Diamond Moon

by B K Gallagher

  Mara jumped to the floor when she was low enough and began looking for a way out of the processing area. She went to the far wall and found a button to release her into the rig. There was an airlock. The other side would be pressurized. She hit the button and she was through the door and into the Zephyr. “Reese, I’m in the drill chamber. Meet me at the airlock,” she said.

  “Any trouble getting in?” Reese asked.

  “Nothing out of the usual,” she answered. The chamber was dark as she entered, a few scattered lights shone down into the open area. She saw EUNICE hanging from the crane, and her bright orange paint glistened in the subdued light. She looked like an orange Goddess of the sea, poised to strike into the heart of the moon from within the darkened chamber.

  Mara pressed the button for the airlock and Reese came in quickly to check on her sub. She gave a quick look-over at it, and then walked slowly to the base of the torpedo-shaped object, hanging nose down.

  Mara followed her, and she watched as Reese placed her hand on EUNICE’s nose. She pressed gently upon the orange metal and lowered her head. She knew that Reese was telling her baby goodbye.

  She started looking for the controls on the crane interface that would lower the sub below the ice. She could hardly see in the dark room. The drill chamber was abandoned and deadly quiet.

  “What a difference compared to the activity she had seen to start the mission?” she was thinking. Mara grew angry as she stood in the nearly empty chamber. The NASA mission had been deserted. Here was the proof, in the darkened drill chamber, the miners were pursuing their own selfish desires now. She looked over the inside of the room, across the entire Zephyr rig, and she had nothing but scorn for these men. “They were greedy, selfish, disinterested scoundrels,” she thought to herself. “They deserved to be stuck in a job like this,” she reasoned. “They were unmotivated and disinclined to bother with anything more than the most fundamental understanding or value of life, or scientific discovery.” She bristled thinking about them.

  Mara tried to move beyond her anger and get to work. She rounded the crane looking for more controls and then she heard something coming from down one of the corridors. Already tense in the darkened chamber, she was wary of investigating, but she watched the end of the corridor for a few seconds.

  There was a light coming from a bunk at the end. Looking carefully, she could see shadows moving on the wall far down the hallway. Someone, or something, was inside that room. Whatever it was, it was very animated.

  Mara sent a glance over at Reese, who was rapidly sending inputs for EUNICE to awaken. “Hey, I’m going to go check something out,” she yelled. “If I’m not back in a minute,” she said, leaving with a nod.

  Reese looked her way to acknowledge her and continued with her work.

  Mara walked slowly down the corridor, careful not to make a sound. She was listening intently. Her breathing and heartbeat filled her helmet, making it difficult to make out sounds. Her hot breath fogged her mask. She could feel the adrenaline kicking in, and a tingling sensation ran against her spine.

  She grabbed a mining tool that looked like a crowbar from one of the nearby cabinets and approached the door. Carefully taking her steps to be as quiet as possible, she crept to the doorway in heavy boots.

  Another shadow crossed the wall opposite the door in question. There was no doubt something was in there. She heard rummaging sounds and saw more light dancing on the wall.

  She could hear someone inside. There was a loud bang, then the sound of shuffling papers. Then another bang. It was like someone hitting the walls of the room from the inside. “Whoever was in there was very angry,” she worried.

  Mara peeked through the portal window as carefully as she could, holding the crowbar to her side, ready to strike. She raised her eye just enough to peer into the room.

  Hanson! “What was he doing in there?” She watched him for a second. She could see that he was upset. She saw him fall upon his bunk, exasperated.

  She watched a moment longer, then pressed the button to the door, unlocking it from the outside.

  “Mara!” he said, excited to see her. He took a quick look at the crowbar with a confused look. “What are you…?”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Mara asked, threatening him. The crowbar was poised to strike. “Did you tell Johan about the diamonds?” She raised her arm further, the crowbar was ready to lash out at him with the wrong answer. “You waited until after last night to tell them, didn’t you? You fucking asshole!”

  “What?” Hanson asked. “No! I didn’t say anything!”

  “We have imagery of the crawlers at the fissure. The signals from the creatures are going crazy. There’s something going on down there. You are the only one that could have told them.”

  “I don’t know how he knows, Mara,” he said, holding his hands up as if in surrender.

  “Well somebody told him,” she said. “It had to have been you!” She swung the crowbar and smashed the belongings that were beside him on the table. They scattered around the room and broke into dozens of pieces on the floor.

  “Mara, stop! Put down the crowbar,” he asked her. He was begging her to stop with frightened eyes, believing completely that Mara would strike him.

  She continued to stand over him, and the crowbar was held steady above her head, ready to strike.

  Hanson looked up at her, defenseless. “I didn’t tell them,” he said again, holding his hands up to her. “It happened this morning. Johan called a meeting with the crew. He told them he found out about the diamonds and he talked them into going to the fissure. He knew I was hiding them for you. He turned the miners against me and accused me of mutiny. They locked me in here, Mara. Why the hell else do you think I’m stuck in here?” he asked, pleading with her to believe him.

