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  Santana and Paterson strained to overhear the orders, without success. The lieutenant left with his NCO, and Leslie returned to Recon squad where the others gathered around her.

  “Our area,” said a small voice from halfway behind her, “is lunar spaceport arrivals.” All eyes turned to the young ensign, Torres, and he seemed to deflate slightly under their combined gaze. Unsure of himself, he glanced up to Brandt.

  “Twelve-hour rotations,” she said. “We’ve scored the day shift working six ‘til six. Guard Squad get the night shift. We do that for six days at a time, then we get seventy-two hours stand-down. That means we are off duty now until muster at oh-four-hundred for PT and biscuits. Briefing at oh-five-forty-five. Questions?”

  “What’s our remit?” asked a seaman to her left.

  “We are on customs and search,” she said. “We’ll rotate, but we’ll have three on cargo search under the command of Ensign Torres, the rest of you are on patrol and inbound-outbound checks. Brush up on your search techniques tonight.”

  “Where’s O-O-B?” Paterson asked.

  “Technically nothing is out of bounds,” Brandt said, “but you will all stick to the barracks compound: head, gym, mess hall, and crash deck. Let us get a grip of things and we’ll see about shore leave.”

  The crash deck, as they called it, was their designated area for enlisted men and women to relax off-duty. It was bad etiquette for officers and senior NCOs—master petty officers and above—to invite themselves in, but the payoff was that the enlisted ranks kept the place clean and didn’t do anything so raucous as to warrant their presence.

  The squad melted away to finish stowing their gear and try to fit the square pegs in the round holes, given their too-small lockers. In the end, a requisition for two dozen footlockers was made and rapidly approved, dispelling the myth of UNPF administrative bureaucracy taking over a month to approve more toilet paper. They ate, the food being just as awful as Jake had predicted, then hung around to check out the facilities, before hitting their bunks in the half-empty room as Guard Squad had already left for their night shift.

  Four in the morning came far too quickly, leaving many of them with the feeling of not having been asleep long enough to conduct a day’s work. PT was led by one of the squad, as it was one of her two trained specialisms. It was a quiet affair but still got them sweating. Something about the unnatural atmosphere and the artificial gravity made them feel sluggish. They jogged laps around the large gymnasium, counting down their number and shouting it as they passed the start line until they reached five miles. As they ran, Santana and Paterson talked.

  “You seen one of those new shield domes yet?” Jake asked, knowing that if anyone would know about them, his academic friend would.

  “Yeah, just not on this scale. You know they’re actually terraforming under them? The shields cover, like, thirty miles in each direction and can hold it for a hundred years. Probably longer. Not that it’ll wear off or anything because they’ll just replace the singularity drives powering it.”

  The singularity drives were what had caused things to improve for the human race, though at first they had made things get a whole lot worse. The discovery of a clean, renewable and incredibly powerful energy source had ended humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. The world erupted into war almost overnight and the United Nations had extended its power using the new technology until order was restored to humanity. That left four main territories under a centralized government. The dominant territory, if there was such a thing, was the entire amalgamated American continent, and when the human race finally decided to work together, they achieved great things. All that was way back in the past though, even before their grandparents’ time.

  “You wait,” Jake said. “One day they’ll figure out how to make them small enough to fit to our armor instead of just the ships and planets. That’ll be a game changer.”

  “And you think they’d rush to deliver that new tech to us grunts on the front line?”

  Jake thought about it. “Probably not. But, hey, it’s not like I’ll still be driving a suit when that eventually happens.”

  The Moon had been first colonized over eighty years earlier, but the new wave of technological advances was being implemented and the surface was being transformed into a version of their own home planet, using the shield domes to create large circles of atmosphere.

  Eventually two massive shield generators were supposed to be built on the opposing poles of the Moon. Once they were turned on, the entire moon would be sealed and allow for a breathable atmosphere to be created. That was after at least fifty years of terraforming and pumping oxygen and nitrogen into the space where there used to be nothing. Each flight brought more scientists and more hydroponic equipment up to the surface to begin transforming the barren surface into something entirely new.

  “Cut the chatter,” barked their PT. “You got air to talk, you got air to run faster!”

  The men kept their chatter to a minimum, continuing their conversation at a level that didn’t invite the reward of extra push-ups.

  “You reckon they’ll make the Moon green like Earth?” Jake whispered.

  “No real reason why not,” Paterson answered. “There’s frozen glaciers here, and as long as the domes don’t fail, then there’s every chance they can sorta grow an atmosphere underneath. It just has to happen in—forty-two—” they yelled together as they passed the start line again, “—stages.”

  “But how do they get around the fact that the days are two weeks long here? And how do they stop the air, you know, leaking out?”

  “A geodesic dome structure sits underneath the actual shield and creates the artificial day and night,” Paterson explained, the scientist part of him overtaking the cocky grunt persona he hid behind every day. “The shielding is the same as the domes in that they actually extend pretty far underground.”

