Cyborg Assault ds-4

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Ours is a complicated system,” Yakov said.

  Marten nodded.

  Jupiter dominated everything with its size and its horrendous gravitational pull. It meant that moving here took much greater fuel as compared to other planetary systems. It also meant that maintaining a high orbit, the high ground, was even more advantageous here than elsewhere.

  It would take eleven Earths placed side-by-side to stretch across Jupiter’s visible disk. More than one thousand Earths would be needed to fill Jupiter’s volume. Because Earth was denser than Jupiter, the Jovian planet only had three hundred times the Earth’s mass.

  Yakov fiddled with the control unit. A sea of pale dots appeared. They were everywhere. Some circled the Galilean moons. Some traveled between them. Others boosted from Jupiter and headed to the Inner group moons. The majority of the dots were obviously civilian or corporation spaceships. Yakov adjusted the control, and orange dots appeared among them, a fraction of the number.

  “Those are the known locations of Guardian Fleet warships,” Yakov said. “By their maneuverings, we should now be able to tell if they’re cyborg-controlled.” He pressed a button. Two of the orange dots turned green. “Those are under Secessionist control, those who have radioed us.”

  “It doesn’t look as if any of those can help us against the Zeno,” Marten said.

  “They cannot,” Yakov said.

  After Jupiter, the biggest bodies were the four Galilean moons. The last two were larger than Mercury, while Io was larger than Luna of Earth. Io, the nearest to Jupiter, completed an orbital circuit every 1.77 days. According to Yakov, the mineral complexes on Io had light defensive equipment, enough to hurt orbital fighters, but negligible against even one meteor-ship.

  “The cyborgs could easily cripple mining on Io,” Yakov said.

  “How does any of this help us against the Zeno?” Marten asked.

  “Patience,” Yakov said.

  Europa was an ice-ball. The intense radiation from Jupiter and Io’s volcanoes made it a harsh place on the surface. Its ice provided most of the system’s water and protected the deep communities there.

  A green dot orbited Europa.

  Yakov indicated it. “We have a Secessionist dreadnaught and several patrol boats there. At the moment, it is our greatest concentration of strength.”

  “This orange dot,” Marten said, pointing out a ship moving between Europa and Ganymede. “It’s not traveling in a direct route. Is there a reason for that?”

  “Yes. The reason is the Laplace resonance.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Yakov began to explain.

  The first three Galilean moons formed a pattern known as a Laplace resonance. For every four orbits Io made around Jupiter, Europa made a perfect two orbits and Ganymede made a perfect one. The resonance caused the gravitational effects that distorted the orbits into elliptical shapes. Each moon received an extra tug from its neighbors at the same point in every orbit. However, Jupiter’s strong tidal force helped to circularize the orbits and negate some of the elliptical shape. Those forces also affected ships traveling between the three moons.

  Yakov clicked his control unit.

  Three orange dots were highlighted as they moved into a low-Ganymede orbit. Those were clearly Guardian Fleet ships. Their commandant had threatened planetary bombardment if the surface fighting did not cease at once.

  To try to stem the fighting between Secessionists and Guardians, Marten had recommended a doctored file. Too many Jovians still refused to believe that cyborgs had infiltrated the system. Therefore, Yakov recorded mock attack sequences by Osadar in the Descartes. These fabrications Yakov sent as beamed distress signals from several now-silent Guardian Fleet vessels—those warships they were certain were under cyborg control. The recording had helped convince some that the cyborgs had truly arrived.

  Yakov changed the holographic image, showing Marten the entire Jovian System.

  Counting the Galilean moons, there were sixty-three different bodies orbiting Jupiter. Most were asteroid-sized and contained less combined population than Ganymede, the second most populous moon. Four small moons known as the Inner group orbited Jupiter at less than 200,000 kilometers. In economic terms, they were important, as each was part of the automated, atmospheric system gathering helium-3. None had powerful military forces stationed on or near them, although there was civilian space-traffic there.

