Eagle Station

Forty-Seven

“You’ve lost radar contact with the American spacecraft?” Marshal Leonov asked, evidently taken aback.

“It dropped off our feed from the Kondor-L satellite about thirty minutes ago and we haven’t been able to regain contact since,” Lavrentyev said. He glanced at Major Liu for confirmation and saw the taikonaut nod. The Chinese officer was monitoring Korolev’s radar and thermal detection systems. “At the time, the enemy vehicle was still well below our own radar horizon.”

Leonov’s brow furrowed in thought. “Where exactly did the Kondor lose contact?”

“Just east of the Tsander crater,” Lavrentyev told him. “About three hundred and fifty kilometers away.” He expressed his hope. “It’s possible that it crashed. Naturally, our altitude estimates were imprecise, but that spacecraft had to be coming in very low. And it was moving so fast, nearly six thousand kilometers per hour — sixteen-hundred-plus meters per second! — that any tiny error in its computer flight program could easily have led to disaster.”

Leonov shook his head. “That seems unlikely, Colonel. Highly unlikely.” His mouth turned downward. “You’ve seen the American flight path. After so successfully navigating through a gravitational and terrain maze like the Hertzsprung crater, why should its systems fail just now?”

“But if that spacecraft didn’t crash—”

“Then the Americans have landed,” Leonov said bluntly. “And our analysis of the situation was completely wrong. That Xeus lander was not flown by a computer. It carried humans, military astronauts.”

Lavrentyev suddenly saw what the other man meant. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “You think the Americans intend a ground assault,” he realized. “Using some of their own combat robots.”

“What else?” Leonov said grimly. “Why should we believe we were the only ones who thought of modifying such weapons for use on the moon?” His mouth tightened. “You and the others had better don your KLVMs and look to your defenses. Hand over all responsibility for your sensors and the plasma rail gun to Major Liu and Captain Shan, in case we’re wrong again… and the Americans have some other trick up their sleeves.”

“I could send one of our machines out to find and destroy the American lander,” Lavrentyev suggested uncertainly.

Leonov dismissed the idea with a curt wave of his hand. “Too dangerous, Kirill. Any KLVM you dispatched could be ambushed. And even if it succeeded in wrecking the enemy’s spacecraft, weakening your own forces there might lead to disaster. We cannot afford to trade pawns with the Americans in this game. The security of your base is paramount. It must come before any other considerations.”

Lavrentyev swallowed hard. “Yes, Marshal. I understand.” Yes, he and the other Russian cosmonauts were trained to pilot the base’s three Kibernetischeskiye Lunnyye Voyennyye Mashiny, its Cybernetic Lunar War Machines. But never in his worst nightmares had he ever imagined they would have to use them in actual combat. Up to now, their KLVMs had functioned primarily as heavy construction equipment — accomplishing tasks that would have been impossible for any cosmonaut in a conventional space suit. Even knowing that it was easier to defend than to attack, especially across the long, barren slopes below the crater rim, he found the prospect of actually going head-to-head with piloted American combat robots deeply unsettling.

Brad dug in to the loose scree piled just below the rim of a minor crater and cautiously pulled himself up the slope. Grains of soil and small rocks slid soundlessly downhill behind his CLAD. A hundred yards to his right, Nadia’s robot toiled up the same steep hillside.

One of the eerier effects of piloting a robot through a neural link was that you soon lost all distracting awareness of self. Within a matter of moments, you were no longer cognizant that you were directing a machine from inside its cockpit. Instead, you essentially wore the large cybernetic device as if it were a second skin — controlling its limbs, systems, and sensors as easily and unconsciously as if they were your own from birth.

A few feet below the crest of the rise, Brad halted in place and crouched down. So did Nadia. For most of their long approach march from the Xeus, they had been able to cover ground quickly, gliding and bounding at speeds of up to forty miles an hour across stretches where the going was firm. But now that they were almost within striking distance of the Sino-Russian base, it was time to exercise considerably more caution.

While the oblique photos taken by the S-29B’s cameras during its first orbit hadn’t revealed the precise types of weapons the enemy’s own war machines carried, it was a safe bet that they included 25mm or 30mm rifled autocannons with armor-piercing ammunition. Since the moon was airless, only its weak gravity would act on any projectile. In practical terms, that meant weapon ranges were effectively limited only by lines of sight. On the other hand, it also meant nobody on either side was likely to be blasting away on full automatic — spraying hundreds of rounds per minute downrange. Without an atmosphere, it was far more difficult to radiate away the heat generated by high rates of fire. Experiments at Sky Masters Space Exploration, Research, and Development Lab had shown that the best way to avoid a weapons jam in combat on the lunar surface was to revert to semiautomatic shooting, where a trigger pull would fire just one round at a time.

The enemy’s robots might also be equipped with some kind of man-portable, guided missiles — but that was less likely. Without an atmosphere, aerodynamic control vanes or fins were useless, so only missiles with vanes to deflect their own rocket thrust would be able to track and hit moving targets. An even bigger problem was that the moon’s extreme temperature swings would rapidly drain the batteries needed to power any missile’s electronic components and cool its infrared seeker. After a few minutes outside on the lunar surface, any unprotected missile would probably be inoperable.

Kind of ironic, Brad thought. Come to the moon to fight a war and find yourself mostly facing weapons that were developed decades before. Then again, any large, armor-piercing round was a serious threat. In this brutal environment, a single significant hull breach could mean death.

