The recon-patroller's leg and torso-pads fine-tuned
their tensions as Lieutenant Pete O'Hare shifted
position. His eyes ranged the banks of flickering
lights around him. An aberrant indicator caught his
eye and he mind-stroked a sensor control. Satisfied,
he moved on; the greens held firm.
Planet Pluto arced into view from starboard, half
a million kay distant. The mottled moonlet, Charon,
orbited the mother planet tightly. Only tanktown
Coldfield's dome and its hard unblinking lights
broke Pluto's drab crust. A dozen or so rutted
trails formed a network that connected encapsulated
outposts to each other and to Pluto's solitary city.
The recon-patroller's omni-directional screen
displayed the huge cylinder that floated in space
behind him, its gravity-enhanced rotation barely
perceptible to O'Hare's vision. Five-meter high
orange letters glowed brightly along its blunt
bow and stern, and on each quarter sector of its
exposed surface, proclaiming the huge cylinder
as the UIPS SLINGSHOT LOGISTICS DEPOT.
Space transports, no two alike, rode their
magnetic-beam's moorings along the Depot's flanks.
Space tugs and barges labored in all directions,
taxis charged about, and space-cranes swayed above
dozens of platforms that protruded from the Depot's
hull.
Leviathans off-loaded to barges as other ships in a
multitude of shapes and sizes grappled with cargo
from flex-conveyers that snaked from the Depot's
gaping portals. Slender, multi-armed space cranes
raised and lowered crates, bundles and modules, and
arranged, aligned, connected and disconnected gear
and cargo in all directions.
Aggregations of netted or tethered girders,
platforms, multi-meter-wide conduits in hundreds
of shapes and lengths, and modules linked by
stabilizer-beams crossed open spaces, pulled or
pushed by robot tugs controlled from the station's
cargo control centers. In trains or clusters,
machines traversed the open stretches between
the Depot's portals and nearby transports in their
final step toward a long journey.
The brightly checkered Depot slipped from O'Hare's
screen. A deployment station to O'Hare and hundreds
of his colleagues, and to more than four centuries
of his predecessors, the Depot was as much home
to him as his permanent station afloat in space
between Earth and Luna.
"Time," O'Hare silently flashed the code that
opened his spunnel channel to Keeper. "This is a
Slingshot Tac Ops from Red Fox to Keeper. I am hot
to trot on Point Charlie off Fandango Force Field.
All coordinates green for Scout Operation Xray
Delta slash Four. Time for go is 2112 slash 14
Solar. Keyed to transmit status on Spunnel Channel
9212, scramble 38. Confirm. Over."
The response was equally silent, registered
directly in his consciousness. The message's
clarity was unaffected by passage through
hundreds of spunnel boosters that linked O'Hare
to a shielded bunker beneath Luna's surface.
"Keeper to Red Fox. Your orders to scout Planet
Pluto Zone confirmed. You are cleared to start
at 2112 slash 14 Solar. Spunnel 9212 slash 38 is
open for your transmissions. You are spunnel-psy
monitored by Spacetrack Ceres. Out."
O'Hare tensed, psy-blinked his view screen down to
the instruments vital to his immediate mission, and
mind-keyed several controls. The fifteen-meters-long
vessel, with a barely two-meter beam, swooped
low and snapped into its run barely fifteen meters
across Pluto's desolate plains.
The view screen readouts showed subsurface
galleries, several outlined in irregular outlines
but empty, others reflected high-mass warship
configurations. He focused to adjust his
instruments for deeper penetration.
Quite suddenly, O'Hare's vision blurred. His head
and body swelled. In an instant, his brains, bones
and guts burst and splattered the cockpit as his
ship exploded.
##
Lieutenant Jake Ramirez smoothly accepted the
target blip that registered on his mind-screen. It
instantly displayed the target's dimensions, mass,
spin, velocity and coordinates. As the data strung
out Jake whistled, soft and low. He tapped the
channel traffic override to the Depot's spunnel
booster.
"Spunnel Flash to Keeper. Switch to Scramble 2."
Jake flipped the key and, without pause, mind-cast
his alert.
"Blue Fox to Keeper on Scramble 2. Message keyed
at 2115 slash 14 Solar. Request Spacetrack Ceres
verify ship's position and readings. Field is about
one-fourth by three-fourths kay, depth one-fourth
kay. No organics. Neutronic penetray analysis shows
that in addition to thermonuclear power plants
the aggregate includes machined parts configured
to Catalog 11 long range lasers, explosive
decompressors, particle beamers and gun mounts.
