“It matters because it tells us how likely the Martians are to win. If they lose, they’re not going to give us anything.”
“So what are you saying?” Omi asked.
“That I wish I’d chosen to head straight to Jupiter,” Marten said. “It would have been better to sit out a few years in the shuttle and finally get out of Inner Planets. We’re in a bind now and our shuttle is up there, with a Battlefleet in our way once we try for Jupiter.”
“Tell Chavez we’ve changed our mind.”
“You know what they say about Martians,” Marten said. “They’re clever. Chavez is on top so he’s likely trickier than the rest. Maybe the reason everyone thinks we’re so deadly is that Mars hardly has any real soldiers.”
“Vip wasn’t much of a soldier to start with,” Omi said. “But the Highborn turned him into a standup fighter.”
Marten grinned. “There you are. That’s the answer.”
“What’d I say?”
“We’re going to take… ten of these assassins. Yeah, I’m going to weed them carefully. Then I’ll use the ten on a practice strike into the giant chasm.”
“And?” Omi asked.
“And I’m going to fashion me a small combat team that’s fought under fire and survived together. You know how everything changes once you live through a firefight.”
“These are Chavez’s chosen people. They’re here because they’re loyal.”
“I understand,” Marten said. “They’re loyal. But we’re going to build a different loyalty, one forged in battle. I’m not looking to shift all of them, just a handful.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m recruiting,” Marten said. “I’m recruiting for a small combat team so we can take a lift up to the launch station, storm it, grab our fuel and get the heck out of this system before that Battlefleet decides to move in.”
Omi slowly shook his head. “That’s a wild long-shot.”
“You have a better idea to get us out of here?”
“…no.”
“Then that’s our plan,” Marten said. He was thinking about Nadia Pravda as he turned around and hailed Major Diaz, asking the Aztec Martian to have the men line up again for a second inspection.
-12-
Several days after Marten spoke with Omi in the gym and 350,000 kilometers away, the clone Lisa Aster leaned back and massaged her eyes.
She had a small cubicle aboard the supply ship that had brought her to Mars orbit. It was cluttered with computer equipment, tactical body-armor, vibroknives and various guns. For the past few hours, she had been studying screenshots of the cyborgs and processing known data. The Toll Seven cyborg was different from the others.
Lisa had been trying to figure out the differences. It was the meld, she decided. Toll Seven was heavy like a robot, more like a cybertank with two legs than flesh melded with machine. The elongated cyborgs—Lisa shuddered as she examined a screenshot. Their limbs were skeletal and their frozen faces a mockery of their former humanity. It seemed obvious the cyborg masters must have converted criminals into these horrible machine-things. Lisa had used Bioram computers before, the thin sheets of human brain tissue surrounded by programming gel and aided by processors. The brain tissue came from incoercible criminals against the State, those who insisted on committing antisocial acts. Such criminals died justly, giving their body parts to the State they had insisted on robbing during their lives.
What crimes had the elongated cyborgs committed? Lisa knew little about the conditions in Outer Planets. Yes, she’d watched the reality shows, but she’d always suspected they had overplayed those strange, capitalist notions. If everyone spent their money as they wished, chaos would ensue. That was so logically obvious that Lisa couldn’t accept that free capitalism existed in the Outer Planets.
Lisa leaned forward in concentration, switching screenshots, studying them closely. Maybe the cyborgs were built-up like a Bioram, the organic parts shaved from various criminals and melded with machines.
Lisa adjusted the controls on her vidscreen until the battle pods appeared. She zoomed in. They were shaped like bullets and they had dark ceramic hulls, with a blizzard of antennas on the front and the back. They seemed unbelievable small. General Fromm had suggested the cyborgs had been switched off for the journey. Lisa doubted that. You couldn’t just switch off flesh. Maybe they had been frozen. That struck Lisa as gruesome and made the battle pods seem like flying coffins.
There was one larger battle pod. Toll Seven had exited it and no one else. Its greater mass indicated it was loaded with cyborg devices. Lisa had also discovered that it sent and received lightguide messages to and from the Neptune System. It was impossible to snoop on a lightguide message, as it was a communications laser shot to an exact receiver. It was also incredible the cyborgs could fire a laser that distance and hit the receiver. It was so amazing it seemed supernatural.
Lisa’s narrow face tightened as she ran her fingers across her buzz-cut hair. The cyborgs had done something to Rita Tan, the Blanche-Aster clone sent to the Neptune System. That something had cost the clones their Mother. Had the Neptune cyborgs implanted obedience devices into Rita Tan?
Lisa stared at the larger battle pod, Toll Seven’s ship. Supreme Commander Hawthorne suspected that PHC on Earth had communicated with the battle pod. Hawthorne suspected the cyborgs had an agenda all their own. He wanted to confirm that or he wished to gain hints about them the cyborgs didn’t want known.
There were various plans, all much too dangerous in Lisa’s opinion. One plan called for her secretly contacting the chief cyborg as she pretended to be Rita Tan. Lisa had already ruled that out. She dreaded being alone with Toll Seven. Maybe the cyborg could inject her with cyborg converters or with obedience drugs. No, she wouldn’t take any foolish chances. Another plan called for her spacewalking to the battle pods in a chameleon-suit and planting listening devices on the vessels.
Oh yes, she was going to do that, and find herself face-to-face with a suited cyborg who would drag her into a battle pod to convert her into one of those. No, Lisa rejected such dangerous plans. She would watch, study and wait for a chance when a safe one came. If a safe chance never came her way, well, then she would return to Earth having failed, but still very much alive as the clone Lisa Aster.
A day later, Commodore Blackstone listened to Toll Seven. He, the cyborg, Commissar Kursk and stout General Fromm from the supply convoy stood around a holographic map-module.
The Vladimir Lenin’s command center was cramped, red-lit and circularly-shaped. A dozen officers sat around them behind vidscreens. The officers passed orders and information between the Battlefleet’s warships and monitored Mars.
Powerful probes and detection satellites watched the voids of space, those most likely to contain enemy Doom Stars on secret maneuvers. They also watched Mars for new Rebel satellites trying to spy on the Battlefleet. As quickly as the Rebels sent up new probes, the Battlefleet launched drones. With stealth technology, those drones crept upon the satellites, eliminating them and hopefully keeping the Martians ignorant about exact fleet dispositions.
The holographic map-module showed a large, burnt-orange image of Mars, with a dotted line around the planet placing the Battlefleet in far orbit. The green dots near the planet were the known Martian space-defenses.
Toll Seven had clumsily adjusted the controls the first few seconds. Now he worked them flawlessly, making the blue Battlefleet symbol dance for him as he outlined possible adjustments to Supreme Commander Hawthorne’s operational plan.
Once, General Fromm looked up from the holographic map and stared at Toll Seven. “That’s brilliant,” the stout Earther said hoarsely.
“Your approval is noted,” Toll Seven murmured. “Further adjusts might be made here…”