Battle Luna

by Travis S. Taylor

  FOUR

  “Look,” Boyd said, pointing over his steering wheel.

  I followed his finger, looking over the gray, barren expanse. Craters and boulders threw long shadows across the desolate landscape, and tucked between two large columns of stone, I saw the transport. The engine hatch on the front of the flatbed’s cab was propped open and two men in vac suits were standing next to it.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Lang said.

  Movement on the ridge to the south caught my attention. A cloud of dust kicking rose up from behind the wall of a large crater, whatever was creating it hidden behind the ridge. I didn’t need to see, I already knew.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What?” Lang asked.

  This time it was my turn to point. “There.”

  They both followed my direction, and both cursed in unison. I scanned the terrain between the disabled multitrack and the dust cloud and estimated we had about ten minutes, maybe fifteen at the outside, before they reached us.

  “Shit,” I repeated, and gunned the throttle.

  The two men turned as we approached, and even though I couldn’t see their expressions past their mirrored face visors their body language was obviously apprehensive. They stepped away from us as our quads skidded to a stop.

  “Don’t worry, we’re friendly. From Swigert,” I said, my digitized voice projected on the suit-to-suit channel. I pointed to the large container strapped to the multitrack’s flatbed. “You got something for us?”

  The two looked at each other, seemingly trying to decide how much they should say.

  “Listen, I get it, but we don’t have a lot of time.” I pointed toward the column of dust. “They’re coming, and I guarantee you they’re not going to be as friendly as us. What’s wrong with your track?”

  “Batteries are shot,” the man on the right said. “Thought they had enough juice to make it, but I guess with the extra load it wasn’t enough.”

  They spread apart so I could look. I’m not much of an engineer, but reading power levels on a battery is something a four-year-old could do on Luna. And all four battery modules were dead.

  “What were they at when you left?” I asked.

  “Just over half,” the second man said.

  Boyd stepped around them, craning his head to see. “What the hell you guys thinking taking a vehicle with half power? How did you drain all the battery power?”

  “We were in kind of a rush,” the first man said.

  “Rushing is a good way to get dead out here,” Lang said.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I said. We needed to get moving. I turned back to the quads. “Boyd, grab your batts. You two, start pulling the old batteries out. Come on, let’s move.”

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” the first man asked.

  “Batteries are batteries,” I told him, already unlatching the housing on my quad. “And ours have full charges.”

  Boyd jogged back to his quad and followed my lead, removing the housing and disconnecting the batteries. “We’re going to need all the batts from your quad, and mine, to run that thing, and even then—”

  “It’ll work,” I said, cutting him off.

  It took us five minutes to get the battery disconnected and transferred. Each cell weighed eighty pounds lunar and every time I set one down I was terrified I was going to smash a finger. The track driver and Boyd connected the new batteries in parallel, linking them together to provide the maximum power possible. A minute later, the track’s engines hummed to life, and the driver was climbing into the cab.

  “Looks like everything is powered up and ready to go,” he said.

  “All right, let’s get moving,” I said, pulling myself onto the flatbed. Boyd followed me up, and we braced ourselves against the waist-high case as the track started to move. It was eight feet long and four feet wide and didn’t have any markings, save for the words Property of Hadley Dome stenciled across the front. Nothing to provide any clues as to its contents. Three four-inch nylon straps held it securely to the multitrack’s flatbed. I had to fight the urge to pop the straps off and look inside, knowing that if it fell off, there wouldn’t be any way in hell we’d be able to move it ourselves.

  The pillar of gray-white dust was close now, maybe five hundred yards out. Close enough that I could see it was three distinct clouds; one seemed to be pulling away from the other two. So, a fast mover and a couple heavies. I wondered what the slower vehicles could be—another multitrack, a couple of the Earthers’ tanks? Either way we’d be screwed.

  I slapped the top of the cab. “Hey, come on! We need to be gone yesterday!”

