Star Fortress

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.

-4-

“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