by Homer Hickam
Crescent had pushed the cook down and had been instantly sorry, mainly because she knew Q-Bess and Crater would find out about it. But they hadn’t. The cook kept her mouth shut and that made Crescent feel even more regretful for what she’d done. Living among standard-issue humans was difficult. Crescent never knew if they were going to be kind or cruel.
But maybe none of it would matter. Perhaps death awaited her outside and she would go to the dark world where neither sadness or jealousy would cause her pain. She gripped the talwar in anticipation. The hatch for the Michael Collins Dome loomed. Crater pushed it open and climbed outside, moving out of the way for her. She expertly dived through, rolled as she’d been taught, and came up with the sword at the ready. A glance upward and she knew the dome was still intact. This confirmed to her that the attack was a kidnap operation. Otherwise, they would have busted down all three domes to kill everyone inside.
“Keep your helmet latched,” Crater said.
Crescent did not reply. The Trainers said to always keep the chatter small. Of course, she would keep her helmet latched! Did he think she was stupid? Just because the dome hadn’t been breached didn’t mean it would stay that way.
They made their way to the Medaris Building, coming out in an alley that gave them a good view of a Legionnaire squad at the front door. Three Medaris guards lay dead in the street. Two more fought on, only to be cut down by flechettes. The Legionnaires paused and reloaded before advancing. Crescent was not impressed by their timid approach. In her opinion, they should have sprinted to the building, burst inside, and captured their target instead of acting like school children afraid to cross the road. That was when she noticed the stripe on their helmets and everything became clear. She started to remark on it but then Crater pointed at a fastbug and said, “Follow me.”
He sprinted to the fastbug and climbed behind the wheel. Crescent, understanding his intention, stood up in the passenger seat, braced herself with one hand on the roll bar, and readied the talwar in the other. Crater pressed the accelerator and aimed the fastbug down the street. He was still accelerating when he plowed into the Legionnaires, running over three, the others scattering except for two who were minus their heads, thanks to Crescent’s terrible, swift sword. As their bodies collapsed, blood spurted from their necks like scarlet volcanoes. Crescent smiled. She had exacted a small measure of vengeance for Mends Your Britches and Ike against these enemy troops.
Crater stopped the fastbug in front of the building, then jumped out and headed for the door, only to be driven back by a hail of flechettes. A flechette ricocheted off Crescent’s helmet and then two crowhoppers attacked, their rifles sparkling. Crescent boldly charged, and one of their heads went flying and the other lost an arm. Holding the bloody stump and looking up at her, the Legionnaire wailed, “Betrayer! Treasonous dog!”
Unimpressed, Crescent swung her wet sword, silencing her accuser forever. She picked up his rifle, then looked over her shoulder and saw Crater shoot another trooper with his pistol.
“Get your woman!” she yelled, ducking behind the fastbug as a volley of flechettes came after her. She dropped the sword in the fastbug and fired the railgun from her hip as she backed through the building’s front door. Inside, she saw that Crater had found Maria Medaris, who was clinging to him. “It’s all right,” Crater said, holding her. “Stay close. I don’t intend to lose you again.”
Maria, Crescent noted with irritation, did not reply with an equal declaration of faithfulness nor even a little gratitude. Instead, she looked at Crescent and said, “Is that the creature?”
“Her name is Crescent,” Crater said.
And then, as if there was nothing better to talk about in the midst of a deadly firefight, Maria said, “Yes, of course it is.”
It. At that moment, Crescent wanted to cut off the woman’s head. She contented herself with, “I know who you are too.” Then to Crater she said, “Did you notice the white stripe on the helmets of some of these legionnaires? That means they’re chokras. Chokras have basic skills that allow them to perform adequately in the field but likely this is their first real mission. That’s why we’re still alive.”
“What’s your advice?” Crater asked.
“Take to the underground. You know it better than anyone. We can hide down there until help comes.”
“There’s somebody else we need to save. My clients.”
“They’re probably already dead.”
“I have to try.”
