SALIENT: Fast Paced SciFi Thriller

by Simon Rosser

  “Confirmed, all looks good down at Statio Tranquillitatis,” Scott said, referring to the Latin name given to the Apollo landing site, after Neil Armstrong’s now legendary commentary shortly after Apollo landed - Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.

  “Okay plasma engine brake on my mark in, five...four...three...two...one,” Scott said, his eyes darting from the computer screen to the side window, and the view of Earth a quarter of a million miles away. The X40’s thrusters slowed the craft further to the appropriate Moon orbit velocity of 35,505 feet per second.

  “Groom Lake to Odyssey, we are picking up some minor coms disturbance. Do your systems showing any interference at all?” Flight Director Channing asked.

  “Ah that’s a negative, Groom. Nothing showing here,” Scott said, checking the blue array in front of them.

  “We’ll keep an eye on that. Please commence auto landing sequence,” came the response.

  “Aha, Roger that. Adjustments for auto landing sequence confirmed,” Scott said, tapping the console.

  The astronauts monitored the screen as the X40 rolled to the right as it altered its orbit slightly to take them over the far side of the Moon and their final descent near the Saha Impact Crater.

  “Roll executed, entering far side orbit now,” Scott confirmed.

  “Roger that. Estimated ten minutes to landing,” Channing replied.

  “Ten minutes, check,” Scott said, as the X40 slowed down to 2500 mph as it went into orbit over the dark, far side of the Moon.

  “Picking up more coms interference,” Scott confirmed.

  “Roger that. It's expected,” Channing replied, his voice barely discernible through the crackling static.

  “Telemetry is looking good. Pitch and roll landing auto sequence start in five...four...three...two...one,” Bannister said, nodding at Scott.

  “Well here goes. Let’s hope there’s no landing party waiting for us,” Bannister joked.

  “I wouldn’t bank on it,” Scott replied, his voice tense, as the X40 slowed further and commenced a forty-five degree roll to prepare for the auto landing sequence.

  “Plasma engine shut down. Descent sequence in five...four...three...two...one,” Scott confirmed.

  The X40 executed a further roll and rotated so that its underbelly was falling under controlled descent to the Moon’s surface, and heading towards the landing site, a relatively flat basalt plain half a mile from the Saha Impact Crater.

  The view from the flight deck was serene. The Earth was reflecting the light from the sun, which was presently behind it, giving the Earth the appearance of a distant crescent in the blackness of space.

  “Ten seconds to touchdown,” Scott confirmed his voice tense with nerves as telemetry scrolled down the screens in front of them. The X40’s thrusters continued to make minute adjustments as the descent computer brought the craft down.

  The screen counted down the height to the surface in feet; 80...60...40...20...5.

  “All engines shut off,” Bannister confirmed.

  The final few seconds ticked by as if they were minutes, until suddenly the X40’s landing computer screen lit up red. Touchdown!

  Scott and Bannister looked at each other and both sighed in relief.

  “This is spacecraft Odyssey, safely down on the Saha plateau,” Scott spoke into the coms, hoping Groom Base was picking up the transmission, relief evident in his voice.

  Silence.

  “Wow! That was one hell of a ride,” Bannister said, wiping his brow.

  “Okay, let’s do a full systems check and get the mission underway.”

  Scott nodded, as he reached out for the touch screen console to run through the post-landing sequence checks.

  Twenty minutes later, both astronauts were standing on the exit ramp next to the two-man lunar rover, which contained an assortment of sensitive measuring equipment that had been provided to them for the mission to analyse the mystery signal, chemical analysis of ejecta near the crater, and such like.

  “Pressurising exit compartment now,” Scott said, pressing a glowing green button.

  With the airlock engaged, the exit hatch slowly opened. Back at Groom Lake, a loud clunk had resonated into the compartment when this procedure had been practised, but in space, there was just silence. All Scott could hear was the steady thumping of his own heartbeat.

