Lunar Descent (47 page)

Lester sagged against the railing.
Christ almighty, that was too close
.…

He let out his breath and brushed his hair out of his face; little pieces of glass fell out of his scalp and tinkled on the metal steps around his feet. Looking down, he saw that the stairwell was empty. MainOps was destroyed, but everyone who had been in there was safe.

Okay. So far, so good. He staggered down the steps, heading for Level One. Get everyone he could find into the solar shelters in Level Two, he thought dizzily. We've got food in there, medical supplies, an independent oxygen supply. Seal the doors and make our stand. Not over yet, sport. Like they say, it's not over till the fat lady sings.…

He reached the bottom of the stairs, turned around and saw Butch, Tycho, Monk, Quack, Mighty Joe, the MainOps crew-hell, just about everyone he knew—crowded into the corridor in front of the rec room. At the far end of the corridor, he saw a Marine in CAS armor blocking the tunnel to Subcomp D, his assault rifle held in firing position.

And before Lester could say anything, the muzzle of another gun was jabbed into the base of his neck.

Freeze
! an electronically filtered voice commanded.

“Like an ice cube,” Lester replied. He dared not move a muscle.

A hard metal claw reached from behind and roughly patted his sides.
Okay
, the Marine snapped.
Turn around and put your hands on your head. Make it slow
.

First you want me to freeze, then you want me to make it slow, Lester thought. Our relationship is definitely thawing.… But he didn't voice his comments as he obediently clasped his hands on top of his skull and slowly turned to face the massive exoskeleton standing behind him.

“Greetings,” he said as pleasantly as he could. “Anything I can do for you?”

A few chuckles from the crew, but it definitely wasn't a crowd-pleaser. The rifle didn't move; it was now aimed straight at his throat.

There was a soft hiss of escaping air, like a rattlesnake clearing its throat, and the top hatch of the exoskeleton unsealed and slowly rose on its hinge, exposing the man buried within the armor. From deep within the upholstered bulk of the suit, a grim face with a trim black mustache peered out at him.

“Mr. Riddell,” the Marine said, “I'm Colonel Taylor Rainman, United States Marine Corps, 1st Space Infantry.”

“Glad to meet you finally,” Lester replied. “Hope you didn't find our airlocks too uncomfortable.”

Rainman's face remained stoical. “Not in the slightest,” he said drily, “but you should have taken my advice a few minutes ago. It would have saved us all a lot of grief.”

Lester shrugged. “You shoot up our command center, fire a couple of grenades into a bunkhouse, hold my friends at gunpoint, stick a rifle in my face …” He shrugged. “Hey, what's a little violence between friends, right?”

The squad leader's mouth twitched. “As I said, it could have been avoided if you had—”

“Hey, man,
fuck
this shit!” Tycho's voice suddenly shouted out. “There's two of them and at least thirty or forty of us here! Let's take the fuckers and ream 'em with their own guns!”

Suddenly, there were shouts of assent, the rustle of people beginning to move. Quack grabbed Tycho from behind and pinned his arms back. Rainman's head jerked up. The rifle swerved away from Lester to cover the crowd, and Lester saw the colonel's forefinger dart back within the trigger guard.…

“
No
!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Still keeping his hands on top of his head, he whirled around and faced the moondogs jammed into the corridor. “Nobody move! They've got us! Just give it up, okay?”

Once again, the crowd was shocked into still silence. Except for Tycho. “You're going to let these bullet-head …?”

“Tycho, shut up,” Lester demanded, finding the big black man's face in the mob. “You're not doing anyone any good, so just clam it.…”

Tycho's face remained defiant. “Where's the rest of 'em, huh, Les?” he said. “I only see two of these robo-muthafuckers. What's going on with the other three?”

“We've got the other three units sweeping the rest of the base,” Rainman said loudly, addressing the crowd. “Right now we've got another Marine standing watch on a group in the mess hall down the corridor behind us. The other two are working their way through the base, rounding up everyone else. The
Delaware
has landed outside the base and is backing us up. Your boss is right, ladies and gentlemen. Further resistance is pointless. We've assumed control, and nobody will be hurt if you—”

All at once, the sound of a blues saxophone jumped through the ceiling speakers: Noble “Thin Man” Watts yelling out the sassy first bars of “Skunky.” Every single person in the corridor jerked and stared up at the ceiling, as if expecting the bluesman himself to come down out of the rafters.

