Moonbase Crisis: Star Challengers Book 1 (6 page)
Read Moonbase Crisis: Star Challengers Book 1 Online
Authors: Rebecca Moesta,Kevin J. Anderson,June Scobee Rodgers
Eight
Even though there were many other footprints in the dust outside the hatch, JJ felt a giddy thrill. A million questions filled her head, but Major Fox seemed so businesslike that she swallowed most of them, to avoid being seen as childish. In this situation, she wanted to be taken seriously.
“You may egress now,” Fox said with a bit of a nudge.
“One small step ….” JJ whispered. Walking forward onto the packed lunar surface, she turned in her bulky spacesuit to get her first external view of Moonbase Magellan. Bright lights shone through the thick transparent window ports, and from the greenhouse windows of the ag bubble. She saw a modular rover vehicle connected to an airlock hatch in the ESM, ready to go.
The place reminded her of a campground, with modules connected, equipment outside, and various excavations and outposts scattered across the crater floor, widely separated. She could see a module separated from the main base by a hundred meters or so, and near that, a curved interlocked array of mirror segments—a telescope—as big as a football field! JJ wanted to ask about everything. She felt like a gawky tourist, but who wouldn’t? Dyl, King, and Song-Ye, also walking with great wonder, bounced about in the low gravity.
“Look up there,” Dyl said, pointing with a gloved hand. “It’s the Earth, right in front of us in the sky!”
They all turned their curved faceplates upward, and JJ felt a chill at the sight of Earth hanging in space like a big blue marble aswirl with clouds. Right now part of the planet was in shadow.
“As you can see, when viewed from the Moon, the Earth goes through phases, similar to the Moon’s phases when one looks at it from Earth,” Major Fox said.
“I wondered why our view of the world wasn’t quite full.” Dyl chuckled. “I guess Earth’s just going through a phase.”
“
Pfft
,” Song-Ye said.
“The phase of the Moon between a quarter and full is called gibbous,” King commented. “At the moment, though, I’m less interested in the Earth’s phase than in finding out how the Moon
feels?
He took a few quick steps, hopped high in the air and pretended to slam dunk a basketball.
“This is amazing!” even the Korean girl admitted. She sprang upward, did a graceful spin, and touched down again.
“I’ll bet I could jump a few feet in the air, no problem,” Dyl said. JJ noticed again how much more easily her brother moved on the Moon, though he still seemed tentative. Maybe he wasn’t ready to “fly” just yet.
“Feet?” Major Fox asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow—what do you mean by that?”
“Meters,” JJ quickly amended. Obviously no one at the moonbase would use old-fashioned measurements like pounds or feet. The cadets would have to remember to use metric units. “He meant he could jump and get his
feet
a few meters off the ground.”
“Ah. That is certainly within the realm of possibility, but your tasks today do not require jumping a few meters in the air,” Fox admonished. “Our priority is to set up a supplemental solar-power array for Moonbase Magellan.”
“We’re not going anywhere in the rover?” JJ asked, crestfallen. The enclosed, pressurized vehicle looked intriguing. She wanted to stand on the low lunar mountains and look down into distant craters where meteors had bombarded Earth’s only satellite eons ago.
“Longer expeditions are for another time, Cadet. Magellan has needed this additional array for half a year. For safety and efficiency, the task requires five workers. However, since safety protocols preclude all four base crewmembers being outside at the same time, we’ve been unable to attempt the job. Now that you’re here, however, this is our first priority.”
“Somebody needs to do it—might as well be us,” JJ agreed, trying not to sound as excited as a kid going to Disney World.
“Sure, why not?” Song Ye said.
Major Fox explained how when Moonbase Magellan had been established decades earlier, versatile vehicles had pushed crumbly lunar soil—called regolith—up against the modules for added shielding and packed it tightly like the walls of a snow fort. Metal-wrapped packages of unused equipment, tools, spare parts, and supplies were piled in exposed caches across the crater floor; the moonbase modules were too cramped to keep all those large items inside.
“There’s just … dirt everywhere,” Song-Ye said. She scuffed with her boot and kicked up a spray of tiny pebbles and dust that settled back to the ground in slow motion.
