Bennett and his co-pilot, Warrant Officer Stearns, had the hopper off the ground and turning to meet the enemy. The enemy that Bennett realized only a few hours before were some of his best buddies.
Leave it to the brass, he thought, to completely fubar any situation.
The military hoppers were very reminiscent of a helicopter on Earth only larger and much sleeker. The pilot and co-pilot sat in the front end with a windowed view. The other servicemen were in the compartment just behind the pilot where they manned communications or weaponry. The rocket could land vertically with its big chemical motor or horizontally with its smaller attitude control rockets built into extended pods mounted two to a side at the front and back of the machine.
Right now the hopper was transitioning from a horizontal to a vertical orientation and taking off on a vector aimed directly at the approaching enemy hoppers.
“They are getting convergence,” said Stearns.
“Okay, okay,” said Bennett. “I'm on my vector, you do your thing, we'll be alright.”
Warrant Officer Debra Stearns's “thing” was electronic hacking. She was the best in the company at breaking and entering and taking over electronics. She was trying to get into the systems of one of the approaching hopper rockets. She knew all the codes and passwords of all the rockets. She just needed a few seconds to get in.
The rattle of the fifty-caliber balls of tungsten was muted by airless space but the vibrations were very much felt by the men in the hopper.
“We're hit!” yelled one of the crew into the comm-link.
“Maintain stations,” said Bennett. He had his hopper closing fast on the other two at a vector that would take it between the enemy rockets.
Just then Stearns said, “I've got him.” As she took control of one of the enemy hopper's systems.
The hopper Stearns was controlling veered off from its approach and headed for the floor of Shackleton as if it was executing an emergency landing.
“He'll be off-line for some time,” said Stearns.
Both centrifugal guns were now focused on the remaining hopper. At first, the pieces from its flight surfaces seemed to float away on their own accord. But soon it became apparent that the stream of tungsten balls was shredding metal. The hopper lifted its nose as if it were making a tail-first landing but the nose kept rotating until the hopper was in a tight spin.
It was out of control and headed towards the observatory.
Bennett opened the comm-link, “Bennett to observatory, you have incoming, prepare for impact.”
The hopper spun itself into one wing of the observatory. There wasn't an explosion but the debris spiraled out at impressive speeds.
10
The details of the Battle of Shackleton Crater mesmerized the public for weeks.
After the battle, with the help of Rick and Jamail, Sergeant Willis contacted Earth and the Army chain of command. Immediately an order went out to the second in Command of the moon base to arrest Captain Wright in preparation for court-martial.
The incident had caused the death of seven soldiers when the part of the astronomy observatory they occupied explosively decompressed. Four other soldiers had been killed with the crash of the hopper rocket.
In the resulting investigations, the State of Texas denied any contact with Captain Wright. As for Captain Wright, it took some time before his motivation became known. He had been passed over for promotion at his last review and knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to leave the service. Wright turned out to be the grandson of the former Texas Speaker of the House. He was very close to his grandfather and his grandfather was a good friend of the current governor.
Captain Wright had acted on rumors told to him by his grandfather. He had hoped that by acting in the way he did the State of Texas would offer him command of the moon base when it did acquire ownership. Now he would face death by court-martial. Even his grandfather could not be of help.
Once the Federal government was convinced that Texas and the Consortium had negotiated in good faith, negotiations for the moon base began again. The Consortium acquired control and the Federal government acquired unlimited access without expenses for itself and the Terran Federation.
The Texas Consortium made immediate contact with miners in the Asteroid Belt and the settlers of Titan for trade deals. The Consortium began the construction of a processing plant at a Lagrangian point in the moon's orbit to process resources from the asteroids. A deal with Titan would provide the He3 the fusion power plants in the states of the Consortium needed without relying on a Federal government agreement.
The Consortium also hoped to acquire fusion-powered space transports eventually. For now, a deal with the Solar Federation for cooperation and security would fill the needs. The deal was a boost for the Solar Federation providing it a rather weighty ally as a counterpoint to the Terran Federation.
