rs that snaked from the Depot's
gaping portals. Slender, multi-armed space cranes
raised and lowered crates, bundles and modules, and
arranged, aligned, connected and disconnected gear
and cargo in all directions.

Aggregations of netted or tethered girders,
platforms, multi-meter-wide conduits in hundreds
of shapes and lengths, and modules linked by
stabilizer-beams crossed open spaces, pulled or
pushed by robot tugs controlled from the station's
cargo control centers. In trains or clusters,
machines traversed the open stretches between
the Depot's portals and nearby transports in their
final step toward a long journey.

The brightly checkered Depot slipped from O'Hare's
screen. A deployment station to O'Hare and hundreds
of his colleagues, and to more than four centuries
of his predecessors, the Depot was as much home
to him as his permanent station afloat in space
between Earth and Luna.

"Time," O'Hare silently flashed the code that
opened his spunnel channel to Keeper. "This is a
Slingshot Tac Ops from Red Fox to Keeper. I am hot
to trot on Point Charlie off Fandango Force Field.
All coordinates green for Scout Operation Xray
Delta slash Four. Time for go is 2112 slash 14
Solar. Keyed to transmit status on Spunnel Channel
9212, scramble 38. Confirm. Over."

The response was equally silent, registered
directly in his consciousness. The message's
clarity was unaffected by passage through
hundreds of spunnel boosters that linked O'Hare
to a shielded bunker beneath Luna's surface.

"Keeper to Red Fox. Your orders to scout Planet
Pluto Zone confirmed. You are cleared to start
at 2112 slash 14 Solar. Spunnel 9212 slash 38 is
open for your transmissions. You are spunnel-psy
monitored by Spacetrack Ceres. Out."

O'Hare tensed, psy-blinked his view screen down to
the instruments vital to his immediate mission, and
mind-keyed several controls. The fifteen-meters-long
vessel, with a barely two-meter beam, swooped
low and snapped into its run barely fifteen meters
across Pluto's desolate plains.

The view screen readouts showed subsurface
galleries, several outlined in irregular outlines
but empty, others reflected high-mass warship
configurations. He focused to adjust his
instruments for deeper penetration.

Quite suddenly, O'Hare's vision blurred. His head
and body swelled. In an instant, his brains, bones
and guts burst and splattered the cockpit as his
ship exploded.

##

Lieutenant Jake Ramirez