Europa Strike (18 page)

It was fitting. The movie had been set on the Arctic ice pack, during the height of the Cold War. Bravo Company was now on the verge of a genuine shooting war, on an icefield that made the Arctic on Earth seem like a warm summer's afternoon in southern California by comparison.

He'd ordered Knowles and Richardson to take one of the lobbers and establish an OP on the Cadmus Linea ridge a hundred kilometers west of the base. They would have to be relieved soon, and he might not be able to keep the OP permanently manned, but at least it was something to
do
, something to let the men know that action was being taken.

“
Shi mi!
”

“‘Ten meters…'”

He tried to imagine the Chinese LZ. They were probably using Descending Thunder landers, a model the CWS had code-named Fat Boy. No flame, no smoke from those plasma engines, but at ten meters, that one must be kicking up a hell of a lot of steam and fog right now.

“
Ting lilang! Queding jie!
”

“‘Cut power,'” Chesty repeated. “They are confirming that they are down.”

“That makes eight down so far,” Captain Melendez announced. “Do you think that's all?”

“It matches the configuration Intelligence gave us on the
Star Mountain
,” Jeff replied. “Let's hope eight was all they sent us.”

He tried to keep the words light. Eight Fat Boys meant at least two hundred enemy troops, and possibly a good many more than that, depending on how much comfort they'd sacrificed for numbers.

“Raise HQ, Staff Sergeant. Let 'em know the bad guys have arrived.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Any other message?”

Briefly, he toyed with a bit of bravado. In December of 1941, immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had assaulted the Marine and civilian garrison on Wake Island in the Pacific. The defenders had been able to hold out for sixteen days against overwhelming numbers…a situation not unlike the one Jeff was facing now.

The story had spread that, when asked if there was anything he needed, Major Devereaux, in command of the garrison, had cracked, “You can send us more Japs.”

The story was apocryphal, the result of a misunderstanding of the nonsense phrases used tacked on at the beginning and end of radio messages to frustrate enemy decoding attempts. Jeff's idea, to tell them to send them more Chinese, would serve no purpose and might even backfire if it adversely affected morale.

“Tell them we need that confirmation on LZ coordinates I asked for,” he replied. “As fast as possible.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Before he could fight the enemy, he would have to find out where he was.

 

AI 929 Farstar

Kuiper Belt

2234 hours Zulu

 

Farstar was not pleased at the interruption of his work.

Though not technically capable of feeling emotions such as irritation or chagrin, the new orders that had arrived by laser fifteen hours ago had generated conflicts and interfered with Farstar's maximum operating efficiency to the point that he believed he knew
precisely
what those emotions were.

He had been, with a mounting allotment of processing cycles and storage that might have been defined as excitement, observing a new-found world circling the F8 star 94 Ceti, only fifty-nine light years away. Spectral analyses of the atmosphere had already proven the existence of oxygen and, therefore, life…while other scraps of spectra stripped from captured light revealed the presence of a chlorophyll analogue staining broad swaths of the world's continents with patches of blue and green. Oceans of liquid water gleamed beneath the harsh white light of the F8 sun.

And here, too, as on Alpha Centauri A II, were the remnants of a vanished civilization—towers of glass and mirror-polished crystal smashed and scattered; squat, conelike structures blindly ripped open; whole cities reduced to blast-scoured rubble and debris; craters, some a hundred kilometers across, sprinkled across the face of a devastated world.

And, in infrared wavelengths, some of those craters still glowed, proof that the destruction had been visited upon this world a few centuries ago at most.

The Institute for Exoarcheological Studies was keenly interested in this newest addition to the list of archeological treasure troves within a handful of light years of Earth. It suggested that whatever power struck down technic civilizations as they emerged upon the galactic stage was still present, still active.

Why, then, this sudden and completely incomprehensible change in the scheduled observation itinerary?

Fifteen hours ago, an urgent request from the American Space Command at Colorado Springs had directed Farstar to shift away from 94 Ceti and focus his receiving dish on a part of the sky alarmingly close to distant Sol. Farstar had to use extreme caution here; optical circuits could be damaged by direct sunlight, even this far out. Light-gathering equipment designed to resolve objects as small as fair-sized islands at a distance of a hundred light years were trained on a target six and a half million times closer—Europa, where a tiny, glittering constellation of objects was falling into orbit around the glistening, ice-surfaced moon.

