“Houston, this is O’Neill Base.  Do you read me?  Over.”  Spoke Mitchell’s deep voice over the radio. 
“This is Houston to O’Neill Base.  We read you loud and clear.  How’s a goin’ up there?  Over.”  the radio crackled the familiar voice Ben Horner, Houston’s communications specialist.
“We are doing just swell,” said Mitchell excitedly, “we just finished with docking procedures and I have sent an expeditionary team out to make sure that the asteroid is secure, along with a few other things.”  About thirty seconds went by while Mitchell waited patiently for a response.  He knew why it was taking so long for the boys at NASA to get back to him, and because of that he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.
“Mitchell…” Ben’s voice finally came back over the radio, he almost sounded disappointed, “You really should have kept us up to date.  We requested live updates on the operation just in case something went wrong.  Now half of NASA is crawling up my back trying to figure out why you didn’t comply and they are using me as a medium!”  At this point Mitchell couldn’t help but let out a laugh.  What had just happened was a problem as old as space travel itself.  Whenever NASA wanted to do something, whether it was launching a satellite, or developing a new way for the astronaut’s food to be packaged.  They always put their best minds on the job, putting in countless man hours perfecting it and planning a contingency for every conceivable failure.  With all of that work came a sense of ownership in that new technology.  The problem comes when you add astronauts into the equation.  Astronauts are adventurous by nature, it even comes in the job description, so when you put them into space it doesn’t take long for them to do something that could be considered space mutiny! 
“Sorry,” Mitchell said jokingly, “I think that we had a small communications blackout there for a few minutes!” Mitchell ran a hand through his pitch black hair.  Only then did he realize that his hands were sweating.  The operation must have been a little more suspenseful than he originally thought (but Mitchell wasn’t going to let Houston know about that). 
“I think that we both know that that is not what happened.” Said Ben in a slightly annoyed voice, “Be advised, we are switching communications to your team working on the asteroid.  Houston out.”
“Don’t think that you can get rid of me that easily!” Joked Mitchell, “I am going to suit up and go out there myself to see what all of the excitement is about! O’Neill Base out.” With that, Mitchell began walking from the viewing port, where he was observing the asteroid, to the loading bay at the other end of the space port.  On his way, he went past Jack.  Jack was in too much of a hurry to stop and say hi, he was busy dealing with all of the new logistical problems that had presented themselves with the asteroid, along with the mining operations that would hopefully begin soon.  
When Mitchell reached the loading bay he noticed that, surprisingly, it was the quietest area in the whole spaceport. 
“It must be because nothing is actually happening yet.  People are only in the planning phases right now.” He said to himself as he began to suit up. 
When Mitchell stepped out of the airlock he started to move around with the use of his jetpack that came, standard in suits at the spaceport.  He maneuvered over to the asteroid, where he then grabbed onto an array of tethers that had been attached to it.  They were all around the asteroid and allowed everyone to move about on the surface of it.  Mitchell found no trouble in doing this, since he had really big hands which were very useful moving around.  He couldn’t believe that he was really climbing an asteroid.  If only Mitchell’s Parents could see him now!  Unfortunately, Mitchell’s Parents had died in a car crash a few years earlier, just before he had left earth to go to the moon, leaving him with his brother, sister, and their two families.
Suddenly, the radio silence was broken by one of the expeditionary team members.  “Houston, this is O’Neill Base.  Please come in, we have some readings for you to double check.  Over.”
“Roger that O’Neill Base, what are you seeing?  Over.”
“Well we are picking up what we expected on the outside; platinum, water, and iron.  However, when we get samples from deeper in, we are finding something different.”
“Um, okay.  What do you mean by different?  Over.”
“Houston, we are seeing high levels of gold in the center and considering the potency of it, our systems are predicting over four tons of pure gold!”

“Did you say gold?” asked Ben as he shifted in his seat, “O’Neil base, please confirm.  Did you say gold?”
“Yes, Houston I confirm.  I am reading large amounts of gold inside the asteroid.  I am sending the information to you now to double check,” crackled the radio.  Ben stood up and walked over to a fax machine near his post.  He tried to stay calm.  Chances are this is nothing, Ben thought aloud.  But this is NASA, I mean we don’t make mistakes.  That sampler that he was using has been tested tried and true.  Ben grabbed the papers just as they came out, and hurried up the center isle of the Op Center towards the back of the room. 
