Moonwar gt-7

by Ben Bova

  On the other hand, nanomachines could kill. Wasn’t that why the U.N. banned them? Wasn’t that why they had been sent here to Moonbase in the first place, to stop these renegades from developing deadly nanomachines? How could he order his troopers into such danger?

  Munasinghe had been in firefights. He had been shelled by rocket artillery and bombed by smart missiles. He was not a coward. But nanomachines! The thought made him shudder. Invisible, insidious. If they got inside his suit and started eating his flesh…

  “What are your orders, sir?” the Norwegian lieutenant asked, his voice low and earnest. “We can’t stand out here forever,” he added, needlessly.

  Suppressing a reflex to snap at his arrogant criticism, Munasinghe made up his mind. After all, he had sent men into battle before. Soldiers took risks, deadly risks. It was part of the profession.

  “Take your squad through the open area to those airlock hatches on the far wall. Get those hatches open as quickly as you can. Don’t waste time; use the grenades.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A strange voice sounded in Munasinghe’s earphones. From the way the lieutenant’s spacesuited form twitched, he must have heard it too.

  “Who said that?” Munasinghe demanded.

  “This is Douglas Stavenger, of Moonbase. The floor of our garage is covered with nanomachines that will devour the materials of your spacesuits. The airlock hatches are coated with them, too.”

  “You are bluffing,” Munasinghe snapped.

  “No, I’m not. We use the nanobugs routinely to clean up grease and oil stains that accumulate on the garage floor. You happened to pick a time when our semiannual cleanup is just starting.”

  “I don’t believe you!” Munasinghe snapped.

  “Don’t send your troops to their deaths. The nanomachines will destroy them before you can get our airlock hatches open.”

  Hot boiling anger replaced Munasinghe’s indecision. Hatred welled up inside him. This smug upstart is trying to bluff me into ruining my career!

  “Surrender your base!” he raged. “Now! You have fifteen seconds to surrender!”

  More than ten seconds passed before the voice in his earphones said, “You’re sending your troops to their deaths needlessly. We have no quarrel with you. Return to Earth and leave us in peace.”

  Practically quivering with fury, Munasinghe jabbed the Norwegian lieutenant’s shoulder with a gloved finger. “Get your squad moving! If you go fast enough the nanomachines won’t have a chance to harm you.”

  “That’s not true,” Doug said.

  “Go!” Munasinghe screamed. “That’s an order!”

  The Norwegian scuttled away, gathered his squad, and started them into the garage. The warning sign was almost completely gone, Munasinghe saw; nothing left but a few streaks of red.

  “You’re making a serious mistake,” Doug said in the captain’s earphones.

  “No,” Munasinghe snapped. “You are. I will destroy Moonbase and everyone in it before I leave here.”

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 59 MINUTES

  Edith was getting it all on her digital recorder and minicams. In addition to the camera fastened to the top of her helmet, which saw whatever she looked at, she held another in her gloved hands, almost forgotten in the excitement of the moment.

  She watched, wide-eyed, as the squad of troopers thumped in their heavy boots and spacesuits across the wide expanse of the empty garage.

  It would have been funny if it weren’t so scary. The Moonbase guy who spoke to them was Douglas Stavenger, the one who carried swarms of nanomachines inside his body. Was he telling the truth? Were the bugs on the garage floor capable of ruining spacesuits? Killing people?

  She remembered that Stavenger’s father had died on the Moon a quarter-century ago, killed by runaway nanobugs.

  This could get hairy, she thought.

  Two troopers had outraced the others and reached one of the dulled metal hatches of the airlocks that led into the base proper. They rested their rifles against the wall and started to unpack the grenades they carried on their equipment vests.

  “Look at your boots,” Doug Stavenger’s voice said, with just a touch of urgency in it. “Your boots are being digested by nanomachines.”

  One of the troopers awkwardly lifted one foot and tried to bend over far enough in his spacesuit to see the sole. His buddy looked down, and dropped the set of grenades she’d been handling.

