Eagle Station

by Dale Brown

  While the oblique photos taken by the S-29B’s cameras during its first orbit hadn’t revealed the precise types of weapons the enemy’s own war machines carried, it was a safe bet that they included 25mm or 30mm rifled autocannons with armor-piercing ammunition. Since the moon was airless, only its weak gravity would act on any projectile. In practical terms, that meant weapon ranges were effectively limited only by lines of sight. On the other hand, it also meant nobody on either side was likely to be blasting away on full automatic—spraying hundreds of rounds per minute downrange. Without an atmosphere, it was far more difficult to radiate away the heat generated by high rates of fire. Experiments at Sky Masters Space Exploration, Research, and Development Lab had shown that the best way to avoid a weapons jam in combat on the lunar surface was to revert to semiautomatic shooting, where a trigger pull would fire just one round at a time.

  The enemy’s robots might also be equipped with some kind of man-portable, guided missiles—but that was less likely. Without an atmosphere, aerodynamic control vanes or fins were useless, so only missiles with vanes to deflect their own rocket thrust would be able to track and hit moving targets. An even bigger problem was that the moon’s extreme temperature swings would rapidly drain the batteries needed to power any missile’s electronic components and cool its infrared seeker. After a few minutes outside on the lunar surface, any unprotected missile would probably be inoperable.

  Kind of ironic, Brad thought. Come to the moon to fight a war and find yourself mostly facing weapons that were developed decades before. Then again, any large, armor-piercing round was a serious threat. In this brutal environment, a single significant hull breach could mean death.

  He opened a very low-powered radio link to Nadia’s robot. Passive sensors might alert the Russians to the fact that their enemies were communicating. But since their transmissions were automatically encrypted and compressed to millisecond bursts, the odds were against anyone getting an accurate fix on them. “I’m going to take a quick look,” he said. “Hold your position.”

  “Copy that, Wolf Two,” she answered. She swung the weapons and equipment pack off her back and pulled out her electromagnetic rail gun.

  He felt a smile cross his face. Power constraints limited the Sky Masters–designed rail guns to just one shot each, but they were definitely the most lethal weapons in their arsenal—able to hurl small, superdense metal projectiles across enormous distances at Mach 5. Clearly, Nadia wanted to be able to reach out and kill someone if he drew enemy fire.

  Which was something he planned to do his level best to avoid. The Sino-Russian lunar base was still miles away and several thousand feet above them. So if a patrolling Russian war robot spotted him now, he and Nadia would have no chance of getting in close enough to fight and win a decisive battle. A long-range sniping duel would only favor the enemy. To win, the Russians and Chinese simply had to hold their ground until Brad and Nadia’s life-support systems ran out of power and failed. Engage upper quadrant thermal adaptive and chameleon camouflage systems, he thought.

  Camouflage systems online, the CLAD’s computer reported. Power consumption levels spiking. The six-sided head, shoulders, and upper arms of his robot shimmered into near invisibility, both in the visible and infrared spectrums.

  Moving carefully to avoid dislodging any rocks, Brad raised up just high enough to see over the crest. Beyond the crater they were using as cover, the ground fell away for several hundred yards. But then it rose steadily across miles of open ground, climbing higher and higher until it merged into the towering rim wall of Engel’gardt crater. Apart from a few massive boulders and shallow heaps of aeons-old debris strewn at random, there was no cover at all.

  Warning, his computer suddenly announced unemotionally. Movement alert at twelve o’clock high. Crossing from right to left along the edge of the large crater. Range twenty thousand yards.

  Reacting instantly, Brad locked one of his long-range visual sensors onto the contact. Magnified hundreds of times, he saw the manlike shape of a Russian combat machine striding along the rim wall. Bristling with antennas and other sensors, its ovoid head swiveled from side to side. The robot carried a long, rifle-like weapon at the ready. Small, ring-shaped fins studded the barrel, probably intended to help shed heat in a vacuum.

  The weapon appears to be a modified version of the Russian NR-30 30mm autocannon, the computer reported, picking up his sudden focus through their shared neural link.

