Moonful of silver, p.10
Moonful of Silver, page 10
Are you suggesting what I think you are?
No. He’s not. Because if he is, then it would mean the end of everything. We don’t know what’s happening on Earth, but I won’t be the one to break the ceasefire.
It’s already broken.
I won’t do it.
You’ve got to, Mr. President. Don’t you see?
All I see is dust and silt.
Then what is there to lose?
You have to do it. We need to finish what we started so long ago. Start up the core and get the Moon spinning. What other options are there?
NAMELESS
Present
Nameless watched Gabe polish a pipe into a smooth curve. The old man’s hands were as steady as a sniper’s aim. His face was free of wrinkles, placid and loose, while he worked on the MULE. It was only when he stopped that his body remembered his age, and the lines appeared again.
“How’s it coming?” Nameless asked.
Gabe glanced up. “You know? I think I liked you better when you didn’t talk so much.”
She smiled and rocked on her heels.
“Should be done before night comes,” he said.
“Night moonside, or Earth-time?” Not that it mattered. Either way, it would be too late if Esteban and his crew were due to leave at 09:00. There were still a few standard Earth-days until the sun would set on the Moon, and a fortnight of pure darkness covered its surface.
“Moonside, of course. Since when did Earth-time have any meaning around here?” Gabe’s face asked a different question to his lips. What do you want, Nameless?
“You got any spares lying about?”
Gabe chuckled. “You think I would’ve started repairing your junked up COLT if I did? Unless you count the filth those traders rode in on.”
The tradeship had been sent to its grave somewhere out there in the badlands after Esteban’s crew had pilfered it of everything they could. But the three hovers belonging to the traders’ crew were still in Gabe’s junkyard. Wasn’t like there was anywhere else in Tranquility for them to go.
Nameless glanced at the Earth as it hung on the horizon, gleaming in its blue and green swirl. Anytime now, Global-Chrono-Sync would chime Nine.
A hum echoed from down the street. Then another. Hover engines whirring.
“You weren’t planning on taking a field trip, were you?” Gabe asked. Now the lines on his face were thicker than the crater’s ridges. He seemed so old. That’s what caring about people did—it aged a person worse than the passing of time.
Danger. Warning. Those lines were as much a reprimand of himself as they were for her. Oh, Gabe, you should know better than to care about a scanslinger.
Nameless didn’t answer. She perched on her toes as though ready to pounce, keeping an eye on the old man and an ear on the hovers down the street.
A grunt brought them to life, and then the hum became a whine, and the engines tore over the land. Riders streamed past the junkyard, kicking up silt behind them.
Covered by the cloud of dust, Nameless rushed to the entrance, drew her pistol, and fired a silent shot at the last of the riders. Inside her helmet, she watched the nanocam connect to the back of the final hover, sticking to its rear plate. The whir of engines entered her ears, and then the hovers passed beyond the art-at, and all that noise fell quiet. There was no static. No interference. Just the pure silence of the badlands. She maximized the image in a panel on her visor. Dust flew, and beyond it, the town faded into the distance.
“Playing vigilante, Nameless?” Gabe called. “I was worried you might actually shoot that thing.”
It paid that she’d modded the pistol to a silent setting. She flicked it back to its normal laser mode and replaced it in her holster.
“Target practice,” she said.
“If only!” Gabe returned to the pipe, rubbing at the twisted metal until it was millimeter perfect.
In the window of her visor, she traced the path of the riders as they cleared the horizon, and the colony disappeared behind them.
“Where?” she asked.
“Where what? The captain? Nowhere good, Nameless. Best you leave it be.”
She nodded. “How long?”
“They’ll be gone before night falls moonside. A few Earth-days, if you’re tracking things in Earth Standard. Don’t you worry. They’ll be back with enough supplies to last us through the next night.”
“Water?”
“Yeah. Water.”
“Where from?”
