I held the microphone a few inches from my mouth and repeated, for the sixth time, ‘Calling Ben Lei or Moonbase. Please respond.’ Ben Lei was the name of the Chinese habitat which, from lunar orbiter photographs, we knew the infected had visited.
‘Calling Moonbase. Please respond. Calling Ben Lei. Please answer,’ I repeated, then asked Anna, ‘You’re sure this is going out on all frequencies?’
‘Positive,’ she replied.
‘They might not be monitoring,’ said Pete. ‘If there is no one in any of the buggies or in the com dome, they won’t know we’re calling.’
‘Yes, and they’re unlikely to have repaired the equipment they smashed in the com dome,’ I agreed.
I picked up the intercom. ‘No response from Moonbase or Ben Lei. Let’s all get to sleep. Eight tomorrow we prepare for the descent.’
I said goodnight to Anna, Bill, Pete and Chi, pulled myself over to the wall and encircled myself with a bungee strap. Most people just attached them to their belts and floated free, but I preferred the security of being held against the wall when sleeping, even if only gently.
I had real trouble sleeping. I kept reliving our escape in the Dragonstar and the smashing of Blake’s faceplate as he tried to board us before we could blast off. Then I thought about Linda, who’d been the heroine of our escape. I wished she was with me on this mission. So cool, so competent. I wondered if she were asleep right now, with our child growing in her belly. No, it would be approaching midday in California.
Eventually, sleep crept up on me and the next I knew, my body monitor was sounding its morning alarm.
‘Awake!’ I responded sleepily, to stop the alarm, then undid the bungee strap and began preparations for the day.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I heard a sharp clunk which told us the Dragonstar had separated from the Gateway.
‘Dragonstar 3 reporting separation from the Gateway,’ said Anna.
The lagged reply arrived a few seconds later. ‘Copy that.’
I heard Penny announce her separation and, seconds later, Chi said that her lander had left the Gateway.
‘That sticky thruster is a nuisance,’ said Andrei from Dragonstar 5.
‘What’s up with it now?’ asked Anna.
‘Once it stuck on. Twice it refused to fire at all, and it came on once without me activating it.’
‘That’s a bit worrying, Andrei,’ said Anna. ‘Need to keep a close eye on that as you come in to land.’
‘Will do, Anna.’
Through the porthole beside me, in the commander’s seat, I could now see all five Dragonstars drifting gradually away from the orbiting Gateway space station.
The view was bizarre, and I took a few photographs as it would be unlikely that such an assembly of craft would all be in such proximity again. ‘That’s a unique sight,’ I said.
‘Hope not,’ said Anna. ‘We’re all hoping to come back after this mission.’
‘Ah, but not all at the same time,’ I said.
She conceded the point.
The view was stunning. The Gateway is a miniature version of the International Space Station in Earth orbit, but most of the modules are attached end to end, allowing plenty of docking stations where each of the segments joined with each other. Six solar panels stuck out of the sides, all tilted towards the sun for maximum illumination. It looked spectacular in the brilliant sunlight.
The ends of the Gateway are called north and south even though they might bear no relation to the moon’s poles. The Canadarm stuck out of the south end module of the Gateway although it could walk its way around the space station – both the ends being able to attach to a variety of fixing points. At the end of the arm, I could see an incredible necklace of space craft, an Orion attached by a cable to a Ming, then another Ming, a second Orion, the two Uspekhs and the final Orion. Quite extraordinary.
‘Approaching perihelion,’ said Chi.
‘Ready for lunar orbit injection,’ I said.
‘Copy,’ said Anna, followed by four more acknowledgements from the other Dragonstars.
We all fired at the same time. Although we called it “lunar orbit injection”, it was actually just an adjustment. The Gateway was in a very eccentric orbit because that allowed for more variety of approaches and departures, but we needed to be in a tight orbit for descent to the surface.
‘Fire!’ said Anna.
