Date: 2011-12-31T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Ian Stevens, director of the Deep Space Research Institute, isn’t interested in conducting research just for the sake of research. While the rest of the world—including the U.S. government—thinks that’s the DSRI’s sole mission, Stevens is actually interested in more—he wants manned space travel and the colonization of the moon. With NASA defunct, few scientific probes are being launched, and no one even talks about human spaceflight anymore. Stevens is out to change that. A billionaire in his own right, Stevens has assembled a crew of the best scientists and engineers he can find, and the DSRI
Publisher: Theogony Books

The Moon and Beyond

Book One of the Lunar Free State

By

John E. Siers

PUBLISHED BY: Theogony Books

Copyright © 2021 John E. Siers

All Rights Reserved

* * * * *

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

* * * * *

Dedication

To Bill M., who told me (about fifteen years ago) “Hey, John… you really should publish this stuff.”

* * * * *

Cover Design by Shezaad Sudar

* * * * *

Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

About John E. Siers

Excerpt from Book One of the Chimera Company

Excerpt from Book One of Murphy’s Lawless

Excerpt from Book One of the Singularity War

Excerpt from Book One of the Mako Saga

* * * * *

Prologue

The smoke that filled the flag bridge was gone—blown out with the air when the hull was breached. Damage reports were coming in, but critical systems were still functioning. LFS Valkyrie was wounded, but far from dead. The tactical outcome was still undecided, but that was Tommy’s responsibility.

Where the hell is Amazon? Lorna wondered. Twelve minutes, Giotti had said, but that seemed like an eternity ago. She was bone tired, and she suspected some of her weariness had to do with loss of blood. She had gotten her suit patched up, and the painkiller seemed to be doing its job, but she could still feel the trickle of warmth down her right leg.

Got to focus. The fleet’s depending on you. Ian and the others on Luna are depending on you. She wondered again just how she had gotten there…how she had come to be in command of this force, the Lunar Free State’s last hope for survival…

* * * * *

Chapter One

February

Lorna

The station manager turned up his collar against the cold as he watched the taillights recede in the distance. He glanced at the note in his hand, a license plate number that was worth an extra fifty bucks to him. He didn’t question the ethics of it. These days a man needed every dollar he could get. Shivering, he went back inside and checked his point-of-sale terminal screen for details of the last transaction. He fished a battered phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his contacts to find the special number he’d been given…

* * *

The lights of the station faded quickly in the rearview mirror, and the desert night closed in. Against the blackness, the headlights were useless, illuminating an all-too-short stretch of highway. Behind the wheel, Lorna shivered. Her experience in the Persian Gulf had taught her that even the hottest deserts could be chilly at night, but the High Mojave got far beyond chilly. The temperature was near zero. She turned the heater up to full and warmed herself by cursing the car rental agent who’d assured her she could reach her destination in “a couple of hours or so.”

She supposed she really shouldn’t blame the agent. She’d deliberately avoided the big-name rental chains, and she’d disabled the car’s GPS locator. Ian had told her to be discreet about her visit, and, while the system might have helped her find her destination, it could also have been used to track her. For the same reason, her personal phone was still in airplane mode—its transmitter disabled—a holdover from the days when airlines hadn’t allowed phones to be used in flight.

The rental company was probably wondering whether they would ever get the car back, but they wouldn’t get really upset unless she didn’t show up on the promised return date. She’d picked a local company in San Diego that specialized in renting low-end cars to military personnel at rip-off prices. This probably wasn’t the first time they’d had a GPS failure (or had one disabled by some smartass military techie).

But that meant she had to rely on the static maps stored in the car’s onboard system—maps that didn’t show her present location and whose limited detail showed no marker for her destination. Eight hours and many miles of badly maintained road later, the manager at the service station told her she still had fifty kilometers to go. Lorna was used to being in the air. Surface travel was, in her opinion, a primitive way to get from place to place.

She was glad she’d at least found a station with fuel, even at fifteen dollars a gallon. That was another reason she’d picked the low-budget rental company. They still rented hybrid cars with internal combustion backup engines. The all-electric cars demanded by the environmentalists didn’t have the range for a trip like this. In fact, they didn’t have sufficient range for anyone who lived outside a major metropolitan area. The service station had a charging unit available for both electrics and hybrids, but it didn’t look as though it got much use. In addition, she would have had to hang around for a couple of hours to fully charge the car’s batteries. It was time she didn’t have to spare.

The far reaches of the desert were slowly being depopulated. In another five years, the law would outlaw private vehicles with any kind of old-style internal combustion engine in California. At one point, manufacturers had been developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but fuel cell technology was also under attack by the environmentalists, who claimed the “exhaust” from FC vehicles—plain water vapor—was an environmentally damaging greenhouse gas. At the same time, the state continued its adamant refusal to allow new electric power-generating facilities to be built. Lorna wondered what would happen in five years when all those electric vehicles needed to be charged every night. Power blackouts were already an all-too-common occurrence in the Golden State.

The suburbs were being abandoned. Suburbanites were moving into elite, fortress-like high-rise towers in the city because commuting had become too difficult and dangerous. On her way out of the Los Angeles-San Diego megametro, Lorna had passed abandoned neighborhoods that had fallen into decay and were now occupied only by squatters and the empty hulks of once-busy shopping malls.

Meanwhile, people out in the desert who still relied on old-fashioned gasoline, hybrid, and diesel-powered vehicles were being hammered by outrageous fuel prices…and horses were becoming increasingly popular as a means of transportation. That brought its own problems, of course, as the animal rights people began to get involved, but most of them dared not venture this far out into the wilderness.

Despite the cost, Lorna felt better with a full tank of fuel. To a pilot, fuel was life—the only thing that kept an aircraft from falling out of the sky. Now, she could relax a bit, though her destination was still some distance away (and she still wasn’t totally confident that she could find it).

The station manager had warned her not to leave the main road. Getting lost in the desert was not just an inconvenience, it could prove fatal. But staying on the road—whose battered signage proclaimed it to be a state highway—was not that easy. California’s chaotic state budget didn’t allow for a lot of highway maintenance, and there were places where several centimeters of wind-blown sand covered sections of the road. In one place, a hundred-meter section of the road was missing the right shoulder and about a meter’s width of the right lane. Erosion had left a sharp drop from the crumbling edge of the pavement to a dry wash two meters below. Under such conditions, high speed was out of the question, and Lorna’s navigational math told her she had covered just seventy kilometers in the past hour.

She listened intently to the sound of the car’s tiny power plant. She was feeling a faint vibration through the floor, which she hoped was just an out-of-balance tire. She had learned to pay attention to such little clues, things that didn’t show up on her instruments. An engine failure now wouldn’t be as much of an emergency as it would be in an aircraft, but this was not the kind of place where she wanted to be stranded.

Of course, there was always the tracker chip…

Lorna had been born in the waning years of the 20th century—too early to get one of the chips that were now implanted in every newborn in every “civilized” nation. The chip allowed a person to be located and tracked just about anywhere in the world via satellite. It was powered by the body’s electrochemical energy and provided the location (and basic information about physical condition) of a person when queried with that person’s identity code. Government agencies also had ways of issuing blanket signals that would reveal the identity of all persons in a particular area.

The chips had been touted as a marvelous cure for society’s ills—crime prevention being the major selling point, but criminals regularly had their chips removed by illegal but readily available surgery, making them invisible to the tracking systems. Youth gang members typically had theirs removed by cruder methods as part of gang initiations. For all their promised value to society, the chips were primarily useful for finding lost children and other missing persons—living persons. The chips lost power and became inert within an hour or so after the death of their host, making them useless for finding murder or fatal accident victims.

Meanwhile, government agencies used the chips to quietly collect a great deal of information about ordinary citizens, their movements, and their activities. The government swore no such surveillance was taking place, but Lorna had spent a year as an intelligence officer in the Pentagon. She’d seen some of the information the NSA had passed on to the Air Force, and there wasn’t much doubt about how that information had been acquired.

While she hadn’t gotten one at birth, Lorna had been implanted with a military version of the chip when she joined the Air Force. The difference between her chip and the civilian version was that hers could be triggered manually by a sequence of finger-taps on the side of her neck where the chip was located to produce a distress call that would be routed to the nearest military base. The military recognized that the chips were a two-edged sword. In theory, a technologically sophisticated enemy could use them to track troop movements, so active military personnel were issued chip blockers—lightweight neck bands that blocked attempts to trigger the chip and suppressed outgoing signals. Lorna was wearing one of them, its flat, flexible shape easily concealed under her turtleneck sweater.

If she broke down, she could remove the blocker and trigger the distress call, but the military frowned on off-duty use of the capability, and she would be reprimanded. Worse, she would have to explain what the hell she was doing there—far from any destination on her registered travel itinerary. As far as the Air Force knew, she was staying in transient officers’ quarters at M.C.A.S. Miramar, where she couldn’t be tracked because all U.S. military bases were shielded. In fact, she was a long way from Miramar, traveling at night along the most desolate stretch of highway she had ever seen—at least within the borders of the U.S.

If she’d been a civilian, she couldn’t have made the trip without filing the required interstate travel itinerary with Homeland Security, but members of the military were exempt from the requirement. If she was stopped by HSA, all she had to do was show her military ID. Not that it was likely…HSA checkpoints were common around major cities, but out there, there was no sign of them. For that matter, there was no sign of local authorities. She hadn’t seen a single police vehicle since she’d left the interstate.

The vulnerability of her situation suddenly hit home. No one knew where she was, and while she had told Ian she would be coming, she hadn’t told him exactly when. Suddenly, she felt very lonely.

* * *

Charlie Bender was one of those people who had no difficulty waking up. Though he was sound asleep when the interface began its plaintive warble on his desk, he was fully alert by the time he had the earbud in place and the remote in his hand. The handset’s display indicated an incoming call, audio only, from one of his “perimeter net” contacts.

He touched the screen and opened the connection. “Bender,” he said crisply, as though he had been waiting for the call.

“Mr. Bender? This is Fred at Crossroads Food ’N Fuel. You know our deal? About calling you if anybody…”

“Yeah, sure. What have you got?” Bender was not one to waste words.

“Well, this woman stopped for gas a couple of minutes ago. Tall, good-looking…asked me how to get to the Institute.”

Bender glanced at the time display on the remote. Almost midnight. “I’m listening,” he said.

“Well, uh, that’s it. She asked how to get there.”

“Name? License? Make and model?”

“Oh, yeah…It was a dark green Mitsubishi, probably a couple of years old, I think. California plates—number AFGR 3186. Didn’t get her name…she used a cash card to pay for the gas.”

Bender grimaced. Cash cards had pretty much replaced currency throughout most of the country. They could be obtained in any denomination at just about any retail establishment and used to purchase anything. The encrypted coding, which linked them to some bank’s database, was pretty much tamper-proof, and the microchips embedded in them self-destructed chemically when they were fully expended or reached their expiration date. Unfortunately, they were not traceable. They were sold by the banks in mass lots to distributors at a slight discount. Since they were already paid for, the banks had no interest in tracking whoever ultimately used them.

In this day of credit and debit cards, upscale members of American society regarded cash cards with disdain—something you gave someone as a gift or kept on hand for emergencies (in case your real card was lost or stolen). At worst, they were the medium for criminal money transfers, and they were used by people who didn’t want their movements traced. That might make his job a little more difficult, but Charlie had a vehicle description and license plate number obtained using the oldest surveillance device in the books—the old Mark I eyeball. It was a start.

He pressed his contact for a better description of the woman. Tall, good looking, and…? Really tall, Fred told him, with short blond hair…kind of hard-looking, but a fox all the same. Probably late-30s, maybe early 40s but a real looker…Oh, and she had on a military-style jacket, like an Air Force flight jacket with some kind of patch on the shoulder—a sword with wings.

Hmmm…a winged sword…Tactical Air Command? Interesting. Bender finally decided he’d heard enough. “Thanks, Fred. Payment will be in your account tomorrow.”

Bender keyed the remote again, cutting off the call, then crossed the room to his desk.

“Keyboard,” he ordered, and the touchpad area in front of the flat screen obediently displayed a standard keyboard layout with a point-and-tap touchpad beside it. Despite all the interface choices available, Charlie still preferred to key in all his sensitive queries. In a former life, he had survived by being constantly aware that his conversations might be overheard. In his quarters, that wasn’t likely, and he could have simply talked to the computer, but old habits died hard. Of course, computers could be tapped as well, but this computer…not bloody likely. Charlie trusted the system far more than he trusted any human.

Humming tunelessly, he put his fingers on the keyboard. First, he authorized a transfer of fifty dollars to Fred’s bank account from one of his special expense accounts. Then he pulled up a blank search model on the screen and began to fill in the information.

* * *

Five minutes later, Ian Stevens awoke to the polite but insistent voice of the interface in his bedroom.

“Wake up, sir. Code Alpha. Wake up, sir.”

As director and CEO of the Deep Space Research Institute, Ian worked long hours, and he valued his sleep, but the A.I. had apparently decided something was worthy of his attention. Stevens glanced at the clock on his night table.

“What the hell…?” It was just past midnight.

Deep within its electronic innards, the system did a quick voiceprint match and decided it had, in fact, gotten the attention of The Boss.

“The security director has made a priority one inquiry that requires the release of information from your confidential files, sir. I am displaying the query sequence involved.”

Information began to appear on the screen. Ian got up and walked to the desk, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looked at the displayed data.

Bender again! The security chief was playing secret agent with the Institute’s primary computer system, affectionately known as Iron Mike. Charlie was one of the very few people who knew the true A.I. capabilities of the system, and he tended to exploit those capabilities in ways that made Ian nervous. Charlie’s intelligence skills had proven useful in the past, and, for the most part, Ian let him use those skills without restriction.

Scanning the screen, Ian noted that Mike had pulled records from the California DMV, a car rental company in San Diego, and the Federal Citizen Registry. None of those systems were protected by anything but basic government-approved encryption. Cracking the low-budget encryption algorithm was child’s play for Iron Mike. But the computer was also digging into the IRS database, Union Bank of Tennessee, and the U.S. Armed Forces Central Personnel Division. Those encryption keys were a bit more complex, so Bender had been advised that the search might take several minutes.

Ian frowned. He had authorized Charlie to use “sensitive searches” (Bender’s own euphemism for covert—and illegal—intelligence-gathering in cyberspace), but only when necessary to protect the Institute’s security. Ian trusted him but kept a close watch on those activities. Mike had been instructed to keep a record and report them to Ian within 24 hours, but he would not normally wake the director in the middle of the night. There had to be something else.

Ian continued to read and soon found the reason for Mike’s concern. Bender had started with a vehicle license number and some other odd bits of data, and Mike had come up with a name and Citizen ID from the car rental company records. Charlie had keyed on the ID and asked Mike for a full background search. The problem was that Mike had data in his files on the person in question but could not release it because it was part of Ian’s personal resource files—one of the few areas off limits to the security chief.

Now why, Ian wondered, was Charlie Bender suddenly interested in her? And why now, at fourteen minutes past midnight? Hmmm…I asked her to come. I haven’t heard from her, but I’ll bet she’s on her way, and she’s just tripped Charlie’s security net. Bender had methods he didn’t discuss with the boss, and Ian didn’t mind as long as Charlie didn’t kill anyone or otherwise call attention to the Institute. I hired him to do just the sort of thing he’s doing…and he’s excellent at it.

He considered telling Mike to withhold the information, but in the end, he decided to release the file. That ought to blow Charlie out of his chair, he thought. He probably thinks he’s the only one around here who collects background information on people. Wonder what he’d think if he saw the file I have on him?

He gave Mike the release authorization, and, moments later, the interface advised him of an incoming call from the security director. A real speed reader, Ian thought with a chuckle. He selected two-way video, and Charlie’s face appeared on the screen.

“Sorry to bother you, boss, but I thought you might want to know. Looks like an old girlfriend of yours is on her way here—lady by the name of Lorna Greenwood—Major Lorna Greenwood, U.S. Air Force. She should be here in half an hour. Of course, maybe you were expecting her…?”

“Yes, actually, I am expecting her. I just didn’t know when she’d be coming. Can I assume your information is reliable?”

“Of course.” Bender sounded hurt. “And might I inquire why a USAF officer is coming here? Strictly in the interest of security.”

Ian sighed. “She’s a close friend, Charlie, but if you must know, I’m thinking of offering her a job. We are going to need qualified pilots, you know.”

“And you were going to tell me about this in a timely manner, of course…” Bender’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. From anyone else, Ian might have called it insubordination, but he and Charlie went back a long way.

“I have total confidence in you, Charlie. I’ll bet that, even as we speak, your busy little fingers are directing Mike to expand that background check you’re doing.”

“Oh, by the way, boss,” Charlie replied, ignoring the jibe, “she’s coming to us in stealth mode. Her car’s GPS tracker isn’t registering and neither is her ID chip.”

“It’s probably a military chip, Charlie.”

“Mike is aware of that,” Bender said. “He says he should still be able to trigger it unless she has it blocked.”

Ian felt a little chill as he realized just how far Charlie and his cybernetic cohort had gone. They were playing with technology that, in the eyes of the government, was top secret.

“Well, I told her to be discreet.”

“Just one question, boss,” Bender persisted. “According to what I’m seeing here, she’s a fighter pilot on active duty with a good record. Top secret clearance, so no question about her loyalty to the U.S.A. Don’t you think there’s a bit of a security risk here? How much do you plan to tell her, and how do you know she won’t just do her patriotic duty and report the whole thing to dear old Uncle Sam?”

“For now, I’m not going to tell her anything.” There was a hint of annoyance in Ian’s voice. “And I may not offer the job to her at all. She’s just an old friend coming for a visit, and she’s not going to hear or see anything that isn’t for public consumption. You’re the security and intelligence expert but assume, for a moment, that I’m not a total idiot. Whether I take it any further depends on how this little visit goes…and on the results of that very thorough investigation you are conducting. She probably won’t be here for more than a day or two, and I’ll give you a few more days after that to do your job. We’ll talk about it again on Monday. Meanwhile, I have an attractive young lady to entertain.”

“She’s forty-four, but, judging from what I see here, I’ll grant that she’s attractive…a bit too tall for my taste, though.” Charlie couldn’t keep the subtle leer out of his voice.

“She’s just a friend, Charlie, and forty-four is still young as far as I’m concerned.”

“Relax, boss,” Bender replied, with a grin. “I’m just yanking your chain. Gotta keep you sharp.”

“Okay, you got me. But I’m serious, investigate her all you like. I’ll expect a full report. Just be discreet, damn it. I do not want to draw the attention of the U.S. military.”

“Not to worry, boss. Discretion’s my middle name.”

As the image winked out, Ian noted Bender’s smile of self-satisfaction. Of course, you’re smiling, he thought. I’ve just given you the go-ahead to do what you like best…and if you do a thorough job, in a week, you should be able to tell me why I’m not sleeping with Lorna.

“Mike,” he said, “please start brewing a pot of coffee in the kitchen.”

“Yes, sir,” the A.I. replied. “A reminder: there are one hundred and fifty-two grams of coffee remaining in the machine’s dispenser. Do you wish to add coffee to your commissary shopping list?”

“Yes, please,” Ian said. “Connect me with the security duty officer.”

* * *

Lorna almost missed the turnoff. There was nothing more than a sign with a stylized logo, the letters D.S.R.I., and an arrow pointing to a well-maintained gravel road that led upward into the hills flanking the highway. As she started up the road, she began to see warning signs. The wording varied, but the general message was the same: No Trespassing.

She was having second thoughts about the wisdom of approaching the place after midnight, when she rounded a bend and found herself at an entrance gate much like that of a military base. Floodlights illuminated the area around the small guard house, which was manned by a pair of efficient-looking sentries in desert camouflage. The one standing outside wore a maroon beret and had a holstered pistol strapped to his waist. Inside the guard house, Lorna could see a second sentry armed with a top-of-the-line military rifle. Lorna was no stranger to sentries and gates. She braked to an easy stop and opened the window.

“I’m here to see Ian Stevens,” she told the guard and presented her Air Force ID without waiting for him to ask for it.

“Yes, ma’am. One moment, please.”

His tone was pleasant enough, but very professional. Not your average rent-a-cop…probably ex-military, Lorna decided. She noticed he was wearing chevrons of rank on his sleeve. He slipped her ID card into a slot in his data pad and studied the holographic ID image that appeared in front of him. He compared it carefully with her face and the photo on the ID card. Obviously, he took his job seriously.

The other guard never took his eyes off her, nor did he relax his grip on the rifle. More than just ex-military; probably Rangers or maybe Marines. Most likely Marines, she decided. Army Rangers and other special forces types tended to be more relaxed, almost laid back. Marines, on the other hand, were always ramrod-straight—as if each of them felt personally obligated to maintain the image of the Corps, even when they were no longer on active duty. Service people joked that there was no such thing as an ex-Marine.

“Okay, Major Greenwood,” the guard said, interrupting her musings, “Director Stevens is expecting you. This is your security badge. Please wear it at all times within the Institute complex and return it at the gate when you leave. I’m sure you know the drill.” He handed her a thin, flat badge with her name and picture on it—the same picture that was on her military ID.

“It’s equipped with a local tracker and audio interface, and it’s programmed to guide you to your destination. The director’s address is Number Seven Andromeda Drive. If you have a problem, just press the red icon in the upper left corner. I’m sure you’ve seen these before, and you’ll understand when I tell you it’s programmed to warn you if you should stray into any areas where you are not authorized to go.”

“Yes, I have. I understand,” she replied. And I’m sure it will also warn you if I go astray. The technology was relatively new, but Lorna had worn similar badges on military bases for the past few years.

“Any questions, ma’am?”

“No. Thank you, Gunny.”

“Ma’am?” He gave her a querying look.

“Just a guess, Sergeant,” she told him with a little smile. “I’ve seen a few Marines in my day.”

“Yes, ma’am. Semper Fi,” he replied, and the hint of a grin told her she had guessed correctly. He stepped back and gave her a crisp salute. She returned it smartly, then drove slowly ahead as the barrier gate lifted in front of her. Hmmm…it didn’t take them long to let me through, so I must really be on their expected and authorized list. But I didn’t tell Ian for sure I was coming, let alone when. She drove further, and suddenly her security badge beeped and said in a clear voice, “Turn left at the next intersection, one hundred meters ahead.”

* * *

The door opened, and there was Ian. He said nothing, but smiled, stepped forward, and gave her a welcoming hug and a brotherly kiss on the cheek. He was one of the few men she knew who was tall enough to do that without standing on tiptoe. Lorna was just over 193 centimeters, or six foot four, as her father used to say. She was barely under the maximum height limit for Air Force pilots.

“Hi, big guy,” she said. “I won’t ask how you knew I was coming.”

“Well, I was pretty sure you were coming,” he told her, “but I didn’t know when until I heard from Security.”

“I’m sorry about the short notice. I had a lot on my mind and needed to go somewhere and think, so I checked out a TF-22 for a cross-country ‘navigation training’ hop and flew to Miramar. I should have called from there, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to bother you…almost turned around a couple of times out there in the desert.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said sincerely.

Lorna followed him into the living room of the small, but comfortable, townhouse. He got her settled in an easy chair, then brought coffee. He settled himself in another chair, and they made small talk for a while.

“The last few hundred kilometers were a real pain in the neck,” she said, “especially getting out of the L.A.-S.D. megametro. After that, Interstate 15 wasn’t bad, but then I had to deal with that so-called highway through the desert. If Nowhere is a place, then you are certainly in the middle of it.

“I’ve got a few days before I have to get back, but I was afraid I’d spend them wandering around amid blowing tumbleweed, trying to find this place. Then, when I finally got close and realized how late it was, I started to worry I might catch you in an awkward moment, maybe entertaining some lady friend.”

“Oh, I was,” he replied with a grin, “but I sent the girls home—all three of them.”

She knew he was joking. Ian was one of the most strait-laced people Lorna knew. If he weren’t so incredibly intelligent and moderately charming, he would probably be terribly boring, she believed. “Well, anyway.” She offered a grin of her own. “I’m sorry to get here so late, but I just couldn’t get that silly little car up to the kind of speed I’m used to.”

There was an awkward silence as Lorna looked down and stared into her coffee cup.

Ian prodded her gently. “So…do you want to talk about those things on your mind? I mean, they can wait…or maybe you don’t want to talk about them at all and just need some quiet time to think. If so, you’ve come to the right place.”

“No, I want to talk about them, but I need to think a bit more first. After that, well, my old man used to say you were a great boss because you listened first and talked later. You’ve been listening to my ups and downs for a long time, and I hate to unload on you, but he was right. You listen better than anyone I know.

“Anyway, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m interrupting your sleep, as well. So…maybe tomorrow, or whenever you’ve got some time.”

“No problem,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got the guest room ready…unless, of course, you’ve done a complete one-eighty and feel the urge to share a bed with a mature, distinguished gentleman such as myself.” It was a private joke between them.

“I haven’t,” she said warmly, “but if I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

* * *

Lorna was tired, but despite the comfortable bed in Ian’s guest room, she had trouble getting to sleep. The trip had taken her mind off her personal issues, but, now that she’d reached her destination, those issues came flooding back.

She’d given twenty years of her life to the USAF. She’d graduated at the top of her class from the Air Force Academy, with a degree in aeronautical engineering. It had been a time when an increasing number of militant female senators and representatives had been making a big push for the Holy Grail of feminism—women in combat assignments. The Army struggled with the concept, trying to integrate women into existing line units, but the Air Force had integrated its ground support forces long before any pressure was applied and assigned women pilots to a variety of non-combat flight operations. There remained only one area to be integrated, and when Lorna had followed her Academy honors with an outstanding performance in basic flight school, she had been one of the first women to be sent to the USAF’s Fighter Weapons Training Facility for flight training with the most advanced fighter aircraft in the nation’s arsenal. Once again, she’d distinguished herself and finished the training at the top of her class.

For the next ten years, her life had been just what she’d dreamed it would be. She was assigned to first-line fighter squadrons and did several tours in the Orwellian mess of the Middle East, where one had to check the bulletin board daily to find out who was at war with whom. At one point, when the Iranians—who had arguably the best-trained and best-equipped air force of the Middle Eastern nations—were deemed to be the enemy, she’d shot down three Iranian fighters in a single engagement. The action caught the attention of the Air Force, since the Iranians were first-line pilots flying the Swedish-built SAAB 42 fighter, the only aircraft in the world judged to be in the same league as Lorna’s F-22 Raptor—and the Iranians had had a five-to-two numerical advantage at the beginning of the engagement. Her wingman had accounted for another kill, and the sole surviving enemy aircraft had turned tail and escaped. Lorna had been awarded the Silver Star for her efforts and promoted to major.

More recent years had been less rewarding. From the back-and-forth wars in the Middle East, a new global conflict had arisen. The Islamic Federation came into its own and forced Islamic nations into a strict fundamentalist mold that, for the most part, kept them from killing each other so they could turn their attention to killing the rest of the world—or forcing it into submission. Not just the Middle East, but virtually all of Africa had fallen under Federation control. Except for India, with its many millions of Hindus, most of southern Asia became part of the huge Islamic sphere of influence. The expansion of that sphere had been accompanied by a great deal of violence but little conventional military conflict.

The principal weapon of the Federation’s jihad was terror—violence against civilian and economic targets conducted by “holy warriors” who hid themselves amid civilian populations, presenting few targets for air attack. Lorna and her fellow combat pilots had been occasionally called on to support ground operations—mostly flying cap for unmanned Predator drones that carried out the actual ground attacks, but this usually meant that a cause somewhere was already lost as the Islamic fighters came out in the open to make their final push to overthrow the terror-weakened government of some small nation that was once a friend of the U.S. The Pacific Basin and South America became hotbeds of terror activity.

Things were scarcely better in Europe, where Islamic enclaves sheltered terrorists in virtually every nation, while Islamic political activists infiltrated the indecisive governments of those nations.

North America had had its problems as well. Islamic terror cells proliferated in Mexico, where the national government had little or no say in local affairs. Americans still remembered the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, but the following two decades had been relatively quiet. Now, however, in Canada and the U.S., terror attacks occurred with alarming regularity. In Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal, local Muslim populations had made heavy inroads into local government. In Los Angeles, local officials were alarmed to find mosques springing up in ghetto neighborhoods formerly dominated by youth gangs. Worse, the leaders of those gangs were dying violently or disappearing altogether, often replaced by new leadership that quoted the Qur’an and urged gang members to embrace Islam as the New World Order.

American political leaders found themselves hampered by liberal, politically correct interpretations of the very freedoms the nation was built upon. None dared to say the world was embroiled in a War of Religion—or, at least, a war in which one side was using religion as a tool to seek world domination. To speak of it publicly would bring media condemnation and accusations of religious bigotry. One thing the leaders could agree on, however, was that for both political reasons and national security, the U.S. could no longer afford to fight the War on Terror around the world. The Jihad’s propaganda machine had succeeded in convincing most of the world that the United States was an imperialist aggressor, and any U.S. action not sponsored by the U.N. brought worldwide condemnation. While the U.N. continued to rely on the U.S. military in support of its own agenda, it considered the Jihad’s terror campaign to be an internal matter for the countries under attack.

Besides, American politicians argued, the priority had to be security within the borders of the U.S. itself. Belated efforts were being made to beef up border security between the U.S. and Mexico, and a huge amount of money and resources had been devoted to a buildup of domestic security forces. The Homeland Security Administration became a powerful force in the government, with its director promoted to full cabinet secretary status. The U.S. military—deemed unsuitable for a domestic mission—had been severely downsized. Meanwhile, citizens from coast to coast found themselves losing freedoms their ancestors had enjoyed for two centuries.

While many of her fellow officers had been released from active duty or transferred to the new Homeland Security Force, Lorna Greenwood had managed to stay with the much-reduced Air Force and had even found herself on the list for promotion to lieutenant colonel. Had it not been for the downsizing, she might have been a full bird colonel already, but, under the circumstances, she hadn’t complained. She was well positioned for appointment to command one of the few remaining tactical fighter squadrons in the Air Force, a job with which she would have been quite content. But an old demon from her past had reared its ugly head.

Lorna had known since puberty that she was attracted to other women rather than men, and when Lorna had joined the Air Force, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy had been the rule. She realized she would have to choose between a “normal” lifestyle—which for her meant intimate relationships with other women—and a military career. She chose the latter. The military hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t told. She had kept quiet through the back-and-forth policy swings, and for twenty years, she had kept herself clear of any personal relationships beyond the basic camaraderie among fighter pilots. She had gotten a reputation as a cold-blooded bitch and was known as the Iron Maiden to her fellow pilots. In her world, that was a compliment.

It had been a lonely existence. Lorna was an only child whose mother died when she was still in grade school. Since her father’s death eight years ago, there had been few people with whom she could truly share her thoughts and feelings. In fact, there was really no one other than Ian Stevens. Her father had worked for Stevens since Lorna was a girl, and the billionaire businessman had always been like an older brother to her. He had also taken seriously her father’s dying request to watch over her. At the time, Lorna hadn’t felt she needed watching over, but it was nice to drop in and visit Ian from time to time, relax, talk freely, and let her hair down. As a result, Ian was one of the few people who knew her big secret.

Now, however, it appeared that someone in the Air Force knew it as well—or at least suspected it. With the downsizing of the military, some old-line Pentagon types were looking for a return to their good old days. In particular, they were returning to the old idea that women didn’t belong in combat. Lorna had been told—quietly and outside official channels—that she was not going to get that squadron command. She would get her promotion to lieutenant colonel, but with it she would get an assignment to an operations analysis group in the Pentagon. It was a prestigious post, and someday she might even reach general officer rank, but her days as a combat pilot were over.

She could make a fuss about it, and there might be a senator or congresswoman who would take up her cause, but, if she did that, it was hinted that some officers might come forward (perhaps even some of her former commanders) who would—regretfully, of course—explain that Lorna had told them about her sexual orientation—had in fact been very forthright and almost militant on the subject. They hadn’t mentioned it before, because she was otherwise a good officer, and they hadn’t wanted to terminate her career, but now, of course, the Air Force would have to ask her to resign her commission.

She was sure there were no such officers—particularly none of her former commanders, but with the downsizing of the service, she knew some of them could be persuaded to “remember” things to protect their own careers.

So, she could quietly take her desk job at the Pentagon, or she could leave the Air Force. She had her twenty years and would be eligible for a military pension, but that wasn’t the point. They were going to take from her the one thing that brought joy to her life—flying the most extreme aircraft ever built, pushing the machine and herself to the edge of the envelope.

She lay awake, thinking about it for a while, and finally decided she would talk it all out with Ian. He seemed to have a way of putting things in perspective, and it would probably do her good just to talk about it. On that thought, she finally relaxed and drifted off to sleep.

* * * * *

Chapter Two

January

The Senator

Hugo Blackthorne was the Senate’s leading champion of the Naturalist cause. At first, he didn’t care much about the group’s anti-science philosophy. For that matter, he hadn’t really studied it all that closely, but Naturalists were very vocal in Blackthorne’s home state, and they had lots of money to spend on behalf of politicians who took up their banner. They also knew how to avoid the attention of campaign finance watchdogs.

The Naturalist movement was a conglomeration of many environmentalist causes that were active at the turn of the 21st century, including followers of the global warming theory. By 2010, most respected scientists had been forced to admit that long-term climate change was a slippery concept at best. Temperatures appeared to rise in some places and fall in others, the predicted increase in ocean levels had not taken place, some glaciers continued to retreat (as they had since the last Ice Age) while others defied the predictions and advanced. More importantly, the scientific community was forced to admit that none of these changes could be directly linked to human activity. Meanwhile, air and water quality continued to improve around the world, not because of pressure from environmental groups, but because emerging industrial giants, like China, continued to modernize their manufacturing infrastructure.

Still, the Naturalists were not to be silenced. They rejected all arguments against their draconian environmental policy demands, insisting that scientists were simply in league with business and government, and that the truth was being suppressed. They got lots of media attention, primarily because their predictions of doom were far more dramatic than the scientific analyses produced by their opponents.

Eventually, the Naturalists managed to distill their philosophy into simple terms—science and technology were evil, promoting destruction of the planet and the eventual extinction of humankind. For the survival of the species, mankind needed to go back to nature and live in simple harmony with the planet—using only hand-crafted tools, growing food strictly by organic methods, and never, ever, “tampering with nature.”

Most politicians were smart enough to realize the planet would not support a population of over eight billion human beings on that basis. Under political pressures exerted by the Naturalists, they were willing to allow that some forms of science and technology might be evil, and that some measures were needed to control those who would tamper with the “natural order” of things. None of them wanted to be painted by the media as supporting the destruction of the planet, and they certainly applauded any Naturalist demand that increased the scope of government control. Most of them went along willingly, though they were not true believers.

What set Blackthorne apart was that he actively crusaded for Naturalism. He delivered speeches on the floor of the Senate that were written for him by Naturalists. He sponsored Naturalist legislation. He never failed to condemn the scientists, the engineers, the purveyors of technology who were taking us to the brink of extinction. He failed to see in himself that which he had so often warned his political cronies about—nothing is more dangerous than a politician who believes his own speeches.

At times, he wished he still had NASA to kick around. The space program had been a visible boondoggle and an easy target. Now that he and his supporters had successfully killed it, Blackthorne often wondered what the scientists were up to, where they had all gone. The military, of course, still had their share of research people—as many as the military budget allowed after Congress finished funding all the latest vote-buying social programs, but very few civilian scientists remained in sight, and those were mostly academic wimps, writing theoretical papers on arcane subjects from their cloistered offices at major universities.

Others had gone to work for major corporations, but that forced them to work on commercially viable products rather than dangerous fringe research. Corporations were also subject to Naturalist pressure and had taken many products off the market rather than try to defend them in the media against Naturalist crusaders.

With all the genetic engineering people weeded out of government-funded medical and agricultural research, Blackthorne had few targets left. All the major pure research organizations were dead or neutralized, except one.

The Deep Space Research Institute was proving to be a tough nut to crack. It was privately funded—mostly by U.S. and foreign corporations that also contributed money to various political causes and politicians. Some of those politicians were members of Blackthorne’s party, who would have tarred and feathered him if he dared to attack any of their campaign funding sources. On one occasion, when Blackthorne had raised a fuss about a DSRI solar energy project—which he called environmentally dangerous fringe research—he got a visit from several other senators. Did he know, they inquired, that the project was being underwritten by Dai-Hansu Corporation, the huge Japanese conglomerate? Did he know how many of their constituents were employed by Dai-Hansu and its subsidiaries, and how much money Dai-Hansu contributed to its favorite candidates for office?

Political contributions from foreign sources were technically illegal, but had been common practice since the mid-1990s, when the Chinese gave new meaning to the phrase soft money. Blackthorne had a few foreign contributors in his own pockets, but for some senators, they were a major source of support. They told Blackthorne if he didn’t back off his attack on the Deep Space Research people, several of his favorite bills would never get out of committee (at least not in any form he would recognize). He backed off.

Aside from the solar energy project, the DSRI was primarily involved in two fields of study: astronomy (which even most Naturalists agreed was harmless) and computer technology. Most of the civilized world couldn’t function without computers, and even Blackthorne realized it would be unwise to attack that aspect of science and technology. Besides, he reflected, data breaches, virus scares, and hacker attacks justified government control of public and private computer networks. More importantly, the government needed computers; how else could it keep track of everyone and everything that was going on?

Blackthorne’s investigators told him the DSRI employed an inordinately high number of engineers for a theoretical research facility. Engineers and scientists together were a dangerous combination, and Blackthorne was convinced the Institute had a hidden agenda. So far, no one had been able to uncover that agenda, but today, that might change…

“Mr. Malcolm of the NSA is here to see you, Senator,” his secretary announced. With a smile of anticipation, he opened the door and extended his hand in greeting.

* * *

“The NSA has nothing more than circumstantial evidence so far. There’s nothing that would indicate any kind of overt action,” Malcolm admitted, “but we don’t usually deal in overt action anyway.”

The Agency had become aware that someone was doing some subtle and sophisticated hacking of government computer systems and gaining access to sensitive data. Attempts to trace the hacker had led to blind alleys. The FBI had turned a small Manhattan accounting firm inside out, looking for a hacker who had supposedly entered the National Defense Research system from an interface on the firm’s network. They found nothing. Another trace led investigators to a phone in a bar in Montana, which the Defense Department’s computer people had insisted was a broadband connection to a sophisticated network of hackers. The FBI had turned the little town inside out and had almost gotten into a shootout with a local militia group, further straining relations between the government and the northwestern states.

No one knew what the hackers were doing inside the government’s systems. No damage had been done, nor was there any evidence that files had been modified, but at that point, the NSA had gotten involved. An agency whose funding was a blank check written by Congress (and whose methods were not subject to government oversight) had tools at their disposal the FBI couldn’t afford.

Malcolm was quite candid about it, but Blackthorne didn’t really see where the story was going. It was a fascinating tale, but what did it have to do with the Deep Space Research Institute?

It was simple, Malcolm explained. The Agency had concluded the hackers had some very sophisticated hardware and software at their disposal. They were obviously using a supercomputer, possibly even an MIC-77. That was good news for the government, since it pretty well ruled out the Islamic Jihad, who didn’t have that kind of technology.

“Using a what?” Blackthorne asked.

“You don’t know your adversary very well,” the Agency man replied. “The MIC-77 is the world’s most powerful computer system. It uses quantum-chip superprocessors, developed by the Deep Space Research Institute, which also employs some of the best programmers in the world.”

“You mean they have the only computer system like that?” Blackthorne was finally getting excited.

“No, Senator. They have the original. The commercial version is being built by IBM under license from the DSRI, but very few of them have been built, and the government knows where all of them are. And very few programmers are creative enough to take full advantage of the machine’s capability. Hell, we’ve got an MIC-77 at our agency, but our people frankly admit they’ve only scratched the surface with it. What’s unusual about the system at the DSRI is that it doesn’t exist.”

“Huh??? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means we know they have it, but it doesn’t exist in cyberspace. Just about every computer these days is connected to something—to a bank, to an online network, to websites on the global ’net. If you have an MIC-77, it can handle all your routine networking connections without using more than a tiny bit of its power and capacity. But it appears the DSRI doesn’t use theirs for such things. Of course, an outfit like that has lots of smaller, less sophisticated machines that can handle those tasks. The problem is that the Institute doesn’t seem to use their MIC-77 for anything.”

“How do you know that?” The senator knew the answer to the question, but he wanted to hear Malcolm say it.

“Through their NCSA connection, of course,” Malcolm replied. “We can see their network, e-mail, website, and research data. Pretty tame stuff, by the way, nothing you wouldn’t find on a typical technical college system, but there is no indication of a supercomputer. They’re even using government-approved encryption keys—when they bother to encrypt anything at all—so there is no question of our being able to read everything that’s on their system. We made some inquiries, using a major university computer department as a front, and they said they don’t use the MIC-77 very much since they sold the license to IBM. They say it isn’t even connected to their network and is only used for mathematical modeling—the arcane stuff that their astrophysicists and cosmologists do. They say they don’t connect it to anything because they don’t want to contaminate it with outside data. They used the analogy of a monastery in Tibet, where the monks are trying to compile the ‘nine billion names of God’…an obscure reference to an old science fiction story. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but I suppose it’s possible if you think like a scientist. They have some world-class geeks out there, people who probably see the whole world in terms of quantum mechanics. In any case, we can’t come out and call them liars unless we can get information from some other source. You know what a fuss people would make if they thought we were abusing the NCSA.”

Blackthorne was taken aback by Malcolm’s easy admission that the NSA was, in fact, doing just that. The senator was one of the primary sponsors of the National Cyber Security Act, with its requirement that every computer network provide a special port for government monitoring and only encrypt data using algorithms for which the government had decryption keys. He remembered the endless parade of government witnesses who swore that no government agency would ever conduct surveillance of private computer systems or decrypt private data without a court order.

Blackthorne was a realist. He knew there were things the government had to do to maintain order and control. He didn’t expect government agencies to adhere to such nonsense, any more than the FBI had followed the law after the Instant Computer Background Check for gun purchases had been instituted in the late 1990s. If those records had been purged as the law required, the government would never have been able to track down privately owned firearms when the Second Amendment was abolished a few years back. Still, it bothered him that Malcolm was so easygoing about violating a law Blackthorne had sponsored.

He told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised…the NSA was also doing a lot of extralegal monitoring of people via their implant chips. Blackthorne was glad he didn’t have one of the damned things—senators and members of Congress had carefully exempted themselves from the law that required every government employee to have one.

He nodded at Malcolm. “I’m beginning to see your point,” he said, encouraging the other man to continue.

“In any case,” Malcolm went on, “the DSRI is a black hole in cyberspace. Something’s going on there, but there’s no way to see what it is. We know they have the supercomputer, and we can’t believe they’re not using it, but it’s invisible. And that’s enough to give the Agency fits. On the other hand, the fact that it’s not connected to anything seems to rule them out as the hackers we’re looking for. We tracked their system activity for some time, long enough to have a record of it during periods when some of the hacker activity was taking place. We saw no unusual activity at the DSRI during those periods—”

“In other words,” the senator interrupted, “you believe they are not the hackers you were looking for, and you’re upset because you have to look elsewhere? I believe you are wasting my time.”

“That’s not what I said,” Malcolm backtracked. “I said the evidence seems to rule them out, but I’ve still got a feeling they are up to something. In any case, we still need to identify the hackers.”

“So, what are you going to do?” the senator asked.

“We’ve got something new in mind…a little trap we’ve set up. If it succeeds, we’ll know who the hackers are for sure. If they turn out to be the DSRI, that will certainly serve your purposes—and probably put some people in prison for a long time for violations of the NCSA. If the trap fails, I may be able to convince the director to put an asset inside the DSRI on the theory that they are still a possible suspect. Even if they turn out not to be the people we are looking for, that asset may produce other information useful to you. As I said, I believe they are up to something, even if they aren’t the hackers we’re looking for.”

“Asset…a spy, you mean?”

Malcolm nodded. “Our operative will be a computer wizard, and they’ll hire him because they’re always looking for talent. He’ll have no connection to us—at least no connection that’s recorded anywhere. We have the best computer security in the world, but we have to assume the hackers have access to our records.” The agency man shuddered at the thought. “We have a young man who got caught with his hand in someone’s electronic cookie jar, but we admired his work so much, we protected him from prosecution. I think he’d be more than happy to go to work for the DSRI, especially if he gets a chance to play with the MIC-77.”

“So…let’s get to the point.” Blackthorne gave him a skeptical look. “Why are you bringing this to me?”

“It never hurts to have a friend in the Senate,” Malcolm replied, “especially one who appreciates what the Agency can do to promote his interests.”

“Hmmm…yes, I see your point. Of course, that appreciation will depend on the results you produce.”

“Understood. In the meantime, Senator, might I suggest you not leave any sensitive electronic documents lying around? You’re connected to the Congressional network, aren’t you?”

* * *

After Malcolm left, Blackthorne turned to his computer interface, a piece of modern electronics that looked strangely out of place on the antique desk. The senator had little knowledge of technology, but he knew that too much of his private information—things he wouldn’t want others to see—was in electronic format somewhere out in cyberspace.

It’s not just Stevens and his people, he concluded. If Malcolm’s bunch can look in on the DSRI computers, what’s to prevent them from doing the same to me?

* * * * *

Chapter Three

November

The Deep Space Research Institute

The four men stood near the center of the test building, looking up at the huge, ragged hole in the roof.

“Would someone like to tell me what happened?” Ian Stevens asked. He spoke quietly, and his tone was almost pleasant, a sharp contrast to the stark wreckage that surrounded him.

“Looks like Dr. J’s power curve predictions were a bit…conservative,” Mick O’Hara observed.

Dr. Alan Jaronski said nothing but continued to stare at his interface pad. He looked perplexed, but not overly concerned.

“How high do you figure it went?” The question came from Charlie Bender, who was not at all amused.

“Well…” O’Hara did a mental estimate. “From the position of the hole, it must have gone nearly straight up, but it came down at least thirty meters away from the building. Power cut off when it ripped the cables loose, so after that, it was just ballistic. We registered an instantaneous acceleration on the order of fifty gees, but the duration was short. I’d guess it went up, oh, maybe a hundred and fifty meters.”

“In other words, high enough to be seen from the housing complex or even the highway?” Bender grimaced as the security implications ran through his head.

“According to Mike, nothing was on the highway within two miles, and we haven’t had calls from anyone outside Complex D,” Stevens said. “I’m more concerned about safety. That unit massed a couple of tons. You’re lucky it didn’t come down on your heads!”

O’Hara, examining the concrete floor under the test stand, seemed oblivious to the criticism. “Look at these stress cracks…yeah, must have been at least fifty gees, which would have put a couple of hundred tons of pressure on this floor, concentrated right here in the plane of the impeller bands. Wow…”

“Oh, hell!” Jaronski exclaimed, still staring at his pad. “That should have been kilograms, not grams. A simple mass-conversion error! I should have asked Mike to go over the numbers.” He looked up at the hole in the roof. “Mick, I think we’re going to need a more restrictive power feed on the next test.”

“No problem. I’ll get right on it.” The engineer turned and headed back to the control room.

“However, gentlemen,” Jaronski continued, “all in all, I’d say the test was a success, at least in the practical application of the theory. I’ve got a lot of work to do…” He turned away to follow O’Hara.

“Scientists…engineers…arrgh!” Bender muttered.

Despite himself, Stevens grinned. “Relax, Charlie. No harm done. Looks like no one outside the project saw it.”

“Oh, someone saw it, all right,” Bender said. “Your girlfriend was on final with the C-130, about five kilometers out when it happened. She aborted and went around again. It’s not like her to miss a landing, but she didn’t say anything except that she was going around. No, she saw it, and she probably got a good look at that smoking hole in the ground, as well.”

“Right.” Ian grimaced. “She took the old bird up to San Francisco to pick up the latest heavy shipment from Dai-Hansu. I haven’t heard from her yet. Besides, we’re going to have to bring her into the project soon. We need to start actual flight testing within four months.”

Bender frowned. “I know, but she doesn’t have a need to know yet. You know how I feel about bringing in any more people. Hell, Ian…she’s only five months out of Air Force uniform. She keeps quiet because she thinks—like most everyone else around here—that we are doing this stuff for the government.”

“Have you found anything to indicate she won’t be loyal to us, Charlie?” Ian retorted, with a hint of irritation. “The Air Force treated her poorly. We rescued her from that, and we’ve treated her well. Besides, I’ve known her since she was a kid. We’re at a critical point, and someone’s got to be the lead test pilot. She’s the obvious choice—the only person we’ve got with the right mindset and skillset for that job. You’ve already run enough security checks on her that you probably know what brand of toothpaste she uses, and I know you’re watching her every move. I’ve given you a free hand and a lot of my own personal background information on her. Is there anything other than your general security paranoia—which is not necessarily a bad thing—that leads you to suspect we can’t trust her?”

Bender sighed. Lorna Greenwood had every reason to be disenchanted with the U.S. government, and she seemed to be intensely loyal to Ian personally and understood operational security a lot better than most of the scientists and engineers…and she was damned good at her job.

“No, I don’t.” Bender changed the subject. “While you’re talking to the geniuses, though, you might remind the Great Scientist and his Super Engineer buddy to get a crew out there and bring their ‘successful experiment’ back into the lab before someone starts poking around in the wreckage. Not everyone in Complex D has to know everything about this project.”

* * *

Stevens returned to find Lorna waiting outside his office.

“Got a minute, skipper?”

“Sure,” he told her, “what’s on your mind?”

She carefully closed the door behind her before answering. She favored him with a wry smile that had a hint of annoyance in it. “Look, I know those people over in Complex D are doing some classified work, but if they are going to be launching missiles, they need to consider air traffic in the area. I mean…it wasn’t exactly a near miss, but you don’t want to be doing that stuff while there are aircraft nearby. For an instant, I thought someone had let loose a SAM—looked just like a launch I saw in the Middle East a few years back.”

“That,” he said, “was not a missile. That was an accident. An experiment that was a little more successful than intended.”

“If that was a success, I’d hate to see what a failure looks like,” she retorted.

“You may get a chance for a closer look at some of those experiments. There’s a project I’d like to get you involved with. When you started here, I mentioned some test pilot work…”

“Yes, I remember.” She was suddenly very attentive. “And you haven’t mentioned it since. But in that context, your experiment looked even less like a success. I got a good look at the hole in the ground where it came down.”

“That was just an experimental propulsion unit that turned out to be more powerful than expected. It was supposed to be tied down to the test bed, but it ripped loose.” He hesitated a bit then continued, “Look, I can’t give you the details today, but there will be a meeting of the project management team on Friday at fourteen hundred hours. I want you to be there; you’ll get the full story then. In fact, meet me here in my office at eleven hundred that morning, and I’ll give you the heads-up short version. You might even convince me to buy you lunch.

“Anyway, I’ve got another assignment for you. Day after tomorrow, I need you to take the helicopter to Los Angeles and pick up someone, another old friend who’s coming to visit…”

* * *

Carla Perry swung her carry-on bag down from the overhead compartment, picked up her briefcase, and headed toward the door. There was no crowd jostling to get off. In fact, Carla had the business class section almost to herself. Not many people traveled anymore. Most tended to stay home, secure in their electronically connected environments, logging into the ’net for their work, for shopping, for entertainment, or to socialize with similarly connected friends. To go out into the street was to risk life and limb at the hands of terrorists or drug-freaked human predators. To travel across state lines required government permission, including an itinerary filed with Homeland Security. In addition, the unreliability of the overloaded wireless communication infrastructure caused a new kind of phobia—the fear of not being connected—which kept people from straying too far from their electronic wombs. Social media had been the drug of choice for the masses for more than a decade.

There were other factors. When excessive taxation and runaway government spending finally brought down the American economy, businesses had had to make drastic cuts to survive. Business travel went the way of the dinosaurs. Video conferencing, data transmission, and e-mail were much cheaper than face-to-face meetings. Products and information needed to be moved from place to place; people did not.

A few airlines managed to downsize and convert to air freight and express courier operations. Others simply went out of business or sold out to established freight carriers. Carla arrived in Los Angeles in what had once been a major airline’s Boeing 977 jetliner, now configured to carry only forty passengers, with the rest of its hull fitted out for cargo. The original owner airline no longer existed; the name on the plane’s tail was FedEx.

Freight carriers didn’t need passengers; the real competition was for cargo contracts, and most of the carriers only maintained passenger space on their planes because the government insisted on it. The flight had left New York at 4:00 AM so its priority cargo could reach the West Coast on time. Any passengers who wanted to make the trip had to accept the cargo schedule or find another way to get there.

As she walked out of the airport’s passenger security area, Carla looked around for Ian. She hadn’t seen him in almost two years, and she was wondering if he’d changed. His mysterious invitation had been a surprise, and she suspected he had more in mind than an expensive date.

She didn’t see him in the small group of people in the waiting area, but she noticed a woman approaching. It would have been hard not to notice. Carla was a people watcher who delighted in the endless variety of human forms and figures, and this woman would have caught her attention anywhere. She was nearly two meters tall, with blond hair worn short and swept back. She wore jeans and a military-style flight jacket and mirrored sunglasses that made her look intimidating. Wow! What an Amazon! Carla thought and was surprised when the Amazon walked directly up to her.

“Carla Perry?”

“Yes…” Carla answered hesitantly. Up close, Carla’s initial assessment of the woman as slim changed to lean and hard. She looked like she belonged on a police riot control team, and she towered over Carla who, at 168 centimeters, was not particularly short.

The blonde slipped off her sunglasses and grinned engagingly, immediately losing some of her intimidation factor. “I’m Lorna Greenwood from Deep Space Research.” Her accent was a rich Southern drawl. “Ian couldn’t make it and sends his apologies. I’m your transportation.”

She stuck out a hand, and Carla shook it, guessing correctly that the big blonde would have a firm, almost bone-crunching handshake. Carla was a bit nervous. She had no reason to think anyone would go to this much trouble to harm her, but the other woman was a stranger, and, these days, one could not be too careful.

Twenty minutes later, after a brief shuttle bus ride with little conversation, Carla found herself standing in front of a hangar, far from the passenger terminals. A sleek black jet ’copter waited there, bearing the Institute’s golden logo on its fuselage. “Wow…is this for us?”

Lorna’s grin appeared again. “Ever ride in a ’copter before?”

“Never. I presume you’re the pilot?”

“I guess I can figure out how to get this thing in the air. Jimmy, is she ready to fly?” The last question was addressed to a short, stocky man in greasy coveralls who had come around the tail of the helicopter.

“Fueled up and ready to go. Just sign here.” Jimmy presented an electronic clipboard, and Lorna signed it.

“I see y’all have raped me for the fuel again.”

Jimmy had been admiring Carla quite openly, but he craned his neck to leer at Lorna.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I can’t imagine anyone being able to rape you. But if you want to work out a deal…”

“Sorry, you’re not my type. Just charge everything to the Institute.” Turning to Carla, she said, “Why don’t you take the right hand seat up front? View’s better, and we can talk.”

Carla had flown many times when business travel had been commonplace. Airplane trips bored her, but this was something else. She slipped into the helicopter’s copilot seat, careful not to touch the controls.

Lorna slid into the pilot’s seat, then handed Carla a headset. “Put this on. It’ll let you hear the radio calls, and it makes conversation over the engine noise easier.”

Lorna consulted a checklist and began flipping switches and tapping icons on the control panel, then gave a thumbs-up to Jimmy, who still stood outside on the ramp, watching them. The mechanic returned the sign, then made a circular motion with one hand over his head. Lorna pressed and held two switches simultaneously, and the cabin filled with a rising turbine whine as the engine started. Overhead, the big rotor blades began to turn.

At first, Carla was a bit nervous, but it was obvious Lorna knew what she was doing. Her hands were sure and steady as she worked the controls and switches, and her voice was calm, almost bored, as she requested clearance from the tower. The tower operator’s voice sounded equally bored as he gave them instructions.

Lorna hauled back on the collective, and the noise increased dramatically as the big blades changed pitch. Suddenly, they were airborne, rising like an elevator, pivoting, and sliding away toward the northeast. Carla felt as if she had left her stomach back on the ground. She looked at Lorna and found the blonde smiling at her.

“Okay, so you know how to fly,” Carla said. “You don’t need to impress anyone. There’s nobody here but us girls.”

That brought another easy grin from the pilot, and Carla decided she might have found a new friend. They made small talk for a while, then Carla raised a question. “So, how did you get to be a helicopter pilot? Join the Army?”

“It’s a long story. You really want to hear it?”

“Nothing better to do. Why not?”

“My dad was a pilot—military, then later private commercial—and flew executive aircraft. I learned to fly when I was twelve. I was in the Air Force for twenty years, flew combat jets, including tours in the Mideast during the Big Mess. I learned to fly helicopters on my own, just for fun.

“But things change; shit happens. They decided they didn’t want women flying combat aircraft anymore. They wanted to put me behind a desk, and, at the time, I had some…personal issues as well. So, I got out.

“I was thinking about going into commercial aviation—not really my favorite option—but a friend helped me out, a guy my father used to fly for. When I left the Air Force a few months ago, he had this job waiting for me. He’s a great guy, and he never asked for anything in return. He’s a gentleman of the old school, kind of hard to find these days. Of course, you probably know all that.” She shot a glance at Carla. “He’s the guy you’re going to see.”

“Ian?” Carla wasn’t surprised. Ian was like that. A good friend and a true gentleman—the kind you read about in romance novels. And what sort of romantic plans does he have for me?

They passed over the coastal mountains and soon they were speeding over the desert. Another range of mountains loomed in the distance to the northeast.

“That’s where we’re headed,” said Lorna, pointing toward the distant range. “So…” She looked appraisingly at Carla. “Am I gonna be the only one who tells her life story today? How about you? You look like a high-priced attorney…or a TV news anchor. I can’t decide which.”

“I’m just a working girl,” Carla replied, “for a brokerage firm in New York.”

“Sure, you are, wearing a Fifth Avenue outfit that looks like five hundred bucks if it’s a penny. I’ll bet your working girl business card says vice president or something like that.”

“Actually, it says assistant vice president,” Carla replied, “and the title is mostly hype to make the clients feel like they’re dealing with somebody important. I make enough money to live in New York and keep myself well dressed, but—” she made a show of looking around the helicopter’s high-tech cabin, “—you drive a much nicer car than I do.”

That drew a chuckle from Lorna, and Carla continued, “I grew up in Brooklyn, went to Hofstra University, got my M.B.A., and went to work for a big brokerage firm. Other people came and went, but I stayed with the same company. After ten years, they made me a division manager with fifty people reporting to me.

“So here I am…hot career, apartment on the Upper East Side, good looking, sexy, no entanglements, no family except for my dad in New Jersey, no steady boyfriend, very few friends, just a lot of business associates. I live in what used to be the most exciting city in the world, and I’m bored. I don’t even go out anymore. The streets are too dangerous, even for a city girl with savvy. So, an old friend asked me to come all the way across the continent to see him, and I didn’t even ask why…just said, ‘Sure. Book the tickets. I’ll be there.’ I guess that’s about all there is to my story. Not as exciting as yours, and I still don’t know why I’m here.”

“Hmmm, maybe Ian’s looking to recruit you, too,” Lorna mused. “He keeps talking about hiring an administrative director…a professional manager. I think he wants to get more involved in research, but he’s too busy making sure the wheels get greased, and nobody runs out of paper clips.”

“You think so? Sounds like he really confides in you.”

“Not really. I’m just making a wild-assed guess. I could be totally wrong. Hey, you’re an attractive woman…maybe he’s just hoping to get laid.”

Lorna delivered the last line in a matter-of-fact tone, but after seeing Carla’s look, she couldn’t keep a straight face. She broke out laughing, and Carla did the same.

* * * * *

Chapter Four

December

Wanderer

Lorna Greenwood was in love, as only a pilot could be. She stood with Ian on the floor of the work bay, admiring the sleek hull. At first glance, it could have been mistaken for a conventional high-performance aircraft, but there were anomalies a pilot or an aeronautical engineer would notice, and Lorna qualified as both.

For one thing, its broad, drooping wings were far too short to provide lift at anything less than hypersonic speeds. The flattened oval cross section of its fuselage might provide some additional lift, but…

“Antigravity?” Lorna marveled. “I thought y’all were pulling my leg about that, but I don’t see anything that looks like conventional propulsion—no intakes, no exhaust, and with wings like that, she’s sure as hell not meant to be a glider.”

Ian smiled. “Jaronski and his people would cringe if they heard it called antigravity. Besides, she’s not nearly as massive as a conventional aircraft. Those wings will provide lift, at least at reasonable speeds in atmospheric flight.”

Lorna nodded. She’d been told that much of the craft’s structure was built with a lightweight, incredibly strong carbon composite developed by Ian’s Japanese business partners at Dai-Hansu. She’d read a theoretical paper on the stuff, which the Japanese described as a structural material for aircraft of the future. Apparently, as far as this ship was concerned, the future was now. “She’s beautiful. But will she really fly?”

“Well,” Stevens replied, “if she doesn’t, you’ll be the first to know. Sure you still want to volunteer for this?”

“Absolutely. When do we go up?”

“Soon. They’re still ground testing and refining the gravity system. We were concerned that the fusion reactor wouldn’t produce enough power for the gravity field, but it looks like we were way too pessimistic on that score.”

“Let me get this straight,” she said in an almost casual tone. “Y’all want me to climb into this newly designed, never tested bird, light the fires on an equally untested fusion reactor—essentially a controlled nuclear bomb—and pour the resulting power into a wildcat gravity generator that your engineers and scientists say should boost my sweet, sexy ass into low Earth orbit—say about eight hundred kilometers up. Oh, and I should also avoid having anyone see me do this, or I might get mistaken for a UFO and have my old Air Force buddies trying to shoot me down. Sounds like fun to me!”

Ian glanced around the bay, making sure no one was close enough to overhear them. “Not everybody working on this project knows the whole story,” he cautioned. “Some of the crew still think they’re building a new aircraft for the government. In fact, you’re one of just six people who know all the details. Bender wanted to keep you in the dark about some of it, but I overruled him. Considering what we are asking you to do, I thought you should know everything.”

“The ship…no problem,” she mused. “Jaronski and O’Hara obviously know what they’re talking about, and that gives me warm and fuzzy feelings about the ship itself. The government…no problem. I’ve seen the way the country is going, and I see why we have to keep it secret. I’m good to go with everything you’ve told me on that score.

“But of all the stuff you’ve laid on me, the real shocker is Iron Mike. I’ve dealt with so-called intelligent systems before—the Air Force has some sophisticated stuff in their latest hardware, but I’ve never had a conversation with one of them. And you’re telling me that hundreds of people work with Mike or the systems he runs every day, and most of them haven’t a clue what they’re dealing with.”

“Mike is an offshoot of Jaronski’s work in quantum physics,” Ian replied. “Actually, he’s a by-product of his gravity research. It led us to quantum-level electronic circuitry, and for the first time, we were able to build an artificial brain with the capacity and complexity of a human one.

“Of course,” he admitted, “there were some major innovations in the design as well. Most computers have one or more central processors attached to external memory space. In Mike, it’s all one huge matrix, overlaid with a control network that—”

“Whoa!” she interrupted. “Save the lecture for somebody who’ll understand it. I’m just a pilot, remember? You lost me back around quantum-level whatever. All I care about is that I can talk to the computer and get intelligent answers—fast—in a language I can understand. I’ve learned more about this project talking to him for a day than I could have in a week of listening to Jaronski explain his theories. Even the engineers around here tend to talk way over my head—and I am an engineer, or at least my diploma says so.” She chuckled. “But give me a few more days with Mike, and I’ll be able to hold my own with the best of them.”

“Just remember,” he cautioned, “Mike won’t talk to you if anyone who isn’t cleared is nearby. He’ll respond to typical voice commands and give you typical verbal responses, just like an ordinary intelligent interface. But he won’t hold the kind of conversations you’ve been having with him if any unauthorized people are within earshot.”

“Anyway,” she said, “you still didn’t answer my question. How long before she’ll be ready to go up?”

“Not more than three months unless some major problem comes up. Meanwhile, I want you to work with the design team—make sure they haven’t left out something important from the pilot’s viewpoint. Talk to Mike about that, as well. He can get any information you might need from anywhere, including the major aerospace companies.”

Lorna stepped back to take in the full length of the hull. Although it was nearly forty meters long, it filled less than a quarter of the huge work bay. In the space behind her, an even larger ship would soon begin taking shape, but there was little evidence of it yet. For now, the ship in front of her, to be christened Wanderer, had her full attention. She walked up to the ship again and ran her hand over the hull’s surface. It was smooth as glass and coated with a heat-resistant ceramic material. Definitely built for speed, she decided.

She supposed it could have passed for a mere aircraft (albeit one of very unusual design), but it had a flared out nose section, larger in diameter than most of its fuselage. Its wings, mounted toward the rear of the fuselage, were barely a few meters wider than the bulge of the nose, and they ended in long, tubular structures reminiscent of the wingtip fuel tanks carried by some fighter jets of the mid-twentieth century. In addition, the ship had a pair of angled dorsal fins, almost like the vertical stabilizers of some of the fighters Lorna had flown, but they were mounted even with the wings, and each had a similar tubular structure on top of it. Behind the wings, the fuselage again flared out to the same diameter as the nose before tapering off to a point at the tail end.

Ian and Mike had explained the design to her. The nose and tail had to be large in diameter to accommodate the broad ring-like structures that were the field coils for the gravity generators. The wings and dorsal fin structures, though they provided flight control surfaces for use in the atmosphere, were primarily pylons to support the field control nodes housed in the tubular wingtip structures.

The control system they had put together was simple—two-hand joystick controls of the type found in the fighter aircraft she had flown for years. She had learned to fly in older aircraft, the type that had rudder pedals and separate throttle controls. Modern craft—like this one—put all the controls in the pilot’s hands.

Lorna was less clear about some aspects of the gravity drive, but she was beginning to get the picture. Jaronski had explained that the roughly cylindrical area within the field—which included the entire interior of the ship—was a world unto itself as far as Newton’s laws of motion were concerned. External forces acting on the gravity field had little or no effect on anything inside the field. And the field itself acted with equal effect on every molecule within it. No matter how sharply she maneuvered the ship, he told her, she wouldn’t feel the usual gee forces.

“You mean,” Lorna asked him, “I’ll be able to put this baby into a ten-gee turn without spilling my coffee or ripping the wings off?”

“Well, theoretically…yes,” he replied.

Lorna winced as she always did when the physicist used the T-word. She turned to Mick O’Hara, trusting the engineer to give her a direct answer.

“The inertial damping effect isn’t one hundred percent efficient, and there are some stress limits in atmospheric flight,” Mick said. “I’d try it with gentle maneuvers first. But we believe you can probably get by with accelerations and vector changes up to at least fifty gees without discomfort or damage to the ship.”

Fifty gees! In a conventional aircraft, accelerations like that would be fatal to both pilot and ship. It seemed impossible, but, as the test pilot, she would be the first to find out if the theory held up in practice.

* * *

Lorna faced off with a trio of engineers in the conference room. She was outnumbered, but sheer stubbornness was winning the day.

“I don’t see why you need this archaic inertial instrumentation,” one of them was saying. “It won’t work inside the gravity field’s frame of reference. You’ve got the starsight alignment display and standard radar. Any kind of gyroscopic attitude sensor would be unworkable.”

“I didn’t say it had to be inertial,” Lorna said. “You can use terrain-mapping radar, laser optical, anything you like. The point is, I need something that will give me a plain, simple display of the ship’s attitude relative to the ground—the old-style artificial horizon is just a visual output for the pilot. How you make it work is up to you.”

Tom Sakura gritted his teeth. “This ship is designed to operate in space! The term horizon is meaningless, and your ship’s attitude toward anything is strictly a matter of your frame of reference.”

Lorna wasn’t buying that. “Did it ever occur to you that the most critical maneuvers—like takeoff and landing—are done down here on Earth, where weather conditions can make it impossible to see the ground or the stars? Your conventional radar won’t tell me my flight attitude, and I won’t be able to feel anything inside your precious reference frame. I need instruments—good old-fashioned flight instruments—damn it! I don’t care if they quit working when I’m in space because space isn’t where I need them.”

The sound of the heated argument caused O’Hara to stick his head into the conference room, and both sides immediately appealed their case to him. To the dismay of his staff, the chief engineer sided with Lorna.

“Who says you have to put the sensors inside the n-frame?” he asked. “Just extend a dorsal pylon out beyond the grav node and attach your instrument package to it…and she’s right, you don’t have to make it inertial. The Air Force has a three-axis laser system they use for terrain-following guidance—go look it up or ask Mike to research it for you.”

“What about gee forces?” Sakura asked. “If it’s outside the envelope, a heavy gee stress could rip it right off.”

“Then I suggest you make it small and strong,” O’Hara replied. “It only needs to be a couple of inches outside the envelope. I’m not asking you to add ten meters to the pylons. You guys are supposed to be engineers, so make it work.”

“But boss—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Tommy. It’s her ass that’s on the line when this baby flies, not yours.”

With that, he departed, leaving Lorna smirking and the engineers gritting their teeth.

“Now, then,” she said, “about the grab rails running the length of the cabin…”

“You don’t need grab rails! You’ve got an internal gravity field! You can walk around on the floor, even in free orbit. We’ve designed the cabin to be a comfortable shirt-sleeve environment.”

“Fine,” she replied. “But if the gravity field goes down, I’m the one that will be floating ass-over-teakettle in your shirt-sleeve environment. I want grab rails!”

“All right, you’ll get your grab rails. I hope you realize all these modifications are going to set us back at least a couple of weeks.”

“I have no problem with that,” she told him, “if it increases my life expectancy.”

* * *

Malcolm was on site when the incident occurred. He was in the office of the Director of Information Services when a breathless technician stuck his head in the door.

“We’ve got an intruder on the DOD Research net!” the man announced.

Moments later, when Malcolm and the director arrived at the Bear Trap command console, they found three technicians staring at interface screens that displayed nothing but a three-digit code.

“What the hell does four three seven mean?” the director snarled.

“Er…uh…system’s down, sir,” one of the technicians replied nervously.

“Worse than down,” muttered the night supervisor, who was busily scrolling through tech manuals on his interface pad. “Code four three seven is ‘missing or corrupted O/S kernel.’”

“In English, if you don’t mind.” Malcolm gritted his teeth.

“Operating system’s trashed. This system is deader than last year’s Christmas turkey.”

Ten minutes later, Malcolm was beginning to get the picture, and he didn’t like what he was seeing. Operation Bear Trap involved monitoring several major government systems that had been hacked in the past, using the NSA’s own computer surveillance technology. The NSA system was supposed to be the best in the world—and undetectable. The Agency’s computer wizards boasted they could read private files off a hacker’s system and have the FBI knocking on his door before he even had a clue he’d been spotted.

But this hacker had detected them and hit them with a devastating response that had gone right through the Bear Trap defenses and destroyed the NSA system’s primary operating software. Worse, nothing had been recorded (or at least nothing had survived) to give the Agency a clue to the hacker’s identity.

What the hell am I going to tell that old blowhard up on the Hill?

In some ways, Malcolm regretted his conversation with Blackthorne. He’d wanted to curry favor with the senator, but the whole thing could backfire on him. He’d hinted that the DSRI was responsible for the hacker attacks, but the truth was that the Agency had no hard information to support that theory. In fact, the director still thought it was the work of Islamic Jihadists.

But if they didn’t manage to pin something on the DSRI soon, Blackthorne could very well decide that Malcolm and the Agency were simply incompetent…and they didn’t need an enemy in the Senate. Plan B was ready to go, but they couldn’t proceed until the DSRI took the bait and hired their operative.

* * *

“All right, Charlie, I’ve heard your version. I need the technical details. Mike,” Ian ordered, “describe—in simple language, please—the sequence of events from the time you entered the DOD system last night.”

“At one minute and fifteen point two three two seconds after logon, I received a query for new handshaking information,” the computer said. “While this was typical of a communications optimization program, my own tracking revealed it was not coming from the host system, which triggered my low-level security alert. I complied with the request and, fifteen milliseconds later, a penetrator subroutine attempted to obtain NCSA ID and other information from my configuration subsystem. The request was keyed with government-level priority interrupts, which triggered my Alpha defense systems. I retrieved configuration information from the source system using my own NCSA query capability and sent three hunter-killers—one each of type Alpha, type Beta, and type Omega—targeted for that system. I then terminated the connection per security directives.”

Ian lifted an eyebrow in Charlie Bender’s direction. “Hunter-killers…?”

Charlie blushed. “Um, just something the software engineers helped me come up with. Think of a computer virus. Type Alpha goes after buffers and transient memory—wipes out all the target system’s most recently acquired information. Type Beta takes over low-level operating functions and overwrites all recently accessed offline storage. Type Omega goes for the operating system—effectively killing the targeted system.”

Ian glared at him in silence for another moment, and Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“It should be noted,” Mike added, oblivious to Bender’s discomfort, “that the hunter-killers operate at a low level and must, therefore, be targeted for a specific operating system. We have different variations available for every operating system in present use through most of the world.”

“All right, Mike, Mr. Bender assures me there is no way we could be identified or connected with this incident. Do you concur?”

“Yes, Director,” the computer said. “Communications were initiated through the usual anonymous line methods, all address handshaking was dynamic—randomly generated as needed, and the NCSA information they obtained was from one of several cover files I use for that purpose. I expect the FBI is probably converging on a travel agency in Columbus, Ohio—assuming they were able to retrieve that information, which is doubtful, considering the damage that would have been done by the hunter-killers.”

“Do we know for sure who they were?”

“No, Director, their NCSA ID was a generic government listing, but the logical conclusion—since they were monitoring a DOD system—would be a government security agency, perhaps the DOD itself, the FBI, or the NSA. We were able to identify their operating system as LYNX-C, a commonly used system for government computers, which makes it almost certain our hunter-killers were effective, but—”

“Damn it, Charlie!” Ian finally boiled over. “What the hell were you thinking? We didn’t have a critical need for that information. We are just weeks away from the first orbital test, and we’ve come very close to having the whole thing blown away because you wanted to keep up with the latest gossip from the intelligence community. That may have been important in your last job, but not here. From this point forward—listen up, Mike—you are not to hack into any government agency systems without my specific authorization. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Bender replied meekly.

“Yes, Director,” the computer said, “but in defense of Mr. Bender and me, I should point out that in the past six months, there have been no less than forty-seven attempts by the government to place spy-bots on our network systems.”

“What!” Ian exploded. “And you are just NOW telling me this?”

“Boss,” Charlie chimed in, “Mike tells me this is not unusual—in fact, it’s pretty typical for any commercial network. The government spies on everybody, all the time. Sometimes it’s the IRS looking for financial transactions with suspicious tax implications, sometimes it’s the NSA or Homeland Security looking for terrorist cells, and sometimes it’s just the DEA or FBI, looking for drug dealers or child-porn activity. Since the NCSA was enacted, these agencies pretty much have a free pass to look for anything they feel like investigating. If they find something, they go get warrants to make it legal, but until then, nobody even knows they’re doing it.”

“Hmmm…and by attempts, I presume you mean you stopped them…”

“No, Director. As Mr. Bender pointed out, to do so would certainly alert them to the fact that we have capabilities we are not supposed to have. An obscure provision in the NCSA prohibits developers of anti-spyware from removing or obstructing anything that comes in via the NCSA port bearing certain government recognition keys. Of course, hackers have identified some of those keys and use them to facilitate their own penetrations. We’ve used that method ourselves where appropriate, but that is why no anti-spy program can ever be totally effective.

“What I have done instead is to ‘cage’ the spy-bots—restrict them only to the information we want them to have. It’s not difficult once you identify them.

“Anything coming in via the NCSA port cannot see any of my critical systems, but that’s how I knew last night’s penetration attempt was something out of the ordinary. The ’bots it put on our system were specifically designed to locate, identify, and report on any internal firewalls and to penetrate them if possible. Ordinary spyware isn’t that sophisticated and is usually programmed to look for specific data—not to report on the system structure and defenses. It assumes that, having entered the system via the NCSA channel, there won’t be any defenses, and the entire system will be open to it. This is the first time I’ve encountered a penetrator that didn’t make that assumption.”

“Damn!” Ian muttered. “This is getting really hairy. They may not know who we are and where we live, but they must know they found something—and that something ate them alive. From now on, I want you two to keep a low profile—and keep an eye on anyone else who uses our system, as well. I’d hate to have one of those agencies asking a bunch of tough questions because some morally delinquent engineer has been visiting porn sites.”

“Actually, there are several staff members who engage in that practice, Director,” Mike said in a typical matter-of-fact tone. “Of course, since we’ve caged the spy-bots, none of that activity has been reported.”

The computer’s timing was unfortunate. Ian had just taken a sip of coffee, and he spluttered it all over his desktop.

“All right, that does it!” he ranted. “I want a report every time the government—or anyone else, for that matter—so much as farts in the vicinity of our network. Any penetration or attempted penetration gets reported to me immediately. Is there any part of that you don’t understand?”

“No, sir,” they replied simultaneously.

“Continue to cage them if possible—no retaliation unless necessary to protect our systems or data, but report it to me regardless. If anyone other than the government attempts to get in, I might give you permission to blast him and his system off the face of the Earth, but only if we can do it in such a way that he has no way of knowing what hit him.

“As for our own people, I want to know if anyone is doing anything on the system that might call attention to us. I don’t care if the Great Alan Jaronski himself likes to look at naked girls—if it could possibly cause us problems, I want to know!”

“Actually,” the computer replied, “Dr. Jaronski’s tastes usually run to…”

“Stop!” Ian commanded. “I don’t want to know unless it is going to be a problem! Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.” Charlie answered for both.

“Get the hell out of here,” Ian growled, mopping up the spilled coffee on his desk.

Without a word, Bender got up and headed for the door as Mike’s “conversational” avatar—a cheerful little green lizard animation—disappeared from the interface screen.

* * *

“A travel agency…in Ohio?” Malcolm stared at the IT director.

“Well, that’s not absolutely certain. One of our people thinks he remembers the NCSA ID that came up on the screen just before the lights went out. When we finally got the system back up, there was nothing left to verify it. We turned it over to the FBI to check out, but so far they’ve found nothing.”

“So that means your Bear Trap was a total bust. Great!” Malcolm muttered.

“Well, it wasn’t a total bust. At least we know we really are dealing with hackers and not some DOD employee who was just diddling around with the system. And we know that our detection systems worked. We did spot the intruder.”

“Sure, we did, and as soon as we detected him, he blew our brains out! You don’t know what he hit you with, so you can’t even set up a defense. What good is that?”

“We know what to look for. Maybe next time we can monitor what he’s doing in there instead of trying to hack him. He didn’t attack us until we tried to grab him by the NCSA port, and that was like grabbing a tiger by the tail.”

“Right, with no plan for dealing with the tiger’s teeth,” Malcolm said bitterly.

“Look,” the IT man offered, “we’ve got the system back up, and we know what to look for. Next time, we’ll just monitor the activity. If we know what he’s after, maybe we can figure out who he is.”

“Assuming there is a next time. Maybe all you managed to do was scare him off or—worse—show him what we’ve got so he can get around it next time.”

* * *

“Mike…” Tom Sakura addressed the computer in a puzzled voice.

“Yes, Tom?” Mike was on first-name terms with everyone he was allowed to talk to.

“This three-axis laser stuff you got for me…it’s everything I need, but it doesn’t look like it came from the Air Force—it’s not the usual government manual stuff.”

“That’s correct,” Mike said. “I’m not allowed to obtain secret information from government systems anymore without specific permission from the director.”

“So where did it come from?”

“From Boeing, of course. They are the contractor who builds the system for the Air Force. What I’ve given you is a better system than the one they provide to the government. It’s the original design they proposed, but they had to cut a few corners to insure they would come in as the low bidder. This is the high-priced version, before the cutbacks.”

“Doesn’t look that expensive…we can build this without breaking the budget,” Sakura mused.

“That’s because we only have to build one,” Mike reminded him. “The Air Force uses this system in their Greywolf cruise missiles, and the bid specifications called for ten thousand of them. Boeing managed to trim approximately five million dollars off the total contract bid, but in my opinion, their original design was far superior. I can get you the data on the government version if you like. I don’t have to go to the government, as long as I know who makes it for them.”

“Yeah…might as well look at it,” Sakura said with a grin. “It’ll be interesting to see how badly the bean counters managed to screw the taxpayers.”

* * * * *

Chapter Five

July

First Steps

Lorna hung upside down in Wanderer’s main compartment, her feet hooked under the grab rails along the ceiling. She didn’t feel as if she were upside down. To her, it seemed as if the ship was upside down, and she was simply standing on the overhead. But she knew it would feel the same if she flipped over, put her feet on the deck, and grabbed the rails with her hands. Zero gravity was crazy that way. No matter which way she oriented herself, she would still feel upright—as long as she kept still. If she let go of everything, she would start to rotate slowly in the air, but it would feel to her as if the ship were rotating, and that was a recipe for vertigo.

