Rapping his knuckles on the control panel didn't really alleviate things but it did give the Captain of the WOB JumpShip Zarathustra something to do. His crew was somewhere between the verge of total frustration and complete boredom. In the past few days he ordered a number of emergency drills just to keep them all on their toes but even then, it was still frustrating. Their mission had originally entailed them to a timeframe of no more than three hours at the most but then as the ancient military maxim had stated: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

They were supposed to rendezvous with the ROM operative in the Star League JumpShip, and recover the datadisk after a thorough search. Then all the hostages would be killed in the uninhabited star system, their bodies disposed of and none would be the wiser. But then the delegates did an unexpected thing: they fought back and now there had been a tremendous number of casualties sustained in combat operations on the desert moon. Despite their seeming boredom, the JumpShip crew at least counted themselves lucky that they weren't on the ground.

The Zarathustra had been floating in space near the gas giant's zenith for over a week now. Her jump sails had already fully charged the K-F drive and she just needed to retrieve the DropShips on the ground and they would be back to Terra in a matter of days. The JumpShip's Captain waited impatiently, the word was that the final assault to recover the datadisk was beginning and the retrieval order could happen anytime now. He hoped that everything would finally be settled; already his crew was experiencing mission creep.

A muttered curse quickly got his attention as the Captain swiveled his command chair to face the ship's Navigator, who was peering intently at his own instrument panel. "What is it?" The JumpShip Captain asked.

"Its that ambient reading on the ship's radar again, sir." The ship's navigator spoke as he continued to stare at his panel.

With nothing else to do, the Captain of the Zarathustra unstrapped himself from his command chair and floated over to where the Navigator was. They had been in null gravity for over a week now and that was a worrying sign. "Is this that same reading you told me about a few hours ago?" He asked.

"Yes, sir." The Navigator said. "I thought it might have been a glitch in the sensors so I did a diagnostic scan; all sensors seem to be working optimally. But then the reading reappeared again just a few minutes ago. So I checked the systems a second time and then a third reading happened just now."

"Just now? What do you think it is?"

"Not quite sure, Captain." The Navigator said. Although the Captain's rank in the Blakist hierarchy was officially an Adept, the Word Of Blake naval crews tended to stick with the traditional names as far as ranks went. "It could be nothing more than anomalous readings such as floating debris and such. The only sure way is that I take the entire system offline and do a hardware check-including an EVA at the sensor node on the outer hull."

"Well if it seems to be working okay now then I guess we could wait until we get to dry dock at the Titan shipyards in the Terra system." The Captain said before looking up into space as a probable thought had just crossed his mind. "Wait, have you pinpointed the location of those readings?"

The ship's Navigator's eyes opened wide at the suggestion. Why didn't he think of it before? It must have been the creeping lethargy that had finally let his intuition lapse. "One minute, sir." He said as he began plotting the coordinates of the anomalous readings into the ship's computer. As he began analyzing the locations, the young WOB technician let out a soft gasp.

"What did you find?" The Captain asked.

"Sir, the first reading I recorded was there," The Navigator said as he traced a blip on the virtual map with his finger, "then the second reading is here and the third, here." His voice trailed off into a muted dread.

The Captain's mouth gaped in a silent scream at the implications. The first reading was recorded about several hundred kilometers off the Zarathustra's starboard bow. The second reading pinpointed it at several hundred kilometers closer. And the third, more powerful reading had it less than a dozen kilometers off the aft hull of the Zarathustra.

"All hands!" The Captain began to scream as he scrambled to his command chair. "General quarters! Open up a visual link with the cameras at our aft hull."

As the crew began to snap out of their languid stupors, the Navigator recovered first as he activated the ship's cameras at the aft hull. As the crew began to mentally prepare themselves, every eye was trained at the vidscreen. At first it showed nothing more than a void of darkness, a wall of night that was occasionally illuminated by distant points of light from nearby stars. The Navigator stared out intently into the blackness, until he noticed something that made him shriek in a mixture of fear and terror. He noticed that one of the points of light flickered and seemed to die but that was only because it was apparent that a large object obscured it from view.

