In the command center, a chair scraped back as a major stood, shaking her fists at the screen and cursing the Highborn.
Hawthorne sympathized. He hated the Highborn. He hated being on the defensive. But today they attacked. As he studied the figures, over thirty-four percent of the orbital fighters were destroyed. Against the Highborn, those were fantastic numbers.
The loss of so many orbital fighters and the space platforms must have stung the so-called Master Race. A Doom Star engaged its engines and began to move from its position behind Luna. The Doom Star at far-Earth orbit also began to accelerate. There were two Doom Stars in the Earth System, each far enough away so they were out of range of the merculite missiles and proton beams.
Before the first Doom Star could leave its lunar orbit, however, the Social Unity attack slackened. In this brief window of time, Hawthorne had expended a third of the Eurasian merculite missile reserve and burned out two of the proton beam cannons. It was the unprecedented scale of the attack that had won them the destruction of Highborn space targets.
To use more merculites would leave the heart of Social Unity on Earth dangerously exposed to another strike. Military Intelligence had discovered ten asteroids circling in far-Earth orbit. It was a grim reminder of Highborn power. Also, the very scale of the merculite missiles launched had resulted in a twenty-three percent degradation of launch capacity. That meant many of the blast pans used for the missile launches had been worn down and would require maintenance to function again.
The merculite missiles and the proton beams were meant as defensive weapons, primarily against any asteroids and the close approach of Doom Stars. The use of the carefully built-up stocks of missiles and the burning out of two proton beams weighed heavily on Hawthorne and on the men and women dedicated to the space defense of Earth. Despite the conference two days ago, it also cost Supreme Commander Hawthorne in perhaps the most critical area, his power base. Highly ranked military men and women questioned his decision. This was a gamble. The Highborn might very well use the depletion of defensive stocks to launch an all-out space attack on the Eurasian landmass.
Hawthorne shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Now was the critical moment. Now a small window was open to launch the supply convoy to Mars.
“Launch the Orion ships,” Hawthorne said.
The orders went out from the Joho Command Center, and then the military personnel waited. The probable success or failure of the Mars Campaign rested on what happened in these next few hours. The Orion ships had to get into space and past the Doom Stars before they could close the gap in their blockade around Earth.
Waiting in one of the many convoy vessels, was the prime clone of the late Madam Blanche-Aster. This clone had been the bodyguard who had survived the detonation of Mother aboard Hawthorne’s bullet train.
The clone’s name was Lisa Aster. As a former bodyguard, she knew guns, knives, unarmed combat and security arrangements. She was a master at kinetics and reading body language, trained to note the subtle signs of those readying themselves to kill. The late Madam Director’s death infuriated Lisa. She attributed it to the Neptune clone, the one tampered with by the cyborgs. Thus, Lisa hated the cyborgs and wanted to see them destroyed.
The clone Lisa Aster waited with thousands of other people aboard the Orion ships because Supreme Commander Hawthorne had given her a mission. Once the supply convoy reached Mars, she was supposed to study the cyborgs and discover their weaknesses.
Lisa Aster lay on an acceleration couch. Like stout General Fromm on the other couch, she wore a vacc-suit and a helmet. She had a buzz cut of pale hair and a narrow face with intelligent features.
Words sounded in her ears, something about four, three, two, one—
Then Lisa Aster’s world dramatically changed. The first nuclear bomb exploded with a mighty sound.
BANG!
It shoved her hard against the acceleration couch and made everything rattle around her. She clenched the bars beside her and then clenched her teeth.
BANG!
BANG!
The gigantic, Orion ship lifted from an underground launch-bunker in Kazakhstan Sector.
It was a crude booster and one of the most powerful propulsion systems known. Weapons-grade U-235 was the fuel, nuclear bombs. A bomb detonated under each booster. An immensely thick metal plate absorbed the blast as it was blown spaceward. It looked like a city block, with tall buildings, lifting out of the Earth and heading for the clouds. Those ‘buildings’ were supply spaceships. Lisa Aster peered at a screen in her ship and saw the clouds jump nearer at each bone-crushing BANG! After the Orion ship’s thick metal plate, was tons of hardened ablative foam. The foam’s single purpose was to cushion the shock to the riding spaceships clustered and perched at the front.
Each nuclear blast poured x-rays, heat and neutrons onto the planet. It had been a hard decision, a terrible choice, but the Orion ships had several key advantages. The weapons-grade U-235 moved the boosters fast. Each exploding warhead tremendously increased velocity. If the convoy fleet was to get past the waiting Doom Stars, it would need velocity. The other gift the Orion ships gave was the ability to lift tons of mass. No other propulsion system in the Solar System provided as much quick lift out of the Earth’s gravity well as nuclear bombs.
In the center spaceship of the second Orion ship, the original clone of the late Madam Director endured the explosions that hurled her closer to the waiting Doom Stars.
On many of the screens in the Joho Command Center, the Orion ships exited the stratosphere and headed into the space of near-Earth orbit.
“Your gamble is paying off, sir,” Captain Mune whispered.
Hawthorne wasn’t ready yet to accept that.
“They’re attacking,” someone said.
Hawthorne and Captain Mune walked to a different vidscreen. It showed a kilometers-huge Doom Star, a spherical spaceship of outlandish size. Its primary lasers stabbed into the darkness of space. They could fire a million kilometers accurately. No other surviving warship had such range. Once, Social Unity had possessed the experimental Bangladesh. Its range with its single weapon had been 30-million kilometers, a breakthrough in space combat technology.
The Orion ships had two protections against the deadly lasers. The first were packets of prismatic crystals. The normal procedure was to accelerate and then shut off the engines and drift toward the enemy. Only then would spaceships spew the prismatic crystals in their tanks to form a cloud of shiny particles that floated before, beside and behind at the same velocity as the spaceship. Unfortunately, because the Orion ships still accelerated, any prismatic crystals spewed out were soon left behind. In such a situation, combat procedures called for the spewing at carefully timed intervals. The second defense against the lasers was the massive metal plate of each booster and the hardened ablative foam behind it. For those to come into play, however, the Orion ships had to be flying away from the Doom Stars, not toward them. At this point, the supply ships clustered on the boosters were in the direct-line of laser fire.
“Estimates?” Hawthorne demanded.
The uniformed captain at the console tapped computer keys. “At this rate, sir, it seems like seventy to eighty-five percent destruction of the convoy.”
Hawthorne kept his features stoic. He could accept thirty percent destruction, could endure thirty-five and grudgingly go with forty percent. This was the only supply convoy he was going to be able to launch from Earth. The scattered SU warships in the voids had been operating on their own for far too long. They needed re-supply. They needed these munitions.