Cyborg Assault ds-4 Page 21

  It was a deadly contest that demanded perfect decisions. Gharlane had to count the number of remaining missiles, decide on how many he could spare and how important fleet superiority would be in the coming days and battles. Finally, he had to decide how many missiles he needed to destroy Callisto as a military installation. Because Jupiter spewed such heavy radiation, seventy percent of Callisto’s population lived on the targeted face. That meant Gharlane possessed a rich field of targets, if he could breach the defenses. He would never face such a powerful concentration of lasers again, as Callisto’s orbital defense was the core of Confederation strength.

  The cyborg-controlled meteor-ship died. As satellite sensors and interferometers discovered this, the laser stations retargeted, aiming at the cyborg troopship. Then exploding Voltaire Missiles beamed hot radiation and killed the last satellites.

  Only the Callisto point-defense cannons on the surface now stood between life and death. Each installation was composed of a massive fero-concrete shell. A magnetic rail-gun poked out of the opening, aiming its tube into space. Targeting satellites normally supplied the needed coordinates. Those were dead. Therefore, surface-based installations provided the data. This resulted in a fifty-three percent decrease in effectiveness.

  The rail-guns chugged, lofting nuclear-tipped canisters, which exploded and created a defensive zone of shrapnel and sand. Other canisters sped farther and attempted to kill Voltaires through EMP surges and heat.

  The remaining Voltaire Missiles used their last point-defense volleys to obliterate EMP canisters before they ignited.

  Then the mighty, Voltaire Missiles smashed through the shrapnel belt, and more of them died. Only eleven percent of the launched strike survived the journey—seven gargantuan missiles. In those fateful nanoseconds as they zoomed at Callisto, seven titanic nosecones opened. Each missile contained five independent payloads of many hundreds of megatons. Thus, thirty-five nuclear bombs exploded within a nine-second window. Missile casings, shells and other assorted mass also struck Callisto at devastating velocities. Together, the united explosions rocked the surface and annihilated millions in the domed cities and down in the deep shelters.

  Thirty-five towering mushroom clouds of radioactive dust, dirt and rock rose upward. The columns rose to dizzying heights, expelling matter into low-orbit.

  A full third of the population died by the heat and blasts. A fourth perished in the next ten minutes from the vacuum of space, their cities or dwellings ruptured beyond repair. In the coming days, radiation poisoning would slay more. Lack of water, food or sanitation would sweep through the wreckage after that.

  Some of Callisto survived, however. The nature of the attack meant that those on the other side had kept their cities, dwelling and point defense installations intact.

  As news of the terrible cyborg-strike reached those on the other side—quakes still traveled across the surface like waves—the cyborg-controlled patrol boats and troopship entered far-Callisto orbit.

  The agony of Callisto was far from over as the worst horrors were about to descend in the coming hours and days—cyborg drop troops. Gharlane had ordered the genocidal removal of the Jovians of Callisto. Nothing must survive that might jeopardize Jupiter System victory.

  Shock Trooper Kluge

  -1-

  Nadia Pravda chewed on a fingernail as the Occam VII Patrol Boat decelerated. It was the last of the three vessels making up this Aquinas Wing splinter group.

  Nadia sat in the back of the pilot’s chamber during a duty-run into possible danger. That was against regulations, but the five-person crew had taken pity on her. They knew she dreaded being alone.

  Nadia wore the brown coveralls of a technician and a low-brimmed hat with a sonic screwdriver crest. Black straps crisscrossed her torso, highlighting her breasts. Her magnetic-soled boots were attached to the deckplates. She worried a ragged fingernail, having already chewed it down. Her scrubbed features were clean, if still too pale. Sometimes, she managed a tremulous smile. The others had to call her name occasionally to snap her out of a thousand-meter stare.

  Nadia chewed her fingernail, aware that a Highborn warship circled Jupiter. Thinking about that, her stomach had become queasy again. The Highborn were here. Worse, the Praetor commanded the vessel. She knew about him. Everyone in the Sun-Works Factory had traded gossip concerning his evil temper. She’d told the Jovian crew about the Praetor and couldn’t understand their shrugs and disinterest. They worried about cyborgs. Nadia couldn’t conceive of anything more deadly than the nine-foot supermen from the gene labs.

