“So wouldn’t the debris have remained cloaked?” Dagon Dar asked.
“Possibly, given the psi-operator remained alive after the ship’s destruction.”
Dagon Dar hissed. He fully appreciated the logic now, the purity of it. “If the psi-able human is alive to practice his new null, reason indicates the Battle Fang still remains intact. That means my word is yet whole.”
“Will the humans agree? After all, the warhead pumped the X-rays that fired at their craft.”
Dagon Dar lifted the upper skin flap protecting his teeth. “No. They will not agree. They will surely believe we attacked them on purpose. We must send them a communication stating that—”
“No!” Red Bronze said. “Radio transmissions would alert the cyborgs of the craft’s existence.”
“Why would that matter to us?”
“If you help the cyborgs destroy the Battle Fang, you will have broken your oath to them.”
“True.” The words came hard to Dagon Dar. His pride and orthodoxy forced it from him. “You are wiser than I realized, 232nd. I am also forced to conclude you still suspect more.”
“I do. Something strange is in play with this Battle Fang.”
“You think the Creator’s hand is at work?” Dagon Dar asked.
“I would not be so rash as to propose something of such magnitude,” Red Bronze said.
“What then?”
“I do not know. It must have something to do with the psionic Anointed One.”
“You believe in their Humanity Ultimate rhetoric?” Dagon Dar asked.
“Until I know more, I observe and make conjectures. I am seeing unusual things such as the Chirr space fleet, humans acting deceivably, and, of course, the cyborg battle fleet. Because of these things all acting at once, I suspect an unusual cause.”
“That is logical,” Dagon Dar admitted. “Further, it is interesting.”
“There may come a time when we must communicate with these humans. Excuse me. That was imprecise. I mean we may have to deal with them in a manner suggesting equality. I do not mean to imply they would ever be as wise or as moral as we are. I wonder, however, if they might stumble upon . . . methods to give them an equality of power.”
“Ah,” Dagon Dar said. “That is the thrust of your message, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“I do not agree with your analysis regarding an equality of power. I find the very words and concept repugnant. Yet you have made startling insights. Therefore, I will remember your argument in the eventuality that we find ourselves in this impossibility. Was there more?”
Red Bronze hesitated. She dipped her head. It almost might have been a shy gesture. “There is one more truth.”
“I am listening.”
“You are an incredibly handsome male,” Red Bronze said. “I felt you should know how I feel.”
With that, the holoimage wavered and vanished. It left Dagon Dar with a peculiar feeling in his abdomen. What a strange sensation. He wondered what it portended.
35
Cyrus lay on a pallet beside Jana. He rubbed one of her legs. The skin was so smooth, the shape of her thigh so enjoyable to see and touch.
Given the Battle Fang’s acceleration and the distances involved, it would still be several hours before they had to get ready.
As his fingers trailed up her leg, a great lurch threw Cyrus off the pallet. He slammed against the deck plates harder than seemed right. A crack sounded and sharp pain flared in his hip. He roared. The bulkheads quivered, and klaxons began to blare.
A terrifying whine spread through the ship. The engines cut out, ending thrust and stopping the acceleration. Incredibly, Cyrus began to float. So did Jana. It meant only one thing: the grav-plates had stopped working.
Remembering his space training in Earth orbit, Cyrus shoved off the deck plates with his hands. His left hip throbbed. What had just happened to him?
“Cyrus,” Jana said.
“Just a minute,” he said. He reached a comm station and opened channels with the control chamber. “What’s going on?” he asked.
For a few moments, no one answered. Then Skar’s voice came out of the speaker.
“The grav-plates ruptured,” the soldier said. “That began emergency engine shutdown procedures. It’s a miracle we’re still alive. The heavy Gs could have torn the vessel in two.”
“The grav-plates are broken?” Cyrus asked.
“Enough that we have weightlessness,” Skar said. “Since it will be easier to move equipment like this, I suggest we keep all of them offline. They’re unbalanced right now as it is.”
“Can we fix them?”
“That is the question,” Skar said.
Cyrus clicked off the comm. Moving to a computer link, he used it to make some calculations. It would have been better if they could have kept accelerating longer. They would have stopped the engines in another hour. At their present velocity, they would reach the cyborg dreadnoughts before the Tal drones reached their optimum firing distance, but not by much. The extra hour of thrust would have given them a greater margin.
In growing disbelief, Cyrus stared at the terminal. Could the techs fix the grav-plates soon? They needed the Battle Fang to decelerate long enough to allow them a hard ramming instead of obliterating the ship with a destructive collision.
It feels like we’re right back where we started, Cyrus thought. No more grav-plates.
Floating, Jana bumped against his hip.
Cyrus groaned at the pain.
“You are hurt,” she said.
“When I fell off the bed, I landed with too many Gs pushing me down. I think I might have a hairline fracture.”
“That is bad,” she said.
If he couldn’t walk in the cyborg dreadnought . . .
“I have to get to medical. Now,” he said.
“Let me help.”
“No. Follow me. You’re not trained in zero-G maneuvering. My hip—”
“I understand,” she said. “I might hurt you more. Go. We must repair you as quickly as possible.”
