Alpha Class

by TS Paul

  “Sorry for your loss.” Marcus put his arm on William’s just as the rover began to shake.

  “What is going on?”

  “Don’t look at me! I was going to ask you!” William pulled his hands off the wheel as the rover began to be pulled in a new direction.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I could almost swear this was where we saw that flash of metal.” Ron stood next to the pink rover looking out at the endless, shadow-filled landscape.

  “Ron, does the rover have enough power to get us back to base? We’re really far away.” Tina fiddled with the power monitoring controls, which unlike everything else, weren’t labeled. Yana looked concerned at her friend.

  “What does the monitor say? It’s the readout bar on the left-hand side.”

  “We have full bars on that one. The one in the middle is all red.” Tina thumped it with her fingers trying to make the readout move.

  “That is the recharge rate. Red is bad. We need to check the other rover.” He scanned the horizon trying to spot the moon version of a monster truck.

  Yana called out to the rest of the team. “Maxim? Can you hear me?”

  “Nestor? Come in please?” All three kids could hear a faint scratching in their helmets.

  “Are these things defective?” Tina rolled her eyes as she tried to get the helmet to run a diagnostic.

  “Bobcat said they were new, but they tested them extensively out in the asteroid belt so they should work. It might be that EM field we were warned about. We may have to drive closer to them.” Ron rolled his eyes along with his friend.

  “Get back in the car Ron. We will chase the boys.” Giving the tech-savvy boy time to climb on she started the electric engine and gave the accelerator a nudge.

  The pink rover took off in the direction the monster truck was last seen.

  —

  Pop! Crackle….sssssss. “All I get is static. I thought there was something there for a moment.” Nestor stuck out his tongue and wiggled it.

  Maxim chuckled at his cousin. “That makes you look funny. Too bad I haven’t a camera. I think you must roll your eyes to fine tune the sound.”

  “Not what I was doing. I saw a tab for location and mapping. Bobcat said there were more advanced features. I was trying to access them.” He stuck out his tongue and appeared to lick his nose.

  “So? Did you find them?”

  “Maybe. I have a map on my HUD now. The blinking icon shows three somethings headed in our direction. Should we wait?”

  “Da. I mean yes. We wait. English is… hard. We wait for others.” Maxim turned the rover off and checked the batteries. His readout showed only a trickle of energy recharging now. The batteries were full, thankfully.

  “You think Ron found something yet?” Nestor slumped in his seat and scratched an imaginary itch he couldn’t reach.

  “Possibly. He is smart. Did you know about some of what he speaks about?”

  “Some. Mainly the mechanical aspects. Do you remember the trip I took with father to Moscow when I was ten?”

  Maxim thought for a moment then nodded. “Yes. Your father asked us to take care of the farm for you.”

  “When his business was over we went to the Museum of Cosmonautics. He wanted me to learn about how humans can overcome things. He wanted me to never underestimate people. He said it would save my life one day. But the museum was like a dream. The machines and rockets made me want to learn to take them apart and build more. It was fantastic!” Nestor’s eyes shined with remembrance.

  “Was that the summer you blew up the goat barn?”

  “That was an accident. Too much alcohol in the rocket fuel mix. Father was not pleased. He destroyed all my experiments and told me to never attempt it again.”

  “He wanted to protect you. Too much attention might be drawn our way. Boris could only protect us so much. You know that.” Maxim looked over at his cousin.

  “I know that now. But as a child I was heartbroken. Space was out of reach for me. This...this fills me with wonder. What does the future hold for us if this is just the first few weeks of school?” Nestor waved his arms in a circle.

  “Not blowing up a barn? We will learn everything we can so one day we can help a small ten-year-old boy who wants to go to space.”

  Catching a flash of light out of the corner of his eye Maxim pointed. “There they are. Yana, can you hear me?”

  —

  “Yana….hear...”

  “Did you catch that Ron?” Yana jerked the wheel to the left to miss a small crater.

  “Yes. I have them pinpointed. According to my helmet, they are north of us about ten degrees. I think the problem is the EM field. It’s weird, it increases in strength the closer to the crater center we get.”

  “Guys, I see what I think is them up ahead.” Tina pointed toward the same direction Yana was already driving.

  Peering through the growing gloom Ron could just make out the shape of the beat up rover. “Maxim do you hear us?”

