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.
He checked the time and decided to leave on the double. Too long in one place was asking for bad luck. As he drove, he pulled a detonator out of his pocket and pressed several buttons. The Bangladesh shuddered so he knew that several of his pre-positioned bombs had gone off. Just as importantly, the two-Gs of braking quit. The auto engaging of the crawler’s magnetic locks told him that.
He grinned. That should keep the others busy, fixing the engines. The damage shouldn’t be too great. Enough to temporarily stop the engines but not enough so they would throw up their hands and hunt him in vengeance. Still, this would make them mad and search harder. So he headed for his battlesuit. It was time to go outside and make them rusty again.
From outside the Bangladesh he worked to clear his chosen firing tube. He’d found several Zero-G Worksuits and torn them apart, taking a welder arm and work-laser. As he clung like a fly to the vast beamship, he used both tools on the tube, cutting a bigger opening. The glare of the welder and the laser had caused his visor to polarize.
“Marten!” suddenly blared in his headphones. It was Kang.
Marten shut off the work-laser, hooking it to his battlesuit. Magnetic clamps kept him attached to the mighty Bangladesh. Around him shone millions of stars. The particle shield behind him kept the blazing Sun from cooking him.
“I know you can hear me, Marten. And I know that you’re too scared to answer. But here’s my deal. We’ll stop hunting for you if you promise not to blow any more bombs. The men agreed to let the HBs do their own dirty work. You were a shock trooper once and you did help some of us enter the beamship. Vip says you want Omi. So we’re leaving him in the Deck 15 Recreation Room. I know you know the ship’s layout like the back of your hand. You can pick Omi up if you want. We won’t stop you. And I’ll give you this, Marten. You’re a bastard. Kang, out.”
Marten managed a chuckle. A neat little trap old Kang had set. Could he trust him? He would continue to work on a war footing. Then he reconsidered. This might mean that the HBs were almost here.
Marten swore, turned up his air-conditioner unit, detached the work-laser from his suit and with its beam began to cut through more armor plating.
29.
Lycon stood in the Game Room, as it had come to be called. Sage-dotted dunes rolled under a holo-simulated, sun-bright sky. A simulated breeze blew past tall cacti while somewhere an eagle screeched.
Lycon wore his blue dress uniform with crisscrossing white straps, with a blaster on his hip and his “Magnetic Star” First Class on his chest. A wall panel slid up and the powerful, two-foot taller Praetor strode in. He too wore his uniform, brown with green strips on the sleeves. His pink eyes glittered and a frown gave him a dreadful presence. Lycon noticed that he carried a folder in his big hands.
“Greetings, Praetor.”
“Training Master.”
“I request an intersystem shuttle so I may head to the Bangladesh.”
“You have requested such a spacecraft earlier and I denied it. What has now caused you to think that I’ll change my mind?”
“Your generosity, Praetor.”
If anything, the Praetor seemed to become more dangerous. The inhuman angles to his face tightened and the bristles atop his head seemed to stand that much stiffer. “I am generous to those who help me, Training Master. Once I offered you a position. You refused. Thus I too must refuse this request.”
“As you know I am not fond of the Neutraloids. Ideas, not chemicals, are the method to controlling premen.”
“I am aware of your position.” The Praetor held up his folder. “This will considerably weaken it.”
Frowning, Lycon took the proffered folder and paged through it. Space photos, mostly, little specks against the backdrop of the black void. “I don’t understand.”
“Flip to the back and read the charts.”
Lycon did. Missiles, it said. Then he noticed that sweat stung his eyes. He used his sleeve to wipe the sweat. Suddenly he felt weary. Handing back the folder, he asked, “What about the Gustavus Adolphus, can’t it intercept them?”
“If you would have read a little farther you would have seen that several attempts have been made. The Gustavus Adolphus is now headed here. The second Doom Star headed back to Venus quite a bit earlier.”
Lycon knew that the Venus Doom Star headed back in order to intercept SU battleships that had sped for Venus as soon as the Doom Star had left the system. Fleet maneuvering was such an intricate game. He shook his head. Infantry tactics is what he knew.
Lycon asked, “Did the Gustavus Adolphus try to intercept with battle lasers?”
The Praetor nodded. “Enemy jamming is good and of course they jink enough to cause misses.”
“What about ant-missiles torps?”
“Did you read the distance spreads?”
Lycon shook his head.
“The Gustavus Adolphus is still too far out, much too far away to be able to effect the battle. Perhaps battle is the wrong word. Annihilation is more appropriate. The Bangladesh is doomed.”
Lycon suddenly hated how the Praetor loomed over him. He hated the arrogance in the pink eyes that blazed with the accusation that he was only beta, an original, an inferior Highborn who couldn’t think through elementary facts.
“There will be no more shock troops,” the Praetor said. “Long-range capture assaults are meaningless when the enemy simply destroys the prize ships.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Lycon, desperately trying to control his temper. “Still, I must try and achieve in the manner I think best.”
“Your sponsor, the Grand Admiral, has lost face.”