Rebel Moon

by Bruce Bethke

  Dalton took a long look at her pretty, tear-streaked face, then pulled back. "No. I'm in the militia." He gave her what he hoped was a confident grin, then pulled his helmet on, activated the suit's comm circuit, and linked to Dara's channel. She pulled her helmet on.

  "Don't worry," Dalton said, once they were linked. "The UN troops are just dirtsuckers, used to pushing peasants around in one-G. They'll be too busy recovering from grav sickness to give us any kind of real fight." He took the laser pistol from her, pushed the spare power cell into his belt pouch, and slapped the other cell into the pistol's loading well. With a satisfying whine, the pistol hummed to life and the status indicators flashed green.

  "Besides," he said, brandishing the pistol, "as soon as they see these, they'll turn tail and start crying for their negotiators." He checked the pistol to make sure it was on safe, then holstered it and tried to take one more good look at Dara. The mirror plating on their visors made that impossible, but something in the set of her shoulders suggested she wasn't buying his bravado.

  Come to think of it, neither was he. I shouldn't have eaten that krillsteak, he thought. Great thing about these mirror shades, though—if I puke now, she'll never know.

  Whatever Dara was thinking, she chose to keep it to herself. "Just be careful," she repeated. "Come back in one piece."

  "Don't worry, babe." He nodded, clumsy in the suit, and gently touched her faceplate. "I will." The more he thought about it, the more Dalton realized he intended to be very careful, especially as this seemed to be shaking out to be the real thing. Real Peacekeepers, with real guns.

  Major Thompson interrupted. "Okay, Starkiller, enough with the tender good-byes already. Now shag your butt over to Sector Three-B and join your unit." The major paused. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler. "And good luck to you both, okay?"

  "Sir!" Dalton saluted. After Thompson had turned his back, Dalton snuck in one last quick squeeze with Dara, then slapped the large square button that activated the battlesuit's augmentations and started off toward Sector 3. At first his legs pumped slowly and clumsily as the internal engines whined up to speed; then he settled into a rapid stride as the suit cycled up to full power.

  "Cool," he said aloud, to himself. "I wonder—"

  "Radio silence?" Major Thompson suggested from hundreds of meters behind him. Dalton punched off the comm system, and went back to checking out the suit.

  During his militia unit's first practice in augmented battlesuits, Dalton had marveled at how the thing enhanced his every movement, providing him with greater speed and power despite the suit's extra weight. Now, after three days of training, Dalton was feeling experienced enough to be jaded. This particular suit wasn't anywhere near state of the art—none of the militiamen's were—but it was only about twelve years old, and definitely in better shape than some he'd seen.

  Satisfied, Dalton stopped checking out the suit and settled into a steady pace as he ran down the corridors accompanied only by the sound of his own breathing and the clank of his metal-soled boots on the plazmetal flooring. Just focus on running, a little voice in the back of his head said. Don't think about what's waiting at the other end.

  In Sector 4C he raced passed a knot of civilians fleeing the other way. Most of them were already in their white emergency vacuum suits, but around one corner he found a helmetless young woman sitting on the floor, shaking with silent sobs, an unsuited infant cradled in her arms. The baby wasn't moving, he noticed, and crimson blood was bubbling from the child's nose and ears.

  Don't think about it. Just move. Dalton clenched his jaw tighter and picked up his speed.

  Sector 3 came into view. Ahead he saw green lights flashing against the dark gray walls, like heat lightning in a July midnight sky. He slowed to a walk, drew his pistol, and psyched himself up to be ready for anything.

  Anything except the blast of hot green hellfire that tore a chunk from the wall inches above his head.

  "Help!" he shrieked as he dived to the floor and blindly fired a wild shot. Four answering beams lanced out in response, exploding against the wall above him and sending molten metal and plastic raining down. He rolled frantically to his right, desperately seeking cover, but there was none to be found.

  Slowly, microsecond by microsecond, the first shock of panic yielded to white-hot anger. Those goddam dirtbags are trying to kill me!

