The extended sleep, mental rest and utter lack of everything but the physical pressure of acceleration slowly restored some of Hawthorne’s energy. He began to wander the long, curving halls of the battleship. After a week, he attempted limited exercises, which improved his appetite. He knew of an old German proverb: Eating builds appetite. In his case, it proved true.
His curiosity began to stir again, although it wasn’t about the situation on Earth. Whenever anyone tried to talk to him about the SU civil war, he blanked out. It didn’t matter to him anymore. People soon knew to avoid the topic.
Slowly, Hawthorne became curious about Neptune, the planet, the system and the cyborg defenses there.
Neptune was the last regular planet of the Solar System. Pluto—along with several others like Ceres in the Asteroid Belt—was considered a dwarf planet. On average, Neptune was about four-point-five billion kilometers from the Sun, or a little over thirty AUs away. Light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second. That meant it took a ray of light roughly four hours and sixteen minutes to travel from the Sun to Neptune. The Vladimir Lenin would make the trip in a little over eight months, accelerating, coasting and then decelerating once near enough. Neptune’s orbit was so large that it took 165 years for it to complete one circuit around the Sun.
The planetary system had been known for its shameless capitalists. That had been one of the reasons the secret cyborg prototypes had been built there. Everyone knew that capitalism produced vast inequalities as cunning men exploited the proletariat. Yet for some strange reason, it also produced a glut of creativity and a vast amount of goods. The work had proceeded faster there than it ever had on Earth. The cyborgs had been a secret plan gone awry, and it seemed the capitalists had been the first to pay the bitter price of their success.
What had the cyborgs of Neptune done to prepare against invasion?
The problem began to prey upon Hawthorne. He spent more time reading the computer files. Soon, he began prowling through the Vladimir Lenin, reacquainting himself with the Zhukov-class Battleship. It had size, thick particle-shielding and powerful lasers able to fire one hundred thousand kilometers. That was an impressive range until one compared them against a Doom Star.
We’ve beaten Doom Stars with these, he told himself in his room. Now we’re fighting with Doom Stars.
Several months into the journey, he knocked on the Commodore’s wardroom door.
“Enter,” Blackstone said.
Hawthorne found the Commodore behind his desk, studying his screen.
“What brings you here?” Blackstone asked, sitting back in his chair.
Hawthorne took a seat as he glanced around. The quarters were Spartan, with an old dagger hanging on a wall.
The former Supreme Commander had changed since boarding. He no longer stooped, but stood straight. The bags under his eyes had returned to a flesh tone and almost disappeared. It left the flesh wrinkly there, but less than it could have been, as he’d put on weight. The biggest difference was in his eyes. They weren’t as haunted or as guilt-ridden.
He avoided thinking about the millions of innocent civilians murdered by his nuclear missiles. It had been his decision. He would never shy away from that. But it had been forced upon him. If he had done nothing, Social Unity would have fallen to the Highborn. It had been an act of desperation, but necessary nonetheless.
“James?” Blackstone asked.
Hawthorne cleared his throat. “What do we know about the cyborgs and the Neptune System?”
Blackstone’s eyes widened. Then he grinned.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hawthorne asked.
“You’re back, and none too soon. Mandela and I are having trouble with the Highborn. We can’t decide what to do about it. Now I know.”
Hawthorne waited.
Blackstone’s grin increased. “We hand the decision over to you.”
Something passed through James Hawthorne. It began in his eyes, tightening the skin of his face. After a second, he nodded. “It means I’m back in command?”
“Yes,” Blackstone said. “That’s exactly what it means.”
“Good,” Hawthorne said. “Tell me about the Highborn and then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it.”
-4-
While Hawthorne and Blackstone debated about the Highborn, Marten Kluge clung to the back of Osadar’s chair. He watched the sensor screen, trying to figure out what was going on around the SU missile-ship.
The William Tell and its companion boat moved silently through space. They had been en route toward the Sun for months, following the five-nine coordinates. Silent running with ears wide and eyes peeled, they looked, listened and measured everything with the mass detector, teleoptics and neutrino tracker.
The void or the space between the Inner Planets was a vast volume. A single ship, a fleet of thirty ships, was still a tiny speck. Finding a quiet enemy vessel was like hunting for a particular piece of plankton in the Atlantic Ocean. Engines burning hot made everything easier in terms of sensors. Unfortunately, the closer to the Sun, the more radiation there was. That blanketed many of the sensors, making it increasingly difficult to pick-up otherwise obvious readings.
With the missile-ship, Marten had known where to head and look. It made a critical difference.
Indicating her screen, Osadar said, “Someone is using jamming electronics, which is affecting my readings.”
Because of the patrol boats’ low speed, they were still days from the missile-ship. It was a big vessel with particle-shielding and fast fusion engines. It was a distance-fighter, shooting missiles or drones and then moving to a new location.
“One of the shield-masses appears to be destroyed,” Osadar said. “That indicates a surprise strike or a sudden and vast strike. Otherwise, the missile-ship crew would have rotated shields until all were equally worn down.”
A cold feeling worked up Marten’s spine. He began counting Highborn shuttles. They appeared to be the same size as the Mayflower, the captured shuttle he’d used to fly to the Mars and Jupiter Systems. Each shuttle could ferry eighty Highborn in comfort.
“I count four,” Marten said. “Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to defeat a missile-ship, not unless the crew let the Highborn aboard.”
“Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to in a stand-up fight,” Osadar agreed. “I can’t spot any damage to the shuttles, but the jamming could be blocking that. I don’t see anything unusual on visual. We have to take into account there could be more shuttles on the other side of the missile-ship. Or maybe there’s something else besides a shuttle hiding there.”
With his fingers, Marten squeezed the back of Osadar’s chair. He’d been counting on the missile-ship. The idea of cruising to the Sun Station in the patrol boats while wearing combat-armor…there were better ways to commit suicide, faster ways than radiation poisoning.
“Why are they jamming?” he asked.
“The obvious reason would be to keep any signals from leaving the missile-ship,” Osadar said, “including distress signals or a file about what happened out here.”
“Four Highborn shuttles, a destroyed shield to the SU warship and jamming,” Marten said. “The implication is clear: the Highborn have captured the missile-ship or they are in the process of capturing it.”
A frown appeared on Osadar’s senso-mask. “I hope you are not envisioning another of your mad schemes.”
“We have two patrol boats and a little over eighty space marines.”
“Poor odds against Highborn,” Osadar said. “There are potentially more Highborn than Jovians.”
“Maybe,” Marten said. “Our ace card is that we see them and they don’t see us.”