“The regolith is made up of powder, broken stones, all sorts of loose material,” Major Fox said, “created by billions of years of bombardment from space. It’s a great resource for us, as you’ll see later. But first, the solar-power station.”
Major Fox led the cadets in a low-gravity march to a large rectangular canister that rested on the ground at an angle, as if it had just been dumped there. With meticulous movements, Fox unclipped a tool at his waist and began to remove the protective packaging from a canister.
“In its zero-gravity environment, the International Space Station Complex manufactures highly efficient solar power films,” Fox explained. “They shipped this extra equipment from Earth orbit, along with modules for an eventual ambitious expansion of the base here. But, alas, plans were curtailed, and the new array was never set up. The collectors are quite fragile, so be very careful.”
“Why do you need so much power for only four people at the base?” King asked.
“There are eight at the moment,” Song-Ye pointed out.
Fox gestured to the four solar-power collectors linked together in the crater. Looking like a chain of satellite antenna dishes, the arrays were connected to one another and also to cables that ran back to the moonbase modules. “While the base can function with the amount of power we already produce, it’s always wise to have an extra safety factor. There are countless unknown hazards in space. We make our own air and water, and grow our own food when possible. Our goal is for Moonbase Magellan to be entirely self-sufficient someday—and that requires power. Because we’re in darkness two weeks at a time, we have to store up as much energy as possible during the sunlight period.”
“They look like big windmills,” Dyl said.
“No wind out here,” King observed.
“Solar wind,” Fox corrected. “A constant stream of cosmic rays and solar radiation falls on the lunar surface. We can use the sunlight for energy, but it also poses dangers. By regulation, we’re limited in the number of hours we can spend outside in our suits per week. Unfortunately, with such a small crew, we’ve sometimes had to push that a bit.”
“Well, now you’ve got us to help,” Dyl said.
“Yes, though for many tasks, you cadets will need significant training,” Major Fox said. “This is a delicate process. I assume you’ve worked as a team before?”
“No, sir,” King said. “At least, not with each other.”
“We barely know each other,” Song-Ye muttered. “We just met.”
“But we’re ready to learn,” JJ hastened to add. She didn’t want the major to decide that they were useless and send them back inside. “Just show us what to do.”
Under Fox’s direction, his four assistants removed the components from the storage package. Together, they assembled the solar-power array, checking and double-checking each step, and then spent hours raising it and anchoring it. Finally, when all the systems checked out, they connected the power-distribution cables to batteries and to the rest of the network.
The work wasn’t all drudgery, especially for JJ. Each time she was asked to get something or put it away, she added a skip or hop to the task. Soon all of them were incorporating leaps and twirls into their assignments, experimenting with the low gravity, though only when they weren’t near any delicate equipment. Even Dyl got comfortable enough to bounce from place to place as he worked.
Then, as if it were a film of mirrored spiderwebs, they unfurled the fan-shaped solar collector. Fox used instruments to adjust and aim the reflective fan so that it would gather the maximum light during the long lunar day
“Thanks to your help,” Fox said with genuine gratitude, “Moonbase Magellan is now more self-sufficient than it has ever been. And watching you enjoy your assignments has reminded me how much I enjoy working here.”
They had worked so smoothly together that the solar-power collector was finished ahead of schedule. With two hours remaining of their suit time and life-support packs, Major Fox led them over by the steep crater wall, where pipes and canisters and enclosed machinery had been set up. JJ thought the area resembled a small oil refinery.
King sounded mystified. “Is that some kind of industrial complex? A mining operation?”
“Maybe they found a vein of gold on the Moon,” Dyl joked. “Or Swiss cheese.”
“Better than gold or platinum. It’s our most precious resource,” Major Fox said. “Buried in shadows in the darkest part of the crater, the lunar soil contains water ice.”
“Pfft.”
Song-Ye was not impressed. “All that work for ice cubes?”
“I remember a couple of space probes searching for water ice on the Moon—Clementine in 1994, and LCROSS in 2009,” JJ said. “It was supposed to be really important for the future of the space program.”
