But I've got to do something! his mind screamed. I can't just stand here, blind and deaf. Maybe I can feel my way out, back to the garage…

He tried a few steps, holding his arms out stiffly in front of him like a blind man. His gloved hands touched something solid and smooth. A wall. Which way to the outside? he asked himself. He started walking along the wall, keeping one hand on its reassuring solidity, taking small, frightened, hesitant steps.

And bumped into another figure. He stepped back and tripped over something: someone's legs, a body on the floor, he had no idea what it was. He lost his balance and began to fall in the slow, nightmarish languid gravity of the Moon.

He sprawled on the tunnel floor, yelling and cursing, tangled in somebody's limbs, hollering all the louder because nobody could hear him. His shouts became panicky; inside the total isolation of his helmet he heard his own voice screaming wildly, swearing, pleading for light and help and mercy. He wanted to cry; he wanted to beat his head against the wall that he could no longer find.

Something tapped at his helmet. He fell silent, trembling inside. Then he felt the poke of a communications line being inserted into the port on the right side of the helmet.

"Just relax, trooper. Everything will be fine.' It was a woman's voice, but Jansen had never heard this woman before. A stranger.

"We're going to take care of you," she was saying, soothingly. "But first you have to let us take your rifle and other weapons."

"What's happening to me?" he asked, shocked at how high and weak his voice sounded. Like a frightened little boy's.

"Your officers have surrendered to us," said the woman. "Once we get these weapons off you, we'll bring you out to the crater floor and return you to your own people."

Jansen felt his rifle being lifted from off his shoulder. Other hands took his bandolier of grenades and ammunition. Then they helped him to his feet.

"Okay, just walk this way… easy now."

Jansen let the strangers lead him blindly down the corridor. There was nothing else he could do. His spacesuit felt oddly stiff, the way an arthritic old man must feel. He thought he heard a grinding, rasping noise whenever he flexed his left knee.

Colonel Giap watched helplessly as, one by one, his troopers were led out of the tunnels by spacesuited rebels. The troopers had been disarmed, their weapons were nowhere in sight. They had not raised their hands above their helmeted heads, but it was clear that they had surrendered. They were prisoners. Defeated.

One of his runners trotted up to him and held up the communications line from his helmet. Impatiently, Giap gestured for him to plug it into his comm port.

"Sir! The Moonbase commander wishes to speak with you. On the radio, sir."

Giap felt his brows rise. "They have stopped the jamming?"