Farstar had observed the region around Europa for some hours before detecting the ship. An adjustment of magnification and resolution had brought the vessel into uncertain focus, a two-hundred-meter toothpick scattering eight tiny motes into the stellar wind. Farstar had watched for hours more, observing and computing orbit, velocity, and the descending trajectory of the eight motes as their plasma drives burned hot against his infrared sensors.

At this point, Earth and Jupiter both were approximately equidistant from Farstar's position—a little over six light hours. It would take that long for the information gleaned here to make it back at light's crawl to the humans who needed it.

With no instructions to relay to the U.S. force already on Europa, he began transmitting the information to Colorado Springs. If the humans on Jupiter needed the information, Space Command HQ would see that they got it. In any case, the information was already six hours old by the time Farstar recorded it, and six hours older still after his transmission had crossed the long, deep emptiness back to Earth.

Farstar just hoped they would let him get back to the job he'd been designed for. Observing humans' spacecraft from only fifty astronomical units away was a colossal waste of resources and observing time.

17
OCTOBER
2067

The refueling was almost complete.

General Xiang stood on the barren ice plain, watching as the line of men filed aboard the craft known only as
Jiang Lie Si, Descending Thunder No. 4
. It had been thirty-six hours since the People's Army Mobile Strike Force had set down on the Europan ice cap close by the gently swelling ridge called Asterias Linea. During that time, the troops had been busy setting up the main base, using
zidong tanke
and APC crawlers with attached plow blades to dig trenches in ice pulverized by explosive charges, then burying habitat cylinders deeply enough to shield the men living there from the particulate radiation sleeting across the Europan surface.

Now, though, it was time to pay a professional call on the CWS base a thousand kilometers to the northeast. The
Star Mountain
had made several photographic passes over the site in the past hours, carefully noting every surface hab, storage shed, and facility. It was clear that some American troops, at least, had made it to the surface before the destruction of their transport. Two shuttles were parked on the landing field where none had been present before, and numerous groups of space-suited personnel could be seen working in the shallow crater that held the base. There were also lots of fresh tracks crisscrossing the ice of the crater floor and rim, evidence that many more than the expected complement of twenty-five scientists were now present.

No matter. Two orbit-to-ground shuttles meant eighty to a hundred men on the surface, and no more. With their ship and most of their supplies destroyed, they would be short on everything, including morale. A show of force might be all that was necessary to win the Americans' capitulation.

Colonel Yang Zhenyang, in a white space suit with a bright red helmet, stood at his side, watching the marching column single-filing up the cargo ramp and into the yellow-lit belly of the 1,200-ton lander looming overhead. The craft, which had looked so delicate in space alongside the long complexity of the
Star Mountain
, seemed ponderously enormous at this distance, standing beneath the overhanging bulge of its equator.

“I doubt that you will have much difficulty,” Xiang told his subordinate, second-in-command of the People's Strike Force, and his Chief of Staff. “The enemy will still be in shock at finding himself marooned on this ice ball. Supplies and ammunition may be short. And they have neither ship assets nor satellites in orbit.
We
have complete space superiority. Once you have demonstrated that superiority, you will give them the opportunity to surrender.”

“Yes, General.”

“Nevertheless, I want no heroics, no chances taken, no underestimation of the enemy's capabilities.” He looked up at
Jiang Lie Si
and gestured with a gloved hand. “She looks invincible, but a single SAM fired from a man-portable launcher could puncture her hull and wreck her. While we will hold enough Descending Thunders in reserve to assure our own survival, I will be most displeased at the loss of even one.”

“The plan has been carefully worked out, General,” Yang replied. The words were soft, but it was almost a rebuke. A politely respectful one, of course. “We will need to take direct action to get their attention, as it were. But I do not intend to risk my command needlessly!”

“Good. And again: You must land outside the objective crater. We're not sure of the ice thickness inside, but the hole they've cut through the ice to reach the Europan ocean proves it is unusually thin there. The plasma jets from a Descending Thunder could easily melt through deeply enough that the ice gives way when it accepts the lander's weight. Use care!”

“Yes, sir. Our landing sites have been carefully surveyed from orbit.”

