by Magus Tor
Whether or not the child would want to was another question. As it turned out, though, he was quite happy to make the trip to Lunar. He'd been allowed a certain amount of freedom around the Outliers’ territory and had seen his schoolmates and other children evacuated off to other Cities. Frankly, Aurelia thought that he was glad not to be exiled. What Elza and Nicholas saw as rescuing the boy and taking him home, Mattias saw as the rights of a Prisoner of War to be moved to wherever the action was.
So they were all moved, along with the first batch of troops to the 01 shuttle bay. Lukas had been in charge of transit, and he'd assured them that the ten shuttles currently active were all that could be allowed to fly into Lunar at more or less the same time.
“More than that, and there won't be enough space for you all to land. Not to mention there'll be nowhere to put your troops when you unload them,” he'd said.
The skeleton army that had been left in Lunar was now concentrating every effort on keeping the Lunar shuttle bay open to them. On Jonathon's orders, all other areas of Lunar City had been left undefended. City 01 was more or less secure at its heart, though Aurelia's mother had directed troops over from 05 to help capture the outlying areas of the City. However, as more and more Elite Army soldiers disappeared through City 04, they all became certain that the real battle was going to be for Lunar.
“It's symbolic,” Nicholas said. “Look at any war, and there's been a battle for something that was a symbol of what was being fought over. And this is ours. The Elite have put everything they have into a fight for Lunar City. This is going to be the only fight that matters. Win Lunar, and you will win Earth.”
Looking around the crowded grounds of the 01 shuttle bay, Aurelia wondered how they could fail to win Lunar. These men were tough. There was no longer the shouting and joking and laughing that there had been when they were shipped to Earth. Now they were serious soldiers, intent on the job at hand. All had fought before, and all knew what they were fighting for. Still, Nicholas had arranged for a large screen to be projected onto a wall of the shuttle building and an amplifier to be set up. He wanted Jonathon to speak.
“Nothing will motivate them more,” he'd said. “You need to speak to them.”
A hush fell over the bay, an almost tangible sense of expectation in the air, as Jonathon's face appeared on the screen. Aurelia knew him well enough to know he was tired and worried, but that didn't seem to show to anyone else. She watched from the front of the crowd as Jonathon took his time, letting everyone see him before he began to speak.
“We are short on time, so I will make this brief,” he began. “You all know where you are going and why. You all know that this is the most important fight we will ever have. You all know how much depends on you.”
The crowd was still quiet. They did all know, and it was not a responsibility that anyone was taking lightly.
“There is a lot that I could say to you about who and what and why, about my beliefs, about what we stand to gain and to lose. But I'm not going to,” Jonathon continued. “All I want to say is this: I am proud of you. Whoever you are, however you fight, whatever the result, I am proud to call every single one of you my comrade. When this is over, it is my hope that none of you will ever go a day without someone coming to thank you for the freedom you gave them. ‘Meet you in 01’ was your rallying cry. But now we have 01. So, I say to you: ‘Meet you in Lunar!’”
The men shouted back in unison, thousands and thousands of voices repeating again and again, making the ground shake and the air heavy. Aurelia heard the word “Lunar” echoing back and forth.
The huge loading doors of the ten shuttles shuddered and began to move. Even as they were still opening, men began to stream onto the ships. The bay still echoed with their shouts as Aurelia turned to watch man after man disappear through the gaping shuttle doors. Finally, Jonathon was beside her.
“Come,” he said. “It's time.”
He led her through the bay building. Nicholas, Elza, Mattias, Lukas, and a handful of others followed them through the empty security gates, the waiting room, the corridor gate, and up the long tunnel towards the ship. They took their seats, fastened their belts, and prepared themselves.
As the shuttle began to vibrate, readying for take-off, Jonathon reached out and took Aurelia's hand. She squeezed it tightly. The vibrations grew louder, there was a roar, and then they left the ground. Aurelia watched the lights of 01 fade into the distance. There was no turning back now.
Chapter Eleven
Stepping off the ship, Aurelia found that the Lunar City shuttle bay had been turned into a miniature fortress. Every man Jonathon had was currently in the bay, and large metal fences with sandbags filled with Lunar dirt had secured the bay for their landing. The usually open grounds of the bay were covered with a patchwork of tents and portable domes, laid out in a grid pattern.
“Whoever set this up knew what they were doing,” Nicholas observed, stepping off the ship behind Aurelia.
“Why, thank you,” said a voice.
Aurelia turned around. “Tara?!”
“Don't sound so surprised,” the girl said with a grin. “I'm just as capable of looking things up as anyone else is. And from what I read, this seemed to be the traditional layout for an Army camp. Something about the grid system making it easy to keep squadrons of men together or something.”
“Which makes them easier to assemble and send out,” Nicholas said. “You got it right, kid. Nice work.”
“I'm impressed,” Jonathon said, getting off the ship and giving his sister a hug. “Have I got a command tent?”
“Of course!” said Tara, leading the way to the centre of the encampment.
The command tent was a large, sheltered area covering tables and chairs as well as a big central map of Lunar City and its outskirts. Inside, they found Bryn waiting for them.
