Warworld: The Lidless Eye Read online

  The Lidless Eye

  A Pequod Press War World Novel

  Printing History

  Portions of this novel by John F. Carr and Donald Hawthorne first appeared in War World: Vol. I The Burning Eye, Vol. II Death’s Head Rebellion, Vol. IV, Invasion, edited by Jerry E. Pournelle and John F. Carr, published by Baen Books in 1988, 1998 and 1991; and War World: The Battle of Sauron, 1st Edition in 2007.

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2013 by John F. Carr and Donald Hawthorne

  Original Cover Art—Copyright © 2013 by Alan Gutierrez

  This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the authors.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing 2013

  V 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-0-937912-50-8

  WAR WORLD VOLUMES

  EDITED BY JOHN F. CARR AND J.E. POURNELLE

  War World I: The Burning Eye

  War World II: Death’s Head Rebellion

  War World III: Sauron Dominion

  War World IV: Invasion!

  CoDominium I: Revolt on War World

  WAR WORLD VOLUMES

  EDITED BY JOHN F. CARR

  WAR WORLD: Discovery!

  WAR WORLD: Takeover

  WAR WORLD: Jihad!

  WAR WORLD NOVELS

  War World: Blood Feuds

  War World: Blood Vengeance

  War World: The Battle for Sauron

  War World: The Lidless Eye

  War World: Cyborg Revolt

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  We would like to give special thanks to Doug McElwain for his assistance. Also I would like to thank my copyeditors, Victoria Alexander and Larry Hopkins.

  And thanks to Larry King, who maintains a great CoDominium website, for continuity and background: http://www.chronology.org/pournelle/

  Finally, thanks to Alan Gutierrez who, as always, did a wonderful job on the cover art. You can see more of his works at: http://alangutierrez.com/

  THE SAURONS ARE COMING

  The New Harmonies were original owners and settlers of Haven until the CoDominium decided any place that inhospitable would make an excellent dumping ground for political exiles, troublesome minorities and garden variety criminals. Over a year from Earth, by way of the old Bureau of Relocation deportee ships, Haven was the end of the line of CoDominium occupied space. During the Imperium, Haven was used as a recruiting ground for the Imperial Marines and became one of the first worlds abandoned when the war against the Sauron dominated Coalition of Secession got ugly.

  Although humanity has annihilated the Sauron Homeworld, the cost was high: the First Empire is beginning its long spiral into a Dark Age and the secret of interstellar travel will soon be lost for centuries. When a shipload of Saurons bent on conquest arrive unexpectedly, War World goes from pest-hole to Hellhole.

  Born of rebellion and civil war, cut off from the rest of humanity after the Secession Wars, Haven is bombed back to barbarism by the Sauron invaders. The Saurons, in fear of Imperial revenge, have vowed to cut Haven off from the rest of the Empire while they slowly absorb the superior human norms into their own perverted gene pool. Any and all who resist will die.

  The Haveners should have been easy pickings for the superhuman newcomers. However, what the Saurons hadn’t anticipated was the Haven is a world forever at war, each with all—and all against the Saurons.

  War World is a future military shared-world anthology created by John F. Carr and Jerry Pournelle. The War World series includes seven short story collections and six novels all taking place in Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium and Empire of Man Future History, spanning several thousand years. The primary setting is a barely-habitable moon named Haven, or War World as it later becomes known. Born of rebellion and civil war, Haven, is a world forever at war, each with all—and all against the Saurons.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOHN F. CARR is the author of over a dozen novels, including five Lord Kalvan novels and the co-author of three War World novels, The Battle of Sauron, The Lidless Eye and Cyborg Revolt. He has edited over thirty anthologies and short story collections. Along with Jerry Pournelle, he edited and wrote the introductions to five Baen Books War World collections. He is currently rereleasing the War World anthologies, under the Pequod imprint, with mostly new stories in chronological order. For more information visit John’s website at www.warworldcentral.com

  DONALD HAWTHORNE has published a number of short stories featuring Galen Diettinger and the Saurons in previous War World anthologies. He is the co-author of The Battle of Sauron, The Lidless Eye and Cyborg Revolt War World novels. His work has also appeared in the There Will Be War series and other anthologies. He is an avid wargamer and former editor of the Avon Hill General.

