“And it backs him on the continued beam-assault against the Sun Works Factory. When now is the moment to break off the attack.”
“No,” said Blanche-Aster, “you simply don’t understand, General. After many bitter months we’re finally hurting them, making them bleed. You must continue to do so for as long as possible. It does wonders for morale.”
General Hawthorne rose. “Our initial assessment—by long-range radar scan—showed great damage to the Sun Works Factory. But now our radar is jammed and any optic visuals are hidden because of a vast aerosol cloud. We must never forget that the Highborn react with uncanny speed. The longer we attack, the less will be our return.”
“That’s speculation, not hard fact.”
“I speculate from having watched and studied their reactions on several occasions.”
She raised a withered hand. A chime had sounded. “Enter.”
The door swished open and her chief bodyguard stepped in. She was young and hard-eyed, with a buzz haircut and with a long, supple body armored in silvery mesh. When they had first arrived, the bionic men had relived the bodyguard of her weapons. The General maintained that he didn’t want any hasty mistakes.
“Yezhov has arrived in the building,” the bodyguard said.
Blanche-Aster pursed her ancient lips. “Which directors are still in the city?”
“From our last reports, Madam, only Director Gannel remains here.”
“That’s it?” asked Blanche-Aster.
“Yes, Madam.”
Blanche-Aster’s eyes seemed to glitter. She had a narrow, hatchet-thin face, remarkably similar to her bodyguard’s face. She peered out the window, then back at General Hawthorne and then to her bodyguard. “Has Yezhov seen Director Gannel?”
“None of my operatives think so, Madam. But that was before…” The bodyguard glanced at Captain Mune.
Blanche-Aster gave her a minute nod, and then turned to Hawthorne. “Despite your predications, Yezhov has come when summoned.”
“I’m very surprised, to say the least,” said Hawthorne.
“Surprised, General? Don’t you mean elated?”
A hard smile edged onto Hawthorne’s lips.
“If you and your guard will be kind enough to step into the other room I’ll let Yezhov in,” Blanche-Aster said.
“Madam Director, I wish to remind you that my… You have a new security arrangement, which I hope you’ll keep in mind,” Hawthorne said. “Depending on developments today, well, perhaps your former security teams will be rearmed. I also wish to remind you that the cybertanks are again under Military control.”
“This is all highly unusual, General.”
“So is the fact that your bodyguards are clones of yourself,” said Hawthorne.
Blanche-Aster and her bodyguard traded glances, before she told Hawthorne, “I’m sure you’ve discovered that finding loyal people is difficult.”
General Hawthorne nodded curtly. Then he put his right hand on his holster as he marched into hiding. Captain Mune followed, although he never took his eyes off the Director’s clone.
Soon Madam Blanche-Aster said to her bodyguard, “Let him in.”
The door swished open and Yezhov, the Chief of Political Harmony Corps, walked in. He wore a scarlet uniform, with black boots and a black, plastic helmet held in place by a black chinstrap. Naturally, he’d surrendered his sidearm before entering the building. The bionic men had stayed out of sight, and the cybertanks had been ordered to act as if they still followed PHC’s orders.
Yezhov’s skin was pale and he had washed-out blue eyes and a ridiculous little mustache, twin dots under his nose. There was nothing else remarkable about his appearance: short and thin, a potbelly and an almost nonexistent chin. Long ago as a youth, he’d failed the Military’s physical. Next, the Peacekeeper Academy had flunked him. Choice number three had been Political Harmony Corps. Since then, forty years of dedicated service had finally paid off.
“Madam Director,” he said, in a normal, unremarkable voice. He managed a small smile by stretching the corners of his lips.
“Good of you to come, Yezhov.”
“I am at your service, Madam.”
“Why? To try and convince me to leave the city?”
“Madam knows best, of course.”
“Which city would you suggest?”
He pulled his eyebrows together, as if considering it for the first time. “Perhaps not any city, Madam. Highborn espionage has become most cunning lately.”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve begun to suspect that the attack on Beijing wasn’t solely to take out the proton beam station.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Blanche-Aster. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
He shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
She said, “The three directors who died there on May 10 influenced your thinking, no doubt.”
