Peacekeepers (1988)

by Ben Bova

  "Ready to try it?" he asked.

  "Yeah. Sure." Her voice in his earphones sounded doubtful.

  He nudged the throttle. For an eternally long moment not a thing happened. Then the platform shuddered and jumped and they were soaring up over the lunar landscape like a howitzer shell.

  "It works!" Kelly exulted. Jay noticed that both her gloved fists were gripping the railing hard enough to bend the metal.

  "Next stop, Moonbase!" he yelled back at her.

  They got high enough to see the lights of the base's solar-energy farm, spread out across the shore of the Mare Nubium, where automated tractors were converting raw regolith soil into solar cells and laying them out in neat hexagonal patterns.

  Jay tried to steer toward the lights, but the hopper's internal safety program decided that there was not enough fuel for maneuvering and a safe landing. So they glided on, watching the lights of the energy farm slide off to their right.

  It was eerie, flying in total silence, without a breeze, without even vibration from the platform they stood upon.

  Like a dream, coasting effortlessly high above the ground.

  Kelly used the hopper's radio to send an emergency call to Moonbase security. "There's a nuclear bomb planted somewhere in the oxygen factory," she repeated a dozen times. There was no answer from Moonbase.

  "Either we're not getting through to them or they're not getting through to us," she said, her voice brittle with apprehension.

  "Maybe they think it's a nut call."

  He sensed her shaking her head. "They've got to check it out. They can't let a warning about a nuclear bomb go without checking on it."

  "Nukes are pretty small. The oxygen plant's damned big."

  "I know," she answered. "I know. And there isn't much time."

  Jay realized that they were flying toward the imminent nuclear explosion. Like charging into the mouth of the cannon, he thought.

  He heard himself saying, "You were damned good back there. You could have taken both of them by yourself."

  "No, that's not likely," she replied absently, her mind obviously elsewhere. "I was counting on your help and you came through."

  A long silence. Then Kelly asked, "Will those two have enough air in the shelter to last until their friends pick them up?"

  "Probably. I only took the emergency backup bottles. Who the hell cares about them, anyway?"

  "No sense killing them."

  "Why not? They'd kill us. They're trying to blow up Moonbase and kill everybody, aren't they?"

  A longer silence. They were descending now. The ground was slowly, languidly coming closer. And closer.

  "Will one nuke really be enough to wipe out the whole base?" Kelly asked.

  "Depends on its size. Probably won't vaporize the whole base. But they're smart to put it in the oxygen factory. Like shooting a guy in the heart. The blast will destroy Moonbase's oxygen production. No O2 for life support, or for export. Oxygen's still the Moon's major export product."

  "I know that."

  "The bomb will kick up a helluva lot of debris, too. Like a big meteor impacting. The splash will cover the solarenergy farms, I'll bet. Electricity production goes down close to zero."

  Kelly muttered something unintelligible.

  Jay had to admire the terrorists' planning. "They won't kill many people directly. They'll force Moonbase to shut down. Somebody'll have to evacuate a couple thousand people back to Earth. Neat job."

  The ground was coming up faster now. Automatically the hopper's computer fired its little rocket engine and they slowed, then landed with hardly a thump.

  "We must be a couple of klicks from the factory," Jay said. "You stay here and keep transmitting a warning. I'll go to the factory and see what's happening there."

  "Hell, no!" Kelly snapped. "We're both going to the factory."

  "That's stupid . . ."

  "Don't get macho on me, Yank, just when I was starting to like you. Besides, you might still be one of the bad guys. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

  He grinned at her, knowing that she could not see it through the helmet visor. "You still harbor suspicions about me?"

  "Officially, yes."

  "And unofficially?" he asked.

  "We're wasting time. Let's get moving."

  There was less than a half hour remaining by the time they reached the oxygen factory.

  "It's big!" Kelly said. Their suit radios worked now; they had outrun the jammers.

  "There's a thousand places they could tuck a nuke in here."

