“Not sleep, you stupid, beautiful woman,” the Prime said. “Those cyborgs are all brain-dead. I will have to find new minds to put into their brainpans before I can use them again.”
The information startled Darcy. She’d seen over one hundred cyborg dead. “How did the seven humans kill them?” she asked.
“That is what infuriates me,” the Prime said. “I do not know.”
If the seven could brain-kill one hundred cyborgs, they might have a chance. Darcy couldn’t see how, but they were doing it, right? If you’re going to trick someone, you have to sprinkle in truths.
“Have you used the AI-brain sweeps to examine them?” Darcy asked.
“Ah, for such a beautiful harem thing, you are surprisingly cunning. How marvelous for you to sense that statement. Of course, one or several of those humans must be using psionics. I will train the AI-brain shift mechanisms against them.”
“Can you do that in the dreadnought?” Darcy asked.
“I will do what I must. Possibly, that will destroy my craft. I will have to transfer to a different dreadnought before that happens.”
This is it—an opening. I have to say this just right. “What about me?” Darcy asked. “You’re not going to leave me behind, are you? Prime?”
“No,” the Prime said shortly. “I am sending Toll Three to escort you to my main brain dome chamber. You will ride with me, Senior Darcy Foxe. So don your vacc-suit.”
Darcy could hardly breathe, but she forced out the words. “Toll Three might be too late. Can you tell me which corridors to use in order for me to run to him?”
The Prime was silent for two seconds. They were the most agonizing moments in Darcy’s life. Then the speaker sounded.
“Yes,” the Prime said. “Your idea has merit. And you have shown your loyalty to me. Listen carefully, Senior Darcy Foxe, and I will give you the route.”
Darcy nodded even though it was difficult to think. She felt numb and light-headed. This would be her last chance for freedom. Once the hatch opened, she would try to find the invading humans and die with them. She hated the Prime. And if there was one chance in a million she could help the invaders destroy the monster, she would take it.
The Prime finished showing her on the wall. Darcy faced the hatch. She doubted it would open. Something at the last second would cause the Prime to change his mind.
A click sounded, and the hatch swung open. With a fast-beating heart, Darcy rushed to it. After everything that had happened to her, she actually had a chance to try to save herself even though it was as remote as the moon of Jassac.
Cyrus panted as he moved one boot ahead of the other. The air flowed through his recyclers. The dreadnought must be accelerating, because it had become hard to lift his feet.
“Slow down,” Skar radioed. “We must walk. The Gs are too strong for us to run for long. People will begin tearing their muscles.”
So far, Cyrus had psi-slain several hundred cyborgs. He hadn’t let them get close enough to fire their rifles. That had taken concentration and the heavy use of his mind, which had speeded his metabolism. He’d eaten all his helmet’s concentrates—the paste—and he’d just about sucked down his water supply. He breathed harder than anyone else did. They just had to move. He had to move and think—
Uh-oh, here came some more of them.
“Just a minute,” Cyrus panted. He halted and sensed Jana steadying him. He focused on the cyborgs rushing toward them, using a new set of corridors. Maybe the creatures thought this would surprise him. He’d be the one handing out nasty wonders.
One, two, three, he used selected psi-pricks in their minds. He’d learned about a critical vein. Cutting it caused them to die instantly. The bodies clanged against distant deck plates.
“Okay,” Cyrus whispered. “It’s safe again.”
The heavier Gs no longer hindered them. Weightlessness came to the giant vessel.
“This will make it easier,” Skar said. “Cyrus, which way do we go?”
With a burst of telepathy, he refreshed their mental maps.
“It’s near,” Jana said.
“No,” Skar said. He faced them, and he gave an exaggerated wink. “It is very far from us.”
“That’s what I meant to say,” Jana replied over their headphones. “I was hoping it was near. That came out wrong.”
“It happens to everyone,” Skar said. “Yang, do you know a shortcut?”
“What?” the big man asked.
