Cyborg Assault ds-4 Page 17

  “Where is Force-Leader Yakov?” Su-Shan asked.

  “He’s indisposed,” Marten said.

  “Ah,” said Su-Shan. “You mean he is busy plotting with the other ingrates. We shall soon break into their signals, never fear. Now, I demand that you escort Tan to Callisto.”

  “First we must come to an understanding about the cyborgs,” Marten said.

  Su-Shan hesitated. “What is your analysis concerning these cyborgs?” she asked Tan.

  “The one standing in the room with me is real,” Tan said.

  “Does that mean the others exist?” asked Su-Shan.

  “It doesn’t have to follow,” Tan said. “Still, I think something odd has occurred in our system.”

  “Yes,” said Su-Shan, “the rebellion.”

  Tan shook her head. “I do not believe that Yakov planned open rebellion.”

  Su-Shan minutely tilted her head as she studied her cousin. “The fact of their successful rebellion means they have planned it for some time. Therefore, Yakov did plan it.”

  “Agreed,” said Tan. “What I meant to say is that Yakov did not plan to begin the rebellion this soon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Since boarding this vessel, I have monitored his messages. I have also conferred many times with the ship’s Arbiter. He was like a living stick-tight and searched for rebellion with unusual zeal. He had his suspicions, naturally, but never the proof.”

  “Yet the rebellion occurred,” said Su-Shan. “Therefore, you failed to—”

  “If I may,” Tan said, “I disagree with your overall analysis—I am inferring portions of your beliefs, that’s true, but I have ingested the thrust of your argument. You and I both know that system-wide oddities have occurred independently of the Secessionist Plot. We have both spoken about the strange events before this. We first suspected the Secessionists, and that is why I boarded the Descartes. After seeing one cyborg with my own eyes and witnessing further odd occurrences, I have begun to believe that cyborgs have indeed invaded our system.”

  “What would be their purpose?” asked Su-Shan.

  “Conquest, I should think. Solar System dominion.”

  “You believe cyborgs have suborned Athena Station?”

  “It is a possibility,” Tan said, “one worth considering.”

  “What is your recommendation?”

  “I may be the last Strategist of the War Council,” Tan said.

  “If true, you would be the new Chief Strategist. Your words would have even greater weight, given that you were free to speak your mind.”

  “While they do not overtly threaten me,” Tan said, “obviously, I am a prisoner.”

  “I demand her immediate release,” Su-Shan told Marten.

  “Under certain conditions,” Marten said, “I believe that Yakov would agree to that.”

  “I cannot halt the bombardment,” Su-Shan said.

  “Could you postpone it?” Marten asked.

  “Possibly,” said Su-Shan, “depending on the timeframe.”

  “Until the supply vessels from Athena Station reach a low-Callisto orbit,” Marten said.

  “You believe the ‘vessels’ will turn into a cyborg strike,” Su-Shan said in reproof.

  “Why does it matter what I believe?”

  “Because it taints your good faith,” she said.

  “If I’m right,” Marten said, “your postponement will have left more of the Jovian System intact. If I’m wrong, you can still send in your warships.”

  “As the rebels gather reinforcements and send everyone in the Galileo Regio into the deep caverns,” Su-Shan said.

  “If I’m wrong, you will have an over-powering fleet and easily be able to sweep aside whatever reinforcements the Secessionists have gathered.”

  “So you’re saying it is to be total war?” Su-Shan asked.

  Marten thought fast. “No,” he said. “Under those conditions, I would urge Force-Leader Yakov to surrender. And as the Mars Planetary Union Representative, I would be forced to recognize the ruling Jovian government.”

  “You should recognize us immediately,” Su-Shan said. “I cannot understand why you don’t. As an accredited representative, it is your duty to recognize the lawful government.”

  “Let us put that aside for the moment,” Marten said.”

  “No,” Su-Shan said, “as a representative—”

  “Chief Controller!” said Tan, giving her cousin a tiny shake of her head.

  “Very well…” Su-Shan said. “I will agree to a temporary truce. You will give Strategist Tan a pod and she can set a course for Callisto.”

