The Moon Platoon

by Jeramey Kraatz

  “Elijah!” Drue whispered, reaching for the door handle.

  “Shh!” Benny shot forward and stopped his hand. “They’ll make us go to our rooms or something. Just listen for once. What are they saying?”

  Max’s face was pale, causing his minty hair to look even brighter. “They came out of nowhere.”

  “They came from somewhere,” Elijah said, his voice on the verge of shouting.

  “We should evacuate.”

  Drue gasped again. Jasmine started shaking her head so quickly Benny was sure the car was rocking. He leaned against the backseat window, trying to hear more.

  “That would be unwise,” Pinky said. “Space Runners are ill equipped to deal with a large-scale asteroid assault. My sensors are also picking up foreign elements lurking miles above the Moon’s surface, suggesting not all of the asteroids fell. The safest course of action is to stay inside the Lunar Taj’s protective shield.”

  “What have you got on the Space Runner that went down?” Elijah asked.

  “EW-SCAB winner Grace ‘Hot Dog’ Wilkinson was the pilot. The storm has interfered with our communications, though the last broadcast from her vehicle indicates that she was taking emergency measures and likely preparing for a crash landing.”

  “Holy crap!” Drue said. Benny clamped a hand over his mouth. No one outside the car seemed to have heard him, because Elijah continued, tapping one gold-tipped boot on the floor.

  “Give me something I can use, Pinky,” he said.

  “I have triangulated the area where it is most likely that the craft crashed, but I’m afraid that given the minimal data I have to work with and her erratic flight patterns, the location isn’t very precise.”

  “How big is the search area?”

  “Eighty-seven square miles.”

  Elijah nodded. “All right. We’ll find her.”

  “What? Elijah, be serious,” Max said. “That search area’s the size of a city. The girl could be anywhere. We don’t even know if she’s alive. What if there’s another storm? You’d be trapped out there unprotected!”

  Benny felt suddenly nauseous.

  “That girl is my responsibility. I invited her up here.” Elijah held out his hand. Bo pulled a pair of gold sunglasses out of one of his coverall pockets and handed them over. “Lucky for her, she’s got the best driver in the galaxy looking for her.” He turned to Ash. “The Vette.”

  Ash tapped on her HoloTek. A yellow car with wide black racing stripes powered on and drifted slowly to the center of the garage.

  “Man, look at that thing,” Drue whispered. “I’m in love.”

  “Fine,” Max said. “But don’t come back pointing fingers at me about things going wrong. We should be in the off season as of this morning.” His voice got quieter. “At least we got all the celebrities and CEOs out of here before this mess started.”

  “Kira, Kai, I want you in Space Runners searching the craters from above,” Elijah said, pointing to a floating hologram map. The same maps appeared in front of the Pit Crew members, with Elijah’s markings highlighted. “Sahar, we’ll start on opposite ends of the search site and make our way toward the center.”

  “Hai,” the Miyamura twins said in near unison. Sahar nodded. Without being asked, Ash McGuyver tapped on her HoloTek and three Space Runners floated into the center of the garage—two white, one green.

  Elijah looked at the three of them for a moment and then shook his head. “I thought we had more time.”

  “More time for what?” Jasmine whispered.

  “Pinky, where’s the rest of my Crew?”

  “Trevone is currently running analyses on the Taj’s backup oxygen generators. Ricardo is carrying two EW-SCABers, who tripped in the panic, back to their rooms.”

  Elijah turned to Max and the McGuyvers.

  “When Ricardo’s done send him out to help with the search. Communications may be disrupted within the Taj, but we’ll be able to broadcast to each other via shortwave out there.” He marched toward the yellow Corvette, Sahar and the twins following. “Pinky, primary objectives: One, ensuring the safety of all of our guests. Two, warning any nearby space stations or ships about the possibility of further asteroids or debris. Three, get in contact with Earth.”

  “Directives confirmed,” Pinky said. “But my readings show that due to satellite damage, our ability to communicate off-Moon has been substantially hindered. I can’t get through to Earth.”

