by A. R. Knight
“Assaulting a centurion means you're iced,” Sarge said. “If they don't know that, easy for us. But I'm betting they'll fight desperate.”
“I hope they do,” Mox said.
Heading to the raid, the five centurions ditched the red capes for dark, reflective plating. Sarge figured the enemy would be armed, and it'd be better not to be a target. The ceramic deflected bullets and diffused the heat of a laser blast. The armor coated Mox's arms, chest, and legs, cramping their movement in exchange for protection. A trade Mox would make every day. Each one of them carried a standard issue Lunar rifle, bulky and double-barreled. The weapons punctuated their grip with a switch that slid the fire from laser to a slug magazine, ready to deal with any threat. A pair of sidearms hooked onto Mox's waist. Flashbangs too. But no big explosives. Nothing that could break a seal and vent atmosphere.
The five of them left the station and joined the evening mob of wanderers. As eyes fell on them, Mox noticed heads turned and conversations faltered. Arms wrapped tighter around shoulders. The capes brought respect, the armor brought fear.
“Everyone synced?” Sarge asked over the helmet's comm. The five of them linked up, with Ops listening in. One by one, the centurions sounded off.
“On,” said Mox when it was his turn. The answer meant more than an active comm, it meant that his helmet showed the world in the green-tinged breakdown of Luna's security programming. Every person they passed had their data ready for Mox to look at, an outline that would expand if Mox narrowed his eyes at the target. Store names, streets, even sounds could be traced. The first time Mox put on a helmet, he'd had to shut his eyes every few seconds to calm himself. Black out the overwhelming flow of data. Now, though, seeing the world through his natural eyes felt empty, blind.
To get to the sector with the mineral school and, hopefully, the thieves, the centurions loaded into a pair of maglevs. The carts, holding up to ten apiece, blitzed beneath Luna's surface through tunnels. Magnets pulsed the carts along to the destination chosen on small pads on each of the seats. The cart took the directions from every passenger, calculated an optimal route, and went. Nobody wanted to get in with the five centurions though, so the cart took them straight to their destination.
Sarge initiated the mission as they walked out of the cart. Through Mox's visor, small icons for each of the four other centurions danced along the edge of his vision. An orange arrow shot forward along the ground, vanishing up the escalators. Mox's route. Faded arrows in other colors mirrored his. All on the same path, for now.
Mox kept silent on the walk to the school. The comms were supposed to be secure, but why take chances. Yuri strode in front of Mox, back under Earth's glow. Unlike Apollo's Market, the area around the school was empty. Educational sectors didn't get much use later in the evening. At a crossroads one block away from the school Yuri broke off from the other three and headed towards a side street. Surrounding the school were variety of buildings with different architecture. Some were squat, small places meant for single classroom subjects. Others flowed in interconnected webs meant to funnel students from one end to the other through the course of their studies. The beauty of the building depended on how wealthy the donor and the creator were.
The alley splitting the block and leaving behind the school was immaculate. Bots scooped up garbage and litter on a regular schedule. Mox had seen the pictures of Earth: trash piles left between homes, floating in the ocean, none of that here. Luna marketed itself as a paradise, and in many ways it was.
“Status,” said Sarge over the comm.
“In position,” Yuri replied.
The two of them formed up outside the school's rear entrance. It was small single door, the handle showing little use. Probably only for getting rid of trash, projects nobody wanted. Through his helmet, Mox saw the outline of the door in orange. A designated objective. He reached out to touch the doorknob, twisted, and it moved slightly before being stopped. Locked.
“Guess it's the hard way,” Mox said.
“One-two punch?” Yuri replied.
“Going in three,” Mox commed.
“Wait until we go,” Sarge said. “We'll get their attention. You hit them from behind.”
Mox and Yuri took a position on either side of the small door. Their arms cocked. From the other side of the building, coming over the roof, Mox heard the staccato pops of a door breaker. A line of small explosives placed on the edge of the door, run along like tape. When lit it would torch its way the door, making it fall without scattering debris everywhere.
