The isolation overcame her again as she bounded toward the comms tower. When Kate was around, she’d never faced this fear of being abandoned, of being the only remaining soul on Luna, but now, terror bordering on outright dread enveloped her. How did Kate last up here so long by herself?
The tower was a poorly-named structure. In fact, it was a non-descript crank-up telescopic pole, about 20 meters in height, with a boom on which various comms dishes and antenna arrays were affixed. She had attached the Yagi for the indie-comm at the top and run a thick coaxial cable down to a junction box at the base of the crank. The connection to the junction was her first checkpoint. With all the dust kicking around on Luna’s surface, the biggest surprise was how much of the delicate equipment continued working. Kate said it had all been housed in material specifically built for these extreme conditions, but Mary still found it fascinating.
The junction was the size of a shoe box. She engaged her helmet light and pried the lid off the container and inspected the noodled cables within. As she followed the antenna feedline through the terminal, she saw nothing obvious that could have caused her signal to wink out the other day. She recognized the interior of the cable itself may have been damaged, and that would be the last thing she’d check if no other problems showed up. She removed the airvac tool from her belt and blew dust out of the area before securing the cap on it again.
“Hey Kate, the terminal looks good. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’ll bring the Yagi down and have a look at it.”
“Roger.” Kate’s voice shot back, with a slight tremolo as she flew across the moonscape.
The tower crank held a lot of resistance and it took Mary several tough minutes to lower so she could work on the boom. She inspected the Yagi, and no elements were out of place or damaged, but just as she prepared to remove it from the cylindrical pole, the connection where the cable running to the antenna from the junction box had been frayed.
“I may have found the problem. The input feedline connection to the beam needs replacing.”
“Glad to hear it.” Kate’s voice rose. “Can you fix it?”
“Sure, I’ll remove the antenna and repair the cable in the lab.”
As she worked on removing the large connector lug, Mary suddenly felt a massive pulse vibrate up through her boots, through her bones, screaming in her head. When the sonic explosion came, the surface shock wave launched her airborne and sent her tumbling, spinning hard across the moonscape, blue arcs dancing through the vacuum like perverse lightning. More flashes of yellow and blue filled her visor.
“Say again, Mary, I missed that.”
She bounced and rolled several times off the crust, coming to rest on all fours against a shallow dust dune that swallowed her up to the elbows. Everything whirled around her and she struggled to catch her breath, but sharp pain ripped through her elbow and shot up her arm. When she tried pulling herself up, she lost her balance and fell on her face.
“Mary, you there?”
A wave of nausea broke over her and she fought to swallow it down. Then, breathless, alarms blaring in her helmet, she tried to see how far the blast had thrown her from the lab, but couldn’t find her bearings. Her envirosuit was torn but fortunately the foam sealant repaired that. Around her there was nothing but debris and a fog of dust clouds. A high-pitched squeal roared in her ears as expanding black pools emerged, until her entire world drifted into a deep darkness.
THIRTEEN
Kate
She’d never had a comms problem with the helmet radio before, but figured there’s a first time for everything and perhaps Mary’s lack of response was because of a circuit failure and nothing more.
Perhaps.
Still, in this environment, the slightest mechanical issue had to be dealt with quickly and thoroughly, for the consequences were dire.
“Mary, are you there?”
No answer.
Not even the static of an open comms link.
She glanced at the industrial dashboard on her scooter. Her ETA at the lab was about an forty-five minutes. If something had happened to Mary and her suit breeched, she’d be long dead by the time she’d arrive, no question about that. Kate shuddered.
Yeah, it’s probably a radio circuit malfunction. Since Mary had been outside the lab working on the comms tower, and assuming she could receive but not transmit, it would make no sense to go back to the habitat, return the call, exchange helmets and begin again outside. No, that’s inefficient, and Mary was smarter than that. She’d finish up her work, then go to the lab and call. I’ll bet that’s what she’s doing.