Skar stepped near Yang, winking exaggeratedly again. “Do you know a shortcut to the long-distance spot?”
“Oh, of course,” Yang said. “Follow me.”
Cyrus was fifth in line as the old hetman led them toward the selected hangar bay. The silver ship was almost in sight.
In the next section of corridor, nothing new happened. Cyrus wondered what the Prime had in store for them next. Because of the multiple brain domes, the Prime was impossible to read telepathically.
Yang opened a hatch and went through.
Cyrus was the fourth person in the hangar bay. Lights bathed the spacious area. He saw it right away: the silver ship. They had almost reached their goal.
38
Cyrus made it to the silver ship without incident. The others flanked him. He examined the alien Eich vessel. Skar, Yang, Jana, and the others looked everywhere else, watching for cyborgs.
“It’s beautiful,” Cyrus said.
“It is?” Jana asked. “I think it looks menacing.”
He knew the Eich memory gave him a different perspective. It was too bad they couldn’t see what he did.
The silver ship was bigger than an Earth fighter, but not by much. It had a perfect teardrop-shaped design, with a point at the end. What he hadn’t observed before with the psionic view were the lacing and swirls on the skin of the vessel. Those had purposes. No ship had ever been designed for psionic use like the Shy-Nar-Sithya.
Cyrus’s jaw dropped. Merely thinking the craft’s name brought goose bumps to his skin. At last, after long eons of time—
No. We’re going to do this my way, Cyrus thought at the remnants of others in his mind. I’m in charge. I will rule the memories because I defeated each of you in mortal combat.
He could feel the memory of the Eich make a last struggle for dominance. Then he controlled it. It’s time to examine the Shy-Nar-Sithya.
Cyrus circled the silver ship. It was an Eich Empire mind-scout-ranger, the newest of the new breed eons ago. That empire was far away in the center of the galaxy.
Is the ship alive?
No. That was merely an Eich idiom. The thing enhanced psionic power, but only if one used the craft with precision.
This is going to be dangerous.
Cyrus took a deep breath. He continued circling the craft, searching for the entrance. None of the machinery, if it still worked, could help him from out here. He had to get inside.
Why don’t I see a hatch?
He knew the Eich had gone in and out of the ship. Hmm, he was missing something.
“Well?” Skar radioed. “I hate to interrupt you, but do you have any idea how you’re supposed to use the ship?”
“Give me a few more minutes,” Cyrus said.
“I will obey. Yet I think you should do your magic now instead of waiting for the last second as usual.”
Darcy ran through corridors as the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose in horror. She’d escaped the monstrous room. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She told herself no. There wasn’t any time for that. She had to be brave if she was going to make it to the humans.
What did it mean that seven intruders could kill hundreds of cyborgs? It made no sense. Yet she realized that if she was ever going to avoid a cyborg-future fate, she had to reach them.
She tried to remember exactly what the Prime had shown her o
n the wall. The seven were obviously here for the silver ship. How could the Prime not see that?
Think, Darcy. What route did Toll Three use when he took you there the first time? Can you retrace it?
Her stomach knotted as she came to the first nexus. Either she could follow the Prime’s instructions, living like his pet, or she could dare to go—left!
That’s the route. I’m sure of it.
Her legs felt weak. She went left just the same, and now she ran. The steel corridor went on forever, or so it seemed.
“Senior Darcy Foxe,” the Prime said in her headphones. “You stupid harem woman, you went the wrong way.”
Her mouth was dry and the fear too overwhelming for her to give him a sarcastic comment.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You must turn around, Senior Darcy Foxe. My brain domes are deep inside the vessel. Toll Three will reach you any minute.”
Darcy kept running as a stitch of pain knifed in her side. She wasn’t used to sprinting like this.
“Senior Darcy Foxe, do you hear me?” the Prime said.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“Stop, harem woman,” the Prime said. “Toll Three is running faster. He will reach you soon.”
