Xalata Orbit and Melody Fret: The Hammer of Asttar

by Nick Evans

  Its small head was totally out of proportion to the massive body, which lumbered along on four stout legs that resembled those of an elephant, but without the grace or flexibility of that noble creature. The head was covered in bumps and lumps that gave it a diseased look and its nose and mouth reminded them of those of a pig from their home planet. Above the ears and pointing forward were two gnarled horns that seemed to serve little purpose - except Melody and Xalata had seen the news update where the security camera had captured the creature blasting its way through walls in the habitat, seemingly impervious to the consequences of the destruction it wrought. Those horns were twin dipoles that delivered a massive capability to destroy things with electricity.

  The rest of the beast's body was covered in a folded pale grey hide that looked tough and impervious, with carapaces and armour to protect the sensitive connections between neck and body and between the legs and the body. The whole thing moved stiffly, but its bulk belied its speed as it twisted sharply to face some imagined enemy and then turned back to its solitary wanderings.

  "I've never seen anything like it!" whispered Xalata.

  "Shhhh! For Frank's sake, we don't know how good its hearing is," and, as if it had heard their exchange, the Cryomorph swivelled and stared in their direction, peering with its tiny eyes. The two girls pressed themselves lower behind their hiding place and prayed that it would go away. Suddenly, they felt a pressure from the frame of the divider behind which they were crouching - the beast was pushing it as if trying to remove it and see what was behind it. Xalata stifled a scream and Melody wrapped her arms around her friend as if to protect her. The unit moved, sliding on the shiny floor and the girls shuffled with it, maintaining their position out of sight, until they were backed up against the wall.

  Without warning, Melody jumped up, shouted out loud and then rushed down the corridor opposite, back into the atrium. The Cryomorph saw her and swivelled once again to follow with its eyes. Sharply turning, it dashed after her, its feet pounding the ground in an efficient yet graceless locomotion that sent it wheeling after the running girl.

  Xalata sat, astonished at her friend's foolishness. "Melody!" she yelled at the top of her voice and stood up to give chase. Then she realised that, if she did so, she was putting herself in danger of being attacked by the Cryomorph as well: not something she fancied.

  She could hear the rumble of its progress around the habitat as it pursued Melody, but she realised that Melody had been clever. She could turn, manoeuvre, get through spaces that the Cryomorph could not navigate. She hoped against hope that her friend would be able to outwit the clumsy, yet dangerous creature.

  Her wishes were fulfilled when, with a triumphant yell, Melody burst into the space where Xalata was standing, open-mouthed. "Easy-McPeasy! That thing couldn't catch a cold. I just outran it."

  "Are you completely, utterly, stark, starry-eyed, staggeringly stupid? You could have been killed," gibbered Xalata.

  "Nah, no chance. I lost it and we can get on with our investigation." As she said those words, the corridor ahead was blocked by the bulk of the returning Cryomorph. And it didn't look pleased to see them.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Fark marched at top speed round a corner to a cart, jumped aboard and then set off down the tunnels to head to the Control Centre. The mission was reaching a critical point and it was important that everyone involved stayed focused so that the target was achieved. He detested the Moon and everything that was happening on it - in fact, his aim was to destroy everything that mankind was trying to do: colonising the Moon and then leaping off to the planets with the aim of making places which were habitable for humans.

  "Fools!" he muttered to himself as the cart sped through the white corridors, navigating by itself. "Wasn't the plague that was unleashed upon us enough to make people think that we were on the wrong path? No! So, what do we do? Go off to infect our own Moon and then on to the rest of our sacred Solar System."

  There was a wild look in his eye and he ranted more and more loudly until the corridors echoed with his voice as the cart dashed through them. "The will of Asttar be done!" he cried and waved his fist in the air. As he did so, the cart turned sharply to the left and a large atrium came into view. It slowed down and came to a stop next to an airlock door that was labelled, RESTRICTED AREA - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Fark stepped from the cart, approached the airlock and faced a small camera set into a panel on the side. His eye was scanned and after a moment a clunk indicated that the door was now unlocked. He pulled on the locking lever and swung open the door then stepped inside, closing it gently behind him. Confident that no one else would intrude, he didn't bother to lock it as he would not be in the Control Centre for long.

