A city reaching a new morning, artificial lamps above spooling to life in replication of a natural sunrise. Slaves to the cyclical cycles of a world’s passing hours, a colony waking to face another somber workday.
A self serve breakfast buffet placed atop a cotton linen draped table, entire trays of rehydrated scrambled eggs, reconstituted french toast, mysterious patties of misshapen vegetarian sausage, massed ailes of fried potatoes, and undefined, cold and crispy fruit mass readied for self-service. The grand dining hall left empty, a tourist rush left dead in an off-season and under threat of death by the self-declared heroes of humanity.
Master Sergeant Ling is out first, a seat taken at the edge table alongside a plate filled to the brim with savory eggs, hash browns, and a thick slice of french toast beneath a sausage patty. His phone placed leaning against a half-filled metal thermos of hot water, the intersection of physical vectors in such a low gravity environment allowing for a near-impossible balance between electronic devices and volumetric liquids holder.
She video calls him before he’s even settled in, a scheduled time committed to by the soon-to-be legal partner. A face cropped from a photo taken together, the contact information at least two years out of date as he accepts the incoming transmission.
Lag time mercifully short from Luna Anchorage’s orbital line to Camp Armstrong, the transmission stuffed through a transceiver array and piped through to just a single device.
She’s barely in uniform, a background placing her behind a personal cabin’s work desk.
Ling Shu begins slowly. “Hel…”
“Good morning~” Michelle interrupts him kindly, immediately going down to business with a concerned look. “Is everything alright?”
“It is good.” The man nods with a dumb smile. “No bad thing has happened yet.”
“Yet?” She specifies.
“哎呀, you are too worried. We will be ok.”
“You’re wearing body armor.” She points out the small bulge of ceramic plating currently fitted beneath the fiance’s combat fatigues. “Even you don’t think it's safe down there.”
“宝贝...” Ling begins slowly. “It will be safe, nothing bad will happen. And why are you worried for us? It is just what we always do right?”
“But you’re not in a sixteen million dollar space suit this time around.” She argues back, a realization of her own tone shifting herself back to a more centered reasoning. “I’m sorry.”
She really is concerned this time.
Ling changes the subject, his fork already digging into a mountain of food. “How is Rubicon?”
Michelle sighs deeply. “I don’t have a ship anymore ShuShu. She’s getting refitted… all the way through. You remember the American’s having fully funded the Mississippi, with the F.O.P. modification?”
“No.” He honestly answers through scrambled eggs.
“Well, in that case I can’t tell you. But just know the Admiral lied, and we’re keeping ourselves busy too.” There’s a short pause as she observes his face. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.” He replies quickly.
“How about the rest?”
“I do not know.”
“Come on…”
“It is early, most of them are asleep.” He defends.
“It's late for you.” She notes back.
English fails him, an assistance found in his own tongue. “It is comfortable, 睡得挺好. But I will need to take some time to get… used to the gravity and space. Today we are going around for advisement so we should all be ready.”
“Well is anyone even awake right now?”
There’s a pause as Ling Shu brings forth the remembrance. “I know Keys was starting to wake when…”
“Speak of the devil, and he shall come forth!!!” Lieutenant Keys interrupts dramatically from across the hall, sliding his way across rubberized carpet. “You know I can hear you guys from the fucking lobby by the way! It’s so quiet god damn!”
A traditional slice of a dead Americana placed before him in complete self-service, Lieutenant Keys simply piling an entire plate of french toast and sausage alongside a gigantic glass of orange juice.
“It's pretty damn early for Keys to be up…” Captain Perez notes through the speakers.
“I’m fucked Michelle, I got first night syndrome. Didn’t sleep even ten minutes in this hellhole.” The young man replies from across the room, trying to carefully maneuver himself through the dining room at limited gravity. “And wow Ling you recovered FAST.”
“Sleep is good.” He replies, spicing the words with eastern folk wisdom. “Helps you recover very quickly.”
“Nice.” The Lieutenant winks, stopping as he finally realizes the social implications of his state between the two. “Well I don’t want to interrupt… cause I know you two have been apart for over twenty four hours now and that’s a…”
“Oh shut up Keys.” Michelle cuts first with a light groan, then turns to her partner. “I’ll call you back tonight.”
