Near the end of the week, Marten spoke to her in an EVA tent. It was larger than the survival tents they’d used for the raid into Valles Marineris. He preferred the tents to remaining in New Tijuana. Marten hated the black-visored police there, the similar city strictures as practiced on Earth and the possibility that Chavez could change his mind at any moment and imprison them.
Marten sat on a folding chair, with a folding table between them. On the table was a rollout computer-sheet. It showed Olympus Mons, its various entrance points and the orbital hangers.
Osadar Di stood, with her head near the tent’s ceiling. It was still hard for Marten to look at her. It was like looking at a living mannequin or at a statue that had supernaturally come to life. Her face was so immobile. Her arms and legs were more like metal rods, with bigger, motorized joints that moved them. It was unholy, a cruel joke against the living and a mockery of humanity. Marten had to tell himself constantly that inside this mostly mechanical machine was a living being, a person just like himself with hopes and dreams.
“Osadar,” he said, lifting his gaze from the map, forcing himself to stare into her strange eyes. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
There was no change of expression on her face. He had no idea what she was thinking.
“Go on,” she said in her metallic voice.
Marten kept himself from flinching and kept his eyes from darting away. “Mars is doomed,” he said.
“We’re all doomed,” Osadar said. Her voice was like a heavy bell, a gong of certain defeat.
“I don’t believe that,” Marten said.
“What you believe makes no difference.”
“…if you think we can’t win,” Marten said, stung, “why do you help us?”
“Shooting gyroc rounds out here is better than those fools asking me a thousand questions in the labs. Do you know they kept me in a sealed vault, only speaking to me via a screen?”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Marten said.
“Do you think I belong in a vault?” she asked.
“I know you terrify my men.”
“Do I terrify you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Marten admitted, “but I’m trying to learn to control that.”
She nodded, and she tapped a metal finger on the map. “What you propose with this attack, it’s a suicide mission.”
“Do you want to escape Mars?” Marten asked.
Her longish head moved fast, faster than a human could twitch, and she nodded yes.
Marten broke eye contact, and he felt relief doing it. On the computer-map, he indicated an orbital hanger high up on Olympus Mons. “The commando raid’s secondary objective is to reach here. Here we will take an orbital and you, hopefully, will fly us into space.”
“The SU Battlefleet will target and eliminate any stray orbitals,” Osadar said.
“I’m hoping they will be too busy right then,” Marten said.
“How can one orbital affect the battle for—” A grim smile moved her plastic lips. “You wish me to ram the orbital into Toll Seven’s command pod?”
Marten shivered. Osadar Di usually seemed emotionless like a computer. For the first time, Marten felt her hatred, her intense desire to hurt Toll Seven and likely Web-Mind. That expressed hatred coming from an emotionless machine was unnerving.
“There is a better way to hurt the cyborgs,” he said.
“How?”
The single word had sounded metallic and emotionless. But Marten wasn’t fooled. A lifetime of pain, of hope, of bitterness seemed rolled into that one question.
Marten began to tell Osadar his plan and his hope. He also had a new idea. It had sprouted a week ago as he’d accepted the diplomatic credentials Chavez had handed him. Marten had shoved the credentials into a special pouch in his suit. He now told Osadar about his new idea.
When he’d finished talking, she said, “Your plan is impossible.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said.
“No. It is impossible.”
Marten slammed a fist against the computer-map and almost broke the fold-up table. He glared at her, glared into her strange eyes. For those seconds he forgot that she was a cyborg. He forgot to be squeamish or afraid of her bizarreness.
“What does impossible have to do with anything?” he shouted. “We fight until we’re dead! Nothing is impossible until you shrivel up and quit. Then it is impossible. If you want out, tell me. I’ll pilot the damn orbital myself, or I’ll die trying.”
“If Toll Seven or any other cyborg captures you—”
“Are you in or out?” Marten asked.
Osadar Di broke eye contact as she stared at the roll-up computer-map. “A madman to lead us and a damned thing to pilot his orbital fighter, we are doomed before we begin. It is the law of the universe, an inexorable truth.”
“Your gaining freedom from Web-Mind was also against all the odds.”
Osadar turned away. “You have a beautiful dream, Marten Kluge. To find the Neptune habitat and burn it—I can conceive of nothing more worthy to do with my miserable existence. Yes, I am in.”
“You won’t regret this,” Marten said.
Osadar regarded him. She had the saddest smile Marten had ever seen. It hurt his heart to witness it. “I hope
you
don’t live to regret it,” she said. “For it is very likely that sooner or later you will become a cyborg like me.”
Osadar turned away abruptly and hesitated. Then in silence, she began to don her EVA gear. It was time to get moving.
A little over a week after Marten’s talk with Osadar, the three Doom Stars sailed majestically into far orbit around Mars. Their average velocity for the last seven weeks had been approximately two million kilometers per Earth day.
That velocity had lessened since the hard braking. The three Doom Stars now serenely moved into their firing-range, one million kilometers. For the next three days, all the SU warships, the moons and orbital platforms would be in range of the heavy lasers without being able to fire back with anything but missiles.
The one million kilometers was an immense distance. Light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. It would take a fired beam more than three full seconds to travel to the target. In those three seconds, the target could have shifted minutely enough to upset targeting. Thus, the targeting personnel, equipment and computers needed to compute were the target would be in a little over three seconds after the shot. That, however, was nothing compared to the need for precise accuracy. To hit with the beam at one million kilometers was comparable to a sniper hitting a penny on Olympus Mons from orbit.
The Highborn possessed such molecular accuracy, another factor that made them so deadly. Like ill omens of destruction, the three Doom Stars with their heavy laser-ports eerily glided through the stellar void and toward the bright disc of Mars.