He realized he was beginning to sound like a mother—a particularly naggy and unpleasant mother at that. “Stay in close contact with us here, and with the
Star Mountain
,” he added, a final admonishment. “We can have another four landers at your position within minutes, should you need reinforcements.”

“As you say, General, I doubt that we will need them.”

“Agreed. But your men will be the scouts who lead the way, who first test the enemy's mettle. This is a probe of the enemy's weaknesses and strengths,
not
a contest of honor or of courage. If you encounter unexpectedly stiff resistance, you must break off at once. I rely on your judgment as to whether to break off or call in reinforcements.”

“
Yes
, General.”

The last of the troops on the strike team had boarded. It was time.

“Good luck!”

“Thank you, General! I expect to deliver the enemy base to you intact, the next time we speak!” Yang saluted smartly, his gloved hand touching the red helmet above the visor. Xiang returned the salute, and Colonel Yang turned and trotted up the ramp. Xiang moved away as the ground crew began raising the ramp and preparing the lander for boost.

Europa was a nightmarish place, but they were fortunate in one respect, at least. Water ice, with only a few simple contaminants like ammonia, sulfur, and hydrogen peroxide, was abundant and easily carved out of the surface, melted, and stored in the spherical landers' reaction mass tanks, a never-ending source of fuel. He took his place beside the low, tracked form of a teleoperated
zidong tanke
on the perimeter, and turned to watch the launch. A command center had been set up on the bridge of
Descending Thunder No. 3
, and Captain Peng and Lieutenant Mu were handling the launch sequence from there. His hand was not needed, though he opened his suit radio to the command frequency, and listened to the soothing flow of checklist confirmations and countdown.

“
Hydraulics
.”

“
Ready
.”

“
Reactor
.”

“
Ready, at forty-two percent output. Chamber temperature one-three-hundred. Power levels steady
.”

“
Pumps
.”

“
On
.”

“
Fifteen seconds. Initiate reaction mass flow
.”

“
Reaction mass flow, on. Pressure at one-three
.”

“
Checklist complete. All systems ready
.”

“
Pressure at two-five
.”

“
Eight seconds. Six…
”

“
Main valves open. Plasma chamber, open. Firing sequencing activated
.”

“
Four…three…two…one…launch command
.”

“
Engines activated. Throttle up to four-five
.”

Silent clouds of steam billowed from beneath
Descending Thunder No. 4
. A moment later, the spacecraft was climbing…climbing…accelerating quickly as it grabbed for the black night at the zenith, its upward course already bending over toward the northeast as it leaned into its programmed course.

Xiang was a fatalist, to a degree. He had never read Caesar's words at the Rubicon,
“Alea iacta est
,” but he would have understood the sentiment perfectly.

The die was now irrevocably cast.

Observation Post “Igloo”

Asterius Linea

Europa

1530 hours Zulu

 

Corporal Duane Niemeyer stooped as he shoved the white camocloth aside and reentered the makeshift shelter they'd built up around the base of the lobber. “Damn, how much longer, BJ?”

Staff Sergeant Brenda Campanelli looked up from the portable radar/lidar detector on its squat tripod. “What's the matter, Downer? Your HUD go chips-up, or what?”

Duane squatted on the ice beside her. There was scant headroom in their OP hide-hole, created simply by draping camocloth around the base of a requisitioned civilian lobber. It didn't keep them any warmer—they were in vacuum, and most of their suits' heat loss was through their boots and into the ice—but it did help cut the background particulate radiation by just a small bit more. Every little bit helped, after all.

For Duane, it helped by shutting out all that awful emptiness outside—and overhead. He hated Jupiter especially, that huge, silent, banded eye always suspended above the eastern horizon, slowly passing from new to crescent to half to full and back to half and crescent and new once more as it ran through its three-day cycle of phases. He sometimes felt an intolerable itching in his brain, a sense of unease, even terror, that seemed to emanate from this place like radiation, invisible but deadly.

“Nah,” he said, in response to her question. “I just don't want to believe the fucking numbers I'm getting.”

“Well, you might as well relax. We have six more hours.”

“What I wanna know is how come we have to be out here at all. Rali units are automatic. All we need to do is lay a string of relays back to Zebra, and we could watch that damned screen in shirtsleeves in the comm center, with a cup of coffee on the desk and Johnny Hardwire or Pain playin' on the speaker!”

