Star One: Tycho City Survival (27 page)

Mase
was at Farside speaking with Charles Turner and Adam Strong about the future of
the observatory complex. He had been debating for quite some time now on
whether it should be shut down or not. The decision needed to be made quickly
as moonquakes were becoming more frequent each day.

“Just
forty people,” Adam pleaded not wanting to see the complex abandoned. “We have
a deep shelter that can handle that many if the living quarters become
compromised. Even as he spoke, he felt the conference room shudder slightly
from a distant moonquake.

Mase
leaned back in his chair frowning, and then he glanced over at Andrew Carnegie
the chief engineer for Farside. “Andrew, what do you think? Would it be safe
for the number of people that Adam wants to stay?”

“The
deep shelter is sheathed in Luxen,” Andrew replied in a calm and steady voice.
“We have done a lot of work in strengthening the dome for the Albertson reflector.
As long as we don’t have a major moonquake beneath us we should be fine.”

“This
complex is built on a stable area of the Moon,” Adam spoke. “We did that
because of the reflector and the dish arrays. There is a very low chance of a
major moonquake.”

“We
can’t miss this opportunity,” Charles added in an extremely serious voice. His
eyes focused intently on Mase. “The opportunity to study a neutron star and a
black hole at close range will never occur for us again. Not only that, but we
need to continue to track Star One.”

“We’ve
also built a safe room inside the dome,” Andrew continued. “If we suffer a
major moonquake, anyone working in the dome will have ample time to get inside it
if there is a failure in the dome structure.”

“How
many people will be inside the dome at any given time?” Mase asked.

“About
ten at the most,” answered Adam, thinking about the plans that he and Charles
had discussed. “We can control the Albertson reflector as well as the dish
array from there with only ten people.”

“Most
of the time there will only be four or five people in the dome,” Adam said, placing
his hands on the table. “We will only have one shift per day with a crew of ten;
the other two work shifts will only have four or five people.”

After
more discussion, Mase finally agreed to allow forty people to stay at the
observatory complex. The rest would be evacuated to Tycho City gradually over
the next several weeks.

“Don’t
let me down,” he said as he stood up. “This complex isn’t worth someone losing
their life over.”

“We
won’t,” promised Adam, feeling relieved that the commander was going to allow
the complex to stay open. “If the quakes get bad we will evacuate everyone to Tycho City.”

-

An
hour later, Mase was staring out the cockpit window of the shuttle at the
desolate gray lunar landscape below. Then, taking a deep breath, he looked over
at Anthony. “Did I make a mistake in letting them stay?”

Anthony
was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so. While you were in the meeting with
Adam, I went down and inspected their deep shelter. It’s built as well as
anything in Tycho City. They have spacesuits placed at strategic locations,
including the safe room in the dome. Carnegie has thought this through very
well. Unless they have a moonquake that just swallows the entire observatory
complex, they should be okay.”

Mase
nodded, turning his gaze back toward the Moon’s surface. His eyes wandered up,
and he could just see the Earth on the distant horizon. It looked so much
different than it had just a few months back. The blue and white globe had
changed. Now it had a brown tinge in the atmosphere from the dust and other
pollutants that had been thrown up from erupting volcanoes.

“What
about this General Young that has been trying to contact us?” Anthony asked as
he reached forward and made a slight adjustment to the shuttle’s controls. “Are
you ever going to respond to him or try to contact the other bunkers?”

“Yes,
I think so,” answered Mase, folding his arms across his chest. General Young
was sending a message once a week to Tycho City asking to speak to Mase.
“General Karver says the man is a good officer and trustworthy. We’ve just been
waiting for travel on the surface to become impossible. We don’t want to
endanger any surviving bunkers by allowing anyone who might intercept our
conversations to figure out where they are. The survivors are having enough
problems without us adding more to them.”

Anthony
nodded as he scanned his controls. The shuttle he was flying was one of the
smaller ones and very dependable. He made a minor adjustment to their course
and began to climb higher. Off in the distance he could see a volcano erupting
and he was changing their course to go around it. There had been very few
volcanic eruptions so far on the Moon. The lava was down so deep that only a
major seismographic event could cause one of the ancient dormant volcanoes to
erupt.

“What’s
the latest situation report from Earth?” Anthony asked as he gazed down at the
volcano. He knew that Mase was briefed daily by Major Burns.

“It’s
steadily getting worse,” Mase replied in a somber tone. “The earthquakes are
getting more powerful, and it’s not uncommon to have several massive tidal
waves a day hitting the coasts all over the world. There have been so many
volcanic eruptions the past month that the atmosphere in most places is no
longer safe to breathe.”

“What
about survivors?” asked Anthony, knowing that the death toll on Earth had to be
in the billions by now.

He
knew it would be difficult to survive out in the open with all the pollutants
in the air. In only a matter of a few more weeks, the surface would probably be
uninhabitable. The only survivors would be in the deep cave systems and the
underground bunkers.

“We’re
still picking up a few civilian stations, but most of the bunkers are staying
quiet,” Mase responded. “There’s also a lot of interference in Earth’s
atmosphere from the volcanic eruptions and the dust and ash. Teela has turned
control of all of the military satellites over to us. She also programmed the
computers on the satellites so no one else can access them without our
permission. We have been discussing communicating with the survivors so we can
better assess who has a chance of surviving.”

