Lunar Descent

by Allen Steele

  Lollypop had apparently discovered the same effect. Faster than a speeding bullet, he quipped. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall women with a …

  Cut it out! Rainman took a couple of small steps backward; Too-Tall and the rest of the squad followed, leaving the Delaware behind them in a few short leaps. Okay, Jake, get out of here.

  On my way, Colonel. Good luck. Snodgrass turned around in time to see the engines on the Delaware’s outboard nacelles flare, sending gray dust spewing in all directions, as the military lander silently lifted off and rose into the black sky. Behind it, he could see the half-Earth hovering high above the mountainous terrain. You’re a long way from Chattanooga now, he thought. You always wanted to get out of there. So how’s this for distance …?

  Colonel Rainman’s voice brought Too-Tall’s mind back to his job. Sightsee later, Marines, he snapped. We’ve got work to do. Go!

  “Yes sir, sir.” Too-Tall turned and began to run west-northwest, vaulting across the regolith. He eyed the darkened windows of the base as he leaped across the lunar turf, kicking up small sprays of gray sand with each ten-foot step. No movement, no sign of life. Descartes looked almost as if it had been abandoned, except …

  He came upon a sheet of scrap aluminum, shoved upright into the ground and held up by a small cairn of rocks. Someone had written on it:

  WELCOME TO DESCARTES STATION!

  NOW GO HOME!

  “Cute,” Too-Tall murmured. “Real cute.” He kicked over the sign, then continued running toward the domes of the Dirt Factory.

  Operation Shady Grove’s strategy for taking over Descartes Station was thought to be foolproof: perfect, flawless, a guaranteed success. And naturally, it fell apart virtually from the moment it began.

  The key to penetrating the base was taking control of the airlocks at the EVA ready-room in Subcomp B, since it had been rightfully assumed that the hangar and garage doors would be closed and the emergency hatches to the Dirt Factory domes and the power station would be sealed. Therefore, the assault phase of Operation Shady Grove was a three-prong attack. Rainman and Bleek took the most direct route to Subcomp B, heading straight west to Airlocks One and Two. DiPaula and Overby went south by southwest, skirting the edges of the landing pads and the spacecraft maintenance center to take Airlocks Five and Six on the opposite side of the subcomplex.

  It fell to Snodgrass to handle the longest route, going north-west all the way around the Dirt Factory, cutting between the domes and the mass-driver and passing Subcomp A, to the emergency airlock located beneath Subcomp D, Dorm 3-A—the so-called Descartes Hilton. Taking the emergency airlock at Subcomp D was a backup maneuver; its only purpose was to prevent anyone in the base from escaping through the back door once the main airlocks at Subcomp B were penetrated.

  It was an elegant plan, making the best use of the limited number of Marines in the, squad. However, the strategists who had devised the tactics—Colonel Rainman among them—had made a crucial error in assuming that since the base was unarmed, it was therefore defenseless.

  That was a bad mistake.

  First, there were the statues. A crouching demon and a Christ figure set side by side were encountered by Rainman and Bleek as they moved in on Subcomp B. Similarly, a platoon of life-size soldiers were found by Overby and DiPaula as they circled the berms which had been bulldozed into place around the landing pads. Rainman and Bleek stopped to gaze warily at the demon and crucified martyr, which—inherently weird to begin with and, moreover, set so closely together—were more than a little unsettling.

  At least Rainman and Bleek realized that they were looking at statues. Overby and DiPaula, on the other hand, got trigger-happy when they unexpectedly came upon the ghostly platoon and wasted several rounds of 13mm gyrojet ammo from their assault rifles on the statues (Congratulations, Too-Tall heard Sweetheart tell Penguin over the comlink, we just murdered a mannequin.) The statues outside the barriers were harmless, but they distracted the first four members of the RDF squad long enough for the ’dozers and rovers to move in.