  Edith heard a panicky jabbering in a language she didn’t understand.

  “Speak English!” Munasinghe’s voice demanded.

  “The boots… they’re coming apart!”

  “My glove!”

  The other troopers in the garage stopped in their tracks. For an idiotic moment, each of them tried to inspect his or her boots.

  “The nanomachines!”

  “They’ll kill us all!”

  Stavenger’s voice came through again, strong and calm. “Get out of the garage. Ultraviolet light deactivates the nanobugs. Get out in the sunlight where the solar UV can save your lives.”

  Munasinghe screamed, “No! No!”

  “If you don’t get out now,” Stavenger’s voice urged, “the nanobugs will eat through your boots and start digesting your flesh. Once that begins there’s no way to stop them.”

  “I order you to blow those hatches!” Munasinghe screeched.

  Military discipline is often a fragile thing. For several seconds the troopers stood immobile, torn between the ingrained reflexes of their training and the hard-wired drive for self-protection. One trooper, in the middle of the garage, threw down his rifle and ran out into the sunshine.

  That was all it took.

  The entire squad bolted like green soldiers facing enemy fire for the first time. The troopers stomped and stumbled back across the garage floor, streamed past their raging captain, and flung themselves down on the dusty regolith, raising their legs high so the sunlight could get to the soles of their boots.

  I’ll have you court-martialed for this!” Munasinghe raged. “Cowardice in the face of the enemy! You’ll be shot! Each and every one of you!”

  “Why don’t you go in?” Stavenger’s voice asked calmly.

  Edith turned to face the captain squarely, so that her helmet-mounted camera would capture this moment in its entirety. Munasinghe was shaking, visibly shaking even with the cumbersome spacesuit enveloping him. Whether he quaked with fear or fury, Edith could not tell.

  I’ll show you!” Munasinghe screeched, fumbling on his equipment vest for one of his grenades. I’ll show you all!”

  The Norwegian lieutenant, last to leave the garage, reached a hand toward him. “Captain, wait—”

  Edith watched, wide-eyed, as the lieutenant tried to calm Munasinghe. But the captain struggled free of the taller man’s grasp and ran a staggering few steps to the entrance of the garage, the grenade in his gloved hand.

  I’ll destroy you all!” Munasinghe screamed, tugging at the grenade’s firing pin.

  “Don’t!” the lieutenant was saying. “You can’t reach the hatches from here. It’s too far—”

  But Munasinghe stumbled on, into the garage, and tried to throw the grenade. Encumbered by his spacesuit and the clumsy gloves, his throw went only a few yards. The grenade bumped on the garage floor, rolled once, then exploded.

  The lieutenant had thrown himself down on the ground, a curiously slow, dream-like fall. Edith involuntarily ducked behind the rock face at the side of the airlock hatch. She saw a flash but heard nothing.

  She looked out into the garage again. Munasinghe was still standing, turning slowly to face her. The lieutenant was clambering to his feet.

  Edith saw that the front of Munasinghe’s spacesuit was shredded. The man took a faltering step, then another, and pitched face-forward, slowly, slowly falling to the smooth rock floor of the garage.

  The lieutenant did not hesitate for an instant. He raced into the garage, grabbed his captain’s inert form under the shoulders, and dra
gged him outside into the sunlight.

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 1 HOUR 11 MINUTES

  Edith hefted her minicam. I’ll have to know.”

  “Hansen,” he said bleakly. “Lieutenant Frederik Hansen, from Kristiansand.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Lieutenant Hansen looked down at the body of Captain Munasinghe, lying stiffly in his torn spacesuit on the dusty lunar ground. “What a waste,” he muttered. “What a waste.”

  Doug stared at the display screen. “He killed himself,” he whispered.

  No one in the control center moved or said a word.

  “He went crazy and killed himself,” Doug said, his voice still hollow with shock.

  “He was trying to blow one of the hatches,” Joanna said.

  “And fragged himself instead,” Anson added.