  ALAN GUTIERREZ, one of science fiction’s finest artists, created the cover art for War World: The Battle for Sauron. Alan also provided the artwork for the interior Sauron system maps. Visit his website at [email protected]

  CoDominium Chronology

  1969 Neil Armstrong sets foot on Earth’s moon.

  1990-2000 Series of treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union creates the CoDominium. Military research and development outlawed.

  1995 Nationalist movements intensify.

  1996 French Foreign Legion forms the basic element of the CoDominium Armed Services.

  2004 Alderson Drive perfected at Cal Tech.

  2010-2100 CoDominium Intelligence Services engage in serious effort to suppress all research into technologies with military applications. They are aided by zero-growth organizations.

  2010 Habitable planets discovered in other star systems. Commercial exploitation of new worlds begins.

  2020 First interstellar colonies are founded. The CoDominium Space Navy and Marines are created, absorbing the original CoDominium Armed Services.

  2020 Great Exodus period of colonization begins. First colonists are dissidents, malcontents and voluntary adventurers.

  2028 Creation of the Humanity League. Sponsored by the A.C.L.U., Sierra Club and Zero Population groups.

  2030 Sergei Lermontov born in Moscow.

  2032 Captain Jed Byers of the CDSS Ranger discovers a planetary-sized moon of a gas giant and names it Haven.

  2038 Sauron is discovered by Avery Landyn, a survey pilot for 3M; world is rich in radioactive and heavy metals.

  2040 CoDominium Population Control under the aegis of the Bureau of Relocation and Bureau of Corrections begins mass out-system shipments of involuntary colonists.

  2040 Colonization of Sparta and Saint Ekaterina.

  2042 Initial attempts by 3M at colonizing Sauron fail due to deadly native fauna and the difficulty of establishing viable agriculture. 3M sells Sauron to wealthy English Separatists from Quebec and former South African expatriates living in Canada and Australia.

  2043 John Christian Falkenberg III is born in Rome.

  2060 Nationalistic revival movements continue.

  2098 Saurons evict the CoDominium Viceroy and declare their independence. They begin to build their own space navy.

  2103 Great Patriotic Wars. End of the CoDominium. Exodus of the Fleet.

  2110 Coronation of Lysander I of Sparta. Fleet swears loyalty to the Spartan Throne. Marriage of dynasties produces union between Sparta and St. Ekaterina.

  2111 Formation Wars begin.

  2250 Leonidas I proclaims Empire of Man.

  2250 – 2600 Empire of Man enforces interstellar peace.
/>   2253 Haven is contacted by the Empire. It is well-organized and self-sufficient by this time, and agrees to join the Empire without coercion.

  2258 The “Land Gators” (77th Division of Imperial Marines) is commissioned on Haven, with Major General Colin Hamilton commanding. It functions as a police garrison and as a reserve unit for the 12th Army.

  2432 First Cyborg is created on Sauron. Using the results of the century-old soldier breeding program, Sauron’s scientists use gene-splicing to augment the soldiers. Chemical and biological alterations during gestation are then used to create the “perfect soldiers,” who will later be known as the “Sauron supermen” or “death’s-heads.”

  2594 Emperor David II dies with no heir. This begins a gradually escalating series of struggles and violent revolts. These “succession wars” are the prelude to the Secession Wars.

  2598 In the Imperial Parliament, a “Coalition of Secession” forms and begins to demand the right to withdraw from the Empire. This coalition is primarily led by Sauron. A series of skirmishes involving secessionist planets take place, but the Empire does not suspect the extent of the threat.