  At that point his militia training finally started to kick in, and as four blue-suited UN soldiers moved into view and raised their weapons, he seemed to hear Lloyd Thompson's voice in his mind: Lay the front sight on the center of mass, Private. Don't fret about how many targets there are. Just concentrate on one and keep shooting till he's down. Now squeeze that trigger slow, like you're strokin' your girlfriend— A bright red beam lanced out toward the lead Peacekeeper's head and sent him flying backwards, but Dalton felt disappointed, because he'd seen the blue flash of an energy shield around the soldier and knew the dirtsucker hadn't even been hurt. Never mind that. Y'all are either showing off or shooting high. Forget head shots; just correct your sight picture and keep on firing.

  Prone in a battlesuit was a difficult position to shoot from. Dalton rose to one knee, but before he could squeeze off another shot, three bolts of energy slammed into his chest shield, smashing him to the floor like a swatted bug. For a few last fractions of a second his eyes were dazzled by the brilliant blue flares and spatters of madly clashing energy fields enveloping him. Then something wet and red exploded inside his head, and everything went black.

  Second Battalion Forward HQ

  USN Schwarzkopf, CVN (S) -93

  28 October 2069

  22:30 GMT

  General J. T. "Ripper" Jackson considered himself a hard case. In thirty years of peacekeeping duty he'd seen peasants hacked to death with machetes, mass graves from the Idaho ethnic cleansing, and his own troops accidentally blown to bits by "friendly fire."

  For three hours now he'd been in the Schwarzkopf's comm center, monitoring the action on the lunar surface without so much as a flicker of emotion, but this latest report from Delta Company made his neck hair prickle and his blood run cold. "This," he growled, thumping a ramrod-straight index finger on the comm tech sergeant's sternum, "is classified and does not leave this room. If so much as a whisper of this report leaks out, I will have your stripes, your ears, and any other part of you I happen to think of. Is that clear?"

  The sergeant gulped nervously. "Yes, sir!"

  "Good." Jackson turned to the officer who'd brought the report. "Now, Major Xiong, I trust your shuttle is fueled and standing by?"

  The little navy popinjay saluted proudly. "Yes, sir!"

  "Great. Then let's haul our butts down there and see if we can't sort out this ... this—" Jackson gestured in frustration, and desperately wished for a cigar to chomp through.

  "Sir?" the comm sergeant asked timidly. "If Field Marshal Leighton-Smythe calls, what do I tell him?"

  Jackson scowled. "Tell him I'm, uh, checking out firsthand an unsubstantiated report of, er, rebel atrocities. Got it?"

  The sergeant looked puzzled and lifted the disk carrying the Delta Company CO's report. "But, sir, this—"

  "Dammit, man!" Jackson barked. "Do I have to tell you everything? Erase it!"

  "Yes, sir!" The sergeant saluted crisply.

  Jackson wheeled and, followed by Xiong, headed for the shuttle dock.

  Twenty minutes later, Lieutenant Xiong dropped a battle-suited Jackson and his adjutant, Pierce, just outside the Volodya south airlock. They found a squad of Delta Company troopers waiting there to meet them. Some nameless lieutenant in blue armor stepped forward and saluted. "General Jackson, sir!"

  Jackson didn't bother to return the salute. "Where the hell is Colonel Bowen?" he growled.

  "Just inside the airlock, sir! We've been having a little trouble with snipers outside the dome."

  "Snipers?" Jackson snorted. "Then what the blue blazes am I doing out here?" Suddenly aware that the one gold
star on his helmet might look like a target, Jackson broke into a quick shuffling run across the regolith toward the open airlock door. The corporal barked a command, and the troopers fell in around Jackson and formed a human shield.

  They made the airlock without incident. Colonel Bowen, also in battlesuit, was waiting just inside the inner door with another squad of troopers. "General Jackson," he said, offering a salute, then a handshake. "Thanks for coming down so quickly."

  "Don't thank me yet," Jackson growled, ignoring Bowen's outstretched hand. "The way I see it, right now you are the sorry s.o.b. responsible for this four-star exercise in cluster coitus."

  "Sir!" Bowen said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "It was an intelligence screwup! My men were only following orders!"

