Free Doom Star: Book 03 - Battle Pod by Vaughn Heppner Page B

daunting task.”
    “Do you feel it is beyond your capabilities?”
    The Praetor watched the other sidelong. The Training Master had a harsh face with muscles in odd places. They tightened and bulged at his jaws and near his temples. A vein across his forehead grew and throbbed with blood. Oh, how this Lot Sixer wished to challenge him. The Praetor hoped he would. He would break this one in single combat and force the Grand Admiral to send him a real Highborn as Training Master.
    The Praetor’s communicator beeped and temporarily broke the tension.
    “Yes,” he said, speaking into a wrist communicator. Ah, he spoke with the Grand Admiral.
    “Praetor, I have sent a shuttle to pick you up. You will bring your suite with you.”
    “At once, sir.” The communicator winked off. The Praetor’s pink eyes seemed to glitter.
    The Lot Sixer lost his truculent manner, as he seemed to notice the change come over the Praetor.
    “You heard him,” the Praetor said, his voice rougher than before. He slapped the baton into his open palm, enraged that as Fourth he had been bypassed twice for command of a Doom Star. This time, it would be different. Commander Scipio had committed suicide. Now there was no excuse for the Grand Admiral. That cagy old soldier would have to give him command of the Hannibal Barca .
    ***
    The Praetor and Grand Admiral Cassius sat in a lounge aboard the Julius Caesar . Each hulking Highborn was bent before a three dimensional chessboard.
    The Grand Admiral’s skill was legendary. He had three of the Praetor’s pawns and a knight. The Praetor had four enemy pawns, each carefully lined up in a row beside his ivory baton.
    The Highborn likened the Grand Admiral to the Great Captains of the premen, those uncanny soldiers of history: Alexander the Great, Hannibal Barca, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and others. Instead of a premen genius, however, Grand Admiral Cassius was a Highborn genius. That meant he was superior by a probable factor of ten than when compared to the greatest warlord ever born to Homo sapiens.
    That genius radiated from the iron-haired admiral. It was a palpable force, as the Grand Admiral exuded a fierce presence.
    The Praetor felt that force, just as he felt the Grand Admiral’s merciless attack on the three dimensional chessboard. The Praetor refused to succumb to a legend, however. He silently berated himself and jeered his nervousness. He was the Praetor. He was a superior Highborn. He was Fourth in the unbelievably competitive world of the genetic super-soldiers. He would ignore the stories about Cassius’s legendary chess assault. He would play his own highly aggressive game and catch the Grand Admiral in a long-term trap.
    The room possessed bronze busts of generals of the past and various famous battle paintings. A subtle vibration told the Praetor that the Julius Caesar was under acceleration. It approached Earth, linking with the second Doom Star in the Earth System.
    Grand Admiral Cassius decisively moved a pawn, clicking the metal piece onto the glass tile. He then stared at the Praetor across the three dimensional board.
    “I do not approve of the gelding of fighting troops.”
    The Praetor nodded crisply. “I have sent your office a recording of the battle files of the Storm Assault Missiles. A percentage of the shock troopers sent against the beamship spoke treason against us.”
    “Those were words, Praetor. The shock troopers’ action spoke loudly enough about their ultimate loyalty.”
    “In the storming of the Bangladesh you are correct. What occurred afterward?”
    “You have files concerning that?”
    “The Grand Admiral knows I do not. The experimental beamship was destroyed.”
    “It’s your move.”
    The Praetor studied the chessboard. After a moment, he looked up. “My neutraloids are superior to the shock troopers.”
    “In a primitive setting, you may be right. The shock troopers were high-tech soldiers. We will need a four hundred percent