Cyborg Assault ds-4 Page 33

  It was then Osadar reached them via radio and told them what had happened in the armored chamber.

  “The Web-Mind trapped the Praetor,” Omi said. “It escaped.”

  Marten scowled. Then he picked up his IML. “If it’s over, we have to get out of here.”

  “And do what?” Omi asked.

  “Find a patrol boat and escape,” Marten said.

  Omi shook his head. “It’s probably already too late for that.”

  “When we’re on the cyborg converter, then it’s too late. Until then, we keep trying.” Marten shouldered his IML and started back for the dome.

  -26-

  Inside the large stealth-capsule, the Praetor struggled mightily. Because of the EMP blast, his battleoid-armor had frozen. With continuing grueling effort, he unlatched his suit’s seals. Sweat poured from his flesh and his muscles quivered at the effort. Rage gave him the power as his indomitable will drove him.

  The Web-Mind had tricked him. It had trapped him.

  Never!

  With a roar, the Praetor tore off the last seal and heaved the battleoid open. Slippery with sweat, he slithered free of the encasing armor. He thus became the first enemy to see a Web-Mind.

  It was a living nightmare. There were rows of clear bio-tanks. In them, were sheets of brain mass, many hundreds of kilos of brain cells from as many unwilling donors in the Neptune System. Green computing gel surrounded the pink-white mass. Cables, bio-tubes and tight-beam links connected the tanks to backup computers and life-support systems. The combination made a seething, pulsating whole, with the brain-mass sheets squirming slightly. The bio-tubes gurgled as warm liquids pulsed through them. Backup computers made whirring sounds as lights indicated a thousand things.

  As the Praetor glared, a panel opened. Out of it rolled a robotic device with multi-jointed arms. At the ends were laser welders, melders and calibrating clippers. The various arms moved as the robotic device charged across the floor at him.

  * * *

  The Web-Mind’s gloating at capturing a Highborn and burning the others changed to panic. Against all probability, the Highborn had struggled free of his frozen armor-suit. Now the giant humanoid was inside the chamber.

  That meant the Highborn must die. It would have been enjoyable to test the Highborn’s psychology during the long trip to Earth. Instead, it ordered repair units to dismember the shouting creature.

  At the same time, the Web-Mind piloted its stealth-capsule through the tunnels. It headed for the surface and safety. The attacking vessels and missiles were gone. It was time to re-link with Gharlane and it was time to relay information through the laser lightguide with the Prime Web-Mind in the Neptune System.

  * * *

  The fight was short and vicious against the two repair units. It left the Praetor bleeding from six deep wounds as his right arm dangled uselessly. Gore oozed from the hole where his left eye used to be.

  “You freakish bastard,” he mumbled. Then he stumbled at the bio-tanks. With a metal strut broken off a repair unit, the Praetor shattered ballistic glass. He thrust the metal strut through his belt, and with his hand, he began to tear out clots of pink-white brain mass. Gel spilled onto the floor as a klaxon began to wail.

  “That’s right!” the Praetor snarled. “Scream while I kill you. Scream for me, my pretty. Scream.”

  * * *

  The Web-Mind sent out a distress call to the remaining cyborgs on Carme. Even as the Highborn destroyed computing power, it maneuvered the stealth-capsule.

  The black vessel exited a tunnel and flew to an approaching party of cyborgs.

  Then something akin to horrified panic erupted. The bleeding, dying humanoid smashed another globule of brain-mass. The destruction initiated a deep and hidden program.

  Web-Minds were the ultimate creation, sublime beings beyond the capacities of inferior creatures to understand. Each Web-Mind was akin to what lesser creatures conceived of as gods. It was unthinkable that lower order creatures capture gods. It was vile to consider creatures tearing down a god or rendering them half-operable and imprisoning them. Destruction was preferable to creature-slavery.

  As the harsh and unyielding program ran through its logic parameters, the shouting Highborn dug his large fingers into brain-mass. He yanked out the section that held the primary deletion program, meaning that sub-systems took over, trying to reconfigure the exact sequencing.

  In its growing terror, the Web-Mind opened all channels, calling for all cyborgs to converge immediately on its coordinates. Then it began to search for a place to land.

  * * *

  The Praetor coughed up blood. Pain racked him. He hurt everywhere. It stank horribly in this awful place. Despite that, he forced his legs to move, and he hammered more ballistic glass. Then he continued to pluck out fistfuls of pink-white mass. It was brain tissue. He knew that much. He was killing his hated enemy.

