Planet Wrecker ds-5

by Vaughn Heppner

  Why was it always so hard to breathe at times like this? Marten drew his gyroc, wishing his hand would steady out. Then he changed his mind, holstered the gyroc and took out his slugthrower.

  “Ready?” he asked over his com-unit.

  The many clicks in his headphones told him the answer.

  He floated to the airlock. Twenty men at a time could fit in this one, a bulk loading lock.

  “Come on,” he said quietly, typing in the entrance code. To his relief, the big door rotated open. He floated in and so did the marines behind him. Soon, the door rotated closed. When it clanged, the airlock’s speakers burst into life.

  “Marten Kluge?” they said.

  “Yeah?” asked Marten. He wondered why the man’s voice sounded familiar.

  “Did the Sub-Strategist give you any messages for me?”

  Was this a trick question?

  Marten’s air-conditioner unit began to blow cool air over his prickly skin as his gut knotted. Had he just led his men into a trap?

  “Must I repeat the question?” the man asked.

  Marten remembered the voice now. It was Arbiter Neon from the dreadnaught.

  “No messages,” Marten said, liking this less than ever.

  “Ah, I see,” said the unseen Neon. “Then I am most sorry to inform you that you will be under arrest when the airlock opens.”

  Marten glanced back at the space marines packed behind him. He saw the mirrored visors in their helmets and suited men gripping their weapons more tightly. This had to be a trap.

  “Why am I to be arrested?” asked Marten, who added a whine to his voice.

  “Ah, you are not so arrogant now, are you, barbarian?” Neon said.

  The big airlock swished open. Three myrmidons moved forward with stunners and a pair of sonic-manacles. A sneering, white-haired Arbiter Neon stood behind them. His eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Lay on the floor now!” shouted Marten, his vacc-suit’s speakers at full volume.

  “Y-you,” Neon stammered.

  The myrmidons’ hesitation lasted only a second longer. Then they charged, and they died. Arbiter Neon attempted flight and fared no better as a dum-dum bullet blew open his back.

  Marten felt sick gunning down a running man. But this wasn’t a game. If Neon had escaped—

  In the centrifugal-gravity, the space marines trampled past the dead arbiter and the blood splashed on the walls. Marten never halted to mourn. He raced at the head of his commandoes. They had to secure the liner and get the needed supplies to his ship now. He hoped Osadar and Omi’s team had been similarly successful. One way or another, he’d find out soon enough.

  -27-

  A miracle occurred. Marten said it was due to their boldness. After capturing the liner, forty-nine hours passed before anyone else learned what they had done.

  Living on stims for the next forty-nine hours, allowed Marten and his crew to ferry the needed supplies to the meteor-ship which he had renamed, the Spartacus. As a youth, he’d heard an ancient legend about a man by that name. The gladiator-hero had fascinated him. Sometimes, he saw himself as Spartacus, a lone man trying to fight an oppressive system.

  The end of the forty-nine hours found Marten in the command center. He sat in his chair, wired, wide-eyed and exhausted. The Spartacus was under one-G acceleration, heading away from Callisto and toward distant Mars. First, they would have to leave the Jovian System. Marten knew that might be the most difficult item on the agenda.

  “There is an incoming signal,” Nadia said from her cubicle. “It’s a priority one, with a Seneca clearance.”

  Marten had been waiting for this. It was the Chief Strategist.

  “Put it on the main screen,” Marten said. He sat back as Nadia complied, and he knuckled his eyes. There was no use asking for a cup of coffee or taking another stim-shot. As it was, he was too wired.

  Tan appeared on the large screen on the wall. She was composed, as her dark eyes peered hard into his. Behind her were several paintings. She wore a stylish red jacket with a large collar. Serene music played in the background. Marten found it irritating.

  “I have read a disturbing report concerning you, Force-Leader,” Tan said.

  Marten waited. Because of the stims, he wanted to laugh and taunt her. His face felt hot, too. He wanted to dig his fingernails against his skin, but resisted the impulse.

