Momentarily, I wondered how Hacker Edozie had snuck into our corridor. I looked around and realized that while I had been talking to Sergeant Nguyen, the doors at the end of the corridor had been opened. No one was shooting.
I asked, “Sergeant, may I leave you with the Officer and the Hacker?”
I am not sure they were even paying attention to me, so I allowed Three to push me beside Nasruddin. “That was remarkably convenient.”
He laughed tightly. “Not as remarkable as you might imagine. There have apparently been teams of hackers roaming the corridors for the last week, trying to update the comm systems for better security since Viceroy Fenghuang designated this city to be the site for the Imperial Palace. The hackers have been working particularly hard in the districts between the base and the city centre.
“Piecing the events together, the rebels gathered a stockpile of mining explosives and a small army of soldiers in the maintenance room, ready to distribute them around the entrances to the base. When we convinced this district to declare an emergency, the airtight doors closed, trapping the rebels beside their explosive dump. Apparently, their officers became murderously suicidal, like the sergeant. Instead of attacking the base, they blew the whole stockpile, severing power and shutting down the local comm system. That was on top of the DDoS attack that has afflicted the rest of the city.
“This team of hackers came out with the TDF force that was trying to reach us because they realized that there was a major power outage along the intended route. Hacker Edozie was part of the force looking for us, just as we were looking for them. The TDF has been waiting for them to finish up before moving forward along Gagarin. They did not want to pass the limits of working comms. While they waited, they turned this section of Renoir into an open hospital site.
“They did not know about the explosion in WR87-19, which changes their short-term plans considerably. They are going to have to route around it with some temporary repeaters until the workroom can be repaired. We should get comm back shortly after they open the next few doors on Gagarin.”
“I sent word ahead with one of the Public Officers about the airtight room. I believe our maintenance workers have already volunteered to guide some TDF engineers and emergency workers to the site. They may need our help because without power or comms they have to disassemble each door to unlock it, which takes too long.
He hailed a team of TDF soldiers with full power frames who were running our way. They scooped me up, still in my wheelchair with the field station, and ran back down the street to the intersection.
The intersection of Gagarin and Renoir was big, almost a plaza, with immense doors on each street. There were no hand-cranked backups for these great slabs of steel, just massive storage batteries built into the walls. The door on the south side blocking Gagarin had been disassembled sufficiently to expose the lock but not open it. My soldier carried me to the face of the door. With a faint bang, I disengaged the lock and was briefly fascinated watching the gears spin and the locking bolts retract. Then we all hurried out of the way as the TDF moved forward into position.
Looking back down the road, this was a full TDF strike force, at least a battalion. They were equipped with exotic weaponry unlike any I had seen in action before, including the mobile gun platforms we had been denied.
Chief Anna spotted us and came over. “Look at the size of the exca-sprayer! It will barely fit along the hallway, but can cool the airtight room with its water jets. It is strong enough to pull the whole room to safety once we remove the floor bolts. And there comes a tanker with solvents for the explosives. I hope we are in time.
“Not sure why they even have it, but I’m grateful. Must be expecting real trouble up ahead.”
The exca-sprayer moved into place behind the soldiers. Anna climbed aboard, calling the rest of her team to crew the tanker following behind.
As they clambered into the tanker, a small, armoured car with TDF insignia drew up beside us and the driver called out, “Are you the Agent Wheels who can unlock doors?”
I said yes, so we were helped into the car and drove forward beside the line of soldiers.
Nasruddin observed, “The car has an internal comm repeater?”
The driver said, “Yes, but that red light means we cannot contact the wider system yet. The repeater is strong enough that you should be able to unlock doors without leaving your seat, but that is about as far as it will reach.
“Except the general, of course. Zer car has a stronger repeater and uses an IR channel within the convoy when we are really cut off.”
General Radowski, “Wheels? What an odd choice of name. Are you the same as the head of the Fairy...?”
To Radowski/private, “Yes. I’m sorry to interrupt, but there are people nearby who may be able to monitor open communications. Please use private and no_echo.”
Radowski, “Good point, but not necessary. Our communications are private and no_echo within the convoy, with a unique quantum encryption for each vehicle. Damned useful options! Wish we had had them all along.
“So, I was about to say that we are going first to the hallway leading to WR87-19. The maintenance people can handle the rescue, including opening the door. They need access to their own emergency supplies, after all. We will leave them a couple of squads for protection and some Engs to help with the mechanical bits.
“Oh, and your guards are spitting in rage three vehicles back. After we drop off the maintenance people, you can rejoin them but we need to decide where to go next. You probably have realized that we did not send a force this big just to pick you up. The city centre is under a massive assault and the Viceroy seems to be the target. They have called for our assistance and we will get there faster if we don’t have to stop for long at each door. We are hopeful that the city comm will come back soon, but until it does we would really appreciate any assistance you might offer. I would really like to know how you do it, but I’m told that a mere general doesn’t have a high-enough authorization to hear the answer!
“In any case, my question is whether you need to reach the base urgently, or could you tolerate a delay to help us rescue the Viceroy and her entourage? Damn strange to be rescuing the people we were preparing to fight, but what can you do in the army, hey?”