  “Then run a diagnostic. See what we need to get full communications back online. Get Trevone on it.”

  “Consider it done. And Elijah . . .” Pinky’s electronic voice softened. “Be careful out there, you reckless fool.”

  Benny could see the flash of his white teeth.

  “I always am, Pinky,” the man said as he put on his sunglasses. “Open the auxiliary pressurization tunnel.”

  The Vette’s door closed, and then the car was shooting through the garage tunnel, the Pit Crew following.

  Max swore under his breath and waved at the McGuyvers. “I’ll go find Ricardo. I’m surprised that kid isn’t falling over himself to check on Elijah already.”

  As they walked toward the exit leading to the Grand Dome, Benny and the other two Mustangs hiding in the Space Runner ducked down, trying to not even breathe very loudly. They stayed like that for what felt like a long time. Benny started to sweat, thinking about everything he’d just heard and witnessed.

  Finally Drue spoke, letting out a huge breath. “Well . . .” he said. “At least the asteroids stopped?”

  “This is insane,” Jasmine said, getting out of the car. Benny and Drue followed. “We should get back to our rooms. They’re probably taking attendance and trying to make sure everybody’s accounted for.”

  She started to move toward the exit, but Drue stepped in front of her.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he said, a smile creeping across his face. “Think about this for a second. This could be kind of a lucky break. Our chance to get noticed. To make a name for ourselves.”

  “Our ‘lucky break’?” Jasmine asked. “Are you nuts? Hot Dog is stranded out there somewhere!”

  “Get that big brain working, Jazz.”

  “You’re never going to learn my name, are you?”

  “Come on,” Drue continued. “If we were to go out looking for that missing Space Runner and found Hot Dog, we’d be heroes, right? Elijah would love us for that. We’re already in the garage. We’d just have to hop into a car.” He turned to Benny, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t lie. You’re totally itching to take one of these prototypes out for a spin.” Drue leaned on the Space Runner beside him, stroking it with one hand.

  “Well . . .” Benny had to admit that there was a certain appeal to the idea. “Wait, you’re just saying that because you’re trying to figure out how to make up for losing the race.”

  Drue ignored him.

  “Jazzzzzz,” he said, drawing out her name. “Hot Dog’s out there. She’s our friend!”

  “You just met her,” Jasmine said. “So she’s not really your friend. I actually don’t think she likes you very much.”

  “Oh, come on. Aren’t the odds of her getting rescued way better if there are more search parties? That’s solid math. And don’t you want to impress Elijah with not only your brains but your bravery, too?”

  “I don’t do things like this,” Jasmine said. “It’s not who I am.”

  “Maybe not. But this is how you make a name for yourself. This is how you get invited to stay at the Taj when everyone else goes home in two weeks.”

  Jasmine thought about this for a few seconds, fiddling with the necklace she’d taken out of her space suit.

  “Well, technically the odds would be better,” she admitted.

  “Look, if you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but at least don’t rat Benny and me out.”

  “But I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “Neither do I!” Benny added.

  “Benny.” Drue turned to him,
jutting his hands out at his sides. “Come on, dude. Isn’t saving lost people kind of your thing?”

  Benny started to say no, but the words caught in his mouth. He thought of how happy the kid who he’d rescued out in the desert had been to see him. And then he imagined telling the story of how he saved a downed Space Runner pilot to his brothers when he got back to Earth. About how he’d faced an asteroid storm and the cold surface of the Moon to find her.

  Plus, Drue had a point. Elijah would have to notice them if they succeeded. Benny wouldn’t mind that.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

  “Do you even have any idea what to do if you get stranded out there?” Jasmine asked. “Or what kind of oxygen levels you need to make sure you stay conscious if your systems fail? We’re not talking about an autopiloted trek from Earth to the Moon. Do you even know how to manually engage your space helmets if you have to?”

  “Um . . .” Benny said. “I guess not?”