“Front hall's empty,” Sarge commed. “Go.”
Mox looked at Yuri and they nodded, swung their arms together. Mox felt his fist strike the sturdy door, felt the armor plates take the impact and channel it throughout his suit. Felt the door buckle, felt the hinges break, felt and saw it collapse. In front of them was a medium-sized classroom, enough for thirty students. The far corner had a door leading back into the central area, where targets would likely be. Mox creeped through the classroom, keeping an eye out for anybody that might've been hiding in one of the corners, or behind the scattered desks. The sides of the classroom were covered in displays showing formulas, techniques for molding moon rock into something less common.
“You ever go to one of these,” Mox said.
“You think I look like an artist?” Yuri replied.
“Never know,” Mox said.
Halfway through the room, shouts broke out on the other side. Sarge announced over the comm that they'd been engaged. Mox broke into a run, Yuri close behind. Mox yanked the main hall door open while Yuri provided cover. The central room was chaos. Sarge and the other two centurions hunkered down towards the front entrance as lasers flashed towards them from the back, right in front of Mox. Mox recognized the two guys from the bathroom that morning, not the man he chased but the two hiding the stalls. They'd overturned tables, apparently ones in use given the scattered shards of moon rock across the floor, and were using them as cover. Mox wheeled out of the way as Yuri opened fire. The two enemies were without defenses from that angle, and Yuri's shots struck home, hitting the targets in their shoulders, in their heads, in their chests. Both crumpled.
Yuri inched forward, Mox moving behind, both of them keeping their guns trained on the downed enemies. Sarge and his pair moved up from the front, took a position covering the stairs leading to the basement.
“Mox, you want the owners?” Sarge asked, nodding to the stairs.
“Nothing more,” Mox replied.
He moved to the top of the stairs. They spiraled into the darkness. Rails ran along the length of the stairs. Sarge posted the other two centurions at the front and back entrances to the building and planted himself across the top of the stairs aiming his weapon down. Yuri stood behind Mox, waiting for the big man to descend. Mox readied his own rifle and took the first step, then the second, each one a tentative touch. There was always a chance that someone planted explosives beneath the steps. It'd happened before. Mox's helmet switched over into night vision mode as he went further. The basement took on a green tint, only without the data overlay. Mox could make out piles and piles of moon rock and other junk, tools like hammers and chisels, and a prone body lying on the ground. The woman who'd jumped him.
“Have one down,” Mox commed. “No sign of the leader.”
Mox walked the remaining steps, Yuri close behind. Aside from the junk, and the body, the basement seemed empty. Mox couldn't see any other exits, no obvious places to run to. So he went over to the girl, knelt in front of her face, and as he reached for her, she opened her eyes.
4
Sacrifice
Mox started back, swung his rifle up and pointed the barrel at her face. Her eyes looked up at him, her mouth set in the straight, fierce line. Mox noticed her arms. Trapped beneath her fallen body, they looked like they were holding something.
“Tonight I die for a cause,” said the woman in a whisper. “Will you?”
“What?” Mox repli
ed.
“Run!” Yuri cried, shoving his way past Mox and diving on top of the woman.
The shove was hard. Mox fell back to the foot of the stairs. Saw Yuri struggling with the woman. And then a white flash. Yuri's body flew across the room and bounced off the far wall, clattering to the floor with a cavalcade of other tools and half-completed projects. Mox's helmet went out, its receptors obliterated by the blast. Heat washed over him, suffocating. But then it vanished, and the school still stood. The plates they wore, Mox knew, were designed for this disaster. They were trained to stop any catastrophic explosion. A centurion would sacrifice their body, jump on a bomb to save Luna.
“Sarge! Man down!” Mox commed. “Hostile had an explosive.”
“We've already got medical on the way,” Ops said into his ear.
As Mox went over to Yuri, he glanced back towards where the woman was. There was nothing left save a greasy black mark on the basement floor.
