Marten touched his holster. As maniple leader, his laser pistol could freeze their suits. So far, it had always trumped any of their arguments.
“Whatever we do we’re gonna take hits,” Marten said. “So—”
“Give me Omi’s laser tube and I’ll take out the pulse-cannon,” Vip said.
“Trade potshots with it?” Marten asked.
“You don’t think I can?”
“We have to move,” Kang said.
Omi nodded. “Immobility brings death.” He quoted an HB combat maxim. The genetic super-soldiers had hundreds of them, quoting them with dreadful regularity.
“Right,” Marten said. “Lance, Vip, at my signal you fly left.”
“We’ll get hit,” complained Vip.
“Correct,” Marten said.
“You and Omi fly left,” Vip said sullenly.
Kang hung onto a float rail with his left hand, reached out and grabbed Vip with his right and slammed him against the cube.
“Kang and I will take the wall-buster and go right,” Marten said, paying no attention to those two. “Omi, you take out the pulse-cannon if you can. Everyone ready?”
Vip shook his head from where his helmet had struck the cube. His upper lip curled as he stared at Kang. Lance settled between Kang and Vip as he glared at the massive man.
“Use your thrusters,” Marten said. “Make the pulse-cannon really have to swivel in order to hit us all.”
“What tactical brilliance,” Vip said. “By the time you brake for the wall—”
“Go!” Marten said.
Both Lance and Vip, who hung onto the float rail and had pushed up against the cube, thrust their legs. They sailed in the zero gravity, Lance in the lead. Both men thumbed the switch on the handle gripped in their right fists. Oxygen belched from their jetpacks, causing them to jerk and fly faster.
The pulse-cannon swiveled and tracked. S
pat, spat.
Twin shots flashed past the men’s feet. The cannon minutely adjusted for thruster-speed and fired again.
Washed with red light, Lance froze. His comlink cut out and sliced his groan in half. Vip fired his laser pistol, an ineffectual weapon against the cannon, but it made the HBs happy seeing aggressive gestures. Vip’s beam washed over the pulse-cannon a second before it froze him.
From the other side of the cube and in the other direction, Kang and Marten jetted. Between them, they held an imitation wall-buster. The pitted pulse-cannon swiveled. Omi peaked from behind the cube as he aimed the heavy laser tube.
The pulse-cannon beeped in warning, jerking hard toward Omi, who fired. His beam missed, splashing a foot from the armored cannon.
“Aim!” crackled Kang’s voice.
Another shot missed and then Omi froze, hit.
Marten and Kang sped at ramming speed toward the fast-approaching wall.
“Brake,” Kang said.
Marten laughed as his jetpack continued to hiss propellant.
The pulse-cannon swiveled onto them as it pumped red flashes like tracers.
Kang let go of the wall-buster. He twisted expertly as his thick thumb jerked the handle switch. His jetpack quit. Once in position—with his back to the wall—Kang jabbed his thumb down. Air hissed and he braked. All the while, his other hand drew his laser and fired at the hated cannon. Then Kang froze as the pulse-cannon triggered the lock on his bodysuit. Each punishment zap brought a muffled curse from in his helmet.
Marten crashed against the simulated space habitat wall. His teeth rattled and his right ankle twisted and popped. But the wall-buster stuck to the habitat and a loud siren shrieked. At this point, the wall-buster would explode and breach the enemy habitat. That was military success for this tactical practice, as one hundred percent casualties had been within the allowable limits.
Lights immediately snapped on all over the kilometers huge gym, destroying the illusion of a battle-strewn space-field. The bodysuits unfroze and shock troopers shivered, or groaned, or laughed, or did whatever was natural to them with the stoppage of punishment pain. One by one, the premen jetted toward the exit. From there they filed aboard the shuttles, which returned them to barracks.
A few of the shock troopers congratulated Marten. Others scowled. They were angry his maniple had won the competition. Everyone toweled off after showering. Then the winning maniple donned blue tunics, brown spylo jackets, civilian pants and boots and re-boarded a shuttle. Their victory reward was an evening in the famed Recreation Level 49, Section 218 of the Sun Works Factory, the Pleasure Palace.
