In the environmental chamber, Ricardo adjusted the tac-map, erasing the terrain so Sub-Strategist Circe’s face appeared. It was a fuzzy signal, a poor recording of a conversation several months ago.
“This is Secretary-General Gomez of the Mars Planetary Union speaking,” Gomez said on the recording. Her voice was clear. “As past allies of the Jovian Confederacy, we now request your assistance. In return, we guarantee you permanent sanctuary on Mars.”
There had been a long time lag. Ricardo remembered that. The three meteor-ships were far from Mars, as they had swung wide around the Sun in their gently curving loop from the battle against eight moon-wreckers. Ricardo had watched a video of the Jovian-Cyborg battle many times. It had been one of the grimmest things he’d ever witnessed.
“I’m sorry,” Circe said. In the fuzzy recording, she looked so serious, so intent with the black gem in her forehead. “We cannot assist you at this time. We are on our way to Neptune and are still building up velocity.”
As he listened to the file, Ricardo remembered Gomez staring at him in disbelief. It had been a hard time. The people of Mars had still believed that victory was possible. The enemy assault had begun with an attack from out of the void. The cyborgs started hostilities by capturing three defensive satellites. One minute there had been peace —the next, cyborgs in vacc-suits swarmed the various satellites, gaining entrance and then control. Afterward, the cyborgs used the Martian arsenal and rained nuclear missiles on selected cities. If that hadn’t been enough, other cyborgs appeared on the surface. They landed in stealth-capsules outside a dome. Once in control there, the hated enemy began putting people into a converter, making more cyborgs. A week later from that dome, a cyborg army had advanced across Mars like an invasion of army ants.
Even then, the people of Mars had hoped. The three Jovian meteor-ships had seemed like an act of God. Once communication was established, tears had appeared in Gomez’s eyes. That had been before the conversation with Circe.
“We need orbital control,” Gomez told the Sub-Strategist. “With your meteor-ships, we can destroy the cyborg-controlled satellites. Then we can arm your warships with missiles and pinpoint the cyborg concentrations on the surface, eliminating them one-by-one.”
“It would be a month before we decelerated enough to reach orbital stability,” Circe said. “Judging by the videos you sent us, the cyborgs will have already conquered too much surface area. They will probably have captured the other defensive satellites by then, too.”
“We must fight together!” Gomez shrieked. She bent near the com-unit as her fingers whitened around it. “We must save Mars!”
“Fight by all means,” Circe said in her maddeningly calm voice. “I certainly am. And I understand your pain and dilemma. The cyborgs destroyed the Jovian System. They will destroy Mars, too. Launch what you can and head for Earth. We must fight where there is a chance of victory. At this point, survival of the human race is the goal. You are doomed, and I will not waste my meteor-ships trying to save what is already dead.”
As he sat in a chamber of Salvador Dome, a haunted place of death, Captain Ricardo Sandoval turned off the recording. The Sub-Strategist had seen more clearly than Gomez. That had been months ago. The cyborgs controlled all but two of the defensive satellites now. The enemy had reached the last free city, killing those who carried guns and dragging others to the converters. There were two converters on Mars now—two of the chamber of horrors that turned people into the melded enemy.
Mars Command had tried to destroy one of the converters. Ricardo shook his head. The attack had been a debacle, their Battle of the Bulge—the last gasp to achieve a military miracle. In the end, the Martian attack had burnt-up too many of their own precious military vehicles. They had killed too many of their own hard-to-find soldiers.
In the dreadful months of war, the cyborgs relentlessly moved from one phase to the next. They had infiltrated the surface and soon gained a beachhead on the planet. Then they landed a converter and then another. Finally, they conquered every place of resistance except for a single remaining stronghold. How did you beat something that fed on the corpses of your own dead?
If Mars had possessed heavy weapons, perhaps—more planes, tanks, guns and spaceships…
The communicator beeped.
Ricardo rubbed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. He had faced the enemy. He was the great Cyborg Killer, wasn’t he? What a joke. Three times, he had led the Martian Commandoes into battle. Each time, he had killed cyborgs—at the cost of half his force the first time. Then he lost three-quarters of his troops in New Mexico Dome. At Santa Fe Junction, he had escaped the carnage and retreated to his hovercrafts with three Commandoes—three!
The communicator beeped again. Wearily, Ricardo clicked opened channels. “What is it?”
Secretary-General Gomez stared at him on the screen. She looked worse than he did, with discolored bags under her eyes.
“We picked up radar traces,” she said. “An assault force is on its way here.”
“From the north or south?” Ricardo asked, his voice hardening.
“Does it matter?” Gomez asked, with tears welling in her eyes.
“If we’re going to win this one, it does,” Ricardo said. He couldn’t give up now, not with the entire dead of a planet watching him. He could feel the ghosts behind him and wondered if Mars would always be known as the haunted planet.
Gomez made a bleak sound. “It is over, Captain. We are all dead.”
“The
Gomez made another of her despairing sounds. “None of us is leaving Mars, Captain. Everyone who emigrated here came to an evolutionary dead end. The human race had its run. Now it is the era of
“Wrong!” Ricardo said, as he sat up.
“You are not Marten Kluge,” Gomez said.
“No. I am Captain Ricardo Sandoval of the Martian warship
“Her?” Gomez cried. “She was a fool. She could have come to Mars and saved a planet. Instead, with ruined ships and low on ordnance, she seeks her doom in the Neptune System where the cyborgs are strongest. Do not seek to emulate her.”
“To win, one must attack,” Ricardo said. It had become his holy creed.
“Staying alive is the first prerequisite for that,” Gomez said. “We cannot even achieve step one. I’m afraid you live on illusions.”
“You are breathing. Therefore, you are alive. Now tell me, from which direction are the cyborgs coming.”
“The north,” Gomez said, as she looked away from the screen.
“Thank you, Secretary-General. I must go, as I have a defense to run.” Ricardo switched her off and brought back the tactical map. So, it was the north… He switched on the communicator and began to issue orders to his men.
Thirty-four minutes later, Ricardo wore his armored suit, rebreather and clutched his gyroc rifle. He stood outside a rounded, ferroconcrete-protected SAM site. Three tracked fighting vehicles were ready and filled with the last Martian Commandoes. The men were poorly-trained compared to those who had died these past months. But you fought with what you had and made do.
“There!” a man said in his headphones.
Ricardo flicked on his helmet’s HUD. He saw the enemy: three big-bellied transports flying low over the valley floor. They were old civilian lifters, put to use by the cyborgs. The enemy cannibalized everything.
As Ricardo watched, the giant, ferroconcrete shell guarding the SAMs whirled open. Three missiles ignited, firing one after another. Like long torpedoes, they sped low over the terrain at the enemy.
“Kill them,” Ricardo whispered. “Kill all of them.” With his HUD, he saw metallic chaff spilling from the transports, attempting to confuse the missiles’ sensors. Then the transports lumbered higher, and bay-doors opened.
“No,” someone said.
Tiny, metallic-colored humanoids spilled out of the transports. Those would be cyborgs, deadly, unbeatable
