Jeramey Kraatz - The Dark Side of the Moon

“When we found the aliens,” Dr Bale said, “I saw one of them control the door to their base with this, growing it into the huge slab it is now. Another – the Maraudi that got away … it looked like he was using it to control his ship.”

Benny swallowed hard. Maybe this glove was going to come in handy.

“So, what about this one?” Jasmine said. “Can you show us how it works?”

Dr Bale looked at the gash in the glove’s palm. “Maybe I could if it were whole. But Elijah was careless with the architectural laser he was wielding when we made first contact.”

That’s when Benny remembered the details of the story Elijah had told them about when he and his top scientist had discovered the base – how there’d been a fight, and none of the aliens left on the Moon had survived. He shuddered as his eyes again fell on the bone-like items on the shelf.

It was almost difficult to imagine that all this had happened years and years ago, before the EW-SCAB had ever been created. And yet, here they were now, dealing with the ramifications.

Dr Bale made his way to the hologram in the corner. “This is their solar system. You’ll note that the middle of these three red dwarf stars is larger than the others. That’s because it’s expanding. Observe.” He reached into the hologram and seemed to pull on it, until the whole image zoomed in on a blue and brown ball floating near one of the stars. “This is where they come from. And, as you can see …” He pressed on something at the base of the hologram, and slowly the star began to expand until it was overtaking the planet completely. “They’re in trouble. I’m not sure what the timetable is on this – we haven’t exactly been focusing on learning their language or communications techniques – but they’re obviously looking to take Earth … Benny, you said you could breathe on their spaceship?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think they need our atmosphere?” It was more of a question than he meant it to be, considering Commander Tull – the alien in charge of the mother ship he’d been on that morning – had told him flat out that this was the reason. But Benny was preoccupied with something else. “So … you know they’re not coming to take Earth just because they want to conquer it, then. They’re coming for it because otherwise their species will die.”

Dr Bale nodded. “Let me guess. Elijah was still imagining they might turn the Earth into a destination planet. Some sort of vacation resort for wealthy extraterrestrials.” He let out a single, deep laugh. “Ever the entrepreneur.”

“But, if you know that …” Benny started, shaking his head. “If you understand that they’re just looking for a new home, why not use your skills to try to save their planet instead of making weapons to fight them. Maybe you could stop their star from expanding. Then they wouldn’t need Earth.”

“Who’s to say that they wouldn’t take it anyway?” Dr Bale pulled on his beard. “In all honesty, their technology is far more advanced than ours. If they can’t figure out a way to save themselves, there’s no way I’m going to. Plus, my boy, when you’re my age – when you’ve seen the things I’ve seen – you stop putting hope in the best possible solution and start to bet on the one most likely to come out in your favour. Or in this case, the favour of all mankind. We have to be able to defend ourselves if – when they return. That’s why I’ve designed these weapons. I’ll be waiting for them if they show their tentacled heads here again. The safety of our planet and our people is the highest priority. Everything else is negotiable.”

Benny swallowed hard. His friends didn’t say a word. The only thing that broke the silence was a rustling behind them. Benny turned to see Todd had pulled back the shed’s canvas door flap. He and Mae both held trays with silver packages on them.

“It’s probably not anything like Taj food,” Todd said, “but we technically did break out the good stuff.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Mae suggested. “After a while, you forget that most of your protein comes from soy powder.”

Benny had eaten enough sustenance squares back on Earth to know that wasn’t true, but he kept his mouth shut as they followed Dr Bale and his assistants out into the centre of the camp. Todd and Mae passed out the little silver pouches.

“Thanks,” Drue said, taking his. “I think.”

“So, you’ve come for help,” Dr Bale said, crossing his arms. “I suppose you’re hoping to take some of these weapons back with you now that you’ve seen them. But I must say, they were not meant for children to use, despite the bravery you showed this morning.”

“No,” Jasmine said, taking a step forward. “We didn’t come here for weapons.”

Dr Bale looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement. “Oh?”

“We came for information,” she continued. “Guidance. And to warn you.”

“And to get in touch with Earth,” Benny said, stepping up beside her. “That’s one of our biggest priorities.”

“I mean, we’ll take some of those weapons,” Drue said from behind them. “If you’re offering.”

Hot Dog sighed. “If you really want to save humanity, you won’t give him anything remotely dangerous.”

“Hey,” Drue said. “I—”

“Can you help us with any of that?” Benny asked, talking over his friend.

Dr Bale took off his thick goggles and began to wipe them with a cloth he pulled from his space suit pocket. “As you can see, we have a lot of very important work that we’re doing here. But I’ll confer with my colleagues and see what we can do. Contact with Earth would benefit all of us, after all.” He nodded to Todd and Mae. “Between the three of us I’m sure we can come up with a few ideas.”

Todd and Mae both nodded, still holding the trays.

Dr Bale put his goggles back on and then pulled a thin HoloTek hardly bigger than a deck of cards from his pocket. “I’ll be in touch. Call it nostalgia if you like, but I never deleted the resort’s contact information from my HoloTek. I’ll let Pinky know when we’ve come up with something.”

“Oh,” Benny said, kind of relieved at how well this was now going. “Well … Great.”

“As humans, we’re in this together,” Dr Bale said. “Whatever happens next, we must fight united. Now, I really should be getting back to work. Your encounter with the Maraudi this morning has disrupted my schedule.”

“Then I guess we’ll be going?” Benny asked. “Hopefully we’ll talk again soon.”

“Ah,” Dr Bale said, smiling. “I’ve no doubt about that.”

“OK, so that is not what I thought space camp on the dark side would be like,” Hot Dog said through the comms as they flew back towards the Taj.

“I’m just saying,” Drue said, glancing at Benny, who sat in his passenger seat, “those weapon things could be useful in the future.”

Hot Dog groaned. “I hate that I agree with you about that.”

“How badly do you guys want to shoot that laser cannon he had?” Drue grinned. “I knew we needed space tanks. Remember? I told Elijah that he—”

“Drue,” Jasmine came in, cutting him off. “I don’t like even knowing that those weapons are up here. I always respected Elijah’s stance about not using science to do harm. It’s one thing I definitely think he was right about.”