The Helium-3 Conspiracy

by Colin Setterfield

  Beth's face was ashen. "It has to be Chekov," she said with a shaky voice. Shou looked at her and nodded.

  "He very strange man!"

  Jet nodded in agreement with Shou. "We have to find him. He's not at the Base. We've checked the storage and elevator docking areas. Where could he possibly be? We also couldn't find any trace of Lui Wong."

  Beth chipped in, "What about Lui? Could she have killed the others? You did ask her to look into everybody's computers regarding the solar array incident!"

  "That could be true but I just don't see her murdering anyone," responded Jet emphatically. We need to find her and Chekov but in doing so we need to exercise extreme caution. Whoever it is has a gun and is not afraid to use it.

  Jet checked the wall clock above the sample station. It was 04:25 hours and they needed to form a plan of action. It was decided between the three of them that they should head for Processor Two. It appeared to be the only possible place where Chekov might be. If not, then they would head back to the Base and perform a search of all areas within its confines: closets, laboratory, gymnasium, and every possible nook or cranny where someone could hide.

  ∞∞

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hunting Down the Perpetrators

  Wednesday, July 15, 2026

  0433 hours

  Arriving at the Lunar Base airlock door produced the same grizzly sight to Ian and Darryl that had earlier confronted Jet and Beth. Ian felt the immediate reaction of shock starting to set in, a feeling of dread welling up in his soul. The two bodies looked ghastly in the airlock's outer light, with empty eye-sockets staring wildly and mouths wide open, as if cut short in mid-scream.

  Darryl opened the door, re-pressured the airlock, and they both moved through to the suiting-up area, removing only helmet assemblies. He noticed that eight spacesuits were still hanging in their assigned positions on the wall. That meant, including the two bodies outside without suits, at least four people should be outside at the dig sites and six within the confines of the base.

  The two men moved cautiously. Ian took the lead with Darryl close behind watching his back, both with the safety off their weapons, ready to fire at the slightest provocation. The Control Room, Lab and self-serve were empty and so was the gymnasium. The place had the feeling of a tomb. Every step they took was filled with the dread of what might confront them around the corner. Finally, they came to the sleeping quarters. The first room off to the right, off the main hallway, was John Miller's. They found him lying on the floor.

  Their worst fears were realized when Ian felt for Miller's pulse and found none. They moved to the next room, which belonged to Evgeni Chekov. Finding it empty they continued back, down the main hallway and immediately spied the body of Timmy Rose in a sitting position, back against the wall and head sideways at an angle. The remaining rooms belonging to Jet Goodman, Beth Eaton and Lui Wong were found empty. The two off-shift Robotic Operators next door to Beth's room had suffered the same fate as Miller.

  Ian motioned for Darryl to follow him back to the Control Room. He placed the semi-automatic carbine on a table and sat at a computer console. After entering a few commands he was greeted by a static screen and remembered that the outside main antenna had been rendered inoperable. It would appear that the antenna serving the dig sites had also been disabled.

  "I must try to raise EMC and let them know what's going on but, unless we can rectify this system, it'll have to wait until we get back to the space platform.

  Darryl sat down at the adjacent console and replied, "We should be looking for the missing staff members first. A killer is on the loose, and I'm just hoping we can find someone still alive."

  "Let's go then," answered Ian, standing up and grabbing the carbine. "We don't want to waste any further time here."

  The men moved back to the airlock and went through the procedure, replacing their gloves and helmets. Ian's HUD showed that the time was 05:20 hours as they moved out to commandeer the one remaining LTV. Ian plugged in his audio to the system, turned on the computer and spoke a command, causing the auto-drive system to come to life. The LTV started with a jerk as they moved off toward the distant dig site.

  *

  Jet, Beth and Shou stepped into Processor One's airlock and depressurized before stepping out onto the mezzanine. Jet still held the wrench and Shou had armed himself with a crowbar. There was, perhaps, one place they might find Chekov. He had been investigating a problem at Processor Two on a previous shift. Shou had accompanied him to check up on one of the Processor's mobile tracks which had threatened to jam up and cause the processor to start sluing to one side. This problem had caused the computerized traction stabilizer to shut down the operation more than once. It had happened twice on that shift and, although Shou had not been asked to check it this time, it is possible that Chekov had decided to check on it himself.

