The Man Who Broke the Moon

by Michael James Ploof

“Prepare for flight. We’ll have a few days of extra travel on this thing. You can fill me in on the main engine later.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  When he got to the bridge, Jason found Erik, Killian, Mae, and Charlie waiting for him in their crisp uniforms. The uniforms fit well on everyone, allowing freedom of movement and monitoring of life support systems.

  “Pal!”

  “Yes, sir!” said the robot.

  “Stop smiling. You look like a lunatic.”

  The emoji face dropped.

  “If you want to be more human you need to learn when a pensive frown is appropriate.”

  “Yes, Captain,” said the robot. He glanced around. “Sir, are you venting at me because you are nervous?”

  Charlie stifled a laugh.

  Jason scowled at the bot and punched the homemade speed bag he had set up years ago. The thing was old and worn. It had seen more than a few hits in its day. “Probably, but your grinning face doesn’t help the mood. Not when we are about to embark on a ...Jesus Christ, why am I talking to you?” He turned to the small Jimmy Buffett cut out to his right and shook his head.

  “Andal, report.”

  “Captain, no enemy activity to report.”

  “Killian?”

  “All systems go, Captain.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Course is set for the Termination Shock.”

  Jason slapped his badge. “Kaito, are we ready?”

  “Ready as we’ll ever be, Captain.”

  “Kaito...”

  “Ready, Captain!”

  “Zeus to Liberty 5: requesting clearance to launch,” said Jason.

  “You’re clear to launch, Zeus,” came a voice over the PA.

  “Jason...” It was the vice admiral, and he seemed to have forgotten what he was going to say. Finally, he said, “God speed.”

  What do you say to that?

  “Er, you too,” said Jason.

  “We’re all counting on you,” the vice admiral added.

  Then you’re out of your mind, Jason thought, but said, “We won’t let you down.”

  He glanced at Mae, who sat with her neck craned and a small grin playing at the corner of her mouth. She had her old-school pilot goggles on, and next to her sat a picture of her father wearing the very same and standing beside an old fighter jet.

  Jason straightened his uniform, pulled on his cuffs, and took a deep breath.

  He let it out slowly.

  “Let’s make history, kids. Mae ...ENGAGE!”

  Chapter 16

  Two Days to Go Time

  Jason seemed to float down the dim corridor. He glanced down at his legs but found that thick fog obscured the view beneath his knees. The fog was strange, not only its appearance in a spaceship, but the way it churned and snaked through his legs like a cat seeking attention.

  Daddy?

  The word echoed through the corridor and Jason stopped. He looked ahead and behind, but he couldn’t tell where the sound had come from. Reflections of light through water played on the walls, and what sounded like a broken baby carousel began to echo through the corridor.

  “Daddy?”

  “Ember!”

  Jason spun in a circle, screaming her name. Phantoms of shadow darted past, their silence menacing. The fog rose higher, churning threateningly.

  “Daddy!”

  He ran down the corridor, but the fog was like mud, pulling him down and forcing him to struggle for every step as the corridor grew longer before his eyes. The voice of the little girl calling him drew farther away with every breath, and Jason growled in frustration as he slogged through the fog.

  “Ember?”

  “Ember!”

  “Ember!”

  Jason jolted awake in a cold sweat. Shadows fled from the corner of his vision, and he jerked his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of his tormentors. His head was pounding. He jumped out of bed and began pacing his quarters. The memory of the dream was fresh on his mind. He could still hear the music of the turning carousel. Could still feel the cold fingers of fog wrapping around his thighs. He saw the corridor in his mind.

  The engine room...

  Having fallen asleep in his uniform about four hours after takeoff, he needed to only throw on his boots and he was out the door, running down the bronze-colored halls of the spaceship. Slate gray metal met his boots with a clang each stride. He came to the engine room door and it slid open with a hiss.

  “Captain?” said Kaito, as he came out of the new door to the main engine—the H-Drive. “Jesus, man, you look like hell. Where have you been? It’s been fourteen hours since you went to your room.”

  Jason stared at Kaito, frowning. “Fourteen, what? No it’s fine, I want to see what’s back there,” said Jason, moving past his engineer and standing before the door. It didn’t open automatically. “Open the door,” he said, gesturing toward the alien tech he could see through the foggy window. His hand was trembling.

  “Captain...” said Kaito, with a raised eyebrow.

  “Now!”

  Kaito frowned at him, but he obeyed. He moved to the right side of the door and pressed a hand to the glowing pad. Lights scanned his fingerprints and the door opened with a menacing hiss.

  Jason walked slowly into the circular room, noting the metal sphere in the center of the thirty-foot-wide chamber. Dozens of thick electrical wires connected to the chrome sphere, which seemed to have no opening. He walked around it, finding only the smooth metallic shell.

  “What’s inside?” he asked Kaito.

  He frowned. “The hybrid drive, Captain.”

  “Which consists of what?” He realized he was clenching his fists hard enough to dig into the skin and he was sweating like he’d been running a marathon.

  “Circuits, wires, tubes. Hell, I don’t know, alien tech. What’s got you so shaken up, Captain? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Jason flashed Kaito a look that shut him up quick. “I had a dream...” he trailed off, staring at the chrome sphere.

