“Calm yourself,” Hawthorne said, as below the table he secretly wrapped his hand on the butt of his needler. Rita Tan wanted too much assurance he had the authority.
She blinked rapidly.
“I am the Supreme Commander of Social Unity,” Hawthorne said. “All final authority rests with me. Yes, I will destroy the pods.”
Rita Tan’s head jerked to the left. She gave him a weird smile and she opened her mouth. Then she surged with manic speed, flinging the table at him.
Hawthorne had expected such an obvious tactic. Despite his age and lanky frame, he rolled out of the chair, and kept rolling as he drew the needler. The altered clone was fast, maybe even faster than what Captain Mune had suggested. Rita twitched her head with insect-like rapidity, pivoted even as she lunged the wrong way, and changed direction to fly at him.
The Gauss needler was a deadly weapon against unarmored opponents. It used a magnetic impulse to shoot a heavy steel needle, and it fired a great number of needles in a matter seconds.
Firing from the hip, Hawthorne sprayed needles at Rita Tan. The needler made its signature crackling noise. The first few missed. They smashed against the steel wall behind her and disintegrated, flinging sliver-like shards. From the floor, Hawthorne aimed. Rita Tan screamed wildly, a battle cry meant to frighten her opponent or to increase her chi as she attacked. The needles riddled her torso, ten in less than a second. Twitching in agony, she thudded onto Hawthorne and knocked the needler from his grasp. He shouted as the door swished open.
Hawthorne flung Rita Tan away as Captain Mune charged into the room, his gyroc pistol ready. She flopped onto the floor as Mune snapped off a single shot. Because of the short distance, the rocket-packet in his gyroc round never ignited. The rocket-bullet smashed against the middle of her back, however. With a grunt, she sagged to the floor. She had been rising to attack anew. She twisted her head to glare at Hawthorne. Her lips writhed. Hawthorne groped for his needler. Then the back of her head exploded and rained blood and bone.
The tiny implant had done its grisly duty.
Shocked, Hawthorne stared at Captain Mune. The bionic soldier moved fast as he knelt beside the twitching corpse. He slid it across the room, away from Hawthorne.
“Never mind that,” Hawthorne said in a hoarse voice. He was breathing hard. The clone had attacked him. The implications might be far-reaching. “Leave her!” Hawthorne shouted.
Captain Mune looked up.
“This could be the beginning of a coup attempt,” Hawthorne said. “Chief Yezhov and the Madam Director might be working in concert.”
Captain Mune’s features hardened. He surged to his feet, whirled around and aimed his gyroc at the open door in one incredibly fast motion. His gun-hand was rock steady and the muscles in it were rigid and stood out in stark relief.
Hawthorne pulled out his communicator as it crackled with life, and he began to issue instructions to his security team.
That’s when an even heavier explosion occurred outside. It rocked the railcar. Hopefully, it lacked the power to bring the tunnel down on them.
Three shiny jets streaked across the Atlantic Ocean one hundred meters above sea level. They were the latest in military technology, built with laser reflectors. A powerful headwind blew against them and caused the steel-colored ocean below to seethe with white-capped waves.
In the second jet, General Hawthorne stared out of the polarized canopy. He stared at the dark clouds in the sky. High above the clouds lurked orbital laser platforms and Highborn orbital launch stations. Heavy orbital fighters often swooped down from those stations. It was a terrible risk flying across the Atlantic like this. Lasers or orbital fighters could easily take out these three jets. Using a fast submarine would have wiser.
Hawthorne shook his head. It might have been wiser for his personal security while crossing the ocean, but foolish for a different reason.
In the first jet sat the late Madam Director’s prime clone, the former bodyguard. The second clone was dead, her head a gory ruin. The Madam Director was also dead. The remains of Hawthorne’s security team had poked through the wreckage of the bullet train. The blast that had nearly killed everyone in the tunnel had come from her bulky chair.
In the jet, Hawthorne brooded about that. If she had wanted to kill him and had been willing to die to do it, why hadn’t she exploded her chair during their meeting? The prime clone, the former bodyguard, had provided a possible answer. It was the reason why the prime clone made the emergency trip to New Baghdad with him and with Captain Mune in the last jet.
