SHADO HQ, Control Room
Present day
As Kelly came on duty, he checked in with Lieutenant Keith Ford, as per standard procedure. "All quiet, Keith?"
"Yes, sir," Ford nodded, "although I believe our newbie here has a more detailed report for you."
"Our what now?" Kelly puzzled.
A female operative turned her chair to face him, her expression deadly serious, her posture stiffly correct and formal as was expected of all HQ staff, particularly juniors.
"Commander," she began crisply, without using any notes or handheld data devices, "SID reports no hostile contacts; the Interceptors have completed their patrol without incident or sightings, and have returned to Moonbase.
"Space vehicle detected on course One-Nine-Seven, Three-Two-Six, Blue has been positively ID'd as GSP9, en route to the ISS, ETA 1215 hours GMT. Lunar Module One-Six scheduled for EOI at 1211 GMT, but GSP9 will fail radar or visual contact by adequate safe margin.
"Skydiver Three reports reactor problem resolved; Captain Chandrasegmavar has ordered a return to dock for precautionary maintenance check, ETA 1150 GMT. SKY 3 will maintain airborne patrol pattern until Diver 3 returns, but holding outside Israeli airspace as per standing orders.
"Also, the coffee machine is acting up again; it's dispensing Earl Grey instead of Arabica."
That last was spoken in the same crisp, no-nonsense tone he'd have expected of a thirty-year veteran rather than a kid not long out of training, but he knew she'd put that in just for fun. His delighted laugh drew surprised looks from everyone in the room.
The operative frowned and told him severely, but without (quite) crossing the line into insubordination, "It is no laughing matter, sir; coffee is an essential resource here." But she couldn't keep up the severe, professional demeanour; her impish sense of humour wouldn't allow it. She grinned, her eyes flashing with merry mischief and her sheer joie de vivre. With that, the picture was complete:
This was Harmony Ellen Bradley, Gay's youngest daughter and the only human being (so far) born off the Earth.
He returned the grin in kind, as did most of the male operatives (and some female; she was equally popular with the girls). "I'll have someone look into that right away, General," he quipped, recalling an occasion when Henderson became irate at the lack of coffee in HQ, and his grin melted into a warm smile. "Hello, Harmony. It's not that I'm not glad to see you as always, but what are you doing back on Earth?"
"Personnel," she sighed melodramatically, her expression pleading for sympathy. She got it; SHADO's personnel department (it was not termed 'Human Resources' because Kelly loathed the phrase) occasionally made some very strange decisions, even backed up as they were by the formidable power of TAPS, the highly sophisticated Talent Analysis Placement System software developed especially for SHADO and recently upgraded to AI status. Several people sent sympathetic been-there-done-that expressions her way. Harmony had qualified as an Interceptor pilot; she didn't belong in HQ.
"So what are they and TAPS up to now?"
"I've been posted here for last-minute operations training, and then I'm off to Moonbase - hopefully for good! It's that whole 'breadth of experience' thing, of which we're all supposed to feel the benefits. The only thing I'm feeling," she added ruefully, "is my usual powerful urge to - oh, no, here we go -" Her breath caught in her throat, and she sneezed loudly and repeatedly. Kelly chuckled sympathetically and handed her a tissue.
Harmony had been a puzzle ever since her premature birth on the Moon; there were several issues pertaining to her metabolism that made little sense, despite the fact that she had become one of the most closely studied human beings in their species' entire existence before her first birthday...until Gay angrily declared a moratorium on 'invasive' research, as she put it. Oh, she understood the scientific value of studying a child conceived and born on the Moon, of course, as it was an unprecedented - and certainly unplanned - event, but as her mother Gay had other, more pressing concerns...or at least she defined them as more pressing.
By far the most mysterious of those metabolic issues was the apparent intermittent allergy Harmony had developed shortly after reaching menarche...which, it was later discovered, disappeared immediately she set foot on the Moon. The medical staff had been fighting a war of theses to explain it; allergic reactions should've been impossible in SHADO HQ's rigidly controlled environment.
