"This is just a scouting mission. There's a full-bore assault scheduled for Aristillus in the next few days."
John could hear Blue swallow over the com link.
Duncan asked, "So what's the good news?"
"We've got two AG units, a battery pack with some juice, and two maneuvering units."
"So -"
"So we've got everything we need to build our spaceship and get back to Aristillus.”
Chapter 111
2064: Homestyle Apartments, Aristillus, Lunar Nearside
The jammer sat on the table in the center of the room, buzzing slightly. Dewitt looked at it and wondered if it was accomplishing anything at all. If Kindig was right, it was a waste. Still, better safe than sorry.
Dewitt turned from the jammer and looked at his men - standing, sitting on cheap chairs, squatting on milk crates. General Restivo had given him carte blanche to recruit who he wanted. He'd taken full advantage of that - not a single AAS, all of them athletic, every one blooded in combat. And, of course, he'd picked men who had the same loyalties that he did.
"Are we unanimous?"
One by one his men gave him said "yes,” "hell yeah,” or gave him a thumbs up. Two men sighed in resignation but nodded their agreement.
Dewitt breathed out, relieved. "Let's run down our status."
Sergeant Ted Lummus went first. "I got all my charges in place on Tuesday. Yesterday I finished 'training' in Mike Martin's Second Morlock. They give everyone who’s completed the intro course access to their servers, at a junior level. Thing is, their opsec is a joke - an LT in the Second gave me a command password. I logged in and pulled everything down. You've got copies."
"Have you read it yet?"
"I've skimmed it."
"Thoughts?"
Lummus shrugged. "Their doctrine is a joke - tactics, lines of defense, rally points." He shook his head. "It's crap."
Sergeant Allan Sanderfur went next. "All my charges are in place too. My training with the militias is the same story - the 20th Guaranteed Electrical barely knows its ass from a hole in the ground. Order of battle, positions - " He shook his head. "Lots of 'form up here, hold this line, hope the shit doesn't hit the fan.'"
They went around the table. Each man gave details from the militia he'd infiltrated. The only major unit that they hadn't gotten details from was Trang's 30th Red Stripe skirmishers. Dewitt looked pointedly at Sergeant Ken Harbert. Harbert spread his hands. "I've got nothing, but that's not on me. At first I thought they had better security than the other units, but then I realized that there are no servers, no documents." He blinked in incomprehension. "I honestly don't think they have any doctrine at all."
After they'd all reported Vasquez turned to Dewitt. "What's your sitrep - anything else from your guy Kaspar?"
Dewitt grimaced. He'd been hoping that wasn't going to come up - he didn't want to distract his men with extraneous details just before the shit hit the fan. But now he'd been asked, point blank, and he wasn't about to lie. "Yeah, actually." He took a breath. "Turns out he knows who we are and has some half-baked idea of our mission."
There was a tumult. Lummus sprang to his feet first. "What?" A second later all of his men were standing.
Dewitt held up one hand and his men quieted and waited for his explanation. "He heard something from a friend. I'm assuming a leak at the DoD."
Sanderfur swore. "Fucking REMF mother fuckers!"
Vasquez asked, "Who else in Aristillus knows?"
Dewitt shrugged. "Best I can tell, no one."
"Are we in any danger from -"
Dewitt shook his head. "I made sure he won't talk."
"Shit, Captain. The plan has been compromised; do we -"
"We're not compromised; it's good. The quickest way through this is through this." He looked around. "Are we OK with this?"
They were.
Good. Back to the mission. "You've each got your weapons and body armor cached. Sergeant Sanderfur - ready to distribute the detonators?"
Sanderfur unzipped a bag and lifted out cardboard boxes. "I made the home-brew ones three days ago but I saw a chance to lift a case of factory issue from the work-site yesterday. I tested them. They're good." He placed the boxes on the table.
Dewitt nodded. A good decision: one less variable. "Any last questions or objections before I pull the trigger?"
