"That's wishful thinking. This is going to end in war."
"Maybe so, but if it comes to that, it has to be one we can win. If the war comes early, a lot of people are going to die. Or end up in black prisons for life."
Mike opened his mouth to object, but Lowell cut him off. "This isn't just my advice as a lawyer, this is me asking you as someone who lives here in Aristillus. Think about your friends, Mike. Think about their families."
Mike crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Mike, did you hear my advice?"
"Yeah, I heard it."
"And?"
"And it pisses me off."
Lowell chuckled. "That's how we both know I'm doing my job."
"I don't like it."
"You don't have to. You've just got to listen to it."
Chapter 20
2064: Moscow Sea, Lunar Farside
John stared at the dusty ground as he put one foot in front of another. Ahead of him the cargo mule walked alone, swaying from side to side with the weight of the collapsed tent and the rapidly dwindling stock of air scrubbers. The Dogs were behind him somewhere. There'd been a little radio chatter earlier in the day, but for the last hour now they'd all been silent, each lost in his own thoughts.
John had been putting on a brave face for the Dogs since the satellites went down. It was a role he was used to - he'd been looking out for them for years, ever since the day that he and the Team had slipped into the Palo Alto facility and smuggled the Dogs out and to the moon.
Every day of the first two years on the moon he'd felt the sword hanging over their heads. Would the politicians feel the need to avenge the humiliation of the Palo Alto raid and somehow hunt him, the Team, and the Dogs down? Would Mike's crazy colony survive? As Aristillus grew his fears retreated, just a bit. Then when the California earthquake hit, as other political crises dominated the newsblogs, and as the Bureau of Sustainable Research turned its investigators to other techcrimes, he'd finally felt like he could breathe again.
Yes, he'd finally felt like he could breathe again, after so long. And that foolish feeling - that letting down of his guard - had led him to first entertain and then actively plan this crazy idea of a backpacking trip around the moon's equator. This ill-thought-out, foolish, doomed trip. John cursed himself again.
All during his career he'd prided himself on thinking through absolutely everything that could go wrong, from helicopter problems to broken radios, from jammed guns to local contacts who might not deliver. By planning for each of these failures, he'd always made sure that he had redundancy, a backup plan, some way to rescue his ass - and his men. He'd always done the best he could to keep his people safe.
But after saving the Dogs, fleeing to the moon, and surviving those first few years in semi-hiding, he'd lost his edge. For this backpacking trip he'd thought through dozens of things that could go wrong. Hundreds. There were spare suits, extra cameras, first aid kits, multiple sources of food, prepaid bank accounts to fund it... but he'd somehow overlooked this possibility.
He'd told the Dogs that Max's idea that Aristillus had been nuked was crazy, and he'd told them that the supplies would land on time, but he didn't fully believe either of those. Yes, maybe Aristillus was OK. Yes, maybe the supplies would land.
...But what if the worst had happened? Even if Aristillus hadn't taken a nuke, what if Earth forces had struck Lai docks? Were there any hoppers left to fly the supplies out here? Or even if there were hoppers, what if in the after-effects of the attack, no one remembered that they were out here?
John breathed deeply - and then immediately thought of the limited supply of air scrubbers. He needed to think about something else. He keyed his mike. "Blue, up for a game of go when we camp tonight?"
A pause, then a flat "OK".
He tried a few more times, but it was clear from the monosyllabic responses that Blue wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
Max was more direct. "Max, listening to any good audio books as you hike?"
"No. I'm too busy thinking about the fact that the Bureau of Sustainable Research finally succeeded in killing us."
John tried Rex and Duncan, but after two more rebuffs he gave up and slipped deeper into his own thoughts. Everyone dies sooner or later. At least he had lived first. He'd seen things - done things - that he could be proud of. This hike, for example - he'd walked on foot through mountains and lunar seas that no human - or Dog - had ever seen. Yes, he'd lived.
He turned the sentence over in his head a few times, seeking some kind of solace. In the end, though, the words just sounded like trite affirmations. The bottom line was that he liked life, and didn't want to die - certainly not in some stupid, pointless way.
The worst part wasn't that at the end he'd be gasping for breath as the CO2 scrubbers in his suit ran out - it would be watching the Dogs die the same horrible way. And it was his arrogance, his incompetence, and his lack of foresight that had doomed the four Dogs to die alone and choking on the CO2 in their suits.
Still, there was nothing to be gained by feeling sorry for himself. The Dogs could sense his mood, and it was his duty to set an example. He needed to cheer himself up, if not for his own benefit, then for theirs. Maybe music would help - some last-century Old Rock, with drums and guitars. John scrolled through his suit's archive and had just selected 'random' when Rex interrupted him.
"John?"
"Yeah, Rex, what's up?"
"Do you see that light in the sky?"
John snapped to the present. "What? Where?
"About fifty degrees over the horizon, off to the left of that ridge."
John scanned the sky. A moment later Rex sent a datagram and John's helmet overlay obligingly drew a box around the region. There. Was that it? Yes. "I see it, Rex." Over the next few seconds the speck grew brighter. It was still kilometers, if not tens of kilometers, up, but with no atmosphere in the way, the small dot was crisp, clear, and starting to take shape.