  “It’s about time you caught up to us. Nice to hear another voice!” Maxim replied.

  “We looked, and you guys were gone. Did you find any sign of wreckage or anything?”

  “Nothing, Ron. We searched the area and found exactly nothing. The sun going down worried us. Do we have enough power to get back?”

  “I don’t think we do. We could combine the batteries and make it but will either of the rovers hold five people? Nestor, what do you think?”

  The two rovers were now in sight of each other. Everyone smiled and waved.

  “We weigh too much. One option is Maxim, and I could follow on foot and let you three use the rover.”

  “Nyet! No. We stay together. Nestor that is a bad idea. Find another option.” Yana put her foot down firmly.

  Tina, Ron, Nestor, and Yana started trying to figure out options for them as Maxim surveyed the area. All he could see was the outline of distant craters and rocks. According to the helmet maps, they were right on the edge of Mare Crisium or the Sea of Crisis. The crater seemed to be the source of the EM field that was affecting all communications. Strangely enough, they could talk now when they couldn’t before. Maxim looked toward the east and his eyes widened.

  “Yana.”

  Yana and the others were in deep discussions over where to put the batteries from Rota-Ree on Wheelie and still have room for extra passengers. They didn’t hear Maxim’s quiet voice.

  “Yana! Stop talking!” Maxim finally had to yell.

  Yana turned toward the large boy and glared. “Maxim Nikolayevich what gives you the right to interrupt me at this time? We need to figure out how to get back!”

  “None of that matters now. Look!” He pointed toward the East.

  The center of the crater was glowing.

  “What is that? Is it Bobcat and the others?” Yana stared at the greenish-blue glow.

  “I don’t think so. They should be coming from the west. That is something else.” Tina pointed behind them.

  Ron glanced at the glow like the others, but only as a distraction. He still measured the battery compartment on Wheelie to see if Rota’s would fit when the tool he was using flew out of his hand.

  Ron could only stare at his empty hand as yet another of the box of tools flew off. “Hey, guys?”

  The tools spread out on the rear of the rover were now flying off into the night toward the green glow. The toolbox began to rattle and jump. “Guys!”

  All heads turned in Ron’s direction just in time to see the toolbox lift out of the rover and become airborne.

  “Ron! What’s happening?”

  “No time to explain, Tina! Maxim, we need to all get in the rovers, or we may never see them again!” The rovers, like the toolbox, began to rattle and shake. Wheelie began to noticeably slide sideways.

  “The magnetic field is pulling us in! We need to either get in or lose the rovers!” Everyone piled into their rovers and tried to steer toward the anomaly.

  “Hold on, here
we go.” Maxim unlocked the brakes and steered toward the center of the crater.

  Both rovers were pulled toward the middle of the crater by a force that didn’t seem to belong to nature. The speedometer on Yana’s rover registered a speed of over fifty miles per hour. More than twice that of its previous speed. Ahead of them, they could see the glow had increased.

  “Any idea of what is ahead?” Tina looked over her shoulder at Ron.

  He shook his head, “No. It has to be using some sort of tractor beam. It must have activated because of our communications. Notice, it was only after we got together did it activate.”

  The crater’s center came into view. A small, dome-shaped, lump was at the exact center. Dark tunnel shaped spaces were open around the edges. The tunnels seemed to be their destination. The incline became much steeper as they were pulled down.

  All five kids screamed in terror as they were pulled into the dark. The rovers continued down and over, what appeared to be a steep cliff.

  “AAiiee” Echoed in their helmet as the rovers went over the edge and stopped suddenly with a resounding crunch of metal and plastic.

  Maxim and Nestor were thrown from Wheelie as it tumbled down into a pile of metal. The girls, belted and buckled into the rover, had passed out and were hanging upside down in a pile of what appeared to be spacecraft parts.

  “Hello? Did everyone survive? Maxim?” Ron called out to his friends. His magnetic boots saved him for the second time, but he was now hanging upside down staring at the ground.

  “I cannot move.” Maxim groaned in pain.

  “I’ll help as soon as I get free, hold on!” Ron called back.

  “Find the girls Ron. I will heal, it is just painful. Nestor? You alive?”

  “Uugh. Did you get the name of the truck that hit us? Go punch him for me.” Nestor found himself in a pile of what looked like probes and scrap metal. “Where are we?”

