Doom Star: Book 06 - Star Fortress (6 page)

Behind him, the door swished open. Hawthorne turned his head. His eyes widened.

A nine-foot-tall super-soldier filled the entrance. The Highborn wore combat-armor, which was against their agreement. With a clang of magnetized boots, the Highborn walked into the chamber. Behind him, the door swished shut.

“Grand Admiral Cassius, I presume.”

The visor rotated open, and a wide face filled the helmet. The eyes with their oily film and the slash for a mouth, combined with the sharp planes of the face…Hawthorne understood Kluge’s objections better now.

“This is a pleasure,” the Highborn said.

Hawthorne tightened his slack muscles in order to suppress a shudder. The voice was inhumanly deep and rich with authority. This was a soldier born to command. He felt inadequate standing in the Highborn’s presence.

“I am Grand Admiral Cassius. You are James Hawthorne?”

Hawthorne nodded as the feeling of inadequacy grew. The sheer vibrancy of the Highborn awed him, the coiled intensity of the soldier…

“I am glad we can finally meet,” Hawthorne managed to say.

“You have come unarmed?”

“I have,” Hawthorne said.

“Excellent. I knew you were an honorable man. You have fought a good fight, preman. You held us at bay from Eurasia longer than I believed possible. It is the reason we are in this fix.”

“You wanted to speak about Admiral Sulla, I believe.”

Cassius checked a chronometer on his armored wrist. “We have little time, which is a pity. Never fear, Sulla’s days are numbered. He would eliminate you premen, a strategic piece of folly that I cannot allow. As a species, you are too needed in order to work the factories, at least until the cyborgs are destroyed.”

The direction of the conversation…it made Hawthorne sick. He had guessed wrong, it seemed. Marten Kluge had been right. He should have listened to the expert on Highborn. With a gentle shove, the Supreme Commander of Social Unity pushed himself off the ballistic glass toward Cassius.

“You understand what must happen,” Cassius said. “I see the knowledge in your eyes. With you gone, Social Unity will split into factions. In their fear of death and dishonor, the weaker factions will turn to us for help. Using that, I shall easily occupy Eurasia and Africa, completing my conquest of Earth.”

Hawthorne shuddered. The Highborn were killers. It was their genetic heritage.

“Even as you attempt to be brave, you show your fear,” Cassius said. “It is the great preman weakness.”

“What about my security team? You can’t hope to fight past them?”

“Thirty premen against three Highborn?” Cassius asked. “Bah. The odds are stacked in our favor. We cannot lose such an encounter.”

“With the cyborgs ready to destroy us,” Hawthorne said, “killing me is a mistake.”

“The cyborgs are the reason I
must
kill you. To defeat them, I need unity of command.”

“We’re already allied.”

“Loosely,” Cassius said. “I need obedience in order for my genius to flower. You made your greatest strategic error today in coming here. Otherwise, you fought brilliantly.”

“Are you armed?” Hawthorne asked.

“I have my hands,” Cassius said, lifting them. “They will be more than enough to twist your neck. For a preman, you fought better than anyone could have believed. However, I will take pleasure in this. My genetic imperative and greatness relentlessly leads me to the ultimate prize—victory!”

Hawthorne took a deep breath as he drifted near Cassius. The Supreme Commander raised his left arm and pointed his index finger at the Highborn’s face.

“Do not beg, preman, and do not preach to me concerning preman morals. Fight me and go down to death as a soldier should—struggle until the last breath leaves your pathetic frame.”

With his middle finger, Hawthorne pressed the pad embedded within the skin of his palm. He had undergone emergency surgery. The left index finger was a functional prosthesis. The tip of skin blew away as a dum-dum bullet fired from the finger mount.

Cassius might have shown surprise. It happened so quickly, however, that Hawthorne couldn’t tell if the Highborn knew what was happening. The dum-dum slug entered the Grand Admiral’s face under the right eye. As that occurred, the piece of mercury in the hollow part of the slug was flung against the lead. That caused the slug to fragment like a grenade as it entered the Highborn’s face. The slug exploded, instantly killing the soldier.

