“Brilliant! Paul, just brilliant!” Nate clapped him on the shoulder and shook him happily. “We’ll get to tearing all this down and moving it. So, looks like you’re gonna be with us for a while now. Maybe in the time to come we can figure out a way to get your ships out of hock.”
“Maybe, but unless they were destroyed or something so that the insurance would pay off the loans, I’m not sure how. Whatever we do, it’d better pay dividends in the long run,” Paul said.
“I’ll see to it that your finances will be taken care of. That is assuming we survive all this.” Nate pointed out through the viewport of the hangar bay at the expanse of the Moon stretching out to the east. There were flatbeds pulling up with people in spacesuits holding rifles. One of the trucks had a cover over the back and was painted up like a Red Cross ambulance. “So, in the meantime, we need to figure out how to move cargo both across the surface and underground from colony to colony. Interested in another job?”
“Maybe Mama’s Express can stay in business, just not as an interplanetary hauling company.” Paul looked out the window at the ambulance and had an idea. “What needs to get where first?”
Lunar Fury
by Josh Hayes
ONE
Go to the Moon, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Yeah, sure.
I looked at the chaos unfolding around Swigert Dome. The news of the blockage has spread like a wildfire, and the residents were scrambling to find refuge against the battle everyone knew was coming. A battle that no one here could fight. Willing, sure. Most of these people wouldn’t give it a second thought, but what were they supposed to do, throw rocks and paint at the Earthers?
Swigert’s “Garden” as its residents called it, wasn’t as much a garden, as it was a large common area in the middle of the dome. It was used for everything from random storage, to entertainment, to just a quiet place to relax after a long day at work. Well, quiet under normal circumstances. Right now, it was filled with a lot of scared people, all wondering if they would live through this debacle.
And they weren’t the only ones.
At one end, a man and a woman were hauling what looked like everything they owned in several duffels, dragging three children behind them as they hurried toward safety. A vac-suit sleeve stuck out from the side of one bag and I couldn’t help but think how optimistic they’d been in taking the time to pack it. If the Earthers broke through the outer dome defenses, pressure suits wouldn’t do a damn thing. But if it made them feel better . . .
I felt for them, I really did, but there wasn’t anything I could do for them. Nothing but stand here and watch and make sure they didn’t kill each other before the real fighting started. Several of them had already asked me if I knew anything about Earth allowing people to make the trip to Tranquility, but so far, I hadn’t heard anything but “keep everyone calm and keep them inside.”
Yeah, easier said than done.
“Hey, Thompson!” the voice yanked me back to the present as Shepard jogged toward me. The top of her Swigert Dome security uniform—navy blue, trimmed in silver—was unzipped, a red shirt underneath.
“What’s up, Shep,” I said, checking my watch. “I’m not due for relief for another hour.”
She waved a dismissive hand through the air as she came to a stop, bending over and putting a hand on her knee. She spoke through long breaths. “Been . . . looking . . . all over. Reynolds is looking for you. Wants you down in Operations ASAP.”
I frowned. “Operations? What for?”
“Hell if I know, I was just sent to deliver the message and take your place.”
I pulled the radio off my vest and held it up. “Why didn’t you just call me?”
“We tried. Looks like the Earthers stepped up their blockade and are jamming all the comms.”
“Of course they are,” I said.
Shepard straightened, her breathing starting to slow. “I can’t believe it’s really going to happen.”
“What’s that?”
“A war on Luna,” Shepard said. “Even saying it doesn’t sound real. Like a bad dream.”
I couldn’t disagree, but I didn’t think “war” would be the best description of that particular scenario. “Lot of steps to go through before that happens.”
Shepard’s expression changed to one that might have been a relief. “You think so?”
“Not even the Earthers want war up here,” I said, mostly believing it. “It’s not like fighting a battle back on Earth. The circumstances are a lot more . . .” I trailed off, searching for the words. “Dire. Besides, as long as there’s women and children up here—”
Shepard frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just meant, that with families up here, they won’t just start bombarding us. No one wants that kind of blood on their hands.”
She looked around, taking in the scene I’d been staring at for the better part of three hours, and shook her head. “They’re all scared as fuck.”
“They’re not the only ones,” I said. “Listen, if the comms are down, don’t get caught up in something. If people start causing a ruckus, let it happen and stay away from it. One of us against all of them are worse odds than us against Earth.”
TWO
I found Trina in the operations bunker, an expansive chamber filled with rows of small computer terminals. Each row was arranged in concentric semicircles on descending levels. The main control station was a raised platform at the front of the room, where Trina Reynolds, Swigert’s Head of Operations, stood orchestrating the madness, calling out orders with the cadence of a practiced conductor.
Sporadic radio transmissions buzzed through speakers in the corners of the room, the traffic clipped and unreadable. She held a headset to her ear, a finger pressed into the other, obviously trying to make out the transmission over the cacophony of the room.
