Doom Star: Book 06 - Star Fortress (43 page)

“What now?” Xenophon whispered.

“You stay and help the wounded,” Marten told him. “The rest of you, follow me.” His eyes were watery with rage. How could these things murder men with such ease? “I’m going to take point from here on in.”

“We need a plan,” Omi said. “How are we going to do this?”

Marten couldn’t look at the dead. These men—he sputtered, growing angrier. “Caution seems useless. So we use speed. Attack and fire at whatever you see.”

The last of the space marines flew down the corridors with him. Everyone fired shells into each new heading, often blowing apart the floating dead.

Despite their best efforts, cyborgs hit them again at a junction, taking them from the flank. This time, each cyborg projectile and pulse-round struck Felix. Maybe the cyborgs realized he was the truly dangerous soldier among them.

Felix grunted over the headphones. Dying, he turned, and killed a cyborg with the hand-cannon.

The next few seconds was a maelstrom of weapons-fire. The handful of cyborgs that had ambushed them died. Forty-one seconds later, Marten, Omi, Osadar and two other space marines propelled themselves into the large central chamber of the Sun Station.

Three cyborgs were at various controls. They obviously worked on targeting the Sunbeam. Marten could tell because there were images on the targeting screens of two SU battleships.

Marten fired two shells at one cyborg, swiveled his rifle and was firing at a second enemy even as the meld drew a gun. The first died as the APEX shells blew apart its helmet. The last lost its gun-hand to the shell.

Omi’s shell killed it a second later. The last cyborg died by plasma.

Marten blinked at the dead as he breathed heavily.

“Do you think that’s it?” Omi asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Marten said. “Osadar, do you have any idea how to use the equipment?”

“Let us find out,” she said.

The Prime Web-Mind of Neptune grew impatient. The Sunbeam should have taken out more targets by now. There wasn’t any news of that at all.

At that moment, the Sunbeam reached the Neptune System for a second time. The hellish ray did not fire anywhere near the SU warships, however. Instead, the beam fixed on Triton.

The terrible ray burned through Triton’s negligible nitrogen atmosphere. Then it struck the surface of mostly frozen nitrogen and water-ice crust. The incredible beam chewed through the surface, burning through a cryovolcano.

In a brief span of time, the beam burst through and hit a vast subterranean ocean. The liquid boiled away as vapors steamed in a growing cloud. The beam still struck as it continued to bore deeper into the Neptunian moon.

The Prime knew in a nanosecond that someone else controlled the Sunbeam. This was an emergency, a dire event. In three seconds, it understood that whoever fired the beam meant to destroy the moon. Whoever fired tried to kill it—the marvel of the universe. That could never occur. There was only one possible solution now.

The armored chamber holding the Prime’s brain domes lifted. Jets fired and the chamber shook. Slowly, the great armored room slid through wide corridors as it headed for the great elevator.

The Prime ran through outlandish scenarios. Cooling chemicals kept hysteria at bay, kept panic from guiding its logic. Given its uniqueness and greatness, it would be an inconceivable loss to the Solar System if it should perish.

I am the Prime, the singularity of existence
.

The armored chamber headed for a large oval vessel. The vessel was bigger than an SU battleship, although it would never willingly engage in a fight. The size was for the unique equipment, for the experimental Fuhl Mechanism.

As the armored chamber moved up the elevator, as debris slammed against the roof, as Triton-quakes shook the planetoid, the hideous Sunbeam kept burning. Time was running against it.

As the Prime’s chamber slid into the belly of the great ship, the Sunbeam boiled the subterranean ocean at a fantastic rate. Seconds passed into minutes and the minutes crawled as the Prime’s vessel slowly lifted off the moon.

The Sunbeam now burst through the subterranean ocean as it bored for the core.

The enemy must desire vengeance. How else to explain this crime against the universe? The Prime knew it was unique, a gift to reality. The thoughtless Homo sapiens with their small thinking must yearn to destroy Triton as Mars’ moon Phobos had once been destroyed, as South American Sector on Earth had been destroyed.

This cannot happen to me. I am the Prime. I am the greatest life in the Solar System, probably in the entire galaxy.

The beam began to move now across Triton’s moonscape. The great vessel slowly lifted for space as the beam moved faster, sweeping the surface and coming dangerously near the ship.

***

On the
Vladimir Lenin
, Hawthorne crowded next to Blackstone and Kursk as they watched the module.

“The beam is going to destroy the moon,” Hawthorne whispered.

Kursk blinked several times. “Sir, there’s a communications, an emergency message,” she said, pointing at a blinking light on the panel.

Hawthorne tore his gaze from the incredible sight of the vast beam. “Put it on,” he said.

It was a short message. It came from Cone on Earth. According to her, the Sun-Works Factory had been destroyed.

“What?” Hawthorne said. “How did that happen?”

The message was over four hours old. Therefore, Cone hadn’t heard the question. She did tell them, however, that an amazing beam from the Sun had demolished the Highborn headquarters.

“A Sunbeam,” Hawthorne said. “That’s what we’ve been witnessing. What happened back in Inner Planets?”

“Sir!” said Blackstone. “Look! Is that a ship?”

Kursk was already bringing the object into sharper focus. It was oval, lifting from Triton’s disintegrating surface.

“It’s big,” she said, “bigger than our battleship.” She looked up in surprise. “These readings—I’ve never seen anything like them. Is it a weapon?”

Hawthorne opened his mouth to shout an order. Before he could utter any noise, four dark nodes appeared on the enemy ship. Then a strange flash occurred, and the ship disappeared, leaving the flash behind as it seemed to close in upon itself.

“What just happened?” Kursk whispered.

Hawthorne’s jaw sagged as a sharp pain lanced his chest. He groaned, mastering the pain as his long fingers played over controls. He brought up the video recording and played it in slow motion.

