Ben Bova - Moonwar

“Your attack failed,” said the young Japanese. He sounded almost pleased.

“That was merely the first wave—”

“It failed,” the volunteer said. “And I heard what the Stavenger person said to you. Now they have your first wave’s weapons to repel your second wave.”

Giap pulled the laptop communicator from the shelf under the tractor’s dashboard. “I must contact the secretary-general.”

“No need,” said the volunteer. “Let us go in. We will destroy Moonbase and turn your defeat into a victory.”

“I am not defeated!” Giap snarled. “Not yet!”

The volunteer leaned forward and rested his arms on the back of Giap’s seat. The colonel could sense the young man’s tolerant, insufferable smile.

“Why wait?” he said calmly, softly. “You have the means to destroy Moonbase at hand. Why not use it now, without asking permission from your superiors?”

Giap took several long breaths before replying, trying to calm himself. At last he answered, “I am a soldier, sir, not a savage or a madman. I fight to achieve a political goal, not merely to destroy.”

“But you cannot fight without killing, without destruction, can you?”

“Death and destruction are the constant companions of soldiers, that is true,” Giap admitted. “But they are not our purpose! They are not our goal! We fight because the politicians have failed to keep the peace. We do not fight for the love of killing, for the delight of destruction!”

“Admirable,” said the young volunteer. “I am almost convinced that you truly believe that.”

Giap’s hands clenched into fists. For a burning moment he was ready, anxious, to give this young fanatic the death he was seeking. But the moment passed and he flipped his laptop open.

“I must speak with the secretary-general,” he muttered, yanking the comm wire out of his helmet before he could hear the volunteer’s sneering reply.

It had been a hot, humid, hazy summer day in New York City. The kind of day when, in earlier times, before the Urban Corps, children would have turned fire hydrants into neighborhood sprinklers.

Now an early-evening thunderstorm was booming across Manhattan, sending people scurrying indoors, slowing traffic on the streets and throughways, washing the city better than its maintenance workers ever did.

In his climate-controlled office George Faure was not bothered by the weather. Indeed, he had not even glanced out the dramatic ceiling-high windows since the Peacekeeper assault force had started its trek across Alphonsus’s ringwall mountains.

The assault had not started well and Faure had been spitting with helpless rage as the Peacekeeper colonel reported being stalled in the pass across the mountains. But events had progressed better as the hours wore on.

The frustrating thing was that Faure had to watch the progress of the battle on Global News television, narrated by that turncoat slut Edie Elgin. But then her broadcast had been abruptly cut off, and Faure celebrated with a little dance across his office carpeting from his desk to the built-in bar, where he poured himself a stiff Pernod and water.

Now, slumped in his desk chair, he realized that his celebration had been premature. Colonel Giap was on his wall screen, reporting in morose detail the defeat of his attack on Moonbase.

“In the tunnels my troops were blind and cut off from all radio communications. They ceased to be a cohesive military unit and were reduced to helpless individuals.”

Faure stared at the faceless image of the spacesuited colonel, his chin sinking to his collar. He could hear his pulse thundering in his ears; burning fury seethed inside him like lava bubbling up from the depths of hell.

But he kept his silence. Moustache twitching, face glowering red, eyes narrowed to slits, he stared at the wall screen until Colonel Giap finished his report.

“And what are your options?” Faure asked once he realized the colonel was waiting for him to say something.

For three long seconds the secretary-general stared at the image of the Peacekeeper officer.

At last Giap replied, “I can send in the second and third waves, but I believe the results would be the same. Once in Moonbase’s tunnels, my troops are at the mercy of the rebels.”

“And you did not foresee this?” Faure snapped.

Again the interminable wait. Then, “I did not foresee that the enemy would be able to blind my troops. I had considered the possibility that they might jam our suit radios, but the blinding was a surprise.”

“So what do you recommend, mon colonel ?”

The gold-tinted visor of Giap’s spacesuit might as well have been a blank piece of modernistic sculpture, Faure thought. He would get no brilliance from this man, no military genius.

Giap said, “I recommend that we cut the electrical lines from their solar cell arrays into the base itself. That will cut off their electrical power and force them to surrender.”

“No.” Faure was surprised to hear his own response.

He realized that he had made his decision before he consciously recognized it. Yamagata wants Moonbase intact, so he can take it over and use it for his own purposes. I want Moonbase destroyed, Faure finally understood. Utterly destroyed. Its inhabitants killed. I want it levelled the way the Romans razed Carthage. And then salt strewn across the ruins to assure that nothing will grow there again.

Moonbase has defied me, and for that they must be punished.

Why should I allow Yamagata to have it as a gift? He will continue to use nanotechnology and show all the world that I am merely his puppet. But that is not the case, no, not at all. Georges Henri Faure is no one’s puppet! I am secretary-general of the United Nations and Moonbase must bow to my will or be destroyed. And Yamagata must understand that I do not serve him; he serves me.

Giap was asking, “You don’t want me to cut off their electrical power?”

“No,” Faure repeated, realizing that it was all playing into his hands. Everything was going to be exactly as he wanted it. “Use ths volunteers.”

It was all falling perfectly into place, after all, Faure thought. Instead of accepting Moonbsse’s surrender I will smite them. The nanotechnology treaty will be enforced; Yamagata will not be allowed to make a mockery of it. Or of me.

“Sir, I want to be certain that I have understood you correctly,” Giap said. “Are you ordering me to use the volunteers?”

“Yes, mon colonel , that is an order.”

The delay from Giap seemed to take longer than three seconds this time. “They will destroy Moonbase,” he said, his voice hushed. “There will be many casualties.”

“So be it,” Faure replied. Better to destroy Moonbase than to allow Yamagata or anyone else to make a farce of my power, he told himself.

“Their hour’s almost up,” Anson pointed out.

Doug had been pacing around the control center, getting some circulation back in his legs, working out the stiffness of his back and shoulders.

The center had been in a state of suspended animation since Doug’s discussion with Colonel Giap. Is it over? Have we won? Or will there be another attack, something new, something we haven’t thought of, something we’re not prepared to meet?

Why haven’t they tried to cut the lines from the solar farms? Doug asked himself. Is it because they thought their nuke would do that job for them? We’re still vulnerable, still hanging by a thread.

Unbidden, a line from a literature class came to him: ‘The ides of March are come,’ Caesar says to the soothsayer, as he goes into the Senate, deriding the old man’s warning. ‘Ay, Caesar,’ says the soothsayer; ‘but not gone.’