“Surrender? Not at all. You can leave any time you wish. Then if you want to call off the truce and resume, you can. But the only condition under which I can offer a temporary cease-fire, and breathing air, is if I can be assured the hostilities stop in the interim.”
There was a short delay that felt as if it contained a frantic consult.
Arris sounded as if he’d been given orders. “When you relinquish the artifact, all this ends and there’s no harm to anyone.”
“If the artifact exists, I have no information or control or ability to negotiate for it. You need to talk to Control. But if it is real, and you’re going to this much effort over it, I can’t see you leaving people around to talk about it.”
Arris replied, “Why not? Once it’s secure, it doesn’t matter.”
“Am I supposed to assume our scientists here haven’t already analyzed this thing and how it works? If you apparently know what the process is, so do they, and if they’ve had hands on, they may even know how to duplicate it. In any case, this is about you, me, our personnel, and breathing air. Would you like some?”
“We’ll be fine.”
The channel went dead.
“Blast,” he muttered.
“Sir?” Rojas asked.
“I was hoping they were actually low enough to take that deal. It would slow them a bit.”
She said, “They seem pretty sure of themselves.”
“They may be. And that may be because they have more than we think they do, or they’ve miscalculated their resources, or are just putting up a false front. Which is also relevant for us.”
“Act cool?”
“The important thing,” he advised, “is to not admit that we’re running out of options. If they realize we’re out of tricks, they’ll come straight in.”
Malakhar said, “They wouldn’t if they thought they’d die in the process. We do have a bit more explosive.”
“I understand the logic. Control doesn’t want to do it.” Nor, truthfully, did he. A peaceful solution was much to be preferred.
It was near an hour later that the colonel called back.
“Mr. Crawford, I would consider a temporary truce if the offer is still open.”
Sure. “Maybe.”
“I have six troops whose respiration gear was damaged by the dust. I would like to transfer them inside.”
He left a usual pause, then replied, “Certainly. Should I deduce you don’t have that many spare parts handy?”
Arris almost sounded condescending. “You may deduce as you wish. Do we have a deal?”
“Send them to Lock Three. Send your crew there out. I’ll let them in.”
“You understand I may have to use additional force to re-enter that space,” Arris advised.
“You do what you gotta do. We’ll do the same.”
He realized he’d admitted they still had video. Well, almost.
“Colonel, since you saw fit to take out our cameras, I’m going to trust that six and only six troops will enter.”
“That is what I said.”
He opened Lock 3A, and six troops stepped through. He closed it fast. If it wasn’t for the extra lock beyond it, he’d have declined. You could fit a hundred troops inside the Inner Bay. Once he had it closed, he opened 3B.
In they came, visible on the next camera. Six of them. No weapons, no gear at all. Just suits with two-minute emergency bottles protruding from the necks. They unmasked. Five men, one woman, looking very sweaty, disheveled and exhausted.
At Lock 4, there was a lot of shuffling while they figured out to crawl between the wheels of the rollys, up over the pipe between them, back down and between the other side’s wheels, and out. Then they realized there was yet another lock. Their expressions suggested they were not sanguine about their side’s chances. Good.
He nodded and signaled.
Morton and Godin met them and directed them into pressure.
And now he knew where their penetrations were.
While the transfer took place, Godin had bounced an IR illuminator through. The image was very fuzzy, being reconstructed from shadows and reflections, but the computer was able to clarify most of it. Godin pointed at two spots, and Andre asked, “Yes?”
“That is probably a rock-melting drill, that other is an abrasive bit through the metal bulkhead.”
A tiny rolling drone added a minute amount of enhancement. Its aperture was small and its range short, and when 3A closed again, it died. The Ueys must have scramble protocols in place.
Counting, he said, “So, that gives us twelve of their hundred or so as prisoners.”
Godin said, “And we know how to stop the incursion.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Now we fill that space with O2. Specifically, right over where they’re drilling. When they cut through, the flash runs back into their space.”
Andre liked the concept, but . . . “It might kill them.”
“This is a war.”
He thought furiously. “Yeah. It’s not a weapon per se, and it’s defensive in nature, and we might talk our way around it, and goddammit, we have to do something. You’re right. Okay, fab it.”
It wasn’t an unpredictable outcome, was it? But the Ueys drilled and ground. The power cables he’d seen on the scan were heavy and armored. They were running power from the crawler outside.
Was it possible to interfere with that?
He asked.
Morton said, “Well, there are three options. I can trundle down there in a rolly, and try to jam a shearing blade into the conduit. They will probably shoot at us. I doubt we’d die inside the vehicle, but good chance of being captured if we were close when they stopped us. I don’t see how they couldn’t stop us, as obvious as that would be. We could toss some rocks and hope to damage the cable, but that armor is designed to protect against rockfalls, and we’ve only got one-sixth gee in our favor. Rifles might work, but it would depend on range. It would take solid shots to break armor, insulation and conductor.”
Godin said, “It’s a titanium braid inside a fiberglass extrusion, with more fiberglass and double insulation. I don’t think a small-caliber round is going to reliably penetrate. Likely get bound in the mesh. Also, that means LOS.”
