The Silent War

ASTRO CORPORATION COMMAND CENTER

Jake Wanamaker’s command center was a cluster of offices set slightly apart from the rest of Astro Corporation’s headquarters. With wry humor, Wanamaker mused that Humphries could do more damage to Astro, at far less cost, by attacking these offices and wiping out the corporation’s military command. But even war has its rules, and one of the fundamental rules of this conflict was that no violence would be tolerated anywhere on the Moon. The side that broke that rule would bring Selene and its considerable financial and manufacturing clout into the battle as an enemy.

So despite the purely perfunctory guards stationed at the double doors of the command center, armed with nothing more than sidearms, Wanamaker had little fear of being attacked here in Selene. He went through the doors and down the central corridor, heading for his own office to a chorus of “Good morning, Admiral” accompanied by military salutes. Wanamaker returned each salute scrupulously: good discipline began with mutual respect, he felt.

Wanamaker’s office was spartan. The battleship-gray metal furniture was strictly utilitarian. The only decorations on the walls were citations he had garnered over his years of service. The wallscreens were blank as his staff filed in and took their chairs along the scuffed old conference table that butted against his desk. Wanamaker had salvaged them both from his last sea command, an amphibious assault command vessel.

He spent the morning outlining Pancho’s idea of setting up a blockade against incoming HSS ore carriers.

“Unmanned craft?” asked one of his junior officers.

“Uncrewed,” Wanamaker corrected, “remotely operated from here.”

One of the women officers asked, “Here in Selene? Won’t that get Stavenger and the governing council riled up?”

“Not if we don’t commit any violent acts here in Selene,” Wanamaker replied, smiling coldly. Then he added, “And especially if they don’t know about it.”

“It won’t be easy to build and launch the little robots without Stavenger’s people finding out about it.”

“We can build them easily enough in Astro’s factories up on the surface and launch them aboard Astro boosters. No need for Selene to get worked up over this.”

The younger officers glanced at each other up and down the conference table, while Wanamaker watched from behind his desk. They get the idea, he saw. I’m not asking for their opinions about the idea, I’m telling them that they’ve got to make it work.

“Well,” his engineering chief said, “we can build the little suckers easily enough. Nothing exotic about putting together a heavy laser with a communications system and some station-keeping gear.”

“Good,” said Wanamaker.

Gradually the rest of the staff warmed to the idea.

At length he asked, “How long will it take?”

“We could have the first ones ready to launch in a couple of weeks,” said the engineer.

Wanamaker silently doubled the estimate.

“Wait,” cautioned the intelligence officer, a plump Armenian with long, straight dark hair and darker eyes. “Each of these birds will need sensors to identify potential targets and aim the lasers.”

“No worries,” said the Australian electronics officer. “We can do that in two shakes of a sheep’s tail. Piece of cake.”

“Besides,” pointed out the engineer, “the birds will be operated from here, with human brains in the loop.”

The intelligence officer looked dubious, but voiced no further objections.

“All right, then,” said Wanamaker at last. “Let’s get to work on this. Pronto. Time is of the essence.” That broke up the meeting. But as the staff officers were shuffling toward the door, Wanamaker called the intelligence officer back to his desk.

“Sit down, Willie,” he said, gesturing to the chair on the desk’s left side. He knew she disliked to be called by her real name, Wilhelmina. The things parents do to their kids, Wanamaker thought.

She sat, looking curious, almost worried.

Wanamaker took a breath, then said, “We need a diversion.”

“Sir?”

“Humphries has beat the hell out of us in the Belt, and it’s going to be months before we can start fighting back.”

“But Jess said he’d have the first robots on station in two weeks,” the intelligence officer countered.

“Two weeks plus Murphy’s Law,” Wanamaker said.

Her dark eyes lit with understanding. “If anything can go wrong, it will.”

“Especially in a wartime situation. I know the staff will push as hard as they can, but I don’t expect to be able to hit back to HSS with these robot systems for at least a month, maybe more.”

“I see,” she said.

“Meanwhile, we need a diversion. Something to knock the HSS people off their feet a little, shake them up, make them realize we’re not going to lay down and die.”

“Such as?”

He grinned lopsidedly at her. “That’s what I want you to figure out, kid.”

She did not smile back. “I’ll do my best, sir.”