The Moonwalker

Chapter 8.2

The interior lights brighten again. Aula unbuckles her harness and flexes her hands to work the stiffness out. Pain drills up the bones of her wrists. She ignores it and stands up. The pressure alarm warbles constantly. Kelly stares at it for a moment, then unbuckles herself and heads towards the back of the MAF. In a decompression event, everything has to be deactivated and secured. Their job isn't over yet.

Aula scans the green text on screen. "Still can't localize this leak."

"Then prepare to evacuate," Volkov says sternly. "Martin is an hour out."

She clamps her jaw and stares at the pressure gauge. It's nearly 230 mmHg now. If they stay too long, they risk getting the bends.

"Rog."

When she looks over her shoulder, Kelly is shutting off the laptop and trying to look like she isn't listening. She wouldn't do well at a poker table. Aula stands and pushes through the pain that zig zags through her body. The MAF's systems are shut down. She closes the vacuum valves to protect the equipment while the interior is depressurized. The alarm continues to warble as pressure slips past 229 mmHg.

Kelly rubs her forehead with the side of her thumb. "Suits are good, everything's sealed up back here. Just say the word."

"Get into your Z-1."

Aula turns back to the screen without waiting for a reply, but she can hear Kelly banging around. She presses the comm. "We're ready, Moscow. You've got our coordinates?"

"Yes," Volkov says. "Evacuate the MAF."

Their pressure is down to 227 mmHg. A creak and hiss behind her signals that Kelly has reentered her spacesuit and sealed the rear-entry hatch. Aula closes the final vacuum valves and activates the MAF's evacuation procedures. When her suit detaches, everything will shut down. They'll have no lights or communication beyond what their Z-1's provide.

"Final comm. Sending our last logs."

Volkov's voice is underscored by a buzzing sound. "...understand."

Their pressure is down to 224 mmHg. She reaches over and shuts off the alarms. One red light glows steadily. The other blinks. She makes her way to the back. Something crunches under her foot. It's the goddamn power bar. She picks it up, folds the wrapper closed, and sticks it in her pocket. Then she prepares for the ignoble process of sticking her ass out and sliding into the Z-1's upper torso. Her legs slide into the lower half easily enough. When she looks up, the sky is stippled by starlight. Earth looks small and exquisitely blue. Kelly is already on the ground. She holds the camera in both hands, marooned on a grey island in a black ocean.

Aula uses her mirror to read the DCM on her chest. She activates the Z-1's hatch and hears its familiar click and hiss. The fan comes on and sweat starts drying from her face. She steps away from the hatch and the MAF's lights flick off. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. She changes the angle of her lights, then starts down the ladder. A deep ache burns from her forearms all the way to her shoulders. She counts the rungs until her foot hits regolith.

Kelly waits until they make eye contact. "I can't believe you landed that yoke."

"It's why I'm here." Aula turns and lopes around the MAF's right side.

"Did we get knocked by a rock?" Kelly hefts the camera up against her DCM and follows. "Hope to God none of them hit the Apollo shells. The Perseids are bad enough."

Every July and August, the Earth-Moon system passes through a cloud of debris left by the Swift-Tuttle comet. This is called the Perseid cloud. It means pretty meteor showers on Earth and a state of heightened alertness on the Moon. It's late June. Perseid season isn't far off. Everything looked green for the next 24 hours. No anticipated blackouts, radiation, or geomagnetic storms on the horizon. No Near-Earth Objects reported. It's supposed to be quiet, but the Earth itself is surrounded by its own cloud of debris. A NEO could get through unseen. Rare, but not impossible. It's a big, increasingly crowded sky in this part of the solar system.