He slumped to the snow.
“Tie him up,” Marten said. “I’m going inside to warm up and check on Nadia.”
-9-
Back in the Jupiter System, events had radically altered for the Chief Strategist.
Tan met with Sub-Strategist Circe aboard the defensive satellite orbiting Callisto. The large Galilean moon was mostly ruins below, although a new dome was under construction on the surface. The two women sat before a large holoimage in an heavily protected chamber. Behind their chairs were Grecian statues: one of a thinker, another in the act of throwing a discus and the third of a nude goddess. On the ceiling was a stylized drawing of a pyramid with a lidless eye in the center.
Tan was the smaller of the two, had haunted eyes and wore her red gown. She glanced at Circe. The dark- haired Sub-Strategist sat forward in her chair, staring at the holoimage. A small dark stone was embedded in Circe’s forehead. Etched on the stone in nearly microscopic letters were the words:
The Sub-Strategist commanded a flotilla of meteor-ships. In her personal quarters aboard the flagship, the walls were plastered with pictures of Marten Kluge. Tan had read the latest profile on Circe. The Sub-Strategist no longer practiced her sexual rites with myrmidons. She had, in fact, declined several months ago to use the Cleopatra Grip on a targeted man. The only union the Sub-Strategist desired was with the quixotic barbarian from Inner Planets, Marten Kluge. Except for that quirk, however, Circe had regained her abilities, the ones lost from a forced injection of powerful sex-drugs. Her flotilla—three meteor-ships—was the most disciplined in the Jovian System. They contained pure crews, people from Callisto, those who had been taught along philosophic lines.
“The situation is stark,” Chief Strategist Tan said. “The answer…I don’t have the answer. I admit myself bewildered today concerning the correct course of action.”
The holoimage showed eight, faint, stellar objects hurtling through the void. Tan had read the reports. They were massive projectiles headed on a collision course for the Jupiter System. Each of the faint objects was five to fifteen kilometers in diameter and bristled with weaponry. Astronomers on Carpo—the outermost prograde moon, seventeen million kilometers from Jupiter—had discovered the objects several hours ago. After learning of them and digesting the reports, Tan had summoned Circe, who had taken a shuttle from her meteor-ship in orbit around Callisto. The Sub-Strategist had docked fifteen minutes ago.
“Who else knows about this?” Circe asked.
Tan made a bleak gesture. “It hardly matters now.”
“I disagree. The information could prove critical. We have planned for this eventuality and have the tools to blunt the enemy’s attack. Panic, however, could hurt our chances of success.”
“Do you not see?” Tan cried. “Can you not count? Our civilization is doomed.”
“Not if we stop this attack.”
“After seeing what the cyborgs send at us, you believe we can stop it?” Tan asked.
“If we act with speed, resourcefulness and cunning,” Circe said with a nod. “We can possibly keep ourselves alive. At all costs, we must refuse to let ourselves despair. We are the mind and heart of Jovian Civilization. I submit that we must toil to the bitter end.”
Tan inhaled deeply, struggling to overcome the despair Circe spoke of. She had been right to call the Sub- Strategist. She needed to hear this and needed to draw strength from Circe’s convictions. The sheer destructiveness of the cyborgs, their machine-like ruthlessness—the scope of the attack numbed her mind.
“Do we know the headings of the various asteroids?” Circe asked.
“Asteroids?” Tan asked. “The correct name is ‘planet-wreckers’.”
“If we’re going to use the proper words,” Circe said, “then let us call them ‘moon-wreckers.’ The rocks can do no harm to Jupiter.”
Tan made another sound of despair, adding, “I see the end of Jovian Civilization.”
Circe bared her teeth, shaking her head. They were un-philosophic gestures, picked up perhaps during her sojourn among the less educated. Circe pulled out a touch-pad, her small fingers blurring over the screen. Numbers and information began scrolling in the air beside the holoimages. The Sub-Strategist read the information at an incredible rate.
“According to the astronomers’ findings,” Circe said, “the objects definitely originated from the Uranus System.”
“This answers our question,” Tan said. “The cyborgs have conquered Uranus’s moons and habitats.”
Circe nodded as she continued to tap her touch-pad. The faint holoimages of the eight moon-wreckers vanished. In their place appeared the Sun. Circe studied the planets and their relative locations in the Solar System.
Tan also observed. Neptune, Saturn, Mars, Earth and Mercury were on one side of the Sun. Venus, Jupiter and Uranus were on the other. The attack on Jupiter had originated from Uranus, approximately fourteen AUs away, or fourteen times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. After computing the velocity and trajectory of the eight moon-wreckers, it was obvious they had orbited the blue-green ice giant, building up speed this past year. Several months ago, the cyborgs had launched the eight asteroids, causing them to break out of Uranus’s gravitational pull. It was clear the cyborgs had immediately shut off each wrecker’s massive engines—it would have taken gargantuan engines to propel the asteroids. Ever since then, the eight objects had been gliding through the Great Dark, eating up the distance to Jupiter, ready to bring destruction to the system.
“Their composition is different from the planet-wreckers launched from Saturn last year,” Circe noted.
“It is the reason, I’m told, these were so hard to find.”
Circe read more data as she continued to speak. “Many of the Saturn-launched wreckers were icy asteroids. These are formed of a dark carbon material, with an albedo of five percent.”
Albedo was a measure of an object’s reflecting power, the ratio of reflected light to incoming light for a solid surface. Complete reflection would be one hundred percent.
“How did the cyborgs conquer Uranus without our knowledge?” Tan asked. “There should have been radio signals, distress calls.”
Circe glanced at her. “The answer is obvious. It was a successful stealth campaign.”
The despair began to well up again in Tan. The scope of such an operation…it was bewildering and showed the breadth of the cyborgs’ power. How could the Jovians hope to defeat such an enemy? It was impossible.
“Are there more objects incoming?” Circe asked.
Tan wanted to ask the Sub-Strategist the point of these useless questions, but that would take too great of an act of will. They were doomed. Let Circe play out her life as she chose.
“We have not spotted more,” Tan said, glancing at her hands. Maybe it would be better to fight than to await certain annihilation. The attack was so galling, so…
“Hmm,” Circe said. “I notice this is a smaller number of wreckers than launched at Earth. That is in our favor.”
“I suppose that is true,” Tan said. “But we also have a smaller number of warships to attempt deflection. Given our ship tonnage and capabilities, the ratios are in favor of the cyborgs.”
While scowling, Circe asked, “What is the estimated time of impact with our system?”
“Five weeks,” Tan said.
Circe’s head swayed slightly. She asked in a huskier tone, “What are their targets? Did the astronomers discover that?”
Tan produced a touch-pad and began to manipulate it. Dotted lines sprouted from each of the faint moon- wreckers. As the lines lengthened, an enlarged Jupiter System appeared. The eight lines spread apart, heading for the Galilean moons, two each at Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
