“Rotate the particle shield aft thirty degrees,” she said.
“Aft thirty degrees,” said the Shield Tech.
Outside the massive beamship, the huge 600-meter thick shield of rock and metal lifted as if a man lifted a visor on a helmet.
“Focus the projectors,” said Admiral Sioux.
“Projectors focused. Projectors in firing position,” said the First Gunner, his supple fingers flying over his control board.
A vast section slid open on the inner armored skin of the Bangladesh. A squat nozzle poked out, a green light winking in its orifice.
“Engage power,” Admiral Sioux said.
“Proton Beam power on,” the Power Chief said.
“Target acquired,” the First Gunner said.
Admiral Rica Sioux smiled thinly. She and ship’s AI had already chosen the targets ten days ago. They would follow a strict procedure aboard the Bangladesh. If the Highborn did something unforeseen, only then would they change procedure.
“Admiral?” the First Gunner asked.
She sighed. A good officer, the Pakistani First Gunner, but he was a little too anxious. Why couldn’t he allow her to enjoy the moment? After one hundred and twenty-one years of life, she had learned that savoring a moment was often more enjoyable than the actual moment itself.
“This day,” she said to the command crew, “we teach the Imperialist warmongers that you can contain the People momentarily, but you can’t keep them down forever.”
One fool actually started clapping, although he quickly looked around, saw that no one else clapped and sheepishly turned back to his screen.
“Hear, hear,” said the Second-in-Command.
There, much better, and with an actual touch of the antiquated navy. The Admiral liked that. She closed her eyes and refrained from fiddling with her cap, as much as she wanted to adjust it because her head itched abominably. That would seem like a nervous gesture, though. She opened her eyes, trying to memorize every detail.
“Fire,” she said.
The First Gunner pressed the button.
Ship’s AI took over. Within the Bangladesh, power flooded from the storage cells and the ship’s Fusion Drive pumped in more. Said power charged through the proton generators. Needles and gages jumped and quivered, and then out of the single cannon poured the incredibly powerful proton beam.
It almost sped 300,000 kilometers per second for Mercury, for the Sun Works Factory that churned armaments for the Supremacists. For 1.7034 minutes, the tip of the beam flew through the vacuum of space. Meanwhile, Mercury traveled along its orbital path around the Sun, and around the pitted planet rotated the vast ring habitat, its exact tilt known even to the lone scientists far out on Charon. The proton beam almost charged as fast as anything could possibly travel in the galaxy. It was a little less than the speed of light, amazingly fast to terrestrials, but when set against the vast distances of space, a mere crawl.
On the Sun Works Factory technicians and secretaries, Highborn officers and premen underlings, repairmen, computer specialists, welders, deck crew, cooks and maintenance all went about their normal activities. None knew what sped toward them. Nothing could have given them warning. If radar could have bounced off the proton beam, the return radar blip would have traveled only a little faster than the attacking protons. Like a literal bolt out of the blue, the proton beam flew onward.
Approximately 1.7 minutes after leaving the proton cannon, the beam lanced past the solar collectors that girded the outer shell of the Sun Works Factory. For all the precision of the Bangladesh’s targeting system, the first shot missed its target by 100 meters. The proton beam shot past the solar collectors, flashed over the rest of the spinning station and speared at Mercury. There the beam churned the already molten surface.
Shuttle pilots and pod-crew near the beam stared at it in dread fascination. Highborn command officers swore. In seconds, alarms rang everywhere.
Then the beam shifted, as it had been shifted 1.7 minutes ago aboard the Bangladesh. Ship’s AI had predicated the possibility of a miss. Because of that possibility, ship’s AI had suggested that the Admiral re-target the beam every six seconds.
Thus six seconds after the harsh proton beam flashed past the Sun Works Factory and hit Mercury, it readjusted and smashed into the solar collectors that protected the outer skin of the station. They had never been built to take such punishment. An old-style military laser would have destroyed it and little more. For a laser beam didn’t stay on target, on the same spot, for more than a nanosecond. But this was the improved proton beam, Social Unity’s single ace card against the Highborn. It punched through the solar collector and through the heavy shielding behind it. It stabbed into the Sun Works Factory itself, into the orbital fighter construction yard that had been built in this part of the Factory.