“But…”
“Burden of command Master Sergeant.” She reminds him with a short smile. “Talk later, love you.”
“Love you too…”
He barely shows his annoyance to the Combat Engineer, a resultant scowl towards a good friend passing over his form. A large plate of food slightly slogging off onto table cloth as Keys slams ceramic onto cloth covered steel, surface tension unable to fully contain the mass of edible matter.
Eyes sagging with dark circles, an expression simply held into the distance in a thousand kilometer stare as he recollects his thoughts. An unfitted uniform rough over a concealed vest of ceramic plating.
“Are you ok?” Ling begins to ask.
“Remember when the Sergeant Major did a full sixteen hour readiness drill in the Tank?” He recalls from the collected memories of the entire System Defense Force’s training cycle. “That.”
“Ohhhh…”
“Yeah. I’m not gonna have a good day.”
Its food at the cost of the supplier, the cheapest possible ingredients used for a literal free breakfast. Treading the lines of permissible filler ingredients in a special legal zone under Federal jurisdiction; gray-area artificial sweeteners, false carbohydrates, and reclaimed meat pickled in broths of preservatives and chemically manufactured salt served to a missing population of patrons.
And it isn’t that bad.
A meal eaten by spoons and dull knives atop shatter proof ceramic plates, a safety guaranteed in avoidance of any possibility of weaponization.
“Beats a no-throw.” Keys informs with a half-full mouth. “Though I gotta say, Morsow was right. Food here’s questionable at best. Looks like meat. Tastes like meat. It isn’t meat at all. Double plus good.”
“Double plus…?”
“It’s a reference.” He informs, returning to the major point. “Literally though, trying to feed a city without any real agriculture? That’s gotta suck big time; trying to keep all the food imports coming in alongside whatever edibles they can salvage from the hydroponics and algae tanks.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only colony on the moon that’s self-sufficient is the chinese one.” Keys continues to explain, his pace of eating quickening in a natural progression of conversation. “Mond One, Gegarian, Camp Armstrong? All reliant on getting food down on Armstrong’s lunar elevator. That’s why the Admiral was so anal about the whole Java Treaty blowing up earth’s orbital lanes like three months ago.” He waves his hands in an over dramatic emphasis. “If they can’t get the goods from the orbital farms down to here, everyone would’ve had to start cannibalizing each other. At least, that was what the article on INN said…”
“You are joking.” Ling concludes as he narrows his gaze.
“No I swear I am not dude.”
“You are.”
A sigh through french toast. “Ok for you I’ll google a source, but it’s one hundred percent true. You think they can grow enough food for sixty thousand people here? Not happening.”
It's Cherny’s turn, his arrival in the dining hall marked by an immediate beeline towards his comrades. Large body augmented by thin plates of body armor beneath the dark blue fatigues, a face of budding beard hair unshaven given the present circumstances of personal hygiene in the limited gravity environment.
“Good mourning.” He greets in his thick russian accent.
“Chernyyyy.” Keys chuckles as he sips his orange juice. “Are you getting food?”
He shakes his head as well as his right hand. “Нет, too early to eat. Had water, is enough until lunch time.”
Lieutenant Keys scoffs, a dull spoon carving into a perfectly sliced slab of toast and synthetic eggs. “Good call honestly. This stuff is as bad as a cold no-throw.”
“You said this is better than a no-throw… ” Ling begins.
“I’ve updated my rating. And in all seriousness, it's better than rice-curry pudding but worse than chocolate vanilla. It’s the median flavor: bad but not horrendous. Good stuff.”
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Cherney makes his observation of the squadmates, medical training procuring a fast diagnosis of the state of the young man and the leader. “You look more tired Keys, and Master Sergeant you are more… restiful, better than before.”
“It did good work.” The squad leader gives his thumbs up. “I will remember next time to drink if feeling sick.”
“Hey I think it gave me a hangover instead so maybe hold off on it if you don’t have superhuman physiology.” Lieutenant Keys attempts to joke. “Anyway, when’s Mercier coming?”
