An Eagle's Revenge (Across the Infinite Void Book 2)

by Ashley Grapes

  “Aw,” the little boy moaned disappointedly. He sat down again, digging his fist into his cheek like all the energy had been zapped from his body.

  Talon smiled at the youngster’s roller coaster of emotions. Soon, she wished she had a pair of these special boots that were both weighted and magnetized. When it was time to disembark she stumbled frustratingly along with her suitcase down the aisle, not acclimating well to the drastic gravitational change. Aberdeen snickered at her awkwardness. Her partner, of course, had brought a pair while Talon looked like a straight-up newbie tripping all over the place. Amateur move, Talon, she scolded herself. In the end, she held her small suitcase against her chest, which, although awkward, provided her with just enough weight to help her move with a little dignity. That is, until she discovered inertia. The flight attendant gave her a sweet smile as she caught Talon trying to turn, but falling instead.

  The passengers descended the ramp out of the ship, and Talon was mesmerized by the crust of the moon. There was a sea of grey around her that looked as though it had glitter swirled through it. As she walked lower and lower, these pieces would emit a tiny but brilliant flash into her eyes. The setting was drab and beautiful at the same time, like she imagined a desert would be. If she wasn’t holding on to her suitcase, she would have pulled out her tablet to take a picture. The thought reminded her of her new contact lenses from Bale and Teddy. She had put them on before the flight and already read the entire owner’s manual on the flight…twice.

  “Take a picture.” Talon commanded, blinking twice.

  Her contacts followed her voice command and took a picture. The words “picture taken” lit of in her field of vision. Whoa!

  “Of what?”

  Talon looked up and saw Aberdeen looking at her curiously. Her contacts were especially made for intelligence officers working on the black floor, and apparently they weren’t standard, so she doubted Aberdeen knew they existed.

  “Oh, never mind. I’ll do it later.” Better keep them to herself.

  Once the ramp took them underground, they walked another three minutes in an unspectacular tunnel to the maglev station. The passengers squeezed on and the train whizzed out onto the surface again, gently rocking as it made several turns. The lunar spaceport was shaped like an octopus, with the entrance and main hub located at the head and the ships coming and going at the tips of the tentacles. As she peered out of the window, she could see another rail carrying passengers on its own route.

  “We have to take LT3 to Providence.” Aberdeen pointed to the diagram depicting the major train routes on the wall of the maglev.

  The ride to Lunar Tube Three was going to take ten minutes, and so Talon again took the opportunity to study the landscape of the highlands. It was much more heterogeneous than she imagined. Evidence of meteorite and comet impacts were visible by the many craters they flew over. Billions of years of pulverizing had gardened the surface with regolith, from the finest of sands to boulders the size of trucks. In the distance she could see what looked to be a mountain range, or perhaps the ridges of a massive impact zone.

  The train became dark as it plummeted into the crust like a snake into its den. Further and further they descended, and Talon could see from the progress monitor that they were almost at their destination. Finally, the locomotive slowed and the tunnel opened up into a hub. They exited and boarded another. If Talon didn’t know any better, she would have thought they were in Washington D.C. taking the metro from one side of the city to the next. People bustled on and off, and she watched the train disappear again into the dark.

  Finally they emerged from the layers of tunnels built into the crust to their actual destination. Providence City was built into a massive space – orders of magnitude larger than the lava tubes found on Earth. Talon had read in her preparations that, as the largest of the lava tubes, it was a kilometer in width and height, and thirty-six kilometers in length. The conduit was considered the capital of the lunar colonies, and had the highest concentration of Mormons in the galaxy. Talon had pictured Providence in her head to be like Ohmani, after all both were underground cities with rocks on all sides, but the sprawl she was bearing witness to was much different than her home.

  Talon felt like she was at a mall, a construction site, and inside of a beehive all at the same time. There were layers upon layers of metal floor grating stacked towards the ceiling. All the sounds of a regular city were hitting her ear, with the additional cacophony of metallic shuffling as people went about their daily lives. Talon stood in some sort of courtyard adorned with an elaborate fountain that had a rearing mule as its centerpiece. She found the trees, potted flowers, and cobblestone to be in juxtaposition with the hectic and modern cityscape that made her dizzy to look at. After taking it all in, Talon concluded that there did seem to be some sort of order to it all.

  Around the perimeter, trains helped people move lengthwise down the conduit if they were going any great distance. From her place on the ground she counted three of these trains, but didn’t know how many floors existed between each one. Cars, that were all an identical black, were transporting people deeper into the middle of the space while elevators and escalators shuffled people up and down. It was, indeed, surprisingly methodical, and she could see the benefit of not allowing personal vehicles.

  Aberdeen pulled out her tablet and typed in the address for Cedar Royal hotel. “We’ve got to take the ground train fifteen kilometers west and get off at exit H. Then one of these cars will take us another 2.2 kilometers. The base of the hotel is only a three minute walk from there.”

