Shamash looked quiet enough. West dropped his Hammerhead down through the atmosphere, moving his eyes between the HUD and his cockpit windscreen. The Chig refinery spread out below him, low, black, geometrical, fractal-looking, like something grown there rather than built. No sign of enemy activity, though. He touched his mike.

"Five-Eight to Shamash. This is King of Hearts, over."

"This is Shamash, King of Hearts. Come on down, it's quiet as a church down here."

"Roger that, Shamash. See you in a few," West replied. "Wild Cards, this is King of Hearts. Let's land these ISSCVs." He signaled the pilots and then the Hammers hovered as the cargo vehicles set down.

"Okay, 'Cards, let's put 'em down..."

The Hammerhead bumped slightly as it came to a stop on the moon's surface. Switching from cockpit air to his oxygen pack, West popped the canopy and hopped down onto the ground. A Sergeant Martin was waiting for him.

"The compound is secure, sir. Whatever we haven't destroyed of the Silicates has been driven into the boonies. We're not expecting any more trouble. The Chigs are all dead. The AIs got no reason to rejoin this fight."

West nodded. "Keep your eyes open. You never know." Over Martin's shoulder he could see a helmeted figure approaching. The name stenciled across the brow just said 'Saratoga' - must be one of the AeroTech guys.

"Lieutenant West?" a woman's voice said. "I'm Dr. Radford."

The AeroTech honcho - well, he had to be nice. He stuck out his hand. "We don't have a lot of time here, Doctor, so I guess we'd better get moving. The Five-Eight will accompany your people. We've had some experience with Chig facilities. Sergeant Martin will coordinate the perimeter defense."

Radford nodded, looking uneasy and a little bit awed. "My teams are ready when you are," she said. <

Beth Radford stood in the main entrance of the refinery and glowered. What a mess, it was even worse than she had feared. The battle had cause great blocks of hexagonal building materials to collapse from the walls, filling the passageways. And it was as dark as the inside of a pocket in there. It was going to be damned near impossible to get the heavy extractors through without taking a lot of precious time to clear away the debris - time she just did not have.

"Dr. Radford?"

She turned to find herself looking at an unfamiliar young woman.

"I'm Lieutenant Damphousse. Lieutenant West sent me to find you. We've found another entrance, one that's more clear than this one."

Radford nodded, and followed her. The second entrance *was* in better shape. "Can we get some lights in here?" Radford asked.

"We're working on it, Doctor," Damphousse assured her, "but Chig technology is kinda weird."

'Kinda weird' was an understatement. Radford looked up at the angled, cantilevered walls and tried to identify the construction material. Her gloved hand told her it was as hard as ceramic, but it looked more like the inside of a honey-comb than anything else, with the holes filled in. The corridor flooring was steel plank, but the ceiling looked like something spun. It gave her the creeps to look at it. And everything seemed to be angling downward.

"A lot of this facility seems to be underground," she mused. "That's gonna make things harder. I wonder why they do that, there's no reason for it, really, that I can see..."

"Chigs seem to like it underground," West said, coming up behind her. She turned to him curiously.

"You were all on Kazbek, weren't you?"

West nodded. "Kazbek. Other places."

Radford did not press him. She touched her helmet mike. "Bring in those big arc-lights," she instructed whoever was on the other end. Then she deployed three teams to three levels of the refinery - a geologist and mineralogist with each team. What they came back with twenty minutes later puzzled her.

"Dr. Radford?" She turned to West. "We've got about fifty mikes left, ma'm. Are you ready to start loading?"

"Mikes?"

"Sorry," West smiled inside his helmet. "Minutes."

She nodded distractedly.

"Is everything okay, ma'm? I've got to make my report."

"Yes, fine, we'll begin loading immediately," she responded frowning at the data pad in her hand. She gave it to West. "This was unexpected. You might want to include it in your report. General Hazelton will probably want to know about it." <

"Saratoga, this is Shamash."

West's voice came calmly over the bridge radio. Heads came up in response, and McQueen glanced at Ross, then leaned over and touched a key on the communications console. Behind them, General Hazelton walked onto the bridge.

"Go ahead, Shamash."

"The AeroTech crews have begun moving the ore into the containment units on board the ISSCVs. Dr. Radford would like to continue working as long as possible, she has reported a greater quantity and quality of ore than anticipated. She has also asked me to relay certain information to General Hazelton..."

McQueen glanced over his shoulder at Hazelton, who nodded.

"Go ahead, King of Hearts. The General is listening."

