Cyborg Assault

“Fire everything,” the Praetor whispered.

Canus and com-officer turned toward him.

“It’s too soon,” Canus dared say.

“No one challenges me on my bridge!” the Praetor roared. “Fire everything and then heat up the laser.”

“Yes, lord,” said Canus. “But it is still too soon.”

“We’ll hit them with a mass barrage,” the Praetor said coldly. “We’ll inundate them as we attempt to land on the moon. Everything is timed with the Jovians.”

“Carme can obviously absorb our drones and lasers,” Canus said.

The Praetor rose to his feet. Amplified, exoskeleton strength gave him the ability in the high Gs. He began clanking toward Canus.

The Highborn officer concentrated on his weapons board as he began launching the Zenos they’d stolen from Demeter.

Soon, the Praetor loomed behind Canus’s armored back.

Canus activated the ship’s lone laser. Without turning around, he said, “As per your orders, I’m saving the rail- guns as a last surprise, lord.”

While docked at Demeter, they’d welded weapons pods to the ship.

The Praetor studied Canus’s board. One after another, Zenos left the tubes.

“Shut down the engines,” the Praetor whispered. “Begin deploying the defensive fields.”

Canus’s armored fingers roved fast, his reactions startling quick. Outside the ship, masses of prismatic crystals chugged out of various pods. Shielding gels sprayed out in turn.

The mighty engines stopped, bringing weightlessness to the ship.

“Enemy lasers—” Canus shouted.

The Praetor grinned tightly. He’d studied the cyborgs. They were melded creatures, governed by computer-like logic parameters. It had seemed obvious to him when they would begin firing at his ship. What he hadn’t counted on was the laser’s strength. The Praetor had expected stolen Jovian technology, not the laser long ago built inside the hollowed tunnels.

Carme’s main laser now stabbed at the triple-hulled missile-ship. It burned through the gel cloud and the prismatic crystal field. In seconds, the laser burst through the hull, chewing through the ablative foam sandwiched between hulls. It hit the second hull, heating the alloy, stabbing through the foam behind it. Seconds ticked away as more crystals and gels sprayed from the ship. Before they drifted into place, the laser burned through the last hull. Then the heavy laser burned coils, sliced through inter-ship bulkheads, burst through empty wardrooms, empty rec- rooms and hit the number three fusion-shield.

“Lord!” Canus shouted. “We have an emergency.”

The Praetor had been reading a damage control board, and his decision was instantaneous. “Foam the number three engine room.”

Canus moved fast.

Deep in the Thutmosis III, ablative foam poured from wide-gage nozzles, filling the number three fusion engine. Before an explosion could destroy the ship, the ablative foam first absorbed the laser fire that burned through the fusion-shield. Secondly, the ablative foam damped the fusion reaction. By that time, Carme’s laser no longer cut through the ship. The prismatic crystals floating in space protected them. The heavy laser burned crystals, slagging many and causing others to melt and vaporize. As that occurred, the sparkling, mirror-like crystals redirected laser light and thereby weakened the beam’s power.

All the while, more crystals and gels sprayed from the Thutmosis III’s tanks, building a thicker protection. It was a battle between the amount of crystals the ship held against the laser’s energy requirements and possible overheating. Eventually, however, the contest always went to the laser, given that the laser continued to beam. There were only so many prismatic crystals that any ship could hold.

“Estimate time of the second burn-through?” the Praetor said.

“Eighteen minutes,” Canus said.

The Praetor turned away. With the crystals and gels in place and pumping to replace losses, their own laser was useless. The cyborgs had emplaced at least one heavy laser on the moon. That was going to make things difficult. Missiles launched from Carme sped toward them in the meantime. They would arrive in less than an hour.

“We’re going to need the rail-guns sooner than expected,” the Praetor said.

“Lord?” asked Canus.

“In seventeen minutes, the rail-guns, the lasers and the activated Zenos will attack in conjunction,” the Praetor said.

“We can’t storm our way onto the moon,” Canus said. “They’ve clearly decided that we’re the primary threat. Now if we had a SU battlewagon with heavy particle shielding—”

“If we had a Doom Star, we would be the lords of Jupiter,” the Praetor said in a scathing tone. “Instead, we have the Thutmosis III. It’s still a crippled ship.” He grinned like a wounded tiger. “And we have eighteen Highborn. It’s a pitiful number compared to the likely masses of cyborgs. But we have more than enough pods and a dozen patrol boats to get us onto the moon’s surface.”

“Where we shall die,” Canus said.

The Praetor disliked Canus’s pessimism. He would have enjoyed throttling him, but he needed every officer he had.

“Did we survive this past year and finally decelerate here to die as a useless gesture?” Canus asked, scowling. It caused his burn-scar to turn even redder than normal. “Highborn should always fight to win.”

“We will win,” the Praetor said.

“After another—” Canus checked his board— “sixteen more minutes, the Thutmosis III will die to the heavy laser.”

“Have you rerouted the ship’s controls to the shuttle?”

“If it matters, I have.”

The Praetor clunked a gauntleted hand on Canus’s armored shoulder. “We defeated our despair at the edge of the Solar System. Let us defeat our despair once more and win through to victory.”

Still scowling, Canus glanced up. “Lord, your self-confidence borders on insanity.”

“That’s what others must have told Pizarro.”

“Lord?” asked Canus.

“We have fifteen minutes left,” the Praetor said. “So make sure you do everything right the first time, because we won’t have a second chance.”

-15-

As the Thutmosis III made its death-ride to glory or hapless oblivion, the Descartes and its fellow meteor-ship closed in on Carme as they decelerated. Compared to the missile-ship, the Jovian taskforce came from a ninety-degree angle, bearing down on the rogue moon. The Descartes led the assault, with the second ship following, using the Descartes as a shield.

Carme continued to accelerate, with the cyborg dreadnaught still hiding behind the moon. The main laser still attempted a burn-through on the Thutmosis III’s prismatic crystal field.

The Descartes looked much as it had the first day Marten saw it. The meteor-shell still looked like a junkyard with hosts of pods, girders, dishes, missiles, cubes and patrol boats seemingly magnetized to it. Today there was a singular difference. Marten viewed the meteor-ship from its surface.

He sat in the front of a patrol boat, beside Osadar. She was in the pilot’s chair, making last minute checks on her control board.

Marten wore his combat armor, presently minus his helmet. An IML was beside him and a Gyroc rifle. He had grenades, a vibroblade and an upset stomach.