5
Ruin
Ten hours later, being in the courtyard was bleak. Not that there weren't dozens, hundreds of people heading into their offices, but it was bleak because the person that mattered wasn't there. Yuri, in the hospital. Still alive, but Ops wasn't optimistic. The man would have to fight and fight hard if he wanted to make it out.
Years together in this courtyard ruined for a cause.
Earth loomed in the sky overhead. It used to be that the planet was a beautiful sight, a sign of humanity's origins. Now, though, it was the place where these terrorists, where that woman had come from. Sitting on his bench, Mox fidgeted. Wished that he could do something other than patrol the courtyard. Other than waiting, watching for something to happen. Sarge said they would continue following leads, find Ryder Kand, understand what he was after. It was like being stuck in a long movie when all Mox wanted to see was the end.
“You okay?” said Erin, coming up behind him.
“Yuri's hurt,” Mox replied.
“Hurt? What happened?”
Mox relayed the events, measuring Erin's face as she heard about the explosion. Mox always felt he was a strong man. Ready to take on any challenge that came his way. He'd gone through training camp with little effort, running over the other recruits, spending more time in the gym than anybody. He maintained his Earth Active certificate, meaning his body was strong enough to handle Earth's gravity. Everything he'd done, it'd been to get to the top of the class.
Except he hadn't seen the bomb, hadn't saved his friend.
“It's not your fault,” Erin said. “It wasn't your bomb, it wasn't your attack.”
“I should've stopped it,”
“Mox, stop whining,” Erin said. “You can be sad, you can get angry, and then you can do something about it.”
Max couldn't help it, he laughed. Erin the desk jockey talking to him about loss, about giving up. There was no way she understood. Then again, maybe she didn't have to in order to make a point.
“Maybe you're right,” Mox said. “If I promise to get rid of the attitude are we still on for tonight?”
“You going to ditch me again?”
“Hope not, but I have a condition.”
Erin tilted her head, eyebrows lilting up.
“We visit Yuri first,” Mox said.
“Deal,” Erin glanced at her comm. “I’ve gotta go. Some of us don't get to hang around the courtyard all day.”
“Won't catch me complaining - the view is spectacular.”
Mox watched Erin disappear into the milling crowd surging towards the towers. Mox wasn't even sure what floor she worked on, what she did. Erin was a total cipher. Mox replayed the conversations they'd had right here, in this shop, shaking his head. All they ever did was talk about Mox and what he did, who he stopped, what crimes were being prevented around Luna all day long. Erin never talked about herself, and Mox let her remain hidden.
“That changes tonight,” Mox muttered.
Mox stood, bones hurting from last night's explosion. The red cape billowed around him, catching stares from the crowd. He caught their eyes, their comforted faces, most giving him small grins or nods. These were his people, this was his job, was his duty. Erin was right, there was no time for moping.
The flashes came first. People looked up, catching the fiery ripples as they came out of the glass arcs connecting the towers. Mox was turning his head up as the sound hit. Crackling booms followed by raining glass sprinkling throughout the courtyard. Up above, an angry orange nova expanded, rippling its way through the glass floors, exposing steel beams and flinging bodies and equipment everywhere. Mox stared.
What else was there to do but watch the destruction and wonder, who?
“Mox, on reports of an explosion,” Ops said. “Confirm?”
“They've detonated the causeway,” Mox said. “Disconnected the towers.”
The glass tendrils were collapsing, bending and snapping away from the towers themselves. The sight of those arcs breaking apart, the ripping shatter of the glass and bending steel bars, pushed Mox back into himself.
“Run to the lower levels!” Mox shouted, his voice barely audible over the continued screams and trampling noise of people rushing through the courtyard. It wasn't like there were many exits, they'd probably find their way out anyway.
Another boom came from above, this one in the tower on the northeast side, Erin's tower. Towards the top, radiant blue arcs spread out like a wave, a ring discharging hot energy. Mox had seen those before: nova detonators. Restricted to military use, they caused an overcharge of electrical equipment in the vicinity. Meant to disable ships, to burn them out of the sky with their own hardware. Here, though, on Luna? Where everything was connected? The entire tower shimmered as the blue wave spread down the floors, shattering glass windows as it went.