  This was the delicate moment he’d been dreading. He wondered if it wouldn’t have been wiser to rest while the others loaded the Spartacus. It wasn’t just about him now, or him, Omi and Nadia. This was about his crew. No. This was about the Solar System, and ridding it of the greatest menace mankind had ever faced.

  “Do I have your attention, Force-Leader?”

  “Fully,” he said.

  Tan glanced at something just out of sight down by her hands. Her manner hardened as she looked up. “You killed Arbiter Neon and his myrmidons. According to what I have read, you killed Sub-Strategist Circe and her myrmidons.”

  “Circe is alive,” Marten said.

  “Yes, her body lingers in a bestial state,” said Tan. “But her mind is gone. You as good as killed her.”

  “Respectfully, Chief Strategist, you’re the one who sent her to my ship. What orders did you give that she would attempt such heinous acts?”

  Tan’s lips became thinner. “I order you to return to Ganymede. There, we shall finish this conversation.”

  “I am obeying your original orders,” Marten said, “and heading to Mars.”

  “No,” said Tan. “I will no longer abide your foolish antics. I hereby relieve you of command. Those of you who hear my voice, and are still loyal, arrest him.”

  No one moved.

  “We are the Jovian warship Spartacus,” Marten said, who despite his best efforts, grinned at Tan. “I am in command here. My mission is to unite humanity against the cyborgs. Among my crew are people from Mercury, Earth and the Jupiter System. Some here have also fought the cyborgs at Mars.”

  “I’m not interested in your dogmatic cant,” said Tan. “You will relinquish your command or I will have Zeno missiles fired at your ship.”

  “That is illogical,” said Marten.

  Tan laughed. It was a short, sharp sound. “You are unhinged, barbarian. Your attempts to ape civilized behavior fools none of your crew. It certainly doesn’t fool me. By killing an arbiter, a sub-strategist and willfully destroying myrmidons, you have shown yourself a destructive beast and a chaosist.”

  Marten leaned forward in his chair. “Listen to me, Tan. Build your Dictates, your philosophic paradise. Run rings around the controllers of Ganymede and Europa and the Helium-3 Barons.”

  “Are you attempting a dialogue?”

  “I’m talking sense,” Marten said. “I have a warship heading to Mars. I will follow your directions when they’re in the greater good of humanity against the cyborgs.”

  “You’re no philosopher to be able to judge so finely.”

  “You have a choice,” Marten said. “No. I take that back. You don’t have a choice. You’re too smart, too cagey not to really see what’s going on. Okay. Through proxies, you tried to take back this ship. You failed to do it. But what have you really lost?”

  “You’re a madman, a killer and—”

  “Yes!” Marten said. “I’m a killer.” He was still feeling guilty about shooting Neon in the back. “A killer is the best kind of human to send at the cyborgs.”

  “You’re not heading to Neptune.”

  “Not yet,” Marten said. “First, we have to stop them.”

  “You now claim to know the cyborgs’ next strategic goal?” Tan asked.

  Marten took a deep breath. “I am the Force-Leader of the Jovian warship Spartacus. This ship is headed to Mars to help Social Unity. Do you really want to destroy one of mankind’s few warships?”

  Tan stared at him for several seconds. Finally, she sighed. “You know that I do not.”

  “I didn’t want to kill Neon, but he
tried to run,” Marten said. “It was either kill him or fail in the greater task. The myrmidons…I don’t think they know how to surrender.”

  “You are correct. It is not coded in their genes.”

  “Circe took—”

  Tan interrupted. “I am not curious about her. You left her aboard the liner, and I have read the report. She pleads now to be allowed to join you. She fiercely wishes to help.” The Chief Strategist slowly shook her head. “You are an enigma, Marten Kluge.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “For all your barbarism, you are strangely logical at times. You will adhere to my commands?”

  “In the common good, yes,” Marten said.

  “That is an equivocal answer. But I accept it. After all, you killed the cyborg in my quarters. You also successfully…well, never mind now. Go to Mars, and let us see if you can forge an alliance with Social Unity and the Planetary Union.”

