Star Soldier (30 page)

Enkov: Only fifty-nine percent?

O’Connor: River and canal coasters have been reassigned, Lord Director. In another nine days—

Enkov: No, no, two days. Two days!

O’Connor: In two days perhaps seventy percent could be cobbled together to—

Enkov: I’m disappointed to hear you speak like this, Admiral.

O’Connor: The Highborn strike hard from sea and space, Lord Director. I’m not certain—

Enkov: Admiral O’Connor, defeatist talk is not what I anticipated at this conference, not before the beginning of Operation Togo and the start of the end for the Highborn.

O’Connor: I will do my best, Lord Director.

Enkov: Who said anything about best? You will comply with Social Unity’s requirements or I will find someone who can. You must employ ‘total’ effort.

O’Connor: The Navy stands ready to do its duty, Lord Director.

Enkov: Very good, Admiral. See to it that these are simply not false words given under duress.

Hawthorne: Lord Director, I hold to your principles concerning—

Enkov: The principles of Social Unity, you mean.

Hawthorne: Yes, Lord Director. Your serenity during these terrible days has given us strength and vision. But may I be permitted a possible conjecture concerning the Highborn?

Enkov: I called the conference for the interplay of ideas, General. Please, speak freely.

Hawthorne: My reports indicate that very few Highborn have landed in Japan.

Enkov: Three hundred thousand is a few?

Hawthorne: Their ability to raise Earth units and train them to fighting competency is astounding, Lord Director. The bulk of their invasion army is composed of former Social Unity personnel. Surprising, as it is to report, Lord Director, there are only a few Highborn units on Japan.

Enkov: Your report must be mistaken.

Hawthorne: Body counts of enemy dead indicate—

Enkov: Naturally, when Highborn die in battle their High Command has taken every effort to snatch those fallen bodies and hide the fact of their losses from us. The rebel Earth units—nobody loves traitors, not even those who employ them. So of course, the arrogant Highborn does not attempt to save the corpses of those they refer to as premen, not even their own premen. Field Marshal, don’t your men make every effort to drag their dead comrades off the battlefield?

Kitamura: Those in the Samurai Divisions especially do so, Lord Director, in order to cremate them and give the ashes of these heroes to their wives and children.

Enkov: There you are, General Hawthorne. I’m sure the Highborn believe we have no Samurai Divisions, at least if they allowed themselves the sort of conclusions you’ve drawn from their collected dead.

Hawthorne: One wonders if there might not be another conclusion, Lord Director.

Enkov: By all means, General Hawthorne, tell us this possibility.

Hawthorne: Lord Director, the lack of nuclear retaliation and the lack of overpowering Highborn formations within Japan leads me to a frightening conclusion.

Enkov: Fear must be conquered, General. It amazes me the lack of real courage I find in my military men. No, not the men, but in the officers, in the generals, admirals and air marshals. Nine weeks you originally told me—Nine weeks to build up the force to face these ogres we call Highborn. Many of the directors took their cue from you gentlemen. No! Courage, starting with political courage, with will, gentlemen, the will to face the enemy head on by any means necessary. I’ve given that tool to Social Unity. Those directors who lacked this quality have given way to those of us who don’t. Courage to use nuclear weapons. The will to attack faster than they expected us. Operation Togo must and will catch them flatfooted. Then we will hammer them remorselessly. Every plane, every ship, every trained soldier will be thrown at these mongrel ingrates of the scientists and their biological theories run amok.

Hawthorne: Lord Director, what if the Japanese Invasion is simply a gigantic, Highborn trap?

Enkov: Trap? You think that this is a trap? Unbelievable! If my allegiance monitors hadn’t kept careful tabs of your incoming and outgoing calls, General—A trap! You’d better explain yourself and this witless attempt at fear mongering.

Hawthorne: Lord Director, fear mongering is not my intention. And I repeat again that we in Strategic Planning agree totally with your theories on will and courage.

Enkov: Not theories, General. Facts!

Hawthorne: I agree, Lord Director. Yet… I hesitate now in, ah…

Enkov: No, no, speak your mind.

