Star Soldier

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Don’t be fatuous, General.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Humph! Do you care to explain this, this treason?”

  “Don’t they say he’s a military genius?” asked someone else.

  General Hawthorne wished he had complete biographical data on these ultra ambitious men and women. A misstep could land him in the Brutality Room. His eyes tightened, and he dared ask, “Am I on trial?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—”

  “We will set the agenda, General.”

  His bowels turned hollow. But General James Hawthorne clamped down on his fear.

  A stylus moved against a plex-pad somewhere behind those polished surfaces. An audible click issued from the wall speakers. They were recording his trial—a bad sign.

  ***

  Transcript of Directorate Interrogation of Secret Police General James Hawthorne #4

  10.9.2349

  Q. Why do you recommend that our space fleets flee?

  A. So they won’t be destroyed.

  Q. Why do you assume automatic destruction?

  A. The Highborn are superior to us, Director. We cannot ignore that basic fact.

  Q. Nor am I—not that I accept your assumption. But for the sake of argument let us pretend I accept it. Why did you not suggest suicide tactics?

  A. Too inefficient.

  Q. (sarcastically) Granted I’m not an expert on strategy, General. But ultimate victory sometimes entails an inefficient use of resources. It’s better than giving up.

  A. Agreed.

  Q. Maybe you’d better explain yourself.

  A. The Highborn have certain advantages, Director. What I wish to avoid is playing into those advantages.

  Q. For instance?

  A. For instance, they are superior soldiers in every conceivable way. Their strategies and tactics will probably prove superior throughout the conflict.

  Q. Are you saying we can’t win?

  A. Not at all.

  Q. But if their strategies are superior, if they themselves are too… I don’t see how we can win.

  A. History supplies us with several answers.

  Q. By all means, please enlighten us, General.

  A. We could liken the Highborn to the Spartiates of the ancient Greek world.

  Q. Don’t you mean the Spartans?

  A. No, Director. Spartiates were the full-fledged Spartans, the only ones with complete political rights and decision-making powers. They formed the core of the dreaded Spartan army, which was primarily composed of allies and perioeci.

  Q. I’m afraid you’ve lost us, General.

  A. Sir… Director, the Spartiates as a class dwindled over the centuries. As they dwindled, so did the efficiency of the dreaded Spartan army. Like the Spartiates, the Highborn are few in numbers.

  Q. You call over two million few?

  A. In comparison to us, yes. My point is this, Director: When the Athenian General Cleon took one hundred and twenty Spartiates prisoner on the island of Sphacteria—

  Q. (interrupting) While we appreciate your historical acumen, General, please tell us in plain language what you’re trying to say.

  A. (pause) The historical records tell us how to defeat superior soldiers, soldiers who lack sufficient numbers. The primary method is to trick or force them into attrition warfare. In other words, we must fight battles where the Highborn themselves, personally, take crippling losses. For instance, Roman Dictator Fabian defeated the Carthaginian Hannibal in just such a way as I’m suggesting. To state briefly, Hannibal’s superior cavalry obliterated Rome’s legions whenever they marched onto the plains. So Fabian kept the legions in the hills. He fought siege battles against cities that had gone over to the Carthaginians, sieges conducted behind carefully built earthen outer walls and trenches to nullify Hannibal’s cavalry in case they showed up. In the end, Fabian bled his deadly foe to the point where Rome could deal with him in the open. Hence the term: Fabian tactics. Or in modern terms, delaying tactics.

  Q. Yes, we see your point.

  Q. (different Director) Wait! What bearing does any of this have on the treasonous suggestion that our fleet units scurry into deep space?

  A. Space battles are the wrong place for our attrition tactics, Director. This being so, we should save what fleet units we possess until such a time as the odds rework into our favor.

  Q. (icily) I see.

  Q. (different Director) Where do you suggest we stand and fight, General?

  A. Planet-side. On Earth, Venus and Mercury.

  Q. But that’s nonsense. They’ll simply bombard us from orbit.

  A. Will they?

  Q. We’re asking the questions. (pause) Why don’t you believe they’ll simply bombard us from orbit?

  A. They need the Inner Planets. They need our industrial might in order to keep their fleet in being. Thus, ground troops will have to land to secure these things. That’s when we fight them.

