Battle Pod

battleships. More often, the lasers struck thinner-skinned vessels, cutting some in half so living beings tumbled like space-scum into the black vacuum.

Commodore Blackstone’s plan to absorb energy by taking days of heavy laser fire was destroyed. Yet by sending the Fidel Castro and other ships to their deaths to kill the majority of the enemy missiles, he had saved the majority of the SU Battlefleet. At least, he’d saved it from annihilation here at the opening of the battle.

Like thieves frightened by policemen, the SU Battlefleet scattered for safety. All the while, the terrible beams from the voids fired. The untouchable Doom Stars lived up to their names. The master plan to envelop the Doom Stars had fallen apart days before it could be implemented.

Commodore Blackstone gripped the map-module as he listened to the list of ships destroyed and those that had taken heavy damage. The Fidel Castro and two other battleships were gone, along with two missile-ships. Those were appalling losses when he had absolutely nothing to show for it.

“We have eight battleships left,” Blackstone said tonelessly, “and seven missile-ships. That’s unspeakable. We didn’t even touch them.”

General Fromm looked up from the map-module. He had never changed expression throughout the disaster. “You are incorrect in saying we have achieved nothing.”

Blackstone stared open-mouthed at the stout Earth General. He finally managed to ask, “What are you talking about?”

“The Highborn have played one of their surprises,” Fromm said in his maddeningly calm voice. “We still have our surprises.”

“But three priceless battleships—”

Fromm shook his round head. “The Highborn have a limited number of surprises. Now they approach Mars where our surprises wait. They have damaged us, but we still possess a Battlefleet.” Fromm’s fat fingers indicated the list of other destroyed vessels displayed on the holographic module. “Twenty other vessels destroyed. The greater majority of these are the decoy ships.”

“Which were still full of personnel,” Blackstone half sobbed.

“Battle entails losses, Commodore,” Fromm said without any change of inflection. “The decoy vessels have served a useful purpose. They fulfilled two purposes, in fact. They perished so battle-worthy craft could live to fight again. And they have no doubt given the Highborn a higher sense of accomplishment than they should have. That will heighten one of their greatest weaknesses.”

“Highborn don’t have weaknesses,” Blackstone said. “This attack should have proved that to you.”

“They are arrogant,” General Fromm said. “They are insufferably arrogant. That, in the end, shall be their undoing.”

Commodore Blackstone glanced at Commissar Kursk. She stared at the list of destroyed ships. The Vladimir Lenin along with most of the Battlefleet was now behind Mars in relation to the oncoming Doom Stars. Supreme Commander Hawthorne’s grand plan—Blackstone sneered. They should have kept the fleet in small pieces between the Inner Planets, harrying the Highborn where they were weakest. To try to match the nine-foot super-soldiers in a head-on battle, it was suicide for Social Unity.

Vaguely, Blackstone wondered why Toll Seven wasn’t here aboard the Vladimir Lenin. He could have used the cyborg’s advice. He wondered what the strange cyborg thought about the disaster. The cyborg surprise would be all-important now. Without those stealth capsules…

-10-

Toll Seven sat alone in his command pod with Web-Mind all around him.

Web-Mind was the greatest technological marvel in the Solar System. It was a mass bio-computer merged with metric tons of neural processors. Hundreds of bio-forms had died to supply Web-Mind with the needed brain mass. Each kilo of brain tissue had been personality scrubbed and carefully rearranged on wafer-thin sheets and surrounded by computing gel. Other machinery kept the temperature at a perfect 98.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Tubes fed the tissues the needed nutrients. Sensors monitored bio-health. Sub-computers did a hundred other necessary chores to keep Web-Mind functioning perfectly. The bio-brain-mass could outthink any known entity and track many thousands of enslaved bio-forms. The Web-Mind on the Neptune Habitat was supreme, but the one in Toll Seven’s command pod had been given override authority here. That meant it could adjust the master plan to suit emergency needs. It had more than enough brain mass to engineer victory at Mars System. Its future function would be to act as syndic for all Inner Planets.

Toll Seven wore a wireless headband, linking him to Web-Mind. Well before the Doom Stars had reached the one-million kilometer range, he had slipped the command pod to a safer location near the atmosphere of Mars. He had initiated shutdown procedures and implemented stealth-sheathing to the outer hull. Then he had cooled the pod’s hull so his vessel imitated space debris. The safety of Web-Mind superseded all other considerations. In the coming days of heavy battle, there would be no real safe place in the Mars System. Web-Mind had considered slipping out of the system and awaiting the battle’s outcome. But it had decided that camouflaging as space debris was safer than engaging engines for an extended burn to reach a suitable distance.

Toll Seven scanned his pre-battle arrangements. The Neptune-made cyborgs were scattered throughout the Mars System. Most waited in single stealth-capsules like the newly converted half-cyborg, Lisa Aster. Others guarded Olympus Mons, ready to take over the proton beam and the point-defense systems there. Perhaps as importantly, critical Webbies were stationed throughout the Battlefleet, ready to assume command positions. They would gain those positions through surprise assassinations.

Toll Seven’s head rotated like a robot’s head. His silver eyes swiveled in their black plastic sockets as he read the message on the monitor before him. The green letters scrolled past at impossible speeds. Toll Seven’s fingers blurred as he typed the reply. Web-Mind concurred.

General Fromm had asked a last question via Web-link. Toll Seven answered. Web-Mind then informed him that General Fromm had unplugged from the link and was returning to his place on the Vladimir Lenin’s bridge.

Several days would pass now as the Doom Stars approached. Likely, the genetic super-soldiers would continue to fire their heavy lasers at targets of opportunity.

A strange reaction surged through Web-Mind. It caused Toll Seven to stiffen because he was linked via the wireless headband. He felt Web-Mind’s emotions and sensed that soothing chemicals poured along the wafer-thin bio-sheets. The great bio-brain entity knew a moment of uncertainty. Was it possible that its secret plan would fail in the face of the Highborn? Web-Mind wished for continued existence. Its location above Mars as camouflaged debris—

Then the soothing chemicals softened the unease and Web-Mind began to reconfigure its strategies and coming tactics. No single entity could outthink it. The Master Plan would surge ahead and the Mars System would fall to Web-Mind. It was inevitable. If only this waiting period could be sped up.

“The wait will unhinge the Highborn more than it can possibly disturb Web-Mind,” Toll Seven interjected.

Both Web-Mind and Toll Seven understood the truth of that. Still, the wait was the wait for unperceived possibilities to interfere with the smooth application of the Master Plan. Only time and events could truly solve that dilemma.

-11-

The Doom Stars bored toward Mars as the heavy lasers swept Deimos with brutal destruction. Belatedly, the commander there began pumping chaff and prismatic-crystals before the moon. Then all the moon’s missiles were launched at the Doom Stars.