Planet Wrecker

Scipio hesitated.

“Is something wrong?” asked Cassius.

“You greatly honor me, Your Excellency. I do not know why, and that troubles me.”

“I have my own reasons for bestowing this honor, which should be good enough for you. Essentially, you are here to render opinions and tell me when you think one of my ideas is foolish.”

“There are others higher-ranked than me who can do this.”

“An obvious truth,” said Cassius. “Do not waste my time with it.”

Scipio clicked his heels together, and he saluted sharply. “If I am here to render opinions, especially ones you do not want to hear, it is unwise of you to reprimand my first statement.”

“Excellent,” said Cassius. “I knew I selected you for a reason. Come. Pick up a controller-unit.”

Scipio’s hesitation lasted a moment longer. Then he strode to the holoimaging dome and picked up one of two other controllers.

“Who else is joining us?” asked Scipio.

“I am,” said Admiral Gaius, striding though another door.

He was a classic Highborn, nine-feet tall, broad-shouldered and with a wide face. He moved with arrogant confidence, and was Cassius’s closest advisor. He had captained the Napoleon Bonaparte in the Third Battle for Mars. Since that Doom Star was presently at the Sun-Works Factory under repair, he ran the Genghis Khan. Gaius wore a white uniform, with a Red Galaxy Medal pinned to his chest and an Ultimate Star with its blue ribbon. The bill of his cap was low over his eyes. He had prominent knuckles, with scar tissue over each. Rumors had it that in their teenage years he had given Cassius his single defeat in a fistfight.

Without being asked, Admiral Gaius picked up a controller-unit.

Cassius began clicking his unit. The holoimaging dome hummed with life and began projecting holoimages in the air above it. Earth appeared, with tiny dots around it. Far away down the hall appeared a red cluster.

“The asteroid-strike,” said Cassius.

“The more we learn of it, the more daunting the attack appears,” said Gaius, as he viewed the red cluster.

“This attack is a monumental effort,” said Cassius. “It demands an equally monumental effort on our part to defeat it.”

“I suspect we lack the time to do so,” said Scipio.

Gaius glanced at him sharply. “You are quick to admit defeat.”

Scipio scowled at the deadly insult, but otherwise appeared to hold his temper. “I have poured over the new data,” he said. “Projecting it against what we know…the situation is more than grave. With respect, Your Excellency—”

“You please me with your willingness to speak your mind,” said Cassius. “And you prove yet again that I am an excellent judge of character. I want you to remember, however that this is a strategy session. Here, you will drop honorifics and speak plainly.”

“Yes sir.”

Cassius scowled.

“I mean…yes,” said Scipio. He examined the control-unit in his hand. He expanded his chest and glanced at Gaius. “I am the last Highborn who would admit defeat,” he said. “But it is also true that the parameters are grim. Consider these facts: an impact by a single ten-kilometer asteroid on the Earth would be an extinction-level strike. Given enough velocity, an impact by an object one hundred meters in diameter has been historically devastating. The mass of the Saturn-strike—it boggles the imagination. As I’m sure both of you are aware, for the atmosphere to shield the Earth, an object must be smaller than thirty-five meters. Those smaller objects burn up before impact. Many of the pieces in the debris fields, unfortunately, are much larger than that.”

“This is our great test,” Cassius said, “the hour that will prove our superiority. The parameters, as you said, are clear and unequivocal. There are only a few tactical methods for stopping the strike. One is to break apart a larger object into many smaller pieces and blow those pieces outward with, say, a thermonuclear charge. That would likely cause the various pieces to change trajectory enough that they would miss the Earth. A second method is to explode several nuclear devices near an asteroid, moving the object with the force of the explosions.”

“That would be nuclear pulse propulsion,” Scipio said.

“Exactly,” said Cassius. “You see my point. The third possibility uses kinetic energy to change an asteroid’s course. A spaceship or other object of sufficient mass builds up speed and strikes the asteroid, knocking it off course like two billiard balls. Each of these methods could potentially achieve success.”

“Unfortunately,” said Scipio, “the sheer mass of the strike suggests we lack the means to successfully achieving this in time.”

“What then do you suggest?” Admiral Gaius asked angrily.

Scipio toyed with his control-unit. “There is only one possibility. We go down fighting.”

“No!” said Cassius. “To go down fighting means to lose. I don’t intend to lose to these cyborgs. We are superior to them and hold critical military assets. Let us enumerate them.” He began clicking his controller.

The red dots around the holographic Earth began to pulse, as did another red dot around Venus. “We have three Doom Stars,” Cassius said. “These will head out to the asteroid-cluster and do battle with them. We also have the missile complex on Luna, together with the old boosters and shock-trooper equipment on the Sun-Works Factory.” With more clicks sounding, the Mercury Factory appeared in red, as did the launch facilities on Luna.

“We’ll send a missile strike against the asteroids?” asked Gaius.

“In time,” said Cassius.

“We should hit them as far from the Earth as possible,” said Gaius. “If we strike the mass near Earth, the planet’s gravitational field might pull in some pieces that would otherwise deflect elsewhere.”

Cassius hesitated as he lowered his controller-unit. Examining Mercury, Venus, Earth, the approaching red cluster of asteroids and then the admiral and the former com-officer, he grew uneasy.

“You must see what I do,” said Gaius. “The farther away from Earth we strike the asteroids the smaller a nudge is needed to deflect them from the planet.”

“Where will we find these missiles?” asked Scipio. He clicked his unit. The red cluster of asteroids moved before them as it grew in size. “The mass of projectiles is staggering. The cyborgs have clearly waited until they could build up an unbeatable force.”

“I’ve grown weary of your cowardice,” said Gaius. “We are Highborn.”

“And Highborn cannot view reality as it is?” asked Scipio.

Gaius strode toward Scipio.

Cassius watched with interest. The tall Highborn intrigued him. If they possessed one fault as super soldiers, it was their tendency toward rashness. Scipio had a rare trait for a Highborn, a touch of caution. On the bridge, it had allowed him to see Hawthorne as dangerous. What Cassius needed to know was if with his caution Scipio still had enough courage.

“You will not utter the word unbeatable again,” Gaius said, clutching Scipio’s forearm.

Scipio wrenched his arm free and took a step back. “You’re an admiral of a Doom Star, and thus highly outrank me. But the Grand Admiral has called me to this session to speak my mind. Examine the situation, Admiral. We face a grave threat. It is daunting in the extreme and quite possibly is unbeatable. Yes, I speak the word again.”

Gaius growled low in his throat, stepped close and shot a fist at Scipio. The tall Highborn deflected the blow with a smooth karate parry.

“A fancy fighter, eh?” said Gaius. He raised his scarred knuckles and grinned at Scipio. “Defend yourself, boy.”

Scipio assumed a classic karate stance. “I have too much respect for us to mouth platitudes and fighting maxims now. Our existence is at stake.”

“And that makes you fear, eh boy?” Gaius asked.

Scipio spit on the floor as the fierce vitality of the Highborn blazed in his eyes. “You’re an old man, Admiral. You’ve become senile in your command shell.”

Gaius roared as he attacked, wading in with precision blows. Using his longer reach to advantage, Scipio danced around the bull-like admiral, chopping and kicking. Gaius shrugged off the meaty slaps and used his shoulders, upper arms and hips to absorb Scipio’s hardest kicks.