  The three miners moved as quickly down the stairway as conditions would allow and clambered onto the Beast. Jet gave the computer the instruction to take them to Processor Two. The Beast jerked and paused, the left-side wheels catching on a few small rocks before heading in the direction of the second dig site. With suit intercoms switched on, each astronaut was conscious of the silence as the LTV negotiated several outcrops of boulders, the computer deftly scanning the terrain in front of them.

  After a half-hour the Beast negotiated a shallow crater and there before them was Dig Site Two, the huge form of the looming processor, starkly silhouetted against the star-filled sky. Jet spoke to the computer again, giving it the command to stop, which it abruptly did, causing Beth and Shou to grasp the sides of their seats. Even in the weak gravity of the moon, an abrupt stopping of forward motion could sometimes cause untethered objects to overcome inertia.

  Jet, Beth, and Shou disembarked from the LTV and started to walk towards Processor Two. Their suspicions were heightened when they saw the third LTV parked close by. It took a few minutes for them to reach the stairs which they slowly ascended to stand on the mezzanine immediately in front of the airlock door. The motion sensor caused the door to slide open, and they stepped into the airlock, each with feelings of trepidation. Jet gripped his wrench tightly as the lock pressurized. When the gauge indicated the required pressure, they stepped into the suit-up area and removed helmet assemblies before Jet pushed the key to open the inner door.

  It slid open with the customary hiss revealing the sum of their fears. Chekov was standing there and had turned to see who had entered. His surprise appeared to be genuine as he turned fully to face them, his dark hair in disarray and molybdenum grease all over his hands. It would appear that he had brought in one of the moving parts from the processor's track system and had been busy working on it when the airlock door opened.

  "Welcome, comrades!" he bellowed in his heavy Bolshevik accent. "What brings you to Processor Two at this hour?"

  Jet and the others stared at Chekov not able to believe what they were seeing or hearing. The man they perceived to have killed off the majority of their staff members was working at the maintenance bench as though nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

  Jet, with wrench in hand, advanced menacingly, his eyes boring into the Colonel's. "How long have you been here?"

  Colonel Chekov looked a little peeved at the question. "What do you mean? I have been here most of the shift!" The Russian stood his ground as Jet and Shou advanced on him until they stood face to face. Chekov was beginning to perspire and the look on his face indicated his confusion.

  "Just about the entire staff at the Lunar Base has been murdered," screamed Beth from behind, "and you were missing from your room."

  Chekov looked at the three of them as if they had just contracted leprosy. "You must be out of your minds. I have been here since the beginning of the shift. It was actually my shift off but the processor tracking system started to go haywire. Shou was busy at Processor One so I said I would take a look at it, and I have been here ever since!"

  Jet was not
deterred by the explanation. "Where is the gun?" he asked fiercely.

  "What gun? I have no gun; why would I need such a thing on the moon?"

  Beth jumped in, "Because, Colonel, you are against what we are doing here. You have been sent by your country to disrupt the mining process. You are with those who are against the transition to Helium-3!"

  Chekov became visibly obnoxious. "I have never heard such rubbish. If someone is going around murdering the staff, it is not me. Not my country or I, have anything to do with such a vile intention."

  Suddenly a hiss of compressed air broke their concentration. The airlock door slid open and two suited men stood there. The tall astronaut held a semi-automatic rifle in his hands and the other had a Colt .45. The weapons were trained on the occupants of the main chamber.

  The two men stepped into the room and allowed the door to close behind them, still holding their weapons at the ready. The astronaut holding the carbine set his weapon against the airlock door and took off his helmet. "I am Colonel Ian Masters, pilot of the Spirit of Victory. This is Captain Thompson, my co-pilot," he said, gesturing to his colleague who still had the Colt pointed at the others.

  "We are with NASA, working on the Space Resource Retrieval Program. Who is in charge here?"