  That made sense, Brad realized. The NR-30 had already been tested in space in 1974 as part of an early Soviet military space program called Almaz, or Diamond. The weapon had been fired aboard Salyut 3, which was one of the Almaz platforms disguised as a civilian space station.

  He dropped back below the edge of the crater rim. Deactivate all camouflage systems, he thought.

  Thermal adaptive and electrochromatic systems are off, the CLAD confirmed. Life-support capability reduced to thirty-six hours at current power consumption levels.

  Brad grimaced. That was seriously bad. Going to full stealth mode with just a fraction of his robot for a little over sixty seconds had just burned three full hours of life support. He’d known intellectually that running the robot’s camouflage ate power at a prodigious rate. Experiencing it in the field brought that knowledge home with a vengeance. And it meant there was no way he and Nadia could hope to rely solely on their stealth systems to cross the deadly swath of open ground ahead of them. Their batteries and fuel cells would be drained before they covered even a third of the distance.

  “Well, what did you see?” Nadia asked.

  In answer, he focused mentally, ordering his computer to produce a complete compilation of all its sensor data. Then he flicked a finger, electronically transferring the files to her own robot as easily as a whisper.

  “Interesting,” she said quietly, comprehending the accumulated data with lightning speed. “The Russians have deployed only a single sentry to cover this avenue of approach.” She hefted the electromagnetic rail gun she carried. “I can eliminate him with a single shot.”

  Brad nodded. “Sure. And then all hell breaks loose.” He sighed. “We might be able to nail a second enemy robot with our last rail gun shot . . . but then what? We’d still have to rush the last Russian war machine up that long, empty slope. One of us might make it. Maybe. With a lot of luck.” He shook his head. “But that’s a house edge I do not want to go up against.”

  “House edge?” Nadia said accusingly. “You have been spending far too much time around Boomer and his favorite casinos.”

  Almost unwillingly, he grinned. “You grow up in Nevada, you learn the lingo. It’s a habit.”

  “Then what do you propose?” she asked.

  “That we move around more to the right,” Brad answered. He thought out his rough plan on a digital map file and sent it to her. “See, there’s a spur extending off the main crater rim wall a few miles off in that direction, along with a chain of smaller, ejecta craters we can use as cover to get up onto the reverse slope of the spur. If we move fast, and use our camouflage systems sparingly, we ought to be able to make it all the way up onto the rim itself. That’ll also put us northwest of the base itself, pretty much the opposite of where they should expect us. If we’re lucky, they won’t be keeping quite as close an eye on that area, figuring we’ll have to move in quick from the east before our batteries run dry.”

  “And if the Russians are guarding it?” Nadia asked seriously.

  He shrugged. “Then we slug it out at closer range—hoping our stealth tech and rail guns give us enough of an edge to win.”

  “And pray?”

  “That, too,” he agreed. One of the surprises of their married life had been learning that Nadia was more religious than he’d imagined. Faith had never been a big part of his own upbringing, so maybe it wasn’t too astonishing that he’d been caught a little off guard by her quiet, unobtrusive belief. Now, two hundred and forty thousand miles from home and from everyone who loved t
hem, he realized her rarely expressed convictions were a source of strength he both envied and admired.

  Forty-Eight

  On the Rim of Engel’gardt Crater

  An Hour Later

  Inside the cockpit of his KLVM robot, Sentinel Two, Major Andrei Bezrukov scowled, deeply discontented by the hours they’d wasted patrolling around and around the outer perimeter of Korolev Base. Of the three cosmonauts stationed on the moon, he was the only one who’d completed the advanced cybernetic war machine combat course back on Earth. During the preparations for Operation Heaven’s Thunder, Lavrentyev and Yanin had been given a few weeks of basic training, just enough to teach them how to pilot the robots and employ their weapons and sensors. But neither of them fully comprehended the best way to use these fearsome machines in real warfare.

