Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  Aggie spotted something in the dust.

  ‘You must go to the capsules,’ Celeste repeated. ‘Aggie, you’re running out of time.’

  ‘I’m trying!’ Aggie shouted as she staggered to her feet. She dived through Rix’s legs, skidded and grabbed the object out of the rubble. The buzzer vibrated in Aggie’s grip, she pumped it up to max and raced back towards the commander with the full power of her exo.

  Rix turned just in time to see the angry violet forks spit towards him. They hit him in the legs, sending him skidding back towards the conveyors, crying out in pain.

  ‘Aggie!’ Danny and Seb cried in unison from somewhere above her.

  Aggie didn’t hear them. Rix was in her sights now, immobilized by the shock to his legs. He bared his teeth at her as she cornered him. There was blood on the inside of his visor.

  ‘Stop it,’ Aggie yelled as she rounded on him, ‘just stop it! It’s over!’

  ‘Aggie, don’t, he’s not worth it. The capsules . . .’

  At her feet, Rix’s face was twisted in pain.

  Aggie stared down at him. She suddenly wanted to hurt him, just as he’d hurt her. How much did the commander really know?

  ‘Don’t you see? You were Faulkner’s little puppet too. And now you’re dying for him. He didn’t respect you, he didn’t even like you.’

  Rix spat blood onto his visor. ‘He gave me a new life.’

  ‘He made you murderer!’

  The lighting in his helmet made Rix look like a zombie, half dead, bloodied and raging. All his charm gone.

  ‘Adam saved me,’ the commander spat. ‘He trusted me. He needed me.’

  ‘He used you.’

  Rix rose up, a mixture of pain and anger on his face.

  ‘He made me.’

  Aggie hesitated. She’d seen something else, something she hadn’t expected. Love? Rix had loved her godfather too.

  Aggie looked at the man who had orchestrated the deaths of thousands under her godfather’s command. Who’d been his partner in ruining every part of her own life. Her face was stone. She powered down the buzzer. Suddenly, she knew how to hurt Rix more than the weapon ever could.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said coldly. ‘He never made it back to Earth. He’s just another body, lying out there in the rubble.’

  Inside his visor, Aggie saw something pass over Rix’s light blue eyes. ‘He got the shuttle . . .’

  There was a crash as Seb and Danny finally pushed away the rubble from the launcher and started to climb down towards her. Aggie pushed the dead buzzer against the Commanders neck. ‘You need to come with us,’ she said, registering the grief that was slowly spreading over Rix’s face. He knew she was telling the truth, he just didn’t want to believe it.

  Danny skidded up to them ‘We need to go. Now,’ he panted, looking down at Rix.

  Suddenly, Rix’s face twisted and he started to laugh. He looked down at his own bloodied, broken body. ‘Speaking of the dead. How’re you feeling, 209?’

  ‘Another word and I’ll kill you.’

  Rix glanced at Aggie, then chuckled evilly. ‘A military man can see it. Gives the skin a certain colour, glazes the eyes . . .’

  Aggie pushed Rix back. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Rix smiled. His teeth were red with blood. ‘Tell me, Angel, what is it you think is in those little blue vials that your precious prisoner enjoys so much?’

  Aggie looked at Danny. He stood still, staring at Rix.

  ‘Afterlife.’ Rix made the word last for a few seconds, stretching it out with a flick of his tongue.

  A memory pulled softly at the back of Aggie’s mind. Something she’d read, maybe? Something her father had told her?

  ‘Military drug,’ Rix continued. ‘They considered it a form of torture at the time, but the gangs brought it back. Stole it, manipulated it . . .’

  Aggie stared at Danny. With each word she felt weaker; Rix’s voice was sapping all the strength she had left. She hadn’t had much anyway.

  High above them, the dome let out a long shuddering groan.

  ‘Dudes, c’mon,’ Seb shouted, pointing at the dome. ‘This won’t hold for long.’

  Aggie wasn’t listening. She looked at Danny, something dark and horrible creeping into her stomach.

  ‘. . . FALL’s little wonder drug . . .’

  ‘Guys?’ Seb shouted.

  ‘Because Afterlife –’ Rix smiled – ‘gives you an afterlife. Tricks the body into using every last bit of its reserves until they’re all used up. Kept our soldiers useful on the battlefield, until we didn’t need them any more. See, the tricky thing with Afterlife is, once you take that first little vial . . . That’s it, bye-bye, sayonara . . .’

  A cold wave washed over Aggie’s body. She couldn’t move. Rix laughed. Danny just stared.

  ‘So, how long was it since we last pricked your precious Danny? An hour? Maybe two? I’d say he was almost all used up.’

  Aggie felt as if pins and needles were pulsing up in her fingers. Inside her head, all her thoughts washed away, replaced with only one that rang out high and wailing – NO.

  No, it isn’t true. No, Danny isn’t dying. No, he isn’t already dead.

