cortex bomb.”
“I don’t see how—” Felix started to say.
Cassius opened fire, letting the hand-cannons rotate as he shredded the woman into bloody chunks.
“No!” Felix howled. He rolled out of bed and charged Cassius.
The hand-cannons stopped as smoke drifted out of the barrels. The woman was a ruin of flesh, and blood smeared the wall as if someone had hurled a bucketful at it.
This mindless attack galled Cassius more than Felix’s taking of prostitutes. The youthful fool leaped at him. With contemptuous ease and exoskeleton strength, Cassius swatted him, batting the Highborn onto the floor and into unconsciousness.
-19-
Cassius returned to the
The crew went about their tasks quietly and efficiently. They monitored the battered hulks of the drifting farm habitats. A few months earlier, SU ships had launched from Earth and tried to slip commandoes and supplies into the old habitats. They’d attempted to install field-grade weaponry there. It was unlikely there had been other secret attempts, yet Cassius suspected the worst. Supreme Commander Hawthorne had surprised him once too often on other occasions. The man was a miracle-worker.
“Launch a squadron of fighters,” Cassius ordered. “They are to use a random, C-targeting sequence on any habitat within a thousand-kilometer radius of the ship.”
“With their cannons, Grand Admiral?” asked Scipio. He was an uncommonly tall Highborn, a full ten feet. Scipio had a prosthetic hand, covered by a white glove. Replacement therapy had never taken on him. Some Highborn believed it had made him overly cautious, but Cassius had never complained.
“As preparatory fire, yes,” Cassius said. He used a knob, rotating holoimages before him.
The farm habitats were uniformly vast cylindrical satellites. The satellites spun to create centrifugal-gravity. They used mirrors to reflect light into the interior. Once, each habitat had been filled with algae tanks heated by the Sun to a bubbling temperature and a strange organic soup from bacteria that formed a protein-rich jelly. Drop membranes with giant dura-chutes had floated the produce to the planet. Now most of the cylinders were vacuum- filled and devoid of life. Countless farm workers had died during the launching of the SU Mars supply fleet. More satellites had been destroyed during the ensuing months as Highborn space commandoes had stormed onto them. The last useful habitat had been gutted nearly a year later by proton beams and Earth-launched merculite missiles. Now only lifeless habitat hulks drifted around the planet.
Cassius understood perfectly. If Social Unity couldn’t have them, no one would. Hawthorne and his SU directors cared nothing about the conquered territories or feeding the billions of Highborn-dominated premen.
For a variety of reasons, there were endless food riots in the conquered territories, the worst in South America. Cassius had ordered many Free Earth Corps formations there to reestablish discipline. That had soon caused dissension in the FEC units. The dissension had surprised some Highborn commanders.
“You forget,” Cassius remembered telling them. “The premen are weak willed and often tender-hearted. Too many are squeamish at the sight of blood and become conscience-stricken. Cold-blooded killing—such as firing into chanting mobs—heightens this process in them. This produces alcoholism, heavier drug-usage and in some cases sedition among our troops. Therefore, we will comb the FEC units, searching for psychotic and sadistic individuals. These we’ll train into riot-control battalions, helping to restore order in the worst territories.”
The riot-control battalions had been trained and deployed. Now they were stretched thin. It had surprised Cassius how few sadistic or psychotic individuals there were. Therefore, he had reluctantly begun using hypnotically-drugged police units. The percentage of mental breakdowns had meant a high level of wastage among the personnel. Sometimes, he wondered if simply letting mass starvation do its work to thin out the billions of useless mouths would be the wisest course. His psychological profilers had told him that would give added impetus to the SU propagandists. So for now, he tried to keep the billions alive on their starvation diets, gunning down the most unruly.
“The fighter squadron has launched,” said Scipio.
The Grand Admiral adjusted his controls. Tiny yellow lights sped toward the various holographic cylinders.
“Launch a squadron of heavy orbitals,” Cassius said. He made a quick calculation. “Launch Squadron Seven.”
“Squadron Five is in rotation, sir,” Scipio said.
Cassius’s features tightened, the only indication that he’d heard the officer.
“Squadron Seven, sir,” the tall Highborn said after a moment.
Cassius watched his holoimages. A few minutes later, red lights began to zoom among the wrecked habitats. He had transferred Felix from Ground Command and into orbital duty. The cockerel would be acting as a weapons officer aboard one of the heavy orbitals. They were two-seaters. There was a growing belief among High Command that two-seater orbitals were wasteful of Highborn. Some suggested a phase-out of the heavy orbitals. A few wanted to train premen as weapons operators.
A warning horn blared on the bridge.
Cassius swiveled around.
“Powerful SU sensor sweeps are coming out of stations in Ukraine Sector,” Scipio said.
Cassius showed his teeth in a grin. “They’re awake down there. Good.”
Several Highborn chuckled.
“Let’s give them something to target,” Cassius said. He checked his holoimages, noted the location of Felix’s heavy orbital. With a click of a button, numbers appeared under the various cylinders. “Destroy Targets A-13 and R-11.”
“Both satellites are deep in the gravity-well, sir,” said Scipio.
“Exactly.”
“Their decaying orbit means that some debris will head straight down, sir. The SU operators might think we’ve launched missiles.”
“I don’t think they’re that stupid,” Cassius said. “But let’s find out.”
“Shall I order the beginning of a prismatic-shield, sir, or begin spraying aerosol gels?”
“We are the Highborn,” said Cassius, who watched his command crew sidelong.
Tall Scipio frowned as his white-gloved hand hovered over his control-board. The Highborn glanced at him, meeting his eyes.
“Highborn take unnecessary risks?” Scipio asked.
Cassius mentally marked the Highborn down for promotion as a field commander. A Doom Star was a precious military commodity. There were only four of them in the Solar System, and one of those four was still at the Sun- Works Factory under repair. It would be many more months, maybe even another year, before it was operational again. That left them three Doom Stars, two here in Earth orbit and one around Venus.
“We do not take foolish risks,” Cassius said. “But it is good for the premen to think that we do.”
“Sir?” asked Scipio.
“They will not launch merculite missiles today,” said Cassius.
“We found out at Mars how dangerous their proton beams are,” Scipio said. “In Eurasia, they have dozens of them. Respectfully, sir, we are much too near Earth’s stratosphere.”
“Of course we are,” Cassius said.
Several Highborn glanced at him sharply.
“I request permission to speak freely, Grand Admiral,” Scipio said.
“Permission granted.”
That caused eyebrows to loft. Two Highborn traded glances. Cassius mentally marked them down for profile studies. He wondered if their allegiance to him was wavering.
“Why are we much too near the stratosphere, risking serious damage to our Doom Star?” asked Scipio.
