Free Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon by Vaughn Heppner Page A

positions, General, yours and mine as Supreme War Leader and Madam Director. We can be replaced. Neither of our posts is as secure as only six months ago. The Bangladesh must be victorious.”
    “I see,” said Hawthorne.
    “I sincerely hope you do, General. PHC wants your head. Director Gannel is after my chair. Only victory somewhere will secure our posts. Now, my doctor has arrived. I must go.”
    “Thank you for your time, Director.”
    “Yes. Good-bye.”
    The link closed.
    General Hawthorne continued to pace. The Bangladesh sped toward Mercury, toward its destiny with the Sun Works Factory. Would they catch the Highborn by surprise? He wondered what the space hab’s defenses were like. How did the stationmaster spend his time? If the stationmaster should guess how the attack would be made…
    General Hawthorne exhaled sharply. Much rested upon this attack. It was a wild gamble. He knew that. But the Highborn were winning the war and they had to hurt them somehow. He hoped the Bangladesh was the answer, or at the very least, that it would buy him some time until the Cyborgs from Neptune arrived.

12.

    Training Master Lycon of the shock troops hurried to his appointment with the Praetor of the Sun Works Factory. Like all Highborn, the Training Master seethed with plans and programs, and never seemed to have enough hours in the day to see them through. Unlike a preman, however, what he did have was endless energy, boundless enthusiasm and a grinding work ethic.
    He hoped the Praetor didn’t bring up that wild idea again of castrating his shock troopers. What a preposterous scheme!
    Lycon strode down a “street”-sized corridor bustling with harried-looking aides and monitors. They were all premen, the hardest-working and most ambitious among them. Their very rank and unbelievably close access to their genetic superiors proved it.
    The overhead lights blazed like miniature suns, while stunted and potted pines lent a forest-like feel to the corridor. The holo-walls had been imaged to look like old log buildings. Quaint, to say the least, and ruined by the modern uniforms everyone wore. The aides provided technical and mechanical help: shipping masters in their silk executive suits, chief industrialists in rough-cut jackets and heavy boots. They wished to show their nearness to the workers they had so recently risen from. There were white-coated computer specialists and solar engineers in their ubiquitous jumpsuits. The monitors were just a fancy name for secret policemen. They were the Highborn’s eyes and ears among the premen masses.
    Lycon wore a smart blue uniform with crisscrossing white belts across his torso and another around his waist. A gold “Magnetic Star” First Class decorated his chest and a pitted sidearm rode his hip. Finally finished speaking, he flicked off the recorder in his hand. He loathed losing ideas, and thus spoke into the recorder in order to capture the purest essence of them the moment they arrived.
    He was seven feet tall and powerful, and had lightning-like reflexes and pearl-white skin. Older than most Highborn, he had white hair cut close to his scalp so it seemed like panther’s fur. His dark eyes were intense beyond any normal man’s, but regular among Highborn, while his features were severely angular, as if a woodsman had taken an axe to hew him cheeks and a forehead.
    “Training Master Lycon?”
    Surprised out of his reverie, Lycon glanced about to see who had addressed him. Aides hurried by, their eyes downcast. It was inconceivable that any of them had hailed him. These premen knew better. Then he noticed an older, heavier man in a black uniform and hat. The fool peered up at him, stared at him, in fact, and seemed on the verge of addressing him.
    “Sir,” said the man.
    Taken aback, Lycon could only raise his hand.
    The black-uniformed man paused.
    Lycon didn’t recognize him, and he prided himself on being able to distinguish premen. To most Highborn, premen looked