Silver Moon (English Edition) ebook

SILVER MOON

Jason Lee Hunter

GALAXY HUNTER

SILVER MOON

Copyright ©

XDVISIONS, Zbigniew Danielewicz, 2020

We are facing a new life changing too soon...

And you are so far away, far on the Silver Moon

I: Alpine Valley

Alpine Valley – one hundred sixty-six kilometers of a depression from Mare Imbrium right up to The Frigoris Sea. We still research the surface of the Moon, even though only a few people know about it.From this area five years ago, our lunar orbiters caught a strange, sequential signal. Clear, but possessing a mysterious code within its spectrum, something like an attempt to encrypt a wave so that this signal could be received by only one proper recipient. Pure coincidence allowed us to extract a regularly synchronous progression from this tangle of quasi-digital babble. It was caused by an interference originating from a solar flare, which appeared just after the last catastrophic in its effects, explosion in the coronal hole of our star.

It was just as well, as our fathers have sometimes been saying. After a short analysis, we realized that we had found something never seen before, and at the same time, we knew that over that eternal desert something had happened in the distant past, leaving a technological trace behind. Some of us compared the one to a signal once called S.O.S.

– Mertens, report in… goddamn it. Are you asleep?… will you turn off these synthetic retro-sounds, for heaven’s sake. We’ve got heaps of work to do. Our commander will be pissed off if we do not move this junk a few hundred meters away before the frigging Sun goes down.

The work over the terrain continued for two years. We’re digging where an echo once appeared, using large tunnel-driving machines operated by tenacious crews.The surface of the Moon was not friendly at all for us. Under a light and soft, dust-like layer, we came across some melted strata of solid metamorphic rocks that were the result of a gigantic collision. Titan next to it is soft beryllium.

Mertens and I, we didn't slack off, unlike the ones above. I should have been promoted a long time ago. Who knows, maybe I could get Mertens to follow me. He was a good man. Meanwhile, I have to beaver away at this beautiful jerkwater outpost.

– Rick, hell with you, if you don’t turn on the transmitter, I will shove it… you know where… at last, dear sir, where do you hang around?

There was a creak in the earphones, and after a while, a clear Mertens’ voice came through. He appeared in the typical moon leaps from behind a remote tractor, which was located fifty meters away from me.

A hundred-kilogram heavy-weight man, mostly muscles, under these conditions could allow himself much more freedom than on Earth, which was now a few hundred thousand kilometers away from us.

– Alright, alright, why do you rant and rave, the captain’s minion? – Rick rumbled with his inborn talent. You should get to work yourself and not just grumble and grumble. May I have a piss? He remarked that ironically, for sure.

– In a few minutes, we have to go down to the second level, otherwise, they will come down on us – I motivated Rick, hoping that he did have his communicator turned on to be online with our orbital station. A little ironic grin appeared on his face, barely seen from behind his helmet visor.

– Man, you can catch flies quickly, we have enough time – replied Mertens.

– In no time, we will set the business in motion. Slow down, man – he continued.

– I will get a signal to the top so they can prepare themselves for the next portion of some heavy drilling in this fucking hard rock – I responded while setting a transmission from a device located on my left forearm of my heavy worn-out spacesuit.

Three, Six, Eight, Four. Connecting to the orbital station was never a pleasure for me. We are always an easy target. Nothing can be hidden away on this gray desert unless you hide yourself in one of these drilled tunnels.

– If we finish the digging this century, finding anything, it will be a miracle – Rick responded.

Some other cracks told us the connection was established with Trinity, our orbiting center visible from the surface as a little ring. It was separated from the surface by only a few minutes of diving, straight to a landing pad next to our camp. The other way round, it is much longer and harder. We were connected only by a sub-orbital platform.

– Trinity, calling in, commander speaking, contacting the most efficient team on this moon vale.

– How is it going gentlemen? How far did you dig your mole’s noses in?

With his eloquence and sense of humor, our captain exceeded even Rick’s and all the other members of the crew expedition set all together.

– I hope you did not get bored down there, as here at our place the Sun shines all the time at full blast – our commander sneered at us.

