My intuition has never failed me.
As Sulla’s gloating smile widened, the terrible beam from the Sun neared Neptune System. The Sunbeam shot from the focuser had traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. With that speed, it had taken four point twelve hours to cross the distance that had taken the Alliance Fleet a little over eight months to travel. Due to the speed of the attack, there was no warning of death’s approach aboard the Napoleon Bonaparte.
The repair-teams feverishly brought the Doom Star back to battle readiness. The cyborg stealth-ships continued hiding in the void and the last drones had exhausted their fuels, moving out-system with great velocity. Then the Sunbeam flashed onto its target. In a frightfully concentrated ray, the Sun’s energy struck the collapsium plating and immediately set the metal to boiling. Alarms rang aboard the Napoleon Bonaparte as heat levels rose intolerably.
Smoke rose from screens as flames burst into existence on the bulkheads.
Sulla glanced about, his eyes wide. Sweat mixed with grease so drops rolled off his chin. “What’s happening?” he shouted.
The fury of the ray was greater by many magnitudes than the proton beams on Earth. It was the greatest weapon ever devised in the Solar System.
As Highborn tore off their shirts, beating the fiery walls with them, the Sunbeam burned through the collapsium.
“Report!” Sulla shouted. The hairs on his arms began to curl and crisp. The smell of cooked flesh brought a hideous look of rage to his eyes. “What is causing this?”
They were his last words as the incredible ray fired across the vast gulf of four and a half billion kilometers consumed the Doom Star. The great vessel slagged, melted and then burned away under the furious power of the great Sunbeam of Inner Planets.
The SU battleships were two and three and quarter thousand kilometers away from the Napoleon Bonaparte respectively.
On the bridge of the Vladimir Lenin, Hawthorne, Blackstone and Kursk stood around the command module. With astonishment, they watched the module’s screens.
Slack-faced, Kursk managed to whisper, “The Doom Star is gone. They’re all gone. There are no more Doom Stars in the Solar System.”
“Get us out of here,” Hawthorne said in a ragged voice. “We have to move before it targets us.”
“What’s firing?” Blackstone asked, bewildered.
Kursk shook her head. “The power wattages are off the charts. I do not understand this.”
“How are we going to storm Triton now?” Blackstone asked. His thin features whitened. “We needed the Doom Star’s heavy beam. Two battleships can’t assault Triton. We won’t even dent the number of laser-turrets before they burn us.”
Hawthorne sagged against the module. All the effort, all the fighting and all the enduring these past years… “They’ve won,” he said. His words were unequivocal and struck like a hammer blow to the kidneys. “The cyborgs have won.” He could hardly comprehend the immensity of what he said. He could hardly breathe. Yet he managed to add, “Humanity is doomed.”
-12-
Marten Kluge wasn’t aware of the Supreme Commander’s pronouncement. He just knew that his handful of space marines had to storm onto the Sun Station and oust the victorious cyborgs or that beam would destroy everything he held dear.
It could target Earth and beam it into cinders. It could fry the Venusian sunshield and then Venus. The Sun-Works Factory would never survive the ray. It was an annihilating weapon, meant to give utter dominance to the person controlling it. No wonder Commandant Maximus had remained behind. With it, he could have set himself up as the Solar System’s emperor, the Sunbeam his hammer of royal authority. The heavily fortified Luna Base—once the cyborgs targeted it, they could slice the Moon into pieces. This was the ultimate weapon, and the cyborgs owned it, meaning that nothing could stop them now.
Omi stared at him through his helmet’s visor. The Korean’s harsh features seemed starker than ever. “Do we have a chance?”
“We’re mankind’s last chance,” Marten snarled.
Through the visor, Omi’s stare lengthened until his lips twisted into a rare smile. “The dregs of Sydney are going to save humanity. Turbo would have liked that.”
Turbo…Marten scowled. Too many good friends had died over the years: Force-Leader Yakov, Major Diaz of the Martian Commandoes, Lance, Vip, Turbo, Stick and Kang, evil old Kang of the Red Blades. He missed them all.
“Get ready,” Osadar radioed. “We’re about to begin deceleration.”
Marten gripped his gyroc. “Storming another stronghold—how many times have we done this?”
“Too many,” Omi said, “far too many.”
“We will defeat them,” Felix said. In his powered armor and with his size, the hulking Highborn was bigger than any of the space marines.
There was a lurch aboard the patrol boat. Marten clanged against Group-Leader Xenophon.
“Look at this,” Osadar said over the harshly crackling radio.
Marten had to turn down the volume the crackling became so bad. “What happened?” he asked, even though he knew what had happened. The ion engine had begun to brake the boat’s velocity.
“Look at your screen,” Osadar said, sounding tired. It was the first time he’d heard that in Osadar’s voice.
“Are you feeling okay?” he radioed.
“Do not worry about me,” she said.
“I am. You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Look at your screen.”
Marten picked up the screen and turned it. Space marines crowded around. For the first time, he had a good look at the Sun Station. It was round and brightly metallic like chrome. There were black splotches in it. He squinted, looking closer. Those splotches—they must be breaches, holes. Debris floated around the breaches.
“Do you see?” Osadar asked.
“Polymers?” asked Marten.
“Yes. Correct. The cyborgs blasted their way in, although their stealth-pods did not survive.”
“Got it,” Marten said. “What happened to the outer defensive field?”
“I don’t understand why we haven’t been fired upon,” Osadar said. “Maybe the cyborgs inserted a virus into the computing systems, but I doubt they destroyed everything.”
Marten scanned the space marines behind him. Every time he looked through a visor, he saw men battling fear. Nadia’s eyes were wide with fright, but she managed a tremulous smile. Every armor suit had old scars from former fights. They could have used new gyroc rifles. The plasma cannons had pitted nozzles, showing extended use.
Marten bared his teeth as fierce pride beat in his chest. These were his space marines, the survivors of too many fights. Not all the spit and piss had been knocked out of them yet.
“I’m going to try to ram through the biggest breach,” Osadar said. “None of us could withstand the Sun’s rays for more than several seconds if they caught us outside. We have to get inside behind the station’s insulation.”
“Is the hole big enough?” Marten asked.
A shudder ran through the William Tell. Then another followed the first.
“I’ve detached the troop pods,” Osadar said.
“Is the breach big enough?” Marten asked.
“Not completely,” Osadar said. “You must be ready for a hard impact.”
“Great.”
“Do you desire to space-walk to the station?”
Marten muttered to himself. Suicide by sunshine, he wanted no part of that. “Are you holding up okay?”
“I’ll join you once we’ve docked,” she said. “Does that suit you?”
“Keep talking,” Marten said.
“The cyborgs took my body from me,” Osadar said. “They tore me out of my flesh and turned me into this. We cannot let them win.”