The Phantom Fleet

Eating moondust

The moon doesn't have much in the way of an atmosphere, so the ship only had its burners for breaking. And they suck at that. We probably hit at a relative of two hundred meters per second. Thank Sol, the Moon's dust is cushiony. But, from the kind of jolt I got in my arm, I bet you half of the hull must have gotten stripped away under the impact. I went smacking head-first into the hull and left a helmet-shaped dent in it that would have made me smile if I wasn't in the middle of a shipwreck. My hand held on a couple more jerks as the one burner that was still working tried to keep us upright. Then one shock too many pried my fingers open and slung me off into the earthlit sky.

The world spun around me three times before Saku could jetpack-stabilized me. "We're going to hit that hill. I'll try to get us on a nice slope." I had no breath for a reply. We arched down way too fast and I fell legs-first on a dusty downhill slope. The hinges on the suit strained against the violence of the shock. I almost kneed myself in the helmet and bounced gyrating wildly. Saku steadied me again and we hit the floor feet-first again. Less hard this time. We did this little dance for a couple more times and I finally allowed myself to be thrown face-first into the lunar dust, panting.

"You should get up, mate. The ship is still wrecking behind us."

Shit! I sprang to my feet and turned just in time to see the front hull of the ship literally plow through the hill I'd just landed on. I didn't need to see more. I jumped as hard as the suit could to the side and gave off as much jetpack thrust as I had. I landed in a wild roll, safely out of the way, and turned back to watch the terrifyingly slow and silent crash of a battleship-size vessel carry out. They hadn't botched it too bad, either. Their funky single-block design was good for crashlanding. It looked like the people inside might still be alive. I started hippityhopping towards it. It was about time I found out what was in there. The ground started shaking again under my soles. Shit, they were grounding the whole fleet! I wished I could dial Axxo. But the suit only had low power comm. The Moon was still shaking when I got there. I didn't even notice the people coming out from one of the cracks until one of them waved at me. "Laser finger charged." Saku whispered in my ear. Good to know.

Their suits were charcoal-black. So dark you could hardly see any feature on them. But I was too transfixed by their height to take notice. All of them literally towered above me. I'd reach below their crotch on average. Their morphology was definitely human, but they were way too big. Even for adults. I was still staring flabbergastedly when one of them literally knelt before me. What was I supposed to do? Pat him on the head?

"I think this one wants you to touch helmets"

I blushed. Of course he did. I stepped forward, grabbed his helmet in my gloves and pressed my faceplate against his, so I could hear his voice. After a second of silence, he spoke. I jumped back startled. His voice pitch was higher than that of a child.

"They probably breathe a helium mix."

Sol, I hated when Saku was quicker than me. Sure enough, it wasn't even a language I recognized. I touched helmets again and spoke : "Hi there. Hem... My name's Lexi." Saku chuckled. "Do you speak Martian?" I tried in disjointed Lojban. The other guy didn't seem to get any of it. Great.

"I could probably interface with one of their AIs if they gave you a terminal." volunteered Saku.

"Fine and dandy, but I don't know how to tell them that."

I didn't wait for Saku to outsmart me again. I knelt to the dust and drew a network ideogram. The other guy would probably have scratched his head if it weren't for his smooth black helmet. I tried a machine ideogram next, then a data transmission ideogram. This one did the trick. He stood up and pointed to the crack through which they had come out and started walking towards it. We had to get through a little crowd this time. A lot of people had come out of the ship and had gathered around us.