Cyborg Assault

-1-

In 2351, the Jupiter System thrived as one of the richest in resources. The population there swelled and their wealth grew, despite the intense radiation belts and the heavy gravity-well. The reason was the gas giant itself. Like Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Jupiter’s upper atmosphere contained massive quantities of deuterium and helium-3. These plentiful fuels drove the system’s fusion economy.

Automated factories floating in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere collected the deuterium and the more important helium-3, an isotope of helium. At scheduled intervals, heavy boosters lifted the fuels to the nearest moons, the Inner group, where vast storage facilities stood. In historical terms, the gas giants were like the Solar System’s Persian Gulf, in the days when oil ran the Earth’s economy.

Plentiful fusion power had allowed the first Deuterium Barons to turn the otherwise inhospitable moons into vast industrial basins. That in turn had enticed more colonists seeking escape from the nascent Social Unity Party. The vast exodus of wealthy, intellectual and daring people had been the driving force behind the increasingly harsh Anti-Emigration Laws of Inner Planets.

The growing wealthy class of the Jupiter System had turned toward intellectual pursuits. This held truest for the rich on Callisto, the fourth Galilean Moon. Many there had become absorbed with philosophy, and became particularly concerned with the examined life. This had inspired the Dictates, a codex of axioms that governed a neo-Socratic lifestyle.

Backed by fusion-powered heavy industry, the lords of Callisto had created the Guardian Fleet. For over one hundred years, the Fleet grew in political power until it ruled the system. Serving as a velvet-covered platinum fist, the Fleet had ensured Callisto’s dominance over the rest of Jupiter’s sixty-two moons.

If Social Unity propaganda was the measure, the Guardian Fleet was one of the strongest in the Solar System. Many claimed it was the reason for building the Doom Stars. Others said the lust to gain access to the deuterium and helium-3 rich gas giants was the real reason. Whatever the case, in 2351, the Jupiter System was awash in wealth, ships and inhabited moons.

“I’m not receiving any video, Rousseau,” Marten said.

Marten sat at the controls of his shuttle, the Mayflower. He glanced at a note taped to the board: Double-check everything. The shuttle had originally been designed to transport eighty Highborn in comfort. With its modifications, the shuttle had proven roomy enough for Marten, Omi and Osadar.

As Marten waited for an answer, he leaned back and stared out of the polarized window. Visible through it was the vast gas giant, the largest planet in the Solar System. Its mass was two point five times as great as the rest of the planets combined. Presently, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter seethed with movement.

The Mayflower was in a medium orbit and outside of the worst of Jupiter’s radioactive magnetosphere.

The gas giant’s magnetic field was ten times as strong as Earth’s field. The sun-side of the magnetosphere acted as a buffer that deflected the solar wind around Jupiter. The magnetic tail reached almost as far as Saturn’s orbital path.

Marten pressed more buttons, running a diagnostic, seeing if any high-intensity radio bursts might be interfering with the video-feed. The gas giant often gave off radio bursts at ten-meter wavelengths. Jupiter’s violent upper atmosphere also created super-bolts of lighting. Those bolts gave off a million times more energy than a lightning bolt on Earth and often interfered with ship-to-ship transmissions. Marten detected only minimal interference. What was causing the video blackout then?

His frowning highlighted Marten’s angular cheeks and his intense blue eyes as he watched the blank vidscreen. His blond buzz-cut matched his lean build. Because of the long trip, his worn silver suit was badly faded at the elbows and knees.

“Come on,” Marten muttered, moving toggles. He expected the screen to waver, flicker and then he would see his first Jovian.

The warship Rousseau was a dark blot, several kilometers away. According to the specs Marten had been studying, it was an Aristotle-class dreadnaught. That made it the largest class of ship produced in the Jovian System. It was roughly spherical, a giant ball bearing with asteroid-like particle shields. It dwarfed the Mayflower and contained hundreds of crewmembers. Marten had read somewhere that Aristotle-class dreadnaughts had been built to operate and fight on their own, not just as part of a fleet.

“Rousseau—” Marten began to say.

“Prepare for a boarding inspection, Mayflower.”

Marten opened a channel to Omi’s room. “You’d better get up here,” he said.

“I’m coming,” Omi said.

Marten tapped the console. The free Martians had been beaming endless shots of the cyborgs that had died in the Mars System nearly a year ago. The Jovians must understand the cyborg danger. Marten grimaced. How was he supposed to explain Osadar to them?

“Is your communications equipment faulty?” Marten asked. “I’m not picking up any video images.”

“There is a malfunction, yes,” the Rousseau’s com-officer said.

Oh. “How many people are you sending?”

“One officer.” A clanging noise occurred over the radio-link. “We have launched the pod, Mayflower. Prepare for boarding in twenty minutes. Rousseau out.”

Marten cut the link, and he stared out of the window at the dark blot of the warship. Yes, he could visually make out a flare, the pod’s exhaust.

His heart rate quickened. Maybe he could hide Osadar and keep that little surprise for later. He knew he should have radioed ahead about her. He’d asked Osadar about it, since she’d grown up in the Jupiter System. She’d rejected the idea. When he’d asked her why, she had said that events would squash all their hopes. But why accelerate the day of doom?

The cyborg had reason for her pessimism, but Marten didn’t share it. However, a long life of bitter surprises had taught him caution concerning authorities—any authorities.

Marten opened a channel to Osadar’s room.

“The time has come,” Osadar said in her strange voice, speaking before he could.

“You’ve been monitoring the conversation?”

“I have already armed myself,” she said.

Marten unbuckled his straps, wondering if he should order Omi to hurry. They’d been avoiding each other for weeks. Cramped quarters for these endless months had put a strain between them. It was probably inevitable. It was human.

Marten glanced at the flaring engine again, signaling the approach of Rousseau’s pod. His gut twisted with nervousness. They’d reached a new system, a free system and a rich one. Would the people here accept Osadar’s strange story?

Marten pushed for the hatch, floating in the weightlessness. It was time to meet his first Jovian.

Marten and Omi floated near the Mayflower’s airlock. Omi seemed much like before with his muscled shoulders and bullet-shaped head. Each of them wore a Gauss needler. The metallic, sliver ammunition was ejected through magnetic impulse. The needlers were set on low so that the slivers would not puncture the shuttle’s skin. Each of them had donned a vacc-suit, minus the helmet, as the suits were their cleanest garments.

“What do the Jovians look like?” Omi asked.

Marten unhooked a handscanner, which was keyed to the ship’s computer. The computer controlled the video cameras outside the shuttle.

As Marten watched, the pod braked with hot exhaust. It was tear-dropped-shaped, and its polarized window was black, hiding the Jovian pilot. Slowly, the pod eased beside the Mayflower, which was many times larger than the pod.

“I don’t see anyone yet,” Marten said.

“I mean when they first hailed us,” Omi said.

“Their com-equipment was faulty. It didn’t show any vid-shots.”

“That sounds suspicious,” Omi said.

Marten shrugged as he studied his handscanner. Trust an ex-gang enforcer to be distrusting.

Omi leaned near and glanced at the tiny screen. That annoyed Marten, but he still moved the scanner, allowing Omi a better look.

“Their boarding tube’s snaking out,” Omi said.

Marten tilted the scanner back to him. Sure enough, a docking tube stretched between the pod and the Mayflower’s outer hatch. That was quick work, seeing as how the pod had barely matched velocity with them. On the scanner, the pod seemed motionless, but both space vehicles moved in an orbit around Jupiter. Both ships thus had an appreciable speed. Usually, it took time for pilots to adjust velocities just right between two spaceships. The stretching tube was flexible, but it could only flex so much. That the pod’s pilot already sent the docking tube… it spoke of extreme self-confidence.

“These Jovians are good,” Omi said.

Marten nodded. The magnetized flex-tube made noise against the Mayflower’s hull. He heard faint hissing sounds as the tube pressurized.

“See anyone moving?” Omi asked.

“The tube is dark.”

Omi glanced at Marten.

Marten kept his eyes on the scanner. He’d gotten tired of looking at Omi several months ago.

“Seems like they’re going to a lot of trouble to keep themselves from being seen,” Omi said.

“I suppose,” Marten said.

“Are Jovians usually this paranoid?”

By the movement in it, someone was already in the flex-tube, maybe more than one. Marten recalled that the Rousseau’s com-officer had said one boarding-officer would inspect them. The first worm of doubt now seeped into his gut.

“How many sets of feet do you see?” Marten asked. He meant feet pressing against the flex-tube.

Omi studied the scanner. “Three,” he said.

A clang outside the Mayflower’s hull startled Marten. The outer hatch was opening. Why would the com-officer have lied about the number of people boarding the shuttle?

“—Move!” Marten shouted.

Both ex-shock troopers propelled themselves away from the airlock. Omi jammed on his helmet, sealing it. Marten was only seconds slower. Each squeezed through the nearest hatch. Omi turned and began to close it.

“Wait,” Marten said. Clamped onto the wall was a heavy plasma cannon. In Earth-like gravity, the cannon would need a tripod mount for a soldier to use. Because of weightlessness, it was possible for one man to wield it here.

The airlock began to open.

Marten chinned his visor shut and moved away from the hatch. Omi eased the hatch so it was almost closed. Both men stared at Marten’s upheld handscanner.

Instead of one, three tall beings stepped aboard the Mayflower. Their helmet visors were black. Each figure looked quickly around. One reached up and undid his helmet’s clamps.

Marten moistened his mouth as he activated the plasma cannon. He felt it vibrate and heard it hum. It was a wicked weapon, obviously not meant for such confined quarters. The cannon shot a superheated charge of plasma. Such a charge would destroy the airlock and open the Mayflower to space.

Omi cursed softly.

On the small screen of the handscanner, a cyborg swiveled its plasti-flesh features back and forth in tiny, machine-like jerks.

Marten and Omi traded startled glances. Marten nodded curtly. Omi only hesitated a moment, then he swung open the hatch. Marten dropped into position and aimed the plasma cannon at the cyborgs.

It was a frozen moment.

Then the cyborgs began to draw stubby tanglers. As fast as they were, Marten had time to think, Tanglers. They meant to capture us. Instead of curses, Marten pulled the trigger.

The heavy plasma cannon bucked as it spewed orange death. Marten had forgotten to set himself. The discharge applied Newton’s third law of motion. For every action, there was a reaction. The discharging cannon shoved Marten backward.

Omi clanged the hatch shut. Three splats against it told of tangle-balls hitting. Then the Mayflower shuddered gently.

Marten lifted the handscanner, staring at a fuzzy screen.

“Now what?” asked Omi.

“Cyborgs!” Marten hissed. “The cyborgs are in the Jupiter System.” His heart pounded with adrenalin. “All those months—”

“Cyborgs are in our ship,” Omi said, in his maddeningly calm way. “They’re beside us in a warship.”

Marten blinked rapidly as he clutched the plasma cannon. Cyborgs captured normal people and put them into horrible machines. That’s what Osadar had told them. They converted you into a cyborg. Death was preferable to capture.

“Marten?”

Marten kept blinking. Were the Jovians allied with the cyborgs?

“Marten?” Omi asked.

Marten quit blinking as he stared at Omi. “We have to kill the cyborgs in the pod,” he said. He was surprised at how calm he sounded.

“Any idea how?” asked Omi.

“Close the hatch behind us and then open this one,” Marten said, dipping the nozzle of the plasma cannon toward it.

“What if a cyborg survived?”

“Shut the hatch!” Marten hissed. “We don’t have time to jabber.”

Omi stared at Marten through his helmet’s faceplate and then he floated toward the rear hatch.

Marten raised the handscanner, using his thumb to click a keypad. “Osadar?” he said. “You’d better be ready.”

“I’m in the control room,” she said. They were using tight-link communications. “The Rousseau is hailing us, asking what happened.”

“You can’t answer because our communications are out,” Marten said. “Can you tell if the person hailing us is human or cyborg?”

“By the voice, human,” Osadar said.

“Ready,” Omi said beside Marten.

Marten took a deep breath. “Open it,” he whispered, “and then brace yourself for decompression.” Marten turned on his magnetic hooks, sealing his vacc-suit to the wall.

Omi opened the forward hatch. Escaping air smashed it open as the vacuum of space rushed in. In seconds, the air was gone from their chamber.

Marten shut off his hooks and drifted through the hatch. The wrecked airlock had a plasma hole in it straight through to space. Metal had melted and frozen in twisted globs. Three cyborgs drifted in the chamber. Two were missing part of their torsos and emitting blue sparks. The third lacked a head.

“The shuttle is secure,” Omi whispered over the tight-link.

“See if you can open the airlock,” Marten said.

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Listen to me,” Marten said. “Cyborgs do everything fast. We have no time to waste. Open the airlock now!”

Omi floated to the airlock as Marten checked the plasma cannon. This was bad. He only had two charges left. Then he’d have to hook it to a charging unit.

“The Rousseau has become insistent,” Osadar said over the tight-link.

“Keep them talking,” Marten said.

Omi cranked the damaged airlock wider, enough to allow a man to squeeze through.

Marten drifted nearer. They had to kill all the cyborgs in the pod. Their one stroke of good fortune was that the pod had maneuvered around the Mayflower, meaning that the airlock was aimed away from the Rousseau.

The long flex-tube detached from the Mayflower’s hull and retracted into the pod.

Cyborgs always move fast.

Marten clutched the heavy plasma cannon and eased into the airlock. While staying as far back as he could from the outer opening, he studied the tear-dropped-shaped pod. It was smooth, dark and had huge lettering on the side he couldn’t read. The black window by the front… was someone staring out of it and watching the airlock?

What should I do? If they send more cyborgs—

A hatch slid open on the pod. There was a flicker of movement. A humanoid shape jumped out of the hatch. Hydrogen spray trickled from its back. No, that was a thruster-pack. The cyborg might be cradling a weapon that Marten couldn’t see from here.

Marten swore softly as he knelt in the airlock. He brought up the plasma cannon. He knew he should wait until the cyborg was closer. But time was against them. He had to kill all the cyborgs in the pod… and on the Rousseau. Clearly, that was impossible. But if he wanted to keep on living as Marten Kluge, he was going to have to achieve the impossible.

Marten braced himself against a wall, targeted the bastard, and squeezed off two shots of roiling orange plasma. The first glob missed. The second orange blob consumed the cyborg’s midsection.

Marten made a strangled laugh. He hated cyborgs. He dreaded them. He watched the pod, waiting for some signal concerning its next move.

What are they thinking over there in the Rousseau?

“Marten,” Osadar said over the tight-link.

Here it comes, he thought.

“A cyborg is on the com-link,” she said. “It’s demanding to know what has occurred. Do you have any idea what I should say?”

“Can you mimic a controlled cyborg?”

“Not efficiently,” Osadar said. “There are too many variables that—”

“Open a channel and try to mimic a controlled cyborg the best you can. Tell them you have secured the ship. Then disconnect the com-unit. By then, I’ll be there with you.”

“They’ll destroy us,” Osadar said.

“We’re dead anyway. This way… this way we might be able to hurt them before we die.”

“I fail to—”

“Please, Osadar,” Marten said. His mouth felt bone dry. It was hard to talk. “Just do it while they’re still wondering what could have gone wrong.”

“Understood,” said Osadar. “I am complying.”

On his way to the shuttle’s control module, the answer came. Marten didn’t like it, but it seemed like the only way to survive the cyborgs. Either the melded creatures possessed a Jovian warship with a skeleton number of humans left, or the cyborgs were allied to the Jovians who controlled it. Those Jovians would all have to die if he, Omi and Osadar were to survive. That was a grim thing, but he wasn’t going to go soft now. He had clawed and fought his way out to Jupiter. He would claw and fight until he took his last breath, God willing.

Marten grimaced as he recalled his mother’s most quoted saying. She’d died in the Ring-Works Factory around Mercury. That seemed like a long time ago now. Political Harmony Corps had come for her then. As much as Marten hated PHC, it had still been composed of humans. The cyborgs—he was doing the humans aboard the Rousseau a favor killing them. If he could pull this off, that is.

Marten told the others his plan and they moved fast throughout the Mayflower. In six minutes, they met back at the airlock. Each of them had a hand-case and wore a vacc-suit with a helmet.

Osadar had already shrugged on a thruster-pack. Omi hooked tether lines between them.

“This will never work,” Osadar said over the tight-link. Her facial features were as much plastic as human, as much a mask as a face.

“I enjoy useless gestures,” Marten said.

Osadar stared at him.

“It’s a joke,” Marten said.

“Useless, yes,” Osadar said. She floated to the open airlock and pushed off toward the Rousseau’s drifting pod.

Omi jumped next, and afterward Marten jumped. Using her former piloting skills, Osadar maneuvered toward the pod, keeping the Mayflower between them and the Rousseau.

As he floated behind Omi, Marten studied his handscanner. Using it, he initiated a specially coded program aboard the Mayflower’s computer. The shuttle’s engine thrust particles from the exhaust. Gently, the shuttle eased toward the Rousseau in the distance.

Soon, Marten floated through the open hatch of the cyborg pod. This vessel had one-fifth the space as the Mayflower. They would not be making any intersystem journeys in it. They might not make any journeys whatsoever. Shortly after boarding, the three of them crammed into the pod’s control room. Voices spoke out of the com-unit. The voices spoke in a high-speed chatter.

“Can you understand them?” Marten asked.

From within her helmet, Osadar nodded solemnly.

“Well?” Marten asked.

“They are getting ready to fire on the Mayflower.”

“You have to tell them that everything is fine,” Marten said. “Tell them the other cyborgs are piloting the vessel to the warship.”

“They will never believe me,” Osadar said.

“Do it anyway.”

Osadar sat at the single pilot’s chair. Omi had already shut the hatch and pressurized the cabin. Opening her visor, Osadar opened a channel to the Rousseau.

Marten tore off his vacc-suit gloves and ran his fingers over the handscanner, using its keypad to pilot the shuttle.

Osadar was having a deliberate and unimaginative conversation with the cyborgs. The enemy queries were getting closer to deducing that the assault had failed.

“Engage the pod’s engines,” Marten whispered to Osadar. “Get us out of here.”

Her fingers flew over the pod’s controls.

Marten slid onto the floor and braced his back against a bulkhead. Omi did likewise.

Through the tiny screen of the handscanner, Marten studied the Rousseau. The scanner picked up the feed from the Mayflower’s forward cameras. The Jovian dreadnaught was similar in configuration to a Social Unity battleship, but with a more compact design. It was like a giant ball bearing with asteroid-like particle shields. One of them was locked open, revealing a hanger bay inside. The pod had no doubt come from there. If the bay was still open….

Marten watched the screen. He saw the hanger door lurch and begin to close. The Mayflower could fit through it. The heavy particle shield also began rotating into a defensive posture.

“Give us full thrust!” Marten shouted. His fingers typed over the keypad.

Over three kilometers away on the Mayflower, the warfare pod they had installed back in the Mars System activated. The shuttle possessed five Wasp 2000 missiles. Those missiles entered the launch tubes.

Several things happened at once then on the Mayflower. The engine engaged at full thrust, pushing the shuttle faster toward the much larger Rousseau. The Wasp 2000s ignited from the launch tubes, leading the charge at the Aristotle-class dreadnaught. Almost immediately, the dreadnaught’s point-defense cannons opened up. They targeted the missiles. A Wasp 2000 disintegrated. Another blew into a plume of light, while a third exploded in space, slightly damaging the Mayflower behind it. The fourth and fifth missiles slammed against the warship. One struck a particle shield, harmlessly blowing away asteroid-like rock. The last flew through the closing hanger door and exploded.

The hanger door froze.

The Mayflower closed with the Rousseau. The dreadnaught’s point-defense cannons began to target the shuttle.

As growing G-forces pushed Marten against the pod’s bulkhead, he pressed a button.

The accelerating Mayflower ignited its fusion engine, blowing the atomic pile in a nuclear explosion of obliterating power.

-2-

The Highborn Praetor commanded the Thutmosis III, and he was worried as his badly damaged missile-ship sped toward Jupiter.

The giant ship was a stealth vessel, painted with anti-sensor coating and colored as black as the void of space. Almost a year ago, they had circled the Sun gaining terrific velocity. Then they had broken Sun-orbit and shut off the ship’s engines. Like a rock from a slingshot, they had sped silently toward Mars. At the right moment, the Praetor had launched a decisive salvo of missiles and drones. Unfortunately for the crew, they had one other mission to accomplish. Using teleoptic scopes and as they’d passed Mars, the Praetor had relayed precious combat information to the Doom Stars.

It was then that Corporal Bess O’Connor of the former Phobos moon-station had logged a blip of a lightguide message. With it, the SU commander of the former moon-station had launched hunter-killer missiles after the Thutmosis III. Phobos no longer existed. Highborn asteroid busters had destroyed the Martian moon during the battle. As a final quirk of fate, one of the deceased moon’s hunter-killers had struck the Thutmosis III long after Phobos’ destruction. The strike had killed eighty percent of the Thutmosis III’s crew and crippled the missile-ship.

For many harrowing months afterward, the Praetor and the last survivors had labored intensely to effect repairs. Their problems had nearly been unsolvable, as the Thutmosis III had sped from Mars under terrific velocity. The hunter-killer had struck the ship before it had begun deceleration.

With the horribly damaged engines, the Thutmosis III had been unable to decelerate. For everyone aboard ship, it had looked hopeless. Unable to brake, the ship would leave the Solar System like a bullet fired from an inter-solar rifle. The crew would die hundreds maybe even a thousand AUs out of the Solar System of old age, starvation or asphyxiation.

The Praetor had taken their one chance, repairing the damaged engines enough to dare nudge the ship in a path toward distant Uranus. During the journey there, they had labored around the clock, taking stims to keep alert. Using the distant gas giant’s gravity-well as a pivoting post and engaging the engines for a greater length of time, the Praetor had redirected the ship at an angle toward Jupiter. He had also managed to decelerate the vessel slightly.

The vast orbital paths of the Outer Planets gas giants and the extreme distances between them meant that a shallow curve could achieve this last hope.

Now the ship sped toward the largest planet in the Solar System. Unlike the Mayflower that had headed from the Inner Planets outward, the Thutmosis III headed from the Outer Planets inward. It was the reason why the much slower Mayflower had reached Jupiter before the much faster moving Thutmosis III.

The Praetor sat in his command chair on the bridge. It was one of the least damaged sections of the ship. The Praetor had become gaunt this last year. He had washed-out pink eyes, a wide face and a strange demeanor, which had been made stranger by a long and steady diet of stims. There was the tiniest tic now under his left eye.

The modules around him were empty and the bridge lights were dim. A constant whine sounded in the background. It came from deep inside the ship, from its tortured fusion engines. At times, the whine climbed an octave. Whenever that occurred, the tic under his left eye became more pronounced.

The Praetor pushed his big head against the rest of his command chair. Jupiter neared. Soon now, he would retire to the acceleration couches. He would strap in. They would engage the engines and hope the repairs held. If they didn’t—

The Praetor shuddered and closed his eyes. That made the tic under his left eye more visible as it jerked the loose skin there. The Praetor had lost weight as concern had stolen his appetite. He would face anyone or anything man-to-man or chest-to-chest. Nothing in the universe frightened him physically. Give him a foe to battle—

His eyes snapped open. Anger filled his face. Grand Admiral Cassius had given him this command post.

The Praetor’s nostrils flared. “I won the Third Battle for Mars,” he whispered. “It was my missiles that opened up the enemy to the Doom Star lasers.”

His upper lip curled, and he gazed into some unseen distance. “You shall not steal my victory from me, Cassius. I’m coming back. You can count on that.”

A strange laugh bubbled from his throat. He shivered, and he was unaware that he did so. When the Thutmosis III had hurdled out of the Solar System—

The Praetor closed his eyes again. He had never understood loneliness until then. The idea of his ship rocketing outside of the Solar System and into the emptiness of space—the void was a thing, a beast that had spread in his soul. It had smothered courage, smothered daring and intellect alike. Shooting outside the Solar System, alone, with no hope of seeing Earth again, with—

“Enough,” the Praetor whispered.

He moistened his mouth and forced himself to study the faint holoimage before him. His great enemy was velocity, speed. He had built up great speed while circling the Sun. Now he needed to shed that speed. A small part of him was tempted to aim directly at Jupiter and crash into it. That would end the agony. That would end the loneliness that he’d felt while hurtling toward Uranus, unsure whether the barely-repaired engines could slow them enough as they whipped past the gas giant.

If this didn’t work—

“It will work,” he rumbled. He lifted a fist and hit the arm of his command chair. In the past, he would have struck hard and forcefully. Now, it was a feeble gesture. The loneliness, the emptiness of deep space—

Why did such loneliness exist?

