by Dan Eaton
It rose like a star over the Western horizon. From his viewpoint at a window high in the manufacturing module, he watched the deadly cylinder come nearer and as it did, the white protective shroud split in two and fell away. Without the shroud blocking the view, the seven warheads were clearly visible, each a long cylinder with a hardened-nose case on the front and a maneuvering package attached to the rear. As he watched, there was a puff of gas and the seven war-loads came free of their carrier. Under guidance from their maneuvering packages, each bomb began its quick descent to the lunar surface and stitched a line of holes across the floor of Peary crater and then up along the rim of Whipple crater.
The final impact just missed the eastern end of the original habitat. The old saying about close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear bombs immediately came to his head. Out on the floor of the crater, the first impact point exploded into a debris ball colored gray, red, orange, and black. There was no mushroom cloud because there was no atmosphere, just like there was no blast wave radiating out from the explosion. Faster than he could comprehend, the explosions marched along the line of impacts until the one nearest him erupted. He didn’t even have time to scream as the force of the blast ripped apart the Habitat and surrounding structures. He died in the briefest of agonies as the air was sucked from his lungs and his flesh was scoured from his bones. When the last blast subsided, all that was left of the site was a line of new craters marching across the lunar surface and a rapidly diminishing line of debris clouds falling back to the surface.
I woke up and pulled the sleep mask off my eyes. Between using the mask, taking the sleeping pills, and staying away from the news I had been sleeping okay. I ate breakfast with Sandy every morning and let him filter the news to me. It had been three weeks since we left NLH and still no resolution to the conflict that had stuck us here. If they didn’t get anything done by next week at this time, Commander Davies, was going to have to divert us to LEO before our supplies ran out. On the positive side, the course back to Earth had been plotted by me as one of the practical exercises on the navigation subsystem. I had also plotted a course that would take us back to NLH and that was the one I was genuinely hoping we would end up using. After almost a month in zero-g, I truly wanted to get back home to see my parents and friends and to take a long hot shower. Cleanups on the CLT30 were limited to wiping down with a moist towelette. It worked, however, it wasn’t that satisfying.
I looked over at Sandy and he smiled and said, “Morning Bryce. So, uh, what’s on your agenda today?”
I had finished up all my homework two weeks ago and had thrown myself into doing the pilot course that Commander Davies was letting me take. “Good morning, Sandy. I’m taking the final today. Commander Davies has been very satisfied with my work and I’ve given her a lot of good feedback she says. I’m hoping after I pass the test she doesn’t have me start cleaning the windows and the bathrooms every day to keep busy. Has there been anything positive on the news lately?”
Sandy had grabbed us a couple of breakfast meal kits. The good ones had run out about a week ago and this morning we were having the scrambled eggs and sausage version. Sandy opened his up and said, “It’s hard to tell. Either something is about to happen and everybody has clammed up to keep from jinxing it or maybe the news networks are just getting bored with the whole thing because there really hasn’t been much on about the situation in the last two days. Maybe something will break loose today. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear we get to go home?”
I could hear the frustration in Sandy’s voice. No one had signed up to spend a month in the CLT30 and as much as I hated the idea of diverting to LEO, even that was beginning to look more appealing than floating around another day in the CLT30. My day consisted of waking up and eating breakfast with Sandy. Then, I’d take my turn in one of the two restrooms and get cleaned up as well as I could using the wipes. Next, I’d spend my time with Commander Davies going through the pilot training material until it was lunch time when we would all gather in a group and eat lunch together. After lunch, it was back to the training material until supper time. We’d get back together as a group for dinner and talk about our day. Arwen’s team always had an interesting story and everyone was rooting for me to complete the pilot training. After dinner, I’d sit down and write an email to my parents and send it off. I had no idea if they were actually getting them since they couldn’t send me a reply, nevertheless, it made me feel better. After I had completed the flight control module, Commander Davies would let me spend as much time as I wanted in the evenings flying simulated missions with the CLT30. There wasn’t anything else to do to keep entertained so I ended up logging enough Pilot In Charge (PIC) hours in the simulator that I actually met the requirement to be a real CLT30 pilot. Assuming I passed my final test and anyone was crazy enough to hire a fifteen year old as a CLT30 pilot. Even if I couldn’t get the job, it still felt really good to qualify for it.
After I got cleaned up, and with a wish for good luck from Sandy, I went to see Commander Davies about the final exam. It took three hours to take and was very comprehensive. I was sweating through some parts of it, yet overall I thought I did okay. Commander Davies had the command deck sealed off from the cabin to make sure I wasn’t disturbed as I took the test. I don’t think anyone in the cabin heard me whoop after I completed the final and Commander Davies said I’d passed the test. She said, “You did well Bryce. Everyone is waiting for us now. Let’s go tell them our good news so we can celebrate.”
She led me down off of the command deck and into a noisy main cabin. As we entered, everybody hushed up and looked over at us. Sandy looked at Commander Davies and said, “Well, what’s the verdict?”