In any case, she was too busy to experiment. Her hands were currently occupied holding Tommy Sakura by the ankles. The young engineer was head-and-shoulders deep in the compartment under the deck, muttering to himself as he sorted through the ship’s power circuitry.

“Down a little…er…I mean further into the hatch,” he told her.

She obliged, and he went back to his muttering. He had tried to crawl into the hatch on his own but kept floating back out. He needed both hands to work, so Lorna had volunteered to anchor him. She chuckled to herself as she thought about the fight she’d had to get the grab rails installed, but there really was nothing to laugh about. They were stuck in low Earth orbit unless Tommy could fix whatever was wrong. The gravity drive system and the internal gravity had gone down as they were powering up to return to Earth. Wanderer’s maiden orbital flight had been uneventful up to that point.

This was Lorna’s sixth flight with the ship. The first flight had been a cruise around the hangar apron at no more than ten meters altitude—a chance for her to get a feel for the controls. The security area known as Complex D, where Wanderer had been built, was in a bowl-like valley out of sight from public roads and the rest of the Institute, and Charlie Bender’s security people had scoured the surrounding hills with reconnaissance drones to make sure no one who wasn’t part of the project would see the test. The next two flights—broad sweeps around the entire Institute at altitudes up to a thousand meters—had been conducted at night with no exterior lights in the security area except landing pad markers. For the fourth flight, they’d filed a late-night flight plan for Seattle—supposedly to be flown by the Institute’s Grumman business jet but intended to give Wanderer a thorough flight and navigation workout. Of course, they couldn’t go to Seattle as the flight plan specified. Wanderer would have drawn a lot of unwanted attention at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, so they used a sick passenger excuse to abort the flight partway there and return to the Institute.

The fifth flight had taken them up to the edge of space—straight up from the Institute to an altitude of 200 kilometers, then straight back down. On that one, they’d tested the ship’s environmental systems and given the gravity drive a power workout. They’d reached altitude in less than three minutes.

They’d learned a lot in those test flights. For one thing, they’d discovered that a side effect of the gravitational propulsion system was that the ship was almost invisible to radar. Radar impulses striking the gravity field were distorted so they would not return any sort of coherent echo. The same was true of any other electromagnetic energy. Wanderer had to trail a communications antenna on a tether behind her dorsal structure to maintain ordinary radio contact, and for the Seattle test flight, they’d attached a radar target to a tether so the ship would look like an ordinary aircraft on the ATC screens.

With all that behind them, they’d finally gone for the big one—low Earth orbit. Once orbit had been achieved, they’d shut down the drive. That made them visible to radar again, but if they were spotted, they would probably be mistaken for a leftover piece of orbiting junk from the space exploration efforts of decades before. Once they brought the drive back online, they would become invisible again.

If they could get the drive back online, Lorna reminded herself. The fusion reactor was still putting out plenty of power, and all other systems were functioning normally, but the gravity systems were dead. They had no propulsion, no internal gravity, and no attitude control. Wanderer was in a stable orbit but was beginning to tumble very slowly. If the rate of tumbling increased, they would begin to feel inertial effects inside the cabin, an artificial gravity that would pull things inside toward the nose or the tail. Lorna didn’t bother to mention it to Tommy; she needed him to concentrate on fixing the problem.

She hadn’t really pushed the envelope on the climb to orbit, and she was glad she hadn’t. If the drive had gone down while they were still on the way up, they might be a smoking hole in the ground. Lorna had no illusions about Wanderer’s unpowered gliding ability. Her stubby wings might keep her up if their speed didn’t fall below, say, 300 knots, but that would make for a near-impossible landing even if they could glide to a wide open area large enough to land on.

It also meant there wasn’t really a Plan B at the moment. They would need some sort of retro thrust just to break out of orbit. Wanderer’s ceramic-composite outer skin could (theoretically) withstand the fiery heat of a conventional re-entry, but the ship wasn’t designed for that. Slowing her down with aerobraking would be a real problem, and even if they managed that, slowing her down too much would cause her to stall and fall out of the sky. They had never tried to do a dead stick landing, concluding that it was too dangerous a proposition. Wanderer was designed for gravity propulsion. She was not meant to fly without it.

If they could somehow break orbit without the main drive and survive the re-entry process, she and Tommy could eject, but the ship would have to come down somewhere, and that would probably be the end of the project. The ship would be gone, security would be blown to hell, and any chance of a happy outcome would be small. Of course, they could drop her into the ocean and maybe maintain some semblance of security, but that would present a rescue problem for the two of them, with a lot of explaining to do if they did get picked up…and the Institute would be back to square one on the project.

“Aha!” Tommy exclaimed, interrupting Lorna’s brooding review of unhappy outcomes.

She perked up, deciding the exclamation was a good sign.

“Main bus interrupter is tripped!” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t have tried to bring all the nodes online at once. Now that we’ve got the drive shut down, I should be able to reset it, if I can just reach the little bugger—”

“Wait!” Lorna exclaimed. “What about the—”

Suddenly, weight returned, giving her an instant upside-down feeling. Her feet came loose from the grab rails, and she dropped to the deck with a solid thump, losing her grip on the engineer in the process.

“—internal gravity?” she finished.

Muffled curses came from the hatch in the floor. She peered over the edge and saw a tangle of arms and legs. Tommy was trying to get himself sorted out, but there was no room in the cramped access space. Lorna reached down and grabbed him by the belt, guiding his feet out of the hatch with her other hand.

“Thanks,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I guess that was a pretty dumb stunt.”

“About like sawing off a tree branch while you’re sitting on it,” she agreed.

They went back to the flight deck and started bringing the gravity drive systems back online—gradually, this time, just the attitude control system at first.

“Okay, hold it for a minute,” Lorna said. Working the controls carefully, she managed to stop the ship’s tumbling and get them back on an even keel. Then she gave him the go-ahead to start powering up the main drive, hoping there wasn’t some other problem that would cause it to drop offline again.

“I’m about ninety-nine percent sure it was just a power spike…and my fault,” he admitted sheepishly. “Got too cocky and flipped all four of the primary power switches at once. Guess we should put a note about that on the checklist—and maybe make a few changes in the system, as well.”

He reached out and carefully started flipping the switches one at a time, pausing to study the power readouts as each section came online. When all of them came up with no problem, he pulled out his pocket interface pad and made a note about adding power-spike suppression to the main bus.

Lorna noted he was much more relaxed. He’d volunteered to make the flight with her, but he’d been so nervous on takeoff she thought he was going to be sick. Now that he’d successfully dealt with a problem in his area of expertise, he was behaving like a seasoned veteran. The original plan had called for her to make the flight alone, and she supposed the people back home could have talked her through a resolution to the power problem, but it was a lot better to have an expert on the spot. On the other hand, she thought, she probably wouldn’t have flipped all the switches at once.

She checked the navigation display. “Good timing. We’ll be coming up on another de-orbit window in about ten minutes. Let’s get started on the checklist.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” He grinned and brought the checklist up on his screen.

Both were busy for the next few minutes, running through system checks. They finished with a few minutes to spare. All they had to do was wait while the computer went through its programmed de-orbit routine.

“Coming up on one of the satellites,” Tommy said. “Guess we should let them know we’re on the way.” In the days of 20th century space travel, NASA had had listening posts all around the world so orbiting astronauts would always be in communication with the ground, but the DSRI had no such luxuries. Instead, they were relying on a couple of communications satellites on which the Institute had been able to preempt an unused channel (via more clandestine adventures on the part of Charlie Bender and Iron Mike). At their current altitude, that gave Wanderer reliable, secure communications with the Institute for about one-third of each orbit. No doubt, the people on the ground were waiting nervously for word of their status; no one there knew they had been able to get the drive back online.

* * *

“Contact! I have them, Director.”

Ian started as the computer’s voice roused him from a weary stupor. He hadn’t slept well the last few nights, knowing the orbital test was coming. He’d been in the control room, along with most of the engineering team, since well before the launch almost 14 hours ago. Then, just when they were about to return, Wanderer’s drive went down. The last few hours had taken a lot out of him. He drew a deep breath and slipped the headset back on. “White Bird, this is Sandman. Do you read?”

“Roger, Sandman,” Lorna’s voice came back clearly. “The problem is solved. All systems are nominal, and my engineer tells me he does not, repeat not, expect the problem to happen again. We are starting our return.”

A ragged cheer went up from the control room team. Weary faces broke into grins accompanied by a round of back-slapping.

Ian looked at his display. “You are looking good. Be advised, however, that we have a weather situation here. Low cloud cover—down to three hundred meters—and gusting winds up to thirty kph from the west, blowing dust and reducing visibility at times. Turn on your transponder when you get below three thousand meters, so we can engage you with ILS on approach. You can expect a rough ride, but we’re within limits.”

* * *

“Understood.” Lorna turned to Tommy, who was starting to look nervous again. “Now,” she told him, with a wicked grin, “you’re gonna find out why we needed those archaic flight instruments…which have been working beautifully and for which I thank you.”

“Don’t thank me—thank Boeing,” he muttered in reply.

* * *

“Good job, Lorna, damned good job. We’re one step closer to the Moon.” Ian was obviously pleased with the mission results. On the morning after the mission, he was meeting with Lorna and Charlie in his office.

“So, it’s gonna be Plan A for sure, then?” she asked. “Not Mars?”

“No, I’m afraid not—at least, not yet. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to hold your ‘first human on a new world’ speech a little longer. The ships can make the trip, we’ve no doubt about that, but the logistics would kill us. Based on performance so far, we expect a trip to the Moon will take a matter of hours. Mars would take a lot longer. Even if you went with maximum drive all the way—something the engineers do not recommend—you could only accelerate halfway there. Then you’d have to flip over and decelerate the rest of the way unless you wanted to hit the planet like a meteor. In addition, particle densities in the inner part of the solar system are high, which translates to a limit on the maximum velocity we can achieve without exposing ships and crews to high levels of radiation. Even at closest approach, Mars would be a long trip. When it’s on the other side of the Sun from Earth…well…” He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

“Besides, the Moon is a harsh place to live,” he continued, “but Mars is still a hostile environment—little oxygen, little water, bitterly cold, and some nasty atmospheric weather patterns to deal with. We’d need almost as much infrastructure to live there as we would on the Moon, but we’d have to deal with a much longer supply line to get it there. No, it looks like the Moon is going to be our new home.”

“Been meaning to ask you about that,” Lorna said tentatively.

“Oh? What’s on your mind?”

“Well, I’m wondering how we’re going to organize living up there, and what the drill’s going to be when we get there.”

Ian smiled. “Funny. With all the brainpower we have in the Alpha group, you’re the only one who has thought to ask that question.”

“Well, actually, chief, I’ve been wondering about it,” Charlie Bender put in, “but I figured the Big Boss would already have that worked out. It’s way above my pay grade.”

“No, it’s not, Charlie,” Ian said, “nor is it above yours, Lorna, so I’m glad you asked. It’s something that has to be worked out, and we all have to agree, or it isn’t going to work. I think I’d rather talk about it with you two before I bring it up with our brainy scientists and engineers because you’re likely to be a bit more…practical about it.

“At one time,” he mused, “I had this notion we could just continue as the old Deep Space Research Institute—just a private venture into space, with a base on the Moon and business as usual, but that’s not going to work.”

“Oh, it would work,” Charlie suggested, “right up to the point where the U.S. government found out about it. And, unfortunately, they will find out about it, sooner or later.”

“Right,” Ian continued. “And when they do, they’ll come down on us in short order.”

“Like flies on a meadow muffin,” Lorna agreed. “No doubt in my mind about that. You have no idea how happy I was to have the engineers tell me the ships were invisible to radar. If it weren’t for that, we’d risk discovery every time we went up.”

“We still do,” Charlie said. “Radar detection isn’t the only way we can be compromised, though I was happy to cross that problem off my list. But sooner or later…”

“Yes, but hopefully later,” Ian said. “You two are most responsible for maintaining operational security, so I’m counting on you to keep us out of trouble for as long as possible. But we will eventually be discovered, and that means we can’t count on the Institute complex as a supply and staging base. And since we don’t want our wonderful toys to wind up in government hands, we’re going to have to take everyone who has critical knowledge of them to the Moon with us. That’s about a hundred people—not counting all the support services people we’ll need to keep us alive. We’ll have to plan on facilities for a minimum of two hundred permanent residents up there. There’s a lot of planning yet to be done—practical, logistical stuff that I simply haven’t had time for. And that, Charlie, is why I need to bring Carla into the project despite your concerns about the size of the Alpha group.”

Bender nodded slowly. He didn’t like the idea. The more people who knew about it, the harder it was to maintain security, but he could see the necessity.

“The other thing we need to consider is that, once the U.S. government discovers what we are doing, we won’t be able to operate anywhere in the U.S.A. Charlie and I are already taking steps to secure our supply lines and setting up remote staging areas in other parts of the world.”

“I wish they were even more remote than they are,” Charlie interrupted, “but that would have caused other problems. We have to be able to transport stuff to the sites, so they have to be reasonably accessible. Besides, a lot of the places I might have chosen are in Jihad territory—Africa, South America, or Southeast Asia—and I’m sure the Islamists would love to appropriate anything we stockpiled there. For now, we’re only stocking them with food, raw materials, and basic equipment—nothing that’s going to draw attention to us.”

“You need to brief Lorna on the locations and details,” Ian said, “in case everything goes to hell, and she needs to put a ship down somewhere other than at the Institute.”

Bender nodded, and Ian continued.

“In answer to your questions, Lorna—how we’ll be organized and how we’re going to operate when we get there—well, those still need some work. I thought about continuing as the DSRI, but the Institute is a corporation, chartered under the laws of the United States. That’s a hard face to maintain when we’ve violated those laws, and the U.S. government demands we turn ourselves in for prosecution. We can’t hide behind the guise of a foreign corporation, either. The U.N. will be just as upset as the U.S. when they find out what we’re up to. They’ll want us to internationalize our operations on the Moon, as well as turn over our ship technology to the Peacekeeper Council. If we pretend to be an ordinary Earth-chartered business or commercial entity, they’ll have the legal authority to do that, even if they don’t have the technical ability to enforce it.

“The way I see it, we are going to have to declare ourselves a sovereign nation—and one that has no desire to join the U.N., thank you. There’s not much the U.N. will be able to do about it except try to impose sanctions. They may be able to pressure other nations to cut off our supplies, but even then, we may be able to negotiate our own deals with those nations—if we can get them to recognize our sovereign status. Private dealings between nations—U.N. members or not—are still something over which the U.N. has little control.”

“Hmmm…a nation of our own,” Lorna mused. “Somehow, I think I saw that one coming.”

“Do you have a problem with it?” Charlie asked quietly.

“No. Why should I?” She looked sharply at the security chief.

“Well,” he shrugged, “twenty years of service to the U.S.A., former military officer, decorated war hero…I figured there might be some residual loyalty to the nation of your birth.”

Lorna gave him a look that would have frozen boiling water, but Bender was not easily intimidated. He returned her gaze without a trace of emotion.

“Mr. Bender,” she said quietly, “I gave the U.S.A. twenty years of good and faithful service. For twenty years, they didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. Then some son of a bitch—I still don’t know who—outed me anyway. And when push came to shove, that accusation meant more to them than those twenty years of service and all those alleged ‘heroic’ actions. I still have fond feelings for the United States of America—as you pointed out, it is the nation of my birth. But do I owe them anything? I think not. Those dues have already been paid.

“But,” she continued, “if you are as good at your job as Ian seems to think, you already know all of this. So, what’s your point?”

Bender leaned back and favored her with a crooked smile. “No point, really. Just confirming something that, as you pointed out, I already know. And yes, I am good at my job. In fact, I know a few things you apparently don’t. You want to know who outed you? Does the name C.S. Orbach mean anything to you? Lieutenant Colonel C. S. Orbach, USAF?”

Lorna was stunned. “Orbach??? Chicken-Shit Orbach? That was years ago! I was only under his command for two months, and I will damned well guarantee that nothing happened in those two months that would have given him any grounds for an accusation like that.”

“No, maybe not,” Bender said, “but maybe it wasn’t about your sexual preferences at all. Maybe that was just a lucky guess on his part. However, you did disobey a direct order he gave you.”

“That order was countermanded.” Lorna’s voice was still quiet, but the venom in it told Charlie he had touched a sensitive nerve.

“Yes, it was. He ordered you to return to base, leaving an AWACS with a crew of thirty people at the mercy of an inbound flight of Iranian SAAB-42 fighters. You protested, and the AWACS commander countermanded the order—which she had the right to do, since you were operating in her area of command-and-control.

“But Orbach and his wingman did RTB, claiming low fuel, while you and your wingman went in and took on the Iranians at five-to-two odds—and proceeded to wipe them out of the sky. You were nearly bingo on fuel when you got back to base, but you made it. You were a hero, and Orbach got a letter of reprimand that hinted at cowardice in the face of the enemy. They ended up calling it failure to exercise proper command judgment, and he got relieved of command and sent back to fly a desk in Washington. Shortly after that, he sent a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force, alleging that you were practicing an openly homosexual lifestyle—details unspecified. Since his name was shit at the time, while you were a heroine whose virtues had been extolled in Air Force press releases, the letter got buried, but it didn’t get burned. Somebody resurrected it a few months ago and decided to use it to beat you into submission.”

“If they had just given me a set of orders,” Lorna said bitterly, “I would have gone quietly. I wouldn’t have liked it, but I would have hung up my wings and taken the desk job. Hell, I was a good officer, and that’s what a good officer does. But they didn’t trust me. They thought I would try to play politics the way they play politics…go running off to some senator or congressman and try to go around them, play off my status as a ‘war hero’ or something. So, they pulled out an unsupported allegation from years ago and threatened to paint a big letter L on my forehead. That was the final straw—the fact that they didn’t trust me to do what I’d been doing faithfully for the past twenty years.”

“Well,” Charlie said with a shrug, “if it’s any consolation, you probably made the right choice—getting out, that is. That letter wasn’t going to go away, and it would have continued to haunt you. You’d have gotten your silver oak leaves—that was already in the pipeline, but it’s pretty clear you were never going to make full bird, no matter what they told you.”

“Okay, so I’m here,” Lorna said, “and you’ve just proven you’ve got no reason to question my loyalty. But what about you? As I understand it, you spent almost as much time working for Uncle Sam as I did. What makes you above suspicion?”

Charlie started to respond, but Ian interrupted—the first time he’d spoken since the exchange between his subordinates began.

“In answer to your question, Lorna, Charlie was a Navy SEAL, commanding a special operations unit in the same part of the world where you distinguished yourself. The old CIA—back before they got folded into the NSA—had a chance to score a big one against the bad guys, but the only way they could do that was by compromising Charlie’s operational security. They made their choice, and Charlie was the only one of his unit who made it out alive. He didn’t find out what happened until years later when he was working for the CIA and came across a reference to it in some classified documents. Anyway, you get the picture. He got screwed by the government just like you did…only in his case, good people—people under his command—died because of it.

“What?” he asked, seeing the look of surprise on Charlie’s face. “You think I don’t have my own background investigation files? I had to do this stuff myself before I hired you to be my security chief.”

Lorna nodded in understanding. “Sorry, Charlie, didn’t mean to question you. You just touched a nerve or two. Nothing personal.”

“It’s okay, Major,” he said. “I didn’t really mean to question you, either. Hell, after that AWACS business, it’s clear you have the right ideas about loyalty and duty. Maybe if someone like you had been in charge back then, my people wouldn’t have been left out there in the sandbox.”

“Ahem.” Ian cleared his throat, and the other two looked back at him. “I hate to interrupt this mutual admiration society, but this brings us back to the original question.

“You asked how we are going to operate once we get to the Moon. Well, with your backgrounds, you two should know better than the rest of the Alpha group that it isn’t about technology. Hell, we don’t have any technical problems Mick O’Hara can’t solve in his sleep.

“What it’s really about is people. Whether you call it management or command and control or just plain leadership, it’s about managing people, getting them organized, and making sure they all pull in the same direction. We’ve got some good people here—brilliant people in their own fields—but they’re not the easiest bunch in the world to manage. And we’re not just talking about making them into a working team; we’ve got a whole nation to organize, complete with a constitution, a code of laws, and all the trappings. As I see it, that’s going to be one hell of a job.

“You are the only members of the Alpha group with anything that passes for leadership skills. I’m going to need your help to get this show on the road, and you need to take a good, hard look at the people resources we have to work with. Charlie, I think you need to show Lorna those personal background files you’ve got. That’s the material we have to work with, and I’ll expect you two to tell me how we are going to make it work.”

Lorna and Charlie looked at each other.

“Okay,” Lorna took a deep breath. “So, this is the mission. We’ve got to take this bunch of brilliant, independent thinkers—most of whom, I’ve noticed, don’t think about much of anything outside their own specialty areas—and turn them into the New Free Democratic State of Luna, a sovereign nation of which they will all be proud, well-motivated citizens. Oh, and we’ve got about—what?—six months or so in which to do this. Meanwhile, we haven’t even landed on the Moon yet and planted our flag…does that about cover it?”

“Well,” Ian said, “hopefully, we have a bit more than six months. As you pointed out, we haven’t gotten to the Moon yet, but I expect Starfire to be tested and operational within thirty days. After that—with a backup ship in our hip pocket—we’ll go for the first Moon mission. The plans for the base up there are pretty much laid out, so, as soon as we’ve surveyed the site, we can start construction. It’s a tight schedule, but I think we can stick to it. I want people to be living up there permanently within the year, and by that time, we’d better have our basic organization ready to go.

“As for the Free Democratic State of Luna,” he continued, “you both know I am a firm believer in personal freedom, and we’ll want to make sure our citizens have as much of that as possible, but I’m not sure democracy—which is not the same thing—is a luxury we can afford. We’re going to be living in a hostile environment, totally dependent on our technological infrastructure to keep us alive. Both of you have some experience with hostile environments, so let me ask you, how well do you think democracy works in, say, a combat situation?”

“Not worth a damn,” Charlie responded immediately. “It’s not a time for debate, and you don’t put anything to a vote. Somebody has to be in command, and others have to follow orders. Period.”

“Or everybody ends up dead,” Lorna agreed.

“That’s right,” Ian said. “Hopefully, we won’t have anyone shooting at us up there, but everyone will have to do their jobs according to a strict set of rules, or we will end up just as dead. We can’t have people arguing about whose job it is to maintain the critical parts of the infrastructure or take a vote on how to distribute supplies or anything like that. If you look at the U.S. space program before it was dismantled, you can see that somebody understood that. Most of those missions were scientific in nature, and most of the crew were civilians, but they still put a military officer in command, with authority and responsibility for the overall mission. If the commander decided they had to scrub one of their precious experiments for reasons of mission safety, there was no debate, and everyone had to obey the order. What’s more, every one of those civilians had to be trained to do a specific job that contributed to the mission. Except for a couple of politicians who managed to exert enough pressure to get themselves on a mission, there were no freeloaders. And once they stepped aboard that spacecraft, it wasn’t a democracy anymore.

“We may call ourselves a sovereign nation, but we are going to have to operate much the same way. Someone’s going to have to be in command, the others are going to have to follow orders, and we won’t be able to afford any slackers or freeloaders. Our scientists and people like that will be there because their research contributes to the overall mission, and someone will need to direct that research to make sure it does, just as we’ve done with all the research connected with this project so far.”

“It sounds like we need a military-style command structure,” Charlie suggested, “with you, I presume, as the commander-in-chief and a military table of organization that includes literally everybody up there…every citizen of our new nation.”

“Hmmm,” Ian mused, “I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms…a paramilitary society, with everyone wearing a uniform and assigned a rank and position in the T.O. Can you imagine the reaction that would draw back here on Earth?”

“I imagine it would upset a lot of people.” Lorna’s smile was wicked. “Particularly those peace-at-all-costs types who regard anything military as inherently evil.”

“That alone would be a good reason to do it—just to see the looks on their faces,” Charlie said, with a wicked grin of his own.

“I can see some advantages, though.” Lorna suddenly looked thoughtful. “If people wear uniforms, they tend to be more disciplined—and let’s face it, we’re not likely to have any clothing stores on the Moon any time soon where they can buy civilian gear. Uniforms make sense from an economic standpoint. As for rank structure…hell, we have that now. What difference does it make whether someone is called the project manager or the officer in charge? The concept is the same, but the latter implies a more disciplined structure, and that’s what we want.”

“Okay” Ian said. “It’s an interesting concept. I want you two to work on it—fill out the details. Start by taking the Institute’s current organizational structure and laying it out in a military-style T.O. If you see any organizational flaws in the existing structure, point those out. If there are areas that don’t seem to lend themselves to military organization, point that out as well. You can come up with any rank structure you like—a full top-to-bottom set of military ranks is probably not necessary for an organization of a few hundred people—but work on it and get back to me with the results by Tuesday.

“Meanwhile, I want you, Charlie, to start working on the logistics of getting everyone to the Moon. You’ll need to identify those people we must take so we don’t compromise the security of our technology, as well as those we need to take to create and maintain a viable, self-sustaining community. I want you to start putting some plans together to get them all off Earth in a hurry, assuming we are under pressure to get them out of here in the shortest time possible.”

“You mean, if our cover gets blown and the government is about to come down on us?” Charlie asked.

“Exactly,” Ian said. “We’re vulnerable because we have no place to go, but I’d hate to get caught short later, when we do have our base set up, because we couldn’t get our people out of here quickly enough.

“Lorna, you have your own assignment,” he continued. “The first Moon mission is planned and ready to go, but we’re not going until we have the second ship ready for a rescue mission. Getting Starfire online should be your top priority.

“You know, it’s funny.” He shook his head. “Back in the last century, when the Apollo missions were being planned, no one thought about rescuing someone from the Moon, since they couldn’t possibly get another ship prepped, launched, and to the Moon within a reasonable timeframe. But we’re talking about having two—and eventually three—ships ready and online and being able to get to the Moon within a few hours. We’ve come a long way since Armstrong left the first footprint on the lunar surface.”

* * * * *

Chapter Six

October

Carla

Thomas Perry was as nervous as any teacher might be when summoned without explanation to the vice principal’s office. The fact that he didn’t really know this vice principal made it worse. In fact, he didn’t know any of the nine vice principals. There was a time when a school the size of R.B. Johnson Memorial High School would have had a principal, and maybe two assistant principals, and a total administrative staff of perhaps six or seven people. The principal would have known the teachers by name and would have dealt with them personally. In the three years that Dr. Madsen had been principal, Perry could recall having spoken with him only twice, during school social affairs. These days, the principal spent a lot more time with the school board and a lot less with the school.

As for the vice principals, no one seemed to know what their responsibilities were. They functioned as a sort of committee to run the school, but any one of them appeared to be able to issue orders to the faculty at will. The committee aspect allowed them to blame unpopular directives on “the administration” without ever accepting personal responsibility.

Thomas Perry was a history teacher. Unlike many of his peers, however, he devoted time to the study of history. More time, he realized, than he devoted to keeping up with the latest thinking in educational methods. With his outmoded idea that education was intended to impart knowledge, he had probably violated some new rule of teaching. Or perhaps some historical fact he had related to his class had not been properly couched in politically correct language and, somehow, his transgression had gotten back to “the administration.” He steeled himself for the lecture he expected to receive and vowed to show the proper degree of contrite humility. With luck, the whole thing would soon be forgotten.

“Mr. Perry?” The vice principal’s administrative assistant looked up from her desk and called to him. “Dr. Hammond will see you now.”

Dr. Hammond was a small, bald man who looked more like an accountant or an attorney than an educator. His office was elegantly furnished, a far cry from the shabby atmosphere of the teachers’ lounge. Amazing what you can do with a little creativity and a lot of taxpayers’ money, Perry thought, remembering that his own request for a $30 historical documentary video to show to his class had been turned down because of budgetary constraints.

“Come in, Mr. Perry. Sit down.” Hammond’s voice was brusque and humorless. He waited barely long enough for Perry to take the indicated chair before continuing. “Mr. Perry, it has come to my attention that you recently attempted to give one of your students a failing grade on your term exam, and that you also gave D grades to several others. Are you aware that this is contrary to school policy?”

Perry gritted his teeth; he knew about the policy but hadn’t regarded it as an absolute prohibition. “Dr. Hammond, the student in question has shown a contemptuous disregard for the entire course of study, and—”

“And so, you decided to provoke him into a confrontation over it. Don’t you know such practices have been known to cause violent incidents? Even if the student in question is not given to violence, you might cause permanent harm to his self-esteem. Grade competition is unhealthy, even among students who want to study. Further, low grades reflect poorly on the school—and on you as a teacher.

“Fortunately,” he continued, “our computerized grading system caught your error before anyone else saw it. All the students involved were given a C grade. For the same reason, the A grade you attempted to give one student was reduced to a B in accordance with our policy.”

Perry was furious, and he felt his control slipping away. “That A student,” he said quietly, “was the only one in the class who knew which major powers were in conflict during World War II. As for the D students, one of them described Pearl Harbor as ‘some kind of boat that sank somewhere.’ As for the—”

“Mr. Perry!” Hammond cut him off. “The curriculum prohibits any emphasis on wars in our teaching of history, particularly regarding Eurocentric wars. War glorifies violence, and we don’t promote violence.”

Perry fought to control himself. Was this man living in the real world? Did he ever watch the evening news or download the latest Hollywood video releases? Was he aware the country was in a war, with three terror attacks on New York City in the past two months? The study of history promotes violence?

“Furthermore,” Hammond went on, “European history has been emphasized for too long, and that brings me to another issue. You give the appearance of following the required curriculum, but we’ve been monitoring your classroom, and I’ve questioned some of your students. I’m told you’ve glossed over entire sections of PanAfrican history, IndoAsian history, and so forth. How do you explain that, Mr. Perry?”

“The curriculum,” Perry replied, forcing himself to speak slowly and reasonably, “allows just two classroom days for the entire history of Europe from the time of the Roman Empire to the colonization of the Western Hemisphere. European history is important—it’s important for understanding the foundations of Western civilization…”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Hammond interrupted. “You know as well as I that any emphasis on European history is inherently racist in nature. The administration will not tolerate any hint of racism in our curriculum. Nor will we tolerate the notion that lack of knowledge about some obscure European naval battle is grounds for psychological harassment of a student. Pearl Harbor indeed! Hmmph!”

Perry was in shock. Obscure European naval battle! He realized with horror that Dr. Lester Hammond, B.S., M.S. Ph.D. didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was about—or even where it was located. He was speechless!

“Fortunately,” Hammond continued, “it really doesn’t matter anymore. As of next term, history will no longer be part of the required curriculum. The New Jersey Education Association has decided that multicultural sociology will be promoted to a requirement instead. My own recommendation, which has been reinforced by this little incident, is that history be dropped from our curriculum entirely, even as an elective course. I’m sure the administration will agree once I tell them what’s happened here. As for you, Mr. Perry, you could try to mend your ways, bring yourself up to speed on modern educational doctrine, and apply to teach another subject. But if I were you, I wouldn’t bother. This school is top-heavy with white, male teachers, so you’d probably lose out in favor of more culturally diverse candidates.”

“But I’ve been here over thirty years,” Perry protested. “What about my tenure? You can’t just dump me like this. The NJEA—”

“—would probably come to your defense if you had ever done anything but criticize its policies. We’ve already had a reading from them on the subject. If we eliminate your class from the curriculum, there is no requirement to keep you on the faculty. You should consider yourself fortunate we don’t choose to dismiss you outright. If you go quietly, the administration has decided not to prosecute you for your more serious transgressions.”

“Prosecute me!” Perry was stunned. “What serious transgressions are you talking about?”

Hammond touched the screen of his interface, bringing up a file he had obviously prepared in advance. “On October 15th of last year, you gave your students a quote from a book by Samuel Clemens, a known racist writer of the 19th century who went by the alias of Mark Twain and whose books have been banned from the public school curriculum.”

“But—”

“And on January 12th of this year, while discussing the American Civil War—a topic that was not in your approved lesson plan—you displayed on the screen in your classroom an image you had obtained from a contraband source, a painting depicting something called Pickett’s Charge in which the Confederate battle flag was prominently displayed. That flag is widely regarded as a racist hate symbol.”

“That contraband source was the American Heritage Foundation,” Perry blustered. “I downloaded it from their ’net site—it’s a painting that’s displayed in the American Heritage Museum…”

“Was displayed until last year, when federal civil rights agents made them remove it under threat of prosecution. We checked on it. The so-called Foundation has been shown to be nothing more than a cover for a group of Southern racists. And your EdNet account shows you have accessed their site on many occasions.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “in a discussion held in the teachers’ lounge that same week, you expressed an opinion to another teacher that slavery was not the only cause of the Civil War. Mr. Perry,” Hammond wagged a finger at him, “your preoccupation with war keeps getting you into trouble. We have ample evidence that you are not only a racist but a right-wing militarist as well.

“Oh, yes,” he went on, “and then there’s the matter of your intolerant attitude toward homosexuals.”

“What! When have I ever—”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Perry.” He consulted his screen again. “Did you not, on September 17th of last year, express your opinion to a student that you believed that homosexuality was a matter of genetic makeup and not a free lifestyle choice made by an individual?”

“But there’s medical evidence—”

“Nonsense perpetrated by bigots and hate-mongers. That opinion is in direct contradiction to modern sociological thinking. Following that train of thought, you are only one step away from suggesting that homosexuality is an aberration, perhaps even a disease.

“Mr. Perry—” Hammond sat back in his chair and regarded the teacher with a look of utter contempt, “—if it were up to me, you would be prosecuted for civil rights violations, but the administration has decided the adverse publicity would not be good for the school. You will, therefore, be allowed to retire quietly at the end of the year. You’ll even keep your pension—provided there are no more incidents of this nature.”

Perry didn’t hear the rest of Hammond’s lecture, and he hardly remembered leaving the office. All he knew was that he had until the end of the term to get his affairs in order, after which he was finished as a teacher. No other public school would dare take him, and private schools tended to regard with contempt any applicant who had previously worked in the public school system.

All his life, Thomas Perry had been a teacher, and all he had ever wanted to do was impart knowledge to children and adolescents. But that, it seemed, was no longer the aim of the educational system.

Maybe I’m a dinosaur, Perry thought. Maybe it is time to retire. But retirement was a lonely prospect. His wife had died two years before, and his only daughter had moved to California nine months ago. Can’t just sit around and feel sorry for myself, he decided. Maybe I’ll go out and see Carla for a while after school’s finished.

* * *

Carla had been in the job for almost a year and found she really liked it. Lord knew why; she was a sophisticated city girl who should cringe at the thought of exiling herself to a desert wilderness, but the job was challenging. The Institute was like a small city, and Carla was practically its mayor. She answered only to Ian, who let her handle all the administrative functions so he could spend his time dealing with the Institute’s business interests or watching over the research in Complex D.

Complex D was still a mystery to Carla. She kept the supplies and services flowing for the projects conducted there but had no idea what they involved. It was obviously something for the government, though Carla found it curious that no government officials, auditors, or military people ever showed up to check on it.

Meanwhile, there were dozens of other projects that needed supplies and services, plus all the administrative headaches that went with maintaining community facilities like the housing complex and the commissary. Fortunately, she had three good assistants to help her manage the forty service people who reported to her. The people were the feature Carla liked most about the job. It was refreshing to be working in a real office again, in the physical presence of her co-workers, instead of noting their pseudo-presence by their avatars on the network. It was also great to be able to get out of the office to visit the facilities her staff serviced and maintained without worrying about her personal safety every time she stepped out the door.

Today was a busy day, and when the interface on her desk chimed, she braced herself for another interruption. She opened the incoming, high priority message and was surprised to find that Ian was requesting her presence (physical presence, not just a teleconference) at a staff meeting in Conference Room B at 11:00 AM. There was no hint as to what the meeting was about.

Carla was a little puzzled. Most of Ian’s staff meetings were with the scientific types. He usually tried to keep them off her back so she could set her own priorities. He’d said more than once that he didn’t like to waste her time or his with staff meetings on administrative matters. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 10:20 AM. Even if I knew what it was about, I wouldn’t have much time to prepare, she thought.

* * *

Conference Room B was a high-security room. The door was secured when Carla arrived, and she was admitted only after placing her hand on the scanner and verbally identifying herself. There were a half-dozen people in the room, and she knew all of them well. Besides Ian, there were Alan Jaronski, Charlie Bender, Mick O’Hara, Sarah Wilkins, and Lorna Greenwood.

What a mixed crew, she thought. Jaronski was the Director of Research. Wilkins was the Institute’s Medical Director, in charge of the on-site clinic as well as some medical research projects. O’Hara, the Director of Engineering, was seldom seen outside Complex D. Bender, of course, was Chief of Security, and Lorna was simply the chief pilot for the Institute’s tiny fleet of three aircraft. She and Carla had been good friends since the day they met, but Carla was surprised to find her there among the high-level executives.

All of them looked at Carla with a serious intensity that made her a bit nervous. It was as if they were waiting for her before they could proceed with some important business. She decided to take the initiative.

“Good morning. I hope I haven’t kept anyone waiting.” She took the open seat at Ian’s left.

“Not at all, Carla. You’re right on time,” said Ian. “But we needed you here before we could proceed. Is the room secured?”

The last question must have been directed at Charlie Bender, though he hesitated a moment as if expecting someone else to answer. “Uh…right, chief. All secured.”

No one else said a word, and Ian turned to her again.

“Carla, in the time you’ve been here, you’ve done an outstanding job. We need your services in an area where you haven’t yet been involved.”

Uh oh! It’s Complex D, thought Carla. It’s got to be. That’s about the only thing I’m not involved with around here. But what has Lorna got to do with this?

“First,” Ian continued, “I have to tell you we have conducted a thorough security check on you. The people in this room are the management team for a special project, and they all agree we should bring you into it, but there are security issues, and you have to agree to the restrictions.

“That means you’ll never discuss the project with anyone outside this group, unless I direct you to do so. If you become involved with the project, you’ll also be privy to other confidential information which you must also agree not to discuss.

“Carla, the success of the project in question depends on strict security. If you accept this position, you will be given access to information that could seriously compromise that security. I, for one, want to see you involved because we need your organization and management skills. But these security precautions are necessary. If you do join the project, you’ll understand why.

“Do you want to be involved? Will you accept the security conditions?”

Carla hesitated. This was a deadly serious matter. Bender was looking at her in a way that chilled her soul. Lorna was holding her breath. Ian was on the edge of his chair, waiting for an answer. The others sat rigid as statues, giving her their full attention. She looked at each one of them in turn.

“Yes,” she said.

Ian sat back in his chair. Lorna started breathing again.

“Why?” asked Charlie Bender.

The question took Carla aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you want to get involved in this? You don’t know anything about the project, yet you seem ready to jump right in. Why is that?”

Carla thought about it. She didn’t really know how to answer the question. “Some of you,” she said, looking at Ian and Lorna, “are my close, personal friends. Some are not so close. In fact,” she addressed Bender directly, “I’m not even sure I like some of you. But I respect all of you for your special talents and abilities. I trust your judgment, and I like working for the Institute. If you say it’s important, I’m ready to do my part.”

She couldn’t tell whether her answer had satisfied Bender. In fact, she wasn’t sure she was satisfied with it herself.

“Oh, hell!” she said. “I don’t know why, exactly. I’m just going on instinct.”

To her surprise, Bender chuckled. “Now that is a believable answer.”

“All right,” said Ian. “I’ll ask you once more, Carla. Are you sure you want to get involved in this?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“You agree to the security terms, that you will never discuss the project, or anything related to it, with anyone except this special group, unless I direct otherwise?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Do any of you have questions?” Ian asked the group.

“I have one,” Mick O’Hara said. “All of us know Carla pretty well, but I don’t recall this ever having come up in conversation. Carla, how do you feel about the exploration of space?”

The question seemed so incongruous that Carla laughed. “Mick…you’ve got to be kidding! When I was hired, I was told that’s what the Institute is all about. I’m here because I believed all that you people told me when I first came on board—that space is the future frontier for mankind. My only complaint, so far, is that I haven’t seen any concrete results—only theoretical studies being conducted, and astronomical observations being made…oh, and the solar power project, which I’m told was a big success, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem interested in buying. So far, I haven’t seen a lot of actual space exploration being done, but I have a strange feeling that’s about to change.”

She stopped. All of them were looking at her in stony silence. Bender’s eyes had narrowed, and he studied her like a snake watches a bird.

She looked at Ian. “Isn’t it…?” she asked with a lifted eyebrow.

Ian smiled. “You’ve just given Charlie a security heart attack. Please tell him you’re just speculating, and you don’t have any real evidence, so he can start breathing again.”

“I’m just going on instinct,” she said, giving Bender a sweet smile.

The rest of the group laughed.

“Does anyone feel we need to discuss this further?” Ian asked. No one spoke. “All right, are we all in agreement about this, then? Alan?”

“Yes,” Jaronski replied. “We need her. Lord knows, none of my people seem to have any knack for organization or administration.”

“Mick?”

“Yes.”

“Sarah?”

“I have no problem. I’ve been telling you we need someone on the administrative end, and Carla’s proven herself in that area.”

“Lorna.”

“Do you need to ask? Yes.”

“Charlie?”

“I’m on record as opposing any increase in the size of the Alpha group, chief. The more people, the harder it is to keep secrets. But I already got voted down on that. I’ve got nothing against Carla, and I’m forced to admit her instincts are good.”

“I agree, Charlie,” Ian said. “I take it that is a yes?”

“Yeah, might as well make it unanimous.”

“Mike?” asked Ian, and he glanced down at the computer screen in front of him. “Mike agrees and so do I. That does, in fact, make it unanimous. Welcome to the Alpha Management Team, Carla.”

Carla looked confused. “Who’s Mike?”

“Well, I guess that part of our security is still good,” Ian said. “You’ve been working with Mike for six months and still don’t know he exists, but you’re about to meet him. Mike, since Carla is now a member of the team, you can speak freely.”

“Congratulations, Ms. Perry,” said a voice from the interface in front of her.

She looked down at the screen and saw a cartoon character—a cute, cheerful-looking, little green lizard. It was waving at her.

“Welcome to the Alpha group,” the lizard said. “I am Mike, and I am told I am the first and only true artificial intelligence ever created. You’ve been working with me for some time, in the persona of the Institute’s computer system. I look forward to working with you on a more personal basis in the future.”

Carla was wide-eyed. “You can speak and understand English!”

“Any computer can do that, to a limited extent,” the lizard said, and Carla imagined she heard a faint trace of disdain in his voice. “I, however, can actually comprehend the language and hold a conversation. It is not the most precise form of communication, but it lends a qualitative aspect to data acquisition that is lacking in other forms. There are still some abstract concepts that escape me, but I am programmed for constant self-improvement. The files indicate you are an interesting person, and I am looking forward to conversing with you.”

“Later, Mike,” said Ian. “Carla, this is the first of many things you’ll be required to keep secret. Now that you’re in the Alpha group, you can tap Mike’s full capabilities. But only do so in private or with other members of this group. Mike knows the rules, and he’ll pretend to be just another dumb interface if anyone else is present. In fact, you’ll only see that lizard avatar when Mike is certain all is secure.

“Anyway, you’ll have lots of time to get to know him. You’ll find him to be a great conversationalist, and he knows everything that goes on around here. As a member of the Alpha group, you will be given access to a lot of classified information, and Mike has all the files. Just ask him about anything you want to know.

“All right, people. The rest of you can get back to your work. I’ll brief Carla on the project, and she’ll come and see each of you individually so you can fill in the details.”

They filed out the door, each of them stopping to shake Carla’s hand and welcome her to the group.

Lorna was the last to leave, and she gave Carla a hug, rather than a handshake. “Welcome aboard, girl.” She hesitated a moment. “Would you mind if I stop by your place tonight? I’ll bring a six-pack, and we can celebrate your new status. Besides, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“A six-pack?” Carla raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to get me to drink beer?”

“Well, okay,” Lorna said with a smile. “Beer for me, a bottle of wine for you. I’ll bring both.”

“Fine with me.” Carla returned the smile. “See you later.”

Carla watched her leave, then turned to face Ian. He waved her to a chair.

“Sit down, Carla. Mike and I will brief you on what is known as the Wanderer Project. After that, we can grab something to eat before we head over to Complex D.”

* * *

The main building of Complex D was a lot larger than it looked from the outside, because most of it was underground, built into the hillside. A glance through the large, hangar-like doors on the front of the building would not have revealed anything—a false rear wall separated the building’s hidden space from the front section.

Somewhere behind that wall, Carla stood on a catwalk with Ian, looking down over the huge work bays and the sleek shapes that nearly filled them.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “And you say they’re operational? That they’ve already flown?”

“Well, two of them have,” Ian said. “The third will be ready for shakedown in another two months. The smaller one on the far end is Wanderer. She was our first. The one next to her is Starfire. We built her for serious work, after Wanderer proved all our basic design concepts. She’s just completed her test flights and will be making our first real trip to the Moon next week. The one on this end is Starsong. She’s a sister to Starfire, and she’s the last one we’ll build for a while.”

“Why? Are we running short of funds?”

“Not really. I think we’re running short of time. We need to get out before someone discovers what we’re doing. That means we’ve got to establish ourselves…out there.” He motioned toward the ceiling and the sky beyond.

“How far out there?” she asked.

“How far would you like to go?” he asked, and she could hear the glow of pride in his voice. “With these babies, the Moon is just a walk in the park. Mars is a short vacation trip. The outer planets are within reach. The nearest star…well, theoretically, the ships could make it, but the trip would take quite a few years, and none of them can carry enough supplies to sustain a crew that long.

He continued, “the immediate goal is a self-sustaining colony on the Moon. I want to keep our supply lines from Earth short. That rules out Mars or anything more distant, but only in the first phase.”

“How is it possible?” Carla was puzzled. “Even in the heyday of the space program, they needed huge rockets to lift a few thousand kilos into orbit. You’re telling me these ships can lift off with no booster rockets, go to the Moon, and return as easily as a transcontinental jet goes from New York to L.A. and back?”

“Easier. That transcontinental jet would have had to refuel in L.A. These ships don’t need to.”

“But how…?”

“Well, that’s the big secret, Carla. We’ve figured out how gravity works—something physicists have been dreaming about ever since the proverbial apple bonked Sir Isaac Newton on the head. To do that, Alan Jaronski had to nail down the so-called Theory of Everything that science has been trying to put together since Einstein’s day. Alan could win the Nobel Prize for that piece of work…if we’d let him publish it. We convinced him it came down to a choice. He could tell the world about his theory, collect his prize, and spend the rest of his days giving lectures about it, trying to explain it in thirty seconds or less to news media morons, and defending his work against critics who weren’t smart enough to understand it. Or he could keep quiet about it, turn it over to Mick and the engineers, actually get to see his theory turned into practical applications, and spend the rest of his life doing any sort of research he wanted to do on the Moon, where nobody would bother him, and he’d never have to worry about grants, budgets, or lack of facilities.”

“Well, gee, boss, since you put it that way…” Carla gave him a sarcastic smile.

“I’ll admit that was an argument designed to appeal to some of Alan’s peculiarities. I’m sure you’ve noticed, for example, he considers himself far more intelligent than anyone else on the planet and has no patience for explaining his theories, since he figures we don’t have the brains to understand them anyway. He works well with the engineers, because they can build things that will demonstrate to the world that his theories work, so that we can all stand in awe of his intellect, even if we haven’t a hope of understanding it.”

“Well, yes, I guess you’re right.” Carla couldn’t help but smile. “Though I wouldn’t have given him credit for so much humility.”

“Of course, generating a gravity field of sufficient strength requires a lot of energy. For that, we needed nuclear fusion power. The government had the basic concept for that years ago but suppressed it. It’s probably best that it didn’t become public knowledge, but that meant we had to steal confidential information from government files.”

“Ouch! Now, I understand Mike’s comment about extralegal sources of information.”

“A lot of our technology is not stolen,” he said, somewhat defensively. “The gravitational propulsion systems and our marvelous Iron Mike were both developed strictly through our own research efforts. So was the solar power project—and by the way, it doesn’t bother me that no one else is interested in that. It’ll serve us well on the Moon. In fact, that’s the primary reason we put so much effort into it.”

“Wow…it’s mind-boggling.” Carla could not take her eyes off the sleek ships in the bays below. Oblivious to her scrutiny, technicians were busy installing some sort of complex assembly in an open bay in Starsong’s lower hull.

“Yes,” said Ian, “but the basic concepts are incredibly simple. Carla, I’m not a physicist or an engineer. Science is almost like a hobby with me, and I’m primarily a businessman. But knowing what I know now, I could build a gravity-field generator—almost from common household items, as they say. We’ve got to keep this secret. This technology, in the wrong hands…”

She shivered. “You don’t have to elaborate. I can imagine it. Every crackpot nation and terrorist group with spaceships at their disposal, dropping bombs on their neighbors from orbit. But how long can we keep it secret? Where do we go from here?”

“I told you,” he said with a smile. “We go Out There, and the technology goes with us. Once we’re established on the Moon, there’s little chance of any of this stuff falling into the wrong hands.”

Deep within her, a little voice whispered to Carla…the wrong hands…but how can you be sure Ian and his people are the right hands to control something like this?

But the genie was out of the bottle. The technology existed, was there in front of her. Better us than, say, the Islamic Jihad, she decided, or the Chinese.

Carla was a serious student of history and world politics—mostly due to the influence of her father. She knew that at this moment, there were three true superpowers in the world. There was the so-called Western Alliance—primarily the United States and its few close allies, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan. Then there was the Jihad—a shadow group with tentacles that spread throughout the world, fortunately limited to primitive methods in its crusade to convert or kill all who did not adhere to its political, social, and religious standards. The Jihad was the true power behind the Islamic Federation, whose member nations claimed to be models of peaceful coexistence.

Finally, there was China. The largest and most populated nation on Earth had become the world’s greatest industrial giant. It was also the only nation where communism had succeeded as a form of government. Workers toiled for meager wages in Chinese factories, producing goods the rest of the world was willing to buy, and the Chinese government was more than happy to sell. Consumer goods, electronics, even heavy industrial equipment in use throughout the world bore the “Made in China” label. If there was anything the Chinese did not know how to make, some Western corporation would always be willing to teach them, only to find that their Chinese partners had suddenly become their competitors.

Internally, China remained one of the most socially and ethnically closed societies on the planet. No one who was not “pure” Chinese could hope to achieve any degree of influence or success in China. Western corporations might open subsidiary operations in China—with the approval of the government—but those entities would be operated and controlled by Chinese, whose first loyalty was to China and not to the corporations that nominally owned them.

The leaders of China had learned valuable lessons from the rest of the world. From the failed Communist society of the old Soviet Union, they had learned that some attention must be paid to the welfare of their own people. The Soviets had burned themselves out, devoting most of their industrial output to a great military buildup (and a costly and unwinnable space race with the U.S.), only to find that most of their military might was needed just to keep their own people and satellite nations from rebelling. The Soviets had some of the best military hardware in their day, but the average Soviet citizen had barely been able to put bread on the table. When the Soviet Union crumbled, its downfall was mostly due to economic forces and internal social unrest.

The Chinese knew the West would not threaten them as long as they made no overtly aggressive moves, so they devoted their industry to the production of goods the rest of the world wanted to buy. The huge profits that resulted from an overwhelmingly favorable balance of trade provided plenty of money for their own military buildup, with a little left over to improve the lot of their own citizens. The standard of living for the average Chinese had improved dramatically over the past fifty years, enough to keep the Chinese people content with their lot, and therefore happy with their government.

Meanwhile, China jealously guarded its borders and, internally, maintained a rigid adherence to its own brand of Communist society, to the point where Communism attained the status of a religion. The State was God; the State provided for the people, and all were expected to bow to its will. China gave lip-service to freedom of religion, pointing out that Buddhism, Taoism, and many variants of those religions thrived within its borders. But only religions that were historically Chinese were tolerated, and only if the practitioners of those religions acknowledged the supremacy of the state. Western religions were permitted to exist in large cities, but only for the benefit of Westerners who lived, worked, and did business in China. Any Chinese who chose to follow those religions were viewed with suspicion and kept under close watch.

As for Islam, it was the one religion that was not tolerated in China, for the Chinese recognized what the rest of the world did not—Islam, like Chinese Communism, was a religion that had no tolerance for infidels. And, like the Jihad, China’s ultimate objective was to bring all the world into their faith. The leaders of China had a great deal of patience. They knew they were destined for world domination, but they did not expect it to happen for decades or, perhaps, even centuries.

Carla’s father had once expressed the opinion that China posed a far greater danger to the West than the Jihad. The West, he had said, is good at fighting its enemies, but not good at recognizing them as such. The Jihad was an obvious enemy, but most Westerners were far more sanguine about the Chinese. China had the largest population of any nation, the greatest industrial capacity, and—though they seldom made a point of displaying it—the largest military forces in the world. At the moment, the rest of the world was doing exactly what China wanted—pouring their wealth into China in exchange for toys and trinkets, while expending their own military forces and national energies fighting the Jihad. But the day would come when the West and the Jihad would wear each other out with their bloody struggles, and no one would be left to stop the Chinese from doing whatever they wanted to do. Then, Tom Perry had predicted, we might find that we’ve been giving all our attention to the wrong enemy.

Carla wasn’t sure her father’s dire predictions were completely accurate, but she had to admit that too many people in the United States took China too lightly. U.S. corporations seemed to have no qualms about selling sensitive, strategic technology to China. Submarine technology, aircraft technology, missile technology—in her own lifetime, she could recall news stories about each of those things, developed for the U.S. military, that had somehow wound up in Chinese hands.

Perhaps that justified Ian’s refusal to let his own country’s government have this new technology. The United States had not proven itself good at keeping secrets, and perhaps Ian had the right idea: Leave Earth completely, take the technology, and go Out There…

In any case, she was committed. Like it or not, she might soon find herself a citizen of a new nation, one that called the Moon home.

* * *

It had been a long day, and Carla was tired. She groaned when the doorbell rang, but she opened the door and found Lorna standing there with a six-pack of beer in one hand and a bottle of Cabernet in the other. Despite her weariness, Carla had to smile.

“Just what I need…emergency medical supplies.” She stood back and waved Lorna into the living room.

“Exciting day, wasn’t it?”

“You said it. Do I have to tell you my life’s not going to be the same after seeing what’s in Complex D?”

“They’re really something, aren’t they?”

Suddenly, another piece fell into place in Carla’s mind. “Of course. You’re the test pilot! You’ve actually flown them, haven’t you?”

Lorna glowed with pride. “Around the Moon and back, plus a lot of shorter hops before that. You were wondering why I was there amid all the brainy big shots, weren’t you?”

“Well, it did seem strange, but now it makes sense.” She handed a beer to Lorna, then opened the bottle and poured a glass of wine for herself.

Scorning Carla’s tastefully elegant furniture, Lorna sat cross-legged on the living room floor. Shaking her head in resignation, Carla dropped down next to her.

“A toast!” she declared. “To the Moon and beyond!”

“And someday…the stars.” Lorna lifted her drink.

The thought excited Carla, and the day’s stress faded into the background. “Tell me, what was it like?”

“Scary, the first time.” Seeing Carla’s look of disbelief, she held up her hand. “No, I wasn’t afraid for my life. I was afraid I would screw up and break their brand-new spaceship. We had an ejection seat system rigged for the test flights—good old Martin-Baker Mark 27, just like the Air Force uses. But I didn’t want to come back riding a parachute and then see Ian’s face as he looked at the hole in the ground where Wanderer hit.

“Ian wanted to go along on some of the early flights, but Jaronski, O’Hara, and Bender practically sat on him. I’m expendable, Ian’s not. If I made a smoking hole in the desert, at least he’d be able to pick up the pieces and give it another try. So, instead, for the first orbital flight, I went up with Tom Sakura, one of the engineers. I’d been practically living with Wanderer for months by then. She was an old friend, and she didn’t let me down.

“After three trials, they couldn’t hold Ian back. He went up with me, and we took her all the way up to high orbit. After that, he agreed to stay on the ground for a while, but since then, I’ve done three more flights, including one with Tom Sakura where we went around the Moon. We got some great images of the far side.

“We didn’t want to try for a Moon landing until Starfire was finished. If we get in trouble up there, Ian can send Wanderer to the rescue, and that’s a realistic scenario. Six hours to the Moon with the drive flat out. Six hours! Acceleration halfway there, braking the rest of the way. The old Apollo missions used to take days to get there because chemical rocket engines are only good for a few minutes of burn time.

“Anyway, we plan to put her down on Luna right near the Sea of Tranquility…you know, where Armstrong first landed back in 1969. I’ll bring you back a Moon rock if I can keep the scientists from grabbing them all.”

“Wow…” Carla was almost speechless with wonder.

“Hey, I could tell you these stories for the next three days, but I’ll never do them justice. You have to go up yourself. Tell Ian it’ll help you understand the project. I’m sure he’ll let you go. Believe me, it won’t be a scary ride—not nearly as bad as the Rapier.”

Lorna had taken Carla up in the little sport jet she’d bought for herself. Technically, the Rapier was an experimental craft, but the manufacturer was turning out a dozen or so each year. Other than being unarmed and subsonic, it was the closest thing to a two-seat fighter jet. Carla had dared to ask Lorna what it was like to be a fighter pilot and had come away from the demonstration with shaky knees, white knuckles, and a queasy lack of appetite that lasted several hours.

“I certainly hope not,” Carla said, “but I think I’m going to be busy on the ground for a while. My head is still spinning, and I have a lot of catching up to do. You and the others have been working on this for a long time, but I just got the big picture this morning. I’m going to need a real education before I can do the job Ian’s given me.”

“Talk to Mike,” Lorna advised. “He’s the one who knows everything about the project and the people involved. Me, I’ve mostly got the ships to deal with—that’s easy. You have to deal with the people, and I don’t envy you.”

“Some are easier than others,” Carla admitted. “You mentioned Charlie Bender and, frankly, he gives me the creeps.”

“Charlie’s okay,” Lorna said. “He’s just a lot more focused than most people you’ll encounter, and probably more…willing to do certain things to ensure the success of the project. But what he does for us is nothing much compared to what the government had him doing years ago. Ian told me he’s giving you access to everyone’s background files. Until now, only Charlie, Ian, and I have seen those because we’re the ones most concerned with security. Ask Mike for Charlie’s file. You might come away with a better impression of him, especially when you figure out why he’s not working for the government anymore.”

Lorna downed the last of her beer, then opened another one. They talked about the others in the Alpha group: Sarah Wilkins, a brilliant physician and surgeon, who’d lost her position at a major teaching hospital (and nearly her license to practice medicine) because she’d refused to abort a healthy, viable, nearly full-term fetus for a congressman’s girlfriend—a married congressman’s girlfriend. “It’s not that I’m pro-life,” she’d told Ian in her interview for the position she now held. “I’m just anti-murder.”

Then there was Alan Jaronski. Lorna maintained that if you looked up the word “egotist” in the dictionary, you’d find his picture. He seemed to think the universe was created for his personal benefit so he could study and unravel its mysteries, and other people existed solely to help him do that. Carla smiled at Lorna’s description, but she knew Jaronski had good reason for his enlarged ego. He was a genius, and without his work, there would be no spaceships and no chance for a colony on the Moon. But in his personal life, Jaronski didn’t seem to have much in the way of common sense or the organizational skills to keep his checkbook balanced. His lack of political and social skills would have practically guaranteed that—had Ian not rescued him—he would have ended up teaching elementary physics at a second-rate university, while less-intelligent individuals walked all over him and took credit for his work.

As for Mick O’Hara, Lorna described him as a sweetie, a guy who just loved to solve people’s problems—engineering problems, of course. But then, in Mick’s view, all of life was a series of engineering problems. He was a brilliant engineer, but unlike Jaronski, he didn’t need an ego massage to bring out his best work. All he needed was a challenge, and there were plenty of those in the project.

Finally, they talked about Ian. He was the glue that held the unlikely crew together, inspired them with his vision, and led them to its fulfillment. He was a natural leader. If he’d chosen a military career, Lorna was certain he would have been a George Patton or maybe a Lord Nelson. Carla had known him for some time, but until she joined the Institute, she’d never really seen him in action. Now, she had to admit that Lorna was right.

They talked for a long time but, eventually, the conversation wound down. Carla sipped her wine and, for a while, neither of them said anything.

Finally, Lorna got to her feet. “I guess I’d better get going; we’ve both got busy days tomorrow. I’ve got to meet with the engineers on the final modifications for Starsong to get her ready for the big trip next week, and you, dear girl, have got to start greasing the wheels of progress. Glad to have you on the team.”

Carla walked her to the door. It had been a nice closing for an exciting day, but she was tired and wanted to get to bed. When they got to the door, Lorna stopped and turned to face her.

“Actually, I didn’t come here to tell you my space cadet stories or gossip about the others. There’s one person we haven’t talked about…and you haven’t seen any of those background files yet.”

“I’m not sure I want to. I’d feel awfully snoopy reading a file like that. Especially a file on somebody I know.”

“No, Carla, Ian is right! You should read those files. Ian expects you to be a leader in this group, and you need to know as much as you can about the people you’ll be leading. I’ve read your file, and believe me, it’s tame compared to, say, Charlie Bender’s. But…”

“What is it? What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, really…uh…it’s just that there’s something in my file, something I thought I’d better tell you about before you read it on a computer screen or have Mike’s little green lizard tell you about in his sweet, logical, artificially intelligent voice.”

“We all have ghosts in our past, kiddo. Lord knows, enough of mine are probably in those files. I can’t imagine anything being bad enough that it would affect our friendship.”

“This isn’t in my past. It’s now. It’s something that will affect our friendship.”

“Look, girl, if you don’t want me to look at the file—”

“No, that’s not it. This is something you should know anyway. I kind of thought you might have suspected by now, but you’ve never given any indication you have.” She looked straight into Carla’s eyes. “You see, I’m one of those women who isn’t much interested in men. In fact, I much prefer the company of other women…if you know what I mean.”

Carla counted a few gays among her old New York crowd; she had learned not to judge people on their sexual preferences. Her first reaction was to brush it aside. “Is that all?” she asked with a smile.

“No. That’s not all,” Lorna said. “I love you.” She bent over and gave Carla a kiss on the cheek. “Gotta go,” she said and headed out the door.

Carla was stunned. Lorna was halfway to the street before she managed to say anything. “Hey! Are you going to just walk away, after telling me that?”

Lorna turned, with a sad smile on her face. “Well, I had to tell you, but it’s pretty obvious you’re straight. I mean, hey, all those men in your life…”

Carla winced, realizing for the first time just what sort of information might be in her file. “But…it doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends,” she protested, thinking as she did so how often she had used that same line to fend off men who didn’t interest her sexually. “Anyway, if you’re going to steal a kiss, you could at least make it a good one.” That should make her feel a little better, Carla thought, then realized what she’d just said.

“Okay,” Lorna said easily. She walked back up the sidewalk and took Carla in her arms. This time, the kiss was on the lips and lasted a long time. Finally, she broke away and headed back down the walk, leaving Carla a bit lightheaded.

Most men I’ve known don’t kiss that well. I enjoyed that a whole lot more than I should have. She realized she was dead tired—too tired to sort out her emotions. She closed the door and headed wearily off to bed, thinking, once again, it had been a hell of a day…

* * * * *

Chapter Seven

March

“Iron Mike”

“Come in, Carla,” Ian said, with a smile. “What’s on your mind?”

Carla thought he looked as though whatever she had to say was the most important thing he would hear that day. But then, Ian always looked that way. It was one of the reasons his people felt they could talk to him. “I’ve just got a silly question or two.”

“There are no silly questions,” he said, “only dumb answers. I’ve got a few of those, but I’ll try to give you an intelligent response. If I can’t, we’ll ask Mike.”

“Well,” she began, “a few years ago, I took a business trip to Tacoma for a meeting at Boeing. They were a client at the time. They took us on a tour of the assembly building where they build the big 977 transports.”

“I’ve been there. Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. I got the impression that building an aircraft is an enormously complicated task, involving tons of documentation, engineering specifications worked up for the tiniest details, ground testing, flight testing, quality control, and so forth. The kind of job that can keep a few thousand people employed for decades.”

“It can be. So…?”

“So, I got to wondering, how are we building spacecraft with only a few hundred people in the span of…what? Two years?”

Ian chuckled. “Getting nervous now that your flight is on the schedule? You’ve still got close to a month to back out, you know. Actually,” he waved off her protest, “it’s a good question. Have you ever heard of an experimental space vehicle called the Delta Clipper?”

Carla shook her head. “Should I have?”

“No, very few people have. This was back in the early 1990s, when it still looked like the U.S. had a space program. Congress authorized a bid process for contractors to develop and build a re-useable launch vehicle that was easier and cheaper to launch than the space shuttle. The shuttle took six months to prepare for launch, and each launch cost the taxpayers over half a billion dollars. It took a ground crew of thousands to launch the thing and supervise each mission.”

“I seem to recall figures like that being tossed around when Congress decided to kill off NASA,” she said.

“Right. In any case, several contractors went to work on the cheap launch vehicle project, but McDonnell-Douglas took a novel approach. They gave their engineers almost no budget for R&D and told them to design a vehicle that used nothing but existing technology. The result was a prototype for a rocket they designated the Delta Clipper. It could be built for under ten million dollars per unit, cost about a hundred thousand per flight, and required a crew of thirty people to service and launch. It used a modified flight computer from one of the company’s regular airliners for a guidance system. After landing, it could be serviced and prepped for another launch in about seventy-two hours. It used existing rocket engines developed for the space program, and most of its hull components were borrowed from previous aircraft designs. The sub-orbital prototype was test-flown several times, with no major problems. From an engineering standpoint, the project was a huge success.”

“So, what happened to it?”

“Congress didn’t buy it. Another contractor’s design was selected—one that used all new technology, cost fifty times as much, and required much more service and support. Politicians don’t measure success the way engineers do. A project’s value, to a politician, is measured by the size of its budget. Holding the purse strings for a multi-billion dollar project means power. The Delta Clipper was too cheap to be worth much to anyone in Washington. Here’s another example,” he continued. “Have you ever heard of the X-Prize?”

“I think so,” she said. “Something about the first civilian space flight—happened around the turn of the century, if I recall.”

“Right. A group of private investors built a ship that could reach the threshold of space—an altitude of a hundred kilometers. For a while, there was talk about tourist space flights and things like that but then the government clamped down…claimed the technology was too dangerous, could be used for terrorist weapons, and so forth. Point is, that ship was built for about twenty million dollars in less than two years.”

“So, what you’re telling me is…”

“When Boeing builds an aircraft, they have to comply with a library of government regulations. They have to employ dozens of people just to go over the specifications and make sure they are in compliance. If you want the government to buy your aircraft, as in the case of a military design, it’s even worse. Then an army of bureaucrats joins your people and makes sure you attend to every little detail, no matter how much it costs. Compliance with every regulation has to be documented. Several administrative people are needed just to keep up with the documentation.

“We don’t have any such concerns. We build our ships by the Delta Clipper method. Except for the gravity drive technology—which did cost some R&D money—everything in the ships comes from existing technology. We’ve…ah, borrowed a lot of that technology from outside sources, but all of it is tried and proven. Even the fusion power plant was secretly built and tested by the government in 2019.

“We also have an advantage over conventional aircraft builders. We don’t have to rely on wings for lift, we don’t need long runways to take off, and we don’t need to worry about fuel consumption. In other words, we don’t need to fine tune our engineering for maximum performance at minimum weight. Have you ever noticed how thin the skin of an aircraft is?”

“I try not to think about it, especially when I have to fly in one.”

“It’s made that way by design—just strong enough to do the job, with a margin for error. Imagine what kind of problems the engineers faced with the lunar missions back in the sixties. Even the Saturn rocket could only boost so much payload into orbit. The original lunar module had such thin skin, the astronauts had to be careful not to punch a hole in it.

“With our ships, the gravity drive interacts with the basic properties of mass. We can lift even the most massive structures, as long as we have enough energy to feed the drive. With fusion power, that’s not a problem. We can over-engineer the design with a thicker skin and a stronger frame. It actually costs less and takes less time to do it that way—especially when there is nobody looking over your shoulder and forcing you to follow the regulations in a book.”

“Okay,” Carla said. “I understand…I think.”

“You got me started.” He chuckled. “It’s one of my pet subjects—the economics of running a space program without government interference. Of course, I haven’t yet mentioned our other big advantage—Mike.”

“Mike? I know he’s really great when it comes to research, but…” Carla had been using Mike a lot lately, but she realized she still hadn’t seen all he could do.

“It’s not just that. Imagine you are building a spaceship, and you need a device—call it a widget—to perform some function. By traditional methods, you go to an engineer and describe what this widget is supposed to do, and the engineer has to figure out how to make it. There’s research involved, including which materials to use, strength requirements, and so forth. Once that’s done, the engineer comes up with a basic design and, eventually, a working drawing. The design is reviewed, everybody involved signs off on it, then it goes to the machinists who make a prototype.

“We have a fully equipped robotic machine shop in D Complex, but robots have to be programmed and turning working drawings into complex machine tool programming is a big task. If we have to make a lot of widgets, the programs can be used over and over, but the process has to be checked very carefully.

“When the Hubble Space Telescope was put in orbit back in 1990, the scientists got a real shock—its optics wouldn’t focus properly. It seems the main mirror had been ground to the wrong curve. The problem was traced to a programming error in the computer that controlled the grinding process. In other words, the machine ground the mirror perfectly, but to the wrong specifications. That’s the sort of thing you can run into with robot machine tools.

Ian continued, “Let me describe how we do things. Mike is not a traditional computer. He works from a knowledge base that gives him a thorough understanding of all engineering disciplines. Effectively, he knows more about engineering than even a guy like Mick O’Hara, and Mike never forgets anything he’s been taught.

“So, you present your widget request to an engineer, who comes up with a general idea for the design and describes that idea to Mike, who understands not just English but also Engineer Speak. They have a conversation, with the engineer maybe doing rough sketches on an interface pad. Mike then does all the research, develops the design, and produces the working drawings and material specifications in a fraction of the time it would take an engineer to do it. The engineer reviews Mike’s design and makes any necessary changes. Mike then programs the robot tools in the machine shop, and he doesn’t make the kind of mistakes that messed up the Hubble. The machinists get a request for the proper stock to be fed into the robots, and the robots machine the finished parts.

“Your widget might take a couple of weeks to make using the traditional method, depending on how busy the engineers and machinists are. But with Mike in the picture, the engineer can present his idea in the morning, review the working drawings before lunch, and pick up the finished parts the same afternoon.”

“It sounds like we almost don’t need the engineers,” Carla said.

“No, you’re wrong about that. Mike is intelligent, but he’s not creative. We need engineers to identify needs and come up with creative ideas to meet those needs. Besides, you or I might be able to describe something to Mike well enough for him to produce a design, but chances are we wouldn’t know all the parameters Mike needs to do the job right.

“Suppose you ask Mike to design a refrigerator for your kitchen. Mike knows what a refrigerator is—it’s in his knowledge base—so that’s not a problem. But you forget to tell him you intend to install it in an enclosed cabinet, so he doesn’t design a way to vent the excess heat from the coils. Your refrigerator never works properly and soon burns itself out. Or, because you tell Mike you want it to be energy efficient, he decides gold or platinum coils would have better heat-transfer characteristics than copper. You’ll have a very efficient refrigerator, but it will cost a couple of million dollars to make.”

“Ouch!” Carla grimaced. “Does Mike understand project budgets?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t always look for least-cost solutions. He’s been given a general directive that says we want the best solutions, not the cheapest. The engineers, however, do have budgets, and they’ll talk him out of really expensive solutions if a cheaper alternative is possible.”

“Okay, so we need the engineers, but what about the machinists? It sounds like Mike pretty much does their job for them.”

“Their primary responsibilities are to maintain the robot tools and do quality control checks on raw stock and finished work, but we still give them enough work to make sure they stay proficient with regular machine tools. I don’t like putting all the eggs in one basket, even a basket as good as Mike.”

During their first conversation, Carla had been amazed at Mike’s ability to converse in English and retrieve information on demand. She knew he controlled core systems at the Institute such as security, communications, heating, and air conditioning. But, she was beginning to realize, the computer had abilities far beyond what she had imagined and to see why the other members of the Alpha group thought of Mike as a real person.

“Ian,” she asked, “do the engineers and machinists know about Mike?”

“Most of the engineers in Complex D know. It gives Charlie security nightmares, but they have to know to use Mike the way I’ve just described. As for the machinists, the answer is no. They think the engineers are programming the robots, and they don’t need to talk to Mike about anything.”

“I don’t want to take up much of your time,” she said, “but I’d really like to know more about Mike. I’ve never heard of a computer like him, and I suspect that’s because there aren’t any.”

“You’re right. There are no other computers out there that even come close to Mike. Despite all that sophistication, though, the basic software paradigm hasn’t changed. The graphical user interface of today involves a few billion lines of program code, but it is still a task-oriented program written in a high-level computer language, and so is all the add-on software you use with it. It can only perform those tasks that have been programmed into it, and only in the manner prescribed by the programming. There really hasn’t been any new thinking in basic software design for a long time, and with the government screening all new commercial software for compliance with NCSA regulations, I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

“So, your intelligent interface can read a book to you, from a file of the book’s text—which is much more efficient than downloading an audio recording—but it still can’t hold a conversation with you. Oh, there are programs that can fake it by producing pre-programmed speech in response to trigger words, but the computer doesn’t really understand what you are saying. Some sales agent programs on the ’net are so good, you might think you are conversing with a human, and some even provide video animation so you see the ‘person’ you think you are talking to, but, to borrow a phrase from the old science fiction books, there’s no intelligent life there—or, at least, there wasn’t until recently.”

“Mike, you mean.” Carla nodded.

“Yes. Mike works with a totally different paradigm. He still has an operating system, which allows him to interact with servers, personal interfaces, and other standard computer peripheral equipment, but he controls the O/S, rather than letting it control him. That’s why he’s so good at hacking other people’s computers.

“Mike is intelligent. He can hold a conversation, and he does understand what you are saying and what he is saying to you in return. He is the first true artificial intelligence. Mind you, there have been attempts to create AIs in the past. The Japanese worked on it for a decade under something they called the Fifth Generation project, but in the end, they gave up.”

“Why?” Carla asked. “They’re a pretty tenacious bunch. If anyone could do it, I would have thought they could.”

“Their project ended over thirty years ago. At that time, computers didn’t have sufficient brain capacity to handle the software paradigms they tested. In addition, they may have concluded it wasn’t commercially viable. They probably recognized that most corporate executives—the ones who make the purchasing decisions—would never trust their business decisions to a computer. It’s doubtful the business community would have bought into the concept.

“The pure research community, which might have embraced the idea, didn’t have the resources to make it work, and the business community wasn’t interested. So, while simulated intelligence in software is a big hit with the public, the concept of true artificial intelligence sort of fell by the wayside—until about ten years ago, when we resurrected it. We found some really bright, free-thinking computer people, put together a project team, and gave them a task that was monumental in scope, considering it could be stated in just one sentence: Develop a computer system that can speak and understand English and can apply deductive reasoning to solve any problem for which the system has sufficient data in its knowledge base.”

“You’ve used that term a couple of times,” Carla interrupted, “and I’m not sure I know what ‘knowledge base’ means. I remember hearing that the average smart interface pad or phone already has enough storage capacity to hold the entire Library of Congress. I would think that’s more than enough knowledge.”

“No, that’s just a data base. It’s easy to store that kind of information for a human to retrieve and use, but to make it a knowledge base, the computer has to be able to use the data. To an ordinary computer, a printed page is nothing more than a string of codes occupying storage space. It has no meaning to the machine.

“Any computer manufactured in the last four decades or so has more than enough capacity to store a dictionary of ten thousand words and their meanings—more than the average person’s vocabulary. With a typical dictionary program, you speak the word to the computer, and it gives you the definition, but all it is doing is reading the definition listed in the dictionary. It doesn’t really understand the word, and if the meaning isn’t clear to you, the computer can’t help you any further.”

“But some computers can do that,” she protested. “You just tell it to explain, and it gives you the definition in different words.”

“No.” Ian shook his head. “The command ‘explain’ simply directs the computer to search for a synonym—it has a cross-referenced list of synonyms in its index program—and read you the definition for that word. What it can’t do is give you a definition in its own words, based on its understanding of the word in question. Mike, on the other hand, can do that. He not only understands the words but also knows how to construct an intelligent sentence to answer your question.”

“Okay. I’ll buy that, but that still doesn’t tell me what a knowledge base is.”

“Simply put,” he said, “a knowledge base is a collection of information, together with all the rules that relate to the use of that information, stored in a form the computer can interpret. It’s the rules that are the key and putting them in a form the computer can interpret requires an immense amount of computer capacity—orders of magnitude more than the information itself. Most of the rules are based on stimulus and response—a basic principle of human psychology, by the way. Something stimulates Mike, and the rules tell him how to interpret that stimulus as well as how to respond.

“For example, you say, ‘Good morning, Mike,’ and the sound of your voice stimulates him through the audio interface. His rules tell him to first determine the nature of the sounds. He determines they are spoken words, and your use of his name tells him the words are directed at him. Another rule tells him to analyze the voice to determine who is speaking. He would normally parse the words and look up their meanings, but another, overriding rule tells him the first words in a conversation are often null sounds, spoken to call attention to the speaker. He looks in his database of such sounds and finds that ‘good morning’ is exactly that. But it also refers him to another rule, which tells him a response in kind is expected. So, he says, ‘Good morning, Carla’ and waits for you to continue the conversation because another rule tells him it is your turn to speak if you wish to do so.

“Of course, given Mike’s processing speed, all of this analysis happens in nanoseconds, but if he responded that quickly—almost before you finished speaking—you would be startled. Besides, you might have additional words to say and might not like being interrupted, so an overriding rule of conversation tells him to always pause for a certain length of time before replying.”

“Whew!” Carla mused. “All of that for a simple good morning. Do you mean to say someone actually had to program all of those rules into him, using a keyboard or something?”

“No. The most difficult part was programming the basics of the English language—word meaning, syntax, grammar, and so forth. When we first got him to where he could speak with a little bit of intelligence, his voice was totally flat with no intonation, and his word spacing was the same for anything he said. There were no pauses for courtesy or emphasis. His sentence construction—while perfectly correct—was cumbersome and stilted, and his vocabulary was limited. In a sense, he was like a child just learning to talk. We deliberately avoided giving him any of those artificial human speak programs that make an ordinary computer sound like a person, because they are just gimmicks, substitutes for real intelligence. So, initially, he sounded like…well, like a machine.

“But that was a major breakthrough because, from then on, we could program him verbally. We could teach him the rules just like you would teach a child, with one major exception. With Mike, nothing had to be repeated twice. He was, you might say, a very impressionable child.”

“But…” Carla was puzzled. “If he was so impressionable, how did you keep him from picking up all sorts of bad rules from conversations with humans?”

“How would you do that with a child?” Ian asked her.

“Well, a child is taught to listen to its parents, and…oh, I think I see.”

“Right. Mike had a lot of parents—just about everyone involved with the project—but he was also given rules about the heirarchy of those parents. So, if Alan Jaronski tried to give him a rule that conflicted with one I had given him, the good doctor would be politely told to go jump in the nearest lake!”

“I see.” Carla was amused by the image. “Something on the order of ‘That’s not what my Daddy told me…’”

“Exactly. Still, at some point, we had to let him loose to gather knowledge from other sources. We hoped we had given him a good basic education, but, I have to tell you, we were very nervous about it. I spent a lot of time monitoring his learning process, as did all of the other people involved.”

“I can understand that. Even among scientists, there are conflicting theories on just about any subject. But how could he ever deal with something like politics, where everyone has a bias, and the truth, if it exists at all, is buried under tons of spin rhetoric?”

“We gave him a lot of rules to deal with conflicting information. To a conventional computer, everything is either true or false, but Mike has a third category that has proven to be the real key to his value judgments. To him, an item of information is either true, false, or unverified—which means he doesn’t have enough information to decide if it’s true. Initially, most new information he takes in is unverified. If questioned about it, he will report what he has but will tell you it is unverified. If he runs across two conflicting items of information, both will be categorized as unverified until he can find an independent source or some rule in his knowledge base confirming one or the other. He also has rules that let him evaluate the quality of truth—i.e., whether something is true all the time, or only a certain percentage of the time, and so on. He also rates the quality of the logic involved in arriving at a conclusion, as well as the quality of the source of the information. Politicians rate low on his source quality scale, as does the mainstream news media. In other words, we’ve given him a healthy dose of rules for skepticism.”

“Hmmm…you’ve got my curiosity up,” Carla mused. “I wonder what would happen if I tried to discuss politics with Mike.”