Repair, he thought, not heal, huh? Either way, I have to get my hip looked after.
Mentalist Niens was all the Battle Fang had in lieu of a doctor. That meant as Cyrus lay on a pallet in medical, Niens examined him.
“Does this hurt?” the mentalist asked, probing the hip.
Cyrus clenched his teeth, nodding.
“Hmmm,” Niens said. The mentalist clumsily moved a machine near, scanning the hip with it. After a few moments, he said, “It is broken.”
“Bad?”
“A faint line,” Niens said.
“On Earth, we call that a hairline fracture.”
“Ah. That is an apt term. I shall call it the same thing.”
“I have to use my hip,” Cyrus said. “Can you give me a painkiller?”
“Certainly,” Niens said, “but I advise against it.”
“Why?”
“The painkiller might interfere with your psionic abilities.”
“I have to do something,” Cyrus said.
“I could hypnotize you.”
Cyrus snorted. “You don’t think that won’t interfere with my mind powers?”
“You’re right. We cannot hypnotize you. I can affix a brace. Then you will have to ignore the pain.”
Cyrus stared at the mentalist. “I have another idea. Can you leave medical?”
“I can. Why would you wish this?”
“I have my reasons,” Cyrus said.
“What about me?” Jana asked.
“I want you to stay.”
Niens shrugged. “You are in charge. If you need me, I will be in my room.”
“Thanks, Niens. I appreciate it.”
The mentalist nodded and floated out of the r
oom.
“Why didn’t you want him here?” Jana asked.
“I’m not sure I trust him. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.”
“Why not read his mind?” Jana asked.
“Maybe I will,” Cyrus said, “later. First, I want to try a new talent.”
“Psionic healing?” Jana asked.
“Now you’re reading my mind.”
“No,” she said. “Sometimes, our seeker did this on Jassac when a warrior received a terrible hunting injury.”
Cyrus snapped his fingers. He must have sensed the Jassac memory. Now that she’d told him about it, he sought a seeker recollection in his mind.
Suiting thought to action, Cyrus closed his eyes. He probed the hairline fracture with TK and telepathy. With a combination of both, he aided the bone’s repair, speeding the process. That increased his metabolism. Before he went too far with the healing, his eyes snapped open.
His stomach rumbled. He was ravenously hungry. He told Jana and she fetched him some food. He wolfed it down and drank several bottles of water. Then he resumed his trance, repairing his bone a little more. In this manner he fixed the break, healing the hip as good as new.
That as much as anything else he’d done let Cyrus know he wasn’t just a regular Special from Earth anymore. He’d become something different. Therefore, it was time to start thinking differently. He had a gift. It didn’t matter how he’d come to receive it. With Fenris humanity and likely Sol humanity threatened by multiple alien races, he needed to use his gift to the max.
I have to stop the cyborgs. Then, if I can, I have to help the enslaved humans throw off the Kresh yoke and keep the Chirr from annihilating everything nonbug.
The next four hours were grueling for everyone aboard the Battle Fang. Skar led many, supervising construction of Vomag crash pods.
When the time came, everyone would don air masks and Skar would seal them in. If anything could help the crew survive a collision of Battle Fang and collapsium plating, it would be these foam pods.
The techs slaved on the grav-plates.
Meanwhile, Cyrus and Jana gathered weapons. Each invader would wear a vacc-suit. Over it, he or she would wear a Vomag vest. They would carry Vomag pistols with exploding pellets, hatchets, and mag-grenades.
“We need heavier weapons,” Cyrus said. “Doesn’t this ship carry plasma cannons or las-rifles?”
“Just these,” Skar said.
“We’re going up against cyborgs,” Cyrus said. “They have better weaponry than pistols, I can assure you of that.”
“Need does not produce the result,” Skar said. “If these creatures truly fight as you have described before, you will have to make the difference.”
“I’ll have to stay in my body.”
“What does that mean?” Skar asked. “We all have to stay in our bodies.”
“Never mind,” Cyrus said.
At last, the chief tech informed them the grav-plates would work for a time.
“I wouldn’t turn them on just yet,” the tech said. “Save them for the critical moments.”
“Will the grav-plates hold under intense deceleration?” Cyrus asked.
“I give you odds of fifty-fifty.”
“We need better than that.”
“The grav-plates have never received major overhauls,” the tech said. “I cannot change that. In my estimation, we should tear them out and install new ones. I’m surprised these have worked for as long as they have.”
“We don’t have new ones,” Cyrus pointed out.
“This I know.”
“So they may quit just when we need them most?” Cyrus asked.
“In our circumstances, we have always needed them most.”
Silently, Cyrus agreed. This had always been a long shot. It was simply a longer one than before.
Soon, he, Jana, and Skar returned to the control chamber. The soldier brought up the main screen.
The five dreadnoughts loomed large. The Battle Fang would have to begin braking maneuvers in fifteen minutes. Behind them, rushing past High Station 3, accelerated five hundred and thirty Tal drones. A wall of missiles firing X-rays appeared on the screen—the deadliest flock Cyrus had ever seen in his short life. Even his many memories had never witnessed something like that.