“Why do you say ‘water ice’ like it’s some big deal?” Song-Ye asked. “What else would ice be made of?”
“I’ve heard of ammonia ice on some of the really cold planets or moons,” King said.
“And you’ve seen dry ice, haven’t you?” Dyl asked
“We use it to make creepy fog at Halloween,” JJ added. “Doesn’t even leave a puddle behind.”
“Hence the term dry,” King said. “When it melts, it doesn’t become liquid like water ice does. It goes right from being solid to being a gas.”
“Of course I’ve seen dry ice,” Song-Ye said over the suit radio. “My parents’ caviar is shipped to us on dry ice. Isn’t it frozen carbon dioxide or something like that?”
“Precisely. Then it would seem you already knew the answer to your own question: not all ice is
water
ice,” Major Fox said. “Water is crucial to many aspects of life on the moonbase.” He checked over the automated machinery in the small refinery complex, studied the control panel and diagnostic readouts.
“So, is there an ice lake buried down there under the dirt?” Song-Ye asked.
Fox laughed out loud at this. “A lake? I wish we had that much! Sorry, Cadet, but the water is frozen into the regolith. When we heat the powdery soil, small amounts of water vapor escape, and we reclaim it.
JJ had a sudden picture in her mind of a scientist with wild hair in a lab filled with glass dishes of dirt heating over Bunsen burners, while curly tubing carried clear liquid to drip into waiting beakers.
Fox continued. “The H
2
O provides water for the crew to drink, but it has many more uses than that. Through a process called electrolysis, we split the hydrogen from the oxygen, so that we can breathe the oxygen and use the hydrogen in our fuel cells. And, by chemically assembling the hydrogen and oxygen in different combinations, we can make all the rocket fuel we need for the supply lander. The
Halley
is about to depart from the ISSC on its biannual run. After it delivers supplies to us next week, we’ll refuel the ship so that it can launch again and return to Earth orbit and the space station.”
JJ listened, intrigued by how many uses the moonbase had for plain old water.
“In fact, Cadet Wren,” Fox continued, “if those earlier space probes you mentioned
hadn’t
found water ice here, I doubt the base would ever have been built. We certainly could never survive without it. Chief Ansari, who is also our chemist, monitors the extraction of frozen water and its conversion into oxygen, hydrogen, or rocket fuel. Again, when there are only four crewmembers, the base’s water and oxygen requirements are much reduced. Therefore we’ve been able to stockpile our surplus fuel, in case the moonbase ever expands again.”
“I hope it does,” King said. “All this work you do is amazing.”
“Tell that to the people back on Earth, please,” Fox said. “I doubt anyone pays attention to us here anymore. The fact is, if we at Moonbase Magellan didn’t take care of ourselves and meet our own needs, ICSA back on Earth would consider this base too much trouble to maintain. They would probably just recall all personnel and abandon it in place.”
A collective groan of dismay echoed across the suit radios. “After all the work and investment of building this huge base, how could we just turn our backs on it?” JJ exclaimed. “That’s not possible!”
“Oh, it’s possible,” Fox assured her. “But believe me, Cadet, no one here wants that to happen.”
***
Nine
Sleeping in a bunk on the moonbase turned out to be both comfortable and uncomfortable. The mattress didn’t feel hard, because the pressure of Dyl’s body on it was so slight, but that was also the problem. After a lifetime in Earth’s gravity, he was used to feeling solidly “attached” to anything beneath him. Maybe he could find a blanket with more weight to it.
Not that he would complain about coming here. It was like being on the coolest science fiction movie set ever made. Even better, his legs didn’t ache. He could walk around without crutches like a normal person, a sensation he’d dreamed about for the past two years. And it was fun to watch his sister get insanely excited by everything she saw here. Going into space had been her dream for as long as he could remember. Knowing how many things could go wrong up here still made Dyl nervous. Yet being on the Moon was more interesting than he could have imagined—except he and JJ worried that their mom was frantic by now wondering where they were.
