by Scott Rhine
“I’ve got your back, professor,” Crandall said. As an instructor, Horvath had been the only woman ever to knock him on his butt in under ten seconds. That was someone to stand up for.
Soon the invaders started targeting spotters and zappers.
Flying low, Seraph warned, “One of the buggies unloaded something suspicious. Something black crawling your way. Looks like a couple hundred evil little—rocket! Evade!”
When Seraph couldn’t dodge its fate, the captain accelerated along his planned course at maximum. The cockpit exploded with such pyrotechnics that it must have killed everyone inside. However, the great ball of Icarus energy continued along its projectile path west toward the Chinese moon base.
Crandall had to stop gawking to smash a robot with the metal spear he was carrying. Four bots later, he saw Seraph’s impact flash. Icarus fields only made those pretty colors when they hit large quantities of water. The tremor knocked him to his knees. His radiation meters spiked off the dial. God help the people outside in regular suits.
Ophan reported, “The severed drive unit bounced through that Chinese base like a beach ball in a hurricane. The site’s now a giant crater.” Crandall knew what they weren’t saying—the water storage and personnel had been turned into a multi-megaton bomb. They’d committed an act of war equivalent to nuking a city. “Well, the action is pretty overt now. Do you think they’ll withdraw?”
“Hell, no.” Crandall stood back-to-back with two other UN suits as he broadcast. “Half the bots are homing in on my transponder, guys. The rest are pouring underground like termites.” He grunted louder each time he swung.
The Gauss gunner beside him shouted, “Out of ammo,” before a camouflaged Chinese space marine sprang out of the dust to kill the unarmed man.
The geek with the signal gun fired a burst, turning the attacker into a short-term statue. Two more dust suits behind the statue shimmered. “They have our comm frequencies,” the tech deduced. “They’re listening.” The disadvantage to being a UN operation was that quite a number of countries shared information. Sometimes they gave away the secret, not out of malice, but so their equipment could be mass-produced cheaply.
Crandall roared like a barbarian as he jabbed the pointed end of his rod through the pseudo-statue and jerked it clean. The ruptured suit gushed red from the eight-centimeter hole on each side. Technically, he’d only needed to cause a rip, but this had been more satisfying.
The closest man in dust armor sliced the air hose of the technician with an honest-to-god sword. The biggest space battle of all time and this guy brings old school, like freaking Edgar Rice Burroughs. If I make it out of here alive, this story will earn me free beers for the rest of my life.
Crandall eased toward the airlock so his back wouldn’t be exposed as he prepared to take on two swordsmen. Raw strength and reach would be on his side, but if they killed him, the explosives in his belt would detonate. He waved the first man forward, thankful that Zeiss had drilled him with wooden sticks before accepting him onto the team.
In the end, there were too many.
After he killed the first two, five more converged on him. “Cherub, full assault on my position.”
“Negative, you’re still alive.”
“Line up your strafe, because that’s about to change, and they are not getting through an airlock that I’m guarding.”
Crandall charged. The first two space marines disarmed him. Air leaked from his glove as automated systems sealed the damage. Landing in the middle of the pack, he bellowed the motto of the Override Rescue Squadron, “No limits!” He grabbed a man in armor and employed the body as both weapon and shield. His brief success awed those watching until someone launched a grapnel hook through his right kidney. The suit sealed around the hole and the opposition reeled him in.
Damaged by the penetration, his small self-destruct charge only killed him and two others. The explosion, however, highlighted the outlines of every remaining attacker. Cherub made a clean sweep.
No human breached moon base.
Chapter 12 – The Devil You Know
An hour later, Nena Horvath was still hunting through the corridors, trying to find the burrowing bots. The robots searched for any concentration of heat or energy and then blew themselves up. The tech with her had the only working signal gun left. He’d zap them into immobility, and she’d put the obnoxious ceramic cockroaches into a barrel that another volunteer rolled outside to a solar-powered smelter. When the critters were merely grazed, they detonated, which is how the first bug-hunter team had died. This was the kind of duty that mutineers were assigned.