  The hatch slowly opened, and the ramp automatically deployed, allowing both astronauts to walk out onto the Moon’s surface. Bannister operated the rover remotely, using the control pad fitted into the wrist section of his suit.

  Small puffs of grey dust fanned out from their footfall as they stepped off the ramp and onto the Moon’s surface.

  The sight that greeted them both was truly awe inspiring. The far side of the Moon, shielded from any light from the Sun or Earth, meant that the field of stars visible to them in the Milky Way Galaxy was mesmerising.

  “It’s just awash with stars. It’s incredible. It’s all just a sheet of white,” Scott said, gazing out into space. As he stared at the field of white, his heart started to beat faster, reminding him of their mission. Each pin-prick of light, literally billions of them, was a sun. Each sun, almost without doubt, was orbited by its own planets, and each extra-solar planetary system, potentially had its own habitable planets. It seemed impossible to him that humankind was all alone in the galaxy, let alone the universe, as he dragged his gaze away from the stars.

  CHAPTER 24

  Mount Shasta, 2 A.M.

  "WHAT’S THAT SOUND?" Lucy shouted above the biting wind whistling down the eastern slope of Mount Shasta where she and Professor Beck were shielding themselves behind the large, rocky outcrop that encircled the Cobalt Ridge Glacier.

  Beck cocked his head and listened for a few seconds. “I can’t hear anything apart from the wind.”

  Standing guard, the military team were still spread out in a large semi-circle around the top of the glacial area, large spot lights that had been set up around the location lit up the entire area, two of them appearing to speak into their headsets.

  Above the wind, the low, continuous rumble echoed down the slopes of the mountain again and into the valley below. This time it was unmistakable. The low continuous rumble echoed down the slopes and into the valley below.

  “Jesus, what was that?” Lucy asked, a look of anxiety spreading over her face.

  Beck shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. Mount Shasta is a dormant volcano, right? Perhaps she’s waking up?”

  “Please don’t say that, not when we’re about to make the greatest discovery of our time.”

  Lieutenant Coffey Jordan, who was talking to one of the soldiers, looked over at them from the tree line, and started speaking into his radio for a minute or so, before heading over to the outcrop of rock where Lucy and Beck were standing.

  “Okay you two, I’ve have been authorised to tell you that the Odyssey mission is underway on the Moon. The two-man team is en route to the Saha Impact Crater as we speak and we have been placed on standby to commence Cobalt Ridge Glacier insertion. We will be melting our way into the glacier to insert fibre optics, which I believe was your idea Dr Davies?"

  “Ah, yes,” Lucy said, a mixture of excitement and fear in her voice. As she spoke, another rumble echoed along the ridge, this time, not from the mountain, but from a third military vehicle that had just pulled up.

  “That’s the additional equipment arriving,” Jordan said, as his headset crackled to life.

  Lucy and Professor Beck looked on as another team of military men, dressed in white and green camouflage uniforms, started unloading large crates of equipment from the third vehicle, before carrying it past them along the ridge to the glacier, dropping them just beyond the outcrop of rocks.

  Lucy watched as the men broke open the crates, began assembling what looked like a giant barrel-shaped gun mounted on a tripod, and pulled thick cables from another crate and connected them to the device. Tw
o men then carried the other end of the cables back to the vehicle, presumably to connect up to a power supply. Lucy guessed the device was some kind of laser.

  Another rumble rolled down the ridge, this time from the mountain again, causing the six-man military team to stop work and take cover as loose rocks and snow rained down from above, the device they’d been setting up suddenly lurching to one side as it was hit by a melon-sized boulder.

  Lucy and Professor Beck ducked behind the largest of the granite rocks that formed a ring around the location of the signal, to protect themselves from the falling debris.

  “Jeez it’s getting a bit dangerous out here. Any more of this and I think we’ll have to call it a day,” Beck shouted.

  “No chance. I know it’s nearly three in the morning but we can’t let the military take control out here, you know that,” Lucy replied.

