by Andria Stone
“Sure. We’re partners. We have to stick together.” Mark nodded toward Axel and Kamryn. “They are. So should we.”
The PA system in their waiting area crackled with static. “Attention all TMD personnel traveling to Lunar Base 3. Boarding will begin in five minutes. Thank you.”
Mark hardly had time to get nervous before eight soldiers appeared at the door, instructing the passengers to file into two rows. He and Eva paired off and were escorted onto a hover bus. It carried them to the far end of the hangar.
They got off in front of a spacecraft. A frighteningly beautiful warship. Arrowhead shaped, with a burnished silver hull, a sloped nose, and stub winged nacelles. Designed for a frontal assault, it bristled with six weapons to the fore, two in the aft section. Functional, yet aesthetically pleasing. It displayed sapphire blue Terran Space Command lettering, insignia, with the tail number: SS-N64.
Soldiers ushered everyone onboard. The officers were directed to seating in a forward cabin. The enlisted to the rear. Since the captains wore uniforms devoid of any rank or name tags, they were seated alongside the sergeants.
Flight crew members bolted the airlock hatch closed. Their uniforms were similar to the medics; pale gray full-length ballistic-proof bodysuits, bearing sapphire blue chest insignias of eagle’s wings surrounded by a circle of stars. The same Terran Space Command uniforms like the one his brother, Eric, had worn.
A voice over the ship’s comm announced, “Attention all TMD personnel. Harness up. One minute to liftoff.” Again, all interior lighting dimmed to a soft blue.
The vessel moved without a sound, only a slight vibration. He realized he felt relaxed, not anxious or nervous. Maybe the doctor’s medication had started to work. Good. He searched for the pills in his pocket. Found them, settled back, and tried to stay relaxed.
“You really do have a sister, Mark?” Eva asked in a small voice.
“Oh, yes. Her name’s Gina. We grew up outside Portland, Oregon. My backyard was the Pacific Ocean, Columbia River, mountains, trees—lots of nature. Mom is a dentist. Dad is a child psychologist. So growing up, I was a well-adjusted kid with perfect teeth.” He shook his head and chuckled.
“My brother, Eric, was two years older. My sister, Gina, is five years younger. I remember Grandma Hilde saying, ‘That Gina, she’s a real pistol.’ The night before my senior prom Gina snuck into my room while I slept. She colored my fingernails and toenails with a red permanent marker. When I woke up, saw what she’d done, I tore through the house threatening to kill her. She ran outside, laughing, and screaming like a banshee. I was right behind her cussing like a sailor. Mom jumped in her car. Chased us down. Got between us, made Gina get in the car. She took Gina to grandma’s for the weekend. When Mom came home, it took her hours to get that stuff off my nails. She never heard me cuss before. She didn’t say a word. I don’t think she ever told Dad.
“Anyway, Gina never wanted to go to college, like Eric and I did. She wanted to dance. Ballet. And she did—until she hurt her knee. That’s when she went downhill. Sunk right into a black hole. Wallowed in it for a while. Then she went to rehab. When she came out, she opened a yoga studio. She loves it. She’s happy again.” Mark made a face, adding, “She’s still a pistol.” Mark had prettied up the story for Eva. The horrifying parts would remain forever untold.
“Oh, that sounds like so much fun—except for the sad part about your sister.”
“Yeah, well, I could talk all day about the stunts Gina used to pull. What about you, Eva?”
“Me? My story’s not anything like yours.” Eva drew in a deep breath and began unraveling the different layers of her life. “My parents were born in what used to be called the Dominican Republic. Now it’s The United Caribbean. They were killed in Harlem when I was fourteen, and my brother, Dion, was seventeen. He quit school. Kept us together so I could finish. He never told me how he paid the bills. I didn’t ask. When I got a scholarship to MIT, he sent me pocket money so I could do things. After I graduated, I enlisted. Now I send him money. Last year he opened a small restaurant in Brooklyn. You could say we’re successful, despite what we’ve been through, except sometimes down deep, I don’t feel it. I miss him.”
