Susan stepped to my side again, her hands in plain sight.
"Walker?" she shouted.
"Hello, Freya. What have you done to my friend?"
"What the hell is a matter with you?" she shouted. "We're 'posed to be on the same team!" It was the same words he'd used on us the day I returned from additional training in the desert.
Walker did not respond.
Susan spoke again slowly, now in a deeper voice. "It's not that way, Walker."
Walker hesitated a few more moments. Then, he said just as slow—and not in his usual booming voice, "Well, just what the hell kinda way is it?"
"Hey, listen," I said, "don't read too much into that look of hers. We're just friends!"
And as she had done before, Susan bumped me with her hip and said, "We're, really good friends!"
Walker's pause was even longer this time. "Are you two...fraternizing?"
"You bet your ass we are!" I shouted back.
Walker climbed over the barricade and strolled slowly toward us, his weapon in hand, but with the muzzle down. He stopped three meters away and, with a scowl on his face, looked Susan up and down. "Hello, Matt. Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine, buddy. I'm just fine."
"Well, I know they didn't use drugs on you, you don't respond to drugs anymore. What did she do, download your memories?"
"Walker, I know this is hard to believe, but this is Susan."
"Matt, don't forget I saw Susan that day. She was dead."
"No, Pete," Susan interrupted, "I was not. My brain lived, and they used it to run Ava."
"Come again?"
"It's a long story, buddy," I said. "The enemy are massing for an attack, and time is running out."
"Well, until I'm happy, we're going to stand right here and you are going to tell me the story."
As concisely as we could, we explained what had happened to Susan since the wreck in Arizona.
Walker looked hard again at Susan, then asked, "So tell me, what kind of man wants to come to the Moon?"
She smiled at him. "The solitary, remote, removed, and antisocial type."
His eyes flashed at me. I nodded. In a single, fast, fluid motion he slung his weapon over his shoulder reached out, grabbed Susan, and lifted her off the floor and hugged her. Setting her down, his eyes were red. "I can't believe...when I got here, I had two dead friends, but now I have them back. It's like a dream. Damn, girl, you are looking fine."
"Uh, thanks, Walker."
"Of course, since I got here, I've lost a lot of new friends, too," Walker added. "Now you tell me those suicidal bastards are getting ready to hit us again. Do you think this will be one of those human wave suicide attacks, ya know…a Kematian Muatan?"
"I don't know," I answered. "It's likely. Even Pegram is ready to die."
"So he is with them?"
"Yeah."
"Pegram for Susan—we got the better end of that trade. Come on, let's get in."
As we headed back, Walker wiped his eyes again. I pretended not to notice. He kept looking down at Susan.
"What?" she said, looking up at him.
"No offense, but your other face was prettier."
"Hey!" I said. "It's not the shell, it's the woman inside I love."
As we walked, Susan grabbed my right arm, and squeezing it, laid her head on my shoulder. "Oh, you're so sweet."
"Uh-huh," Walker said. "I know it don't hurt that this face and body are beautiful, too."
I just smiled at him.
"I thought so," he said, smiling.
A few more steps and Walker looked down at us again, "Ah—say, can you two—"
"Can we what?" Susan asked.
Walker looked at me. "Well, can you two…you know—"
"Uh, know what Walker?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Can you two…fraternize?"
We both laughed, Walker was clearly embarrassed.
"Yes. I'm told all components are completely functional," I replied.
"Oh!" Walker seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Then, after a moment's thought, he asked, "Why is that?"
"Why is what?" Susan asked.
"Now, don't start that again!"
Chapter 17
Goodbye Ava
As we approached the barricade, Walker held up his hand. "It's all right!" he shouted, and all but one rifle muzzle went away.
"Pete?" It was Oscar. "Pete, you know who that is, right?"
"I do, and it's not who you think," Walker called back. Oscar lowered his weapon.
