Naomi looked at me quizzically. Was I in fact the leader?
I hedged. "Look, Ginger. There isn't time to investigate his story.
Right now, Naomi and I have a little mission to accomplish. So keep
this guy under guard until we get back."
Deep down in me I felt resentment about all this tact I had to use.
Why _shouldn't_ I be the leader? The girls instinctively looked to me,
obeyed me. Why _shouldn't_ I be the one to give orders, make decisions?
This pretense of shared leadership with Naomi could only last a day,
two days, a week at most. And then would come the final showdown.
* * * * *
We rocketed into orbit with Jupiter's innermost satellite--I piloting,
Naomi astrogating. Io showed up like a pea-sized blemish against the
bloated planetary face, whirled into tan-grey zones of supercold
methane by thousand-mile-per-hour helium tradewinds. Jupiter the heavy,
inhospitable.
Almost beneath us now, the boys' domed hangout glowed dully green in
the feeble Jovian sunlight. Naomi readied the missile launchers.
Seconds later, before we were within firing range, the first of the
boys' space cruisers zoomed up to intercept us. They were ready for our
ship but not our strategy.
Down we plunged in a searing power dive, straight for the hangout's
vulnerable airlock. Missiles exploded on all sides of us, harmlessly,
as our phantom target defense went automatically to work. Our radio
crackled with barked commands and alarmed oaths between the boys' ships
and Io headquarters.
"Zero range!"
"They're coming in!"
"Damn those girls!"
"Look out! We can't stop them!"
"It's a suicide dive! Man your crash stations!"
We dropped down, inches above ground level of the airless moon, our
nose pointed like a needle at the green bubble. Suddenly I braked our
speed with reverse rockets, bruising my ribs with deceleration.
"Fire!" I shouted.
Naomi launched the first missile straight for their airlock. It struck
just before the emergency siege gate slid shut, blasting jagged holes
through the outer and inner locks. Air whooshed from the dome, hurling
men and debris into the vacuum. Seconds later the catastrophe seal was
oozing down to plug the hole, but by then our ship had plunged through.
"You've done it!" Naomi screamed joyously. "We're inside!"
"And their fleet is outside, and there's nothing the boys can do about
it."
I slowed our ship to practically zero ground speed. We hovered for a
moment near the ceiling of the great transparent dome, considering our
next target. Below us lay the ramshackle gangland, a maze of roofless
partitions clustered around a tiny lake. One quarter of the city was
virtually an open-air machine shop. Near the shattered airlock stood a
parade ground, overlooked by a tall, balconied tower with people on top
making frantic gestures.
"I'll bet that's headquarters."
"Down it goes," said Naomi excitedly.