Crescent shrugged. “Try is out that door,” she said.
Outside was chaos. Armstrong City security guards had arrived and a battle had begun. A man, balding and stout and dressed in a blue tunic, ran up to Crater. “What’s happening, sir? I don’t understand, sir.”
Crater apparently knew him. “I’ll explain it later,” he said. “Get in the fastbug.”
“Do I belong to you now, sir?”
“Yes. Do what I say.”
“Yes, sir. I will help in any way I can.”
After the man climbed in beside Crescent, Crater yelled, “Hang on!” and stomped on the accelerator, steering the fastbug out of the square and into one of the side streets. As they gained speed, Crescent glanced at the man. He had no expression on his face and did not appear to care what was happening. The fastbug shot out into a square, then dodged down another side street. Crescent turned to the man. “Who are you?” she asked.
The man blinked. “I am a Helper. May I help you?”
Crescent turned away. He was apparently simple. Why Crater had brought him along didn’t make sense, but she didn’t have time to think about it because just then Maria was jerked aloft, snatched into the arms of a Legionnaire dangling by one leg from a flypod above, its jets pulsing, its pilot bent over its controls. Crescent stood up and swung her sword, which whacked off the crowhopper’s leg. The flypod, released from its load, went out of control, then slammed into a building and erupted into a fireball. Maria and the dying black-suited warrior fell back into the fastbug. Crescent pushed the crowhopper out while Maria, soaked in blood, crawled back into the passenger seat.
“I do not understand this,” the Helper said, looking with some dismay at the blood on his tunic.
“It is war,” Crescent said.
“I am not allowed to fight,” he said.
“Are you allowed to die?”
“Yes, if it would help.”
Crescent did not think if this man lived or died would make any difference so she picked up a rifle and scanned the street ahead and behind and above, ready to fire the instant she saw a threat. She recalled the training she’d received dangling by one leg on a cable while being carried aloft by a flypod. It was a technique used primarily to recover Legionnaires cut off on the battlefield, but she admired the way it had just been used. The dangler had been brave and so had the flypod pilot, but Crescent recalled a Trainer saying courage was never enough, that skill in battle made all the difference.
Crescent murmured, “Life is death. Death is life,” in salute to the pair of brave, skilled Legionnaires who had just died. Then she saw Maria reach out and touch Crater’s shoulder. Crescent’s face flushed hot. She put down the rifle and gripped the handle of her talwar and felt the sinews and muscles in her arms tighten in anticipation but then she forced them to relax. Killing Maria Medaris, as pleasurable as that might be, was wrong. Q-Bess had taught her that, and so had Mends Your Britches. Yet even proper instruction could not stop the jealousy that coursed through Crescent’s nervous system like liquid fire.
::: THIRTY-THREE
Crater turned a corner and saw the maintenance shed ahead. The big rollup door was wide open so he drove through it, jumped out, and hit the emergency door closer and watched as it trundled down. “Crescent, stand guard,” he said, then went looking for the Apps, finding them huddled amongst their vehicles.
“What happened?” Jake asked. “All of a sudden the techies ran out of here. We heard explosions.”
“We’ve
been attacked by crowhoppers. Get into your suits and into your vehicles. Button up and prepare to go outside. We’re getting out of here.”
Crater ran back to the fastbug and pointed out the chuckwagon to Maria. “We’ll take it with us.”
The order astonished Maria. “My grandfather spent a hundred thousand johncredits for that machine. We can’t just drive off in it.”
“Maria, for scrag’s sake, just this once, do what I say.” There was a furious pounding on the rollup door. “Hear that? The crowhoppers will break in soon. Crescent, you go with Maria to the chuckwagon. Take the Helper and get him into a suit too.”
“Where are you going?” Maria demanded.
“I’ve got four clients. They’re going with us. Now go!”
The Helper did not move until Crescent grabbed his hand and pulled him along. Maria hesitated, then followed. Crater withdrew the gillie from his pocket. “Gillie, wake up. I want to blow up the maintenance shed. How can I do that?”