Even as the JumpShip began to fire its thrusters to move away, the all-black Union-Class DropShip fired its nose mounted weapons into her aft hull, severing several control lines from the JumpShip's outstretched solar sail, ripping off its supports. The second volley from the left side of the DropShip ripped into the Zarathustra's pencil-thin hull, literally disemboweling the delicate JumpShip as it began to tear itself apart. The DropShip then continued towards the desert moon without even a pause to savor its kill.

Sang-wei Chang Pao used both hands on the control stick as his 25-Ton Thrush Aerospace fighter began its reentry into the moon's upper atmosphere. As the heat scale on the fighter's instrument panel began to flash a warning light indicating that the modified fighter's double heat sinks had now reached their limit, Chang's real concern was not to let the Thrush get into a spin. Nicknamed the "Frisbee" by its pilots because of its rounded wings that extended all the way to its tail, the Thrush was the lightest and most maneuverable fighter in the Capellan arsenal. Although it had good speed, the Thrush was also prone to dangerous spins in the high atmosphere and so therefore Chang was being extra careful. The veteran Death Commando was also quite surprised at the new systems that were installed into his fighter just for this operation; Chang smiled at the Thrush's newly developed stealth armor that enabled him to sneak past the unsuspecting WOB Jumpship and start his reentry ahead of schedule. That the DropShip that he was traveling with also had stealth systems only made things easier.

While the fighter's hull started to vibrate as it began to enter the desert moon's upper atmosphere, Chang's comm. unit instantly activated. "Whisper to Edge, we have neutralized the enemy JumpShip- proceed to stage two." It was the DropShip signaling that the enemy vessel was destroyed.

"Roger, Wilco." Chang acknowledged as the vibrations began to die down indicating that the Thrush now entered the planetary atmosphere. Both his fighter's nose sensors as well as the DropShip orbiting above were feeding the Thrush's computer the locations of the enemy base camp and ground troops. Within a few minutes a shrill beep from the console indicated that the positions were now locked in. As he set his course and gunned up the throttle, Chang began a diagnostic check on his fighter's ordnance. From what he carried, even a near miss would suffice.

Adept Dragan Vosanovic grunted as he stretched to his full upright position. He had been working for the past few days with the techs to repair his damaged Riever heavy Aerospace fighter. Unexpected problems with the ARCLIGHT nuclear missile system had damaged both his fighter as well as his wingman's plane and it was only in the past few hours that the exhausted WOB technicians finally had a chance to put all of their energies into it. As Vosanovic stretched his shoulders he realized just how much damage the delegates had done to the entire unit; quite a lot of technicians died during the raid on their base camp a few days ago and the remaining ones were diverted in order to prioritize repairs on the other pieces of equipment of the unit, it was deemed that since the delegates had neither the airpower nor could they be targeted using aerospace assets that it came to be that Vosanovic and his air unit would be dead last in the queue in regards to repairs. Being a team player, the veteran LOM pilot swallowed his pride and did the best he could to help out the beleaguered techs, even going so far as to fix simple problems with the Gnat remote aero-drones.

"We've finally repatched the armor on my Riever's nose." Vosanovic's wingman said as he walked over to him. "I just need to do a systems check and we could be airborne after that."

Vosanovic turned as he placed the wrench that he was holding on the side of his Riever's fuselage. "What about the ARCLIGHT system? Still having glitches?"

"Like you wouldn't believe. The little spare parts we have were burned up when the DropShip caught fire during that raid. May Blake curse the souls of those delegates." His wingman said. "I had the techs take out the ARCLIGHT and replace it with the 200mm ULTRA autocannon."

"Well I think I got mine to work, so far," Vosanovic smiled. The wind was picking up and it looked like the dust storm would hit them shortly. "Once this accursed sandstorm finishes I'll get my fighter up for a test."

