Lord Banshee Lunatic (Nightmare Wars Book 3)

by Russell Redman

  “Oh, important update from the centre. They are going to pull the official party out along the route we just cleared, all the way back to the base. We are to tag along, in case more doors need to be opened.”

  Crap. Deep, smelly, suffocating crap. I was OK opening doors when we only expected to face disorganized mobs of rebel soldiers, but the official party was a giant target. Even surrounded by a massive defensive screen of TDF soldiers, my chances of survival dropped horrifyingly and I felt swirls of dark confusion obscuring the Path that had seemed so bright that morning. In my unasked-for opinion, they would have been better to stay put until the TDF brought the rest of the city back to rights. Of course, I did not know what conditions were like inside the perimeter.

  The convoy must have emptied half the base. It was still moving past, more slowly now and with breaks between units. We used one of the breaks to swing around to the other side of the road, ready to depart when the official party arrived. Two APCs filled with soldiers swung in before and behind us.

  We did not have long to wait, a measure of how narrow this perimeter really was. A phalanx of armoured vehicles swept out of the city centre towards us, three wide, three long. In the very centre was an APC like ours except the windows were opaque; I guessed it contained the Viceroy and the Directors. In the centre front was a laser carriage to provide rapid firepower against armoured attack. Another ran behind the Viceroy’s APC. The phalanx was flanked on both sides by columns of APCs filled with Imperial and TDF soldiers. They slowed enough to allow us to fit into a gap just in front of the Viceroy’s APC. As we picked up speed again, the rest of the incoming convoy moved to the side of the road to let us pass.

  After we left the convoy behind, the road ahead was nearly empty. Patrols of TDF soldiers guarded each intersection, with light vehicles parked near each patrol. I hate peace and quiet. Especially when I am part of a moving target and cannot escape from the bullseye.

  Cities on the Moon are normally located in deep regolith with a simple grid of roads on each level, north-south/east-west, with service corridors running through the middle of each block. Orientale Tereshkova is an exception, situated directly over a buried ridge of the Inner Rook, the inner ring of mountains within the multi-ring Orientale basin. The rocks of the buried mountains had shattered into breccia during the impact that created the basin, but the tremendous heat of the impact and subsequent rebound had melted the deeper rock into a glassy pseudotachylite that in many places infiltrated the cracks in the breccia and welded it into a solid mass. Solid rock is rare near the surface of the Moon and valuable for that alone. This section of the range had been buried by subsequent ejecta. Three billion years of smaller meteor impacts had stirred up the protective layer of ejecta without damaging the underlying mountains. Chemically, these rocks had formed deep beneath the surface and were quite distinct from the mare basalts that had flooded the nearby Lacus Veris. The mines of Tereshkova were economically productive as few other lunar mines could be.

  The buried mountains made the road system in the city distressingly complex. Major roads that in any other lunar city would have been absolutely straight wound around and between the peaks. No one lived by choice in mining districts and the business communities in those neighbourhoods were unstable at best.

  This road, called Gagarin close to the base, changed names ten times as it wove drunkenly through rough industrial neighbourhoods. It had poor visibility on the many curves. I had driven VIPs through hostile cities on Mars; I would never have chosen this route, nor made the phalanx so obviously important. The Moon had lost the skills needed to control restive populations. I loved Lunatics, but right now their naivete put us all in serious peril.

  I worried when we passed an intersection not guarded by a TDF patrol. I asked our driver, who replied only that he was also concerned. He added that he had been receiving sporadic comm signals closer to the city centre, but they had died out again.

  The next major intersection was some distance ahead, around a long, slow bend. Service corridors sprouted off on the right side of the road. On the left, the road skirted one of the buried peaks so closely that only mine sites faced onto the road. Mine sites that routinely used large quantities of explosives and heavy equipment.