A hidden transmitter in the palm-pad trigger also alerted the security team outside. They were not ordinary humans, but bionic soldiers. This was another clear violation of the agreement they had made. The bionic soldiers attacked the three Highborn, who proved themselves marvelous fighters. Cassius’s three guards killed fourteen soldiers before they died, but die they did.

Afterward, the surviving members of the security team entered a pod and dropped for Earth. James Hawthorne strapped a propulsion pack to his shoulders, sealed his vacc-suit, entered a lock, waited until the chamber rotated into space and launched for the
Vladimir Lenin
.

***

Aboard the
Vladimir Lenin
, Commodore Blackstone stood at the command module as the chamber was bathed in red light. He watched the pod drop toward the heavy cloud cover. A tiny blip on the screen showed him Hawthorne’s position.

“Propulsion,” Blackstone said, “give me bearing seven mark ten. Put us between the
Julius Caesar
and the Supreme Commander.”

There was a lurch aboard the battleship as subsystems fractionally moved the multi-million-ton vessel.

How much time will they give us?
Blackstone asked himself. The answer came almost right away.

“Highborn weapons systems are hot,” Commissar Kursk said. She monitored the situation from her part of the module as she stood near him. “I think they know what happened to their Grand Admiral.”

Blackstone gripped the module’s sides. “Are they targeting us?”

“They’re not responding to our calls,” Kursk said.

Blackstone flinched as he watched the module’s screen. A laser on the
Julius Caesar
activated. It was a stab of brilliant light that caused the small vessel to wink out of existence, killing the bionic soldiers aboard. Then a floating, and up until this point, invisible stealth-missile appeared on the module’s screen. The missile’s exhaust brought it to glaring notice.

“Should I intercept?” Kursk asked. “The missile is heading for the station.”

“Leave it,” Blackstone said. “Let the Highborn think they’re getting revenge.”

“There’s a probability that an exploding fragment from the station will kill the Supreme Commander.”

“It’s a risk he’ll have to take,” Blackstone said.

He had received a communication from Hawthorne an hour ago. The orders had been sketchy, but Commissar Kursk had helped the Commodore fill in the gaps. Blackstone knew what he needed to do now. If the Doom Star targeted the
Vladimir Lenin
, they were all dead. It was madness fighting another warship at such close range, especially a warship with collapsium shielding. Collapsium was an incredible advantage.

“Sir,” Kursk said. “An officer on the
Julius Caesar
is hailing us.”

Blackstone tapped his screen, putting the picture onto his portion of the module. It showed an angry Highborn. They all looked alike to him, big and volatile. This one had a scar on his forehead that disappeared into his hairline. Had this Highborn
died
before?

“I am Tribune Vulpus. You will lower your particle-shielding or face an immediate attack.”

“I’m sorry to report that Supreme Commander James Hawthorne is dead and so is Grand Admiral Cassius,” Blackstone said. “I suggest we call an immediate ceasefire until we can figure out why this happened.”

“You have broken the truce and caused the death of the greatest Highborn ever,” Vulpus said. “The penalty is death.”

“I have not broken any truce,” Blackstone said, struggling for a calm voice. “You have already fired a laser, killing men, and you have activated a missile, destroying an orbital station. I ask that you refrain from further destruction.”

“Highborn always act with swift assurance,” the tribune said. “We are unstoppable. You will immediately surrender your ship to me, preman.”

“No sir, I will not,” Blackstone said.

“Then you will die.”

“Yes, you have the capacity to destroy my ship,” Blackstone said. “Or we can continue to work together under the terms of our agreement. United, we can destroy the cyborgs. Divided, we fall. The choice is yours, sir. Do you speak for all Highborn?”

