by Greig Beck
She walked forward a few paces, her brows knitted; on the floor, kicked up against the wall, was what looked like a torn T-shirt and underwear, both stained.
Gross, she thought. Or maybe cleaning rags?
“Tony?” she asked, knowing it was useless as there was nowhere to go in the small room.
She walked in a circle, not seeing any trace of the man, and finally just stood in the center of the room. The silence seemed eerie and unsettled her. After another moment, she looked about for paper and a pen and quickly scrawled a note, letting him know she had dropped in.
“Next time.” She headed out.
Mia continued to the infirmary. She had a knot of apprehension in her gut big enough to make her feel physically ill. She entered, found no med staff, and went to the room where Olga was still laying on the bed.
Olga had her eyes open just staring at the ceiling. Mia watched her for a moment and then the woman turned to her. Her eyes were glassy and her expression blank.
“How do you feel?” Mia asked.
Olga let out a long sigh. “You let them in, didn’t you?”
“More no than yes. It seems no one came back but an empty suit.”
“Do your vehicles have autopilot?’ Olga asked.
Mia shook her head. “Not really.”
“Then maybe suit not so empty.” Olga turned away. “Now it is inside.”
“All quarantine procedures were maintained. I was there; nothing came off the crawler.” Mia shrugged. “We’re sending another team back to your base to locate our missing team members.”
“I don’t care anymore. It will come for me, because it knows I know,” Olga replied softly. “It’s over.”
Mia cursed under her breath. “Fine.” She headed out but paused at the door. “You know, for someone who tells us there’s a high risk of some sort of contamination, that may or may not have destroyed your base, and may or may not be in our base, you’re being pretty damn unhelpful.”
Olga sniffed.
“Thanks for nothing.” Mia turned away.
“If …” Olga began.
Mia waited in the doorway with her back to the woman.
“If I could have done one thing different on my base, do you know what that would have been?”
Mia turned and saw that Olga was staring back up at the ceiling again, but this time tears ran to her pillow.
Mia folded her arms. “What?”
She looked at Mia. “We never sent a warning message out. We underestimated how smart the thing was. It cut our external long-range transmission capability first and then the inter-base communications next. We could never tell Russia what was going on to warn them. And then we couldn’t even warn each other.”
Olga sat up, drawing her knees up and resting her forearms on them. “My country will send an early supply ship to investigate why we have gone dark, and when they arrive, they will walk into a trap. I think it wants to get to Earth …” She smiled sadly. “And then everything is over: me, you, Russia, America – everything.”
Mia searched the woman’s face for subterfuge or psychosis, but only found a weariness that looked to have drained her completely.
“You must send a message. Warn them.”
Mia nodded. “Okay, good advice. Anything else?”
“Then destroy this base, and everyone in it.” Olga’s expression was deadpan.
Mia scoffed. “Nope, we’re not there yet. No one has died. Maybe it isn’t even inside yet.”
Olga held her eyes, and her lips curled at the corners. “Hope is a good thing to have. Until reality bites you.”
* * *
Mia left the room and headed back to the operations center, and there found Captain Briggs and a few of the engineers plus several biology and chemistry guys all crowded around a table reviewing the report on the empty suit.
“Captain.” She nodded to her commander. “So, what was in the suit?”
Briggs exhaled. “Not Hector Rodriguez.” He sat back. “Biological matter – fragmented cells, unidentifiable enzymes and some oxidized blood.” He shrugged. “In other words, nothing but a fucking mess.”
“Exactly like Olga said was strewn around her base. And was inside her helmet when we found her.” She folded her arms. “Hey, if the suit was empty, how did the crawler get back? It doesn’t have autopilot.”
“That’s not exactly true; they sort of do. All the crawlers can be set to auto and can have their steering locked,” Calvin Porter said.
“Pfft – it can keep going, but only in a straight line.” Mia gave a lopsided grin. “And they set it after they got out. Oh, and then stuck one of their empty suits in it as a practical joke, right?”
The chemical science officer sniffed. “Maybe they set it because they were preoccupied. And it got away on them.”
“Yeah, right.” Mia laughed without mirth. “And one of our guys is running around on the moon in his underwear.”
“They might be inside the Russian base,” Porter replied.
“Yeah, sure. I was just talking to Olga. She thinks the thing that was on their base is now here. And we just let it in.”
“Impossible,” Briggs said. “The garage is sealed, and nothing got off the crawler. And there was nothing on it other than an empty suit. And for that matter, in her own words, Olga admitted carrying out a terrorist attack on her own base. I don’t believe a word of her contamination or monster story. Something happened over there, and we still have no idea what.”
“Tom, I was there in the garage when the crawler came down. It hit the power box and the lights went out for approximately twenty-eight seconds,” Mia said. “That’s more than enough time for something to get off and hide. I don’t remember her saying exactly how big it was, only that the thing managed to hide on her base for days or weeks without being found.” She sighed. “And she said it was smart.”
“Oh, bullshit. And where would it go? For that short blackout period the garage chamber was sealed for the vacuum of space. Like I said, nothing else is now or was in there.” Briggs waggled a finger at her. “Don’t buy into that woman’s hysteria, Mia. She’s a suspect, not a guest.” He turned away.