“She was sleeping when I saw, so probable in few minutes.”
“Well, we’re meeting Morsow in like…” The Combat Engineer checks his phone, a short eighteen minutes to eight o’clock confirmed. “... fifteen minutes.”
Master Sergeant Ling nods alongside the analysis. “I will text her, make sure she is ok.”
Keys just scoffs as he finishes his orange juice with a loud, audibly dismissive gulp. “Dude I’ll be honest, we can make the Fed wait. It’s not like we’re gonna be doing anything productive anyway.”
“We are going to be with him for a month. It is good that we be good to him and the rest of the… F-B-I?”
“Dude, whatever.” Lieutenant Keys just simply leans back at the implied order, his plate of food brought up from the table and into his right hand for ease of consumption.
There are a few more guests that trickle in; a homogeneous mixture of well dressed business personnel and rested tourists. Enough to justify the continued operation of the resort, yet most definitely not enough to fully fill the profit margins necessary for actual operation.
All of Marauder team’s phones collectively ring, a message from incoming hostiles identified by due course.
Agt. Morsow: Will be around 5 minutes early. I’ve attached a schedule for you. See you then @TF-31
It's a wonderfully generated daily calendar, its interface well planned and pretty in consideration for interactivity. Four locations over the course of a seven hour day, an itinerary bringing them securely in locations beneath the sealed atmospheres of three of Camp Armstrong’s independent atmospheric containment structures.
A morning to be spent in the thoroughfares of tourist centers, a lunch eaten within the archways of consumerism shortly followed with an immediate commute then to Camp Armstrong’s primary maglev station. The final two locales evenly split between a federal policing station and the Camp Armstrong National Spaceflight Museum.
“More like a tour than an actual security advisement detail, fuck me…” Lieutenant Keys notes aloud. “This really is a vacation.”
“As Admiral said to enjoy our time here.” The Master Sergeant taps his phone onto the table as the direct message sends towards the missing human member of the squad. “That is an order.”
He just narrows his eyes to his friend, attempting to hold back the wave of absolute sarcasm as he scoops up the final scraps of artificial potatoes from his plate.
Corporal Estellie Mercier’s arrival predates their intended escort by mere minutes, her small body stumbling straight towards the buffet table with an immediacy to her choice of breakfast. A need for plates unnecessary, one single pastry and a hot mug of coffee from the dispenser enough to satiate the human body.
“Good morning.” Lieutenant Keys greets formally.
She yawns for her reply, stuffing the synthetic sugar glazed croissant into her mouth. “Bonjour…”
“Good morning.” Master Sergeant Ling follows up as well.
Cherny narrows his eyes in his diagnosis of the sickly woman. “You… did not sleep ok?”
“Non, it is difficult to sleep.” She quickly answers.
The medic nods in a point of understanding, a request put towards the rest of the squad. “Consider buying anti-sick medikation. When eat for launch in shop place.”
“And fucking sleeping pills if we can too.” Lieutenant Keys rolls his tired eyes. “We can do that right Cherny? Can we get a medical auth for this?”
“Sleeping medikation not good for health.” Cherny warns as he skirts the actual prescription, simplifying nearly forty years of medical research down to solid advice. “So avoid using.”
“Oh come on Cherny it’s not that bad.”
“Affect body chemcal working, so only use in bad emergency.” He continues to supervise. “Ok.”
He is the absolute authority on the matter, no member of the squad even attempting to argue a compromise. Instead the silence persists between four Marines, food finished against a tightened deadline.
Master Sergeant Ling hears it first, attuned senses finding the stroked pattern amongst incoming soundwaves in the deathly quiet dining hall. “The Agent is here.”
Identified by the bright gold text atop a blue patrol jacket, three letters in the Latin alphabet in an acronym of the actual agency. A fresh face, well kept hair and a shaven jawline presenting the most generic look of a new America for Agent Morsow.
“To the letter.” Lieutenant Keys dumps the final dregs of orange juice into his mouth, the lowered gravity slipping an entire serving from the glass as one misshapen globule of liquid. “Alright, beach episode time.”