The gillie remained silent even though Crater pinched and prodded it. “Scrag thing,” Crater muttered. “I should throw you away.” He looked around. “All right, I’ll figure it out for myself.”
Crater noticed a welder’s rig, which gave him an idea. He ran to a mooncrete igloo that held a stack of oxygen and tricetylene welding tanks. Mixed together in the air, the two chemicals would explode. He came back outside and saw Maria, now dressed in a pressure suit, drive the shiny new chuckwagon toward the exit doors. The truck and the crusher of the Apps pulled up alongside her. Crater pushed the big red button that opened the inside door of the vehicle dustlock and waved the vehicles inside. Then he closed it and opened the outer one. “Go to the top of that first hill out there, then stop unless something’s after you. One way or the other, I’ll catch up!”
Crater watched as Maria drove the chuckwagon into the dust, the truck and crusher following. He left the outer door open, then went back to the igloo and went from tank to tank, cracking their valves open. He placed a do4u on the deck, then pulled the hatch shut behind him. As he emerged from the igloo, the door of the shed crashed open and inside poured crowhoppers. Dodging flechettes, Crater ran to the fastbug and ducked behind it, then again withdrew the gillie from his pocket. “Gillie,” he begged. “Wake up. I need you. I really need you!”
The gillie stirred. I am a gillie biocomputer. I was designed by the Macingillie Corporation in the Republic of Calimexica and manufactured in—
“Yes, yes, I know all that. Listen, Gillie. When I tell you to do it, I need you to call my do4u and tell it to short its circuits.”
My diagnostic of your do4u indicates that it is in sound working condition and does not require its circuits to be shorted.
“Don’t argue with me! When I tell you, I want you to short it out.”
Gillie senses your do4u is in an explosive atmosphere. To short its circuits may cause a detonation.
“I know. I’m trying to cause one.”
It will be a small explosion.
“I know that. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got.”
Would you like a large explosion?
“I would like a very large explosion, yes.”
It will take approximately twelve minutes to make that happen.
“We don’t have time for that. Blow up the igloo first.”
I will blow up the igloo and then I will make the larger explosion if you wish. I have calculated you are much too close. I am therefore opening the maintenance shed doors. Go through them and get as far away as possible.
“Open both the inner and outer doors.”
The air inside will escape.
“That’s all right. I’m in a pressure suit and there’s no one else in here that matters.”
The igloo will not explode in a vacuum. I am sealing the igloo and opening the doors.
The inner and outer doors began to rumble open. Crater, staying as low as he could, leaped into the fastbug, then drove through the doors into the dust. Flechettes swarmed after him. “Blow up the igloo, Gillie!”
You are still too close.
“Do it anyway!”
The gillie shrugged, though it had no shoulders, and said, Gillie will detonate the igloo.
Crater looked over his shoulder and saw the flash caused by the mixture of oxygen and tricetylene ignited by the spark from the do4u. Smoke and flame burst out of the igloo, killing a crowhopper and causing the rest to dive for cover or draw back. The delay didn’t last long. Within minutes, a contingent of crowhoppers emerged from the shed. “Gillie,” Crater said, “if you’re going to cause a very big explosion, now would be a good time.”
You are far too close.
“I don’t care. Now, Gillie. Now!”
Very well, the gillie said with something akin to a sigh. Now it is.
The maintenance shed erupted into a mighty fireball, its massive roof torn off and hurled into the sky. Though no sound reached Crater because of the vacuum, the ground shook as if a giant moonquake had struck and debris flew his way. He turned the fastbug around and ran for his life. At the top of the next hill, he braked and looked back. The maintenance shed was a black, broken shambles and a vast dust cloud hovered over the city. Crater knew the cloud was held up by a peculiarity of moon dust, its magnetic properties causing it to be repelled by the surface. The chuckwagon drove up and Maria, at the wheel with Crescent in the passenger seat, gaped at the sight. “You did that?” she asked.
“It was the gillie.”
“How?”