  Q. But orbital bombard—

  A. Will give them great advantages for a time, granted. We’ll have to develop better beam and missile batteries to drive the Doom Stars away from near-Earth orbit and better point defense systems to destroy any orbital debris they rain upon us. Still, the essential point is attrition. If they want North American Sector, for instance, they will have to land troops and take it. We will of course fight them on the ground, in the cities, under the cities. Then, once they hold North American Sector, we will continue the struggle via guerrilla warfare, political assassination, terrorism—

  Q. And once they own all Earth, General?

  A. No. I’m not suggesting that.

  Q. Perhaps I missed something then. You’ve implied they will beat us wherever we stand and fight. For how otherwise will they take North American Sector?

  A. Initially, they will be victorious, yes. But you said two million soldiers before, Director. Two million soldiers cannot control forty billion people. Don’t forget that they must man their space fleet at the same time. After the first few victories and once their men are garrisoning what they’ve won, then we can overwhelm them here and there. We can assassinate a lone Highborn who visits a prostitute, say. Attrition, Directors. Bleeding the enemy to death one attack at a time. That’s why our space units must flee. An existing fleet, which we’ll have if we keep our ships, means the enemy will still have to worry about them.

  Q. Yes, I’m beginning to see your strategy. But one thing worries me, General. Won’t they recruit, well, regular people into their armed forces?

  A. Unquestionably.

  Q. Then your entire theory is destroyed.

  A. I don’t believe so. Because now we will operate in an area of our advantage.

  Q. Which in your opinion is?

  A. Secret police ruthlessness and superior political theory.

  Q. Perhaps you’d better explain that, General.

  A. In a word, egalitarianism. Modern Social Unity philosophy teaches us that one man is as good as the next. The Highborn have exactly the opposite view. They are an elite, a master race, if you will. (pause)

  Q. Yes?

  A. If you will permit one last historical example.

  Q. Make your point, General Hawthorne.

  A. Nazi Germany preached a racial superiority philosophy in the middle of the Twentieth Century. They invaded Socialist Russia—a precursor to our own political system, I might add—and won titanic battles. Yet the Nazi political philosophy insured the hatred of the people. The people were treated as inferiors even though the Germans were no different in terms of real ability versus the Russians.

  In our day the Highborn actually are superior. No doubt, this will cause them to act arrogantly, especially as they rub shoulders with the conquered peoples. The masses will learn to hate the Highborn. What men fear they hate, and when a man is looked down upon, he hates that even more. Added to this is our modern thinking. People will become incensed at the idea that someone actually could be better. That, Directors, is one o
f our key advantages. Secondly, military governments seldom produce as ruthless a secret police as a one party political government. The Prussian General Staff thought they could outfox and be more ruthless than Lenin and his Bolsheviks back in World War One—

  Q. We perceive your point, General. And that point really amounts to kill them on the ground.

  A. Yes.

  Q. But it entails risk.

  A. Great risk. For their battle-skills may prove superior to our political skills. War hysteria and extreme paranoia of the supermen must be drummed into everyone until all Inner Planets hate the Highborn. We must ensure that our troops fight with fanatical zeal. In other words, they must fight to the last man and the last bullet in every encounter.

  Q. Then we will win?

  A. Yes. We will win.

  End of transcript #4: Interrogation of Secret Police General James Hawthorne

  4.

  The weeks sped by with the news of the expanding civil war on everyone’s lips. Then a fateful day arrived for Marten Kluge and in a way for all humanity. Thanks to Hall Leader Quirn, Marten woke up in his cubicle at one in the morning, when the rest of his complex slept the sleep of the just.