  “I thought you were some physics dude?” Jake asked him, “Not into all this terraforming stuff...”

  “Dude,” Paterson told him, mocking his Californian accent, “read a datapad…”

  At forty-six they stopped, dropping into push-ups and sit-ups in pairs. Jake and Jamie earned an extra ten of each to prove that their PT had known it was they who had been talking.

  “Alright,” Brandt said as they formed up to file out of the gymnasium while Squad Four waited to file in. “Showers and mess hall for biscuits.”

  Biscuits, for reasons none of them understood, were what they called breakfast in the UNPF. Given their maritime roots, some believed it was a derivative of ship’s biscuits, but either way it was more bland food that did nothing for Jake’s high-maintenance taste buds. Paterson joked that his mother’s cooking had spoiled him, and now nothing the UNPF could serve him came close to her home-cooked recipes. They dressed in their uniforms, holstered their batons and pistols, and moved to report to the lunar docks for duty. Pausing in the doorway of their barracks, Paterson called for the attention of his two friends.

  “Hold up,” he said. He produced his datapad from his locker and swiped the screen to show a wobbling image of him, Jake and Brandt.

  “Say cheese, dumbasses,” she said as they all grinned at the camera for the last image they would ever have of them all together. Santana and Paterson both smiled up at the camera, and just as Brandt said cheese they chorused, “Get a grip!”

  3

  Crash Deck, Lunar Barracks

  “We are The Choosers,” said the digitized voice from the speakers built into the large screen, “and we choose not to be a part of the heresy and recklessness of the United Nations and their godless forays into space.” The face, obscured by computerized trickery, leaned closer to the camera. “Your reign of sovereignty is at an end, and the people of Earth will no longer stand for you making our decisions for us.

  “You colonized the Moon when we objected, but you did not stop. You subject our brothers and sisters to death, torture and internment and still you do not stop. Now you want
to take more of humanity to Mars and colonize there.” The shrouded face leaned back, and the intense voice lessened into something calm and frightening. “If you do not stop, you will invite the destruction of our species. You will announce our presence to the rest of the universe and our galaxy will be invaded by outsiders, by alien races with technology far superior to our own. It will be the end for humanity.”

  “Fuck you, asshole!” shouted one of the men pointlessly from Squad Five who had clearly drunk more than the three permitted beverages for an off-duty seaman. Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crash deck and broke the silence as they stared at the large screen. The terrorist leaders who claimed responsibility for the attack on the lunar space port were broadcasting planet-wide.

  “Choosers? More like losers!” drawled a grunt who was leaning heavily against a wall, drawing out the last word in an attempt at comedy.

  “We did not choose to colonize space,” the synthesized voice said, “and you will no longer be permitted to choose for the rest of us.”

  With that, the screen flashed black for a second before the exquisitely groomed anchorwoman returned to view with her best somber look on display. Her normally brightly colored dress had been replaced by one a deep blue so dark it seemed black, and behind her played scenes of burning wreckage being doused by fire-suppressant drones.

  “That was the message from the terrorist group calling themselves The Choosers, and tonight Global Television Networks received the following message from the organization known as The Freedom to Choose, which some say is the parent organization of those who carried out the attack.” She glanced away from the camera to watch the clip about to be played on screen.

  “I am a representative of the peaceful group, The Freedom to Choose. We are not associated with the terrorists who call themselves The Choosers, and we condemn their cowardly attack on the lunar base. The slaughter of innocents is not the way to have valid political concerns heard, and we are in no way responsible for this tragic and senseless loss of life. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected tonight.”

  “That’s a load of bull,” came a growl from near the back of the room. “Half of those assholes are what started the other assholes.” A murmur of agreement rippled around the room, dropping the temperature of the mood even further. What the man had said was true though; The Choosers or The Freedom made no difference. They were, or at least had been at some point, one and the same.

  The only difference now was that some of them wanted to sit around talking about fighting back and others wanted to fight instead of talking. It was a pointless scenario with no end in sight.

  “Officer on deck!” bawled the unmistakable voice of Chief, snapping the entire crash deck to their feet, where they stood to attention.

  He walked in, eyeing half of the men and women of his unit who had pulled daytime duty and making it silently obvious that he knew more than a few of them were swaying in an imaginary breeze. Behind him, shorter and wearing a mask of poorly veiled hate, came the commander, who was followed by the puffy red face of Ensign Torres.

  “At ease,” he said almost reluctantly. “CTSF have sent a relief unit to take over our duties here as of oh-nine-thirty tomorrow. Until that time, the squads on duty will remain on station.”

  The whole of the lunar base had been locked down, and any ship either waiting to dock or in transit to the Moon had been turned away. One of those claimed a medical emergency, so a UNPF shuttle flew out to dock with them and offload the casualty. The crew opted to remain in orbit. Nothing would come in or out until the relief force arrived to take military command of the entire base. Many of them thought that perhaps the UN wanted something like the terror attacks to happen, so they could be justified in taking full control of the planet from the civilian contingent.

