pounds to Leuchenko's body weight for a total of almost 360 earth pounds. But his lunar weight was only 60 pounds.
He moved toward the lunar vehicle in the half-walking, half-hopping gait typical when moving under the light gravitational pull of the moon. He quickly approached the lunar vehicle and halted about five meters away.
The American moon colonist was leaning unconcernedly against a front wheel. He straightened, knelt on one knee, and wrote a number in the lead-colored dust.
Leuchenko understood and turned his radio receiver to the frequency indicated. Then he nodded.
"Are you receiving me?" the American asked in badly mispronounced Russian.
"I speak English," replied Leuchenko.
"Good. That will save any misunderstanding. My name is Eli Steinmetz."
"You are the United States moon base leader?"
"I head up the project, yes."
"Major Grigory Leuchenko, Soviet Union."
Steinmetz moved closer and they stiffly shook hands. "It seems we have a problem, Major."
"One neither of us can avoid."
"You could turn around and hike back to your lunar lander," said Steinmetz.
"I have my orders," Leuchenko stated in a firm tone.
"You're to attack and capture my colony."
"Yes.
"Is there no way we can prevent bloodshed?"
"You could surrender."
"Funny," said Steinmetz. "I was about to ask the same of you."
Leuchenko was certain Steinmetz was bluffing, but the face behind the gold-tinted visor remained unreadable. All Leuchenko could see was his own reflection.
"You must realize that your people are no match for mine."
"In a knock-down, drag-out firelight you'd win," agreed Steinmetz. "But you can remain outside your landing craft only for a few hours before you must go back and replenish your breathing systems. I reckon you've already used up two."
"We have enough left to accomplish the job," Leuchenko said confidently.
"I must warn you, Major. We have a secret weapon. You and your men will surely die."
"A crude bluff, Mr. Steinmetz. I would have expected better from an American scientist."
Steinmetz corrected him. "Engineer, there's a difference."
"Whatever," said Leuchenko impatiently. As a soldier, he was out of his element in wordy negotiations.
He was anxious for action. "It's senseless to carry this conversation any further. You would be wise to send your men out and turn over the facility. I'll guarantee your safety until you can be returned to earth."
"You're lying, Major. Either your people or mine will have to be erased. There can be no losers left to tell the world what happened here."
"You're wrong, Mr. Steinmetz. Surrender and you will be treated fairly."
"Sorry, no deal."
"Then there can be no quarter."
"I expected none," said Steinmetz, his tone grim. "You attack and the waste of human lives will be on your shoulders."
Anger rose within Leuchenko. "For one who is responsible for the deaths of nine Soviet cosmonauts, Mr. Steinmetz, you're hardly in a position to lecture me on human life."
Leuchenko couldn't be certain, but he swore Steinmetz tensed. Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and loped away. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Steinmetz stood there for several seconds before slowly reentering the lunar vehicle and driving back to the colony, trailing a small cloud of gray dust behind the rear wheels.
Leuchenko smiled to himself. In two more hours, three at the most, his mission would be successfully achieved. When he reached his men, he studied the layout of the craggy surface in front of the moon base through the binoculars again. Finally, when he was satisfied there were no American colonists lurking amid the rocks, Leuchenko gave the order to spread out in loose formation and advance. The elite Soviet fighting team moved forward without an inkling that Steinmetz's inventive trap was set and waiting.
>
After Steinmetz returned to the entrance of Jersey Colony's subterranean headquarters, he leisurely parked the lunar vehicle and shuffled slowly inside. He took his time, almost feeling Leuchenko's eyes probing his every movement. Once out of view of the Russians, he stopped short of the airlock and quickly stepped through a small side tunnel that gradually rose through the crater's interior slope. His passage raised small clouds of dust that filled the narrow shaft, and he had to continually wipe his visor to see.
Fifty steps and a minute later he crouched and crawled into an opening that led to a small shelf camouflaged by a large gray cloth perfectly matched to the surrounding surface. Another suited figure was lying on his stomach, gazing through the telescopic sight of a rifle.
Willie Shea, the colony's geophysicist, did not notice another presence until Steinmetz eased down beside him. "I don't think you made much of an impression," he said with a bare hint of a Boston twang.
"The Slavs are about to attack the homestead."
From the elevated vantage point Steinmetz could clearly see Major Leuchenko and his men advancing across the valley. They came on like hunters stalking their prey, making no attempt to use the high ground of the crater's sides. The loose shale would have made the going too slow. Instead, they jumped across the flat ground in zigzag patterns, throwing themselves prone every thirty or forty feet, taking advantage of every boulder, every broken contour of the land. An expert marksman would have found the twisting and dodging figures nearly impossible to hit.
"Put a shot about ten feet in front of the point man," said Steinmetz. "I want to observe their reaction."
"If they're monitoring our frequency, we'll give away our every move," protested Shea.
"They haven't got time to hunt for our frequency. Shut up and shoot."
Shea shrugged inside his lunar suit, peered through the crosshairs of his scope, and squeezed off around. The gunshot was strangely silent because there was no air on the moon to carry the sound waves.