No external airborne contaminants of any kind could enter the complex, given its highly sophisticated and multiply-redundant atmospheric filtering systems, and it was positively pressurised as a further precaution against airborne chemical and/or biological attacks. The inevitable, unavoidable dust was kept to a minimum by SHADO's stringent hygiene requirements, as well as traces of an airborne chemical R & D had developed which promoted biodegradation of said dust.
Nonetheless her allergy, if that was what it was, persisted. It had made her training on Earth utter hell for her, but she'd persevered regardless; her determination alone made every instructor reluctant to fail her even when her performance was below par. "She pretty much reminds me of Captain America, sir, but as just Steve Rogers before he got the Super-Soldier treatment," one was heard to remark admiringly. "She just will not give up, however hard we push her."
She'd created a legend of sorts on the firing range once; she was taking careful aim with a General Dynamics RBS-12 needlebeamer and sneezed unexpectedly despite the antihistamines she'd taken, and yet she scored a direct hit...on a target 150 metres beyond the one she'd been aiming at. Her instructor had thrown up her hands in despair, but passed her (barely) nonetheless. It didn't matter that much; not everyone in SHADO was necessarily required to be a crack shot, or even a good shot - the only mandatory firearms requirement was that every operative (even the cleaning staff!) had to know how to handle and use them safely, just in case.
But it wasn't until she started on basic pilot training that her true talents were discovered - even though she'd never even been in an aircraft until then, let alone flown one. Initially, as was standard procedure, her flight instructor started her in the simulator for the relatively slow, simple-to-fly SHADAIR Helijet Transport; her scores were mediocre (understandable, given her aforementioned lack of piloting experience), but at least she didn't crash.
Then something odd happened when he tried her in the simulator for the SHADAIR Heavy Transporter tasked with carrying the Mobiles; this was a larger, faster and more complex aircraft to fly, but her scores improved by a drastic and statistically peculiar amount.
The instructor noted this, played a hunch and put her in the SHADAIR SST simulator, flying at speeds up to Mach 4; her performance was rated 'excellent', for a cadet. He reached the tentative conclusion that there was a direct correlation between an aircraft's speed and her natural skill in flying it, so he tested her in the SKY 1 simulator, engaging UFOs in an invasion scenario.
She aced it, nailing six UFOs before she was overwhelmed and shot down.
Finally there was only one thing for it; he took her to Moonbase and placed her in the L-77 Interceptor simulator. What followed was heard about all over SHADO less than an hour after it occurred:
After only minimal training over a few days, she narrowly beat her father's all-time record, which had stood for over a decade!
Kelly took one look at her simulator results and, despite her mother's vociferous (but understandable) objections, ordered her transferred to Moonbase immediately as a flight cadet. Gay protested at first that Harmony's analytical skills were almost as acute as her piloting talents, which was perfectly true - those analytical skills were in fact what first drew SHADO's attention to her - but TAPS' assessment and the simulator results showed clearly that her piloting aptitude was the stronger of the two. Skilled pilots were thinner on the ground than skilled analysts, and so the choice was obvious.
Harmony herself was far more enthusiastic a pilot than an analyst, as it was far more challenging...and, perhaps, she could better avenge her boyfriend, murdered by an Alien, by shooting down UFOs than by divining Alien strategy.
Besides, as Kelly tactfully pointed out - strictly off the record - Gay was, if she was honest with herself, more concerned with Harmony's safety than her skills. Once Gay admitted that (under gentle pressure from both Harmony and Mark) she withdrew her objections and her youngest daughter happily settled in among the pilots and cadets. It had to be said they were equally happy about it, as Harmony was as charming as she was gorgeous.
Her abilities aside, Harmony was even more beautiful than her mother, her skin a lovely shade of café au lait, showing her mixed heritage. She was Gay's height, but not quite as curvy; Harmony tended more towards slender than voluptuous. Her facial bone structure was fine, her cheekbones high, the kind of structure that would surely only improve with age and maturity; her large, expressive eyes were green with flecks of brown.
