Had the Training Master known about the dust? Is that why he’d killed Bock? Hansen dreaded the pain booth and even more, he dreaded the, the… He groaned. He didn’t even want to envision the punishment worse than the pain booth, no, not for a moment. The Highborn were unbelievably cruel and savage. Oh, why had he ever agreed to help Bock make and sell dream dust? They had money, lots and lots of money, that’s true. They were almost millionaires now—well, Bock had been a near millionaire—but that was meaningless before the wrath of the Highborn.
“Why, Bock?” whispered Hansen. “Why tell the Training Master?”
He swallowed, straightened his uniform once more and knocked on the Praetor’s door.
A stern-eyed woman with ponderous breasts ushered him down a hall where others strode this way and that. She brought him to a steel chair and told him to sit. He did, and he fidgeted, sweated and gritted his teeth whenever a cramp came.
“Monitor?”
Hansen almost yelped in terror. Instead, he sat straighter and nodded.
“This way, please,” said a husky, uniformed man.
Hansen followed him down another plain hall. The man pointed at an open office door. Hansen peered in, gulped and tiptoed into a spartan room. The huge Praetor in his stiff uniform, with his back to him, sat behind a mammoth desk with a model of a Doom Star the only thing on it. The dull blue walls were bare. Nothing hung on them, no paintings, mementos or plaques, nothing. The Praetor spoke softly into a wall-phone. It sounded like the rumblings of a tiger. Suddenly, the huge Praetor turned and stared at him with those eerie pink eyes. The eyes tightened, and menace, a near hysterical rage barely held under control swept into the room.
Hansen was horrified to realize that he stared at the Praetor. He immediately looked at the floor, at his feet. He almost apologized, but then he would have spoken first, a taboo breaking of the worst sort. The Praetor’s presence, his vitality and excellence seemed to expand and roll against him. Hansen felt smaller and smaller, and his knees quaked and the worst cramp of all roiled in his gut.
“Monitor Hansen.”
“Yes, Highborn.”
“You have heard of Chief Monitor Bock’s death?”
“Yes, Highborn.” Hansen oozed sweat and fear.
The Praetor paused. “Are you ill, Monitor? You sway and your pulse races. I detect abnormal fear.”
“I’ll be fine, Highborn. May, may I speak?”
“Speak.”
“I’m awed to be here, Highborn. I truly am not worthy. Perhaps that is the ‘abnormal fear’ you sense.”
“Hmm. Perhaps. Training Master Lycon slew the Chief Monitor.”
Hansen remained silent, as he hadn’t been directly addressed.
“Did you know the Chief Monitor well?”
“Yes, Highborn,” Hansen whispered.
“Speak up, preman.”
“Yes, Highborn,” Hansen almost shouted.
“Would you like to avenge his death?”
Hansen looked up in surprise. The Praetor stared strangely at him. Hansen dropped his gaze and peered at the spotless floor.
“When I ask a question, preman, I want an answer.”
“Highborn, I-I would never dream of doing anything against one of the Master Race.”
“Have you ever seen the Training Master?”
“No, Highborn.”
“He is not a true Highborn. He is an original, a beta.”
Hansen said nothing. He didn’t understand what was going on.
“A beta slew my Chief Monitor. Now I lack. I have studied the files and I find that Chief Monitor Bock relied heavily upon you. You will be the new Chief Monitor.”
“Thank you, Highborn,” Hansen said, his mind racing.
“Your first order of business will be to watch the shock troops. I want you to find anything out of the ordinary. By doing this, by finding treasonous action, you will break the Training Master for me and gain your revenge. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Highborn.” Hansen wondered if this was a trap. Was this the moment he should spill the information about the dream dust? Could he put it all on Bock’s shoulders? Then he could tell the Praetor about Marten Kluge and give the Highborn the traitorous action he apparently craved. Hansen opened his mouth.
“That is all. You may go.”
