It was a long two minutes. Finally they heard the outer hatch open and footsteps faintly on the ladder. The sounds of the locker opening were loud, but the latches and magazine change on the gun itself were a whisper. When they got back in the lock was harder to close with their suits puffed out more. Eight minutes had passed before Johnson was back in his seat frost condensing on his suit. They could hear him in the audio channel breathing hard.
"Sit easy," Heather told him. "Catch your breath. I can pull it forward now and we'll see how they are doing."
Heather left the lamps off and eased forward in the dark. They'd backed up straight and she just pulled forward in the dark trusting the ground was flat enough from their inspection. Almost back to their previous position the pools of light in front of the lead rover were easily visible by eyeball and two more off to the right behind him. They watched him pass dead ahead and then when he was past a few hundred meters he turned left and took a course that would pass on to their rear.
"You going to hail him?" Johnson asked.
"Give them a minute and let's have as many in sight as possible before we reveal ourselves." The rovers cooperated, the lead units slowing down to make a wide turn. They could see the reason as the trailers behind were spaced out with long links between them and it didn't look like the front wheels were free to turn with the tow tongue, so they would resist making a very sharp turn.
In fact the trains bunched up beside each other, going much slower. They appeared to want to stay close until all of them had completed the awkward maneuver. Heather checked the scanner searching the radio spectrum and found the frequency on which they were chatting, setting her own radio to it.
"I had a little shuddering there. I think you guys further back should cut a bigger radius even. How about you Ted?" some stranger transmitted.
"It started to chatter on me a little and I gave it a bit more power. I think too slow might be worse than too fast. I just don't want to tip a wagon over out here finding out for sure. You want me to take lead for awhile?"
"Yeah, my eyes are tired. Ease ahead and I'd like to watch the turn until everybody is through it. Swing wide outside our tracks and keep it down under ten kilometers an hour when you turn folks. We're a bit more than an hour out from Central's territory. Another hour should put us in radio range of their offices."
Heather flipped a switch and took the feed from her helmet mic alone. Just for insurance she laid the cross hairs of the cannon on the lead rover right in the middle. She kept the laser range finder from actuating but elevated the muzzle for two point four kilometers. She could be way off in her estimate and the round would still take out the driveline running in the bottom part of the rover.
"American rover. This is Heather Anderson from Central. Would you kindly stand down for a moment while we determine your identity and intentions? I must also ask you to please refrain from illuminating me with lidar or targeting radar or I will fire on you."
"Jeez! - you scared the shit outta me. Hey, easy on shooting anything. We have our families in these road trains and we haven't got anything to shoot back with anyway. I mean, I think Jack has a plain old pistol, but nothing that has targeting systems like you're talking about lady. I'm stopping. You guys behind. Bring it to a stop if you aren't in the middle of your turn."
The lead two trains eased to a halt and the third following slowed and stopped as soon as it's train was straight behind it.
"Go down to them, or ask 'em to come up here to us?" Johnson asked.
"They'd have to walk or uncouple a rover from the train. It would appear they're not very maneuverable. Take us down but make it showy without looking reckless and let me make a transmission first." She flipped back to her usual frequency and keyed to talk.
"Rover 'B' pulling forward to ID and parley with the lead elements. Maintain emissions discipline."
Johnson looked funny at her as he gunned it and brought the driving lights back up, but Happy had a smile at her bluff. As she'd asked Johnson managed to get it up to eighty kilometers an hour briefly before braking. At that speed the rover threw up a rooster tail of regolith and just looked fast. According to Katia the American rovers couldn't pull as much speed. He came to a halt ten meters from the American rover. The Russian rover towered over the other and that was even before the ceramic armored dome on the deck for the cannon.
Heather made sure the cannon barrel was not pointed right at the rover. No reason to be threatening. Even close up there was nothing that looked like a weapons system.