In his rush to get the data down to the lab, Ben accidentally bumped into Flight Director Jim Thatcher before going out the door.  Thatcher was a rookie to NASA, he was tall and well-built from playing football.  His sandy blonde hair, which had the occasional curl, looked more in place on a California beach than in NASA’s Johnson Space Center. ^^^ As he did a quick survey of the room. 
NASA’s Op Center was comparable to a college lecture hall.  It had several rows of desks with each row a tier below the previous one.  Two isles divided the room into three sections.  In addition to the two computer monitors at each desk, one giant TV screen covered the entire wall in the front of the room.  The screen was currently divided up to show camera feeds, instrument readings, and trajectories.  This room was the moon base’s connection to earth.  The people in this room monitored, regulated, and oversaw all of the operations on the base.  If worse comes to worse, they would also have to get the base out of trouble.
Thatcher walked over and sat in his desk.  His position of Flight Director put him in charge of everyone else.  It also put his desk in the center back of the room where he could see everything going on in the room at once.  Thatcher looked to his computer screen to check for any new notifications.  There was one; an unmanned probe was going to dock with, and resupply, the moon base.  The probe was owned by a new private company based out of India.  NASA had signed a contract with them as a result of the President’s new foreign policy plan to stimulate the space industry in foreign countries.  It wasn’t something that the NASA administration was too happy about, but they still had to play along with the president.
“That probe isn’t anything that I have to worry about.  The estimated time to docking is in ten hours; way after my shift is over.”  He thought to himself, “This day is shaping up to be nothing more than an average day at NASA.”  No sooner than he said it, Ben Horner opened the big main doors to the Op Center, and walked briskly over to Jim.
“Hey Jim, the prospecting team on the asteroid gave me some pretty interesting numbers.  I thought it best that I double check them before passing them along to you”
“Sure thing, Ben, give ‘em here.”  Ben handed Jim the papers from the lab.  Jim looked at the papers, his face showed him deep in thought, before it began to furrow.  “What am I looking at here Ben?  These look like sample reports, but they can’t be right.” 
“That’s the thing,” Ben replied,” these are core samples taken from the asteroid, and according to the--”
“Ho--, hold on for just a second,” interrupted Jim.   A big red warning sign had just appeared on his computer screen.  “Whose warning is this?” he called out into the room.
“It’s mine!” called back a short scrawny man with glasses.  He stood up from his desk which was labeled ‘Satellite Communications (SatCom)’.   “Sir, I am tracking the Indian probe and it is coming in way too fast!  It never slowed down as it approached the moon!” 
“Okay, stay calm.  INCO!” Jim called the Indian Communications operator.  “Get on the phone with India.  Make sure they know what is going on and find out what they are doing to stop it.  SatCom!”  Jim turned back to the man with the glasses and spoke calmly, “Where does it look like the probe is going to impact?”
“That’s the thing Sir.  It looks like the probe is not going to hit the moon.  Instead, it’s going to just brush by the moon base in T minus fifteen minutes at escape velocity!”
“How close is it going to come to the space elevator?”
“Sir, rough estimates suggest it will come within one kilometer of it.”
“Okay,” responded Jim flatly. “Ben, get back to your station and notify O’Neil base.  Tell them what is going on, and inform them to attempt a full evacuation of the spaceport.”  Next Jim turned to the Flight Activities Officer and spoke loudly but calmly, “FAO!  The simple truth is that our astronauts up there do not have enough time for a complete evacuation to the ground.  Wake up your team and figure out what the remaining personnel are to do in the event of a collision with the probe.  PAO!  Notify the President.  Make sure that he knows what is going on and that he will have a PR problem if he doesn’t come up with a speech in response to this.  The rest of you, come to me with problems and information as it arises.”
