His Throne

8 - Moonwalking

The Moon is much closer now that we are on the ground and there are clouds of lunar dust moving past us.  It seems to have an atmosphere but no air.  We set up our walkie talkie devices and turned them on so that we can hear each other's voices.  Tha and Hicpa are both robots, and robots don't breathe at all.

"Hicpa?  Scan the surface please.  We wanna know if it's organic." James asked.

Hicpa scanned the surface around us.  "The Moon is not a living being.  It is, in fact, a rock."

Jennifer looks around and she replied.  "That doesn't make sense."

"Okay.  So, the Moon looks like it's alive but is actually made of rocks.  How's that possible?" Taichi questioned.

None of us answered and there is silence for a few minutes.  I sighed.

"Does this thing have a land vehicle?"

Of course the hatch is on the spacecraft's belly.  James pressed the button and the doors open automatically.  A mechanical arm comes out and it puts down a roving vehicle.  It has five seats back to back (two at the front and three at the back), a satellite dish, an antenna, headlights, a trunk at the rear end, a driver seat on the left side, a rocket booster and four wheels.

"Damn.  That's a cool looking vehicle." Taichi gasped.

Jennifer nodded.  "Alright.  Let's roll."

We hopped into the vehicle and Martin started the engine.  This vehicle is electrical, I thought as the vehicle pulls away from the spacecraft.  Tha is holding on against the railing and Hicpa is resting in the trunk.  It bounces over the small lumps and passes the rocks that are in the way as Martin steers it.  I've never been to the Moon's surface before in my life.  Tha takes pictures of the gray rocky land that surrounds us and scans every rock here.  I can see Earth from far away as I look beyond.  There is no place like home, but anywhere beyond is a different story.  Martin stops the rover all of a sudden.  I don't know why it stopped but he turned it around and we can see the edge.  James' voice called out.

"Stop the rover!"

Martin stops it again.  "What is it?"

James then points to the bottom of the cliff.  "I just saw something down there."

"What'd you see?" Jennifer gasped.

"I don't know." James shook his head, "Something is alive and crawling at the bottom of the cliff."

As I look down like the others are, I can see the details; webbed mass like rotting wood or cancerous flesh.  The whole surface seems to be carved up to make it look like this.

"I have found an extraterrestrial life-form at the bottom of the cliff." Tha commented.

We couldn't see the it anywhere but Martin did find something on the control pad.  He tapped the button on the touchscreen and the vehicle levitated off the ground, the wheels tilted and the rocket booster turns on.

"A hovering lunar rover.  Huh?" Taichi laughed.

Martin flies the rover down the cliff over the carved rocks.  Again, it's like a roller coaster ride.  Underneath the carved rocks is nothing but darkness as we fly over them.  It's a car ride in space.  I thought to myself about what James is talking about.  He didn't describe what it looked like or where it is but Tha did take a picture of it, I hope.  We travelled across the Moon's surface for hours until we finally made it to the other side of the giant canyon.  None of us know exactly why the Moon looks so webbed and fleshy but we're having a great time.  We parked the rover in the middle of nowhere and we hopped off.  We watched the clouds pass by like as if we are on an alien planet.  Jennifer pulled her touchscreen cell phone out of her pocket and begin recording a video.

"This seems more like it." Martin laughed.

"Yeah." Taichi nodded, "Like take a look at the rocky nature around us, eh?"

"I'm not sure if this is normal but I'm getting this feeling about something." James uttered.

To me, this is just a weird thing that James said but I don't wanna be too harsh on him.  I watched Columbia 9 fly over the surface as I stood still.  I don't know what to say about this "rocky nature" but it just seems so beautiful.  I felt like I'm gonna cry as I look around at the craters and mountains and then up at the stars.

"Alexa?" James called, "Alexa?  Are you okay?"

I nodded as I stared directly at the stars, cosmic clouds and different sparkles in space.  They're like clouds of magic in the night sky.  I looked at Jennifer.  She just walks backwards slowly and I looked at the cliff behind her.

"Jennifer!  Look out!"

I was too late.  She slipped and fell off the edge and down to the bottom of the cliff.  We all gasped in terror as we ran to the cliff.  She then vanished into the darkness at the bottom.  The good thing is that we all have our jetpacks on.

"I'm coming, Jennifer!"  I called as I jumped down.  I slowed my fall with my rocket thrusters as Martin jumped down after me.

"I'm coming too!" He shouted.

And, we went down to the bottom of the cliff, into the darkness.