  “Johan is taking it back,” he said. “He is taking back his promise to get my rig. He reinstated my debts. I’m right back where I started,” he yelled and kicked the cabinet nearby with a metallic thud. “I’m never getting out of here!”

  Some of the books Hanson kept on his stand flew off his desk when he kicked it. Mara looked at the remaining belongings on the cabinet. She saw the books that were still on his desk, and then she looked down upon the items she had knocked onto the floor. She saw the picture of the tropical beach and the hammock and his brother standing under the palm trees. It was sitting directly in front of her, and the glass had cracked where she had hit it. She remembered Hanson telling her how much he wanted to go to a real beach. He wanted a real beach with palm trees. She remembered him speaking about his brother, obviously the younger boy in the photo.

  Hanson threw himself back upon the bed as she looked down at his belongings. His hands went up to his face. He was in anguish at the thought of being indebted to Astromine again. As he lay on the bed, upset at what had happened, Mara slowly lowered the crowbar from above her head, and then it slipped from her grasp and clanked on the metal floor.

  “If you didn’t tell him, then who did?” she asked him.

  Hanson removed his hands from his face. He was bright red. “He found out some other way. Maybe he intercepted a transmission, or overheard something?”

  “It doesn’t matter” Mara said.

  “You believe me?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him. Mara was looking down at him and his reddened face. She could see how tormented he was. Something was telling her he was telling the truth, and she was resigned to the fact that there was no way to take back the information, and no reason for him to continue to lie about it.

  Then Reese suddenly came around the corner. “Okay, what’s going on?” she asked, staring at the two in the bunk room for a second. She looked over at Hanson on the bed, his eyes swollen with rage, and then the crowbar laying on the floor.

  “EUNICE is ready,” she said.

  Hanson looked at Mara. “You�
��re putting the sub under?”

  Mara nodded yes. “We’re going after them,” she said, and she walked out of the room. Reese followed, leaving a brief glare for Hanson.

  Hanson sat up quickly and hurried behind them. “You’ll need me to lower the sub for you,” he said.

  “We’re not messing around here, Hanson. We’re going there to stop them. You help us and you’ll be done with Astromine. Really done. Understand? You’ll never work a rig again, never become a captain,” Mara told him.

  Hanson nodded. “Got it.” He walked to the power controls. He flipped the power to the crane and the drill chamber on. Lights began to flicker and spill light into the space. He began preparing the machinery to deploy EUNICE.

  He stood near the inputs for the crane. “You were right, you know,” he said with a depressed voice, his eyes focusing on the controls to avoid hers. “You were right about Astromine… and Johan.” Then he turned and looked at Mara. Their eyes met. His expression revealed an unguarded honesty — a self-awareness that had both humbled him but made him stronger.

  Mara sympathized with him. She knew after the time he had put into his career with Astromine that it had been hard for him to admit to her. He began to work on the machinery around him, moving quickly toward the controls for the crane.

  “Okay, exactly how are you going to disable the mining equipment with the sub?” he asked as he started up the machinery.

  “We can get in their way, cut their communication,” Mara said. “Cut power lines, whatever.”

  Hanson listened as Mara groped for ideas. He turned to her again, taking his eyes from the control panel for a moment. “Do you know what they’re operating down there?” he asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “They’ll have the grinder heads running on the ocean surface. You ever seen one of those?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll chew through your toy in two seconds.”

  Mara looked confused, suddenly realizing how unaware she was at what she was going up against.

  “You’re going to lose EUNICE If you get her out there anywhere near those grinder heads,” Hanson told her.

  Mara thought for a moment. “We can be stealthy, sneak up behind them. We’ll do something,” she said.

  “Look, I can set you up here to lower the sub, then I can get you some charges. Hold on…” Hanson ran down the corridor to a secure storage room. He came running back with his hands full.

  “Here,” he said to her. “Take these charges with EUNICE. You can program them from the sub’s computer, then just stick them to the grinder heads. Set them for as much time as you need to get the sub a safe distance away.”

  Mara was hesitant to take the charges. When she wouldn’t reach for them Hanson opened one of the storage panels and placed them inside the sub himself. “I’m setting the crane to lower, then I’ll go talk to the crew, maybe I can get them to turn on Johan.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not likely,” Mara said. “Besides, you’ll be risking radiation, or more quakes… we don’t even know how much time we have.”

  “Just let me try. Those guys are scared. Some of them can be talked out of this. Maybe they’ll listen to me. I can take one of the rovers. I won’t even be gone that long.”

  Mara was nervous to let Hanson leave. Then she thought about the situation at the Hab. “Hold on… I need you to stay here,” she said. “Johan bailed on us. We’ve lost power. We don’t have any fuel.”

  Hanson thought for a moment, then he walked to the power transfer switch. He flipped it over, providing power once more to the Hab. “Now, I’ll go fill up your fuel tanks,” he said.

  He went to another set of switches, this time to the pumps that provided the liquid hydrogen and oxygen from the electrolysis system. He checked the tanks, then he hit his hand against the wall next to the read-outs. “Damnit! The tanks are empty!” he told her, shaking his head.

  “Let me guess… Johan never made the water or fuel that we needed?” Mara asked.

