Battle Pod

-3-

Several weeks after the victory of the SU verses the Rebels in near-Mars orbit, Commodore Blackstone yearned to rub his tired eyes. He floated at the end of a docking tube. He wore a vacc-suit as a precaution, with a bubble helmet. He had just completed a whirlwind tour of Deimos, Phobos and each of the major warships of the Battlefleet. A bit of good luck had occurred as another straggling battleship had joined them a week ago, replacing the lost Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately, the straggling ship was in a terrible state of repair.

He now had eleven battlewagons of the Zhukov-class, big ships with immense firepower and the heaviest particle-shields of any known spacecraft, including Doom Stars. Until the construction of the first Doom Star, the Zhukov-class battlewagon had been the largest and deadliest spacecraft in the Solar System. Once, there had been many more than a mere eleven of them. The First Battle of Deep Mars Orbit in 2337 against the Mars Planetary Union and the Jupiter Confederation had seen the death of too many SU battleships. Twelve years later at the beginning of what had originally been known as the Highborn Rebellion had seen the worst slaughter of battleships. Then the Doom Stars had turned on fellow fleet vessels, destroying them before fleet personnel knew they were in a war to the death.

Blackstone shook his head. Past glories were best forgotten. Eleven Zhukov-class battleships was still a powerful concentration of fleet units. They were the heart of his Battlefleet. En masse and while their particle-shields held, they could dare match Doom Stars in a slugfest. To complement the battlewagons, he had nine missile-ships. Each of them was equally as large as a battleship. But missile-ships by nature were raiding vessels, not stand-up spacecraft to smash through the guts of an enemy fleet. Heavy lasers beamed at the speed of light, approximately 300,000 kilometers per second. Missiles and drones traveled at a tiny fraction of that speed. Thus, a missile-ship usually launched drones and missiles and then hurried elsewhere, monitoring the battle from a safe distance.

The Highborn had been particularly adept at luring the remaining SU missile-ships into traps and obliterating them. It was the reason the Battlefleet only had nine.

The ECM vessels, the troop transports, the orbital launch ships, the minelayers, the stealth ships and the recon vessels and probes added another twenty-eight spacecraft to the Battlefleet. Hawthorne’s Earth convoy added another forty-nine. Each of the transports became decoy vessels as the supplies in their cargo-holds poured into the warships and onto the two moons.

Within his bubble helmet, Commodore Blackstone grinned tightly. Phobos and Deimos were going to be the first grim surprise for the Highborn. General Fromm’s people worked overtime, massing the moons with point- defense emplacements, merculite missiles and repairing every heavy-laser cannon. There were also extra laser cannons being added, a new one every three days.

These past weeks since the victory over Martian space defenses, General Fromm’s people had swarmed the moons. Social Unity lacked Doom Stars. Yet as big as a Doom Star was, even two tiny moons like Phobos and Deimos dwarfed them. Fromm’s sweating and harried technicians slept three hours a cycle. They were hyped with stimulant so they worked like automatons. Unfortunately, the moons had precise and known orbits, which weakened their combat uses. But they had much greater mass then the Doom Stars and could theoretically absorb much more punishment. If given enough time, they would become bristling fortresses.

From his original plan, Supreme Commander Hawthorne’s meant to use the moons to break the Doom Stars. Blackstone would cluster the Battlefleet around the fortress moons. If the Doom Stars went after the Battlefleet first, the moons would pound the enemy craft. If the Doom Stars tried to take out the moons first, the Battlefleet would maneuver and overwhelm each Doom Star one at a time.

Within his bubble helmet, Commodore Blackstone’s grin slipped. The problem with the grand plan was it required time to set up.

The Highborn likely had communication with the Mars Rebels. The past few weeks had surely proven that. As the Battlefleet had mopped up Martian space resistance, it was now known that the gargantuan warships had circled the Earth many times, building up velocity. Even as the drop-troops and cyborgs had captured Olympus Mons, three Doom Stars had broken out of Earth’s orbit and accelerated toward the Red Planet.

Radar and teleoptic scopes had discovered that the Doom Stars no longer accelerated, but used their velocity to travel the 100-million kilometers between Mars and Earth that presently separated the two. The enemy had traveled three weeks and at present speeds could pass Mars in a flyby in four more weeks. It was more than possible, however, that the Highborn planned to decelerate hard to match orbits with Mars. In that case, the Highborn million-kilometer ranged lasers would need another four and a half weeks before they could reach the SU space defenses.

Blackstone thought carefully. If the Highborn planned a flyby, wouldn’t the Doom Stars continue to accelerate to reach here even faster? A flyby seemed unlikely, however, for the simple reason that it would take the Highborn much too long to decelerate later and head back for Mars or for Earth. If the Doom Stars sped past the Red Planet in a flyby, it might behoove Social Unity to stab with every spaceship it had for Earth and drive off whatever Doom Star defended the mother planet.

Blackstone’s gloved fingers twitched with his impatience for the hatch to pressurize.

Would the Highborn begin to decelerate soon? Would it be four weeks or four and a half weeks until the battle started? This battle would likely decide the fate of the Solar System. Would it be a slugfest as Supreme Commander Hawthorne and Toll Seven envisioned, or would the Highborn attempt something completely different that would confound everyone?

Blackstone chewed the inside of his cheek. Three Doom Stars filled with Highborn—even with two bristling moons and nearly four-fifths of the remaining SU war-fleet at his disposal, and with a planetary proton beam—

They had to get the proton beam online! That beam was amazingly deadly. The brutal and astonishingly quick death of the Ho Chi Minh had proved the planetary proton-beam’s worth.

Eleven battlewagons, two fortress moons, a massive support fleet and sundry other vessels could still lose to three Doom Stars. That’s what made the proton beam so important. Yet they could only use it at near orbit. Its range was so pathetically short in space combat terms. That’s why they would need Toll Seven’s battle pods and stealth packs. Their planned use was a revolutionary tactic, and the cyborgs were perhaps the only troops able to pull it off.

Blackstone shook his head. Much depended on the Highborn. Would they use their long-range lasers and slowly devour everything in Mars orbit? At present, Social Unity lacked a million-kilometer weapon. Therefore, the Doom Stars standing off seemed like the wisest enemy strategy. It seemed like it at first blush, but it wasn’t. The Earth convoy fleet had brought enough prismatic crystals to absorb extended laser fire, and the plants on Mars churned out more and more defensive crystals. If the Highborn remained at long laser range, it would give them extra time to fix the moons and bring online their own million-kilometer ranged lasers.

The Highborn were impossibly clever concerning tactics and strategy. That meant the three Doom Stars might bore into close orbit, using prismatic crystals and aerosol-gel screens to shield them. Three Doom Stars massed together, all pouring laser fire at one target at a time, chewing through everything fast and annihilating ship after ship—

Sweat prickled Blackstone’s face. He hoped Supreme Commander Hawthorne knew what he was doing. Was this all simply a mad gamble? Were the Highborn invincible? It made Blackstone’s stomach churn just thinking about it.

Commodore Blackstone finally heard hisses from the other side of the hatch. A green light flashed. With a gloved hand, he touched the switch. The hatch opened and he climbed through into a pressure chamber with his security detail following. They waited, and soon the inner hatch slid open. Blackstone led the way into a larger chamber with vacc-suit racks and emergency breathing masks dangling from hooks.

He noticed Commissar Kursk. She stood with her arms crossed and as she tapped the toe of her jackbooted foot.

As Blackstone unclasped his helmet, he wondered idly what it would be like to pull off her cap and muss up