Days of Future Past - Part 3: Future Tense Read online

  "We might as well move our food and weapons inside. I guess tomorrow we can figure out just what we are going to do next," Sarah said, and taking my arm we headed back upstairs.

  - 15 -

  We spent the rest of the day exploring the base. It was incredibly large, according to Coyote the AI; I had problems thinking of him as just 'Coyote', there had been a thousand people living here. When the war came, half of them were deployed on the military ships that had been supported by the base and none of those people had ever come back.

  Once the war had finished, all but seventeen of the people here had returned to the Earth.

  Of those seventeen, we found the remains of six of them, who had all died of old age apparently. While there had been housekeeping robots, like we'd seen back at the Groom Lake base, the facilities to repair or manufacture them did not exist here and very few were in operating condition anymore.

  We left the bodies where we found them; all but one was in their quarters anyway, apparently having died in bed. I just didn't want to spend the time doing anything here that we didn't have to. I just wanted to do our mission and go home. While it was cool to be on the Moon, not being able to go outside after years of feeling the wind on your face and the sun on your skin, was a little bit oppressive. Going out in a spacesuit really didn't help with that feeling either, as you were still very much 'inside'.

  Adding to that was the simple fact that this was a dead and dying place. Maybe it had felt better when there were hundreds of people living here, working here, coming and going. But now? Everyone had left or died centuries ago. This place couldn't support life, it didn't have any of its own. It was interesting, but I'd seen all that it had to offer, which wasn't much anymore.

  All in all, it led to a very strong feeling of melancholy in me, I had once thought that going to the Moon was the future, many people had, but right now it only felt like the past, a thing whose time had come, and gone.

  "So, do all of you computers talk to each other?" I asked Coyote the AI later that night, after the girls had fallen asleep.

  "Yes."

  "The ones on the Earth? The one at Groom Lake?"

  "Yes, Colonel. We have all kept in communication, though with some of the systems there are difficulties."

  "How so?"

  "Well the US defense services AI was destroyed early on in the war. The backup system was not as advanced and was damaged. Communications with it is limited to ELF radio, and that has to be relayed by a ground station."

  "So, who is in command?" I asked, curious.

  "You are."

  That stopped me!

  "How can I be in command?" I exclaimed, "I'm only a lieutenant colonel because I ruthlessly exploited a loophole in the law!"

  "Because that is all that we have left," Coyote said. "And by the way, you have been promoted to Colonel."

  "What? How did that happen?"

  "You're the only surviving member of any of the branches of the United States military, so the 'by the needs of the Air Force' clause kicks in. You do have several hundred years in rank, and technically you should have been moved up as your line number decreased. It took me a while to make the argument to the CenCom computer, as I said, it isn't very bright, but it eventually agreed.

  "Further, the orders you gave returned enough units and enough information that your line number has once again moved up."

  I shook my head, "So when do I make general?"

  "Unfortunately, the President must recommend you for general rank, and President Harris is dead, along with his cabinet, the vice-president, and every other politician from that time."

  "Maybe I should run for President," I sighed.

  There was a pause, then he laughed. It wasn't the bark-like laugh that Coyote used; this was a more human-style laugh. "What an excellent idea! As you are the only registered voter, you should be able to carry the election rather easily!"

  I rolled my eyes, "That was supposed to be a joke!" I grumbled. "Besides, what's the point? Is there really anything left of the US anymore? Other than a bunch of old installations, most of which are falling apart, if not in ruins already?"

  "Well, there are still some warships in orbit; you could command them as well."

  "To what purpose?" I asked him. "It will be centuries I suspect, before anyone takes to space again."

  I shook my head again, "Let's talk about the Jules Verne facility," I changed the subject. "Just how far from here is it?"

  "It's a little over nine hundred miles," he told me.

  "Nine hundred?" I blinked and leaned back in the chair by the terminal I was using, the girls were sleeping in the next room. "How the hell do I get there?"

  "By skimmer of course."

  "Okay, I'll bite. What's a skimmer?"

  "A simple craft for either local travel or low orbit long distance travel. Altitude radar keeps it a set distance off the ground and a simple terrain avoidance system keeps you from flying into anything. It has a large motor at either end, one of which is used to push you forward, and the other to stop you."

  "Is there a trainer here for it?" I asked, a little concerned about having to learn to fly yet another spacecraft.

  "No. As I said, it is a rather simple craft and quite easy to learn."

  "How many will it carry?"

  "A dozen people easily, plus their equipment."

  I nodded slowly, "Okay, and what do we know about the IBM facility?"

  "Well, the maps we have are rather old, but I do not think it has changed all that much since the war."

  "Good point," I agreed. "What kinds of defenses does it have?"

  "Missiles, railguns, and lasers."

  "And just how are we to get by that?"

  "The missiles ran out during the war, Zhon's force that took the place were not able to bring much weaponry with them, and in the subsequent fighting, all of their ammunition ran out."

  "So that would mean the lasers are still working?"

  "Obviously."

  "But you're sure that the missiles and rail guns aren't."