  They had all seen the lunar vehicles randomly parked just beyond the barricades, yet had thought little of it. If they hadn’t been concerned with the eldritch shapes of demons and Christ-figures and phantom armies, they might have given the vehicles more serious consideration. But while Rainman was demanding a reason for the shooting and Penguin was trying to explain, the neglected ’dozers and rovers suddenly started to move toward them, guided by remote-control through the seldom-used teleoperation programs.

  Again, the squad wasted more ammo by laying down suppressive fire before they realized that there were no drivers in the vehicles to either frighten or kill. On Rainman’s order, they launched grenades from their rifles; two rovers and a ’dozer were destroyed before the remaining vehicles got too close for the grenades to be safely used. The squad was forced to evade them by leaping through the seemingly random breaks in the berm walls.

  For a few moments, it seemed like a good idea, until Sweetheart and Penguin found another statue—a hunchback giving them the bird—positioned just in front of the entrances to Airlocks Five and Six; meanwhile, Rainman and Lollypop found two absurdly obscene figures fornicating in front of Airlocks One and Two. It appeared as if these statues were as harmless as the ones outside the barricades; yet, just as Bleek was wickedly remarking, “Now there’s a slow, comfortable screw if I ever saw one …” the low-yield mining charges secreted within the statues went off.

  The charges were normally used for breaking up especially large boulders in the regolith fields. They didn’t have much of a punch, and although the grunts were knocked flat by the concussion, the charges were incapable of seriously damaging their exoskeletons. The only real damage sustained was caused by the hunchback’s middle finger, which rendered the right leg of Penguin’s exoskeleton immobile when it ripped through a primary electrical busline on the inside of the knee.

  Despite Penguin’s CAS being crippled, the four RDF members were able to make it to the airlocks. Because of the size of the exoskeletons, each Marine had to enter an airlock separately. As Rainman made hand-signals to Lollypop to cycle through Airlock Two, he had little doubt that they could still complete their mission. Once in the airlocks, there was little or nothing the strikers could do to keep them out of Descartes Station.

  Wrong again.

  Rainman, Sweetheart, Lollypop, and Penguin entered the airlocks, pressed the wall-mounted switches which would start the electromagnetic-sterilization and pressurization cycles in each little compartment, saw the overhead status lights switch to red, watched their own heads-up displays eventually indicate that pressure in the airlocks had become normal … yet the airlock status lights remained red. The hatches remained shut, coming and going.

  Someone had tampered with the airlock controls. They could neither enter the base nor retreat through the outer hatches. Furthermore, since the electromagnetic scrubbers were still in operation, the comlink between the four grunts—and between Too-Tall Snodgrass, who by now had no idea what the hell was going on—was completely disrupted (Snnnkk … sqrrrrkk … sqoonkkk was all that Too-Tall could hear through his headset). Their assault rifles were useless; since the airlocks were cramped, the grenades were too dangerous to use, and because the gyrojet bullets required a firing range of at least three yards before their miniature solid-rockets could ignite and be propelled to their targets, firing at the doors was futile.

  So here they were: four members of the elite 1st Space Infantry, trapped in airlocks, their weapons incapacitated, their lines of communication effectively severed. Yet Descartes Station had a neglected Achilles’ heel. While the moondogs in MainOps were cheering and yelling and slapping each other’s backs, congratulating each other on the fact that four Marines had been taken prisoner in Subcomp B, they were completely unaware that the fifth grunt, Too-Tall Snodgrass, had slipped past the berms, teleoperated vehicles, and exploding statuary, and even now was successfully cycling through t
he emergency airlock below the Descartes Hilton.

  Ignored. Armed. And totally pissed off.

  23. The End of the Strike

  “Look,” Lester said, “I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you going to come out of there peacefully?”

  Once more, he waited for a reply and got none. Around the darkened operations center, command personnel listened to the faint hum of static from the ceiling speakers. Butch Peterson, standing behind Lester on the dais, gently laid her hand on his shoulder. He sighed and looked up at her; she nodded her head. He shook his head and sighed again.

  “Hello?” he said. “Is there anybody in there? I mean, have you guys run out of air or something?” No, that was unlikely; the airlocks had been pressurized shortly before the locks were frozen. Yet there was still no response. “Look, this stubborn act isn’t getting us anywhere,” Lester prodded, “so why don’t you …?”