  She watched Rix’s mouth form into a bloody smile. ‘Truth hurts, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You’re a DEAD MAN!’ Aggie raged. She slammed him against the conveyor, but Danny was there, hands on hers, releasing her grip.

  ‘We need to go,’ he said softly and started to walk her towards the capsules, giving Seb a knowing look as they left him with Rix.

  Aggie obeyed him without thinking. He pulled her up onto the launcher and into the dusty capsule. The ground was quivering so much now that she could barely hear his comms.

  ‘Don’t make this any worse, Aggs, please. Just sit down.’ Tears shone in Danny’s eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said, clutching on to his overall. ‘No. You can’t. He’s lying.’ She grasped at his arm, trying to pull him over the threshold and into the capsule, but she was too weak.

  Danny pushed her hands away, gently this time, and crouched down so his face was close to hers. He placed a shaking hand on the side of her helmet.

  ‘I’m dying, Aggie,’ he said softly, bringing his helmet to touch the top of hers. ‘The Afterlife will wear off soon. I won’t work without it.’

  ‘No.’ Aggie’s whole body shook. ‘No, they’ll have something. Something that can fix you. Danny, they can do things on Earth, they can fix you. I know they can.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Aggs. I’ve had too many doses. There’s . . .’ he looked up, blinking back the tears, ‘. . . there’s nothing left to fix.’

  Aggie looked at him in despair. Tears rolled down her face again, her throat closed up. She shook her head. She couldn’t understand, he seemed so strong. He looked so alive.

  ‘Just come with us, then,’ she said thickly, bringing a hand up to his visor and drawing him closer. ‘Die here. With us, with me. You can’t be on your own, I know how that feels. I won’t leave you on your own.’

  ‘You don’t need the extra weight,’ he said, pulling away from her, ‘You’ll have a better chance if I stay here.’

  Sobs erupted out of Aggie. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘You can’t leave me, I just met you. I only just met you.’ She grabbed his gloved hands and twisted his fingers in hers. She wanted to rip the suit off; she wanted to feel him again, as she had in the filthy hab. She couldn’t let that be the only time. She suddenly decided she didn’t care – she could hold her breath, and she’d only need a second.

  ‘Aggs what are you doing?’ Danny gasped as Aggie lifted a hand and flicked the release on her visor then reached out to his. She wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled his mouth to hers. His lips tasted like salt, she concentrated on it as she kissed him. Danny’s mouth moved with hers, kissing her back as if it was the only thing he had left in the world.

  As he gently pulled her closer, Aggie resigned every single detail of the moment to her memory.
Every touch, every sensation, so soft and so bittersweet. For those perfect, stolen seconds, the noise and dust and devastation around them disappeared.

  Much too soon, Aggie tried to breathe, but it felt like sucking in inside a plastic bag, her nose and throat closed up, choking her. Pain swept through her skull, as if the contents of her brain were pushing against the bone, expanding like a bag of popcorn in an oven.

  Danny pushed her away and flicked the visor shut again. A cold flow of oxygen fed up through the vents and Aggie coughed.

  ‘You’re crazy.’ Danny wheezed, smacking the side of the door. ‘You could have killed yourself!’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Aggie coughed, her vision blurring. ‘I don’t care.’

  Suddenly a great crack thundered from across the base. The dome split in two, sending shards of Plexi floating down over the bays. The launcher jerked and started to tip to one side. Seb was by the conveyor, still struggling with Rix.

  ‘Quickly,’ the computer said. ‘It’s falling. Get Seb.’

  Danny rushed and grabbed Rix’s other arm, dragging him forwards.

  The platform was rocking now; the great metal struts built into the rock creaked as they were exposed like long silver tendons, the only things holding the giant platform together.

  ‘It’s going to go,’ Aggie whispered.

  A growl vibrated over the rumble of the ground, followed by a scream that could have come from an animal. Rix pulled away from Seb’s grip and lunged towards Aggie.

  In a blur, Danny leapt away from the capsule and grabbed Rix’s utility belt. Rix cried out and lashed at Danny as the ground started to disintegrate around them.

  Danny turned and locked eyes with Aggie for second. Then he jumped and pulled himself and Rix down over the other side of the gap, back in the direction of the collapsing dome.

  ‘No!’ Seb cried and flung an arm out in Danny’s direction. ‘No!’

  Danny and Rix tumbled slowly back down into the rubble of the crumbling Cargo Bays, until they were just two lights dancing in the darkness. Out of reach.

  ‘NO!’ Aggie screamed and screamed, and kicked at Seb wildly as he tried to hold her back.

  ‘Aggie, get in the capsule. Get in the capsule!’ he yelled, as the tiny metal pod fought against the mechanism, keen to fly off out into space with its load. Aggie winced as Seb’s grip bit into her shoulders, but she just stayed there, looking into the distance as the light of Danny’s lamp vanished into the dust.