Hawthorne: Lord Director… fleet and air units are hardest for us to replace, after space units, of course. What if—the Highborn are clever. They must know we will strike back. That at some point we must strike back if we hope to defeat them. So I am compelled to consider this awful possibility. What if they have staged this invasion in order to draw out our last fleet, air and space units? My reports lead me to—

Enkov: General Hawthorne, I will not tolerate this defeatist talk. Not this late in the planning of the greatest attack to ever be launched against the enemy of man. If there truly is a lack of Highborn formations in Japan, it merely shows that our nuclear strikes were even more effective than we thought. They fear to place Highborn where we can hit them. Their losses, I suggest, have been even heavier than you, my generals, have let on in their various campaigns against us. I understand basic military caution. You have all been trained with it. It is the reason a man like me is needed at such a historic moment. But your collective caution has now edged near treason, for it has developed in many of you an unnatural dread of the Highborn. Strike hard, with the most devastating weapon possible, and we will see how quickly the Highborn lose confidence. Operation Togo, fought at the pace of their own attacks, will utterly demoralize them. All the Solar System will see at last that mongrel dogs cannot beat down Social Unity. Now, if I had let your original suggestion stand of taking nine weeks to gather what I’ve forced you to do in four weeks…. Field Marshal Kitamura, could you hold out for another five weeks?

Kitamura: It would be difficult at best, Lord Director.

Enkov: How will Operation Togo affect Japanese defense?

Kitamura: A successful counterattack will save the home islands.

Enkov: Do you doubt its success?

Kitamura: Please excuse an old soldier, Lord Director. That military disease you just spoke about had infected me. But your leadership, just as the sun drives away shadows, has driven away the doubts I once had. Operation Togo cannot fail!

Enkov: Your honesty does you great credit, Field Marshal. Alas, nothing is perfect, gentlemen. But we must be confident of the outcome, or how can we expect the soldiers under us to fight all out for victory?

Kitamura: You speak the truth!

Enkov:
This
is the Battle for Earth, gentlemen: the successful completion of Operation Togo. It absolutely must not fail. I expect each of you to goad your men to furious action. If there is any slacking in our counterattacks, then I expect each of you to go out and by personal example revive our warriors. If that means you must make the supreme sacrifice—you will be given a hero’s funeral, I assure you. The time of planning is over. Our will is set. Now we must act.

13.

Near-Earth orbit swarmed with hundreds of major satellites. Yet more satellites orbited in the ‘higher’ LaGrange points. Most of these major-sized habitats were the huge farm platforms that supplied the people of Earth with the bulk of their food. They had been declared open, belonging to neither side. So far, each side had in practice left the farm habs open, or at least neither side had overtly used them militarily. Many of the biggest habitats rotated at the L5 and L4 points in higher Earth orbit. These were often industrial plants, using the raw ore of carefully maneuvered asteroids brought from deeper in the Solar System, or blasted off the moon, or purchased from the Comet Barons of Outer Planets. The profusion of habitats made Earth orbit the most cluttered portion of space in the Solar System. In near-Earth orbit, staring down at the planet, were the three laser platforms, the two missile and three orbital fighter stations of the Highborn.

Following their own particular orbits in and out of this profusion of satellites were small ice-coated pods. Year after year, the pods had orbited. Deep in the ice, about the size of a Twentieth century automobile, was a nuclear bomb with rods pointed outward. Those rods were presently trained at the Highborn military platforms.

Message pulses from Earth activated the almost invisible pods.

The explosions threw off massive qualities of x-rays. Those x-rays sped ahead of the rest of the blast. Before they were destroyed in the incandescent fury of the nuclear explosion, the special rods directed those rays in an invisible beam at the orbital fighter stations.

Unbeknown to most of Earth Command, both the Highborn strategists and their Spy Masters had predicted a massive surprise counterattack. Logically, and because of premen emotional makeup, the Highborn strategists believed the counterattack would take place from Earth. The indicators hadn’t been difficult to read. And the Grand Admiral’s strategy practically mandated such a counterattack. Thus, over the past few weeks the Highborn had slipped their orbital fighters off the platforms. They couldn’t afford staggering losses of these craft. Only now had the orbital-fighter construction factory at the Mercury Sun Works shipped its first batch of new and improved space fighters. Thus, only a few of the dreaded orbitals had been left at the platforms. They ran on full automatic. No living beings, especially not superior new men, were on the attacked platforms. The x-ray beams annihilated the few remaining fighters, the robots in the station and maintenance, and one of the laser platforms, which was also devoid of Highborn personnel. The ice-covered bombs destroyed mere shells; Highborn targets set to take the brunt of a blow they suspected had to be coming soon.

