Starr vs the Emperor of Space Pt. 14

She started off. Mark followed after, gaping, while Robin hurried as well. Zella watched them go, smirking slightly.

"You cannot mean to...she...she's been...that..." Mark stammered as Jasmine walked ahead briskly, past several men in Order uniforms at work carrying supplies to the outermost defenses. "Jasmine, you're insane."

"Insane? No! I'm a doctor!" Jasmine said, ticking her fingers off. "Between my gold medals and my work with the OSS, I did take some time to study at Harvard, I have a doctorate in applied surgical practice and advanced neurosurgery." She turned around, then grinned wickedly at the both of them. "I promise you, I will keep her brain quite female."

"Y-You can tell I'm...I was born a male?" Robin asked.

"It was but a simple deduction, my dear Robin," Jasmine said. "Who from Surrey, with the accent of a well educated Briton, might be both easily capturable by Aytan Zardo and, also, be so dearly loved by Mark Styles. Why, only his former friend Christopher Robinson!" She grinned. "Glad to see that Aytan's depravity had an unexpected upside for you."

"Heh," Robin said. "It did at that." She blushed. "B-But there's a battle-"

"We will do just fine," Jasmine said, gently. "I want you in the tank and prepped for the auto-surgery. Once this battle is over, we'll be heading for Earth...and..." She sighed, quietly. "If we need to fly quickly, it will be better if you are already altered."

"I...but..." Robin stammered.

"It's okay, love," Mark said, gently. "You've given so much for the Underground. I'll keep you safe, and take you home...and then marry you." He took her lower hand, squeezing gently. Her eyes widened and she drew in a sharp gasp, her upper hands covering her mouth. She leaned down, then kissed Mark desperately, squeezing him close - but then Jasmine shoo'd him away, gently, her fingers flicking. "Shoo, shoo, get on! The defenses could use an Army Ranger setting them up as it is!"

Mark hurried off, Jasmine whispered to Robin. "Do you want...a womb?" she asked. "These medical machines are quite advanced - they constructed every alien in this solar system, after all."

Robin's eyes shone. "Y-Yes..." She whispered.

Jasmine chuckled. "Just be sure to name at least one of your girls after me." She said, then gestured her. "To the tank!"

***

The Battle of the Moon began with a single streak of gray-white light and an expanding spray of silvery steam, bursting from the nozzle of a rapidly decelerating rocket, a rocket that had slowed so quickly and so impossibly suddenly that any human or clone within might have been instantly turned into red glop. Despite this bizarre approach, the defenders around the Sword of the Stars did not sleep on the switch - and so, guided by the computer-machines of their defensive fortifications, several death rays converged upon the rocket and it burst apart in a spray of fragments...but as if that first spray of fragments was a signal flare to announce the arrival of the others, dozens more rockets decelerated.

Each rocket approached over the horizon by taking advantage of the fact that the Moon's atmosphere was nearly the same as the depths of interstellar space. Lacking any medium with which to slow motion, the rockets could be fired from Invasion Fleet One, accelerate, and then whip over the horizon at incredible speeds, all quite close to the lunar surface, without worrying about friction or disturbances in turbulence.

What the lack of atmosphere could not save them from was the killing light of four turreted death rays! However, even four death rays could not stop every rocket launched - dozens landed upon the bright silvery dust of the regolithic region before the mighty Sword of Stars. The rockets burst open like sardine cans and from them came the terrible sights of...the Robots of Death! Nightmarish in form, they were as if a human skeleton had been coated in bright silvery steel and made to walk. They grasped in their hands man-portable death ray cannons that would have taken a whole team of Clone Commandos to carry, and they began to march forward with the eerie carelessness of only the truly evil machines. Their eyes were blazing red cameras, and as they adaviced, their death rays played invisibly along the bunkers and trenches that surrounded the Sword - sending up sprays of molten regolith and sending Freedom Fighters sprawling as their space suits were burned through and their flesh immolated by the silent death of Zardo's technological terrors!

Mark Styles, having taken his place in one such trench, swore as he watched one such Robot of Death be struck by several death rays at once, the beams hitting the silvery hide with no effect what so ever. "They're coated with reflective metal!" he exclaimed. "They're beam proof! Switch to rocket bolt guns!"

Streaks of accelerated rocket bolts hissed forth - but they struck the armored Robots of Death and sparked off them nearly harmlessly! Rocket bolts were bladed, designed to slice and cut into the hides of men, not machines! Mark swore again.

