Luna (20 page)

43| House Rules

Kennedy puffed out his chest, indignant, while everyone else looked up at the ceiling. Something scrabbled around up there, outside, something on top of their craft. James Burton was first to break the silence.

“One of those animals got up there somehow.”

Caitlin traced the being’s progress across the ceiling. “We’ve got to get it down before it causes damage. Everything’s barely working as it is; we can’t have any more malfunctions.”

“Pardon me, Blake? What were you insinuating?” Kennedy ignored this new threat, focusing instead on confronting Blake.

Blake’s face went through several shades of red as he prepared to level his accusation, but it was Caitlin who said something next, her carotid arteries bulging as she got her point across. “Are you two
listening
? We need to do something about that damn worm or worms up there right now, or forget about choosing one of us to die up here, we
all
die.”

At this, Kennedy raised his voice. “Only one of us is going to die, and that’s Mr. Stenson, because he lost the game. Fair and square!”

But Blake argued back, causing Caitlin to abandon her attempts at reason with the two leaders and to turn to the others. “Listen! Listen to me!” she screamed. That did the trick and bought her the entire team’s attention except for the two CEOs, who continued to yell at one another. Caitlin pointed up through the roof. “In a few minutes, our Command Module will pass overhead in lunar orbit. If we miss this pass then we’ll have to wait hours for the next rendezvous opportunity, while the creatures attack the ship. I’m not sure we’d last that long, so we need to do what we have to do to liftoff right now.”

All but Kennedy and Blake took this to heart. Even Stenson, who only minutes ago wasn’t even sure he’d be alive to worry about it. While Caitlin huddled in conference with the others to discuss how to rid the craft of the creatures so that they would have a chance of making the rendezvous with the Command Module, Blake addressed Kennedy.

“You’re the one who came up with the idea to draw straws. Or wanted us to believe you came up with it on the spur of the moment, I suspect is more accurate. I think you knew all along that’s what you were going to do. You were even the one who suggested using a piece of wire to make the straws! Which means that you had time to snip off a piece and stick it up your sleeve
before
we gathered to have the meeting and draw the straws.”

“That’s preposterous! I did nothing of the sort. I don’t know how that piece got there. Maybe
you
anticipated the game and smuggled in your own straw. Could that be it, Blake? You’ve been accused of cheating before, as we all know. Remember the SensorSoft deal, Blake...”

A crashing noise interrupted all conversation, a reminder that the creatures still rampaged around the ship and with every passing second the possibility of irreversible damage multiplied. Caitlin pointed and Williams donned his spacesuit helmet in preparation for leaving the ship to do something about the worms.

Kennedy glanced over. “You’re going outside? Good, take Mr. Stenson with you, please. It’s time. Pete, I’m terribly sorry, but—”

“I don’t think so!” Stenson yelled. “You cheated!”

Blake took a step toward Kennedy. “Cheating means you lost.”

“Mr. Stenson lost.”

“You lost, Kennedy! You cheated, you forfeit by default! You stay behind!”

“Absolutely!” Stenson chimed in. “I will not volunteer to be summarily executed when the integrity of the game has been called into question.”

Blake beamed at this. “It’s you, Kenn—”

He never finished his sentence because at that moment Kennedy’s fist slammed into Blake’s nose, breaking it. Blake staggered in place but managed to remain on his feet as a gush of blood sluiced down his face.

Realizing he’d been injured and wishing to prevent it from happening again, Blake reached down, unclipped his spacesuit helmet from his belt and put it on, fastening it down in a surprisingly quick and smooth motion. But Kennedy, aware that his blows to the head would now be rendered ineffective, did the same. The two fighters now stood a few feet apart, fists raised, facing off in their impromptu armor.

Blake swung first in this new round, a left cross that glanced off Kennedy’s space-suited chest. The Black Sky CEO reacted with a strike of his own, landing a jab to Blake’s midsection.

At that moment, Williams came running back inside and took off his helmet. He brandished some type of blowtorch. “There was a huge one crawling around up there. Gave it a little incentive...” He held up the torch. “...and it scooted off. Those things have formed almost a complete ring around us. They’re maintaining some distance...for now...but I wouldn’t count on it lasting for long.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Caitlin said, moving to a bank of controls where she carefully eyed a display. “If we don’t lift off in the next five minutes, we’re stuck down here for another...” She paused while examining a different screen. “Ten hours and forty-four minutes.”