Luckily, I was in a good mood today, otherwise, I would have bawled out my entire negative emotions straight in the face of our nasty captain. Seeing Rick’s angry face, it was not too far for him to lose his temper, but even he was clenched in anger, none of his eyelids batted at all.

– Here the Sun does not spare ourselves, but with all due respect, we have different prospects for the future – I retorted with unconcealed irony in my voice.

Our beloved captain, tenderly called a slave-driver by some lower-ranking astronauts, continued his sarcastic disquisition. All of him, Tim Stavinsky, a commander of a barely known class.

– O’kay guys, I make fun of you so you can get a bit relaxed. You know that it is your turn today to make a giant leap for mankind, and nobody can take it away from you, even me, if I wanted to.

I thought I could hear a little noise in the background, something reminiscent of the cackling of the other members of the Trinity’s crew who were in the commanding center of the station. Rick let it slide and looked over to the Northern Highlands, just to forget about what awaited us throughout the next eight hours of the dreadfully long moon time.

– J.L., are you there? The commander asked rhetorically. Why are you so silent? Put yourself together and get to work. There is a two-hundred-meter slog waiting for you. Let’s sharpen our cannons and let’s go. We aren’t getting paid for rest.

I thought to myself, 'you can sharpen your caustic foul tongue', cautiously muting my com-module on my spacesuit, which was heavily mucked up in dust. Having this type of boss is a pain in the ass. We couldn’t predict that this was the day we could hear our commander alive for the last time…

Future is being made with great, earthshaking news, …they have found something strange in a valley of the Silver Moon

II: 'I curse the day we received the signal'

– Good heavens, Rick, let it go, you will burn the cutterhead! Cooling down, disconnecting synchronization – I yelled at Rick like mad.

– Something's wrong – I tried to keep my voice down.

It took us fifteen minutes to get to the end of the tunnel. We were a hundred meters below ground level. Another half an hour was spent to start the ultrasonic grinders in our tunnel-boring machine. The next two hours were painstakingly breaking through the layers of the black, crystalline deposit and removing excavated material to the backup channel, from where it was transported outside through the system of automatic conveyors. The temperature in the tunnel, which had been stable so far, rose dangerously when we came across something that might have seemed to be the goal of our mission.

However, optimism could have been very untimely. Seismographs set high above the surface recorded unprecedented vibrations with a frequency similar to the signals received by our orbiters. But there was something else that the detectors had not been able to catch previously. This time we were close. However, something big was coming over our heads, which we were not to witness with our own eyes.

– Ricky, connect to the base now. We'll have to retract the cutterhead. We'll see what this whatchamacallit is.

– Here's TBM, base... do you copy? – Rick intoned without conviction.

– Tim, Melanie, report in, we have a little problem here. Tim?

Silence… and suddenly a thump. The tunnel shuddered, and the heat shields creaked with a heavy metallic noise.

We felt as if we had instantly changed several floors in a falling elevator. Something really big must have hit the surface above us hard, and not far away.

– Rick, can you get it back? Rick, I'm talking to you!…

Rick held both steering levers tightly. Red lights announced that the automatic fallback procedure had started.

Where's the smoke coming from? – I thought when subsequent attempts to communicate with Rick were unsuccessful.

Overloading of all systems produced a series of short circuits in the installation as the cutterhead laboriously began to reverse. An alarm after alarm appeared on the board above me.

The emergency system went off, and the front protection shield separated the driller's cockpit from the wall in front of us. Rick woke up, but it was obvious to see that the sudden drop of pressure inside the cabin had significantly changed his perception. There was pure fear in his eyes as he turned his face toward me. Still, he held onto the vehicle control lever tightly. There was something in his head, and somehow he couldn't get it out of his brain.

A Helmet On warning sounded from the onboard speakers. I heard this signal for the first time in my relatively short mining career. It was a clear sign not to wait for further urging. I unfastened my seat belts and struggled to reach the helmets hanging on the wall of the cockpit.

– Rick, for God's sake, move your rump, we're going to decompress the place in a minute.

Certainly it wasn't the Rick I knew. Another tremble reminded me that it could get even worse… and suddenly everything went quiet.

Only the red lights in the cabin lit the interior with a pale light. Somehow I managed to push the helmet down on Rick's head and secure the clamp. Compression and the access of increased volume of oxygen sobered his mind.

