Battle Pod (Doom Star Book 3), page 10
“They might already have launched a missile.”
“The radar doesn’t show that,” Omi said.
“Sometimes warships release a drone, leaving it behind like a mine. If we see a sudden bloom of engine-burn we’ll know we’re in trouble. But the more likely explanation is that we’re a shuttle, so we’re nothing to them. Besides, maybe they believe that our radio is out. If they’re worried enough, they’ll try to capture us once we’re in near orbit.”
“Let’s head out to Jupiter,” Omi suggested.
Marten stared at the vidscreen, at the controls. He wished his ship were sized for men, not for Highborn. If he could move the pilot’s chair closer and raise it a little higher, that would be great.
Jupiter System, Marten nodded. Going there had been one of his thoughts, too. They had enough fuel to change headings, but hardly enough to increase their velocity to anything like the needed speed. That meant a trip to Jupiter would take several more years than it would have if he’d started for there originally. Marten had little desire to spend six years in this cramped shuttle alone with Omi.
“We need to refuel first,” Marten said.
“What do we use for currency?”
“Passage out of the war.”
Omi nodded. “How many people do you think you can pack into our shuttle?”
“A few rich ones would be best,” Marten said, “although I wish we could take more.”
“How do we keep Social Unity from firing on our shuttle? A single missile kills us. So all they have to do is tell us to stop or we’re dead.”
“Ideally, we need to modify the shuttle, attaching anti-missile pods.”
“We lack currency,” Omi said.
“I call that problem number one.”
“Would the Rebels be willing to part with war supplies?”
“That’s problem number two,” Marten said.
Omi stared out of the polarized window. “Does the shuttle have reflectors to bounce laser-fire?”
“Reflectors would make us easier to spot, and reflectors won’t bounce a military laser. But the short answer is no, our shuttle lacks reflectors. That would be our next purchase, a warfare pod filled with prismatic crystals.”
“What else do we need?” Omi asked.
“Luck,” Marten said.
The radio crackled, which startled Omi. Marten adjusted the controls, but there was too much static for the speakers. So, he put on headphones and listened carefully.
“Mars Defense is calling,” he soon told Omi. “They’re asking us to identify ourselves. I’d tell them, but then the SU ship might fire a missile as you’ve been suggesting.”
Marten tapped at the console as he studied the vidscreen and studied the satellites and habitats in near-Mars orbit. “It would be a shame to have escaped the Highborn, only to have the Martian Rebels kill us.”
“Can you send them a tight-beam message?”
Instead of answering, Marten slapped a switch. The engines cut out, bringing weightlessness to the Mayflower.
“We’re going to drift in faster and decelerate harder nearer the planet,” Marten explained. “We’ll have to take to the couches for that. Hopefully, that will make whoever is scanning and calling us think we’re damaged. That seems like the best way to buy us an arrival without any missiles.”
“Will Social Unity warships be in range by that time?” Omi asked.
Marten studied the headings. “Frankly, I’m surprised the SU warships and Rebel moons aren’t trading missiles or laser fire.”
“Do you know why not?”
“It must have something to do with this being a three-way situation. It’s not just the Rebels versus Social Unity. The Highborn change everything. Why fight if you don’t have to?”
“You said before that the Highborn helped the Rebels.”
“They did,” Marten said, “but that doesn’t make them friends.”
“It should make them allies.”
“Temporary allies,” Marten said. “The Rebels aren’t fools, and they probably have long memories. The Highborn crushed the Martian Rebels and the Jupiter Confederation Fleet back in 2339.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky, we can slip in and slip out before the shooting starts.”
Marten grinned. “Now you’re talking.” He pushed out of the pilot’s chair.
“Where are you headed?”
“All this thinking is making me edgy. I’m going to do some rowing. See you in an hour.”
Omi nodded and then continued to stare out of the heavily polarized window.