He huffed a frustrated sigh. “You don’t get to my age by asking too many questions. Trust me. I have no idea. And I don’t want to. Understand? It’s best you don’t either.”
She nodded, and then her nod turned into a shrug. “Mind if I borrow one of those spares?”
Gabe ran a hand across his brow. “Did you hear me, Nameless? I said leave it.”
“Gabe. Where are the hovers?”
Worry boiled his face red until all the heat evaporated out of him, and he shook his head, resigned. “Is there any way of talking you out of whatever it is you’re about to do?”
She glided over to him and placed a hand on his cheek. “I’ll be safe. Promise.”
His eyes welled up, and as she pulled away, she saw him glimpse his reflection in her visor. He turned from her and rubbed rags over his hands. “Okay. Alright. Call me sentimental, but I’d hate to do all this work fixing up your MULE only to have you too dead to ride it.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Where are they?”
He indicated the pile behind his unit. “I’ve got the traders’ hovers locked up back there. Just don’t work the throttle too hard and watch your power output. Those things are solar-powered. And the night’s not far away.”
Nameless nodded and drifted over, all the while keeping an eye on the route carved by Esteban’s crew.
The solar-hovercycles were exactly where Gabe had said. She selected the smallest one. No need to make herself a bigger dot on the horizon than necessary.
She climbed aboard and fired up the cylinders, twisted the throttle, and roared around the unit to the front of the junkyard. A rev of the engine scattered silt over Gabe, and he coughed and spluttered as he waved the dust away.
“It’s no wonder your engines break if that’s how you ride!” he shouted.
She smiled and sped out of the junkyard, hurtling across the crater.
Dust hovered darker in the slow grip of the Moon’s gravity. It took a while to return to the bright silver of settled silt. The path of the hovers could be read like the lines of a map, if a person knew where to look.
Her thighs ached as they adjusted to this new ride. The saddle was so much wider than her own. Not that her legs weren’t long enough to accommodate it. But still, with a rattling engine bumping against her thighs, she could’ve done without having to stretch them quite this far.
Nameless powered toward the town’s border, where the invisible divide between atmosphere and the badlands formed a curtain that held air as well as sound. The solar-hover cranked up through the gears in an ever growing whine, until suddenly, it silenced. She sped beyond the town, reliant on her mask and collar to feed her the air she needed to survive out here in the desert, along with whatever atmosphere remained trapped inside the shields of the hovercycle.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
She blasted ahead, following the trail while keeping the nanocam in her periphery. One quick glance and she could zoom in on their progress, while a blinking dot showed how close she was to falling beyond transmission range. Too close, and they’d spot her. Too far away, and she’d lose the signal, left to track them by the ripples in the dust and totally blind to any ambushes laid for followers of their tracks. There was always a chance of being followed by the gangs who inhabited the badlands. It would’ve been stupid not to lay some kind of trap during the journey to wherever they were headed. Disruptor mines. Torque grenades. Could’ve been any one of a hundred different devices scattered by the last hover.
Nameless motored on, always alert to any change in the nanocam. The white sun beat against the dunes, shimmering in a glare across the crater. In the distance, mirages turned the sand into water, and it seemed like the dunes flattened into a lake. But Nameless knew only too well that chasing water on the Moon would only drive a person to madness. There were no lakes. No rivers. No springs. Only an illusion caused by the reflective sand and a trick of the white-hot light.
For clicks, she rode. Her collar pumped adrenaline in spurts to keep her focused. As her muscles tired and cramped, the collar triggered whatever her body needed to counteract it, feeding her a constant state of alert. Lethargy became energy. Fatigue became fuel. Her collar transformed her weakness into strength, riding her to the edge, fighting to resist the impulses of her mind to stop. To rest. To sleep.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
Dunes rose and fell to form an eternal horizon of sand. There was nothing but the sky and silt. It became her entire world. Her whole being was subsumed by the emptiness and fullness of the desert. The endlessness and finality of it all.