Someone's back here alive at last, I thought.

– Jay, is it you? What the hell is going on?

– It wasn't my fault, I swear – he whispered with a metallic voice deformed by the helmet.

– This is not my fault, not this time. Shit, I can't see anything. Give me a minute – he gasped.

Rick pulled back the lowered helmet visor. Sweat started pouring down his face as if he were in the shower, and he reminded me of a dead corpse.

– Take it easy, Rick. Something fell on us outside, on the surface. I don't think we're quite safe in this goddamn can. Try activating the emergency drive. We will go back a few meters and then raise the front shields.

The plan seemed reasonable, but could this great piece of metal junk give a last, saving breath for us? – I asked myself without the slightest confidence.

A grind... it separated. We started moving back. We could clearly hear that the chamber in front of us was unstable. Something heavy went down with an ominous sound.

– I hope it will not collapse, otherwise we're screwed – I whispered relatively calmly to Rick.

– Check the front airlock, we'll have to get out of here somehow. I'm lifting the shields now – I shouted at Rick.

The screeching we heard did not fill us with optimism.

– Mertens, what about the airlock? Give me a reading. What are you staring at? – I spoke over my shoulder, hoping for any answer. In an evil hour..

What was ahead of us was the sight of the enormous space which caused our jaws to drop like excavator buckets before picking up a load on the surface. We stood almost at the edge of a great abyss...

– Jay, goddamn it, I saw it in my head before you moved up the shields.

What is this? – Rick gasped.

We were both shocked because someone had messed it up mercilessly. A strange, irrational landscape spread ahead of us. A huge, vast cave crowned by a gray vault. We almost forgot that our priority right now should be communicating with Trinity, but the communicator was silent, and no one gave the slightest sign of being alive. It was a bad, for the moment, a very bad sign.

– The airlock is open, decompression in three, two, one ... now! – Rick released the hydraulic clamps in the forward bulkhead. The hiss of air escaping from the decompression chamber announced it was time to face the truth.

– We'll try to make contact with the base outside – Rick said, pushing through the narrow airlock gates.

Somehow his words didn't sound convincing. At the last moment, he grabbed a container with a communication kit and a long-range antenna. We needed a stronger signal, much stronger than normally.

– Rick to base, we're alive. We have found it. Do you copy? Base ... goddamnit ... Tim, why aren't you answering right now? – Mertens asked, strongly irritated.

Still nothing but a murmur of sinister silence.

– He stays quiet when he's needed… damn you, Tim.

– Jay, get out of there now and have a look.

Our silhouettes were lit by a vast glow coming from a gigantic chamber in which, according to our initial impression and slowly reaching us visual signals, there was wreckage of some extraterrestrial structure. Huge scaffolding encircled the futuristic shapes of the vehicle. Someone had tinkered with it, and it had been here for a long time. We stood over the edge. One step ahead, and there were several hundred meters of empty space. More tremors. Again, something on the surface reminded us of our hopeless situation. In just a moment, we would not have a chance to fall back to the main tunnel connecting us with the surface. This time it sounded more like heavy bombardment rather than a single aftershock, but who could have raided us? Why?

– Rick, what about the signal from the base? Can you receive anything?

– Nothing, it ain't budging. The signal is still at level zero. I'll have to restart this shit, or else we'll stay here forever. Bastards, without them we won't be able to retract this piece of junk.

– Jay, I don't want to die here, not for the money – Rick announced desperately.

The phrase about money poured a bit of optimism into me about Rick's mental state. It couldn't be as bad as it seemed now. Only this lack of external signal… what the hell? This is not a perfect day to die. The thought began to drill down my brain, harder and harder.

– Make contact with the cameras outside the main tunnel… something must be working, dammit.

– Good manners which I was known for, went to hell a long time ago. We were in the proverbial deep shit this time...

III: Wreckage

I set up the equipment for the telemetry communication, which was indispensable in these conditions. Amplifier, transponders, antenna, and a small monitor. Restart.

Finally, the signal from the cameras came through. It seemed that not everything had been disintegrated after all. A bit of luck in a sea of chaos…

We will get out of this mess, someone must be waiting for us out there – I thought to myself.