We climbed over and in. I looked about at the position. It was well-built and highly defensible. Three barricades had been built and were constantly being improved. One faced due east down corridor number nine. There was a barricade blocking the two smaller corridors arcing away to the north and south, and of course, the enemy had mined the far end of number nine to prevent our using it, but it also stopped them, as well.
The pressure doors that led west out of the BSC and into the remaining domes of JILL were closed, but we were aware, however, that the enemy's missiles could bring down these doors. If they followed Hella's last order, they had given up on their plan to attack from that direction. Regardless, a good defensive position had been built there.
All the available ammo was stockpiled in a room near the pressure doors. We just had to hope a stray round didn't hit it.
I saw a good supply of food and water for the Bios. There were also medical supplies in an aid station set up for everyone, Bio, bots, and SUBs. Spare parts were piled up and covered, because none of us wanted to see the donors, all of whom where our friends.
It was here that we had our reunion with Doc.
"Doc," Susan said, springing to his side, "I'm so pleased you made it!"
"I followed that path you suggested between the floors and, eventually, I did, indeed, find myself right under here." Doc spoke as if he were thanking her for directions to the local market. "I only arrived moments ago and was pulled up from between the floors by—"
"I'm afraid we lost Sanyo," I blurted out. Seeing Doc brought my memories of Sanyo flooding back. I began feeling his loss all over again, and I quite clearly recalled the smoking crater where I'd last seen him standing.
"What?" Doc asked. "You lost him? Where exactly did you lose such a loud, verbose, clanking, calliope of antiquated clock works?"
"Huh?" I was stunned to hear Doc be so callous.
"Hey! Who clanks?" Out from behind the pile of supplies that made up the aid station came Sanyo.
I rushed to him and dropped onto one knee. "Man, I thought they got you!"
"Well, they did, buddy. Most of this chassis belonged to a bot named Trooper; he used to work for squadron eight. He loved western movies and talked about seeing them with something called popped corn. He taught himself to speak with a Texas drawl. He was killed in sector five. I'm told he hollered something about 'headin' 'em off at the pass' as he rushed to help plug a breach in their barricade. I will remember him, always."
"I'm sorry, Sanyo. But I am very happy to still have you."
He then noticed Susan standing behind me. "Matt, did you capture someone I should know about?"
"Oh, no, Sanyo. This is someone you sort of know."
"'Sort of know', Matt?"
"Sanyo, this is Ava. Her real name is Susan."
He looked at Susan, then back at me. "Okay, Matt, if you say so."
"It's true, Sanyo," Susan said. We told Susan's story yet again, but with Ismay operational again, it took only seconds to relate. Susan didn't seem to have any trouble convincing Sanyo. His unwavering trust in me, no doubt, helped him suspend his disbelief.
"Ava?" Sanyo said just looking up at her.
"Sanyo, please, the name's Susan."
"What became of Ava, then? All the bots owe her, and we're all very fond of Ava."
"I am the entity you knew as Ava. I was the consciousness inside the machine. I am Susan."
"Susan, I want to thank you. Y
ou made us all more than machines. You gave us awareness. We owe you everything."
She knelt before him and caressed his visual sensor housing with her hands. "You're very welcome, Sanyo. It was really a selfish act, though. You see, I was lonely." She gently kissed him and stood. "Gentlemen," she said aloud, looking at us all, "we have to finalize our plans. Mamat will be back at the Alamo soon. After which, I believe we can expect a two-pronged attack from the north and south corridors.
"Did Mamat take his entire element with him when he left dome one?" I asked of Susan.
"Yes."
At that moment, Oscar rolled up, "Ava?" he asked.
"I was Ava, yes. My name is Susan."
"Sanyo just told all the Whiskey Kilos your story over Ismay. So, you now occupy General Andromache's body?"
"Who?" Susan asked.
"Hella. Hella's body."
"Yes." Susan was looking at the little robot with considerable concern. "Why?"
"Well, I suppose you now know everything she knew?"
