11. Damn Near Poetic

In Central, Peter and Angie worked through the last run-down on the Station's status before the shutdown sequence commenced. They had sent everyone else to finish the ramp-up to countdown in the LMS-7, including Sam. Earlier, Li had informed them that half a percent of the outer tiles were questionable, enough to make everyone queasy, but Sam's engineers apparently thought they were being helpful when they pointed out that the odds of clearing the Moon's orbit were only 78% anyway, so what did the tiles really matter? Angie's suggestion that they space the engineers had been met with general enthusiasm.

"I just hate knowing they're right," Angie grumbled.

"Just doing their job, sis. Can you stay focused, please?" Across the room, Peter was waiting for her to power down two systems boards before he turned off the comm station. Angie nodded, hit the switches, and two more boards went dark.

"After this, we can set the power-down count for the Station. Three hours. That should be long after we've left orbit."

"Uh huh, sure," Angie laughed as Peter set the countdown. The lights automatically dimmed, and the view of the crater came back in the windows, the same gray nothing it had always been. Peter had been looking at that view his whole life. He turned back to the boards.

"What time is it?"

"1330. Why?"

The explosion rocked Central and vibrated through Peter's hands. He looked toward the mine entrance automatically, but everything was dark and stable. "Damnit! What was that?"

"Don't worry, it wasn't us. The LMS-7 is fine. Let's get a move on, though; launch is in thirty minutes, right?" Angie calmly walked out of Central, jamming the door open behind her.

"What's going on?" He asked, running to catch up.

"We blew up the wadi."

Stunned, Peter sagged against a wall. "My god, Angie, you can't be serious."

"I am. Damnit, they murdered Dad and tried to kill you! This is what they call war."

"I can't believe anyone would let you do this!" He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her.

"Calm down! We didn't really blow it up."

Peter let go and stared at her.

"I mean, not completely."

"what?"

"Can we talk while we walk? Look, we couldn't blow them up, although that was my original idea. Jacob had his crew tear the data tapes apart as soon as I told him what I wanted to do, but the Ranchers had booby-trapped all the main systems, so we couldn't get near them. Anyway, Sue talked me out of it."

Peter was impressed that Angie had listened to Sue about anything.

"And Jacob convinced me it wasn't practical, anyway. But one of the engineers, Khalid, the quiet Tunisian, figured out something better."

"Better than killing them all off? Hard to imagine." Peter was developing a headache.

"Be a smart ass if you want, but this is damn near poetic."

"What is?"

"We couldn't just rip the place apart, not with what the Ranchers have done to it. It's like they were expecting an attack, which is kind of weird, really. You know, Sam told me everything, even before your truck blew up. I knew you had something up your sleeve."

Peter let that land for a step or two. Sam had told her. She had known before the truck, before the explosion, before any of it, and instead of throwing it back in his face or using it as one more round of ammunition in a six-month war, she had believed him and started planning. He did not know what to do with that. He filed it away for later, when they were not running toward a 78% chance of surviving re-entry.

She stopped in the darkened corridor and put a hand on his arm.

"Peter. Was it really Dad's idea to stay in the lock?"

He had been waiting for that question for six months, or something like it. There was never going to be a good time for it. This corridor, thirty minutes to launch, amber lights about to blink, was as good as any.

"Yeah, it was. But it was still my call, Angie. My decision to do it."

Angie hugged him. They stood motionless for a second, and then the amber emergency lights started their slow blinking sequence. They began to jog toward the LMS-7 hatch.

"Angie, tell me what you did to the Wadi."

"I had three trucks out there, aside from the one we picked you up in. Loader 45 was ready to go out the door to get you when I came up with this, and I had to loop in a few people. Terry, Zhang, Aisha. The usual. That's why it took us an hour longer."

"Terry the explosives expert?" Peter was nearly yelling. "To do what, for god's sake?" They cleared the admin pods and started up the steep, long ramp to the LMS-7.

"Send them for a tumble, Earthside style. We set some of those deep-mining percussion explosives under a few key points, far out from the booby traps they set up, and they mimic a five-point Richter scale earthquake pretty well. When they went off, they hit structural pressure points on the domes, mostly, although what really hurt them were the two charges directed at their life support systems. If everything went by the numbers, their water tanks are broken at best, compromised at worst, along with their air filtration system. It runs off the solar batteries, which are, with luck, now piles of junk. You know how much vibration those deep-mine charges cause. And there is one thing the Station was built to handle that the Wadi wasn't: percussive blast explosions."

As Angie finished explaining, they passed the hatch and entered the LMS-7.