“Are you afraid?” he whispered at himself. “Are you a coward, Praetor? Or will you survive so you can spit in Grand Admiral Cassius’s face?”

That was the antidote to his worries—anger, injustice and revenge. He must cling to them. No, he must gird himself with anger, with the sense of injustice committed against him and with thoughts of vengeance. He must buckle them like armor against the awfulness that lurked out there in the empty void of space.

Soon, he must engage the engines. He would have to time it right, letting Jupiter’s vast gravity-well help slow them. The engines and gravity-well needed to slow the ship to less than Jupiter’s escape velocity.

Could they do it? Could the badly damaged ship stand the strain? And if they did it, what awaited him in the Jupiter System?

That was the least of the Praetor’s worries. He was Highborn. The pathetic Social Unity humans had joined with cyborgs. Those cyborgs had proven deadly. A Doom Star had died. But neither cyborgs nor Homo sapiens had proven tough enough to face the Highborn and survive.

The Praetor laughed as he pushed out of the command chair. If he could halt the Thutmosis III, he knew what he’d do in the Jupiter System. He would conquer it for the Highborn. He would show the ranking warriors of the Master Race that he was greater than Grand Admiral Cassius. With a crippled ship, he would conquer a planetary system. What Highborn had ever achieved that?

The facial tic quivered as the background engine whine rose an octave. First, he needed to shed the ship’s velocity. Soon, the survivors would strap onto the acceleration couches as they made their last attempt to survive in the Solar System.

If the engines failed, or if it looked as if they might fail, then he would aim the Thutmosis III at Jupiter. Or he would crash the ship into a human vessel or into an orbiting habitat. If he was about to die, he would try to kill as much of the universe as he could. Why he felt this way, he had no idea. He just knew it would make him feel better killing others if he himself wasn’t going to be allowed to live.

-3-

When the Mayflower exploded, Marten, Omi and Osadar had already been moving away from it in the stolen pod.

With their head start and by accelerating at full thrust, they outran any appreciable heat damage. Heat from a nuclear explosion in space had the shortest kill-radius of the three dangers. It also helped that the pod’s exhaust nozzle was aimed at the blast. A heat shield between the exhaust and the inhabitable quarters of the pod dampened what might have otherwise proven fatal.

The EMP blast washed over the pod’s electronics and fused several key functions, including life-support. It also knocked out engine control, which didn’t really matter as the most critical damage came from a piece of shrapnel. The size of an Old Earth penny, the jagged shrapnel sliced through the pod’s exhaust. Then it sliced through the heat shield and the engine. Lastly, it ricocheted out of the pod, barely missing the command chamber.

The penny-sized piece of shrapnel damaged a heat coil, causing the engine overload. Luckily, although ship engine controls were fused, the emergency detachment sequence wasn’t. It activated and began the procedure. With a shudder, the engine-half of the pod separated from the forward compartments, but both halves still possessed the same heading and velocity. Fortunately, the pod designers had considered that possibility.

A red strobe-light washed the command chamber as a klaxon wailed.

“Hang on!” shouted Osadar.

All three of them had already sealed their vacc-suits. Thus, they spoke via radio.

The command chamber shook as a non-lethal blast violently separated the pod. Emergency hydrogen-thrust now accelerated them away from the engine compartment. Fifty seconds later and through the polarized window, Marten caught a glimpse of a white flash.

They waited. The explosion had obviously created shrapnel, shrapnel that could possibly destroy their compartment.

After two minutes had elapsed, Marten said over their helmet radios, “It looks like we made it.”

“Yes. Harmony has been achieved,” Osadar said from the pilot’s chair. “We are sealed in a speeding coffin, doomed to certain death.”

Marten made a harsh sound. “I’ve been in worse situations. We’re alive. We’ve escaped a wretched fate and now must rely on our wits to survive.”

“Fate haunts you,” Osadar said. “Whatever you do, you are doomed.”

“You’re wrong,” Marten said. “Political Harmony Corps, Highborn, cyborgs, everyone has had their shot at me. I’m still alive and now we’re in the Jupiter System, not lost between Mercury and Venus. We should be able to rig a distress beacon.”

“To call more cyborgs onto us,” Osadar said.

“Do cyborgs control the entire system?” Omi asked.

“You’d think we would have picked that up on our radio during the journey here,” Marten said. “There would have been fighting. But we’ve heard nothing about that.”

“Yet they are in the Jupiter System,” said Osadar. “They possess Jovian warships.”

“One less than before,” Marten said, with a curl to his lip.

“Never fear. More will come. It is inevitable.”

Marten squinted at Osadar. Listening to her, he hardened his resolve to do something. He began to examine the tiny command chamber. Soon, he’d torn off half the panels to see if he could fix something. They needed to recycle the air in their vacc-suits, to find a way to open the hatch—this crazy pod didn’t have manual override. What ship designer had left that out? What did that say about the Jovians? Had some of them really allied with cyborgs?

A sea of stars glittered outside the speeding coffin, as Osadar had called it. Jupiter was behind them. Marten could no longer see the gas giant. Sixty-three different asteroids and large moons made up this system, all orbiting Jupiter.

There. Marten could make out a yellow moon. It had to be Io, the one that spewed sulfur dioxide into space.

During the trip here, he’d studied the Mayflower’s computer files, reading what it had on the Jupiter System. He’d also questioned Osadar.

Jupiter had a Confederation made up of unequal members. Of the four Galilean moons—the biggest moons in the system—Io orbited the gas giant the closest. Io received massive doses of radiation. An unshielded person would receive 3,600 rems a day. Five hundred rems over a few days brought death.

Jupiter spewed radiation and heat, twice as much heat as it received from the Sun. Anyone living on Io needed constant protection. Jupiter’s massive gravitation and proximity and the gravity from nearby Europa and Ganymede pulled and pushed at Io. The planetary body constantly stretched like a rubber band. That friction heated the insides of Io enough to create the most active volcanoes in the Solar System. It also created permanent lava lakes. Those lakes were Io’s prized possession. Fissionable materials spewed up from the moon’s core. Those fissionables helped feed the system’s reactors. It meant that lava miners on floating platforms and under harsh radioactive conditions made up the majority of Io’s population.

The second Galilean moon—Europa—also received massive amounts of radiation, five hundred and forty rems a day. Ice one-hundred kilometers thick covered the surface, with liquid water below. The ice mantle made Europa the smoothest planetary body in the Solar System.

While staring at Io, Marten wondered if the pod had enough radiation shielding. He shook his head. How did it help him worrying about that now? He had to fix the air-recycler first, attach water and waste tubes to their vacc-suits. If he failed, they would die in less than a day.

Marten went back to the panels and began to work.

Three days later, Marten sat back in despair. They had air, but no extra water and their suit’s disposal systems were near their limit. His stomach growled. He was hungry and tired. According to his best estimate, they had traveled at least twenty-one thousand kilometers from the cyborg-infested dreadnaught.

Omi floated near the sealed hatch. Osadar sat in the pilot’s chair, staring out of the window.

Marten picked up a calibrating wrench. He had to keep trying.

“What’s that?” Osadar whispered.

It took Marten several seconds to respond. “What do you see?”

Osadar pointed at the window.

“Stars?” asked Marten.

Osadar swiveled in the pilot’s chair. Behind her helmet’s visor, she had an elongated face that suited her elongated body. Her arms and legs were titanium girders with hydraulic joints, presently hidden by her vacc-suit. Silver sockets cupped black plastic eyes, with tiny red dots for pupils.

Marten recalled that cyborgs had enhanced vision.

Osadar faced the window again. “There is a flare of light. A vessel is braking, likely matching velocities with us. That means the cyborgs have found us.”

With his heart beating faster, Marten floated toward the window. He saw nothing but stars. Wait, far in the distance, one of the stars pulsed the slightest bit.

“Do you wish me to kill you?” Osadar asked.

“Listen to her,” Omi said hoarsely.

“I entered the conversion machine,” Osadar told him. “It peels off your skin, removes organs—”

“No!” Marten said. “We keep fighting.”

“Once you’re on the conveyer,” said Osadar, “you will wish you had chosen otherwise.”

“If it comes to that, Omi can shoot me.”

“You are mere humans,” said Osadar, “with pathetic human reflexes. Once you decide to shoot each other, you will already be tangled and on your way to conversion.”

“You’re depressed,” Marten said. “You know what helps me get out of my depression?”

“Yes, your inability to correctly assess reality.”

“I get angry. I get angry with people or cyborgs trying to use me. I’ve learned you have to bend sometimes. You do it, waiting for your one opportunity to strike back.”

“Bravado is useless against the cyborgs,” said Osadar.

“The cyborgs lost on Mars,” Marten said.

“That was a minor setback,” Osadar said. “Social Unity and the Highborn are even more doomed now than before the Battle for Mars.”

“That’s an odd way to look at it.”

Osadar shook her head. “I believe the Highborn have frightened the Neptunian Web-Mind. That will make it even more ruthless than before.”

“How could that be possible?” Marten asked.

Osadar stared into space.

Marten glanced back at Omi. Omi shrugged. Marten studied the dot. It seemed brighter than before, making his gut twist. More cyborgs—he had no idea how to defeat them this time.

Osadar spoke again. “I do not know how, Marten Kluge. But I know that whatever the cyborgs have decided to do, it will be to destroy the Highborn. A sense of fear will compel them.”

“Can computers fear?”

“They are not computers, but symbiotic creatures of flesh and machine. Beings of any kind are always more dangerous when they fear their enemy, for then they fight with the ruthlessness of terror.”

Fear bit into Marten as the bloom of starry brightness began to turn into a spaceship. How could he defeat the cyborgs a second time? He had no idea.

-4-

The ship was a small asteroid or a large meteor. To Marten, staring out of the pod’s window, it seemed as if someone had magnetized the inter-solar rock. Then that someone had brushed it over a planetary junkyard. Pipes, tanks, tubes, missile-clusters, engine-exhausts, globes and other assorted junk stuck to it. He suspected that the life-supporting chambers were buried in the center of the meteor. Instead of adding particle shields to a regular ship, the builders had started with a tiny asteroid and added to it.

Using his handscanner, he studied the ship’s dimensions. It was smaller than the Rousseau had been.

“A Thales-class vessel,” Osadar said. “They were being phased out before the war with Social Unity thirteen years ago. The near total annihilation of the Jovian expeditionary fleet returned them to favor.”

“That makes it a military vessel.”

“And therefore the probability is ninety percent that it is under cyborg control,” Osadar said.

Marten bit his lip as his gut curled. They had nothing to fight with but two Gauss needlers. He hated the helpless feeling. He should have recharged the portable plasma cannon.

“I’m picking up something on my headphones,” Omi said. “They’re asking if anyone is alive.”

“Do not answer,” Osadar said.

“Should we just sit here and die until our vacc-suits give out?” Marten asked. “Answer them.”

“You will regret it,” Osadar said.

Marten fiddled with his helmet radio, hearing nothing but static. The EMP blast from the Mayflower had damaged it. He was unable to pick up anything from the ship outside. It was hard enough understanding Omi and Osadar.

“They’ve acknowledged,” said Omi.

In seeming despair, Osadar bent forward and rested her helmeted forehead on the control panel.

“We’ll kill the first ones,” Marten told her.

Osadar said nothing.

Marten watched the meteor-ship. A piece of the junkyard fired jets, detaching itself from the small asteroid. It was a black globe, probably the same size as their original pod.

Here we go again.

As Marten watched the globe ease toward them, a headache spiked a point between his eyes. Did cyborgs control the Thales-class warship? Or were Jovians allied with cyborgs? None of this made any sense.

Forty-six harrowing minutes later, Marten set his Gauss needler at high velocity. Then he waited with a tripping heart as the red flare of a slowly moving laser-torch cut open their tomb. Omi stood beside him, with his own needler out.

Marten clunked his helmet against Omi’s as he chinned off his radio. They would speak through the metal of their helmets. “If it looks like they’re going to capture us…” Marten said.

“Yeah,” Omi said, his voice sounding tinny and faraway, “in the heart.”

“In the heart,” Marten agreed.

The laser-torch cut its last section of bulkhead. Someone with a clamp on the other side removed the section. The being poked its head in, and stopped short.

Marten’s tongue felt raspy and his heart hammered as he knelt to the side. He aimed his needler at the enemy faceplate. He liked that his hand was steady and that his voice didn’t crack.

“The last people were cyborgs,” he said over the radio. “So let’s get a look at you, friend, before I riddle you with needles.”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Goodbye, my friend, Marten thought, on the verge of bellowing with rage and shooting Omi.

Then the staring visor went from black to clear. A pale, frightened man regarded him. The man had a round face, a small nose and a small mouth.

Marten’s stomach relaxed a fraction, and he eased pressure from the trigger. “Are cyborgs on your ship?”

The man blinked rapidly almost as if trying to comprehend the question. Finally, he asked in a strange, clipped accent, “Cyborgs? Do you mean like the creatures they’ve been broadcasting about from Mars?”

“That’s right,” Marten said, trying to determine if the man was faking ignorance.

“What’s wrong?” a woman asked over the crackling radio-link. “Is anyone hurt in there? If they are, we need to get them out fast.”

A vacc-suited hand pushed the pale, blinking man deeper into the chamber. Then another helmet poked in. That person stopped suddenly.

“You have a weapon,” she said.

“We’re nervous,” Marten said. His needler pointed rock-steady at her faceplate. “I’d like to see your features, if you don’t mind.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Just do it,” the pale-faced man pleaded, clutching her suited arm.

The woman hesitated and then her visor became clear. It showed a pretty female with small features and a round head.

“We ran into cyborgs earlier,” Marten explained.

Her features changed into something like a person facing a crazed killer high on stimulants.

“Cyborgs… yes, I understand,” she said, pasting on a tremulous smile. “We don’t have any aboard the Descartes. Please, put away your weapon. And-and you can come with us.”

Her look did it for Marten—that talk of cyborgs was crazy.

“It-it would be better if… if you gave me your weapon,” she said.

Marten holstered the needler and shook his head.

“Ship protocol—”

“Will have to take a back seat today,” he said, patting his holster.

She nodded quickly, and said, “If you’ll follow me then. And just to let you know… the Force-Leader will want to know how you managed to become trapped in one of the Rousseau’s pods. I do not wish to insult you, but you don’t seem like a Jovian guardian.”

“I’m not. I’m Marten Kluge. My friends and I just arrived from Mars.”

-5-

The ride to the meteor-ship was short and uneventful. They docked with a hiss, a clang and a jolt that threw Marten against his restraints. Then he unbuckled himself and he and his friends floated after the two who had cut them out of the sealed pod.

They entered an airlock. There was more hissing and Marten felt the air-pressure grow around him. The inner lock rotated open and they entered a narrow corridor lit by a diffuse glow. A flexible membrane covered what had the bumpy outline of asteroid rock.

Marten realized they were inside the meteor, and this membrane likely helped seal in the atmosphere. Some rock was porous and would allow air to escape.

The two Jovians unsealed their helmets, cradling them in their arms. The woman had short, brown hair like fuzz, and the roundness of her head was even more pronounced than before. She looked back, waiting for them.

Marten unsealed his helmet, twisted it off and left it hanging from the back of his neck. He tasted the ship’s air. It was recycled from renewers, no doubt. It had a hint of oil and burnt electrical gear. Were they having technical problems aboard ship? Or was it more ominous than that?

Behind him, Omi removed his helmet. Osadar made no move to take off hers, which seemed like a wise precaution.

“There’s something you should know,” Marten began.

The pretty woman frowned, maybe hearing trouble in Marten’s voice.

“Ah….” Marten had been thinking about this the entire trip to the ship. “We came from the Mars System. I know I told you that, but—”

“I’m an artisan,” the woman said, interrupting, “a mechanic. You should save your explanations for the Force-Leader or for the Arbiter and his myrmidons.”

“Excuse me?”

Before the artisan-mechanic could explain, she gasped in horror, staring past Marten.

Marten turned. Osadar had removed her helmet. Her cyborg forehead gleamed, with the stamped letters and numerals OD12 on them. The plastic features and the strange eyes—Marten tried to visualize what the Jovians saw. Osadar had a space-zombie’s features, like one of the living dead that someone had only half-resurrected from Suspend or from a battlefield corpse-pile.

“Quick,” the artisan-mechanic gasped. “Go! Alert the ship-guardians.”

The small man Marten had first aimed his needler at moaned in dread.

“If you’ll just listen for a moment,” Marten tried to say.

Marten’s voice galvanized the small Jovian. He sprang from the chamber and scraped against the membrane of the narrow corridor. He curled his legs and shoved off again. Then he sailed out of sight down a bend in the corridor.

“There’s no need for alarm,” Marten said.

“Emergency!” the pale-faced woman shouted into a com-unit.

Omi shoved against Marten’s shoulder and twisted past him.

The pale-faced woman squeaked. And she lowered the com-unit as she stared at Omi’s needler. It was an inch from her forehead. A tinny voice squawked out of the com-unit.

“Tell them everything is fine,” Omi whispered.

The woman stared at the needler, too terrified to move.

Omi tapped the muzzle against her forehead. He did it twice. She moaned each time. “Tell them now,” he said, in his enforcer’s voice, the one he’d used in the slums of Greater Sydney.

Trembling, the woman lifted the com-unit. “Ah…we’re-we’re fine, just fine.”

“We should flee the ship,” Osadar whispered to Marten.

“They’d just shoot us down,” Marten said. “We have to talk our way out of this.”

“We have a hostage,” Omi said.

The woman’s trembling increased.

“She is an artisan,” Osadar said. “You have nothing with her.”

“What’s that mean?” Omi asked. “Artisan?”

“Put away your needler,” Marten told Omi. “We can’t shoot our way out of this.”

Omi didn’t even glance at Marten. The tough Korean kept his eyes on the woman.

“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered. She arched her body toward him, seemingly promising her flesh.

“Omi,” Marten said, gripping the Korean’s gun-arm. “We’re in their warship. They must have space marines of some kind.”

Omi glanced at him.

“We’ve come in peace from the Mars System,” Marten told Omi, although he spoke for the woman’s benefit. He wondered if she’d kept the com-line open. Even in her terror, there was something competent about her. He was also speaking for the benefit of whoever listened. “We’re nervous because you became scared. Osadar is a cyborg from the Mars System. But she broke her programming. She’s fighting against the Neptunian cyborgs now.”

The woman bobbed her head in the manner of those willing to agree to anything.

“Put away your needler,” Marten said.

Without a sigh and without saying he was sorry, Omi holstered his weapon.

“Go,” Marten gently told the woman.

With wide eyes, she watched Omi. He nodded.

Woodenly, she turned around. With a tight sob, she began to float down the corridor.

The woman floated through a hatch. Marten followed her into a narrow vacc-suit-rack chamber. It was packed with military personnel in blue uniforms, short-billed caps and stubby hammer-guns aimed at him.

Probably, he should have given the woman his needler in the damaged pod. But it was too late to change that now.

“There are three of you,” a tight-faced woman said, likely the commander of the blue-uniformed people.

Through the hatch, Marten said, “Come in slowly.”

Omi came in first. When Osadar followed, the line of military people stirred uneasily. Hammer-guns rose into firing position.

Marten expected them to discharge. It’s what any Martian would have done—at least any Martian that had met cyborgs. With cyborgs in this system, Marten tensed, expecting a fusillade of shots.

“Who—” The tight-faced ship-guardian tried to form words. Shock stole the last color from her already pale features. “What are you?” she whispered.

“Cyborg,” another ship-guardian said, a man.

“What?” the tight-faced woman asked him.

“That’s a cyborg.”

The tight-faced woman frowned with incomprehension.

“A true cyborg,” the man said, almost in awe, “like the videos from Mars.”

The tight-faced woman looked at Osadar again. The shock was beginning to wear off. Fear, repugnance and horror swept into its place. The woman swallowed uneasily.

Many of the hammer-gun bearers reacted the same way. Any one of them could start firing.

Marten realized that to these people cyborgs conjured up the memory of the horrible videos from Mars. They apparently had no idea they had lost one of their own ships to the cyborgs.

Marten raised his hands until they were over his head. “We’ve escaped from Mars, from the fighting there. Osadar—that’s the name of our cyborg—she deprogrammed herself.”

“What?” the tight-faced woman asked.

“Osadar is deprogrammed,” Marten said.

“Osadar?” the woman asked. She obviously didn’t comprehend.

“The cyborg is deprogrammed,” Marten said.

“Speak clearly.”

“The cyborg is no longer under Neptunian control. It means she has her mind back. She thinks and feels just like you and me.”

“I don’t understand that,” the woman snapped. “She’s melded with a machine.”

“We should disarm them,” the man said.

“Yes!” the tight-faced woman said. She thrust her arm out, the muzzle of her hammer-gun aimed at Osadar’s head. “Drop your weapons!” she shouted.

“Why not let your artisan come to us,” Marten suggested, with his hands in the air. “Let her draw out our needlers so you don’t get nervous. We don’t want you to accidentally shoot us.”

The tight-faced woman chewed that over for a half-second. “Good idea.” She gave the order. She had to give it a second time more harshly than the first.

Timidly, the artisan-mechanic floated to Marten and drew the needler from his holster. After all the needlers were in the hands of ship-guardians, the commander cocked her head. She had an implant in her right ear, a black mote.

“Which of you is the leader?”

“I am,” said Marten.

“You’re coming with me,” the woman said. “You and—” Her eyes narrowed. “Cyborg, do you understand me?”

“I do,” Osadar said, with a hint of weariness.

“If you resist, we will have to destroy you. Do you understand that?”

“Destroy equals death,” Osadar said. “I understand.”

“She’s still human,” Marten said.

The tight-faced woman gave no indication that she heard his words. She spoke louder at Osadar, as if that would help the cyborg understand better. “We’re taking you to a holding cell. Both you and the man will enter it. We will lock you there for now. Any resistance—”

“I will not resist,” Osadar said. “You are the authority and speak for the philosopher-governors.”

The tight-faced woman blinked in surprise.

“I was born in the Jupiter System,” Osadar said.

“Born?” asked the woman, as if Osadar spoke absurdities.

“She’s human,” Marten said. “The Web-Mind on Neptune torn down her former body and replaced it with a cyborg body. But in her heart, her brain, her soul, she’s still just as human as you or I.”

The tight-faced woman squinted, making it impossible to see her eyes. “No tricks, do you understand? We’re ship-guardians and will do what we must to secure our vessel. To the holding cell with the cyborg. And you,” she told Marten, “are going to the Arbiter. He’ll know what to do.”

-6-

Two ship-guardians with drawn hammer-guns urged Marten through the narrow companionways.

A Velcro-like fiber had been laid on the deckplates, and both the ship-guardians and Marten wore Velcro-pads under their boots. A ripping-sound accompanied their progress through the meteor-ship. Marten figured it would have been easier just floating toward wherever they were going, but he adjusted to their procedures. He hoped Omi and Osadar were okay.

The ship was a maze of narrow halls, corridors and shafts. He passed cubbyhole quarters and heard the throb of a fusion engine down the corridor as they passed by. Grilles emitted recycled air. In a larger room, mechanics clanged metallic tools against what looked like twenty-foot drums placed side-by-side. Space was a premium in there, too. Some of the floating personnel squeezed between the drums, using hand-monitors to check on something.

Marten would hate to see their recreation room, if they had one. It was likely a closet with stationary cycles parked side-by-side. Twice, he and the ship-guardians squeezed past personnel in brown smocks, artisan-mechanics. The mechanics gave off an oily, machine odor. Marten was sure he gave off a rank, sweaty odor. He badly needed a shower.

It was difficult to tell, but Marten believed he moved into the depths of the meteor-ship, into the most protected portion. Until now, the halls had been painted blue and gray. Abruptly, the corridor ahead became red and white.

“Halt,” a ship-guardian said. They were the man’s first words.

Marten noticed a red light wink above. It was on the ceiling, marking the change in colors. It seemed to be part of a recorder or a camera.

A door opened in the red and white companionway. Two tough-looking men stood there. They were different from other Jovians. There was something elemental about them, something that spoke about gene labs and modified test-tube babies. Were these the myrmidons the woman had spoken about earlier?

The two squeezed out of the opening. They were nearly identical in appearance. Each was shorter than Marten, but immensely broad of shoulder and deep of chest, with knotted, muscular arms that almost dangled to the deckplates. They had low, hunched heads, black helmets and fierce, darting eyes. They wore white trousers and jackets, with epaulettes on their shoulders. They had various devices on their belts—rods, disks and restraints.

They vaguely reminded Marten of Major Orlov’s red-suited killers from Sydney, Australian Sector. The fight in the deep-core mine—

“Go,” the ship-guardian told him.

