West protection hangar, Rimae base, the Moon, Sol system
Ed had made it inside a pressurised hangar before his cracked canopy finally gave out. After coming round and realising he had a broken leg, one hell of a headache and a damaged front screen on the verge of failing, he had a choice. Go for Armstrong Station or Rimae, the British moon base. They were both about the same distance. He daren’t attempt a jump back to the Gabriel in case the stresses popped the screen and his array was glitching too.
He only chose the Moon because, one, he could see it and two, he’d never been there before. All the space travelling he’d done over the last few years, all those galaxies, systems and planets visited, and he’d never visited the closest celestial body to his home planet.
Rimae base hangar was small and had been cut into the down slope of a large crater which hid and protected it from above. They didn’t need freighters or anything large landing there, as it was a science station and home to around fifty personnel.
He remembered seeing an article on the news a year or so ago, that they’d installed an atmosphere shield and how much easier it had made it for visiting scientists to come and go.
Two Royal Marines ran across to his ship as it settled at a slight angle on the carboncrete floor. He popped the canopy and smiled at the two scowling soldiers. They had their weapons in the shoulder and didn’t look too happy at his unscheduled arrival.
‘Get out, keeping your hands where we can see them,’ one of them demanded.
‘I can’t,’ said Ed, grimacing with the pain. ‘I think my leg is broken.’
‘Hang on,’ said the other one, peering at Ed closely. ‘Aren’t you Edward Virr?’
‘I am he,’ he said, nodding.
‘Fuck me…what you doing ’ere, mate?’
‘I thought I’d pop by for a cuppa and perhaps get your medic to assess my leg,’ he said, hopefully.
‘Right…don’t go anywhere,’ the soldier said, lowering his weapon, turning away and chattering on his communicator. His colleague just raised his eyebrows, but kept his rifle up.
Two hours later, Ed was sat in their mess hall, an inflatable leg splint over his fractured tibia and some strong pain killers flowing around his system. Everyone on the base had wanted to come and see him, have a chat and get photos with him. To them, he was the most famous scientist in history and having him in their little science establishment was like all their Christmases coming at once.
‘Guys…guys…I really need to call my ship,’ he said, for about the third time.
‘Is the Gabriel going to come here?’ someone asked.
‘One of our shuttles most likely,’ he said.
‘Can we meet Cleopatra?’ another asked.
‘Only if you let me call my ship,’ he said, a little more firmly this time as he realised his request had been ignored yet again.
‘Wow…Cleopatra’s coming,’ the same guy enthused. ‘I’m told she can manifest herself into anyone.’
‘That’s completely true,’ said the British Prime Minister, Bill McDonold as he strolled through the room, stood next to Ed, placed his hand on his shoulder and smiled at the crowd.
Ed looked up at him suspiciously.
‘Cleo, behave,’ he said, sighing.
There were gasps of shock as the Prime Minister morphed back into Cleo dressed in her trademark gold-trimmed robes and headdress.
‘It’s her,’ echoed around the room.
Everyone turned as the door slammed open.
‘YOU WANKER,’ shouted Andy, stumbling into the mess hall and almost falling over in the low gravity. ‘WE COULDN’T FIND YOU, we thought you were dead,’ he continued, lowering his voice in the sudden silence.
‘Err…touché,’ Ed replied, pointing poignantly back at Andy.
Andy sighed, puffed out his cheeks and peered around the room at all the wide-eyed faces staring back at him. A grin slowly formed across his face as he stood just inside the door.
‘I think you two need a hug,’ said Cleo, helping Ed to his feet.
Andy’s grin became wider as he strolled across the room, the crowd moving aside as he passed, and a spontaneous cheer resounded as the two friends enveloped each other.
‘Let’s not do that again,’ whispered Andy.
‘Deal,’ Ed replied.
A large urn of tea was consumed along with three large Dundee cakes raided from the kitchen, much to everyone’s delight.
‘Where the hell have you two idiots been? And what’s that about?’ Linda asked, pointing at Ed’s crutches as they arrived back on the Gabriel an hour later. Pol immediately jumped up and hugged Ed. Rayl gave Andy a wide grin.
‘Having our photos taken with our fan club,’ said Andy. ‘You should have come too, they were asking about you.’
‘Meeting a whole room full of scientists,’ said Linda, tapping her chin with a forefinger. ‘I think I’d rather watch skin form on custard. Spending half my life with the two of you is bad enough.’
‘They had cake,’ said Andy, with raised eyebrows.
‘Did you bring me some?’ she asked, looking at the two of them in turn.
‘Err…no,’ said Ed, with a pinched expression.
‘Then why tell me?’
Ed cleared his throat.
‘Err…moving swiftly on,’ he said. ‘Do we have any news from Earth? Andy told me you were able to divert all but one large lump of debris.’
‘It went into the South Pacific around two thousand miles east of the Chatham Islands,’ said Pol. ‘No tsunami warnings issued, they’re predicting the islands to have maybe a swell of a couple of feet in a few hours’ time.’
‘Rio de Janeiro owe us a drink then,’ said Andy. ‘Oh, by the way, I got this.’
He slid a thick jacket out of a backpack and plonked it on the floor.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Ed asked.
‘Yeah…a jump jacket. I’m getting Cleo to reverse engineer it, improve it, make it a bit lighter maybe. How useful would these be?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Ed, stooping awkwardly to pick it up and feeling the weight.’
‘Has there been any conjecture about where Menka might be now?’
‘It could be anywhere on the route,’ said Phil. ‘Any navigation evidence was obviously on that ship, so we’ll never know.’
‘Has anyone informed Bache of the current situation?’ Ed asked.
‘All done,’ said Linda, pointing at the tube lift. ‘I sent him a full report on a jump drone. You get yourself into an autonurse, Edward, and sort that leg out.’
Ed hobbled his way back towards the lift, his crutches clicking on the floor. He turned just before he got there.
‘The marines?’ he said. ‘Are they okay? their ships were just as close as me when that thing went up.’
‘Two of them are still requiring medical attention and are on Armstrong,’ said Linda. ‘Their damaged ships are in our hangar. Cleo’s fixing them. The other two undamaged ones left for Dasos a couple of hours ago.’
‘Why don’t we get those two guys into an autonurse?’ Ed asked.
Linda sighed and shook her head.
‘They don’t trust them, they want to heal naturally,’ she said, shrugging.
‘They think it would make them weak,’ said Phil. ‘Voodoo medicine,’ he added, wiggling his fingers with a smirk.
‘Voodoo or not,’ said Ed, turning back to the lift. ‘I’m not waiting six months for this to heal.’