Doom Star: Book 03 - Battle Pod (29 page)

“The battle is over?” Marten asked in dismay.

Chavez slowly shook his head. “It will never be over. The Martians shall always fight. The Planetary Union has given millions of needlers to the workers. Social Unity will face a bloodbath as they attempt to rule us. It will bring fierce retribution, of this, I am certain. But it is better to die a fighting Martian than to submit to invaders from another planet. Mars is for the Martians.”

Marten stared at the officers. All the Martian satellites had been destroyed? That meant the
Mayflower
—

“We’re trapped on Mars,” Omi whispered into his ear.

“I’m sorry we could not return you to your shuttle, Mr. Kluge. Commander Zapata took the liberty of cracking your code. He fueled your shuttle.” Chavez made a vague gesture. “It must be space debris now, likely destroyed. I am sorry.”

Marten frowned. Zapata had filled the tanks with propellant?

“You must join your commandos and head for New Tijuana,” Chavez said. “If the deep-core mine should erupt or the dynamos overheat, Olympus Mons could receive a new and impressive crater.”

“You’re going to beam the Battlefleet,” Marten said, finally understanding.

“For the future of the Planetary Union, we shall try,” Chavez said.

“When is zero-hour?” Marten asked.

A rail-thin officer looked up. “It’s as ready as its ever going to be, sir,” he told Chavez.

“You have a target?” Chavez asked. There was new life in his voice. He had apparently already forgotten about Marten and Omi.

“A battleship, sir.”

“Their flagship?” Chavez asked with savage hope.

“Can’t tell that, sir,” the officer answered. “But it is one of their heavies.”

Secretary-General Chavez removed the stub of the stimstick from his lips and flicked it into a corner. He took two steps closer to the monitor. At a word from the officer, others hurried out of the way. Chavez raised his hands. They were clenched tightly into fists. “Kill it!” he rasped. “Show them we still have teeth.”

A different officer seated at the other monitor began to enter the firing code.

“We must leave,” Omi whispered, tugging Marten’s arm.

Marten shook his head. He stepped closer to the monitor Chavez viewed. It showed a computer image of an SU battleship. It was near Phobos, which was a little more than 9,000 kilometers away.

A loud and fierce whine began from somewhere in the volcano. It was the dynamos as they converted the deep-core mine heat into proton-beam power. The whine increased as the dynamos pumped the power into the cannon poking out of the giant crater at the top of Olympus Mons. That crater was over 60 kilometers in diameter. The cannon targeted the SU battleship.

Twenty seconds after Secretary-General Chavez gave the order, a deadly-white beam of proton particles lanced upward into the reddish heavens.

Several SU warships circled Phobos.

The
Kim Philby
had already collected half the Rebel prisoners. Now that the battle was over, General Fromm planned to use the mine-ship as their supposed ‘interrogation center’. Toll Seven had exported enough equipment to it so three of Fromm’s fellow converts had set up a Web-link. If anybody should ask about the strange equipment, the answer would be that it was a new interrogation technique hot from Earth.

The
Alger Hiss
supply ship presently maneuvered for docking. In its cargo-holds were tons of laser coils, merculite missiles and other items meant to make the moon bristle with functioning weaponry. Now that Social Unity owned Phobos again, there was no time to waste to make it battle-ready for the Highborn.

The Battleship
Ho Chi Minh
protected the others. If the Planetary Union should foolishly attempt to send its last orbitals in a kamikaze raid, the
Ho Chi Minh
would obliterate every fighter. The Battleship’s captain, however, had not taken any undue chances. The heavy particle-shields were all in place. The shields were 600-meters of asteroid rock surrounding the war-vessel. Before any laser or projectile could touch the Battleship’s armored skin, it would first have to pierce the 600 meters of rock.

The proton beam from Olympus Mons stabbed into near orbit. The thin Martian atmosphere created some friction, but not enough to dissipate the beam’s awful power. The deep-core mine functioned. The Olympus Mons equipment and the jury-rigged emergency coils held for the moment.