  "I have a high degree of confidence that they aren't," he agreed.

  I sighed and shook my head; a 'high degree of confidence' was not the same as being sure about something.

  "Wait," I went back to something, "you said 'fighting.' Over what?"

  "Well after the IBM facility was taken, there was a fight to take it back. The attacking force commander decided not to bother on an actual assault once they realized that the IBM personnel were all dead and simply destroyed all of Zhon's craft, stranding him and his people there. She figured that they'd either run out of air, or starve to death after she stranded them."

  "Then how did Aybem, I mean Zhon, get down to Earth?"

  "Oh, he walked to the Mare Australe launch facility and used their mass driver to launch himself back to Earth in a rather primitive capsule."

  "He walked there?"

  "Well, as a cyborg, he had no need for a suit or any air or food supplies."

  "Couldn't you have stopped him from using it?"

  "No, the facility at Mare Australe was under the control of the Russian government. Their systems are not compatible with ours."

  I sighed, "Well I'm going to bed. In the morning we can go over this some more."

  "Good night, Colonel."

  The next day started off with me suiting up and going outside to do an inspection of the base's skimmers. There were over a dozen skimmers to choose from and the one I picked to check first was the one that the people who stayed behind used. I figured it was the one that probably had the best maintenance, as they kept using it up until they died.

  That turned out to be a bad decision, once I looked it over. As they got older, they got lazy, and didn't bother fixing things much. So I ended up picking one that had only seen occasional use. I only needed to fuel it up, charge the oxygen systems, and check the engines and flight systems. Overall, it was in good shape, though the hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers had p
retty much all leaked out or boiled off ages ago. So I'd have to land it lightly, or it would bounce.

  We packed all of our weapons into it. Surprisingly there were almost no weapons left at the base at all, most had been taken by those who had gone back to Earth. But we had our own, so we didn't really care.

  We also packed most, but not all, of our food. Leaving the food for the trip back to Earth on the shuttle.

  The skimmer really wasn't all that fancy looking. It was a rectangular box set in a big metal framework. There were windows at both ends, as well as control stations. Just as I'd been told, it had a motor at each end, set under the pilot's view ports, and a couple of steering thrusters on either side of that.

  Along the bottom were a series of smaller thrusters, which were tied into the altitude control system. You just dialed in a height, and the radar altimeters kept you there.

  It really was pretty simple, though I wouldn't have called it 'foolproof.' Mainly because fools are always so damn ingenious.

  It had a simple navigation system, which would be more than enough to get us where we were going and back. It even had a fairly decent radio, though once we were out of line of sight with the base, we wouldn't be able to talk to the Coyote AI anymore. There weren't any communications satellites left in orbit around the Moon for some reason, which I didn't bother to ask about. Communicating via Earth would be impossible as the skimmer's radio wasn't that powerful. Also the Jules Verne facility was on the far side of the Moon from the Earth.

  "So, how fast does this thing go?" Sarah asked me as we finally got strapped in, after finishing up with transferring our gear. We had our suits on, but had taken off our gloves and our helmets. While it wasn't exactly heated in the skimmer, there were outlets to plug your suit into the skimmer's power system, which kept the suit's heater running even with the helmet off.

  "As fast as I want it to, I guess?" I said and shrugged, "But I think I'm going to keep it to about three hundred miles per hour for this trip."

  "So, three hours to get there?" Sarah asked.

  I nodded, "I don't really know anything about flying here, so I don't want to go all that fast."

  "That sounds pretty fast to me!" Heather laughed from the back. She was sitting at the rear control station to keep an eye on what was behind us. She said it was better than staring at the dull gray walls of the skimmer's insides, which it definitely was.

  "The airplanes I used to fly normally went almost twice that," I told the both of them. "While this thing is supposed to avoid any mountains or peaks that get in front of us, I don't exactly trust it, so I want to be able to have time to react."

  Sarah nodded.

  "Sounds good to me!" Heather called from the back.

  I went over the checklist a second time, just to be sure I had it all set correctly, and then I moved the altitude selector up to one thousand feet. As soon as the altimeter had us passing five hundred, I turned the craft to point in the direction indicated on the compass display using the yoke and then started to push the throttle forward from its center position. The throttle reminded me more of a boat's than an aircraft's, because straight up was zero thrust. Forward moved you forward and backwards slowed you down, and then moved you backwards.

  Once we got to a thousand feet and I felt comfortable, I took us up to three thousand feet and set the collision alarm to alert if the radar detected anything that might be in our path.

  We spent the next three hours mostly looking over the maps of the IBM facility, along with some pictures that had been taken after the facility had been attacked. There were several large ships there alright, one of which didn't look like it was really supposed to land on the surface of the Moon. As it had been broken in two by a well-placed shot, I guess that no longer mattered. All of the rest of them had quite a few rather large holes in them, and I guess their drives had been destroyed, seeing as Aybem, or Zhon, had never bothered to use them to get back to Earth.

  When we got to within sixty miles I started to move us lower and slow us down.

