65: Stealth
The Moon-
Their concerns were many. First, as Saul Guthrie noted, from his stand-by post at Moon Station Control,
"Cheez-louise, they're comin' in fast…!"
Beside Guthrie, white-haired Commander Riley smoothed nervously at his moustache and grunted,
"True enough, Sir, but Kuiper reported much the same effect, and the cargo transfer was managed anyhow. Have a bit of faith, Mr. Guthrie."
The two men stood with a small crowd of engineers and scientists, staring at the central monitor board; able to do little more, yet, than pass telemetry to Houston and Kennedy… and hope for the best.
The public expectation was that Endurance (in her battered, contaminated entirety) would be touching down at a specially prepared isolation hangar. So thought most of Mission Control, Red Path, and thebillions of people who watched, waited and listened along with NASA and WNN.
Their second landing challenge was just as serious as excess speed; along with Guthrie and a handful of NASA personnel, a Red Path operative had been shuttled to the Moon Station, disguised as a chaos expert. Two sleeper agents had been activated, as well, woken from deep cover as a public relations officer and a maintenance man. Simply put, more than doctors and a welcoming committee would be waiting for the Ares III crew at their 'secure' emergency landing site.
The third issue was rather more personal, and complex. There was a toddler aboard, one far too small for a space suit of her own, and with no reinforced crash seat. Landing all of Endurance would risk worsening the ship's hull damage, possibly to the point of venting atmosphere and killing the unprotected child, and no one aboard was prepared to take that risk.
Lastly, International Rescue was already in place, with the silent consent of WorldGov, and NASA's Director. They'd arrived a few days beforehand under cover of Shadowbot, making no show of force, or public announcements.
Jeff Tracy had piloted Thunderbird 3 himself, setting her down as skillfully as he once had the Explorer, and in precisely the same spot: the Apollo19 mission base.
Coordinating with Endurance in two very brief contacts, they'd powered up and prepared Explorer's old underground hangar.Much toocramped to accommodate the entire Ares III space ship, it could comfortably hold at least the Crew Escape Capsule.
Jeff waited with Alan as Endurance hurtled nearer, back inside his old mission base and filled with mixed and jumpy emotions. To embark on a rescue, to revisit the site of an old and proud triumph, was beyond all words. And… in those two contacts… he'd glimpsed and spoken with his small granddaughter.
(Not an embryo, nor even a baby, but somehow a tiny, very beautiful girl, almost two years old.)
He'd talked as well with her mother, his son's new wife; and to John, himself.
All good things, but there was anxiety, too. The full plan could not be revealed until the rescue team and flight crew met face-to-face in this dusty, memory-haunted old mission base. And so many things might still go wrong…!
Telemetry and images beamed back by Kuiper showed Endurance to be seriously damaged, the first layer of her hull eaten through in several places, including an outer airlock not far from the Crew Escape Capsule. What else had been affected? Would the capsule even function?
True, the Moon had no atmosphere, but it did possess a gravity well. A weakened capsule might rupture or crash land… smashing six broken peopleupon the merciless lunar surface.
Jeff sat there at an old computer console (Saul's, originally; Pete had managed life support and most of the digging, with Irina running surface operations in the Lunar Rover. Back then, they'd all felt so immortal...) Alan zipped around bringing equipment back online, showing unguessed-at knowledge and skills.
Bit by bit, down in Peary Crater, beneath the surface of a harsh and spiteful moon, machinery came to life, pumps resumed operation, and long-silent computers shook themselves awake.
Jeff had his helmet off, but close to hand, just in case. When the main view screen came on, he tapped a brief wrist comm message to Scott and Gordon, out in Thunderbird 3.
'Up and running.'
Got back, simply,
'FAB,'
…and then silence, as previously directed. Almost no-one was officially aware of their presence, but there was a connecting passage between the old and new Moon Stations, and premature discovery remained a possibility. Radio silence was therefore an absolute must.
"Dang, dad!" Alan stage-whispered from the next room over (where they'd kept supplies, and the external computer drives). "This stuff is, like, elderly. You could get about as much processing power with a couple of linked Etch-a-Sketches!"
Strange… by LEDs and flickering monitor glow… to be back at his old base and listening to an awed son. The 'elderly' crack did not offend him. Instead, it put a faint smile on his face.