Her face was round like Gay's, her nose small and cute. She'd somehow managed to acquire a charming sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose that made her look even younger. She wore her black, wavy hair long and barely regulation, and generally kept it in a neat yet luxurious ponytail. She had even more of the fashion model look about her than her older sister Cara did, and Cara was a model.
Harmony was, however, not quite seventeen.
She should not, strictly speaking, have been recruited at all; by SHADO's usual policy she was over a year too young at the time even to be a cadet. But events had forced Kelly's hand...he'd had to make a choice between recruiting and shooting her.
Offering her Hobson's choice had hardly been SHADO's finest moment, or his own.
It had started when a UFO came down in one of the few radar blind spots left; at one time there had been several holes in the coverage, but improved technology and the building of new monitor stations had gradually closed them. An Alien had still managed to slip through the SHADO cordon and strike at a school; Phil Barnes, a lad of just under sixteen, was his chosen victim. The boy had been darkly handsome, popular with both sexes at school, well-liked by teachers, with the rare balance of athletic and academic ability. He'd had a bright future...stolen away from him on the point of an Alien scalpel.
His girlfriend Harmony, then fifteen, was the first to find him lying butchered in a large pool of his own blood, his heart, kidneys, liver and spleen missing; when the police and paramedics arrived they discovered a hysterical Harmony, her arms bloody to the elbows - she'd attempted to give him heart massage only to have her hands disappear into Phil's chest cavity - screaming, "Where's his heart?! Where's his heart?!"
But at least the thief didn't escape with his foul bounty; the UFO never made orbit before SKY 1 intercepted and destroyed it (this was Peter Carlin's final flight before retirement - the last shot he ever fired, the only one he fired on this mission, scored a direct hit and completely obliterated the UFO, thus concluding his career in style). Even if the Alien had evaded the Skyfighter, though, the Interceptors were waiting in lunar orbit, alerted.
The Alien had made a mistake in striking so close to a member of SHADO's family, routinely monitored as they were...not that that was any consolation to Phil's family, or Harmony herself. The team of operatives sent to intercept the Alien before he could strike missed him by less than five minutes; when the team's leader saw what horrors the Alien had inflicted on Phil, she assumed full responsibility for the tragedy and resigned there and then.
But later that night she committed hara-kiri out of guilt and shame for what she perceived as her failure before her memories could be erased. She was Japanese, a direct descendant of a samurai, and so her method of choice came as no surprise to Kelly. He took a while to forgive himself for neglecting to refer the team leader immediately to Harriet Page, the SHADO counsellor he'd appointed two years previously.
Harriet took rather longer to forgive him.
Harmony's reaction to the tragedy, however, was unexpected: displaying far more anger than grief, she began making frequent visits to the local police station and, later, the nearest CID branch, demanding more information. She wasn't to know it, but they had none to give and wouldn't have been allowed to if they had.
Frustrated, but somehow unable to let it go, she started digging on the Internet. Even SHADO had proved unable to censor every Alien-related case, partly because some of the documents existed only on the dark web...which, alas, Harmony knew how to access. What little information she found started her on an investigation.
She proved to have remarkable analytical abilities - later noted by TAPS - and used them to the full...and deduced SHADO's existence almost from first principles. Kelly had originally done the same at UMIST, necessitating a rewrite of his entire thesis and very careful amendments to the data presented therein - the revised version, though technically false, still earned him 1st Class Honours...healthily sceptical of the whole UFO issue as he was, the very last thing he'd expected was for his work to prove that they actually did exist!
SHADO Security took longer to trace her efforts than they normally would have, precisely because she was using the dark web and was therefore difficult to trace, but not impossible. Once they had done so and Harmony's case was brought to his attention, he debated the proper course of action for a while, but he knew he was just putting off the inevitable. There had only ever been two ways of dealing with persistent snoops like Harmony: recruit them...