Commander Davies said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to present to you, the newest CLT30 qualified pilot, Bryce Burns.”
Everybody yelled their congratulations and encouragement and then Brad Wetter yelled, “Great job, Bryce, now go lay in a course for home and get us moving back there pronto. We’re all ready to leave.”
Everyone laughed and I was a bit confused by what he meant until Commander Davies leaned over and said, “About 45 minutes into your test, word came through that a settlement has been reached. NASA has lifted the travel restriction to NLH so we can go back now. I’d suggest we all eat lunch now and then after that, if you’re up to it, I’ll let you plot the course for home.”
I sat with Sandy during lunch and asked him for the details. He said, “They came to a decision that all accelerators on the Moon will be under the supervision of the UN. In our case, that means NLH will operate the accelerator under the supervision of UN monitors. This first monitoring team will be made up of monitors from the members of the UN Security Council permanent members. So, uh, the US made sure that the monitors have skin in the game by insisting that it will only accept monitors that bring their families with them. It sounds petty, although these people are going to be isolated enough that making sure they at least have their family to fall back on will help prevent them from going off the deep end on us. The Security Council members contributing monitoring resources get special consideration if they’d like to use the accelerator.”
“So what’s that special consideration mean?”
“It means when the Chinese decide to tell the rest of us what they really wanted to do all along, they’re going to get to use the accelerator really cheaply.
I couldn’t believe what Sandy was telling me. The Chinese had started this mess. They had practically accused my father of being a mass murderer. They had stranded us out here at LL1 and threatened to destroy the accelerator which could have resulted in the loss of NLH with my parents and friends. They did all of that and now they were being rewarded instead of punished like they should be. It just didn’t make sense to me. I told Sandy that and he said, “So, uh, I know this is hard for you since your Dad was involved and we were stranded out here, yet just keep this in mind. What goes around comes around and it wasn’t that long ago that the US go
t one over on the Chinese. I haven’t liked being stranded out here either, still I can’t blame the Chinese for wanting to even things up with the US. I think actions speak louder than words and while the Chinese said some things that made us unhappy, I don’t think they really ever intended to actually carry through on their threats. They accomplished getting an agreement that makes sure any accelerator that gets built on the Moon will be monitored so it’s not turned into a weapon. If they get a few bucks off an accelerator shot because of that, I can live with it.”
“I see what you’re saying, Sandy, but it still feels wrong to me.”
From my point of view, it would have been a pretty dismal lunch, except that half way through the meal, everyone’s E-pads started pinging. Commander Davies had managed to get a data dump with everyone’s forwarded email. Even though they knew the emails wouldn’t be forwarded on, my parents had sent me an email every day I was gone. I also had emails every week from Willie, Ananyu, and Christine. I think Christine was bending the rules a little for Myra because her emails basically said she and Myra were okay and hoped I was doing okay too. I had a couple of emails from Miss Gayle. The first was early on where she talked about trying to get additional assignments out to me which obviously didn’t happen. The second was more recent and she reassuringly said for me not to worry about how far behind I was getting because she already had a plan put together to get me back on track. I think she was kidding when she said that sleep was vastly overrated and we would put those hours to good use.
After lunch, I went with Commander Davies and figured out a course to get us home. I had already plotted the course before, however, Commander Davies insisted I do it again, both for practice and as a cross check to make sure I came up with the same results. While we were doing that, Yukiko, worked with Arwen’s team to get Sunshine’s depot shut down for habitation. The electronics on the depot would remain active to gather data from the mirror. It would also continue to track multiple, so called guide post stars that were used to locate and align the mirror. After Arwen had the depot buttoned up to her satisfaction, Yukiko shut the CLT30’s hatch and we were ready to detach and depart. The course I worked out would put us back landing at NLH at 10:31 am local time, the next day. Commander Davies made the announcement that we would be leaving in fifteen minutes and everybody needed to be strapped in well before that. I used the bathroom at the back of the command deck and then started floating down the ladder to go join Sandy. Suddenly, Commander Davies spoke up and said, “Where do you think you’re going Bryce?”
I stopped on the ladder and said, “I was going to go strap in with Sandy like you said we should.”
She laughed and said, “That announcement was for the passengers. You’re flight crew now and you should be riding up here on the flight deck. I think Sandy can manage by himself this time. You strap into that jump seat behind Yukiko so you can see my consoles.”
Fortunately, Yukiko was already strapped into the right hand seat next to Commander Davies or I probably would have knocked her over in my haste to get into the jump seat. The seats were intended for the second crew set when the CLT30 was fully crewed. In addition to a good general view of what Commander Davies was doing I had a monitor panel to my right that I could slave to the view of any of her panels. I set it to mirror the general status panel to my panel and watched the countdown drop to zero. At zero, Commander Davies gave the CLT30 a gentle nudge with the thrusters and we backed slowly away from the depot. She left the ship drift back until we were well away from the depot and the mirror when she stopped our motion. She did a final status check of all systems and then lit off the main engines to get us headed back to the Moon. There really wasn’t anything to do after that until it was time to eat supper, yet I stayed there just happy to be sharing the experience from the command deck.
