From his sensor station, Naram Sin received a summons to speak with Marshal Baal. This too followed ship routine.

  Naram Sin gathered a data packet, and then hurried through corridors to the Marshal’s office.

  Baal was slimmer than he used to be. He had also striven to hide his overweening arrogance. That had started after a frank talk between Naram Sin and him. Naram Sin had laid it out in a stark fashion, telling Baal that Sardu was watching him for any false moves.

  Baal had literally taken that to heart and modified some of his worst behaviors.

  Then one day—after the Jupiter gravity assist—Baal had asked Naram Sin to school him on the art of leadership. This Naram Sin did as part of the project of helping Baal command.

  Yes, Naram Sin had his secret orders from Assur, but were those moral orders? Naram Sin wasn’t sure he believed that anymore. Making the moral action had become imperative so he could retain his self-respect.

  “Well, Naram Sin,” Baal said from behind his desk, “the hour approaches.”

  “It does, Marshal.”

  “What are our odds for victory?”

  “I gave us a sixty-eight percent chance,” Naram Sin said.

  “Why have they fallen from the seventy-six percent chance of five days ago?”

  Naram Sin laid telescopic shots of Earth’s orbital space yards as workers assembled huge missiles.

  Baal studied the photos until he looked up. “This is new, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I have deduced that the humans have taken apart missiles on Earth and shipped them up through the laser launch systems. The space workers are now putting them together again. If they had done this earlier…” Naram Sin shook his head, “It would have made it more difficult for us to achieve our goal.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  “I do, sir. We must not underestimate the Earthers.” Naram Sin did not know how many times he had said that, trying to hammer the point home. It was always a mistake to underestimate one’s opponent. He had learned that through chess.

  Soon, Naram Sin left the Marshal’s office and went to his own quarters. There, Naram Sin once more studied the plan. The plan was straightforward and simple, and it should produce victory. The three Enforcers would park on the far side of the Moon, using missiles and particle beam cannons to obliterate the Earth defenses on the far or dark side. Then they would land the seven auxiliary vessels. The vessels would act as temporary quarters for construction workers and space marines. The space marines were critical for this, as well as the lunar surface vehicles. Those vehicles would go to the near side of the Moon, at least in Earther terms, and conquer it. Then the construction workers would build prefabricated mass drivers, firing on the orbital stations first and Earth second, taking out the industrial sites.

  If the humans attacked the Moon, the Enforcers would slip over the horizon and annihilate the threat. What could stop three Enforcers? Could the four Orion ships do it? Naram Sin had endlessly computed and gone over possibilities. Baal had gratefully accepted his small changes to the original plan that improved the odds for victory.

  Baal, it seemed, had one small gift. He listened to the most logical person aboard the ship because he feared what Chief Marshal Assur had done to him, making him the scapegoat for failure. If success came, it would certainly accrue to the Chief Marshal. Unless…

  Did Baal have a secret desire to climb higher in power? It certainly seemed so to Naram Sin.

  Could Naram Sin ride on Baal’s coattails to help depose the immoral Assur? That was for the future.

  Naram Sin took out game pieces and once more ran through the possibilities, juggling ideas in case the humans did X or Y.

  In a true sense, ever since the gravity assist around Jupiter, the bridge crew looked to him for leadership. If Baal disapproved of this, he had not stopped the process. Perhaps Baal knew that Naram Sin was his best hope.

  Naram Sin did not think that as a conceited thought, for he did not bloat his ego with it; at least, he did not believe he did. Instead, he studied and thought as if this was the most important chess match of his life. In a way, it was.

  Thus, the invasion fleet continued to brake hard as it readied for its D-Day invasion of the far side of the Moon.

  -4-

  With the Valiant fleet half a million kilometers from the Moon, Naram Sin sat at his usual spot on the bridge of the Enkidu with a console before him.

  Marshal Baal stood on the command deck, his eyes fixed on the main screen. He appeared to be trying to look impressively martial.

