Marten and his squad waited by their three mortars, two men to each. Marten stood behind them watching, correcting and calling ranges.
In the distance appeared three puffs of smoke, seconds later the sounds of their dull thuds reached them.
“Excellent!” said the captain. “Direct hit, direct hit, eighty-nine percent nearness. The best score so far.”
“Pack up,” Marten told his squad.
Efficiently, his squad dismantled the mortars, tube to one man, the tripod and base to another. Then they waited for directions. They didn’t wait standing at rigid attention, but slouched here or crouched on the ground over there.
Captain Sigmir looked up from his watch. “Marvelous. Marten, walk with me.”
Marten fell one step behind as the captain strode into the desert. Training Camp Ninety-three-C lay beyond the horizon in the other direction. Overhead the sun beat down, but Marten no longer noticed the heat—it had been five weeks since induction. He wore rumpled brown combat fatigues and well-worn boots, a helmet, a vibroknife and a simulation pistol. Spit and polish and other parade ground fetishes mattered not at all to the Highborn or to the drill instructors. The only questions that mattered were could you kill and how fast?
“Walk with me, Marten.”
Marten jogged beside the massive captain, trying to match his long strides. Perhaps the captain was a beta, much smaller than the superior Highborn, but compared to a normal man Captain Sigmir was still a giant.
“Your squads always perform well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yet…. There is a lack in you, Marten.”
He said nothing to that.
“There, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Sir?”
“You’re a brooder.”
“Yes, sir.”
“More than that, you’re a loner.”
The five weeks of training had taught Marten one thing, to control his temper, the rage that boiled within him, even as his sense of despair increased. He hated Captain Sigmir, but he felt he masked it so no one knew.
“You use your leadership skills for your own benefit, to think as you wish, to do what you want even if the crowd likes or dislikes it. What I mean is that you aren’t using your leadership skills to drive ahead, to make others march to your will.”
“Sir?”
“Marten, leadership is a gift. I believe you’re squandering yours in isolation. Yes, you are a rock. You stand and do whatever you think is right. Those are all good things, I suppose. But in this war you can rise high if you’ll learn to strive to make others obey your will.”
“Yes, sir.”
They exchanged glances.
Marten didn’t allow himself to shiver. Looking into that strange face, so filled with vitality and a strange lust, reminded him that the captain had been dead once. Marten felt it showed.
Captain Sigmir sighed. “I haven’t convinced you. But Marten, I’m still going to recommend you as the lieutenant of Second Platoon.”
“Sir, I…”
Captain Sigmir held up a powerful hand. “Kang will run First Platoon. Now there’s a preman who understands leadership. But you’re a much better tactician than Kang. Yes, you’re a splendid tactician. Oh, we’re quick to note such things. You lack something of Kang’s ferocity, or so the superiors believe. I’m not so certain, though. Your rage—” Captain Sigmir laughed. “Oh, yes, Lieutenant, I know very well that an inner rage seethes within you. I can feel it. At times I even think that it’s directed at me.”
“Sir, I ah—”
“But that’s neither here nor there, Lieutenant. Hate me all you wish just as long as you obey me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you agree to your lieutenancy?”
“Agree, sir?”
“Unless you agree to your new rank you will not receive it. Such is the Highborn dictate regarding rank.”
Marten thought about that. Clever on their part, he decided. They wanted him to take some of the blame, to smear on the guilt. What would happen if he refused? Probably Captain Sigmir would post him to Kang’s platoon. If that happened, he’d have to kill Kang fast or be the slain one. The ex-Red Blades boss was a sadist almost as bad as the once dead, Lot Six beta Highborn strutting beside him. He finally decided it was easier to revolt—when the chance came—if he was one of the guards carrying a gun than if he was one of the prisoners the gun was trained on.
Marten nodded. “I agree.”
“Splendid, Lieutenant. I’m overjoyed to hear it.”
“One question, sir.”
“Hmmm?”
“Who are my sergeants?”
“Your Top Sergeant will be Omi, of course, with Stick and Turbo as the regular Sergeants.”
“Very good, sir.”
Captain Sigmir stopped, reaching down to put a hand on Marten’s shoulder. “One more week of training, Lieutenant, then we will be shipped into battle.”
“We, sir?”
“I’m to be the Captain of Tenth Company.”
Marten blanched in spite of his best efforts not to.
“Problem, Lieutenant?”
“Begging the Captain’s pardon, sir, but I suggest you have a well-trained group of bodyguards.”
Captain Sigmir grinned evilly. “Lieutenant, that is well-spoken. Now, back to your squad, my boy, and on the double.”
12.
Unknown to the Highborn or to Marten, the civil war entered a new and vastly more dangerous stage when Secret Police General James Hawthorne ordered code A-927Z beamed into deep space via a special laser lightguide flash. As per his orders, and without Director Enkov’s knowledge, Beijing HQ started the process by regular e-mail.
On a rather ordinary fish farm orbiting Earth, as yet untouched by Highborn suicide commandos, a communication technician read his e-mail with surprise. As ordered, he pulled up a standard production report and typed in the e-mail’s command. To the technician’s surprise, a secret computer file embedded in the report scrolled onto his screen. He read it and raised his eyebrows, but he knew better than to question an apparently senseless order when given under such strict conditions. So he aligned the lightguide flash-emitter to the dictated coordinates and typed the send sequence on his keyboard. Then he picked up his container of instacaf and took a sip.
On the outside of the space habitat a special laser lightguide tube popped up, adjusted with canny precision and shot a tight beam of light bearing the coded string: A-927Z. The tube then zipped back into its holder and triggered an unfortunate sequence of events, at least regarding the signal officer.
Vents opened in the communication module’s ceiling and sprayed a fine mist of combustibles. The officer, with his container halfway to his lips for yet another sip, had time enough to say, “Hey,” as his computer files self-deleted. And a pre-timed spark ignited the mist. The explosion shook the entire space hab and demanded the full attention of all fire-fighting personnel and auto-equipment. The signal officer, his computer and various personal effects disappeared in the ball of explosive flame.
Meanwhile, the communication laser flashed through space at the speed of light, three hundred thousand kilometers a second. The lightguide system had a singular benefit over a regular radio message. A tightly beamed communications laser could only be picked up by the receiving station it hit. That, however, demanded precision, and the farther the target, the greater the precision needed. This flash had a long journey in terms of solar system distances, thirty AU or 4,347,400,000 kilometers. Thus, traveling at the speed of light, the message reached the selected target, Neptune habitat, roughly four hours after it had been sent.
The personnel there decoded the flash and read A-927Z. It had an effect similar to a spade overturning an ant colony: boiling activity erupted.
Toll Seven had docked his ultra-stealth pod some time ago, his cargo discharged and stored in deep freeze along with a thousand other carefully stolen people. Workers with hand trolleys entered the locker. Osadar Di, stiff as a log and almost as dead, found herself propped upon one of the first trolleys and rolled to the beginning of a process which would grant her new life but at the cost of her humanity.