Hansen hesitated. Then it registered he’d been dismissed. That meant the Praetor didn’t know about the dust. That meant that he, Heydrich Hansen, had control of it. He spun on his heels and marched out the room. He didn’t realize it, but his stomach no longer cramped or hurt.
Now he would have his revenge on Marten Kluge and then… Ha! Then Kang would die screaming, pleading for life.
“We’ll see who is the maggot,” whispered Hansen, hurrying to his new office and wondering where Bock had stashed his hidden credits.
19.
Two days later an exhausted Marten Kluge slipped from barracks to work on the repair pod. He’d lost several pounds and the skin under his eyes sagged and had an unhealthy tinge. He had a rattle in his throat whenever he breathed too deeply. No, matter. Work until you drop, sleep in the grave. If they gelded him, he’d rue every second he’d rested.
While wearing the bulky vacc suit he took out the old fuse box and installed one rebuilt by his mother over five years ago. He checked and double-checked the wiring of the flight panel. Sweat forever dripped into his eyes, stinging them, making him blink. He made mistakes and had to go over procedures he should have gotten right the first time. Everything seemed to take twice as long as it should, and Nadia kept getting in the way. He’d point there. She’d go there and watch him. Then he’d float beside her, bump into her and point outside. Finally, she tapped his shoulder and signaled that she was returning to the hab. He gave her the okay signal, and it seemed that she whirled around a bit too suddenly. He shrugged. He didn’t have time to keep her happy.
He double-checked fuel. Luckily, the pod still had propellant in the tanks. With the extra Nadia had brought each day, the tanks were a third full. That wasn’t great, but at least he had some.
Then came the moment Marten feared. Everything checked, so he carefully put away each tool and secured the kit to his belt. He settled into the pilot seat. The controls for the three outer arms—the clamp, laser-welder and riveter—were to his left. The flight dials and switches were to his right. A glance around showed him the shadowy inner side of the habitat, with lights shining from observation decks. Cratered Mercury dominated his right. The background stars where dulled by the thousands of spacecrafts’ running lights and exhaust plumes. He studied the flight board. His gloved index finger hovered over the ignition switch. If the pod didn’t work… He crossed his fingers, said a prayer and flipped the switch. The little repair pod shuddered, quivered and then the hydrogen burner purred into life.
Marten sagged into the cramped pilot’s seat. If it hadn’t worked—maybe then he wouldn’t have to slip out the barracks anymore and he could rest. Rest and sleep and rest and… he shook his head, poked outside the pod and made a thumb’s up sign to Nadia, who watched from the observation dome.
Several minutes later she space-walked outside and detached the anchor from the hab and clamped it to the pod.
He squeezed over and she wedged beside him.
They clinked helmets together.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Let’s go.”
They didn’t have radios or comlinks, but they could speak by shouting and letting the metal of their helmets carry the sound waves.
Marten engaged and the thrusters spewed a fine spray of hydrogen particles. Below them in a subjective sense, the Sun Works Factory’s inner skin passed underneath the pod. Their pod had no running lights, although their tracker worked.
It was a gamble, but better than being gelded.
He glanced at Nadia as she pressed against him. This was much better than being gelded! He squeezed her arm. She faced him and he imagined her smiling. It made him smile. Then he c
oncentrated on flying.
The kilometers went by. He checked the fuel. He slowed and read huge numbers painted on the habitat skin and dared take them into an area that four and half years ago he’d never flown in for security reasons. He had realized several days ago that he couldn’t build a ship like his parents. It was either this or highjack a shuttle, which would be desperation indeed.
He braked, slowed and stopped. They secured the pod with the anchor and floated onto the habitat, switching on their magnetic boots. His heart thudded as they clanged across the surface. So many memories… his eyes turned watery. Clang. Clang. Clang.
Marten stopped at an ordinary looking hatch. By careful observation, one could see the welded lines of a much bigger opening. This hatch was akin to a portal in a castle gate. As soon as he pressed the 4, it all came back. 4-8-8-2-A-1-1-2-3. He felt the hatch shudder. If someone had punched in the wrong code, well, he was certain that his Dad’s rigging would still kill the unwary or overcurious, if it was still operative.
