by Homer Hickam
“Uh oh,” Riley said. “That isn’t good.”
“What’s going on, Riley?” the Colonel demanded.
“We’re going to make orbit, sir,” Riley said. “But with all that maneuvering, I’m not sure where we are.”
“What happens if we can’t get to the fuser?” Tiger asked on their private channel.
Riley shrugged. “We can’t land on one engine even if we had the propellant to try.”
“In other words . . .”
“In other words, Tiger, if we can’t get to the fuser, we will be stuck in lunar orbit until our air runs out.”
Tiger pondered that, then asked, “If I gave the jumpcar puter the fuser puter codes, could it establish contact?”
“Possibly. What’s your plan?”
“If we can’t get up to the fuser, maybe we can bring it down to us.”
Riley flashed him a pleased grin. “Tiger, you’re a pretty handy fellow.”
“I think that’s why I’m here, little lady.”
“If this works, I might even forgive you for calling me that.”
“I’ll apologize if you’ll give me a kiss instead.”
“Ah, love in low lunar orbit. What sweet bliss! Nay, lad, no kisses, not yet, til ye show me what ye can do.”
Tiger smiled. “Then hang onto your lips!”
TWENTY-FIVE
After having a good talk with herself about what was right and what was wrong, Maria floated up onto the station bridge, determined to turn everything around after she was crowned queen. Letticus saw her first. The captain nodded in her direction and Truvia turned toward her. Maria pushed off, turned in midflight, and landed to push her feet into foot restraints beside Truvia. “I’ve been thinking over your offer,” Maria said, “and I accept.”
Truvia beckoned her to foot restraints away from the others. Her green eyes narrowed and her expression was dubious. “Please convince me of your sincerity.”
Maria took a deep breath. “You said the asteroid you sent will hit the Earth and it can’t be stopped.”
“That’s true,” Truvia said.
“Therefore, the moon will be all that’s left of humanity.”
“Nearly true. Some people will survive on Earth, but they will be marooned on the planet. So much dust will be in the air, their scramjets won’t work. Even if they did, they will be trying to survive, not fly into space. According to my analysis, existence for the remaining humans on Earth will be similar to medieval life in the fourteenth century.”
“That’s about what I thought,” Maria replied. “And here is why I agree to be your queen. After the Earth is damaged, the Lunar Council will likely get organized to establish a central government on the moon. When they discover it was the Colonel who established the asteroid horde at L5, they will assume he also sent the asteroid crashing into Earth. After that, the Medaris family will be arrested and most of us will be put to death. Those remaining will be reduced to paupers. I have no option other than to join you.”
Truvia’s eyes sparkled. “You please me. Your father still hasn’t figured this out.”
“I’m a fast learner.” Maria made a fist, then opened and closed it. “Iron fist, pretend to be benevolent, then destroy my enemies. Got it covered. So when do I get my crown?”
Truvia clasped her hands to her breast. “We will have a coronation! It will be glorious!”
“Can we do it fairly soon?” Maria asked. “I’d like to get used to being royally in charge.”
Truvia’s delighted expression faded. “In charge? Oh dear, I think you’ve misunderstood. There’s really very little for you to do. Even our beloved King Raleigh and Queen Porella were figureheads, as you will be. In our world, the Trainers make all the decisions.”
Maria could not disguise her disappointment. “But didn’t you say you were designed to be subservient?”
“Yes, but our subservience doesn’t lessen our intellect or our tendency to make the necessary decisions for our society. Certainly, we will honor you with all possible pomp and circumstance. You will be fed, clothed, housed in a royal palace, your every wish granted as it has to do with your royal person, and pampered beyond your wildest imagination.”
Maria’s deflation was complete. “In other words, I will be in a royal cage.”
“Your great-uncle and aunt had no complaints. They became quite fat. Obese, actually. We worried for their health. Now, of course, we can keep your figure perpetually youthful.” She peered at Maria. “Are you sure you want to be our queen?”
