Luna: New Moon

He didn’t want them to know his true escape plan. He hopes they made it. Lucas has always appreciated true service. So do the Mackenzies, so they won’t senselessly waste good labour, over and above the necessary bloodletting. It’s what he’d do. Lucas has had to run fast and silent to avoid Mackenzie detection. João de Deus will have fallen. Carlinhos will be dead. He can only hope that Rafa made it to Boa Vista, that the madrinhas got the kids to safety. The Mackenzies will eradicate his family, root and branch. It’s what he’d do. Wagner is on the run. Ariel. He has no idea about Ariel. Lucasinho is safe. The Asamoahs have asserted their independence in two dead Mackenzie assassins. That warms Lucas in his plastic environment bubble clutched to the belly of the Corta Hélio rover. His boy is safe.

Five minutes to Central Fecunditatis Terminal, the rover says.

‘Ready the capsule,’ Lucas instructs. The curving screen shows him the terminal, a kilometre-tall girder work tower attended by a long row on tether-transfer pods. Loading and docking facilities, a solar farm, a siding from the close-by Equatorial One: Central Fecunditatis Terminal is a major cargo hub for Corta helium-3 canisters and pallets of refined Mackenzie rare earths. Today it will heft a different cargo.

‘Operate docking sequence,’ Lucas says. The nimble rover scuttles in to a ring of flashing blue lights: the outlock. And stops dead.

‘Rover, please dock with the terminal.’

The rover stands on the Sea of Fecundity five metres from the flashing lock.

‘Rover …’

‘It’s not going to work, you know.’ The voice breaks in on the com channels. A face appears on the screen: Amanda Sun.

‘Isn’t this a little excessive for post-divorce vindictiveness? Couldn’t you just have cut up a few jackets?’

Amanda Sun laughs deeply and truly.

‘I have to hand it to you, Lucas, you’re a professional. But, you know, jackets? Deprinter? No, what’s going to happen here has nothing to do with our divorce. But you know that. And I am going to kill you. This time, I will succeed. Unless you have a resourceful and plucky cocktail waitress tucked away in there somewhere? Didn’t think so.’

‘We always wondered how that fly got through security.’

Amanda Sun taps an earlobe.

‘Jewellery, darling. You half-brother would have got there eventually. He’s thorough. You Cortas are ridiculously easy to manipulate. All that Brazilian machismo. The Mackenzies hardly needed prodding at all. But it’s far too easy when you can predict your enemy’s next move. That’s why we knew you’d try and get off the moon. And so here I am, in your software. But we’re wasting time. I need to kill you. I have several options here. I could blow you up but you’re a little close to the moonloop terminal. I could depressurise the rover. That would be fairly quick. But I think I’ll just order the rover to drive and keep driving until your air runs out.’

Depressurise the rover. The human hide is an excellent pressure skin. The human body can operate for fifteen seconds in vacuum. Moonrun. He needs to keep her talking while he checks the cabin for what he needs to save his life. Vanity was always her vice.

‘I have a question.’

‘Yes, it is customary to grant a last request. What is it, darling?’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, that would be no fun at all. The villain gives away her entire master plan? I tell you what though, I’ll give you a hint. You’re a smart boy, Lucas. You should be able to work it out. It’ll give you something to do rather than watching the air gauge run down. From day one my family has been taking out options on surface terrain adjacent to Equatorial One. Two lunes ago we started to exercise them. There. That should provide you with some distraction.’