Chuck was surprised at Doug’s emotion. “We still have a chance to survive.”
“For what purpose? When you think of humanity’s place on the earth, we were an insignificant blip. Nothing special.”
“Yeah,” Chuck agreed.
The buzzer announced someone coming into the hangar from the Nexus. The two turned and saw Captain Thaddeus Rudzinski enter. Thad closed the hangar door, verified the seal, and with one graceful bound, alighted on the control room platform in front of Chuck and Doug.
“You’re doing the pod beacons?” Doug asked.
“You bet.” Thad grinned. “It’s a great view. Do you want to come out and watch it with me?”
“No thanks.”
18
Thad was early. He placed the spotting beacons as planned 300 meters from the solar array and waited. These beacons weren’t absolutely necessary. The pod could be remotely directed for descent but the beacons allowed a precision of the landing to the nearest meter.
He stood in the sunlight and marveled at the view of the sky. For all of the lost beauty of earth, there was transcendent celestial splendor from this vantage point. He tried to remember which scientist said that all the interesting parts of the universe were ionized plasma, everything else was just dead rock. He looked down and kicked up a white cloud of moon dust. Like the moon. But somehow between the ionized plasmas of the universe manifested in the spectacular spray of stars and the dead rock that was the moon, they were going to make it. They were going to save humanity.
Captain Thaddeus Rudzinski felt a measure of happiness. It wasn’t that he was glad earth was gone. But the loss wasn’t as devastating to him as it was to his colleagues. He looked in the direction of distant earth.
It was his mom. It started after his father, who lived life full and well, passed away. Within a month his mom started to forget things — then came the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. That diagnosis robbed him of everything much as it had her. Thad lost his wife of three years when she was afraid he’d spend their last dollar on his mom’s care. He lost his childhood when he returned from his third deployment and his mom couldn’t remember his name.
Then came the cancer diagnosis. He didn’t know which was worse, her frustration at forgetting or the pain from the treatment. And, true to his young ex-wife’s fears, he lost every dollar of wealth his family accumulated by paying for inadequate treatments. It didn’t help that Silicon Valley billionaires were living to extraordinary ages by stockpiling life-extending blood they got by paying low income youths to bleed in bottles. Nothing helped. He came to resent the inequity of society. He came to resent singing birds, the burst of spring flowers, and the smell of fresh cut lawns. He came to resent life itself. It was easy to volunteer as a permanent colonist at the new moon base.
He didn’t feel joy when the gamma ray burst hit but he didn’t despair. His first thought, one he never shared with anyone, was ‘now Mom’s at peace’. He looked back at the mile-long plexiglass walkway and mustered a smile. He was up here with the earth’s best group of handpicked volunteers struggling to survive.
He thought of Tina Bennet holding the hydroponically grown green sprouts and made a mental note to visit the Agriculture Pod. Tina’s blonde hair and youthful curves were just what he needed. They were scratching for survival and it was right and good. He thought of the first humans that scratched a furrow in the African savannah twelve thousand years ago. He smiled.
Tina, after a fashion, was doing the same here. There was nobility in this lunar quest and Tina felt it as much as Thad. That joint feeling was the beginning of something special. Now that Thad thought about it, that was the beginning of all love — shared values, shared dreams.
The glow of rockets firing announced the supply pod’s imminent arrival. Thad watched the beacon indicator lights flash green and flicked on his transmitter. “Pod communication established. All nominal.”
“Confirmed.” Chuck’s voice came back with business-like efficiency.
Thad turned on his helmet camera and watched through his magnifier as the pod descended. The thrusters cut off on schedule. Thad gasped when he saw the craft rotate. He flicked on his transmitter. “Pod is yawing aft! I say again — pod is yawing aft about a 160 degrees. Must be a glitch in the gyro.”
Only silence greeted him. The gamma ray burst must have fried the pod’s gyros. To his horror the thrusters kicked on not slowing the descent as planned but, as the thrusters were pointing skyward, accelerating the pod toward the surface. “Cut the thrusters!” Thad shouted on the control room communications channel. “Cut the…”
It was too late. The supply pod became a powered missile that slammed into the back of the crater wall. Just as Thad realized the impact looked to be right on top of the buried base, the created tremor knocked him off his feet. The moon’s surface rang like a bell and Thad could only wait it out face down and rotating counterclockwise. Over the noise of vibration, his panting breaths, and beating heart he heard something much more terrifying — the crackling sound of decompressive ruptures.
19
Mark had no sooner heard the panic in Thad’s voice on the intercom when the impact rocked him. He sprawled on the floor of the Nexus. Someone screamed and awful crunching sounds increased in volume as the vibration continued. Mark fought panic as catastrophic sounds of crackling and hissing reverberated through the Nexus.
He looked up and his stomach dropped when seeing the red ‘breach’ light flashing over the tube that housed the med-bay, University Pod, and director’s quarters. He scrambled on hands and knees to the door and pulled the emergency seal lever of Habitation Tube One.
“Wait!” Zeke hollered behind him.
The emergency seal was an iris of overlapping polymer louvres that closed between the inner and outer doors. The iris sung as the seal closed.
“People are in there!” Zeke shrieked.
A concussive ripple of waves buckled the sealed iris but it remained intact. Mark, wide-eyed, turned to Zeke. Another wave of the induced moonquake knocked both off their feet.
Mark crawled to the intercom. “Everyone stay at your posts or in your quarters!”
The wave subsided. Zeke pulled himself to his feet and bounded to the sealed iris. He punched buttons on the status panel. Mark stayed on one knee and braced for another tremor. “What the hell happened?”
“Oh no.” Zeke said as he stared at the status panel. “The pressure readings in the med-bay, University Pod, and director’s quarters are at deep space vacuum.”
“What?” Mark gasped.
“It looks like Habitation Tube One imploded.”
“We have a problem,” Doug’s voice came over the intercom. “The pressurized portion of the plexiglass walkway is gone and Thad’s still out there.”
“Can someone get out to him?”
“Who?” Doug’s voice had an unmistakable edge. “Who are you going to send out there?”
Sally appeared beside Mark. He didn’t have time to wonder where she came from. “Thad’s still out there,” Mark whispered.
“I heard,” Sally replied. She leaned to the intercom. “Doug, Thad has enough air to make it back. Tell him to stay away from the plexiglass walkway and get to the hangar door.”
“We don’t know if the hangar load lock’s been compromised.” It was Chuck who answered.
“Just do it,” Mark commanded.
“Okay stand by,” Doug replied. After an interminable pause the intercom crackled to life. “We got a hold of Thad. He’s coming back.”