“Perfect,” Romero beamed. “Now that’s what I call problem-solving.”
“It’s not good enough.” Ansari shook her head. “I’ve done the calculations over and over. Even if we use cargo space, there’s only room for six.”
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Fox said, setting his datapad aside.
Just then proximity alarms went off, but this time it was no meteor shower.
Above Moonbase Magellan, a swarm of flickering alien lights appeared.
***
Twenty-Two
The triangular enemy ships looked like razor-edged arrowheads flying over the connected modules of the base. After running into the MCC from the hab module, Chief Ansari rushed to the comm station and transmitted on all possible frequencies. “Please communicate with us! Identify yourselves. We mean no harm! Do not attack this base.”
Dyl muttered to his sister, “You know, I’ve seen movies where stuff like this just turns out to be a big misunderstanding.”
“Right,” JJ said. “I’m sure they’ve got a perfectly good reason for trying to kill us.”
“This is reality, Junior, not a simulation,” Song-Ye said, but JJ didn’t notice any sarcasm in the girl’s tone.
The exotic ships released a cluster of golden spheres that exploded with a flash as bright as sunlight. JJ instinctively covered her eyes. When the flash faded, she saw that the blast had shredded the new solar-power array the Star Challengers had erected only two weeks ago with Major Fox.
A second bombardment took out three more solar collectors.
The lights in the Moonbase Control Center flickered. Ansari muted the persistent alarms, but emergency readouts flashed. The chief continued to shout into the comm microphone, hoping that one of the alien pilots would hear and understand. “Listen to me! We are peaceful—we have no defenses! Please cease fire!”
Major Fox groaned. “Never in my wildest imaginings did I think we’d need weaponry to protect this outpost. Moonbase Magellan was established for the good of all humankind.”
“I don’t think those attackers have anything to do with humankind,” King said.
The ominous ships circled back, firing on the moonbase modules.
Song-Ye suddenly gulped. “I have to save Newton!” She bolted out of the MCC.
“Don’t go to the ag bubble. It’s too danger—” Dyl yelled after her.
Song-Ye kept going. “Those ships are hitting the whole base. Every module’s dangerous.”
Dr. Romero ran after Song-Ye. “We’ve got to lock down what we can.”
Explosions coughed up slow-motion plumes of rocks and debris. Indignant, Dr. Wu cried out as he watched a cluster of the sunlike energy bombs strike his isolated astro bubble, wrecking the observatory dome and shattering the perfectly arranged hexagonal mirror segments. “Why?” he wailed. “What do they want?”
The next strike hit the bright greenhouse, shattering the interlocked crystalline roof plates.
“Song-Ye and Dr. Romero are in there!” King shouted. The cadets headed toward the corridor connecting to the ag bubble, only to encounter a harried-looking Song-Ye and Romero racing back toward them to the MCC. Their faces were flushed, dark hair blown in all directions.
“Rapid decompression,” Song-Ye panted. “We got out and sealed the bulkhead in time.”
“All the plants are destroyed,” Romero said. “The entire harvest! How are we going to survive?”
“Let’s worry about surviving this attack first,” Ansari said.
Though breathless, Song-Ye proudly produced the squirming hamster. “Newton’s safe.”
Once they were all back in the MCC, King stated the inescapable conclusion. “As long as we’re at the base, we’re a big target.”
“And what do you suggest we do, Cadet King?” Ansari said.
“Suit up and get to the Halley,” JJ answered.
“The fuel’s already over there,” Dyl pointed out. “It’s practically ready to launch.”
Fox considered the idea. “The ship is in the next crater. The aliens might not have targeted it yet.”
“How would we get all the way over there?” Bronsky asked. “A caravan out in the open?”
“We still haven’t solved the passenger problem.” Chief Ansari turned to the cadets, her face beseeching. “Please, all our lives are at stake. Activate the transportation system Commander Zota used to bring you here. We must evacuate. There’s no sense in keeping secrets anymore!”