Jeff nodded, watching Alan come bouncing back into the control center, all flopping blond hair and eager grin.
"You're right, son. The equipment is old and outdated… but we accomplished a lot with this 'elderly stuff'. We were the 'Return to the Moon' crew, and we made it possible for that big, fancy IMS base, over there, to exist."
Alan's head cocked to one side and he grinned again at his father, saying,
"I know. They talk about you all the time in science class, dad. You're like this big historical marker, or something. …But it's different, really being here. Y' know?"
And Alan thought again that maybe he, too, would become an astronaut; add another proud gold pin to the family collection. Anyways, it was cool being able to leap tall… chairs. And (watch, and be amazed, ladies) he could lift a whole back-up atomic generator with one hand, like it was TinTin's purse, or something. Yeah, John had the right idea; space, definitely.
Jeff smiled at the boy's enthusiasm, glad that he'd decided to bring Alan along and to let him boot up the old control center. Nice, having a little father-son time.
But Endurance's hair-raising speed, when she finally appeared on the main monitor board, quickly changed his mood. Warping time and reality in her wake, Endurance seemed headed for a violent, deadly crash.
"Oh, man…!" Alan breathed. "Dad, how're they gonna… Whoa! Dude, that was, like, insta-stop!"
For Endurance had finally rejoined Earth's spacetime, almost instantaneously shedding her terrible momentum relative to the home planet. Not quite an insta-stop, though. She still had to fire thrusters and roll a bit to go into lunar orbit.
All at once, blessedly, comm was up and fully functional. Computer screens that had done nothing but flicker uselessly in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center blossomed suddenly with telemetry and images. For the first time in nearly a week (from Earth's perspective) or two long years (from the Ares III crew's) direct communication was possible.
Across the world, at the International Moon Station, down in Jeff Tracy's old Explorer outpost and the cockpit of Thunderbird 3, backs were slapped and hands shaken. Then came Pete McCord's voice, a little weaker than most remembered it, but irreverent as ever.
"IMS, Endurance: how's the weather, down there?"
"Bit dull, I'm afraid," Commander Riley replied over the comm, beaming like a halogen street lamp, "But I'm certain that we can liven things up somewhat with that libation we discussed, all those months ago."
Next, lanky, brown-haired Saul Guthrie leaned over the mike (visuals had suddenly glitched again, which only a few present realized was actually intentional).
"Hey, Old Man. Saul, here: ready to give up all this drama, n' claim that rocking chair?"
"Dunno about retirement, but coming home's a big affirm, Saul. Saginaw's sounding awfully good, right now."
But, while Pete kept the comm lines busy and John guided Endurance into a lunar parking orbit, the others were already abandoning the flight deck. Deeply confused, Janey began to cry. She didn't like the Moon, with all its strange new voices; she didn't want 'home'. Nothing that was happening now made sense to her.
"Shhhhh…!" Linda urged, cuddling the child against her orange survival suit. "It's okay, Baby-girl. Everything's going to be fine. Daddy and Uncle Pete will come along in a minute. Shhh…shh…sh!"
Pete traded a few more quips with the Moon Station crew and Houston, then faked a vox-glitch. That done, he unstrapped, floated up out of his seat, and beckoned to John Tracy.
The pilot nodded, locked his controls, and then followed McCord a short distance aft, to the Crew Escape Capsule. The others were already in place and strapped in, Janey fastened to a sort of padded cradle-board that Roger had bolted to the bulkhead. Her screaming dropped to a whimper once her father and 'uncle' reappeared.
John patted the girl's curly head as he floated past, saying,
"Remember that docking maneuver we talked about?"
Big-eyed and solemn, still crying softly, Janey nodded.
"Now would be the right time to apply it."
Obediently, the little one popped her thumb into her mouth. She had no suit, nor helmet, a fact that tore the heart out of Linda, who refused to lock her own visor. Actually, no one else did, either; they'd make it safely down, or they wouldn't, and the junior crewman would not face that risk alone.
John was keenly aware of the need to hurry. 'Down stairs', Riley and Saul Guthrie could only bluff and fiddle with the comm settings for so long. From his seat at the capsule's rear, Roger Thorpe shut and locked the boarding hatch. With his good hand, the Marine gave John a thumbs-up.