  “They mentioned there might be some strange side effects,” said Kaito. “It’s alien tech, after all. Bound to be some weird shit happening around it.” He shifted uneasily, looking to debate his next words. “You sure your dreams aren’t a side effect of, you know ...your being sober?”

  Jason ignored him. “Open it up.”

  “What? I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t? How are you supposed to work on it if something breaks?”

  Kaito shrugged. “If anything breaks, it’ll be on this side. They didn’t tell me anything about what’s inside or how it really works. Shit, they probably don’t even know themselves.”

  Jason walked around the sphere again, but still he found no indication that the thing opened. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get the music out of his head. That haunting, broken lullaby that creaked out of the carousel.

  Without another word Jason walked out of the engine room and made his way to the bridge. Perhaps Kaito was right. Maybe Jason was experiencing alcoholic hallucinations. Lord knew he drank enough...

  Cherubim laughter echoed through the hall.

  Jason shivered.

  He forced his legs to work and slowly walked to the intersection. The laughter came again, and prickles crawled up his back. His scalp tingled. He began to hear the movement of the carousel again. Creaking and warped, it played through his mind of its own accord, forcing him to pay attention. He was pulled toward the sound, but it had no origin and called to Jason menacingly. He summoned his courage and turned the corner, afraid of what he might see, but unable to look.

  “Good morning, Captain!”

  Jason cried out in alarm and reeled back from Pal 2000. He slammed into the wall behind him and nearly fell. “Damnit, Pal! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

  “Sir?” said Pal 2000, his pixels relaying confusion. “I was in front of you. Is it possible to sneak up from the front?”

  Jason ignored him and gathered
himself before continuing toward the bridge.

  “Sir, your heart rate is elevated, and your cortisol levels are higher than normal. Are you all right?”

  “What do you know about this ship?” Jason stopped and faced the robot, who had been hot on his heels and stopped abruptly.

  “I am fully connected to the ship. I daresay I know it better than you know your own body. It is now a part of me, and I am a part of it.”

  “Good, then you can tell me about the hybrid drive.”

  “What about it, sir?”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not at liberty to discuss that with you.”

  “Come again?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”

  “I’m the goddamned captain of this ship. Tell me what you know. What’s with all the secrecy behind this thing?”

  “Sir, you must understand that it is nothing personal, not on my part anyway. I am simply following orders.”

  “Not my orders.”

  “No, Captain. These orders come from the very top. This is top secret technology, sir, and it must be protected.”

  “Not from me. If I’m going to ride this thing to the other side of the galaxy, I wanna know what kind of rocket I’m strapping my ass to. You get me?”

  “I believe that I do. But alas, I cannot divulge such information.”

  “And what if I take you apart and get it myself?”

  “Sir, any attempt to hack into my mainframe will result in a complete wipe of my memory core. You would only destroy the information you sought.”

  “You're such an asshole.”

  “Sir, I am saddened by your—”

  “No, you’re not. You aren’t saddened by anything. You have no feelings.”

  “I am programmed to—”

  “Look, Pal. You want to be a part of this crew, I mean really be a part of this crew, then tell me what I need to know.”

  “Sir, may I ask, why do you need to know?”

  “Because I’m the fucking captain,” said Jason, moving into the robot’s space menacingly.

  Just then Killian’s voice came over the com. “Captain, you’re needed on the bridge.”

  Jason tapped his badge, glaring at Pal. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got trouble,” said Killian.

  Chapter 17

  From Russia with Love

  “Report!” Jason moved through the doors to the bridge and his eyes were instantly drawn to the large holo-screen. In it, two vessels were shown approaching.

  “We’ve got two unidentified crafts coming at us from the edge of the radar,” said Killian to his right.

  “Any luck saying hi?” said Jason.

  “None,” said Erik, eyeing the holo-display and squeezing a small doll, the only thing he had taken back from Korea.

  Jason moved to the captain’s chair and sat like the Thinking Man. His old fridge still sat to his left underneath the speed bag. He looked between both as he thought. “Hail them again. Let’s see if they answer.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Erik and Killian in unison.

  “Charlie, can we outrun them?”

  “I’ve matched their speed, sir, but there is no way of knowing how fast they can go.”

  “How fast can we go?”

  “We’re at 90 percent,” said Charlie.

  “And they caught up with us...” Jason considered his options, which weren’t many.

  “They’re firing,” said Killian, cool as a cucumber.

  “Divert all backup power to the aft shields,” said Jason, standing and walking the short gangplank between his officers.

  “Yes, sir,” said Erik.

  Killian glanced up at Jason as his fingers tapped out commands on his holo-screen. “Our communications are blocked Sir. But…” He locked onto something and with a quick flick of his wrist sent the digital readout up onto the main screen. “They’re Russian Valkyries, M-class.”

  “Nuke the meddling fuckers,” said Jason.

  “Sir, they are our allies now. We shouldn’t just fire,” Charlie interjected.

  “This mission has already been compromised. I don’t care what happens back on Earth. We have our orders.”

