Chapter 26 Chapter Twenty-Five

"The least loss of life for the best educational effect. If possible, no loss of life." This is the creed that teaches Operation Rock.Mike and I will also act on this principle.Our intention is to hit the Earthlings hard enough to convince them, but light enough not to cost them too much.Sounds like an impossibility, but just wait and see! Of course, it takes a while for a rock thrown from the moon to reach Earth.As long as our actions are bold enough, the delay time may only be ten hours.The speed of departure from the catapult is critical, and a change of one percent in this speed could potentially double or halve the flight time from the Moon to Earth.Mike could do it with incredible precision, like a pitcher at home, with all kinds of curves, wish he was a Yankee pitcher.But no matter how he throws it, the speed at which the stone finally reaches the earth is about the same—close to the escape speed, which is nearly 11 kilometers per second.This terrifying speed is produced by the gravitational pull of the Earth's massive mass eighty times that of the Moon.For Mike, it made no difference whichever way he fired, because it wasn't the thrust that really mattered, but the depth of that gravity well.

So Mike was able to program the stone throws according to how long the pitch would take.He and the professor decided that it would be best to have a three-day interval from launching to hitting the target, and a little more could be added on this basis, but the increase should not exceed the time required for the earth's rotation to cause the target to deflect significantly.Mike can completely make the rock go around the earth and hit the target on the far side of the earth from the moon.But if he could see the target, he could do it more precisely—tracking the target with radar until the last minute, nudging our rock at the last minute to make it more precise.

We need extreme precision to create maximum terror while minimizing lethality, or even zero.We launched, told them with unmatched accuracy when and where they were going to be attacked, while giving them three days to stay away from the site of the attack. Seven hours after their invasion, at 2 a.m. on December 13, 2076, we issued our first warning to Earth, announcing the destruction of their task force, condemning the brutality of their aggression, and announcing our retaliatory Bombing, and specify the time and place of the bombing. We give each country the last twenty-four hours to condemn the actions of the United Nations and to recognize us.

This time was far longer than Mike needed.Our catapult pod still had a long way to go in space before hitting the target, its guidance thrusters were not engaged, and we had a lot of freedom of movement.With significantly less than a day, Mike can derail the launch and miss Earth entirely.Even if it's only less than an hour, he can let it fall into the ocean. The first target is North America. We will strike seven countries with strong peacekeeping forces and veto power: North America, China, India, Soviet Union, Pan-African (except Chad), Central Europe, Brazil Alliance. Our circulars also declare small countries as targets, specifying when and where to bomb.But we tell the planet that only twenty percent of that list will actually be attacked.Only we know the reasons for this: one is that we are worried about not having enough steel, and the other is that doing so can have the greatest horror effect.If Belgium was attacked in the first round of bombing, the Netherlands would negotiate with us before the moon hangs in its night sky again, in order to protect its coastal polders.

Every target is chosen to avoid killing anyone.But it is quite difficult to do this in Central Europe, we have to choose deep sea or high mountains as the target, like Adriatic Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea and so on.Even with 11 billion people on the go, much of the planet has plenty of open space. I was dumbfounded by the overcrowding of North America, where hundreds of millions of people live in clusters—some parts still wilderness, mountains, and deserts.We drew a coordinate grid in North America to test the accuracy of our attacks—Mike thought fifty meters was a big error.I analyze the map and Mike checks with the radar.If it wasn't a town, this place would probably make the list.If there's a town nearby that guarantees that someone will watch the rock fall and freak out, the likelihood of the place is further enhanced.

We warned them that our bombs had the destructive power of a hydrogen bomb, while emphasizing that there would be no radioactive catastrophe, no radiation—just a terrible explosion, shock waves in the air and seismic waves caused by huge shaking.We also warn them that distant buildings may be knocked over, and let them decide for themselves how far away they should go.It doesn't matter if they're running around out of panic rather than real danger, and the highways are packed, and honestly, it's great! But we emphasize that as long as you follow our warning, you will not be harmed, and the first batch of attack targets will be no man's land.If any country tells us that our data is out of date, we will even skip this goal.

