Battle Pod ds-3

by Vaughn Heppner

  August 10

  From the Praetor:

  I have two questions, Grand Admiral. When will you order the breakout? We sicken and die at this miserable post beside the Sun. I have read your memorandum and seen the tactical displays you broadcast. Three Doom Stars accelerate at a leisurely pace for Mars. We groan here. We suffer intensely while the rest of you float in lazy serenity. That is intolerable.

  My second question is this: do you deliberately conceal the use of the Thutmosis III? Do you deliberately attempt to conceal our glory? We die here in order to achieve massive victory for the Highborn. It is only right that you broadcast our role. This is insufferable, Grand Admiral. If I did not know you better, I would consider this treachery against a possible rival for high command.

  August 10

  From the Grand Admiral:

  My dear Praetor, your paranoid ranting shows me that you and your gallant crew are under fierce stress. A lesser Highborn could not have endured what you have. I endure these slurs against my character out of sympathy for your plight and for your willingness to have put yourself in harm’s way for the good of our united greatness.

  I have kept your role secret out of dire need. Social Unity spies are clever and numerous. Premen nature dictates their slyness. Spies are sly. Therefore, they excel at the nefarious game.

  Rest assured that my records and diary have within a constant stream of wonderment regarding your suffering.

  Let me add this, and I hope its importance sinks in, Praetor. A surprise always has greater effect when it is sprung suddenly and completely. That few know about your hazardous duty and the deadliness of the Thutmosis III will only help them remember your deeds when they suddenly appear. It will galvanize the Highborn. Your name will sprout from every lip. Highborn will ask questions, wanting to know more about you.

  I applaud you, Praetor. Please, keep your paranoia in check a few more hours. Then I shall order the breakout. Then you will fly for Mars at terrific velocity and inflict in the next few weeks, punishing, even horrific damage to the enemy.

  All Hail the Praetor!

  August 11

  From the Praetor:

  We sicken and die and you spout platitudes. Order us out now. End this bitter existence.

  Let me also add this: I have recorded our conversations and will hold you to every golden promise.

  August 11

  From the Grand Admiral:

  I have glorious news, my dearest Praetor. Begin breakout procedure now and head for a flyby of Mars.

  I, too, have recorded these messages and I, too, will gladly play them for all to see what noble deeds you have preformed. From every Highborn everywhere, I wish you the greatest luck. Kill the enemy, Praetor, and win the laurels you so richly deserve.

  -3-

  Several weeks after the victory of the SU verses the Rebels in near-Mars orbit, Commodore Blackstone yearned to rub his tired eyes. He floated at the end of a docking tube. He wore a vacc-suit as a precaution, with a bubble helmet. He had just completed a whirlwind tour of Deimos, Phobos and each of the major warships of the Battlefleet. A bit of good luck had occurred as another straggling battleship had joined them a week ago, replacing the lost Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately, the straggling ship was in a terrible state of repair.

  He now had eleven battlewagons of the Zhukov-class, big ships with immense firepower and the heaviest particle-shields of any known spacecraft, including Doom Stars. Until the construction of the first Doom Star, the Zhukov-class battlewagon had been the largest and deadliest spacecraft in the Solar System. Once, there had been many more than a mere eleven of them. The First Battle of Deep Mars Orbit in 2337 against the Mars Planetary Union and the Jupiter Confederation had seen the death of too many SU battleships. Twelve years later at the beginning of what had originally been known as the Highborn Rebellion had seen the worst slaughter of battleships. Then the Doom Stars had turned on fellow fleet vessels, destroying them before fleet personnel knew they were in a war to the death.

  Blackstone shook his head. Past glories were best forgotten. Eleven Zhukov-class battleships was still a powerful concentration of fleet units. They were the heart of his Battlefleet. En masse and while their particle-shields held, they could dare match Doom Stars in a slugfest. To complement the battlewagons, he had nine missile-ships. Each of them was equally as large as a battleship. But missile-ships by nature were raiding vessels, not stand-up spacecraft to smash through the guts of an enemy fleet. Heavy lasers beamed at the speed of light, approximately 300,000 kilometers per second. Missiles and drones traveled at a tiny fraction of that speed. Thus, a missile-ship usually launched drones and missiles and then hurried elsewhere, monitoring the battle from a safe distance.