Another astronaut shook his head. “Our oh-two won’t make it that long. The ride up to the Command Module is only about an hour if we hit it on this pass. That we have oxygen for. But ten hours...” He trailed off as if imagining all of them suffocating together in the ship.

“Then let’s move.” Caitlin’s hands flew over the controls, but the other astronauts simply stood there watching the fight play out between Kennedy and Blake, who now circled one another, trading jabs and even the occasional kick.

Burton made a move to come between them and break it up, but caught an errant elbow to the temple and backed off.

“Forget them!” Caitlin said, turning around from the console but leaving her hands in position on the knobs. “Activate the launch systems, let’s go!”

“One person has to get off or the ship will
not
make the rendezvous with the CM,” Takeo reminded.

Caitlin fired back a reply without delay. “It takes five minutes to initiate the launch sequence. We need to start the process now or it won’t matter who’s going or not going because we’ll have missed the rendezvous.”

The fight escalated, with Kennedy and Blake clinching, arms around one another, until Kennedy shoved his opponent toward the astronauts. They caught him, preventing him from slamming into the wall, but Kennedy was charging, head down like a bull. The astronauts scattered, leaving Blake standing there alone. The Outer Limits CEO sidestepped Kennedy at the last second and it was Kennedy’s turn to stumble forward, until he collided with the same wall he had intended for Blake.

They heard the thrum of electronic systems activity and Caitlin spun around. She picked up her suit helmet with two hands, about to put it on. “Thirty seconds until we
have
to leave. Suits on, everyone.”

“Someone has to get off!” one of the astronauts screamed just before he donned his helmet and secured his suit.

“Not me!” Stenson shouted, cowering back from the astronauts, further away from the ship’s airlock. He pointed at Kennedy. “He cheated. I played fair. I’m not losing my life to a cheater. I’ll fight! I will fight any of you who try to throw me out! Rip your fucking suits!” He suddenly produced a box cutter, razor blade extended as he waved it around.

Blake and Kennedy began trading blows again, avoiding the helmets in favor of random body blows. They careened about the ship, the fight getting wilder, more out of control. Caitlin knew it wouldn’t be long before they broke something critical, but even that wasn’t her main concern anymore.

She shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Initiating liftoff! Someone leaves or we all die.”

Kennedy swung a hard right cross at Williams, who tried to come between him and Blake. The astronaut backed away after the fist grazed his chest, tripping and falling onto the floor. Kennedy went back to his pursuit of Blake, who stood his ground when he could but was being slowly pushed back as he dodged multiple blows.

“Do something, now!” Caitlin wailed.

James Burton, who had been silently watching the battle play out from his place against the wall, prepared to move as Blake was backed up toward him by the advancing Kennedy. As Burton started to move, he brushed against the airlock switch, which had a safety cover that had already been opened. The inner airlock door slid open, although no one seemed to notice. Caitlin still yelled that they were going to miss the rendezvous, and the astronauts still tried to break up the fight. Stenson continued to cower far from the airlock, box cutter in hand while his gaze darted nervously about.

And then Burton saw his opportunity. He wasn’t sure what came over him, how he knew that this was what he must do, but something inside him hinted it was the only way. He slid along the wall away from the now open inner airlock door. Kennedy threw a powerhouse left at Blake’s stomach, but missed, his fist connecting instead with the doorframe. He howled in pain while Blake jumped on his hunched over form, knocking him to the floor. Around them they heard the rumbling, industrial sounds of the spacecraft preparing for its ascent into lunar orbit.

The two fighters rolled on the floor into the airlock, the battle having gone to the ground. They were wrestlers now, wearing spacesuit costumes. The other astronauts, seeing the chance to physically contain the belligerent men now that they were on the floor, started to rush into the airlock. But Burton’s hand lashed out onto the button and the door slid shut before anyone else could enter the transitory space.

“What are you doing?” one of them breathed at Burton.

“You heard Caitlin. We have to go. Those two don’t want to go, then fine. Let them stay here.”