(That's all nonsense, our data is based on Mike's observations, and his radar is fine.) We did not say how we would launch the second attack, but hinted that our patience has limits. In North America, the coordinates are set at 35 degrees north latitude 110 degrees west longitude, 35 degrees north latitude 115 degrees west longitude, 35 degrees north latitude 120 degrees west longitude, 40 degrees north latitude 110 degrees west longitude, 40 degrees north latitude 115 degrees west longitude, 40 degrees north latitude 120 degrees west longitude, 45 degrees north latitude, 110 degrees west longitude, 115 degrees west longitude at 45 degrees north latitude, 120 degrees west longitude at 45 degrees north latitude, 110 degrees west longitude at 50 degrees north latitude, 115 degrees west longitude at 50 degrees north latitude, 115 degrees west longitude at 50 degrees north latitude 120 degrees.Twelve goals in total.We've added friendly reminders for each objective, such as:

"The target is 35 degrees north latitude and 115 degrees west longitude—the attack will affect the area 45 kilometers northwest to New York. Citizens nearby please pay attention." "The target is 40 degrees north latitude and 100 degrees west longitude, 20 kilometers (that is, 13 miles) from Norton, Kansas, 30 degrees west by north. Citizens of Norton, Beaver, and Wilson, please be careful, please stay away from glass windows, after the explosion Best to stay indoors for 30 minutes, there may be rocks flying around. No bright light to the naked eye. The attack is scheduled for Friday, October 16 at 03:00 local time, or 9:00 GMT - good luck!"

"An attack on a target at 50 degrees north latitude and 110 degrees west longitude will affect ten kilometers to the north. People of Walsh, Saskatchewan please take note." In addition to these targets, we also selected one in Alaska (60 degrees north latitude, 150 degrees west longitude), and two in Mexico (30 degrees north latitude, 110 degrees west longitude, and 25 degrees north latitude, 105 degrees west longitude). You won't feel like you've been forgotten.At the same time, several targets were selected in the congested east, where most of these places are water, such as Lake Michigan near Chicago and Lake Okeechobee in Florida.Where we selected bodies of water as targets, we asked Mike to estimate the likely flood intensity of the impact, giving them time to build levees.

For three full days, from early morning on Tuesday the 13th until the day we began our attack on Friday the 16th, our warnings nearly flooded the Earth. We remind the UK that the impact of the day's impact on the London River north of the Dover Strait will affect the Thames. Tell the USSR that the Sea of ​​Assyria was also chosen as an offensive target. China's offensive goal is the Gobi Desert and her hinterland - the west. We avoid the Great Wall in order to protect her unparalleled historical value. There will be explosions in Lake Victoria in Africa, parts of the Sahara Desert, the Drakensberg Mountains in the south, and twenty kilometers west of the Great Pyramid—unless they recognize our independence as Chad does, we urge these African countries to follow Chad’s example and build Concedes the Moon just before midnight GMT on Thursday.