  ‘I can’t hold it much longer,’ Celeste’s voice vibrated. ‘It’s going to collapse.’

  ‘We can’t leave him!’ she cried, kicking and pulling against Seb. ‘Let me go!’

  With one last cry, Seb hauled Aggie over the threshold and slammed her into the tiny space inside.

  ‘Aggie, he’s gone. I’m sorry, he’s gone,’ Seb said grabbing her waist and pulling her close. ‘And we’ll be gone too if we don’t— I’m sorry, we need to go.’

  ‘I’m going to secure the door now.’ Celeste’s voice wobbled in Aggie’s helmet comms. She whipped her head around, checking inside the tiny capsule, looking for something. She didn’t find it.

  ‘Celeste!’ she cried. ‘There are no Ethers in here. How can you . . .?’ The realization struck her like a shard of Plexi in her side. She would be losing two friends today.

  Something like hysteria started to grip her. Danny and Celeste. Neither of them were ever planning to come home. They’d said nothing to her; they’d just waited until she was trapped. It was too much to take. Suddenly Aggie didn’t care about living. She didn’t want to go back to Earth without them, she wanted to stay here and die with Danny by her side, in a comforting bubble of Celeste’s warmth. To keep on living was the worst option – surely they could see that?

  Aggie felt the mechanisms inside the cabin begin to grind. ‘Hold on tight,’ Seb whispered, grabbing her and dragging her with him into the far corner of the tiny cabin.

  ‘Aggie,’ Celeste whispered softly though her helmet comms. ‘You need to be strong on the inside. You can’t be strong on the outside because you’re human.’The Celesteness of the words made her smile.

  Aggie felt the capsule start to move slowly, further and further up the track to the launcher. Suddenly, the passing static-like warmth that indicated Celeste’s presence flickered and disappeared. It left a gaping hole in Aggie’s chest.

  Sobbing pathetically, she dug her head into Seb’s shoulder, grabbed his arm and pulled it around her, and clung to him as if he was all she had left in the world. Right now, he was.

  She felt her stomach drop as the giant capsule was catapulted into the depths of space at inhuman speeds. She felt her head swim with the Gs and spots began to float before her eyes.

  ‘What have we done?’ she sobbed, as the edges of her vision started to turn black.

  ‘What was right,’ Seb replied.

  Then Aggie’s world went black.

  Epilogue

  Earth

  Lunar Inc. Skyport, European Mountains

  First there was light, then pain, then nothing but a vast ceiling of blue.

  Sky.

  Aggie took a breath. It smelt rich and green and alive.

  Earth.

  The smoking capsule bleeped and shuddered. Seb coughed and moaned on the ground beside her, still holding Aggie’s hand so tightly he nearly snapped her fingers.

  Footsteps beat against the tarmac. Unfamiliar voices drifted back and forth. Bee stings in her arms. Pressure on her wrists.

  The Moon hung like a ghost above them. A great black scar stretched across its pale grey face. Tiny specks of shuttles buzzed around it like flies.

  A tear fell away down Aggie’s cheek.

  They were alive.

  A spinning, crunching sound rattled over the skyport, followed by a guttural roar. The medics were pushed back, buffeted by the wind.

  Aggie watched a large, grey wedge hover over the tarmac, then land, badly, with a screech of metal. A red cross was painted on its hull. A rescue shuttle.

  The fans stopped.

  The medics ran, not to Aggie, but to the people emerging from the shuttle’s battered doors. A girl in yellow – wearing the red cross badge of the ERMs – held a man. As they staggered down the ramp she shouted for the medics to run faster – the man didn’t have much time.

  His overall was the colour of the sky.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, to my wonderful family, for always being the best, most encouraging and slightly loopy people: Mum, Dad, Smell, Nan, Grandpa, Gran, Granddad and all the crazy Cross Clan. To my friends, the Uni Crew and the Mansfield girls, for giving me SO many stories over the years and, more recently, for putting up with my constant moaning about ‘that book’ – I’m mainly looking at you Jo, Lorne and Neds.

  To my Stevie, for all the tough love, and for making me believe I could do it when I insisted that I couldn’t. I promise to buy you that jet ski one day.

  To Sandra, my awesome agent, for seeing the potential in the Frankenstein’s monster of a manuscript (I apologize AGAIN for my grammar), and to Barry and all the other chickens in the coop, for taking it under their wing. In particular, to Rachel L, my very own Celeste IRL, who pretty much deserves to have her name on the front cover too.

  To Dr Dave Clements at Imperial College, for all the advice about living on the Moon that I mostly ignored (sorry Dave!). To Luke Speed, and Andy, Bradley and the gang at Altitude Films, for their support and feedback. And last but by no means least, to the staff at Starbucks Hornchurch, for keeping me cabin-fever free and appropriately caffeinated.

  Thank you all to the Moon and back, you’re all totally cosmic!

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  Text © Lumite Ltd 2017

  First paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2017