Mark patted her small hand. “I miss my brother, too.”
Chapter 6
The captains sat in silence for a while, munching on energy bars until Mark broached the subject that had bothered him for days. “We need to collaborate on figuring out what Beth Coulter wanted with our research.”
“Agreed.” It seemed Eva had been waiting for him to bring it up. “With one provision. I can’t refer to her by name. I just can’t. So if it’s all the same to you, let’s refer to her as ‘BC’, unless you have something better, okay?”
“Agreed.” They exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Mark watched the woebegone expression fade from her face. “Col. Harben said the recovered data chip had megabytes of your Nano lab’s Classified Terraforming research on it.”
“Plus, classified advanced cybernetics research from your XB lab.” Eva lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you design the biotech to create cyborgs? Like the one you fought with?”
“No. That was a metal bot. It only looked human. The Terran military program began way before my time, with augmented replacement limbs on injured soldiers. It progressed to eyesight, hearing, and neural implants to repair certain kinds of brain damage. It’s simply a matter of modifying human biology with artificially enhanced biological cells. My work focuses on upgrades. Our military has almost one hundred augmented humans—cyborgs—if you want to call them that, split between the orbital Spacedock and Mars.”
“Have you ever seen one?
“Yes.”
“In action?”
“Yes.”
“How do they compare?”
“They’re human. They look like you and me. They’re intelligent, have free will, know right from wrong, they’re cognizant, sentient beings with exceptional abilities.”
“What would happen if you put them on a dwarf planet or a moon that has been terraformed?”
“That concept occurred to me the minute Harben said it. Wait, Eva. Take a step back. We’re thinking about this in the wrong order. Distance is the biggest obstacle. First: you must get to the astronomical body, moon, planet— whatever. And something with gravity as close to Terra’s as possible would be optimal.”
“Do you think we have that kind of long-range capability?”
“I don’t know. The Europa mission didn’t make it.” A chill always washed over him when he thought about Eric. “The cause is still unknown. Or so they say.”
“We can work around it. Maybe network to find others we know who might have gone into the propulsion field or aerospace engineering. Old classmates. Friends or somebody we dated.” Eva took a breath. “Okay, what’s next?”
“Second: manning the vessels—with non-human metal cyborgs to mitigate risks, for the long trips. No need for food or sleep, and immune to radiation and health hazards. With human cyborgs in cryopods.”
“Oooh, I’ve always wondered what it would be like…sorry—go ahead.”
“Third: using human cyborgs to do the terraforming. They’d have to be aware, perceptive, intelligent enough to design the habitats, plus physically capable of helping to manufacture the structures.” Mark stared straight into her eyes. “Reduced to its prime concept, Eva, it's world-building.”
Eva scrunched up her face. “This is one diabolically malicious plan.”
“Like spying on your fellow scientists and stealing their work? Like killing people and blowing up a military research installation? That kind of diabolically malicious plan?”
“Absolutely.”
***
The sergeants were ordered to keep their principals, the captains, under surveillance and protect them. The theory being—if a spy or terrorists could infiltrate a classified military installation on Terra—there was a possibility—slim, but still—the same could happen on Luna.
So the brass weren’t taking any chances.
While they were on TMD bases and transports, the sergeants remained vigilant. Kamryn’s background in undercover work helped them devise a plan to tag team their principals. During the trip, they played leapfrog; the one leading, switching with the one in the rear. Although, on the longest flight from Terra to the Spacedock, Axel watched the captains getting downright chummy, which had never happened before. He mentioned it to Kamryn.
“Didn’t you say he had a problem with going to Luna?”
Axel nodded.
“Well, maybe she knows it too, and is trying to keep him talking to take his mind off it?”
They flew into the orbital Spacedock. Crew members opened the airlock hatch. All passengers filed out through a tube, exiting into a holding area. Ten minutes later they boarded a shuttle through a tube on the opposite side of the room, which would transfer them to Lunar Base 3.
“Shuttle passengers please standby for liftoff.”
Everyone harnessed themselves in again. The interior lights switched to a dusky blue. In a few minutes, they arrived at their destination, Lunar Base 3.