The pilot signaled back, then tapped on his wrist comm. The screen flashed, indicating that Shadowbot coverage would be spread to include the Crew Escape Capsule, just as soon as it blasted away from Endurance's orbiting hulk.
At the press of a few buttons and switches, the capsule's small guidance computer lit up. John glanced at Pete before initiating launch.
"Commander?"
Certain things were obvious, but never spoken of. Pete was dying, but still the Mission Commander, and John would await his approval, forever, if necessary. The older man nodded assent.
"Take us in, Tracy. She's all yours." He glanced around at the others, then, adding,
"Let's do 'er, folks. Time to go home."
A set of clamps retracted explosively, and the Crew Escape Capsule shot away from Endurance like a bullet from a gun. She was pilotable, but only just, with parachutes that would be useless on the Moon, and a set of limited-range thrusters.
The comm buzzed with increasingly strident questions; Riley and Porter were doing a damn fine job of sounding confused. John tuned them out, and flew. Not for IMS, but several clicks south-west, to the Apollo19 hangar that his father had helped construct over twenty years earlier.
Down and sideways. No glide, at all. Just thruster and engine work, Pete calling the figures: velocity, altitude, distance to target and remaining fuel. It was a bumpy, noisy ride,long drops spiked with occasional, jolting thruster burns. Janey whimpered continuously around her thumb, a sound he couldn't tune out. No matter what, this time he meant to stand firm between her and nightmare.
"Eyes on the instruments, Tracy. You're drifting!"
"Yeah. Got it, Pete. Sorry."
Rumble, hiss and pop of thruster firings… crying child and fretful proximity warnings. Overhead, Endurance was already lost, swallowed up in the velvet-black sky. Beneath them, jagged grey rocks and badly cratered terrain rushed upward. Where…?
Beautiful. A set of landing pad lights pushed out of the dust below, glowing a welcome bright green. Someone electro-statically charged the hangar's portal, repelling fifteen years of accumulated moon dust. All at once an American flag gleamed forth, stark-bright against dark metal.
His wrist comm beeped, and the horizontal doors began to open, splitting the painted flag and spilling forth a watery gleam. Just about home free…
No longer consciously aware of Pete's voice, John internalized the spoken numbers. Down… a little more left thruster… need another 2 meters to clear the crater wall… deploy landing gear… landing gear locked… over the target… and begin final descent.
"Cut main engine!" Pete's voice pushed through all the swirling vectors and procedures. A handle was clicked to the off-position, cutting fuel to the engine. Silence fell, and so did the Capsule, plunging downward under 1/6 gravity; past the open hangar doors and into a rough-hewn cavern.
They jounced to a halt on the concrete landing pad, just about dead-center of its bright red targeting circle. His wrist comm beeped again, twice. Dad and Scott both acknowledging at once. He tapped back, feeling a mountain roll partly off his shoulders.
The hangar doors ground shut overhead. A reversed static charge would now begin attracting thestirred-up dust particles, covering their hiding place. John would have felt better about all this, if the Moon's gravity hadn'tcome crushing down like a massive hand. Janey no longer had the strength to cry.
Linda managed to unstrap, hauling herself semi-upright by clinging to seat backs and arm-rests. Somehow, nearly fainting from the effort, she dragged herself over to the child. The others took a long moment to renew their acquaintance with Sir Isaac Newton.
"Oh… God," Roger grunted, "someone... get the damn...elephant off!"
Two years of subjective space-flight had left them all weak as kittens. But there were a few bright spots. Janey rallied enough to gasp,
"Hate moon! Unca Pete, tell Daddy go back!"
"Sorry, Peanut…" McCord replied, struggling to raise a hand and pat the girl's head (she was on her mother's lap, now, back in the left second seat).
"…Believe it or not, this is an improvement. It's called gravity, and you get used to it."
The little girl did just what she would have on Endurance; she pushed lightly with her legs, expecting to rise into the air… but nothing happened. Docking thumb in mouth, again, she clung to her mother; confused and terrified.
The pumps had about half-pressurized the hangar when two figures in black-and-gold IR spacesuits stepped through a hatch in the rocky north wall. Dad and Alan.
The Escape Capsule was hurriedly evacuated; most injured, first. Roger walked out with the aid of his powered hard suit. (Like John, he'd opted for the increased support and artificial muscle of his Mars exploration gear; in his case, with an artificial leg bolted to the truncated limb).
