WEDNESDAY, 15 APRIL 2042

USASF Tug Clarke
Nearing the Moon
0740 hours GMT

The Moon filled the black sky, half-full from this vantage point, the terminator line a crinkled, ragged lace-work of silver-gray, brown, and black, the rest of the visible face as dazzling in the sunlight as new snow. David Alexander struggled to orient himself but found an excess of map detail too confusing. “So…where is it we’re going?”

The tug’s pilot was a US Aerospace Force captain named Heyerson. He pointed beyond the sunset terminator, into darkness.

“About there,” he said. Sunlight flashed off the dark glasses he wore inside his comset helmet. “The Mare Crisium is well past sunset, now. You guys are gettin’ dropped off at Picard Crater, just inside Crisium’s wall.”

The third man in the tug’s cramped cockpit clung to the back of the pilot’s couch, trying to see. He was a Navy man, HM1 Robert Thornton. “What I wanna know,” he said, “is where Tranquillity Base is.”

“Ah.” Heyerson pointed again, this time toward a dark, smooth plain bisected by the terminator. “Up that way. Almost to the horizon. You won’t be able to see it naked-eye, though, if that’s what you were expecting.”

“I just want to see the place, man,” Thornton replied. “Where it started.”

The Aerospace man chuckled. “Whatever.” He glanced at Thornton. “Y’know, I still don’t know what the Navy’s doing up here. The Marines, I can understand, kinda. The Army, no problem. Civilian scientists, all in a day’s work. But the Navy?…”

“Read your briefing, Captain,” David said. “The Marines don’t have medics, like the Army. They rely on Navy corpsmen instead.”

“Bravo Company’s corpsman was killed in the assault,” Thornton said. He was black, his skin so dark in the instrumentation-lit cockpit that it was difficult to make out any expression at all. “I’m the replacement.”

“Yeah, well, the jarheads are all goin’ home as soon as I get this lot settled in,” Heyerson said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the forty US Army Special Forces troops crammed into the tug’s cargo bay aft. “Don’t know why you bothered to make the trip when you’re just gonna have to turn around and go back again!”

“Yeah, well, it’s the government’s dime,” Thornton said. “They say ‘Go,’ I go.”

“The Navy likes to take good care of the Marines,” David added. “It’s tradition.”

“Nah,” Thornton said. “The leathernecks just need someone to ride herd on ’em. Us corpsmen, we control their health records, see? Any of ’em get out of line, we lose their shot card, and they have to get every shot all over again. They know better than to make trouble with us around.”

“How about you, Doc?” Heyerson said, turning to look at David. “Why’d they send you out?”

“First of all,” David said, nodding at Thornton, “he’s ‘Doc,’ not me. Second, you really should’ve looked at your briefing.”

“I did…sir. Didn’t say much, except that I was to deliver forty soldiers, one Navy corpsman, and one civilian scientist to Picard Crater.”

“Maybe they didn’t want you to know, then.”

“Screw ’em.” His gaze dropped to the garish cloth patch sewn to David’s leather flight jacket. “How about that? Is that classified?”

He touched the patch. “What, this?”

“Yeah. I been wonderin’ about that since we boosted from LEO. T’tell you the truth, I didn’t know at first whether you were civilian or military, wearin’ that rig.”

Temperatures aboard a spacecraft, no matter how good the life-support systems, could vary swiftly from too warm to chilly, depending on the craft’s attitude of the moment with respect to the sun. David was wearing Marine-issue slacks, deck shoes, and orange T-shirt—garb he’d become comfortable with during his long cycler passage back from Mars. Since it was a bit on the chilly side aboard the Clarke now, he’d pulled a flight jacket on over the T-shirt—again, Marine-issue, but with a highly unofficial patch sewn to the left breast.

The stitching was a bit crude, but the elements were all clearly recognizable. The badge was shield-shaped, dark blue with a black border. Two black Advanced Tech Assault Rifles were crossed over a red disk representing Mars; a gold, white, and gray cylinder—a fair representation of a beer can—was superimposed over the ATARs. The legend, gold against dark blue at the top of the device, was HOPS VINCET. Curving all the way across the bottom of the badge, in tiny, carefully stitched gold letters, was the unwieldy line of characters: ATWTMATMUTATB.

“‘Hops vincet?’” Heyerson said, mispronouncing the last word.

“Hops winkit,” David replied, stressing the proper pronunciation. “Latin, sort of. It means ‘beer conquers.’”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll buy that.” Heyerson shook his head. “Some kind of fraternity?”

“You could say that.”

Thornton grinned. “‘Hops’ ain’t the Latin word for ‘beer.’”