Marten sat at a shuttle window, glumly peering at the mighty space station.
The ring-factory rotated in order to simulate Earth-normal gravity for those within. The gargantuan space station was a veritable world unto itself, a world now run by the Highborn. It was their furnace and incubation for continued greatness.
The Highborn had controlled it less than a year. Grand Admiral Cassius had made it second priority at the rebellion’s commencement. First priority had been capturing all five Doom Stars. The majority of the population had lived on the satellite for over ten years or more, formerly card-carrying Social Unitarians and in HB parlance: premen. After the native Sun Workers, in terms of numbers, were recently imported Earthmen: FEC soldiers, ex-peacekeepers and ex-SU Military Intelligence operatives. FEC was Free Earth Corps. Their single uniqueness was allegiance to the New Order. The bulk of them came from Antarctica and Australian Sector, although lately several shipments of Japanese had arrived. All had gone through HB re-education camps. The Earthmen comprised nearly one hundred percent of the space station’s guards, police and monitors. The Sun Workers provided the service techs, mechanics, software specialists, recreation personnel, factory coolies and the like.
With the switch from State-sponsored socialism under Social Unity to a quasi-form of capitalism under the Highborn came many new ills. The Highborn urged success of product over rigorous application of ideology. In other words, did a thing work? Monitors watched to suppress rebellion, no longer gauging every thought and action. Thus while before the Highborn a lackluster black-market had survived in the factory, now a thriving illegal drug trade together with greater theft and its accompanying rise in assault and murder rates plagued the giant space habitat. Some said it was the price of doing capitalism. A handful of people got richer quicker while many others died sooner. A few were spaced: shoved out the airlocks without any vacc suits. The Highborn, it was said, threw up their hands. This once again proved their superiority over the premen, who acted like beasts, like cattle. Then several new divisions of monitors hit the streets.
Marten held nominal leadership of the 101st Maniple, Shock Troopers. He wasn’t the toughest, strongest, nor quickest, and he was not the most brutal, savage or street-savvy. The HBs however had judged him to have the best tactical mind. And he had something extra, a deep inner drive.
Kang, a massive Mongol and sitting across from Marten, had black tattoos on his arms and a flat-looking face. He’d shaved his head bald. Before the war, he’d been a Sydney slum gang-leader, running the Red Blades, a vicious lot. During the Japan Campaign, he’d been a psychotic FEC First Lieutenant, personally killing hundreds of Japanese.
“Hey, Kang,” called Vip, standing in the isle. The shuttle was nearly empty, giving the 101st effective run of the passenger area.
Kang ignored the little man as he penciled a crossword puzzle. He didn’t fill in the blanks with letters, but shaded heavy lines in ninety-degree triangles.
Vip nudged Lance, the rangy Brit sitting in an isle seat. Lance counted his pathetic supply of plastic tokens—credits.
“Hey, Kang,” Vip said. “How come you didn’t hit the wall like Marten did?”
Kang stopped his doodling and ponderously raised his head.
“You ever hope to take maniple leadership from Marten you’re gonna have to do stuff like that,” Vip said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Marten watched the silent Mongol. Kang had probably killed more men in combat than the rest of them put together. They were all FEC Army heroes, having all fought in the Japan Campaign six months ago.
“You want to know why?” Kang asked.
“I asked you didn’t I?” Vip said.
Kang scratched at his crossword puzzle. Then he held it out for Vip. “I wrote out the reason.”
Vip winked at Lance before stepping near to grab the journal.
For all his bulk, Kang could strike quicker than a mongoose. He dropped the crossword puzzle and latched onto Vip’s wrist. Then he stood, yanked Vip against his chest and with one hand grabbed the little man by his jacket collar. He lifted Vip off his toes.
“Dance, boy,” Kang said. He jerked Vip up and down until Vip slapped the vast forearm with something that sizzled.
