"As Sun Tzu said, 'All war is deception'...and enemies are all around. In light of the Earth government destroying my satellites, I think the prudence of a backup facility is amply clear."
Rex and Duncan babbled excitedly to Gamma about the secret facility - and Duncan's theory of aliens - but when John made eye contact with Blue and Max it was clear that he wasn't the only one discomforted by this development. For this entire hike he'd been using maps provided by Gamma, consulting the AI on the best routes. If he hadn't changed their path at the last minute - and without consulting Gamma - to visit the Chinese lunar lander, they never would have stumbled onto this facility. How many other facilities did Gamma have hidden on Farside? How many had they already walked within kilometers of? Had Gamma been steering them this whole time to avoid other sites - was that what paying them for 'reconnaissance' was really about? Goldwater's mining satellites hadn't picked this up - had Gamma stuxed those birds too? Or had he inserted his tentacles into the computational infrastructure of Aristillus to edit the footage before humans saw it?
To his left Blue tilted his head, as if he was about to speak. John held up one finger in front of his helmet, warning Blue to stay silent. John needed to think this through before they said anything else over the radio.
How big was Gamma and what were his plans?
There was a ping in John's helmet, and the suit computer commented, "Local sunset beginning."
John turned to the west and saw the sun already touching the horizon. The two younger Dogs kept talking to Gamma while John watched the long shadows that covered the lunar plain reach out to him as the last thin arc of the sun slid below the curve of the dark gray landscape.
Chapter 38
2064: bridge of AFS The Wookkiee, between Earth and the Moon
Darcy floated weightless in front of the navigation console, her hands free and her feet hooked under the foot rail. She stole a glance at Tudel and his men. They seemed alert, but no longer on edge. Good. Maybe - maybe - she and Waseem would be able to get the Wookkiee to the moon without worrying that there'd be more violence.
Waseem, one workstation over, saved his computations to an icon, and then verified the calculations using nothing but a command line scientific calculator.
He looked up. "Good news - I think. The early launch means that we're one point two degrees off phi and one tenth of a degree on theta, and even if we use the OMCs and the RCS we don't have the thruster reserves to plot an intercept -"
"That's good news?"
Waseem shook his head. "No. The good news is that our mass isn't fixed. If we can cut it enough, we might be able to pull this out."
Darcy furrowed her forehead. "Ah. Tanks two and four are full of seawater -"
Waseem nodded. " - for Veleka. If we can dump that we cut our mass by twenty percent. That plus the maneuvering reserves -"
Darcy ran through computations on her own board. "Twenty percent? That's not going to be enough to get ahead of the moon and match -"
Wasseem raised a finger. "I know. Hang on. We dump the water and we use our OMC rockets - and that's still not enough to get us to the moon's equator...but it is enough to get us to the moon - "
"If we don't get closer to the ecliptic, our orbit would be -"
"Yeah, I know. Screw the normal approach - we'll be coming in over the north pole. No one's ever done that before, but no reason it can't work. If we come in low enough - "
Darcy's eyes went wide. "Really low."
"Yeah. But we get captured, we loop around Farside -"
"- do a degrading orbit -"
"- and slide into Aristillus from the south."
Darcy exhaled. "Hang on.” She dragged Wasseem's files to her console and checked the calculations one by one. Finally, soberly, she nodded. "It'll be close, but, yeah, I think it'll work." She paused and considered. "If. If we can dump the water. We've only ever used the pumps under gravity. Will they work in zg?"
Waseem nodded grimly. "The nitrogen blanketing system is still in place from before the carbon law. If we pressurize the tanks, does that help swirl all the water out?...Maybe?"
Darcy looked away and bit her lip. It had to work; there was no plan B. From behind her Tudel asked, "You've got a solution?"
She looked over her shoulder. Frodge and Tudel floated behind her - they'd learned how to tuck their feet under padded foot rails. Tudel was in a weird modification of ‘parade rest,’ his hands clasped behind his back. Frodge, though, had one hand on his pistol. It was holstered, but the menace was clear.
