Battle Pod

heartily as the others did.

“Target another ship,” Chavez ordered.

“Yes, sir,” the targeting officer said. He tapped keys. Maybe he forgot something. Maybe he overloaded the makeshift coils. As the mighty cannon began to move to target a different vessel, something gave between the deep-core mine and the dynamos. The targeting officer barely hit the shutdown key in time.

An ominous silence occurred, as the dynamos no longer whined with their loud noise. The rooms no longer trembled.

“What’s wrong?” Chavez shouted.

A technician in the other room looked through the glass partition. Her face was whiter than Major Diaz’s face.

“Somebody tell me what’s wrong?” Chavez shouted.

“The coils have melted,” the targeting officer whispered.

“Fix them!” Chavez shouted.

The targeting officer began to type keys.

Speakers on the wall crackled into life. “The coils have fused.”

“Fix them!” Chavez repeated.

Though the glass partition, the tech nodded. “Yes, sir, we will, in about six weeks.”

Stunned silence filled the room. The euphoria of seconds earlier had departed.

“How is this possible?” Chavez asked in a choked voice.

No one answered.

“No,” Chavez whispered. “No. We had them.”

Major Diaz stepped smartly forward. “If the proton beam is broken, we must flee. We must all flee.”

Marten thought that a wise suggestion.

Secretary-General Chavez looked up ashen-faced. “What’s the point of fleeing?”

“The point is the Highborn,” Major Diaz said. “They didn’t let Social Unity have Mars before. Why will they let Social Unity have Mars now?”

“Must we always rely on others?” Chavez asked dispiritedly.

“No,” Marten said, stepping near. “You hit them, sir. You killed a battleship. Now keep your Planetary Union alive by staying alive.”

“…I can no longer hide,” Chavez said.

Marten laughed harshly. “Is that how you gained your freedom the first time?” He slapped his chest. “I’ve fought for my freedom all my life. I refused to surrender. You must now refuse to surrender. You did what you could. Now hide among your people and lead the struggle against Social Unity. Keep these vital technicians alive for the next time you rise out of the ashes of defeat. As long as you fight, you haven’t lost. But once you surrender your will, sir, everything is over. Do you have the courage to keep on fighting, Mr. Secretary-General?”

Chavez blinked at Marten. Many of the officers stood open-mouthed, looking at the ex-shock trooper.

“They’ll send drop-troops to take you alive,” Marten told those in the room. “You have to be gone by then. You tried to go down fighting, but the proton beam broke in the middle of your victory. They won’t laugh at you now, not with a battleship killed. They’ll fear you. Keep them afraid by keeping out of their clutches to fight another grueling guerilla campaign. Never surrender, never, never, never.”

“…yes,” Chavez said slowly. “There is wisdom in your words.”

“Even better,” Major Diaz said, “there is fire in his belly.”

“Let’s go!” Marten shouted. “We likely don’t have much time.”

* * *

Marten was more right than he knew. The destruction of the Ho Chi Minh sent a shock wave through the Battlefleet. The warship’s sudden death caused Blackstone to scream orders.

The Kim Philby accelerated at full speed for the planet. Toll Seven had a battle pod nearby and quickly launched it toward Mars. Three other ships maneuvered for a combat drop on Olympus Mons. Even in his aguish, Commodore Blackstone realized they needed that proton beam against the Highborn. With the Ho Chi Minh’s destruction, they needed that beam more than ever. He could have ordered a saturation nuking of the giant volcano. Instead, he screamed orders for the volcano’s capture, and he screamed to pump out lead aerogels to they didn’t lose more ships to that beam.

SU drop-troops and cyborgs donned battlesuits and then climbed into their drop shells. Machines and drop specialists used electronic trolleys to roll the drop-shells into firing position. Usually, a mass combat-drop from space took days of careful calculations. Precise entry points into the atmosphere were prefigured. Orbital spin, gravity, atmospheric density, wind velocity and other factors were each studied in detail. Today, there was no time for that. The selected ships roared for the entry point and then they braked hard.

The Kim Philby was the first to reach the upper atmosphere. It was a mine-laying ship but could second as a drop-assault vessel. At high speed, it entered an insertion orbit. Then, like an old- fashioned soldier with a bolt-action rifle, the ship loaded its tube, fired, worked the bolt, chambered another shell and fired. One after another, the drop-shells slammed into the thin atmosphere and screamed down at the immensely vast, waiting volcano below.

* * *

OD12 blinked in growing perplexity. She lay in a battlesuit and in a drop-shell, surrounded by combat equipment. That shell was on a conveyer. The conveyer jerked and from somewhere OD12 heard a BANG! And her shell trembled.

She knew from a thousand simulations that the BANG was from the ship firing a drop-shell at a planet. The shudder came from the same source. What had her perplexed was her luck. Until now, it had all been bad. She would not have been a cyborg unless her luck was horrible. After inserting jacks into the prisoners, she had been certain that a new, awful worsening of her fate would soon begin.

It had been difficult these last few hours standing in a roomful of cyborgs. They had all stood motionless and expressionless. None had shown boredom because likely none of them had been bored. Likely, none of them had possessed stray thoughts. They waited for instructions. Essentially, they had all been dead. No emotions, no boredom, no worry, no questions—they were good cyborgs waiting for Toll Seven. OD12 had stood among them, realizing that she was not a good cyborg. She was a bad cyborg, a bored cyborg and full of questions and changing emotions. She had known elation, joy, a chaffing of spirit, depression and then a growing sense of dread of what would happen next.

She had not wanted to enter Web-Mind. It would immediately know that her internal computer was damaged. Web-Mind would demand a new censor program. It might even demand she be deleted.

That had not happened. Instead, she had floated into the Kim Philby and waited longer. Then klaxons had wailed and she and other cyborgs had run to don battlesuits for an attack on Mars.

BANG!

In her drop-shell, OD12 jerked nearer the firing tube.

BANG!

Her stomach churned, which should have been impossible. She was a cyborg. No. I am Osadar Di. I am alive and I am going to escape Web-Mind.

A metallic clack occurred, the sound was loud and very near. She felt herself lifted and shoved somewhere and realized she was in the firing tube now. Seconds ticked by.

BANG! BANG!

The acceleration was brutal and badly jarred her. She lost her breath. She tried to think. Then weightlessness struck and everything seemed so peaceful. She knew that she was over the Red Planet.

The beautiful Red Planet, the one I love.

OD12—no, I am Osadar Di. Within the drop-shell, Osadar Di grinned. It was hard with her plastic-featured face, but she did it.

She dropped toward Mars, toward Olympus Mons. They were supposed to kill or capture everyone on the