-6-
The cyborg battle pods traveled silently through the stellar void. Each pod had begun its journey almost a year ago in the Neptune System. Neptune was 30 times the distance from the Sun as Earth. The pods now decelerated much harder than anything a human could have survived. Each was an ultra-stealth pod, with a ceramic hull that gave the lowest sensor signature of any vessel in human space. Each pod was also crammed with the latest Onoshi ECM equipment and decoys.
All the pods were spherical and as black as night. Within all the pods but one lay a cyborg platoon in cryogenic stillness. The cyborg known as OD12 was in pod B3.
The designation OD12 referred to her lost humanity and machine code number. OD had once been Osadar Di, a female pilot with the perennial bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As the battle pods decelerated, an electrical impulse surged through OD12’s frozen body. At the same time, cryogenic heaters began the painful defrosting of the cyborg cargo.
OD12 awakened, but her mental faculties were kept offline. Instead, she was hooked into the Web-Mind. There, Osadar Di practiced a hundred combat evolutions. It was similar to a human playing intense hologames while wearing a virtual imaging suit. The difference was that her reflexes gained one hundred percent conditioning, as if she physically participated in each action. These Web-Mind combat drops, bunker assaults, storm attacks, and sniper targeting took place at an accelerated rate. She thus gained “years” of practice.
There was a glitch, however, in six out of every one hundred simulations. The Web-Mind noted this malfunction in OD12. Accepted anomalies were one tenth of a percent. Because of the extreme distance to the Master Web-Mind in the Neptune System, the Web-Mind in Toll Seven’s command pod initiated a phase two diagnostic.
In the simulator, OD12 bounded across a moon in the Saturn System. She wore a vacuum suit churning at full heat. She knelt in frozen ammonia, lifted her laser carbine, and hesitated instead of firing the two-kilometer distance to pick off the retreating battleoids. OD12 glanced around her and then scooped a handful of the orange ammonia in her gloved hand.
The diagnostic program froze the image. Then it confronted OD12’s personality.
Why did you hesitate?
“The expanse of orange snow struck me as beautiful. I had to feel it.”
Explain beauty.
“The sight filled me with longing, with pleasant memories.”
Describe these memories.
“…I’d rather not.”
Computer.
The computer connected with OD12’s brain clicked into life.
Administer level three pain sensations.
In battle pod B3, OD12’s online cyborg body jerked as she opened her mouth and metallically screamed.
A Web-Mind code caused the pain to cease, and OD12’s body was taken offline with the others.
Describe these memories.
“…why did you do that?”
In a nanosecond, the Web-Mind ran through a possibility of options, the primary of which was to delete OD12. It decided on option two instead, as the supply of cyborgs for this campaign was limited.
The Web-Mind resumed running OD12’s combat simulations until it came to another anomaly. This time, OD12 used a thruster pack as white particles of hydrogen spray propelled her toward a slowly rotating torus. Behind her followed the rest of the cyborgs in vacuum suits. They assaulted a Jupiter Confederation Habitat, with the vast gas giant beyond the torus.
OD12 twisted her head and looked back at the other suited cyborgs. Each used white particles of hydrogen spray. Each had breach bombs and rocket carbines. Each fixated on its targeted landing location. The only cyborg body movement was the occasional twitch of their fingers as they adjusted their flight paths to perfection. Only OD12 looked back. Only she saw the awesome spectacle of individual cyborgs “jetting” through cold space to the human habitat.
The Web-Mind froze the scene. It caused OD12’s dark visor to turn clear. Within the helmet, the solid black metallic-seeming eyes stared with infinite sadness as tears streamed down the plastic cheeks.
Why are you crying?
OD12 answered with a blunt profanity.
This time, the Web-Mind issued level seven pain sensations.
OD12 thrashed in the eerily dark battle pod. Beside her lay the perfectly motionless cyborgs, each mentally engaged in combat simulations. None of the other cyborgs had experienced more than one tenth of one percent anomalies.
Cyborgs do not cry. You were crying. Explain what caused emotions to override your programming.
“…I remembered how we tried to escape the alien.”
The answer confused the Web-Mind momentarily before it understood OD12 meant Toll Seven.