  "Colonel Bowen," Jackson said, as he leaned back and sized up the man. "Have you ever witnessed a war crimes trial? That's the first thing the defendant says when he opens his defense, and it's the last thing he says before he drops through the gallows."

  It was hard to tell through the gold-plated helmet visor, but Bowen seemed a bit shaken by that thought.

  Jackson gave the colonel another appraising look, then glanced around the corridor. "So, Bowen, are you planning to restore internal environment anytime soon? My suit telltales say it's near vacuum in here."

  "The— The—" Bowen swallowed so hard, the sound was audible through the battlesuit comm system. "The rebels have sabotaged the Central Computer. Life support is completely out. I've got engineers trying to hotwire around the damage, but—"

  "Yeah," Jackson grumbled, "I know engineers. It'll take three days to do it and all the parts are on back order. Okay, then, let's have a look at the real reason why I'm here."

  Bowen hesitated. "Are you sure? It's ... pretty ghastly."

  "Colonel," Jackson said, "I have been with the Peacekeepers for fully thirty years, since back when there was still such a thing as the United States Marine Corps. I have seen action in Asia, Africa, and Europe and in Central, North, and South America, including the Idaho Christian War, and I seriously doubt that anything you can show me will shock this particular tough old bird."

  Bowen turned around and glanced up the corridor. "Well, okay then ..."

  Fifteen minutes later Jackson was sitting on the hard floor, struggling not to throw up inside his helmet. "Bowen!" he gasped. "For God's sake, man, what the hell happened?"

  "Intelligence failure," the colonel said gently, a note of deep pain in his voice. "We were following our orders. First Platoon was to make a dynamic entry over there." Bowen pointed at a gaping hole in the far wall. Through the hole, gray rock and naked stars were visible. "Intel said this was unoccupied warehouse space. We were very careful about that. The commando unit stealthed in, set charges, and at zero hour, blew the wall."

  Jackson got his rampaging stomach under control, staggered to his feet, and stared at the heap of tiny corpses.

  "The Volodyans must have been short of pressure suits," Bowen said softly. "They were using this as a staging area for civilian evacuation. As near as we can tell, there were about sixty children in here, mostly infants and toddlers." Bowen's voice cracked, and something that could have been a sob filtered through the suit's comm system.

  "Explosive decompression," Jackson said, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. "What a hell of a way for babies to die." The general shut his eyes tight, choked down his gorge, and spent a long moment shuddering.

  Bowen's voice brought him out of it. "Sir? Now do you understand why we're having so much trouble pacifying Volodya? There's only a handful of rebels left alive, but they're fighting like devils. Can you blame them?"

  The long dark trip through his private hell passed. General Jackson took a deep breath, stood up ramrod straight, and became once more the iron-willed soldier of the new world order. "Burn them," he growled.

  Bowen didn't understand. "Sir?"

  "That's an order, Bowen! The minute you get air restored, get some plasma guns in here and incinerate everything. Not one speck of organic matter is to remain. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir ... I mean, no, sir. I don't—"

  "This. Never. Happened." Jackson enunciated each word like a gunshot. "Got that? Find the battlesuit vid records. Grab the remote probes. Erase everything. Then burn the erased cores. If it ever leaks out that our troops did something like this, the UN won't even bother with a war crimes trial. We'll be drawn and quartered on live TV!"

  Bowen staggered back from the general's shouting, then nodded.

  Any further discussion was cut off by the sudden arrival of Jackson's adjutant. "Sir!" He saluted crisply. "The Central Computer is partially reactivated!" Jackson and Bowen followed the adjutant out into the corridor. He led them to the nearest Central terminal.

  "The engineers are puzzled, though," the adjutant added. "All they can get is this message." He punched a few keys and pulled up a line of text on the video display: "CHERNOBYL SEQUENCE ACTIVATED."

  "Chernobyl?" Jackson whispered. "Holy Mother of—"

  Instantly he slapped the oversize button on his chest that brought his suit shields up to full power, then punched his comm unit into broadband command frequency. "Space Command! I need an immediate dust-off, Volodya south airlock! All units, disengage and evacuate now!"

