April 3: The Middle of Nowhere

by Mackey Chandler

  Heather was relieved to see the larger ship land precisely in the middle of the second square well away from her own precious transport a hundred meters away. The more experienced French crew had not hovered and slowly descended like her own less experienced pilot. They came in at a visible angle. The fact they were still visibly off the vertical line when only half a kilometer up had scared Heather for a moment. April's man Charles had taken a lot more time the last couple hundred meters easing them to the surface. In contrast the French ship had only pivoted fully vertical its own length from the pad and balanced over its jets, slick as catching an egg on a plate, before it eased down the last few meters. She was certain they wasted a lot less reactive mass too.

  Landing in the Happy Lewis on the virgin site Heather had seen what a mess the exhaust blew away from the surface of an unimproved site. The cloud of dust shot away in every direction. She wasn't entirely sure some didn't fall over the horizon. She knew right then that the advice she'd begged from friends and business associates in the lunar bases was right on the money and essential. That was just the first of many things she would not have been properly prepared for without their help. While most of the crew was grooming the vital landing pads Heather and Happy Lewis, for whom the ship was named, were busy setting up a prefabricated moon hut and two arch shelters with a single helper.

  Marked and fused roadways and pathways between all of the pads and shelters cleared of the troublesome dust would be started soon. Then it would be possible to do everything without fighting the irksome dust unless you had to go off site. They warned her the dust was even worse at night when static built up easier. But now that the French shuttle was here she let them continue work without her and hurried over. The big vessel carried another six workers from Home, a number of heavy pieces of equipment that the Happy Lewis could not lift, but most important - two big rovers they had stopped to pick up at New Kirov - far to the lunar north west.

  The rovers were so vital to their efforts she worried if they could have as much life left in them as the Russians claimed for so little money. Jeff had reassured her, explaining if the Russians built them they might not be the fastest, or the prettiest, but they would still work fine long after they were ugly and worn looking. They were large machines, each easily as big as the pressure cabin of the Home Again and capable of being lived in for days at a time – if not exactly luxury accommodations.

  The Russians sent one technician over her protests, saying they were selling assembled vehicles and if she insisted on her people assembling a vehicle they were not familiar with there would be no guarantee they would not be DOA. She intended to mount a rack of mini-missiles such as the Home Militia mounted in their armed merchant shuttles as soon as one of the rovers was ready to move.

  She would rather not do that in front of their techie so he could carry tales back home, but she desperately wanted their warranty, so she accepted the technician. Eventually they would want the other moon bases to know their situation and that they were armed, after they were properly dug in and not so vulnerable. She could hope if the Russians knew about them maybe it would take a few weeks at least before the gossip reached the rest of the Moon bases, especially the Americans.

  The man hatch was already open in the shuttle and a suited figure jumped out from a height that looked frightening to someone used to a full G and landed in an easy squat. That wasn’t something Heather intended to try anytime soon. She was so used to switching G levels at home the lunar gravity was easy to adjust to for walking, but on Home there wasn’t any level with as low an apparent gravity as the moon. Even on the lowest G level back home the overhead wouldn't allow the jumping and high stepping sort of hop they used to cover ground quickly here.

  The figure took a few steps away and then turned back to the shuttle and called on the common frequency they had agreed on. "OK messieurs, please deploy the auxiliary loading jacks, si vous," in a feminine voice. It was a strange mix, French and the English which sounded like straight mid-western American without any accent or she would have assumed the lady was French from her use of that language.

  Heather wondered if she should object as site commander. English was supposed to be the language of command and control in space and when you started mixing others in you increased the chance of misunderstanding and disaster. But the space craft was grounded now and she wasn’t sure the rule applied to operations that were not in flight. She decided to hold her objections for now since she was the new person here even if it was her operation and she was the paymaster.

  The two long legs that pivoted down spread ninety degrees apart. They were not to support the weight of the ship. They were to brace away from the ship so its crane could swing cargo well away from the side without toppling it over.

  The suited figure went up to one of the projecting struts and inserted some sort of locking pin hanging there on a safety cable into the mechanism. Going to the other there was a delay while she fumbled with it, then she instructed, "Rock it a bit, Commander."

  The long support picked up barely enough to see it move and dropped hard. She shoved the pin so it popped through when the holes lined up and exclaimed something that sounded like "soverno!"

  When she was done two more figures jumped just as casually from the high hatch. Their helmets were an odd shape so they must be crew, not any of her people. She hoped none of her crew would try such a leap uncoached. Heather was scared if she tried that she’d fall flat on her face or cartwheel end over end.

  The face plates in suits were pretty rugged now, but why tempt fate? "Miss Anderson?" The one who had been first out and locked the bracing struts raised a hand to let her know it was her transmission.

  Heather waved back and responded, "Heather is fine. No need to be formal with me. Welcome to the center of the moon."

