"Nonsense!" spat the colonel. "We have enough weaponry to blast through your tunnels whenever we choose to."

Glancing at Anson and the others crowding around him, Doug said darkly, "And we have the weapons of your first wave soldiers now. We can shoot back. And men in spacesuits are extremely vulnerable. We won't need sharpshooters."

Giap sputtered something unintelligible.

"We have no desire to harm anyone," Doug said. "All we want is for you to withdraw and leave us alone."

After several heartbeats, Giap said, "This situation is beyond my authority. I will have to discuss this with my superiors."

"Fine," Doug replied. "I'll call again in exactly one hour. Until then, your suit-to-suit frequencies will be jammed again."

The nerve-shattering screech of the jamming pierced Giap's skull like a pair of icepicks driven into his eardrums. He banged on his wrist keypad to shut off his suit radio. As he got to his feet he saw that the other officers were doing the same.

Stomping angrily to the tractor that he had commandeered to be his command center, Giap clambered up into its cab. His communications sergeant was nowhere in sight; he would have to work the laptop himself. Worse still, he would have to face Faure.

No, he realized. There was something even worse. The insufferable Sacred Seven. Their young Japanese leader was waiting for him in the tractor's cab, sitting in the rear seat. Giap recognized the shoulder patch symbol on his spacesuit: a fist holding a lightning bolt.

And the volunteer was holding the end of a communications wire that was already plugged into his own helmet.

Reluctantly, Giap took the proffered wire and inserted into his own helmet's comm port.

"Your attack failed," said the young Japanese. He sounded almost pleased.

"That was merely the first wave-"

"It failed," the volunteer said. "And I heard what the Stavenger person said to you. Now they have your first wave's weapons to repel your second wave."

Giap pulled the laptop communicator from the shelf under the tractor's dashboard. "I must contact the secretary-general."

"No need," said the volunteer. "Let us go in. We will destroy Moonbase and turn your defeat into a victory."

"I am not defeated!" Giap snarled. "Not yet!"

The volunteer leaned forward and rested his arms on the back of Giap's seat. The colonel could sense the young man's tolerant, insufferable smile.

"Why wait?" he said calmly, softly. "You have the means to destroy Moonbase at hand. Why not use it now, without asking permission from your superiors?"

Giap took several long breaths before replying, trying to calm himself. At last he answered, "I am a soldier, sir, not a savage or a madman. I fight to achieve a political goal, not merely to destroy."

"But you cannot fight without killing, without destruction, can you?"

"Death and destruction are the constant companions of soldiers, that is true," Giap admitted. "But they are not our purpose! They are not our goal! We fight because the politicians have failed to keep the peace. We do not fight for the love of killing, for the delight of destruction!"