Star Soldier

by Vaughn Heppner

  Hawthorne: Lord Director, what if the Japanese Invasion is simply a gigantic, Highborn trap?

  Enkov: Trap? You think that this is a trap? Unbelievable! If my allegiance monitors hadn’t kept careful tabs of your incoming and outgoing calls, General—A trap! You’d better explain yourself and this witless attempt at fear mongering.

  Hawthorne: Lord Director, fear mongering is not my intention. And I repeat again that we in Strategic Planning agree totally with your theories on will and courage.

  Enkov: Not theories, General. Facts!

  Hawthorne: I agree, Lord Director. Yet… I hesitate now in, ah…

  Enkov: No, no, speak your mind.

  Hawthorne: Lord Director… fleet and air units are hardest for us to replace, after space units, of course. What if—the Highborn are clever. They must know we will strike back. That at some point we must strike back if we hope to defeat them. So I am compelled to consider this awful possibility. What if they have staged this invasion in order to draw out our last fleet, air and space units? My reports lead me to—

  Enkov: General Hawthorne, I will not tolerate this defeatist talk. Not this late in the planning of the greatest attack to ever be launched against the enemy of man. If there truly is a lack of Highborn formations in Japan, it merely shows that our nuclear strikes were even more effective than we thought. They fear to place Highborn where we can hit them. Their losses, I suggest, have been even heavier than you, my generals, have let on in their various campaigns against us. I understand basic military caution. You have all been trained with it. It is the reason a man like me is needed at such a historic moment. But your collective caution has now edged near treason, for it has developed in many of you an unnatural dread of the Highborn. Strike hard, with the most devastating weapon possible, and we will see how quickly the Highborn lose confidence. Operation Togo, fought at the pace of their own attacks, will utterly demoralize them. All the Solar System will see at last that mongrel dogs cannot beat down Social Unity. Now, if I had let your original suggestion stand of taking nine weeks to gather what I’ve forced you to do in four weeks…. Field Marshal Kitamura, could you hold out for another five weeks?

  Kitamura: It would be difficult at best, Lord Director.

  Enkov: How will Operation Togo affect Japanese defense?

  Kitamura: A successful counterattack will save the home islands.

  Enkov: Do you doubt its success?

  Kitamura: Please excuse an old soldier, Lord Director. That military disease you just spoke about had infected me. But your leadership, just as the sun drives away shadows, has driven away the doubts I once had. Operation Togo cannot fail!

  Enkov: Your honesty does you great credit, Field Marshal. Alas, nothing is perfect, gentlemen. But we must be confident of the outcome, or how can we expect the soldiers under us to fight all out for victory?

  Kitamura: You speak the truth!

  Enkov: This is the Battle for Earth, gentlemen: the successful completion of Operation Togo. It absolutely must not fail. I expect each of you to goad your men to furious action. If there is any slacking in our counterattacks, then I expect each of you to go out and by personal example revive our warriors. If that means you must make the supreme sacrifice—you will be given a hero’s funeral, I assure you. The time of planning is over. Our will is set. Now we must act.

  13.

  Near-Earth orbit swarmed with hundreds of major satellites. Yet more satellites orbited in the ‘higher’ LaGrange points. Most of these major-sized habitats were the huge farm platforms that supplied the people of Earth with the bulk of their food. They had been declared open, belonging to neither side. So far, each side had in practice left the farm habs open, or at least neither side had overtly used them militarily. Many of the biggest habitats rotated at the L5 and L4 points in higher Earth orbit. These were often industrial plants, using the raw ore of carefully maneuvered asteroids brought from deeper in the Solar System, or blasted off the moon, or purchased from the Comet Barons of Outer Planets. The profusion of habitats made Earth orbit the most cluttered portion of space in the Solar System. In near-Earth orbit, staring down at the planet, were the three laser platforms, the two missile and three orbital fighter stations of the Highborn.

  Following their own particular orbits in and out of this profusion of satellites were small ice-coated pods. Year after year, the pods had orbited. Deep in the ice, about the size of a Twentieth century automobile, was a nuclear bomb with rods pointed outward. Those rods were presently trained at the Highborn military platforms.