  Then he heard binary chatter. It came from speakers all around him. Was the Web-Mind trying to speak with him? Was it asking for mercy?

  “Never!” he hissed. He squeezed his hand as mass squished between his fingers. Then he began to rip out more.

  * * *

  Marten and Omi exited the dome as binary chatter came over their headphones.

  “What is that?” Omi asked.

  “Cyborg speech,” Marten said.

  “Who is that?” asked a harsh voice.

  “What did you say?” Marten asked.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Omi said.

  “This is the Praetor speaking. I am in the Web-Mind.”

  Marten and Omi glanced at each other.

  “Where are you?” Marten asked.

  “In the Web-Mind’s ship,” the Praetor said with a wheeze. “I’m dying, yet I am killing it.”

  “Osadar said—”

  “Never mind about your tame cyborg,” the Praetor snarled. “If you see a ship, shoot at it. Destroy the Web-Mind and we might still achieve victory.”

  “Look!” Omi shouted. “There! I see a ship.”

  Marten looked where Omi pointed. A dark blot of a vessel slid overhead. Marten lifted his IML, and he switched settings. He’d been saving this for the Praetor. Now the arrogant bastard—Marten pulled the trigger before he could finish the thought.

  The Cognitive missile exited the tube. Its fuel burned and it shot up at the giant stealth-capsule, heading straight for it.

  * * *

  As the Web-Mind opened all channels and called for cyborg reinforcements, it heard the Highborn and the unmodified humans talk to each other over its communications system.

  During that time, more of its brainpower vanished. The destruction was ongoing, and it confused the subsystem deletion program.

  Delete, delete, delete—

  The core of the Web-Mind sent delete pulses to the surface. It must delete. It must ensure that no creature capture valuable cyborg technology. Every unit must self-destruct and destroy-destroy-destroy.

  The Highborn creature bashed at bio-tanks and life-support equipment.

  Delete—

  A missile struck and exploded, opening the stealth-vessel to the vacuum of space. As the Highborn swung his metal strut for the last time, the core of Web-Mind began to die from depressurization.

  Then the vessel headed for the accelerating moon, soon smashing against it.

  -27-

  Carme continued to accelerate. The mighty fusion cores, eighty-seven percent of the coils, the generators and the gargantuan exhaust-ports were untouched by the battle.

  Marten, Omi and Osadar reentered a dome. The EMP blasts, enemy ECM, explosive shells, zooming missiles, they had vanished with the Web-Mind’s death. Marten radioed other space marine survivors, all seventeen of them. No Highborn remained, not even the wounded one at the shuttle’s board.

  The Descartes had vanished, while the second meteor-ship floated as wreckage many thousands of kilometers away.

  A cautious several hours revealed the location of three working
patrol boats, several control centers for various Carme-engines and two metal sheds full of unmodified Jovians.

  “We should kill them,” Osadar said.

  Marten stood with her in the same dome and chamber where the Praetor had first interrogated them. The control unit worked, and Osadar had spent most of her time attempting to master it. Through it, she’d discovered the two sheds and the Jovians.

  Marten scowled. “What possible reason could you have for such a barbaric action?”

  “Our attack here succeeded,” Osadar said. “Even more amazing, we are still alive and free agents. The universe cannot tolerate that, and therefore it will attempt to screw us. These so-called unmodified Jovians must have latent psychological commands. Given a chance, they will harm us or harm our mission.”

  “The screw job is that we’re alive,” Marten said.

  Osadar turned around from where she worked on the control unit. She cocked her head.

  Marten laughed grimly. “We stopped a planet-wrecker. But there’s still a cyborg fleet in the system. Logically, there are still cyborgs in Neptune and probably more elsewhere. Social Unity remains. The Highborn still possess Doom Stars. Our continued existence means more endless conflict.”

  “That is the nature of life, as the universe despises happiness. As long as one breathes, one must fight. Do not expect joy from life, Marten Kluge, or you will be endlessly disappointed.”

  Despite the victory, Marten’s chest felt heavy. Maybe Osadar had a point, at least about endless disappointment. Everywhere he went, people died, usually in great numbers. All the space marines he’d picked—all but seventeen of them were dead. Yakov was dead. Every person from the Descartes was dead, including Rhea. He should have gotten to know her.

  He knew he should rejoice at their marvelous victory. Instead, he felt soiled, a killer who brought death and destruction wherever he went.

