Planet Wrecker

-3-

An hour later, Marten entered a different cubicle. The dreadnaught’s fusion engine made a soft thrum throughout the ship, and caused the bulkheads here to vibrate gently.

Omi sat on his cot as he cleaned his gun. It was similar to Marten’s long-barreled slugthrower, which fired .38 caliber dum-dum bullets. A small piece of lead sat in the back of a bullet, in a tiny, domed-shaped cavity. When a dum-dum bullet struck an object, the lead in the cavity flew forward and caused the bullet to explode like a grenade. It made for murderous ammunition that caused ghastly wounds, a must against cyborgs.

“You ready?” Omi asked.

The Korean hadn’t changed much since Carme. The only exception was his eyes. They were a little more haunted and there was a new line on his face.

“I married Nadia,” Marten said.

Omi raised an eyebrow.

“You’re supposed to congratulate me,” Marten said.

Omi nodded slightly. Then he clipped the last part of his .38 back together and holstered it. “Chief Strategist Tan wants to speak with us.”

“She’s here?”

“Now that the war is over, the commander wants to inspect the front.”

“I wonder what she’s after?”

“You kidnapped her once, remember?”

“That was over a year ago.”

“Do you think she’s forgotten?” Omi asked.

“My kidnapping helped save her life.”

“She might not remember it that way.”

“No. If she feels that way about me, why hasn’t she done something about it before now?”

Omi made a sour sound that might have been a laugh. “Are you kidding? You’re the heart of their space marines, and you’re the blood, too.”

“They have others units beside ours.”

“Those others died,” Omi said, “or most of them died. We have the only unit that has survived contact with the enemy more than twice.”

Marten crossed his arms. He could count the number of survivors on two hands—those that had made it through both Carme and Athena Station. When men faced cyborgs, the men died. He had a few theories now, some new tactics he wanted to try. The Battle for Jupiter was over, however, thank God.

“You think Tan’s finished with us?” Marten asked.

“Didn’t you notice the myrmidons when we came aboard, and the arbiter?”

Marten vaguely remembered. Then he had been too busy noticing Nadia. Now that Omi mentioned it…there had been changes these past few months aboard the military vessels. They were little things, or so he’d thought then.

“Arbiters and myrmidons,” Marten said. “I wonder if she’s going back to old Callisto methods.”

Omi stood up. “My guess is we’re about to find out.”

Marten glanced at Omi’s gun. Then he patted his own. “The arbiters don’t have any nullifiers that will protect them from these.”

“How long do you think they’ll let us wear guns?” Omi asked.

Marten shrugged.

“She’s a Strategist,” Omi said, “and she’s separated us from our men on the Erasmus. Our ship is more than two-thousand kilometers away. ”

“…Yeah,” Marten said, nodding. “Let’s go find out the worst.”

“Let’s,” Omi said.

The two of them headed for the door.