Alone in the Dark, page 19
part #3 of Lunar Age Series
“So who’s on the CLT30?”
“I don’t know. It could be someone higher up in the LT’s command structure. That might make sense if the LT were a green rookie, but he’s really a seasoned senior officer. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a high value intelligence asset.”
“A spy? Really?”
“Probably not anything so dramatic, hey. Think more along the lines of some under socialized computer geek with a weak sense of right and wrong that can break into anything. Somebody like that would be handy to have around, but you wouldn’t want him running loose. It’s an interesting question, one we can talk more about tomorrow. I’m going to sleep now. Nighty night.”
“Good night , Sam”
I lay there and thought about what Sam had said. It was a good diversion from what was really troubling me. My mom was a hostage. She was probably being held by the same guys that had beat me up. The same guys that had beat up my Dad. My mom wasn’t shy and meek and that wasn’t a recipe for keeping her safe considering the circumstances. These guys had no hesitation about roughing up a guy. They did show restraint when dealing with Ananyu so maybe my mom was safe. Maybe she wasn’t. It took me a long time to fall asleep.
TOP BITCH
“We cleared out some tables and brought in some cots so they can sleep. We only let them go to the bathrooms one at a time, so they can’t be in there planning any trouble for us. So far, none of them have given us any problems.”
“What about the extra guards? Are you sure that they’re all cool with what’s going down?”
“Yeah, they’re okay, and if they have some doubts, the others will keep them in line.”
Regina considered Joel’s update and then said, “Keep a close eye on Turay, we caught him off guard. That’s got to be pretty embarrassing for the Head of Security and he’s sure to be looking for a little payback.”
“I got him zip tied to a table and I’m not letting him talk to the others.”
“What about when you take him to the can? That’s probably his best chance of trying something and succeeding.”
“We do it with three guys on him. Two hang back ready to shoot and the third deals with uncuffing him. His feet get bound before we cut his hands free, just so even if he tries something, he’s not going to get far hopping about.”
“Great. Keep me informed if anything changes.”
Regina sat back and considered the progress from the last week. She and her team had managed to pick off Demarco Turay without a hitch. Before anyone else could react, they grabbed Doctor Johnson and Dr. Belvert. That had effectively cut the head off the leadership at NLH. With Demarco and Johnson as hostages, the remaining security crew was forced to stand down and their weapons were confiscated. Since Peary was for the most part, still under construction, there was a much smaller leadership group there and they were just as quickly subdued. With their position secure, her team had moved on Cheryl Burns, the head honcho at CDB Farms. Cheryl’s husband had put up a fight, but all it accomplished was putting himself in the hospital while Cheryl was lead away.
The plan Joe and Doug had provided her was working great. After they had secured the hostages, they moved them over to Peary. The next step had called for them to use a newly built building that Joe and Doug had access to. The building was far enough away from the ongoing construction to be isolated and had everything they needed to keep the hostages safe and secure. The first hitch had occurred a couple of hours after Cheryl was taken hostage. Ming Zhang, the Chinese UN observer, had tracked Regina down and had begged for Cheryl’s release. Ming had made a compassionate and compelling argument for Cheryl’s release, which had got Regina thinking. They needed NASA to listen to and take the Council and Regina seriously. NASA paid close attention to the politicians so getting them to put pressure on NASA could only help their cause. Regina realized that the UN Monitors were a golden opportunity for her. Taking the Monitors hostage would draw attention to what was happening on the Moon and insure the politicians who held NASA’s leash would exert the required pressure on NASA to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
Regina had immediately taken Zhang as a hostage and then pulled together a team to go after the remaining Monitors. She had diverted from Joe and Doug’s carefully laid out plan when she captured Zhang. She knew no plan ever survived contact with reality. She could call for help or wing things on her own and this was her time to shine. When she and the team got back with the remaining Monitors, it was clear that the plan needed to be tweaked. Joe and Doug’s plan had been laid around having to deal with four or five hostages. Seizing the Monitors had upped the current number of hostages to nine. The building they were using was good for handling five people, but almost doubling the number caused crowding issues. The crowding made it possible for the hostages to physically overwhelm one or more of the guards so they had to be extra careful and staff more people than they had originally planned for. Joel had mentioned that the Transship Station was mostly empty of people due to the slowdown caused by the storm damage and the small cafeteria there would meet their needs nicely. It had been a circus getting her team and the hostages relocated to the Station, but Regina couldn’t help feeling that it was a step in the right direction. They did have more room and that made it easier to deal with the hostages. Not counting the outer locks, there was only one entrance that lead to Peary so they were still isolated for good security. The only real issue had been rounding up enough people who could pull a shift watching the prisoners. Since then, things had settled into a routine and all was going well on their end. The only hitch was how long it was taking NASA to get a response back to them.
