The storming of the Sun Station began as Marten Kluge eased through a jagged opening. He left the wreckage of the William Tell and entered the first chamber. What he found there told the story.

There were blast holes in the bulkheads and sparking circuitry. A cable writhed back and forth as a thick liquid oozed from it. Worse were floating Highborn, dead soldiers in breached powered armor. One big Highborn was missing his head as blood floated where the neck should have been. Fewer dead cyborgs drifted in their battle-suits, helmets shattered and foreheads shot out. The Highborn had known the rule on how to kill the melds.

“It was a massacre,” Xenophon whispered.

Marten noticed he could hear the Jovian’s voice more clearly. The station blocked more of the Sun’s interference than the William Tell had.

“Keep together,” Marten said. With a practiced shove, he pushed off the floor and floated past the dead. Using his gyroc rifle, he shoved a drifting cyborg out of his way. As he neared the blasted hatch, Marten’s gut clenched. Xenophon had been right earlier. They needed their suit’s radar. Now he’d have to use his eyes and the lamp-beam that would give him away.

Marten held his breath as he floated through the hatch, his rifle ready. His beam flashed down a curving corridor. In it, more dead floated, both Highborn and cyborg.

“We’re doing this by the numbers,” Marten said. “We stick together and search out each chamber and corridor at a time. I don’t want anyone splitting apart and heading elsewhere.”

The space marines followed him through the corridors. Always, there were the dead HB and the fewer destroyed cyborgs. Once, a cyborg twitched, and seven shells from seven different gyrocs blasted it. There were floating globules of blood and drifting intestines. Jovians floated past severed hands, heads and wrecked plasma cannons.

“Armageddon,” Marten whispered.

Omi clanked his helmet against Marten’s. “What’s that mean?”

“The last battle,” Marten said.

They floated past hatches where bolts of energy flashed wildly. One bolt writhed through the hatch and fused a Jovian to his armor.

“Keep away from the side hatches!” Marten shouted.

Marines scrambled to get away from the energy bolt.

A corridor later, Omi asked, “So where are the cyborgs?”

“They will be in the control chamber,” Felix said.

“Any idea where that is?” asked Marten.

“I think in the very center of the station,” Ah Chen answered. Nadia and she wore combat armor like everyone else, joining them in the assault. There were no safe places here.

In the wash of helmet-lamps, the party pushed and floated through the Sun Station. Because they lacked any schematics, they had to search for the center. There were many curving corridors and endless chambers. Each held their quota of floating dead, battalions of Highborn and always lesser number of cyborgs.

“They killed each other off,” Omi said.

“Keep alert,” Marten said.

“They’re near,” Felix radioed.

“How do you know?” asked Xenophon.

The Highborn grunted, “I know because I feel them.”

Cyborgs hit them seventeen seconds later. In a large, dark area—a cargo-hold was Marten’s guess—the enemy made their move.

With the speed of insects, four suited cyborgs jumped off a corridor wall one after another. They flew into the chamber, firing pulse-rifles: tiny blue energy-bolts streaked across the chamber. They targeted with uncanny accuracy and with amazing speed, maybe three times as fast as what a trained space marine could achieve.

Due to precision shots, eight visors shattered and eight Jovians died. Two pulse rounds sizzled across Felix’s helmet—he’d turned his head fast enough so the armor took the shots. The Highborn reacted faster than any of the space marines. Even as he looked up, he aimed his rotating hand-cannon. With flames of fire, the heavy weapon churned, pushing Felix away from the enemy.

Marten had reacted almost as fast. He berated himself for failing to fire. Instead, he had ducked and he lay on the floor. With his gyroc, he now returned fire.

Hand-cannon slugs tore into a cyborg, foiling its aim, saving Nadia’s life as a pulse-bolt missed her by centimeters. It was too late for Ah Chen, however. Her stomach was blown out by repeated pulse-shots breaching her armor.

Omi fired from the wall. A few other space marines now shot back. APEX shells ignited. A few hit, a very few. Too many shells flew past the cyborgs, exploding uselessly against the already pitted walls.