“I'm off to check the hospital tents,” Elza said, once she'd familiarised herself with where they were going to be working from. “I'll be back when I'm done.”
“So,” said Jonathon, walking over to shake Bryn's hand, “what's the news?”
“Don't have any whiskey, I suppose?” asked Bryn. “I guess not. Well, you'd better sit yourselves down. The news isn't good.”
The old Connector pulled up a chair and groaned as he sat down.
“The knees aren't what they used to be,” he said. “So, let's get down to business. The bad news is that the shuttle bay is currently the only part of Lunar City that the Resistance Army holds. Though that's what you told us to do, so I'm guessing you already knew that. As far as we know, the Elite Army hold everything else in the City.”
“What kind of numbers are we talking about?” asked Nicholas.
Bryn looked around speculatively, judging the number of men walking around the open sides of the command tent. “With what you just brought in, I'd judge that we're fairly evenly matched. Of course, you can bring more men up if you need to. Them, I don't know about.”
“How did they get in in the first place?” Jonathon wanted to know.
“Breached the Dome,” said Bryn. “Hard to do, but not impossible.”
Aurelia knew that portable domes were relatively easy to breach. If you put your hand on the shell and pushed hard enough, your hand would break through to the other side. She assumed that the Lunar dome was tougher, but it had to be breachable in order for the shuttles to land.
“They used mining equipment,” Bryn explained. “We figure they've got a landing bay for shuttles somewhere across the other side. Haven't seen it, but it's the only thing that makes sense. If that's true, then they should have no trouble getting more men up. Though they've got the problem of keeping those men alive outside of the Dome, something we don't need to worry about.”
Aurelia felt she had little to offer to this conversation, so she sat and listened as Bryn, Nicholas, Jonathon, and eventually Lukas too discussed the fate of Lunar City. Bryn agreed with Nicholas that this could be no more than a traditio
nal fight.
“This is the Elite's home ground,” he said. “Just the same as it is yours. That means neither of you get the advantage. Your only advantage is going to be to fight longer and stronger.”
On Nicholas's suggestion, they divided the map of the City up into smaller areas.
“I want it to be like taking 02, with each of these areas being an island. Capture one, move the troops forward into it, then capture the next,” he explained. “We've learnt a lot in the last few weeks, and we should put that learning to use.”
“Shame we can't use the tunnels here the same as we did in 01,” Jonathon observed.
“They're too narrow and too well known to us all,” Nicholas said. “There'd be little element of surprise, especially considering how we just used the same trick in 01. Plus, they're crowded with machinery anyway.” He stopped.
Aurelia could see from his face that he'd had an idea. But then he shook his head and continued discussing battle tactics with the others.
It was a long afternoon, and Aurelia had drowsed off at some point. When she woke, it was to Jonathon gently shaking her arm.
“Come on,” he said. “Let's get you something to eat.”
The others had already left the tent, and just as they were about to do the same, Tara came in.
“Coming to eat?” Aurelia asked her.
Tara nodded. “But I need to talk to you guys first. Bryn didn't tell you, did he?”
“Tell us what?” asked Jonathon.
Tara sighed. “Good, I asked him not to. I thought it better that you heard it from me. Maybe you should sit down.”
Jonathon was puzzled but took a seat next to Aurelia anyway.
“So, this is rumour, mind—I'm not definite about it yet. But it's something you should know. It's about the Elite Army in Lunar.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “The Elites are being led by Father.”
She was quiet for a moment, letting the news sink in, but spoke again before Jonathon had a chance to question her.
“I'm almost certain of it. I've got plenty of informants around here, though getting info out of the Elite is tough. I don't think he's the brains behind the operation, but he could be. He's more of a figure head, I think. Sort of like your counterpart. Does that make sense?”
Jonathon nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does. What better way to persuade people that you're right than to get the father of the opposition to head the army that will fight his son? It does make sense.”
Aurelia shook her head. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “How can your father lead an Army?”
“He doesn't have to,” Jonathon said. “He's a symbol, that's all. And a good one. We should have thought of this. We knew the thinking behind the assassination attempts he made on me—he wanted to replace me as Presidential Candidate. We should have guessed that he'd still be thinking along the same lines. Gods.”
Tara put a hand on her brother's shoulder. “He's a genetic donor, that's all. He's a stranger. Don't let the title of ‘father’ screw up your thinking.”
Jonathon laid his hand over his sister's. “I know, I know,” he said.
There was no point in waiting. After a long night of planning, the men went out the next morning. As Nicholas had predicted, it was a hard fight. They fought for every inch of street that they took, lines of men marching, firing, falling, and being replaced. Aurelia saw them brought to the hospital tents in the hundreds, and she worked tirelessly to save as many as possible, but many still died. Each time she lost a patient, she grieved, but what more could she do than to move on to his comrade and try again?
Three long days of fighting, and the Resistance had captured only a small fraction of the City. Then the Elite technicians had a brainwave. They changed the programming of the Dome so that there was constant bright blue light. Now the fighting continued without let-up, and their forces had to be divided in order to let some men rest whilst others fought to keep the ground they'd already gained.
