Vaughn Heppner - Star Fortress

“I’ve been watching the clip,” Delos said, as she motioned her gunman to relax. “You pumped an amazing number of hours. All you had to do to end your suffering was speak.”

“I didn’t speak,” Marten whispered.

“And yet, here you sit before me.”

“Where did you get that?”

Delos frowned. It put wrinkle lines in her face. She was an old woman. “You are not here to ask me questions, Mr. Kluge. I am asking the questions. It appears that you were a poorly-behaved citizen and a malcontent.”

He stared into her eyes, and he shrugged.

That deepened her frown. “You are not a diplomatic man.”

“Have you seen cyborgs fight?” Marten asked. “I have, many times, and yet I am here, as you say.”

The lines in Delos’s face deepened. “How is it that you have a cyborg on your ship?”

“Her name is Osadar Di. She used to be a Jovian. Long ago, she fled to Neptune. There the cyborgs—”

“Spare me the history, as I don’t care enough to listen. Your warning to Cleon…it made me curious. I’ve glanced at your file before. I did it last month while studying the Supreme Commander’s latest advisors. I wonder what he saw in you.”

“That I was a fighter, one who has faced the great enemy and survived,” Marten said.

“Hmm. There you were,” Delos said, indicating the screen where Marten still pumped. “And here you are: the Jovian Representative to Earth. You fought in the Jovian System?”

“And helped them defeat the cyborgs.”

“Always fighting, are you, Mr. Kluge.”

“It’s better than surrendering.”

“Why are you here in Athens? I want the real reason?”

“To collect my space marines,” Marten said.

Delos pressed a button. A speaker blared into life. The voices belonged to Marten and Cone, and it replayed their conversation a few hours ago.

“Promise me grain, eh?” Delos asked, after the conversation ended.

Marten closed his eyes. He thought of Nadia, of Commissar Cleon putting a pistol to her head and blowing out her brains. It made him clench his teeth with growing frustration. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

“I despise Social Unity,” Marten said in a low voice. “All my life, the thugs of Social Unity have been trying to tell me how to think. They killed my parents and made my early life hell. They told me God didn’t exist and then they tried to take His place. I spit on Social Unity.”

“Is Jupiter so much better?”

“No!” Marten said. “They have a different form of tyranny, one based on supposed philosophic splendor. But that has changed, or it did while I was there.”

“You are a born rebel, Mr. Kluge. You are a complainer instead of a builder.”

“I’m in love with freedom, yes, that’s true. I want to think for myself, to decide without being punished for my thoughts. As long as I don’t interfere with my neighbor, I want to do as I please and think as I please.”

“I have heard of your species of malcontent before: a libertarian. It is an old word, and it means: chaotic instability throughout society.”

Marten scowled. “I hate Social Unity and I despise the Dictates. I refuse to knuckle under either system. Yet I will join hands with SU soldiers and Jovian guardians to fight the living death that are the cyborgs. I have a cyborg in my company. She used to be human. They tore her down to her component parts and then rebuilt her into a meld of machine and flesh. They programed her brain, using mini-computers to enslave her soul. When cyborgs win, when Web-Minds take over, they capture humans and put them into converters. They manufacture more cyborgs. I never thought it was possible, but out there I found something worse than Social Unity.”

“Very stirring, I’m sure,” Director Delos said in a bored voice.

“You believe yourself immune, is that it? Look at those thugs sitting on your couch. Look at their snappy black uniforms. They’ll stop the cyborgs for you?”

“You’re ill-advised to mock the men who will soon be administering your punishments.”

“I’m ill-advised to bow and scrape to a fool,” Marten said. “I have one life. I’ll live it free and tell it like it is, taking my lumps for it.”

Delos frowned, and she glanced at her screen, which she had turned back. No doubt, she spied a younger Marten Kluge pumping the handle in the glass tube. She continued to watch.

“In the first year of the war, the Highborn invaded Sydney,” Marten said.

“I’m aware of that. It’s what saved your life.”

“It almost ended my life. Political Harmony Corps tried to blow Sydney’s deep-core mine. I went deep into the Earth and stopped them. When I came back up, I was captured by the Highborn for my efforts.”

Delos turned away from the screen and stared fixedly at Marten. She sat back, and she pressed her fingers together.

“Listen to me,” Marten said. “I’ve been in tight spots before. I know what it means to face impossible odds and win. Humanity faces its doom, its extinction. We must band together now and fight as one. We have a fleet of Highborn and Humans, and we’re about to attack Neptune System. Release my space marines so we can join the armada.”

“If I do that, Director Backus will mark me for death.”

“The cyborgs have already done that.”

“Your few Jovians will make no difference to the fight,” Delos said.

“You’re probably right,” Marten said. “Yet you can’t know that. They might be the margin that gives us victory.”

“Please, Mr. Kluge,” Delos said with a laugh, “no melodrama.”

“War is melodrama. Torture is melodrama. Life is full of melodrama. Give me my men. Let me fight our true enemy.”

Delos continued to frown.

“Look!” Marten said, pointing at the mini-replica of the Pantheon. “Greece Sector is the land of melodrama. Long ago, men here learned to be free.”

“Enough!” Delos said. “Speak to me about realities.”

“A year ago, the cyborgs hit Earth with a planet-wrecker, or with part of one. How long will it be before they do it again?”

“I hope never,” Delos said.

“Then do everything you can toward hurting the cyborgs. Anything else is immaterial—at least in the long run.”

“Life is filled with short runs,” Delos said.

Marten stared at the old director. He glanced back at the hard-eyed bodyguards. When he faced Delos again, he noticed she watched the video.

“What about that intrigues you?” he asked.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Yes, I am intrigued. That,” she pointed at the screen, “is very odd behavior.”

“Do something odd for once. Go against your perfect calculations. Think of it as humanity’s last gamble against almost certain annihilation by a superior life-form.”

“Superior?” she asked.

“They’re better than us at fighting,” Marten said. “I’ve faced them several times, and I can attest to that.”

“Yet you’re still alive, as you so humbly pointed out.”

Marten waited.

Director Delos sat forward, and she stroked her chin. Then her eyes narrowed. “Maybe there is a way. Let me think about it.”

“We don’t have much time left.”

“No. You don’t have much time left. I have plenty. I will think about it and get back to you…soon.” She sat up. “Alexander, take him to the detention center. Let him join his precious Jovians.”

“What about my wife and Osadar, the cyborg?” Marten asked.

Delos thought a moment. “For now, they will join you. That is all,” she said, waving her hand. “Take him away. I have much to consider.”

Many thousands of kilometers from Athens, the Napoleon Bonaparte was in Near Luna Orbit. The Doom Star’s commander—Sulla the Ultraist—was taking his morning exercise in a pseudo-gravity chamber, a large, rotating pod.