Maria’s acting ability was being stretched, but she did her best. “Of course I do!”
Truvia continued to study her, doubt written on her white face.
“Trainer Truvia,” Letticus interrupted, “we have CC2241 on the pulsdar.”
“Come, my future queen,” Truvia said, taking Maria by her hand. “Come see this magnificent sight.”
Maria allowed Truvia to pull her to the pulsdar station, where its sweep showed a glowing blob. “The asteroid is passing over the farside,” Letticus explained.
“It’s how we’ve hidden it,” Truvia explained. “Earthside telescopes couldn’t see it in the shadow of the moon. When it pops out, it will be too late for anyone to do anything.”
“How many days until it gets there?” Maria asked, her stomach churning.
“Three days, a little less.”
Maria looked longingly at the communications console. If she could have just a few seconds on it, she could warn Earth. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe something could be done.
Truvia was not oblivious to where Maria was looking. “Perhaps it is best for you to leave the bridge,” she said. “I sense you are still not being entirely honest with me.”
Maria shrugged. “Do you really expect me to be thrilled that you’re murdering billions of people and destroying my family? But that doesn’t change my decision to be your queen. As I said, I really have no choice.”
“Of course you don’t,” Truvia replied, arching an eyebrow. “By the way, could you tell me more about that heel-3 miner who you said is coming to rescue you? If he’s really coming, you can help us stop him.”
“I was just blowing smoke,” Maria said with a dismissive gesture. “There is no such person.”
“Crater Trueblood is not a person? Please, don’t take me as a fool, Maria. Don’t look so startled. We are capable of research. Mr. Trueblood saved you when the crowhoppers tried to kidnap you during the war.”
“That was then, and it was on the moon. Crater has no way to get out here. How could he?”
“From all I’ve read, he seems quite inventive. It also appears he was once very much in love with you.” Truvia stroked Maria’s cheek while she did her best not to flinch. “I can understand why. Love can sometimes make a person do amazing things. If he comes for you, how will he do it?”
“He is not coming.”
Truvia dropped her hand away. “We have resources on the moon, Maria. Trueblood lives in Cleomedes, but he is not there and no one seems to know where he is. Do you know?”
“Honestly, Truvia, I have no idea.” Maria felt a spark of hope light in her chest.
Truvia reached out to touch Maria’s face again. This time Maria couldn’t help but flinch. Truvia’s hand hung in midair before she slowly lowered it. “I think you should go below now. We will speak of this and many other things at a later time.”
Maria, throwing up a prayer that Crater was really coming, fled the bridge.
TWENTY-SIX
Petro was busier than a one-armed scragline picker. Working with the ship’s puter, he set up a course that would take them out of lunar orbit and put them on a looping path to L5 as if they were coming in from deep space. If detected by L5, the hope was the ship would be thought of as a wayward asteroid. The real hope was the fuser wouldn’t be detected at all.
The gillies kept trying to help, but Petro was having nothing to do with either of them. “Tell your slime mold critters to leave me alon
e!” Petro snarled, Crescent and Crater snatching up their particular slime mold things and carrying them off.
He is not efficient, Crater’s gillie said.
He is not efficient, Crescent’s gillie said.
They looked at one another, even though they had no eyes, and then nodded agreement, even though neither had heads to nod.
Crater and Crescent tucked their gillies away, admonishing them to be silent. “Humans don’t work the same way you do,” Crater told his gillie. “Sometimes they look inefficient, but it’s the way their brains work.”
“And some humans don’t have much intelligence,” Crescent whispered to her gillie and felt it vibrate in her pocket. She hoped that meant it was pleased, but you never knew about gillies.
Before turning on the fusion engine, Petro called Crater and Crescent to the cockpit for a briefing. “The launch is going to be rough because we’ve got to make up a lot of energy in a short time. Make sure you’re sitting back in your seat and fully strapped in. To loop out and back to L5, I’m going to have to essentially stomp on the gas.”