  Message pulses from Earth activated the almost invisible pods.

  The explosions threw off massive qualities of x-rays. Those x-rays sped ahead of the rest of the blast. Before they were destroyed in the incandescent fury of the nuclear explosion, the special rods directed those rays in an invisible beam at the orbital fighter stations.

  Unbeknown to most of Earth Command, both the Highborn strategists and their Spy Masters had predicted a massive surprise counterattack. Logically, and because of premen emotional makeup, the Highborn strategists believed the counterattack would take place from Earth. The indicators hadn’t been difficult to read. And the Grand Admiral’s strategy practically mandated such a counterattack. Thus, over the past few weeks the Highborn had slipped their orbital fighters off the platforms. They couldn’t afford staggering losses of these craft. Only now had the orbital-fighter construction factory at the Mercury Sun Works shipped its first batch of new and improved space fighters. Thus, only a few of the dreaded orbitals had been left at the platforms. They ran on full automatic. No living beings, especially not superior new men, were on the attacked platforms. The x-ray beams annihilated the few remaining fighters, the robots in the station and maintenance, and one of the laser platforms, which was also devoid of Highborn personnel. The ice-covered bombs destroyed mere shells; Highborn targets set to take the brunt of a blow they suspected had to be coming soon.

  Operation Togo had begun with two deceptions, the Highborn’s trumping Social Unity’s.

  14.

  Seventy kilometers north of Beijing, in the Joho Mountains, lay a three hundred-year-old complex of coalmines. Deep within those mines was the mind of Operation Togo. This center coordinated the many and various military limbs of the largest amphibious assault in human history.

  In the early morning of 10 May, and several minutes after x-rays demolished the Highborn platforms, dim green light flooded the inner command center, and the glowing eyes of a hundred-odd TV screens added to the illumination. The headquarters staff monitoring these screens and providing communication with the outer limbs spoke in quiet whispers and crept about on soft-soled shoes. Air Marshal Ulrich, a thick-shouldered bull of man and a main nerve nexus to the decision node of this brain, glared at the screens showing various northern Chinese airfields.

  HB-13 Annihilators were catapulted out of underground runways, lofting the heavy bombers into the dark, morning sky. Behind them followed long-range NF-5 Night Owls and Wobbly Goblins 9000s, the latest in electronic counter measures aircraft. AL-101 Standoff Screamers, which launched near-space missiles, roared up last to do battle with the remaining space stations. Hundreds of aircraft per hidden base sped into the night sky, heading toward their rendezvous point over the East China Sea.

  A colonel muttered quiet words to the air marshal. He checked his chronometer before grunting, “Scramble Korea.”

  Airforce staff officers leaned toward their mikes, issuing orders. The screens switched to underground Korean airfields, where swarms of F-33 Tigers and A-14 Laser Razors buzzed into the night sky like angry wasps. They headed directly for the Tsushima Strait and Japan beyond. Lastly lofted sleek attack choppers, whomping a few feet above the waves all the way to the islands.

  In the circular chamber, left of air control, Admiral O’Connor likewise studied screens. His showed Earth’s last carriers, the latest in ship design. The fast, submersible carriers rose out of the deep and whisked toward Japan on a
cushion of air. First Fleet and Second Fleet together numbered over twenty of the sub-hover flattops. They launched bombers, fighters, surveillance craft and cunning ECM drones. Third, Fourth and Fifth Fleets contained every other major oceanic unit left to Earth. Serene underwater shots showed an armada of sleek hunter/killer submarines and the much bulkier cruise missile submarines. Yet other screens provided an idea of the incredible number of troop transport and cargo ships at Social Unity’s disposal. In the first wave alone fully seven hundred thousand SU soldiers, twenty-five hundred bio-tanks and one thousand cybertanks would land in the beleaguered Japanese Islands to hurl the hated invader off Earth.

