April 3: The Middle of Nowhere (31 page)

"
Happy Lewis
this is Home com, please respond."

"Hey Jon, I didn't expect to hear from you. What's up big guy?"

"How does it feel to fly a ship with your own name on it? Can the computer tell which of you your number two is talking to?"

"No problem. Jeff always addresses the ship by
'Happy Lewis
' but I'm just Happy when I'm not Hey-you".

"Hey, you - you have a message from Heather," and he related it. Then he asked, "Care to tell me what she is looking for on the surface and what favor she wants returned?

"No idea what she expects from the camera run. I'm assuming she wants the field checked for ships. We went out of line of sight before she could give me detailed instructions, but I'd have done that much on my own initiative. They cluster bombed our landing area maybe two minutes after we lifted. Turnabout would be fair play don't ya think?"

"I was just on com with President Wiggen. She's pretty worked up you took out their ship. Screaming bloody murder, literally. Central knocked another ship out of the sky behind you too. Of course they see Home as being behind it if Home people did it - as if every one of you is somehow an agent for our agendas."

"Crap I'm getting slow. I should have thought they'd have a follow-on. I guess we should just sit still and let them shoot our asses off. That would be so much more convenient."

"So - they did shoot first?"

"Cluster bombed our field," Happy confirmed again.

"That's what I suspected and even told Wiggen to consider that possibility first. I backed you guys and I'm satisfied it was the right thing to do now," Jon told him.

"We're going to drop low past Armstrong like we are landing then flip and climb out hard just before crossing their sky to get down where we can take a real good look."

"Look? Or if they have traffic sitting on their field are you going to take it out?"

"I believe that is current operational information Jon. I don't think my commander would appreciate me sharing that with you."

"You think I'd warn Wiggen?"

"Nah - Not you Jon, but I don't think you could call her and get the info to Armstrong even if you wanted. We are about seven minutes out from visual on Armstrong. Heather would  just expect better operational security of me even if we aren't real military. It's common sense."

And we are about to go behind Earth from you, Happy," Jon informed him.

"What I want to know is what made them decide to attack us?" Happy asked him. "They didn't try any legal action or threats at all. It doesn't make sense. If you figure that one out give me another call."

"Maybe there will be a rover visible headed for central in your photo run," Jon suggested. "They might have wanted to isolate you and make you feel vulnerable so when they show up and demand you vacate you cave right in."

"If they think that they don't know this crew. If they had caught anyone working in the ship and killed them they could kiss Armstrong goodbye."

The matter-of-fact certainty of the statement made goose bumps up Jon's neck. He knew Happy well enough to know he hadn't misspoke. If the
Happy Lewis
was destroyed with lose of life he was saying Heather still had the means
without
her ship to take Armstrong Base out a fifth of the way across the lunar face. Jon wasn't sure how, but he believed him.

"Carrier signal dropping off. Happy out."

* * *

"Jeff, watch the computer work through the maneuver and give me a verbal count when we come up on our burn to climb out. I don't like talking with it like you kids do."

"What marks Happy?"

"Thirty seconds, fifteen seconds and five."

"Aye, aye."

Happy looked at him to see if he was being cute, but he looked serious.

They were traveling tail first and there was a long hard shove at their back and then the ship flipped over on autopilot, belly to the sky and looking forward again. The lunar landscape flowed under them seeming faster as they got lower and it was obvious they were aimed at a point below the horizon. That horizon line was close enough they seemed doomed to crash. Some sharp peaks flashed under them frighteningly close and they were so low they couldn't see clear sky anymore unless they rolled back over. At the end of a plain they could see the tiny shapes of manmade structures right where they were aimed.

"Thirty seconds - mark," Jeff called off.