  The invasion fleet was on the final leg of their deceleration to lunar orbit. Several sensor operators had already indicated that the Earth’s defenses on the dark side of the Moon had activated.

  Seven missile batteries were on the dark side. When they had envisioned the invasion, Assur had predicted twenty such sites.

  The missile battery at grid 192-321 loomed like a matte black fortress of steel and plastic. Each missile towered over the lunar surface, a behemoth with black surfaces absorbing the scant light. Massive silos were entrenched in the regolith, housing more of the missiles. Thick cables and fuel lines surrounded the launching pads. Radar and teleoptic sites had definitely spotted the incoming fleet. Point-defense stations ringed the area: some were counter-missiles, others were rapid-fire cannons. It appeared that the missile site was fully automated, without any humans in evidence.

  The seven sites were strategically positioned. Taking them out would be the first step to the capture of the entire Moon.

  Naram Sin nodded as Baal looked back and raised his eyebrows.

  Baal turned forward, clearing his throat. “All Enforcers, prepare for missile engagement,” he said.

  “Aye, Marshal,” replied seven-foot Sub-Commander Talus. He was the chief missile officer, coordinating the fleet’s missile launch sequence.

  Naram Sin’s console showed the seven missile batteries as red icons, each a threat needing to be eliminated.

  “Missile pods one through three, ready for launch,” reported Talus.

  Baal nodded. “Launch on my mark.”

  The Enkidu, Lagash, and Nabu had positioned themselves before the seven auxiliary vessels. Their deuterium fusion engines were hot as the huge ships continued to decelerate.

  Baal looked back again.

  Naram Sin watched his console and then looked up sharply, nodding to the Marshal.

  “Mark,” Baal said.

  The Enkidu’s missile hatches opened, and heavy missiles slid into the void. After achieving enough distance, their main engines ignited and they started accelerating toward the Moon.

  The other Enforcers launched their missiles, creating a swarm of projectiles aimed at the seven missile batteries. At a range of 500,000-plus kilometers—one and a half times farther than the Earth was from the Moon—the battle would unfold over long hours, the missiles taking nearly half a day to reach their targets.

  “Missiles away,” Sub-Commander Talus said. “Estimated time to target: fourteen hours.”

  Baal nodded.

  Naram Sin sat back, knowing the engagement would be a drawn-out affair.

  The bridge crew settled into a tense waiting period as they monitored the progress of the missiles. The invasion fleet had traveled nearly thirteen months to engage in this fight. It was hard to believe it had actually started.

  The first six hours passed with the Enkidu’s crew maintaining their stations.

  “Sir,” a sensor operator said. “There’s activity on the Moon.”

  “Put it on the main screen,” Naram Sin said.

  No one spoke.

  “With your permission, of course, Marshal,” Naram Sin said.

  “Yes, yes,” Baal said, who had sat down long ago. “Do it.”

  The sensor operator put the teleoptic sights on the main screen.

  On the lunar dark side, a sudden flurry of activity broke the former tranquility. The missile silos, long dormant beneath a shroud of regolith, began to open.

  That no doubt meant a cascade of blinking lights and the hum of powerful generators, echoing throughout the automated control stations and triggering the sequence.

  The lunar ground shuddered as missiles on the launch pads ignited, their thrusters expelling hot gases.

  One by one, more missiles followed, with their targets the approaching Enforcers.

  “Are the sites firing all their missiles?” Baal asked.

  “That’s doubtful, Marshal,” the sensor operator said. “I think three-quarters of them have launched.”

  The big missiles accelerated, their guidance systems locking onto the various Enforcers. Constant pings notified the bridge crew of this.

  Now, the waiting continued as the two waves of missiles headed toward their respective targets, one heading for the Moon, the other leaving it.

  Baal left the bridge for a time. When he returned, many bridge officers changed places with the next shift.

  Of course, Naram Sin remained at his post.

  More hours passed. Then, the first strike from the Enforcers neared the dark side of the Moon.

