by Homer Hickam
The surgeon recoiled, but at a curt nod from the Colonel, she came forward and took the boy’s hand. “I’m here, Freddy.”
“Did you hear I’m getting a medal?”
“Oh, yes, Freddy. You’re a hero. I’m proud of you.”
The boy smiled, but the light in his eyes was almost gone. “Love you, M-Mom . . . tr-tried to be good.”
“I love you too, Freddy. You’re the best boy there ever was.”
Crater watched Freddy Hook, the youngest recipient of the Medaris Company Supreme Medal of Honor, die. Disgusted with the Earth, heaven, and the moon, he impulsively reached down and pulled the knife from his leg and angrily threw it on the deck. “That’s great, Colonel. Was this battle worth Freddy’s life?”
The Colonel turned and gave Crater an angry glare. “What’s wrong with you?”
“That boy should have never been out here.” He gazed dumbly at the gush of blood that was flowing from his leg. “And now I’ve done a stupid thing.”
The Colonel stared at Crater’s wound. “Yes, you have, Crater. Yes, you have.”
The surgeon untwined the boy’s fingers from hers. “There’s no such thing as that medal, is there?” she asked the Colonel.
“There wasn’t,” the Colonel answered, “but there is now.”
When Crater hit the floor, both the Colonel and the surgeon turned to stare at his crumpled form. “What’s wrong with him?” the surgeon asked.
“A little nick in his leg,” the Colonel replied. “I’m sure it’s not serious. He’s just being dramatic. Patch him up and put him back on duty. No bed rest, you hear?”
::: FIVE
Maria pulled her seat belt tight, then gave a countdown for her passengers. “On my mark, hang on, five-four-three-two-one . . .” She pushed the throttles forward and the jumpcar thundered aloft. She throttled back and smoothly arced it over on its back, her view the gray and black rilles of the Known Sea. Leveling out, she rotated the jumpcar so she could have a view of the sky, then turned up the gain on the radar. No blips appeared but warpods were stealthy. They were also well equipped with long-range, heat-seeking missiles. She aimed the nose of the jumpcar at the stars and firewalled the throttles, this time holding them there. Up and up they soared. Then a klaxon sounded and a light flared on the console. Unknown craft on collision course.
The jumpcar was not a military vehicle. Its radar did not know what to make of an incoming missile except to call it an unknown craft. Maria fired up the verniers and auxiliary jets and put the jumpcar into a torturous loop. One of her passengers produced a small shriek.
She checked the radar. The blip was gone. She aimed the jumpcar’s nose straight up and held it there until the vibrations became too intense. Abruptly, she shut down all jets and coasted, praying that the cold soak of space would drain the thermal signature away before the invisible warpod unleashed another missile. To help, she pumped supercold unburnt propellant through the rocket nozzles.
Unknown craft on collision course.
The jumpcar shook violently. A flash of orange light filled the cockpit. Dazzled, she blinked at the console lights. One engine was dead. The rattling jumpcar was holding together, but just barely.
Maria groaned when the radar showed another incoming missile. The jumpcar hadn’t cooled enough. She relit the jets, flipped the jumpcar nose down, and put it into a dive. Pull up! Pull up! the puter cried as the moon reached out for a final embrace.
The dive had defeated the missile, but getting out of it was the new problem. Maria coolly went through her options. One engine was out. The other engine was intact. It was also gimbaled, meaning it could be used to maneuver. She pushed the engine bell over, then fired up the nose verniers. The nose rose abruptly, nearly putting the jumpcar into a deadly tumble. Maria cut the verniers and eased the engine bell over until the nose stayed level. A line of hills loomed ahead. Maria skimmed over them, then roared aloft, heading eastward.
She checked the propellant load. There was a leak. The numbers were flipping downward. “Puter, do we have enough propellant to return to Armstrong City?”
Negative.
“Maintenance program, please.”
Maintenance.
“Detach engine number two propellant lines. Release engine number two clamps.”
This cannot be accomplished during flight.