"Fix space bayonets!" he shouted over the radio as, to his left and right, wolfmen and faemen in armored space suits looked terrified, ready to run. "They're so slow and ungainly - in a brawl, we might have a chance!"

"Styles, wait! Draw back!" The voice of Jasmine Starr broke over the line.

Mark frowned, then nodded. "Odd squads, fall back! Even squads, give these clanking cowards a taste of rocket bolts!" He propped his rifle up on the lip of the trench, firing - feeling the roar of the rocket bolts through the gloves of his suit, even as the Robots of Death now loomed close enough that he could see their immobile, skeletal smiles...as if they were enjoying their grim task! He watched in growing horror as the rocket bolts he fired at one literally bounced off...they had no chance to penetrate at all, the Robots were too close for the rockets to even fully accelerate. He swore, then shouted; "Even squads! Fall back! Fall back!"

He stepped back and away, then turned and started to move with a low, crouched movement through the trenches, trying to ignore the splatter of reddish spray that exploded from the side of the trench next to him as a death ray played invisibly above his head. Then he was at the airlock and one of his fellow soldiers threw the hatch shut. Their helmets came off as air rushed in and the soldier in question - a burly Tuskman - shook his head. "Those bots are going to get right in here and tear us apart!"

"Not if Jasmine has anything to say about it," Mark said as the airlocks opened and they entered into the large gantry bay of the main engineering section of the Sword. There, the massive slab-shaped chunks of machinery that Mark had assumed were long sessile and defunct tools were now whirring and groaning to life. Arms whirred and clacked as they assembled still glowing pieces of stamped metal together, and then they tossed forth narrow...familiar looking devices onto a growing pile.

Jasmine Starr shouted over the din: "Gather up the chemical factory byproducts, these machines need more of their surfer!"

Several Orderites hurried forward as Mark stepped to the pile...and laughed. "Jasmine Starr, have I mentioned how much I admire you?"

She grinned at him, then held up a gleaming, brand new, all metal M1 Garand rifle - the very same semi-automatic weapon that had devastated the armies of western Europe's Germanic tyrant! In the hands of GIs just like Mark Styles. He worked the chamber back, looking inside. "How could you make them so fast?"

"These machines can mill out advanced space parts out of space metal. I just needed to program their computer-controller machines to drive the mills. There's enough raw material to outfit the whole platoon. Unlike a bolt-rocket rifle, these weapons will throw slugs that are made to punch through metal - solid metal, I've put in armor piercing rounds, and the gunpowder accelerant, despite being more primitive, is significantly better for rapid acceleration. Unlike the rocket rounds, which have the advanced of no kickback, these bullets will leave the gun as fast as they can go!"

"Will it work on the bots?" the Tuskman beside Mark asked, picking up his own rifle, frowning as he hefted it.

"It'll terminate their advance if we put up even a tiny bit of resistance," Jasmine said, her voice growing grimly determined. "This is their judgment day - not the coming of our dark fate."

"And Zardo must have imagined it was the rise of his machines," Mark said, chuckling. "They'll burn up brighter and hotter than Blue Coal!"

"Quite right!" Jasmine tossed him a clip of shining, green tipped rounds for his ready rifle. "Lock and load, Ranger!"

Mark tossed rifles to more of his men, then shouted out orders. "Take up positions there and there, we want enfilade fire! These bots are tough buggers - I want shots taken from every angle we can! Lock helmets, if we puncture the walls, we puncture the walls! Move, move, move!" The men and women he directed began to bound to their positions - as from the airlock doors came the resounding boom boom boom of metal fists impacting with metal frames.

Mark's radio crackled. "This is S'hira! Our radio-scopes are detecting more Zardonian forces coming under the cover of the bots! Attack shuttles and space tanks, over!"

"Light them up!" Jasmine's voice was cheerful and confident as the whole Sword rumbled - the secondary armament opening up on the approaching Zardonian forces. But all Mark had time for was the screaming of rending metal as, with their bare hands, the Robots of Death tore apart the airlock doors. Air rushed past them as alert sounds screamed out and non-space suited people ran desperately for the emergency doors, to escape the soon to be airless chamber. Mark sighted down his rifle and opened fire on the first Robot of Death that came stomping into the room, death ray in hands. Sparks flared around the left eye socket and the Robot of Death took another step forward...then another...then fell to one knee...then fell forward, death ray clattering soundlessly along the ground.

Slain.