Dyl locked eyes with her. “Don’t you think we’d whisk ourselves and all of you out of here if we could?”
“My brother’s right. We want to help you.” JJ couldn’t believe that Zota would have sent his Star Challengers up here to certain death. He’d told Dyl he came from the future. If that was the case, he would have known the moonbase was going to be attacked. It didn’t make any sense.
“Earth must be watching all this in horror,” Cushing said, his voice heavy with resignation. “We asked for their help. We warned them. Now, whatever they do will be too late.”
“We’re out of time,” Captain Bronsky said.
Ansari nodded. “We’ll hole up in the emergency bunkers. Once the aliens are gone, we can try to make it to the lander and take off.”
Major Fox remained grave. “We’ve been through all this, Chief. Even with an extra fuel tank, we’ve got too many people. Four of us will have to stay behind.”
“And without life support or the greenhouse or the solar-power panels, nobody can last long.” Dr. Wu groaned.
JJ tried to make sense of the situation. This couldn’t be what Zota had meant to happen. It couldn’t! The mysterious commander wanted to save Earth and change the future.
She came to a decision and spoke, her voice shaking. “You weren’t expecting us—a bunch of cadets. Maybe there is another way for the four of us to escape. When it’s clear, you all should get to the Halley without us and—”
“I will not leave children behind, even if I don’t know how you got here,” Ansari insisted. “You didn’t ask for this.”
“None of us did,” Dr. Wu agreed.
“We could draw straws,” Fox said quietly. “It’s an unbiased way to choose. In any case, I’ll stay behind. I have a clipped wing, so I’m not much use as a pilot, and—”
“Worry about that after we survive the attack.” Ansari turned to the cadets. “We’ll have to separate. You four, to the storm shelter in here, right now. Seal the hatch—you’ll be as safe as you can be. The rest of us will use the shelters in the hab bubble and ESM. Good thing the moonbase was designed for a much larger crew.”
“I sure hope the aliens run out of ammunition soon,” Dyl said as Song-Ye climbed down into the armored underground chamber that had protected them from the meteor storm. “Go ahead,” he said to JJ and King. “I’m less coordinated, so I’ll go last.”
The storm shelter would shield against typical hazards on the Moon, but JJ knew that the bunker hadn’t been designed with an alien attack in mind.
As the moonbase crew scrambled to get to other shelters, Ansari helped Dyl down through the hatch, and prepared to close it on the cadets. Her eyes rested for a moment on Dyl.
“Goodbye … if it comes to that, Chief,” he said.
“Let’s just get through the next hour, cadets. Once we see how many of us are left and what equipment we can still use, we’ll deal with the next problem.” Another bright flash lit up the MCC’s windowports as Ansari sealed the four of them into the bunker.
Even through the ground, JJ could feel the shudders of heavy explosions outside. The friends huddled together in silence as the interminable bombardment continued. Song-Ye held Newton, petting him to calm the creature as well as herself.
“Not quite what I expected from a Challenger Center simulation,” King said quietly.
“The invitation did mention it would be exciting,” Song-Ye said wryly.
Dyl leaned against his sister. “We aren’t going to get out of this, are we?”
She put an arm around him. “Donovan Dylan Wren! I don’t have the slightest idea how we got into this, but we will make it out.”
The heavy shocks continued, then a much stronger one. JJ hoped the rest of the crew were secure in the other bunkers. JJ refused to admit even to herself how afraid she was. She closed her eyes. Moon, sweet Moon.
Then came the sharpest jolt of all. Dyl yelped involuntarily as the bunker walls shuddered.
The power failed. The lights went out, plunging the bunker into the deepest blackness imaginable.
***
Twenty-Three
The darkness inside the thick-walled bunker pulled them down like a black hole. Popping, crackling sounds came from inside the moonbase above them. JJ shuddered. Please let it not be fire. Evidence of the alien attack still shook the ground, and JJ could only pray that everyone at the base was safe.
