Planet Wrecker

-56-

As the Spartacus continued its hard deceleration, the cyborgs reacted to the meteor-ship.

Ship’s sensors picked up several blips detaching from the main asteroid-pack.

“What are those?” asked Marten.

During some shifts, Nadia doubled as the sensor-operator. “I don’t detect any radiation or heat signature from them,” she now said.

“What caused the separation?” asked Marten.

Osadar was in the command center, standing at the former arbiter station. “They might have been catapulted off,” she said.

“How?” asked Marten.

“By a rail-gun possibly,” Osadar said. “Because the vehicles are asteroids, the cyborgs have large surface areas to work with. They might have installed kilometer-long rails.”

“They’ve lit up!” Nadia said.

On the main screen, the blue blips turned bright red, indicating motive power.

“They have fusion cores,” said Nadia.

“Torpedoes,” said Marten. “How many are there?”

“I’m counting ten,” said Nadia. “No, make that twelve. They’re big torpedoes, too, with over five times the mass of our patrol boats.”

“Say again?” asked Marten.

Nadia’s fingers tapped her screen. She nodded shortly. “Five times the mass, Force-Leader. They’re huge.”

Marten transferred the specs onto the main screen. There was nothing secretive about these torpedoes. The attack used brute power and numbers. Marten shook his head in sudden doubt. This wasn’t like ground combat, which he knew to a nicety. This was space war with lengthy time-margins and extreme distances. What he decided now would take hours to unfold. Because of his lack of experience in these matters, throughout the journey he’d been studying ship tactics. The Spartacus had point-defense cannons and small counter-missiles. The size of the torpedoes troubled him, however. It did appear as if they were traveling in a pack.

“It’s time for our Zeno-missiles,” Marten said. The Spartacus had a limited number of the big ship-killers. But he didn’t think the meteor-ship was going to survive this battle for long. If it reached the asteroid surfaces, the spaceship would have served its purpose.

“How many Zenos do you desire launched?” asked Osadar, who presently acted as the weapons-officer.

Marten had been computing size, likely torpedo armor and spread. “…Six should do it,” he said.

“That leaves us with only three Zenos in reserve,” said Osadar. “Perhaps you are too generous with your missile expenditure?”

Marten glared at the screen, at the accelerating torpedoes. Maybe he was being too generous. No, this was a matter of weight, armor and numbers, of mathematical formulas. “I’m figuring one Zeno per two enemy torpedoes,” he said.

“I only hope the cyborgs do not launch any more,” Osadar said.

“Let’s worry about one problem at a time,” Marten snapped.

Without another word, Osadar clicked toggles on her board. Soon, the meteor-ship shuddered. It continued to do so as the big missiles launched from the outer surface.