Gordette was right; those troopers climbing Yeager won't get to the antennas for another hour, at least.

He got up from his chair, spine creaking after being seated for so long, and walked stiffly to Falcone's post.

"Wait until you've got as many in the trap as possible. Then spring it."

Falcone nodded without taking his eyes from his screens. They had been over this a hundred times, at least.

"It's your show, now, Vince," he said, gripping Falcone's burly shoulder.

"Right, boss," said Falcone, his eyes still fixed on his screens.

Colonel Giap had learned long ago not to be the first in line of march through enemy territory. His tractor was the third in line as they threaded up the flank of the mountains and into the narrow defile of the pass.

"Force B, report," he said into his helmet microphone.

All his communications were relayed through the L-l station, hovering nearly forty thousand kilometers above. There was a noticeable, annoying little lag as the electronic signals bounced back and forth.

"Force B reporting," crackled in his earphones. "No opposition. Proceeding on schedule."

"Good. Report any problems immediately," said Giap.

"Yes, sir."

The colonel nodded inside his helmet. Keeping to schedule was important. He had planned the conquest of Moonbase down to the minutest details, and included every contingency he could imagine in his plans. The nuclear bomb did not go off, Moonbase still enjoyed its full capacity of electrical power. Giap had included that possibility in his planning. It made no difference. His primary force would batter down their main airlock and enter the garage area precisely on schedule, while Force B deployed on the crater floor as a strategic reserve, after sending a small contingent to take the mass driver—which Giap expected to be undefended.

His special team of mountain climbers would disable all of Moonbase's communications antennas, cutting off the rebels' reports to the news media back on Earth. Faure had insisted on that, and for once Giap agreed with the secretary-general. Cut out their tongues.

The first wave of assault troops would include the decontamination squads with their powerful ultraviolet lights, to deactivate any nanomachines that the Moonbase rebels might try to use. Giap smiled thinly at the memory of how the rebels had used nanomachines to panic the first Peacekeeper force sent against Moonbase. That trick won't work a second time, he assured himself.

His earphones buzzed. Switching to the tractor's intercom, Giap asked testily, "What is it?"

"Sensors are picking up an unusual level of microwave radiation, sir," his surveillance officer reported.

In the cramped confines of his windowless command center, Giap barely had room to turn and face the woman. Even so, sealed inside her spacesuit, he could not see her face, merely the reflection of his own helmet in her closed visor.

"A dangerous level?" Did the rebels have exotic weapons, after all?

"No, sir, nothing dangerous. It's more like a radar scan, but it's coming at us from all directions, as if the microwaves are reflecting off the mountains walls around us."