With that, as if on que, the giant screen went black, with the exception of the words ‘signal lost’.  Everyone started talking all at once, trying to figure out what just happened and who was to blame.  Within a minute the phone on Jim’s desk began to ring.  As soon as he noticed it ringing he hurriedly picked it up, and shoved it to his ear.  After a few exchanged words, Thatcher slowly put down the phone and called out, “Hey, quiet down!”  With that, the entire room went silent, “NORAD is reporting a nuclear detonation in deep space, several thousand kilometers away from the moon.  What is going on has nothing to do with something one of us did.  The bombs’ EMP has knocked our entire lunar satellite network.  We can still salvage this, but one thing is clear: somebody is working against us, and if we are going to bring every astronaut up their home alive, we need to start working together."

Jim sat solemnly behind his desk at the Op Center.  Everyone around him was working hard to regain control of the situation.  He had given orders and they were following those orders to precision.  All there was to do now was to wait and see if anything turned up.  Jim took a sip of his coffee.  After things had calmed down, or at least the shock had soaked in, he had ordered for the coffee machine to be brought in and to be refilled every half hour.  It had been twenty minutes since the detonation of the nuclear device.  On Jim’s desk laid a stack of papers, still warm off the press, from NORAD.  They basically said that based on the intel given at the time, the bomb was close enough to the base to wipe out communications, but far away enough to leave it unharmed by both the blast and the radiation.  “Damn.  This is way more than circumstantial evidence.  Everything is just too perfect,” he thought. 
“Sir!” yelled SatCom from his desk. “The bomb took out our lunar comms network, but it left our satellites in earth orbit untouched.  I have redirected the James Webb telescope to look at the base.  The pictures should be coming in about now.”  He lifted up a tablet, made a few quick swipes, and added a new window to the big screen in the front of the room.  The window, for a few seconds, was black.  Suddenly, it turned on, and started showing the pictures as they came in. 
The pictures came in slowly, about one frame per second.  The first showed the base, unscathed, with the space elevator towering above it.  It looked peaceful, unaware of the potential danger it was in.  The only thing that was out of place in the entire picture was a streak off to the side of the photo.  The Indian probe had to have been going at least mock forty for it to be that blurred on the photo, Jim thought.  However, the fact that it was streaked made it easy to tell what direction the probe was going: directly at the space elevator! 
Everyone gasped.  The second picture had come in.  It was a perfectly timed picture with the perfect angle.  Conspiracy theorists would later question if the U.S. government had planned out this event solely on the perfection of this picture, and how it showed the probe ripping through the middle of the elevator.  The space elevator was now in two pieces: the lower half was still attached to the base on the ground.  The other half had been ripped from the lower half, severed by the probe.
Jim was stunned.  He couldn’t move.  He didn’t even know what to think.  Jim didn’t even notice when a secretary tapped him on his shoulder, “Sir, sir.  POTUS is on the line in the conference room.  He wants to talk to you.”  With that, Jim walked out the door to the conference room, leaving his second in command to keep things moving forward.  When he entered the conference room, everyone turned to look at him.  Mindy Banks, who was the head of PR sat across from Ian Knight, who headed up all lunar operations, and was Jim’s boss.  Kurt Adkins, the director of NASA was at the head of the table.  These people were here to assess the most devastating event in human spaceflight history, and the tension in the room reflected it.  “Sit down.” Stated Adkins, “We are briefing the President right now over the phone.”
“Is that him?” the President’s voice came over speakerphone from a device in the center of the table at which they were seated. 
“Yes it is,” replied Adkins.
“Okay good.” Replied the President, “Now, let’s start with the easy question: what is going on?”

“Sir, I just came from the Op Center.   Before I left, I witnessed what I believe to be a coordinated attack on the O’Neil Lunar base.  It crippled communications, and destroyed the elevator connecting the spaceport to the main base.”
“Damn,” said the president. “Mr. Thatcher do you realize the weight of the allegations that you are making?”  Jim thought for a second.  He needed to choose his next words carefully.  “Mr. President, I believe that we are under attack.  I think that someone deliberately sabotaged our communications and sabotaged our moon base.  If I wanted to cripple a countries’ space infrastructure, I would have done it just like this.”
“Okay.  I am glad that we are om the same page.  Now, Mr. Thatcher, if you were the person attacking the O’Neil base why would you want to do it?  What would you do next?”