Captain Mune’s people had questioned the prime clone, the surviving bodyguard named Lisa Aster. They had pumped her with interrogation drugs. What they’d learned troubled Hawthorne. The late Madam Director had feared the cyborgs, had talked about it ever since the second clone had returned from the Neptune System. According to the prime clone, the bodyguard, the second clone from the Neptune System had spent several hours alone with the Madam Director. That was highly unusual, according to the bodyguard clone. Afterward, the Madam Director had seemed disoriented.
As the jet continued to flash across the Atlantic Ocean, Hawthorne came to a decision. The clone from the Neptune System, the one whose head had exploded, had been tampered with by the cyborgs. That clone must have inserted the bomb in the Madam Director’s chair. That the bomb had passed Captain Mune’s security x-rays likely meant the Neptune-tampered clone had used advanced technology. By the compromised clone’s actions, the cyborgs had sent her back here in order to assassinate him, the head of Social Unity.
The conclusion was obvious: the cyborgs were his enemies. Hawthorne didn’t know why the cyborgs had rebelled, but that didn’t matter now. Getting back to New Baghdad before word of the assassination attempt leaked out was what mattered.
Hawthorne leaned toward the polarized canopy, staring down at the waves. It was intolerable that the head of Social Unity had to scurry across Earth. They were losing the war, and now a needed ally had become a liability. Hawthorne pressed his forehead against the pilot’s seat ahead of him. He closed his eyes and began to do some deep thinking.
***
General Hawthorne survived the trip and landed at New Baghdad. Captain Mune immediately led the city’s security teams through the vast, underground megalopolis. An hour later, Hawthorne received a call from Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps.
“General Hawthorne,” Chief Yezhov said over a vidscreen. “I’m getting reports you’re back in the city.”
Hawthorne sat at his desk with a computer stylus in hand, as if he was hard at work on a project. He stared into the vidscreen, attempting to appear impatient because he was so busy. It was a ploy to confuse Yezhov.
“Yes, I’m back,” said Hawthorne.
The head of Political Harmony Corps wore a scarlet uniform and a black plastic helmet held in place by a chinstrap. He had pale skin, washed-out blue eyes and a ridiculous little mustache, twin dots under his nose. He was short and thin and possessed an almost nonexistent chin.
“How—” Chief Yezhov frowned. “I thought you were in South America.”
“Yes.”
Chief Yezhov blinked like a reptile. “…I’ve heard rumors that the Madam Director is dead.”
“You are amazingly well-informed. I’d hoped to keep her heart attack secret a little while longer.”
“…I see. A heart attack,” Yezhov mused. “That is most unfortunate. We shall mourn the great lady.”
“Orders for a temporary blackout of communications are about to go in effect,” Hawthorne said. “Any unauthorized back-channel use will be severely punished.”
“You of course do not mean Political Harmony Corps.”
“The delicate nature of yet another Director-in-Chief dying so soon after Enkov’s accident means we must proceed with extreme caution. While I applaud your devotion to duty, I must insist on your cooperation in the coming investigation. There is a possibility that some of your deputies have exceeded their authority.”
“It is with the greatest reluctance that I must disagree with you, General.”
“The possibility occurred to me,” Hawthorne said. “If you will look out your window, I imagine you’ll see a squad of cybertanks patrolling the premises. It might seem highhanded or excessively militant, but a breach of the emergency blackout orders will result in a cybertank assault on PHC Headquarters.”
“…you take heavy responsibilities upon yourself, General.”
“That may be true. Since we shall be working so closely together in the future, Chief Yezhov, I feel you should be the first to hear about my promotion.”
“You’re stepping onto the Directorate?”
“I hold the maxims of Social Unity too highly for such a move,” Hawthorne said. “Instead, the remaining directors have just ratified a new rank for me. For the duration of the emergency I am the Supreme Commander of Inner Planets.”
“The directors voted on this?” Yezhov asked with obvious disbelief.