  Some of the businesses that faced the road on the right side still serviced the mines but many had diversified into less savoury activities. We passed manufacturers whose employees routinely complained of late paychecks, whorehouses with gaudy signs and reputations for robbing their customers, and party halls that offered the best highs that were legal and several that were not. There were relatively few gangs on the Moon but I had tracked some of them to chains of stores whose names I recognized as we raced past. Every major city on the Earth had neighbourhoods like this but I hated worse than poison driving through the worst neighbourhood in Tereshkova with the most senior individual in the lunar government, an unwelcome invader, riding in the vehicle behind me.

  I told the driver about my concerns and suggested that we should slow down so that a truck emerging from a mine would not cause a disaster. The consensus of the other drivers was that we should get past this section of the road as quickly as possible. I felt an ache growing in my stomach. I mentioned it to Nasruddin, who missed the point and promised dinner as soon as we got back to the base.

  Looking back along the road I got occasional glimpses of another vehicle following us, something big and darkly painted. Our driver said he was aware we were being followed but the convoy’s commander was confident the trailing laser carriage could stop it.

  I told them more urgently to send one of the APC’s ahead to verify that the road remained secure but they refused to break formation, pointing out that a lead vehicle would give warning of the entourage that was following. Our driver passed on my complaint that we were driving blind into danger, but got only a curt refusal.

  I asked, with rising anger, for a local map of the city. Past the next intersection, the peak we had been skirting dropped off steeply on the right but soared nearly to the surface on the left. The mining companies were larger and older, no longer as profitable as they had once been. Some had been abandoned, their vast empty spaces filled with stored water or with algae tanks to replenish our air. Others ground out an uncertain income from lower-grade ores or decorative stone slabs. They used fewer explosives but were also less secure. The city had neglected maintenance on a road that no longer saw much use, allowing the whitewash to flake off to expose the grey-black ironcrete of the walls. It was like driving through lava, an image of a city in hell, barely lit by unreliable lights.

  The service corridors on the right varied in size and purpose but there was a big one just past the next intersection. As we approached the intersection, I was reassured to see a patrol of soldiers but puzzled because the door into the connecting road was open. I was about to ask when our driver cursed quietly and sped up. The lead laser carriage began to fire, taking out the whole patrol. We continued to speed up as more soldiers emerged from the side road, carrying heavier weapons. A light missile leapt away from the soldiers, exploding as it hit the left lead APC. The APC was damaged but survived. It veered left and stopped, out of the way of the vehicles behind. The APC immediately to our left was forced to brake hard and fell behind.

  Our driver had also braked momentarily when the APC was hit. That saved us when a heavy rod fired out of a rusted, broken door on the left, flashed in front of us, and slammed through the driver of the APC to our right. Without a driver, the APC stopped, blocking the two APC’s behind it, which swung wildly and slowed until they could wobble back into the convoy behind the trailing laser carriage. One of them managed to pull ahead beside the trailing LC as two missiles raced up the road from the heavy vehicle following us. The LC could not fire back through the trailing APC. The missiles exploded in the two APC’s flanking the LC, the left one veering wildly after the explosion and colliding with both the LC beside it and the APC that had fallen behind. The Viceroy’s
APC was directly exposed to missile fire from our pursuer.

  As we raced through the intersection, the two APC’s flanking the Viceroy were destroyed. Around the bend up ahead I could see a blockage, a heavy vehicle straddling both sides of the road, surrounded by soldiers. The heavy vehicle that had been trailing us veered past the broken APCs and laser carriage, slowly drawing closer. A huge, ancient truck pulled out of the crossroad behind us.

  I commanded, “There is a service corridor on the right up ahead. Slow down, pull into it and make DAMN sure the Viceroy follows!”

  Nasruddin shouted, “Do it, or we all die today!”

  I blasted the opening code at the door, hoping that the local comm repeater on our APC was strong enough. I repeated the code, and again, until the door began to swing ponderously open. The leading laser carriage did not slow down, firing steadily at the barricade up ahead until a missile streaked past us from behind and hit its power generator. Our last APC of soldiers pulled left to give us room to swing into the corridor, followed by the Viceroy’s vehicle, but then pulled back to block the entrance. A handful of TDF soldiers climbed through windows in their APC to join us in the corridor but began to run, waving their arms frantically.