  Doug shook his head. “I don’t know if he meant to, but he committed suicide.”

  “That tall guy did a gutsy thing,” Gordette said, “dragging him out of the garage like that.”

  “But I never meant for anybody to get killed,” Doug said.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Joanna firmly. “The idiot went berserk.”

  “He was trying to kill us,” Brudnoy pointed out.

  “But I never meant for anybody to get killed,” Doug repeated.

  The Norwegian lieutenant assumed command of the mission and sent a radio report Earthside.

  “What happens now?” Edith asked him.

  “We wait for orders from Peacekeeper headquarters,” said the Norwegian, his voice low but even.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Edith said.

  His spacesuited shoulders moved slightly in what might have been an attempt at a shrug. “What difference does that make?”

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 1 HOUR 24 MINUTES

  “Mexican standoff,” Jinny Anson said. “They’re not coming in, but they’re not going away, either.”

  “We can sit tight inside the base longer than they can stay out on the crater floor,” said Brudnoy, the slightest hint of optimism in his low voice.

  “This won’t do us any good,” Joanna said. “We’ve got to get them to leave, go back to Earth.”

  Still sitting on the wheeled chair, Doug turned it around to face them.

  “They’re waiting for instructions from Earthside,” he said. “This might take some time.”

  “How much oxygen can they be carrying with them?” Anson wondered.

  Doug said, “They’ve suffered a casualty. That changes everything. We’ve got to give them an honorable way out, something that they can take back Earthside with them to show that their mission hasn’t been a complete failure.”

  “Why bother?” Joanna scoffed.

  “Because otherwise, even if this troop leaves, Faure will just send another force, bigger and better prepared. Or maybe he’ll drop a few missiles on the solar farm, just to get our attention.”

  “They’ll be out for blood next time.” Gordette agreed.

  “Like they weren’t this time?” Anson shot back.

  “What do you suggest, Doug?” Kris Cardenas asked.

  Doug took a deep breath. He had been thinking about this for more than four days now. The first part of his plan had been accomplished: the Peacekeeper troops had been kept out of Moonbase. But it had cost the life of their captain. That raised the risks for all of them.

  “When I read about the Cuban Missile Crisis of Nineteen sixty-two, I saw that the American president was willing to make some concessions, as long as he achieved his major objective, getting the Soviet missiles out of Cuba.”

  “Ancient history!” Anson complained. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Doug looked up at her and refrained from quoting Santayana. He saw that Brudnoy understood.

  “We should be willing to give up something that we can do without, if the Peacekeepers agree to leave,” Doug said.

  “But what do we have that we can give up?” Cardenas asked. “We can’t give up the nanomachines, and that’s what Faure’s after, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Doug. “From what he told you, Mom, he wants Moonbase to continue using nanomachines—under Yamagata’s control.”

  Joanna scowled with the memory. “That’s right. Faure may think he’s running the U.N., but Yamagata’s running him.”

  Leaning back in the little wheeled chair far enough to make it squeak, Doug said, “So we need someone who can negotiate with Faure—and with Yamagata, behind Faure.”

  “And who might that person be?” Brudnoy asked, needlessly.

  Everyone in the little group turned to Joanna.

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES

  “We can’t stay out here forever.” Edith heard the Norwegian’s words in her helmet earphones. He sounded uptight, tense.

  It had been nearly a half-hour since he’d sent his report Earthside. No orders had come up from Peacekeeper headquarters.

  They were standing off to one side of the open airlock hatch, in the shadow of the mountain’s glassy-smooth flank. The troopers were spread around the crater floor, silent, waiting like obedient oxen, ashamed of their panicked flight from the garage. Edith wondered if they blamed themselves for Munasinghe’s death. Apparently the harsh sunlight bathing the crater floor actually did stop the nanomachines from damaging their suits further.

  “If we had missile launchers with us we could blow those inside hatches from here,” Lieutenant Hansen said, “and then run through the garage and inside the base before the nanomachines could do any real damage.”