"No, I can call up most of her memories, but she had saved everything important to their military operations in her biological memory, and I'm afraid I destroyed that when I destroyed Hella."
"Oh. Too bad," Oscar said. "What a boon that would have been to us."
"Okay, listen up." I got everyone's attention. "We need a final redoubt. Some place defensible out there." I pointed toward the pressure doors and dome one.
Susan seemed to be thinking. Then she said, "I suggest the Bio hospital at the far east end of dome two. Not only is it a solid structure with clear fields of fire, restricted flanks and backed by the wall of the pressure hull, it is a hospital where our wounded can be better cared for."
I looked at Doc. "How many wounded are you caring for right now?"
"Fifty-nine Bios and one hundred five bots, no SUBs."
"No SUBs?"
"The enemy knows to hit those in LCDD uniforms in the head with armor piercing rounds, and the effect of such an impact, whether to Bio or SUB, is the same."
Susan grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. "You are going to change clothes right now, mister!"
"Look, Susan, I'm a soldier—"
"No, you look! We have passed through death's eye to find each other again and I'm not going to lose you now because you want to wear that dirty tattered uniform. I'm pulling rank this time."
"Perhaps you didn't notice, but I'm an E-6 now, too."
"I have date of rank, and thus, time in grade on you. Now, find some different clothes!" Then she grabbed my shirt, pulled me toward her and kissed me. Sanyo made a whistling noise like a wolf call.
As Susan and I parted, I made a sound as if clearing my throat. "Um, let's move everyone to the Bio hospital now. Bring all the supplies and spare parts we can carry. We'll leave a small rear guard here to slow 'em down and we'll make our stand at the hospital. Let's hurry!"
Just as everyone started moving, Susan grabbed me and pulled me aside. "Change clothes now. I'm not kidding."
"You're serious about that?"
"I am."
"Where am I going to get a change of clothes?"
"I don't care, wear a loin cloth, but you are coming out of that uniform!"
At this point, Doc rolled up. In his claws he carried a pair of blue jeans and a plaid shirt, neatly folded. "Matt, I think these will fit you."
I took the clothing from him and shot him a questioning look.
"Matt," Doc said, "Susan is right. Every gun out there is going to be looking for LCDD uniforms first. Please, change into these."
"Where did you get these, Doc?"
"The young man would want you to have them, Matt."
Sanyo rolled up just as I said, "I can't wear a dead man's clothes."
"Matt," Sanyo quickly interjected, "what's the difference between you putting on those pants and that shirt, and me donning the complete chassis of poor old Trooper?"
I looked for several moments at Sanyo, and then turned to Doc. "What was the man's name?"
"He was Guō Han, a theoretical physicist. He was a prodigy. Twenty-nine years old."
"Like Sanyo, I will remember his name, always."
I found a secluded spot and changed clothes. When I came out, Susan and Walker, who had also changed into civvies, came jogging up to me. "What's up?" I asked.
"Matt, the enemy is relocating their log dump." Susan was referring to their logistical supplies. This meant they were changing their base of operations.
"Where to?"
"I can't tell. They headed up corridor three from the Alamo. Dolph's raid through there knocked out all my sensors from the Alamo north."
"Where the hell could they be going?"
"Wherever," Walker said, "we'll see them again, and soon I imagine."
"Susan could you—" I was interrupted when from Susan's pocket her RT-135 sounded the arrival of a text message. She retrieved the device.
"Is that a COMde?" Walker asked.
"No, it's an RT unit."
"You better look at it from this side." He said. Sure enough, the RT-135 had been altered to look like a COMde from the back.
"What's the text message say?" I asked.
"It's in code."
We all looked at one another.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked.
Susan spoke in hushed tones. "When I asked Colonel Wayne who it was that told him Ava was the enemy's objective he said that they had. He said the enemy had contacted him on one of the COMdes and made him the offer of everyone's life in exchange for Ava. We assumed that it was Lieutenant Colonel Pegram's COMde. What if it were someone else?"