She gave herself another twenty minutes to allow Mary ample time to complete her task and check in. Still, the nagging feeling of something not being right caused her to pull back on the throttle and push the scooter’s drive engine until it red-lined its energy output.
“Mary . . . come in.”
Her scooter followed the snaking dust trails across the volcanic zone toward the Mare Crisium.
“Mary . . . come in please.”
Carter
The dots joined up so well that an apparently random set of incidents now made coherent sense. Carter sat in his office at 7:30 in the morning, reviewing the production numbers from various operations across the solar system. He’d left a message for Ed Mitchell to join him as soon as he arrived, to discuss the Echo, and then pored over the reports again.
Point 1. The TSA needed Titanius at least as much as he needed them. Esther’s plans to transform space exploration depended on acquiring reliable craft and crews to run them. His company had both. In return, he’d gain access to their world class research lab, and perhaps more.
Point 2. Her hesitation to discuss the alien signal that Jim Atteberry heard in 2085 had more to do with information control and global stability than it did with the truth. After their chat last night, he now understood the Ross 128 alien ship was real; humans were not alone in the universe. More importantly, it was only a matter of time before that vessel arrived and when it did, he could secure its technology. He replayed that part of the conversation he’d recorded on his indie-comm without Esther knowing, and smiled.
Point 3. In the meantime, his new engine configuration on the Echo proved that even in the absence of Rossian FTL know-how, Titanius was poised to dominate the resource extraction industry in the solar system. The Chinese needed five years at least to catch up and by that time, he’d be screaming across the universe.
The previous day’s briefing report from Technical Operations remained open on the same page it had been for the last twenty minutes, his eyes resting on the update from the Lunar Geophysical Lab. An absence of complete coverage from a shallow surface survey at the Mare Marginis raised a cautionary flag. Kate Braddock had failed to transmit significant amounts of data, and the tech team was concerned that, if this continued for any length of time, they could miss the reporting deadlines under the current partnership agreement.
On its own, this wouldn’t have merited more than a quick e-comm from Ed to fix. But now the dots were aligning. He recognized something familiar with that name, Kate Braddock, when they hired her to run the lunar surveys, and now he understood why: it was the same Braddock that Esther mentioned last night . . . the one who provided Jim Atteberry with a subspace radio filter of her own design to detect coherent signals below the noise level that led to his discovery of intelligent life in the universe. Was it also a coincidence that Braddock’s intern was none other than Atteberry’s daughter? There they were, the four of them all connected to the initial Ross 128 signal pulled from the sky over five years ago. And wasn’t it curious that now, lunar data happened to be missing or late?
Point 4. The lack of geophysicals from Luna’s eastern edge was no unfortunate operational hiccup. This was not a case of statistical failure rates in equipment . . . not at all. Braddock must have found something she wanted to keep quiet. Something important enough that she’d jeopardize her work for it. If he was a betting man, he’d pu
t his money on the discovery of a certain alien ship on the Moon’s surface.
Carter leaned back and sipped a glass of ice cold water. The elevator down the hall chimed announcing the arrival of some of the office workers. Within a few minutes, Ed Mitchell poked his head around the corner, a wide smile across his face.
“Ed, come on in.”
He entered, put his coffee cup on a sideboard table, and eased the door closed until it clicked shut. “Morning, Clayton. What’s up?”
Carter motioned him over to the sitting area and told him what he learned last night when he and Esther chatted at the hotel. He also played him the recording where she talked about the discovery of the signal and the chaos that grew from it. Mitchell’s expression did not change at all. He maintained a pleasant, almost ambivalent demeanor, but Carter knew his mind was busy calculating through several potential scenarios.
“Everything we talk about in here stays here, Ed. If in fact the Rossian ship is on the Moon, and Braddock has discovered and confirmed it, the future of the entire human race changes completely.”
“Understood.” He shifted his gaze to the floor, then looked Carter in the eye. “This has a significant impact on the negotiations, doesn’t it,” he said flatly. “I mean, if the ship is there and we secure its technology, do we even need the TSA?”
