by Ian Douglas
But it was too late for Bos.
“You’re up, buddy,” Kaminski said. Half in shock, Jack stepped across the body of his friend, slinging his ATAR as he pulled his PAD from its holster.
Captain Robert Lee
USS Ranger
0113 hours GMT
It almost had been too late. Ranger had swept past Tsiolkovsky’s central peak, still decelerating at three Gs, but then, slowly, she’d brought her speed to zero relative to the Lunar surface, then started moving back toward the west, toward the firefight raging around the southwestern flank of the mountain. On her bridge, Rob Lee and David Alexander got to their feet once more, feeling now only the Moon’s sixth of a gravity, and the rattling vibration of the ship’s drives, holding them at a drifting near hover less than half a kilometer above the crater floor.
“There’s a lot going on down there, sir,” Kieffer said. “I see several small groups IDed as Marines. The rest are scattered all over the place.” He pointed. “Looks like some sniper positions up on the side of the mountain. Squad lasers, shoulder-fired missiles, and a lot of small-arms stuff.”
Rob glanced at Avery, who shrugged, then nodded. “Unless you see some other targets in the clear,” Rob said, “let’s take out those snipers. But watch out for heavy battery fire from the ship.”
The AM cannon might have been dealt with, but the UN ship almost certainly possessed high-energy lasers as well, and there was no word yet on whether the assault team had secured her or not. A well-placed HEL barrage could still ruin the Ranger’s whole day.
Ranger mounted three HELs, each in the two-hundred-megajoule range, which gave them the explosive equivalent of forty-kilo charges of high explosive. The bolts falling from the sky were invisible in hard vacuum, but the explosions were not, dazzling, pulsing flashes against the mountainside like scattered strobe beacons. In seconds, a faint haze of dust was settling across the mountainside, and each bolt became visible as it flashed through the cloud, searing streaks of white light that continued to hit the mountain slope in a devastating, rapid-fire barrage. As quickly as a UN soldier could be spotted by the Ranger’s weapons officer, using IR optics, a lightning bolt would fall.
“Okay, okay,” Ranger’s communications/electronics officer said, touching his headset. “I’m getting a call from someone down there.”
“Put it on the speaker,” Avery said.
“…on the run,” a scratchy voice called. “Glad you boys could make the party!”
Avery reached out and jacked his headset mike into the CE officer’s console. “This is Colonel Avery of the Ranger. What’s your situation down there?”
“Ah, okay, Colonel. This is Gunnery Sergeant Yates. We’re in good shape, here. The skipper’s inside the UN ship. Haven’t heard from her in a while, now. So’s the computer team. Outside, we were taking damned heavy fire from that mountain, but you boys just pretty well swept it clean! Looks like the UNdies are on the run, now!” There was a static-filled pause. “If you can set down near the UN ship, we’ve got a lot of wounded here.”
“Roger that.” Avery nodded to the pilot. “Take her down.”
“We don’t have much choice, sir,” the pilot said. “We’re down to eighty seconds’ RM at low thrust. We’re setting down whether we want to or not!”
“Not too close to that damned French ship!” Avery snapped. “They may have explosives set!”
“Got news for you, sir,” Commander Kieffer said. “With antimatter, they don’t need to worry about explosive charges. If that baby goes, everything on this side of the mountain goes. Shrapnel alone is going to get everything within miles!” He seemed to be enjoying himself.
Rob’s heart was hammering. What about Kaitlin? Where was she? He glanced at David and saw the archeologist’s clenched fists and pale, drawn face. His nephew’s in there, with the computer team, he thought. And Kaitlin…
He’d seen one LAV destroyed out on the crater floor, and he could see another here, holed by a missile. Was Kaitlin dead? Hurt?
He desperately needed to know.
Moments later, the Ranger touched down gently on the Lunar regolith, a hundred meters from the UN ship and gantry. Rob hurried back down to the squad bay to get his helmet and gloves, and David followed.
Neither said a word.
