The Universe - or Nothing | Page 3

their magnetic-beam's moorings along the Depot's flanks. Space tugs and barges labored in all directions, taxis charged about, and space-cranes swayed above dozens of platforms that protruded from the Depot's hull.
Leviathans off-loaded to barges as other ships in a multitude of shapes and sizes grappled with cargo from flex-conveyers that snaked from the Depot's gaping portals. Slender, multi-armed space cranes raised and lowered crates, bundles and modules, and arranged, aligned, connected and disconnected gear and cargo in all directions.
Aggregations of netted or tethered girders, platforms, multi-meter-wide conduits in hundreds of shapes and lengths, and modules linked by stabilizer-beams crossed open spaces, pulled or pushed by robot tugs controlled from the station's cargo control centers. In trains or clusters, machines traversed the open stretches between the Depot's portals and nearby transports in their final step toward a long journey.
The brightly checkered Depot slipped from O'Hare's screen. A deployment station to O'Hare and hundreds of his colleagues, and to more than four centuries of his predecessors, the Depot was as much home to him as his permanent station afloat in space between Earth and Luna.
"Time," O'Hare silently flashed the code that opened his spunnel channel to Keeper. "This is a Slingshot Tac Ops from Red Fox to Keeper. I am hot to trot on Point Charlie off Fandango Force Field. All coordinates green for Scout Operation Xray Delta slash Four. Time for go is 2112 slash 14 Solar. Keyed to transmit status on Spunnel Channel 9212, scramble 38. Confirm. Over."
The response was equally silent, registered directly in his consciousness. The message's clarity was unaffected by passage through hundreds of spunnel boosters that linked O'Hare to a shielded bunker beneath Luna's surface.
"Keeper to Red Fox. Your orders to scout Planet Pluto Zone confirmed. You are cleared to start at 2112 slash 14 Solar. Spunnel 9212 slash 38 is open for your transmissions. You are spunnel-psy monitored by Spacetrack Ceres. Out."
O'Hare tensed, psy-blinked his view screen down to the instruments vital to his immediate mission, and mind-keyed several controls. The fifteen-meters-long vessel, with a barely two-meter beam, swooped low and snapped into its run barely fifteen meters across Pluto's desolate plains.
The view screen readouts showed subsurface galleries, several outlined in irregular outlines but empty, others reflected high-mass warship configurations. He focused to adjust his instruments for deeper penetration.
Quite suddenly, O'Hare's vision blurred. His head and body swelled. In an instant, his brains, bones and guts burst and splattered the cockpit as his ship exploded.
##
Lieutenant Jake Ramirez smoothly accepted the target blip that registered on his mind-screen. It instantly displayed the target's dimensions, mass, spin, velocity and coordinates. As the data strung out Jake whistled, soft and low. He tapped the channel traffic override to the Depot's spunnel booster.
"Spunnel Flash to Keeper. Switch to Scramble 2." Jake flipped the key and, without pause, mind-cast his alert.
"Blue Fox to Keeper on Scramble 2. Message keyed at 2115 slash 14 Solar. Request Spacetrack Ceres verify ship's position and readings. Field is about one-fourth by three-fourths kay, depth one-fourth kay. No organics. Neutronic penetray analysis shows that in addition to thermonuclear power plants the aggregate includes machined parts configured to Catalog 11 long range lasers, explosive decompressors, particle beamers and gun mounts. I suspect this is a cache of contraband ordnance and spares positioned for pickup by Planet Pluto insurgents. Orders? Over."
"Keeper to Blue Fox. Spacetrack Ceres confirms unregistered objects proximate your position. Ceres' sensors verify the findings. Space Force concludes the stores present an immediate threat to Slingshot. Your orders: Destroy the cache immediately using your Type K1 nuclear explosive missile setting: Baker Two Seven. Launch at not less than 15,000 kay. Remain on station and follow up. Search out and dissolve all residues; use your laser-doubles at setting 8. Report when task completed. Your Tac Ops and psych systems are monitored. Start now. Out."
Keeper's message simultaneously loaded into the recon-patroller's computer as authenticator for the mission and demolition and laser gun settings. The computer adjusted thrust and vector to bring the ship to the 'fire' point and engage the countdown and sequence to launch, arm the warhead, and follow up. Missile launch was at six seconds.
Without warning, the computer froze. The frame of the pilot's enclosure glowed red, then white. An instant later the ship disintegrated into thousands of metal and composite fragments, and shards of what had been human flesh and bone.
##
"Flash -- Spunnel Transmission Priority One. To Supreme Commander, United Inner Planetary System Space Force, Earth Headquarters, from Keeper, Luna Station. Attack report. Repeat: attack report. Recon-patrollers R-19557, Red Fox, and R-87265, Blue Fox in Planet Pluto Special Zone on recon missions under Keeper control, were attacked and destroyed by particle beams; attack times: Red Fox 212014; Blue Fox 215514.
"Beamers fired from unidentified batteries, source Sectus Gorge, coordinates GT165, Planet Pluto. The UIPS patrollers