After she finally cleared the quadrant, the colonel gave her permission to return to her private quarters—to say good-bye to her husband before the next wave of missiles hit. Her suite had its own airlock and filters for quarantine purposes. Daniel was particularly vulnerable to lung infections. She badged in and checked her helmet gauges as the pumps adjusted for minute pressure differences.
Over the mental link to her husband, she said, “So tired. This has been the longest day of my life. I make one mistake, and we could all die. We’ve been skirting that precipice too long, Daniel.”
He rarely responded, but the act of confiding to his unconscious form helped. Would it be wrong to intentionally sleep though the apocalypse—to curl up beside her soul mate one last time and tell the world to clean up its own mess?
When levels were safe, she removed her helmet and waited for the UV antibiotic sweep. The rapid speed of completion warned her something wasn’t right. Her equipment was state-of-the-art, but took a while to warm up. Someone else had been through recently.
Removing her thick gloves and boots, Horvath drew a pulse grenade she’d scrounged from a dead body. All of her normal weapons had been confiscated pending trial. This toy could only flash a bright light and blanket the EM spectrum to confuse enemy communications. However, that would be enough of a distraction for her to target the closest opponent. Her killing reflexes were still legendary.
Climbing to the ceiling of the airlock chamber, she waited for the door to shush open. Then she counted to three and prepared to roll the grenade into her living room. This encouraged one of the opponents to move in closer to investigate. Instead of a weapon cocking, she heard a woman’s voice say, “I told you she’d come here.” She sounded like Petra, one of Daniel’s caregivers.
The man who responded was Grimes, one of the visiting reporters. “We don’t have much time, Ms. Horvath. For all our sakes, we need to speak.”
Nena risked a peek. The man and woman in the living room were at an impasse, with tiny, smuggled, one-shot pistols pointed at each other. Both of them were spies. Professor Horvath sighed, “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call security to have both of you hauled to the brig?”
The reporter answered first. “Because we’re all going to die unless we reach a deal.”
Horvath put the pin back into her grenade and flopped down from the ceiling. “If you had threatened Daniel, I would’ve ripped out your throats.” Turning to the Croatian caregiver, she asked, “Who bought you?”
“Tetsuo Mori hired me to protect you . . . even from his own family.” The name ‘Amanda’ and her hatred of the Fortunes remained unspoken.
“Really? How considerate of him. Now that he’s one of three surviving board members, why does he care about me?”
“He wishes to procure certain guarantees. In exchange, he can broker a deal to save all of us.”
“I believe that’s called extortion.”
Petra shrugged. “My father stole a million yen from a very bad man. Mr. Mori covered this indiscretion, and my mother’s ransom, in return for my services. He keeps his deals.”
Turning to the reporter, she asked, “And who do you represent at the beggar’s ball?”
The attractive British media icon smiled. “I’m currently an intermediary for Beijing. My wife’s family is from Hong Kong.”
“And they want the flight
recorder?”
“They want considerably more, but they also have much to offer.”
A younger Nena Horvath would’ve told them to shoot each other and be done with it. She asked the caregiver, “What does Mori offer?”
“The anti-coalition forces want to either steal or suppress alien knowledge. The best way to prevent them from attacking you is for Mori to broadcast the information from the artifact to everyone—unedited and unencrypted.”
Mori doesn’t have the recorder contents, but the Chinese don’t know that. Horvath decided to play along. “That violates the terms of the alliance.”
The caregiver held up a finger. “No. Only the release of page technology is forbidden. Perhaps if we show them what’s possible with that technology, public opinion may shift. He’s already released photos from the artifact through Fortune Media.”
“Could you show me which ones?” Horvath asked, to play for time while she puzzled out what was really happening. This was technically impossible.