PFC Jack Ramsey
UNS Guerrière, Tsiolkovsky Base
0114 hours GMT
Jack leaned against the computer console, his PAD open, the leads jacked into both the ship computer and to his own suit. Sam could talk to him now over his headset, and she would hear his instructions. “Go to it, Sam!” he told her, after setting up the first sweep sequence with a few keystrokes. “What are we up against?”
Sam was visible on the PAD screen. It seemed a little strange, seeing her there without a suit, while he was still encumbered with his. For the last month or so, he’d been thinking of her much more like a living person than a simulacrum. In fact, his whole relationship with her had changed.
He kind of liked it.
And—he knew he was anthropomorphizing here—he thought she liked it as well. “I enjoy this new professional relationship with you,” she’d told him once, a couple of weeks before.
“I am detecting computer security encryption, Jack,” Sam said. “It’s asking me for a password.”
Her speech was crisp and precise, with none of the languid sexiness she’d had originally. Her responses were also immediate, or nearly so. Her personality software had possessed a built-in response-delay, so that her conversation sounded more human. Jack had disabled that last week, however, to bring his interaction with her to peak efficiency.
“Initiate nutcracker routine. Run program.”
“Jack, you should know that I have just tried the first word on the first list. The password failed, and at the same time, I detected the reset of an incremental counter, from three to two.”
“Oh, shit….” The Guerrière’s system was set to detect and count each attempt to break security, probably with a three-times-and-you’re-out routine attached. The instructors at Quantico had admitted the possibility of something like that but thought it unlikely, given that the UN wouldn’t be expecting an enemy assault on Tsiolkovsky.
Evidently Guerrière’s programmers had been expecting the attack after all, or else they were simply being cautious. Three-times-and-you’re-out was the perfect way to foil pass-code-cracking attempts that relied on brute force. Three wrong guesses, and…well, there was no telling what would happen next. Maybe a special key was required to reset. Maybe a new set of instructions from an authorized programmer was required. Maybe there would even be a very loud boom.
“Jack, there is something else.”
“What is it, Sam?” He was breathing harder now, and his visor was starting to fog.
“Behind the counter, I am also detecting…something else. I believe it is a timer.”
“The computer clock?” Sweat burned his eyes.
“Negative, Jack. This is a special timer within the security program, and it is counting down. Now at T minus twenty-one seconds.
Maybe there was going to be a very loud boom whether Sam entered more passwords or not. Two more tries, out of sixteen thousand possibilities? There was no way in hell he could pull the pass code out of a hat, not with twenty seconds to go.
“Damn, Sam,” Jack said, feeling sick. “I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off….”
TWENTY-EIGHT
MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2042
Sam
UNS Guerrière, Tsiolkovsky Base
0114 hours GMT
“Damn, Sam. I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off….”
* * *
FUNCTION: AUDIO PARSE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.011
STATUS: RAW INPUT
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: N/A
AUDIO INPUT: DAMSAM_AIDOANTNOHOWEERGOINGTOBUL THISOF
* * *
FUNCTION: AUDIO PARSE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.017
STATUS: WO
RD ISOLATION
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.9305
AUDIO INPUT: DAM SAM AI DOANT NO HOW WEER GOING TO BUL THIS OF
* * *
FUNCTION: AUDIO PARSE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.033
STATUS: FIRST PASS MEMETIC SUBSTITUTION
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.902
AUDIO INPUT: DAMN SAM I DON’T NO HOW ?WEER? GOING TO PULL THIS OFF
* * *
FUNCTION: AUDIO PARSE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.071