Shadows on her nanocam tracked mines deposited by the riders. And for each one she passed, she disabled her engines, allowing her momentum to drift over them so they wouldn’t latch on and blow her to pieces.
The silence settled into her skin. She wore it like a basalt-woven tunic. All the while, the rattling engine knocked into her thighs, the pain minimized by her collar as it fought to heal the knocks and right the bruises. Pain was her companion. The ache, her guide.
Mile after infinite mile, she chased her target, never wavering, always watching. Time became irrelevant. There was no tick. No tock. Only the passing of dunes.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
And then, after the constancy of her travel across the sand, the hovers she was chasing passed into the atmosphere of a new colony, and the silence that had become her world was finally broken. A storm of whining engines burst inside her helmet. Voices. Shouting. Crying. Bellows of warning and orders being given. A child calling to their mother. And then the hovers stopped.
She could just picture it—a distant plume of dust on the horizon steadily drawing closer, a young girl tugging at her mother’s apron and asking, ‘What is it, mama?’ while the hovers drew closer, closer, and the mother realizing too late calls, ‘Run, hide!’ as the hovers thrash into the town, clouding everything in dust.
Nameless slammed the brakes, skidded to a halt, and maximized the footage in her visor as the hovers screeched to a stop and the riders dismounted.
Whatever Esteban and his crew came here to do, it was happening now, and Nameless had a front-row seat. Watching. Listening. And recording.
It began with a scream.
GABE
Past
Dust plumed on the shallow horizon. A dark spot like a spaceship zoomed toward the colony, tossing out a spray of regolith that blanketed the stars. Gabe’s chest hitched. No doubt those were raiders headed this way. But were they outsiders or was it the colony’s own pirates coming to port?
He halted his work and scrutinized the relentless approach. It wasn’t a spaceship, of course. A caravan of MULEs rolled in. Gabe clenched his wrench and prepared to run. Not that he had anywhere to go. He’d at least hide, though—keep his head down until they’d come and gone.
The caravan neared the outer edge of the colony’s shields. Gabe squinted at the banner flying from the lead MULE. A cornucopia on a field of green. He relaxed. It might be a ruse, of course. Wouldn’t be the first time pirates stole a banner and used it to infiltrate a colony. But Gabe knew those vehicles all too well. He should. He’d repaired them all more than once.
The vehicles breached the town’s invisible barrier, and the roar of their engines erupted as they entered the atmosphere, coupled by whoops from the raiders. They’d been victorious then. Too bad.
The perros locos called themselves mighty warriors. Gabe thought of them as pirate thugs and regarded them with a servile fear. Technically he was their employee, but he might as well be a slave. It didn’t matter he was the reason they had working MULEs allowing them to go on raids. He received no credit and no payouts from the loot. Not that he wanted any part of it.
Gabe wiped grease from his hands and waited. Most of the MULEs headed toward the compound but two came this way. Both had large hoverpads and a wide body, but the resemblance stopped there. The first was heavily armored with a gun turret on top while the second resembled a short boxcar freighter.
The weaponized MULE approached. Its ridged hoverpads crunched over the gravel, pulsing pressure to lift it over the dust with the strength of a mining crusher. It sputtered to a halt before Gabe, the hiss of its cooling engine emitting a hot metallic odor.
Gabe placed his palm over the front armor, feeling the heat and noting all the dents caused by laser strikes. “Oh, pobrecito.”
Trailing his fingers along the body as he rounded the vehicle, he inspected every scratch, gouge, and crack. Some damage came from previous raids, but smoke wafted from two laser holes near the radiator. “Ay Lunar mio. Look what they did to you, amigo.”
He held his hand over the engine compartment. The issuing heat bit into his calloused skin. Just as he suspected. The MULE was lucky to have made it back at all.
“We took a little beating today.” The rider dismounted. “But the old girl held up fine.”