  Space control, to the left of Navy, waited to order the interceptors into action and to issue the go-word for the merculite missile batteries in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. Meanwhile, the newly placed and incredibly powerful proton beam stations in Manila, Taipei, Shanghai and Vladivostok clawed near-Earth orbit, obliterating the remaining space platforms. Already air-launched missiles from the Standoff Screamers roared into near-orbital space to finish off what the beams missed.

  General James Hawthorne paced back and forth in the center of command. Against the Lord Director’s strictest orders he had kept observers in various farm habitats orbiting Earth. Despite the open habitat order granted by the Highborn, General Hawthorne needed military personnel there to give him far ranging eyes into space. His disobedience was a tremendous gamble in two completely different ways. If the Highborn found out, they might destroy the habs or they might rescind the open order. If they did either, those areas of Earth still under Social Unity’s control could face massive starvation. The second danger, a much more personal threat, was that Lord Director Enkov’s allegiance monitors—ruthless secret police agents—might uncover his disobedience. They pried everywhere, and were one source of Enkov’s unprecedented power. The bionic guards who lined the circular command chamber and watched everyone were the other source.

  General Hawthorne briefly mused upon the Lord Director’s ways. Enkov believed in blunt power used brutally. The Lord Director had taken captive family members from each of his military officers ranked colonel or higher. These members had become hostages for their good behavior. It was an ancient trick, and so far, it had worked beautifully, at least in terms of maintained loyalty.

  General Hawthorne paced as his air armadas gathered like hungry wolves off Japan’s shores. He paced as his fleets hurried to disgorge hundreds of highly trained battalions into battle. He clasped his hands behind his back and strode first one direction and then another. He wore no soft-soled shoes, but military gear that clattered on the tiled floor. He paced in the dim green light. He paced, and he smelled danger. Yes, four weeks ago he’d been in favor of Operation Togo. But since then… was this a trap? He couldn’t shake the feeling. And if it were a trap… who would shoulder the blame for it? Not the Lord Director.

  The minutes ticked by. The general paced, and his staff officers pointedly ignored him as they studied their screens. Tension grew. He radiated it. They felt it. So far, the Highborn hadn’t reacted. No lasers stabbed out of space. The stations had been destroyed or damaged beyond use. No orbital fighters screamed down to face his fighters. Again, it was splendid, unbelievable success against negligible Highborn defense. It was unprecedented. No Thor missiles (rocks hurled down from orbit and sped by gravity) bombarded strong points.

  The staff officers showed their nervousness in various ways. They wiped their hands on their pant legs or they lit non-narcotic stimsticks or they kept their faces impassive or they checked their chronometers every ten seconds or—only one man paced, his shoes click, click, clicking on the tiles.

  None of them, despite the tension, the grimness of not knowing, of waiting, glanced at the bionic security men who even now guarded against treachery. Those carbines, those surgically enhanced muscles had one purpose, one goal: to slaughter anyone who lifted his hand against the State, which was to say against Lord Director Enkov.

  General James Hawthorne stopped and blotted his mouth with his wrist.

  Air Marshal Ulrich growled, “We have them!”

  General Hawthorne thoughtfully pursed his lips.

  “We’ve caught them by surprise,” agreed Commander Shell. “We’ve cleared near-orbital space of them. Japan is ours for the plucking.”

  General Hawthorne studied the TV screens showing deep space. It was empty, devoid of enemy craft. Subtlety, his bony features shifted from unease, to suspicion and then to a grim certainty. “Scramble the interceptors,” he said.

  The staff of Space Control turned sharply. Commander Shell took several steps nearer the general before he clicked his heels together. “Sir! Interceptors have limited fuel capacity. They are only to be launched at intervals, thus always keeping a reserve for when the others are forced to land and refuel.”

  “I know very well what their limits are,” said General Hawthorne. “Scramble them all.”

  “But sir—”

  “This instant, Commander.”

  The interceptors were planet-based space fighters, a turbine-rocket hybrid. The interceptors’ magneto-hydro-dynamic turbines used atmospheric oxidizer until they reached the vacuum of space, then they switched to chemical rockets. The use of the MHD power plant in the atmosphere saved the bulky chemical fuel for vacuum use alone, increasing the pitifully short range of the interceptors. Even so, the range limits called for utterly precise use. Those uses had been drilled into every space control officer from the moment he began his training.