“This is a red-level security override. The security code is Crater2112.”
Maintenance procedures initiated.
There was a horrific scraping noise as the useless engine was dropped out, falling and spinning away. “Puter, initiate mass calculations to compensate controls for lost engine.”
Mass calculations accomplished. Controls compensated.
“Do we have enough propellant for Armstrong City now?”
Affirmative.
A shadow swept over the cockpit and Maria looked up to see a big warpod with missiles hanging on each wing. The communications light flashed. Incoming message. “Pilot, you are to land immediately,” a man’s voice said. “Land or be destroyed.”
Maria fought for time. “My controls are shot!” she called back. “I cannot maneuver.”
“Cut off your jet. Dead stick a landing. There is a flat plain five miles ahead.”
Maria was confused. Why did they want her to land safely, even going so far as to give advice? Then it hit her. This was a capture mission. That explained why the missile that hit the jumpcar hadn’t destroyed it. The warhead had been set for a low order explosion. And of the four people on board, there was only one person who would warrant a capture mission.
Maria knew a great deal about warpods. They were built to take off from Earth. That was why they had wings and scramjets. In other words, a lot of useless hardware once in space. Medaris Spacecraft built some of the best warpods in the world. This wasn’t one of them, but certain design features were the same and she knew they had blind spots. They were designed for long-distance warfare, not dog fighting at close range where everything was visual.
Maria throttled her engine back, falling behind the warpod until she had faded into one of its blind spots, then used the verniers to raise the jumpcar nose. She pushed the throttle forward and swept up over the warpod, the fiery cone of the remaining jumpcar engine washing over its fuselage. She rained fire across the starboard wing and an undeployed missile, its nosecone jutting from beneath the forward edge of the wing. It did not explode but its rocket motor cooked off. There it burned, still hanging on the wing, while Maria maneuvered away. Then the missile broke free of the clamps on its launch rail and raced away before turning in an arcing loop that carried it into the warpod’s starboard engine. Still, it did not explode, its warhead apparently made inert by its software, but that didn’t keep it from tearing the engine apart. With debris trailing it, the warpod hauled up and limped skyward, its remaining engine burning bright.
Maria didn’t have time to savor her victory. Even a wounded warpod was dangerous. She knew it could make lunar orbit on one engine and engage her from there. The only chance was to lose the jumpcar in surface clutter. She pointed its nose toward the east, dropped down to just a few feet above the surface, then jinked and juked her wounded craft across the tortured hills and cratered plains of the moon.
::: SIX
The newbie Irregulars in the back of the truck would not stop talking about the battle. They told and retold how they’d fought the crowhoppers, and their stories got more colorful every time. Crater, sitting on the hard plaston slat bench amongst the newbies and veterans, the latter mostly sleeping, just wished they’d shut up.
But they wouldn’t shut up. They were too excited. One of them, a fellow from Calimexica called Frisco Larry, leaned over to show a dent in his helmet. “Knocked me silly,” he said. “When I turned around, there was one of them holding its rifle by the barrel. It had whacked me with the scrag thing so I didn’t do nothin’ but take my rifle by the barrel and whack it back.”
“Why didn’t it just shoot
you?” a newbie who called himself London Bob asked.
“Don’t know. Must have run out of ammo. Or maybe it was just crazy.”
“You’re the one who’s crazy,” Bob said. “You had ammo, you shoulda just shot it.”
“If I get clubbed, I’m gonna club back.”
Bob laughed. “Good thing I came along and shot it for you. That big creature would’ve torn you from limb to limb.”
“Naw, I’d have shot it pretty soon. I ain’t that crazy.”
