The Highborn and Jovians continue to work together, although system-wide radio traffic proves that our subversion campaign has spread grave unrest among the Jovians.
You will gather our nearest vessels and form them into a taskforce, including the second meteor-ship following the Descartes. The taskforce will follow the missile strike against Callisto. They will constitute a second wave assault. Later, they will strike Ganymede. The enclaves on Europa and Io represent a four percent danger and therefore can await destruction. Once Ganymede receives its nuclear bath, the Jovians will cease to threaten us.
“I await your instructions,” Gharlane said.
The Web-Mind flooded Gharlane with the data that needed to go out to the cyborg vessels.
We will launch the missiles in ninety-three hours, the Web-Mind added.
“Calculations indicate a quicker timetable would achieve greater success.”
Negative. Callisto is presently on the other side of Jupiter as Athena Station. Soon it will begin to swing around the planet in relation to us. Calculating the speed of our missiles and Callisto’s orbital path, the strike will hit at the most propitious moment to achieve surprise.
Gharlane reevaluated. “I have received,” he said. Then he arose to begin the preparations.
The Strike
-1-
In the lonely vastness of space, Arbiter Octagon continued to tumble end over end. In his ears, he heard the harshness of close breathing. It was a hoarse sound, a bitter one and it told about the futility of his existence.
His throat was raw from screaming. His eyes had bled a thousand tears. Now he stared like a dead man at the many stars shining in mockery around him.
Soon, he would choke to death on carbon dioxide. He would likely beg for an extension of life to whatever being could hear in the chilling vacuum of space. He realized that the Dictates were a bloody pack of lies. Man wasn’t logical, but a seething bed of passions. Men yearned for existence and they desperately wanted things. Men did not rationally reason out each step as the Dictates implied. Perhaps for the first time, Octagon realized that man was not a rational animal, but a rationalizing beast, making excuses for whatever suited his yearnings.
All these cycles aboard the warships, and before that the grueling courses readying him for duty as an arbiter—everything was composed of lies. It was all the bloody, pathetic ravings of idiot-buffoons. It had led to this, to his tumbling in space, hopeless, helpless and defeated by a primitive barbarian. The Dictates….
Arbiter Octagon frowned as something entered his vision. Something out there—
His jaw dropped as his mouth hung slackly.
The something blazed brighter than anything else did, making it greater than a star, greater even than Jupiter, at least from his vantage.
Octagon’s frown changed texture as a decided change came over him. The futility of life dribbled away. A dim thing, a chattering thing, an animal longing burst into life and quickly become hope. The hope thudded like his heartbeats and revived his spirits. It also rekindled his hatred for barbarians, for the supreme bastard of them alclass="underline" the arrogant Marten Kluge.
The brightness was a flare of exhaust. It grew larger and larger as he stared at it. In time, Octagon realized it was the exhaust of a pod.
It’s a rescue pod. I’m being rescued.
A weird smile twisted Octagon’s face. It wasn’t a sane smile, rather that of a madman whose prayers had been answered. The universe, maybe the Dictates or some divine being, realized that he had been unjustly abused. Now he was going to be allowed to exact his revenge against barbarians, against vile Marten Kluge.
Octagon laughed with glee, a wild, whooping noise.
As he tumbled end over end, as he twisted his head to get a better view, he read the pod’s lettering. Ah, he was in luck. This wasn’t a pod from his old ship. This one said, Pod 3, Hobbes.
A fierce grin stretched Octagon’s lips. A new ship, a different Force-Leader and Arbiter would listen to his tale. In a matter of weeks, he was going to be before the Philosopher’s Board on Callisto. They would hear his story. They would learn that he had been right and Strategist Tan had been wrong. This could well mean a leap in status.
Octagon rubbed his gloved hands.
The bright flare had died. Now smaller jets appeared as the pod slowed and moved toward him. An airlock opened and a vacc-suited rescue-worker jumped out. The worker was strong, for the leap quickly accelerated the worker. A tether line hooked to the worker’s belt played out behind him.
Octagon’s grin was beginning to hurt, he smiled so widely. The indignity of his kidnapping and the horror of being launched in a prefixed pod—he continued to whoop with laughter. Oh, his certain death had miraculously changed into life and coming revenge. He could almost feel the thrill of shocking a captured Marten Kluge for the first time.
“Hurry!” shouted Octagon. He waved his arms as his hysterical laughter increased. Oh, this was the most glorious moment in his existence. What had he ever done to deserve this? It was uncanny. It was—
The vacc-suited worker reached him. It was such a serene thing. The worker grabbed his boot and halted the slow tumbling. With a strong hand and a deft twist that shoved against his hip, the worker hooked the tether line to Octagon’s belt.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” Octagon whispered.
Then something cold blossomed in Octagon’s gut. It came from the sight of a silvery sheen, something… metallic. The worker’s faceplate—Octagon craned his neck, trying to get another glimpse.
The worker drew him closer and Octagon had his first good look into his rescuer’s faceplate. Behind the glassy visor was a mask-like face with black, plastic sockets and silver eyeballs. Each ball bearing-like eye contained a red dot for a pupil. His rescuer wasn’t human, but a cyborg.
The cold in Octagon’s gut mushroomed outward until his arms and legs felt numb. If a cyborg was rescuing him… that meant the melded creature would take him to a converter. Evil Marten Kluge had warned him about this. The barbarian had suggested that suicide would be preferable to cyborg conversion.
With a hoarse cry, Octagon grabbed the tether-line’s hook, trying to tear it off his belt.
The cyborg moved with an insect’s speed. It gripped his wrists, immobilizing his hands. Then the thing activated a thruster-pack. They lurched. Octagon whipped his head back and forth. He saw the hydrogen particles propelling them. He saw the open airlock in the pod. It was like the jaws of a beast. It was hideous doom, and the airlock seemed to grin and hiss with Marten Kluge’s voice.
“No,” Octagon said. “You can’t do this.”
The cyborg paid no heed as it jetted for the pod. With a madman’s bellow, Octagon attempted to fight, to flail against fate. Remorselessly and with steely strength, the cyborg tightened its hold, taking him to a sinister new future that promised a metallic world of enslaved electrons and motorized limbs.
-2-
The Descartes headed toward Jupiter, deeper into the heavy gravity-well. Behind it followed the last Zeno, rapidly closing in. At the present speeds, the ship had less than ninety minutes until the drone reached it. Unfortunately, the Highborn ship had already swept past in its comet-like rush and no longer fired its laser.
Marten sat in his module in the command center. He scowled at his screen, at the Praetor’s wide face, at the pink, arrogant eyes and the predatory features chiseled in flat planes. Marten quietly replayed the Praetor’s system-wide speech. He heard the harsh voice that had once told Training Master Lycon that the shock troopers needed to be gelded. What he couldn’t understand is why the Highborn had sent a lone ship all the way out here.