“No, I didn’t copy, Ryan, say again,” Reynolds said. She looked up as I approached and waved me down. I stopped at the small stepladder leading up to the command station and put a boot on the bottom rung.
“What’s up, Chief?”
She held up a finger, listening.
The screens behind her showed views from one of the dome’s external feeds, giving her visuals of the entire outpost and a few from orbit. In the center screen, four Earth Fleet ships hung against the backdrop of stars. The image seemed almost peaceful, if it weren’t for the fact that they were endangering every human on Luna with their ridiculous stunt.
“Look,” Reynolds said. “Just deal with it. Thompson’s here, I’ll get back with you in a bit, okay? Right.”
Reynolds set the headset aside and came over to the top of the ladder, shaking her head. “Just one time, one time, I’d like something to go right around here.”
“Wouldn’t be Luna otherwise,” I said.
“Never would’ve imagined it getting this bad,” Reynolds said. “And it’s only going to get worse. They’ve already tried to attack Hadley once. Fortunately, some crazy son of a bitch managed to stop them with some paint and a tank of O2, but that will only slow them down. They’ve really got a hard on for that damn Mimic.”
The Mimic, I thought. There’d been countless rumors about the artifact they’d found, and I wasn’t sure if I believed any of them. Some ancient alien God, some deep-space alien probe, some type of faster-than-light travel, all of it seemed ridiculous to me. Of course, I was the expert on exactly none of those subjects so no one was asking my opinion on what we should do with it, whatever it was. If it’d been me, I would have told everybody to stay the hell away from it. Don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything good come of messing with stuff that people don’t understand. But what do I know?
I let the silence hang for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to see me?”
Reynolds shook herself. “We got a call from Hadley Dome a few hours ago. They were supposed to be sending over what they
called ‘much-needed supplies.’ Supplies that were”—she checked her watch—“supposed to have been here an hour ago.”
“What kind of supplies?”
“They didn’t say. Wouldn’t say. Said they were worried about the comms being tapped and didn’t want anyone to know exactly what was going on.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Maybe.”
“So where do I come in?”
“I need you to find it.”
I coughed. “Find it? You’re not serious.”
“As a heart attack. They said it would tip the scales of this conflict in our favor, and if there’s even a small chance of us coming out on top, we have to take it. We know the most likely route they’d take, I’ve already had it loaded into this pad.” She held out a small, palm-sized data pad.
I looked over the map. “It could be anywhere. You know that, right? I mean, it’s not like you can just hop on the turnpike.”
“It’s not an ideal situation, no.”
“Ideal? You’re asking me to go on a walkabout in one of the most hazardous environments known to man during one of the most dangerous conflicts in history, to look for . . . we don’t even know what.”
“If you can’t do it . . .”
I held up a hand. “I didn’t say I couldn’t do it, but I’m going to need some help.”
“Boyd and Lang are already getting suited up.”
I chuckled. “Figures. Do you have any idea how big this thing is? Kinda need to know that kind of information.”
“They just said it was coming on a flatbed track, that’s all I know.”
“Except that it should’ve been here by now.”
She nodded. “Except that.”
“Are we expecting any problems?” I put a hand on the pistol holstered on my hip.
“I doubt it,” Reynolds said. “Even if the Earthers figure out what’s going on, I don’t think they’d be able to deploy any units fast enough.”
“But it is possible.”
“The longer you stand here talking to me, the worse the odds get. Look, just go out there, find out what happened to the transport and bring it here. It’ll be fine.”
It didn’t sound fine. In fact, it sounded like it was a gigantic clusterfuck and Reynolds was throwing me out right in the middle of it.
Fantastic.
THREE
The garage was about the length of a football field, with a low ceiling and two rows of round concrete pillars running down the center. It wasn’t as big as the Garden, but as spaces on Luna went, it was damn right expansive. Swigert Dome owned several kinds of vehicles from squat eight-wheeled haulers to fast single-passenger cars, though the cars were more an ATV than anything you’d find back on Earth.
I found Boyd and Lang loading up three of the quads, strapping on additional O2 tanks to wide cargo platforms on the back end. Both were already suited up, save for their helmets. Each had a pistol holstered on a thigh rig, the grips manufactured so the weapons were usable even with their thick gloves.
Lang’s long blond hair looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower. She was shorter than Boyd and me, at five-four, but could beat us both any day of the week in cardio. She nodded to me as I approached, pulling hard on a strap holding one of the tanks to the cargo rack.
“’Bout time you showed up,” Boyd said, dusting his hands off. His black hair was cut short, and he had a thin, almost imperceptible line across the top of his upper lip. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he spent more time getting ready than Lang did.
I tapped the radio clipped to my shoulder. “Radios are shit.”
He laughed. “I’ve been saying that shit for weeks.”
“What have you not complained about since you got here?” Lang asked.
Boyd waved her off and moved to load another tank onto his quad, strapping it down next to the first. “Yeah, well, when shit’s broken, shit’s broken. I already got you loaded up, boss.”