  The patrol-boat’s main chamber was larger than her escape pod and longer than it was wide. The pilot and weapons officer sat in front before a small, polarized window. Behind them to the left was the sensor-and-communications operator. She was the woman Nadia had spoken to several weeks ago, Officer Mara. The last two crewmembers were asleep in their quarters. Those living quarters, the boat’s galley, gym and engine rooms made up the rest of the patrol vessel. The boat was rakish in appearance, had anti-missile pods and what amounted to point-defense canons. Because of the extreme distances in the Jupiter System, each patrol boat had larger engines than an Inner Planets vessel of this type would possess and a longer-range capacity. Its crews were also conditioned for yearlong stints.

  The various Aquinas Wing Patrol Boats had separated some time ago as they investigated the distant moons of the Carme group. Each ‘moon’ was asteroid-sized, and was mainly comprised of retrograde orbiting bodies. In other words, the moons orbited in the opposite direction as Jupiter spun. The average inclination of these moons was 165 degrees. In this system, an inclination of zero degrees meant that an asteroid or moon orbited Jupiter in its equatorial plane. An inclination of exactly ninety degrees would be a polar orbit, where a moon passed over Jupiter’s north and south poles, while an inclination of exactly 270 degrees would be a polar orbit in the opposite direction.

  The three patrols boats decelerated as they approached the main moon of this group, the one it was named after: Carme. Carme was the largest of these asteroid-sized moons, 46 kilometers in diameter. It was roughly twenty-three million kilometers from Jupiter. A comparative distance would be a quarter of the way the Doom Stars had journeyed a year ago between Earth and Mars when the two planets had been 100,000,000 kilometers apart.

  An observatory at Aquinas Base had noticed strange occurrences here. The base operators had also noticed peculiar activity at several other asteroid-moons of the Carme group. The orders sending the patrol boats had originated months ago.

  “Anything?” asked the boat’s Force-Leader, who also acted as the weapons officer.

  “I’m getting fusion reactor readings,” Mara said.

  “Do they comply with the outpost’s norms?” the Force-Leader asked.

  “I’m checking that now.”

  Nadia watched Mara’s thin fingers fly across a monitor-board. According to what the crew had told her, there was a scientific outpost here and a laser-lightguide way-station linked to the Saturn net. Mara read something off the board as she began shaking her head. Mara had a buzz-cut and wore a black quartz hook in her earlobe. Usually, Officer Mara smiled a lot, and often talked with Nadia for hours as they drank coffee. Mara wasn’t smiling now.

  “This is strange,” she said.

  “Explain,” said the Force-Leader.

  “There must be heavy shielding in place. It must be why I failed to detect these readings earlier.”

  “Explain,” repeated the Force-Leader.

  Nadia’s stomach churned. She didn’t like words like ‘strange’, not when referring to something so close. She removed the finger from her mouth and craned her neck to look.

  A dark, irregular blot appeared through the window. There was a single bright mote on the blot, and stars shined on either side of it. Something about that darkness frightened Nadia. She put her finger back near her teeth as she searched her gnawed-down nail for something to nibble. Being here felt wrong—ba
d. She wanted to beg the others to go elsewhere, but she knew her words wouldn’t matter. Besides, the belief that her words had power had died… maybe halfway to Jupiter.

  Nadia switched fingers, and she winced as she bit down on a cuticle. She’d become too passive, and she knew it. She had to learn to live again. Was it truly dangerous out here, or had she become a mouse, jumping at shadows?

  The weapons officer swiveled back. He had a round Jovian face and a whisper of a mustache. It made him seem too young, even though the mustache was gray. He blinked watery eyes at Mara.

  “The outpost’s normative energy levels shouldn’t have changed,” he said.

  “I know that,” Mara whispered.

  “What are the readings?”

  Mara shook her head.

  “The scientific outpost—” the weapons officer began to say.

  “Missile!” the pilot shouted.

