“They’re down!” roared the Praetor, as he kicked a smoking cyborg head, watching it bounce across the floor. His entire being was filled with the unique, Highborn battle-madness. It was like a human going berserk, but with a critical difference. There was a cold, soldierly mind in charge of the seething passions. It made the Highborn berserker a frightening killer, wanting to taste blood and pulp flesh, but guided with cunning ruthlessness.
At that moment, the capsule’s exhausts began to flicker.
“No!” shouted the Praetor. He mustn’t let the prize escape. “Follow me!” He marched for the hatch. Canus and the others hesitated. The Praetor whirled around. “Come! We must enter and destroy the Web-Mind.”
Canus lifted his plasma rifle. “Let us destroy the vessel.”
“Cowards!” shouted the Praetor. He faced the vessel, and with practiced precision, he used exoskeleton power. In three terrific bounds, he reached the glowing hatch. “Let the greatest among us achieve the ultimate victory.” Then the Praetor grabbed the frame and hauled himself into the huge stealth-capsule.
Osadar hung back from the others. Perhaps her innate pessimism suspected a fatal trick, some last-minute screw-job. Her helmeted head twitched toward the capsule’s exhaust as more propellant exited. As Canus and the others aimed their plasma rifles, cables began to pop off the capsule’s outer-skin. With extreme haste, Osadar retreated into the tunnel.
Canus raised his heavy plasma rifle. At that moment, the vessel’s glowing hatch clanged onto the floor. What must have been an emergency seal slammed down in its place.
“The Praetor is trapped,” a Highborn snarled.
“Aim there!” shouted Canus, pointing with his plasma rifle. Before he could pull the trigger, an EMP blast blew outward from the giant stealth-capsule. It washed over the battleoid-suits and the heavy rifles. Each of the battleoids froze, the circuits destroyed and the Highborn in them trapped.
If he could have moved his armored finger and pulled the trigger, Canus would have found his plasma rifle useless. He roared curses inside his suit, struggling.
As he did, the huge stealth-vessel swiveled on its tripod base. Then hot propellant gushed from the exhaust-port. The vessel lifted and began to move. It was the last sight Canus had. The hot propellant cooked him in his frozen armor-suit, killing him and the other helpless Highborn.
-25-
The over-watch technique was a laborious way to retreat or advance. At its most basic, one soldier watched, with a ready weapon aimed at the most dangerous area. The other soldier moved into a new position. Then he stopped and watched while his partner now moved. They leapfrogged back or leapfrogged forward. It could be done by man, by squad and sometimes even by platoon.
Marten and Omi used the over-watch maneuver heading up the tunnel and back toward the surface. They halted and waited as the tunnel shook and as hot gasses rushed past like a hurricane.
When it stopped, Omi asked, “What was that?”
Marten shrugged.
“What should we do now?” Omi asked.
“Keep moving,” Marten said.
They did, covering one another as they advanced. Then Marten saw a Webbie with a heavy laser-pack stagger around a tunnel corner.
“Wait,” Marten whispered.
Omi froze.
Through infrared, Marten watched the suited Webbie stagger and shuffle. By his actions, the Webbie seemed delirious. The HUD’s specs showed that the Webbie was like the others they had slaughtered earlier.
“Kill him,” Omi said.
“He’s no cyborg,” Marten said.
“He’s a Webbie, and they’re almost as bad.”
“Has anyone ever captured one of those?”
“Who cares?” asked Omi. “Kill him.”
“Maybe we should—”
Omi’s Gyroc kicked. The rocket-packet ignited. The APEX shell moved fast.
Webbie Octagon was exhausted. He’d shuffled under the heavy load for a long time. His shoulders ached and a point in his back knifed him every time his right leg moved. He yearned to throw off the laser-pack, but the kill-order prevented him from doing so.
He longed to glimpse Marten Kluge again. He would burn off a leg first, then an arm and then maybe a foot. He would enjoy the spectacle. Yes, it would be glorious to hurt and maim Marten Kluge. It was his greatest wish to see that barbarian—
It might have been a premonition, but Octagon looked up then. He saw a spark in the darkness. It rushed toward him. He switched on the vacc-suit’s helmet lamp. The beam washed over a kneeling, armored figure. The soldier’s helmet was aimed at him. The visor was clear. In it, he spied Marten Kluge.
Octagon hissed as he raised the laser carbine. Finally, his greatest life’s joy was about to be—
Omi’s APEX shell struck Octagon in the chest. The round pierced his body. Then the shell exploded, raining bits of rib-bone, heart-muscle, fat and brown vacc-suit. With its gaping, smoking hole, the corpse thudded onto the floor.
“You’re getting slow,” Omi told Marten.
“Did he look familiar to you?” Marten asked.
“Don’t be crazy. Who do we know that could have become a Webbie?”
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.