Andre said, “Yeah. Indirect fire is preferred. We need some sort of rocket or solvent.”
Godin mumbled, “Solvent . . . or incendiary.”
Rojas said, “Both. Red fuming nitric acid in a butyl balloon, and a binary of that with pure octane. But we don’t have much of the latter.”
That got Andre’s attention. “Can it be ready in time?”
She looked serious and cheerful. “I can damned sure try.”
That left one thing. “How do we deliver?”
“Torsion catapult,” she said. “We’ll have to drag it out of the old emergency escape hatch. Assuming that’s not guarded.”
Godin said, “It might be reasonable to take weapons out that way for self-defense.”
Andre conceded, “Fair enough, but if that’s necessary, you’re coming right back in, not trying to fight through them.”
“Yes,” Godin agreed.
Andre turned back to Rojas. “By the way, how long to make the catapult?”
She grinned. “It’s done. One of the school classes did it as a project and were throwing rocks.”
“Ah. Historical lesson?”
“That, and also physics. They did the math on projectiles and came up with both a table and an algorithm.”
“Well, that would have been useful earlier . . . though possibly not. It would already be taken out. Go to it.”
“On my way,” she agreed. “Rod, Stu, you’re with me.” She started skipping.
Momentarily she came on the suit freq.
“I’m wired in for now,” she said. “I’ve got scramble on radio, but going to assume they can crack that. So listen for me to talk around things if I have to.”
“Good,” Andre agreed.
; “We’re going out the E-hatch, there’s a flat area out there we can launch from that gives us a nice beaten zone diagonally along the conduit. I’m going to throw as much as we have until we get it or the spotter says we’re getting rushed. I’ll be leaving the ’pult outside.”
“That sounds correct and is approved,” he said for record.
She said, “Rod couldn’t find any octane in the chem storage here. I have three of the RFNA and one hydrogen-and-fluorine binary with RFNA to help boost it.”
“One. Well, make them count.”
“That’s the plan. We’re exiting now. Any lasts?”
“Good luck,” he said.
The old emergency lock had been built during construction, as a personnel hatch. It was barely big enough for a suited man. Then it became an emergency exit in case of damage to Lock 1, after some rockfalls. All that having been fixed, it was officially abandoned and not on the blueprints. They’d have to force it open, then because the Ueys would certainly find it, barricade it afterward, possibly with a rockfall. He recalled the Egyptian pyramids and their complicated shafts.
He turned to the images from that observer on the ridge, and saw faint movement of them getting into position. The natural depression outside the hatch had been carved, beaten and filled with concrete debris into a rough level. It was okay for moon bikes or trailers with balloon tires. It didn’t work for a catapult on polymer casters. The three of them dragged and pulled their catapult.
Beyond them, he saw Ueys trudging back and forth, for tools and probably for rest breaks, to their vehicle park. It was amazing how close everyone was, without being within sight, and of course, there was no hearing.
Laura Rojas was surprised how fast the catapult was ready. The kids had done a good job of making it sectional. She and the men hauled the arm out, then the base and uprights. They got it pointed in the right direction, then tapped and pushed and thumped it into better alignment until she was satisfied. She had her tablet, a level, a protractor and some string. In a couple of minutes she had what should be the right torsion tension, based on the known test. The device had T&E screws she adjusted slightly. That should be it. Thumbs-up.
The two men cranked the arm down, she set a heavy balloon in the bucket, then adjusted the thing some more with a couple of kicks and a nudge. It had shifted during cranking. And goddamn, it was hot out here. She could feel the suit cooling unit running at max, and power was only going to last an hour, tops.
Godin hopped up in the low G, found a foothold on the ledge, and put his tablet just barely over a rock lip so he could record.
She stepped back and made sure the lanyard and pull release were straight. She took up slack and snapped her wrist down.
The arm swung, slapped into the detent, and rocked the whole assembly forward. The balloon sloshed and wobbled as it arced up, then seemed to just drop straight down. An optical illusion caused by parallax and distance. But there it was.
Godin hopped down, drifted to the ground, and skipped over.
In review, the balloon splashed down about a meter past the cable, throwing dust and splatters.
“Crap.”
She gave a thumbs-up acknowledgment, not an okay sign of “We’re good.” She rolled her forefingers “again” and went for another balloon from the box. It was interesting how hand signs and even ISL had come into use here. Lots of sites didn’t allow radio commo because it interfered with instruments. So they already had a pidgin when needed.
It was a good bet that some of the fluid from the shot had splashed on the cable and was eating into it. It wasn’t a good bet there was enough, though. And no bet on adjusting the throw. A minimal variation in mass would affect the next shot more than any change of position.
Morton hopped down from his perch, and held up his tablet. He ran the vid.
One of the Ueys apparently saw the impact and ran roughly toward it, then stopped. Probably his helmet camera was forwarding the imagery to their command.
In a few moments, four of them had gathered, seemed to realize that was dangerous, pulled back, and tried to back-azimuth from the streaks left from the impact. The liquid had already started boiling off.