For a few precious moments while working the trajectory with Waseem, she'd forgotten that the two of them were there, had forgotten the fact that they'd killed Iosif and Luka, and tortured (and maybe killed) Captain Kear. That blessed moment of forgetfulness was gone - and now, even as she was working to save all of their lives, these two thugs were hanging there - in her ship - implicitly threatening to hurt or kill her and Waseem. She mustered bravado she didn't really feel. "You know, that pistol is an empty threat. If you kill us or damage this equipment the drive is useless, and you're all dead."
Frodge said nothing. Tudel evaluated her dispassionately and then answered drily, "I'm sure Sergeant Frodge won't damage the equipment."
Darcy's confidence collapsed and she turned away so that the PKs couldn't see her face. Damn it! How dare these thugs invade her ship and hold weapons on them? What gave them the right? Normally she thought that Mike's tirades against the government just a shade too angry...but right now it occurred to her that perhaps he wasn't angry enough.
She clenched her jaw, trying not to let her rage, her anger, her despair spill out. After a long moment she forced herself to focus on the screens. She had work to do. She reached out a finger and touched the plotted course.
Huh.
She brought up a calculator and started a new workspace, and then ran numbers. After several minutes, she said, "Waseem, wait - what if we run the drive two hundred percent for the first portion of the braking maneuver, and then at fifty percent for the second half?"
"Why would we do that?"
"We're approaching the moon at an angle. The vector decomposition of the first part of the approach gives us more braking and less matching the moon's orbital speed."
"But the plan we've got now works, why screw with it?"
"Because it means we can save some of the water. Even after desalination costs, the profit on half a tank is noticeable-"
Waseem looked at her and blinked uncomprehendingly. "Profit? Darcy, what the hell are you talking about?"
...and the reality that she'd pushed away once again flooded back. Why was she even trying to save the water? The whole ship was being held captive by the PKs. If she and the rest of the crew were lucky, they'd manage to land the ship. And then, after that, the PKs would recharge the batteries somehow, and then she and Waseem would be forced at gunpoint to take off again, and fly the ship back to Earth. At which point she'd be disappeared if she was lucky, or used as a bargaining chip against Mike if she wasn't.
She let her hand fall away from the screen. What was the point of even trying to land? Why not just crash the Wookkiee into the moon? At least that would kill Tudel and his squad of goons. She looked at Waseem. Did he understand that they were as good as dead already? Would he be up for that plan? Could she signal him? If she put in a trajectory that passed ten kilometers below the lunar horizon instead of over it, would he understand what she was doing?
Yes, she could probably -
- unless -
If they landed the ship, could Mike come up with some way to save them?
She held her breath for a moment and thought it through.
Wasseem was saying something to her. She caught a few words. Something about her opinion, something about the drive efficiency curve. She looked up. "What?"
"I said you looked like you had some new thought."
She shook her head. "No. Nothing new." She nodded her head at the screens. "Let's get to work."
>
Chapter 39
2064: bridge of AFS The Wookkiee, between Earth and the Moon
Tudel listened as the second navigator - was his name 'Waseem'? - spoke. Tudel paid less attention to the man's words than to his eyes. Was he telling the truth? Tudel stared hard at him. Yes...he thought so.
Over the last day the expats had developed a decent working relationship with him and his men. Once the chips were down, these two had learned how to be respectful. It validated a pet theory of his: the problem with the expats - all the lawlessness, the disorganization, the slovenliness - was based on a lack of discipline, on society being lax. Put people, even expats, in a situation where the proper chain of command was clear, and they could learn deference, and how to work inside an organization.
Waseem finished his explanation of the maneuver.
Tudel nodded. "OK, let me think about this."
Wasseem shook his head. "No. We had forty-five minutes when we told you the plan. Now we're down to fifteen. We've got to start immediately or it's too late."
Tudel stared at the man closely. Was there a touch of lip there? He pondered this. No. The navigator was trying to do his job, and was raising a valid point. Tudel ran his tongue over his teeth as he thought. Then, "OK, do it."