Axel's party disembarked. They passed through a security barrier and received instructions to take the elevator down one level. As the doors opened, two soldiers stood waiting. They were escorted into a side room and issued full wraparound vests to wear, plus leg holsters, and sidearms.
“Lunar Base 3 is divided into quadrants,” said the taller soldier.
“Your new IDs are encoded with the location of your quarters, your work areas, plus restrictions to certain classified sections,” said the shorter one.
They were released to a hover bus that dropped them near their quarters. An annoying persistent low frequency humming background noise seemed to be everywhere.
“You two stay out here with Kamryn, while I check the room.” Axel unlocked the door, and stepped inside. It smelled stale, with a whiff of furniture polish. It reminded him of a cheap hotel room. Axel didn’t like this arrangement. Neither would Mark. They were both used to separate, nicer quarters. Nevertheless, he carefully searched their new rooms. Once satisfied, he brought the two captains in while Kamryn checked the quarters she would share with Eva across the hall.
“We’re living underground again?” Mark tossed his duffle on a bed. “And bunking together? I’m going to develop a terminal case of claustrophobia.”
“Well, this is larger than our last barracks.” Eva walked around, touching everything. “But not as nice as the ones in Canada. Listen, when Kamryn gets back, let’s go explore the base. We need to get our bearings. Maybe get something to eat. I’m starving.”
“Hold on,” Axel ordered. “No one’s going anywhere until these vests and weapons are strapped on. And your new commlinks, and tablets are synchronized.”
The captains retrieved the devices from their duffels, activating them in no time. Axel removed his shirt so he could instruct both in the correct sequence of strapping the vest on, also how to adjust the holster, sidearms. They followed suit.
Finally, Eva asked, “What’s taking Kamryn so long?”
Axel commed Kamryn. He waited. She didn’t respond. He sent a message from his tablet to their home base for them to check her geolocator interface. He waited. The base didn’t respond. Not good. Axel was beginning to get an eerie feeling in his gut.
Eva moved toward the door. “Let’s go find her.”
“No. It’s not protocol. If she’s been compromised, it’s stupid to follow her into a trap.”
Mark shook his head in disbelief. “So we abandon her?”
“That’s not what I said.” Axel moved over to the desktop keypad, tried to establish a link on the vid screen. No luck there, either. They’d been here less than an hour, and already one of them was MIA. Not good at all.
Without warning, Axel’s tablet vibrated in his pocket. Messages flooded into all their tablets, alerting them of disrupted transmissions caused by CMEs, Coronal Mass Ejections, or solar flares.
The door abruptly swung open. Kamryn stood there with her gun drawn, and a fierce look on her face like she could rip somebody’s heart out with her teeth.
Axel laughed. The captains started laughing—in between explanations of the solar flares and a communications blackout. Once Kamryn understood, she even started laughing.
Recovering, Eva said, “Let’s go eat.”
***
Directional arrows posted on the corridor walls pointed to all the major areas: Gym, Dining, Chapel, Emergency Services, Medical, Security, Transport, Flight Deck. A separate sign pointed toward the Plaza.
Eva stopped the first person she saw. “Excuse me, what’s the Plaza?
“Restaurants and shopping. Like a mall,” they were told.
“Forget the dining hall. I’m going to the Plaza.” Eva took off, the petite, shy, reserved Nanoscientist was shedding that persona, transforming before their eyes. Everyone scrambled to catch up.
The north side of the underground base housed about a dozen different food restaurants, plus a couple dozen retail businesses. Lots of people milled about. If not in uniform, most everyone wore rich jewel toned leather clothing; women in trendy knee-high boots being the current Lunar fashion. According to Mark, this could be a mall in Anytown on Terra.
Eva approached a woman in a honey-colored leather outfit. She asked where to purchase clothes. The woman pointed to a shop in the northeast corner. Eva asked her about food. The woman pointed to a nearby Oriental restaurant next door to a Mexican one.
“I’m up for cashew chicken.” Not waiting for approval, Eva rushed off toward the Golden Pagoda, with Kamryn in her wake.