– Turn the camera, give me a wider angle – I said to Rick, guessing what we might see in a moment.

I wasn't wrong. The view stretching across the Alpine Valley resembled nothing that had been here just recently.

The backup landing site installations had been completely destroyed. All around, everywhere, there was rubble of scattered, barely recognizable metal fragments of some structure. Large elements compressed into a chaotic mass. Traction tow trucks in shreds. The base buildings shattered by what seemed to be a massive carpet bombing. Everywhere, ashes, no smoke, no fire. However, I didn't expect anything else in these hellish cosmic conditions. Everything had vaporized into the pitch-black space.

– Look over there, Rick, do you see what I see… untouched Hangar H. We'll try to power up Goliath. We need to take a look around. I'd rather not go out into the open without knowing what's waiting for us out there.

Hangar H was located in the most remote part of the base. That's what saved it, and perhaps us as well. This hangar stored water and air supplies for at least a few days. However, we were still far from being out of the woods. Another dark thought hammered in my head… we won't survive this.

– It's not responding – Rick snapped angrily. "Syphilis, the plague, and the grave." Hope is the mother of… wait, I'm getting a signal from this scrap. Weak, but maybe it'll work. I'm getting some interference from that thing in front of us. Start recording, I'll send the signal up to the base. Someone else needs to see this besides us.

– Set up the camera, quick – Rick urged.

_Transmitted Signal Synchronized.

_Goliath Status Ready

A reassuring message appeared on the COM display.

– Finally, now we'll be able to assess the extent of the damage on the surface – I said, despite my bad premonitions.

Goliath, a self-propelled transport machine, used mainly for long-range reconnaissance. It could carry a significant load and a two-person crew for thirty kilometers without recharging. Old scrap left over from previous shifts, this time it might be our last resort.

– I'm opening the hangar gate. Activating automatic mode. Jay, finally look! It moved, the damn scrap heap. Let's just hope it doesn't break down like last time

– Rick cautiously finished his next pronouncement quietly.

Rick had bad experiences with Goliath. It had broken down halfway from the station's main landing pad. He was froced to hike two kilometers in full gear. At least he lost some weight… I fondly reminisced about the good old days for a brief moment.

Meanwhile, the camera I had set up was recording images inside the gigantic cavern after the Motion Detected warning signal came on. Something began to move inside the object, the sight of which now majestically unfolded before us.

But why isn't it emitting those signals anymore? – I thought. We would soon find out and it would be painful.

– J.L., focus, do you see what I see? – Rick asked.

The wide angle of Goliath's front camera revealed the enormity of the destruction of what we once proudly called our base. Something worried Mertens more than the object I had just observed.

– Do you recognize it? That's a piece of our orbital base. They're all dead! Hunter, they're all dead – Rick repeated the last words in a hushed voice.

For the next few moments, it dawned on us what had caused that powerful tremor that had reached all the way to our tunnel.

Hundreds of small elements littered the area where Goliath was moving. The impact must have been strong. Little remained of the massive structure of the enormous station. A destroyed habitation module loomed in the near distance. That was the only that part of the station we could still recognize. The rest was already just a memory.

– Maybe they managed to get into the escape pods? – Rick asked, as if with a final hope in his voice.

– Someone must have helped them. It didn't just fall. We have to go out, Rick. Gather the gear. I have a bad feeling that we are the last remaining members of this tragically ended expedition.

The echoing metallic voice of the communicator did not reflect how deeply I was depressed by what we had seen outside.

– Wait, what the hell? Do you see that shape north of the rise? What is that?

Rick focused for a moment on the object in the main landing area.

– Zoom in… shit…, something landed there – and it doesn't look like anyone from us.

From behind the previously calm horizon, the one we knew from daily observations – a strange shape emerged, unlike anything I had ever seen in my life before. Something had flown here, most likely summoned by the signal from the object we had dug our way to. And that something was just opening its front loading bay.

– Rick, let's get the hell out of here before it reaches us and destroys us. We grab what we need and get out – I strained through tightly clenched teeth.

– You're right, someone could have been watching us from there. We don't have time. I'll just grab the COM – Rick replied curtly.

