Read Online One Was Stubbron by L. Ron Hubbard - Free Book Online

Everybody began to quiet down, for at first there had been talk of traitors and selling the secret.
    But now that it was at last obvious that there never had been any secret and that self-navigating missiles could be very easily launched from the moon at any Earth target and that, such was the gravity difference, it would be nearly impossible to bomb-saturate the moon from Earth, even the diehards could see they were whipped.
    A demand on Washington had come from Russia for the entire US atom stockpile and Congress was debating right now, without much enthusiasm, a law to give it up.
    It had been very striking the way the morale of the world had collapsed, seeing up there in the sky those giant letters, USSR. Communists in every land had begun to crawl out from under dubious cover and prepare welcomes for Russian troops (and the Russians had been bidding the foreign communists to crawl right back again).
    To understate the matter, there was some little consternation in the nations and peoples of the world. And whatever labor thought about it they at least remembered that of all the civilized nations of Earth, Russia had been the only one after World War II to employ, use, exploit (and let die) slaves.
    And then, just as surrender was being accomplished, the US Naval Intelligence working with the State Department had done some interception and unscrambling and decoding which again gave everyone pause. By great diligence and watchfulness they had managed to tap in on the Moscow-moon circuit to discover that all was not well.
    Angel had been reading about the moon commander. The man was General Slavinsky and at first reading Angel had decided, with a bitterness not usually found in celestial sprites , that he hated the triply-damned intestines of General Slavinsky.
    Slavinsky was known as the “Avenger of Stalingrad” and had been a very popular general in his own country. The Germans, however, had not liked him, jealous no doubt of the thorough sadism of the Russian.
    When Slavinsky had not been winning battles he had been butchering prisoners and he had turned his men loose to loot in many a neutral town and conquered province. Slavinsky evidently had himself all mixed up with Genghis Khan, complete with pyramids of skulls.
    The pictures in the papers showed Slavinsky to be a big, powerful man, meticulously uniformed, always smoking cigarettes. Typical corporal-made-good, Slavinsky had been Moscow’s favorite peasant. About as cultured as a bull, he was quite proud of his refinement. And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia’s most trusted post, the moonbase.
    It was here that dictatorship displayed its weakness. Bred by force out of starvation, the Russian state had very scant background of tradition. And trustworthy military forces are trustworthy only by their tradition. Slavinsky owed no debt to anyone but the Russian dictator. The Russian people would not know one dictator from another.
    I t developed, when Slavinsky was well dug in, that he had been a Trotskyite since boyhood and the murder of his ideal in Mexico had left him festering very privately. At least that was a fine excuse.
    Once there Slavinsky began to make certain demands on Moscow. Moscow was beginning to be acrimonious about it. The dictator had ordered Slavinsky home and Slavinsky had told the dictator where he could stuff Moscow. Moscow was now threatening to withhold needed supplies.
    US Naval Intelligence and the State Department were very interested and rumors flew amongst the personnel of the US moon expedition that something was about to break.
    Angel lay on his back, feet against the wallpaper and gloomed. When a knock came on the door he supposed it was another load of papers and sadly said, “Come in.”
    But it was a colonel who stood there and Angel very hastily bounced up to sharp attention.
    â€œWe’re having callers, son,” said the colonel. “Be down in the court in five