by Garon Whited
Firing a battleship’s guns is no small matter. The deck has to be cleared before they pull the trigger; the shockwave from the muzzle blast will knock a man down with a nosebleed and deafen him forever. I was watching from another ship, headed out to sea, and the thunder of those guns still hit me like a falling wall. My ears rang, and I saw a cloud of flame erupt, larger than the battleship itself. It looked as if she blew up, leaving only a cloud of smoke and white water. Then the breeze carried the smoke over her and beyond her, and she emerged like a ghost from a fog, unscathed.
It impressed the dickens out of me, and I’ve never forgotten.
Sadly, firing space artillery is nowhere near as interesting. We worked the math, told the computer, and watched through a remote camera while large, dark objects went zipping soundlessly away down the coilgun track, one after the other.
“That’s all of them?” I asked.
“Yessir,” Li replied.
I shook my head. It just didn’t seem right, somehow. A big honkin’ gun really ought to have a big honkin’ boom to go with it. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I made a note to see if we had a sound bite of a cannon firing. The computer could at least play a sound.
I turned to Captain Carl.
“Artillery away, sir,” said I, and he turned to Kathy.
“Begin your preparations for launch, commander.”
“Aye, Sir!” She saluted, he returned it, and off she went. He turned back to Li and me.
“Well done, Petty Officer Li. Work with Petty Officer Armanova to track our missiles and confirm they are on course.”
“Aye, Sir.”
“Commander Hardy. Walk with me.”
I blinked, but bounced to my feet and followed him out the door. We walked down the passageway in silence for a while, passing the occasional person, until we reached his office. He closed the door and gestured me to a chair. While I sat down, he poured himself some water, asked me with his eyes, and I declined the same way. He sat down behind his desk and rolled the glass between his palms.
“So, Maxwell, how are your exercises coming?”
“Haven’t had a lot of time, sir,” I admitted. “I’ve been working hard though, even in lunar gravity. Last I checked, I’m back on track for endurance, but my bench press is still down a bit.”
“I understand completely. You’re still the biggest, strongest man on the base.”
“I didn’t plan on it, sir.”
He chuckled. “I know.” Then he looked more serious. “Maxwell, if I asked you to make a gun for me—a handgun—could you do it?”
“Yes, Sir.” The question surprised me, but the answer was obvious.
“Is there anyone in your shop section who could do it?”
“Mmm.” I thought about it. “I think a few of them could, yes, with a lot of trial and error. There are a lot of tight tolerances required, and even an air gun can be complicated. One of the tricky bits would be machining the needle ammo, mainly because if the needle isn’t darn near perfect, the spin from the rifling is going to make it tumble—”
“I understand that. Has anyone been working on such a project?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Could it be done without your knowledge?”
I thought about it. The musical instruments, back when we threw the party for Busted Satellite Day, had surprised me. I kept a closer eye on things since then, but I’m not Argus. Still, Peng was on the ball, and guns would be extremely unusual…
“Without my personal knowledge? Yes, Sir. But I don’t think it could be done without my hearing about it. Too many different sorts of equipment would have to be used, and it would take too many hours out of our schedule—and our schedule, sir, has been pretty damn full, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Of course.”
“May I ask why you ask, sir?”
Captain Carl sipped at his water and put it carefully down.
“Before I answer that, what do you think of our Marines?”
Once again, I paused for thought.
“They’re green, sir. I don’t know that they’re Marines, not like real Marines. I feel confident I could take any one of them, and maybe take any two. Real Marines don’t leave me with that impression. But, well… maybe they’ll grow into it. I guess they’re the best we have.”
“I agree with all points of your assessment, and we’re sending them off to Heinlein Station to rescue one of our officers from hostile forces. To that end, I made the decision that they should carry all the armaments available. Ensign Tsien and his three most level-headed subordinates are carrying guns.”
“Uh. Counting the pistol we recovered from the habitat…”
“That is our entire base armory, yes,” he agreed. He arched an eyebrow at me. “Commander Edwards will retain her sidearm aboard the Luna. Are you questioning my decision?”
“No, sir. Mine is not to reason why and all that. But I do like to reason why; it helps when I’m wondering what you’d want if you were there to make the decisions for me. If you don’t mind my asking, of course, sir.”
He rubbed his temples and sighed. For a moment, I realized how much older Captain Carl is than I am. He’s in really fantastic shape for his age—he’s more fit than any of the habitat staff ever dreamed of being—but he’s still a lot older than I am. That disturbed me, for some reason.
“Our Marines are going into hostile territory with limited training, limited arms, and with limited intelligence about our adversaries. For all I know, the hostiles have been manufacturing weapons with their facilities and have rigged the engines of the Ares to self-destruct. I felt it to be in our best interests to send our most advanced weaponry to maximize the chances of a successful rescue.”
I nodded. “I see that.”
