The Moon Platoon

by Jeramey Kraatz

  Drue cocked his head to one side. “Are we sure that’s English?”

  “Sounds like she’s talking in robot,” Benny said.

  “Newbz,” the girl muttered.

  Her suit said “Robinson,” but her first name was Ramona. Or at least, Benny was pretty sure that was right. She’d been jabbering quite a bit before takeoff, not to him or Drue but to the various electronics she’d brought with her. Benny thought her accent was British, but based on the gibberish she spouted he couldn’t be sure. Since blastoff, though, Ramona had hardly said a word. As far as Benny could tell she’d spent most of the flight with her head between her knees, braced for a crash landing.

  There were only supposed to be 100 EW-SCAB winners. Benny’s invitation had said so. Yet when the transport dropped him off at the launch site earlier that morning and he saw the rows of fifty shining Space Runners for the first time, the adults in charge mentioned that there would actually be 101 kids going to the Moon. Benny had been assigned to the vehicle with an extra kid in it. As he watched Ramona reach for a barf bag with shaking hands, he worried that his Space Runner assignment and the missing spider were bad omens for what the rest of his visit to the Moon was going to be like.

  Drue leaned closer to Benny. “If she pukes, I’m flushing her out of the emergency airlock.”

  Benny chuckled until he heard Ramona groan while wrapping her arms around her stomach. Then, feeling a little bad for her, he turned back around in his seat. In front of them, the Moon was getting larger by the second. Drue tapped on a few of the dashboard displays. Benny watched his fingers fly over the screens, adjusting the cabin lights and air-conditioning. He seemed right at home in the Space Runner.

  “No point in going back to sleep, I guess,” Drue said. “We’re only a few minutes from descent.”

  “Have you done sims for this or something?” Benny asked.

  Drue shrugged.

  “I have a few, but I never play them. My father has one of the first Space Runner models, so I’ve ridden around in it a little bit. They’re pretty easy to handle once you get out of the atmosphere.”

  Benny’s forehead scrunched up as he considered this, trying to figure out how someone whose family owned a Space Runner ended up winning an EW-SCAB. Perhaps Drue was just lying about his previous visit to the Taj and everything else. Or maybe he was a spoiled kid who lived in a shining tower in one of the luxury buildings for the richest of the rich that had sprung up when the cities began to be overrun with drought refugees.

  “So, what was your application vid like?” Benny asked, figuring this might get him some answers. “Why do you think Elijah picked you?”

  Drue shrugged. “I bet he saw some of himself in me. An adventurer. Brave, smart—a young Elijah! What about you?”

  “Well, some of it was of me pulling tricks in my dune buggy,” Benny said, grinning. “I got my hands on a floating GoCam for a few days and it caught me doing all sorts of flips and stuff out in the desert. You should have seen the height I got on some of the jumps. It was insane. Then this kid got separated from our caravan, which was really sad and all but I—”

  “Wait,” Drue said, jutting his head forward, one eye narrowed and the other opened wide. “Did you say ‘caravan’? Like, one of those groups of homeless people who live in what used to be California and Nevada and stuff out west?”

  “Well, yeah,” Benny said, the excitement fading from his voice. “But we’re not homeless. We just . . . camp a lot.”

  Drue’s expression twisted for a moment. Then he shook his head and opened his mouth a few times like he was going to say something, but only air escaped. Benny reflexively wiped his hands across his space suit, trying to knock any extra dirt off it. He felt his cheeks burn, and another, different heat rising inside him. Drue was again staring at him with a mixture of pity and disgust. Benny had seen that look countless times, sometimes even from members of the caravan—newcomers who had been driven out of the cities because they couldn’t afford it anymore, just like Benny’s family had been when he was a little kid. They’d hated the canned food or how they weren’t allowed to shower or take a bath because it wasted water, having to rely on old baby wipes instead. Mostly they complained about how boring caravan life was. Benny’s dad had been quick to tell him to be patient with these new recruits. He’d said their attitudes were just to hide how scared they were and that with time they’d come around. Not all of them did.