"Looks like Blake blessed you more than me." His wingman said as he looked up into the sky. "It's a fine day to fly. Give me a few more hours and I'll join you."

"No problem, now that mine is almost done, I'll go help you with yours; that's what wingmates are for, right?"

"Look!" Vosanovic's wingman exclaimed as he pointed at a speck in the sky. "What in Blake's hell is that?"

Vosanovic turned and looked up into the direction where his partner was pointing. The speck looked like an Aerospace fighter, and it was getting closer.

With his elapsed time showing less than two minutes to the target, Chang was already on full afterburners as the dark-green Thrush came in at over 600 knots, just below 3000 feet. Always a methodical pilot, Chang went through his combat checklist as each system glared back with an affirmative green. He could clearly see that all three DropShips had landed close to each other for mutual support. While it made the camp more defensible from a ground attack, it also made it one big fat target for a bombing run.

For a few brief seconds, Vosanovic stared out into the sky in disbelief. It was definitely an Aerospace fighter, one that was clearly not on their side. But how did it get so close without activating the early-warning defense net? Why didn't the Zarathustra send them a message that enemy forces were approaching? He didn't have any time to take off and his Riever's weapons were inadequate, but it looked like just a single Aerospace fighter and judging from its speed, it resembled a light fighter. "Scramble, now." Vosanovic told his wingman as he threw off the toolkit from his Riever's fuselage and started to climb up to the cockpit. His wingman started running towards his own identical fighter. Vosanovic had a feeling, deep at the back of his mind, that it may have been already too late but his professional skills just took over as he put on his helmet and began to activate his fighter's fusion power plant. A few technicians that also saw the approaching enemy started to run towards the nearby DropShips to alert the base camp.

At two miles from the camp, Chang Pao pulled back on his control stick as the Thrush arced back into a near vertical climb. As Chang yanked it back even more to where his fighter was now vertical, he heard a light chink as the bomb underneath his fuselage detached. As soon as he felt it, the Death Commando then kept pulling back on his stick until the Thrush made a classic Immelman-maneuver as it flew upside down and rolled until the cockpit was once again right side up with the horizon but facing in the opposite direction as it streaked away.

Even as his Riever's thrusters hummed to life, Vosanovic knew it was too late. He saw the enemy aircraft go vertical and began to veer away and it was then he knew what it was carrying. By the time he was able to taxi his fighter to the prefabricated runway it would be too late. The veteran WOB pilot then did an unexpected thing- he flicked a switch on his console as the Riever's thrusters began to die down. It won't be long now, he thought as his life began to flash before his eyes.

"Adept Vosanovic," His wingman said over the Riever's comm. link. "The runway is still clogged with sand. What do we do?"

"We die." Vosanovic answered nonchalantly.

Although the bomb weighed nearly a ton, it contained less high explosive than a 120mm artillery shell. The miniature chip on the warhead detected the drop in altitude and detonated just thirty meters off the ground. The stored plutonium instantly went to critical mass and released a sixty-kiloton shockwave near the center of the base camp. A brief flash of multi-spectrum light emanated from the area for a brief microsecond before transforming itself into an ever-expanding orange fireball- a miniature sun blossoming near the desert sands, temperatures reaching over thirty million degrees. Around the man-made star, a massive shockwave of compressed air formed an invisible but devastating bubble around it as both expanded ever outwards. Much of the nearby desert sands turned into radioactive glass particles as a giant mushroom cloud forced back even the immortal winds of the Sherji, for the first time ion the moon's history. Everything within the fireball was ionized as it covered a thousand feet across its impact zone while radioactive winds of up to 4,000 km per hour expanded even further, carrying radioactive debris of death.

Chang activated his fighter's comm. link as he aimed the Thrush's nose towards the heavens. "Edge to Whisper, stage two completed. You may now begin insertion of ground forces."