  Dassiova turned to leave, Chief glowering over the swaying heads of the grunts and daring one of them to speak.

  “Recon squad,” the commander said loudly enough to be heard at the back of the room, “or what’s left of you, muster on me.”

  The assembled faces turned to locate the nearest member of Recon with a mixture of fear, jealousy and pity showing in their expressions. None of them knew what they were being summoned for, but all of them felt like they had suffered enough loss, stress and pain for one day.

  “Alright,” Brandt said as she tried to control her voice and her emotions after her second tequila chaser had started to take effect. “Sober up, buttercups. Let’s do this.”

  She’d had the two small bullet holes in her flank sealed with dermal plugs, pretty much battlefield surgery as the Moon’s main med bay was inundated with so many injuries caused by the gunfight and the panic. They had scanned her eyes, told her she didn’t have a concussion and gave her three days’ worth of painkillers and a single stim pack to get her going. Despite it being a bad idea, she went to drink with her unit instead of getting the prescribed bed rest.

  She led the contingent of four out of the door, six seamen and the lieutenant who had been on the day shift absent as they lay in body bags in the freezer. Six, including the young wheel, out of thirteen. Almost half of their squad lost inside of five minutes. At least they had killed all twelve of the terrorists, and managed to stop the device from going off. Off-duty seamen from Squad Three had been roused to disarm and defuse the bomb, because none of the surviving members of Recon were demolitions trained. All five of them were on their way to being drunk, and not even the sobering fear of an impending interaction with Chief and the commander was straightening their footsteps as they followed in line to the briefing room.

  “Sit down and shut up,” Chief said in a tone that was marginally less hostile and full of hate than he usually employed. It lured them into thinking that perhaps he was trying to be sympathetic. They sat down in silence. Only the two heads of the unit and the ensign were there until a fourth and fifth person walked in. Both wore fashionable business suits: matte black and tightly fitted up to the collarless neck. Both seemed athletic but not overtly muscled, and the one at the back seemed oddly androgynous. Both had haircuts that spoke of military service, high and tight, but something about them said they danced to a different tune, one that was far better funded than their service appeared to be.

  “These people are here on invitation of the UN Intelligence Directorate,” Commander Dassiova said. “As you had the closest contact with the terrorists they will take your statements about the attack.”

  “Sir?” Brandt said, made brave by the tequila. She stood to attention to address her commanding officer, who glared at her.

  “What is it, PO?”

  “Sir, we’ve already written our reports and submitted them.”

  Chief stepped forward, no doubt winding up to deliver a nuclear-grade ass-chewing for questioning the commander, before he was stopped by a quiet word from one of the two suited figures.

  “True,” one of them said as she stepped forward. The plain suit and military haircut had masked the truth of her gender. “And we have read them, but we want to speak to you further. After that, you will be…”

  “After that,” the commander growled to cut her off, “you will receive orders.” He said nothing further, just glanced at Chief, who stood them to attention and followed him out of the room. Chief glanced back, exchanging a subtle nod with the suited man that was so fleeting Brandt suspected she might have imagined it.

  One by one they were taken into another room by both suits. They were attached to a machine like an old-fashioned polygraph. Their vitals were displayed on a tablet that was turned around after they had seen it. Brandt guessed that was deliberate so that she, as the subject, had an idea about what they were measuring. The green light blinked on the back of the tablet facing her and she guessed the camera was active, dialed in to focus on her pupil response.

  She recited her name, rank, service number and details of her family address back on Earth before she was asked about siblings and parents. She realized this could establ
ish her baseline responses from facts that were easy to check.

  They went over her report, line by line and asking for verbal confirmation of the truth of each statement, before extracting a little more detail every time.

  “Seaman Jake Santana,” the androgynous female operative said, smirking slightly as Brandt’s eyes and vital signs betrayed her and gave an honest response. She knew she had responded, because she felt her cheeks flush.

  “What about him?” she asked, a little too much hostility in her tone, which she tried to apportion to the alcohol.

  “Tell me about him.”

  Brandt set her jaw to stop her lower lip from trembling. She blinked a few times trying to hide the tears that pricked at her eyes, but she couldn’t keep them away. She bowed her head, hands rising to wipe away the water from her cheeks, then fixed the operative asking the questions with the full force of her gaze.

  “Seaman. Combat and Electronic Countermeasure specialist.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s dead. I spent almost every day of the last three and a half years with him, fought, trained and lived beside him, and now he’s gone.”

  “Did you see anything abnormal about the terrorist who killed him?”

  Brandt hesitated, unsure whether to say what she really saw, but her anger and frustration made her speak.

  “I saw Jake shoot him point-blank with an entire mag and he stayed on his feet. That was pretty abnormal, I’d say.”

  The operative hesitated, glancing at her counterpart who nodded.

  “We found Seaman Santana’s personal weapon,” she said unconvincingly. “It seems to have malfunctioned and not fired.”