Marten leaned forward in his chair. “Listen to me, Tan. Build your Dictates, your philosophic paradise. Run rings around the controllers of Ganymede and Europa and the Helium-3 Barons.”
“Are you attempting a dialogue?”
“I’m talking sense,” Marten said. “I have a warship heading to Mars. I will follow your directions when they’re in the greater good of humanity against the cyborgs.”
“You’re no philosopher to be able to judge so finely.”
“You have a choice,” Marten said. “No. I take that back. You don’t have a choice. You’re too smart, too cagey not to really see what’s going on. Okay. Through proxies, you tried to take back this ship. You failed to do it. But what have you really lost?”
“You’re a madman, a killer and—”
“Yes!” Marten said. “I’m a killer.” He was still feeling guilty about shooting Neon in the back. “A killer is the best kind of human to send at the cyborgs.”
“You’re not heading to Neptune.”
“Not yet,” Marten said. “First, we have to stop them.”
“You now claim to know the cyborgs’ next strategic goal?” Tan asked.
Marten took a deep breath. “I am the Force-Leader of the Jovian warship Spartacus. This ship is headed to Mars to help Social Unity. Do you really want to destroy one of mankind’s few warships?”
Tan stared at him for several seconds. Finally, she sighed. “You know that I do not.”
“I didn’t want to kill Neon, but he tried to run,” Marten said. “It was either kill him or fail in the greater task. The myrmidons…I don’t think they know how to surrender.”
“You are correct. It is not coded in their genes.”
“Circe took—”
Tan interrupted. “I am not curious about her. You left her aboard the liner, and I have read the report. She pleads now to be allowed to join you. She fiercely wishes to help.” The Chief Strategist slowly shook her head. “You are an enigma, Marten Kluge.”
“I don’t think so.”
“For all your barbarism, you are strangely logical at times. You will adhere to my commands?”
“In the common good, yes,” Marten said.
“That is an equivocal answer. But I accept it. After all, you killed the cyborg in my quarters. You also successfully…well, never mind now. Go to Mars, and let us see if you can forge an alliance with Social Unity and the Planetary Union.”
“I will send you weekly reports,” Marten said. “I would also like to know the next reported sighting of cyborgs.”
“Never fear,” said Tan. “We are searching the void for them. But so far, their agenda has remained hidden to us.”
-28-
As the meteor-ship Spartacus crossed the emptiness between Jupiter and Mars, Supreme Commander Hawthorne continued his desperate war. He refused to relent against Political Harmony Corps or the Party, as he tightened his grip on Social Unity.
He became leaner, and his shoulders took on a stooped bent. Bags developed under his eyes. A week after he declared North America conquered by the Highborn, a stubborn discoloration entered and remained under his hollowed-out eyes.
There were pockets of resistance in North America, but all reports indicated a major redeployment of the best FEC formations.
Then the Starvation Riots changed in nature and intensity. Underground PHC people joined in several, and nine cities erupted in outright rebellion. The worst offenders were in the Greater Syrian Sector. Aleppo, Beirut and Damascus declared themselves independent soviets.
“It’s only a matter of time before they call in the Highborn,” Hawthorne told his war council. They met in an underground bunker outside of New Baghdad, with harsh lights overhead.
The hard-eyed field marshals and generals around the conference table waited for his next words. These were his best commanders, culled from every failed front. Two had been snatched out of North America in near-suicide flights. They had shown themselves bitter defenders. Each had personally drawn his or her sidearm on more than one occasion and summarily shot defeatists and disloyalists. There was no surrender with officers like these.
“The three rebelling soviets are an infestation of defeat,” said Hawthorne. “They are a cancer in the body politic. If they are allowed to mature, their poison could quickly spread to others and then I foresee chaos of the worst kind. No. I will not allow that to occur. We must quash these so-called independent soviets, and do it quickly and decisively.”
“I recommend a thermonuclear solution, sir.” The speaker was Field Marshal Baines, formerly in charge of the North American Front. “It’s what I’d wish I’d done to Montreal. Three fusion weapons will decapitate the rebellion.”
“How will you reestablish control of the cities after that?” Hawthorne asked.
The squat field marshal shook his bald head. “Respectfully sir, there will be no reestablishment of control. You kill rebels. Hit with surface thermonuclear strikes and then use city-busters. The special missile burrows deep before exploding, ensuring massive destruction. We’ve been developing the idea for use against strategic Highborn cities.”
“You mean captured Earth cities?” asked Hawthorne.
“Yes sir, the Free Earth Corps traitors.”
“But these aren’t FEC-controlled cities,” said Hawthorne. “They’re in the Greater Syrian Sector, in the heart of Social Unity.”
Field Marshal Baines pointed a blunt index finger with his thumb cocked at a ninety-degree angle, as if he was a boy with a make-believe gun. “When I found a defeatist or a coward among my soldiers—” The Field Marshal’s gun-hand moved upward as if from recoil. “I killed the offender. It cost me a soldier, but it instilled resolve in the others. It let them know what was in store for anyone who failed in his or her duty. As you pointed out, we can’t let this rebellion infest others. Burn them out fast. Drop fusion weapons, and use city-busters on each.”
Hawthorne rubbed his eyes. It was a brutal proposal, but it would solve the problem. For a second, he considered it. They had no time for niceties. Their backs were to the wall and this could dissolve the iron in the planet-wide resistance. Then he shook his head. Would he turn on the people? He needed horror. That was true, something to shock and dismay. What kind of—ah, maybe there was another way to dismay these rebels.
“We will strike with speed,” Hawthorne said, “but with cybertanks instead of thermonuclear weapons. I’ve read reports that people run away in terror when they hear the approaching treads of cybertanks.”
There was a rustle of uniforms as the field marshals and generals shifted in their seats.
“Yes,” Hawthorne said. “I understand your unease. Bringing the cybertanks up out of the cities and onto the surface is a risk. The Highborn might have secretly ringed new laser satellites around us. Those lasers could burn out the tanks. General Manteuffel, you have a comment?”
“Cybertanks are a strategic asset instead of just another tactical battlefield weapon, sir,” said Manteuffel, a small, athletic man. He had once helped Hawthorne defeat a cybertank in New Baghdad, allowing the Supreme Commander access to the then ruling Director.
“I’m aware of that,” said Hawthorne. “I helped change their designation several years back. I’m willing to gamble, however. I don’t believe the Highborn will risk revealing hidden laser emplacements—given they even exist—for the destruction of several squadrons of cybertanks.”
“Several squadrons, sir?” asked General Manteuffel.
“I fully appreciate your concern,” Hawthorne said. “The cybertanks are potent battlefield weapons of massive capability. In the end, they may be too massive, too potent and too concentrated in destructive ability. They’ll draw the enemy’s strategic elements onto them. Yet of what use are these strategic weapons if we never use them? No. This is a strategic moment of critical necessity. We must engage the cybertanks.”