Marten glanced back at the man.

“The myrmidons will take you to the Arbiter. Go,” the ship-guardian repeated, motioning with his hammer-gun.

Marten walked into the red and white corridor. One of the myrmidons grabbed his wrist. The man’s fingers tightened like a spring-loaded clamp, and Marten had a sense of dynamic strength, likely much greater than his own.

“Come,” grunted the myrmidon. It was hard to call it a word. The short, powerfully-built man jerked his arm.

Resistance seemed useless. The two myrmidons could likely wrestle him to the Velcroed deckplates in short order. Marten twisted his wrist anyway. He twisted and jerked hard, exerting force at the thumb. The thumb was the weakest spot of a gripping hand. The myrmidon’s thumb was like iron, but Marten must have caught him by surprise. He ripped his wrist free.

The myrmidon whirled toward him. Marten felt the second myrmidon at his back, ready to apply whatever force was necessary to subdue him.

In the hallway, in the gray and white portion, a ship-guardian gasped.

“Just show me the way,” Marten said. “I’ll follow you.”

The myrmidon in front of him bared his lips, revealing small teeth. The muscles in his arms bunched, and Marten was sure the man was about to attack. Then the myrmidon’s head twitched as if an insect had bitten him or perhaps some implant in the black helmet had buzzed.

The myrmidon stepped back, making Velcro-ripping sounds. He twitched his head in a signal to go that way. Then he marched for the door.

Marten followed, with the second myrmidon breathing against his back.

They entered the first spacious room Marten had seen, although it was still confined compared to Highborn standards. A man in a white uniform with red buttons and shoulder-tabs sat behind a desk. There were screens behind him, various hanging vidshots of people and several pithy sayings.

Marten read one: Temperance breeds happiness.

It seemed innocuous enough, but it set Marten on edge. More than ever, the two myrmidons reminded him of Political Harmony Corps killers, but with the gene-warping of a Highborn. The white-uniformed man had the feel of a political officer or a hall leader like Quirn.

The desk was big. It had a screen and controls built into it. There was a bronze statuette of a man in a flowing robe who looked outward with a serene gaze. The statuette’s arm was half-lifted and a finger pointed to nothing.

The white-uniformed man lacked that serenity. He was short like all the other Jovians, hairless, thin and had sharp features. The thrust of his narrow face was a stern, downward turn, as if he disapproved of everything.

“Sit,” the man said. He had a surprisingly deep voice, and he was obviously used to giving commands that others obeyed.

There was one chair before the desk. Marten took it. He felt the two myrmidons settle into position behind him.

“I am Arbiter Octagon,” the man said. “When speaking, you may refer to me as ‘Arbiter’ or as ‘Your Guidance’. Do you understand?”

Marten nodded.

Arbiter Octagon folded his hands on the desk. “We intercepted some of your transmissions. You claim to have arrived from Mars.”

“I am from Mars. Are you aware that cyborgs have invaded the Jupiter System?”

Octagon shook his head minutely as he spoke with quiet menace. “Do not query me. You are here for me to determine your status. I am the sole arbiter on the Descartes.”

“I’m not trying to—”

Octagon raised a finger.

One of the myrmidons clapped a hand onto Marten’s shoulder. The myrmidon applied pressure, grinding Marten’s shoulder-bones together. He ceased abruptly, before Marten could cry out or try to squirm free.

“Consider that as a crude demonstration,” Octagon said. “You are obviously an out-system barbarian, a creature given to direct stimuli. Therefore, failure to follow my directions will result in pain. Comply, and you will continue to sit here in relative comfort.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Marten said.

Octagon gave a sharp, humorous bark of laughter before he shook his head. “What do you call yourself?”

“I’m Marten Kluge.”

“Wipe that angry look from your face or you will experience more pain.”

“You think this is my angry look?” Marten asked.

Octagon sighed, throwing himself back against his chair. “Collar him,” he said.

Marten began to twist around and tried to rise. Powerful hands gripped him. In seconds, one of the myrmidons snapped a metal collar around his neck. The click seemed ominous. As the myrmidons relaxed their grip, Marten grabbed the collar, intending to rip it off. A buzz sounded, and from the collar, volts sizzled through him.

Marten went limp in the chair, releasing the collar as if it were on fire. The buzzing stopped and volts no longer charged through his flesh.

“Yes, much better,” said Octagon, who smiled for the first time. It was a cruel and predatory expression. He leaned forward, holding a small box. “This is a pain meter. If I dial it low like this. You feel this.” Using a narrow thumb, Octagon pressed a red button.

A mild shock caused Marten to clench his teeth. The pain ceased the moment the Arbiter lifted his thumb off the button.

“However, if I dial it up to this—” Octagon twisted the switch and let his thumb hover over the button. He raised his eyebrows. “Shall I press the switch?”

Marten licked his lips. He knew what Octagon wanted. He should speak meek words. But rage pounded in his skull. Marten lunged, catching them by surprise. He made it across the desk and slapped the pain meter out of Octagon’s hands. The Arbiter must have never expected that. Before Marten could strike the bastard, the two myrmidons grabbed him, wrenching his arms as they slammed him back against the chair.

Octagon was white with fury as he snatched the pain meter from where it floated. There was something wild in his black eyes, something feral and twisted. His mouth moved, but no sounds issued.

Marten would have tried to lunge again, but the myrmidons held him tight.

“Release him,” Octagon whispered.

Gingerly, the powerful hands let go.

“That was a mistake, barbarian. It shows—” The thumb stabbed onto the red button.

Agony lanced through Marten. It was impossible to move. Numbing jolts flashed through him. He couldn’t even croak in pain. Finally, it stopped.

Marten panted in his chair as sweat trickled down his back. His mouth tasted dry and it was difficult to focus. He wanted to kill Arbiter Octagon. But he couldn’t attempt it now. He needed to hide as his parents had once hidden in the Ring-Works Factory. He couldn’t hide physically. No. He would have to resort to the trickery of his Highborn days. He would have to eat dust until Octagon relaxed his guard.

“I am the sole arbiter aboard the Descartes,” Octagon murmured. “I ensure obedience to the Dictates. I determine rank, grade and sometimes lower the undeserving in class. You are outside the stratum of the enlightened. You are a barbarian, living in the ignorance of an unexamined life. That is why I put a training collar on you.”

Octagon adjusted the pain dial as he sat back in his chair. He examined Marten as if examining some untrustworthy piece of equipment.

“Barbarians are akin to animals even though they hold the guise of humans.” Octagon pursed his lips. “Even humans trained in the Dictates at times fail to maintain their temperance. Hence, a need for arbiters arises. I am highly advanced in the Dictates. I have examined my life under the Dictates’ fulfilling philosophies. I use reason instead of relying upon passion such as a brute as yourself practices. I am of the eleventh rank! I understand that is meaningless to an out-system barbarian. Therefore, let me say that eleventh rank meant years of toil, years of study and self-examination. I understand myself. And now, I understand the human condition. It is a squalid affair filled with a bewildering set of inner mandates of spurious use. ‘Fill the belly.’ ‘Lay at ease.’ ‘Rut with a female.’ It is chaotic, leading to debauchery and a disintegration of spirit.”

Marten was finally breathing normally again. He sat straighter. He was highly aware of the two myrmidons behind him. He also noticed the position of Octagon’s right thumb on the pain meter. Marten dipped his head.

“Might I say a word, Arbiter Octagon?” Marten asked.

Octagon gave another of his humorless barks of laughter. “How quickly the barbarian heels, eh? But I know that you think to trick me, to distract me from the truth. In reality, this shows me that you have a cunning mind. Therefore, you are dangerous.” With his left hand, Octagon pressed a switch in his desk. He leaned forward, scanning a screen.

“Caught in a damaged pod of the Rousseau,” Octagon said, as if reading information. “I wonder what fanciful tale you shall spin for me, hm?”

Marten touched the collar. “This device leads me to realize that lies are useless.”

“Oh, you are a clever barbarian,” Octagon said. “You think that I’m a fool. Fortunately for you, I follow the Dictates, I have learned to control my passions. Your attempted cleverness might anger a lesser man than me, one much lower than eleventh rank. I have harnessed my passions. Reason alone guides me. Thus, barbarian, you will feel pain now not because you’ve angered me but because my rationality tells me that you need further training.”

The thumb stabbed down.

Marten squirmed as pain flooded. His mouth sagged. Then the thumb lifted and the pain ended.

Octagon leaned forward with a hungry look. “Yes, I’m beginning to detect fear in you, barbarian. I see it as a gleam in your eyes. You are trying hard to maintain your pose of toughness. Let me assure you that I shall root out every vestige of cleverness in you. The Dictates demand honesty. If nothing else, I will make you an honest brute.”

A blue light blinked on the desk. Annoyance flickered across Octagon’s features. “Hold him,” he snapped.

Powerful hands gripped Marten’s shoulders.

Octagon set down the pain meter. He composed his face so the cruel smile disappeared. He let serenity spread across his face until his features resembled those of the statuette.

Marten was reminded of Hall Leader Quirn, another philosophical fraud.

Octagon pressed a switch. “Yes, Strategist,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Has the interloper explained his presence aboard the pod?” a female asked from a desk-speaker.

“We are exploring the matter,” Octagon said gravely. “He is proving troublesome, however.”

“I hope you have refrained from any harsh tactics.”

Octagon gently cleared his throat. “The interloper’s barbarian instincts are deeply imbedded, as I’m sure you already would know, Strategist Tan.”

“Please, Arbiter, none of your didactic word-essays. This is a possible emergency.”

Octagon leaned back from the screen and glanced at a wall. Gentleness and calm returned to his face. He bent over the screen.

“I will employ emergency—”

“You will not,” Tan said. “You will question him another five minutes at the most. Then you will escort him to the command center. Force-Leader Yakov is eager to hear his explanation.”

“I hear you, Strategist, but I feel that I must protest.”

“I am the philosophic guidance aboard the Descartes, Arbiter. I have been elevated to the governors. I am sixty-ninth ranked. You do understand what that means, yes?”

“Your radiance suffuses us with enlightenment,” Octagon said.

“Enough of that,” Tan said. “Maintain decorum throughout your questioning. You have less than five minutes left. Do you desire further clarification?”

Octagon moistened his lips. “As always, you are succinct. I am bidden by the Dictates and your own flawless reasoning to comply with your wishes.”

“I have given orders, Arbiter.”

“Yes,” he said. “I understand. Thank you for your precision.”

The blue light flashed, perhaps signaling an end to the conversation.

Octagon leaned back in his chair. He picked up the pain meter. He scowled at it and then he glared at Marten.

By struggling with himself, Marten kept his features bland.

“I am the sole arbiter aboard the Descartes,” Octagon said. “The Strategist—” His mouth tightened as he twisted the dial first in one direction and then in the other. He watched Marten as he did so.

“If you would like my story,” Marten said, “I can tell you now.”

“I detect smugness in your words,” Octagon hissed. His thumb stabbed down.

Marten clenched his teeth as the jolts roared through him. It was one gigantic sensation. He felt himself twisting in the chair. Hatred filled him. He would have glared at Octagon, but his eyes were painfully screwed shut.

Abruptly, the pain ceased.

Marten sagged. His jaw muscles ached. But he stirred, and he whispered, “Did that little jolt come because of your emotions, Arbiter, or was there a reason for it?”

“Impertinence,” Octagon whispered. “That implies future malice.”

“Your system has been invaded.”

“Bah! You cling to the absurd notion that cyborgs have entered the Jovian Confederation. It is another of your base lies.”

“Look in your holding cell, at the cyborg there.”

“A creature of your own devising,” Octagon said.

“I’ve seen other cyborgs.”

“Lunacy,” said Octagon, “sheer fabrication of an unfettered, emotional mind. I wonder if you were sent here by Social Unity to spread discord among us. Believe me, you shall fail in the attempt.”

“How did I come to be in the dreadnaught’s pod?”

“I am querying you, barbarian, not you me.”

“No. You’ve been telling me many things, but asking very little. Why is that, Your Guidance?”

The dark eyes seemed to shine as Octagon’s features froze. Carefully, he slotted the pain meter on his belt. “You are a fool, filled with false illusions. Strategist Tan uses our ship as a taxi. Soon, she shall depart. Then all governance decisions revert to me. You and I shall have long discussions concerning questions, answers, emotional states and rational understanding of the Dictates. It is the human heart laid bare to our superior understanding. We have examined man’s nature and we know it thoroughly. Here, we act with reason, without malice or subterfuge.”

The blue light flashed on the desk. “Arbiter Octagon,” said the Strategist, “we await the interloper in the command center. Report on the double.”

Octagon bared his teeth as the blue light flashed again, cutting the connection. He rose, and he signaled the two myrmidons.

“Bring him,” Octagon said. He stared at Marten as the predatory smile made a faint reappearance. Then Octagon Velcro-walked toward the door.

-7-

In his worn silver jumpsuit and old boots, Marten marched between the myrmidons. Octagon brought up the rear. They continued to use boot-pads because weightlessness reigned. That told Marten the meteor-ship was still near the hijacked pod.

With an effort of will, Marten focused on that instead of the shock collar and myrmidons. He needed to use his wits, as he had little else now. Were ship personnel inspecting the pod?

Octagon cleared his throat.

The myrmidons halted. The one in front whirled around to face Marten.

“Barbarian,” Octagon said softly.

Marten scowled, and the myrmidon facing him made a low, growling sound. There was little intelligence in the myrmidon’s eyes, but eager readiness for battle. There was also something akin to the hatred of the neutraloids in him. The squat, black-helmeted myrmidon was bestial, made to enforce Octagon’s orders. And Octagon supposedly gave his orders through reason alone. The dichotomy between myrmidon and philosophic governance—what did that say about the Jovians?

Marten smoothed away the scowl as he turned toward Octagon.

“Remember, that you will remain with me long after Strategist Tan leaves the ship.”

“Why do you care?” Marten asked.

Octagon’s right hand dropped to the pain meter hooked to his belt. “I have certain theories regarding barbarians,” he said softly. “You couldn’t understand, however, even if I explained it to you.”

“Try me.”

“Enjoy your liberty of impertinence, barbarian, for it shall be your last. Now go, hurry.”

They entered a narrow hall that led to a hatch. The first myrmidon darted through. Marten followed, walking past a man-sized statue. It was ivory-colored and showed a sparse intellectual in a toga. The statue had a serene smile, with an unfocused gaze. His hands were near his hips, the palms outward in an imploring gesture.

The statue startled Marten, and it took him a moment to realize he’d entered the roomiest place he’d seen. Large screens showed the stars. Spacers in zero-G worksuits floated around the pod or magnetically walked across its surface. From time to time, white particles of hydrogen-spray propelled a work-suited spacer elsewhere.

The room, or command center, had small modules along the walls, with black-uniformed personnel squeezed into each. The people in the modules wore ear-jacks and stared at vidscreens and other monitors. Marten recognized thermal scanners, broad-spectrum electromagnetic sensors and neutrino and mass detectors. Passive sensing systems allowed one to spot an enemy without giving oneself away. Active systems pinged a noticeable pulse off the enemy, who if alert would realize they were being scanned.

Marten noticed the ceiling then. A golden triangle was inlaid there, with a silver, lidless eye peering out from the center.

“Bring the barbarian here,” a woman said.

Marten refocused as one of the myrmidons pushed him toward a tiny woman. She stood beside a seated man in the center of the command room.

The tiny woman, surely no more than four feet tall, wore a stylish red jacket and slacks. She had hairless eyebrows, and she seemed older than the others. She also had smooth, fine-boned features—bio-sculpted features, Marten suspected. She was beautiful in an elfin way, exotic. She wore a tight red cap that hid any hair and she wore a shield-like emblem where her jacket’s front pocket should have been.

“You have the honor of standing in the presence of Strategist Tan,” Octagon said. “If at any time she addresses you, you will respond in a mild tone and use the honorific of ‘Your Visionary’ or ‘Exalted One’.”

“Exalted One?” Marten asked, bemused.

Octagon stiffened, and his slender hand moved toward the pain meter.

“Hold,” said Tan. She had a firm voice, full of assurance, adding to her strange beauty. “You applied a shock collar to him.”

“Yes, Exalted One,” Octagon said.

“The reason?” she asked.

“Unbridled emotionalism.”

“I would know your proof?”

“The barbarian’s drawing a weapon against his rescuers,” Octagon said. “His attempt to take a mechanic hostage in our ship, thinking that would thwart us. His swift changes from rage, to pseudo-rationality and to actual aggression. His—”

“Perhaps it is true that emotionalism stirred those actions,” Tan said. “However, they could have formulated from other sources.”

Octagon’s head twitched minutely. “Exalted One, you are far too highly ranked for anyone present to assault your logic. Still, I feel compelled to point out that my advanced studies were and continue to be in Barbarian Psychology. While I would laugh at anyone who suggested that intuitive… hm… feelings could help clarify a situation, nevertheless—”

“You intuited his emotionalism?” Tan asked, with a faint hint of amusement.

Octagon’s mouth opened. He shut it with a click of his teeth.

“How interesting,” she murmured.

“You are sixty-ninth and I am eleventh,” Octagon said hurriedly. He was silent for a moment. “My word choices have failed me.”

“It is of little matter,” Tan said. “We shall proceed to my second query. And for the sake of argument, I will grant you his emotionalism. Even given that, why collar him?”

“Barbarians react within strict parameters to pain. I apply the stimuli and can easily interpret the reasoning behind his responses. That helps me gauge the truth.”

“His reasoning?” asked Tan.

“Emotions stem from pseudo-reasoning.”

“Hm,” said Tan. “You are the ship’s arbiter. I have no desire to step onto your prerogatives. However, I feel that events have crossed into abnormality. The cyborg in the ship’s holding cell is the obvious proof. These fugitives arrived in the Rousseau’s pod, a badly damaged pod, possibly indicating a battle. Yes… I am intruding into your area of expertise. But not lightly, Arbiter Octagon. I wish to assure you of that.”

“I lack the philosophic height to judge your actions, Exalted One. But I must—”

“Well said. For the duration then, I insist that you keep your hand off the pain meter. I have a different methodology than yours, and will now apply it to the barbarian.”

“If I could just—” Octagon tried to say.

“Please,” said Tan, flicking one of her tiny hands at him, “desist.”

Octagon bowed his head.

“In fact,” said Tan. “Move back and make your myrmidons heel.”

Octagon hesitated. It was barely perceptible. Then he snapped his fingers. The myrmidons left Marten, following the Arbiter. Octagon went to a raised monitor several feet behind the command chair. Octagon pressed several toggles there and began to scan the personnel in the modules. A few sat straighter or seemed more absorbed in their vidscreens.

“Did you understand our dialogue?” Tan asked Marten.

“Yes.”

“You realize that we find your presence in the dreadnaught’s pod… highly unusual?”

“I’m from Mars,” Marten said. “We just arrived in your system—”

Tan held up her hand.

Marten ignored it as he kept on talking, “When the Rousseau hailed us—” Marten groaned, doubling over as the shock collar buzzed. Pain flooded through his body. He heard Tan speak sternly. The pain ceased and Marten heard Tan scold Octagon.

“In fact,” Tan added, “remove the collar.”

Exalted One—” Octagon tried to say.

“Silence,” she said. “Now remove the collar as ordered.”

There was a click from the collar. Marten tore it off, and he nearly hurled it at Octagon. He became aware of the others watching him. Most seemed fascinated, as if witnessing a strange beast. The myrmidons seemed ready to fly at him. Controlling his urge, Marten managed a harsh grin. He held out the collar for someone to take.

“There,” Tan said. “My methodology is already proved correct.”

“Please, Exalted One—”

“Arbiter,” she said, “I detect strain in your voice. I begin to wonder if extended duty has worn down your…razor’s edge of rationality. Now take the collar and observe.”

Octagon whispered to a myrmidon. The gene-warped Jovian hurried to Marten, snatching the collar, clicking it to his belt and hurrying back to Octagon.

“We shall begin anew,” Tan told Marten.

“Thank you,” he said, rubbing his throat.

She gave an airy wave. “Your presence in the pod is strange, and you were in the company of a cyborg. That implies you belong to Social Unity.”

Marten waited, deciding to follow their ways.

“Ah, you show decorum,” Tan said. “I find that interesting. Do you belong to Social Unity?”

“No.”

“Are you from Neptune?”

“I am not.”

“I notice a barcode tattoo on your forearm. That indicates a Highborn soldier.”

“They inducted me on Earth, yes.”

“So you are Earthborn and originally belonged to Social Unity.”

“I was born in the Sun-Works Factory. My parents were Unionists.”

“Meaning what?” asked Tan.

“Political Harmony Corps hunted us,” Marten said, “butchering many and torturing the rest. My parents escaped into the vast Sun-Works Factory. The majority of the habitat is automated, which means that hundreds of kilometers are devoid of humans.”

“I’m familiar with the Mercury Factory. There is no need to elaborate.”

Marten nodded. “I grew up longing to reach the Jupiter Confederation.”

Tan made a soft sound, with a twitching smile.

Marten liked her smile, and he found her smallness stimulating. In fact, her beauty stirred him. “Maybe you think I’m making that up to try to please you,” he said. “Back then, Social Unity controlled all four Inner Planets. The Jupiter Confederation was the first free system.”

“Free?” Tan asked.

“Free of Social Unity.”

“Ah. Yes, of course. Continue.”

“We almost had fuel for a secret spaceship we’d constructed. It had taken us three years of hiding like rats to piece it together, to write the software—” Marten shrugged. “PHC found us. They killed my mother and father. I escaped to Earth.”

“So you have lived under Social Unity?”

“Rather say that I survived in the stifling world of thought control,” Marten said.

Tan’s eyes narrowed. “Do you seek to teach me dialectics?”

Marten glanced around. Octagon watched him avidly. The personnel in the modules looked aghast. Only the black-uniformed man in the command chair seemed unfazed. Marten had made a blunder, but he wasn’t sure what.

“I don’t know your ways,” he said. “If I’ve offended you, it wasn’t intentional.”

“He is a clever barbarian,” Octagon said. “That much I’ve determined.”

“A barbarian,” Tan murmured. “Yes… thank you, Arbiter, for reminding me of his out-system status. He cannot know our ways, nor is he enlightened. He is an ignoramus, straining through life with half-knowledge at the very best. We should pity him, not collar him. Nor should I take quick offense at his unintentionally degrading comment.”

“The Rousseau has gone off-line,” the black-uniformed man in the command chair said.

Tan regarded the man coldly. “We have our orders concerning the dreadnaught.”

The man made no response, nor did he betray any emotion or quirk.

“Still,” said Tan, “events rush forward. You have a point.” She studied Marten. “Do you have a name?”

Marten told her, and he said, “I’ve been a soldier. I’ve learned that sometimes events rush forward with blinding speed.”

Tan seemed amused. “Continue.”

“I was at Mars during the battle. I fought there. Surely you’ve received broadcasts concerning it.”

Octagon made an angry sound.

Tan lofted her eyebrows, waiting. When nothing further occurred from Octagon, she told Marten, “We have received many broadcasts from Mars. But I’m now changing the topic. The Force-Leader just made an excellent point. Your history is quaint, and likely unusual for a barbarian. But none of that explains how you came to be trapped in a Guardian Fleet pod.”

Here it was. Marten had been wondering the best way to tell them he attacked one of their warships. He recalled something Osadar had told him about Jovians—their attachment to form, to rank. Listening to them, observing them, Marten realized Osadar was right. He had something in his zipped pocket that might alter his status with them. As a barbarian—he was beginning to hate the title—he was almost an animal to them.

“He hesitates,” Octagon said, as if making a telling point.

“You must tell us the truth,” Tan told Marten. “Although I am loath to tell you this, we have methods for determining liars. It is unpleasant, as I’m sure you can understand after visiting the Arbiter.”

“I’ve waited before revealing myself,” Marten said.

Tan lifted an eyebrow.

Marten began to unzip a flap on his thigh.

Octagon spoke sharply. It alerted Marten as the myrmidons leapt, propelling themselves with fantastic speed. Weightless, they were able to fly at him in a single bound. But Marten had been waiting for something like that. He flattened onto the deckplates. The two myrmidons flew above him. One, reaching down, managed to grab Marten’s arm. Marten struck the wrist, dislodging the hold.

By that time, Tan said, “Arbiter! End this outrage and restrain your myrmidons.”

Octagon called out.

The two myrmidons had struck modules or bulkheads, halting themselves there. Smoothly, like weightless high-divers, they pushed off and sailed back to their position beside Octagon. The one Marten had struck glared at him, but they hunched their heads in obedience beside the Arbiter.

“If you are removing a weapon,” Tan said, “it is ill-advised.”

“I understand,” Marten said. “I am withdrawing my credentials.”