“There is another point we need to discuss. While Commander Edwards is piloting the Luna, you will be my executive officer. Because of that scheduling, I need to brief you regarding other projects that will be concurrently underway with Operation Angel.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“While Commander Edwards is away with our Marines and our guns, I am hoping to provide what appears to be an ideal occasion for insurrection among the dissident elements of the base population. If I have my way, they will attempt a coup.”
Thunderstruck. That’s the word I want.
“Excuse me, sir?” My voice sounded rather thin and far away. He smiled at me, just for a moment.
“Tomorrow, I am going to have an accident with a hatchway,” he said. “Anne will have a convincing-looking cast on my left arm and a sling for me to use. Since I’ll be wounded, I should make an easy target, don’t you agree?”
“I might buy it,” I admitted, “if the bandage was around your head. Even with one arm, you’re nobody’s pushover, sir.”
He frowned at that. “Do you really think so? I worry that a head injury might not be believed if I retain command. I would rather retain command and send you out to supervise, on site, the later stages of the landing field preparations.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“What the hell are you planning?”
“It’s simple enough, Maxwell. Follow along. I believe those individuals who do not want, deep down, to be part of our little community are planning to try and take over the base by force. By sending all our guns with the Luna, as well as our Marines—and your wife, I might add—I give this dissident faction hope for a successful takeover. By sending you, the biggest, strongest, most obviously dangerous man on the base out to a remote location, I give them a window of opportunity. And by appearing injured, I tempt them to take immediate action.”
“Got it,” I admitted. “I understand that. You’re stacking the deck and making it look like they have absolutely nothing to worry about. The rebellion should be a cake walk, easy as pie, and other culinary metaphors. What I don’t see is how it isn’t a cake walk, or why it’s necessary. You know who these people are,
right?”
“Most of them,” he agreed. “The base is wired for sight and sound, both to enhance the ability of the ground construction personnel to build it, and as a security feature for the command staff.”
“So why not just heave them in the brig?”
“Two reasons. First, by openly rebelling, they commit a crime. We do not have many laws, but the ones we do have, I am trying to keep. I will not have that title of ‘king’ you so blithely throw at me. Rule of law may not be the best form of government, but it’s the most stable one we have. I cannot and will not do so much as chastise them for whispering. They have a right to their opinions and to discuss them.”
I grumbled. “Sir, having the right to do a thing doesn’t mean it’s right to do.”
His gaze hardened and he nodded.
“Very true, Maxwell. Yet, without freedom—freedom to do as one pleases, as long as it does not endanger others—we are not human beings. A man cannot live as a slave; if you break that part of a man that makes him free, he is no longer a man. And the right to gripe, grouse, and grumble is absolutely vital to the human psyche. In its proper time and fashion, it is a therapeutic, even cathartic release. That I will not deny our people.
“But,” he added, softly, “once they do anything more than flap their lips, I can send them back to Earth with Andrews or stuff them in Julie’s recycler.”
I didn’t doubt for an instant that he would, too.
“The second reason,” he went on, “is there may be individuals that sympathize with the rebel goals, but are too timid to join in until victory looks certain. We have no need of the timid, the cowards, or the weaklings, Maxwell. Anyone who is willing to change sides at the first sign of being on the losing one isn’t someone I want helping to raise children in our society.”
“Okay, you’ve got me there,” I answered. “So you’re waiting to see who doesn’t really belong with us—who’s just along for the ride, as it were.”
“Exactly.”
“And what do we do with them?”
“If they join a rebellion, they share responsibility for it. It doesn’t matter if they fire a shot or not. If they cannot grasp the idea that their decisions bring consequences—and that they must bear the responsibility for their own decisions—then they aren’t human beings. They are collections of chemicals.”
I felt very cold.
“However,” he went on, “I assure you that it doesn’t please me to execute anyone. Killing irks me, because the necessity means I have failed in my primary duty as a leader—to lead. It gripes me to the core of my soul,” he admitted. “Yet I do it, despite the hatred I hold for that duty, because that is my responsibility—the consequence of my own failures.
“Learn from my mistakes, son. Someday, you may have to make these sorts of decisions.”
“I know,” I said, quietly. I was thinking of Yakov and Karl, welded into a bathroom on Tchekalinsky Station.
“There is yet one more reason,” he added. “I cannot take summary action against naysayers for the simple reason that they are needed.”
“Excuse me?”
“Maxwell, what would happen if you never questioned me, never argued, and simply did exactly what I told you without a shred of sense to interpret my orders?”
“We’d wind up dead pretty quick. You know how the base works, in broad, but the details are my job, sir. You’re handy with a wrench and anything else you set your mind to or you wouldn’t be in charge, but it takes a specialist to handle most of this stuff.”
“The same applies to our whole society—such as it is. I won’t be king, and I won’t be the master of a bunch of mindless slaves. I need people who think, not drones. If that means fighting for the right to direct our course, then so be it. If I can’t outwit the opposition, then the opposition is smarter and should be in charge.”
I didn’t like that line of reasoning. It scared me that he would think that way. I mean, Captain Carl is the man in charge, he has the Plan, he’s our leader. He’s the Captain. That’s how it works. The idea that someone could supplant him didn’t just worry me, it frightened me.