  The Highborn had been particularly adept at luring the remaining SU missile-ships into traps and obliterating them. It was the reason the Battlefleet only had nine.

  The ECM vessels, the troop transports, the orbital launch ships, the minelayers, the stealth ships and the recon vessels and probes added another twenty-eight spacecraft to the Battlefleet. Hawthorne’s Earth convoy added another forty-nine. Each of the transports became decoy vessels as the supplies in their cargo-holds poured into the warships and onto the two moons.

  Within his bubble helmet, Commodore Blackstone grinned tightly. Phobos and Deimos were going to be the first grim surprise for the Highborn. General Fromm’s people worked overtime, massing the moons with point-defense emplacements, merculite missiles and repairing every heavy-laser cannon. There were also extra laser cannons being added, a new one every three days.

  These past weeks since the victory over Martian space defenses, General Fromm’s people had swarmed the moons. Social Unity lacked Doom Stars. Yet as big as a Doom Star was, even two tiny moons like Phobos and Deimos dwarfed them. Fromm’s sweating and harried technicians slept three hours a cycle. They were hyped with stimulant so they worked like automatons. Unfortunately, the moons had precise and known orbits, which weakened their combat uses. But they had much greater mass then the Doom Stars and could theoretically absorb much more punishment. If given enough time, they would become bristling fortresses.

  From his original plan, Supreme Commander Hawthorne’s meant to use the moons to break the Doom Stars. Blackstone would cluster the Battlefleet around the fortress moons. If the Doom Stars went after the Battlefleet first, the moons would pound the enemy craft. If the Doom Stars tried to take out the moons first, the Battlefleet would maneuver and overwhelm each Doom Star one at a time.

  Within his bubble helmet, Commodore Blackstone’s grin slipped. The problem with the grand plan was it required time to set up.

  The Highborn likely had communication with the Mars Rebels. The past few weeks had surely proven that. As the Battlefleet had mopped up Martian space resistance, it was now known that the gargantuan warships had circled the Earth many times, building up velocity. Even as the drop-troops and cyborgs had captured Olympus Mons, three Doom Stars had broken out of Earth’s orbit and accelerated toward the Red Planet.

  Radar and teleoptic scopes had discovered that the Doom Stars no longer accelerated, but used their velocity to travel the 100-million kilometers between Mars and Earth that presently separated the two. The enemy had traveled three weeks and at present speeds could pass Mars in a flyby in four more weeks. It was more than possible, however, that the Highborn planned to decelerate hard to match orbits with Mars. In that case, the Highborn million-kilometer ranged lasers would need another four and a half weeks before they could reach the SU space defenses.

  Blackstone thought carefully. If the Highborn planned a flyby, wouldn’t the Doom Stars continue to accelerate to reach here even faster? A flyby seemed unlikely, however, for the simple reason that it would take the Highborn much too long to decelerate later and head back for Mars or for Earth. If the Doom Stars sped past the Red Planet in a flyby, it might behoove Social Unity to stab with every spaceship it had for Earth and drive off whatever Doom Star defended the mother planet
.

  Blackstone’s gloved fingers twitched with his impatience for the hatch to pressurize.

  Would the Highborn begin to decelerate soon? Would it be four weeks or four and a half weeks until the battle started? This battle would likely decide the fate of the Solar System. Would it be a slugfest as Supreme Commander Hawthorne and Toll Seven envisioned, or would the Highborn attempt something completely different that would confound everyone?

  Blackstone chewed the inside of his cheek. Three Doom Stars filled with Highborn—even with two bristling moons and nearly four-fifths of the remaining SU war-fleet at his disposal, and with a planetary proton beam—

  They had to get the proton beam online! That beam was amazingly deadly. The brutal and astonishingly quick death of the Ho Chi Minh had proved the planetary proton-beam’s worth.