The other navigator, Darcy, turned to him. "This will take a while - and then the next step is to engage the drive. Before we do that, if you've got any loose equipment you're going to want to tie it down... and if there's debris from that firefight. Or bodies - " Her voice caught in her throat and she turned away.
Tudel turned to his left. "Armando, Dwight - get down there, do a cleanup."
Wasseem, looked at him. "We're OK to start?"
Tudel nodded.
Waseem hit a button on his screen and a quiet, distant whine answered him. Tudel looked at him closely. Waseem must have felt the eyes on him. He turned and explained, "The ballast pumps.”
Both of the navigators stared at their screens. Tudel prompted them: "What's going on?".
Darcy pointed to one indicator. "It's working. We're dumping the water. This, here, is tank 2. It started at a hundred percent. Now it's down to ninety-nine percent. Now ninety-eight. See?" Tudel looked. There were two indicators. As he watched the first one kept dropping, and then the second one, for tank 4, also started to move.
Waseem turned to Darcy. "The stealth coating on the hull hides us from USG radar... but this is fifteen million kilos of water. It's going to turn to ice and make a huge cloud. That's definitely going to show up."
Darcy gave a slight nod of her head, indicating Tudel and his men. "I think the government already has a pretty good idea where we are."
Tudel smiled. Yes. Yes, we do.
Chapter 40
2064: bridge of AFS The Wookkiee, between Earth and the Moon
Darcy looked at the tank indicators on her screen. Tank 4 was within a few percent of empty, but tank 2 was still at thirty-eight percent full, and it wasn't dropping.
"Waseem, you see this?"
"Looking at it now. The pumps on tank 4 - primary and backup - went into auto-shutdown."
"And?"
"We've still got nitrogen pressure in the tanks." He paused. "I have no idea why the pumps shut down."
Darcy stared at her screens, tapping icons and bringing up subscreens. Pump power? Green. Pump lubrication status? Green. Pressure? Green.
What was going on? This made no -
Wait. She might be able to check the pumps with the external cameras. Yes, deck camera 10 was pointed right at the pumps. She brought it up on the screen, but the image was black. Black? Was the deck in shadow right now? Oh, of course, yes: they'd launched at night and were flying in the Earth's penumbra most of the way. She triggered the deck lights.
...And nothing changed. Still dark.
She tilted her head. That was odd.
She flipped to camera 11. Also dark.
She tried camera 12 and could finally see the deck.
The deck, covered in a thick sheet of something white...
And suddenly she knew what had happened.
Ice. It was a vast blanket of ice. It covered the deck, encrusted equipment, and climbed the bridge.
"Waseem!"
"What?"
"Look!"
They'd vented millions of kilos of water, and most of it had sprayed away from the Wookkiee - but some of it must have splashed back. Then, hitting metal already cold from a night launch, and chilled further by a flight in the shadow of Earth, it had frozen.
Darcy pointed the screen. "The pumps on tank 4 - there they are."
"What are they - is that ice?"
"Uh huh. And look at the bridge - all the cameras are covered too."
Waseem looked away from the screen, to the steel wall a few meters away. Darcy tracked his eye and knew what he was thinking: just on the other side of that wall, a thick sheet of ice clung to the ship.
Waseem looked away from the wall and back to his screen. "Let me check the mass... OK, it's good news. We can't empty tank two, so our mass is still higher than optimal, but the trajectory should still work. We've got 38% left in tank 2, which means that we dumped 81% of the mass we wanted to. We only needed to dump seventy six percent of that water, so we're golden."
"Yeah, as long as -." Darcy stopped mid-sentence, as it hit her. "Waseem, we've got a problem."
"What?"
"The ice - there's mass there."
"We - shit. How much?"
Tudel had been standing behind them the entire time, listening, watching the screens. He finally spoke. "What's the issue?"
Darcy turned to him. "We need to dump mass to make the orbital insertion work. Some of the water froze and stuck to the hull."