  The Enkidu’s main screen tracked a single, massive missile as it hurtled toward an enemy launch site. The missile was armed with a high-yield nuclear warhead.

  “The enemy’s point-defense cannons are activating,” the new sensor operator said.

  On the main screen, the site’s automated defenses sparked, filling space with a deadly barrage of projectiles aimed at intercepting the incoming missile.

  Naram Sin cleared his throat and looked significantly at Baal.

  “Engage electronic countermeasures,” Baal said.

  Sub-Commander Talus was on it.

  In moments, the missile’s onboard systems responded, deploying decoys and emitting false signals to confuse the point-defense cannons. The lunar defenses fired relentlessly just the same, creating a storm of flak and tracer rounds.

  Other missiles behind the first one shredded into pieces, hit. This one continued down. As it approached the surface, the missile activated its final thrusters, making minute adjustments to its trajectory. It was a race, with the missile threading through the last layers of the point-defense grid. The missile streaked down at a fortress of reinforced bunkers and silos buried beneath meters of lunar rock and regolith.

  Then the missile’s warhead detonated. The nuclear explosion erupted with blinding intensity, a miniature sun blossoming on the Moon’s surface. The energy released vaporized everything in the immediate vicinity. The blast radiated outward, pulverizing armored structures and sending shards of molten metal and rock into the night.

  The reinforced silos, designed to withstand conventional attacks, stood no chance against the nuclear explosion. The lunar surface rippled as the force of the explosion carved out a massive crater, ejecting tons of lunar soil high.

  The Enkidu’s bridge crew watched in awe. The plume of debris rose hundreds of meters, illuminated by the lingering glow of the detonation. In the weak lunar gravity, the debris hung suspended, although some had achieved escape velocity. In time, most of the debris began to drift back down.

  The sensors on the Enkidu confirmed the destruction. The missile battery at grid 192-321 was a smoldering ruin, its location marked by a jagged scar on the lunar surface.

  “First target neutralized,” Talus said. “Three minutes to the second target.” Soon, Talus counted down.

  The main screen showed the missiles’ final approach. The batteries’ point-defense systems were struggling to lock onto the real targets amidst electronic interference.

  “Impact,” Talus said.

  The screen lit up with a series of explosions as the Valiant missiles found their targets. More red icons representing the batteries disappeared from the screen, replaced by fiery bursts indicating their destruction.

  “Five batteries down,” Talus confirmed. “The remaining two are still active.”

  A murmur of relief and satisfaction spread through the command deck. They had successfully eliminated most of the immediate threat.

  “Excellent work,” Baal said. “Prepare for the next salvo. We need to take out the last two.”

  The Enkidu’s sensors continued to monitor the lunar surface and space around them. The Valiant fleet had a strategic advantage for the moment, but they couldn’t afford to be complacent.

  “Status report,” Baal said.

  “All ships report ready for the next wave,” Talus replied. “Missile pods reloaded. Targeting solutions are being updated.”

  Baal nodded. “Launch on my mark.”

  The Enkidu’s missile hatches opened again, ready to unleash another volley.

  As the missiles sped away, the Enkidu’s sensors tracked the lunar-launched missiles as they neared the fleet. One of them was ahead of the rest, aimed straight at the Enkidu. The missile’s body glinted in the sunlight, its guidance systems locked onto the Enkidu’s heat signature. Inside the missile, sophisticated electronics and a powerful warhead awaited the moment of impact.

  On the Enkidu, a particle beam cannon activated, its targeting systems locking onto the incoming threat. The weapon’s charging coils hummed with energy, building up to the necessary power for a precise shot. The particle beam cannon, one of the most advanced weapons in the Valiant arsenal, was designed for moments like this—swift, lethal, and precise.

  As the missile closed the distance, the Enkidu’s targeting computer calculated the optimal firing solution. The particle beam cannon swiveled slightly, aligning with the missile’s trajectory. The seconds ticked down, tension building on the bridge as the weapon’s systems synchronized.

