On the holosets six months ago, the Social Unity familiars urged caution, that the latest disaster had been studied and was now well in hand. Be assured that it couldn’t happen again. The mere idea of a repeat attack was ridiculous and anyone who suggested otherwise should be reported to the nearest hall leader. In memory of those so tragically lost on May 10, a planet-wide hum-a-long would commence in one hour. Anyone not participating would be given ten demerits to his profile.
It should have worked. The people had been well trained and loved the hum-a-longs.
Instead, in one hour, as if psychically connected as a mass organism, the hordes of Social Unity went mad with rage and grief. In the seventy major megalopolises, riots broke out. Billions smashed stores and looted. In some places, the peacekeepers fought back. Sometimes they were stripped of shock batons and beaten, elsewhere they joined the looting. The South American masses turned vicious. There the hordes wielded bricks and recklessly slew the police. In North America the opposite occurred. The peacekeepers went berserk and slaughtered thousands of rioters, thereby gaining temporary control.
Naturally, from their newly conquered Pacific Basin Stronghold, the Highborn gained wind of what occurred.
“Send in the FEC Armies,” urged several ground commanders. The FEC Armies: Free Earth Corps, composed of captured and reeducated Social Unitarians from Antarctica and Australian Sector.
“Nonsense,” said other Highborn. “This is a trap, crudely fashioned by the premen to get us to split our forces and be overwhelmed in detail.”
As the precious days slipped by, the SU peacekeepers regrouped, reinforced by army units and PHC shock squads. They waited for orders from the Directorate. The six surviving members of the Directorate were too busy jockeying for power in the absence of the late Lord Director Enkov. Into the vacuum stepped General James Hawthorne, the man who had almost destroyed the enemy Doom Star Genghis Khan. He steeled himself to issue savage orders. Control must be regained or the war was lost.
Then Highborn electronics broke into the world-wide datanet. If the premen had truly lost their grip, and this wasn’t a Social Unity trick, the HB psychologists said this broadcast would slip the masses over the edge. So Highborn Command beamed images of the former fighting that had gone on in the Japanese home islands, unedited shots of what had really happened on the battlefield before May 10 and the crushing asteroid attack.
Grown weary by several days rioting and thus returning to their cramped apartments, where there was little to do other than watch the holosets, almost the entire populace of Earth witnessed the Japanese Kamikaze assaults: men, women and children hurling themselves at the nine-foot tall, battle-armored Highborn and uselessly dying. The billions in front of their sets were already emotionally drained, fatigued and beginning to wonder what their wild behavior would cost them. They wept as they watched the merciless super-soldiers, the giants in their black battle-armor, butchering inept amateurs. They seethed with a gut wrenching hatred as space-borne lasers devoured transport after sea-transport trying to reach Japan Sector and help their brothers in need. 700,000 SU soldiers died in less than two hours. Thousands of SU fighters, bombers and space interceptors exploded on screen. The last of Earth’s navies were annihilated before their eyes in the blast furnace of 10 May 2350.
“Resistance is illogical. Surrender therefore and serve the New Order.”
Grand Admiral Cassius himself spoke on the holoset. For most of humanity this was their first close-in shot of a Highborn, a bioengineered soldier, originally fashioned to fight for Social Unity, not against it. The giant Grand Admiral had pearl-white skin, with harsh features angled in a most inhuman manner. His lips were razor thin and his hair, cut down almost to his scalp, was like a panther’s pelt. He had fierce black eyes, and an intense, almost pathological energy. He smiled, and to those billions it seemed that he mocked them.
“Come, let us end this useless war. Submit and live. Resist—”
The pirated link was cut at that precise moment, not in canny timing, but because the SU technicians had finally found the Highborn frequency.
Several hours later General Hawthorne gave the order. All over the planet the peacekeepers with army escorts and PHC shock squads reentered the riot zones and then onto the residential levels. They had prepared for bitter battle. Instead, they found a subdued and repentant populace. A chilling glance at Earth’s conquerors had sobered the billions out of their madness. After all, better the government you knew than the one who thought itself your genetic superior.
It should have been the moment of greatest unity. The army and PHC had worked together to save the State. Instead, the head of PHC and certain directors grew alarmed at the military’s newly gained powers. They feared General Hawthorne, and they hated the fact that they had so desperately needed him.
That had been six long months ago. Today… General Hawthorne paced in his office.
“General,” said Commodore Tivoli, “I wish you would look at these figures.”
“What’s that?” said the General, taking the proffered report and scanning it.
“MI has lost too many operatives lately.”
“Eh?” asked the General, as he sped-read the report.
“I think PHC is behind those losses,” Commodore Tivoli said. “They’re assassinating my operatives in a secret war against you, against the military.”
“Hmm.”
“They’re some of my best men, General. Keen agents. Slaughtered like pigs. PHC is poking out our eyes and making sure that we’re blind in intelligence matters.”
The General shook the report. “These aren’t the proton beam figures I asked for.”
“It’s a list of all the slain MI operatives in the last three months.”
“I can see what it is, Commodore.” Hawthorne handed her the report. “That’s your department, your worry. If you need more personnel just ask.”
“It isn’t that, General. PHC—”
“We’re late,” interrupted the General, checking his chronometer.
Commodore Tivoli frowned. “I believe this is critical.”
“Can’t it wait until after the meeting?”
“I—yes, sir.”
General Hawthorne put on his military cap and viewed himself in a mirror, tilting the hat, giving himself a bit of a rakish appearance.
“Sir, have you thought about my other suggestion?”
“Which one?” asked Hawthorne.
Tivoli said, “That any officer or soldier entering your presence should first surrender his sidearm.”
“Ridiculous.”
“But I have reports—”
“No, no,” said Hawthorne, waving his bony hand. “The officers would view it as an imperial gesture. It would alienate too many.”
“But it would make things much easier on your security detail, on keeping you alive from assassination.”
“That’s why I have the best.”
Commodore Tivoli’s frown deepened.
The General knew she had problems, worries, but so did he. He had to keep on conjuring up victories, at least until the cyborgs from Neptune arrived. His throat tightened. Few knew about that secret project, not even the Commodore. What would she think if she did know?
Hawthorne shook his head. It ached all the time. Problems everywhere, burdens dumped onto him. All the domes of Mars had re-rebelled. Terraformed Venus was under orbital blockade. Mercury. He didn’t even want to think about the armaments the Sun Works Factory churned out for the enemy.
Why couldn’t the Highborn gloat in their victory? Instead, they continued to move with their customary speed and brilliance. In six months of blitzkrieg invasions, they had snatched the rest of Earth’s islands. The Philippines, the Indonesian chain, Ceylon, Madagascar, the Azores, England, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Cuba and Haiti and the Hawaii Islands, all had fallen.