  “The Zephyr’s tanks are full, but there is nothing for your capsule,” Hanson told her.

  Mara rolled her eyes. “What now?” she asked.

  Reese interjected. “Why can’t we just take some of the Zephyr’s water and fuel?”

  “The pumps only work one way. I can’t reverse it,” Hanson replied. “But you can start making your own water and fuel. You should have enough time.”

  “We have to make our own water?” Reese complained.

  “Yes,” Hanson answered. “You can collect ice from outside. There should still be some loose pieces laying around. Fortunately, your little capsule won’t need nearly as much as the Zephyr does.”

  Then Hanson’s face turned dour, and Mara looked worriedly at him. He turned to explain.

  “Look, there is no way to send the fuel over there without the crawlers. They have the tanks we need. We were going to use them to move the fuel and water to the Hab, but Johan has them at the fissure.”

  Mara’s head dropped. She wondered if anything would go right for them, and she thought for a moment.

  “Can we just make the fuel and water at the capsule? Maybe you can move the electrolysis system for us?”

  Hanson thought the suggestion through, then nodded. “I can set it up for you that way, but you need to get as much ice as you can from the surrounding area. Melt as much of it into water that you can… And do it quick.”

  “Then we need to start now,” Mara said.

  Hanson agreed. “You have anyone that can gather the ice,” he asked.

  Mara felt herself swallow a nervous lump that had been growing in her throat. “Julian and Dr. Aman are already on it,” she said. “I’ll check on them in a minute.” Then she looked over toward Reese. “Get me Stenner on the comm,” she asked.

  “Working on it.” Reese began fidgeting with the controls in front of her, then she pressed the comm-link button.

  “Stenner, this is Reese at the Zephyr. Copernicus, come in.”

  There was static on the monitors.

  “Copernicus, this is Reese. Come in.”

  Finally, an answer. Stenner’s image came up. “Reese, are you at the Zephyr? What’s going on down there?” he asked.

  “Stenner, this is Mara,” she said hurriedly into the monitor. “We’ve got a problem. I’ve found Hanson here locked in his bunk room. He’s restored power to the Hab, but we need to start running ice through their system to make fuel. I need to know that Julian has a plan to collect ice for the capsule.”

  There was silence from the other end. Mara waited for the Commander to answer her or give her a response, but he stayed quiet as he digested the news. “Stenner?” she asked again, impatiently.

  “Mara, this is Stenner. I’m still here. You need to be careful. Luis says Hanson is the one who told Johan about the diamonds. I’m going to assume you have informed him of our secret?”

  Mara suddenly remembered what Luis had said to her about Hanson. It had seemed odd to her at the time, but she didn’t have a reason to suspect Luis of lying. She spoke directly to Stenner through the comm-link.

  “Hanson denies saying anything. I found him locked in his bunk here at the Zephyr.”

  “Luis!” Hanson said out loud, listening in on their conversation. “Luis is trying to pin this on me. He’s the one who told Johan.”

  Mara took a step away from the monitor and looked at Hanson. She thought about the situation briefly. She thought about why it would be advantageous for Luis to frame Hanson this way. Then she turned back to the monitor and Stenner.

  “Check with Luis on that, Stenner,” she said. “Hanson says Johan took two crawlers out to the fissure with his crew and locked him in his bunk. It looks more like someone’s ratted him out.”

  Stenner appeared to be mulling the situation in his head with a confused expression
. He remained calm and tried to speak to Mara in a hushed voice, hoping that Hanson did not hear him. “Mara, I am not sure what Hanson knows about the sensitive parts of our mission, but you should not trust him right now. Luis says this is his fault. He may be lying to you. They could still need something from you. You need to be careful.”

  Mara turned her head to check on Hanson. He had moved to the crane controls and she could see that he was preparing the machinery for her. She turned back to the monitor to where Commander Stenner was waiting.

  “Hanson says he was locked in his bunk room by Johan. I’m not sure why else he would be in there. He was pretty upset. He gave me charges to use against their grinder heads below. He’s lending us the electrolysis system we need to make fuel, and he’s going out there to stop them,” she told him.

  Stenner hesitated on the screen. He seemed conflicted and concerned with Mara’s decisions. Then he spoke to her with the calmness and clarity of someone whose military training was helping to keep him focused.

  “Mara, I don’t think you should do anything. Don’t let Hanson out of your sight. If you or he act out against Astromine it will only get us into more trouble and make things worse. I know you are angry, but there are other ways to handle this. It is now a legal matter.”

  “A legal matter?” she yelled. Stenner’s attempt to speak calmly and rationally had only excited her more. “We don’t have time for that shit,” she yelled. “By the time you contact Mission and we hear back from them, centuries worth of damage, millions of years worth of damage…” She sucked in a big gulp of air.

  “Are you forgetting we’re about to have a massive quake down here?” She threw her hands down on the console and walked away from the monitor, leaving Stenner on the screen.

  Reese had turned toward Mara as she walked away, worried at what she might do next. She looked back at Stenner on the monitor with a helpless expression, unable to intervene.