“Ah. By all means, continue.”

Marten removed the credentials given him almost a year ago by Secretary-General Chavez. Marten held out the booklet.

“That is what exactly?” Tan asked.

“This is from the Mars Planetary Union. If you’ll examine the signature, you’ll see it’s from Secretary-General Chavez himself.”

“Regrettably,” Tan said, “Chavez died in the aftermath of the Highborn Hellburner.”

“All the more reason you should look at this,” said Marten.

“Explain your statement.”

“The Highborn are at war with the Solar System. The Mars Planetary Union and the Jupiter Confederation were allies once. Maybe it’s time to ally again.”

“Against the Highborn?” asked Tan.

“And against Social Unity and the cyborgs,” Marten said.

“Mars lacks extra-planetary fighting capacity.”

“But it has willing soldiers,” Marten said. “I should know. I led some of them into successful battle.”

“Hm,” said Tan. “Let me see that.”

The seated, black-uniformed man pushed off from his chair, taking Marten’s credentials and bringing them to Tan.

She scanned the cover, opened the booklet and studied the contents. “The seals and documentation are in order, and I recognize the former Secretary-General’s signature. Hm. This puts a new light on the matter.” She snapped the booklet shut, returning it to the black-uniformed man.

He returned it to Marten, who put it away.

“I apologize for the Arbiter’s harsh methods earlier,” Tan said, with a new note in her voice.

Marten wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be a hint of promise in it. She was small, but the longer he spoke with her, the more beautiful she seemed.

All that proved too much for Octagon. “I must protest, Exalted One. Like a rogue virus, the interloper was bottled in the Rousseau’s—”

Tan lifted a small hand. Octagon’s words stopped. Without turning to regard him, she said, “He is an accredited representative of the Mars Planetary Union. That makes him part of the governing class. Perhaps… he has been unable to avail himself of a proper Jovian education. Still, the art of governing teaches even the unexamined soul certain critical facets of higher thought. You above all others should accord him the correct honor, Arbiter.”

“You teach me, Exalted One.”

“It is my duty to do so,” she said.

“As it is mine to learn from my superiors, Your Radiance,” Octagon said.

Marten was amazed. A piece of paper, no, a credentialed piece of paper, seals and an inked signature had dramatically shifted his status with these strange people. Osadar had said before that Jovians had a high regard for form. The reality of the situation was much stronger than what Osadar had explained. He’d have to remember that.

“Could you enlighten us regarding your presence in the pod’s pilot chamber?” Tan asked.

“Exalted One,” Marten began.

“Please,” Tan said, “let me… guide you concerning Jovian etiquette. In theory at least, you belong to Mars’ governing class. That makes us equals. As equals, I’m sure I don’t need to point out to you that I am not exalted compared to yourself. Despite the Arbiter’s truth earlier of an unexamined life, for only Jovians truly attempt to decipher the inner workings of the human heart. Even governing inferior humans infuses the governors with unavoidable realities. Those realities teach universal laws or axioms.”

The black-uniformed man gently cleared his throat.

Tan smiled indulgently. “Ah. I wax prolix at a time of crisis. It is an unfortunate habit of the enlightened to examine every angle. Sometimes, a sudden thrust of decisive nature is more suited to the situation.”

“May I?” asked the black-uniformed man.

Tan gave the barest of nods.

“I am Force-Leader Yakov of Ganymede,” the man told Marten. Yakov had a pelt of fine silver hair. And although small and round-headed like the others, he had lines around his mouth and bunched muscles at the hinges of his jaw. A feeling of deadliness emanated from him, the subtle hints of a trained soldier. “I lead the Descartes during hostilities. I wish to query you.”

Marten nodded.

“I have your permission then?” Yakov asked.

“Oh,” Marten said. “Sure.”

“First,” said Yakov, “who exactly is the cyborg that was trapped with you in the pod?”

“She is Osadar Di. In Neptune, the Prime Web-Mind converted her.”

“If you would,” Yakov said, “please explain what that means.”

“They have a process in Neptune by which a person is torn down and rebuilt into a cyborg. They program the cyborg. Osadar, however, broke her programming.”

Yakov’s manner tightened. “That could have been a ploy, allowing the Web-Mind to insert a spy into your ranks.”

“I’m sure that’s possible,” Marten said. “But Osadar saved our lives on Mars, killing other cyborgs. According to the Martian broadcasts, all the cyborgs were slain in the Mars System. Osadar did nothing to help save any of them. Finally, for nearly a year, she has traveled with Omi and me aboard the Mayflower.”

“If you will pardon my interruption,” Tan said. “Your statement lacks precision. You said all cyborgs died on Mars, but Osadar survived and she is a cyborg.”

“All programmed cyborgs died on Mars,” Marten said. “Look, I don’t think you people understand just how much danger you’re in. The cyborgs have come to Jupiter. They’re here and they’ve likely been converting Jovians.”

“Explain, please,” Yakov said.

Marten glanced from Yakov, to Tan, to angry Octagon. Before he could say another word, one of the technicians spoke up.

“I’m getting a voice signal from the last known location of the Rousseau. They’re requesting urgent evacuation.”

Force-Leader Yakov swiveled in his command chair to look at Tan.

Tan frowned, moodily staring at the largest screen. “I must attend the War Council.”

“I could give you a shuttle,” Yakov said.

“No…” Tan said. “The Chief Strategist was explicit. All military vessels of the Guardian Fleet are to rendezvous at Athena Station.”

“What are the coordinates of the voice signals?” Yakov asked the technician.

The technician read off a series of numbers that were meaningless to Marten. But they must have made sense to the Force-Leader.

“You could use the shuttle,” Yakov told Tan. “Then I could delay my arrival by first examining the distress call. Then I would—”

“The Rousseau was controlled by cyborgs,” Marten blurted out. “That means a Web-Mind is probably already operating in your system. You have an emergency. If I were you, I’d tell your War Council—” Marten closed his mouth as a new possibility slammed into his thoughts. The possibility sickened him, and he wondered if it was already too late to save the Jovian System.

“Again he hesitates,” Octagon said. “The barbarian obviously hides pertinent information. We are reckless to take his credentials at face value. I suggest we hook him to the obedience frame.”

Marten laughed harshly, which made Octagon scowl.

“This War Council,” Marten asked, “where does it meet?”

“That is privileged information,” Tan said.

“If it’s near this Athena Station,” Marten said, “I would think twice about going. Before you ask me why, let me tell you what happened to the Rousseau. The sooner you know what’s going on, the better for everyone.”

As Tan, Yakov and Octagon listened, Marten told them about the harrowing ordeal Omi, Osadar and he had recently undergone against the dreadnaught.

-8-

With a strangled sound, Octagon drew a palm-pistol and aimed it at Marten. It was a neat little gun and had been strapped to his belt. It was oval, with handgrips like brass knuckles, and fit into Octagon’s slender palm.

The myrmidons crouched like beasts, ready to fling themselves at Marten.

“His entire fabrication of lies is a web meant to bewilder us into inactivity,” Octagon snarled. “Social Unity must have sent him as a saboteur or as a fragmentation agent. His single mote of truth is that he attacked the Rousseau. I await your word, Exalted One. I will terminate this enemy saboteur.”

“Put up your weapon,” said Tan.

“Your Visionary, I must—”

Small Strategist Tan turned toward Octagon. Her words came out cold and clipped, cutting him off. “You have served too long in isolation, I see. Maybe you’ve forgotten that you regulate temperance, not govern this ship.”

Octagon sputtered.

“Yes,” said Tan. “I note your red shoulder tabs and red bars and crescents, but you are a probationary authority. I am a governor. I am a strategist on the War Council. You will seek to teach me nothing, unless you wish me to relieve you of your station.”

Octagon’s features blazed crimson. His pistol-hand quivered as tendons rose.

“Must I summon ship-guardians?” asked Tan.

With a hiss of expelled air, Octagon lowered his palm-pistol.

Tan held out a tiny hand toward him.

Octagon blinked at her. The flush left his cheeks, as he turned pale. He began to tremble.

Inflexibly, Tan held out her hand.

Octagon said hoarsely, “Exalted One, I crave your pardon. You…you speak truth that I have maintained my post too long. I have served here for two entire cycles. There is a reason for that, but I am reluctant to state it.”

“Then don’t,” said Tan.

“Except for me,” Octagon said, “none from Callisto serves aboard the ship.”

Tan glanced at Yakov sitting in the command chair. “That has no bearing on your status,” Tan told Octagon.

“That is understood,” said Octagon. “The guardian-soldiers of the Descartes—soldiers of Ganymede and Europa—are shining examples of duty. They guard with no ulterior loyalties. During my two cycles here, I have only discovered three instances of class overstep.”

“Three?” asked Tan, betraying surprise, and again glancing at the stoic Yakov.

“There might have been more oversteps,” Octagon said, “but I acted decisively to quash them. During each guardian’s off-duty period, I demanded a careful hour of study, periodic examination and my precise explanation of the Dictates.”

“You have been zealous,” admitted Tan.

“As you’ve implied, Exalted One, I have overworked myself. That is not sufficient reason for my… unwarranted display of moments ago. I dare not say more. Otherwise, I fear that my restraint will depart.”

“Hm,” said Tan, as her outstretched hand lowered. “I appreciate that you’ve shackled your… display. Restraint is the watchword.”

“It is the watchword,” echoed Octagon.

“Yes,” said Tan, “this is an unusual situation. Although, it is in such situations that our philosophical approach must show itself superior to the untamed life.”

“You expound truth,” Octagon said.

Tan gave a nearly imperceptible nod. “Clip the weapon onto your belt. Then silently recite to yourself axiom twelve of the Dictates.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Marten had been watching the command-room personnel. Through subtle glances, a raised eyebrow, the slight twist of a lip or hunched shoulders, he thought to detect hostility toward Octagon and his myrmidons.

“Representative Kluge,” said Tan. “Your account is fantastic. Cyborgs controlling a Jovian warship, an Aristotle-class dreadnaught, it’s inconceivable.”

“I’m guessing there have been some strange happenings lately,” Marten said.

Tan and Yakov exchanged a glance. It showed Marten he’d guessed correctly. Perhaps there had more than just a few odd occurrences.

“What I’m about to suggest is conjecture on my part,” Marten said, trying to frame this in the Jovian manner. “But it seems the cyborgs want to gain control of all military vessels in this system. They likely have a limited capacity to alter humans into cyborgs. Gaining military control of space would be the most strategic use of their limited numbers.”

“Given your premise,” said Tan, “your reasoning is sound.”

“Might the greatest strategic asset be control of the War Council?” Yakov asked softly. “And after that, control of the Grand Chamber?”

“I must protest your statement,” Octagon said, sharply.

Tan waved him aside. “Not now, Arbiter. This is a crisis, one way or another. If you are a saboteur,” she told Marten, “we need to know for whom. And if your fantastic story is true—”

“Please, Exalted One,” Octagon said, “permit me to interject a comment.”

“Refrain,” said Tan.

Octagon clutched his monitor-board, obviously struggling to maintain silence. His myrmidons threw savage glances everywhere.

“May I ask you a command question?” Yakov asked Tan.

Tan gave the Force-Leader a cool glance. “Permission granted,” she said slowly.

“Why do you suppose Athena Station ordered us to immediately report to Fleet Headquarters?” Yakov asked.

“I am to attend the emergency War Council meeting. You know that. If you would be so kind as to make your point, Force-Leader….”

“Why has Athena Station ordered a different ship to the Rousseau’s last known location when we’re much closer to the stricken vessel?”

“That is for Fleet Headquarters to decide,” Tan said stiffly, “not for flag officers of guardian status to question.”

“Under regular conditions, I agree,” Yakov said. “My question has a subtler twist.”

Octagon’s head snapped up as he stared at the Force-Leader.

“Proceed,” Tan said slowly.

“Suppose Representative Kluge has spoken accurately,” Yakov said. “Cyborgs control the Rousseau. Suppose one takes it a step further, and cyborgs control Athena Station.”

“That is a preposterous premise,” Tan said.

“Exalted One,” Yakov said, “I retreat before your superior virtue.”

Tan studied the silver-haired Force-Leader.

The personnel in the modules busily studied their screens or monitors. Octagon wore a hungry expression, anticipatory. He clicked several toggles on his board.

Marten noticed a black bulb in the ceiling. Was that a camera? Did Octagon record the events here?

“You’ve aroused my curiosity,” Tan said at last. “A guardian with a subtle point. Very well, proceed with your line of reasoning.”

“As you wish, Exalted One,” Yakov said.

Marten now noticed that Yakov’s right hand had gently slid open a small panel on his chair’s armrest. The Force-Leader’s fingers hovered over a set of black buttons.

“If in some insidious manner Athena Station was controlled by cyborgs,” Yakov said, “that would give them an advantage, allowing the infiltration of other warships.”

“An obvious conclusion,” Tan said.

“It would also explain why we weren’t sent to help the stricken dreadnaught, but a ship many more days away was.”

“Given this absurd premise,” said Tan, “you’re right.”

Yakov’s features tightened. To Marten, it seemed the Force-Leader’s right hand stiffened, as if getting ready to press buttons.

Tan must have noticed something. She said, “You have an unorthodox comment to make. Please, grace us with your wisdom.”

Yakov nodded as his right hand inched away from the armrest buttons. “If Athena Station is cyborg-controlled, that would mean the War Council has ceased to exist.”

“Continue,” said Tan.

“If that is true, you and any delayed strategists would constitute the new War Council. Possibly, you are the new Chief Strategist.”

“Mutiny,” Octagon whispered. His hand dropped to his belted palm-pistol.

Yakov swiveled around. “I have appealed to the highest authority aboard the Descartes, Arbiter. Mutiny occurs when the lower-ranked seeks to strip his or her superior of authority.”

“Athena Station logged a direct order to the Descartes,” Octagon said. “You seek to contravene that order. That is mutiny.”

“Strategist Tan supercedes military command,” Yakov said.

“She does not supercede the War Council. It has logged a direct order for her.” Octagon dipped his head toward Tan. “You shine in authority, Exalted One. But the War Council—”

“Is not here,” said Tan. “It might well be infested with cyborgs as the Force-Leader suggests.”

“Surely you do not accept the barbarian’s outlandish story,” Octagon said.

“Have a care, Arbiter,” Tan warned.

“Exalted One,” Octagon said, straightening behind his monitor-board. “I fear I must protest. While I hold your authority in supreme—”

“No more,” said Tan. She drew a shiny rod from her jacket, aiming it at Octagon. “You will leave your palm-pistol on the monitor and take your myrmidons to their chamber. There you shall await my word.”

Octagon blinked. Then he scowled. “I wish to state article five of the governing—”

“If you continue flaunting my authority,” Tan said, “I shall terminate you. Either obey me or die. The choice is yours.”

With a jerky motion, Octagon unclipped his palm-pistol and hooked it to the monitor-board. Without glancing right or left and with his chin high, Octagon marched out of the command center, with the two myrmidons trailing him, growling to each other.

After the Arbiter had left, Tan glanced at Yakov. The Force-Leader dropped his gaze. Frowning, the elfin Strategist sheathed her shiny rod.

The seconds passed. Finally, she asked, “What do you propose?”

“I wish to test Representative Kluge’s assertion,” Yakov said.

“How so?”

“In the most direct manner possible. We will head to the damaged dreadnaught and see what sort of survivors we find.”

“Which is dire mutiny,” Tan said, “as it is in direct disobedience against logged Athena Station orders.”

“Perhaps you could give me new orders,” Yakov said softly.

“You heard the Arbiter. The War Council has given me its orders.”

“Exalted One,” Yakov said, “you’ve already pointed out that the War Council might no longer exist. Given such a possibility….”

“Speak your thoughts,” Tan said.

“If cyborgs control the War Council, shouldn’t we resist rather than meekly accept defeat?”

Tan studied the screen showing the drifting pod. Finally, she faced Marten.

The force of her eyes, Marten found himself drawn to them. Green eyes, exotic features, a tiny but feminine body. What would it be like to hold her?

“You are evidence of some unknown peculiarity,” Tan said. “It is slim evidence for your outlandish statements. But the possibility of cyborgs, the consequent loss of Jupiter and our superior way of life—I have new orders for you, Force-Leader.”

“I await them,” said Yakov.

“Let us establish the fate of the Rousseau.”

-9-

Marten, Omi and Osadar endured the ship’s acceleration in the closet-sized holding cell.

Marten had asked that his friends be released, but the distrust of Osadar ran high. Not wanting to leave them in a cell alone, he’d asked to share their confinement. He wished to assure his friends that events moved in their favor, or so he’d told Tan.

Thankfully, the pressing Gs were of short duration, and weightlessness returned. According to Yakov, they were several days from the dreadnaught. The Rousseau’s velocity had taken the damaged vessel away from the location of the attack and the pod had traveled away in the opposite direction for many days.

While in the holding cell, both Marten and Osadar agreed that some cyborgs would have survived the Mayflower’s detonation. The rugged dreadnaught design, the voice signals earlier and cyborg durability all suggested it.

In low tones, Marten told them what had occurred in the Arbiter’s quarters and in the command room. Then he asked Osadar what point Octagon had been making by saying he was the only one from Callisto.

“Those of Callisto follow the Dictates closer than anyone else in the system,” Osadar said. “Governors, arbiters and almost all force-leaders are from there. They distrust the others for good reason and code weapons on that basis.”

“Meaning what?” Marten asked.

“Hammer-guns will not fire when aimed at myrmidons, arbiters or governors. The palm-pistol you spoke about would not fire against the Strategist. Also, the palm-pistol is likely imprinted to Octagon’s pattern. Only he could shoot it. The Strategist’s rod operates on similar principles.”

“Knives would work against them,” Omi said.

Osadar shook her head. “I could defeat the myrmidons barehanded. No one else aboard ship, including you two, would have a chance against them. They are incredibly strong, fast, well-trained and genetically superior to men.”

“It seems such gene-warping would go against the Dictates,” Marten said.

“The opposite is true.”

“So what are these Dictates?”

“There are many gradations concerning them.” Osadar shook her head. “None of that matters now. It would be more useful for you to learn the nature of the ranks. Highest are the philosophers: the rulers, governors and probationary agents such as arbiters. They have the greatest experience, the most virtue—”

“What does that mean?” Marten asked. “The most virtue? Does that mean someone like Tan never has sex?”

Osadar regarded him with her nearly expressionless gaze. “Ruling is politics. According to the Dictates, it is an art. Just as few have the skills or aptitude to become surgeons, so only a few can make good rulers. A surgeon is trained for many years. He must have a steady hand and the correct equipment. A ruler must have the right aptitude, a good education and then he must have virtue: honesty, integrity and a rational mind. A ruler by necessity must have been steeped in the tenets of the examined life.”

“Does Yakov captain the ship?” Marten asked.

“He is a guardian, a soldier, a man of action or spirit.”

“What’s that mean? Spirit?”

“The Dictates divides humanity into three classes,” Osadar said. “It divides them according to their primary motivation. The lowest class is the man of appetites or base desires. To fill his belly, to have sex and other basic wants drive him more than any other need. Artisans make up the large majority of humanity, and they belong to this stratum. Aboard ship, those are the mechanics, engineers and technicians.

“The second class is composed of men and women of spirit or courage. They are the fighters, the warriors. In the Jovian System, they join the Guardian Fleet and the various police agencies on the moons and asteroids. The smallest class is composed of those who are devoted to reason. They are the rulers, the governors and arbiters.”

“So Yakov is a guardian, belonging to the second class?”

“Yes, although the classes are graded more finely than that,” Osadar said.

Marten considered these ranks. “Are arbiters like political officers?”

“No. Arbiters ensure that people conform to the Dictates and that everyone lives a temperate life.”

Marten couldn’t help but think about Tan’s eyes, her face and body, the way she moved. Was she temperate?

I’ve been in space too long. I need a woman.

There was a clang at the hatch then.

Osadar put a titanium-reinforced hand on Marten’s wrist. It seemed much too skeletal. Hydraulics moved her knees, ankles, wrists and fingers. Many of her movements caused slight whirring noises.

Osadar lowered her plasti-flesh lips near Marten’s ear. “The Arbiter and Strategist are both from Callisto. That is the key. Yakov and his crew are from Ganymede and Europa.”

The hatch began to swing open.

“Those of Ganymede yearn for the leadership, which has been denied them from the beginning. The highest of Callisto suppresses—”

“You are to come with us, Representative Kluge.” The hatch was open and the stern-faced ship-guardian of earlier looked down at them. She held a hammer-gun beside her leg, not aiming it at them, but clearly ready to do so. Others were behind her, equally armed and wearing blue uniforms.

“What about us?” Omi asked. “When do we get out?”

“You will be allowed to exercise later,” the ship-guardian said. “For now, you must show restraint.”

“Where are you taking me?” Marten asked. He floated upright in the cell.

“Force-Leader Yakov would like to query you again.” Before Marten could answer, the ship-guardian grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the holding cell. The woman propelled him to the others. Then the ship-guardian slammed the hatch shut, spinning the wheel to lock it.

Clearly, they feared Osadar. It was a healthy emotion. But it wasn’t going to help him get Osadar out of there.

The ship-guardians marched Marten through a narrow passageway. Slender doors flanked each other on both sides.

“This is the officer’s quarters,” the ship-guardian said. She halted before the end cubbyhole and pressed a toggle. The door slid open.

“Enter,” the ship-guardian said. She leaned near as Marten passed by. “Remember, we shall be outside, standing guard.”

Marten entered a small room. Yakov sat behind a minuscule desk that nearly spanned the room’s width. A muscled statuette sat on a miniature rock, with his chin resting on his fist as he thought deeply.

There was a stool before the desk. A few vidshots were on the walls showing a small woman and two children in various acts of play. The woman was pretty, the children a boy and girl with blond hair. One shot showed a young and intense Yakov with a hussade stick in his hands standing among a team of serious-eyed players. Those in front lofted a silver trophy.

“Your wardroom?” asked Marten.

Yakov sent down a computer stylus and examined Marten in his same stoic manner as earlier in the command center. “Time is our enemy, Representative. We will therefore forgo pleasantries and speak about realities.”

Marten glanced at the hussade vidshot again. There was the essence of Yakov, he decided, before it had become hidden by age and responsibilities.

“How many times have you faced these cyborgs?”

Marten sketched his original meeting with Osadar and the raid later into Mons Olympus, the raid that had ended at the orbital fighter and his liftoff from the Red Planet.

Yakov listened intently, occasionally jotting notes onto his computer screen. After Marten had finished, the Force-Leader asked, “You are a soldier, isn’t that what you said before?”

“Highborn-trained.”

“You were in the Free Earth Corps?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“We monitor Inner Planets news, yes.”

“Have you ever heard of the Bangladesh?”

“I have priority one concerning space-combat intelligence,” Yakov said.

“And that means what exactly?”

A faint smile touched the Force-Leader’s lips. “The Bangladesh was an experimental beamship that attacked the Mercury Sun-Factory. The Highborn attempted to hijack it.”

“I’m among the two sole survivors of the hijacking,” Marten said. “The other is vegetating in one of your holding cells.”

“You were in Free Earth Corps and space-combat trained?”

“The space-combat training was my reward for excellence in the Japan Campaign.”

“The reference fails me,” said Yakov.

“It doesn’t matter other than this: I’ve fought in the hellholes, both on Earth and in space. I fought on Mars and helped the Planetary Union against Social Unity.”

“Essentially then, you are of guardian class?”

“You’re forgetting my Mars Union credentials.”

“On the contrary, Representative, I have carefully listened to everything you’ve said.” Yakov seemed to measure him as he would a hussade goal. “By your own admission, you betrayed the Highborn, your sponsors.”

“I prefer to say that I got tired of being a slave.”

The faint smile reappeared on Yakov’s lips. There was something feral about it this time. “Why do you believe the cyborgs have infiltrated the War Council and Athena Station?”

“Why as in what is their reasoning for doing it or why as in how did I arrive at my conclusion?”

“The latter,” said Yakov.

“Because you were ordered away from the damaged dreadnaught,” Marten said. “And because cyborgs controlled the Rousseau. Now that I think about it, Osadar said there was a ninety percent probability that your ship was cyborg-controlled.”

“Her statement is obviously false.”

“Not if Athena Station is cyborg-controlled and they sent you orders.”

“Clever reasoning,” said Yakov. He reached into his black uniform and withdrew two colored disks. He set the disks on his desk, sliding them back and forth with his fingers. Possibly, it was a nervous gesture. “Your deprogrammed cyborg strikes me as durable. What is your analysis concerning our common enemy?”

“If I understand your question right,” Marten said, “I think that some of the cyborgs survived the Mayflower’s detonation. You’re heading into terrible danger.”