Holllllld everything
! the voice of Moondog McCloud shouted from the speakers.

Rainman stared at Riddell. “What are you trying to pull now?” he demanded. Mouth agape, Riddell stared back at the colonel over the rifle barrel and shrugged helplessly.

Before things get a little too rough out there
, McCloud went on,
there's an important announcement y'all ought to take into consideration, if you'll just bear with me
.…

Tycho, held back by Quack, stopped in mid-struggle as they both listened.

This station has just received news
…
and, make no mistake, this is the real, authentic, no-bullshit deal here
…

Cringing within the crowd, head instinctively covered with her arms, Butch Peterson gradually raised her eyes as Monk Walker, who had thrown himself protectively around her, slowly extricated himself.

…
that Skycorp, our former employer, has just reached a tentative agreement for the sale of Descartes Station
…

Quack Lippincott sighed and closed his eyes. All this, and the goddamn Japanese win anyway.

…
with the newly established firm of Lunar Associates Ltd
.…

Lester blinked. Who? What?

…
which is, for your information, completely and wholly owned by the only stockholders who really matter
…

“Gotta be the Japanese,” someone murmured.

“Naw,” someone else sighed. “Arabs.”

“Europeans.”

“What do you wanna bet it's the Aussies?”

…
and that is you
!

“What the fuck?” Lester heard himself say.

…
That is correct! This is the truth! Absolutely no bullshit! You heard it here first! Lunar Associates Ltd. is solely owned and operated by the employees … whoops, I mean former employees … of Descartes Station! We are now its principal shareholders, its management, its work force
.…

Lester glanced at Rainman. The Marines Corps colonel had his left hand cupped around the earpiece of his headset. He listened, silently nodded his head, listened some more. Then he looked straight at Lester and made a slow, definite nod.

We are now in control of this mining facility, by the terms of an exclusive agreement reached today between the New York firm of Gamble, Hutton & Schwartzchilde and the majority shareholders of Skycorp and its management
.…

The squad leader appeared stunned, but he was already lowering his gun. Through the corridor, moondogs were transfixed upon the ceiling speakers. Quack was relaxing his grip on Tycho; Monk was giving Butch an uncharacteristic hug and kiss.

…
Now, once y'all are through changing your underwear, if you know what I mean, the first stockholders meeting of Lunar Associates Ltd. will be held, as customary, in the mess hall at
…

From the mess hall behind him, Lester could hear shouting, yelling, whooping. Maybe it was bullshit, and maybe it wasn't. He grinned, and was startled to see that Rainman was grinning back at him.

…
well, when everyone gets there, I guess. At this time we'll be hearing the details of this deal from our new CEO, Mr. Willard … 'scuse me, Mr. Jeremy Schneider
.…

“What?” Lester's eyes darted to the ceiling again. Schneider? The communications officer? What the holy hell was going on here?

…
And that, boys and girls, means this strike is unofficially ended. Now back to more music from LDSM
.

Lester brushed past Rainman, who was no longer holding him at the business end of his rifle, and began pushing his way through the yelling, deliriously happy crowd. He was halfway to the radio station when he was suddenly tackled by Butch Peterson. She silently held him in a hug, her face pressed against his chest. Lester gasped, thought again about finding Moondog McCloud or Jeremy Schneider to get some straight answers, then surrendered himself and hugged her in return.

It beat the hell of catching a bullet, even if he had absolutely
no
comprehension of what had just happened. “What the fuck,” he murmured into the nape of Butch's neck. “We'll figure it out sooner or later.”

“Later,” Butch whispered back to him.