  Jet and Chekov spoke at the same time, but Chekov being military felt he outranked everyone else. Everyone tried to speak at once, and Ian raised his hand to stop them.

  "You will all accompany Captain Thompson and myself back to the Base. We will get to the bottom of this. As of this moment, all four of you are suspects in the murders of your colleagues. We will take two of the LTVs. Two of you will accompany Captain Thompson and the other two will accompany me. Let's get going."

  They all moved back into the airlock, giving Chekov time to don his suit before shuffling down to the LTVs. It took one hour to make the journey back to the Lunar Base. On their arrival Ian and Darryl ushered the others into the Control Room where Jet, Beth, Chekov, and Shou meekly took seats at the consoles, facing their captors.

  Ian spoke in a hushed but respectful tone, "My guess is that one of you four must have committed this unspeakable crime. There is, however, by my reckoning, one person unaccounted for."

  Jet spoke up. "My name is Doctor Jethro Goodman. I am the Resources Specialist on the program. The person that's missing is Lui Wong, our resident IT Specialist."

  Ian gave each person an opportunity to have a say, to explain their position, and who they were—each one denied being responsible for the murders. Finally, Ian spoke to Darryl, and they decided that everyone needed a rest. Ian suggested that each one be locked in their respective sleeping quarters for a period of six hours, after which time they would need to be ready for transfer to the space platform.

  All the door locks in the sleeping quarters could be remotely and individually locked or unlocked from the Operation Manager's console, an innovation that was included as a safety feature in the event of an emergency. This made it possible for the two pilots to ensure that their captives would be safely incarcerated while still having access to the rooms of the murder victims.

  The others, feeling the effects of all the tension and tiredness overtaking them, reluctantly agreed. Darryl searched the captives for a murder weapon, but found nothing. Then each person was locked in his or her room, leaving the two shuttle pilots to feed themselves in the self-serve.

  When they had eaten, Ian and Darryl performed the difficult task of gathering the dead, placing each one in a body bag, and depositing them next to the airlock.

  **

  The Mystery is finally Revealed.

  Wednesday, July 15, 2026

  1230 hours

  The Lunar Base had the feeling of a local morgue. Every time Ian and Darryl glanced in the direction of the airlock, the seven dead bodies next to the airlock entrance, enclosed in their plastic, body bags, exuded the macabre scene of a funeral home. Darryl had fallen asleep, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall in the Control Room while Ian busied himself, glancing through the computer log on John Miller's computer. The general business of the mining project was not password protected but John's private files were.

  Ian could feel tiredness flowing through his entire body and mind, like soft waves of grey foam, seeking out any fissure in his brain that would surrender access to sleep.

  The log was completed up to 1800 hours, July 14, the previous day. As he looked back in the entries, he noticed a record regarding the loss of signal to EMC due to the damaged antenna. Chen Ng had removed part of it for replacement. There was also reference to Jet Goodman's narrow escape from a meteorite at the solar array on Dig Site One. The word "meteorite" had a question mark behind it.

  The record indicated that part of a signal-receiving device had been found on the site in the solar array area. The following shift entry referred to three damaged excavators and a small video camera found on the roof of Processor One.

  It read like the log of a commander who was at war. Ian shook his head and closed off the log, making his own entries regarding their arrival on the moon's surface and promptly fell asleep with his head hanging slightly to one side and chin resting on his shoulder.

  Forty minutes later a sound woke Ian up, etching its way into his foggy, sleep-filled mind and causing him to almost fall out of John Miller's chair. The room was lit by a soft glow—he realized that the lights had gone off, causing the emergency lights to come on. For a moment he had no idea where he was and then it all came back to him. Moving to Miller's desk, he fumbled around in the drawer until his fingers found the standard flashlight always kept for emergencies.

