Secretary-General Chavez and Force-Leader Yakov: both men risked their lives to free their worlds. For years, Chavez had struggled against Social Unity. Now the brave man was dead, turned into radioactive dust by the Highborn-launched Hellburner. The struggle had cost Chavez his life. However, Marten doubted the freedom fighter would have wished it any other way.
Yakov had plotted for years, becoming a key mover against the philosophically arrogant Dictates and the rulers of Callisto. The hidden fight had forged Yakov into a steely conspirator and into a ship’s captain of abnormal calm.
What did Yakov see in him? Marten wondered. He fought for freedom as hard as anyone did. True, it had always been personal freedom and freedom for the friends around him. His larger goals had always been on the horizon, to flee to a better, safer and easier place. Chavez and Yakov stayed in their bitter situations and fought with others to improve it.
Marten nodded slowly. Chavez and Yakov were superior to him. They had more guts. They stood their ground and they defied their enemies by battling head-on, trying to kick their enemy in the teeth. Maybe it was time to do the same. Maybe it was time to stop running and start advancing. Maybe it was time to realize that there was something more than just personal freedom.
As Yakov adjusted the desk-controls, bringing the outer Jovian System into view, Marten gripped his edge of the desk.
Should he run to Saturn? What if the cyborgs were already there? Would he run to Uranus then, and then run to Neptune? Why stop there? Why not run to Pluto? And then why end his flight at the edge of the Solar System? If his enemies were so powerfully strong, why not board or build a starship and flee to Alpha Centauri?
Marten squeezed the synthiwood edge. The Solar System had become too crowded. Social Unity, the Highborn and the cyborgs… there were too many sides, too many powerful forces all desiring to subjugate free men. He had run out on the Martians. He had been running for a long time, practically since birth if one counted his rat-like existence on the Sun-Works Factory. It was time to stop running. It was time to plant himself on a spot and say as the German Reformer Martin Luther had: Here I stand.
Marten looked up. “I’m in all the way,” he said.
Yakov gave him a quizzical glance.
Marten placed a palm on the computer-map. “I fled the Sun-Works Factory. I fled Social Unity. I fled from the Highborn and then I fled from Mars. Now I’m done running.”
Yakov leaned back as his dark eyes measured Marten. “We could use a soldier with your skills.”
“You mean my shock-trooper training?”
“Who else has stormed aboard a warship as you did? By the account, you absorbed more of the Highborn training than anyone else I know.”
“It was hell,” Marten said. “I never want to do that again.”
“No soldier does,” Yakov said. “But are you willing to say that you could do more as a slave than as a free agent?”
Marten grinned tightly. “That’s why I like you, Force-Leader. You cut through the crap and strike into the heart of a thing. What are you suggesting?”
“At the moment,” Yakov said, “nothing. I’m speaking about priorities.”
“Yeah,” Marten said. “I get it.” He squinted at an upper corner of the cramped room. He flexed his hands. Omi and he were the last of the shock troopers. Maybe that’s what he should do: train Jovian hard-cases into shock troopers. No one could match Osadar. No one could match the cyborgs, or match the Highborn for that matter. But that didn’t mean you should curl up and die. He had killed Highborn before. He’d even killed cyborgs. If free men were going to rise up, if they were going to win, then they needed the best space marines he could train.
He regarded Yakov. The silver-haired Force-Leader watched him. Those dark eyes were too knowing. Marten understood then why Yakov had been the hussade captain.
“If I have to go through Hell to be free,” Marten said, “I’ll do it.”
Yakov remained quiet.
“And if I have to do that so others can be free, yeah, I guess I’ll do what every soldier knows is the stupidest thing of all. I’ll volunteer for the shitty job because no one else can do it better than I can.”
Yakov said, “Being a Force-Leader sometimes means you have to understand that you’re the best man for the task, or that you’re the best at hand to do a thing.”
“Yeah,” Marten whispered.
Yakov’s lips tightened. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a bulb and two shot glasses. The Descartes was under acceleration, headed for Ganymede. Because of that, there was pseudo-gravity. Yakov squeezed clear liquid into each glass. With a knuckle, he slid a glass to Marten.
Marten waited until Yakov had filled his. They raised their glasses and touched them, causing them to clink.
“To victory,” Yakov said.
“Victory,” Marten said. He tossed the Jovian whiskey into his mouth and swallowed fast. It hit in his stomach with a blast of warmth. Then his face flushed with the heat of alcohol. This was better than the synthahol he used to drink in Greater Sydney.
Yakov swept up both glasses and the bulb, depositing them back into the bottom drawer. His grin was wider than Marten had ever witnessed. That’s how Yakov must have looked on the day Ganymede U won the hussade trophy.
“In a fight,” Yakov said, “I’ve noticed that you’re a man that stands. You’re one I want on my side.”
“I’ve thought the same about you,” Marten said.
“We are guardians,” Yakov said. The grin vanished as an inner fire lit his eyes. “The philosophers who wrote the Dictates believe they should rule. They are wrong. The ones who dare should rule.”
“Men should rule themselves,” Marten said.
Yakov snorted. “You’ve fought long enough to know that most men cannot rule themselves. They need others to tell them what to do.”
Marten didn’t want to argue, not now, not with Yakov. Besides, he wasn’t going to change Yakov’s opinion today. And he was learning that maybe only he among humanity knew that freedom for everyone was the greatest prize. The time to preach that would come later. First, humanity had to survive. The people of the Jupiter System had to live through the cyborg assault.
“I just want you to know that I’m staying until we win or die,” Marten said. “If that means going down to Ganymede with a laser carbine, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“You’re too valuable for ground action,” Yakov said.
“Come again?” Marten asked.
“That’s part of your skills. You’ve fought through terrible perils more than once. You know more about Social Unity, the Highborn and possibly the cyborgs than anyone else here does. That knowledge is vital.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because knowledge of your enemy is always vital,” Yakov said.
“Yeah,” Marten nodded, “the HBs have a maxim about that.”
“Who are these HBs?” Yakov asked.
“It’s what the shock troopers called the Highborn.”
Yakov ingested the information before he bent toward the computer desk and began to adjust controls. They had been studying known warship locations.
“The first phase of our strategy is to keep the Guardian warships from attacking Ganymede,” Yakov said.
Marten agreed with a snort, meaning, that was obvious.
The two of them had been carefully studying the strategic situation. It wasn’t just about who had the most ships. Position was critical too.
Marten pointed at the red cluster of the so-called supply vessels that had launched from Athena Station. “This shows us the cyborgs are frightened.”
“An open attack shows that?” asked Yakov.
“Their stealth campaign indicates they would have preferred to strike Callisto with a secret attack. Now, they’ve launched an open strike.”
“Most sensor date indicates they are supply vessels of the Montesquieu-class,” Yakov said.