Starship Wuthering Heights

1. THE INVISIBLE APOCALYPTIC KILLER

Highcliffe, Dorset, England, Earth, Sunday, July 4th, 4230

OF THE EIGHT chairs in the conical command module resting atop of the descending, roaring, humongous 124-yard-high MER-2 liquid-hydrogen fuelled rocket, only one was occupied.

A twenty-eight-year-old Tony Koster looked down at an extremely primitive low-battery powered controls display. The MER-2, in full, the Moon-to-Earth-and-Return-2, was fortunately flying itself and was right now preparing to land. All Tony had to contribute to the flight was to verify certain optional choices the rocket controls were feeding him. Although he was a reasonably intelligent starship Science Officer with mandatory experience of piloting starships and shuttlecrafts, he had no experience of flying primitive chemical rockets.

"So everything is ready for landing," said Tony to himself as attempting to internalise his thoughts would overwhelm him. "Just as well, because I don't really have any choice. This is a one-off journey in a museum rocket that represents humanity's last hope of having any chance of even beginning to defeat the omnipotent, dastardly humanotics."

An expected message appeared on the main display accompanied by a softly beeping alarm:

Option A. landing area established on Highcliffe Beach, Highcliffe, Dorset, England, approximately thirty yards from seawater on a thick sand terrain and fifteen yards from a sea wall. Flick down the GO switch to attempt a landing, or flick the ABORT button to abort.

Tony flicked down the GO switch, despite a bold red lettered flashing "landing terrain suboptimal" warning message.

Twenty seconds later ...

Landing burn engaged ...

Tony heard a low rumble beneath him build in volume to a distant roar. As the roar grew and consumed the command module, which started to shake, Tony felt himself being squeezed down in his chair by the increasing force of gravity.

And then ...

The shaking and roaring was punctuated by a soft thud.

Landing successfully completed.

All engines off.

Liquid-hydrogen must be topped up to full to enable takeoff for the return journey to the Moon.

"I cannot believe I've flown an antiquated rocket successfully from the Moon to the Earth. Shame I can't even notify Cindy in our Luna hiding place. The humanotics would surely pick up any significant electromagnetic communication. As far as I know, Cindy and I are the only surviving humans in the entire universe. And if that's true, one sniff of us by the humanotics and humanity will be extinct."

Still sitting in his seat, Tony looked out through the command module windows. All he could see was a perfect-looking summer's blue sky.

There's no way I'm going close to any of the windows in here and looking downwards, thought Tony. I'm sure I'll suffer from vertigo. I'm about 120 yards up from the ground. Although Cindy and I assured ourselves that the rocket should stand in a stable position on a sandy beach, I can't help thinking the rocket might topple to the ground at any moment. Well, the quicker I get on with my mission, the better.

Tony unstrapped himself from his piloting chair and stood up.

Whoa, this gravity feels pretty heavy even though the virtual gravity on our lunar installations are the exact equivalent. The acceleration and deceleration used on the eight-hour journey packed in a bit of equivalent gravity, but some gravity-free travel was unavoidable. Well, I'm not hanging around in this command module to fully acclimatise. By the time I'm on the rocket's elevator with the seawater-to-liquid-hydrogen converter, I will have fully recovered. Up and at 'em, Tony boy!