by Bruce Bethke
Captain Mahoney nodded again. "Very good. Now would you care to explain to me why an entire company of the 82nd Airborne could not take that area from a bunch of civilians?"
"Bunny!" Lieutenant Sara Parker objected. "That's not fair! The opposition was played by Charlie Company. Real civilians would never fight like that!"
Captain Mahoney, who was known in Bravo Company as Devil Bunny, or Bunny for short, turned and glared at Parker until she blushed to the roots of her fake blond hair and sat down again.
"You're right, Parker," Bunny said. "Real civilians would castrate our wounded and drag the bodies through the streets. Of course, you wouldn't stay alive long enough to see that."
Parker winced. "Sir? She was just a child. How was I supposed to—"
"Parker," Bunny said, shaking her head, "for your information, that child who shot you in the back was Colonel Mehta's ten-year-old daughter, and she really can handle a pistol like that." Bunny took a deep breath, and turned to the group at large. As one, the lieutenants braced for impact.
"Look, people, everything the opposition did today was based on documented cases from military history! Never underestimate civilian guerrillas who are fighting for their homes and the lives of their families. They may be badly undergunned and real short in the TO&E department, but they have got determination by the ton and a murderous capacity to improvise!"
Bunny stopped shouting, caught her breath, and smiled at Lieutenant Jamal. "So, Malcolm, what did you think of Charlie Company's improvisations?"
Jamal slouched back in his chair, tapped a finger on his smartpad, and considered his answer. "I think the judges screwed us, sir. If that'd been real gasoline, I'd have lost one squad, tops. No way I'd have lost the whole platoon."
Bunny shrugged. "I don't know. They caught you out in the open, on the external fire escape. A five-gallon bucket of gasoline dropped from the roof makes a hell of a fuel-air bomb, you know?" She shrugged again. "But, okay, even if the judges did overrate it..."
Jamal nodded and frowned. "I know. sir. What the hell was my whole platoon doing on the fire escape in the first place? I screwed up. But Second Platoon was taking fire from the upper-story windows on the front of the building, and I figured my guys could go in the back way, surprise the enemy, and take the place by storm. Big mistake."
Bunny nodded. "A mistake that cost you twenty KIAs today. What did you learn?"
Jamal sighed. "To stick by the book, sir. Advance by squad; leapfrog by fire teams. Take the high ground first, then clear from the top down. All the stuff that's easy to remember when you're not flying on hype."
Bunny smiled in a satisfied sort of way. "Right. Which is why you have to stay cool, no matter what. And always watch out for the lone nut on the roof." She turned back to the group as a whole, sorted through faces, and selected a fresh victim. "Lieutenant Singh!"
Singh looked up from his smartpad, his dark eyes went wide, and he leaped to his feet and saluted crisply. An instant later the rest of the lieutenants followed suit, and an instant after that Bunny realized they were not looking at her. She spun around.
"Colonel Houston!" Bunny snapped to and cracked off a salute. "Sir!"
The tall senior officer stepped through the open doorway and returned the salute. "As you were," he said to the lieutenants. They shifted to at-ease. Houston turned to Bunny. "How's the debriefing going, Captain Mahoney?"
Bunny nodded and tried her best to stand at ease, but she never felt comfortable around the colonel. There was always a sense of danger about the man, as if he were a venomous snake with a hidden agenda. Not to mention how he rarely, if ever, gave her any respect. "It goes well, sir," she replied. "We're making progress."
"Good." Houston checked his watch, then looked back at the captain. "Can you have it zipped in ten minutes?"
"Of course, sir. May I ask why?"
"There's a briefing in General Jackson's office at twenty-three hundred hours, and I want you there." He took a step closer to her; she fought the urge to shrink back. "The UN and the Russkies are up to something."
He licked his lips and smiled. "Something big."
Chapter 5
The Kremlin, Moscow
25 October 2069
8:24 A.M.