Crater held his head, or tried to but failed since his helmet got in the way. As far as he was concerned, everybody involved in the war was crazy, from the foot soldiers on up. On one side was the Lunar Mining Council (LMC) headed up by the Colonel, which included the independent mine owners plus the Russian Czarina who controlled the mining towns in the Sea of Serenity. On the other side was the Unified Countries of the World (UCW), an organization of nations that had gotten together and decided to break the LMC Helium-3 monopoly by terrorizing the mine owners with crowhopper mercenaries. Their plan had been a dismal failure. Not only had the LMC fought back, it cut off all Helium-3 shipments to the world. This caused other Earthian nations, their fusion plants starved, to band together and attack the UCW. After that, the war on the moon became a backwater while the larger war on Earth went ahead to resolve everything, another of a long series of wars to end all wars, the foolishness of mankind on display for the universe.
Crater had reached a point where he almost didn’t care who won as long as somebody did and it would be over. Ever since the war had started, nearly three years ago, he’d been a Moontown Irregular and he was sick of it. The Colonel kept promising every time he pulled his miners off the scrapes to fight that it was going to be the last battle, but somehow it never was. This time in what was supposed to be just a mop-up action, poor Freddy Hook and Doom had been killed and Crater had nearly been bled white from an elk sticker wound before the greenies got around to patching him up. For a reason he didn’t understand, they had released him back to duty as soon as he’d come out of the anesthesia. He’d not taken too many steps out on the dust before he’d passed out, waking in the back of the truck where Asteroid Al had dragged him and propped him up on the bench.
At Crater’s feet was the little crowhopper wrapped in mine wire. It was alive even though it had attacked Al, who had responded by pushing the muzzle of his rifle into its neck and pulling the trigger. Nothing had happened because Al had neglected to charge the railgun’s pulsed power supply. After he’d turned the necessary switch, Al found he just didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger a second time. When told the story, Crater had responded with a shrug. Al, sitting quietly beside him, was obviously never going to become a proper soldier.
“What you got there, Crater?” Bob asked with a smirk. “A pet? Is it house trained? You gonna walk it around Moontown on a leash?”
“No, Bob,” Crater said. “I’m going to train it to kill anybody I don’t like and, right now, I don’t much like you.”
The newbie Irregular nervously chuckled. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Al asked Crater on their private channel. When Crater didn’t answer, just kept holding his helmet, Al suggested, “Why don’t we just roll it out the back?”
“Why don’t you just shut up?” Crater growled. “You had a chance to kill it and you didn’t.”
“So did you.”
Crater didn’t want to talk anymore. His head was killing him from whatever drug the greenies had given him in the popup and his leg, the numbness of the anesthetic wearing off, was starting to hurt. He thought he should be in an ambulance, not shoved in the back of a cargo truck. He looked down at the crowhopper and it looked back at him through the slit in its helmet. Its eyes were filled with questions that Crater didn’t want to hear or even imagine.
The truck slowed, then stopped. “The Colonel said I should let you fellows walk around some,” the driver called into their helmets. “Shake the dust outa your joints.”
The Irregulars climbed down except for Crater, who took the opportunity to stretch out on the empty bench. He closed his eyes, and the next thing he knew Al was shaking him awake. “They’re playing with your crowhopper,” he said.
Crater groaned, then sat up. His head felt like the devil was pounding on it with an ax and his leg felt like another devil was stabbing it with a spear. He came close to throwing up. When he didn’t, mainly because there was nothing in his stomach, he looked out the back of the truck and saw that London Bob and Frisco Larry had cut the mine wire holding the creature and had taped its eye slit over. It was furiously lashing out with its fists and feet, lurching this way and that trying to get at its tormenters who were taking turns poking at it with a scragbar. When Bob tripped it, the others joined in to kick it when it fell in the dust. Crater drew his sidearm and dropped into the dust. He pushed through the Irregulars and stood over the crowhopper, which was lying on its side, its legs pulled up, its arms over its helmet. “Next scraghead touches my crowhopper gets a slug through his helmet.” He raised his pistol. “Don’t believe me? Give it a try.”
“It killed Freddy and Doom,” Bob said.
“It didn’t kill anybody,” Crater replied. “I captured it in a lavatube. It was unarmed except for a knife and I, um, took that away from it.”
“Yeah, with your leg,” an Irregular hooted.
“You won’t shoot,” Bob said and demonstrated his conviction by kicking the little crowhopper.