“We can't go on like this,” Aurelia said, storming into the command tent. “This constant light is destroying everyone. Their circadian rhythms are shot. They can't sleep even when they're tired. They either eat all the time or not at all. The light is what's going to beat us, not shots fired by soldiers. We have to do something.”
Jonathon exhaled loudly. “I know, Aurelia. But what can we do? Until we capture the building that contains the Dome control centre, we can't switch off the light.”
“How long will that be?” she asked, calming a little.
He shrugged. “The rate things are going, it will be weeks.”
“Your men won't last that long,” she said stubbornly.
“And they might not have to,” said Nicholas, who'd come in and heard the tail end of the conversation.
Aurelia recognised the expression on his face immediately. He'd had an idea and a good one. He had that look of slight smugness along with boyish glee that he always had when he was up to something.
“What have you done?” she said.
“Hold on,” answered Nicholas. “I don't want to have to explain this a hundred times. Let's get everyone together, okay?”
Jonathon nodded and took out his com, calling Lukas and Bryn to the command centre. Whilst they were waiting for the two men, he handed out water canisters, and they all drank thirstily. Used to the more humid atmosphere of Earth, one of the largest problems they were facing right now, other than the constant light, was keeping everyone properly hydrated in the much drier air of Lunar.
At last everyone was gathered, and Nicholas sat them down and said that he wanted to run an idea by them.
“It's something weird, but it could work, so hear me out, okay?” He made them promise.
“All right,” he began, “we're moving too slowly. We need to quicken the pace out there, but we can't. We're being met with such opposition that we can't take more than a few metres of land a day, and even then we give some of it back the next day. What we need is something that will give us the chance to capture more land in one go, and then we'll have the space to move in more men, agreed?”
Everyone nodded. It made sense.
“The Elite started this—they changed the Dome light. That's environmental warfare. What I propose is that we simply continue what they started.”
“You want more light?” asked Bryn, thoroughly confused.
“No,” said Nicholas. “What's the other environmental component of the Dome?”
They were all silent until something clicked in Aurelia's brain. “Oxygen,” she said.
“Right,” continued Nicholas. “So what would happen if you, Bryn, and the other Connectors went down into the tunnels and switched off the air filtration systems?”
Bryn grunted a half-laugh. “We'd all die,” he said.
“We-ell, not for a while,” said Nicholas. “Hypothetically, what would be the outlook for someone once the air filters were off?” He looked at Aurelia.
She gave it some thought before answering. “It wouldn't be instant suffocation,” she said. “There's a lot of air in the Dome, so the process would be quite slow. I'd say you've probably got an hour or so before death, depending on how quickly air leaves the dome and Lunar atmosphere enters it. In that time, you'd slowly become less oxygenated, become tired, your muscles would seize up...”
“And you'd be unable to fight,” said Nicholas. “Right. Can you see where I'm going with this?”
Jonathon clearly did. “Yes,” he said. “You want to turn the air filtration of the Dome off to give us an hour to take as much of the City as possible whilst the Elite Army are slowly suffocating. Though I'm not sure why we're not suffocating as well.”
“Because we've got these,” Nicholas said, pulling a breathing mask out of his pocket. “In fact, we've got thousands of these, and I've just had them shipped up from Earth so that we can all be prepared. They're not breathing suits, but they should give us a large enough advantage to do what we need to do in the time
that we have.”
Aurelia had to laugh. It was audacious. It was brilliant. It was pure Nicholas. Jonathon seemed to consider things for a second, but then he joined in her laughter. This could really work.
“There's one thing,” said Nicholas. “This will give us an advantage, we'll get a large part of the City, and we'll be able to move more men up and therefore will almost certainly be able to take the rest of the City. But that's under the proviso that the Elite don't move up more men too. And that means we need to close down the shuttle bay in City 04.”
Lukas nodded at this. “That shouldn't be a huge problem,” he said. “The 05-based Resistance troops are already preparing to march on 04 under Aurelia's mother. We could push them forward by a few days and tell them to take the shuttle bay to use as a base in the same way as we're doing here.”
And that was that. After over a week of the most desperate fighting any of them had seen so far, they finally had a way that could bring this thing to an end and fast. Aurelia crossed her fingers in an old-fashioned sign for luck. There was nothing to do except hope against hope that this was going to work.
Distributing the breathing masks ended up being by far the most complicated part of the plan. As with any sort of bureaucratic process, it was fraught with problems. It wasn't like they could make a huge announcement telling everyone to come get their mask, since the Elite would be quick to figure out what they were doing. In the end, they used a filter-down method, with each area commander getting a stock of masks to pass down to each regiment commander, then to each squad commander and so on. At least there was little chance of anyone dying from suffocation even without a mask, though they'd be useless in the fight for Lunar. Aurelia had gone over the numbers with Elza, and they were both sure that an hour was well within the safe limits.
Bryn and his Connectors had plotted out where the filtration systems were, finding that there were eight main centres spread out under Lunar City. Eight pairs of men were sent down into the tunnels. At the appointed time, they would switch the machines off, wait an hour, and then switch them back on again. Everything was ready to go.