Crater and Crescent dutifully strapped themselves in with Crater beside Petro in the copilot’s seat and Crescent in the astrogator’s cabin. “Strapped in and ready to go,” she reported.
“All right, troops, here we go,” Petro said. “Puter, on my mark, send us along. Five-four-three-two-one-mark!”
The violence of the fuser engine was astonishing. It was as if a nuclear bomb had gone off behind them. A massive g-force slammed Crater back into his deeply cushioned chair. It felt like an elephant had put its foot on his chest. Less than a minute later, the g-force abated, then vanished. “We’re on our way!” Petro whooped. “Aren’t we, Linda?”
The fuser’s puter responded, a woman’s voice with a delicate American Southern accent. Why, yes sir, we are. And may I just say congratulations on your brilliant programming?
“Of course you may. And thank you for your excellent interpretation of my commands.”
“Why don’t you two get a room?” Crater complained while trying to catch his breath.
“Jealousy has many forms, brother,” Petro said. “In your case, it’s overt.” He smiled at his own joke while Crater rolled his eyes.
“The missile racks still need to be calibrated,” Crescent called. “Could use some help on that, Petro.”
Petro unstrapped and rose from his seat. “You might want to go through some battle simulations,” he told Crater. “Otherwise, don’t touch anything. Fusers are not easy to fly.”
Petro disappeared aft, leaving Crater to absorb Petro’s admonition. “What do you think, Gillie? Are fusers hard to fly?”
Software, firmware, and hardware systems of fusion-powered battle cruisers are quite complex. They do, however, have a remarkable number of redundancies. They also feature super-hardened puters, which took me nearly an hour to hack.
“What did you learn?”
Nothing. I studied fusers extensively last winter when there was little else to do.
Crater smiled. “I’m sorry you were bored.”
Gillies are never bored.
“You’ve told me any number of times that you were bored.”
Unless it is life-threatening or goes against whatever the current mission happens to be, gillies might tell less than the complete truth.
“In other words, you lie if it’s convenient.”
The gillie did not reply but lay instead on the instrument console of the fuser and looked at Crater in what Crater decided was wry amusement. At least, that’s what it would have looked like if a gillie could look any way at all, which of course it couldn’t.
Crater studied the layout of the fuser cockpit. There was a single glass viewport, vidscreens used for primary visuals. For the view ahead, the pilot used a vidscreen above the viewport. A vidscreen beneath the viewport showed the view directly below the fuser. To see starboard, the pilot looked to his right at another smaller vidscreen, and for a port view to a vidscreen on his left. A split screen overhead provided the view above and behind. If the pilot used the vidscreens properly, there were no visual dead spots, but knowing where to look and how to interpret the screens took practice. Crater decided to follow Petro’s advice and run a simulation of an attack.
“Puter, give me a target of a warpod, Nashville class, running at low normal battle speeds, approaching from port z.”
Yes, sir. Shall we begin? the puter asked.
“Yes, ready,” Crater responded.
Radar indicates bandit at your port z five o’clock.
Crater checked the radar and saw the puter-generated image. “Does it have a squawk?”
Negative, sir. It is running silent. It appears to be a warpod, Nashville class. Would you like a rundown of its capabilities?
“No, thank you. Arm missiles and cannon.”
Armed. Reminder. This is a simulation.
“Understood, puter.”
You may call me Linda.
Crater thought about that, then said, “Understood, Linda.”
Crater checked the lower left vidscreen and saw a star wink out. Warpods were painted a dull grayish-black and were nearly invisible against space, but the winking star indicated something had crossed it. “Infrared on vidscreens, Linda.”
Understood. Infrared on all vidscreens.
A bright blue flare surrounded by a pink outline appeared on the port vidscreen. Before Crater could react, it sped up, looped over and disappeared. Crater swiveled his eyes from vidscreen to vidscreen. “Lost it, Linda!”
Look up.
Crater looked up and saw a warpod on the split screen. It took a moment for him to interpret its meaning. The warpod was on his tail and closing fast. “Fire missile at target on my six!”