...or dispose of them, whether via amnesia treatment or more...drastic methods. That, however, was out of the question here; if he took drastic action, he would almost certainly lose the Moonbase CO and his most experienced Interceptor pilot. It was unlikely in the extreme that either would continue to serve under the man who'd ordered their youngest daughter's execution.
That only left amnesia treatment or recruitment...until Harmony herself took the matter out of his hands.
Two months after Phil's slaughter she finally confronted her mother, who was on furlough; she demanded to know why Gay wasn't more surprised at the atrocities committed on Phil's body. Gay hesitated, just a fraction too long, before denying any knowledge; she'd always hated lying to her girls, and Harmony knew it.
She hated to fight dirty like that, especially with the mother she loved and respected very much, but the ache in her heart wouldn't let her do anything else. She pressed home her advantage, deploying the bombshell in the form of the only concrete thing she'd been able to discover about the secret organisation apparently fighting the unknown threat: its name.
"SHADO," she murmured.
Gay's head snapped around so fast it was a wonder her neck didn't fracture. She instantly realised she'd given the game away with her reaction, and tried vainly to salvage the situation. "What are you talking about, Harmony?"
"You know!" Harmony cried. "They're called SHADO, without a 'w', and you work for them! SHADAIR's part of it, somehow! Mum," she pleaded, on the edge of hysteria, "I just want to know what happened! Why was Phil murdered? Why was he butchered like that? Who took his organs, and why?! Please, Mum, I know you know - I found other cases like Phil's! Tell me! PLEASE!"
"I can't," Gay sobbed, wondering how the hell she was going to deal with this disaster. SHADO personnel on furlough were subject to routine surveillance at irregular intervals, purely as a precautionary measure; she could only hope it wasn't operating right now.
As it turned out, that hope was futile.
Out of the shadows a voice ordered, "Tell her, Gay. He was more than a friend, wasn't he, Harmony?"
Commander Kelly McAllister stepped into view, and Gay's heart dropped.
Harmony's first reaction was indignant defiance. "Who the hell are you? How'd you get in? No, never mind, you'd better get out while you still can - my Mum's a Black Belt!" she added, with fierce pride. "She'll totally kick your ass!"
"I doubt that," Kelly told her dryly, "I awarded her that Belt. I'm her sensei."
Understandably, Harmony's jaw dropped.
He'd already decided to offer her the recruitment option, despite her tender years; it had occurred to him that administering the amnesia treatment would've necessitated forcing her to forget Phil. That was impractical, for one thing; he'd been so popular at their school that SHADO would have needed to dose hundreds of people with the drug. But it would raise too many questions if everyone else were to remember him when she didn't, and anyway he didn't deserve to be forgotten by anyone, let alone a devoted girlfriend. SHADO regulations, rewritten slightly but very carefully by Ed Straker in 1990, permitted him a certain leeway here in the name of compassion.
And he knew he couldn't really face shooting Gay's youngest daughter anyway.
A not inconsiderable factor was Gay's and Mark's likely reactions if he did; he had no doubt they would both resign in protest at the very least. Given the STAND's latest projections, there was no way he could risk that; they would both be needed desperately to help repel the Alien attack he was sure was imminent (defined as 'sometime in the next ten years or so').
He'd reviewed Harmony's impressive school record and even employed TAPS to analyse it; the results suggested a great deal of potential in a variety of disciplines, though given the calibre of her parents that was hardly a surprise.
So he explained, as gently as he could. He did his best to make her see the attack on Phil wasn't personal; he hadn't done anything wrong, nor had she. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Harmony. I know that's no comfort, but it's all I can give you. At least they never got to use his organs; a SHADO interceptor, what we call a Skyfighter, intercepted the UFO before it could make orbit."
"So the bastard's dead? They got him?" she vociferously demanded. "Good," she spat viciously when he nodded.
"Besides," he added, "your Dad was standing by in his Interceptor in lunar orbit, ready to smear the Alien scum all over space before he could escape."
"Lunar orbit?" Harmony repeated, puzzled.
"Look up," Kelly requested of her.
"Say what?" she puzzled, thrown off-balance by his apparent change of subject.