Each crew quarters unit was smaller than the bathroom in their apartment, but that didn’t bother Dyl. Whoever had designed the tiny rooms had put significant effort into making them feel cheery and roomy, since being on a moonbase crew wasn’t a brief assignment, and crewmembers had to make this place a home away from home. The light inside the chamber could be brightened or dimmed with a touch on the wall, and Dyl could select the color of the interior by tracing his finger along a glowing image of a color wheel on the wall near the head of the bunk. There was also a library of image and video backgrounds available—a desert, a futuristic cityscape, a trio of sapphire-haired women playing musical instruments, an aquarium, and so on. He chose a glossy pewter color that reminded him of his favorite science fiction shows. His sister would probably set her walls to her favorite color, powder blue, or maybe to a starfield.
Because the lunar cycles of darkness and light lasted half a month each as the Moon orbited the Earth, the base had its own artificial twenty-four-hour period of waking and sleeping schedules, to keep the crew in a natural routine. Dyl didn’t know what time it actually was according to his body. He had certainly felt tired after that long day outside erecting the solar-power panel and inspecting the chemical operations, but he hadn’t slept deeply.
Dyl dressed in his jumpsuit again and went to the crew eating area and ate.
Despite his lack of sleep, he was more than ready to start his second day’s work. That morning, Dyl was assigned to work in the MCC bubble with the chief.
Although it had never gotten dark while they slept, Dyl bounced into the MCC with a cheery “Morning, Chief!” After Ansari greeted him, he sat down at the comm, pulled out some cards and a pencil to take notes, and started asking questions.
Chief Ansari showed Dyl how to work the comm console, which was surprisingly similar to the one in Commander Zota’s special briefing room, except this one was real. Dyl thought about that for a moment. If the moonbase wasn’t just a simulation, then maybe
all
of Mr. Zota’s special Mission Control equipment was real, too. He grinned at the thought. Even if today’s job was not the most fascinating assignment he could have hoped for, maybe he could use the equipment to contact Commander Zota! To Dyl, that meant it was his responsibility to learn every switch, dial, touch-pad, and readout on the comm. He and his friends would certainly like to have some explanations. As another indication that this was real, and that they were truly living in the future, Dyl looked at the MCC operations and interactive computer systems and found them both more complex and more intuitive, easier to use.
Right above his console, a window port revealed the lunar landscape, where they had done their work the day before. Every few minutes, Dyl would glance up and gaze across the strange, ashy-gray scene outside. It almost looked as if everything had been filmed in black-and-white. Only when Dyl focused his gaze back inside, on his jumpsuit and the comm controls, did color seem to return to the moonbase.
“This is so cool,” he said.
Ansari gave him a wry smile. “Really—
this
technology? It hasn’t been updated for at least twenty years!”
Dyl started. He cleared his throat, thinking of what to say. “Exactly. I’ve, uh—never gotten to use any equipment this
old
before.”
“Of course,” she said with a chuckle. “That’s why you need some extra training at this station. What’s next?”
“I understand what these do.” Dyl ran his finger along a multicolored row of glowing switches. “But what about this larger green one?”
“That,” said Ansari, “tunes in the dedicated frequency on which we communicate with the administrators of our moonbase project.”
“Like Mission Control for a space shot?” Dyl asked.
“Most people your age don’t even know what Mission Control is.” Ansari gave her head a sad shake. “In a way, it’s quaint to think of a time when governments spent money on scientific research and children dreamed of becoming astronauts. But almost no one wants to go into science anymore. Science and space aren’t exciting enough to interest students, and such big expensive projects aren’t profitable enough to interest governments.” The chief forced a smile. “Now it’s in the hands of a few of us crackpots who pay for our own space program because we believe it’s important. Weren’t you briefed on all of that before you came up here?”
Dyl tried to remember exactly what Mr. Zota had told them. “We never met any of the administrators. We were in … a private briefing room.”
“I’m still skeptical about this whole story of yours,” Ansari admitted. “I even called the administrative offices today, but they only confirmed what Commander Zota’s message already told us—that your mission on the Moon is top secret, you cadets are here to help, and you have all the proper clearances. Everyone else seems as baffled as we are. Your orders must come from the highest levels.”
