With that information, the enemy had been able to turn the Bangladesh and now braked at two-Gs. Kang had continued to torture the others for further information, turning the command-capsule into an abattoir.

  “Are you all right, Admiral?” asked the Tracking Officer. They were in a security cell, six of them packed in a room built for two.

  Rica Sioux spit blood from her mouth. They had knocked out her false teeth and had given her drugs to keep her tripping heart from quitting. Her chest thudded, and it made breathing a dreadful chore. She knew that, at best, she had only a few hours left.

  “They’re monsters,” said the Tracking Officer, as she knelt over the Admiral and carefully blotted blood with a dirty rag.

  “It doesn’t matter,” whispered Rica Sioux.”

  “Yes, it matters,” said the Tracking Officer.

  Rica Sioux closed her eyes. The Bangladesh was doomed. The monster in the command capsule was doomed. Sadly, so were the last of her officers. She’d seen the dead shock troopers laying in their battlesuits. Too bad, they hadn’t been able to kill all the enemy space marines. She’d asked to speak with the cunning leader who had foiled them, the one who had called her and had led the smaller team. None of the enemy had looked at her then. That’s when her beatings had really started. So, she’d asked only once more, and Kang had knocked her implants out one by one, telling her to mind her own business.

  “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” asked the Tracking Officer.

  Rica Sioux opened her eyes and closed them again. The Tracking Officer was a blur to her. Anyway, it hurt her head too much trying to see. She didn’t answer out of fear the officers had all turned. They knew she planned something, and they no doubt worked for that monster in her command capsule. The Highborn had trained him well. That monster, Kang, was much cleverer than he looked. He understood about breaking people. Her officers should have let her blow the ship.

  “Admiral!”

  “Leave me alone,” whispered Rica Sioux.

  “She’s dying,” said someone.

  “Better tell Kang.”

  Rica Sioux smiled. There! Now she knew they had been turned.

  “Admiral!”

  “Good-bye,” said Rica Sioux. Her old heart defeated the drugs trying to keep it going. The ancient organ quit, and Admiral Sioux stopped breathing.

  28.

  Marten woke up outside the beamship, secured to the underside of a blasted particle shield. He’d slept nineteen hours. It didn’t completely dispel his extreme exhaustion, but he’d woken with an idea. That’s how it usually went with him. He wrestled with a problem, and then he went to sleep. When he woke up, or during his morning shower, the answer just popped into his head.

  He could use a shower now. His jumpsuit was grimy, and he itched all over. As he sipped water from his tube, he relieved himself. A battlesuit’s waste-disposal system regressed a shock trooper back into a baby in diapers. He went in his suit, and the battlesuit recycled the body wastes for him. A handy feature, Marten supposed, but he always felt strange using it. He slurped concentrates and began the journey back into the beamship.

  Once aboard, he used a comlink to check various damage control crawlers that had been under his command nineteen hours ago. 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 roved the engine room looking 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 of 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 shut-down 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 all the 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 the huge missiles that still hung from their racks. Using the vehicle’s mechanical arms, he hauled two of the missiles from their racks 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, and he felt the zero G in the automatic engaging of the crawler’s magnetic locks.

  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 angry and search harder. So, he headed for his battlesuit. It was time to go outside again.

  ***

  From outside the Bangladesh, he worked to clear his chosen firing tube. He’d found several Zero-G Worksuits and had 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 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 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 by now. You can pick Omi up if you want. We won’t stop you. And I’ll give you this, Marten. You’re a tough 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 machine-made 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 huge form of the Praetor strode in. He too wore his uniform, brown with green stripes on the sleeves. His pink eyes glittered, and his frown gave him a dreadful presence. Lycon noticed that he carried a folder in his enormous 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. He noticed that sweat stung his eyes and used his sleeve to wipe it. 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 effective, and of course they jink enough to cause misses.”

  “What about anti-missile 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 affect 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 to achieve in the manner I think best.”

  “Your sponsor, the Grand Admiral, has lost face.”

  “But he hasn’t lost rank.”

  “No,” said the Praetor, “not yet.”

  For a moment, they listened to the holo-simulated eagle screech. Lycon marshalled his thoughts, mastered his anger and spoke in an even tone.

  “I say this without rancor, Praetor, but you too have lost face.”

  The nine-foot tall Highborn grew very still. Lycon felt the hostility, the emanating rage.

  “Is this how you would move me to give you a shuttle?” the Praetor asked softly.

  “I appeal rather to your logic.”

  “I see no such appeal.”

  Lycon detached a small capsule from his belt. He handed it to the Praetor, who merely eyed him with a strange, pink-eyed suspicion.

  “There is a button on this capsule. When you press it, four Neutraloids will be released into the Game Room.”

  The Praetor shrugged.

  “The names of the Neutraloids might interest you.”

  “What possible interest could such names contain for me?”

  “Dalt and Methlen are two of them. Ervil and former Chief Monitor Hansen are the others.”

  A strange ecstasy twisted the Praetor’s features. In a husky voice he asked, “Is this true?”

  “It is true.”

  The Praetor reached for the capsule and hesitated. “Once news of their capture spreads, it will strengthen my position.”

  “Yes, Praetor, this I realize.”

  “Changing them into Neutraloids will also prove that traitorous premen can be rehabilitated through my procedure.”

