Back to the Moon (36 page)

Starbuck studied the symbols. “It's interrogating us,” he said, softly whistling. “What does it want?”

“It wants to know if we're still alive. Remember, these things are built to fight during a nuclear war. If it's on manual, and the Air Force base controlling it gets blasted, it wants to know that.”

Starbuck whistled again. “It can take itself off manual override?”

“I think so. If we lost power I think one of these things might just cook itself off.”

“Break contact and attack on its own?”

“Yep. I think your crazy man embedded a doomsday command. If we're not responding, the BEMs are going to assume we're nuked and take off to destroy anything they find.”

Starbuck pondered the information. “We'd better fix it if we can. Can you figure it out, maybe backtrack into the code? If it's interrogating us and we're responding, there has to be a hook and a scar in that code.”

BEM Lead nodded but looked dubious. “I've tried but so far no go. If there's a scar, it's embedded.” He brightened. “I did figure something out while I was digging into the documentation. There's a microchip in the nav hardware that's capable of making tones. You want to make the BEMs talk?”

Starbuck's eyebrows lifted. “In what way?”

“I can give you a voice-emulating transducer, no sweat.”

Starbuck grinned. “Hell, yes! How about comm otherwise?”

“Give me a freq and you got it.”

Starbuck went back to his Exalted Leader pedestal. This was going to be even more fun than he'd thought. It appeared that he would be able to talk to his target before destroying it.

Starbuck eagerly rubbed his hands and looked down at the backs of his engineers, the lines of code streaming across their consoles as they joyfully hacked. On the port virtual panel screen the BEM XJ-249 was shown. Its two bright aluminized visual acquisition ports seemed to be inspecting Starbuck, contemplating him. He checked the BEM screenload. It said:

lover

Starbuck shuddered involuntarily. The BEM was interrogating him, hoping he was dead. He looked up and the antennas on XJ-249 were twitching. It seemed to Starbuck that it was an angry gesture.

LOW LUNAR ORBIT

But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor

Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's Unopening Door,

You gaze To-day, while You are You—how then

To-morrow, when You shall be You no more?

—Edward Fitzgerald,
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

ARRIVAL

Columbia

The moon was huge, completely filling
Columbia
's cockpit windscreen. Awestruck, Jack observed its approach. It seemed to be bulging toward him, so close he felt as if he could reach out and touch its plasterlike surface. Penny joined him to gape at the formidable sphere. “We
are
going to miss it, aren't we?”

He turned from the moon to look into her eyes. They were as wide and deep as space itself. He liked that, liked everything about the way she looked, one toe hooked in a footloop, relaxed, that fabulous body floating in zero g, her breasts restrained only by the spandex top she favored. Zero g did wonders for any woman's figure but for High Eagle... Jack fought against the stirrings of lust. He reminded himself of Penny's argumentative nature, her arrogance, her... but, God, she did look fine, didn't she?

“Medaris? Are you listening to me?”

He snapped out of his musings. “Will we miss the moon? Yes, High Eagle, we will. Unless the laws of physics take a holiday.”

Penny was quiet for a moment. “Tell me about her, Jack. Kate.”

Jack was ambushed by her question and it made him feel ashamed of the desire he'd just felt. Kate was so near now. How could he have feelings for someone else? He lurched around for an appropriate response. “I can tell you this much,” he said, finally. “Kate would have
loved
this.”

“Is it true she designed the Big Dog engine?” Penny probed.

“She did the preliminary work,” Jack acknowledged. “Everything MEC has done was based on her work.”

“That must make you proud, that you were able to complete what she started.”

Jack nodded and pulled away from Penny, using the handrails to go back to the cockpit. She followed him, settling into the seat beside him. “Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about her?”

“To you, yes,” Jack said honestly.

She blinked her big browns. They were filled with innocence. “Why?”

Jack ignored her, opened up a monitor, began to tap in instructions. “Got to get Big Dog configured to circularize our orbit.”

“You don't want to talk about her.”

Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “Yes, High Eagle. You're right. I don't want to talk about her.”

“What is it, Jack? Is she the reason you're here?”

“Not now, High Eagle.” Sweat had broken out on Jack's forehead.

“What could possibly be on the moon that has anything to do with Kate?”

“I said not now!” He kept working. “Later, maybe,” he relented when she kept staring at him. “But not now.”

“Later, never, you mean,” Penny huffed.

Jack kept working.
Columbia
was coming in over the lunar surface at an altitude of fifty miles. Gravity would swing her around the far side, but to stay in lunar orbit Big Dog would have to be fired to slow
Columbia
down.

“Am I right, Medaris?” Penny demanded. “Never rather than later?”

