Star Soldier Read Free

waiting for announcements. His dark thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. Deciding he’d better stay clear-headed, he ordered a cup of coffee.
    “A-Nineteen,” called a bored docking clerk over the PA. “Report to Area Eight.”
    Marten drained his coffee. His stomach tightened as he saw the long line of welders. They snaked toward a small booth and the entrance to the boarding tube. Two PHC officers at the booth checked IDs. Marten stepped into line and advanced slowly. Would PHC simply kill him? His tension increased. Simon had picked up rumors of a new experimental station for political undesirables. Would they send him there?
    Marten deliberately recalled why he was in line, why he’d been forced into this long shot. “Bastards,” he muttered.
    A tall welder with dark eyebrows glanced at him.
    Marten bared his teeth in a savage smile, a parody of his father’s combat grimace. As the tall man jerked forward, Marten pictured his mother, and he balled his fists. He couldn’t do anything about her death now. But the anger was useful.
    Soon, a PHC officer growled, “Next.”
    The tall welder in front of Marten held out his ID.
    A PHC woman snatched it from the man and fed it into her computer. After two seconds, the unit beeped. The woman jerked out the ID and shoved it at the welder, waving him through.
    Marten gritted his teeth, and stepped forward.
    “What’s wrong with you?” the woman asked, eyeing him. Her hair had been shaved down to her scalp and her black-tattooed lips were twisted into a sneer.
    Confusion froze Marten’s tongue.
    The woman leaned near, sniffed his breath. “You’ve been drinking. That’s against regs for an out-system traveler.”
    Speechless, Marten could only stare into her pitiless eyes.
    “Step out of line you,” ordered the PHC officer beside the woman, using his carbine to poke Marten in the chest.
    Marten recovered his wits. “I heard our transport has a reactor leak. I needed something to calm my nerves is all.”
    The woman narrowed her already hostile gaze.
    “Who told you that?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “About the reactor leak!”
    “Two maintenance men,” Marten said. “I overheard them talking.”
    “An eavesdropper, eh?” growled the man.
    “Forgot about that,” the woman said. “Maintenance was warned to keep quiet.”
    “They’ll have to be told again,” the man said, “after they exit the agonizer.”
    The woman grinned as she lifted her com-unit to report this delicious news.
    As he waited, Marten fought off a deepening sense of exhaustion.
    Finished reporting, the woman snatched his ID, eyed him closely, licked her lips in an evil manner and then waved him through with an arrogant flick of her wrist.
    The released tension almost made Marten buckle. But he didn’t. Instead, he moved through the exit portal, floated down a tube and entered the transport. Like most transports, the interior was plain, with endless brown cushioned seats set in tightly spaced rows. Welders buckled themselves in. A few chatted, some napped. Others put on vid-goggles and watched porn.
    Marten settled down and waited. His tranks wore off and his stomach twisted. He envisioned a hundred different problems. Finally, however, he was pressed without warning into his cushioned seat. That’s what he hated most about Social Unity. They treated you like cattle. As the growing acceleration shoved him deeper, he said a silent prayer for his parents. Then he wondered about his forged passes to Australian Sector. Would they work? He had no idea. But even if they did work—Earth was the birthplace of Social Unity, the epicenter of the most suffocating political creed ever invented. If the Sun-Works Factory had been hell, what would it be like on Earth?
     
     

Part I: Civilian
     
     
    1.
     
    Concrete, glass and plasteel buildings sprawled for kilometers in all directions, but especially down. Greater Sydney, Australian Sector wasn’t as congested as Hong Kong or New York, but