  "Where the hell are the Moonbase security people?"

  Jay took a deep breath. Where would I place a nuke, to do the maximum damage? Not out here at the periphery of the factory. Deep inside, where the heavy machinery is.

  The rock crushers? No. The ovens and electric arc separators, "Come on," he commanded.

  They ducked under conveyor belts, dodged maintenance robots gliding smoothly along the factory's concrete pad with arms extended semi-menacingly at the intruding humans. Past the rock crushers, pounding so thunderously that Jay could feel their raw power vibrating along his bones. Past the shaker screens where the crushed rock and sandy soil were sifted.

  Up ahead was the heavy stuff, the steel complex of electrical ovens and the shining domes protecting the lightning-bolt arcs that extracted pure oxygen from the lunar minerals. The area was a maze of pipes. Off at one end of it stood the tall cryogenic tanks where the precious oxygen was stored.

  It was dark in there. The meteor screen overhead shut out the Earthlight, and there were only a few lamps scattered here and there. The maintenance robots did not need lights, and humans were discouraged from tinkering with the automated machinery.

  "It's got to be somewhere around here," Jay told Kelly.

  They separated, each hunting frantically for an object that was out of place, a foreign invading cell in this almost living network of machinery that pulsed like a heart and produced oxygen for its human dependents to breathe.

  "Four minutes 'til the nuke goes off!"

  The words rasped in Jay's earphones. He knew that Kelly was nearly exhausted. He was himself: soaked with sweat and bone-tired.

  "It's got to be here someplace. " Desperation edged her voice. Four minutes and counting.

  He halted in the midst of the pulsing machinery, took the last of the antistatic pads from his leg pouch, and carefully cleared his helmet visor of the dust that had accumulated there.

  Then immediately wished he hadn't.

  Six other pressure-suited figures had entered the factory complex. Each of them carried a flechette gun in his gloved hand.

  Jay tried as best as he could to duck behind the lumbering conveyor belt to his right. He motioned for Kelly to do the same. She had seen them too, and squatted awkwardly in her suit like a little kid playing hide-and-seek.

  Jay watched the six pressure-suited figures, his mind racing. Less than three minutes left! What the hell can we do? Where's the base security people?

  For a wild instant he thought that these six might be Moonbase security personnel. But their suits bore no insignia, no Moonbase logo, no names stenciled on their chests.

  Feeling trapped and desperately close to death. Jay suddenly yelled into his helmet microphone, "That's it! It's disarmed. We can relax now."

  Kelly scuttled over to him and pressed her helmet against his. "What are you ..."

  He shoved her away and pointed with his other hand.

  The intruders were gabbling at each other in their own language. Two of them ducked under a conveyor belt and headed straight toward the tall cryogenic storage tanks.

  "Come on," Jay whispered urgently at Kelly.

  They duck walked on a path parallel to the two terrorists, staying behind the conveyors and thick pipes, detouring around the massive stainless-steel domes of the electric arcs until they came up slightly behind the pair, at the base of the storage tanks.

  Jay jabbed a gloved finger, gesturing. Beneath the f
irst of the tanks lay an oblong case, completely without markings of any kind.

  One of the terrorists bent over it and popped open a square panel. The other leaned over his shoulder, watching.

  "We should have brought the guns from the shelter,"

  Kelly whispered as they huddled together behind a set of smaller tanks.

  "Good time to think of it."

  Without straightening up, he launched himself across the ten meters separating them from the terrorists. Arms outstretched, he slammed into the two of them and they all smashed against the curving wall of the storage tanks.

  Jay had seen men in pressure suits fight each other.

  Tempers can flare beyond control even in vacuum. Most of the time they were like the short-lived shoving matches between football players encased in their protective padding and helmets. But now and then lunar workers had tried to murder one another.

  He knew exactly what to do. Before either of the terrorists could react Jay had twisted the helmet release catch off the nearer one. He panicked and thrashed madly, kicking and fumbling with his gloved hands to seal the helmet again. He must have been screaming, too, but Jay could not hear him.

