“That was interesting,” Everett said, looking up at the swaying lights.
“Not as interesting as this,” Niles said as he gestured to a flat area fronted by a large rock wall. There, lined up in neat rows stretching for a quarter mile to the right and left, and unseen if you stayed on the trail leading to the dead end, were what looked like graves. Each one had a marker, some larger than others.
Collins and Sebastian reached for their large flashlights and shone them on the first few markers. The lighting here was far dimmer than the rest of the excavation, being blocked by a large lava wall created many millions of years before.
“Unknown Soldier.” Sebastian read the German words from the first marker. “Waffen SS, 12 December 1944.”
Jack shone his light down the first row until it became too weak to carry further.
“Jesus, from what I can see, they were all buried within three days of each other,” Everett said, moving further down the line.
“What do you think, Mr. Director? Cave-in?” Jack asked Niles.
“From the looks of that wall of rock, that seems like a safe bet,” Niles said. He turned to face Collins. “At least so you would think. Then again, if you’re like me and the senator and have been picking up all these expended rounds on the cave floor, you might want to reevaluate that guess.”
“So you were looking too,” Sebastian said while he scanned more of the grave markers.
“Pretty hard to miss, Major,” Niles answered, brushing some of the dust off the stone markers. “They took the time to use machines to etch their service branch and date of death, but no names.”
“I estimate over a thousand graves. Four rows,” Everett said as he returned to the group. “The markers go all the way to the cave-in, or whatever it is.”
Collins walked with Niles toward the dead end of rock and dirt. He reached down and brought one of the fist-sized stones to his face and shone the flashlight on it.
“What is it, Jack?” Niles asked. He raised his head and looked around.
“This isn’t rock,” he said. He looked up at the massive fall. “It’s concrete. And look here-there’s a larger piece.” Jack kicked at a one-foot-by-two-foot chunk of white concrete.
“Maybe it was just landfill that the Germans threw in here.”
“Or maybe this was an entrance to another gallery. The sign back there said we had entered gallery number one, but we haven’t come across any others.”
“Good point, Jack,” Niles said, turning to reevaluate the mass of rock and concrete before him.
“Maybe this will shed some light on your speculation, Colonel Collins,” a voice said from behind them.
Jack and Niles turned to see the Vietnamese sniper, Tram, holding a large sample of stone out for them to see. The rock was ancient lava that had darker markings on it. Jack took the sample and turned the light on it.
“Maybe burn marks from the original lava flow,” Niles said.
Jack rubbed his thumb over the scorch marks and rubbed the soot between his thumb and fingers. He brought the mixture to his nose. Then he held his fingers out to Tram.
“Smell familiar, Private?” he asked.
Tram sniffed and raised his brows.
“Semtex, or something like it-maybe some sort of dry explosive. Not any kind of plastique.”
“Possibly something the German army or Waffen SS would use?”
“I’m not that familiar with World War II explosives, Colonel, so I will rely on your historical expertise,” Tram said.
“Handy little fella to have around, isn’t he?” Niles said as he watched the Vietnamese soldier head for the opening that led back to the trail.
Jack smiled; “You don’t know the half of it, Niles,” he answered, tossing the rock toward Carl. “What do you make of that?”
Everett smelled it, then actually tasted it. He looked at Jack.
“Cordite, some kind of explosive,” Everett said. He looked up at the blockage. “I guess we know now that the Germans brought this down to block the entrance to something.”
“Let’s see if we can get in there. Niles. Could you go back and get the senator and Alice to rest as best they can? I’ll get a detail down here with food and water and sleeping equipment. Maybe a medic to keep a closer eye on the… well, we may need a medic here anyway,” Jack said. He turned to face Everett and Sebastian. “Hopefully our Polish friends or SEALs brought some explosives along with them.” He looked at his watch. He frowned when he saw that he was past his self-imposed deadline.
“What time do you have, Jack?” Everett asked.
“ Dark Star 3 just entered the Moon’s orbit.”
The men all became silent as Jack walked over and sat down next to the first grave marker. He lay down his weapon and pulled the radio from his belt. As he pushed the transmit button and was about to make the call, he felt the strange vibration once again coming through the earthen floor. Then, as he lowered the radio, he heard the soft humming sound in his ears. When he released the transmit button, the sound and vibration ceased. Finally, too tired to think clearly, Jack made the call to CQ.
All around the dead end, the members of the search team felt the vibrations and internal sound increase, and actually seemed to move closer from what they knew now was the other side of the cave-in.
Everett, Sebastian, and Tram all looked from the wall of rock to their surroundings. They simultaneously concluded that they would get little sleep while they waited for their supplies to arrive.
“Come on, let’s see if there’s a back door to this place,” Everett said. He took one last look back at a very worried Jack Collins and knew exactly what he was thinking as he spoke to the command element outside.
“Sarah will make it, Jack.”
15
DARK STAR 3, ORBIT INSERTION, 370 MILES ABOVE LUNAR SURFACE
After the sudden loss of mission commander Kendal and LEM pilot Dugan, the mood had been somber. Sarah and the other technicians, mainly Will Mendenhall, concentrated on devising a makeshift antenna so the lunar excursion team could stay in communication with Falcon 1 while on the surface. Thus far Will was frustrated by not enough time and too little equipment to work with.
