Vaughn Heppner - Star Fortress

“I’m married,” he said.

“That is good,” Ah Chen said in her soft voice. “I am glad for you, Marten.”

“We’d better get going,” Omi said, and he gave Marten a significant look.

It finally got through to Marten. They knew something important, something they wanted to tell him, but not in front of the military people of Social Unity. Oh, he really got it then. Ah Chen knew something.

“Yeah, we’d better get going,” Marten said. “The Security Specialist—excuse me. The Vice-Chairman wishes for our quick departure.”

“Those are my orders too,” the brigadier said.

“Then if you don’t mind…” Marten said, as he glanced at the lifters.

“Please, be on your way.”

“Omi, Ah Chen, you’ll ride with us,” Marten said. “I’d like to introduce you to my wife.”

Soon the lifters were turned around, once more heading for Geneva.

“What’s all the secrecy about?” Marten asked in the lifter.

It was a tight fit. Ah Chen sat on the floor with her legs crossed. Omi hovered protectively near her.

Ah Chen swallowed nervously as she glanced at Nadia. “I have wondered a long time what to do with my information. Then Chief Monitor Quirn saw you on the Nancy Vance Show.”

“Old hall leader Quirn?” asked Marten, bemused.

Ah Chen nodded.

“Were you two friends?” Marten asked.

Ah Chen blushed. “It is a complicated story. He lives with Molly.”

“Oh,” Marten said.

“Who is Molly?” Nadia asked.

Marten opened his mouth, uncertain what he should say.

Ah Chen glanced from Marten to Nadia. Then she said, “Molly was a mutual acquaintance that went through the invasion with us. In any case, once I learned you were on Earth, and that you were the Jovian Representative, I believed that fate had given me the answer.”

“To what?” Marten asked.

“Yes,” Nadia said. “I’d like to know that, too.”

Hunching toward Marten, Ah Chen said, “I was slated to leave for the Sun Station. It is in Near Sun Orbit.”

“I’ve never heard of this station,” Marten said.

“Nor have I,” Osadar said.

“The Sun Station is new and experimental,” Ah Chen said. “Without going into the science of it, it represents the next great leap in battlefield technology. The Highborn are attempting to deploy giant reflectors very near the Sun. The reflectors will direct some of the Sun’s energy at a breakthrough focusing system many kilometers in diameter. It will act as a gargantuan lens. With enough reflectors, the Sunbeam can conceivably shoot at Mars.”

“The Sun already shoots its rays that far,” Marten said.

“The Sunbeam will shoot a coherent ray with vast killing power,” Ah Chen said.

“We could use that against the cyborgs,” Marten said.

Ah Chen nodded. “And after the cyborgs are gone, who will the Highborn use it against?”

Marten sagged against his seat as he glanced at Osadar. “Just how potent is this Sunbeam supposed to be?”

“The Highborn are taking deep-core mine specialists to the Sun Station,” Ah Chen said. “It has led me to believe that the ray is many factors more powerful than the greatest beams deployed so far.”

“Whoever has the Sunbeam can fire at anyone in Inner Planets,” Osadar said. “The only protection would be to hide behind an asteroid or planet.”

“The focusing problem needed to hit a ship in Mars orbit…it would be impossible,” Marten said.

Ah Chen shook her head. “To save time and so you will understand that I am privy to highly classified information, I will tell you my shame. The Highborn…have taken to seeing the women of Earth. One of the Sun Station’s chief engineers has been testing deep-core personnel in Australia Sector. He liked me and then he demanded I please him. After our times together, he spoke about many things. He was very boastful and proud.”

“They all are,” Marten said.

“How awful for you,” Nadia said.

Ah Chen nodded as she stared at the floor, speaking in a quiet voice. “I learned that the premier Highborn of the Sun-Works Factory—a Commandant Maximus—has declined a command position on a Doom Star several times already. According to the chief engineer, there are some Highborn who consider Maximus as Grand Admiral Cassius’s equal in strategic ability.”

“You think Maximus has declined the combat position because he’s found something even deadlier than a Doom Star?” Marten said.

“I do,” Ah Chen said.

“I can accept this,” Osadar said. “What I don’t understand is why you came all the way across Eurasia to tell Marten.”

“He is the Jovian Representative,” Ah Chen said, shyly glancing at the others. “He has space marines, and I remembered Marten Kluge. He did not like others controlling him.”

Marten laughed. It was a grim sound. “You think I should take my marines and try to storm this Sun Station.”

“I do,” Ah Chen said.

As the magnetic lifters raced for Geneva, silence descended upon the compartment.

Nadia turned frightened eyes upon Marten, shaking her head. She obviously didn’t like the idea. Marten scowled, with his eyes narrowed as he stared at an unseen place, thinking deeply.

“How can we do something like that?” asked Osadar, the first to break the silence. “These are Highborn we’re speaking about. We cannot defeat them with our handful.”

“To begin with,” Marten said, “we have to get off Earth. After that…after that, we’re going to have to do some serious thinking.”

His words left Nadia stricken. She stared at Ah Chen with growing hostility.

The civil war turned ugly fast.

The magnetic lifters passed a column of cybertanks heading for the Po Valley and ultimately for Milan, one would presume. The one hundred ton tanks were massive vehicles. Their treads churned up the road as their automated warfare pods scanned the skies and hunted for enemy on the ground.

Marten counted twenty of them. A half hour later as they began to climb the Ouster Pass, he spotted another two columns. Sixty new cybertanks headed for the front.

“Cone must be emptying the northern cities of them,” Osadar said. “She means to crush Italia Sector.”

“Or to gain Milan’s proton beam,” Marten said.

They had watched a Backus broadcast earlier. For seemingly cryptic reasons, the director had threatened to destroy the boosters launching from Geneva to supply the fleet.

“Cone is taking Backus’s threats seriously,” Marten added.

“Force-Leader!” Xenophon shouted. The small Jovian was pale as he said, “They’re using nuclear weapons, sir.”

Marten looked up at Xenophon’s screen. A mushroom cloud rose in the distance.

“It ignited in the Po Valley,” Xenophon said.

“Button the hatches!” Marten shouted. “Ground the lifters!”

The nine magnetic lifters soon thudded onto the ground as one after another they came to a halt. Then more mushroom clouds rose skyward.

“Madness,” Osadar said.

They waited, but the nuclear explosions were far enough away so that no screaming winds or intense heat washed over them.

“Who launched those?” Osadar asked.

Marten shook himself out of his stupor. He was remembering long ago on the Pacific Ocean as Social Unity launched nukes on their convoy. He had been on his way to Japan Sector then.

“Rev up the engines,” Marten radioed his troops. There was heavy static on the line. “We need to get off-world before Cone and Backus destroy each other and us with them.”

During the next two hours, they picked up several interesting broadcasts. Through it, they began to piece together what had happened. The added cybertanks had told almost immediately on the push toward Milan. Soon thereafter, Director Backus must have made his monumental decision: using nuclear missiles. Backus’s propagandist claimed total annihilation of the invading cybertanks, and the announcer added they were akin to cyborg troops, making Cone a stooge of the terrible enemy.