"Dr. Radford says," West sounded like he was reading something, "that the refinery appears to be layered in levels underground, with the raw ore stored and processed on the upper levels, closest to the surface, and each subsequent refinement taking place on the next levels down. She does not understand the rational behind this arrangement, but she says to tell the General that there appears to be a cache of pure refined fuel at the core of the facility. She says to tell General Hazelton this was *not* anticipated, and that she does not have the proper containment equipment to recover this fuel. But that it is interesting to find it here..." West sounded bewildered. He was not the only one. Eyes turned to Hazelton.

"Blows a theory we had that the Chigs were only doing partial refinements out here in outlying facilities like this one, and then shipping the stuff in somewhere for final refinement, depending on what it was going to be used for. Appears we were wrong. I wonder if this might be their only facility..." His brow furrowed, then he focused on McQueen again. "Tell her to leave it. We don't have the means to bring it home."

The order was redundant, Radford had already said as much, but apparently the General felt a need to restate it. McQueen relayed the message blandly. <

On Shamash, West had no time to respond to the order; Sergeant Martin was bearing down on him, Hawkes hard on his heels.

"Sir! We've picked up an AI transmission. It's coming from inside the facility, sir, down in the lower levels. They must have powered down during the battle so we couldn't detect them."

West nodded. Damn things "Saratoga, did you get that? We've got a bit of a situation, here..."

"Roger that, King of Hearts, go deal with it. Over and out." <

On the bridge of the Saratoga, McQueen closed the radio link and turned to see his commander leaning over the rail behind him, staring stonily forward.

"They'll be all right," he said softly so that only Ross could hear. "It's just a couple of stray Silicates. The Five-Eight can handle them..."

Ross took a slow breath, the only indication that he had heard. "Any sign of those Chig reinforcements, yet?" he asked out loud.

"Not yet, sir, but we should be picking them up sometime soon. They should be appearing over the starboard stern."

Ross looked up at the bridge chronometer and pursed his lips. If the estimates were at all accurate, they should have picked up a Chig approach on LIDAR, by now. He did not like it. His gut sensed a trap. He looked over at Hazelton. "I want those people back here."

"Give them a few more minutes, Commodore," Hazelton insisted. "Your troops on planet can take care of a few lonely Silicates, and there are no signs of Chigs. Dr. Radford should be just about finished soon..." <

West stepped into the dim passageway, his rifle at ready, Hawkes right behind him. He touched his helmet mike.

"Anything?"

"Negative," replied Wang in another corridor.

The tunnels leading away from the central artery where the AeroTech teams were working were as black as pitch, and flashlights would only serve to make them walking targets. Even the low glows from their helmet lights made them obvious to any observer.

"All right, regroup," he ordered. "It's no use," he said when they were all together again. "We can't see a damn thing in these tunnels and night goggles are a bitch to use inside our masks, even if there was enough light for them to work. Silicates can see in the dark, but we can't. This is pointless." He looked at his watch. "It's been almost two hours, anyway. I say let's pack up this circus and get back to the 'Toga."

"Roger that," Hawkes concurred with feeling. He did not care for those black tunnels one bit.

Surprisingly, Radford, when they found her, was not adverse to leaving. In fact, as soon as West told her about the Silicates, she looked down right scared. It took her only a moment to radio her teams to begin packing up their equipment. West could not really blame her. For a civilian, this kind of thing had to be pretty tough. He had just sent Hawkes and Damphousse to supervise the loading when they heard the first explosion. It came from somewhere deep within the core of the refinery, almost too deep to register and then there was another, and another and Radford realized what was happening. She sagged, horrified, against the wall.

"Oh, my god."

"What is it?"

"Those AIs. Those explosions. I know what it is. They must have set off the refined fuel down in the core. If they've started a chain reaction..." she did not finish the thought, but she did not need to. The terror on her face was eloquent enough.

"Move!!! Move!!" West shouted into his radio. "Leave the equipment and go! We've got to get out of here! This whole facility's gonna blow..."

"It's worse than that," Radford corrected weakly. West just looked at her in horror as the significance of her words sunk in. <

The blast came out of nowhere.

"What the hell!?!" Ross shouted as the sudden, violent heaving pitched him to his knees. "Where the hell did *that* come from?"

"They came from around the backside of the planet, sir," someone replied frantically. "I don't know how we missed them..."

Ross climbed to his feet, angry and embarrassed. He *never* lost his footing on the bridge.

"All hands to battle stations!! Battle stations! All hands..." a voice behind him chanted as the wail of the battle klaxon filled the air. Another blast rocked them, an electrical fire flared. Hazelton grabbed a fire extinguisher.

"Situation report, Mr. Connor," Ross demanded, his voice urgent but even. "I want to know where those Chigs are, and how many there are of them..." Even as he asked for the details, though, his eyes were scanning the LIDAR, the helm.