Crater nodded, then holstered his pistol before grabbing the scragbar from Larry and smacking Bob with it a little harder than he meant to. “You broke my arm!” Bob cried, holding the afflicted arm.
Crater was in too much pain to care about anybody else’s. “Tie my crowhopper up,” Crater said to Larry. “And put it back on the truck. Treat it gentle as a baby or you’re next.” He patted the scragbar in his hand. “You get me?”
Larry and the other Irregulars got Crater very well and did as they were told, carefully placing the crowhopper into the truck. Bob watched, still holding his busted arm. “What about me?” he demanded. “I need a greenie.”
“You’re not going to get one,” Crater said. “You’re going to get on the truck and shut up. Somebody wants to put a splint on you, give you something, I won’t stop them.”
Bob looked around but the others were trying not to look back. “Ain’t somebody gonna help me? My arm is killing me. Anybody got a pain injector?”
Nobody did and Bob whimpered and complained all the way back to Moontown. The others muttered amongst themselves, saying Crater should have actually shot Bob, not made him and them so miserable. Crater heard them but pretended he didn’t. Mostly, he thought about how much his leg hurt and how glad he’d be to see old Moontown. The crowhopper had stopped moving. Maybe, he thought with some hope, it had died.
::: SEVEN
Maria tossed her gear to the landing tech, then turned to gaze fondly at her battered jumpcar. “Thank you,” she said to the machine as her three passengers wobbled past, their stricken expressions reflecting the ordeal that had been the battle and chase.
“Give her a new engine and a bath. She’ll be fine,” she told the jumpcar maintenance crew, all of whom were staring with awe at the smoking rocket ship.
Maria’s do4u beeped. It was her grandfather. “Maria, thank God,” the Colonel said. “What happened? I heard you declared an emergency landing.”
The Colonel, of course, had spies everywhere. There was little of importance that happened on the moon he didn’t know about. She gave him a brief description of the encounter with the warpod and the perilous flight back to Armstrong City. He was silent for a moment, then said, “They wanted to take you alive.”
“Yes, sir. The question is why?”
“Ransom,” the Colonel immediately said in a clipped voice. “The price—we sign contracts to deliver lots of cheap heel-3 to the UCW.”
“Something you wouldn�
�t agree to, in any case,” she said.
The Colonel was quiet for a moment, then said, “I want you to be very careful during the coming days, Maria. Stay in Armstrong City. No flying jumpcars or going outside for any purpose. Understand?”
Maria crossed her fingers. “Yes, sir. News came in on a battle up north while I was flying out. Did you win it?”
“Yes, and for the answer to your real question, Crater Trueblood received a small wound. Nothing serious. He did something stupid afterward but we’ll clear that up. He’s a brave lad but ultimately foolish. Why you care about him, I don’t know.”
Maria resisted asking for details, saying, “It doesn’t matter since I’ll never see him again.”
“Sometimes I wish I could say the same. Just remember. Stay under the domes of Armstrong City until further notice!”
The Colonel clicked off. Maria stood on the streets of the city, its busy people flowing past her. With a word, she could connect with Crater on his do4u, hear his voice, find out everything, perhaps even discover that he still cared, but she didn’t say the word. Instead, she endured the stinging tears, then headed for the Medaris Building where there was no Crater, and where a heart of stone had value.
::: EIGHT
Moontown sat on a sparkling plain of dust in front of the corrugated, shadowy walls of the Alpine Valley. Although most of the town was beneath the ground, there were eight observation towers a hundred feet high and painted in patterns of black-and-white stripes, diamonds, and hexagons. One glance at the patterns by incoming jumpcar pilots oriented them to the dustlocks and landing pads. Two large maintenance sheds were set east and west of the town, their sloped roofs covered with glittering blue-green tile made of a special blend of mooncrete and anorthosite. Various vehicles were parked nearby: scrapers, loaders, heel-3 trucks, flatbed trucks, and fastbugs. Moontown looked like exactly what it was, a working mining town.