by Bruce Bethke
Dalton looked at his timer. "Two minutes, twenty seconds."
"Perfect!"
Josef von Hayek had to admit that while he'd been in some hairy situations before, this one pretty much took the cake and launched it out past Saturn. Another team of UN troopers entered from the second-story entrance to the west and were setting up what appeared to be an LM-411 mortar. Also another pair of flying drones had arrived, and these were bigger and equipped with missiles. The mortar was essentially a heavy and much less portable version of the pistol he wore holstered at his side, and while he had no doubt its power would suffice to blast through his shields, he was surprised that the Terrans were willing to sacrifice the plasma cannons still crated in the boxes that shielded the commandos.
Unless they want to take us alive. That was okay for the others, he thought, and he would encourage Britt and Stahl to give themselves up. After two weeks of fighting, ATFOR still didn't have a single live POW to its credit, and the rumor was floating around the LDF that ATFOR had issued secret orders to summarily execute any captured "terrorists."
But the rumor was false, Josef knew. The truth was that lunar combat quickly sorted men into two groups—the quick and the dead—and left little opportunity for wounded prisoners. General Consensus held that this fact had to be working against the UN's public relations and that ATFOR would be eager to take prisoners.
So he wasn't worried about how his men would be treated. And he was also sure that he'd be treated like a prince, albeit a captured one. But he would also be a weapon for the UN to use against both his father and the cause. Never! He looked down at the thick silver tines of the plasma cannon and grinned ruefully. Just stick your head in between them and pull: that'll melt her down real quick. A glorious death for the cause.
He'd wait awhile, though. First he had to get the other two safely captured. If he ordered them to let the dirts know just who he was, they'd hold off on the mortar and missiles for a bit. He could demand a negotiating team and probably even a live camera. Then, just when billions of Terrans were watching the standoff in suspense, he'd do it.
Go out with a bang, baby, just like those Volodyans. Thinking of their cataclysmic gesture of defiance, he felt a tightness in his chest and a pressure behind his eyes. I am lucky to have this opportunity to make such a dramatic statement before so many people. After two thousand years, mankind still remembered Masada; in two thousand more, they would still remember Volodya. And perhaps—just maybe—him.
Unless, of course, they decide to blow us away with that damn thing, he thought ironically as he returned his attention to the fire team with the mortar up on the ledge. Good thing Jeff and the others didn't get trapped here with us.
Then he was startled by a familiar voice: "Colonel, are you there?"
"Akkerman! Where the hell are you? Is Starkiller still with—" "Sir, get the disks ready now!" "You mean MANTA—"
"Sir, you've got a thirty-second window starting in less than two minutes. Now get those goddam disks ready!" The link went dead, and von Hayek's mouth dropped open for only a second as he recovered from his astonishment and shrugged himself free of the plasma-gun harness.
"Stahl! Godfrey!" he shouted. "MANTA disks! Get them out now!" Free of the harness, he tore off his white backpack and hurriedly extracted a strange, luminescent blue square. It was no more than three inches thick, and as pliable as a sheet of rubber. Unlike rubber, however, it glowed with a pale blue light of its own.
"How much time do we have?" Stahl shouted. They were on regular frequencies now, not caring if their broadcasts were intercepted.
"None, so hurry up!" Von Hayek got his third and last disk laid out, then looked up at the ledge. "We've got to take that mortar out or they'll use it to cut us to shreds once they see what's going on!"
Bunny glared unhappily at the Danish major, who had taken over command of the situation once he'd arrived on the scene. She'd pressed for an immediate assault once the probes and mortar team arrived, but had been overruled by the major, who wanted to capture the trapped commandos.
Staring down from the ledge, she could see signs of movement behind the black crates. That made her uneasy; there was no way the rebels could get past a full squad of ATFOR troops plus the mortar team, laser drones, and garrison soldiers. But maybe escape was not their goal. God, please don't let them have some kind of nuke down there! A shiver ran down her spine, and she wondered if the Danish major would allow her to pull her men back.
