Planet Wrecker

-4-

Marten forced himself to observe.

The corridors in the dreadnaught were narrow. At various intervals on the walls were stylistic syllogisms, pithy aphorisms and logical deductions. There was a golden statue in the middle of a nexus. It showed a bearded philosopher in a toga, with a stylus in one hand and a tightly-bound scroll in the other.

“I thought they’d removed all those,” Marten whispered to Omi.

Omi was too busy glaring at the three myrmidons to answer. The myrmidons were from the gene-vats, and were a form of Jovian military police. None were as tall as Marten. Each was immensely broad of shoulder, with a deep chest and muscular arms that dangled like a gorilla’s arms. The heads hunched low and beady eyes peered from beneath short-billed helmets. They wore uniforms with large epaulets on the shoulders, and carried an assortment of weaponry on their belts. The jangle of the weaponry mingled with the constant thrum of the fusion engine deep in the ship.

A white-haired arbiter preceded them. The arbiter wore a crisp white uniform with red tabs. He was as short as the myrmidons, but was aesthetically lean. At his belt was a palm-pistol. Whereas the myrmidons seemed bestial, the arbiter was refined. He possessed delicate features and a superior attitude, most notable by the distaste that twisted his mouth whenever he glanced at Marten or Omi.

“I thought they’d phased out arbiters,” Marten whispered.

Omi nodded.

Marten had been busy these past fifteen months. He’d trained space marines using Highborn techniques. Osadar and Omi had helped him, and then they’d been his lieutenants in combat. The fifteen months had been a blur of activity and endless drills. Occasionally, he’d read a news site. The cyborgs had shattered the Jovian System. Slowly, the human survivors had jelled together, attempting to form a more perfect union.

Robot repair vessels had entered Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, fixing those deuterium and helium-3-gathering floaters they could. New storage facilities on the Inner group moons arose. Europa and Ganymede launched defensive satellites. Survey teams probed a smoldering Io. People fled exposed asteroids and the smaller moons, emigrating to the larger Galilean moons.

Marten glanced at a golden triangle on the ceiling. A silver pyramid was in the center, with a lidless eye in the center of the pyramid. That had meaning in the old order of philosopher, guardian and mechanic. That order had died, however, when the cyborgs had destroyed ninety-seven percent of Callisto and its populace.

“Have you been reading the news sites much?” Marten whispered.

Omi grunted a negative.

Marten frowned. Osadar Di often tried to talk to him about the Jovian political situation. He’d paid scant attention to her, too worried about how to train his space marines so they could face cyborgs and survive, and maybe even win.

What had he read the other day? Osadar had scribed it to him. He deleted most of her messages unread. She wrote these long screeds on things, seemingly writing a book on each topic. It was too much for him even to try skimming. But he had read an interesting link the other day. It was concerning the growing triad of power in the Jupiter System.

There were the political leaders of Ganymede and Europa forming one side, the Helium-3 Barons forming another and the former Guardian Fleet personnel the third. According to the article, there had been a shift in fleet personnel during the fifteen months of war. The last survivors of Callisto—various station crewmembers, far-outpost personnel and monitors—had inexorably entered the fleet. There was no other place for them where they felt as comfortable. There were only a few military vessels left, and they were concentrated with the last people of Callisto. In effect, the old order had been resurrected in the remaining patrol boats, meteor-ships and the lone dreadnaught. The article had finished with a cry for civilian control of Jupiter and an end to the tyrannous rule of Chief Strategist Tan.

A cold feeling coiled in Marten’s stomach. “Do you remember which units stormed onto Athena Station?” he whispered.

“You will cease with your infernal muttering,” the arbiter said over his shoulder. Marten recalled the man had told them his name was Neon. He spoke with a nasal tone, with didactic authority.

Marten opened his mouth to reply, and he felt Omi’s grip on his wrist. He glanced at Omi. The Korean minutely shook his head. The look said more than just ‘stay quiet.’ It said this wasn’t the place for a showdown. It was better to wait.

Marten’s nostrils flared, but he nodded minutely, and he kept his mouth shut.

The myrmidons had grown tense. They glanced at Neon. The lean arbiter sneered in his superior fashion, the way a highhanded teacher might before inferior students. Flicking his wrist, Neon indicated that they keep heading toward their destination.

Omi released Marten’s wrist and the grip of his holstered pistol.

Marten found he’d been holding his breath. Anger surged through him. He stared hotly at the arbiter’s back, wanting to clout the man across the back of the head. But the myrmidons would attack if he did that.

Then it hit Marten. Had that been staged? He scowled. If Chief Strategist Tan wanted him disarmed, she could order it. Yet maybe it wasn’t that simple. The article had spoken about three keys to the Jovian power base.

Marten glanced around, and he spotted spy-sticks on the ceiling, recording devices. If Tan presented the controllers of Europa and Ganymede and the Helium-3 Barons with video of him going berserk—

The cold feeling in Marten’s stomach grew. He’d like to study the space marine manifests of the units that had stormed Athena Station. More importantly, he’d like to study the place of origin of the personnel. It was natural to put soldiers from Ganymede, say, into one unit. It was best to put men from the same town into a unit. Men fought harder with their friends around them and men fought more poorly amongst strangers. Which units had stormed Athena Station? Or asked another way, which units had remained out of the action and therefore had retained one hundred percent of its soldiers?

Chief Strategist Tan had fought a masterful campaign against the cyborgs. Would she simply relinquish power now, or might she have maneuvered these past fifteen months to retain authority? Her power rested on one thing: a preponderance of military personnel and hardware.