The proton beam touched welder equipment and ignited engines. Blasts added to the destruction, awful, fierce annihilation. For six seconds the proton beam wreaked the needed orbital construction yard. It punched through that part of the ring-factory, slicing it like a gigantic knife. Gouts of purple plasma erupted into space. Burned bodies floated into the vacuum, some of those crisped corpses were Highborn. Titanic ammunition blasts combined with the beam and ruptured the Sun Works, a devastating first strike. In nearby areas, the blasts ruptured hatches and ignited more fires. Shocked technicians, pilots and service personal died by fire, by vacuum and sometimes by toxic fumes.
Then the proton beam shifted again.
The first attack lasted three minutes, the beam shifting every six seconds. It was three minutes of hellish terror for everyone on the nearest side of the Sun Works Factory. In the hit locations, it was three minutes of incredible destruction. It was three minutes of brutal death. Maybe for the first time in the war, the Highborn knew they could be hurt.
Aboard the Bangladesh, the command crew and proton-beam technicians held their breath. Or it seemed to them they did. The three minutes went by in a flash. Then:
“Power low,” the Power Chief said.
Admiral Sioux watched the seconds tick by in her VR-monocle. Three, two, one: “Shut down the proton beam.”
“Proton beam shutting down,” said the First Gunner.
“Engage engines,” ordered the Admiral.
Everyone abandoned the modules and floated to the acceleration couches in the center of the capsule, buckling in. Soon the mighty engines burned. The Bangladesh thrust to a different heading, just in case the Highborn tried anything unexpected.
In another half-hour, they would fire again. For the next several days, they were going to pound the Sun Works Factory and see if they could teach the Highborn a thing or two about space warfare.
Admiral Rica Sioux loved it.
16.
Nadia Pravda nervously paced before a Plexiglas bubble dome that hissed from a crack four meters up. She was a fool. She should phone Hansen and explain that none of this was her fault. She was sick of hiding in crawl spaces, wondering if Marten could build a spacecraft to take her out of here.
She laughed at the impossibility of the idea. Yet she recalled his performance at the Pleasure Palace. He had taken out the two monitors and then everyone in the drug room. Stunning. She shivered as she remembered the tumbling bodies and that dead monitor shot through the eye by the thickly muscled Korean. Omi had checked each person, shooting several just to make sure they were soundly asleep. He’d seemed ruthless. But Marten, he seemed to be more than ruthless. Something drove him.
She made a face. The smart thing would be to call in and tell her foreman she’d been sick, so sick that she hadn’t even been able to reach the com system. He would know she was lying. That’s why she might need a call from Hansen. Then she should have her job back. Yes, and then she would owe Hansen two favors, one for not killing her and another for getting her job back.
Why had the sump exploded that day?
Nadia eyed the hissing crack and checked her watch. Marten was late. Fear twist
ed her resolve. What if he didn’t show? What if he had been caught? What if even now monitors raced here to, to—Nadia hugged herself. Would they really shove her naked out an airlock? That’s what they’d threatened to do if she double-crossed them.
Nadia began to pace. Being alone for days, hiding in that crawl space was driving her mad. Why—
Her head snapped up. Her eyes grew round and she couldn’t breath.
A valve turned. A door creaked. Someone was coming.
Please, please let it be Marten.
A man turned the corner, a white-faced, sweating man who stumbled toward her. He looked exhausted and sick. Then Nadia breathed again as she realized it was Marten. And despite her resolve over the past several days not to, she felt a stirring within her.
9.
The attack came as a dreadful shock to the Highborn. It two places, space and molten debris floated where once had been the solid ring-factory. In other places, torn skin and blasted wreckage told of the fierce annihilating power of the proton beam. More than one Highborn swore awful oaths. Many premen sat at screens, studying the orange plasma clouds, the tumbling bodies and the gaping holes in the station. Maybe for the first time, they doubted an automatic Highborn victory. The superiors could be hurt.
