Doom Star: Book 06 - Star Fortress (25 page)

His forehead wrinkled as he attempted to summon the energy to sit up. He found the willpower lacking. He never should have said anything.

Blackstone banged on the door again. “I need to speak to you, sir.”

Hawthorne might have shouted, “Go away!” but he lacked the willpower for that, too. “Enter if you must,” he finally said.

The door slid open and Commodore Blackstone floated in.

Hawthorne was shocked at how Blackstone had aged. The rings under the man’s eyes, the sagging skin… Is this what prolonged space exposure brought? Then he noticed how Blackstone looked at him. Hawthorne didn’t like it, so he turned away.

“You can’t just lie here,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne remained mute.

“There’s civil war on Earth,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne remembered someone else yelling that through the door several days ago.

“Someone faked your resignation,” Blackstone added.

A momentary tingle went through Hawthorne. The feeling died, fortunately. He didn’t want the job anymore. It had been killing him. He had killed millions of innocent civilians who had simply wanted something to eat. A leader who couldn’t feed his people needed to be dragged behind a barn and shot in the head. They should have shot him a long time ago.

“James, have you heard a word I’ve said?”

Hawthorne frowned. Was there someone in the room? Curious, he rolled onto his back and noticed Commodore Blackstone hovering nearby.

“Hello, Joseph,” Hawthorne said.

The Commodore blinked in confusion. Then the thin man scowled. “Now see here. You have to get it together. You’re the Supreme Commander of Social Unity. You’ve been thwarting the Highborn for years and—”

A stricken look crossed Hawthorne’s features as he began to shake his head.

“What’s wrong?” Blackstone asked.

“I resigned.”

“No you didn’t. Someone forged it.”

“Oh.”

“The forgery has caused a fracture on Earth. The directors voted one of their own into the leadership, a Director Backus.”

“A good man,” Hawthorne said. “I found him in an Algae Factory in Cairo. His production figures were amazing. I elevated him on the spot. He’s been a rising star ever since.”

“He’s trying to oust Vice-Chairman Cone.”

“Who?”

“Someone named Cone. Do you know anyone by that name?”

“Ah, Security-Specialist Cone. So she made a stab at power, did she? I thought she might.”

“She’s losing.”

“Not for long,” Hawthorne said.

“You have to broadcast something to them.”

Hawthorne turned his head, for the first time directly meeting Blackstone’s gaze. “You haven’t thought that through. If I speak, the Highborn will demand my blood. That could dissolve our shaky partnership.”

“The Grand Admiral attacked you. He set you up.”

“Yes, but no matter how you look at it, a preman killed a Highborn. That’s a grave offense to the supermen.”

“What are you going to do then?” Blackstone asked. “Stay in here forever?”

“The question is: what are you going to do? What have the Highborn done now that Cassius is dead?”

“They’ve created a triumvirate.”

“The Doom Star admirals are ruling by committee?” asked Hawthorne.

“Something like that,” Blackstone said.

“What have they decided?”

“To attack the cyborgs in the Neptune System.”

“What about you?” Hawthorne asked.

“We’re joining them, Vice-Admiral Mandela and me.”

“Who holds the highest command?”

“It’s a triumvirate,” Blackstone said.

“I understand. But who will make the command decisions in the heat of battle?”

“They each will, I suppose.”

Hawthorne thought about it, and shrugged after a time.

“That’s it?” Blackstone asked. “You shrug?”

“What else do you expect me to do?”

“We need a leader, an overarching commander for us and them.”

“Can you convince the Highborn of that?”

“I can’t,” Blackstone said. “Maybe you can.”

Hawthorne gave a short, brittle laugh.

“With divided commands, we’re doomed to defeat,” Blackstone said.

“Not necessarily.”

“Unity of command is vital to victory.”

“I could name you several historical fleet actions that show the contrary. They were important victories, too, against an enemy with cyborg-like unity of command.”

“I can’t think of any,” Blackstone said.

“What about the Battle of Lepanto?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It was a naval battle on Earth. It occurred in 1571 as Europeans fought the conquering Turks. The Venetians, Spaniards and Papal forces quarreled right up until the moment of cannon-fire. Or take the Battle of Salamis in ancient times. The Athenians, Spartans, Corinthians and others debated fiercely as the Persian King of kings moved his fleet to annihilate the arguing Greeks. It was a Persian debacle. Victorious committees running a campaign—especially fleet actions—are nothing new.”

“It still seems like a poor way to coordinate our last desperate action to save humanity,” Blackstone said.

“Yes,” Hawthorne said.

Blackstone made an explosive sound. “At least Social Unity should fight together. It is the mantra of our political existence.”

“Why wouldn’t we fight united?”

“Because we have two senior officers with the remnants of their fleets,” Blackstone said. “Neither Vice-Admiral Mandela nor I care to take orders from the other.”

“Vice-Admiral outranks Commodore,” Hawthorne said.

“His was a political appointment!” Blackstone shouted.

It made Hawthorne wince.

Calming himself, Blackstone said, “Under no circumstances will I take orders from him that jeopardizes my ships.”

Hawthorne managed a nod.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Blackstone said. “How come you’re just lying there? The least you could do is give me an order.”

Hawthorne made a vague gesture before he turned away.

Blackstone spoke more, but Hawthorne tuned him out. Eventually, the Commodore left.

Hawthorne closed his eyes, falling into a troubled sleep. He ate, slept and stared until alarms rang thought the
Vladimir Lenin
. The noise wouldn’t stop. Finally, Hawthorne realized it was the warning sounds before hard acceleration. He hurried to the bathroom and then strapped himself onto his bed.