  The weapons officer swiveled back. Mara yelped as she slapped buttons. Then several things happened at once. A sleek missile burned hotly as it streaked around Carme and sped at the lead patrol boat. What appeared as tracer-rounds shot from that patrol boat’s canons. The projectiles smashed into the missile, and the missile exploded silently, an orange ball of energy. Unfortunately for the patrol boat, a second missile had already appeared.

  “Brace yourselves!” shouted the pilot, slapping a button that threw them into computer-automated evasive action.

  Whimpering, Nadia gripped her restraining straps.

  A third missile appeared, zooming around the curvature of Carme. More tracer-like rounds sped at the second missile. The missile jinked as the tracers shot past it. Then the missile hit, and the lead patrol boat exploded.

  The Occam VII veered wildly.

  “Who’s firing at us?” the weapons officer shouted. He shoved his left hand into a twitch-glove as he jammed purple-lensed goggles over his eyes.

  “By Plato’s Bones,” Mara whispered.

  Nadia’s hands hurt as she gripped her restraining straps.

  “There!” the weapons officer shouted. His gloved fingers fluttered, and the patrol boat shuttered as ripping sounds came from the front of their vessel, the sound of shells entering the cannons.

  “A dreadnaught,” Mara whispered. “It was hiding behind Carme.”

  “What? What?” shouted the weapons officer.

  “A dreadnaught is here,” Mara said, pointing at her screen, at the vast, spherical shape on it.

  The radio crackled with life as the other patrol boat exploded at the corner of the polarized window.

  I’m going to die, Nadia told herself. I don’t want to die, not now.

  “I don’t understand this,” Mara said.

  “Speak to me,” the weapons officer said in a strained voice.

  “You have to get us out of here!” Mara shouted. “I have to radio my information to the authorities!”

  “What are you talking about?” the weapons officer shouted.

  “There’s something on the surface!” Mara shouted back. “It’s big. The fusion readings—they’re coming from there. I don’t understand these readings. They’re off the scale for what should be here.”

  “Another missile!” the weapons officer shouted. His fingers fluttered wildly and the ripping sounds of loading shells increased.

  Tears flowed from Nadia’s eyes. She wanted to live. She knew there was only one way now. She’d fought her way out of doom once before and maybe could do it again. That had been a lifetime ago, however, and with a different Nadia Pravda. Still, the old stubborn Nadia of the past still lived somewhere inside her.

  As the patrol-boat veered one way and then another Nadia unhooked her straps. With her magnetized boots at full power, she clanked across the deckplates and for the hatch.

  “We have to beam this information to Athena Station,” Mara said.

  “Not there,” the pilot said. “Don’t you remember? The cyborgs launched a missile attack from there.”

  “Right,” said Mara. “I’m flashing this… to Ganymede Central.” She pressed a transmit button. The patrol boat’s readings concerning Carme, the massive fusion core—someone needed to know about this.

  As Mara beamed the information, as the pilot jinked and as the weapons officer fired the boat’s canons, Nadia made it out of the pilot chamber, through a cramped corridor and into a closest-sized ejection chamber. She was thrown one way and then another by the violent maneuvering. She donned a vacc-suit and crawled into a minuscule pod.

  Nadia kicked the hatch shut with a clang, clicked her straps into place and yanked the ejection lever. There was a bump and a heavy clanking sound as the pod was loaded into a chamber like a cartridge. Nadia sucked down air. Then acceleration slammed her against the padded couch. Her ejection pod flew out of the patrol boat’s side.

  The Occam VII fled Carme. Missiles no longer launched from the huge dreadnaught. Now point-defense canons fired. They were blisters of light against the mighty warship. Seconds later, the patrol boat died, shredded into metallic parts and smears of bio-matter.

  The jet on Nadia’s pod burned for several more seconds. It must have registered on the dreadnaught’s sensors. A flit-boat launched from a bay, heading toward her.

  Nadia knew nothing about that. She hugged herself, moaning in misery. She was alone again, lost. It was a horrible feeling. What she wouldn’t give for company—I need company, she thought to herself. Anyone would do.

  Nadia wasn’t aware that fate would grant her the wish, but grant it with a terrible twist.

  -2-

  As the information from Patrol Boat Occam VII of the Aquinas Wing entered the main computer of Ganymede Central, Chief Strategist Tan boarded the Kant.

