Warworld: The Lidless Eye (16 page)

Orbital fighters
, he thought again, and laughed, shaking his head.
Well,
almost
anything
.

“The designation of the
Fomoria
now reads as the ‘
Dol Guldur
,’ First Rank. Markings match those applied to the outer skin of the supraorbital and atmospheric fighters as well as Full Battlesuits. All uniforms now bear the patch with the insignia and trappings described in my report.”

Second Rank Althene next showed Diettinger vids of the units mentioned. In particular, the flarings, added to the Battlesuits, rendered them unrecognizable as Sauron issue. The plain grey uniform tunics of the rankers and those of the troopers now carried extraneous decorations to aid in the deception. All bore the insignia Second Rank had provided—a lidless eye, wreathed in flames.

Diettinger smiled thinly at the identical insignia he now wore over his own left breast pocket. “Suitably sinister,” he said. “Very good work, Second.”

Althene inclined her head at the compliment. Such praise was rare
in Sauron society, and Diettinger’s carried more warmth than he had intended.

“I read those fragments, by the way, Second.” Diettinger changed the subject. “I fail to appreciate the irony in some mythical dark god of terror and oppression bearing the same name as our people.”

Second Rank frowned. “That was not the irony I was referring to, First Rank.”

“Indeed? Clarify.”

“It isn’t that the myth matches us; it’s the other way around. The
Fomoria
was named for a race of mythical demonic conquerors from the seas of Old Earth, who engaged in a war of extermination against the land peoples of an island kingdom. Like the myth in those fragments, their leader was…” Second Rank stopped, then swallowed hard.

“Go on.” Diettinger requested.

“Was represented by the symbolism of an eye. In the fragments, it is a single, flaming red orb. In the myth of the Fomorians…” Second Rank seemed to be gathering her will for the next part of her explanation.

“In the myth of the Fomorians, their leader was a peerless warrior, a fearsome, brilliant giant, Balor of the One Eye. His eye was pried open by warriors on the battlefield and its power was such as to destroy all those who came under its gaze.”

Diettinger was openly grinning, now. “What a delightful fairy tale, Second,” he said. “And did they win?”

Second Rank shook her head. “No sir. They did not.”

Diettinger’s grin went to a half-smile, the lines in his cheek deepening under the patch that covered his empty left eye-socket. He nodded, making his point: “That’s because it was only a story, Second Rank.”

Marinus Leino’s squadron had formed-up in minutes, and rapidly climbed to a cruising altitude of two kilometers. Their operational ceiling was much higher, but Leino wanted to save oxygen for high altitude reconnaissance at the rendezvous point. Haven’s air was thin enough as it was; at high altitudes it was almost non-existent and oxygen would be a precious commodity throughout the mission.

With engines hardly louder than the hum of the guy wires in the slipstream, the five biplanes were at the western Great Forest in minutes, then turned north to follow the foothills to the Forest Border District, the newly demilitarized zone between the Redfield Satrapy, the Anglia Satrapy and Uossi Suomi.

Leino regarded the approach to the border with a grim shake of his head. Every year his equipment and recruits got better, but there were fewer of both; meanwhile, the Redfield Satrapy seemed to double its own available forces and their inferior equipment in the same time.

Inferior, but far more easily maintained. And there were many more of them, here and across the Miracle Mountains. Leino wondered how many times in human history the best had been overwhelmed by the numerically superior mediocre?
Best not to think about it
, he decided. His ship’s chronometer told him they should be within radio range of the Redfield squadron by now.

“Signal, signal,” he spoke, holding his throat microphone. “This is Uossi Suomi Recon Number Seven, Leino commanding.” It was also Uossi Suomi for Everything Else, Number Seven; he didn’t think the Redfielders were fooled into believing Uossi Suomi had ships to spare for specialized duty. But he repeated the identification and proceeded to hail the as-yet-unseen Redfield squadron. “Approaching rendezvous point for joint operations. Redfield Satrapy aircraft squadrons, do you read?”

The answer came back after a few seconds. “Affirmative, Finlandia Recon, this is Redfield Interceptor Squadron Viggen, Viggen commanding.”

For a moment, Leino was impressed; only the very best pilots had their squadrons named after them. This Viggen fellow must be quite the golden boy of the Redfield Satrapy Air Force.

He hadn’t missed the insult, though. Redfielders, in particular, delighted in referring to Uossi Suomi as Novy Finlandia—a taunt almost guaranteed to end in blood.

“You are twelve degrees south-southwest of our position, time-tocontact, seven minutes at your top speed, over.”

Leino grinned. They
would
have to let him know that they were aware of his own aircraft’s speed and range capabilities. Still, for Redfield toadies, they were being positively civil.

“Confirmed, Viggen,” he answered. “Seen any spooks today?”

Leino’s attempt to lighten the mood was apparently unappreciated.

“We will hold at thirty-five hundred meters until we have you in visual, Recon. Viggen out.”

Leino passed the information on to his squadron, closed the circuit, and sighed. Those damn Redfielders had no sense of humor.

