She alone of all the cyborgs awaiting their turn for the obviously painful chemical shower showed a different pose. OD12 cocked her elongated head and her mask-like face betrayed little of the horror the memory slammed home into her controlled thoughts.

  She remembered laying on a conveyor. A hellish shock had awoken her, and she had torn a muscle causing horrendous pain. A chemical mist had drifted onto her face, and she’d heard harsh klaxons shrieking. Despite extreme lethargy, she’d moved her head to the side and had screamed as she’d stared at the dead face of the commander of IH-49. Others had lain beyond the commander on the moving conveyer and had been sprayed with the fine, orange mist.

  OD12 remembered the moment because her worst fear had been played out. Life was rigged against her. The extreme paranoia that had told her she could never win was one hundred percent accurate. She’d tried to move off the conveyor. A long mechanical arm with a needle attached to the end had descended toward her. She’d tried to thrash away from it. Instead, the hypo had touched her flesh and hissed, pumping something into her. She’d fought to keep her eyes open and had failed horribly.

  As she stood in line with the other cyborgs, OD12’s head cocked a bit more. She recalled many years of combat training. She had been to a hundred planets in a thousand varied situations. At least, the combat simulations inside the Web-Mind had seemed like real years.

  Her nearly lifeless eyes tightened—that tightening was close to being an anomaly. It triggered the programming in her internal computer.

  Warning, OD12!

  The computer warning caused her to blink. Her self-awareness might have curled up and died the death of inertia and terror. This deep part was the “I” of OD12… of Osadar Di.

  Warning! Your emotions have increased adrenal secretions. Emotive responses above the accepted norms will result in an immediate shutdown and a possible personality scrub.

  Osadar Di understood perfectly. She was screwed. She’d never had a chance, really. It wasn’t fair. But then, life was a crapshoot where all the odds were stacked against you. It was the norm for her. She’d always known it. Look at her. She was a monster, a mechanical thing with a slave driver to control not only her actions, but also her thoughts. If that wasn’t the ultimate screw-job, she didn’t know what was.

  Emergency procedure twenty-seven: select from tempo, highdrox and nullity-4.

  Osadar was faintly aware she heard more from her computer than she should. It was choosing from certain drugs to inject into her bloodstream. Yes, as the drugs began to work the grim horror gripping her began to fade. Unfortunately, the memory also began to recede with the lessening terror.

  Osadar—no, she was OD12. She belonged to the Web-Mind. She was a component of the grand scheme of Solar System conquest. This was part of Step Nine, whatever that meant.

  A tiny twitch of her cyborg lips escaped the notice of the computer’s censor program.

  She hadn’t known she’d become a cyborg or a part of Web-Mind, but she had always known that eventually she’d become immersed in something vile and irresistible.

  Yet, that was her quirk. Despite the odds, she’d always resisted. Did that make her foolish? Sometimes she had thought so. The deep “I” of OD12 decided to play along for now. She believed she could have resisted enough to enter shutdown and maybe even gotten herself personality scrubbed. But she didn’t want to be scrubbed. She wanted to survive. She wanted to screw the thing that had screwed her. That was part of who OD12 was, just as it was part of her to know she ultimately couldn’t win.

  Maybe the hardened understanding of the futility of life gave her the needed mental resources to kick against the perfected cyborg reconditioning. Maybe it was just a quirk of fate. Maybe even the Web-Mind and precise cyborg superiority failed sometimes.

  The reality was that OD12 stepped toward the chemical shower with the rest of the line of cyborgs. She entered the cubicle in turn and felt the chemical spray sear her skin and make her scalp prickle as if sprayed with jets of flame. She was enslaved like all the other cyborgs. She would perform her tasks. But she would also plot in the depth of her half-mechanical heart to throw a laser calibrator into Step Nine of the Web-Mind’s plan of conquest.

  ***

  After the preparatory shower, OD12 and the other cyborgs in her battle pod entered another shutdown sequence. After her delivery to an SU ship and under Toll Seven’s guidance, SU military personnel lifted her stiff form and inserted it into a battlesuit. The personnel used lifters and inserted her and the suit into an attack pod loaded with weapons. Other lifters set the pod into an ice machine. The ice machine sprayed water around the pod, hardened the water into ice and sprayed more water until the pod resembled a large chunk of ice. Once done, the ice machine secreted the frozen chunk onto another lifter.