Burton heard a gasp from someone but he didn’t care. No one protested, either, as his hand moved to the button that controlled the outer airlock door, the one that led directly out onto the moon, into space. He clicked the button and the outer airlock door opened.

The two billionaires were locked in embrace by the outer entrance, continuing to grapple with one another as the outer door opened. Then Blake executed a decisive and forceful move, hurting Kennedy but sending both of them tumbling outside in the process.

Burton hit the button inside the airlock to close the outer door.

44| You Both Lose

The two fighters stopped brawling to look up at the ship. The outer airlock door was closing. Blake scrambled up and started to run for the door first, but he was too late, the door sealed before he could slide a boot under it. Inside the LEM, James flipped a switch to disable the outer door control.

Kennedy smacked the airlock door button on the outside of the ship, then hit it harder when that had no effect. Blake and Kennedy began transmitting from their helmet radios, shouting at the crew to open the door.

James ran from the airlock back into the ship and hit the button for the inner door, closing it also. The astronauts stood watching him, unsure of what to do. He turned to face them.

“What else can we do? Caitlin says we need to leave or we all die.”

Her voice confirmed Burton’s statement. “Ignition sequence in ten...nine...eight...”

No one said anything, but no one did anything, either. Kennedy’s and Blake’s voices could be heard over the rumbling of the rocket engine as it prepared to liftoff.

“Only one person needs to be left behind! It’s Kennedy, not me—I’m still out here! Let me in...”

Caitlin directed the other astronauts to man their stations. Then she spoke to Blake. “I warned both of you, we had to leave. We still may not even make it back ourselves. There is nothing we can do. I’m sorry, Blake and Kennedy, but you two have brought this upon yourselves. Good luck and peace be with you. You will be remembered.”

“You can’t do this! This is murder!” Kennedy yelled into his helmet radio. He and Blake backed away from the ship’s exhaust plume, no longer fighting as they watched their ride home prepare to depart without them.

“Being the first humans to die on the moon will ensure your legacies will never be forgotten,” Williams pointed out.

“Where is your compassion?” Blake asked.

Caitlin’s voice answered them amidst the intense thunder of the liftoff engine. “...and liftoff!”

The lunar module rose from the moon’s surface. James looked out of the small window to see the two CEOs staring up at him, their differences finally forgotten. He didn’t know if they were aware of it yet, but a thick ring of the creatures surrounded them, waiting for the liftoff exhaust to clear. Already they were moving closer, James could see. A couple of huge, tanker truck-sized individuals lumbered among them. He couldn’t help but wonder if soon Blake and Kennedy would be embedded into one of those large organisms, taken on an everlasting tour of the moon...

Ahead in the Command Module, Paul Abbott prepared for docking with the lunar lander as the mixed but now united crew stared in awe at the magnificent, humbling earthrise filling their windows. James Burton left the window and strapped himself into a seat, the closest one to Caitlin, who sat in what would have been Dallas’ position in the pilot’s seat. She adjusted the radio to the frequency that would call Outer Limits’ Mission Control and asked if anyone copied. After a few seconds, her face lit up as she heard Ray’s voice coming in much clearer than it had been for the last transmission.

“Oh my god! Mission Control to Outer Limits, we copy you loud and clear! Caitlin?”

“It’s me, Ray, it’s me!”

“What the Hell happened? The telemetry we’re getting shows that the LEM is out of oxygen completely! We thought you were...I thought...” His voice broke as he imagined the unthinkable.

“It’s okay, Ray. Our LEM is out of oxygen, but we’re not in it. We’re in Black Sky’s LEM. Their Mission Control should be patching through to you any second to establish communications for the rest of the flight.”

“Copy that! The dust storm is clearing here on the ground. You should be okay to land by the time you get here in a couple of days, over.”

“Roger that, Ray. I’m coming home, baby.” Caitlin clicked off and turned her attention back to the flight controls. Then, after a brief technical chat with Paul in the orbiter, she turned her attention to the view outside. James Burton also marveled at it, in an almost trance-like state.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said to him.

Burton nodded as he stared at the Earth, growing slowly larger in their window. “It is, but I’m starting to think it’s a lot more beautiful from the ground.”

THE END

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