Gabe smiled, suppressing an inward cringe. If they’d opted to come here at a more leisurely pace, this might be a simple fix. But the overheated engine had undoubtedly melted a few hoses and wires. If any gaskets were blown or the engine cracked, he’d be in serious trouble. New engines didn’t come easy out here on this dustball.
“Don’t worry.” Gabe patted the hot panel. “We’ll get you fixed up, mija.”
He ambled over to the cargo vehicle. “Silt,” he cursed under his breath. It leaned too much. The repairs to the front driver’s side shock absorber hadn’t held. He ran his hand down his face and tried to think of a way to tell his boss he’d done his best and hope the man didn’t punish him too harshly.
When he’d first arrived at Tranquility V, Captain Benito welcomed him with open arms. Let him work on whatever projects he wanted, so long as it benefited the people. His luck had finally come. He could atone for his mistake with Jo. But then Esteban took over, desperate for a mechanic. Which was probably the only reason he still had his life.
This was no longer a colony. It was the home of one of the most notorious raiders on the Moon.
A third MULE rolled in. He didn’t recognize it. It was longer, not as well armored, and had a blue triangle logo painted on the side. Gabe shook his head. No doubt, it’d been stolen—like most of the others.
When he started working here, the captain had owned four MULEs. When the fifth came in and he discovered a pool of blood on the floorboard, he balked. Stealing was one thing. But murder? He couldn’t be a part of that.
The appreciation Esteban had shown upon hiring him disappeared in a flash. “You don’t want to do it?” Esteban’s lip had curled menacingly. “Alright, then. I’ll just reach out to those two men who came looking for you the other day and tell ‘em you’re here.”
Gabe recalled the fear he’d felt. He thought he’d finally found a decent life—one with good pay, reasonable working clicks, and a boss who made Fernandez a distant memory. His naivety wore off fast. Funny how fate had a way of wearing him down. Better to accept it than resist. Better to stay alive than perish at the end of a scanner.
He shook off his musings as Esteban climbed out of his newest heisted vehicle. A wide grin split his face, one that Gabe used to consider friendly but now found sinister.
Esteban clapped the hood. “Got us a new one and boy is she fast!”
Gabe noted the exposed multi-cylinder engine with forced induction and dipped his head. “It looks it, alright. But it’ll be hard to synthesize the right fuel.”
“I’ll handle that. You just get her fixed up.”
“Si, Captain.”
“I want all these repaired by Moonnight.”
Gabe gasped. “But Captain, that one there will take at least two Earth-days by itself.” He pointed at the one full of laser holes.
“I don’t care if you gotta stay up all Earth-day and night. I want ‘em done.”
“But, señor, you don’t understand—”
Esteban’s face twisted with rage. “I don’t understand?” He jabbed his finger at the cargo MULE. “If you’d fixed that dust-blasted thing right the first time, you’d only have two MULEs to work on.”
“But it can’t be fixed, Captain. I told you. We need a—”
“So you’re saying this is my fault?” Esteban raised his hand to strike.
Gabe ducked, realizing his mistake. “No. No, señor. Not at all.” He stepped back, waving his hands in front of him. “I’m just not good enough to fix her without the right parts. It’s my fault.”
Esteban lowered his palm. “You got that right. Now get to work.” He stuck his finger in Gabe’s face, making him flinch. “By Moonnight, or else.”
Gabe swallowed. “Yes, Captain.” He could kick himself for agreeing. Cobarde. What’s the worst that can happen? His shoulders drooped. Maybe he was too valuable for Esteban to kill, but the man wasn’t above making an example of him.
Face it, Gabe. No matter what choice you make, you can never escape your fear. It will always control you, cobarde.
Coward.
He sighed, reached for his tool belt, drew a deep breath, and got back to work.
LUNAR HQ
[Redacted]
Do you know how many cycles I’ve held back from . . . No. I won’t go back on decades of resolve just because Earth has gone silent. Do you even know what initializing the core program would do?