“You want to know something weird?” Mia came and stood in front of him. “Olga had some advice for us. She said if she had her time over, she’d let Earth know what had happened. She thinks whatever it was that infiltrated her base was smart enough to know to cut all their comms and mute them.” She lowered her voice. “She thinks it did that so they couldn’t warn people at home. And that maybe it wants them to come.” Her voice dropped. “So it can get back to Earth.”
The room fell into complete silence, and Mia saw that the commander’s face paled a little.
Briggs looked into her eyes. “Mia, we’ve done a thorough check of the garage – nothing came in. We’ve taken samples of the biological matter in the suit, and it is being further analyzed right now. Plus, the rest of the suit has been incinerated. Like I said, nothing came in on the crawler.”
Mia went to interject but Briggs held up a hand. “But we’ll include what just happened in our standard briefing back to HQ this evening, okay?”
Mia examined his face for a moment before nodding slowly. “Okay, good. Thank you.”
She started to turn away but paused. There was still something nagging at the back of her mind. “You know what else she said? She said it was already in. She was adamant about it.” Mia lifted her chin. “What if you’re right, there was nothing on the crawler. Because it was just a diversion?”
Briggs stopped what he was doing.
“How would she know it was already in?” Mia asked softly.
“She was guessing. Or …” Briggs slowly got to his feet. “Maybe it was already in.”
“Because she was in.”
Briggs spun. “Get security to the infirmary, now.”
They sprinted to the infirmary and found it empty. Empty except for some torn clothing with Beverley’s name badge stuck on it. There was
black slime everywhere.
Mia’s eyes were wide in absolute fear as she grabbed hold of Briggs. “Captain, contact home, quickly, while we still can.”
CHAPTER 16
United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Tampa, Florida
“Yes, sir, we can be ready.” Four-star General Marcus Chilton listened to his commander in chief a moment more. “I’ll make it happen, Mr. President, you have my word.” Chilton put the phone down.
“Jesus Christ,” he said softly and thought it through for a moment. He snatched up the phone again and pressed one of his speed-dial numbers. It connected immediately.
“Jack, it’s Marcus.” Chilton’s eyes were as steady as gun barrels as he stared straight ahead. “Drop everything, jump on a chopper and be here ten minutes ago. This is priority one.”
* * *
Colonel Jack Hammerson didn’t need to knock as the door was open and he was expected. He saluted the general and walked over to the huge, dark-skinned man, gave a formal salute and then shook his hand.
“Jack, thank you for coming so quickly. We got a tricky one.” Chilton turned to the two people already seated in his office. “This here is Colonel Jack Hammerson, my top security specialist. Jack to his friends, and the Hammer to those that aren’t.”
The pair got to their feet and Chilton walked Hammerson over, introducing the first. “Doctor Marion Martin, an expert in astral-biology.”
“Doctor Martin.” Hammerson shook her hand.
Chilton then motioned to the older man, fit, and about the same age as Hammerson. “And Angus McCarthy, he’s one of the chief designers of the Kennedy Moon Base, and knows everything about its design, construction, and maintenance.”
Chilton motioned to the long meeting table, and they sat down. Then the general leaned on his forearms and meshed his fingers. “Last week we picked up chatter from our Russian friends that something had gone wrong on their dark side lunar mining base.”
“The one a mile from ours?” Hammerson asked.
“That’s it, the Vladimir Lenin Base,” McCarthy said.
Chilton nodded. “Their base went offline and stayed offline. The Russians then moved up the launch of their resupply craft, even though they referred to an ‘unidentifiable’ risk. There were twenty-two people on the Lenin Base and our guys picked up on their sensors what they believe might have been an explosion. Something bad went down there.”
Hammerson exhaled. “Let me guess, now they’re blaming us?”
“Maybe.” Chilton half-smiled. “But that’s the least of our worries.” His smile fell away. “Last night, ours also went dark.”
“What?” McCarthy’s brows snapped together.
“Listen yourself.” Chilton reached for a slim device on the table in front of them. “This was the only message we received. Partial message, anyway.”
He pressed play – it was a woman’s voice, panicked and out of breath, as if she had been running: “It’s inside. Somewhere. Lifeform.”
Chilton hit stop on the device and sat back.
“That’s it?” Hammerson asked.
“Play it again,” Marion requested.
Chilton did as requested, then turned to the group. “Now you know as much as we do.”
“Lifeform,” Marion Martin repeated. She had a hundred questions in her wide eyes.
Chilton clasped his large hands together. “You all know that the president used to be a test pilot and even tried out for the Apollo program when he was younger.” He shook his head slowly. “He is not going to let our eighty-plus people on the base be abandoned.”
“What’s their status now?” Hammerson asked.
“The base still has power, so they have light and oxygen. But somehow they have zero comms.”
“Impossible,” McCarthy said.
“Anything is possible if you have motivation and opportunity,” Hammerson replied.
“Exactly what I think. Someone or something shut them down.” Chilton tilted his head. “What do you think, Jack?”
“The Russians? Maybe they went mad and blew their own base. And then felt like causing some more damage so moseyed on over to the Kennedy Base.”