  “I will send you weekly reports,” Marten said. “I would also like to know the next reported sighting of cyborgs.”

  “Never fear,” said Tan. “We are searching the void for them. But so far, their agenda has remained hidden to us.”

  -28-

  As the meteor-ship Spartacus crossed the emptiness between Jupiter and Mars, Supreme Commander Hawthorne continued his desperate war. He refused to relent against Political Harmony Corps or the Party, as he tightened his grip on Social Unity.

  He became leaner, and his shoulders took on a stooped bent. Bags developed under his eyes. A week after he declared North America conquered by the Highborn, a stubborn discoloration entered and remained under his hollowed-out eyes.

  There were pockets of resistance in North America, but all reports indicated a major redeployment of the best FEC formations.

  Then the Starvation Riots changed in nature and intensity. Underground PHC people joined in several, and nine cities erupted in outright rebellion. The worst offenders were in the Greater Syrian Sector. Aleppo, Beirut and Damascus declared themselves independent soviets.

  “It’s only a matter of time before they call in the Highborn,” Hawthorne told his war council. They met in an underground bunker outside of New Baghdad, with harsh lights overhead.

  The hard-eyed field marshals and generals around the conference table waited for his next words. These were his best commanders, culled from every failed front. Two had been snatched out of North America in near-suicide flights. They had shown themselves bitter defenders. Each had personally drawn his or her sidearm on more than one occasion and summarily shot defeatists and disloyalists. There was no surrender with officers like these.

  “The three rebelling soviets are an infestation of defeat,” said Hawthorne. “They are a cancer in the body politic. If they are allowed to mature, their poison could quickly spread to others and then I foresee chaos of the worst kind. No. I will not allow that to occur. We must quash these so-called independent soviets, and do it quickly and decisively.”

  “I recommend a thermonuclear solution, sir.” The speaker was Field Marshal Baines, formerly in charge of the North American Front. “It’s what I’d wish I’d done to Montreal. Three fusion weapons will decapitate the rebellion.”

  “How will you reestablish control of the cities after that?” Hawthorne asked.

  The squat field marshal shook his bald head. “Respectfully sir, there will be no reestablishment of control. You kill rebels. Hit with surface thermonuclear strikes and then use city-busters. The special missile burrows deep before exploding, ensuring massive destruction. We’ve been developing the idea for use against strategic Highborn cities.”

  “You mean captured Earth cities?” asked Hawthorne.

  “Yes sir, the Free Earth Corps traitors.”

  “But these aren’t FEC-controlled cities,” said Hawthorne. “They’re in the Greater Syrian Sector, in the heart of Social Unity.”

  Field Marshal Baines pointed a blunt index finger with his thumb cocked at a ninety-degree angle, as if he was a boy with a make-believe gun. “When I found a defeatist or a coward among my soldiers—” The Field Marshal’s gun-hand moved upward as if from recoil. “I killed the offender. It cost me a soldier, but it instilled resolve in the others. It let them know what was in store for anyone who failed in his or her duty. As you pointed out, we can’t let this rebellion infest others. Burn them out fast. Drop fusion weapons, and use city-busters on each.”

  Hawthorne rubbed his eyes. It was a brutal proposal, but it would solve the problem. For a second, he considered it. They had no time for niceties. Their backs were to the wall and this could dissolve the iron in the planet-wide resistance. Then he shook his head. Would he turn on the people? He needed horror. That was true, something to shock and dismay. What kind of—ah, maybe there was another way to dismay these rebels.

  “We will strike with speed,” Hawthorne said, “but with cybertanks instead of thermonuclear weapons. I’ve read reports that people run away in terror when they hear the approaching treads of cybertanks.”

  There was a rustle of uniforms as the field marshals and generals shifted in their seats.

  “Yes,” Hawthorne said. “I understand your unease. Bringing the cybertanks up out of the cities and onto the surface is a risk. The Highborn might have secretly ringed new laser satellites around us. Those lasers could burn out the tanks. General Manteuffel, you have a comment?”