The
Julius Caesar
, the
Hannibal Barca
and the
Napoleon Bonaparte
were spheroid vessels and contained massive fusion reactors. Those reactors produced the incredible power needed for the unbeatable heavy lasers. Each Doom Star also carried its own complement of orbital fighters, drop-troops and drones. The heavy lasers were their primary armament, however.
On the bridge of the
Julius Caesar
, Grand Admiral Cassius waited in his command chair. Around him and on various levels were the modules of his battle staff. There were a hundred monitors, screens, VR-wearing personnel and thousands of lights on a hundred boards. Techs poured over computer-enhanced teleoptic scans and radar specialists studied the graphics. Before the Grand Admiral was a ten–foot holographic globe of Mars, with the two moons in correct alignment and the already spotted SU warships as green dots. Incoming data constantly shifted the information onto the holo-globe. The Grand Admiral watched impassively as prismatic-crystal fields sprayed into existence as out of thin air. They appeared as three-dimensional blankets before the clusters of SU warships. Phobos spayed no fields as the moon was presently behind Mars. Deimos also remained bare of covering crystals or aerosol gels.
Grand Admiral Cassius studied the holographic globe. The normal practice in such a situation would be for his three Doom Stars to attempt a burn through. It would be a mathematical equation of pouring enough laser energy against the constantly replenished prismatic-crystal fields. Once through, the lasers would have to probe for the warships behind the PC-Fields. Those warships would naturally be moving, hoping to confound Highborn targeting computers.
Such was the normal tactic, but the Grand Admiral refrained from giving the order. He had won the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit in 2339 practicing just that scheme. Then, he had destroyed the Mars fleet and the armada of the Jupiter Confederation. The premen would naturally expect him to use the same tactic as before. It was reasonable of them to think so, for premen invariably followed the tried and true. Historically, it was also natural for any victor to fight the new war with the old war’s winning methods.
Grand Admiral Cassius sat back in his chair so it creaked. He tapped a forefinger against his gray temple. How good was the premen’s equipment? The likely answer was very good. Soon now, they would spot the
Thutmosis III’s
stealth-missiles and drones.
The deadly waiting game was nearly over. The battle could begin at any moment. The fleets had made their dispositions. It was soon time to hand the premen a terrible surprise. They thought they could face three mighty Doom Stars. It was monumental arrogance on their part, and animal desperation. The power of the Highborn was about to crush their last aspirations.
Cassius smiled. This was why he had been born. This was his purpose: to conquer, to defeat and to subjugate those weaker and softer than himself. It was the law of life that the strong should devour the weak. It was a good law, a reasonable thing and the way he would reorder the Solar System once he gained mastery of it.
Emperor Cassius.
That had a noble ring. Since he was the greatest sentient in the Solar System, he then should mold those under him. Grand Admiral Cassius lowered his hand and stared steely-eyed at the holographic globe. In truth, it was his burden to rule, to govern those too stupid to order their lives correctly. If humanity—and he meant Highborn with that word—were to expand throughout the galaxy, then this Mother System, this womb, must be reordered along rational lines.
The Grand Admiral forced himself to relax. He had many hours yet of waiting. He wanted the premen to sweat and to fear. He wanted them to worry about him, to wonder why the Doom Stars hadn’t fired yet. That was the great premen weakness, the inability to wait without their animal-like nervousness. Only a superior Highborn could control himself properly.
“Soon,” Grand Admiral Cassius whispered. “Very soon now…”
“What’s wrong with them?” Commodore Blackstone shouted. “Why aren’t the Doom Stars firing?”
Heads turned on the
Vladimir Lenin’s
cramped command bridge. Commissar Kursk frowned. Only General Fromm remained unmoved at the outburst.
Blackstone, Kursk and Fromm stood around the raised, holographic map-module. Red light bathed the bridge and a constant stream of chatter on headphones and speakers combined with the tap of keyboards.
The Commodore gripped the map-module as he stared at the enhanced image of the Doom Stars. Beside the images of the mighty ships were green numbers that constantly changed as their range closed. Blackstone tried to quell the raging uncertainty in his heart. This waiting for the battle to open was the worst feeling. Presently, the Doom Stars held all the advantages. Why then didn’t they begin a burn through? He had ships waiting behind the prismatic-crystal field, ships ready to dump an immense quantity of crystals to add to the field. Other ships were lined up behind those, ready to rush to the field and increase it for days. That the Highborn didn’t attempt the obvious meant they had another plan. That terrified Blackstone.
If he lost the battle—
“Sir,” the communications officer said, “tracking has spotted approaching anomalies.”
“What? What?” Blackstone asked, knowing that he spoke too loudly and too quickly. He strove to control himself. He wanted to control himself. Everything rested on his command decisions. He had the power today to loose everything for Social Unity. If he lost, his ex-wife would become a slave to the Highborn.
Then Blackstone was blinking at new images on the map-module, a flock of images. “What am I seeing?” he shouted.
The targeting officer swiveled around. The bridge’s red glow made his sharp features seem devilish. “Sir, those are missiles.”
“What’s propelling them?” Blackstone asked. “Where’s their exhaust?”
“High velocity moves them, sir. They must have been fired… weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t anyone spot it until now?” Blackstone asked.
“The
Bangladesh
,” General Fromm said.
Blackstone glared at Fromm. How could the stout Earth General sound so calm? The man’s fleshy features were smooth. His voice was unruffled. Blackstone envied and hated Fromm.
“The
Bangladesh
,” Fromm repeated. “The Highborn must have fired the missiles from the Sun, or had them gain velocity there. That’s what we did with the
Bangladesh
. It appears they’ve stolen our method and turned it against us.”