  His cubicle, the standard single rent, seemed barely big enough for Marten’s tall frame. So when the alarm buzzed he slid out of his sleep-shelf and in two steps reached the shower. No mementos, paintings or statuettes cluttered the tiny room or gave it a personal flair. It was stark, minimalist, clean, a holdover from his years of hiding in the Sun-Works Factory.

  He went through his toiletries, ate breakfast, donned a gray jumpsuit, hardhat, and work boots. As he chewed his last bite of vitamin-reinforced algae bread, Marten squinted at the holoset—he hated its constant noise. By law and technology, the holoset was impossible to turn off. The set showed armored Social Unity infantrymen hiding behind rocks and dunes and lasering Highborn as they bounded toward them in powered battlesuits. The giant invaders crumpled one after the other, dead. Then fighters screamed over the scene, missiles zooming from their underbellies and slamming into huge tanks, which exploded soundlessly behind the commentary.

  A talking head droned on the set: “Bitter fighting in the Mullarbor Plain yesterday forced the Highborn Third Army to retreat to their initial drop zone. Reinforcement fighters from Japan Sector helped stem this latest breakout attempt.

  “In the east….”

  Marten sneered as he picked up his lunch pail. According to the news, this was the third time this week the Highborn had retreated to their initial drop zone. How much farther could they go? He believed that instead of retreating, they advanced. He shrugged. It really didn’t matter what he thought.

  He stepped out of his cubicle, closing Door No. 209 and strode along Corridor 118 until he reached the nearest conveyer belt. He rode it out of the twenty-story complex and onto the darkened street. Terraced gardens of sleeping tulips and marigolds drooped away from him, while dwarf palms rustled in the breeze. Gigantic fans connected to vents that led all the way to the surface created that breeze. High overhead, the sunlamps of Level Thirty-nine glowed at dim and soft “sleep” music played from hidden speakers. Automated street sweepers swished by Marten as he strode fast along the sidewalk. Passing him zipped a caravan of cyclists training for the upcoming Festival Games.

  Others on the early morning shift passed Marten or headed in the same direction. Many shouted hearty greetings to each other and spoke of the latest Highborn defeat. Uniformed peacekeepers on patrol nodded approvingly. Once or twice, the black visor of a peacekeeper turned in Marten’s direction. He shouted no greetings to his fellow workers nor made any comments on the news. A tall peacekeeper spoke into a hand recorder. Marten wondered if he’d gained another demerit for unsociable behavior.

  He entered the Far-Forty Lift Tube with twenty other people, a mixture of manual laborers and office workers. The door closed with a hiss and down they plunged. Ads played on the lift vid. A shouting emcee told of the prizes to be won on Tell-a-Friend. Then dancing girls in sequins wiggled by, singing of the wonders of algae protein shakes. “Mmmm, great!”

  The lift stopped, people struggled out and others shouldered their way in. Hiss, close, down they plunged.

  Fifteen minutes later Marten and five other men in gray jumpsuits, hardhats and boots strode out of the elevator. No music played down here; no vids or holos blared. The only sound was that of their boots drumming on the cool earth. They peeled away in different directions, one or two waving, and then Marten strode alone deep underground and in a semi-dark corridor.

  His shoulders relaxed and the stiffness in his neck went away. His somber features softened. He walked and walked and walked, turning many times into many different corridors. Finally, in the distance he heard the grind and roar of Tunnel Crawler Six as it chewed into deep sedimentary rock.

  This was end of the line for Greater Sydney. This was the bottom of the city, where Level Sixty was under construction.

  Marten inserted his earplugs, snapped on his helmet lamp, fixed his oxygen mask and strolled closer to his monster.

  The mighty Tunnel Crawler Six was a vast metallic worm. The huge segmented sections slithered after the main mouth that tore at the rock twenty-four hours a day. The chewed up parts went on an internal conveyer belt to the central dump. Some of the rock was mined for useful minerals. Some went topside for construction and the rest went down the deep-core mine, there to be turned into lava and added to the Earth’s interior. Pollution as such was nonexistent with the deep-core dump. Nuclear wastes, toxic chemicals, fuel sludge—anything unwanted or non-reusable—was simply dumped deep into the Earth and never worried about again.

