Mirror-Moon Light, Mirror-Moon Bright

  A Future Night Stalkers 2352 A.D. romance story

  M. L. Buchman

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  1

  “You did not just do that to me! I’ll launch you out the nearest airlock if I have to get a Plas torch and cut a new one myself.”

  Colonel Deeton just shrugged. He knew her threats were empty, damn him, but she was seriously tempted this time.

  “You saddled me with a rook?”

  “He’s not a rookie.”

  She glanced through the window at the dweeb seated front and center outside Deeton’s cube. Then she rolled her eyes back to her commander. “He’s got first-stage rook written all over him.”

  “No, he doesn’t, Syra” Deeton scrubbed at his graying beard as he always did when she was irritating him. “He’s got engineer written all over him.”

  “Oh, like that’s any kind of an improvement.”

  “Full payload.” Meaning he was the real deal no matter how he looked.

  At least it explained a few things, though not enough of them. He was an engineer who looked like a rook, yet he looked like a soldier not a dweeb engineer. Workout shoulders. She’d always been partial to shoulders on her soldiers. “Oh, like a rook dweeb engineer is so much better than a rook dweeb soldier.”

  “Got all the soldier we need right here if she weren’t running off at the mouth so hard.” Deeton tossed a chip at her. “Won’t unlock until you’re clear of the station.”

  She let it ping off the window behind her before she caught it on the rebound. No hurry in low-g. It was eye-dent sealed and station locked. Her kind of mission.

  “Whose eye?”

  This time it was Deeton’s turn to roll his remaining eye at her—the other had gone the way of half his face sometime during the Drone Downfall. He didn’t talk about it much.

  The eye-dent required her retinal scan, of course.

  “It was a gimme, Deet,” she explained when he didn’t rise to the bait. “Just feeling sorry for you playing two legs short of a full deck.” The Drone Downfall had been ugly.

  The Drone Downfall still ranked as the most lethal undeclared war in history (which was saying something serious).

  You broke my heart, and then an untraceable Class II drone slams through the windshield of your skidder at Mach 2.

  I deserved a raise, revenged by calling in sick and delivering five kilos of Hydrox rocket fuel and a sparker to the office by remotely controlled drone. Politicos who hadn’t bunkered, and bunkered deep, didn’t last long back then.

  The I-Loc, International Law of Control, had required trackable human control via DNA scan of every drone flying. The same had been required on every computer with an intelligence above Level Four—it was the last thing the countries of Earth and Near Space had been able to agree on. The remaining government of Canmerica West had taken it upon themselves to take out all non-complying drones—Canmerica East had long since stopped being a factor. And it was fliers like Deeton who’d taken the abuse.

  Letting the chip ricochet off the window had also given her an excuse to eye the RDE again. A severe regressive: blond hair and blue eyes—neither looked fake. Nor did the smile as his gaze met hers through the window.

  “What’s the lowdown on it, Colonel?”

  “The lowdown, Syra? I don’t have a scope on it. They didn’t tell me anything but to get our very best on it.”

  “Aw, shucks.”

  “Since Daggert isn’t available, I’m stuck with you.”

  “Daggert can barely find his own back end to wipe it.”

  “Whereas you’re all brown from sticking your nose in it. Get out of my space, Syra. Try not to embarrass the fleet while you’re at it.”

  “Shit,” she kicked open the door and walked out past the RDE. “Come on, Rood, you’re with me.” Rood—Rook Dweeb. She liked it. Maybe she could make it stick on the guy.

  “Shouldn’t that be Roodee—Rook Dweeb Engineer. Like a roadie. Or maybe the final ‘e’ sound is silent,” he rose to his feet a little fast and floated up off the floor in the light grav. For crap’s sake!

  “What’s a roadie?” He wasn’t supposed to have heard what she was saying in Deet’s office. Could she help it if her voice carried when Deet was making her nutsoid?

  “Old days. Guy who traveled with bands to set up their gear for a show.”

  “Not just a regressive,” she kept moving but noticed that he didn’t react. “Regressive” was not a kind label.

  She’d have beat the O2 out of someone who called her that.

  “A retro one,” which compensated a bit as there was a coolness to it that she’d never achieved.

  Though what a band of soldiers needed with a roadie was beyond her. She’d humped her own gear for her entire service. For her entire life. Mom had been hunting this deck long before she had. Keeping the Royal Delta Marines at the top of the military heap was a hereditary job as well as a chosen one.

  Grandmom had fought for Canmerica all the way back before it divided into East and West—that’s how long the Clairborne women had been fighting the good fight.

  Syra dropped downshaft to null-g then had to wait while Rood hung onto a slider. Below two-gees, slider handles were strictly for civilians. No self-respecting human used one for the transition from one-quarter at command levels down to zero at the docks.

  Rood did. And was sweating by the time she grabbed him. If she hadn’t, he might have hung onto the slider right back up the opposite axis—which could cause real problems if you entered the shaft feet first through the gravity flip. Good way to break something permanent, like your neck.

  “Where did you come from, Rood? Earth?”