Repair pods flew to the scene of the worst destruction, as well as damage control teams in Zero-G Worksuits. All over the Sun Works Factory, hanger doors opened and working orbitals zoomed out to emergency zones. Meanwhile, behind Mercury, the Genghis Khan powered up to fight as it was. The Doom Star Gustavus Adolphus halted refit as personal raced onboard. At this point, the Highborn expected anything to happen.
The Praetor of the Sun Works Factory ordered all premen to barracks. This would be the perfect moment for SU sympathizers to strike, or so suggested several Highborn in charge of various security areas. Debates raged on what to do next. Vectors and velocities of all known Social Unity spacecraft were carefully computed.
“I want to know when each of them can reach Mercury!” the Praetor shouted.
“Do you believe this a prelude to a mass premen space attack?” Lycon asked.
“What do you call this?” snarled the Praetor, before striding out to collect the latest damage reports.
“They will attack again,” messaged the Grand Admiral from the Julius Caesar in orbit around the Moon. “Implement total defense measures.”
Several minutes after receiving it, a communications officer handed the memo to the Praetor. He scanned it. Then he asked his staff, “What does he think we’ve been doing?”
“You’re one step ahead of him, sir,” said a staff member.
The Praetor grunted.
Unlike the lower species, the Highborn prided themselves on quick reactions. Shock often produced confused sluggishness. Surprise left many bewildered. Not the Highborn, however, and certainly not the Praetor.
The Genghis Khan and a hundred shuttles roared to the outer portion of the Sun Works Factory. They pumped aerogel with lead additives between the probable location of the Bangladesh and the space hab. The aerogel was a dull cloud. Behind it, other shuttles shot packets of prismatic crystals. It was reflective chaff, useful against lasers. Maybe it would help a little against the dreaded proton beam. The mass of protective “junk” moved at the same relative speed as the planet and ring hab, thus seeming to remain stationary. The volume of space needing protection was knowable and measurable. The problem was that it was also vast.
As bad, the next attack commenced before the aerogel and reactive shielding had begun to take form. Yet wherever the proton beam struck the aerogel with lead additives, it lost power because it had to burn through. The clouds weren’t thick enough yet to stop the beam. And most of the places the beams slashed were unshielded by these aerosols.
Just like the first attack, the second wreaked awful destruction. More bodies tumbled into vacuum. Purple, orange and red plasma roiled into space. The proton beam sliced through another two sections of the ring-factory. Months of factory work burned, exploded or drifted into the void. Debris began a slow tumble toward Mercury, captured by the planet’s gravity.
There was, however, an incredible amount of mass to attack. The sheer volume of the Sun Works Factory made its total destruction a matter of weeks of such beaming. Long before that happened, effective use of the factory would cease. The Highborn were as close to panic as they could be.
Three minutes later this attacked stopped just as the first one had.
“Faster!” the Praetor shouted. “More aerogel, more crystals, get my station shielded!”
10.
Hansen and Ervil watched her too closely. Hansen boasted endlessly during his watches. She found out he’d been a skinny boy in Sydney, Australian Sector when his parents had been kicked out of Social Unity for graft. They had been forced to move into the sprawling slums and eke out an existence there. According to Hansen, most of the slum dwellers were third and fourth generation and knew its filthy, brutal ways. People like Kang and Omi fit perfectly. But sensitive lads like him…
Nadia learned that around the city’s lower deep-core shaft radiated the slums, from City Level 41 to 49. Peacekeeper raids seldom helped keep order. Social workers rarely ventured into the slums even if guaranteed army patrols. Hall and block leaders kept a low profile there. Ward officers seldom set foot in their own territory. Desperate people lived in the slums, uneducated, violent people with bizarre modes of thought and behavior. Gangs roved at night, youth gangs being particular bloodthirsty. Drug-lords hired people called mules, bodyguards and gunmen.