  The rest of the Jovian bodies were far beyond the Galilean moons. The Himalia group were tightly clustered moons with orbits around eleven to twelve million kilometers from Jupiter.

  There were three other groups. In order of distance, they were Ananke, Carme and the Pasiphae group. These asteroid-sized moons were far away from Jupiter and far from Athena Station, some over twenty-five million kilometers.

  Marten frowned as he took in the immensity of the system. Jupiter was unlike any of the Inner Planets. There were vastly more moons here that were incredibly distant from each other. If they survived the Zeno, the coming fight would be unlike anything he’d known. Normally in a system, a single planetary body dominated strategic thought. Here, he hardly knew where to begin.

  It brought him back to the Zeno. “What are we going to do about the drone?” he asked.

  Yakov clicked the unit. It showed the Zeno heading for them. The Force-Leader rubbed his thumb along the control unit. “I’m open to suggestions,” he said.

  Marten didn’t like the sound of that.

  -3-

  Far from Marten and his troubles was a small spec of a spacecraft. It was in the outer Jovian System and the craft contained one passenger. She presently lay on her bunk, staring at the bulkhead above. Her clothes had worn through in too many places, showing skin. It also showed that her muscles were firm and that she had lost weight. The lost weight heightened the shape of her breasts, and it had caused her butt to return to its shape she’d had at sixteen.

  A lifetime ago, Nadia Pravda had slipped out of the Sun-Works Factory in a secret stealth-pod. She’d taken drugs for a time, before spacing them. To combat loneliness, she’d exercised endlessly, often to exhaustion. Despite the exercise, her new thinness had mainly come about because she was sick of the concentrates.

  In the other room, a klaxon began to wail. It was at the lowest possible setting, but it caused Nadia to twist her neck as she stared in dumbfounded amazement.

  With a frown furrowed across her forehead, Nadia sat up. She didn’t—

  A bizarre whine occurred as the pod’s engine kicked into life. The pod’s walls vibrated and the craft’s thrust slammed Nadia against the bunk. She wheezed for breath. What was happening?

  She blinked again. She had been alone a long time, trapped in these cramped quarters with nobody to talk to. Sometimes, she wondered if life would have been more bearable with Ervil along, even if the man had raped her every day of the voyage. At least she would have had someone to talk to. The endless loneliness, the weary journey out of the Inner Planets and to the Jovian System—

  The klaxon blared as the thrust pinned her to the bunk. Nadia found it hard to lift her chest high enough to draw air. As she did, her ragged shirt pressed against her breasts.

  She hated the loneliness. She hated being trapped in a small pod in the vastness of the universe. Why had Marten Kluge left her? She thought about him. She remembered his promises. He had lied. All men lied. All men made promises they never kept. It was their philandering nature to do so.

  Then the klaxon and the thrust stopped.

  Nadia made a gasping sound as she struggled upright. The frown lines had reappeared, but now she forced herself to sit up and swing her legs over the bunk. She pushed toward the other room, floating in the pod’s returned weightlessness.

  She made a mouse-like noise upon entering the second compartment. The window shields had opened. Had the command been buried somewhere in the computer’s program? She couldn’t remember anymore.

  What terrified her was the shape outside the polar
ized window. It was sleek and deadly looking, with military style lettering on the sides and obvious cannons poking from stubby wings. It… the sleek craft had matched velocities with her, seemingly remaining stationary now.

  Nadia tried to speak. It had been weeks since she’d uttered anything. She finally croaked the words, “Patrol ship.”

  The sight and her speech was more than her mind could comprehend. It caused her to forget she was floating weightlessly toward the window. She remembered as her hip bumped against the console and as her face mashed against the cool window. Her nose pressed against the ballistic glass and her tearing eyes stared at the spacecraft.

  The throb in her hip combined with the sting of her nose helped engage the neurons in her brain. After endless months and months of journeying, she was near Jupiter. In another three weeks—

  Nadia blinked her eyeballs. Had she phased out again? It had been happening more these past months. Had those three weeks already passed?

