The two of them had exited a rocket plane and gone through the tube leading to the fortress mansion.

  Dark-skinned Indian security men let them into the same lounge chamber they’d used two and a half years ago. The sunlight, reflecting off Mount Everest, was nearly blinding, the snow sparkling in the high altitude air.

  Elaine Barth sat on a couch. She wore a pantsuit and sunglasses, sipping on a martini, having already eaten the olive. This time, her dark hair hung behind her shoulders. She hadn’t seemed to age from last time, a near miracle given that she was approaching 53 years of age.

  James Petty had put on weight around his waist. He seemed like a complete square-shaped man, his gray hair shorter and with a few more lines in his face. His shoulders didn’t ride as straight as they used to. He’d been under tremendous pressure for years, and it had started to show.

  Diminutive Huber had bags under his bloodshot eyes. The pressure had squished him. He rarely slept more than three hours at a time. He’d lost weight because of endless stomach cramps, and his hands shook when he lifted them. The one difference was his lack of terror in the presence of James Petty and Elaine Barth. He’d worked with them side-by-side for too long to hold them in the awe he used to. Each was dangerous. There was no doubt about that. He saw a little more of their foibles and realized the weight of their responsibilities gradually overwhelmed them, even while giving what they both craved most: power.

  A door opened and Director Anwar Gray entered. He looked years older since last time. His shoulders stooped and it seemed as if his left arm didn’t work very well.

  With a shock, Huber recalled hearing about an assassination attempt against Gray. Had the assassin gotten close enough to injure the great man’s left arm?

  Gray stopped, staring at Petty. At the same time, two of the dark-skinned security men entered the room. They held machine pistols and wore helmets with visors. Each took up station against either side of the door Gray had used.

  “Trouble, Gray?” Petty asked.

  Gray didn’t answer, but continued to stare at Petty.

  The square man blushed, his gaze darting to the two security men.

  “Have a seat,” Gray said abruptly.

  His voice had lost its previous melodious quality, now tinged with a hint of harshness that hadn’t been there two and a half years ago.

  Petty seemed to stagger back and finally collapsed onto the couch. Had fear done that?

  Huber moved to the couch beside it. He’d dealt with James Petty for years now. The man was hard, ruthless and listened when it really mattered. Petty had one unusual aspect to him. He could change his mind about things. In Huber’s estimation, that was a rather rare quality in the powerful, in most people, really.

  Stiffly, Gray shuffled his shoed feet to the last couch. The security men didn’t move from the door. Finally, Gray lowered himself slowly to the couch.

  He has been injured, Huber realized. The assassin appeared to have done more damage than anyone realized.

  Gray eyed Elaine Barth, James Petty and then little Huber.

  Huber felt the power of the man’s mind in that glance. Gray might be hurt, but he was still there, still dominant and domineering.

  “It’s time to face facts,” Gray said. He didn’t sit back against the couch, but straight up. He seemed stiff and uncomfortable.

  “If you’re talking about launching now,” Petty said. “I think that’s a bad idea.”

  Gray scoffed. “Do we have any good ideas left?”

  “Yes,” Elaine Barth said. “We have the two Orion ships nearing Jupiter.”

  Gray stared at her. With a seeming effort of will, he shifted his focus back to Petty. “Why did the Sun Tzu explode? No one has been able to conclusively explain that to me.”

  Petty jerked his thumb. “Have you asked Huber yet?”

  Gray’s eyes widened. “When did you start calling Rumpelstiltskin by his real name?”

  “Oh,” Elaine Barth said, seeming surprised. “You mean Petty is talking about the hideous dwarf? Its name is Huber?”

  “Petty is,” Gray said. “Well?” he asked the square man.

  “Is that a serious question?” asked Petty.

  “Anything I say to you is serious,” Gray said.

  Petty glanced at Huber before regarding Gray again. He shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t rightly know when. It is strange, though, isn’t it? I’ve learned Huber has insights the rest of us miss. He’s brilliant. Is it his fault if nature gave him a crap deal in his little frame? In recompense, he’s a genius without parallel.”

