rays took away her speech centers.
It was at that point that Chief Strategist Tan broke through the communication system with override command authority. She used the laser lightguide system of the
Tan’s voice was scratchy and distant-seeming, but it was recognizable to her dying cousin. “Listen to me, Su- Shan. You have little time left. Callisto is doomed. There is no saving it. What you must save is the future. Retarget and attack the following dreadnaught—I’m sending you the coordinates. Everyone in the satellites, you must retarget and attack the enemy warships in the second wave. Kill them for us. This is a priority one message from the War Council.” The proper emergency sequences followed.
Chief Controller Su-Shan listened to the message. It was the last thing she heard. The gamma rays that had stolen her speech now cooked her brain. She died, having killed a missile. But she failed in her mission to protect Callisto from thermonuclear disaster.
Other armored satellites also went offline, their operators slain, the fusion cores burnt or the focusing system melted into slag. They had taken a bitter toll, however, destroying fifty-seven percent of the Voltaire Missiles. The anti-missile rockets killed or caused to detonate prematurely fifteen percent of the cyborg-controlled missiles. Together, the primary orbital defensive systems took out seventy-two percent of the cyborg surprise attack.
Now, in this short operational window left, the remaining laser satellites retargeted, aiming at the approaching cyborg dreadnaught.
Seven orbital stations lanced their powerful beams at the dreadnaught, what had a short month ago been a Guardian Fleet vessel.
Massive lasers beamed and struck on target, chewing into thick, asteroid-rock protection. The dreadnaught’s particle shield absorbed the hellish heat as rock slagged and dust bloomed. Across the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the lasers relentlessly bore deeper and deeper into the particle shielding.
Over five million kilometers away, Gharlane received data of the retargeting. Since light traveled 300,000 kilometers per second, this information was already seventeen seconds old by the time Gharlane observed it. It also took time for Gharlane and the cyborg dreadnaught Force-Leader to realize the number and intensity of the laser attacks. More time passed as Gharlane ingested the meaning of the attack. Then even more seconds ticked away as Gharlane realized he needed to do something drastic to save his precious warships. Finally, even more seconds faded into the past as he ran through options and then the agonizing decision to use the best means at hand to thwart the lasers. He had not anticipated an attack upon the second wave, but a continuing defense against the Voltaires, as they threatened Callisto with greater harm. This switch in targeting, it went against Homo sapien conditioning.
During those minutes of indecision, another two laser satellites joined the assault. These were heavy, orbital lasers, the strongest in the Jovian System. They lacked Doom Star power, but approached that of a main SU Battleship of the
Callisto Orbital Defense lasers now punched through the particle shielding. In four point seven seconds, they punched through the dreadnaught’s hull and bored like sonic drills. Lasers smashed through the bulkheads into crew quarters, melting seven cyborgs. The red beams cut into the ship’s galley, its gymnasium, the computer core, coils three through nine and directly smashed through the bridge, killing the force-leader, originally a native of Neptune. Then beams burned into the fusion core, and they ignited nuclear-tipped cruise missiles meant to destroy Callisto’s Jupiter-facing cities. The combination of hot, slicing lasers and nuclear detonations caused sections of the dreadnaught to slide away in chunks and other sections to explode outwardly. Ninety-seven percent of the cyborg- crew died immediately. There was a three percent probability the others would survive the coming hour.
At this point, the Voltaire Missiles Gharlane had selected exploded. They used x-ray and gamma rays to attack the last laser satellites. Those final satellites had retargeted, aiming now at the second cyborg vessel, a meteor- ship.
It was a deadly contest that demanded perfect decisions. Gharlane had to count the number of remaining missiles, decide on how many he could spare and how important fleet superiority would be in the coming days and battles. Finally, he had to decide how many missiles he needed to destroy Callisto as a military installation. Because Jupiter spewed such heavy radiation, seventy percent of Callisto’s population lived on the targeted face. That meant Gharlane possessed a rich field of targets, if he could breach the defenses. He would never face such a powerful concentration of lasers again, as Callisto’s orbital defense was the core of Confederation strength.
The cyborg-controlled meteor-ship died. As satellite sensors and interferometers discovered this, the laser stations retargeted, aiming at the cyborg troopship. Then exploding Voltaire Missiles beamed hot radiation and killed the last satellites.
Only the Callisto point-defense cannons on the surface now stood between life and death. Each installation was composed of a massive fero-concrete shell. A magnetic rail-gun poked out of the opening, aiming its tube into space. Targeting satellites normally supplied the needed coordinates. Those were dead. Therefore, surface-based installations provided the data. This resulted in a fifty-three percent decrease in effectiveness.
The rail-guns chugged, lofting nuclear-tipped canisters, which exploded and created a defensive zone of shrapnel and sand. Other canisters sped farther and attempted to kill Voltaires through EMP surges and heat.
The remaining Voltaire Missiles used their last point-defense volleys to obliterate EMP canisters before they ignited.
Then the mighty, Voltaire Missiles smashed through the shrapnel belt, and more of them died. Only eleven percent of the launched strike survived the journey—seven gargantuan missiles. In those fateful nanoseconds as they zoomed at Callisto, seven titanic nosecones opened. Each missile contained five independent payloads of many hundreds of megatons. Thus, thirty-five nuclear bombs exploded within a nine-second window. Missile casings, shells and other assorted mass also struck Callisto at devastating velocities. Together, the united explosions rocked the surface and annihilated millions in the domed cities and down in the deep shelters.
Thirty-five towering mushroom clouds of radioactive dust, dirt and rock rose upward. The columns rose to dizzying heights, expelling matter into low-orbit.
A full third of the population died by the heat and blasts. A fourth perished in the next ten minutes from the vacuum of space, their cities or dwellings ruptured beyond repair. In the coming days, radiation poisoning would slay more. Lack of water, food or sanitation would sweep through the wreckage after that.
Some of Callisto survived, however. The nature of the attack meant that those on the other side had kept their cities, dwelling and point defense installations intact.
As news of the terrible cyborg-strike reached those on the other side—quakes still traveled across the surface like waves—the cyborg-controlled patrol boats and troopship entered far-Callisto orbit.
The agony of Callisto was far from over as the worst horrors were about to descend in the coming hours and days—cyborg drop troops. Gharlane had ordered the genocidal removal of the Jovians of Callisto. Nothing must survive that might jeopardize Jupiter System victory.
Shock Trooper Kluge
-1-
Nadia Pravda chewed on a fingernail as the
Nadia sat in the back of the pilot’s chamber during a duty-run into possible danger. That was against regulations, but the five-person crew had taken pity on her. They knew she dreaded being alone.
Nadia wore the brown coveralls of a technician and a low-brimmed hat with a sonic screwdriver crest. Black