Darcy threw a glance over her shoulder. The corridor was still empty. Tears began to trickle from her eyes. The Prime had put her in the convertor. He would have made her a model 6 cyborg. In time, he would get angry again and do the same thing. Next time, he wouldn’t stop at the last second.
“Are you trying to escape from me, Senior Darcy Foxe?” the Prime asked.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Can this be true?”
“Dearly, dearly love you,” she added.
“Then you must stop.”
Inspiration struck. “I hate those evil intruders. How dare they hurt your precious cyborgs! I will stop them, Prime. I will show you how much I love you.”
“You seek to deceive the greatest mind in the universe. How did you think to get away with it? I perceive your petty lies. You’re attempting to join the humans. You’re willing to throw away the most prized location in human history, at my side as a sex object. I will teach you hard lessons, Senior Darcy Foxe. I will make you rue the day you deceived my noble heart. Senior Darcy Foxe, I am angry with you. No one plays me false as you just have. Look—Toll Three is right behind you.”
Darcy glanced back. The blocky cyborg ran with impossible leaps and strides, eating up the distance, coming down the corridor after her.
“You will weep ten thousand tears, Senior Darcy Foxe. You will—”
Darcy reached a hatch. Frantically, she tried to open it, but it was frozen shut.
“No,” Darcy sobbed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Run, little harem woman,” the Prime gloated. “Oh, I am thoroughly enjoying this. How funny you are, how sadly pathetic.”
Darcy realized she moved the bar the wrong way. She looked back. Toll Three was less than thirty meters away. With a scream, she shoved the bar, opened the hatch, and ran into the hangar bay. She spied the silver ship.
Darcy ran. A clank of metal told her Toll Three had made it through the hatch. She moaned with dread.
Don’t worry, a voice said in her mind. I know you, Darcy. I saw you before. He is going to die—now.
Darcy looked over her shoulder. Toll Three leaped. She screamed as the cyborg dived at her with his gleaming metal fingers outstretched.
An invisible force slammed the cyborg. He hit the deck plates hard, bouncing, sliding toward her. When he came to a halt several centimeters from her feet, the meld’s orbs stared at nothing. Toll Three was brain-dead.
She had reached the seven humans at the silver ship.
39
Dagon Dar waited tensely in the main control room of his command vessel. The five hundred and thirty Tal drones approached optimum firing range. Far behind, the seven hammer-ships readied their lasers. The nuclear-pumped X-rays had a far shorter range than the larger and more coherent hammer-ship lasers.
Dagon Dar lashed his tail. Now the Kresh would smash these cyborgs. He would obliterate the attackers. Afterward, he would begin a long curve, taking the Pulsar fleet as fast as possible to Glegan.
The Heenhiss Chirr were three-quarters of the way to the third planet. Still, no new bug ships had lifted from Glegan.
“FIRST, look,” a subcommander said.
Dagon Dar studied the main viewing screen. His eyes grew larger. Incredibly wide beams reached out from the cyborg dreadnoughts. The laser moved downward, cutting through the Tal drones.
“How long does the laser stay on target?” Dagon Dar asked.
In the hammer-ship, Kresh personnel studied their sensors. At last, the subcommander spoke up. “Three seconds per drone, FIRST. The intensity of the beam—it is intolerably hot.”
Dagon Dar could see that. Incoming data showed a swath of destruction to the drones.
“Initiate the Tal firing sequence,” he ordered.
“But—”
“By the time they reach optimum range, the drones will no longer exist. They must fire now.”
“At once, FIRST,” the subcommander said. “It will take several seconds for the message to reach them.”
“Order the hammer-ships to begin firing on the lead cyborg vessel,” Dagon Dar said.
“Our lasers cannot match their intensity.”
“I understand,” Dagon Dar said. “Yet we must do what we can. Now is the moment. Fire the lasers! Send the signal: all hammer-ships must attack!”