“We wanted to live.”
You are alive.
“Live, not just breathe.”
Computer.
The computer in OD12 awaited further instructions.
You will monitor your host’s emotions. If category two emotions are employed, you will initiate immediate shutdown procedures and pulse me a report of the situation.
The computer logged the order in its command override logic core.
You must suppress these emotive anomalies, OD12, if you wish to continue functioning. Noncompliance will result in your termination.
“I want to function.”
Then proceed within the guidelines.
“Affirmative.”
The Web-Mind wasn’t certain. It thought it might have detected sarcasm. It was impossible, however, for a slaved cyborg to exhibit sarcasm at a deeper level than the emotion sensors could detect. So, it marked the observation and sent a lightguide message to the Master Web-Mind in the Neptune System. Then it proceeded to link with Toll Seven as they continued to refine the subterfuge plan of the conquest of Inner Planets.
-7-
In the Mayflower, Marten and Omi braked hard for Deimos, Mars’ smallest and most distant moon. The radio crackled with strident messages from the Planetary Union Space Force. The messages had been ongoing for the past five hours. Red Mars had grown before them until the planet dominated the heavily polarized window.
“We are now targeting your shuttle with Laser Port Seven,” the radio crackled. There was a ping-ping from the controls as it alerted them of a radar lock-on.
Marten licked his lips, scooted forward, and reached up, pressing the comm button. “Mars Union, this is the free ship Mayflower requesting permission to dock.”
“Why haven’t you answered until now, Mayflower?”
“We’ve noticed the military situation and feared a missile attack from either you or Social Unity, depending on who we answered. So, we waited until we were too close to you for Social Unity to fire without causing an incident.”
“…Mayflower, your code registers as a Highborn vessel. Are you Highborn?”
“Negative, Mars Union. We are the free ship Mayflower.”
“Are you a Social Unity vessel, Mayflower?”
Marten glanced at Omi before he said, “Negative, we’re a free ship, requesting permission to dock, to buy fuel, and then to be on our way.”
“What is your ultimate destination, Mayflower?”
Marten hesitated before he said, “The Jupiter Confederation.”
“…where did you originate, Mayflower?”
“We request permission to dock and speak with the commanding officer of the Deimos Moon Station,” Marten said.
The radio fell silent.
Omi said, “We should have told them we were Highborn and demanded the fuel.”
“It would never have worked.”
“Mayflower,” the radio crackled. “You have permission to dock. Follow these coordinates…”
***
Marten slowly eased the shuttle against a docking module and then shut off the fusion engine. He soon heard the clank from a docking tube attaching to the outer airlock.
“Now it gets tricky,” Marten said. “Do you remember what to do?”
Omi nodded, and he slapped the sidearm attached to his belt.
Marten formally shook hands with Omi before entering the airlock. The inner hatch swished shut behind him. Marten recalled the struggled he’d had with Training Master Lycon in this very airlock. He recalled the reflection of Lycon’s eyes as they bulged, and the disbelieving look as he shot into space.
Eager to be out of the airlock, Marten squeezed through the outer hatch as it swished open. Because Deimos was smaller than many asteroids, it had a negligible mass. It was hardly different from weightlessness as Marten float-walked through the docking tube.
His skin tingled from his shower a half-hour ago. His clothes smelled clean, and nervousness boiled in his gut. He was about to face the big question. Omi and he had escaped Social Unity, and they had escaped the Highborn. Now he had to interact with people again, this time with the Martian Rebels. Would the Martians try to steal his shuttle? If so, he had to outwit the Deimos commander. Marten heaved a deep sigh. He had to keep his wits about him, and he had to be ready to act decisively.
In all the Inner Planets, there was probably no one else in his situation. Three governments struggled for existence. Everyone had to belong to one side or another. Now he and Omi were their own side, free agents who were much more common in the Outer Planets. He had to get fuel. He had to purchase warfare pods if he could. He had to keep the Mayflower out of the hands of desperate people.
