Luke Marusiak - Lifeboat Moon

Thad drove the buggy out of the garage and stopped at the humming air reactor. The air reactor bathed several tons of machine mined moon rocks in melted salt. Nearly a third of the array’s electricity powered a giant electrode centered in the salt vat. The electric current separated the oxygen from the metal oxides. The reactor was brilliant in its simplicity but would require a reset — tons of new moon rocks — in a few months. He hoped Zeke had a plan for the reset. But they’d need the second reactor first. Thad remembered that the parts of the second air reactor were in Habitation Tube Three.

They would’ve constructed the second reactor by now but the gamma ray burst disrupted the meticulous NASA-ESA schedule. That schedule was replaced by a plan Director Constance Collier and Moon Base Armstrong Controller Huxley Little prepared. The director and the ArmCon talked of a post gamma ray burst plan but Thad had never seen it. He hoped Mark had.

These were important thoughts but the urgent beckoned. Thad got out of the buggy and carefully inspected the twenty centimeter diameter flexible air hose connection to the reactor. Thad toggled his visor display with his chin and paused before turning on his camera. He noted he still had a file in the helmet camera’s memory. I need to send the video of the pod mishap. He flicked on his transmitter. “Control station, this is Captain Rudzinski commencing air hose inspection. I need to send you the video of pod descent first.”

“Go ahead and send it,” Chuck answered.

Thad frowned. Chuck was the last voice he heard before the pod went crazy. Chuck was the one who screwed around with Mark’s air gauge. Suspicion surged. “Sending now,” he replied. Thad sent the supply pod descent video to the control room but also sent a separate transmission directly to Mark and to Zeke.

Feeling he’d covered his bases with the video of the crash, he turned his helmet camera on record and started the inspection. He looked at the gauges and noted pumping efficiency was ninety-seven percent. He exhaled. The procedure for the air reactor checks involved two things: ensuring the electrode was adequately powered and ensuring the blowers were operating at efficiency. When the efficiency dropped, the blowers were swapped out with a cleaned unit from the base. After fourteen days of operation the blowers needed the electrostatic talcum-powder-like moon dust removed. They rotated four blowers through the cleaning process. That was another thing they’d have to do soon. The basic actions of day to day survival were all consuming. The air hose connection was sound but Thad was concerned. There were too many single points of failure and the pod crash reduced their odds of survival.

He drove the buggy alongside the hose. He stopped when he saw the pod landing pad. He noted the beacons he’d placed just over an hour ago. They were flashing bright purple indicating that the pod locked onto another signal. There was something wrong with that status. The beacons he placed were to provide the only signal for the supply pod landing.

The flashing beacons prompted a sense of loss but Thad realized his musings and fears slowed his progress. As much as he wanted to investigate the beacons, the air supply was the priority. He drove the buggy alongside the walkway so he could see and record the hose condition in high clarity. Mark hates it when I kick dust onto the plexiglass. But that couldn’t be helped. He carefully inspected the hose, noting its integrity. He drove a buggy length, stopped, inspected, and continued. Meter by meter he inspected the hose and was relieved it was intact. As he completed the hose inspection, with the buggy right next to hangar, he saw the problem.

At the connection housing just outside the control room, the bottom of the housing plate had a noticeable crack. Thad’s pulse quickened. He stepped out of the buggy, pulled out a sealant kit, and bounded up to the offending plate. His stomach tightened when he clearly saw wispy waves of precious oxygen escaping. “I see a crack on the air entrance housing and I see venting. I’m repairing it now,” he transmitted.

“Understand.” It was Doug who answered this time.

Thad carefully cleaned and sealed the crack, applying extra sealant above and beside the fracture. He crouched on one knee and stared at the seal, looking for any telltale sign of venting. Minutes ticked by and he wondered how many spare parts for the air delivery system Habitation Tube Three held.

“Good job Thad,” Zeke’s welcome voice came through his helmet speaker. “Pressure is nominal. You fixed it.”

“Great,” Thad answered. He exhaled in relief.

“Stand by the buggy,” Zeke replied. “Mark’s coming out.”

Mark waited until the load lock showed vacuum and then he opened the door. For the first time in over six weeks, he was on a moonwalk. Everything was awkward. His pounding heart and sticky-with-sweat inner suit were reminders that it had been too long since he’d been outside. As he reached out the door, Thad locked a grip on his arm and helped him exit the lock. Together they closed the door and verified the seal. Mark pointed to the lower right of his helmet, a signal to Thad to activate the short range low power Bluetooth transceiver. This was standard protocol and allowed continuous communication between the two.

“Housing is sealed,” Thad’s voice came through with a hint of deference.

“Good,” Mark answered. “We’ll inspect it on the way back.”

“Back from where?” Thad asked.

“The ledge. I want to see if we can get the digger started.”

“The digger?”

“Yeah, we can use it to clear the area of Habitation Tube One. That way we can do salvage work and repair our moon base.” Mark pointed to Thad’s pack. “How’s your air?”

“Fine, I’ve got over an hour.”

Mark paused and looked at the destroyed section of the plexiglass walkway — a result of the supply pod crash. The walkway was sectioned in hundred meter lengths separated by a person-wide connection that could be sealed twice. The connection could be used as an airlock and that was the original plan — pressurize the tube to allow easy transit to the air reactor. But that plan, like the first hundred meter walkway section, the section pressurized before the crash, was shattered.

There was nothing left of the first section. All that remained was a ragged edge of broken glass around the seal. The pieces of walkway had blown out in a wide circumference. The sawtooth edge of remaining glass at the seal reminded Mark of a car accident he’d seen years ago where the passenger flew through the windshield.

The two climbed in the buggy with Mark on the driver’s side. He didn’t think Thad could see the sweat rolling down his forehead. He drove at a snail’s pace down the ledge. They had no sooner traveled fifty meters when the effects of the pod crash were visible in the form of large rocks strewn on the once pristine lane. “You see that debris?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” Thad answered. “This place wasn’t supposed to be so fragile.”

Mark steered the buggy around rocks and stopped when he saw that a large area of the ledge was missing, it had dropped straight into the crater. The ledge was four highway lanes wide but at this point a full two lanes of ledge width had vanished into the crater.

Thad leaned away from the slide toward Mark. “I can’t believe that. Half of the ledge slid into the crater.”

Mark panted. “Do you think the left side of the ledge is stable?”

Thad was silent for many seconds before answering. “If it was going to give way it would have already.”

That logic was dubious but Mark had no other plan. He guided the buggy so that it hugged the crater wall, passed the large forbidding gap in the ledge, and continued. After traveling 600 meters he stopped again, staring with dismay. “Whoa.”