"Would one or two of you care to come have a chat with us?" Heather invited. "It looks like our cabin is a lot roomier and we'd be pleased to offer you refreshments."
"I'm Ted Hedley in the second rover," the radio announced. "I'm one of your buyers for a ranch. Dakota Benton I'd suggest you have come also. She is another customer of yours in the lead rover. You have a lock on that thing or do you have to pump down for us?"
"We have a coffin lock that cycles pretty quickly. Are both of you coffee drinkers? I'll put on a fresh pot."
"That sounds nice, real nice. I just have to ask. Are we coming back here or are we being arrested? I'll be over either way, I'm not arguing facing a friggin tank, but I have to figure out who to shift for a driver if I'm not coming back to drive."
"Mr. Hedley, I'm sorry we had to appear so untrusting. Now that we know who you are let me assure you we have no intention of arresting anyone in your party. If you decide at this point not to come over I will not even impede your leaving. However let me tell you two facts of which you may not be aware and I think you'll forgive my caution and want to come speak with us. First, you are being pursued by another group of rovers which will catch up with your group before you reach our administrative area at Central. Secondly, we were subject to a cluster munition bombardment of our field in an attempt to remove our ship shortly after you started your journey to us."
"Crap," another voice said on the circuit, "I thought we took enough stuff apart and left them short enough on fuel it would take them at least a full day to get a force on our tail."
"Apparently whomever you are speaking of was more resourceful than you thought. While I can't blame you with any certainty for precipitating the attack we experienced, the timing is quite suspect. It might have been wiser to have given us notice you were coming," Heather suggested.
"I'm Jed," the voice identified itself. "It was pretty hard to do that. The administration owns all com at Armstrong. There simply isn't such a thing as a public net or computer or phone. No way to communicate is privately owned. So everything is subject to monitoring and all encryption is forbidden. They couldn't do it on Earth, or even on the orbitals. But it was one of the things they made sure of when they set up Armstrong. It's not something you'd think to ask when you hire on either. You just assume if you've had access to public systems all your life that they'll always be available at home. At least I have never met anybody smart enough to have asked before they signed a contract."
"I see."
The first suited figure was already walking around their front in their floodlights. He was craning his head making a frank appraisal of the cannon tube that was dipped a bit from above. He hesitated there until a second smaller figure joined him from the other rover and they moved around the side looking for the lock.
Heather and Happy moved back from the command chairs and opened a couple folding chairs that looked fragile in the lunar gravity. The two passenger chairs swiveled around and the last two folding chairs were for their guests. Despite their simple sling and tube design they were very comfortable in a sixth gravity.
Heather and Happy took their helmets off to be hospitable. Katia and Johnson kept theirs on for operational safety without being told. Introductions took so little time the coffee was still brewing, so Heather started their meeting.
"So first, " Heather started, "what do the forces pursuing you intend to do when they catch up?"
Dakota was a woman with cheekbones that s
uggested she might carry some blood to match her name and she spoke.
"Arrest us for theft and hold us for administrative punishment for not showing up for our shifts. We'll be subject to removal to Earth for breaking our contracts and blacklisted for hire with the theft counts against us."
"What did you steal?"
"Everything you see. Everything we need to survive. The only private property we are allowed to hold is our household things, clothing, entertainment electronics and cooking things. Residents of Armstrong are not allowed to import or manufacture pressure suits or environmental equipment or private housing. Doesn't matter if you offer cash for old worn out equipment that is being scrapped. They'll cut it up and take the loss rather than let us get a foothold where we aren't completely dependent on them."
"I'm going to be on the radio in a minute with Home and perhaps if they'll talk with me your base administrator or his Earth superiors. If they offer to let you keep your essential equipment can you pay for it?"
