Chapter 2

Commander John Koenig sat in his office reading the base reports. The base continued to do a good job of maintaining the scarce resources they had. Eagle repairs continued and life support was functioning as it should For the last few weeks it had been quiet as the moon continued to wander through space with no direction. It was beginning to get boring. Ever since they had left Earth's orbit, they had consistently run into phenomena that took them much further than they should have been able to go. Koenig thought to himself that they really should be just outside of the Solar System's outer parameter, destined to spend the rest of their lives in the cold of space between the stars. Instead, they had opportunities to visit planets that could be inhabited. It had not worked out so far but hope went a long way with this crew.

There was a beep at this door. He used his Commlock to open it and let Victor Bergman in. Victor had become one of John's most trusted advisors. He seemed to have a knack for understanding the oddities that moon base Alpha continued to experience.

"John, how is it going?" He asked.

"Victor, we have been floating through space for weeks with nothing. We have never gone this long before running into something. I wonder if our incredible journey is over and this is where we will end."

Victor shook his head, "I don't think so John. I believe we are just in a desert. Space had to have those as well. We'll get through it and then you'll be complaining about the next crisis."

"Maybe Victor. We'll see." He sat for a moment when his commlock carried a voice from Kano. John took out the device and looked at the screen.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Sir, you and Doctor Bergman might want to come out here. Computer has found something interesting."

John pushed the switch that opened the wall between his office and the command center. They walked over to where Kano was reading a print out from the computer. While it was known that he had a special connection with the computer, it was not as widely known that he had had been medically altered to allow him to interface with the computer directly. It has a dangerous procedure but it has saved Alpha on more than one occasion.

"What is it?" asked the Commander.

"Sir, we appear to be in a large dust cloud of some sort," responded the computer expert. The scientist and commander looked at the computer technician. Dust clouds were not unusual.

"And?" asked Koenig.

"It's the properties sir. The cloud itself is very sparse; however, when we sent a scanning beam through, we got results back that made no sense. It took a while but the computer has determined that we are getting back readings from orders of magnitude further away than we should be able to. We are still trying to determine how far out we actually reached. Even more astonishing is that there seemed to be nosignal degradation. We may want to collect some of this dust for study. It may help us boost our sensor range immeasurably."

Dr. Bergman took the read out from the computer and looked at it.

"He's right John. I have never seen anything like this." Victor was immediately caught up in the possibilities of what he had seen. The energy patterns were fascinating. Something about them seemed familiar and he made a note to go back and look at some studies he thought might be relevant. "We should be able to get a good sample with an eagle and we can figure out if this can help us. There is something though. I swear I recognize this pattern. I'll look into it."

Commander Koenig nodded his head. "Ok, Alan get ready to take an Eagle out to capture some of this dust. Let's see what is about."

"Acknowledged Commander," he said and headed towards the launch pad. John knew that the underground bunker was already moving an Eagle into position. Moon base Alpha had been built with the idea of being as self-sufficient as possible. It had not been perfect, but they were fortunate that most vital supplies and equipment could be manufactured on site.

"Alright Kano, thanks for the info. I'll be in my office finishing up some reports," he turned to walk back to his desk when suddenly there was a large jolt that knocked him off his feet. Several lights flickered and the view screen went off. That's what I get for complaining that it has been too slow, he thought. He quickly jumped up and dashed to the control panels manned by Sandra.

"Report!" he yelled. He knew he had a temper but now was not the time to work on it.

"I am not sure Commander," she replied," It's almost like the moon side stepped something. We seem to have settled down now. I am trying to get the view screen back online. So far it appears that there is no major damage." She continued to work the controls getting more information as they went.

"Alan!" he realized. "Paul, make sure that Alan did not lift off before that."

"He is still in the Eagle, Commander. He is heading back to the control room." John let out a sigh of relief.

"Victor, any ideas?" the commander asked of his trusted advisor.

"Too soon to tell John. The computer is rebooting from whatever that was. I'll work with Kano and the computer to come up with something after it is back online."

"Commander, I think the viewing screen is coming back online," reported Sandra. They all turned to look as the image cleared. They had seen a lot of remarkable things on this screen since they had broken orbit. They were ready for an unexpected Solar System, Alien Spaceship or Space Anomaly. But this one the one thing they did not expect. A planet with blue oceans and familiar continents. The planet Earth.

Everybody looked in wonder and well-earned suspicion at what they were seeing. Commander looked at Sandra one more time as she did some initial read outs.

"Commander, we are in orbit. We are in the proper lunar orbit. It's almost like we never left."

The command room fell silent as they all considered what this meant.