Big Deal (Video.4)

From “The CBS Evening News With Don Houston”; Wednesday, August 21, 2024:

(
THEME UP and FADE. Don Houston at studio desk.
)

HOUSTON:
Good evening, I'm Don Houston. The three-day strike by workers at Descartes Station on the Moon ended early this morning when a five-person assault team from the United States Marine Corps raided the industrial lunar base. Then, just when the elite cadre stormed the base and had taken the strikers captive, there was an unexpected twist. The corporation owning the base agreed to
sell
Descartes Station to a new company … one apparently controlled by the miners themselves. Garrett Logan reports from Huntsville, Alabama, on this strange, fast-moving story.…

(
FILE FOOTAGE of the U.S.S
. Valley Forge
in its orbital hangar, followed by COMPUTER ANIMATION of the spacecraft's flight to the Moon, FILE FOOTAGE of Descartes Station, and a DIAGRAM of the deployment of the RDF squad at Descartes Station.
)

LOGAN (V.O.):
Following a one-day sprint to the Moon … the fastest manned lunar flight yet on record, thanks to an experimental nuclear engine … the U.S.S.
Valley Forge
arrived at the Moon early this morning, bringing with it a five-member rapid-deployment force from the elite 1st Space Infantry of the United States Marines. The mission, which Pentagon sources say was code-named Operation Shady Grove, was to break the illegal strike begun on Monday by employees of Skycorp at the Descartes Station lunar mining facility and to take control of the base. The
Valley Forge
's military lander, the U.S.S.
Delaware
, landed just outside the base. The Marines then rushed the base's airlocks and, according to spokesmen from the Department of Defense, made it into the base without encountering much resistance.…

(
FILM CUP of a uniformed Marine officer, identified as COL LUCAS BAYLOR, at a Pentagon news conference.
)

BAYLOR:
We are pleased to report that the … uh, operation went off without too much … uh, undue difficulty and that the lunar facility was captured … ah, that is secured … um, without casualties being reported by either our RDF team or the … uh, opposing forces … that is, um, the strikers. The mission went by the numbers.

(
FILE FOOTAGE of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange: traders crowding the floor, numbers flashing on the Big Board, etc. This is followed by COMPUTER ANIMATION of a large asteroid tumbling through deep space, heading toward the distant Earth, and FILE FOOTAGE of Skycorp's Byrd Crater permaice facility at the lunar north pole.
)

LOGAN (V.O.):
Yet even while this was happening, another story was being played out on Wall Street and on other stock exchanges across the world. Investors had been alerted by computer network of a new stock offering by a heretofore unknown company, called Lunar Associates Ltd., in connection with the planned launch of an industrial mission to a newly discovered asteroid, 2024 Garbo. The importance of this mission was obvious to quick-minded investors, since Skycorp had just announced that permaice resources at Byrd Crater were rapidly diminishing, which would make the operation of Descartes Station much more expensive in the future. Lunar Associates Ltd. has proposed a rendezvous with 2024 Garbo when it nears the Moon later this year to extract water trapped within the asteroid at considerably less cost than having it shipped up from Earth. Word of this spread quickly through the international finance community, and over the past two days investors have been snatching up stock in Lunar Associates. So much so, that even as the Marines were launching their raid on the moonbase, Lunar Associates was striking a deal with Skycorp.…

(
FILM CUP of a Skycorp spokesperson—identified as Holly D'Amato—at a news conference in Huntsville.
)

D'AMATO:
The company has received today a worthwhile offer from a new company, Lunar Associates Ltd., for the purchase of the capital assets and financial liabilities of our mining facility at Descartes Station. Given the … um, recent difficulties that we have encountered with the … ah, continued operation of Descartes Station, we have decided to accept their offer.

REPORTER (offscreen):
What about reports that the majority of the investors in Lunar Associates are, themselves, striking workers at the lunar base?

D'AMATO:
We've … um, received the same reports and have been unable to confirm them, but even if it's true … ah, it doesn't affect the deal we've made with Lunar Associates. We will sign with the company under the present terms of our tentative agreement.

(
FILM CLIP of a space industry market analyst, identified as Clifford Brandenstein.
)

BRANDENSTEIN:
If it's the strikers who are behind Lunar Associates, well then … (
shrugs
) Who cares, really? Uchu-Hiko was negotiating for the purchase of the base, but I've been told that it's been losing interest in the deal since the strike started. I'm sure that the Japanese were seriously reconsidering their bid even before the Marines were sent in. If the miners can come in through the back door and make an equitable deal with Skycorp, the company would be all too happy to get rid of the base. The whole thing has been a disaster for them … for Skycorp … from the word go, if only in terms of public image, if not labor relations and all the rest. They're probably happy to sell Descartes Station to the miners, and good riddance. The name of the game here is money, not settling scores.…