  Rainman, Colonel Taylor M., a harsh voice suddenly spoke. Everyone in MainOps looked up. United States Marine Corps, 1st Space Infantry. With whom am I speaking?

  About time you said something, Lester thought, leaning forward in his chair again. “Lester Riddell, general manager of Descartes Station,” he said. “Thanks. I was wondering if you guys had been asphyxiated or something. Hey, are you all right?”

  Another long pause. The airlock scrubbers had been temporarily switched off to allow Riddell to radio the occupant of Airlock One, whom he had figured from observing his behavior inside the barricades to be the squad leader. Rainman was probably using another, shielded frequency to check on the occupants of Airlocks Two, Five and Six. I don’t have to tell you anything except to identify myself, he said at last. Rules of war.

  “War?” Lester laughed out loud. “What do you think this is, Colonel, Nicaragua? I’m just trying to ask you if—”

  I’m fine. So are my men. Is there something else you want from us, Mr. Riddell?

  Lester blinked. He switched off his mike and looked over his shoulder at Butch again. “Am I getting through to the clown? I mean, should I try French or Latin or something?”

  Peterson snickered. “It might help.”

  “Figures I would get some asshole. He probably wears a lead jockstrap.” He shook his head in exasperation and toggled the bonephone again. “Listen, Colonel Rainman, this is not a war. We’re a bunch of dumb Skycorp employees … well, maybe ex-employees by now … on strike. This isn’t Central America or the Middle East, and we’re not Islamic terrorists or Sandinista guerrillas or whatever you’re used to fighting. If you’ve listened to a word I’ve said over the last few minutes, you’d know that we’ll gladly let you and your team out of those airlocks if you’ll just promise not to come out shooting. Now what do you say, huh?”

  There was no hesitation this time. I’ve got my orders to take control of this installation, Mr. Riddell. That is the beginning and the end of it. If I were you, I would have your forces surrender to us immediately.

  Lester couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Surrender?” he almost yelped. “Take a reality check, Colonel. You’re the one stuck in an airlock, not me. You couldn’t get out of there even if you had a can opener! You …”

  “Calm down,” Butch whispered.

  Lester took a deep breath. “Listen, Colonel,” he said slowly, “if you’re worried about the safety of you and your men, I can personally assure you that nothing will happen to anyone. We’ll unload your guns, recharge your life-support systems, even give you a bite to eat if you want. Then we’ll escort you back out to the base periphery where your lander can pick you up again. No lynch parties, no abuse, no bullshit. We’re all Americans here, and Americans don’t go shooting Americans. Except in Brooklyn, maybe.”

  He waited. No reply. “That’s a joke, Colonel,” he added. “No offense if you’re from Brooklyn.”

  I repeat, Rainman replied. I have my orders. You will surrender to us immediately or suffer the consequences.

  Riddell didn’t bother to reply. “So rot in there, you dumb helmet-head,” he muttered, switching off the mike. “Turn on the scrubbers again. Let the colonel stew for a while.” He swiveled around to look at Peterson, raising his hands in desperation. “I swear, you must have to flunk an IQ test to become a colonel in the …”

  “Les, I’ve got a light on the emergency airlock in Subcomp D!” The duty officer at the environmental control station was staring at his status board. “It just opened up from inside! Someone’s coming through!”

  What the—? Lester turned back to his console and jabbed commands into the keyboard, calling up a schematic display of Subcomplex D on his screen. Sure enough, the emergency airlock beneath the Hilton had pressurized and the inside hatch had been opened. “Goddammit,” he yelled, “who was supposed to be watching that fifth guy?”

