Doom Star: Book 03 - Battle Pod (6 page)

Ah, the neutraloids hesitated. That hesitation might allow one or two of them time to use their wits.

“Come on then,” said Cassius. “If you’re going to do it, do it!”

Behind him, the neutraloids snarled. They were so easily enraged. An enraged foe usually made critical blunders. He would have to enrage the Praetor in a subtle way. Yet, the Praetor had a following, and the Praetor possessed powerful friends in high command. He would have to handle that delicately.

Behind him, one of the neutraloids hurled his stunner.

Grand Admiral Cassius shifted. The stunner flew past him and cracked against the viewing port. He allowed himself a low, taunting chuckle.

The snarling intensified. The small creatures shuffled nearer. One of them actually lifted his stunner as if to aim.

Had the Praetor’s Training Masters made a breakthrough among the neutraloids? Cassius decided he would have to change that. These neutraloids, he despised the entire angle of them. Castration—it was disgusting.

Grand Admiral Cassius whirled around as a leaner neutraloid lifted his stunner and fired. The charge took Cassius in the gut, caused him to stagger backward. A numb sensation spread across his stomach.

The seven neutraloids howled and gnashed their teeth. Stunners and vibroblades hit the deck, but not all of them. Another stunner numbed the Grand Admiral’s left thigh. Then the neutraloids charged in a pack, screaming in their high-pitched voices, taunting him with obscenities. They shouted what they would do to his corpse.

Grand Admiral Cassius was a nine-foot giant with impossible strength and abnormal reflexes. He used his fists like sledgehammers and waded among the berserk creatures. He took a deep gash in the side and another in his numbed thigh. Neutraloids bounced off the walls, hit the deck with broken bones and fell with crushed skulls.

The survivors screamed wild cries. Cassius roared with joy, with battle-madness. He tore the last neutraloids apart as a shredding machine might pulp wood. Combat, he loved it. To win, to crush, it was the joy of life.

He lifted the last neutraloid above his head and heaved the creature against the bulkhead. The sound of breaking bones was beautiful. In such a manner, he would break the Praetor and break the premen who sought to survive against their genetic superiors, the new lords of the Solar System.

Twelve days after taking the title of Supreme Commander, Hawthorne sat at his desk. His eyes ached from reading endless reports.

He turned off the vidscreen and leaned back, rubbing his temples. Then he opened a drawer, took out a bottle and twisted the cap, dumping three white capsules onto his palm. He popped them into his mouth and chewed. The pills were dry, with a bitter taste. He swallowed several times, wishing he had a glass of water.

His security team lacked Political Harmony Corps’ subtlety. If only he could trust Yezhov. Then they could pull Earth’s resources together and aim them all solely at the Highborn. The deadly infighting between directors and between the various governmental agencies sapped too much energy, stole too much time and misdirected the focus of too many powerful personalities. That this power-struggle was part of man’s inherent nature didn’t make it any easier to accept. One would have thought that with such a frightening enemy as the Highborn, everyone’s focus would be on species-survival.

A blue light blinked on his vidscreen. He pressed the communication’s button and Captain Mune’s harsh features appeared.

“I have a priority message from Commodore Blackstone of the
Vladimir Lenin
,” said Mune.

“How did to it come to route through you?”

“It has a Security Gold clearance.”

Hawthorne massaged his forehead, bewildered. Then he realized that Security Gold was from the old days, before the Highborn attack that had taken out Geneva.

Hawthorne split the vidscreen and typed in,
Vladimir Lenin
. Ah, it was a
Zhukov
-class battleship. They had too few of those. It was stationed in a far-Mars orbit.

“A priority message?” Hawthorne asked.

“Shall I patch it through, sir?”

“Please.”

Hawthorne sat up as he became aware of what he was reading from Commodore Blackstone. The
Vladimir Lenin
had been in far-Mars orbit for a singular reason. That a
Zhukov
-class battleship had been used instead of a picket ship was incredible and almost criminally wasteful of space combat resources. Through powerful teleoptic scopes, the battleship had monitored the nearly invisible cyborg battle pods. The only reason the
Vladimir Lenin
had been able to do that was that the tracking officer there had been given the exact coordinates to watch.

