by Bruce Bethke
The Palestian spread his hands, and Bunny knew he was frowning inside his helmet, but she repeated her negative gesture until he raised a hand in acquiescence. Although the thought of using the heavier weapons was tantalizing, Bunny knew there had to be a reason why the rebels weren't using them. Maybe they'd been booby-trapped. And even if they weren't, their discharge signature was notably different from that of the laser pistol. All the other Peacekeeper units involved in this mission were armed with the little H&K laser pistols; using a rebel ACR might well bring a barrage of so-called friendly fire down upon her unit.
Still, the discovery of the cache disturbed her for more than one reason. Where were the Loonies getting their heavy weapons? she wondered. And why weren't they using them? All the rebels her squad had encountered so far were armed with H&K pistols. This weapons cache didn't make sense, and Bunny didn't like things that didn't make sense.
A synthetic voice crackled in her ear as the battle computer broke radio silence and disturbed her thoughts. "Red Team, Sector Three alert! Blue Team from Fourth Platoon reports contact with multiple hostile units."
She was grateful for the warning, as a moment later a green laser bolt exploded bare meters in front of her. She sprinted around the octagon and threw herself flat on the floor, then fired a quick burst at the first white-clad Loonie she saw. There were several of them and they were in a bad position, caught in a giant chamber between her Reds and the Blue Team from Fourth Platoon.
The Blue Team had entered from the north and had taken a position one level above the ground floor, behind two massive gray columns. From there they were content to hold their ground, keeping the exposed Loonies pinned without much risk to themselves.
Cowards, Bunny thought as a bolt exploded against her shields and she staggered. The Blue Team was safely hidden away, but she and her Reds were caught at the open entrance to the giant chamber, where there was no protection to be found. Ali Sayed had fallen in the first exchange, leaving only Bunny and Nasrullah to hold their position and keep the rebels trapped in the room. Unfortunately, they had little choice except to keep moving and shooting, and hope that the rebels' shields gave out first.
She fired two more quick bursts and grinned with satisfaction as a blue glow exploded around a Loonie, knocking him backwards a good six feet. As he slammed against a wall, a Blue Team trooper stepped out from behind his pillar and fired three shots into the man's chest. The rebel slumped to the floor as his shields were overloaded by the laser, killing him instantly.
Die, sucker, Bunny thought as she rolled to her left and fired another burst. It missed, and she heard a crash as a blue-clad figure fell heavily to the floor beside her.
It was Nasrullah, and he wasn't moving. She swore and triggered the command frequency.
"Asrad, forget that door and get over here now! Masrur, get your boys and whatever's left of Green to East Sector Three as fast as you can. We got two rebel teams trapped, but I got three down, and it looks like the Loonies trying to break west." "Roger, Red Leader."
She fired another double burst and another white figure fell to the floor. Masrur, where are you? It wasn't long, but the strike team leader's response seemed to take hours.
"I'll be over as soon as I can," Masrur shouted. "We've got our hands full at the moment!" His voice clicked out.
Oh, shit, Bunny thought, and then she didn't have time to think any more as the five remaining Loonies charged towards her position, lasers blazing. Two members of the concealed Blue Team slipped out again from behind their pillars and concentrated fire on the rearmost rebel, who dropped to the floor in a massive blue-green energy discharge. Bunny fired a double burst at the visor of the rebel in front, then snarled with satisfaction as he clapped both hands to his head and fell.
She rolled behind Nasrullah's body, narrowly avoiding the beams that bit at the spot she'd just vacated. The three remaining rebels were only ten feet in front of her now, and she knew she'd be lucky if she managed to take even one of them down.
Where the hell is Asrad? she wondered, even as she fired a long burst that spun one of the rebels around and into a wall. He started to push off from the wall, but Asrad, coming at a run from around the corner, fired two quick shots, and the rebel collapsed, shields flaring. The other rebels returned fire, and Asrad dived behind a pile of wreckage, barely avoiding the laser beams that struck just above his head.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she frantically tried to swing the pistol across her body and bring it to bear on the last two rebels. But she could see she was going to be too late as they charged toward her, each with a laser leveled at her midsection.