  When we got to ten miles away, I had us down to five hundred feet over the terrain and we were moving at maybe forty miles an hour. Heather was standing behind my seat, as the three of us looked for a good spot to land out of sight of the facility, but not so far away as to make us have to walk a while to get there.

  "There's the hill we saw on the map," Heather said and pointed.

  I looked down her arm and nodded. Taking us down to a hundred feet, I slowed us down to under ten miles an hour. Then I took us down to fifty feet and slowed us even more.

  I finally brought us to a complete stop about a hundred yards from the hill top, at a spot that was mostly level and set us down with a jarring bounce.

  "What the hell?" Heather said looking at me as she almost lost her grip on the back of my seat.

  "The landing gear's shock absorbers are all locked up," I told her and then blushed a little, feeling embarrassed. "Sorry, I forgot."

  "He did warn us," Sarah pointed out.

  "Still," she grumbled and we waited as the ship settled down, then once we were sure it had stopped moving we all got up and started to put our gear on and grab our weapons.

  I gave each of the girls a kiss before I put my helmet on, then moved to the airlock as they kissed each other and put their helmets on.

  "Everything secure?" I asked.

  "All good," Heather replied.

  "I am ready," Sarah added.

  I nodded and cycled through the lock first, then went over to the compartment where we'd stowed our weapons as Heather and Sarah cycled through together.

  We slung our rifles and each of us grabbed a bag with eight of those fire and forget anti-tank rockets that we'd raided from the armory back at Groom Lake. We had more if we needed them, as well as quite the assortment of explosives.

  "Well, let's go and see what we can see," I said and we carefully made our trek over to the ridgeline I'd been careful to land us behind.

  Once we got there we all stopped about eight feet from the top, staying out of sight of the facilities defenses.

  "Okay, give me one minute," Sarah said. And kneeling down she started on a spell while Heather and I watched.

  A minute later, two people in suits like ours appeared and walked up onto the ridge. a hundred yards to our right. I started timing as soon as they got their heads over the edge and twenty seconds after they got to the top, both were hit with shots from a laser and the illusions fell to the ground on our side of the ridge.

  "Well, the defenses still work," Heather said and opening up one of the bags started to set the rockets up on the hillside above her.

  "Guess so," I said and grabbing a second bag I moved to the left side of hilltop we'd come up behind, and then did the same thing, laying the eight rockets within easy reach, but keeping my head well down and out of sight of the compound.

  I then moved up closer and laying down I activated each of the rockets, one after the other as Heather did the same.

  "Okay, I'm ready," I called.

  "Ready here," Heather called.

  "Prepare," was all Sarah said, and then a minute later another dozen people appeared, these were all armed with weapons, as the first two stood back up, and they all charged together over the ridgeline and ran towards the camp.

  I picked up the first rocket and carefully poked it and my head over the top. I could see a laser cannon on one of the downed ships was shooting at the attackers, who would fall, roll, and then get back up.

  I sighted at it, fired the rocket. Dropped the tube, grabbed another one, found another laser turret, this one on top of what looked like a fuel tank, aimed, pulled the trigger, and then grabbed another rocket. I fired that one too. The third one went at a turret on top of a tower, and then I ducked back down into cover.

  "Ready for the next round?" Heather called.

  "Two minutes," Sarah said, I could hear her panting in the microphone.

  I checked my three remaining rockets and look
ed over at Heather who was doing the same as I caught my own breath.

  "Okay," Sarah called three minutes later. "Prepare."

  This time two dozen soldiers appeared and they ran over the top of the ridgeline.

  Heather and I both started firing our rockets again, taking longer to pick out our targets. Most of them looked to have been rigged by the invaders, I doubt IBM had really spent any money or time on defenses. I picked off another tower with a laser turret on it, then tried to shoot a turret on a group of ships, but another laser destroyed it before it reached its target. I was down to my last rocket. I'd have to go back to the skimmer after this one.

  "Those three ships to the east of the compound," Heather called on the radio, "they seem to be all that's left fighting."

  "Yeah," I agreed. "They're also shooting down our rockets before we can hit them."

  "I wonder what's in that tank over there..." Heather mumbled and as I watched one of her rockets lanced out to hit a rather large white tank. It punched through the side and I saw something start to spray out of the hole it had made.

  Then there was a bright flash, causing my visor to immediately darken and I felt the ground beneath me jump as pieces of the tank expanded away in all directions. The three ships parked near the tank started to come apart as well, and one of them suddenly darkened in my visor as well, as a second, but smaller, shock came through the ground.

  "Take cover," I grunted as I pushed myself back down behind the ridge as pieces of tank and spacecraft were flung everywhere.

  When I poked my head back over the ridgeline a minute later, there were no fires, no dust, nothing. Sarah's illusionary soldiers were still running around, but nothing was shooting at them anymore.

  "Call off the shadows, Hon," Heather said and a moment later they all winked out.

  I looked around at the scene below. The four towers that had turrets on them were now missing their tops. The one small ship to the west of the facility was missing its top, and the three ships to the east were now just a large scrape heap that I guess would have been smoking if there had been an atmosphere to smoke in.