Europa Strike(136)
“The firing will be under the control of the ship intelligence,” Tai said. “Your specific order, however, will be necessary to enable the launch.”
“Very well. I—”
“Captain Tai!” a lieutenant at the sensor suite console shouted. “Incoming projectiles! We are under attack!”
“Ship computer! Analyze attack and maneuver to clear!”
“Affirmative. Analyzing dispersal of incoming projectiles.”
The Star Wind’s main engines fired, slamming Lin and Tai to the deck. They floated again when the thrust died. Then they hit a bulkhead—or, rather, the bulkhead hit them—as a thundering detonation wrenched the ship.
The bridge lights flickered and died, and gravity returned—a pale imitation of gravity, at any rate—as the front third of the Star Wind, severed from the rest of the vessel, began spinning end over end. A ten-kilo mass impacting at over 171 kps liberated a burst of energy of nearly 310 kilotons—as powerful as a fair-sized nuclear device.
A handful of Chinese soldiers walking on the ice below, outside the Cadmus perimeter, saw the flash in the sky and wondered.
28 OCTOBER 2067
The Pit and E-DARES Facility
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
0110 hours Zulu
The Manta surfaced in the Pit, cruising with just enough speed to maintain headway in the narrow pool. Jeff stood on the pedestal immediately behind Hastings, who was piloting the craft in, looking out through the observation bubble as they approached the towering metal and ceramic façade of the E-DARES structure.
It was difficult to make out much of anything. The hot water bubbling up from below seemed to explode into dense, expanding fog on contact with vacuum, and the water around the sub was literally boiling, sending up dense clouds of white, freezing vapor. As they neared the base, however, the fog thinned enough for him to begin to see some details.
There were no Marines out to meet them, and none on guard along the ladder leading up the ice cliff to the surface. He felt a chill sense of unease quite unrelated to infrasonics; the base appeared deserted—worse, overrun. The flag still hung from its makeshift staff atop the E-DARES, but at an angle, as though a blast had nearly knocked it down. A gray and white shape at the base of the flagpole puzzled him, until he used a pair of electronic binoculars to zoom in on the form.
It was a Marine’s body, suited and armored and still clutching a SLAW in gloved fists. Jeff couldn’t tell at this distance who it was, but one thing was starkly clear. There was a serious problem if the other Marines in the garrison hadn’t recovered that body as soon as they were able.
He conferred with the others. Four men would go ashore from the Manta, one with a mooring line, three with weapons to protect him, just in case things weren’t as eerily quiet as they seemed. After a call for volunteers, Carver took mooring line duty, while Nodell went out with him with a SLAW. BJ and Amberly would follow, as soon as they could cycle through the lock after them.
Hastings brought the Manta around in a gentle turn, nudging up against the icy beach. Jeff watched from the observation dome as Carver, clinging to a safety line on the hull, walked out on the port wing and leaped across onto the ice. Nodell tossed him the mooring line, which he dragged up to a winch mounted on the side of the E-DARES. By the time BJ and Amberly had leaped across with Nodell onto the beach, the winch was turning, slowly dragging the Manta ashore.
There was still no sign of activity in the base, at least anywhere near the Pit. As Hastings took a line tossed across from Manta Two, surfacing out in the middle of the steaming, open water, Jeff led four Marines from Manta One—BJ, Nodell, Amberly, and Wojak—up the ladder toward the E-DARES hatch.
First, though, he led the fire team up the ladder to the crater floor. There had definitely been a battle fought here, a serious one. The tractor they’d used to lower the Mantas into the water lay on its side, its bubble canopy torn open. Bodies, Chinese bodies, lay scattered about on the ice, along with abandoned weapons, bits of twisted metal, and holes torn in the surface by explosions and the ice-vaporizing stab of laser beams.
Most of the bodies lay piled up near the walkway leading to the E-DARES facility. It looked like quite a few had died trying to reach the Marine beneath the flag.
The dead Marine turned out to be Dave Coughlin. Several more Marines lay in the prepared weapons positions on the ice nearby.
“Ice Station Zebra, Ice Station Zebra, this is Icebreaker,” Jeff called on the command frequency. “Do you copy?”
There was no response.
Down the ladder again. The circuit box for the airlock controls had been pried open, exposing the wiring inside. He used the manual lever to open the hatch, then entered cautiously.