As Captain Rogers fastened his harness, he looked out the windshield and could see the TV cameras set up, and hundreds of observers outside. It was so strange to him after being sworn to secrecy for so long, but once the HULK launched into space, there would be no way to hide the program’s existence. President Stein hoped that by maintaining the silence for so long, their enemies would not be in a position to attack them or to make any sincere move to stop them. Their clandestine life had now served its purpose; now it was time for openness and celebration to play a role.
America had been through a lot these past two and a half years of war. Millions of Americans had been killed, and the end of the war still seemed years away from conclusion. The fate of Europe continued to hang in the balance and America was now beginning the process of assessing the damage in California and rebuilding the West Coast. President Stein wanted to give the American people and the Allies a sense of hope, of optimism, and a desire to see the war through to its successful conclusion no matter the cost. Captain Rogers and the crew of the Pegasus knew they were going to do exactly that.
The next thirty minutes were going to change the mood and hopes of America and the world. People had suspected that America was pursuing space-based weapons, but the secret of their project had been well kept. President Stein unclassified Operation Pegasus beginning on the day of the launch, and would allow the public to watch the launch as the HULK went into the sky. For security purposes, the video feed of the launch had a ten-minute delay and so did any news of what was happening. The launch of Operation Pegasus was also only announced thirty minutes before it happened, and only a select few were being told where the launch was taking place. This was done largely to minimize the possibility of the Axis powers trying a last-ditch effort to hinder the launch or try to intercept the HULK as it flew into space.
The greatest threat to the launch was from Russia and China, who might attempt to launch missile interceptors or aircraft to try and interdict the HULK as it clawed for altitude and the depths of space. To minimize the likelihood of this happening, the US had moved the battleship USS Iowa to Baffin Bay, between Canada and Greenland. The USS Wisconsin had been moved to Midway Island; both ships had missile interceptors and laser platforms to engage any Russian or Chinese missiles that may try to reach out and hit the HULK as it entered orbit. To counter the possibility of ground-based lasers from Russia or China, the HULK had been built with a modulated armor that would nullify the enemy’s lasers as long as they knew the wavelength the enemy lasers were using. The wavelength information had been stolen, costing many lives to obtain, but they had finally captured the information, just prior to the launch.
Captain Rogers gave the order to the crew, “Prepare for lift off.”
A few moments passed as everyone performed their final checks. Finally, the word came back, “Cross check complete, Captain.”
Rogers looked down at the throttle lever and slowly began to move it forward, applying more and more power to the EmDrive. In seconds, the ship began to lift off the ground and slowly started to gain altitude. As he continued applying more power, the ship began to accelerate forward; then the captain pulled back on the flight controls, pointing the ship at a 75-degree angle towards the heavens above. In less than a minute, the ship had passed Mach 10 and was approaching the outer reaches of the atmosphere.
In less than seven minutes, the HULK had broken free of Earth’s orbit and began to enter deep space in their journey to the lunar surface. They had not encountered any resistance or attempts by Russia or China to stop their journey. Now they had a 22-hour journey to the Moon, where they would make several circles in orbit as they conducted a few surveys and scans of the surface to ensure the pre-identified location was in fact the best location for them to establish their base of operation and begin mining.
As they approached the Moon and began their orbit, Captain Rogers marveled at the sight of the lunar surface; he still could not believe they were about to establish the first extraterrestrial colony. Karl Bergstrom, the geology officer onboard interrupted his thoughts when he came over the radio, telling him, “Captain, during our second pass of the Moon, we found a new location that had a higher concentration of minerals. It has an adequate landing zone.”
“And the surrounding surface?” asked Rogers.
“Sir, it’s flat enough to establish the mining base camp.”
“Well, we knew this was a possibility. Thank you, Karl. I’m going to contact ground command now.”
“Control, this is Captain Rogers. Our geology officer has identified a new location that appears to be more advantageous. I plan on moving forward with changing the landing location of the ship unless we receive a negative response from you in the next four hours.”
There was a moment of static before the reply came in, “HULK, this is Control. You are cleared to adjust your landing, and we want to commend you for finding a better location. Please send the new coordinates for our tracking purposes.”
Once Captain Rogers completed the necessary communications with ground command, he began to address his own crew. “Attention everyone, we have received permission from mission control to proceed with our landing at the new location. Good catch Dr. Bergstrom. We are going to begin our descent now. Prepare for landing. As Rogers began the descent, the crew became both nervous and excited. This was one of the most dangerous parts of their mission.
Of course, everyone was also excited; this was mankind’s first attempt at establishing a permanent base camp in space. As the HULK descended to the lunar surface, they encountered no significant problems. The ship slowly settled on to the surface of the Moon. Once the ship’s engines had been powered down, it was safe for the crew to move about the ship; they began to get their individual stations set up and collected the various gear into the vehicles in the outer storage bay. There was a moment of realization as they stood there before the door opened; this was not just an adventure, this was going to be their new home.
When the HULK was built, it was designed with multiple storage bays and access points to both the lunar surface and the storage bays themselves. It was a modular design that allowed the crew to reconfigure the openings to be small or large, depending on the need.
The mining equipment consisted of a rock crusher, which would reduce the larger rubble and rocks down to smaller rocks, and a small conveyor belt that would move the debris into large containers that would later be moved to one of the loading bays on the HULK for further processing. There were several additional pieces of mining equipment that would allow the miners to scrape the surface of the Moon for the minerals they were in search of, and excavators to build a mining pit like the ones used on Earth, only they were adjusted to be able to accomplish this with very little gravity. There was also a boring device, which would be used to begin the process of digging out various caverns, tunnels and rooms inside one of the mountain ranges near the camp. The goal of this crew was to prepare a location that would later be developed into a permanent structure and command post.
Once the equipment had been transferred to the lunar surface, the miners and base builders would begin their separate operations. The miners were obviously focused on getting the Tritium4 collected and prepared for transport back to Earth. Once the smaller base product was collected into one of the bays, they would use electricity to smelt it down; this would drastically reduce the amount of space needed to store the unrefined Tritium4. The base builders would immediately begin construction of five temporary biodomes that would be responsible for growing the food that the colony would begin to consume. Several botanists were part of the crew, and their goal was to begin establishing the three garden biodomes that would grow about 60 % of the colony’s vegetables, fruits and nuts through hydroponics. Growing food in a low gravity environment was largely an experiment, but it was one that needed to be conducted to determine if a sustainable colony could be built. Another dome would be set up for the purposes of raising chickens; it was unknown whether or not they would be able to thrive and continue to lay eggs in a low gravity environment, but if they were successful in this experiment, it would provide a protein source for the colony’s diet, and also produce a source of fertilizer to assist with farming.