STATUS: SECOND PASS MEMETIC SUBSTITUTION
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.987
AUDIO INPUT: DAMN SAM I DON’T KNOW HOW WE’RE GOING TO PULL THIS OFF
* * *
FUNCTION: CONTEXTUAL TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.104
INTERPRETATION
STATUS: SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.72
UNRESOLVED SYNTAX STRING:
DAMN
SAM
I
DON’T KNOW HOW
WE’RE
GOING TO PULL THIS OFF
* * *
FUNCTION: CONTEXTUAL TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.157
INTERPRETATION
STATUS: CONTENT ANALYSIS
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.87
RESOLVED SYNTAX STRING:
DAMN
SAM
I
DON’T KNOW HOW
WE’RE
UNRESOLVED SYNTAX STRING: GOING TO PULL THIS OFF CHOICES:
1: ACHIEVE-MISSION-OBJECTIVE PROBABILITY: 0.954
2: REMOVE-OBJECT (CLOTHING) PROBABILITY: 0.032
3: REMOVE-TARGET-PROGRAM PROBABILITY: 0.012
4: REMOVE UNS GUERRIÈRE PROBABILITY: 0.0008
5: OTHER PROBABILITY: 0.0002
* * *
FUNCTION: CONTEXTUAL TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.241
INTERPRETATION
STATUS: MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 0.98
INPUT TYPE:
DECLARATIVE-TO-THIS-UNIT/
EVALUATION-REQUEST-THIS-UNIT
INPUT PRIORITY: HIGHEST
DECLARATIVE/EVALUATION SUBJECT:
ACHIEVE-MISSION-OBJECTIVE [FEASIBILITY]
* * *
FUNCTION: REMOTE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.244
PROCEDURE CALL
REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL:
QUERY/STATUS (PASSWORD-TESTING)
CALL RESPONSE: 92% COMPLETE. NON-SUCCESS.
* * *
FUNCTION: REMOTE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:53.306
PROCEDURE CALL
REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL:
QUERY/PROBABILITY (PASSWORD-TESTING-SUCCESSFUL)
CALL RESPONSE: 0.002 PROBABLE.
* * *
FUNCTION: REMOTE TIMESTAMP: 01:14:54.801
PROCEDURE CALL
REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL:
RANDOM-ASSOCIATE (NEW-PASSWORD)
INPUT (MISSION-BRIEFING,
CURRENT-POLITICAL-SYNOPSIS,
CURRENT-BROADCAST-MEDIA,
INCIDENTAL-INPUT).
DATE FILTERING (OFF).
RELEVANCE FILTERING (OFF).
HEURISTIC RESTRAINTS (OFF)
CALL RESPONSE: PROBABLE PASSWORD DETECTED.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: MODERATE.
SOURCE: CONVERSATIONAL INPUT (CASUAL, UNDIRECTED)
11/09/2042 22:29:15 GMT.
* * *
FUNCTION: AUDIO BUILD TIMESTAMP: 01:14:54.817
STATUS: COMPLETE
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: N/A
PHONETIC OUTPUT: JAK _AITHINKWEERGOINGTOHAVTO-TRIACOMPLETLIDIFRENTABROCH
* * *
PFC Jack Ramsey
UNS Guerrière, Tsiolkovsky Base
0114 hours
“Jack, I think we’re going to have to try a completely different approach,” Sam said, less than two seconds later. “I believe I may have a possible password.”
“Do it!”
An agony of seconds passed.
“The second password was not accepted,” Sam said. “Incremental counter now set at one. However, I am certain I am on the right track. Does anyone know how to say ‘Hunters of the Dawn’ in French?”
Jack blinked. She’d been given French word lists….
…but that wasn’t the same as knowing a language, and he didn’t think that that phrase was on the list in any case. “Hey!” He shouted on the platoon channel. “Sam needs to know how to say ‘Hunters of the Dawn’ in French! Who knows it?”
“I do,” Kaitlin said. “Chasseurs de l’Aube.”
“Shass—Damn it! Spell the fucking thing! On Channel Three!”
Ignoring his less than protocol-correct words, Kaitlin spelled the phrase.
A long second later, Sam said, “Computer security safeguards are now down. I have control of GUERRIÈRE’s computer.” Another pause. “Countdown to uncontrolled release of antimatter aborted at T minus four-point-one-three-one seconds.”
“Sam…I think I love you!…”
Jack didn’t feel it when his knees gave way and he dropped to the deck, falling slowly in one-sixth G.
Captain Rob Lee
UNS Guerrière, Tsiolkovsky Base
0118 hours GMT
Rob came up onto the bridge, expecting almost anything. The fighting everywhere appeared to be ending, but there was always the possibility of a holdout fanatic somewhere…or a UN trooper who hadn’t gotten the word.