  “But we don’t have missile launchers,” Edith said. “Do you?”

  Edith could sense the Norwegian shaking his head inside his helmet. “Well, we can’t remain out here forever. We must do something.”

  Then Edith heard Stavenger’s calm, almost pleasant voice again. “I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of your operation, please.”

  For some seconds no one replied. Finally, “I am Lieutenant Hansen.”

  “I want you to know,” Stavenger said,’that we regret very deeply the death of your captain.”

  Hansen replied, That’s good of you.”

  “We seem to have an awkward situation on our hands,” Stavenger said evenly. “I suggest we try to negotiate some way to solve it.”

  “You could surrender to us,” Hansen suggested mildly.

  But Stavenger merely responded, “That isn’t negotiating, sir. That is demanding.”

  I’m awaiting orders from Peacekeeper headquarters.”

  “I’m afraid those orders won’t reflect the actual situation here. The real question is, what can you accomplish? We don’t want you to have to retreat back Earthside with nothing at all to show for your mission.”

  “Except a dead captain,” Hansen said.

  For a long moment there was no response. Then Stavanger answered, “Yes, except for that.”

  Hansen seemed to draw himself up straighter. “What do you suggest?”

  Edith listened, fascinated, as Stavenger slowly, gently led Hansen to the possibilities of salvaging something from his captain’s failure to capture Moonbase.

  He wants to get the Peacekeepers to go on back to Earth, Edith realized, before they do any real damage to Moonbase. He’s smooth, this Stavenger guy, Edith told herself.

  For nearly an hour Stavenger talked with Lieutenant Hansen, soothingly, sanely, trying to move from confrontation to compromise.

  Then a new thought struck Edith. If Stavenger’s successful, we’ll all pack up and go back to Earth. I’ll never see the inside of Moonbase! I’ll never get to interview any of their people. All I’ll have is a story about the Peacekeepers being humiliated, and the suits upstairs might not even want to run it!

  The hell with that, she told herself. I’ve got to get inside the base. I’ve got to see this Stavenger guy and the other rebels.

  But how?

  There was only one way that she could think of. Hansen was still talking with Stavenger, the
other lieutenant standing glumly by him, the rest of the troopers out on the crater floor, standing, sitting, pacing restlessly.

  Slowly, without calling attention to herself, Edith sidled away from the Peacekeeper officers, toward the lip of the open airlock hatch. It was much bigger than anything she had expected to see at Moonbase, big enough to allow two tractors through, side by side.

  They wouldn’t let me die from their nanobugs, Edith reassured herself. They didn’t want any of the troopers to get killed, after all. They’ll come and get me. If they don’t, I’ll just run back out here again.

  If I have time, she added.

  Okay, Edith asked herself. How big a risk are you willing to take for an exclusive interview with the Moonbase rebels?

  She hesitated one moment more. Hansen and Stavenger were still talking: something about Mrs Brudnoy coming back Earthside with the Peacekeepers to negotiate face-to-face with Faure.

  Edith took a deep breath of canned air, then started to run as hard as she could in the cumbersome spacesuit across the smooth rock floor of the Moonbase garage. The floor that still teemed with deadly nanobugs.

  TOUCHDOWN PLUS 2 HOURS 6 MINUTES

  Doug tried to keep the tension out of his voice. It felt weird, trying to negotiate with someone you can’t see. Why did the lieutenant decide to stay off to one side of the hatch, where our outside cameras can’t pick him up? Is there a reason for that, or is it just a fluke?

  His throat was getting dry from so much steady talking. Somebody handed him a tumbler of water and he sipped at it gratefully.

  No one had left the control center. They were still gathered around him. Doug could feel the heat of their bodies, the sweat of their anxiety.

  On the screens before him Doug saw the empty garage and a good swathe of the floor of the crater, where most of the Peacekeeper troops seemed to be milling about aimlessly. We should count them, he thought as he talked with Hansen, make certain they’re all accounted for.