– Leave the camera on. Maybe we'll see what's in that hole. And steer Goliath east to the main tunnel entrance; we'll intercept it there. Turn on its reactive mode. Maybe they won't see it… hopefully – I suggested.

Rick immediately performed several operations on the panel, and Goliath moved towards the main tunnel exit. There wasn't much time left for other maneuvers. In the last shot from its camera, an indistinct, an ominous hull of a smaller vehicle slowly emerged from the alien ship, a transporter of God knows what. The inevitable was approaching us from the north. We had at most fifteen minutes to get out of this cursed trap.

Meanwhile, tracks of our rescue vehicle began to appear on the lunar dust, but the vehicle itself was no longer visible. Until now, an unneeded function, it was our only protection against complete exposure.

We create the future, day after day,

You have nothing to fear.

IV: Under The Cover Of The Night

We moved back towards the Shield, passing through its front airlock. There was no time left to initiate the Shield's retraction procedure itself. We could risk revealing our position. We decided it was better to use the still-functioning magnetic conveyors in the backup tunnel, which would take us to Level One, and from there it was only fifty meters up by emergency elevator. We felt that time was slowly running out for us, and the oxygen mixture was too. Rick grabbed two spare tanks from the Shield, just in case his oxygen consumption started to increase rapidly. We had very little time to reach level one. The emergency elevator should have been in a parallel corridor, unless the system had automatically pulled it up to Level Zero earlier. We dreamed of nothing more than getting out of this cursed dark abyss.

From time to time, I had Rick check what was happening outside, but the signal in this area was breaking up like crazy. The total destruction above us could transfer beneath the surface at any moment. We couldn't predict the intentions of the approaching beings or whoever had turned our station into a complete pulp. The evacuation was slowly taking the form of pure improvisation. Our only hope was that by the time we exited through the east tunnel, the sun would already be behind the horizon. The transport to Hangar H was waiting for us there. None of us had the slightest idea what we would do afterward.

– Rick, what's wrong with you, why are you slowing down?

– Twenty more meters to the hatch, come on, old man.

Move it! – I urged Rick, just like our late captain used to do.

Rick turned towards me and fainted. He dropped like a thunderbolt. Through his helmet visor, I saw my partner's face, as pale as a wall. Something was still messing with his head, his eyeballs rolled upwards. He mumbled some incomprehensible words. I could only hear some of them on the intercom, but it wasn't our language. Someone had taken control of him… but how?! For a moment, I stared at his vital signs sensors. Everything was normal except for a significantly elevated heart rate.

– Rick, you old goat, don't drift off on me now, for God's sake. Talk to me. That damn high cholesterol of yours. I told you to see a doctor about it… it was clear I was losing the last vestiges of my sanity.

In a moment of moderate clarity, I turned his oxygen regulator to the maximum, while decreasing the suit temperature. The oxygen began to do its work. So did the temperature control. Rick's face regained its normal color, if you could even call his weather-beaten, ugly mug "normal."

– Well, old man, where were you? Some alien life form is raging up above, and you're putting on some kind of show for me here – I tried to make contact somehow, but Rick wasn't very talkative. At least he was starting to respond.

– How long was I out? – he asked.

– About two minutes – I replied.

– We don't have a moment to lose, Jay, they know where we are – with strange determination, Rick placed his hand on my shoulder.

– They know where we are – he repeated. They're waiting for us. We don't stand a chance.

– Don't bullshit me, Rick, get your ass in gear, or I'll kick you so hard your whole life will flash before your eyes.

I helped him to his feet, his legs still shaky from the faint. In the dark, long corridor, the only light came from the pale beams of our helmet lamps. With great effort, we reached the hatch. Fortunately, the access code worked as usual. The emergency generator drew power from the lower levels of liquid ferrite and supplied the entire underground installation.

For a moment, the thought flashed through my mind that Rick had something to do with this whole mess. Where did his sudden depression and loss of survival instinct come from? I had enough of all this. I just wanted a paid vacation. Beautiful, damn it, fucking beautiful. Here I am, stuck with this musclehead at the bottom of some dungeon, it is as dark as in an ass, and up above, a horde of bloodthirsty beasts from another dimension is waiting… I felt myself slowly going out of my mind.

