The Moon

Lunar Base Prime

T-Minus 2 days to Willis’s Impact

Lunar Prime had been silent for the last several hours. There was only the steady thrum and pulse of the Deluxe Mori Cannon and the beating of Li Qiu’s own heart to pass the time. And time passed with cruel slowness. There was time enough for hours to pass between the seconds of the clock, time to watch Willis fly inexorably closer to them.

“You will be responsible for the DMC. You are most familiar with the conventional Mori cannon, and your conventional aiming skills are the best of anybody on the planet,” Generalissimo Huang had told her, prior to her taking off for the moon.

“Generalissimo, perhaps it’s time myself and the other hosts take some of the more exceptional skills to give——” Li Qiu had started to say. It was nothing less than an obscene breach of protocol and common sense to dare to make any form of suggestion to a superior. It was compounded by being told from the get-go that the President and every single member of the government that served him had already made themselves crystal clear: absolutely no supernatural abilities whatsoever. She and the other hosts had free reign over the physical and mental skill lists, but the “Other” skills were forbidden.

They told her and the other Chinese hosts that taking such skills would corrupt them, as it had the foreign hosts. They had become powerful, yes, but also monstrous. They were not much better than the aliens themselves, and by taking the Other skills, they were making a statement: they were better than humans, they were better than their governments. They served themselves, not the people. And if any of them took those forbidden skills, it would be a direct betrayal of their orders and the Party itself. They would succeed by staying together, as equals, by focusing everything on tech development and leaving the rest of the planet so far behind their progress that no amount of superpowers or unstable magics would match them.

Initially, Li Qiu had seen the wisdom in this. The RAC store, the factories, they had all produced enough technology to combat the aliens. The “Other” skills were superfluous. They held a certain allure for Li Qiu’s curiosity, but nothing worth violating orders.

And certainly not with the reprisals her family might face if she did so. The Generalissimo had told her they were being protected, honored guests of the Army, wanting for nothing, but Li Qiu knew not to test that safety. And again, it hadn’t been necessary. She had specced into shooting, aiming, stealth, acrobatics, reaction time, and more. The tech she had access to (and shared freely with the People’s Army) had allowed her to destroy aliens with ease.

But following the battles with Alpha and Omega and upon seeing Willis and hearing of the loss of Anya and Renn, she had begun to seriously question her orders.

“I am disappointed,” Huang had told her in his office. “I thought you were capable of understanding basic orders.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” she had said. “But if we do not do everything we can, then perhaps we will lose.”

“If you throw away your humanity, you have already lost,” Huang said. “The hosts who have taken those other skills have warped their minds and bodies. They call the dead. The command forces of nature against their order. They warp reality against natural law to suit themselves. You are doing the same by even questioning me.”

“No, sir, I——”

“The menus allows those aliens, the ones called Engineers, to access you. By sticking to human traits, human skills, we limit their access,” Huang had said. Li Qiu had heard this theory before, spoken as fact, but was not sure where it had come from. There was nothing in the menu to indicate such a thing was true. She was only permitted to speak to her AI in the presence of an officer, usually Huang himself, so she was never able to ask it directly.

And of course, there were regular menu checks where she showed her menu to an officer and had her AI questioned if she had taken any of the forbidden skills.

General Huang had regarded her in silence for several moments until she had lowered her gaze and bowed low. He had grunted and waved a hand at her.

“You will see. Once the asteroid is destroyed by our efforts and the alien threat expunged, the foreign hosts will likely succumb to the Engineers. You and the other People’s Hosts will remain active, and all of us will emerge ahead,” Huang had said.

“As you say, Generalissimo,” Li Qiu had responded.

Truth be told, she didn’t even know what skills she would take even if she had been permitted. So many of the skills were distasteful or frightening. So that had been that. She left for Lunar Prime and spent the next few days calibrating and studying the DMC.

She hadn’t left her station at the base of the huge weapon since she’d arrived. She needed only very little sleep, and wanted to be ready in case there were any more surprises. Huang wanted constant updates as well, which she had been expected to provide at a moment’s notice. He’d mostly asked about the asteroid and the status of Lunar Prime, but he’d had several questions about the hosts on-site as well.