  Jasmine shook her head. She raised her fingers and pinched the bridge of her nose. Finally, she let out a long sigh. “If you two are going to do something idiotic like this, I think I have to go along with you. Otherwise I’d feel guilty forever if you died.”

  “That’s . . . good?” Benny asked.

  “Jazz, you’re not going to regret this,” Drue said.

  “I already do.”

  “Wait,” Benny said. “How do we even get out of the tunnel?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Pinky controls it, right?”

  “She’s probably superbusy right now with everything that’s going on,” Drue said quietly. “Maybe we could sneak past her?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “I think I know someone who could help us with that.”

  She pulled out her HoloTek and started tapping on it. Benny narrowed his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Sending a message to someone.”

  “That doesn’t look like English? What is it, a code or something?”

  “Technically, yes. It’s binary.”

  Drue turned back to the Space Runner they’d hidden in. Only then did he seem to notice that half the car’s parts were sitting beside the vehicle.

  “Uh, so, I don’t think this one’s going to work,” he said.

  “We’ll take something else,” Benny said. He started toward one of the dune buggies when something else caught his eye—an electric green sports car with the word Chevelle spelled across the trunk in shining chrome.

  He thought of his father. He’d always wanted an old-school muscle car, but they were such gas-guzzlers that they never made sense in the caravan. Still, some of Benny’s best memories were times when they’d come across a functional classic and gone out into the desert to drag race against the backdrop of the setting sun, ignoring the wasted gas and resources for just a few minutes while Benny sat wide-eyed and grinning in the passenger seat, fingers gripping his seat belt as he wondered if at any moment the shaking, roaring vehicle might launch them into space.

  Now he had the chance to sit behind the wheel of one himself. Wouldn’t his father have loved to see that?

  “Drue,” Benny said with a grin, thinking back to all the cars, trucks, and RVs he’d worked on in the caravan. “You want to learn how to hot-wire a car?”

  10.

  It didn’t take much convincing to get Ramona to hack into the garage’s security systems and bypass Pinky’s controls. In fact, from what Benny could tell, she’d have done it even if they weren’t going out to try and find one of their missing teammates. After only a few minutes of tinkering on her old, custom HoloTek, the tunnel was open and Benny, Drue, and Jasmine were in the borrowed Chevelle shooting toward parts of the Moon unprotected by the Lunar Taj’s force field.

  Since Benny was already in the driver’s seat while hot-wiring the car, he took the wheel despite Drue’s many, many objections. Drue might have had skills in a Space Runner, but they were driving on the ground, now, out over rocks and craters. This was the kind of thing Benny excelled at.

  Besides, he was pretty sure they were all a lot safer with him calling the shots. If he was going to do this, he was going to make sure it was done right. Plus he got the feeling Elijah and Ricardo didn’t have the best impressions of Drue, so if they did get in trouble, Benny didn’t want Elijah to think he’d been talked into this by the senator’s son . . . even if that was kind of true.

  He stopped the car outside the Taj’s dome once they were clear of the tunnel. It was hard to believe exploding rocks had just bombarded the place—except for some black marks, the dome looked untouched. The ground outside its protection, though, was dotted with deep, scorched pits in the Moon’s crust.

  “I’m kind of impressed that weirdo girl got past Pinky,” Drue said as he stared out at the gray landscape.

  “She’s incredibly good with tech,” Jasmine huffed. She tapped on her HoloTek in the backseat, pulling up maps and various calculations. “Just because she speaks in jargon doesn’t mean she’s weird.”

  “No, it means she’s weird and smart. I’m guessing that’s something you’re a little familiar with.”

  He said this nonchalantly, but Benny saw Jasmine cringe in the rearview mirror. He was beginning to think maybe Drue wasn’t actually trying to be annoying—he just didn’t know any better. Still, Benny decided it would be best to change the subject.

  “How’d you know she’d help us?” he asked.

