Explain beauty
.
“The sight filled me with longing, with pleasant memories.”
Describe these memories
.
“…I’d rather not.”
Computer
.
Something in OD12 clicked into life. It was the computer inserted into her and connected with her brain.
Administer level three pain sensations
.
In battle pod B3, OD12’s online cyborg body jerked as she opened her mouth and screamed metallically.
A Web-Mind code caused the pain to cease and OD12’s body was taken offline with the others.
Describe these memories
.
“…why did you do that?”
In a nanosecond, the Web-Mind ran through a possibility of options, the primary of which was to delete OD12. It decided on option two instead, as the supply of cyborgs for this campaign was limited.
The Web-Mind resumed running OD12’s combat simulations until it came to another anomaly. This time, OD12 used a thruster pack as white particles of hydrogen spray propelled her toward a slowly rotating torus. Behind her followed the rest of the cyborgs in vacuum suits. They assaulted a Jupiter Confederation Habitat, with the vast gas giant beyond the torus.
OD12 twisted her head and looked back at the other suited cyborgs. Each used white particles of hydrogen spray. Each had breach bombs and rocket carbines. Each fixated on its targeted landing location. The only cyborg body movement was the occasional twitch of their fingers as they adjusted their flight paths to perfection. Only OD12 looked back. Only she saw the awesome spectacle of individual cyborgs ‘jetting’ through cold space to the human habitat.
The Web-Mind froze the scene. It caused OD12’s dark visor to turn clear. Within the helmet, the solid black, metallic-seeming eyes stared with infinite sadness as tears streamed down the plastic cheeks.
Why are you crying
?
OD12 answered with a blunt profanity.
This time, the Web-Mind issued level seven pain sensations.
OD12 thrashed in the eerily dark battle pod. Beside her lay the perfectly motionless cyborgs, each mentally engaged in combat simulations. None of the other cyborgs had experienced more than one tenth of one percent anomalies.
Cyborgs do not cry. You were crying. Explain what caused emotions to override your programming
.
“…I remembered how we tried to escape the alien.”
The answered confused the Web-Mind for two seconds. Then it understood OD12 meant Toll Seven.
“We wanted to live.”
You are alive
.
“Live, not just breathe.”
Computer
.
The computer in OD12 awaited further instructions.
You will monitor your host’s emotions. If category two emotions are employed, you will initiate immediate shutdown procedures and pulse me a report of the situation
.
The computer logged the order in its command override logic core.
You must suppress these emotive anomalies, OD12, if you wish to continue functioning. Noncompliance will result in your termination
.
“I want to function.”
Then proceed within the guidelines
.
“Affirmative.”
The Web-Mind wasn’t certain. It thought it might have detected sarcasm. It was impossible, however, for a slaved cyborg to exhibit sarcasm at a deeper level than the emotion sensors could detect. So, it marked the observation and sent a lightguide message to the Master Web-Mind in the Neptune System. Then it proceeded to link with Toll Seven as they continued to refine the subterfuge plan of the conquest of Inner Planets.
In the
Mayflower
, Marten and Omi braked hard for Deimos, Mars’ smallest and most distant moon. The radio crackled with strident messages from the Planetary Union Space Force. The messages had been ongoing for the past five hours. Red Mars had grown before them until the planet dominated the heavily polarized window.
“We are now targeting your shuttle with Laser Port Seven,” the radio crackled. There was a
ping-ping
from the controls as it alerted them of a radar lock-on.
Marten licked his lips, scooted forward and reached up, pressing the comm button. “Mars Union, this is the free ship
Mayflower
requesting permission to dock.”
“Why haven’t you answered until now,
Mayflower
?”
“We’ve noticed the military situation and feared a missile attack from either you or Social Unity, depending on who we answered. So we waited until we were too close to you for Social Unity to fire without causing an incident.”
“…
mayflower
, your code registers as a Highborn vessel. Are you Highborn?”
“Negative, Mars Union. We are the free ship
Mayflower
.”
“Are you a Social Unity vessel,
Mayflower
?”
Marten glanced at Omi before he said, “Negative, we’re a free ship, requesting permission to dock, to buy fuel and then to be on our way.”
“What is your ultimate destination,
Mayflower
?”
Marten hesitated before he said, “The Jupiter Confederation.”
“…where did you originate,
Mayflower
?”
“We request permission to dock and speak with the commanding officer of the Deimos Moon Station,” Marten said.
The radio fell silent.
Omi said, “We should have told them we were Highborn and demanded the fuel.”
“It would never have worked.”
“
Mayflower
,” the radio crackled. “You have permission to dock. Follow these coordinates…”
***
Marten slowly eased the shuttle against a docking module and then shut off the fusion engine. He soon heard the clank from a docking tube attaching to the outer airlock.
“Now it gets tricky,” Marten said. “Do you remember what to do?”
Omi nodded and he slapped the sidearm attached to his belt.
Marten formerly shook hands with Omi before entering the airlock. The inner hatch swished shut behind him. Marten recalled the struggled he’d had with Training Master Lycon in this very airlock. He recalled the reflection of Lycon’s eyes as they bulged, and the disbelieving look as Lycon shot into space.
Eager to be out of the airlock, Marten squeezed through the outer hatch as it swished open. Because Deimos was smaller than many asteroids, it had a negligible mass. It was hardly different from weightlessness as Marten float-walked through the docking tube.
His skin tingled from his shower a half-hour ago. His clothes smelled clean and nervousness boiled in his gut. He was about to face the big question. Omi and he had escaped Social Unity and they had escaped the Highborn. Now he had to interact with people again, this time with the Martian Rebels. Would the Martians try to steal his shuttle? If so, he had to outwit the Deimos commander. Marten heaved a deep sigh. He had to keep his wits about him and he had to be ready to act decisively.