“Certainly that’s part of it.”
“But more importantly because such talk scares the other directors into doing whatever you suggest.”
“Madam?”
“Come now, Yezhov, let’s not lie to each other. This is your moment, is it not?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I’ve heard your theories before. You’ve likened Social Unity to a triangle. How did it go? The Party is one point of the angle, the Military the other and finally PHC, our benevolent secret police, complete the geometry. Each is used to keep the masses docile. The Party supplies the propaganda, the slogans that beguile the masses. The Military insures that no one physically harms Social Unity, while PHC watches the people and weeds out the insubordinate. Yet the Military is like a bear, you’ve been known to say. It is a beast that will devour the other two. For the Military, if unrestrained, could rule alone. Therefore, the Party and the Secret Police hold the leashes that keep the Military from eating them. As long as the two hold on tightly, each is safe. Yet now the Military has been sorely wounded by the Highborn. May 10 and the late Lord Director’s foolish policies saw to that.”
Yezhov licked his lips.
“I have no intention of leaving the city,” Blanche-Aster said.
“What if the Highborn drop an asteroid here?”
“Why would they?”
“To decapitate Social Unity, to kill you and the other directors. I’m afraid that I must insist that you leave, for the good of the State.”
“Their targets before were the proton beam stations.”
“We can’t be certain of Highborn logic, Madam. They don’t think like us, after all.”
“I’ll grant you that. But the changing weather patterns will no doubt cause them to rethink this particular tactic.”
“The winds are a temporary inconvenience,” Yezhov said. “They’re meaningless.”
“Some of my meteorologists suggest it could lead to nuclear winter.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the term.”
“As I’m unfamiliar with giving in to fear. Until Director Gannel flees New Baghdad, I also will remain in the seat of power.”
“But the rioters, Madam, what if they storm the Directorate and injure you?”
“You will restrain them long before, of that I have no doubt. However, if it turns out that you cannot, well, Social Unity will quickly find someone who can.”
A hint of anger colored his checks. “If you think the Public Security Bureaus have teams who will face the mobs—”
“My dear man: Face the mobs? What a quaint term for the sheep that have lifted their heads and bleated a little louder than usual.”
“Madam, I wish you would reconsider.”
“Let us talk about General Hawthorne.”
Yezhov blinked slowly. For the first time he glanced about the room, noticing the bodyguard. The clone gave him a faint nod. He ignored her and turned to the director.
“There was an attempt upon the General’s life,” Blanche-Aster said.
“A terrible tragedy. Air Marshal Ulrich be
came unbalanced.”
“Why do you suppose that happened?”
“Madam, the military clique is rife with non-socialist behavior that on examination the rest of us find quite inexplicable.”
“Ah, yes. Your latest witch-hunt is called the Anti-Rightist Movement.”
“The Highborn rebellion proves the thesis, Madam. The Military is a seedbed for rightist tendencies. PHC works hard to root out this madness.”
“To bring unity to society?” asked Blanche-Aster.
Yezhov stiffened, and he now spoke with a nasal quality. “Director Blanche-Aster, PHC will mercilessly destroy any rightist who dares sabotage Social Unity. High or low, we will root them out.”
The one hundred and sixty-two-year-old director leaned forward, pulling the many medical tubes with her. “You dare hint that I’m unorthodox. You dare this here?” The physical effort cost the ancient Blanche-Aster. She fell back into her padded rest.
Yezhov seemed to remember where “here” was. “Madam, I assure you your ideology is not under scrutiny.”
“I’ve long served the people and kept them safe from class-enemy exploiters and profit-imperialists. Before you ever memorized the social crèche credo—”
“We are all tiny cogs in the machine of State service,” Yezhov quoted. He stretched his lips in an imitation of a smile. “The Air Marshal’s strange behavior proves that we are on the correct path. The Rightist Movement must be stamped out. I’m sure you agree that at this time we cannot tolerate any deviancy in the upper echelons of Social Unity. The ripple effect the billion casualties had on the rest of the populace has left us little room to maneuver.”