Hansen told her that his only method for survival had been to sharpen his wits. Subterfuge and cunning, that’s how a skinny young boy had dodged the worst horrors.
She supposed that’s how a skinny older man had tried to dodge them on the Sun Works Factory.
Ervil’s watches were worse. He stared at her with those dead eyes. He didn’t say anything. Sometimes he did isometric exercises with a pull bar. When he did this, he took off his shirt. A layer of smooth fat hid his muscles and the stench of his sweat wasn’t pleasant. She once checked the amount of pull he used. Strange Ervil was strong, probably one of those naturals that could live in any slum, at least according to Hansen’s theories.
They didn’t even trust her to use the bathroom alone. Each took turns watching, making her keep the door open. That’s when she decided. There was no way she’d survive a six-month trip cooped with these two.
So when Ervil was asleep one shift she began working on Hansen. She found ways to nudge him. She laughed at his jokes. She kept her eyes bright and showed interest when he repeatedly told the same stories. She soon realized he considered himself the slyest man in the solar system. He had big plans. It dawned on her that his ambition had helped him trick the Highborn into thinking he’d been a PHC agent. He knew undercover procedures because he had informed on everyone in Sydney. The way he told it, he had taught some of the agents a thing or two when sent on sting operations. And he had thoroughly learned the drug trade.
Then came a day she dared let her eyes linger on him. When he turned and noticed, she looked away with a guilty start.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He moved closer. Ervil snored in the sleep compartment.
“Do you miss Marten?” he asked.
“Him?” she asked, facing Hansen. “Marten was a monomaniac. All he thought about was how to get to Jupiter.” A wry look came over her. “He didn’t have time for much else.”
“At least his single-mindedness was good for the three of us,” Hansen said with a laugh.
She laughed, too.
He let his hand fall on top of hers.
She looked up, her eyes wide. “What if Ervil catches us?” she whispered.
“Ervil does what I tell him.”
“I don’t understand that,” she said. “He’s so strong and nothing scares him.”
“He’s strong,” admitted Hansen. He tapped
his forehead. “But this is where strength really counts.”
“You’re so right.”
He grinned and touched her cheek. She melted against his hand before she jerked away.
“I’m too scared,” she whispered.
“Of me?”
“Ervil! In six months, he’ll get jealous. What if he kills you?”
“Nonsense.”
“Then I’ll be all alone with him.” She shuddered. “I don’t think he practices normal sex.”
Hansen slid closer and gripped her shoulders. He kissed her. She kissed back. Suddenly noise came out the sleep compartment: Ervil moving around. Hansen dropped his hands and acted normally. Nadia could have done likewise, but as the compartment door slid open, she leaped up as her hand flew to her mouth.
“Did you sleep well?” Hansen asked, covering for her.
Ervil blinked at them.
Nadia fidgeted.
Later, she told Hansen Ervil had questioned her about what had happened when he was asleep. Hansen seemed doubtful. She dropped the subject. Half a day later Hansen said he couldn’t believe Ervil would ask such a thing.
“You don’t see the way he watches me when you’re asleep,” she said. “I think he’s planning to trick you.”
Hansen snorted. But when the proton beam first struck the Sun Works Factory Nadia noticed he’d taken to wearing his projac at all times. Later, when the pods and shuttles flooded out to build the space shield, and she said now was the moment to leave, that’s when her work bore fruit.
“We should leave for the Jupiter System today,” she said, moving to the pilot seat.
“Hold it,” said Ervil, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Let her go,” said Hansen.
Something in his boss’s voice must have warned Ervil. The short man spun around fast and slid to the left, as if to dodge shots. Hansen, his hand on his holstered projac, now clawed to get it out. Ervil roared, “You’re double-crossing me?” He charged Hansen, who pumped ice slivers into him. The momentum took Ervil into Hansen. Both men crumbled to the floor. Hansen thrashed to disentangle himself. The short, wide-shouldered Ervil lay limply. Hansen finally leaped up, aiming his weapon at Nadia.
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