As Falcon 1 made its first pass over the lunar surface, most of the personnel were snapping pictures and taking video, along with long-range photography of the landing site two miles from Shackleton Crater. On their first and only pass the long-range telephoto lens on Falcon took some very detailed photos of the interior of Shackleton. The damage was tremendous, but as Houston had said in their second to last communication, there seemed to be intact structures inside the crater. The photography also picked up what looked like the remains of the ESA LEM Astral, lying on its side heavily damaged. The photos and video showed no survivors. Of Magnificent Dragon, there was no trace.
As the only mission specialist who’d be aboard Altair when they landed, Sarah McIntire was to be the command operative while on the Moon. She took her predicament stoically and knew she had the difficult job of deciding whether to recover the technology if the Chinese excursion team was friendly or destroying the weaponry if they weren’t. As for the mineral, she had already decided it was far too powerful and unstable to recover. She had already briefed the team, soldiers included, on her decision.
Sarah slid into the command module with the final landing data for Ryan to enter into the Altair ’s computer system. Ryan accepted the new coordinates without comment. His mind was strictly on setting the lander down in one piece, never mind landing in a specific area. Sarah could see that the usually boisterous Ryan had been in no mood for anything but self-reflection following his jump in grade to LEM pilot, a position he had so thoroughly failed at back in the Houston simulator. As the third part in a three-part backup plan, he knew none of them was even supposed to be there.
Sarah watched as Ryan took her latest data and eased through the connecting sleeve into Altair. She saw Mendenhall bend over a small workstation, trying to keep hi
s soldering iron and small pieces of circuit board from floating away. The module pilot Maggio was assisting, but was mostly trying to stay out of the lieutenant’s way.
“How’s it going, Will?” she asked, biting her lower lip.
Mendenhall placed his hands on the small workstation table and took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself. Sarah, for her part, held her ground and kept her eyes on the frustrated lieutenant. He finally looked up and shook his head at his friend. She could see him visibly relax.
“Well, for about a ten-second burst, we caught some Russian from somewhere in back of us just a second before orbital insertion. We lost the communication pretty fast, and it was weak to begin with. So I was thinking it was nothing more than weird atmospherics and Maggio and Ryan agreed.” He frowned at Sarah. “In other words, it was nothing I did.” He let the soldering iron float free and allowed the small circuit board he was attempting to solder follow. “I can’t do it. I mean, it’s not like running an old antenna wire up to your roof and wrapping aluminum foil around it and hoping for the best.”
Sarah free-floated and nodded for Maggio to start his calculations for detachment of the LEM from Falcon 1.
“Twenty-one minutes until separation. We’re out of time anyway, Will. I was thinking about all the junk we have on the Moon. Can we salvage a dish antenna just for short-range communications with Falcon , so we can get rendezvous data and telemetry for our liftoff?”
Mendenhall looked at Sarah and smiled. “That’s an awfully optimistic outlook. Liftoff?”
“I guess I picked up bad habits from Jack. You know, always planning for the right outcome, just in case by a fluke it happens that way.”
“Yeah, that’s not a bad way to do things. Why I remember-”
Sarah watched as Will’s words trailed off to nothing as he was struck by a thought.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The Beatles,” Mendenhall said. “They all have not only long-range telemetry installed but a high-gain antenna for remote purposes.” He looked up at Sarah. “As a matter of fact, their communications may be better than our own, since they don’t have the human touch to operate them. They have to do it all by computer. I think we can use one of them to communicate-maybe not with Houston, but Falcon 1 shouldn’t be a problem.”
“See what happens when you pull back and think about things?” Sarah said, as she squeezed Will’s shoulder.
“Yeah, now why don’t you go and see if you can pass the same confidence on to Ryan.”
Sarah smiled back at Will. “You know what Jason has to do on a continual basis?”
“What’s that?”
“He has to remind himself that he’s the best pilot in the world. If he doesn’t do that on a regular basis, he crashes in his head. My money’s on him when the chips are down.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that, but maybe you’d better remind him that those chips you’re betting are not the house’s money.”
“I think he knows that, Will.”
***
Twenty minutes later Maggio was the only living soul inside of the command module, Falcon 1. The rest of the mission’s crew were strapped into their seats on the lower deck of Altair, the only exceptions being Mendenhall and Ryan. They were strapped into an upright position on the command deck, both of them poised over the fly-by-wire maneuvering controls of the very much experimental Altair . No one had ever landed anything this size on the Moon and Ryan knew all their lives were riding on his skills as a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants pilot. He looked over at Will and shook his head.
“Uh, do you want me to give one of those emotional ‘Win one for the Gipper’ speeches?”
“Maybe a prayer would be more appropriate,” Ryan shot back with a smile.
“Coming up on insertion point in five-ready to separate,” Maggio said from his command seat eighty-five feet away.
Ryan closed his eyes and reached for the VOX at his side.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please place your seats and tables in the upright-” Ryan cut the small joke short and lowered his head. Ryan not finishing a joke worried Will far more than anything he had seen from Jason.
