“One hundred meters!”
“You’ve got this, Joey.” Sid’s voice was commanding and calm above the deep, squealing moan Hannah heard coming from somewhere behind her in the ship.
“Gary,” she whispered, willing her hands and fingers to relax. “We’re going after Gary.” She started a mental catalog of all the things she wanted to tell him and ask him as soon as she saw him again. At the top of the list was an apology for having thought the worst of him, before she learned the truth about Rufus. She made up her mind to pull Gary into a corner somewhere and kiss him right on the mouth and tell him how wrong she had been. They would brainstorm how best to put their footage together—to simultaneously honor their DayLite contracts and show people back home just how dangerous space still was, how grueling the life and work of space salvage could be, and how shady and downright malicious DayLite Syndicate and its allies had been.
And she and Gary would find a way to do all that without destroying the Mars Colony Program from the inside out.
“Twenty-five meters!” Joey called out. “Brace yourself, guys. This is gonna be rough.”
Hannah wondered at Joey’s definition of “rough,” and the answer came immediately and hard as the Midden smacked into the lunar surface and then . . . Bounced?
She was repeatedly thrust against her restraints and then down into her chair and back again in a gradually dampening pogo that finally settled into stillness.
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds, listening for alarms or the telltale sounds of pressure loss. Other than the anxious breathing of the crew and their passenger, the cockpit was silent.
Sid blew out a long sigh. “Everyone okay?”
Hannah shifted in her seat to get a decent camera angle that would profile the crew against the gray-brown, pocked landscape visible through the forward window.
So, this was the moon. She didn’t have any special words prepared to mark the occasion of her lunar landing, even in silent reflection. Gary would probably be able to recite every astronaut’s first utterances as each new milestone of space exploration was reached. Hannah smiled at that.
She was surprised to find her mood lightened with the return of gravity. The camera felt delicate in her hands, but she was reassured by the support of her chair as her body rested on it.
“Would have been worse on Earth.” Joey flipped a sequence of switches at his workstation, and Hannah heard the ship powering down. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d gotten to the sound of the Midden’s engines until they were suddenly silent.
Barbie unbuckled her restraints and leapt out of her seat to clap Joey on the back. “Nice flying, dude!”
“Landing, sure. It’s lift-off I’m worried about.”
“Barbie, you got a bead on the Star-Merlin plant?” Sid asked.
Barbie sank back into her chair. “Ah, yeah. Just under three hundred meters.”
“So, not as close as we’d hoped.”
“Sorry about that.” Joey was still working his controls, shutting down the ship. “I’ve never landed in low gravity before.” He paused, then laughed. “Scratch that. I’ve never landed before.”
“We’re still within range.” Sid rose from his chair and stood beside it for a long moment, getting oriented to the light gravity. Hannah was grateful to no longer have her hair spiraling in every direction, but she’d been in zero-g only a few days. She had no idea what the abrupt transition must be like for the Midden’s crew.
Hannah unbuckled her harness and stood up. She was smiling like an idiot, but she didn’t care.
“So, they’re at the Star-Merlin plant?” Hannah wasn’t actually sure what that was, but she liked the idea that there was a lunar refuge for Gary and the Churly Flint crew. She’d even made mental notes on how the facility might figure into the narrative she’d craft when this whole misadventure was safely over.
“That’s what we’re banking on.” Sid pushed past her, walking carefully on unsteady legs out of the control cabin and deeper into the ship. Hannah followed him through a succession of compartments, ultimately finding herself in an antechamber off the ship’s main docking bay. Five EVA suits—three with name patches, and two without—were compressed against the wall with red netting.
“Spares are standard size.” Sid released his custom-made suit from the netting. “Probably a little big for you, but it will keep you alive and warm.”
“Or, she could just stay here.” Barbie strode into the compartment, pulled her own suit free from the wall, and then dragged it into the docking bay. The suits looked bulky and cumbersome, and Hannah didn’t know how Sid and Barbie were handling them with such ease.
“We don’t all have to go, you know,” Barbie added from the next room. “Joey’s staying on the ship. It’s not like she’d be alone.”
Sid turned to Hannah. “Do you want to remain aboard?”
If she were being honest, Hannah would have admitted that she was terrified of leaving the ship. What if the EVA suit didn’t fit and leaked all her air and suffocated her five meters from the ship? What If she didn’t know how to walk on the moon and accidentally launched herself into deep space, with no hope of rescue? She felt like an idiot for everything she didn’t know about Earth orbit and the moon and pretty much every detail of space activity—everything Gary seemed to know by heart.
Hannah gritted her teeth. “I’m going after Gary.”
“Fair enough.” Sid unfastened one of the spare suits and pushed it toward Hannah, then turned toward the docking bay. “Barbie, box up the other spare.”
“Will do.” Wearing the lower half of her suit, Barbie glanced at Hannah as she reentered the antechamber and bundled up the second spare suit.
“In case somebody needs it,” Barbie offered by way of explanation before she disappeared into the docking bay again.
Hannah watched Sid don his suit—lower half first, containing his body from his feet to his waist, and then checking his seals—and she slowly mimicked his movements with the spare.