  The large airlock hissed and rotated open. Omi stepped through, together with a person in a brown vacc-suit. Maybe it was one of the unmodified Jovians. Omi helped the Jovian, keeping a hand on his or her elbow.

  Marten lifted a com-unit. “Is there trouble?”

  Omi shook his helmeted head as he brought the Jovian closer.

  The Jovian froze then. Omi released the elbow.

  “Here is the screw-job,” Osadar said. “I can feel it.”

  For some reason, that troubled Marten. He blinked, wondering what this feeling meant, if anything.

  The brown-suited person unsealed the locks and then threw off the helmet. It banged on the floor and rolled. She had brown hair and pretty, familiar features. The brown-suited person staggered toward him.

  “Marten,” she whispered.

  Marten blinked again, and the terrible weight in his chest vanished as he recognized Nadia Pravda. Marten groaned as moisture welled in his eyes. This couldn’t be real.

  “Nadia?” he whispered.

  She reached him, staggering into his arms, bumping him so he took two steps back. They clutched each other. They hugged fiercely.

  “Marten Kluge,” she said, as tears flowed from her eyes.

  Marten held her face, and he stared into her eyes. “Is it really you?”

  She nodded, and she was laughing and crying all at once.

  Marten hugged her again, and then, as gently as he could, he pressed his lips against hers. Nadia Pravda was in his arms. She was his Nadia, and she tasted sweet.

  She responded, and together, they kissed in the cyborg-built dome on Carme, the rogue moon, the ex-planet-wrecker.

  Marten whispered, “You’ll never leave me again.”

  She tightened her grip, nodding.

  “Nadia,” he said, and there was joy in his heart that was impossible to describe. He had found his Nadia. In an evil and harsh universe, he’d finally found an oasis of bliss.

  -28-

  Like a wave in a pond created by a dropped pebble, the Web-Mind’s radioed deletion-codes trickled outward from its last position. Many millions of kilometers away on Athena Station, a special receiving unit from Neptune intercepted the faint radio signal.

  An emergency computer there ran probability scenarios, trying to decipher the need for the deletion codes. After three minutes, it sent a questing radio call for the Web-Mind. It continued to do this for seventy-one hours.

  Seventy-one hours of silence indicated the Web-Mind’s deletion. The odds of this were beyond the ninety-ninth percentile. Another special program activated in response to the Web-Mind’s deletion, seeking out the chief cyborg unit in the Jovian System. Shortly, the emergency program caused a short-burst information packet to speed to Gharlane. It sent him the lightguide laser code to Neptune. It also activated an accounting program in him.

  Thus, Gharlane soon found himself hooked to his warship’s primary com-station, sending pulse-packets to the lightguide laser. That tight-beam laser in turn sent a grim accounting to the Prime Web-Mind in the Neptune System.

  * * *

  CHIEF CYBORG UNIT: JUPITER ASSAULT

  GHARLANE PRIME, BATTLE COMMANDER

  LIGHTGUIDE LINK: JUPITER-NEPTUNE

  STEALTH CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

  Tenth Cycle, Rotation 24

  Concluding battle report No. 7

  The Ganymede-Europa Lunge

  The clever enemy meteor-tactic absorbed approximately thirty-one percent of our laser strikes and twenty-seven percent of our missile launches. Given their local warship-tonnage superiority, I broke off the penetration raid on Ganymede, leaving a screen of damaged patrol boats. They had been preloaded with Onoshi decoy equipment and they drew fifty-eight percent of enemy fire before their destruction.

  The meteor-tactic proved decisive and indicated a primary enemy commander of level two or three ability. The analyzers confirm the reunification of Jovian political and military authorities.

  The Ganymede-Europa Lunge caused a sixty-seven percent loss of warship-tonnage that originated from the Athena Station start-point. Enemy losses were computed at thirty-one percent.

  The battle maneuver and combat resulted in the destruction of Io, eighty percent of the processing stations on the inner moons and critical Jovian loss on Europa. Monitoring the enemy news sites has revealed five critical hits on the water moon and a seventeen percent surface covering of Io-spawned radioactives.

  Current warship ratios mandate a defensive cyborg strategy based on Athena Station. Enemy manufacturing presently runs at twenty-two percent of pre-stealth campaign levels. The probability battle-computer estimates a two-year struggle before the Jovians can eradicate our presence here.

  I await instructions and reinforcements, Gharlane Prime, reporting.

  The End, Book #4

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