I suspect this is a cache of contraband ordnance
and spares positioned for pickup by Planet Pluto
insurgents. Orders? Over."
"Keeper to Blue Fox. Spacetrack Ceres confirms
unregistered objects proximate your position.
Ceres' sensors verify the findings. Space Force
concludes the stores present an immediate threat
to Slingshot. Your orders: Destroy the cache
immediately using your Type K1 nuclear explosive
missile setting: Baker Two Seven. Launch at
not less than 15,000 kay. Remain on station and
follow up. Search out and dissolve all residues; use
your laser-doubles at setting 8. Report when task
completed. Your Tac Ops and psych systems are
monitored. Start now. Out."
Keeper's message simultaneously loaded into the
recon-patroller's computer as authenticator for the
mission and demolition and laser gun settings. The
computer adjusted thrust and vector to bring the
ship to the 'fire' point and engage the countdown
and sequence to launch, arm the warhead, and follow
up. Missile launch was at six seconds.
Without warning, the computer froze. The frame
of the pilot's enclosure glowed red, then white. An
instant later the ship disintegrated into thousands
of metal and composite fragments, and shards of
what had been human flesh and bone.
##
"Flash -- Spunnel Transmission Priority One. To
Supreme Commander, United Inner Planetary System
Space Force, Earth Headquarters, from Keeper,
Luna Station. Attack report. Repeat: attack report.
Recon-patrollers R-19557, Red Fox, and R-87265,
Blue Fox in Planet Pluto Special Zone on recon
missions under Keeper control, were attacked and
destroyed by particle beams; attack times: Red Fox
212014; Blue Fox 215514.
"Beamers fired from unidentified batteries, source
Sectus Gorge, coordinates GT165, Planet Pluto. The
UIPS patrollers were on directed Tac Ops missions:
cite our messages to Red Fox and Blue Fox
past half-hour, info recorded in Tac Ops Actions
Register, your Headquarters. Regret to inform you
that no life signals emanate from Red Fox and Blue
Fox wreckage. Spacetrack Ceres will monitor for
survivors. Ship recovery and investigation teams
dispatched from Log Depot to both sites. Out."
##
"Flash To President, United Inner Planetary System
from Supreme Commander, Space Force. This
is my initial report of attacks on two of our
recon-patrollers while on UIPS-directed missions
in the Planet Pluto Special Zone. No survivors. I
conclude that Plutonian weapons destroyed both
ships. UIPS ships and support stations sunside
of Neptune hold on Defense Alert Level Two.
Defense Alert One remains in effect at Slingshot
construction site and throughout Plutonian Special
Zone. Details follow."
##
"To President, UIPS from Commander, Space Force.
Copy to each Senior Elder of the General Assembly,
to Ministers of Intelligence and Diplomatic
Protocols, and to Slingshot Director. This is
follow-on to my initial report of attacks on our
recon-patrollers in Planet Pluto Special Zone.
Recon-patroller Red Fox was destroyed while on
assigned mission to scout Special Zone to locate
launch and support sites for spacecraft that
present a clear and present danger to Slingshot.
Thirty-five seconds later, sister ship Blue Fox, on
directed survey of the Planet Pluto Special Zone
for unregistered space debris and contraband was
similarly attacked and destroyed.
"Transmissions from the patrollers Tac Ops systems,
and scansplays of their external observations ceased
instantly at time of attack. Note that Spacetrack
Ceres' reports of the events, confirmed by
Keeper, indicate conclusively that in the last few
milliseconds of functional stability before the
ships' defenses were breached their damage report
systems salvoed message bursts to spunnel boosters.
The signals confirm that each patroller had been the
target of long-range particle beamers.
"The missions of the two patrollers have not been
completed. Although the Red Fox scout mission can
be rescheduled, we must be prepared for an increase
in such attacks throughout the Special Zone. Blue
Fox was four seconds from a missile launch to
destroy a cache of contraband, and was attacked
before it could complete the task. Consequently,
Plutonian insurgents have now added significantly
to their already large stores of space weapons.
"Repeat alerts have been spunneled to Commanders
of UIPS ships, posts and stations throughout the
UIPS, and to all UIPS vessels that enter or are in the
Outer Region; also to ships under way, and at space
and surface moorings. Note that UIPS ships en route
to Slingshot, the Log Depot, and work sites have
been on Defense Alert Red since the Outer Region
seceded from the old United Planetary System,
therefore Slingshot readiness in their sectors
remains unchanged.
"This completes Commander Space Force Attack
Report."