  The second one had time to stagger to his knees, halfway facing Jay. But Kelly slammed into his side, knocking him over against the oblong crate that held the nuclear weapon.

  Jay scooped up one of the fallen flechette guns and fired a trio of darts into the man's chest. The suit lost its stiffness as the air blew out of it, spewing blood through the holes.

  He turned to see the other terrorist fleeing madly away, legs flailing as he bounced and sailed in the low gravity, hands still fumbling with his helmet seal.

  "One minute!" Kelly shouted.

  Jay pushed the dead body away and grabbed at the nuke.

  "It's too heavy for . . ."

  "Not on the Moon," he grunted as he jerked the two meter long case off the concrete floor and hefted it to his shoulder.

  "This way," he said. "Take their guns. Cover me."

  They ran, straight up now, five meters at a stride, no hiding. Back the way they had come, toward the rock crushers. If this thing's salvage-fused we're finished, Jay told himself. But the first thing they do when they decommission a weapon is remove the fusing.' I hope.

  A pressure-suited figure flashed in front of him, then spun and went down, grabbing at its chest. Out of the side of his visor Jay saw two more figures racing to catch up with him. One of them tried to jump over some pipes.

  Unaccustomed to the lunar gravity, he leaped too hard and smashed into an overhead conveyor belt.

  Jay didn't need a watch, his pulse was thundering in his ears, pounding off the seconds. He saw the rock-crushing machines up ahead, felt a sting in one leg, then another in his side.

  His suit radio wasn't working. Or maybe he had shut it off back there somewhere, he didn't remember. His vision was blurring, everything was going shadowy. All he could see was the big conveyor belt trundling lunar rocks up to the pounding jaws of the crusher.

  Lunar gravity or not, the package on his shoulder weighed a ton. He staggered, he tottered, he reached the conveyor belt at last and with the final microgram of his strength he heaved the bulky package of death onto the rock-strewn belt and watched the crusher's ferocious steel teeth, corroded with dirt and stained by chemicals, crunch hungrily into the obscene oblong package of death.

  Jay never knew if the bomb went off. His world turned totally dark and oblivious.

  * * *

  The first face he saw when he opened his eyes again was his father's.

  J. W. Hazard was sitting by the hospital bed, gazing intently at his son. For the first time Jay could remember, his father's grim, weathered face looked softened, concerned.

  Instead of the hard-bitten, driving man Jay had known. Hazard seemed at a loss, almost bewildered, as he stared down at his son. His eyes seemed misted over. Even his iron-gray hair seemed slightly disheveled, as if he had been running his hands through it.

  "You're going to be okay, Jay-Jay," he whispered.

  "You're going to pull through all right."

  Jay's mouth felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. He tried to swallow.

  "Wh . . ." He choked slightly, coughed. "What are you doing here. Dad?"

  "I came up when they told me what you'd done."

  "What did I do?"

  "You saved Moonbase, son. They damn near killed you, but you kept the nuke from going off." There was pride in the older man's voice.

  "The girl . . . Kelly?"

  His father smiled slightly. "She's outside. Want to see her?"

  "Sure."

  Hazard got to his feet carefully, not entirely certain of himself in the low gravity. We're still on the Moon, Jay realized. His father was in full uniform: sky-blue tunic and trousers with gold piping and the diamond-cluster insignia that identified him as director-general of the International Peacekeeping Force.

  Kelly came buzzing into the room on an electric wheelchair, one leg wrapped in a plastic bandage.

  "You're hurt," Jay blurted, feeling woolly-headed, stupid.

  "They didn't give up after you tossed the nuke into the crusher," she explained cheerfully. "We had a bit of a firefight."

  "This young lady," Hazard said, his gravelly voice resuming some of its normal bellow, "not only held off four fanatics, but managed to patch your suit at the same time, thereby saving your life."