All of a sudden, the Gateway grew rapidly smaller as we entered our landing orbit. The other Dragonstars maintained their distance from us as if stationary. The Gateway was still receding and was soon too far away to see with the naked eye. All the Dragonstars were on their new orbits. Although we could only see the two behind us, we knew the others were stretched out behind them.
‘Chertovskiy,’ said Andrei. ‘Problem with one of the engines.’
‘Copy that,’ I heard NASA say. ‘Explain.’
‘It’s intermittent and making us spiral. Ah, it’s okay now,’ said Andrei.
‘Copy that. Keep us informed,’ said NASA.
Lunar landing orbit had been achieved, but not faultlessly.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Our tight lunar orbit required us to wait a little over an hour before we began our landing manoeuvre.
‘Beginning descent in five,’ said Anna.
NASA said, ‘Copy that,’ but the lag was such that Anna had already fired the descent motor.
The Dragonstar pitched over so that we were now travelling tail first, not the most convenient orientation for viewing the scene. We could both see the surface rushing past beneath us, but we also had television monitors pointing along our direction of travel. Computers were monitoring the distances between the landers. Now was not the time for a collision.
‘One minute to pitch over,’ said Anna.
I silently counted down the seconds then felt the force of the engines change. We were nearing the surface. The Dragonstar was upright once more. Now Moonbase was clearly visible near the horizon. The navigation had been perfect. Our destination was rapidly approaching.
‘Fuel three twenty seconds remaining,’ said Anna. ‘Is this location okay?’
‘What’s the range?’ I asked.
‘Four hundred metres.’
‘I’d prefer two fifty or less.’
The motor roared and we pitched forward to prevent any further drop and to move us closer to the domes. The surface skidded by like an escalator beneath us for a few seconds before Anna brought the craft back to vertical and we began to drop.
‘Two sixty seconds fuel,’ NASA said.
‘Six metres,’ she announced. Five, three, one, touchdown!’
There was hardly any bump. We were down.
‘Well done, Anna. Perfect,’ I said.
‘Stable landing. Engines off. D3 down, NASA,’ said Anna.
‘Dragonstar 3 down,’ I said over the encrypted radio channel we had with other Dragonstars. ‘Get as close to forty metres to us as possible.’
Four ‘copy that,’ calls came in.
‘Dragonstar 2 down.’
‘D1 down,’ said another pilot over the radio.
‘D5 here. NASA, we’ve got a serious problem,’ said Andrei.
We all knew to keep silent in the case of such an emergency. NASA would respond.
‘Explain, Andrei,’ said Neil.
‘Real problem. Lost stability. Think engine three stopped. Might come down short,’ said the Russian, his voice sounding less than its usual professional calm.
‘Keep reporting,’ said Neil.
‘Sorry. It is firing erratically. Am losing it. Can’t level up. Pitching forward. Can see others landed. Speed increased because angle bad. Trying to turn us north. D2, brace yourselves, we’re coming down close to you! Crew, seal visors!’
‘Avoid them, Andrei,’ said Neil forcefully. The three seconds’ communication delay was a real problem in such a situation.
‘Trying. We’re going to land heavy. Brace! Brace! Brace!’
‘Oh God. He’s going to hit us!’ shouted Chi from Dragonstar 2.
‘Coming in hard! Tipping over!’ said Andrei and shouts could be heard from other members of his crew.
I unstrapped and stood to look out of the port window. D2 was standing about thirty metres from me and I could see D5 descending rapidly at an angle to the vertical.
‘Full power engine one!’ Andrei called.
The Dragonstar made a strange, corkscrew type of manoeuvre which took it past D2. It hit the surface. The forward leg buckled instantly and clouds of regolith were thrown up during the impact. The craft seemed to slide along at an angle, a second leg buckled, and it came down, propped up by the broken legs, at an angle of about thirty degrees, less than ten metres from Dragonstar 2. The whole accident seemed to be in slow motion, an impression enhanced by the regolith cascading back to the surface at one sixth of Earth’s gravity. It was unlike dust kicked up on Earth. There was no atmosphere within which it could swirl. It fell straight down in an extraordinary slow motion. Soon, all movement ended. The scene resembled a still monochrome photograph, the only colour being the scarlet stripes of the flag on the cabin, but even that now had a fine covering of dust, morphing the red into pale rose.