"We have you surrounded." The major's amplified voice echoed throughout the vast chamber. "Lay down your arms and come forward with your hands on your heads. You will not be harmed. If you do not come out, you will be destroyed."
Good luck, Bunny thought as she waited expectantly for the defiant response she was sure would be forthcoming. None of the Loonies trapped at Imbrium had surrendered, instead forcing the Third Platoon to dig them out in a direct assault. Those rebels had died, of course, but not before killing a lieutenant and several squaddies.
But the expected volley never came, which only made Bunny all the more nervous. She looked over at the major and caught his attention by waving her hand.
"So now what?" Bunny asked him. "They're not coming out. I'm telling you, they're up to something down there. Take them out now!"
The major disagreed. "What would they be up to? Give them some time. They're not just going to come running out with their hands in the air."
"What if they've got a nuke?" Bunny conjectured. "Maybe they're wiring it up right now!"
"Maybe they are. Or maybe they've got a deadman's switch set to blow if we shoot them. Did you ever think about that?"
"No, but—"
"And do you really want to explain to Leighton-Smythe just why we had to destroy those crates? We need those cannons! And also, this is our first real chance to take some prisoners."
Dismayed, Bunny started to open her mouth, but before she managed to get any words out, there was a soft whoosh followed immediately by a loud explosion on the western ledge. Dropping to her stomach, she quickly looked down toward the crates but saw no flashes of white that would indicate activity among the commandos. Stunned and confused, she drew her laser and cautiously crawled back toward her squad.
* * *
"Is the shield down yet? Hurry, Starkiller. We've got to get out of here soon!"
Dalton waved him away irritably. "Hold on. I'm trying to concentrate!" He was now logged into the Grimaldi net as the pilot of the shuttle from Sinus Rons coming in on its final approach to the landing zone.
The trafficon requested his flight I.D. number, and one of the gremlins he was running returned it automatically. He mentally crossed his fingers, then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the green light flashing its approval.
"Shuttle SR-A four, you are cleared for landing. Hold your current position until you hear the signal indicating the shield is clear." There was silence for a short moment that seemed like an eternity, and then the computer voice returned. "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one." There was a beep. Then: "You may begin your approach."
Yes! Dalton quickly hit his bugout key and abandoned the gremlin, leaving it to try to bluff the trafficon, which would grow confused and suspicious once its sensors reported that there was in fact no shuttle anywhere near Grimaldi. He was just about to log out for good when one of the gremlins he'd left futilely smashing itself against the security firewall unexpectedly returned.
"It's down!" one of the MANTA techs shouted. "The Grimaldi shield is down!" In the control room there was a loud cheer, though more than one throat sounded ragged with fatigue.
"Go, dammit!" Adams screamed at the waiting commandos. "Go, go, go!"
The commandos leaped forward and, one by one, disappeared in a blinding flash of blue light.
"Starkiller, we have to leave. Now. They'll be sending a patrol this way any minute!" There was a desperate edge to Akkerman's voice as he pleaded with Dalton, frequently casting a nervous eye down the corrid
or.
"Hang on. I've found something interesting."
"Oh, for God's sake, Dalton, we really don't have time for this."
"No, hang on. I just got access to the cameras attached to those floating probe things."
"Really?" In spite of himself, Akkerman was impressed. "Can you see anything?"
"Yeah, I think I can even control it, sort of."
"Control what?" Akkerman asked.
"The probe thing." Dalton reached over to the norton and flipped the mini-joystick up. "Holy cats!"
"What is it?"
"I think I just found Britt and two others. Damn, they're surrounded! Let's see if we can't do something about that."
There was another explosion, and Bunny felt her shields flare momentarily as a wave of heat passed over her. She rolled over on her back and saw that the mortar had been destroyed and the entire eastern ledge was engulfed in flame.
"It's the probes, it's the probes!" she heard Asrad shouting behind her.