  She had been on more trains already today than she ever had on Ohmani. After they exited, Talon noticed a significant part of the crowd moving towards a line. Her eyes followed their heads and she could see they were waiting for one of the black cars. It kind of reminded Talon of a kiddy ride at an amusement park. She and Aberdeen hopped into the line and when they finally sat down in the vehicle, she was astonished to see no driver. They entered their destination into the automated car’s computer and it glided forward on magnetic tracks.

  It moved slowly, not topping thirty kilometers per hour. Its track was narrow and as the car drove deeper into the city, Talon studied the lunar inhabitants. She noticed they had a lot more in common with the people she grew up with in Fort Bragg than the Ohmanians. Hardly any Extensions hovered or walked about, and almost everyone was human. The people here didn’t seem to feel the need to color themselves or wear flamboyant clothing like the city she lived in. They were remarkably plain, which was in stark contradiction to their unique way of life.

  The thing she found the most peculiar was their locomotion habits. Most wore the weighted boots with the magnetic bottoms, which would explain why there was so much metal here. Others hopped like bunnies and no one gave these bounders a second glance. She experienced firsthand how ungainly the going was without her usual mass providing traction. Leaping seemed to be an efficient and acceptable way of getting around here.

  They passed a teenage boy jumping high into the air and gliding his skateboard over the rail of a bike rack, only to land as light as a feather. She couldn’t imagine having Marion, Bale’s pet crullen, here. He would jump into the air and never come down.

  The car pulled up to the station and Talon yanked her suitcase from the backseat. For the last part of their journey, they would walk to the Cedar Royal. The noise here was staggering, partly because there was so much in a tight space, but mostly because of the reverberating metal. As they passed a skyscraper jutting up through the floors, Talon caught a break in the labyrinthine layers and tried to see just how many levels existed. After losing count, she shivered at the thought of being that high. If she had one weakness, a weakness she would never admit to and she certainly hid very well in the program, it was that she was afraid of heights. Although, the thought of being on the ground with trillions of tons of metal above her didn’t sit well with her either. People weren’t meant to live in layers.

&nb
sp; “Let’s take twenty to get settled,” Aberdeen said as they walked into the hotel lobby and checked in. It was 1:34pm lunar time. They were in adjacent rooms near the top of the building.

  At first glance Talon thought her room was impressive with its high ceiling, but then she was reminded as she tripped over her feet that such a feature was necessary to accommodate the lower gravity. Talon threw her suitcase on the bed, planted her feet and jumped into the air. She soared four feet and landed back down with only a slight bending of the knees. She bounced like a rabbit into the bathroom and found a scale in the corner. 9.4kg! The last time she weighed that much she was a baby! She jumped up again, higher this time, and stumbled as she hit the floor, catching herself on the sink and knocking over her toiletries bag. Talon laughed joyously and bounced back over to the hotel window.

  Her room, which was on the 65th floor, was still level to thousands of busy bees buzzing around in the upper rafters of their lunar hive. Both Ohmani and Providence were essentially flashy cities in caves, but she felt much more claustrophobic here. The distance between each floor was similar to her hotel room, about twice the height of a standard ceiling. They were bordered by a waist high paling made of stainless steel, which looked more like cage bars then safety features. From the hotel window Talon saw a store with many types of bulky shoes sitting in a glass store front. She needed to buy a pair so she could do her job without the fear of appearing clumsy.

  Although the moon was the last place she thought she would be on her first assignment, Talon had to admit she was excited to get started. If Eon was right, and she was one of the best students to ever come out of the program, how hard could it be?

  6 LDSHIPS, INC.

  After stopping and getting Talon a pair of moon shoes, the twosome headed to LDShips’ spaceport. Since the company was associated with the first colonization of the moon, they had strategically built their facility between Providence and the public spaceport. It was one of the few businesses, like regolith mining or solar energy capturing, that required access to the moon’s crust, so Talon was not surprised to feel the train tilt upwards again toward the surface.

  “Hello,” a man greeted them when they arrived. He had a head of thick black hair and an even thicker goatee. “Raymond Millhopper, General Manager.”

  “Agent Green.”

  “Agent Terry.”

  “I am so happy to have you here. We have been up in arms about what happened,” he spoke, leading them into an elevator.

  “We will certainly try our best to get it resolved,” Aberdeen replied.

  Raymond nodded appreciatively. “So, I’m not sure how this works.”

  “Can you take us to the hanger where the ships were stolen?”

  “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go in this facility if it means finding out who did this.”

  “Who has been in the hanger since the incident?” Talon asked.

  “The police came when the alarm was tripped. They called the LBI but my partners and I motioned for a third-party investigation.”

  “Why did you do that?” Aberdeen inquired.

  “The LBI are just police with a better suit and a fancier name, but they’re all the same incompetent dimwits.”

  He led them through several large rooms where men and women in brown jumpsuits were welding and cutting large pieces of metal.

  Aberdeen gave Talon a sideways glance. “Can you be more specific on why you have this opinion?”

  “Chris!” Raymond waved a red-headed man over. “These officers would like to know why the LBI are half-brained idiots.”

  The two coworkers guffawed together, their echoing chorus bouncing off the walls in the giant room. Several of the engineers looked up from their work and Talon and Aberdeen awaited to hear what was so funny.