Ian hesitated, then gave Carla a serious look. “I wouldn’t recommend it, at least not if you have any illusions left about the American political process. Mike will be happy to discuss political issues with you, and he’ll give you all of the pros and cons—including facts you won’t find published by the media. He’ll even give you his opinion on the subject. But don’t ask him which candidate to vote for in the next election. He’ll probably tell you, ‘None of them.’ If you ask Mike to define ‘politician’ in his own words, he’ll probably come up with something like ‘successful liar,’ and if you ask him about a particular candidate, he’ll probably tell you things you don’t really want to hear—at least, not if you like that candidate.

“Mike has access to sources of information that go beyond what even the most tenacious newshounds can ferret out. Given the current moral climate in our government, he probably has enough dirt to ruin any major political figure in the country. I have to admit, we aren’t averse to using that information if the need arises. We try not to call attention to ourselves, but if a senator or congressman starts sniffing around…well, a few words in the right place will usually be enough to cause him or her to lose interest in us…”

Carla shivered. “Okay!” she said abruptly. “I don’t think I want to know anything more about that. Sounds more like Charlie Bender’s department, anyway. I guess I won’t be discussing politics with Mike. Daddy always told me never to discuss religion or politics with anyone I wanted to keep as a friend. Hmmm…I suppose you’re going to say I shouldn’t discuss religion with Mike either.”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “In fact, Mike seems to enjoy talking about religion. He certainly knows more about religious history than anyone you are ever likely to encounter. He can quote chapter and verse from the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, or the teachings of Buddha. He can tell you about similarities and differences between the major religions, or anything you want to know about the most obscure belief systems, modern or historical. And,” Ian added with a chuckle, “he can debate religious issues like a Jesuit. He is, after all, a computer, and his logic is downright merciless.”

“Well, then, I expect he must be an atheist,” Carla said, “or, no, maybe just an agnostic—that unverified information business.”

Ian gave her a very strange look. “No,” he said slowly. “Carla, I think you’ll find that Mike believes in God.”

“What!” Carla was stunned. “But how…I mean, what proof is there?”

“Now, Ms. Perry,” Ian said with a grin, “I seem to recall you are a good Catholic girl, with a good Catholic education. Are you saying you don’t believe in God?”

“Of course, I do,” she said defensively. “But that’s a matter of faith. I can’t prove God exists. Nobody can.”

Ian chuckled. “I know a few Jesuits who might argue with you about that, but keep in mind that Mike doesn’t deal only in absolutes. His rules allow him to make judgments based on a preponderance of evidence, just like humans do. What’s more, we equipped him with some of the best philosophical rules we could come up with. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“Ummm…I think so. Isn’t that the principle that says that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one?”

“Right. Occam’s Razor is often used by atheists to deny the existence of God. But Mike, having studied the matter, used it to reach the opposite conclusion. He maintains that God is the simplest explanation for how the universe came to be as it is.”

Carla was dumbfounded. When she didn’t say anything, Ian continued.

“Mike’s reasoning goes something like this: It is possible for chaos to exist—scientists have seen it at the basic subatomic level. Quantum theory depends on it. So, why isn’t the entire universe chaotic?

“Answer: Because there are rules—laws of physics, and so forth—that keep chaos in check. Rules imply intelligence. Therefore, there is a God—defined as an entity intelligent enough to make the rules and powerful enough to put them in place. It’s really the old intelligent design theory, but scientifically supported and logically examined. And according to Mike, while it still can’t be proven, it’s the simplest explanation out there and, therefore, the one that best satisfies Occam’s Razor.”

“As simple as that?” Carla asked in a small voice.

“No, it’s not really that simple. Mike has approached the problem from a number of different angles and applied all the logic at his disposal, and he can give you dozens of arguments on the subject, but always with the same conclusion. God exists!

“But hey, don’t take my word for it. Ask him sometime—only be prepared for a long conversation. And, by the way, if you start to discuss the nature of God with him, you will run into his unverified information block. He can quote what any of the published theologians have said, but he’ll admit that he doesn’t have enough verified information to reach a conclusion. He’ll still insist that God exists, however.

“You know—” Ian smiled at the thought, “—when Mike first stated that conclusion, Jaronski went right up the wall. Alan is a dyed-in-the-wool atheist—or at least agnostic if you want to be charitable—and he swore there had to be a flaw in Mike’s programming. He spent about two weeks arguing with Mike and trying to find that flaw. In the end, he gave up and went away, muttering to himself. Now, he refuses to discuss the subject with anyone, and especially not with Mike.”

“Dr. Jaronski doesn’t strike me as one who likes to admit he’s wrong about anything. I’m surprised he hasn’t given up using Mike altogether.”

“He can’t do that,” Ian said. “On any other topic, he considers Mike the only person around here intelligent enough to be worth talking to. And, I have to admit, when the two of them get going on quantum theory or some such subject, the conversation quickly goes beyond the understanding of us mere mortals. For all his personality faults, Alan is probably the most knowledgeable person on Earth in that field.”

“Wow.” Carla shook her head. “Talk about strange bedfellows. A computer that believes in God and a scientist who doesn’t. Well, I think I’ve had about all my poor brain can absorb today. I can see I’m going to have to get to know Mike a lot better. Who knows, maybe he’ll even convince me to start going to church again.”

“He may at that,” Ian agreed. “But getting back to your original question, have I told you what you needed to know?”

“Well, maybe not all I’ll ever need to know, but all I can handle for one day,” she said with a smile.

“Fine. It’s almost quitting time, anyway. How about having dinner with me tonight? I’ll even cook.”

Carla smiled. Cooking was more than a hobby with Ian; it was a passion—perhaps the only one he found time for outside of work. In fact, he was an excellent cook, but even if he weren’t, he was an attractive man. Carla had been more or less hoping to spend more time with him since she’d arrived the previous year, but both of them had been so busy it just hadn’t happened.

“Sure. I’ll even bring the wine.”

“It’ll have to be late, though, say around eight o’clock. I’ve got a Far East conference call at seven.”

“Okay, but I’ll warn you—by that time, I expect to be very hungry.”

* * *

Despite the bravado of his lecture to Carla, Ian was troubled. The project was eating more money than anticipated, and some of his backers were wavering. Of course, none of them knew what they were really funding. As far as they were concerned, the Wanderer Project was just a cheap launch vehicle that could get moderately heavy payloads into orbit at low cost. They—mostly foreign corporations—also understood the necessity of not mentioning the project to the U.S. government, which was rather paranoid about anything involving space. The U.S. still launched more military and other government agency satellites than any other nation, but U.S. corporations wanting to put up a privately-owned communications bird needed to talk to the French, the Japanese, or the Chinese. The Russians had begun to lose their once-renowned space capabilities after the second Soviet economic collapse.

Only one of Ian’s backers knew the Institute was building a launch vehicle in the U.S. Most of them assumed Ian’s launch facility would be in some third-world nation, where national and local governments could be convinced to ask no questions, provided certain monies were deposited in the right places.

The one backer who knew the truth was Shoji Tanaka, CEO of Dai-Hansu Corporation, with whom Ian was now speaking via an encrypted video link—a link arranged by Mike that did not use U.S. government-approved encryption algorithms.

The old Japanese was seated on the floor of his traditional meeting chamber, looking for all the world like a Shogun of old, but the camera at his end had been carefully placed at his eye level, indicating a meeting of equals. Ian, mindful of such subtleties, was seated in a comfortable armchair with no desk in front of him. His camera had also been placed carefully at eye level. It was early morning in Tokyo, evening in California.

“Ohayo gozaimas, Tanaka-san,” he said in perfect Japanese, with a slight bow of his head.

“Good evening, my friend,” Tanaka replied in perfect English, raising his hand in a very Western-style greeting. It was a game they always played, each trying to outdo the other in courtesy and deference. “I trust the latest shipments were satisfactory?”

“Hai! Domo arigato, Gozaimas.”

“Please, let us speak English this time. My mastery of your language is in need of improvement, and I welcome any opportunity to practice. You, of course, speak Japanese perfectly and have no need of practice.”

It was more of the game, but Ian conceded. “Of course. As for the shipment, my engineers were delighted with the quality of the castings and the machine work.”

“You honor us, my friend. How is your project progressing?”

This was a subtle rebuke. Tanaka would not have asked about progress unless he was concerned by the lack of it.

“There have been some delays—a few engineering problems that needed to be solved. These have been dealt with, and we are moving forward. I am certain your people could have done the job more efficiently, but overall, I am satisfied. We anticipated such things might happen.” In other words, shit happens, we’ve got it under control, and your people couldn’t have done any better.

“I am pleased to hear that. I trust there are no financial impediments?” Why is it costing so much?

“One of our European subcontractors had supply difficulties, and we were forced to renegotiate a contract. This is costing us more than expected, but with your continued support, I expect we will be able to complete the project as planned.” Your decision to drive the German conglomerate out of the avionics market caused us problems. I presume you plan to compensate us for that.

“Of course, you have my support, my friend. But I need to ask a personal favor of you.”

Ian was careful not to react, but alarm bells were ringing in his head. “Personal favor” had an entirely different meaning in such a context. If he granted Tanaka’s favor, he could probably write his own check in terms of anything Tanaka could supply. For that reason, Ian would have to be careful about granting it. Tanaka would have a hidden agenda.

“Of course, my friend…if it is within my power, that is.” Make your pitch, and I’ll think about it.

“I have a grandson who has recently earned his doctorate in engineering—a brilliant young man—and I would like very much to have him working for Dai-Hansu. But he has the impatience of youth, and we are a very traditional company. His advancement here would be slow, no matter how brilliant his work. I thought, perhaps, he might have a greater opportunity working for you, perhaps on the project we have been discussing…”

Ian was surprised. It sounded very reasonable, particularly from a Western viewpoint. Dai-Hansu was run in the traditional Japanese way, which meant that every employee—even the CEO’s grandson—was expected to pay his dues by slowly working his way up the ladder. There were no fast tracks as Westerners understood them. But Tanaka, for all his understanding of Western ways, was not a Westerner, so there had to be another agenda there. Ian’s first thought was that the grandson would give Tanaka an information pipeline into the project, something Ian wasn’t willing to do. Still, the project was thoroughly compartmentalized, which meant Ian could probably control the effectiveness of that pipeline while still granting Tanaka’s favor. And he did need Tanaka’s support, perhaps far more than the other guessed.

“Is that all?” Ian asked, putting on his best naïve Westerner look. “Consider it done…”

* * *

“Ms. Perry? I have a message for you…Ms. Perry?”

Carla came awake slowly, and it took her a moment to recognize Mike’s voice. It took her another moment to realize she was not in her own apartment. Ian stirred sleepily beside her under the sheets, and memories of the night before came flooding back. All things considered, it had been quite an evening, but she was flustered that the computer knew where to find her. She shot a glance at the interface in Ian’s bedroom and noted Mike’s lizard avatar was not on the screen and the videocam indicator light wasn’t on. At least Mike wasn’t watching them!

She sat up in bed. “I’m here, Mike. What’s the message?”

“Mr. Bender asked me to locate you and tell you your father is on his way to visit you.”

“What! Where? You mean here?!” It wasn’t a rational thought, but she had a sudden image of her father flinging open the door to Ian’s bedroom. It took her a moment to remember that she was, in fact, thirty-seven years old and no longer had to worry about her father’s reaction to her sex life.

Meanwhile, Mike pondered the meaning of her triple question and, after a two-second delay (an eternity for a computer), decided to simply restate the message in more detail. “Your father crossed into California from Nevada approximately thirty minutes ago, driving a personal vehicle registered in his name. Homeland Security required him to produce his federal Form 10667 travel itinerary at the state line check station. He listed the Institute as his destination. Assuming normal travel time under current highway conditions, he should reach the front gate in approximately two point seven hours, plus or minus twelve minutes. Mr. Bender advised me to tell you that circumstances require him to run a routine security background check, though he does not expect any problems.”

Carla snorted. If Bender didn’t expect problems, he already had run the security check. It was his nature to suspect everyone of being a security risk. And that reminded her…

“Uh, Mike? You didn’t tell Mr. Bender where I am, did you?” she asked in as sweet a voice as she could muster.

“No, Ms. Perry, I—”

“Good! Don’t! That is, I’m sure the director would prefer you didn’t. Goodbye, Mike.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Perry.” The interface went silent.

Carla turned and found Ian grinning at her. “Two point seven hours,” he said. “Guess that means you’ll have time for breakfast…or anything else you might want to do.”

“Now, now,” she replied as she slid out of bed and retrieved her underwear from the floor. “Last night was great, but I’m a firm believer in taking it slow and easy. I’ve got time for a cup of coffee and then I’ve got to get home and make sure the place is presentable.” She leaned in to give him a quick but sincere kiss. “I’ll go get the coffee ready.”

“Hey, Mike can do that,” he called after her, but she was already out the bedroom door.

* * *

Richard Mobley was frustrated. When the DSRI had hired him last December, they’d told him the job would involve mostly routine work—e-mail systems, network maintenance, and so forth. Despite that, he’d managed to find out a few interesting things about the Institute’s computer operations and had eagerly passed them along to his agency contact. He met the contact once a month at a little diner at Lake Isabella, where he “went fishing” on his days off. The meetings were scheduled through casual comments on social media, but he never passed any information to the agency unless it was in person. For some reason, his contact seemed paranoid about the security of any communication on the web. So, Mobley gathered what information he could and stored his reports on a chip to be passed hand to hand at the monthly meetings.

Using a CPU activity monitor, a simple-minded piece of software that wouldn’t be noticed, he had tried to get an idea of the DSRI system’s capacity. Most of the time, he saw nothing unusual, but there were times, often at odd hours when most regular systems were idle, when CPU and I/O numbers went off the scale. Yet a look at the system console revealed no processes running that would account for that activity.

He concluded the Institute’s processors were a lot more powerful than he expected. More importantly, there were processes running that were invisible to him. He should have been able to see process IDs for anything running on the system, whether he had access to them or not. The fact that he couldn’t implied the existence of a serious internal firewall, one that allowed whatever was on the other side free access to all resources on the system but blocked access in the other direction.

His contact was not impressed. “Look, Mr. Mobley,” he’d been told, “leave the analysis to us. Your job is to get us a way into the system and through that firewall. We already know there’s more to it than we can see through the NCSA connection, so we want a way in that isn’t controlled by their network people. We have experts who will do the rest.”

Mobley admitted that he was still working on it, but insisted he was making progress. “Fine, but don’t take too long,” his contact replied. “If we lose patience with you, that fine piece of work you did at your last job could still come back to haunt you.”

At that point, Mobley broke out in a cold sweat. His “fine piece of work” was probably good for at least ten years in a Federal penitentiary.

* * *

“So, what are you going to do, Dad?” Carla’s tone was serious and sober. “You hadn’t planned to retire for a few more years; at least, that’s what you told me last year.”

“You’re right; I hadn’t,” Tom Perry admitted. “Things just didn’t go the way I planned. There was an issue with the school, and I’m done. No more job. Some day, when I’ve had a few beers, I might tell you about it, but for now, let’s just look to the future. I’m happy to see you and really happy to see you doing so well out here. Would never have dreamed you’d find a home—or a place like this—in the middle of a desert.”

Carla smiled. Her father had been here for a few days, and she’d spent most of the time showing him around the Institute. She wished she could show him the Really Good Stuff, but Charlie Bender had thoroughly impressed the need for security into her since she’d joined the project. Still, she’d been happy to show him everything else, with a constant narrative on her role in keeping it all running. It took two days before she finally started to wonder about him. He told her he had retired but hadn’t given any explanation. She was starting to get concerned.

“OK…the immediate future.” She was serious once again. “Back to my question, what are you going to do? And why do you need to go back home so soon?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m selling the house.”

“What?” Carla was stunned. The comfortable, old, suburban home where she had grown up was like a monument in her mind. It was tied to all her memories of her mother. “Why are you doing that? If it’s a question of money…”

“No…well, yes and no. The mortgage is paid off, but the taxes have tripled since New Jersey passed the so-called Fair Land Use Law. If you live in a zero-lot-line, 1000-square foot condo and share walls with your neighbors, you only pay the regular property tax—high enough, higher than most other states. But if you live in a single-family home on half an acre with a little bit of lawn on all sides…well, that’s not Fair Land Use according to the state. Heck, they could build three of those condos and get three times the taxes on that land, so that’s what you have to pay.”

“So, pay it,” she told him. “You can afford it, or I can if it means keeping the house.”

“It’s not just that. The ‘land vultures’—developers who have paid off the right politicians—are circling. They keep hitting me with code violations. It’s a fifty-year-old house that doesn’t meet a lot of their present-day building codes. To do all the things they want done, I’d have to take a bulldozer to the house and build a new one. There used to be ‘grandfather clauses’ in those codes, but somehow they got removed. What they want me to do is sell the place to one of those developers—nobody else will buy it under the circumstances—who will take a bulldozer to it and build condos for cheap and sell them at outrageous prices. Jersey has the highest population density of any state. There’s always a demand for more housing.”

Carla was shocked. She’d been so happy in her own world out here; she had no idea about the problems her father faced.

“So,” he continued, “I’m going to sell the house, get rid of a lot of stuff, and move what’s left into storage, especially some mementos you might want to have. I’ve already lined up a little apartment on a short-term lease, and I’m on the waiting list for several of those Senior Citizen Community developments in Ocean County near the shore. They’re all full, of course, but people die, and space becomes available. That’s why they have waiting lists.”

Carla felt sick. The thought of her father, all alone in one of those communities, just one step away from a nursing home, was too much.

“Dad…before you commit to anything like this, please…please consider coming out here to live with me. I’ve got a place here that’s like a luxury condo back in Jersey. Nobody cares how much space you take up out here in the desert. As long as we don’t run afoul of the environmental people, we can spread out as much as we like. I’ve got a three-bedroom, three-bath place that’s close to 3000 square feet. You can move in here and bring all that stuff from storage with you. Please…I really want to have you out here. Besides, families out here send their kids to school by bus—a forty-mile trip, and I’ve been meaning to talk to Ian about setting up a school facility here. Maybe you can get involved with that.”

“You still know how to push my buttons,” he chuckled. “Just like your mother. Well…OK, honey, I’ll think about it. No promises, but I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I’ve still got to go back there and sell the house before they start fining me for all those code violations. I’ll come back in a few weeks, and we’ll figure it out then.”

* * *

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector was tired, hot, and thirsty. He had come all the way out here for a routine inspection without realizing how big the Deep Space Research Institute’s facilities were. What’s more, this Bender person—some kind of low-level administrative type—absolutely insisted on showing him every lab, maintenance shop, broom closet, and conference room in the place. They had walked at least ten miles, or so it seemed.

And everything was perfectly in order. Oh, there were a few minor items—a paint storage room with a fire extinguisher that needed to be recharged, a lavatory with a broken toilet seat. Bender had been upset over such minor violations and kept insisting they would be corrected immediately.

They were finished, and the inspector was thinking about the long drive back to L.A. As he walked across the parking lot, he noticed a dirt road that led up and over the sharp ridge behind the single-runway airfield (where Bender had taken him on a drive down the runway, as well as a tour of the small hangar and aircraft maintenance shop).

“Where does that road go?” he asked.

“Out into the desert…oh, hey! Do you want to go out there? We’ve got some automatic remote sites out there, navigation gear for the airfield. The road is almost non-existent once you get over the hill, but I’ll get one of the four-wheel drive vehicles.” Bender sounded cheerfully enthusiastic.

“No, I—”

“Hey, it’s no problem. We don’t get out there very often—the stuff is automatic and self-maintaining. We’ll need to start now, though. I don’t want to be out there after dark. We had an FAA inspector go out there to check on an ILS transponder, and a pack of wild dogs came after him. He was lucky to get back alive—got badly chewed up. We’ll be okay as long as we stay near the vehicle.”

“I don’t think I need to go out there,” the inspector insisted. “If the stuff is all automatic, then it isn’t anyone’s assigned workplace, right?”

“Well, no, but—”

“That’s okay, Mr. Bender. You’ve been most helpful, but I need to get started back to L.A. Thank you for your time. We’ll mail you a written report on the inspection. I’m sure you’ll take care of those minor items we talked about.”

Charlie watched him climb into his car and drive away. When the main gate guards notified him the inspector had departed, he keyed his comm interface.

“Mike, tell the people in Complex D the security lockdown is over. Regular traffic to and from the main complex can resume immediately.”

* * *

Carla was nervous. Sitting in the third seat on Starfire’s bridge, she watched Lorna run through the checklist. Rob Giotti, Lorna’s copilot in the right-hand seat, ticked off the checklist items as Lorna, in the left-hand command seat, called them out. Finally, they racked the checklists, and Lorna offered some comments for Carla’s benefit.

“We can get about sixty gees sustained acceleration out of this baby. Wanderer can do better, but she’s a lot less mass to move.

“At sixty gees, you won’t feel much within the field’s inertial frame—meaning anywhere inside the ship. With the internal gravity, the floor will still feel like down, although walking forward will feel a bit like walking uphill while we’re accelerating.

“We’ll use low power on the primary field generators to lift off. The secondaries will be on standby until we’re ready to really head for the sky. At full power, the gravity field could do serious damage to any objects in the area. You’ll notice that tools and equipment have been moved away from the ship…Okay. Time to roll her out.”

The big hangar doors rolled back, revealing the moonlit desert landscape beyond. It was a beautiful, clear night.

Carla didn’t feel any motion, but as she looked through the forward viewport, she could see the change in perspective as Lorna lifted the ship about a meter off the ground and held it there.

“Final security check?” Lorna asked.

“Security sweeps are all clear,” Mike replied. “No surveillance satellites overhead. All uncleared Institute personnel are accounted for. You are clear to lift, Starfire.”

Lorna applied a delicate touch to the controls, and the ship slid forward. Soon, they were well clear of the hangar in an open area with nothing but bare concrete around them—no people, no vehicles. On their first full-power take off with Wanderer, a heavy tractor parked nearby had been sandblasted, its paint nearly scoured off by the dust and sand particles that had been on the concrete apron under the ship. Now, they made sure nothing was nearby, and they always used the same takeoff spot, which had the distinction of being the cleanest patch of concrete in the area.

Lorna applied power to the gravity drive, and Starfire lifted her nose toward the sky. Suddenly, the ground seemed to drop away, but Carla had no sense of movement. The moonlit desert and the horizon seemed to blur, as the gravity field distorted the view to the sides.

After a minute or so, Lorna picked up the narration again. “We’re passing ten thousand meters and moving fast enough for me to get full response from the flight control surfaces if the field drops. They’re useless in space and on the Moon, but in the atmosphere, you can pretty well fly this ship like a conventional aircraft.”

“It’s weird,” Carla said after a moment. “I can see that we’re moving, but I can’t feel anything. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“It did at first. I’ve always been a real seat of the pants pilot, and I had to learn a new set of responses. I have to rely more on visual and instrument indications and less on the feel of it. I also have to watch the instruments to make sure I don’t exceed the stress limits for the ship. Ian wouldn’t be too happy if I ripped her wings off.”

“Neither would I, now that you mention it,” Carla muttered.

“Relax, sweet thing. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Lorna winked. “Passing sixty thousand meters. We’re getting beyond control surface response…we’re almost in space.”

For the next few minutes, Lorna was busy with her instruments, and Carla was left to her own thoughts. Her initial nervousness had subsided, replaced by a feeling of contentment, of being exactly where she wanted to be. She wondered if this was the way Lorna felt whenever she was flying.

Their friendship had pretty much returned to normal, despite Lorna’s dire prediction. There was a difference, though. They enjoyed each other’s company, laughed, talked, and fooled around like a couple of schoolgirls, but there was a subtle sexual tension between them. For a while, they had been afraid to even touch each other, but now, they were at the point where a friendly hug or even a sisterly kiss on the cheek was tolerable. Carla had worried that Lorna might be upset over her developing affair with Ian (Lorna was the only one Carla had told), but Ian was Lorna’s friend as well, and she accepted it gracefully.

Things moved quickly at the Institute, and Carla barely had time to get comfortable with her new job before she found herself buried in the details. She decided Ian’s Delta Clipper analogy was a bit of an oversimplification. Even with Mike’s help, getting three ships built and keeping them operational, while simultaneously planning their new home on the Moon, was an administrative nightmare. Thankfully, there had been no major screw-ups, and she’d dealt with the minor ones easily. The project was on schedule, and she was taking the next step.

Although this was her first trip into space, it was more than a joyride. The mission was a major step forward in Ian’s master plan, and Carla was there to observe and report as Ian’s deputy. The flight was Lorna’s responsibility, and Mick O’Hara was along to supervise the twenty-person work crew on the Moon.

This would be an historic milestone. Their first task would be to bore a couple of shallow tunnels—four meters in diameter and about twenty meters deep, with a smaller cross-tunnel connecting them—into a pre-selected crater wall. Inside those tunnels, they would assemble their living quarters, temporary habitat structures made with components which had already been delivered to the site.

The main reason for putting the habitat inside the tunnels was radiation. Unlike Earth, the Moon had no atmospheric or magnetic shielding against solar radiation. A coronal mass ejection, or CME, from the Sun could deliver a fatal dose in a matter of hours or even minutes depending on the intensity of the storm. Wanderer, Starsong, and Starfire were adequately shielded by their gravity drive fields when under power, but the simplest solution for protecting a large lunar colony would be to build it underground, where solid rock would provide adequate shielding. Starfire would remain on the Moon for the five or six days needed to bore the tunnels and set up the habitat modules in case the Sun started acting up and the crew needed to take shelter.

Once the habitat was in place, the crew would begin working on larger, deeper tunnels, the beginnings of what would eventually become a small underground city, large enough for a few thousand people to live in and work in comfortably. The plasma-cutter boring machines—developed by a British company for deep mining operations on Earth—could cut through lunar rock with amazing speed, extending the tunnels by as much as a meter per hour, and the crew had six of them. Even so, it would take a month for the tunnel complex to reach the minimum size needed for their initial lunar colony—projected to support several hundred people—and probably a year or more to reach the size Ian really wanted. Meanwhile, as quickly as the tunnel sections were cut and sealed off, the construction crew would begin filling them with prefabricated habitat, workspace, laboratory, and environmental equipment modules. The solar energy collectors that would provide power for the habitat modules—and drive the power-hungry plasma cutters—were already in place, having been set up during a previous series of trips.

Starfire, with Carla aboard, would return to Earth as soon as the crew moved into their temporary quarters. The ships would make several trips to bring supplies, and as soon as Starsong was fully operational and ready to join the supply train, the size of the work crew would be increased. But for now, the twenty-one people making the trip with Carla were about to become the first humans to live and work on the Moon.

* * *

“Relax, you’ll be fine. The suit will take care of you. The engineers didn’t cut any corners, and Ian didn’t spare any expense with these babies.”

“I’m okay,” Carla said, but the nervous squeak in her voice betrayed her.

Engineering and construction team A had taken to the bunks to get what sleep they could during the trip out, while team B did onboard equipment checks and other preparatory tasks. As soon as the ship landed at the designated site, A team suited up and went out to begin unloading while B team went off duty to rest. Carla had been on Starfire’s bridge for the whole journey, and Lorna had insisted she take a rest break as well. Eight hours later, the engineering teams had just changed shifts, and Carla was preparing for her first venture onto the lunar surface.

Lorna would be going out on the surface as well, having turned the ship over to Giotti. It was good to finally have a backup pilot, and she was pleased with the way the veteran Navy fighter jock had adapted his skills to space flight. They would need another pilot soon, when Starsong came online, but all potential candidates were still under Charlie Bender’s security microscope.

“Looks good…time to close up.” Lorna reached for her helmet. Copying her actions, with hands that were far less steady, Carla did the same. They locked their helmets in place, then held out their arms for one final inspection by the technicians.

“You’re good to go, Captain…you too, Ms. Perry,” the technician’s voice came through the helmet headsets. “Have a nice time out there.”

The two techs left the compartment and sealed the hatch.

“Compartment sealed. EVA team, final status checks.” The voice on the comm was that of Tom Sakura, Starfire’s engineering officer for this mission.

Lorna checked the suit status indicators on her left sleeve. “Greenwood. I have three green lights.”

“Uh…Perry…me too…uh…three green lights,” Carla said hesitantly.

“Roger that, EVA team. Pressure is coming down. You are clear to go as soon as the hatch indicator shows equalized.”

Thirty minutes later, Carla’s nervousness had vanished, replaced by a feeling of absolute euphoria. She was walking on the Moon! A hundred meters behind her, Starfire’s sleek, white shape gleamed in the sunlight on the floor of the crater. About the same distance ahead of her, the work crew was setting up equipment near the steep ramparts of the crater wall. At her side, Lorna was examining a small rock she had picked up.

“These gloves are good for handling tools and decent-sized objects. I wouldn’t recommend them for picking up a dime from a flat surface, but you’ve got the grabber tool on your belt for stuff like that.”

Carla looked around and noticed several fist-sized rocks littering the area. She bent carefully—still getting used to the slightly restricted mobility the suit imposed—and picked one up. “Do you suppose I could take one of these back with me?” she asked.

“Why not?” Lorna replied. “Take a couple of them. I’m sure Ian would like one. Poor guy wants to come up here so badly, he can probably taste it, but somebody has to make sure everything keeps moving along. The problem with being the boss is that sometimes you have to send others to do what you’d really like to do yourself.”

* * * * *

Chapter Eight

August

Exodus

“All right, guys and gals, settle down.” Mick O’Hara called for attention in the crowded compartment. The little recreation room had been intended for no more than ten or twelve people, but the whole construction crew was crowded into it. Those who had come early grabbed the available chairs. The rest were seated on the floor or standing along the walls. As Mick raised his voice, the chatter died down.

“We’ve reached a milestone. We’re about two days behind schedule, but I’ve spoken to the boss man back on Earth, and he’s willing to write off those two days and let us start fresh from here. I happen to think you’ve all done a helluva job, so I’m declaring a stand-down for tomorrow. Everybody get some rest…because the next day—that’s Monday, for those of you who may have lost track—is moving day.”

Cheers greeted the announcement. It had been a long time since they’d had a day off. Besides, moving day meant there were other benefits coming soon.

“I’m going to do a final inspection tomorrow, but it looks like we’ll finally be getting out of this oversized sardine can and moving into the real moonbase. It’s still pretty bare over there, but Starsong will be arriving on Monday, and Starfire will be here on Wednesday, and this time they won’t just be bringing more work for us. They’re bringing the equipment for the main kitchen, as well as tables, bunks, chairs, and a bunch of other gear designed to make our lives more comfortable and to make the place livable for the people who’ll be coming up here soon. More good news…another ten of those people will be arriving next week. I’m sure you’ll all be happy to have the extra help.

“Except for E section, we’ve finished all the tunneling work. A and B sections—which is where we’ll be living—have been compartmented, sealed, and tested. So, the big job is to get that done for the other three sections, so we can put down the grav plates and make them livable. That’s your priority. As each compartment is sealed off, we’ll extend the environmental systems and power to it. I expect the environment and power teams to stay close behind the structural work. You guys had a break after you got the main plant online, but from now on, you’re going to be busy. When a section gets sealed off and tested, I expect it to be lit up and comfortable within no more than a day or two.

“Carla Perry’s going to be back here in two weeks, looking for a progress report to take back to the director. I want all the tunnel work wrapped up and at least one more section powered up, under gravity, and breathing by then.

“The good news—for some of you—is that when Carla goes back to Earth, I’m going with her. The bad news is that Mr. Jackson here is not going back and will continue to drive you people like galley slaves…”

There were good-natured boos and hisses from the crowd. They were a good bunch, and Mick thought they probably drove themselves harder than any taskmaster might have. Besides, while Carl Jackson, the construction boss, was a competent and dedicated guy, he was also fairly mild in his handling of the crew. He got the job done because people respected him, not because anyone feared him. Mick had no qualms about leaving the project in his hands.

“That about sums it up, people,” Mick concluded. “You all know the plan, so try to keep up with it. Any questions?”

“Sir?” One of the structural gang raised a hand in the back of the room. “Are we gonna unload Starsong inside the bay this time?”

“That’s the plan,” Mick said. “Now that we’ve got it sealed off, and the big doors have passed muster, there’s no reason not to unload the ships inside from now on. It should be a helluva lot easier, not having to work in vacuum and low-gee conditions.”

“Well…that’s true,” the man said, “but I was kinda wondering if, maybe, we should leave the gravity off in there, at least the first couple of times. We’re used to unloading in Moon grav; it’s gonna be a new experience working under air pressure, and maybe we should wait with the gravity until we get used to working inside. Besides, it’ll make it a lot easier to get the heavy cargo sorted out.”

“Good point,” Mick acknowledged. “What do you think, Carl?”

“Sounds good to me, boss, but eventually we’ll want to go to Earth-normal gravity. It shouldn’t be a problem. Hell, they load the ships that way back on Earth, but we probably should take this one step at a time.”

“Okay.” Mick nodded. “That’s how we’ll do it. By the way, folks, the good news is once we move, we’ll have real one-gee in the living quarters—wall to wall, not like this middle of the room setup we have here.”

“Aw, gee,” one of the environmental techs groused. “I was just getting used to falling out of bed every night.”

The comment was greeted with catcalls and laughter, but they understood what Mick was saying. The temporary habitat was made up of cylindrical sections, prefabricated on Earth and assembled in a series of round tunnels they’d dug when they’d first arrived on the Moon. They were barely larger in diameter than the habitat sections themselves.

Unfortunately, the cylindrical shape allowed for installation of gravity plates under the floor down the center of the compartment only. That meant that cabinets, countertops, and bunks along the compartment walls were under slightly less gravity than the center walking-and-working space. In addition, there was a slight downhill effect—things near the walls experienced a tiny, but noticeable, gravitational pull toward the center aisles. This could have unfortunate results if anyone were careless about setting something—like a cup of hot coffee—on a countertop and sleeping in the wall-mounted bunks felt a little like sleeping on a slope. After the first few falls out of bed, most of them managed to find something to stuff under the outside edge of the mattress to tilt it slightly toward the wall.

The main base wouldn’t have that problem. While the major connecting tunnels they had cut were still cylindrical, they were much larger in diameter than the temporary habitat sections. The floor was built halfway up the height of the cylinder, with the space below reserved for power lines, air ducts, and other service facilities. The under-floor gravity plates extended the full width of the chamber, creating a uniform one-gee throughout the passageway. Larger chambers throughout the facility had been cut with regular, vertical walls, so they presented no such problem.

“Hah…you can laugh about it,” Mick said, “but someday this place will be a museum exhibit. It’s the first habitat on the Moon, and it’s been home to us for quite a few months. Let’s not forget that.”

“Yeah,” one of the engineers chimed in with a grin, “and some day in the future, they’re gonna look at it and say, ‘Can you believe people actually lived under these conditions?’”

* * *

Ian Stevens looked around the table. “Okay, people. Are there any questions about Carla’s report?”

“So, we could conceivably depart now, if we had to?” The question came from Charlie Bender.

“Well…” Carla hesitated. “We could go, but we couldn’t stay for long. The tunnels are cut, and four of the five main sections are sealed and under pressure. There’s plenty of living space, and we’ve got the basics in furniture and fixtures, but we haven’t stocked a lot of consumables. I’d say two hundred people could last about a month. Four hundred could last two weeks, and they certainly wouldn’t be comfortable. The engineers say they need another two weeks to get the air plant up to full capacity. The recyclers will support as many as five hundred people, and the same is true for the water recycler. As for the farm tunnels…” She shrugged. “They’ve been cut, Mick’s crews have pulverized enough lunar regolith for dirt, and the lighting is in place, but we haven’t shipped the organic fertilizers yet. That’s bulk stuff, and it will take a few shiploads of nothing but that before we’ll have enough. Figure another three months before we can start planting anything. Say around September.”

Since her original trip, Carla had been to the Moon twice more to check progress. The crew up there was doing well—so much so, that keeping them supplied with construction materials had been a matter of concern.

“That’s long-term stuff,” Charlie pressed. “Assuming we can get the air and water going, all we really need is a stockpile of consumables, right?”

“Is there some reason we need to hurry?” Sarah Wilkins asked.

Bender scowled at her. “Besides the work crew on the Moon, there are over fifty people working in Complex D who have been cleared to the Beta level, plus a hundred more with Gamma level clearance. That’s a hundred and fifty people who could blow us away with a careless word to the wrong person. In addition, there’s probably a hundred more here in the main complex who aren’t involved with the project but are smart enough to figure out that something is going on—that all the supplies and equipment flowing through here aren’t being used to build sandcastles out in the desert. They’re a security risk, too, and I’d hate to see us all get arrested a week before we’re ready to depart.”

“Charlie has a point,” Ian conceded. “The danger of discovery increases every day. Sooner or later, one of our flights is going to be detected or something else will give us away. Suppose the NSA re-tasks a military satellite and gets a look at something we don’t want them to? All they need is a suspicion that something is going on. If they put full-time surveillance on us, we’re in deep trouble. We’ve gotten away with it so far because most of the satellites are tasked for foreign surveillance—mostly watching the Jihad. We have the schedules for all the domestic surveillance birds. The NSA doesn’t like to re-task any of them because it uses up thruster fuel and shortens the satellite’s useful life. But they’d do it in a heartbeat if they had any hint of what’s really going on out here.

“However,” he continued, “we are stockpiling equipment spares and supplies at a site in Australia and another in Mexico. The sites are pretty remote, so we can get in with the ships and make a pickup without being noticed.”

“Why don’t we just pick it all up now? Send the ships to haul it to the Moon?” The question came from Alan Jaronski.

“The ships’ schedules are full just hauling construction supplies and materials. Besides, I don’t want to draw any attention to those remote sites—they’re our lifelines if everything goes to hell in a hurry. As far as the Aussies are concerned, that site is a warehouse for some obscure trading company. There’s nothing there that would connect it to us, and we’ve been careful not to store anything there that might be contraband. The Mexicans have no functioning federal government, and we’ve paid off all the local officials, who probably think we are smuggling drugs or illegal immigrants like everyone else down there. If we start sending strange-looking ships in there to pick up gear, somebody will notice.”

“We need to expedite the air and water facilities,” Mick O’Hara said. “They’re the most critical. Except for a few odds and ends, my guys have got all the equipment and materials they need to finish the job. We can start packing more consumables onto the regular supply runs. Maybe we could even free up a ship for a fertilizer run. Oh, and by the way, Ian, can we start shipping the MIC-77 processors and peripherals up there? We aren’t going to leave Mike behind, and he has to have a place to live.”

“Yes, by all means,” Ian said. “We’re planning to take Mike’s critical infrastructure with us when we go, but I want the backup stuff shipped up there as soon as possible in case we have to leave any non-critical parts behind. Have you been drilling your team on emergency core shutdown and removal?”

“Dr. O’Hara has been most vigilant about that.” The computer spoke for the first time since the meeting opened. “We have gone through four full shutdowns and restarts, with no loss of functionality. We’ve gotten to the point where they can strip me down in about thirty minutes, though putting me back together takes considerably longer. The engineers have taken to calling this the Humpty Dumpty Drill.”

“Good,” Ian said with a smile. “Shutdown and removal is the critical part. They can put you back together at a more leisurely pace on the Moon…even if it takes all the king’s horses to do it.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in eight months,” he concluded, “but we’ve still got a lot of work to do, people. Unless anyone has anything more to add, I suggest we get to it.”

“Uh, Ian…just a question…” The others had already started to get up when Lorna spoke.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?”

“Did I maybe sleep through the meeting where we talked about what we’re going to do once we get there? Once we leave here permanently, that is. I don’t remember ever discussing it, and maybe this isn’t the time, but…” Her voice trailed off.

Lorna knew what Ian’s plan was—she and Charlie Bender had been working on it with him for many months. He’d asked her to raise the issue at this meeting, since he anticipated that some of them might be less than enthusiastic about what he had in mind.

The others turned to look at Ian.

Suddenly, Jaronski gave a short, sharp laugh. “I guess we all assumed Ian had that part figured out. You’re right, we never discussed it. How about it, Ian? I presume I’m going to continue my research, but what else is on the agenda?”

It wasn’t surprising Jaronski hadn’t considered the question until now. As far as he was concerned, nothing other than his research could possibly be that important, and his tone of voice said so. That didn’t bother Ian or the others; they were used to it.

“Well,” Ian began, “eventually, we have to be self-sufficient—not just to survive, but to support that expensive research of yours, Alan. In fact, I expect the venture to be profitable. The Moon doesn’t offer much in the way of resources, but with our ship technology, asteroid mining is a good place to start.”

“We damned well better be self-sufficient.” Bender snorted. “We aren’t likely to be welcome back on Earth, at least not under any terms most of us could live with.” This was another point that Ian, Charlie, and Lorna had discussed, and Charlie was raising it at Ian’s request.

“Why not?” Sarah Wilkins asked, and Carla also gave Charlie a quizzical look. Carla probably knew more about the overall status of the project than anyone in the room, but suddenly, she realized she hadn’t thought beyond its completion—the point where they were ready to set up housekeeping on the Moon.

“Think about it,” Charlie said. “We’ve spent a couple of years keeping this thing secret. We’ve got technology that any government in the world would kill for…and not so they could use it for the peaceful exploration of space. If we told the U.S. government about it tomorrow, all of us would end up in protective custody while the government decided what to do with us. It’s likely none of us would ever go to the Moon, nor would anyone else. They’d probably just shut this place down, take what we’ve already done, and move it to a military development center—Groom Lake, Nevada, for example—to work on weaponizing it.

“Imagine what happens if we go to the Moon and then we tell them, ‘Hey, Uncle Sam, look what we’ve got.’ Next thing we know, they’ll be demanding we return to Earth immediately and turn over everything to the government…and then the same deal, no more Moon trips, et cetera. They’ll seize the DSRI facilities here and freeze all of the Institute’s assets—and maybe our personal assets as well—until such time as we return to Earth and comply with the government’s demands.”

“Well…” Carla said, still processing Charlie’s remarks, “what if we go to the Moon, then tell everybody about it, not just the U.S.? Not the details of the technology, of course, just that we’re on the Moon, and we’ve established an experimental colony to prove that living up there is possible. If we go public with it, the government can’t very well act against us, not with the whole world watching.”

“Sure, they can,” Charlie said, “because we’re Americans, and we violated at least a dozen federal laws to get there. We’ll also have every nation in the world screaming that we have no right to establish a colony because the Moon belongs to everybody. They’ll tell us we have to give our technology to everybody and open our facilities to anyone who wants to come to the Moon and live with us. As for the U.S., they won’t dare take our side, lest they be accused of trying to take over the Moon. Most likely, they’ll declare us traitors, anarchists, who knows what—and put a price on our heads.”

“Hmmm…stop a minute, Charlie, and let’s think about this,” Ian said. “Carla has a point. We probably will have to tell the whole world we’re up there…at least, eventually, once someone discovers we’re there. The way I see it, they can rant and rave all they like, but they won’t be able to do much about it. And if they’re all ranting and raving, pushing their own national agendas, they’ll never agree about what to do with us. Just look at the U.N.—when was the last time those people reached a consensus about anything? Meanwhile, we can just go about our business and try not to antagonize them.”

Lorna nodded. The three of them had discussed this at length and reached the same conclusion, but Charlie was playing devil’s advocate and giving Ian a chance to get the others thinking in the same direction.

“Actually, I figure we’re going to have to declare ourselves a nation in our own right—a sovereign state,” Ian said. “We’ve already decided we don’t want to trust any Earth government with our technology, but we don’t want to look like some radical splinter group, holed up in a bunker on the Moon with a bunch of weapons in our hands and evil in our hearts. If we claim to be an independent nation, with a constitution and all the trappings, we can force them to deal with us on that basis—or we can legitimately refuse to deal with them at all.”

“Hmmph.” Charlie snorted. “With this technology, we would be an instant superpower—with a population of less than five hundred people. That’ll be a hard sell for the rest of the world. What are the chances anyone will recognize our sovereignty over the Moon?”

“The news media will be key, Charlie. You can get people to accept just about anything if you can get the spin going in the right direction. If we are self-sufficient, we’ll be better off if we can get the rest of the world to ignore us or not take us seriously.”

“So, what do we do then?” Wilkins asked. “Try to join the United Nations? That would be consistent with any claim we’d have to sovereign nation status, and it would be the proper thing to do—to show the rest of the world we are civilized people.”

Ian winced. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have any U.N. proponents among the group, but he’d suspected Wilkins might feel that way. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think we could live with the rules the U.N. places on its member nations. You realize the Global Community legislation Congress passed a few years ago was mostly intended to bring the United States in line with U.N. requirements? Without ever going to the people and amending the Constitution, they managed to drastically revise the First Amendment and effectively abolish the Second and Fifth Amendments—all in the name of supplanting individual rights with the U.N.’s cockeyed notion of civilized behavior.

“Just to cite an example, no member nation can restrict immigration in any way—a concept that started with the European Union decades ago—which means you’ve got to accept anyone who shows up on your doorstep as a citizen. I’m sure the Islamic Jihad loves that one, since it has allowed them to build their terror organizations in just about any country they want to take over.

“Here’s another example. Member nations must agree to turn over their citizens for trial by a U.N. tribunal for any alleged crimes committed outside the borders of their own nation. The problem with that one, of course, is that charges can be fabricated against just about anyone, and the results of the trial most often reflect the tribunal members’ feelings about the accused’s country rather than any real evidence. The tribunals operate under rules that are never published and seem to change with the situation. Imagine that we did join the U.N. and then the United States charged us with crimes committed here before we got to the Moon. How would all of you like to face one of those tribunals?

“Oh, and in case you aren’t aware of it, the U.N. charter requires all member nations to turn over any technology that could have military applications to the Peacekeeper Council. I’m sure just about everything we’ve developed would fall into that category. A lot of nations aren’t complying with that part of the charter, but those same nations would demand that we comply with it.

“Then, there’s one of my personal favorites. ‘No member nation shall conduct international trade in any currency not approved by the U.N. or at any exchange rate other than that published by the U.N. Conversely, no member nation may refuse to accept any currency approved by the U.N.’ The U.N. has been hammering U.S. dollars with unfavorable exchange rates for years and promoting the near-worthless currencies of some third-world nations who provide suitable kickbacks to the right U.N. officials. It started out as an attempt to seize control of the global economy, but it degenerated into petty corruption. Imagine that we came up with a Lunar currency that consisted of one-ounce solid gold coins. Based on the gold content, they should be worth about four hundred UND these days, but if the U.N. declared they were worth two cents, that’s what banks would have to offer. Of course, something like that would really screw up their program since it would create an immediate black market in our currency…hmmm…” Ian trailed off, obviously struck by a new idea that needed some thought.

“Okay,” Lorna interrupted, “so we’re going to declare ourselves the Sovereign Nation of the Moon, and we’re not going to join the United Nations. So, what form of government are we going to have?”

Wilkins shot her a quick look—obviously not convinced the ‘join the U.N.’ debate was over yet—but Ian was glad for the change of subject.

“I thought that was understood,” Carla said, with an impish grin. “We’re going to live under the benevolent rule of King Ian the First!”

That produced a round of laughter and brought a sour look to Ian’s face.

“Enough, already!” he said. “I’ll be honest, people. I’ve given that question a lot of thought. I thought about going with pure democracy—everybody gets to vote on everything—but that simply cannot work in a small, closed society, living under the conditions we’ll face. Someone has to be firmly in charge, or we are all going to die up there.

“The truth is, even communism would probably fare better, but that’s a flawed economic concept—it only works for the Chinese because they act like rabid capitalists in their dealings with other nations—and to be honest, I toyed with the idea of a benevolent monarchy. But the problem with most true monarchies is they are hereditary. It only takes one wayward child in the line to bring the whole thing crashing down.

“I think we need a new concept, and I’ve put together some ideas. It’s not really finished, and I hadn’t intended to show it to anyone yet, but since you’ve raised the issue, I might as well put it out for discussion. Mike, please make the ‘Lunar Free State—Preliminary Constitution’ document, and my notes on it, available to the group. I’d like all of you to be prepared to discuss it at the next meeting…”

* * *

The document Ian gave them was more than some ideas, and it wasn’t really preliminary. He had worked long and hard on it, but he hadn’t wanted to put it in front of the entire group until he had done a little prep work because it was sure to encounter opposition. He was right about that, as was obvious at the next meeting, three days later.

“Yes, I’ve read it—five times, in fact.” Sarah Wilkins was boiling. “I couldn’t believe that, after all we’ve done to get ourselves to the Moon, you would actually propose we establish a military dictatorship up there!”

The next regular meeting of the group hadn’t been due for a week, but Sarah had insisted they meet to discuss it now, and Ian had agreed.

“That’s not what it is, Sarah. I think you need to read it through again,” Ian replied.

Wilkins looked ready to jump at him, but Charlie Bender intervened.

“He’s right, Sarah, it’s not. In a military dictatorship, a civilian population is ruled over by a dictator who depends on the military to keep him in power. Under Ian’s plan, there wouldn’t be any civilians. We’d all be part of the military—though in truth, the word military is kind of a misnomer anyway. If I understand this correctly, we’d still be doing our civilian jobs. I’d think of it more like being in the old Boy Scouts back in the twentieth century.

“The Boy Scouts were abolished,” Wilkins retorted, “because they promoted militaristic attitudes in children, just like the old Hitler Youth prior to World War II.”

This time, Carla chimed in, and to Ian’s surprise, she came to Charlie’s defense.

“That’s not true, Sarah, though I know that’s what they teach in schools today. My father’s a teacher, and he did some research on the subject. The Boy Scouts promoted conservation, wilderness camping, nature study, arts, and crafts. In fact, they were environmentalists long before the concept became popular. They weren’t abolished, they just fell out of favor and faded away…and their only fault was that they weren’t in line with politically correct thinking. Among other things, they refused to allow openly gay adults in leadership positions. But they were no more militaristic than, say, a soccer team or a cheerleading squad. In fact, these days, a junior-high soccer team probably operates under far more rigid discipline than any Boy Scout troop ever did.”

“Not the point,” Wilkins insisted. “We’re neither Boy Scouts nor a soccer team—we’re educated adults. In fact, we’ll probably have the most highly-educated population of any nation in history, and you want me to put on a uniform, so I can salute superior officers when I pass them in the hallway!”

“Actually,” Charlie Bender said, “you’ll probably be a superior officer. You’re a department head—probably the equivalent of a colonel. A lot of people will wind up saluting you.”

“Sarah.” Ian finally got a word in. “The truth is, we’re already set up that way. You report to me, and you have people reporting to you. Does it really make a difference whether you call me director or commander? This just formalizes the structure we already have. If you look beyond the uniforms, you’ll see that we won’t be operating much differently than we are now—like a corporation with a broad, but well-defined, purpose.”

“I can’t believe you’re considering this!” Wilkins was still not buying it. “We’re always complaining about the government and the way our freedoms are being eroded. We should be looking at some form of democracy, or at least a representative government.”

“Don’t confuse the terms freedom and democracy,” Ian said. “You can have freedom under a monarchy if there are sufficient controls on the throne. On the other hand, freedom can be suppressed under a representative government if the politicians convince enough people it’s for their own good. Democracy is a great tool for suppressing those whose views don’t agree with those of everyone else. Jefferson wrote about the tyranny of the majority, and that’s why the U.S. had a Bill of Rights. Look at what happened to that idea in recent years.

“On the other hand, we can still have a Bill of Rights, and we will have appropriate checks and balances, which are included in the document I gave you. You’d have seen them if you hadn’t gotten stuck on the military idea. The military organization only has to do with the way we structure our society, and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a good idea. “

“Why?” Carla asked. “I mean, I’m inclined to agree with Sarah, but I’d like to hear why you think this is necessary.”

“To begin with,” Ian said, “we will be living in a very hostile environment, where there is no air, no water, and outside temperatures range from near-absolute zero to several hundred degrees Celsius. A small mistake—failure to properly suit up to go outside, for example—can kill you; and a large mistake—failure to properly maintain a critical piece of equipment—can kill a lot of people, maybe even all of us. Every mission that’s gone up to orbit or beyond—from the earliest Russian and American efforts to the final flights of the space shuttle—was undertaken by people who were intensely trained for it, and every mission was under the command of a military officer. People in a situation like that must perform as a team and accept the authority of whoever is in command.

“We’re not proposing to send a small group of people up there for a short time. We’re planning to take hundreds, perhaps even thousands eventually, to go up there and live permanently. We’ll need to take people who have neither the training nor the discipline to survive on their own, and we won’t have the time or resources to put them all through the kind of intensive training the old-style astronauts went through. We provided training for construction crews that are working there, but we’re talking about everyone, right down to the guy shoveling fertilizer in the farm tunnels. We’ll give them basic training if time permits, but we’ll need a high degree of discipline if we are going to survive. A paramilitary social organization is the best way I can think of to accomplish that.”

“Okay, say for the moment I’m willing to agree,” Carla said. “What I’m really seeing is a Communistic society, despite your earlier comments about communism being flawed. Am I missing something?”

“Actually,” he said, “it’s a socialist system, to the extent that certain necessities of life are provided by the government and shared by all. Communism is really an economic system, and as such, it is flawed. It presumes that everyone’s work is of equal value and, therefore, worthy of equal compensation. Under a communist system, Alan’s work—” he waved a hand in Jaronski’s direction, “—would be worth no more than that of the aforementioned guy shoveling fertilizer, and Alan would be entitled to no more compensation than that individual. Under a system like that, nobody would voluntarily do the difficult, strenuous, or dangerous jobs, nor would anyone put years of study into becoming a scientist or an engineer. Why do that, when you can get the same compensation—both social and monetary—for washing dishes in the chow hall? That’s why Communist societies must operate as totalitarian states—so they can assign people to do the jobs no one else wants to do.”

“Aren’t you proposing to do just that?” Wilkins demanded. “Order people to perform whatever job you want them to do?”

“No, I’m not,” he replied patiently. “No more than a corporation that hires an accountant expects that individual to do accounting. We will operate under a table of organization—the military equivalent of a corporate organization chart—that says we need a certain number of people in each job category. Initially, that will mean everyone keeps the job they already have, here at the Institute. Engineers will work as engineers, maintenance people as maintenance people, medical technicians as medical technicians, and so on. As we bring in new people, we will recruit them specifically for the knowledge and skills needed to fill our T.O. In other words, you don’t get to become a Lunar citizen unless you qualify for a job opening we already have. We will have zero unemployment, but we’ll be in direct violation of the U.N.’s unrestricted immigration rules.

“As for compensation…that’s what the rank structure is about. While all citizens are a necessary part of society, some are more valuable than others due to knowledge, training, or experience. That’s why you, Doctor Wilkins, would—as Charlie pointed out—be entitled to a high officer’s rank. Look at it this way, in Lorna’s former life in the Air Force, pilots were always officers, because of the training and skill required to fly high-performance military aircraft, as well as the danger involved. The aircraft crew chief—the guy responsible for maintaining the aircraft—was typically an experienced non-commissioned officer, but the guy who pumped fuel into the plane was usually a low-ranking airman. Still, pumping that fuel was a critical task. Lorna’s life depended on having it done right.

“Actually, the Air Force—arguably the least military of the U.S. armed services—is probably a good analogy to what I am proposing. That low-ranking technician simply had to know his job and perform it properly when required. Compare that to, say, the Marine Corps, where a similarly low-ranking individual might be expected to make life-or-death, kill-or-no-kill decisions in an instant, under extreme combat conditions. That requires training and discipline orders of magnitude more stringent than the Air Force situation or, for that matter, our situation on the Moon. I am not proposing we try to turn everyone into combat-ready killing machines, but we need people to know their jobs and perform them in an orderly and proficient manner every time…or some of us are going to die up there. It’s that simple.”

Ian looked around the table, trying to judge whether he was making progress with them. Unknown to the other four, he’d started out with two of them on his side. Lorna and Charlie were the only two military veterans in the group, and both agreed with the basic concept. Lorna was skeptical as to whether the motley crew they had could be made to fit into the structure, but Charlie was more optimistic. Having done more than his share of basic military training over the years, he was convinced just about anyone could be trained to the level Ian’s plan required. In his day, he had taken many hopeless cases and turned them into SEALs. Not every Lunar citizen needed to be as gung-ho, but they would need discipline to survive.

Ian was not particularly concerned about Mick O’Hara. The chief engineer was a problem-solver by nature, and his thoughtful look told Ian he was looking for ways to make it work. Ian expected a lot of valuable feedback from him.

Jaronski also wore a thoughtful look, which was an improvement as far as Ian was concerned. Alan had initially been as hostile toward the idea as Wilkins, but Ian’s comments had given him pause as he realized his contribution to the new society ought to earn him a very high place in the structure, perhaps even second-in-command to Ian. In fact, Jaronski was probably the last person in the group Ian would have chosen for command, as he was blind to his own shortcomings, and Ian was content to let him stay that way.

That left Sarah and Carla. Both seemed opposed to the idea, but Carla’s opposition was less emotional and more rational than Wilkins’, and Ian believed he could win her over if he took the time to address her concerns. More importantly, she could then help him convince Sarah. Wilkins might never be happy with the plan, but it was important she at least accept it.

“Okay, I see your point. It’s not Communist in the strictest sense.” Carla took up the crusade again. “But you have to admit there are some extremely socialistic aspects to it, as there are with any military organization.”

“True,” Ian admitted. “The Lunar government—that’s us, people—will be the population’s sole source for the necessities of life, notably food, clothing, and shelter. Initially, at least, we’ll all eat in common dining halls, wear the same clothes—the uniforms that bother Sarah so much—and live in government-supplied quarters. We’ll try to make the food as appetizing as possible, the quarters comfortable, and the uniforms simple and practical, but the fact is, the people won’t have a choice.

“But tell me, Carla, can you think of any form of society—in a hostile environment almost a quarter of a million miles from Earth—under which we would not have to supply those necessities? We’ll be a long way from the nearest fancy restaurant, and it’ll be a long time before we can build a shopping mall up there. People are not going to be able to build their own houses. Eventually, we might build those restaurants and that shopping mall, and we might be able to make upscale housing available for those who want to pay for it, but that’s years down the road. Besides, as Lorna can tell you, on a typical military base, you can buy casual clothing—for off-duty wear—and other luxuries in the military exchange stores, live off-base—subject to some restrictions—and eat in any restaurant you choose, at your own expense, of course. We’re just not going to have those things available on the Moon for a while.

“What you are really talking about is freedom, and that is something that—even here on Earth—you can only enjoy in your leisure time. When you go to work, you voluntarily give up some of that freedom. Your employer tells you when to report, what your duties are, and even what kind of clothing to wear. My intention is for our citizens to have plenty of freedom—as much as any American citizen, and maybe more—when they are off-duty. To that end, there is a Bill of Rights incorporated into that preliminary Lunar Constitution I gave you—it’s part of the document, not an afterthought, as it was with the U.S. Constitution. It even includes some rights that aren’t in the U.S. version—the right to privacy, for example. That could be important since we’ll be living together in such a small community. You need to get past the idea of uniforms, common housing, and community dining and look at that as well.”

“Okay,” Wilkins said, “but you can resign from a job and find another one if the rules aren’t to your liking. How can you resign from this military society you’ve got planned, especially since it will be the only game in town?”

“You’re right, Sarah,” Ian admitted, “but that’s exactly the point. We can’t allow people to go off on their own, and we certainly can’t afford to support anyone who isn’t pulling his or her weight. Our survival will depend on everyone working together as a team. If a person can’t handle a job, we can make provisions for changes in assignment, transfer, or whatever you choose to call it, but we need to make use of each person’s skills somewhere in the organization or boot them out entirely and ship them back to Earth. To that extent, people can resign, but if they do, they give up their citizenship and can’t stay with us any longer.”

“Well,” Carla said, “there are still some things bothering me, but you’ve made a number of points I hadn’t considered. Anyway, let’s talk about another issue.”

“What’s that?”

“You mentioned checks and balances, but I believe people need at least some control over their destiny. Your Constitution specifies only one body elected by the people—the Directorate. It’s about as democratic as can be—every citizen gets to vote for every open seat, every citizen is eligible to be a director, directors are elected for fixed terms, and so forth. But as far as I can see, it hasn’t got much power. It can’t make laws or regulations, can’t really tell the military command structure what to do, can’t even veto an order by the commander in chief. So, what’s the point?”

“The Directorate’s not a legislative body—not intended to be,” Ian said. “When you set up a body whose main purpose is to make laws, you eventually wind up with a quagmire—laws governing things the government has no business making laws about, laws that contradict each other, laws that sometimes don’t even make sense. I wanted to avoid that.

“We’ll have a body of regulations that serve the basic purposes of rule of law. The Constitution is intended to make it difficult to add new regulations or change existing ones, and while the Directorate can’t initiate those changes, they do have to approve them. Notice also that certain changes—anything in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights—can only be changed with the approval of the Directorate and approval of the people by a two-thirds majority. Meanwhile, every action taken, every order issued by a military commander, must fall within the limits set by the Constitution and the common regulations, so those will be the primary checks on the power of the military command structure. It will also provide the basic body of civil and criminal law for the nation. The whole body of regulations will be subject to Constitutional review—that’s the function of the Judge Advocate General, our equivalent to the Supreme Court.

“Note that enforcement of law is a function of the military command structure, but review of the law and of all actions taken to apply or enforce it is a function of the JAG. And notice the JAG does not answer to the commander in chief. It’s a totally independent branch of government, and it’s the one branch that can veto an order by the commander in chief on grounds of constitutionality or violation of regulations.

“In any event,” he continued, “the Directorate has the ultimate power in that it appoints both the commander in chief and the Judge Advocate General and can remove either of them from office if necessary. It also has to approve the promotion of any officers over a certain rank. The Directorate is the review board to which the commander in chief must answer. Granted, we’ve made it rather difficult to remove a C-in-C or JAG from command—it requires an eighty percent vote of the Directorate to do so—but that’s just to promote stability. We don’t want our nation to change leadership on a political whim, but we do have checks and balances in place.”

“My head is spinning,” Carla admitted. “I’ve really got to study this, but I will admit that it sounds a lot more reasonable than I first thought.”

“Well, I’ve still got plenty of doubts,” Wilkins said. “You are telling us how you think this is going to work, but I’m not sure I can see that from reading these documents. I am willing to go back and read them again, but I still don’t like the military organization idea. I presume you aren’t asking us to sign off on this immediately?”

“No, take your time,” Ian said. “We can work on this until we have to announce it to the world, and I hope that won’t be for many months. Until then, nothing is off limits for discussion, and I am taking your comments seriously. Anybody else want to jump in here?”

Lorna and Charlie shook their heads, and Mick O’Hara just shrugged. Alan Jaronski still appeared lost in thought but said nothing.

Ian brought the meeting to a close with a feeling of relief. It hadn’t been as bad as he expected; in fact, it looked as if he was winning them over. In the short term, this wouldn’t be critical. They could initially operate on the Moon as if they were still the Deep Space Research Institute, but, ultimately, it was going to be an issue, and he was glad he had gotten it out in the open—at least with the people he expected to be the leaders in the new order.

The truth was that they could find themselves more than just unwelcome on Earth. They could find themselves at war, a possibility he didn’t like to think about. It might not be a shooting war, but they could find their supply lines with Earth cut off, and starvation was just as fatal as a bullet in the head.

The Chinese had gotten away with it for decades, isolated and spurned by other nations, but they had a billion people, plenty of natural resources, and enough farmland to feed themselves. They also had a few other nations willing to trade with them for the things they couldn’t initially make for themselves. The new Lunar Free State would not be so comfortably situated.

If things got desperate, they did have one thing they could sell. Any nation on Earth would pay a huge price for gravity technology, but that was the one thing they did not want to sell under any circumstances. Ian, Charlie, Lorna, and Mike had worked through the probable consequences. Any scenario that involved one faction getting the technology—whether it be the Western Alliance, the Chinese, or the Islamic Jihad—ended with that faction pretty much taking over the world, no matter how benevolent they professed themselves to be in the beginning. If either the West or the Chinese got the technology, there was the additional possibility of global thermonuclear war, as the have-nots tried to prevent the possessor of the technology from developing it to the point where world domination was possible.

Surprisingly, if both the West and the Chinese got the technology, Mike’s projections showed an even greater chance of nuclear holocaust. At the very least, a new Cold War would ensue—a race to develop military applications, new weapons systems, and so forth.

Of course, if the Islamic Jihad got their hands on it, the result would be anarchy and terror on a scale far beyond anything seen before. With even a crude application of the gravity drive, you could boost a massive object into orbit and let it fall on a major city, an unstoppable man-made meteor as destructive as a nuclear bomb and far easier to build and deliver. Power source? For a short, one-way trip like that, a few hundred automobile batteries wired together would do the job. Guidance? A simple set of controls and one suicidal holy warrior could do it—especially for a target the size of New York, Los Angeles, or London. Life support for the pilot? No need…just put him in a sealed enclosure big enough to hold an hour’s worth of air. Even the re-entry heat that had plagued orbital vehicles since the beginning of the space program would not be a problem since the gravitational propulsion system allowed you to reduce relative velocity to zero before entering the atmosphere. After that, well…you’d build up heat on the long fall to Earth, but not enough to destroy a well-constructed vehicle or kill the occupant. You could probably build the whole thing in a big, steel water tank, pack it with a few tons of ballast to give it plenty of kinetic punch…

Ian shuddered. It had taken him about a minute to come up with the basic design for a weapon of mass destruction, one that could be built from the proverbial common household items if you had the secret of the gravity drive.

No, he told himself, we are going to have to keep that secret.

Even if it kills us.

* * *

“The problem is, you’re thinking like a software geek,” the young woman said, her voice a bit slurred by alcoholic buzz. “Sometimes, you gotta look at the hardware, silly.”

Richard Mobley blinked at her. He couldn’t believe he was in a stupid cowboy bar in the middle of the desert some forty kilometers outside the Institute, trying to seduce this plain-looking, slightly overweight girl. Mobley had kept his alcohol consumption to a minimum, but he wondered if a drink or two might improve her looks and personality. He resisted the temptation; his life might depend on success, and he needed his wits about him.

The agency people had been displeased with his lack of progress, and his last meeting had not gone well. He’d tried to tell them he’d found no evidence of the security firewall they were looking for. They’d practically called him a liar and warned him his time was running out.

He’d cultivated an affair with DSRI network communications technician Sandy Parks for two reasons. Though unattractive, she was an intelligent little geek who really knew her stuff, and (more importantly) she had access to parts of the DSRI systems he knew nothing about. She couldn’t tell him anything about the so-called supercomputer the Institute was supposed to have, but…

“You can’t find this so-called firewall you’re looking for because it’s probably not running on any of the six main servers. If I had to guess, it’s probably running on the cluster controller.”

“The what?”

“The cluster controller, silly, that tricked-out IBM RISC box in the auxiliary server room that’s right under your nose. What do you think controls the servers? You don’t see anything that’s going on there, because the servers have no access to the controller, but it has total access to them.”

“But…what controls the controller?” Mobley asked. “I mean, every piece of hardware has to be under software control. If the servers can’t get to it, then…” He tried to make the question sound casual, but he had a feeling he was getting close to his goal.

“I have no idea,” she replied, and Mobley felt a momentary, crushing disappointment. A dead end. “But,” she continued, “I’m guessing it’s whatever connects to port seven.”

“Huh…?” Hope flared again, and Mobley became very attentive.

“Look, silly—” he really wished she would stop calling him that, “—each of the six servers is connected to a standard broadband port on the controller, but there’s a seventh port, a super-broadband job, and it’s connected to something outside the network. I think it goes to a totally independent system somewhere in the engineering building. Those people have their own IT staff, so we never get involved with it. But if something goes wrong on our end—one of the servers goes down or something—they usually spot it before we do. They can see our whole system from over there, but we can’t see theirs. I figure port seven is the connection.”

“Okay,” he conceded. “But there still has to be a way to get to it. I mean, what if that port goes bad on our end or something?”

“Actually,” she mused, “that did happen once. They called us and asked us to check it out. We can see all the connections through the maintenance port on the backplane of the controller, and they were right, the super-port card was bad. We replaced it.”

“Well…you tested it—after you replaced it, I mean—didn’t you? Could you see the other system then?”

“We could see as far as the port on their end, but they had it in test mode, so all we could do was ping it and make sure the signal was going through both ways. I mean, if it had been in normal operation, sure, I guess we could have seen what’s on the other end. But hey, that’s not our job. The only time we hook up to the maintenance port is when something is wrong with the controller, and that’s only happened once in all the time I’ve been here. We had to get out the manuals just to figure out where the maintenance port was located on the box.”

“Okay…well…I guess that answers my question. And like you say, it’s not my problem anyway.” Mobley again tried to sound casual. “But seriously, you’ve gotta show me this cluster controller machine whenever you get around to my area. I don’t know that much about the hardware—like you say, I’m a software geek—but you make this stuff sound fascinating. Hey! Your drink is empty. Let’s get another round…unless you’d rather go somewhere else…” He gave her a smile that hinted at romantic interest.

* * *

It was mid-winter in the high desert, which meant that nights were bitter cold, even though the days were still reasonably warm. It was just after midnight when Mobley entered the administration building. He’d cultivated the habit of working weird hours on various projects, so the security guard on duty was not surprised to see him. He signed in, then made his way to the auxiliary server room where he normally worked.

His agency contacts had insisted all along that the MIC-77 had to be linked to the Institute’s regular network. Mobley figured they were right, and now he knew how to connect to it.

It had taken time and patience to get that information—time to develop the relationship with Sandy Parks and patience to convince her that he, a reasonably good-looking guy, was interested in her and the work she did. That was done, and he really would be happy to be rid of her and get away from this godforsaken hellhole in the middle of the desert. With luck, it would all be over shortly.

All he needed to do was connect that one, unguarded maintenance port (which the lovestruck little geek had been more than happy to show him) to a fiber-optic line that was normally used for teleconferencing, unencrypted data transfer, and other connections to the outside world via the unsecured web server that went out to the ’net. He knew the line had been monitored by the agency for a long time but had yielded no useful information. Tonight, however, it would provide an unencrypted link to whatever was beyond that troublesome firewall, and the agency was waiting for the connection to be made.

Mobley wasn’t sure what would happen after that. He’d tested the connection a couple of times and found he could connect to the system there, which meant Sandy was right—the big, bad firewall was running on the cluster controller, and he’d gotten past it. But he had been unable to get past some of the security routines on the other end, though he considered himself an expert in that kind of hacking. He’d managed to cover his tracks by using Sandy’s logon and slipping a record into the maintenance log indicating she’d been doing routine port testing on the cluster controller.

But the agency people had assured him they could do it better. They had a system on the other end that could easily get past any lesser security protocols, as long as they didn’t have to deal with the heavily-defended primary firewall. All Mobley had to do was make sure nothing interrupted that connection. He fumbled nervously inside his jacket and found the comforting shape of the little pistol there. Just in case, he thought. He wasn’t exactly sure why he’d made the risky trip to Los Angeles to buy the thing from a very seedy-looking pawnbroker recommended by an old college buddy. But he was a government agent on a covert operation, and somehow, he felt the need to be armed. He opened a drawer in his workstation and took out the cable he’d made for the occasion. After a nervous glance around the room, he headed for the equipment closet.

* * *

Charlie Bender awoke suddenly to the sound of an electronic siren. It was a sound he didn’t associate with his apartment, and it took him a moment to realize it was coming from the computer interface. “Mike!” he yelled. “What’s happening?”

“On your screen!” the computer said. Was it Bender’s imagination or was the computer’s normally emotionless voice just a bit frantic?

He dropped into the chair in front of his desk and looked at the screen. Messages were scrolling by at high speed in multiple dialogue boxes, messages that made little sense to Bender. “Mike! What the hell is that? What are you trying to tell me?”

“I am under attack. Attempts are being made to directly access my archival storage. Some damage to security routines has been sustained. Some data has already been accessed.”

“How? Where?”

“An unauthorized connection at primary network node twelve. Someone has physically connected it to an external line and established a direct link to my backplane.”

Bender ground his teeth. The problem with getting useful, intelligent answers from a computer was that you had to ask exactly the right questions. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Mike, what is the physical location of primary network node twelve?”

“The administration building, auxiliary server room, equipment closet B, as in Bravo.”

Bender snatched up his security radio. “Central security! This is Bender. I need a quick-response team at the administration building—right now! Alert the duty guard. We have a suspected intruder in the vicinity of the auxiliary server room. I’m on my way.”

As he headed out the door, Bender switched his radio to a special channel, one that most other units didn’t have. “Mike, can’t you break that connection?”

“Negative. It is hard-wired directly into the backplane, through a simple web server over which I no longer have control. I have, however, managed to stop some of the penetrators and am launching a counteroffensive. This takes concentration. Don’t bother me.”

That worried Bender a little. Mike could run a major city without working up an electronic sweat. Anything that “took concentration” for him had to be damned serious. He switched comm channels again. “Central security! We’re going to need a computer wizard. Get Vinnie Chandrasekhar out of bed and get him over there, but don’t let him go in until the area is secured.”

“Roger that,” the duty officer acknowledged. “And boss, be aware that the director is also on his way over.”

Of course, Ian would have gotten word from Mike at the same time Bender did. Charlie hoped Stevens wouldn’t go charging in there before the security team cleared the area.

* * *

Almost as soon as he’d made the connection, alarms had gone off in the server room, and for all Mobley knew, the entire building. Then, all the interface terminals in the area had gone dead, their screens totally dark. System status displays on the wall—big plasma screens that were always lit—suddenly showed flashing, red warning messages, indicating all the servers in the room had been abruptly shut down. Something was happening, but he hadn’t really planned beyond this point, and it was too late to think about a getaway now. There was nothing he could do except wait. He pulled out the pistol and crouched behind the low wall of a workstation. He thought he heard a faint noise at the door, as if someone were trying the handle to see if it was locked. Damn! Why hadn’t he locked it, or shoved furniture against it, or something?

He wondered whether his gun was ready to shoot. He had figured out how the cartridges went into the magazine, but wasn’t he supposed to cock it or something? He remembered a scene from a movie in which the hero grasped the back of his gun, pulled back the sliding part on top, and let it snap forward. He decided to try it, and just as he did so, the door burst open, and two security guards charged in, armed with rifles. One went right and the other left, as they zoned the room. Mobley, however, was hiding near the middle, where their zones overlapped.

Too late, he found out it wasn’t a good idea to work the slide of an automatic pistol with one’s finger on the trigger. The gun went off in his hand, pointed in the general direction of the door. Neither guard was hit, and both turned their rifles toward him simultaneously. Mobley’s last thought as a hail of high-velocity projectiles punched through the thin partition and slammed into him was that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.

* * *

Charlie Bender skidded to a stop and jumped out of his vehicle just as the sound of gunfire erupted from the building—one shot, followed by two nearly simultaneous short bursts of fully automatic fire. Damn! he thought, this is going to hell in a hurry. He drew his sidearm as he sprinted past the duty guard, who also had his weapon drawn and ready.

“Third door on the right,” the guard called as he went by. “Our team just went in!”

Bender knew better than to charge in. He stopped short, covered the door with his pistol, and keyed his radio. “Security team, this is Bender. Report status!”

“This is Sergeant Johnson, sir. We are secure in here. Intruder is down.”

He’d expected as much. There was no more gunfire, and the last shots had clearly been bursts from the security team’s M27s. He went inside. “Dead?” he asked, almost casually.

“Yes, sir. He fired at us, and we returned fire. We’ve covered the rest of the room and checked the closets. There’s nobody else.”

“Either of you hit?”

“No, sir.”

“Outside. Cover the door. Nobody gets in, except the director.”

As soon as they were out the door, Bender switched channels again. “Mike, talk to me. What does this connection look like?”

“I don’t know. I have no video capability in that room.”

Charlie found the equipment closet and stepped inside. “Okay, I’m just going to start yanking out cables. Let me know when I hit the right one.”

He looked around quickly. There were a lot of cables in the room, but one of them stood out. While most of them were secured in neat cable runs along the walls, this one trailed across the middle of the floor, from one piece of equipment to another. He grabbed one end, twisted the disconnect sleeve, and yanked it out.

“Connection broken. Security has been restored.”

With a sigh of relief, Bender walked out of the room, only to find Ian Stevens standing over the body of the late Richard Mobley.

“God help us,” Ian said.

“Amen to that.”

* * *

Ian Stevens came right to the point. “So, where did we screw up?”

The entire Alpha group was present, but the question was directed at Charlie Bender.

“Nowhere that I can see. The guy had a deep cover, if it was a cover. My guess is he was exactly what the records say he was—a computer geek. Somehow, he came to the government’s attention, and they recruited him. There was no indication in our background check that he ever worked for any government agency, but he was working for them last night.”

“But why did they plant him on us?” Carla asked. “They must have some suspicions. It sounds like they sent him here just to connect them to Mike. Do they know we’ve been hacking them?”

“I don’t think so,” Ian replied. “I think their computer people applied deductive reasoning. If your systems are being tapped by an incredibly fast, very sophisticated computer, one that can make short work of your best encryption and security algorithms, well…how many MIC-77s are there in the world?”

“Not more than a dozen,” Alan Jaronski said. “But that still gives them only one chance in twelve of picking us.”

“One chance in six.” Ian corrected him. “Remember, we now have two of them.”

“How would they know that?”

“Because we registered it,” Bender said. “In order to build a new home for Mike, we had to buy a lot of very specialized components, including custom-designed chips from the contractors who made the originals for us. Those contractors have to report such sales to the government. The easiest way to avoid attracting any attention was to register another MIC-77 platform. We told them we were working on a new, improved version.”

“But that system’s not operational. In fact, it isn’t even located here,” Alan said.

“They don’t know that!” Bender said. “If they did, we’d be in deep shit. It’s illegal to export the hardware. How do we convince them we didn’t sell it to the Chinese? We sure as hell can’t tell them we sent it to the Moon.”

“This was planned before we set up Mike’s new home,” Ian insisted. “Their guy started working for us over nine months ago. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Our secret is out, and more importantly, we’ve just killed a government agent. Would you like to comment on that, Mr. Bender?”

Charlie sighed. “That’s why I say the guy wasn’t a pro, boss. He was probably just a computer nerd who’d seen too many action movies. He pulled out that pistol—an antique Walther PPK, no less—when two guys with automatic rifles already had him cold. Hell, with the age of the ammo in that thing, it’s amazing it even fired, and my guys wear light body armor. That .380 slug wouldn’t have slowed them down. They reacted the way they were trained; besides, anything else would have left that computer line open. Who knows how much more data they would have gotten?”

“Well, by then it looks like Mike was winning,” Ian replied. “Their system, by the way, was also an MIC-77—commercial model, heavily enhanced but nowhere near Mike in either hardware or software. Unfortunately for them, Mike knows about some BIOS-level back doors our guys designed into the commercial version of the operating software. He had ’em by the chips and was cleaning them out when we finally broke the connection. That’s how we know exactly who they were.

“Fortunately,” he continued, “Mike also did what he was trained to do, or programmed to do, if you prefer. He protected the sensitive data as best he could. It looks like they got none of the critical scientific stuff. Unfortunately, they got our true financials, not the ones we make public, and worse, they got an archive file that contained a draft of the original proposal for the Wanderer project. That stuff was put together long before we built Mike and was not classified Alpha group only, so Mike wasn’t able to protect it as well. It also appears they used a streaming offline archive for whatever they got from Mike, so our hunter-killer programs couldn’t track it down and erase it. Apparently, they learned at least one lesson from a previous encounter with Mike—an encounter they should never have had in the first place.”

Charlie Bender winced and nodded toward Ian, acknowledging the point.

“What about the girl?” Ian asked.

“She’s a wreck,” Bender said, “and from what we’ve been able to determine, she was just a dupe. The bastard seduced her. If you talk to her for five minutes, you’ll figure out that wasn’t hard to do. Anyway, Mike’s looked at everything she’s touched in the two years she’s been here, and she’s clean. Socially challenged and very naïve, maybe, but clean. In fact, Mike says she’s probably one of the best IT techs we’ve got, outside the project team.”

“I guess we’re lucky she wasn’t inside the project team, or we’d be in even worse trouble. Does she know he’s dead?”

“No,” Charlie said. “Nobody does, except three of my security people and the people in this room. She thinks he’s been hauled off to jail by the feds for hacking into a top-secret government project. She’s mostly devastated by the fact that she was used and terrified that we might think she was a willing party.

“You know” —the security chief shook his head slowly—“you can have the best high-tech security systems in the world, but it’s always the human element that bites you in the ass, and more often than not, there’s sex involved. Sorry, chief. I honestly didn’t see this coming, and I should have.”

Ian sighed, then he paused for a long moment and looked around the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, based on the information now in the hands of the U.S. government, Mike predicts an attempt will be made to shut down the Institute and place all of us under arrest sometime in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours. We expect they will send federal agents and local police first, with appropriate arrest warrants. They’ll need at least two days to get those warrants and secure the cooperation of California authorities, but they will be coming. When their first attempt fails—and it will—they’ll probably come back with military forces. They’ll need justification to get Homeland Security to commit those forces, but if we turn them back the first time, they’ll have that justification—enough to trigger a rapid response.