“You believe that some of the dreadnaught’s armaments are intact?”

“I wouldn’t bet against it. And I’d be ready for vacc-suited cyborgs trying to storm their way aboard your ship.”

“You suggest I shoot any survivors attempting to reach the Descartes?”

“You’re a rational man,” Marten said.

Yakov raised a slender hand. “I am a soldier-guardian. I do not attempt to rise above my class.”

“Force-Leader, let’s cut the crap.”

Yakov waited, remaining stoic. Marten wasn’t fooled anymore, not after seeing the picture of the intense young Yakov with the hussade stick and trophy.

“Why ask me all these questions?” Marten said. “You know what to do. Go in firing lasers, missiles or particle beams if you have them. Kill anything that moves. If you don’t, you risk losing your ship and possibly your lives. Worse, you risk capture and conversion.”

Yakov slid the colored disks back and forth. “Your credentials are from Mars. I must therefore assume you’ve been briefed about our Confederation.”

“No. There was no time for that.”

“That strikes me as illogical.”

“War and emergencies seldom lend themselves to logic,” Marten said.

Yakov put the colored disks back into a pocket. “Tell me, Representative. What do you think the cyborgs hope to gain in our system?”

“I have no idea.”

Yakov studied Marten. “You might be interested to know that I have hailed the Rousseau. They refused to answer. Later I detected ship transmissions to Athena Station. As curious, a gel-cloud hides the vessel from our passive sensor arrays. Why would they deploy such gels if they were stricken?”

Marten shrugged.

“You claim ignorance concerning our Confederation. Therefore, you are likely unaware of the philosophic purity of our rulers.” Yakov glanced at the statuette on his desk. “I am from Ganymede, meaning that I am a realist instead of a philosopher. I fear that our Strategist will make critical blunders once we reach the Rousseau.”

“Who controls the ship-guardians?” Marten asked.

Yakov looked up sharply. “I’ve studied the Mars Campaign. The cyborgs are ruthless and deadly to an inhuman degree. This is no time for philosophers, but for a realist who sees what is and acts decisively in the critical moment. You heard the endless babble in the command chamber.” Yakov shook his head. “I must lead the Descartes into battle, not Tan or Octagon.”

“Your ship-guardians must understand that.”

“How little you know,” Yakov murmured. “If I move openly, it might unleash the Secessionist—” The Force-Leader scowled. “This is a time for unity, not division. However, I’m certain the philosophers will dither and argue until the cyborgs have captured everything. In my heart, I believe this is the moment to act. Yet too many of the crew will hesitate or even turn against me if I attempt what needs doing.”

“That’s why you need me, isn’t it?”

“Explain,” said Yakov.

“Where are my weapons?”

“Ah, I see. You realize that our hammer-guns will not fire on the myrmidons. Octagon also realizes such a thing. He has already confiscated your hand weapons from the security locker. I suspect he has inspected them and wears one now in lieu of his lost palm-pistol. That was a propitious moment, a rare occurrence, when the Strategist disarmed him. I should have acted then.”

“Osadar could defeat the myrmidons for you.”

Yakov shook his head. “I distrust all cyborgs.”

Marten hesitated. Then he blurted, “Let Omi and me do it.”

Yakov studied him, before shaking his head again. “The myrmidons would slaughter you two.”

“I don’t think you understand. Omi and I survived the Japan Campaign and took advanced Highborn-training on the Sun-Works Factory. Give us vibroknives and you’ll see what two ex-shock troopers can do.”

“I’m afraid we have no vibroknives.”

“Force blades?” asked Marten.

“I can give you knives, which mean nothing at all against myrmidons. Ordinary men cannot defeat them.”

Marten frowned. He’d seen them, had felt their grip. The myrmidons were tough, but they hadn’t seemed like supermen. Just how good were they? He said, “Lend us your most trustworthy ship-guardians as backup.”

Yakov looked away. It was a subtle thing, but he seemed worried. After a time, he said, “In cadet school, I was captain of our hussade team. We won the Ganymede Star. Even after our victory, the stylists insisted that ours was the inferior team. And they were right.”

Marten watched the Force-Leader. “How did you win?”

“By risking everything and rushing the pedestal. It was a mad gamble, but it gave us victory. And it gave me this command slot.” Yakov swept his fingers through his silver hair. “I’ll risk everything again, this time on a mad rush to kill the myrmidons and gain control of my ship. Otherwise, philosophic fools will kill us all.”

Yakov picked up the stylus. “I’ll show you the ship’s layout. Then you must help me pick the ambush site.”

Marten nodded, realizing he was in it now.

-10-

Gharlane of Neptune, the prime cyborg of the stealth-assault, stood in his favorite chamber on Athena Station. The station was on a medium-sized, asteroid-like moon. In orbital proximity, its closest companion was Callisto.

Gharlane dressed in Jovian styles, with a governor’s red uniform. He was large and robotic: polished metal merged with plasti-flesh parts and a face capable of only minimal expression. His eyes were golden-metal orbs that moved smoothly in black plastic sockets.

Gharlane didn’t smile, although a strange serenity filled him. His favorite chamber contained the newest in holographic imagery. It showed Jupiter in the center, with the important moons in their orbits and bright pinpoints representing the major warships in the system. Red pinpoints were dreadnaughts, yellow were meteor-ships and blue were clusters of patrol boats. There were fifteen capital ships in the system, fifteen dreadnaughts and meteor-ships.

Gharlane moved through the various holo-images, feeling majestic, akin to a god. His left shoulder passed through holographic Jupiter and he eyed Io, turned and passed a hand through icy Europa.

Gharlane understood that the Jupiter Web-Mind—his master—did not approve of these emotions or his present actions. The Web-Mind only allowed them for a precise reason. To eradicate the emotions that compelled these actions might well eradicate Gharlane’s higher genius functions.

Gharlane was all too aware that after the successful conclusion of the stealth-assault he would have to go under the psycho-scanner. It was unavoidable, and he accepted the inevitably. However, that was a time far in the future. For now, he focused on a holographic image of Athena Station.

“Zoom in,” he said.

Athena expanded before him. The surface was brightly lit, with hundreds of low domes, towers, antenna-clusters, sensor stations and interferometers. There were repair docks, supply depots, laser bunkers, and missile sites. It also had girders dug into rock, stretching into space and attached to various spacecraft.

Athena Station had been the heart of the Guardian Fleet and the second most heavily defended location in the Jovian System. The defense satellites around Callisto and the laser bunkers on the surface were considered three times as powerful as the weaponry on Athena.

In the last few months, a non-Jovian installation had been added. It was buried half a kilometer under the surface and it churned throughout the cycles. Horrified, naked, freshly-scrubbed humans entered the complex on a conveyer. After a thorough tearing down and intricate rebuilding, shiny new cyborgs exited the machine. These cyborgs then joined the ongoing campaign.

Unfortunately, the conversion process was too slow, and they had failed to achieve the timetable set for them by the Prime Web-Mind in the Neptune System. The problems had begun several months ago, as the stealth-capsules entered the system. A zealous Force-Leader had burnt two of the seven capsules and damaged three others. The Jovian Force-Leader had almost ended the Jupiter Assault before it had commenced. The same Force-Leader presently captained the Rousseau, but as a converted cyborg known as CR37.

“Resume normal imaging,” Gharlane said.

The holographic of Athena Station became a small dot again in the greater Jupiter System.

Before Gharlane could give another command, a panel in the wall opened. He turned and regarded two basic-type cyborgs.

They were taller than he was, with elongated torsos. Each was a composite of flesh, steel, plastic and graphite bones. Each had been a Jovian less than four months ago. They had dead eyes now, incurious eyes, with immobile features.

“Yes?” Gharlane asked.

“The Web-Mind wishes an immediate link,” the foremost cyborg said in a mechanical voice.

Gharlane was aghast. He had suppressed an impulse from the Web-Mind. Now he noticed a blinking red pinpoint. It represented the Rousseau. Obviously, the Web-Mind had sent these two to check on him.

Gharlane opened his internal link. Immediately, the two cyborgs departed and the panel closed.

“I will run a self-evaluation,” Gharlane told the Web-Mind. They spoke via a tight-link radio-signal.

You must not spend any more time in the holographic command room, the Web-Mind told him.

“Noted,” said Gharlane.

The Descartes deviates from its heading. It moves toward the disabled dreadnaught.

“I have already ordered the Hobbes to the disabled ship,” Gharlane said.

Our vessel will not arrive until much later. And one-to-one combat ratios are poor odds. Send… the two nearest patrol boats in conjunction with the Hobbes.

“I wish to point out,” said Gharlane, “that there is a high probability that members of the Mayflower’s crew reached the Descartes.”

The bearing on combat ratios—

“The files show that the Mayflower is from Mars, containing survivors from the latest conflict there. They have shown high survival capabilities.”

The combat ratios—

“Battle is not all ratios and mathematical computations. There is a chaos factor involved.”

Metaphysical ramblings are further indication of anomalies, Cyborg Gharlane. That bodes ill for your continued use.

“I use logic to deduce factors beyond my perception,” Gharlane explained. “Metaphysics has no bearing on that. Continual success against the odds indicates high-level chaos factors. I will order the Hobbes to rendezvous with the Kepler. Together, they will engage and overcome the enemy meteor-ship.”

That will delay the engagement with the Descartes. You thereby risk losing the remnants of the dreadnaught. We need the crews and we need the vessels, particularly the engines.

“Your objection is noted. And I have reevaluated the situation as we’ve talked. My conclusions have changed. Our presence has already likely been discovered. We must switch from stealth tactics to first-strike attacks. Let the crippled Rousseau do what it can against the approaching ship. I will use our two meteor-ships with others on a mass strike against Callisto. We must assault the heavily-guarded planetoid before their guardians are alerted.”

You are premature. We should continue to subvert the Guardian Fleet.

“The meteor-ship heading for the Rousseau indicates the Jovians know about our presence. Thus, stealth no longer aids but hinders us. It is time for massive strikes.”

Negative.

“If you will examine—”

Further argumentation will push your anomalies to rogue-level status. You will undergo immediate and full systems overhaul.

Gharlane hesitated for a fraction of a millisecond. Then he said, “The two meteor-ships will unite and defeat the Descartes. Any survivors there will face interrogation and conversion as we continue with the stealth assault.”

That is acceptable. On another matter, the cyborg converter needs….

As the Web-Mind continued to communicate with him, Gharlane glanced around the darkened room. The red pinpoint of light indicating the Rousseau blinked wildly. He wanted to remain and walk through the holographic Jupiter System like a divine being. With something akin to a sigh, Gharlane headed for the panel. They should strike Callisto now. He knew it was the wiser course. But the controlling Web-Mind held the final decision. He would prefer to launch missiles at this meteor-ship, but the vessel’s crew would detect the missiles and broadcast the attack throughout the system. No. A close approach by other warships was still the best way to capture the enemy vessel and crew.

Gharlane paused. Maybe there was a third way. Yes, he needed to consider this carefully.

-11-

Omi rolled his shoulders. “A gun would be better.”

“If you’d rather go back and sit in the cell with Osadar…” Marten said.

“No,” Omi said. “I started with knives.” He gripped a stainless steel blade with a razor’s edge on one side and a deadly point on the end.

They floated down a hall, moving toward the myrmidon chamber. Ten feet behind them were three Jovians. They were smaller men, but tough-looking and determined, if scared.

Ship personnel had received face-to-face orders to report to their station or remain locked in their sleep quarters. It meant the passageways were clear. According to Yakov, Octagon, his myrmidons and Tan had not received such orders.

“You remember Stick?” asked Omi.

“I’ll never forget him.”

Omi grunted. “Stick and Turbo, they were loony, but good in a bad spot. Stick loved his knives. He was an artist with a blade. I never viewed knives as he did. They’re a tool. A gun is a better tool. But before I became a gunman, I used to cut people for Big Arni.”

“Surely Highborn knife-tactics are superior to whatever you did in Sydney.”

“Yeah,” Omi said. “But you always remember your first kill. It’s like laying your first girl. You never forget.”

Marten’s nostrils expanded. Omi was nervous, which was a bad sign. Osadar had been telling Omi about the myrmidons. Facing gene-improved killers didn’t sound like a life-extending action. But they’d killed Highborn before. He’d killed a shuttle-full of them through sneaky tactics. That would be the best way to kill the myrmidons. The problem was the myrmidons always expected trouble.

Marten blew out his cheeks as his stomach fluttered. It was a bad feeling. He tried to make himself angry. The myrmidons had collared him, allowing Octagon to shock him many times.

“Yeah,” Marten whispered, his grip tightening on the knife-handle.

“You say something?”

Marten shook his head.

They floated around a corner. Down the companionway, he could see the region of the ship with red and white hall colors. It made Marten’s stomach churn.

“Two on one,” he said. “They’re fast—”

“I know what to do,” Omi hissed. “Zero-G fighting, the crazy way.” He hefted his knife. “A gun would be better, or our needlers.”

“Octagon has them.”

Omi wiped the back of knife-hand across his mouth. Then he took out a small device, holding it in his free hand.

Marten signaled the three Jovians. They curled against the wall and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Marten pushed down to the floor, curling up in a fetal ball, trying to wedge himself at the junction of the wall and floor padding. Omi did the same thing. The Jovians were in position.

“Now,” Marten whispered.

Omi clicked the device.

Three seconds later, the meteor-ship’s engines engaged. After five seconds of thrust, the engines cut out, returning weightlessness to the Descartes.

“Let’s do it,” Marten said, shooting for the red and white part of the hall.

A klaxon rang. Yakov’s voice sounded over the ship’s intercoms. “All hands, report damage and injuries to the proper authorities. Then tighten yourselves for further ship maneuvering.”

Marten aimed an override unit at the door. It was one of Yakov’s achievements to have gained the needed code.

Nothing happened.

Marten scowled and tried again, clicking the button.

The door swished open. Omi shot through. Marten followed and the Jovians hurried to catch up. The chamber was three times the size of Yakov’s wardroom. It contained exercise pulleys and a sparing automaton. A myrmidon tore his arm out of a pulley’s wires, with blood welling and floating around him. He must have smashed into the wires during the short acceleration. There was no sign of the second myrmidon.

The squat man snarled as his dark eyes gleamed with murder-lust. Omi leapt. The Korean had always been the best at zero-G combat. With his free hand, Omi grabbed the myrmidon. The trick was to lock onto an enemy, anchoring for the knife thrust. If one just thrust, he cut minimally and ended up shoving himself away because of the third law of motion.

Omi tried for a leg lock. The bleeding myrmidon struck a savage blow, sending Omi spinning against a wall. Fortunately, the Korean kept hold of his knife and he stayed conscious.

“Attack together!” Marten shouted.

The Jovians flew at the myrmidon, with their free hands outstretched. Their knives were tucked protectively near their chests.

Three seconds later, Marten understood why everyone said myrmidons were unbeatable. The squat man had freed himself and moved with sublime grace. He used his long arms to grabble the first Jovian as he wrapped his legs around the Jovian’s torso. The myrmidon savagely twisted the man’s head. Neck bones snapped. Then the myrmidon was letting go as a knife slashed his side. The myrmidon hissed as he put a hand behind a Jovian’s head and punched with the other, crushing cartilage and breaking teeth.

Then Omi attacked from behind, thrusting his knife into the kidney zone. The myrmidon howled and hurled the broken Jovian from him. He spun and might have slain Omi.

But Marten had been waiting for something like that. As the myrmidon whirled, Marten pushed himself leg-first at the killer. He wrapped around the myrmidon’s torso as the killer struck Omi a devastating blow. Marten forewent style and knife-fighting theory. With two hands, he plunged the heavy blade into the myrmidon’s back. The myrmidon snarled, trying to twist around. Instead, he merely rotated Marten and himself as Marten yanked out the blade and plunged it in again. He did it a third time, hacking at the squat neck. It was like trying to cut gristle.

The myrmidon grabbed Marten’s foot and twisted. Marten bellowed, and he stabbed into the killer’s back. He rotated the blade, probing for a vital organ.

The myrmidon sagged as blood pumped from him. The door at the end of the room swung open then. The second myrmidon appeared, with only a cloth around his waist.

“Flee!” Marten gasped.

Omi’s face was puffy, with one of his eyes swollen shut. All three Jovians floated in the room, either dead or unconscious.

The myrmidon snarled as his muscles bunched. Omi shot out of the first door. Marten followed. In less than a second, each braced himself against the junction of floor and wall.

“Now!” shouted Marten.

Omi clicked his device, the one linked to Yakov. As the myrmidon hurtled after them, the ship’s engines engaged with terrific thrust. It brought pseudo-gravity to the ship. As before, it quit in three seconds.

Marten and Omi shot back into the chamber. The squat killer had hit his head against a bulkhead. He was dazed, but far from out.

Marten and Omi attacked. In a savage brawl lasting fifteen seconds, they took horrible buffets. In return, they killed the second myrmidon.

“We can’t stop now,” panted Marten, as he drew his knife out of the inert corpse.

Omi spit a globule of blood that wobbled in the weightlessness. His face was horribly bruised, and he could barely peer out of the least swollen eye. One of his arms dangled because the myrmidon had yanked it out of the socket.

“Wait,” Omi whispered. He let go of the bloody knife so it floated. Then he grabbed his arm, clenched his teeth and shoved his shoulder into place. He groaned, but instead of complaining, he grabbed the knife and nodded to indicate he was ready.

Marten’s ribs ached and he could hardly move his head because his neck hurt.

“Octagon has our needlers, right?” Omi asked.

Marten grunted a monosyllable answer.

They floated out of the chamber and toward Octagon’s room.

Marten was surprised Octagon hadn’t come charging to help his myrmidons. The Arbiter either believed they could handle the situation or he was too frightened by the ship’s sudden acceleration and Yakov’s warning that further maneuvering would take place.

“He can kill us both in seconds with that gun,” Omi whispered.

Marten reversed his grip, holding the point. During shock trooper training, he’d gained some efficiency hurling knives.

Omi tensed as he used the override unit. The door swished open. Each stood to the side. They glanced at each other across the open door, showing their surprise. Octagon should have fired warning shots.

Marten steeled his nerves and glanced into the room. He would only throw after assessing the situation. He laughed.

Octagon floated unconscious. Either the first or the second surprise thrust had rendered him helpless.

Marten rushed in, keeping his knife ready, in case Octagon was trying to fake them. He tore a Gauss needler from a holster at Octagon’s side—it was his own gun from the Mars System. Marten checked the charge. It was fully loaded. Too bad they hadn’t hit Octagon’s room first. Three Jovians would still be alive then.

The Arbiter groaned.

“Close the door,” Marten said.

As Omi hurried to comply, Marten searched the Arbiter, extracting what could possibly be dangerous devices. Then a thought struck.

“Hurry to the myrmidons,” he told Omi. “Search their uniforms for any hidden devices.”

“What sort of devices?”

“Something keeps hammer-guns from firing. If we can find those and put them on ourselves—”

“Right,” Omi said. He headed out.

Marten kept searching. He found a gray disk attached to the Arbiter’s stomach. Marten peeled it off.

Omi returned shortly, holding two similar gray disks.

“Was it on their stomachs?” Marten asked.

Omi nodded.

Marten ripped open drawers. He found Omi’s needler and a hammer-gun. “Take this,” he said, giving Omi the hammer-gun. “Then put a disk on a dead myrmidon and see if the gun shoots or not.”

“Does it shoot now?” Omi asked.

Marten aimed it at a bulkhead and pulled the trigger. The gun jerked in his hand as a heavy pellet dented the wall.

“It works,” Marten said.

Omi took it and hurried out again.

Marten continued to search the Arbiter’s desk. He discovered a monitor-board that showed areas of the ship. He moved toggles and heard voices from those areas. This was a spy-board.

Omi returned, with a grin on his puffy, bruised face. “I attached the disk to a corpse, aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I backed up and tried it again. Again nothing. Then I aimed at the other corpse and put a hole in him. These work. Or they make it so the hammer-guns don’t work.”

“Put one on,” Marten said, as he attached a disk to his stomach. “We’ll give Osadar the last one.”

“She’s still in the cell.”

“We’re breaking her out.”

“Your new friends aren’t going to like that,” Omi said.

“Yakov will stay happy,” Marten said. “We’ll remove Tan and give him control of his own ship.”

“He might turn on us after we give him what he wants.”

Marten pondered that. This desk, this room, might contain more surprises. “Okay. You have a point. This is going to be our headquarters. One of us must always be here, monitoring the crew.” Marten explained what he’d discovered.

“Got it,” Omi said. “What do we do with him?”

Marten studied the unconscious Arbiter. “Tie him tight like a hostage. Then figure out this desk better, particularly the audio-feeds throughout the ship. I’ll get Osadar.”

“You’d better hurry.”

“I know. Surprise and speed are two of a soldier’s best weapons. I was listening that day.” Marten headed for the hall.

-12-

Marten steeled his resolve as he floated ahead of Osadar. He would have liked to talk with Tan, get to know her better as he studied her exotic features. The woman stirred him. Was that because he had been cooped up with Osadar and Omi for nearly a year? Or was it because he genuinely found the Strategist exciting?

Tan made muffled, protesting sounds.

Marten scowled. Was he doing the right thing?

Osadar cradled Tan like a small child, with a titanium hand clamped over the woman’s pretty mouth. Osadar had proven faster than the Strategist, who had tried to draw her shiny rod as they’d entered her quarters. Now cyborg strength proved overpowering against the small woman’s muscles.

Marten floated ahead of them. He had out his Gauss needler, but he hoped to achieve this without killing any of Yakov’s crew. He’d chosen to deal from strength, and by freeing Osadar he might have chosen wrongly. But an apropos Highborn maxim said to make your decisions decisively. Even if it was the wrong decision, it was better to be bold about it than to hesitate. It made no sense to let qualms guide him, not with the dreaded cyborgs loose in the Jupiter System. Gilded philosophies meant nothing against graphite bones and tanglers. He needed plasma cannons and fusion-driven lasers.

Fortunately, the narrow corridors were still empty.

Marten holstered his needler and unclipped a medkit. Soon, he hefted a pneumospray hypo. It held Suspend, a drug that slowed biological functions. It was a perfect drug for the badly injured, organ-thieves and kidnappers.

They reached the holding cell. Marten typed in the code and turned the wheel. With a noisy thump, he opened the hatch and turned around.

Tan stared at him above Osadar’s metal hand. She stared with a mixture of fear, rage and indignation. She looked small and helpless in Osadar’s skeletal arms. She looked beautiful.

Marten scowled as he rolled up one of Tan’s sleeves. “Your philosophies will get us all killed. I know, because I’ve fought the cyborgs before. This will knock you out for a time,” he said, showing her the hypo. “Afterward, we will revive you. You will live, and hopefully the cyborgs will have been destroyed by that time.”

Tan made muffled sounds against Osadar’s hand, and she squirmed, or she tried. With a whirr of sound, Osadar tightened her grip. Tan cast an accusatory look at Osadar and another at Marten.

“This gives me no joy,” Marten muttered. He pressed the hypo against the Strategist’s pale skin. Air hissed.

Tan made a louder muffled sound.

Marten turned away as he shook his head. He’d rather be kissing the woman, holding her. But he had to act wisely, and he had to do it now.

“She’s out,” Osadar said.

“Put her in the cell.”

Osadar laid her down, using restraints to secure the limp woman so she wouldn’t injure herself during acceleration.

Marten shut the hatch, turned the wheel and reset the code to one only he knew. Now—

“We are making a mistake,” Osadar said.

Marten cocked an eyebrow.

“I am a cyborg and Omi and you are shock troopers. We three could gain control of the ship for ourselves.”

“That’s a bit ambitious.”

“We could achieve it nonetheless.”

“Then what?” asked Marten.

“Then we have a capable military vessel under our control.”

“We three would have to fix all damage, ensure the fusion engine remained—”

“We would keep a skeleton crew,” Osadar said.

“We could never trust them.”

“Trust would not be the issue, but effective control.”

“Omi, you and me—”

“Highborn methods could achieve control,” Osadar said.

“Maybe,” Marten said. “Yakov is a sly man. I’d hate to have him plotting against me.”

“We would have to drug him as you have Tan.”

“Again,” Marten asked, “to what end?”

“Escape to Saturn or Uranus.”

Marten chuckled grimly. “I don’t see why you think the planetary systems closer to Neptune would have escaped the cyborgs’ notice.”

“The Jovians have no chance against the cyborg infiltration. That is the issue.”

“You keep forgetting Mars,” Marten said.

“Doom Stars demolished the Mars Assault. The Jovians have these cramped vessels. We must flee while we can or face certain death.”