  With the imminent danger seemingly now gone, the pair of them got up from their crouched positions and moved closer to where the device was being realigned by the military. Two of the men had now tethered the laser with a thin metal cord. One end of which was being secured to one of the nearest pine trees and the other to a flat plateaux of rock, using a piton. The laser device was now being pulled taut by the men, and safe from being knocked over by any falling debris.

  Lieutenant Jordan walked back over to them. “Okay, we’re on standby from Washington to commence the operation. In case you’re wondering about the device, it’s the latest Lockheed Martin 10 kW mobile laser. It will take just a few seconds to burn a four- centimetre diameter column through the glacier and bedrock underneath and into the cavern. The depth has been set to the exact thickness of ice and rock, so there’s no possibility of causing any damage to whatever is down there.”

  Before Lucy could respond, his sat-phone came to life with a burst of static. He yanked it from his belt clip and raised it to his ear. “Okay, Roger that. Good to go. Thank you general, we’ll power her up and have some live video for you in five minutes,” he said, shouting into the sat-phone, as he turned around, raised his arm, and made a rapid circular motion with his fist to the military team standing around the laser device.

  “We have orders to go in,” he said. “You guys, just please stand back and watch the show.”

  CHAPTER 25

  TOM, JESSICA, AND Bruce had been waiting nervously for what seemed like half an hour before emerging from the small alcove in the tunnel where they’d been sheltering. Tom feared there had been a collapse somewhere in the mineshaft, but after the third rumble he realised the sound was more likely to be volcanic in nature, not that it made things any better.

  “Come on, let’s move on quickly,” Tom said, as they walked with renewed vigour along the ever lightening intersecting shaft towards the cavern shown on the old map.

  Suddenly, there was a loud crack. “Damn it,” Jessica cursed, as she took her foot off something she’d just stepped on.

  “What have you done?” Tom asked, feeling his nerves fray.

  “I don’t know,” Jess said, looking down to inspect the ground. “What the hell is it?” she whispered.

  Tom turned his flashlight on and shone it down to Jess’ feet. As the light washed over the earth where Jessica had stepped, an off-white strip became visible. The object had snapped in two. Tom knelt down and immediately realised what it was; a rib bone.

  “Ugh, what the hell is that doing in here?” Jessica asked, stepping back.

  Tom panned the beam of light along the floor of the mineshaft, seeing there wasn’t just one rib bone, but tens, maybe hundreds of them, scattered along the tunnel as far as they could see, mainly on the ground along both sides of the mineshaft.

  “What the hell?” Bruce said, his jaw dropping open.

  “Why are there so many bones in here?” Jess whispered, raising her hands to her mouth in shock.

  “I’m not quite sure. It doesn’t make sense. It’s illogical that so many animals would wander down here and just die,” Tom said.

  “Well, come on, guys, do you expect anything to make any freaking sense?” Bruce added.

  Tom could see ribs, femurs, entire rib cages partly crushed, and farther along the passage, skulls of various mountain animals, including deer, stag, and foxes. “Jesus, there’s something quite large farther up,” Tom said, directing the flashlight on the silhouette of some dead animal thirty feet farther along the tunnel.

  “Can’t we just go back?” Jess pleaded. I couldn’t give a damn any longer about what's in the cavern. I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Quiet! What's that noise?” Bruce suddenly said, raising his forefinger to his lips, turning around and looking down the dark tunnel they’d just walked along.

  Tom’s heart started to pound in his chest. Were they about to suffer the same fate as the creatures whose bones littered the ground? Tom panned the tunnel with his flashlight. He could sense something. Bruce was right, something was moving along the tunnel towards them.

  The flashlight’s beam washed over a broken section of wall in the mineshaft, on the left side, twenty feet farther along. “Quick, head for that crack,” Tom whispered, as they made a dash for the damaged section of wall.