She was there, helping as Marine on the deck. “Kaitlin!” Bueller and Kaminski stood nearby, weapons ready; the bridge around them a charnel house. He scarcely saw them. “Kaitlin! You’re okay!” Then he saw that one of the bodies was Bosnivic, the other Jack Ramsey. “Are they—”
“Bosnivic’s dead,” Kaitlin told him. She sounded shaken. “I think Ramsey, here, just had too little CO2 in his mix. He got excited, hyperventilated, and passed out.” She looked up at Rob, eyes very large. “He just saved us, Rob. All of us.”
“The computer? The ship?”
“Is ours. But it was damned close. Four seconds to spare. They had a trigger set on the antimatter generator, and a timer going.”
“Holy God….”
She finished adjusting Jack’s gas mix, then stood up, swaying a bit. Rob tried to take her in his arms, but Mark I armor was less than satisfactory for close contact. They bumped awkwardly, and she laughed, fending him off. “Easy, there, Tiger. You’ll startle the men. Maybe later….”
Kaminski was at the communications console nearby. “Uh, Lieutenant? I think I can patch through to an L-1 halo comsat!”
“Great!” Kaitlin replied. “Can you raise Mission Control?”
“That’s what I’m working on, ma’am. It’s gonna take a while.”
L-1 was a gravitational balance point above the Moon’s farside. It was possible to orbit that point, rather than the Moon itself, which made it an ideal spot for comsats. The UN had taken advantage of this footnote in physics to keep their base at Tsiolkovsky in touch with Earth; now it could serve the victorious American forces as well.
Jack was trying to sit up. “Christ! What happened?”
“You got a little too excited, Ramsey,” Kaitlin told him. “You passed out. Feeling better now?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. We’ll have the corpsmen take a look at you aboard the Ranger, just to be sure.”
“The lieutenant tells me you just saved us all, son,” Rob said.
“Wasn’t me, sir.” He shook his head emphatically. “It was Sam.”
“Sam?”
Standing, he retrieved his PAD from a nearby console. His suit communications jack had pulled free when he’d fallen, and he plugged himself back in now. “This is Sam. And if I didn’t know better, I’d swear she just had a very uncomputerlike burst of pure, creative thought!”
“But, of course, you do know better, don’t you, Jack?” a young woman’s voice said over t
he platoon channel.
“Sam, I don’t know a damned thing anymore. You and me have to talk!…”
Lieutenant Kaitlin Garroway
UNS Guerrière, Tsiolkovsky Base
0535 hours GMT
It took over four hours—and some more of Sam’s nut-cracking to override some UN security protocols—to make the comsat patch, but at last the thing was done. Kaitlin sat at the communications console and jacked in her headset. “Potomac, Potomac,” she called. “This is Night Rider. Over.”
Static hissed in her earphones. Guerrière’s hatch had been repaired and her atmosphere restored during the past couple of hours, and she had her helmet and gloves off at last.
“Night Rider,” she heard in her headphones. “Night Rider, this is Potomac. We read you!”
She thought she recognized that voice. Encryption software at both ends of the link made it safe enough to say the name to be sure. “General Warhurst? Is that you?”
The two-and-a-half-second time lag for a radio signal to travel to Earth and for the reply to come back was noticeable, but not long enough to be a problem. “This is Warhurst. Kaitlin? Kaitlin, is that you?”
“That’s affirmative, sir!” She grinned. Only a few moments ago, Kaminski had reminded her of what day it was. By this time, it was even the tenth of November in Washington, where the commandant was waiting out the mission with the Chiefs of Staff. “Listen up! It is my great pleasure to present you and the Marine Corps with a special birthday present…the UN warship Guerrière!”
Three seconds dragged by. When she heard Warhurst’s voice again, she could hear wild cheering in the background, so loud that it almost drowned out the commandant. “Excellent, Lieutenant Garroway! That’s splendid.” There was a pause. “Does your being on the line mean…are Colonel Avery or Captain Fuentes or Captain Lee there?”