  His dad had always looked for the good in people. It was something Benny had always loved about him. He’d never even heard him say an unkind word about his mother, even though she’d walked out of their apartment one morning when they were still living in the city and never came back.

  Though, now, Benny couldn’t help but wonder if his dad maybe should have been more cautious around people. Then he might still be alive.

  Benny glanced to the backseat to see if Ramona had anything to say about their conversation; she’d plugged her ears with wireless headphones and was sprawled out with one arm over her eyes. So he tried to follow his dad’s advice and give Drue a chance. He kept talking.

  “Anyway, this kid, right? He got separated from the caravan. He was little, five or six, and you don’t survive out in the desert very long if you can’t take care of yourself or don’t have any water. I took an ATV out and found him. The GoCam caught all of it. Me picking him up in my buggy and everyone all excited when I got back and stuff. I think it made for a good vid. The aerial shots of us returning were pretty impressive.”

  “Wow,” Drue said. “Lucky for you, I guess. Did they give you a medal or something?”

  “No, it wasn’t about . . .” Benny started. “In the caravan we all try to look out for each other. It’s how we survive.”

  There was more in the application that Benny was leaving out—things like him helping others fix up their trucks and trailers, and teaching his younger brothers how to accelerate in the desert sand without digging themselves into a rut—but he didn’t figure Drue would be too impressed by all that. And there was another thing, too: the ending of the video, the last thing he filmed before sending it off to the EW-SCAB committee.

  But that was personal.

  Drue was quiet for a few seconds as he cracked his knuckles. Finally, he weighed in. “No offense or anything, but living in an RV in the Drylands sounds terrible. No wonder you’re so excited about space. Maybe you’ll luck out and get to stay at the Taj and then you can kiss the Drylands bye-bye.” He flashed a grin. “You can have a room next to mine. I’m going to be the newest member of Elijah’s Pit Crew.”

  “Yeah,” Benny said, trying to keep his cool in front of someone who’d just called his entire life terrible. “You and every other EW-SCABer thinks that. Right?” He motioned back to Ramona, who hiccuped—though he wasn’t sure if this was a response or just a coincidence.

  It was common knowledge that a few kids each year had been invited to stay at the Lunar Taj as permanent residents and pupils of Elijah West and his staff. Though no one really knew how these kids were chosen, it was rumored that from the time you got into your Space Runner on Earth, you were being watched closely. And while a dozen EW-SCABers had stayed on the Moon since the scholarship was founded, only five were considered direct apprentices to Elijah himself: his elite Pit Crew. One person from each year had been given this honor—the exception being the previous year, when twins from Tokyo accepted Elijah’s invitation.

  “Come on,” Drue said. “Like you’re not trying for a spot on the Crew, too?”

  “Nah,” Benny said. “What would I do when it’s just superrich people at the resort all the time? Besides, my family’s back on Earth.”

  Drue let out on laugh. “You’re nuts, man. But it’s probably for the best. I’ve got a lock on that spot.”

  Benny leaned back in his seat, ignoring Drue. What would his family be doing without him, in their dirt-covered RV? His brothers were likely wrestling in the one bedroom in the back that was barely big enou
gh for a mattress while his grandmother drove or worked on another of the multicolored quilts she was always putting together in order to make their little home feel cozier. He hated to think of their cramped house on wheels while he was hurtling toward the most luxurious resort in the solar system, but he reminded himself for the hundredth time that day that he shouldn’t feel bad about it. After all, when he returned to Earth in two weeks, things would be different for all of them. They’d stop scavenging for water and resources and move into an apartment. They’d have space. They could have their own rooms. Maybe he’d even have enough money for an entire house. Maybe a place with enough land that the dozens of vehicles that made up their caravan could camp on the lawn.

  Drue pressed more buttons on the Space Runner’s dash, changing the music. “This model does not have the upgraded sound package,” he muttered. “Weak.”

