Eagle Station

Fifty

Weeping openly now, Nadia stalked through the remains of the Sino-Russian base. Periodically, she stopped to destroy pieces of enemy equipment — automated rovers and inflatable tanks containing oxygen, water, and hydrogen — with her autocannon. She’d already summoned Peter Vasey to fly here to this place of death and desolation. What she hadn’t yet decided was whether she would board the Xeus when it arrived, or remain here, waiting to join Brad in death.

Despite the robot’s sensors, sorrow had narrowed her world. She moved on, conscious only of targets yet to be destroyed and the wreckage she had already left behind. And so she was taken completely by surprise when an ever-more-urgent warning flashed across her neural link with the machine.

Hostile movement alert, the computer signaled, somehow sounding desperate despite its cool, emotionless tone. Six o’clock low. Threat level extremely high.

Startled, she reset her visual sensors to look directly behind her robot. And there she saw the two men in bulky EVA suits. One Chinese taikonaut was down on one knee, with a launch tube on his shoulder, ready to fire. The other stood at his side, with another of the tubes slung over his shoulder. Weapon is a Hóng Jiàn-12, infrared-homing antitank guided missile, the computer reported.

They must have been hiding inside the base’s habitat module, Nadia realized, suddenly angry at her own stupidity. She had left the inflated habitat untouched in her rampage across the plateau, knowing that she would need to set explosives to breach its half-meter-thick walls. It was a mistake that was going to kill her. And it was also going to kill Peter Vasey, since the base’s surviving crewmen had another antitank missile to use against the Xeus lander when it came within range.

Knowing she would be too slow, no matter how fast she moved, she started to spin toward the Chinese missile crew… and then stopped.

The kneeling taikonaut’s space helmet exploded. Already dead, he jerked forward, falling slowly in the moon’s low gravity. The other Chinese crewman turned in surprise and then folded over. A huge fountain of blood, black in the weird half-light, erupted from the hole drilled through him.

Nadia’s eyes widened in amazement as an astronaut wearing a silver carbon-fiber space suit limped slowly into view. With a gesture of disgust, he tossed away the pistol he’d just fired twice and headed in her direction. Weapon is a Russian-made Vektor SR-1M 9mm pistol captured by Major McLanahan during the capture of Mars Station almost two years ago, her computer announced.

“My God,” she whispered. “Brad?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” she heard a familiar, pain-filled voice say over the radio.

Unable to speak for the moment, she stumbled toward him, with her CLAD’s large, armored arms held open.

“Whoa there,” Brad said, backing away a bit with a hand held up in caution. “Please, please, please… do not hug me… at least not just yet.” Through his helmet visor, she saw his familiar, crooked grin. “Especially not while you’re still wearing that big-ass robot. Because I think I cracked a few ribs falling halfway down that damn rim wall.”

Now it was Nadia’s turn to smile. “You have a bad habit of making me think you might be dead, Brad McLanahan.”

“True,” he admitted. “But I promise it’s a habit I’m going to try real hard to break from here on out.”

Over the radio, they both heard Peter Vasey’s voice calling. “Wolf Two and Wolf Three, this is Lunar Wolf One. I’m approximately two minutes out from your location. Since it looks as though you’ve made a bit of a mess of things, could one of you find me a safe place to set this beast down?”

Turning toward the east, they saw a faint spark against the black sky — a spark that grew ever brighter as the Xeus drew nearer.

Strapped awkwardly into the lander’s rightmost seat, Brad listened to Vasey run through his pre-liftoff checklist. Not even counting his own injuries, both he and Nadia were physically exhausted and emotionally numbed by the battle they’d just fought and won — and only by the narrowest of margins. Neither of them was in any fit state to argue with the Englishman when he’d told them he’d be handling the outbound flight on his own.

“Main engine on standby,” Vasey announced. “Thrusters are go. Flight control and lunar navigation systems are go.” He turned his head, checking over his passengers with a faint smile. “We are go for liftoff. Any unfinished business you two need to take care of before we spread our wings and fly?”

Brad shook his head tiredly. “Not me, brother.”

“I, too, am ready to leave,” Nadia confirmed. She reached out and took Brad’s hand, holding on tight as if she never intended to let go.

With a satisfied nod, Vasey tapped his control panel. Seconds later, the Xeus lifted off from the plateau — riding thruster plumes that carried it higher in a swirling cloud of dust. Behind them, bright flashes flickered across the high crater rim as the demolition charges they’d rigged to destroy their CLADs and the Sino-Russian habitat detonated in sequence.

Several thousand feet above the surface, the Englishman lit their main rocket engine, throttling up slowly to spare Brad’s cracked ribs for as long as possible. Steadily, the lander accelerated, climbing higher on its way into orbit around the moon.

Forty minutes later, they watched in awed silence as the beautiful, cloud-streaked blue orb of the earth rose over the barren, cratered landscape sixty miles below. Then Vasey cleared his throat and keyed his radio mike. “Sky Masters Control, this is Lunar Wolf One. Our mission is complete. I say again, our mission is complete. Requesting assistance, over.”

For what seemed an eternity, they heard only static-filled silence. All of them were only too aware that the Xeus could not carry them home. Their only hope was a rescue here in lunar orbit before their oxygen and supplies ran out.

But then Hunter Noble’s voice crackled over the radio. “Copy that, Lunar Wolf One. This is the Sky Masters Orion. I’ve just completed a good translunar injection burn. I’ll rendezvous with you in just a few days.”