Lunar Tales - an anthology

LUNAR TALES

  A Collection of Speculative Short Stories

  Set on Earth’s Moon

  by

  Michael D. Britton

  * * * *

  Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton / Intelligent Life Books

  Dream Soldiers

  I watched as the other man, clothed in a blue coverall, stepped out from behind the rocky outcropping, and brought his weapon up to his eye to sight it.

  A blinding flash of light and then sudden darkness.

  I could feel a stinging sensation behind my eyes, and knew it was time to activate the wake sequence.

  As I came around, the hot pain in my skull dissipated, and I opened my eyes to see Colonel Glen Shafter standing over me, dressed from head to toe in white, his head shaven and his hazel eyes piercing. The stuffy room was dim and quiet except for the hum of the blinking computers that lined every wall.

  “What happened?” I mumbled.

  “You lost another battle,” said Shafter, turning to peck at a few buttons on a control panel with his left hand. “The enemy took you out – and you’re only alive because you remembered to wake up.”

  “I always remember to wake up,” I said. “That’s why I’ve survived more battles than any other soldier in this company.”

  “You’ve survived more battles than anyone in this whole brigade, Adams. But I need my men to win battles, not just survive them! The rebels won’t stop until they’ve taken over the entire Earth government. We cannot let them move their ships any closer than one hundred thousand kilometers from the upper atmosphere. But the key is keeping the ones on the lunar surface occupied – preferably asleep, fighting you.”

  The lunar rebels were a powerful force of settlers on the moon who’d dissented and were claiming independence. Their struggle to be free of the central Earth government garnered a fair amount of sympathy among Terrestrials at first - until they mobilized and started taking out Earth cities with orbital-launched plasma bombs.

  The Earth Armed Forces pushed them back till they were out of range and held them at bay, but the real battle was taking place in labs like this one in Los Alamos. EAF specialists like me took a Richtodyne pill that produced lucid dreaming. It was originally a recreational drug, but the military had put it to good use.

  With our brains under the influence of the compound, we’d meet the enemy – also asleep – on the battleground of the unconscious mind, in a shared reality that changed the nature of warfare completely.

  A well-trained fighter like me could quickly wake himself if mortally wounded in the dream, allowing himself to start over again fresh.

  But if you were shot in your dream, and didn’t have the wherewithal to snap out of it before dying, your brain would produce the chemicals associated with extreme trauma and stop your heart cold.

  “I have been keeping them occupied, Sir,” I said. “Even if they tend to shoot me down more often than I can kill them.”

  “We need you to eliminate more of them,” said Shafter. “If you can take out enough of their men, they’ll need to send their leadership to the dream front. Then we’ll take our stealth squadron in on the dark side of the moon and destroy their central command while they’re engaged in dream battle.”

  “Sir, we’ve lost most of our best men. There’s just me and Samuels, and Hizeki and Marsh left. We can’t take on all their men in the dream front. That’s why I keep getting knocked out of the fight. There’s got to be another way.”

  “The only reason those Lunes are winning is because they’re a bunch of former druggies. They were popping Richtodyne up on their little moon commune right from the get-go. We just need to beat them at their own game.”

  “I’ll do my best, Sir,” I said. I swallowed hard. “I’m ready to go back in.”

  Shafter gave a jerk of his head – the quick nod that meant he was pleased with my readiness to return to the fight. He turned back to the control panel and spoke while inputting commands on the keypad. “I’m providing you a double boost of Alpha Wave Substitute, and I’m sending you in at a new location. This is right at the front where Samuels, Hizeki and Marsh are all fighting right now. You’ll join them in a joint theater.”

  In addition to the dream enhancing Richtodyne, the Los Alamos computer was programmed to create shared dream spaces by channeling a digital signal in a datastream wave that permeated our minds and shaped the landscape of our dreams, tying us all together in a mutual, virtual environment. The signal was sent internally to the troops, and also broadcast externally in a wide beam that passed through the minds of the enemy on its way out of the solar system to the infinite reaches of space.

  This gave us an advantage we needed – we controlled the fighting environments. There were more of the Lunes, and they were more used to existing in the dreamscape, but we were better trained fighters and held the high ground.

  As I closed my eyes and regulated my breathing, I felt my body relax as I slipped away into my little nightmare world.