“Don’t tell the Marines,” David replied with a chuckle. “It would disillusion them. The poor dears.”

“You two better strap down,” Heyerson warned. “We’re coming up on our final thrust phase, here. I’d hate to deliver the jarheads’ new corpsman with two busted legs.”

Space, of course, was at a claustrophobic premium aboard the Clarke. The ugly little tug had been designed to haul construction materials, fuel, and personnel from LEO to higher orbits—especially to geosynch, and to the construction shacks at L-3, L-4, and L-5. With the addition of a spidery set of landing legs, it could carry heavy cargoes to the Lunar surface; the USAF Transport Command had requisitioned Clarke and three sisters, Asimov, Ecklar, and Viglione for hauling high-priority cargoes to the Moon and back. In fact, the Viglione, with forty more soldiers, was trailing behind the Clarke by a few thousand kilometers, preparing for her own landing maneuvers at Fra Mauro.

Because of the crowding, and his VIP status of Clarke’s sole civilian aboard, David had been allowed to make the trip in one of the cockpit couches; his service with the Marines on Mars had almost automatically meant that he and Thornton had found each other on the first day out from LEO, and the permission had been extended to the Navy man, too.

Cramped as the tug’s cockpit was, it was a lot roomier than the cargo bay, with space-suited soldiers packed into narrow bucket seats like armored eggs in a carton. David hadn’t been at all shy about taking advantage of Heyerson’s offer.

And he found he was enjoying his status as an honorary Marine.

As he strapped himself in, listening to Heyerson warning the troops aft of a delta-v maneuver in another minute, David thought about that. He’d received his patch at a party on Earth, just a month after his return from Mars. Gunnery Sergeant Harold Knox, one of the Marines on the March, had had a source in San Diego make up enough of the unauthorized patches for every Marine who’d been to Mars, with one left over for the civilian who’d endured the grueling, three-week march from Heinlein Station to Mars Prime…and then been on hand to snap the famous flag-raising at Cydonia.

The beer can represented an in joke among the men and women who’d been with the MMEF. “Sands of Mars” Garroway, in the true improvise-adapt-overcome spirit of the Marines, had converted cans of contraband beer into weapons, showering them on UN troops at Cydonia from a hovering Mars lander. The aluminum cans had burst on impact in the thin Martian air, spraying suits and helmet visors with a fast-congealing foam that had immediately frozen, leaving the enemy confused, frightened, and largely blind.

The ponderous acronym across the bottom of the patch stood for “All The Way To Mars And They Made Us Throw Away The Beer.”

“Our honorary Marine,” Knox had called him when he’d presented the badge. After the shared hardships and dangers of Garroway’s March, after the wild firefight—and the literal beer bust—with UN Foreign Legion troops at the Cydonian base, David Alexander had been…changed.

It was hard to put into words, even now. David had been a Navy brat, and as a kid had dreamed of being an aviator, like his father. After losing his aviator father to an equipment failure aboard the USS Reagan, though, he’d developed a deep-seated loathing for the military, coupled with a pacifist’s hatred for war in all its forms.

But now? He still hated war and thought that this war, in particular, was suicidally stupid. But for the men he’d been forced to serve with, struggle with, fight beside on Mars, he felt nothing but admiration and respect.

Acceleration slammed at him through the couch, its hand unpleasantly heavy across his chest after three days of free fall. The pressure went on and on for a long time, too. Normally, a Moon-bound craft would decelerate first into Lunar orbit, followed by a second deceleration to drop into a landing approach, and the final burst as it gentled in for a landing. Clarke was combining all three delta-v maneuvers in one, however; no one had said anything definite, but David had heard rumors that the Aerospace Force had already lost a spacecraft passing over the Lunar farside. Coming in straight this way, without an initial orbit, was risky…but it avoided the possibility of being shot down by the rumored UN forces on the side of the Moon always hidden from the Earth.

And as the Clarke plunged from dazzling, white sunlight into the Moon’s shadow, David decided that he was all in favor of that….

Hab One, Picard Base
Mare Crisium, the Moon
0758 hours GMT

“Kaminski!”

“Yeah, Gunny?”

Yates jerked a thumb at the ladder leading to the upper deck of the hab. “Get your sorry butt topside, Sergeant. The captain wants to see ya.”

“Christ, Ski!” Corporal Ahearn shook her head. “What the fuck did you do now?”

“Dunno, Hern,” he said, throwing down his cards. Jesus, always something. It had been a good hand, too. “I ain’t been in trouble for, hell, two or three hours, it seems like.”

