“That one,” AZ9 said. His voice box was scratchy due to battle damage.
OD12 swallowed down a sigh. With mechanical detachment, she strode at the chosen bio-form. The male screamed, and he tried to struggle, using a wrestling hold against her arms.
By using magnetic footing to walk upright and anchor herself, OD12 plucked him out of the herd. His wrestling grapples only minimally interfered with her task. She moved away from the protesting bio-forms. She twisted him around as if he were a baby. His hysterical strength was useless against her cyborg muscles. She bent his arms behind him and clicked handcuffs over his wrists. Next, she cuffed his ankles, turned on magnetic power and attached him to the metal floor. She put a neural inhibitor on his neck and all his struggles ceased as if he’d become catatonic. Lastly, she brought up a jack-gun. It was a heavy, bulky piece of equipment. She placed it at the base of his neck, and the jack-gun began to vibrate.
OD12 looked up and noticed that the herd of bio-forms watched her in fascinated horror. A few babbled whispered questions.
After three minutes, the unit made a loud noise. OD12 removed the jack-gun from the male’s neck. He now possessed a gleaming jack in his neck, ready to receive a plug into Web-Mind. But that was for later.
AZ9 pointed out the next bio-form.
Dutifully, OD12 went into the herd to get the female. Now all the bio-forms tried to fight. It didn’t matter. They were naked, lacked gravity and possessed minimal strength. Still, it was an ugly process. It wounded OD12 to hear their whispered words concerning what they thought she was.
She wanted to tell them she used to be just like them. She would have told them their screams didn’t matter. They would become cyborgs or Webbies and the memories of their horror would be overridden. It might not be for the best, but it was inevitable, as escape was impossible.
OD12 understood that, because life was rigged. The only freedom was what she possessed now: a little self-awareness. It saddened her to realize the self-awareness wouldn’t last. It meant.… It meant she had to figure out a way to enjoy it as much as she could while it did last.
She pressed the jack-gun against another neck and the machine began to vibrate and dig into the captured female’s flesh.
After passing Pavonis Mons and with Olympus Mons towering in the distance, Marten saw SU jets once more.
The commandos skimmed eight meters above huge red dunes, with the sand below drifting in ominous swirls. All day, Marten had fought against an increasingly strong headwind. Omi now tapped his shoulder and pointed into the reddish sky.
At first, Marten thought Omi meant the wispy ice clouds kilometers high. Then Marten noticed slow-moving specks.
“Can the jets climb that high?” Marten asked over the com-link.
“Did you see that flare?” Omi asked.
“Flare?”
“It was near one of those jets, might have been one of them.”
Marten made a shrewd guess. “Martian orbitals must have jumped the jets.”
During the next few minutes, there were four more flares. Likely, it was aircraft dying a violent death.
Marten hoped that meant some Martian space defenses still existed. The thought of being trapped on Mars for good made him queasy. He had been trapped in Australian Sector for years. He wondered sometimes if he ever should have escaped from the Sun-Works Factory the day his parents died. He’d yearned for freedom all those years in Australian Sector. He’d resisted Social Unity, just as the Martians had resisted here. The Storm Assault Missile had changed him. He no longer resisted because he no longer accepted either Social Unity or the Highborn as even nominally in charge of his life. Until he found a free society, a free government, he was his own government, his own self-run State.
Marten squinted up at the wispy ice clouds. He searched for specks, but the jets and orbitals had either perished or left for somewhere else. The Planetary Union was the closest thing to freedom there was in Inner Planets. Yet they followed Unionist doctrine. It talked a good game, but essentially meant the union leaders made the decisions. It leaned heavily on original Social Unity doctrine. The great difference was power. Social Unity wielded it and the Planetary Union wanted it. Because the Unionists fought like a wounded beast, it granted its individual members greater autonomy than otherwise.
To pass the long hours riding the skimmer, Marten had spoken to Squad Leader Rojas about the Planetary Union. It’s how he’d discovered the majority of his information concerning Martian ideals.