There were none.
Dewitt picked up his slate, opened a hidden directory, dragged the third music file in the directory into a new email message, and typed in a memorized email address. His finger hovered over the send button for a second, and then he tapped it. The message went out and he stared at the phone, anxiously. A moment later the reply arrived. Dewitt read the screen and saw the expected code words. He turned to his men. "It's on." He took a deep breath. "This is the last time we'll see each other until it's over. God speed, and good hunting."
The men looked at each other, sharing glances loaded with recognition for the enormity of what they were about to do. Then, one after another, they took their boxes of detonators, lifted duffel bags, and filed out.
Finally it was just Dewitt and Sergeant Ted Lummus. Ted raised an eyebrow. "My feet feel a bit wet."
"We're not across the river yet."
Lummus picked up his duffel bag and turned to go.
Dewitt was alone in the room. He picked up the last box of detonators. He'd really grown fond of the people of Aristillus over the past months. They all had. And on the other hand, they'd sworn oaths to the US Army.
He held the detonators, weighing them.
Sometimes you could make compromises. A bit of this, a bit of that. Other times, though, you couldn't hedge. You had to make a decision and stick with it.
Dewitt sighed and slipped the box into the cargo pocket of his pants.
Chapter 112
2064: just west of Zhukovskiy Crater, Lunar Nearside
John stepped to the side and into the shadow of the PK ship as one of the two surviving mules walked past, dragging an improvised sledge piled high with rocks. The mule passed and he stepped back - and back into the sun.
They'd only been at it for a day, but the lifeboat project was already well under way. The "construction yard" next to the wrecked hulk of the PK ship was almost ready: Duncan and Blue were smoothing the last corner of it using rakes improvised from spare tent poles. Which meant that they were almost ready to start building.
As if on cue, Max said, "I think we can get it down to eight linear meters of welds."
John shook his head. "That's still way too much - we'll drain the mules' batteries before we're even half done."
Max tilted his head up, gesturing at the PK ship. "We don't have to depend on just the mules' batteries. We can tap the ship's power module."
John shook his head. "That battery pack is all the juice we have."
John saw Max scowl over the in-helmet channel. "The diagnostics say it's got twice what we need to get back to Aristillus, so we can spare -"
"Max, what happens if we screw up? If we short something out? That's the only high-density power source we've got. If we fuck it up, we're dead."
"OK. Fine. But I can't get the design much under eight meters of weld. We need more juice. If you won't let me us power module one, we can tap one of the others. The cables are melted, but maybe they still have a charge."
John thought about it. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. Think about the state of those boxes: the paint is blistered, the cables are burned. What're the insides like? Are the voltage regulators even working? The circuit breakers? Maybe we end up burning out the mule's MIG arm. Or, hell, even frying a mule."
"What other options are there?"
John exhaled. "I don't know."
Blue cleared his throat. "I have an idea."
John looked up. Blue was 40 meters away but had been listening in. The Dog put down his rake.
"I'm listening."
"We cannibalize batteries from Gamma."
"I don't
want to go into Zhukovskiy if we don't have to. That was a ground burst - things'll be hot."
"No, not into Zhukovskiy. Gamma had pickets all along the approach to this crater. I bet he had small surface mines or other facilities out there too. There's got to be lots of hardware scattered around that wasn't nuked. We track it down and scavenge the batteries."
John rolled the idea over. When Gamma was nuked all of his rovers had frozen in place. They'd already scavenged a few parts from the nearby ones. Conveniently for them, Gamma hadn't felt the need to reinvent the wheel. Everything the AI built or used, from screw threads to IP packet size, conformed to standards. Maybe the batteries did too.
John nodded. "Alright. Let's find some rovers."
Ten minutes later he and Blue were standing over a rover that had frozen in position 300 meters from the PK ship. John got down on both knees and peered at the machine. There: that had to be the battery compartment. He looked at the bolt for a second and pulled a 6 mm wrench from a cargo pocket. A moment later the door sprang open, revealing three batteries. John grabbed the pull rail on one and slid it from the chassis. He put the wrench down and took the battery in both hands, and then grinned.