“Easy.  That base is good for two things; refuel ships, and mine resources.  Whoever controls that base not only has access to nearly unlimited valuable resources, but also has a staging area for colonizing our solar system and beyond.  If I were attacking the base, I would not stop here.  It’s crippled, the U.S. would need at least a week to send a resupply vessel, and stopping now would take away the element of surprise.  Sir,” Jim continued carefully, “I believe that we are in the midst of the first space war.  The next logical step for the enemy is to send troops to the base and take it over within the next twenty-four hours.  Make no mistake Mr. President, we are at war with an unknown enemy.”
The line was silent for a while.  The president didn’t know what to say.  Finally, he asked, “So we are about to watch a foreign power take this country’s single most valuable asset, and there is nothing we can do to stop it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”  Jim turned, the voice came from of the room.  A man that
he had not noticed before was sitting in a chair in a back corner.
“Mr. Thatcher,” said the President, “meet Chris Collins.  As you well know, O’Neil base
was a joint operation between NASA and the Air Force.  Mr. Collins was in charge of the Air
Force’s involvement.”
“Thank you Mr. President.” Replied Collins, “Now, you are all probably familiar with the Outer Space Treaty, which outlaws the weaponization of the moon, and putting WMDs into space.  However, one aspect that is traditionally forgotten about is, Ronald Reagan’s ‘Operation Star Wars’.  This allows the Air Force to take advantage of how the treaty overlooks putting conventional weapons in space, just as long as they never land on the moon, or any other celestial object.  My team secretly decided to take advantage of it when we built the space elevator, since it technically is in orbit.”
“Mr. Collins, are you saying what I think that you are saying?”
“Mr. President, I am telling you that there is a secret weapons cache stored onboard the spaceport.  If we can contact the base in time, the astronauts will not only be able to arm themselves, but will be more than capable of defending themselves from any aggressions toward them.” 
When Mitchel finally came to, it took him a while to remember what had happened.  The radio message had come in telling them to get inside and evacuate the spaceport ASAP.  He and his crew hurried in through the airlock and into the spaceport where the evacuation was already taking place.  They had practiced this numerous times in drills, but this was the first time that it was for real.  Mitchel had stayed calm the entire time.  He took charge and got people down the elevator fast and efficiently.  When the blackout hit, he made sure that there were people working to replace the fried computer chips.  Mitchel would have organized everybody after the impact of the Indian probe too, but the collision jolted the spaceport and knocked him unconscious.
Now, as he was waking up, his eyes focused on a weary Jack Osburn directing people.  Mitchel, feeling his strength coming back, pushed off the closest wall and floated over to where Jack was giving orders.  “Hey man!” said Mitchel, “what happened?”
“Mitch!  I didn’t think that you would come around so soon.  Something hit the elevator and severed it.  No one is coming up, or down, for a while.  The spaceport is still being held in one spot over the base.  The four support tethers are still in place, keeping us from drifting.” 
“That’s good.  Have you reestablished communications yet?”
“No.  I have guys working on it right now.  They say that we suffered an EMP.  It’s going to take close to a day to fix our communication problem with Mission Control.”
“Okay, well let’s get to work.  We need to hurry to contact NASA.  There is something more to this than we know.”  Mitchel did not fully understand what was going on but he definitely sensed that foul play was not out of the question.  “The longer we are in the dark about it, the more I feel uneasy about it.”
“I agree Mitch; I smell something wrong here.  Let’s get to work, twenty-four hours in the dark is too long.”
 

Mitchell opened his eyes.  He had been unconscious for about twenty minutes, knocked out by the collision caused by the Indian probe.  His vision was blurred, and he felt very nauseous.  About fifteen minutes prior to the collision, a radio message came in ordering a full evacuation from the spaceport and warning of the imminent danger.  As the ranking officer in the spaceport at the time, Mitchell took charge organizing groups of people going down elevator.  Just minutes after the warning, everything went dark.  The Base was hit by an EMP that could only have been caused by a nuclear weapon.  The EMP destroyed everything with a computer chip!  Communications, lighting systems, life support, and the elevator were down.  The Base was now dark, isolated, and slowly killing everyone inside.  That was when the Probe collided.  Everything shuddered, Mitchell’s head was struck and everything went black. 