  Our driver said, “They are telling us to close the door.”

  I did without hesitation, privately praying for the souls of the heroes who remained out in the road. Then I caught what I was doing and reset myself to the Ghost. I told the driver to continue along the corridor until we came to a parking area dug into the right wall, where we should stop.

  We pulled into an empty spot beside several ancient, seldom-used vehicles. I ordered everyone out. As the Viceroy’s vehicle drew to a halt beside us, its loud-hailer delivered a string of profanity-laden accusations of treason, demanding to know why we had led them into this trap.

  I had just been carried out of our APC and was about to answer the tirade when a huge explosion rocked the ground. A shock came blasting down the corridor, knocking over two of our guards. They scrambled to their feet, calling that the corridor door had been breached. They staggered towards us, dazed by the shock. There had been soldiers in the corridor behind us, so I asked two other guards to check if they needed help, then turned to address the Viceroy’s hidden representative.

  “Sirs, if we had remained in that road, we would be captives or dead by now. I led us here because this maintenance room has a freight elevator to the lower levels that are still free of our enemies.”

  Guard Three was still beside my wheelchair, so I had zim push me to the door, which opened to reveal a dusty, disused room. Outraged disbelief raged from the loud-hailer, interrupted by an angry female voice, “Get me out of here, you fool, before the rebels come down that corridor. Your only job is to protect us, but the damn TDF driver has better sense than you. Stay here if you imagine you will be safer.”

  The door to the Viceroy’s vehicle swung open and a group of people filed out, led by a very young woman in a brilliant golden gown decorated with a coiling red dragon, topped with an elaborate hairdo that had not been seen since the glory days of the Tang dynasty. A swarm of Imperial security people followed, chastened and angry with their handguns drawn, probably the most personally dangerous people I could meet anywhere. Trailing behind, I recognized the Directors who had attended the awards ceremony.

  One of the security officers pinged our ID’s. “You, in the wheelchair. I recognize you. And you too, the one called Nasruddin. You were at Wang’s awards ceremony. Why are you here?”

  “Sir,” I replied, “because our duties require that we move freely throughout the city, I can open doors that others cannot. It was never intended for this purpose but is remarkably convenient today.”

  “Humph, where have I seen... You were in Prosperity Square – you spoke with the Poloffs.”

  “Yes, Sir. We were with the Surgeons Kaahurangi and MacFinn on the Lansdorf, where they conceived of the joint hospital service. That was where we met the Poloffs.”

  “And you show up here? I will have to review that case again. I do not believe in coincidences that striking.”

  There was a rattle of small arms fire in the corridor. Our two guards, I think they were One and Five, struggled around the corner into the shelter of the parking lot carrying a paralyzed soldier.

  “There is one more soldier still alive out there. We will set Private Hernandez here and go...”

  Bullets whickered down the corridor. Faintly, we heard, “Go! I will hold them off.”

  “No,” I replied, “you will stay with us to help guard the Viceroy and Directors. We are going to take the elevator down.”

  The two drivers tried to herd everyone away from the vehicles. “We have set the two APCs to drive on auto down the corridor, to make it look like we are trying to escape that way. That will only work for a few moments, so we need to be moving.”

  Everyone stepped into the room and I closed the door, locking it with an authorization so high that no maintenance worker would ever be able to open it again. Nasruddin had gone over to an antique monitor. He whistled, “Wow, this should be in a museum. Wires! I’ve not seen anything this old in use anywhere. Should be free from the DDoS, though. Let us see if it works.”

  A surprised face showed up on the monitor. “Hello? Who are you? No one has used this channel in years.”

  Nasruddin responded, “Sorry, our identities must remain unspoken until we are in a more secure location. We are escaping from a rebel attack and need the safest, easiest way down to the Fifth level. Does the freight elevator work?”