We told India to be careful about some mountains, and the port of Mumbai.The attack on India will go hand in hand with the attack on China. Someone is trying to block our message, but we use a different wavelength and it is difficult to block. The warnings were accompanied by propaganda, with black-and-white images—news of the failed intrusion, gruesome photographs of the dead, the names and identification numbers of the intruders—sent to the Red Cross.We declare that all soldiers have been killed, and the captain and crew of the spaceship have been killed or captured.But we "unfortunately" cannot confirm casualties on the command ship as it was completely crashed when it was shot down. But we still leave room for negotiation - "people of the earth, we don't want to kill you. We did our best to avoid casualties in this self-defense... but if you can't or don't want your government to give us peace, we just Can be forced to kill. We are above, you are below. You can't stop us, please be reasonable." We explain over and over how easy it is for us to attack them and how hard it is for them to attack us.This is not an exaggeration at all, it is almost impossible to launch a missile from the earth to the moon.Launching from Earth-resident orbit would be simpler—but expensive.The most viable option they have for us is to bomb us from the ships. We pointed this out and asked how many millions of dollars they wanted to build a ship to bomb us?Is it worth it for the earth to hit us when we do nothing?They had lost seven of their biggest and best ships—did they want to lose fourteen?If so, our secret weapon against their command ship, the Goddess of Peace, awaits them. In fact, we are bragging, but it is bragging based on precise calculations—Mike calculated that the possibility of getting accurate information about the "Goddess of Peace" on Earth is less than one in a thousand.Also, the arrogant UN would never have guessed that their prisoner miners had converted their tools into space weapons.Although the United Nations has more than 200 spaceships, there are not many spaceships that can take risks. Ninety percent of these spaceships are orbital spaceships like the "Skylark". If it is to fly to the moon, all possible parts must be removed. , take nothing. Nobody builds random ships—that's too expensive.The United Nations has six cruisers that can bomb us without landing on the moon, just by changing the warheads and putting on extra fuel tanks.There are also several ships that can be converted into the "Skylark" type.Still others who transported criminals wanted to embalm the bodies as a precedent for the party.But "Luna Pravda" pointed out that Adam was a loyal conservative and certainly did not appreciate this barbaric exception.So this unknown soldier or citizen or citizen-soldier was disposed of like any other corpse. I have to say something here that I would not have said otherwise.Wyoh wasn't hurt, just a little exhausted.But Lyudmila never came back.I didn't know that--I'm glad I didn't--but she was one of the many corpses lying across the foot of the slope opposite the Born Marché.A bullet hit her lovely breast.The bloody kitchen knife is still in her hand-I think she must have made those earth soldiers pay the price. Stu didn't call me, he went to the government complex himself to inform me, and then went back with me.Stu was easy to find, and as soon as the war was over, he went back to the Fortune Hotel and started compiling his special code book.Mumu found him, and he expressed his willingness to take a short break from work to come to me. I had to go home so I could cry with everyone - no one had found me until Mike and I started Operation Rock.When we got home, Stu didn't want to go in, as if he didn't understand our behavior.Anna came out and dragged him in, he was very popular and everyone needed him.Many neighbors started crying, not as many people came as before - we were one of many families mourning and crying that day. Can't go on like this - can't.I have to work.I took a good look at Mira as I kissed her goodbye.She was lying in the room, looking as if she was just asleep.I spent a little time with my loved ones before going back to work.I didn't realize Mumu was old until that day.Of course, she had seen many deaths, even the deaths of her own descendants.But Mila's death hit her too hard.Lyudmila was special in that she was Mumu's granddaughter, almost a daughter in fact.It was because of Mumu that she became the exception among the exceptions, entered into our family, and became a wife.She and Mumu are the youngest and oldest wives in our family. Sleep Like many Lunarians, we preserve the bodies of the dead.Fortunately, we left our barbaric burial system on the old earth.Our method is better.The Davis family was reluctant to put Mira in our farm tunnel.No, it's in our greenhouse tunnel, where there are roses, daffodils, peonies, and buzzing, singing bees.Heard that the first husband, Blake Jack Davis, was there, and his atoms were still there after many years of flowering. A happy place, a beautiful place. Friday came and there was still no news from Earth.They don't seem to want to believe that we destroyed seven ships and two regiments (the UN can't even be sure that war has happened), they insist that we can't possibly bomb Earth, and that it won't make a difference if we did - they still say It is "intimidation".We give the earth more time to think. Stu is worried about not getting a reply to the password message.The cipher was passed through the Moon House company's commercial dealer to the agency in Zurich, and from there to Stu's agent in Paris.The broker found Dr. Zhang through a secret channel and arranged a secret contact channel.I had a conversation with Dr. Chang once, and then Stu had a conversation with him.Stu explained to Dr. Zhang that the bombing of China was ten hours after the bombing of North America.When the bombing of North America happened, if China responded quickly, it could still avoid being bombed.Stu asked Dr. Zhang for some advice on where to target China, and whether these places are as barren as we think they are. Stu is restless—he has high hopes for a sort of collaborative relationship he and Dr. Zhang have formed.I had little hope.The only thing I can be sure of is that Dr. Zhang himself will not sit on the target. I worry too, I worry about Mike.Of course, Mike had launched the catapult pods into orbit many times, but never more than one at the same time.Now he wants to launch hundreds of them, and guarantees that he will launch twenty-nine of them at the same time within one second, hitting twenty-nine targets. And that's not all - he has a number