"What?"
He showed it to Blue. The Dog leaned forward and then snorted in amusement. John chuckled with him, then broke into a full-throated laugh. "Gamma's one anal-retentive son of a bitch, isn't he?" Not only was the battery pack a standard model, but the Thingverse version number was even machined into the device below the heat sinks.
The battery packs would work.
John asked, "How many do we need?"
Blue took a moment to answer - he must be consulting plans on his display. Finally: "About 400."
John called out over the radio. "How's the construction yard coming?"
Max answered, "We'll be done raking in five minutes."
"Good. We've got to get this ship finished so we can get back to Aristillus ASAP."
"We know, John."
"I know. Sorry. Anyway, are you and Duncan in the mood to go hiking?"
"Why?"
"We need you to track down a hundred or so rovers and pull the batteries."
Max said, "Yeah, sure, if -"
Duncan interrupted. "Dead rovers? Cool! I know the timeline is wrong, but we could map these in as looting Barrow-wight downs."
John shook his head. "Is that a yes?"
"Yes!"
John looked at Blue. "You ready to start welding?"
* * *
John stood on the slanted deck of the ship and leaned back as a mule stepped past. The mule dragged one end of a steel anchor cable, the far end of which was spooling off the capstan at the bow. John said, "OK, that's far enough. Drop it."
Blue was teleoperating the mule; the machine let go of the end of the cable and scampered away. John lifted the welding unit, detatched the mule, turned the dial to 'cut,’ and struck a spark. A moment later he turned the welder off and waited for his helmet to fade to clear. He looked at his work. "That's the last one. Put it in place, please."
John put the welder down and stretched his back while Blue used the mule to drag the pieces of cable into position.
The mule draped the final piece of cable over the cargo container. Blue backed the mule away.
"Your turn. Do you have everything you need?"
John picked up the welder. "I think I can get by without masking gas." He picked up the cable, tacked it to the cargo container, and moved onto the next cable, working until the welder beeped a low-power alert in his helmet.
"We're done until Max and Duncan get back with more batteries."
Blue walked up to John and sat on the deck. "Do you think the PKs inside have died yet?"
John was silent for a moment and then said, "I figure so."
"Does it bother you?"
"I gave them the opportunity to surrender."
"That wasn't my question. I mean, I know Max is bloodthirsty, but you always said that you've seen enough of war, so I thought -"
"It had to be done."
Blue was silent, drawing John out.
Finally John said, "Look, it wasn't the first time I've killed, and given what's going on, I don't think it'll be the last." He paused, and then elaborated. "When it has to be done, it has to be done. What pisses me off is when people set up situations where someone has to die."
Blue remained silent.
John looked at Blue. The Dog was inscrutable behind his golden faceplate. John called up Blue's in-helmet cam. Not much more to read there. "You know that I didn't join the rebellions in Texas or Alaska, even though I had lots of friends who did."
"Because you thought that violence wasn't justified?"
"No. It was justified - people shouldn't have to give up their freedoms." John looked toward the crack in the crater wall that led to the site of Gamma's sprawling industrial corpse. "I just thought it was a doomed fight. The governments are too big...and too brutal. What's the point of fighting if you're going to lose? People - noncombatants - get hurt."
"So you didn't fight until now because you thought that you couldn't win?"
John sighed. "Yeah, I guess it was half that. And half, I was sick of fighting. By the time I finally realized I'd been on the wrong side my whole career, I was out of energy. I just wanted to get away." John looked at Blue. "I thought that if I could retreat - even if it meant leaving my home - even if it meant leaving Earth - I could avoid the whole mess."
Blue nodded but said nothing.