Padding across the steel deck in his socks, he hesitated at the ladder. None of the Marines had their boondockers because they’d all arrived in pressure suits, and their shoes were still with the rest of their personal gear, back at Fra Mauro. It seemed…wrong, somehow, to be going up to see the skipper in BDUs and padded green socks.

“Get movin’, Ski,” Yates warned. “She didn’t say tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant Yates, sir!” he snapped, and started up the ladder.

Captain Fuentes was seated at the desk that until a few days ago had belonged to the commander of UN forces at Picard, Arnaldo Tessitore of the San Marco Marines. Lieutenant Garroway was perched on the corner of the desk, also in greens and socks. “Sergeant Kaminski, reporting as ordered, ma’am,” he announced, centering himself in front of the desk and coming to attention.

“At ease, Sergeant,” Fuentes said. “According to your records, you were with Major Garroway on Mars.”

Kaminski flicked a quick glance at the lieutenant. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you knew one of the scientists on the expedition, Dr. Alexander.”

“Huh? Sure!”

“My father told me that you and Alexander were pretty friendly,” Lieutenant Garroway said. “You were with him inside the Cave of Wonders, helped him out, that sort of thing.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. I guess I was pretty interested in what he was doin’. He let me help out some. And, yeah. He let me come inside the cave with him.” Kaminski suppressed a shudder. “Didn’t like it, though.”

“Why not?”

“Some of those, uh, things on the things like TV screens were pretty, well, they gave me the creeps, ma’am.”

“But you got on well with Alexander?”

“Huh? Yeah! The Professor, he was okay.” Kaminski drew himself up a little straighter. “Th’ way I see it, anyone on the March with us was okay! And the Prof, he did just great, for a civilian.”

“Excellent, Sergeant,” Fuentes said, making a notation with a stylus on the screen of her PAD. “Thank you for volunteering.”

“Volunteering!” He stopped himself, swallowed, and licked his lips. “Uh, if the captain doesn’t mind telling me, what did the sergeant just volunteer for?”

“We have a guest, Sergeant,” Fuentes replied. “Dr. Alexander. He’s just arrived to investigate the UN archeological dig outside. And you just volunteered to be his assistant.”

Kaminski sagged just the slightest bit with relief. That ought to be easy enough. A real skylark detail. He’d seen the new arrivals filing from their bug transport, of course, but had had no idea that Alexander was aboard. “Uh, yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

“He’s in Hab Three, with Dr. Billaud and the other UN scientists we captured. Suit up, hotfoot on over there, and make yourself useful. That is all.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

He came to attention again, whirled in place, and dived for the ladder. Hot damn! If they had to roust him from a friendly game with his squadmates, at least it was for an assignment that ought to be interesting.

The last few days, since the Marine assault on Picard, had been downright boring.

He had a happy feeling that that was about to change.

Hab Three, Picard Base
Mare Crisium, the Moon
0815 hours GMT

They’d been shouting at the prisoners when David had walked into the hab compartment, moments before. “You had damned well better cooperate, mister,” the Army colonel bellowed, his voice ringing off the metal walls as he leaned over the prisoner. “I’m losing my patience! It is one hell of a long walk back to Earth, and right now, we are your only hope of a ride!”

Dr. Marc Billaud stared past his tormentor with an icy indifference. “Je ne comprends pas,” he said.

“He’s lying,” the Army captain at the colonel’s side said. “His record says—”

“Ah, Colonel,” David said, interrupting, “I really don’t think you’re going to get anything out of them this way. Do you think I could have a few moments with them?”

The interrogators—three Army officers who’d made the trip out aboard the Clarke—stared at David for a moment. The senior officer, Colonel Thomas R. Whitworth, opened his mouth, then closed it again, as though fearful of appearing foolish. The other two, Major Dahlgren and Captain Slizak, glanced at one another, but said nothing.

Stiffly, then, hands clasped behind his back, the colonel glared at David. “For your information, Doctor, these…people,” he replied, “have information that we need. They speak English…or at least this one does. But they’re not cooperating.”

“I understand all that. I also know Marc Billaud.”

“Eh? How’s that?”

“He’s a friend of mine.”

“Dr. Alexander, how the hell is it you’re friends with this UNdie?”

“I met him before the war, Colonel. There was such a time, you know. It only seems like the war’s been going on forever.”

“Hmpf. My orders—”

“Are these people prisoners of war, Colonel?”

“Technically, no, Doctor,” Dahlgren said. “They are civilians, and unless we can prove that they’ve borne arms against American military forces, they must be treated as civilians according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.” The major was staring at Whitworth as he spoke, and David had the feeling there was no lost love between the two.

