The Moonwalker

Chapter 16.4

Rumbling. Soft, at first. Like the vibrations of a lawnmower. Then they grow stronger. That's not right. A sudden flash of red light. Capillaries strobe in the afterimages like forks of lightening. Aula opens her eyes. Stars. Brighter and closer than all the others. Then they tip over the crater's lip. Two perfect cut-outs on the lunar surface. Stage lights in an amphitheater. And behind those lights, SEV-2.

Harvey.

Aula shuts her eyes as the headlights move over her. Blinding, but heatless. Despair yawns open in her chest. Softening her bones, dissolving her muscles, evaporating her resolve. This is where it's suppose to end. Quietly, darkly, easily. No other casualties. Someone has to go home. And that someone has to be Harvey.

She waits for the mic to light up. But it's still quiet. The regolith keeps rumbling.

Go. Just go.

A rust-flavoured bubble rushes up Aula's throat. She coughs reflexively. Her entire body cramps. It's hard to breathe. Harder than before. Like inhaling cement. She gulps for air. Her lungs expand despite the resistance. A fine lukewarm mist settles on her face. Her throat hurts. She's heavier than before. The Moon must already be getting in. All its regolith pouring into her suit, into her skin, burying her inside and out.

More stars. Smaller, but closer still. A searing flash across her capillaries. She opens her eyes. Harvey's face is a suggestion of angles behind the constellation of his suit lights.

"You can't lie for shit," he says heavily. "I heard you wheezing all the way here."

Even if Aula could speak, she wouldn't. There's nothing to say.

His suit shifts. Light catches on Sam's body. Frosted and grey like a freezer-burnt steak. Harvey shakes the LESA. Sam's left arm bursts open. Jagged red-black fissures spider through his skin. His radius and ulna gleam like bleached coral. Another few shakes and Commander Shaw, their friend Sam, will shatter.

Harvey releases the LESA and it falls back to the ground with a small puff of dust. His suit shifts back towards her and she's glad she can't see his face.

"Let's go," he rasps.

She shuts her eyes for a moment. Even thinking about it is exhausting.

More bright strobing through her eyelids. She opens her eyes again. He shuffles over and tips onto his hands and knees. Even that is asking a lot of the suit. Their lights crisscross in a flurry of grey dust. The rest of the Moon might as well not exist. He settles beside her in a puff of dust. His breathing crackles over the comm. Their helmets are coated with a film of ancient rock. He drags his glove across her visor. There's enough clear space to see a similar hand-shaped window in his visor, too. It seems like he's going to say something, but he doesn't. He just lays there with her.

Waiting, Aula realizes.

She digs deep into her body for the strength to speak. "I'm dying, Harv." Hot bands clamp around her chest until she can barely breathe, but she digs deeper. "Nothing left."

His eyes move side to side. He's shaking his head.

Her voice barely rises above a whisper. "Harv...."

"We go or we stay."

"Think of Ross." Aula's voice crumples into gasping.

Dim glints where Harvey's eyes should be. "I'm not leaving you out here."

She exhales hard. The bands in her chest constrict again and the next inhale is like trying to breath under a boulder. The idea almost beats her. Just the thought of heaving herself upright and out of the crater is crushing. Her eyes stray to Sam. He looks as waxen as a mannequin. He wouldn't leave her behind. Punch or no punch, he wouldn't leave her to gather dust like a fucking antique.

But underneath the pain, something still won't bend. Staying here with Sam is an odyssey for one. Harvey can't come with her. It's not fair that he's using his life as leverage, but it doesn't change the end result. She belongs here. He doesn't. Neither Sam nor Ziva have any choices left, but she does. One last chance to tip the scales. So, she closes her eyes, folds all the despair into a box, and shelves it.

Aula reaches for Harvey. A scalding white thread cinches her lungs and heart into a tight bundle. Her good arm paddles uselessly against the regolith. The HUD bites into her shoulder. Harvey reaches out and grasps her hand. She barely feels it through her glove. He grabs her arm with his other hand. That she can feel. He hangs on tight enough for the suit to bulge on either side of his fingers.

His breaths rattles against the mic. "Thank you."

He releases her glove and pushes himself off the regolith. The lights on his suit sweep over her face and swivel through the dark like a lighthouse. He lopes to SEV-2, a vague silhouette barely separate from the dark, and stops near a familiar compartment. Aula watches him go through the same motions. Remove the LESA, teeter precariously as his centre of gravity shifts even further than before, and slowly turn back to her. Careful steps. Small puffs of regolith that shimmer when they catch hints of light. His boots are crinkled and grey. They have a lot of miles on the Moon.

The LESA's legs jut over Aula. She sees one leg push down into the dust. The back of her head tingles in anticipation of an impact that never comes. Harvey's arm fills her vision. His breathing is heavy now. Loud in her ears.

"On three," he says. "Then I'll roll you."

Black dots contrast his suit like a constellation. Aula blinks slowly. All she can do is suck in enough air to make noise.

Something clunks against her suit. More felt than heard. A small shift. Something pulls on her PLSS. That pulls on her shoulders. More pain. Ripping red. All her nerves snap tight like strings. Shaking.

"One...."

Too much.

"Two...."

It's too much.

"Three."

Harvey rolls her over her good arm. Blinding white. Then black constellations. So many it's hard to tell what's dust on her visor and what's a dot. Not enough air to scream. She would if she could. Sickening cold rushes over her. She breathes what little she can through her mouth. Her arms flop as far as the HUD will allow, one heavy and distant, one cracked and scalding. Dragging along the ground. Surprisingly smooth. The softest, most finely ground stone the Moon has to offer.

Stillness. Then, more pulling. More hurt. Aula can see the darkness yawning in front of her. A thin beige line in the distance to mark the horizon. Somewhere, there's sunlight. Vibrations through the suit. Dull clicks. Pieces fitting together. Her centre of gravity shifts.
Slow falling. No. More controlled. A descent. No pulling this time. The only sense of elevation comes from her legs. They hang at a different angle now. Another click. Moving. Smoother now. Most of her visor is covered in dust. It takes time for SEV-1 to appear in her vision, spotty and faint. Small. Sam is just a suggestion of angles and metallic sheen. He sinks towards the bottom of her visor and vanishes beyond it. Then SEV-1 does the same.

The black constellations drift closer. Sparkling dark. She watches them until they're all she sees.