The gillie spoke up. Explosives storage was in the north quadrant of the shed. The puter told me that automated conveyor belts were used to bring up boxes of explosives bound for Helium-3 towns. Gillie ordered one point five tons of high performance glyco gel to the receiving station in the maintenance shed.
Glyco gel was the main ingredient of the detpaks that mining operations used to blast the scrapes. Crater whistled. “That’s a lot of glyco gel. How did you detonate it?”
Gillie also sent along ignition caps, then sent message for them to detonate.
“I’m glad it’s on our side,” Maria said.
“It’s illegal, you know,” Crater said, grinning.
“It knows that,” Maria answered with a grin of her own.
Crescent pointed skyward. “The warpods are under attack and they’re leaving.”
Crater looked to see the jets of the warpods blinking out one by one. Darting amongst them was a silvery torpedo-shaped craft, the same kind he and Crescent had observed months ago engaging the Earthian warpods.
Crater used his helmet scope to scan the bodies of the crowhoppers around the destroyed maintenance shed. All seemed dead. But then he saw eight spiderwalkers, the agile eight-legged land machines that could walk, run, and hop, creeping around the edges of the town.
Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed someone running past him. It was Jake, with Clarence close behind. They were not used to moon gravity, and a few steps down the hill they lost their balance and tumbled down the dusty slope. “What are you doing?” Crater yelled.
The App men got to their feet and ran on, adjusting for the light gravity. Crater now understood what they were up to. They were picking up railgun rifles and stripping the dead crowhoppers of bandoleers of flechettes. It was a good idea, but the spiderwalkers had seen them and turned their way. “Come on, boys,” Crater said. “Get in your vehicles. We’ve got to go or they’re going to catch us.”
“I don’t think so,” Crescent said and pointed skyward once more.
Crater looked up. This time it wasn’t warpods he saw but mooncrete and lunasteel. Tons of it.
What goes up must come down, the gillie said.
::: THIRTY-FOUR
Maria was simmering. She detested the enemy nations that sent the crowhoppers to ravage Armstrong City and murder innocent people, done only to kidnap her. What sense did that make? War was so stupid! And how many billions of johncredits was it going to take to rebuild the Buzz Ald
rin Dome and repair all the other damage? The only thing that made her feel any better was she was certain that her grandfather would go after those dictators and exact a bloody vengeance. It might take weeks, months, or years, but the Colonel was patient. He’d figure out how to do it, then do it.
She was also angry at Crater. True, he had saved her, but other than that, she didn’t much like the decisions he’d made. For one thing, he’d blown up the maintenance shed! That was going to cost a pretty penny to rebuild and who was going to pay for it? She also didn’t like that Crater had ordered her to take the chuckwagon. It belonged to the company and it was meant to accompany Helium-3 convoys, not taken on a desperate lurch across the moon. And where were they going, anyway? They were off any track she knew and heading westward. It made no sense at all.
Maria had doubts about this new resolute Crater who had suddenly appeared when he’d kissed her after she’d given him the gillie. Maria liked the old Crater, soft around the edges and easily wrapped around her little finger. Then she recalled that kiss. Her hand touched her lips in remembrance. Maybe the new Crater wasn’t so bad after all.
She became aware of the creature in the passenger seat watching her and she quickly dropped her fingers from her mouth. It was a pug-ugly thing, this girl crowhopper. When this strange odyssey to somewhere had begun, the creature had taken off her helmet and the pressurized cabin filled with her body odor. “There are showers in the back,” Maria said.
“Do I stink?” Crescent asked. She didn’t sound angry, just curious.
Maria never shied from a truth. “You are not fresh,” she replied.
“Would you prefer me to be fresh or dead? The Legion is following. We do not know when they might catch up and I need to be prepared to defend us.”
“Let’s risk it,” Maria answered in her crisp fashion.
“I think not,” Crescent answered, just as crisply. “However, I will drive if you wish a shower. You have also sweated inside your pressure suit.”
Maria’s pride would not let her accept the offer. “I will wait,” she answered, and then both lapsed into silence.