She stared at the Chief of PHC. “Do you know that the Military found six members of your shock squads in the Joho Park, slain by the General’s bodyguard?”
Yezhov shrugged. “Foul slander, Madam.”
“I’ve seen the pictures.”
Yezhov shook his head. “Crude plants to throw the blame of this assassination attempt onto PHC.”
There was wonder in Blanche-Aster’s tone. “Can you be this certain about your position?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Yezhov.”
“Game, Madam?”
“We suffered brutal losses on May 10. But because of General Hawthorne we inflicted hurt on the Highborn.”
“Excuse me, Madam, but several thousand enemy dead, a couple hundred destroyed orbital fighters and a nearly crippled Doom Star… Those can’t compare to a billion deaths.”
“I didn’t say that. However, those Highborn losses are the best Social Unity has been able to achieve, at least until the Bangladesh struck. Both times the tactics that allowed it were the brainchild of General James Hawthorne.”
“Any general could have supplied similar tactics.”
“Oh, there you are badly mistaken, Yezhov. He is a genius, at least in the venue of military moves.”
Yezhov’s smile turned sardonic. “Madam… perhaps you place too much faith in this general.”
“Oh?”
“He refuses to recombine the Fleet and attack the enemy, to hit him hard, to disrupt the Highborn in their free space movements.”
“The Bangladesh—”
Yezhov interrupted with a snort. “This one attack, which he yearns to break off. Isn’t it obvious? General Hawthorne has no stomach for a stand-up fight. Maybe he pulled a stunt on May 10, but the ferociousness of that battle scarred him. He’s terrified of the Highborn, overcome by their style of warfare.”
“Hard words, Yezhov. They may come to rebound against you.”
“They are words of truth, Madam. Look how the islands of Earth fell one after the other. And what did the General boast as his major achievement? That he slipped a few troops out of the cauldron.”
“Three-quarters of a million trained soldiers,” said Blanche-Aster.
“Bah! Men that are trained in running, in hiding, in fleeing from the enemy.”
“You could do better?” asked Blanche-Aster.
Yezhov squinted. “I have a plan, yes.”
“Go on.”
“I will kill the Highborn and their highest-ranking FEC traitors.”
“How would you do it?”
“Assassination teams.”
Madam Director Blanche-Aster raised her old eyebrows. “How will get past their security?”
“Notice.”
Yezhov moved his fingers into a unique pattern. Before he could take aim, however, a door burst open. Behind it stood General Hawthorne and a team of his bionics. The general had waited for this precise moment. As Yezhov’s hand rose, Hawthorne stepped through, his short-barrel .44 in hand. He fired three times, driving Chief Yezhov against the wall, body chunks exploding at each hit. The bionics beside him held their fire, calculating that more bullets were unnecessary.
It took the ancient Blanche-Aster time to regain her composure. “What… What is the meaning of this?”
“Check him,” said Hawthorne.
The door swished and bionic men rushed in. They began searching the slain Yezhov.
“Check him?” she asked.
“His fingers,” said Captain Mune.
A moment later, a bionic warrior looked up. “Street tech, all right.”
“What?” said Blanche-Aster.
“His finger is a one-shot gun,” the bionic man said.
Blanche-Aster wheeled around to face Hawthorne. “How did you know he was going to try to kill me?”
The General shrugged.
Before she could ask again, the Madam Director’s chrome desk chimed.
“May I answer it?” she asked Hawthorne.
“Certainly.”
She wheeled her chair there and turned on the screen. Her jaw sagged.
“What is it?” said Hawthorne.
“The Chief of PHC wishes to speak with you,” she whispered.
General Hawthorne scowled. “But that’s impossible. Yezhov lies dead on the floor. Wait! Who is it you say?”
“It’s the real Yezhov,” she said. “He wants to make a deal.”
Shock troopers
1.