No. He’s not. Because if he is, then it would mean the end of everything. We don’t know what’s happening on Earth, but I won’t be the one to break the ceasefire.
It’s already broken.
I won’t do it.
You’ve got to, Mr. President. Don’t you see?
All I see is dust and silt.
Then what is there to lose?
You have to do it. We need to finish what we started so long ago. Start up the core and get the Moon spinning. What other options are there?
NAMELESS
Present
Nameless watched Gabe polish a pipe into a smooth curve. The old man’s hands were as steady as a sniper’s aim. His face was free of wrinkles, placid and loose, while he worked on the MULE. It was only when he stopped that his body remembered his age, and the lines appeared again.
“How’s it coming?” Nameless asked.
Gabe glanced up. “You know? I think I liked you better when you didn’t talk so much.”
She smiled and rocked on her heels.
“Should be done before night comes,” he said.
“Night moonside, or Earth-time?” Not that it mattered. Either way, it would be too late if Esteban and his crew were due to leave at 09:00. There were still a few standard Earth-days until the sun would set on the Moon, and a fortnight of pure darkness covered its surface.
“Moonside, of course. Since when did Earth-time have any meaning around here?” Gabe’s face asked a different question to his lips. What do you want, Nameless?
“You got any spares lying about?”
Gabe chuckled. “You think I would’ve started repairing your junked up COLT if I did? Unless you count the filth those traders rode in on.”
The tradeship had been sent to its grave somewhere out there in the badlands after Esteban’s crew had pilfered it of everything they could. But the three hovers belonging to the traders’ crew were still in Gabe’s junkyard. Wasn’t like there was anywhere else in Tranquility for them to go.
Nameless glanced at the Earth as it hung on the horizon, gleaming in its blue and green swirl. Anytime now, Global-Chrono-Sync would chime Nine.
A hum echoed from down the street. Then another. Hover engines whirring.
“You weren’t planning on taking a field trip, were you?” Gabe asked. Now the lines on his face were thicker than the crater’s ridges. He seemed so old. That’s what caring about people did—it aged a person worse than the passing of time.
Danger. Warning. Those lines were as much a reprimand of himself as they were for her. Oh, Gabe, you should know better than to care about a scanslinger.
Nameless didn’t answer. She perched on her toes as though ready to pounce, keeping an eye on the old man and an ear on the hovers down the street.
A grunt brought them to life, and then the hum became a whine, and the engines tore over the land. Riders streamed past the junkyard, kicking up silt behind them.
Covered by the cloud of dust, Nameless rushed to the entrance, drew her pistol, and fired a silent shot at the last of the riders. Inside her helmet, she watched the nanocam connect to the back of the final hover, sticking to its rear plate. The whir of engines entered her ears, and then the hovers passed beyond the art-at, and all that noise fell quiet. There was no static. No interference. Just the pure silence of the badlands. She maximized the image in a panel on her visor. Dust flew, and beyond it, the town faded into the distance.
“Playing vigilante, Nameless?” Gabe called. “I was worried you might actually shoot that thing.”
It paid that she’d modded the pistol to a silent setting. She flicked it back to its normal laser mode and replaced it in her holster.
“Target practice,” she said.
“If only!” Gabe returned to the pipe, rubbing at the twisted metal until it was millimeter perfect.
In the window of her visor, she traced the path of the riders as they cleared the horizon, and the colony disappeared behind them.
“Where?” she asked.
“Where what? The captain? Nowhere good, Nameless. Best you leave it be.”
She nodded. “How long?”
“They’ll be gone before night falls moonside. A few Earth-days, if you’re tracking things in Earth Standard. Don’t you worry. They’ll be back with enough supplies to last us through the next night.”
“Water?”
“Yeah. Water.”
“Where from?”
He huffed a frustrated sigh. “You don’t get to my age by asking too many questions. Trust me. I have no idea. And I don’t want to. Understand? It’s best you don’t either.”