  The tracks whined briefly, and we lurched forward. It took another minute before we were rolling at speed, though it wasn’t at all what I would call fast. Most transports on Luna weren’t built for speed, they were built for versatility. For reasons that were painfully obvious right now, going fast was more than likely to get someone hurt or killed, and in a place that was deadly on its own, without any outside help, versatility and safety were favored.

  Lang pulled up next to us. “This ain’t going to cut it, boss.”

  “Yeah.” I felt the urge to kick the cab and yell at the driver to pick it up but knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was doing the best he could under the circumstances, just like we all were.

  Boyd tapped my shoulder and pointed.

  I followed his finger and gritted my teeth. “Shit.”

  Three hundred yards away, a quad sped out from behind a ridge, turning almost immediately to give chase.

  “Well,” Boyd said, “now what the hell do we do?”

  FIVE

  “We need to slow them down,” I said.

  “Yeah? And how do you suppose we do that?” Boyd asked.

  “Lang, you need to convince him to go away.”

  Still rolling beside the transport, she looked up at me, then over her shoulder at the Earther. “What the hell do you expect me to do about that? You think if I ask him politely, he’ll just turn around and go home?”

  I tapped my pistol. “You’ve got thirty reasons for him to turn around right there on your thigh.”

  “And if he’s got a gun too?”

  “Make sure you shot first.”

  Lang didn’t respond right away, then without a word, angled her quad away from the multitrack, turning to charge the Earther.

  The multitrack lurched, its right-side treads bouncing off a small crater. The sudden movement threw me back several steps, bumping into the case. I grabbed one of the straps holding the case to the flatbed and gritted my teeth, straining to keep from toppling over the side. I grunted as I pulled myself back upright and kicked the back of the cab. “Jesus Christ, pay attention.”

  “I tell you what,” Boyd said, grabbing the other strap with both hands. “The way this is going, we’ll be lucky to make it back even without those Earth bastards chasing us.”

  I didn’t disagree.

  I watched as Lang zigzagged through the field of boulders and small craters toward the lone Earther, wondering what he was thinking. I didn’t see any weapons on the quad, and even if he had any, it wasn’t like one quad was going to be able to stop us. I started to wonder if he was just a scout, keeping tabs on us until the main force could catch up.

  As Lang closed on him, she started waving a hand at him, obviously trying to ward him off, but the Earther made no moves to change course. It might have been the first-ever game of Lunar Chicken.

  “What the hell is she doing?” Boyd asked.

  “Hell if I know.” I toggled my radio. “Lang, what are you—”

  At the last minute, Lang swerved to the left, drew her pistol and fired, sending a volley into the ground. Plumes of dust sprayed over the Earther as he drove through the powdered geysers before turning the wheel and veering away.

  Boyd laughed. “Well, that’s one way to do it.”

  The Earther made a wide turn, tires digging into the dirt, then accelerated back t
he way he’d come.

  “Nice work, Lang,” I said as the Earther cut between two large boulders and disappeared behind the ridge.

  “That should make them think twice about getting too close,” she responded over the radio.

  I laughed and turned, scanning the landscape ahead. Swigert still wasn’t in view, but we were closing on the Shona Pass. That was progress at least. “We get through Shona, we’ll be home free.”

  “If we make it through,” Boyd said.

  “Well, that didn’t last long,” Lang said over the radio.

  Boyd and I turned back around and watched as the two Earther quads came speeding out from behind the ridge again, followed by a six-wheeled rover. The armored transport had a rounded driver’s compartment with a wide windshield that wrapped around the front, giving the operator a clear view of everything in front of them. The bulky, roughly cylindrical rear section was covered in armor plates, a mean-looking Kord 9P150 machine gun mounted on its spine. Two soldiers stood behind it, swaying back and forth with the motion of the rover.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Boyd said.

  I searched the back of the truck, looking for anything we could use to fend off the Earthers. The case was still strapped down, and we had our O2 tanks. A few tools that we hadn’t thrown out, and the pistols we each carried. Not that they’d do us any good at this range, and who knew if they’d do any good even if we were in range.