  The face on the monitor frowned, “You are in... No, that elevator is definitely unsafe. I don’t believe it will even rise to level Three anymore. You will need to take the stairwell in the northeast corner to level Four, then cross the hall to the replacement elevator that was brought into service last year. Are you familiar with this district?”

  Two, looking a little less dazed, had come over to watch. “I live close to the base on level Five, so I can get home from anywhere around here. You should call for serious security on that stairwell and elevator. It has been over a century since there was trouble this bad anywhere on the Moon.”

  I interjected, “There is also a message I would like you to spread, to the TDF base if you can, but really everywhere. There will be reports that the Viceroy has been killed. The message just says, ‘There is no ash on the Moon.’ Those who need to know will understand.”

  The face on the screen looked shocked as understanding grew. “Bloody hell. Are you saying...”

  “Silence,” Nasruddin ordered, “Do not finish that sentence. Just spread what he said, to the TDF in particular.”

  He looked around. “We need to start moving. The stairwell is going to be unpleasant for all of us.”

  2357-03-28 20:00

  Rebirth in Fire

  Closing the connection, he led us over to a door, so long unused that it had rusted. Rusted shut in fact. Private Hernandez was dosed with painkillers, having been hit by heavy shrapnel that had snapped her leg, but was still functional above the waist. She unlocked the power frame for her arms, ripped the door open, then locked the frame again so she would be easier to carry. Two and Three picked up my wheelchair by the front and back and we started down.

  The disused stairwell was dark, its lights having died long ago without a need to be replaced. It was also unusually cool since the lights were part of the heating system. Only half of us carried portable lights of any kind. The Imperial security people led the way down, checking every step and handrail for soundness before allowing anyone else to use it.

  The Viceroy asked, “How long will it take for the rebels to break through that door?”

  Sensible girl. I replied, “With explosives, no more than a few minutes. And the broken door on the stairwell will make it obvious which way we went. We should move faster.”

  “Pick it up,” she called. “We need to be down these stairs before our pursuers guess where we have gone.”
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  She glanced down at herself and gave a nervous laugh. “My dressmaker will be appalled at all this dust on my robe and my hairdresser may die in despair. I suspect Director Kim is going to give me a very polite lecture on the proper ceremony to use while escaping an attempted murder. This scares me so bad I want to pee but it is almost a relief after the tedium this morning. At least my health advisor will be pleased that I am getting some use out of her endless training.”

  I blinked a few times. Although such openness was customary on the Moon, aristocrats on the Earth were trained from birth to say nothing that might reveal weakness. Nervous Martian aristocrats criticized everyone around them in an effort to reclaim superiority. Perhaps things were different in the Belt.

  Nasruddin called back, “One part of that ceremony involves not looking like who you are. We should find more appropriate clothes for all of you. Those of us in armour will have to stay that way but the real dignitaries should look less dignified. That probably applies equally to security people with close-fitting body armour.”

  “I know that public display of skin is inappropriate,” I added, “but we can probably borrow some old clothes from a storage locker. If you are willing to dress as common workers, we could pretend that you are locals guiding the rest of us through the city.”

  When the Director of Commerce gasped in horror, the Viceroy cut her off. “Bare breasts and shorts? Scandalous but there will be no cameras, WILL THERE? I will think about it but that will not disguise my hair. No one has a hairdo like this. I would be instantly recognizable.”

  There would be security cameras almost everywhere but I saw Nasruddin paying attention. I felt sure that most of them would be turned off while we passed.

  “Less recognizable than you might think,” I replied. “Two days from now, every second girl and half the boys on level Five will be trying to imitate the style, no matter how long their hair is now. Next week, they will be trying something else. Most people will just assume you are unusually aware of the fashion trends upstairs. They will be desperate to find the hairdresser who could copy the style so quickly. Actually, a little dust will encourage that misconception.”