I left the command deck for supper and sat next to Sandy while I ate. He was in a good mood. He said he’d gone through his business emails and had three that’s great messages, twenty seven okay's, nine that could have gone a little better, and one well, now what do we do message. Given how long he was out of the loop, he felt pretty good about how business had gone during the last month. He laughed and then said, “Hmmmm, so, uh, is it telling me something that if I’d been around, I’d probably have had more bad messages?”
I told him about my time up on the flight deck and we listened to Arwen’s team talking about what they’d be doing next. The mirror assembly we had installed was performing as expected, nevertheless, it had never been intended to be the final answer. The positioning unit driven by the software that Francisca had developed was keeping the mirror stationed well within the parameters they had established. Francisca would carefully watch things over the next six months and tweak her algorithms as needed. The current simple mirror tested the concept and lit up exactly the area they needed, yet was far too small to capture enough sunlight to light up the solar cells on the site to the degree needed. In six months, the team would be back to install a multi-mirror system that would collect enough light and reflect it down via a single mirror to give them more control over the area they illuminated. So far, their test had not generated any environmental concerns and they wanted to keep it that way. The original mirror would become one of the array of reflector mirrors so nothing would be wasted.
Commander Davies had invited me back to the command deck for the lunar orbital maneuvering and landing. While we wouldn’t be landing until 10:31 am, the maneuvering had to occur way earlier. Commander Davies headed off to bed early so I took a hint, set my alarm early and popped a sleeping pill as I settled into one of the chairs for the short night. When the alarm woke me, it was quiet on the passenger deck. The lights were low, which I expected, although there was always someone talking when I was up, so the absence of human noise was a little weird. There wasn’t even someone snoring because in zero-g, the tongue and jaw do not fall back in the throat and you don’t get the conditions that lead to snoring. I quietly floated off to the bathroom to do my business and then grabbed a breakfast meal kit from the galley. It was another scrambled eggs and sausage version which wasn’t bad, just a little monotonous to have every day for breakfast. I consoled myself with the idea that the next meal would be in the cafeteria at the Habitat and I’d have plenty of choices even if we beat the monthly supply ship in.
I floated up to the command deck and found Commander Davies in her seat having her breakfast. One of the bunks at the back had the privacy curtain drawn so I assumed Yukiko was still sleeping. Commander Davies had me sit in the right hand seat. She said, “You need to record this time as co-pilot in your log. You’re qualified even if you’re not going to touch a thing and you’re sitting in the seat so might as well make it official.”
Someplace, I was sure there was somebody that would have a hissy fit about a fifteen year old freshly minted CLT30 pilot sitting in the right hand chair as co-pilot. The truth was, the ship was on auto and would safely land itself on pad number one at NLH all by itself, now that the course had been programmed in. Commander Davies would handle any emergencies and if she needed help, I wasn’t kidding myself to think she’d rely on me before she dragged Yukiko out of her bunk. If it got to the point where they had to rely on me, we were probably too far gone for me to make any difference anyway.
Nothing exciting was happening today anyways. Commander Davies and I quietly chatted while the CLT30 carried out the required burns with precision. Yukiko got up a couple of hours later, took care of herself and had breakfast, before going down to the passenger cabin and making sure the cabin and passengers were squared away for landing. The hours ticked down and then for the second time in my life I found myself landing on the Moon. Ironically, the view this time was only marginally better than the first time. The window for the command deck on the CLT30 is on the nose of the ship. Whether orbiting the Moon or coming in for a landing, the view out the front showed a star field and not the lunar surface that was below us. I could select a radar generat
ed view of what was below us or I could display the output of one of the external cameras and display it on a monitor. Unfortunately, it was pretty much the same view I had a year ago on the lunar transport. This time I had a cooler seat, yet the view still sucked.
Eventually, the clock ticked down and we rode the engines down to a landing on pad one. Commander Davies announced our arrival and I could hear cheering and clapping from the passenger deck. I also noticed for the first time in almost a month, there was pressure on my back and it sounds weird, but I could feel the weight of my tongue. We all waited with growing impatience as the transport lumbered out to the CLT30 and hooked up. It took a while, and then, finally we were all aboard the transport and moving down the road towards the Habitat. On my previous trips through the locks, I thought they worked in a fair amount of time. This trip they took forever to open and close. Finally, the last door opened and the transport pulled into the vehicle park. Once the door closed, the smaller locks into the habitat opened and a flood of people came out. Foremost were my mom and dad, and then Miss Gayle and both classes from the school. Christine showed up, along with Joe, Marcy, and Tariq from work. The hatch was popped and on suddenly wobbly legs we all made it out of the transport. Mom and Dad grabbed me in a family hug and I was home.