Earth owned the Moon. Then the Moon learned to aim.
Port Selene, the Moon’s only city, has declared independence from Earth. It has no fleet. It has a cargo cannon, a pile of rock, an old computer called ARC and the high ground. Drag, aim along the curve, and let go. Everything you throw falls downhill.
Your rock climbs out of the Moon’s shallow well, then falls faster and faster toward Earth. The preview arc uses the same physics as the real flight.
Defend
Under fire
The Alliance shoots first. Tap incoming missiles and marine shuttles for flak before they reach your base, and keep the miners filling the rock pile.
Conquer
40 battles
Four chapters of launch pads, shipyards, laser batteries and gunships, then the Bastion, a fortress with a lance. Endless mode after that.
The story
Fifty years of shipping grain to Earth. Nobody ever asked us.
Port Selene feeds a planet it has never been allowed to vote in. When the colony declares independence, the Earth Alliance answers with missiles.
Commander Mara Vance has no warships, only the cargo cannon that used to throw ice and grain down the gravity well, and the old computer that aims it.
MARA VANCEWe have no fleet. We have a cargo cannon… and you, ARC.
Inspired by Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966). All characters, places and events are original.
You are ARC
The machine that runs the odds.
You aim the cannon. After every battle you win, ARC runs the numbers again, and the colony’s chances climb. Lose, and they don’t.
Uprising1 in 20
Blockade1 in 14
Counterattack1 in 8
Bastion1 in 4
The end?
“On the Moon, that’s a good day.” Mara Vance, at 1 in 20.
Chapter I · Levels 1–10
Uprising
“They’re shelling Port Selene. ARC, those two pads are the ones firing. Shut them up.”
Chapter II · Levels 11–20
Blockade
“Earth isn’t listening. It’s starving us.” Laser satellites, marine shuttles and a ring of steel.
Chapter III · Levels 21–30
Counterattack
“The blockade is broken. Now we take the fight to them.” Gunships, shields and steered canisters.
Chapter IV · Levels 31–40
Bastion
“They’re building a fortress in orbit. If it’s finished, it ends us.”
Every chapter opens with a voiced cutscene.
Mara briefs you before each of the 40 battles, and Admiral Kane taunts you during them. How it ends is up to ARC. And you.
Earth fights back.
Earth has to climb out of a deep well, so you see its attacks coming for seconds. Knock them out of the sky, or take their pads out first.
Scatter bursts into a fan of five.
Ice Lance flies straight and pierces.
The Bastion and its lance.
The arsenal
Nothing here was built as a weapon.
Port Selene has no armoury, only a cargo cannon and a city that makes things. Every rock in the pile comes from someone: smelters, miners, ice haulers, the kids in the workshop. Every one has a job.
Throw●
Slag
The Low Works smelters
Furnace waste, fused into fist-sized lumps. For fifty years Port Selene sold it to Earth by the million tonnes for road beds. Cheap, light, endless.
Burns up on a grazing entry. Aim steep.
“We sold them this by the ton. Return to sender.” Mara Vance
Smash●●●
Boulder
Tycho Deep miners
A whole cargo pallet of crater wall, cut in one piece by the deep miners. Too heavy to burn away and too big for a laser to stop.
Survives entry and laser fire, flattens marine shuttles.
“The miners dug up something heavier for you.” Mara Vance
Spread●●
Scatter
The Sorting Floor
Export gravel, bagged at the Sorting Floor with a seam that tears on command. One throw becomes a curtain of five stones.
Bursts at the top of its arc, or near a threat, into a fan of five. Each stone hits shuttles, mines and interceptors.
“Five rocks for the price of one. Make it count.” Mara Vance
Pierce●●
Ice Lance
Southern ice haulers
Polar water spun into a long frozen needle. Too thin to stop, too fast to bend much, and it melts the moment it touches air.
Flies flatter and faster. Goes through shields and its first target to hit a second, and wounds whatever sits under a dome.
“It goes straight through a shield.” Mara Vance
Fool●
Decoy
The workshop kids
Foil balloons packed with radar reflectors, painted by the children in the workshop. Every Alliance gun sees a warhead.
Harmless. Interceptors and guns chase it first.
“Give their interceptors something to chase.” Mara Vance
Steer●●
Canister
The workshop
A gravel can strapped to a cold-gas thruster salvaged from a retired ore tug. It answers twice in flight instead of once.
Two nudges. Thread a gap between shields and satellites.
“Two nudges each. Thread the needle.” Mara Vance
Shatter●●●
Comet
The founders’ freezers
A shard of the comet the first settlers towed home for water, kept frozen ever since. Port Selene has very few left.
Pierces domes and shields, and the blast wrecks everything around it.
Armory unlock
Silence●●
EMP Charge
ARC’s idea
A burnt-out capacitor from the old reactor, rigged by ARC to dump everything it has stored in one pulse.
Tap in flight: every missile, interceptor and shuttle nearby goes dark.
Armory unlock
Meet the Admiral.
Admiral Kane commands the Earth Alliance and has a fully voiced opinion about everything you do.
ADMIRAL KANEMoon colony, this is Admiral Kane. Surrender and we’ll forget this ever happened.
ADMIRAL KANEOut of rocks already? How embarrassing.