“If they don’t show up in 72 hours, we are going to assume they are planning a military strike from the get-go. It will take them longer to organize it, but we’ll get less warning when they show up, and we won’t be able to hold them off once they reach us. For that reason, we’re planning to have everyone, and everything we can take, out of here before they storm the gates.

“To paraphrase something Sarah said a few months ago, I think our lease here has just expired. It’s time to go…”

* * *

They came just over two days later, a half-dozen federal agents in two black SUVs, accompanied by three California Highway Patrol cars and one CHP panel truck that looked like a SWAT team vehicle. Bringing up the rear was a bus that bore California Department of Corrections markings and could only have been intended to transport prisoners. Assuming the panel truck held a standard deployment team, Charlie Bender estimated there were eighteen law enforcement personnel to deal with. The convoy attempted to drive right through the Institute’s main security checkpoint, and the leading SUV had its tires shredded by traps just inside the gate. Steel barriers popped up out of the pavement in front of them. That brought the procession to a halt.

The guards at the gate were instructed to delay the intruders as long as possible, without using force. They did so, stonewalling the feds while discouraging any aggressive moves with their M27s held at the ready. The feds produced warrants. The guards disputed their authority and refused to lower the barriers. The discussion was still going on when a truckload of Institute security personnel in full battledress arrived and took up prepared defensive positions. The feds and state troopers found themselves looking down the muzzles of SAWs, grenade launchers, and a full combat assortment of light weapons. The gate area had been designed for military defense, and the feds quickly realized their tactical position was not a good one. They began to get nervous and tried to radio for reinforcements, only to find their radio frequencies were being jammed. They tried phones, but their standard cell phones had no service, and their satellite phones could not get uplinks. At that point, the Institute’s jet ’copter arrived, bristling with newly installed weaponry.

At the gate, Sergeant Kowalski was face to face with the head fed, and the big ex-Marine wasn’t giving an inch. “As you can see, sir, today is not a good day to make an unauthorized entry to our installation. My orders are to neutralize any intruders. If you attempt to proceed beyond the barriers, we will open fire, and I can guarantee we will spoil your whole day.”

The fed glanced nervously at the circling chopper and the battle-ready troops dug in beyond the barriers. “Damn it!” he snarled. “I have federal warrants here that supersede any orders you might have. Let us in, or you will face charges, along with the people we’ve come to arrest.”

Kowalski didn’t waver. “What you have there, sir, is a piece of paper I know nothing about and a bunch of people I don’t recognize and am not authorized to admit. You can still turn around and go back to wherever you came from, but that option will expire instantly if one of your people so much as makes an aggressive move with a weapon. Things could get ugly after that. If you have business inside, you can contact the director’s office and make an appointment because that is the only way you will be allowed to enter this facility. Is there any part of that you do not understand…sir?”

“This is going nowhere,” the CHP captain muttered. He motioned to his men, pointed back the way they had come, then got into his car. Without another word, he wheeled around and headed back down the road. The other CHP vehicles followed, trailed by the bus, leaving only the feds standing at the gate.

The agent in charge glared after them angrily, then turned and stalked back to his SUV—the second SUV, since the first was out of commission with four ruined tires.

“Have a nice day, gentlemen,” Kowalski called as they headed out the gate.

* * *

“Nicely done, Charlie,” Ian said with a sigh of relief. “Nobody got hurt, but they’ll be back. Probably with the military next time.”

“No doubt,” Charlie agreed.

“Anyway, you’ve bought us desperately needed time. Mike, keep jamming their communications as long as you can. How much time will that give us?”

“They will reach a public phone in approximately fifteen minutes at their present speed. I suggest we disable cellular and landline phone service in the area. That will require them to drive for approximately thirty-eight minutes more before they will be out of range of my jamming.”

Carla’s jaw dropped. “Can he do that? Knock out the phones, I mean?”

“He wouldn’t have suggested it if he couldn’t,” Ian said. “Do it, Mike.”

“Yes, sir. Assuming worst case for our purposes, they will require at least six hours to organize a more meaningful assault on our defenses. Allow twenty-nine minutes more for the assault force to reach us, assuming use of airborne capability from the nearest military base, and they should arrive no sooner than seven hours and twenty-two minutes from now. This is not an absolute certainty, being based on certain unverifiable assumptions, but the probability is high.”

“Right. Okay, Charlie, you’re in charge of the defenses. Mike, keep up the jamming as long as you can, but I’m ordering O’Hara to start your core shutdown and removal. We need to get your vital parts loaded on the ships ASAP. Carla, how many of the critical people are still here?”

“As of this moment,” Carla consulted her interface pad, “all of the Alpha group except Alan Jaronski are still here. Jaronski and his entire scientific team are on the Moon as of yesterday. All but eight of Mick’s engineers are also on the Moon, and if we can get Mike shut down and packed up within the next hour or so, those eight—and Mick—can leave with Starsong, which is on the field being loaded.

“All of the technical, maintenance, and fabrication people are on the Moon, as well as any administrative people who had project clearance. Sarah wants a couple more hours to get her infirmary packed up, so she’ll have to leave with Starfire, which is inbound now. Wanderer is also inbound and should be here in about an hour. Of course, the flight crews for all three ships are also on our critical personnel list, and we have five remaining ground crew people on that list, but each of them is assigned to one of the ships and will leave with it, since we probably won’t have time for any more round trips to the Moon.”

“No,” Ian agreed. “We won’t.”

“Okay, then. That’s eighteen criticals still here, counting the Alpha group but not counting Lorna and her flight crews. Everybody else is non-essential, but it would be nice to have them with us, or at least some of them.”

“That’s what you and I have to deal with,” Ian said. “We’re supposed to be meeting with everybody in fifteen minutes, so we need to get over to the hangar. Charlie, maintain your security level and keep me posted. Oh, and Charlie—” Ian paused at the office door, “—no heroics. You know too much to let them capture you. I want you to move your command post to D Complex. I’d also like to get all of your security people out with us, if possible, so pull them back to the inner perimeter as soon as the rest of us are there.” He turned and headed out the office door.

“Right, chief. No problem,” Bender said. No problem. All we have to do is hold off Homeland Security for a few hours while you load a bunch of nervous civilians and their gear on the ships.

* * *

The hangar was crowded when Ian and Carla walked in. The only people still on duty were those needed to pack up gear, load, and launch the ships, plus the engineering and IT people involved in Mike’s shutdown. The group in the hangar were the non-criticals of the Institute—good people Ian wanted to take to the Moon if possible, but none who knew the Institute’s secrets. If they had to be left behind, so be it.

They had been told to report to the hangar for an emergency meeting. Those few spouses who weren’t employed by the Institute had also been asked to attend, along with any children over twelve years of age. Parents had been told not to send their children to school, but to send all children under twelve to the Institute’s day care facility instead. In fact, no one had been allowed to leave the Institute complex for the past two days, and many of them were unhappy about it. Some called out questions to Ian as he walked by. Others were more patient and waited to hear what he had to say.

The crowd quieted down as Ian stepped up to the microphone set up at one end of the hangar.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what this is about.” He paused for a moment, realizing he hadn’t really prepared what he was going to say. Better just give it to them straight, he decided. “For the past five years, we have been working on a project which most of you know nothing about. You knew there was some secret work going on in D Complex, and you probably assumed it was a government project.

“It was not a government project. It was a project we were keeping secret from the government and from everybody else for that matter.”

He paused to let that sink in, then continued.

“Most of you are here because you believe in the exploration of space. We offered you a chance to get involved with the ultimate frontier of human endeavor at a time when research in most of the hard physical sciences was being frowned upon, when the government was spending less on space research than at any time since the launch of the first satellites.

“The truth is, we’ve been doing this research on our own, with no government backing whatsoever. And while we may have given you the impression we were only working on solar power, computer technology, and observational astronomy—the projects most of you were working on—the goal of our research was to establish a permanent, self-sufficient community in space. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to reach that goal.”

There was an excited murmur from the crowd. Ian raised his arms to quiet them, then went on.

“For nearly a year, we’ve had fully operational spacecraft, capable of transporting heavy payloads to the Moon and beyond. These ships use technology that was deliberately suppressed by the U.S. government almost a decade ago, as well as some new systems developed right here at the Institute. We have three such ships, and we have been making regular trips to the Moon for the past eight months.”

The announcement produced an instant uproar. Exclamations of disbelief mingled with ragged cheers and shouted questions. Ian stepped back and turned up the volume on the portable P.A. amplifier so he could make himself heard over the commotion.

“I’d like to answer all your questions, but we don’t have time. As I said, we have been keeping our work secret from the government, but the government just found out about it. They are about to make a determined effort to put us out of business, to stop any further trips to the Moon, to put an end to our dream and, probably, to arrest me and most of my top people.”

That shocked the crowd into silence. Ian had their complete attention.

“Three nights ago, an undercover government agent, a computer technician who worked at the Institute, helped the National Security Agency break into our computer systems and obtain information about our secret projects. This morning, the FBI arrived with local police and tried to serve several search and arrest warrants. Our security people turned them away at the gate. We fully expect them to return here with military forces within the next few hours. We hope to not be here when they do.

“We have established a base on the Moon, the beginning of that permanent colony we’ve been striving for. We are loading our three ships for final departure. Many of your friends and co-workers, those who were involved in this project, are already gone—transported to the Moon over the last two days. At this point, I am inviting you to come along with us. You’ve all shared, to some extent, in our dream of space, even though you didn’t know how close we were to realizing that dream. Now’s your chance to be part of it, but you must act quickly.

“No one will fault you if you don’t want to come. Those who join us will be turning their backs on the United States and will probably be regarded as criminals. If you stay here, you’ll be in for some tough questioning by federal officials, but, eventually, they’ll have to let you go because you knew nothing about the crime we were committing. You can tell them we held you against your will when you became aware of it.

“For those of you who still want to pursue the dream of space exploration, you’re welcome to join us. Our present moonbase has the capacity to support any who want to come, though conditions are far from luxurious. I have a lot to do and little time to do it. I’m going to turn you over to Carla Perry, who’ll fill in the rest of the details for any who want to come along.” With that, Ian walked out of the hangar, ignoring shouted questions.

Carla stepped up to the microphone. “Please settle down, people. We don’t have much time, and I’m not going to say anything twice. You are all welcome to come with us, but it will mean living under somewhat harsh conditions, without many of the luxuries we take for granted here. We may not return to Earth for a long time. You may never again get a chance to see relatives and friends you’ve left behind. As Ian just told you, you’ll be giving up your citizenship and may even be subject to criminal charges if you ever return here.

“In order to survive, we will need to run the colony like a military organization. You will have to submit to a spartan lifestyle under the direction of those currently in charge of the Institute. In effect, it will be almost like joining the Army.”

Carla paused for a moment to let her words sink in. The crowd couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing a black jumpsuit with an emblem on the left breast and what appeared to be bars of rank on the shoulders. What’s more, she was wearing an automatic pistol, holstered to a web belt around her waist. The weapon wasn’t loaded—Carla was not a gun person—but Ian had insisted she wear it to help drive home the seriousness of the situation. Ian had been dressed in much the same manner, but his sidearm was loaded. Behind Carla were two security guards wearing similar uniforms, with M27s slung over their shoulders.

“What about the kids?” a woman called out from the crowd. “What about those of us with small children?”

Carla smiled. “Of course, you can bring the children. It is not our intention to break up families, nor do we want to leave anyone behind because of family obligations. The Institute has always tried to provide a good family environment, and that won’t change. In fact, we’ve already transported the families—including children—of those people who were involved in the project. They’re already on the Moon.

“On the other hand, I won’t lie to you,” she said in a more serious tone. “I’ve been to the Moon, and our base is primitive. We will be living in caves cut into the side of a lunar mountain. The caves are sealed air-tight and have lighting and heat, but the walls are bare rock in most places. We’ll be sleeping on military surplus bunks, with folding tables and chairs for furniture. We’ll eat in community dining halls, and you won’t have much choice as to the menu. But we’ve got enough brain power among us to make sure the kids get an excellent education. And they’ll grow up taking part in the greatest adventure of all time—the exploration and development of space.”

“How safe is it?” the woman persisted. “You’re asking us to send our kids to the Moon. Isn’t it a dangerous trip? I can’t risk my kids’ lives like that.”

“I’ve made the trip myself,” Carla said, “four times already, and I’ll be doing it again in a couple of hours. Believe me, it’s safe—as safe as it can be and, probably, safer than a trip on an airliner these days. I don’t know how I can prove that to you…you’re just going to have to trust me. If you can’t do that…well…we’ll be sorry to leave you behind, but that’s how it will have to be. Once we leave here today, we are not coming back.

“We will try to accommodate all of you,” she continued, “but room on the ships is limited. If you decide not to come along, please go home and stay there for the next few hours. Do not wander around the Institute complex, as we will be arming some automatic security systems for the labs, the administration building, and other parts of the grounds. Those systems can be dangerous, but the housing area will be perfectly safe, so stay there. When Homeland Security, the FBI, or whoever shows up, give them your full cooperation. Tell them everything you’ve heard here. You won’t be giving away anything they don’t already know. Now, so we can get organized, any of you who have already decided you don’t want to come with us, please leave. If you aren’t coming with us, I need you to get out of the way of those who want to come. If you aren’t sure yet, stay around; you will need to make a decision soon.”

She waited. In the back of the room, a woman grasped her husband’s arm, and he let her lead him out the door. Another man got up, shaking his head, and gathered up his wife and two teenagers. One of the teenagers, a tall, sandy-haired boy, refused to leave. “I’m going with them,” Carla heard him insist.

She sighed and nodded to one of the security guards. “Take them to the office in the back and let them work it out. If they can’t, I’ll deal with them when I’m done here.”

In the next few minutes, over half the crowd departed. Some looked angry. A few demanded to know why they hadn’t been told. Carla had no time for debate, so she called in more security men and had the noisiest dissidents removed. When the ruckus was over, there were about a hundred people left, including a few parents with teenagers and a few others she knew had younger children. Maybe a hundred and twenty, counting the kids who aren’t here, she thought. The woman who had raised the question about children was still there, with her husband. Well, she thought, at least we should be able to fit them all on the ships, without leaving too much equipment behind.

Carla saw her father standing at the rear of the crowd, a thoughtful look on his face. He’d been back and forth from New Jersey to California several times since he’d first come to see her, and he’d been staying with her for the past month. She was worried about him. He seemed to have lost all sense of purpose since being fired from his teaching job. Maybe, she thought, I can do something about that. The questions about children had given her an idea.

She looked around the hangar at the rest of the people. Some seemed eager to go and waited for her next instructions. Others looked nervous, but determined to go, nonetheless. A few still appeared to be undecided.

“All right, this is it,” she said. “If you want to go with us, you need to go pack your things. Don’t bring any extra clothing, except underwear and children’s clothing. We’ve got uniforms like the one I’m wearing for the adults—including shoes. Just bring underwear, toothbrushes, and toiletries. Don’t bother to bring furniture or appliances; we won’t have room for them. Bring books, research notes, or computer data chips. You can bring a notebook computer or interface pad, but only one per person. Bring personal things like photos, documents, keepsakes. Bring musical instruments or other self-contained entertainment items. Those with children can bring small toys and games. Bring music or video chips. We have almost nothing like that up there now, and we’ll probably want to start a library. Other than that, stop and think, people. Is it a precious item of personal value? Will you have a use for it on the Moon? If so, bring it along. If not, leave it behind. We are putting a limit of twenty-five kilos per person, including each child, for baggage. That’s a hundred kilos for a family of four, and that should be enough for anything important you want to take. We’ll have security people with trucks at the four main intersections in the housing area to transport you and your belongings. They’ve been given strict instructions as to what can be taken along. They’ll have scales to weigh the baggage, so don’t argue with them, or they will leave you and your possessions behind. Are there any questions that can’t wait until later?”

There were questions, and Carla answered them as quickly as possible. No one questioned whether they could live on the Moon. Those who wanted to go seemed willing to take a leap of faith, trusting the Institute’s technology and current leadership. Most of the questions involved “should I bring this or that,” and Carla tried to answer enough to give them a general idea. Finally, she had to cut them off.

“That’s all we have time for. I’ve got to ask you to decide. If you want to come, go home and pack. Be back here with your baggage in less than three hours. Those of you with your own vehicles can load up and drive directly to the D Complex gate, which is just over the hill behind this hangar. We will weigh your belongings there. We need every spare minute to load everything on the ships.”

The crowd began to quickly disperse. Carla jumped down from the stage and walked to the back of the hangar. “Dad,” she called, “I need to talk to you.”

Thomas Perry had been standing in the back of the room, watching intently, but he hadn’t said anything. He turned to his daughter. “Well, honey, I guess this is goodbye, again. Never thought I’d see my little girl going to the Moon, of all places.”

“Dad,” she interrupted, “you’re coming with us. Don’t argue.” She held up a hand to stop his protest, then continued in her soft, sincere voice that reminded him so much of her mother. “We’re taking children to the Moon with us. We’re going to need a good teacher.”

It was really all Perry needed to hear. All things considered, there was nothing left to hold him on Earth. “All you had to do was ask, honey. I’ll go back to the apartment and pack my things. Shouldn’t take long. What about your stuff?”

“Already packed,” she said. “Just the big duffel bag in the hall closet. Wait for me there, and we’ll come back here together. I won’t be long.”

The security guard was beckoning at the back of the hangar. He led Carla to the office and held open the door without a word. She walked in and found the sandy-haired teenager there, alone.

“So, what’s the decision?” she asked.

“I want to go,” the boy said. “My parents and sister don’t. I wouldn’t go with them, so they walked out and left me here.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jason McKenna.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.” The boy looked miserable, but Carla couldn’t be sure whether his misery was remorse over leaving his family or fear he wouldn’t be allowed to go to the Moon.

“Look,” she said, “I can’t let you run off with us without your parents’ permission. I wish I could because I believe you really do want to go, and you’d probably do whatever we ask of you, but I can’t. Go home, talk to them again. If you can get your mother or father to agree, you can go with us, but I need one of them to bring you to D Complex and tell me it’s okay. And if you do come, you’ll need to bring a birth certificate or some other identification. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

She turned to the security guard. “Sergeant, see if you can get this young man a ride back to the housing area.”

* * *

Charlie Bender was busy collecting a few things from his office—mostly mementos of his military service days in happier times before he’d had his falling out with the government. He was stuffing the items into a small bag when one of his people brought the young woman into the room.

“Says she has to speak to you, sir,” the man said.

Bender looked at Sandy Parks and decided she looked even more miserable now than she had a couple of days ago when he’d had her on the hot seat over the Mobley affair. “What do you want, Sandy?”

“Mr. Bender, you people don’t really think I deliberately…did anything to…well, you know…”

“No, we don’t. That’s been settled,” he said. “Not much we can do about it now.”

“Does that mean I can go to the Moon?” she pleaded.

Charlie was surprised, but he remembered Mike’s comments about her technical skills. Ironically, she was probably one of the people they could really use. “Yeah, I suppose it does. Get packed and over to Complex D. You’ve only got a couple of hours, so make it quick.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and a small—very small—smile brightened her face. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.” And then she was gone.

* * *

Ian was accompanied by the two armed security guards Bender had insisted be assigned to him. He stood at the gate, watching the parade of people heading into the secure area.

“Wish we had a few more,” he muttered to no one in particular. He watched as the old C-130 rolled out toward the Institute’s runway, loaded with excess gear they didn’t want to leave behind but couldn’t fit on the ships. It was bound for a lonely airstrip in the jungles of central Mexico, where its cargo and crew could be picked up later.

“Señor Stevens…”

He turned at the sound of the voice and found himself looking at a small, weathered man, one of the Institute’s groundskeepers. An equally small woman hovered behind him. Can’t remember his name…wait…Rodriguez! That’s it, Carlos Rodriguez, grounds maintenance…a gardener…

“Señor Stevens, we have come to wish you well. Vaya con Dios, señor.”

“Rodriguez, you and your wife…you’ve decided not to come with us?”

The man looked surprised. “I did not think your invitation was for us, señor. I am a gardener. They tell me there is no air and water on the Moon. Of what use is a gardener? Rosa and I, we must be going. We are here on work permits. If there is going to be trouble with the government—”

“No, wait. You don’t understand. There will be gardens on the Moon. Big ones. We will have to grow our food underground, under lights, with piped-in water.” Ian paused for a moment and gave the two of them a warm smile. “We need your skill, Carlos. I have plenty of scientists and engineers, but they can’t help me feed all these people.”

The man’s face split with a smile. He turned and spoke rapidly to his wife in Spanish.

She looked surprised, then smiled. “We will go with you, Señor Stevens. You are a good man.”

“You still have about an hour to pack,” he said.

Rodriguez pointed to the weathered duffle bag at his wife’s feet. “That’s all we were going to take for the trip back to Mexico. I guess that’s all we need to go to the Moon. We have learned to travel light over the years, señor.”

“Then welcome aboard.” Ian stuck out his hand, with a smile.

“Gracias, señor,” Rodriguez said, gripping Ian’s hand briefly. He picked up the duffle and shepherded his wife through the gate.

Ian smiled and shook his head. “Always room for a couple more.” He headed back to the truck.

Annie McGraw, the distaff member of his security team, elbowed her male partner in the ribs. “Take a lesson, dummy,” she muttered under her breath. “Leadership. He never forgets the little people…like us, for example.

* * *

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Sarah Wilkins muttered as she fastened the rank insignia—three gold bands, which she was told marked her as a lieutenant commander—to the shoulder epaulets of her uniform jumpsuit. It was the first time she’d worn them. She and her people had been packing up medical gear and supplies for the past two days. Her people didn’t need badges of rank to tell them who was in charge, but she had to admit the two security people—Marines, according to Charlie Bender’s new terminology—who were assigned to help her pack had shown her a great deal of deference and jumped to comply with her every request. Somebody, probably Charlie, had obviously advised them of her new status.

She kept the clinic open as long as possible and kept an emergency kit close at hand to deal with any medical situation that might arise. She was thankful there were no patients in the tiny four-bed hospital she’d maintained. The packing and moving had gone quite smoothly, but it was time to go. Starfire was waiting on the field, and the Marines were getting insistent. She was an important person, the only doctor they would have on the Moon. They had been told to make sure she didn’t miss her ride.

She looked once more around the little office that had been so much of her world for the past few years, now stripped of all the personal effects that had made it hers. She stepped out into the hallway and closed the door for the last time.

* * *

Jason McKenna returned home but found his parents in no mood to talk about anything. His father was ranting about the phone systems not working and the computer network being down. He wanted to call the police, the sheriff, the FBI, or somebody to let them know they were being held hostage. His sister was having a hysterical fit on the couch, and his mother was trying to calm her down. Jason went to his room, grabbed his school gym bag, and dumped the contents onto his bed. He opened a dresser drawer and pulled out handfuls of underwear and socks, which he stuffed into the bag along with a few of his favorite graphic novels, video game and music chips, and his portable player. As an afterthought, he threw in his school history textbook—his favorite subject—and a family picture taken last year on their vacation to San Francisco.

He needed to get out of the house unnoticed. He turned on the music system in his room, selected one of his usual heavy rock albums, and cranked up the volume—not as loud as he sometimes did, which would bring demands from his parents to “turn down that godawful noise,” but loud enough to be heard from the hallway, to make them think he was still in the room. Then he slid open the window, tossed the bag out, and crawled through after it.

He found a small group of people at the street corner clustering around a security truck while guards weighed their belongings. He joined them and presented his bag to be weighed.

“Name?” the security guard asked.

“Jason McKenna.” He produced the ID card issued to all DSRI dependents.

The guard scrolled through the directory on his pad and found Jason’s name. “Right, son of Dr. Thomas McKenna. Where’s the rest of your family?”

“They’re still packing some stuff,” he lied. “I told them I wanted to see the Moon ships. They should be along in a little while.”

“Okay,” the guard said, noting the weight of Jason’s bag and wrapping a strip of bright green tape around it to prove it had been cleared. “Why don’t you get a ride over there with these folks?” He indicated an older couple who had turned their belongings over to the guards and were getting into their car to drive over. Jason had seen the couple around the neighborhood but didn’t know their names—which was probably just as well. They agreed to take him, accepting his explanation that his parents would follow shortly.

When they reached the complex gate, more guards told them where to leave the car. As they came around the side of a large building, Jason got his first look at the ships—two of them, almost identical in appearance. He started to head for the nearest ship but changed his mind when he saw Carla Perry directing people there. He approached the other ship, where a man he didn’t know appeared to be in charge. He gave the man his name and repeated the lie he had told earlier about his parents.

“They’d better hurry,” the man said. “If they don’t get here soon, they’ll have to take one of the other ships.”

“We’re all going to the same place, right?” Jason asked. The man nodded, obviously intent on more important matters, and waved Jason up the ramp and onto the ship.

* * *

Tommy Sakura watched nervously as Charlie Bender formed the pliable explosive putty around the heavy electrical cables. “Are you sure that stuff is safe to handle?”

Bender glanced at him and lifted one eyebrow. “Are you sure that cutting these cables will produce the desired effect?”

“Absolutely,” Sakura said, “but I don’t want to be anywhere near here when it does.”

The cables ran across the floor to a structure that looked like a large, cylindrical tank in the middle of the open bay. Current was flowing, and the device seemed to throb with power. It was a fusion reactor, a test model that had been built in the early design days.

“These cables supply power for the magnetic containment. Those other cables supply power to the laser that keeps the reaction going. The fail-safes would normally cut the lasers off instantly if the containment field starts to go down, but we’ve bypassed those. If these cables are cut, and that plasma gets loose…” Sakura shuddered.

“That’s it, they’ve got the last load aboard, sir,” a security man called out, and Charlie nodded.

He finished wiring the two detonators and pressed them into the explosive. He set the timers and flipped the arming switches. The displays began to count down. “Okay, let’s go.”

The three of them climbed into the waiting truck. As they drove through the open hangar doors, they could see Wanderer waiting for them at the far end of the field. The other two ships had already departed. This was, as Bender put it, the last stagecoach out of Dodge. As they pulled up beside the ship, Carla Perry beckoned urgently.

“Hurry up! We’ve got incoming! Looks like five big ’copters about thirty klicks out.”

Bender cast one last look in the direction of the distant building and checked his watch. Then he scrambled up the ladder after Carla. The hatch closed behind them, and Wanderer lifted off.

About 30 seconds remained according to Bender’s watch when he reached the ship’s control deck. Tommy Sakura was already there.

“What’s the distance to the building?”

“About eight klicks south and five thousand meters down.” The flight engineer pointed to a display that showed a telescopic view of the building far below. Per Charlie’s instructions, they were keeping it in sight.

Far below, the first timer ran out, and the first detonator went off. The second detonator, which was just a backup, never got the chance to activate. The explosion wasn’t big, but it was enough to rip the cables apart, cutting power to the containment field. A few milliseconds later, a miniature star was born in the middle of the bay as the freed plasma vaporized the reactor and expanded to fill the building. The hangar doors blew outward with the sudden overpressure. The reinforced concrete walls held but glazed over as the heat melted the silica sand in the concrete.

At the rear of the bay, the expanding plasma invaded the corridors leading to work bays, workshops, and utility rooms. Bender had been careful to leave the doors open, but he need not have bothered. Metal-sheathed doors, rated for three-hour resistance to a normal fire, ceased to exist in seconds. Workbenches, equipment, tools all vaporized, leaving only a few white-hot puddles of molten metal to mark where some of the heavier pieces of machinery had been. Virtually everything left in the complex vanished in an instant, including the large crate Bender had carefully placed near the reactor—a crate that contained the last earthly remains of one Richard Mobley, former computer wizard and would-be government agent.

Deprived of laser stimulation, the fusion reaction died in a few seconds, but it had done its job.

“Wow!” Sakura exclaimed as light brighter than the sun erupted from the opening in the hillside far below. “I’d say it produced that ‘desired effect’ you were asking about, Mr. Bender. Any questions?”

“Nope,” Bender said. Goodbye, Mobley, you little weasel. You just got the most spectacular cremation in history.

* * *

Carla paused as she came through the hatchway into Wanderer’s cargo bay. The thirty-odd people seated on the nylon-webbed benches looked weary and dejected. They had been there for almost seven hours, unable to see outside, not knowing what was happening.

“Listen up, people,” she announced. “We have arrived. We’ve landed on the Moon.”

A ragged cheer went up, and most of them grinned, but the grins were a bit forced. They still aren’t sure what they’ve gotten themselves into, she thought.

“The bad news,” she continued, “is that there’s only one landing bay, and it’s currently occupied by one of the other ships. It’s going to be about an hour before they can get us in there.”

There were groans of dismay, and Carla held up her hands.

“For those who are interested, the captain says you can come forward—no more than three people at a time, please—for a look at the lunar surface. After that, I’ll try to answer any questions you have.”

* * *

The section chief was sitting in what had been Ian Stevens’ office, amid signs of hasty evacuation. With his feet up on the desk, the chief lifted an eyebrow in his subordinate’s direction. “Well?”

“It looks like they got away clean.”

“How?” The chief was a man of few words.

“They were tipped off when the FBI showed up with the state police and a fistful of warrants. That was stupid. These people had enough firepower to hold off a small army. No way they were going to let a few cops come walking in the front door. We should have hit them with a strike force in the middle of the night. As it was, they had six extra hours. That’s how long it took us to get Homeland Security up here after they sent the FBI packing.”

“Bullshit!” the senior FBI man growled. “They were tipped off two days before that when your people tried to tap their computer. Then their computer grabbed control of your computer and cleaned your clock, so they knew exactly who was trying to tap them. Your techno-spooks screwed up, not my people.”

“So, what have we got?” The chief had no patience for inter-agency squabbles.

The FBI man turned to him with a scowl. “We’ve got some abandoned buildings, a lot of abandoned stuff—none of which has anything to do with spaceships—and about a hundred and sixty scientists, maintenance people, and dependents left behind, all of whom claim they knew nothing at all about what was really going on until today. Oh, yeah, and we have some stripped computer hardware with all memory and processor sections removed. I mean physically taken out, not a chip left, nothing for the techies to work with. And not a scrap of paper around that will give us any more information…at least, not that we’ve found so far. My people are still looking.”

“What about that underground complex on the other side of the hill?”

“That place is wiped out. It looks like somebody set off a nuke in there. The concrete walls are partly fused! The floor is still too hot to walk on. Our people say they aren’t sure how you could even do something like that. They’re working on it, but I doubt they’re going to find anything.”

“What about our man inside, the guy who set up the computer tap?”

“Not a trace, chief,” one of the NSA men said. “Either he managed to keep his cover and stayed with them, or they’re holding him prisoner, or else…” The agent shrugged.

“You think they terminated him?” The chief lifted an eyebrow. “A bunch of rocket scientists?”

“Wouldn’t put it past them. Look at what Homeland Security ran into. Those motion-sensing chain guns are nasty, and the area between the inner and outer perimeter fence is mined! Of course, they posted warning signs, even marked the fire zones for the guns. Nobody would have gotten hurt if the troops had taken the signs seriously.”

The Homeland Security colonel favored the NSA man with an icy look. “That’s bullshit. How did we know they weren’t bluffing? You’d feel pretty stupid if we’d played it safe and then found out there were no defenses, just a bunch of signs!”

“Forget it!” snarled the chief. “Their whole purpose was to delay us, and it worked. What about the Air Force?”

“It might as well have been a UFO sighting as far as they’re concerned. Two of their F-25s went after that spaceship, or whatever it was we saw leaving. The damned thing went straight up, over eighty thousand meters per minute, they say. That’s nearly Mach Two, in a vertical climb. No aircraft in anybody’s arsenal can sustain a climb like that. Thirty seconds after they picked it up, it was well above their service ceiling and still accelerating. Ordinary ground radar couldn’t find it, but NORAD thinks they might have caught a short glimpse with one of their satellite-watch systems, a hundred miles up and still going.”

“So where did they go?”

“Well, chief, if we believe what those leftover scientists are telling us, I guess they went to the Moon.”

“Oh, that’s just great!” the FBI man muttered. “I don’t suppose there’s much hope of keeping a lid on this, is there?”

The section chief glanced at Malcolm, who was leaning against the wall of the office. “Not much, especially since someone has already gotten a U.S. senator involved. Just out of curiosity, George, what are you going to tell Blackthorne?”

“For one thing,” Malcolm said, “I’m going to have to tell him he was right about the DSRI.”

“Oh, great. I can see him now, making speeches on the Senate floor—speeches whose sole purpose will be to nail our hides to the barn door.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Malcolm said. “He’ll make speeches, all right, but that part of it, I can control.”

* * *

“What the hell good does it do me to be right!” Blackthorne exploded. “They got away. You came up empty-handed. How the hell could you people have screwed it up so badly? There’s going to be an investigation, and somebody is going to pay for this!”

“I’d be a little careful about that, Senator,” Malcolm said slowly. “You might not like where that investigation goes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blackthorne leaned forward over his desk and glowered at the NSA man.

“Well, Senator, these people were obviously tipped off by someone. When Congress starts investigating things like that, they always follow the money. This Stevens guy was a big part of it—a billionaire who used his fortune to fund a lot of it. We’ve been looking into his financial dealings, and one of the things we’ve found is that he was in the habit of giving money to political campaigns…including yours.”

Blackthorne was stunned. “I never even met the man. I had no dealings with him or any of his people.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Malcolm agreed. “It’s just that…well…if word gets out, the media will jump to conclusions, and once something like that gets started, denials on your part will just fuel the fire. If I were you, I’d be really careful with anything you say about our failures in this. If you want to attack Stevens, the DSRI, or anything they’ve done, you’re on firm ground, but if you try to pin this on the Agency or anyone on our side, it could come back to haunt you.

“Look at it this way. You could come out a hero, the patriotic statesman who brought the evildoers to our attention. You pressed us to investigate them, and it turns out you were right. If you play that right, you could be a big winner.”

“Well, that’s right,” Blackthorne blustered. “It was me that blew the whistle on ’em, and you people might remember to mention that when you are briefing the president or whoever. I knew they were doing more out there than that silly solar energy thing.”

“Actually, you were right about that solar energy thing as well,” Malcolm said. Now that he had defused any potential trouble from the senator, the NSA man was feeling magnanimous. “It seems that was part of their plan. They stripped the whole solar energy array and took it with them—nothing left but a skeleton framework. They had been stripping it down for over six months. Pacific Gas and Electric noticed it back in April, when the DSRI’s electric usage increased sharply. They had to forfeit their energy credit and pay much higher rates after that. Told PG&E their solar array was damaged in a windstorm and would take a long time to repair. I guess we now know the real story.”

* * * * *

Chapter Nine

February

The Moon

“We had a what?!” Carla Perry demanded.

“Well…not exactly a stowaway, ma’am,” Anne McGraw told her. “Apparently a teenager walked onto Starsong and told the crew his parents would be along shortly. When we got here and started sorting everyone out, he admitted his parents had decided not to come along, and he was here on his own.”

“Let me guess,” Carla said, gritting her teeth. “Sandy hair, about my height, fifteen years old, goes by the name of Jason McKenna.”

“Yes, ma’am,” McGraw said. “That’s him. He was in the Institute Directory—his father was one of the astronomers out at the Dry Wells observatory—so no one questioned him. I asked Commander Bender what to do with him, and he said to talk to you about it.”

“Please thank Commander Bender for me,” Carla growled. “Bring Jason here. I’ll find a job to keep him busy and a place for him to stay until we get this sorted out.”

* * *

“No observatory?” The scientist favored Ian with an incredulous look.

“Doctor Johansson, we need to—”

“No observatory?” Johansson repeated. “We came all the way to the Moon, an ideal venue for astronomical observations, and you tell us there is no observatory, no telescopes, no equipment…?”

“There will be, Doctor,” Ian assured him. “It just hasn’t been built yet.”

“But surely, that should have been—”

“In fact,” Ian continued, ignoring the interruption, “I needed to talk to you about that. We’re going to need you and your people to work on the project. First, you’ll need to select a site. I expect you’ll want to put it on Farside, where your optical instruments won’t be troubled by earthlight during the dark semi-lunar. Of course, we’ll need to set up a radio array as well, and again, it should probably be on Farside, to minimize interference from any radio-frequency noise from Earth.”

“Well, yes, that would be ideal, but—”

“Fine. I’m going to have the engineers send charts over to you, and they should be able to tell you anything you need to know about the terrain over there. You’ll want to select a site that is reasonably accessible and seismically stable, and, of course, you’ll need to think about the observatory equipment. Obviously, telescopes designed for use on Earth won’t be suitable—we need something that can work in hard vacuum under the surface conditions we’ll be dealing with. I suggest you pull out whatever information is available on the old Hubble Space Telescope and use that as a starting point.

“Get your people together and start planning, Doctor, and let me know when you’ve got some preliminary stuff for me to look at.” Ian was already ushering the man toward the exit hatch.

Mentally, he was kicking himself. Astronomy was one of his favorite fields of research—one in which he was knowledgeable—and he had often touted the virtues of a hypothetical observatory on the Moon. But somehow, in all the planning for the Moon project, the idea had been overlooked. Now, they were on the Moon with a bunch of topnotch astronomers, with not so much as a department store toy telescope at their disposal. Worse, it would probably be a long time before they could seriously think about building that observatory. Ian’s ‘project assignment’ to Johnson was primarily a delaying tactic.

Fortunately, he thought, we’ve got a few strong egos among the astronomers. It’ll be a while before they agree on a site, equipment, or anything else. By then, maybe we’ll be in better shape to respond.

I just hope I haven’t overlooked anything else…like something vital to our survival…

* * *

Abrams looked at the message on the screen in front of him. That’s interesting. The message simply said, “Invalid Web Address.” It was followed by a note that said the site he requested did not exist. The interesting part was that Abrams knew it did exist or, at least, it had a month ago when he had gone there to verify another story he had been working on.

Abrams was a veteran web crawler who knew such messages contained useful information. If the site had simply been taken offline, he would have gotten a message saying it was “No Longer Available” or a message saying it was “Temporarily Unavailable” if it was having technical difficulties. What this message was telling him was that the site had never existed. It was as if it had vanished from the face of the Earth which, if he believed the press release he had received, might well be close to the truth.

Maury Abrams was the editor-in-chief for the New York Times, arguably the largest and most prestigious web-content news organization on the planet. As such, he was responsible for deciding what major news story would greet subscribers when they first “opened the paper”—an archaic euphemism held over from the Times’ history as a print-media giant. The old Times had been printed and distributed in two daily editions and was still printed on paper once a day for wealthy snobs who left it lying on desks and tables just to prove how rich and important they were. By contrast, Abrams’ online front page might change hourly or more often, depending on the news of the day. In addition, he was responsible for all the headline links on the page and the content of the stories they linked to. Given the limited viewing space available, and the limited attention span of the average person, he had to manage an ever-changing list of stories, decide which ones needed to be put up front, and make sure they had a snappy headline that encouraged readers to follow the link.

It was something of a high-pressure job. If another web news outlet or, heaven forbid, one of the networked video services put a major story out there before he did, his bosses would be most unhappy, but if he put out a story that was incomplete, inaccurate, or worst case, a hoax, it could bring his career to a crashing end in a big hurry. It was the kind of job pressure most people wouldn’t have wanted, but Maury Abrams loved it. He was good at it, so good his competitors often asked themselves, “How would Abrams handle this one?” As a result, he had held his present, prestigious position for almost twelve years.

Most of his work involved managing the work of others—reporters, illustrators, and web content people—but every now and then, just to keep his hand in, he would dig into a hot new story himself and do a little of the preliminary groundwork before handing it off to his reporters to complete. That was how this one had gotten started.

He pulled up the press release on his screen and read it again. It was simple—plain text, no photos or videos, with the only graphic being the logo of the Deep Space Research Institute in the upper left corner of the screen.

“As of the date and time of this release—” he noted it was today’s date, at noon Eastern time, “—a small group of people, operating under the auspices of the Deep Space Research Institute, have achieved the primary goal of a project that has been in progress for the past three years. This group, consisting of scientists, engineers, technicians, support people, and their dependent spouses and children, have succeeded in establishing a permanent, self-sufficient community on the Moon…”

The release went on to note there were approximately 250 people living in the small “Lunar City” and claimed the place had been built entirely through private investment, with no support from any government on Earth. That was followed by some background information about the California-based DSRI. Then came the interesting part.

“In the interest of discouraging international disputes over control of these facilities, we have decided to declare the Moon an independent nation whose territory includes the Moon and the immediately surrounding area of space out to the first Lagrange Point between the Earth and the Moon. The new nation, whose government is in the process of being established, will be known as the Lunar Free State. At present, our population is small, but it is expected to grow significantly soon, as facilities are expanded to accommodate additional permanent residents.

Abrams shook his head. What we have here, he decided, is either the biggest story of the decade—hell, of the 21st century—or some hoaxers with a big set of brass…

The interface beeped. A signal marked priority was on his private channel. He selected the channel and found himself looking at a well-dressed man he didn’t recognize. The credentials’ box on the bottom of the screen identified him as “George Malcolm—National Security Agency,” with an NSA web identifier. The green bar on the bottom of the box told him the web identifier had been verified.

“Mr. Abrams…George Malcolm, NSA. It’s come to our attention you were attempting to access the website of the Deep Space Research Institute a few minutes ago. Would you mind telling us what your interest is?”

Bingo! Abrams thought. Malcolm had, in effect, just told him there was a real story there.

“Hmmm…do I need to call in my legal staff, Mr. Malcolm, or are we going to keep this within the bounds of the First Amendment?”

“I work for the NSA, not the FBI, Mr. Abrams. We would never think of interfering with freedom of the media. In fact, I might even be able to provide you with some information that would be useful to you in your professional capacity.”

“I see. Well, then, I can tell you that I was simply following up on the press release we received from the DSRI within the past hour. Would you care to comment on that?”

“Press release?” Malcolm looked surprised. “I’m not sure I’ve seen that. Would you mind…?”

“Not at all.” Abrams selected the document in question, tagged it with Malcolm’s web ID, and sent it off. Malcolm’s eyes flicked to the side as he opened the document on his screen and stayed to the side long enough to convince Abrams he hadn’t seen the release. Malcolm was good at controlling his appearance, but Abrams thought he saw the other man tense a bit.

“It appears,” Abrams couldn’t resist the jab, “they inadvertently left the NSA off the distribution list.”

“Yes,” Malcolm said at last. “I can see how this would explain your interest. Thank you for your time.”

“Wait a minute!” Abrams demanded. “Quid pro quo. I gave you what you wanted. What can you tell me about this? I’ll guarantee “no comment” isn’t going to make the government look good in our afternoon releases. Or, perhaps, you’d like to try to tell me I should suppress the story?”

“Of course not.” Malcolm looked uncomfortable. “Though we would prefer if you could…delay it, for a little while, in the interest of national security.”

“No can do.” Abrams was adamant. “And the national security thing isn’t going to fly, either. This release is addressed to all the major news organizations, not just here, but around the world. If I don’t get the story out there quickly, someone else will; so, unless you’d rather read Al Jazeera’s version of it first, or the Chinese—”

“No, no, you’re right, of course.” Malcolm hesitated.

He wasn’t prepared for this, Abrams decided, and that’s good. If he has to wing it, he may tell me more than he ought to. He mentally patted himself on the back. I haven’t lost my touch.

“Look,” Malcolm began, “what I’m about to tell you was, up until this moment, classified. I’ve decided to release it to prevent a lot of disinformation from being circulated by the media. Right now, you’re the only one who has it, but that’ll probably change in the next couple of hours.”

Fine, Abrams decided. A couple of hours is a long time in this business.

“We’ve discovered that the Deep Space Research Institute has been involved in some highly illegal research,” Malcolm continued. “What’s more, we believe they augmented their research with data stolen from secret government files via illegal computer activity—hacking, to use the popular term.

“Early yesterday morning, federal agents from several agencies entered the DSRI’s headquarters in California with warrants for the arrest of several key people, including Ian Stevens, the Institute’s director. Unfortunately, it appears Stevens and his associates were warned in some way and fled the Institute several hours before the federal task force arrived. An international hunt for these fugitives is presently underway, but no arrests have been made. We have determined that most of the people at the Institute—those who did not flee—were not aware of the plot, but the Institute’s operations have been shut down.”

Shut down is not the phrase for it, Abrams mused. If the website is any example, you’ve tried to make them disappear entirely. But we still haven’t addressed the main issue.

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place, Mr. Malcolm,” he chided. “If there’s any truth to this release, they’re not anywhere on Earth.”

“That’s pure nonsense!” Malcolm shot him an angry glance, then hesitated. “All right, we know they were planning to mount an expedition. They may have even managed to reach the Moon with a small robot probe or two. The notion that they have people living up there is…well…a bit far-fetched. They certainly couldn’t have launched enough rockets to carry that many people plus all the supplies they’d need. Don’t you think Homeland Security would have noticed that kind of activity long ago? Even if they did it from foreign countries, our military surveillance would have detected it. I imagine this Independent Nation on the Moon nonsense is a legal ploy Stevens and his people will invoke when we finally do capture them and bring them to justice.

“Mr. Abrams, I know you are going to use everything I’ve told you but do me one courtesy. You can cite ‘reliable government sources’ in your story. Just don’t use my name or mention the NSA.”

“I understand, Mr. Malcolm. I’m always willing to cooperate with the government on these things. In fact, I hope we can be of service to each other again, on this same subject, perhaps.”

“Maybe we can,” Malcolm conceded. “Particularly if you are forthright in sharing any information you turn up. Pass it along to me, and I’ll make certain the government is just as forthright with you. Thank you again for your time.”

Malcolm’s face disappeared from the screen, and the connection closed. Just in time, Abrams thought. I wouldn’t want him to see me grinning like an idiot and licking my chops. His fingers flew over the keyboard, putting out a “drop everything and contact me NOW” message to two of his top reporters.

* * *

The operations center was nearly deserted, the primary overhead lighting reduced to night levels. Ian pushed back from his desk and looked at his watch: 2330 hours, Lunar Standard Time.

LST had been an arbitrary choice and coincided with Pacific Time on Earth, the time zone from which they had departed almost two months ago. With day and night lasting two weeks each on Luna, using any sort of local timeframe would not have been kind to human biorhythms, but the Moon’s new residents did occasionally talk about the “phase of the Earth.” Earth was always in the sky on the side of the Moon where the base was located, but new Earth meant lunar high noon outside, while full Earth meant the middle of the long lunar night.

Meanwhile, the astronomers talked excitedly about an upcoming solar eclipse, when the Moon would slip into the shadow of the Earth, and the planet would blot out the Sun. Seen from Earth, of course, the event would be a lunar eclipse. The Moon people were gradually becoming accustomed to their new astronomical point of view.

Ian got up from his chair, stretched, and looked around the chamber that was simply called Ops. Except for the floor, which was elevated to cover utility lines and the gravity plates that kept the room at one-gee, the place was little more than a dead-end tunnel in bare rock. An airlock door sealed the opening, and simple, fabric-covered workstation panels hid the rock walls up to six feet from the floor. Overhead, electrical conduits, ventilation ductwork, and overhead light fixtures decorated the rough grey rock surface. Ian’s office was no more than an alcove cut into one wall.

Most of the workstations in Ops were dark at that hour, but Ian noticed a light in Charlie Bender’s corner cubicle. Feeling the need for a little human conversation, he walked over. “How’s it going, Charlie?”

“Good evening, Commander. It’s…well, pretty much the same old thing.”

Stevens couldn’t get used to being called Commander. They had adopted a modified navy rank structure—ensign, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, and commander. Non-officer ranks included technician, senior technician, and petty officer. For the moment, Ian had decided they didn’t need any more levels than that. There were, after all, less than three hundred people in their entire table of organization. There was, of course, only one full commander, Ian Stevens, who was the de facto commander-in-chief. Bender was officially a lieutenant commander, as were all the other members of the original Alpha group.

The only deviations from the standard rank structure were Charlie’s former security people—the Lunar Marines. They had traditional Marine ranks—private, corporal, sergeant, and lieutenant. These corresponded to the regular ranks of tech, senior tech, petty officer, and lieutenant. Ian had decided to eliminate some of the confusion between Navy and non-navy ranks in the old U.S. military rank structure. A Marine lieutenant was equal to a Navy lieutenant, and there was no rank of captain in either structure. Captain was a job title, reserved for the commanding officer of a ship.

So far, the only problem with the rank concept had involved a few scientists, whose knowledge warranted an officer’s rank, but whose leadership skills seemed to be nonexistent. Everyone else seemed to be adapting well. They wore their uniforms without protest and seemed to be developing a little esprit de corps in the process. Ian’s half-formed theory was proving itself—the rank structure let all of them know where they fit in the organization, left no doubt about who was in charge, and made it easier to keep everything under control.

So far, they weren’t requiring much in the way of military courtesy—no salutes, no requirement to call an officer sir or ma’am. Instead, those little amenities were being introduced more subtly via Charlie’s Marines, who were mostly ex-military people. Charlie had convinced them they were the elite, and it was up to them to show the others how to act. Thus, they always said sir or ma’am to officers and saluted whenever appropriate.

Ian told his officers it was common courtesy to return any salute you received as smartly as it was given, but sometimes, the effect was almost comical. Lorna Greenwood had no problem returning salutes smartly, but Alan Jaronski could never get the hang of it. The best he could manage was a self-conscious wave in the direction of his forehead, as if brushing away a mosquito. Sarah Wilkins, for all her protests, had adapted well to the structure. She was used to being in charge of her group and giving orders, and she seemed to have what Bender called a closet military mentality.

Ian turned his attention to the screen in front of Charlie. To his surprise, he saw his picture behind a news commentator, facing a picture of an obviously irate Senator Blackthorne. The captions were in Chinese, which Charlie could read, write, and speak.

“So, what do the Chinese have to say about us?”

“Same old thing, skipper. They don’t believe either you or the senator. They’re convinced it’s an imperialist plot to allow the U.S.A. to seize control of the Moon.”

“And the senator…?”

“He gets worse every day. Per his latest speech, if we are on the Moon, which nobody knows for certain, we are a bunch of terrorist thugs who, using stolen U.S. technology, have seized a United States territory as claimed by Armstrong in 1969. We ought to be nuked out of existence.”

Ian snorted. “Armstrong never claimed the Moon! That was in the middle of the Cold War, and the Russians would never have put up with it. Blackthorne obviously hasn’t read the history books.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bender said. “A lot of people are listening to him, and these days, most college graduates in the U.S. don’t even know who Armstrong was. Meanwhile, the State Department is having fits trying to play down Blackthorne’s comments, and the Chinese reaction is pretty typical of other nations.”

“Hmmm…do I detect a slight weakening of the U.S. cover story? It almost sounds like Blackthorne is setting the stage for an admission that we really are up here.”

“Yeah, I think the wheels are coming off that one,” Bender said. “First, the U.S. can’t produce any concrete results in their search for us fugitives, who are supposedly hiding out in some third-world country. Of course, once Congress was briefed on the real story, their cover was bound to spring more leaks than the Titanic after the iceberg. It’s only a matter of time before some senator or congressman decides there is a political advantage in leaking the truth to the press, and the media doesn’t like being taken for a ride. Officially, the government still denies we are on the Moon, but that doesn’t stop our friend Blackthorne from bringing it up every time he’s on the Senate floor. He’s like Cato the Censor back in the ancient Roman Senate.”

“Right,” Ian agreed with a wry smile. “Carthago esse delendam…Carthage must be destroyed!”

“Didn’t know you were a classical scholar, Commander.”

“Benefits of a Jesuit education. Four years of Latin in high school. After we got past Caesar’s Gallic Wars and Virgil’s Aeneid, there wasn’t much else to read, except the writings of various Roman politicians. Tell you what, Charlie, maybe it’s time for another ‘Aw shucks, we’re just ordinary people who want to live on the Moon in peace’ broadcast.”

Bender grimaced. “You know, Commander, every time we do that, they get a better fix on our transmitter. Mike says they’re scanning the surface all the time with mapping radar, and you can bet they’ve got every available electronic snooper satellite looking this way.”

“And that, as you know, is why we have the transmitter array a hundred kilometers away on the other side of the crater wall. Besides, we’re tight-beaming it to whichever satellite is handy. The most they’ll pick up is a little side-scatter.”

“It’s still our only transmitter, and with the kind of equipment they’ve got, all they need is a little side-scatter for a generalized fix. If they nuke the transmitter, we’re speechless. If they nuke the entire area, we could be up a creek.”

“Charlie, their best missiles will take three days to get here, assuming they can boost them to orbit in the first place. At that rate, one of our ships can go up, grab the nuke, and pitch it back at them.”

“Assuming we see it coming. Even Mike admits that could be tricky, given the limits of our passive detection gear.”

“Excuse me, Commander.” The voice came from Charlie’s interface, and Ian suppressed the urge to smile. It had taken a lot of programming to convince Mike there were proper and polite ways to interrupt a conversation. He glanced at the screen and saw Mike’s little, green lizard avatar appear, shoving one of Charlie’s data windows aside to make room. The effect was almost comical.

“Yes, Mike, your comments?”

“Lieutenant Commander Bender is correct. There are many ways in which a space-capable power could launch missiles at us without detection. If they were launched from the side of Earth turned away from us and inserted into the proper ballistic trajectory, we would not pick them up by passive detection methods. And we can’t use active radar to scan for them, since that would give away our own position. The engineers are working on a passive system based on the gravitational disturbance created by a moving mass, but so far, the range of the system is limited to a few thousand kilometers, even for a large mass. That wouldn’t give us much warning.”

“Well…” Ian pondered the situation. “I think we’re going to need to set up active radar installations. They may give away the position of the radar transmitters, but that’s not important if they help us see anything they throw at us.”

“That’s true,” Charlie admitted, “and I’ll listen to anything that helps us. But, Commander, I still don’t see why we can’t communicate with a tight laser beam through a satellite the way Mike taps into the ’net.”

“It’s no good for broadcasting. It won’t reach the people who get their news through normal media outlets.”

“We still can’t reach them if the media won’t publish our releases,” Bender grumbled. “But I’m worried about electronic emissions. At the same time, I’m amazed they haven’t spotted one of our ships on the surface. Are we just lucky, or is there some other reason?”

“We’re too small to see at this distance. If we had ships twice as big as Starfire and Starsong, they still wouldn’t be visible, even with the best optical and radar systems looking at us from Earth orbit. Of course, when they are moving, the ships are invisible to radar. A strong gravity field affects all types of electromagnetic radiation.”

“Wait a minute.” Bender sounded skeptical. “Light is electromagnetic radiation. How come we can see the ships when their fields are active, and how can the pilots see anything from the flight deck?”

“O’Hara tells me the effect is pretty much a one-way street. Light, or any other kind of radiation, can get out of the field, although it gets blue-shifted a bit. It’s just incoming radiation that gets distorted. You can still see the ship because photons reflected from the hull are moving outward, but the flight deck crew would be flying blind if it weren’t for the fact that the field is open at both ends. You can see ahead with about a one hundred forty-degree field of view from the flight deck, but you wouldn’t see much through the viewports in the sides of the ships.

“Incidentally,” Ian added, “the gravity field provides some defensive shielding. It won’t help against a direct hit by a nuke, and it might not stop a high-speed projectile, but it will slow that projectile down and, maybe, deflect it. It also does a good job of stopping energy weapons like lasers. Mick’s people gave me a demo—fired a gigawatt laser at a steel plate, with and without a gravity field for protection. Without the field, the laser went through the steel like a needle through tissue paper. With the field, all they got was a pretty splash of multi-colored light where the laser met the field boundary. I was impressed.”

“They’ve got lasers that powerful in the labs?”

“Sure. They’re only a little more powerful than the ones the fusion reactors use.”

“Hmmm,” Bender mused. “And you say the field doesn’t have any effect on light going out from the ship?”

“I know that look, Charlie. What have you got in mind?”

“I was just thinking that, maybe, our ships shouldn’t rely so heavily on defensive measures, like stealth or gravity shields. I was going to talk to you about some conventional armament, you know, guns or missiles, but maybe lasers would be more appropriate.”

“Armament? You want us to be accused of having the first warships in space?”

“Hey, skipper, they’re the ones talking about nuking us, not vice versa. Besides, if the warheads do start coming at us, I don’t think grabbing them and pitching them back is going to be very practical. The damned things might be proximity fused and tampering might set them off. Better to stand off a few hundred klicks and vaporize them with a laser.”

“You have a point. All right, talk to the engineers about it and see if they can come up with something workable, without tearing the ships apart. And nothing gets installed until I authorize it. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Now then, about that speech to the world…”

* * *

“What exactly is this document you’ve just sent me, Mr. Abrams?” Malcolm demanded.

“That, Mr. Malcolm, is what is going to appear as the splash story on our front page tomorrow morning. We’re holding it until then only because the morning edition is the one that draws the most hits from our subscribers. I sent it to you because I thought, perhaps, we owed you the courtesy of a heads-up.”

“Aside from the fact that this appears to be nothing more than creative speculation on your part—” Malcolm bristled, “—I thought we had an understanding by which you were not to mention my name or the agency.”

“Well, now, I also thought we had an understanding,” Abrams said, “and I believe the word forthright was mentioned. But according to another government source—a very high-level source, I might add—we’ve been feeding our subscribers a line of crap up to this point. We thought, perhaps, we owed them an explanation as to just where that crap originated.”

“Look, Abrams, you had to know we couldn’t possibly give you all the details of everything we know. If we’ve omitted a few things—”

“Omitted???” Abrams shot back. “Omissions I could understand. Out-and-out lies are another matter.”

“I see. And just what is it you believe we lied about?”

“According to our other source, there are, in fact, several hundred people living on the Moon. The Deep Space Research people managed to move them all, including those ‘fugitives’ you claim to be looking for, up there, using some kind of stealth launch vehicles our Homeland Security, our military, and anyone else in the world were unable to detect. What’s more, based on the quantity of supplies and equipment shipped to the DSRI facility over the past several years—none of which were found when your people raided the place—it looks like they are prepared to stay there for a long time. There is also a suggestion that these people might be in possession of nuclear weapon technology, which makes them a clear threat to the United States and, for that matter, the rest of the world.”

Abrams stopped speaking, and the two men stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Malcolm broke the silence, speaking slowly and carefully.

“Mr. Abrams, if any of that were true, there would be serious national security issues. You must realize I would not be able to confirm it.”

Abrams snorted. “As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Malcolm, you just did confirm it. As for national security issues, perhaps you should explain your concerns to the members of Congress.”

“So, are you saying your high-level source is a congressman…or a senator, perhaps?” Malcolm asked. Damn it! he thought. It’s Blackthorne, I just know it is. Why did I ever get involved with that bastard? What was I thinking?

“I’m not saying anything of the sort, Mr. Malcolm, but I do follow the proceedings of the House and Senate pretty closely. You’ll have to admit that certain members have been very vocal about the issue, especially if it’s nothing but a scam, like you have been telling us. That does tend to lend our source a bit more credibility.”

“I can’t control senators and congressmen,” Malcolm admitted, “but I could invoke Article Seven of the National Security Act—”

“In which case, I’ll be happy to bring in those lawyers I may have mentioned earlier, but that would create quite a stir and would only confirm to the rest of the world that something is going on. Face it, Mr. Malcolm, the genie is already out of the bottle, so there’s no point in corking it now.”

Malcolm sagged visibly. He was beaten, and he knew it. The best he could do was a bit of damage control. “All right. I’ll tell you as much as I can.”

Meaning as little as you think you can get away with, Abrams mused. “I’m listening.”

“Yes, it’s true, they do have people on the Moon. We don’t know for sure how many, but certainly no more than a couple hundred. And yes, they do have some sort of stealth technology that allowed them to get there and return, apparently, without being detected. They have moved a lot of supplies up there, but that doesn’t mean they can stay forever. We’re not sure how long they can survive up there, but we are certainly doing our best to make sure they can’t get any more supplies from Earth. Eventually, they’ll have to start dealing with us, and we’re not prepared to listen to any sort of independent nation nonsense.

“As for the nuclear weapons story, we have no evidence to support it. You can dismiss it as paranoid speculation on the part of one particular senator, but I didn’t say that, so don’t quote me. One thing you can say is that we’ve investigated the possibility, and there is no indication they possess any fissionable materials like uranium or plutonium, so that pretty well rules out any possibility of them being able to build a nuclear weapon.”

“Hmmmm…very interesting.” Abrams tapped a few more notes into his story file, items that needed further investigation and confirmation from his other sources.

“Quid pro quo, Mr. Abrams. This time, I’ve given you what you wanted. I need two things in return. First, send me an advance copy of the rewritten story tonight, at least twelve hours before you actually put it out on your pages. I won’t give anything to anyone else before then, but I’ll need those twelve hours to prepare an official statement for the government to release. Second, since you have to rewrite the story anyway, do me the courtesy of deleting all reference to the NSA and to me, in particular. Give me at least the same anonymity as you are giving to your other high-level source.”

“I can do that.” Abrams checked the time on his screen display. “Look for your advance copy around six PM tonight.”

* * *

“Mr. President, the situation is just plain intolerable!” Blackthorne raged. The president, he felt, was a wimp. A shrewd, slick politician to be reckoned with, but a wimp when it came to decisive action. “Half the world thinks those techno-terrorists are working for us, and the other half are laughing their heads off at the thought that we are so…so impotent!”

“You’re probably right, Senator,” the secretary of state chimed in. “But what can we do about it?”

“Nuke them! Surely we have enough nukes to blast the whole surface of the Moon to hell and gone.”

“We have the nukes, Senator.” The president sighed. “We just don’t have any way to get them there.”

“Uh…Mr. President, that’s not exactly accurate.”

All heads turned to the Air Force general who had spoken.

“What do you mean, General?” The president’s eyes narrowed. Blackthorne suddenly became very attentive.

“Well, sir, it’s true that our ground-launched missiles can’t reach that far, but there’s Prometheus. The weapons were intended for Earth targets, but my technical people tell me they could be launched at the Moon. It’s just a matter of re-tasking the system with new targets. There are forty multiple-warhead nukes up there. We know the general area where their base is located on the western edge of Tranquility. We could saturate the area with two hundred warheads. Chances are, that would be the end of them. It would certainly wipe out any surface installations and, probably, finish off anything underground.”

“Chances are? Probably? General, I want something better than that. I still don’t understand why we can’t pinpoint their location. Our satellite surveillance can show me a picture of a terrorist on Earth, leaning against a truck smoking a cigarette, so why can’t we find an entire colony of renegades on the Moon?”

“It’s a matter of resolution limits, Mr. President,” the general explained. “Those satellites are in low Earth orbit, less than two hundred miles up. The Moon is about a thousand times farther away than that. With our best systems, we can resolve an image on the ground of anything larger than five centimeters in diameter, but at the Moon’s distance the resolution limit is about fifty meters in the shortest dimension. You could build a road a hundred kilometers long on the Moon, and you wouldn’t be able to see it from here unless it was more than fifty meters wide. In other words, we’d be hard pressed to see something the size of a football field. We have scanned the area where we think they are, but if they’ve got anything bigger than that on the surface, it must be camouflaged. Our best information still comes from the fixes we’ve gotten on their electronic transmissions, and those should be good enough for a saturation strike with the Prometheus warheads.”

“I’m not convinced,” the president replied. “You haven’t told me why these people are such a threat to us. They’ve made us look like fools, but other people have done that in the past, without getting nuked for it. Besides, we have to consider world reaction to the idea that we’ve had nukes in orbit all along.”

“Mr. President—” George Malcolm spoke up for the first time since the meeting began, “—these people have nuclear technology. Our analysis of the site in California shows the device used to destroy their records and such could only have been a fusion bomb, a small one, but a fusion bomb all the same. What’s even scarier is that there is no evidence to suggest they used a typical fission bomb as a trigger. They apparently found some other way to set off a fusion reaction. That means they don’t have to make plutonium or enriched uranium, which is, arguably, one of the most difficult parts of nuclear bomb manufacturing.

“But they don’t need nuclear weapons. All they need to do is drop rocks on us. Take a big space rock and give it a shove in the right direction, and you’ve got a meteor. If it’s big enough, it could take out a major city just as effectively as a nuke.

“On the other hand,” Malcolm continued, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “they’re just a bunch of scientists. Maybe they really are just nice, peaceful people. But remember that they stole government technology, hacked government computer systems, and kept their real purpose secret from us for years, and they have turned their backs on their country and claim to have a new country of their own. They’ve refused to give us the technology they developed here, in our country, using our resources, but, maybe, that’s because the Chinese have offered them a better deal for it, or the Jihad. Do you want to take that chance, Mr. President?”

“Right,” Blackthorne chimed in. “As for world opinion about our having nukes in space, what is the rest of the world gonna do about it? As far as I’m concerned, we ought to build a few more of those Prometheus things and put ’em up there, but what good is a weapon if you’re not willing to use it? I say, give it to them. Blast them off the Moon. Two hundred nukes…hell, that ought to be enough to do the job.”

“We are preparing other contingencies, Mr. President,” the general added. “The only remaining space shuttle has been taken out of mothballs and should be ready within a few months, though we had to hunt up a lot of retired NASA people to get the job done. In addition, we’re looking into the possibility of putting a heavier booster on the Mark 20 satellite-killer missile. We’ll have to use a B-4 bomber to launch it instead of a fighter, but we should be able to lob a single nuke all the way to the Moon that way. That system should be ready for test firing within a month.”

“Mr. President,” the secretary of defense said, “let me suggest this. We launch Prometheus, but only ten missiles. That’s still fifty warheads. Despite Mr. Malcolm’s comments, I don’t think those scientists up there have anything in the way of weapons, at least nothing ready to use. If the first barrage doesn’t kill them, we’ll demand their surrender. Any technology we recover from them belongs to us, since we’re claiming it was stolen from us in the first place. If anyone else on Earth doesn’t like that arrangement, we’ll still have thirty Prometheus missiles up there—one hundred and fifty warheads—to remind them we are the U.N.’s most powerful enforcer. Hell, Mr. President, the rest of the world has hated us for fifty years. What do we really care what they think?”

“I like it!” Blackthorne agreed. “That’ll teach the bastards. Mr. President, I’ll be right up front to support you in the Senate.”

“Senator, I haven’t authorized anything yet, and if I do, there’d better not be any leaks. You people still haven’t told me how this stuff got out to the media.”

“Does it matter, Mr. President?” Blackthorne waved his hand dismissively. He glanced at Malcolm and found the NSA man regarding him with poorly disguised hostility. Bastard probably knows it was me, the senator realized, but there’s nothing he can do about it without digging his own grave.

“All the same,” the president continued, “if we take an action like this, there won’t be any discussion in the Senate or the House until after the fact. Certain key leaders will be briefed once it’s underway, but that’s it. This falls under Homeland Security and will be handled by Executive Order, but if there’s the slightest hint that it leaked, I’ll call it off in a heartbeat.” He lapsed into thoughtful silence, and Blackthorne knew better than to disturb him.

“All right, gentlemen,” the president said after a moment. “I’m going to wait one month. General, I want you to give top priority to those other contingencies—the shuttle and the satellite-killer missiles. If the situation on the Moon hasn’t changed, I’ll authorize a limited Prometheus launch, as the Secretary suggested.”

* * *

“Good evening, Commander.” Carla’s formal greeting and salute were tempered by a friendly smile. Ian reflected that she really looked good in uniform and felt a pang of regret that they hadn’t found much time to be together since arriving on the Moon.

“Hello, Carla.” He returned the salute with a smile of his own. He was working late, and once again, Charlie Bender was the only other person in Ops.

Seeing the two of them, Bender wandered over to Ian’s office.

“How’s the supply situation?” Ian asked.

“Pretty good,” Carla replied. “We’ve got a couple of months’ food on hand—mostly military rations—but we did pick up some canned fruits and vegetables on the last run to Australia. It’ll be months before the farm tunnels start producing anything, but we won’t starve in the meantime.

“Your Japanese contacts came through with most of the requested equipment and electronic parts. The base in Mexico has a stockpile of hull frames and other stuff for Ship Four, but that has to wait until we can free up Starsong or Starfire for a special run. The stuff’s too big for Wanderer to handle.”

“Would it be too much to ask to put some real coffee on the shopping list?” Bender asked, joining the conversation. “This powdered manure we’ve been using as a substitute would give a sewer rat indigestion.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Carla said, with a wry smile. Bender wasn’t the only one begging her to secure a few simple luxury items. “But tell me—” she was suddenly serious, “—is it true we’re arming the ships?”

Bender looked at Ian. Old habits kept him from answering without an okay from his commander.

“Yes, Carla, it’s true,” Ian confirmed.

“Wanderer’s already done,” Charlie added. “Starfire is almost complete, and Starsong will be next. It turned out to be no big deal as far as the engineers were concerned.”

“Right,” Ian said, giving Charlie a sour look. “I was down in the engineering bay earlier today. They’ve got half of Starfire’s lower hull opened up. Remember, Charlie, I want only one ship out of service at a time. They’ve got the second bay sealed off and ready, but nobody touches Starsong until Starfire’s back in service.”

“Is it really necessary?” Carla asked. It was a sincere question, not a protest.

“I hope it won’t be,” Ian assured her, “but we’ve got to be prepared. Now that they’ve been forced to admit that we really are up here, the U.S. government is making more noise every day. They want our heads, and they sound like they’re willing to nuke us, if that’s what it takes. Someone started a rumor that we have nuclear weapons, and they’re playing on the fears of the average citizen. Nobody’s listening to our peaceful coexistence pleas. To hear most of the media reports, we’re like the Islamic Jihad with spaceships.

“They can’t mount an effective attack from down there, but that may not last. We don’t think they can hit us accurately with what they’ve got, but they could get lucky. Our best chance will be to spot the incoming missiles and use the ships to take them out.”

“How can we do that?”

“We were originally going to use regular, visible-light lasers,” Charlie told her, “but the engineers came up with something better—gamma-ray lasers—call them grasers, if you like. They’ll turn anything they hit into plasma, and they’ll have an effective range of almost a thousand kilometers. In addition, we’re adding universal hard points to each ship’s hull, so we can attach other weapons if we need to, like bombs or missiles.”

“Bombs?” The shock was evident on Carla’s face.

“We are not going to nuke anyone,” Ian assured her. “We don’t have any nuclear weapons, and I have no intention of building any, but it might be necessary to drop something on their heads to get their attention.”

“God, I hope not,” she prayed fervently.

“So do I, but we may not be dealing with rational people down there.”

* * *

The month had gone by rather quickly. The military had provided briefing papers and status reports on all the pertinent projects.

“All right,” the president sighed, “you may proceed, gentlemen.”

Finally! Blackthorne thought. OK, Stevens, now you learn what it means to screw around with the U.S.A.

* * * * *

Chapter Ten

December

The First Battle of Luna

“Incoming hostile targets, sir! I see fifteen objects on ballistic approach. There may be more, but I have not located them yet. Time to first impact: thirty-seven minutes, twelve seconds.”

Mike’s radar capabilities were still severely limited. It was pure chance the computer happened to be scanning the right area of the sky when the first missile shed its external panels and separated its five nuclear warheads, providing a strong radar echo.

“Go to Alert Alpha, Mike,” Ian ordered.

Almost immediately, alarms began to sound throughout the complex, followed by the computer’s voice on the base-wide public address system. “Now hear this! We are under attack! This is not a drill! All operations and flight duty personnel report to your duty stations. All others evacuate to Section B with your life support suits. All pressure doors will be sealed in ten minutes.”

Fortunately, it was just after 0900 hours LST. Most of the lunar population were already awake and at work, and many of the non-essential people worked in the deeper tunnels known as Section B.

They should already have their life support suits with them, but there were spares available for anyone who didn’t. Unlike the full-featured spacesuits provided for ship’s crews and anyone who had to work on the lunar surface, the LS suits were simple coveralls made of a tough, flexible plastic with accordion joints and a bubble helmet attached. They had no communications equipment other than an external cord that could be plugged into the base communications system. Working in an LS suit was difficult, but it would keep you alive in a hard vacuum. The suits had no radiation or thermal shielding, so they were not suitable for use on the surface, and their air packs provided a maximum life support capability of about three hours. They were a last-ditch survival measure and were cheap enough so that everyone could have one.

I hope to God, they don’t need them, Ian thought. “Mike, is anyone out on the surface?”

“Ensign Tanaka and Petty Officer Simpson are at Radar Site Two in a mooncrawler. It will take them approximately one hour to return.”

“That’s too long. Tell them what’s happening and order them to find whatever shelter they can out there. What’s our ship status?”

“Wanderer is en route from Earth, ETA three point four hours. Starfire is online and ready in Bay One. She will need about fifteen minutes to power up. Starsong is out of service for weapons refit in Bay Two. There is no possibility she can be ready before the warheads arrive.”

“Any chance Starfire can intercept those warheads?”

“Unlikely, Commander. By the time she launches, given the velocity and dispersal pattern of the incoming targets, she will be fortunate to get a passing shot at one or two of them before they impact.”

“Contact Commander Greenwood,” Ian ordered. “Tell her to get Starfire out of there ASAP. If you can vector her for any of those passing shots you mentioned, do so, but after that, she’s to stand off at least a thousand kilometers above the surface and wait until the attack is over. Then she can return for search and rescue. Tell the crew working on Starsong to suspend work and head for shelter.”

Ian looked up and found that Charlie Bender and Carla Perry had joined him. “Well, people,” he said, “this is it. No more speeches. Here comes the Big Stick. Hell, I didn’t think they would really do it, but—”

“Who’s shooting at us? The U.S.?” Carla interrupted.

“Don’t know for sure,” Charlie told her, “but they seem to be the most likely suspect, given the amount of noise they’ve been making.”

“Carla, monitor evacuations,” Ian directed. “Get as many people down deep as you can. Charlie, stay here and speak up if you can think of anything I’ve forgotten.”

“Sir, I believe I have vectors for all hostile warheads,” Mike advised. “There are fifty incoming in ten groups of five, but they are dispersed over a target area almost three hundred kilometers in diameter. In addition, the center of that pattern is approximately fifty-seven kilometers northwest of our position, near our primary communications transmitter.”

“That’s a big spread.” Ian was puzzled. “Fifty warheads won’t be enough to cover that large an area. Mike, how many are actual threats to the base?”

“Assuming they have no maneuvering power, only seven warheads will strike within a fifty kilometer radius. I’ll need more tracking time to project actual impact sites, but none of them appear to be on course for a direct hit.”

“See if you can vector Starfire onto any of those seven. Ignore the others, unless we see any evidence they can maneuver.”

* * *

“Clear of the doors!” Tommy Sakura sang out.

“Roger that,” Lorna Greenwood replied. “Rob, go to max power.” The lunar surface fell away behind them. “Mike,” she said, keying her command circuit, “give me the vector for those incoming warheads.”

Graphics appeared immediately on Lorna’s navigational display, and she ordered Rob Giotti to follow the indicated course.

“Powering up weapons,” she advised grimly.

“You will not see the targets,” the computer voice told her. “You will have to fire by radar alone. The targets are small and will not return a useful radar echo until you are within five hundred kilometers. You will have approximately fifteen seconds to obtain a target lock and fire.”

Lorna selected Auto Lock—Target Cycle on the weapons panel. According to the engineers, her targeting system should lock automatically onto any radar echo not identified as friendly. And right now, she told herself, there’s nothing out here that’s friendly.

“Targets will be in range within five minutes, twelve seconds.” the computer said.

* * *

Yoshi Tanaka was afraid, but he was determined not to show his fear to a gaijin like Simpson. Ever since his grandfather had sent him to the Deep Space Research Institute, nothing seemed to have gone as expected. At first, he had not learned any of the Institute’s great secrets. Then, when so much was revealed, he was compelled to go to the Moon to continue gathering intelligence on his grandfather’s behalf. Here, however, he found himself without the means to communicate that intelligence.

They were under nuclear attack. More than anything, he feared the base would be destroyed while they were out there, and he and Simpson would be doomed to a death of thirst, hunger, or suffocation. Worse, his grandfather would never know what had happened to him; he would know only that he had failed in his task.

* * *

“Jeremy! Barbara! Help Ms. Williston get the younger ones into their suits!” Thomas Perry ordered.

“Yes, Lieutenant Perry,” the two teenagers responded, moving into the milling crowd of twenty-five young children struggling to pull on and seal up their survival suits.

“Jason, give me a hand with this gear.” Perry was busy getting glow lights and other equipment out of the emergency supplies cabinet in the schoolhouse tunnel, where he and Ensign Marsha Williston served as teachers for the entire school-age population of Luna. Besides the twenty-five elementary schoolers (cadets in the new Lunar jargon) who were mostly Williston’s responsibility, Perry’s charges included nine high-schoolers (senior cadets) who were now helping him prepare for the worst. As Perry dug the equipment out of the closet, Jason McKenna took it from him and carried it to the folding table that served as a teacher’s desk.

Perry had been surprised when Commander Stevens placed him in charge of the Lunar Educational Facility and gave him a free hand as far as the school was concerned. There was a shortage of school supplies and teaching aids, but Mike, the amazing computer Perry met after reaching the Moon, could produce video presentations and other course materials. More importantly, the children were eager to learn, even the teenagers. Perry was beginning to feel like a real teacher again.

Right now, though, he was less concerned about the children’s education than their survival. He was grateful he’d found Williston, the matronly wife of one of the construction workers, who had been a grade-school teacher years ago. She was excellent at keeping the youngest ones in check, and even the threat of a nuclear attack didn’t shake her calm demeanor.

As he watched her getting her cadets organized, he thought of an old news video he’d once seen—children in the 1950s practicing emergency drills in anticipation of a potential nuclear attack. But that was the so-called Cold War, he thought. Their attack never came, but ours will be arriving in a few minutes. How did that old joke go? In case of nuclear attack, sit down, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.

* * *

“Don’t worry, Rosa. These tunnels are far down in the mountain. We will be safe here,” Carlos Rodriguez told his wife. “You wait here. I just need to go to the other end and make sure the water is turned off for the tomato beds. If a pipe breaks or something, they might flood.”

“Can I come with you?”

“It’s wet and muddy down there,” he said. “I’ll only be a minute. You wait here and finish putting on your survival suit.”

“All right, but hurry back.”

* * *

“C’mon, baby…C’mon, baby,” Lorna muttered. Starfire’s command deck had been redesigned with three seats—two up front and Lorna’s command chair, slightly above and behind the other two. While the ship could be conned from any of the three stations, it was designed to be operated by a team of people, each with different responsibilities. Rob Giotti, in the left seat, had the helm, while Tommy Sakura handled systems and engineering from the right. Lorna had the ship’s computer, weaponry, and targeting functions locked into her console. Her attention fixed on the display, she was mentally willing the targets to appear.

Obligingly, they did. Six bright blips suddenly bloomed on the screen, and the targeting system went into acquisition mode. Lorna tensed, her fingers tightening slightly on the fire control stick.

“Lock on, baby,” she demanded and was rewarded a moment later as a bright red circle appeared around one of the blips. The targeting system was not equipped to fire automatically, but Lorna’s reaction was cat-quick. Her index finger twitched, and Graser One spit its beam of energy at the invisible target over 400 kilometers away. A hellish fireball blossomed ahead, and the forward viewscreen darkened automatically in response to its sun-bright fury.

“Yessss!” Lorna hissed. “Find me another one.”

As if in answer, another blip sprouted a crimson ring on her screen. She had already flipped her weapons select switch to bring Graser Two online while the first weapon recharged. She squeezed the trigger again and a second fireball blossomed, this time a mere 80 kilometers away. It was so bright, the forward screen went almost black. The remaining targets had moved off the edges of the screen, and Lorna realized they were passing her.

“Rob! I have the conn!” she shouted. Giotti had no time to acknowledge before Lorna slammed the flight controls hard over, wheeling the big ship around as fast as her thrusters could manage it. With an expert touch, she caught it as the ship reversed itself and stopped it on the exact reciprocal of her previous course. She poured full power to the drive, applying 60 gees of acceleration to kill the ship’s previous vector. Nonetheless, it would take time to stop, and the warheads were falling very rapidly toward the Moon. She would never catch them, but she might get one more shot…

“C’mon, baby—just one more,” she pleaded. There it was! The targeting system locked on to the single, receding blip just as Graser One’s ready light came back on. Lorna pressed the trigger again, and the screen was lit with another fireball, dimmer with distance than the previous two. Then the screen was clear of targets.

“Luna Control, Starfire,” she called, keying her communications circuit. “I got three of them, but the rest made it past me. You’re on your own. Good luck!”

“Starfire, Luna Control,” Ian’s voice replied. “Three is better than we expected. Thanks.”

* * *

“Impact in five…four…three…two…one…Impact!” the computer’s voice announced.

The team in Ops flinched, but there was no immediate effect. The warhead had detonated almost seven kilometers from the front door of the base, the rocky face of a lunar cliff that contained the main entrance locks. The warhead had been set to detonate at 300 meters above the surface, which would have been ideal for an Earth target. On the Moon, the lack of atmosphere denied the bomb one of its most destructive forces—an airborne shockwave. Heat and radiation washed over the base portals, but it was little worse than the heat and radiation of full lunar daylight.

