Chapter ONE
The recon-patroller's leg and torso-pads fine-tunedtheir tensions as Lieutenant Pete O'Hare shiftedposition. His eyes ranged the banks of flickeringlights around him. An aberrant indicator caught hiseye and he mind-stroked a sensor control. Satisfied,he moved on; the greens held firm.
Planet Pluto arced into view from starboard, halfa million kay distant. The mottled moonlet, Charon,orbited the mother planet tightly. Only tanktownColdfield's dome and its hard unblinking lightsbroke Pluto's drab crust. A dozen or so ruttedtrails formed a network that connected encapsulatedoutposts to each other and to Pluto's solitary city.
The recon-patroller's omni-directional screendisplayed the huge cylinder that floated in spacebehind him, its gravity-enhanced rotation barelyperceptible to O'Hare's vision. Five-meter highorange letters glowed brightly along its bluntbow and stern, and on each quarter sector of itsexposed surface, proclaiming the huge cylinderas the UIPS SLINGSHOT LOGISTICS DEPOT.
Space transports, no two alike, rode theirmagnetic-beam's moorings along the Depot's flanks.Space tugs and barges labored in all directions,taxis charged about, and space-cranes swayed abovedozens of platforms that protruded from the Depot'shull.
Leviathans off-loaded to barges as other ships in amultitude of shapes and sizes grappled with cargofrom flex-conveyers that snaked from the Depot'sgaping portals. Slender, multi-armed space cranesraised and lowered crates, bundles and modules, andarranged, aligned, connected and disconnected gearand cargo in all directions.
Aggregations of netted or tethered girders,platforms, multi-meter-wide conduits in hundredsof shapes and lengths, and modules linked bystabilizer-beams crossed open spaces, pulled orpushed by robot tugs controlled from the station'scargo control centers. In trains or clusters,machines traversed the open stretches betweenthe Depot's portals and nearby transports in theirfinal step toward a long journey.
The brightly checkered Depot slipped from O'Hare'sscreen. A deployment station to O'Hare and hundredsof his colleagues, and to more than four centuriesof his predecessors, the Depot was as much hometo him as his permanent station afloat in spacebetween Earth and Luna.
"Time," O'Hare silently flashed the code thatopened his spunnel channel to Keeper. "This is aSlingshot Tac Ops from Red Fox to Keeper. I am hotto trot on Point Charlie off Fandango Force Field.All coordinates green for Scout Operation XrayDelta slash Four. Time for go is 2112 slash 14Solar. Keyed to transmit status on Spunnel Channel9212, scramble 38. Confirm. Over."
The response was equally silent, registereddirectly in his consciousness. The message'sclarity was unaffected by passage throughhundreds of spunnel boosters that linked O'Hareto a shielded bunker beneath Luna's surface.
"Keeper to Red Fox. Your orders to scout PlanetPluto Zone confirmed. You are cleared to startat 2112 slash 14 Solar. Spunnel 9212 slash 38 isopen for your transmissions. You are spunnel-psymonitored by Spacetrack Ceres. Out."
O'Hare tensed, psy-blinked his view screen down tothe instruments vital to his immediate mission, andmind-keyed several controls. The fifteen-meters-longvessel, with a barely two-meter beam, swoopedlow and snapped into its run barely fifteen metersacross Pluto's desolate plains.
The view screen readouts showed subsurfacegalleries, several outlined in irregular outlinesbut empty, others reflected high-mass warshipconfigurations. He focused to adjust hisinstruments for deeper penetration.
Quite suddenly, O'Hare's vision blurred. His headand body swelled. In an instant, his brains, bonesand guts burst and splattered the cockpit as hisship exploded.
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Lieutenant Jake Ramirez smoothly accepted thetarget blip that registered on his mind-screen. Itinstantly displayed the target's dimensions, mass,spin, velocity and coordinates. As the data strungout Jake whistled, soft and low. He tapped thechannel traffic override to the Depot's spunnelbooster.
"Spunnel Flash to Keeper. Switch to Scramble 2."Jake flipped the key and, without pause, mind-casthis alert.
"Blue Fox to Keeper on Scramble 2. Message keyedat 2115 slash 14 Solar. Request Spacetrack Ceresverify ship's position and readings. Field is aboutone-fourth by three-fourths kay, depth one-fourthkay. No organics. Neutronic penetray analysis showsthat in addition to thermonuclear power plantsthe aggregate includes machined parts configuredto Catalog 11 long range lasers, explosivedecompressors, particle beamers and gun mounts.I suspect this is a cache of contraband ordnanceand spares positioned for pickup by Planet Plutoinsurgents. Orders? Over."