She nodded, and then her nod turned into a shrug. “Mind if I borrow one of those spares?”
Gabe ran a hand across his brow. “Did you hear me, Nameless? I said leave it.”
“Gabe. Where are the hovers?”
Worry boiled his face red until all the heat evaporated out of him, and he shook his head, resigned. “Is there any way of talking you out of whatever it is you’re about to do?”
She glided over to him and placed a hand on his cheek. “I’ll be safe. Promise.”
His eyes welled up, and as she pulled away, she saw him glimpse his reflection in her visor. He turned from her and rubbed rags over his hands. “Okay. Alright. Call me sentimental, but I’d hate to do all this work fixing up your MULE only to have you too dead to ride it.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Where are they?”
He indicated the pile behind his unit. “I’ve got the traders’ hovers locked up back there. Just don’t work the throttle too hard and watch your power output. Those things are solar-powered. And the night’s not far away.”
Nameless nodded and drifted over, all the while keeping an eye on the route carved by Esteban’s crew.
The solar-hovercycles were exactly where Gabe had said. She selected the smallest one. No need to make herself a bigger dot on the horizon than necessary.
She climbed aboard and fired up the cylinders, twisted the throttle, and roared around the unit to the front of the junkyard. A rev of the engine scattered silt over Gabe, and he coughed and spluttered as he waved the dust away.
“It’s no wonder your engines break if that’s how you ride!” he shouted.
She smiled and sped out of the junkyard, hurtling across the crater.
Dust hovered darker in the slow grip of the Moon’s gravity. It took a while to return to the bright silver of settled silt. The path of the hovers could be read like the lines of a map, if a person knew where to look.
Her thighs ached as they adjusted to this new ride. The saddle was so much wider than her own. Not that her legs weren’t long enough to accommodate it. But still, with a rattling engine bumping against her thighs, she could’ve done without having to stretch them quite this far.
Nameless powered toward the town’s border, where the invisible divide between atmosphere and the badlands formed a curtain that held air as well as sound. The solar-hover cranked up through the gears in an ever growing whine, until suddenly, it silenced. She sped beyond the town, reliant on her mask and collar to feed her the air she needed to survive out here in the desert, along with whatever atmosphere remained trapped inside the shields of the hovercycle.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
She blasted ahead, following the trail while keeping the nanocam in her periphery. One quick glance and she could zoom in on their progress, while a blinking dot showed how close she was to falling beyond transmission range. Too close, and they’d spot her. Too far away, and she’d lose the signal, left to track them by the ripples in the dust and totally blind to any ambushes laid for followers of their tracks. There was always a chance of being followed by the gangs who inhabited the badlands. It would’ve been stupid not to lay some kind of trap during the journey to wherever they were headed. Disruptor mines. Torque grenades. Could’ve been any one of a hundred different devices scattered by the last hover.
Nameless motored on, always alert to any change in the nanocam. The white sun beat against the dunes, shimmering in a glare across the crater. In the distance, mirages turned the sand into water, and it seemed like the dunes flattened into a lake. But Nameless knew only too well that chasing water on the Moon would only drive a person to madness. There were no lakes. No rivers. No springs. Only an illusion caused by the reflective sand and a trick of the white-hot light.
For clicks, she rode. Her collar pumped adrenaline in spurts to keep her focused. As her muscles tired and cramped, the collar triggered whatever her body needed to counteract it, feeding her a constant state of alert. Lethargy became energy. Fatigue became fuel. Her collar transformed her weakness into strength, riding her to the edge, fighting to resist the impulses of her mind to stop. To rest. To sleep.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
Dunes rose and fell to form an eternal horizon of sand. There was nothing but the sky and silt. It became her entire world. Her whole being was subsumed by the emptiness and fullness of the desert. The endlessness and finality of it all.