  “I agreed,” said Marten. “Now, as to the details of the exchange….”

  -6-

  As Strategist Tan ejected from the Descartes and headed in a pod for a Guardian Fleet dreadnaught, millions of kilometers away Octagon gibbered for mercy.

  He lay on a steel table, with his head strapped down and his torso, arms and legs secured by metal bands. He was stark naked, his manhood a shriveled lump that lay like a beaten dog on his hairless scrotum. Whenever he squirmed, punishment zaps sizzled across his skin. He quickly learned to lie perfectly still as the two cyborgs in the room continued their experiments.

  Hypos, prods, needles and a strange, bulky instrument that looked like an oversized gun were attached to the nearest wall. A medical unit monitored his status, and its occasional sounds sent a shiver of terror through Octagon. He’d always hated doctors and dentists in particular. The taps, massages, drills, the needles and the cold scope on his chest, he had always hated them. Such ministrations had made him feel vulnerable again, as he had as an orphan in his youth.

  He’d been reared in a harsh world of Platonic instructors, and Master Gensifer had been the worst of his teachers. Octagon could still feel the slaps against the back of his head, and the evil cheek-pinches by the man’s strong fingers. Worst of all, however, had been Master Gensifer’s acid tongue. Gensifer had used his tongue like a wire lash, and it had slashed Octagon’s young ego with brutal precision. It was strange, but over time, Octagon had come to admire Gensifer. He had seen the old man as a tower of strength. If he could become sharp-witted, if he could slap and pinch others, then he would be safe. He would be strong and secure. Maybe the savagery of his childhood had driven Octagon to excel. Maybe the need to defend himself had forced him to hurt others.

  Octagon didn’t reason these things out on the steel table. Instead, he felt small again, vulnerable and weak. He loathed these sensations. They shriveled his gut. He was a hurt thing, and he would do anything to stop the hurting, anything to get off the table.

  At the moment, Octagon remained rigid—the electrical discharges were too painful to resist. Only his eyes roamed free. A metal band circled his head, keeping his neck from moving. He strained his eyes to the left to see what the nearest cyborg detached from the wall. He peered to the right as the door opened. From the next room came an awful green glow. It implied horrors beyond imagination.

  He was still aboard the pod, Octagon was certain of that. Where did they go? What did the cyborgs want with him, other than to convert him into one of them? The idea… is this why he had survived the vacuum of space? It was inconceivable. He had prayed. He had prayed to a myriad of deities.

  A horrible thought occurred then. Which of the supernatural entities had heard him? Because he lay on this cold, steel table, the sickening conclusion was that an evil entity must have responded to his prayers. The entity probably laughed at a man’s attempt to wrest an ounce of joy from life.

  Octagon wanted to whimper, and that made him cringe, fearing more shocks. Maybe whimpering offended cyborgs. However, no electrical discharges were released. Octagon strained to see what the awful beings were doing now.

  A cyborg pulled the bulky, gun-like instrument from the wall. The metallic monster turned toward him, raising the barrel of the ‘gun’. The weapon showed a large opening, and something seemed to be in it. The cyborg floated n
earer, both it and the bulky thing were weightless.

  “What are you doing?” Octagon whispered. His voice was badly damaged from prolonged screaming. “I insist that you stop at once.”

  Octagon writhed then, making horrible croaking sounds as the metal bands activated and zaps surged through him.

  The second cyborg reached out to the medical board and clicked something. The shocks ceased, bringing blessed relief.

  Octagon sagged as he blinked his watery eyes. Had the thing turned off the pain? Before he could think to ask why, the first cyborg pressed the bulky, gun-like thing against his neck.

  “Wait,” Octagon whispered. “Tell me what you want.”

  He tried to squirm away from the gun-thing, and this time no shocks tortured him. Octagon failed to rejoice, however. Spider-like claws emerged from the gun-thing and rigidly clasped his neck.

  “If you’d just speak to me,” Octagon pleaded.

