Vaughn Heppner - Planet Wrecker

“I congratulate you on your victory,” Marten said abruptly.

Tan appeared not to hear.

“The cyborgs were clever,” he added.

Leaning toward him, Tan clutched the table’s edge. “Clever, you say. They were brilliant.”

“Yet you beat them.”

A line creased Tan’s otherwise smooth forehead. It heightened her beauty. Then she eased back so she rested her butt on her heels. Turning her head, she looked at the golden lyre.

“They destroyed us,” she whispered. “They killed the most superior form of life in the Solar System, and by that I mean the Dictates. Yes, I crushed them as one would a spider. As the last philosopher-queen of Callisto, it was my solemn duty to do so. Yet what have I achieved? Renewed life of the perfected form?” She shook her head slowly.

“The war was brutal,” Marten said.

Tan stopped shaking her head to regard him. “Banality is your strong suit.”

“I thought it was being a killer.”

“A banal killer,” she said with a soft shrug.

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve just won a great victory. Now you sulk in your room and turn against your fellow soldiers.”

Something flashed in her eyes. “You dare to equate me with yourself? I belong to the philosophers. You are at best a guardian who cannot understand his place in the hierarchy. There is no equality between us.”

“Are you drunk?” asked Marten.

Tan made a sharp gesture. “I have enhanced my thinking. I see linkages between actions that are invisible to others.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Marten said. He adjusted his holster. “You know what I think.”

“Grace me with your wit,” she said.

“I think you’re trying to revive Callisto or these Dictates the only way possible now: through a military dictatorship. Which units landed on Athena Station? Did you hold back the ones with Callisto space marines?”

“How little you know.”

“You’re brilliant,” Marten said. “You’ve fought a grueling war against aliens of human devising. The cyborgs are a nightmare, and they’re merciless, more than willing to bring about our extinction. Your strategies checked them at every turn. I did some hard fighting, along with many others. Too many good men died implementing your orders.”

“ The wisest should rule ,” said Tan. “It is an axiom of inexorable truth.”

“ Men should live free ,” said Marten. “It’s what makes life worth living.”

“Ah, your quixotic belief,” said Tan.

“I’m not sure what that word means, but your tone, the myrmidons outside—you want to revive the old Callisto order.”

“Look around you, Marten Kluge.”

Marten glanced at the paintings on the walls.

“No,” she said. “That was a metaphorical phrase. How simple you really are, how direct and…barbaric.”

“What happened to you?” Marten asked. “You’ve changed.”

The glassy look to Tan’s eyes had grown. “I peered into the abyss, barbarian, into the future. I saw the cyborgs staring back at me—and no humans existed in that future.”

“We beat the cyborgs.”

“We defeated a small penetration raid into our system.”

“How do you know it was just a raid?” asked Marten.

“It is self-evident,” whispered Tan. She picked up the chalice, staring into the depths of the cup. “How does one face certain doom?” She shook her head. “I realized many months ago that I must retain full control of the Jovian moons, as only I possessed the insights, the sheer brain-power to counter cyborg brilliance. Strategically, there was only one manner in which I could do so.”

“You’re wrong,” Marten said.

Tan looked up, blinking. She seemed surprised to see him. “Wrong?” she said, as if tasting the word.

“You’re trying to re-forge the chains that bound the Jovians in servitude. Don’t you remember Force-Leader Yakov? He sacrificed his life so we could defeat the cyborgs on Carme. He didn’t sacrifice it so proud philosophers from Callisto could lord it over the people of Ganymede.”

“You poor barbarian, you’re too ignorant to appreciate the glory of the superior life.”

“Do you think I’ve fought these past months in order to let you handcuff me?”

“You are a virus, Marten Kluge. You spout your inanities about freedom and find eager listeners, I know. By freedom, however, you mean license for the glutton to gorge himself with food and the sex fiend to rut like an animal with any willing partner. Humans need guidance. They need purpose. The philosopher does what I’ve done: giving this guidance for the furtherance of the whole. Your freedom would dissolve human associations into chaos. Then the cyborgs would defeat us with even greater ease.”

“Yakov fought to free Ganymede from your philosophic oppression.”

“Yakov, Yakov, I grow weary of hearing his name. He is dead. Let him remain so.”

Marten leaned across the table. “Yakov gave his life because he saw how precious freedom was. He’d tasted it, as I’ve tasted it. The cyborgs sought to enslave us in nightmarish servitude. Yakov gave his life to defeat them and stop such a bitter future.”

“Yakov was a soldier, a guardian, a man of spirit. It was his nature to do as you’ve described. You shouldn’t try to give his act more grace than it deserves.”

“I see,” Marten said. He found that he was breathing hard. He struggled to control himself. “You’re under the illusion that it was your generalship that gave us victory.”

“Your emotionalism has confused you,” said Tan. “First you entered my chamber, praising my guidance. Now you reverse course. Which is it, because you cannot logically say both?”

“Your generalship would have been useless without hard-fighting soldiers.”

“Ah,” said Tan, “therein lays your ignorance. Like most fighters, you overvalue yourself. The sword is nothing without the brain that guides it.”

“Fancy footwork stops when a laser burns you down,” Marten said.

“Is that a threat?” Tan asked softly.

Marten banged the table with his fist, and this time, Tan flinched.

“Forget about that,” he said. “The truth is I don’t care who rules here. It’s such a little thing that it makes me angry I’m even arguing about it.”

“You are amazingly illogical and sporadic. I’m beginning to wonder if your chaotic thought-patterns act as a protective shielding. It’s almost impossible for a high-grade logician such as me to predict your course or understand your thinking.”

“Listen to me,” Marten said. “I’ve thought a lot about how to defeat the cyborgs.”

“You are a monomaniac, as I’ve said.” Tan fingered one of her rings. Its signet was the Greek letter omega . “Has your single-mindedness unhinged you? The cyborgs are defeated.”

“I’m talking about killing every one of them in the Solar System,” Marten said. “I’ve actually met them on the battlefield, not just theorized about them in the quietness of my study. I know how incredibly deadly they are.”

“…The people of Callisto knew that too,” Tan said softly. “My cousin Su-Shan knew that.”

“That’s why you should be listening to me, instead of insulting me,” Marten said. “You’ve seen the devastation caused by these aliens. You must know like me that the Jovians cannot defeat them on their own.”

Tan lowered the chalice with a clunk. She frowned at Marten.

“We have to unite against them,” he said.

“We?” asked Tan.

“Every human in the Solar System,” Marten said. “The Jovian moons, Mars, Earth, Venus, maybe even the Highborn. The Praetor gave his life to kill cyborgs. Maybe the other Highborn—”