The cyborgs killed three more marines. Then Felix’s slugs hammered a cyborg visor and smashed through, obliterating the armored brainpan. Together, Marten and Omi killed another.

The last two cyborgs kept tracking and firing, taking out more space marines with frightful skill, inhuman precision. Another cyborg appeared, this one wearing Jovian battle-gear. Osadar used a plasma cannon, firing the area-effect weapon. A roiling orange globule consumed a cyborg, and yet another marine. The last cyborg slammed its hands against its chest. The thing ignited in a terrific explosion, killing five more Jovians. Four cyborgs had slaughtered half the space marines in a matter of moments.

“What now?” Xenophon whispered.

“You stay and help the wounded,” Marten told him. “The rest of you, follow me.” His eyes were watery with rage. How could these things murder men with such ease? “I’m going to take point from here on in.”

“We need a plan,” Omi said. “How are we going to do this?”

Marten couldn’t look at the dead. These men—he sputtered, growing angrier. “Caution seems useless. So we use speed. Attack and fire at whatever you see.”

The last of the space marines flew down the corridors with him. Everyone fired shells into each new heading, often blowing apart the floating dead.

Despite their best efforts, cyborgs hit them again at a junction, taking them from the flank. This time, each cyborg projectile and pulse-round struck Felix. Maybe the cyborgs realized he was the truly dangerous soldier among them.

Felix grunted over the headphones. Dying, he turned, and killed a cyborg with the hand-cannon.

The next few seconds was a maelstrom of weapons-fire. The handful of cyborgs that had ambushed them died. Forty-one seconds later, Marten, Omi, Osadar and two other space marines propelled themselves into the large central chamber of the Sun Station.

Three cyborgs were at various controls. They obviously worked on targeting the Sunbeam. Marten could tell because there were images on the targeting screens of two SU battleships.

Marten fired two shells at one cyborg, swiveled his rifle and was firing at a second enemy even as the meld drew a gun. The first died as the APEX shells blew apart its helmet. The last lost its gun-hand to the shell.

Omi’s shell killed it a second later. The last cyborg died by plasma.

Marten blinked at the dead as he breathed heavily.

“Do you think that’s it?” Omi asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Marten said. “Osadar, do you have any idea how to use the equipment?”

“Let us find out,” she said.

-13-

The Prime Web-Mind of Neptune grew impatient. The Sunbeam should have taken out more targets by now. There wasn’t any news of that at all.

At that moment, the Sunbeam reached the Neptune System for a second time. The hellish ray did not fire anywhere near the SU warships, however. Instead, the beam fixed on Triton.

The terrible ray burned through Triton’s negligible nitrogen atmosphere. Then it struck the surface of mostly frozen nitrogen and water-ice crust. The incredible beam chewed through the surface, burning through a cryovolcano.

In a brief span of time, the beam burst through and hit a vast subterranean ocean. The liquid boiled away as vapors steamed in a growing cloud. The beam still struck as it continued to bore deeper into the Neptunian moon.

The Prime knew in a nanosecond that someone else controlled the Sunbeam. This was an emergency, a dire event. In three seconds, it understood that whoever fired the beam meant to destroy the moon. Whoever fired tried to kill it—the marvel of the universe. That could never occur. There was only one possible solution now.

The armored chamber holding the Prime’s brain domes lifted. Jets fired and the chamber shook. Slowly, the great armored room slid through wide corridors as it headed for the great elevator.

The Prime ran through outlandish scenarios. Cooling chemicals kept hysteria at bay, kept panic from guiding its logic. Given its uniqueness and greatness, it would be an inconceivable loss to the Solar System if it should perish.

I am the Prime, the singularity of existence.

The armored chamber headed for a large oval vessel. The vessel was bigger than an SU battleship, although it would never willingly engage in a fight. The size was for the unique equipment, for the experimental Fuhl Mechanism.

As the armored chamber moved up the elevator, as debris slammed against the roof, as Triton-quakes shook the planetoid, the hideous Sunbeam kept burning. Time was running against it.

As the Prime’s chamber slid into the belly of the great ship, the Sunbeam boiled the subterranean ocean at a fantastic rate. Seconds passed into minutes and the minutes crawled as the Prime’s vessel slowly lifted off the moon.