"Look up," he said again, mildly. "What do you see?"
Obediently Harmony looked up, saw the Moon through her bedroom's skylight and answered, "The Moon, duh."
"Your mother works there," he told her simply.
"Huh?!"
"We have a base on the Moon, as our front line of defence. Your mother is its commanding officer; your Dad commands a space fighter squadron - the Interceptors - launching from that base."
Harmony looked dazed and stood unsteadily, wandering randomly to and fro, with her mother looking on worriedly. After a while, she seemed to pull herself together and faced Kelly. "So...lemme flatten this out...you're tellin' me that my Mum is the CO of a military base on the Moon, and my Dad makes a living by shooting down UFOs? Is that it?"
Kelly couldn't help grinning. "That's it."
"Damn," Harmony laughed, "all these years I have had the coolest parents, and I never knew!"
Even given her tension and worry, it took every scrap of discipline Gay possessed not to laugh at that. Kelly, too, was genuinely amused.
"I'm afraid bragging at school's not an option, Harmony," he chuckled, "there's a little thing called the Official Secrets Act. The official penalty for violating any part of the Act pertaining to SHADO is a minimum sentence of fifty years in a maximum security prison, no appeal or parole possible, and no visitors - ever."
Harmony was too shrewd and keenly observant to miss the slight inflection; she gulped, "The 'official' penalty?"
Kelly nodded grimly. "In fact, you'd never actually make it to the prison. There'd be a little - accident - along the way."
"Oh, I see. So it's join, or -" she made a graphic throat-cutting gesture.
"Nothing so crude," he demurred, "but basically, yes. Normally we'd give you amnesia treatment, but..." he smiled gently, "that would mean you'd have to forget Phil."
"I...I gave him my cherry," she whispered, "I'll never forget him. I'd die first," she finished fiercely.
"Harmony!" Gay gasped. "You never told me -!"
"I'm sorry, Mum, I was going to...but I kinda got interrupted by his, you know, being murdered!" Her voice dropped. "He was good to me, Mum, it didn't hurt at all. He was kind, and gentle. I enjoyed it, I really did. He...I wasn't just a notch on his bedpost, he loved me...I loved him, too..."
She broke down; Gay took the girl in her arms, near tears herself. She'd known they were close, and she'd approved as she thought Phil was a bright, decent young man, but she'd had no idea they were that close. She sent a silent thanks to Phil's departed spirit for giving her daughter a good start as a woman - that was more than she'd had!
Her first lover, to use the term loosely, had done nothing for her whatsoever - though he did boost her ego slightly by telling her she was a 'good lay'. Her lesson learned, she experimented with the notion of an older lover, as many young women had before her, and confirmed her suspicion that she was supposed to enjoy sex, too. Mark, certainly, had never been less than a gentleman in bed - once they'd gotten past the understandable intimidation, i.e. she was his CO everywhere but in their bedroom.
If anything, she'd enjoyed surrendering to him. After so many years of being in charge, it did her good not to be for a while.
When Harmony's sobs subsided Gay said softly, "I'm sorry, Harmony, I didn't know. I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention; I didn't realise you two were so close. I'm glad you enjoyed your first time, and I'd really like to hear more, if you're up to it." She hesitated. "Later, though. Right now, I'm afraid we have more pressing matters to discuss...don't we, Commander?" she added, her voice rising on that last.
"We do indeed," he affirmed.
It was decided between the three of them that Harmony would, from now on, attend her regular school on a part-time basis; as a teenager she still needed to interact with people her own age, of course. The time she wasn't spending at school would be utilised at SHADO, the cover story being that Harmony had special potential which could only be fully realised via intensive private tuition supplementing her schoolwork.
It was true enough...especially the 'intensive' part.
Her teachers greeted the idea with enthusiasm; she'd always been a pleasure to teach, despite her iconoclastic tendencies - she was a class clown, but one who was wise enough to know when enough was enough.