Then utter, eerie silence fell on the other side of the hatch. The lights flickered with some last gasp of reserve power, and in the brief flash JJ saw the frightened faces of her companions before the chamber fell dark once more.
“They must’ve fried the last of the solar collectors,” King said. “The powers gone.”
“Batteries should still have energy for emergency lights,” JJ pointed out.
“I don’t like this,” Song-Ye said.
“No argument here,” Dyl said. “In the movies, this is where we would either all wake up and it’s just a dream, or we’d go out one at a time and get killed by some freakish monster.”
Inside the pitch-dark bunker, they were just disembodied voices. JJ wondered if the sudden silence outside meant that all of the moonbase modules had been breached. Sound couldn’t travel without air. JJ spent long minutes desperately trying to think of any reassuring thing to say to her friends.
Finally they heard movement, the sounds of someone at the door. JJ drew a quick breath. “At least someone survived! We’re here!”
“What if it’s the aliens? What if they took over the base?” Dyl asked.
The controls moved, and JJ heard a door unseal with a whoosh of escaping air. But instead of the ceiling hatch, a door swung open directly in front of them.
Rather than a tentacled extraterrestrial creature, they saw the completely unexpected form of Commander Zota, framed in bright light. Behind him were familiar walls, chairs, carpeted floors—the Challenger Center!
“Greetings, and welcome back, cadets,” Zota said in his deep voice. “You had quite a mission.”
The kids let out a burst of cheers and sighs of relief. Song-Ye was the first to launch herself through the doorway into the world she now appreciated so much more. She looked all around in disbelief, her face streaked with tears. “We’re back on Earth!”
King stepped out beside the Korean girl. “How—how did you do that, sir?”
“We have so much explaining to do,” said Song-Ye. “We’ve been gone for weeks. There’s bound to be an uproar.”
Zota pressed his palms together. “Ah, do not worry. Remember, I have time-travel technology. I sent you into the future, but was able to bring you back only a few hours after you left. No one knows you were gone.”
Song-Ye stared at him, trying to absorb his words.
“We can’t possibly have done all that in just a few hours,” JJ said.
Zota gave her a cryptic smile, “It depends on how one measures time.”
King responded with a low whistle. “That was unbelievable, sir.”
“But real,” Dyl said, then leaned against a wall to steady himself. “We’re definitely back home. I … feel so heavy. Looks like I’ll need my crutches again.”
JJ felt it too and turned to help her brother. From the clumsy way Dyl moved, it was quite plain that they were back in heavy Earth gravity.
A squeak came from Song-Ye’s jumpsuit pocket, and she reached in to produce a squirming ball of fur. They all stared at Newton.
Zota said, “Young lady, you brought a hamster back … from the future?”
She looked defiantly at the commander. “I had to save him. He was my responsibility.” She held the furry creature close to her face, and Newton wriggled his nose.
Commander Zota’s expression was thoughtful. “I see you learned a great deal.”
“Newton is living proof that we were really there,” King said. “And he’s safe.”
“But … but the moonbase is under attack!” JJ blurted. “We have to help Chief Ansari and the others! What can we do for them?”
“Send us back,” Dyl said immediately, surprising his sister. “Only make sure we’re better prepared.”
“There will be plenty of time for all that. You are in your own time now. None of those events will occur for a century yet.” Zota welcomed them back into the small briefing room in the Challenger Center where they had started their adventure.
JJ looked toward the door they had just come through.
The familiar mockup with benches inside looked entirely unlike the moonbase storm shelter.
Yes, they were home.
“Everything you witnessed on Moonbase Magellan happened in my past,” Zota said. “Come, let me show you.” Sitting at his desk computer, he punched buttons and called up files to display a sequence of images that sent a chill through JJ. “In my time, the attack on Moonbase Magellan was the first outright aggression of the alien invaders, the Kylarn. The assault on the base came as a complete surprise. No one knew about the Kylarn base on the far side of the Moon. Nobody suspected.”
