Keith Laumer - Bolos 2 - Bolo Strike

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Bolo Strike

By William H. Keith

Prologue

IGC S-83,938,253. Perseus Arm, Columbian Sector.

Sallos A,B. Stellar class: both F9, radius: 1.07 Sol, radius: 1.14 Sol,

luminosity: 1.9 Sol.

Estimated time remaining on the main sequence: 3.5 x 109 years.

Planetary System: Seven major planetary bodies . . .

V, Dis. Mean orbital radius = 4.85 a.u.,

period = 10.004 years.

Orbital eccentricity = .0312.

Apastron = 5.00132 a.u.; periastron = 4.69868 a.u.

Equatorial diameter = 198,673 km.

Density = 1.034 g/cm3.

Surface gravity = 2.92 G.

Axial tilt = 2.03§.

Rotational period = 9h 12m 27.112s.

Magnetic field = 6.4 gauss.

Atmosphere: H2, 84% ñ 3%; He, 16% ñ 3%; CH4, 0.15%; NH3, 250 ppm; C2H6,

ppm; H2O, 2 ppm; HCN, .08 ppm; C2H2, .034 ppm; CO, .003 ppm; GeH4, .0004

ppm.

Satellites: 25 with diameters > 100 km, 3 with diameters > 5,000 km. . . .

One major satellite, Caern, is of special note. . . .

Satellites: Sallos Vf, Caern.

Orbital semimajor axis = 1,002,354 km, rotational period = 4d 8h 46m

6.87s,

orbital eccentricity = .0004. . . .

Equatorial diameter = 8368 km.

Density = 6.228 gm/cm3.

Surface gravity = .74 G.

Planetary mass = 1.91232 x 1027 g.

Axial tilt = 0.04o.

Rotational period = tidally locked at 4d 8h 46m 6.87s.

Magnetic field = 1.21 gauss.

Surface area = 219,985,074.4 km2.

Surface temperature: 12% of incidental thermal radiation is derived from

the primary.

Temperature = locationally variable, -30o C.

(anti-Dis side) to 50o (sub-Dis point).

A habitable band exists between the hemispheric regions of permanent ice

and desert.

Atmosphere: Mean surface pressure 0.8 bar.

N2, 77.08%; O2, 21.04%; Ar, 1.02%, H2O, 0.05-1.5% (mean 1%); CO2, 350 ppm;

Ne, 12.2/ppm; He, 6.34 ppm; CH4, 1.9 ppm; Kr, 1.98 ppm; CO, 1.3 ppm; SO2,

3.4 ppm; H2, 0.4 ppm; N2O, 0.33 ppm;

O3 .05-1.9 ppm; Xe, 0.09 ppm; NO2, 0.03 ppm.

Notes: A habitable satellite of the gas giant Dis with its own native

biosphere, Caern was colonized by Terran-human stock late in the

Concordiat age. Military depots and communications centers at Paimos and

Grendylfen gave the planet some minor strategic import in that struggle,

but the system was located far from major areas of conflict and not

directly involved in the fighting. Cut off from all contact with human

space during the final phase of the Melcon Armageddon and the subsequent

Dark Era, Caern was eventually absorbed as an outpost of the then-unknown

Aetryxha Reach. Recontact with Caern in cy 375 has led to a period of

steadily escalating tension between the Confederation and the Reach. . . .

Space Navigator's Ephemeris

Confederation Technical Press

37th Edition, cy 378

Six Confederation naval vessels, huge, irregularly patterned in swaths and

stripes of black, gray, and blue, decelerated into Disian space, weapons

charged, spiked snouts clawing at the clotted stars. Ahead, the ringed,

back-lit globe of the gas giant loomed vast within its necklace of

crescent moons. Sallos A and B, the local suns, glowed hot, white, and

arc-light dazzling, made tiny by distance.

On board the battlecarriers Esan and Helias, the command cruiser

Galahedron, and the three destroyers that made up the battle group, nearly

ten thousand Confederation naval personnel waited at their stations,

waited to see what shape the Aetryx response to their arrival in-system

would take. At this point, little was known of the aliens. All that could

be said with certainty was that their reaction would likely be . . .

alien. In truth, little of the xenosophontological reports garnered thus

far from the planetside merchant factors and X-Corps scouts made sense.