  The three of them squeezed into the space, and Tom snapped the flashlight off. The natural light, quartz, and iron pyrite embedded in the passage walls left the tunnel illuminated, as if in an ethereal, gloomy twilight.

  The sound of heavy footfall and grunting became louder.

  “Those creatures followed us in here, I know they did. We're screwed,” Jessica sobbed, her body trembling.

  Tom knew Jess was right. They were trapped.

  Suddenly, there was a loud, crack as something stepped on one of the bones, twenty feet along the tunnel, just as Jess had done.

  “What the hell is this?” A familiar voice echoed along the passage towards them.

  Was that Armstrong? Tom turned the flashlight on, squeezed out of the hiding place, and shone the beam of light in the direction of the sound. Standing next to each other, bent over double as they tried to catch their breath, were Alicia and Armstrong.

  “Bloody hell! Thank God, it’s you guys. Are you alright? What the hell happened back there?” Tom queried, feeling massive relief at seeing the two of them standing there.

  Bruce and Jess stepped out from the recess. Bruce ran over to the pair of them and gave Alicia and his boss a hug.

  “Steady on, Bruce, I wasn’t gone that long,” Armstrong said, managing to make light of their predicament. “Seriously, we are damn glad to find you three. You’ll never believe what happened to us back in the forest. On top of that, we’re convinced one or more of the creatures might have followed us in here. That’s why we’ve been running, despite having this,” he said, referring to the M14 he was still gripping.

  “Seriously, it’s not funny. There’s no way I’ll be doing anymore TV stuff, unless it’s for the QVC channel,” Alicia said, trying to catch her breath.

  “What the hell are all these bones doing here?” Armstrong finally asked, looking along the tunnel, still trying to catch his breath.

  “We don’t know. It’s very odd. There’s something larger on the ground a little farther up too. We should all move. The cavern can’t be that far away. There might even be a way out as there seems to be natural light coming from somewhere,” he added.

  “I agree. Let’s just keep going,” Armstrong panted.

  There was no sign or sound coming from the passage behind them. If the creatures were following, they didn’t appear to be close.

  The five of them moved forward, passing the damaged section of wall. Tom then focussed the flashlight on the dark silhouette farther up on the right. As they approached it, Tom felt a column of ice race up his spine as he realised what the large dark mass was.

  “Shit. I don't want to alarm you guys more than you already are but I think this is our bear friend from the forest,” he said, directing the flashlight onto the dead animal, and its missing fore
arm.

  Jessica put her hands up to her mouth. “Jeez it stinks,” she mumbled.

  “Well that's just great. It means those creatures are using this mine shaft for their den and we’re walking right up to their dinner table!” she said.

  Tom tried to make sense of what was going on. Bigfoot, if that’s what they were, in the system of tunnels that led to the location from where a signal was apparently being transmitted to the Moon. What the hell was going on? “Is the weapon loaded?” he asked Armstrong.

  “Damn right,” he replied, without taking his eyes off the dead bear.

  The five of them moved quickly past the dead animal, Bruce filming the scene as they went.

  The tunnel continued to get noticeably lighter from a strange, light blue glow that was originating from somewhere nearby. The scattered bones on the ground grew noticeably less as they moved forward, having just been concentrated near the damaged section of the mine.

  The mineshaft ahead now curved around to the right, the dimensions of the tunnel getting larger the closer they got to the light source.

  “This is just so eerie, man,” Bruce said, panning the movie camera around the glistening walls of the tunnel. “What the hell is going on with your hair?” he suddenly said, pointing at Tom’s head and filming what he was witnessing.

  Everyone stopped and looked at Tom, who was about five paces ahead of them all. His hair had started to stand on end, as if it were full of static. Tom raised his hand to his hair, suddenly sensing the static charge, then noticed the same was happening to Jess' and Alicia's hair, it was as if they were in a wind tunnel.

  “Static electricity, there’s an energy source of some kind. It must be coming from the cavern. I can hear a faint buzzing now too,” Tom said.