  An SU sergeant drove the blackened ice chunk to an encasing processor. There, a thin steel coat encased the ice with the frozen cyborg in its exact center. The steel-jacketed ice-chunk was shipped to a select vessel that possessed a single cannon.

  The cannon was a mass driver. It used magnetic coils to accelerate metal to high speeds. Normally, this was a mine-laying warship. Those mines possessed radar capability, electronic counter measure devices and a nuclear explosive. When an enemy vessel approached the decided limit, the mine exploded. The nuclear bomb pumped X-rays through rods, directing the deadly radiation at the computer-selected target.

  Instead of normal mines, however, the mass driver would use its magnetic coils to accelerate the steel-jacketed, precisely sized ice-chunks.

  As the crew readied its mass driver, Commodore Blackstone stood with Toll Seven in the command center of the Vladimir Lenin. As before, they stood around the holographic module. This time it showed several of the convoy spaceships, squat vessels drifting at the outer edge of the Battlefleet. Those spaceships were nearest Mars. At a quiet order from Blackstone, passed along by the communications officer, the squat vessels began to spew aerosols into space. It was a thin shield placed between Mars, its moons, the space-defense platforms, and the bulk of the Battlefleet. The aerosol density was miniscule, little more than a mist. A laser would burn through in a nanosecond. An enemy missile wouldn’t even know the aerosol screen existed.

  The aerosol screen was a precaution. Ever since the Doom Star had vacated the Mars System and as the SU warships began to congregate, the Rebel sensor probes and satellites aimed on this side of Mars had been destroyed. That left the radar stations on the two moons and on the space platforms in near-Mars orbit. Those sites possessed teleoptic equipment. The Martians and the SU Battlefleet closely watched each other through powerful telescopes. The aerosols spewing from the squat convoy vessels now put a temporary screen between those teleoptic systems and Social Unity’s painfully gathered warships.

  The aerosol screen wouldn’t last long. But then, it didn’t have to. Already, SU warships and cyborg battle pods began to change positions into a different formation. The aerosol screen was not meant to mask this change. Instead, once the aerosols drifted apart and the fleet moved beyond the screen, the Martians would no doubt redouble their efforts studying the Battlefleet. The new formation would hopefully satisfy their curiosity. The Martians would hopefully debate for several days what it meant. By that time, the true reason for the aerosol screen would have made itself known.

  “The aerosol screen is up, sir,” the communications officer told Blackstone.

  The Commodore took a deep breath and glanced at Toll Seven. The cyborg impassively watched the holograph.

  Blackstone adjusted the module. It now showed the mine-spewing warship, the Kim Philby. It was hard to accept the plan. It seemed impossible.

  Blackstone heard himself ask, “You’re certain we’re not sending your cyborgs to a futile death?”

  It was difficult to tell, but Toll Seven seemed amused. “Supreme Commander Hawthorne approved the tactic. He must understand as I do that it will work flawlessly.”

  Could cyborgs know pride? “Very well,” Blackstone muttered. He spoke to the communications officer. “Order the initiation of Operation Icebreaker.”

  Aboard the Kim Philby, its captain received Blackstone’s order. She sat at the edge of her chair, with her clenched fist near her chin. “Are the coordinates perfect?”

  “The cyborgs seem to think so, sir,” the First Gunner answered.

  “This will never work,” the captain said. She was a tall woman, known as a perfectionist. “Begin.”

  “Fire one,” the First Gunner said.

  The fusion engines kicked in as power flowed through the mass driver’s magnetic coils. The first steel-jacketed ice-chunk shot out of the cannon at almost two kilometers per second. It headed for a precise location at something near three times the speed of a fired bullet. After a mere two seconds, the steel jacket exploded off the ice like a saboted gyroc round. That accelerated the ice-coated pod, pushing it even closer to two kilometers per second.

  One after another, the Kim Philby shot the steel-jacketed ice-pods. The steel was obviously needed for the magnetic coils to “grab” the pod and give it velocity. But that was all the steel was needed for.