From a much farther distance, the Kresh fleet accelerated, although not as fast. Nearly one hundred warships would soon engage the cyborgs in a long-distance duel.
This was turning into something similar to the major battles of the Doom Star War. He was living through history in the making.
“Do you know which dreadnought we must attack?” Skar asked.
Here it was: the moment of truth. Once, Klane’s consciousness had traveled to the cyborg fleet. Cyrus had also done that earlier for a brief moment. It had been a grim sensation. He had been able to sense all those horrors on the vessels. What mad genius had invented cyborgs? Cyrus hoped that that man or woman was roasting in Hell. They had given the universe the worst of humanity, transformed into something like aliens. Marten Kluge had hoped he’d killed them all. He’d failed.
It’s our turn to try, Cyrus told himself. If we win, if I can get back to Earth, we have to start an interstellar war to eradicate the cyborgs. Either this kind of menace was destroyed, or it destroyed. There was no middle ground, no peace and no neutrality. It was a struggle to the death for one side or the other.
Cyrus Gant composed himself. This time, he didn’t need to shut his eyes. The psi-power had come upon him with greater ease each time he used it. He realized more profoundly than ever that his inward mind journey had readied him for the fight better than anything else could have.
In his mind against the Sa-Austra and the Eich, he’d practiced his new powers for days, for weeks. Yet in reality, only a short time had passed.
Cyrus raised his arm, pointing at the screen. “The one in the middle,” he said.
Skar sat at the controls. He applied thrust, turning the Battle Fang’s nose toward the selected vessel. “Where on the ship should I aim?”
Cyrus felt for the silver ship. He found it right away. For him, it blazed like a beacon. Incredibly, it was in an outer hangar bay. The Prime should have taken it into the center of his vessel.
Cyrus told Skar the coordinates.
After a few adjustments, the Battle Fang aimed for the sealed hangar bay.
“It is time to decelerate,” Cyrus said.
“That means it is time to seal you up in the foam pods,” Skar said.
Even the techs would go in. If the grav-plates failed now, nothing was going to matter. Cyrus and Skar oversaw everyone’s entombment.
In the third-to-last pod, Cyrus leaned in, removed Jana’s mask, and kissed her on the lips. “Good luck, beautiful,” he whispered.
“Good luck, my love,” she said, and then put her mask on.
Cyrus grinned. Then he sprayed foam over her, sealing her in the crash cocoon.
Soon, it was his turn. He lay in the foam pod, put on his mask, and turned on the air. He breathed deeply.
“Ready?” Skar asked.
“I am.”
The soldier aimed the sprayer at Cyrus. Foam boiled out of the nozzle, sealing the Anointed One inside. They were almost ready to attack.
Skar 192 sat alone at the controls of the Battle Fang, gloriously contemplating the fight of his life. Skillfully he turned the craft so the thrusters aimed at the enemy. He would enter his foam pod at the last minute. Someone had to steer them in.
Lifting his weapon hand, Skar examined it. The hand, the fingers, they were rock steady. He had been born and bred for this moment. He was a soldier.
Skar flipped the switch, and gravity returned to the Battle Fang. The grav-plates worked, at least right now. He tapped a control and the engines applied power. Mass thrust spewed f
rom the ports. The Battle Fang decelerated and the grav-plates whined with complaint. The bulkheads shivered and the ship threatened to come apart.
With remorseless courage, Skar continued to decelerate. His kind went deep into the tunnels of the Chirr to seek battle. That took courage. This? Bah, it was nothing.
A red light appeared on his panel. One of the grav-plates had just blown. The whine increased, and the Battle Fang still decelerated.
“Last a few more minutes,” Skar said. “Then I will grant my first kill to your memory.”
The words barely left Skar’s lips when a tremendous explosion shook the Battle Fang. Red lights flared on his panel. Several grav-plates ruptured at once. Worse, the shocks caused the vessel to tumble end over end.
Skar barely twisted around in time and clung to his chair. Because the grav-plates were gone, enormous gravities yanked at his body. His grip slipped, but the tumbling ship gave him a moment’s reprieve. He managed to pull the crash bar down and snap buckles into place. The spinning Battle Fang threatened a blackout as more Gs caused blood to drain from his head. The hijacked vessel tumbled out of control as it raced at the cyborg dreadnought.
36
Darcy shuddered as the chamber’s bulkheads glowed with heat. She didn’t know what caused that. Toll Three had left, locking the hatch. The Prime was occupied by his duties, whatever they might be, and his presence had departed.
Darcy wore panties and a bra. It was too hot to wear anything else. She was tired of being naked, though, and had to put on something.
Suddenly, she faced the one wall. The triangles had reappeared. It meant the Prime focused on her.
“What is the meaning of—” the Prime stopped talking in midsentence.
Seconds later, the room quit glowing and it began to cool down.
“I fixed your heat problem. The chamber is too near a main coil unit. I have been pumping the lasers, readying them for distance firing. The aliens rush at us, eager to die. It is quite amusing. Perhaps you would like to see what I face.”
The first try, Darcy croaked her words. She was thirsty and frightened. Clearing her throat, she said, “Yes, please. I would like that.”
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