General Buchovsky wrapped up his briefing. "And that is how it stands. Our intelligence suggests that sixteen major colonies have joined in this revolt—far too many for the CLD and their Special Aerospace Security to handle alone. They will have to turn to the Security Council for help, and the council will have to turn to a member nation with sufficient low-G trained troops and major spacelift capability."
President Saratov examined her nails and pondered the news. "A Russian military presence on the moon," she said at last. "We have not had such a thing since—"
"The Djakarta Conference in 2054," Foreign Minister Chapeyev interjected.
Saratov looked at Buchovsky. "And you say the old gunships are still intact?"
"According to our sources, yes. They are being kept under peace bond at depots in Sinus Roris and Lacus Mortis."
Saratov nodded slowly. "Our former countrymen at Volodya would be happy to see us, don't you think?"
Buchovsky smiled broadly. "They would welcome us with bread and salt, Madam President."
Slowly Saratov's thin lips spread into a tight smile. She turned to Foreign Minister Chapeyev. "It is one-thirty in the morning in New York. I suggest we wake up Ambassador Ligachev."
Port Aldrin, Luna
Block J64, Apartment 23
25 October 2069
06:30 GMT
An alarm clock was blaring on the Forbidden Gates of Hell. The mighty Icehawk raised his hands to his head and tried to squeeze his throbbing brains back into his fractured skull.
Dara flopped across his chest and turned off the alarm. "Good God, is it morning already?" She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and squinted at the clock again. "Damn, it is." Rolling off of Dalton, she climbed out of bed and began collecting her underwear, which was strewn all over the bedroom floor.
Dalton tried to sit up, but the mad spinning of the walls made him flop down again. Gravity generator must be acting up again, he thought. Better call Dome Maintenance and complain.
By and by he noticed Dara had gotten dressed and was standing in front of the mirror combing her hair in short, angry jerks. He rolled onto his side. "Hey." She either didn't hear or was ignoring him. Dalton licked his parched lips. "Hey! Where you going?"
"Today may be the dawn of a new era," she said, not taking her eyes off the mirror, "and you may have the mother of all hangovers." She finished with her hair and slapped the comb down on the dresser. "But some of us have to work today, and it would have been nice to have breakfast with you!" Dara spun around, blasted Dalton with a full charge of repressed anger, and stalked out of the bedroom.
"Wait, honey!" Dalton tried to roll out of bed, but the local gravity was still unstable. "What's ... What did I—" He heard the front door hum open and hiss shut. "Dara?"
No answer.
Dalton flopped back onto his bed and closed his eyes. "God," he said, "if I live to be a million, I will never understand women." He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. It was still warm and fragrant with the scent of her perfume.
Dalton smiled and went back to sleep.
About two hours later the frantic chirping of the comm system brought him back to a semblance of life. Dalton rolled over, pulled the flatscreen down from the headboard, and tapped the icon to acknowledge the call. "Yeah?"
"Dalton?" The face that popped into view was that of a thin, bookish-looking middle-aged black man with a neatly shaved head and round steel-rimmed spectacles: Terrell Davis, the first-shift NetOps manager. Dalton's boss.
Dalton's bloodshot eyes snapped wide open. "Uh, good morning Mr. Davis! I, uh—"
Terrell took a good look at Dalton through the view-screen, then shook his head and laughed. "Never mind, kid, I understand. Another bad case of Independence Day
flu. I'll put you down as working at home this morning, but do you think you might be able to get your butt in here by noon? Half the staff is out today."
Dalton nodded vigorously. The sloshing of his brain inside his skull hurt. "Yeah, sure. Noon. No problem."
Terrell nodded. "Good. Later, then. Bye."
Terrell's window blanked and shrank, and Dalton pushed the flatscreen up and out of the way. He wasted a few minutes wondering where he'd left his underwear the night before, then said to hell with it and staggered into the shower. The hot water came on with a welcome hiss; he pushed his face into the needles of stinging water and slowly began to feel somewhat more lifelike. Then for a moment he fished up a memory of his life back on Earth, where showers had serious pressure and the water wasn't so tightly rationed.
"Three-minute warning," the Port Aldrin Central Computer said. "You have three minutes of hot water remaining."