  After a short travel time, the first ice-pod reached the limit of the Battlefleet’s farthest ship. The pod then sped through the screening aerosol mist. Some aerosol mist pitted some of the ice-pods, but not enough to deflect the trajectory or destroy the cyborgs embedded deep within.

  Because no explosive power had been used to expel the ice-coated pods, Martian detection equipment had nothing to pick up. Steel bounced radar, so the steel jackets had been shed before the pods reached the aerosol screen. Radar had a much harder time detecting ice. Ice was cool, so there would be no heat signature to give the approaching pods away. Ice was also a common element found in space in the form of ice comets, ice asteroids and even ice rings and ice moons. Teleoptic scopes could pick up pods. Thus, the ice was black and it would not bounce light well. So, teleoptic scopes would have a nearly impossible time sighting the chunks. Compared against the backdrop behind them—the vastness of space—the individual pods were less than pinpricks.

  The ice-coated pods were part of an elaborate stealth attack. The first barrage targeted Phobos, the deadliest component of the Martian space defense. A second barrage would soon blast at Deimos. Given the speed of two kilometers per second and a distance of something over 350,000 kilometers, the pods would reach Phobos in 42.69 hours, almost two full Earth days.

  Supreme Commander Hawthorne’s operational plan called for the quick capture of the two moons. He also wanted to capture them without paying a heavy price in SU warships. Social Unity needed those warships for the true fight, the Doom Stars that would surely come in time.

  Toll Seven’s refinement was the ice-coated pods and the scanty numbers sent at each target. The slender number of cyborgs meant fewer pods. Fewer pods meant a greater chance of stealth success. But could forty-five cyborgs really capture heavily armored Phobos?

  As Commodore Blackstone stared at the holographic map, watching the Kim Philby fire the barrage, he had grave doubts. Blackstone had also come to believe that killing cyborgs might be more important than killing Highborn. He had stopped taking Commissar Kursk’s drugs. It had lowered his rage, but it had made him think more about his ex-wife. It had also made him many times more afraid of Toll Seven. And the worst thing about that was that the cyborg surely knew it.

  -13-

  Lisa Aster sensed her opportunity two hours before the second barrage of cyborgs was fired at Deimos.

  Through General Fromm’s manipulation, Lisa found herself working a lifter alone in the second ice-coating ship. She moved stiff cyborgs to the battlesuits.

  Her plan was simple, so Lisa wondered why she felt so nervous. This would be safer than her game of waiting on the ceiling for deceleration to begin.

  Lisa braked the lifter and jumped off. She hurried around the magnetic forks. The cyborgs lay in a line on her lift. They looked like mannequins. If one of them had twitched just then, Lisa would have screamed. Fortunately, they stayed as stiff, cold and still as the dead. She took a spy-monitor from her belt and hesitated. Lisa didn’t want to touch their dead flesh, or their cool metallic parts. These things couldn’t be alive.

  Lisa swallowed hard and told herself she was the Blanche-Aster now. She was here because the cyborgs had destroyed one of her sisters and had likely caused Mother’s death.

  Resolved, Lisa reached behind a cyborg’s head and attached the spy-monitor to the base of the neck. The monitor was made of chameleon-skin, and it would look like just like the cyborg’s armored flesh. Lisa shivered as her fingers touched cyborg skin. It was warm, and that seemed horrible. She backed away, staring at the dead-seeming thing. It was actually alive, if frozen now.

  Feeling eyes on her, Lisa whirled around, and she yelped in fear.

  Massive Toll Seven stared at her.

  “What did you do?” Toll Seven asked in his strange voice.

  “There… there was something on a cyborg’s face,” Lisa said. “I wiped it off.”

  “Give the something to me,” Toll Seven said.

  The clone Lisa Aster began to tremble. That made her angry. She had been the Madam Blanche-Aster’s bodyguard. The cyborgs had done something to Rita Tan. Rita had done something to Mother. So, this cyborg here was part of the cabal that had slain Mother Blanche-Aster.

  Lisa put her hand on the hilt of a hidden vibroblade. “I have to get these cyborgs to the battlesuits.”