  “Cybertanks are a strategic asset instead of just another tactical battlefield weapon, sir,” said Manteuffel, a small, athletic man. He had once helped Hawthorne defeat a cybertank in New Baghdad, allowing the Supreme Commander access to the then ruling Director.

  “I’m aware of that,” said Hawthorne. “I helped change their designation several years back. I’m willing to gamble, however. I don’t believe the Highborn will risk revealing hidden laser emplacements—given they even exist—for the destruction of several squadrons of cybertanks.”

  “Several squadrons, sir?” asked General Manteuffel.

  “I fully appreciate your concern,” Hawthorne said. “The cybertanks are potent battlefield weapons of massive capability. In the end, they may be too massive, too potent and too concentrated in destructive ability. They’ll draw the enemy’s strategic elements onto them. Yet of what use are these strategic weapons if we never use them? No. This is a strategic moment of critical necessity. We must engage the cybertanks.”

  Hawthorne scanned the frowning field marshals and generals. “I am reminded of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at Borodino,” he said. “The Emperor of France had invaded Russia. For weeks on end, Napoleon had attempted to catch the main Russian field army and destroy it. Each time he lured them into a trap, they slipped away. Finally, deep in Russia on the road to Moscow, the Russians made a stand at Borodino. There the Russians and French fought a terrible battle. And in the battle came a critical moment. Napoleon’s generals begged him to send in the Old Guard. They were his elite soldiers, the bravest veterans in one large formation. Yet they had become a strategic asset to Napoleon, his one trustworthy formation. In the depths of Russia, he feared sending them into battle. He feared that they might take staggering losses and thus he would find himself in the heart of the enemy homeland without a reliable formation left. His very person might become exposed then. So at the Battlefield of Borodino at the critical moment, he held onto the Old Guard. Despite his begging generals who saw the opportunity, Napoleon kept the Old Guard in reserve. He won the battle, but at great cost in French blood. And the surviving Russians escaped in good order. If he had used the strategic asset, he likely would have swept the Russians and won the Campaign of 1812. And he would have likely remained emperor until his death.”

  Silence filled the war-room. Many of the field marshals and generals looked down at their hands. In the back, a woman stirred, a slim woman in a black jacket and who wore dark sunglasses.

  “May I interject a thought, sir?” asked the woman, Security Specialist Cone.

  “I require honesty,” said Hawth
orne.

  “The cybertanks are your best security units,” said Cone. “The people dread them. I’ve also worked with General Manteuffel and know he’s spent many sleepless nights maneuvering the various cybertanks to the needed locations.”

  “We situate the tanks with care,” Manteuffel said, nodding deferentially to Hawthorne.

  Cone’s expression never changed. “Many of the cities seethe with unrest. My security teams…the air in many of the cities is charged with explosive tension. I am not a military expert, but I’m certain the removal of cybertanks in certain metropolitan areas could allow the ignition of new rebellions. I’m concerned and wonder from which cities will you take the tanks?”

  “That’s an interesting question,” said Hawthorne. “Which cities do you suggest?”

  With an economical move of her right hand, Cone swept dark hair from her forehead. “If I may be blunt, from none of them, sir.”

  Hawthorne felt the pressure build behind his eyes as he grudgingly accepted Cone’s analysis. Yes, he saw the argument and realized its truthfulness. Social Unity was like a balloon squeezed too hard. Soon it had to pop. If it did, mass chaos would grip Eurasia and Africa. The Highborn could walk in as occupation troops. Mankind would forever live as secondary citizens to the Master Race.

  The pressure became physically painful so Hawthorne began to nod slowly. “It is a bitter task defending the indefensible. But we will not stop as long as there is breath in our bodies.”

  He closed his eyes. He was so weary. Worse, he knew that his words just now had sounded pompous. What led dictators to utter such phrases? Hmm. Is this what the Shah of Iran had felt like before he fled from the Ayatollah Khomeini and the chanting mobs? Where could he run? The Shah had died soon after running. Standing and dying seemed infinitely preferable to running and dying like a coward.