The Marine helped Cho and Linda up, but stood respectfully aside to let the mission commander rise unaided.
"What're you all staring at?" Pete demanded, once he'd grunted and sworn his way upright. In a high-pitched, mock-British falsetto he added, "I got better!"
They disembarked in good order, John leaving last of all, after shutting the capsule down. Feeling the sudden, strange urge for a memento, he took a last helmet cam image, and copped a loose control knob. Felt… something he couldn't quite grasp, even at full mental stretch.
"John!"
"Yeah, Pete…" he started to say, except that the voice was his father's.
Jeff Tracy stood leaning in at the airlock, his helmet visor open.
"Let's go, son. This hiding place won't be secure for long. There are only so many places you could have gone to ground, and someone's sure to come looking."
His father offered him a steadying hand out of the hatch, which John was too proud to accept.
"Thanks, dad. But, I can manage."
Outside, Alan was trying very hard to get Janey to look at him.
"Aww… come on, Sweetie-pie! It's me, Uncle Alan. I said 'hi' to you on the comm, remember? You wanted me to play with you? Remember Uncle Alan? Look…! I've got candy!"
John smiled slightly, then returned his attention to Jeff, who had also been watching the show.
"That's a beautiful little girl," the older man said, sounding... well… not like John had ever heard him. "And I'm glad to hear that you and her mother decided to do the right thing and get married. Although, I have to question Pete's credentials as a…"
"I heard that, Tracy!" Pete fired over one shoulder. "And, as a fully deputized clergyman, I resemble the implication. My 'Church of Universal Light' dues are paid up through December, 2075, pal."
John had warned his crewmates in advance that they would recognize their rescuers. Everyone had agreed to keep the matter quiet; though a certain amount of former-co-worker teasing was probably inevitable.
Matters grew serious again, back in the old Explorer control center, for it was time for phase two of the operation: rescuing every astronaut but one.
"You're sure about this, son?" Jeff probed anxiously. "Because if those viruses you wrote can be remotely activated…"
"We'd cripple the Red Path, sir, but not finish them, which is what they're trying damn hard to do to us. Inkblot and Bit-stormcan do a lot of damage, but they won't stop the key players from going public with our identities. Dad, they know who you are. We've got to find and destroy their leaders… at least get some names… or everything you've built goes down the tube."
"Fine. I'll go, then. You have a wife and baby to think about, and you say it's me they really want, so…"
"No, sir." John shook his blond head, impatient at the plan's delay. "If you turn yourself in, they'll just kill you on the spot. No questions asked; do not pass 'go', do not collect two hundred dollars. All I've got going for me is that they need me alive long enough to extract information, which I'm betting is too sensitive to be entrusted to anyone outside the power center. If I can get within fifty feet of this guy, dad, I can finish him. The viruses are already uploaded, on a timed 'dead-man's switch'. If I'm killed, they fire upwithin an hour oflast pulse. I know what I'm doing, sir."
Jeff looked away. Alan was making faces at the little girl, trying to get a smile, but she was afraid of his gun, and his 'otherness'. Hiding her face against the inside of her mother's spacesuit neck-ring, she reached toward John.
"Son…" Jeff told him, shaking the young man's hand. "I can't argue with your logic. Never could get you to change your mind, or get a haircut, either. That took NASA. Anyhow... I accept your offer, but I wish like hell that there was another way. Take care, John. We'll be monitoring comm channels across the board, waiting for your extraction call."
And that was pretty much it, except for some personal good-byes.
McCord pulled him aside for a brief conversation… a few fatherly bits of advice. He gave his gun to Roger, who promised to help defend the retreat of Linda and the remaining crew. Cho kissed his cheek, whispering benedictions in broken Korean…
And then it was time to take his leave of wife and child. The girl did not understand. She cried hysterically, wrapping her arms about his neck and repeating,
"Go wi' Daddy! Wanna go wi' Daddy! Unca Pete, tell Daddy!"
The mission commander came over to take Janey, who still wouldn't look at Jeff or Alan.
"Wish I could do that, Junior… but your daddy's got a job to do, just like the rest of us."
As mission commander, Pete's was the final word, and Kara Jane-Ellen knew this. Thumb back in her mouth, she silently waved good-bye.
John returned the gesture, and then looked down at his small, unhappy wife.