  Then, with a flash of blinding light, the particle beam cannon fired. A coherent stream of high-energy particles lanced out from the Enkidu, traveling at nearly the speed of light. The beam struck the missile with pinpoint accuracy, a lance that delivered immense energy in a fraction of a second.

  The moment the particle beam hit, the missile’s outer casing began to vaporize. The intense heat and energy disrupted the missile’s electronics, frying its guidance systems and causing a cascade of internal failures. The missile’s remaining fuel ignited prematurely, and the warhead’s delicate components were shredded by the sudden burst of energy.

  From a distance, the missile seemed to shimmer and then explode, a brilliant flash of light followed by a cloud of debris. Fragments of the missile’s casing and warhead scattered harmlessly into space, the threat neutralized before it could come close enough to the Enforcer.

  Inside the Enkidu, the tactical display updated, showing the missile’s icon winking out. The bridge crew let out a collective breath of relief. The particle beam cannon had performed flawlessly, eliminating the danger.

  The Enkidu continued on its path as the other lunar-launched missiles closed in. Then, other particle beam cannons began to track.

  Farther out, counter missiles detonated, helping the bridge crew destroy the enemy’s missiles.

  The Lagash and Nabu performed just as well. After thirteen long months of travel, the crews were ready. This surely proved it. Of course, it had helped that so few Earth missiles had launched from the dark side.

  “They’re making this easy,” Baal said shortly.

  “So far,” Naram Sin said.

  Baal nodded a moment later. “Yes, so far.”

  -5-

  James Petty desperately wanted a drink. He opened and closed his fists several times. He could feel sweat sliding down his back. He was on the O.S. Aphrodite in the Command Center. Huber was sitting nearby. They were in direct communication with the Daniel Boone, the flagship of the Orion fleet.

  The fourth Orion ship still needed its shakedown cruise. Its crew and space marines were still adjusting, and there were issues in a few of the ship’s systems. That meant the fourth Orion ship was not fully operational.

  According to Huber’s calculations, three Orion ships would definitely lose against three Valiant Enforcers.

  Petty stood up and walked to a fridge with bottled waters. One of the bottles held vodka. He had put it there last night just in case he couldn’t handle this. He felt his stomach rumble; there was a greasy, queasy feeling in him. He couldn’t decide, couldn’t make this final decision. It was so damn hard, and critical to the war effort.

  “Sir,” Huber said, “Admiral Tojo is on the line. He wants to speak with you.”

  “Again?” Petty asked, sounding querulous and plaintive.

  Those in the Command Center did not turn to stare at him. They likely understood the agony he was going through. It all rested on him, the decision. Give the go-ahead or not give the go-ahead.

  “Tell Tojo to wait a few minutes more,” Petty said, almost as if it was a plea.

  Huber gave him a significant glance, then swiveled around and spoke to the communications officer.

  Petty licked his lips and turned away from the fridge so he wouldn’t grab the bottled vodka and start drinking. He had the feeling that if he started, he would not be able to stop until he was stinking drunk. Could he decide then? Maybe this awful, desperate feeling would leave him then.

  Feeling an inner panic, Petty walked to one of the screens and looked at the braking enemy fleet and the long exhaust tails each of them exhibited.

  The Orion ships could still react. One of the last launches from the seven missile sites on the dark side of the Moon had sent— No, wait, there were only two missile batteries left.

  With his fingertips, Petty wiped sweat from his eyebrows, rubbing his fingertips together until the sweat was gone.

  “I should already be heading there.” That was what Admiral Tojo had said several times before. The admiral had come close to berating Petty for delaying the decision.

  Petty heard his stomach growl. He actually started to rub his gut when he noticed personnel side glancing at him from their stations.

  Petty yanked his hand away, moved to his chair, sat down, and kept himself ramrod straight and still. If he remained perfectly still, he wouldn’t have to make this desperate decision.