Real astronauts went through extensive training just to learn how to get in and out of their suits, and considerably more than that to function in an airless environment. And here she was, an untrained and anxious rookie, about to step out onto the freaking moon. If not for a sharp rush of nerves, she probably would have laughed.
“You think the crew from the October Surprise is there, too?” Hannah asked.
“Always a possibility.” Sid didn’t look up as Barbie popped back in to double-check his seals.
“But not a good one,” Barbie added.
Sid gave her a sour look. Barbie shrugged and turned so he could attend to her suit. Hannah frowned at the inefficient need for astronauts to assist each other, especially with survival on the line. She didn’t want to think about being stuck on an EVA with someone she didn’t entirely trust.
Sid secured Hannah inside her spare suit. She was too short for it by a couple of inches, and her feet were practically swimming inside the hefty boots. The round neck ring should have rested on her shoulders but was nearly even with her mouth instead. She hoped Sid could see her grateful smile.
“We get one shot at this,” Sid told her. “We can’t take off and land again. Do you understand?”
Hannah nodded. “I think so.”
“Good.” He lowered Hannah’s helmet over her head and showed her how to lock the seal and how to monitor her suit’s supply levels.
Hannah’s heart thudded in her ears as she followed Sid and Barbie through the airlock, and her breath caught in her throat while she waited beside the ship as Sid closed the hatch behind them. She was surrounded by a luminous, dingy-colored nothingness of dust and jagged edges framed against a black sky.
She fumbled the camera with the thick fingers of her gloves and made sure she was recording. She knew that as soon as she looked up into the sky, any rational thought was likely to abandon her.
Hannah found Sid and Barbie with her camera lens and stepped away from the sh
ip—and then sucked in the deepest breath of her life when she caught sight of the star field over her head. There was plenty of light pollution yet from the lunar surface reflecting the sun, but there was no atmosphere separating her from space itself.
She laughed through her tears at the sight of the Earth, so many thousands of kilometers away, a blue-white oasis against the blackness.
“Yeah, Gary.” Hannah sniffed. “I think I get it now.”
“Hannah?” Sid’s voice crackled over the comms in her helmet. “You okay there?”
She lowered her gaze to nod awkwardly at the pair of EVA-clad figures standing just a meter away. With their gold visors down, it was difficult to tell which one was the captain.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Hannah said. “Let’s go save our friends.”
“Gah!” Gary flinched away from Dana’s touch, even though she’d promised to be gentle. His nose was swollen and bruised, and his whole face felt puffy and tender. Having the salvage captain poke and prod at him wasn’t his idea of fun.
Dana had also nixed his proposal to go touring the Star-Merlin processing facility—not because of proprietary or legal concerns, but because the majority of the plant operated in vacuum. So there wasn’t anything to do but sit on top of a plastic table in the plant keeper’s unoccupied apartment while Dana stuck her fingers in his face.
“Jesus! Will you just sit still for two seconds?” Dana hissed while she carefully palpated Gary’s nose and cheekbones. She’d already cleaned up most of the blood, and when he caught his reflection in the mirror he was honestly surprised he didn’t look as bad as he felt. Bruises were already beginning to form under his left eye and his nose was definitely inflamed, but nothing had been crushed beyond recognition.
Gary laughed. A broken nose might be just enough to violate the appearance and comportment section of his contract with Rufus Day.
“Something funny?” Dana pressed into the soft tissue to the left of Gary’s nose, and he groaned.
He tried not to grimace at each probing touch, because that just made the pain worse. “Nah.”
On the other side of the sterile-looking apartment, Brett and Manny huddled together over the only control station they’d been able to find inside the plant. They’d not ventured far inside the structure, because the five-module apartment seemed the only section capable of being pressurized to support human life.
The plant was currently unmanned, as Dana had feared. The steady, automated processing didn’t require overlap in the plant’s human caretakers. Apparently it wasn’t unusual for the facility to be unoccupied for weeks at a time.
Gary was surprised by the generic decor and nondescript beige of pretty much every surface in sight. On the walls were nearly a dozen poster-size photos of Earth-based nature scenes and cityscapes, but there were no other spots of color and no windows for looking out on the lunar environs. But then an outside view would offer nothing more than the same shades of dull brown.
How would someone live in a space like this, alone, for a stretch of eighteen months, without losing their mind? The last keeper had probably taken all of her personal items away with her when she left her post, and it wasn’t like she would have needed to maintain an interesting home to entertain company.
“You keep any photos in your quarters?” Gary asked Dana. He still sounded congested from the swelling, and his whole face was starting to throb like a level 5 migraine.
“A few. A few electric candles and some scented oils that Sid likes, too.” She smiled. “And a particular special garment.”
“More than I need to know!” Gary laughed, astonished by her sudden candor. She was softer and more open now, a far cry from the almost aloof suspicion with which she’d greeted Gary and Hannah on their arrival. He wasn’t sure if the adrenaline of the crash landing was still in her system and loosening her up, or if maybe the shared experience had earned Gary a familial place as an honorary member of the crew.
“We each do what we can to make our spaces more comfortable on the ship,” Dana said. “It’s not home, not in any real sense. But it’s ours.”