  “Agreed.”

  “It would seem I owe you a favor.”

  “My only desire is to serve.”

  The Praetor nodded. “I order you to the Bangladesh, Training Master. Take your training marshals, and do what you can for your doomed shock troops.”

  “As you command, Praetor.” Lycon clicked his heels and dropped the capsule into the Superior’s huge hand.

  The Praetor closed his fingers around it, an awful smile on his pearl-white face. “I’ll wait until you’ve cleared the room.”

  “Thank you, Praetor.” Lycon strode quickly, and once over the first set of dunes he began to jog. After the third set of dunes, he passed two cages. One held three Neutraloids, savage beings, their muscles quivering, stark and tattooed a deep blue color. They snarled at the fourth Neutraloid, one alone in its own cage. He was thinner, with white bushy eyebrows and a long face. His muscles also quivered, and hate blazed from his eyes. He held onto the bars of his cage, watching Lycon as he passed, never taking his eyes from him.

  Lycon felt uncomfortable being the object of such hatred. How the Praetor hoped to use these creatures was beyond him. They were brutes, nothing more, berserk killers, unusable in any but the most artificial circumstances.

  “Hansen!” snarled one of the Neutraloids, the shortest of the caged three, he with extra-broad shoulders. “We’re gonna skin you alive, Hansen!”

  “Eat you!” shouted another, straining, reaching between two bars as if he could clutch the one he hated.

  “Kill you, you bastard!” howled the third, rattling his cage as hard as he could.

  Hansen shuddered, but he didn’t take his eyes off Lycon.

  Then, thankfully, Lycon topped the last set of dunes and hurried for the exit.

  30.

  Marten waited until the end to get Omi. He didn’t trust Kang. But he figured the others had spoken honestly. He probably would never have been able to build his jury-rigged craft if they had kept after him.

  His ship amounted to two missiles, minus the warheads he’d detached from them. He’d welded several damage control vehicles to the missiles. Those he had cut apart and re-welded, gutting some to make room for a medical unit, supplies, computers, radar equipment and the like. What his ship amounted to was a seat and toilet for him and a medical rack for Omi, who would remain in his Suspend condition. Unfortunately, Suspend wasn’t cryogenic sleep. It was meant for temporary suspension of cell death until a doctor could repair massive bodily damage. The longest anyone dosed with Suspend had been kept under and brought back to normal was about three months. Marten figured his trip would take at least a year, and that would merely bring them to far Earth orbit. From there…

  He refused to think about then. One problem at a time was all he could deal with. A year sitting in one spot—He blanked that out too. Survival, the refusal to quit was what drove him. Social Unity hadn’t broken him. He wasn’t going to let the Highborn kill him.

  The time finally came to get Omi. He used an engine core-lift with detachable controls, normally used to go into the Fusion Drive and repair damage. From outside the beamship, he controlled the core-lift, which drove to where they had put Omi. Under Marten’s guidance, the vehicle picked up the motionless Korean and carried him to an outer lock. There the core-lift deposited Omi, who still wore his battlesuit and helmet. The inner lock closed, and the outer one opened ten seconds later. Marten couldn’t know it, but Vip had removed the bug that Kang had put on Omi as well as shut off the alarm rigged to him.

  After a long wait, Marten picked up Omi and carried him to his ship, which was clamped like a lamprey to the side of the Bangladesh. His craft’s airlock took up half the free space of the escape vehicle. Inside the ship, he pried Omi out of the battlesuit and hooked him to the medical unit. The battlesuit he stored in the same locker where he’d put his own. Then, he settled into his chair and activated the bombs that he’d put on this particle shield’s struts. They blew, and the busted shield detached and floated away from the Bangladesh. Marten flipped switches and released his ship’s magnetic locks. He too floated away from the beamship.

  The Bangladesh braked at two Gs, although such was its velocity that it still moved farther from the Sun.

  Marten used the hydrogen burners he’d taken off several zero-G Worksuits and welded to his makeshift capsule. Slowly, he moved toward the floating particle shield and then up and over it and then behind it. From there Omi and he were shielded from the Bangladesh.

  Marten stared at the stars. One year sitting in this seat beside his only friend in the medical unit was going to be a long time.

  “Here goes,” whispered Marten. He fired the first missile and was slammed back into his chair as the rocket burned and accelerated them.

  31.

  Marten had traveled five hundred kilometers from the Bangladesh when the missiles launched by General Hawthorne’s orders slammed into the vast beamship. The missiles had been fired from the missile ships that the experimental beamship had been en route to meet—from the flotilla the beamship was to lead to Mars. The nuclear explosions vaporized much of the mighty structure and irradiated everything else. More missiles arrived and detonated, chewing up the mass into finer debris.

  Marten had fled far enough so that the heat and blast from the explosions had no effect upon him or his ship. The electromagnetic pulse, however, blew his main controls, prematurely detaching the living quarters from the two missiles. Marten and Omi tumbled end over end as the welded missiles sped in Earth’s direction.

  Openmouthed, shocked and uncomprehending Marten stared at the spinning stars. Finally, numbly, he used the hydrogen burners to stop their endless spinning. He wanted to scream, to rave at the injustice and futility of life. Yet, he wasn’t vanquished. He refused to surrender. They still had air and could survive for a long, long time.