“Aren’t you getting tired of running away?” Marten asked.

“Flight is a primary survival tactic.”

“So is fighting. It’s time to fight, Osadar. It’s time to kick the cyborgs in the teeth. Besides, we’re running out of fleeing room. We have a military ship and the hope of others. That means a fleet.”

“The cyborgs will have a bigger and better fleet.”

“They’re plasti-flesh, steel and enhanced bio-brains, but they’re not magic. You escaped their programming. The Highborn killed an entire planetary attack force.”

“The Highborn are many times superior to the Jovians,” Osadar said. “For us, here, I foresee doom.”

“When haven’t you foreseen doom?”

“We should take possession of the ship and live free for as long as it is possible. Any other choice is unrealistic.”

“We damaged the dreadnaught, remember?”

“Through incredible good fortune,” Osadar said.

“Wrong!” Marten said. “We outthought and in the end we outfought them. What we’ve done once, we can repeat.”

“You have false hope.”

“Isn’t that better than full-blown pessimism?”

“No. I am never disappointed by an outcome, because I expect the worst. When events prove beneficial, I am amazingly surprised.”

“Wouldn’t you agree that by following my plans you’ve been surprised more often than not?” Marten asked.

Osadar appeared uneasy. “It is tempting fate to answer your question in the positive.”

“I need your wholehearted support,” Marten said.

“It is still yours.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Now let’s hurry.”

“There is a change in plans,” Yakov said over the Arbiter’s desk-screen.

Marten sat at the desk, with the others out of sight. He had turned the statuette. It now faced him with the upraised arm and the finger pointing nowhere. He’d done it to remind him the Jovians viewed things differently than he did.

By the vidshots on the wall behind Yakov, the man must be in his wardroom. The Force-Leader attempted to look calm, but strain showed on his face.

“A change?” asked Marten.

“I have hailed the Rousseau many times. The last time, a Jovian officer answered.”

“You actually saw her?” Marten asked.

“I did.”

Marten blinked in consternation. “Cyborgs boarded my shuttle. I killed them.”

“I have no doubt concerning that.”

“But the officer—”

Yakov made an abrupt gesture. “The gel-cloud confirms my suspicion. And that the officer said the ship had a fusion-core leak.”

“A human officer aboard the dreadnaught,” Marten said. “Are Jovians allied with the cyborgs?”

“I consider that a strong possibility,” Yakov said. “One of the lesser moons yearning for freedom from the Dictates may have decided to trust the cyborgs. It complicates matter. Therefore, before walking into a trap, I will send probes.” Yakov stared out of the screen. “You have captured the Arbiter?”

“And the Strategist,” Marten said.

The skin seemed to stretch across Yakov’s face. “I have altered a military pod. The Arbiter will enter it, fly to the Rousseau and report to us what lies behind the gel-cloud.”

“That will take days.”

“There are too many parameters that I do not understand,” Yakov said. “Therefore, I will proceed with caution, using probes and fallbacks.”

“Why will the Arbiter report anything to you?” Marten asked.

Yakov smiled grimly. “In reality, he will report nothing. The pod’s cameras will report.”

“So why send the Arbiter?”

“I wish to rid my ship of him, and his ‘act of courage’ will impress certain of the crew. His coming death will then inspire them, making my military decisions easier.”

Marten wondered what the real reasons were, or if Yakov told him the truth. “What if the Rousseau frees the Arbiter?”

Yakov shook his head. “I have altered the pod. He will not survive the journey.”

Marten glanced at Octagon, trussed from head to toe in black tape. Had the Arbiter heard all that? Or was the man still unconscious?

“You must take him to the pod,” Yakov said.

Was the Force-Leader trying to draw him out of the Arbiter’s chamber? Did Yakov know he’d freed Osadar?

“Time is critical,” Yakov added.

“I’m on my way,” said Marten. Then he cut the connection.

Marten pushed the mummified Octagon through the companionways. Twice, he passed ship-guardians with hammer-guns. They eyed him closely, although neither they nor he said a word.

Omi had trussed Octagon with black tape. It was an old hostage-taking trick. From heel to the crown of his head, Octagon was wrapped with black strands of tape. There was a slit for his mouth and nose so he could breathe. Otherwise, he looked like an ancient Egyptian mummy. Even wrapped tight, Octagon attempted speech.

“Save it,” Marten said, pushing against the man’s heel, propelling the weightless form toward the pod hanger.

Octagon made more noise.

“Quiet,” Marten said, using the butt of his needler to strike Octagon’s shin. That brought a groan. “If you insist on speech, I will have to use pain to modify your behavior.”

Octagon remained quiet throughout the rest of the journey.

A nervous technician waited by an open hatch, one marked as the entranceway to a pod. The man had stringy hair, bulging eyes and a crumpled gray uniform with grease stains on the left sleeve. He didn’t strike Marten as competent or efficient.

“Well?” Marten asked.

“What?” the technician asked.

“You’re Yakov’s man, aren’t you?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Did you reconfigure the controls?”

The technician bobbed his head.

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

That brought the first spark of belligerence to the technician. “Commander, I am eighth ranked among the technical staff, a specialist Diamond Grade in communications and—”

“Good enough,” Marten said. “Lead the way.”

“Force-Leader Yakov ordered me to—”

“I’m giving you new orders,” Marten said, as he waggled the needler. “Do I need to explain to you how shock troopers deal with disobedience?”

The technician’s eyes widened with fright. “No, Commander. I obey.”

Maybe Yakov was willing to lose a technician to trap a dubious ally in the pod with Octagon, but maybe not. Maybe Yakov meant everything he’d said. Marten hadn’t dealt long enough with Jovians to know.

“Get shears or scissors and start cutting out the Arbiter,” Marten said.

The technician moved as Marten stood guard by the hatch.

Soon, the technician cut busily, starting at the feet as Marten had instructed. The shears made crunch-crunch noises, and the technician peeled away tape.

Soon, Octagon’s arms were free. He shoved the technician away and peeled the black tape from his face. The various pieces floated in the pod’s control module.

“You will rue this, barbarian,” Octagon hissed.

Using his needler, Marten waved for the technician to come float near him by the hatch.

The technician hurried to comply.

“I will beg the authorities to give you into my care,” Octagon said. “Then you and I shall have long conversations concerning this barbaric display of ingratitude and indignity. The pain you shall receive—”

“Will be nothing compared to the exalted feeling I’m receiving now,” Marten said.

“You dare to use such a word? Strategist Tan is exalted. Her philosophic heights soar above your wormy existence that you profane the word by uttering it.”

“Look at my bare neck, Arbiter. There’s no shock collar now. A free man dares whatever he wants.”

“Your neck will wear a collar soon enough, rest assured.”

“That’s how you like it, isn’t it? You’re not man enough to fight your own battles. You need the myrmidons to terrorize others. Then you sit in safety and press a button to hurt people. You’re a deranged sadist, Octagon. But I’ll tell you what this barbarian offers. You have a bitter fate waiting for you. Come at me if you desire, and we’ll fight.”

“Fight like animals?” Octagon sneered.

“Fight however you want to fight,” Marten said. “It doesn’t matter to me. Trade blows with me and kill me with your bare hands if you’re able. In turn, I’ll try to kill you barehanded. You won’t get a better bargain anywhere. It’s more than you offered me.”

“So speaks the barbarian elevated only a little higher than the wild beasts. I spit at your offer to tussle like artisans or to wrestle like a myrmidon. I am a refined man, a philosopher.”

“You’re a cowardly sadist and a hypocrite of the worst sort. But you’re still a man. I’ll give you that. This is your last offer.”

“Bah!”

Marten holstered his needler. “You’re headed for the damaged dreadnaught.”

Shivering with hatred, Octagon glared at Marten. “You are a fool, barbarian.”

“I’ve been called worse.” Marten pursed his lips. “It grates against me offering you advice. You shocked me, and I remember that too well. But you are a man and they’re cyborgs. If it looks like they’re going to capture you, space yourself.”

“Suicide is against the Dictates.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just advice. You follow your philosophical conscience if you want. I’m just saying, if you want to avoid Osadar’s fate, you’ll let vacuum kill you fast. Good-bye, Arbiter.”

“We shall meet again, barbarian. This I vow by the Dictates.”

Marten had an impulse to shoot. He disliked leaving a hated enemy alive who promised vengeance. Maybe it had become too easy these past years killing people. Whatever the case, Marten suppressed his instinct, and he nodded at the technician to leave. The man hastened to exit. Marten glanced once more at the glaring Octagon. Then he, too, took his leave, closing the hatch behind him.

-13-

Marten floated into a small chamber connected to the pod hatchways.

Yakov waited there together with five blue-uniformed guardians. Each had a drawn hammer-gun and wore hard expressions.

“You freed the cyborg,” Yakov said. “You knew my wishes concerning that. Why did you do it anyway?”

“I needed her help to capture Tan,” Marten said.

“What?” asked a ship-guardian, an angry man with flat features and a chin-beard. “What have you done to the Strategist?”

Yakov glanced at the angry man.

“Answer me, barbarian. Where is Strategist Tan?”

“Restrain yourself, Anshan,” Yakov said.

“He harmed the Strategist,” Anshan said.

“I’m sure she is well.”

Anshan squinted suspiciously at Yakov. “Was that your doing, Force-Leader?”

“You will refrain from questioning me.”

Anshan reddened, and he tightened the grip on his hammer-gun. “You’re avoiding answering me.”

“Enough of this,” Yakov said. “You must tell me now. Where does your ultimate allegiance lie, with them or us?”

Anshan blinked three times. Lines appeared on his forehead the first time and deepened with each blink. “No!” he shouted. “The barbarian must possess mind-altering powers to have convinced you to harm a strategist, a philosophically pure governor.”

“You swore on the Manumission Decree,” Yakov told the man.

Anshan violently shook his head. “You’re breaking Article Four of the Dictates.”

“He is under a compulsion,” another ship-guardian whispered. “They tampered with his mind.”

Anshan raised his hammer-gun at Marten. “You have defied the Dictates, barbarian.” As the others watched in amazement, Anshan pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Anshan’s eyes widened so the whites seemed to drown his pupils. He twisted around, aiming the gun at Yakov. “You are party to secession! That is mutiny, which I am sworn to forestall!”

Marten fast-drew. There were crackling sounds as heavy needles broke the sound barrier. Anshan sagged as shock crossed his flat features. Then he slumped down.

The other ship-guardians pushed away from Anshan. One was open-mouthed. Another trembled. A third whispered, “They had a deep plant among us. We’re compromised.”

The ship-guardians glanced uneasily at one another and then suspiciously eyed Marten.

“I just saved your life,” Marten told Yakov.

By a visible effort, Yakov spoke. “Anshan was from Europa. The arbiters are known to use compulsions there. He must have slipped past our auditors, or his compulsion was coded to selected actions.”

“We must log this death with Arbiter Station,” a ship-guardian said, the tight-faced woman from earlier. She had thin nostrils and a line of a mouth covered with black lipstick. Marten had heard someone call her Pelias earlier. The ring of her gun-hand looked sharp, making it seem as if she enjoyed giving pain.

Yakov made a harsh sound, startling the others. “Each of you took an oath on the Manumission Decree. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Has the call been broadcast?” Pelias asked. “Are we seceding?”

“You’ve seen the Mars videos,” Yakov said. “The cyborgs are deadly creatures—murderous aliens of inhuman effectiveness. Those creatures have come to our system and likely infiltrated Guardian Fleet warships. Tell me, Pelias Will you trust your life to a philosopher or do you wish for a realist, a man of action like me, to handle the situation?”

Pelias squinted at Marten. “The barbarian released a cyborg.”

“That one is deprogrammed,” Yakov said. “But you’re missing the point. You swore on the Decree.”

The fingers of her gun-handed whitened. “Are we seceding?” Pelias asked stubbornly.

Yakov stared at her. “I am taking control of the Descartes.”

Pelias studied Marten more closely. “Why didn’t Anshan’s gun work against the barbarian?”

Yakov turned to Marten. “The shock trooper has obviously purloined a nullifier.”

“From Strategist Tan or the Arbiter?” Pelias asked.

“Those from Callisto have become our enemies,” Yakov said slowly. “Therefore, you shouldn’t sound dismayed at their loss of status. Taking a nullifier, it was a tactical move on his part. Notice, he has made no attempt to elevate his status.”

“Is that true?” Pelias asked. “It was a tactical move?”

Marten nodded.

Pelias scowled even as she holstered her hammer-gun.

“Go back to your stations,” Yakov said. “Await further orders and be ready to act in accord with the Manumission Decree.”

Pelias hesitated.

“On this ship,” Yakov said, staring at her, “we have seceded.”

Pelias’s scowl smoothed away. She motioned to the others. They took Anshan’s corpse, floating out of the chamber.

After they left, Yakov put his forehead against a bulkhead, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes and faced Marten, he said, “I owe you my life.”

“You saved ours before by rescuing us from the pod.”

Yakov moved away from floating blood globules. He seemed more composed again, more like the Force-Leader in the command room. “You have purloined a nullifier, a cagy move. You have thereby proven yourself even more mentally dexterous and dangerous than I’d expected. That compounds my anxiety regarding you.”

“It should make you feel better,” Marten said. “We’re on the same side, and you need competent help. If more of your crew mutinies, you have soldiers willing to gun them down to bring the others back into line.”

“That should ease my anxiety about you?”

“Who else can I turn to but you?” Marten asked. “That ensures my loyalty, which is what you’re really worried about.”

Yakov pondered that. “Where is the cyborg?”

“In Octagon’s former chamber.”

“Former?”

“I’m commandeering it,” Marten said.

“And no doubt familiarizing yourself with his devices.”

“Force-Leader, you strike me as the deadliest Jovian I’ve met, the one most likely to defeat the cyborgs. I kidnapped the Strategist for you, slew the myrmidons and put the Arbiter aboard the altered pod like you asked. What more can I do to make you trust me?”

“Return the cyborg to the holding cell.”

Marten shook his head. “You’re going to need Osadar before this is through, especially if cyborgs storm your ship.”

Yakov studied the blood globules. “Will you come with me to the command room?”

“By all means,” Marten said.

Upon entering the command room, Yakov signaled a woman at a module. She climbed out and left the room.

Marten floated to the empty module. It was built for a Jovian person’s frame. Aboard the Mayflower, everything had been too big, here everything was too small. Marten squeezed into the module and familiarized himself with the vidscreen and controls.

And then, like everyone else, Marten was surprised. The ship gave a noticeable lurch as a large drone detached from it. Around the room, voices said.

“Force-Leader?” someone asked Yakov.

“We’re taking precautionary measures, Primary Gunner.”

“I must log an objection,” the Primary Gunner said. Her name was Rhea.

Rhea spoke from a module across the room from Marten. She had short brunette curls, and her black uniform stretched tightly across her curvaceous figure. A blue medal dangling from a choker around her neck only heightened her loveliness. The choker reminded Marten of Molly and the day he’d gone to see Hall Leader Quirn. He wondered if Rhea kissed as well as Molly had. The Jovian exuded a similar sort of worry. He could hear it in her voice.

“Since the Arbiter has strangely decided to hurry to the Rousseau,” Rhea said, “the Strategist should be here. We need her authorization to detach any active drones.”

“I am logging your objection and your reasoning,” Yakov said, who played with the controls on his chair. “Do you have any further clarifications?”

Rhea licked her lips, glanced around the room and dropped her gaze as she noticed Marten staring at her.

“No, Force-Leader,” she said.

Yakov nodded in his calm way and went back to studying the main screen.

Marten tore his gaze from her and adjusted his vidscreen. He could now see from cameras on the meteor-ship.

A large Zeno drone had detached from the ship and floated away from them. The drone was long with a bulbous head. Cursive Jovian script decorated the sides. As Marten examined it, the drone fired its chemical engine. With a stabbing orange flame, the drone accelerated away from them and toward the last known location of the Rousseau. After a five-minute burn, the Zeno’s engine shut-off. The drone had already been a tiny orange dot. Now it winked off and disappeared from the ship’s teleoptic sights as it coasted.

There was a critical advantage in space combat with a chemical engine versus a fusion engine. In order to operate a fusion engine had to maintain a continuous reaction. Thus, fusion engines always gave off a faint heat signature and spewed neutrinos. The chemically-fuelled drone could remain cold until needed and thus aided its ability to remain hidden until it ignited again.

Despite its size, the drone was small in stellar scale, hidden by the immensity of space, even the space of the Jupiter System. Interferometer sweeps, a hunt for thermal signatures and electromagnetic pulses would now likely search in vain for it. Radiation from Jupiter and Io’s ionized sulfur spewing from its volcanoes only made things more difficult.

In ancient Twentieth Century terms, space combat was often like a submarine captain and his detection crew, with radar, sonar and other technicians grouped together around their highly sensitive equipment. It was often a matter of endless listening and searching, seeking to find the enemy lurking under a cold layer of ocean current. For a variety of reasons, finding hidden drones often proved an order of magnitude more difficult in space than finding torpedoes or submarines in the old days.

There was another lurch to the warship. Yakov must have released another Zeno.

“I am ordering a practice drill,” Yakov announced. “We will take this opportunity to engage the Rousseau in a war-game maneuver.”

“Force-Leader,” Rhea said. “I must object and point—”

“For the duration of the drill,” Yakov said, “we will assume battle-status. You will therefore refrain from further outbursts, Primary Gunner.”

Rhea shifted uneasily, highlighting her figure.

Marten realized he was staring at her again. He forced himself to glance at Yakov.

The Force-Leader studied the main screen. He looked up, and said, “Engine room, be ready to engage the fusion core.”

Rhea stared out of her module at Yakov. Her lovely features showed that she was in an agony of spirit. Perhaps she had similar feelings as Anshan. As her shoulders slumped, she turned back to her control board.

Marten wondered if he should attempt to speak with her later. Whatever happened with Octagon and the drones would take days to occur. That was the reality of space combat and the distances such combat entailed.

-14-

Two days passed as Arbiter Octagon glided through the void, seething with indignation. Once again, he inspected his white uniform and the black marks all over it from the tape the barbarians had used on him. Rubbing the marks hadn’t helped, but only spread the blackness deeper into the fabric.

Octagon glared at the starry void. How he longed to make Marten Kluge pay. How he longed to hear a shock collar click shut as a myrmidon placed it around the barbarian’s neck. By Plato’s Bones, he would shock him many times. He would make Marten writhe on the floor. He would ask questions, appear mollified, and then the shocks would begin anew. Marten would howl for mercy. Yes, yes, he would even appear to grant it. Then he would use special myrmidons to perform degrading acts on the barbarian. That would break the man’s stubborn will. He would permanently remove the smirk from the Earthman’s lips.

Octagon scowled as thrusters rotated his pod. That was new and unexpected. Now Jupiter appeared in the corner of his single polarized window. Once more, as he had for days, he clicked toggles and attempted to regain control of the craft. His efforts had no effect on the thrusters, which increased their power. The acceleration pushed him deeper into the cushioned chair.

Despite the Gs, Octagon reached out and struck the panel. He’d finally reached his breaking point. He swiveled around in the pilot’s chair. Now his chest strained against the straps. While choking against the straps, adrenalin gripped him. His thoughts sped up. He wondered as he had before if the others monitored his actions. Were they observing him even now, mocking his display of anger? Were they recording it, to damn him later before the Philosopher’s Board on Callisto? He must control himself. He must continue to mask his emotions.

He recited appropriate maxims and thought about the Dictates. Calm, calm, he needed serenity. He closed his eyes. He needed to think, to engage his reason.

Yakov was in on the conspiracy. That explained the Descartes’ sudden acceleration, the acceleration that had hurled him at one of the walls. The blow had rendered him unconscious. Yes, Yakov had allied with the barbarians. The Secessionist Plot had finally erupted into action. Oh, for months now, he had tried to ferret out their secrets. He had known that Yakov was untrustworthy. No one else had believed him. Even Tan had been fooled. She had wronged him, disarming an arbiter of his palm-pistol in the presence of an enemy barbarian.

Could Tan be in on the plot?

Octagon shook his head. Tan had lived on Callisto most of her life. It was inconceivable the Strategist had thrown in her lot with those of Ganymede. No. It was impossible.

Octagon swiveled back to the control panel. The Gs pressed him into the cushions. His lips were a tight line. He would not let them see him emote. They would witness perfect control. Perhaps he had smote the panel a single time with his fist, but that’s all he would give them.

With serenity, he moved toggles and observed their uselessness. Was there some secret way he could reroute the controls and regain use of the pod? A mechanic or a technician would know the answer. He had never sullied himself with such base endeavors before. Trust a barbarian to send him on a flight without any proper crew to accompany him. Why, the barbarian had wanted a display of fisticuffs between them. Marten Kluge had reveled in the degrading offer, as if it proved his manhood. What it had shown instead was the shocking lack of decorum among barbarians. But that wasn’t the issue now.

Cyborgs—

Octagon frowned. The barbarian possessed a cyborg. Could the Rousseau have cyborgs among its crew? That was such a fantastic proposal that it was laughable.

Hm. Why would Marten Kluge continue in his bizarre deception? Once he reached the dreadnaught—

Octagon’s jaw dropped. A bomb! The barbarian had surely planted a bomb in the pod. Or maybe Yakov had inserted one. They were using him as a pawn. They would blow up his pod when it reached the dreadnaught and declare Octagon a casualty of an enemy attack. That would unleash the last restraints on the meteor-ship’s crew and possibly on other warships with crews from Ganymede and Europa.

In desperation, Octagon stared at the control panel. He tried the toggles again, and then once more, moving them faster. The cruelly cunning barbarian—Marten Kluge was an animal. Octagon wanted to weep with rage, with fear.

He hated this feeling of helplessness. Oh, if ever he escaped this fate, he would dedicate his life to capturing Marten Kluge and practicing a thousand degradations upon him.

CR37, the chief cyborg of the crippled Rousseau, watched the mass detector. He floated on the emergency bridge, wearing a vacc-suit and helmet. Red lights washed the circular chamber, and the green-glowing detector showed that a pod had broken through the gel-cloud and approached the ship.

An unconditioned human monitored the dreadnaught’s board. She was the last of the deception crew, operators used to lure human-controlled warships into docking with ships infested with cyborgs. She had last spoken with a human calling itself Force-Leader Yakov.

The female wore a black uniform, and she had been chosen for her features, which Jovian males considered compelling. She had a pale face, with overlarge eyes and lips thicker than average. She lacked a vacc-suit. Thus, if this chamber were breached, she would die.

CR37 had once been the Force-Leader of the old Rousseau. Behind his darkened visor, his features were now like that of any other cyborg. He was inhuman in appearance and reminiscent of a zombie from the horror vids. Like others of his kind, he had been personality-scrubbed and given graphite-bones, motorized strength and cybernetic interfaces.

The ramming shuttle several days ago had been devastatingly effective. It had also alerted special AI routines in him. The AI had detected a spark of personality and run a deep diagnostic. The probe had uncovered a hidden truth. CR37 had unconsciously retained a hint of Jovian System sympathy. It had been a tiny thing, something he’d unconsciously implemented by rerouting certain warship safeguards.

One of those tiny but critical things had occurred with the lowered particle shield and the open bay door. There had been others things like improperly sealed bulkheads, downed firewalls and missing emergency routes. When the enemy shuttle had turned into a fireball, it had created more damage than its attack should have warranted. Within the dreadnaught, point-defense ammunition had ignited, multiplying the damage.

Now, the Rousseau was a shell of its former self. Despite the damage, the ship was still a dreadnaught, meaning it was more powerful than a meteor-ship. It possessed heavy particle shielding, unlike smaller vessels. Much of that shielding was still in place. Unfortunately, the hull behind the shielding had been ruptured in a hundred places. The missile tubes were worthless. The last, operational laser was under repairs, and the magnetic guns were hopelessly mangled. The dreadnaught had point-defense cannons, however, many of them. And it would soon have minimal motive power. Several complements of cyborgs had survived the devastating explosions, and they affected repairs.

CR37 studied the approaching pod. Incoming information from Athena Station confirmed that the pod originated from the Descartes. The meteor-ship had sent the pod in direct contradiction to the logged Guardian Fleet orders. Logic dictated that the crew of the meteor-ship was aware of the cyborg infiltration.

As CR37 studied the mass detector and the approaching pod, he calculated possible responses. If the meteor-ship had received the shuttle’s survivors, they would know about the cyborg strike against Jupiter, or they would have been able to deduce it. Why otherwise had the meteor-ship’s Force-Leader flaunted direct orders from Guardian Fleet headquarters?

With this conclusion reached, CR37 opened a com-link with point-defense control.

“You are receiving incoming target information,” CR37 said.

“I have received the data.”