“Lunar madness,” McCarthy suggested. “It’s a real thing and why we insist on psych checks every few months. Whether it’s the isolation, the boredom, or the constant low-level radiation, it can create psychotic episodes.”
Chilton seemed to ruminate on it for a moment. “Yes. But I don’t think that’s it. However, the Russians suspect we sabotaged their base, and we think they might have attacked ours. Not a great recipe for world peace right now.”
Marion Martin sat forward. “The word ‘lifeform’ does not suggest a Russian source of the problem. But something else.”
There was silence for several seconds until Jack Hammerson sighed and turned to his general.
“We need more intel, Marcus. Too many unknowns right now.”
“I agree.” Chilton looked at each of their faces in turn. “They can’t come to us, so we’re going to them. The Kennedy Base resupply ship was due out in ten days, but we’re bringing that forward as the Russians are already on their way.” His eyes went to Hammerson. “With a Spetsnaz security detail.”
Hammerson nodded. “Of course they are.”
Chilton opened his arms. “We need to be there first, so we’re going to give our resupply ship a bit of a turbo charge for acceleration.”
“How long to get there?” Hammerson asked.
“Angus?” Chilton asked.
“Depends on the route we take, but normally three days. The moon is approximately 240,000 miles from us. The fastest mission to the Moon was NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission. We used an Atlas-V rocket accelerating it to a speed of about 36,373 miles per hour. Only took us eight hours and thirty-five minutes to get there. But it was unmanned, because the human frame probably couldn’t take it if –”
“We believe it could now,” Marion interrupted. “In hibernation. And if a human body was pumped full of muscle relaxants and beta blockers to slow down the metabolism.”
“We know it can take it – we’ve already tested it,” Hammerson said and turned to Chilton. “What, and how many?”
“We launch tomorrow, midday. You can send a team of six to accompany two science specialists.” He turned to Marion and McCarthy.
Marion laughed. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
McCarthy shrugged. “Save our people, and see what the hell someone has done to my base? Hell, yeah, count me in.”
Chilton stood and the others followed. “You’ll be picked up at oh-eight-hundred hours, sharp. There’ll be a fast prep, kit out, and then you’ll be taken straight to the pad.”
He shook both the scientists’ hands, and suddenly both of them looked a little pale. “The country and your president greatly appreciate this,” he said to each of them. Then he stood back and saluted them.
After they left, Chilton turned to Hammerson. “How is he?”
“Recuperating.”
“We want him on-mission. He might be the only one who has the capabilities to … deal with whatever is happening.”
“Physically, he’s in great shape. But mentally?’ Hammerson shrugged. “I just don’t know. We were hoping to give him some more time with his family, to fully decompress.”
“I’ve read the latest psych report. He seems fine.”
“It’s the devil that might still be hiding inside that’s the problem.”
“Jack, this time you didn’t recommend he spend any time in the box. That tells me you also think he’s okay.” Chilton opened his hands. “Look, a day to get to the moon, a few days to check out what’s happening and assist getting their comms back online, and then another few days to get back. All up, a week, right?” The general raised his eyebrows.
Hammerson didn’t believe it for a second, and he knew the general didn’t either. Like he said, something weird had happened up there, and the word “lifeform” probably scare
d the shit out of a lot of people. Bottom line, something had infiltrated the Russian mining base, destroyed it, and then – worst case – made its way to the Kennedy Base and potentially interfered with them as well.
No, Hammerson corrected himself. The worst case was every living soul on the Kennedy Base was already dead.
Lifeform; Jack Hammerson thought about the word. He knew from his briefing notes that there were just over eighty people on the American site, and six of them had military experience and were acting as security. To overwhelm them so quickly meant it probably wasn’t some sort of greasy slime mould that bounced in on a hunk of space rock.
Or could it be? That idea gave Hammerson a thought. “Could it have been a germ? Something that got into the air-filtration system and infected the base? Knocked them down or caused some sort of accelerated psychotic episodes? Then maybe caused the Russians to self-detonate their own base.”
“It’s a possibility, Jack. And we know there are several possibilities. The president knows you understand that nothing that threatens life can be brought back to Earth.” He looked up, his expression deadpan.
Hammerson nodded slowly, knowing what that meant: if there were ever some form of uncontrolled contaminant, clear and present danger, or extreme threat to the planet, then the team would not be allowed to return until the threat was eradicated. If ever. His HAWCs would know that. He doubted the scientists did.
Chilton went on. “It’s high risk and we’re flying blind. But we have a responsibility to those brave men and women up there to attempt a rescue. If that’s even what’s needed.” His hands balled into fists for a moment. “Pick your best team. If you say Hunter is unable to go, then so be it; it’s your call.” He leaned forward. “But personally, I want him there. We both know the guy is a game changer and his unique abilities might be the difference between success and – not.”
“Go in fast, kick some ass, and come out smiling.” Hammerson gave him a flat smile.
“That’s the HAWC spirit.” Chilton stuck out a hand. “Never a dull moment, huh, Jack?”
“Not in this lifetime.” He shook the outstretched hand. “We’ll get it done, sir.”