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
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
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.
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.”
