Doug knew from hours of studying the ballistics that a nuclear-tipped missile could be launched from the L-l station and reach Moonbase in less than an hour. Even faster if the Peacekeepers wanted to goose it, but Doug thought that they would want to take at least an hour so that they would have time to make pinpoint mid-course corrections. If his reasoning was correct, they would want the nuke to go off over the solar farms inside Alphonsus's ringwall after the Peacekeeper assault force had arrived on the other side of the mountains, shielded from the nuke's radiation pulse, and ready to cross Wodjohowitcz Pass as soon as the explosion had knocked out Moonbase's main electrical power supply.

The radar view of L-l showed the same cluster of spacecraft hovering around the space station that Doug had seen the last time he'd looked.

"Can we get a visual?" he asked Jinny. "Turn one of the astronomical'scopes on it?"

She nodded and walked off toward the technician who was monitoring the automated astronomical equipment sitting out by the central peak in the middle of Alphonsus.

Edith came tearing into the control center, breathless.

"Doug," she said, puffing as she skidded to a stop next to him, "McGrath wants me to pipe the battle Earthside in real time!"

"Who's McGrath?"

"The top boss! He owns Global News!"

Doug shifted mental gears as fast as he could; still, it took a few moments for him to realize what Edith was telling him.

"You'll show what's happening here when the Peacekeepers attack?"

"To the whole blazin' world!" Edith said, exultant.

For the first time in what seemed like years, Doug felt a genuine smile curving his lips. "Faure's not going to like that… not at all."

Through her sitting room window, Joanna could see a soft twilight descending on the garden and the woods beyond it. The trees had been planted there to cover up the view of Savannah's skyline and give the occupants of her house the feeling that they were truly out in the countryside rather than half a mile from the Interstate.

"Global's going to broadcast the confrontation?" she asked Doug's image, grinning at her from the Windowall screen above the fireplace. She could not bear to use the word battle or attack. She knew that Moonbase could not win a battle or survive an attack.

"Edan McGrath himself called Edith and asked her to do it," Doug said after the three-second lag. "Real-time coverage; blow by blow."

"I've already got a pocketful of senators demanding an investigation of the President's handling of the Moonbase crisis," Joanna mused. "Coverage of the confrontation will show the voting public how you're being attacked by the U.N.'s Peacekeepers."

"This has got to stay confidential," Doug was saying, not waiting for her response. "We don't want Faure to know about it beforehand."

Joanna's brows knit. "But, Doug, maybe if we leaked the information Faure would call off the attack."