Bio-Weapon (Doom Star 2), page 29
So that he wouldn’t cry or go berserk, he began to sing the songs his mother had taught him in the Sun Works Factory. A Mighty Fortress is Our God by an ancient called Martin Luther was the song he remembered best. He sang until his throat went raw. Then like a lunatic absorbed in his dull witlessness, he stared at the vast star-field the entire time.
32.
Sometime later, Lycon’s intersystem shuttle sniffed through the Bangladesh’s debris, which maintained its velocity and heading. Scanners searched the junk for signs of life.
Lycon had studied the shock trooper transmissions sent from the Bangladesh before it had been destroyed. Those who had stormed aboard the beamship had clearly taken heavy losses. Highborn training had given them strict procedures for dead or dying shock troopers. Such individuals were to be injected with Suspend and battlesuited with fully charged tanks and their vents opened to ship air. When the beamship had been destroyed, the air vents would have automatically closed, and the battlesuit would have switched to tank air. Those suits were the best in the Solar System, able to take incredible damage. Lycon’s hope was that a few such premen had survived the nuclear explosions. He needed live shock troopers as examples of the success of his idea.
A day’s search garnered exactly nothing.
To go home empty-handed meant at the very best that he would become a trainer of the Neutraloids. Lycon loathed the idea. “Increase the range of our sweeps,” he ordered.
“At once,” said the training marshal acting as pilot.
They searched a second day and then a third. On the fourth day, the pilot turned to Lycon.
“I’m picking up a distress call.”
Lycon lurched to the com-board.
“I can’t make anything out of it,” said the pilot.
“Go there,” said Lycon.
“Are you certain?”
Lycon laughed harshly. “I grasp at straws because we have nothing else.”
The pilot set course for the weak distress call.
33.
First, Marten saw the braking jets, a bright smear in the darkness of space. Then, he watched the shuttle visibly grow from a dot to that of a discernible spacecraft.
A beard covered his face, and his muscles had already grown slack. He couldn’t describe his emotions. To float alone in space, drifting, hopeless, repeatedly rethinking conversations and actions was a hellish experience. He shuddered and made a croaking sound after crying for a long, long time. He believed he would walk again, talk to people, eat, think, and have plans, hopes and dreams, and fight.
He tried to concentrate. Training Master Lycon had come. Lycon was Highborn. The last time they had spoken, Lycon had been unhappy with him. Marten couldn’t concentrate. Instead, he wiped tears from his cheeks. Oh, how he wanted to live.
“But not on their terms,” he croaked.
He sipped water from his bottle and shook his head. The stirrings of hatred returned. To be born afresh, that’s what he experienced. Life! What an incredible word it was. What a gift to breathe, play, eat, and meet women. Life!
“Hurry up,” he whispered, his heart beginning to race.
34.
The shuttle eased beside the tiny life-pod, dwarfing it, belittling its crudeness. An emergency tube of flexible plastic snaked from the shuttle and sealed over the pod’s airlock. Soon, air was pumped into the tube. After a time the pod’s hatch slid up, and Marten Kluge pushed an inert Omi toward the shuttle.
Marten peered at the vastness of space surrounding him. He used the plastic railing attached to the inner tube, pushing Omi and pulling himself. The shuttle airlock opened, and Lycon waited at the end, his angular face impassive, but his strange energetic eyes filled with questions, and it seemed to Marten, traces of wonder.
As Marten pushed Omi to Lycon, the powerful Highborn nodded. Marten nodded back as one would to an equal. They entered the shuttle’s airlock. As the inner hatch opened, Lycon removed his vacc helmet.
“He has a plasma burn on his chest,” Marten told a waiting Highborn, a seven-foot fellow with a medical tag on his shirt. “If you have any medical facilities—”
“We do,” said Lycon.
“Good,” Marten said. He took Omi from Lycon and pushed him to the other Highborn. “Let’s get him hooked in and brought around.”