  Killian brought up the command module and tapped out a quick code. In two seconds, he was sweeping aside the red flashing icon. “Payload delivered, sir.” His wrist flicked again, and a grid appeared in the upper corner of the main screen. It showed Zeus as a blue dot, the two Valkyries as red dots, their torpedoes as flashing red triangles, and Zeus's nuke as a blinking blue triangle. The Russian missiles and trailing Valkyries arched around the nuke, but they couldn’t get out of range fast enough, Jason knew.

  “Detonate,” he commanded, as the blue triangle moved between the four targets.

  A quick flash could be seen in the distance on the main screen, and on the grid map the nuke exploded in all directions, its shock wave represented as a ripple of light expanding through the grid. The Russian missiles disappeared from the grid, and the two Valkyries were pushed by the ripple like toy sailboats against the tide.

  “They’re slowing,” said Killian.

  “Did they sustain damage?” asked Jason, sitting back down in the captain’s chair and feeling very much like he needed a drink. The shakes were back again, and he had to tense hard to avoid them showing.

  “Inconclusive,” Killian reported.

  “Keep an eye on them, Killian. Charlie, what’s our ETA to Termination Shock?”

  “Seventy-two hours, sir.”

  Jason noticed Pal 2000 standing just behind him to the right, wearing a big, pink-cheeked grin. “What the hell are you smiling about?” he asked the robot.

  “You did well, sir,” said the robot, with all the down-home pride of a Southern nanny.

  “Don’t you have something better to do besides stand around and grin at me?” Jason got up, suddenly angry. “You know what? I’ve got a better idea. Go put yourself in the brig.”

  “Sir, have I done something to offend you?”

  “Where’d you get that idea?” Jason walked up to him and dead-eyed the pixelated face.

  The others turned to regard them both. “What’s going on, Captain?” said Killian, rising from his station and taking the two steps up to the catwalk.

  “Pal refuses to divulge information about the hybrid drive. And in my book, that’s treason.”

  “Sir, my orders come from higher—”

  “On this ship, the only orders you need to worry about come from me.” Jason reached out and ripped off the magnetic badge on Pal’s chest. “Until you understand that, you’re under arrest for mutiny.”

  Pal stood there, shoulders hunched, and a childish, confused face playing on his screen.

  “And shut off that damned emoji screen. You're not a person, you’re a robot.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pal droned, and with a whine, his facial screen powered down, leaving only darkness. The robot turned on his heel and marched out the door.

  “See to it he finds the brig,” Jason told Killian.

  Daddy.

  The whisper came from behind him. It had sounded just like Ember.

  Jason jerked around, scanning the bridge. A child’s laughter echoed in his head, and he spun in a circle, searching for the phantom girl in a blue dress who had haunted him in the corridor.

  “Jason, are you all right?” It was Charlie. She was looking at him. They were all looking at him.

  “Mind your stations,” he said, wincing at the fear in his voice.

  Everyone focused on their work, and Jason sat in the captain’s chair once more, absently scanning the stars on his personal console. He couldn’t get the little girl out of his head, or that infuriating carousel song. He felt sweat starting to wet his back and sighed. He ran a scan of the ship, which reported only six lifeforms, himself and the crew.

  There isn’t a goddamned little girl on board. Get your shit together, Eriksson!

  Killian re
turned and reported that Pal was secure, before manning his station once more.

  Jason sat for hours with the crew in silence. One by one they got up to take a short break, yet Jason remained, scanning and rescanning the ship, and reading every report the computer could come up with pertaining to the Russian Valkyries and the weapons they had fired. After one hundred simulations the computer determined that the Russians would catch up with them again before they reached the Termination Shock, and Jason was determined to be ready.

  At some point at his post he nodded off, and the little girl awaited him, along with the tortured sound of the broken carousel.

  The sound reminded Jason of a carnival. Unlike others, however, he imagined this carnival was full of skinless animals performing tricks, and the deceased sitting around in masses laughing and shoveling handfuls of popcorn into their decrepit mouths, only to have the treats fall through open, oozing neck wounds onto tattered rags. He imagined monstrous clowns on rusty unicycles, juggling fresh, dripping testicles.

  Jason realized he couldn’t see color. He saw the world in black and white and a thousand shades of gray. He was in a field of dead lilies and wilted grass. In the distance, against the backdrop of a night sky and angry moon was a wide tent. The wind moaned through a thousand holes in the tarp, which flapped like the hem of a ghoulish woman awoken from the dead. A thousand points of light shone through the holes in the tent, and the music ...the music grew louder, louder, louder.

  A little girl in a blue dress—the only color in the newspaper world—ran away from the tent. But she wasn’t afraid. She laughed and skipped, and Jason rushed after her. Curiously, he found himself on all fours, panting like a dog. He could feel his long tongue wagging against the bristles of his maw.

  As he approached, the little girl stopped.

  Ember! He tried to say, but all that came out was a bark.

  The little girl froze and slowly turned to face him. Jason hungrily searched her eyes, hoping to see Ember, but the little girl had no face, for her face was the cracked moon. He realized she didn’t have any hair. What he had mistaken it for was hundreds of tiny wires coming out of her head.