  Maybe if I could manage a shot through a viewport, I might have a chance, but the chances of making that shot were slim to none, and that was considering I had a stable platform to shoot from. Riding on the back of this flatbed, bouncing around on the surface of the Moon at fifty miles an hour, trying to hit fast-moving vehicles weaving around boulders and craters, would make the shot damn-near impossible.

  Mind racing, I turned back to the Pass, desperately trying to find a solution that didn’t end up with us blasted all over Luna’s surface. We had to take out that gun, but there wasn’t any way we could get close without that gun finding us and turning us into so much slag. They’d see us coming a mile away.

  Unless they didn’t.

  “Lang!” I shouted, beckoning her with both hands.

  “What about calling for help?” Boyd asked.

  I shook my head. “Even if there was help to send, they wouldn’t get here in time.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Lang asked, pulling up beside the multitrack. “I’m not fucking charging that thing.”

  “Get closer.” I stepped to the side of the flatbed where the small ladder hung down.

  Boyd caught my arm as I stepped down. “Wait, what the hell are you going to do?”

  I looked up at him, our eyes meeting through our visors. “We have to stop that rover.”

  “Okay?”

  I waved Lang closer. “We’re not going to make it back on defense. We’re going to have to go on the offense.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Yeah,” I said, lowering myself down on the ladder. Lang had to steer around a cluster of rocks, then pulled close again, gunning the quad to match speed with the track.

  Now, granted, this probably wasn’t the most amazing idea I’d ever had, jumping off a moving vehicle onto another moving vehicle was pretty dumb under the best of circumstances, but it was the only move I had. My boot touched down on the quad’s luggage rack. I focused on the rhythm of both vehicles, trying my best to gauge the best time to make the leap. Like there would ever be a good time.

  I pushed off the ladder, brought my over foot over and crouched down on the back to the quad, grabbing the rack with both hands.

  “Holy shit, boss,” Lang said. “You’re one crazy son of a bitch.”

  I let out a long breath as she angled away from the track. Well, no turning back now.

  “All right, you’re on now,” Lang said. “Where the hell are we going?”

  I pointed toward the Pass. “There. Find us a place to hide.”

  Lang hesitated and twisted to the side. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Just do it. Hurry.”

  Lang gunned the quad; its tires dug into the soft gray powder, kicking up a wave of dust in our wake. We sped past the track, racing for the Pass.

  “All right, genius,” Lang shouted. “What’s your plan?”

  SIX

  “This is nuts,” Lang whispered, even though she didn’t need to. Even if it hadn’t been over the radio, the Earthers wouldn’t’ve been able to hear anyway.

  We were tucked down behind one of the larger mounds of discarded dirt and rock, just inside the entrance to Shona Crater, watching as the Earthers rolled past without giving their surroundings so much as a cursory glance. The soldiers behind the Kord 9P150 swayed with the rover’s motion, each holding onto a waist-high rail that surrounded the space. Horrible situational awareness, but I wasn’t complaining. The first hurdle of my plan was over, now came the hard part.

  “Go!” I said, patting her shoulder once.

  Judging by the wiggling of her helmet, I could tell Lang was shaking her head back and forth, but she gunned the quad regardless. The back end dipped slightly as we started off, the tires digging into the gray dirt, and thirty seconds later we were closing on the rover.

  “Don’t turn around,” Lang said. “Don’t turn around.”

  I drew my pistol and leaned forward. “Just keep her steady.”

  The soldier on the right shifted his weight, craning his body to see something ahead of the rover. The one on the left moved behind the Kord and pulled the charging handle back. They were getting ready to shoot.

  “Hurry!” I shouted, leveling the pistol.

  The sights danced in my vision. It was hell getting the gun on target, and even harder keeping it there. I gritted my teeth; my body tensed as I mentally prepared for the shot, trying to anticipate the motion of the quad under me and the rover ahead. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger.