RESPONSES UNEXPECTED
MOONNET CENTRAL NEWS FOR JANUARY 9, 2040
Good morning, this is Rick James with MoonNet Central News reporting from our studios at Peary. It’s Monday, January 9th, 2040.
Yesterday, a group from the Worker’s Council seized control of both the NLH and Peary habitats. Doctors Johnson, Belvert, and Burns, along with Chief of Security, Demarco Turay were taken into custody at NLH. The remaining security personnel at both NLH and Peary were briefly detained and disarmed before being released. A second wave of hostage taking occurred several hours later as the UN Monitors were captured. The hostages appear to have been taken to the Transship Station where they are being held with no access to communications devices or visitors.
The Worker’s Council is insisting these actions were necessary to prevent what they believe are the failed policy's of the current Administration from harming the people living at both NLH and Peary. They blame the Administration for irresponsibly failing to plan for the current population growth at both NLH and Peary in light of possible setbacks such as the Solar Storm 2039. They believe this has resulted in the shortage of food we are now experiencing. Further, the Council is asserting that the Administration has shown a profound lack of common sense in the recent decision to supply food to the Far Side Observatory and for failing to immediately deny the ESA’s Lunar Village recent request for food.
We reached out to the Worker’s Council for additional comment and were able to interview Regina Dawson, one of the leaders in the Worker’s Council and leader of the team that took the unprecedented actions yesterday. I asked her for status on all of the hostages and she commented that her team is keeping them as safe and comfortable as they can under the circumstances. When asked how long they would be held, she said that really depended upon how fast NASA was able to respond to their concerns.
I asked Regina exactly what her group’s demands were. She said that her group’s actions were to call attention to what they believe is mismanagement of the NLH and Peary Habitats. They would like to see changes in how the habitats are governed. She said she’s open to suggestions, but believe it’s imperative that the residents and workers at both habitats have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. In the absence of a better idea, she’s calling for the creation of a Habitat Council with representation from both the Habitats and NASA to take over the day to day decision making for the Habitat. She also questioned the wisdom of having a single vendor supplying the majority of the food for both habitats. Regina suggested this was a good example of having a single point of failure that was especially critical when we cannot count on Earth to bail us out in an emergency as the aftermath of Solar Storm 2039 has shown. Regina suggests that this is a matter that the Habitat Council would be best suited to attend to.
When asked what the next steps would be, Miss Dawson commented that a list of their demands had been transmitted to NASA. NASA had acknowledged their message, but have not yet responded to it. The situation is at a standstill until the group hears back from NASA. We at MoonNet Central News will bring you additional details as the situation develops.
In an unusual move, China today sided with the United States in calling for the North Koreans to be more forthcoming with information about their research facility near Undok, North Korea. China went so far as to actually be calling for sanctions against North Korea, which is highly significant in that China usually sides with its neighbor to the South in international situations. Diplomatic sources say that China has been concerned over North Korea’s behavior as the ruling party members have become increasingly isolated. The location of the Undok facility is very near the border with China with the exclusion zone actually brushing the border along the Tumen River.
In financial news today, the Lunar Stock Market closed Friday with shares of AJVC Metal Supply trading at $10.15 a share, CDB Farms is at $18.86 a share, Daniels Designs is at $1.63 a share, and Hotel Whipple shares are at $21.87. Luna Wire & Cable shares are at $4.99, and O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is at $18.69 a share. Milky Way Dairy shares are selling at 14.63 a share, while MM Brewing is at $1.98 a share, and Mussconny Fabrication is trading at $25.87 a share. Mussconny Machine is at $23.13 a share, Psuche Neural is at $8.62, and Whipple Instrument and Metrology is selling at $12.93 a share.
DUMPED
Regina sat in the conference room trying hard not to go ballistic. Yesterday had all gone so well. There hadn’t been any problems with the hostages and she’d been able to do the interview with MoonNet Central News. Everything seemed to be going good. This morning, things took a turn for the worse when the hostages started complaining that holding Dr. Burns and Dr. Belvert was endangering the Habitats by preventing them from working on the food situation. Instead of shutting them down quickly and putting an end to it, Joel had let them talk him into allowing some kid Dr. Burns relied on to come talk to her everyday for instructions on what to do. The kid was in and spying on them before Regina had a chance to say anything about it.
She had just about cooled down from Joel being an idiot when she got a message from Joe and Doug actually demanding a meeting with her like she was some lap dog at their beck and call. She did owe them so she showed up at the time and place they asked. Now she was in the conference room with them and was getting an earful.
“You over reached when you took the Monitors hostage. That’s going to provoke a reaction. What were you thinking would happen?”
“I was thinking having them gave me more leverage. And it does. You weren’t there and I don’t need some arm chair quarterbacks questioning my decisions. You want to be in on the decisions, then step up, grow a pair, and come help. Otherwise..”