"I was wrong, though. We ran as far as we could, and the PKs followed us. And then they set up a situation where it was them or us. If I hadn't shot those peakers - and if you four hadn't reprogrammed the mules and killed the rest - we'd be dead. Or if even if they took us alive, you four would be euthanized and I'd be Gitmo-ed for life." John stared off into the distance. "I'm sorry, Blue, I've been rambling. What was your question again?"
"If it bothered you to kill the PKs in the ship?"
"Yeah. It does bother me. The kids I just killed? They don't intend to be evil. They went to government-run schools, they watched government-regulated media. They were fed nothing but bullshit. They thought that they were doing the right thing."
"So if PKs aren't choosing evil, why do they have to die?"
John stared off in the distance. "Why do any of us have to die?" He shrugged. "Once the government chooses to pick a fight, someone is going to die, either us or them. It shouldn't have to be that way, but that's the world we live in." He looked at Blue. "You know I'm not eager to kill. But I'll do it to defend myself, or to defend you three - or the rest of the Dogs back at Aristillus."
Blue nodded. "I know. We owe everything to you."
John and Blue sat in silence. Eventually Blue spoke again. "Do you think that Max looks forward to war a bit too much?"
John thought that over for a minute. "I think -"
John was interrupted as one of the mules crested the distant crater wall and relayed a stored message from Duncan and Max. "Hey guys - Christmas time!"
John stood and looked. On high magnification he could make the distant mule. On its back the solar tarp from the tent was rolled up and lashed down - and clearly stuffed full of cargo.
"Looks like we've got the first load of batteries."
* * *
Three hours later John stepped back and surveyed the work. The steel cable pieces were welded to the three cargo containers they needed, and the good power cable had been rerouted so that it connected the good power unit to an AG unit. John checked the twistlocks holding the cargo containers to the deck. They were all released.
"It's time."
Blue barked in acknowledgement.
John stepped onto the small porchlike platform he'd welded to one end of the AG drive container. Blue moved onto a similar platform welded to the maneuvering thruster unit.
John clipped his carabiner onto the railing and adjusted his safety line, and then pulled a data cord from his suit and plugged it in t
o the port on the AG unit. "Everyone ready?" There was a round of assents.
John scanned the area. "Damn it, Duncan, step back. This is the third time I've told you."
Duncan looked up. "Huh? Oh!" He shuffled back a few meters. John looked around one last time. They were ready. He called up the interface and hit the button. A moment later he heard the thrumming and felt the weird twist in his gut.
"I feel twitchy!"
"Duncan, stay off the radio."
"But what if I -"
"- unless you've got something important to say. But you don't, do you?"
Duncan didn't respond.
John waited a few seconds, but the AG unit didn't lift off the deck. He cranked the drive up a notch. The thrumming and pushing sensations grew stronger, and beneath his feet the platform shifted. The AG drive was tilting. John tightened his grip on the railing. The cargo container tilted further - and then it lifted.
The unit must not have been well balanced because it maintained its tilt as it rose. John chanced a glance down. As the AG drive he was riding rose into the void the thick electrical cable that connected it to the next container - the sole surviving battery unit - slithered and snaked across the ship's deck.
Just before the power cable reached its limit the first set of cannibalized anchor lines snapped taut and the drive unit immediately stopped rising. John lurched and caught himself. The drive unit pendulumed slowly back and forth over the ship's deck before settling into position.
John looked down. He and the AG unit were now suspended directly over the second cargo container - the power unit.
"Blue, is the battery container moving?"
"It shifted a bit, but it's still flat on the deck."
"I'm going to give it another click."
John gave the command and the AG unit spun up another step. The thrumming rose into deep vibrating chords and washed over him. The twisting redoubled and the field pushed him backward into the railing, and then the entire balcony lurched as the AG unit began climbing again.
Blue called out, "It's off the deck!"
John saw the shadows of the two containers moving across the dead PK ship as the cargo units rose. Then the balcony lurched again as the final set of cables went taut.
The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1) Page 49