“Query,” said CR37. “At what range can you assure the pod’s destruction with a ninety-five percent probability?”

“Computing. In eight point three-seven minutes.”

CR37 considered the possibilities as he computed range. The pod might contain nuclear material with x-ray pumping. He reopened the com-link.

“Begin pod destruct in two point three minutes.”

“I have received.”

CR37 closed the com-link and continued to watch the passive mass detector. There might be other surprises. He needed to launch probes beyond the gel-cloud in order to cover a broader spectrum of space. The probability of other enemies was high, but at the moment, there was little he could do about it.

Tears of fear and frustration leaked from Octagon’s eyes. Despite the pressing Gs, he’d crawled out of the main compartment and to the tiny hatch. Reason dictated a bomb aboard the pod. The barbarian and Yakov needed him dead. Preferably, in the most graphic manner possible.

He must frustrate them. Since he couldn’t regain manual control, he must escape and warn others. He shuddered. Escaping the pod entailed frightful risk.

With the greatest difficulty, Octagon donned a vacc-suit. He’d only worn such a suit once during his space training. Sealing the helmet took several tries. At last, he heard the magnetic seals click together.

The air in his vacc-suit rapidly became stale. Before he faded into unconscious, he engaged his tanks. How could he have forgotten to do that? The rush of cool, breathable air—he inhaled deeply and splotches no longer interfered with his vision.

Octagon slapped a button and blew the hatch. As if hurled from a magnetic gun, he shot out of the pod. He flew past the thruster, almost burned by the exhaust. Then he began to tumble end over end. He was in space, alone, with many hours of air and utterly helpless. Terror gripped him. The hopelessness of his position caused him to howl in anguish.

Fortunately for his sanity, he wondered if the others could be recording his suit. They would mock him if they heard these howls. He fought for self-control, and nearly failed. Searing hatred came to his rescue.

“Marten Kluge,” he whispered. All-encompassing hatred stilled his screams. He began to pray, even though beseeching nonexistent divine beings was against the Dictates. In this instance, primordial instinct overrode Jovian logic. He prayed for survival and a chance to exact fierce retribution. He prayed, broadening the scope of his whispers to include any entity, good or evil, who might grant him his desire. Whatever the cost could be to exact his revenge, he told any listening entity that he would gladly pay it.

-15-

Shocked silence reigned in the Descartes’ command center. On the main screen, Marten, Yakov and others saw Octagon flee the pod and begin to tumble in space and quickly dwindle from view.

It brought a pang to Marten, as he remembered shock troopers tumbling away from the particle shields of the Bangladesh. He almost felt sorry for Octagon.

“Communications, can you raise any audio?” Yakov asked for the third time today.

The com-officer frantically worked her board. She had nimble fingers as various beeps and clicks emanated from the equipment. Finally, she glanced helplessly at Yakov.

“I still can’t understand it, sir,” she said. “Why has the Arbiter continued to maintain radio silence? And why now has he rushed out of the pod?”

“His actions seem deranged,” Yakov said quietly, as if speaking to himself.

Marten thought Yakov a splendid actor, having maintained the ruse in front of his crew for two long days.

Yakov glanced at his command staff. Something about the way he eased forward seemed to suggest an insight had occurred. “Perhaps the Arbiter received signals we’ve been unable to hear or see?”

“From where?” asked Rhea, the Primary Gunner.

Marten had attempted a conversation with her yesterday in the nourishment chamber. She had taken her concentrates and hurried away. He’d watched her leave, deciding that she moved with exquisite femininity.

“Representative Kluge,” said Yakov. “You claimed several days ago that the dreadnaught possessed cyborgs. In your estimation, would these cyborgs try to communicate with the Arbiter and force him to surrender?”

Marten blinked several times before he realized the words had been addressed to him. “Yes,” he said. “Something badly frightened your Arbiter.”

“Force-Leader, look!” Rhea shouted, pointing at the main screen.

The screen was linked to Octagon’s pod, to the cameras outside its hull. The pod had passed through the gel-cloud. Now the teleoptic sights zoomed onto the battered remains of the Rousseau. A fog of microdebris hung around the roughly spherical warship. Blue lights shined in areas. In other places, orange flares burned, subsided and then burned brighter. A discharging arc writhed in space, emanating from the engines. There might have been movement among the debris, possibly crewmembers in zero-G worksuits. There appeared among them the signature hydrogen-spray of thruster-packs.

“The dreadnaught has taken heavy damage,” someone said.

“There’s a sensor lock-on to the pod!” Rhea shouted. “It’s a weapon’s lock-on. Force-Leader, why would they want to fire at our pod?”

Bright stabs of light fired by the battered dreadnaught indicated defensive cannons.

“I have audio, Force-Leader.”

There were garbled words for two seconds. Then, on the main screen, sight of the battered dreadnaught vanished.

Once more, shocked silence ruled in the Descartes’ command center.

“They destroyed a Guardian Fleet pod,” Rhea said in disbelief. “I don’t understand it.”

Yakov rubbed the top button of his uniform, a prearranged signal for Marten.

Marten cleared his throat, and he noticed Rhea staring at him. “I’ve told you that cyborgs have invaded your system. They took control of the dreadnaught. After I learned that, I barely escaped with my life. Unless you destroy every infestation, the cyborgs will continue to grow in numbers until they overwhelm you. I know that’s what they attempted at Mars.”

“The Arbiter must have recognized the danger,” Yakov said slowly. “It’s why he fled his pod.” Yakov sat straighter. “We are duty-bound to rescue Arbiter Octagon.”

“That means nearing the Rousseau,” Rhea said. “Will they fire on us?”

“We must assume that Representative Kluge’s report is accurate,” Yakov said. “We shall therefore act accordingly.”

Rhea swept a curl from her eyes. “We can’t fire on a Guardian Fleet warship.”

“You are correct,” Yakov said. “Unfortunately for us, the Rousseau no longer belongs to the Guardian Fleet.”

Rhea turned pale. “Force-Leader, you cannot believe—”

“Rhea Merton,” Yakov said. “We belong to the Guardian Fleet. We are guardians, each one of us, selected from tens of thousands of applicants and rigorously trained to do our duty. In this horrible moment, we find ourselves without an Arbiter and without a Strategist or any official of philosopher class. We must therefore apply what reason we can to the situation.”

“I know we’re practicing a war-drill,” Rhea said. “But we can no longer continue radio silence. We must report this to Athena Station and ask for clarification.”

“You have not considered the implications of the dreadnaught’s unwarranted assault.” Yakov solemnly glanced around the chamber. “It is my duty as Force-Leader to correlate all factors and make a logical deduction. Marten Kluge and his cyborg is item under one. The Arbiter’s seemingly insane flight from a perfectly functioning pod is another item and the Rousseau’s vicious attack is the third. Something strange has occurred aboard the dreadnaught. Given our information, the logical conclusion is that cyborgs have entered our system.”

“But—” Rhea tried to say.

“The Inner Planets war has shown us cyborgs,” Yakov said. “These cyborgs are said to originate from Neptune. Neptune is closer to Jupiter than it is to Mars. I say to you therefore that we are under attack.”

Marten watched officers nod, while Rhea appeared thoughtful.

“Given the truth of my statement,” Yakov said, “we must destroy the dreadnaught and gain cyborg samples to show and warn others.”

“Go against a dreadnaught?” Rhea whispered.

“A badly damaged dreadnaught,” Yakov said. “Communications, replay the image of the Rousseau. We must discover the best means of destroying it. Weapons, begin to warm the gun and missile tubes. Engine Control….”

Yakov continued to give orders as the Descartes assumed battle status, ready to engage the cyborg-infested dreadnaught.

-16-

On Athena Station, Cyborg Gharlane settled into a full-body interface. He grew rigid as electrical currents surged through him, connecting him with other cyborgs in the room. Occasionally, one of their eyelids flickered. Liquid computers gurgled nearly, and there was a faint odor of ozone among them and a nearly imperceptible hum.

It was a mass mind-link, adding to the Jupiter Web-Mind’s computing and analysis power.

The secondary cyborgs lost the last vestiges of their identity as they merged into mind-link. As the prime cyborg, Gharlane was unique in that he retained self-awareness and could individually communicate with the Web-Mind while interfaced.

Using Athena Station’s interferometers, mass detectors, thermal scanners, and broad-spectrum electromagnetic sensors, Gharlane studied the situation between the Descartes and the dreadnaught.

Soon, Gharlane told the Web-Mind his findings.

The Jupiter Web-Mind was a marvel of technology, the most advanced artificial intelligence in the Solar System except for the Prime Web-Mind itself.

The Web-Mind’s capsule was parked in a deep hanger on Athena Station. The capsule contained a biomass computer merged with metric tons of neural processors. Hundreds of bio-forms had died to supply the Web-Mind with the needed brain mass. Each kilo of brain tissue had been personality-scrubbed and carefully rearranged on wafer-thin sheets surrounded by computing gel. Other machinery kept the core temperature at a perfect 98.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Tubes fed the tissues the needed nutrients. Sensors monitored bio-health. Sub-computers did a hundred other necessary chores to keep the Web-Mind functioning perfectly. The biomind could outthink any known entity and track many thousands of cyborgs. The Prime Web-Mind was supreme, but the Jupiter Web-Mind possessed override authority here. It could adjust the master plan to emergencies.

“Further—” Gharlane halted his summary of the situation. With the mass detector, he spotted an object hurtling much too fast toward Jupiter.

“Priority one scan,” Gharlane said.

He had permission to override the mind-link. Every scope, every mass meter and thermal sensor now strained at the selected point.

In the dim room, plugged cyborgs twitched and eyelids flickered faster. The ozone odor increased, as did the humming.

Gharlane sensed the Web-Mind turning more of its brain-mass to the new situation.

“The vessel’s specifications are similar to a Social Unity missile-ship,” Gharlane said.

Your analysis is false, the Web-Mind said.

“I mean without a missile-ship’s regular particle shielding.”

Explain your logic.

“I deducted the mass of particle shielding and compared the under-vessel to the basic, SU missile-ship design.”

What prompted such action?

“Firstly, the vessel appears to have stealth capabilities,” Gharlane said, “which would logically imply that any particle shielding would have been subtracted from its mass.”

That was insufficient reason for your comparative values.

“I recalled the analytical study of the Third Battle for Mars. The study indicated the presence of hidden missile-ships—Web-Mind, I request an immediate discontinuation of our stealth campaign.”

You are evading my question.

“Not for any nefarious reasons,” Gharlane said. Soothing chemicals injected into his brainpan then, helping to stem his emotional excitement. “Web-Mind, the enemy vessel indicates reinforcements from Social Unity. Our stealth campaign has now been compromised on two levels.”

Notice the angle of the attack. The vessel comes from out-system, not from Inner Planets.

Gharlane made fast computations. “There was sufficient time for a deep strike and turnaround—”

Are you suggesting that the masters of Social Unity deduced our Jupiter Assault a year ago and sent vessels bound for here at the curtailment of the Third Battle for Mars? At that juncture, they lacked sufficient vessels to face a single Doom Star. The Highborn vessels were still within the Mars System. Your thought is gravely unbalanced.

“The stealth vessel is here, implying strategic action. That it matches its approach with the meteor-ship’s action proves my thesis. The probability that the two incidents are independent of each other is twenty-seven percent.”

Twenty-NINE point six-five percent.

Gharlane studied the Web-Mind’s data. “Ah. I failed to take into account the chaotic principle.”

Our stealth campaign has proven effective. Given another thirty-seven days, we will gain complete system-movement control.

“Agreed,” said Gharlane. “But now we must initiate a surprise strike against the remaining vessels and against the defensive establishments of the Galilean moons.”

You are stubborn, and still yearn for an immediate missile assault against Callisto.

“It is the logical action.”

In several seconds, the Web-Mind ran through a thousand scenarios. It computed odds, vectors and random factors.

We are under-strength for an optimal strike.

“Which means we must strike at once,” Gharlane said. “For we are also under-strength against an alerted Callisto defense.”

Position the missiles for a surprise assault and begin the preliminary countdown. We shall observe the stealth vessel with Social Unity missile-ship design specifications.

“A surprise strike should place all military vessels under my control.”

You are the hand, Cyborg Gharlane. I am the intellect. If you fail to remember that, I shall delete you.

“I have received,” Gharlane said.

Patience is the great virtue. And cyborgs cannot panic. Thus, ultimate victory shall be ours. Await the next development as you begin preparations for a sustained strike.

A discharging impulse sent sparks and blue arcs writhing over Gharlane’s body. He sat upright in his mind-link bed. Then, with a clang, he slid his feet onto the floor.

They should immediately begin the strike, he knew, but the Web-Mind sought optimal conditions. He was unable to disobey a direct order, although on some deep level he desired to run the cyborg assault along his parameters. Gharlane wondered, for just a moment, if the biomind in the Web-Mind meant that it coordinated too many factors. Did the many kilos of brain tissue argue against itself in an ongoing roundtable? That might explain the Web-Mind’s need for optimal percentage levels.

In the dim, humming chamber, Gharlane examined the plugged cyborgs. He might have shrugged, but such a response had long ago been scrubbed from him. He strode for the exit in order to implement his directives.

-17-

The Thutmosis III sped for Jupiter at hyper-velocity, although it no longer hurtled through the void at its star-spanning speeds. Side-jets had rotated the squat vessel until its engines were aimed in the direction it traveled.

Within the crippled warship, the remaining crew readied for an intense period of deceleration. A single laser of medium strength functioned, and the ship retained four anti-missile pods.

The Thutmosis III had a triple-structured hull, with reactive armor on the outer surface. A nanosecond before a missile or shell hit the reactive armor, targeted sections of the hull would explode outward. The shape-charged shrapnel would theoretically obliterate the incoming mass, enough to steal its ship-killing power. The outward-blowing kinetic energy also acted as a shock absorber. It was a paltry defense, many factors less protective than six-hundred meters of asteroid rock, but it was better than a single, non-reactive hull.

The Praetor was on the bridge in his command chair, observing several concerned Highborn. He only possessed a skeleton crew, and everyone was stretched to the breaking point. They sat rigidly, with tight skin and the haunted eyes of deranged killers. Their big hands were on the boards and ready to begin their final battle for survival.

To Homo sapiens, the desperate Highborn would have seemed like starved lions ready to rend a training master into bloody shreds. Three times throughout the harrowing journey, fights had broken out. Because of them, five Highborn had died.

Twice, the Praetor had waded into battle, using his fists to enforce discipline. He was the dominant officer, Fourth-ranked among all Highborn by the old scale. Who knew his position now since the conclusion of the Third Battle for Mars.

The Praetor surveyed the others. They respected him just a little more than death from decompression. And they were concerned about catching Jupiter’s heavy gravity-well and braking their out-of-control vessel.

“Is the system still peaceful?” the Praetor asked, with menace in his voice.

“I monitored an explosion earlier,” a thick-necked officer said.

“Was the explosion directed at us?”

“I would have informed you if it had been.”

The Praetor glared at the weapons officer.

The thick-necked officer returned the Praetor’s stare. His name was Canus and he had a burn-scar on his left cheek. The burn-scar was composed of angry red flesh, raised flesh with little ridges. As the Praetor stared at him, the madness in Canus’s eyes lessened and soon he dropped his fierce gaze.

“Lord,” Canus added, although there was still truculence in his voice.

The Praetor knew they were all under tremendous pressure. He also knew that he must remain strong—stronger than the others. A Highborn could climb rank without harm to his life expectancy. Sinking in levels often entailed his violent death.

The Praetor rubbed his fingertips against the polished steel of his armrest. Then, with a sudden movement, he opened a ship-wide channel.

“Attention, Thutmosis III crewmen. This is the Praetor speaking. We have achieved the impossible and repaired our engines and ship-structure to withstand the coming deceleration. There is a possibility that the Jovian premen will attempt to attack us at our most vulnerable moment. If that occurs, I assure you we shall let them know they have been in battle with the Highborn. Our weapons are ready. If they prove insufficient, we shall ram our foes. We will not sink quietly into the dark night of oblivion. Rather we will blaze with glory against any who dare set themselves against us. The universe thought it could conquer us and defeat our fierce will. The universe is now discovering that we are the superior form of life. We shall do more than survive. We shall dominate the Jovian System and bring it into the Empire of our devising. You have made me proud. You are proud soldiers. Together, we shall attack our problem head-on in the truest style of the superior being.”

The Praetor raised his massive hand and made a decisive gesture.

A pale officer licked his lips. Then the officer’s big hands roved over his board. He engaged the fusion core, and the ship’s engines fired with violent life. Every Highborn aboard the crippled Thutmosis III found himself slammed against his acceleration couch.

The Praetor, Canus and one other Highborn on the bridge, shouted wildly, roaring at the universe. Their emotions had overloaded and they bled their tension in the only way they knew, with a predator’s roar of aggression.

Despite the massive Gs, the Praetor raised his fist, shaking it at the universe, hoping his derelict ship could survive the horrible forces pressing upon it.

-18-

Alarms rang in the Descartes. On the ship’s main screen blazed a bright dot, the brightest object in the region of banded Jupiter. The glowing dot was more luminous than the Sun or any of the nearby moons, and certainly brighter than the stars.

“Give me an analysis,” Yakov said, who had lurched forward to stare at the teleoptically-enhanced sight.

The hunched officers worked furiously, while Marten frowned at the glowing dot.

“It approaches from out-system,” Rhea said.

“Is it cyborg reinforcements?” asked Yakov.

“I have a match on the engine’s heat-signature,” Rhea said. She looked up, surprised. “Force-Leader, it’s a SU missile-ship.”

Yakov massaged his forehead. It was a rare indication that he was under stress.

“Their speed is excessive,” Rhea said. She touched the blue medal dangling from her choker. Then she went to work. Soon, she said, “Given their deceleration rate, it will take them many orbits around Jupiter before they could conceivably come to a halt.”

Yakov stared at the white dot.

So did Marten, as he thought about the Storm Assault Missile.

“The ship’s energy output has increased,” Rhea said. “And the ship’s heading has veered. It will take them….” She madly typed keys. “Force-Leader, it will take them ten thousand kilometers from the Rousseau.”

“How long will that take?” snapped Yakov.

“In approximately three point four hours.”

Yakov swiveled toward Marten. “Do you think it’s an actual SU missile-ship?”

“Not if it came from out-system,” Marten said.

“Who drives it then?” Yakov asked.

Marten spoke to Rhea. “Given its flight path, can you calculate its point of origin?”

She stared at him. She had beautiful eyes. They were green, and larger than ordinary Jovian eyes.

Abruptly, she turned to her screen, typing quickly. “It must have come from Uranus.”

“Are you sure it’s a military vessel?” Yakov asked.

“The engine’s heat-signature is a one hundred percent match to a SU missile-ship,” Rhea said. “It must be a warship.”

“Why would those from Uranus send a warship here now?” Yakov said.

“Their secret service must have stolen SU ship designs,” Marten said. “Maybe they meant to slip such vessels into Inner Planets.”

“Why?” asked Yakov.

“If cyborgs are here,” Marten said, “maybe cyborgs also attacked the Uranus System.”

“And?” asked Yakov.

Marten glanced at Rhea. She dropped her gaze, and after a moment, she turned back to her board.

“Are they fugitives from a successful cyborg invasion?” Marten asked.

“The assertion is preposterous,” Rhea said. She brushed curls from her eyes. “The barbarian could as easily suggest cyborgs commandeered the ship. The truth is otherwise.”

“How can you know any of that?” Marten asked.

She gestured angrily. “It has an SU heat-signature and it comes from Uranus. Why couldn’t it be an SU warship returning from a diplomatic mission? That is the logical deduction.”

Marten shook his head. “That it’s here now at this juncture indicates something else. If it belongs to Social Unity, why stop in the Jupiter System? The ship must contain more cyborgs.”

As Yakov stared at the main screen, his eyes glittered. “No. That isn’t a cyborg ship.”

“It seems like the likeliest explanation,” Marten said.

Yakov shook his head. “If you’re right about the Rousseau and Athena Station, it shows that the cyborgs have been acting secretly. This new ship blazes its presence. Everyone in the system will note it. And that would be contrary to a hidden attack. Therefore, the new ship contains something other than cyborgs.”

“It is mere supposition that cyborgs are in our system,” Rhea pointed out.

Marten made a harsh sound. “Cyborgs attacked my shuttle.”

“The Arbiter didn’t believe you,” Rhea said. “Why should anyone else?”

“The Arbiter fled his pod for a reason,” Marten said. “The Rousseau sprayed a gel-cloud to hide itself for a reason. Its com-officer said there was fusion core damage, but you all saw it earlier. That was battle-damage. They lied to us. Athena Station ordered the Descartes away from the stricken ship. Give me a good reason for those actions.”

“He is an out-system barbarian,” Rhea told Yakov. “His motivations are hidden and likely antithetical to the Dictates.”

“It might be time to active the Zenos,” Yakov said softly.

Rhea clutched her slender throat. “No! You cannot attack a Guardian Fleet warship.”

“If I use the drones,” Yakov said, his eyes tight, “it might inadvertently begin the secession. And if cyborgs are here it’s time for system unity, not discord.”

“It’s time to attack,” Marten said. “If the new ship brings reinforcements, you must strike before the cyborgs become even stronger. If that ship doesn’t contain reinforcements, the cyborgs on the Rousseau will likely be worrying about the new vessel.”

“The barbarian is wrong,” Rhea said.

“I’m not wrong,” Marten said, “and I’m not a barbarian.”

Rhea sneered at him. “The Earthman is likely a provocateur, sent to start a civil war among ourselves.”

Marten stared at Rhea a moment longer. Then he turned to Yakov. “You must decide quickly, as the Zenos still have a long way to travel. You must accelerate them now to strike as the new ship approaches the Rousseau.”

Yakov ran a hand through his silver hair. Indecision twisted his usually stoic features. He glanced at the main screen, at Marten and then at Rhea Merton, the Primary Gunner.

“We’re loyal to the Confederation,” Rhea said. “We each took a solemn oath with our three center fingers placed on the Dictates. We swore to uphold and enforce them. Now I must insist that you tell us where the Strategist went. We should have heard from her by now. Tell us what happened, Force-Leader.”

Using his sleeve, Yakov wiped his forehead. Then he sat straighter and opened a slot on his armrest.

“No,” Rhea said weakly. “We’re Confederation officers. That is a Guardian Fleet vessel.”

Without a word, Yakov decisively pressed two buttons.

Marten turned to his screen. In space where they coasted toward the Rousseau, the two drones engaged their chemical engines. The Zenos began to accelerate.

-19-

The Rousseau’s chief cyborg, CR37, studied the ship’s sensors. If these readings were correct, the decelerating ship was under tremendous stress. Could the ship have launched from the Uranus System? Simply backtracking the trajectory indicated the humans there had sent it. Had the Helium-3 Barons of Uranus discovered the Cyborg Master Plan? Was this ship meant as reinforcement for the Jovians?

“You have a message, sir,” whispered the unmodified woman, a crewmember. There were dark circles around her overlarge eyes and her paleness had increased. Her compelling nature had become haggard with worry.

CR37 stood beside her. For a moment, a chaotic impulse surged through him. He wanted to wrap his fingers around her delicate neck. He wanted her to squirm, to scream for him. His fingers would press into her soft flesh as he snapped her neck-bones. It seemed unjust that she should keep her humanity while he had lost his. He would adjust this wrong and delete the irritant from his sight.

Perhaps sensing his mood, the woman stared at him.

Suppressing the chaotic impulse, CR37 moved the toggle underneath a flashing orange light. A harsh voice immediately spoke through the intercom.

“This is the Praetor of the Highborn speaking. Any interference with our progress shall be met with annihilation. Our intentions are benevolent and beneficial to you premen—to the folk of the Jovian System. We have tracked you and we wish a confirmation that you understand our peaceful intention. Respond to our message or we shall have to take forceful measures. The Praetor of the Highborn out.”

“You have a second message,” the woman whispered.

CR37 opened another channel. High-speed chatter occurred. He clicked the toggle, took a jack and inserted it into a slot in his chest. Gharlane sent him personal orders.

After a short time, CR37 detached the plug and swiveled his plasti-flesh head, studying a screen. The bright dot had grown. It was nearing fast. Highborn rode that dot. Highborn had come to the Jovian System.

“Engine control,” CR37 said. “I need power to turn and face the incoming ship with our point-defense cannons.”

There was static on the line, but the answer came through. “Power online.”

“They fail to respond,” the Praetor said. All around him, the ship shook as high-pitched whines and clangs told of the fierce stress. The Gs pressing against his lips make speaking difficult, as if they were formed of lead.

“There is a rupture on level six!” an officer shouted.

