David Golemon - Legacy

“Yes, I can do that, General.”

Sarah hit the COM switch on her wrist.

“Will, bring me four of our men and half the equipment. Make sure we have the magnetometers and Geiger counters. We don’t want to run into anything that will contaminate our ride home. Tell Sergeant Andrews he’s to be our scout and he will be accompanied by four of General Kwan’s men.” Sarah looked at Kwan, who nodded inside his helmet.

“Roger,” Mendenhall said as he chose the men and started making sure of their supplies.

“A wise precaution, Lieutenant,” Kwan said. He turned to his second in command and issued orders for five of his men to get ready to enter Shackleton.

Then, the Moon moved.

Sarah saw the dust underneath her shadow jump and then settle back.

“I don’t believe we were briefed on the possibility of moonquakes,” Jarneux said. He looked around nervously.

“There can’t be a moonquake, because there’s no seismic activity on the Moon in any form,” Sarah said, as she looked to the others for a possible explanation.

“You don’t think there could be a power source still active on whatever it is we have uncovered here, do you?” Jarneux asked.

“All I can say is that I doubt very much this thing is active. It’s hard to tell its age because there looks to be no deterioration of the metal properties due to the lack of an atmosphere. And since this is no earthly design, unless the colonel here has been hiding a Chinese leap in technology we didn’t see coming, I would say it’s old. I doubt anything on it could possibly be working.”

“I hope you are right, Lieutenant,” the French captain said, and went to begin directing the efforts of his men.

Unlike Jack in Ecuador, Sarah didn’t connect the use of her electronic communications equipment to the strange vibration. She never even felt the first effects when she tried to contact Jason in Altair.

“Will, General Kwan, we should be off,” Sarah checked her chronometer. “I would like to send two men back to the Altair soon to make contact with Ryan and find out who could be jamming us.”

“I wish to send someone back also, Lieutenant, and since our two landers are on the same compass heading, may I suggest a joint effort? It would leave us shorthanded, but I would rather err on the side of caution in this instance,” General Kwan said, looking around the area.

Sarah again nodded her head. “Sergeant Tewlewiski,” Sarah said over her shortwave. “Join us, please.”

The general called over one of the men who was preparing for the short trek into Shackleton. The two men joined them and they were given instructions.

“I suspect we’re far beyond secrets here,” Sarah said as she looked the two men over, “and since Altair is closer, you should replenish your air there before moving on to Magnificent Dragon. Regardless, continue to try to raise Ryan as you go. Maybe this jamming will let up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant said as he half bowed to his Chinese travel companion and gestured that they should start out.

“Shall we go, General?” Sarah said.

The Chinese general looked around the airless void, then turned to McIntire. “Yes, Lieutenant, because in all honesty, I would wish to conclude our business here as quickly as possible.”

Sergeant Tewlewiski tried to make small talk, but with the two communications systems sounding scratchy at best and the two soldiers unable to speak the same language, he had given up any attempts at conversation as they trudged through the lunar dust toward Altair. He knew that the Chinese soldier was a sergeant too and that his name was Chao. He didn’t understand the man’s first name so Tewlewiski just called him Chao; for everything else he used hand gestures. He would point to his wrist when it was time for Chao to attempt contact with Magnificent Dragon. The signal transmission was still being jammed, but by what they didn’t know. All of their attempts to raise Altair or the Chinese LEM were being made while they were on the move. Like Sarah, the two soldiers never felt the vibrations coming through the lunar dust. After attempting contact, they would simply bound away, actually enjoying the walk toward Altair in the light lunar gravity.

Finally Tewlewiski saw the Altair, only sixty-five feet away. He saw no movement at the large triangular windows on the upper deck, so he assumed Ryan was either on the crew deck or going through his preflight checklist as ordered by the lieutenant. He pointed his gloved hand almost proudly at the LEM. Chao nodded in the exaggerated way necessary in the bulky environment suits. The sergeant raised his left wrist and pushed the blue button just above the wrist.

“ Altair, this is ground team, do you copy, over,” he called through the embedded microphone in his helmet. He didn’t want to surprise Ryan without making a last attempt to contact him. “Come on, Ryan, you got your ears on?” Tewlewiski said, breaking proper radio protocol.

Sergeant Chao grabbed Tewlewiski’s wrist and held it still. He raised his right boot from the dust and nodded his head downward.

Tewlewiski didn’t understand at first, then he felt it. There was a vibration emanating from the lunar dust. He tilted his head and wondered what it could be. As he went slowly to his knees he felt the same vibration through his gloves, only stronger since the gloves weren’t as thick as their boots.

“What the hell is that?” he asked through the COM system.

“This is Altair. Is that any way to talk on the radio, you Army puke? You want the FCC to fine us?”

Tewlewiski gave out a yelp as Ryan’s signal blasted through loud and clear. Even Sergeant Chao jumped when he heard the call. Tewlewiski rose to his feet with heart racing. Both men started to laugh.

“Damn, Ryan, we’ve been trying to raise you for the past two hours, over.”

“Well, that’s funny. I’ve been trying the same thing with you guys. I was about ready to suit up and come out there looking for you. I do have some more bad news. The Russian command module went off the air. It seems they may have COM problems too. Or maybe they lost the whole shebang, I don’t know. I could hear them one minute and nothing the next. We can still receive from time to time, depending on the orbits of COM satellites, but we can’t broadcast. So it looks like the Russians are out of the ball game altogether.” There was a pause as Jason climbed onto the command deck. “Hey, I see you brought a friend with you.”

Tewlewiski looked over at Chao, who was not looking at him in return. He was staring down at the surface of the Moon and not moving. Then the American understood why, the vibration had increased to the point it felt as if a bus were passing by just underneath the surface.

“Hey Ryan, do you feel anything?”

“Yes, dear, I feel lonely out here all by myself.”

“Nut, that’s not what I mean. There’s a vibration that keeps-”

Suddenly the ground between the two men erupted skyward, sending Sergeant Chao flying through the airless space to land twenty feet away. As the ground sprayed upward in the thirty-yard arc, a massive shape seemed to rise above Tewlewiski.

“Jesus, what the hell was that?” Ryan called out, as he gripped the triple window pane on the command deck of Altair. Then he became silent as he saw for the first time just what was standing over Tewlewiski. “Oh, shit, get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The American finally raised his helmeted head and saw what was looking down at him. The machine stood just shy of twenty feet tall. He could see the stainless steel gears spinning and grinding inside its humanoid frame. The torso was thick and covered in armor plate. The arms looked as though they were made from six different lengths of thick hardened steel, culminating in a hand with three sharpened fingers. The head was rounded and there was no mouth, only two giant red eyes that rotated left and right as they took in Tewlewiski. As the sergeant watched in shock, he saw two more arms exit the armored torso. The thick left leg lifted and took a step toward the sergeant.