Planet Wrecker

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Osadar Di received the three-pulse signal. She sat at the controls of the least damaged patrol boat. The Jovian spacecraft had never been designed as a space-marine shuttle. That was a secondary purpose. The patrol boats were space-attack craft. Jovian military theory called for them to fight in three-boat formations.

When Nadia had first picked up the approaching troop-pods on her sensors, Marten had made a quick decision. Osadar and a few others had re-crossed the crater-plain and returned to the patrol boats. The men had scourged the more damaged boats for the remaining cannon shells and missiles. These they’d loaded into the good boat.

“Strap in,” Osadar said. Long ago, in her days as a human, she’d trained as a Jovian fighter pilot. Now she was a fighter pilot again, ready to fly her most important mission.

“Ready?” she asked the men.

They gave her the thumbs-up sign, one instituted by Marten Kluge.

Osadar flipped switches. The engine roared into life. She revved it, and with a lurch, she lifted off the lunar-like surface.