“I’m
glad we can access the military satellites,” commented Anthony, knowing that
some of them had really powerful cameras and observation equipment on board.
Several of them were also capable of measuring contaminants in the Earth’s
atmosphere.

“They
have been useful,” admitted Mase, thinking about all the information that Major
Daniels gathered daily from them and then condensed to cover in their daily
meeting.

Anthony
nodded as he looked up into the deep darkness of space and the unwinking stars.
Somewhere out there was Star One as it moved ever closer to the neutron star
and black hole. He let out a deep sigh, knowing he would never see or talk to
his friends on the station again.

Mase
watched the lunar surface below as he made a decision. In two more weeks, he
would authorize contacting General Young and perhaps the two secret underground
bunkers. He was pretty sure the military communication satellites they
controlled could cut through the interference in the Earth’s atmosphere.

He
was also fairly confident that he would not be putting any of the three bunkers
in danger by communicating with them. After speaking with the three bunkers, he
would decide about attempting to contact others. If everyone was in agreement,
he might have Major Daniels launch a search to see just who else was still
alive on the planet.

-

General
Young was in the communications center speaking to Captain Wells. “So you don’t
feel it’s safe to search for any more survivors out on the surface?”

“No,
Sir,” Wells replied as he studied the general’s face. “The conditions outside
are steadily getting worse, and we now have to wear breathing masks
continuously. We have only found half a dozen additional survivors this past
month.”

“I
still think we should keep a patrol or two out,” Young spoke. He didn’t want
anyone sneaking up on the bunker and causing problems, particularly Senator
Farley if he was still alive. Even though the conditions up on the surface made
that doubtful, he would still rather play it safe.

“I
will talk to Sergeant Adams about sending out several small patrols,” Wells
responded. “Shortly they will have to wear full containment suits just to go
outside.”

“I
don’t want them going more than a few miles from the bunker,” Young added. “I
also want them to stay in radio contact.”

“Sir,
I have Mase Colton on the com system,” Corporal Anise Fransen suddenly reported
with an excited look upon her face. She reached up and brushed her blonde hair
back as her deep blue eyes gazed at General Young.

“About
time!” Young said, walking hurriedly over to the com panel. “Put him on the
speaker.”

“Yes,
Sir,” Anise replied as she pressed the appropriate button on her communications
panel.

“General
Young, this is Commander Mase Colton. I understand you have been wanting to
speak with me?”

“Commander,
it’s a relief to hear your voice,” Young began. It was great to hear from other
survivors. He had so many questions he wanted to ask the Tyco City commander. “We have been curious about some things down here.”

“We
have some questions as well,” Mase responded.

“I
can guess what about,” answered Marcus as he recalled some of the horrendous
events that had occurred in the bunker while Senator Farley was in charge. “I
will start first and explain what has happened.”

Marcus
spent fifteen minutes explaining what Senator Farley had done and how he had
finally been deposed. Once he was done, there was silence from the other end of
the com.

Finally,
Mase spoke again. “We suspected something like that. We have been hesitant to
contact you because we were not sure who else might be able to intercept our
communications. Now, with the conditions on the surface, that is no longer an
issue. What I would like to do is see how many survivors we can locate and what
their current situation is. It might be useful once the neutron star and black
hole have passed.”

Marcus
hesitated for a moment and then began speaking again. “We are currently in
touch with two other bunkers here in the eastern part of the United States. We suspect there are others, but due to the interference in the atmosphere
have not been able to contact anyone else for quite some time.”

“Our
communications satellites should be able to cut through most of the
interference,” Mase replied. “We also have a list of potential bunker sites
that General Karver has furnished us.”

“General
Karver,” spoke Marcus, feeling surprised at hearing the name. “Is he still
alive?”

“Yes,
he’s on Star One.”

“Speaking
of Star One, why is the space station heading toward the black hole?”

-

Mase
had finally finished speaking to General Marcus. Marcus had spent some time
describing the conditions around his bunker and the other two he was in contact
with. Overall, between the three bunkers, there were 6,800 survivors. Mase just
wondered how many more they could reach.

“Major
Daniels, we have the list from General Karver, which designates the potential locations
for survivors. I want you to begin sending messages to those locations and see
if we can get a response.”

Daniels
nodded as she examined the comprehensive list. There were over eleven hundred
potential sites listed in the United States alone where there could still be survivors.
Some of these were military bunkers, others were civilian, but the majority
were private bunkers built by small groups of survivalists. There were also
cave systems as well as numerous underground areas in some of the major cities.
The list even contained the bottom floors of parking garages, subway systems,
and underground transit tunnels.

“This
will take a while,” commented Daniels, letting out a deep breath. She knew this
was going to be a big project as it might take more than a couple of attempts
to break through the atmospheric interference in some areas.

It
was going to take days to send messages to all of those locations. Even if
there were survivors in some of the locations, there was a good chance they
would not have a powerful enough transmitter to send back a response.

“I
realize it’s going to take some time,” Mase responded. “Just do what’s
necessary.”

Daniels
nodded; she would call in some more of Captain Struthers’ marines, who were
communication experts. This was going to be a major undertaking.

When
Mase was finished in the Control Center, he made his way to the new Tycho City construction site. As he entered the cavern, he paused and looked at the work
that was being done. Over twelve hundred people were currently involved in the
construction of the new city. Already over half a dozen ten story apartment
buildings had been completed, and twenty more were in the process.