“Get ready,” Osadar said. “I’m about to begin docking procedures.”
Marten sat beside her in a shuttle half the size of the former Mayflower. They were in mid-orbit around Callisto. Far below against the Galilean moon shined a bright orange light. It was a giant booster-ship making a landing, bringing badly needed supplies to a stranded cleanup crew. The Jovian System was like a kicked-over ant colony. Everyone left alive was busy trying to repair the horrible damage created by the cyborg assault.
Using his screen, Marten glanced at the nearing cargo vesseclass="underline" the Thaliana. It was a huge teardrop-shaped spaceship and belonged to Meta-mines Incorporated. Meta-mines was a consortium with quarter shares by several of the most powerful Helium-3 Barons. Her survival of the war with the cyborgs was attributable to her clever captain. The captain had kept a strict visual of any suspicious vessel that approached too closely. Then she had promptly put the cargo ship behind a planetary body, shielding them from the intruder. The Thaliana was the third cargo ship this month to dock by Marten’s warship, and brought critical supplies.
Marten clicked a toggle. In spite of himself, he grinned as he witnessed his meteor-ship yet again. It was a battered warship, and had belonged to the cyborgs. Despite the brutal pounding it had taken on the original attack against Callisto, the meteor-ship had retained its basic shape. It was a rock, a hollowed-out asteroid packed with a repaired fusion engine, compartments, supplies, living quarters, coils, missiles and laser generators.
Through the screen, Marten noted that his ship looked as if it had passed through a floating junkyard. Tubes, oddly-shaped polygons, girders, patrol boats, antennae and trailing lines were attached in a seemingly random fashion. The warship still needed a lot of work to turn it into the combat-vessel it had been. But the warship could move under its own power now, and it could accommodate its crew. Maybe in another month, it would be ready to head for Earth.
“Initiating docking procedures,” Osadar said, clicking a switch.
The shuttle thrummed with power and thrust. Marten sank against his seat, and they eased toward one of the Thaliana’s docking tubes….
-15-
“What?” Marten asked. The meeting was only seven minutes old, and he was getting angrier by the moment.
He sat in the Thaliana’s wardroom, a cramped space with a kidney-shaped metal table taking up most of the area. Riveted stools around the table provided seating. Marten and Osadar had both squeezed around the table and to their present spot.
The cargo-ship’s captain was here. She was short like most Jovians, lacked hair and wore a crumpled brown uniform. She had large eyes, reminding Marten of Nadia. Those eyes the captain carefully kept downcast. She was obviously a cautious woman, a characteristic which had likely won her the position and had certainly allowed her to keep it throughout the cyborg assault.
“No,” Marten said, shaking his head. “I think that’s a bad idea.”
Another Jovian sat on a stool. She was small, although not as small as Chief Strategist Tan. As Tan often did, the Jovian woman wore a sheer silk gown. It revealed a gymnast’s body underneath—small firm breasts, a tight belly and smooth limbs. She had dark curls and an aloof attitude. Affixed to her forehead was a jet-black stone.
Osadar had informed Marten about the stone’s significance. On Callisto and under the Dictates, it had meant an Ur-philosopher of the Third Rank.
“Ur—that means she’s greater than a regular philosopher?” Marten had asked as they’d first entered the chamber.
“No,” Osadar had whispered back. “She is, or was, a philosopher-in-training, likely groomed for the highest level of governance.”
Marten’s anger had begun then, and in these few minutes, it had been steadily getting worse. Tan was changing the game on him. Maybe as bad, he hated dealing with anyone remotely connected to Callisto’s philosophers. Their arrogance approached that of the Highborn, although it was less physically oriented and more cerebral.
The gowned Jovian—her name was Circe—presently clicked her fingernails on the metal table.
Three myrmidons flanked her on each side. At the clicking, the six gene-warped warriors stiffened, and their dark eyes seemed to become wet with anticipation. It was an intimidating experience, and the room was too close and confining. Marten might draw fast enough to shoot two of them, but that was no guarantee he’d kill those two. Osadar was a cyborg, but he doubted she could tear apart the remaining four before the myrmidons finished the two of them.
Their uniforms were a bright orange color. They lacked stunners and had knives and knuckle-mounts instead of shock rods. These six seemed more animalistic than the other myrmidons he’d seen. Marten had yet to hear any of them speak even the most rudimentary speech. It seemed like a crime against humanity to mutate Homo sapiens like this. If he could, he’d outlaw such practices. Maybe the one good thing the cyborg attack had achieved was the destruction of such gene-tampering centers on Callisto.
“This matter is far beyond your scope, Force-Leader,” Circe was telling him. “I have a directive from the highest level. Nothing can stop its implementation, certainly not your displeasure.”
“Tan gave you this directive?” Marten asked.
Circe’s mouth tightened. She had full lips, sensuous lips. It seemed to Marten that such lips were unsuited for an Ur-philosopher.
“I insist you act with decorum,” Circe said. “The one you speak about is the Chief Strategist. You sully her position and the importance of her rank by bandying her name with such indifference. I will not tolerate it.”
“She gave me my captaincy and made me the ambassador,” Marten said.
“If by that you mean you are the meteor-ship’s Force-Leader, why yes, you have accurately stated the situation. I fail to see, however, how your comment affects my statement.”
“I mean that Tan—her name—is, ah, important to me.” Marten rubbed the bridge of his nose. Trying to talk with an Ur-philosopher, so she could understand him, was giving him a headache.
Circe seemed faintly amused. “Do not attempt to dialogue with me, Force-Leader. I am many times your intellectual superior.”
“Listen. I’m not interested in your IQ.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is another indictor of barbarism.”
Marten slapped the table with an open palm. “Tan gave me the position of ambassador. Now you’re trying to tell me she lied?”
“Your manner is unseemly and vulgar. And I find it distressing that you would resort to such brutish tactics.”
“Lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Once more, Circe clicked her fingernails on the table. “The Chief Strategist assured me your veneer of barbarism was something akin to a disguise. She assured me you knew your place in the hierarchy. Now I’m beginning to wonder if that’s so.”
Osadar leaned minutely forward, and she said in her strange voice, “The Dictates no longer run the Jovian System.”
A half-second passed before Circe answered. “Your statement lacks precision,” she said, without looking at Osadar. “The Guardian Fleet practices the mandates, even if the system as a whole has sunk into unrestrained emotionalism.”
Marten silently counted to ten. If ever there was a time to watch his speech, this was it. He had a warship to run. He’d already received the majority of his crew and the surviving space marines from the storming of Athena Station. Omi was in charge of training the marines, and even now ran them through an exercise. It was wise to keep combat troops busy.