"Most of it. We're paid well and there isn't anything to spend it on in Armstrong. Most of us go home when we're shipped back well off and some of us were well to do before we ever came to the moon. The rovers would probably have to go back. We might pool funds and buy one or two if they gave us a fair price. Two of them were reserve rovers with so many hours on them they weren't supposed to be taken further from Armstrong than you could walk with one reserve bottle of air. Truth is we left them short of nothing. We took as little as we could and left them more to work with per capita than we allowed ourselves."
"That's assuming we have access to our funds," Ted Hedley pointed out. "We handle most of our funds electronically. They can freeze your accounts if you have a warrant out against you. There's not much cash on the moon and not much opportunity to bring it in. Crap, it's hard to find enough cash to run a decent poker game. We sit and write IOU markers and square up later."
"Are these folks armed so they can force you to return against your will? Heather asked. She could see Happy to the side and his eyes narrowed. It was an ugly look she hadn't often seen on her grandpa's face before.
"Enough. The police department has a couple pistols and several rifles. Not all of our folk know it but they have a half dozen RPGs too. Nothing like your tank though," he said shaking his head like he still couldn't believe it was real even sitting in it.
"I can assure you we will not be foolish enough to allow them to get in range to use a rocket propelled grenade," Heather promised them. "We have the advantage for applying force. What concerns me is I want to be in the right on this matter in my own mind. I don't want to have someone later challenge my morals on the issue and not have an answer for them."
"We were framed by law, well not really law...We are framed by regulation that has the power of law so we were at their mercy," Dakota explained. "There was never any way we could be safe from being shipped back to the Hell Hole."
"The principle at law is usually to call such action mischief by decree," Happy explained. "That is you have a behavior you don't like and you create a law to prohibit it. It's almost as vile a way of using the power of the judiciary as ex post facto law. That is basically making something illegal retroactively. Neither is the sort of action you expect of a government that makes a big deal of what a paragon of freedom and liberty they are in the world."
"Are you a lawyer?" Ted asked.
"No, at present in my nation we don't have any lawyers. Everything is put before the citizens at large to judge. The first fellow who suggests we need lawyers had better be joking, or I will challenge him to a duel and put a bullet between his beady little eyes."
"I see... then all I can say is, good shooting, sir."
"My partners and I usually call it the Mud Ball," Heather acknowledged. "I think we're on the same page there. So you feel you were not exactly slaves. You got wages and supplies, but you were in a state almost like indenture. Your personal freedom of movement and communications, not to mention privacy, was limited way beyond what you regard as reasonable. You were not free to stay in what was to you your home. Do you think that would be a fair way of putting it?"
Dakota and Ted looked at each other and nodded yes more at each other than at Heather. It was a weary, bone-tired look.
"It seems so wrong I'm disposed to do something about it, but I just wonder if I'm biting off too much. I'm a real estate developer. I'm not a head of state, because we don't have a state yet. Now it's true I was hoping we could appeal before the citizens of Home like Happy was talking about and propose we have an alliance. Either as an extension of Home or as an independent entity," she explained.
"But that's pretty hard for me to do before we have any citizens. I have to be on the com negotiating in a couple minutes and even if you guys want to form a nation we don't have time to hold conferences and vote on what our laws will be and it's certain the other ranch owners will have their own ideas when they buy in. I just don't see how I can make it sound like it has any rational basis if I challenge them."
"I do," Ted Hedley said in the strangest voice. "I know how, but you may think I'm nuts," he told them standing up. "I just have to know one thing for sure. Is that a real gun on top of this rover or are you faking us out?"
His face was so contorted with emotion Heather was afraid of him and she saw Happy had his hand on his pistol ready to draw. She'd somehow managed to keep from reaching for her pistol, but it was hard. Ted was standing not much more than a meter away with a crazed look in his eye and it wouldn't take much of a rush before he'd be on her even in the low gravity. If he thought he could get control of the rover and it's weapons he might give it a go. They were in a pretty desperate situation.
"It's real Ted and the pistol Happy has his hand on is very much real too, as is the one strapped to my leg. I mention that because you're scaring me a little. You look pretty spaced out and as much as I think you've been treated badly I'll burn you down like a dog if you rush me."