She looked ahead of her and saw a missile probe slowly turning to face her. Three of its missiles were missing and had presumably been fired, but the sharp red tips of the remaining one pointed at her like a silent hunter's arrow aimed directly at her heart.
Her pistol was still in her hand, though, and she squeezed the trigger twice, firing two bursts that caught the little drone directly in the camera lens. It erupted into a small ball of fire and made a burning nosedive for the floor fifteen meters below. Sweet Jesus, that was too close! She turned to see her men advancing, firing at the two remaining probes and quickly destroying both.
"Let's get out of here!" Bunny gestured toward the door behind them. "That way!"
But when she reached the door, one man was already there, making a negative gesture with his hands. "It's locked! We can't—" A pink stream of hot plasma cut off his sentence as it burned through his shields and melted a hole in his chest.
Murad turned and fired two shots, but before he could get off a third, he was burned down as well.
Again she dropped to her stomach and, using her arms, spun herself around like a spider. Down below the ledge she could see white-clad troopers moving about and firing methodically. There seemed to be a lot of them, so she quickly started counting and came up with twenty. That was impossible, but there they were. Most of them were now armed with plasma cannons; she looked at the pistol in her hand and, shrugging helplessly, slid it into the holster at her hip. Where the hell had they come from? she wondered.
To the left, the last of the Third Platoon men fell to the Whitesuits, and she saw the Danish major stand up and put his hands on his head.
Well, when in Rome... Bunny stood up too, put her hands up, and indicated to her surviving men that they should do the same.
Chapter 15
Grimaldi
14 November 2069
22:00 GMT
Dalton whooped as the two missiles from the probe slammed into the mortar. That would at least give the squad a fighting chance, he thought. He turned the probe toward the northern ledge and was disappointed when the vid suddenly went black and kicked him out. He wondered if he'd lost the link somehow or if somebody had taken it down. Determined to help the commandos in any way he could, he raced through the map and used his new security access to lock all three entrances into the warehouse. He figured that would even the odds a little if they couldn't bring up any more artillery.
He noticed a yellow security alert suddenly start blinking on the icon of a probe patrolling well to the south of the warehouse. Curious, he switched his view over to the probe and saw two white-armored LDF commandos, one leaping to the side and firing wildly at the camera, the other kneeling almost motionless before the blinking lights of a computer panel. Something about the scene seemed strangely familiar and he wrinkled his brow.
Then it hit him, literally, as a burst of blue light enshrouded him and his shields ablated before the force of a direct laser hit.
"Dammit, Dalton!" Akkerman screamed and fired another three-round burst at the hovering probe before it could fire again. All three beams struck home, and the probe exploded. "Get up! We gotta move now!"
Dalton struggled to his feet, leaning against the wall to help recover his balance. Realizing his norton had come unplugged from his forearm socket and was still jacked into the wall panel, he turned back—and saw UN troops coming toward them at a sprint from around the corner.
"Run, damn you. Run!" Akkerman was screaming at him, but Akkerman himself wasn't running. Instead, he was kneeling in a doorway and firing down the hall at the Bluesuits.
"No! We stick together," Dalton said.
"Wrong! I'm the soldier; you're the specialist! If only one of us gets out of here, it has to be you." Akkerman shifted his position slightly as the UN soldiers drew nearer. "Leave them to me. I'll catch up with you later, if I can."
Dalton turned and ran, his shoulders tense as he waited for the inevitable shot to hit him in the back. But it never came; aside from one errant beam that tore a chunk of plaz from the ceiling above him, nothing came near him. Akkerman must have succeeded in drawing their attention.
He sacrificed himself for me. Why? Having turned several corners, Dalton was now thoroughly lost, despite his map. Fighting a suicidal sense of desperation that urged him to walk back the way he had come, Dalton drew his pistol and continued to move on. At least I took the shield down, he thought. I did whatever it was they brought me along to do. Was it enough to make a difference?