Shadows on her nanocam tracked mines deposited by the riders. And for each one she passed, she disabled her engines, allowing her momentum to drift over them so they wouldn’t latch on and blow her to pieces.
The silence settled into her skin. She wore it like a basalt-woven tunic. All the while, the rattling engine knocked into her thighs, the pain minimized by her collar as it fought to heal the knocks and right the bruises. Pain was her companion. The ache, her guide.
Mile after infinite mile, she chased her target, never wavering, always watching. Time became irrelevant. There was no tick. No tock. Only the passing of dunes.
Power levels: Nominal.
Speed: Max.
Heat Deflectors: Steady.
And then, after the constancy of her travel across the sand, the hovers she was chasing passed into the atmosphere of a new colony, and the silence that had become her world was finally broken. A storm of whining engines burst inside her helmet. Voices. Shouting. Crying. Bellows of warning and orders being given. A child calling to their mother. And then the hovers stopped.
She could just picture it—a distant plume of dust on the horizon steadily drawing closer, a young girl tugging at her mother’s apron and asking, ‘What is it, mama?’ while the hovers drew closer, closer, and the mother realizing too late calls, ‘Run, hide!’ as the hovers thrash into the town, clouding everything in dust.
Nameless slammed the brakes, skidded to a halt, and maximized the footage in her visor as the hovers screeched to a stop and the riders dismounted.
Whatever Esteban and his crew came here to do, it was happening now, and Nameless had a front-row seat. Watching. Listening. And recording.
It began with a scream.
GABE
Past
Dust plumed on the shallow horizon. A dark spot like a spaceship zoomed toward the colony, tossing out a spray of regolith that blanketed the stars. Gabe’s chest hitched. No doubt those were raiders headed this way. But were they outsiders or was it the colony’s own pirates coming to port?
He halted his work and scrutinized the relentless approach. It wasn’t a spaceship, of course. A caravan of MULEs rolled in. Gabe clenched his wrench and prepared to run. Not that he had anywhere to go. He’d at least hide, though—keep his head down until they’d come and gone.
The caravan neared the outer edge of the colony’s shields. Gabe squinted at the banner flying from the lead MULE. A cornucopia on a field of green. He relaxed. It might be a ruse, of course. Wouldn’t be the first time pirates stole a banner and used it to infiltrate a colony. But Gabe knew those vehicles all too well. He should. He’d repaired them all more than once.
The vehicles breached the town’s invisible barrier, and the roar of their engines erupted as they entered the atmosphere, coupled by whoops from the raiders. They’d been victorious then. Too bad.
The perros locos called themselves mighty warriors. Gabe thought of them as pirate thugs and regarded them with a servile fear. Technically he was their employee, but he might as well be a slave. It didn’t matter he was the reason they had working MULEs allowing them to go on raids. He received no credit and no payouts from the loot. Not that he wanted any part of it.
Gabe wiped grease from his hands and waited. Most of the MULEs headed toward the compound but two came this way. Both had large hoverpads and a wide body, but the resemblance stopped there. The first was heavily armored with a gun turret on top while the second resembled a short boxcar freighter.
The weaponized MULE approached. Its ridged hoverpads crunched over the gravel, pulsing pressure to lift it over the dust with the strength of a mining crusher. It sputtered to a halt before Gabe, the hiss of its cooling engine emitting a hot metallic odor.
Gabe placed his palm over the front armor, feeling the heat and noting all the dents caused by laser strikes. “Oh, pobrecito.”
Trailing his fingers along the body as he rounded the vehicle, he inspected every scratch, gouge, and crack. Some damage came from previous raids, but smoke wafted from two laser holes near the radiator. “Ay Lunar mio. Look what they did to you, amigo.”
He held his hand over the engine compartment. The issuing heat bit into his calloused skin. Just as he suspected. The MULE was lucky to have made it back at all.
“We took a little beating today.” The rider dismounted. “But the old girl held up fine.”