Mahoney screamed as the green bolts smashed into her shields, sending her flying into a corner of the octagon behind her. Too stunned by the impact to even try to roll sideways and reach for the weapon she'd dropped, she stared dully at the ceiling and waited for the next burst to finish her off.
But it never came. The two men in white sprinted past her and past the octagonal weapons cache, ignoring both ATFOR troopers as they ran toward a blue door to the west. Asrad squeezed off a few wild shots at their disappearing back, but they hit well wide of the mark.
Bunny almost sobbed with relief, then gathered herself together enough to call out to Masrur. "Two of them got past us, and I think they're going for the airlock in West Sector Three."
"Roger, Red Leader."
There was a long moment of silence, when all Bunny heard was the sound of her breathing, then she heard a deep voice with an American accent.
"Ix-nay those Loonies you missed, honey bunny. They're deader'n a doornail. South Sector's clear too, just in case you were curious. Hang tight and we'll be there in a second."
Bunny rolled her eyes as she reached for the pistol she'd dropped. Colonel Houston, she thought. Of all the bastards to get bailed out by.
She switched to Houston's direct frequency. "Don't worry about it, Colonel. Fourth Platoon Blue Team is here with us."
"Roger. We'll go west, then, and help mop up. Tell Blue Leader to meet us there."
"Yes, sir." Bunny lay back and closed her eyes. Her ribs hurt.
Asrad spoke up. "Are you okay, Captain?" She opened her eyes. He was standing over her, extending a hand.
"I'm fine. Soon as I get my shields juiced, I'll be fine." But she didn't feel fine as she stood up and looked around the destruction in the chamber. Nasrullah and Ali Sayed lay dead, not far from the white-armored bodies of the two Loonies she and Asrad had killed. Farther down the hall, Fourth Platoon was stripping dead rebels of their pistols and power packs.
Oh no! She could have kicked herself, as the thought that her Blue Team was still engaged on the west side of the dome made its way through her foggy brain. "Masrur, report. We've got things under control here. Do you need help?"
To her endless relief, Masrur answered immediately. "Negative, Captain. We're still trying to dig a few last rebels out of their hole. There's four of them holed up behind some heavy machinery."
"Take your time, then, Masrur. I don't want any more casualties. No direct assault."
"Roger. After we got split up during the ambush, we hooked up with the First. They've got a few grenades, but we're going to see if we can get those rebels to surrender before we have to use them."
Great, Bunny thought. First I lose half my men, then somebody else has to save the other half. Just perfect.
She switched to a private frequency and asked the question she was dreading. "How many did you lose, Masrur."
"None of mine. But Rasul was the only Green to make it. He's with us."
"Hasan didn't make it?"
"He went down first, I think. Never had a chance. Red lose anyone?"
"Yunis in the ambush, Nasrullah and Ali Sayed later. Asrad is with me."
"Inshallah," Masrur replied philosophically. He offered no criticism, and his tone was as polite as ever.
But Bunny had no doubt that the respect she'd won with such difficulty on the
transport was gone. Combat was the only test that mattered, and it was a test she'd failed badly. Out of her twelve men, she'd managed to lose six. And even looking back on what had happened, she still couldn't figure out what had gone wrong or where she'd screwed up.
War in general left little room for mistakes, but lunar combat left none. In the Moon's hostile environment, a soldier wasn't likely to get wounded, since a punctured battlesuit meant rapid death. And though energy shields were designed to effectively protect against projectile weapons, lasers and other energy weapons quickly burned them away to nothing.
It was Hasan's death that bothered her the most. Although she would miss Faroukh's wit and ready laugh, the joker's razor-edged tongue had also caused many disruptions. But Hasan, the reflective NCO of Green Team, had always been a reliable and steady element in Squad Two. Now he was dead, and with him his solid support. At least it had been quick.
Where did the Loonies get the lasers? Bunny wondered. HQ told us they'd only have bullet-guns, or homemade beamers in the worst case. But H&Ks?