Rojas’s major credo and apparently the Planetary Union’s as well was—
Mars was for the Martians
. That was reasonable. But Marten no longer found socialist theories acceptable in any form. As far as he could tell, socialism always led to a police state, with a heavy emphasis on thought control.
Marten wanted a free state, where free people united to achieve goals they genuinely desired. Instead of Thought Police, individual people would work toward individual goals. His mother had taught him about such systems. They had existed in the past and might possibly exist farther out in the Solar System. Yet his mother had also taught him another truth. People were not inherently good. Each human possessed an evil streak and a propensity toward bad actions. Each person needed a code of conduct that corralled that propensity toward bad actions. For his mother, it had been God and the ancient book called the Bible.
Do not steal
was one of the ancient maxims. Social Unity stole a man’s labor and stole his freedom. Social Unity theory spoke about equality, using it so the State could plunder the production of the individual.
Marten shook his head. He refused to let anyone plunder him anymore. His stint in the Storm Assault Missile had torn the last veils from his eyes. He had no allegiance to Social Unity or the Highborn. Both systems sought to enslave him. So the sovereign State of Marten Kluge—the germ to an ancient method of governance—was going to leave Mars before the Planetary Union tried to usurp his freedom and mold him in its likeness.
The great question was how to achieve his dream. If the SU Battlefleet had moved into near orbit, it meant they had likely captured his shuttle. If they held his shuttle, how was he going to tear it out of their grasp? Perhaps just as importantly, how was he going to get into space again to try to wrest his shuttle back into his rightful control?
***
Twelve hours later, Omi drove the skimmer into a low garage at the base of Olympus Mons. Marten had the men line up in an oxygen zone. They actually looked strange without their EVA helmets on. Most had matted hair and dark circles around their eyes.
Marten spoke tersely to them, commending some and giving others Highborn axioms concerning combat. Then he dismissed the men and told them to get some sleep.
As the men filed away, Major Diaz strode up and saluted. The major looked as dangerous as ever and his hair, incredibly, was swept back hard into perfect form. Diaz had lost weight, but none of the harshness to his features.
“I will report to the Secretary-General,” Diaz said. “I will tell him you are a crafty soldier. I will tell him your courage and quick action saved the commandos from almost certain destruction. I refer to the jets, of course.”
Marten waited for the kicker. He didn’t have long to wait.
“However, I demand satisfaction from your lieutenant,” Diaz said.
“It what form?” Marten asked.
“A duel,” Diaz said.
“Are you tired of living?”
Major Diaz stiffened. “Without honor, a man is an animal.”
“I ordered Omi to disarm you,” Marten said. “Therefore, your desire for satisfaction should lie with me.”
“I have no desire to kill a soldier who could teach the commandos useful skills,” Diaz said.
“That’s something, at least. Major, why not wait for satisfaction until we find out if Martian space defense still stands? If it doesn’t, the Planetary Union is going to need each one of us. I know that I want you with me when Social Unity launches drop-troops.”
“The weight of honor compels me—”
“Major Diaz,” Marten said. “Honor compels you to save your planet. Mars is for the Martians, remember? Honor means that you must forgo your personal desires until the emergency ends. We are free and wish to remain so. As much as I dislike your murder of prisoners, I recognize your combat ability. You are what the Highborn refer to as a ‘natural soldier.’ You’re a killer. Omi is also a killer. I’ve been trained to mimic one. Killers are always rare and always feared by the vast majority of people. It is strategic and tactical stupidity for the killers of one side to eliminate its best warriors. So despite our personal dislike for each other, we need to work together for at least a little while longer.”
Diaz’s lips had compressed tighter throughout Marten’s speech. Now both his hands gripped his belt. Diaz glanced at Omi, who seemed to watch the major indifferently.
“Your words are compelling,” Diaz said. “I hadn’t realized you possessed honor as well. This changes the issue. …I will agree to your suggestion if you will cede me one concession.”