No-one could have predicted, however, that the strict discipline and regimentation of military life would bring out the worst of those same iconoclastic tendencies. The next few months, until she found her métier and settled down, were a mixture of elation and exasperation for her instructors; practical jokes, as hard to trace as they were elaborate, broke out wherever she was stationed for training. But it was on Moonbase she found her home away from home; she took to the closeted environment with remarkable ease, and in less than a day she had settled in as if she'd always been there.
Of course her allergy's disappearance, as unexpected and mysterious as it was total and welcome, certainly helped.
The bleak vistas of the Moon's surface were a source of profound fascination for her; where most saw barren rock, she perceived beauty. Like Buzz Aldrin before her, she envisaged it as "magnificent desolation"; watching her first lunar sunrise moved her to tears.
The first time she was required to return to Earth, she nearly refused the order, as she couldn't bear to leave. Even the old Moonbase hands were mildly incredulous at that; only Mark understood, as he was one of the few Moonbase personnel old enough to remember watching the Apollo 11 broadcast as Eagle was landing. She was thrilled by his blow-by-blow description of the mission, and how close they came to utter disaster - and how Armstrong had saved the entire Apollo program by taking manual control and accomplishing the safe landing by sheer virtuosity. He'd taken her on her first moonwalk outside Moonbase to the Apollo 11 landing site.
However, for reasons of historical preservation they weren't permitted to stand at the site itself; nor could a Moon Mobile approach too closely for fear of raising lunar dust and perhaps marring the astronauts' bootprints. It didn't matter; for Harmony, being there and seeing the site was enough. It was Mark who gently persuaded her of the necessity of returning to Earth every so often, and she reluctantly conceded.
But that didn't mean she had to like it...and she didn't.
"How do you guys stand it down here?" she moaned plaintively now. "The air's too thick, everything's too heavy, I can hardly keep my balance, and as for these damned allergies - oh, help, not again -" Once more, she launched into a helpless bout of sneezing.
Harmony's 'heavy' comment was, of course, a reference to Moonbase's gravity, which was pegged at 80% of Earth Standard. Until artificial gravity had been developed as a derivative of the Utronic research (which at the time was still ongoing though almost complete), the worrying question of the Moon's one-sixth gee had loomed large in the minds of the medical staff.
It was already well known from the Russian space research that long periods of acclimation to low gravity caused muscles and organs - particularly heart and lungs - to become "lazy", as they were required to do less work, and there were issues of calcium leaching from the bones, resulting in osteoporosis. Returning to Earth's full gee after such acclimation could be devastating or even fatal.
Yet there had to be a permanent base, with permanent staff; there was simply no way around it. The logistics of defending Earth, given the limitations of human technology as compared to that of the Aliens, were such that establishing a base on the Moon was absolutely essential. It had been decided from the beginning that constructing a defensive space station in Earth orbit wasn't good enough, as it was better to intercept UFOs as far away from Earth as possible; also, such a station could never be concealed from ground-based observers.
There was the overriding issue of secrecy to consider, to say nothing of environmental and/or political issues...the very last thing they wanted was to detonate nuclear explosives in or anywhere near Earth's atmosphere - there would be fallout, both radioactive and political.
It was a matter of debate as to which would be deadlier...
On the other hand it was recognised that personnel couldn't possibly be expected to remain on the Moon for the rest of their careers - or their lives - without interruption or relief; furloughs had to be permitted, and therefore they would have to be able to cope with Earth's gravity while on furlough, to say nothing of the gradual deterioration of their health that would ensue if the low-gee issue wasn't dealt with. Thus Moonbase's original specs had called for the construction of a huge - and vastly expensive - underground centrifuge carousel, similar in design to the one depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But work on the carousel had barely begun before the R & D team jubilantly announced their creation of a prototype Artificial Gravity Generator; to the relief of the accountants and Moonbase personnel (albeit for entirely different reasons, i.e. no-one was looking forward to exercising for several hours a day!), Moonbase was redesigned and the carousel was never built.
