A minute later, interior ship-cameras recorded the slaughter of a Highborn reaction-team.
On the command deck, Admiral Brutus roared, “What are those?”
The admiral received his answer two-and-a-half minutes later. In gymnasium F-7, three Highborn in battleoid-armor opened up with .55-caliber rotating hand-cannons. A cyborg staggered backward before dodging behind a bulkhead. Depleted uranium slugs had slammed against its armored torso, but failed to kill it. Return laser-fire reflected off the shiny battleoid skin.
“The things aren’t human. They’re some kind of battle machine!” the Highborn officer shouted into his mike. “I don’t think they feel pain, and they’re faster than greased death.”
As if to prove the officer’s point, three cyborgs sheathed their laser-carbines and charged with vibroknives. A single cyborg blew backward from more hand-cannon fire. The three Highborn had targeted its head. The .55-caliber Gatling guns were an integral part of a Highborn’s battleoid-arm. The two surviving cyborgs were wasp-fast. Graphite-enhanced muscles drove the vibroknives as the blades whined at high-performance. And in a shocking display of knife-fighting techniques, the cyborgs opened the three battleoid-suits and butchered the giants inside.
Now that they were meeting real resistance, the cyborgs broke into triad teams. They ceased the single concentrated thrust and attacked in a wave-assault. The next ten minutes saw savage fighting as cyborgs clashed with more battleoid-armored Highborn. To the astonishment of Admiral Brutus, it took three Highborn dead to produce a cyborg kill.
“Are they better than us?” Brutus shouted, as he pounded the arm of his command chair.
Three Highborn dead verses one cyborg killed, the honor went to the cyborgs but the victory pushed toward the Highborn. As remorseless as the cyborgs were, the Highborn kept setting up ambushes, taking the losses and killing the alien things.
LA31’s triad reached deeper into the Doom Star than any other cyborg team. Because of that, she neared the mighty fusion cores. Those cores produced a constant sound and caused the ship’s walls and corridors to vibrate with power.
Five Highborn waited for her in a narrow corridor, one painted with yellow and black stripes, with red warning signs. They had set up a plasma cannon. One Highborn watched a monitor-board, which showed the cyborgs advancing toward them. Two Highborn knelt beside and readied the plasma cannon. Another battleoid soldier stood behind it, eager to fire the dangerous weapon. The last Highborn stood back with his rotating hand-cannon ready, playing lookout.
“Eight seconds,” the monitor-board watching Highborn said.
“I’m ready,” the plasma gunner said.
LA31 led the other two cyborgs against the waiting Highborn. They floated fast as they pushed off the walls and attacked around the corridor.
A Highborn in battleoid-armor shouted. Another pointed. Then superheated plasma roiled toward LA31. She pushed off against a deckplate, moving even faster. The plasma caught the cyborg behind her, killing it in a wash of superheated mass. Bits of plasma scorched the back of LA31’s legs, eating into her. It caused a microsecond of intense pain. Then her internal computer shut it off.
Two Highborn swiveled the big gun. Another aimed his hand-cannon. It rotated wildly as flames spewed. The shells spanged off LA31’s shoulder-guards and the impacts slowed her. Then her left arm refused to respond to her will.
Before the .55 caliber shells could halt or kill her, however, LA31 and the other cyborg were among the Highborn. The battle was lethally quick. The second last Highborn with battleoid-armored strength, twisted the head off the other cyborg. Then LA31 used her vibroblade to deadly effect, slaughtering the last two giants.
LA31 might have smiled, but she felt sick and her emotions had died some time ago. Remorselessly, she continued her lonely charge toward the fusion cores.
A lone Highborn waited in LA31’s path. He was the last of the battleoid-armored super-soldiers to stand between her and the fusion cores. He watched a monitor and knew she was injured. He could kill this thing. He promised Admiral Brutus that over his com-link.
But the last battleoid-armored Highborn was unaware that another factor was about to enter the situation.
Neutraloid Heydrich Hansen lurked nearby. With Hansen were seven other neutraloids. They had floated past many dropped guns and knives, taking several. The floating globules of blood and the Highborn corpses had unhinged them. The teeth-gnashing, blue-tattooed berserks wanted to kill the Masters. They wanted the joy of feeling the Masters gasping their last breath as the giants shuddered in death-agony.
Hansen raised a hand for silence. He heard the lone Highborn ahead of them in the corridor. “We must kill him,” he said in his strangely high-pitched voice.
The others whined with eagerness.
Hansen smiled savagely as he remembered the training table. Then he hissed with rage and floated around the corridor and behind the last Highborn defending the fusion cores from LA31.
The Highborn must have heard something. He turned, with his servos whining. Then he brought up his arm as the hand-cannon boomed.
Neutraloids screamed. Neutraloids lost fist-sized pieces of flesh as the .55 caliber bullets shredded them. Yet they kept coming, and three of them gripped vibroknives, finally have learned to hang onto them.
The neutraloids grappled with the armored Highborn. He squeezed the head of one, killing it. Then vibroknives entered his armor, and one smashed into his guts. He staggered, and he crashed onto the deckplates.
The remaining neutraloids howled with glee. Then the three grinned down at the fallen Highborn.
“Fools,” the Highborn said.
One of the neutraloid slapped his chest. “I am Heydrich Hanson.” He couldn’t say more. Instead, Hanson screamed in high-pitched rage. So did the others.
They tore the last Highborn before the fusion cores out of his armor. They tore him out and began to beat him to death.
-20-
“It’s too late, Commodore,” the targeting officer said. “If the Doom Star hadn’t rotated to a relatively undamaged particle-shield, we would have killed it. Unless the cyborgs are going to do something…”
Blackstone stared down at the map-module. On the holographic display, two huge Doom Stars appeared like vast planets. They moved into position above and below the most damaged Doom Star. Blackstone gripped the map-module’s steel-gleaming sides and willed the first Doom Star to die. What had happened to the cyborgs and their stealth attacks? He had five battleships left and one missile-ship. He couldn’t lose an entire SU Battlefleet and not even kill a single Doom Star. Were the Highborn that much better than regular humans and cyborgs?
Blackstone’s gut churned with the knowledge of defeat. He had been given the solemn task of halting the Highborn, and he had failed miserably and totally. The Solar System belonged to the Highborn. The genetic super-soldiers would rule. The question now was how to die. Should he charge with the remnants of his fleet? Or should he take these last vessels and run to try to fight another day?
“Sir,” the communications officer whispered. “I’ve decrypted a strange message.”
“What is it?” Blackstone asked listlessly.
“The Highborn are broadcasting it openly, sir,” the communications officer said. “I think you should see this.”
“Put it on the map-module,” Blackstone said.
The images of the space battle wavered and Blackstone frowned. It looked like a cyborg in a fusion reactor area. The cyborg used a laser, beaming into delicate equipment.