Now that Mitchell was awake, and his vision was clearing up, he began to look around.  The spaceport was in a general state of disarray.  Items had been moved all over the place from the collision.  Things that were once on the walls, were now on the ground.  Things that were once sitting neatly on the ground were now strewn across it.  It was then that Mitchell noticed that Jack was standing off in the distance giving people orders.  With Mitchell out for the count, Jack had taken over directing people to do jobs.  From what Mitchell saw, he was addressing several people at once, pointing over to the left.  Mitchell couldn’t hear what Jack was saying.  He limped over to Jack and said, “Hey Jack, what’s new?”  Jack smiled wearily.  You could tell that he had been through a lot since the collision.
“I’m glad to see you Mitch.  Since you blacked out, I’ve been sending people out to fix the critical systems.  I’ve got people working on the radios and getting life support.  From what I can tell, any threat to our lives will not be coming from our own equipment.”  Jack was staying calm, he should be.  It was a well-known fact that the sun released EMPs from time to time.  This kind of thing did not happen on a regular basis, but it was anticipated for.  Workers were hurriedly getting out replacement parts and installing them into the broken machines.  The lights had been on for a while, and Mitchell just heard the life support machines begin to whirr up again.  “So, are we doing anything to fix the space elevator?” asked Mitchell. 
“No.  The elevator was annihilated by the probe.  There is no hope of fixing it with supplies that we have on board.  We are going to have to wait for a resupply mission before we can fix it.  Just then, a voice yelled at the two, “Sir, I have established radio contact with NASA!”
“Great,” replied Jack, “we’re coming over there.” They walked over to the radio station.  The radio really wasn’t anything fancy.  It had your typical buttons and dials expected on a radio, but this one was built into the wall and was connected to a satellite dish outside.  The man who had called them over was sitting at a chair to the radio.  Mitchel grabbed the microphone and began to talk into it, “Ben, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here, Mitch!” replied Ben, “Geese, you guys really got into some trouble up there.  Can you give me a SitRep?” 
“We are all great!” replied Mitchell, “Everyone is okay, but the elevator is toast.”
“Yeah, we noticed.” joked Ben, “Hey, seriously though, the Air Force has come in and they have a few things that you need to know.”
“Okay, shoot!”
“Ha-ha, not funny.” Replied Ben, “You’ll see why here in just a second.  The Air Force is saying that what is happening is the beginning of an attempt to take over O’Neil base by a foreign power.  They have crippled our communications network, your ability to defend yourselves, and now there is a real threat of being boarded by an armed force!”
“My God, when do they think that this is going to happen?”
“Soon.  Chances are, that they didn’t realize that we would establish at uplink this quickly.  They don’t want to lose the element of surprise.  There is something that you can do to defend yourself.  There is a secret weapons cache stored on the spaceport.  It is behind panel Delta 4, next to the life support.  The access code is tango, foxtrot, kilo, mike.  Happy hunting boys, Op Center out.”  Mitchell couldn’t believe what he had just heard, but he had to check it out just to be sure. 
Sure enough, built into the wall to the right of the water reclamation machine was a panel.  The panel was tall and wide with ‘Delta 4’ printed on the top.  It could have been passed off as a small garage door back on earth.  Mitchell found a hidden latch on the left side of the panel.  When he pulled on it, it came out of the wall and a keyboard came with it.  Mitchell hesitated for only a second before typing in the code given to him.  As soon as Mitch had hit enter the panel, which had long been considered a part of the wall, moved.  It slowly moved upward, similar to a garage door.  It revealed a room in the spaceport that no one had ever seen before.  It had numerous boxes stacked, secured, and labeled.  Each bearing the letters ‘USAF’.  Workers came in from behind Mitchell and started to bring the boxes out of the room.  Mitchell slowly walked in, careful not to get into anyone’s way.  He noticed a crate in the back of the room, all by itself.  Mitchell walked over to it to see what it was.  When he reached it, he began to smile, he turned his head and called over to jack, “Hey Jack, we may actually have some fun with this!” as Mitch ran his hand along the crate.  Jack walked over and began to smile too when he read the words ‘Handle with care: X-ray Laser’.

General Chao Qi sat behind his desk, smiling into his computer screen.  He simply couldn’t hold it back; everything had gone as planned.  As Chief General of the Peoples’ Republic of China, Chao had overseen the creation of a fake private space company in India, the launch of one of China’s many nuclear missiles into space, and even the carefully planned sabotage of the moon base.  The Americans had taken the bait every step of the way.  Now their blindness was going to cost them the single most valuable asset ever built by mankind.