  The noise Ian had heard sounded like two muffled gunshots in quick succession, but he thought his mind must be playing tricks. He focused the beam on Darryl, who was still fast asleep with his head tilted to one side and mouth hanging open, dead to the world. Suddenly, instantly awake, Ian turned to the computer and clicked on the sleeping quarters' door monitor program icon. He had earlier locked the rooms of Chekov, Goodman, Eaton and Satou, each room door was numbered and, when locked, was represented by a red light on the computer. All the lights were blinking green. Someone had over-ridden the lock control mechanism and unlocked all the doors.

  Ian grabbed the semi-automatic and shook Darryl awake. "We have a problem in the sleeping quarters!"

  Darryl quickly became lucid and grabbed the Colt .45 that had been lying on the floor next to him. They both moved in the direction of the sleeping quarters, as fast as the one-sixth gravity would allow, the adrenalin coursing through their veins.

  Ian took the lead, the rifle's stock held firmly against his right shoulder. He cursed his lack of cognizance. He should have realized the possibility that someone, who knew the system, might be able to override it. All it took was knowledge of how to gain access, a computer to hack in with and thereby make the relevant connection.

  The process of hacking systems raised a thought in Ian's mind as they moved quietly along the hallway.

  Lui Wong! She had been missing all this time—she was an IT expert.

  The two pilots turned a corner in the hallway and were confronted with a peculiar scene. In the luminescent effect of the emergency lights, it looked like a silent pantomime, acted out by unwilling actors, suddenly finding themselves cast for the scene.

  The flashlight lit up the sight more definitively. Lying on the floor at the door of his room was Chekov, blood pulsating from a neat, round hole in the side of his forehead. The Colonel's face was garnished with a look of total surprise as his open, sightless eyes stared at the wall. His lips were partly open, contorted into what probably started as a scream but ended without utterance.

  Shou Satou lay on the floor, holding his abdomen and he, too, appeared to have received a bullet, his face a mask of agony. Standing a little further down the corridor was Jet and behind him was Beth; they were facing each other. In Beth's hand was .38 Smith and Wesson with silencer, pointed directly at Jet's head.

&nb
sp; Jet screamed at her, "What's going on Beth? Why have you done this? You have killed all your colleagues—are you going to shoot me as well?"

  Beth looked torn. "I'm sorry, Jet, but this whole project has to be stopped. It will be the cause of millions on earth losing their livelihoods."

  Ian shouted out from his vantage point, "Miss Eaton! Stop and think—don't do this." He was sighting his rifle to take a shot at her, but Jet was in the way. There was a sudden movement behind Beth as the door to the janitorial cubicle opened and Lui Wong burst out into the corridor brandishing a broom in her hands.

  Beth did a half-turn, still keeping the gun trained on Jet but too late to stop the blow that landed squarely on the side of her head. In her surprise she pulled the trigger of the Smith and Wesson, shooting Jet through the right shoulder. Lui Wong was on top of her before she could get off another shot.

  Jet staggered backwards against the wall but had the presence of mind to grab Beth's gun-hand, wrenching it hard to one side. The gun went off twice more but nobody was hit. Ian and Darryl rushed forward to grab the gun out of Beth's hand and wrestle her to the ground. Suddenly it was all over.

  **

  Leaving the Lunar Base

  Wednesday, July 15, 2026

  1830hours

  The group of astronauts left the Lunar base with Ian Masters leading them slowly along the stark surface to the elevator terminal that served the space platform.

  The nine dead miners had been placed into the elevator capsule, leaving minimal space for the five, living astronauts to sit for the journey up to the platform. Shou Satou had unfortunately succumbed to his injury and was amongst the dead.

  Beth had been strangely cooperative after the shooting, seeing that her attempt to sabotage the mining process had partially succeeded—there was no fight left in her. She walked meekly between Jet and Lui, in resignation to her fate, knowing that the legal process on Earth would decide her future.

  The group arrived onboard the space platform at 22:00 hours and transferred all the body bags into the super shuttle's loading bay—due to the severity of the lunar tragedy, there would be no Helium-3 delivered on this trip. The astronauts boarded the Shuttle, with Ian and Darryl taking the controls. Beth's seat straps were reinforced with a gasbag tether to make sure that she was not able to get up and cause any mischief during the flight.