  By their nature, KLVMs were better suited to offensive operations—quick, slashing commando-style raids using their incredible speed and agility. This kind of static defense robbed them of most of their advantages. Worse yet, it risked yielding the initiative to the Americans. Why give the enemy the luxury of choosing when and how to open this inevitable action?

  The simulated battles Bezrukov had fought through during his intensive training in Siberia’s Kuznetskiy Alatau mountains had shown the importance of constant movement. Data-linked war robots won by orchestrating swift surprise attacks from unexpected directions. For a KLVM pilot, speed was life. Hunkering down like this, tied to a fixed position, was asking for trouble.

  Continuing on his assigned circuit, he strode rapidly along the outer edge of the high crater wall—using his infrared and other sensors to scan the barren slopes below. Nothing, he realized. As usual. His scowl deepened as he passed one of the big, four-legged Chinese cargo landers off to his left. This was pretty much the boundary of Korolev Base. A few hundred meters beyond the grounded Mă Luó, this relatively wide, plateau-like portion of Engel’gardt’s rim fell away and narrowed down to a knife-edged ridge as it curved around to the north and west. Several kilometers away, a rugged spur of rock snaked upward a couple of thousand meters to join the main crater wall.

  Bezrukov’s eyes narrowed. Ripples and folds along the steep ridge between this high point and that spur created occasional patches of dead ground—areas that were impossible to observe from here because of undulations in the terrain. He’d spotted this potential covered approach to the base hours ago, on his first patrol. But Lavrentyev, afraid to weaken their perimeter defenses, had denied him permission to go beyond the plateau itself. Now, just looking out across this area of vulnerability every time he circled around the perimeter was a constant irritant.

  Just then he felt a sharp jolt sizzle across his brain as the KLVM’s computer sent an alert through his neural link. Weak Ku-band radio transmissions detected, it warned him. Signatures consistent with U.S. multifunction advanced data link.

  Location? he snapped.

  Impossible to triangulate, the computer admitted. Insufficient data.

  Bezrukov grimaced. Those data links were built into America’s F-35 Lightning II fighters and B-2 Spirit strategic bombers . . . and its own combat robots, the Cybernetic Infantry Devices. A cold chill ran down his spine. He suddenly felt as though someone out there was watching him.

  True, speed was life. But so was trained intuition, he decided. Abruptly, he turned and strode away to the left, acting as though he were simply continuing his routine patrol around to the other side of Korolev Base. But this time, once he was far enough back on the plateau to be out of sight of anyone advancing along that narrow ridgeline, he darted behind the Chinese cargo lander. From there, staying low, he headed east to the very edge of the rim wall . . . and then out onto the steep slope beyond it.

  Carefully, Bezrukov descended a couple hundred meters and then swung back to the north—moving across the slope instead of down it. Pebbles dislodged by his KLVM’s feet rolled away downhill. For a moment, he considered reporting his suspicions to Lavrentyev and Yanin. Then he discarded the idea as too risky. The Americans were close enough now for him to pick up their data-link signals, so they would certainly be able to detect his own radio transmissions.

  Instead, he raised his 30mm autocannon and kept going. If the Americans had already sneaked up onto the crater rim, they were about to learn a hard lesson in tactics: dead ground worked both ways.

  Brad edged along the steep slope, one step at a time—cautiously testing his footing before allowing the robot’s full weight to come down. Taking a spill here was not an option, not unless he wanted to tumble head-over-heels several thousand feet down to the base of the crater rim. A hundred yards farther on, the ridge he was traversing bulged outward in a fold that hid him from the higher ground ahead. Nadia was behind him, out of sight beyond another undulation in the slope. Once he took up a covering position, she would come forward to join him.

  Warning. Hostile to the front, his CLAD’s computer snapped.

  A Russian war machine reared up from behind the same bulge that he’d planned to use as cover. Its 30mm cannon flashed once, eerily silent in the absence of any atmosphere. The round slammed into his robot’s torso armor with bone-crushing force, knocking him sideways. Bits of shattered thermal tiles spun off into space.

  Jesus, he thought in shock. Desperately, he dug his feet into the ground and powered up his electromagnetic rail gun.