Dalton found his tube of soap gel and got busy.
Office of the Governor, Port Aldrin
25 October 2069
09:08 GMT
Patrick Adams wandered into the office with a double synthecaf in one hand and his electric shaver in the other, and almost dropped them both when he found Pieter von Hayek already there and hard at work. "Uh, g'morning, gov. Any news?"
Von Hayek looked up from the report on his desk, pushed his bifocals back up over the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. "No. Not so much as a squeak out of New York."
Adams took a sip of his hot coffee, then shrugged. "Well, it is four in the morning down there. What did you expect?"
"Honestly? Nothing, from the official channels. But it's noon in Moscow, five P.M. in Beijing, and seven P.M. in Melbourne, and I really expected someone to try opening an alternate comm link."
Adams nodded thoughtfully. "What about our local UNuchs?"
"Kinthavong continues to claim he's cut off; he's lying, of course. Copernicus and Eddington Colonies are still talking to us, but only just barely. A bunch of Kinthavong's goons tried to break up an Independence Day party in Kepler last night, but word is, it turned into a riot and our citizens beat the living tar out of them." Von Hayek smiled enigmatically and tapped a finger on the report on his desk.
"Uh-oh," Adams said. "I know that look. You're having an idea, aren't you? Out with it."
The governor leaned back in his black chrome chair and fixed Adams with the look that once again gave Adams the feeling of glimpsing infinitely complex wheels within wheels, all turning with great precision to achieve some almost unfathomable end. "You know how we've been talking about ways to motivate citizens to join the Lunar Defense Force? Just to make our threat of armed resistance look a little more credible?"
Adams looked at the report on von Hayek's desk, then back into the governor's eyes. "Unprovoked attack, wasn't it? A lot of serious injuries to innocent bystanders? UNISAS goons opened fire on an unarmed crowd and left, say, three dead?"
Von Hayek clucked his tongue. "We never lie to the people, Patrick. That's what gives us the moral high ground."
Adams nodded and took a quick gulp of his coffee. "Right. All the same, it wouldn't hurt if the rumor mill began to churn at full speed, would it?"
The governor let out a barely perceptible nod.
Adams turned and headed for the door.
"Oh," the governor called out, "and, Patrick?"
Adams stopped in the doorway and turned around. "Yes?"
"Let's have my heartfelt appeal for moderation standing by, just in case things get out of hand."
UN Headquarters, New York
25 October 2069
8:07 A.M. EST
Antonio Ramon Aguila sat quietly in his office, fingers tented, assessing the situation. So far, all was going as well as could be expected. The world news media had swallowed the "terrorists" cover story without so much as batting an eyelash, and they were now repeating and enhancing the story with predictable enthusiasm.
Outside of the UN, only a few North American amateurs had managed to pick up the Lunar Declaration of Independence, but SAS techs had successfully planted enough strategic leaks on the Web to preemptively destroy the credibility of any samizdat that might result. Very late in the evening Aguila had even managed to pull together an ad hoc meeting of the CLD and had gotten sufficient votes to take the issue to the Security Council. The council was to convene at nine o'clock this morning, and Aguila would go in waving his latest bit of news: overnight polls showing that 72 percent of the population favored immediate and decisive military action against the "terrorists"—as if anyone on the Security Council cared what the masses thought.
Now all that was left was to find Lord Edward Haversham and make sure he didn't say anything embarrassing in public.
How much longer? Aguila wondered, not for the first time. Surely the secretary-general must see that I am the real power in the CLD and that Haversham is merely a useless dotard. Must I continue to play the loyal lackey until Haversham dies?
Aguila relished that thought a moment, imagining himself at Haversham's state funeral, nobly rising above his personal grief to accept the post of United Nations secretary for Lunar affairs and chairman of the CLD. A tight smile found its way onto his face.
The office intercom chirped. Aguila's smile vanished, he tapped the acknowledge touchpad, and Allegria's face popped into view. "Sir? We've found Lord Haversham."