----------------------------------------
Camp Armstrong still feels the effects, the very atmosphere of the first city on the moon holding within it an unspoken agreement of mourning caution and hostile distrust. Tired eyes from uniformed workers darting between strangers, the air of silence an oppressive force to a supposed business as usual in the aftermath.
Handfuls of tourists attempt to salvage vacations as they shop amongst storefronts and tourist traps shuttered for the off-season. Hesitant photos taken of low gravity handstands and casual poses as uncomfortable memories to be unvaulted at a later date, a culture attempting to instead find joy in the moment-to-moment life.
The United States Space Force is present, alongside the Lunar Policing units in whatever capacity that can be spared. A separation of the two, the darker more armored fatigues and partial hard suits of the Space Force’s Marines are organized into fireteams of four, each equipped with lethal submachine guns and tactical rifles. The policing forces, working in a twin partnered format, hold themselves with stun batons and ever so slightly more non-lethal tazers. Uniforms standard enough to blend in with currently nonexistent crowds, now standing out like sore thumbs in easily recognizable patrol patterns generated by machine learning models for optimal coverage.
It's a completely at-home concept for those growing up in the development of the massive powers of America, Europe, and China; Camp Armstrong’s main commercial space is a shopping mall of hyper-compressed proportions. Archways of neoclassical architecture reaching upwards towards a falsely illuminated starscape above, a near sunlight equivalent level of illumination projected from sheathed lights.
Only Cherny seems truly lost amongst them, and even then just barely.
“Look.” Lieutenant Keys points out towards one of the patrolling police officers, and then shifts his finger to a fireteam of Space Force Marines. A virtual line drawn in any S.D.F. combat software system, now simply an indication of gazes. “See those glasses the Cops are using and those goggles on the marines? Augmented reality TAC-NET stuff.”
“Expensive?” Ling asks.
“The expensive stuff is what we use. Probably the standard policing gear.” The Combat Engineer corrects, turning back to their handler. “You guys do use the TAC-NET system right?”
“On occasion.” Agent Morsow calmly informs. “Please remember this isn’t a combat zone, we aren’t out to fight a war here.”
Corporal Mercier interrupts, seeing the pattern in the movement of guards. A finger pointed to the intended point of interest, a training in three dimensions reduced to two completely foreign to the handful of onlookers. “Break in section, eleven o’clock.”
There’s a gap in reconnaissance, a shift in patrols leaving half the shopping block unattended for the moment. No visible uniforms or personnel, simpy an empty space filled with just about a dozen tourists.
“Security kamara?” Cherny asks as eyes dart around the thoroughfare.
Lieutenant Keys just rolls his eyes. “Maybe, but that’s not good enough.”
Master Sergeant Ling Shu counts the seconds, the lethal moments of erroneous idle time, an empty mind focused the cutoffs; to assemble classes of hidden ordnance: 3D printed concealable handguns alongside broken down assault rifles, the insertion of detonation caps into crude fragmentation grenades, and a suit up time for heavy body armor.
Even the rest of his squad takes moments to consider vectors as well, each one providing more exotic avenues for an attack at this very moment.
Agent Morsow raises an eyebrow at the silence, his entire charge suddenly stopping for no apparent reason. “Is everything ok?”
“Too long.” Master Sergeant Ling concludes, Marauder Team’s squad leader finishing up his tactical analysis.
“What?”
“Forty seconds before someone had gun in this area. Too long.” Ling tries to explain. “Enough time to start an attack. Get guns, ammunition, and armor on for firefight.”
Lieutenant Keys scoffs at his friend’s direct approach to the situation. “Oh come on dude that’s dirty. Getting slogged down in a shooting is Java Treaty levels of suicide, but two kilos of C4 in here on a long fuse? If it's busy you could kill at least thirty in the initial blast, assuming you don’t use a fragmentation coat.”
There are microphones hidden throughout the space, a hundred digital ears listening into the casual conversations of guests. Hostile words processed, an alert raised; the closest task force of policing officers dispatched automatically to their current location.
“Mercier.” Lieutenant Keys turns to the shortest member of the squad. “You better not be thinking…”
“Sniper attack.” The Marksman coldly announces, pointing out the wide open sightlines of the space. “Go over on the open space, lots of cover and space to shoot with rifle.”