"Keeper to Blue Fox. Spacetrack Ceres confirmsunregistered objects proximate your position.Ceres' sensors verify the findings. Space Forceconcludes the stores present an immediate threatto Slingshot. Your orders: Destroy the cacheimmediately using your Type K1 nuclear explosivemissile setting: Baker Two Seven. Launch atnot less than 15,000 kay. Remain on station andfollow up. Search out and dissolve all residues; useyour laser-doubles at setting 8. Report when taskcompleted. Your Tac Ops and psych systems aremonitored. Start now. Out."
Keeper's message simultaneously loaded into therecon-patroller's computer as authenticator for themission and demolition and laser gun settings. Thecomputer adjusted thrust and vector to bring theship to the 'fire' point and engage the countdownand sequence to launch, arm the warhead, and followup. Missile launch was at six seconds.
Without warning, the computer froze. The frameof the pilot's enclosure glowed red, then white. Aninstant later the ship disintegrated into thousandsof metal and composite fragments, and shards ofwhat had been human flesh and bone.
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"Flash -- Spunnel Transmission Priority One. ToSupreme Commander, United Inner Planetary SystemSpace 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 reconmissions under Keeper control, were attacked anddestroyed by particle beams; attack times: Red Fox212014; Blue Fox 215514.
"Beamers fired from unidentified batteries, sourceSectus Gorge, coordinates GT165, Planet Pluto. TheUIPS patrollers were on directed Tac Ops missions:cite our messages to Red Fox and Blue Foxpast half-hour, info recorded in Tac Ops ActionsRegister, your Headquarters. Regret to inform youthat no life signals emanate from Red Fox and BlueFox wreckage. Spacetrack Ceres will monitor forsurvivors. Ship recovery and investigation teamsdispatched from Log Depot to both sites. Out."
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"Flash To President, United Inner Planetary Systemfrom Supreme Commander, Space Force. Thisis my initial report of attacks on two of ourrecon-patrollers while on UIPS-directed missionsin the Planet Pluto Special Zone. No survivors. Iconclude that Plutonian weapons destroyed bothships. UIPS ships and support stations sunsideof Neptune hold on Defense Alert Level Two.Defense Alert One remains in effect at Slingshotconstruction site and throughout Plutonian SpecialZone. Details follow."
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"To President, UIPS from Commander, Space Force.Copy to each Senior Elder of the General Assembly,to Ministers of Intelligence and DiplomaticProtocols, and to Slingshot Director. This isfollow-on to my initial report of attacks on ourrecon-patrollers in Planet Pluto Special Zone.Recon-patroller Red Fox was destroyed while onassigned mission to scout Special Zone to locatelaunch and support sites for spacecraft thatpresent a clear and present danger to Slingshot.Thirty-five seconds later, sister ship Blue Fox, ondirected survey of the Planet Pluto Special Zonefor unregistered space debris and contraband wassimilarly attacked and destroyed.
"Transmissions from the patrollers Tac Ops systems,and scansplays of their external observations ceasedinstantly at time of attack. Note that SpacetrackCeres' reports of the events, confirmed byKeeper, indicate conclusively that in the last fewmilliseconds of functional stability before theships' defenses were breached their damage reportsystems salvoed message bursts to spunnel boosters.The signals confirm that each patroller had been thetarget of long-range particle beamers.
"The missions of the two patrollers have not beencompleted. Although the Red Fox scout mission canbe reschedul
ed, we must be prepared for an increasein such attacks throughout the Special Zone. BlueFox was four seconds from a missile launch todestroy a cache of contraband, and was attackedbefore it could complete the task. Consequently,Plutonian insurgents have now added significantlyto their already large stores of space weapons.
"Repeat alerts have been spunneled to Commandersof UIPS ships, posts and stations throughout theUIPS, and to all UIPS vessels that enter or are in theOuter Region; also to ships under way, and at spaceand surface moorings. Note that UIPS ships en routeto Slingshot, the Log Depot, and work sites havebeen on Defense Alert Red since the Outer Regionseceded from the old United Planetary System,therefore Slingshot readiness in their sectorsremains unchanged.
"This completes Commander Space Force AttackReport."