Doug looked at her like she was some ignorant little kid. It just pissed her off more as he said, “The site we had for you kept your profile low and was easy to defend if needed. Grabbing more hostages meant you needed more space. We might have been able to find something suitable for you if you had asked. That Transship facility is way too public and hard to defend. Did you think about that? Or how about the history of that place? Do you know what happened there last year? It’s—”
“It’s fine. We got room for the prisoners, it’s isolated from Peary so we can control access to the building. If you are through with the nitpicking, I got stuff that needs doing.”
“We’re not done yet. You asked for help, and we gave it. You think you got all the answers now so we’re going to pull back and see how this all works out for you. When this blows up in your face, we strongly suggest you forget about us and where the weapons came from.”
Regina had enough of this shit. These idiots were all for thinking they were in control and running the show when it was really her doing all the work.
“While you two have been sitting on the sidelines, playing your little games, I’ve been out doing things. Everything will be okay, and if it isn’t, tough, you knew going in that things could go wrong. If you were worried about someone coming back to you on the guns, you shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“Okay, let me try this again. You’re a little dense. This won’t come back to us. Period.”
“And if it does?”
Doug looked at her with pure malice on his face and said, “Then someone we know is going to go visit 2732 Magnolia Street. We have friends back on Earth, and if something happens to us, one of them will get a message to go visit your dear old dad. Nothing comes back to us. Got it.”
All the anger drained out of Regina as she finally understood what Doug was telling her. Her mom had died of a stroke the year she had graduated from college. Her dad was all the family she had left. There really wasn’t anything else to say. “I got it. Nothing blows back to you. How did you find my dad?”
“We already knew where to look. Did you really think we just picked you out of the crowd at random. We needed a job done and you were the perfect fit. We just had to give you a little push and off you went. Your dad was just insurance.”
OPENING MOVE
We went back to the CLT30 in the morning. Sam, the Major, and Lieutenant Hughes immediately went into a huddle to discuss how things were going to happen today. I started to sit down with Sandy to see what he thought of my mom’s situation when the Major called over to me and said, “Bryce, could you join us please.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I went over and sat down next to Sam who gave me a reassuring smile.
The Major said, “We need your help. The Lieutenant has been able to determine that the hostages are being guarded by twelve men. If we can get our men in place, they can rush the cafeteria and probably take down all twelve without anyone getting injured.”
“Probably, Major?”
“Yeah, it’s not that big a room, getting in and getting to all twelve guys in time is a little iffy. Not to mention, shit happens, and if one of those twelve guys accidentally discharges their weapon, we could take casualties among either our men or the hostages. We’d like to tilt the odds a little better in our favor.”
Sam spoke up with a concerned look on her face and said, “Bryce, your mom put me in charge of your safety. You don’t have to do what the Major is going to ask. Your Mom and Dad wouldn’t want you to run the risk. Heck, as the person who is supposed to be protecting you, I should be telling the Major you won’t be doing this. However, I think this is the best opportunity to resolve this situation without any bloodshed and I’ll be by your side every step of the way. I’ll also support you no matter what you choose.”
“What is it that you need from me, Major?”
“We want you and Sam to draw off some of the men in the room. The less guys we have in that room with weapons, the better off we’ll be.”
Sam said, “We’re going to be bait. Between the two of us, we should be able to draw off at least four of the armed guards. We might even get lucky and draw out the leader. When that happens, some of the men will take them out before the main group attacks the cafeteria.”
“What do I have to do?”
Sam laughed and said, “That’s easy, just be an obnoxious and over confident teenager.”
The plan they had come up with called for the two rovers to return to the vicinity of NLH with the marines on board. Rover One would go directly to the vehicle bay at NLH. They’d temporarily jam all communication to and from the Habitat while they secured the place and made sure no collaborators could pass a message back to the Peary and give the bad guys a warning. They’d then commandeer a transport rover to take a strike team over to Peary where they could infiltrate into the Transship Station. In the mean time, Rover Two would maneuver around to the vehicle lock for the Transship Station. We’d come in the front door, making enough noise on the radio to hopefully royally piss off the bad guys. The first strike team would already be in place and if we succeeded in drawing off some guys from the cafeteria, then the signal would be given to take down all the bad guys and free the hostages. It sounded good on paper.
Since we were still a good day’s travel from the Habitat, the Marines split up per Lieutenant Hughes’s directions into Rover One or Two and we began the final approach to the Habitat. The timing actually worked out better if we took our time, so we’d arrive in the evening at the Habitat. The people we’d be facing would be nearing the end of a long day. They’d be tired and hopefully less alert. It would also still be early enough that a transport rover arriving in Peary from NLH wouldn’t be suspicious.
ASSAULT ON NLH
Sandy had agreed to drive the last couple of hours. That freed up the Major to confer with the Lieutenant over any last minute changes to the plan. An hour out, the Major called into the Habitat and said, “Rover One to NLH Control, over.”
“This is NLH Control. Is that you, Major Steelings?”
