Planet Wrecker

bars as the shockwave hit. The heavy APC rocked back and forth.

“Halt the vehicle!” shouted Mune.

Seconds later, the vehicle’s vibrations finally stopped. Hawthorne vaguely realized that he couldn’t hear the engines. Multiple thunderous booms sounded now, and soon the APC rocked more violently. How many missiles had he ordered onto Beirut?

A glance at the screen showed nothing but fuzziness. The wash of electromagnetic pulses must be playing havoc with communications.

“Sir!” shouted the com-officer.

“Yes,” said Hawthorne, weary beyond life.

“I’m receiving an emergency message.”

That made no sense. The EMP blasts—oh, special laser optics probably linked the vehicle with a hardened communications site.

“Are the other two cities surrendering?” Hawthorne asked.

“It’s from Mars, sir. At least, it’s coded as a Mars Golden Flash.”

In took two entire seconds before Hawthorne scowled. “Speak sense,” he said.

The bionic com-officer adjusted his screen. “It’s a direct message, sir, for your eyes only.”

“What about Beirut?” Hawthorne asked. “I’m not interested in Mars right now.”

“A Golden Flash, sir,” the bionic officer said, swiveling around. “It’s from Commodore Blackstone.”

“Who?” said Hawthorne.

“The commander of the SU Battlefleet in Mars orbit, sir.”

“I know who Blackstone is,” said Hawthorne, his voice hardening. “Why’s he sending me a message now?”

“That’s unknown, sir. Shall I transmit the message?”

Hawthorne stared at the com-officer. With a mental effort, he cleared away the guilt of having just ordered the deaths of millions of people.

“Does the message have a heading?” Hawthorne asked.

“Yes sir. Apparently, it’s concerning the cyborgs. The Commodore believes he might have found them.”

It took two blinks. Then a cold feeling swept through Hawthorne. He knew then why he’d ordered the thermonuclear weapons. There were worse things than Highborn.

“Hurry man,” Hawthorne said, “read it to me.”

-30-

Commodore Blackstone stood beside the map-module on the Vladimir Lenin. The Zhukov-class Battleship was one of four in the Mars System. There were a few other secondary vessels in his truncated fleet, but they were a pittance compared to the ships he’d possessed before facing the Doom Stars.

There was a red glow on the bridge. His officers were at their posts, diligently studying new data.

The hatch opened and Blackstone looked up. Commissar Kursk entered, and the briefest flicker of a smile played on his lips. Kursk was the only happiness he had in the certain knowledge that humanity was doomed.

They had beaten the Highborn. At least, they had made the super-soldiers retreat in their dreadful Doom Stars. For that, Blackstone knew he’d become a legend among the people of Earth. He’d even enjoyed the broadcasts the propagandists had beamed to Mars. It had revived him enough that he’d begun physical training and had regained some of his youthful stamina. Kursk had taken advantage of that in prolonged sexual encounters. That had lasted until news over a year ago had arrived from Jupiter. The story of the planet wrecker…what had that Jovian moon been called? Ah, right—Carme. The moon had changed Blackstone’s perceptions, so had the reports of the Highborn blockade tightening around Earth.

There never had been more battleships and no extra missile-ships joining his flotilla. The Supreme Commander had decided to keep a small fleet-in-being between Venus and Earth. From the rumors he’d heard, it was a deteriorating fleet. One battleship had headed out-system. Instead of stopping at Mars, it had long ago sped for the Saturn System. No one had heard anything from it for over a year.

Blackstone adjusted the map-module. He was a short man, with a newly bio-sculpted face, giving him a younger appearance. The best doctor in the Planetary Union had operated on him. The doctor had sharpened the nose and added authority to his chin. He’d even grafted new hair, which had taken well. Kursk had urged him to make these changes.

“You have news?” asked Kursk.

“It’s difficult to see,” Blackstone said.

Kursk moved beside him, bumping her hip against his. She was taller and more earnest than he was. He was the more imaginative.

“What am I looking at?” asked Kursk.

“The last readings from the Stalingrad-Seven,” he said.

“A probe?” she asked.

Blackstone nodded. The probe had been launched many, many months ago, and it had made a long and silent journey toward Saturn. Several days ago, it had become functional and begun broadcasting data.

“Is that a planet?” Kursk asked.

“For unknown reasons it’s blurry,” he said. “That’s Saturn at extreme magnification.”

“Where are its rings?”

Blackstone tapped the map-module, increasing computer magnification of the data. “Run a spectrum-analysis on the interference,” he said.

“I already have, sir,” said the sensor-officer.

“And?” asked Blackstone.

“A thin aerosol gel,” said the sensor-officer.

“Just like the cyborgs did before we attacked the Martian moons,” said Kursk.

Blackstone’s nostrils expanded. He remembered that tense time, the greatest battle of his life.

“It’s not the same,” he said. “The scale….”

That was part of his sense of doom, the sheer scale of this war. Mars only had one natural satellite now, one moon. Planet-busters had cracked Phobos and sent the pieces spinning toward the Red Planet. When the pieces had rained onto the surface, hundreds of thousands of Martians had died. Fierce storms still raged over the planet because of it and made landings and liftoffs difficult. What kind of war was it that changed the natural face of the Solar System? The cyborgs and Highborn had no sense of proportion, no propriety.

Blackstone realized that Kursk was staring at him.

“Do you realize how much gel it would take to block out the rings?” she asked.

Blackstone laughed sharply.

“Wait a minute,” said Kursk. “I see some ring there.” She pointed at the map-module. “They haven’t completely blocked them out. What does this mean?”

Blackstone tapped the map-module, switching the scene. Now the void showed, with a thousand stars in the background.

“Highlight in red,” whispered Blackstone.

A tiny object appeared on the module map.

“What is it?” asked Kursk.

“We’re still trying to discover that.”

“I don’t understand. That looks exactly like the object you sent in the file to Hawthorne.”

“Yes,” said Blackstone.

“How big is it?”

“Our best estimate: a kilometer.”

“Do you still think it’s made of ice?”