Zota played greatly disturbing distress calls for them: Chief Ansari’s familiar voice declaring an emergency, asking for help, though Earth hadn’t the slightest capability of sending a rescue. The moonbase transmissions cut off.
“These are the highest resolution telescope images we obtained from the orbiting space station complex.” The images were blurry and grainy, but they showed the crater that was so familiar to them now. Where the solar-power arrays and habitation modules had once been, the surface was freshly cratered, with debris strewn around it. The moonbase was gone.
“I’m going to be sick,” Dyl said.
JJ’s throat was painfully tight. “So the people we met at the moonbase … they all died?”
Zota blanked his screen. “Not necessarily. That happened in my past, but it doesn’t have to be your future … if you prepare.”
JJ looked up, a glimmer of hope replacing her dismay. “What do you mean? Do we change something? I mean, will we—did we?”
“Of course,” Dyl said. “Just by being there, we must have created a time paradox.”
“You changed the possibilities,” Zota explained. “You made your time count. Because the Halley caught a glimpse of the secret Kylarn base, which you encouraged moonbase personnel to investigate, the aliens were forced to react sooner than they otherwise would have. And because you helped fix the Halley, the moonbase crew had a chance. If they did survive the initial attack, they might have made it to the adjacent crater and the lander. They may have gotten aboard, taken off, and made their way back to Earth via the space station. Because of you, maybe it won’t be such a disaster.”
He looked at them all with an expression of great seriousness and hope. Unconsciously, he again touched the prominent scar on his cheek, and JJ decided that when the time was right, she would ask him exactly how he’d gotten it. “You may have helped those people on Moonbase Magellan, cadets, but the Kylarn threat is still coming. In my future, the human race is entirely unprepared to face the aliens. That is where you can help.”
“If it’s that far in the future, what can we do now?” King asked.
“Whether or not you’re aware of it, the invasion will begin in your lifetime,” Zota said, shocking them.
JJ pursed her lips, considering his statement. “All right, this is a lot to absorb. We have a million questions, and you’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Commander.”
“Yes, I do. And now, I think you are ready to hear it.”
Song-Ye pulled her cell phone from her jumpsuit pocket and dialed. After a moment, she said, “Winston? Can you pick me up a bit later? I think I’m going to be a while yet.”
***
Twenty-Four
“By now I’m sure you have no doubts that I truly am from the future,” said Zota. “I came back in time for this reason: to find you and train you. But there is much more to the story.”
“I’ll bet.” Dyl fished a notecard and pencil out of his pocket. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Zota gave him a serious look. “What you saw on Moonbase Magellan was only the beginning, the smallest hint of the terror and havoc that the alien invasion will inflict on Earth. I already told you that in my time, all around the world, students avoided studying the sciences that might have prepared them to solve the problems humanity would face. And we weren’t ready when the true disaster struck.”
“So you don’t just want us to be interested in science,” JJ said. “You have an ulterior motive.”
“Yes, I’ve come back in time to train you to save the human race. Is that an ulterior motive? My future needs you—and your entire generation—to learn science. Devote yourselves to problem-solving and technological advancement.”
Dyl nodded, taking notes. “So we should study math, physics, chemistry—”
“Engineering, geology,” JJ said, continuing the list.
“Medicine, biochem, computer science,” Song-Ye put in.
“Astronomy, of course.” King grinned. “But what about stuff like psychology and political science? They aren’t the same kind of science, but … ”
“Ah,” Zota said. “You make an important point. An understanding of such things is quite useful, especially since we need innovators and leaders.”
JJ grimaced. “True. Kind of saw some bad leadership firsthand—like the head of the CMC. We can’t let Earth’s space programs fall apart or get swept under a rug like that.”
A spark came into Zota’s eyes. “If you can keep the space program from faltering due to lack of interest, it might literally make all the difference in the world.
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