When Faure's response came it was a little more restrained. But only a little. "And your equipment? Your missile launchers and other heavy weapons? Your men carry them on their backs, I presume."

"No," Giap said, bristling at Faure's sarcasm. "We will not need them. If the rebels do not open their airlocks to us, we have enough firepower to blast them apart."

Three seconds later, Faure asked, "Without the heavy missiles?"

"We have the shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets. They will knock down an airlock hatch, I assure you."

The secretary-general seemed to fidget unhappily in his chair. He riddled with his moustache, smoothed his slicked-back hair, adjusted the collar of his shirt. Giap sat motionless atop the tractor cab, waiting.

"Well…' Faure said at last. "Perhaps you can carry it off, after all. I hope so, for your sake."

Giap restrained a bitter reply.

Faure went on, "Remember the volunteers. If all else fails, use them! Moonbase must not survive this day!"

"They're assembling on the crater floor.' Jinny Anson stated the obvious.

Anson, Gordette, O'Malley and several others were clustered around Doug's console now, watching the screens over his shoulders. Command central, Doug thought. Wherever I am is the nerve center.

He punched up the imagery that Edith was sending out to Global News and saw the same view: a couple of dozen white Peacekeeper vehicles inching across the floor of the crater, each of them piled high with Peacekeeper troops who had marched down from Wodjo Pass.

"The invaders are moving cautiously," Edith's voice was saying. She sounded tense, edgy, her voice raw and strained. She ought to take a break, Doug thought. But I can't spare anybody to relieve her.

Then his eye caught the screen still showing the crowd in The Cave. Maybe there's somebody there who could take over for her for a while. But Doug immediately put that thought aside. He didn't have time to go recruiting. And, knowing Edith, she'd sooner burn her vocal chords out entirely than surrender this once-in-a-lifetime chance to narrate a battle on the Moon.

"They'll deploy around the main airlock," Gordette said. "Ought to be knocking on our door in less than an hour."

Doug nodded. "Okay, we're ready for them. Right?"

Everyone nodded and murmured assent. Doug focused on O'Malley. His dust was going to be crucial.

"Remember," Doug said, "all we have to do to win is survive. We don't have to kill any of the Peacekeepers. We don't have to drive them off the Moon. All we have to do is survive. Like the Confederacy in the American Civil War; they didn't have to conquer the North, all they had to do was prevent the North from conquering them."

With a grunt, Gordette shot back, "Which they failed to accomplish."

The others stared at him. O'Malley looked downright hostile. Anson turned and walked away a few steps. Doug thought, Barn's not winning any popularity contests.