Strange, yes, but it was not time that was critical for me. It was risk. But which risk?
Nasruddin/private, “Can we talk about this? If you die, we all die. I know you have been forced into much of what has happened, but I’m getting concerned that you are taking these risks too lightly.”
Me/converse, “Not lightly at all, but I’m constantly balancing the risk that I die prematurely if I accept some task against the risk that millions or billions will die if I refuse. If the outrage from a wrong choice is bad enough, it won’t matter whether I live or die.
“Did you know that in all the nightmares I have catalogued, the Moon is never important? The Lunatics either rise in a violent rebellion against the Imperium and are slaughtered, or they wait in passive terror until some external event destroys them. I never had more than a pious hope for the Moon.
“What I have seen since I arrived here is utterly different and extraordinary. The Lunar Government is not merely merging with the Imperial, it has become a template for the Imperial administration on the Moon. Viceroy Fenghuang still enjoys the Emperor’s support, so these innovations might be models for the whole Imperial government. Lunatics are the most beautiful society that humanity has ever produced. They may be the best hope for us all. I cannot abandon them!”
Nasruddin/converse, “Even at the risk that everyone, everywhere dies?”
Me/converse, “I cannot avoid that risk and the likelihood of our survival is real but frightening low. Imagine that I face a dangerous task. There is a ninety percent chance I will die, but if I succeed, our very small chance of survival will improve by a factor of one hundred. Logically, I should attempt that task but in practice, I would not. The ninety percent chance of death i
s probably realistic and the factor of one hundred improvement is probably a woolly estimate. I’m constantly trying to balance those risks. I must do it all by feel, guessing the odds as best I can.
“What I have seen on the Moon is amazing. Even if I die, they may be enough to save all the rest. I don’t know. I just run plausible simulations. This much better than plausible. Somehow, Wang, MacFinn, and all these crazy, wonderful people are better than anything I imagined. I cannot abandon them!”
The door in front of us slowly lifted upwards. Rising doors had the advantage of closing reliably in a power failure, but raising them took time and power. It did not matter how long it took. In the darkness on the other side, we faced an army deployed for combat.
Nasruddin grabbed a microphone from the front of the car. The driver flipped a switch to turn on the speaker. He called out, “Soldiers of the Vallis Patriotic Force, stand down. Your comrades are here with us. We are racing to rescue some maintenance workers trapped in an airtight room, which is why we have an exca-sprayer and a tanker. Please part and let us through immediately.”
No one moved.
He tried again. “Could we speak to one of your officers? I will come to you if it will help.”
No one moved. No one said anything. I could, however, hear the slow pat, pat, pat of someone running. I remembered that it was a faster rhythm on the Earth, an exciting sound. Here on the Moon, it sounded more like a lullaby.
Corporal Mirza ran past our car and slowed to a stop in between the two lines of soldiers. He held his side where the chip embedded in his rib must have been hurting.
“I am Corporal Konstantine Mirza of the Vallis Patriotic Force, Alpes Division. Soldiers, stand down and move to the side of the road. Our citizens’ lives are in peril and you are preventing their rescue. MOVE!”
Reluctantly, they lowered their weapons and started to shuffle sideways.
“NOW, YOU SLUGGARDS!”
To Nasruddin/private, “The boy has promise but needs training. Do you suppose there is any hope?”
Nasruddin/converse, “Of course, although not in the regular army. I will have to ask what his background is. If it includes construction or stevedoring, he might make a great foresir in a forward supply unit. The TDF does a lot of loading and building. It is always looking for people with a bit of arms training who are willing to take more risk than is normal around here. If he can build up some muscle mass, the opportunities on the Earth might be even greater, although these days...”
The back line of TDF soldiers swung up onto the forward catwalks on the exca-sprayer, while the rest sprinted for the side of the road. We moved into the lead of the whole caravan, rolling down Gagarin by headlights that were almost never necessary on Lunar roads.
It was not far to the hallway we needed. I unlocked the door as we rolled slowly by. The soldiers leapt off the exca-sprayer, half of them hurrying over to the door as Anna swung the gormless vehicle to face it. The soldiers pushed the door open and sprinted into the billowing smoke. Anna drove in the exca-sprayer, followed by the tanker. The remaining soldiers drew the door closed to block the flow of oxygen into the fire, and to prevent the smoke and fumes from poisoning the air along the road.
2357-03-28 18:00
Funeral Pyre
Radowski, “Can I have your decision? Will you go to the base or to the city?”
To Radowski, Nasruddin, “The city. If you can, keep me posted about the rescue effort here.”
Radowski, “Good. You should move back to join your guards in the armoured personnel carrier or we will have a mutiny. APCs are better for this purpose anyways. The car would just have got you back to the base faster.”
A pair of soldiers from the APC behind us ran forward to help Nasruddin unload me from our car and reload me into the APC beside our guards. They jumped into the smaller vehicle and set off towards the city centre.
