The last transmission the Kongo received from the Juno indicated the cargo ship had made orbit around Doomsday 212, and its scanners had found the area where the puzzling transmission was coming from. A long-range viz sweep of the terrain in question had provided two things. There was indeed a dead SF officer lying on the ground beside what appeared to be a SF3 intell ship; four partially disassembled clankers were lying close by. And, as had been speculated, the mysterious transmission was coming from one of these robots, the one farthermost from the ship. Its advanced AI had told it something was not right, and it had to do something about it. Broadcasting the grisly execution over and over again was its solution to the problem.
The crew of the Kongo then heard from the Juno that it was about to launch a ground team, when a concerned voice cut into the transmission. The voice quickly rose in tension, panic seeping in. Something was suddenly wrong aboard the JunoVox, but it wasn't clear just what. Colonel Mannx, the captain of the Juno, was heard ordering his communications officer to "hail the approaching ship — and fast!" A series of loud bangs was heard next. Then the transmission went dead.
The KongoVox arrived over Doomsday 212 ten minutes later.
The small scout ship immediately vectored to the place were the JunoVox had made its last transmission, an area about twelve degrees above the planet's equator on its current day side. This is where they found the cargo ship. It was scattered in pieces across five miles of Doomsday 212's rough terrain, burning fiercely. There were no life signs from below. It had been blown out of the sky.
Off in the distance the Kongo could see two SG Starcrashers leaving the area, moving slowly, almost leisurely as they climbed to orbit. Oddly, their hulls were glowing with a reddish hue. A scan of the two SG ships indicated that their weapons had just been fired and, by studying the leftover subatomic signature, proved beyond all doubt these weapons had just caused the destruction of the JunoVox.
The CO of the scout ship took about five seconds to make his decision. He instructed the ship's historian to get his visual and audio recorders rolling. Then he ordered his crew to battle stations. What happened next would be a matter of debate for some time to come.
What everyone agreed on is that the two SG warships had their scanning equipment on, but to forward-scan only. This was done usually as preparation for moving up to orbit, to look for any aerial obstacles that might cause a problem as a vessel prepared to kick into Supertime. But this was not a procedure used during combat or shortly afterward.
Were the SG crews feeling pumped up after what they'd just done? Had an adrenaline rush clouded-their actions? Or were they in shock? Too dazed to perform the rote duties of moving a two-mile-long warship away from a planet and prepare it for flight again in outer space?
There was no way to know.
Only one thing was clear: the SG crews in both ships had let their guard down.
They never saw die KongoVox coming.
The tiny SF scout ship had sixteen space cannons poking out of its nose and along the leading edge of its wedge-shaped body. One or two blasts from a space cannon — it was the equivalent in power to a land weapon known as a Faster Blaster — could have a devastating effect on an unprotected or unsuspecting target. An array of sixteen of the weapons could deliver a fusillade on the same destructive level as a small atomic bomb.
That's what hit the trailing edge of the second-in-line SG warship just as it was pointing its wedge nose up for the quick dash up to orbit. The Kongo let loose with a two-second bar-rage that sheared off one-third of the ship's aft section in a terrific, yellow blast. The SG vessel staggered for a moment and came to a halt in midair. Then, as if in slow motion, the huge ship turned over to starboard and went straight down on its back. It hit the ground with such an impact, it created a trio of mushroom clouds, each going off in succession, as the ship's prop core exploded and the debris fell into a singularity that opened and closed in the matter of microseconds.
Five hundred and seven people had been killed when the SG ships shot down the JunoVox just minutes before.
Now, more than eight thousand Solar Guards were dead, too.
The second SG ship had already jumped into Supertime; thirty seconds later, it was more than a light-year away.
But its CO, realizing what had just happened, quickly ordered the ship to turn about. Less than a minute after its sister ship had gone down, the second ship was streaking back through the atmosphere of Doomsday 212.
By this time, the KongoVox had kicked up to about 5,000 feet and had turned back toward the wreckage of the JunoVox. It had its scanners on 360 and thus saw the other SG ship coming. The tables were turned now. The scout ship was smaller but no faster than the huge SG warship. It was the essence of all vessels powered by the Supertime-capable prop cores mat size and mass didn't matter. Everything moved the same, at the same top speed. The SG warship spotted the Kongo just as the Kongo's scanners lit up like a string of small suns. The scout ship turned one eighty, and its pilots booted into full crank, the highest speed a prop-core vessel could achieve within the atmosphere of a planet. The red SG warship turned six and went to full crank power as well.
The chase was on.
The only advantage the scout ship Kongo had was its physical size. It could go places the bigger SG ship could not.
Zipping up to orbit and spanking into Supertime was not an option for it, though. The dynamics said it would have to slow down ever so slightly to make the leap. When it did, the SG ship would have it at a disadvantage. Certain destruction would result.
No, the scout ship would have to use its diminutive size to get out of this one. And do so quickly.
The terrain of Doomsday 212 suddenly became its best ally, especially the craggy surface and the surfeit of valleys and mountain passes. The Kongo's pilots brought their ship down to just 200 feet off the deck and kicked in the vessel's terrain-avoidance system. This would allow it to keep that 200-foot cushion between it and any object in its path. Or at least that's how it was supposed to work.
The pursuing SG warship, however, had enormous arrays of sensors and tracking equipment; it did not lose sight of the scout ship for very long. The SG ship was also bristling with weapons, most of monstrous proportions and designed to do battle over great distances in space with ships almost as large but nowhere near as quick as she was.
These were the dreaded master Z-beam weapons. They could destroy a two-mile-long warship at distances up to 50,000 miles. The crimson SG ship now trained these night-marish giants on the fleeing scout ship and began blasting away with wild abandon. Overkill by any measure, but particularly hellish in this instance.
This torrent of destructo-rays made the fusillade that the scout ship had used to destroy the first SG ship look puny by comparison. The Kongo was twisting and turning through canyons, along valleys, up and over mountains, hitting hypersonic speeds, breaking the sound barrier with thunderous reports, the huge red behemoth not a half mile behind.