  The room was quite compact, with a number of large interactive status screens that showed the progress of the mission. The trajectory of the asteroid was clearly marked and the changes in its route could be seen in the trail that led up to the present position. Now, the forward trajectory curved around to target the Earth and, as he watched, Fark could see that settings were constantly changing as the navigation code monitored and updated the route on a second by second basis.

  He moved over to one of the panels and studied the detail of the impact time, the likely impact speed and the energy output that would result from the asteroid hitting the Earth. He nodded and smiled to himself as he saw that everything was going to plan.

  Meanwhile, on another screen, he could see frantic activity down on Earth where the Beijing Control Centre was desperately trying to regain control of the asteroid. It was clear that they could see what was happening and, of course, they could see the same read-out as he could. The same clever algorithms that had locked them out of the navigation had given him absolute control of the asteroid and its fusion engines. He chuckled as he saw their desperate plight - yes, they knew what was happening - the asteroid would be hitting Beijing in a matter of 15 hours.

  And there was nothing that they could do about it!

  Satisfied, he made a few minor tweaks, locked down the system once more and then headed for the door. I need to get back to speak with that idiot, Brett, he thought, so I had better get back before I am missed.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Xalata and Melody froze in horror as the Cryomorph stood in the entrance to the corridor. It fixed them with its tiny eyes and then leaned back a little as it prepared to charge them. Xalata suddenly realised that if they stayed put they'd be mincemeat and she grabbed Melody's arm and pulled her bodily towards the entrance to the home.

  "Get behind here - it can't come past!" she yelled as she dragged her open-mouthed friend behind the line marked by the device overhead.

  "I'm so sorry," gasped Melody, "I thought I had outrun it and that it would simply wander off again." I could have killed us!"

  "Don't be nuts, you just underestimated it." As Xalata spoke, the Cryomorph charged towards them - the girls, wide-eyed, watched its approach with naked fear in their eyes - and then, at the last moment, it broke away to the left as it was unable to pass the barrier. "See, no problem. I love tech!" said Xalata and she turned and headed back towards the home, looking much more chilled than she felt. "Let's have a drink before we go anywhere. This excitement has left me parched."

  * * * * *

  Ten minutes later, they emerged from the home having snacked on juice and an energy bar and discussed the sighting of Fark. "Right, let's go hunting!" said Xalata and she led the way back, watching out for signs of the Cryomorph, to where they had spied on the two people disappearing into another home. There was no sign of activity - the area was empty, as indeed the whole of the habitat seemed to be, but they knew that their captors were potentially behind that door so they planned to wait and see them emerge. Finding a suitable hiding place behind yet another unit, they didn't have long to wait.

  Out from the home came an unmasked figure that Xalata instantly recognised. She gasped and clutched her mouth to prevent
any noise coming out. "It's Castrana Machin," hissed Xalata.

  "And," whispered Melody. "She's the one who was holding the lecture in the Outpost, isn't she?"

  "Let's hope she's not going back to check on me - there'll be trouble if she does."

  "No - she's turning the other way - quick, let's keep up," and the two friends left their hiding places and crept to the corner where they had seen the woman turn. She was about 100 metres ahead at this point so the girls felt reasonably safe following at a distance, ducking into doorway alcoves or peeking around corridor entries in order to stay out of sight.

  After following for a few hundred metres they saw the Castrana open an airlock and enter an area that was obviously off limits to everyone else. The sign on the door made that quite clear. As the airlock hissed shut behind her, the two girls dashed up to it and tried to peer inside through the glass porthole fixed in the top of the door. They could see very little and so sat down near the entry to try to work out what was happening.