Rick, I hope you're wrong – a brief thought flashed through my mind, underscored by the illusory spark of dying hope.

The hatch behind us closed automatically, and a conveyor belt several dozen meters long appeared before our eyes. It was not moved by classically designed rollers. Transportation took place on magnetic platforms two meters long, spaced a few centimeters apart. The whole thing was held together by a field generated by a chain of links placed beneath these platforms. We both had to prepare for a sharp ride upward. Rick was not feeling too well. With undisguised relief, he took a seat on the platform closest to the edge. Someone still had to start it. I grabbed the control panel located within reach of my right hand. The platform start button seemed like the only right option at that moment.

– Hold on tight, Ricky, this is the last time you'll see these lousy tunnels. At least, I think so – I gasped, as if to myself.

The conveyour started moving upward at a low speed, towards Level One, where we intended to transfer to the emergency elevator waiting there. Thirty, twenty, ten more meters. Tunnel B, elevator to the surface. Cramped, but perfectly adequate for two people. Its two-hundred-kilo load capacity should hold us. Good thing Rick lost weight recently, otherwise it might have been unpleasant. I helped Rick clamber into the tight interior of the elevator capsule. Behind us, in the now-invisible chute of the tunnel, the hum of electromagnets reversed the conveyor belt somewhere back down, to Level Two. Let's hope we don't have to go back there… I shook off that nasty, grotesque thought right afterward.

Piston loading complete. Launch in three, two, one… ignition. The elevator capsule shot upwards like a bullet, with us squeezed inside like sardines in a can. Emergency elevators never had time for any kind of acceleration. Such a ten-odd-second journey always turned my guts upside down. You had to hold your breath from start to finish. Like in a centrifuge.

Braking was no more pleasant. We exited the elevator slightly dazed.

– Lousy day – I swore vehemently, dragging the fainting Rick towards the exit.

I probably had the right to demand that this day finally end. However, Rick and I still hadn't given up. Otherwise, it would have been over for us already… but our waking nightmare was to last much longer.

V: Race Against Time

We only had a few minutes to get to the evacuation tunnel, which had an airlock leading to the surface. We were slowly running out of strength. We were pushing ourselves inexorably into the embrace of death hanging over us. The vision of falling into the hands of the tormentors of the destroyed station's crew grew stronger in our minds. They wanted to finish the work of destruction so that none of us could tell others what lay deep beneath the surface. We had to report everything that had happened here, at all costs, to the only remaining orbital station in lunar orbit.

The Skybridge reloading station allowed for the reception of transports from Earth and was also a base for the planetary garrison, for reconnaissance beyond the Red Planet sector. The government sent large collectors to gather raw materials from other planets of the Solar System, mainly from the gas giants. Many types of energy resource deposits had long been depleted on Earth. The balance of the last few decades of Earth's population growth had not closed in the black for our planet. The epidemic of successive mutations of the Doomsday virus had reduced Earth's population by thirty percent, but the struggle for survival continued nonetheless. Only the chosen few could count on an easy life, on several orbital stations or in self-sufficient emigration colonies established on the Moon, on its far side, dark to ordinary mortals.

Survival was in our blood, on a macro scale and, as for us now, on a much smaller scale. Millions of years of evolution had not gone to waste. Maybe with the exception of Rick, my best buddy, who was now crawling like his ancient ancestors.

– Damn it. The battery is dying. In a couple of minutes, there won't be a chance to contact Skybridge – I threw in a few low-flying insults aimed at our modern equipment.

We had dragged it all the way up, and now it was starting to get winded.

– What a load of junk. A disaster… another indispensable, sulfurous, and stress-relieving curse welled up in my mouth.

– Rick, we only have one pulse. There won't be a second chance.

– Skybridge, this is Rick Mertens, ground crew of Trinity Station. Operator Jay Lee Hunter is with me. Over… I'm giving our position. Trinity Base destroyed, the entire crew is dead. We were attacked without warning. Evacuation needed, six, three, seven, four, East Side.

At that moment, the transmitter breathed its last. However, the transmission might not have gone through completely.