Jack gritted his teeth. “Yes, you're right. Happy now? Strap yourself in, High Eagle. This will be a big kick in the pants.”

Virgil came up from the middeck at Jack's call, strapped himself into the seat behind the cockpit. Paco was already stowed in his carrier. Penny stayed where she was, strapped in beside Jack, looking him over as if at any moment he was going to suddenly break down and confess why he was really at the moon. Jack kept his head down, immersed in his work. At the appropriate moment he gave the GSC computer the go-ahead and
Columbia
rotated around, tail-first to its direction, and Big Dog made its guttural roar for three-plus minutes, pressing them back into their seats.

Jack called up the data on the GSC to check the orbit. “All balls,” he announced, meaning only zeros had come up in the computer's discrepancy analyses. “We won't need an OMS burn. Only a little tweak to the RCS to bring
Columbia
into a nose-first, cargo-bay-down attitude.”

Columbia
soared from behind the moon and began her first lunar orbit. Jack pointed at the earth as the great globe edged over the horizon. “This was always a happy time for the
Apollo
boys,” he said. “They'd call Houston and tell them to celebrate, they were in lunar orbit.”

“Shall we do the same on the SAREX?” Penny asked him.

“Why not?”

High Eagle pushed out of her seat and went down to the middeck. Jack followed her.

LUNAR ORBIT ACHIEVED.

The SAREX whirred. Almost instantly a message came back.

BEST NEWS EVER. BE CAREFUL. WE LOVE YOU.

Penny poised her hands over the keyboard.

WE LOVE YOU TOO AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE THERE.

The SAREX whirred, transmitted, and received.

SAY HELLO TO THE MAN IN THE MOON.

BATTLE IN SPACE (1)

Farside Control

When Starbuck gave the command, the Farside commsat locked on
Columbia
and relayed her position to the designated BEM. The BEM instantly fired its engine and soared toward an intersection with the target. A virtual panel at Farside Control tracked the converging orbits. “Whoa, put on the brakes!” Starbuck ordered.

BEM Lead moved his mouse, and dragged the acceleration parameter toward zero. On the panel the BEM bullet slowed. “Rendezvous in six minutes,” Lead called, his voice tight.

“Copy,” Starbuck replied calmly, working hard to maintain an attitude of nonchalance. He knew pressure should never be applied by the director of a control room. He'd learned that the hard way from SDI generals who'd screwed up a couple of the tests at Kwajalein Island, getting everybody uptight by bellowing orders.

On the virtual panel Starbuck watched the BEM come in behind
Columbia
and hover over her tail. Its data stream showed XJ-249 begging for permission to attack. Starbuck sent back a negative code and then put the BEM under manual joystick guidance control. He'd take it from there.

Columbia

Jack tenderly watched Virgil dozing in the pilot's seat, as if he were looking at a child. The big guy deserved the rest, he thought. He wasn't liable to get much over the next day or two. Jack was checking the software code on the lander when he heard a scraping sound. He turned around just as Virgil jumped out of his seat, cracking his head against the rows of deactivated switches on the ceiling console. Jack pulled up beside Virgil and found himself looking into the silvery eyes of a monster. Virgil was trying to form words but all that came out were little gasps. When his voice finally came, it was a bellow:
“My God, what is that?”

Jack knew exactly what it was. “I'll be damned,” he said, marveling at the thing bumping and scratching at the cockpit windscreen.

Penny arrived. She screamed when she saw the thing and clutched Jack's arm. He pried her loose. She had squeezed him so hard, it still hurt after she let go. “SDI,” he told her. “Strategic Defense Initiative. Star Wars stuff, High Eagle. This device is called a BEM, a bug-eyed monster. It's a killer satellite.”

“You think it followed us here, Jack?” Virgil asked, obviously still shaken.

“Most likely been here the whole time, Virg. What a great place to go about your business undetected!”

Jack leaned forward, inspecting the “bug.” It backed off and then steadied itself with little puffs of gas. It was apparently inspecting him as well. He waved in what he hoped would be interpreted as a friendly gesture and then waited to see what it did next.

Farside Control

Carl Puckett was in a side room watching the activities on two monitors. One monitor observed the control room. On the other, in crystal-clear color, was a view as seen by the BEM. A man in
Columbia
's cockpit was waving. Puckett put on a headset. “Are you just going to look at them, Starbuck? Ram them!”

Starbuck came back, his voice nonchalant. “The BEM contains no warhead, Carl. I'm not sure of the results of a bows-on strike. The life-support system pallet would be the best target or maybe the OMS. But I want to talk turkey with them first.”

“Listen, you nerd,” Puckett brayed. “I'm paying about a million dollars an hour for this rig. Ram them, I said, and get it over with!”