  "OK, here's what I don't get," said Xalata. "The Cryomorph does a great job of trashing what is actually an already abandoned habitat. It's been made or grown or whatever, by someone to do that job. Make any sense so far?"

  Melody shook her head. "Nope, don't get it yet."

  "All right. That's clear then. So, I get kidnapped and locked up - presumably by Fark and Castrana Machin, but not on Nearside. They bring me all the way across here through a magic portal that works, I don't know how. Yep?" Melody nodded. "We don't know why I've been kidnapped - is it for ransom? We don't have any money I know of. Or is it for something else?"

  Melody just looked at her feet. "Maybe Glitch knows something as he was the one who led you to be captured?"

  "Don't think so. He looked absolutely terrified when I was grabbed. I think he was bullied into it somehow. Anyways, then we just see Machin - what's that about? And they are doing something behind this door that we can't get through - we could try that same passcode as before, but it's a bit risky. Oh, meanwhile, our friend Mr Fark's supposed to be in charge of keeping this all safe, isn't he? And, all in all, it's a bit of a puzzle. "

  Melody laughed, "Yeah, master of understatement there! The problem is, what can we do about it? We don't know how to get back to Nearside - it's so far away - and the portal just disappeared. There must be a way to get it back because, if you think about it, if Fark is here, he must be going through it too!"

  "Yep, and that means that he can skip back and forth across the Moon without anyone really knowing that he's missing. Cunning! Know what I think? We should go back to the home where I'm being held and just chill out a bit until we get more data to help figure this out. If they find I'm missing, then the cat's out of the bag and we can't do anything except be hunted down. Frank knows what the Cryomorph can do if they take it off its lead. We're safer back there."

  "OK," said Melody, reluctantly, "But we're just going to be sitting and waiting for something to happen?"

  "Yep - you got a better idea?"

  "Nope."

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Brett was at work when the message came through from the kidnappers:

  Your brat is safe, for the moment. She's where you'll never find her - don't bother trying. Put your effort into fulfilling our requirements: 1. You know what we want and if you don't you're stupid - you will provide us with a consignment of 60kg to be delivered to a specific location on further instructions. 2. You will surrender yourself to us willingly and do as we say. 3. You will remain silent and not inform any authority of these demands. Failure to follow these requirements will result in a very unpleasant end for your kid. Please don't think that these are idle threats. Others have challenged us before and suffered the consequences.

  We shall be in touch. Be prepared to leave at short notice.

  Brett sat back at his desk and reread the message. It had come through to his pad from an untraceable address and had no signature, no identification of any sort. He'd been expecting it of course, but that didn't make the blow any easier when it landed. He needed to show it to Fark and get his view on it. Whatever happened, he wasn't going to say no, because he could not put Xalata in danger, no matter what the downside was.

  He buzzed Fark but got no response. Strange, he thought, I'm sure Fark is around here somewhere. And he set off to try to find him inside the Institute. No one had seen him. In fact, the last anyone remembered was that Fark had disappeared in the direction of the TransTrak. So where was he going? His duties are here ... Brett was puzzled but his mind was too full of everything else to get in too much of a stew. He needed to think how they could respond, how they could get Xally back and how the criminals who were doing this could be brought to justice.

  "Mr Orbit?" A voice brought Brett out of his thoughts. It was Wiglet.

  "Ah, Mr Wiggins. Just the person ..."

  "Oh? I was rather concerned because two of my students appear to have gone missing."

  "Two?" said Brett with surprise. "I thought it was only one."

  Wiglet looked at him with a strange expression, "How do you mean, only one? Do you know what has happened to them?"

  "Er, no. No, sorry. I was thinking of something else. Xalata is, um, unwell and is at the home recovering. Who else is missing?"

  "I think you might have let me know, Mr Orbit. The other missing person is Melody Frett - she was last seen dashing out of the Academy and heading for the TransTrak."