of spare ejection bays that can be aimed and fired a second, third, or even a sixth time from a few minutes to three hours after the first launch... Several major peacekeeping powers and some small countries have anti-missile defense systems, of which North America has the most complete defense system.But even the United Nations may not be clear about the defense systems of various countries.All offensive weapons are under the control of peacekeepers, but defensive weapons are each country's own secret affair.There are many speculations about this. Some say that India has not intercepted missiles, and some believe that North America can successfully intercept missiles, because North America has successfully blocked intercontinental missiles in water torpedo warfare in the last century. Most of our catapult pods that hit North America have the potential to successfully reach their targets for the simple reason that our targets are simply not worth North America's effort to protect.But they would not allow us to attack Long Island and our targets at 42°30' N.W. 87-Lake Michigan and the center of the triangle formed by Chicago, Great Rapids, and Milwaukee.The strong gravity makes volleying difficult and expensive.They can only use interceptor missiles where it is worth protecting. We cannot let them successfully thwart our attack.Some catapults have more reserve bays.What an interceptor missile with a hydrogen warhead would do to the rock, even Mike didn't know—not enough data.Mike thinks the interceptor missile is controlled by the homing radar - but at what distance would the homing radar activate the missile to intercept the target?Of course, getting too close to the activation point can turn the steel-clad rock into glowing gas in a millionth of a second.However, interceptor missiles are designed to intercept hydrogen bombs, and the difference between a few tons of rocks and a hydrogen bomb with faulty wiring is too great.An interceptor missile capable of destroying a hydrogen bomb, if it encounters a rock, may only push it away from its intended target, but cannot completely destroy it.We want to prove to them that even if they run out of expensive interceptor missiles (millions of dollars? tens of millions of dollars?) we can still fire cheap rock missiles for a long time.If this cannot be proved the first time, then, when the rotation of the earth once again brings North America towards us, we will continue to bomb the targets that missed the first time-we have backup rocks, which have been thrown into space, and the second time. If it doesn't work the first time, come for the third time, just push it slightly to adjust the position. If after three rotations of the Earth, our three bombing attempts are unsuccessful, we still have our big attempt.Every person on Earth knows it, and in the end their report has a big number, and they just stand there and wait.I never heard from him again. The reflector at Richardson Observatory uses radio equipment to broadcast special TV programs, I think most of the moon people are at home, bars or in the old dome - there are a few people who choose to stay on the surface of the moon in pressurized suits and watch with the naked eye.At the insistence of Brigadier General Judge Brody, we hastily installed antennas near the catapult so the drillers could watch the show in the standby room.In other places, there may not be a single soldier sticking to his post, and they all went to watch the big scene. (The Armed Forces would have been on blue alert for that period.) Parliament met informally in the New Theater, and the entire globe was displayed on a large screen.Important figures such as the Professor, Stu, Wolfgang, etc. watch the small screen in the former warden's office in the government complex.I spend part of my time with them, in and out, tense like a frightened cat, holding a sandwich but forgetting to eat it.I locked myself and Mike in the lower level of the government complex most of the time, and I couldn't calm down. At eight o'clock in the morning, Mike said, "Man, my dearest old friend, I want to tell you something, and I hope I won't offend you." "Oh sure, when have you ever worried about offending me?" "Always, Man, I've been careful since I knew you'd be offended. I'm 3.57 x 10 milliseconds away from the catapult pod hitting its target... this is the most complex problem I've ever had to solve. Whether you Whenever you speak to me, I always try my best—maybe more than you think—millions of microseconds, to analyze your words and respond correctly.” "You mean 'leave me alone, I'm busy'." "Man, I want to make it so that you can't find fault." "I'm scanning. Oh-ok, I can go to the professor." "Go if you want. But please stay where I can reach you—I may need your help." That last sentence is bullshit, we all know it.What Mike means is: I'm nervous too, and I wish you'd come with me—but you don't have to talk. "Okay, Mike. I'll be in touch with you on the phone anytime. I'll call MYCROFT XXX, but I can't speak, so you don't have to answer." "Thank you, my best friend, with my deep gratitude." "goodbye." I went up, but I didn't want to be with other people at all.So I put on the pressurized suit, found a very long telephone line, connected one end with the helmet, wrapped it around my arm, and walked towards the lunar surface.There was a service line in the phone booth outside the airlock, and I went in and dialed Mike's number.When I got out, I stood in the shadow of the phone booth, looking at the Earth. It has been more than three days since the new moon, and the bright moon is graceful and gorgeous, hanging in the mid-sky in the west as usual.The sun was sliding down the western horizon, and its afterglow hung over the earth, and I couldn't see clearly with the sun visor on.So I went back to the phone booth, and from there I could see the sun-shrouded Earth much better.The sun rises from Africa, making dazzling spots on the land.Pretty nice view.It's just that the whiteness of the South Pole is too dazzling, and North America shrouded in moonlight can't see clearly. I turned my head and picked up the binoculars—the Zeiss high-power binoculars, Warden's old ones, excellent. North America unfolded before my eyes like an eerie map.Without cloud cover, I could see the city as glowing dots, which was unusual. 8:37-8:50—Mike begins the countdown.This matter does not take his energy, the automatic program has been programmed in advance. 8:51 - 8:52 - 8:53 ... one minute - 59 seconds - 58 seconds - 57 seconds ... half a minute - 29 - 28 - 27 ... 10 seconds - -9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-the diamond-like light flashed instantly!