The two Highborn exchanged glances. “Yes, a good idea,” Lycon said a moment later. Together, the three of them floated Omi to the medical center. There, the second Highborn took over, stripping Omi of his filthy clothes, tsking at the sight of the ugly plasma burn across his chest and then securing him into the medical cradle. Drugs, blood and special concentrates surged through the attached tubes, and for the first time in weeks Omi’s body quivered with life.
The other Highborn checked his medscanner. Then, he turned it on Marten, sweeping it over him. To Lycon he said, “He should shower, change into clean clothes and take an injection I’ll prepare.”
Lycon turned to Marten.
“I heard him,” Marten said. “Just point the way.”
Lycon hesitated, nonplussed, before pointing toward a hatch.
***
Apparent gravity returned to the shuttle as it accelerated at one-G for Earth. Marten relaxed in a chair, sipping coffee. He wore a clean jumpsuit with the shock trooper skull-patch on his right pectoral and left shoulder. The beard was gone, and his blond hair was cut short. He was thinner, his cheeks gaunt. His eyes had changed. They were guarded, wary. It seemed, too, as if part of him still floated alone in space, as if not all of him had returned to the land of the living.
The exercise room had padded walls and ceiling and several isometric machines. Lycon sat across from Marten. The seven-foot Highborn, with his legs crossed, doodled with a stylus on a portable comp-screen.
A door opened and the Highborn acting as medical officer poked his head in and reported to Lycon. “It looks like it will be a full recovery.”
“When can I talk to him?” asked Marten.
The Highborn scowled, although he said, “Two days, two and a half at the most.”
“Thanks. I appreciate what you’ve done.”
The Highborn lifted his eyebrows before he withdrew, closing the hatch behind him.
“Your experience was no doubt horrifying,” said Lycon. “But you must use correct protocol procedures when addressing us.”
Marten smiled, but more the way a gang leader would to a cop than with any genuine pleasure. “Yes, Highborn,” he said, saluting him with the coffee cup.
Lycon frowned. He sat a little straighter and tapped the tip of the stylus on the portable comp-screen. “I’m curious how Omi and you found yourself in such a makeshift escape pod.”
Marten crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t stare at the Highborn. Rather, he picked a point on the wall to examine.
“The Bangladesh’s pods had already been jettisoned, Highborn.”
“Yes. But how did you come to make your spacecraft?”
“From an intense desire to leave the beamship, Highborn.”
“You knew that the missiles were coming?”
“To my knowledge, Highborn, the shock troops never fixed the beamship’s radar pods. Yet, the enemy missiles did seem like a logical move on Social Unity’s part. Logic then demands one find a way to avoid the missiles.”
“Your craft only has what appear to be hydrogen burners taken off zero-G Worksuits.”
“The EMP blast from the enemy missiles wreaked havoc on my controls, Highborn. Because of mixed signals, the missiles I’d attached to my pod dropped off and rocketed away.”
“Your heading appears to have been toward Venus or Earth.”
“To Earth, Highborn.”
“Shock troop headquarters is on the Sun Works Factory.”
“The Sun is also much hotter there, Highborn. Among other things, I feared radiation poisoning.”
“What did the others think about your escape plan?”
“I didn’t ask all of them, Highborn.”
“They didn’t try to stop you?”
“For a while they did, Highborn. Then, they said they wouldn’t try to stop me anymore.”
“What convinced them that what you did was correct?”
“I worked hard to persuade them, Highborn. I can only think they finally fell to the force of my arguments”
“Your answers are evasive, Marten. Why is that?”
“I’m merely stating facts, Highborn.”
Lycon tapped the stylus once again. “Facts as you deem them or the truth?”
“Highborn… You consider me a preman. How am I supposed to discover truth?”
“You are a preman, Marten.”
Marten remained silent.
“Ah. You don’t believe that, is that it?”