Let's just hope they were able to receive this report, or at least fragments of it – I thought without excessive optimism.

– Holy shit, what now? J.L., we're screwed if they find us here. They could have intercepted that signal too. They're much closer. We need to take a look outside this bunker. Our Goliath might still be useful. It has spare batteries in its guts. Stavinsky once mentioned it also has a self-destruct option. Maybe we could use it to divert their attention – Rick drawled.

– Okay, okay, slow down, Rick… I'll go out first, you're not fit for this, not in this state. Look, it should be waiting here – I pointed to the map displayed on the screen attached to my toolbox, on my left forearm.

– The camouflage should still be working – Rick gasped.

– I'll take the batteries and dig around in its system. If what the captain said is true, I'll send it out of the zone and blow it to hell. If they don't fall for it, tough luck… we'll crawl to Hangar H for another hour – I finished specifying the plan with a touch of irony. It was high time to break out of these trenches.

– I'm going… don't wait up for me for dinner – I flashed with black humor…

Let's just hope I don't become that dinner myself – I thought to myself. A dead man walking – also crossed my mind as I opened the pressure bulkhead door. Rick started setting up the COM. He wanted to get a look at the ravine where we had placed the recording device. Everything could become clear after reviewing the recorded footage.

Meanwhile, I was already outside. Not a soul in sight. Where are our new "friends," what are they plotting? A series of short questions raced through my agitated mind. I looked towards where their ship had landed, but strangely, there was no trace of it anymore.

Are they playing with us, or do they really not know we're here? Did they take what they came for and quietly slip away? Why did Rick have those visions? Were his bad feelings just a temporary lapse in his twisted mind's functioning? Damn it all, the most important thing is that we're still alive. Hope dies last...

Dusk on the Moon is different from on Earth. Much darker. But the lack of atmosphere sometimes gives the night a characteristic silvery-blue glow from the reflection of our planet. That's how it was right now. However, this wasn't the best time to admire the views. Despite the nocturnal aura, the enormity of the destruction caused by the fall of Trinity was visible. One huge pile of rubble… only Hangar H itself and a few smaller oxygen chambers were spared. The rest was now complete scrap.

– Rick, there's no one here. Empty – I whispered. Where did they go? Rick, over. Are you alive in there?

I switched the transmitter to a different frequency. The system searched for Rick's transmitter. Without success. Something might be jamming our connection. But what? Silence in such circumstances boded nothing good. I focused on what was around me.

Each spacesuit could display a magnified image and a preview in various frequencies of the visible and invisible spectrum. It was high time to check carefully if anything was lurking for me in these ruins of the station. I had to reach Goliath first, and its camouflage was on, the whole time. It could only be seen in infrared if it was still activated.

Rick wasn't showing any signs of life. I hoped he hadn't fallen into that trance again. We had to get out of this wretched trap somehow, as quickly as possible.

– But how the hell? – I asked myself again.

I switched the display in my helmet to infrared. I set the scan filter to the operating temperature of the servomotors, with a tolerance of a few degrees. Now I should have been able to find Goliath without any problems... and there it is, the horned devil... standing motionless fifty meters away from me.

Good boy – I thought. Master is coming to his little doggy – in my joy, I couldn't resist the silly metaphors.

At the same moment, a voice appeared in my headphones that resembled Rick's in tone, but it certainly wasn't his way of speaking. More like a whisper from someone impersonating my buddy. In a rather crude way, I had to admit.

"We came from space for your own good. We will give you a second chance, regardless of your will. The era of darkness is coming. Prepare yourselves…" and the voice cut off suddenly, just as it had appeared.

That's enough of this – I thought. Mind control or some technological trick? Something big is brewing. What space, what era of darkness, what the hell? – I swore vehemently.

– Rick here, Jay, report in, we're going to have company, something crawled out of that crater we saw earlier down below. Something damn ugly. I'm throwing the transmission onto your main screen.

– Rick, for Christ's sake, what's going on there? Leave you alone for a moment, and you're already knee-deep in shit. Holy Mother of God!

– Come on, what have you got… just hurry, because we don't have much time left. We need to get to the hangar. But wait, where did you get that signal from? Our COM batteries died, didn't they? – I asked skeptically.