Admiral Rica Sioux leaned forward in her command chair, with her right hand pressed against the comlink embedded in her ear. Her old lined face was one of concentration.
General Hawthorne’s plan was complex. Three days ago, he had sent a message, ordering them to break off their proton beam attack on the Sun Works Factory. Their destination was now Mars, to try to awe the rebels there and then get re-supplied. But in order to get the Bangladesh to Mars in one piece… The Supreme Commander played an interesting game with the Highborn.
What was that old saying? A picture was worth a thousand words. Admiral Sioux shut her right eye, the better to view the VR-monocle in her left, and then she twitched her left hand, the only one gloved to the computer.
A small model of the inner solar system leaped onto her virtual reality monocle. The Sun blazed at one end, Mercury orbiting around it, then Venus, the Earth and Mars.
All the solar system’s planets orbited in the same direction. If one looked down from the Sun’s North Pole, they moved counter-clockwise. Also, all the planets orbited on nearly the same plane, or ecliptic. The ecliptic was inclined 7 degrees from the plane of the Sun’s equator, although the plane of the Earth’s orbit defined the ecliptic of all the other planets. Even in 2350, humanity kept it Earth-centric outlook of the universe. Far-off Pluto had the greatest inclination, 17 degrees, and it had the most bizarre of all the orbits.
Compared to the Outer Planets the four Inner Planets hugged the Sun. If one changed the millions of kilometers to mere steps, the relationship became more easily understood. Admiral Rica Sioux recalled her grade school science class and the teacher who had actually made the subject enjoyable. From the Sun to Mercury would be one step. To Venus would be one more step or two steps from the Sun. To the Earth would be another step and Mars one more or four steps away from the
Sun. But to go from Mars to Jupiter took nine more steps or a total of thirteen steps from the Sun. Saturn would be 25 steps from the Sun, Uranus 50 steps, Neptune 78 and Pluto 103 steps. The nearest star, Alpha Centarui, would take 200 miles worth of stepping using this model, while the distance between the Earth and the Moon would be the width of a person’s little finger.
The planets, naturally, didn’t all orbit around the Sun in unison, with each one perfectly lined up behind the other. Each circled Sol at different speeds and as a matter of course, some had farther to travel than others. Mercury took 88 days to complete one circuit around the Sun. Venus 225 days, Earth one year or 365.26 days, and Mars took 687 days to travel one complete circuit around the Sun.
Such were the major terrain features of the inner system, with each planet tugging with its gravity, although none pulled upon objects like the monstrous Sun. Each planet and even their moons and of course the Sun created gravity wells, deep holes in terms of escape velocities needed to climb out of, and they also created gravity centers that bent light and thus laser beams that sped past them and they also effected missiles in flight. It was always much easier to shoot objects like missiles or asteroids down gravity wells than up them. Minor terrain features like the magnetic belts, such as the Earth’s Van Allen Belt, and the solar wind also had to be taken into account by firing computers and ship’s AI.
The Bangladesh sped past Mercury as the planet continued it endless journey around Sol. Much farther ahead of Mercury in its own counter-clockwise orbit was the Earth, almost so the Earth was out of the line-of-sight of someone standing on Mercury. If they were out of the line-of-sight, then direct laser-link communications would be impossible, as the Sun would block such a beam. Given time, Mercury would lap the Earth, but by then it wouldn’t matter to the Bangladesh. Venus was farther behind Mercury but not by as much as the Earth was ahead. Mars, in its much slower circuit around the Sun, was presently between Venus and Mercury in terms of line-of-sight arcs.
Admiral Rica Sioux studied the four planets and their relative positions because of General Hawthorne’s complex fleet maneuvering.
The Bangladesh, as it passed Mercury, had changed heading so that given time she would reach Mars. Meanwhile, three SU missileships from two very different locations sped up to match the beamship. They would all join a little beyond Venus’s orbital path. Two battleships, two cruisers and a missileship also built up speed to join them, but they wouldn’t link up until near the Earth’s orbital path.
Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon Page 20