Ninety-three minutes later, the grueling acceleration began. It leveled off after several hours, maintaining one-point-five Gs.

The extended sleep, mental rest and utter lack of everything but the physical pressure of acceleration slowly restored some of Hawthorne’s energy. He began to wander the long, curving halls of the battleship. After a week, he attempted limited exercises, which improved his appetite. He knew of an old German proverb:
Eating builds appetite
. In his case, it proved true.

His curiosity began to stir again, although it wasn’t about the situation on Earth. Whenever anyone tried to talk to him about the SU civil war, he blanked out. It didn’t matter to him anymore. People soon knew to avoid the topic.

Slowly, Hawthorne became curious about Neptune, the planet, the system and the cyborg defenses there.

Neptune was the last regular planet of the Solar System. Pluto—along with several others like Ceres in the Asteroid Belt—was considered a dwarf planet. On average, Neptune was about four-point-five billion kilometers from the Sun, or a little over thirty AUs away. Light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. That meant it took a ray of light roughly four hours and sixteen minutes to travel from the Sun to Neptune. The
Vladimir Lenin
would make the trip in a little over eight months, accelerating, coasting and then decelerating once near enough. Neptune’s orbit was so large that it took 165 years for it to complete one circuit around the Sun.

The planetary system had been known for its shameless capitalists. That had been one of the reasons the secret cyborg prototypes had been built there. Everyone knew that capitalism produced vast inequalities as cunning men exploited the proletariat. Yet for some strange reason, it also produced a glut of creativity and a vast amount of goods. The work had proceeded faster there than it ever had on Earth. The cyborgs had been a secret plan gone awry, and it seemed the capitalists had been the first to pay the bitter price of their success.

What had the cyborgs of Neptune done to prepare against invasion?

The problem began to prey upon Hawthorne. He spent more time reading the computer files. Soon, he began prowling through the
Vladimir Lenin
, reacquainting himself with the
Zhukov
-class Battleship. It had size, thick particle-shielding and powerful lasers able to fire one hundred thousand kilometers. That was an impressive range until one compared them against a Doom Star.

We’ve beaten Doom Stars with these
, he told himself in his room.
Now we’re fighting
with
Doom Stars
.

Several months into the journey, he knocked on the Commodore’s wardroom door.

“Enter,” Blackstone said.

Hawthorne found the Commodore behind his desk, studying his screen.

“What brings you here?” Blackstone asked, sitting back in his chair.

Hawthorne took a seat as he glanced around. The quarters were Spartan, with an old dagger hanging on a wall.

The former Supreme Commander had changed since boarding. He no longer stooped, but stood straight. The bags under his eyes had returned to a flesh tone and almost disappeared. It left the flesh wrinkly there, but less than it could have been, as he’d put on weight. The biggest difference was in his eyes. They weren’t as haunted or as guilt-ridden.

He avoided thinking about the millions of innocent civilians murdered by his nuclear missiles. It had been his decision. He would never shy away from that. But it had been forced upon him. If he had done nothing, Social Unity would have fallen to the Highborn. It had been an act of desperation, but necessary nonetheless.

“James?” Blackstone asked.

Hawthorne cleared his throat. “What do we know about the cyborgs and the Neptune System?”

Blackstone’s eyes widened. Then he grinned.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hawthorne asked.

“You’re back, and none too soon. Mandela and I are having trouble with the Highborn. We can’t decide what to do about it. Now I know.”

Hawthorne waited.

Blackstone’s grin increased. “We hand the decision over to you.”

Something passed through James Hawthorne. It began in his eyes, tightening the skin of his face. After a second, he nodded. “It means I’m back in command?”

“Yes,” Blackstone said. “That’s exactly what it means.”

“Good,” Hawthorne said. “Tell me about the Highborn and then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it.”

While Hawthorne and Blackstone debated about the Highborn, Marten Kluge clung to the back of Osadar’s chair. He watched the sensor screen, trying to figure out what was going on around the SU missile-ship.

The
William Tell
and its companion boat moved silently through space. They had been en route toward the Sun for months, following the five-nine coordinates. Silent running with ears wide and eyes peeled, they looked, listened and measured everything with the mass detector, teleoptics and neutrino tracker.

The void or the space between the Inner Planets was a vast volume. A single ship, a fleet of thirty ships, was still a tiny speck. Finding a quiet enemy vessel was like hunting for a particular piece of plankton in the Atlantic Ocean. Engines burning hot made everything easier in terms of sensors. Unfortunately, the closer to the Sun, the more radiation there was. That blanketed many of the sensors, making it increasingly difficult to pick-up otherwise obvious readings.

With the missile-ship, Marten had known where to head and look. It made a critical difference.

Indicating her screen, Osadar said, “Someone is using jamming electronics, which is affecting my readings.”

Because of the patrol boats’ low speed, they were still days from the missile-ship. It was a big vessel with particle-shielding and fast fusion engines. It was a distance-fighter, shooting missiles or drones and then moving to a new location.

“One of the shield-masses appears to be destroyed,” Osadar said. “That indicates a surprise strike or a sudden and vast strike. Otherwise, the missile-ship crew would have rotated shields until all were equally worn down.”

A cold feeling worked up Marten’s spine. He began counting Highborn shuttles. They appeared to be the same size as the
Mayflower
, the captured shuttle he’d used to fly to the Mars and Jupiter Systems. Each shuttle could ferry eighty Highborn in comfort.

“I count four,” Marten said. “Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to defeat a missile-ship, not unless the crew let the Highborn aboard.”