Starbuck didn't respond. Puckett stood up and tried the door. It was locked.

Starbuck switched Puckett's comm off. “BEM Lead, can you give me the voice transducer?”

“Ready, Exalted Leader.”

“Go for contact. You have the con. Easy now.”

BEM Lead eased the joystick forward. Starbuck watched the data, the BEM fussing a bit, asking for permission to ram. The transducer would allow voice communications through vibrations. It was crude but if the crew aboard
Columbia
put their ear to the windscreen, they might be able to understand him. This was going to be fun! He was going to talk to the hijackers!

Columbia

Jack put his hand on the windscreen. He could feel the vibration as a staccato of gas from the bug's control nozzles hit
Columbia.
Then the eye cover of the BEM touched the glass. He put his ear closer. “High Eagle, get me a stethoscope out of the medical pack.”

“On my way,” Penny said compliantly. She headed below, was back within a minute with the instrument.

Jack used the stethoscope on the windscreen. “Greetings, earth people,” he said, interpreting the tinny voice coming through the stethoscope. “Go to UHF two five nine point seven for voice.” He took off the instrument and handed it to Penny. “I think we'd better do as it says.” He settled into the commander's seat, called up
Columbia
's central processor and activated the UHF power amplifier circuit, selected the 259.7-MHz UHF simplex, and then activated the audio distribution system. He put on a headset. “This is
Columbia,”
he said. “Are you receiving me, Mr. SDI bug-eyed monster?”

“You know what I am?” The voice sounded surprised.

“I've studied SDI a little,” Jack allowed, and then probed, trying to engage in conversation with whoever was electronically connected with the little killer bug. Any information he could get would be helpful to figure out its intentions. “Isn't it illegal for you to be in lunar orbit?” he asked. “The Outer Space Treaty prohibits any weapon of a strategic nature to be in the vicinity of the moon.”

“Maybe you shouldn't aggravate the little sucker, sir,” Virgil worried.

Jack peered at the BEM, watched its twitching antennae. “Looks pretty pissed already to me, Virg.”

Farside Control

Starbuck let XJ-249 flit in, coming, he calculated, within two milli-micro-nano seconds of attacking before its software hauled it back from the brink. Starbuck thought it amusing the spacejackers had no idea how near they were to destruction. “All right, you pukes,” he rasped. “You're mine anytime I want you.”

Columbia

The BEM disappeared from Jack's view. “Hey, Mr. BEM, where'd you go? We're friendly, just out here on a peaceful commercial enterprise.”

“Why don't you tell him you have a contract?” Penny said acidly, apparently recovered from her initial fright.

The BEM scuttled down
Columbia
's cargo bay, viewing the tethered satellite system, the shuttle arm, the “sausages,” and the Little Dog engine tied down with heavy rubber straps just behind the long-duration power pallet. “I see it, Jack!” Virgil called from the aft flight deck view ports. “It looks like a bloodhound sniffing all around.”

The BEM needed to go away, however interesting it was to Jack from an engineering point of view. He had an inspiration on how to take care of it. “BEM, we're in trouble,” he said. “Can you help us?”

“What are you doing, Medaris?” Penny demanded.

“I have a plan.”

“Medaris...”

“What's your problem?” the man speaking through the BEM responded.

“Don't get cute,” Penny advised. “Talk to them first.”

“Look, I can take care of this!”

Penny shook her finger at him. “Medaris, this is a killer weapon! That's what
you
said. Stop playing games with it!”

“I said it was a killer,” Jack said. “I didn't say it was smart. Watch and learn, High Eagle.” He keyed the transmitter. “Mr. BEM, could you go aft and check our propulsion? We may be stranded. Data indicates that we might have cracked an engine nozzle on our last firing. I can't tell which one. If I knew, I could safe it or go out and remove it. Would you look for us?”

Jack turned to High Eagle, to see her reaction. She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. Then she looked up at the ceiling as if to pray. “Oh, ye of little faith,” Jack said.

The voice from the ground came back. “Look at your engine?” it said. “Why not?”

Jack worked the Big Dog laptop, flashing through the pages, enabling as he went.

Dismayed, Penny watched him. “You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

“It's dropped down behind us, Jack,” Virgil called.

“What do you see, BEM?” Jack asked innocently.

“No sign of damage,
Columbia,
” the voice said. “What kind of engine is this, anyway? Where are the shuttle mains?”

Jack grinned. “It's a special kind of engine, BEM. By the way, do you have a name?”

“Starbuck,” Starbuck said.

“I'm Jack Medaris. Listen, Starbuck, give it a good once-over, won't you? Can you see the nozzles clearly?”

“We're using the zoom lens.”

“Could you come in just a little closer?” Jack asked. “Take a good look?”