“The surviving directors,” Hawthorne said.
Yezhov’s pale reptilian eyes narrowed. “Did more than one director have a heart-attack?”
“Including the Madam Director, there were three.”
“…I see.”
“I dearly hope you do, Chief Yezhov, as I need your cooperation for the coming fight. I may count on it, yes?”
“PHC will never cease struggling for ultimate victory.”
“I am a military man and am used to something a little less ambiguous.”
“…I shall cooperate with you, General. Excuse me, Supreme Commander. May I be the first to congratulate you on your elevation in status.”
“Thank you, Chief. If you would be kind enough to arrive at my headquarters in the next half-hour, I will outline my revised policies. And please, no clones this time.” Hawthorne referred to Yezhov’s use of a clone during the initial coup that had gained him, Hawthorne, control of Social Unity.
Chief Yezhov pursed his lips. “May I be indelicate enough to ask for assurances?”
“That will be one of my newest principles,” Hawthorne said. “Social Unity will only survive this ongoing crisis with the highest display of trust between its members.”
“I must trust you?”
“Either that, Chief Yezhov, or trust my cybertanks to do their duty.”
“I agree. A new era of trust will help stiffen resolve. There has been far too much distrust lately.”
“If it’s any consolation, Chief, I need men like you if we’re going to defeat the Highborn.”
“Men like me, Supreme Commander?”
“Cunning infighters with a gift for assassination,” Hawthorne said.
“You give me too much credit.”
“We shall see. A half-hour, Chief. Then—”
“I understand. I’m on my way.”
Grand Admiral Cassius, the leader of the Highborn, stood in a viewing port of the
Hannibal Barca
. It was the nearest of the Doom Stars to Earth. The Grand Admiral admired the blue planet. South America was in sight, with heavy cloud cover over the Amazon River Basin.
Cassius had iron-colored hair and gray eyes. He stood like a granite statue, but there was a terrible intensity in his stare. He wore his admiral’s uniform, complete with a Stellar Cross pinned to his chest and above it a Platinum Nebula. He had won the Platinum Nebula, the highest medal in the Social Unity Space Force, for his brilliant victory of the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit in 2339. That had been before the Highborn Rebellion. There, twelve years ago, he had broken the combined space fleets of the Mars Rebels and the Allied forces of the Jupiter Confederation.
The Grand Admiral heard a door open behind him. There was rustling and shuffling. The
Hannibal Barca
was presently under pseudo-gravity caused by rotation. With the shuffling sounds came a heavy odor. There were also low, angry mutterings.
Cassius frowned for a moment. Then understanding lit his gray eyes. Rock-still, a terrible change came over him. His was a fierce intensity. He held every muscle rigid to prevent them from trembling in anticipation of swift death.
From the strange smell and the muttering, it was clear that neutraloids were behind him, altered humans. They were blue-skinned, and each had been castrated. They were the Praetor’s invention. The Praetor was presently in the Earth System, and the Praetor was his greatest enemy among the Highborn.
It was possible this was a crude ploy of assassination on the Praetor’s part. Either that or one of the Praetor’s supporters hoped to present the Praetor with an amazing victory.
Cassius used the viewing port. But he no longer watched the blue planet, the jewel of the Solar System. Instead, he used the faint reflection of the viewing port glass. He watched the neutraloids shuffle into the chamber behind him.
They were muscular to an intense degree. Some held stunners. Others gripped vibroknives. Each wore a harness around his blue-tattooed torso. The Grand Admiral had read the reports on the neutraloids. They were dangerous, certainly, but their conditioned rage made it difficult for them to use anything but their hands in combat.
Cassius nodded to himself. This assassination attempt was due to insufficient danger. The Highborn needed deadly goals to concentrate their thinking. When they lacked deadly goals, the infighting began. The trouble was that Cassius was waiting for the premen of Social Unity to make their grand move. He had studied the files concerning their directors and this General Hawthorne. Cassius thought South America might be the location of the big push on the premen’s part. Until that push occurred, he kept most of his Highborn out of combat there. Let the premen bled each other. The FEC armies had their uses.