‘Crash landed!’ shouted Andrei.
‘Situation report,’ said Neil, urgently.
‘A moment,’ said Andrei, now a little calmer. ‘We’ve all dropped visors, but no loss of pressure so far. I cut engine a second before we impacted. Fuel gauges show no leaks. Think we lucky. No serious injuries.’
‘No fire or smoke?’ asked Neil.
‘No,’ said Andrei, ‘but Alexei is complaining of a sprained wrist, though. D5 lying at an angle of twenty-eight degrees to horizontal. Hatch on the right, so no problem exiting. Preparing to leave the craft, in case risk explosion.’
‘On our way, Andrei,’ I said.
I opened the hatch and Bill Wright was the first to climb down to the surface with two of the Marines and me close on their heels.
Bill stepped off the ladder and said, ‘I finally got here.’ He looked down at the surface. ‘Could any of these things be lying in the dust here?’
‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘They’d have no idea where we’d land and they are quite small. Shorter than your pinkie.’
‘Do you think the infected have watched us land?’ asked Doug, the Marine colonel.
‘Yes, if they’re still here, I’m sure they did,’ I said.
The four of us used the strange “bunny hop” gait to approach the stricken Dragonstar. The hatch was open, and the crew were already moving to a safe distance. Alexei was in pain and collapsed into a sitting position.
We joined them. ‘Can’t see any fuel leakage,’ said Andrei, looking back towards his ship. ‘Kicked up a lot of dust.’
‘Yes. Bit of a mess,’ said Anna, who had just joined us.
‘We can’t worry about it now, we’ve a stronghold to storm,’ I said and made my way over to the Marines.
The two Marines were soon joined by others and formed a line between our landing point and Moonbase.
The habitat looked as it always did, a series of shallow- roofed domes nestled together. The main garage dome entrance was directly in front of us and the EVA dome was around to the right. To the left, a long walkway led to the bio dome and we could see the trees and shrubs clearly through the glazed walls. There were no people visible. The buggy which had been standing outside the atmos dome was gone. Further to the left were the fuel and oxygen synthesiser plants and three storage tanks.
We’d rehearsed our plan many times back on Earth and had been discussing the details throughout our voyage. Now we had to put it into action.
With Bill, I stood behind the Marines and swivelled around to make sure everyone was in their designated position.
‘Suit still seems very stiff,’ said Bill on my personal channel, working his arms around.
‘Yes, that’s normal. These days we work with a low pressure oxygen/air mixture on the moon, but the suit itself starts the EVA at a higher pressure and gradually reduces it,’ I said.
‘Why the change?’
‘We used to have to pre-breathe oxygen for a couple of hours prior to an EVA to avoid the symptoms of the bends. It did mean we could work at lower psi in pure oxygen, but it was a real bind. Letting the suit control the psi was far better and the only disadvantage was forty or fifty minutes of an overinflated suit at the beginning of the EVA. You’ll be down to a lower pressure soon and it’ll be much more flexible.’
The ten military personnel with their radiation projectors were standing between us and the domes. Behind me were Andrei and Ludvic, the two Roscosmos pilots; Chi, the Chinese pilot; Anna, Dave and Pete.
Behind them, with the injured Alexei, were Penny, the two nurses, Krishna, the surgeon, and the anaesthetist.
‘Do we have a go?’ asked Doug.
Satisfied everyone was where they should be, I said, ‘Okay, everyone. Follow the plan.’ The squad moved forward towards the garage dome, the rest keeping a safe distance. My helmet cam recorded the scene. Twenty-eight astronauts with full EVA backpacks.