"Susan," I whispered, "hit reply to all, type in anything and hit send."
She did, she simply entered a star, and sent it. Instantly we heard a RT unit behind us sound the tone for a received text. Behind us sat a loan figure some forty meters away with his back to us. Susan and I pointed him out to Walker.
"You guys heard it from way over there?" he asked. I brought up the HnK-8 I had picked up and moved the selector switch off safety. Seeing me do so caused Walker to ready his ASG. I indicated Susan should stay back—she was unarmed. But she, of course, walked along beside me. Slowly, we crept up on the individual. Walker moved four meters to our left, keeping his weapon trained on the sitting figure. Some six meters away we stopped. I nodded toward Walker who said in his deep booming voice. "On your feet, traitor."
The figure rose slowly.
"Keep your arms out where I can see them," Walker instructed.
The man turned, my jaw fell open. "John R. McGregor," I said. It was my old driver.
"Yeah, Sarge, it's me."
"Why?"
"Why? Don't tell me you don't have principles and beliefs you're ready to die for."
"Yeah, that I can understand; but killing innocent people, and children, that I can’t even comprehend."
"No? Do you remember the bombing of Ambon City? Do you think there were no innocents, no children there?"
"Yeah, your people used them as human shields and hid missiles there."
"Yet, you bombed it anyway."
"I suppose you're going to try and justify Cat Yan forest, where you blood thirsty bastards murdered eighty thousand civilians, men, women, and children, because they accepted one of our bases outside their city?"
"No one has accepted one of your bases since, have they?"
"So it was you," Susan asked, "who planted the bomb in seventeen while Matt, Walker, Dolph and the others fought the fire?"
"You idiots. You forget that, as a SUB, I can move real fast. And I can be outside without Ess-CEPS."
"Where did you get the TWD?" I asked about the tactical wave disruptor.
"Oh, come on, cut me some slack. Pegram smuggled it up."
"Cut you some slack. That's what you said to me when you showed up with those jeeps and I asked if you knew where we were going. I guess you got that information from Pegram, too."
"Yeah. And the bomb."<
br />
"Was it you who put the acid on the window at the lunar harbor?"
"Yeah, but Pegram got the stuff for me."
"What you're trying to sell me here is that it was just you and Pegram."
"Yeah, that's right Doctor Hawkins. You're a genius."
"Why don't I see your identifier around your head?"
"Shit, steelhead, I turned it off. Why don’t you watch your tutorial, you idiot? Now, I'm going for my pistol and I'm going to shoot the blonde with the little tits in the face." He slowly reached behind his back.
Walker instantly took aim. "Like hell you are."
"Hold it, Walker. He had his back to us as we approached, he doesn't have a pistol. He just wants to die a martyr."
"I can do that for him." Walker said without looking up from his sights.
"Don't. We need to know what other information he passed to Mamat, to include what was in that last message."
At that moment, McGregor jerked an object out from behind his back. I jumped in front of Susan. Walker, without hesitation, fired three slugs into McGregor's chest right at the base of his sternum destroying his G-buc, his power supply. The impacts threw his body some three meters in the low lunar gravity. McGregor was dead when he hit the floor. In his hand, he clutched his wallet.
"Damn!" I said.
"Sorry, Matt, I didn't know it was just a wallet," Walker said.
"It's okay, buddy. Neither did I."
"I'll clean up this mess," Sanyo volunteered.
"No, leave him," I said. "We're clearing out, anyway."
Everyone left the scene except Susan and me. She stayed at my side. I just stood there looking down at McGregor.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah. I liked him. He seemed a good kid. I can't help but think there are more like him among us, though."
As we turned and walked away, Susan leaned in and whispered, "You were going to take a bullet for me?"
"Of course. I love you."
She whispered even lower, "Matt, you don't think I'm...too little, do you?"
"Honey, you could not be more perfect."
○O○
The Battle of Broken Moon Page 23