"Captain?" Masrur was still waiting for his orders.
"Oh ... sorry, Masrur. Stay with First Platoon for now. Asrad and I will join up with Fourth, then meet you near the Sector Three airlock when things are wrapped up here. You might want to tell Captain Mathews to save the grenades. Colonel Houston has an LG-Four team that can blast the rebels out if they won't come out on their own."
"Roger, Captain. See you soon."
Inside her helmet, Bunny shook her head as Asrad handed her three energy packs. There was a snick as she plugged two of them into place, and a brief bluish glow as the shield power returned to full. She attached the third to her belt, then popped a new power cell into her pistol.
I'm still missing something, she thought. The Loonies have weapons cached all over the place, but it's almost like they don't know where everything is. There's something that doesn't make sense here, and I don't like it.
New York City
7 November 2069
3:00 A.M. EST
The bedside comm unit chirped urgently. Jurgen Flanders rolled over, brushed his unruly blond hair back from his face, and fumbled around until he found his glasses. Groping for the light switch, he found his alarm clock instead. "Three A.M.? Who in God's name would be calling me at—" The comm unit chirped again.
He thumbed the acknowledge button. "Yes, Senor Aguila?"
"Jurgen, I have got a job for you. The ATFOR units are continuing to turn up caches of weapons. Military weapons."
Jurgen blinked and rubbed his face with his free hand. "Yeah. So?"
"So how did the Lunar colonists do it? Where did these weapons come from? How did the rebels manage to acquire battlesuits nearly as good as our own?"
Jurgen yawned. "Beats me. How?"
"That is what I want you to find out. We have the ship's manifest for every transport that has gone to the Moon in the last twenty years. I need you to search those records and find out how the weapons were smuggled in. And I need a complete report no later than eight o'clock."
"Eight A.M.? But that's"—Jurgen paused to do the subtraction—"five hours!"
"Right. So you'd better get busy." Aguila rang off.
Jurgen waited until the call was safely disconnected, then sat up in bed, switched on the bedside light, and looked straight at the comm panel. "I quit," he said, his voice loud and clear. Then he noticed the caller I.D. readout, rubbed his eyes, and took a closer look.
"He called from the office?" Jurgen said in quiet wonder.
The Grimaldi Gambit
As the stalemate ground on into its third week, two things became painfully evident to von Hayek and the Council of Lunar Governors. The first was that the United Nations was in no mood to negotiate and was in fact continuing to reinforce its position with fresh shipments of troops and materiel. True, there was a form of nonverbal communication going on, via the automatic cargo launchers. When the rebels tried shutting them down, General Daniels stepped up her raids; when the food shipments resumed, General Daniels backed off somewhat, but did not stop. More than once von Hayek, Adams, and the council toyed with the idea of demolishing the launchers, but in truth they all realized this would be a futile and suicidal tactic. The food shipments were the rebels' only real bargaining chip: if the launchers were wrecked, there would be nothing left to stop ATFOR from attacking in full force.
So the idea of another, somewhat more controlled Volodya remained a tantalizing phantasm, and the rebels concentrated on the second great problem. Despite the rapidly increasing competence of the LDF and the Lunar Militia, it was becoming painfully obvious that the lightly armed and armored lunar soldiers could not hope to stand against the newer and more powerful weapons that ATFOR was bringing to bear. True, the rebel labs were producing some astonishing new developments — the portable railgun, for example, and of course MANTA, the top-secret development that overshadowed all others — but the grim truth was that the rebels could not hope to survive, unless they could destroy or, better yet, appropriate the newly arrived United Nations weapons.
With this thought in mind, von Hayek reconsidered the MANTA project. It was by this time showing tremendous promise and had become stable and replicable in the lab, although it had yet to work under field conditions. Thus, in desperation, was conceived the high-stakes gamble known as the Grimaldi Raid.
