Lunar

The Attack

Monday, August 27, 2210

The sirens blare through the station, so loud and overpowering that I can feel them reverberating in my stomach. I cover my ears, but there's no escape. This is total, undeniable disaster.

I get out of my seat and follow Ms. Prattle as she leads us out of the classroom. No one speaks, and I don't even change a glance towards my best friend Adela. I can feel her walking next to me as we enter the passageway, though, and together we join the mass of residents making their way to the emergency stations. For some, this means going to the control room, we go to our Home Pods and wait for news on the loud speaker.

Everything on Lunar is done in a steady, controlled way, so there's none of the hysterics that I always see in classic reels. Somehow, this makes it worse. The forced calm, including my own, makes me worry that something unspeakable has happened.

There's never been an alarm like this. We've had drills, and I used to love them. It was an excuse to get out of class for a while. When it was just a drill, I was allowed to have Adela come to my family pod, since she's here alone. We'd cross our fingers and hope somebody got lost so we had extra time to play or gossip. They never did.

But that wasn't real. It was just in case of emergency. In case of emergency? The notion has always seemed preposterous. There hasn't been anything close to an emergency since the Re-Solidification Act brought the United Colonies back together twenty years ago. That's what finally brought an end to the Alliance of Sovereign Individuals, or "Separatists," as they liked to call themselves. People say it wasn't the death of the Separatist leader, Fitzroy Striker that ended the conflict. It was the strength and comradery of the Colonies. Alone We Perish, United We Thrive. So the saying goes.

I want to turn to Adela and ask her what she knows. Has she heard anything? Had there been whispers, threats? Her father is Right Honorable Ambassador to the Consulate on Mars and Purveyor of Public Safety, which basically means he's one of the most powerful people in the U.C. If anyone knows anything, it's him. And there's nothing Papa Aziz knows that Adela doesn't.

Before I can ask, it's too late: we're at my door. Adela reached over and gives my hand a little squeeze, and then she's gone. The hoard is pulling me forward. I swipe the small barcode that's tattooed on the tip of my index finger over the lock on the door. It parts open, and I'm home. My mother tackles me as soon as I enter the living room.

"Oh Esther, are you okay? Are you hurt? Let me look at you." She's hugging me so tight it hurts and kissing my forehead. The sound of the siren is much softer inside the Pod, and I feel like I can finally hear myself think.

"Mom, I'm fine." I say as she examines my face, looking for scrapes and bruises like she used to do when I was little. "Where's Dad?"

"He'll be back soon. He was deeper in the lab, Level Three, so I'm sure it will take him some time to get up here," she says.

"What do you think happened?" I ask.

"I don't know, little star, I don't know," she says. But something in her eyes tells me that she does.

"There wasn't an accident, was there?" My thoughts linger on my father.

"No, no, nothing like that," my mother rushes. Seeing my worried expression, she grabs my face between her cold, nimble hands. "Oh, dear, look at you. You're pale as a ghost. Sit down. Are you taking your vitamins?"

"Yes," I sigh. My mother is the resident physician on Lunar, although with degrees in genetics and bioengineering she's grossly overqualified. She's responsible for prescribing each resident with a custom cocktail of daily vitamins, among other things. She spends every morning in the clinic, but most afternoons she moves either to the research labs or to the Field Exploration pod. Even when she does this, she still wears her white coat over her silver jumpsuit. She has a slight, nimble figure, and her dark hair is always pulled into a loose bun at the crown of her head-the same curly tendrils falling around her face in the same way everyday, as if by magic. Except the Rappaports don't believe in magic, so it must be by science. She has kind brown eyes that sparkle behind her glasses and the faint suggestion of freckles earned long ago spread across her cheeks. The station reveres her as a kind of mother figure. They don't have to live with her.