Bio-Weapon

procedures.”

Hansen blinked several times before he asked, “If you’re so high-born how come everyone’s been able to trick you so easily?”

“Explain.”

Hansen’s head lolled back and forth across his pillow. “No, no, no. Nothing for nothing is my motto. If you wanna know then you gotta promise to help me.”

“Don’t trust him,” warned Ervil.

Lycon was surprised that Ervil meant the warning for him. “Why shouldn’t I trust Hansen?” he asked, bemused by these two.

“Because he’s a double-dealing bastard. I’ll kill when I get the chance.”

“Be quiet, Ervil,” slurred Hansen. “We gotta use Lycon and get him to help us.” With his long, sly face, Hansen regarded Lycon. “You’d better deal with me. It would be in your long term interest.”

Lycon snorted at their audacity. Two hopeless buffoons that had no idea of the danger they were in. The best way to use them surely was as a lever on the Praetor. It seemed incredible that these two had been the masterminds behind the dream dust operation.

“So do we have a deal?” asked Hansen.

For their lack of proper protocol, he should discipline the premen. But what was the use? Lycon strode from the room and found the wizened old doctor.

“Yes, Highborn?”

“Transfer those two downstairs,” he said.

“To the Neutraloid section, Highborn?”

He checked his chronometer. “Do it immediately and inform me when the operations are complete. Oh, and by the way, tell no one about this, not even the Praetor’s people. I want to surprise him.”

“Yes, Highborn, it shall be as you say.”

27.

The cell door slid open and a shock trooper shoved Admiral Rica Sioux in. She staggered and collapsed in a heap, the front of her dress uniform spotted with blood. She’d been captured during the fighting and later had the privilege of watching the shock troopers break her officers. A brutish monster named Kang had laughed as he’d used a shock rod on the First and Second Gunner. Both had died under the shock trooper’s caresses, revealing nothing about the beamship’s functions. The Pilot however had broken after the third shock-rod stroke.

Thus, the enemy had been able to turn the Bangladesh and now braked at two-Gs. Kang had then continued to torture the others for further information, turning the command-capsule into an abattoir.

“Are you all right, Admiral?” asked the Tracking Officer. They were in a security cell, six of them packed in a room built for two.

Rica Sioux spit blood from her mouth. They had knocked out her false teeth and had given her drugs to keep her tripping heart from quitting. Her chest thudded, knotted and it made breathing a dreadful chore. She knew that at best she only a few hours left.

“They’re monsters,” said the Tracking Officer, as she knelt over the Admiral and carefully blotted blood with a dirty rag.

“It doesn’t matter,” whispered Rica Sioux.”

“Yes it matters,” said the Tracking Officer.

Rica Sioux closed her eyes. The Bangladesh was doomed. The monster in the command capsule was doomed. Sadly, so were the last of her officers. She’d seen the dead shock troopers laying in their battlesuits. Too bad, they hadn’t been able to kill all the enemy space marines. She’d asked to speak with the cunning leader who had foiled them, the one who had called her and had led the smaller team. None of the enemy had looked at her then. That’s when her beatings had really started. So she’d asked only once more, and Kang had knocked her teeth out one by one, telling her to mind her own business.

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” asked the Tracking Officer.

Rica Sioux opened her eyes and closed them again. The Tracking Officer had only been a blur. Anyway, it hurt her head too much trying to see. She wouldn’t tell why it didn’t matter because she was afraid the officers had all cracked. They knew she planned something and worked no doubt for that monster in her command capsule. The Highborn had trained him well. That monster, Kang, he was much more clever than he looked. He understood about breaking people. It was an art with him. Her officers should have let her blow the ship.

“Admiral!”

“Leave me alone,” whispered Rica Sioux.

“She’s dying,” said someone.

“Better tell Kang.”

Rica Sioux smiled. There! Now she knew they had been cracked.

“Admiral!”

“Good-bye,” said Rica Sioux. Her old heart defeated the drugs trying to keep it going. The ancient organ quit and Admiral Sioux stopped breathing.

28.

Marten woke up outside the beamship, secured to the underside of a blasted particle shield. He’d slept nineteen hours. It didn’t repair his extreme exhaustion, but he’d woken with an idea. That’s how it usually went with him. He had a problem. He wrestled with it and then he went to sleep. When he woke up or during a shower, the answer just popped into his head.

He could use a shower now. His jumpsuit was grimy and he itched all over. As he sipped water from his tube and relieved himself—a battlesuit’s waste-disposal system reverted a shock trooper back into a baby with diapers. He went in his suit and the battlesuit flushed the body wastes for him. A handy feature, Marten supposed, but he always felt strange using it. In any case, he slurped concentrates and began the journey back into the beamship.

Once aboard he used a comlink to check various damage control crawlers that nineteen hours ago had been under his command. Six of them had been shut down. He checked his own motion detectors that he’d been setting up the entire time and saw that six battlesuits hunted the engine room for him.

They had probably grown tired of searching for the unfindable, the reason only six did it and not the usual thirty. Anyway, he finally had the answer to his problem. The question was could he implement the answer before the HBs arrived? Leaning his half-ton battlesuit against a wall and switching off, he began the three-minute procedure that took him out of it.

He felt naked stepping out the suit in his bare feet. The two Gs of braking pulled hard at his muscles, but it felt wonderful to scratch his chest and legs and a spot on his back. Then he put on a special cup around his genitals. Two Gs could do the nastiest things. Finally, putting on combat boots, he prowled the corridors until he came upon one of the shutdown damage control crawlers.

He manually opened a hatch, slipped into the cushioned seat and checked the HUD controls. Soon he revved the crawler into life and peeled out, traveling down the long, empty corridors. He sped toward a specially selected missile locker. It took him an hour to crawl past various battle-damage and take two detours from prowling shock troopers. Finally, he entered a huge storage area devoid of light. With the crawler’s beam, he viewed huge missiles that still hung from their racks. Using the vehicle’s mechanical arms, he hauled two of the missiles from their racks and to a nearby firing tube. Unfortunately, the firing tube was blasted wreckage.