Marten had received only a miniscule amount of fuel, however. It was enough to allow them system maneuvering as they headed for an orbital launch station. Apparently, Secretary-General Chavez was intrigued with them. The ruler of the Planetary Union wanted to speak in person with Marten.
As Marten and Omi sat in the control module, they planned.
“It’s a trap,” Omi said.
Marten had just told him how Chavez couldn’t take time from his busy schedule to go to the orbital station. Thus, Marten would have to go down to Mars, to Olympus Mons to be exact, and meet the Secretary-General there.
“It could be,” Marten admitted. “That still leaves you in control of the Mayflower.”
“How long must I stay here?”
“How long can you last?”
“Several more months if I have to,” Omi said grimly.
“Social Unity will attack before that. I doubt, however, it’s a trap.”
“Why not?” asked Omi.
“Would the Secretary-General of an entire planet stoop to lying just to get us out of the shuttle?”
“It depends on how badly they need the shuttle.”
“No,” Marten said. “If they need it that badly, then they’ve lost already to Social Unity and they would know it. He wants something else.”
“What?”
“What can I offer him?” Marten asked. “Information. He’s curious. Why he’s curious, I don’t know. But I need to use his curiosity to buy us fuel and more warfare pods.”
“You won’t be able to bluff him like you did the Deimos unionist.”
“Omi, do you realize who we are?”
The Korean gave him a blank look.
“We’re the shock troopers. There’s no one tougher than us. There’s no one who could have done what we did. I don’t mean for that to sound arrogant. But I do mean to recognize what we have. Think about it. We’re the toughest military men on Mars and the toughest in all Social Unity. Yeah, there are only two of us. But we survived the Storm Assault Missiles and we survived the Bangladesh. If that doesn’t give us something powerful, I don’t know what would.”
“What’s your point?” Omi asked.
Marten studied the flight path and made a small course correction. “We can’t let anyone or anything overawe us. After slamming into the Bangladesh’s particle-shield and storming onto the beamship, I don’t know of anything else more frightening. My point is that maybe I can intimidate the Secretary-General. How many of them could have slain Highborn?”
Omi let a tight smile slide onto his face. “You’re saying that all we have left are our balls. So we might as well maximize that. Yeah. You’re right. Go see the Secretary-General. But remember that even Highborn can die. We’re not invincible.”
“We are hungry, though,” Marten said. “Hungry to taste our freedom. Hungry to live and act like free men.”
“Free,” Omi said. “I like the sound of that.”
Marten made another small course correction. Then he tried to envision why a planetary leader in the midst of a looming war would want to speak face-to-face with an ex-shock trooper.
-8-
As they journeyed toward Mars, Marten debated with himself about trusting Secretary-General Chavez. The man had guaranteed their shuttle, quite a concession from a planetary leader.
Besides, Marten could seal the shuttle and make it difficult for the Martians to enter. His father had taught him about explosives and his mother had taught him about computer codes and overrides. Her computer cunning had kept her, Marten and his father alive and out of PHC hands for three years in the Sun-Works Factory.
Omi might go stir-crazy waiting in the Mayflower. There were psychological tricks the Unionists could try if they wanted the shuttle badly enough. The bomb threat against the Chief Unionist on Deimos likely wouldn’t work a second time. The Unionists could just have him dock at an armored area and call his threat.
Instead of Omi staying onboard, Marten could set up a complex entrance code. If anyone tampered with it, he’d set the shuttle to explode. The trouble was that given time, a tech-cracker could break the computer code.
He asked Omi about it.
“You’re only going to be gone a few hours,” Omi replied.
They neared the orbital launch site. It was torus-shaped and rotated, creating artificial gravity for those within. The station had heavy particle-shields, but it hadn’t deployed any prismatic crystals or aerosol gels. There were a few visible shuttles docked. One of the shuttles was open and a small pod with a mechanical arm placed a long tube into the waiting spacecraft.
“We hope it’s only going to be a few hours,” Marten said. “I’m going down there.” He pointed at the rust-colored planet. “If something bad happens, it’s a long way to get back up here.”
“What are you worried about?” Omi asked.
“Getting tricked for one thing. Remember what the Highborn used to tell us? Two guns are greater than one plus one. Meaning, it’s easier for a soldier to act cowardly when he’s by himself, but much harder with another person he knows watching.”
“You want me to come along?” Omi asked.
“It would be the smarter move,” Marten said.
“We risk losing the shuttle then,” Omi said. “It’s our ticket out of Inner Planets. With it, we have bargaining power. Without it, we’re just two grunts.”
Marten’s chest tightened as they inched toward the orbital launch station. He’d spoken with Officer Dugan before they’d left Deimos. She’d let slip some critical information. For one thing, the size of the SU Battlefleet hiding on the other side of Mars. It was at far orbit, about the distance the moon was from Earth, about 384,000 kilometers. It was obvious Social Unity was planning an attack on Mars. Social Unity was losing the war against the Highborn. So they had to do something. Yet if they were losing to the Highborn, why bother attacking Mars and adding to their enemies? It would make more sense making allies of the Mars Rebels if they could.
Whatever the case, the important thing for Marten was the presence of the SU Battlefleet. According to Officer Dugan, the convoy fleet was two days from rendezvousing with it. That made Marten wonder. Suppose the Rebels granted them fuel. Would the Battlefleet ignore them as they headed for the Jupiter Confederation? It seemed highly unlikely. So until the SU Battlefleet left Mars orbit, the shuttle wasn’t going to help them escape Inner Planets. That meant it was wiser to keep together. Every Horror Holovid he’d watched in Sydney with Molly had the actors splitting up so the individualist villains could pick them off one at a time.
“We should definitely both go,” Marten said.
“What about the Mayflower?”
Marten began to type control keys. During the long journey here, he’d set up several coded defenses. Now it was a matter of choosing the best one and engaging it with the fusion engine.
As Omi and he exited the shuttle-tube, no one tried to take their sidearms. The space-station commander nodded curtly when Marten explained about the coded lock and what would happen if anyone triggered it by trying to enter the shuttle.
The space-station leader, Commander Zapata, was lean, but he wasn’t too thin like the other Martians. He wore a crisp uniform and had a badly burned face. He had an eye-patch over the left eye. Why he didn’t have a skin graft and a glass eye or an optical implant seemed strange. Maybe PHC had put him on a blacklist when the accident had occurred. That seemed likely the more Marten considered it. Commander Zapata had likely once been an agitator, at least according to Political Harmony Corps’ view when it ran Mars. Marten assumed it because now Zapata ran this important orbital launch satellite. So that logically meant Zapata had already been highly placed in the Rebel Movement. The Rebels had only controlled Mars for less than two years.