  Eleven battlewagons, two fortress moons, a massive support fleet and sundry other vessels could still lose to three Doom Stars. That’s what made the proton beam so important. Yet they could only use it at near orbit. Its range was so pathetically short in space combat terms. That’s why they would need Toll Seven’s battle pods and stealth packs. Their planned use was a revolutionary tactic, and the cyborgs were perhaps the only troops able to pull it off.

  Blackstone shook his head. Much depended on the Highborn. Would they use their long-range lasers and slowly devour everything in Mars orbit? At present, Social Unity lacked a million-kilometer weapon. Therefore, the Doom Stars standing off seemed like the wisest enemy strategy. It seemed like it at first blush, but it wasn’t. The Earth convoy fleet had brought enough prismatic crystals to absorb extended laser fire, and the plants on Mars churned out more and more defensive crystals. If the Highborn remained at long laser range, it would give them extra time to fix the moons and bring online their own million-kilometer ranged lasers.

  The Highborn were impossibly clever concerning tactics and strategy. That meant the three Doom Stars might bore into close orbit, using prismatic crystals and aerosol-gel screens to shield them. Three Doom Stars massed together, all pouring laser fire at one target at a time, chewing through everything fast and annihilating ship after ship—

  Sweat prickled Blackstone’s face. He hoped Supreme Commander Hawthorne knew what he was doing. Was this all simply a mad gamble? Were the Highborn invincible? It made Blackstone’s stomach churn just thinking about it.

  Commodore Blackstone finally heard hisses from the other side of the hatch. A green light flashed. With a gloved hand, he touched the switch. The hatch opened and he climbed through into a pressure chamber with his security detail following. They waited, and soon the inner hatch slid open. Blackstone led the way into a larger chamber with vacc-suit racks and emergency breathing masks dangling from hooks.

  He noticed Commissar Kursk. She stood with her arms crossed and as she tapped the toe of her jackbooted foot.

  As Blackstone unclasped his helmet, he wondered idly what it would be like to pull off her cap and muss up her hair. Then he would grab her face and force a passionate kiss on her. It was the least he could do before he died in battle. A man deserved a woman before he risked his life for victory.

  “Ah, breathable air,” Blackstone said. He pitched the helmet to one of his security detail. Then he rubbed his eyes. That felt so good. He was so tired. His ex-wife used to rub his shoulders at times like this. Would Commissar Kursk consent to rub his shoulders?

  “Where have you been?” she snapped. She sounded angrier than usual. Now that he looked, he noticed she glowered.

  Blackstone sighed. He needed a nap, not an angry PHC Commissar. “Will you walk me to my quarters?” he asked.

  “I need to speak to you now.”

  “This is hardly the place. I’m tired. I’ve been shuttling back and forth for the past four days and now I need—”

  “Did you grant Toll Seven the use of Olympus Mons for his continued interrogations?” Kursk asked.

  Blackstone stared at her. Why did it always have to be about Toll Seven? Irritated, he shrugged.

  “The proton beam is a primary weapon,” Kursk said. “Now you’ve installed the cyborgs there and have effectively given them control of it. What if the cyborgs decide to blackmail us at the critical moment?”

  Blackstone became cross. “We are all part of Social Unity. That’s why they won’t. They need us.” He wondered if that was true. Did the cyborgs need anybody? “I desperately need a nap, Commissar. I’m exhausted. So what I’m going to do now—”

  “If you’re wise, you’ll head straight to Olympus Mons with a regiment of drop-troops,” she said.

  Couldn’t she even let him finish a sentence? “I’m not drop trained,” he said tonelessly.

  “Use fast shuttles,” she said.

  Blackstone glanced at his security chief. The man stonily stared into space. Blackstone rubbed his neck. He hated these vacc-suits. He hated living in a battleship for months on end. Three weeks ago, they had won a brisk battle and now three Doom Stars headed for Mars. He didn’t have time for the commissar’s imaginary worries.

  “I’m taking a nap,” he said. “Write a report if you think it’s so important.”

  She took a step closer, and now worry replaced her anger. “Toll Seven has become too secretive. He’s doing something down there that—”

  “Did you send operatives to Olympus Mons? I know you were talking about it.”

  “…I did.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  Commissar Kursk licked her lips.