“What do you think this is, Downer, the Air Force?”

“Aw, shee-it…”

The Marine Corps had technology enough to choke an elephant, but they still ended up doing things the old heave-ho grunt work way. It didn't make a bit of sense. Rali units, dubbed “Sir Walters” by some unsung but historically literate member of the Corps, were meter-high tripod units that could be set up anywhere in a few seconds. Their mobile, flower-petal heads contained both radar and laser ranging units, and could be set to automatically scan all or part of the sky or surrounding terrain. Duane and Brenda had set this one up on a ridge top a kilometer away from their grounded lobber; there was no sense in having it close by when its emissions might attract unwanted attention from the enemy. At the same time, without signal ground relays or communications satellites, they couldn't be far enough from the unit that its signal would be blocked by the horizon.

Which meant that pairs of Marines had to go out on OP duty to monitor the far-flung web of ralis in place. “We don't have enough relays for enough Sir Walters to cover every possible approach,” BJ said. “So we do it this way.”

“Yeah. The stupid way. I think old Warhorse is full of shit.”

“The
Major
knows what he's doing, Downer. Bravo Company would follow him to hell!”

“We're
in
hell, BJ. A frozen hell. And I don't remember being given a choice! I think most of the guys are just in love with Warhorse because his granddaddy was a commandant of the Corps!”

“You took your choice when you raised your hand for the oath, kid. And again when you signed up for MSEF duty. So you know who to blame, right?”

“Hey, thanks for the sympathy.”

“Don't mention it.”

He chuckled, thinking about that night at the V-berg squad bay, when BJ had gotten her handle, and Sherm Nodell had gotten a mouthful of cement. He looked around at the frigid, makeshift OP and wished they were back in California, hitting the bars and the VR palaces and the good restaurants and the—

“Uh-oh,” BJ said.

“What?”

“Incoming.” She was tapping on the touchscreen of her rali monitor with a clumsy, gloved hand. “
Damn
working in this suit! Yeah…looks like a bogie coming over the horizon. Bearing…two-five-one. Altitude five kilometers.”

“Low.”

“And fast. And on a trajectory headed straight for Zebra.”

He rose to a crouch, turned, and molded the camocloth aside. At extreme low temperatures, the stuff became stiff and could be folded back like a sheet of clay.

“Where you goin', Downer?”

“Outside. For a look with the old Mark I eyeballs.”

He stepped into harsh, cold light. The sun was emerging now from behind Jupiter, visible as a silver-white crescent sharp and brilliant against the eastern sky. He oriented himself quickly, turning to face the southwest. Compasses didn't work on Europa, of course. Even if the icy moon had had a magnetic field of its own, it would have been overwhelmed by the far more powerful magnetic field of Jupiter close by. However, giant Jupiter was always in the same place in the sky, and his suit could work off of that. If that was east, then
that
was north and
that
was west and…

There it was: a silvery pinpoint of light climbing rapidly out of the southwest. In seconds, it had reached the high point in its trajectory just south of the zenith, and was descending again into the northeast. He lost it for a second against the glare of the Sun…then saw it again, falling toward the horizon.

Campanelli burst from behind the cloth, hugging the rali monitor and computer. “Let's go, Downer! Get your ass in gear!”

He was already tugging down the cloth.

“Screw that,” Campanelli said, climbing the ladder up one of the lobber's splayed landing legs. “No time!”

“Okay.” He scrambled up after her, swinging into the copilot's position.

Six-ton VT-5 lobbers like this one had very few amenities, such as hulls. Essentially, it was two side-by-side seats and some simple controls perched on an open platform above a hydrogen-oxygen-burning rocket engine. It had been designed for light transport duty on the moon, where the airless environment did not require streamlining, but it had been used since on Mars as well. It was ideal as a surface excursion vehicle for the scientific team on Europa—and now for the Marines as well.

“Ready?” BJ demanded.

“Set,” he replied, strapping in.

“I'm taking her up at forty-five degrees. That gives us our best compromise of getting closer to the base and being able to beam a warning over the horizon to Zebra as quickly as possible. Then we'll cut power and fall straight in. Checklist!”

“Right. Fuel pressure, H
₂
.”