"Fire forward batteries. I want the Nine-Two, the Three-One and the One-One *back* in my sky! Now!!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Chigs were all over them. It was impossible to tell how many. Ross staggered back to the command console, reading their situation from himself. Damn them. The bridge bucked again, slamming him against the console. He could feel the rumble in the deck under his feet of the Saratoga's guns firing.

"Come fourteen degrees to starboard. McQueen!"

"Sir."

"Get Shamash on the horn, tell them to stay put down there. They're safer on the surface than they are trying to get back up here in the middle of this."

"Aye, sir."

"Bandits two o'clock, four o'clock, ten o'clock!"

"Where the hell are my fighters?"

"Hammerheads launching as we speak, sir."

"Wild Cards, this is Queen Six. Wild Cards, this is Queen Six. Saratoga is taking heavy fire, do not return - I repeat, do *not* return to base. Stay where you are, you're safer down there..."

"Negative, Queen Six!" came West's frantic reply. McQueen spun around, finding Ross with his eyes. "The AIs have set off the Sewell fuel stored in the core of the refinery. This whole thing's starting to blow. Dr. Radford says..." he gasped for breath, "if the explosions set off a chain reaction, it could be powerful enough to destroy this whole moon..."

Shatterer of worlds, McQueen thought as he stared at Ross in shock.

"She's right," Hazelton concurred, his voice weak, distant. "It's possible. If enough of the refined fuel gets set off, it could blow that moon apart."

"They can't come back here," McQueen said softly. "The Chigs would pick them right off. The Five-Eight can't protect them all against this..."

"Sir!" West's voice shook them. "I'm gonna take them down to the planet's surface. Maybe the Chigs won't follow us in the confusion and the Siduri's atmosphere will give us some protection from the debris if this moon breaks up."

The Commodore did not even hesitate. "Do it."

"Roger that, King of Hearts. Do it! Go!" <

"Let's go, let's go!" West screamed as the terrified civilians clambered onto their ISSCVs. He turned to Martin. "Is that everyone? Get your men in, we've gotta haul ass!" The Five Eight were already in their Hammers. West scrambled up the side, and dropped into his cockpit. "We're good to go, launch when ready. We will rendezvous at..." and he peeled off the coordinates. Confirmations rolled in even as the ISSCVs were lifting off the ground.

They almost made it. The Hammerheads were up, providing cover in case the AIs showed up suddenly and three of the five ISSCVs were already in the air. The fourth was just lifting off when the main refinery tower blew off, catching it broadside, and tumbling it back to the surface. It crashed into the last bird, still sitting there.

They went up in a fiery ball.

"Go! Go!" West gasped, "let's get out of here!"

They were half way to the planet before anyone reacted. "I wonder who was on those transports," Damphousse finally asked as they sped toward Siduri's waiting arms. West did not answer.

"I don't know," Wang eventually said. <

The Chigs left as soon as they realized what was happening.

"My God," McQueen said softly. They could see it on the screen, Shamash was slowly breaking up, pieces of moon shooting out into space with the explosions, others just drifting away with the force of the separation. "I think the Chigs have the right idea, sir..."

"Helm? Put us around behind Siduri. I want us out of the way until that thing has stopped breaking up. McQueen?" The Colonel stepped closer. "Any word from the Five Eight?"

"Nothing, yet, sir."

Ross just nodded, and looked at the disintegrating moon as the Saratoga sped out of range. <

It was several hours before they were back in range, again. Debris from the shattered moon had already begun to settle into a small asteroid belt around Siduri; it would eventually be referred to as "Siduri's garter", those fragments that had not tumbled down to the planet, or rocketed off into space. SARs had been sent to the surface. There was nothing to do, now, but wait.

Ross looked up as McQueen approached.

"The SARs report all accounted for, sir," McQueen said. "West's maneuver worked. Everyone who made it to the planet's surface survived. Two Hammerheads were disabled on planet, though, in the shower of debris. And, uh, two of the ISSCVs never made if off the moon. We lost some people, including some of the AeroTech personnel..." he handed the list to Ross, and watched thoughtfully as his commander scanned it. "I'm sorry," he said softly.

Ross closed his eyes. He had known as soon as McQueen had handed the list to him, had seen the truth in his friend's face, but he had not wanted to believe it until he read her name. He opened his eyes again and nodded.

"Thank you, Ty..."

McQueen hesitated, then reached out and gripped his friend's arm compassionately. Ross wavered slightly, collected himself, and breathed deeply. McQueen let him go.

For a moment the two stood there shoulder to shoulder watching the SARs return on the screen before them. Then, with a nod to the man beside him, Commodore Glen Van Ross left the bridge. He needed to be alone. And then he had a letter to write.

©Sheryl Clay 1996.

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