  Then he screamed as knifing pain pierced the base of his neck. Hypos hissed against him as drugs entered his bloodstream. His neck numbed, but the cutting feeling horrified him. He tried to thrash away. Tears poured from his eyes and his mouth opened in a silent scream. He could feel the thing digging into him. It seemed the gun-thing deposited metal into his flesh. What was its purpose? Why did the universe hate him?

  “Marten Kluge!” he hissed in a dry whisper of hate.

  Before Octagon could elaborate on his hatred, his eyelids grew heavy and his bodily functions began to shut down. He did not know it, but the cyborg had inserted a Webbie-jack into him. They had modified him because they desired knowledge that only he possessed among their captives. Through careful tests, the two cyborgs had determined he possessed this knowledge.

  As former Arbiter Octagon relaxed and entered sleep mode, the first cyborg removed the jack-gun. The second cyborg began to remove the metal bands. The restraints would no longer be necessary.

  * * *

  As Webbie Octagon sped toward his fate in the Hobbes’s pod, Gharlane rode a lift to the surface of Athena Station. He physically wished to observe the missiles launch. Then he would leave Athena Station and head for the Locke. The main cyborg fleet was gathering, even as the humans attempted their last-minute ploys.

  Gharlane knew a moment of disquiet then, and he realized that once again he’d known better. Through the Web-Mind’s wish for one more warship, the biomass brain had possibly lost their advantage of strategic surprise. There were indicators that many of the humans still didn’t understand the situation. But Gharlane doubted the data. The chaos-factor humans from Mars had revealed too much, and the chaos-factor Highborn had added to that knowledge.

  Gharlane froze with a sudden thought, a new input. He wondered if he should continue to categorize the Highborn as human, or as a subset of Homo sapiens or as new species. Men and chimpanzees were a different species. The relative differences between Homo sapiens and Highborn were stark. Were Highborn as superior to Homo sapiens as men were to chimpanzees? It was an interesting question. The answer might help the campaign to eradicate both. Was it possible for two species to coordinate? Could men and chimpanzees cooperate as allies? It seemed doubtful. The Highborn might be so superior to Homo sapiens that it was impossible for them to achieve a true alliance. The arrangement under which the Homo sapiens fought for the Highborn pointed to a possible master-slave relationship, however.

  The lift slowed and the door opened. Gharlane exited into a large lobby of motionless cyborgs, each hooked by cables into a generator. It was a new technique: hot-shotted cyborgs ramped with overloaded energy. The Web-Mind readied a beta unit of overloaded troops. One cyborg with its cable slotted in its chest jittered, causing its metallic feet to rattle against the floor. Gharlane wondered how long that had been occurring. Then the cyborg’s eyes snapped open.

  Recognizing the danger signs, Gharlane drew a laser carbine from the back-sheath on his vacc-suit. A red beam stabbed through the dim lobby. The fatally damaged cyborg screeched as it tore the cable from its chest-slot. Then its neck-armor melted as the beam stabbed through. Expertly, Gharlane sliced upward. As the screeching cyborg attempted a bounding attack, the beam cut the head in two. Electric sparks and loud whining sounds accompanied the hot-shotted cyborg’s clattering death.

  Gharlane observed the others. They remained in sleep mode, charging with power. Gharlane was aware of the Web-Mind’s observation and assessment of his action. In three seconds, the Web-Mind’s presence departed, no doubt realizing that Gharlane had acted correctly.

  After exiting the lobby and resealing the chamber, Gharlane floated outside. Several kilometers away the bulk of the Voltaire Missiles waited. They were hidden from view by the curvature of the surface and by intervening buildings.

  Gharlane expected no less than annihilating victory from this strike. Cyborgs had modified the giant missiles for weeks, as this day had long been anticipated. Some of the missiles remained as before. Most contained advanced electronics, stolen goods from Onoshi Electronics, once one of the primary Houses of the Ice Hauler Cartel in the Neptune System.

  Gharlane had a moment to wonder why the Prime Web-Mind hadn’t fully subjugated the Neptune System. It had allowed one massive habitat to survive, a preserve of Homo sapiens. Perhaps it was because of the analysis program that had discovered that the humans of Neptune System produced more technological equipment as free agents than as suborned cyborg units. Gharlane halted as he pondered another input of new thought.

