Battle Pod

A blue light blinked on his vidscreen. He pressed the communication’s button and Captain Mune’s harsh features appeared.

“I have a priority message from Commodore Blackstone of the Vladimir Lenin,” said Mune.

“How did to it come to route through you?”

“It has a Security Gold clearance.”

Hawthorne massaged his forehead, bewildered. Then he realized that Security Gold was from the old days, before the Highborn attack that had taken out Geneva.

Hawthorne split the vidscreen and typed in, Vladimir Lenin. Ah, it was a Zhukov-class battleship. They had too few of those. It was stationed in a far-Mars orbit.

“A priority message?” Hawthorne asked.

“Shall I patch it through, sir?”

“Please.”

Hawthorne sat up as he became aware of what he was reading from Commodore Blackstone. The Vladimir Lenin had been in far-Mars orbit for a singular reason. That a Zhukov-class battleship had been used instead of a picket ship was incredible and almost criminally wasteful of space combat resources. Through powerful teleoptic scopes, the battleship had monitored the nearly invisible cyborg battle pods. The only reason the Vladimir Lenin had been able to do that was that the tracking officer there had been given the exact coordinates to watch.

The critical part of the Security Gold message read: The battle pods have begun deceleration. According to the computer’s estimates, that will bring them into near-Mars orbit in fifty-seven days.

According to Hawthorne’s information, the cyborgs were supposed to head directly to Earth. Why then had they begun deceleration for Mars? Hawthorne lurched to his feet and began to pace. He strode back and forth along the worn lane in his carpet. He ignored a call on his communicator. Captain Mune knocked on the door several minutes later.

“Handle it!” Hawthorne shouted through the door. “I’m thinking.” There was no second knock and no further communication interruptions.

Hawthorne clasped his bony hands behind his back. His head tilted forward to what many of his officers would have recognized as his ‘deep thinking’ pose. As he churned his way back and forth across his carpet, the headache receded and then disappeared altogether. He examined many apparently disparate facts. Then he began to think about Doom Stars, the bedrock of Highborn power.

When he was like this, Hawthorne had likened his mind to a computer that pulled up one file and examined it with complete concentration. He brought up the next file and gave his complete concentration to it in turn. He halted once and looked up in wonder. He had been so consumed with cyborgs, directors and maintaining political power, that strategy for the war had fallen into second place.

Whoever had convinced the cyborgs to go to Mars must have done it to hurt him. It might now be possible to use the cyborgs there for Social Unity’s good. Who had alerted them? Chief Yezhov seemed like the logical villain.

Hawthorne savagely shook his head. That wasn’t the important point now. He hurried to the computer. For the next nine hours, he used his computer stylus on the touchboard and voice-activated the keyboard. He sped-read through report after report concerning Mars. He laughed twice. It was a predatory sound. He began to outline a classic Hawthorne strategy. He had come to understand Highborn mentality and now used that to his fullest advantage.

At the end of the nine hours, he threw himself back against his chair so it creaked ominously. His eyes were red-rimmed and his features haggard.

He lurched to his feet and strode to the door, shouting for Captain Mune the minute it opened. He would sleep for several hours and take a special cocktail of stimulants when he awoke. Then he would meet with Chief Yezhov and afterward summon his military staff. A strategy had finally revealed itself, one that could give him the lever Social Unity desperately needed to turn the tide of the war.

He would send a reinforcement convoy from Earth filled with desperately needed supplies. The trick would be to slip the convoy past the Doom Stars that besieged the planet. Many SU warships were already headed for Mars. He would order all the others there, as well. The SU Battlefleet would be the bait for the Highborn, to draw Doom Stars to Mars. With the cyborgs’ help, he could destroy Doom Stars and change the course of the war. Why would the cyborgs help him? The answer was easy. They would help him to confuse him. Through Chief Yezhov, he would let the cyborgs understand that he didn’t suspect them. To keep themselves from being suspected, the cyborgs would have to help him win the battle for Mars.

“You’re a clever bastard,” Hawthorne whispered. Then he hurried for the first of many meetings.

-9-

Nine long, frantic days passed. Hawthorne functioned with the aid of stimulants as he prepared for the Mars campaign. He seldom slept as he raced to a hundred different locations, pushing officers and lashing others into a frenzy of effort. During that time, the Strategy Staff turned his idea into a detailed set of operational orders.

However, nine days was too short a time to write the operational orders from scratch. Fortunately, the Strategy Staff had long studied and planned for a hundred different operations. Many of those operations were wildly exotic in military terms, perfect now for Hawthorne’s needs. Code Valkyrie, Code Vida Blue, Operational Plan XVII and Skyhook Thirteen each had enough similarities to different aspects of Hawthorne’s idea to be useful. Thus, various members of the Strategy Staff lifted entire sections of those plans, changing details, and incorporating them into the Campaign for Mars.

The governmental machinery of Social Unity was ponderous. The military found it difficult to race at Hawthorne’s speed. The highest levels of Political Harmony Corps grew concerned and then alarmed once it realized the scope of the initial steps in Hawthorne’s plan. Despite Hawthorne’s dictatorial powers, key members in PHC, the Army and the Directorate coalesced into stubborn blocs. They pointed out the dangers of Hawthorne’s plan, and there were many.

Finally, on Day Seven, Hawthorne called an emergency meeting with Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps, Director Danzig of Eurasia, Director Juba-Ryder of Africa, Air Marshal Crowfoot of Earth-Air Defense and Commander Sargon of Orbital Sector.

The meeting began at 7:17 P.M. around a large conference table. It was in the basement of Hawthorne’s emergency command center in Kazakhstan Underground Launch Site 10. Captain Mune attended, sitting in the back like a statue, with his gyroc pistol resting on his lap.

* * *

From the Supreme Commander’s biocomp transcriptions, File #9:

HAWTHORNE: Gentleman, madam (speaker nods to Director Juba-Ryder of Africa) time presses with its inexorable weight. The Highborn gained the advantage over Inner Planets with their precision first strikes. They commandeered the Doom Stars, captured the Sun Works Ring and obliterated the old Directorate and Social Unity’s governmental agencies when they destroyed Geneva on the first day of the rebellion. That paralyzed Inner Planets for too many weeks in the opening stages of the war.

YEZHOV: I hope the Supreme Commander forgives me for interrupting.

HAWTHORNE: That is the purpose for this emergency session. Tonight, you are free to air your grievances.

YEZHOV: I assure you, sir, I have no grievances. Rather, they are qualms.

DANZIG: Let’s not quibble, Chief. (To Hawthorne) Instead of grievances, Excellency, I have stark fear