Ricardo’s features hardened, and he cursed at the thing. Then he switched it off. He felt as if he understood Sub-Strategist Circe now. Ricardo would give just about anything to be in the Neptune System as he launched nuclear weapons at the Prime Web-Mind.
“Liftoff in ten seconds!” the com-officer shouted.
Ricardo turned on the facility’s outer cameras. Cyborgs bounded toward the launching point. There must be over one hundred of them. A last transport with smoke billowing from two of its engines still headed for them. The transport must have been well back from the others. Ricardo didn’t know if a SAM had hit it or if the plane had taken off with engine trouble.
“Five…four…three…two…one…zero.”
An intense sound punctuated the end of the countdown. A small vibration occurred and immediately increased until Ricardo clenched his teeth as his head vibrated wildly. The shaking intensified and then upward lift began.
“We’re taking off!” a woman shrieked.
On his screen, Ricardo watched as the underground bay door overhead dilated open. The Martian sky greeted them.
“Come on,” Ricardo whispered. “Get us out of here.”
The roar became thunder and the warship
Pancho Villa
moved toward the opening, toward freedom and life.
“I’m routing laser controls to me!” Ricardo shouted. Likely, no one heard him. It didn’t matter. He took over, and he switched on the warship’s outer cameras. They shook too hard for him to use. Thinking fast, Ricardo switched on the SAM site’s cameras.
The
Pancho Villa
slowly slid out of the ground. Three hundred meters away, cyborgs sped for them. The enemy wasn’t going to make it.
With the shaking, it was getting harder to keep his hands on the controls. Ricardo switched camera settings. The last enemy air transport with trailing smoke was almost over them.
They want to crash into us
.
Ricardo activated the laser, and he tapped the auto-tracking and fire pad. To his vast relief, he saw the ship’s red beam stab the transport.
“We’ll beat you yet!” Ricardo shouted, as he shook his fist at the craft. Then, in horror, he saw cyborgs leap out of the bay doors. The transport was almost upon them, but breaking apart. Now jetpacks spewed thrust, and individual cyborgs dropped and thrust at the
Pancho Villa
.
Ricardo shook his head. As the warship slid toward the sky, visibly gaining speed, several of the creatures attached themselves to the ship’s skin. With fantastic strength, five cyborgs tore their way into the accelerating vessel.
An alarm sounded, barely audible over the roar and thunder of the engines pushing them toward space.
This can’t be happening
.
Ricardo stared at his screen. No one could un-strap and face the cyborgs now. They were under too much G-force. If he shut off the engines, the
Pancho Villa
would not gain escape velocity and they would tumble back onto the planet. Either that or one of the captured satellites would fire lasers into them.
“You haven’t won!” Ricardo shouted. Straining to keep his hand up, he switched cameras. Cyborgs crawled through the accelerating ship. One of the creatures forced a hatch, drew a weapon and shot the ten humans strapped to their acceleration couches.
The next few minutes brought the horror home to Captain Ricardo Sandoval as the five cyborgs murdered fifty-seven humans.
They beat us. They captured Mars. Now they’re going to get our only warship
.
“No,” Ricardo said. “No, they’re not.”
As the
Pancho Villa
exited the Martian atmosphere, Ricardo punched in his commander’s password.
As the destruct button appeared on his screen, the door to the chamber blew inward, and an upright cyborg stepped heavily into the command room. The cyborg swiveled its gun toward him. Before it could shoot, Ricardo touched the red destruct button.
The cyborg fired, and three steel needles entered Captain Sandoval’s chest. The pain was intense. Two seconds later, the
Pancho Villa
auto-destructed as the engine’s dampeners went offline. The warship fire-balled, ending the last fight in the successful cyborg assault of Mars.
Millions of kilometers in-system from Mars, Marten Kluge sat in his highly-modified patrol boat. He searched the void with improved sensors, using passive systems: teleoptic scopes, thermal scans, broad-spectrum electromagnetic sweeps, neutrino, and mass detection.
He sat behind and to the left of Osadar and Nadia in the sensor/communications seat. Respectively, they sat in the pilot and weapons officer’s chairs before a polarized window of ballistic glass. The boat was shaped much like his old shuttle, only bigger. It also had troop-pods attached, big round sections to add living space.
They had been in space for seven months. He recalled how only a few weeks out from Earth they had watched eight blips burn as the Alliance Fleet built up velocity for Neptune.
“We need to move like mice in a house full of cats,” Marten had told them then. “The Doom Stars and battleships are leaving Inner Planets, and even if they began deceleration now, it would take them weeks to return. But I’m betting the Highborn and Hawthorne kept something in reserve. They have to be thinking about what happens if and when they destroy the cyborgs.”
“Meaning what?” Nadia asked.
“That Highborn and SU warships are still in the Inner System,” Marten had said. “Given what happened to the Jupiter System, it’s likely the cyborgs already have stealth craft here. We have to move with extreme care.”
“What is our objective?” Osadar asked.
“Storming the Sun Station,” Marten said. “But for obvious reasons, we’re going to attempt it
after
the Alliance Fleet has engaged the cyborgs at Neptune.”
“Your reasoning is sound,” Osadar said, as she peered out of the polarized window. She spent more time than anyone else did staring at the stars. “We need the Highborn to defeat the cyborgs. The Highborn might turn on the accompanying battleships if we captured the Sun Station too soon. How many Highborn do you believe are stationed on our objective?”
“Since it’s a prime military target,” Marten said, “I’m guessing a lot.”
Osadar swiveled around to study him. “Your answer suggests that there are more Highborn on the station than our space marines can defeat.”
“That could be a problem,” Marten admitted.
“Can we approach the station undetected?” Osadar asked.