  Maxim felt the bones in his arms and legs knitting and painfully sat up. He looked up at the glowing ceiling of the area. “We are in the crater, but it is not a crater. Looks like a spacecraft.”

  Their rover was lying on top of a pile of white, gold, and gray painted scrap metal. Behind, was the pink Rota-Ree rover. Maxim could see Ron trying to climb up to release the girls.

  “Ron, I can see you. Be careful. They will fall if asleep when you release them. Nestor, can you help Ron?”

  “Possibly. I am wedged underneath what looks to be an LK lander.”

  “Nestor that’s impossible! The Soviets never put one on the moon.”

  “I am under one, so it is possible Ron. I can see the Soviet markings complete with hammer and sickle on the side. Let me get free first, and then we can explore. Hold on a moment.”

  Both boys could hear the sound of metal crashing as Nestor broke free of his temporary prison. “I am free.”

  “Nestor, I just need someone to catch the girls if they fall. There is gravity down here somehow. I just about have Tina’s seatbelt free.”

  “Ron, look down.” Ron looked down and saw Nestor with his arms open. “Great. I have to cut through the belt, get ready to catch her.”

  The emergency seat belts on the rover were never designed to hold a person inside if it turned over but they held anyway. Ron needed to use his survival knife to cut them loose. The locking mechanism was completely frozen.

  Tina could hear voices talking about her and saying her name as she started to wake up. The last thing she remembered was screaming into the night as the rover went down into the dark. The sensation of falling was not something she enjoyed. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and thought she heard “…catch her.”

  “Ron? Wait, I’m aww AAAA ake!” Tina screamed a second time as she dropped free of the rover.

  “Oof!” Nestor caught the smaller girl in his arms and held onto her now squirming body. “It’s me, Tina. It’s me!”

  “What the hell Nestor? What did you do that for?” She popped him in the shoulder with her fist as he set her down.

  “I just did what Ron said to do.” He pointed up at Ron.

  She looked up, “The hell Ron! You could have woken me up first!”

  “We didn’t want you to get hurt falling from up here. Sorry?” Ron had one leg braced on what was an LK lander. His hands held Yana’s shoulder as he tried to free her from the rover above him.

  “Wow! That’s pretty high up. You are forgiven.” She punched Nestor again.

  “What was that for?”

  Tina gave him a stern look. “Think of it as a lesson learned. Ron, try to wake Yana up first.”

  “What lesson?” Nestor asked. Tina chose not to answer and ignored him.

  Ron gave Yana a rather awkward shake from the upside down position he was in. “Yana can you hear me?”

  “What do you want Ron?” Yana opened her eyes and let out a small scream. “Why am I upside down?”

  Shifting his foot to another, less shaky position, Ron stepped a tiny bit closer to her. “Yana this is your choice. Do you want me to drop you down to Nestor and let him catch you? Or do you want to try and climb down yourself?”

  Ron pulled out his knife again and made cutting motions where she could see him.

  “Drop me.” She closed her eyes and screamed as she plunged down out of the buggy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What is all this stuff?” Tina poked at a partially crushed machine that looked like a series of globes connected with legs and structural bars.

  “The writing looks Cyrillic.” Ron walked over to stand next to her.

  “Russian? Let me look.” Yana peered closer at the writing. “It’s mostly destroyed, but it says Luna something.”

  “Could it be fifteen that you can’t read?” Ron bent down and brushed at the letters.

  “That would fit wouldn’t it?” Nestor joined the small group.

  Ron pointed at the LK Lander Nestor crashed into. “It would. It makes me wonder about the rest of all this including that over there.”

  “I’ve seen one of those before in Moscow. There is nothing at the museum about actually landing on the moon.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Tina stepped in front of the two boys.

  “Luna 15 was launched by the Soviets at the same time America was landing Apollo 11 here, on the moon. It crashed during its landing in Mare Crisium. This thing, however, shouldn’t exist here. According to history, the Soviets ended their lunar program in 1970 and never actually landed on the moon.” Ron reached over and laid his hand on the lander.

  “Making sure it’s real?” Yana smiled at the younger boy.

  “Sort of. This is one of the later models. They designed them for one pilot. Its presence here makes me wonder if he’s in there or somewhere else?”

  “Can we check?” The LK Lander was at least fifteen feet tall, its spidery legs looked to be still intact, but a bit bent. Small satellite dishes and other devices hung off arms attached to the main body of the lander.