In all the Inner Planets, there was probably no one in his situation. Three governments struggled for existence. Everyone had to belong to one side or another. Now he and Omi were their own side, free agents who were much more common in the Outer Planets. He had to get fuel. He had to purchase warfare pods if he could. He had to keep the
Mayflower
out of the hands of desperate people.
Marten reached the hatch that led into the docking bay. The door open and Marten glided out of the tube to see three thin soldiers with drawn weapons aimed at his chest. The pitted gun-barrels pointed at him looked dark and deadly, but the soldiers holding them seemed too slender to be military men. The fourth person was a woman, an officer by her shoulder boards. She was as thin as the others.
“I’m sorry for the guns, Mr. Kluge. But you must give us your weapon and then come with us.”
Marten nodded curtly. He’d expected this. It’s why Omi had remained onboard. He’d expected this, but he’d hoped for something better. He had reentered the struggle for life.
“This way, Mr. Kluge,” the officer said.
***
A Martian Unionist with pinched features glared at Marten. The man was tall and slender, with a beak of a nose. He was also pale and had oiled his dark hair into ringlets. Marten judged the man to be in his mid-forties.
The female officer remained in the office. It overlooked a hanger stacked with metal boxes, a shuttle under repair and arc-welders flashing their blue glows as men fixed a multitude of articles. The office itself seemed more like a shed, with masses of equipment shoved into the corners and piled on top of each other. There was a vacuum pump, a magnetic lifter and a wrist communicator with a tiny, flashing red light lying on the desk.
The Chief Unionist at the desk stood behind a vidscreen. He hadn’t offered Marten a chair, but in this almost nonexistent gravity, it didn’t matter.
“I demand that you declare who you’re spying for,” the Unionist said. “I would assume Social Unity. But you have a Highborn shuttle. This leaves me wondering.”
“How can you tell it’s a Highborn shuttle?” Marten asked.
The Chief Unionist drew himself straighter, which had seemed impossible. “You could have simply painted the Highborn symbols onto it. I understand. Why would a PHC officer do that, however?”
Marten glanced back at the Planetary Union military officer. She wasn’t taking chances and had a needler trained on him. It was smaller than the Gauss needlers used on Earth. Hers was compact, with a short and very thin barrel, and it was shiny, likely meaning it was newly unpackaged. He hoped she knew how to use it and didn’t accidentally shoot him.
“Okay,” Marten said, “I’ll tell you what happened. But I suspect you won’t believe me.”
“Why bother lying?” the Chief Unionist asked.
“I haven’t said anything yet,” Marten said.
“I’m a university professor by occupation,” the Chief Unionist said. “Because I understand physics, they put me out here. They’re hoping I can perform a miracle and make Deimos useful again. My point, Mr. Kluge, is that my students always tell me I’m not going to believe something when they’re getting ready to lie.”
“Have it your way,” Marten said, and he shut his mouth.
“…well?” the Chief Unionist asked. “Let’s hear it.”
“I hate being called a liar,” Marten said.
The man lofted thin eyebrows. “A bit touchy, are we?”
“I think you’re the liar. I think you’re a sanitation scrubber, not some scholar.”
The man’s lips tightened. “Explain the situation then. How did you come to possess a Highborn shuttle?”
“I earned it,” Marten said. “I paid for it through my sweat and blood. It’s mine.”
“For the moment, you’re here in my office, Mr. Kluge. And my patience is wearing thin.”
“The Highborn used me,” Marten said. “They used my friends. We were shock troopers.”
“I never heard of them.”
“How about Free Earth Corps, you ever heard of them?”
“The Earth traitors who fight with the Highborn?” the Chief Unionist asked.
“You Mars Rebels helped the Highborn,” Marten said, knowing he was becoming too angry. But he couldn’t help it.
The Chief Unionist lightly placed his fingertips on the desk. “We are the Planetary Union, not
the Rebels
. We did what we had to in order to rid ourselves of Social Unity.”
Marten nodded curtly. “If you’d lived in Australian Sector when the Highborn conquered it, you’d realize that most Free Earth Corps volunteers joined at the point of a gun. I fought in the Japan Campaign. Afterward, the Highborn pinned medals on my friends and me. They called us heroes. Then they said they could use good soldiers like us. So they took us into space and retrained us into shock troopers. Our specialty was storming habitats or spaceships and taking control.”
“That doesn’t explain the shuttle,” the Chief Unionist said.
“Our masters packed us into Storm Assault Missiles and fired us at the X-ship
Bangladesh
. It was a new type of warship, able to fire its beam many millions of kilometers.”
“That’s impossible!” the Chief Unionist declared. “Everyone knows the Doom Stars have the longest-range lasers of any military vessel.”
“That’s why the Highborn wanted the
Bangladesh
. That’s why they fired us at it. We took it. But SU missile-ships destroyed our hard-won prize. A few of us escaped the destruction. Later, Highborn picked us up in the shuttle.”
“If true, that’s highly interesting. It still doesn’t explain how you came to possess the shuttle.”
“I killed the Highborn and took their shuttle for my own,” Marten said.
In frank disbelief, the Chief Unionist stared at Marten. The officer behind Marten snorted in derision.
“You don’t expect us to believe that?” the officer asked Marten.
Marten shrugged. “That’s the trouble with you soft-timers. You fear the Highborn too much. If you’d been a shock trooper, you’d know that everyone has weak points, even super-soldiers. They made a mistake and thought me a mere preman. Well, this preman spaced them. Now I’m here. Now I want to buy fuel, a spare-warfare pod if you have it and I’ll be on my way.”