  Jasmine shrugged. “That second set of binary she had up in the common room was a joke about how a state-of-the-art AI would never beat someone with a brain. I figured she’d jump at the chance to get a better look at Pinky’s operating systems, if she hadn’t already.” She glanced up from her HoloTek. A map was now illuminated on the screen installed in the Chevelle’s dash. “All right. I’m going to take us to the center of the search area. Elijah and Sahar shouldn’t have gotten there yet. You’re going straight for about fifteen miles, and then we should come to a big crater. Got it?”

  Benny just grinned. He was at home behind the wheel. He could almost imagine that his little brothers were strapped into the backseat, begging him to punch the throttle and send them flying over desert dunes.

  Almost. There were plenty of modifications the McGuyvers had made that kept the car from feeling too familiar. Gravity stabilizers served the dual purpose of creating a force field around the passengers and keeping the vehicle horizontal—not to mention tethered to the ground. Still, there was more than enough power under the hood, and for the moment Benny forgot that he ever had reservations about taking the car out. Unlike the fairly quiet Space Runners, the Chevelle’s engine purred, rattling the steering wheel, daring Benny to push its engine to the brink.

  “Buckle up,” Benny said, revving the engine. “Let’s see how this thing handles on the open Moon.”

  Before the others could respond, Benny slammed his foot down on the accelerator, sending them roaring away from the Taj, kicking up a cloud of gray dust behind them.

  “You’re . . . not a bad driver,” Drue said as Benny shot them across the lunar surface, dodging small craters and drifting through turns. He clung tightly to the roll bar at the top of the car.

  “I’m good with things that have tires,” Benny said, kicking the car up into another gear. “It’s space I’m not used to.”

  He glanced at the rearview mirror. Jasmine was in the middle of the backseat with both arms out, bracing herself. Her eyes were wide, and, as the Chevelle bounced over a dip in the ground, a high-pitched yelp escaped her lips.

  “Jasmine, you still okay to navigate?” Benny asked.

  “Yeah!” she said, fumbling for her HoloTek. “I preloaded the map and an accelerometer is gauging your speed so I think it’s pretty accurate.” She sat back in her seat again before adding quietly, “Hopefully we don’t run into Elijah or the Crew. We’ll get reprimanded and cut into their search time.”

  “The worst they can do is send us back to the Taj, right?” Drue a
sked, a smile growing across his face.

  “No, the worst thing he can do is think we’re a bunch of delinquents who never should have been invited to the Moon,” Jasmine said. “I hate this. The only time I’ve ever been in trouble was when a foster family grounded me for baking dozens of batches of cookies. But that was for science! I was trying to figure out how different ingredients would affect the end result!”

  “Lighten up, Jazz,” Drue said, turning around in his seat to face her. “Remember that the C in EW-SCAB stands for courage? Live a little. Steal a car and go searching for your lost friend on the Moon.”

  But Benny knew Jasmine brought up a good point. What if Elijah did regret giving them the scholarships? What if he decided to take back the cash prizes?

  How could he face his family if he was kicked out of the EW-SCAB on day one?

  He blinked and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, turning his attention to the terrain in front of him. Now was definitely not the time to lose focus.

  “Hold on, guys,” Benny said. “We’ve got a jump coming up.”

  “That’s the big crater I mentioned,” Jasmine said. “Maybe you should go around it instead of—”

  But Benny had been over plenty of dunes before and was sure he knew what he was doing. They hit a hill and flew into the air, something he’d done a thousand times in his ATV back home. What he didn’t take into account was that they were in lower gravity: the Chevelle didn’t just drop back down to the surface but propelled up and forward at a remarkable speed, like it was going to launch into space.

  “Uhhh,” Benny groaned. “Oops.”

  “Hey look!” Drue said, pointing out the window. “I think I see one of the Miyamuras, like, fifty miles away.”

  Jasmine closed her eyes and murmured to herself: “This will be okay. You aren’t going to die with these two imbeciles in the cold vacuum of space.”

  But they didn’t leave the Moon’s gravity. Instead, they followed a long, high arc over the surface. When they finally did start to come down, the car nose-dived toward the ground.