Son of Sedonia

17

Arrivals


JOGUN WATCHED THROUGH the cockpit glass as scout ships streaked soundlessly overhead. Back toward Themis. The dim light of the Crawler cockpit changed from gray to green as the ‘All Clear’ notification came up on his dash monitor. He tapped the screen and the Helium-3 deposit appeared on the topo-map. Not much, but spread out into several thinner, smaller deposits. The Cash Layer, untouched He3 paydirt, had been stripped clean a while ago. By someone else, judging from the pattern of the tracks.

He did his best to rub the aching behind his sunken eyes. Fifteen hours and counting behind the dash and still no quota. He’d have to scrape a huge pattern to get all the deposits in one go, taking at least two more hours...it might just be enough for a ticket back to the cells. Those reinforcements can’t come too soon. The thought was honest, but heavy. Reinforcements would come from only one place. Home. Jo shook the longing from his head and laid in the course.

The Crawler rumbled to life, chewing into the rocky soil with rotating metal teeth. Once he felt the vibration smooth through the bulkhead, Jo started his pattern. A big perimeter cut to define the area, then back and forth in long strips to cover all forty-thousand square meters. Too much time to think. He wished they would have erased that part too with their mind-rape drug.

Food might help. The freeze-dried protein blocks came in three flavors. Chalk, dirt, and sand. Sand it is. At least it’s kinda salty. Jo reached a boney arm, slid the wall panel down, and removed one of the silver pouches. He gripped the edge and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Pulled again. Still nothing. Again. The wrapper barely had a dent in it, and his forearms were throbbing. He looked at his hands. Bones and veins shrink wrapped in skin like cellophane. Making a fist hurt. Tears welled up in his eyes.

BWOOOP! BWOOOP! BWOOOP! The blaring proximity alarm filled the cockpit. A sunken crater loomed ahead, big enough to swallow three Crawlers. Jo flung the food block away, gripped the wheel, and wrenched it hard left. The Crawler’s right side treads dipped down into the hole, tipping the vehicle’s left toward the black sky. Not enough to flip it. It leveled out again as Jo steered past, thudding safely in a plume of gray dust. Exhaling, he throttled down and checked the topo-map.

The area showed all flat and clear according to the Scout data. Anger bubbled up inside him, but, like always, a hidden switch flipped. They must have missed it. Too many of us out here on fumes. He calmed, then resumed his pattern with extra care. More than a few craters dotted the landscape from there. Some he could drive over, others he couldn’t. With this kind of terrain, the job would take three hours, not two. More interesting, though.

Pass after pass, he wove the Crawler through them and watched the Quota Bar slowly tic toward ‘FULL LOAD.’ Over a hill. Into a dell. Across an open stretch. Through a rocky patch. The Crawler tines ground and ground and...stopped. Screeched to a halt midway into the fourth-to-last pass.

“Warning!: Obstruction in combine system! Check immediately!” The message blinked on screen. Jo turned to look at the pressure suit in its casing on the wall. The thought of going EVA sent a chill down his spine. Even less shielding from radiation than the Crawler and a whole lot less oxygen if something happened. And something usually did, especially with combines that liked to suddenly restart when unstuck. He turned away and looked out the windshield. Not going out there for some moon rock stuck in the gears.

Jo flipped the Crawler into reverse and tapped on the gas. The engine protested, squealing and grinding. He let up and allowed the Crawler to settle. Tried again.

BOOM! The gray horizon outside the windshield spun as the Crawler flipped. Jo tucked himself into a ball in his harness. Screaming. His head rapped against the pantry wall panel as the Crawler crashed on its side. Moments in darkness passed. Seconds or years, Jo couldn’t tell. He awoke to alarms roaring in the Crawler cockpit...and a kind of whistling hiss. As his eyes focused, they fixed on expanding cracks in the windshield.

Jogun tore at his harness with numb, boney fingers. The button wouldn’t go all the way in. He pressed until he thought sure his thumbnail would rip off, and finally heard a snap. The straps released him. He clawed over the seat, wrenched open the EVA pressure suit’s casing, and took out the gear. His breathing had shortened to choked gasps by the time he got it on and secured the seals. Air rushed into the helmet and filled his quivering lungs. It sounded like Matteo’s wheezing as he panted. He shook his head and sat there a moment. Okay. What. The f*ck. Happened?