“We have several obstacles to overcome,” Marten said. “We have semi-cloaked vessels, but the Highborn have the giant interferometer. It seems unlikely we can remain hidden the entire time. The other problem involves the Sun’s heat and radiation. They become extreme the closer one approaches it. Our boats were never built to withstand that. Once we reach Mercury’s orbital path, we’ll have to live in our combat-suits.”
“Will that be enough protection?” Osadar asked.
“We’re going to find out.”
“Our victory could be short-lived,” Osadar said.
“A short-lived victory is better than none,” Marten said. “Besides, it might give other humans in better suits or spacecraft time to take over before other Highborn arrive.”
“Do you know of other such ships?” Osadar asked.
Marten hesitated before he nodded.
“This is news,” Osadar said.
“Social Unity has a hidden missile-ship out here,” Marten said. “Hawthorne told me about it once. It has been in space since the beginning of hostilities. The crew will certainly be weary, but they have weapons and a ship with heavy particle-shielding. It will be just what we need to get in close to the Sun Station.”
“You can find this missile-ship?”
“Hawthorne gave me the coordinates once. I’m not sure if it’s five-nine or nine-five. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin to decide.”
Osadar shook her head. “The odds are against events helping us, as the universe deplores such actions. I point to my own life as an example, a study in the universe’s ill humor.”
“I don’t agree,” Marten said. “Out of all the cyborgs, you’re the only one I know who regained her identity. I’d say that makes you unique and a product of the universe’s help.”
“I’d rather never have become a cyborg in the first place.”
“I never wanted to become a shock trooper,” Marten said. “Since I did, I plan to use the training and expertise at least one more time.”
The weeks passed as Omi and Xenophon drilled the space marines in the troop pods. They were merciless, pitting the squads against each other in various exercises. Marten bent his thoughts to inventing new combat games to help keep things fresh. No one was allowed to sit and brood except for Osadar. The weeks drifted into months, and still the cloaked patrol boats crawled toward the Sun.
By monitoring the news, they kept abreast of the situation between the directors and Cone. The conflict seesawed on Earth. A change came when the former FEC troops in North American Sector once again declared independence, this time from Social Unity. Several weeks later, open conflict occurred in the Indonesian islands between the FEC troops and a small Highborn garrison. It threatened to erupt into wider war as the Japan-stationed FEC also rebelled. The Highborn retaliated with massed armored troopers. It was brutal and bloody as they put down the Japan-based rebels first and then crushed the Indonesian FEC.
The show of Highborn strength brought a truce between the Chief Director and Vice-Chairman. Africa, the Middle East and Europe went to Backus. Asia sided with Cone, who promptly came to an understanding with the new dictator of North American Sector: Colonel Naga.
“Social Unity is foolishly breaking into factions,” Osadar said. “Soon enough, the Highborn will play them against each other and complete their conquest.”
“I’m more worried about what’s happening on Mars,” Nadia said.
Mars Command kept broadcasting the conflict, showing clips and newsflashes of the deadly cyborg invasion and advance across the surface.
“How can we win?” Nadia asked one night. She snuggled next to Marten in a warm bunk. Everyone slept in rotation, with someone always sleeping in the short supply beds.
“I don’t know,” Marten told his wife. “The cyborgs have the advantages, but I refuse to accept they’ll wipe out humanity.” He was silent for a time. “The truth is it’s really up to the Alliance Fleet.”
“Should we have joined them?” Nadia asked.
“I keep wondering that.”
Pouting, Nadia said, “Why did Ah Chen have to come and ruin everything?”
Marten kissed his wife. He should have separated the women. But he hadn’t thought that a good idea at the time, not with all the fighting men around. He scowled. Morale was slipping and so was cohesion. It was simply too cramped in the boats and Omi and he where the only ones with girls.
Early next week, an alarm rang in the flight compartment.
Marten floated to the sensor screen.
Osadar looked up at him. “There’s your SU missile-ship,” she said. “It’s surrounded by Highborn shuttles.”
“Are they fighting?” Marten asked.
Osadar shook her head. “I don’t know yet,” she said, adjusting sensor controls. “But I intend finding out.”
Grabbing the back of her chair, Marten pulled himself closer, anxiously watching the screen…
The rehabilitation of General James Hawthorne was a slow process. First was the obvious fix to his finger, the one ruined by shooting Grand Admiral Cassius. Fortunately, the medical facilities aboard the
Vladimir Lenin
were top-rate. In short order, he had a new finger. The repair to his health and spirits was another matter.
There were several problems. Years of grinding work and intense pressure had taken a serious toll of his body. Mental fatigue made it worse, and guilt over the nuclear bombardment of the rebellious Soviets had been eating away at his conscience. The first few days aboard the
Vladimir Lenin
found him in a lone cubicle as he slept around the clock. He finally stirred, nibbling at his food and then lying on his bunk again, staring at the ceiling.
The days became weeks and then the
Vladimir Lenin
made the short flight to Luna. Before they began acceleration for Neptune, there was a knock on the wardroom door.
Hawthorne stared up at the ceiling with his long-fingered hands twined together on his chest. He’d been looking up at the ceiling for days, replaying a thousand decisions, seeing endless ways he could have made better choices. People who said they would never change anything in their life…he didn’t understand that. He would have done hundreds of things differently.
The knock became insistent. There had been others earlier. Hawthorne had ignored them and finally they had gone away. This one didn’t sound like it was going away soon.
“Who is it?” Hawthorne asked.
“Commodore Blackstone. Do you mind if I come in?”
“Joseph?” Hawthorne asked.
“It’s easier talking face-to-face.”
Hawthorne didn’t agree. Vaguely, he realized this was the
Vladimir Lenin
, Blackstone’s battleship.