Ian Douglas - Europa Strike

“Confirm that all hands are strapped in.” Best to double check. This was going to be a rough ride.

“Confirmed, Captain.”

“Very well.” Lin took a deep breath. “Fire main weapon. Package One.”

“Package One, launch at three hundred forty thousand gravities. Fire.”

The Heavenly Lightning lurched as the egg-shaped, ten-kilo mass hurtled down the channel formed by four taut, superconducting cables. Accelerated by a fusion-charged magnetic pulse at an acceleration of 340,000 Gs, it traveled the fifteen-kilometer length of that immense gun barrel in just under a tenth of a second, emerging from the doughnut at the end with a velocity of over 316 kilometers per second. Ten kilos, compared with the Lightning’s 25,000-ton mass, would normally have been insignificant, but hurled into the void at that speed, it imparted a significant recoil to the huge ship. Lin felt the nudge, a hard kick transmitted through the back of his acceleration seat.

Seconds passed as the main weapon powered up for a second pulse…and then Package Two was launched, hurtling after the first. The range to target was just under 525 million kilometers. At 316 kps, the warheads would reach their target in nineteen days.

After a flurry of checks, confirming that both packages were on target, Lin gave the order to execute the five-degree yaw, bringing Target Two under the railgun’s muzzle. It took nearly an hour to adjust the aim—with a “gun barrel” composed of four charged tethers fifteen kilometers long. The cloud of plasma from the detonated nuclear warhead continued to expand, however, effectively screening the Lightning’s actions from any Earth-bound observer. Sensitive detectors in Earth orbit might pick up the EMP surges of the main weapon each time it fired, but they wouldn’t be able to tell what was happening.

With all targeting information again checked and double checked, Captain Lin ordered the main weapon fired again. This time, acceleration was set to one million gravities, and the Force Package flicked clear of the tether railgun with a velocity of 543 kilometers per second. The recoil was significantly greater with this launch, a savage lurch that sent the Lightning drifting backward like a burst from a maneuvering thruster.

That shot was followed by a second…and then a third, at which point an overstressed coolant feed in Lightning’s main fusion reactor melted. The reactor’s core temperature skyrocketed, forcing an automatic scram and shutdown.

No matter. Two packages on Target One, and three on Target Two. It was enough.

Target Two was at a much greater range than Target One—almost 900 million kilometers. With the higher muzzle velocity of the weapons, however, they would reach Two in just nineteen days…within about an hour of the attack on Target One.

Lin gave the order to reel in the tethers and readjust the ship’s orbit after being shoved off course by five high-G railgun shots. Engineering crews began working on the rather serious problem of bringing the main fusion reactor back on line. It scarcely mattered. His orders now were to remain on station, in case further shots were needed, but he doubted that the CWS Peaceforce would give him the luxury of a second try.

He continued to think about Zhugang.

11 OCTOBER 2067

U.S.S. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Entering Jovian System

1417 hours Zulu

Major Jeff Warhurst made his way along the narrow access corridor in zero-G, pulling himself along gently until he reached the hab access collar, which was grinding about the tunnel once every twenty seconds in a thunderous cascade of sound. He picked his target—the slow-moving entryway to “C” Hab—then, grabbing the handholds on either side, he swung his feet up and through the opening with an almost graceful ease borne of three weeks’ practice.

Lowering himself by the hand-and footholds, a feeling of weight gently returned, growing stronger with every meter of his descent. He emerged on “C” Hab’s upper deck, a gray-walled, claustrophobic space crowded with Marines. For three weeks now, “C” Hab had been home to Bravo Company, eighty-one Marine officers and men and one Navy hospital corpsman, living on two crowded berthing decks and one level designated as the squad bay. The air was steamy and thick, stinking of far too many people crowded into too small a space.

“Attention on deck!” someone shouted, and seated Marines began to rise.

Jeff waved them back down with a careless toss of his hand. “As you were!” he bellowed. “Carry on!”

This close to the ship’s hub, the spin gravity was only.21 G; you had to watch your footing and your inertia when you were moving, and the Coriolis effect was particularly unpleasant. This level had some berthing spaces, but most was reserved for offices, crew’s quarters, and a common room that doubled as a mess deck and galley.

It was also the only space in the hab that provided a view of the outside. A two-meter wall screen mounted on the forward bulkhead was set to display various views from cameras mounted on the Roosevelt’s hull.

The view now was forward from the transport’s prow. Jupiter was centered squarely in the screen, a slightly flattened orange disk, its banding easily visible to the naked eye. Although it was hard to tell from an image on a vid monitor, it looked a little larger than the full Moon did from Earth. All four of the Galilean satellites were visible, three on one side of the disk, one on the other. He didn’t know which of those bright-shining points of light was Europa, their destination, but one of them was.

The Roosevelt was 11 million kilometers out from the planet, and well within the orbits of the huge world’s outer moons. They’d just passed the orbit of Leda, a tiny chunk of rock and ice lost in all that night.

Sergeant Major Kaminski was standing by the screen, a squeeze bottle of coffee in his hand. “Major, sir,” he said, nodding. “How went the meeting?”

“As expected, Sergeant Major,” he replied. “We’re to be squared away by sixteen-thirty hours, with inspection at seventeen hundred. Spin-down, turnover, and deceleration are scheduled to begin at twenty-twenty hours. We’ll want to make sure everyone’s had chow and the mess gear’s cleared and stowed before then.”

“Aye, aye, sir. We’ll be four-oh, never fear.”

“Good.” He stared a moment at the vid screen. “Which one’s Europa? You know?”

Kaminski indicated the middle star of the three on the right. “That brightest one, sir.” His finger moved to the moon nearest Jupiter. “This little red one’s Io. You can almost smell the sulfur volcanoes from here.” He indicated the lone moon to the left. “That’s Ganymede. Biggest moon in the Solar System, bigger even than Mercury, and the next out from Europa.” His finger slid back to the right. “And Callisto. Outermost of the Galilean satellites, and enough like our Moon back home to make us all nostalgic for cold beer and a hot date.”

“I didn’t ask for a travelogue, Sergeant Major.”

“No, sir. Of course not. Sir.”

Oh, stop being a prick, he told himself savagely. “Sorry, Kaminski. I guess I’m a little on edge.”

“Goes with the territory, sir.”

Damn. Kaminski was always so diplomatic. Always knew exactly what to say. Well, that went with the territory too. Frank Kaminski had been in a long time…almost thirty years. He’d been in during the UN War, a veteran of Garroway’s March, of Tsiolkovsky, of half a dozen nasty little actions fought as the old UN broke up and the new CWS began to take shape. He was supremely competent at everything he did, the quintessential Marine’s Marine. His little spiel on the Galilean satellites was typical. The man always researched the next duty station or deployment, and seemed to command an inexhaustible armory of facts about the place—facts always tempered by long, personal experience.