The woman handed Nena a wide-screen game system popular with the younger techs. She’d seen the caregiver fritter away hours on it. Daniel sometimes even smiled at the game sounds. The game was in high-resolution news-feed mode. She advanced through a snapshot of Crandall holding the flight-recorder. Control could have fed this image back to Earth before the antenna was cut. The next few, however, couldn’t have come from the recorder. These photos came from behind the alien quarantine layer. Her kids were safe and celebrating. The garbled caption took her breath away. “They’re using the ship to travel to another star?”
Petra said, “Sort of changes the game for everyone. Yes? Mori has already informed the UN that Zeiss was his agent but went rogue to protect his marriage.”
Horvath jerked her head up at the stinging accusation. “You have proof of this?”
“The technique they used to transmit the photos from inside the artifact was based on Dr. Zeiss’ quantum theory work at CERN. The signature on the message and the fact that no other faction has this technology are sufficient to convict him of espionage.”
“What would his motive be?”
Here the reporter interrupted. “The Chinese have discovered that Kaguya Mori is in a high-risk prenatal facility in Thailand.”
“What are you implying?”
Petra changed the game system to a different photo album: Zeiss attending Lamaze childbirth and early fatherhood classes. They even had his credit-card statement that showed several e-books on pregnancy.
Horvath said feebly, “He wants to be prepared for when Red has her first child . . . eventually.”
The next photo was Kaguya’s signed confession to the UN that she’d seduced Zeiss—the act that caused her eviction from the astronaut program. Following that was an image of a visitor’s log in the Antarctic, with Zeiss as the only one admitted to see Kaguya before her rescue. Someone had also given Mori a copy of a codicil to Zeiss’ will with vague wording that granted posthumous legitimacy to any heirs that showed up after his death. The final photo was an affidavit from the nurse that Zeiss was the father. Petra said, “Genetic testing, safely after birth, will bear this out; although, any Active in the area can attest to the unusual aura of the child.”
Horvath knew they were lies, but with some ulterior purpose. “What do you want?”
Petra smiled. “Zeiss will go on trial for violating UN orders. This cannot be prevented. The tribunal may be persuaded to be lenient on you and your husband if you testify to—”
“Screw your altruism. What do you get out of this?”
“Mr. Mori will name this child his primary heir and protect him or her with the full force of the corporation. In exchange, Mori will vote the child’s 2 percent of Fortune stock until it reaches maturity. Mori Electronics shall also enjoy unrestricted exploitation and patents on Dr. Zeiss’ quantum inventions.”
Horvath turned white. “Thieves.”
“The two corporations will merge before long. You’ll benefit, too . . . if you survive.” The caregiver handed her the game. “This device will enable you to talk to Mori directly. He’s in conference with the Chinese delegates as we speak. We have our own transmitter embedded in the linear accelerator aimed at Earth.” That transmitter was supposed to be limited to tracking data for the ore shipments. Add another lie to the list.
Petra showed Horvath the high-speed data port, which would enable her to transmit the Ascension data to Earth. “If you agree to the negotiated terms, the Chinese will destroy all of their missiles heading toward us, plus those they sold to third parties, about half the incoming arsenal. Others may follow suit when they know the truth. We could survive.”
“If I don’t agree?”
“Mori will negotiate terms of peace without you. Terms will include distribution to the Chinese and their allies of genetic samples that Zeiss left for Kaguya in case she wanted more children.”
All of Nena’s eggs had been harvested by her scientist ‘father’ for eugenics experiments. She would never allow loved ones to suffer the same fate. “Get out,” Horvath growled.
The caregiver bolted for the airlock.
“It’s about saving face,” the reporter explained when Petra was gone. “You don’t mention the armed assault, and we accept the Icarus attack as an accident. With no artifact or pages, we need something to show for all this effort. The blood-filtration techniques Mori mentioned could save lives everywhere on the planet.”
“The code of ethics has been set,” Horvath reminded.
