Homeworld Rising, page 7
“Yeah, you know, because words mean things,” Ari said, earning a single-finger salute from the bigger M’Nok.
“It’s actually four words. In English it would be the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Nancy explained. “But according to known history, they never made it to the moon—at least, not with people.”
“Well, this looks like they made it with a whole bunch of people,” Five said. “How did you guys not know about something like this?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Henry replied. “But knowing what I know now, I’m disappointed all we did was land some guys here to look around and leave. I mean, we had Five on ice the whole damn time and we barely got into our own backyard.”
The yawning gray hallway stretched on and on ahead of the lights illuminating the whole way.
“To be fair to humanity, I wouldn’t have been particularly helpful,” Five said. “I can learn fast, but for something as complex as the ship I came on, I would need to have a trained pilot show me.”
As they walked, Henry took note of how expansive everything was.
“I thought space was a premium out here in, well, space,” he said. “Seems a little roomy in here.” The ceilings were easily twelve feet high at least.
Nancy seemed to notice too.
“It could have been an anti-claustrophobia measure, especially if they had people living here long-term.”
The hallway emptied out into an atrium with withered and dead plants.
“Looks like whoever’s here forgot to pay the gardener,” Henry said. “Mikey, do you got comms with Aldrin?”
“Negative, we desynced when we went underground,” Mikey said.
Henry sighed and took a look around.
“Do you have any maps of this area?” he asked. Mickey gave him a negative, and Henry paced around the room looking for signs. “Anyone got a good grasp on Russian?”
“I do,” Nancy said. “Tried to impress a guy going into the intelligence branch in college. I’m a little rusty, but I can get by.” Henry chuckled. Nancy narrowed her eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“Sorry, one of our other guys taught himself Ukrainian in high school.” He shook his head. “He didn’t get the girl, but it helped him breeze through that test you take to see how well you can learn another language.” He smiled. “Army decided he would serve in East Asia.”
Surprisingly, Nancy allowed herself a laugh.
“They probably figured he’d be distracted by the women in East Europe,” she replied.
Krek took up a position looking down another hallway. The rest of Henry’s team followed suit, with Ari watching the way they’d come.
“Well, Miss Nancy, let us know what we’re looking at,” Henry said.
She walked around behind the soldiers pulling security and read each of the headings.
“It trips me out how y’all humans have so many ways of speaking and writing,” Krek said with an overemphasis on y’all. “Especially since we’ve only ever needed to learn one.”
“You didn’t learn another language from the other races in your space UN or whatever?” Henry asked.
Krek shrugged.
“Never had to, though I guess my people probably had all sorts of languages before my branch left Earth.”
Nancy glanced away from the sign she was examining to look at Krek.
“So your people left Earth before an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs?”
“They left 67 million years ago,” Ari said. “And I don’t buy that asteroid bullshit. Our people had a spacefaring society that had built generation ships. If our records are right, a third of our population could live in those ships our ancestors built. Even if an asteroid hit Earth, it wouldn’t have destroyed those colonies. I honestly would have thought the asteroid theory was a cover-up if it wasn’t obvious you humans have believed it for close to sixty years.” He took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Sorry about the rant. It just bothers me, that’s all,” the young M’Nok said.
Nancy patted Krek on the shoulder.
“You’re looking at a barracks, gym, and mess,” she said. Moving on to Five, she tapped him on the shoulder. “Reactor.” She moved on to Henry. “Research and Excavation.”
Henry frowned at the revelation.
“Why is it every time someone digs on the moon, we discover something progressively worse?” He glanced around at the three options. “Alright, barracks, reactor, research, excavation—that’s how we’ll roll.” He gestured for them to start moving, and they began scrambling to establish security down Krek’s hall.
“What do you expect to find down here?” Nancy asked from the middle of Henry’s diamond formation.
“Hopefully nothing,” Henry said. “We’re just looking down here to make sure nothing sneaks up behind us.”
They glanced into the mess hall. Nothing stirred amidst the room set up like an old school diner. Henry even spotted an old jukebox at one end. Probably trying to make this place homier.
The gym had been stripped bare, probably as part of whatever archeological work the Europeans were attempting.
While the mess hall and gym just sat on opposite sides of the hall, the barracks area split into four separate sections, each denoted by a blast door with a number one, two, three, or four painted on it.
Henry stopped and evaluated.
“Might as well start with door number one,” he said.
They stacked up on the door, and Nancy pulled it open while the others rushed in. A long hallway with rooms lining both sides greeted them. On inspection, they found bedrooms that would have been considered the master bedroom in a normal house. Plenty of room to walk, bookshelves, TVs, radios, and even a separate bathroom.
“Well, someone important lived here,” Nancy observed as they walked through. “Can’t imagine the Soviets on Earth caring for this.”
Henry nodded.
“Whoever lived here was in charge,” he agreed. “Let’s check the next door.”