  No one answered. Everyone looked at him. Right, Lester thought. My plan, my strategy, my responsibility. He had been so proud of taking four Marines prisoner in the EVA airlocks that he had neglected the fifth grunt who was still roaming the surface. And now the sumbitch was inside the base.…

  “Okay,” he said, trying to muster some calm, “don’t everyone fly off the handle. Steve, try to get a fix on him and …”

  “Les, we’ve got the lander coming in again!” This from Doug Baker at the TELMU station. His hands were racing over his console as his eyes swept across his screens. “Forty miles up, twenty-seven miles east, and closing fast!” He tapped buttons on the keyboard in front of him, then glanced over his shoulder. “Loss of uplink with the canisters, too. They’re still there, but they’re not responding to my signals. I think they’ve been jammed, boss.”

  Riddell bit his lower lip. The canisters which the mass-driver had shot into low orbit had been their only hope of keeping the Delaware at bay. With them gone—as a not-so-wild guess, he figured that their guidance systems had probably been ECM’d by the Valley Forge—there was nothing to prevent the armed lander from attacking Descartes Station. The first two rounds had been too easy to win, he thought. Now it’s the third round and the heavyweight champ is stepping back into the ring.…

  “Oh, shit,” he breathed. “We’re in trouble.”

  There was a monster on the loose in the ladies’ dorm.

  Most of the women had managed to escape from Dorm 2-A before the armored Marine had come in through the tunnel from the Hilton, but a few were still trapped in the section when Mighty Joe managed to bypass the emergency hatch controls of the tunnel leading into Dorm 1-A. He caught a glimpse of the mammoth CAS clunking purposively toward the tunnel just as the twin hatches, eight feet apart from each other, irised shut.

  The hatches were designed to seal automatically in the event of a decompression accident, isolating the dorms from each other so that a blowout wouldn’t affect the entire subcomplex. They weren’t as sturdy as the airlock hatches, but they were airtight; they should be able to stop a Marine in a CAS. But Mighty Joe wasn’t taking any chances.… “Liz, what’s going on there?” he demanded, speaking into his headset mike. “Talk to me! You guys okay?”

  Elizabeth Sawyer, the hydroponicist who was stranded in 2-A, was on the phone in her niche on the other side of the sealed tunnel. We’re fine. It … he could have fired at us when he came through, but I guess he’s not going to unless we get in the way. Static for a moment, then: He’s in front of the hatch now. He’s raising his rifle and … Joe, I think he’s going to fire a grenade!

  Holy shit! “Everybody, duck!” he shouted, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away from the hatch. “Incoming! Down, down, down!”

  Behind him, a dozen men and women scurried for cover, dodging behind niches, falling over each other to get through the adjacent tunnel into Subcomp A, even bolting into a nearby restroom. Some goddamn great defense force we’ve got here, Mighty Joe thought as he backed up against the door of a niche.…

  Whammmm! There was a muffled explosion from the tunnel and the floor itself seemed to shake. There goes the first emerge
ncy hatch, Joe thought. The niche door behind him popped open. He glanced around and saw Harry Drinkwater peering through the cracked door. Over Drinkwater’s shoulder, he glimpsed one of the communications officers—what’s-his-name, Schneider—bent over the keyboard of a laptop computer, his desk and bunk covered with reams of printout. Schneider didn’t even look up from his computer screen. “What’s going on out here?” Drinkwater demanded.

  “Where have you …? Never mind that now, shut the goddamn—!”

  WHHAAAAMM!

  Mighty Joe ducked, throwing his arms over his head, but looked up just in time to see the hatch cover being blown straight out of its frame. It hit the wall at the far end of the corridor with a loud Clanngg! “Hell’s bells,” he whispered. “I shoulda joined the Marines.…”

  A new voice came through his headset. Joe, what’s going on down there? Les Riddell snapped. Is that Marine in the dorms?

  The niche door slammed shut behind Drinkwater. “No shit, Les!” Joe said, “And I think he’s pissed off about something!”

  The hulking CAS lurched through the destroyed hatch, the big muzzle of the assault rifle sweeping back and forth. The armored Marine half-turned toward Mighty Joe and the rifle pointed straight at the moondog’s face. Joe instinctively raised his hands above his head. Just below the eye-slit was a tiny audio grille; Joe was surprised when a voice came out of it.