"They can die!" Mark shouted. "Open fire!"

Every M1 Garand in the room opened fire at once, silently firing their projectiles towards the advancing Robots of Death. The Robots sought neither cover, nor particular haste. Their grimly determined, fiercely programmed computer-minds, full of clattering vacuum tubes and hissing mechanical calculators had but a single directive, etched into their copper cabling by the mad mind that had designed them from the ground up, a directive given over by the hand of the evil Emperor Zardo himself: Kill. And so, they sought to kill and kill and kill, even as they walked into the rapid fire rifelry of the most fiercely determined defenders since Hill 493! And like those valiant rangers, there were no small numbers of casualties among the resistance of the Underground of Free People!

Every Robot of Death may have walked unerringly into weaponry, but each too carried with it a death ray, designed to slay vehicles, let alone lightly armed and armored space soldiers. Those beams of killing light fell upon man and woman alike. Some were spared by the thickness of their cover. Others were reduced to sprays of ash and molten metal by the passing beam! Mark ducked low as one such beam swept by, and swore as the Tuskman to his right collapsed backwards, missing his upper torso, his legs ending in a grisly, hissing stump of what had been all the possibilities and futures of this man. Mark looked out and saw that his troopers were reloading and firing with grim determination as the Robot's skeletal bodies mounted higher and higher...

He saw them fighting and dying for the future of the solar system and knew, with a grim determination, that for all that mankind might dream of the sky and the planets beyond it, there was always going to be the danger and death of madness, brought about by the willful evil egos of power mad dictators who sought to turn all of the world into their own singular vision. Until that driving burning pressure of vileness was finally stamped out and all men and women were free to be equals in the light of society...there would be wars like this fought.

Mark squared his shoulders and sprang from cover, firing and shouting. "Fall back to the emergency doors!"

The last of the Robots of Death were collapsing - but behind them came Clone Soldiers. Their bolt rockets hissed through the air, even as their blood burst from their suits as the armor piercing rounds from the Garands ripped through their flesh and armor. The remaining Underground soldiers fell back as the Clone Troops chased them with rocket bolt fire.

Soon, the foundry was empty - save for the Clone Soldiers...and the flag of Aytan Zardo, lifted in triumph!

***

"Jasmine! What are you doing?" Claudette asked, her voice panicking as Jasmine yanked hard on the cord. Hissing sprays of sparks filled the air as the thermite began to roar and snarl. "We need to evacuate!"

"Oh, I know!" Jasmine said. "Quick, slap this down by the door!"

Claudette yelped as Jasmine handed her over the large brick of malleable multiform concentrated space explosive, which Jasmine had packed into a thick brick and attached a detonator too. She hastily stuck it to the wall, blinking at Jasmine. "E-Everyone is running away, the Clone Troopers have taken the Sword. We've failed."

"Have we now?" Jasmine asked, smirking slightly. "Well. We'll see."

Then she was on her feet, bounding down the corridor. The sounds of gunshots and screams of alarms filled the air, even as Jasmine and Claudette ran together. Their communication wands crackled and Altair's voice came from both.

"Goldilocks, where are you!?"

"We're coming!" Claudette shouted into her wand as, together, the two women came to the secondary hanger. Here, the Order were hurrying aboard the Salty Sirius and the parked War Rocket. Mark Styles panted, watching as a heavy crane loader moved a still burbling tank of blue liquid - containing the sleeping form of Robin Robinson - slotted said tank into the Atomo's belly. Jasmine smiled, nodding to herself.

"We've only lost a few dozen people, good...you need to begin to burn away at top speed," she said, firmly, turning to face Senator Lazuli. "Along the course I set for you."

"But Starr, that-" Lazuli said.

"Do it," Jasmine said, grinning. "Trust me. I know Zardo. I know his plans. This battle has done all it has needed. It has bought me time." She turned from the flummoxed Lazuli to Claudette, who was standing there, holding Jasmine's hand with her right...and Altair's in her left. Jasmine lifted her hand to her mouth and gently kissed Claudette's knuckles, while Claudette began to weep silently. Her voice was soft. "Do not cry, Claudette. We shall visit you, some day, in the stars...when Earthman is ready to sail forth, as one people, united in a vision of a better tomorrow. Earth is but our cradle. We shall not stay there forever. And I expect you to make sure the stars are tidy for us."

"Oh Jasmine!" Claudette whimpered, then threw her arms about her mistress, hugging her tightly.