He opened a very low-powered radio link to Nadia’s robot. Passive sensors might alert the Russians to the fact that their enemies were communicating. But since their transmissions were automatically encrypted and compressed to millisecond bursts, the odds were against anyone getting an accurate fix on them. “I’m going to take a quick look,” he said. “Hold your position.”

“Copy that, Wolf Two,” she answered. She swung the weapons and equipment pack off her back and pulled out her electromagnetic rail gun.

He felt a smile cross his face. Power constraints limited the Sky Masters — designed rail guns to just one shot each, but they were definitely the most lethal weapons in their arsenal — able to hurl small, superdense metal projectiles across enormous distances at Mach 5. Clearly, Nadia wanted to be able to reach out and kill someone if he drew enemy fire.

Which was something he planned to do his level best to avoid. The Sino-Russian lunar base was still miles away and several thousand feet above them. So if a patrolling Russian war robot spotted him now, he and Nadia would have no chance of getting in close enough to fight and win a decisive battle. A long-range sniping duel would only favor the enemy. To win, the Russians and Chinese simply had to hold their ground until Brad and Nadia’s life-support systems ran out of power and failed. Engage upper quadrant thermal adaptive and chameleon camouflage systems, he thought.

Camouflage systems online, the CLAD’s computer reported. Power consumption levels spiking. The six-sided head, shoulders, and upper arms of his robot shimmered into near invisibility, both in the visible and infrared spectrums.

Moving carefully to avoid dislodging any rocks, Brad raised up just high enough to see over the crest. Beyond the crater they were using as cover, the ground fell away for several hundred yards. But then it rose steadily across miles of open ground, climbing higher and higher until it merged into the towering rim wall of Engel’gardt crater. Apart from a few massive boulders and shallow heaps of aeons-old debris strewn at random, there was no cover at all.

Warning, his computer suddenly announced unemotionally. Movement alert at twelve o’clock high. Crossing from right to left along the edge of the large crater. Range twenty thousand yards.

Reacting instantly, Brad locked one of his long-range visual sensors onto the contact. Magnified hundreds of times, he saw the manlike shape of a Russian combat machine striding along the rim wall. Bristling with antennas and other sensors, its ovoid head swiveled from side to side. The robot carried a long, rifle-like weapon at the ready. Small, ring-shaped fins studded the barrel, probably intended to help shed heat in a vacuum.

The weapon appears to be a modified version of the Russian NR-30 30mm autocannon, the computer reported, picking up his sudden focus through their shared neural link.

That made sense, Brad realized. The NR-30 had already been tested in space in 1974 as part of an early Soviet military space program called Almaz, or Diamond. The weapon had been fired aboard Salyut 3, which was one of the Almaz platforms disguised as a civilian space station.

He dropped back below the edge of the crater rim. Deactivate all camouflage systems, he thought.

Thermal adaptive and electrochromatic systems are off, the CLAD confirmed. Life-support capability reduced to thirty-six hours at current power consumption levels.

Brad grimaced. That was seriously bad. Going to full stealth mode with just a fraction of his robot for a little over sixty seconds had just burned three full hours of life support. He’d known intellectually that running the robot’s camouflage ate power at a prodigious rate. Experiencing it in the field brought that knowledge home with a vengeance. And it meant there was no way he and Nadia could hope to rely solely on their stealth systems to cross the deadly swath of open ground ahead of them. Their batteries and fuel cells would be drained before they covered even a third of the distance.

“Well, what did you see?” Nadia asked.

In answer, he focused mentally, ordering his computer to produce a complete compilation of all its sensor data. Then he flicked a finger, electronically transferring the files to her own robot as easily as a whisper.

“Interesting,” she said quietly, comprehending the accumulated data with lightning speed. “The Russians have deployed only a single sentry to cover this avenue of approach.” She hefted the electromagnetic rail gun she carried. “I can eliminate him with a single shot.”

Brad nodded. “Sure. And then all hell breaks loose.” He sighed. “We might be able to nail a second enemy robot with our last rail gun shot… but then what? We’d still have to rush the last Russian war machine up that long, empty slope. One of us might make it. Maybe. With a lot of luck.” He shook his head. “But that’s a house edge I do not want to go up against.”

“House edge?” Nadia said accusingly. “You have been spending far too much time around Boomer and his favorite casinos.”

Almost unwillingly, he grinned. “You grow up in Nevada, you learn the lingo. It’s a habit.”

“Then what do you propose?” she asked.

“That we move around more to the right,” Brad answered. He thought out his rough plan on a digital map file and sent it to her. “See, there’s a spur extending off the main crater rim wall a few miles off in that direction, along with a chain of smaller, ejecta craters we can use as cover to get up onto the reverse slope of the spur. If we move fast, and use our camouflage systems sparingly, we ought to be able to make it all the way up onto the rim itself. That’ll also put us northwest of the base itself, pretty much the opposite of where they should expect us. If we’re lucky, they won’t be keeping quite as close an eye on that area, figuring we’ll have to move in quick from the east before our batteries run dry.”

“And if the Russians are guarding it?” Nadia asked seriously.

He shrugged. “Then we slug it out at closer range — hoping our stealth tech and rail guns give us enough of an edge to win.”

“And pray?”

“That, too,” he agreed. One of the surprises of their married life had been learning that Nadia was more religious than he’d imagined. Faith had never been a big part of his own upbringing, so maybe it wasn’t too astonishing that he’d been caught a little off guard by her quiet, unobtrusive belief. Now, two hundred and forty thousand miles from home and from everyone who loved them, he realized her rarely expressed convictions were a source of strength he both envied and admired.