The comm returned as we left the dead zone and started to see lights up ahead. Unfortunately, I recognized that the messages I was receiving were passing through the overhead lights and the door mechanisms. They were encrusted with hateful emojis and contained instructions to murder anyone we encountered. The regular comm was still filled with DDoS garbage addressed to the comm repeaters.
I warned the guards about the hate messages and suggested they keep watch for anyone who appeared to be experiencing unusual levels of stress, perhaps rejecting messages they could not block.
Our driver called back, “General says he got a high priority message through to the centre. They know we are coming. The road should be clear of active fighting till we get close but after that it gets bad. I hope they are done with the exca-sprayer soon. Word is, they need it in half a dozen other places, two more in the last twenty minutes.”
I expected that the magic of pushing a message through was just to set a priority sufficiently high that every repeater would process it in preference to filtering and garbage collection. I could probably do the same if I wished to expose myself that way.
And ‘clear’ is a relative term on a disputed road. For most of the drive, we were boxed in by APC’s, mobile gun platforms, and laser carriages. We only moved forward when we approached a door that I had to unlock and moved back behind the MGPs and LCs before someone else opened the door.
I greatly missed Corporal Mirza. I was sure most of the rebels we met would have surrendered if the order had come from an authority they recognized, but once moving we blasted past anyone in our way. We drove over them if they refused to clear the path. At each door, we faced another squad of rebels who clearly had no warning of what was coming. Nasruddin gave the customary order to stand down and clear the road but it was often necessary for the LCs to blow the heads off two or five or twenty soldiers before the rest moved out of the way. I remembered such tactics from Mars and bitterly regretted every occasion I had ordered my forces to use them. I kept having horrible flashbacks as we passed streets empty of anyone but soldiers and bloody corpses. The Moon should never have had to witness such things; it had not for well over a century.
The route we took was the shortest between the base and the city centre but ran through some nasty neighbourhoods. Even TDF vehicles preferred to take safer, better-maintained routes when they were not moving in convoy. TDF personnel had not been attacked in the last few decades but trucks had been sabotaged, material had been stolen, and several times people trapped in isolated vehicles had called for emergency assistance as hostile crowds surrounded them. The Moon was made for lovers but Lunatics were people and still had a dark side to complement their brilliance.
As we approached the city centre, we started to encounter better-organized rebel soldiers, including some unusual heavy weapons. There were rail guns mounted on flatbeds, strange catapults that flung heavy rods, and massive coils of razor-sharp metal wire. The wires were an odd choice. They would slow down unarmoured troops but the TDF never deployed soldiers in combat situations without some form of armour. Were they trying to stop troops loyal to rival factions in their own army? Or just civilians?
One enemy truck generated an electromagnetic pulse that stopped our APC in its tracks. TDF vehicles are hardened against EMP but it delayed us for five minutes while a set of burned-out circuit breakers were manually replaced from the spare parts kits. The pulse also killed the overhead lights and shut down an additional section of the comm system but we were not making much use of either. They called up a mobile gun platform; the MGP blew the truck to pieces before it could recharge. As we drove past, our headlights illuminated three dead soldiers slumped in their seats. Smoke from the burning vehicle started to fill the road. The ventilation system had died with the lights, so the smoke billowed up to the ceiling and sat there. I wondered what was burning as we drove past but realized after a moment that a vehicle capable of generating megavolt electrical pulses would not use normal batteries for power storage. It would need some kind of chemical fuel. Nor could it be built with a metal frame.
Finally,
our vehicle pulled over to the side as the rest of the convoy raced past. They did not go far before splitting up on a crossroad. Beyond that point, we could hear the bang and crash of fighting. Our driver called back, “General doesn’t want to take you into this, Sirs. The city core is stable but between there and this perimeter the rebels were moving freely until the doors closed. I believe most of the troops turning left are heading to the eastern train line to Orientale Gunawardena. That seems to be the route the rebels are using to enter the city. I seem to remember that a base was built along that line. I’ve not heard anything about it in years. I thought the whole project was abandoned.”
“Thank the General on our behalf,” I replied. “How much of the city is under lockdown now? The Public Office could only close the doors in our district, but they all seem to be closed now.”
“As best we can tell, your district may have been first. Once you closed the doors, the adjacent districts followed suit. It took about forty minutes to propagate through the city. I heard that one soul got on an electric cycle and rode from district to district telling them to shut their doors until finally there was no place left to go. Probably get a medal for it if we can ever figure out who ze was. Level Two followed suit a bit later, and Four closed the doors around the lifts and ramps to the city centre and the train line. That seems to have been sufficient to contain the rebels, who swept directly over to the base and have been corralled there. Five and below are still in regular business, to the extent that the comm allows us to hear.”
I asked, “Have there been any updates on the rescue of the people trapped in the airtight room?”
“Yes,” he said, “Last I heard they had sprayed down the room to cool it. They believe there are survivors. They were cutting the floor bolts and spraying the rest of the debris with solvents for the explosives when the EMP truck blew our comm chain. Nothing since then, of course.
Lord Banshee Lunatic (Nightmare Wars Book 3) Page 31