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—bad. 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.