John swallowed as he tracked it.
As it dropped lower he could make out more detail. It was less than a kilometer up now and the bright flare was clearly a chemical rocket burning hard to kill its horizontal velocity.
A ship. By God, there was a ship.
The song that'd been playing quietly in his helmet suddenly changed character. The quiet acoustic guitar was joined by drums and another guitar. John grinned. Everything was turning around - and even the sound track in his helmet was cooperating.
The ship was coming in for a landing a hundred meters away, down the slope to the left. It was low enough and close enough that John could almost read the logos and ID numbers painted on the side.
The ship fell slower and slower. Now it was just ten meters above the surface and the dust beneath it began to wiggle and shimmy, and then blew away from the landing zone in an invisible airless wind. The invisible wind of the AG drive intensified until there was no more dust and then - when the ship was just a meter above the surface - pebbles and small stones began to roll aside. And then, almost before John realized it, the ship was down. The pilot must have shut the drive off then because the ship settled and its half dozen legs compressed and took its weight.
Then, over the radio:
"John? Is that you? Or did I stumble into some other lunatic hiking out here with a bunch of golden retrievers?"
Duncan did his weird yodeling thing, and then said, "I've told you before, Darcy, there's not more than one percent golden in any of us!"
Darcy laughed. "I know, Duncan, I know. I just like hearing you get annoyed. Anyway, who's in the mood for cheese burgers and fresh CO2 scrubbers?”
Chapter 21
2064: Darcy's ship at Moscow Sea, Lunar Farside
John lifted his helmet off, took a deep breath of the air - cold, fresh - and then hung the helmet on a hook on the airlock wall. A moment later he was out of his suit and hung it alongside.
The inner door of the airlock swung open at his push and John stepped through
- and then around the four Dog space suits and matching helmets discarded in a pile on the floor. Normally he'd feel an urge to yell at them to keep their equipment organized, but now he was overwhelmed with the reprieve from death. He was alive - they were all alive!
Beyond the pile of canine suits Rex stretched out to expose the back of his neck, Duncan was rolling on his back, and Darcy was squatting down and using one hand to scratch each of them. Rex and Duncan's squint-eyed looks of bliss contrasted with Blue and Max’s expressions of disdain. John chuckled at the difference between the generations.
He turned his attention to Darcy. She wasn't his type, but he had to admit that the crinkling around her eyes and the unbounded joy in her face when she was happy were appealing; Mike had chosen well.
Darcy looked up and saw John. She stood, brushing stray wisps of her ponytail out of her eyes and grinned even more broadly as she flung her arms wide.
John took two large steps and scooped her up in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet. She laughed as she pretended to hammer on John's shoulders. "OK big guy, OK!" John put her down and grinned. "Sorry, Darce. Don't want to make Mike jealous, but the novelty of not dying is still kinda fresh."
Darcy stepped back and, still smiling, brushed at the front of her shirt. John looked at her blouse and saw that he'd tracked in some of the ever-present surface dust. "Oops."
Darcy waved it away. "Speaking of Mike, just the other day I asked him, 'John's birthday is coming - what should we get for the man who's got everything?' I was thinking a nice set of salad forks, but Mike kept arguing for air scrubbers."
John's cheeks were beginning to cramp from his grin.
To his left Duncan, scratching session over, rolled onto his stomach. "On the radio you said you had hamburgers?"
"I do, Duncan," said Darcy.
Duncan's ears had pricked up at the mention of burgers and he started to do his weird whimpering/yipping thing. Max turned to him and growled briefly. Duncan shrunk back and his ears went flat; then he whispered, "Sorry".
John rolled his head, stretching his neck. "I suppose asking for a microbrew to go with it would be crazy?"
"Check the galley."
"You're shitting me." He coughed. "Ah, excuse me."
Darcy inclined her head toward the refrigerator.
Duncan turned to Darcy. "So, Darcy, can we cook up those hamburgers?"
Darcy smiled. "I've just been inside an AG field. How 'bout we let my stomach settle for a bit before we start cooking?"
"Aw."
John reappeared in the galley doorway with a bottle of Mineshaft Ten. "Fifteen minutes isn't going to kill us, Duncan. It's the least we can do, given that Darcy was kind enough to get me air scrubbers for my birthday." He took a sip then smiled at Darcy and raised an eyebrow. "Although I do note that my birthday was actually about six months ago."
"Would you have preferred those salad forks on time, or the scrubbers six months late?"
John tipped the bottle toward her. "A convincing rebuttal."
Darcy gestured to the couch across from her, and John walked across the thick carpet, luxuriating in the feel of the pad and pile even through the socks of his suit liner. He paused and then dug his toes into the rug, closing his eyes and groaning involuntarily.
Darcy prodded him, "What, you don't have carpet in that little tent of yours?"
John opened his eyes, smiled, and sprawled across the couch. Duncan jumped after him, circled once, and then curled between his ankles.
With no response from John, Darcy continued. "Flying is the only way to travel. Walking?" She shook her head. "You've got to carry all your junk on your back or on a mule, and you don't get hamburgers or rugs or -"
John pushed himself up on his elbows. "Darcy, before we slip too deep into chit-chat, the fact that you're here tells me that Aristillus is OK - so what the hell is going on with Gamma's satellites?