Chao stood up.  He was inside the Chinese space center.  As head of the Chinese military he had executive control over their space program.  With it came benefits like the massive office that he was in right now.  It had windows on the East wall overlooking the Launchpad.  More windows made up the West wall providing a commanding view of the Chinese Mission control.  Chao had just renovated this office.  It looked very modern with plush carpeting, many green plants, and a hand-carved desk which had been imported from Europe.  Mission control was very different.  It was built in the 1980’s, and looked like it too.  Everything from the computers to the decorations on the wall was Cold-War-Era.  Red and Yellow dominated the Mission Control room along with a picture of Mao on either side of the room.  Other than that, it greatly resembled the American Op Center with the rows of desks and a gigantic screen in the center. 
Chao began to pace the room, he stared out his window at the empty Launchpad.  Thirty-six hours ago it had held the Taichung III, loaded with twenty of China’s most elite special forces infantry.  They had been training the last two months for this very day, to be remembered in history as the brave men who stole the American moon base out from under their noses, and secured China as the dominant power in the solar system.  Now they were just thirty minutes from their target, preparing for the assault. 
Chao turned from the Launchpad and faced the Mission Control room, he could easily see that spirits were high, both in Mission Control and among the astronauts.  Everyone was watching the big screen up front.  It was divided up into six sections, each one featuring a live feed from one of the astronauts’ helmet cam.  It was easy to see the anticipation and excitement among them.  They were fully aware that twelve hours ago, General Chao had detonated a nuclear bomb in space, which had destroyed all of the bases’ communication systems, but otherwise leaving it unharmed.  The astronauts also knew that General Chao had sabotaged a resupply probe.  Instead of docking with the spaceport, the probe had slammed into the space elevator, destroying the only form of transportation that the Americans had to get down onto the lunar surface.  They were attacking a crippled base, one with no communications and had no idea that they were coming.  Everyone expected little to no resistance by the unarmed, unprepared Americans onboard.
Chao smiled to himself.  He knew why his government had pushed so hard for this attack.  It was the same reason that if they failed today, China would probably not exist as a country this time next year.  China needed propaganda.  Like any country with a big government, China needed stories to give its people telling of how great their country was.  Lately though, the Chinese government had little to no stories.  Their economy was declining, jobs were going back to America, and the environmental crisis in their cities was worse than ever.  The people of China were becoming angry with their government.  Riots were breaking out at a rate never seen before in China and were becoming harder and harder for the military to suppress.  China’s government was getting more desperate by the day, and this seemed like the only single action that would not only regain the people’s confidence in their government, but also secure China as the dominant superpower in effort to colonize space.
“General Chao, this is red one, do you read me?”  Chao was jolted out of his daze.  He picked up a microphone sitting on a table next to him and spoke into it, “Red one, this is General Chao, I read you loud and clear, what is your status?”
“Everything is good, General.  The Americans have not detected us yet.  We are approaching the base now, and making our final preparations.”  Chao watched the screen.  The men were inside of their space capsule.  They all had their suits on and they were double-checking each other’s gear.  Each soldier wore a special space suit, with several layers, in order to allow for them to take some damage without being exposed to the vacuum of space.  Each one also had a machine gun built into the right arm of the suit so that they could easily shoot it.  A jetpack, and magnet to attach to the outside of the spaceport were standard as well.  “Sir, the spaceport is coming up over the horizon!”
“Roger that red one, we estimate three minutes until contact.  Initiate rendezvous procedures and prepare to board.”
The plan was simple: take and hold the spaceport above the main base.  This would provide a strategical advantage during the final assault on the main base.  Any American astronauts found alive would be held as POWs.  Now the spaceport was well in view and the astronauts began filing out of the space capsule that had gotten them there.  Using their magnets, the astronauts attached themselves to the capsule as it got closer to the spaceport.
When they were one-hundred meters out, the astronauts detached from the capsule and used their jetpacks to slowly close in on the seemingly abandoned spaceport.  “Sir, something feels wrong, it is too quiet, all of the lights are dark, and we can’t see any movement.”
