heat shield and the engine. Lastly, it ricocheted out of the pod, barely missing the command chamber.
The penny-sized piece of shrapnel damaged a heat coil, causing the engine overload. Luckily, although ship engine controls were fused, the emergency detachment sequence wasn’t. It activated and began the procedure. With a shudder, the engine-half of the pod separated from the forward compartments, but both halves still possessed the same heading and velocity. Fortunately, the pod designers had considered that possibility.
A red strobe-light washed the command chamber as a klaxon wailed.
“Hang on!” shouted Osadar.
All three of them had already sealed their vacc-suits. Thus, they spoke via radio.
The command chamber shook as a non-lethal blast violently separated the pod. Emergency hydrogen-thrust now accelerated them away from the engine compartment. Fifty seconds later and through the polarized window, Marten caught a glimpse of a white flash.
They waited. The explosion had obviously created shrapnel, shrapnel that could possibly destroy their compartment.
After two minutes had elapsed, Marten said over their helmet radios, “It looks like we made it.”
“Yes. Harmony has been achieved,” Osadar said from the pilot’s chair. “We are sealed in a speeding coffin, doomed to certain death.”
Marten made a harsh sound. “I’ve been in worse situations. We’re alive. We’ve escaped a wretched fate and now must rely on our wits to survive.”
“Fate haunts you,” Osadar said. “Whatever you do, you are doomed.”
“You’re wrong,” Marten said. “Political Harmony Corps, Highborn, cyborgs, everyone has had their shot at me. I’m still alive and now we’re in the Jupiter System, not lost between Mercury and Venus. We should be able to rig a distress beacon.”
“To call more cyborgs onto us,” Osadar said.
“Do cyborgs control the entire system?” Omi asked.
“You’d think we would have picked that up on our radio during the journey here,” Marten said. “There would have been fighting. But we’ve heard nothing about that.”
“Yet they are in the Jupiter System,” said Osadar. “They possess Jovian warships.”
“One less than before,” Marten said, with a curl to his lip.
“Never fear. More will come. It is inevitable.”
Marten squinted at Osadar. Listening to her, he hardened his resolve to do something. He began to examine the tiny command chamber. Soon, he’d torn off half the panels to see if he could fix something. They needed to recycle the air in their vacc-suits, to find a way to open the hatch—this crazy pod didn’t have manual override. What ship designer had left that out? What did that say about the Jovians? Had some of them really allied with cyborgs?
A sea of stars glittered outside the speeding coffin, as Osadar had called it. Jupiter was behind them. Marten could no longer see the gas giant. Sixty-three different asteroids and large moons made up this system, all orbiting Jupiter.
There. Marten could make out a yellow moon. It had to be Io, the one that spewed sulfur dioxide into space.
During the trip here, he’d studied the
Jupiter had a Confederation made up of unequal members. Of the four Galilean moons—the biggest moons in the system—Io orbited the gas giant the closest. Io received massive doses of radiation. An unshielded person would receive 3,600 rems a day. Five hundred rems over a few days brought death.
Jupiter spewed radiation and heat, twice as much heat as it received from the Sun. Anyone living on Io needed constant protection. Jupiter’s massive gravitation and proximity and the gravity from nearby Europa and Ganymede pulled and pushed at Io. The planetary body constantly stretched like a rubber band. That friction heated the insides of Io enough to create the most active volcanoes in the Solar System. It also created permanent lava lakes. Those lakes were Io’s prized possession. Fissionable materials spewed up from the moon’s core. Those fissionables helped feed the system’s reactors. It meant that lava miners on floating platforms and under harsh radioactive conditions made up the majority of Io’s population.
The second Galilean moon—Europa—also received massive amounts of radiation, five hundred and forty rems a day. Ice one-hundred kilometers thick covered the surface, with liquid water below. The ice mantle made Europa the smoothest planetary body in the Solar System.
While staring at Io, Marten wondered if the pod had enough radiation shielding. He shook his head. How did it help him worrying about that now? He had to fix the air-recycler first, attach water and waste tubes to their vacc- suits. If he failed, they would die in less than a day.
Marten went back to the panels and began to work.
Three days later, Marten sat back in despair. They had air, but no extra water and their suit’s disposal systems were near their limit. His stomach growled. He was hungry and tired. According to his best estimate, they had traveled at least twenty-one thousand kilometers from the cyborg-infested dreadnaught.
Omi floated near the sealed hatch. Osadar sat in the pilot’s chair, staring out of the window.
Marten picked up a calibrating wrench. He had to keep trying.
“What’s that?” Osadar whispered.
It took Marten several seconds to respond. “What do you see?”
Osadar pointed at the window.
“Stars?” asked Marten.
Osadar swiveled in the pilot’s chair. Behind her helmet’s visor, she had an elongated face that suited her elongated body. Her arms and legs were titanium girders with hydraulic joints, presently hidden by her vacc-suit. Silver sockets cupped black plastic eyes, with tiny red dots for pupils.
Marten recalled that cyborgs had enhanced vision.
Osadar faced the window again. “There is a flare of light. A vessel is braking, likely matching velocities with us. That means the cyborgs have found us.”
With his heart beating faster, Marten floated toward the window. He saw nothing but stars. Wait, far in the distance, one of the stars pulsed the slightest bit.
“Do you wish me to kill you?” Osadar asked.
“Listen to her,” Omi said hoarsely.
“I entered the conversion machine,” Osadar told him. “It peels off your skin, removes organs—”
“No!” Marten said. “We keep fighting.”
“Once you’re on the conveyer,” said Osadar, “you will wish you had chosen otherwise.”
“If it comes to that, Omi can shoot me.”
“You are mere humans,” said Osadar, “with pathetic human reflexes. Once you decide to shoot each other, you will already be tangled and on your way to conversion.”
“You’re depressed,” Marten said. “You know what helps me get out of my depression?”
“Yes, your inability to correctly assess reality.”
“I get angry. I get angry with people or cyborgs trying to use me. I’ve learned you have to bend sometimes. You do it, waiting for your one opportunity to strike back.”
“Bravado is useless against the cyborgs,” said Osadar.
“The cyborgs lost on Mars,” Marten said.
“That was a minor setback,” Osadar said. “Social Unity and the Highborn are even more doomed now than before the Battle for Mars.”
“That’s an odd way to look at it.”
Osadar shook her head. “I believe the Highborn have frightened the Neptunian Web-Mind. That will make it even more ruthless than before.”
“How could that be possible?” Marten asked.
Osadar stared into space.