Darcy grew serious. "They were burned by an energy weapon a week ago."
"Yeah, we know -"
"You know that already? How?"
John explained the synthetic aperture hack with the suit cameras. Darcy was impressed. "It's a shame that you're spending your time out here backpacking - there are a dozen firms back in Aristillus that could use a leader like you. And add in technical chops like that -"
John coughed. "Actually, the image thing was Rex's idea." He paused. "Tell me what you know about Gamma's satellites. We both know it was a beam weapon, but what else have you figured out?"
"We know they were fired from low earth orbit, and we know -"
John tilted his head. "How do you know that?"
"A clever hack Gamma came up with: he used rovers to look for-"
Max's pricked ears - both the intact right one and the slightly mangled left one - swiveled toward Darcy. "Let me guess - he looked for sintered dust where a shot hit a satellite and the beam continued to hit the ground, and he found it?"
Darcy said, "Yes, and -"
"And then if you know where the satellite was at the time, it's just geometry to find where the shot was fired from."
Darcy nodded again. "That's not all. We also think it was a visible light laser, because -"
Max interrupted again. "Because the silica was fused. North of 1600 degrees - but less than - um ... what? ... 2k degrees C?"
John turned to Max. Jesus, the Dog was quick! Scary quick.
They all were.
He wasn't the only one impressed - Darcy whistled. "Exactly! Gamma texted Mike some of the details, and Mike sent out a team to recover a sample and had a selenology lab do some work. I don't remember all the micro geology stuff, something about crystallization patterns during cooling, but the conclusion was that it was near-visible-light lasers."
John leaned forward. "Enough of the technical details - let's talk about the important thing: were there any other attacks? Kinetic weapons? Cyber? Landings?"
Darcy shook her head. "No, none of that."
John raised an eyebrow. "So what was the point?”
Darcy shrugged. "The net is alive with speculation, but no one knows."
John turned up his hands. "The hell? Well, has anyone claimed responsibility? Are there threats or demands?"
Duncan interrupted. "Let's talk about the really important thing: hamburgers!"
Darcy smiled. "OK, Duncan, my stomach has settled. There's no reason we can't talk while we cook." She rose and headed to the galley.
John followed her. "So do you know who took out the birds?"
Darcy shook her head. "No. We've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but there's been nothing. No one knows."
"I know."
Darcy whirled. "Who? How?"
"It was the US."
She raised one eyebrow skeptically, then looked away for a moment as she removed a block of cheese and a container of ground beef from the refrigerator. "What makes you say that?"
"There are only a few countries with a budget big enough to develop and deploy laser weapons - and to keep them hidden in a dark program. More important, though, is the political aspect. Clausewitz said 'War is politics by other means.’ Whose political interest is it in to pick a fight with us - and with Gamma?"
Darcy had been forming the beef into patties but turned away from the cutting board and furrowed her brow. "I don't know. What country would want to fight us?"
"No, not what country. Look." He put his empty bottle down on the counter and spread his hands. "Everyone analyzes countries by anthropomorphizing them. 'The US wants this' or 'Russia wants that.’ But that's nonsense. The real actors are inside the countries - a political party X wants this or the politician at the head of voting block Y wants that."
Darcy furrowed her brow, then nodded.
"Let's look at the factions inside the NEU government first. None of the parties have anything to gain from an unprovoked attack; they're all fixated on trying to slow down the demographic implosion and keep the Caliphate on the far side of the Bosphoros."
Darcy dropped six patties into the hot pan and spoke over the sizzling. "OK, so it's not the NEU - or, I guess you'd say 'it's not the NEU politicians.’ So what about the European military?"
John scoffed. "It's a French 'grand ecole' officer corps grafted onto incompetent African militia dregs at the bottom."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that the enlisted might be disloyal enough to do something without permission, but they're incompetent. And the officers are competent enough but are all loyal to the civilian governments that indoctrinated them. So it can't be any faction in the NEU."
"Hindi states?"
"The civilian government? What motivation do they have?"
"Uh...well, stuff is going to crap in Asia."
"In China and the Middle East, yeah, but India is doing OK. Politically, their focus is containment: keep the refugees from the Pakistan disaster on the far side of the mine fields and keep the chaos in China from spilling over. Two fronts are enough - they've got no reason to want a third."
"Maybe the Indian military -"
John shook his head. "The generals have a mission they can accomplish and the politicians are giving them the budget they ask for. They've got nothing to gain by starting a fight with us. No, it's no one inside either the NEU or Hindi State. It has to be the US."
From behind him Max cleared his throat. John turned. Max had been sitting in the doorway, listening. "John's right. It's the US."
Darcy turned to him. "What's your argument?"
"How can you not see it? It's so obvious."
Darcy flinched.
John sighed. Darcy wasn't used to Max and his rough edges; when the Dog was in the grip of an idea he was likely to bark out "wrong!" or "stupid". Bring in the genes for high IQ and get a touch of Asperger's for free.
The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1) Page 9
