Salvador Mercer - Lunar Discovery

The station also had shielding added to each pod, but weight was a consideration, so the engineers in Moscow came up with this hybrid idea. It made the Gordust look even uglier, and definitely not like a spaceship, but it was extremely effective. The Gordust would use its banked array set on top of the ship and mounted five meters overhead to visually and electronically monitor the progress of their lander.

“Commence burn,” Nikolai said.

The lander’s quad rocket motors, one at each corner of the craft, burned in unison, going through its localized supply of propellant. The effect was dramatic as the lander’s relative velocity was suddenly arrested and the craft began to fall toward the moon’s surface as its rate of speed decreased.

Gregori was reckless enough to even have Ivan calculate a surface-oriented burn to increase the rate of closure from the craft to the moon. Normally, any sane space program would never have a procedure to vector a burn toward a planetary body—gravity would fulfill that purpose—but the lander and Gordust had extra fuel, and Gregori was using every advantage to get to the surface as quickly as possible.

“Crossing the terminator,” Olga indicated as the Gordust started to turn its trajectory into an orbital one and cross from the open sunlit area into the shadow and dark side of the moon.

“Vostochny Control, this is Gordust , over,” Yuri said.

“ Gordust , this is Vostochny Control, go ahead.”

“We are commencing blackout operations. The lander has initiated braking burn maneuver and is on schedule for lunar contact,” Yuri said, directing his communications into the long-range radio array.

“Copy, Gordust , convey luck and success to Zvesda . See you on the other side,” the technician’s voice sounded confident enough.

“Ready port lateral burn in ten seconds,” Olga said, referring to a small thruster burn toward the moon to keep the orbit at a higher inclination than what it was currently entering.

“Ready,” Yuri responded, bringing up his own screen’s video display of the Zvesda , now a brightly glowing ball of flames as the rocket motors lit up his view screen.

Yuri heard Nikolai’s voice again, calm and monotonous. “V level passing ninety-five kilometers.”

Olga looked at Yuri. “He’s really going in hot.”

Yuri reviewed the flight radar data as it was overlaid onto the video feed of the lander. “It’s well within his flight’s planned profile, aggressive though it was.”

Something that looked like a falling star streaked by to his right, passing the Gordust so fast that Yuri wondered if he really saw what he thought he saw. “Did you see that, Olga?”

“ Da , Yuri, that was the Glaza passing us,” she said, referring to the reconnaissance orbiter passing their station in the opposite direction but twenty kilometers higher in altitude.

Yuri felt he should have remembered their orbiter, but so focused was he on the lander’s progress as well as their own orbital insertion procedure that he had blocked that out from his mind. The craft became dark as the moon eclipsed the sun, and the glow of the instrument panel lit the interior of the cockpit brightly.

The moon began its pull on the ship, curving its flight path around itself, and the gentle push of the lateral rocket motors assisted the Gordust in keeping it at a higher orbit. Radar data began to come back as they tracked the lander and looked for the Chinese ship as well.

“I’ve got the data packet from the Glaza . Downloading it to your screen now,” Olga said, punching in the commands to place the info on Yuri’s desktop.

Yuri opened the file and found the mapping program. “Where is it?” he said.

“What are you looking for?” Olga asked, bringing up the same file on her screen.

“The Chinese lander, is it on the surface or did we beat them to the target?”

“There is no heat signature near the alien device other than the device itself,” Olga said. “I think the intel we received was faulty. It doesn’t look like the Chinese landed.”

“ Zvesda , this is Gordus t, over,” Yuri said into his mike.

“ Gordust , this is Zvesda , go ahead,” came Gregori’s voice

“ Zvesda , be advised there is no sign of activity at the target. Repeat no sign of activity at the target. You are in the clear.”

“Copy, Gordust , Zvesda is in the clear, ETA to target sixteen minutes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Olga said. “The recon orbiter reported the Chinese lander had detached.”

Yuri widened the map field and started to look around the area. First in the ten square kilometers field and then further until he saw a small red dot far to the west of the device as seen from their overhead viewpoint. “There he is. He is well off target, at least fifty kilometers or so. What do you think they are up to?”

“I have no idea, Yuri,” Olga responded. “Maybe he has a rover or something to approach the target from a safe distance?”

“Perhaps. Did Moscow, er, I mean, Vostochny receive this data packet?”

As soon as they did, or maybe a few seconds later, Olga winked at Yuri, and Yuri thought the gesture was so foreign to her that he just stared for a moment. “You all right, Yuri?”

“Fine, I’m just not making sense of their actions. It doesn’t matter. If they haven’t approached the target, then we get there first and that is all that matters,” Yuri said.

They traveled on in silence, watching the minutes go by as they quickly led the Zvesda ship since their speed never decreased. They passed the longitude divide and began their journey back around the far side of the moon.

“ Gordust , this is Zvesda , we have landed,” Gregori’s voice came through the system.

“Yuri, they are within five hundred meters of the target,” Nikolai said from his rear command seat.

“Copy, Nikolai. Gordust to Zvesda , confirmation received. You have landed near target. Will relay data to Central Control. Job well done,” Yuri said.

“Oh my God, look at the internal temperature reading of the Zvesda ,” Olga said, pointing to the main screen that they shared between them.

Yuri tapped the screen twice. “Thirty-four degrees Celsius and rising. That can’t be correct. They are in the shade. The temperature should be falling, not rising.”

“ Zvesda , shut down your heating element,” Nikolai’s voice came across the channel, no longer sounding calm.

The reply was filled with static and hard to hear, but Yuri could make out Gregori’s voice, triumphant over the interference. “ Zvesda copy. Heating element shut down. Running a systems diagnostic now.”

Yuri watched in fascination as the internal bio data from the lander displayed its readouts across their screens. The temperature stabilized for several minutes and then began to climb again, albeit at a slower rate than before.

Gregori’s voice broke the silence. “All systems check. We are preparing to go EV.”

“Negative, Zvesda ,” Yuri said into his mike, anxiety and dread in his voice. “Stay in the lander and prepare to lift off on my command.”

There was a long period of silence before Gregori’s response. “ Nyet , Yuri, we are going to the device now.”

“Damn the man, isn’t he reading their temperature readout?” Yuri asked rhetorically, clicking on the internal channel. “Nikolai, can Gregori and Ivan see their bio readouts?”

“Affirmative, speculate it’s the radiative heating from Zvesda’s landing rockets,” Nikolai responded.