The four nodes, they were a swirling black color, seeming to suck light. Then the flash occurred as it cycled through a number of colors: red, green, purple, orange, blue and bright white at the end. The ship slipped through what seemed like a rent in space, and the hole closed behind it as the colors cycled down.

“This is new,” Hawthorne whispered.

“Did a cyborg ship escape?” Kursk asked.

“I’m more interested in finding out if a Web-Mind escaped,” Hawthorne said.

“I doubt we’ll ever know,” Blackstone said. “That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Stranger than the Sunbeam?” asked Kursk.

“I can understand the Sunbeam,” Blackstone said. “What we just witnessed, I don’t want to hazard a guess as to what it was.”

“Was that a rip into hyperspace?” Hawthorne asked quietly.

“There are no warp drives or wormholes,” Kursk said.

“Not until now,” Hawthorne said. The pain in his chest was less than before, but it hurt every time his heart beat. Had they just fought the greatest war ever, only to have the enemy slip away to start everything over again from a different base? If that was a starship, with the Prime Web-Mind aboard…it meant the next cyborg attack might possibly come from another star system. He massaged his chest. This was more than he wanted to think about now. Sunbeams and starships…he wanted to go home to Earth.

Sunk in gloom, Hawthorne fell silent as Triton broke into sections, cut apart by the terrible ray.

***

The Prime knew a moment of rarified glee as its vessel winked out of existence above Triton and away from the annihilating ray.

In the huge ship, cyborgs stood at their stations, awaiting orders. The cargo-holds held massive amounts of equipment, all that was needed to begin again.

It was a risk I might never have taken. Now I own an experimental starship, a vessel to span the galaxy
.

The glee turned to anger as the Prime realized it would have to start over.

I will rebuild elsewhere. Then I will return and cruelly subjugate those who thought to destroy my magnificence
.

Quick calculations showed the Prime its strongholds in Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars could not survive the terrible Sunbeam. Perhaps if it gathered every surviving Lurker and used the starship—

No, I cannot risk losing this wonderful vessel. I own the only known starship. I will
—

The Prime’s gloating was cut short as a lurch and alarms throughout the starship told of a reentry into normal space. It ran an accelerated analysis. Neptune’s nearness had upset the starship’s gravitational fields, which needed a precision bordering on the Sunbeam’s targeting systems.

Where am I? Have I reached another star system?

Cyborgs on the bridge poured their findings to the Prime. With a shock, the Prime realized it had only hopped a short distance. Then a louder alarm rang through the experimental starship.

***

Sub-Strategist Circe contemplated the meaning of the third Dictate. She sat in the Force-Leader’s chair in the control chamber. Unconsciously, she rubbed the black gem embedded in her forehead. With half-lidded eyes, she let her gaze rove over a statute of an ancient, naked Roman boxer with a broken nose. He—

Sirens blared, making her twist in her chair.

“Sub-Strategist!” the
Erasmus’s
weapons officer said. “An-an intruder has just appeared.”

“Explain your statement,” Circe said sharply.

“Look up at the screen,” the officer said.

She did. Long-range teleoptics showed a big ship. “Is that an SU battleship?” she asked.

“No. It’s bigger.”

“Where did it come from?” Circe asked.

“There was a flash, Sub-Strategist, and then it just appeared.”

“Attention!” Circe said, as she slapped an intercom button on her chair’s armrest. “Warm the lasers and target the enemy ship. It is a cyborg vessel, the most dangerous one in existence. We must attack it with extreme prejudice.”

“Are you sure it’s a cyborg vessel?” the weapons officer asked.

“Destroy it,” Circe said, “or we’re all doomed.” She had studied Chief Strategist Tan’s information about a Fuhl Event. The cyborgs must have finally ironed out the flaws and now used this ship to attack each fleet piecemeal. It was a brilliant strategy. The thought she had endured so much to fall prey to yet another secret cyborg project—

“Annihilate it!” Circe hissed. “Annihilate it before its beam or missiles destroy us.”

***

“Engage the Fuhl Mechanism!” the Prime messaged the cyborg crew. “We must leave this place.”

“We need time to adjust and recalibrate the black-hole pods, Prime,” a cyborg radioed its master.

“Then accelerate the ship away from those vessels!”

Several seconds later, the Prime experienced the building Gs as thrusters roared with life.

The Prime focused its sensors on the three meteor-ships. They were battered-looking.

Yes, they fought the Uranus cyborgs. By the ALL, I must survive
.

Even as the Prime thought this, the three meteor-ships fired their primary lasers.

“Use the mechanism! Jump us out of here!”

“We need time, Prime.”

“Do it now or I will die!”

The lasers burned into the starship’s hull. Then the four nodes swirled with power. The Fuhl Mechanism started up, and the vessel began to crumple in upon itself. Its own gravitational forces destroyed the Solar System’s first experimental starship.

***

As the Prime Web-Mind of Neptune perished, torn apart by black-hole gravitational forces, Commissar Kursk tapped her communications screen. A face appeared on the module.

“It’s Marten Kluge,” Hawthorne said.

“Greetings,” Marten said. “I have just taken control of the Sun Station. I realize my time here may be short, so I have made some hard decisions. The first was the destruction of the Sun-Works Factory. I gave the Commandant the option to leave and head for Luna. He could not agree, so I destroyed the Factory before he could use it against me. I have just demolished Triton and I am about to target Luna and destroy the Highborn base there. In the days to come, I will target all cyborg concentrations of strength in each planetary system.”

Marten Kluge took a deep breath. “I have lived under many political systems, and I have found them all repugnant. Therefore, the Solar System is going to try a new way for a time—my way. Those who cannot agree to try it, I will target. My way is called freedom, giving people a choice.”