  Another 30mm shell hammered his right shoulder. Right arm hydraulics damaged. Torso armor holding, but significantly degraded. Fuel Cells Three and Four down. Battery circuit one-bravo damaged. Torso and right arm thermal and chameleon camouflage partially compromised, his computer warned. Lifesupport capability down to less than eight hours. Accompanying detailed damage reports flooded through his neural link, appearing as a display where whole sections of system schematics were lit with red and yellow caution and warning flags. Resolutely, Brad ignored them. A third round tore across one side of his robot’s hexagonal-shaped head—ripping away sensor panels and shielded antennas. Darkness fell across part of his vision.

  Rail gun ready.

  He squeezed the trigger. In a burst of bright, white plasma, a tungsten-steel alloy slug smashed into the Russian war machine at more than thirty-eight hundred miles per hour and ripped it apart. Molten fragments sprayed outward from the point of impact. Its antenna-studded head spiraled off across the slope.

  Deflected from its course as it slashed through the enemy robot, the glowing rail gun round arrowed across the black sky like a meteor in reverse. Christ, Brad wondered numbly, is the damned thing headed into orbit?

  Negative, his computer assured him. Its velocity has been reduced below orbital speeds. It should impact on the other side of the moon, somewhere near the Sea of Tranquility.

  Which would make it the longest ricochet in human history, he realized—not sure whether to laugh or cry at his narrow escape. His robot was damaged, but, miraculously, its hull was still intact, despite being bushwhacked at point-blank range. He shook his head, trying to regain focus.

  “Brad!” Nadia called.

  He turned. Her robot came bounding along the slope toward him, moving with reckless speed. She skidded to a stop beside him. Rocks and dirt scattered through a wide arc. “You must fall back!” she said urgently. “Leave the rest to me!”

  Brad set his jaw. “Not happening.” He tossed his now-useless rail gun aside, and used the robot’s undamaged left arm to pull another weapon, a 25mm Bushmaster autocannon suitably modified for lunar combat, out of the pack slung across its back. “My ride’s taken a beating, but it’s operational.” More red and yellow warnings cascaded through his neural link as additional systems dropped off line. “Okay, mostly operational,” he corrected himself.

  He checked his functioning sensors. There was still no sign of the other Russian war machines headed toward them, but this momentary lull wouldn’t last long. Even if the two remaining enemy pilots didn’t yet know their compatriot was dead, they’d figure it out soon enough. “The subtle appr
oach just went to shit, so we’re down to one option—”

  “We go in quick and dirty,” Nadia finished.

  He nodded. “I’ll head left along this side of the rim wall. You move to the right, along the other side of this ridge. Use your camouflage systems to sneak through any kill zones you run into.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll do the same,” Brad promised, mentally crossing his fingers behind his back. Even if he could still afford the power drain, a full third of his thermal tiles and chameleon plates were either damaged or destroyed. Both camouflage systems were basically reduced to just deadweight. When he charged toward the Sino-Russian base, he was going to be right out in the open—an easy mark for any enemy robot in position. That sucked, but right now their best chance to win this battle was to catch the enemy in a pincer move. If the Russians fixated on him and missed detecting Nadia, giving her a shot at them from behind, so much the better. After all, it doesn’t count as suicide if you’ve still got a chance to survive, he told himself.

  Instinctively, her robot’s right hand came up and gently caressed the battle-scarred side of his own machine’s head. “Remember that I love you,” she said softly. Then she turned and headed upslope at a run—already fading from view as she activated her stealth systems.

  Forty-Nine

  Korolev Base Perimeter

  That Same Time

  “Sentinel Two, this is Sentinel Lead, do you copy?” Colonel Kirill Lavrentyev repeated. But there was still no reply over the secure channel he’d opened to Bezrukov. Only the faint hiss of static. His KLVM crouched lower, taking cover behind one of the abandoned Chang’e descent stages. Sweating inside the tight cockpit despite its cooling systems, he connected to Dmitry Yanin’s Sentinel Three. “Do you see any sign of Bezrukov’s robot?”