Again she signed, “Understood. Again.” It was all they could do.
They reset the catapult and she checked angle and inclination.
Morton went back up while she made fine adjustments. The unit had moved four centimeters, which didn’t seem like a lot, but would be at that end. The only way to do that much lateral was a kick. Then switch the tablet back to Nav and fine adjust. No one ever went outside without a tablet as backup commo, navigation, data recording. These units were built tough and accurate. You could die without them.
That reminded her how goddamned hot it was, and how she was panting even with this little exertion. Hopefully that meant the Ueys were struggling, too.
Morton came down and held up his tablet. She watched.
Already, the Ueys had a team of six organized, who started outward, keeping within clear sight of each other, but eyeballing for the Loonies. Then, one had some sort of sensor. Probably thermal or other spectra. That wouldn’t do them any good, hopefully. The catapult had no signature.
Sonar didn’t work in vacuum and it seemed unlikely they had any kind of radar setup with them. They’d expected direct fire and would be looking for thermal flashes. This was cold. They’d have to eyeball it.
They gazed all over, with no particular focal point, so they hadn’t estimated the trajectory yet.
She shrugged and signed, “Watch between shots.” That last sign was normally used to mean explosive shots or “blasts,” but its meaning was clear.
She stepped back and pulled the release. The second bomb arced up, contents slopping about. It flew tumbling, slowed, then started down out of sight.
Morton pointed and signed for Godin to move up and take over vid, while he hopped down to show the ongoing report to Laura.
Troops had shot at the balloon.
They stopped almost at once and stared at one individual, who was gesticulating wildly and apparently chewing them out for the folly.
The balloon splashed down a meter short, but almost in a perfect line with the first one.
That was better. There was definitely a splash pattern across the cable now. It wasn’t as good as an impact, but there were shimmers and vapor off the casing.
Thumbs-up, okay, more, clenched hand for “correct.”
Godin came down fast with his tablet.
It showed troops turning around and started bounding in the general direction of the team.
He touched helmets. “Shoot now, make it count,” he said.
She nodded and went for a balloon.
The Ueys would need a couple of minutes to get here, and up through the rock. They’d probably want to leapfrog to avoid exposure. Really, there was time for a shot.
Part of her kept feeling exposed, that someone might pop up any second.
So far, no one had done any shooting. They’d still be able to run or dodge and knew this terrain, and worst case, capture left them on the Moon in an atmosphere-controlled environment.
No one had done any shooting yet.
No one except Laura Rojas and her team with acid and hypergolic liquid.
Godin and Morton levered the arm back, she placed the balloon. This one sloshed a lot. She checked position, then checked it again, forcing herself to be methodical.
From his lookout, Morton kept a thumb up. Safe so far.
She shuffled back and behind. She found her lanyard, checked alignment, then tugged.
The bag broke.
She hopped away and avoided being splashed.
As the fluid fumed across the arm, the catapult flung the residue in a long, pretty spray around the axis. The remaining dregs flew, probably far too far.
One round, totally wasted, and a good marker for the Ueys.
Behind the catapult, the rock fumed momentarily.
Laura fumed in a differe
nt context.
Godin signed, “What do next?”
She replied, “Shoot more, hurry, load,” and gestured to indicate the splashes that were damaging the catapult.
They levered fast, she loaded the HF container very quickly and very delicately. If it burst . . .
And fire.
No, she wanted to shoot. “Fire” was what would happen at the other end.
She pulled the lanyard.
The container arced spaceward, peaked, then started back down.
She was already scrambling up to watch, and for reassurance on the approaching troops.
In mid-trajetory, the HF ignited. The acid spill had done enough damage to pierce the balloons.
The flash started as a jet, where the two components met. It spread rapidly in a bright ring, turning into a glare all over.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
That first jet of fire had shifted the trajectory slightly. The fireball was already lit and probably at full effect . . .
. . . As it crashed directly onto the cable, about a half meter right of the existing damage from the acid spills.
The fire was a glorious, roiling ball, as heated corrosives and oxidizers consumed each other and the cable housing, then the insulation.
It suddenly burned white.
Rod touched helmets and gloated, “Their O2 line just failed.”
The glare was blinding for a few moments, as pure oxygen supplemented the nitric acid. Even the metal cabling burned.
The automatic pressure switches cut the oxygen flow, but by then, a meter of conduit was slagged.
Then there were sputtering electrical sparks from a dead short, followed by a decreasing glow from the starving fire.
She slapped their shoulders and signed, “Back inside. Quickly.”
Morton pointed at the catapult.
“Leave. Run.”
There were already dust puffs from bullet impacts erupting from the rocks around them. Luckily, motion, low G, and bad angle made the Ueys’ aim pointless.
Rojas was panting as she staggered back in.
Andre whooped. “Hell yes, it worked! And they don’t seem to have a spare conduit. Probably a mass-transport issue. They’re busy trying to shear as close and clean as they can to splice it. Meanwhile, they lost the oxygen in the pipe, and a bit more before the pressure safety kicked in.”
Battle Luna Page 13