  2603 Secession Wars begin. Growth of Sauron supermen. St. Ekaterina nearly destroyed.

  2609 Gary Cummings is promoted to Colonel and put in charge of the Seventy-seventh Imperial Division’s Second Regiment.

  2611 Raymond Hamilton joins the Imperial Navy and spaces out of the Haven System.

  2618 The Third Imperial Fleet is destroyed off Tabletop.

  2623 Seventy-seventh Imperial Marine Division (“Land Gators”) is withdrawn from Haven along with all Imperial officials. Colonel Gary Cummings retires from the Imperial Marines and is appointed Brigadier-General of the Haven Volunteers.

  2624 A pirate ship, posing as a tramp freighter, attacks Castell City.

  2626 The Black Hand, a small fleet of corsairs, sacks Haven and destroys most of the System’s near-earth satellites and relay stations.

  2627 Haveners begin to realize that the Empire will not be returning.

  2637 Sauron-supported Secessionist armada and Claimant fleets fight Imperials to a draw at the Battle of Makassar.

  2640 Secession Wars continue. Dark Ages in many systems. The Battle of Sauron ends the Sauron threat and all Cyborgs on Sauron are exterminated.

  PROLOGUE

  2622 A.D., Tanith

  Colonel Gary Edmund Cummings of the Seventy-seventh Imperial Marine Division sat in his temporary staff office and tried to ignore the moisture beading on his brow. Haven might well have the reputation—among the few who’d heard of her—of being a frozen mudball, but Tanith was like the depths of hell. It was a former prison planet, as Haven had been in CoDominium times, and despite being Sector headquarters it was still rough around the edges.

  Cummings packed his pipe bowl with tobacco, tamped it and fired it up. He suspected anyone who did well on Tanith emigrated elsewhere as soon as they accumulated passage money. Cummings was originally from Churchill, another cold planet like Haven, so he suffered the heat more than most. Haveners in general, however, were used to extreme climates and most of his command seemed indifferent to Tanith’s weather.

  His adjutant, Captain Anton Leung, came into the room with a more serious demeanor than usual. Leung was of Tartar ancestry, which showed in the folds of his eyes and his stocky thick-boned frame. A native Havener, he had an inborn stoicism that not even Tanith’s unbearable heat could touch. Yet, something was bothering him.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  “Colonel, special orders from Admiralty Building.”

  “About time.”

  “I heard the Canada docked late last night. Maybe we’re finally getting off this hothouse.”

  “I hadn’t thought you noticed.”

  Captain Leung made a wan smile. “The men have been stationed here too long. We had two more go outback last night. Haveners are great warriors, but they make terrible garrison troops.”

  That was about the longest speech Cummings had heard from the taciturn Leung. Six months on Tanith had not been a picnic for anyone—especially while there was a war going on everywhere else. Tanith was an important Alderson intersection between several important tramlines, which made it a major military target. If the Sauron Coalition of Secession could forge a victory here they would have a bottleneck that would hamstring the Empire in several different sectors.

  There had already been one Battle of Tanith a decade ago and Intelligence had reason to suspect the Saurons were preparing for another assault. The Seventy-seventh was one of six divisions stationed on Tanith to keep them from establishing a planetary beachhead.

  Cummings unsealed the orders and quickly read them. When he was finished he looked up to see Captain Leung attempting to read his expression. “Nothing specific. They just want me to report to Admiralty Headquarters at 1400 hours. I’m to see Admiral Lyons. Heard any scuttlebutt about him?”

  Leung nodded. “Yes, Colonel. He’s supposed to be some young hotshot, with a title. Lord ‘Such and Such of Sparta.’ Word is he’s Lord-High Admiral Waterford’s hatchet man.”

  Like Cummings, Leung had made it into the Academy based on merit rather than connections. One of the reasons he was still a captain at thirty-five; although Cummings intended to give him a battlefield promotion the next time the Seventy-seventh saw action. Leung would have been eligible long ago if he hadn’t been tied to staff duty. His problem was he was too fine an administrator. Cummings had no end of young officers who were willing to jump into the breach, but few who could coordinate interstellar transportation, insuring that the Division ordnance ended up with the Seventy-seventh rather than at some Alderson Point dead-end.