Carter raised his eyebrow in a symbolic shrugging gesture and inhaled slowly. “I believe so. It’s one thing to secure the tech, but quite another to keep developing it over the long term. We simply don’t have the horses or facilities like they do in California. But to be clear, it gives us a lot more scientific and geopolitical leverage.”
“Undoubtedly.” He sipped his coffee and winced. “What are the next steps, Clayton?”
Carter strode to his desk, grabbed the tech report, and handed it to Mitchell on the page he’d been studying. “You’ve seen this?”
“I have. Average production is up slightly from last week across the Martian operations—”
“No, not that. Look at the note from the ops chief for the lunar lab.”
Mitchell read the short paragraph and shrugged. “A small delay in getting seismic data. It wouldn’t be the first time our little Spacer has had to fix things or run additional surveys because of equipment issues or changing parameters.” He cocked his head. “Am I missing something?”
Carter smiled. He felt a growing sense of confidence and clarity in what needed to be done next. “Sure, we’ve had glitches before, but Braddock’s always fixed them quickly and got us the data for dissemination to the partners well within the required time. This one’s different.”
Mitchell looked over the report again. His eyes narrowed. “You think she’s deliberately holding back information?” Then the gentle smile returned to his face. “Has she found evidence of the alien ship?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And she wants no one else to know about it, including us.”
Carter leaned forward and clenched his jaw muscles. “Precisely. Now there may be many reasons she’s keeping this to herself. Maybe some allegiance to Esther or that Atteberry fellow. Perhaps the bug-eyed monsters are threatening her or the intern. Or,” his voice lowered to a whisper, “she plans to auction off the discovery to the highest bidder. Who knows?”
“We need to get up right away.”
“Yes, yes we do. And that raises the next testing phase of the Echo. As far as we can tell, Echo’s the fastest ship in the solar system and we all agree she’s ready for an interplanetary test run, correct?”
“Well, sure, but the crew just returned, and they haven’t even submitted their complete report yet. It’s too early to—”
“No, it’s too late, Ed. We’ve got to prep her for a flight to Luna and see what’s up there first-hand.”
Mitchell nodded, thought about something else, then continued. “I’ll contact Captain Powell once we’re finished and figure out how soon he can pull the crew together. I take it you’ll be on the flight?”
Carter smiled.
“Okay, leave the details with me and I’ll keep you apprised.”
A timid knock on the door interrupted their discussion, followed by a more forceful rap.
“Enter!” Carter’s baritone thundered across the room as he looked over his shoulder toward the entrance. His assistant Marla Sullivan came in with a sheepish, worried look on her face, followed by an operational technician from the lab below . . . Stan something-or-other.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, sir, but Stan Petrovic has some news I think you’d want to hear immediately.”
Carter stood, facing Petrovic, hands on hips. “What is it?”
“Sir, Mr. Carter, I’m one of the guys who talks with Kate Braddock—with the Lunar Geophysical Lab, and there’s been an incident.”
“What kind of incident?” He glanced warily at Sullivan who licked his lips. “It must be serious to come see me personally, so spit it out.”
“Well,” he began, checking his tablet, “we monitor the lab activities, as you know, especially the operational parameters of the habitat, oxygen exchange rate, power ratios, all that kind of environmental stuff.”
“Yes, I understand what you do. What happened?”
Stan gulped and drew a deep breath. He looked at Carter, eyes wide and strained, then to Mitchell, and back to Carter. “Everything appeared to be functioning normally, when, with no warning, the system flat-lined. The entire panel just died. One minute, normal readings. The next, nothing. By God’s hands, sir, it’s as if someone pulled the plug on the lab . . . like it was never even there. We’ve run all the diagnostics, rebooted the platform, but whatever happened, it’s not at our end.”
Carter’s jaw dropped. Mitchell sprang to his feet. “I’m heading down now,” he shouted and raced out the door. Other curious workers, who had been milling outside the office, scattered out of Mitchell’s way.