“Good,” replied Chao, “this means that there will be even less resistance then expected— “No sooner did he finish his sentence than did the spaceport burst into life by turning on several floodlights!  General Chao was stunned; no one could have expected this.
“Sir, this is red one, I am getting a radio message from the spaceport requesting an immediate unconditional surrender!”
“Well deny it you fool!” screamed Chao, “open fire and proceed as planned!”  Chao watched intensely at the screen.  No sooner did the astronauts raise their arms to shoot did a white hot ball of plasma resonate from within the spaceport and shot past the Chinese special forces!  It barely missed them, but it hit their spaceship dead in the center.  It flew back, utterly destroyed, spinning off into deep space.  Now it was evident: the only way was forward.
General Chao burst in fury, “What was that!?!  How did they do that?”
“Sir,” replied one of the men in Mission Control, “I believe that it is a technology that the Americans were working on back in the eighties.  It is called an X-ray laser, but to my knowledge, they never finished it.  I have no idea how one made it to this base!”  Chao opened his mouth to speak but was cut off when the screen lit up with white dots from machinegun flashes.  One by one you could hear thuds where a bullet would hit and puncture one of the soldier’s suits.  This was followed by a hiss of air, and a blood curdling scream of pain by the soldier.  The firing stopped.  Chao looked on in horror as a figure emerged from the spaceport and floated up to one of the helmet cams, using a jetpack, grabbed the suit of the soldier, and towed him back to the spaceport.  The helmet cam showed him going into a pressure chamber to get into the spaceport.  Once they had gotten into the pressurized environment, the American astronaut took off his helmet and turned to the injured Chinese soldier.  He looked right into the helmet cam and said, “My name is Lt. Col. Mitchell Hutson, United States Air Force.  We have thwarted your attack on this American base.  I am now in possession of the sole survivor of your assault team.  Get ready to feel the full wrath and fury of the United States Military!”
Chao dropped his microphone.  His hands were shaking brutally. He walked out of the room, and called a number on his cellphone.  I have to call my agent in the U.S. government.  Only he can tell me what the American President knows.

Jim Thatcher leaned against his kitchen counter sipping away at his coffee.  The TV was switched on to the morning news, just like it was every Saturday morning.  A lot had happened in the month since the moon incident.  Mitch was able to get the Chinese astronaut to sing like a bird when he threatened to throw him out into space, never to be found again.  The information that he got sparked anger and hostility between the U.S. and China.  The public failure of the Chinese government to take over the moon base had terrible consequences for China’s government.  Riots began to ensue, and China began to crumble.  The United States was currently in the process of sending an expeditionary force to bring back order to the region.  However, this was just a politically correct way of invading China, securing its nuclear arsenal, and capturing the Chinese leaders to face trial, and hopefully find out who the worm was inside of the U.S. government. 
State-side on the other hand, Americans were proud of the events that had played out.  Patriotism was soaring, and NASA’s approval rating was through the roof!  Congress had not only approved rebuilding damaged sections of the moon base, but also provided funds for the first mission to Mars.  Everyone at NASA was elated when the news had come in, especially Jim, since he was selected to be the Flight Director on the mission.
That was two days ago.  Now he was watching the public announcement on the Today Show.   Everyone was happy for the announcement, all of the people at NASA were praised by the anchors, and they even interviewed several people that Jim knew.  All-in-all, the mission to Mars was very long overdue, and everyone knew it.  When the story was finally over, Jim turned off the TV, and began shuffling through a tall stack of papers.  There was a lot to catch up on; a lot of data to analyze, due to the action of the past month.  Jim picked up a folder labeled ‘Lunar Orbital Surveys’.  He opened it, and began comparing the pictures of lunar landscape.  He stopped at one picture, it was the orbital survey of the area where Mitch and Jack had been testing hours before the nuclear weapon had wiped out communication.  Just as they had already established, the faulty satellite had identified large deposits of iron, even though little to none had been found in the area at all.  Jack set the photo aside, leaving it to remind him to run a diagnostic check on the satellite and picked up the next picture.