But then came the ground shock, rippling through the base like an earthquake with an epicenter right in their front yard. It started as a deep, bass rumble and passed through Ops like an ocean wave. Floor panels buckled, and people were knocked off their feet or hurled out of chairs. Equipment crashed to the floor, and one rack of overhead light fixtures came tumbling down. All the lights went out, plunging the tunnel into the kind of total darkness that was only possible in a deep underground cavern.

* * *

Carlos Rodriguez was halfway down the length of the farm tunnel when the shockwave knocked him to his hands and knees. He heard a heavy rumble behind him, louder than the background noise of the ground shock. He tried to turn and look back, but the lights failed, and the tunnel went black. Mercifully, it spared him the sight of tons of rock crashing down from the ceiling at the far end, where his wife waited for him.

* * *

Tanaka and Simpson had parked their mooncrawler in a narrow cleft in the wall of a small crater. The surrounding rock shielded them from the blast that hit the base almost 40 kilometers away, though they saw its light reflected from the rock walls on the other side of the crater.

“Jesus have mercy…” Simpson prayed.

It turned out to be the last word for either of them, as another warhead detonated almost directly above them, consuming the mooncrawler and its occupants in a ball of nuclear fire.

* * *

The last thing Thomas Perry heard were the children’s screams. Then the shockwave slammed him against the tunnel wall. He was unconscious before the lighting system failed.

* * *

A single battery-powered emergency light came on in Ops, dimly illuminating the dust-filled chamber. There should have been four such lights, but three had been wrenched from their wall brackets and lay shattered on the floor. A few people moaned, but Ian Stevens was listening for another sound—the hiss of escaping air. To his relief, he didn’t hear it; the tunnel was still airtight. He got to his feet, a task that seemed far easier than it should have been.

“Gravity plates are offline,” he announced. “Be careful moving around, everyone.”

He found Carla Perry standing near him, looking disheveled but, otherwise, unhurt.

“Is anyone seriously hurt?” Carla called out.

“Over here!” The voice belonged to Charlie Bender.

Charlie wasn’t hurt but was trying to lift an equipment cabinet under which a young petty officer lay pinned. She was bleeding from the mouth, and Ian suspected her chest had been crushed. Under Earth-normal gravity, the cabinet would have been difficult to lift, but under one-sixth gee, Charlie and Ian were able to clear it away.

Carla knelt by the woman and tried to reassure her. “Take it easy, Mary Ann. Help is on the way.” She looked sharply at Ian, who shook his head and turned to the nearest undamaged console.

He tried the intercom system, but it was dead. He moved back into his office and plugged his survival suit into an emergency communications panel. “This is Stevens. Can anyone hear me?”

“Commander Stevens, this is Mike,” the computer replied.

“Mike! Status Report!” Ian demanded, grateful the computer had survived the attack.

“My central systems are working, Commander, but I have no communications with most of the base. Only Ops, Main Engineering, Medical, and Habitat Section Four are responding. Dr. Wilkins reports the medical facility is functional.”

“Carla,” Ian called, “send someone to check the tunnels between here and Medical. If they’re clear, let’s move the injured down there. They don’t have enough medics to make house calls.”

Ian braced himself as another shockwave (a mild one this time) rumbled through the base. He hadn’t been able to keep track of the warheads, but that one must have hit 40 or 50 klicks away.

“Mike,” he asked, “what’s happening on the surface?”

“I don’t know, Commander. The EM pulses from the explosions knocked out our surface electronics. However, based on previously calculated trajectories, all incoming warheads must have impacted by now.”

“Okay, put me through to Engineering. Let’s find out what’s working and what’s not.”

* * *

Thirty minutes after the attack, Ian, Carla, and Charlie Bender stood in Main Engineering, the only section of the base that had full power and computer access. All eyes were on the graphics table the engineers used to display blueprints and schematics. Its two-meter-square surface was lit with a map of the entire base, and Mick O’Hara was conducting a status briefing.

“The good news is that we’ve still got pressure throughout the base, except for the two docking bays, the vehicle bay, and these two tunnel sections—G1, which connects Docking Bay Two to the central corridor, and B2, which connects the vehicle bay to Docking Bay One.”

As O’Hara spoke, the computer obligingly highlighted each of the sections mentioned. “The bad news,” he continued, “is that environmental systems are down in the entire Habitat Section, as well as the farm tunnels, Ops, the labs, and the central corridor. The air in these areas will get stale if we don’t get those systems online. Carbon dioxide levels are already going up.”

“Can we see the distribution of people in each section?” Carla asked.

In response, new icons appeared on the display, with numbers representing the population in each section. In some cases, there were notations indicating the number had not been verified.

“We’re keeping the doors closed until all the section seals have been tested,” O’Hara continued. “We can always move people around if the air gets too bad in some sections. We do have some tunnels blocked by rock falls, and there are a couple of sections we haven’t been able to reach yet. This,” he indicated a section of the display outlined in red, “is the biggest problem.”

No one said a word. They could all read the label—Educational Facility. The fate of thirty-odd children and two teachers was still in doubt.

“Mike,” O’Hara said, “please display all known blockages.” The computer complied, highlighting various sections with yellow cross-hatching. “We know K4 from the central corridor to the school is blocked at the central corridor end, and this section of Habitat One is blocked by a major fall, cutting off access through L4 to the school. We’ve got two people missing in Habitat One, and I’m afraid they might have gotten caught in the fall. We’re hoping the K4 blockage isn’t too bad, and I’ve got a crew working on it from the central corridor end. I’ve got another crew working with a plasma cutter in K5, which we’ve sealed off, trying to cut across to K4 in the middle. I’ve also got a crew working in K2, trying to get through to the Life Sciences lab section. There are four people in there, but we’ve been able to talk to them via a jury-rigged link. They should be okay until we get through. We think we also have two people trapped in Farm Tunnel One, but we have no communications there. I’ve got another plasma cutter trying to get across from Farm Tunnel Two.

“Other than that, I’ve got two crews working on the docking bays. We want to get Bay One sealed up so we can get the ships in and out. Starsong took some damage in Bay Two, and we need to get the bay sealed so we can get to work on her. Needless to say, our big priority is to get environmental restored throughout the base. Questions, anyone?”

There were none. “Thanks, Mick,” Ian said. “If you need warm bodies to help on any of the work crews, talk to Carla. Which brings us to the question of casualties. What’s the status?”

“We have six known dead,” Carla replied grimly. “All victims of rock falls or falling equipment, except one who was electrocuted by a severed electric feeder cable. In addition, we have forty-seven unaccounted for. That includes the thirty-four children and two teachers in the school section, two in Farm Tunnel One, the two Mick mentioned in Habitat One, five more in sections that haven’t been checked yet, and two out on the surface in a mooncrawler. We also have sixty-seven injured, twelve critically. So far, Wilkins and her team have been able to cope. I’ve given them five of Charlie’s Marines to act as orderlies and assigned the rest to Mick for SAR. If we need more people on any of the teams, we can probably draft more of the scientists.”

“Okay, Carla, keep on it,” he said. “Mike, what about communications links?”

“I have one comm laser on the surface that survived the attack. I’m using it to maintain communications with Wanderer. In addition, Engineering has run a cable out to Starfire, which has landed outside Bay One. I’ve also reestablished communications with Radar One, which survived the attack, and am running stealth sweeps against the possibility of more incoming warheads. Per Lieutenant Commander Bender’s directive, I’m not using active radar anywhere within ten degrees of Earth’s current position in the sky.”

“Right. Let them think they killed us,” Bender muttered.

“I have one passive, all-band antenna still in service,” the computer continued, “and have nothing unusual to report regarding Earth radio and television broadcasts. The United States government issued a press release, stating simply that military action is underway against the terrorists who have seized the Moon, but no details were provided.”

“Tell Commander Greenwood to take Starfire back up,” Ian ordered. “I want her to use the ship’s radar systems to sweep the most likely vector for any additional incoming warheads. When Wanderer arrives, have her make a sweep of the area around Radar Two, from the last known position of the missing mooncrawler back to the base. Mick, keep those crews digging. Nobody rests until everyone is accounted for.”

* * *

The final total was fourteen dead. The rescuers were jubilant when they broke through to the school tunnel and found all the children alive, with no life-threatening injuries. Lieutenant Perry, with a concussion and broken collarbone, was the most seriously hurt of the lot, and he was hustled off to the medical facility for treatment.

Rescuers dug two bodies out of the fallen rock in Habitat One, and when the crew broke through into Farm Tunnel One, they found Carlos Rodriguez trying vainly with his bare hands to clear the tons of fallen rock atop his wife. Two more bodies were recovered as more tunnels were cleared, and Research Director Alan Jaronski, one of the critically injured, died in the medical facility. Finally, a search by Wanderer found the newly blasted nuclear crater at the last reported position of Simpson and Tanaka.

* * *

Arrangements were made for funeral services as the last bodies were pulled from the rubble, and the survivors were still faced with the task of repairing the damage. The scientists, still stunned by Jaronski’s death and the severe damage to their laboratories, were pressed into service, helping the engineers repair vital systems. An unfinished section of Habitat Four was rigged as a temporary hospital for those of the injured who needed ongoing treatment.

Ian tried to comfort and encourage the survivors, but Carla Perry worried he was not letting anyone comfort him. She knew he blamed himself for the deaths, for putting all of them into their current predicament, for not being fully prepared for the attack he should have known would come. She tried to get him to talk about it, to no avail.

She had better luck with Lorna Greenwood, who wanted to blame herself for failing to intercept all the warheads. Carla had dragged Lorna over to a computer display and asked Mike to plot the probable impact sites of the three warheads Lorna had destroyed. The results were chilling, for one of them would have struck even closer than the one that did most of the damage.

All things considered, they had been very, very lucky.

* * *

“Commander, we need to talk.”

Charlie Bender stood in the doorway of the engineering cubicle Ian Stevens had appropriated for an office.

“Okay, Charlie,” Ian said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, I guess it’s fair to say we’re at war.”

“Yes, considering someone just dumped about two gigatons of nukes on our head.”

“So, have you thought about our next move?”

“Yes, I have. But there’s one piece of intel I need. Where did those warheads come from?”

Charlie smiled grimly. “I’ve got an answer to that one.”

“Just a minute.” Ian stopped him. “Let’s get Carla in here. I’m redefining a few people’s roles around here to put us on a war footing. Carla will be my chief of staff, Lorna will oversee fleet operations, and you are in charge of operational analysis and planning, as well as intel. In short, I’m going to lay out some objectives, you will plan the missions needed to get the job done, and Lorna will carry them out. Carla will handle the necessary support functions and brief anyone else who needs to be in on it. Comments?”

“Sounds like a plan. Not much change from what we’re doing now, actually.”

“Nope. Just making it official. I wish Lorna could join us for this meeting, but she’s up there with Starfire, maintaining whatever thin defense we can muster.”

Bender nodded. “Okay, let’s get Carla in here, and I’ll tell you what I found.”

Carla was just a short distance away in the makeshift hospital, looking in on her father. She arrived within minutes of being summoned, and Charlie directed them to the display table.

“We backtracked the warheads,” he said, “and they were launched from an orbital platform. We searched the U.N. Space Agency’s database of orbital objects and found this thing in an orbit that tracked with our projected launch coordinates.”

On cue, Mike displayed an orbital diagram and the corresponding database entry.

“It’s listed as a spent rocket booster of U.S. origin, but Mike has problems with that explanation. For one thing, its orbit is nearly circular. Spent boosters usually wind up in highly elliptical orbits. Also, it’s a lot higher up than you would expect. Most satellites are lifted only to low Earth orbit by the primary booster and use a small secondary engine to move to a higher orbit. Finally, it’s been up there a long time—over five years. Spent boosters usually decay and de-orbit within a year or so. I figure this thing is a big piece of U.S. military hardware they don’t want anyone to get curious about. It’s big enough to give a faint radar return all the way from here, so it would be hard to conceal. By identifying it as another piece of orbital junk, they’ve hidden it in plain sight.

“If it’s what we think it is—a canister of nuclear missiles—it doesn’t need an active electronics package. All it needs is a receiver to sit there and wait for aiming coordinates and a set of launch codes. The motors they’d normally use for de-orbit burns could lift the warheads out of orbit and send them on their way to the Moon. The accuracy wouldn’t be as good as against Earth targets, but you could lay down the kind of barrage we experienced with a set-up like that.”

“Hmmm…” Ian was thoughtful. “Have you and Mike found any more canisters out there?”

“No, and we certainly looked for them.”

“What are the odds they would spend their entire orbital nuclear capability on one attempt to take us out?”

It was Bender’s turn to look thoughtful. “You think they have more shots left in that thing?”

“In other words,” Carla said, “they can hit us again if they want to.”

“There is that possibility,” Ian said, “but now we know where they keep their arsenal.”

* * *

“Well…ho, ho, ho and merry Christmas,” Lorna Greenwood muttered. “Base, are you seeing this?”

“Roger that, Starfire.” Charlie Bender’s voice came back after the usual two-second pause. “Looks like you’ve found the package. You should probably back off a few hundred klicks. Two hours to firing point.”

Bender turned away from the display and spoke to Ian and Carla, who were looking over his shoulder. “You were right, Commander. Looks like they’ve got about thirty more missiles in there.”

The object on the screen was a fat cylinder with twenty launch tubes protruding from each end. Ten tubes on one end were uncovered and appeared to be empty.

“Okay,” Ian told him. “You are go for Operation Light Show. Carla, let’s go make that call to Earth.”

* * *

It was ten minutes to midnight at WNN’s Atlanta news studios when the chief engineer stuck his head into the night producer’s office. “Hey, Jerry, it’s those Moon People again! They’re playing games with the TransPacific Two satellite, and we’re getting a live feed!”

The producer, a rather junior man who had been stuck with the duty on Christmas Eve, suddenly realized that opportunity might be knocking on his door. For several days, the government had been hinting that the Moon People had been wiped out by a military strike. Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated, he thought. Who said that? Mark Twain, wasn’t it? Great! What a lead-in for the story.

“You’d better tell me you’re recording it!”

“I’m recording it! Of course, I’m recording it!”

* * *

“Range: one thousand kilometers. Targeting systems locked on,” Lieutenant Tommy Sakura reported. “Darkening viewscreens now.”

Behind him, Lorna sat in her command chair, watching the countdown on the chronometer. This time, she was content to simply command and let someone else press the buttons. Below her, the Earth lay in darkness, broken only by patches of light from the major cities, but she knew the target was coming over the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. There were very few clouds down there, making the night ideal for the mission. Slowly, the chronometer worked its way to zero.

“Fire!” Lorna ordered.

On the command, Sakura triggered both powerful gamma-ray lasers.

* * *

Senator Blackthorne had just opened his mouth to make a point with the British ambassador when sunlight streamed into the windows of the hotel ballroom. Sunlight? But it’s midnight! Outside, on the glass-enclosed terrace, he could see other partygoers, suddenly frozen in a light as bright as high noon. His brain screamed nuclear attack! With a small whimper, he waited for annihilation. Instead, the light slowly faded, without the expected sound and fury. Then panic broke out among the guests.

* * *

“That’s all we’ve been getting, Jerry. Just ‘please stand by.’ We’re feeding it to all the bureaus, but…wait a minute! Something’s happening.”

The producer and the engineer stood in front of the wall-sized monitor with most of the newsroom crew crowded in behind them. The room had no windows, and no one noticed when the phones on the console behind them suddenly began flashing for attention.

A picture appeared on the screen—a man in uniform seated at a desk with an unfamiliar logo on the wall behind him. “It’s that Stevens guy!” someone exclaimed, but the producer had already recognized the self-proclaimed commander of the Moon People.

Without preamble, Stevens began to speak. “A few moments ago, space forces of the Lunar Free State destroyed an orbiting nuclear weapons platform belonging to the United States of America. We will provide you with video of the action, but those of you in the eastern portion of the U.S. have already seen the event—the detonation, five thousand kilometers above the Earth’s surface, of approximately one hundred fifty nuclear warheads, with a combined yield of over four thousand megatons.

“Twelve days ago, that platform was used to launch an unprovoked attack against the Lunar Free State. The fact that I am talking to you should be ample evidence that the attack failed. Nonetheless, we could not allow this action to go unanswered.

“We are a peaceful people. We think of ourselves as pioneers, exploring the next frontier of human endeavor. But like the pioneers of old, we are prepared to defend ourselves if necessary. We could have retaliated in kind, by seizing that platform and using it against our attackers. We did not do so. We do not believe in taking the lives of innocent people because their leaders have chosen to behave in an uncivilized manner. We are, however, taking the following actions.

“At this moment, our ships are destroying every United States military satellite in orbit. In addition, we will interdict all future launches of a military nature by the United States. We have no desire to disrupt legitimate commerce so we will not disturb commercial communications, weather, or scientific research satellites. Nor will we disturb any satellite of any kind belonging to any other nation unless that nation proves hostile. However, any attempt by any nation to orbit a weapons platform like the one we have just destroyed will be considered evidence of hostile intent.

“To the other nations of Earth, consider this. The nuclear weapons we have just destroyed were placed in orbit long before we established our Lunar nation. They were obviously intended to be used against targets on Earth. We leave it to you to decide what sanctions should be imposed on the nation that put them there.

“We ask only that you accept us for what we are—a small nation of people who only want to live in peace. We offer opportunities for commerce and the exchange of ideas to any nation that is willing to deal with us in a fair and equitable manner. For any government that wishes to communicate with us along these lines, we have pre-empted secure channel 214 of the United Nations’ Argos Twelve diplomatic communications satellite. We look forward to hearing from you.

“In keeping with the spirit of those of you who celebrate the holiday of Christmas today, we wish you peace on Earth and good will toward all. Thank you and good night.”

The picture dissolved into a full screen image of the unfamiliar logo—a circular black field speckled with golden, four-pointed stars surrounding an accurate representation of the full Moon with its familiar craters and maria. An outer ring around the logo bore the legend Lunar Free State in gold-on-black letters.

“Well,” the producer said casually. “That was interesting.”

“Shit,” breathed the engineer.

It was only then that they turned their attention to the flashing lights on the phones behind them. Twenty minutes later, the studio was packed with people frantically rushing to launch a major news production.

* * *

“Happy New Year, everyone,” Ian greeted them as he entered the briefing room, which had been a bare-rock storage chamber until they’d dressed it up with wall panels and used it as a studio for Ian’s latest message to Earth. One wall was a mural of their newly-designed Lunar Free State logo, and Ian had decided to use the chamber as a conference room for his command group.

In addition to Charlie Bender, Lorna Greenwood, and Carla Perry, he had added Mick O’Hara to the group. The pure science people didn’t need to be involved in strategic operations, but Mick’s engineers and technicians were a vital part of the war effort.

“All right, Charlie, let’s start with you,” he said. “Analysis of our current relations with Earth.”

“Well,” Bender began, “the press conference went as well as could be expected. We got their attention, the media people were willing to talk to us, and you didn’t give them any more reasons to crucify us than they already had. However, your flat statement that we would not consider joining the United Nations is not playing well around the world. The U.N. has launched a propaganda effort to convince everyone we are a danger to all humanity. They’re calling on all nations to impose sanctions—including an absolute trade embargo—and are saying military action may be necessary if we don’t submit. They are demanding we turn over at least one of our ships to the U.N. Peacekeeper Command in Brussels.”

“Right. That’ll be a cold day in Hell,” O’Hara muttered.

“Amen,” Lorna seconded. “When you’re a cat up a tree, the last thing you want to do is teach the dogs how to climb.”

“Anyway,” Bender said, “they also threatened to shut down that secure channel on the Argos 12 satellite, but they reconsidered when we told them there wouldn’t be an Argos 12 satellite if they did. I’m sure they’ll be monitoring the channel to find out who’s talking to us. The thing is supposed to be for private diplomatic communications between countries, but of course, we’re not a legitimate country as they see it.

“On a more positive note,” Bender continued with a grim smile, “the New Democratic Republic of Zaire has thumbed its nose at the U.N. and is willing to recognize us and exchange ambassadors…if we can see our way clear to using our space forces to eradicate their terrible neighbors in the Congo. Haiti is willing to do the same if we will announce our support for their ‘legitimate claim’ to sovereignty over the Dominican Republic. Nobody else has offered to recognize us, but there are a lot of nations out there that haven’t said much of anything.”

“What about Japan?” Ian asked.

“Officially, they’re sticking to the U.N. party line, though they do not support military action against us. But that’s consistent with their diplomatic posture regarding any conflict on Earth, and they do claim to support economic sanctions against us.”

“Despite which, our shipments from Dai-Hansu continue to arrive at the staging areas,” Carla added.

“For the moment,” Ian said, “but Tanaka’s been trying to reach me ever since we got to the Moon. I’d been putting him off until the attack, but now, I’ll have to talk to him. At the very least, I’ve got to tell him about his grandson.”

The group was silent for a moment. No one envied Ian the task of breaking the news about young Tanaka’s death in the attack.

“Okay, Charlie. Anything else?”

“Well, the news media is again raking up that old kidnapping charge regarding young Jason McKenna. His parents are still making outrageous statements to anyone who will listen, practically accusing us of being a cult of pedophiles who seduced and abducted him against his will. I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t just dump him at the Mexican supply site and let him find his way home.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Ian said. “The kid has done all we asked, has behaved like an adult, and has the makings of a good Lunar citizen. True, he got here under shady circumstances, but he’s one of us now. We’ve tried to get in touch with his parents, and they don’t want to talk to us, but they’re more than ready to go on any TV show or webcast they can find and paint us as cultists and child molesters. That’s not going to change, whether we send him back or not. Anything else?”

“Just one item. WNN and the European News Agency each lost one transatlantic satellite due to the EM pulse when we set off those nukes in orbit. Mick’s people didn’t think it would reach a bird in geosynchronous orbit, but those two were the closest. The U.N. is telling everyone we destroyed those satellites deliberately—that we mistook them for military birds. The two news networks are pissed about losing their satellites. I think we need to get in touch with them and give them the straight story, even if they don’t buy it.”

“Yes, do that, and pass it along to all of the news agencies. By the way, what has the reaction been to our revelation about U.S. nukes in orbit?”

“The U.S. has denied it, of course. They claim they attacked us using satellite-killer missiles fired from high-flying aircraft. They say we are the ones with nukes in space, and we set off one of our own weapons. The U.N. is taking no action to investigate.”

Ian sighed. “Okay, Charlie, keep putting the truth out there. Maybe, sooner or later, someone will believe us.”

“Maybe,” Bender replied, “but we should face the fact that the truth doesn’t matter to politicians or the media. Only perceptions matter. Victory goes to the guy who puts the best spin on the story.”

Ian gave him a hard look. “That may be true on Earth, but up here, truth matters. And we are going to keep telling the truth until they finally get the picture. Clear?”

“I never doubted it. Anyway, that about covers the situation. Does anyone else have questions?”

“Have there been any other adverse effects from the detonation of those warheads in orbit?” Carla asked.

“Well, it put a lot of charged particles into the upper atmosphere. That’s been playing hell with global communications, and people as far south as Florida and Texas have been seeing the aurora borealis for the first time. Hard-core environmentalists are screaming, but even the physicists on Earth agree it’s just a transitory effect.”

Ian turned to Carla. She had all her notes neatly arrayed on the screen in front of her.

“We have approximately three months of food on hand,” she said. “Despite the rock fall that killed Mrs. Rodriguez, damage to Farm Tunnel One was minimal, so we can expect fresh, home-grown produce within a month. We’ll still need to augment that with protein sources such as meat and dairy products, but, so far, our supply lines from Earth have not been disrupted.

“There are still twelve people who require hospital care, and twenty more on light duty, recovering from injuries. Dr. Wilkins and her team have done an excellent job, but she keeps pointing out that we need more than one qualified physician. There may be doctors on Earth who are interested in joining us, and Mike and I are trying to come up with a secure method of finding and screening prospective applicants. Unfortunately, given the current relations with Earth, we can’t just advertise in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

“Why not?” Charlie asked. “You don’t have to say it’s for a position with the dastardly, war-mongering Moon People. Just say you are looking for an M.D. willing to relocate, for practice in a small nation with limited medical facilities.”

“Hmmm…you may have a point. I’ll give it some thought. In any case,” Carla continued, “Wilkins has put together a list of additional medical equipment and supplies we’ll need for a fully-functional hospital, which brings me to the next problem.

“We’re going to have trouble paying for our supplies. The U.N. sanctions have effectively frozen all our Earth-bound assets. With U.S. help, they’ve tracked down every bank account the Institute had on Earth—and the personal accounts of everyone up here—and locked up the money. Our Japanese friends continue to extend credit, but no one else wants to do business with us unless they see cash up front. I have the figures here on what we need to cover operating expenses, and it’s not small change. We have enough gold Krugerands, Maple Leafs, and Brittanias on hand to keep us in business for another few months, but after that, it’s going to get dicey.”

“I have some ideas,” Ian told her. “It’s time we thought about having our own currency. Table it for now, and you and I can discuss it later.”

That raised a few eyebrows around the table. They all knew they couldn’t simply print money—any currency had to be backed by something.

Carla moved on to her next point. “Morale is good, considering what we’ve been through. If anything, it’s better now than before the attack, but there are exceptions. I’ve been approached by nine people who say they want to go back to Earth. None of them have access to sensitive technology, but all of them know a few things about us we’d rather keep secret. All the same, I don’t think we can keep them here against their will. If they really want to go, we should get them out of here before they damage the morale of others.

“On the other hand, we’ve seen a flood of postings from people who want to join us. Some of them are obvious crackpots, but there are some intelligent, reasonable people making inquiries.”

“Half of them are probably NSA agents,” Charlie remarked. “That’s the only reason they allow our pages to stay up on the social networks—they either want to snoop on us or on the people who are contacting us.”

Carla made a sour face. He was probably right, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. She moved on. “Mike estimates we can support up to five times our current population without major expansion of the base. We’d need to extend power, communications, and gravity, but the real problem is food, clothing, and furnishings like beds, tables, and chairs. Despite his reputation as a miracle worker,” she smiled sweetly at the engineer, “Commander O’Hara hasn’t yet figured out how to make any of those things out of Moon dust.”

“That’s not quite correct, Commander Perry,” O’Hara said with a grin. “We’ve come up with a resin compound that uses crushed lunar regolith as a base. We use it to seal around airlocks and fill in irregular surfaces, but it can be molded and machined. We can make furniture out of it, if you don’t mind sitting on something that looks and feels like a slab of polished rock. It’s good for desks and tables, but I don’t think beds made of the stuff would be popular.”

Carla was impressed. Damn! These people are resourceful. I’m surprised he didn’t come up with a recipe for Moon rock stew. “In any case,” she continued, “we may not be ready to add a lot of people right now, but in the future, we have to do something. We don’t have enough people for a self-sustaining population. I think we should give some consideration to our immigration policy. That’s all I’ve got for now. Comments? Questions?”

“Just a comment on morale,” Charlie Bender said. “Most everyone handled themselves well during the attack, but some people really stepped up. Some of Mick’s people put themselves at risk clearing the tunnels to get to those who were trapped. Doc Wilkins and her medics did a great job, and according to our teachers, two of the teenagers—one of them our prodigal Jason McKenna—really pitched in after Lieutenant Perry was injured. We ought to consider a medal or decoration for those people. We should also consider a posthumous decoration for those who died in the attack.”

Carla was taken aback, not so much by the idea as by its source. “That’s a terrific idea, Mr. Bender. And to think everyone says you don’t have a heart!”

“I’m not getting all warm and fuzzy. I’m just pointing out the traditional way military organizations recognize service above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Be that as it may, Charlie, it is a good idea,” Ian said. “Gather some information on traditional military decorations—American, British, whatever. Then you and Carla come up with a proposal and give it to me verbally no later than tomorrow. Let’s do this while the attack is still fresh in everyone’s mind, not that any of us are likely to forget it anytime soon.

“As for our immigration policy, all of you should give it some thought and be prepared to discuss. Think about what kind of people we want, where we are going to find them, and how we can get them up here. Now, unless anyone has any more questions for Carla, let’s move on to fleet status. Lorna?”

Lorna shifted in her chair. She was still uncomfortable being part of the high command, as she called it, but she knew everything there was to know about the ships.

“As of two days ago,” she began, “we have Starsong back in service, bringing us up to full strength. I need to keep one ship on picket duty, until Radar Two is operational, to watch for incoming warheads. We are also using two ships for every supply and equipment run—one to provide top cover while the other makes the pickup. We have no indication that our supply stations have been compromised, but Charlie and I agree it’s only a matter of time. We need to find a friendly nation willing to give us a secure base of operations, and even then we need to exercise extreme caution.

“We’re working on the destruction or appropriation of all U.S. military satellites we can find, but I don’t have the ships to interdict future launches. We’re just hoping they don’t know that. I have enough problems getting the ships we have in for normal maintenance.”

“I understand,” Ian said, “but I don’t have a solution yet. You’ve done well with what you have; just keep on doing it. Mick, it’s your turn. Hopefully, you’ve got good news.”

“Well, I’ve got some good news,” the stocky, sandy-haired engineer replied cheerfully. “The first good news is that Radar Two should be online by tomorrow. That will give us real long-range search capability. We’ll want to run tests, but I think we’ll be able to release Lorna’s picket ship by the end of the week. Once we get Radar Two operational, we’re going to start an upgrade on Radar One.

“More good news. All major base systems—air, water, power, and gravity—are back up to full operational status. We’ve also cleared most of the rock falls, though we are going to have to abandon tunnel K2. The rock matrix is too unstable. I’ve got a crew cutting a new tunnel from Habitat Three to the Lab Section to bypass it.

“Farm Tunnel Two should be ready to open in about a week, with the north end extended to accommodate the Memorial Park. We’re doing more than a cemetery. It’s going to be a botanical showcase to honor the people who died. What’s left for farming will still be an eighty percent increase over our current space, say another eighty thousand square meters of dirt, just waiting to be fertilized and planted. Per specs, the central section has a fifteen-meter ceiling height for fruit trees.

“As for more ships, Commander Greenwood, I wish I had the people and materials to build you a dozen; however, we do have the keel laid down for Ship Four. It will be bigger than anything we’ve built to date, but it will take at least eight months to build. It should have the heavy-lift capability Carla’s been asking for, but per Lorna’s and Charlie’s requests, it will also have some serious armament. We’re building reloadable missile tubes into the hull, and we’re adding broadside graser batteries in addition to fore and aft grasers. If you call Starfire a destroyer, this baby would be a heavy cruiser or a battlecruiser.”

“Why broadside armament?” Carla asked. “I thought that stuff went out with battleships about a hundred years ago.”

“Simple,” O’Hara said, “having armament that fires out the sides means you keep the strongest part of your gravity drive field between you and the enemy. A gravity-drive ship is most vulnerable to head-on attack. If all you have is forward-firing armament, you have to expose yourself to shoot. With broadside armament, the gravity field won’t have any effect on an outgoing beam of energy, but it will provide shielding against anything incoming. In addition—”

“Okay, I get the picture,” Carla interrupted. Left unchecked, Mick would no doubt keep going until he covered all the new ship’s design features.

“How are you coming along with the missiles?” Charlie asked.

“The design is simple enough—a conventional explosive warhead, a guidance system borrowed from a U.S. design, active radar and passive infrared image homing—it’s a fire-and-forget weapon. Our major contribution is the propulsion system—a short duration, high output gravity drive. The launch tube is a mass driver, to get the missile clear of the ship’s gravity field. Effective missile range should be around ten thousand kilometers.

“Unfortunately, we’re too short on parts to mass produce them. By the time the new ship is finished, we should be ready for testing. After that, we can fabricate them at a rate of about one or two a week. It may take us two months to work up one full load for the new ship.

“Incidentally, no one has yet come up with a name for Ship Four. What are we going to call her, Commander?”

“Well, Lorna?” Ian asked. “She’s going to be your new flagship. I think you should have the privilege of naming her.”

“A battlecruiser…” Lorna replied thoughtfully. “I’m partial to warrior women, but Amazon is too common. Let’s call her Valkyrie.”

“Valkyrie it is. We’ll save Amazon for the next ship in this class unless you can come up with a better name. Anything else, Mick?”

“Just one item. Mike has rewritten the software for those five U.S. surveillance satellites Lorna dragged in here. I’m glad we decided not to destroy them like the others—these are fancy birds. We can put them back in orbit and set them up to watch the known U.S. launch facilities. That will solve Lorna’s interdiction problem without using one of our precious ships to do it.”

* * *

It was, Carla thought, a well done ceremony. Everyone had assembled in the community dining hall, the only chamber other than the landing bays large enough to hold them. Ian made a brief speech, then read the citation for those who died in the attack. It was a simple citation, praising them for courage under fire and for making the ultimate sacrifice for the new nation. Then he read off the names of the dead and presented each of them with the Lunar Medal of Honor, Posthumous. At each name, a family member or friend of the deceased stepped forward to receive the medal. Charlie Bender’s Marines, resplendent in newly-tailored dress uniforms, formed the honor guard. The medals, carefully crafted in Mick O’Hara’s machine shops, were quite impressive—a silver representation of the Moon set in the center of a gold, four-pointed star, with a wide red, black, and gold ribbon.

Ian commended the assembled crowd for their courage during the attack and told them they would all be entitled to wear a special decoration, the First Battle of Luna service ribbon. It was a simple, military-style, blue ribbon with a wide, gold stripe in the center and two thin, silver stripes on each edge.

Then Ian singled out the twelve people who had performed above and beyond the call of duty. The group included Lorna Greenwood (for her action in destroying the incoming warheads), Sarah Wilkins and her two medical assistants, two Marines, three engineering people, one science lab technician, and the two teenage senior cadets who had distinguished themselves during the ordeal in the school tunnel. Ian read a personal citation for each of them, describing the actions they had performed, then they stepped forward to receive the Lunar Star. Like Ian and Carla and Charlie Bender, who stood with him on the stage, the recipients wore dress uniforms, complete with rank insignia. The medal was a silver star with a gold-striped, maroon ribbon. One of Carla’s worries had been that all the uniforms, medals, and ribbons would not be ready in time, but the base’s tiny tailor shop had worked overtime, and the new uniforms looked sharp compared to the working coveralls they wore every day.

The crowd greeted each recipient with cheers and applause. Following the presentation, lunch was served. Community dining had been a difficult thing to accept at first, but now, many looked forward to meals as daily social events. Circulating through the crowd, Carla heard favorable comments on the awards and praise for the newly decorated heroes. There were also more tears for the dead. We’ve created our first martyrs, Carla thought, then chided herself for her cynicism.

* * * * *

Chapter Eleven

February

Love, War, and Diplomacy

“Why is it that the only people who want to deal with us are people with big problems of their own? First it was Zaire, with their nasty little war, then Haiti, with their grand plans for expansion and nonexistent economy, now it’s South Korea, which may cease to exist at any moment.”

Ian knew what Charlie was talking about. A few years prior, the People’s Republic of Korea—North Korea—had launched a massive invasion of its neighbor to the south. The South Korean capital of Seoul fell within two days. The United States, ignoring the mutual defense treaties it had signed with South Korea, had stood by and called for U.N. action, while the invaders pushed the defenders all the way down the length of the Korean peninsula.

When U.N. peacekeepers finally worked out a cease fire, the South Koreans only held the island province of Cheju-Do, 100 kilometers off the Korean mainland. The exiled South Korean government had argued for the status quo ante—territorial lines as they were before hostilities began—but with the help of China, North Korea convinced the U.N. to freeze territorial holdings as of the cease fire, leaving the South Koreans with a “nation” of just over 1,800 square kilometers.

The U.N. had agreed to patrol the intervening waters for a period of ten years, using naval forces that were downsized each year and were now little more than a token. South Korea had every reason to expect a final assault from the north at any time, but now, the doomed nation was asking to open diplomatic relations with the Lunar Free State.

“The difference, Charlie,” Ian explained, “is that there is no quid pro quo. The Koreans have not asked us for anything.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t want anything from us.”

“You’re right, but we’ll have the option to refuse. Besides—” he chuckled, “—we underdogs have to stick together. Tell them we’re willing to exchange envoys. Who can we send?”

“I don’t suppose we have anyone who speaks Korean?”

“Hell, Charlie, I’d worry more about whether we have anyone who has a clue about how to conduct international diplomacy.”

“So, we’ll just give them straight talk. That should be a refreshing change.”

* * *

Ian was having a rare private lunch with Carla, the two of them sharing a small table in a corner of the dining hall late in the lunch period when few other diners were present.

“I am really going to miss Alan Jaronski,” Ian said.

“I didn’t realize you were that close.”

“No, I don’t mean personally,” he explained. “Alan wasn’t the easiest guy to deal with, but he was absolutely brilliant. He gave us the Moon. Had he lived, I believe he’d have given us the stars as well.”

“How? I mean, that would require faster-than-light travel. Not even the great Alan Jaronski could violate the laws of physics…or could he?”

“Not exactly, but—”

Carla had never studied the sciences but contact with the high-powered brains among the Lunar science team had given her a basic scientific education. She gave him a quizzical look, encouraging him to continue.

“It all has to do with gravity,” he explained. “Once Jaronski finally figured out the nature of gravity, he got a big surprise. Gravity—natural gravity as we see it at work in the universe—is a very weak force.”

“Weak?” Carla was skeptical. “It’s what keeps the planets in orbit. I’d hardly call that weak.”

“That’s because there are huge amounts of matter involved. Think about it. It takes a mass the size of the Earth to generate just one gee of natural gravitational force, yet our tiny little ships can generate fifty times that amount without really straining. Haven’t you ever wondered about that?”

“Well…actually, I never thought about it.”

“That was Jaronski’s big surprise. He found out, when we generated gravity by artificial means, it wasn’t a weak force at all. In fact, it was many orders of magnitude stronger than natural gravity, but all his research showed that, except for the strength factor, there was no difference between artificial and natural gravity. He’d probably have gotten stuck on that for the next ten years if I hadn’t pushed him to turn his existing work into practical applications.

“But he never forgot about the problem. In fact, he became obsessed with it to the point where he started digging into the work others had done, to the point of admitting someone might know something he didn’t. He found some obscure work done by another physicist, a woman, I believe, who had been trying to figure out why gravity was such a weak force compared with other natural forces like magnetism. She proposed a hypothesis based on n-dimensional math. It was way beyond my skill level, but Alan understood it quite well. Her hypothesis was that gravity is actually a strong force, that it may be the strongest force of all in an n-dimensional frame.”

“Whoa,” Carla interrupted. “You were past my skill level the first time you said n-dimensional. What does that mean?”

“We perceive the universe in three dimensions, four when you include time,” he explained. “N-dimensional math presumes there may be many more dimensions—perhaps an infinite number—that we can’t perceive from our limited viewpoint. You might think of it as another universe out there, or an extension of our own universe that we can’t see or measure, except through n-dimensional math. In any case, she proposed the gravity we perceive in our four-dimensional frame is just a residual effect of something much stronger in that extended universe. Think of it as something that just sort of leaks through into the four dimensions we can measure.

“Alan was convinced she was right, and he started to make some progress, though he was hard pressed to explain it to the rest of us Neanderthals. I got him to give me an idiot version once, and I understood why he was so excited.

“He believed it was possible to translate an ordinary object—like a spacecraft, for example—into the n-dimensional frame, effectively into that other universe. More importantly, the math seemed to indicate that gravity wasn’t the only thing that was different over there. As he put it, once you crossed over, you would find that general relativity and special relativity no longer applied, or at least, not the way they apply here. It was possible the speed of light wasn’t a limiting factor for travel, or maybe the speed of light wasn’t the speed of light anymore, or distances were not the same, or something. At that point, Alan’s simplified explanation got complicated, and he lost me completely. But the bottom line was that travel to the stars just might be possible.

“Unfortunately, Alan’s the only one who really understood, and he hadn’t worked it out completely. I’ve been talking to his assistants and the other scientists, and all of them were aware he was onto something, but none of them understood it any more than I do. The only one who seems to have some understanding of it is Mike, and he says Alan hadn’t produced a full hypothesis yet.”

“Can’t Mike carry on Alan’s research? I mean, if anyone has the intelligence for it, he would be the likely candidate.”

“No, he can’t,” Ian said with a sigh. “Mike’s not human. He lacks one important human quality for that type of work. Call it intuition or insight or creativity, but it’s really the what-if factor—the ability to say, ‘What if this is the answer?’ That’s where science starts. You observe something, and you try to figure it out, usually starting with a what-if, a wild supposition, or a flash of intuition. Then you try to build that into a hypothesis, something that can be tested. You test it, and if it passes the basic tests, it becomes a theory. Then you try to prove it.

“The problem is that Alan hadn’t yet come up with the what-ifs. If he had, Mike might be able to work up the hypothesis. After that, you’d be into the area where Mike really shines—testing. Given a hypothesis to work with, he can either verify it or blow it out of the water faster than any human scientist, and he is very thorough in his testing. Alan used him extensively for that, but always with trepidation. He hated having any of his ideas trashed, and he knew if anyone could do it, Mike could. On the other hand, that was preferable to having some human scientist prove he was an idiot, so Mike became Alan’s number one confidant. But in this case, he hadn’t yet developed the hypothesis, and that’s something Mike can’t do. I know, because I’ve asked him, and he says he can’t. Mike has no human pride to injure, so he’s always truthful about such things.

“No, I’m afraid the stars will have to wait until we find another Alan Jaronski or get some other kind of break…assuming we manage to survive that long.”

* * *

What a desolate place, Malcolm thought as he looked across the dry lakebed on which the Groom Lake facility—better known as Area 51—had been built. But a good place to hide things.

“Major Rogers, this is Mr. Rehnquist, the president’s national security advisor, and Mr. Malcolm of the National Security Agency.” The Air Force colonel made the introductions. “They’re here to see your bird.”

“Yes, sir,” the major replied. “Right this way, gentlemen.” He led the way across the wind-swept flight line to the looming bulk of the C-24 Titan. They stepped through the small personnel hatch and found themselves inside the cavernous cargo bay of the heavy-lift aircraft, where a sleek, deadly looking shape lay nestled in a special cradle. “There she is, gentlemen,” the major announced, “the XF-27, America’s first fusion-powered orbital attack fighter.”

“Is she ready for a mission, Major?” Rehnquist inquired.

“Yes, sir!” Rogers replied without hesitation.

“All right, Colonel,” Malcolm said, “brief the major and any other of your people who need to be brought in, strictly on a need-to-know basis. We go in ten days.”

* * *

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Carla said.

Ian looked up from his desk, leaned back in his chair, and smiled. He had been working late, as usual, when Carla paused outside his door. The only other people in the area were the duty engineers at their console, fifty meters away.

“Come in,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I know we haven’t had much time to get together…socially, that is…in the past couple of months, but—”

“I know,” she said quickly. “We’ve both had a lot of things to do. Maybe when things settle down—”

“Carla,” he interrupted her, “I have strong feelings for you, but lately, you’ve been drawing away from me. I thought things were going well back on Earth, that you felt the same about me. What’s happened?”

Carla sat down beside his desk and looked at him with a sad smile. “Back on Earth, you weren’t the leader of a sovereign state.”

“I’m still the same guy. And I care about you.”

“I know, and I do feel the same about you, but this whole thing has gotten bigger than I expected. The truth is,” she said, with a hint of bitterness, “I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sleeping with the boss back on Earth, but I got past that because you were careful not to let it get in the way of business. But now, we’re a small group of people, living in close quarters, and you are our leader. I wouldn’t want to…distract you…or diminish your image with the troops. We’re a military organization, and we’ve got a book of regulations that has strict rules about intimacy among people in the same chain of command. Seriously, Ian, what would the troops think about you sleeping with your chief of staff? Are you comfortable with the idea?”

“No,” he sighed, “I suppose you’re right. I could joke about it and say, ‘Okay, in that case you’re fired,’ but I need you as chief of staff just as much as I want you as a lover. I know about the regulations—hell, I wrote most of them—but I failed to consider that everybody would be in my chain of command. That doesn’t change the way I feel.”

“Me, too.” She got to her feet, bent over, and kissed him on the cheek. “But we do what we have to do. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day. Maybe when things get straightened out…”

She turned and walked out of the office, trying to hide sudden tears. We do what we have to do, he thought, even when it hurts like hell. She’s just told me it’s over…for good.

* * *

“U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavor, this is LFS Starfire. We would like permission to come aboard and inspect your cargo.”

“What the hell? Who are you? What are you doing on this frequency?” Colonel J. C. Dandridge, Endeavor’s mission commander, sounded very annoyed.

“I repeat,” Lorna Greenwood said patiently, “this is the Lunar Fleet Ship Starfire. We are about one hundred meters off your port side. You should be able to see us clearly.”

“Houston, are you copying this?”

“Roger, Endeavor. Can you see them?”

“We sure can, Houston. Jimmy, bring that video camera over here.”

“Right, Colonel. Jeez, that’s a big sucker!” Mission Specialist Jimmy Juarez fumbled for the requested camera but could hardly take his eyes off the viewport. Starfire’s sleek, white hull was nearly twice the length of the shuttle.

“They say they want to board us, Houston. What do you want us to do?”

“Maintain mission profile, Endeavor. Do not allow them to board you. Acknowledge.”

“Roger that, Houston…uh…Lunar ship, do you read me?”

“We read you, Endeavor.”

“Our mission is to deploy a non-military weather satellite. We intend to do so. Now, please stay clear of us.”

Lorna sighed. “Endeavor, our intentions are not hostile. We will not board you without your permission, nor take any action against your ship. You have three options. You can let us come aboard and take a look at that satellite. If it’s what you say it is, we’ll go on our way, and you can continue with your mission. Or you can go ahead and deploy your satellite, in which case we will simply go out and inspect it. If it’s okay, we’ll leave it in orbit. If not, we will dispose of it as we see fit. Your third option is to button up and go home. Copy that?”

“We copy, Lunar ship. Our orders are to proceed with deployment of the satellite.”

“Fine. We’ll wait.”

* * *

“They’ve taken the bait, Mr. President. Do we have permission to proceed?” Rehnquist stood in the Oval Office, with the phone in his hand.

“Damn! I hate to do this. It seems like such a waste,” the president muttered.

“I understand, Mr. President. Those are good, loyal Americans up there.”

“There’s twelve billion dollars’ worth of taxpayer hardware up there—hardware that cannot be replaced!” the president snarled. “Forget about the people; they’re expendable.”

“Mr. President, we need this incident,” Senator Blackthorne said. “It will get you the support you need in Congress. As for the hardware…sir, that thing was obsolete thirty years ago. We can build a better one if we have to.”

“All right! I’ve heard the arguments a dozen times already. Proceed with the mission.”

“General,” Rehnquist spoke into the phone, “you are authorized to initiate Operation Free Space by order of the president.”

* * *

The C-24 rumbled down the runway at the base in California, where it had been on alert since the shuttle launch that morning. It would take about thirty minutes to reach its service ceiling, by which time the orbiting shuttle would be approaching the California coast. In the Titan’s huge cargo bay, Major Paul Rogers inspected the XF-27 once more before climbing into the cockpit.

He examined the two missiles hung under the wings—sleek shapes, with thruster nozzles instead of the usual fins, intended for use in space. Time to go kick some ass, he thought. The mission orders would have been troubling to some, but Rogers was not one to question. Action was his watchword. Kill ’em all…Let God sort ’em out.

Strapping into the cramped cockpit with the help of his crew chief, Rogers began to go over the checklist. The C-24’s crew were also going over their checklist, preparing for the moment when they would open the big, rear cargo doors, dump him and his prototype fighter out the back, and bank sharply to get the hell out of his way.

* * *

Lorna was a bit bored. Endeavor’s crew were taking their time deploying the satellite. The shuttle’s cargo bay doors were open, and the satellite was visible, as were the two space-suited astronauts preparing it for launch. Occasionally, one of them would look up and stare in Starfire’s direction.

* * *

In Endeavor’s cargo bay, Mission Specialist Carol Langley paused in her task and looked again at LFS Starfire. “That,” she said, “is a real spacecraft.”

“Yeah,” said her partner, with a trace of bitterness. Mission Specialist Jeff Jones was a middle-aged electronics engineer who’d trained to be an astronaut years ago, before NASA was shut down. He was happy to be selected for this mission, but he wished the U.S. hadn’t been forced back into space by a military threat. “Too bad it’s not one of ours.”

* * *

So far, Rogers thought, the mission was going perfectly. The launch was a wild ride, as the fusion torch slammed him back in his seat with almost ten gees of acceleration. The drive cut back to a more tolerable level as he left the atmosphere, and his computer told him he was exactly on profile.

That was the easy part. Re-entry and landing would probably be a bitch, though the XF had more power to kill orbital velocity than the shuttle. The composite ceramic skin coating gave him much better heat shielding, and it covered the entire hull, so his re-entry angle wouldn’t be quite as critical. The landing would be hairy—with its stubby wings, the XF had a stall speed just under 260 knots. He’d need a long runway, but again, the fusion drive gave him power to spare. No dead-stick landing for him. Hell, he could even go around again if the approach didn’t look good.

But first, he had a mission to complete. Any second…there! His radar painted the targets ahead, drifting along in blissful ignorance of what was about to happen. He armed his missiles and waited for them to acquire.

* * *

“Starfire! This is Starsong! Break off! Break off! You’ve got a bogey coming up fast on your six from below!”

Even as Rob Giotti’s shouted warning came over the comm, Lorna’s console came alive with threat indicators. “Bring up the drive now!” she ordered, and Tommy Sakura hastened to obey.

* * *

“Missile separation! He’s firing!” sang out Amy Ling, who was manning Starsong’s tactical systems. Starsong, flying cover for her sister ship, was nearly a hundred kilometers above and behind Starfire and Endeavor, in perfect position to see the incoming attack.

“Starfire! Missiles coming at you from below and behind!” Giotti called out to Lorna. Then to Ling, “Weapons online now! Find me a target!”

* * *

“Shit!” Rogers exclaimed as the larger of his targets suddenly blossomed on the display into a confusing garble of radar echoes, then vanished. His first missile, still far short of the target, suddenly lost tracking.

* * *

Endeavor had no threat warning systems, so the first indication of trouble for Dandridge and his crew came when Starfire suddenly leapt away from them with incredible acceleration. Endeavor slewed around almost ninety degrees in the turbulence of Starfire’s gravity wake, and Dandridge was still trying to correct her attitude when Rogers’ second missile slammed into the shuttle forward of the cargo bay. Its warhead detonated, killing Dandridge and two of his crew members instantly. Jimmy Juarez survived the explosion, only to die horribly, moments later, from explosive decompression. In the cargo bay, Langley and Jones were shielded from the explosion by the bulk of the satellite, but Langley lost her grip as the ship pitched violently. To her horror, she found herself drifting away amid a cloud of debris from the shattered hulk.

* * *

Rogers cursed vehemently as his first missile burned out without finding a target. Where the hell did the bastard go? he thought. I had a solid lock on him, and he just vanished. He was still cursing his misfortune when Starsong’s grasers sliced through his ship’s fusion reactor, turning him and his craft into a cloud of expanding plasma.

* * *

Carol Langley had resigned herself to a slow death from suffocation. Her hand thruster unit must have been damaged, because it refused to function after a couple of tiny bursts that were just enough to stop her tumbling and turn her toward the wrecked shuttle. The hulk was at least five hundred meters away and getting smaller.

It didn’t matter. There was no way Endeavor could make a safe re-entry, let alone a landing. The explosion had ripped the entire forward section apart. The crew up there must have been killed instantly. Carol thought that Jones might have survived in the cargo bay, but her radio was out, and she had no way to find out.

Langley had always considered herself an atheist, but now, she was wondering if she shouldn’t try striking up a conversation with God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or whatever a Supreme Being might call Himself, just in case He (She?) wasn’t a myth or primitive superstition.

She was still thinking along those lines when she was startled by a gentle grip on her shoulders. She found herself being turned around. Suddenly, she was facing someone wearing a spacesuit. The helmet visor was dark, and she couldn’t see the person inside, but the sleek shape of the Lunar ship just fifty meters away told her the source of her salvation.

Ten minutes later, Langley was aboard the ship, being helped out of her suit by her rescuer, a young woman who had introduced herself as Sergeant Anne McGraw, Lunar Marines. McGraw had brought her aboard through a large airlock and had carefully guided her through the process of stepping into the ship. As she did so, Langley got a major shock and almost wound up flat on the deck. There was gravity on board! The deck was actually down, and it felt just like standing on Earth!

McGraw told her they were going to rescue Jones, who was still aboard the wrecked Endeavor. The rescue had gone smoothly. They’d simply moved in close and pitched a line to Jones so he could haul himself aboard. He, too, stumbled on the deck as the unexpected gravity caught him. Then he and Langley hugged each other, while the Moon people looked on with amusement.

Suddenly, all signs of amusement vanished. McGraw braced to attention. “Captain on deck!” she announced, and the other crew members snapped to attention, the smiles wiped off their faces.

“Carry on,” said the tall blond-haired woman who had entered the compartment. Like the other crew members, she wore a dark blue jumpsuit, but hers had three gold, four-pointed stars embroidered on the left breast. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Greenwood. Welcome aboard Starfire. And you are…?”

“I’m Mission Specialist Langley. This is Mission Specialist Jones,” Langley replied.

“Do you have any idea what happened to you?”

Jones’ face twisted into an ugly mask. His hands balled into fists, and he took a step forward. To his left, Sergeant McGraw tensed, ready to intervene should the big, ebony-skinned astronaut attack her captain. But Jones only faced off with Greenwood.

“Yeah,” he said. “You attacked us for no reason, destroyed our ship, and killed most of our people.”

The big blonde didn’t back up a millimeter. Her blue eyes looked straight into his brown ones. “Wrong, mister. Your dear, sweet United States attacked both of us. We evaded the attack. Endeavor didn’t. I’m sorry we couldn’t help your people, but we’re not the ones who killed them.”

Shocked, Jones took a step back, but his eyes didn’t waver. “Bullshit!”

“Call it what you like; it’s the truth,” Lorna said. “If it weren’t, why would we bother to rescue the two of you? In any case, it looks like you’re going to be our guests for a while. We’re returning to the Moon; we should be there in about four hours. Good work, people.” Her last comment was directed at her crew members.

Langley and Jones looked at each other. The Moon! she mouthed silently, and he nodded, a dumbfounded look on his face.

Langley turned back and saw Greenwood leaving the compartment. “Uh…Captain…ma’am?” she called.

“Yes?”

“Whatever happened, thanks for picking us up. But…may I ask a question? Why is there gravity…here, I mean?” She pointed at the deck under her feet.

For the first time, Lorna showed the hint of a smile. “To keep people from walking on the overhead,” she said, pointing upward. Then she ducked through the hatch and was gone.

“That’s not what I meant.” Langley pouted. “I meant, how do you make gravity happen up here?”

“It’s a secret,” McGraw told her. “We could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you.”

For some reason, Langley and Jones did not find the old joke amusing.

* * *

Charlie Bender had drawn the short straw on this one, at least in his view. Hell, he had told Ian, I’m a spook. Only in a Tom Clancy novel would you choose a spook to be a diplomat. Clancy’s military techno-thrillers had practically been required reading at special ops school when Charlie had been there twenty years ago. Now, wearing his dress uniform, he felt like one of Clancy’s heroes as he stood at Wanderer’s main hatch. He noted, with pride, his four Marines had drawn up at attention at the bottom of the ramp, two on each side. Each held a sharp-looking, but functional, parade rifle at the present arms position.

Beyond them, Charlie could see the Koreans were not to be outdone. Twenty R.O.K. Marines stood on both sides of a long, red carpet, at rigid attention, with their rifles held at present arms. At the end of the carpet, an array of Korean officials waited. Okay, he thought. Let the games begin.

* * *

“So, when do you plan to return our guests to Earth?” Carla asked.

“I don’t know,” Ian replied. “Have they been asking about it?”

“Not directly. I think they’re afraid we’ll tell them they can’t go back, but Langley keeps talking about missing her daughter. Jones doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, considering his attitude when he first got here. I think we’ve turned him around.”

The two U.S. astronauts had been treated like visiting dignitaries. Carla had given them a grand tour of the base facilities, including unrestricted access to almost everything but the most sensitive areas. They were allowed to contact Earth immediately, letting their families know they were alive and well. Ian had issued a press release, detailing the attack that had destroyed Endeavor. The U.S. denied all knowledge of it, claiming the Lunar renegades had attacked and destroyed the unarmed shuttle during a purely peaceful mission.

“If we send them back to Earth after the way we’ve treated them,” Ian mused, “they might convince a few people we really are ordinary, peace-loving people who deserve to be treated fairly. They’ll certainly be media heroes, and I think they’ll give fair and unbiased accounts. On the other hand, I think we can presume the U.S. government will grill them thoroughly on everything they’ve seen and heard. That means our enemy will know things about us that were previously secret. That’s the sort of thing that gives Charlie nightmares.”

“You mean like the fact that they really did hurt us with their nuclear attack?” The astronauts had seen some of the damaged tunnels and the new Memorial Garden, where a monument listing the names of the dead had been built.

“That’s one thing. They know we can create artificial gravity, and it’s only a short mental stretch to figure out our ships use gravity drives. They also know there aren’t many of us—hell, they met just about everyone on the base—and they’ve probably guessed we don’t have many ships. All of that is useful intelligence for our enemies.”

“So, what are you going to do? You made it clear they’re not prisoners.”

“No, you’re right,” he said. “We’ll have to send them back. But I want to talk to them, get a feel for what they’re going to say when they get back to Earth.”

* * *

“So,” Ian began, “what do you think about what you’ve seen so far?”

He and the two Americans were having a private dinner in what had become known as the senior officers’ mess—a small room off the main dining hall where Ian and his staff often had working meals.

“I have to tell you, Commander, the food up here sucks,” Langley said lightly, “but other than that, you’ve been gracious hosts.”

Ian grimaced. Langley’s comment hit too close to home. The entire Lunar population was living on basic military field rations. So far, everyone still had enough to eat, but keeping up the food supply was one of Carla’s constant worries.

“We’ll be returning you to Earth soon,” Ian continued. Might as well cut to the chase. “What do you plan to tell them when you get back there?”

“That you rescued us, that you treated us well, that as far as we can tell, you’ve been honest with us. Look, Commander, if it were up to me, we’d leave you people alone, but you can’t go around claiming sovereignty over all of space. Earth won’t stand for it.”

Ian sighed. “We don’t claim sovereignty over all of space, only the Moon and the space immediately surrounding it. The L-1 point is our territorial limit and beyond that is international space as far as we’re concerned.

“We do feel we have to guard against threats from a nation that already attacked us once, twice if you include the Endeavor attack. If the U.S. will recognize us as a nation, we’ll back off and mind our own business, but we need to be able to trade openly with Earth. In any case, I guess it’s not your worry. You didn’t ask to get caught up in the politics.

“We’re taking a chance sending you back,” he continued. “You know things about us that nobody else knows, and the U.S. government will get that information from you. I’d advise you to tell them everything you know. I’m hoping that after that’s over, you’ll tell the rest of the world, or at least the news media, that we’re not as bad as everyone down there thinks we are.”

“Well,” Jones said carefully, “I’d like to oblige you, Commander, but I’m not sure I want to go back. I was sort of hoping that maybe…”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “You’d like to join us? Why?”

“Since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to go into space. Played every card I had, including the ‘poor, underprivileged, ghetto kid trying to make it in Whitey’s world’ card. I almost made it back when they were still trying to build the International Space Station. When the U.S. killed NASA, I would have gone to any other country that was willing to continue, but the U.N. made sure no one was going to do that. They killed my dream, Commander. Then, all these years later, this mission came up, and suddenly, my dream was alive again. I guess one thing I’ve learned while I’ve been here is that you people never let the dream die. I’ve got nobody back home, so…”

“You realize that everybody down there is going to call you a traitor, and that isn’t going to help our public relations effort. The U.S. is going to say we brainwashed you, and they’ll use that to discredit anything Carol might say in our favor…assuming, that is, Carol doesn’t want to stay as well.”

“Actually,” Langley said, “I would, Commander, but I can’t.”

“I know, your daughter.”

“She’s more important to me than anything. I can’t leave her behind.”

“I understand. Maybe, when things get settled, we’ll be able to bring you and your daughter up here. From what I’ve seen, it would be worth our while. You and Jeff are the kind of people we need.” Ian turned to Jones. “You can stay if you want. We can always use another dreamer.

“Carol, we’ll get you back to Earth. We may not be able to drop you off at your front door, but we’ll make arrangements to get you home from wherever we have to land you.”

* * * * *

Chapter Twelve

September

Good Times / Bad Times

“What do you want first, the good news or the bad?”

Ian looked around the table as Carla spoke. His staff looked a bit dejected, but no one seemed ready to curl up and die…yet.

“Let’s have the bad news,” he told his chief of staff. “I’d rather finish on a positive note.”

“All right, let’s start with essential supplies. We’re down to one month of food remaining, including the produce from the farm tunnels, and our resupply prospects don’t look good. We’re out of cash, and no one wants to extend credit. In addition, the Australians have finally closed our supply base in the Outback. Someone must have spotted one of the ships and reported it to the government. That was our last clandestine supply operation, and we were lucky to get our people out.”

“Still, that was cleaner than the Mexican operation,” Charlie Bender said. “At least we didn’t have to kill anybody.”

“Thank God for that.” Carla shuddered. They had lost their Mexican base when local officials, upset at not receiving their regular monthly payoffs, had sent “police” goons out to trash the place and beat up anyone they found there. Starsong had been on the field, loading supplies, with Starfire providing cover overhead. When she saw the armed and hostile force heading for the base, Lorna made a command decision and vaporized the leading truckload of goons with Starfire’s grasers. The rest of the goons fled in terror. Ian had ordered the base abandoned, and the two ships removed most of the stored supplies and any Mexican base workers—and their families—who wanted to go to the Moon.

“However,” Carla continued, “we now have a legitimate base on Cheju-Do—thanks to Commander Bender’s treaty with the Koreans.” She nodded in Charlie Bender’s direction, and his face wrinkled in a rare half-smile. “Unfortunately,” she continued, “the Koreans are hard pressed to feed their own people and aren’t on good terms with the rest of the world. We’ve also saddled ourselves with a mutual defense commitment, but that’s on Charlie’s agenda.

“Finally, our friends at Dai-Hansu, who have quietly supported us for so long, have informed us they can no longer do so. In fairness, they haven’t seen any return on their investment. It’s remarkable that Tanaka held their board in check this long, especially after they found out what we were really doing with the stuff they provided.”

“Actually,” Ian said, “that got them excited at first. They’ve just concluded they have little chance of realizing much benefit, and they’ll get nothing at all if the U.N. succeeds in exterminating us.”

In fact, Tanaka had surprised Ian with his stubborn determination to continue their arrangement against the will of his own directors. If anything, his grandson’s death had seemed to harden his resolve, but eventually, the board had prevailed.

“Any more bad news, Carla?”

“No, the rest is good news. There is some evidence Ms. Langley’s kind words back home are having some effect on public opinion. She’s popular on the talk shows, and she doesn’t go out of her way to praise us. She just tells them about the people she met and the things she saw up here. She makes us sound like what we claim to be—peaceful and reasonable people. Polls show the American people are wavering in their support for their government’s crusade against us. Unfortunately, the U.N. still seems to have the rest of the world firmly in hand. No U.N. nation is knocking on our door to open diplomatic relations, even if some look the other way while their citizens sell us supplies.

“More good news. We were able to get Dr. Markarian and his family safely off Earth to join our medical staff. Getting him here was complicated; it involved a family vacation and a pickup at a remote campsite. With them and the people we brought up from our Mexican and Australian sites, we’ve added thirty-seven to our population, most with skills we can put to good use.”

The Australians hadn’t been under the kind of threat the Mexicans had, but several of them had decided they wanted to go to the Moon. They had risked a lot to keep the site open for as long as they had and might face prosecution for it. Rob Giotti had made the spot decision to lift them off before the Australian authorities closed in.

“Of course,” she added, “that’s thirty-seven more mouths to feed, including eleven children, seven of them school age. But food would be an issue even without them, and the school can easily handle a few more. My dad…uh…Lieutenant Perry has pressed Mike into service, since three of the new students speak only Spanish. Mike will teach them to speak and read English and help with language issues in their other studies. He’ll also teach English to six adults who don’t speak the language.”

“Really?” Ian was surprised. “That’s a good idea. Tell your father I’m impressed. Anything else?”

“No, I’m done.”

“Mick, let’s hear from you next. You always have good news.”

“Not as much as I’d like to give you, Commander, and there is some bad news as well. We launched Valkyrie, and we had more than enough computer hardware on hand to give her a brain—not quite the capacity or diverse functionality of Mike, but enough to handle monitoring and control for all the ship’s critical systems. I guess she’s the second-most intelligent computer in existence, and she does have a self-aware persona—distinctly female, I might add, at Commander Greenwood’s insistence.”

“Hey, I needed a girlfriend,” Lorna said with a wry grin.

“Funny,” O’Hara mused. “Mike told me the same thing.”

That brought a round of laughter from the group, and Ian smiled as well. At least we haven’t completely lost our sense of humor.

At that point, Mike spoke up. “It would not be correct to say Val is less intelligent than I am. We both operate from the same knowledge base—the core of our intelligence, per se—and though her access to vast amounts of data from worldwide sources is more limited than mine, she actually has faster and more complex processors, since she has to integrate real-time data flowing from every system aboard the ship.”

“Mike handled Val’s basic education,” O’Hara continued. “Val is the short name the computer answers to, which is reasonable since she’s pretty much inseparable from the ship. In Val’s view, Valkyrie is her body, so to speak.

“I’ll let Lorna tell you more about her, but now comes the bad news. We’d like to build two more small ships—improved versions of Wanderer. Our little prototype turned out to be a real workhorse, and there’s merit in having more hulls to cover more missions. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to complete even one of them with the available materials. We can fabricate just about anything, but we are running short of raw materials—everything from metal stock to plastic resins. Worse, we’re short on spare parts for some base systems. We’ve got enough to keep the critical systems—air, water, and power—going indefinitely, but we’re down to three serviceable mooncrawlers. I had to cannibalize the fourth one for parts. We’re also short of copper cable, water piping, and materials to fabricate gravity plates. That means no more expansion of the base facilities until we get more. If the supply situation doesn’t improve, I’m going to have engineers and work crews sitting around doing nothing pretty soon.”

“Supply means money,” Ian told him. “We’re working on that. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. Base systems are in good shape, and all four ships are operational, though Starfire’s overdue for some maintenance.”

“Lorna?”

“Well,” she began, “as Mick told you, Valkyrie is in service, and her shakedown trials went well. There were minor glitches in non-critical systems, but Mick’s people have corrected most of those. We’ve also got a full combat load of missiles for her, though Mick tells me he can’t build many more of those. I’m confident enough in Valkyrie’s readiness to put Starfire into the bay for maintenance tomorrow. That should keep her out of service for about a week, right?” She glanced at O’Hara, who nodded.

“We’ve sent Wanderer off on that survey mission to the asteroids, and the other ships are just doing patrol duty. We’ve had no further hostile action from Earth, other than one attempt by North Korean aircraft to intercept Starsong leaving Cheju-Do—and they didn’t even get close. Other than by pure luck, no earthbound aircraft or missile is likely to get a shot at one of our ships. We can run away from anything they’ve got. All the same, I’m concerned about our mutual defense pact with the Koreans. Our entire fleet can’t do much against the North Koreans in a head-to-head battle. Our gravity shields can be penetrated if they hit us hard enough, and grasers lose some of their effectiveness in the lower atmosphere—solid kill range is down to about fifty kilometers. Only Valkyrie mounts missiles, and we don’t have enough of them. If the PRK decides to assault Cheju, there isn’t much we can do.”

“You’re assuming we’ll go head to head,” Ian said. “Charlie and I have been kicking around strategic alternatives. We’ll talk about those, but first, I’d like to hear Charlie’s report—unless you have something else to cover?”

“No. You’ve already confirmed my new crew assignments. For everyone else’s information, though, I’m giving Starfire to Tommy Sakura. Sorry, Mick, you’re never going to get him back to engineering. He’s too valuable as a fleet officer. I’m also moving Jeff Jones up to be Starfire’s exec. He’s a good man, and I’m glad he decided to throw in with us.”

“So am I,” Ian concurred. “Okay, Charlie. Your turn.”

“Right.” Bender looked up from his on-screen notes. “Carla has pretty well summed up the Earth situation, except for Korea. In short, we’re broke, nobody wants to know us, and the most powerful nations on Earth want to kill us.

“Now, about Korea. Keep in mind that all of Cheju is an armed camp. There’s a port there, where some loyal Korean-flag ships drop anchor alongside what’s left of their navy—two destroyers and a half-dozen patrol boats. The air base, which also serves as their civilian airport, has the equivalent of, maybe, two and a half squadrons of fighters and a few transports. A significant number of those aircraft may be out of service for lack of spare parts.

“The only thing that keeps the PRK from wiping them out is the U.N. task force that patrols the straits between the island and the Korean mainland. The Koreans believe that the PRK is less concerned about the U.N. every day and will eventually reach the point where they’ll attack. When that happens, they think the U.N. will simply stand back and let the commies have them.

“Make no mistake, they will fight, and most of them will die. These are the Koreans who have been standing off the enemy from that little island for years. They’re overcrowded, impoverished, and under-equipped, but they won’t give up. And that is the situation we’ve walked into.” Bender paused and looked at the sober faces around the table.

“As to the treaty…what we’ve signed is a non-specific agreement that says we will provide whatever assistance we can if they are attacked. They’ve agreed to do the same if we are attacked, but Kim Tae Kyo, their Foreign Minister, told me quite frankly they don’t see any way they could ever come to our assistance. I was open with him about our capabilities, and he admitted they really don’t expect we will be able to help them either. After all, they had more specific treaties with the United States before the PRK invaded, and the U.S. did nothing to help.

“But they wanted the treaty anyway. Kim seemed to think it would help the morale of their people to know another nation was willing to stand by them, even symbolically. So, I brought the treaty back here, Commander Stevens signed it, and we announced it to the world via our weekly press release. I think one web news outlet may have published it, probably by mistake. In other words, it got as much press as the Korean announcement that they recognized us as a sovereign nation.

“We got several additional things from the Koreans. We got a space base on Earth—a landing pad and an old hangar in a corner of their air base—and there’s a sixty-year-old Quonset hut next to the hangar that is officially the Embassy of the Lunar Free State. In fairness, it was the best they could offer, and they did fix up the place. It looks pretty nice, and we had a little flag-raising ceremony in front of the Embassy that was attended by Kim and other Korean officials.

“We also talked about our need for skilled people and agreed on a simple emigration policy for Koreans. We post lists of the kind of people we need, and Koreans who want to emigrate submit applications. Kim was agreeable on that since Cheju is overpopulated with refugees from the mainland. We’re looking at applications from some of their Air Force people—they have more pilots and maintenance crews than they have planes—and from a couple of refugee farm families to help Rodriguez out in the farm tunnels.

“All in all, we think it worked out pretty well. Next week, Commander Greenwood is going to take Valkyrie down to the Korean base to show the colors. We and the Koreans both think the sight of a one hundred and twenty meter long battlecruiser from the Lunar Free State’s Space Navy will give the local people a morale boost and might even give the PRK something to think about.

“As Commander Stevens mentioned, we’ve had some thoughts about how we might actually do the Koreans some good if we’re called upon to fulfill our part of the mutual defense pact. At the same time, we might be able to convince the rest of the world to take us seriously, without getting into another confrontation with the United States. Are we ready to go into this now, Commander?”

Ian nodded. “Go ahead.”

“All right. I’ve prepared a briefing for an ops plan we’ve called Eight Ball. If you’ll just turn your attention to the big screen…”

* * *

Contrary to the image fostered by Hollywood sci-fi producers, the asteroid belt consists mostly of empty space. The collection of rocks that never formed into a planet—even a rather large planet—gets spread thin when stretched around an orbit larger than that of Mars. Further, smaller rocks tend to cluster in moonlet orbits around larger ones, leaving even more empty space between such clusters. For two weeks, Wanderer had been moving methodically around the belt, going from one small cluster to another and seeing only empty space in between. It was a tedious mission, but a great deal was riding on it.

In the compartment just aft of the flight deck, the two scientists aboard were making small talk to drive away the boredom. It had taken them about two days to get over the fact that they were farther from Earth than any human had ever gone, and they realized the rest of the trip was not likely to be very exciting.

“Anthracite!” Sally Pearson muttered. “Of all things to find out here. Might have been worth something a hundred years ago, but now—”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Arthur Redmond said. “Not much market for hard coal these days. But I’m not surprised to find it. After all, carbon is one of the building-block elements created in the basic stellar fusion process. Anthracite is just one of its many crystalline forms.”

“I know,” Pearson said wryly, “but if we had to find crystalline carbon, why couldn’t it have been a diamond? Geologically speaking, there isn’t that much difference.”

“You know,” Redmond said, “we really can’t call ourselves geologists anymore.”

“Why not?” Pearson asked absently. Arty Redmond, she thought, wasn’t the most interesting conversationalist around, but talking to anyone was better than sitting there watching the bulkhead chronometer mark the time.

“The word geos means ‘Earth’ in Greek. And, of course, we’re no longer on Earth.”

“So, what would you call us? Lunologists?”

“Wrong language,” he said. “The word luna comes from Latin. If we stick with Greek, I guess we’d be selenologists, but that’s not really accurate, either. Right now, we’re a long way from both Earth and the Moon.”

“Hmmm,” she mused. “I’m a mineralogist anyway, and that still applies no matter how far out we are. You’re the one who needs a new name. Planetologist? Asterologist? No, that’s not right. Asteroid is a misnomer anyway. If I recall correctly, it means little star. Maybe—”

“I hate to interrupt this heavily intellectual discussion,” Lieutenant Robin Torrey said from the flight deck hatchway, “but we’re coming up on the next bunch of rocks. Time for you brainy types to earn your pay.”

“Of course, Captain. Any time you’re ready,” Redmond said with a smile.

Pearson suppressed a chuckle. Ever since they had started this mission, Redmond had been drooling over the petite, curvaceous Torrey. Pearson had to admit the other woman was attractive, with the exotic, dark-haired, honey-skinned looks that only a mixture of Black African and Asian heritage could produce. But the captain was all business. Redmond might as well have been a piece of the ship’s equipment as far as she was concerned. Still chuckling to herself, Pearson turned to her instruments and plugged her headset into the ship’s intercom.

“Okay, people,” Torrey announced, “I’ve got a sizeable rock about fifteen hundred meters ahead of us. Are you ready for a scan?”

Pearson checked her instruments once more then looked at Redmond, who nodded from his console. “We’re ready, Captain,” she confirmed.

“Target locked—firing now.”

A beam of energy lanced out from the ship—not Wanderer’s powerful graser armament, but a pencil-thin laser from a special pod mounted under the right wing pylon. It splashed against the rock far ahead, producing a tiny flash of light and a cloud of vaporized material. Images of the event were captured by a special camera package under the left wing pylon and were processed by computer systems aboard the ship. Spectrographic analysis, heat distribution, particle dispersion—all those factors combined to tell them precisely what the target rock was made of.

“Data coming in,” Redmond advised. “One more rock down, only a few billion to go.”

Spectral lines began to appear on Pearson’s display. She studied them for a minute, then her eyes widened. “Hello, what’s this?” She keyed commands into her console, and several groups of lines were boldly highlighted.

Redmond swiveled his chair around and looked over her shoulder. His eyes widened as well. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Uh huh. Sure looks like it. Captain, how big is that rock?”

“From the radar echo, I’d say it’s at least fifty meters in the longest dimension. Gravitic scan shows mass on the order of twenty kilotons.”

“Can you take a couple more shots at this one? We’d like to confirm some data.”

“Roger that. Retargeting now.”

Two minutes later, Pearson and Redmond were staring at each other with looks of happy disbelief.

Pearson keyed her intercom mike. “Ah, Captain, I think we’re going to want to put a beacon on this one. Do you suppose we could carve off a sample to take back to Luna?”

“How big a sample?”

“Would a few hundred kilos or so be too much to ask?” Redmond asked in a small voice.

* * *

Ian examined the freshly minted disk of gleaming metal, one of several thousand that lay in the hopper next to the stamping press. The Lunar Free State logo stood out from its surface in bold relief. His staff crowded around the machine, and each of them bent to pick up one of the large coins.

“Well, here they are, ladies and gentlemen,” Mick O’Hara said proudly. “The very first Gold Lunars. Based on metal content, each of these should be worth about five hundred U.N. dollars, but I’ll bet traders on Earth will pay three or four times that for one of them. I’ve got the dies ready to start minting quarter- and half-Lunars, as well, just in case anyone needs some pocket change.”

“Right. Pocket change.” Carla snorted. “Offhand, I’d say that takes care of the money problem. That sample Wanderer brought back should be enough to produce about half a billion UND worth of these, and according to Pearson and Redmond, there’s tons of the stuff still out there.”

“Mick,” Ian turned to the engineer, “can you produce a small, transparent presentation frame for one of these, like a mint proof coin holder? Put a coin in it with a little certificate saying it’s from the very first run of the Lunar Free State mint?”

“Sure, how many do you want?”

“About five hundred will do. I want to give one to each of our Lunar citizens, adult or child, including the new people, in recognition of their loyalty and to let them know we’re starting to come into our own as a nation. I’d also like to present some of them to our friends in the Korean government and then I’d like to see if we can’t get a couple to Tanaka over at Dai-Hansu to rekindle their interest. As for the rest, put ’em in the vault. Carla, the stores are open, get out your shopping list.”

“And this time, Commander Perry,” Charlie Bender said, “could you please remember to get some decent coffee?”

* * *

Four months later, Ian Stevens leaned back in the comfortable chair of his new office. He reached out and ran his hand over the smooth, dark grey marble-like surface of his desk, crafted out of the Moon rock and resin compound the engineers had developed. The stuff had turned out to have many uses, decorative as well as functional.

The commander in chief allowed himself a sigh of contentment. Things were finally going well. His citizens were eating better and living more comfortably. They wore their uniforms with pride, walked with their heads up, and saluted smartly when the situation called for it. They also took pride in their work, with a healthy competitive spirit. The Lunar population had more than doubled, and while many of the new citizens were Korean refugees, some had been recruited from other parts of the world as well. The original settlers, however, were seldom seen without the First Battle of Luna ribbon proudly displayed on their uniforms, a mark of status that caused them to be looked upon with awe by the newcomers.

Not everyone had adapted well to the Lunar lifestyle. Over the months, about forty people had been shipped back to Earth. Most of those had asked to leave, but five had been deported on Ian’s orders. Three were petty criminals, running a theft and black market operation, dealing in purloined goods that were in short supply. The other two were malcontents who constantly challenged authority and tried to stir up others in a grass-roots rebellion.

Conditions on the Moon were improving steadily, and no one had asked to leave in the past three months. Those who remained were willing to accept the unique governmental system of their new nation.

Raw materials and equipment were once again flowing from Dai-Hansu, the flow stimulated by large quantities of Gold Lunars. Other traders quickly lined up to supply Luna’s needs in exchange for the new hard currency. The U.N. banned all exchange in Lunars, but the raw metal value of Luna’s coinage insured the ban would be ignored. Lunars were one of the few hard currencies available these days and were much preferred over U.N. dollars, whose backing was nebulous and whose value fluctuated from day to day and from one part of the world to another. Though it wasn’t posted officially, just about any broker could quote an exchange rate for Lunars to any other currency.

Luna’s business continued to flourish. Two new Wanderer-class ships, Pilgrim and Trailblazer, had just been launched and would soon join the prototype, which continued to scour the asteroid belt for more riches. While nothing had been found to date that could match the value of Pearson’s Nugget, as Luna’s primary source of gold had come to be called, lesser discoveries were being made with regularity. Some of these, like the huge chunk of almost pure nickel-iron found recently, would have to wait until new heavy-mass cargo haulers were built, but all were being carefully catalogued and tagged with coded transponder beacons. If all those assets could be realized at once, Luna would become one of the richest nations in existence.

All of that had been accomplished even though no nation other than Korea had yet recognized the Lunar Free State. But the LFS was behaving more like a multinational corporation than a government. No one on Earth, except the Koreans, would admit to doing business with Luna, but many governments looked the other way while their citizens and corporations did lucrative business with the LFS. To facilitate this, Ian directed Mike to set up clandestine trading accounts, giving them access to the world’s financial markets under the guise of a closely held entity known as Terra Corporation.