The critical part of the Security Gold message read:
The battle pods have begun deceleration. According to the computer’s estimates, that will bring them into near-Mars orbit in fifty-seven days.

According to Hawthorne’s information, the cyborgs were supposed to head directly to Earth. Why then had they begun deceleration for Mars? Hawthorne lurched to his feet and began to pace. He strode back and forth along the worn lane in his carpet. He ignored a call on his communicator. Captain Mune knocked on the door several minutes later.

“Handle it!” Hawthorne shouted through the door. “I’m thinking.” There was no second knock and no further communication interruptions.

Hawthorne clasped his bony hands behind his back. His head tilted forward to what many of his officers would have recognized as his ‘deep thinking’ pose. As he churned his way back and forth across his carpet, the headache receded and then disappeared altogether. He examined many apparently disparate facts. Then he began to think about Doom Stars, the bedrock of Highborn power.

When he was like this, Hawthorne had likened his mind to a computer that pulled up one file and examined it with complete concentration. He brought up the next file and gave his complete concentration to it in turn. He halted once and looked up in wonder. He had been so consumed with cyborgs, directors and maintaining political power, that strategy for the war had fallen into second place.

Whoever had convinced the cyborgs to go to Mars must have done it to hurt him. It might now be possible to use the cyborgs there for Social Unity’s good. Who had alerted them? Chief Yezhov seemed like the logical villain.

Hawthorne savagely shook his head. That wasn’t the important point now. He hurried to the computer. For the next nine hours, he used his computer stylus on the touchboard and voice-activated the keyboard. He sped-read through report after report concerning Mars. He laughed twice. It was a predatory sound. He began to outline a classic Hawthorne strategy. He had come to understand Highborn mentality and now used that to his fullest advantage.

At the end of the nine hours, he threw himself back against his chair so it creaked ominously. His eyes were red-rimmed and his features haggard.

He lurched to his feet and strode to the door, shouting for Captain Mune the minute it opened. He would sleep for several hours and take a special cocktail of stimulants when he awoke. Then he would meet with Chief Yezhov and afterward summon his military staff. A strategy had finally revealed itself, one that could give him the lever Social Unity desperately needed to turn the tide of the war.

He would send a reinforcement convoy from Earth filled with desperately needed supplies. The trick would be to slip the convoy past the Doom Stars that besieged the planet. Many SU warships were already headed for Mars. He would order all the others there, as well. The SU Battlefleet would be the bait for the Highborn, to draw Doom Stars to Mars. With the cyborgs’ help, he could destroy Doom Stars and change the course of the war. Why would the cyborgs help him? The answer was easy. They would help him to confuse him. Through Chief Yezhov, he would let the cyborgs understand that he didn’t suspect them. To keep themselves from being suspected, the cyborgs would have to help him win the battle for Mars.

“You’re a clever bastard,” Hawthorne whispered. Then he hurried for the first of many meetings.

Nine long, frantic days passed. Hawthorne functioned with the aid of stimulants as he prepared for the Mars campaign. He seldom slept as he raced to a hundred different locations, pushing officers and lashing others into a frenzy of effort. During that time, the Strategy Staff turned his idea into a detailed set of operational orders.

However, nine days was too short a time to write the operational orders from scratch. Fortunately, the Strategy Staff had long studied and planned for a hundred different operations. Many of those operations were wildly exotic in military terms, perfect now for Hawthorne’s needs. Code Valkyrie, Code Vida Blue, Operational Plan XVII and Skyhook Thirteen each had enough similarities to different aspects of Hawthorne’s idea to be useful. Thus, various members of the Strategy Staff lifted entire sections of those plans, changing details, and incorporating them into the Campaign for Mars.

