"Blue Fox to Keeper on Scramble 2. Message keyed at 2115 slash 14 Solar. Request Spacetrack Ceres verify ship's position and readings. Field is about one-fourth by three-fourths kay, depth one-fourth kay. No organics. Neutronic penetray analysis shows that in addition to thermonuclear power plants the aggregate includes machined parts configured to Catalog 11 long range lasers, explosive decompressors, particle beamers and gun mounts. I suspect this is a cache of contraband ordnance and spares positioned for pickup by Planet Pluto insurgents. Orders? Over." "Keeper to Blue Fox. Spacetrack Ceres confirms unregistered objects proximate your position. Ceres' sensors verify the findings. Space Force concludes the stores present an immediate threat to Slingshot. Your orders: Destroy the cache immediately using your Type K1 nuclear explosive missile setting: Baker Two Seven. Launch at not less than 15,000 kay. Remain on station and follow up. Search out and dissolve all residues; use your laser-doubles at setting 8. Report when task completed. Your Tac Ops and psych systems are monitored. Start now. Out." Keeper's message simultaneously loaded into the recon-patroller's computer as authenticator for the mission and demolition and laser gun settings. The computer adjusted thrust and vector to bring the ship to the 'fire' point and engage the countdown and sequence to launch, arm the warhead, and follow up. Missile launch was at six seconds. Without warning, the computer froze. The frame of the pilot's enclosure glowed red, then white. An instant later the ship disintegrated into thousands of metal and composite fragments, and shards of what had been human flesh and bone. ## "Flash -- Spunnel Transmission Priority One. To Supreme Commander, United Inner Planetary System Space Force, Earth Headquarters, from Keeper, Luna Station. Attack report. Repeat: attack report. Recon-patrollers R-19557, Red Fox, and R-87265, Blue Fox in Planet Pluto Special Zone on recon missions under Keeper control, were attacked and destroyed by particle beams; attack times: Red Fox 212014; Blue Fox 215514. "Beamers fired from unidentified batteries, source Sectus Gorge, coordinates GT165, Planet Pluto. The UIPS patrollers were on directed Tac Ops missions: cite our messages to Red Fox and Blue Fox past half-hour, info recorded in Tac Ops Actions Register, your Headquarters. Regret to inform you that no life signals emanate from Red Fox and Blue Fox wreckage. Spacetrack Ceres will monitor for survivors. Ship recovery and investigation teams dispatched from Log Depot to both sites. Out." ##