The Sunbeam now burst through the subterranean ocean as it bored for the core.

The enemy must desire vengeance. How else to explain this crime against the universe? The Prime knew it was unique, a gift to reality. The thoughtless Homo sapiens with their small thinking must yearn to destroy Triton as Mars’ moon Phobos had once been destroyed, as South American Sector on Earth had been destroyed.

This cannot happen to me. I am the Prime. I am the greatest life in the Solar System, probably in the entire galaxy.

The beam began to move now across Triton’s moonscape. The great vessel slowly lifted for space as the beam moved faster, sweeping the surface and coming dangerously near the ship.

On the Vladimir Lenin, Hawthorne crowded next to Blackstone and Kursk as they watched the module.

“The beam is going to destroy the moon,” Hawthorne whispered.

Kursk blinked several times. “Sir, there’s a communications, an emergency message,” she said, pointing at a blinking light on the panel.

Hawthorne tore his gaze from the incredible sight of the vast beam. “Put it on,” he said.

It was a short message. It came from Cone on Earth. According to her, the Sun-Works Factory had been destroyed.

“What?” Hawthorne said. “How did that happen?”

The message was over four hours old. Therefore, Cone hadn’t heard the question. She did tell them, however, that an amazing beam from the Sun had demolished the Highborn headquarters.

“A Sunbeam,” Hawthorne said. “That’s what we’ve been witnessing. What happened back in Inner Planets?”

“Sir!” said Blackstone. “Look! Is that a ship?”

Kursk was already bringing the object into sharper focus. It was oval, lifting from Triton’s disintegrating surface.

“It’s big,” she said, “bigger than our battleship.” She looked up in surprise. “These readings—I’ve never seen anything like them. Is it a weapon?”

Hawthorne opened his mouth to shout an order. Before he could utter any noise, four dark nodes appeared on the enemy ship. Then a strange flash occurred, and the ship disappeared, leaving the flash behind as it seemed to close in upon itself.

“What just happened?” Kursk whispered.

Hawthorne’s jaw sagged as a sharp pain lanced his chest. He groaned, mastering the pain as his long fingers played over controls. He brought up the video recording and played it in slow motion.

The four nodes, they were a swirling black color, seeming to suck light. Then the flash occurred as it cycled through a number of colors: red, green, purple, orange, blue and bright white at the end. The ship slipped through what seemed like a rent in space, and the hole closed behind it as the colors cycled down.

“This is new,” Hawthorne whispered.

“Did a cyborg ship escape?” Kursk asked.

“I’m more interested in finding out if a Web-Mind escaped,” Hawthorne said.

“I doubt we’ll ever know,” Blackstone said. “That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Stranger than the Sunbeam?” asked Kursk.

“I can understand the Sunbeam,” Blackstone said. “What we just witnessed, I don’t want to hazard a guess as to what it was.”

“Was that a rip into hyperspace?” Hawthorne asked quietly.

“There are no warp drives or wormholes,” Kursk said.

“Not until now,” Hawthorne said. The pain in his chest was less than before, but it hurt every time his heart beat. Had they just fought the greatest war ever, only to have the enemy slip away to start everything over again from a different base? If that was a starship, with the Prime Web-Mind aboard…it meant the next cyborg attack might possibly come from another star system. He massaged his chest. This was more than he wanted to think about now. Sunbeams and starships…he wanted to go home to Earth.

Sunk in gloom, Hawthorne fell silent as Triton broke into sections, cut apart by the terrible ray.

The Prime knew a moment of rarified glee as its vessel winked out of existence above Triton and away from the annihilating ray.

In the huge ship, cyborgs stood at their stations, awaiting orders. The cargo-holds held massive amounts of equipment, all that was needed to begin again.

It was a risk I might never have taken. Now I own an experimental starship, a vessel to span the galaxy.

The glee turned to anger as the Prime realized it would have to start over.

I will rebuild elsewhere. Then I will return and cruelly subjugate those who thought to destroy my magnificence.