Tribune Vulpus glanced at someone off-screen. When he faced Blackstone again, he said, “You have acted treacherously, preman. You must surrender immediately or face annihilation.”

“May I remind you, sir, that you are in range of our proton beams from Eurasia,” Blackstone said. “I am in command of a
Zhukov
-class Battleship. It will last long enough to allow our lasers and missiles to fire. Combined with the Earth’s proton beams, we can severely damage your ship. Maybe we can even destroy it. The destruction of the
Julius Caesar
, one third of your Doom Stars, will likely ensure a cyborg victory. Do you wish to risk that?”

“You treacherously killed the Grand Admiral.”

“You have monitored us throughout the proceedings,” Blackstone said. “We have done nothing of the kind. I think our two leaders killed each other. Now we’re both in disarray. Maybe now it is time for soldiers like us to forget our differences as we band together to destroy the cyborgs.”

Tribune Vulpus stared at Blackstone. Then he glanced off-screen again.

“The cyborgs are the greater enemy,” some unseen Highborn said.

Vulpus glared at Blackstone. “I will maintain the temporary truce. The commanders will decide our next course of action. You have been spared.”

The screen flickered off.

Blackstone sagged as he leaned against the module.

“The Supreme Commander has activated his thruster-pack again,” Kursk said, as she watched the monitor.

“Radio him—” Blackstone said.

“That would be a mistake,” Kursk said. “Until he’s aboard, we must maintain radio silence with him. Let’s hope he does the same. Otherwise, the
Julius Caesar
will open hostilities with us.”

Blackstone nodded. What a mess. He was beginning to wonder if he should have gone back to Mars instead of returning to Earth.

“It was a mistake our landing on Earth,” Marten whispered to Nadia.

They walked through the second level of New Baghdad, hoping to speak personally with a transportation minister. From above sunlamps poured heat and light on them. Communal buildings towered seven stories high and small shops sold coffee and biscuits, provided one showed his ration card to the worker.

The sidewalks were full of pedestrians wearing the new severe cut of jacket and slacks. Everyone looked undernourished. They weren’t as thin as Martians, but they were much too thin for people living in the capital of Social Unity. Most of the passing crowd glanced sidelong at Nadia and frowned at Marten.

He wore a gun and leather jacket, and there was something feral about Marten Kluge. The card-holding people of Social Unity must have sensed the difference, realizing that he wasn’t tame like them. He had bristly blond hair and gaunt cheeks, and there was something compelling about the way he held his shoulders. Nadia wore a cap, with long hair spilling out of it. Her slacks showed her trim figure and the cut of her blouse heightened the fullness of her breasts.

Behind them followed two peacekeepers in helmet and dark visor. The peacekeepers wore body-armor but lacked combat weapons. Shock-rods dangled from their belts.

“I wish they’d leave us alone,” Nadia said.

Marten glanced back and grunted. Hawthorne hadn’t returned from orbit. It made his—Marten’s—standing on Earth more problematic. He needed to get his space marines back, tell Omi to hurry here and then find passage back up to space to the patrol boats. He never should have let the marines go to Athens. His Jovians were crazy interested about ancient Greek ruins.

Marten scowled. He didn’t like the feel of the crowds. The two peacekeepers paced them. There was something going on. He—

“There he is!” a woman shouted.

Marten almost drew his gun, but he hesitated.

“You!” the woman shouted. She was hidden but nearby. “Push those people back. You, make sure to use zoom. I want close-ups of his face.”

Police whistles began to blast.

“What’s going on?” Nadia whispered.

Before Marten could answer, several dozen new peacekeepers in red riot-control uniforms stepped through the crowd. They wielded shock-rods as the weapons sizzled with electric power. People screamed, shoving and pushing one another to get away from the red-suited thugs.

“Stand back!” a peacekeeper shouted through his voice amplifier. “Make room for the Information Advisor.”

As the red-uniformed peacekeepers drove the crowd apart, a woman with glossy lips and a stylish pantsuit approached Marten and Nadia.