Door Number Two held a similar arrangement, if a step down. Smaller bedrooms, closer to normal, with each pair sharing a full bathroom, or at least as full a bath as possible in low-G. Door Number 3 held much the same, except now the rooms had bunk beds.
“I wonder what’s behind Door Number Four,” Henry said as they left the previous set of dorms.
“Maybe a new car?” Ari asked. “Or I guess it’d be more like a moon rover.”
Henry shook his head as they stacked up on the door and breached the same way as before. Instead of dorms, they found more traditional barracks. Plush barracks, but barracks. Four bunks to a room with a radio and a couple of dressers, as well as a communal shower and bath at the end of the hall. Strangely, each of the bunks was massive, king-size with some length on them.
“Alright, we know where the clock punchers stayed,” Nancy said.
Henry nodded in agreement.
“Let’s move on to the reactor,” he ordered, and they returned down the hall from which they’d come.
Chapter
Twenty
Qrora’s team
Aldrin Command Center
“How are the repairs to the shuttle going?” Qrora murmured into his comm.
Jean hung around, almost as if the European astronaut was unsure of what to do with herself besides occasionally reach into her suit and scratch at her back, while Chloe and Gene poured over the journal. Chloe, having retained her note-taking ability from college, peppered Gene with questions as the big man translated the journal. Her ability to identify relevant and potentially relevant information was exceptional, but Qrora thought Gene’s decision to start close to the end of the entries was odd.
“Well, it’s obvious something happened, and if we start close to the end, we’ll get some context,” the mountain of a man had said. “Besides, half this shit is longing and love letters, I know that when I see it.”
So Qrora left them to it and decided to check on the shuttle repairs.
“It’s going,” Rooth replied. “Bort’s doing most of the work, not that either of us or the astronauts are complaining. He doesn’t tire, nor do his hands shake from nerves.” A sigh filled the net. “He does occasionally act like he’s shaking to mess with us.”
Qrora suppressed a soft chuckle, but he grew serious as his eyes fell on Jean.
“We still don’t know who attacked our craft with the anti-meteor laser,” he said. “Be wary out there.” He leaned back in his seat as he spoke.
“Well, myself and Bort are the only ones armed out here, and Bort has the gravity projector in addition to his other weapons,” Rooth said. “If they try anything funny, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise.”
Qrora nodded and looked over at the group crowding the diary.
“Keep me updated,” he said and signed off. “Anything new?”
Chloe glanced down at her notes and shrugged.
“We have a lot of pieces, but nothing hard,” she said. “I wonder what happened. This base was dead by the time the EU Space Agency came around.”
Gene looked up from the journal at the pencil attached by a length of string.
“I have a theory,” he said. “Granted, theories aren’t really my thing. Blowing things up, patching up our people, and killing bad guys is my thing, but . . .” He picked up the pencil and looked at Chloe. “You know that parable about NASA and the Soviets? How we spent millions on making a pen that could work in low gravity, and the Reds just used a pencil?”
Chloe nodded.
“Yeah, we had a professor talk about it as a lesson on Occam’s razor. Why?”
Gene pointed at the journal.
“Now, it seems like the simple solution is better, but in this case, it ain’t. Graphite flakes off the tip of a pencil as you use it. You’re making an engraving in dust when you write with it. That’s why erasers work—they just wipe the dust away.” He tapped on the journal. “In low-G, though, not all the dust is going to stick. A lot is going to get into the air.”
“And the particles would tear up their air filters,” Chloe said. “Or their air filters were cheaply made.”
Gene nodded.
“A little of column a, a little of column b, if I had to guess,” the big man said. He looked back at the journal, resuming his reading before pausing. “That can’t be right. Hey guys, listen to this.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
16 June 1989
Council Exploratory Station One
Sorry I haven’t written much, but I need to talk about the past couple of days. We found something, and we’re not entirely sure what it is, but the ones think it can give us the boost we need to give the Space Ministry their “Mars shot.” So about those weird readings. The ones said the magnetometers were spinning out of control, where normally, they kind of react to ores in the regolith.
It wasn’t water, and it wasn’t an ore deposit. It was a machine! An old thing, buried for years beneath tons and tons of regolith and silica. The ones haven’t been able to look at it long; we have to dig out more of it.
They don’t know the kind of metal it’s made out of, but we’ve been unable to cut or burn it, even when the atomic soldiers try. They can’t even dent or scar it with tools. The one that was on my shift—he’s a physics guy—he thinks the metal this thing is made of alone will help us spread across the other planets.
We had the fours try to estimate its length, based on readings from other tunnels. According to the instruments, it’s almost two kilometers long! Now, we’re trying not to be hysterical, but there’s no way something of this scale was made by humankind and left on the moon. The hard proof came the next day.
We found whoever made this. Seven pods filled with mummified bodies wearing what we assume are spacesuits. They look like a strange cross between birds and lizards. They have feathers, and the ones said they must have been brightly colored. They don’t have a face like ours; they have short snouts filled with teeth like needles and huge eyes like an owl. Most of them aren’t very tall; the few we found average to about a meter and a half.