Marten rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the kinks out of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t care who ruled. He cared all right. But after Yakov’s death fifteen months ago, he was more concerned with killing and defeating cyborgs.

Arbiter Neon halted, turned and raised his hand.

Marten noticed the arbiter glancing at the myrmidons, as if signaling them. Marten cleared his throat sharply and reached for his gun.

The myrmidons were fast. Each spun around with a shock rod in one hand and a stunner in the other. Maybe if they had fired that instant everything would have worked for them.

Omi had been a gunman once in a vicious drug gang in Sydney. Then he’d gone through Highborn training and had survived the Hell of the Japan Campaign. He caught the signal and clawed his long-barreled .38 free of its holster.

Marten drew even faster than Omi. While Omi aimed at the nearest myrmidon, Marten held his pitted barrel at Neon’s forehead.

The arbiter’s smug smile vanished as he stared at the ugly weapon. The color drained from his face, leaving it a pasty white. Then two bright dots appeared on his cheeks.

“Lower your weapons,” Arbiter Neon whispered.

“Your myrmidons are fast,” Marten said. There was steel in his voice. “But I’m betting I can put a hole in your forehead and gun each of them down before they twitch a finger on their stunners.”

Marten refrained from adding that Omi and he each wore a nullifier, won long ago on Yakov’s meteor-ship.

“You are aboard the Chief Strategist’s flagship,” Neon said in a choked voice. “Her authority is supreme here. Any deviation from it is a breach of protocol.”

Marten motioned Omi. The two of them took several steps back. The stunners might not affect them. The bony knuckles on the end of those dangling arms surely could, however. Marten had respect for the fighting prowess of the gene-warped warriors.

“The Dictates—” Neon began to say.

“Died with Callisto’s passing,” Marten said.

Neon stiffened. And that made the senior myrmidon growl menacingly.

“You spout inanities,” Neon said harshly. “You—”

On the ceiling, a red light flashed near one of the spy-sticks. Neon’s head twitched. He clamped a thin hand over his right ear. He must have had an implant there. He frowned, and he gave his head the slightest negative shake.

“New orders, eh?” asked Marten.

Neon opened his mouth. He never uttered his chosen phrase. A door swished open at the head of the corridor. Tan stood there.

She was a tiny woman, with smooth, bio-sculpted features. She was beautiful in an elfin way, with dark hair wound around her head. She wore a red robe, with red slippers and with red rings around her small fingers.

“Chief Strategist,” Neon said.

“You and your myrmidons shall stand guard outside my door,” Tan said. Her gaze flickered over Omi. “I didn’t ask for your bodyguard.”

“You asked to see both of us,” Marten said.

Tan had dark eyes. They seemed to turn a shade darker as she stared at him. “Tell him to return to his quarters.”

“She’s separating us,” Omi whispered.

“The Chief Strategist has given you instructions,” Neon said. “Instant obedience is expected, along with proper protocol. You will address her as—”

“What kind of protocol did you give the cyborgs on Athena Station?” Marten asked.

“What?” Neon said.

“Did you land with us?” asked Marten, sick of behind-the-lines policemen.

“I’m not an animal that grubs among the beasts,” Neon said, outraged.

“Enough,” said Tan.

“But Your Excellency—” Neon said, turning toward her.

“I have spoken,” said Tan.

Neon stiffened, and the twin spots of color reappeared on his cheeks. After a half-second’s delay, he flicked his right hand at the myrmidons. They spread out in the corridor and then crouched low, ready like defensive robots.

“Are you expecting trouble?” Marten asked.

“Order your bodyguard back to his quarters,” said Tan. “Then tell him to disarm. You may give your sidearm to him as well.”

“…Not just yet,” Marten said.

Arbiter Neon’s head swiveled toward him. The man placed his hand on his palm-pistol.

“I have given you an order,” Tan said.

“We’re still in a combat zone,” Marten said. “Soldiers don’t disarm under those conditions.”

“You dare to engage me in a dialogue?” asked Tan.

“I’m a soldier and this is a combat zone. That means—”

“All the cyborgs are dead,” said Tan. “You will obey me at once.”

Marten didn’t like the direction of the conversation. His only true friends had died or waited aboard the Erasmus, the handful of space marines that had endured two battles against the cyborgs with him. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what Osadar had been trying to tell him. He’d been too busy fighting a war to worry about the peace. That might have been a mistake.

“Chief Strategist,” Marten said. “I request your permission to keep my sidearm. If you refuse, I will relinquish my command and return at once to the Erasmus.”

“You are in no position to give me terms,” Tan said.

Suddenly, Marten was weary of the bickering. It reminded him of Major Orlov, of Training Master Lycon and Arbiter Octagon, of everyone who’d tried to tell him what to think.

“I’m not giving you terms,” Marten said. “I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”

“You will adjust your tone while addressing me,” said Tan.

Marten squinted at the small woman. She controlled the bulk of the military vessels in this planetary system. She was the de facto ruler. But Marten no longer cared. She was playing games he didn’t understand, and through the arbiter, she’d just tried to disarm them.

“Did you wish to see me?” Marten asked.

Tan’s mouth grew firm, and three seconds passed. “Your bodyguard will return to his room.”

“And?” asked Marten.

“And you and I shall speak within,” said Tan.

“Sure,” Marten said, recognizing that she’d dropped any reference to his disarming, at least for now. He’d won this round. Now he’d have to make sure he walked out of her chamber a free man.