General Fromm had asked a last question via Web-link. Toll Seven answered. Web-Mind then informed him that General Fromm had unplugged from the link and was returning to his place on the Vladimir Lenin’s bridge.

  Several days would pass now as the Doom Stars approached. Likely ,the genetic super-soldiers would continue to fire their heavy lasers at targets of opportunity.

  A strange reaction surged through Web-Mind. It caused Toll Seven to stiffen because he was linked via the wireless headband. He felt Web-Mind’s emotions and sensed that soothing chemicals poured along the wafer-thin bio-sheets. The great bio-brain entity knew a moment of uncertainty. Was it possible that its secret plan would fail in the face of the Highborn? Web-Mind wished for continued existence. Its location above Mars as camouflaged debris—

  Then the soothing chemicals softened the unease, and Web-Mind began to reconfigure its strategies and coming tactics. No single entity could outthink it. The Master Plan would surge ahead, and the Mars Gravitational System would fall to Web-Mind. It was inevitable. If only this waiting period could be sped up.

  “The wait will unhinge the Highborn more than it can possibly disturb us,” Toll Seven interjected.

  Both Web-Mind and Toll Seven understood the truth of that. Still, the wait for unperceived possibilities to interfere with the smooth application of the Master Plan was difficult. Only time would bring an end to that.

  -11-

  The Doom Stars bore toward Mars as the heavy lasers swept Deimos with brutal destruction. Belatedly, the commander there began pumping chaff and prismatic-crystals before the moon. Then all the moon’s missiles were launched at the Doom Stars.

  With contemptuous ease, the Doom Stars targeted and destroyed them. The heavy lasers swept through the thin PC-Fields and continued their systemic obliteration of anything that appeared dangerous on Deimos.

  Deimos was the smaller moon, with the greater orbit. Phobos was larger and closer to Mars. At Commodore Blackstone’s orders, supply ships added their prismatic-crystals to what Phobos poured into a field before itself. The PC-Field was of small width but great thickness, and absorbed the heavy lasers for several hours a day. Then it orbited back around Mars and was safe for another cycle from the terrible lasers.

  To the Highborn, Mars began to take on greater size. When the Doom Stars were approximately 250,000 kilometers from the Red Planet, Grand Admiral Cassius opened a channel with admirals of the Hannibal Barca and the Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “In twenty-four hours at the earliest,” Cassius said, “our ships will be in range of the battleships. We must assume they will form a fighting circle and attempt to attack en masse against one Doom Star.”

  “Which side of Mars do you think they will choose to appear around?” asked Admiral Brutus of the Hannibal Barca.”

  “I am a fighting man, not a magician,” Grand Admiral Cassius said. “But it would be logical to assume they will try to shield themselves behind Phobos as it orbits into view.”

  “I would think the other side,” Admiral Brutus said. “They will expect us to believe they will use Phobos as a shield and then do the opposite for a surprise effect.”

  “That hardly amounts to a tactical surprise,” Grand Admiral Cassius said.

  “I expect their surprise to be similar to the 10 May attack, and to their recent breakout from Earth,” Admiral Brutus said.

  “A mass assault?” asked Cassius. “Yes. I agree. They will use full laser batteries and launch masses of missiles at short range. They will hope to crash through with tonnage instead of with guile. Yet, they will have a true surprise for us.”

  “You still insist upon that, Grand Admiral?”

  “Logic dictates it.”

  “As you say—”

  “The premen are rash and prone to wild panics,” Cassius said. “But their highest officers have a modicum of ability. They will not have used their last fleet to lure us unless they believed they could win. That mandates a surprise.”

  “The moons—” Brutus tried to say.

  “Surely constituted part of their surprise,” Cassius said. “Their fierce defense of Phobos shows that, as does their former military formation. Remember, gentlemen, both moons show a continual face toward Mars. We have not damaged the Mars-facing side of Deimos.”

