“Better to kill him,” Sulla said.
“I would rather make him suffer,” Cassius said, “and turn a rebellious tool into an efficient instrument. Now attend to your tasks.” Not waiting to see if Sulla obeyed him, Cassius switched off mute. He asked Kluge, “In your estimation, why are the asteroids rotating?”
“I don’t know for sure. But it’s my guess that most of the enemy lasers and torpedo-bays are aimed primarily in one direction. Those in the back were aimed back. Those in front—”
“Were aimed in front,” Cassius finished. Despite his insolence, the preman was clever. This was going to be a bigger fight than he’d anticipated.
“The rotation shows me they don’t like your Doom Stars coming in,” Marten added.
Trust a preman to state the obvious. Hmm. He needed to increase the assault forces, to use the troops already landed on the first five asteroids. “Are any of your patrol boats operational?” Cassius asked.
An evasive look swept over Kluge’s features. “They’re pretty beat up,” he said.
How crude their attempts to dissemble. Premen were like children in their simplicity. “You must board your least damaged boat and await my signal.”
“I not sure we have enough space marines left to take another asteroid,” Marten said.
Sulla slapped his panel.
Cassius refused to let either Sulla or Kluge irritate him further. Still, it was unimaginable that a subhuman should speak to him this way, and in front of his bridge-crew. Premen had endless examples of Highborn superiority and should know by now how to snap to obedience at the slightest order. Kluge—when the time came, he would retrain the subhuman harshly.
“You will join in the assault or face punishment,” Cassius said.
Marten glanced away, and there were muffled sounds. Likely, someone off-screen spoke to the preman. When Marten faced him again, a hooded look had transformed the subhuman’s features. The cleverness had taken an ugly turn, giving Kluge the look of a liar.
“We await your orders,” Marten said.
Cassius bared his teeth. The blatant subterfuge didn’t fool him. But there would be time enough to deal with Kluge. Now he needed to concentrate on the rotating asteroids. It appeared as if he was going to have to fight his way to the Saturn-launched planet wreckers. He’d have to fight and guard his shuttles in order to keep Highborn causalities to a minimum.
-83-
Asteroid E continued to accelerate out of the asteroid-pack. In the control room of the first dome, Marten watched Nadia at her sensor board.
Osadar stepped away from her station to stand beside Marten. Despite the fusion-generated power blasting out of the crater-sized exhaust-port, the G-forces were slight. The asteroid’s mass saw to that.
“Logically, we are in danger,” Osadar said.
“From the Highborn or the cyborgs?” asked Marten.
“…Both,” said Osadar.
“We don’t have the people or the hardware to take another asteroid,” Marten said. “But we might be able to hold onto the one we have. What do you think is going to happen next?”
“The most logical move,” Osadar said. “The cyborgs will beam our dome, destroying our controls and possibly disabling our fusion core.”
“Maybe,” said Marten. He was still thinking about the Grand Admiral. The Highborn frightened him. There was something grimly effective about Cassius. The Highborn possessed a driving force that had managed to radiate through the communications.
“As a Web-Mind,” Osadar said, “I would beam this asteroid into submission.”
“Marten,” Nadia said. Her voice was thick with worry. “The cyborgs are beaming—”
Marten shoulders tightened. Was he about to die? Was Osadar correct?
“—The cyborgs are beaming the Doom Stars,” Nadia finished saying.
Marten hurried to Nadia’s board. The captured asteroids, the five, accelerated at a gentle angle away from the tight formation of the remaining twelve. That had exposed the inner asteroids, making them the rearmost ones now. The debris-fields acted as shields for some of them. From other asteroids with a line-of-sight shot, it seemed as if a hundred lasers lanced out, striking the lead Doom Star, the Julius Caesar. The vast warship was ahead of the other two by one thousand kilometers. It used a debris-field as a shield from four asteroids, boring in toward the others like a sonic drill. Marten knew why. The Julius Caesar wanted to launch its shuttles from close range.
“Where its shielding cloud?” asked Marten. He didn’t know why Cassius had refrained from normal space-combat procedures.
“The battle is over,” Osadar said in gloom. “The Doom Star lacks even the slightest particle shield, and it has inexplicably forgotten to spray any gels or crystals. How could the Highborn be so reckless as to charge the asteroids like that?”
“Look,” Nadia said. “The Highborn are striking back.” She adjusted her controls. “The wattage expended by the ultra-laser—it’s amazing.”
For the next thirty seconds, Marten, Osadar and Nadia watched the cyborgs pour concentrated laser-fire against the Julius Caesar. Impossibly, the outer armor held. It should have already melted in spots.
“What’s going on?” Marten finally asked.
Osadar’s head swiveled with cyborg speed. “Run an analysis please.”
“On what?” a bewildered Nadia asked.
“On the composition of the Julius Caesar’s outer plating,” Osadar said.
Nadia’s fingers clicked on her board. She frowned at the readings and finally looked up. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” asked Marten.
“The plating…it’s like collapsed star matter,” Nadia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
-84-
From his command shell aboard the Julius Caesar, Grand Admiral Cassius rapped out orders. It was hard to shout over the thrum of the fusion core and the beaming ultra-laser. Every time the laser fired, the thrum increased to an ear-piercing whine.
That was the secret to the long-range laser. Power, massive amounts of power pumped through the system. To gain that power, one needed large engines and coils. It was why each Doom Star was so vast. Frankly, he thought the cyborgs should have installed ultra-lasers on their asteroids. But that would have taken much longer than installing regular combat beams. And there was secret technology needed for the one-million-kilometer-ranged lasers.
Cassius studied the holoimages. He clapped his hands over his ears—the whine, the noise penetrated his shell’s buffering. The laser shot from the holoimage of the Julius Caesar. It struck against Asteroid C, down into a deeper than usual impact-crater. The wide beam lighted on the cyborg turret there. The array of focusing mirrors, pumping station, coil-chambers and armored-plating heated to intolerable levels. At the same time, the turret’s beam fired through the Highborn ultra-laser, producing a strange radiance of wavering color. Then one mirror melted into a molten lump, dripping onto the lunar-like surface. Gas began to radiate into a feeble cloud. Before the turret slagged into an indecipherable mound, the Highborn laser retargeted elsewhere, having destroyed its prey.
The battle had turned into a maelstrom of beams, torpedoes and cyborg troop-pods. The enemy was trying to recapture the five asteroids. It surprised Cassius the cyborgs had saved so much weaponry and not employed it during the first phase of the battle. But it wasn’t going to save the aliens, this desperate fighting. The cyborg lasers struck his collapsium-coated ship, the only one in the Highborn fleet. It was their fatal error—one he’d worked to achieve. Given this window of opportunity, Cassius continued to strike.