Cannot comply. Your missiles have nuclear warheads. Blast would destroy you.
“Tail cannon!”
I’m sorry, sir. The warpod launched a salvo of missiles and completely destroyed you. Would you like to play again?
“No thank you, Linda. Some other time.”
Yes, sir. Have a pleasant evening, sir.
Crater allowed a sigh. “How can I have a pleasant evening when I just got destroyed?”
“I heard most of that,” Petro said, floating into the cockpit and somersaulting into the pilot’s chair. “Come on, brother, don’t look so glum. It takes more than a few puter sims to learn how to fight one of those bad boy warpods. You have to take advantage of fuser capabilities. For one, you’ve got accelerations a warpod pilot can only envy. When that bandit got on your tail, you did not need to engage him at all. One nudge of the throttle and you could have left him and his missiles far behind.”
Crater nodded his understanding. “The puter reminded me we’re armed with nuclear missiles that we can’t use,” he said.
“I’ve been wondering about that. Why did you bring them?”
“I thought maybe we might bluff the station at L5.”
“That’s another thing,” Petro said. “Where is the station? L5 is a big place. To find it, we could paint the area with our pulsdars, but if we do, they’ll detect us.”
Crater thought about that. “Here’s an idea. The Cyclers have pulsdars and they’re always painting space to keep from running into anything. If L5 detected a pulsdar paint from a Cycler, they might not think much of it. All we have to do is find a Cycler willing to do it and keep us secret. The captain of the Elon Musk knows me. I could try him.”
“We’d need a secure channel,” Petro advised. “Maybe your gillie can hook up through a lunar comm-sat.”
“No good. There are only two working lunar comm-sats,” Crater said, “and L5 might be monitoring them. But, lucky for us, Cyclers don’t use lunar comm-sats, they use Earth sats, and there’s a thousand of those. Gillie, see if you can contact Captain George Fox on the Elon Musk through an Earth comm-sat. Pick out an obscure one. Use his personal do4u and encrypt everything.”
Working, the gillie said. In seconds, it reported b
ack. Cycler Elon Musk is behind the Earth relative to the moon. It will be six hours before it is in position to paint L5 with its pulsdar.
“Can I speak to Captain Fox?”
Negative. He does not have his personal do4u turned on.
Crater thought hard, then snapped his fingers. “How about Betty and Tommy? Are they still running tourists on the Musk?”
Affirmative. Do you want me to call them?
Crater explained to Petro. “Betty and Tommy are good friends. They’re guides for an adventure touring outfit called Lunex that travel to and from the moon on the Musk. Yes, Gillie, please call them.”
Within minutes, Crater found himself talking to Betty of Lunex. “Crater, what a delight to hear from you! Tommy and I were just talking about you the other day and wondering how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine,” Crater lied. “Listen, Betty, I’d like to catch up but I really need to talk to Captain Fox. I need to keep it private, so that’s why I’m calling your do4u. Could you ask him to turn his on so I can call him?”
Betty chuckled. “The captain hates do4us. Probably hasn’t turned his on in years. How about I go up to the bridge and hand him this one?”
Not too much later, Crater found himself talking to Cycler Captain George E. Fox. “This is Captain Fox,” the captain said. “Who’s this?”
“Captain, this is Crater Trueblood. I need a favor.”
“A favor? The fellow who brought my Cycler under attack? That Crater Trueblood? You dare to ask me a favor?”
“I didn’t know it was going to be attacked, Captain. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you.”
Crater’s response elicited a hearty laugh from the Cycler skipper. “I know that, Crater. It was the Medarises that brought on the attack. You and I were both pawns.”
“That’s right, we were. Look, I’m on another mission, a rescue, and I need your help. Would you paint L5 with your pulsdar and tell me what you see? Any ships, asteroids, anything?”
“L5? That’s empty space.”
“No longer, sir. There’s a lot there now.”
“Who put it there?”
“I don’t know, but it isn’t friendly. Not to you or to me.”