“What?” Marten asked.
“You must show Secretary-General Chavez Martian dignity.”
In surprise, Marten lifted an eyebrow. “You mean I should stand up when he enters a room?”
“Yes.”
“…agreed,” Marten said, and he held out his hand.
Diaz and he shook. Then the major turned around and hurried away for the door the rest of the men had used.
“You never know,” Marten told Omi.
Omi remained silent.
“Come on,” Marten said. “I need a shower and then I want at least an hour’s sleep.”
***
Marten had his shower, but not the hour nap. He and Omi were summoned to join Secretary-General Chavez in the Olympus Mons command center.
They rode the magnetic lift and Marten’s ears popped twice as he hastily swallowed time after time.
The command room was surprisingly cramped, with a handful of officers clumped around two monitors. A glass partition showed technicians in white lab-coats watching a room-length monitor-board. The board possessed a hundred multicolored lights and displays, a bewildering amount.
Diaz stood in a corner. The major was pale and his eyes staring, as if he’d learned dreadful news. Secretary-General Chavez stood behind the officers around the two monitors. He stared at an unseen point as he sucked heavily on a stimstick. Red, mildly narcotic smoke hung in a haze above him like a broken halo.
Marten and Omi moved quietly. The guards outside hadn’t even questioned them about their sidearms. Each of them wore long-barreled slug-throwers with explosive bullets. Each carried extra clips. These were deadly close-combat guns. Until now, Marten hadn’t used them. Something about the immediate summons had troubled him. A laser pack and rifle would have been more powerful. But Marten didn’t own one and he doubted the guards would have let him shoulder such a weapon.
Omi had asked about the choice.
“Do you notice how empty this place feels?” Marten had asked.
“Now that you mention it,” Omi had replied, “yes.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Marten had said. “And I don’t think it’s a good reason. So we wear the long-barrels.”
In the cramped command center, no one seemed to notice the difference in armament. The officers were too intent on the monitors. Diaz looked pale enough to faint and Chavez was lost somewhere in his thoughts.
After two minutes of inattention, Marten discreetly cleared his throat.
Major Diaz’s head swiveled around. Marten expected a glare. Instead, Diaz looked lost, bewildered.
Chavez took a deep pull on his stimstick. He exhaled through his nostrils as he slowly turned around. Just as slowly, the distant stare departed as he focused on Marten.
“The shock troopers,” Chavez said. The Secretary-General coughed until he took another deep drag on his stimstick. He left it between his lips as his arm swung down to his side, as if it was too heavy to hold onto the smoldering stick anymore. “Major Diaz said you eliminated an airfield and its jets.”
“At heavy cost, sir,” Marten said.
Chavez took another drag as he shook his head. “Frankly, the way events proceed, that was fantastic success. I can only hope to achieve a like result today.”
“Your men have fixed the proton beam?” Marten asked.
“Not entirely,” Chavez said. With the barest flick of his wrist, he indicated the officers and then the worried-looking technicians in the other room. “They’re petrified. So am I, I suppose. Even Major Diaz shows the strain. Juan,” he told Diaz, “I told you to flee to New Tijuana. Take the shock troopers with you. Someone must survive this day.”
“I stay,” Diaz whispered.
“Stubborn fool,” Chavez said without any rancor.
“Why are you here if the proton beam doesn’t work?” Marten asked.
“‘Not entirely’ means it works after a fashion,” Chavez said. He smiled tiredly. “You don’t understand which is entirely understandable. The Battlefleet is arriving at near orbit. Nothing up there belongs to us. It is all theirs. They captured our moons before the main weapons could inflict damage. We have images of incredible space marines, robots or some deranged form of android. They used stealth tactics and took the moons by surprise. It means they obliterated our satellites with hardly a fight. What kind of domination will they inflict on us if we couldn’t even kill a few of them? They will become even more unbearably proud than before. No. We must damage them. We must make them realize they fought a battle. That is why I am here. That is why I have decided to use a half-working proton beam.”