“We must save Earth,” Cassius declared.
None of the officers turned toward him.
Cassius straightened, and he held a retort in check. He’d said that too many times already. He knew it, but the words kept bubbling out of him. They had to save Earth, or the war against the cyborgs was lost.
Closing his eyes, Cassius witnessed the Gustavus Adolphus’s obliteration yet again in his memory. He’d risked, and he’d lost the gamble. Now he might lose Earth. He might lose the industrial capacity of billions of premen laboring for the New Order of Highborn supremacy.
“I refuse to despair,” Cassius whispered. He glanced at his officers. Their bearing told him he’d lost status in their eyes. Might he lose his rank, as well?
Moving deliberately, Cassius entered his shell. He must remain calm. He must act as he’d done hundreds of times before. Any deviation in his behavior could trigger their aggression against him. The battle wasn’t over and Earth might yet survive the attack. The asteroids rushed to meet the slow-moving but still accelerating habitats. Social Unity possessed proton beams and merculite missiles. There was still hope.
Turning on the holoimages, forcing himself to study them, Cassius saw the remaining shuttles collecting the surviving Highborn commandoes off the various asteroids. Many had died in the assaults. But more premen dead lay slain on the Saturn-launched planet wreckers. The Jovians—
“Marten Kluge,” Cassius whispered. He needed a diversion, something to do to take his mind off losing a Doom Star. He needed to relax in order to keep his mind sharp enough to keep his high command. The Jovian-captured asteroid continued to accelerate away from its former heading. Kluge had refused the order to space here in a patrol boat. Perhaps the subhuman understood all too well the punishments that awaited him here. But Kluge’s refusal wasn’t going to save him. Even now, three Highborn shuttles raced after the rogue asteroid. The Highborn commandoes had orders to capture Kluge and bring him to the Julius Caesar. Thinking about that helped divert Cassius. That in turn helped deflect his brooding.
This was the final round in the genocidal asteroid-strike. While he was alive, he would dominate the Highborn and through them the universe.
-91-
“We can’t pull the same trick against the Highborn,” Osadar said.
“So we accept defeat?” Omi asked.
“No,” said Marten. The three of them played cards in a storage locker. Boxes were stacked in the corners. Plastic barrels of water made a wall on one side. They’d taken down the top barrels and made the table with it. Smaller boxes were the chairs. The worn cards were from Mars, stored in Omi’s pocket.
“No,” Marten said. “You take off and leave the asteroid. It’s me they want.”
“They want all of us,” Omi said.
Marten grinned tiredly. “You saw a replay of the message. Cassius all but gloated about the things he was going to teach a mulish preman like me.”
“You have an odd ability,” Osadar said. “It is uncanny how easily you anger those in charge.”
“Yeah,” said Marten. “It’s because I like to be my own man. My mistake, I guess.”
“It is immaterial,” said Osadar. “With the successful strike against Earth, the cyborgs will have clinched victory.”
“Nothing’s clinched yet,” Marten said hotly.
Osadar glanced at Omi and shrugged. “He is incurable,” she said.
“I want you to leave,” Marten said, as he stared at his cards. He had two aces, a ten of clubs, a two of diamonds and a Joker. “Take Nadia with you.”
Omi laid his cards on the table—on the plastic water barrels. “No one is running out on you. One: the shuttles will overtake our patrol boats and we have no ammo left. Two: you’re our Force-Leader. We stand or die with you, Marten. Accept it.”
Marten looked away as his heart beat rapidly. He didn’t deserve friends like this. He was spent and it told on his emotions. He rubbed his eye as he thought about his friends staying to die with him. There was a speck in it, that’s all. He kept telling himself that until he stood up. “I’m not going to meekly surrender.”
“No one thought you were,” Omi said.
“Okay,” Marten said. “I just wanted to get that straight.”
-92-
Marten, Nadia and Omi were the only ones in the main room of the first dome. His wife sat at the sensor board.
Marten stared out of the big window. It showed the crater-plain and the stars overhead. If he looked hard enough, Earth was the biggest dot to his subjective left. How long ago had it been since he’d left Earth? Stick, Turbo…Hall-Leader Quirn…Molly, all old memories. He’d left as a slave of the Highborn, one of their decorated, chosen pets. Now he was a Force-Leader of free men. Now he had to keep his people free of the shackle-bearing, castrating Highborn.
Squinting, Marten studied the bright dot. The idea that he rode a world-killing asteroid seemed unbelievable. He had done his best to save Earth, deflecting one of seventeen planet wreckers. If more meteor-ships had joined him, he could have stopped more. He kept trying to think of something profound to say regarding billions of dead people. He shook his head, hating cyborgs and Highborn. Social Unity didn’t look so bad now in comparison. He still loathed the rampant, deadening socialism, but it wasn’t annihilation. If everyone on Earth died, if Social Unity perished as a force, it meant the supremacists and aliens would win. One represented eternal slavery for humanity. The other meant extinction.
“Two of the shuttles are braking, and they’re not going to land,” Nadia informed them.
Marten turned and studied his wife’s long dark hair. She’d tied it in a ponytail. He liked it that way. It let him kiss her neck more easily.
“The third shuttle is moving in,” Nadia said. “They’re hailing us.” She turned as a light on her board blinked yellow. Her eyes were red-rimmed with fear. “What should I do?”
“Open channels,” Marten said in a rough voice.
Nadia did, and an arrogant Highborn appeared on the screen. He had the signature wide face, the square chin and chiseled features, the stark-white coloring. Some of his dark, pelt-like hair had been shaved away. Worse, half of his face was covered in a more human tone of a plasti-flesh bandage. The rawness of his skin around the bandage showed that his face had taken bad burn damage or cyborg laser-fire. Marten supposed that was the same thing. The fierceness shining from the Highborn’s good eye showed that the soldier hadn’t taken any painkillers. They were all mad, all hyped-up on their quest as supermen.
“I recognize you,” the Highborn said.
“I’m Marten Kluge.”
Irritation flashed across the damaged face. “Since I’ve already stated I recognize you, there was no need to tell me your name,” the Highborn said. He held up a big hand as Marten began to speak. “I am aware of your habits. It is the reason we have been given our mission. Do you know what that mission is, preman?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Marten asked.
“You are to return with me to the Julius Caesar.”
“Is that right?”
The Highborn bared his teeth. They were big and strong-looking.
That triggered something in Marten. He leaned closer to the screen, minutely examining the Highborn. “You look familiar to me,” he said. “Have we met before?”
“Your insolence is making this difficult,” the Highborn said. “Premen should learn better manners and keep their mouth closed until personally addressed.”
Marten snapped his fingers. “You look just like the Grand Admiral. Are you his son?”
The Highborn snarled an oath and must have grasped his communication device, for this thumbs appeared on the image. “I am Felix of the Ninth Iron Cohort. Know that the Grand Admiral and I share the same chromosomes. In his mania, Cassius shot my favorite sex object, exiled me into space and killed me once. Then he packed me into a missile as a living warhead and launched me in a suicide mission against the cyborgs. I survived that, but gained this,” Felix said, indicating the plasti-flesh on half of his face. The Highborn breathed heavily so his nostrils flared. “Now Cassius will learn what it means to have made an enemy of me.”