  Outgoing messages from Callisto had ended forty-nine hours ago. Long before that, images of attacking cyborgs had shattered the Confederation. Nothing should move so fast or kill so effortlessly. Cameras caught cyborgs bounding across the surface, shooting anything that moved. The worst shot, played repeatedly on a million screens, showed a young woman with her baby cradled in her arms. The space-suited woman ran for a sealed rover as she hurdled a block of fero-concrete. A chasing cyborg fired a Gyroc pistol. The .75 caliber rocket ignited and blew the head off the young woman, causing her to fling her arms. The baby sailed and thudded against the rover. A microsecond later, another Gyroc shell from the same cyborg obliterated the infant and most of the rover’s top.

  Videos also caught machine-swift bipeds lunging through bunker corridors, using vibroknives to slaughter the survivors of the Voltaire strike. The herding of naked prisoners was awful to witness. Every news site on the web transmitted the image. The metallic indifference of the cyborgs burned into every heart that watched.

  Callisto died, the victim to a thousand calamities. Nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew nap-of-the-moon onto the Jupiter-facing side, hitting untouched domes. Gigantic mushroom clouds blossomed and radiation spread like a killer blanket. From low-orbit, cyborg-controlled patrol boats inserted gravity bombs.

  The worst scenes were always the individual cyborgs moving too fast, too far and with killer precision. They combed the ruins: hunting, herding and annihilating the former Confederation stronghold.

  The rule of the philosopher-kings was just a passing memory now, if still a recent one. The survivors in their space yachts and on the liners were too shocked to insist on their former prerogatives. They fled to Io or began the long journey to the Himalia group moons.

  Because of the successful cyborg strike, Ganymede became the premier moon. The highest ranked there had already begun jockeying for power. Only a few terrified people openly considered Gharlane’s surrender terms. He came online, presenting the first recorded cyborg transmission in the Jupiter System. It was fitting that he issued an ultimatum. Most people suggested Gharlane’s message was a ploy to shock them or to cause greater confusion through divided councils. Some of those jockeying for power radioed the Descartes and asked Representative Kluge’s opinion concerni
ng Gharlane’s terms.

  “It’s a fight to the death,” Marten told them via vidscreen. “Once they’ve stripped you of your defenses, you’ll enter a converter, soon becoming one of the cyborgs yourself.”

  “The cyborgs are behaving differently here than they did during the Mars Campaign,” one Ganymede Secessionist leader pointed out. “Perhaps they realize they need allies.”

  Marten laughed at the man. “No. It’s only to gain time.”

  “Time to do what?” the stung leader asked.

  “Time to subjugate the entire Solar System,” Marten said.

  Strategist Tan argued along similar lines. She now controlled the warships parked in low-Ganymede orbit. When asked by Secessionist leaders to accept a Ganymede commander, she said:

  “I have the ships, the bombs and the missiles to dictate terms, not you.”

  “With Callisto’s passing, your advantage is only momentary,” the Ganymede Advisor said.

  “Possibly true,” said Tan. “Until that time ends, however, I shall direct my ships as I judge proper. Given that reality, I suggest you order your dreadnaught at Europa to join me. We must build up strength faster than the cyborgs build theirs. Then we must engage them and attempt an annihilating victory. We must drive them from our system.”

  “Ship ratios are still in their favor,” the Advisor said.

  “That isn’t completely accurate,” said Tan. “We presently have a superior concentration of warships. And it is a truism in war that such a superiority can bring strategic benefits if properly exploited. Therefore, let us quibble about political power later. Now is the moment to strike if we’re to save ourselves.”

  The debate still raged between Tan and the Ganymede leaders, although the Secessionist dreadnaught had left Europa. It presently burned hard for Ganymede.

  The Descartes meanwhile had matched velocity with the Thebes, a first class liner of the Pythagoras Cruise-Line. It was a huge vessel, bigger than a dreadnaught but without particle shields. It had escaped Callisto’s destruction. Now, under Article Seventeen of the Dictates, guardian personnel had commandeered it. The liner carried an abundance of ship-guardians and critical supplies, and it had been ordered to rendezvous with the meteor-ship.