However, for reasons still unknown the AGG consumed more power than every other facility on Moonbase put together; the current scientific opinion was that there was some as-yet-undetected flaw in the theory which prevented the apparatus from achieving maximum efficiency. Worse, running it at full gee proved to be prohibitively detrimental in terms of component wear, even though it had no moving parts whatsoever.
It could also be temperamental at times, the main reason the maintenance techs disparagingly referred to it as 'the AGGravator'. Its enormous energy bill and the relatively short component life forced a compromise; it simply could not be run at full gee for any significant length of time without draining Moonbase's power or breaking down, or both.
0.5g had been proposed and briefly tried, but although the AGG seemed to function most efficiently at that power level, it proved to be unworkable in terms of re-acclimation and the amount of exercise required to avoid weakness and calcium leaching. Extensive trials with volunteers had established a level of 0.8g as an acceptable compromise, though personnel were still required to exercise daily, with stiff penalties for non-compliance, and meals tended to be high in calcium and iron.
The upshot was that re-acclimation to Earth's gravity for Moonbase staff on furlough was now merely difficult, rather than impossible or dangerous. No-one was expected - or, indeed, permitted - to serve there for longer than three months at a stretch, and if they served a full three months, as many did, then a month's furlough was mandatory...even for Gay, the Moonbase Controller.
Kelly's thoughts of Moonbase prompted a recollection even as he chuckled in sympathy for Harmony's woes: "Mmm...Keith, didn't we get a request the other day from some UN ambassador or other for a tour of Moonbase? Apparently the guy wants to know where his country's money's going," he added ruefully, "him and half the damn Security Council."
"Yes, sir," Ford nodded, "Ambassador Pedro Ibáñez. His request was approved by the IAC, sir."
"Then I think we can kill two birds with one stone and save ourselves an outbound trip; that'll keep the IAC happy," Kelly mused thoughtfully. "Hey, Harmony: since you're scheduled to return to Moonbase anyway, how'd you like to go a bit earlier, pilot the LM for the Ambassador and me?"
He had to chuckle at her wry grimace. "The Trilobite?" she groused, using the Lunar Module's familiar and (mostly) affectionate nickname after the fossil it rather resembled. "I'd sooner fly SKY 1 there."
"Harmony," Kelly scolded her mock-severely, "SKY 1 is not a spacecraft, your sincerest efforts in that regard notwithstanding."
"Spoilsport," she shot back, grinning. She had, once, tried to achieve Earth Orbit Insertion with SKY 1...and nearly succeeded. Admittedly the Skyfighter was almost capable of the feat; she was certainly the highest-altitude fighter craft ever built by Mankind, her altitude record for interception being 250,000 feet (set in the incident that resulted in Paul Foster's recruitment, and still unbroken). But even if she could've made orbit, there was no way she could fly to the Moon - she could never carry enough fuel or oxygen.
Ah, the optimism of the young, Kelly reflected amusedly; Harmony was the sort of adventurous, iconoclastic spirit who'd try it just for the hell of it. He was very fond of her, as was everyone else in SHADO. It wasn't her youth or her beauty, or that neat, sexy bum that just wouldn't quit; she was simply likeable.
But like too many other operatives, Harmony was among the walking wounded after Phil's slaughter; and she was, after all, still only sixteen. He wasn't the only person to worry about that. He could only hope she'd hold it together in the face of what he was sure was coming.
Then again, he had to hope that for everyone...
Moonbase, Central Park
Twelve hours later
The visit was deemed a low risk security-wise, as access to Moonbase could not be more tightly controlled - it wasn't as if a spy could just drop in. Even if any would-be saboteur somehow managed to smuggle himself aboard an LM, his presence would immediately be revealed by the inevitable change in the craft's trim, owing to the added mass. As a precaution, one particular inboard sensor was calibrated in terms of a person's average mass by subtracting the mass of the LM itself and dividing the remainder by the average.
Thus if the LM was scheduled to carry, say, pilot, copilot and one passenger, the sensor would display '3'. If there was an unauthorised passenger - i.e. a stowaway - it would display '4'...and the crew would of course take immediate action.