  I heard the weapons fire and the yelling, and smelled the sulfuric smoke and dust. I opened my eyes and I was back in my battle body – a physique of much greater stature than my waking self, equipped with protective gear, surveillance devices, and heavy armaments.

  I looked around to see that I was on the moon’s surface, under one of the bio-domes, about a kilometer from what looked like a recreation of the Lunar Capitol.

  “Adams! Over here,” called Hizeki. The enormous Asian man waved me over to his position behind a capsized lunar rover. Of course, in reality, Hizeki was one of the puniest soldiers I’d ever met – but a mental giant and well-suited to this kind of operation.

  He laid down some cover fire and I shuffled over to join him, skidding to a halt on the powdery surface. The nice thing about this simulated environment was that it approximated Earth gravity instead of going for the more realistic sensation of moon gravity. This also caused the Lunes some trouble, because they were forced to adjust out of their native environment.

  From this position, I could see Samuels and Marsh holed up behind another rover, about forty paces closer to the Capitol.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked Hizeki.

  “We’re gonna take the Capitol,” he said, not looking away from his weapon’s sights.

  “Kinda figured,” I said. “But that’s a goal, not a plan. How, exactly, are we going to execute that goal?”

  “Well, these guys are good,” he said, finally turning to me. “Every time we hit them, they blink out and come right back, like some kind of freaky video game. They obviously have superior dream control, in terms of knowing when to wake up and recuperate, and when to return.”

  It was true. The Lunes were amazing – we had a hard time killing them, because they’d almost always manage to wake themselves up before our ersatz weaponry could do permanent damage.

  So, with the help of the Los Alamos computer’s environment creator, we’d dream up bigger and badder weapons with which to take out the enemy. But they would, in turn, dream up more powerful defenses.

  But the escalation reached a crescendo – a point of diminishing returns for both sides. It became clear that there were limits to this imitation arms race, placed on us by the dream environment. So, we mostly stuck to beefy bodies and standard weapons, relying on tactics instead of brute strength to obtain our objectives.

  “So I ask again,” I said, “what are we going to do to get inside there? And what are we going to do, once there?”

  “While you were awake, we came up with a new tactic,” said Hizeki. “We’re going to -”

  A bullet found its way through the lunar rover and split Hizeki’s head open from back to front. As he fell face first into the fine powde
r on the ground, he gurgled, “I’ll be back.”

  I waited, but he didn’t return.

  He didn’t make it.

  Now we were only three.

  I radioed Samuels. “Cover me – I’m going to join you over there.”

  I heard a barrage of weapons fire and scrambled to the position of Samuels and Marsh.

  As I caught my breath, I said, “They got Hizeki. They got ‘im. He’s gone.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Marsh, who looked like a dude you’d see on the cover of Muscle Magazine. He had a blond flat-top and grey-blue eyes.

  “He may just be taking a while to recover,” said Samuels, a bald man with black goatee who made Marsh look small. “He could pop back in any time. I mean, we thought you were a goner, too.”

  “He was about to tell me the plan,” I said.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do,” said Marsh. “We’re gonna pull a series of SRs to get inside to the Capitol’s dream server.”

  SRs, or suicide runs, meant a lot of sprinting, a lot of getting killed, and a lot of re-entering the environment where you left off. Like Hizeki said, it was like being part of a freaky video game, but it was also a quick and dirty way to gain ground.

  “And then?” I asked.

  “Then we hit them where it hurts,” said Samuels. “The dream server is a virtual version of the Lunes’ Richtodyne production facility. If we destroy it here, we can strand any Lunes currently inside the environment – cut them off from the waking world.”

  We’d disallowed the supply of Richtodyne to the Lunes months ago at the start of the war, but they’d stockpiled a lot of the stuff. When they ran out, they had to divert resources to producing their own.

  Samuels’ theory was sound – if we could eliminate a virtual version of their Richtodyne source, the soldiers already here would be stuck because of the connection between the virtual environment and the drug-laden synapses of the dream soldiers. Then we’d be free to pick them off and they’d be unable to return.

  Since our own computer at Los Alamos was creating the environment, we had a powerful upper hand. The dream environment was, after all, a huge part of the dream experience, and inseparable from the dreamer’s mental health. If we could destroy their Richtodyne supply here and never let them recreate it, the Lune dreamers would soon lose the awareness required to wake themselves up before dying.

  “It’s a solid goal,” I said, “but I don’t like one detail of the plan.”