“I fought in the FEC ranks, Highborn, and was among the first to storm the merculite missile battery in Tokyo. Because of it, I received a medal and entrance into the shock troops. As such, I led the experimental assault upon the Bangladesh. We conquered the beamship as ordered, but it was destroyed. Omi and I are the only survivors, at least as far as I know. Given these facts, it is difficult for me to think of myself as just a preman.”
“You have done well,” Lycon said, “and you are a gifted tactician. Sometimes I wonder about your loyalty, but as you say, you have worked hard in the service of the Highborn. Such hard service brings rank, as you have learned. The facts also show that you are superior among premen. Who else among the shock troops escaped the Bangladesh? That is why as Training Master of the shock troopers I am recommending that you receive the ‘Hammer of Thor’ medal for excellence in combat.”
Marten sat up. “You honor me, Highborn.”
“The Grand Admiral himself will pin you with the Hammer of Thor and Omi with the Crossed Swords.”
“We head to Earth, Highborn?”
“We do. And the shock troopers are to be reborn.”
“But… The beamship was destroyed, Highborn.”
“The Grand Admiral has a different use for you, one in orbital Earth. You and Omi will each be a commander of an assault force. They will be named Assault Force Marten and Assault Force Omi.”
“You’re making us into heroes?”
“You will be models of what one can achieve if he labors hard in the service of the Highborn.”
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Highborn,” corrected Lycon.
Slowly, Marten said, “Yes, Highborn.”
Lycon rose. “Excellence brings rank, Marten. Ponder that.” He strode out of the room.
Marten did ponder it. A hero for the beings he hated. They had once thought to castrate him. What was to stop other Highborn from doing it? They had loaded the shock troopers into missiles, as living ammunition. They treated him as an inferior, as a trained animal. These medals were pats on the head. Now, they planned to do it again.
Marten squinted. He was on a shuttle, a spaceship. Only three Highborn were aboard. If the Highborn died… he would finally own his own spacecraft.
Marten’s heartbeat quickened as he began to make plans.
35.
It was dark in the shuttle as Marten crept to the medical unit. The ship was under one G of acceleration. Using the glow of the life-support monitor, he examined Omi lying in the clear cylinder. Tubes were attached to the Korean’s flesh. His chest rose and fell with each breath.
Marten studied the cylinder. It was airtight. He pressed a switch. There was a beep as a small red light blinked. Clamps appeared, securing the medical unit for emergency ship maneuvers.
Marten exited the chamber. His features were stern, and his heart hammered. Any number of things could go wrong. He knew Highborn arrogance had given him this chance. Surely, they couldn’t believe they were in danger from a lone preman.
The hatch to Lycon’s sleep cubicle was open. This evening, all the hatches were open. Marten had made sure.
He eased onto his stomach and slithered past the hatch. On his feet again and in another section of the shuttle, he used a stolen electronic key, opening the suit locker. With practiced speed, he donned his old vacc-suit. He tried to be quiet, but there were clunks and clatters. Finally, he sealed his helmet and shuffled to the airlock.
A fierce grin spread across his face. The Highborn had been careless. He was only a preman. What could he do to them?
Marten produced an override unit, one he’d tampered with the past few hours. He licked his lips and entered his code. Then, he engaged the manual override. Numbers flashed on the unit. A klaxon should have sounded, but Marten had overridden it with his stolen unit.
There was a hiss as the inner hatch slid open. Marten worked feverishly, applying clamps, making sure it was impossible for the inner hatch to close. With the last clamp in place, he stepped into the airlock. He switched on the vacc-suit’s magnetic hooks to full power, securing himself to the wall and manually opened the outer hatch.
Immediately, air hissed past as it rushed out into the vacuum of space. When the airlock was open all the way, the sound became a gale-force shriek.
A stylus with a purple tip shot past Marten. Then, cups and cutlery flew past as they tumbled into the cold of space.
Marten heard screaming. Almost too fast to notice, the Highborn pilot flew past him. Marten resisted the impulse to lean out and watch. Instead, he remembered how shock troopers had tumbled off the Bangladesh’s particle shields. Now, their arrogant, uncaring commanders would pay.