"No, no, quite the opposite indeed," he assured them and took a deep breath and rolled his head back looking at the overhead. "I'm going to step closer to you. If your buddy wants to draw a bead on me and be ready to shoot... uh, burn me? He's welcome. I understand. You'll understand what going on in a moment. Are you recording?"
Heather nodded yes.
"I Robert Hedley, being of sound mind and of my free will renounce and sever my allegiance to the United States of North America. I swear fealty to Heather Anderson as vassal to serve Her as my Lady and seek the protection of Her strong hand. I submit myself and my family to Her justice and pledge my life, my lands and my treasure to Her service when She calls me." Then he stepped forward and dropped to one knee, looking down at the deck.
Everybody else looked at each other over him stunned.
"He's flipped. Can I do that?" Heather asked Happy.
"You are the lady with the cannon," Happy pointed out. "You might consider what will happen in a month or in six months. Monarchs have a tendency to end their careers suddenly and with very poor prospects for extended retirement. If the North Americans decide an intense round of nuclear bombing is the way to end your rule things might get rough. On the other hand I suspect if you asked that boyfriend of yours what else he has besides the war shots in your cannon rounds, he might scare the crap out of all of us and force us into making nice-nice with each other for fear of pissing him off."
"Your cannon rounds are something special?" Dakota asked warily.
"They are loaded for ten kiloton equivalent," Heather admitted. "Some with guidance a bit more. We've refrained from building bigger ones because they aren't very efficient and it sends the wrong message."
"How many do you have? Six? Ten? A dozen?" Dakota demanded.
"Oh no, we have...a few hundred loaded up in the magazines right now," she said with a dismissive gesture, not wanting to be exact.
"Then you aren't just a lady with a cannon," Dakota marveled, "you are a nuclear power."
"Not exactly,"
Heather insisted. "They aren't nukes, they're just similar in the effect when they go 'boom'... oh, get up," she told Ted, irritated. "I don't have a sword or a scepter to thump on your shoulder. If I did I'd probably box you around the ears with it. We have to talk about this quickly, but your knee will give out on the deck faster than I'll allow myself to be rushed into this craziness."
"Yes, M'lady," he agreed and took his seat again.
"There is another detail you are not aware off," Happy informed them. "When they bombed the landing field at Central they did not catch our ship on the ground. We destroyed their ship and a follow-on vessel of some sort. We also counter raided their field and when they fired on us I destroyed a transport sitting on their field. I also put one of the ten kiloton weapons into their control dome that was directing fire at us. So we already have some significant commitment to hostilities. Three ships gone and the base damaged. Unfortunately our ship took damage also and when we left our base to meet you they were directed to withdraw it to Home for repairs."
"Three is all the ships we had at Armstrong since they lost one in orbit. They've been there since the war and if they lift anything from Earth it's supposed to be unarmed or they risk being back at war with Home under terms of the peace treaty," Dakota pointed out.
"Yes, but our ship is away and it's uncertain when it will be repaired and back, so at best we're even up for ships," Heather said. They aren't supposed to lift armed ships, but as a practical matter we don't have the ability to check every ship lifting so they could get them here past Home. They'd just have to deal with the political after effect of doing so, which wouldn't help us."
"However the cannon is capable of directing fire against orbital targets and we have a couple missile systems on the rovers that can engage space targets too." Happy explained.
"What about the others with you? Ted is willing to accept me as... queen," she said, obviously feeling unreal about it. Can you ask the others very quickly their opinion?"
"I can, but I'm also willing to trust my household to you. We didn't plan this but it makes sense to me too. Between us Ted and I we have over half the people from Armstrong. If the others want to go back to servitude let them. A monarch is a monarch if they have even one subject. Between the two of us you'd have fourteen."
April 3: The Middle of Nowhere Page 26