Happy zoomed in on his biggest screen and the fat shape of a transport was sitting on jacks away from the buildings. He designated it with a stylus and selected the smaller Russian styled missile they carried by keying the numeral one. Before he could release it the screen overlaid a yellow symbol on the nearest dome shaped building indicating it was painting them with millimeter range radar. The sort used for target acquisition and missile guidance. He designated it as target two and was about to assign another small missile when the ship gave a shuddering lurch and their cabin air exited with a explosive >POOM< that hurt their ears. Most of the bank of circuit breakers above them suddenly popped up as one and turned from green to red. It had to be a laser breach. A missile strike would have left them an expanding debris field.

Happy slapped his face shield home hard against the air gushing out of his suit and heard the valve roar full open to refill it. He took the time to turn his head to see for sure Jeff had sealed his too. The ship was spinning so it was hard to turn his head back and harder yet to force his hand back in the brace to the key pad and stab the key for two that designated the bigger weapon for the radar source instead of his original intent. Being fired on had stripped any restraint he'd had away.

 He thumbed ENTER just as Jeff called "Fifteen seconds!" The lurch of the missiles leaving the pylon was barely felt before the auto pilot overrode the auto rotate program which had responded to a laser attack. They were so close that the flare of the ten kiloton weapon impacting the landing field control dome filled their windows with white glare before the ship had even fully checked it's rotation.

The smaller and faster missile must have reached the ship sitting on the field first. But if it had the much smaller flash was lost in the wild spinning and struggle to key in the final commands. They'd check the video later. They should be safe to hold attitude for burn. He didn't think their laser would have any fire control left after a ten kiloton weapon struck their radar.

"Five seconds," Jeff called off calmly as the
Happy
stopped belly down again and rolled her nose up for a vertical burn away from the approaching surface. When the five G burn kicked them in the butt nothing had ever felt so good. The ship's fall carried it below a kilometer before it's thrust started it back up for the sky.

I'm too old for this
, Happy thought, struggling to breathe against the push.

As they climbed out there was a brief rattle of debris against the hull as they flew through the fringe of dirt blown high by the bigger missile. It wasn't heard with cabin pressure blown but they felt it like taking a ground car over a gravel patch. Nothing was big enough to take any systems down.

When the pressure finally let off he told Jeff, "You did a hell of a job."

"I just counted them off like you wanted," Jeff seemed surprised at the praise.

"Yeah, with the ship spinning and taking fire, blowing pressure,  and weapons detonating out the front view. You have any idea how many people would have been too busy screaming – 'We're all going to dieeee!' to do a count?"

"Gee, I'd feel
terrible
if I did that," Jeff said, unbelieving.

Happy was glad his helmet hid his smile. "Why don't you go back and see what they hit," he suggested. "It must not have been too bad or we would have broken up under that much acceleration."

After the kid was gone he had a nice case of delayed shakes and got it under control before Jeff came back.

"They took us right through the crapper."

"How bad?"

"Oh about one by two but real ragged,"

"Well better the toilet than a fusion generator," Happy pointed out. It's more ragged than he thinks, or he missed some other holes, Happy thought privately, maybe out the opposite side too. The cabin lost its pressure in no more than two seconds. It must be at least a five centimeter hole to bleed down that fast. But he refrained from scolding the boy, or sending him back to check the opposite side. "OK, see if the camera arms will still deploy like they were programmed."

Jeff checked out the ports visually to see the telescopes seemed to be unfolded properly and checked the data stream to see something was going in memory at the right rate. Then he isolated a single frame and made sure it looked clear and in focus. Everything seemed to be working well and he reported to Happy.

"Good. We'll run the cameras right up until we need to fold the 'scopes in to brake for Central. That will still cover most of the route. I don't want to stress the ship by running a higher thrust than we already have. This old guy doesn't need any more stress either."

The orbit was quickly boring, the cameras working away, the ship maintaining its own attitude. Happy leaned back and his pose said he didn't want any chatter. Jeff got a satellite feed and looked at the news services.

Keywords lunar and Armstrong yielded nothing but a three day old notice that Fairbanks Aviation won a bid for detachable pressurized storage containers for lunar deployment.