The proton beam hit the number six particle-shield of the
Ho Chi Minh
. As amazing as it would seem, the attack caught the Battlefleet cold. They had destroyed all orbital defenses. They knew the proton beam was offline because of the damage it had sustained when the Highborn battleoids had stormed into it six months ago. SU officers also sneered at Martian technical ability, and they had been quite sure the Martians would have not been able to fix the deep-core link in time. Besides, if the proton beam had been online, it should have fired when the Battlefleet first matched orbits with the moons.

It fired now, however. The proton beam smashed into the particle shield, into the asteroid rock.

The proton beam operated differently than the conventional methods of smashing through particle shields. A heavy laser burned through, slagging rock as it chewed deeper and deeper. It also created clouds of dust and hot gas that slowly began dissipating a laser’s strength until the gas and dust ‘drifted’ elsewhere or settled. Nuclear-tipped missiles blasted their way in, but by necessity, most of the blast blew in other directions and thus wasted much of its potential. The proton beam worked on a different principle than a laser or a nuclear warhead.

A laser was focused light. The proton beam was made up of massed protons, elements of matter, in a deadly and coherent stream. It meant that a proton beam was slower than a laser, but not by much. And at this close of a range—around 9000 kilometers—that difference was negligible. Unlike a nuclear-tipped missile where much of the blast was wasted as it blew elsewhere, none of the beam striking the particle shield was wasted. The entire power of the beam smashed against the particle shield. It chewed through fast. Dust, gas, they made no difference. That deadly proton beam stabbed like a rapier.

At long ranges, a beam could only stay on target for a few seconds, usually less. That meant heavy lasers needed to burn away huge sections of a particle shield before those lasers could reach the actual ship underneath the rock. The same was true with nuclear-tipped missiles. The particle shield’s length became nearly as important as its depth.

The proton beam made a mockery of the particle shield’s length as it bored through the 600 meters of asteroid rock.

The
Ho Chi Minh
had only one true defense against the terrible proton beam, and that was aerosol gels with lead additives. Because the attack caught them cold, the aerosols did not begin spraying until the proton beam punched through the particle shield and smashed against the armored hull. By then it was far too late.

The proton beam cut through the layered hull and beamed through the battleship. It hit living quarters, food supplies, missed the bridge by fifty meters and cut into the coils that supplied power from the fusion core. Air pressure rushed out into the vacuum of space. Klaxons rang. Bulkheads crashed down to minimize damage. Battle-control teams raced to don equipment. Then explosions started. One of those explosions ruptured a coil. It built an overload in the fifth fusion reactor.

By that time, the proton beam chewed through the particle shield in another area. As the damage-control teams sealed their magnetic clamps on their exoskeleton-suits, the proton beam smashed through new living quarters, the food processors and a warhead storage area and then it hit the fusion core directly.

Several of the storage warheads exploded, pumping heat, radiation and x-rays into the guts of the ship. Ninety-five percent of ship personnel died then. The damage-control parties had greater protection in their suits. Unfortunately, for them, most already began to cook like meat in a pot. They died horribly, screaming in agony. A few managed to undo the magnetic clamps and die through vacuum exposure.

The
Ho Chi Minh
did not explode in a ball of fire. In space battles, few such mighty ships died like that. The proton beam had done its task, but the people in Olympus Mons didn’t know it yet. So the technicians continued to aim the deadly beam at the dead battleship, repeatedly punching proton holes through the particle shield and into the vessel.

***

Seven minutes after Secretary-General Chavez gave the order, the first sections of the enemy battleship began to break apart.

“We killed it, sir!” an officer shouted in glee.

There were wild cheers. Three officers tossed their caps, hitting the ceiling with them. Marten cheered as heartily as the others did.

“Target another ship,” Chavez ordered.

