For three days, starting early morning Tuesday 13th and going on to strike time early Friday 16th, we flooded Earth with warnings. England was cautioned that impact north of Dover Straits opposite London Estuary would cause disturbances far up Thames; Sovunion was given warning for Sea of Azov and had own grid defined; Great China was assigned grid in Siberia, Gobi Desert, and her far west–with offsets to avoid her historic Great Wall noted in loving detail. Pan Africa was awarded shots into Lake Victoria, still-desert part of Sahara, one on Drakensberg in south, one offset twenty kilometers due west of Great Pyramid–and urged to follow Chad not later than midnight Thursday, Greenwich. India was told to watch certain mountain peaks and outside Bombay harbor–time, same as Great China. And so forth.
Attempts were made to jam our messages but we were beaming straight down on several wavelengths–hard to stop.
Warnings were mixed with propaganda, white and black– news of failed invasion, horror pictures of dead, names and I.D. numbers of invaders–addressed to Red Cross and Crescent but in fact a grim boast showing that every trooper had been killed and that all ships’ officers and crew had been killed or captured–we “regretted” being unable to identify dead of flagship, as it had been shot down with destruction so complete as to make it impossible.
But our attitude was conciliatory–“Look, people of Terra, we don’t want to kill you. In this necessary retaliation we are making every effort to avoid killing you. . . but if you can’t or won’t get your governments to leave us in peace, then we shall be forced to kill you. We’re up here, you’re down there; you can’t stop us. So please be sensible!”
We explained over and over how easy it was for us to hit them, how hard for them to reach us. Nor was this exaggeration. It’s barely possible to launch missiles from Terra to Luna; it’s easier to launch from Earth parking orbit–but very expensive. Their practical way to bomb us was from ships.
This we noted and asked them how many multimilliondollar ships they cared to use up trying it? What was it worth to try to spank us for something we had not done? It had cost them seven of their biggest and best already–did they want to try for fourteen? If so, our secret weapon that we used on FNS Pax was waiting.
Last above was a calculated boast–Mike figured less than one chance in a thousand that Pax had been able to get off a message reporting what had happened to her and it was still less likely that proud F.N. would guess that convict miners could convert their tools into space weapons. Nor did F.N. have many ships to risk. Were about two hundred space vehicles in commission, not counting satellites. But nine-tenths of these were Terra-to-orbit ships such as Lark–and she had been able to make a Luna jump only by stripping down and arriving dry.
Spaceships aren’t built for no purpose–too expensive. F.N. had six cruisers that could probably bomb us without landing on Luna to refill tanks simply by swapping payload for extra tanks. Had several more which might be modified much as Lark had been, plus a few convict and cargo ships which could get into orbit around Luna but could never go home without refilling tanks.
Was no possible doubt that F.N. could defeat us; question was how high a price they would pay. So we had to convince them that price was too high before they had time to bring enough force to bear. A poker game– We intended to raise so steeply that they would fold and drop out. We hoped. And then never have to show our busted flush.
Communication with Hong Kong Luna was restored at end of first day of radio-video phase, during which time Mike was “throwing rocks,” getting first barrage lined up. Prof called–and was I happy to hear! Mike briefed him, then I waited, expecting one of his mild reprimands–bracing self to answer sharply: “And what was I supposed to do? With you out of touch and possibly dead? Me left alone as acting head of government and crisis on top of us? Throw it away, just because you couldn’t be reached?”