A fourth grader in Mississippi was taken into DHS custody at school for asserting that President Wiggen was indeed, a "poopy head".

A junior at Jefferson High School in Montpelier Vermont was expelled when she refused to cover her naturally red hair which the administrators deemed a distraction.

Inner city high school students in New York City staged a strike over wages. They remained in class and took instruction, but turned in all state standardized tests unmarked.

Nothing interested Jeff much, so he put on a music feed, careful not to send it to Happy.

The terminator had passed across Central while they were gone and they folded their telescope arms in, flipped tail first and made a long three G burn that took them down into the lunar night. Happy and Jeff both watched the program run down smoothly until they reached a hover fifty meters from the ground.  Happy let it fall a full thirty meters before he gave a sharp blast from the main engine, then a smaller burst , a pause, one last small cough and he shut the main down entirely and let it sink against the small attitude thrusters until it squatted on the rear jacks compressing them. When he cut the thrusters it rebounded slightly on the suspension. Time from the autopilot cut out to touch down - less than thirty seconds. Jeff was impressed.

The 'A' Rover was there and pulled up closer, its floods illuminating the landing pad. Two suited figures rushed a wheeled dolly out of sight on their belly side.

"Go ahead and tip her over on the cart Happy," Johnson called on local com. "We have the guys standing back with a line on the thing and if you tip a little off the line they will pull it centered when you go down."

Happy eased the attitude jets joystick-forward until the nose dipped off vertical, then quickly eased off as it tipped past the balance point and started the slow fall in a sixth G. When it was past about fifty degrees he pulled back until the fall slowed and then, when the hills came into view in their ports, pulled harder until somewhere around ten degrees from horizontal he stopped the fall entirely and had to ease off and back on a few times. The nose settled the last little bit in jerks until they heard the belly contact the cart and felt it move differently rocking across the pivot point. It seesawed twice slowly in the low gravity and settled with both ends sticking out supported in the middle on the wheeled stand.

"Not bad," Johnson admitted. "You didn't bend it in the middle."

"Next time I'll just rotate from a hover to horizontal as I come in and skip this silly landing on the rear jacks and tipping it over," Happy threatened. "We're not under pressure, so we'll open the lock and come straight out. We have some battle damage port side and I'd like to go around the side and see it in the floods from your rover."

"I'll join you and Julie will move the rover," Johnson offered.

They shut the power down and went back with a hand torch and opened both doors of the coffin lock. When they rolled out Johnson was there to give them a hand out and help them stand without catching on anything. They walked to the nose in the bright flood lamps of the rover, then when Julie backed away and her lights swung away. Happy turned his flashlight back on and they walked carefully three abreast back down the other side of the ship, shining the light down on the landing pad that was still cluttered with debris from the attack. When they got to the dolly he flicked off his lamp. Julie had come around in a wide circle and the bright head lamps and flood lamps on the roof swung in and filled the darkness.

Happy stood staring, but his brain couldn't jump from what he expected to what he was seeing. The hole was ragged as Jeff had said. It had charred curls of corrugated carbon fiber and sheet metal vaporized away and the condensed vapor was a shiny smear down the outside of the ship. It was about one by two, but
meters
instead of the centimeters he assumed. The toilet and holding tank, storage cabinets, tool locker and galley, along with the whole left missile pylon were all gone in a black void that opened the whole side of the ship from one frame rail to the next. Melted ends of control cables dangled in the hole where what they served was gone – vaporized. The gentle gravity let Jeff and Johnson catch Happy as he fainted and slowly collapsed forward without a word.

"What's the matter? Was he hurt?" Johnson asked desperately checking his suit pressure and bio readouts that all read fine.

"I don't know," Jeff admitted. "He's pretty old. Maybe the stress of it all just caught up with him. Let's get him inside the moon huts and let them check him out."

Chapter 20