Gabe smiled, suppressing an inward cringe. If they’d opted to come here at a more leisurely pace, this might be a simple fix. But the overheated engine had undoubtedly melted a few hoses and wires. If any gaskets were blown or the engine cracked, he’d be in serious trouble. New engines didn’t come easy out here on this dustball.
“Don’t worry.” Gabe patted the hot panel. “We’ll get you fixed up, mija.”
He ambled over to the cargo vehicle. “Silt,” he cursed under his breath. It leaned too much. The repairs to the front driver’s side shock absorber hadn’t held. He ran his hand down his face and tried to think of a way to tell his boss he’d done his best and hope the man didn’t punish him too harshly.
When he’d first arrived at Tranquility V, Captain Benito welcomed him with open arms. Let him work on whatever projects he wanted, so long as it benefited the people. His luck had finally come. He could atone for his mistake with Jo. But then Esteban took over, desperate for a mechanic. Which was probably the only reason he still had his life.
This was no longer a colony. It was the home of one of the most notorious raiders on the Moon.
A third MULE rolled in. He didn’t recognize it. It was longer, not as well armored, and had a blue triangle logo painted on the side. Gabe shook his head. No doubt, it’d been stolen—like most of the others.
When he started working here, the captain had owned four MULEs. When the fifth came in and he discovered a pool of blood on the floorboard, he balked. Stealing was one thing. But murder? He couldn’t be a part of that.
The appreciation Esteban had shown upon hiring him disappeared in a flash. “You don’t want to do it?” Esteban’s lip had curled menacingly. “Alright, then. I’ll just reach out to those two men who came looking for you the other day and tell ‘em you’re here.”
Gabe recalled the fear he’d felt. He thought he’d finally found a decent life—one with good pay, reasonable working clicks, and a boss who made Fernandez a distant memory. His naivety wore off fast. Funny how fate had a way of wearing him down. Better to accept it than resist. Better to stay alive than perish at the end of a scanner.
He shook off his musings as Esteban climbed out of his newest heisted vehicle. A wide grin split his face, one that Gabe used to consider friendly but now found sinister.
Esteban clapped the hood. “Got us a new one and boy is she fast!”
Gabe noted the exposed multi-cylinder engine with forced induction and dipped his head. “It looks it, alright. But it’ll be hard to synthesize the right fuel.”
“I’ll handle that. You just get her fixed up.”
“Si, Captain.”
“I want all these repaired by Moonnight.”
Gabe gasped. “But Captain, that one there will take at least two Earth-days by itself.” He pointed at the one full of laser holes.
“I don’t care if you gotta stay up all Earth-day and night. I want ‘em done.”
“But, señor, you don’t understand—”
Esteban’s face twisted with rage. “I don’t understand?” He jabbed his finger at the cargo MULE. “If you’d fixed that dust-blasted thing right the first time, you’d only have two MULEs to work on.”
“But it can’t be fixed, Captain. I told you. We need a—”
“So you’re saying this is my fault?” Esteban raised his hand to strike.
Gabe ducked, realizing his mistake. “No. No, señor. Not at all.” He stepped back, waving his hands in front of him. “I’m just not good enough to fix her without the right parts. It’s my fault.”
Esteban lowered his palm. “You got that right. Now get to work.” He stuck his finger in Gabe’s face, making him flinch. “By Moonnight, or else.”
Gabe swallowed. “Yes, Captain.” He could kick himself for agreeing. Cobarde. What’s the worst that can happen? His shoulders drooped. Maybe he was too valuable for Esteban to kill, but the man wasn’t above making an example of him.
Face it, Gabe. No matter what choice you make, you can never escape your fear. It will always control you, cobarde.
Coward.
He sighed, reached for his tool belt, drew a deep breath, and got back to work.
LUNAR HQ
[Redacted]
Do you know how many cycles I’ve held back from . . . No. I won’t go back on decades of resolve just because Earth has gone silent. Do you even know what initializing the core program would do?