— Chaim Noguchi, A History of the Lunar Revolution
Chapter 11
Port Aldrin, Luna
Block J64, Apartment 23
14 November 2069
09:30 GMT
Dalton lay alone in his bed, staring at the ceiling. It'd been two weeks now since Dara died. Two weeks of shuffling through life, getting out of bed when Terrell Davis made him do it, eating food when Svetlana Kosov stopped by and ordered it. He'd made it into work a few days, not that there was much to do. Hit a couple of militia training meetings, but just couldn't get into it. Shaved when he remembered to, brushed his teeth when they felt gritty. But otherwise he just lay in bed, staring at the pale gray ceiling.
In an abstract way he noticed that he was hungry. Svetlana hadn't stopped by in a day or two, now that he thought about it. She'd been getting increasingly wiggy from those antidepressants she was popping like candy; maybe she'd finally flipped out. If so, so what? Maybe she was lucky. Dara was dead, and nothing was ever going to change that.
Unconsciously Dalton dragged a hand up to his chest and dropped it on his sternum. Where was the hole? From the inside it felt like there should have been a hole the size of a basketball there. But instead, all Dalton felt was ... Nothing.
That was the scary part. It wasn't as if he and Dara had been head over heels in love. Sometimes he'd thought they were, but they weren't engaged or married or even officially going steady. They hadn't even been particularly good friends outside of the bedroom.
Still he missed her. But he didn't miss her. She would never again knock at the door, nag him about his laundry, or try to talk him into changing the way he cut his hair. ...
The comm system chirped. Irritably he reached up and thumbed the acknowledge button. "What?"
"Icehawk? It's me, Jeff. How you doing?"
"Okay." Faintly Dalton felt the soft twitch of something in his jaw muscles that might have been an embryonic smile. Young Jeff Mahoney had apparently taken it upon himself to haul Dalton out of this funk. He'd been calling at least twice daily when he was off duty, trying to talk Dalton into playing some games, working overtime to drag him out of his shell. It was almost touching, the kid was so earnest. Dalton could see him in a few years, bringing old man Starkiller a deck of cards and some nuts for the squirrels, taking his wheelchair for a roll in the park.
"So," Mahoney said, "you feel up to playing Beamrider?"
Dalton thought it over. "What the hell. Sure. Give me a minute." He pulled the flatscreen down from its recess in the headboard, logged into Luna Web, and jumped into the game.
"Pssht. Captain Iceha
wk, report!" Young Mahoney's voice sounded strangely distorted through the speakers. Probably some audio filtering algorithm in the game, Dalton thought.
He checked his heads-up display. Oh, blast, level 23 again. "Uh, FlightCom? I'm picking up a distress signal from the third moon." Dalton tried, he really tried to get into the spirit of the game.
"Uh, roger that, Captain," Mahoney answered. "We're getting something very strange here, too. I'm looking at a multiscan of the pulse frequencies, and we're getting thousands of hits. Three thousand one hundred thirty-six, to be exact, and they weren't there twenty minutes ago."
Dalton yawned. "Frequency seems to indicate you're picking up the drive signature from some kind of a starship, sir."
Mahoney seemed excited. "As incredible as it may seem, that's what the techs say, too! But the drive type is totally different from anything we've ever seen before. And there's three thousand of them ... more!"
Dalton scratched his head. "Okay, uh, request permission to break my patrol and check it out, sir."
"Negative that, Captain. We're sending in a flight of heavy fighters. That scout of yours doesn't have the armor or shields to stand up to heavy weapons, and if this is an invasion fleet, they'll be armed for bear."
Dalton checked his heads-up display one more time, then decided, what the hell. "Screw it, Mahoney. I'm going in. Record this play, if you wanna."
"Captain Icehawk! You are violating—" Mahoney dropped out of character. "Dalt, you're gonna kill yourself!"
"That's the idea, Mahoney." Dalton powered up his weapons, diverted all reserves to his forward shields, and dived straight into the heart of the enemy fleet. He lasted almost thirty seconds before his screen flared white in the final explosion.
"Uh, Dalt?" Mahoney was back to normal voice now; a kid, nervous. "Are you okay?"