Solar Umbrella (Book 1)

Chapter 14: Green Cheese

THE REST OF the trip was significantly less eventful, as uneventful as travelling to the moon can be. Nosk was taken into a section of the ship between the cargo and passenger compartments and the cockpit. They were told she had stabilized to some degree and should recover fully in time. A crew member with medical training had sewed her up and was in the process of replacing lost blood. The bullets had missed organs, so fluids and rest should be all that was needed. LunaOne had a full time doctor who could check further.

Johansson was in touch with Colorado Springs and the police. As they cruised through space, the investigation on Earth was on in full. Security footage from the ship was transferred to Earth and SpaceOne sent footage of the employee who had shot Nosk up for Johansson to take a look at. The shooter's name was Camila González. She had been hired just three days after SpaceOne and Nosk's agriculture company had publicly signed an agreement to look at growing food on the moon. In the four months since her hire, she had been sneaking small pieces of her gun on various ships in the SpaceOne fleet. Johansson disassembled the gun on the ship and it turned out to have twelve distinct pieces. She must have hidden hundreds around in hopes she could get the right combination. Due to the modular nature of the ships, there was no way to be sure which compartment would end up on which mission. Using the footage, the crew onboard was able to find seven more pieces hidden under chairs, in spare part boxes, tool benches, even glued inside storage compartments. Each looked like a normal piece of a ship that could be used for a million different things. Anyone who found one would think nothing of it. González had switched with another employee for this specific shift. She must have heard or read that Nosk would be on this ship. A very well thought out, but simple plan. One of the crew members tried talking with González, but she wasn't interested in sharing. She spent time crying, mumbling about her mother and looking at the door Nosk's body had been taken through. They knew González was from Venezuela and she had previously worked for Nosk's company on a farm with a particularly bad human rights record. It had been one of the farms taken during The Expulsion.

Everyone took some time in their own space to contact home and let them know they were okay. They were told not to add too many details, as the police wanted to investigate further before things got out of control. SpaceOne was required to house a small security force on LunaOne, and they would take over possession of González when they reached the hotel.

In the end, there wasn't much to do besides rest, talk to each other and play a few games of cards. Things resembled normalcy, but there was always a tinge of disbelief that they had witnessed an attempted murder. Between chatting, games, playing around in zero g and enjoying the view, time went by quickly and they reached the point where they were required to strap back in for the "flip and burn" as Johansson called it. Parker cringed for Nosk, thinking it would be especially painful, but was assured it wasn't as jarring as it looked on video. It was entirely necessary though. Without the flip and burn, the ship would plow into the moon at full speed and be obliterated. Well, it would actually miss the moon entirely since the trajectories wouldn't line up anymore, but Parker found the idea of a full speed crash more exciting to imagine.

Johansson turned out to be correct, the flip and burn wasn't anywhere near as jostling as the launch had been, and only took about half an hour. The group enjoyed watching an animation on their screens of what it looked like in real time.

As they approached the moon, burning the opposite direction to slow their approach, Parker took a good look. He couldn't make out LunaOne from this point, but the moon was growing quickly in the window.

"Uh, not much to look at," he told Alex and DJ. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm psyched to have a chance to even see this at all, but yeah..."

"It's grey," DJ added. "And rocky."

"Oh come on, Americans!" Alex said with his usual enthusiasm. "You guys claim to have got here first, and now you're telling me you can't even admire this great grey lady?!"

"Wait. You don't think we got here first?" Parker said, trying to keep from blowing up with laughter.

"I've seen some things...online," Alex replied, raising an eyebrow. "The flag waving in the non-existent wind. The lack of stars in the background. There's a lot there."

"He's shitting you Parker," DJ did start laughing.

"Dammit Alex," Parker joined in, "you had me going there!"

"I am also excited to get this far, but you guys are right," Alex added. "There's really not too much to see. Grey rock, grey crater. Repeat."

"I guess this is why exploration has slowed down so much the past few decades," Parker said. "With the exception of the companies out in space making money collecting resources or space tourism...there's really not much to see, for humans. Robots are doing all the exploring these days. Until we can figure out how to get out of this solar system, we're kind of bottlenecked."

Alex shrugged. "You're right. Too bad. I would have loved to have been a part of the early years of space exploration. Everything was unknown and scary! They were space cowboys!"

"True, but it was also much more dangerous," Parker added. "Today was more than exciting enough for me."

The other two nodded agreement as the lights indicated they could remove their restraints. The group resumed their travel, most taking the time to rest in their seats before arriving.

The ship approached the landing site at LunaOne right around 7:00 Colorado time. As the moon rotated, the ship timed its descent perfectly, aided by the computers at both locations. As always, the pilots sat and watched, there in case something went wrong. It never did. The ship completed a successful landing flawlessly and the guests were unloaded quickly with Lana Nosk being removed right away so the hotel doctor could take a look. Camila González was removed shortly after by two officers.