“Zebra, Iceberg. Here come the goodies.” Their observations, camera records, and suit logs, as well as the data feed form their EM scanner, all compressed into a half second of tightly encrypted signal, spat at the distant base three times, the repetition designed to allow reconstructing the message if parts were garbled or lost. Another lobber had been launched above Cadmus immediately after the cannon shot, positioning itself three hundred kilometers up so that it could receive the expected signal from Iceberg.
The signal was going out a fourth time when the rising craft was bathed in laser light, a low-power tracking beam. Seconds later, a chain of crowbars arrowed in from the northeast; the Star Mountain, detecting the lobber launch and possibly intercepting the tight-beamed signal as well, had shifted out of its nose-down attitude to bring its spinal railgun to bear on the tiny craft clawing its way up from the Europan surface.
The first two ten-kilo crowbar flechettes whipped past, unseen; the third and fourth slammed into the lobber’s hull, shredding it with the equivalent of a detonation of two hundred kilos of HE. The blast, with little concussive effect in hard vacuum, was not instantly fatal, but flung Downer and Staunton into blackness.
His last conscious thought was a desperate, pleading wondering if Europa’s lower gravity might spare him.
Unfortunately, a 500-meter fall on Europa was still the equivalent of a sixty-five-meter fall on Earth. Both men died on impact, in a shower of falling debris.
Chesty Puller
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
2049 hours Zulu
Chesty engaged the bug’s engines, gentling the ungainly craft above the ice in an uncertain hover. The bug’s controls had been set for teleoperation, which meant that Chesty himself could now pilot the vehicle directly. Carefully, using inertial guidance, he aligned himself, then engaged the main thrusters, accelerating hard.
He had heard—no, felt was the better word—the destruction of OP Iceberg, but the deaths meant little save that no more data would be coming from that source. Ample data had been received, however, reporting the failure of the cannon shot, and the course change by the Chinese cruiser.
The five-kilometer miss by the railgun was…regrettable. The battle might have been ended immediately if three or four of the surviving seven enemy landers could have been destroyed…including the one that held, presumably, the Chinese equivalent of the E-DARES C-3 Center.
And to have missed after so many high hopes; Chesty’s analysis of the subdued voices of the humans in C-3 told him that morale among the members of the command staff had just come crashing down. He’d tried to point out that the uncertainties, the chaotic variables of the long-range shot made pinpoint targeting a matter for chance, not skill…but he doubted that the humans had really understood this. Humans, Chesty now realized, tended to believe what they wanted to believe, and could be disappointed when the universe didn’t bend to their expectations.
Morale had fallen even more when he reported the lobber destroyed. Again, human apprehension of the situation less than adequately reflected reality. As if such intangibles as bravery and devotion to duty could somehow coax life from a situation where the chances for death were very high indeed.
But most of Chesty’s attention was now focused on Star Mountain. Major Warhurst had guessed that an attack on the enemy LZ would trigger an immediate response as the Chinese attempted to destroy the cannon. He’d been right; the enemy ship had shifted orbits almost immediately, and was now incoming, minutes over the horizon.
He increased the bug’s acceleration, streaking low across the Europan surface, hugging the rills and pressure ridges to mask his approach until the last possible moment.
The railgun attack might yet succeed, if only as a diversion designed at drawing the Star Mountain into a trap.
The trick, of course, was knowing exactly where the Xing Shan would be at any given moment. Without military observation satellite or com relays, the enemy could send an orbiting spacecraft overhead almost at will, unchallenged by the Marines on the surface.
But with just a little sure knowledge in advance…
Chesty had the Shan on radar now, and at almost the same instant he detected radar and lidar paints from the enemy. He applied thrust to the number one ventral thruster, bringing the bug’s nose up, and increased acceleration yet again. His trajectory was aimed just ahead of the Chinese ship; his velocity was now up to 4.8 kilometers per second. When he was certain the bug was perfectly aligned, he detonated the explosive bolts holding the securing straps on the craft’s sides and backs; the cylinders, what Major Warhurst had referred to as “shit cans,” slowly separated, their lids flying back. He decelerated sharply, and the “special munitions” hurtled ahead, maintaining their 4.8 kps velocity.