  “I’m stunned you can see that,” Gray said.

  “If you see that,” Petty said, “why do you call him Rumpelstiltskin? You must know he doesn’t like the name.” He turned to Earline Barth. “Or that of hideous dwarf either.”

  Elaine Barth shrugged, sipping her martini. “He’s hired help. We call him what we call him, and he gets paid the big bucks. That’s the end of the matter for me.”

  “Is that your answer, too?” Petty asked the Director.

  “Have a care,” Gray said. “Your life already hangs by a thread.”

  “You think I had a hand with the assassin?” Petty asked.

  “It has crossed my mind,” Gray said ominously.

  If that bothered Petty, it didn’t show. He jerked a thumb at Elaine Barth. “Has she crossed your mind as well?”

  Gray said nothing to that, although his handsome features became stony.

  Elaine Barth took another sip of her martini. Did her hand tremble? It seemed it might.

  “Look, Gray,” Petty said. “An Orion ship blew up. If you think about it, the answer why it happened is obvious. We built them too fast. We expected too much out of them. If two are still working, that’s wonderful. It’s more than I expected at this point.”

  “Then why are you against the next launch?” Gray said.

  “I don’t think we’ve built enough materiel yet to truly hurt the alien Titan base,” Petty said.

  “So?” said Gray.

  Petty frowned.

  “Tell him why that doesn’t matter…Rumpelstiltskin,” Gray said.

  Huber cleared his throat. He still hated the name. He had come to realize, however, that those in power feared his intellect. For some reason, Petty didn’t fear his mind as Gray and Barth did. It was an oddity in Petty’s makeup. Maybe it was due to Petty’s intense desire to win at whatever he worked or played at. That fierce desire transcended anything else. For all his coarse flaws, Petty wanted to know the truth because he believed the truth helped him to win.

  The desire to know truth was a rare thing, especially in the powerful. At least, Huber believed that to be so. In fact, Huber realized he liked that about Petty, as he also wanted to know the truth, no matter where it landed.

  “Are you listening to me, you dwarf?” Gray asked harshly.

  Huber bobbed his head, which was too big. He’d been caught daydreaming. He was surprised at how calm he felt. It was a false front, he knew. Something was very off today. He dearly didn’t want to die. Nor did he want to start crying as he begged for his life. He would, if he thought it would help.

  “I am listening, sir,” Huber said, before turning to address Petty. “I believe Director Gray desires to fix the alien’s attention on Titan with the next launch. We must put the aliens on the horns of a dilemma so that no matter what he chooses, it’s bad.”

  “Okay,” Petty said. “I understand the concept.”

  “That means throw everything we have at Titan this instant,” Gray said. “We affix the heavy missiles to the two new Orion vessels. They head for Jupiter and swing for Titan, accelerating all the way there.”

  “When do the new Orion ships and heavy missiles decelerate?” Petty asked.

  Gray shook his head. “I just told you, they don’t, as they don’t need to. Those Orion ships just have to get the big missiles into position and launch them at Titan.”

  Petty appeared to stare nowhere in particular for a moment. Was he trying to envision that?

  “Have you timed the attack on Titan with the assault against the Neptune generational vessel?” Petty asked.

  “No,” Gray said. “But he has.” He indicated Huber.

  Petty stared at Huber.

  “I ordered him to keep the information from you,” Gray said.

  “Why?” asked Petty.

  “Because I didn’t trust you,” Gray said flatly.

  It only took Petty a moment. He turned sharply, staring at Elaine Barth.

  Did she understand the hidden meaning in Gray’s words or Petty’s reaction? She must have, for she leaned forward, put down her martini on the glass-topped table and picked up her purse, clicking it open as she sat back. She reached a hand in.

  “Now,” Gray said stonily.

  Huber screamed in horror and then hurled himself to the floor.