  She frowned as a red light began to blink on the console.

  With another of her strange yelps, Nadia pushed herself into the pilot’s chair and hurriedly strapped in. The red light—

  “Oh,” she whispered. She remembered what the light meant. This was… was… was….

  With another blink and with a trembling hand, Nadia flipped a switch.

  “Identify yourself,” a female voice said from the com-unit.

  More tears welled in Nadia’s brown eyes. They were large eyes: ones that Marten Kluge had loved to stare into. The tears helped fire neurons and synapses in her mind.

  “This is your final warning,” the voice said.

  Nadia trembled violently as she opened a channel. She made a croaking sound as she tried to speak. With slow deliberation, she moistened her lips. Then she bent near the console and whispered, “This is Nadia Pravda speaking. Who… who are you?”

  “Say again?” asked the woman.

  “I’m Nadia Pravda.”

  “What sort of cyborg name is that?”

  “What?” Nadia asked. She knew nothing about the Third Battle for Mars, and she knew even less about cyborgs.

  “Are you a cyborg?”

  “What’s… what’s a cyborg?” Nadia whispered.

  “Who are you? Identify yourself.”

  “I’m from Mercury,” Nadia said.

  “You’re Highborn?”

  “No!” Nadia said, with the first hint of emotion. Something flared in her eyes then. She moistened her lips again and cleared her throat. She was vaguely aware of hunger. That her stomach had almost shrunken into nothing.

  “I escaped from the Highborn,” Nadia said. “I want asylum.”

  “You’re a political escapee?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “We’re Aquinas Patrol, Boat Seven, of the Guardian Fleet. You’re in the outer boundary of the Jovian Sphere. We request an inspection, which means we’re going to board you. Will you comply, Nadia?”

  Nadia’s eyes grew wide. Someone was coming aboard her pod. Why had that made the klaxon wail and the pod’s precious hydrogen-particle engine to fire?

  She glanced around at her vessel. Several squeezed tubes of concentrates floated in the air.

  “If you refuse—” the woman began to say.

  “No,” Nadia said, terrified that the patrol boat would leave, leaving her all alone again. She was actually talking with someone. It was such a glorious feeling. “I want you to inspect me. I want to go with you.”

  “Are you well?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Nadia said. “I think there’s something wrong with my thinking. Please—” the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Please, take me with you.”

  “Do you have a vacc-suit?”

  “I… I don’t know. It’s hard to think. I’ve been alone in space for a long time.”

  “I understand.” There was compassion in the woman’s voice. “We’ll send a rescue team immediately. Patrol Boat—”

  “Please,” Nadia whispered, “keep talking to me until the others come. I… I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time.”

  “Someone will be there soon, Nadia. Tell me about Mercury.”

  With the back of her hand, Nadia Pravda wiped tears from her cheeks. She had completed the journey. She had made it to the Jupiter System. Finally, everything was going to be all right. As the woman in the patrol boat listened, Nadia began to tell her about the Sun-Works Factory and her harrowing escape from it.

  -4-

  As Nadia boarded Boat Seven of the Aquinas Patrol over thirty million kilometers from Jupiter, Marten eased into a module in the Descartes command center. The command personnel were busy in the nearly silent room. Some tapped at computer screens. Others murmured into their implants. In the middle of the room, Yakov watched the main screen, his face impassive.

  An hour had passed, meaning that the Zeno drone was thirty minutes behind them.

  Marten switched on his vidscreen. Through the ship’s sensors, he watched the Zeno.

  “Force-Leader,” Rhea said.

  Yakov minutely turned his head.

  “The Chief Controller wishes to speak with you.”

  Yakov pursed his lips. “Put her on the main screen.”

  The image of the Zeno faded away as Chief Controller Su-Shan appeared. There was faint color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there earlier, and the serenity that had been in her eyes before had changed. She still wore the sheer robe. Because of the large main screen, Marten noticed her delicate frame and the buds on her breasts. He’d never pictured philosophers looking like this. She appeared to be in a large room. There was a statue to her left of a satyr blowing a reed flute. Occasionally, behind her, an officer in a white robe strode past.