“So, how are we going to keep them from succeeding? It sounds like they really have a good chance at this.”
“I will prevent them from assuming command,” Captain Carl assured me.
“That’s going to take some doing,” I replied. “How many of them are there?”
“Six core conspirators, I believe, and perhaps a dozen or so auxiliaries—almost all of them former habitat residents. More will join in if things appear to be going well for the rebels.”
“Then that’s about twenty of them to one of you, isn’t it?”
“I have a few surprises,” he said, grimly.
“If you’re conducting an experiment to see how long I can go before dying of curiosity, I refuse to satisfy your ghoulish curiosity.” That actually got a smile from him.
“I’ll tell you afterward, Maxwell. Let me keep my own secrets for now.”
“You got it, sir. Anything else I should know?”
“Not at the moment. That will be all.”
I stood up, saluted, and went back to work.
* * *
I made time to kiss Kathy before the Luna launched.
“Come back,” I told her. She pulled back a little to look me in the face.
Her smile was like a blade. There was something about the coldly eager look in her eyes that made me think of a bird of prey. Kathy is a hunter and a killer. I’m not. I’m big, I’m strong, and I’m like a bear—I’ll comfortably ignore things that aren’t seriously bothering me. Kathy is much less tolerant of petty annoyances. I can easily see her flying circles around something that’s attracted her attention and ire… and skewering it repeatedly.
Hummingbirds. Eyes. Ouch.
Captain Carl was sending her out in an armed vessel, as the commander of the mission to recover a fellow officer.
“I will,” she said. I believed her.
* * *
There’s a saying as old as human conflict: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
The assault on Heinlein Station didn’t go exactly to plan, of course. Two very busy days went by, but I was in the control center with Captain Carl, Julie, and Li when the Luna came up on the module clusters. We had a camera’s-eye view and all the telemetry we could want. Everyone else was in the messhall, listening to the radio chatter and biting their nails.
The Luna approached Heinlein Station on schedule. Up to this point, everything was perfect. The spare fuel was already in the tanks, the railguns were charged, the directional antenna aimed at Luna Base, and the radio signal coded to avoid eavesdroppers.
“Luna Base, I have confirmation on our packages. They are running hot and true,” Kathy reported.
“Roger that,” Li replied. “Current targeting data is being uploaded… now.” He touched a button and the base computers burped information to the Luna’s.
“Targets confirmed. Sending course corrections.”
Nearly a minute went by while we waited.
“Course corrections confirmed. We’ve got six minutes before splash, eight minutes before the Luna’s OMS burn for close approach.”
“Roger that, Luna. Continue as planned.”
George’s voice came out of another speaker. He was on another channel, using a non-scrambled signal.
“Hey, Carl, good to see you. That is you in the fancy ship, right?”
Captain Carl grimaced and keyed his mike. “No. I’ve sent our pilot over with the things you asked for.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, have him bring it to a stop; I’ll send an OTV out to collect the supplies.”
“That’s not acceptable,” Captain Carl replied. “We need to see Galena first.”
“Easy enough. I’ve got a friend with her right now; he’ll shove her up against a window.”
“I need to speak with her and hear her say she’s all right.”
“She’s fine,” Geor
ge assured us. “But she won’t be if you give me any trouble about those supplies.”
“I was afraid of that,” Captain Carl sighed. Over the same channel, unscrambled, so George could hear it, he said, “Luna, begin course change to return to base. Scrub the supply run; they won’t pay up. Don’t even bother to dock.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, George. No Galena, no food. That’s the deal. Luna, swing it around and come home. They’ve killed her, so we’ll let them starve to death.”
“She’s not dead!” George protested.
“You won’t let us talk to her,” Captain Carl replied. “That means she’s dead. I regret that you’ll eat her body, but I won’t feed you in exchange for a corpse. The deal was for a living officer. Good-bye, George.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Waitaminute! Wait!”
Captain Carl didn’t even reach for the switch. He paused for a few seconds, smiling slightly.
“Captain?” George asked. “Still there?”
“Still here, George. You have something to say? Make it quick; we’re uploading the Luna’s burn data now,” he lied. Kathy wasn’t going to change course without orders on the scrambled channel.
“Give me a couple of minutes to go get her, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
“All right. But tell your OTV pilots to back off. We’re not going to have another incident with you trying to hijack my ship. We’ve got the fuel tanks rigged to self-destruct if we need to—and the lady piloting the bird would rather die than surrender.”
There was a long pause. I smiled to myself. The fuel tanks weren’t rigged, but the amount of destruction the Luna was carrying more than made up for that little deception.
“I see,” George replied, softly. “Okay. Okay. You hang on and I’ll get your girl from—” he began, and his radio signal cut off.
Our artillery finally arrived.
It was a series of bright flashes in the Luna’s forward camera, yellow-white and bright. The glare of shrapnel punching through station modules with the momentary blaze of burning metal made them look like they were covered in diamonds. Then the power failed in each module and all the lights went out.