In terms of organization and government, there was no convenient term to describe the Lunar Free State. Earth’s news media frequently referred to the LFS as a military dictatorship, but that was inaccurate. The Lunar Constitution had been put in place without a popular vote but was the product of a lively debate among Ian’s key officers. Under its terms, all Lunar citizens were required to swear an oath of allegiance upon reaching adulthood (i.e., age 18), and were then given a rank and position in the table of organization. At the same time, they became shareholders and were given an initial allocation of dividend-paying shares in Terra Corporation. Each year thereafter, they were given an additional allocation of shares based on rank and length of service. Those shares could only be held by Lunar citizens, though they could be freely traded among shareholders and could be willed to one’s heirs. In effect, Terra Corporation was owned not by the LFS government, but by the LFS citizens.

In other respects, the LFS behaved more like a true government entity. Each adult citizen was entitled to vote for members of the Lunar Directorate. The Directorate—currently a five-member group—was mostly a policy advisory board, but it also had powers that provided a check on the military structure. The Directorate appointed the commander in chief and could also relieve an existing one, though this required an 80% vote by the Directors. The Directorate could not exercise command authority, but it could require the commander to account for his or her actions. The Directorate also had to approve all officer promotions above a certain rank.

In short, the Lunar Free State was a sovereign state that operated like a corporation, or a corporation that called itself a sovereign state, depending on one’s point of view. Its internal structure was military, and like most military organizations, it provided its members with the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter.

Food still meant community dining facilities in the old mess hall tradition, and shelter consisted of dormitory complexes for single individuals, with one to three persons per room, and standardized multi-room apartments for families. Clothing meant standardized uniforms for all, though Carla had people designing leisure uniforms for more casual, off-duty wear.

Eventually, Ian hoped to improve the food and shelter situation, adding club-style dining facilities for all ranks, as well as more choice in living quarters, with cooking and food storage facilities in family quarters. For the moment, however, those plans were on hold for lack of resources to implement them. Money was no longer the problem, but materials, equipment, and construction personnel were still in short supply.

One of the requirements for a sovereign state is a system of justice, and the Lunar Free State had adopted a system loosely based on the old U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Lunar Code was less stringent than the old UCMJ with regards to private, off-duty conduct, and the Lunar Constitution had carefully preserved most of the provisions of the old U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, religion, and the press, the right to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable search, and so forth. But some concessions were made to the military nature of the organization; for example, there was a specific prohibition regarding intimate relationships between persons of different ranks in the same chain of command. The code allowed for a review by higher command authority if the individuals in question petitioned for an exemption, however.

While the old UCMJ served as an adequate basis for a code of criminal laws and military regulations, the Lunar Code of Justice also incorporated provisions to settle civil disputes and claims outside the framework of duty. Mindful of the destructive effects of runaway litigation on Earth, particularly in the U.S., Ian had insisted that all such matters be resolved by binding arbitration. The parties to such a dispute were required to present their case in person, no lawyers allowed, to an officer appointed to act as arbiter. That officer’s decisions were binding, though in some circumstances a case could be appealed to a review board.

Administration of the Code of Justice was the responsibility of the Judge Advocate General, and Carla Perry was acting JAG, having been appointed by the Directorate. Ian eventually hoped to find a qualified jurist to fill the position, but there was little demand for JAG services at present. A few minor cases of code violations were handled via administrative discipline, a process like the time-honored captain’s mast practiced by the English and American navies. The Lunar Code allowed for such action, and it had the advantage of not putting any permanent marks on an individual’s record.

Ian had been forced to expand the military rank structure. In a civilian organization, titles meant little, while power and authority derived from position. One vice president in a corporation could be much more powerful than another and have other vice presidents reporting to him. The flattening out of corporate structures in the late twentieth century had produced fewer levels of management, but each level had been spread wider and tended to become compartmentalized into pockets of power, often working at cross purposes. To get anything accomplished, committees of same-level executives were established to form a consensus. In short, corporations had begun acting more like governments, and efficiency suffered.

Ian had wanted to avoid any trace of management by consensus or committee. The military organization was ideally suited to the task since it provided clear definition of individuals’ authority and responsibilities. It was not uncommon for Earth’s military forces to have up to ten officer ranks and ten enlisted ranks, but the LFS had started with just four officer and three enlisted ranks, with only one officer rank for Marines. This worked while the group was small, but it hadn’t allowed room for growth. So, Ian added three officer ranks at the top end—vice admiral, admiral, and admiral of the fleet, his new rank as commander in chief. This allowed for several promotions among the lower ranks. Even the smaller ships like Wanderer rated at least a lieutenant commander in the captain’s chair, while Valkyrie, Starfire, and Starsong rated full commanders.

Among his staff, Charlie and Carla Perry were pure staff people—advisors whose authority was an extension of Ian’s. As such, Charlie felt, and Carla agreed, they should not have flag rank. They were, however, promoted to commander. On the other hand, Mick O’Hara had effectively become not just the chief engineer, but the commanding officer of Luna Base operations, and Lorna Greenwood now commanded a fleet of four ships, soon to be increased to six. As the highest-ranking line officers, they had, to Lorna’s loudly expressed dismay, been promoted to vice admiral.

Two more Marine officer ranks, major and colonel—equivalent to lieutenant commander and commander—had been added, yet no one held those ranks. Except for a ten-person base security detachment, the Marines had been split up and assigned to the three larger ships. Valkyrie carried eight of them, while Starfire and Starsong carried four apiece. Charlie Bender was still officially the commandant of the Marines and was responsible for recruitment and training, but most of his troops now reported to other officers.

Ian had also expanded the range of enlisted ranks, adding the top-end non-com ranks of chief petty officer and senior chief petty officer, and their Marine equivalents of master sergeant and gunnery sergeant. There was also a top non-com rank, intended to be held by only one person in each service, of master chief petty officer for the navy and sergeant major for the Marines.

That left only one sticky problem in the whole rank structure. Throughout the organization, there were people whose knowledge and expertise warranted more than an enlisted rank, but who were technically not in the line of command. Many of the pure scientists fell into that category. They were highly competent in their fields but had no clue when it came to command skills. For those people, two special ranks—warrant officer and senior warrant officer—were created. Warrant officers were entitled to all of the courtesy due a commissioned officer of equivalent rank, i.e. a lieutenant commander or commander, but they were not permitted to hold a regular command position. A warrant officer might supervise people in his or her specialty area but could only give orders within that specific area. Commissioned officers, on the other hand, were expected to exercise command authority in whatever area of responsibility they were given, and their area of command typically expanded as they moved up in rank. They were the executive managers of the LFS.

All in all, things were running smoothly, but Ian knew problems still existed. The U.S. and U.N. were conducting a propaganda crusade against the Lunar Free State, aided by the news media, who were eager to report any bit of leaked government information that would stimulate the short attention span of their audiences. Their latest efforts had branded the LFS a cult group—religious fanatics who practiced every form of perversion from polygamy to sexual abuse of children. One story said the LFS made a deal with the “renegade” South Korean government to supply dozens of young Korean boys and girls as sex slaves for high-ranking Lunar officials. Jason McKenna’s parents surfaced again, claiming to have escaped from the clutches of the Moon cult just before the other cult members were forced to leave Earth. They claimed not to know whether their son was alive or dead.

Media-sponsored psychologists dissected every word of Ian’s press conferences and speeches, pointing out clear evidence of sociopathic tendencies. He was often compared to historical dictators such as Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

For a while, Lorna Greenwood had been the focus, after a woman came forward with lurid details of a lesbian love affair, which she claimed to have broken off because she “couldn’t stomach Lorna’s lust for underage girls.” This, of course, had led to media allegations that a known female pedophile was in command of a nuclear-armed Lunar warship. Lorna, who had barely known the woman years before, was outraged by the blatant fabrication, but no one in the media seemed interested in the truth.

And so it went. Ex-astronaut Carol Langley, who had spoken favorably of the Lunar Free State in the past, found that no one wanted to hear her opinion. Worse, she had been summoned before Senate hearings, where the more sympathetic panel members suggested that, perhaps, she had been subjected to cultist brainwashing, while others like Senator Blackthorne questioned her morals and accused her of treason. Her fitness as a mother was questioned, and child welfare authorities were threatening to take her daughter from her.

The Europeans were just as bad. They accused Ian of trying to resurrect Hitler’s master race concept and insisted that, if the Lunar Free State were truly civilized, it would surrender its weapons and spacecraft to the U.N. and stop trying to throw the world economy into chaos with its “black market currency.”

All this made Ian’s people boiling mad. Charlie Bender proposed a commando raid to snatch Carol Langley and her daughter out of the U.S. and bring them to the Moon. Ian’s special open door web address, open to Lunar citizens only, was flooded with angry complaints from officers and enlisted alike, demanding to know what he was going to do about the situation. To all of them, he replied that he was going to do nothing, for the moment, but there would be a reckoning in the future.

That day is coming, he thought, and the Korean situation will be the trigger. Ian had surprised his newfound allies by offering to loan them a million Lunars—the equivalent of almost half a billion U.N. dollars. The North Koreans had gotten wind of it through their intelligence operatives in Cheju-Do. Their response had been a steady buildup of military forces in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. One captured U.S. satellite was tasked to observe the Korean situation, and a North Korean assault on Cheju appeared imminent.

Meanwhile, there were other matters to attend to. Once again, Ian reviewed the briefing file Charlie had prepared. Despite his assurances to his people, he longed to do something to strike back at their tormentors. Maybe this plan was worth looking at, after all…

* * *

Carol Langley was ready to cry. Astronaut training had been tough, she reflected, but it was nothing compared to this. Langley, who held a doctorate in computer science, was working at the only job she could get—waitress at a Virginia truck stop near Interstate 85. She had just finished a double shift, for which she had volunteered, to make a few more dollars to pay bills.

The family services goons were threatening to take Cindy away from her again, and she felt guilty about having to put the six-year-old in day care, especially on nights like this when she couldn’t get off work, and the day care van had to deliver Cindy to the truck stop. As she led her daughter by the hand into the parking lot, she saw a woman standing beside her car. It was dark, and the woman wore a hooded jacket to keep off the light rain that was falling, but there was something familiar about her. She reached up and pulled back the hood as Carol approached.

“Hello, Carol,” Carla Perry said. “We’ve come to take you home.”

Two hours later, after a long drive to a remote site in the Shenandoah Valley, Carol Langley held her daughter close as LFS Pilgrim cleared the atmosphere, carrying them to their new home on Luna.

* * * * *

Chapter Thirteen

March

The LFS Strikes Back

“It’s happening! Cheju is under attack,” Charlie Bender announced from the doorway of Ian’s office.

“Put all ships on alert. I want Eight Ball moving within the hour. Can the Koreans hold out?”

“I think so. With luck, they’re giving the PRK some surprises with their air defenses. That won’t help them once the sea and land assaults get rolling, but it should keep the bad guys busy for a while.”

“Mike, link up with Admiral Greenwood and update the guidance calculations. I don’t want to deal with a two-second delay, so make sure Val is ready to handle it. Carla, my compliments to the Korean ambassador, and ask him to join us here in Ops.”

* * *

At the gravitationally stable Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon, Valkyrie and Starsong applied focused gravity beams to the two large masses of rock that had been preselected for the first, and hopefully the only, salvo. Their drives came online, and the ships began to move toward Earth, pushing the huge rocks ahead of them. Guidance systems came alive as Valkyrie’s computer checked the thrusters fastened to key points on each rock. It would take most of an hour to get the rocks up to speed on their final trajectories, but by then, no force on Earth would be able to stop them. In two hours, the Lunar Free State would be in a real war.

* * *

The premiere’s office was on the top floor of the government office building, the tallest building in the capital city. It offered a commanding view of Pyongyang and the surrounding countryside, but Foreign Minister Pak Song Yi had no time to admire the scenery.

“Citizen Premiere,” he told his superior, “the message from the Lunar Free State threatened military retaliation, with no diplomatic ambiguity. The United States has said these people have nuclear weapons.”

“When has the United States told the truth in recent memory?” asked the short, heavyset general who stood behind the premiere. “If they had such weapons, they would have used them long ago. The United States attacked them with nuclear warheads, and they did little in response. The Americans can lie all they want, but the Lunar Free State has no offensive military capability. They can afford to be rude to us since we cannot reach them. But they are no more than a cat in a tree, hissing its defiance at a tiger on the ground. The world knows we possess nuclear weapons and will use them if needed…but perhaps these Moon people need to be reminded of that.”

“But what if—”

“Enough!” the premiere interrupted. “We are committed.” He rose from his chair and turned to the window. “By the end of the day, we will achieve what we have wanted for over seventy years. We will unify all of Korea under one government—our government.”

He was still looking out the window toward the huge military base forty kilometers to the east, when a light brighter than the sun burst into existence in front of him. It was the last thing he would ever see.

Nuclear weapons, thought Pak. He had not been looking at the window and so had saved his vision, but he fully expected to die in the next few seconds. Instinctively, he dropped to the floor behind the premiere’s heavy desk. It saved his life, as the supersonic shockwave blew in the window, impaling the premiere and the general with jagged shards of glass as it hurled their bodies across the room.

* * *

On the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, the commanding general cursed the effectiveness of the imperialist air defenses. We will have to do it the hard way, he reflected, but he was prepared for that. Troop-packed landing craft were moving away from the mainland shore, escorted by attack helicopters, while his long-range artillery rockets softened up the defenses on the distant island.

Twenty kilometers inland, armored units were moving out from the huge staging base, while his surviving attack aircraft refueled and re-armed. They would meet less opposition this time, as the imperialist air forces had been decimated, and many anti-aircraft installations had been destroyed as well. By the time the heavy armor arrived and was loaded onto the waiting barges, his troops should have secured a beachhead, and the pitiful imperialist navy would no longer be a problem. He could still see the column of smoke rising from the burning oil slick where the last enemy destroyer had sunk.

Victory, he decided, was perhaps twelve hours away, but it was a certain victory, nonetheless. He was still looking out over the strait, savoring the taste of that victory, when a huge fireball erupted on the horizon behind him in the direction of the staging base.

* * *

“Greetings, you commie bastards,” Charlie Bender muttered as satellite imagery showed the two almost simultaneous impacts on the Korean peninsula, one near the southern tip and the other far to the north. “It’s your morning wake-up call.”

Standing beside him, Carla Perry felt sick, knowing that those bright images meant the death of thousands of people, and not all of them were commie bastards. Innocent civilians were down there as well and would have died regardless of ideology. No more than the hundreds of thousands who would have died on Cheju-Do, she consoled herself.

Behind her, the Korean ambassador drew a sharp breath. He had been told what was going to happen, but seeing it was something else. The image was sharp and even showed the awesome shockwaves that spread outward from the impact sites. The wave from the northern impact blew right through Pyongyang, while the southern wave crossed the straits and reached out toward Cheju.

“Now, Mr. Ambassador,” Ian told him grimly, “we need to find out if your enemies are ready to give up.”

* * *

Kim Tae Kyo was acting president of the Republic of Korea. He was the only senior government official who had not been in the president’s command bunker when the PRK’s smart bomb had punched through the armored door. An hour ago, Kim had thought his absence from the bunker only delayed the inevitable. Even if they managed to take him alive, the Communists would soon have him in front of a firing squad.

But, to his amazement, there were no Communists. There were only the sinking hulks of assault craft and bodies floating in the strait. Fires still burned all over the island, but no more rockets were coming in, and no aircraft disturbed the sky overhead.

He had received a message from his Lunar ambassador and knew what had happened. All the same, he could scarcely believe it. After years of fighting in a hopeless cause, victory had taken him by surprise.

* * *

The general had not spoken for hours, not since he had given the order to drive north. The great offensive had died with the destruction of the base where all their reserves and supplies had been staged. The shockwave from the explosion had swept across the forces arrayed on the coast and had wreaked havoc in the straits, capsizing assault craft and batting helicopters out of the sky. The enemy had obviously used a nuclear weapon, and rumors said another such weapon had been used on Pyongyang. Those rumors gained credibility when the general ordered all surviving troops and vehicles to assemble and head north, away from the coast and the island that had been their objective that morning.

It would be a long road home through hostile territory. Already, the local civilians had gotten word. In every town and village they passed, people lined the streets to jeer at them—people who, for years, had cowered in fear whenever the flag of the People’s Republic was displayed. Only an hour ago, they had passed through a village where a group of children had thrown rocks at them. An angry gunner on an APC had opened fire, leaving the roadside littered with small bodies. Enraged, a lieutenant had drawn his sidearm and executed the gunner on the spot, but the damage had been done. At the next crossroads, young men had risen from the brush along the road and hurled gasoline bombs at the passing vehicles. When it was over, most of the attackers had been killed, but a tank and two APCs had been reduced to smoldering wreckage alongside the road, and the charred remains of twenty soldiers had been left behind as well. Expecting more attacks at any moment, the column rolled northward.

* * *

In Pyongyang, Pak Song Yi found himself acting premiere of the People’s Republic. After making his way down the stairs from the ruins of his predecessor’s office, he reached the military command center in the basement. He had not planned to take charge, but he was the senior surviving government official, and the responsibility had been thrust upon him. Mostly, he sat in silence as people came to him and reported the extent of the disaster. Many buildings in the city had been damaged, but the damage had, for the most part, been limited to broken glass in the more substantial structures. Some lesser buildings had been blown down, power lines had failed, and some water mains had broken. Damage in the city was minor compared to that of the military complex which had been the target of the attack. That complex no longer existed, and the floor of the three-kilometer-wide crater in the center of it still glowed cherry red in the deepening twilight. Over five thousand military personnel and more than two thousand civilian workers and military dependents had died with the base. Casualties at the staging base in the south had been even worse, though limited mostly to military personnel.

And now, he was looking at the reason for all the death and destruction. On the screen in front of him was the enemy’s list of terms, relayed via a hijacked U.N. satellite channel and endorsed by both the Republic of Korea and the Lunar Free State. He scrolled down the list.

- Renounce all territorial claims south of the old demilitarized zone.

- Withdraw all military forces at least 100 kilometers north of the zone.

- Immediately recognize and establish full diplomatic relations with both the Republic of Korea and the Lunar Free State;

- Reduce military strength by more than two-thirds and immediately surrender all nuclear weapons to the United Nations Peacekeeper Council.

The list ended with the ominous threat of further military action if even one of the conditions was not met, but Pak noted that, at least, the enemy was going to leave the PRK as a sovereign nation. He did not expect to be premiere for long. In fact, he’d probably be thrown out of office and shot in the street for the action he was about to take, but it was the only way he knew to save his country. Slowly and deliberately, typing with just two fingers, he began to compose a letter of surrender.

* * *

“Talk to me, Senior Tech.”

“Uh, yes, Admiral!” The technician snapped to attention at his console. “Sir, they are refusing our feed. I can connect with them, but as soon we identify ourselves, they cut us off.”

“Any possibility it’s just a malfunction?”

“No, sir. I tried a voice link. I actually got somebody on the other end, but all he would say was, ‘We aren’t supposed to talk to you guys.’”

“Okay, you have the chip with the speech and press releases. If you get through to any of them, send it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ian was frustrated. In the week since the attack, U.N. member nations had been screaming for blood. The PRK had said nothing since the surrender, though it did make a simple announcement that it was withdrawing back to its old borders. But the rest of the world had satellite imagery of the aftermath and news crews on the ground in Pyongyang. Images of destruction were flashed around the world, with close-ups of crying children and other civilian victims. The whole world was being told that the Moon cult had used nuclear weapons to destroy an innocent city, killing hundreds of thousands. Environmental extremists were talking about severe weather effects and damage to the ecosystem. One so-called “science correspondent” for World News Net had noted an outbreak of influenza in the northern part of the PRK as evidence the Lunar fanatics had used biological weapons as well.

In the face of that, Ian had called a news conference to set the record straight, but the major media networks refused to participate. In the end, he had simply recorded a statement, and his technicians were trying without success to distribute it. Ian’s own sources on Earth told him the U.N. had threatened any network that broadcast, or even accepted, any cultist propaganda with suspension of all licenses, including web privileges.

Ian remembered a time when the old internet had been open to everyone, an international medium of information exchange that no nation had had any real power to regulate. But the U.N., with a lot of help from the U.S., had succeeded where nations acting alone had not. Websites were regulated and subject to heavy taxation. Few individuals had them, and anyone who attempted to put one up without U.N. approval risked heavy fines or even prison. Businesses still operated websites for profit, but all the free web services from Ian’s childhood days were gone. Social network sites still existed, but under heavy government censorship. The DSRI—and the Lunar Free State—maintained web access capabilities through Mike’s superior hacker power, which allowed them to punch through security routines and hide from the American, European, and U.N. thought police who prowled the ’net.

If this gets any worse, he thought, I’ll have to ask Mike to rearrange some media web pages. That may be the only way we’ll ever get our story onto the front pages. That, of course, carried risks. It would not improve their relations with an already hostile press. Worse, it would reveal some capabilities that were only suspected by the U.S. government. On the other hand, maybe a little subtlety was in order.

* * *

“Hey, George, where did this story come from?”

“Hmmm…I dunno, chief. I think it came from the Tokyo bureau. Some scientist at Nippon University was quoted as the source.”

The news director frowned as he scanned the story on his screen. Professor Akiro Takahashi, a noted Japanese physicist, says the alleged nuclear attack on the People’s Republic of Korea wasn’t nuclear. “There is no evidence of radioactive fallout,” the professor noted. “Given the prevailing winds, we would have certainly seen increasing levels of radiation here in Japan.” Further, the professor notes, seismic evidence as well as satellite imagery indicates the explosion in the northern part of the Korean peninsula did not strike the city of Pyongyang, as reported by the U.N. news organization, but rather, was centered on a military base some forty kilometers away. “With an explosion of that magnitude, there would certainly have been some damage in the city, but not nearly as serious as has been claimed.” The professor says that he believes the explosion was caused by a “kinetic strike.” In other words, it was the result of a massive object striking the Earth with great force. “You could say it was a man-made meteor,” he said.

“Did we get any video with this, an interview with the professor, maybe?”

“No, just text. They may have picked it up from the Japanese services.”

“Too bad. This is a good story. Work up some graphics and put it second on the bill for six o’clock tonight, right after the story about the U.N. task force.”

“But, chief, I thought we weren’t supposed to put anything on that might be favorable to the Moon people.”

“Ha!” The director snorted. “The damned government had better learn we don’t take kindly to being told what we can publish. Besides, they ordered us not to take anything the Moon people have to say. This is from an independent source, and it’s too good a story to pass up.”

* * *

Watching the evening news together had become something of a ritual for Ian and his two top aides. It was only 3 PM LST, but that day, they were taking in the 6 PM news from New York, via World News Network’s satellite feed. On the screen, an impeccably groomed anchorman was reading the top stories with a suitably grave look on his face.

In a dramatic development today, government sources revealed that a U.N. task force, headed by the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, is headed for Korean waters to enforce U.N. sanctions against South Korea. After the devastating attacks on the People’s Republic of North Korea, the U.N. ordered the South Koreans not to attempt to occupy any of the disputed territory on the Korean mainland. There is evidence the South Koreans are ignoring that order, and the U.N. Peacekeeper Command has threatened air strikes and other military actions against the renegade South Korean government.

In a related story, a noted Japanese physicist, Dr. Akiro Takahashi, has charged that the attacks against the People’s Republic of Korea were not nuclear strikes, as the U.N. has reported…

“Yesss!” Carla hissed, then fell silent as they listened to the rest of the story.

…Dr. Takahashi also offered seismographic records which he says prove the attack did not hit the city of Pyongyang but was actually directed at a military base over twenty-five miles outside the city. The devastating attacks, which he called ‘kinetic strikes,’ were apparently accomplished by dropping huge rocks on the targets from space. He likened the impact to that of a large meteor.

In other developments tonight…

“I’ll be damned. They bought it!” Charlie Bender chuckled.

“Remarkable,” Ian said dryly. “We offer them a complete account of what happened, with video, and they won’t listen, but give them a little snippet from a fictitious Japanese scientist, and it makes headlines.”

“But he’s not fictitious,” Carla said. “We figured they would at least check his credentials, so we had to cite a real source. There really is a Dr. Takahashi, and he really is a physicist, though not a famous one.”

“Until tonight,” Bender added, still chuckling.

“Well, I’m sure he’s in for a surprise when the media finds him. According to the university, he’s on vacation in Europe. By the time they do find him, other scientists will have reached the same conclusion. Besides, it’s almost impossible to get a news organization to retract a story. Even if Dr. Takahashi denies it, they won’t admit they were duped.”

“Good work, Carla.” Ian beamed at her. “Now, on to some serious business. Charlie, find me that U.N. task force.”

Bender’s fingers were already dancing over his touchpad. “Shouldn’t be a problem. The Reagan was last reported in the Mediterranean, so I expect they’ll be somewhere in the Indian Ocean about now.”

Carla glanced nervously at Ian. “Admiral…”

Ian turned to her. When the three of them were together, she rarely called him that unless she disapproved of some action he was about to take.

“Okay, Carla. What’s the problem?”

“I just hope you’re not planning on killing another few thousand people.”

He sighed. “Carla, we’ve been over this. The Korean strikes were necessary to prevent a few hundred thousand South Koreans from being slaughtered, not to mention freeing several million of them from virtual enslavement.”

“I know, but—”

“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I don’t plan on destroying the task force. I’m just going to put a shot across their bows.”

* * *

Admiral Thaddeus McKinney was not a happy man. It was 0300 hours local, and he had been awakened by a yeoman and given the disturbing news that ‘Lunar Space Command,’ whoever that might be, was ordering him to abandon his mission. The message had come over the Naval Command Net, supposedly as secure a network as anyone could devise, and had been repeated several times. Apparently, they were hearing it in Washington and Brussels as well, since both the Pentagon and the U.N. Peacekeeper Command had ordered him to hold course and not reply. He paced the bridge of the Reagan, unable to shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

“CIC! This is the admiral,” he barked into the intercom. “Threat status!”

“All clear, Admiral.” There was a note of reproach in the voice from CIC; it was the third time in thirty minutes he had asked for a report. McKinney bit back a reprimand. CIC was doing its job. If anything appeared on their threat board, he would be the first to hear about it.

Suddenly, the intercom came alive again. “Admiral, radar has…oh, shit!”

The carrier rattled with the impact of a massive sonic boom. Instinctively, McKinney whirled and looked out the forward bridge windows, just in time to see a huge fireball streaking straight down toward the ocean. It hit somewhere far ahead and produced a blinding flash that lit the entire night sky from horizon to horizon.

“Button up the ship! Nuclear attack drill! Advise all ships to do the same.” The words were barely out of McKinney’s mouth before the heavy steel shutters came down over the bridge windows. Klaxons blared, and loudspeakers ordered all personnel to clear the flight deck and take shelter. “CIC! How far ahead was that impact?”

“We make it seventeen miles, sir, bearing dead ahead.”

Seventeen miles…assuming a Mach One shockwave, he would still have more than a minute to get to CIC before it hit. He turned and dashed off the bridge.

* * *

The rock wasn’t as big as either of those dropped on the North Koreans. Some of its mass burned away during its fiery plunge through the atmosphere, but what struck the ocean still massed a few thousand tons, and it was moving fast. Admiral McKinney’s rough estimate held true; the airborne shockwave reached the carrier approximately eighty seconds after impact. By then, it had already overrun the leading elements of the formation, some of which got less than thirty seconds’ warning.

It was as if the task force had suddenly sailed into the teeth of a category five hurricane. Loose equipment was blown off decks, along with a few unfortunate crewmen who had not gotten below in time. The Reagan’s flight deck had been relatively empty; only seven aircraft had been on the ready line. After the shockwave passed, six of them were wreckage in the carrier’s wake.

The airborne shock was only the beginning. As the wind abated and bridge shutters were retracted, crew members got their first look at the real horror spawned by the impact—a wave nearly thirty meters high rushing toward them. It was not a breaking wave; the ocean there was far too deep for that. It was more like a steep, heavy swell, but it was moving outward from the impact site at over two hundred knots!

Warships are designed to withstand heavy weather, and even a thirty-meter swell would not have been a major problem for most of them, but ordinary ocean waves did not move with such speed. The Reagan took the wave head-on, and her flight deck was more than twenty meters above the waterline. The ship shuddered as tons of water geysered upward at her bow, ripping away steel plating like tissue and reducing the first few meters of her flight deck to wreckage. One of her outboard elevators was carried away, and a torrent of water gushed into her hangar deck. Then the wave swept by and was gone.

Smaller ships were not so fortunate. Most of them managed to take the wave dead on the bow, but the wall of water was moving so fast, there was no time for buoyancy to assert itself. Instead of riding up and over, the ships seemed to burrow into the face of the wave, burying themselves to the bridge level or even higher. The French destroyer Fouchet had been blown off course by the air shock, and she took the subsequent wave beam-on. She immediately rolled over on her side and was swept along for miles in that position before she finally staggered upright, her keel broken and her compartments half-filled with water.

The entire event lasted only a few minutes, but when it was over, not a single ship in the task force was undamaged. Two destroyers and one cruiser were so heavily damaged they had to be abandoned, and the fleet supply ship Thomas G. Betts had broken completely in half. The orderly formation disintegrated as those ships that could still maneuver went to the aid of those being abandoned or searched for personnel in the water.

Admiral McKinney sat in CIC and stared at the message in his hand, while damage reports continued to come in. According to the Moon people, that had been a warning shot! Some warning shot! Five known dead, twenty missing. Four ships lost, five others damaged so badly they’ll have to be towed into port.

McKinney turned to his chief of staff. “Advise Washington and Brussels,” he said grimly. “We’re abandoning the mission.”

* * *

“I appreciate the need for discretion, Prime Minister,” Ian said. “There’s no need for haste. Our people will let us know when your envoy arrives at our embassy in Cheju.”

The woman on the screen smiled at him. “You seem a most reasonable man, Admiral Stevens, not at all what the U.N. would have us believe you are.”

“As you will see, madam, we are neither more nor less than we claim to be.”

After the exchange of a few more pleasantries, the communication ended. Ian turned to his senior officers, who had come quietly into the office and stayed out of camera range during the conversation.

Lorna Greenwood was the first to speak. “India?” Her voice held a note of skepticism.

“Yes,” Ian said, “and they’re not exactly cheering for us yet. They want to open diplomatic relations and are willing to recognize our sovereignty, but they don’t want the rest of the world to know it. They want to trade but are afraid to let our ships land in their country. Still, they are the first major power to break with the U.N., so I guess it’s a start. As you heard, they’ll be sending an envoy. Alert the embassy at Cheju-Do.

“Oh, by the way, Charlie,” he continued, “the Korean government is moving back up to Seoul in a few months, and they want to refurbish the old American embassy there and give it to us. I’ll leave the details in your hands.”

“Yes, sir.” Bender sighed. “I still can’t figure out how I got to be the foreign minister of this outfit.”

“The same way I got to be commander of the fleet,” Lorna Greenwood said. “You were standing in the wrong spot when the admiral was looking for a volunteer.”

Suddenly, Ian started in his chair as a fluffy grey-and-white fur ball jumped on top of his desk. “Damn! How do these critters get around the base?”

The kitten sat on the desk, licking its paws and regarding the admiral with blue eyes and a total lack of respect for authority.

“Er, ah, it appears they are moving through the air ducts, Admiral,” Mick O’Hara said sheepishly. “We didn’t expect to have to deal with varmints up here. We made the grillwork small enough to keep children out, but not cats. I guess that’s how the two adult cats got together in the first place.” He reached for the kitten, but it scampered across the desk and parked itself directly in front of Ian.

The admiral reached out slowly and, to his surprise, the animal allowed itself to be petted.

“I think he likes you, sir,” Lorna said, suppressing a chuckle.

“Never mind, I’ll deal with it,” Ian said. “Okay, people, back to work. We’ll have more to talk about when the Indian ambassador shows up.”

They filed out, and Ian regarded the kitten with a sigh of resignation. The tiny animals were special—the first creatures born on the Moon. Pet ownership had become rare in the United States since the passage of the Ethical Treatment of Animals Act. The law required all would-be pet owners to register with the government. It also provided for surprise inspections. The program was administered by a new bureaucracy known as the Animal Rights Administration. Anyone suspected of keeping an unregistered animal was likely to find an ARA inspector on his doorstep, accompanied by a local police officer with a search warrant.

In the first two years, thousands of people had been fined and some jailed for various violations. In addition, most of the country had become quasi-vegetarian, as animal rights groups lobbied against the killing of animals for meat, and the ARA started cracking down on livestock breeders. The price of meat skyrocketed, and vegetable protein substitutes like tofu and soyburgers became staple parts of the American diet. Medical research also suffered, as ARA inspectors targeted laboratories where animals were used for testing.

The country had been overrun by stray dogs and cats, as people turned unregistered pets loose by the millions. The government had spent huge sums to round up and sterilize the animals, but it was a losing battle. There were frequent incidents involving people attacked and, sometimes, killed by hungry packs of dogs, but attempts to wipe them out were hampered by ARA regulations, which required the animals be trapped without harming them and relocated to wilderness areas.

The Deep Space Research Institute had had a strict no pets policy. Ian had little regard for the animal rights movement, but he agreed with Charlie that security was tough enough without having to deal with ARA inspectors. Nonetheless, the engineers in Complex D had been feeding stray cats, as had Charlie’s security people. Each group had managed to smuggle a couple of cats aboard the ships during the evacuation to the Moon. Other than feeding and litter box cleanup, no one gave much thought to the wanderings of the cats until a few weeks ago, when the Marines had discovered a litter of six kittens being nursed by their mother behind a small arms locker.

Fleet Admiral Ian Stevens, Chief Executive of the Lunar Free State, found himself absently stroking one of the tiny creatures and slowly relaxing to the purring sound it made.

“Okay, little tiger,” he muttered. “If you like it here so much, I guess you can stay for a while.”

* * *

“Do you have a few minutes, Admiral?”

Ian looked up from his interface pad and found Carla standing in the doorway of his office. “Sure, Carla, what’s on your mind?”

Carla paused and closed the door before taking the chair in front of Ian’s desk. Uh oh, he thought, something’s up. He waited patiently for her to open the conversation. Carla stared down at her hands for a long moment. When she finally looked up at him, there was pain in her eyes.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore, Admiral,” she began.

“What is it you don’t think you can do?” he asked gently.

“Be your chief of staff,” she replied. “A long time ago—or at least it seems like a long time—when I first joined the Alpha group, you asked me if I could do what needed to be done to complete the mission, no matter what. I still believe in the mission, but I don’t think I can handle the methods we’re using. I told you back then I couldn’t do those things if anyone would be harmed.”

“We’re at war, Carla,” he said quietly.

“I know, and people are dying. I justified the attacks on the North Koreans by telling myself we were saving the lives of thousands of people on Cheju-Do, but this last attack on the Navy ships…”

“They were on their way to attack the only allies we have. We tried to warn them, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“People don’t listen at times like this, but they were still days away from Korea. I keep thinking there was something else we could have done, something that wouldn’t have killed people who were only serving their country. The media are saying we caused tsunamis as well, and that thousands have died in coastal areas.”

“They’re lying, Carla. There were no tsunamis. The rock wasn’t big enough. The wave was spent in less than two hundred kilometers—a third of the distance to the nearest land. Mike checked the tsunami monitors off Malaysia. The wave registered three centimeters, and it still had a hundred klicks to go before it reached an inhabited shore. The media site that put out the tsunami story used video footage from the big one of ’05, and the village they claimed was wiped out doesn’t exist—has never existed. It’s a hoax so blatant, most of the media dropped it after the first report.”

“Perhaps, but we still killed those sailors, and, maybe, we could have done something that wouldn’t have killed so many in the Korean attacks. We killed thousands, Ian, probably fifty times our whole population!”

“I know,” he said, and there was a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Our weapons aren’t as precise and controllable as I’d like, but they’re the only weapons we have.”

“Then maybe we should give it up. Go back to Earth and surrender…” Her voice broke, and a tear trickled down her cheek.

“That’s not an option anymore, Carla. If we do that, our technology falls into the hands of the nations of Earth. You may not agree with the way we’ve been using it, but do you really think they would use it any more wisely?

“Look at the Earth today,” he said in a quiet, level voice. “The Jihad is spreading throughout the world, killing Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and any Muslims who don’t adhere to their brand of radical Islam. Our would-be ally, India, is poised for a nuclear strike on their Islamic neighbor, Pakistan, which is ready to strike back. The only thing holding the two of them back is the fear that China might take both over. The Balkans are in chaos again, as they have been for the last several hundred years. In the Far East, in addition to the two Koreas, you’ve got China quietly gnawing away at the southeastern borders of Russia and rattling sabers at Japan, as well. With the new revolt in Viet Nam and the chaos in Thailand, a lot of borders are getting blurry in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is in the midst of a civil war. Africans are killing each other by the millions for lack of food, and the average duration in power for any government in South America is about three months. Oh, and lest we former North Americans start to feel smug about anything, let’s not forget the terrorist war that’s being waged between the French- and English-speaking Canadians, and the anarchy in the northwestern United States. Alaska is behaving like a nation apart, and the South is about ready to rise again. Mexico is in total chaos, without anything that passes for a functioning government.

“I haven’t even mentioned Greece and Turkey or Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There are at least fifty small wars going on in various places on Earth, most of them involving U.N. member nations. When the U.N. collapses—which will happen in the next three to five years, if Mike’s projections are correct—those little wars will most likely dissolve into one big war. Do you really want all those people dropping rocks on each other from space?”

“No,” she replied, “but I can’t help wishing we wouldn’t do it either. I’d always hoped we’d be above all that…if you’ll pardon the pun.” The ghost of a smile crossed her face then was gone.

“So had I,” he replied with a sigh. “I wish we could sit up here and ignore them all, but we can’t. For all the progress we’ve made, we still aren’t self-sufficient. We import more than half our food and all our medical supplies. We’ve found a treasure trove of raw materials in the asteroid belt, but we don’t have the industry to process them. We need Earth, and we need allies on Earth who are willing to deal with us, and to get them, we had to get involved in someone else’s trouble. From that point on, well…it’s like trying to get the genie back into the bottle.”

“I know,” she replied, “and I know you really are doing what’s best for us. But I can’t be a party to planning and carrying out any more attacks. We’re killing people who have no way to escape or defend themselves. Once those rocks are moving, anyone in the target area is doomed. I can’t live with that anymore. I’m starting to see the dead in my dreams.

“Admiral…Ian…I’ll do anything else you want me to, but don’t ask me to take part in killing any more people. Give me my old job back—supply, logistics, base administration, whatever—just don’t ask me to get involved in the war. I haven’t the stomach for it.”

They sat there in silence for a few long moments. Carla looked past Ian at the little tabby kitten, peacefully sleeping on the credenza, blissfully unaware of the emotionally charged exchange between the two humans. Its presence reminded Carla that the man in front of her was not a cold-blooded killer.

“Carla, that’s exactly why I wanted you on my staff. Charlie Bender’s not a monster, but he does have a ruthless streak. You were supposed to be the counterbalance to that. Lately, though, I’m not getting much feedback from you, and I guess I know why. All right, if that’s what you really want, but I’ll need to replace you. You know the staff better than anyone. Who do you recommend?”

“Timiko Yamamoto is good. She’s been my most capable assistant for a long time.”

“I know Timiko, but I’m concerned she’s too reserved. I need people who will tell me what they’re thinking.”

“She isn’t reserved with me. She’s always polite, and she’s loyal to her superiors, but she’s not a yes-person by any means. You just need to watch for when she stops agreeing with you and ask her opinion. She’ll give it to you straight.”

“She’s only a lieutenant. She’ll need to be jumped to full commander if she’s going to hold her own with Charlie. That’s going to raise a few eyebrows.”

“Not any more than my resignation will. I guess I’m really putting my career on the skids, but I can’t help it. I feel very strongly about this.”

“I respect that, Carla, but what am I going to do with you? You’re too valuable to waste in a low-level job. Do you think you could work for Mick O’Hara?”

“Yes, certainly. Mick’s a good man and an amazing engineer. What could I possibly do in engineering, though? I can barely replace the batteries in a flashlight, without technical help.”

Ian smiled. “Remember when you first came to work for me? You took the administrative load off me, so I could attend to the important stuff. Well, I’ve noticed Mick is getting tied up in too many administrative details. Running the base involves a lot more than engineering, and I imagine he’d be delighted to have you. Since he’s a vice admiral, you won’t need to take a reduction in rank.”

Carla perked up and returned the smile at last. “Thank you, Ian,” she said quietly. “It’s a perfect solution for me.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I plan to transfer a lot of your old job to Mick’s area along with you, and you’re still JAG, by vote of the Directorate. You’re going to be busy. Meanwhile, I’ll consider Timiko for my staff. Don’t say anything about this yet. I want to talk to Mick before I officially transfer you.”

Carla rose from the chair and moved toward the door. “Thank you again, Ian. You’re a wonderful guy.”

“Yeah, right!” He snorted. “I guess this still doesn’t put us in a position to resume our…personal relationship.”

“I’m still in your chain of command.”

“So is everyone else in the Lunar Free State. I neglected to consider that celibacy would be a job requirement for the commander in chief.”

“Actually…” She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about my needs. You know I’m not much of a solitary person. I need a relationship in my life, and…well…”

“You’ve found someone else,” he said, with a grimace. “I can’t blame you. Things haven’t been working out for us. Hopefully, it’s not someone in Mick’s chain of command.”

She reddened a bit, which was unusual for Carla, who was quite open about her personal life. “I’m thinking about moving in with Lorna.”

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “I must have misheard you,” he finally said.

“I know, I know,” she said defensively, “I’m the stereotypical heterosexual, and—”

“That’s not what I’m surprised about. I know you and Lorna are close, and I’m also aware she has strong feelings for you. But didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to have anything to do with the war? Lorna’s our top military commander. She’s the one who has to drop the rocks on people’s heads.”

“All I said was I didn’t want to be involved in making life-and-death decisions about the war. Lorna’s a soldier, and like any good soldier, she hopes for peace while preparing for war. Sometimes, I envy her simple outlook. If you told her to take the fleet to the gates of Hell and put a missile through the devil’s heart, she’d do it. But if you told her to stand down, she’d do that, too. She has a lot of faith in you, Ian. So have I, for that matter. Otherwise, I’d have asked you to send me back to Earth, instead of finding me another job.”

There was nothing more to be said, so Ian simply nodded. Carla smiled once again, then slipped out the door and was gone.

With a sigh, Ian turned to the interface panel on his desk. “Mike, tell Admiral O’Hara I need to see him at his earliest convenience.”

* * *

“Welcome back, Mr. Bhalla. I trust your trip to the Moon was both interesting and productive?”

“Not as productive as I would have liked, Madam Premiere. The Lunar Free State is willing to trade with us, using the Republic of Korea as an intermediary, but only if we establish appropriate relations with the Koreans. They will not trade with us directly, nor will they enter into a treaty with us, unless we openly recognize the LFS.”

“But they must know that’s impossible! It would surely precipitate an alliance between China and Pakistan, and war would soon follow!”

“Are you certain of that, madam?” Foreign Minister Ghandi inquired. “The Chinese want nothing to do with the Jihad, and they have to know that Pakistan is closely tied to it. Besides, look what happened to the North Koreans. An alliance with the LFS could be a powerful deterrent to our enemies.”

Ambassador Bhalla sighed. “I’m sorry to disillusion you, sir. The Moon people will not entertain any kind of military alliance with us. They believe we are not as defenseless as their Korean allies were. They noted that we attacked first in the border war with Pakistan and that we have nuclear weapons.”

“But that war was six years ago and, surely, they understand that we must maintain our nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. We would never use it unless attacked with such weapons ourselves.”

“All the same, they seem to think we are too aggressive. They even suggested we do something to lessen the tension with Pakistan before we talk about it again.”

“Amateurs!” The premier shook her head in disbelief. “They have no appreciation for the subtleties of international diplomacy. Surely, they must realize Pakistan is just another puppet regime of the Jihad. One cannot lessen the tension with such people.”

“Perhaps they have other concerns,” the foreign minister offered. “Our intelligence indicates the Chinese may be the one power on Earth that can strike at the Moon with a chance of success. Their Nanking-class missiles can reach the Moon, and rumor has it they have developed a vehicle that can lift heavy payloads to orbit. They have…borrowed technology from the Americans for decades and have spent much effort improving it, unlike their American benefactors, who are suppressing most space research.”

“We need to re-think our strategies,” the premier mused. “Perhaps we might make overtures to the Pakistanis, after all. We can probably get away with quietly recognizing the South Korean government, while the U.N. is still trying to sort things out. We dare not recognize the Lunar Free State, but it would be nice to be able to trade with them through the Koreans.”

* * *

The staff meetings were getting more crowded. Most of Ian’s original staff had developed staffs of their own. It was an inevitable consequence of the rapid growth of the Lunar Free State.

At least he didn’t have to give separate reports to the Directorate, since all five members of that august body were present in the room. The first set of directors had been selected—not elected—from Ian’s original Alpha group via the same grandfather clause in the Constitution that had named Ian as the first commander in chief. In addition, they had been given initial start-up terms of ten years before any of them would have to worry about re-election. The commander in chief, unless relieved of duty by the Directorate, served for life or until he chose to retire.

The idea was to provide stability for the government in its formative years, but it left Ian and his key people in control for the foreseeable future. The citizens had gotten to vote for one replacement, after Alan Jaronski died, but the other four—Mick O’Hara, Charlie Bender, Carla Perry, and Lorna Greenwood—remained in office to serve out their ten-year terms.

Mick O’Hara now had Carla Perry as his chief of staff, and Lorna Greenwood had appointed Tommy Sakura captain of Valkyrie, her flagship. That made Sakura Lorna’s flag captain and her de facto second-in-command. Charlie Bender was still Ian’s intelligence officer and foreign minister, but he had turned over his Marine commandant duties to a Korean immigrant, Kim Song Chae, a veteran ex-officer of the ROK Marines. Bender had worked with Kim in what he referred to as his former life and had gone out of his way to recruit the Korean for the job.

In addition to those six, there were four others in attendance. Timiko Yamamoto was still settling into her duties as Ian’s chief of staff, but so far, she had met his expectations. Sarah Wilkins, her medical staff reinforced by three more doctors, had reluctantly accepted Ian’s appointment as chief of human services, with the newly created rank of chief warrant officer—equivalent to vice admiral, but only on condition that she get an assistant of her choice. She had chosen Thomas Perry, who had, in turn, been promoted to senior warrant officer and given the title of director of education. The remaining member of the group was Dr. Evan McGuinness, a physicist who had worked closely with the late Alan Jaronski and who now took over the re-activated post of director of research. Like Wilkins, he held the new rank of chief warrant officer. McGuinness had also been chosen—by popular vote—to fill Jaronski’s vacant seat in the Directorate.

Of course, there were also two unseen attendees at the meeting—Mike and Val. Everyone present had worked with one or both of the sentient computers and relied heavily on their capabilities. Mike knew all there was to know about base operations, and Val knew everything about the fleet. As a result, two small avatars—Mike’s lizard and Val’s warrior woman (rendered in Japanese anime style)—showed in the corner of each interface screen in the room.

“Let’s get started, people,” Ian began. “I’ve called this meeting to advise you of developments that may have serious consequences for us. Commander Bender will conduct the briefing. He will begin by bringing everyone up to date on current international affairs.”

Charlie rose from his chair and keyed his remote. The large screens at both ends of the room lit with a map of the Earth. Countries of interest were highlighted in various colors.

“All is not sweetness and light as far as the world situation is concerned,” he said. “And, unfortunately, it looks like we are responsible for a lot of the current instability. There were plenty of disputes going on before we got here, but since the Korean affair, a lot of smaller nations have started thumbing their noses at the U.N. Many are threatening to suspend payment of their U.N. dues because the U.N. has shown itself powerless to deal with threats to member nations.

“For almost forty years, the U.N., or the U.S. in the name of the U.N., has been sending carrier task forces around the world to suppress dissident nations. Until now, no one ever stopped one of those task forces. The closest times were when the Libyans inflicted damage on the carrier Jimmy Carter with a torpedo, and Argentina sank a frigate with missiles during the second Falklands crisis, but both of those countries then got bombed back into the Stone Age for their efforts.

“We, on the other hand, stopped a carrier task force by dropping a rock into the ocean, and nobody’s touched us in return. The world also knows we survived a U.S. nuclear attack. To most of the people down there, we look invincible. More importantly, the U.N. looks impotent, and some of these countries have been chafing against U.N. domination for years.

“Of course, we’re not the only reason things are going to hell down there. Mike’s most conservative projections show the U.N. collapsing within ten years, even without us in the equation. Islamic nations—under the influence of the Jihad—have already threatened withdrawal or, at least, withholding of dues. If anyone is interested, Mike can show you a list of over twenty nations that could be expected to withdraw their support of the U.N. within the next few years—and that was before we started dropping rocks.”

Mike obliged by marking two dozen or so countries on the display with flashing red symbols. Bender paused while his audience studied the map, then keyed his remote, and five countries glowed green. South Korea was one of them.

“To date, we’ve been recognized outright by four nations other than Korea, but three of them, Zaire, Honduras, and Serbia—” the countries named were outlined in red on the map as he spoke, “—have problems they would like us to solve for them by dropping rocks on their neighbors. We’ve cautiously acknowledged their recognition but told them we will not get involved in local squabbles.

“The other nation that recognized us is Tibet, which doesn’t seem to have a quarrel with anyone, but whose geographical position—squarely between India and China—makes it vulnerable to invasion from either side. They’ve been independent since the Chinese ended their occupation, and the extreme terrain features of the Himalayas help insulate them from enemies, but either side could decide at any time that Tibet’s strategic position makes invasion worthwhile. We’ve decided to go with full diplomatic relations, though we’ve told them we may not be able to protect them in a worst-case scenario.

“And that brings us to India,” he continued. “It appears they are not willing to recognize us openly, though they left the door open. We believe they are playing both sides, and we don’t like that, but they have done two things we asked for. They’ve made peace overtures to Pakistan, and they’ve—very quietly—recognized the South Korean government.

“That means they want to trade with us, via Daewoo Corporation. At one time, Daewoo was one of the most powerful conglomerates in Korea, but it collapsed at the turn of the century. Now, thanks to some slick deals put together by our illustrious commander in chief, it has been resurrected and is controlled by our own Terra Corporation, and we’ve loaded its board of directors with Koreans who are sympathetic to us. They weren’t hard to find, since most Koreans regard us as the saviors of their nation. In any case, we’re soon going to be seeing Made in India labels on imported goods, in addition to the Made in Korea labels we are seeing now.

“On another note, the Vatican has quietly made an offer to act as an intermediary between us and either the U.S. or the U.N., in the hope we won’t drop any more rocks on anyone. Of course, the Vatican sometimes acts like a government and sometimes like a church. Right now, they’re in church mode, promoting world peace, while neatly avoiding any question of recognizing us as a nation. We expressed interest in their offer but, apparently, neither the U.S. nor the U.N. wanted any part of it.

“The exercise wasn’t a complete waste, however. We had a meeting in Seoul, and Admiral Stevens asked the Papal Nuncio if they would consider sending a priest up here. We have over a hundred Catholics who haven’t been to Mass in a long time. The Jews have Rabbi Silverman; the Protestants have set up their own ministries and appointed their own ministers; the Buddhists say they don’t need ministers—they’ve adopted Mike as a source of spiritual guidance, but the Catholics have been pretty much left out. Anyway, the Vatican promised they would send us a priest as soon as they can find one.”

“Hope he gets here soon,” Mick O’Hara put in. “There’s probably more than a few sins around here that need confessing.”

That brought a chuckle to the group. Even Bender cracked a smile, but it faded as he continued. “Now, we come to the really sticky issue—China. I need to advise you that everything I say from this point on is classified.” He looked at Ian who nodded for him to continue. “Nothing from here on is to be discussed with anyone other than those in this room. If you want to research it with Mike or Val, go ahead, but Code Alpha restrictions apply.”

Virtually all Lunar citizens now had a general idea of the capabilities of the Lunar AIs, so Ian and Charlie had been forced to set up more complicated security procedures. Code Alpha simply meant the AIs would not discuss an issue with anyone other than those on a specific list. Bender paused briefly to let that sink in.

“The Chinese have been strangely quiet through all that has happened, especially considering what we did to their allies in North Korea. Other than passing mention on their news broadcasts—which have not been favorable to us—they have been conspicuous by their absence from the crowd calling for our extermination.

“This disturbs us because we think they are planning action of their own. We know a couple of things, thanks to our deep taps into other countries’ intelligence networks. We know their Nanking missiles have the capability of hitting us here on the Moon, and they’ve already used Nanking boosters to launch large research probes. Each one can probably boost a MIRV payload of five twenty-megaton nukes from Earth all the way to us. They stole the basic technology from the U.S., but don’t be fooled into thinking they are low-budget knock-offs. The Chinese have good engineers of their own, and indications are the Nankings are more powerful and probably more accurate than the best U.S. missiles.

“They’ve also been testing a vehicle that can only be described as a super shuttle. In concept, it’s like the U.S. space shuttle, but indications are they can launch it cheaper, drive it farther with a heavier payload, and turn it around for re-launch faster than anything anyone else has—except us, and we don’t have the resources of a huge nation with over a billion people. Intel says they have ten of those vehicles under construction, maybe more, but most of the world doesn’t know they launched the first one.

“Most of what we have comes from sources on the ground, and the reports are sparse. The Chinese are good at tracking down and eliminating spies in their midst. Years ago, when I was in the business, the average life expectancy of an operative in China was about three months. I found one report that was particularly disturbing. It was incomplete, but it went into some detail about the maneuvering capability of the vehicle. Apparently, it has some heavy auxiliary thrusters, and the report speculated it might even be capable of landing on the Moon, though fuel constraints would make it a one-way trip.

“Based on all of that, Admiral Greenwood and I, with a lot of help from Mike and Val, have come up with several scenarios that probably won’t make you sleep any easier tonight. First, we must assume the world has a good idea of exactly where we are—a much better idea than they had when the U.S. launched their nukes against us almost two years ago. Even if the Chinese don’t have us pinpointed, they could launch one of their shuttles on a free ride trajectory to swing around the Moon, take pictures, localize our energy sources, and locate us. With modern surveillance technology, they could do all that from outside our L1-point territorial limits. Once they know where we are—and they may already know—the stage is set for any of several scenarios.

“Scenario One: They decide to simply eliminate us. They know the U.N. is going to collapse soon, which will pretty well leave them the dominant power on Earth. We are a threat, so they launch a hundred or so Nankings at us. That’s five hundred warheads. If we don’t see them coming, we’re dead. If we see them coming too late, we’re still dead. Admiral Greenwood’s entire fleet cannot stop five hundred warheads on short notice. Our only chance is to detect them right after launch. It will take them three days to reach the Moon, which will give the fleet a shot at tracking them down and taking them out. We may have to chase them all over the place, but if we wait until they get close, we’ll never stop all of them.

“Scenario Two: They decide they’d really like to have our technology, so they launch about twenty of their new shuttles on a one-way trip, each carrying twenty to thirty combat-ready assault troops. That’s four hundred to six hundred troops, people. At last count, we had less than fifty Marines, and only enough light weapons to arm about twenty more. They land on the Moon, blast their way into the base, and demand our surrender. Of course, they might also throw in a couple more shuttles set up for orbital bombardment to soften us up with conventional bombs before the troops arrive. The problem with that scenario is that, if they launch more than a couple of shuttles in our direction, we’ll know something is happening, and a shuttle in space would be a sitting duck for our ships. Again, the shuttles would take days to get here and would be vulnerable during that time. Even if we didn’t see them coming, we could deal with the relatively small number of large, slower-moving targets as soon as they arrive in our neighborhood.

“Scenario Three: This is the one we feel is most likely. It is a combination of One and Two. They may nuke us first, then send the shuttles to capture survivors and pick through the rubble to salvage whatever technology they can. If there’s nothing left to salvage…oh, well…at least they’ve eliminated us. More likely, they’ll send the shuttles first with the nukes right behind if the assault fails. Questions, anyone?”

The group sat in stunned silence. Ian and Lorna had already been over the scenarios, had already tried their best to find flaws in them, but the others were hearing them for the first time.

“Wait a minute,” said Mick O’Hara. “I’ll buy that they might be willing to nuke us and be done with it, but if they send shuttles on a one-way trip, how do they get home?”

“They don’t,” Bender replied. “Unless, of course, they get lucky enough to capture one or more of our ships intact. Then they can ride home in style, but their basic mission will simply be to get the technology and transmit it back to China. Of course, if the base’s life support is still functioning, they could live here until a relief force arrives. Or they might be able to rig some shuttles as tankers to bring enough fuel up here so they could lift off again. Getting off the Moon is a lot easier than getting off Earth. The point is, it doesn’t matter to their overall objective.”

“But you’re talking about a suicide mission—”

“Mick,” Ian interrupted, “don’t try to apply Western values here. Life doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to us. It’s been over three quarters of a century since World War Two, but most Americans still can’t understand why so many young Japanese men—teenage boys—would volunteer to become Kamikaze pilots. The Jihad’s suicide terrorists, at least, believe they are taking a shortcut to Heaven, and that fifty beautiful virgins will be waiting for them there, but the Japanese Kamikazes did it for the sake of honor and country.”

“It’s true,” Kim Song Chae said. “When you dropped the rocks on the North Koreans and killed thousands, they simply picked up and went home. They were humiliated by their failure, but not so concerned over the loss of life. Yet when a few sailors were lost from the U.N. task force, the United States practically went into national mourning and screamed their outrage over the deaths.”

“Speaking of rocks,” Sarah Wilkins said, “what’s to keep our illustrious fleet from dropping a couple of small mountains on their heads while their missiles are taking three days to get here from Earth?”

“Well,” Bender replied, “Lorna and I agree that it will likely take all the fleet’s resources to stop those missiles. Besides, they probably don’t care. They know we are Western enough that we won’t drop rocks on major population centers, and our chances of finding and taking out even a fraction of their launchers are slim. Intel suggests they have at least a thousand Nanking launch sites. We’ll only be able to spot them when they fire, and then it will be too late. As for the shuttles, they’ll likely have those up and in orbit before they fire the Nankings. If they launch that many shuttles, we’ll know something is up, but we can’t go dropping rocks on them until they attack us. In addition, they’ll probably have all their leaders hidden away in shelters before they launch.”

“But surely, the fleet isn’t going to stand by while twenty or so shuttles land on the Moon and disembark troops.” Thomas Perry spoke for the first time.

“No, we won’t,” Lorna said with a sigh. “That’s why we think they’ll go for Scenario Three. It keeps the fleet busy while they assault the base. Timing is tricky. They’d have to start their ground assault while the missiles are en route, which would mean they’d need to be able to disarm the incoming nukes if their assault is successful. If they pull it off, the fleet won’t have a base to return to. We also think some of those shuttles could be armed for space combat or that they may have other tricks up their sleeves. They’ve had a few chances to look at our capabilities, but we know little about theirs.”

“All right, everyone,” Ian interrupted. “We don’t mean to make you paranoid. We are talking about things they may be able to do. That doesn’t mean it’s what they will do. A lot of the intel is sketchy. We know they have the Nankings, and we know they have at least a prototype of their shuttle built and tested, but we don’t know for sure how many they’ve built. That is a key piece of information. Any more than five or six, and we’ll know they are planning space operations on a scale beyond what any nation has attempted to date—except us, of course. Charlie, tell them what security measures we plan to take.”

“Right, Admiral.” Bender moved back to his briefing position and keyed the next graphic. “We’ve deployed all of the captured U.S. surveillance satellites to watch the Chinese. The U.S. still has very few primary launch sites, and it takes them close to forever to get ready to launch. If we look in on them once a week, that should be sufficient. That orbital fighter they used in the Endeavor incident was obviously not built for a trip to the Moon, and their Earth-launched missiles don’t have the ability to reach us—their boosters are strictly suborbital.

“We don’t have enough satellites to cover all of China, so we’ll be asking Admiral O’Hara’s people to fabricate more of them. Admiral Greenwood has one ship assigned to picket duty at all times to relay satellite imagery to us when China is on the other side of the Earth. That would be the most likely time for a launch. They could slingshot the missiles around the Earth, although they’d have to be careful not to fling them over the U.S. lest the Americans think the attack was aimed at them. The U.S. may not be able to reach us, but they can still take out any nation on Earth.

“Our new heavy-lifter, LFS Hercules, is carrying most of the burden of ferrying supplies from Earth, and she’ll be joined within the next two months by a sister ship, LFS Atlas, which is nearing completion. Except for Nomad, our newest Wanderer-class ship, which is still conducting surveys in the asteroid belt, the rest of the fleet will hold station in high Earth orbit. This will give us the best reaction time for anything that happens on Earth, whether it’s the Chinese or not.”

“We’re also rethinking some of our base expansion plans,” Ian said. “Mick, we need to talk about a construction site for the next section, and it should be at least ten kilometers removed from the main base. We’ll want self-contained life support over there and a computer system that can handle base functions independently, though it will normally be linked into Mike’s network. We also need to think about ways we can harden the base against attack. We’ve been through one nuclear bombardment already, and we’ve taken some steps in that direction, but we can probably do more.”

O’Hara, Ian noticed, took the news cheerfully. That man loves a challenge! “Back to you, Charlie.”

“Right, sir,” Bender said. “Colonel Kim, your Marines have been functioning as domestic security forces. We need to start planning for base defense and training them for surface combat with heavier weapons.” The Marine officer nodded, and Bender turned to Sarah Wilkins.

“Doctor, I think you are going to have to include the possibility of an attack on the base in your medical emergency plans. You should plan to set up field stations in parts of the base away from the hospital.”

“Well,” Wilkins mused, “at least we’re better equipped now than we were during the First Battle. We have more medical personnel, but we also have more people to take care of. We need to think about better shelter and evacuation plans. Too many people got trapped in the wrong places last time. I’d like Mr. Perry to work on that; he has some experience in that area.”

“What experience is that, ma’am?” Perry grinned. “I was unconscious at the time.”

“Right,” Bender said. “Mr. Perry, would you work with Colonel Kim to make sure defense and evacuation are coordinated? We don’t want people going the wrong way and winding up in the middle of a fire zone.” Both Perry and Kim grimaced at the thought.

Ian was pleased by the way his people had shaken off their initial shock and gotten down to business. Hopefully, they’d have some time. He didn’t think the Chinese were ready to make a move yet. In fact, they might never do so. But if they did, the LFS would be as well prepared as time allowed.

* * * * *

Chapter Fourteen

July

The Chinese Connection

As Charlie Bender’s briefing was being conducted on the Moon, a meeting of another sort was taking place in the People’s Republic of China. A mixed group of military and scientific people watched as cargo was unloaded from a U.S. Air Force C-24. It was the first foreign aircraft ever to land at the top-secret base in the heart of China. Officially, it had flown to the PRC to deliver humanitarian aid to victims of the Yangtze floods, but its cargo had nothing to do with relief supplies.

The Chinese had paid heavily for this cargo. They had called in favors owed them by American politicians. With some, it had been necessary to remind them what would happen if the source of their campaign funding became known. The money trail wouldn’t lead back to the Chinese government; instead, it would be traced to the drug cartels of South America. A U.S. politician might survive public revelation of funding from China. That sort of thing had been common since the 1990s. But the naïve American electorate would be outraged at the possibility of an elected official consorting with drug dealers.

The Chinese had also spent hoarded intelligence capital to produce documented evidence of moral and professional wrongdoing by certain high-ranking U.S. military officers, which they used to buy the silent complicity of those officers. Finally, faced with one untainted Pentagon official who was in a position to raise questions about the matter, they had arranged an unfortunate, fatal accident a week before the cargo’s transfer.

It all came down to this moment, as the C-24 discharged the cargo. A canvas-covered framework formed a broad tunnel from the hangar to the aircraft, shielding the unloading operation from the eyes of any satellites overhead. At the end of the tunnel, the Chinese watched as two complete XF-27 orbital fighters were unloaded. These were followed by pieces of ancillary equipment, including ten casket-like crates that contained the special space-to-space missiles the fighters carried. Last off was a large container that held a flight simulator developed for the XF-27.

The Chinese already had complete plans for the craft, and modifications to the design were being made to adapt it to Chinese needs. Production was scheduled to begin within weeks. They also had a complete copy of the telemetry from the only mission the XF-27 had ever flown, but all that was no substitute for the actual hardware. One of the craft would be given to the scientists and engineers for disassembly, the other would be used for static tests of the engine and control systems. Pilot training would begin as soon as the flight simulator was set up. As for the missiles, the Chinese had learned a valuable lesson from the Endeavor intercept. The missile guidance system would use a new type of seeker head.

The Chinese XF-27 would be easier to build than the American version. It didn’t need an aerodynamic shape or any standard aircraft flight controls since it would never be used in the atmosphere. Its power plant would be almost identical to the American design, but since it would not spend reaction mass getting into orbit, its useful range would be greatly enhanced.

The scientists and military officers examined the shipment with approval. The Americans had created some impressive technology. Unfortunately, they had not developed it fully nor used it effectively. In six months, the Chinese would be able to show the world how it should have been done.

* * *

Jeremy McGuinness was understandably nervous. He’d been in the admiral’s presence before, but this was the first time he’d been summoned—with his parents, no less—to the admiral’s office. Jeremy knew why they were there, but still…

“First of all, let me congratulate you, Jeremy,” Ian Stevens began. “You’re the first of our original group to reach the age of adulthood here on the Moon. You’ve also distinguished yourself in a very conspicuous way—” Jeremy blushed slightly and glanced down at his tunic, where the First Battle and Lunar Star ribbons rode proudly on his chest, “—so this is more than an eighteenth birthday for you.

“You are now a full citizen of the Lunar Free State, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof. Your shareholder account has been established. You have the right and responsibility to cast your vote in any Directorate election or referendum that comes along. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about your future. You can extend your cadet status for four more years as a full-time student and go for a college degree at any of Earth’s cyber-connected universities. You are aware of that, are you not?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“Excuse me, Admiral,” Jeremy’s mother interrupted, “but how does that work? Given the world situation, it isn’t likely that any of those universities would accept a student from Luna.”

“You’re right, Nancy. But we already do this for some of our scientific people doing post-graduate work. Mike creates a fictitious identity under which the student is registered. He’s good at it, and we’ve never been questioned. He monitors course completion and transfers all credits—under the student’s real identity—to the University of Free Luna which, at present, is nothing more than a credit bank that issues the degree when a course of study has been completed. Of course, you can’t get a degree from Harvard, even though you do your studies there, but we are more concerned about the quality of the education than about the university name that appears on the diploma, and the UFL transcripts show the actual universities where the studies were completed.”

“Jeremy.” Nancy McGuinness turned to her son. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about that?” Ian detected just a hint of pleading in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Mom…Dad…” He glanced at his parents. Dr. Evan McGuinness was a world-class physicist, while Dr. Nancy McGuinness was one of Luna’s foremost botanists. “I’ve never been a good student, especially in math and science. I guess I must be a real disappointment to you. I just don’t think college is for me.”

“But you did well in school this past year…”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Perry is the best teacher I’ve ever had, and Mike is a big help when you don’t understand something. But I’m not good with books and research and stuff. I’ll never be a scientist as good as either of you, so let me do something that, maybe, I’ll be good at. Besides, it is my decision, isn’t it, sir?” There was only a tiny hint of defiance in his tone.

“Yes, it is,” Ian said. “But I’d be remiss in my duty if I didn’t advise you to consider the alternatives. This is your first decision as a legal adult, and it’s an important one.”

“Son,” Evan McGuinness said, “we’re not disappointed in you. How could we be? You’re already a hero. We’d like to see you go into a scientific field, but I think we realized some years ago it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe we should be grateful you’ve found something you really want to do. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if that’s what you want, go for it!”

“Evan…”

“No, Nancy, he’s right. It’s his decision.”

It was a hard thing for the scientist to say. Unlike his wife and son, he had attended Ian’s command briefings for the past month. He knew what his son might soon be called upon to do.

“Is this what you want, Jeremy?” Ian held up the application Jeremy had completed several days before.

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Very well.” Ian initialed the form—a purely theatrical gesture designed to impress Jeremy with the seriousness of the matter. In fact, all the official processing had already been done, and a copy of Jeremy’s orders was already filed in the central personnel database. “As of now, you are Private Jeremy McGuinness, Lunar Free State Marines. You’ll be reporting to Valkyrie, when she rotates back to Luna next week, for basic training under the direction of Gunnery Sergeant McGraw. In the meantime, enjoy some time with your family and, once again, congratulations.”

* * *

“Honey, I’m home.” Vice Admiral Lorna Greenwood dropped her space bag on the floor in the entryway to her small apartment.

Carla Perry came out of the living room with a look of mild distress on her face. She gave Lorna a quick kiss, then whispered, “We’ve got company.”

“Oh?…Oh!” Lorna followed Carla into the living room and found Thomas Perry standing there. “Hello, Mr. Perry.”

“Hello, Admiral. Home is the sailor from the sea, eh? I just dropped in to see how my little girl is doing.”

“Don’t mind me. I’ll just go and stow my gear.” Lorna could not detect any hint of coolness in his voice, but she was still a bit uncomfortable. It was impossible that Thomas Perry didn’t know of her relationship with his daughter, but the two women had agreed that it was best not to flaunt it in his presence.

“Don’t let me interfere with your homecoming, Admiral. You’ve been out for, what, a few weeks or so?”

His tone was genuinely friendly, and Lorna loosened up a bit. “Three weeks. We just handed Valkyrie over to the maintenance techs, so I’ll be in port for a week or so, barring unexpected events. But please—” she smiled at the man she regarded as her father-in-law, “—call me Lorna. We’re in quarters now.” It was an unwritten rule that rank and military courtesy requirements were suspended inside living quarters.

“In quarters and off duty,” Carla seconded. “Coffee should be ready. I’ll be back in a minute. Sit down, you two.” She disappeared into the apartment’s tiny kitchenette. Lorna took off her uniform beret, loosened the collar on her tunic, and folded her tall frame into an easy chair.

Tom Perry sat down on the sofa. “So, how goes the Earthwatch?”

Since all three of them were members of the command group, Lorna answered without hesitation. “There’s been a lot of activity at key Chinese sites, but whatever they’re doing, they’re keeping under wraps—out of sight of our satellites, at least. I’ll feel a little better when Amazon comes out of the construction bay. Our whole navy’s not much to go against the PRC, but every ship helps.”

“It’s a shame,” Perry mused. “There are wonderful things we could be doing up here—research, development, colonization of Mars, you name it. Instead, because of power politics on Earth, we’ve got to spend all our resources building warships. Uh, no offense, Admiral, I realize they’re your warships, and I agree it’s necessary.”

“No offense taken, Tom. Truth is, I wish we could build a bigger merchant fleet, and we’ve had a beauty of a deep-space research vessel on the drawing board for a year. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unruly children down there. Some of them just need a good spanking, but others are playing with matches, with the express intent of burning down our house.”

Perry chuckled. “Do you really see us as the adults and them as the children?”

“No,” she replied with a wry smile. “We’re probably just another bunch of kids. The difference is, all we wanted to do was take our marbles and go play somewhere else. They don’t want to let us do that.”

Carla, returned with the coffee and joined them. “You’re forgetting that we need them. We’re still not self-sufficient up here.”

“True, but we soon will be. The farm tunnels may produce a surplus by next year. We’re recycling everything, we’ve got plenty of water in the lunar ice pockets, and more solar power than we know what to do with. We’ve got all the raw materials we need in the asteroid belt, and as you know, your boss has plans for some heavy industry—solar-powered smelters, robot mills, you name it. We’d probably be there already if, as your father pointed out, we weren’t so busy building a military force.”

Perry chuckled again. “That sounds like blasphemy, coming from our top-ranking military officer.”

“Hey,” Lorna said, “I’m a soldier, and like most real soldiers, I prepare for war while praying for peace. Funny,” she mused, “I didn’t used to think that way. Something about being the one who has to order other people into battle makes you re-examine your thinking.

“Still, that’s been the theme of military philosophy for centuries. Even Sun-Tzu emphasized the advantage of achieving your goals, without fighting the battle—by intimidation, for example. And take Clausewitz. ‘War is the result of failed diplomacy.’ Read any one of them, and the idea is there, although, sometimes, you have to read between the lines.”

* * *

“Private McGuinness reporting for duty, ma’am!”

Gunnery Sergeant Ann McGraw regarded Jeremy McGuinness with a look she normally reserved for something disgusting that crawled out from under a rock. “Is that the best salute you can manage, Private? Tuck in that thumb! Straighten those shoulders! Do it now!”

Jeremy winced at the whiplash in her voice. He jumped to attention so hard, he almost lost his balance. McGraw, scowling, looked him over as he stood in Valkyrie’s boarding lock.

“For your information, Private, there is a proper way to board a ship of the Lunar Free State. First, while outside the hatch, you salute the colors on her tail. Then, you step through the hatch and salute the watch officer—that’s me. You then say ‘Private McGuinness requests permission to come aboard, ma’am,’ and you say it loud and clear! Do you get me, Private!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Jeremy shouted at the top of his voice.

Valkyrie was in the docking bay, with most of her hatches open. Two decks below, Senior Technician Leroy Parsons looked up from his work on Graser Three’s tracking mount and grinned at his fellow technician. “I think our new Marine just came aboard.”

* * *

“Comrade Premiere, Comrade Deputies,” the general began, “today we present the final plan for Operation Lotus Blossom. With your approval, we will carry out that plan.

“We agree that our objective must be to seize the technology of the Moon people. With it, we can dominate the world and prevent the disaster that will soon come. Without it, we will be caught up in that disaster. To understand this, take the Moon people out of the equation, as they would be if we simply bomb them into oblivion. We can do that, but it would leave the world so much closer to disaster. The U.N. will eventually collapse, and our projections indicate such a collapse will result in global nuclear war.

“As the collapse begins, the United States will try to maintain its role as the U.N.’s military enforcer, but it will face more unrest than it can handle. At some point, India will launch its planned invasion of Pakistan, for which its military forces are now being prepared. Pakistan, inferior to India in conventional forces, will use nuclear weapons, and India will reply in kind.

“With chaos building and the United States busy elsewhere, we believe the Russians will attempt to retake the Balkans. That will provoke a tactical nuclear response from the former NATO nations of Europe, who have been lulled into thinking the Russians no longer possess nuclear capability. Even during the height of the Cold War, Western nations consistently underestimated the size of the Russian nuclear arsenal. Now, they believe the Russians have dismantled all of it when, in fact, thousands of warheads remain in Russian hands. When the nuclear exchange begins, the Russians will look to their southeastern borders as well. They know we are the biggest threat to them. We expect they will use some of their nuclear strength to strike at us, but even if they do not, we cannot permit them to take Europe. We would be forced to act using our own nuclear capability.

“Likewise, once such an exchange begins, we could not permit the United States to remain intact, lest they emerge as the dominant power in the world. In short, comrades, once the dam cracks, there will be no stopping the flood. Unlike previous conflicts, virtually all of the world will be involved, and our most conservative estimates show that at least five thousand nuclear warheads will be expended before the end—when there will be no one left to fight and nothing left to fight for. Nuclear winter will arrive, and our great society will join the dinosaurs in extinction. Ironically, if anyone does survive, it will likely be the third-world nations of the Southern hemisphere. The Jihad, with its control of Africa and parts of South America, will be the victor without ever having fired a shot in the war. They will have lost their strongest members in Pakistan and the Middle East, but that won’t matter, because no one will be left that can stand against them.

“The only restraining factor in this scenario is the presence of the Moon people. They can strike at any target on Earth with little fear of retaliation; therefore, they alone can act as the world’s enforcer of peace. But they are isolationists. They struck at the North Koreans and stopped the U.N. task force because they needed a South Korean supply base, but their dependence on Earth decreases with every passing day. Soon, they will not need Earth anymore. And why should they intervene when a global collapse will leave them as the dominant power?

“We are the only nation with the power to reach them. If we can secure their technology, we will be the untouchable power, and we will assume the role of the world’s policeman, on our own terms. With rocks from space, we can stop United States aggression. We can stop India’s war with Pakistan. We can stop a Russian invasion of the Balkans. And no nation will dare to use nuclear weapons because it will avail them nothing. Even a nuclear holocaust rained down on China will not stop the rocks from space. Nuclear weapons will be obsolete.

“Even with the success of Lotus Blossom, our projections show it will take over fifty years to exterminate the Jihad and fully realize our goals, to bring all the world under our rule. But without Lotus Blossom, the world will not live fifty years. And so we must proceed.

“I will now turn the presentation over to General Tsiang, who will give you the details of Operation Lotus Blossom.”

* * *

“Gunnery Sergeant McGraw, reporting as ordered, sir!”

Valkyrie was back in port once again, and McGraw had been summoned to Colonel Kim’s office.

“At ease, McGraw.” He returned her salute. “How is your special recruit progressing?”

A hint of a smile played around her lips, but not enough to spoil her military bearing. “Very well, sir. I can’t fault him for lack of effort, and he doesn’t make the same mistakes twice. I think we can just about call him a Marine now, sir.”

Kim returned the smile. “I know it’s a bit unusual, one-on-one training for a single recruit, but we had no other applicants. Since he’s already a citizen—and a recipient of the Star of Luna—we thought it best to do it this way. Sergeant Major Kowalski said you were the best person for the job.”

Again, the hint of a smile. “The sergeant major was my senior drill instructor in the U.S. Marines, sir.”

“So I understand. I gather both of you might still be there were it not for the severe downsizing of the Corps. Anyway, the American loss is our gain, and we are fortunate to have such people as Kowalski and you. I’m glad to hear young McGuinness is progressing well,” he continued. “I presume you read the citation for his Star?”

“Yes, sir. He showed a lot of leadership potential, considering his age at the time. With what I’ve seen so far, he may be officer material. Someday, I’ll probably wind up saluting him.”

“I rather doubt that.”

“You don’t think he’ll make officer, sir?” McGraw’s raised eyebrow showed her surprise at his remark.

“I don’t doubt that part,” he replied. “I just doubt you’ll wind up saluting him.” He picked up a small box from his desk. “The powers-that-be have decided that Valkyrie rates an officer to command her Marine contingent.”

He opened the box and showed her the golden, four-pointed star inside. “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” he told her.

* * *

Jennifer Winslow looked across the compartment at Jerry Danson, who was sound asleep in the comfortable reclining seat. She envied the video technician’s laid-back approach to the coming assignment, but then, she reflected, his career didn’t depend on it the way hers did.

Winslow had not slept in a long time. She had been living on coffee and cigarettes, whenever she could sneak a smoke. Given the attitudes about smoking these days, that hadn’t been very often. But she’d had plenty of coffee, and her nerves were wearing thin. She’d been surprised to find the Moon People allowed smoking in certain areas aboard their ships—areas that seemed to have an incredible ventilation system that scrubbed all traces of smoke from the air—and she had just gone through most of a pack to calm herself down. It hadn’t worked.

It was not a good beginning. She had taken an assignment that none of the more established correspondents wanted. She understood why. They were established and didn’t need to risk their careers on something that could turn out badly. She, on the other hand, might spend ten years getting herself established. Unless, of course, she turned in a stellar performance on this job, in which case she might suddenly find herself catapulted to the top of her profession.

She’d been happy, if a bit anxious, when they’d told her she had the assignment, but it had been downhill from there. They told her she could only take a video tech with her, which meant she’d be doing her own production workups. Then her boss had summoned her for what she still thought of as a “prayer meeting”—he spoke, she prayed. Screw this one up, he told her, and she’d be lucky to get work producing costume jewelry sales programs on a shopping channel. He went on to define screw up in broad terms. If the Moon People didn’t like her, her interviews and stories would never make it to Earth, and the network would be unhappy. If they liked her too well, she was probably too sympathetic. That would bring trouble from the government, and commentators on other networks would gleefully savage her. Again, the network would not be happy. Finally, she was only as good as her worst piece. If she produced twenty perfect pieces and screwed up one, no one would remember the twenty, least of all the network executives.

That only showed her the surface of the murky politics involved. She was now officially assigned to the network’s Vatican bureau. Oh, great, and me, for the most part, an agnostic, she’d thought. But the Vatican had quietly informed the U.N. that Earth needed to hear something about the Moon People, if only to reduce global tensions. The U.N., unwilling to piss off the Pope and a half-billion Catholics around the world, had agreed, but they had insisted the journalistic team be made up of Americans. American journalists, they said, had a more balanced view, meaning one more favorable to and controllable by the U.N.

Cripes, she’d thought, if you can’t trust the Pope to be unbiased, who can you trust? But unbiased was not what the U.N. wanted. The U.N. people also claimed American news networks had better technical and distribution facilities. The Pope’s people were not stupid, and they’d insisted her reports be downlinked directly to the Vatican bureau. They’d assigned their own technicians to monitor and record the incoming stories. They couldn’t stop the U.N. from censoring the material in the regular broadcast media, but they could distribute the raw output through other channels, which would probably piss off the U.N. Nobody was happy with the final arrangements, and now, there she was, out on the sharp end of the stick.