Operation Togo had begun with two deceptions, the Highborn’s trumping Social Unity’s.

14.

Seventy kilometers north of Beijing, in the Joho Mountains, lay a three hundred-year-old complex of coalmines. Deep within those mines was the mind of Operation Togo. This center coordinated the many and various military limbs of the largest amphibious assault in human history.

 In the early morning of 10 May, and several minutes after x-rays demolished the Highborn platforms, dim green light flooded the inner command center, and the glowing eyes of a hundred-odd TV screens added to the illumination. The headquarters staff monitoring these screens and providing communication with the outer limbs spoke in quiet whispers and crept about on soft-soled shoes. Air Marshal Ulrich, a thick-shouldered bull of man and a main nerve nexus to the decision node of this brain, glared at the screens showing various northern Chinese airfields.

HB-13 Annihilators were catapulted out of underground runways, lofting the heavy bombers into the dark, morning sky. Behind them followed long-range NF-5 Night Owls and Wobbly Goblins 9000s, the latest in electronic counter measures aircraft. AL-101 Standoff Screamers, which launched near-space missiles, roared up last to do battle with the remaining space stations. Hundreds of aircraft per hidden base sped into the night sky, heading toward their rendezvous point over the East China Sea.

A colonel muttered quiet words to the air marshal. He checked his chronometer before grunting, “Scramble Korea.”

Airforce staff officers leaned toward their mikes, issuing orders. The screens switched to underground Korean airfields, where swarms of F-33 Tigers and A-14 Laser Razors buzzed into the night sky like angry wasps. They headed directly for the Tsushima Strait and Japan beyond. Lastly lofted sleek attack choppers, whomping a few feet above the waves all the way to the islands.

In the circular chamber, left of air control, Admiral O’Connor likewise studied screens. His showed Earth’s last carriers, the latest in ship design. The fast, submersible carriers rose out of the deep and whisked toward Japan on a cushion of air. First Fleet and Second Fleet together numbered over twenty of the sub-hover flattops. They launched bombers, fighters, surveillance craft and cunning ECM drones. Third, Fourth and Fifth Fleets contained every other major oceanic unit left to Earth. Serene underwater shots showed an armada of sleek hunter/killer submarines and the much bulkier cruise missile submarines. Yet other screens provided an idea
of the incredible number of troop transport and cargo ships at Social Unity’s disposal. In the first wave alone fully seven hundred thousand SU soldiers, twenty-five hundred bio-tanks and one thousand cybertanks would land in the beleaguered Japanese Islands to hurl the hated invader off Earth.

Space control, to the left of Navy, waited to order the interceptors into action and to issue the go-word for the merculite missile batteries in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. Meanwhile, the newly placed and incredibly powerful proton beam stations in Manila, Taipei, Shanghai and Vladivostok clawed near-Earth orbit, obliterating the remaining space platforms. Already air-launched missiles from the Standoff Screamers roared into near-orbital space to finish off what the beams missed.

General James Hawthorne paced back and forth in the center of command. Against the Lord Director’s strictest orders he had kept observers in various farm habitats orbiting Earth. Despite the open habitat order granted by the Highborn, General Hawthorne needed military personnel there to give him far ranging eyes into space. His disobedience was a tremendous gamble in two completely different ways. If the Highborn found out, they might destroy the habs or they might rescind the open order. If they did either, those areas of Earth still under Social Unity’s control could face massive starvation. The second danger, a much more personal threat, was that Lord Director Enkov’s allegiance monitors—ruthless secret police agents—might uncover his disobedience. They pried everywhere, and were one source of Enkov’s unprecedented power. The bionic guards who lined the circular command chamber and watched everyone were the other source.