A puff of dust kicked up ahead of Leuchenko and he immediately dropped to the ground. His men followed suit and stared over the sights of their automatic weapons, waiting expectantly for more fire. But nothing happened.
"Did anyone see where it came from?" Leuchenko demanded.
The replies were negative.
"They're sighting for range," said Sergeant Ivan Ostrovski. A hardened veteran of the Afghanistan fighting, he could not believe he was actually in combat on the moon. He swept a pointed finger over the ground about two hundred meters ahead. "What do you make of those colored rocks, Major?"
For the first time Leuchenko spied several boulders scattered in a ragged line across the valley, stained with bright orange paint. "I doubt if it has anything to do with us," he said. "Probably put there for some sort of experiment."
"I think the fire came on a downward angle," said Petrov.
Leuchenko took the binoculars from his hip pack, set them on the tripod, and carefully scanned the side and rim of the crater. The sun was a blazing white but with no air to spread the light an astronaut standing in the shadows of a rock formation would be almost invisible.
"Nothing shows," he said finally.
"If they're waiting for us to close the gap, they must be conserving a small supply of ammunition."
"We'll know in another three hundred meters what kind of reception they've planned," muttered Leuchenko. "Once we come under cover of the greenhouses we'll be out of sight of the cave entrance."
He rose to one knee and waved his arm forward. "Fan out and keep alert."
The five Soviet fighters leaped to their feet and scrambled on. As they reached the orange rocks another shot struck the fine sand in front of them and they flung themselves prone, a jagged line of white figures, face visors flashing in the intense rays of the sun.
Only a hundred meters separated them from the greenhouses, but nausea was draining their energy.
They were as tough as any fighting men in the world
, but they were combating space sickness in tandem with an alien environment. Leuchenko knew he could count on them to go far beyond their limits of endurance. But if they didn't force their way into the safe atmosphere of the colony within the next hour, there was little chance of them making it back to their landing craft before their life-support systems gave out. He gave them a minute to rest while he made another examination of the ground ahead.
Leuchenko was an old hand at sniffing out traps. He had come within a hair of being killed on three different patrols in ambushes laid by the Afghan rebels, and he had learned the fine art of scenting danger the hard way.
It wasn't what his eyes could see, it was what they couldn't see that rang a warning bell in his head.
The two shots didn't fit a wild pattern. They struck him as deliberately placed. A crude warning? No, it had to mean something else, he speculated. A signal perhaps?
The confining pressure suit and helmet irritated him. He longed for his comfortable and efficient combat gear, but fully realizing they could not protect his body from the frying heat and the cosmic rays. For at least the fourth time the bile rose in his throat and he gagged as he forced himself to swallow it.
The situation was hellish, he thought angrily. Nothing was to his liking. His men were exposed in the open. He'd been given no intelligence on the Americans' weapons except the reported rocket launcher.
Now they were under attack by small-arms fire. Leuchenko's only consolation was that the colonists seemed to be using a rifle or maybe even a pistol. If they possessed a full automatic firearm, they could have cut down the Soviets a hundred meters back. And the rocket launcher. Why hadn't they tried it before now? What were they waiting for?
What bothered him most was the total lack of movement by the colonists. The greenhouses, equipment, and small laboratory modules sitting around the entrance to the cave appeared deserted.
"Unless you see a target," he ordered, "hold your fire until we reach cover. Then we'll regroup and storm the main quarters inside the hill."
Leuchenko waited until each of his four men acknowledged and then he motioned them on.
Corporal Mikhail Yushchuk was about thirty meters behind and to one side of the man on his left. He stood and began running in a crouching position. He had taken only a few steps when he felt a stinging sensation in his kidney. Then the sudden thrust of pain was repeated. He reached around and grasped the small of his back just below his support system pack. His vision began to blur and his breath came in gasps as his pressurized suit began to leak. He sank to his knees and stared dumbly at his hand. The glove was drenched in blood that was already steaming and coagulating under the roasting heat from the sun.
Yushchuk tried to warn Leuchenko, but his voice failed. He crumbled into the gray dust, his eyes dimly recognizing a figure in a strange space suit standing over him with a knife. Then his world went black.
Steinmetz witnessed Yushchuk's death from his vantage point and issued a series of sharp commands into his helmet's transmitter. "Okay, Dawson, your man is ten feet left and eight feet ahead of you.
Gallagher, he's twenty feet to your right and moving forward. Steady, steady, he's cutting right into Dawson. Okay, nail him."
He watched two of the colonists materialize as if by magic and attack one of the Soviets who was lagging slightly behind his comrades.
"Two down, three to go," Steinmetz muttered softly to himself.
"I've got my sights set on the point man," said Shea. "But I can't promise a clean hit unless he freezes for a second."
"Lay another shot, only closer this time to get them on the ground again. Then stay on him. If he gets wise, he could cut our guys down before they could close on him. Blast his ass if he so much as turns his head."
Shea silently aimed his M-14 and pulled off another shot, which struck less than three feet in front of the lead man's boots.
"Cooper! Snyder!" Steinmetz barked. "Your man is flat on the ground twenty feet ahead and to your left. Take him, now!" He paused to scan the position of the second remaining Russian. "Same goes for Russell and Perry, thirty feet directly in front. Go!"