  The Space Runner suddenly jerked and began to slow, causing a tingle to run from the top of Benny’s spine down into his gut and Ramona to pop up in the backseat, bracing herself as best she could.

  “Error, error,” she murmured.

  “What did you do?” Benny asked Drue.

  “It’s so your first time in one of these.” Drue smirked. “We’re just slowing down for the final descent. You nervous?”

  “Not at all,” Benny lied.

  “It’s only the Moon,” Drue said, putting his hands behind his head. “Trust me: by the end of the second week you’ll be hoping for an alien invasion to keep things interesting.”

  “Now that would be a story to take back to my brothers,” Benny said.

  “Maybe the news is wrong and there is intelligent life out there.”

  It had been a decade since a deep space probe had found what scientists believed to be an abandoned alien outpost on Pluto. A few rock samples and tools were brought back to Earth by a collection bot, but it was widely believed by scientists that the place had been empty for millennia. Still, Benny figured that in the whole wide universe, there had to be other forms of life.

  “Actually, I hope we’re the only smart species,” Drue said. “If not, then it’s only a matter of time before all the aliens out there on sad planets figure out that the Taj is the nicest place in the galaxy. Then it’ll be really hard to get into.”

  Benny snorted. “True. I’ll be good with catching air in Moon buggies and exploring craters. And if I do somehow get bored, I’ll just pull some pranks with the voice modulator I brought with me from home.” At least his brothers hadn’t swiped that, too.

  “Voice modulator, huh? Old school. But I can see where it could be fun.” Drue flashed a set of perfect white teeth. “Benny, I think you and I are going to get into a lot of trouble together.”

  3.

  The Lunar Taj was a brilliant red palace adrift in a sea of gray. From space, the five-hundred-suite compound looked like a W, the top of which butted up to a dark section of the lunar surface that Benny had read was called the Sea of Tranquility. A tower rose from the center of the building—the middle peak of the W. Huge, scalloped sheets of gold topped it, all layered over one another, as if the building were crowned in a fireball frozen midexplosion. It was a popular rumor that this was where Elijah West’s private quarters were located because the man refused to sleep at a lower elevation that anybody else, though Benny wasn’t sold on this particular story. He liked to think that Elijah was the same kind of person his father had been—just much, much richer. His father had slept on the floor of the RV or sometimes on the ground outside, letting his boys take the one big bed in the back and Benny’s grandmother have the mattress in the alcove above the driver’s seat. He was the kind of guy who wouldn’t close his eyes for days if it meant that other people in the caravan could get some rest, and would chase the wildest leads in search of water, never giving up hope that tomorrow would be better. Always looking for an oasis in the desert.

  Benny tried to live his life in the same way, believing that the future held great things for him and his family if they just worked hard enough. The EW-SCAB was kind of like their own unexpected oasis, he figured.

  Inside the Space Runner, Drue pointed to a long chrome tunnel jutting out from one side of the transparent dome that was barely visible around the Taj.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” he said. “And there’s another, smaller entry tunnel coming out of the garage—that building.”

  He motioned toward a shiny cube beside the Taj that looked like a period next to the W.

  “You should maybe brace yourself,” he continued. “This part can get kind of bumpy.”

  Benny glanced back at Ramona, who made a noise that was part gasp, part burp as she tightened her seat belt around her waist. He clenched his jaw and tried to put on a brave face, partly to make her feel less afraid and partly to trick himself into not being concerned about turbulence or what landing would be like. He was good at that. In his twelve years on Earth, he’d made sure that his little brothers had never seen him look frightened or worried, even once. Even when they were running short on water or having trouble finding a part to get their RV running again. He’d gotten pretty good at pretending everything was always okay. It was only after his family had gone to sleep that he’d let himself be afraid of anything.

  Through his window, Benny watched as the fleet of Space Runners holding the other EW-SCAB winners began to drift toward one another. They were definitely the shiniest cars Benny had ever seen, the outside made of a silver metal so polished and reflective that it almost looked as though they were comets flying through space. They continued to slow in speed, until eventually they stopped moving completely about a mile above the Moon’s surface.