  “We’ve gained tremendous successes,” argued Commander Shell. He was a small, hawkish man, young for one of such high rank. “Now is the time to hold our cards and wait for whatever moves the enemy can make.”

  General Hawthorne stared in dread at the screens showing deep space. His gut boiled. Something, a thing he couldn’t see but feel, oh yes, he felt it twisting his innards—He refused to acknowledge Commander Shell.

  Commander Shell shot an imploring look at Air Marshal Ulrich.

  The bull-shouldered Ulrich stepped near Hawthorne. “James,” he said. “We have them. But if they have something that can catch us when all the interceptors have landed…”

  “No,” said Hawthorne, sweat glistening on his face. “If we had really surprised them they’d have thrown something at us by now, some backup, emergency reserve we couldn’t have seen before this.”

  “That’s madness!” said Shell. “We took out everything they had in orbit.”

  “Yes, much too easily.”

  “Their arrogance was their undoing,” said Shell. “The Lord Director was right. We must not let our… fear of them unhinge us.”

  Hawthorne glanced at Shell.

  “I implore you, General, stick to procedure.”

  “This is a trap,” Hawthorne dared say.

  “What? Nonsense!”

  “Highborn don’t go down so easily. We all know that.”

  Commander Shell snorted. “They aren’t really supermen after all. We’ve simply fallen for their propaganda. Our success today proves that.”

  Hawthorne stubbornly shook his head. “Launch all your interceptors, Commander.”

  Commander Shell hesitated. “Perhaps a call to the Lord Director is in order, General.”

  General Hawthorne faced the smaller man. “Anyone disobeying my orders will be immediately shot. Is that understood, Commander?”

  Commander Shell thought about that. Finally, he clicked his heels and issued the needed orders.

  Air Marshal Ulrich grunted as he stepped beside his friend. He whispered, “You’d better know what you’re doing, James.”

  A soft, cynical laugh fell from General Hawthorne’s lips. Then he clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace again.

  15.

  Not all of the electronic gear on the space habs orbiting Earth was trained starward. Several passive optic sensors of great power watched the planet, the East Asian Landmass to be precise. Its operators squirted a mess
age to a special satellite that sent it on to the Doom Star Julius Caesar, presently hidden behind the largest space habitat in the Solar System, the gigantic Tiaping Hab in ‘high’ L-5 orbit. The vice-commander in charge immediately beamed a message to Grand Admiral Cassius aboard the sister Doom Star Genghis Khan, also lurking behind Tiaping Hab.

  The Grand Admiral, his eyes alight with the need for bloodshed, barked quick commands. The two Doom Stars—each kilometers in diameter—pumped gravity waves and glided forward under emergency acceleration. Although it had occurred much sooner than anticipated, the premen had at last tripped the wire so carefully set for them. Each Doom Star had taken station eight weeks ago in a stealth move and maintained practically zero radiation and radio signature. Now the admiral would pay the premen back for the arrogance of their nuclear strikes and for daring to destroy the space stations. Now they entered phase three of his intricately mapped strategy. Premen were so naively predictable. He just hoped the entire Free Earth Corps in Japan wouldn’t have to be written off. To start training a new Earth Army all over again… he shrugged. As the brilliant preman Napoleon Bonaparte had once so insightfully said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

  16.

  “Commander!” shouted a staff officer, breaking the quiet of the command center.

  Commander Shell growled, “Report.”

  “Doom Stars, sir.”

  All eyes turned to the staff officer as Commander Shell and General Hawthorne strode to screen S-Fifteen. They hovered behind the staff officer. With unconcealed dread, they studied the growing shapes. The massive Doom Stars gained momentum as they streaked earthward. Spherical as moons and bristling with weaponry, they were launching squadrons of orbital fighters: squat, wicked craft that every person on Earth had learned to hate.