Star Fortress

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