  Why didn’t the Prime Web-Mind build mini-Web-Minds as technological agents? Was there some creative process lost in the conversion to a mass mind? That was an interesting possibility. Is that why each Web-Mind used a master unit like himself?

  That seemed more than probable. It also seemed like something that the Web-Mind would not want him to dwell upon.

  Gharlane checked an internal chronometer. Ah, it was ninety-one seconds to liftoff. He waited, with the anticipation building, while his calculations ran through the known data.

  Callisto orbited Jupiter approximately every seventeen days. Athena Station orbited every thirty-one days. Considering the position of Athena Station at the time of launch and Callisto’s continued orbit, the distance between the two in a straight-line flight would take a little over one hundred hours. The Voltaire Missiles possessed fantastic acceleration and of considerable duration, especially considering the relatively short distances between the two points. But the missiles would not use the fantastic acceleration at first. That would come later, when it was too late for the Jovians to react.

  As an added bonus, there would be a second wave assault behind the missiles. The second wave contained a dreadnaught, a meteor-ship, a troop-ship and a squadron of patrol boats. The troop-ship would land on the smoldering surface to complete the destruction.

  As Gharlane estimated destructive factors, the first Voltaire Missile blasted off from Athena Station. Missile after missile ignited their fusion core and erupted off the blast-pans. The ground under Gharlane trembled because of the mass exodus of missiles.

  The first missile appeared—a space-needle with a bulbous warhead. Behind it followed others. Their hot exhausts blazed like fiery blue tails. There was no sound, as vacuum carried none. The missiles appeared as lazy behemoths, their tails rapidly growing to abnormal lengths. As the tails grew, the missiles accelerated. As each missile zoomed for Callisto, they quickly merged into one continuous blur of motion.

  The quake ceased as the last Voltaire Missile lofted into the blackness. In short order, the final missile vanished from sight. Soon, the seemingly fast-moving star cluster vanished—the dots of the missiles’ exhaust.

  The first strike had been launched. In a little over one hundred hours, the rulers of Callisto and the chief bastion of Jovian power would cease to exist.

  Gharlane spun on his heel and headed back for the lift. There was much to coordinate. After his tasks were completed, he would leave Athena Station. He would leave to join his taskforce. A pleasurabl
e sensation filled him, similar to the one he felt in the holographic chamber. He would scour the Jupiter System, ending all resistance. Cyborg victory would be assured.

  -7-

  Marten and Yakov sat in the Force-Leader’s room, hunched over his desk. On it was displayed the Jovian System, the orbits of the various moons and the known locations of fleet units.

  The last few days had built an affinity between the two. Yakov’s calm demeanor, his deliberation and his inner intensity appealed to Marten. Most of all, Marten appreciated Yakov’s thirst for freedom and his desire to rip the shackles from Ganymede. Yakov reminded him of Secretary-General Chavez of Mars. Both men fought for more than just personal freedom, they also fought to free their world. As Marten mulled over the Jovian map, he wondered about that.

  Why was he always running into this sort of man? Was… God trying to tell him something?

  Marten shifted in his chair. That was too heavy for him. He was just an ex-shock trooper on the run, trying to stay ahead of an overwhelmingly intrusive political system and crazed genetic freaks with delusions of godhood. He’d fled to Jupiter to escape both. Now he was in the middle of another war, a three-way battle for control and maybe for the soul of humanity.

  “If we could combine our fleets,” Yakov said, tapping the dot that represented Ganymede.

  Marten tried to concentrate on the computer-map. He rubbed his chin and stared at the dots and the various, colored clusters representing warships.

  Secretary-General Chavez and Force-Leader Yakov: both men risked their lives to free their worlds. For years, Chavez had struggled against Social Unity. Now the brave man was dead, turned into radioactive dust by the Highborn-launched Hellburner. The struggle had cost Chavez his life. However, Marten doubted the freedom fighter would have wished it any other way.

  Yakov had plotted for years, becoming a key mover against the philosophically arrogant Dictates and the rulers of Callisto. The hidden fight had forged Yakov into a steely conspirator and into a ship’s captain of abnormal calm.