Jack spit out his coffee.  The new picture that he held in his hand was of the same area around as the last picture, but the color overlay showing what minerals were present was completely different!  This one showed the lack of iron that was observed by Mitchell’s team the month before, and showed the abundance of a completely different material all together.  Jim compared the time stamp to the survey with iron, to the survey without iron.  The picture without the iron was taken sixteen minutes before the other photo.  Something had happened in that sixteen minutes to cause the change.  Jim picked up his phone, and dialed Lisa Hill, who was in charge of all satellite communications around the moon.  Lisa picked up immediately, “Hey Jim, what’s up?”
“Hey Lisa, can you pull up the logs for L-Sat 1? I have two completely different photos, and a question that needs answering.”
“Sure thing,” the line went silent except for Lisa typing furiously in her keyboard, “I’ve got it, Jim.  When were the photos taken?”
“About five hours before ‘The Blackout’.”
“Okay, that was right after it came online; all of the pictures show high deposits of iron in the area.”
“That’s what I thought too.  Do me a favor and look at the very first picture, and tell me if it had installed any new updates in between the first and second pictures.”
“Oh my,” exclaimed Lisa, “I’m looking at the first picture.  Am I seeing what I think that I’m seeing?”
“I think that you are.  Now, can you check for the update and tell me who initiated it?”
“Sure.  One was uploaded ten minutes after the first picture was taken. It was uploaded by Ian Knight, the Director of Lunar Operations.”

Ian Knight sat in the conference room along with Mindy Banks, Kurt Adkins, and Chris Collins. (Note: check Ch. 4 if you want to know who these people are) They were in the process of a video message with the President.  “Mr. President, the repair efforts on the moon base are on schedule.” said Ian Knight, “With one more resupply mission, we will be able to complete the repairs by the end of next week.”
“That will fit right in to our schedule,” replied Adkins, “The base should be more than ready to accept and resupply the Mars mission, since it is slated for the end of this year.”
“This all sounds great.” said the President, “Col. Collins, how are we doing for security?”
“Sir, I couldn’t be happier with our security.  Even if China were still in a position to attack us, our men are armed and on alert.  Both on the base, and down here in Houston.”
Just then, the doors to the conference room burst open.  Jim Thatcher, followed by four Military Police Officers entered the room.  “That all sounds great!” Jim said, “If you were looking for someone on the outside!”
“What is the meaning of this?” exclaimed the President.
“Mr. President, I am under the impression that you have been looking for a mole who gave key information to the Chinese about our moon base, correct?”
“Yes, I am actually.”
“Well, I found him and he is in this room!”
“Okay,” The President was becoming slightly annoyed, “Well, get on with it then.”
“This morning, I discovered evidence that linked Ian Knight to a cover up in which he changed the code of one of our satellites to keep us from discovering an extremely large deposit of helium-3 near our base.  I want to point out that helium-3 is only found on the moon, and is a crucial fuel for the creation of a fusion reactor!  Up until a couple weeks ago, the Chinese were avidly pursuing the creation of a nuclear fusion generator.  The likes of which would create an endless supply of clean energy for our planet.  If the Chinese were to have taken over our base, they would have had a nearly unlimited supply of fuel for the next generation clean energy technology, and weapons capability that would dwarf an atomic bomb.”
“Okay,” replied the President, “That is only circumstantial, do you have anything else to add?”
“Yes Sir, when you signed the Space cooperation initiative, Mr. Knight was an avid supporter of that, much to the chagrin of everyone else at NASA.  He even recommended the Indian Space Agency, when no one else had ever heard of it!  Sir, I believe that not only did he give information to the Chinese, but they used their influence on Mr. Knight to put this attack on our base possible.”
“That’s enough!” yelled Knight, he had stood up from his chair, “None of you understand!  America can’t lead the world in space!  We did in the 1970s and look at what we did with it!  We threw it away until five years ago when we built the moon base, and we will throw it away again when people lose interest once again!  Democracy is weak!  Space Exploration has to be pursued by a government who can go to space even when the people don’t care!  America never deserved the moon base, and she will never deserve to go to Mars!”  With that, the Military Police put Knight in hand cuffs and escorted him out of the room. 
No one spoke.  None of them knew what to say.  How could the mole have been so close to me?  The president later went on to say that this would not affect the timetables in which the missions were scheduled.  But all anyone was thinking was that this whole ordeal was finally over, and that things could begin to get back to normal.