Ulrich stuffed the rag in his jacket pocket.
Hawthorne indicated the dead officers. “Shooting them like pigs is one thing. Dying—”
“I’m ready to die, General, I assure you of that.”
“It’s worth that much to you, what they’re offering?”
“James…” Pain flickered in Ulrich’s eyes. He shook his head. He checked his watch, and said, “Take off your jacket. There’s blood on the sleeve.”
Hawthorne hesitated. Then he slipped off his green jacket, tossing it aside. He wore a white shirt with a green tie and green trousers with red piping along the creases.
Ulrich eyed him critically. “We walk all the way out. Your security team will not join us because you will forbid it. Further, you will give the needed codes and commands to insure our safe arrival outside. James.” Ulrich peered closely at his former commanding officer. “I will not hesitate to kill you, even if it means my death. If you doubt my seriousness, look at your friends lying around you.”
“They were your friends, too, Air Marshal.”
“Look at them!”
Hawthorne did. He shivered.
“Ready?”
Hawthorne opened his mouth to say more, and he shut it.
“Good. Walk ahead of me.”
Hawthorne squared his bony shoulders and stepped forward. Ulrich trained the revolver on him and dropped his other hand into his jacket pocket. As Hawthorne passed, Ulrich’s hand jerked up. It held a coin-sized capsule. He pressed it against Hawthorne’s forearm. A jet of air shot the tiny pneumospray hypo, pumping a drug into the General’s bloodstream.
“What?”
Ulrich shoved Hawthorne, hard. Caught by surprise, he staggered sideways and struck the wall, then straightened angrily.
“Wait,” said Ulrich.
Hawthorne checked himself from lunging. After a moment, he rubbed his forearm. “What did you put into me?”
Ulrich smiled bitterly.
A cool, numbing feeling clouded the General’s thinking. He wanted to stay enraged. Air Marshal Ulrich, a professional colleague for more than twenty years… How could he have trusted such a monster? But the rage slipped away. It was getting harder to think.
“You’re ready,” said Ulrich. “Let’s go.”
“But…”
“Go!”
Hawthorne adjusted his tie and moved to the door, opening it. He glanced back. The beefy Air Marshal slid his hand cannon into its holster, clicking the flap shut. Noticing the appraisal, Ulrich held up the black switch, his thumb ready to press.
“Go,” he repeated.
Hawthorne stepped into the outer office. The consoles were empty, the entire room devoid of personnel. No doubt, Ulrich had ordered everyone out before he’d entered the inner sanctum.
Then it became difficult to concentrate as they strode through the vast underground bunker, a massive complex. Faces merged, worried and wondering, but comforted by Ulrich’s explanation that the General needed to relax topside, grab some fresh air and stretch his legs for a brisk walk under the sun. In time, and as the drug lost its edge, Hawthorne found himself riding a seldom-used conveyer. He rubbed his forehead.
“Try not to dwell on it,” said Ulrich.
Hawthorne faced the traitor, who had a shiny face and a foul, damp odor. Sweat stains soaked the armpits of Ulrich’s blue uniform.
“In another few minute it’s over, General. Then you’ll never have to look at me again.”
Hawthorne realized that he sneered at Ulrich. He turned toward the approaching entrance. He’d been given an obedience drug, but he hadn’t been completely obedient. There was one word he should have given to cancel secret surveillance. He had implemented this particular procedure after the late Lord Director’s assassination. He was certain the Air Marshal didn’t know about it.
“Step off,” said Ulrich.
Hawthorne hopped off the conveyer. Ulrich followed. Hawthorne strode to the door and punched in the security code. A green light flashed and the thick titanium door slid aside. They climbed the stairs and went out the last door, to a blustery park rich with evergreen odors. Pinecones littered the needled ground. A gravel path led to a hanger in the distance. Evergreens swayed all around, and surrounding the trees rose snow-capped mountains.
“Head away from the building,” said Ulrich. “South.”
Their shoes crunched over needles. The wind howled. Dark swirling clouds raced overhead. Higher then the stratosphere orbited the enemy’s space platforms. The Highborn besieged Earth.
Ulrich made an angry sound, and said, “What’s he doing here?”
General Hawthorne turned.
From behind a tree, strode a strange man. The common phrase was semi-prosthetic or bionic. Specialists had torn the man down and rebuilt him with synthetic muscles, titanium-reinforced bones and sheath-protected nerves. The bionic captain wore a loose military tunic and slacks. He had heavy features, giving him the image of a Twentieth Century gangster who broke bones for a living. He wore a peaked cap low over his eyes, while a barely audible whine emanated from him. Special wonder glands had been grafted into him and if the need arose would squirt drugs into his bloodstream and dull any pain he might receive or stimulate him to even greater strength and speed.
Ulrich stepped near the General. “It’s your head unless you get rid of him.”
Hawthorne could barely speak, but he managed to stutter, “C-Captain.”
The bionic captain strode up and saluted sharply. “Is everything all right, sir?”
Hawthorne glanced at Ulrich, who sweated even more than before, although it was cold here.
“We… we needed air,” said Hawthorne.
“Very good, sir.” The bionic captain turned toward the Air Marshal.
Ulrich peered past him, and his eyes widened in fear.
Both Hawthorne and the bionic captain turned.
Out of the woods loped six men. They wore the red body armor of Political Harmony Corps, with black helmets, boots and silver packs. A wire from the packs ran to the slim laser pistols clutched in their gloved fists.
The bionic captain moved like liquid death. He leaped and shoved Hawthorne down. Then he drew his sidearm and knelt on one knee, snapping off rapid-fire shots.
Hawthorne spit pine needles out of his mouth.
The captain fired a huge gyroc pistol, the heavy slugs igniting in mid-flight, assisted by internal rockets. The armor-piercing bullets penetrated the intruders’ protective shells and exploded. Three of the PHC squad already lay dead. Two fired lasers. One beam hissed over the General, the heat hot on his cheek. The other beam touched the bionic captain’s non-firing arm, frying flesh and bio-metal. The captain grunted, but drugs clamped down on the pain and kept him lucid. He fired twice more and two more red suits went down.
Hawthorne froze, and he realized Ulrich had pressed the inhibitor switch. But his mouth wasn’t frozen. “Behind you!” shouted Hawthorne.
BOOM.
General Hawthorne closed his eyes in sick defeat. Then he heard a familiar grunt, Ulrich. The Air Marshal pitched onto the needles beside him. The last PHC killer died under a hail of gyroc rounds.
Click.
General Hawthorne slowly rose. A moment later, the captain had his hand on his elbow. Blood dripped from the bionic shoulder.
“Are you all right?” asked Hawthorne.
“Never mind me, sir.” The captain scanned the forest. “Let’s get you below.”
“Yes,” said Hawthorne. He glanced at Ulrich, at the crushed windpipe. The bionic captain was brutally strong. He wondered then what the cyborgs were like, if they were that much superior to the bionic men?
As the captain hustled him to the door, he realized that it had almost ended for him. His stupidity bade him recall an ancient piece of prose.
Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesian War between the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta, had written it. It had concerned the various factions of various feuding city-state allies. Thucydides had written about people plotting and jockeying for political power within those states.