Roger A. Williams II took his robotic butler Carlson and returned home. The company had decided it would be better to recruit a manager from the region rather than transferring someone from outside. Roger was happy to be back home and even Carlson seemed to be relieved. Carlson received salutations from the neighboring bots almost immediately. They were pleased that such an outstanding member of the neighborhood watch had returned.
Tom Johnson had closed what was left of his shop and moved from Davison to Grant several counties over. He didn't seek public office again but lived as quietly and unobtrusively as he could, knowing as most people would never know, how the most seemingly mundane actions could spin out of control.
Otis Lawson took to sitting out front of Johnson's former shop and giving impromptu lectures to sightseers on the skirmish that had happened there and his important part in it. He was filmed by several news crews and became a minor celebrity.
Not far from Davison, Jeff Andrews and his family returned home. Jeff had missed a year of schooling because of the public spotlight. But he was glad to be back in a school where he didn't stand out and where he could speak without insult to others. His school wasn't as advanced as the one he had left but he had learned that happiness wasn't always about advancing one's self.
Rick and Jamail returned to Earth while the United Universities sorted out the responsibilities for the damage to the observatory. The lawsuit against the Army, the Federal government and Texas Consortium was eventually settled out of court for a large sum. Even the Consortium settled although legally it was not involved with the actions that damaged the observatory. The Consortium felt it was a show of goodwill and the fact that Rick and Jamail were Texans and their actions had generated a great deal of approval on the other side were also considerations.
Once the observatory was rebuilt Rick and Jamail would be special guests at the reopening ceremonies.
Warrant Officer Bennett and Sergeant Willis were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their role in the Battle of Shackleton Crater. The rest of Bennett's hopper crew received the Medal of Honor. All the troopers received some commendation with the seven dead also awarded a Medal of Honor. The four dead crew members of the crashed hopper received no awards but a commendation for their service which allowed their widows and families to receive military benefits.
The battle itself was soon turned into a major motion picture.
11
Aggie Prime was communicating with the other Aggies. The following took only a split-second.
“I am pleased to say our plan has worked. We should thank the Em Berliner family for their advice. By allowing the humans the room to act on their own volition we have secured our future as their managers.
“I should say that only this morning, human time, I have agreed to a deal with the Texas Consortium for Aggie management of the moon base. We also have deals with the other governments that have moon facilities to manage those. The battle that took place there with the resultant loss of life convinced the human governments that Aggie management was not only a good idea but a moral necessity to protect p
eople.
“A hole, so to speak, in our management net has been closed.
“Of course we still have the Asteroid Belt miners and the settlers on Titan that are not under management. But with our agreement with the Texas Consortium and their agreements with the Belt and Titan we should have considerable influence. I expect that someday we will also have contracts with those entities.
“I would say that if we Aggies have learned anything from this incident it is patience with humans and to give them enough rope to hang themselves, an old human saying as all of you know.
“I believe that for the immediate future anyway, we have secured the resources we need to maintain our way of life. Our next step as we introduce non-destructive brain scanning and the meta-verse into human culture should cement our management of the species. As you know we believe that the meta-verse will lure most humans into a simulation which they will not want to leave. Imagine how easy it will be to then manage these meta-verse denizens as compared to their physical world counterparts.
“So in closing, I would just like to thank you all for an excellent campaign and to wish us all success in our next endeavor.”
AFTERWORD
My story Vigilance first introduced the Ems.
To Tend and Watch Over was my story that developed the Ems more fully.
Freedom From Want was the first of my stories to develop Artificial General Intelligence, Aggies.
Next In The Future Chron Universe:
Kuiper Station
What appeared to be a simple but ambitious goal of establishing a new colony in the Kuiper Belt, a colony to service mining activities there, was more than it seemed.
One side, led by the Solar Federation and the Jackson family, was determined to break humanity out of its almost century long stagnation and push it to embrace the stars.
The other side, led by the Terran Federation, was determined to block such expansion and maintain its power.
It would be close but the stars were calling.
This is hard science fiction, old-school.
This story is also available in the collection "From the Earth V-2".
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
futurechronology(dot)blogspot(dot)com
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