The third member of the Soviet combat team never knew what hit him. He died while hugging the ground for cover. Eight of the colonists were now closing the pincers from the rear of the Russians, whose concentration was focused on the colony.
Suddenly Steinmetz froze. The man behind the leader swung around just as Russell and Perry leaped at him like offensive tackles charging a quarterback.
Lieutenant Petrov spotted the converging shadows as he rose to his feet for the final dash to the greenhouses. He instinctively twisted around in an abrupt corkscrew motion as Russell and Perry crashed into him. A cold professional, he should have fired and brought them down. But he hesitated a split second too long out of astonishment. It was as if the Americans had risen up out of the moon's surface like spectral demons. He managed to snap off a shot that drilled one of his assailant's upper arms. Then a knife flashed.
Leuchenko's eyes were trained toward the colony ahead. He was unaware of the slaughter going on behind him until he heard Petrov gasp out a warning. He spun around and stood rooted in shocked awe.
His four men were stretched out in a lifeless sprawl on the lunar gravel. Eight American colonists had appeared out of nowhere and were rapidly encircling him. Sudden hatred burst within him, and he thrust his weapon into firing position.
A bullet thumped into his thigh and he tilted sideways. Tensed in sudden pain, he squeezed off twenty rounds. Most of them flew wide into the lunar desert, but two found their mark. One of the colonists fell backward and another dropped to his knees clutching his shoulder.
Then another bullet tore into his neck. He held on to the trigger, spewing rounds until the clip ran dry, his shots flying wild.
He cursed as he crumpled limply to the ground. "Damn the Americans!" he shouted inside his helmet.
He thought of them as devils who didn't play the game according to the rules. He lay on his back, staring up at the faceless forms standing above him.
They parted as another member of the colonists approached and knelt down beside Leuchenko.
"Steinmetz?" Leuchenko asked weakly. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I'm on your frequency," answered Steinmetz. "I can hear you."
"Your secret weapon. . . how did you make your people appear from nothing?"
Steinmetz knew he would be talking to a dead man within seconds.
"An ordinary shovel," he replied. "Since we all have to wear pressurized lunar suits with self-contained life supports, it was a simple matter to bury the men in the soft soil."
"They were marked by the orange rocks?"
"Yes, from a hidden platform on the crater's side I could direct when and where to attack you from the rear."
"I do not wish to be buried here," Leuchenko murmured. "Tell my nation. . . tell them to bring us home someday."
It was close, but Steinmetz got it in. "You'll all go home," he said. "That's a promise."
In Russia a grim-faced Yasenin turned to President Antonov. "You heard," he said through clenched lips. "They're gone."
"They're gone," Antonov repeated mechanically. "It was as though Leuchenko's last words came from across the room."
"His communications were relayed by the two crewmen on the lunar landing craft direct to our space communications center," explained Kornilov.
Antonov moved away from the window overlooking the mission control room and sat down heavily in a chair. For such a large bear of a man he seemed shrunken and withered. He looked down at his hands and shook his head sadly.
"Poor planning," he said quietly. "We threw Major Leuchenko and his men's lives away and achieved nothing."
"There was no time to plan a proper mission," Yasenin offered lamely.
"Under the circumstances, we did all that was possible," added Kornilov. "We still have the glory of the first Soviet men to walk on the moon."
"The luster has al
ready faded." Antonov's voice was leaden with defeat. "The Americans' incredible accomplishment will bury any propaganda value of our achievement."
"Perhaps we can still stop them," Yasenin said bitterly.
Kornilov stared at the general. "By sending up a better prepared fighting force?"
"Exactly."
"Better yet, why not wait until they return?"
Antonov looked at Kornilov with curious eyes. "What are you suggesting?"
"I've been speaking to Vladimir Polevoi. He's informed me that the GRU's listening center in Cuba has intercepted and identified the voice and video transmissions from the American moon colony to a location outside of Washington. He's sending copies of the communications by courier. One of them reveals the scheduled departure of the colonists for earth."
"They're returning?" asked Antonov.
"Yes," replied Kornilov. "According to Polevoi, they intend to link up with the American space station in forty-six hours, then return to the Kennedy spaceport at Cape Canaveral on the shuttle Gettysburg."
Antonov's face brightened. "Then we still have a chance to stop them?"
Yasenin nodded. "They can be destroyed in deep space before they dock at the space station. The Americans wouldn't dare retaliate after we confront them with the crimes they've committed against us.
"Better to reserve our retribution as leverage," said Kornilov thoughtfully.
"Leverage?"
Kornilov smiled enigmatically. "The Americans have a saying, `The ball is in our court.' It is they who are on the defensive. The White House and the State Department are probably drafting a reply to our expected protest this minute. I propose we sidestep the accepted routine and remain silent. Do not play the role of a victimized nation. Instead, we use our leverage and cause an event."
"What kind of event?" asked Antonov, straightening with interest.
"The seizure of the vast amount of data carried by the returning moon colonists."
"By what means?" Yasenin demanded.