  “I thought the asteroid-busters—”

  “Admiral Gaius, Admiral Brutus,” Cassius said, “I am implementing Attack Plan 27. I gather that each of you gentlemen is familiar with the outlines of it…”

  Grand Admiral Cassius continued to speak as the majestic Doom Stars moved toward Mars. Then the admirals began to debate the finer points of Attack Plan 27. The great victory over the final premen space-fleet of Inner Planets was about to enter the annihilation phase.

  -12-

  A naked Commissar Kursk knelt behind an equally naked Commodore Blackstone. He sat up. She rubbed his shoulders and occasionally ran her fingers across the back of his bald head.

  “We can’t win,” Blackstone whispered.

  “Hush,” Kursk whispered, leaning against him as she draped her arms around his neck.

  “They swatted us like flies. Three battleships and two missile-ships—destroyed like that.” Blackstone snapped his fingers. “Twenty other vessels are dead.”

  “They had greater range,” Kursk whispered in his ear. “Now they are closing in. Now our weapons can come into play. If you can lure them near the proton beam—”

  “These are Highborn,” Blackstone said.

  Kursk tightened her grip around him as her breasts flattened against his back. “I forbid you to fear,” she whispered.

  He clutched one of her wrists. “Is this technique in your PHC training manual?”

  “As a matter of fact…” she said, nibbling on his ear.

  Blackstone had responded earlier. Now, this felt too much like the last request of a dead man. Instead of a meal, he had taken the Commissar. He had wanted to take her for so long. Now… now he felt as if he’d betrayed his ex-wife. The Highborn were superior. The cyborgs and Toll Seven’s plan would fail.

  Blackstone tightened his grip on Commissar Kursk’s wrist just the same. In his gut, he knew that death waited. But he was a fighting man, a fighting officer. He had to show a brave front. If nothing else, he had to die well. He could show his crew how to do that. Yes, he would not shout and rave as last time. This time, he was going to kill at least one Doom Star. To kill all the Doom Stars seemed impossible, but at least they could take down one of those damned super-ships.

  He turned around, catching Commissar Kursk by surprise. His decision to die well gave him a resumed appetite.

  “Where were we,” he murmured as he kissed her.

  Amazingly, she giggled. It seemed like an unnatural sound considering the nearness of the Doom Stars. But maybe that was the sound of life. If they could kill one Doom Star, maybe that meant that someday in the future man would rise again against the nine-foot supermen. Blackstone didn’t know. Instead, he pushed the Commissar onto her back as his hands roved over her thighs, and he tried to enjoy a final moment of love before oblivion claimed him forever.

  -13-

  Marten stood alone on the windswept sands of Mars. Behind him over a large dune were the EVA tents, skimmers and plasma cannons.

  It was night, with the stars bright in the cloudless sky. Phobos sailed serenely through the blackness, to him, half the size of Luna as seen on Earth. It was hard to believe that outside Mars’ atmosphere waited the SU Battlefleet. Beyond them came the Doom Stars full of arrogant Highborn, which meant arrogant Training Masters, battleoids and super-soldiers with unnatural vitality and the lust to kill.

  Something alerted Marten then. He turned and watched an EVA-suited Omi trudge toward him. He knew the Korean’s stride. Omi shouldered a gyroc rifle and had a grenade-launching carbine dangling from his hip.

  Marten pointed in the far distance at the giant volcano of Olympus Mons. It dominated the dark landscape. The majestic mountain was uniquely Martian, a thing of towering awe and splendorous beauty. This was a strange, dead world, similar to the ocean on Earth with its life underground.

  “Tomorrow,” Omi said over his comm-unit.

  “You have word on the Doom Stars?”

  “Major Diaz did,” Omi said, “from Chavez. He wants to talk to you.”

  Marten shrugged. Everything seemed peaceful tonight. Olympus Mons, the red sands, it was beautiful. The wind never stopped blowing. He wondered if he would miss Mars.

  Omi and he stood side by side in silence, staring up at the stars.

  “It’s up there,” Marten said, breaking the calm. Both of them knew he meant the Mayflower.

  “Did you try another signal?” Omi asked.

  “I’m not pushing my luck more than I need to,” Marten said.

  “Since when did you decide that?”