Making sense out of the situation-and ascertaining the fate of some

hundreds of millions of humans resident on Caern-was the Battlecarrier

Task Force's primary mission.

Officially, the BTF was engaged in what was euphemistically termed

"diplomatic service." The military forces of another age and place might

have called it a show of force, or even "gunboat diplomacy." The Aetryx

Circle had defied the Confederation Senate. Millions of humans living on

Caern languished in alien slavery. Admiral Cellini, commanding BTF-74, was

determined that there would be a full accounting.

At the very least, they would get the Aetryx to talk. . . .

And then everything started going wrong.

Dazzling flares of silent light erupted in the darkness. Space fighters,

sleekly streamlined and knife-blade deadly, streaked through the

Confederation squadron, loosing missiles, Hellbore bolts, and

high-velocity kinetic-kill projectiles. Thermonuclear horror engulfed the

Helias, vaporizing her aft works and sending the rest, accompanied by

glittering fragments, pinwheeling into the night. Hellbore fire sliced

through the bridge and primary turret decks of the destroyer Calavas,

until her crew modules erupted in a spray of liquid metal and hard X-rays.

Orders snapped from the Galahedron. Firing at their attackers in barrage

upon barrage of disciplined chaos, the surviving members of the squadron

accelerated. The laws of physics being what they were, to continue

deceleration until they could return the way they'd come was suicide,

plain and simple. Their only hope lay in maintaining their course,

whipping past Caern and giant Dis and outrunning their ambushers until

they could again slip into the relative safety of hyper.

Another volley of incoming kinetic-kill missiles loosed shattering

radiance within the infalling coterie of warships, peeling back armor in

half-molten strips, shattering the hull of the destroyer Tubek. The

battlecarrier Esan shuddered as multiple warheads vented their hellish

fury scant kilometers from her hull; battlescreens failed, and a second

volley sent a storm of hard gamma radiation sleeting through her crew

modules. Every man and woman aboard was dead when the leviathan vessel

detonated as a tiny sun minutes later.

The surviving vessels were clear of the first onslaught now and racing for

the minimum distance beyond the local gravity well where they could kick

over into hyper and vanish. Dis wielded an immense influence over local

space, however, and at maximum acceleration, Galahedron and the destroyer

Kurbal would need another hour at least to work their way clear.

The second flight of needle interceptors raced in from a quartet of Aetryx

battlecarriers in close orbit over Caern . . . blunt-nosed penetrators

flashing in at accelerations so high they could only be robotic or manned

by suicide crews. Galahedron survived until she was sweeping in

periplanetos past Dis, skimming the hydrogen fringe of the gas giant's

upper atmosphere . . . and then a barrage of missiles hunted her down in a

blaze of thermonuclear fury. The radiation storm touched the hurtling

Kurbal, burning out secondary drives and knocking her weapons off-line,

but her captain kicked in auxiliaries to stabilize her fall and let the

massive gravitational drag of Dis slingshot his hell-scorched vessel clear

of the planet. The interceptors followed but were too far astern now to

have a chance of closing to complete their kill. Ninety-eight minutes

after the engagement began, Kurbal slipped into hyper, the sole survivor

of BTF-74.

Admiral Cellini had been sister-in-law to the Senate president. The

firestorm that erupted within the Confederation Senate upon Kurbal's

return to her base at Endymion far surpassed the pyrotechnics that

attended the destruction of the Galahedron.

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摘要：

BoloStrikeByWilliamH.KeithCopyright(c)2001PrologueIGCS-83,938,253.PerseusArm,ColumbianSector.SallosA,B.Stellarclass:bothF9,radius:1.07Sol,radius:1.14Sol,luminosity:1.9Sol.Estimatedtimeremainingonthemainsequence:3.5x109years.PlanetarySystem:Sevenmajorplanetarybodies...V,Dis.Meanorbitalradius=4.85a.u....

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