  Strange. Was she going the same place that Xalata went and where Glitch led us? thought Brett. "I'm sure I don't know. Girls sometimes take it into their heads to do strange things. I'm guessing she will be around very soon." I must check with her mother whether she has any news of her. And so saying, Brett said goodbye to Wiglet and headed off to find Dawn Fret, Melody's mother.

  Dawn had been one of the pioneers of lunar habitat living. She and her husband had come to the colony in the early days and had brought their young child, Melody, with them. She had known little else other than life on the Moon although she had been to Earth a few times on trips to see family and friends. But all of them actually preferred the lunar way of life and had become accustomed to its restrictions and problems. Sadly, Dawn's husband had died ten years previously, not long after they had moved to the habitat. She had carried on their work alone, knowing that the alternative was to go back to a fairly dull life on the still-dangerous Earth.

  Brett found Dawn in one of the labs in the engineering section of the Institute. She was a pretty lady of about 38, with short-cropped blonde hair and an engaging smile that lit up her otherwise serious face. Dressed in a lab coat that looked a couple of sizes too big for her, she was quite small in height, but was evidently Melody's mother, as she had similar facial features.

  She worked on nano-technology, getting tiny machines to build and replicate the structures and systems that were needed for lunar living. Nanobots could be programmed to do practically anything, using the available materials on the Moon's surface and so they had been developed to create the tunnels of the TransTrak, build the habitats and create technology that helped people live a reasonably normal life, far from the home planet.

  "Dawn, sorry to interrupt your work ..."

  "No, no problem Brett - great to see you. We haven't had a chat for months."

  "No - I know. Life has been busy. Er, I just wondered, is Melody OK?"

  "Yes, as far as I know. Why do you ask?

  "She's not at the Academy at the moment and Wiglet was asking where she was. Xalata is not there either so I think he was concerned. Um, Xally is at home - bit of a bug, I think."

  "Not at the Academy? Where's she gone? I'll check her pad ..."

  "I've already tried. She's not responding."

  "Bizarre. I had better go back home and check."

  "Well, I'm just going back to ours so I could drop in if you like - save you the trip. I'll ping you if I find anything."

  "Yes, OK, I suppose that's a good idea. I'll give you a guest passtag that will
let you in. Call me when you've had a look, would you? I can't imagine what that girl could be doing. She's normally so good," and she handed Brett a small disk that would let him in.

  "Sure thing." Brett hurried away, eager to take a look. He didn't know why, but he thought he might find a clue as to what was happening. The place where Glitch had said that Xalata had been captured just didn't add up. Unless.... surely not? He'd heard that there was portal technology on the Moon, but no one had ever indicated where it might be or who might have it. It certainly wasn't official - and never would be, in fact it was illegal except for special tasks that were limited to top-secret projects. Portals were far too dangerous to be used for anything that regularly involved humans. The technology often failed and when it did, the consequences were disastrous for anybody caught in the flux.

  But what Glitch had described sounded awfully like it. His worries instantly doubled.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Fark emerged from the portal and dashed back to the TransTrak to get back to the Institute before he was missed. Brett would be jumping up and down now, having received the ransom note so Fark needed to be there to play the concerned Security Chief - security! Hah! It was a joke. These scientists wouldn't know security if it bit them on their backsides, but of course, that was the strength of the Asttarian's plan. They could take advantage of the scientists' naiveté and so manage to fulfil their own plans without any major problems.

  Kidnapping Xalata had seemed the only way though to get the supplies of lithium that the group needed for the secret and illicit development work that was taking place on Farside, far away from prying eyes. Security on Nearside was so tightly secured that even Fark couldn't get past the barriers, checks and balances - most of which he'd set up himself, whereas Brett could call it out of the store whenever he needed it to use as part of the air supply system chemicals. It wasn't held in the form of lithium that they wanted - it was mostly as salts, so it needed extracting. And if a job like that needed doing and you had scientists on hand, what better way than to blackmail or bludgeon one of them into doing it for you, on the quiet?