auto-sweep, he fired at Stick. Marten rolled. Omi cursed and beamed Sigmir. The laser light bounced off Sigmir’s shiny armor; unknown to them it had been reflected, laser-proofed. Stick grunted. The gyroc shell lodged in the armor joint of his torso and right arm. Then the shell exploded and Stick blew to the floor, dead. Marten fired round after round against Sigmir’s armor. The bullets bounced off to little effect, even though Marten was hoping to weaken the armor by repeatedly hitting the same spot.
Sigmir roared with laughter and re-aimed his gyroc. Marten leaped aside. The explosion of the shell threw him hard onto the floor. Both Omi’s laser and Marten’s machinegun were powerless against Sigmir’s superior armor. Realizing that, Marten dropped his gun and drew the tangler from his pack.
“Fool!” bellowed Sigmir.
Marten and he fired at the same instant. The gyroc round was a dud and failed to ignite. It still hit Marten in the chest and threw him backward. The strong sticky strands, meanwhile, tangled the seven-foot berserker.
Sigmir shouted wildly and strained to snap the strands.
Bruised and aching, Marten rose and emptied his tangler onto Sigmir, cocooning him with the wire-thin strands.
“Release me!” roared Sigmir.
Omi shot off the radio attached to the Lot Six Commander’s helmet.
Marten dashed to the controls of the merculite station. They were of similar design to those in the Sun-Works Factory. His fingers played over them. Then Marten ran, shouting to Omi, “Come on!”
“Preman!” Sigmir bellowed. “Release me or face my wrath.”
Marten didn’t pause. He ran out of the control room, shouting orders at everyone to retreat. Above them, the clamshell top whirled open and the missiles lurched toward the blast pans.
“Evacuate the station!” bellowed Marten. “Hurry!”
“Where’s Sigmir?” shouted Petor, running toward them.
Marten nodded to Omi. Omi waited until the bodyguard was almost on them. Then he indicated that Petor flip open his visor. He did so. Omi plunged a vibroblade into the bodyguard’s face.
***
Panting, running for the nearby trench line, Marten peered up at the night sky. Four missiles launched from the merculite station. Far above, the Doom Star glowed. All around Tokyo and farther a-field terrible laser beams flared.
“Run!” Marten roared.
FEC soldiers ran, knowing that they had only seconds left. They only just made it to the trenches.
Marten landed hard, almost knocking the wind of out himself. The night erupted in a blaze of fire and steel and rocking shockwaves. Marten lay curled into a fetal ball. The pounding was worse than anything he’d faced so far. Heat washed over the trench. Shrapnel that had once been the inside of the merculite missile station flew over in bunches. Bits of dust and concrete rained upon the FEC soldiers, causing each man to tremble violently because he thought it meant the end. They endured the Doom Star beaming of the inner missile site. The intensity of the explosions shook their nerves near the breaking point. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, it stopped.
Marten and Omi uncurled. They avoided looking at each other because each knew from experience that a haunted look would stare back from a zombie’s mask. So they breathed gingerly, amazed that they could still be alive.
“Here comes the Colonel,” said a man.
Marten dragged himself upright. He wouldn’t lie. He’d tell him that Sigmir must have been caught in the merculite station. Everyone knew how insane the Captain was about capturing it. He must not have run away in time, but if the Colonel didn’t buy the story…
Marten glanced at Omi.
Omi whispered, “Then we’ll have to kill him, too.”
Marten smiled grimly in agreement.
21.
General James Hawthorne left the command center in time to forgo watching his carefully assembled armada and army demolished unit after unit by the
The careful gathering of hardware and military personnel in the massive build-up… the leaders of Social Unity had made it possible for the Highborn to destroy more units than they had ever been able to find since the start of the war. Perhaps it was true that the Highborn had been bloodied more than ever. The ledger, however, weighed heavily in Highborn favor.
That much General James Hawthorne knew as he rode a fast ground effects vehicle, a GEV, to meet with Lord Director Enkov. The compartment he rode in was sealed from the world. He wore neither chains nor handcuffs, but in the GEV compartment with him sat the bionic captain and five of his most trusted bionic soldiers.
They had hustled General Hawthorne out of the command center. They had marched him past the general’s own security men and past the armor units who had secretly pledged personal loyalty to James Hawthorne. Lord Director Enkov had given strict orders concerning the general, and no one had the firepower or the will to take on the bionic guards and thereby thwart the leader of Social Unity.
General Hawthorne contemplated his future. How odd was fate, how twisted and bizarre. He glanced at the bionic captain, and said, “The Lord Director’s instincts are impeccable. He had to have fled Beijing only hours before its destruction. His survival skills are unrivaled, wouldn’t you say?”
The bionic captain remained impassive. A massively built man, with artificial muscles and stimulant-powered reflexes, he sat ramrod stiff, eyes forward. His five trusted soldiers sat likewise, with the added feature of short, bullpup carbines held in their grimly powerful grips. Armor vests added to their invincibility.
“Enkov does not intend me to survive the meeting with him,” Hawthorne mused. He seemed remarkably composed in spite of his statement. “I’m sure he’ll ask you to report on my comportment during the operation.”
The bionic captain minutely changed position, so he stared impassively at the general.
“I tried to do my duty as I saw fit,” said Hawthorne. “I of course will tell him that you were simply trying to do yours.”
“I obeyed my orders.”
“Of course,” said Hawthorne. “And like the Lord Director I too believe that obedience is the highest military virtue. Of course, not all virtue belongs to the soldier. Some must belong to the commander. Chief among the virtues he should possess is loyalty—Loyalty to one’s subordinates and to one’s own orders. Otherwise a commander is merely whimsical and therefore not worthy of obedience.”
The bionic captain allowed himself the tiniest of frowns, and a faint downward twitch of the smallest portion of the left side of his mouth. “Lord Director Enkov does not plan your death to be a pleasant one.”
“Such is my own belief.”
“Yet you are calm.”
General Hawthorne shrugged. Then he sat still, a tall gaunt general with wispy blond hair, bony features composed and a row of medals on his chest. The bionic captain had allowed him time to don his dress uniform, a considerate gesture.
Soon the GEV stopped, settling onto the ground. The door opened and the bionic captain and his five soldiers escorted the general step into an underground bunker. The ultra-clean garage of the bunker held many tanks and GEVs and a company of black uniformed allegiance monitors aiming pistols at him. They wore black helmets with dark shaded visors. All of them were tense, ready for anything. .
The bionic captain marched his five men and General Hawthorne past the allegiance monitors and into a
