“Human, abort the missile now or—”
Mule watched the Zeno missile enter the kilometers-wide exhaust port. Seconds later, a blinding nuclear explosion blew plasma and debris out the opening.
“Web-Mind,” Mule said. “Maybe you’re right. I’m ready to bargain.”
Static was all Mule got. Had he killed the Web-Mind? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t plan to go back to check. It was time to see if his cargo skimmer could reach out far enough to escape Tyche’s gravity. Afterward, he would try to find and reach Slovakia.
***
Day 1139: Several AUs from Tyche, an emaciated, hollowed-eyed Mule lifted off an icy Oort cloud comet in Mothership Slovakia.
The mass tanks were full of fuel, skimmed from the comet’s icy surface. Everyone in the mothership but him had died from radiation poisoning. Mule had found many of the dead at their posts, including Captain Han. Others had been curled in pain in their rooms on their cots.
He’d floated the dead into a storage chamber. Moving them while alone had been a harrowing experience.
Mule didn’t know if every cyborg was destroyed on Tyche, but it seemed the Web-Mind must be. He had wrecked the engines, at least, so they weren’t going anywhere. He had tried contacting surviving Marines there, but hadn’t found any.
Mule didn’t talk, not to himself, or the dead, or even to the ship’s AI. He moved like an automaton on the mothership’s bridge.
He was alive. He headed home for the inner Solar System. It would take three years to get there. He had nightmares every time he closed his eyes. He felt so alone.
But after eating his fill and taking a shower, he began to move normally again. Finally, he began speaking with the AI, making friends. It helped him send a message to Earth, to Marten Kluge, to report that the Space Marines had neutralized the cyborg menace at Tyche. Humanity could rest easy for now because brave men had given their lives in the line of duty.
After sending the message, Mule sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge, staring at Sol. From this far away, it was the third brightest star after Sirius and Alpha Centauri. It was his destination, well, the Inner Planets. Mule wondered what awaited him at the end of the voyage. Then he closed his eyes, thinking once more about his lost people, his vanished wife and children. On their graves he vowed that if there were more cyborgs left, he was going to find them—and annihilate every one.
The End
From the Author: Thanks Reader! I hope you enjoyed TASK FORCE 7. If you liked reading about the untold stories in the Doom Star universe or would like to see more Marten Kluge and Company, please put up some stars and a review to support the series. Let me know what you would like to read next. Pass the word along!
--Vaughn Heppner
SF Books by Vaughn Heppner
DOOM STAR SERIES:
Star Soldier
Battle Pod
Cyborg Assault
Planet Wrecker
Star Fortress
Task Force 7 (Novella)
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Assault Troopers
Planet Strike
Star Viking
OTHER SF:
Accelerated
I, Weapon
The Lost Starship
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