  The two dark-skinned Indian security men aimed their machine pistols at Elaine Barth and opened fire, riddling her body with bullets as the shooting sounds shook the room. The bullets shredded the couch around her. The men continued firing until their machine pistols clicked empty.

  Huber moved his stubby hands from off his head. He looked up from off the floor as tears streaked down his misshapen face.

  Gray was standing.

  Petty sat waiting, his skin pale and eyes huge. He was obviously frightened and desperately trying not to show it.

  Gray faced him. “Launch the Orion vessels with the attached missiles in two days.”

  “Yes, sir,” Petty said in a hoarse voice.

  “That will be all,” Gray said. The Director turned and walked out the door he’d entered. The security men followed him, closing the door behind.

  Petty was breathing heavily with sweat glistening on his face.

  Huber climbed to his feet, trembling, in shock.

  “Anwar Gray is still in charge of the Earth,” Petty said in an odd way.

  Huber could only nod.

  “Let’s go,” said Petty, who seemed to avoid looking at the bloody remains of Elaine Barth, once beautiful but treacherous.

  Huber still couldn’t form an answer. However, when Petty got up and started walking, Huber stumbled after him, profoundly thankful to still be alive, willing to do anything to keep it that way.

  -59-

  TITAN

  JULY 2063

  Chief Marshal Assur stood on the bridge of the teardrop-shaped Enforcer Enkidu. He had his hands clasped behind his back as he studied the main screen.

  This screen was nothing like the one on the Voyager Akkad. The bridge was less than a quarter of the size of the generational vessel’s huge bridge. Assur missed that bridge. In a way, he missed those easy days of travel.

  The fact he could think of that time as easy travel showed the threat of the Vims and their missiles had diminished in his thinking.

  Assur blinked several times. He’d aged lately, but he still looked good in his black uniform. He had the same blue tinge to his skin but seemed decidedly smaller compared to the Valiants on the bridge with him.

  They were big strong men, much younger than he was. The Valiants—true Valiants—had stern bearings and a soldier quality that he simply couldn’t match no matter how hard he tried.

  Assur saw that better than he used to. He had his mother’s heritage in the genetic mix. That meant he was smaller and more intelligent than the big men around him. He no longer sparred with Valiants during combat training. He wasn’t as strong or as fast as before, and that bothered him.

  Assur sighed.

  After all this time, age was finally creeping up on him. Maybe age had overtaken his mother with a vengeance; she had deteriorated rapidly once before. The immortality serum had fixed that. Now, though, was she losing her mind? Her body wasn’t bad for an ancient crone like her. But her mind wasn’t the same as it used to be. She’d become intensely religious and spiritual, saying the shrine of the Akkad—that was instead of calling it an Interstellar Voyager or a generational vessel—had made contact with the old gods of home.

  What did the old gods want? Assur had asked her that the last time he’d spoken to her.

  “They want Earth,” Ningal said. “They want to settle on a living world, not remain in these steel coffins we call spaceships.”

  Assur had ended the conversation after that. Despite the two nuclear pulse propulsion warships heading for Neptune, Ningal refused to relocate the Akkad.

  “Those Earth ships will not harm us,” Ningal had said. “The old gods will protect us from them.” She had added, “We have better weaponry and plan to use aerosols in a way that will surely confound them.”

  Assur and the sensor operators on Titan had combed everything they could find from radio and TV programs about Earth’s war technology. The nuclear pulse propulsion warships had come as a rude shock. After a time, however, Valiant technologists had shown Assur reassuring videos concerning human tech.

  The Earthlings possessed magnetic railguns, second-generation lasers and chemically fueled rockets with nuclear warheads. The sensor operators had found nothing to indicate the Earthlings used blocking substances, like aerosols, in space during a battle or possessed useful particle beam technology.

  Assur stared at the screen on the Enkidu’s bridge. It showed him the two new nuclear pulse propulsion warships leaving the vicinity of Earth’s gravitational influence. The two vessels headed for Jupiter just as the first two had done.

  Assur inhaled slowly.