Mox ran towards the building, pushing his way towards a mass of people running the other direction. When he collided with the crowd, frantic people hit him, scratched him, tried to push him out of the way, and Mox replied in kind. He pushed, he shoved, parted the crowd as best he could with his protected arms and legs. Ops was trying to yell into his year, give him orders, but Mox couldn't hear them. And he would not listen anyway.
The rain of glass grew thicker as Mox approached Erin's tower. Other shaking booms echoed from across the courtyard. Nova bombs going off in the other three towers. The entire complex was coming down. But there was only one person Mox had to save.
“Erin, you there?” Mox commed.
He made it to the foot of the tower, the building's great doors standing in front of him, still intact, locked open as an endless torrent of people fled. Mox paused. He could go in there, fight his way up the stairs, but he didn't know where Erin worked. And in a tower with a hundred floors, what were the odds he'd find the right one? But she had to come out through here.
“Mox!” Erin's voice came in full of static. Interference from other signals, or her comm was barely functioning. “I’m almost down to the lobby!”
A groan, an inhuman one. The sound of tortured metal forced to bend against its will, carried to Mox. He looked up and saw the tower listing, the remnants of the glass arc pulling the tower over. The ground rumbled as the foundation tore apart. Even in the Moon's lower gravity something with as much mass as the tower needed support.
“Hurry,” Mox commed. “Your building's going to collapse.”
In front of him, an older man carrying a large picture tripped and fell. The crowd rush around him, some stamping on his back, others trampling over the picture. Mox pushed forward, grabbing the man by his shoulders and pulling him up to his feet. Blood streamed around cuts in the man's face, bruises forming from boot kicks. Mox pulled the man away, out of the stream of people, pushing and shoving and using the red cape as a way to part the teeming mass. Everyone had lost their minds.
Mox pulled the old man onto a bench and turned back towards the tower, now couple hundred meters away. The crowds were thinner, the ones left moving slower, older and fragile. And that'
s when Mox saw it happen, saw the top half of Erin's tower simply slide off. Crack and fall forward towards them. The glass arc stabbed down like a pickax. The old man looked up at that falling mass, his mouth open, and Mox tackled him, pressed him to the ground with his armor plated body.
The arc struck first; lancing into the center of the courtyard, kicking up dirt and dust, breaking through the tile and hitting electrical conduits, sending light poles flickering. Mox felt the rumbling ground, and then the impact as waves of glass and other equipment slammed into his back.
The Moon's gravity was enough to make the tower fall, but it didn't fall quickly. It didn't have the same crushing power that it would have on Earth. The split building coasted towards the ground, crumpling over them with a grinding roar.
The cacophony overwhelmed Mox, and all he could do was close his eyes and focus on keeping the man covered. It felt like forever, it felt like an instant, but at the end of it, when the scattered screams of the injured replaced the sound of crumbling metal, Mox opened his eyes and saw the man's terrified bleeding face in front of his.
But the man was alive.
“We need everything,” Mox commed Ops.
“It's already on the way,” Ops said. “Do what you can. Find, and rescue survivors.”
Mox rose, planting his hands on the ground and, using his legs, forced a desk off of his back. From there, it was a matter of digging, of reaching up through the dust and rubble and spreading it apart to see beyond the haze, up in that sky, Earth's blue halo.
“Thank you,” the old man said, before erupting in a hacking cough.
“Can you move?” Mox said.
“I think so,” the man replied.
“Then run.”
Mox lifted himself out of the hole, and looked. One of the other towers had fallen, while the other two were leaning to their sides, tops touching. Luna's emergency crews were already on site, some of them positioning themselves where they could keep the leaning towers from falling over by putting up support. Drones flew through the air, tagging wounded and trapped survivors. Shouts for help and for orders filled the courtyard, which was otherwise silent after the endless roars of the bombs and falling buildings. As though someone had muted half of the sound.