Kang hissed as his hand opened reflexively.
Vip jumped back into the main isle. Metal glittered in his palm. It was a stolen agonizer, a PHC tool, probably dropped somewhere when the Highborn had killed the Social Unitarians at the start of the rebellion. The stubborn PHC people had refused to surrender.
Kang tested his hand by flexing it several times. Then he glared at Vip.
Lance took that moment to stand, pocket his plastic credits and block Kang’s way out. Although as tall and broad-shouldered as Kang, the Brit with his sweeping dark hair probably weighed only half as much. But then he was mostly gristle and whalebone, as he liked to say.
Kang’s upper lip twitched.
“Vip!” Marten said. He desperately wanted to avoid a forbidden shuttle fight that would cancel the trip.
Kang, Lance and Vip glanced at him, as did Omi, who sat beside Marten.
“Give me the agonizer,” Marten said.
“It’s mine,” Vip said.
“Yeah,” Marten said. “But I don’t want you carrying it during leave and getting yourself in trouble.”
“If I don’t have it,” Vip said. “Then you’ll have it, and then you’ll get in trouble. Bet you hadn’t thought of that.”
“Gimme,” Marten said, holding out his hand.
Vip weighed the tiny torture device.
Lance turned from Kang, giving his friend Vip a significant glance before he jerked his head at Marten.
Vip whined, “But I want to fix the dealer who thought he could—”
Lance cleared his throat and shook his head. “Give it up,” he said.
Vip pouted a moment longer, then shrugged and tossed it to Marten. He put the agonizer in his jacket pocket.
Marten now regarded Kang, who still flexed his hand. “You ought to relax. In a few more minutes we’re at the Pleasure Palace and we can all get drinks.”
“Are you buying me a round?” Kang asked.
Marten calculated his slender supply of credits—a few less than Lance because he’d played poker with him last night. “Sure,” he said, knowing he needed every plastic token he had. “One round.”
Kang grunted. Then he picked the crossword journal off the floor and sat down. He used his pencil to trace heavy lines one tiny box at a time.
“Docking in one minute,” a female pilot said over the intercom. “Please take your seats and buckle in.”
Omi and Marten exchanged glances. Because the HB mania for rank had infected most of the shock troopers, they hadn’t told the others about the gelding tape. As elite shock troopers, they outranked all Earthbound FEC fighters. In the carefully layered strata for premen, fighting forces in space or planet-side trumped everyone else. Next, were police and monitors. Below them were the captains of industry and the personal techs of various Highborn. Thus among the shock troops the most coveted position was maniple leader. As soon as the Highborn created higher command slots, such as mission first commander and second and third, then no doubt the struggle among the maniple leaders for those slots would become intense.
So… who to trust, that had been Marten’s question. Not Kang, who had always been first even if only in street gangs. Vip was too twitchy to know which way he’d jump. Lance… he was sneaky. It was hard to know what he really thought about anything so Marten didn’t know if he could trust him.
Marten stared gloomily out the shuttle window. He had his few credits, and Omi’s, he supposed, and a listening device. Otherwise, all he had was his wits to try to find a vacc suit. He had only this trip to do it in, too, because who knew if he could win another reward trip before the snip-snip moment made it all academic. He rubbed his jacket over the spot on his forearm where the barcode was tattooed. Tagged like a beast.
The shuttle began to brake.
Marten’s chest tightened. Whatever it took. Do or die. He blew out his cheeks and wished this shuttle would hurry and dock.
They exited the shuttle and followed the route card that Marten had been given at the barracks. He limped because of his ankle. It was tightly wrapped and he’d been given a shot to reduce swelling, but it was tender. Soon they stood in a sterile hall and before a row of steel-colored lift doors.
“Seventeen C,” Marten said, checking his card.
“This way then,” said Lance.
They found the lift, Marten slid the route card through the slot and door binged, opening. They entered. He slid the card in the destination slot, and up they went toward Level 49, the Pleasure Palace.