In his cabin, Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger watched the information on the screen before him as it scrolled past at speeds too great for human norm eyes to register. Second Rank’s final plan for the orbital bombardment had required no revision. The ground assault plans drawn up by Deathmaster Quilland had been only slightly modified; certain aspects contained elements of that predictability to which Saurons were prone, owing to their innate sense of superiority over the human norms they so stubbornly continued to refer to as ‘cattle.’ This despite Sauron’s
utter defeat at the hands of those cattle who comprised the human norm Empire of Man.

Diettinger sighed and sat back as the screen flow halted, then produced a single line of addenda:

Unmoving, Diettinger continued to watch the screen. After the greatest defeat of the Sauron Race, he stood on the verge of its last victory: one which would preserve that Race’s dream of human self-determination and perhaps, one day, restore the Sauron people to their proper place among humanity as guardians of that dream and guides toward that destiny. That the invasion of the moon called Haven would indeed be a victory, he had no doubt. Diettinger commanded the
Fomoria
, a Sauron heavy cruiser, the most versatile design in the Sauron fleet. Its crew complement included, among others, the One hundred and first Provisional Battalion of the Twenty-fifth Regiment of the Third Fleet.

Now, of course
, he reflected,
it is the Sauron Fleet.

But in fact it was no longer even that. The coming action was more forced-colonization than conquest; its purpose to establish a safe world for the remnants of the Sauron people: seven thousand, four hundred and fifty-one Sauron Soldiers, including Command, Cyborgs, Soldiers, and crew. The entire Sauron Race.

And so
, Diettinger thought as he looked about his cabin,
the Talon-class heavy cruiser
Fomoria
is no more.
She and her crew would pose as pirates, raiders from beyond the Imperial periphery. Their telemetry was now of a large warship, an old Striker-class relic called the
Dol Guldur
, still of Sauron manufacture, but virtually ubiquitous throughout known space. The majority of the Soldiers aboard had already taken favorably to the new name, just as they had so easily adapted to the rakish cut of their new “pirate” uniforms.

Even their new standard of a burning eye wreathed in flames,
originally limited to the wings of the modified strike fighters and powered armor of the assault teams, was finding its way onto tunics and uniforms at an alarmingly undisciplined rate.

“The ‘
Dol Guldur,
’ indeed.” He looked across his cabin, speaking softly to the plaque above the table which bore the name “
Fomoria
” in the spare, severe Sauron script of Standard Anglic. Beside it was the Great Seal of the Sauron State.

Well
, he thought,
they gave their devotion to one system, and it failed them. Perhaps they deserve a new one, at that.

Returning his attention to the screen, Diettinger recalled the Philosophy courses from his days at the Academy. There, Academician Edainiak had driven into their skulls his notion of Nemesis Theory, and in thirty years of combat, from thirteen-year-old Blooder to sixteen-year-old Heir and now to First Rank—at an age he’d rather not think about—Diettinger had yet to see Edainiak’s premise refuted.

Nemesis Theory, Edainiak had informed them, stated that in any conflict between groups of widely disparate capabilities, however gifted the individual commander initiating the conflict, an opposite number inevitably rose from the ranks of the less-favored side to challenge the attackers. Edainiak maintained that there was always at least one such leader and his appearance was as much a given as evolution itself. Organisms fought to survive, and in any life-threatening environment—given time—they would, to the limits of their ability, produce a suitable response to cope with such threats. As human societies were no less expressions of the organism—man—who created them, the emergence of such an individual—usually male, and therefore more likely to mate and reproduce—was inevitable.

Some of these impromptu leaders were, of course, more effective than others; a function of the society which produced them as well as the available resources they provided such individuals to pursue their ultimate purpose.

But there is always at least one
, Diettinger mused as he idly rubbed the patch covering his empty left eye socket,
even in limited conflicts. One
person who emerges as uniquely qualified to operate in the environment of chaos that is war.

The ascension of such a man was a foregone conclusion; the sooner resistance coalesced about him, identifying him, the sooner he could be eliminated, making Diettinger’s job that much easier. Other such men would come along, of course, in time. But Diettinger’s immediate concern was this invasion and the rapid establishment of Sauron dominion over Haven; and the emergence of a single competent—or worse, gifted—enemy commander was the single greatest threat to the achievement of those goals.

No matter. The Nemesis would arise and another after him, and another after that, and the Saurons would deal with them all. For the corollary to Nemesis Theory was that such a man had virtually no use to the society from which he sprang once the threat to that society had passed or had become accepted as part of the normal mode of existence. Sauron Role Models throughout history were drawn exclusively from military or political leaders, many of whom had exploited this fact—such as Augustus and Tokugawa, who had engineered the societal acceptance of their rule, or Scipio and Churchill, who despite their triumphs had eventually been defeated by it—they were lessons in themselves.

In the end it was simple human nature, Sauron or otherwise, that defeated the Nemesis. It was not anything as melodramatic as “destiny.” It was simply the naked ingratitude of the brute mass of mankind.

Diettinger reached forward and pressed the “Y” pad for a repeat of the upcoming battle plan.

The ultimate defeat of the Nemesis, which Haven was sure to produce, was—he knew—still a very long way off.

Brigadier Cummings left the elevator and hustled into the command center. The low-ceilinged room was full of technical ranks watching screens and punching in instructions to the communications and surveillance scanners. Captain Hastings pushed his way through chairs and scrambling technicians. “Glad you came, sir.”