Ben Bova - Moonwar

“You will take me to the control center,” the spacesuited Japanese said.

“I can’t,” Edith blurted.

He grabbed her wrist hard. “Why not?”

Thinking as swiftly as she ever had, Edith lied, The corridors are guarded. We’d both be shot the minute we stepped outside.”

He glared at her.

“And we’re so far away from the control center,” Edith quickly added,’that your bomb wouldn’t touch it if you set it off in here.”

Still glaring, he looked around at the studio’s cameras and fake-bookcase sets. Not a worthy target.

“You’re hurting my wrist,” Edith said.

He let go. “You are my hostage,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, looking around the empty, sparsely lit studio. Nowhere to hide, nothing here but video and VR equipment. Even if I grabbed a camera or tripod or something and tried to bash him, he’s protected by his helmet. And he might set off his bomb.

“You will call the control center and tell them to surrender to me,” the young man said, his voice harsh, guttural. “If you refuse I will kill us both.”

“Oh, I’ll call them, don’t worry about that.”

Doug fidgeted on his chair, waiting for Falcone to report he was ready to pump high-pressure oxygen into the plasma vents.

“We’re clear of the factory,” Jinny Anson reported from a corridor wall phone. “Had to seal the whole section of corridor, “cause the door to the factory’s been damaged by the blast.”

“Okay, fine,” Doug said. “We ought to open the vents to vacuum in a few minutes.” Silently he added, Come on, Vince!

“Call from the university studio,” a comm tech’s voice said in his earphone.

Edith, he knew. Doug nodded and touched the proper keypad.

Edith’s face appeared on his central screen. She looked strained, worried. Then Doug saw, behind her, the face of an oriental in a spacesuit helmet.

“Doug, I’m a hostage—”

The intruder pushed her aside. “You must surrender to me immediately! If you don’t, I will blow up this chamber with this woman in it!”

Doug felt as if someone had pushed him off a cliff. His mouth went dry. It took him two swallows to work up enough moisture to reply, “Hold on. I’ll surrender. Just don’t do anything foolish.”

“I must speak to the commander of Moonbase!” the suicide bomber insisted. “No underlings!”

“I’m Douglas Stavenger, the chief administrator of Moon-base.”

The Japanese’s eyes widened momentarily. “Douglas Stavenger? The one whose body is filled with nanomachines?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Doug felt Bam Gordette’s presence behind him, strong, protective.

“You must come here and surrender to me personally!”

“I understand.”

“Now! Quickly! Otherwise I kill her!”

“Okay, I’m on my way,” Doug said. He cut the connection and jumped up from his chair.

Gordette stood in his way. “You go in there, he’s gonna set off his explosives.”

“If I don’t go, he’s going to kill Edith.”

Falcone and his team threaded their way through the maze of piping and pumps that recycled and circulated air through Moonbase, dragging the cylinders of high-pressure oxygen clunking loudly along the narrow metal mesh walkways that twined through the throbbing equipment.

“There it is!” one of his men shouted, pointing to a metal hatch set into the rock ceiling.

Falcone squinted up to where the man was pointing. The ceiling was shadowy, criss-crossed with pipes.

“Naw,” he said. “Farther back. We want the last one of the hatches. The very last one.”

The man grumbled but moved on, deeper into the EVC.

“Is this really gonna work?” asked the guy just behind Falcone, gasping with exertion as he dragged a bulky oxygen cylinder.

“High-pressure gas on this end, vacuum on the other end. Oughtta blow out anything in the vents that ain’t fastened down.”

“Oughtta,” the man puffed.

Oughtta, Falcone said to himself. If the team with the friggin’ hoses shows up in time.

Doug spoke into his hand-held phone as he ran along the corridor toward the university studio.

“How soon?” he demanded.

“Got the hoses, finally,” Falcone’s voice crackled. “Gimme five minutes.”

“We’ve got to open the vents to vacuum, Vince! Water’s shorting out half the sections on level two.”

“Three minutes.”

“Call the control center when you’re ready. Jinny’s back and she’ll handle it.”

“What about you?”

Glancing at Gordette, loping along beside him with his assault rifle gripped tightly in his hands, Doug replied, “I’ve got other problems.”

As far as Amos Yerkes could tell, this was the last partition between him and the environmental control center. Blinking at the sweat trickling into his eyes, telling himself he should have thought to wear a head band, he pulled out the schematic map of Moonbase and tried to check out where he actually was.

Yes, that should be the end of the tunnel, on the other side of this partition. One more to go and he’d be directly over Moonbase’s environmental control center.

When I blow that up, he thought happily, they won’t have any air to breath. I won’t go alone; I’ll take all of them with me!

He started working on the partition with newfound energy.

Face streaked with grease, Jinny Anson sat at the same console Doug had been using, finger hovering over the keypad that would open all the plasma vent baffles.

Come on, Vince, she grumbled to herself. Move it, you big ape.

As if he’d heard her, Falcone’s swarthy face appeared on the screen showing the environmental control center.

Grinning broadly, he said, “All connected. We’re ready anytime you are.”

Anson let out a grateful sigh, then said, “Ten seconds?”

“Ten seconds,” Falcone said, teeth flashing.

“On my mark…” She glanced at the console’s digital clock. “Mark!”

“Ten seconds and counting,” Falcone said.

As they approached the double doors of the studio, Doug said to Gordette, “Are you a good-enough shot to get him without hitting the explosives?”

Gordette grunted. “Which eye do you want me to hit?”

Doug almost stopped running. We’re going to kill a man, he realized. Deliberately kill him. Or try to.

“Besides,” Gordette added,’they’re most likely carrying plastic explosives. Bullets won’t set ’em off.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep,” said Gordette, without missing a stride.

As he worked on the final partition, Yerkes wondered how the other volunteers had done. He had felt the rumble of two explosions, it seemed like hours ago. Since then nothing. The others must be having the same troubles I’ve had, he thought. But they don’t have as far to travel as I do. I’ll blow up my target before they even get to theirs.

The thought pleased him.

The partition was loosening, he could feel it as he dug the accumulated dust away from its hinges. Not merely loosening, it was shaking, flapping-

It sprang open, banging on his helmet, half stunning Yerkes. He heard a rushing sound, like wind, like a roaring hurricane.

He was sliding along the vent, skidding backwards on his belly, being pushed by some giant hand faster and faster. The dim circle of light thrown by his helmet lamp showed the vent walls speeding past.

Desperately he tried to stop himself, dig his gloved fingers into the vent floor, but there was nothing to grab onto. He reached out sideways toward the tunnel walls but the force of the wind tore at his hands, his arms, and he skidded along backwards, screaming now in fear as he slid down the vent like a feather caught in a tornado.