  “We can’t stay on Mars,” Marten said.

  “Never said we should,” Omi replied. “I’m just saying that your supply of luck ran out a long time ago. You’re living on borrowed time.”

  “That’s the trick.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Omi said.

  “I’ve already borrowed more luck than I can ever hope to repay,” Marten said. “Knowing that, I’ve decided to push it and borrow even more. The bank is open as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What’s a bank?” Omi asked.

  “It’s like a loan shark.”

  “Got it,” Omi said. “You’re not worried about an enforcer like me coming along and demanding repayment because you’re too high on DD.”

  “What did Chavez want?” Marten asked.

  “More diplomatic jargon,” Omi said. “None of it made any sense to me. I think what he really wants is the commandos back in New Tijuana.”

  Marten turned toward Omi and stared at his friend’s visor. All he saw was a dark reflection of himself, with his own EVA helmet and suit.

  “It’s time we moved closer to Olympus Mons,” Marten said.

  “As he listened to Chavez over the radio, Major Diaz looked pretty thoughtful,” Omi said. “He might not agree with you.”

  “Yeah,” Marten said. “We’ll see.” He began trudging through the red sands back to camp.

  -14-

  “Help us!” a colonel screamed. “Can anybody hear me? They’re pounding us with missiles and beaming everywhere. Commodore Blackstone! Captain Vargas! Please, somebody answer. Somebody—”

  A boom sounded over the comm-link. There were the noises of things crashing and then came hissing static. It was a terrible and accusing sound.

  “Shut it off,” Blackstone whispered.

  Belatedly, the Vladimir Lenin’s communications officer snapped forward and broke the link with Deimos. The Mars-facing side of the tiny moon had been under Highborn attack for the past half-hour.

  Commodore Blackstone’s hands were slick with sweat. His dry mouth tasted like bile. As if he were attending a funeral, he wore his black uniform with its row of medals. He also wore his officer’s cap at its regulation angle. On the map-module where he rested his hands was the image of the great mass of Mars, the curvature of it. The flock of specks was the SU Battlefleet. For the past three days, the fleet had remained behind Mars in relation to the terrible Doom Stars. Now the Doom Stars had braked again, and they were in near orbit, hunting for the Battlefleet.

  The grim silence on the bridge was like a psychic weight.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Commissar Kursk whispered.

  Blackstone savagely wiped his eyes. This entire plan had been madness. Now he had let the personnel on Deimos die because otherwise his one chance to hurt the Highborn—

  Blackstone’s head snapped up. Listening to those pleas had broken a dam in him. Maybe it had begun long ago when his ex-wife had first filed for divorce. He had bottled up so much pain and so much anguish. That pain and anguish now poured out in a torrent from his heart. He wanted to hurt somebody. He wanted to hurt them badly.

  “It’s time to make them pay,” Blackstone said hoarsely.

  General Fromm watched him.

  Blackstone made a sharp gesture. “The Highborn have come to step on our necks. It’s time to make them understand that we’re men. It’s time to bring them down by destroying the Doom Stars.”

  The bridge officers had all turned to stare. Commissar Kursk nodded belated agreement.

  The communications officer asked, “Do you think we can win, sir?”

  “Yes!” Commodore Blackstone said, although he didn’t believe that. His crisp tone caused several officers to straighten. What Blackstone did believe was that he was going to hurt them now. He was done with waiting. With the help of the cyborg stealth-attacks, the Highborn were going to know that they had been in a battle.

  The communications officer turned toward her comm-board. “What are your orders, sir?”

  Commodore Blackstone studied the map-module. Then he began to issue curt commands.

  -15-

  The SU warships subtly changed their dispositions. In his command pod and linked to the Battlefleet-net, Toll Seven heard Blackstone’s orders. Soon, Toll Seven began to issue his own commands, to mesh the cyborg plan with the reinvigorated bio-forms.

  A thousand kilometers away in her stealth-capsule, LA31 opened her eyes. In other stealth-capsules scattered throughout the Mars System, other cyborgs readied themselves for the desperate battle to come.

