Vaughn Heppner - Star Fortress

A feeling of contentment surged through the brain-tissues of the Prime Web-Mind. The war proceeded well within the parameters. The Jupiter System was nearly enslaved and the Mars Stealth Assault would soon enter its next phase.

Seven months pass as the Highborn-Human Fleet travels toward Neptune, as the cyborgs conquer Mars and as Marten Kluge heads for his destiny .

Captain Ricardo Sandoval sat hunched over a computerized tactical map. He was in Salvador Dome on Mars, in an armored environmental chamber, attempting to devise a winning combination against the cyborgs.

His suit, rebreather and gyroc rifle lay to the side. He wore a ragged uniform rank with sweat. It had been weeks since he’d had a bath. His eyes were red, his face pitted and his morale all but worn down by endless defeats.

I’m no Marten Kluge .

His gritty eyes tightened as he adjusted the screen. He wasn’t Marten, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up. You did that when you were dead, or converted .

Ricardo shuddered. That’s what made this war so bitter, so hateful and evil. The cyborgs didn’t just kill you. They captured and dragged you down to their converter. Mars Command had captured a video of it—the skin-peelers, the choppers, the brain-scrubbers and the mech-melding—what a gruesome process.

Rubbing his forehead, Ricardo tried to concentrate. It was just a few more days until liftoff. A few more days while the cyborgs overran the planet like a killer virus, infecting one underground city after another. Instead of weakening the enemy with increasing casualties, each attack strengthened the aliens as the cyborgs processed the defeated through the converters.

You’re running away. You know that, don’t you?

Ricardo clenched his teeth and tightened his fists. Mars was dying and he wasn’t going to die with it. What else could he do but run? The cyborgs were invincible. Nothing on Mars could stop them and there was no help from anyone—not from the Highborn, Social Unity or the Jovians who had ignored their pleas.

“Bastards,” he whispered. Ricardo struck the tactical map with his fist. He still remembered the day they had asked the Jovians for help. He had been with Secretary-General Gomez as she spoke to the Sub-Strategist through a long-distance radio.

The last of the Jovians had three damaged meteor-ships. They had accelerated hard for the Alliance Fleet headed for Neptune, trying to catch up.

In the environmental chamber, Ricardo adjusted the tac-map, erasing the terrain so Sub-Strategist Circe’s face appeared. It was a fuzzy signal, a poor recording of a conversation several months ago.

“This is Secretary-General Gomez of the Mars Planetary Union speaking,” Gomez said on the recording. Her voice was clear. “As past allies of the Jovian Confederacy, we now request your assistance. In return, we guarantee you permanent sanctuary on Mars.”

There had been a long time lag. Ricardo remembered that. The three meteor-ships were far from Mars, as they had swung wide around the Sun in their gently curving loop from the battle against eight moon-wreckers. Ricardo had watched a video of the Jovian-Cyborg battle many times. It had been one of the grimmest things he’d ever witnessed.

“I’m sorry,” Circe said. In the fuzzy recording, she looked so serious, so intent with the black gem in her forehead. “We cannot assist you at this time. We are on our way to Neptune and are still building up velocity.”

As he listened to the file, Ricardo remembered Gomez staring at him in disbelief. It had been a hard time. The people of Mars had still believed that victory was possible. The enemy assault had begun with an attack from out of the void. The cyborgs started hostilities by capturing three defensive satellites. One minute there had been peace—the next, cyborgs in vacc-suits swarmed the various satellites, gaining entrance and then control. Afterward, the cyborgs used the Martian arsenal and rained nuclear missiles on selected cities. If that hadn’t been enough, other cyborgs appeared on the surface. They landed in stealth-capsules outside a dome. Once in control there, the hated enemy began putting people into a converter, making more cyborgs. A week later from that dome, a cyborg army had advanced across Mars like an invasion of army ants.

Even then, the people of Mars had hoped. The three Jovian meteor-ships had seemed like an act of God. Once communication was established, tears had appeared in Gomez’s eyes. That had been before the conversation with Circe.

“We need orbital control,” Gomez told the Sub-Strategist. “With your meteor-ships, we can destroy the cyborg-controlled satellites. Then we can arm your warships with missiles and pinpoint the cyborg concentrations on the surface, eliminating them one-by-one.”

“It would be a month before we decelerated enough to reach orbital stability,” Circe said. “Judging by the videos you sent us, the cyborgs will have already conquered too much surface area. They will probably have captured the other defensive satellites by then, too.”

“We must fight together!” Gomez shrieked. She bent near the com-unit as her fingers whitened around it. “We must save Mars!”

“Fight by all means,” Circe said in her maddeningly calm voice. “I certainly am. And I understand your pain and dilemma. The cyborgs destroyed the Jovian System. They will destroy Mars, too. Launch what you can and head for Earth. We must fight where there is a chance of victory. At this point, survival of the human race is the goal. You are doomed, and I will not waste my meteor-ships trying to save what is already dead.”

As he sat in a chamber of Salvador Dome, a haunted place of death, Captain Ricardo Sandoval turned off the recording. The Sub-Strategist had seen more clearly than Gomez. That had been months ago. The cyborgs controlled all but two of the defensive satellites now. The enemy had reached the last free city, killing those who carried guns and dragging others to the converters. There were two converters on Mars now—two of the chamber of horrors that turned people into the melded enemy.

Mars Command had tried to destroy one of the converters. Ricardo shook his head. The attack had been a debacle, their Battle of the Bulge—the last gasp to achieve a military miracle. In the end, the Martian attack had burnt-up too many of their own precious military vehicles. They had killed too many of their own hard-to-find soldiers.

In the dreadful months of war, the cyborgs relentlessly moved from one phase to the next. They had infiltrated the surface and soon gained a beachhead on the planet. Then they landed a converter and then another. Finally, they conquered every place of resistance except for a single remaining stronghold. How did you beat something that fed on the corpses of your own dead?

If Mars had possessed heavy weapons, perhaps—more planes, tanks, guns and spaceships…

The communicator beeped.

Ricardo rubbed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. He had faced the enemy. He was the great Cyborg Killer, wasn’t he? What a joke. Three times, he had led the Martian Commandoes into battle. Each time, he had killed cyborgs—at the cost of half his force the first time. Then he lost three-quarters of his troops in New Mexico Dome. At Santa Fe Junction, he had escaped the carnage and retreated to his hovercrafts with three Commandoes—three!

The communicator beeped again. Wearily, Ricardo clicked opened channels. “What is it?”

Secretary-General Gomez stared at him on the screen. She looked worse than he did, with discolored bags under her eyes.

“We picked up radar traces,” she said. “An assault force is on its way here.”