“Yes, sir,” the targeting officer said. He tapped keys. Maybe he forgot something. Maybe he overloaded the makeshift coils. As the mighty cannon began to move to target a different vessel, something gave between the deep-core mine and the dynamos. The targeting officer barely hit the shutdown key in time.

An ominous silence occurred, as the dynamos no longer whined with their loud noise. The rooms no longer trembled.

“What’s wrong?” Chavez shouted.

A technician in the other room looked through the glass partition. Her face was whiter than Major Diaz’s face.

“Somebody tell me what’s wrong?” Chavez shouted.

“The coils have melted,” the targeting officer whispered.

“Fix them!” Chavez shouted.

The targeting officer began to type keys.

Speakers on the wall crackled into life. “The coils have fused.”

“Fix them!” Chavez repeated.

Though the glass partition, the tech nodded. “Yes, sir, we will, in about six weeks.”

Stunned silence filled the room. The euphoria of seconds earlier had departed.

“How is this possible?” Chavez asked in a choked voice.

No one answered.

“No,” Chavez whispered. “No. We had them.”

Major Diaz stepped smartly forward. “If the proton beam is broken, we must flee. We must all flee.”

Marten thought that a wise suggestion.

Secretary-General Chavez looked up ashen-faced. “What’s the point of fleeing?”

“The point is the Highborn,” Major Diaz said. “They didn’t let Social Unity have Mars before. Why will they let Social Unity have Mars now?”

“Must we always rely on others?” Chavez asked dispiritedly.

“No,” Marten said, stepping near. “You hit them, sir. You killed a battleship. Now keep your Planetary Union alive by staying alive.”

“…I can no longer hide,” Chavez said.

Marten laughed harshly. “Is that how you gained your freedom the first time?” He slapped his chest. “I’ve fought for my freedom all my life. I refused to surrender. You must now refuse to surrender. You did what you could. Now hide among your people and lead the struggle against Social Unity. Keep these vital technicians alive for the next time you rise out of the ashes of defeat. As long as you fight, you haven’t lost. But once you surrender your will, sir, everything is over. Do you have the courage to keep on fighting, Mr. Secretary-General?”

Chavez blinked at Marten. Many of the officers stood open-mouthed, looking at the ex-shock trooper.

“They’ll send drop-troops to take you alive,” Marten told those in the room. “You have to be gone by then. You tried to go down fighting, but the proton beam broke in the middle of your victory. They won’t laugh at you now, not with a battleship killed. They’ll fear you. Keep them afraid by keeping out of their clutches to fight another grueling guerilla campaign. Never surrender, never, never, never.”

“…yes,” Chavez said slowly. “There is wisdom in your words.”

“Even better,” Major Diaz said, “there is fire in his belly.”

“Let’s go!” Marten shouted. “We likely don’t have much time.”

***

Marten was more right than he knew. The destruction of the
Ho Chi Minh
sent a shock wave through the Battlefleet. The warship’s sudden death caused Blackstone to scream orders.

The
Kim Philby
accelerated at full speed for the planet. Toll Seven had a battle pod nearby and quickly launched it toward Mars. Three other ships maneuvered for a combat drop on Olympus Mons. Even in his aguish, Commodore Blackstone realized they needed that proton beam against the Highborn. With the
Ho Chi Minh’s
destruction, they needed that beam more than ever. He could have ordered a saturation nuking of the giant volcano. Instead, he screamed orders for the volcano’s capture, and he screamed to pump out lead aerogels to they didn’t lose more ships to that beam.

SU drop-troops and cyborgs donned battlesuits and then climbed into their drop shells. Machines and drop specialists used electronic trolleys to roll the drop-shells into firing position. Usually, a mass combat-drop from space took days of careful calculations. Precise entry points into the atmosphere were prefigured. Orbital spin, gravity, atmospheric density, wind velocity and other factors were each studied in detail. Today, there was no time for that. The selected ships roared for the entry point and then they braked hard.