He wondered if they’d already waited too long….
TWENTY-SEVEN
MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2042
PFC Jack Ramsey
Tsiolkovsky Base
0103 hours GMT
Jack ducked through the aft airlock hatch and jumped, landing on the Moon with a slight jar to his knees and a puff of scuffed-up dust around his boots. I made it! I’m on the Moon! I’m actually on the freaking Moon!…
But, damn it, there was no time to enjoy the fact. In eerie silence, space-suited figures ran, bounded in long kangaroo leaps, or spun and fell as gunfire or lasers cut them down. Wyvern rockets streaked across the sky, explosions flashed…and all in an utter, death-still silence that lent a touch of the surreal to the scene as it unfolded beyond Jack’s helmet visor. Radio chatter alone filled the Lunar night. “Chicago!” some Marine shouted over the combat frequency. “Remember Chicago!” And then everyone was shouting it.
As he’d been ordered, Jack dropped to a crouch in a depression just beyond the grounded LSCP, and Diane crouched with him. The scene was so chaotic, he couldn’t make sense of it at first. He saw the UN spacecraft that was their goal perhaps a hundred meters ahead, rising from within the embrace of a red-and-white-painted gantry and the caress of harsh worklights. He saw the Quonset-hut shapes of the base proper, tucked away in the shadow at the base of the central peak, which towered above the entire area, vast and brooding.
Jack switched on his tagger and studied the symbols that appeared on his HUD. The nearest troops all carried the green symbols indicating friend…fellow Marines. The few he could see without flags, on the mountainside or high up in the gantry, were far enough away to pose no immediate threat. He would wait and let the experienced hands take care of them.
One of the unflagged figures was leaning over a catwalk railing up near the top of the gantry, though, and appeared to be firing at Marines working their way up from below. He decided that he wouldn’t be breaking orders if he took the guy out…and he might save some Marine’s life.
Plugging a connector from his rifle into his suit, then switching on his ATAR’s sighting system, he waited until a green crosshair appeared on his visor, then carefully moved the rifle back and forth until the crosshair centered on the enemy. Range figures flickered on the side of his visor: 156.3 meters. At that range, Jack could just make out the guy’s UN-blue helmet. With the ATAR set for a three-round burst, he depressed the firing button. The weapon cycled with a swift, short vibration; the M-29 ATAR’s rate of fire was so fast that the third round left the barrel before the first round’s recoil had knocked the weapon off target.
He couldn’t see the target now. He’d looked down at his HUD, distracted, and missed it. Had he hit him? Was the UN soldier down? Damn! He hadn’t even seen what had happened!
In Siberia, Jack had never even seen the enemy…an invisible foe who dropped high-velocity shells on the Marine camp from over the horizon or rushed the perimeter at night, a half-glimpsed green-and-yellow shadow in an IR headset. Here, he still couldn’t tell what was happening…but the fighting was far more immediate, more real.
And more deadly. A hit to arm or leg that would simply sting on Earth could be fatal here, in hard vacuum. Jack found he was shaking and couldn’t stop.
He hoped no one else could tell how scared he was.
The other LSCP had touched down fifty meters away. As Marines spilled from the aft end of the vehicle, four suited figures lumbered across the plain toward Jack and Diane. IFF tagged them as Gunnery Sergeant Bueller, Bosnivic, and two Second Squad Marines.
“You two okay?” Bueller called. “Okay! Let’s rock!” Turning, he trotted toward the gantry, leading the way. Rising from the depression, Jack and Diane followed.
Moving on the moon, Jack found, took a knack…one easily acquired, though it was hard work to get up to speed. He found a gentle lope, half skipping, half kangaroo hop, carried him across the lunar surface at the ground-eating pace of a running man.
He found himself wondering if he’d just killed someone up there on that steel tower.
“Okay!” Bueller called. “Tomlinson! Jakosky Take point! You three follow. We’ll bring up the rear! Amphibious green blurs, now! Go! Go!”
Jack grabbed a rung and started climbing right behind Corporal Jakosky. He’d expected the climb to be harder than it was, but even with his suit, weapon, and backpack PLSS, he still weighed only about twenty kilos. He could pull himself up, hard, and before he stopped moving upward, he could reach up, grab, and pull again, with his feet providing only occasional guidance and support.