Jasmine chuckled. "I do believe that's the first time you've ever called me Jasmine before..." She squeezed her back as an Underground soldier came jogging into the room, loping in the lunar gravity.

"The Clone Troopers have breached from the foundry! They're cutting through the doors - we have no time!"

"Get on the rockets! We're blasting off!" Jasmine shouted, kissed Claudette on her forehead, wiped away a tear and whispered to her. "You are and always will be my truest friend and love, Claudette. If she's a girl...name her Jasmine for me." She winked, patted Claudette's belly, then turned and headed for the Atomo with Mark.

Claudette wailed, then was bundled against Altair, who sprinted for her rocket, joined by Lancer and S'hira, the two running hand in hand. The last of the Orderites and the Underground soldiers came into the rockets as the hanger bay doors opened.

"Five."

The Clone Trooper's death rays cut into the doorways.

"Four."

Metals melted and sparked.

"Three."

An honor guard of black-masked Clone Commandos walked through a pressurized corridor, stepping over the bodies of dead Orderites and Underground soldiers. In their center, resplendent in red and gold livery, was Aytan Zardo. His eyes glowed with delight as he stepped over every body.

"Two."

Aboard the Salty Sirius, Altair strapped in, with Claudette to her left, Zella to her right. Zella smiled, wryly. "Can I be second mate, you think?"

"One."

The atomic rockets containing the last survivors of the last defense against Aytan Zardo streamed upwards. They curved away from the Moon, leaving it slowly dwindling behind. Jasmine, in her cockpit, looked at the rear camera-scopes and through the jittering screen, she could see the entire War Fleet had landed about the Sword, all parked as close as they could to allow for easy conquest and subversion. Engineers by the hundreds were streaming out to take the control rooms. To her left sat Mark, who frowned. "Starr, we're getting a communication ray."

"Put it on the video screen," Jasmine said - and for a moment, there was a flash and then there was Aytan Zardo. He sat upon a throne, specially carved and built for this occasion, set within the center of the Sword of the Star's control rooms. He chuckled softly.

"Jasmine Starr...fleeing to the safety of Earth. You must know, there is no safety for you. Not anymore." He said, his voice dripping with pleasure. "I have at my hand the very Sword you sought to use to stop me. With it...I can snuff you out. One. By. One. Will you beg, Jasmine Starr?"

"And give you the satisfaction, Zardo? Never," Jasmine said, her hands gripping her controls. Her eyes flashed. "Your daughter is on one of these ships, you know!"

"I have no daughter anymore. You cannot hide behind such trifles. Not anymore." His tongue slid along his lips. Slowly. Savoring it. "I only wish that the Sword could be adjusted. That I could...enjoy your torment longer. I wish that you were in my grasp, so that I might take you to the Atomizer and I can see your death dragged out for the time it has required. But...such is life." He waved one hand, slowly. "As it is, your memory will fade into the infinity of my brilliance. The galaxy shall be made in the image of Zardo, Jasmine Starr. Not in the image of you or any Earthman. With that...final thought..." He bunched his fingers, then spread them, blowing on them, as if releasing a dandelion seed. "...die."

He turned his head. "Fire the atomic ray."

Jasmine tensed.

The Sword of Stars readied itself...

And fired.

And missed.

The beam shot past them by a solid five hundred kilometers - the adjustment of a minor lens and computer array accounting for a vast distance over space over time. If Zardo had had time to adjust the aim and fire again, then this sabotage would have bought Jasmine a mere few moments of life...but he did not. For deep in the base of the Sword, there had been titanic bolts that had been sunk into the Lunar surface itself. The smallest of them had been sliced apart by thermite charges, while the largest had been flash vaporized by planted atom bombs keyed to go off at this instant, and those that could have been disengaged by machine had been done so - transforming the seemingly stable platform of the firing weapon into the light pressure of the Moon's gravity, only bolstered by what parts of the Sword had been buried by regolith and stone.

Within a single moment, the Sword had been transformed back, returned to its original function...not as a weapon, but as an engine. And so, as an engine, it did precisely what it had been built to do: It caused the entire superstructure, now filled with clone soldiers and technicians and Aytan Zardo himself, to accelerate away from the Moon! It did not so gently. It ripped away from the lunar surface with a scream of metal and a shattering of stones and rocks. Powder exploded up and away from the moon and the Sword was flung away from the moon and into the depths of space, spinning so wildly that every clone within was smashed against the walls and the ceiling, smeared against it with the force of a furious God.