  “What might that be?” asked Marsh. He laid his rifle across his lap and disconnected the scope, then proceeded to wipe it down with a small rag he’d pulled from a vest pocket.

  “The SRs,” I said. “I’m not sure I can take too many more fatalities. This last time, I had a hard time activating the wake sequence. Nearly stayed down.”

  “We’re all the same rank, here,” said Samuels, “so it’s not like we can order you to do this. But we’re all soldiers, and this sortie will be a turning point in the war. And there’s no one else who can do this. So – are you in? Or are you going to let Marsh and me get all the glory?”

  I looked down at the pale powder on my boots, then stared across the battlefield toward the Capitol. If I could just make it through this one, then maybe – just maybe – I would not have to stare across another battlefield, wondering if I’d ever wake up again.

  “Cover me,” I said, “I’ll go first and try to take out the gunners on the left flank.”

  Samuels and Marsh smiled grimly and nodded.

  “I’ll go second and target the right side,” said Marsh.

  “Then, me,” said Samuels, “and then we’ll all pop back in together and go for an all-out frontal assault. When we get in there – if any of us gets in there - set a timed charge on their dream server. And then get awake before it blows – or you’ll die in your sleep.”

  He didn’t need to tell us that – we all knew that a blast like that, at close range, would kill any dream soldier before they could activate their wake sequence.

  Without taking the time to think about it (and possibly talk myself out of it), I loaded a shell into the chamber, powered up my weapon, and nodded to my companions.

  I leapt out from behind the rover and started running as fast as my feet would carry me. I heard the rapport of the cover fire Samuels and Marsh were laying down, and felt the kick of my own weapon as I strafed the Lunes. I watched as holes appeared in their blue coveralls a moment before they’d disappear from the dream environment, only to reappear a few seconds later.

  My dash felt like it was occurring in slow motion – like I was running in quicksand – like a nightmare.

  I focused my energy on forcing my powerful athlete’s legs to dig in and pick up speed.

  A bullet grazed my left arm. Felt like a bee sting. That’s the one advantage to dream warfare – it doesn’t hurt quite like the real thing.

  I focused my mind and leapt high into the air – far higher than I ever could in reality – and landed in a tuck-and-roll maneuver, stood, and sprinted again.

  Another bullet shattered my right shin, and I tumbled to the ground. I rolled into a sniper position and used my dreaming mind to transform my weapon from a rapid-fire hand-held into a laser-sighted 50-caliber rifle. Then I tried to pick off as many Lunes as I could before they put an end to me for this round.

  Glancing back, I saw Marsh begin his run, working on the right side, dropping the enemy to the ground in great swaths with his thousand round per minute, liquid-cooled, atom-powered DS-86 assault weapon.

  When I looked back at the left flank, I saw a Lune gunner raise his rifle and fire on me. I always seemed to see the faces of the ones that did me in.

  I felt my life ebbing away – slipping into a dark abyss – I couldn’t breathe. But somehow I struggled through it and managed to activate the wake sequence, and once again found myself staring up at Colonel Shafter.

  “How’s it going in there, son?” he asked, preparing another AWS booster.

  The lack of an alpha wave sleep cycle was one of the most dangerous threats to a dream soldier. We spent nearly all of our time in REM sleep, with only an hour and a half a day dedicated to a true rest cycle, wherein we slept a dreamless sleep. The Alpha Wave Substitute was really no substitute – it just stimulated the right parts of the brain to get us through without naturally dropping out of REM while in the heat of battle.

  “We’re making our final push,” I said. “Another couple of these mortal blows is all I can take, though. Each time it’s getting harder to pull myself through.”

  “I know,” he said. “Samuels and Marsh have already come and gone once while you were coming around. They reported on the progress of the strategy, and I do believe you are going to make it work. Now, I know those Lunes just keep coming back like a nasty cough, but you’re so close to that dream server I can taste it from here. One more time oughtta do it for you. Then you can take some much needed R and R while our flyboys go in for the final kill.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said. I noticed that I’d been subconsciously rubbing at my arm, where I’d been shot in the last dream round.

  “I’m ready,” I said. “Put me back in there so I can back up Samuels and Marsh.”

  Moments later, I was back in the thick of the action, my “body” renewed and my weapon reloaded.