  “It must be important if they want me there in an hour.” Cummings didn’t bother to speculate why; there were too many possibilities and very few of them looked good for him or the Seventy-seventh.

  The Admiral’s office was paneled in rare Tanith hardwoods and the desk was made from the bole of a tiger tree. Admiral Lyons was a young man with fine features and long fingers, every inch the aristocrat. As Colonel Cummings waited for him to speak, he examined the Tri-D holograph of Alexander VI, which was flanked by the Spartan flag to the left and the Imperial Eagle on the right.

  In his own office Cummings had the Haven flag to the left of the Emperor’s portrait. The Haven flag was a green land gator, snapping its jaws, on a yellow field with a black banner on the bottom reading “Don’t Tread On Me” in gold letters. It went back to CoDominium times and legend had it that it was based on a State flag of the Old United States of America back on Earth. It was rough and crude, but Cummings preferred it to the Admiral’s holo-picture version of an officer’s headquarters.

  “Sit down, Colonel,” Admiral Lyons ordered in what sounded like a trained announcer’s voice. The Admiralty Office was air conditioned, a relief to Cummings, who didn’t know such luxuries in his own headquarters.

  “Thank you, Admiral Lyons.”

  “You were at Tabletop, so I don’t have to draw you a picture of why the War is not going well.”

  Cummings nodded in agreement; the Empire had taken a terrible beating at Tabletop, losing over half of the Third Imperial Fleet and six Marine divisions. It had been a major loss of capital ships and men the Empire could not afford to lose.

  He studied the young Spartan Admiral. Was he one of the bright young men who were going to buy the Empire some time? Maybe even end the war with Sauron if some new Imperial Claimant didn’t pop out of the woodwork in the next few years. Unfortunately for the Empire—as Tacitus had once said: “A well-hidden secret of the principate had been revealed: it was possible, it seemed, for an emperor to be chosen outside Rome.”

  “We need to concentrate our forces,” Admiral Lyons continued. “The Sauron Super Soldiers are forcing us to rethink our previous strategy. It’s becoming obvious to the Admiralty that we cannot defeat the Saurons on the ground, not without incurring tremendous losses. We lost enough men to raise four div
isions trying to re-take Thurstone, and for what? A world blasted back to the Stone Age. No, we need to fight the Saurons where their individual abilities are minimized. We can no longer afford to fight them piecemeal. To do so is an act of suicide.”

  “You mean the Empire is pulling out?”

  The young Admiral’s ice-blue eyes studied him as if he were an insect on an examining slide. “It appears you did earn your reputation. Yes, the Admiralty has been ordered by the Emperor to pull back our forces from the frontier. We are to concentrate our units for maximum response. We can win this war yet, Colonel. But we can’t win by defending every backwater planet and Alderson cul-de-sac.”

  The sudden light in Lyon’s eyes told him that the Admiral believed his words. Cummings wished he were as certain of this policy. He’d fought Saurons almost—hell, his entire military career. If he’d learned anything, it was that you didn’t beat the Saurons by abandoning useful worlds and allies. What was the Empire but a collection of worlds held together by allegiance to a set of ideas and loyalty to the Emperor? How many strategic withdrawals could it make before that Empire of Man became another coalition or a petty kingdom with a fancy name?

  “It could be a mistake. Men don’t fight as well if they think no one’s protecting their homes. Marines aren’t Sauron Soldiers; they aren’t automatons bred to fight for no other reason than to do battle—like fighting cocks.”

  If Lyons found Cummings’ view of the war disturbing, he didn’t show it. Ruthless hatred of an enemy like the Saurons was a positive asset, as far as he was concerned. “Nice speech, Colonel. But this has already been studied by several Admiralty commissions.”

  Cummings examined the younger man closely; he appeared well-intentioned and even intelligent. However, it was doubtful that he’d done much of the fighting he was so expert upon. Unfortunately for the Empire, it appeared the time had arrived when loyalty was more important than competence or experience. It did not bode well for the Empire’s future.