The medical Highborn flew outside next.
Then, Lycon appeared. The seven-foot Highborn managed to latch his fingers onto the hatch clamps. He strained to hang on, his massive body inches from Marten. In a feat of amazing strength, Lycon tore off a clamp. With desperate will, he began to work on the second.
The rapidly dropping air pressure began to tell on Lycon. His body and face began to bloat as his blood and other bodily fluids began to turn into water vapor and form in his soft tissues. The embolism occurred even more strongly in his lungs. The escaping water vapor cooled around his open mouth and nostrils, creating frost.
Then, as he was magnetically secured, Marten began raining body blows against Lycon’s horizontal and now grotesquely swollen torso.
With the last of the ship’s air shrieking past his bloated face and whipping his hair, Lycon peered blindly at Marten. The Highborn must have realized he was dying. Maybe he wanted to take Marten with him. Bare fingers reached for Marten. Marten desperately slapped away the freakishly large hand. Lycon’s frost-covered lips moved soundlessly. Then the huge Highborn lost his grip and shot out into space. Marten leaned out and watched the Training Master tumble away into the void.
Marten closed the outer hatch. Breathing hard, he turned off his magnetic hooks. He removed the clamps and let the inner hatch hiss shut. The shuttle immediately began to pressurize.
A terrifying laugh escaped Marten as he removed his helmet. He owned a spaceship. He was free!
The End
The story continues with
Battle Pod
Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next book in the Doom Star Series.
-1-
The first thing Marten Kluge did with his freedom was shut off the shuttle’s engines. Then he sat in the pilot’s chair before a bank of color-coded controls. He eyed the vidscreen and the single polarized window that showed him the awesome beauty of the stars. The moment the engines cut out, acceleration died and weightlessness returned to the shuttle.
Marten grinned harshly. He was a lean ex-shock trooper with a blond crew-cut and angular cheeks. The horrible ordeals he had survived were still fresh in his mind. Sitting there staring into space was his first moment of relaxation in….
Marten frowned, realizing he was still staring at the stars several minutes later. He shook his head. He had to concentrate, to try to become a normal human being again.
From the control panel, Marten began to run diagnostic tests on the engines, the life-support system, and the ship’s radar and teleoptic scopes. He was free, which meant he had to rely upon himself now. He owned a shuttle, a spaceship that could possibly take him anywhere in the Solar System.
He laughed. It was a strange sound in the endless silence of the shuttle. He cocked his head. Why would his laugh sound strange? He rubbed his face, feeling oddly disconnected.
He was free. He owned a spaceship. He—
A klaxon began to wail. It startled Marten. For a wild moment, he thought that Lycon had survived and somehow was trying to gain admittance back into the shuttle.
Marten studied the controls and froze in shock. He turned off the klaxon, knowing now why his laugh had sounded strange. The carbon-scrubbers were turned off; his CO2 levels had been too high.
He adjusted the life-support controls as he berated himself for making such an elementary mistake. He couldn’t afford any mistakes out here. He had a spaceship, but if the Highborn or Social Unity found him, they would take away both his ship and his freedom.
How was he going to remain free? The space between Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—the Inner Planets—swarmed with the warships of both sides. His shuttle was effectively defenseless against any of them. He had to tiptoe. He had to remain hidden. He had to make clever choices if he was going to remain free.
For the next half-hour, Marten’s fingers moved across the controls as he accessed information. He was in the void between Mercury and Venus, with a heading that would bring him to Earth if he initiated one-G acceleration and let the engines burn for…eleven more hours. The journey would take several weeks. During his computer search, he also discovered the whereabouts of three Doom Stars. He didn’t use the shuttle’s radar or teleoptic scopes, but had referenced computer data on all known locations. After fifteen more minutes of computer exploration, he discovered the location and vectors of several SU spacecraft, the majority of them war vessels. Neither the Doom Stars nor the SU craft were in position to affect him presently.