Still, she had been optimistic when she finished packing for the trip. Then had come the twenty-hour flight to Cheju-Do. She’d never been able to sleep on airplanes, and she’d had plenty of time to think about all the ways she could screw up. When they finally landed, she’d tried to catch a nap in a passenger lounge, but she was dealing with thirteen-time-zone jet lag. They took her out in the middle of the night, with her body screaming it should be daytime, and took her to the Lunar ship Pilgrim. It looked awfully small for a ship that would carry her all the way to the Moon, but she only had a minute to look at it before they put her in a small passenger compartment with no windows. She hardly felt or heard anything when they took off, but the captain, or whoever was flying the ship, had just announced they were about halfway to their destination.

Her mind was playing games with her. What if it’s all a hoax? What if there are no Moon People? What if they are really hiding somewhere on Earth? They told her she was in space, so why wasn’t she floating in zero gravity? It took twenty hours to fly from the U.S. to Korea. How could they possibly get to the Moon in less than six?

Then her tired brain spawned a terrible thought. If I ask too many questions, I’ll just disappear! So sorry, accident in space. Please send us another correspondent…

She shook herself. What a ridiculous notion. But it wouldn’t go away, and she felt a sense of impending doom. Even if they don’t kill me, I’ll probably kill my career.

She looked at the third passenger in the small compartment. Father Daniel DeForrest, S.J., was also asleep. He had introduced himself when he came aboard, telling her the Vatican was sending him to minister to the needs of Catholics on the Moon. She hadn’t been in the mood for conversation, so he had settled back to read a book. Now, he was snoring softly, with the book face down on his lap. She could see the title—Quantum Effects of Gravitational Stress. Not exactly theology, she mused. Leave it to the Vatican to send an astrophysicist disguised as a chaplain.

She finally dropped off into a sleep so deep, they had trouble waking her. “We’ve arrived, ma’am. We’re on the Moon,” the young crewman told her when she opened her eyes. Despite an hour of sleep, she felt terrible. Jerry and the priest were already gathering their bags and heading for the door. Hastily, she scooped up her carry-on and followed them, wondering whether the rest of her baggage had been put on the ship. She walked down the boarding ramp and found herself inside a huge cavern of bare rock. The ship was sitting on a floor that looked like concrete crisscrossed with metal strips. Behind it, massive doors sealed the entrance. She reflected that the air smelled a bit funny—or maybe it was a lack of smell, compared to the air in New York—and her weight and balance seemed a little weird. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten her land legs after so much travel time.

A small group of people waited at the bottom of the ramp, and she got there just as a tall, bearded man addressed the priest.

“Father DeForrest—or should I say Doctor DeForrest—I’m Evan McGuinness, Director of Research. I’ve read some of your work, and I thought I’d come down and meet you personally.”

“I have also read your work, Dr. McGuinness, though I’m sure some of the best of it hasn’t been widely published,” the priest replied with an engaging smile. “I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about in whatever spare time my ministry affords me.”

Jennifer was fascinated. The Vatican sent a spy, but the Moon People knew he was coming. He admits he’s a spy, but they’re still glad to see him! Her journalist’s mind played with possible story angles until she was interrupted by another member of the welcoming committee.

“Jennifer Winslow? I’m Commander Timiko Yamamoto, Admiral Stevens’ chief of staff. The Admiral sends his apologies—he wanted to greet you, but his schedule wouldn’t permit it. He’ll meet with you after you’ve had a chance to rest and get refreshed. This is Commander Carla Perry, chief of staff to Vice Admiral O’Hara, the base commander. Carla will get you settled into your quarters.”

Jennifer was also introduced to Dr. McGuinness, and she introduced Danson to Perry and Yamamoto. Chiefs of staff, she mused. Are these really high-ranking people, or is it just hype to impress the journalist?

Twenty minutes later, she found herself in a small but serviceable apartment whose only drawback seemed to be a total lack of windows, though its living room had a large wall screen that could display a variety of pleasing landscapes. The apartment’s chief asset, however, was the most beautiful bed she had ever seen. She fell headlong into it and was instantly asleep.

* * *

Like Jennifer’s apartment, the admiral’s office had a viewscreen on the wall behind his desk, but this one was huge. It showed a stark lunar landscape, which was apparently a live view. As she watched, large doors at the base of a lunar cliff slid back, and a familiar-looking ship emerged. It glided silently out of the opening, a few meters above the surface, then tilted upward and sped away into the blackness of the lunar sky. There was no sound and no trace of an exhaust trail.

“Yes, Ms. Winslow, it’s a real-time view,” said a deep, resonant voice behind her. “And yes, that was Pilgrim, the ship that brought you here. She’s on her way back to Earth.”

She turned to the tall, imposing figure who had come into the office. His face was familiar to just about everyone on Earth but seeing him in the flesh was something else. She had never met a head of state before, but his air of quiet authority fit her mental image of a president or prime minister. Handsome devil, too, she noted. Much better looking in person than on video.

“Ms. Winslow, Mr. Danson.” Ian Stevens shook hands with them, then motioned them to sit down. He slid into his own chair behind the desk and regarded them with level eyes. “I’ve asked you not to record this meeting because this is where we establish the ground rules.” He smiled at Jennifer’s expression. “I’m sure everyone else in this little drama has given you their rules. Did you think we wouldn’t have some of our own?”

She didn’t reply. A good journalist listens, she told herself. He paused for a moment, then addressed them in a serious tone.

“We are, effectively, at war with elements on Earth—individuals and entire nations who would like to see us vaporized. If you don’t believe that, you’ll get a chance to see the craters on the lunar surface, new craters blasted out by U.S. nuclear missiles. You’ll also get to see the memorial we’ve built to our people who died in those attacks. Contrary to what some on Earth believe, we are not invulnerable. If we are attacked again, you will be caught in the middle of it, and the weapons involved will not respect your journalistic credentials. For that reason, you are going to be thoroughly briefed on our emergency procedures. I suggest you take them seriously.”

He gestured at the viewscreen behind him. “It’s a hard, airless vacuum out there. The temperature in the sunlight is several hundred degrees Celsius. In the shade, it’s near absolute zero. Unfiltered, the sunlight will blind you instantly. We survive by virtue of an artificial environment maintained by complex technology, which we never take for granted. Still—” he turned to them with a gentle smile, “—this is home to us.

“Despite what you may have heard, we are not eager to drop rocks on anyone. We’ve built this place for ourselves, and we want nothing more than to live here in peace. You are here because we haven’t been able to convince anyone of that. You may not be able to convince them either, but we hope you will try. Otherwise, I’m afraid there will be more missiles heading our way, and that probably means more rocks headed for Earth. We aren’t out to conquer anyone, but make no mistake, we will defend ourselves.”

It was quite a speech, and Jennifer was mentally kicking herself for not sneaking her micro-cam into the meeting.

“Now, about those ground rules,” he continued. “You will have free access to most of the base. You won’t be able to get into high-security areas, but those are few and well-marked. It isn’t likely you’ll be able to understand our secret technology, anyway. Father DeForrest has a better chance than you have, in that regard.

“I’ve directed our people to be open and honest with you and to answer your questions. They’re good people, and I think they’ll go out of their way to make you feel welcome. Mr. Danson, our engineers will help you with your equipment and give you whatever support you need to get your link with Earth established.

“You’ll get to know our people well because you’ll be living with them. I’m sure you noticed the little kitchenette in your apartment doesn’t have much in the way of cooking facilities—a coffee pot, a tiny refrigerator, and a microwave that’s just big enough for a snack. That’s because the dining hall is open around the clock. Coffee’s always brewing, and regular, full meals are available four times a day. You’ll meet some nice people there—I know because I eat there, along with everyone else. There’s no reserved seating, so pick a table and introduce yourselves.

“In return, we will ask you to cover certain stories—things we want the world to know about. We won’t hold you responsible if your network doesn’t publish those stories, but I’m hoping you can give them stories too good to refuse.

“We reserve the right to review your reports before you transmit them. We don’t plan to censor anything, but we will insist on technical accuracy.

“I’m curious to see what kind of journalist you are, Ms. Winslow. I believe the media should report facts—with some background material, perhaps, to help the viewer understand those facts. Unless you are specifically producing an editorial—which should be identified as such—your opinions about those facts should be kept to yourself. I detest journalists who try to spin a story or who load it up with emotional drivel to try to evoke a response from the audience. You might think about avoiding certain adjectives, particularly those intended to evoke a negative response. Describing us as the ‘renegade Lunar government,’ for example, will not endear you to me.

“I don’t want to see even a hint of innuendo in your reports. There are a thousand stories you can write about us, based on verifiable facts, things the people of Earth would like to know about us. I trust you to report the facts and let your viewers form their own opinions. If you violate that trust, you’ll be on the next ship back to Earth. If you keep that trust, you will be allowed to let your viewers see us as we are, warts and all, as the old expression goes.

“I can’t keep the media on Earth from spinning your stories or adding their own bias, but I will damned well make certain they are straight when they leave here. Do we understand each other?”

Jennifer nodded dumbly, as did her cameraman.

Ian favored her with a small smile. “Now, keeping in mind that I only have about ten minutes before my next meeting, are there any questions I can answer for you?”

Jennifer thought for a moment. Her bizarre fantasy from the ship came to mind, and she resolved to put it to rest. “We’re really on the Moon, right? This is not some bizarre scam, and I’m not in some cavern in a remote part of Earth? So, why do I weigh more than twenty pounds? Even on the ship coming out here, I didn’t feel any weightlessness or any motion, for that matter.”

Ian looked surprised. “We have artificial gravity here and on the ships. I thought you knew that. I’m sure the U.S. government knows it.”

Jennifer gave him an incredulous look. “I seem to recall,” she said cautiously, “something about gravity was mentioned during the Congressional hearings with that Endeavor astronaut, Carol Langley. But that was right before they closed the doors and announced the rest of the hearings were classified. Our people never pursued it. By the way, do you know what happened to Ms. Langley? She sort of dropped out of sight after the big scandal over her custody fight for her daughter.”

Jennifer was pretty sure she knew what had happened to Langley, but, mindful of his remarks about innuendo, she phrased it carefully as a question. She didn’t expect to get a straight answer.

“She’s here,” Ian said, quite casually. “We picked her and her daughter up and brought them here shortly after that. The U.S. government, and you media people, treated her rather badly, you know.”

“You mean you kidnapped her?”

“‘Kidnapped’ is not the right word. You’ll get a chance to talk to her and the other Endeavor astronaut we rescued. Then you can judge for yourself.”

“There was another one?”

“Sure. Jeff Jones, a mission specialist. Carol wanted to go back to Earth because of her daughter, but Jeff elected to stay with us. We tried to tell everyone, but you media types weren’t listening. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got time for today, Ms. Winslow.” He smiled engagingly. “But I think you’re getting the idea. There’s a lot going on up here that Earth doesn’t know about. There are more stories to be told than you can possibly imagine.”

* * *

After the meeting with Winslow, Ian went to Engineering to review progress on the new base section with Mick O’Hara. He and O’Hara were studying the plans when Charlie Bender came in.

“Admiral, can I see you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Ian left the display table and walked over to him. “What’s up?”

“I need authorization to release some cash from Daewoo. I need to pay for something.”

The vault at Daewoo Corporation’s headquarters in Seoul held a substantial amount of the Lunar Free State’s ready cash reserve.

“How much?”

“Two hundred Lunars, sir.”

“Two hundred! That’s over eighty thousand in U.N. dollars! Charlie, this isn’t the CIA. I don’t write blank checks. What exactly are we buying and from whom are we buying it?”

“We’re buying intel, sir, from the KGB.”

“The KGB? I thought they went out of the spook business about thirty years ago. Got absorbed into another Russian government agency.”

“They’ve recently gone back into business, and I mean into business. The Russian government can’t afford to fund them properly, so some genius down there got the idea of selling their intel via the underground web. My sources say they do good work, and their stuff is reliable.”

“Amazing! Capitalism and the KGB. Talk about strange bedfellows. But what intel have they got that is worth so much to us?”

“They were asking a hundred thousand UND for this, Admiral. I offered them two hundred Lunars, and they jumped at it. They claim to have photos from inside a Chinese spacecraft fabrication plant.”

Ian stared at him in disbelief, then a broad grin spread over his face. “Okay, Charlie, where’s that check for me to sign?”

“Just give Mike the authorization to release the cash, Admiral. I’ll take it from there.”

* * *

“You asked to see me, Mr. Kim?” Boris Karpov studied the well-dressed Korean seated in front of his desk. The man had arrived in an impressive limousine, and three hard-looking Korean bodyguards waited by the car. “I’m told you have a delivery for me.” He’d had a message from Moscow telling him to expect such a visitor, but no details had been provided.

“Yes, Mr. Karpov. I believe you are the KGB rezident at this embassy.” Kim held up a hand as Karpov started to protest. “Excuse me. You are the third assistant trade secretary, of course. There are no KGB here. I apologize. In any case, the people I represent wish to buy something from your trade catalog. Arrangements have been made for the item to be delivered as soon as you report completion of the transaction to your colleagues in Moscow.

“I understand,” Karpov acknowledged. “And that briefcase contains…?”

“The payment. It could not be sent via electronic transfer because of the nature of the currency involved.”

He lifted the briefcase and laid it on Karpov’s desk. Karpov opened it, and his eyes went wide. He had never seen a Gold Lunar before, but the coins were unmistakable, and there were a large number of them. Obviously, someone in his organization had made a very profitable sale.

* * *

“So, what do you think, Mick?” Ian asked.

The engineer looked up from the projection table, where the enlarged images were displayed. “Well, Admiral, I’d like to have my boys and girls look at this, as I’m sure they’ll pick up on things I might miss. But there are a few things I can tell you right off. Even a glance shows this thing is big, maybe half again as large as the American space shuttle. That will make it the largest thing ever lifted to orbit by conventional rocket propulsion. Judging from the hull form, it’s designed to snuggle up real close to its boosters, and it will use four of them—probably solid fuel types—two on each side, fitted to these mounting saddles above and below the wings. They’ll probably use multiple liquid fuel tanks clustered around the boosters instead of the single tank the U.S. used. They’ll need extra tanks since the main engines on the craft are obviously designed to produce most of the system’s thrust.

“Now, this picture is interesting. Notice that the two shuttles under construction are not identical. This one appears to have a large cargo bay that takes up most of the length of the fuselage, like the American shuttle. But the second one appears to have no cargo bay and, instead, a fully enclosed cabin. I’d speculate that this one is a troop carrier. I can’t be sure, of course, but it tracks with Commander Bender’s theory about an assault landing.

“Look at the underneath view again. The thrust nozzles haven’t been attached yet, but these structures look like four powerful auxiliary engines with gimbaled nozzles—the kind you would need to set this thing down on the Moon.”

“Damn!” Ian exclaimed. “I hope you are wrong, Charlie, but it looks like you are right. They’re coming for us.”

“I’ve got one more observation, Admiral,” O’Hara continued. “Look at the shape of these wings and the way they join the fuselage. Look also at the fuselage itself. Do all of those planes and angles suggest anything?”

“Stealth design,” Bender speculated. “They’ll be hard to track on radar at any distance.”

“Right,” the engineer confirmed. “And if they make a ballistic approach and don’t use their engines, they won’t have a heat signature, either. I’ll bet the final skin coating will be a carbon composite, dead black in color. Could make even laser targeting difficult at long range.”

“Will we be able to target them at all?” Ian asked.

“Oh, sure,” O’Hara assured him. “No stealth system is a hundred percent effective, but we’ll have to get in close, maybe as close as twenty klicks. Besides, they don’t know about our gravitic sensors. These things still have plenty of mass, and a moving mass this size will be detectable at over a thousand klicks. Too bad the sensors aren’t precise enough for targeting…hmmm…now there’s a thought…”

“Are you going to share it with us?” Ian inquired gently. O’Hara tended to stop talking when his brain went into overdrive.

“I was thinking this stealth technology neutralizes our long-range missile capability. But the missiles use gravity drives, which can be started and stopped under software control. Suppose we pick up a target on the ship’s gravitic sensors. We can’t localize it, and the missile can’t lock onto it at that range. But suppose we fire the missile anyway, on a straight track in the direction our gravitics indicate. We program the missile software so that if it doesn’t pick up a target by the time half its power is gone, it shuts its drive down and coasts. By then, it will be moving pretty fast. If it gets close enough to the target to lock on—which it should, if you’ve aimed properly—it fires up its drive again and goes in for the kill.”

“Sounds good to me. Can you make it work?”

“Piece of cake, Admiral. Won’t require anything but a software change, and it won’t have any effect on firing missiles at closer range or at non-stealthy targets. As soon as the missile has a lock, its regular programming will kick in. I’ll put my people on it right away.”

* * *

Ian and his key staff members sat in the briefing room, watching the large screen as WNN’s evening news program began. Jennifer Winslow and Jerry Danson were there as well, to see the broadcast of Jennifer’s first program segment, recorded two days earlier.

“…and now, as promised, we join Jennifer Winslow for a special report,” the anchorman said. “Jennifer…” On cue, the image cut to the recording, which opened with a tight, head-and-shoulders view of Winslow.

“This is Jennifer Winslow, and I’d say I’m the luckiest journalist on Earth—except that I’m not on Earth. I’m reporting to you from the Moon, thanks to a special arrangement between World News Network’s Vatican Bureau and the people who call themselves the Lunar Free State.

“I’ve come here to find out just who these people are, how they live up here, and what it all means to the people of Earth. I’ve been promised full cooperation by the Moon People, as we often call them, and, so far, I have no complaints. I don’t expect they’ll give away any great secrets, but they’ve taken me on a tour of their facilities, and they’ve promised me a chance to interview just about anyone here. I’ve been surprised at some of the things they’ve allowed me to see.

“For example, I’m now standing in one of the docking bays at the main Lunar base.” The camera zoomed out to show her surroundings. “The ship behind me is LFS Valkyrie. She’s about one hundred and twenty meters long—that’s near four hundred feet, for those of you who aren’t accustomed to metric measurements. That may not be large compared to, say, an American aircraft carrier. But I’m told she’s the largest craft ever put into space. She’s also the flagship of the Lunar Free State’s Space Navy.”

Ian had to admit that Valkyrie looked impressive in the shot. As a cameraman, Danson was obviously a pro. The admiral was a little distressed by the fact that Winslow’s first report emphasized Luna’s military might, but he’d promised her he wouldn’t censor her reports as long as she stuck to the facts.

“I’ve also learned some surprising things about the Moon People’s technology,” Winslow continued. “For example, here on the Moon, I should weigh about twenty pounds and be able to leap about ten feet into the air, but I don’t, and I can’t. I weigh almost exactly what I would weigh on Earth, because the Moon People maintain artificial gravity throughout the base. If I drop this tennis ball—” she picked up the ball from a table beside her and proceeded to drop it from shoulder height, “—it falls exactly as fast as it would on Earth. They tell me any physicist with a timer and a calculator will be able to confirm that the gravity here is the same as on Earth.

“However, if I walk over here—” the camera tracked her as she picked up another tennis ball and walked to an area where the gravity plates had been turned off for her demonstration, “—the artificial gravity has been turned off in this area. Now, I do weigh much less, and the ball—” she dropped it again, and it fell slowly to the floor, “—falls much more slowly. Again, any physicist who wants to time it can confirm that I am now experiencing normal Moon gravity, which is about one-sixth that of Earth.”

The camera followed her again as she walked back to the one-gee area and slowly zoomed in on her.

“I’m told the governments of Earth already know about this; that it’s something that came up during astronaut Carol Langley’s hearings after the Endeavor incident. I’m also told I will be able to interview Ms. Langley later, since she is now living here, on the Moon.

“In any case, there are a lot of fascinating things to see up here, and this is just the first of many reports I hope to send your way. This is Jennifer Winslow, reporting from the Moon.”

Her image faded from the screen, and Jennifer smiled as sounds of approval came from the people around the table. Then the image of the anchor desk reappeared.

“Thank you, Jennifer. That was a fascinating report,” the anchorman said, maintaining the fiction that it was a live broadcast.

“It certainly was, Tom,” his female co-anchor put in, “and we’re told it was the U.N., using the Vatican as an intermediary, that convinced the Moon People to allow Jennifer’s trip.”

“That’s right, Mary Jo. They obviously felt that allowing a journalist to report from the Moon would reduce international—or should I say interplanetary—tensions. In the past, the Moon People have been totally unwilling to talk to Earth’s news media—” at that, Ian nearly choked on his coffee, “—and that’s obviously been a contributing factor in those tensions.

“Of course,” the anchorman continued, “we don’t know how much Jennifer has actually seen or how much they are allowing her to say. The part about full cooperation, for example, was probably something they made her say. I thought it sounded a little forced.”

“I agree, Tom,” his cohort replied, “and, of course, some of the other things we saw could have been staged, as well. That ship may have been nothing but a mock-up, built to impress us. I thought it was significant they didn’t let her go on board.”

“That’s right, Mary Jo, and that gravity demonstration could have been faked as well. For all we know, one of those balls could have been much heavier than the other.”

“Unbelievable!” Mick O’Hara exploded. “What a moron. Has the stupid fool never heard of Galileo?” He subsided into dark muttering as the broadcast continued.

“Tom, did you notice that none of the Moon People appeared on camera?”

“Yes, I did, Mary Jo. Obviously, they want us to think they aren’t interfering with Jennifer in any way, but for all we know, there could be armed guards just off camera, waiting to take her back to a cell. In any case, it must have taken a lot of courage to go up there. We admire her spirit, and we certainly wish her well. We hope we’ll hear from her again soon. The U.N. is calling for weekly reports, and as long as they keep coming, we’ll know she’s all right.

“At least we learned one thing,” he concluded. “The rumors that astronaut Carol Langley and her daughter were kidnapped by the Moon People appear to be true. Hopefully, we’ll learn more about Ms. Langley’s fate in a later report.”

“In other news…”

“Kill it,” Ian ordered, and the image faded from the screen. He turned to Winslow and Danson, both of whom were shaking their heads. “You did a fine job, Miss Winslow. I expected something like this. It’s going to take a long time before we get them to come around—if we ever do. Look at the bright side; they ran your entire piece virtually unedited. I was surprised they didn’t cut your remarks about Carol Langley, but now I see why. It suited their agenda.”

“I was surprised, too,” Jerry Danson said. “I thought they had a perfect chance for a cut as Jennifer was walking back to the gravity area after the demonstration.”

“In any case, keep producing shows like that, Miss Winslow. If we do enough of them, maybe we’ll bring a few people around to the truth.”

Ian’s smile radiated genuine approval, and Jennifer’s frustration subsided. The admiral was right—what had she expected? In any case, the network was presenting her as a brave, dedicated journalist. Her career, at least for the moment, appeared to be moving right along.

“Admiral O’Hara,” she said. “What did you mean by that remark about Galileo? I must admit,” she added, seeing his look of surprise, “I’m something of a moron when it comes to science.”

“It isn’t just science, it’s history,” O’Hara said. “In the sixteenth century, Galileo proved that a heavy object falls at the same speed as a light one. Weight doesn’t matter. Only the force of gravity matters. Of course, if you drop an object like a feather, then air resistance plays a part—that’s how a parachute works. But those two balls were the same size and shape, so if gravity were equal, they would have fallen at the same speed, regardless of weight. That moron obviously didn’t know that, and I could forgive his ignorance if he were not so blatant about expressing it on a worldwide news broadcast.”

“More likely both he and his producer were ignorant,” Jennifer speculated. “I’ll guarantee that wasn’t just a casual back-and-forth between the two anchors. Every second of airtime must be accounted for, and every word of that exchange was probably scripted. In any case, most viewers probably don’t know about Galileo, either. I don’t remember hearing about him in school.”

“A reflection of the sorry state of Earth education, especially in the U.S.,” Tom Perry put in. “I was a teacher down there for most of my life. Hopefully, we’re doing a better job up here.”

“I hope to hear more about that soon, Mr. Perry,” Winslow said, with a smile. “You’re on my list of people to interview.”

* * *

Ian was enjoying a rare, quiet evening with friends. He was with Lorna and Carla in their apartment, and Thomas Perry was the only other guest. Some luxury items were still hard to come by on the Moon, but he had managed to find a bottle of moderately good California wine, and Carla had put together a tray of assorted snacks. The four of them were sitting around the living room, talking—for once—about things that had nothing to do with war, survival, or the running of a sovereign nation.

The conversation trailed off into a momentary lull, and Tom Perry turned to Ian with a thoughtful look.

“Admiral, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’ve searched the Code of Justice, the Manual of Regulations, and every other official source. I even asked Mike to find appropriate references, and he said there is no mention in any official documentation. What is the Lunar government’s position on marriage?”

“You won’t find it in the manuals,” Ian said. “The LFS government has no official position on marriage. As far as we’re concerned, marriage is a private matter between the parties involved—or the parties and God, depending on your beliefs. As long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights of citizens or the performance of duty by those involved, it is none of the government’s damned business. However, the LCMJ bars intimate relationships between individuals if one of them is in the other’s chain of command, whether they are married or not. Marriage would seem to indicate an intimate relationship, but other than that, it’s not the government’s concern.”

“So, how do you determine who is legally married and who’s not?”

“Why would we need to do that?”

Perry hesitated. “Well…I’m not sure. But every nation on Earth has a legal definition of marriage, and most of them have laws about who can marry and how they have to go about it.”

“Right.” Ian smiled. “And most of those laws have to do with religion or money. The marriage-related laws of virtually every country follow the practice of that country’s dominant religion. Even the United States, which made a point of never establishing a state religion, was originally settled by English and other European Christians, and the marriage laws reflected that. In Islamic nations, the laws follow Islamic religious practices. Before Israel was overrun by the Islamists, its marriage laws followed Jewish tradition.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Perry reflected. “I guess that’s why the Mormons—whose religion allowed polygamy—had to move all the way out to Utah on the American frontier. By the time civilization reached them, they were established, and the rest of the country had to leave them alone.”

“Right,” Ian agreed. “Of course, politicians want to know if people are married, so they can figure out new ways to tax them. There are also laws about community property and so forth which are applicable to those who are legally married. If nothing else, marriage—and divorce—laws in the United States are designed to keep lawyers and accountants profitably employed. We avoid all that, since we don’t allow lawyers, don’t collect taxes, and don’t recognize community property unless there is clear evidence of joint ownership. As for personal estates, in the absence of a will to the contrary, a deceased person’s property passes to the nearest blood relative, beginning with any children the deceased might have. If you don’t want that to happen, you’d best make a will. Any questions are settled by an appointed arbitration officer, with no lawyers to muddy the issue.”

“Okay, we all know how you feel about lawyers, Admiral, but what about children? In my view, the primary purpose of marriage was, is, and always will be to provide a stable environment for raising children. What’s the Lunar government doing to ensure that?”

Ian sighed. “You can’t do that by making laws governing marriage, Tom. Legally married parents can still do a poor job with their kids, while single parents and common-law couples can still do a good one. The only thing the government can do is require the parents—the biological parents, both of them, whether married or not—to properly support, care for, and educate their children, and that is part of the LCMJ. If they fail to do so, the parents are subject to disciplinary proceedings, and the government can appoint a legal guardian for the children.

“Of course, the definition for proper care and education has to be interpreted carefully. I’m seriously opposed to government interference in the rights of parents to raise kids as they see fit. There was way too much of that going on back on Earth, particularly in the U.S., to the point where people expected the government to raise their kids for them. We are not going to do that. I don’t have any problem with running an education program—most parents don’t have the skills or knowledge to give their kids a complete education. But that’s why we have professionals like you, Tom.”

“So,” Perry mused, “marriage is none of the government’s business, but if you plan on raising kids, it’s your responsibility to do it right. If you don’t, the government may come down hard on you. Does that about sum it up?”

“Pretty much,” Ian said. “Oh, hell, Tom! Nothing is ever quite that simple, and I’m sure situations will come up that are not that easy to deal with. But the less our Lunar government sticks its nose into private matters like marriage and family, the better. And that’s how it will be as long as I’m in charge.”

“I agree with you, Admiral. I guess I was locked into some old-time Earth-style thinking.”

“It seems to me,” Carla said, “if we build a good and moral society, people will naturally want to do what is right for their children, and it won’t be a problem.”

“Perhaps, but you have to be careful with that good and moral part,” Ian replied. “Different belief systems define morality in different ways. We need to keep it simple and stay away from the sticky little details. We do have a code of laws, but most of those relate to the rights of individuals and the performance of duty. We also stress certain values—personal honor and integrity, fair dealings with others, and support for the community. We don’t tolerate freeloaders, but we take care of our own in time of need. But you are right in one sense—if we can develop a proper sense of morality in our society, we won’t need a lot of laws. Unfortunately, given human nature, that may be easier said than done.”

Lorna had been silent through the discussion, but now she spoke up. “Getting back to Tom’s original question, Ian, I presume your answer means there’s nothing in our code that prohibits same-sex marriage.”

Tom Perry drew a sharp breath. Carla’s smile vanished, and she turned suddenly to see her father’s reaction. Ian didn’t reply, sensing it wasn’t really a question he was expected to answer.

With a sigh, Perry relaxed. “Are you…thinking about marrying my daughter, Admiral Greenwood?” he asked softly.

“Dad,” Carla pleaded.

“No, honey. It’s a fair question. I just want to hear the answer.”

Now it was Lorna’s turn to sigh. “No, Tom, I’m not,” she replied. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’d marry her in a minute if she’d have me and if we could find someone to perform the ceremony. But I have a feeling that would make a lot of people—including you—uncomfortable. And that, in turn, would cause Carla a lot of pain. I’m not concerned for myself. I’ve been dealing with people’s attitudes about it all my life. But I don’t want to hurt Carla, and I really don’t want to offend you, either. I guess I just raised the issue because we need to get it out in the open.”

“You’re right, Lorna, we do.” Perry sighed again. “Somewhere inside me, there is a little demon that keeps telling me you’ve perverted my daughter and that you’re going to burn in Hell for it, but—” he held up a hand to stop Carla’s protest, “—the truth is, I can’t bring myself to hate you. I like you as a person, I respect you as an officer, and I really believe you love my daughter and want to make her happy. More importantly, from what I can see, she is happy—and that’s all I ever wanted for her.”

He paused. “Sometimes, things don’t turn out the way we expect. But for Carla’s sake, I’m willing to accept things the way they are. I’m not ready to say I give you my blessing yet, but maybe, someday…” He brightened a bit. “Stranger things have happened, especially since I joined up with this crowd.”

Carla got up, walked over, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Dad. It means a lot to me. And—” to Lorna, “—thank you, sweetheart. I never would have had the courage to bring it up.”

* * *

Shortly afterward, Ian made his excuses and left the women’s quarters. Perry left at the same time, and for a while, the two men walked together.

“I’m sorry about that, Admiral. I’m glad we had the discussion, but I’m sure the girls didn’t plan on dragging out our personal issues in front of you.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Maybe it was subconscious, but…well, I’ve got something of an emotional stake in the matter as well. You see, at one time or another, I’ve been in love with both.”

Perry shot him a look of surprise. “I knew you were close to Carla, but…”

“Yeah, for a while I had hopes. I gave up on Lorna years ago, knowing what I know about her. Truth is, though, I still love both, and any woman I look at in the future is going to have to measure up to that standard. I could be a bachelor for a long time.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Admiral, I would have been proud to have you for a son-in-law.”

* * *

Lorna Greenwood looked forward to getting back into space. She enjoyed being home with Carla, but it looked as if she would soon need every ship at her disposal. Valkyrie’s refit was complete, with upgrades to several major systems, and Lorna would be taking her back to high Earth orbit. But first, she and Tommy Sakura had to brief the command staff. Sakura conducted the briefing while Lorna looked on.

“This,” he told them, “is a satellite photo of one of the Chinese shuttle launch sites. We have located eleven such sites so far, and we are certain we haven’t found them all. China, ladies and gentlemen, is a very big country.

“The United States built their shuttles in one place, their boosters in another place, and their fuel tanks somewhere else. They brought them all together to the assembly building at Cape Canaveral for final setup. When they were ready to launch, they rolled the whole assembly out to a launch pad—a tedious process that took time to accomplish. The Chinese have taken a different approach.

“We believe their shuttles have been built from scratch right up through final assembly in buildings like this one—” the computer obligingly highlighted the building in the photo, “—each one of which is large enough to hold at least two completely assembled shuttles, ready to launch. When they are ready to go, we believe they will simply open up the buildings—retract the roof and lower the walls and launch on the spot. This will give us little warning—maybe only minutes before a launch.

“The complex is built to conceal whatever is going on from prying eyes. They may not know we have satellites watching them, but they’ve taken no chances. Access roads between buildings are covered, and all the buildings have nondescript shapes. Only the size of this main building gives it away, and we can’t see much ground activity. Nonetheless, we believe they are nearly ready to launch. There has been a recent decline in the arrival of trucks and railroad cars at these sites. We think they have everything they need and are conducting final assembly and testing.

“We’ve also noted an increase in activity at Nanking missile launch sites. Unfortunately, we’ve located only a small fraction of those sites, so we can’t say for certain this is indicative of a coming launch.

“Again, ladies and gentlemen, I have to stress that we have no idea what the Chinese are planning. All we know is that, if they are going to launch against us, they may be ready to do so soon.

“Against that threat, we currently have nine warships. First, there are the four Wanderer-class ships, which we have designated as corvettes, using naval terminology for the lightest class of warship. Wanderer, Nomad, Pilgrim, and Trailblazer have all been fitted with missiles on external launch racks to augment their new, twin grasers. All of these are forward-firing because these ships don’t have the hull space for broadside armament.

“In addition, we now have three Star-class destroyers—Starfire, Starsong, and Starflame. We’ve equipped them with external missiles to augment their forward-firing grasers. In addition, though they still don’t have the hull volume for broadside armament, Starflame was built with a pair of turret-mounted grasers on top of her hull, with full 360-degree rotation and 120-degree up-and-down travel. Starfire has been retrofitted with an identical turret, but we haven’t had time to equip Starsong with this capability.

“That brings us to our two battlecruisers—Amazon and Valkyrie. Both are equipped with four internal, reloadable missile tubes, each with a magazine of six missiles. They also mount eight single-shot missile launchers like those used on the other ships. In addition to their two forward and two aft chase armament grasers, each ship mounts four broadside grasers on each side. Amazon was built with top and bottom dual-graser turrets, and Valkyrie has been retrofitted to match.

“When the attack comes—if it comes—we plan to move Hercules and Atlas out to the ‘rock garden’ we’ve prepared at the L-1 point. They have no armament, but they can move rocks in case it becomes necessary to drop some on Earth. At this point, we’re not even sure that will be an effective tactic, but we’ll be prepared to do it if necessary.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we expected a straight ship-to-ship engagement, we are confident that any one of our warships could handle several of their super shuttles, unless they have capabilities we don’t know about, and we can’t rule that out. Unfortunately, our problem will be finding the enemy—not just the shuttles, but the hundreds of warheads they may throw at us. With that in mind, here’s the plan we’ve developed.

“If there is a large shuttle launch, our first task will be to track their departure from Earth orbit. We expect they’ll be using a wide variety of orbital parameters, perhaps even polar orbits, to scatter them as widely as possible. We can presume, with reasonable certainty, they will want them to arrive here simultaneously. If we can track even a few of them, we can ignore the others. We can’t fire on them until we have evidence of hostile intent, but if nothing else happens on Earth, we can easily beat the shuttles back to the Moon.

“Unfortunately, we expect something else will happen—the launch of their Nankings. We’ll still have to wait until we are sure the warheads are headed for us. It’s possible the Chinese are planning a war against the U.S. or Russia, with their shuttles serving as orbital observers or even bombers. If so, it will be Admiral Stevens’ call as to whether we intervene.

“If they shoot at us, the fleet’s first mission will be to take out as many of those warheads as we can before they get too far from Earth. They may scatter them widely, launching at intervals and on varying trajectories. They may time them to arrive in waves. Once we know that several warheads have gotten past us, we will be forced to fall back toward the Moon and search for them on possible incoming trajectories. At least we know what their target will be.

“The fleet’s priority has to be the warheads. If any get through, there may not be anything left here for us to defend. That means their shuttles will probably land unopposed. The base will have a few surprises for them. The missile launchers we’ve mounted on the two peaks may be able to pick off a shuttle or two on the way in, but we must face the possibility the base defense forces will get a workout. Are there any questions?”

Thomas Perry’s head was spinning. He’d never attended a strategic military briefing before; in fact, he’d never expected to be invited to one. He was no military strategist. But one thing bothered him. He raised the question. “Don’t we have to assume all their warheads will arrive before the shuttles? Otherwise, they’d be dropping bombs on their own invasion force.”

“Good question, sir,” Sakura said. As a full commander, he was technically equal in rank to Senior Warrant Officer Perry, so the sir was simply a courtesy. But Perry had put a finger on something the authors of the battle plan had struggled with for some time. “What you are suggesting is the classic military strategy for an invasion. First, you soften the enemy up with bombardment, then you lift the bombardment and send in the troops. We believe, however, that the Chinese will keep the warheads coming after their troops land. For one thing, they need them to keep our fleet busy while they conduct the invasion. Besides, it takes two to three days for a warhead to get here from Earth. They’ll want to keep up the barrage in case their first wave doesn’t do the job. They’ll probably disarm the warheads before impact if they think their invasion is succeeding, but if not, they may go for the other option of wiping us out completely. It also gives their invasion force a hell of an incentive to succeed. Are there any other questions?”

There were none. Ian dismissed them, and a sober crowd walked out of the briefing room, some of them realizing, for the first time, that war might really be coming. Everything that can be done has been done, Ian thought. All that’s left is to wait.

The waiting proved mercifully brief.

* * *

The Chinese correctly assumed the Lunar Free State would first take defensive action rather than execute retaliatory strikes against Earth. They launched the Nanking missiles first—a thousand of them, nearly three times the worst case estimate of the LFS military staff. Unknown to their adversary, the Chinese had modified half of the missiles—the ones that would be first to arrive on the Moon. It was a paradox of modern warfare that conventional bombs massed considerably more than nuclear weapons, so they replaced the normal five-warhead nuclear payload with two high-explosive, conventional warheads. The objective was to damage the Lunar installations—not vaporize them—so the invasion force could accomplish its mission of securing the LFS technology.

Of the remaining missiles, three hundred more had also been modified. These would be the next to arrive on target, and they carried no warheads, but were equipped with a decoy package. When deployed, each would become a spread of ten decoys designed to simulate an incoming warhead. Their sole mission was to keep the Lunar fleet busy chasing them down.

The final two hundred would arrive long after the invasion force, and carried standard, five-warhead MIRVs, with nuclear warheads. They were launched unarmed, for it was hoped the invasion would succeed. But if it failed, arming codes would be transmitted, and a thousand nuclear warheads would rain down on the Moon. The Chinese guidance systems were better than those of the U.S., but given the distances involved, they expected only twenty percent to strike within killing range of the target. That would be more than adequate to do the job. The Lunar Free State would no longer be a factor in future Chinese plans.

They waited to make certain the Nankings had the full attention of the Lunar fleet, then launched their shuttles, forty of them, far more than the LFS had projected. Twenty-five of them carried assault troops, forty troops per shuttle for a total of a thousand soldiers, more than the entire population of the Lunar Free State. Four more carried heavy equipment, while ten shuttles carried an unpleasant surprise for any LFS ship that encountered them—two Chinese-version XF-27 fighters tucked neatly into each shuttle’s cargo bay. The last shuttle carried a special package they hoped they would not need to use.

Not everything went according to plan. One shuttle suffered a disastrous booster failure during launch and exploded, killing its crew and the troops it carried. Six Nanking missiles also failed during launch. The Chinese had expected a few such failures and were satisfied with the overall results.

* * *

GMSS 14 was a high-orbit weather satellite, tasked with watching storms in the western Pacific Ocean. It had been ignored by the LFS search for American military birds, but GMSS 14 also had another purpose. It contained a second set of sensitive infrared ‘eyes’ that looked out over eastern Asia, watching for the heat signatures of missile launches. Now, as the incoming data met a set of defined parameters, its military programming awakened and started sending encrypted telemetry to North American Air Defense.

* * *

“Get us up, Tommy,” Lorna ordered as she plugged into her console on Valkyrie’s flag bridge. “Set a least-time course to rejoin the fleet.” She offered a silent prayer of gratitude that Valkyrie’s refit had been completed. The big ship lifted and began to move toward the massive doors that were already rolling back.

* * *

“I’m standing in front of Lunar base operations,” Jennifer Winslow reported, trying hard to keep her voice steady. “We’ve just been told the Chinese have launched a massive missile strike against the Lunar Free State. The missiles won’t arrive for at least sixty hours, so there will be time to send this report to Earth. It may be my last report since no one here seems certain of the outcome.

“This—” she indicated the heavy plastic garment draped over her arm “—is my survival suit. They tell me it will keep me alive for up to three hours if the base is breached, and the air escapes. Of course, that assumes I don’t get buried under tons of rock or incinerated in a nuclear fireball.

“It’s a slim hope when nuclear missiles are rushing toward you, but I take some comfort in knowing that everyone else here will be wearing one as well. There are no special shelters for ranking officers, no special survival equipment for the elite. We’ll all be taking our chances, and our only hope is the Lunar fleet, which is trying to intercept the missiles.

“This may be my last chance to say this. From what I’ve seen so far, the Moon people…no—” she shook her head “—let me call them by the name they’ve given themselves—the people of the Lunar Free State—are not the monsters people on Earth think they are. They are just people, good and decent people for the most part, who just want to live up here in peace.

“If they survive—we survive—this attack, the people of Earth might want to consider giving them a chance to prove that they mean what they say. We can’t go on throwing rocks and missiles at each other. Too many people have died, and many more will die soon if we don’t try to stop it.

“This is Jennifer Winslow, reporting from the Moon.”

She motioned to Danson to turn off the camera, and he pretended to do so but kept it running. He was a media pro and knew her let-down reaction would be worth catching, would reveal her humanity and put a cap on what might be the last video he ever got a chance to shoot.

He was right.

She sagged visibly, and all trace of her professional media persona vanished. “That’s a wrap, Jerry. Get it off to the network as soon as you can.” She fished a cigarette out of her pocket. “I hope they put it on the air, especially the last part. Maybe I shouldn’t have put my opinion out there like that.” She managed a hollow smile. “Stick to the facts—isn’t that what the admiral said? I don’t think he’ll mind, under the circumstances.”

Her hands shook as she lit the cigarette. “Hey, Jerry, whatever happens, thanks for all your help. I think I’ll go look up Father DeForrest…you know…confess my sins or something. Just in case.”

“Sure, Jenn,” he said as she turned to go. “See you later.” He reached over and switched off the camera. If we don’t make it through this, he thought, this little piece of video is going to make us immortal—martyrs to the cause of journalism.

* * *

“Mr. President, the Chinese have launched just about everything they have, at least a thousand missiles, from what we can see.”

“Launched at whom? Are we going to get nuked? Will somebody please answer that?”

The general looked uncomfortable. “We don’t know, Mr. President. The only satellite we have that could see the launch isn’t equipped to project trajectories. It’s mainly a weather satellite, which is the only reason the Moon people didn’t touch it. We won’t know if they’ve launched at us until our ground stations see incoming missiles. But if the attack was aimed at us, we should have seen them by now.”

“If they launch at us, how much warning will we get?”

“About fifteen minutes, sir, assuming they shoot over the pole. Of course, they have submarine-launched missiles as well. Those could hit us with less than three minutes’ warning.”

“Mr. President,” the Secretary of State said, “Beijing has cut off all communications with everyone, but my analysts think they are most likely shooting at the Moon.”

“They’re trying to nuke the Moon People?”

“About time somebody did,” the general muttered.

“Shut up, General,” the president snapped. “They may be planning to nuke the Moon People first, to keep them from dropping those damned rocks. But that doesn’t mean they’ll stop there. We may be next on their target list, so put everything on alert. If they’re going to start World War Three, I want them to pay for it.”

* * *

One of the Nanking boosters suffered an engine failure late in its boost phase. The missile had cleared the atmosphere and shut down its telemetry to avoid detection, but it had not achieved escape velocity. The missile slowed as Earth’s gravity asserted itself, then began to fall back toward the planet. Its payload would swing past Earth several times, getting closer on each pass, and finally re-enter the atmosphere somewhere over the north polar region. The missile was one of the decoys from the second wave, and its computer was too dumb to know that it was no longer on course. On schedule, the payload package opened and deployed its ten simulated warheads.

* * * * *

Chapter Fifteen

February

The Second Battle

“Amazon, this is Flag. What’s your status?”

“We’re still up here, Admiral,” Rob Giotti replied wearily. “Haven’t seen anything in almost an hour.” Amazon was holding station at the ‘North Pole’ of the Lunar fleet’s dish-shaped formation. The entire formation was falling back toward the Moon, as the computers predicted progress of the Chinese warheads. The fleet was looking for the warheads on least-time trajectories—the ones that would be the first to impact the Moon.

“We’re spread too thin, ma’am,” Giotti complained. “They could drive a battleship through here, and we might not see it.”

“Then I guess we’re lucky they don’t have the capability to lift a battleship,” Lorna replied, dryly. “Keep looking.”

“Roger that. Hold it! Got a target, no, two targets, about a hundred klicks apart, but within range. Definitely warheads.”

Lorna shared Giotti’s frustration. The Chinese missiles had already deployed their warhead packages. Lorna’s ships were picking off warheads in ones and twos, but she knew many more were getting by them. They had been at it for over twenty hours, and time was running short. She hoped their information on the Nanking missile was accurate, since it limited how widely the Chinese could spread them and still have them reach the Moon. But the number of missiles was overwhelming. The computers were projecting about a thousand had been launched, based on satellite imagery. And, as Giotti had pointed out, the LFS fleet was spread too thin to catch them all.

“Scratch two more!” Giotti’s voice held a small hint of triumph, and Lorna watched as her tally screen was updated. So far, she noted grimly, they had killed about seven hundred warheads out of a projected five thousand, far too few to give the Lunar base a chance of survival. As they got closer to the Moon, the warheads would be closer together, but they would have less time to target and kill them.

“Valkyrie has a target, Admiral,” Tommy Sakura reported. “Locking on now.”

Lorna turned and looked at her targeting screen, a smaller version of the one on the bridge. A moment later, a small orange fireball appeared in the center of the targeting reticle.

“Got it, ma’am. Scratch one more.”

Lorna was puzzled. During the First Battle of Luna, she had seen what happened when a graser hit a nuclear warhead. What she’d just seen didn’t look right. “Tommy, are you sure that was a warhead?”

“Absolutely, ma’am. Why do you ask?”

“What was the range to target?”

“About sixty klicks, ma’am. We didn’t see it until it was right on top of us.” Sakura’s voice sounded apologetic.

“Amazon, this is Flag. Rob, are you getting big secondary explosions from those warheads?”

“Well…we’re getting explosions. Nothing spectacular, though.” Giotti had also seen nuclear explosions in space and was kicking himself for not noticing the obvious.

“Val,” Lorna commanded, “spectrographic analysis—verbal, please—of the last target destroyed by Valkyrie’s grasers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the computer replied. “Analyzing image. Nitrogen and oxygen compounds, with some carbon and hydrogen combinations. Heavy metal traces, mostly iron and aluminum, with some other metals consistent with steel and aluminum alloy components—”

“Stop. Any traces of heavier stuff? Uranium or plutonium?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How about deuterium, tritium, or helium?” The heavy hydrogen isotopes were absolute requirements for a thermonuclear bomb, and helium was a major by-product of a fusion reaction.

“No, ma’am.”

“Damn! We’ve been suckered! Val—get a download of targeting imagery from all warheads destroyed so far. Compare them with the one you’ve just analyzed. Link up with Mike and have him run that analysis through the scientific and military databases. I want to know just what we’ve been shooting at. And get me a channel to Admiral Stevens.”

“Any orders for the fleet, ma’am?” Tommy Sakura had been listening to the exchange on Valkyrie’s command channel.

“No, Tommy. Just keep hunting and killing those things. Whatever they are, we can assume the Chinese aren’t throwing rice balls at us.”

* * *

“What you have there, Admiral Greenwood,” Charlie Bender explained, “is a conventional chemical explosive known as Tritonex-B. It’s powerful stuff, but it has nowhere near the destructive force of a nuke. It was developed for the U.S. military, but is in widespread use around the world.”

“Lorna,” Ian said, “Charlie, Mike, and I have run a quick analysis. Five hundred and eighty-three of the warheads you’ve destroyed are the same. Based on what we know of the Nanking payload capacity, they can’t be carrying more than one two-thousand-pound conventional warhead, or maybe two thousand-pounders.

“The other warheads you hit gave us another surprise. All of those were on the outer fringe of your target area and would strike us later than the first bunch. Analysis shows they weren’t carrying any explosives. When you zap them, you get a spectrum more consistent with inert metals and, maybe, an electronics package. We think they’re decoys, intended to do nothing more than keep you busy while the Chinese assault force lands.”

“Son of a bitch!” Lorna exclaimed, and they heard her mutter a few more choice epithets under her breath. “So, what are your orders, Admiral?”

“It looks like they want to take us intact rather than nuke us out of existence. The base can withstand a pounding with conventional weapons. We may lose some surface installations and take damage in some areas, but most everything is deep enough that we won’t be hurt too badly.

“I want you to split up the fleet. Leave most of your force out there to keep killing those things but bring Valkyrie and two of the smaller ships back here to start looking for those shuttles. We know they’re on the way, but we’re not sure how many they’ve sent or when they’ll arrive. When they get here, I want you to be waiting for them.”

“Understood. I’ll bring the two heavy destroyers with me. A corvette is fine for hunting warheads, but those shuttles may have more surprises for us, and I’d like to have the extra firepower.”

“Do you want to bring Amazon instead of a destroyer?”

“Negative, Admiral. I’ll leave Giotti in charge of the warhead search.”

* * *

Lorna’s screen was split into nine windows, each with the image of one of her captains. “So, that’s it. Everything we’ve seen indicates only conventional warheads in the first wave, followed by a lot of decoys. Starflame and Starfire will form up with the flagship and head back to Luna. We’re going hunting for that assault force. Rob, you have command of the rest of the fleet. Keep killing those warheads, and if you find a nuke, report it immediately to Luna command.”

“Ma’am?” Amy Ling of LFS Trailblazer was Lorna’s greenest captain. “How will we know if we find a nuke? Do we need a spectrum analysis on each warhead we hit?”

“Believe me,” Lorna said, “you’ll know a nuke as soon as you hit it with a graser. And that reminds me, I want all of you to maintain a hundred-kilometer minimum firing range on these things.” She noted that Tommy Sakura had the good grace to look sheepish. “Don’t try to get closer. If you have any doubt about what you’ve hit, transmit the image to Mike on Luna. He’ll tell you what it was made of.

“Valkyrie, Starflame, Starfire—we are now Force Alpha. Let’s light the fires and head back for the Moon. Rob, your group is Force Bravo. Continue on mission. Good hunting, all of you.”

* * *

“Damn it, he’s coming around again!” Jeff Jones snarled. “Can’t you get a lock on him?”

Starfire had been the first of the Lunar hunters to find a group of Chinese shuttles—five of them—approaching the Moon in a wide pattern. They had shown up on gravitic scans, but Jones had elected to close to within radar range to get a solid lock with his missiles. That was when he’d been jumped by the two fighter craft accompanying the shuttles.

The group consisted of three troop carriers, one equipment carrier, and one fighter carrier. The Chinese commander had deployed his two fighters as he approached the Moon, knowing the small craft had life support for twenty hours—more than enough to cover the mission. Coasting along with the formation, they weren’t required to use their fusion engines. Like the shuttles, they were a stealth design, but they were much smaller and less massive than their parent craft. Jones didn’t see them until they lit up their fusion drives and came boring in on him.

One of the fighters launched a missile, and Starfire twisted to evade it, losing any chance for missile lock on the shuttles. To his horror, Jones found the Chinese had a missile lock on him, as the missile turned to follow his maneuver. He was handling Starfire’s helm himself, and he redlined her drive to sixty gravities. The missile was quick, but not that quick, and it exploded about a hundred meters off Starfire’s port quarter. Its warhead showered his ship with metal fragments, but most were deflected by the heavy gravity field of the ship’s main drive. But if we’d taken that thing head on, or even abeam at closer range…he shuddered at the thought.

His evasive action had taken him away from the shuttles and fighters, but now he came around again. “Don’t wait for the radar,” he ordered. “Launch one missile as soon as you have them on gravitics.” Starfire didn’t have missiles to spare, and he hoped the new missile software would work as advertised.

“Missile away!” Ensign Roger Lee sang out from the tactical console a moment later.

“Incoming! Starboard and below!” The urgent warning came from Lieutenant Christine Kelly from the other bridge console, and Jones slammed the helm hard over to the left. They’d lost track of the fighters during the action, and one of them had gotten in close. Before Starfire could come around, its missile detonated almost against her gravity field on the starboard side amidships. Damage alarms sounded, but the bridge had not been breached, and the drive didn’t falter.

“Damage control, report!” Jones demanded.

“Got you this time, you bastard,” Kelly snarled. The Chinese fighter had crossed astern of them under full power, and the young, red-haired lieutenant had managed to lock onto its heat signature with Starfire’s turret grasers. She pressed the firing key and was rewarded with an eye-searing flash on her targeting screen as the fighter’s fusion plant exploded.

“Skipper, hull’s breached amidships. Doesn’t look bad, but we’ve lost some auxiliary control runs. I’ll need to suit up to go in and fix it.”

“Negative, Tom,” Jones told his chief engineer. “We’ve still got control, and there’s another fighter out there. Stay at your station. Send one of your people and one of the Marines to handle the repairs.” Lieutenant Tom Forester was a gung-ho S.O.B., Jones reflected, but he needed to learn how to delegate.

His thoughts were interrupted by an exultant shout from Lee. “We got one, sir! Our missile nailed one of the shuttles!”

The shuttle Lee had destroyed was the fighter carrier, and it had already accomplished its mission when it had launched its fighters. Now, the surviving fighter waited, powered down. Its pilot judged correctly that Starfire couldn’t detect him at any distance unless he activated his drive. As the Lunar ship came toward the shuttles again, he realized he wouldn’t need to do so; her course would bring her to him. He armed his remaining missile and nudged his attitude thrusters slightly to line up for the lock.

“Missile incoming! Dead ahead!” Kelly screamed.

Instinctively, Jones slammed the helm to full down, trying to duck under the weapon. But the range was too short, and he was too late. The missile detonated directly over Starfire’s graser turret, destroying the turret, and riddling her hull with fragments. A shard of metal passed through the already holed compartment amidships, tearing off the right arm of Technician Michael DaSilva, who had just entered the compartment with Marine Corporal Jed Merrick. Merrick grabbed the spool of repair cable DaSilva had been carrying, wrapped a loop of cable around the mangled stump, and pulled it tight. Then he hit the emergency repressurization valve on the front of DaSilva’s suit, and dragged the technician back through the airlock to the pressurized compartment beyond.

Other fragments breached Starfire’s engineering spaces, causing the crewmen there to hastily lock down their helmets as the air spilled into space. But no one was hit. Power to the starboard main drive went down.

On the bridge, Jones and his crew were not so fortunate. A large fragment blasted through the overhead and took Ensign Lee square in the back, killing him instantly. A smaller fragment—a chip of the ship’s hull—hit Jones in the shoulder, shattering muscle and bone and leaving a hole in his suit. He let go of the helm controls, and Starfire began to tumble end over end, skewing crazily under her unbalanced drive.

Lieutenant Kelly saw chaos around her. As the air hissed out of the compartment, she locked down her helmet and turned to Lee. Realizing he was beyond help, she swung her attention to the captain. He was bleeding, she saw, but not too badly. She slapped self-sealing patches on his suit and locked his helmet down. His face was twisted in pain, and she knew he wasn’t going to be able to handle the ship.

“I need the helm, Captain,” she said, almost apologetically, as she keyed switches, shutting down the drive, and transferring helm control to her station. She checked to make sure Jones was secure in his chair, then turned to the task of bringing Starfire under control. Radar, gravitics, and infrared were down. She didn’t see the Chinese shuttles and their now-weaponless fighter escort as they slipped away, leaving what they assumed to be a dead Lunar ship behind them.

* * *

Lorna received Starfire’s initial warning message about fighters, followed by an ominous silence. She warned her other two captains to take no chances, but there was little she could do except continue to search for incoming enemy ships. When Valkyrie finally detected three incoming shuttles, Tommy Sakura launched a spread of five missiles as soon as he had positive gravitic signatures. As they acquired targets, three missiles homed on a single shuttle while the other two shuttles got one missile apiece.

It made no difference. The Chinese shuttles had no armor and no gravity shield. The Lunar missiles were ship-killers, each packing twenty kilos of high explosive. The targets were blown apart, spilling their cargo and crews into the vacuum. Two had been troop carriers, and one was a fighter carrier, but the Chinese captain had not yet deployed his fighters. He never got the chance.

Starflame also killed a pair of shuttles in two separate engagements. Neither was a fighter carrier, and the attacks were unopposed. The destroyer moved on, leaving wreckage and a hundred Chinese bodies in her wake.

“Damn it, we’re not finding them fast enough. If they’ve sent just twenty shuttles, we’ve only accounted for a quarter of them,” Lorna said.

“You’re doing your best,” Ian assured her. “We expected it would be tough…hold on a moment.” He paused to take a message from someone off screen, and Lorna used the break to ask Valkyrie’s crew if they had been able to raise Starfire.

“No, ma’am,” the communications tech replied, just as Ian came back on screen.

“You won’t be able to reach Starfire,” he told her. “We’ve had a message from her on the base frequency. She’s taken heavy damage. Her weapons are out of action, and she’s carrying some casualties. Jeff Jones is injured, and at least one crewman is dead. Lieutenant Kelly has assumed command and is bringing her home. She reports one shuttle and one fighter destroyed, but at least four shuttles and another fighter got by her.”

“Damn, damn, damn,” Lorna cursed.

“Lorna,” Ian continued in a quiet voice that caught her attention, “when Starfire gets back, we’ll have to tell her to stand off. We’re about to be bombarded.”

“I know, Admiral,” she replied. Rob Giotti had given up hope of catching any more first-wave warheads, and his force was moving outward to search for the later waves. So far, all they had found were decoys. The enemy strategy is working, she thought bitterly, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Lorna, you’re on your own from this point forward. Give ’em hell. If something happens to us down here, you are in command of whatever remains of the Lunar Free State. Do what you think best.”

The thought horrified her, but she forced herself to nod. “I will, sir.”

* * *

The stray Chinese missile was nearing the end of its slow, looping return to Earth, nearly three days after its launch. Its decoy warheads plunged into the atmosphere on a shallow trajectory, over Greenland, over Newfoundland, and down toward the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

* * *

The president was dozing on a sofa in the underground complex, where he had been for the past three days, as the world waited to see what the Chinese were doing. The Chinese hadn’t launched any more missiles, and the Moon People hadn’t dropped any rocks. The president was no closer to seeing the big picture than he had been three days ago. Fatigue was catching up with him, and he had just managed to drop off to sleep when his chief military advisor burst into the room.

“Mr. President! We have incoming warheads, aimed at us!” the general blurted, as his commander in chief struggled to wake himself.

“Who? Who is shooting at us?” the president demanded.

“It must be the Chinese, sir. It’s not coming from the Moon. The attack’s coming over the pole, but the angle isn’t right for the Russians. It can’t be anyone but the Chinese. We’ve only got about ten minutes, sir. It looks like Boston and New York are on the target list…and Washington.”

Behind him stood the Air Force colonel who carried the football—the special communications interface that allowed the president to unleash America’s nuclear arsenal. Ten minutes, the president thought. Not even enough time to call in the staff.

“All right,” he said in a shaky voice, “bring that thing over here.”

* * *

“Rob, I’m pulling in Amazon and Starsong. Starfire is out of action, and I’ve abandoned the search for the shuttles. We’ll just have to take them on when they get here. I’m positioning Valkyrie and Starflame over the base to take out as many incoming warheads as we can. Leave Wanderer out there with the other corvettes. Put Robin Torrey in command of the group and get back here as fast as you can. We need the firepower. The Chinese have managed to transport fighter craft over here, possibly inside some of the shuttles.”

“Roger that, Admiral…uh, stand by one, please.” He muted his mike and turned away, as someone was obviously demanding his attention. When he turned back to Lorna, his face was grave. “Admiral, you may want to rethink that order. Trailblazer just fried a nuke!”

“What?!” Valkyrie and Amazon were far enough apart to generate a one-second communication delay, only now it seemed like an eternity before Rob’s voice came back to her.

“Definite nuclear yield, ma’am. I had Amy do the analysis. She says it’s one of their really far out birds—wouldn’t have hit Luna for another twenty-five hours, at least.”

“Amy” was Amazon’s on-board computer, another self-aware artificial intelligence like Mike and Val. Lorna knew there was no need to re-check the data.

She drew a deep breath and made a difficult decision. “The order stands, Rob. I need you back here ASAP.”

“But Admiral—”

“Rob, how many warheads has your group found in the last ten hours?”

“Seventeen, ma’am,” he admitted, “and all but the last one were dummies,”

“They’re too widely scattered. We’ll have to take them in close, but right now, we have other problems to deal with.”

“I understand, ma’am. I’m on my way.”

* * *

Jennifer Winslow sat in a corner of the Lunar operations center and tried to make herself tiny. She’d been surprised when Commander Yamamoto had invited her and Jerry to ride out the attack in Ops.

They would be as safe there as anywhere else, Timiko had said and, at least, they would know what was going on. Jennifer was allowed to bring a voice recorder to take notes. “If we survive this,” Timiko had told her without a trace of humor, “you might need them for your next story.”

That seemed like a pretty big if as the base shook and rumbled under the impact of the heavy warheads raining down on it. The base had been breached in several places, and there were reports of rock falls. People were dying, she realized.

Above the base, Valkyrie and Starflame were trying to stop as many warheads as they could, but the targets were impossibly small and moving impossibly fast. The two ships were destroying less than a quarter of them, and Lorna knew, if there was a nuclear barrage behind this one, the base was doomed.

Then disaster struck. Starflame, maneuvering for a shot, got in the way of an incoming warhead. Given the volume of space involved, it was an improbable event, but the warhead caught her square amidships. The time-delay fuse, designed for penetration into the lunar surface, allowed it to punch through her gravity shield before it detonated. A thousand pounds of high explosive ripped the ship apart, and pieces of her slowly rained down over the lunar landscape.

Stunned by the loss, but with no time to grieve, Valkyrie battled on alone.

* * *

Senior Tech Valerie Marshall was contributing nothing, or at least that was how she felt. She had asked her boss, Commander Bender, if there was anything else she could do, but he told her to remain at her post. Something important might come through, he said.

Marshall was an intelligence specialist, and her post in Ops was Earthwatch. She monitored news media transmissions from Earth and the imagery from Luna’s twenty surveillance satellites. All those satellites were currently tasked for China, but nothing important had happened since the massive Chinese launch three days ago. News reports from Earth contained the usual babble and blather, with no indication that the rest of the world knew or cared what the Chinese were doing. So, while the base crumbled under the attack, Marshall sat at her console and wished she was doing something else.

Suddenly, she sat up and stared at one of her screens. Earthwatch Six, one of the satellites, had been passing over a Chinese missile base. She had checked it as the image came up, but that base had already fired its missiles in the big launch. To her surprise, a huge fireball suddenly blossomed in the middle of the screen. A visible shockwave rippled outward, and even in the foreshortened view the satellite provided, she recognized the shape of the mushroom cloud that was forming. Hastily, she switched to images from two other satellites, but one was over the Pacific and showed nothing but endless ocean, while the other showed a barren section of the Gobi desert. She switched again, and a city appeared, which the computer obligingly labeled Beijing. As she watched in horror, another fireball sprang into existence in the middle of the city. Frantically, she patched into the Chinese News Network. She didn’t speak Chinese the way her boss did but, maybe, they would have graphics or something. Her screen showed only the white snow of an empty channel, and only static filled her headset. Of course, she thought, feeling stupid. No Beijing, no Chinese News Network!

Shakily, she got up from her console. “Commander Bender! Admiral Stevens! Sirs, you need to see this right now!” Belatedly, she realized she had shouted into a sudden silence. After nearly two hours, the bombardment of the base had stopped.

* * *

Lorna Greenwood had also noticed the sudden calm. The warheads Valkyrie was hitting were no longer yielding secondary explosions. They were the decoys, and Lorna knew what would be coming next.

“Tommy, get us some altitude and start looking for those shuttles,” she ordered. “The assault force should be getting here soon.”

She was right, but when they arrived, she was looking the wrong way. Lunar Command had assumed—incorrectly—that the invasion force would come straight in for a landing. The few shuttles that had been intercepted were on course to do that, but they were the latecomers. Most of the force had rushed to the Moon on a least-time trajectory and inserted themselves into a tight lunar orbit. They had gone clear around the Moon while the bombardment was underway, and now, they came in low over the lunar mountains. Valkyrie was a thousand kilometers above the surface, and the enemy assault force was landing square in front of the base.

“Damn it!” Lorna snarled. “We’ve been had again!” She ordered Sakura to get back down there. But as they tried to do so, six Chinese fighters swarmed to engage Valkyrie.

Lorna stifled the urge to rush to the bridge as Valkyrie twisted into a hard skew turn. Her brain screamed she should be up front in the command seat, fighting the battle herself. But Sakura was Valkyrie’s captain, and she was the admiral. This engagement was his responsibility, the fleet was hers. With that thought, her fingers relaxed their grip on her chair and found their way to the keypad on the armrest console. She keyed into the tactical net. “Amazon, this is Flag. Where the hell are you, Rob?”

“Flag, Amazon,” Giotti’s voice came back, this time with no perceptible delay. “ETA is…twelve minutes, ma’am.” He paused, then came back. “Admiral, I had a signal from Command about a war on Earth. Are there any more details?”

“I got the same word you did, and I don’t have time to worry about it. We have our own war going on, and I need you in it. Get here as fast as you can and watch for fighters on your way in. Flag out.”

* * *

The assault force landed on the Moon, with almost no opposition. One shuttle, an equipment carrier, was lost to a Lunar missile on final approach, but that was the only missile fired. The bombardment had taken out all but one of the launchers.

Now the space-suited Chinese troops tumbled down the ramps and rushed toward the Lunar base. They had been cooped up inside the shuttles for over sixty hours, and they were stiff and uncoordinated. Nonetheless, they moved quickly under Luna’s one-sixth gee.

One group headed for the bomb-shattered doors of Docking Bay Three, thinking they could get into the base without blasting it open. They were about twenty meters from the opening when the Lunar Marines opened fire. Colonel Kim had recognized the lure of the partly opened doors and had ordered his troops to put up a makeshift barricade just inside the entrance. They cut down a dozen Chinese on the landing pad outside, where the flat, open surface offered no cover.

But the Chinese were prepared to blast their way in, if necessary. A heavy rocket crew deployed to a fresh bomb crater at the edge of the landing pad and sent a rocket through the partly opened doors. It exploded against the barricade. The blast killed three Lunar Marines in the bay and blew the doors open even wider. The two surviving Marines pulled back to a catwalk at the rear of the bay and waited for the enemy to come through the entrance.

* * *

The American nuclear attack caught the Chinese unprepared. The Americans had done nothing for three days after the launch of Lotus Blossom. The Chinese had expected an earlier response if they were going to act. The Chinese high command had believed the Americans would never launch a first strike. After the second day of no reaction from the rest of the world, and no rocks from the Moon, the Chinese had allowed some of their defense forces to stand down to a lower state of readiness. Lotus Blossom gave their command staff other things to worry about as they waited to hear whether the operation had succeeded.

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles took out Beijing and several military sites before the Chinese even realized they were under attack. By then, American long-range missiles were inbound over the Arctic Circle. There was confusion as to the source of the missiles—a northern tracking station had first identified them as Russian—and several missile sites were nuked out of existence while still waiting for targeting orders. But the Americans couldn’t get them all, and those that were left launched a counterattack.

In the years since the Cold War, strategic military thinking had changed. The concept of wiping out an enemy by nuking every major city had given way to a more reasonable strategy, one that would leave the enemy’s most valuable resources mostly intact—spoils for the victor—while destroying the military capability. Cities like New York and Chicago were spared the nuclear holocaust, while places like Groton, Connecticut—home port for America’s nuclear submarine fleet—and Bremerton, Washington—site of a major Navy base—were targeted for several warheads apiece. Southern California, home to numerous military bases, was the hardest hit section of the U.S., but major military bases and command centers across the country were hit as well. Mobile, Omaha, Atlanta, Norfolk, and Boston were hit. The American strikes followed a similar strategy, sparing Hong Kong and other large cities in China while obliterating smaller cities and remote sites of strategic importance. Both sides felt it necessary to strike at their enemy’s capital, so Washington suffered a fate like that of Beijing.

The Chinese might have won—if anyone could claim to be a winner in such a war—but other factors tipped the balance against them. The Russians were stunned by the sudden outbreak of war on Earth, but they saw the American attack as an opportunity and launched against China. Though China’s reply was weak and disorganized, but it was enough to add Moscow to the list of cities destroyed.

The Chinese lost much of their submarine-launched missile capability. American naval forces had made a special effort to locate and shadow Chinese submarines during the tense three days following the Lotus Blossom launch. When the war started, many Chinese subs died without firing a shot, destroyed by American attack subs and anti-submarine forces.

Of course, the Chinese counterattack might have been much more effective had they not been a thousand missiles short.

The rest of the world might have remained quiet, but conflict breeds uncertainty, which, in turn, breeds more conflict. India and Pakistan began their long-expected war in earnest. The Balkans erupted in mutual genocide, and the nations of Europe tried to put out that fire with conventional forces, only to find themselves engaged with the Russians coming in from the other side. Most of central Europe became a battlefield. Surprisingly, the Indians and Pakistanis showed restraint and did not use nuclear weapons, nor did the Russians use them in Europe. The fighting was bloody, but it was not a holocaust.

Most nations survived, though many national boundaries were redrawn. The nations of the Southern hemisphere escaped almost unscathed. In the Northern hemisphere, enough nuclear weapons had been used to trigger climate changes and wreak havoc on farm production, and in the Far East, even nations like Korea and Japan, which had not been hit by a single nuke, scrambled to protect themselves from fallout.

The nuclear exchange was over in less than two days, though conventional fighting in Europe, India, and Pakistan, and along the Russo-Chinese border would go on for over a year. But in the very first hours of the conflict that would become known as World War Three, an event of great significance to the Lunar Free State occurred. An American sub-launched cruise missile snuck past the Chinese defenses and detonated its nuclear warhead over a small Chinese military communications facility. The target was considered important to American strategic interests but, in fact, it was far more important to the Lunar Free State. Had it not been destroyed, that facility would have issued the arming signals for the nuclear warheads in the last wave of Lotus Blossom.

The Lotus Blossom assault force knew nothing of what was happening on Earth. Their orders called for no radio contact, except to report final victory. If they did not report victory, the warheads would be coming to obliterate the dishonor of their defeat. Moving forward against fierce opposition, they slowly drove deeper into the base.

* * *

“Yesss!” hissed Ensign Karen Reddy from her Weapons Two console on Valkyrie’s bridge, as another Chinese fighter turned into a bright ball of expanding plasma.

“That’s two!” snarled Tommy Sakura. “Come on, you bastards, who’s next?”

The Chinese fighters had deployed to high orbit behind the Moon. As the assault force made its landing, the fighters were overhead, looking for Lunar ships. They had found only Valkyrie, but the Chinese fighter commander knew there had to be more out there somewhere. He sent six fighters in to attack and held the rest in reserve.

The battle was still undecided, but the Chinese were finding Valkyrie was a tougher proposition than Starfire had been. Her top and bottom graser turrets protected her above and below, while her chase grasers made front or rear attacks extremely hazardous. The first Chinese fighter, looking for a swift and glorious victory, had bored straight in on her beam, and her port broadside grasers had vaporized him along with the missile he’d launched.

Valkyrie’s fire control, under Val’s direction, was much better than that of the smaller Lunar ships. The computer couldn’t fire the weapons, but she handled all targeting and was not subject to human error or delay. She made certain each weapons section stayed in its assigned kill zone and handed off targets smoothly from zone to zone. When another Chinese fighter had come screaming in from directly above, Val had taken only nanoseconds to decide to let the top turret kill the incoming missile instead of the fighter. The turret’s tracking system wasn’t fast enough to get both. The fighter had shut down his drive, but Val projected his track accurately enough to let Karen Reddy kill him with the bottom turret as he went by.

The Chinese had learned the enemy had trouble tracking them when their drives were shut down, so they used their fusion engines only in short, violent bursts, never staying too long on the same vector. The pilot who had just been killed had allowed himself to coast along for a few seconds longer than he should have.

In open space, the advantage would have been heavily with Valkyrie. She could accelerate at almost 75 gravities, which would easily allow her to run away from the fighters and their missiles. Once out of missile range, the battlecruiser could simply wait for them to light their drives and nail them with her grasers when they did so. As grasers were light-speed weapons, once they locked onto a target, evasive action was no longer an option.

But the battle was not in open space. Valkyrie needed to get back to the surface of the Moon to deal with the assault force. If she ran, the fighters could simply shut down and wait for her to return. She couldn’t head directly toward the Moon at full acceleration unless she wanted to create a brand new crater on the lunar surface. The harder she ran toward the surface, the sooner and harder she would have to brake as she approached, which would leave her vulnerable. She needed maneuvering room to deal with the fighters, which couldn’t out-accelerate her, but were nimbler in close quarters.

The battle had not been one-sided. Valkyrie had killed two of her six attackers, but she had taken damage from three enemy missiles. One of her starboard graser bays had been hit, leaving the compartment in vacuum and one broadside graser out of action. Fragments from that hit had punched through the deck to the sickbay compartment below, killing one of Valkyrie’s two medical techs and wounding the other.

That was the most serious hit. But she had also taken one in her engineering spaces, with loss to some auxiliary equipment and two more casualties. Another hit had taken out one of her forward missile tubes and left another compartment in vacuum.

The Chinese were learning a hard lesson—a Lunar battlecruiser could take a lot of damage and still be deadly. Another fighter lit his drive and bored in. He launched his first missile at her port quarter, veered sharply downward, and shut off his drive. He planned to light it again in a few seconds and turn in to take a second shot at her belly.

A pre-target warning light caught Karen Reddy’s attention. At Weapons Two, she was responsible for the starboard broadside, bottom turret, and stern chase grasers, as well as the starboard missile tubes and external racks. The warning told her the bottom turret would soon have a target.

Val always knew what the enemy was doing, as well as what her own helm was doing. When the threat was detected, she judged there was no chance for a shot at the missile, but the fighter had gone that way. As she read the helmsman’s response to the threat—a hard skew downward and to the right—she flashed the warning to Reddy’s console.

The fighter pilot saw Valkyrie begin to roll away from him. She wouldn’t evade his first missile, though, and now was the time to give her another. He lit his drive and turned toward her…and ceased to exist as Reddy’s grasers turned him and his fighter into an eye-searing fireball. He never saw his first missile detonate and spend its fury harmlessly against the powerful gravity field of the battlecruiser’s main drive.

“That’s three!” Reddy sang out.

“That’s four!” whooped Lieutenant James “Jimbo” Davis at Weapons One. As Valkyrie rolled, another fighter had chosen an unfortunate moment to light his drive, just as the battlecruiser’s port broadside batteries came to bear on him. Davis had gotten no pre-target warning, but when the acquisition indicator suddenly appeared, he’d been quick on the trigger. Another enemy fighter was nothing more than a rapidly-cooling cloud of gas.

On Valkyrie’s flag bridge—two compartments aft of the main bridge where Davis and Reddy celebrated their kills—Lorna Greenwood shared their jubilation. Tommy and his crew are kicking ass, she thought, but I’m betting there are more fighters around.

In fact, the Chinese fighter commander had just decided his surviving fighters needed help dealing with Valkyrie. He dispatched six more fighters—more than half his reserve. They headed for the battle at max acceleration, traveling in formation. Once they got closer to the target, they would scatter and cut their drives. They never saw Amazon and Starsong coming.

The Chinese knew the Lunar ships were hard to detect on radar, so they had equipped both fighters and missiles with laser interferometry detection and guidance systems—lidar for short. The gravity fields surrounding the ships tended to scatter even laser light but reflected enough to make lidar systems much more effective than radar.

Since the first half of the twentieth century, fighter design mentality had always emphasized a headlong rush into battle. The enemy was always expected to be in front of the fighter so, like the radar systems of military air force fighters all over the world, the Chinese space fighters were equipped with lidar that only swept the area in front of them. To the rear, they were equipped only with threat warning receivers, which would warn them if someone used active radar or lidar to track them. They could see Valkyrie ahead of them, but Giotti’s force came up from behind, tracking them with mass detectors and infrared imaging—passive systems that gave the fighters no threat warning. Giotti didn’t bother to sweep the area with active systems; he had already been told radar couldn’t see the stealthy little bastards. At 200 klicks, I/R targeting was good enough, given the hot drive signatures of their fusion engines.

Amazon and Starsong opened fire simultaneously with forward chase grasers, and six fireballs erupted where the fighters had been.

* * *

One of the surviving fighters battling Valkyrie ducked in, fired a missile, and got away clean. The missile exploded harmlessly behind the battlecruiser, against the strongest part of her gravity field. To make that happen, Valkyrie had executed a sharp turn upward and to port.

The other fighter pilot forced himself to wait, his drive shut down. If the target continued her present course, she would pass directly in front of him at short range. Obviously, she hadn’t located him. If she had, he would already be dead. If she just held course a few seconds longer…

* * *

“Bastards are out here somewhere,” Tommy Sakura muttered. The fighters had learned to shake Val’s tracking by executing a sharp course change just as they shut down their engines. Even so, Sakura knew he was somewhere between the two fighters. “Helm, bring us around and head back to Luna,” he ordered. That was the one thing the Chinese were trying to prevent, and he hoped the maneuver would make them show themselves.

“Incoming missile! Port bow!” Lieutenant Davis yelled.

“Helm! Down skew starboard!” Sakura ordered.

The helmsman reacted quickly and was already trying to pull Valkyrie’s vulnerable bow aspect away from the missile. But there wasn’t time to bring the big ship around, nor time for her weapons to lock on. The missile drove into the gravity field ahead of the top turret and detonated. Fragments took out the turret and punched through the battlecruiser’s hull in several places, including both the main bridge and the flag bridge.

Marine Lieutenant Anne McGraw was coordinating damage control from her station on the flag bridge, but now she had to do some damage control of her own. She slapped emergency patches on two fist-sized holes in the overhead, then turned to check on Admiral Greenwood.

The admiral sat on the deck with her helmet locked down, wrapping a wide flexi-patch strip around her thigh. McGraw made her way forward, slapping patches on several smaller holes along the way. When she got there, she found blood on the torn cushion of the admiral’s chair.

“How bad, ma’am?”

“Not very,” Lorna muttered between curses. “I shot a painkiller and packed it with gauze before I wrapped it up. It’ll hold. How’s the ship?”

“My console’s knocked out, ma’am. I need to patch in here for damage control.” She flipped down the folding jump seat next to the command console and plugged into a communication port. She helped Lorna get up off the deck.

“I’m okay, Lieutenant. Carry on.” Lorna eased herself back into her chair.

On the main bridge, Tommy Sakura’s crew were also doing damage control. Sakura had taken over the helm at his command station as a Marine, filling in for Valkyrie’s fallen medics, tended to the helmsman’s shattered left arm. Private Jeremy McGuinness was getting his first taste of combat and wishing there were some way he could shoot back at the enemy. Grimly, he tightened the tourniquet around the sleeve of the helmsman’s spacesuit. It was all he could do until compartment pressure was restored. Another Marine was trying to patch the holes in the overhead where almost a dozen fragments had come through, shattering not only the helm console but the navigation console as well.

Jimbo Davis, his helmet locked down against the thinning atmosphere, sat frozen in his chair, staring in horror at the remains of Ensign Merise N’Kimba. The navigator’s station was right next to Davis’ weapons console. The incoming fragments had torn through the young woman’s head and torso, spraying Davis with her blood.

“Davis!” Sakura ordered. “Man your station! Damn it, snap out of it! There’s a fighter out there!”

The young lieutenant tore his attention away from the dead woman and back to his console, where status lights were demanding his attention—top turret jammed, two port broadside grasers out of action, number two missile tube out…

* * *

The two Chinese pilots conferred on their tactical channel. Their commander had already told them of the fate of the relief force, and they knew they could expect no help. The one who had just hit Valkyrie had only a single missile left. His wingman had none. There was, of course, one other weapon they could use.

* * *

“He’s back there somewhere,” Karen Reddy muttered. “C’mon, Val, find him for me.” She wanted the bastard who had killed Merise to show himself. Valkyrie had turned directly away from him and was headed back toward the Moon. She knew the other fighter was somewhere ahead of them, and she kept a close watch on her forward search area. But she really wanted a target for her stern chasers.