  The pistol bucked twice. Sparks shot off the rover’s armor by the base of the fun mount, vanishing almost immediately.

  “Shit,” I growled, lining the sights back up. The unfocused image of the soldier behind the gun twisted, having obviously seen, or felt, the bullet impacts. I fired again and this time the rounds hit their mark, slamming into the soldier’s back and side, knocking him into the Kord mount. His momentum carried him over the railing and over the side of the rover, his partner turning just in time to see him bounce off the ground.

  The second Earther turned, obviously watching his comrade roll, then straightened as his gaze no doubt fell on our quad. I shifted aim and fired, the shots going wide as the Earther scrambled to get behind the Kord and bring it to bear. I fired until the magazine was empty; if we didn’t succeed now, we wouldn’t get a second chance. He managed to get the weapon halfway around before my bullets found him, sending him stumbling away from the Kord onto the roof of the rover’s cab.

  The pistol clicked empty, but I kept it leveled, waiting to see if the Earther got back up. The body bounced slightly on the armored roof, but otherwise remained still.

  “Nice work, boss!” Lang said. She turned the wheel, angling us away.

  “No,” I said, reloading the magazine. “Keep going. Get right up on them.”

  I holstered the pistol, grabbed the roll bar above me and stood.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  The quad bounced and rocked, knocking me into the bar. I gritted my teeth and tensed every muscle as we approached the rover.

  “We still have work to do.”

  “Okay?”

  “Closer! Get closer!”

  Lang brought the quad right up next to the rover’s back end. A short ladder, similar to the one on our multitrack, hung down between the back two sets of wheels. I shifted positions, ducking under the roll bar so I was standing on the very edge of the vehicle, and leaned over for the ladder, the surface of Luna a gray blur underneath me. My fingers wrapped around the rail, I held
my breath and pushed off.

  SEVEN

  There was a half second of time, suspended between the quad and the rover, where I felt a terrifying sense of mortality. If I slipped or lost my grip, I’d fall and be crushed to death underneath the oversized wheels. I shook the thought out of my head and I pulled myself up the ladder, over the rail, onto the rover’s roof.

  I gave Lang a thumbs-up. “Get out of here!”

  “Right! And where the hell am I supposed to go?” she asked, holding up both hands.

  “Just stay back, those quads are coming back.” I pointed as the two vehicles made wide turns, veering away from our multitrack back toward the rover. The driver must have called for help.

  I stepped toward the machine gun and movement at the front of the rover caught my eye. The Earther soldier rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, a long knife in one hand. Without thinking I lunged forward, grabbed the gun mount, using it as leverage to propel a front kick into the man’s chest. The sole of my boot connected and sent him rolling down the front of the rover. I felt the vehicle lurch as the tires ran him over and held tight to both the rail and the gun mount, keeping myself from being thrown clear.

  The body appeared a second later, mangled and twisted, his suit torn in several places, venting streams of O2. The Earther rolled to a stop and didn’t move.

  “Boss!” Lang shouted over the radio. “Eleven o’clock.”

  The first of the Earth quads was racing toward the rover; its operator had one hand on the wheel, the other leveling a pistol. I couldn’t hear the shots, but I could see the weapon bucking as he fired. I froze, waiting for the inevitable impact, but nothing happened. He’d missed.

  I shook myself, moving back to the Kord and twisting the barrel back forward. I pulled the charging handle to the rear then let it slam home. Leaning into the stock, I found the sight picture, found the Earther, and fired.

  The weapon rocked violently as it fired, sending eight hundred rounds a minute down range. Plumes of gray dirt and rock shot into the air as the rounds slammed into the ground ahead of the quad. It went up on two wheels as it swerved hard to miss the attack.

  “Come on,” I said, shifting the fire to follow. The Kord 9P150 shook in my hands, firing in a steady staccato as rounds chewed through the lunar landscape chasing the quad.