  Blackstone found it stimulating. He wished she would do that under more pleasing circumstances. Perhaps it was time to arrange that.

  “My operatives have reported that everything is well,” she said.

  A dull headache throbbed into existence so Blackstone rubbed his eyes again. Kursk was unhinged concerning the cyborgs. He hated them, too. But the Battlefleet had to use what fate had given them. He attempted a smile as he said, “Don’t tell me you think Toll Seven has suborned your best operatives.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t think that,” she said, “But I do. Their reports… there was something odd about them that I can’t quite decipher.”

  “Do you want to go down to Mars yourself?” he asked.

  Fear put lines on her face. Blackstone wondered about her age, if she was older than he suspected.

  “…I’d only go down with a full regiment of your best combat troops,” she said.

  Commodore Blackstone raised his eyebrows. “The cyborgs are our best hope for victory against the Highborn. So I hardly think that now is the time to anger Toll Seven. I’m going to take a nap. Once I’m awake, talk to me again. Until then, I can’t even think straight.”

  Blackstone floated past her, and the security detail followed. He heard her garments rustle as she turned, probably to watch him. He felt her eyes on him and wished it were her hands running over his skin. He grinned. It felt good to have put her in her place. Maybe he needed to do it more often.

  * * *

  Down on Mars within Olympus Mons, Toll Seven oversaw the secret installation of a mass cyborg-converter. Most of the equipment had come down the past weeks in heavy orbital shuttles under General Fromm’s command. During the massive shuttle flights between the warships and the cargo-carrying vessels from Earth, the converter equipment had been carefully ferried from several battle pods and to the Alger Hiss. The entirety of that crew was finally jacked into Web-Mind. Their chaotic minds had been systematically reprogrammed to the extent free bio-forms could retain such programming.

  Toll Seven paced along the length of the converter. It was in a vast garage, deep inside the volcano, near the bottom. Heaters labored to raise the temperature to an even 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Conversion demanded a warm environment. Cyborgs worked like ants over the garage-sized machine, using drills, sonic screwdrivers, laser-welders and micro computing-cubes. It created a bedlam of electronic whirls, air-compressor hisses, clacks and metallic clangs.

  Toll Seven had already rerouted the
magnetic lifts that led to this garage. No one could enter the area without a complex code-sequence given at cyborg speeds.

  The working cyborgs never looked up to watch him or each other. Each was controlled by preprogramming inserted by Web-Mind. They moved fast and with cyborg precision, and still this was taking too long.

  Toll Seven used a visual-imaging handscanner, checking the calibration of delicate machinery. He needed more cyborgs, and he needed them now. Drop assaulting the volcano had damaged far too many prime units. He hadn’t even recovered all of them yet. OD12 was still missing and so was KR3. Reviewing Web-Mind, he suspected that KR3 might have committed self-destruction. It was irritating to realize, but such anomalies happened.

  Toll Seven used inner nanonics to dump chemicals into his brain’s irritation centers. The bio-chemicals struggled to dampen his unhappiness. He needed clean concentration more than ever. The great enemy came: the Highborn, the genetic super-soldiers. They moved three of the hated Doom Stars toward Mars. The giant spacecraft were the ultimate in warship design and construction. Web-Mind had calculated for two, but had accepted the possibility of three.

  This was the delicate moment. Web-Mind still needed Social Unity, or more precisely, Social Unity’s fleet. It wasn’t possible to suborn the rest of the Battlefleet in time. The Highborn came on too quickly and he hadn’t brought enough neck-jacks nor set up a facility yet to make new ones. It would have been so much easier if they could have reached the Earth System and landed amongst the Homo sapiens. With PHC eager for help, it would have been simplicity to set up a processing center in one of the vast cities. In several months, hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of cyborgs could have emerged from that city and swarmed the Eden planet.

  This was the critical juncture. He had a foothold on Mars, but he lacked a large populace to convert. He would have to visit the Olympus Mons prisoners again and weed out the culls, those too damaged to convert. Once the Highborn threat had been dealt with, however, then it would be time to assist Social Unity re-conquering the Martian underground cities. Web-Mind would choose a city and begin turning the masses into cyborgs.