  Marten’s job wasn’t repairing Tunnel Crawler Six. His specs called for maintenance of the biocomp that ran the beast.

  Fine particles of dust drifted in the corridor. Marten’s light beamed through it. It got thicker up ahead as he neared the machine’s maw. The clank and roar of the chewing mouth shook the air. No one could talk here. The roar became a blanket covering other noise. It brought… well, after awhile the roar seemed to fade in one’s thinking until it became a kind of silence.

  “Silence is golden,” Marten mouthed under his oxygen mask.

  For such an utterance—if he’d been heard—peacekeepers would surely have drawn their shock rods and beaten him down as anti-social.

  Marten reached the cab, which was three hundred meters from the mouth, and hoisted himself up the rungs. The long beast shook and vibrated. He opened the cab and slipped in, shutting the heavy door behind him. Much of the roar and clanking faded away, although the vibrations were constant.

  He sat at the controls and turned on the Bioram Taw2. The cab was cramped with coils, leads, tools and screens, but the control chair was heaven compared to anything Marten had ever used.

  The Bioram Taw2 was a marvel of modern technology. Human brain tissue, from a criminal who’d been liquidated for the good of the state, had been carefully teased from the main brain mass. After a good personality-scrubbing, the brain tissue was embedded in cryo-sheets and surrounded by programming gel. One point five kilos of brain tissue had replaced tons of specialized control and volitional systems. Unfortunately, the cryocyorgic environment accelerated decay and eventual death. Still, biocomps were the wave of the future.

  Here, away from prying eyes and busybodies, Marten had given rein to his impulses. He’d written brand new software for his Data-Five auxiliary computer. The auxiliary computer was only to be used as backup for the biocomp, but Marten had ignored that reg. In fact, he’d erased many of the D5’s programs in order to make room for his own. Then, with infinite patience, he’d teased memories out of the biocomp’s brain tissue.

  The pros upstairs thought they’d scrubbed all personality from the biocomp’s gray matter. Marten knew it wasn’t as easy as that. His mother had known more about bio-computers than the so-called experts had, and she’d taught him before she’d been killed on the Sun-Works Factory.

 
Marten took off his work gloves, turned on the D5 and logged onto his Bio-Speak Program. Then he settled the keyboard on his knees, put the mike near his mouth and the audio-plugs in his ears.

  It wasn’t what he learned from the Bioram Taw2 that made the difference. It was that after three long years he finally had someone to talk to again. No one in the cab marked demerits or awarded him honors for his views. What he said was what he felt, no less and no more.

  Blake, the Bioram Taw2’s name, remembered little of his former life. He’d been married, had two kids and he’d run a big government agency, but of what exactly he couldn’t remember. During their talks, Blake upheld Social Unity, sort of. He mostly wanted to hear all about Marten and Molly Tan. Marten thought it ironic that the disembodied brain was a randy sex-fiend, but he never told Blake that.

  Blake and he greeted one another this morning, talked about the news, the work, rambled about nothing for awhile, until finally Blake brought up Molly. He asked, “Why don’t you move in with her?”

  “Because she’s not my wife yet,” said Marten for the umpteenth time.

  “So?”

  “So I think a man should commit first before he has sex with a woman.”

  “What a perverse notion, Marten. Don’t ever tell your block leader that.”

  “I’ll punch him unconscious is what I’ll do.”

  “Why?” That asked eagerly.

  “He’s making moves on Molly again, hinting that he can pull strings for her and maybe even for me if she’s nice. When she tells him no thank you, he hints that events can turn the other way just as easily.”

  “Tut, tut. Women chase power, Marten. Surely, you know that. She’s just playing hard to get.”

  “You don’t know Molly.”

  Something like laughter came over the audio-feed. Marten wondered how Blake did that, because laughter had never been in the program.

  “Marten, you punch your block leader and you’ll go to the slime pits. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Or maybe they’ll tear your brain down and hook you into a beast.” More of that mad laughter came over the line.