Salvador Mercer - Lunar Discovery

Marge looked to Rock and gave a slight nod for him to continue. Rock took a deep breath and looked at Smith in the eye before answering. “It means the Russians are in serious danger if our theory is correct.”

“And what do you think your chances are of being correct?” Smith asked.

Rock looked at Marge and nodded. “With Marge and Jack proffering the theory, I’d bet money that they are right.”

Smith rubbed his chin and made one last response. “Then the Russians are in trouble.”

“Big trouble,” Rock said.

“About damn time,” Tom finished.

Gordust Space Station

Low Moon Orbit

In the near future, Day 47

“We’re in trouble down there,” Nikolai said via the intercom system as the Gordust made its seventh orbit of the moon.

“Pulling up the infrared again,” Olga said, flipping a switch and activating the FLIR, Forward Looking Infrared, camera mounted on a mast high above the ship.

Yuri looked and didn’t need to ask for the last reading to be brought up and overlaid on their shared screen to know that his two comrades hadn’t moved the last two orbits. “Olga, make sure this visual data is sent along with the radar signal and other data on our next communications window.”

It was a meaningless order. Olga would do this the same as she had the last six orbits, but it made Yuri feel better to vocalize something after seeing their comrades unmoving on the surface. Gregori lay near the alien device, his infrared readings now cooling as he lost what remained of his body heat. Ivan had managed to get back to the lander and strap himself in, but hadn’t moved since then.

“Thermal readouts are cooling for both cosmonauts,” Nikolai said, his voice barely audible.

“Understood. Let’s keep collecting data for Vostochny,” Yuri commented, trying to get the man’s attention and focus back onto something productive.

With the mike closed, Olga leaned over and whispered to Yuri, “What happened down there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, though I’d say the thermal readings are playing a major role in all this. What are we at now?” Yuri asked, looking at their screen again.

Olga swiped away the infrared and brought up a schematic of the Gordust , color-coded for heat readings. “We’re up by over four degrees Celsius so far, from twenty-two to twenty-six.”

Yuri nodded and reflectively grabbed his small towel and wiped his brow for the umpteenth time that day. “Are the radiation levels increasing?”

“ Nyet ,” Olga said, looking at a separate readout on her personal console monitor. “Those have stabilized at elevated levels but within normal operating parameters.”

“Viktor wants to EVA again and do a visual on the lower heat sinks and lateral radiative fins,” Nikolai said over the system, breaking the command’s crew private conversation.

“Negative, we know our cooling system is working properly. This has a different root cause. Run another scan of the receivers. Let’s see if we’re missing something,” Yuri said.

The first few orbits had been promising despite their issues. Gregori and Ivan had prepped to make a moon walk, and indeed, the video showed them stepping down onto the moon’s surface, the first Russians to perform that feat in history. They managed to send the video feed and pictures to Vostochny for confirmation, and things looked promising. Then came the failures.

The first system to go was the communications module on board the lander. The monitoring system showed the internal temperature of the lander increasing dramatically, and the cooling fans for the electrical equipment couldn’t keep up. The microprocessors overheated and started to fail.

Nikolai was brilliant as he improvised and used a powerful lighting mechanism to pulse and send an equivalent of a Russian Morse code to the surface when communications were gone. Ivan had read the code and responded by pulsating the overhead navigation beacon in reply. The Morse message from the surface was that Gregori was attempting to use the cutting blade on their circular portable saw to cut the prongs holding the white stone in place atop the black obelisk-sized mount that it was sitting on. Yuri was amazed at the man’s determination to secure the object and return to the lander for lift off.

Then the lighting on board Zvesda failed and all communications were lost. The Gordust could only orbit and watch on infrared as the men worked below them. Yuri had requested that they abort more than once, but each time Gregori had overruled him. As mission commander on the surface, he had that right. Yuri disagreed, knowing that they had a spare fuel pod at the rear of the Gordust and could refuel the lander and return to the surface when they had a better handle on what was happening with their thermal readings, but paranoia ruled the surface mission leader and he was fixated on accomplishing the mission before the Chinese could get there.

That was two orbits ago. Since that time, there had been no movement, and this pass it was obvious that their bodies were cooling; however, Ivan’s was doing so at a slower rate because he was in the closed lander which had now reached sixty degrees Celsius, at the low end of a baking oven. At that temperature, Yuri understood that no electronic equipment would operate without immense cooling systems in place, and the lander just didn’t have that capability.

“How long are we going to stay here?” Olga asked without looking up, continuing to pull data from various collection systems and compile them into a single compressed file for transmission to earth once they cleared the dark side of the moon.

“Probably until Vostochny orders us to burn back,” Yuri said. “I’d prefer to stay as long as possible until we can ascertain what is happening to our craft. Is the recon orbiter still nominal?”

“If you’re referring to the temperature readouts, then yes, it has barely registered the elevated readings that we have,” Olga said, reviewing the latest data from their reconnaissance satellite.

“Any sign of movement from our Chinese counterpart?”

Olga punched up the rear camera and brought the image up on their screen. “Nothing different. The man seems to be on vacation down there. Hasn’t left his lander from what we can tell. No heat traces anywhere near their craft. They are having him sit tight for now.”

“I wonder if they know something we don’t,” Yuri said.

“Like what?” Olga asked.

“Maybe they registered something that we missed when they attempted to land and they aborted, having their lander touchdown farther downrange.”

“All right, but then what? Sit and do nothing?”

“Well, it looked like the craft suffered some type of structural failure. He may be stranded down there, unable to take off again,” Yuri said.

“That would explain a lot. The FLIR did seem to show the craft on its side, or at least tilting heavily. It would appear that we aren’t the only ones having problems here.”

“Agreed. Get the latest data packet ready and let’s see what they want us to do up here.”

“Affirmative,” Olga replied, readying their communications packet.

Vostochny Cosmodrome

Siberia, Russia

In the near future, Day 47

“Understood. Yes, fine. Have him call me in the morning, then, when he awakens. Yes, we’ll be sure to do that. Thank you. Goodbye.” Vlad hung up the phone and looked up at his team in their ad hoc control center room at the Vostochny space base.

“Well?” Alex asked from his seat near the window, taking a sip of coffee from his cup nearby.