  "I’m Katia Kovalenok," the woman informed her, walking toward her. "English speakers sometimes prefer to call me Kathy. I expect to be able to do all the heavy assembly on each buggy in a work shift if I have some help. Then we will need a day each to fill all the expendables that were removed for transport and remount a number of antennas and such including whatever new ones you desire. Do you have anyone free to assist me or should I just start doing what I can alone?"

  "I don't have anyone free except myself. The new people who came in with you all have duties pre-assigned. I hope that will be satisfactory?"

  There was a noticeable pause and Heather wished she could see the woman's face through the suit faceplate, but it was a distorted mirror in the glare. She looked Heather's suit over now probably wondering why it was a flight suit instead of a heavier outdoor work suit or a general purpose unit.

  "You are the site administrator, correct?" Heather could hear the doubt in her voice quite clearly.

  "Yes. I'm the site administrator, owner, paymaster and high mucky muck. Consider me the feudal lord until we find out if Home will allow us to be associated politically with them," she joked.

  "Oh Dear God, he didn't tell me."

  "Tell you what? Is there problem?"

  "Do you have com set up yet? Could I possibly make a call?"

  "Sure. I can link you right now if you want."

  "Yes I want to call before the Prospérité lifts, but I need to sit at a regular console and run it off my own plug in software. Can you accommodate that? I understand you'll want to isolate it. That's to be expected."

  "They're still working in the hut and it will be crowded, so there is no privacy there. How about if we go in the Happy Lewis?" she asked, starting for it without a reply. "I don't think anybody is there." She called on com as they walked and said, "Happy, can you meet the new people getting off the shuttle and see them assigned?"

  "This Happy - Is he the owner of the Happy Lewis then?"

  "Owner? No. He had the vessel named for him as an honor. It really doesn't get confusing. You can tell from context whether you are talking about the person or the namesake ship. Honest," she assured her. Katia was d
ubious but kept it to herself. She could see now why ships were usually named after dead people.

  They walked over to the modified scooter. It was sitting on its belly on a dolly because it was not designed to allow movement around inside under gravity. Standing on its tail the way it landed it would be horribly inconvenient inside. You'd have to rig a rope or ladder up the middle. The attitude jets were quite sufficient to lift it off the surface against lunar gravity and rotate it until the main drive is pointed at the ground if they didn't want to jack it up. In theory it could rotate to land the same way but they had landed on three rear jacks and then eased the nose over with the jets until it rested on the surface after everyone was out. It was just a little easier and safer for a novice pilot.

  Everything inside was accessible with it sitting like this and the main armament in the top of the cabin was pointed at the sky. The hard points carrying two sorts of missiles were extended from the sides of the ship clear to launch also. Kathy stopped, making no pretense that she was not staring at the naked missiles.

  "I have access to Jane's and I don't recognize either of those," she told Heather pointing at the two different shapes.

  "We haven't shown them around much. They have to be out now because we are on alert until we are dug in better. I'm running the ship weapons board on remote through my helmet display. When we are docked they are usually folded in the recess you see behind the pylon. I know the French have images of them so I am not too concerned about the Prospérité. If you could not share the information too widely just yet it would be a kindness. We intend to mount the same suite on the rover without a flat cargo deck if there is a suitable area you could recommend. "

  "I'm not sure," she hesitated, "installing weapons for a foreign power might have consequences later I'd regret. They are ship to ship?" she asked. Her voice was very tentative like she might not get an answer.

  "Yes that's all we've used missiles for until now. The smaller ones there the size of a coffee flask are short range, point defense, although they could be controlled offensively. They just carry conventional metallic explosives. The ones with the bulbous heads have some legs and a fair amount of AI and sensors on their own."

  "And not conventional explosives?" Kathy asked in a voice that cracked a little from that revelation. What was she getting into here?

  "That's right," Heather agreed but didn't volunteer details this time. "But about your concern," Heather insisted on going back to it - "What foreign power? Those are personal property and mine to use by hiring the vessel. Home as a government has no ownership or control of them. Citizens of Home are free to arm themselves and their vessels. I have several minor partners but the clear majority of ownership of this enterprise is mine with no mortgage or liens on it by any institution and I am no state. They are mine just as simply as this is," she said drawing her Mark IV Singh laser pistol and turning it sideways held vertically for the woman's inspection, finger straight in perfect trigger discipline.

  "I've never seen anyone carry a weapon in a p-suit. I hope you realize what would happen if you discharge that and breach pressure somewhere critical."

  "I’m not an open sky Earthie, I live in artificial pressure every day," Heather assured her, "Home is a pretty big habitat but I don't think there is anywhere more than three barriers from vacuum. Our apartment and living quarters are right on the inner surface of the ring with ports looking on hard vacuum." She reholstered the pistol and opened the outer hatch of the coffin lock fitted into the main cargo hatch.

  "I'm sorry," Heather explained, rolling inside, "the lock is configured for zero G and you have to lie down in it right now. I'm sure eventually we'll have planetary landers configured for convenience but we are making do right now." She closed the hatch and left Kathy alone outside while it cycled.