– Ha, you can't get rid of Rick that easily. I connected this junk to the wires by the airlock. It works, but I don't know how long it will last. With our luck, probably not long. Look what's coming at us…

On my screen inside the suit, an image from the camera left by the chasm appeared. The short clip, however, offered a closer look at the creature that had somehow crawled out of the crater. This had to be what triggered the motion alarm… most likely something organic, yet moving like a mechanical device. Precise movements indicating an advanced life form or, worse, technology. I had never seen anything like it before, not even in my worst nightmares. Articulated, thick limbs and a torso covered in armor, but this thing had no eyes, and from its front, it projected some kind of beam scanning the tunnel… a damn nasty freak. In the last second of the film, the surroundings turned into a ball of fire, and our recording equipment went up in smoke as well. I suspected they had broken through the Shield without the slightest resistance.

– Rick, hell with it, get the fuck out of there and close the airlock from the outside, I'm going to Goliath for the batteries. I'll set it free and arm the self-destruct for five minutes, maybe the sharks will bite the bait before they smell our blood.

– J.L., I'm coming to you… I'm closing the airlock for good. Control panel destroyed. They shouldn't get through.

– Good job, Rick, we'll meet at the exit. Over and out.

I moved hastily towards Goliath, with my eyes scanning the surroundings. It was unclear if our "comrades" from the vanished ship were lurking somewhere. About five hundred meters away, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement. Something rose from the surface, previously completely invisible to me, as if crouching in the lunar dust. It resembled the creature from the tunnel below us.

Damn it, it spotted me – flashed through my burnt-out synapses.

Twenty meters to Goliath. Ten. My jumps were like a triple jumper's leaps, in the earthly sense of the words. I reached Goliath's cabin. At the last moment noticed the approaching enemy, it was about fifty meters away from me. I still had time to activate defensive mode. No one had ever had the opportunity to use it before, except for me in simulator exercises.

– Rick, don't come outside. My cover's blown!. Stay where you are. Rick!!!

I was already in the cockpit. Key combination. Ignition. Checking the arms and burners. In the rear monitor, a familiar, ominous shape flickered. Rotation. Reload. Fire. A charge fired from the small resonance cannon mounted on Goliath's right arm, the kind we normally used for demolishing larger rocks on the surface when building the base. Short range, but the impact force was enough to sever two limbs from the lurking monster while it was still in mid-air. A correction from the left arm finished the job. With the second shot, I chipped off a piece of armor from the upper part of the creature, and the creature fell with full force less than two meters from me. The interior immediately released a cloud of gas, a micro-atmosphere that had been contained inside. It wasn't a creature at all, just an advanced bionic all-terrain vehicle. Something must have been controlling this thing then. I hadn't even cooled down from the recent events, and I still felt like firing another salvo. Curiosity, however, was stronger. I wanted to take a look inside the vehicle before delivering the final verdict on my hideous pursuer.

They must have left a few scouts, while they themselves dealt with what was left in the vast crater – I concluded. Nothing was decided... the race against time continued.

Autonomous learning machines, with extreme intelligence. Bipedal constructs designed for diverse applications, and exceptionally diligent.

VI: First Contact

He got hit at a sensitive spot, I thought. He asked for trouble himself. The semi-synthetic skeleton was lying perfectly still before me like a wild hog shot down on the hunt. A four-meter-long armour-plated body with six limbs. The skull scorched by the second shot indicated a brief agony of the creature. Hell, how I was tempted to check it out. The Goliath was equipped with an articulated arm with a spectrothermal camera. After a slight modification of its settings, a three-dimensional image was displayed on the screen of my helmet. I extended my arm toward the opening from which a slightly greenish gas had previously escaped.

I turned on the camera's light. A brief test was necessary to examine the enemy before the expected reinforcements could arrive. I was particularly interested in a mark on the side of the undamaged body, a modified Alpha symbol that looked as if someone had removed the identification.

– Jay, I can see you, don't come any closer, keep your distance, you know what they're capable of, Rick whispered, slightly stunned by what he'd just seen. There's no time for that now. I doubt the airlock will stand for more than a few minutes. Stay away. Leave him alone – he continued his instructions.