She glanced over at Brett and Manny, who were futzing with the plant’s radio and data logs and trying to signal to the outside world that they were still alive. There was no telling how long it would be before the next Star-Merlin plant keeper would arrive from Earth, and none of the other lunar plants were answering. They were probably unoccupied, too.
There’d still been no word from the October Surprise.
“Once we get our ride out of here lined up, we’ll see if we can salvage our own things from the Churly Flint.” Dana leaned back and rested her hands in her lap. “Well, I’m no doctor, but I don’t think it’s broken.”
“Oh, okay.” Gary stretched his jaw wide a few times to alleviate the congested feeling, but it didn’t work.
Dana smiled. “You sound disappointed. You wanted a permanent scar to remind everyone of your heroic journey?”
Gary laughed again. “You mean, my heroic fall on my face?”
“Too bad nobody was filming that.”
Gary wasn’t so sure. There was always a satellite, somewhere, that was watching.
“Kissing might be a little uncomfortable for a while, though.”
Gary ignored the pain as his mouth widened into a grin. “What makes you bring that up, captain?”
She rested her hands on her hips. “Don’t think I haven’t seen how you’ve been looking at your producer. At first, I thought maybe you and Hannah had something going on and were just trying to keep it under wraps. Maybe there’s a company non-fraternization clause or something.”
Gary shook his head. He almost wished there were such a thing, just to hamper Rufus. A threat against his standing within his own company might at last shock the man out of his bad behavior.
Dana lowered her voice. “You were asking earlier how it works with Sid and me? Well, you can generate an awful lot of heat when you rub two sticks together. Maybe even start a fire, burn up everything. But if you keep those sticks apart, you get nothing. Just cold.” She laughed. “It’s an inelegant, sucky metaphor, but what do you want? I’m still pretty shaken up.”
“Me, too.” Gary carefully pressed a few fingers against the side of his swollen nose and winced at the tenderness.
“But maybe you need something like explosions and crash landings to put things in perspective. I’ll sure be happy to see Sid again. And maybe it’d be a good time for you to get straight with Hannah.” Dana winked at him.
“Okay, everybody out there in space land!” Brett practically sang into the mic mounted on the operations desk. His injured leg was propped up on an empty bucket Manny had found in a tiny broom closet, and he was clearly enjoying the painkillers Dana had scrounged from the plant’s first aid kit.
“I’ll say it again, loud and proud. This is Brett Waupin, lately of the Churly Flint. I and the rest of the now defunct ship’s stalwart crew—Captain Dana Jackson and Manny Gazzini—along with our very special guest star, the Face of Space himself, Gary Nelson—get your autographs on the moon! Well, we’re all alive and mostly well here at the Star-Merlin lunar processing plant. And we’d sure like it if someone could come and get us, seeing as there’s not a whole lot on offer here but canned beans and dry ramen and a bunch of old episodes of Gilmore Girls on the media drive.”
Nearly doubled-over with laughter, Manny stepped away from the bench so he wouldn’t be captured by the mic.
“Or, you know, if anyone just wants to give us an old-fashioned shout-out or order pizza delivery for us, just to let us know that you’re receiving this distress call of ours, well, that would be mighty fine, too.”
Gary chuckled. “You might have a future in broadcasting, Brett.”
Brett nodded toward his injured leg. “Put in a good word for me? I might need a backup gig for a while.”
“You got it.” Gary hopped down off the table and took a long, slow walk around the featureless room. Everything was the sam
e shade of dusty tan—from the table and straight back chairs to the plastic-molded couch, built-in cabinetry, and even the workstation where Brett sat.
Three dull thuds sounded outside the airlock door. Everyone looked to Dana.
“The October Surprise?” Gary asked.
Dana shook her head. “I doubt it.”
The knock came again.
“Anybody going to answer that? It might be pizza.” Brett tried to get up from the console, but Manny pushed him back into his chair.
Manny disabled the security lock on the door just as the knock sounded a third time. The heavy door started to swing open, and Sid squeezed through as soon as the gap was wide enough. His helmet clattered to the floor.
Sid looked first to Dana, then made a quick survey of the room, mentally checking off each crew member and passenger of the Churly Flint.
“Hey!” Brett exclaimed. “Our ride’s here!”
Without a word, Sid strode purposefully toward Dana.
“Sid, thank God,” Dana began. “How did you even kn—”
She fell silent as Sid took her into his arms and kissed her hard. Dana didn’t protest the embrace, but dug one hand into his thick hair and wrapped her other arm around his waist.
Gary looked away, slightly embarrassed by the public display of affection, but Brett and Manny appeared unfazed. It was likely nothing they hadn’t seen before.
After a long, passionate moment, Sid pulled back from Dana. “You okay?”
She nodded, her eyes glistening. “Yeah. We’re good.” She punched him lightly on the arm. “Space hunk.”
Sid laughed and kissed her again.
There was a soft thud on the other side of the room as Barbie dropped a massive bag to the floor by the airlock door. Then Hannah stepped inside and pulled off her helmet. Gary’s heart leapt.
Lovers and Lunatics (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 2) Page 17