But we’re not alone—there’s other life out there, or rather, there was. They created this huge thing. We’re going to have to dig it out to see what it is. Some of the ones are talking about starting it up again, and weirdly enough, some of the fours and the atomic soldiers are saying they hear singing.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Present day
Henry’s team
Reactor room, the Soviet base
Henry felt as if he’d stepped back in time when they entered the reactor control room. Buttons, switches and dials covered thick metallic blocks and cubes. It looked like a sad vision of the future, according to yesteryear. Seeing there were no active threats, his team lowered their weapons and began to investigate the room.
“That seal came open a little too easy,” Nancy said as she backed into the room. “I think someone’s been here recently.”
Henry spotted a hatch that led to the reactor room, but something else caught his eye.
He hadn’t noticed it on entering the room, but there was a cosmonaut in a space suit leaned over the controls. Slowly, Henry approached with his weapon at the low ready. He gently grabbed the man’s shoulder and jerked him back.
A mummified face greeted him. Henry looked away. The sterile air had protected the guy from breaking down, but it was clear all the fluid had drained from his upper body. The bulging lower legs on the guy’s space suit told Henry where it had gone. On the floor beside him lay a pile of air tanks and food packaging.
“This guy’s been here for a minute,” Henry said. “If I had to guess, he stayed in front of these controls until the day he died.” He shook his head and spotted a thick paper manual on the workstation. The book looked to be over two inches thick and was bound by three metal rings. “Weird how the Europeans didn’t bother moving this body, if they came in here.”
“Let me see that,” Nancy gestured towards the manual, and Henry gingerly handed it to her. He looked back at the body.
“I know this isn’t the time, but we need to come back and get this guy when the dust settles.” He looked around to the others. “No one deserves to have been left to rot like this.”
Nancy glanced up at him, and he thought he saw a smile through her helmet glass before she resumed her perusing of the manual.
“This is incredibly technical, but I can tell you what it is,” she said. A shadow crossed over her face. “It’s a safety and test manual for an RBMK reactor.”
Henry raised an eyebrow.
“What does that mean to us?” he asked.
To his surprise, it was Mikey who chimed into his ear,
“You know what Chernobyl is, right? Because that reactor she’s talking about is the same flawed design which blew up in Chernobyl.”
Henry shifted uncomfortably.
“Is there any chance that could happen to us?” he asked. He swept his gaze across the control center so his HUD could capture all the imagery Mikey needed.
“Not right now. It looks like everything is stable, but that begs the question who’s been maintaining the reactor if no one’s been in here since the Reds kicked the bucket?”
Henry looked at Five and nodded to the reactor door.
“Go ahead and check if there’s anything on the other side,” he said. “We’re going to head to Research next.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
21 June 1989
Council Exploratory Station One
Lyudmila, I tried. I really tried to make it possible for me to see you again. I’m sorry I failed, and should someone come investigate, I’ve left my journal for them to find. To you who find this book, I ask you, beseech you, beg you . . .
Do not open the door to the Research department.
Now that you’ve heeded my advice, let me explain.
That thing we found wasn’t an artifact. It wasn’t a weapon or rocket-ship. It wasn’t a flying saucer, as the Americans would call it. It was alive.
We didn’t notice at first, but the maintainers began acting erratically. At first it was just a sudden increase in their ability to do their jobs. Then they began to only partially obey orders. If one was told to repair a leak and rescue a stranded three, it would just repair the leak.
Then they began attacking people. We were confused at first, but it seemed like a faulty program or old code. Most of them were helping excavate the thing underground, and of course, that should have told us something was off.
So we assigned the Atomic Brigade to guard the ones while they were studying the thing underground. The one supervising the dig named it the Forgotten. I wish it had stayed that way.
The ABs complained about hearing singing. The ones wrote it off as nothing, because of course they did. It’s easy to see all of this in hindsight, I guess, because it all seems so obvious now. But who knew living machines were a thing outside of movies and comic books?
“It’s probably a side effect of their treatments,” the ones claimed. “They have to take a lot of drugs to combat the radiation and prevent their growth from getting out of control, so of course there would be side effects.” They never noticed how the spiders never attacked the ABs, or how they stopped complaining the longer they were around the Forgotten. I don’t know what goes into them, but I suspect there was something about their treatments or procedures that made them vulnerable to the Forgotten’s influence.
But nobody wanted to raise the alarm until it was too late. The front end of the Forgotten was freed by the excavations. Then it began to move. Okay, let me describe it since no one who finds this will know what the hell I’m talking about.
It’s made of this grayish metal, and its front end is this bulky, bulbous thing. It’s got these legs that are clawed, like those long bugs with thousands of legs, except each leg’s the size of a house. Its head, if I can even call it that, is angular and relatively low to the ground. The underside of its head is darker, with an angled sheet of metal like a plow leading to these two sinister orange lights. They’re not like headlights; they don’t illuminate anything. They just glow.