Well, being cooped up in a tin can with thirty-some other troops for the three-day coast up from Earth could do that to people. David was glad once again that he’d been able to spend much of the voyage up forward with the pilot.

“I am well aware of the legalities of this situation,” Whitworth huffed. “But these people know things that are vital to our operation here. I will not see this mission jeopardized by—”

“Give me a few moments with them alone, and perhaps I can get him to talk to you. Without the histrionics.”

Whitworth’s eyes narrowed with an expression hovering between disbelief and outright suspicion while Major Dahlgren looked carefully noncommittal. The major, it turned out, was fluent in French and had been serving as interpreter…though Whitworth appeared dedicated to the age-old linguistic theory that speaking very loud and waving the arms about would hurdle all language barriers.

As though suddenly arriving at a decision, the colonel cocked his head, shrugged, and exchanged a glance with the other officers. “Well, of course. This isn’t a formal interrogation. Not yet, anyway.” He gestured at the French scientists. “Go ahead. Knock yourself out. I’ll be back…later.”

“A friend of yours?” Billaud asked in English, rolling his eyes toward the doorway through which the colonel and his entourage had vanished.

“A friend? No, my God. An acquaintance only. I met him on the transport bringing me here. I think the major, the one with the mustache, is Army Intelligence.”

“Oui. He has the look. So, my friend. What did you hope to accomplish with that little show, just now?”

“I thought it would be more pleasant in here without the shouting.”

Billaud shook his head with a wry chuckle. “Thank you for that, David. We appreciate the quiet. But…you must know, I will not betray my country.”

“Of course not. But…well, damn it, Marc, what can you give me?” When Billaud did not immediately answer, David spread his hands. “Look, it’s all just a big, ugly game, right? Give me something, anything, to make the bloodhounds happy, and maybe we can get ’em to leave you alone for a while.”

Billaud sighed. “You have, no doubt, read my notes. The ones I left at Fra Mauro? Your people, I’m sure, picked them up when they captured our base there.”

“No, actually. I came straight here, from Earth.”

“Ah. Well, your people already have those notes. I can only tell you what is in them…and nothing more.”

“At least it gets Whitworth off your back.”

“Oui.” Billaud hesitated, as though wondering where to begin, then pursed his lips. “You are in for a surprise, my friend, when you examine our dig outside.”

“I’ve been wondering about that. I was told it was a ship.”

Billaud nodded. “A ship, oui. Or rather, a piece of a ship. A piece of a very large ship that…ah…suffered an accident, we think, six thousand years ago.”

“I saw the trenches outside. How is it that the ship was buried?”

Unlike Mars, where winds blew, dust accumulated, and sand dunes migrated across the landscape in million-year marches, the Moon was not a place you associated with changes in the terrain. A crash thousands of years ago, even millions of years ago, should still be on the surface, where it fell. The slow infall of meteoric dust was not enough to bury something as large as a spacecraft, even after millions of years.

Billaud exchanged a quick glance with the other scientists—there were three, two men and a woman. Then he sighed. “There was some wreckage on the surface. Most of that is…gone now. Salvaged.”

“Salvaged! What do you mean?”

“I’d rather not say more. But…you Americans are interested in the technology of these aliens, no?”

“Of course.” David nodded. Then he slapped his knee. “Of course! You found a power plant…or an engine assembly! Good for you!”

“Good for us, yes,” the woman said. “Perhaps not so good for you!”

“Estelle!” one of the other scientists warned.

But David already understood…enough, at least, to know in general what was going on.

“There really wasn’t that much to salvage,” Billaud went on, as though he’d not been interrupted. “In fact, it appears the vessel was torn open some distance above the ground. The contents spilled out…here. Much of the wreckage was scattered across most of the floor of this crater.”

“There have been TLPs associated with Picard,” David said. “Transient Lunar Phenomena.”

“Yes. That was our first clue, in fact, to look here. Large chunks and scraps of highly polished metal. When it catches the light just right, it can look like unusual clusters of lights, here on the crater floor. Observers on Earth have seen unusual lights and effects here for some time.”

TLPs had been seen for almost two hundred years at many different sites on the Moon. They appeared only rarely and were usually dismissed as volcanic phenomena. David wondered if those sites now warranted a closer look by xenoarcheologists.

“The largest fragment was a kind of module or capsule containing the ship’s power generator,” Billaud continued. “When it struck, most of it was buried. It took six weeks to dig it free. Many of the smaller, heavier fragments were buried on impact as well, which is why we have been digging the trenches.”

David found a chair by the compartment’s one small table and sat down. “Tell me more,” he said.