Marten reached the hatch that led into the docking bay. The door opened, and Marten glided out of the tube to see three thin soldiers with drawn weapons aimed at his chest. The pitted gun-barrels pointed at him looked dark and deadly, but the soldiers holding them seemed too slender to be military men. The fourth person was a woman, an officer by her shoulder boards. She was as thin as the others.
“I’m sorry for the guns, Mr. Kluge. But you must give us your weapon, and then come with us.”
Marten nodded curtly. This was why Omi had remained onboard. He’d expected this, but he’d hoped for something better. He had reentered the struggle for life.
“This way, Mr. Kluge,” the officer said.
***
A Martian Unionist with pinched features glared at Marten. The man was tall and slender, with a beak of a nose. He was also pale, his dark hair oiled into ringlets. Marten judged the man to be in his mid-forties.
The female officer remained in the office. It overlooked a hanger stacked with metal boxes, a shuttle under repair, and arc-welders flashing their blue glows as men fixed a multitude of articles. The office itself seemed more like a shed, with masses of equipment shoved into the corners and piled on top of each other. There was a vacuum pump, a magnetic lifter and a wrist communicator with a tiny flashing red light lying on the desk.
The Chief Unionist at the desk stood behind a vidscreen. He hadn’t offered Marten a chair, but in this almost nonexistent gravity, it didn’t matter.
“I demand that you declare who you’re spying for,” the Unionist said. “I would assume Social Unity. But you have a Highborn shuttle. This leaves me wondering.”
“How can you tell it’s a Highborn shuttle?” Marten asked.
The Chief Unionist drew himself straighter, which had seemed impossible. “You could have simply painted the Highborn symbols onto it. I understand. Why would a PHC officer do that, however?”
Marten glanced back at the Planetary Union military officer. She wasn’t taking chances and had a needler trained on him. It was smaller than the Gauss needlers used on Earth. Hers was compact, with a short, very thin barrel, and it was shiny, as if it was newly unpackaged. He hoped she knew how to use it and didn’t accidentally shoot him.
“Okay,” Marten said, “I’ll tell you what happened. But I suspect you won’t believe me.”
“Why bother lying?” the Chief Unionist asked.
“I haven’t said anything yet,” Marten said.
“I’m a university professor by occupation,” the Chief Unionist said. “Because I understand physics, they put me out here. They’re hoping I can perform a miracle and make Deimos useful again. My point, Mr. Kluge, is that my students always tell me I’m not going to believe something when they’re getting ready to lie.”
“Have it your way,” Marten said, and he shut his mouth.
“…well?” the Chief Unionist asked. “Let’s hear it.”
“I hate being called a liar,” Marten said.
The man raised his thin eyebrows. “A bit touchy, are we?”
“I think you’re the liar. I think you’re a sanitation scrubber, not some scholar.”
The man’s lips tightened. “Explain the situation then. How did you come to possess a Highborn shuttle?”
“I earned it,” Marten said. “I paid for it through my sweat and blood. It’s mine.”
“For the moment, you’re here in my office, Mr. Kluge. And my patience is wearing thin.”
“The Highborn used me,” Marten said. “They used my friends. We were shock troopers.”
“I never heard of them.”
“How about Free Earth Corps, you ever heard of them?”
“The Earth traitors who fight with the Highborn?” the Chief Unionist asked.
“You Mars Rebels helped the Highborn,” Marten said, knowing he was becoming too angry. But he couldn’t help it.
The Chief Unionist lightly placed his fingertips on the desk. “We are the Planetary Union, not the Rebels. We did what we had to in order to rid ourselves of Social Unity.”
Marten nodded curtly. “If you’d lived in Australian Sector when the Highborn conquered it, you’d realize that most Free Earth Corps volunteers joined at the point of a gun. I fought in the Japan Campaign. Afterward, the Highborn pinned medals on my friends and me. They called us heroes. Then they said they could use good soldiers like us. So they took us into space and retrained us into shock troopers. Our specialty was storming habitats or spaceships and taking control.”