Grimes shrugged. “The place they’re heading is over twenty-five light-years away. By the time the crew comes back—if they ever do—it’ll be more than fifty years from now. A lot can change by then. The leadership Chinese will be younger and more mainstream. We’ll have half a century to forge a compromise.”
“What are your terms for this bright new future?”
“The UN and Chinese program merge as equal partners going forward.”
“Half? That’s robbery.”
“We have the only space station left at L1. We’ve already rescued your other pod from the construction platform.”
“Made them hostages, you mean.”
“We followed international distress protocols. No one has been harmed, but there are many individuals we couldn’t reach without shuttles.”
“You’re only one-third the population of the alliance and one-third the launch sites.”
“The treaty emphasizes the valued status China has in the endeavor, the leadership they bring to the table—plus half the missiles.”
“Face,” echoed Horvath, and the reporter gave a short bow. “In immediate terms, what will this partnership entail?”
“The survivors from the Chinese base take up residence in moon base as soon as possible. In return—”
“We don’t have the room!”
“You’d be surprised: grain storage, hydroponics, and even the access tunnels to the ore launchers could be occupied while we rebuild.”
“They’d have a stranglehold on our life-support sections. It would also mean shutting the launchers down indefinitely. Rare-earth prices would skyrocket, providing a windfall for your government.”
Grimes held out both hands. “I’m just the messenger. You would become dependent on each other totally, fates conjoined. This means that the antimissile batteries that the Chinese still have would be at your disposal for defense.”
“What about our shortage of water and air?”
“Mori said air can be extracted from spare water, which can be obtained by towing all that superdense ice construction to the moon using shuttles.”
“Ice-9? The stuff that’s stronger than steel?”
“I think it’s technically ice-15 or so, but it’s all salvage now.”
Horvath rubbed her forehead. “It could work.”
“For another twenty-four minutes, if we preserve both shuttles. Mori is certain.”
“Is that all?”
“To exonerate yourself and
remain on the moon in a civilian capacity—”
“Alive, you mean.”
“The Chinese want you to destroy your father’s research on human cloning and spearhead an effort to ban it with the UN.”
Horvath almost laughed. She’d have done this on her own, but the lab in question did wonders with alien biotech. “What about the spinal reconstructive techniques we pioneered?”
“Those, you can keep,” he said, listening to an earbud, “if you share the patents globally. You’ve received more than your seventeen years of profit from that stranglehold.”
“Fine. But our quarters are inviolate like an embassy, and we can never be evicted.”
“Done.”
“I can’t change the laws of the code, though. The Chinese will need to adopt the charter.”
“Only those who go into space,” countered the reporter. “And support workers who only deliver supplies or stay less than a week could be exempted like Fortune’s are.”
She blinked. “That’s background noise. You’ll agree to have one-tenth of your space personnel read the ethics page?”
“The wording of the treaty refers to ‘the current standard,’ which by definition is one out of eighteen, the ratio sent to the artifact.”
It was like arguing with a team of lawyers. She hated this as much as Jez had.
“One out of eighteen, then.”
“Of course, we’ll need a reasonable ramp-up period to achieve this ratio.”
“Define reasonable.”
“Your people took twenty years to achieve current levels.”
“They had the proper percent after seven years.”
“Seven years after we sign the formal partnership papers. Give us two years to refine the exact—”
“Seven means seven. Take it or leave it.”
“You concede?”
“Give me ten minutes alone with my husband. I’ll contact Mori to formalize the deal.”
When the spy was gone, Horvath connected her personal console to the game unit and transmitted the contents of humanity’s last probable contact from Red for fifty years. “My girl will hate me if I compromise,” she told Daniel. “We’ll be dead by then either way, but my baby will detest me.” Holding his hand, she sighed. Even like this, he was a calming influence. “You’re right. Millions of others will live because of it. This will also give her a better chance to escape the solar system.”
