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.