Robert Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

A few seconds or hours later he gave new coordinates and added, "Eyeball and burn at will."

I tried to watch ship and missile both, lost both--jerked eyes away from binoculars, suddenly saw missile--then saw it impact, between us and catapult head. Closer to us, less than a kilometer. No, it did not go off, not an H-fusion reaction, or I wouldn't be telling this. But made a big, bright explosion of its own, remaining fuel I guess, silver bright even in sunlight, and shortly I felt-heard ground wave. But nothing was hurt but a few cubic meters of rock.

Ship was still coming down. No longer burned bright; could see it as a ship now and didn't seem hurt. Expected any instant that tail of fire to shoot out, stop it into a dido landing.

Did not. Impacted ten kilometers north of us and made a fancy silvery halfdome before it gave up and quit being anything but spots before eyes.

Mike said, "Report casualties, secure all guns. Go below when secured."

"Gun Alice, no casualties"--"Gun Bambie no casualties"--"Gun Caesar, one man hit by rock splinter, pressure contained"-- Went below, to that proper phone, called Mike. "What happened, Mike? Wouldn't they give you control after you burned their eyes out?"

"They gave me control, Man."

"Too late?"

"I crashed it, Man. It seemed the prudent course."

An hour later was down with Mike, first time in four or five months. Could reach Complex Under more quickly than L-City and was in as close touch there with anybody as would be in-city--with no interruptions. Needed to talk to Mike.

I had tried to phone Wyoh from catapult head tube station; reached somebody at Old Dome temporary hospital and learned that Wyoh had collapsed and been bedded down herself, with enough sleepy-time to keep her out for night. Finn had gone to Churchill with a capsule of his lads, to lead attack on transport there. Stu I hadn't heard from. Hong Kong and Prof were still cut off. At moment Mike and I seemed to be total government.

And time to start Operation Hard Rock.

But Hard Rock was not just throwing rocks; was also telling Terra what we were going to do and why--and our just cause for doing so. Prof and Stu and Sheenie and Adam had all worked on it, a dummy-up based on an assumed attack. Now attack had come, and propaganda had to be varied to fit. Mike had already rewritten it and put it through print-out so I could study it.

I looked up from a long roll of paper. "Mike, these news stories and our message to F.N. all assume that we have won in Hong Kong. How sure are you?"

"Probability in excess of eighty-two percent."

"Is that good enough to send these out?"

"Man, the probability that we will win there, if we haven't already, approaches certainty. That transport can't move; the others were dry, or nearly. There isn't that much monatomic hydrogen in HKL; they would have to come here. Which means moving troops overland by rolligon--a rough trip with the Sun up even for Loonies--then defeat us when they get here. They can't. This assumes that that transport and its troops are no better armed than the others."

"How about that repair crew to Bee Ell?"

"I say not to wait. Man, I've used your voice freely and made all preparations. Horror pictures, Old Dome and elsewhere, especially Churchill Upper, for video. Stories to match. We should channel news Earthside at once, and announce execution of Hard Rock at same time."

I took a deep breath. "Execute Operation Hard Rock."

"Want to give the order yourself? Say it aloud and I'll match it, voice and choice of words."

"Go ahead, say it your way. Use my voice and my authority as Minister of Defense and acting head of government. Do it, Mike, throw rocks at 'em! Damn it, big rocks! Hit 'em hard!"

"Righto, Man!"

"A maximum of instructive shrecklichkeit with minimum loss of life. None, if possible"--was how Prof summed up doctrine for Operation Hard Rock and was way Mike and I carried it out. Idea was to hit earthworms so hard would convince them--while hitting so gently as not to hurt. Sounds impossible, but wait.

Would necessarily be a delay while rocks fell from Luna to Terra; could be as little as around ten hours to as long as we dared to make it. Departure speed from a catapult is highly critical and a variation on order of one percent could double or halve trajectory time, Luna to Terra. This Mike could do with extreme accuracy--was equally at home with a slow ball, many sorts of curves, or burn it right over plate--and I wish he had pitched for Yankees. But no matter how he threw them, final velocity at Terra would be close to Terra's escape speed, near enough eleven kilometers per second as to make no difference. That terrible speed results from gravity well shaped by Terra's mass, eighty times that of Luna, and made no real difference whether Mike pushed a missile gently over well curb or flipped it briskly. Was not muscle that counted but great depth of that well.

So Mike could program rock-throwing to suit time needed for propaganda. He and Prof had settled on three days plus not more than one apparent rotation of Terra--24hrs-50min-28.32sec--to allow our first target to reach initial point of program. You see, while Mike was capable of hooking a missile around Terra and hitting a target on its far side, he could be much more accurate if he could see his target, follow it down by radar during last minutes and nudge it a little for pinpoint accuracy.

We needed this extreme accuracy to achieve maximum frightfulness with minimum-to-zero killing. Call our shots, tell them exactly where they would be hit and at what second--and give them three days to get off that spot.

So our first message to Terra, at 0200 13 Oct 76 seven hours after they invaded, not only announced destruction of their task force, and denounced invasion for brutality, but also promised retaliation bombing, named times and places, and gave each nation a deadline by which to denounce F.N.'s action, recognize us, and thereby avoid being bombed. Each deadline was twenty-four hours before local "strike".

Was more time than Mike needed. That long before impact a rock for a target would be in space a long way out, its guidance thrustors still unused and plenty of elbow room. With considerably less than a full day's warning Mike could miss Terra entirely--kick that rock sideways and make it fall around Terra in a permanent orbit. But with even an hour's warning he could usually abort into an ocean.

First target was North American Directorate.

All great Peace Force nations, seven veto powers, would be hit: N.A. Directorate, Great China, India, Sovunion, PanAfrica (Chad exempted), Mitteleuropa, Brasilian Union. Minor nations were assigned targets and times, too--but were told that not more than 20 percent of these targets would be hit--partly shortage of steel but also frightfulness: if Belgium was hit first time around, Holland might decide to protect her polders by dealing out before Luna was again high in her sky.

But every target was picked to avoid if possible killing anybody. For Mitteleuropa this was difficult; our targets had to be water or high mountains--Adriatic, North Sea, Baltic, so forth. But on most of Terra is open space despite eleven billion busy breeders.

North America had struck me as horribly crowded, but her billion people are clumped--is still wasteland, mountain and desert. We laid down a grid on North America to show how precisely we could hit--Mike felt that fifty meters would be a large error. We had examined maps and Mike had checked by radar all even intersections, say 105° W by 50° N--if no town there, might wind up on target grid... especially if a town was close enough to provide spectators to be shocked and frightened.

We warned that our bombs would be as destructive as H- bombs but emphasized that there would be no radioactive fallout, no killing radiation--just a terrible explosion, shock wave in air, ground wave of concussion. We warned that these might knock down buildings far outside of explosion and then left it to their judgments how far to run. If they clogged their roads, fleeing from panic rather than real danger--well, that was fine, just fine!