  Samuels and Marsh had found a small blast crater to take cover in. I joined them there.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “So much for popping back in together. It took me a while to restart that time.”

  “No worries,” said Marsh. “We’re ready to make the final push when you are.”

  “We’ve got them down to about twenty men,” said Samuels. He laid down his weapon and picked up a small handful of the white, ash-like dust that covered the surface and rubbed it between his palms like an Olympic gymnast chalking up. He rubbed at his chin, leaving a patch of white among the stubble before picking up his rifle in a firm grip. “We should move now, before
any of the dead ones reappear.”

  “They’re all gathered at the entrance,” I said. “Let’s just charge it. If they take us down, I think I’ve got one good re-entry left in me.”

  “Good. Let’s go,” said Samuels.

  In unison, we popped our heads up above the rim of the shallow hole in the ground and opened fire. As Lunes fell, we climbed out and maintained a solid wall of projectiles in front of us as we moved forward like a machine toward our target.

  Only five of them remained.

  Marsh took a bullet to the shoulder, but kept pressing forward.

  When we were within twenty yards, Samuels took one to the neck that sent him sprawling backward. I heard him continue to fire from the ground as he lay there like a sitting duck until he was finally mortally wounded and disappeared.

  Marsh and I knocked out the last of the Lunes and moved into the Capitol.

  Composed mostly of moon brick walls and copper-colored alloy beams, the floor was covered in powdery boot prints leading in all directions. A set of stairs in the center of the lobby led up and down. The chandelier overhead flickered erratically.

  “Where’s the server?” I asked, pulling a charge from my hip pack.

  Before Marsh could answer, I heard his body hit the floor, and saw his head roll in front of me, coming to a stop against the wall.

  I turned in time to see a Lune with a huge machete coming at me. I brought up my gun and blasted him into the waking world. Or maybe even killed him. Hoped I killed him.

  I headed for the stairs and started to head down as Samuels popped back in.

  “It’s upstairs,” he said, taking the lead. “Marsh is dead.”

  I figured as much. A decap was virtually impossible to recover from because you had no time at all to activate your wake sequence. Which is why many of the Lunes carried blades for close-contact combat.

  As we reached the top of the stairs, a Lune lunged over the railings from the left and sliced off Samuels’ head. It bounced down the stairs past me, followed by his body.

  In a flash, he brought his machete down on me and cut off my left hand.

  Let’s just say it felt somewhat worse than a bee sting.

  With my remaining hand I fired on the Lune, but only hit his blade, which flew out of his hands into the darkness of the second floor.

  He pulled a hand gun and shot at me, knocking my own weapon out of my hand and sending it clattering down the stairs behind me.

  I reached the top step and stood before him, realizing that I was the last of the dream soldiers. And the only one who could win this war.

  The Lune looked me in the eyes.

  A bad sign.

  He raised his gun to my face, the barrel about three feet away. His dark eyes glistened in the midst of his dirty face and disheveled black hair.

  “We will win, now,” he said. “We will win and we will take the Earth, and we will take even your homes and make them our own. This is over.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The gun jammed.

  He pulled the trigger again, snarling.

  It jammed again.

  I looked down and saw Samuels’ rifle at the top of the stairs, lying where he’d dropped it.

  I dropped to my knees, picked it up with my remaining hand and fired up at the Lune, nailing him in the chest, just below the neck. Before he could disappear, I stood and walked to his fallen body.

  I stepped on his wrist and took the pistol from his grip.

  “You will not take my home,” I said as he dissolved away into consciousness. “But you’re right – this is over.

  I quickly scanned the area and found a room clearly labeled as the server room.

  I kicked in the door and set the charge at the base of the machine.

  I had to use my teeth and my hand to arm the thing, since usually it took two hands.

  And then I ran.

  I fled down the stairs, but found a contingent of Lunes waiting for me in the entrance.

  As one came at me, I transformed the gun in my hand into a machete and lopped off his head.

  I turned and ran to a window, diving through it and rolling on the ground outside.

  I ran for several yards across the dusty terrain without looking back.

  But then, for some reason, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder, and that’s when I saw him.

  A Lune, targeting me.

  I felt the bullet hit me square in the back, and I put out my hand and my stump as I hit the ground.

  A second bullet hit me in the head just as the Capitol disintegrated in a fiery mushroom cloud.

  And then I woke up.

  THE END

  * * * * *

  Philatelist’s Gold