The hatch swung open. Marten couldn’t breath. He didn’t dare believe that, that… He grabbed the float rail and drew himself into a dark shaft, with Nadia behind him. Here. He reached for a flashlight that long ago… yes. His heart pounded harder as he wrapped his hand around the flashlight. He turned and groped for Nadia’s hand, clenching it tightly. Then he turned on the flashlight and washed the beam into the darkness. His eyes boggled. It was going to work. They really could get off the Sun Works Factory.
A huge shape made out of stealth material sat before him. He blinked and remembered the countless hours his Dad and he had worked to make the ultra-stealth pod. And here it was. PHC had never found it. It had no fuel, however. But…
Nadia clinked her helmet against his.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“That means we can escape?”
“As soon as we fill her with hydrogen.”
The flood of emotions became too much and Marten began laughing and whooping in delight and shedding tears in remembrance of his parents.
20.
“Chief Monitor,” said a young woman in a dark, secret policeman’s uniform.
Hansen looked up from behind his messy desk. There were a thousand details to this job and finding Bock’s hidden wealth had taken all his extra time. He’d had no idea that Bock was so secretive. He scratched his cheek. The woman before him, ah, by her shoulder tabs she was a class three operative. She was pretty in a slattern sort of way. No doubt, she had once been Sydney slum-trash just like him. She held onto photos and grinned as if she had something important.
“Yes,” he said.
She slid a photo onto the litter of papers.
He peered at—he smiled. There was Marten Kluge as he hurried down a utility corridor. Marten wore a white maintenance uniform. Well, well, well. He reached for the photo, but the woman placed a second one on top of the first.
He hunched forward, glanced up sharply and picked up the second photo. He couldn’t be certain, but the woman in the photo looked like Nadia Pravda. She wore a vacc suit.
“I brought them right away,” the class three operative said.
Hansen leaned back. This woman was ambitious, a climber, in Highborn terms.
“I knew you’d want to see them,” she said, smiling, promising many things with it.
Yes, a climber indeed. “These photos were taken during night duty?” he asked.
“Yes, Chief Monitor.” She cocked a hip and her smile grew.
“I take it that only you have seen these?”
“Yes, Chief Monitor. I knew you’d be interested. The man is a shock trooper. The computer matched him. Marten Kluge is his name.”
“Very good work,” said Hansen. “Does your superior know?”
“I hope I did the right then by bringing them directly to you.”
Hansen gave her his patented fox-with-a-chicken-in-his-mouth grin. “Would you wait outside, please? And tell no one else about this.”
“Yes, Chief Monitor.”
She exited. Hansen studied the photos and then called on the intercom for his best clean-up man. The Praetor wanted the shock troopers, and he would give them to him. But first, he planned a little revenge of his own, a few more key deaths, some returned product and mouths that would never talk. Too bad the class three operative who had given him this would have to die. Loose lips sink ships. Well, no one was going to sink him.
The door opened and a short, wide-shouldered monitor entered. His gray eyes seemed dead, lifeless, without any emotion.
“I have a little assignment for you, Ervil,” Hansen began.
21.
Behind her dark visor, Admiral Rica Sioux chewed her lip.
A little over a week of weightlessness had given her chest pains. She refused medication, as that would be a sign of weakness. And if the others saw weakness as they neared the Sun Works Factory—no, at least admit it to yourself. They neared the Highborn. No one had defeated the genetic super-soldiers. Who was she to think the Bangladesh could?
She squeezed her eyelids together. The waiting wearied her. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.
The First Gunner raised his gloved thumb.
What did he want now?
He tapped the command-pad on his arm. His visor slid open, revealing a dark, bearded, unwashed face. Hollow marks ringed his brown eyes. He was from Pakistan Sector, a good officer, one of the last true loyalists aboard the beamship.