  Jay muttered, "Thanks. A lot."

  Clasping his hands behind his back and standing spraddle-legged in the middle of the hospital room, Hazard took over the conversation. "The terrorists had launched an attack on the Moonbase security office itself, designed to keep the base security forces tied up while they planted the nuke and waited for it to go off."

  "That's why we got no response from base security,"

  Kelly interjected.

  "This really was a Peacekeepers' operation," Jay said to her.

  "No way! We just called your father when you went into surgery."

  "How long have I been out?"

  "Three days."

  Turning to his father. Jay said, "You must've taken a high-energy express to get here so quick."

  Hazard's face reddened slightly. "Well," he blustered, "you're the only son I've got, after all."

  "You really care that much about me?"

  "I've always cared about you," the older man said.

  Kelly was grinning at the two of them.

  Abruptly, Hazard turned for the door. "I've got to contact Geneva. Got to get some forensics people up here to look at the remains of that nuke. Maybe we can get some info on where it's been hidden all this time. Might help us find the others that're missing. I'll be back later."

  "Okay, Dad. Thanks."

  "Thanks?" Hazard shot him a puzzled look.

  "For everything."

  The old man made a sour face and pushed through the door.

  "You're embarrassing him." Kelly laughed and wheeled her chair close to the bed.

  "You saved my life," Jay said.

  "Not me. You were clinically dead when the medics reached us. They pulled you back."

  He licked his dry lips, then, "You know, for a while there, I wasn't certain that I wanted to go on living. But you made me decide. I really owe you a lot for that."

  Kelly beamed at him, "Welcome back to life, Jay. Welcome back to the human race."

  After my prosthesis I was assigned by the

  IPF personnel computers to the intelligence

  service once again, this time as deputy

  director, with the rank of major. Hazard

  himself pinned the ringed-planet insignia on

  my collar.

  The situation I found was precarious.

  Disarmament was stalled because Shamar's

  little nuclear arsenal gave the major powers

  a lovely excuse to cling to their own

  megatonnages of weaponry. The IPF had

  stopped several small wa
rs and the largish

  affair between India and Pakistan, but no

  one truly believed that world peace could be

  maintained unless and until the big powers

  disarmed themselves seriously. That meant

  finding Shamar, a task that the IPF could

  not do.

  Which is why Red Eagle continued to

  deal with Cole Alexander, despite his

  growing misgivings. And why I made it my

  business to channel every piece of

  intelligence about Shamar and his nuclear

  weapons to Red Eagle.

  WASHINGTON D.C.

  Year 8

  THE night was balmy as Cole Alexander walked the length of the reflecting pool and started up the granite steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He felt a burning anxiety growing within him.

  We're close, he told himself. We're almost there.

  Shamar's almost in our grasp. And afterward ... He trembled with anticipation.

  Taking a deep calming breath of the night air, he inhaled a flowery fragrance. The cherry trees? he wondered. No, more like good old magnolias.

  Out there in the darkness, he knew, were Kelly and Pavel. Shadowing him. Protecting him. Alexander grinned sourly. I'm more in danger from muggers around here at this time of night than from Shamar. But his daughter had made up her mind that he must be accompanied by a bodyguard. When Pavel had immediately volunteered, Kelly insisted that she go along, too.

  To protect me against the Red? Is she still suspicious of Pavel, or does she just want to be with him? Suspicious, he decided. Strangely, Alexander himself felt confident of Pavel's loyalty. As long as we don't put him in conflict with his orders from Moscow, the kid will be okay, he told himself.

  The neoclassic Greek temple of the Memorial building was nearly empty this close to midnight; only a few diehard tourists and romantic couples stood scattered around its floor, staring up at the great brooding marble statue of the sixteenth President. Subdued lighting in the ceiling cast moonlight-like shadows across the hollows of Lincoln's craggy cheeks.

  Old Honest Abe, said Alexander silently. Look at that face. You sure as hell saw your share of troubles, didn't you?