  “Ugh,” Drue said, reclining. “This is the worst part.”

  Benny had just enough time to wonder if they’d stalled before all the vehicles were diving forward, heading toward the silvery tunnel. Benny gasped, goose bumps prickling all over his body as they sped toward the Moon’s surface. It looked to him like they were going to plow right into the ground. Fortunately, the Space Runners were precision vehicles, and just when Benny was sure they’d crash, the cars all pulled up, changing flight patterns like a flock of silver birds, until they floated mere feet above the rock below as they raced into the tunnel connecting them to the Lunar Taj.

  From the outside, the entrance had looked like nothing more than a long, shining chrome hallway. Inside, however, the walls were awash with a rainbow of color, casting a kaleidoscope of reflections all over the Space Runner and its interiors.

  “This is incredible . . .” Benny murmured as he held out his hands and watched the colors run over them.

  Suddenly Benny’s gut felt like it was twisting into knots. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and leaned forward. That’s when his ears popped, and the roar of the vehicles vibrated in his head, escalating until Benny thought he could actually feel the sound.

  Ramona let out a worried gurgle from the backseat.

  “We’re entering the pressurized zone,” Drue said, stretching his jaw. “Don’t worry. We’re almost through already.”

  Suddenly the colors and the roar were gone, and the Space Runners sped into the Taj’s courtyard: the Grand Dome. One by one the cars circled in front of the resort, giving Benny his first real look at where he’d spend the next two weeks. His eyes darted about, trying, impossibly, to take in everything at once. The Lunar Taj had looked like a W from space, but up close it was something else entirely, a playground of light and color and shiny surfaces. The building itself was built out of a dark, gleaming red metal. Gold stairs led up to the chrome front doors, which were twelve feet tall, at least. The windows, too, were outlined in glittering metals. In fact, it seemed to Benny as if everything was ablaze with light, from the tower roof with its blooming sheets of gold to the spotlights casting projections of star systems onto the sides of the building, as if the resort itself were a secret galaxy all its own. On the ground, plants of unnatural colors blossomed in bejeweled pots: palm trees w
ith electric blue fronds, metallic roses, shrubs made of neon.

  The sight of the Lunar Taj was enough to cause him to forget about the popping in his ears and spinning in his stomach. In the backseat, Ramona muttered a string of indecipherable exclamations as she stared out at the sparkling building.

  “Impressive, right?” Drue asked as he watched Benny shove his face against the car’s window. “I want a resort of my own like this one day. Built like a big L. No, no. All my initials. DBL spelled out across Jupiter.”

  “Isn’t Jupiter mostly gas?” Benny whispered, not taking his eyes off the Taj.

  “You know what I mean.”

  The Space Runners lined up in five neat rows in the center of the courtyard, near a big chrome statue of a hand reaching out of a pool of water, its fingertips almost grazing a solar system of gemlike planets orbiting it. Benny’s vehicle parked itself in the back corner. Once it was stopped and the doors unlocked, he took a second to catch his breath and then climbed out onto the inky black gravel. Ramona spilled out of the backseat, basically throwing herself onto the ground.

  “Eagle has landed,” she whispered. “Environment stabilized. Stand by for system diagnostics.”

  “Uhh . . .” Benny started, but she waved for him to leave her alone as she climbed into a sitting position, leaning against the side of the vehicle.

  The other kids were exiting their Space Runners and gathering near the fountain in front of the resort. Benny hadn’t really met any of them back on Earth. In fact, half the Space Runners had taken off from different parts of the world and joined his group once they were already in flight. The scholarship winners came from all over the globe, sporting everything from shaved heads to waist-length braids woven with metallic thread, but they were all united in their awe of the resort in front of them.

  Except maybe Drue, who pushed his floating travel bag around to the passenger’s side, stepped over Ramona’s legs, and put his hands on his hips.