“Ah, hell, just remember where all your emergency exits are located and where the life rafts are located under your seats. Release time in one minute-stand by.”
Mendenhall smiled and nodded. Seeing Ryan not give in to the panic he was feeling was far more comforting than seeing him go silent.
“What are you nodding your head for? You look like one of those dashboard bobble-heads.”
Mendenhall’s face dropped and he glared at Ryan-sometimes quiet from the man was better than the cocky version.
“Okay, Maggio, don’t let in any strangers while we’re out. The number for the restaurant we’ll be at is on the table and don’t let the kids stay up past ten.”
“Roger, Altair, the house will be here when you return. Good luck,” Maggio said. He swallowed the lump in his throat and raised the plastic cover on the release switch that would electrically unscrew the lead that held the two spacecraft together. “Separation in five, four, three, two, one,” he said. He pushed the button and was satisfied when it went from a soft blue to a blinking red. He heard the electric motor engage as it automatically unscrewed with a loud whine. Then there was a pop as the two ships came apart. The snapping of the communication systems came as shock, because it was far louder than the simulations back at the Johnson Space Center. It was so loud that everyone, including the seven Green Berets, thought something else had gone wrong.
Maggio knew it was only his imagination, but he could swear he felt Falcon 1 become noticeably lighter without Altair riding nose to nose with her. He closed his eyes and hit his transmit switch, even though he knew none of the lunar excursion team could hear him.
“Godspeed. Come back home soon.”
Inside the command deck, the absence of the feeling of motion was at first disorienting to both Ryan and his copilot Mendenhall. Altair separated cleanly from Falcon and seemed to be drifting backward, but Ryan knew their forward momentum was still well in excess of 25,000 miles per hour.
“Will, open fuel pressure valves one and two,” Ryan said calmly.
Mendenhall’s eyes widened.
“Right there in front of you, buddy. Just like in our practice runs.”
Mendenhall remembered. He took a deep breath and threw the two blue-colored switches until the lights flashed green.
“We have green on fuel pressure valves one and two.”
Everyone onboard the craft heard the fuel as it rushed through the metal fuel lines.
A young sergeant looked at Sarah. Through her clear visor Sarah winked and the sergeant seemed to relax.
“You’ve flown with the lieutenant before?” he asked.
“Not now, Sergeant,” the Green Beret master sergeant said.
“No, it’s okay, Sarge,” Sarah said, smiling at the two men. “Yes, I’ve flown with Jason three times in various aircraft.”
“All good outcomes, I assume,” the young sergeant said, relief etching his voice.
Sarah couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t let it slip by without comment, as she knew Carl and Jack relished opportunities like this with their younger charges.
“As a matter of fact, the first time was in a Black Hawk. Jason slammed the helicopter into a large rock and knocked our landing gear off. The second time was in a seaplane. We cracked up on a river in the Canadian wilderness. And the third time was two days later when he crashed a brand-new Sikorsky into a forest. We burst into flames upside down and forty feet off the ground.”
The men lining the lower deck of Altair stared at Sarah as if she were joking. She raised her left eyebrow to let them know she was dead serious. She decided to stop toying with the guys.
“He’s the best pilot I’ve ever seen.”
Up on the command deck Ryan flexed his fingers and placed them gingerly on the handles that controlled the jets that the OHM used for maneuvering a
nd for flight. He looked at his attitude gauges.
“Stand by for retro burn and trim maneuver,” he said easily and confidently. Ryan knew he had time and space for mistakes up here, but once close to the surface, the mission became a little more unforgiving.
Will watched as Jason pulled slightly back on the right control and twisted the handle at the same time. He heard the satisfying sound of the OHM’s jet popping loudly as it threw Altair on its back. Ryan hit the left handle to stop the turn maneuver. He checked his navigation and saw that he had fifteen seconds to start the main engine before they bypassed their first option for slowing the craft down enough to get her into the upper reaches of the Moon’s gravity. “Will, I need a ten-second burn on the main engine. Remember, all you have to do is hit the main engine start switch. The computer will do the rest.”
“Right,” Mendenhall said. He waited without breathing.
“Main engine start in three, two, one-burn,” Ryan said calmly.
Mendenhall threw the switch and they heard the loudest pop of all as the main engine came to life. Inside Altair they could hear the rumble of the exhaust as it exited the confines of the main engine bell below them. They felt the ship slow as the minimal gravity started to take effect.
“Main engine cutoff in two, one, zero,” Ryan said. He watched the attitude compass swing north and south on a correct horizontal plane with the surface of the Moon. They were now flying upright, as was the natural order of things.
Altair became silent. Each individual’s breathing was concealed behind their helmet. The rapid breathing that each feared the others would hear was self-contained, so nobody had to worry about being the only one to have shown fear.
“Standby for main OHM burn for insertion,” Ryan said, as he adjusted his feet on the Velcro mat beneath his boots. “Everyone go to internal oxygen at this point, please.”
All crew members, the flight team included, unplugged their suits from the Altair ’s air system. Air conditioning and oxygen would be in self-sustaining mode for the duration of the landing procedure-for obvious reasons, Jason thought.
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