  A three-hour wait occurred as the Doom Stars and the SU Battlefleet maneuvered for position. The super-ships were between the orbits of ruined Deimos and Phobos, which would soon appear from around Mars and face an obviously brutal strike from the Highborn. Deimos orbited 23,500 kilometers away from the center of Mars. Phobos orbited 9,400 kilometers away. The three Doom Stars had reached a 17,000-kilometer distance from Mars.

  To kill an enemy fleet that was determined to use a planet as a shield meant that the hunting ships had to come into close orbit. The reason was simple. The angles and distances were all on the side of the fleet closest to the planet. If the Doom Stars had stayed even 100,000 kilometers out, they would have had to travel a much greater distance to get onto the other side of the planet as compared to the fleet just above the planet’s atmosphere. Supreme Commander Hawthorne had understood that as he’d made his plans many months ago. His strategy had counted on it. Toll Seven and Web-Mind had concurred. For each side, this was the most dangerous phase of the battle. At these ranges, beams almost struck immediately, and missiles streaked the distances in a matter of minutes.

  The commander of Phobos sprayed a prismatic-crystal field before the moon. Then every laser-port, missile battery and point-defense systems went on high alert. Behind the moon as it moved in its orbit followed the bulk of the decoy fleet. Behind the decoy-vessels flew the SU orbitals, over five hundred fighters. They had little chance against massive lasers and point-defense systems. It was a suicide run, and most of the pilots knew it. But here at this hour every piece of equipment would enter the cauldron of battle to try to eke out a few more percentage points for its side. The presence of the orbitals provided one other benefit, a hopeful overloading of the Highborn targeting computers.

  The cyborg stealth-capsules waited for that time as they floated in the system like space debris.

  As Commodore Blackstone gave the orders, relayed by the Vladimir Lenin’s communications officers, the SU Battlefleet accelerated behind Phobos for its death-ride.

  ***

  Although Grand Admiral Cassius was a Highborn with a heroic ethos, and although he had personally taken command in the field for the final stroke against Social Unity, he used a medieval Mongol general’s strategy in terms of himself. He remained in the Julius Caesar, which was the last Doom Star in the three-ship fleet. He remained at the safest spot in order that his fleet would continue to have the benefit of his presence.

  Admiral Brutus in the Hannibal Barca led them, with Admiral Gaius in the Napoleon Bonaparte behind at an oblique angle, using the formation that the Theban Strategos Epaminondas had used against the Spartans in the Battle of Leuctra July, 371 B.C.

  The Grand Admiral sat before the holographic globe as the Doom Stars headed to meet Phobos. Deimos had fired more missiles and lasers than Cassius would have thought possible. Clearly, the premen were readier for him than he would have believed. The premen either had taken Deimos intact or had brought more supplies than he had counted on. Could the Planetary Union have thrown in their lot with Social Unity?

  Cassius shook his large head. The Planetary Union bosses hated Social Unity. Premen naturally and foolishly divided at the worst possible moments. It was another mark of their inferiority.

  Grand Admiral Cassius allowed himself a smirk. Whatever the case with Deimos, in the end, it hadn’t mattered. He’d heard the final broadcasts. The cowardly premen hadn’t even known how to die well. It was a portent of good fortune.

  “The moon has appeared!” a Highborn tracking-officer shouted.

  “I can see that well enough,” the Grand Admiral said, allowing just a hint of displeasure to enter his voice. That should calm any undue excitement from his command crew.

  “It has a PC-Shield,” the tracking officer said, his voice under control now.

  Grand Admiral Cassius pressed a comm-button on his chair. It was a direct link to Admirals Brutus and Gaius. Beside the holographic globe of Mars now appeared two faces. Admiral Brutus had a low forehead for a Highborn, with a large nose and fiercely dark eyes. A stark red scar like a half-moon had been burned years ago onto his right cheek. Brutus wore his admiral’s hat at a jaunty angle. On it was pinned a Galactic Spiral for extreme courage in battle.

  Cassius spoke to the two holographic faces. “As I’m sure you gentlemen are aware, the prismatic-crystal field this time is a trick.”