"Face-down in the East River?" Aguila said hopefully.
"No, sir. He's just come into the building. Apparently he decided to try a new restaurant last night, then take in a play, but he forgot to take his comm pad or tell anyone where he was going."
How convenient, thought Aguila. And in the meantime the CLD is very nearly paralyzed for sixteen hours because the chairman is missing in inaction. Are you really that much of a fool, Edward?
"Sir?" Allegria prompted.
"Has anyone briefed him on the current situation?" "Jurgen tried, in the elevator on the way up. He says Haversham didn't seem terribly interested."
Aguila nodded. "As I expected. Very well. See if you can book me for a meeting with him as soon as possible."
"I already have, sir. It's at eight-fifteen in Haversham's office."
Aguila checked his real-time clock. "Splendid. Then you have time to fetch me a fresh cup of coffee."
Allegria leaned in close to the video pickup, fixed Aguila with her serious dark brown eyes, and dropped her voice to a breathy whisper. "Antonio darling," she said softly, "I would do anything for you—lie, cheat, steal, commit perjury, even kill... but, Antonio, I do not fetch coffee."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—"
Lord Edward Haversham, chairman emeritus of the United Nations Committee on Lunar Development, looked up at Aguila and frowned. "Turn that down, would you? It's ruining my concentration." Aguila thumbed the remote control for the wall-mounted flatscreen, and Haversham went back to addressing the ball.
Tick! The putt rolled across twelve feet of lush Persian carpet, only to dink off the lip of the bone china teacup. "Bloody Iranian carpet," Haversham muttered. "I asked for Malaysian—they understand golf—but nooo ..."
"Ahem." Aguila cleared his throat, took a small step forward, and focused the full force of his gaze on Haversham.
"Ah, yes, Antonio old boy. Tell me, what is it exactly that's got your knickers in a twist this time?" Haversham strolled across the carpet, recovered the ball, but left the teacup where it lay.
Aguila nodded at the flatscreen and thumbed the volume up.
"We colonists came to the Moon because we were promised a chance to build a better life for ourselves and our children. Now we find that we are little more than indentured servants in the coldest and most remote gulag the Earth has ever known...."
Haversham pursed his lips distastefully and turned to Aguila. "You had UNCOMM jam that, I expect."
Aguila nodded. "Of
course. There was some leakage, but we have planted a counter-story, and most people will believe the declaration is a hoax."
"Hmm." Haversham paused to watch the recorded program a few seconds longer, then muted the sound. "You know, I must admit I am impressed. Old Pieter certainly does come off better on video than he does in real life, what say?"
"Some people have that gift, sir."
"Indeed." Haversham nodded slowly, then reached some kind of conclusion. "Well, then, I suppose the question of the day is, how should we respond? Is that why you're here?"
Aguila allowed himself a thin smile. "Your insight astounds me, sir."
"Lord," Haversham corrected. "Hereditary title. I was never knighted, you know." He dropped the golf ball on the carpet and began lining up for another putt.
Aguila blinked in puzzlement until he recognized Haversham's non sequitur for what it was and realized the old fool had gone off-track again. "We couldn't find you last night," Aguila said slowly and clearly. "So I convened an ad hoc meeting of the CLD. We've already reached a conclusion."
Haversham hunched over the ball and considered Aguila from the corner of his eye. "My, my, getting ambitious, aren't we?"
Aguila refused to be sidetracked again. "Our vote was eleven to one to take this matter to the Security Council, with a recommendation that responsibility for the situation be turned over to the Committee on World Peace."
Haversham stood up with a start, frowned, and shook his head sharply. "No! I disagree completely! Bad idea, that."
"Sir? We've already voted."
For the first time, Haversham looked alarmed. "You said it was eleven to one. Who was the one?"
"Akuii-Bua. She agreed with us but felt we shouldn't vote until we found you. Sir, the meeting is set for nine o'clock this morning." Aguila pulled back the sleeve of his Savile Row suit jacket and checked his watch. "That is in a little over half an hour. Wouldn't you like to review the report I'm going to present?"