“Thanks.” He’d laid out my suit over the quad’s center seat, the helmet resting on the headrest. I moved one of the suit’s sleeves aside to see the quad’s control panel, which flicked to life when I tapped it. “You guys know what we’re doing?”
Lang shrugged. “Do we ever?”
“She’s got a point, boss,” Boyd said.
“We’re going to find a transport, sent from Hadley to us. It’s about an hour past due and the brass seems to think it’s extremely important to our mission here.”
Boyd laughed. “Sure it is.”
I initiated the quad’s start-up sequence and diagnostic protocols, then kicked off my boots and unclipped my gun belt. I slipped on the suit, leaving the helmet and gloves on the seat as I worked through the quad’s system menu, pulling the data from the pad Reynolds had given me.
“Where we heading?” Lang asked, coming up behind me. She leaned over my shoulder, watching as the nav computer loaded the data. A small screen above the steering wheel displayed a grayscale map of Luna, landmarks shown in yellow, the route outlined in red. “Oh, great, not only do we not know what’s going on, we don’t know what’s going on in the middle of nowhere.”
There was a lot of open space on the Moon, unclaimed territory or unusable territory that nobody wanted. On any normal day that wouldn't have been a problem, but with the fleet of enemy ships running an illegal blockade and attacking our settlements, there wasn’t any telling what could happen. Not only that, but anything to do with the Mimic was sure to get someone’s attention, attention we didn’t want or need. I just hoped I could find it quick. The sooner we got back the sooner it became someone else’s problem.
“The batteries will give us about twelve hours,” Boyd said. “And we’ve got enough O2 to last about twice that.”
I pulled on my gloves. “I’m hoping to be back well before that.”
Boyd climbed onto his quad. “Yeah, well, you know what they say about best-laid plans.”
“Yeah, I know.”
We left Swigert ten minutes later, driving through hundreds of vehicle tracks that spread farther and farther apart as we drove deeper into the barren, gray wasteland that was Luna. Most of us just called it the Gray and no matter how many trips I’ve taken, the landscape never becomes any less intimidating. Something about the emptiness of it all.
The sound of my breathing echoed inside my helmet, but outside the almost haunting stillness was enough to drive a person crazy. It was like a dream, didn’t feel right. It’d taken several months to become accustomed to it. In fact, that had been my hope when the Earthers had first arrived; that the terrain would be so disorienting, they wouldn’t be able to handle it and they’d just decide to pack up and leave.
But that was too much to hope for. They were here until they got what they came for, or until we kicked them back to Earth. And the way things had been going, I didn’t have high hopes for the latter.
Our trio of quads bounced around on the rocky terrain, kicking up trails of dust behind us. The shadow of Swigert Dome sprawled out in front of us, the massive structure stretching almost a half a mile in diameter. It wasn’t beautiful, but then again, it hadn’t been built for comfort or pleasure; it had been built for survival, like everything on Luna.
I’d had my doubts about coming here, to Luna, not going to lie about that. Worried that I would miss the creature comforts of Earth. Hell, the simplest thing, like walking out your front door without making sure you are completely sealed in a vac suit to enjoy the afternoon breeze, for the sun on my face, swimming in the ocean. The things you people back on the Big Blue still take for granted every day.
But after a few months, I didn’t even miss them anymore. I’d even come to consider Luna home, more than Earth had ever been. Life on Luna really makes you appreciate what was truly important in life.
We continued on for another twenty minutes before coming to the mouth of the Shona Crater Pass. Engineers had carved out a ten-meter-wide pass on opposing sides of the crater, reducing the t
ravel time between Swigert and Hadley by almost an hour. We sped through the entrance single file, the walls of the pass stretching up some thirty feet. After clearing the pass, we passed several large mounds of dirt and rock, removed during the excavation, and old earthmovers left abandoned.
Above us in the star-filled sky, humanity’s birthplace was a blue crescent, and a beautiful backdrop to the ships sent to steal what was rightfully ours. And its residents were coming to kill us.
“What I wouldn’t give for a nice railgun about right about now,” Boyd said. He overexaggerated his movements, miming firing a rifle at one of the ships. “I could end this thing right now.”
The ugly monstrosity looked like it had been pieced together from several random modules. Its long central chassis was an amalgamation of scaffold mechanical compartments, oxygen tanks and propellant canisters arranged around the fuselage.
“Or maybe you can make it worse,” Lang said.
“How the hell could I make it any worse?”
“They could start hitting the domes with kinetic strikes.”
“Ain’t going to do that.”
“Might,” Lang said. “You don’t know. Never thought they’d attack us either, but here we are. I have a bad feeling that this thing is going to get a lot worse before it’s all said and done.”
“It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
“When did you become such a hero?” Lang asked.
“I’m no hero,” I said. “But sometimes things need doing, and when you’re it, you’re it.”
Battle Luna Page 26
