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
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 polarized 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.