  He looked a little green as he nodded. She hadn’t met one of those in a long while. Earthers were as rare as blonds with blue eyes. Maybe that’s all that was left down there.

  “You spew on me, Rood, and we’re gonna have issues. Clear?”

  He nodded again and clamped his jaw harder.

  She dug into her med kit, found a patch in a little used corner, and slapped it on his neck. “Close your eyes and count to ten.”

  She inspected him while she waited. He was tall for a full-grav grounder—almost her height. Spacer-borns added ten or twenty centimeters just for not living in brutal Earth grav every damn minute of the day. And he had a layer of muscle that even the toughest Marine couldn’t lay on because it simply wasn’t natural in space. Spacers were long and lean unless they were some civvie who lived their whole life in the outermost level of a rotating habitat can—and what kind of life was that?

  His suit was a standard c-fiber rig, so knock off a few centimeters breadth on those nice shoulders, but still majorly brawny. Not bad looking once she got used to the blond hair, which was gonna take a while.

  Surreal though, when he opened those weirdly blue eyes—who knew what he could see with those. Almost made her check that she wore a full suit and wasn’t standing there in just her skin. Like he could see right inside her.

  He looked more stable now though. She didn’t tell him about the lockjaw that wouldn’t wear off for a couple of minutes.

  2

  If all Royal Delta Marines looked like her, he’d sign up tomorrow. Lucius had never actually met a RDM before. The old Canmerican Delta Force had merged with the British Royal Marines a quarter century back when Canmerica had finally gone down hard. The Deltas and the Night Stalkers—Canmerica’s elite fighters and fliers—had fought their way out to orbit and the Brits had given them a home.

  Syra looked half cat and half invisible in her skin-tight black jumpsuit. He didn’t see a spare gram anywhere, but rumor said that an RDM could step out an airlock and complete any mission with just what they were wearing.

  Smoothly bald. Rumor was they all shaved their heads to save the extra ounces. Of course so did half of spacers—hair and zero-g he supposed could be awkward. His own seemed to be okay, but he’d never worn it long. Bald looked silly on some women, but not her.

  “Am I going to like what’s on this chip?” She led him into a hangar that looked like a rabbit warren for ships. A line of the big Stinger 60s of the Night Stalkers filled one side of the bay. The other side of the hangar housed a long rack of smaller vessels. In the ceiling racks were parked all of the utility craft, and the floor area was service bays and gear. She led him to one that had to be too small for human use. It wasn’t just space black. It was so black that it hurt his eyes trying to see it.

  “Hm-nmn. Nmnnm.” Something was wrong with his mouth. He was starting to panic when he caught her hints of a sly grin.

  He managed a calming breath, then poked her shoulder to get her to turn to fully face him. It was weird, she was hard, like Plas hard. He was fairly sure he’d know if they’d figured out android bodies.

  “Mn rm nu?”

  “What am I? An RDM. So don’t screw with me. It’ll wear off in a few minutes.” Her smile was a good one. He didn’t have a whole lot of experience with women, though he suspected that any exper ience he did have wouldn’t have been relevant with a Marine anyway.

  She rested her hand against the impenetrable darkness of the small ship and a hatch appeared. An Insertion Ship. He’d heard of these, mostly by rumor. They were the next an extreme evolution from the Bell Little Bird attack helicopter—the same way humans were to whatever proceeded chimpanzees. It was little bigger and could carry just two people, but that’s where the similarities ended. Canmerica, while they still existed, and now the Brits knew one thing—give your Special Ops teams the very best gear. Inserters were almost mythic in their capabilities. Stealth, weapons, and computers that were so smart they were barely legal even with I-Loc control by humans.

  The engineer in him wanted a full rundown. One look at Syra told him to keep his mouth shut even if he could talk.

  At her gesture, he entered first. The first seat was beyond crazy. It made the cockpit of the Earth Launch ship look like a surface slider’s control panel in comparison. The second seat was devoid of controls—a half dozen interfaces that he recognized and not much more. He opted for that one. There was no third seat—not as if there was room for one.

  His ears popped after she slid in and closed the hatch. A quick run of her hands over the controls, and the ship seemed to wake to life. A thumb on the I-LoC pad and the computer came online.

  She slotted the chip.

  “Id wond murk mile dockd.”

  “This ship has a few tricks that aren’t on the books.” She punched some control. “Poof! We’re no longer here. But we are. But we aren’t. You wanna tell me about what’s on here before I crack it?”

  “I can’t!” He wanted to yell it in exasperation, and somehow he could.

  Her smile again looked dangerous. Pretty as hell, but dangerous. An RDM with dimples. He wondered what color her hair really was that went with those curiously green eyes. Even rarer than his own blue.

  “I…” he tried in a normal voice, and it worked. “We’re going to steal something.”

  She shrugged, “Fine by me.”

  Oddly, her Plas-hard suit seemed to flow with her underlying musculature. Armor wasn’t one of his specialties, but he had no idea how she felt so hard yet looked so soft. Was the woman inside the armor like that as well?

  “What are we stealing? And why you?” She was all business.

  “Why me?” No one had asked him that. Up until this point, he’d explained what he’d figured out and then he’d been told “You’re it!”