  “Force-Leader Yakov, you have made an unwarranted leap in status.” Su-Shan hardly moved her lips as she spoke, which highlighted her elfin features.

  “Force-Leader,” Rhea said. “The drone accelerates.”

  “Give me a split-screen,” Yakov said.

  On the main screen was a shot of the drone, its exhaust seemingly doubling the Zeno’s length. Beside it was the video image of the Chief Controller.

  “Your altered cyborg file shows your duplicity,” Su-Shan was saying. “Surely, you did not believe that would fool us.”

  “We are presently under attack,” Yakov said. “So if you could make your point, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  “I grow weary of your falsified proceedings,” she said.

  “Send her the sensor readings,” Yakov told Rhea.

  “Is that wise?” Marten asked.

  “Who speaks with such a strange accent aboard a Jovian warship?” Su-Shan asked. “Show him to me.”

  “I’m in the middle of a battle and must disconnect,” Yakov told her.

  “Do that and I shall order an immediate bombardment of the Galileo Regio,” Su-Shan said.

  Marten had glanced at a map of Ganymede earlier. The Chief Controller referred to a dark plain that contained a series of concentric grooves or furrows. It was one of Ganymede’s most significant geologic features. Yakov had informed him that it was also critical to the Secessionists, stockpiled with weaponry and with secret planetary defenses soon to go online.

  Yakov raised an eyebrow. “You accord my decision far too much weight, Chief Controller.”

  “Again you prattle falsities.”

  “Would you clarify your statement?”

  “Force-Leader,” Rhea said. “The drone continues to accelerate.”

  “Do not look away from me,” Su-Shan said as she accepted a missive from a hand appearing onscreen. She glanced at the message before continuing. “We have discovered your importance in the terrorist plot. As amazing at it sounds, you are either the heart or the intellect of the so-called Secessionist Rebellion. Therefore, you will dialogue with me or the Galileo Regio shall receive several precision bombardments.”

  “Force-Leader,” Rhea said, “you must—”<
br />
  “Begin the Code Six Defense,” Yakov told Rhea.

  On the main screen, Su-Shan’s eyes hardened. She turned her head and seemed to be in the process of giving an order, possibly a most terrible order.

  “I am Marten Kluge of the Highborn Shock Troopers,” Marten said, who’d been following the conversation closely.

  On screen, Su-Shan turned back. It caused her robe to shift, to highlight her smooth skin underneath.

  Marten hurried before the main screen. “I’ve come from Mars,” he said. He dug out his credentials. “I am a fully accredited representative of the Mars Planetary Union.”

  “You expect me to believe such nonsense?” Su-Shan asked. “Firstly, your words are unreasonable, considering your original statement that you are a shock trooper. We have heard about them: Earth troops trained in advanced Highborn space-combat techniques. Secondly, the Martians would have informed us concerning an accredited representative in our system.”

  “I was a shock trooper who escaped the Highborn. The Martians hired me during their recent struggle and afterward granted me accreditation. They learned that I journeyed to Jupiter and wished to open secret negotiations with you. Unfortunately, they feared Highborn and Social Unity communications-cracking. My proof is this,” Marten said, holding up the booklet’s cover and then paging through the contents, hoping their video could record it.

  As Marten did this, the Descartes shuddered. Anti-missile rockets zoomed from the meteor-ship, rocking it with their combined blasts. Usually, Yakov would have detached the rockets before they fired. There was no time now. Point-defense cannons fired for long-range spreads, and the rail-gun shot minefield canisters into the Zeno’s likeliest path.

  On the split-screen, Su-Shan glanced at something out of sight. “Your credentials appear to be genuine. You should have headed directly to Callisto.”

  “As a representative of the Mars Planetary Union,” Marten said, “I can assure you that cyborgs boarded my ship.”