Ship etiquette overruled her wants. Admiral Sioux chinned a control, and her visor slid open. She was old, with a terribly wrinkled face, as only her Native American ancestors seemed to have ever had. Her longevity treatments had started late, and she’d never had time for skin tucks. So her face showed all of her one hundred and twenty-one years of age.
Admiral Sioux scrunched the flat, triangular-shaped nose that dominated her face. The command capsule stank of unwashed bodies and stale sweat. She peered around the small circular room, with its sunken pits and VR-module screens. Only half the posts were filled. Some of the officers lay strapped on the acceleration couches in the center of the capsule. They were apparently asleep as their visors pointed up at the low ceiling.
“Admiral,” said the First Gunner. “I think you should look at this.”
“Do you smell that?” she said.
“What? Oh, yes, yes, of course. If you’ll please look at this, Admiral.”
“Maybe I should order them out of their suits. We’re past the radiation leakage.” She knew she should have already thought of that.
“Admiral Sioux.”
Maybe this enforced inactivity, or maybe the dreadful waiting…
“Admiral!”
She scowled, not liking the First Gunner’s tone.
“Admiral,” he said, pointing at his VR-imager.
She studied the readings and frowned. “Radar pulses?” she asked.
“Enemy.”
A sharp pain stabbed her chest. She wanted to vomit. So she clenched her teeth together.
Of course, the Highborn would launch new robot probes. And just as certain, a few of the SU Cruisers in this region were supposed to have tracked and destroyed them. SUMC had assured her of that.
“As per your orders, Admiral, the beamship’s ECM warfare pods are inactive.”
She chewed her lip, thinking. The Bangladesh traveled roughly 90,000 kilometers an hour, or 25.4 kilometers per second. She’d ordered the heavy particle shields aimed at Mercury and to the sides of their craft. 600-meter thick shields of rock and metal would probably give a radar signature of an asteroid. The question became, when the Highborn checked their radar would they think of the Bangladesh as a rogue asteroid or a newly discovered comet?
No, definitely not.
“Admiral—”
“Let me think!” she said. Her rheumy old eyes glittered, a window to the reason why at her age she still captained a ship. Not just any ship, either, but an experimental super-ship.
>
In a little less than two weeks, Mercury would reach perihelion, its closest distance to the Sun: 46 million kilometers. During much of those two weeks the fiery Sun looming behind the Bangladesh would make it impossible for optic visuals of them from Mercury. The harsh radio waves from the Sun would make it just as impossible for radar location.
Admiral Sioux was certain the Highborn didn’t have a combat beam that could reach this far, at least not accurately. She grinned tightly. Space warfare brought a unique set of problems to the game.
Light traveled at roughly 300,000 kilometers per second. So a laser beam shot from the Sun to Mercury at perihelion (46 million kilometers) would take nearly 2.6 minutes to reach the target. Yet how did one spot the target? If by radar, the beam had to travel to the target, bounce off it and then return. That took 5.2 minutes. If by optics… it had better be damn good optics, and there had better be enough light to see by, too.
What if the target shifted or jinked just a little? Then by the time the beam reached its target, the beam would sail harmlessly past, that’s what.
Admiral Rica Sioux studied the radar signal being bounced off her precious beamship. They had traveled from the Sun for over a week. She needed approximately eleven more days to bring her to what the SUMC tacticians on Earth considered her practical, outer-range limit. When Mercury reached perihelion, its closest orbital distance to the Sun, the Bangladesh would fly past the planet by 30 million kilometers. The beamship angled toward the flyby point at 25.4 kilometers per second, while Mercury sped along its orbital path at roughly 50 kilometers per second. In eleven days therefore, and for a week after, Mercury would be in the Bangladesh’s range, or more accurately said, the very stable Sun Works Factory circling Mercury would be in range.
Admiral Sioux grinned, and some of the chest pain went away.
By their very nature, spaceships moved, shifted and jinked. But space habitats, especially world spanning ones like the Sun Works Factory, their orbital location was known to a mathematical nicety.
Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon Page 10