  He had to think before he could answer the question.

  “I suppose that it’s because I’m the one who figured out how to steal it. As to what, maybe you’d better open the chip. I don’t think it’s likely that you’ll believe me. I’m just a Rook Dweeb Engineer.”

  No smile at his joke, granted, lame joke. Not even a twitch that he could detect. She simply leaned down and eye-dented the chip. Maybe her brain was as hard as her armor. And her heart as cold and dark. But that wasn’t right. He’d heard her fiery temper when she’d unleashed it on Colonel Deeton. Everyone had, despite the closed door.

  He’d built the main infrastructure of the chip’s contents. The Royal Delta Marines commander-in-chief had been the one to lay in the mission orders and lock it down.

  “Royal Engineer Lucius Markham…” the commander’s voice sounded into the tiny cockpit.

  “Even you name is retro,” Syra muttered.

  “…is in absolute and unquestioned command of this mission. Acknowledge.”

  “What kind of space junk is that?” Syra yelled at the commander.

  But he was a recording, only programmed to respond to one answer.

  “Acknowledge,” the chip responded. “Message will autodestruct in ten. Nine. Eight…”

  Lucius could hear her teeth grinding. At Two, she snapped out. “Acknowledge. Major Syra Clairborne of the Royal Delta Marines.”

  “Acknowledge accepted,” the chip answered flatly.

  Her fury seemed to seethe off her in waves that threatened to flood the tiny cockpit.

  “Major Syra Clairborne? You’re that Syra?” She had a reputation that carried all the way to Earth. A lethal one. She was the most decorated soldier of them all.

  His question gave her a focus for her irritation. If looks were lethal…

  He raised his hands. “Not my idea. Please don’t kill me.”

  3

  “Tempting, but no.” Because the Rook Dweeb Engineer was the one in command.

  Killing a superior officer—even a temporary one who might deserve it—was outside even her typical fast-and-loose get-it-done-and-explain-later tactic.

  “You’re not even military. What tight orbit do you have on the commander’s personal exhaust port that he did that?”

  “Personal exhaust por…”

  “Whatever you call an asshole on Earth.”

  “We, uh, call it an asshole.”

  She just grunted at the foolishness of that, but could feel a slip of a smile trying to form even though she ordered it to stay hidden. The guy wasn’t just cute, he was definitely an engineer through and through. They always had to understand everything as they went along. RDMs learned to make it up as they went.

  “I think,” he seemed to be inspecting the ceiling. His hair shifted so lightly and easily. If she had hair like that, she might wear it long—even if it was blond. “It’s because the required methods of success are extremely specific. He wanted to make sure that you didn’t try to countermand them. There’s only one way in.”

  She didn’t like his mindreading trick either. Telepathy was still all debris-field, but it unnerved her anyway.

  “Target?” she snarled at the eye-dent chip for lack of a better victim. Syra hoped that her on-board comp caught that she was yelling at the chip and not her. Star—technically called Strategic-Tactical Analysis and Response computer by unimaginative people like engineers who actually called her Starc—got sulky when Syra yelled at her. But Syra’d be spaced before she’d ask some civilian “commander” for anything.

  In answer, a hologram unfolded between them. It built layer by layer from the inside, rather than simply flashing up. The sheer volume of data that implied was a little humbling. Normally Star would be able to interpret it in a single gestalt.

  Once the complexities of the inner structure expanded, the outer structure began taking shape. It wasn’t just the complexity, it was the sheer scale of it.

  Something was definitely wrong with her suit. The recirc and process layer fit her like a second skin. In many ways it was a second skin: controlling temperature, moisture, and chemical balance into a steady state from inside the habitat to floating in open space. It also fed biometrics alerts. If her helmet was on, they’d probably be flashing her blind. Heart palpitations. Cold sweat on her palms and forehead. If her hands ever shook, they’d be shaking.

  “I did not sign up to die,” she managed to keep her voice steady.

  “Me either.”

  “But…” she could only point.

  “The Mirror Moon, as the India Beam reflector is colloquially called, is held in a geostationary orbit at an altitude of only five hundred kilometers.” The fuel expenditure to do that had always been mind warping. Geostationary was another thirty-five thousand klicks up the grav well.

  “It’s too well protected, we’ve never been able to destroy it.” Syra could only glare at the thing that made every ship’s life pure hell.

  It had to be the best offense system ever devised—it was the upper point of the India Particle Beam. No one, in or out of their right mind, entered that sector of space, or any sector for a long way around.

  Most economies had launched into space as the Earth became less and less viable as a biome. The Brits had built a whole chain of habitat cans at Lagrange 2 above the Lunar Farside. They might be in the “asshole of space” but it was one of the best strategic locales in all Earth orbit—nothing done from Earth, by India or anyone else, could reach them here behind the moon. Once Canmerica West had abruptly collapsed as thoroughly as East, the remaining military forces had fought their way into orbit. Delta Force had joined the Royal Marines and the Night Stalkers had just kept doing what they did—delivering Special Operations teams any time, any where…and getting their asses back out afterward.

 

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