“Tell damage control—”

“Coil three is overheating!” Canus shouted. “Lord, we must disengage the engines.”

“Negative!” the Praetor snarled. He lay on an acceleration couch, enduring as he had once endured circling the Sun. His tough skin had flattened and moisture leaked from the corners of his eyes. He recalled the deep void of space, the emptiness that would await him if they failed here. It made his voice hoarse as he spoke. “We live or die today in the Jupiter System. We shall not bypass it. Continue deceleration.”

“Lord, the enemy vessel has begun to rotate.”

“Laser team,” the Praetor snarled into his intercom, “do you have a lock on the warship?”

“Our laser won’t affect them, Lord,” a voice said over the intercom.

“Never mind that!” the Praetor shouted. “We fight. We attack. If that doesn’t work—Canus, can you change our vector to an intercept course?”

“Lord, we don’t know their intention. It may prove peaceful.”

“Answer my question!” the Praetor snarled, wanting to crawl across the floor and throttle Canus’s thick neck. He couldn’t move, however. Only the damage control party in their battleoid-suits could move under these tremendous Gs. Even they would find it difficult now.

“Yes, Lord, we could manage.”

More pressing Gs hit the ship and those within it. As he lay on the acceleration couch, the Praetor’s lips peeled back to reveal his big teeth, white teeth meant for rending meat. Every ten minutes, the engines pulsed with greater power, decelerating at higher levels for one point five minutes. It slammed them to the limit of Highborn endurance. One by one, they passed out until the engine lessened its terrible output and the gross Gs throttled down to horrible pain levels. The Highborn, being resilient, regained consciousness quickly. It was three minutes until the next big thrust pulse.

The Thutmosis III shook worse than before. There were grim sounds throughout the ship, metallic groans, creaks, rattles, mini-explosions and the continuing high whine that nearly made thinking impossible.

“Weapons, where’s that laser?” the Praetor roared.

“Lord, we’re ready.”

“Put it on visual,” the Praetor said.

A holographic image appeared before him. It showed a port opening on the side of the Thutmosis III. It wasn’t a Zhukov-class primary laser. Highborn Command had modified a captured Social Unity missile-ship, turning it into a gigantic stealth vessel. The modified ship had relied on missiles, carrying many detachable pods. Those missiles had all been fired during the Third Battle for Mars. Highborn Command had added several medium-range lasers for defensive use. Only one of those lasers had survived the hunter-killers from Phobos.

A focusing mirror poked out of the port. The front section was red with power.

“Target acquired and locked-on,” Canus said.

“Should we give them one more chance for friendly discourse?” another Highborn asked.

“Kill them!” the Praetor shouted. “They had their chance.”

From the holographic image there lanced a bright beam, streaking out into the void of space.

The range between the two warships was short in stellar distances, nearly sixty thousand kilometers and closing fast.

Light traveled at approximately 300,000 kilometers per second. The time lag between firing the laser, its journey across space and to the target was almost negligible in space combat terms. Normally, the Rousseau would have possessed motive power. Today it lacked that, but drifted instead. That made it a stationary target. That meant the Highborn calibrating system could snipe at the dreadnaught with comparative ease.

The dreadnaught did have particle shielding. And the laser’s wattage was mid-level and it would take time to chew through the asteroid rock.

As the laser stabbed through the darkness, the dreadnaught lowered particle shielding just a fraction. Through that slit opening, its point-defense cannons began spewing depleted uranium pellets. Those pellets would take time to reach the Thutmosis III. And the enemy’s position could change by the time the pellets reached the projected impact point.

Gharlane had ordered CR37 to lay the pellets in a large, predictive pattern. In effect, CR37 shot the pellets as mines, putting them in the enemy ship’s projected path. Instead of using nuclear detonation, CR37 would rely on kinetic force. He would use the ship’s velocity against it, and that it lacked particle shielding. It would take time to hurt the enemy vessel, but the cumulative effect might be enough to destroy it.

A klaxon began to wail. The unmodified human turned to him, with horror twisting her pale features. “A laser—” she whispered, before she choked up.

CR37 clicked a toggle. A tri-screen activated. From a hull camera, he saw the enemy laser. It chewed into particle shielding at the edge of a point-defense cannon.

“Raise the shield,” the woman whispered. “Or the laser might breach the hull. Maybe it will slice into our chamber.” She wilted as he stared at her.

CR37 turned back to the tri-screen. Gharlane had given the order. They must lay down the pellets, even at the cost of further ship-destruction.

-20-

On Athena Station, Gharlane stood in the former Guardian Fleet Command Center. It contained the latest in liquid computers and AI-enhancers. Cyborgs worked the modules. On the walls were various screens. One showed an interferometer enlargement of the beaming Highborn vessel. Another showed the Descartes. Another showed the Zenos burning for the Rousseau. The crippled warship was taking hits from the Highborn laser.

Audio bursts had increased throughout the system. Callisto Orbital Defense demanded clarification. Guardian Fleet warships still under Jovian control also wanted assessment of the situation.

It was clear to Gharlane that with the Highborn’s declaration and attack, phase one of the cyborg stealth campaign was effectively over. It was time for open strikes. The first should occur against Callisto.

A ping in Gharlane’s mind alerted him to the Web-Mind’s radio linkage. He stood straighter and moved his head minutely to the left.

“Gharlane here,” he said.

I have assessed the probabilities, the Web-Mind said. With eighty-seven percent certainty, the current attack means that the Highborn are allied with the Jovians.

“I am not convinced of that. The Praetor’s messages indicate troubling rogue factors.”

The messages were coded sequences.

“Do you say that because of the immediate ignition of the two Zenos?” Gharlane asked.

Highborn and Jovians are attacking in concert. The conclusion is obvious. They have a working alliance.

“If that is true, it is time for open strikes.”

First, it is time to implement the subversion campaign.

Gharlane shifted his stance as he observed the number seven screen. The Highborn laser stabbed through space. It hit the Rousseau with uncanny accuracy.

“The random factors are too high to implement the subversion campaign,” Gharlane said. “It could produce unknown backlashes.”

The Highborn have joined the battle for the Jupiter System. They have achieved a surprise attack. To maintain over eighty percent chance of system victory, we must immediately implement the subversion campaign.

Gharlane had uncovered the Secessionist Plot through captured officers of Ganymede and Europan origin. The Secessionists awaited the opportunity for a system-wide rebellion against Callisto and the Guardian Fleet. Through mind-analyzers, truth serums and pain inducements, he had also discovered the code words that would initiate warship takeovers and planetary coups by the Secessionists.

The Secessionists will divide the Jovians and sow discord at this critical juncture.

“It will also alert Callisto Orbital Defense and all remaining Guardian Fleet warships.”

There is a high probability that the two factions will begin interspecies infighting.

“Other than this single vessel, there is no evidence of further Highborn presence.”

This vessel surprised us. Therefore, the probability is high that the genetic soldiers have other stealth vessels in the region. We must strike hard now before the Jovians and Highborn can coordinate their respective ships. Also, the appearance of the vessel at this point indicates that our stealth assault has been compromised.

“Shouldn’t we wait until—”

Begin an immediate implementation of the subversion campaign. Then increase the attack velocity of the two nearest meteor-ships against the Descartes.

Although Gharlane had grave reservations, he said, “I have received.”

The Web-Mind broke the radio-linkage and Gharlane gave the needed orders. Half the cyborgs in the Command Center switched tasks. They began to broadcast the latest Secessionist code sequences to different warships and to Ganymede, Europa, Io and other moons.

Gharlane strode to screen eleven. It was split in two, showing camera shots from two cyborg-controlled meteor-ships. Each focused on the other. They were the Kepler and the Hobbes, identical in size and function to the Descartes. Each now began to accelerate, increasing their velocity.

Marten joined a badly shaken Yakov at the Primary Gunner’s module. Rhea was hunched over the controls, her slender fingers adjusting critical passive sensor arrays.

“They’re meteor-ships,” she said.

Marten wondered how she knew. On her screen, they were dots drowned by a sea of stars.

Rhea pressed a button. On the screen, the view shifted slightly. Brighter dots moved away from the first two. Rhea leaned closer to her various monitors.

“The ships have launched Zenos,” she said.

“Their projected trajectory?” whispered Yakov.

Rhea twisted around to face him, causing her breasts to strain against her black uniform. “They’re targeting us, Force-Leader. They think we’re Secessionists.”

“Maybe they’re cyborg-controlled vessels,” Marten said.

Rhea refused to look at him or respond to his words.

“Or they’re Jovians allied with the cyborgs,” Marten told Yakov.

Now Rhea gave him a cold glance. “No Jovian would make an alliance with a cyborg.”

Stung, Marten asked, “Are you referring to Osadar?”

“You must self-destruct our Zenos,” Rhea told Yakov. “You must show the Confederation that we are still loyal guardians.”

“Make a run for Ganymede,” Marten suggested.

Several minutes ago, turmoil had struck as a message from Athena Station arrived. It had shocked Yakov, who had informed Marten it was the Secessionist code. From incoming radio messages, it was clear that several warships with crewmembers from Ganymede, Europa and Io had received similar instructions.

Yakov studied Rhea’s screen. “The two meteor-ships have fired Zenos at us. The Secessionist broadcast came from Athena Station. None of this makes sense.”

“Yes it does,” Rhea said. “Arbiters broke the Secessionist plot. They have now broadcast the go message to see which crews are loyal to the Confederation. Since Athena Station believes we’re in rebellion, they have ordered our destruction.”

“That’s madness,” Yakov said. “They wouldn’t order our ship’s destruction, but arrest us later in port.”

“Forget about that,” Marten said. “You must run for Ganymede as you alert everyone about the cyborgs.”

Yakov was shaking his head. “Are those two ships Guardian Fleet vessels or do they contain cyborgs like the Rousseau?”

“Once they launch drones at you,” Marten said, “what difference does it make?”

“You speak from barbarian emotionalism,” Rhea murmured.

Yakov scowled. “Do you realize what the broadcast means? Secessionist crewmembers are likely even now slaughtering arbiters and ship-controllers as they take over several warships. The philosophers of Callisto will never forgive us for that.”

“Launch Zenos at the two meteor-ships and run for Ganymede,” Marten said. “Anything else is suicide.”

“Do not listen to the barbarian,” Rhea pleaded. “We must make peace. We must surrender.”

Yakov rubbed bloodshot eyes before he floated to his command chair. From there, he began to issue orders.

In moments, the Descartes rotated toward Jupiter and applied thrust. It headed into the gas giant’s gravity-well. It used the planet’s pull to help build velocity. Ganymede was on the other side of Jupiter, making it many days away from their present location.

On the Rousseau’s emergency bridge, CR37 continued his attempts to foil the enemy.

The Highborn laser fired with uncanny accuracy, at times burning exposed point-defense cannons. Sometimes, it melted through the hull behind the cannons.

“Rotate the ship three degrees,” CR37 said.

The laser from the hard-braking Highborn ship chewed into asteroid rock as the dreadnaught rotated just enough to throw off their aim. The laser melted rock then, creating gas, liquid and slagging off boulder pieces. It other words, the laser proved ineffective against too much mass and density, that of simple interstellar rock.

“Enemy Zenos have achieved lock-on,” the unmodified woman whispered. Her hands trembled as tears ran down her soft cheeks. Some of the tears floated around her face.

CR37’s fingers blurred across his controls. He attempted electronic countermeasures, spewed chaff and prismatic crystals. He used everything to try to deflect the huge drones from his warship. Lastly, he turned his ship, aligning the final point-defense cannons with the Zenos’ approach path.

The two Zenos increased speed as their chemical fuel burned fast.

Then one of the Rousseau’s depleted uranium pellets struck the first drone’s hull. It almost caused the drone to veer off-target, but internal guidance redirected it at the nearing dreadnaught.

Then another pellet struck.

Internal computing calculated the odds of hitting the target. The odds had dropped below the required number. The Zeno’s primary function ceased and the secondary level attack commenced.

Rods sprouted into position, each aimed at vulnerable points on the dreadnaught. The Zeno warhead exploded with thermonuclear devastation. As the explosion obliterated the drone, x-rays and gamma rays used the aimed rods, traveling along them. Before the explosion destroyed the rods, they had concentrated the deadly radiation against the dreadnaught. That radiation stabbed like a spear instead of simply expanding and dissipating in a nuclear fireball.

Those x-rays and gamma rays hit the Rousseau with ugly power. The unmodified woman sitting beside CR37 died instantly. The cyborg’s brainpan lacked enough shielding to protect him, and he died several seconds later. The x-rays also melted several critical fuses. At that point, all but one point-defense cannon fell silent. That cannon now lacked proper targeting data.

The second Zeno zoomed at the Rousseau. It closed to five hundred kilometers, four hundred, three hundred, two, one hundred kilometers and then sped into the ship. The thermonuclear device ignited with obliterating power.

While particle shielding protected much, it failed to protect enough. Every living thing in and around the Rousseau died. And vast quantities of mass hurtled outward from the terrific explosion.

-21-

The Descartes accelerated down the mighty gravity-well of Jupiter.

Gravity-well was a term, useful in any system with a planetary body. The Sun, Earth and Jupiter each had a gravity-well. The Galilean moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto also had gravity-wells. Jupiter had the biggest gravity-well after the Sun. The meaning was simple. Jupiter pulled things toward it because of its massive size, because of the gravitational attractive force it had on other masses such as people, ships, moons and passing comets. To escape Jupiter, to leave it, one needed a certain velocity—the escape velocity. If a ship failed to reach the escape velocity, it would orbit Jupiter, unable to leave.

In this instance, Jupiter was at the bottom of the well. To fire a rocket out of the well took more power than it would to shoot a rocket down toward Jupiter.

This was simple, gravitational mechanics, and it had consequences in space combat. The common misconception was that space lacked terrain other than planets and asteroids, comets and moons. But that was false. There was gravity, among other factors such as radiation, solar wind, the ecliptic of the planets and such. A ship high in the gravity-well had high ground just as an archer on a hill shooting down had an advantage over an archer shooting up the hill.

In the Jupiter System, this was even more the case than in the Mars System.

This was one of the reasons why Athena Station had been chosen as the Guardian Fleet Headquarters. It had the high ground in comparison to the four Galilean moons, which were closer to Jupiter and thus deeper in the well.

Marten sat in his module, enduring the acceleration and observing the others. He would trade places with Omi soon and get some sleep.

“Yes,” Yakov said. He watched the main screen and witnessed the Rousseau’s death.

“You really did it,” Rhea said, her eyes wide with shock. “You destroyed a Guardian Fleet warship.”

Marten switched to the same visual. It was a long teleoptic shot of the obliterated Rousseau, visible now because it no longer hid behind a gel-cloud.

“You must engage your logic,” Yakov told Rhea. “Athena Station broadcast the Secessionist code. No one there would do that if he or she were Guardian Fleet personnel. Either Secessionists gained control of Athena Station or cyborgs did. It is more logical to believe that cyborgs captured the station than Secessionists.”

“No,” said Rhea, “that is illogical. Why would cyborgs broadcast the code?”

“Obviously,” said Yakov, “to create disunity among us.”

Rhea gripped her choker. “None of that matters anymore. The tracking Zenos will destroy our ship. We must take to the lifeboats and escape with our lives.”

Marten chewed the inside of his check. The Descartes used the technique of sledding down the gravity-well to build up velocity. Unfortunately, the following ships also went down into the gravity-well after them.

Marten studied his screen. The enemy ships were red dots. The Descartes was a yellow dot. The green dots were the speeding Zenos.

Marten spoke to Yakov. “There may be a way to discover if the ships chasing us are cyborgs or Guardian Fleet vessels.”

“I’m listening,” Yakov said. He sounded weary and looked older.

“Radio Callisto Orbital Defense,” Marten said. “Tell them everything you know. Then ask them if they ordered those ships to attack us. If they didn’t, they’re cyborgs.”

Yakov pondered the idea, soon nodding. Then he ordered the com-officer to open a channel with Callisto Orbital Defense.

Aboard the hard-decelerating Thutmosis III, thick-necked Canus broke the Guardian Fleet’s ship-to-ship code. He was thus able to intercept Yakov’s message to Callisto.

“Well done,” the Praetor said, after listening to the message.

“The premen maintain a primitive system,” Canus replied hoarsely from his acceleration couch. “They use a simple 1-2-3 dynamic with an override code-sequence set at the second level.”

As he endured the terrible Gs, the Praetor pondered the Jovian message, playing it over a second time, ingesting the innuendos. “Replay the warship’s demise,” he said, meaning the Rousseau, although he didn’t know the dreadnaught’s name.

The Thutmosis III’s passive sensors had recorded the destruction. By studying a computer-list of Solar System warships, the Praetor knew it had been a Guardian Fleet dreadnaught, a durable warship, but inferior to those of Inner Planets.

“We’ve stumbled into a civil war,” Canus said, after watching the video a second time.

The Praetor grinned viciously. “That’s perfect. We shall join the weaker side, use our superior tactics, leading them to victory and thereby gaining their gratitude.”

“Premen are notoriously fickle with their gratitude,” Canus said.

“I controlled the Sun-Works Factory for many months,” the Praetor said. “There I learned the full extent of their ingratitude. We gave the premen discipline and meaning, and they turned on us like sneaking curs, with their tails between their legs as they snapped at us. It is the condition of inferior stock. In this system, I will use their initial gratitude, which sometimes gushes with irrationality. I will use it to begin my rule. Yes, even among premen there are killers. I will seek those out, break their will to mine and build a corps of enforcers.”

“First we must defeat the cyborgs,” Canus said, as he scratched the red burn-scar twisting across his cheek.

“No,” said the Praetor. “First we must stop the Thutmosis III.” He showed his teeth in an aggressive smile. “However, it is also time to begin winning premen gratitude. Show me the warship that destroyed the dreadnaught.”

Through the ship’s powerful sensors, the Praetor soon witnessed the situation between the Descartes and the following meteor-ships. The Praetor ran figures, studied the holographic display and listened a third time to Yakov’s warning to Callisto Orbital Defense. By then, Canus had intercepted the ruling philosophers’ answer.

“Give me the political situation report on the Jupiter System,” the Praetor said.

It came online. Despite the harsh conditions, the Praetor read the report with incredible speed, skipping the non-essentials. During that time, the ship rapidly closed toward the actively hunting Zenos.

“It will take us many circuits around Jupiter to halt our velocity,” the Praetor said thoughtfully. “Before that, we must have chosen sides and gained allies. Otherwise, we risk having both sides trying to destroy us.”

The Praetor balled his mighty hands into fists. He squeezed, letting his nails dig into the flesh of his palm. He was the superior being in this system. The cyborgs, they were no longer human. They did not count, as they were mechanical aliens. As the dominant being here, control and rule would naturally fall to him—if he could reach the levers of power.

“Weapons: heat the laser,” the Praetor said.

“The target?” asked Canus, trying to sound unconcerned as the continuing deceleration caused rattling and high-pitched whines.

“Target those drones,” the Praetor said. “Let us show these premen our gratitude for destroying the dreadnaught for us.”

“They only destroyed the dreadnaught to help themselves.”

“Do not seek to teach me the basics,” the Praetor warned. “I know more than you, more than everyone here combined. We shall give them life. They shall fawn on us because of it, and we shall insert ourselves into their struggle. Our superiority will then give us control of the system.”

Canus nodded grudgingly. “Your plan is well-conceived,” he muttered.

“On my word,” said the Praetor, “target the first drone.”

-22-

Gharlane wore a vacc-suit as he inspected massive Voltaire Missiles on Athena Station’s asteroid surface.

He was like a mote as the missiles towered three hundred meters over him. In effect, they were corvette-sized spaceships. But instead of living quarters and crew, each was double-packed with lethal weaponry to help fight its way to the target. Each also possessed a new and improved artificial intelligence to do the fighting. The payload was hundreds of megatons of thermonuclear power. A fusion core drove each at the highest acceleration of any craft in the Jovian System. A Voltaire seldom hid like the chemically-fuelled Zeno, but came on powerfully to subdue the target through mass, weaponry and superior ECM.

Coils were still attached to many of the gargantuan missiles, and cyborgs scurried everywhere, using the rail-system to make last minute adjustments. Some cyborgs climbed the outer rungs and entered the rockets, manually checking the more delicate systems.

Above the missiles was the blackness of space. Athena Station lacked an atmosphere, causing the stars to shine brilliantly like cold gems. Jupiter hung in the distance, its Red Spot barely visible as the gas giant rotated.

Gharlane turned around. On the asteroid there were squat buildings, laser ports, waiting anti-missile rockets, ready for immediate launching, sand-accelerating guns used to knock down incoming objects and a bewildering forest of antennae. They helped scan the void for anything that might harm the station. The original gaining of Athena Station had been the greatest cyborg achievement to date.

Gharlane had wanted to strike at Callisto Orbital Defense then. The Web-Mind had overridden the desire, and Gharlane had come to see that the Web-Mind had been correct. The Guardian Fleet had been much too strong then and could have possibly converged in time to halt much of a first strike.

Gharlane raised his helmeted head, peering up at a giant missile. The Voltaire was unlike the Jovian dreadnaught, which was smaller than an Inner Planets vessel of a similar type. He read the big letters on the missile’s side.

Voltaire Missile, AE 1029, Article Seven-Ten.

Once activated, the AI would take control of the craft. Gharlane had studied the specs on the AI. It was an advanced artificial intelligence, with breakthrough crystal technology. Presently, the crystal AI lived in a virtual reality world of careful Jovian devising. The AI didn’t realize it lived in a make-believe world. Instead, it went on a hundred different expeditions in the virtual world, gaining experiences that would hopefully stand it in good stead the day it awakened to reality. The day that occurred would sentence it to a quick combat death, one way or another.

Gharlane had never expected such an abundance of military hardware. The Jupiter System was awash in combat vessels, missiles and armored satellites. By studying historical files, it was clear the Jovians had been rebuilding ever since 2339. The annihilating defeat of its expeditionary force to Mars many years ago had horrified them. Since then, they had added ships and hardware every year to insure victory in case Social Unity attacked the Jupiter System.

Attention, Cyborg Gharlane!

“I am ready to receive,” Gharlane said over the radio embedded in his head.

Immediately link to a secure channel.

There was a priority one tone to the Web-Mind’s command.

Gharlane glanced around. He was in a maze of the giant missiles, with crisscrossing rail-lines and busy cyborgs doing a hundred last-minute chores.

Gharlane magnetized his boots and began to run, building up speed. Then he snapped off his magnetic boots and leapt. He flew like a man in a dream, using his hands and feet to propel himself from missile to missile, turning, using his cyborg reflexes to keep him from harm.

In moments, he lightly magnetized his boots. Gharlane ran over metallic surfaces and slowed his speed before entering a single-storey building. He floated into a lift, pressed a red button and rode it down three levels. Hurrying through a dim corridor, he came to an electronic bed with a body depression. Medical monitors on top ran through sequencing numbers, the middle monitor rapidly changing from 1 to 99 in blue numerals. Gharlane shed his vacc-suit and lay down in the depression.

He stiffened as his entire self merged into a direct link with the Web-Mind.

Without any introduction or explanation, the Web-Mind shot a series of images into Gharlane.

First were interferometer shots of the Highborn vessel. Its laser stabbed with precision and destroyed a Zeno. Then a different image invaded Gharlane’s thoughts. Two enemy Zenos activated at the last possible moment, suddenly appearing. The Descartes must have detached them. The first cyborg-controlled meteor-ship chasing the Descartes attempted an evasion tactic. A blinding flash of nuclear energy ended the attempt and effectively ended the much-needed meteor-ship. It was usually a risky maneuver to chase an enemy ship, as it could easily detach drones in one’s path.

The Highborn and Jovians continue to work together, although system-wide radio traffic proves that our subversion campaign has spread grave unrest among the Jovians.

You will gather our nearest vessels and form them into a taskforce, including the second meteor-ship following the Descartes. The taskforce will follow the missile strike against Callisto. They will constitute a second wave assault. Later, they will strike Ganymede. The enclaves on Europa and Io represent a four percent danger and therefore can await destruction. Once Ganymede receives its nuclear bath, the Jovians will cease to threaten us.

“I await your instructions,” Gharlane said.

The Web-Mind flooded Gharlane with the data that needed to go out to the cyborg vessels.

We will launch the missiles in ninety-three hours, the Web-Mind added.

“Calculations indicate a quicker timetable would achieve greater success.”

Negative. Callisto is presently on the other side of Jupiter as Athena Station. Soon it will begin to swing around the planet in relation to us. Calculating the speed of our missiles and Callisto’s orbital path, the strike will hit at the most propitious moment to achieve surprise.

Gharlane reevaluated. “I have received,” he said. Then he arose to begin the preparations.