"Can't anyone tell me what the hell is going on in there?" Chuck Houston gestured past the giant computers toward the north side of the control room, glaring at his beleaguered staff sergeant as he did so. They'd been receiving confusing and conflicting reports from several of the squad leaders who'd reported contact with the enemy, and even the occasional vid glimpse of white-armored commandos caught by roving laser probes hadn't answered any of his questions.
Where are they coming from? How many are there? Why are they equipped with such heavy battle armor? And where did they get it?
"They've gotta be mercs," he announced finally. "There's only fifty thousand people up here, for chrissake, and they're all scientists!"
This certainly wasn't like the battle at Tranquillity, where the Loonies had used mostly homemade weapons, or like the one at Imbrium, where they'd brought new model H&Ks to the party. And these Grimaldi invaders had better armor than his own platoon, which, combined with the plasma guns, let them easily overwhelm the outgunned ATFOR troopers.
"Have you been able to raise Captain Mahoney yet?" he asked for the fifth time, even though he knew the answer.
"No, sir," the comm tech replied patiently. "BatCom says her I.D. was green before she went off the net, but hasn't been able to connect with her since things went to hell in that warehouse. Captain DeVries thinks the Loonies might've dug a tunnel to the vents beneath the warehouse."
"Impossible! SpaceCom did a satscan."
"The Loonies' tunnel could've been shielded." Staff Sergeant Saunders had been listening.
"Two hundred klicks' worth? There isn't that much metal on the moon."
"Yeah, well those battlesuits shouldn't be here either."
Houston grimly watched the display before him. A squad of garrison troops supported by two probes, one of which was supplying the vid feed, had set up a defensive position not more than fifty meters outside of the command center.
The LDF troops rounding the corner didn't even bother to take cover; they simply let their heavy shields absorb the ineffective chemlaser fire, then returned a devastating barrage of plasma that forced the surviving Bluesuits to retreat.
The cam view dipped and weaved as the little probe tried to avoid the molten streams, firing back its futile green bolts all the while, until it zigged when it should have zagged, and the view in the captain's display faded away to nothing.
"Colonel, BatCom's lost contact with Sergeant Fatwa. The rebels must be coming up from the south as well, sir."
"Get me Major Xiong at SpaceCom. I want a hot link now!"
"Roger, Colonel." The comm tech ducked her head and spoke quickly and quietly as she rapidly punched buttons on her control panel. "You're in, sir."
"Ah, Colonel Houston, I see." The major's voice was distant, but polite. "What can I do for you? This is a matter of some urgency?"
"You could say that, Major. We need a dust-off, pronto. Looks like the zone'll be roasting in five, maybe less. We don't have time to wait for a shuttle from Imbrium. They've got heavy armor and plasguns, and our popguns can't stop them!"
"Heavy armor? Plasma guns? That can't be right!" "I assure you it is, Major. Now, can you get us out of here?"
There was a long pause, and Houston held his breath. "This isn't, ah, another Volodya situation, is it?" the major said finally.
"No, sir, they don't need to blow this dome. They're kicking our butts right out of it."
"Very well," the major said, and Houston sighed with relief. "How many men do you have?"
Houston looked around him. Out of the platoon's twenty-five soldiers, only seven were left, including him. There were another five men from the Grimaldi garrison, plus three civilian ATFOR engineers.
"Fifteen in all, sir. We could probably cram ourselves into two gunships, maybe three." "Okay. Hang on a second."
Houston waited anxiously, as the sounds of combat to the south grew louder. He waved to Sergeant Saunders. "We're going out the north airlock as soon as I give the word. Make sure the engineers and garrison boys are ready."
"Yes, sir."
"Colonel Houston?" Xiong asked. "Right here, Major!"
"We've got two gunships on the way to you, ETA three minutes plus. I'll patch you through to them now. Good luck, Colonel."
"Thank you, sir." Chuck Houston had never meant those words more in his life.