Li Qiu was mostly familiar with Samaira, the American-Indian host. She used magic, which Huang detested. Amahle, the South African woman, used some kind of life energy. She seemed partially influenced by the Shaolin Monks, which Huang saw as a perversion of their culture, and one that was especially egregious at being held by a foreigner. Li Qiu updated him on everything that happened. There were other hosts on Lunar Prime as well, but she was not as familiar with them and they were scattered across the base, far from her post.

The thrumming beat of the DMC’s power core continued, almost lulling Li Qiu into a sedative trance.

That was when the outer proximity alarm went off, and alerted her and the entirety of Lunar Prime that the asteroid was, finally, within range.

Now she would see what the DMC and the combined might of the People’s Hosts and Army were capable of.

She didn’t waste a second. She’d been ready to fire five minutes after she’d first arrived at the DMC control station. She activated the intercom and stated, “Firing Deluxe Mori Cannon, brace for power fluctuation.”

She lined up the shot, correcting the minor inaccuracies the targeting algorithm made with her superior aiming skills and locating what appeared to be the weakest point on the asteroid. It was just right of center, what appeared to be a few miles away from that void at the heart of the gaping asteroid’s craggy maw.

Li Qiu took a deep breath, and fired the cannon.

All lights dimmed throughout Lunar Prime as its powerful blast sucked through its own power cells, the back-up batteries, and drew on the base’s generator. They suspected this would happen, and had installed fail-safes to keep the moon base running and avoid a total power outage, but really, it was inevitable that there would be some power drain. Li Qiu was familiar enough with her small Mori Cannon to know how much power it demanded.

The cannon’s humming reached a fever pitch, until it sounded like the entire base was screaming, and then let loose a colossal boom as it fired a lance of destructive force that was wider than several city blocks.

“Impact in forty-five seconds,” Li Qiu said and held her breath. The distance was still great enough that even within range, the blast from the Mori Cannon would take a while to arrive.

Thirty seconds.

Twenty seconds.

An alert appeared on multiple screens.

TARGET TRAJECTORY ALTERED.

“What?” Li Qiu said. She watched, helpless, as the asteroid tilted slightly to one side and began to edge away from the projected point of impact. The red light surrounding the asteroid surged to one side and it moved in that direction. It was slow, but it was moving.

The blast from the DMC hit the far left side of Willis, vaporizing a significant chunk of rock and likely killing tens of thousands of aliens, but overall the damage was minimal. Willis righted itself and continued forward, toward Lunar Prime, still almost entirely intact.

“No, no, no,” Li Qiu said.

The nearest proximity alarm sounded and another set of warnings flashed on the screen in front of Li Qiu.

ALIEN LIFEFORMS DETECTED.

“Alert! Aliens have just passed the inner proximity alarms. Automated defenses are coming online. All hosts and other base personnel prepare for contact!” Li Qiu said into the intercom. She tapped her menu and attempted to bring up one of the Chinese hosts back on Earth, but found that the messaging system was no longer functioning.

The door of Dome 1 opened behind her and Samaira came charging through atop Chandrali.

“Did the shot hit?” she asked.

“Willis altered course and it was just a graze,” Li Qiu replied. “Second shot is already charging. It’ll be ready in about a half hour, maybe less if I start diverting power from the base.”

“I imagine that’ll weaken the shields and life support systems?” Samaira asked and Li Qiu nodded. “Then don’t do it. At least, not yet. How many aliens are incoming?”

Li Qiu checked the screens, sighed, and said, “about 65,000, according to this. They’ll be on the moon in about five minutes. I’ve already sent updates to Earth, but our menu comms…”

“Aren’t working, I know,” Samaira said. She glanced out a nearby window at some movement, and both women saw the yellow glowing figure of Amahle rocket up and into the dark void. “She certainly reminds me of somebody.”

“The first wave of droids has been launched. Generalissimo Huang has issued the order to all military personnel who aren’t hosts to don power armor and set out for combat.”

“They won’t last long against aliens. Especially if they’re too far away from the base and its defenses,” Samaira said as she jumped onto Chandrali again.

“All hosts on-site, prepare for combat. 65,000 aliens incoming. Those of you designated for primary base defense, stay within the inner perimeter of Lunar Prime,” Li Qiu announced over the intercom as Samaira left. Alarms sounded across the base.

Once again, Li Qiu was left to do little but monitor the DMC, and wait.