Salvador Mercer - Lunar Discovery

“You can thank Tom McClain for that one,” Julie said, watching as the lunar soil was hurled into space behind the rover’s large all-terrain wheels.

“You can’t be serious. How would the old man know?”

“Well, he didn’t know about this, but he pulled me aside and told me he rigged it for extra juice just in case we had to beat the Ruskis.”

“Now that sounds like the man,” Craig said. “Hold on, bump coming up.”

Julie felt the straps again hold her from colliding with the roof as the rover actually became airborne. Well, space-borne would be a more accurate description , she thought to herself, hearing the call from Houston again.

“Do you copy, Blackjack ? Find cover now.”

“What are they… ?” Julie let her voice trail off as she noticed what looked like a small falling meteor approaching the area from the far side of the crater.

The Chinese missile had all but spent its primary fuel stores as well as its small inert compressed gas of nitrogen that had given the rocket small course corrections as it approached the moon at a steeper than optimal angle for orbital insertion.

The missile didn’t intend to orbit, and much like a billiards player who lined up a triple banked shot on a pool table, as soon as the ball was set in motion, it was like money in the bank. The moon’s gravity pulled on the rocket, changing its trajectory and pulling it closer to the moon’s surface as it approached from the equator, having had its latitude calculated hours earlier.

There would be no aerial fins to give it course corrections at the last minute. No, this missile was completely ballistic and its path predetermined a day earlier. The law of physics applied gravity to the mass and speed of the nuclear-tipped rocket, bending its trajectory until it approached the site from the eastern horizon. Nosecone radar took over, sending queries to the moon’s surface and receiving thousands of updates every second.

Finally a simple program in the computer’s arming logic received the data it was looking for, a simple “greater than, less than” algorithm that indicated that the rocket was now less than one hundred meters above the surface of the moon. The near constant signal that the computer had been sending to the arming device now changed from negative to positive. The arming module accepted the command and activated the nuclear weapon ninety-nine-point-nine-eight meters above the surface.

Armageddon had arrived for the alien device.

Julie watched as a sudden ball of intense white lit up the area where they had just been not long before. The ball did not mushroom as one would expect, but instead, in the vacuum of space, ballooned out in a near perfect circular pattern until the wave hit the surface. One hundred tons of lunar soil, rocks, and material were suddenly and violently ejected from the impact site and hurled miles overhead in fierce, glowing streaks of light across the dark side of the moon.

Julie gasped. “Oh my God.”

“I see it,” Craig’s voice came across her headset, and she half fancied he was willing the rover to go faster. “Almost there,” he said, his voice now sounding more hopeful than confident.

“Too late,” Julie said, watching the wall of intense light approaching them at an unbelievable rate of closure. She closed her eyes as the wall of light reached them, and prepared to die.

NASA Space Center

Houston, Texas

In the near future, Day 48

“Try again,” Rock ordered, looking directly at Jack.

“ Blackjack , this is Houston, over, do you copy?” Jack said.

There was no response, and the neutrino display, once a very secondary feature, was now on the top of the four sidebar displays, dancing away to the tune of the alien signal, though obviously a different one now.

“Ah, Richard, you may want to see this,” Lisa said, looking at him from her console.

“What is it?” Rock asked.

“Video feed from the Russians,” Lisa shot back.

“Put it on the main screen,” Rock said, sitting down again in his chair.

The video feed came up on the main screen, dark and hard to see at first, but then clearing up, and the surface of the moon was apparent. A bright, white ball of light was clearly visible in the center, expanding.

“How are you intercepting this?” Mr. Smith asked from behind Rock’s console.

Lisa turned from the screen to look at the man. “They’re broadcasting this in the open. It’s a PAL system, the kind the Europeans use for their television system, so we have to run it through a decoder and NTSC converter to get it to play on our monitors, but it’s in the open.”

“Where is the Russian ship now?” Vice President Lee asked, returning to the control room from the hallway where he was presumably discussing current events with the president.

“Coming across the terminator,” Lisa said.

Rock saw the confusion on Lee’s face. “She means it’s just crossing now from the day side to the night side. We’ll lose this feed soon as well, and it’s taken at an angle of about sixty degrees.”

The vice president nodded and looked back at the picture of the ball of light as it started to darken as it grew outward.

“One hell of a way to end a mission, eh, Rock?” Tom asked, shaking his head.

“Yeah, Tom, one hell of a way…” Rock’s voice trailed off.

“ Blyad , they actually did it,” Yuri said, watching the nuclear explosion with interest as they started yet another orbit around the moon.

“A bit early, too, Yuri,” Olga said, also watching the feed. “I’m afraid that now we’ll never know.”

Yuri looked at his copilot. “About our crew or the Americans?”

“Both, Yuri. I doubt they had time to clear that blast radius. What were their superiors thinking, anyway?”

“Probably the same thing as ours, mission priority, crew expendable.”

Apollo 21 Rover

Surface of the Moon, Mons Crater

In the near future, Day 48

The blast arrived at the same time that the rover met the lip of the crater. Craig never bothered to slow down. He could see the blast wave approaching through the side mirrors that were only there to allow Julie to back the rover up. Now they served a different function. The rover sailed over the edge of the crater lip, seeming to glide in the lower gravity, but then it was violently flung into the ground as the explosive force of the nuclear blast reached them.

The rover hit hard on its nose, digging into the lunar surface and bouncing wildly before coming to an abrupt halt as it hit a rock outcropping. The rear-facing lights were blown out, and the rear of the rover was plunged into darkness. Only the top lights facing forward were still working.

Julie came to, looking up and seeing streaks of molten rock spewing across the night sky. Their rover was being pelted from above by small pebble-sized rocks that made the interior vibrate. The lights from the front of the rover cut through the haze, dust, and lunar soil.

“You all right back there, Jules?” Craig said, pushing the lever forward and causing the entire rover to vibrate, though it did not budge.

Julie lifted the shielding on her visor so she could see again and touched the top of the helmet, feeling for any major cracks. She’d have to de-glove to perform a more detailed check if she wanted to test her suit’s ability to maintain pressure. “Yeah, I think we’re alive.”

“Well, those engineers sure as hell know how to build a rover. The shielding held and none of our electronics were blown by the EMP blast. We are, however, stuck. I can’t move it.”