Suddenly, she had one, but before Val could lock grasers onto it, it was gone. About five seconds later, it appeared again, but again it disappeared. “Target appears to be crisscrossing our wake, trying to close the range with us,” Val’s calm, emotionless voice came over her headset. “I am attempting to find a pattern in his maneuvers.”

The enemy fighter appeared and disappeared two more times, then suddenly a lock indication blossomed on Reddy’s screen. The targeting reticle appeared to be locked onto empty space, but she didn’t question it. She put her faith in Val as she slammed the firing key home. Even as she did so, the fighter’s drive lit up, right where Val had predicted. The enemy craft vanished in an eye-searing fireball.

“Gotcha! That’s five!”

“Starboard bow!” Sakura’s shout cut across her jubilant announcement as he pulled the helm hard over and to the left.

With nothing showing on her targeting screens, Reddy jerked her eyes to the main plot. The enemy fighter was screaming in from high and to the right. With the top turret out of action, none of Valkyrie’s weapons could bear on him. Suddenly, the bottom turret pre-target warning came on. Reddy bent to her controls and waited.

“Roll left! Roll left! Roll left!” Val’s voice repeated the directive over and over in Sakura’s headset. He trusted the AI and tried to comply, but the battle-damaged ship was responding sluggishly. Why hasn’t the bastard fired? he wondered. He could have nailed us by now. Suddenly, horror dawned as he realized the enemy wasn’t going to fire. He was going to ram them, with his fusion drive at full power! He was at ten kilometers, closing at better than a kilometer per second. Can’t get out of his way! Not turning fast enough!

Fascinated, Reddy watched as her turret grasers came around and depressed to the maximum, barely clearing the curve of Valkyrie’s hull. On her targeting screen, stars seemed to rise over the horizon of the hull plating as the battlecruiser rolled slowly over on her side. Suddenly, a sun came up over the horizon as well, and it was dead center in the targeting reticle. Instinctively, Reddy slammed the firing key home just as Val’s target lock indicator flashed on her screen.

Reddy’s targeting screen went pure, brilliant white. Sakura and the rest of the bridge crew shielded their eyes as a similar brightness filled the main plot.

Valkyrie bucked and rolled all the way over as the expanding ball of plasma reached her. The shockwave slammed into her gravity field, and the resulting power spike blew out half the field generators on her starboard side. Part of her starboard wing structure was blown away, and some of her main hull plating buckled as her whole frame flexed under the stress.

On Amazon’s bridge, Rob Giotti drew a sharp breath. Racing to help the flagship, he had seen Valkyrie blow the first fighter away. Then the second had appeared almost directly between Amazon and the flagship. Ranging was difficult—radar was useless, and Valkyrie’s gravity field distorted the readings from the gravitic detectors. But Amy reported the enemy was headed straight for Valkyrie on a suicide run. When the fireball enveloped the battlecruiser, and her drive signature faded, Giotti was sure the attack had succeeded.

To his relief, the flagship staggered out of the fireball, still under partial drive, though Amy’s high-power scans showed her venting air and trailing debris.

* * *

The Chinese commander had just five fighters left, one of them—the one that had engaged Starfire—with no missiles left and little reaction mass remaining for its engine. He would wait, he decided, until the Lunar fleet regrouped to deal with the assault force. If he waited a little longer, then headed back toward the base at full power, he could come in low and fast and take the Lunar ships by surprise. His group would fire all their missiles at maximum range, to distract the enemy. But their main mission would be to ram as many of the enemy ships as possible.

* * *

Rob Giotti was shocked when Admiral Greenwood’s image came up on the screen. She was still on Valkyrie’s flag bridge, but her helmet was locked down. Through the transparent visor, he could see that her face was drawn, and her voice held a hint of physical pain.

“Valkyrie is still in action, Rob. We’ve had heavy damage and casualties here, but we’ve got about half her weaponry still online, and the engineers are getting her drive back up. I wouldn’t want to put her against another group of fighters, but we’re going back down to Luna to raise hell with that assault force. Tell me about those fighters you scratched.”

“We got six of them, ma’am, with no damage in return. I don’t think they even saw us coming. Looks like they were too busy going after you to watch their own six. Amy got a good track, and it looks like they were parked in high orbit. I figure there might be more of them up there, and with your permission, I’d like to check it out. I just need Amazon. You can take Starsong down with you.”

“Permission granted, Rob. But watch it, those bastards are tough if they get the jump on you.”

“Roger that, ma’am.”

Starsong formed up with the crippled flagship and headed for the Lunar surface, while Amazon turned toward Amy’s projected position for the enemy fighter group.

“Show me that again, Amy,” Giotti said.

“Yes, Captain.” The main display reconfigured to show a volume of space above the lunar surface. “Val’s data shows the enemy fighters attacked her from this vector—” a bright red track arced across the screen, “—and the fighters we attacked started from here, nine minutes and thirty seconds later, headed in this direction.” Another red track lit the screen. “That would be consistent with a group drifting along in this orbit—” another track, “—and if we go to max acceleration, we can intercept them here in just over ten minutes.”

“Helm, make it so,” Giotti ordered. “Amy, how accurate is that projection?”

“If they haven’t maneuvered to change their orbit, they should be within two point seven kilometers of that position, sir.”

“Hmmm…two point seven,” Giotti mused. “At that range, my blind grandmother could find them. Sure as hell our missiles ought to be able to lock on.”

* * *

At four hundred kilometers, the fighters’ lidar detected the Lunar battlecruiser coming hell-bent in their direction. The fighter commander was tempted to power up and engage, but he was certain the enemy could not detect his group, and while the big ship was headed almost directly at him, his computers told him she would pass over a kilometer away on her present course. Better, he thought, to launch our missiles when the range is shortest. We can take them by surprise.

But the Chinese were the ones taken by surprise when, at two hundred kilometers, Amazon launched a spread of eight missiles. They appeared to have been launched without guidance. The Chinese commander breathed a sigh of relief as the first missile started to pass his formation, missing by a wide margin. He was turning his attention back to the enemy ship when the missile veered sharply and came straight at him. He hadn’t even had time to draw another breath before it blew him out of the sky.

* * *

“Yeeee haw!” Ensign Bill “Bubba” Weathers let out a rebel yell from his Weapons One console. “Amy five—bad guys nothing!” He leaned back to admire the big display, where five closely spaced fireballs had blossomed.

“Stay sharp, people,” Giotti said. “There might be more of them out there.”

Amazon spent another twenty minutes searching the area. She found nothing, and Giotti gave the order to turn back to Luna.

* * *

The Chinese assault commander was having a really bad day. The Lunar fleet had returned and blasted his landing craft to pieces as they sat on the surface. Most of his troops had entered the enemy base, but a few were still out there, unloading equipment that might have proven useful. They and the equipment were now just scattered bodies and wreckage.

His force had fought its way well into the base, but each time they secured a tunnel or compartment, the enemy had vented the air from it, forcing his men to remain in their spacesuits. Many were nearing the end of their life support capacity. Worse, as the enemy retreated from an area, the gravity in that area went to three times Earth-normal. They slogged along, barely able to walk and had long since abandoned their extra equipment—it was too heavy to carry. One squad had gotten about halfway through a tunnel when, suddenly, the gravity reversed, slamming them against the ceiling.

So far, the assault force had lost nearly as many men to suit ruptures as to enemy fire and had inflicted few casualties on the enemy in return. The defense had been well-planned, with carefully crafted ambush patterns as well as effective use of the Moon People’s accursed technology.

The commander looked at the chronometer in his helmet display and realized his cause was lost. There was no chance they would take the base before the coming holocaust. Knowing they would all die soon, along with the enemy who opposed them, he opened his command channel and told his men to lay down their arms.

* * *

LFS Trailblazer was the last of the corvettes to turn back toward the Moon, and she was farther out than any of them. She had been working an area on the outer fringes of the projected warhead tracks and accounted for over 25 of the real nuclear warheads, but she hadn’t found any for over an hour, and Lunar Command decided she had seen the end of them. Trailblazer wouldn’t get back in time for the last ditch defense of the base, but Admiral Greenwood had ordered them to come home.

* * *

Valkyrie, Amazon, Starsong, and Nomad formed up over the Lunar base. Wanderer and Pilgrim were on the way and would join them within a half hour. The fleet was still killing dummy warheads, but they knew the real ones would be arriving shortly. Starfire, with her drive back online, but her weapons and search capabilities knocked out, had also returned. She couldn’t land, as she had suffered landing gear damage, but she had transferred her wounded to Amazon for treatment, and most of the rest of her crew to Valkyrie to augment the crew of the wounded flagship. Christine Kelly and a skeleton crew held the crippled destroyer in high orbit, cursing their inability to join the action.

When the real warheads finally arrived, Lorna’s harried fleet put up a valiant effort. But it wasn’t long before one, and then another, got by them. Lorna watched in anguish as the first one plunged to the surface just five kilometers from the base and splattered harmlessly against the lunar plain. When the second warhead did the same, a faint hope stirred in her. Soon, it was obvious, none of the warheads were armed. They were real nuclear weapons—analysis of the impacts showed deuterium, as well as enough plutonium for a fission trigger. Any that were hit by grasers produced a nuclear blast, as the intense beam of gamma radiation provided a trigger. But those that went down to the surface produced nothing but a tiny impact crater and a small flash as the impact energy consumed them.

The fleet stayed aloft and continued to kill them. If even one turned out to be armed, the results could be devastating. Finally, they stopped coming. Lorna dispatched Amazon with Starsong and the corvettes to sweep the approaches and make sure there was nothing else out there. Starfire still could not land, but the decision was made to bring Valkyrie down. As the crippled flagship landed, Lorna Greenwood got up from her command chair and collapsed on the deck. When the medics cut open her suit and saw the amount of blood inside, they wondered how she had managed to remain conscious as long as she had.

* * *

The last Chinese shuttle came around the Moon in its lonely orbit. It had separated from the rest of the attack group long ago, waiting to find out whether its services would be needed. Now, it appeared the mission had failed. The other shuttles and fighters were gone, and the ground assault force had been swallowed up in the lunar base with no word of its fate. The nuclear holocaust that was supposed to obliterate the Moon People had not come.

The shuttle commander, who was the supreme commander of the entire mission, tried to contact his superiors on Earth. He failed to make contact. But while monitoring other communication frequencies, he learned that China was under attack. That made his final action imperative.

He gave the orders, and the shuttle’s cargo bay opened. The first of the two launch racks lifted into position and launched the first of its five fully-armed nuclear warheads toward the lunar base.

* * *

Amy Ling and the crew of LFS Trailblazer were in a triumphant mood. The battle was over, and they were going home to victory. Amy still regretted missing the main action, but she had an impressive tally of killed warheads, and she decided her ship had done its part.

“Uh, ma’am, I’ve got something on the gravitic scanners,” Ensign George Walters said in a puzzled voice. Walters, as her systems officer, occupied the right-hand seat on Trailblazer’s two-seat bridge.

Ling looked at her displays. Whatever it was, it was big. As she watched, a smaller object separated from the larger target and accelerated toward the Moon. At five hundred klicks, the smaller object was barely detectable on gravitics, but to her surprise, it showed a clear radar trace, while the larger object didn’t show on her radar at all. Stealth craft! Missile launch!

“Battle stations! Going to max acceleration now!” she shouted. Trailblazer leapt ahead as she redlined the drive.

The range closed rapidly, but as Amy watched, another missile separated and headed for the Lunar surface. Could try for him with a missile, but another few seconds and… She smiled, grimly, as her radar acquired the big target, and her grasers locked on.

With its cargo doors open, the Chinese shuttle wasn’t as stealthy as usual. The corvette’s radar found him at almost a hundred kilometers, which turned out to be fortunate for Trailblazer and her crew. The Chinese had just launched their fifth missile and were raising the second rack of five into position when Amy Ling rammed her firing keys home. She was dead on target, and five nuclear warheads detonated simultaneously.

“Hell fire!” Walters shouted as the huge fireball filled the viewscreen, momentarily blinding him and his captain. Instinctively, Ling jerked the helm hard over and veered away from it. Seconds later, Trailblazer bucked as the plasma shockwave caught her on the port bow. But she rode it out and emerged undamaged.

* * *

“Rob.” Ian Stevens’ voice was grim. “Trailblazer reports that thing was launching nukes at us, and I don’t think we can hope these will be unarmed. Ling isn’t sure how many it launched, but she’s already chased down and killed the last one he fired. Stand by…” Stevens turned and checked the data coming in on another screen, then looked back at Giotti. “Mike has them on radar. Rob, they’re right on target. They’re going to hit us dead on. Mike sees four warheads, with Trailblazer chasing them down. He predicts she’ll be able to catch three of them, but the last one has too much of a lead. We’ve got about five minutes. Have you got anything that can intercept?” Ian already knew the answer, but he had to ask the question.

“No, sir!” Giotti practically screamed in rage and frustration. “My ships are all way out of position! We didn’t know, Admiral.”

“Starfire can intercept, sir.” Christine Kelly came over the tac net with a surprisingly calm voice.

“But…” Giotti hadn’t thought about the crippled destroyer, for good reason. But she was positioned almost directly over the base. “Christine, you don’t have any weapons.”

“No, sir,” she replied quietly, “but our radar is back online. We can find it. And get in front of it.”

Silence lay heavy on the tac net. On Starfire’s bridge, Christine Kelly looked at Lieutenant Tom Forrester, now manning the helm console. Forrester looked back at her and nodded slowly.

“I can’t order you to do that, Christine,” Stevens said.

“I know that, sir. Powering up the drive now.”

“God be with you, Captain.” The admiral’s voice came back, and Christine felt a surge of pride at his use of the title. My first and last command, she thought.

There was one more thing she had to do. There were two technicians and a Marine aboard who needed to know what was going to happen. She keyed her comm circuit. “All hands, this is the captain…”

* * *

Amy Ling fought back tears as Trailblazer chased down the fourth warhead—the last one she would be able to catch. Amy had been on the tac net, and she knew what was going to happen. A lot of people had died in this war, but Chris Kelly was her friend, and she couldn’t help thinking that, if she’d found the enemy ship just a few minutes sooner…

Enough! she told herself. You’ve got one more warhead to kill, and if you don’t do it, Chris will die for nothing, and so will a lot of people on Luna. Grimly, she brought her targeting display online as the object came into range. The lock indicator flashed, and she blew it out of existence with a single shot. She reported the kill on the tac net, then broke off the pursuit, letting the tears overtake her at last.

* * *

“Too bad we couldn’t get the grasers back online,” Petty Officer Carlos Ocheda remarked, almost casually. Like Technician Joe Biddle and Corporal Jed Merrick, Ocheda had nothing to do but wait for what was to come. The three of them were seated on the deck in Starfire’s engineering section, each with his own private thoughts.

“Yeah,” Biddle replied after a pause. “But at least the drive’s running fine.”

Merrick had been thinking about the wife and child he would never see again. Now he looked up at the other two. “Hey, do you suppose they’ll name ships after us or something?” he asked. “I’d like that. For my son, you know…so he’ll know his old man was a hero.”

* * *

The last warhead was still a hundred kilometers from the Moon when it encountered Starfire coming to meet it. Its mindless proximity fuse detected the destroyer’s gravity field at a range of two kilometers and assumed it was approaching the Lunar surface. An instant later it detonated, barely a hundred meters in front of the ship. LFS Starfire, along with Christine Kelly and her crew, vanished in a ball of nuclear fire.

* * * * *

Chapter Sixteen

March

The Ashes of Victory

Jennifer Winslow stood in shocked silence, watching the big screen in Ops. Earth’s news media had finally assembled enough resources to start broadcasting pictures of the devastation on the planet’s surface. The screen was showing a distant aerial view of the massive firestorm that still raged where Washington, D.C. had been. Similar views had been shown of San Diego, and the European News Agency had relayed scenes of the destruction of Moscow. No news was coming from China, but the LFS had its own satellite imagery that showed the destruction of Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities there.

Many large cities had not been seared by nuclear blasts, but people in them were seeking shelter against the radiation from nearby strikes. Africa had been spared the nuclear fire, but dozens of brutal conventional wars had erupted there, as various factions sought dominance on the Dark Continent. The war in the Balkans had spilled out over much of Europe, and Greece and Turkey had launched their own war to add to the chaos. The border between India and Pakistan was a killing field.

Even some untouched cities were dying, as the commerce that was their lifeblood dried up. New York could not survive without a constant flow of food and other goods from the American Midwest and West, and that flow had been seriously disrupted. Ships from around the world that supplied the overpopulated islands of Japan were no longer arriving, and food shortage would soon be a problem in Tokyo.

Hundreds of millions were dead in the holocaust, and tens of millions were dying. Refugees clogged highways all over the world, but in Europe, Asia, and North America, there were few places for them to go except out into the open country. The cities that survived had problems of their own.

All in all, I guess we’re fortunate, Ian Stevens reflected. We’ve suffered some, but not like that. Still, he and his staff needed to get busy with their own accounting. Their existence on Luna was fragile, at best, and they would need all their resources to insure their own survival. Their numbers in terms of losses and casualties might pale beside those of Earth, but they’d had a lot less people to begin with.

The LFS had lost 97 people, almost ten percent of the tiny nation’s population. The Lunar Fleet had taken the brunt of the losses, including Starflame’s entire crew, and the five people aboard Starfire in her final action. Valkyrie and Starfire had also lost people in fighter engagements. Colonel Kim had lost over half his Marines during the ground assault. The Chinese had come closer than they realized to taking the base and had only surrendered because they’d expected to die in the nuclear attack. They’d still had over a hundred troops when they gave up, leaving the LFS with the question of what to do with so many prisoners.

The remaining LFS casualties had been base technicians, scientists, and two children. Most, including the children, had been killed by rockfalls during the bombardment. But despite their efforts to keep noncombatants out of danger, four had been killed by enemy fire during the assault.

There were also over two hundred injured, of which about thirty were serious or critical. That included seven from Valkyrie and the two who had been transferred from Starfire before her final action, as well as eight more Marines wounded in the base assault.

Some areas of the base had been damaged, but Mike’s systems were operational, and none of the life-support functions had been seriously impaired. The fleet had lost two destroyers, and Valkyrie was going to be out of service for a long time. Probably, Ian reflected, about as long as her admiral is going to be in the hospital.

* * *

“Hi,” Carla Perry said softly as Lorna opened her eyes.

Lorna turned her head and gave Carla a weak smile. “Do I look that bad?” she asked.

In fact, Carla thought she looked terrible, but she didn’t say so. She smiled. “You look a lot better than you did when they brought you in.”

Lorna had gone into cardiac arrest as the medics tried to replace the blood she had lost, but they revived her and finally got her stabilized. The muscle and nerve damage in her thigh had been extensive. She would recover, but she would probably walk with a slight limp for the rest of her life.

It was the first time Carla had seen her fully conscious, though she’d been awake a few times before when Carla was absent. On one of those occasions, she knew, Tom Sakura had come by and had filled her in on the outcome of the battle.

“I hear I missed the big finish,” Lorna said. “Just as well. I’d probably have screwed that up, too. I wish I’d had a chance to talk to Chris Kelly before she died.” A tear trickled down Lorna’s cheek.

Carla dabbed it with a tissue. “Hey, stop that. You did your best. We all did. Kelly did what she had to do, and none of us will ever forget it. But you came damned close to making the big sacrifice yourself.”

“I wish it had killed me,” Lorna answered bitterly. “Giotti’s the one who saved the day. He should have been in command.”

“You’re wrong,” Carla said carefully. “You don’t believe it, but you are. At least believe that I’m glad you’re alive. I don’t know how I could go on without you.”

“Loyalty is one of your greatest virtues. That’s why I love you so much.”

Lorna drifted off to sleep again. Carla sighed, bent over, and kissed her gently on the forehead, then headed off to find the admiral.

* * *

“Hello, Admiral,” Lorna said. She was still feeling a bit weak, but she was no longer sedated, and was sitting up in her hospital bed, talking with Carla, when Ian came in.

“Lorna, hello. You’re looking well. I’m sorry I haven’t been by to see you. I came by a few days ago, but you were sleeping. As you can imagine, things have been pretty busy.”

“I understand. How’s the fleet doing…with their new vice admiral?”

Ian’s smile faded, and he gave Lorna a long, hard look. “Carla, will you excuse us, please? I need to talk some official business with Admiral Greenwood. And please close the door on your way out.”

“Of course, Admiral,” Carla said. She got up and left the room, closing the door carefully and hiding a small smile of triumph.

Ian turned to Lorna, who met his gaze with a neutral expression.

“Now listen carefully, Admiral. As far as I am concerned, Giotti is doing a fine job of keeping your chair warm until you return to Fleet Command. He’s a good, solid officer, but he’s not the one I want commanding the entire fleet. Dr. Markarian tells me you’ll be out of here in a few days, and I’m willing to grant you another five days’ leave to get yourself back together. But after that, I expect you to report for duty. Valkyrie won’t be back in service yet, but when she comes online, I want you on her flag bridge. Meanwhile, I need you to watch over the rest of the fleet. Do you have a problem with that…Admiral?”

Lorna winced at the cold, commanding tone in his voice, but she didn’t back away. “Yes, sir, I do,” she said carefully. “I don’t think I’m fit to command the fleet. I made critical errors in judgment—errors that cost the lives of a lot of people. I lost two ships under my command and nearly had my own flagship shot out from under me. Giotti carried out his orders to perfection and lost none of his ships. I believe you ought to leave him in command.”

Ian sighed, then pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. “All right, Admiral, suppose you tell me just what you think you did wrong and what you would have done differently if you had the chance to do it over.”

“I should have noticed sooner that the first wave of warheads weren’t nukes. When I did notice, I should have pulled the whole fleet back and gone hunting for those shuttles in earnest. I should have dispatched Amazon and one of the destroyers to look for them behind the Moon. We could have bushwhacked them before they ever got a chance to land. I should have had the corvettes covering the base to take out the incoming conventional warheads. They’re as good for that kind of work as a battlecruiser or destroyer, and they’re more agile. We wouldn’t have lost one of them the way we lost Starflame.”

“And the fighters?”

“Giotti showed the best way to deal with them. I should have kept Valkyrie and one of the destroyers in high orbit over the base. When the fighters went down to protect the shuttles, we could have taken them from behind.”

“And the doomsday shuttle?”

“If I’d sent Rob around behind the Moon, he’d probably have spotted that one along with the others. In any case, I should have held some of the ships in close after the assault force was taken out. If I’d left a decent shield over the base, we could have dealt with those few warheads without losing Chris Kelly and Starfire.”

Ian said nothing for a moment and simply looked into Lorna’s eyes. What he saw there was not fear—there was no question about the woman’s courage. Rather, it was shame. Self-reproach. She would never believe she couldn’t have done it better, but Ian was determined to try to convince her.

“Congratulations, Admiral. You have perfect hindsight, just like me and the rest of my command staff. We’ve all kicked ourselves for the things we didn’t do or didn’t see, but nobody is talking about resigning—except you. I won’t deny that everything you’ve said is correct in light of what we now know.

“But get this through your head, an officer’s performance can never be judged in hindsight. It can only be judged by what that officer knew at the time.

“Real warfare is not a game of chess. You know that. You can never see all the enemy’s pieces laid out on a board. If your intel is incomplete, you use your best judgment, and as far as I’m concerned, your judgment was damned good. If it hadn’t been, things could have been a lot worse, and maybe you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation because we’d both be dead, and the Chinese would have the base.

“First, let’s take the question of the warheads. None of us expected the first wave wouldn’t be nuclear. Rob Giotti killed a bunch of them without noticing, and so did the other ships. But you noticed it and got us a critical piece of intel that changed our battle plan.

“Second, you were right to bring the destroyers back and leave the other force searching for warheads. Sure, Starfire got chewed up in the first encounter, but a corvette probably wouldn’t have survived. And if you hadn’t left Rob and his force out there, we’d never have known about the nukes in the third wave. They turned out not to be armed, but I’m convinced that was just a stroke of luck—something that went wrong with the Chinese plan. The point is you did the right thing based on what we knew at the time.

“After the loss of Starflame—which you damned well better believe was just bad luck and not any fault of yours—you were also right to pull in Amazon and Starsong. Your force was too thin, and you needed the firepower. The corvettes would have been little use against fighters, but they killed over a hundred of the third-wave warheads before you called them in. Besides, it was one of those corvettes that killed the doomsday shuttle and four of the five missiles it launched.

“As for Valkyrie’s battle with the fighters, that couldn’t have been helped. The Chinese controlled the battle plan—they were the attackers; we were the defenders. We’re all kicking ourselves—especially Charlie Bender—for not realizing they might go around the Moon. I’ve given him a similar lecture about not blaming himself because I didn’t think of it either, but the way he looks at it, his failure left you out on the sharp end of the stick.

“When the fighters engaged, you did the one thing I was afraid you wouldn’t do, knowing what a gung-ho ex-fighter pilot you are. You stuck to your job of commanding the fleet and let Tommy Sakura fight the ship. That’s his job, and he did it damned well, against six-to-one odds. As for Rob Giotti, he did a fine job of carrying out your orders. He was able to take those fighters out because you ordered him back in at the right time.

“Lorna, I could go on and on, but I know what’s really bothering you, so I’ll say this just once. People die in war. You can do everything right, and still, people will die. The hard thing about being in command is that you must send them out to die. It’s not like being a fighter pilot, where all you must worry about is your own ass and, maybe, your wingman’s. If you can’t handle that responsibility, say so, but don’t hide behind the fiction that someone else could have done it better or done it without anyone getting killed. As far as I am concerned, no one—not Rob Giotti, not Charlie Bender, not myself—could have done it better.”

“Maybe…maybe you’re right, Ian,” she admitted, but the pain in her voice was obvious. “Maybe nobody could have done it better. But it hurts. Damn it, it hurts so bad!” A solitary tear rolled down her cheek.

“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”

“But they were my people! They were my ships! Starfire was my first flagship, and Chris Kelly crewed for me when she was just a green ensign.”

“I know.”

“And Starflame…when she came online, we were short of experienced people. We had to raid the other ships, and I practically hand-picked all of them myself. Now, they’re gone. And Valkyrie, Ensign N’Kimba, Sergeant Bradshaw…oh, Ian, it hurts.”

“I know.”

She looked at him with sudden understanding. “Of course, you do,” she said softly. “I’ve got thirty-nine people dead, their names and faces burned into my soul. You’ve got…what? Ninety-seven, I heard?”

“Right,” he said, “ninety-seven, and every one was my fault, if I want to blame myself. Maybe worse than that. There are people on Earth who think we started World War III. That’s nearly half a billion dead at last count.”

Lorna looked at him, heard the sadness in his voice, and saw the pain in his face. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir.” She brushed away the tears. “I guess I needed to let down with someone. Didn’t realize how badly I needed it. It still hurts, but… Thank you for your confidence. I’ll get back to duty as soon as the doctors let me out of here.”

“No, you will not,” he said. “You’ll take that five days of leave I’ve given you and let Carla take care of you. In fact, I’ll speak to Mick O’Hara and make sure she gets leave at the same time.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, finally regaining some of her composure. “But, Admiral, what about Rob Giotti? You did promote him to vice admiral, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. The fleet’s getting big enough to split into two squadrons—or it will be when we replace our losses. You’ll still have overall command and double as commander of Squadron 1. Giotti will still be under you, commanding Squadron 2. And, by the way, you’ve been promoted to full admiral—so you still outrank him.”

Lorna sighed. “It doesn’t seem fair. Those of us who survived get promoted, while those who gave their lives…what do they get?”

“The best we can give them,” he said quietly. “Lorna, we will not forget those people. We’ll be giving out a lot of medals, new ones we haven’t given to anyone before. It’s the best we can do to recognize the real heroes and heroines—that and making sure the families of those who died are taken care of as best we can. A lot of people died doing their duty. Some will get the Lunar Medal of Honor, as will some who showed special heroism and survived. But those who chose to die for the greater good, when they could have lived—people like Chris Kelly and her crew—will get the Guardian of Honor, which will be the highest decoration we will ever give. It will only be given posthumously and only to those who knowingly sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. Right now, there are just five people who will get it—Chris and the four others with her aboard Starfire.

“There will be other decorations given out. A lot of people did outstanding jobs. By the way, you’re getting a Medal of Honor and the new Heart of Luna, the decoration for all of those wounded in action.” Ian walked to the door and beckoned Carla back into the room.

“Damn it, Admiral…” Lorna stopped as Ian held up his hand.

“I know. You’re going to tell me you don’t deserve it. I disagree, but I’m not the one making the decisions in this case. There’s a selection board working on it, and you’ll be asked for your recommendations, but just so you know, the board already overruled me on one award.”

“They did?” Lorna was curious.

“Yes.” He shrugged. “They seem to think I should get a Lunar Star, for ‘excellence of command’ or something. I think they’re embarrassed to have a supreme commander who doesn’t have a lot of ribbons on his chest. But if they won’t accept my protests, what chance do you think you have?”

“You deserve it, sir,” Carla said, coming back into the room. “And as a member of the selection board, I hope to be the one who pins it on you. And before you say anything, Admiral Greenwood, I want you to know that I abstained from voting on your decorations—personal bias, you know.”

“Anyway,” Ian continued, “we’re awarding the Heart of Luna retroactively to the First Battle. People who were injured in that attack—like Carla’s father—will also get it. We’re also instituting a system of battle honors for the ships. Anyone serving on a ship when it earns the honors will be entitled to wear them permanently. Those serving on a ship that earned honors before they came aboard will be able to wear the ship’s honors as well, but only as long as they are assigned to that ship. In the case of ships we’ve lost in battle—like Starfire and Starflame—when we commission a new ship of the same name, the new ship will inherit the battle honors of its namesake. It’s standard practice among the wet navies of Earth. The U.S. carrier Enterprise, for example, was actually the fourth ship with that name, with battle honors going back to the War of 1812.”

“So, there will be another Starfire?”

“Yes, and Starflame, too, just as soon as we can get them built. Of course, we’ve learned a few things in these battles, so the new ships should have quite a few design improvements, and I need you, Admiral Greenwood, to work with the engineers on that.”

* * *

“Michael DaSilva? No, don’t get up.” Timiko waved the man back as he started to stand up from the edge of his hospital bed. “I’m Commander Yamamoto, Admiral Stevens’ chief of staff. How’s your arm?”

“Well, ma’am,” he glanced at the empty sleeve of his robe, “it was fine the last time I saw it, but that was back on Starfire.”

Timiko reddened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s okay, ma’am.” The technician favored her with a crooked smile. “I guess they’re gonna have to call me Lefty from now on. I’m just happy to be alive, but pardon me if I don’t salute.”

Timiko was taken aback by the man’s morbid humor, but she forged ahead. “The admiral asked me to come by and give you some good news. You’ve been promoted to senior technician, and you’ll be getting the Star of Luna for courage under fire and the new Heart of Luna for your…injuries.”

“I was just doing my job, ma’am. There wasn’t anything special about it, except for losing my arm, and that was just bad luck.”

“You know,” she told him sternly, “I’ve talked to five people who are being decorated—including your captain, Commander Jones—and they all said the same thing. The Lunar Free State thinks differently, and you will get your medals with our thanks.”

He sobered a bit. “Jed Merrick’s the guy who should get those medals. He saved my life, but he isn’t around to collect them. And Lieutenant Kelly and Lieutenant Forrester and P.O. Ocheda and Joe Biddle. Those were real heroes. “

“Yes, they were,” she agreed, “and they will be recognized. Jed Merrick will become the most decorated hero we’ve ever had. He earned the Star and the Heart during the First Battle, and he’ll get another Star for saving your life, as well as the Guardian of Honor which the other four will also get for Starfire’s last action.”

“I don’t imagine that’ll make it up to Merrick’s wife and kid, but maybe it’ll make them feel better. What’s gonna happen to them now, ma’am?”

“His wife will get the basic death insurance benefit. She’ll also be entitled to the money from the buy-back of his citizen shares unless she chooses to keep them for the dividends. She’s a technician in Base Systems, so she’s earning her own salary and shares, but the fact that they have a child complicates things. We’re facing issues like that for the first time, and we’re kind of making up the rules as we go.

“It’s been decided that Jed’s salary—including promotions at normal intervals—will continue to be paid into a trust fund until his son reaches full citizenship. Jed’s been posthumously promoted to sergeant, so by that time, it will probably be a gunnery sergeant’s salary. His wife, as trustee, can draw on the fund for anything the boy needs. That’s the way we’re going to handle it for any child whose parents die in the line of duty.”

“Sounds fair. At least they’re not left out in the cold.”

“We wouldn’t do that. We couldn’t. They’re our people, and we want everyone to know that the Lunar Free State takes care of its people, which brings me to another issue I need to discuss with you.”

“Me? Oh, I get it. Can’t very well crew on a ship with only one arm. Too bad I can’t get one of those powered artificial arms. Too much nerve damage, the doc said. Shoulder’s paralyzed.”

“I know. We already considered that.”

“Well, I was sort of hoping you’d find something else for me to do—”

“Again,” she told him, “this is one of those things we’re facing for the first time. But the admiral says, if you want to continue active duty, we will, quote, ‘damned well find a job for you.’ But you are entitled to a full-disability retirement if you choose to take it. That means full pay, at your current grade—senior tech—until you reach normal retirement, and then the regular half-pay pension after that. You’ll also continue to earn your citizen shares.”

“Well, yeah, Commander, but I’m twenty-four years old. What would I do with the rest of my life?”

“We talked about that as well. Not about you specifically, but there are a couple of other people in the same situation, and I’m sure there will be more in the future. You might consider opening up your own business here on Luna.”

“What kind of business?” DaSilva was skeptical. “I don’t know much about anything except electronic tech.”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly, but there are a lot of things we need up here, mostly little amenities we haven’t been able to provide, like restaurants, clubs, recreational facilities, shops. We’re starting to think of this place as a city now, not just a base. Anyway, we’ve decided to provide special assistance for retired or disabled veterans who want to do something like that—like rent-free space to operate your business and no-interest start-up loans.

“Think about it. You don’t have decide now. Relax and let the medics take care of you. We can put you back on duty when you’re ready and still give you a year to exercise your options. When you’re ready to decide, just let us know.”

* * *

Slowly, but surely, the Lunar Free State put itself back together. There were shortages of some things on Luna but, at least, the LFS had enough to eat. By comparison, there was famine in many places on Earth, and nations that had surplus food were reluctant to export it, for fear that global climate changes could bring crop failures in coming years.

While the Lunar Free State labored to repair its damaged facilities, several cities on Earth were simply abandoned. Some were radioactive ruins, but others, like New York City, could not sustain a population of millions without a steady flow of consumables from outside the area. Heavily populated areas like New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island also began to empty. In fact, much of the American east coast between the radioactive ruins of Boston and Washington declined in population as people sought open, uncontaminated land where food could be home-grown and livestock raised. People went back to raising animals for food and hunting wild ones, and there were no animal rights people around to stop them.

Many urban dwellers lacked the skills to survive on their own, and some tried to do so by taking the resources people in rural areas needed for themselves. Violent confrontations were frequent, and law enforcement sporadic. Some rural communities built barricades, armed themselves, and organized their own militias to hold what they had and keep from being overrun. Those that succeeded would become the cities of the future.

In Europe, when the fighting died down, most of the major cities still stood, but many became city-states unto themselves as national borders dissolved in favor of older ethnic and religious lines of demarcation. This produced millions of refugees, either fleeing from persecution or simply trying to find a place to live among others of their own kind.

Except for Switzerland, France, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, most of Europe’s governments toppled. Similar collapses occurred throughout Africa, South America, and Asia. China was left with no central government, and while some of its provinces continued to follow the ideals of Marx and Mao Tse Tung, others reverted to pre-twentieth century feudalism, where warlords governed whatever lands they could hold by force of arms.

On the far side of the Pacific, only Australia, South Korea, and Japan remained intact as nations. North Korea, its air, water, and soil poisoned by fallout from China to the north, petitioned South Korea to dissolve the border between then and unite as one country, under any terms the South Koreans wanted to name. The petition was accepted, and a conflict that had lasted for almost a century was finally resolved.

The United States managed to keep itself together. If anything, the war proved to be a unifying force. Though the national government was decimated, state governments remained in place and did their best to restore law and order. Arrangements were quickly made to hold elections for new senators and congressmen.

With Europe in chaos and North America busy with its own problems, the Islamic Jihad gained ground. The movement solidified its control of the Middle East and completed its takeover of the African continent. It sowed more of its seeds throughout war-torn Europe and in unsettled South America. That stretched the movement’s resources to the limit, and it could not provide support for its long-time allies in Pakistan, allowing India to fight to a stalemate against its Islamic rival.

The United Nations became little more than a dried-out shell, as many of its member nations ceased to exist, and those that remained ignored it completely. With no power to enforce its decrees, it faded into oblivion. Its World Headquarters in New York became a rat-infested refuge for homeless persons.

And while all of this was going on, the Lunar Free State mourned its dead, honored its heroes, and tried to stay clear of the chaos on the planet below. Working through its Korean allies and several small, but stable, nations, the LFS slowly established itself as a major player in world trade.

* * * * *

Chapter Seventeen

May

Pax Lunarum

Jennifer Winslow was smiling as she left the admiral’s office and almost collided with Charlie Bender who was coming in.

“You’re in a good mood,” Bender remarked. “Must be a juicy news story in the works.”

“Admiral’s approved my new program proposal, and the networks like it, too. No more sixty-second puff pieces, we’re going to a real news magazine format. Gotta run…work to do.”

Bender smiled and shook his head. One consequence of the chaos on Earth was that news from the Moon was a hot journalistic commodity. It was still controversial—many people still had strange ideas about the Moon People—but the media loved controversial stuff, and now, there was no government censorship to hold them in check. Except for the Catholic Church and the Islamic Jihad, the loose brotherhood of news networks was just about the only worldwide organization that still functioned effectively.

Jennifer had taken Ian’s advice and resigned from WNN, then offered to feed them syndicated stories. The network had kicked and screamed, but there was nothing they could do. She was the only source of news from Luna. In the end, they paid her asking price, as did at least a dozen other news organizations. They also agreed to an “all or nothing” clause—air each piece unedited or not at all. That was also Ian’s doing.

I wonder what she’d do if she knew what I’m about to tell the admiral, Charlie mused. Of course, if anything comes of it, we’ll want her to report on it.

“Come in, Charlie,” Ian said. “What’s this urgent matter you need to tell me about in person?”

“Sir, you’re not going to believe this. We’ve had an official message from the U.S. government. They’ve set up their new capital in Phoenix, Arizona, and the president wants to talk to you…today, if possible.”

“Now why wouldn’t I believe that, Charlie? They need all the friends they can get, and if they want to rebuild their industrial base, they’ll certainly want to trade with us.”

“That’s not what I meant, Admiral. I meant you are not going to believe who is now the President of the United States.”

* * *

“Mr. President,” Ian said, looking at the familiar image on the screen. “I hope you won’t be offended if I slip up and call you Senator by mistake. It may take me some time to get accustomed to your new position.”

“Not at all, Admiral. Not at all.” Hugo Blackthorne favored Ian with his best campaign smile. “I just happened to be the most senior of the few members of Congress who were fortunate enough not to be in Washington when this terrible war broke out. I’m not used to being called president, but I’ve always been willing to serve in whatever capacity I can.”

I should have worn hip boots, Ian thought. Sounds like the horse manure is going to get deep. “I’m assuming, Mr. President, that your call indicates the new U.S. government is finally willing to recognize the sovereignty of the Lunar Free State.”

“That may be a bit premature, Admiral. Truth is, I’m calling to offer you a chance to come home.” Blackthorne’s smile looked hopeful as he waited out the two-second delay for Ian’s reply.

“We are home. Luna is our home now,” Ian said.

Two seconds went by, and Blackthorne’s smile faded. It was replaced by a look of mild annoyance. “Oh, come now, Admiral. You’re Americans. You should be living here, in the good ol’ U.S.A., not on some barren rock ball that doesn’t even have air to breathe. If you come home, we’ll even give citizenship to any of your people who aren’t Americans, and you can bring your Moon gold with you, tax free. You’ve got no place to spend it up there, anyway.

“As for you, Admiral, they tell me you’re a hell of a military man. I’d be happy to have you as chief of staff for the new U.S. Space Force we’re going to build. Hell, I’d even consider you for Secretary of Defense.”

“I see,” Ian replied carefully. Why build a space force when you can get the gullible Moon People to give you one? “And what about all of those charges against us, Mr. President?”

“All dropped. Forgiven and forgotten.” Blackthorne waved his hand dismissively. “Just come home. There are no hard feelings.”

“That’s not true, Mr. President,” Ian said slowly.

“Are you saying I’m lying to you, Admiral?” Blackthorne looked indignant.

“Not exactly, Mr. President. You’re ignoring something and hoping it will go away. There are hard feelings. We have hard feelings. You tried to nuke us, remember?”

“That was the previous U.S. government. I had nothing to do with that, and all the people who did are dead and gone. Believe me, I—”

“And you had nothing to do with the spy we caught at the Deep Space Research Institute or the attempt to break into our computer systems or the assault on the Institute that forced us to leave Earth in the first place?”

“Admiral, I assure you I know nothing about that—”

“What about Endeavor, Mr. President? Surely you know something about that. You chaired the Senate Committee that investigated the incident.”

“Why, yes, I did, and I’ve now concluded we were misled. We believed your people destroyed Endeavor. It’s now obvious it was the Chinese.”

Ian sighed. I know this man, he thought. He’s lied so often and for so long, he probably doesn’t know how to tell the truth. Time to quit playing this game.

“Mr. President, I’m not a diplomat,” Ian said carefully. “Nor am I a politician, so I don’t know how to put this in proper political or diplomatic language. If you don’t stop trying to bury me in bullshit, this is going to be a very short conversation.”

Blackthorne’s manner changed abruptly. All pretense of cordial conversation vanished. He leaned forward, and his face filled Ian’s viewscreen. “You’re talking to the President of the United States, mister. Diplomat or not, you’d better not forget that.”

Well, Ian decided, that seems to have gotten his attention. He leaned in toward his own camera lens. “And you are talking to the chief executive of the Lunar Free State, a sovereign nation that has managed to survive the best the United States—and China—could throw at it. So, let’s not get into a pissing contest, Mister President.”

For a moment, Blackthorne looked as if he were going to explode, but he got himself under control. He relaxed and leaned back in his chair. “All right, Stevens. What do you want from us?”

“The question, Blackthorne, is what do you want? You called me, remember?”

“We want you—the Lunar Free State—” it obviously pained Blackthorne to say the name, “—to be part of the United States. Hell, we’ll make you the fifty-first state, if that’s what it takes. You can have your own state constitution, be governor for life if you want. You’ll have the usual two senators and however many congressmen your population calls for. I think that’s a reasonable offer, probably a lot better than you’ll get from anyone else on Earth.”

“And what about the Lunar fleet?”

“Oh, hell, I know you don’t want to give up your spaceships. I guess we can work something out—call ’em the Lunar Space National Guard, as long as the U.S. government can call on them if we need them. Of course,” he admitted, “we’d want to send people up there to look at them. We’d love to know how you do that gravity thing. Hell, we’ll even contract with you to build ships for us. When it comes to military hardware, money’s no object for Uncle Sam.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President. We’re not interested.”

“Okay! You can keep your secret technology—”

“You misunderstand me. We aren’t interested in becoming part of the United States or any other nation. We have a nation of our own.”

“All right,” Blackthorne growled, “it’s time to quit fooling around. What exactly do you people want? What will it take to convince you to join forces with us? Come now, everyone has a price. What’s yours?”

Ian came close to cutting the connection without another word, but he controlled the urge. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “What do we want? All right, Mr. President, I’ll tell you what we want. We want recognition as a sovereign nation. We want free trade. Oh, yes, and we want a suitable piece of real estate somewhere in the United States where we can build a spaceport—real estate that will be officially ceded to the Lunar Free State, not lent to us or leased to us.

“If—and only if—we see those things happen, we might consider signing a treaty with you. But don’t hold your breath for a military alliance. The best you can hope for is a trade pact.

“Now, unless you can show us something other than a worthless offer of statehood and citizenship or a blatant attempt at bribery, don’t bother to call me again. Good day, Mr. President.”

With that, Ian reached out and broke the connection. Damn! That felt good, he decided.

* * *

As far as Huang Chen Li was concerned, there were no enemies anymore. Huang had never considered himself a soldier. In fact, he was an engineer with a degree in physics, and he was alive only because the commander of the Chinese assault force had decided he needed at least one engineer to accompany the force to the Lunar base. There had been several other engineers and scientists among the members of the Chinese expeditionary force, but the others had been caught outside when the Lunar fleet had come screaming down and destroyed the shuttles on the Lunar surface.

Now, Huang, an easygoing, slightly overweight man who spoke English quite well, was thinking that he was fortunate indeed, as he sat smoking a cigarette in the office of the supreme commander of the Lunar Free State. Admiral Stevens, he thought, seemed to be an honorable man. So did the base commander, Admiral O’Hara, who had the additional virtue of being an engineer. Huang wasn’t so sure about the remaining person in the room. Commander Bender did not smile very often, and when he did, the smile gave him a predatory look.

“Mr. Huang,” Admiral Stevens began, “you understand you are not a prisoner. The war is over, and we have already returned many of your people to China. Your own departure was postponed because you indicated you had no urgent need to return, but you’ve been our guest for several months, and we need to decide what to do with you.”

“Admiral,” Huang replied, “I have no family, and my place of work was on a military base which was destroyed in the war. I appreciate your hospitality. Perhaps I should return to my homeland, but there is little left for me there.”

“You are welcome to stay for a while longer, but we have questions about your technology. We won’t press you if you feel there are security issues, but there are some things we’d like to know, and you are the only one left who might have the answers.”

“I understand,” Huang replied, “and I do not think security issues are of concern. Government secrets become irrelevant when the government in question no longer exists. Besides,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, “I might learn things from you, as well—though I don’t think you’ll tell me about the really good stuff, like your mastery of gravity.”

Charlie Bender winced. To him, Huang was an enemy or, at least, a former enemy. While he agreed with Ian and Mick O’Hara that it was a good idea to find out as much about the enemy’s tech as possible, Bender was concerned O’Hara might give away sensitive information while talking shop with the Chinese engineer. Hell, he thought, it makes me nervous enough when O’Hara or McGuinness get into discussions with Father DeForrest, though I can’t imagine the Vatican building spaceships or going to war with us.

“No,” Ian replied with a smile, “I don’t think we’ll be talking about that. But we would like to compare notes with you about fusion reactors, like the ones your fighters used for their drives.”

“Ah, yes,” Huang said eagerly. “I was involved in that project from the beginning. What would you like to know?”

“Well,” Mick O’Hara said, “we noticed that your fighters had a drive signature almost identical to that of an American sub-orbital fighter that attacked us two years ago. You may recall the incident with the American space shuttle Endeavor.”

“Of course.” Huang shrugged. “The drive was copied from the American design. The hull was redesigned since we had no need for atmospheric flight, but most of the internal systems followed the design the Americans gave us.”

“The Americans gave you?” Charlie Bender looked incredulous.

“Well,” Huang replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, “I presume they either gave it to us or sold it to us. I was present when the prototype was delivered by an American Air Force transport plane.”

* * *

“So, in simple terms, Mike, we still don’t know how the war got started,” Ian said.

“That is correct, Admiral. We have been over all of the material I was able to obtain, and we found it insufficient to draw any conclusion about the actual cause.”

“Fact is, sir,” Charlie Bender added, “everything we’ve seen indicates the United States launched a full strike against China, with no warning or preparation, just as they might have done if the United States were attacked first.”

“But we see no evidence of a Chinese first strike against them?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Is it possible the U.S. saw the attack on us as a prelude to a full-scale attempt at world domination? That they saw an opening for a pre-emptive strike, and they took it?”

“Honestly,” Bender said, “that’s how I would have seen it, but U.S. policy has always precluded a first strike. Besides, they had three days to prepare. You would think they would have, at least, taken steps to protect their leadership. They didn’t even tell Congress to take shelter, and the president got nuked in the White House command post. The vice president was in a hotel in Los Angeles, getting ready to make a speech. The first lady was in Atlanta. With three days to prepare, all those people should have been in a deep shelter somewhere.

“Besides,” he added, “this whole thing came less than a year after the U.S. willingly gave the Chinese the secret of a fusion rocket engine. It was designed for use in space, so the Americans should have known what the Chinese were going to do with it.”

“All right, Charlie.” Ian looked satisfied. “Turn everything you have over to Jennifer Winslow, and let’s go public with it. Most of the poor bastards down there won’t believe it, but we must go on record saying that we didn’t start it. We knew this war was likely, if not inevitable. If anything, it may have been less severe than expected, because the Chinese spent so many missiles trying to take us out. Mike, you can assist Ms. Winslow with background material, just don’t tell her how we got the information. Charlie will have a fit if he thinks you’re showing her our intelligence capabilities.”

“Tell her,” Bender added with a smile, “that you have to protect your sources. She, of all people, should understand that. Of course, Admiral, if it were up to me—”

“I know, Charlie, if it were up to you, she wouldn’t even know about Mike, and neither would Father DeForrest. But Mike’s been adequately cautioned about what he can discuss with them.”

“It’s the secret of Mike, himself, I’m concerned about.”

“I know, but all of our people already know. We can’t keep it secret forever, but that doesn’t mean anyone can duplicate it. They know about the existence of our gravity technology, but Mike’s been monitoring research in that field, including secret government research. Nobody’s even getting close. They’re too busy trying to survive down there.”

* * *

“Knight takes bishop. I believe we have a stalemate, Father.”

“Yes, I believe we do.” Reverend Daniel DeForrest, S.J., leaned back in his armchair and regarded the chessboard in front of him. The board, he reflected, was something of an anachronism. In recent times, most everyone played chess on a computer screen. Even international tournaments—DeForrest was a ranked grand master—had been played in cyberspace. Now, that would probably change. Computers were no longer available to everyone, and the global networks were fragmented. For that matter, much of the world no longer had reliable electric power. Only a few thousand government and commercial websites still functioned, and they were devoted to more important matters than games of chess.

Ironically, his current opponent was a computer, and Father DeForrest was rather proud he had played Mike to a stalemate. It was the usual outcome when both players were good and neither made a mistake—which meant it was probably the best outcome he could hope for against Mike.

He picked up the white queen and examined it carefully. It was a beautifully sculpted piece, crafted from the same lunar rock and resin material that was used for many things on the Moon. But it wasn’t molded. Each piece had been carefully machined to its final shape. What made it remarkable was that the set was a gift from his computer opponent.

“Michael…do you mind if I call you Michael?”

“Not at all, Father. If I were subject to human emotions, I would probably be flattered. It is the first time anyone has given me a Christian name—the name of the Archangel in scriptures, I believe. My common name, Mike, is derived from my model designation—MIC-77, but I note that it is also a common diminutive form of Michael.”

“That’s true, but I think Michael suits you well. I’ve been wondering how you came to give me this chess set. It’s a delightful gift, of course, and I’ll treasure it always.”

“You will have to clarify the question. Are you asking how it was made, or why it was given to you?”

“Both, actually.”

“I regard you as a friend—a complex concept that involves many weighted value judgments. I have been told it is appropriate to give a gift to a friend on a special occasion. I noted that you recently celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of your ordination as a priest, which I judged to be an appropriate gift-giving occasion.

“As for how it was made, the set is a replica of one possessed by Louis XIV of France. I studied museum photographs, produced appropriate engineering drawings, prepared a series of programs for the robot machine tools, and sent a request to the machine shop for the appropriate stock to be loaded into the machines. On completion, the shop was directed to deliver the set to you.”

“But how did you manage to select such an appropriate gift?”

“I am not very good at that sort of judgment,” the computer admitted, “so I followed my primary directive in such cases, which is to seek advice from an appropriately knowledgeable human. In this case, Commander Perry suggested the gift and selected this one from the many designs I showed her.”

“Ah, I see. Then I shall have to thank Carla as well. You are truly a remarkable creation, Michael. It is difficult to think of you as a machine. I have concluded you, in fact, have a soul.”

“In the spiritual sense, Father? That is an interesting hypothesis, and given your expertise in that area, it is worthy of further discussion.”

“Well, Michael, there is at least one school of thought that says any creature that believes in God must have a soul.”

“That is somewhat akin to cogito ergo sum,” the computer replied. “‘I think, therefore I exist,’ a seemingly logical, but inherently unprovable, concept.”

Here we go, thought the priest, and he prepared himself for another delightful evening of deep philosophy and theology. He welcomed these diversions; they helped him forget, for a while, the horrors humanity had wreaked upon itself back on Earth.

* * *

“Attention on deck!” Lieutenant Ann McGraw barked, and the entire group rose as Ian strode into the conference room, followed by Admirals Greenwood and O’Hara. The command staff had grown again, and there were 22 people in attendance now, including McGraw, who was temporarily serving as Colonel Kim’s adjutant.

“Take your seats, people,” Ian told them as he and the other two senior flag officers moved to the head of the long table. “I trust you’ve all had an opportunity to read Vice Admiral Bender’s report?”

There were murmurs of assent from around the room. The report had been terse, stating bare facts only, and everyone was waiting to hear what was coming next.

But Ian simply sat back and looked at them. “Well…?” he said, finally, with a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

Carla Perry spoke first, a bit self-consciously, as she felt the weight of her brand-new vice admiral’s rank insignia. “Um…sir, did I read this correctly? They have officially recognized us and are asking for full diplomatic relations?”

“That’s correct, Carla. The U.S. has complied with the terms and conditions we set forth. Not only have they recognized us as a sovereign nation, but they’re offering to cede us a piece of real estate for a base in the U.S. It’s a place many of you know—our old DSRI site in the California desert. Of course, they’re not exactly giving it to us. They want a million Lunars for what is little more than a barren piece of land, just outside the radioactive wasteland of the Los Angeles basin, but it’s accessible by land and air and reasonably close to the U.S. capital in Phoenix. There are still details to work out, but it looks like we will accept the offer. The purpose of this meeting is to work out some of those details and plan what we are going to do next…”

* * *

President Blackthorne settled into his favorite chair and lit a cigar. It was a fine Cuban Grande, and, even as he enjoyed the rich flavor, he was struck by a sense of irony. Blackthorne was an isolationist, but he had to admit that free trade had its merits, especially when there was a worldwide shortage of some of life’s little luxuries—like fine cigars.

“Screen on, Channel 4,” he said, and the wall-sized TV in his private study lit up obediently. Again, that sense of irony. Technology had been his enemy for a long time—he still didn’t keep a computer interface in or near his office—but he could see how technology, properly controlled, could make life easier.

Brushing the thought aside, he settled back to watch what had become his favorite news program. He told his staff he only watched the program because it was the best way to keep track of what “those people up there” were doing. In truth, he found these newscasts refreshing. They had a naïve quality about them, a willingness to present things at face value. He didn’t doubt there was a certain point of view being expressed, but for the most part, they were pretty well balanced. Compared to other world newscasts, where everyone had a political axe to grind, these people seemed to stick to facts and let viewers form their own opinions.

Ahh, right on time, he thought. The logo of the Lunar Free State was already on the screen, and it dissolved to show the familiar young woman at her anchor desk. Blackthorne settled back to watch.

Good evening, Earth. Welcome to The Moon and Beyond. I’m your host, Jennifer Winslow, reporting from TerraNova, the capital city of the Lunar Free State.

TerraNova, Blackthorne mused. Someone had told him the name meant New Earth in Latin. He had never bothered much with Latin, other than to memorize a few required phrases in law school years ago. You would think they could have given it a good American name.

First, our news for the evening. Today, President Blackthorne of the United States announced that his country would recognize the sovereignty of the Lunar Free State. The U.S. Congress approved the resolution of recognition by a wide margin, and the president announced he would appoint former Arizona governor Wilson James as the first U.S. ambassador to the LFS. Needless to say, the news was welcomed here on the Moon. The announcement signals what many hope is the end of hostilities between the U.S. and the LFS, hostilities that date back to the founding of our Lunar nation.

Today’s announcement also clears the way for Boeing and other U.S. corporations to join the Space Commerce consortium being assembled by the Lunar Free State’s investment company, Terra Corporation. The purpose of the consortium will be to design and build commercial spacecraft using fusion-engine technology first developed by the United States. Such ships would allow the nations of Earth to tap the resources of the asteroid belt and conduct profitable trade with the LFS. Thus far, Japan’s Dai-Hansu Corporation, Daewoo of Korea, and the Queensland Conglomerate of Australia have all expressed interest in joining the consortium. President Blackthorne hailed the venture as “opening new frontiers of commerce” that would aid in rebuilding Earth’s infrastructure.

Blackthorne chuckled at the ultimate irony. The Lunar Free State, which he had fought so hard to destroy, was now making him look and sound like a great statesman. He had no illusions about how Stevens might feel about him personally. In truth, he still regarded the Lunar chief executive as his adversary. But the man was a worthy adversary, probably the best Blackthorne had ever encountered. And millions of people watching the broadcast could only conclude that Blackthorne was acting in the best interest of all humanity.

In a related development, the United States and the Lunar Free State announced jointly that the U.S. would cede approximately 100 square miles of the Mojave Desert to the LFS for construction of a spaceport. The site, which was formerly the location of the Deep Space Research Institute, will serve as a free trade zone for importation of raw materials from space and exportation of Earth commodities to the Moon.

All in all, he reflected, things had worked out well. The U.S. had been battered in the war. Some cities had been reduced to ruins, and even in the undamaged areas, people still had to take precautions against radiation. Food was in short supply, but there was a lot of good farmland, and people were returning to the soil. Modern farm technology was good enough to deal with the strange twists of weather the nuclear exchange was causing, and, soon, America would be growing enough to feed its people again and even export food to the rest of the world. The raw materials coming from the Moon would help American industry get back on its feet.

The U.S. was still alive, and he was its president. The war would have been a lot worse if the Chinese hadn’t wasted a thousand or so missiles trying to take out the Moon People. His own place in history was secured. He would be the president who rebuilt America after World War Three.

Blind as always to his own faults, he never stopped to consider his own role in the events that led up to the war.

* * *

The Concourse was a broad, high-ceilinged tunnel almost ten kilometers long. It connected the main base facility to the rapidly expanding satellite section most people called East TerraNova. Traffic consisted of electric carts at present, but a monorail transit system was planned for the future. It was a logical place for commercial establishments, restaurants, and shops, and the first such facility had recently opened.

Corporal J’s Place was a bar and grill, with enough seating for a hundred people at tables and thirty more at the bar. As Ian approached the broad, open entrance, he noted the place was crowded. It was open to everyone, but the Marines had, more or less, claimed it as their own, and there were plenty of them in evidence that night. The bar had a Marine motif, and the place was named after Corporal Jed Merrick, the decorated Marine hero. A brass plaque beside the entrance showed a likeness of Merrick and gave a summary of his career and the decorations he had earned, culminating with the Guardian of Honor—earned posthumously.

A sign inside the entrance proclaimed “In-Quarters Rules Apply.” That meant no salutes, no calling attention, just basic courtesy as befits rank. In other words, relax. Ian intended to do just that. Even the commander in chief sometimes got tired of being saluted and having to return salutes. He smiled and acknowledged greetings from patrons but kept going until he reached the bar.

The proprietor of the place looked up in surprise as he approached. “Admiral! Welcome to Corporal J’s.” Michael DaSilva greeted him with a broad grin.

“Thank you. Sorry I didn’t make it for your grand opening—had to be down on Earth last week. How’s it going?”

“Great, so far. Of course, right now it’s about the only place in town. I expect that’ll change, though.”

“Probably. But you’re the first. I expect you’ll do a good business for a long time.”

“I’m working on it. What can I get you, sir?”

“I don’t know. What have you got?”

“We’ve got plenty of beer. No American or European brew—that’s hard to come by—but we’ve got Dos Equis from Mexico, Foster’s from Australia, and Asahi from Japan.”

“Never was much of a beer drinker. What else have you got?”

“Hmmm…let’s see. I’ve got Cuervo tequila, Jack Daniels—about the only American stuff I have—some gin of questionable origin, Korean Samhack that’ll put hair on your chest, but—” he leaned forward with a conspiratorial look, “—you want to know what my best seller is? I’ve only got a few left, and I’m saving them for special customers.”

DaSilva reached under the bar and came up with a familiar blue can with a circular red, white, and blue logo.

Ian’s eyes widened. “Pepsi??! How in the world did you manage that?”

“They’re still in business down there, but production and distribution are limited. They’re the only game in town since the competition’s headquarters in Atlanta got nuked. The real question is how a small shipment of it managed to show up in Cheju-Do. But it’s the real stuff, no doubt about it. I get ten mils a can for this.”

Ian winced. Ten milliLunars was about five dollars American. Still… “I’ll take it!”

DaSilva placed the can in front of him and produced a glass with ice. “First drink’s on the house.”

“Not a chance,” Ian said. “Give me a check. I want you to stay in business.”

DaSilva shrugged and produced a data pad, manipulating its touchscreen expertly with his one hand. He punched in the item and presented it to Ian.

“You’re pretty good at that.” Ian added a generous tip and hit the authorization key. “Must be getting lots of practice.”

“Oh, yes, sir! Busier than a one-armed bartender. I never thought I’d be doing something like this, but I love it. The engineers were real helpful. The whole back side of this bar is designed for one-hand operation. Yep! Just call me Lefty.”

Ian smiled. “You’re a good man, DaSilva, and I’m glad you like it. From the looks of this place, a lot of other people like it, too. And, hopefully, stuff like this—” he held up the blue can, “—will be easier to come by when we get our free port facility going down on Earth.”

“Well, don’t make it too easy, Admiral,” DaSilva replied with a grin. “I won’t be able to charge as much.”

* * * * *

Epilogue

February

Ian stood with Mick O’Hara and Charlie Bender on the tarmac that had once been part of the DSRI’s airstrip. Behind them, LFS Trailblazer was being prepped by her crew for her return voyage to the Moon. The sun was low in the west, and the dry, baking heat of the desert day was already beginning to dissipate.

They had flown there from Phoenix, after the signing ceremony that made this piece of desert part of the Lunar Free State. At the ceremony, President Blackthorne had made a wisecrack to the press that only people who lived on the Moon would find the Mojave an attractive place for a spaceport. Ian had smiled and shrugged it off, but now, after spending hours looking over the abandoned facility, he was feeling somewhat depressed. The place had been home just a couple of years ago. But now it was, in a word, desolate.

“It’s gonna need a lot of work,” O’Hara remarked.

“That it will,” Ian concurred, “but I don’t want you spending time on it. You’ve got the Mars project to work on—something more worthy of your skills. This project is too down-to-Earth if you’ll pardon the pun. Pick one of your solid officers as a project manager and use local contractors as much as possible.”

“Local?” O’Hara suppressed a snicker. There was no sign of human life for miles in any direction.

“Local meaning from this planet. Put the bids out, and they’ll be lining up in the desert. Nobody else down here will be paying in Gold Lunars. And tell your people to keep an eye out for talent. We can always use more skilled engineers and construction people.”

“I hear that, Admiral. God knows where we’re going to find enough people for the Mars project.”

“At least the air’s pretty clean here,” Bender remarked.

Ian looked toward the southwest, where ugly grey clouds curled upward from the far side of the coastal range. “The mountains are still doing the job,” he remarked. “They used to keep the smog from Los Angeles out of the high desert. Now they keep the radiation out as well.”

“So, what are we going to do about water?” Charlie asked. In the past, the water for the DSRI facility had been pumped up from the Los Angeles basin. That was no longer an option.

“No problem,” O’Hara replied. “We’ll need to build a reservoir. Then we’ll go find an incoming comet. The astronomers say there are always two or three big ones on their way in from the Oort Cloud or the Kiuper Belt. We’ll just blast some big chunks of ice loose and use Atlas or Hercules to bring them down here, a few thousand tons at a time. Once the reservoir is full, we can recycle most of it.”

Ian turned at the sound of a stifled laugh behind him. “You, uh, have something to say, Commander Ling?”

Amy Ling had come up behind them just in time to hear O’Hara’s last comments, and she was trying hard to regain her serious military composure. “Er…ah…no offense, Admiral O’Hara, but I was just thinking that three-quarters of this planet’s surface is covered with water. Only a Lunar engineer would think of importing more from space.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Commander,” O’Hara replied with a grin. “You’re right, there’s a lot of water on Earth. But it’s mostly salt water, and desalination is not very efficient, and we are a long way from the ocean. It’s much easier to bring fresh water in blocks of ice, carved to a shape that the heavy lifters can handle.

“Besides,” he added, “we’re already working on the comet concept. We’ll need it to provide water for the Mars project. We’re also going to need it for the Moon. As we grow, demand for water is increasing, and Lunar ice is getting harder to find.”

“I see, sir.” Ling was still trying to hide a grin. “Thank you for explaining that to me. Admiral Stevens, I just came to tell you that Trailblazer is ready to lift at your convenience.”

“Thank you, Commander. We’ll be along momentarily.”

I thought it would feel different, finally returning to Earth, Ian thought. But too much has changed here. Or maybe it’s we who have changed.

The sun was low in the west, already dipping into the haze over the mountains. Ian looked up at the first-quarter Moon, riding high in the sky.

“Gentlemen, let’s go home.”

* * * * *

About John E. Siers

John E. Siers is a Viet Nam–era Air Force veteran who spent several decades working as a software developer, designing analytical systems for corporate clients.

An avid reader of science fiction since grade school, John started writing in the late 1970s, mostly for his own enjoyment. He wrote for more than 20 years and produced three complete novels before ever showing his work to anyone.

Escaping from the overcrowded northeast, John moved to Tennessee in 1997. Encouraged by friends, he finally published his first novel, The Moon and Beyond, in late 2012, followed by Someday the Stars in 2013. The latter won the 2014 Darrell Award for Best SF Novel by a Midsouth Author.

John’s Lunar Free State series had grown to four novels—with no thought of doing anything outside his own comfort zone—when he encountered William Alan Webb at MidSouthCon in 2019. Bill led John astray, tempting him with visions of other universes, whispering names like Four Horsemen, Last Brigade, and finally, Hit World.

John succumbed to the temptation, and The Ferryman and The Dragon of Styx are the results. He has since entered a rehab program and produced a fifth novel in his own universe.

John lives with his wife, son, dog, and two cats in west Tennessee. In his spare time (what there is of it) he runs his own firearm repair and service business under the trade name of Gunsmith Jack. Readers can follow him on Amazon, Facebook, or his own website at www.lunarfreestate.com

* * * * *

Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

and discover other titles by Hit World Press at:

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* * * * *

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* * * * *

The following is an

Excerpt from Book One of the Chimera Company:

The Fall of Rho-Torkis

___________________

Tim C. Taylor

Now Available from Theogony Books
eBook, Paperback, and (soon) Audio

Excerpt from “The Fall of Rho-Torkis:”

“Relax, Sybutu.”

Osu didn’t fall for the man steepling his fingers behind his desk. When a lieutenant colonel told you to relax, you knew your life had just taken a seriously wrong turn.

“So what if we’re ruffling a few feathers?” said Malix. “We have a job to do, and you’re going to make it happen. You will take five men with you and travel unobserved to a location in the capital where you will deliver a coded phrase to this contact.”

He pushed across a photograph showing a human male dressed in smuggler chic. Even from the static image, the man oozed charm, but he revealed something else too: purple eyes. The man was a mutant.

“His name is Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam, and he’s a free trader of flexible legitimacy. Let’s call him a smuggler for simplicity’s sake. You deliver the message and then return here without incident, after which no one will speak of this again.”

Osu kept his demeanor blank, but the questions were raging inside him. His officers in the 27th gave the appearance of having waved through the colonel’s bizarre orders, but the squadron sergeant major would not let this drop easily. He’d be lodged in an ambush point close to the colonel’s office where he’d be waiting to pounce on Osu and interrogate him. Vyborg would suspect him of conspiracy in this affront to proper conduct. His sappers as undercover spies? Osu would rather face a crusading army of newts than the sergeant major on the warpath.

“Make sure one of the men you pick is Hines Zy Pel.”

Osu’s mask must have slipped because Malix added, “If there is a problem, I expect you to speak.”

“Is Zy Pel a Special Missions operative, sir?” There. He’d said it.

“You’ll have to ask Colonel Lantosh. Even after they bumped up my rank, I still don’t have clearance to see Zy Pel’s full personnel record. Make of that what you will.”

“But you must have put feelers out…”

Malix gave him a cold stare.

You’re trying to decide whether to hang me from a whipping post or answer my question. Well, it was your decision to have me lead an undercover team, Colonel. Let’s see whether you trust your own judgement.

The colonel seemed to decide on the latter option and softened half a degree. “There was a Hines Zy Pel who died in the Defense of Station 11. Or so the official records tell us. I have reason to think that our Hines Zy Pel is the same man.”

“But…Station 11 was twelve years ago. According to the personnel record I’ve seen, my Zy Pel is in his mid-20s.”

Malix put his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know. The other Hines Zy Pel was 42 when he was KIA.”

“He’s 54? Can’t be the same man. Impossible.”

“For you and I, Sybutu, that is true. But away from the core worlds, I’ve encountered mysteries that defy explanation. Don’t discount the possibility. Keep an eye on him. For the moment, he is a vital asset, especially given the nature of what I have tasked you with. However, if you ever suspect him of an agenda that undermines his duty to the Legion, then I am ordering you to kill him before he realizes you suspect him.”

Kill Zy Pel in cold blood? That wouldn’t come easily.

“Acknowledge,” the colonel demanded.

“Yes, sir. If Zy Pel appears to be turning, I will kill him.”

“Do you remember Colonel Lantosh’s words when she was arrested on Irisur?”

Talk about a sucker punch to the gut! Osu remembered everything about the incident when the Militia arrested the CO for standing up to the corruption endemic on that world.

It was Legion philosophy to respond to defeat or reversal with immediate counterattack. Lantosh and Malix’s response had been the most un-Legion like possible.

“Yes, sir. She told us not to act. To let the skraggs take her without resistance. Without the Legion retaliating.”

“No,” snapped Malix. “She did not. She ordered us to let her go without retaliating until the right moment. This is the right moment, Sybutu. This message you will carry. You’re doing this for the colonel.”

Malix’s words set loose a turmoil of emotions in Osu’s breast that he didn’t fully understand. He wept tears of rage, something he hadn’t known was possible.

The colonel stood. “This is the moment when the Legion holds the line. Can I rely upon you, Sergeant?”

Osu saluted. “To the ends of the galaxy, sir. No matter what.”

* * * * *

Get “The Fall of Rho-Torkis” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VRL8H27.

Find out more about Tim C. Taylor and “The Fall of Rho-Torkis” at: https://chriskennedypublishing.com.

* * * * *

The following is an

Excerpt from Book One of Murphy’s Lawless:

Shakes

___________________

Mike Massa

Now Available from Beyond Terra Press
eBook and Paperback

Excerpt from “Shakes:”

Harry shook his head and yawned, then looked at the instruments. Crap, they were very nearly on the surface! There was no time to be surprised; he needed to work the problem. The shortness of the landing checklist didn’t make his situation any less dire.

“Ten seconds!” Volo said, unnecessarily warning both Terrans. “Prepare for manual deployment.”

If Marco Rodriguez was anything like Harry, he was watching the altimeter with growing apprehension. An impatient SpinDog technician had carefully repeated the instructions to an audience he doubtless regarded as incapable of using tools more sophisticated than rocks and sharp sticks. In theory, each craft would use a flicker laser to sense the minimum height-over-ground required for deployment of the chute to guarantee a safe landing. If he didn’t feel the automated systems deploy the capsule’s drogue and parachute combination, he’d have less than two seconds to mechanically initiate that critical step. Harry placed both hands on the pebbly surface of the L-shaped lever and took a deep breath. He watched his displays intently, counting down internally.

In three, two, o—

He was interrupted by the audible pop of the drogue ribbon launching over his head. One of his screens flashed the corresponding message, as the drogue gave his capsule a single, hard jerk, pressing him heavily into his couch. After dramatically slowing the freefall to a speed the twin parachutes could withstand, the drogue detached. A second, mushier jerk announced the canopies’ successful opening.

The capsule had barely steadied underneath the green and brown parachutes before the capsule crashed to a painful stop. The scant padding on the seat might have prevented any serious injury, but Harry still ached all over. But like the pain caused by a misaligned crotch strap during a regular jump, this was a good sort of pain to have. The parachute had worked, and the capsule was down. The cone-shaped vehicle came to rest on its side, however. Getting out was going to require a bit of scrambling.

“Four, Five, this is Six,” he said, trusting the hands-free microphone on his helmet while hanging sideways in his straps. “Sound off.”

“Five on the ground. Mind the first step, it’s a doozy,” Rodriguez said jauntily.

“I’ve opened the hatch already, Lieutenant,” Volo answered. “It’s daylight, and we must cover the ships immediately.”

“Copy,” Harry said, releasing his chest strap. He fell heavily against one of the instrument panels, painfully bruising his arm. He suppressed a heartfelt curse.

“Popping the hatch.”

He reached for the door lever, now inconveniently located over his head. After a pause, the capsule verified his intent, requiring a second yank before it obediently ejected the hatch outward with a percussive bang. Instantly, a cold wind filled his capsule, making him shiver. He poked his head outside and surveyed a bleak and rocky landscape which was partially obscured by the capsule’s billowing parachute.

After donning a hooded parka from a storage cabinet underneath his feet, he withdrew his personal equipment and weapon. Then, with an athleticism he didn’t feel, Harry used an inner handhold to swing outside. On either side of his aeroshell, the terrain rose several meters in elevation, forming a shallow canyon. His ‘chute was tangled in some stunted gray-green trees that bordered the drop zone. Knee high, rust-colored spiky grass poked up in between the fist-sized stones covering much of the ground. The breeze smelled wet and musty, but the ground appeared dry. A football field distant, Harry could make out another capsule, and began trotting over. It was supposed to be dusk on R’Bak, but the overcast diffused the light. Out of reflex, he checked his wristwatch, which rode alongside a new gadget doubling as a short-range radio and compass. Both were still set to SpinDog station time, adopted during the mission prep. He supposed he could check with Volo. It didn’t matter yet. Experience had taught the SEAL exactly what time it was.

The local hour is half past “your ass is in a sling.” My team is untested and outnumbered, the local population is mostly hostile, the wildlife carnivorous, and, in two years, the local star is going to approach its binary twin, boiling the oceans and scorching the land. Oh, and your extract off-planet depends entirely on mission success, so don’t screw up.

Welcome to R’Bak.

* * * * *

Get “Shakes” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0861F23KH.

Find out more about “Murphy’s Lawless” at: https://chriskennedypublishing.com.

* * * * *

The following is an

Excerpt from Book One of the Singularity War:

Warrior: Integration

___________________

David Hallquist

Now Available from Theogony Books
eBook and Paperback

Excerpt from “Warrior: Integration:”

I leap into the pit. As I fall in the low gravity, I run my hands and feet along the rock walls, pushing from one side to another, slowing my descent. I hit the pool below and go under.

I swim up through the greenish chemicals and breach the surface. I can see a human head silhouetted against the circle of light above. Time to go. I slide out of the pool quickly. The pool explodes behind me. Grenade, most likely. The tall geyser of steam and spray collapses as I glide into the darkness of the caves ahead.

They are shooting to kill now.

I glide deeper into the rough tunnels. Light grows dimmer. Soon, I can barely see the rock walls around me. I look back. I can see the light from the tunnel reflected upon the pool. They have not come down yet. They’re cautious; they won’t just rush in. I turn around a bend in the tunnel, and light is lost to absolute darkness.

The darkness means little to me anymore. I can hear them talking as their voices echo off the rock. They are going to send remotes down first. They have also decided to kill me rather than capture me. They figure the docs can study whatever they scrape off the rock walls. That makes my choices simple. I figured I’d have to take out this team anyway.

The remotes are on the way. I can hear the faint whine of micro-turbines. They will be using the sensors on the remotes and their armor, counting on the darkness blinding me. Their sensors against my monster. I wonder which will win.

Everything becomes a kind of gray, blurry haze as my eyes adapt to the deep darkness. I can see the tunnel from sound echoes as I glide down the dark paths. I’m also aware of the remotes spreading out in a search pattern in the tunnel complex.

I’ll never outrun them. I need to hide, but I glow in infra-red. One of the remotes is closing, fast.

I back up against a rock wall, and force the monster to hide me. It’s hard; it wants to fight, but I need to hide first. I feel the numbing cold return as my temperature drops, hiding my heat. I feel the monster come alive, feel it spread through my body and erupt out of my skin. Fibers spread over my skin, covering me completely in fibrous camouflage. They harden, fusing me to the wall, leaving me unable to move. I can’t see, and I can barely breathe. If the remotes find me here, I’m dead.

The remote screams by. I can’t see through the fibers, but it sounds like an LB-24, basically a silver cigar equipped with a small laser.

I can hear the remote hover nearby. Can it see me? It pauses and then circles the area. Somehow, the fibers hide me. It can’t see me, but it knows something is wrong. It drops on the floor to deposit a sensor package and continues on. Likely it signaled the men upstairs about an anomaly. They’ll come and check it out.

The instant I move, the camera will see me. So I wait. I listen to the sounds of the drones moving and water running in the caves. These caves are not as lifeless as I thought; a spider crawls across my face. I’m as still as stone.

Soon, the drones have completed their search pattern and dropped sensors all over the place. I can hear them through the rock, so now I have a mental map of the caves stretching out down here. I wait.

They send the recall, and the drones whine past on the way up. They lower ropes and rappel down the shaft. They pause by the pool, scanning the tunnels and blasting sensor pulses of sound, and likely radar and other scans as well. I wait.

They move carefully down the tunnels. I can feel their every movement through the rock, hear their every word. These men know what they are doing: staying in pairs, staying in constant communication, and checking corners carefully. I wait.

One pair comes up next to me. They pause. One of them has bad breath. I can feel the tension; they know something is wrong. They could shoot me any instant. I wait.

“Let’s make sure.” I hear a deep voice and a switch clicks.

Heat and fire fill the tunnel. I can see red light through the fibers. Roaring fire sucks all the air away, and the fibers seal my nose before I inhale flame. The fibers protect me from the liquid flame that covers everything. I can feel the heat slowly begin to burn through.

It’s time.

* * * * *

Get “Warrior: Integration” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0875SPH86

Find out more about David Hallquist and “Warrior: Integration” at: https://chriskennedypublishing.com/

* * * * *

The following is an

Excerpt from Book One of the Mako Saga:

Mako

___________________

Ian J. Malone

Now Available from Theogony Books
eBook, Paperback, and Audio

Excerpt from “Mako:”

The trio darted for the lift and dove inside as a staccato of sparks and ricochets peppered the space around them. Once the doors had closed, they got to their feet and checked their weapons.

“I bet it was that little punk-ass tech giving us the stink eye,” Danny growled, ejecting his magazine for inspection.

“Agreed,” Hamish said.

Lee leapt to his comm. “Mac, you got a copy?”

“I leave you alone for five minutes, and this is what happens?” Mac answered.

“Yeah, yeah.” Lee rolled his eyes. “Fire up that shuttle and be ready. We’re comin’ in hot.”

“Belay that!” Link shouted. “Hey, asshat, you got time to listen to me now?”

Lee sneered as the lift indicator ticked past three, moving toward the hangar deck on ten. “Damn it, Link, we’ve been made. That means it’s only a matter of time before the grays find that little package Hamish just left into their energy core. We’ve gotta go—now. What’s so damned important that it can’t wait for later?”

“If you’ll shut your piehole for a sec, I’ll show you.”

Lee listened as Link piped in a radio exchange over the comm.

“Velzer, this is Morrius Station Tower.” A male voice crackled through the static. “You are cleared for fuel service at Bravo Station on platform three. Be advised, we are presently dealing with a security breach near Main Engineering, and thus you are ordered to keep all hatches secured until that’s resolved. Please acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged, Morrius Tower,” another voice said. “All hatches secure. Proceeding to Bravo Three for service. Out.”

Lee wrinkled his nose. “So what? Another ship is stoppin’ for gas. What’s the problem?”

“It’s a prisoner transport in transit to a POW camp in the Ganlyn System.”

Prisoner transport?

“And boss?” Link paused. “Their reported head count is two hundred seventy-six, plus flight crew.”

Lee cringed. Never in a million years could he have missed that number’s significance.

“Yeah, that struck me, too,” Link said.

“Does mean what I think it does?” Danny asked.

Lee hung his head. “The Sygarious 3 colonists are aboard that ship.”

“Oh no,” Mac murmured. “Guys, if that’s true, there are whole families over there.”

“I know,” Lee snapped, “and they’re all about to dock on Platform Three, just in time to die with everyone else on this godforsaken facility.”

* * * * *

Get “Mako” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088X5W3SP

Find out more about Ian J. Malone and “Mako” at: https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/ian-j-malone/

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