One of the other men said something sharply, in French.

“Ah,” Billaud said. “Jean-Paul thinks I’ve already said too much.”

“Not really. We’d guessed that you’d found something important at Picard. And that you’d already moved it to your base on the Lunar farside.”

None of them said anything, either in confirmation or in denial.

“What can you tell me about the aliens? They had a base here?”

Billaud leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Oh, my friend! I wish I could tell you what I’ve seen, what I’ve learned! Things wonderful…and things terrifying, as well.”

“Where? Here? Or at your base? You’re at Tsiolkovsky, right?”

Billaud sighed. “Your people must know that by now. Yes. And thousands of years ago, another race, another civilization, was there as well. Until they were attacked by les Chasseurs de l’Aube.”

“The…what?”

“‘Hunters of the Dawn’ is how we have translated the name. There appears to have been a terrible war fought, here…and elsewhere.”

“I think you need to tell me more. Everything you can. Please.”

Twenty minutes later, he walked out of the compartment. The three Army officers were there, seated at a table. The Marine guard posted outside the room with the UN scientists stood by the door, and another Marine was leaning against one wall. He straightened as David entered the room. “Hey, Professor!”

“Kaminski!” David said, startled. “What are you doing here?”

“Waitin’ for you. They told me you needed an assistant.”

David nodded absently. “That’s…good….”

“Well?” Whitworth demanded. “Did they tell you anything?”

“Yes,” David replied. “They told me quite a bit.”

Whitworth’s leathery face creased in an unexpected grin. “Excellent, Doctor! You had the routine down just perfect!”

“Routine? What routine?”

“Good cop—bad cop, of course. I had ’em rattled and worried. Then you stepped in and sweet-talked ’em. Works every time!”

The major gave David a sour look. “What did you learn?”

David resented Whitworth’s implication that he’d been playing some sort of game. How little could he get away with telling the bastard and still have it sound convincing? “I’m not sure you’re going to want to hear this,” he replied. And then he told them.

But not everything…especially what Billaud had said about the place he called Gab-Kur-Ra. The alien base uncovered at Tsiolkovsky he decided to keep to himself. He was damned if he would let the military fight over the treasures Billaud had hinted at, as they had the archeological treasure house at Cydonia.

Hab One, Picard Base
Mare Crisium, the Moon
1038 hours GMT

“Why just you?” Kaitlin wanted to know. “The Army’s here. We should all pull back to Fra Mauro.”

Captain Fuentes shrugged. “God knows, Garroway,” she replied. “His message just said he needed to consult with the company commanders. He’s a major, Lee and I are captains, so we’ll go consult. We’ll take Bug Thirty-eight.”

“It’s damned idiocy, if you ask me. Why do you think God invented radios and scrambled channels?”

“Here, now, Lieutenant Garroway!” Captain Rob Lee replied with a wry grin. “Are you actually implying that Battalion has something in its ditty bag masquerading as common sense?”

She smiled. Captain Rob Lee, Alfa Company’s CO, was young, smart, and good-looking, with that sense of rough give-a-damn that she normally associated with fighter jocks. His penchant for scathing one-liners was legendary in 1-SAG.

“That’s asking too much, huh?” she asked. “I have noted a tendency in Major Avery to slip back into his childhood, counting beans and shuffling files.”

Rob closed his eyes. “The major,” he said quietly, but with great seriousness, “is a good man, means well, and works hard. Unfortunately, he would not be able to get a clue if he went out into a field full of horny clues during clue mating season, smeared his naked body with clue musk, and danced the ritual clue mating dance.”

Kaitlin groaned. “Now there’s an image I’d really have preferred you’d kept to yourself.”

“There shouldn’t be a problem, Lieutenant,” Fuentes told her. “You’re senior to Palmer, so you’re in charge of both companies while we’re gone. Colonel Whitworth, of course, will be in overall command of this station, but that shouldn’t affect the regular routine.”

“The routine’s not what’s bothering me, Captain,” Kaitlin said. “It’s the non-routine. If the UNdies are going to counterattack, it’ll be in the next day or two, before we have a chance to get dug in.”

“We should be back by 2200 hours tonight,” Rob told her. He folded his arms. “I imagine the major just wants to go over routine joint-op protocol with us. IFF freaks, pass codes, and so on.”

“Which ought to already be set up,” Fuentes said. “Garroway’s right. If the bad guys hit us anytime soon, we’re screwed, and it won’t help things a bit if we’re attending a fragging staff meeting at Fra Mauro. Damn!”

“I do have an idea,” Kaitlin told them. “If we could set things up this way…”