The emergency release blasted the main hatch hinges and fully depressurized the cockpit. Jogun pushed the hatch off to the side and climbed out. He tried to think of things other than the suit. Difficult when he could hear every shallow breath. Luckily something caught his eye: a fresh crater in the middle of his last cut. Burns and white cracks in the lunar crust radiated out from the center. Another landmine. Probably one of the leftovers from the Nobidyne Company land-grab back in the 50s. Relics from the fighting were all over the expansion zones, but that shouldn’t have mattered. Just what the hell are those Scouts good for, anywa—

The anger wilted and turned to nausea. He cringed away from the thought and fought to calm down. It worked, but the sensation turned into tears. They dripped onto the glass of his helmet, mixing with blood dropping from the head wound. Okay...okay... He sniffed and sat up. The beacon. He rotated a dial on his wrist to read ‘EMERGENCY’ in bright red letters, then squeezed a button on the side. A channel opened in his helmet.

“Signal received, 75508-V. What is your position and situation?”

“Sector 8709...-36A. My Crawler had a blowout. It’s inoperable, but I’m unhur—”

“75508, we’re sending a crew to your location, stay with your vehicle, over,” said the operator. The transmission went dead.

Jo regretted not tearing into the food wrapper with his teeth. Even if he could find rations in the upturned crawler, eating would be hard to pull off through quarter-inch Plexiglas. His stomach growled against tight, shallow muscles. The constricted fit of the pressure suit seemed to call more attention to it. Little brother, I hope you eatin’ better than me. He looked out to the Earth.

The familiar thoughts of home came to him. But after so much time, they had all turned gray. Like a half-remembered dream from years ago. Even Matteo’s face took effort to remember. If the picture really looked like him at all he’d still be different now. The Moon seemed to have always been borders, crawlers, inmates, guards, rocks, and space.

Jogun suddenly felt hollow. Brittle. As if he could walk toward the horizon, crumble into dust, and finally put an end to it all. Why eat? Why keep goin’? Could’ve stayed in the Crawler...gone to sleep. Finally just sleep. Nobody would miss him. Just another casualty on the daily report. He took a floating step toward the distant Earth. Then another. Then another. He started shaking, but willed his legs onward through the drifting strides.

Three Scouts and a maintenance vessel passed over his head and hovered in front of him, blocking out the Earth. They seemed to stare for a moment. Jo stopped. Collapsed to a seat in the dust.

As the Scouts fanned out into scanning posture, the blocky, orange bulk of the maintenance vessel descended in Jo’s path. A platform lowered from its underbelly and touched-down in the soil. Four pressure-suited workers stood on it beside tool kits and stacks of Crawler parts. They started unloading.

Jo squinted at them as they approached. Their movements were correct, but tight and awkward. They picked things up too fast and stumbled when they walked. Their bodies looked thick and nourished in the pressure suits. New inmates. Jo got to his feet.

Protocol dictated that he greet them and give a damage report. He both wanted and dreaded it. The promise of new faces was always bittersweet. He had learned to hope that they’d be total strangers, that they would all just become friends and brothers, surviving as best they could.

He sighed as he approached the first one. A stranger...but so young.

“75508-V, status report please,” said the young leader. The over-stimulated glaze in his eyes and awkward shifting of his lips told that he was just Dosed. A flood of new memories, data, and programming gripped the terrified mind as it screamed in silence.

“Welcome, brother 272312-A,” Jo read the boy’s suit. “My unit hit some kind of obstruction on its right side, and it overloaded. No inner breach on the bulkhead, but the outer hull is shredded as you can see and the treads have been knocked off. Also, the cockpit windshield is cracked so it can’t pressurize. Think you can give me a hand?” Jo asked. A bit of the boy’s tension released. Initiating a new inmate could be a delicate thing. He tried to be as friendly and gentle as possible without going too personal. Even something like asking someone’s real name could start a civil war in their head. It was always best to stick to the job when talking to them...so it all meant something here and now. In the real world.

The boy leader nodded and turned to his crew.

“You and you, grab a five-meter hull patch and the acetylene torch. You and I will remove the damaged tread and take a closer look at the rollers,” the boy said. Jo smiled at him.

“You’re doing, great, kid. Patch me up and we can—Suomo?” Over the boy’s shoulder, the former T99 boss hefted one side of the sheet metal hull patch. His hands shook as they gripped it as though he were going to bend it in half. Jogun, realizing what he’d done, walked over to Suomo. Put a hand on his shoulder.

“This’ll make a good patch,” Jogun said, his voice quivering on the edge of a sob. “Be sure to—to—” Suomo’s eyes flashed wide as he saw Jogun. His face tightened.

“M—M—Mat—” Suomo said. He shook violently as he fought against the Dose. He dropped the sheet metal. Grabbed Jo’s arms instead. The strong, manic fingers squeezed Jo’s weak muscle and bone beneath the suit.

“M-Matteo!” Suomo rasped. The name punched Jo in the gut. Dead? No, come on, man, no! Don’t say it...! Jo swallowed hard, trying to keep calm enough to speak.

“Tell me,” Jogun said. Suomo grit his teeth together.

“He—he—” Suomo’s wide-open, bloodshot eyes stared straight into Jogun’s, “Here.”