  “You will give me the thing you took off the cyborg.”

  It dawned on Lisa that there was no way Toll Seven should be here. It meant that somehow her role had been compromised. The only one who knew her objective was General Fromm. Had the cyborg already gotten to Fromm? With a sick feeling, Lisa wondered if the cyborgs were superior to Highborn. If that were true, then the cyborgs should be able to outthink mere Homo sapiens.

  “Show me this thing,” Toll Seven said ominously.

  “Yes,” Lisa said. She meekly approached the big cyborg. He waited with his metal hand open. Lisa stepped closer yet. With her thumb, she switched on the vibroblade as she drew it.

  The vibroblade was a deadly close-combat device. It vibrated a thousand times a second, making the motion invisible to the human eye. It allowed the blade to slice metal with ease. It should have the capacity to cut armored cyborg flesh.

  Lisa slashed at the hand before her, sheering off three fingers as zapping-sounds and sparks emitted from the shorn digits. The sheered finger-parts hit the deck like lead shot. Lisa stabbed, and the tip sank into the armored body. Then Toll Seven chopped. Lisa moaned as her wrist snapped. She staggered away. The cyborg drew the knife from his chest, and he crushed the hilt so the blade quit vibrating.

  “Stay away from me!” Lisa shouted. She groped left-handed for a communicator.

  Toll Seven lifted his good hand and pointed a finger at her. Something flew out of the tip and hit Lisa in the chest. She stared down and saw it was a dart. She looked back up at Toll Seven. Then Lisa’s legs crumpled, and she was falling. She opened her mouth as waves of nullity washed over her.

  The last thing she remembered was Toll Seven lifting her and carrying her.

  ***

  For five days, Marten and Omi had trained ten carefully selected security personnel.

  In that gym five days ago, Marten had spoken with each assassin in turn, asking random questions. He’d stared into their eyes, searching for indefinable qualities. It had been more than a gut feeling. If anything, he’d searched for a core of stubbornness and a sense of calling, of duty. All the men had killed before. Some had shot PHC police in the back. Some had stepped up and stared PHC officers down as their needler sprayed its deadly slivers. Others had beaten traitors to death with their fists, held fast by other enforcers. None of the chosen team members were pleasant. With more than a few, Marten had Omi engage them in hand-to-hand combat. None of them could match the Korean’s skills or withstand his Earth-powered strength.

  During those short bouts, Marten had searched each man’s reaction to his defeat. Only two security men had the fortitude to drag themselves back up each time. One had snarled and charged fiercely, only to land on his back a second, third and fourth time. The other one had picked himself up slowly, glaring at Omi and then ploddingly circled the Korean yet again, trying to pierce Omi’s deadly martial arts. Those two, Gutierrez and Rojas, were now squad leaders.

  Ten men, plus Omi and he, were enough to fill three skimmers. Three skimmers loaded with long-range gyroc rifles could hit hard and fast and do some real damage to the strike-craft parked on an airfield.

  The first three days, Marten used his Highborn training, speaking HB battle maxims, and showing each man a critical trick. On the fourth day, he took out the open-topped skimmers and practiced raids. On the fifth day, they bounded out of the skimmers in their environmental suits and hit the red Martian sand. Each man fired his gyroc rifle at distant targets that Marten had set up the previous day.

  The gyroc rifle was an interesting weapon. It fired a .75 caliber spin-stabilized rocket shell. After leaving the rifle barrel, the rocket ignited, giving the bullet the majority of its speed. The rifle acted like a recoilless weapon, which meant that even though it fired high-caliber bullets, it was of light construction and didn’t slam the shooter each time and thus wear him out. The various rounds meant that gyrocs were highly versatile.

  The Armor Piercing Explosive round (APEX) had a big motor and a heavy projectile. There were shrapnel rounds that acted like a line-of-sight mortar, a smart rocket that could fly around objects, and sabot rounds where the outer shell burned off to add deadly velocity against hardened targets.

  Marten watched the men, shouted corrections into their helmet’s headphones, and cursed their stupidity. He raged at their Martian weakness and the impossibility of achieving anything with morons like them. He used the techniques used on him in the Free Earth Corps boot camp by the HB.