The governmental machinery of Social Unity was ponderous. The military found it difficult to race at Hawthorne’s speed. The highest levels of Political Harmony Corps grew concerned and then alarmed once it realized the scope of the initial steps in Hawthorne’s plan. Despite Hawthorne’s dictatorial powers, key members in PHC, the Army and the Directorate coalesced into stubborn blocs. They pointed out the dangers of Hawthorne’s plan, and there were many.

Finally, on Day Seven, Hawthorne called an emergency meeting with Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps, Director Danzig of Eurasia, Director Juba-Ryder of Africa, Air Marshal Crowfoot of Earth-Air Defense and Commander Sargon of Orbital Sector.

The meeting began at 7:17 P.M. around a large conference table. It was in the basement of Hawthorne’s emergency command center in Kazakhstan Underground Launch Site 10. Captain Mune attended, sitting in the back like a statue, with his gyroc pistol resting on his lap.

***

From the Supreme Commander’s biocomp transcriptions, File #9:

HAWTHORNE: Gentleman, madam (speaker nods to Director Juba-Ryder of Africa) time presses with its inexorable weight. The Highborn gained the advantage over Inner Planets with their precision first strikes. They commandeered the Doom Stars, captured the Sun Works Ring and obliterated the old Directorate and Social Unity’s governmental agencies when they destroyed Geneva on the first day of the rebellion. That paralyzed Inner Planets for too many weeks in the opening stages of the war.

YEZHOV: I hope the Supreme Commander forgives me for interrupting.

HAWTHORNE: That is the purpose for this emergency session. Tonight, you are free to air your grievances.

YEZHOV: I assure you, sir, I have no grievances. Rather, they are qualms.

DANZIG: Let’s not quibble, Chief. (To Hawthorne) Instead of grievances, Excellency, I have stark fear concerning this coming assault against the Highborn.

HAWTHORNE: Fear is reasonable. Before you air your fears, however, I want you to realize the nature of the war.

YEZHOV: If I might interrupt again, sir. We know the history of the war. A recap—

HAWTHORNE: Is necessary, Chief. If you would indulge me?

YEZHOV: (nods reluctantly.)

HAWTHORNE: (looks around the table.) The Highborn have unusual abilities. It is part of their genetic heritage. They gained the initiative at the commencement of the rebellion and they have never released it. Fortunately, Social Unity retains many of its spaceships, although these vessels have scattered into the deepness of space.

DANZIG: What good do these spaceships do us then? The Highborn gobble up chunks of landmass here on Earth. Soon, only Eurasia and Africa will be left to us.

HAWTHORNE: Exactly.

DANZIG: (pounds the table with his fist.) Then why are you endangering Eurasia? Your madness—

YEZHOV: No! You are wrong to slur the Supreme Commander.

DANZIG: He gave us permission to speak our mind.

HAWTHORNE: I am a man of my word.

YEZHOV: But to call your plan madness. Will you allow that, sir?

HAWTHORNE: I desire to understand the Director’s logic for use of such a word.

DANZIG: Madness was the wrong word, sir. I beg your pardon.

HAWTHORNE: Granted.

DANZIG: You know I’m an emotional man. My heart seethes with hatred against those genetic abominations. The madmen of the old Directorate— As you say, Chief Yezhov, that is old history. I fear for Eurasia. Sir, you staked your reputation and dared to expend much political prestige pushing for increased proton beam construction and a quadrupling of the merculite missile production. Because of that, we have greatly increased the depth of our defenses. Isn’t that right?

CROWFOOT (Air Marshal of Earth-Air Defense): Our coverage has increased one hundred and sixteen percent.

DANZIG: Does that include the anti-air batteries?

CROWFOOT: Our production levels there have given us a three hundred percent increase.

DANZIG: There’s my point, sir. You’ve pushed for massive increases against space-borne attacks. Now you wish to fire our merculite missiles to cover the launching of your space fleet. With the depletion of our stocks of merculites, it will make us vulnerable again. Eurasia is the heart of Inner Planets. If it goes, the war is over. We know that. The Highborn must know it too.