"I feel so short," she whispered. In space, she'd been able to hover at eye-level. Here, she came barely to mid-chest.
John reached down and, with the augmented power of hard-suit muscles, lifted her to face him.
"Better?"
He would have kissed her, but she pushed blindly, suddenly away, stumbled back onto the ground and bolted off.
'Dude,' Alan thought. That was harsh!
To cheer his stone-faced brother he said, tentatively,
"She'll get over it, man. You know how chicks are. They don't ever get the important stuff, but they go all hog-wild crazy over having to say 'good-bye'."
John nodded.
"Yeah. I figured." Then, reaching into a belt compartment, he pulled out a small flash-drive.
"Here. I made a few hundred character updates and enough random number selections to keep the game running for awhile."
"Until you come back," Alan clarified fiercely.
"Right."
The flash-drive changed hands, and all of a sudden Alan said,
"I could come with you, John. You know… sneak along behind, to watch your back and stuff."
His taller brother smiled, but shook his head.
"Thanks, Alan; you've already done a lot, and I need someone I can trust at home to keep an eye on the wife and kid."
Weirdly, he sounded a lot like Matt. Alan didn't argue with him, this time, saying only,
"Okay. I've got it handled, bro. Do what you got to."
A wrist comm beeped, and the two brothers turned to face the sound's source: Jeff Tracy.
"Boys, it's time. Scott makes three unauthorized personnel coming down the Moon Station access tunnel. We have to get moving."
This had the effect of setting Janey off, again. To the weeping baby in McCord's arms, John said,
"Docking maneuver."
She sought comfort in that thumb, again, but reached out for him with the other hand. Very carefully (his hard-suited fingers were powerful and relatively insensitive to pressure) he touched her face.
"Be a good girl, and listen to your mother. I'll be back, soon."
And then he went a different way from everyone else, letting all the air out of what had been a happy, secure little world. There was nothing she could do but cry as screen-men with guns led the rest of her family to safety aboard Thunderbird 3, and daddy went away.
John entered the access tunnel, wishing he had time to scan his own ID chip. Since touching Janey that last time, it had begun heating up. Couldn't get to it through the hard-suit gauntlet, though, so he did his best to ignore the oddly familiarsensation.
The tunnel was low, dusty and dark, but negotiable, being arrow-straight. He switched on his helmet lamp and started walking toward the noise of approaching others. Soon enough, he encountered the intruders. Three of them; all heavily armed. One was female, to judge by the contours of her silvery jet-set tourist space suit. The males wore standard issue Moon Station gear.
John stopped short, not feeling much of anything at all. Cold and tired, maybe.
"Douse your light!" One of the gunmen demanded, adding, "Name?"
…once he'd complied.
"Tracy, John M. It's stenciled on the suit, jackass."
Bright-boy gestured angrily.
"The others?"
"Gone. They took an old lunar rover to the station. There wasn't enough room for all of us, and I was least injured, so I got picked to walk home. Happy?"
A faint vibration was transmitted to him from the tunnel floor, reminding John of a certain far-off rock drill or two. Thunderbird 3 was away.
"Remove your helmet. There is air here, and you will come to no harm."
Sure. This had all seemed a lot more sensible back on Endurance. Now… well, his suit might shrug off a few close-range bullet strikes, and it was powerful enough to put all three terrorists into the ground… but then he'd never come near the Red Path leader.
What the hell, huh? Might work.
He took the helmet off. The female now came forward, holding what looked like a small air mask and tank.
"You will take three deep breaths," the first gunman snapped, after she'd blocked his attempt to take the equipment. "No harm will…"
"Come to me. Yeah. I get it. I'm being transported to a place of safety for my own good, etc."
Damn. If he was going to be drugged unconscious, the least they could do was shut up and get started. Nothing worse than chatty, incompetent kidnappers.
He couldn't see the woman's face through her reflective visor, but her touch was gentle. The mask went over his mouth and nose. As instructed, John breathed in (but not deeply; an early wake-up might prove invaluable), mingling medication with the gunpowder reek of moon dust.
In a very few minutes, he'd ceased consciously thinking. All that John Tracy could do now was follow the instructions of his captors. He was not entirely abandoned, however. There was a quantum intelligence present; little more than the ghost of a former machine, but determined nonetheless to save her creator.