  The first two warships had neared Jupiter, gaining velocity as the gas giant’s immense gravity drew them to it. The humans had used Jupiter’s moving energy to propel the spacecraft faster after they left the gas giant.

  The move was smart for two reasons. It had concealed their target all this time. The maneuver had caused the warships to fly faster than ever, which meant combat would come sooner than before.

  The first two Earth warships headed for Neptune. Would the next two warships do likewise, or would they slingshot at Saturn? Saturn was many times closer to Jupiter than Neptune was. From Jupiter to Saturn now was 622 million kilometers. The distance from Jupiter to Neptune was 3.733 billion kilometers. Those were vast differences.

  Assur nodded, knowing he needed to make his dispositions. He didn’t need to do it this very moment, but he had to decipher the humans’ intention and then give his orders. His forces had to be in place when the Earthlings struck.

  Assur rubbed his chin. This seemed strange to him, the attack upon the Akkad at Neptune. The real Valiant power was around Saturn on Titan. Yes, the Valiants could escape on the Akkad if events turned against them. But from what Assur had seen so far, he could win this war. Work on a dreadnought had already begun. Maybe he should have ordered smaller warships constructed first. Assur hadn’t believed the humans could or would mount a threat against Titan. Now, it was too late to make the change. In other words, he needed to finish what he’d started in the dreadnought.

  Yes, he could stop work on the big warship and construct smaller enforcers. But the change in designs in the factories—at the present rate, he’d get the dreadnought a year later than an enforcer. Better to get the game changer.

  What would I do if I were in the humans’ place?

  Assur supposed the question was this. Why would the humans try for the Akkad? It was not the chief threat. Could the humans not see that? If the Valiants lost the Akkad, they would lose a historically important vessel. It would be bad for morale. They could no longer leave the solar system then. But Assur had no intention of leaving. When he finished constructing the dreadnought, he would approach Earth with it and the Enkidu. He would sweep every human vessel and satellite from Earth orbit. He would then hold the high ground and begin to destroy with dropped asteroids any dangerous industrial sites on Earth.

  That would give him victory in time. The key to all this, Assur believed, was to lock down the humans on their planet as fast as possible. Yes, the humans would launch many missiles at him from the Earth’s surface. But with the high position above the planet’s gravity well—

  Assur smirked. If he could get the dreadnought and Enkidu to Earth, the war would be effectively over. Then it would be a matter of depopulating the planet and waiting for Valiant population to increase enough so he could go down and put boots on the surface.

  What if both Earth task forces headed for Neptune? Could that jeopardize his plans?

  Assur smiled, shaking his head. No. That would be the best of all possible outcomes given the present situation. The Akkad could destroy both task forces one at a time. The particle beam weaponry of the generational vessel combined with the aerosols, magnetic ram scoop, which could act as a defensive screen—

  Assur shook his head once more. He could not foresee the human vessels destroying the Akkad. The Interstellar Voyager also had several smaller spaceships to help with the greater defense.

  Could the humans have a surprise weapon in store? Could the warships be vast bombs that would slam into the Akkad to annihilate it?

  That would be a Vim strategy.

  Hmm… Was it time to talk directly to the Earthlings?

  Assur shook his head. The mind specialists were still studying human psychology. The Valiants wanted greater understanding of their enemy before they opened direct talks.

  It would have been better if the Akkad were in the Saturn region. However, moving the generational vessel now might be too dangerous.

  Assur frowned as he studied the screen. Where did the two new pulse propulsion warships head? Clearly, they would use Jupiter to slingshot for the Akkad or for Titan.

  Assur snapped his fingers. He should have seen this from the start. His strategists should have seen this.

  He turned and went to an empty station. There, he began to input numbers, velocities and distances. Soon, he nodded.

  The two new warships would slingshot at Titan, as they would likely reach the general area of Saturn as the first human task force reached Neptune.

  So, that was the enemy strategy. They were hitting both places at the same or similar time instead of concentrating their efforts.