Mark and Axel headed for the colorful eatery next door. The Cancún Cantina. It displayed a red and yellow striped awning for atmosphere. A few patrons sat at tables out front in a gated area, as if it were a sidewalk café. Canned mariachi music played in the background. The heavy aromas of salsa and tortillas whetted Mark’s appetite. He ordered the Especiale; tacos, enchiladas, chiles rellenos, rice, beans, guacamole, with chips. Not cheap, but undeniably delicious. Mark enjoyed himself so much that he had three beers. He would have had four, if Axel hadn’t given him a disapproving look.
Everyone met outside to explore what their new home had to offer. Many ethnic restaurants were present: Italian, German, Greek, Seafood, Southern, Heartland—meaning meat and potatoes. As they passed each one, food aromas wafted out like perfume.
Just beyond the eateries, Mark saw a man exiting a nondescript door tucked back into a small alcove. He was shoving a wad of cash into his pocket. Cash was an oddity these days. Walking away, he kept looking over his shoulder as if he expected, or feared, being followed. He disappeared around the first corner. Mark committed the location to memory.
A winding pathway led them to the clothing store indicated by the woman Eva had spoken to earlier.
“We get hazard pay now, so I’m treating myself.” Eva acted like a kid in a toy store. She splurged on a crimson red leather tunic, black leather pants, and knee boots.
Mark chose a dark blue jacket featuring rows of detailed stitching, black leather pants, and suede boots. The sergeants opted for black from head to foot.
On the meandering return trip to the barracks, they passed the gym, conveniently located next door to the firing range. Both would be used in the coming days.
Back at his quarters, the first thing Mark did was try to contact his parents. He stood in front of the vid waiting for a connection until Gina’s face filled the screen.
“Hi, Buvver.” Gina looked happy, fit, clear blue eyes with blonde hair waving around her face, and over her shoulders. She wore a skimpy pink floral yoga top.
“Hi, Ginny. Where’s Mom?”
“At the office, like she is every day at this hour.”
“Oh, I forgot the time difference. Listen I just wanted to let Mom and Dad know that my leave’s been canceled. I’m sorry, but I can’t make it home like I’d planned.”
> “Why not?”
Nosy Gina. “Change of command at the base. Big shake up. All our leaves are canceled. And just so you know, there’s been a lot of solar flare disturbance lately, so if you have any problems contacting me, it’s probably because the geosats have been affected.”
“Okay.” She leaned in closer. “Where are you now? That doesn’t look like your apartment.”
Nosy Gina—more lies. “Pipes burst. They’re remodeling. I’m in temporary quarters.”
“Oh, who’s that?”
“Who—where?”
“Behind you.”
“Uh…my new roommate.”
Mark saw Axel lurking at the edge of his peripheral vision. He stepped up beside Mark.
“Axel Von Radach. Pleased to meet you, Miss…”
“Gina Warren.” She batted her eyes and tried to look demure. Failed miserably. “What do you do? You’re not a Post Hole Digger.”
“Excuse me?”
“She means Ph.D. It’s a joke.” Mark gritted his teeth.
“Well, I guess you could say I have an SGT in Securities.”
“Oh my, a real live badass. I like this one, Mark. You can bring him with you the next time you visit.”
“No, no, no.” He had to end this before things got out of control. Axel and Gina were sizing each other up like hungry wolves. “Not going to happen. Got to go now. Tell them I love ‘em. Love you, too, Ginny.”
“Love you too, Buvver.”
“Bye, Axel. See ya.” Gina flashed him a megawatt smile—with dimples.
The screen went black. Mark exhaled audibly, feeling like he’d run a marathon.
“What’s a buvver?”
“Gina couldn’t say brother as a child. It came out buvver. I hate it—and she knows it.”
“You never told me you had a sister. Or that she’s…umm, stunning.” Axel looked like he’d seen something shiny, and was mesmerized by it.
“I also have a mother who’s a dentist and a father who’s a child psychologist. Now, you know all you need to about my family. And I’m going to bed.”