  Kathy noticed she was thinking in terms of a generic planetary lander, not a lunar lander or an earth lander. How far did these people's ambitions extend?

  While she was waiting for the lock to pump down she looked the ship up and down freely without Heather to see her curiosity. Aside from the obvious missiles nothing looked much different from any other vessel she had seen, until her eyes caught the paint and fancy pinstripes in shade under the ports.

  There was the name of the vessel, AM Happy Lewis, in fancy script. But what made her take a deeper breath was behind the name there were three Buck Rogers stylized silhouettes of spaceships drawn. Two with view ports on the nose and one solid like a missile. She had seen nose art in books, but never on modern space craft. Then beside the ships was a cartoonish drawing of a satellite with an arc of decreasing sizes of the same image that formed perhaps two thirds of a circle. Inside the ring of satellites was stenciled 27. Could that really mean this one ship had destroyed twenty-seven satellites? She had heard it had killed two manned ships but had no idea they had destroyed that many sats. So the plain rocket must mean an unmanned ship, but she was determined not to ask.

  She wasn't sure at all she approved of such bragging on violence. When the lock finished cycling and the green light came back on Kathy hooked an ankle over the edge, rolled in the snug opening and latched it shut. The small screen in front of her asked for her to log her use of the lock. She typed in her name on the oversize keys, glad her name didn't need any symbols that were not available. It immediately switched to a menu asking her operational status. It didn't have any suggestions so she punched in – guest worker – and entered it to see if it would accept it. The lock cycled without any further interrogation.

  There was a quilted pad like a mover's blanket doubled over to roll out on inside. That was a comfort even in a sixth G not for any worries about bruising herself, but because she didn't have to worry about cutting or puncturing her suit on something. She closed the inner hatch carefully and waited to make sure it was pumping down before she considered herself done. The lock was always held in a state ready to receive someone from outside as anyone from that side would be more likely to have an emergency that required a quick passage.

  She stood up carefully making sure she didn't bang her head on the curve of the inner hull above. The lighting was turned low and Heather, having split her suit open, was sitting in the command station and had screens active in front of her and the right hand seat also. Her helmet was racked on the headrest.

  Kathy went forward, careful where she was stepping because there was no real walk strip when the ship was laid on its side, just some take-holds easy to trip over. She didn't shuck her suit but took her helmet off and started to set it on the deck, but she gave the volume an appraising look, reseated it and just lifted the faceplate back as far as it would go. Then she stopped and looked at Heather with hands on her hips frowning. "God in heaven you are a young one. I didn't know we were hired by a baby. Are you sure your momma knows you are out of the house?"

  "Kathy," Heather said, looking her in the eye, "bag it. I've heard it before. This screen and keyboard are isolated and have an active pipe on public service through our accounts on Home." Heather offered. "It's an open connection so any encryption or graphic transfer besides the camera there you'll have to add yourself. If you want to use spex or a pad of your own you can plug in here," she showed her, touching the sockets.

  "Or if you want a Cyrillic keyboard, hit control F6 until the keys show the right characters. All the other connections at this station are down. Do you want me to go away in the back and make some coffee to give you some privacy to talk?"

  "You could be splitting the feed off and recording it anyway or have a hidden camera and mic somewhere if you wanted and I'd never know, so what is the point of going away? You're interested in what I'm concerned about aren't you? You might as well stick around," she offered.

  "If that is what you think of me, that I'm a snoop, in your place I'd pack up and take a hike," Heather told her honestly.

  "It's what I'm used to," the woman told her with surprising bitterness. "We are constantly monitored and everything we do analyzed to dea
th." She stopped and looked at Heather closer where she had the suit opened, surprise growing on her face. "Those clothes, those are lunar. I thought there was an agreement not to make them available to Earthies." They were the same ballistic garments as April had for her Earth trip.

  "They aren't available to Earthies. You're starting to get on my nerves a bit equating us with them. Do I need to point out we just fought a war with North America over the issue of being separate? Obviously some of our lunar friends consider us allies. Don't think the exchange is all one way either. We have some things to contribute ourselves," she said pointedly.

  The Russian woman looked less certain as she punched in a com code and waited for the connection.

  The fellow who answered the call surprised Heather. He was smiling like he had just finished laughing at a particularly good joke before a word was said. He was a dark haired man with massive eyebrows and a mat of thick chest hair showing in the V neck of his pull-over. Behind him were long rows of shelves piled with supplies until they hung over into the walking space. Everything was crammed in until some places it intruded on the floor. A push cart behind him had some massive piece of equipment she couldn't identify sprouting an abundance of disconnected tubes and electrical connectors.

  Before he could say anything Kathy told him sharply – "English Dima, I have overseer sitting here and wish her to understand."

  "Ah, polite as always, but have you asked her if she understands Russian?" he asked. There was a definite got-you in his voice. "Did she start speaking English first or did you just assume that was her preference?"