The Master Sergeant narrows his eyes in thought, processing his subordinate’s idea before nodding slowly. “That would also be ok.”
“Oh come on sure a sniper attack’s fun, but think about the casualties man.” Keys begs for a second opinion from his group. “How easy it could be to just…”
Two police officers turn the corner, pulling themselves along handholds in the closest approximation to a lunar sprint towards the anomalous group. Barely armed, non-lethal tazers on hip holsters as they halt a bare fifteen meters away.
It's the combination of System Defense Force blue and the FBI insignia that eases any true suspicion, a power earned by the uniform sending a wave of confusion on faces.
“Hey, excuse me!” One raises his voice towards them. “Is everything alright?”
Agent Morsow quickly flashes open a leather bound badge holder, his personalized gold and brass FBI badge printed within it a digitized, encrypted QR code that immediately sends a confirmation of identities into TAC-NET systems alongside a quick facial identification scan. “Everything’s good guys, we’re just on an advising tour.”
The two police officers turn to one another, a quick glance exchanged before Cherny asks the obvious question in a broken, heavily russian accented english. “Question: do you carry gun in patrol?”
The other officer turns with a nervous chuckle. “N-no?”
“Federal officers are not allowed to carry firearms in Federal territories.” Agent Morsow answers the squad’s medic, returning to the two officers. “We’re fine, thank you for your concern.”
Lieutenant Keys answers the unspoken question from his squad as the localized kid born beneath the stars and stripes. “It's an American thing. Only took two senators and one Secretary of State in the cremator before they decided that no guns on the feds was a good idea. 2040 vibes, ya know?”
“Still need guns.” Master Sergeant Ling informs to the Agent. “And you need to have more people to watch places. Too long before someone came to check on possible suspicious people.”
The Agent quickly removes a foldable tablet from within his coat, the lightweight and absurdly thin chassis easily held in the lowered gravity. Notes tapped into a word processor, generative algorithms correcting any hastily made spelling errors in the system. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?”
Lieutenant Keys chuckles. “I’m willing to bet three things will come up:
1. Not enough guns
2. Not enough guns
3. Not enough guns
And I ain’t even getting political, that’s just the System Defense Force Manual of War. Sounds good?”
There’s only so many shops open, much less anything actually worth stopping for. Boutique coffee cafes emptied except for staff, and smaller bakeries presenting pre packaged pastries kept in cold storage to be flash heated in a bad replication of actual service. A few souvenir stores still sell the standard wares, the overpriced build-it-your-self models of old Space Race era probes and landers alongside the orbital combat vessels of the System Defense Force and the United States Space Force.
Even better in comparison, the sale of small lunar rocks sealed in handheld display cases was near-pervasive across every store and every vending machine. Salvaged from the massive material mining pits and priced at reasonably low prices, a dozen brands smattering themselves from small, velvety cases to brutalist steel holding tanks.
“Wanna buy a lunar metal ring?” Lieutenant Keys asks the Master Sergeant as they pass a shuttered jewelry store. “You know, for the thing.”
“Why?”
“I mean you and Michelle haven’t even gotten your wedding rings picked out. Now would be a good time to do it, without her consent so no arguing or haggling. May I recommend a tungsten carbide band, recommended by the Combat Engineering Corps of the Solar System Defense Force for its durability and utility. Does an incredible amount of damage to a person’s face so you can easily fight your way out of a wedding reception, and can double as an O-ring in emergencies… depending on finger size. Much better than that silicone ez-breaker you have on you right now.”
Master Sergeant Ling rubs the soft, falsely gold colored band on his left ring finger; a short thought actually considering his friend’s sales pitch.
Corporal Mercier offers the first question to the item. “Metal wedding ring is not in uniform regulation.”
“That aside, it's a good choice.” Keys moves forward, a small push onto the ground sending a bounding leap forwards deeper into Camp Armstrong’s commercial district. “So anyway, Agent Morsow. In your professional opinion do you think the Space Liberation Front’s gonna bomb or shoot up this place?”