“Have you been able to communicate with Braddock at all?” Carter asked in a low, measured voice.
“No, sir. Comms are down.”
“What about the intern, the Atteberry girl?”
“Sir, all comms are completely non-functional. We’re totally in the dark. It’s as if the lab itself just disappeared off the face of the Moon.”
FOURTEEN
Kate
In the absence of any atmosphere and, along with the desert-like flat surface of the Mare Crisium, the two and half kilometers to the Moon’s horizon shone bright and clear in front of her. Kate adapted quickly to the smallness of Luna when she began work at the lab, but the sensation of overshooting her headlight never left when she pulled the LunaScoota at full throttle. That’s what made the massive habitat strobe so important and welcoming: it beamed vertically into space in a dispersed pattern, and was visible over great distances even through bright sunlight, Earth shadow, and black space beyond.
Not this time.
As the scooter approached the lunar lab coordinates around the twenty kilometer mark, the massive beacon should have been shining in the sky. The part of her brain that kept telling her nothing was wrong, that Mary had a comms malfunction and would be waiting for her, poring over the new data when she arrived, was now quiet and afraid.
“Dammit, are you there?”
If anything happened to you on my watch, I swear I’ll kill myself. Please answer.
She couldn’t push the scooter’s velocity any higher without risking a total overload and shutdown of its power drive, and the feeling of helplessness, of waiting, crushed down hard on her shoulders.
Half a dozen kilometers out from the habitat, a thin light glowed against the dark sky. The beacon, in its emergency non-strobe configuration, grimly reached into the surrounding gloom. That means it’s fallen off the mast and must be partially buried in the dust, Kate thought. As she strained to see beyond the horizon and find the silhouette of the lab, the soft edges of what remained of the structure shimmered into view. Her heart sank. Utter panic crept up her spine.
&nb
sp; No . . .
A guttural moan disappeared in the muted silence of her helmet.
The lunar geophysical lab lay before her in ruins.
The main unit housing the computers and living quarters had imploded. What normally resembled a solid yurt-like dome now appeared as though the palm of a giant’s hand had squished it down into the Moon’s surface. The top had cratered in and the sides splayed out. Blue arcs flickered across the electronic consoles and life support systems, into the vacuum of space.
Kate throttled down and before the scooter came to rest on its nacelles, she leapt off and bounded to the habitat, tears welling up in her eyes. “Link to Mary’s suit,” she commanded, and the SEARCHING icon appeared on her visor. After several seconds, the symbol changed to UNRESPONSIVE. Two thoughts needled their way into her head: where’s Mary, and, is the oxygenator operational?
“Mary, where are you?”
Silence.
The radiation sniffer on Kate’s suit shrieked in her helmet. On-visor data images jumped to the rad counter. Gamma rays fired at her from every direction but mostly from the destroyed power supplies, and she knew that staying here for any length of time was a painful death warrant. She searched through the shattered lab, kicking junk to the side, pulling away large sections of the structure to find her. They built these units with 3-D printing technology from the rock and dust on the Moon itself, and were foolproof, solid. There was no record of any catastrophic, random event like this happening. The only one she remembered was on the Martian moon Eros when she was a Spacer, but the technology had changed so much since then.
What the hell happened? The lab breech was massive, and she knew immediately the prospect of repairing it quickly was hopeless. She fought back more tears and, unable to wipe her nose, sniffed hard and swallowed. While searching for Mary, she lumbered over to quickly inspect the main life support generators. Both the primary and backup oxygenators were blown out, leaving only their footings visible in the surrounding cratered dust. The huge recyclers, water extractors, and power supplies flopped on top of each other, non-operational, leaking radioactive material everywhere. The beacon strobe light leaned awkwardly off to the side of the debris. Kate shielded her eyes while she disengaged the internal emergency power switch, turning it off.
Echoes In The Grey Page 10