Ansari seemed to expect him to volunteer information, and Dyl wished he could explain more, but he didn’t know very much himself. “Yes, they must.”
The chief was disappointed by the answer. “You must admit, the whole thing seems odd. How and why would a group of cadets as young as you be transported instantaneously to the Moon? Yet here you are, and I can’t explain it, so I have to believe something. And I can tell you and your friends are interested in science. You’re quite bright.” Ansari smiled a bit. “It’s a shame that most people your age want to go into easy careers rather than challenging themselves, and those of us who want to keep the spirit of discovery alive are considered lunatics.”
Dyl smiled. “Lunatics? Since, ‘luna’ means Moon, I guess this is the perfect place for us crazy people.”
The comment amused Ansari. “Yes, the perfect place. Do you know that before this base was established, fewer than twenty people had walked on the Moon? We had the ability, but we just stopped.” Her voice caught. “Who would have dreamed that we would develop the technology to get us to the Moon and then lose interest? People complained about the costs without seeing the huge benefits.”
Dyl shook his head. “I didn’t lose interest. I’m more interested in the Moon now than I’ve ever been.”
Just then, a blip appeared on the MCC tracking screens, distracting him. He pointed. “What’s this, Chief?”
“Enlarge that screen.” Ansari stepped closer. “Let’s get a better look.”
Dyl tapped the screen and expanded the view as the chief had shown him. “I’m not sure, but it’s fast and heading straight for us.”
Ansari bent over, intent and all business. She switched to another screen, watched a trace highlighted across the starry sky. “Our meteor trackers picked it up. Not a huge rock, but large enough to cause a lot of damage if it hits in the wrong place.”
Dyl was reminded of the simulated meteor storm emergency on the mission during their school field trip, but this was real. If a hurtling piece of space rock slammed into one of the moonbase modules, it would puncture the hull, cause explosive decompression, and generally ruin everyone’s day.
“Is it a whole meteor shower? What do we do?” he asked. During the simulation, all of the student “moonbase personnel” had hidden in a shelter to wait out the storm of falling rocks.
Ansari studied the tracking screen and let out a sigh of relief. “It could be a precursor to a much larger shower, but it looks like a singleton this time. It’s going to miss us.” She and Dyl watched, following the meteor’s approach.
When it was close enough, Dyl went to look out the nearest window port in the MCC. He scanned the starry background for a bright streak whizzing past.
“You’re not likely to see anything,” Ansari said. “On Earth, shooting stars are caused by rocks burning up in the atmosphere and leaving a trail of ionization as they vaporize. Without atmosphere, though, the rocks just fall. It’s possible that you might see a twinkle from reflected sunlight if it’s the right kind of debris.”
Dyl watched carefully, and Ansari gave him a hint after studying the trajectory. “Look toward the far edge of the crater there, at two o’clock. That’s where it should strike, toward the crater wall.”
For just an instant, Dyl saw a flickering object moving as fast as a bullet, and then a flash on the ground. “There, I saw it hit! No wonder the Moon looks like Swiss cheese.”
“Good eyes, Cadet Wren. Even though it didn’t burn up in the atmosphere, the impact released a burst of energy—plus a lot of loose regolith. No cheese, I’m afraid. Could you please note the location of the impact we just saw? I’m sure Major Fox would like to go and collect the specimen. It’s not often we get a chance like this, having the trajectory, the point of origin, and the meteorite itself. While the strike is fresh, we can get some valuable information from it.”
“The meteor has landed!” Dyl announced.
Ansari was amused by his enthusiasm. “Once it touches down, it’s considered a meteorite. When a rock is simply floating in space, it’s known as a
meteoroid. A meteor
is the streak of light created as it burns through the atmosphere—which doesn’t happen here. A
meteorite
is the rock that actually reaches the ground.”
“Well, that’s not confusing at all,” Dyl mumbled. On a note card he wrote, meteor, meteoroid, meteorite. He grinned and spoke into his imaginary recorder. “Cadet’s science log number 3782. I desperately hope there are not asters and asterites in addition to asteroids. Observation: Space rocks have too many names.”
***
