At the very same instant, the clamshell top whirled open to the nighttime sky. A loud clank sounded as the heavy missiles lurched toward the four blast pans.
“Look at that,” shouted Stick. He pointed up into the sky. “What is it?”
Marten peered where Stick pointed. His jaw dropped.
Through a break in the smoke, he saw the full moon. It had a dirty color because of the haze. In front of the moon slid a perfectly circular shape. It too seemed far away. But for something so far away to block out even part of the moon’s light, the thing would have to be enormous.
Then it came to Marten, and goosebumps ran up and down his spine.
“What is it?” shouted Stick.
“…Doom Star,” whispered Marten.
Stick looked at him as if he were crazy. “Doom Stars don’t come close enough to Earth to be seen by the likes of us.”
“What else can it be?” asked Omi, who looked up too.
Stick shrugged, and all three of them studied the huge circular shape that slowly slid in front of the moon. Each gasped as the huge shape lit up. Beams, missiles, or that weird gel they’d heard about, something leaving the ship made a play of pretty colors. One of those pretty colors became a beam that slashed through the clouds. Before it could stab within the site, into the merculite missile station, the four-thousand-ton dome whirled shut on its gargantuan hydraulic sleds.
Omi, Stick and Marten exchanged glances. Within the merculite station, the sounds of gunfire, of battle, died down.
“It’s finished,” said Stick.
Omi raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve taken the merculite missile battery,” the former knifeboy said.
“You mean that Sigmir has,” Omi corrected.
“Yeah,” said Marten. He knew now that he carried something critical within himself. But if freedom were to be reborn, he had to act the part of a true man today. He nodded sharply to his two friends, asking, “Do you two remember Turbo?”
Their faces hardened.
Stick said, “We remember. But we can’t do anything about that now.”
“Why not?” asked Marten.
“Because it would mean our deaths,” Omi said.
“Given that we’d even be able to kill him,” Stick added.
“Do you doubt our abilities?” Marten asked.
Neither of them answered.
“I don’t,” Marten said. He turned and marched for the control room. A moment later, he heard Stick and Omi behind him.
As Marten entered the bloody room, Stick whispered, “How you gonna make it so we don’t die in return?”
Sigmir sat the controls—the panels circled the room. A heap of dead technicians lay on the floor.
The huge Highborn spun in his chair, facing them. “Gentlemen, it is done and I have won.”
Marten stopped, with Stick flanking one side of him, Omi the other.
Sigmir glanced at each of them in turn, his dead-seeming eyes searching theirs. With the reactions of an auto-sweep, he fired at Stick. Marten rolled. Omi cursed and beamed Sigmir. The laser light bounced off Sigmir’s shiny armor; unknown to them it had been reflected, laser-proofed. Stick grunted. The gyroc shell lodged in the armor joint of his torso and right arm. Then the shell exploded and Stick blew to the floor, dead. Marten fired round after round against Sigmir’s armor. The bullets bounced off to little effect, even though Marten was hoping to weaken the armor by repeatedly hitting the same spot.
Sigmir roared with laughter and re-aimed his gyroc. Marten leaped aside. The explosion of the shell threw him hard onto the floor. Both Omi’s laser and Marten’s machinegun were powerless against Sigmir’s superior armor. Realizing that, Marten dropped his gun and drew the tangler from his pack.
“Fool!” bellowed Sigmir.
Marten and he fired at the same instant. The gyroc round was a dud and failed to ignite. It still hit Marten in the chest and threw him backward. The strong sticky strands, meanwhile, tangled the seven-foot berserker.
Sigmir shouted wildly and strained to snap the strands.
Bruised and aching, Marten rose and emptied his tangler onto Sigmir, cocooning him with the wire-thin strands.
“Release me!” roared Sigmir.
Omi shot off the radio attached to the Lot Six Commander’s helmet.
Marten dashed to the controls of the merculite station. They were of similar design to those in the Sun-Works Factory. His fingers played over them. Then Marten ran, shouting to Omi, “Come on!”
“Preman!” Sigmir bellowed. “Release me or face my wrath.”
Marten didn’t pause. He ran out of the control room, shouting orders at everyone to retreat. Above them, the clamshell top whirled open and the missiles lurched toward the blast pans.
“Evacuate the station!” bellowed Marten. “Hurry!”
“Where’s Sigmir?” shouted Petor, running toward them.
Marten nodded to Omi. Omi waited until the bodyguard was almost on them. Then he indicated that Petor flip open his visor. He did so. Omi plunged a vibroblade into the bodyguard’s face.
***
Panting, running for the nearby trench line, Marten peered up at the night sky. Four missiles launched from the merculite station. Far above, the Doom Star glowed. All around Tokyo and farther a-field terrible laser beams flared.
“Run!” Marten roared.
FEC soldiers ran, knowing that they had only seconds left. They only just made it to the trenches.
Marten landed hard, almost knocking the wind of out himself. The night erupted in a blaze of fire and steel and rocking shockwaves. Marten lay curled into a fetal ball. The pounding was worse than anything he’d faced so far. Heat washed over the trench. Shrapnel that had once been the inside of the merculite missile station flew over in bunches. Bits of dust and concrete rained upon the FEC soldiers, causing each man to tremble violently because he thought it meant the end. They endured the Doom Star beaming of the inner missile site. The intensity of the explosions shook their nerves near the breaking point. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, it stopped.
Marten and Omi uncurled. They avoided looking at each other because each knew from experience that a haunted look would stare back from a zombie’s mask. So they breathed gingerly, amazed that they could still be alive.
“Here comes the Colonel,” said a man.
Marten dragged himself upright. He wouldn’t lie. He’d tell him that Sigmir must have been caught in the merculite station. Everyone knew how insane the Captain was about capturing it. He must not have run away in time, but if the Colonel didn’t buy the story…
Marten glanced at Omi.
Omi whispered, “Then we’ll have to kill him, too.”
Marten smiled grimly in agreement.
21.
General James Hawthorne left the command center in time to forgo watching his carefully assembled armada and army demolished unit after unit by the Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan Doom Stars. Thousands of bombers, fighters and choppers, wiped out by heavy beams. More than five thousand stratosphere-launched missiles blasted the transports laden with a hundred battalions. Surfacing flattops and cruise missile submarines were finished by a combination of beams, missiles and underwater nukes. And in their place, deeply deployed subs rose and disgorged power-armored Highborn onto Japan.
The careful gathering of hardware and military personnel in the massive build-up… the leaders of Social Unity had made it possible for the Highborn to destroy more units than they had ever been able to find since the start of the war. Perhaps it was true that the Highborn had been bloodied more than ever. The ledger, however, weighed heavily in Highborn favor.
That much General James Hawthorne knew as he rode a fast ground effects vehicle, a GEV, to meet with Lord Director Enkov. The compartment he rode in was sealed from the world. He wore neither chains nor handcuffs, but in the GEV compartment with him sat the bionic captain and five of his most trusted bionic soldiers.