  He felt the awesome rumble through his boots, an instant before the ceiling boiled away and the soldiers started screaming. Then a titanic shock wave lifted him off the floor and cast him lightly into the sky, as the top half of Colonel Bowen's battlesuit cartwheeled past, trailing a pink plume of vacuum-frozen blood. Jackson's suit shields went into overload then, surrounding him in a corruscating blue envelope of exploding energies, and he lived just long enough to see the first flare of the unholy light that would melt his eyeballs and flash-cook his brain.

  UN Headquarters, New York

  28 October 2069

  6:10 P.M. EST

  New York City squatted like a vast dark and sparkling beast, basking in the afterglow of a flaming orange and purple sunset. Lord Edward Haversham stood at the railing of the rooftop heliport, trench coat collar up against the chill evening air, watching the streetlights flicker on across the cityscape below and gazing at the thin crescent moon hanging low and bone-white in the western sky.

  Aguila let the elevator door hiss shut, dismissed the sunset with a glance, and joined Haversham at the edge of the roof. "They told me I'd find you up here."

  Slowly, without taking his eyes off the moon, Haversham nodded. "It's all over by now, isn't it?"

  Aguila glanced at his watch. "Yes, if everything went according to plan."

  Haversham considered that information for half a minute or more. "Any word yet on resistance?"

  Aguila fished his personal data assistant out of his jacket pocket, thumbed a few pads, and shook his head. "No, no reports of any kind. But then, you know the Peace Enforcement Command."

  Haversham laughed mirthlessly and shook his head. "Oh, I most certainly do. Leighton-Smythe could teach clams to keep their gobs shut. We'll see CNN interviewing the widows before we get any solid news out of him." Haversham buried his hands in his pockets, hunched deeper in his trench coat, and went back to staring at the moon and sighing.

  Aguila waited patiently.

  After another half minute or so, Haversham said quietly, "Antonio?" "Yes, Edward?"

  "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

  Aguila blinked, not quite understanding. "How do you mean? The Security Council's decision was clear. No one will question the legality of sending in the Peacekeepers."

  "Hmm." Haversham frowned, sniffed, then stood silent awhile longer. Slowly the sky faded to a darker starry purple, and the fidgeting whispers matured into the beginnings of a steady cool breeze. "It's not legality that concerns me," Haversham said at last. "Even Adolf Hitler started out with legalities."

  "Adolf Hitler," Aguila pointed out, "was a monster."

  "Was he?" Haversham's flat statement was such a mind-bo
ggling heresy that Aguila actually gasped in surprise.

  "No, don't misunderstand me," Haversham corrected quickly. "Hitler clearly became an unspeakable monster.

  But did he have to? What if just one trusted friend had said to him in 1933, 'Adolf, this is madness. It may be legal, but it's wrong.'"

  "Then that theoretical friend would have been the first one into the ovens," Aguila pointed out. "Nothing would have changed. The economic forces that drive history would still have been there; the twentieth century would still have unfolded exactly as it did."

  Haversham looked down, pursed his lips, and ground a shoe in the gravel rooftop. "I suppose you're right. Bloody damned history." He sighed again, then looked up at Aguila and favored him with a sad smile. "A man gets to be my age, he starts to realize that soon he'll be a part of history." Haversham nodded over his shoulder in the general direction of the setting moon. "So what do you think your role will be? Cornwallis or Rabin?"

  Aguila arched an eyebrow. "Sir?"

  "Colonies are like children, Antonio; sooner or later they must be set free. Will you be remembered as the heavy hand of the old order or the statesman who helped build a new world?"

  Aguila considered his answer, then spoke. "I think," he said slowly, "that you worry far too much. That"—he raised his left arm and pointed at the lunar crescent hanging fat and low in the western sky—"is a pathetic little brush-fire being staged by a bunch of noisy brats. In a day or so the Peacekeepers will have fully restored order. Within a week von Hayek and his gang of criminals will be back here"—he pointed emphatically at the rooftop of the building they stood upon—"awaiting trial for vandalizing UN property. Within a month this will all be forgotten, like those stupid norte americano grass-fire revolts of the 2030s!"

  Haversham stole a glance at the moon, then looked at Aguila. "You really think so?"