  “Where do I begin?” Raymond started. “There isn’t a lot of crime here…on the moon I mean…not in any of the tubes thanks to the efforts of David’s mission.”

  “God’s hand is at work here,” Chris interjected with a stern nod.

  “Yes,” Raymond agreed thoughtfully and continued, “the LBI and the police take our tax dollars and sit around twiddling their thumbs. They can handle a stolen bike or an old lady needing to carry her groceries to the top of the hive, but when some outsider comes in and does something like this,” he waved a hand dramatically, “they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They haven’t been trained for shit like this…, sorry, Lord, I mean stuff.”

  “Has something like this happened before?”

  “We have friends at N.C. Construction that had two of their most powerful drilling heads stolen on their excavation machines a few months ago. The LPF and LBI were completely worthless, and Niles lost millions replacing those drills. He said the so-called investigation was a complete waste of time. Our business can’t afford to lose our subcontracting deals, so we can’t afford a botched investigation.”

  “We will look over those drill reports,” Talon said. Her contacts were in record mode, so she didn’t have to write anything down. It did seem suspicious that there was another large theft here.

  “I know the drills were taken off the rock because we are all brothers here on the moon. Could it have been the same people?” Chris asked.

  “Doubtful, but possible.”

  “If we have time before we leave today, we want to question anyone who was working that evening followed by anyone who was working that day.”

  “No one here but management and Morten Grey knows the ships were stolen.” When Talon and Aberdeen looked confused, Raymond continued, “They were taken in the middle of the night, and we’ve blocked off the storage hangers so no one can go in there.”

  Talon looked around. There were hundreds of people employed here, but her contacts would easily help her decipher who was involved, if anyone.

  “Who is Morten Grey?” Aberdeen asked.

  “He was the only one working that night as the security guard,” Chris explained.

  “We definitely need to speak with him as soon as possible.”

  “Well, he’s been let go.”

  “You fired him?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t a very good security guard if an entire hanger of ships disappeared under his watch,” Chris pointed out dryly.

  “Was a shame, really, because we kind of felt sorry for the guy,” Raymond added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s divorced, barely sees his kids. He should have been retired by now, but we just didn’t have the heart to let him go. He’d been working here since the beginning. The job was supposed to have been an easy one.”

  “So did the police or the LBI take Morten’s statement?” Talon inquired.

  “No. He told us he just fell asleep and woke up to the sound of the alarm going off. By the time he checked it out the ships were gone.”

  Aberdeen wrote a note on her tablet. “Had he been caught sleeping before?”

  “No, not to my knowledge.” Chris said. “I know what you’re thinking asking all these questions about Morten, but the old man wasn’t involved. He could barely bend over and tie his shoes let alone be a criminal master mind.”

  “We will definitely need his home address before we leave today,” Aberdeen insisted.

  “No problem. He lives in a senior facility a few floors above my complex,” Chris explained.

  “Come, I will take you up to the hanger.” Raymond led them through the building and they came to a door that read, “Hangers: Security Clearance Needed.” He swiped his badge through the key pad on the door, entered in a PIN, and placed his palm on the reader. “This takes us to all the hangers. We have seven of them, although we only had ships taken out of the one.”

  “What about cameras?” Talon asked. “And did they get through this door?”

  Raymond gave a disbelieving laugh. “We have cameras everywhere in here. See,” he motioned to two in the vicinity, “but they won’t do you any good to look at.”

  “Why?” Abe
rdeen asked curiously.

  “You’ll see. Here, put these on.” Raymond handed them each an astronaut suit he pulled from wall hooks in a secured cabinet in the hallway.

  “Were the ships all built for the same spaceline?” Talon asked, slipping the helmet over her head. Perhaps the plan to steal them had been in motion before the ships had been built, Talon considered. If so, anyone for that spaceline involved in the subcontract could be a suspect.

  “No. One was a Delta USS50, two were Japanese, one was from a German company called Nadar Aeronautics, and the last one was from Lunar Enterprises. They really didn’t have much in common. Here let me help you.” Raymond snapped her helmet onto the neck of the suit and pressed a button that sent oxygen rushing into her cranial fishbowl. “Can you all here me in your ear?”

  After everyone confirmed working radios, Raymond led them through two closed sets of doors and into the hanger. It was lined with concrete slab walls that had black soot caked onto them. Burnt debris littered the ground. Talon arched her chin and could see there was no ceiling. A retractable roof hung haphazardly and broken from its hinges. She looked up into the void, mesmerized by the millions of stars, twinkling her closer like a hypnotist. There was a ladder fashioned into the wall that lead to the crust. As she walked over to scale it, plastic and glass broke under her feet, but with no atmosphere the accompanying crunch sound was bizarrely absent.

  “They flew the ships out of here and smashed through the roof.” Raymond kicked a support beam. “We would normally open the hanger, lift the floors and then drive the ships over to a take-off strip near the spaceport but I guess thieves don’t care too much for protocol,” he scoffed sarcastically. “The exhaust lit anything that was in here on fire. Luckily the walls are concrete or the whole building would have been scorched.”