One thing Ibáñez noticed immediately, as had most of Moonbase's few visitors, was that almost all of its personnel were female. Curious, he asked for an explanation, and Kelly recounted an incident recorded in Straker's journal (which no-one, not even Alec, knew he was keeping until after he'd retired) during Moonbase's construction...
Moonbase (under construction), Central Hub, Section Five
47 years ago
"Well, Alec," Straker began expansively as they made their way through Moonbase's central hub, the nucleus of the carefully orchestrated chaos, "everything looks to be going great."
"It certainly does," Alec agreed, pleased at Straker's approval. "Actually, we're about three days ahead of schedule, despite the accidents...and Bosanquet's disappearance," he added soberly. He'd led the search party personally, and his failure to find John Bosanquet - or any evidence as to what had transpired - still rankled.
"Mmm," Straker mused. "I take it we still don't know what happened?"
Alec just looked at him. "Come on, Ed. You know what happened as well as I do."
"There's no proof, Alec," Straker pointed out with the deceptive mildness that was his forte.
"Even on the Moon - especially on the Moon - people don't just disappear," Alec argued. "There's nowhere to go. There's only one reasonable explanation."
"Henderson doesn't think that it's 'reasonable'," Straker observed sourly.
Alec shrugged. "Well, then, it's the only explanation that fits the facts: the Aliens got him."
Straker just grunted irritably. Even after all this time, they still had no definitive proof (other than the Phoebe Klein incident, now popularly known as 'the Diamonds & Gold Case') that the Aliens existed at all, which was the main objection on the part of the various UN sceptics. All they had, and all they would have until Virginia Lake's Utronic research was completed and the new detection gear was installed into SID and the tracking stations, were:
Unconfirmed sightings which could've been anything;
Unexplained acts of sabotage;
Hysterical second- and third-hand accounts of alleged abductions;
Actual abductions...
...and, of course, the mysteriously mutilated bodies found at the sites of alleged UFO incidents. The forensic specialists were still shaking their heads in baffled horror over those. The brutality of it, the callousness, wasn't...
...wasn't human.
And that's precisely the point, he mused, as he'd said to the Secretary General after the Klein affair.
He was jolted out of his reverie by a sudden commotion. He turned; a work party clad in Moonbase overalls were making their way through the hub, carefully manoeuvring a large nul-grav pallet of equipment. "'scuse us, sirs," the tech in charge of the group chirped cheerily, "comin' through."
"Oh, of course," Straker apologised, "I'll just, uh..."
He sidled towards the wall, flattening himself against it; Alec crossed to Straker's side of the corridor and did the same. The tech smiled and rotated the pallet, which was rectangular, through ninety degrees, thus affording adequate clearance on either side now. "Thanks, Commander, Colonel."
Straker watched them go. He observed almost clinically that they were professional, and were handling their three-ton load with confidence and competence, two things he always liked to see.
It wasn't until they turned a corner that a thought struck him. "Alec..."
"Yes?"
"That work party - did you notice anything...odd...about them?"
"Aren't we paranoid today," Alec joked. "What do you mean?"
"I'm serious, Alec. There was something...something that got my attention. But I can't quite put my finger on it."
Alec glanced down the corridor where the work party had passed, and frowned. "They've all been thoroughly vetted. They wouldn't be here otherwise."
"No," Straker mused, "it's not a security issue. It's something more...basic..." Then it hit him. "They were all women, Alec."
His exec stared at him. "All -? Surely not," he protested mildly, but reconsidered on realising Ed was correct. "Hmm...yeah, you're right. That is odd," he reflected.
Abruptly Straker stopped walking.
Alec proceeded nearly three metres further down the corridor before he noticed. He looked back; Straker's face held a look of dawning realisation.
The Lunar Module's duty pilot was Andrea Fisher, co-pilot Elaine Hart.
Its ground crew were sisters, Michelle and Melissa Grantham.
Every Moonbase officer they'd passed in the corridors -
Every member of the work crews -
"Alec...do you realise that since we arrived this morning we haven't seen one single man?"