Quick calculations showed the Prime its strongholds in Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars could not survive the terrible Sunbeam. Perhaps if it gathered every surviving Lurker and used the starship—

No, I cannot risk losing this wonderful vessel. I own the only known starship. I will—

The Prime’s gloating was cut short as a lurch and alarms throughout the starship told of a reentry into normal space. It ran an accelerated analysis. Neptune’s nearness had upset the starship’s gravitational fields, which needed a precision bordering on the Sunbeam’s targeting systems.

Where am I? Have I reached another star system?

Cyborgs on the bridge poured their findings to the Prime. With a shock, the Prime realized it had only hopped a short distance. Then a louder alarm rang through the experimental starship.

Sub-Strategist Circe contemplated the meaning of the third Dictate. She sat in the Force-Leader’s chair in the control chamber. Unconsciously, she rubbed the black gem embedded in her forehead. With half-lidded eyes, she let her gaze rove over a statute of an ancient, naked Roman boxer with a broken nose. He—

Sirens blared, making her twist in her chair.

“Sub-Strategist!” the Erasmus’s weapons officer said. “An-an intruder has just appeared.”

“Explain your statement,” Circe said sharply.

“Look up at the screen,” the officer said.

She did. Long-range teleoptics showed a big ship. “Is that an SU battleship?” she asked.

“No. It’s bigger.”

“Where did it come from?” Circe asked.

“There was a flash, Sub-Strategist, and then it just appeared.”

“Attention!” Circe said, as she slapped an intercom button on her chair’s armrest. “Warm the lasers and target the enemy ship. It is a cyborg vessel, the most dangerous one in existence. We must attack it with extreme prejudice.”

“Are you sure it’s a cyborg vessel?” the weapons officer asked.

“Destroy it,” Circe said, “or we’re all doomed.” She had studied Chief Strategist Tan’s information about a Fuhl Event. The cyborgs must have finally ironed out the flaws and now used this ship to attack each fleet piecemeal. It was a brilliant strategy. The thought she had endured so much to fall prey to yet another secret cyborg project—

“Annihilate it!” Circe hissed. “Annihilate it before its beam or missiles destroy us.”

“Engage the Fuhl Mechanism!” the Prime messaged the cyborg crew. “We must leave this place.”

“We need time to adjust and recalibrate the black-hole pods, Prime,” a cyborg radioed its master.

“Then accelerate the ship away from those vessels!”

Several seconds later, the Prime experienced the building Gs as thrusters roared with life.

The Prime focused its sensors on the three meteor-ships. They were battered-looking.

Yes, they fought the Uranus cyborgs. By the ALL, I must survive.

Even as the Prime thought this, the three meteor-ships fired their primary lasers.

“Use the mechanism! Jump us out of here!”

“We need time, Prime.”

“Do it now or I will die!”

The lasers burned into the starship’s hull. Then the four nodes swirled with power. The Fuhl Mechanism started up, and the vessel began to crumple in upon itself. Its own gravitational forces destroyed the Solar System’s first experimental starship.

As the Prime Web-Mind of Neptune perished, torn apart by black-hole gravitational forces, Commissar Kursk tapped her communications screen. A face appeared on the module.

“It’s Marten Kluge,” Hawthorne said.

“Greetings,” Marten said. “I have just taken control of the Sun Station. I realize my time here may be short, so I have made some hard decisions. The first was the destruction of the Sun-Works Factory. I gave the Commandant the option to leave and head for Luna. He could not agree, so I destroyed the Factory before he could use it against me. I have just demolished Triton and I am about to target Luna and destroy the Highborn base there. In the days to come, I will target all cyborg concentrations of strength in each planetary system.”

Marten Kluge took a deep breath. “I have lived under many political systems, and I have found them all repugnant. Therefore, the Solar System is going to try a new way for a time—my way. Those who cannot agree to try it, I will target. My way is called freedom, giving people a choice.”

Marten’s taut features broke into a grim smile. “I’m going to build a bigger station, a bigger defensive bulwark around the Sunbeam. And I’m calling it a Star Fortress. It gives me veto power over anything I find repugnant. Remember that as you begin instituting freedom throughout the Solar System. That is all for now. Marten Kluge out.”