Millions of kilometers separated the two fleets. The Tal drones were seven hundred thousand kilometers from the enemy ships. Optimum distance was five hundred and sixty thousand kilometers.
The hammer-ships could reach many millions of kilometers with their heavy lasers. The cyborgs could return the favor. The dreadnought lasers, however, were five times as powerful as the Kresh rays.
As the five cyborg beams cut through the mass of missiles, Tal drones slagged into molten pieces. Over half of them had ceased functioning by the time Dagon Dar’s message reached the AIs. They configured distances, enemy speeds, range of X-rays—five more drones were destroyed in that time.
The remaining Tal warheads ignited. The nuclear blasts pumped the rods and flashed X-rays at the speed of light. They struck collapsium plating, incredibly dense armor, and did negligible damage to the dreadnoughts.
Now the main battle began between the cyborgs and Dagon Dar’s Kresh.
The seven hammer-ships concentrated on the central cyborg dreadnought. At the moment, the hammer-ships were the only Kresh vessels able to attack at the extreme distance. The speed of light was three hundred thousand kilometers per second. Seventeen seconds after leaving the hammer-ships, seven heavy lasers began to boil and burn into collapsium plating.
At the same time, the cyborg lasers burned against a Bo Taw psi-shield of the selected hammer-ship. Space there glowed with a weird and brilliant color. The mighty lasers simply halted. Such was the awful power of the lasers, however, that they began to push against the glow, forcing it closer, closer to the targeted hammer-ship.
The seven Kresh lasers burned against the central dreadnought. Although the hammer-ships had greater numbers, the strength of their beams dissipated to a greater degree. The cyborg laser was larger, more powerful, and had tighter coherence at extreme range. Even so, the collapsium plating on the targeted vessel began to rupture in places. The cyborg vessel braked, slowing its velocity. The other four dreadnoughts moved beyond the targeted craft. One slid downward, coming between the dreadnought and the Kresh lasers.
That took the central dreadnought out of the fight, at least for the moment.
Now, four cyborg dreadnoughts beamed their great lasers toward the selected hammer-ship. Unknown to the Prime, the Bo
Taw onboard the targeted vessel cried out. Most clutched their elongated foreheads, dropping unconscious to the deck. That further weakened the psi-shield, which went down seconds later.
Four great beams smashed against the hammer-ship. The outer armor did little against the cyborg lasers. They sliced sections of hammer-ship into various pieces. Debris and beings spilled out. Explosions vaporized most of the mass. The hammer-ship was gone, destroyed by the annihilating rays.
Because the cyborgs used advanced teleoptics instead of radar for targeting, the Prime knew about the destruction seventeen seconds later. Commands flashed between the dreadnoughts. Soon, the cyborg beams retargeted, shifting toward the next hammer-ship, beginning the process anew.
Despite the agonizing loss so soon in the fight, Dagon Dar observed the situation with reptilian calm as he made his calculations. He did not like what he found. What should he do? Retreat seemed out of the question. His only consolation was that battle was seldom a mathematical application of certainty. Random factors could intrude—luck. Could he count on that? No. Likely, the Kresh were doomed.
“We can hurt them,” he told the others. “We must continue accelerating toward the cyborgs. Once we close the distance, the Attack Talons and Battle Fangs will engage in the fight, improving our odds.”
“At our present velocity,” the subcommander said, “that will take over two hours.”
“Yes,” Dagon Dar said. “Likely, we face catastrophic defeat. Yet there is a slim chance of victory. The key is destroying one of their dreadnoughts soon enough. That will reduce their percentages by one fifth. Therefore, we will grasp at this hope and continue to attack.”
Cyrus watched the vacc-suited woman stumble toward them. Through the helmet, he could see the tears streaming down her face.
“Is this a trick?” Skar asked with his rifle aimed at the woman.
“No,” Cyrus said. “She’s an ice hauler. The Web-Mind has been abusing her.”
The woman stopped short. She had dialed into their comm net. “How can you know that?” she asked.
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