"And?"
"And that ice is mass. The ship may weigh too much. We may not get to the moon, unless we can rid of the extra mass."
Tudel actually sounded a bit scared when he asked, "How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know; let me think." Surprisingly, Tudel didn't push. After a long moment she raised one finger. "Wait! The tank 2 pump is frozen solid, but we can use the bypass pipe and use the tank 4 pump."
Wasseem slapped his forehead, and then turned away and started typing.
Darcy smiled a bit. She hadn't realized that people actually did that. Suddenly she was aware of her own smile - it felt weird and inappropriate, and she realized that she hadn't smiled once since the PKs had stormed on board, murdered Iosif and Luka, and tortured Captain Kear.
Her smile fell away.
Waseem tapped a series of commands: ramping up nitrogen pressure, rotating the venting valves, opening the exterior dump valves, then finally starting the pumps. The distant whine from elsewhere in the ship confirmed that the process was underway. Waseem turned to Darcy and smiled. "We've got this -"
An alarm sounded and a yellow warning icon flashed on the screen.
Waseem pivoted back to the console. "What the shit?"
Darcy was already working her console. "Son of a gun." She pointed. "The valves are refusing to cycle."
Waseem swore. "Son of a bitch. What could cause that?"
"They couldn't be stuck -"
Waseem shook his head. "I'll bet you an entire cargo hold of earth movers that the ice buildup is fouling the dump valve cover." His shoulder fell. "Darce, I'm out of ideas. What are we going to do?"
Darcy slumped, held in position only by her ankles hooked around the padded bar. She shook her head slowly. "I don't know."
Chapter 41
2064: near Konstantinov Crater, Lunar Farside
The back panel of John's suit clicked and then clamshelled open. John contorted himself and stepped backward out of the suit into the tent. The Dogs were already there. Rex was starting to power up the lights and communications, but John stopped him. "Rex, wait. Not yet."
Rex turned. All the Dogs did. “Are all electronics turned off?"
Duncan held up his slate. "I was just about to -"
"Kill it."
Duncan turned the slate off.
"Is everything off? Not just asleep, but really off?"
The Dogs nodded.
John breathed out. "Guys - this Gamma thing is big. We can't talk about it where he can hear us -"
Duncan said, "We can't talk about his second base? Why not?"
Blue beat John to an answer. "We can talk about his base - he knows we know about it. What we don't want to do is speculate as to his motivations."
Duncan shrugged. "What? Why?"
Max growled. "He's growing. Does he have two bases? Or a dozen?"
John nodded. "How is it that the Goldwater mining satellites didn't see this? Has he stuxed them? Or maybe the Aristillus computing infrastructure?"
Blue said. "Or even our suits. Or our slates."
Rex looked disturbed at the idea that someone might be touching his computing stack.
"But why can't we talk about this -"
"We don't know what Gamma's goals are, but we do know that he's been lying to us, at least implicitly. All of us: us five, and everyone back at Aristillus. If he's up to no good -"
"You mean trying to ramp up to a singularity?"
John nodded. "No matter what he's up to, we don't want him to know that we know. So no talking, no speculation, any time Gamma might be listening. We let him drive the conversation, and we give the appearance of trusting whatever he says."
Duncan thought about this for a moment, then nodded.
John held up a finger. "Seriously, Duncan, do you understand?"
"Yeah, I get it - don't speculate about what Gamma's up to over the radio - or in the tent when the com gear is powered up."
John held the stare. Duncan looked away, and added, "I promise."
"Good. Thank you." He turned to Rex. "Go ahead and power it up."
A moment later the lights came on and the low familiar hum of the tent fans started.
The speaker immediately pinged. "Hello, John."
"Gamma."
"Do you wish to continue our conversation?"
John exhaled. "Sure. Yes. So, you were saying that the geopolitics on Earth is unstable - maybe even radically unstable. What does that have to do with you creating another facility on the Farside?"
The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1) Page 15
