Moondust
Tom had never seen the stars this close before, beyond the glassy arch of his helmet they seemed to burn into forever.
"Trapped in Time," Tom mumbled to himself as he began his inspection of the landing gear of the new Lunar Ranger unit that had been delivered from Earth this morning.
Grinning happily, Tom finally stepped away from the Ranger's underside, everything had checked out, the ship was pristine.
Tom thumbed the communications tab inside his helmet with his chin, "X-Ray-Delta-Bravo calling base. Over." Tom waited for a moment and was finally rewarded when the radio channel's steady hiss was replaced by a voice relayed from behind the rise he had came over this morning.
"X-Ray-Delta-Bravo, this is Lunar Command. We receive you. Over."
"Command, I've finished inspecting the new module, everything is in perfect order mechanically."
There was a pause on the other side of the radio link, and then the voice returned, amidst light laughter in the background, "You mean Earth actually sent us a piece of equipment that worked? Someone is going to get fired for that, you just wait."
"Affirmative Command," Tom grinned into his faceplate, "We probably got something meant for Mars by mistake."
The laughter was breaking up on the radio link now, "Rodger that X-Ray-Delta Bravo, what is on the itinerary next?"
Tom could almost feel his paws sweating in his pressure-suit's gauntlets; they wanted to fly this new machine. He wanted to be the first one to take it out and let it taste a bit of Space. "Uhhh, Command, the only actual way I can confirm that the Ranger is flight-ready is to take it out on a test run."
Laughter returned on the link and there was some exchanging of money in the background, apparently Tom's ex-space interceptor history was known about and had formed an informal betting pool when he was sent out to look at the new toy for the Lunar Base.
"Hee hee, heh . . . Rodger that Tom . . . er . . . X-Ray-Delta Bravo."
Tom silenced the radio-link with a forward dip of his head, his spotted chin depressing the communications pad into silence. Alone again, with the new Ranger Tom grabbed the recessed hand holds and climbed into the cockpit of the ship.
Setting himself in the small accelerator couch the ex-space jockey, Cheetah, activated the Ranger computer and all of the navigation and auxiliary screens flashed to life, throwing rainbows of colored reflections over Tom's faceplate. The controls began their startup sequence and sixty seconds later they all decided that the ship was "clear" and prepared for flight.
Tom's paws reached out and found the control yoke for the Ranger; he had been eating Moondust for far too long on this rock. Sure being an Ace Pilot during the war was something, people gave you respect, you got to taste space every day, there was things to do . . . But when the war is over, the pilots that saved your ass, well they get the short end of the stick. A chest full of medals, and three damn wings full of kill marks, and you get a nice, cushy job running rovers on the Moon.
Tom thumbed the controls for a moment, reflecting on things, he was one of the luckier ones; some of the other pilots had turned their skills over to commercial flying. To him that was worse than being planet bound, you could fly, but you had to take the same routes, and variation was something that they frowned on.
Shoving those thoughts behind him, Tom firmed up his grip on the control yoke and pulled back on the grips. Gracefully, the bug-like Ranger pushed itself into the air and retracted its four spindly legs. Then with a small adjustment along the Z-axis the ship sped away, racing for the semi-curve of the horizon, towards The Dark Side of the Moon.
Craters and navigational beacons sped by Tom's view as he pushed the Ranger to its limits, bobbing and jukeing towards the horizon line. Rover duty was nothing like this; typically it was mindless movement from one area of the Moon to another. But even this was nothing like riding the fire and tearing through space in one of the Interceptors. The further Tom pushed the little Ranger away from the quartz-xenon lights of the Lunar Base the more alive he began to feel.
The Cheetah could practically feel the rush of Moondust on the Ranger's skin as it shot past the lighted boundary and into the darkness beyond the perimeter lights of the Base. The grey and blackened craters of the sunny-side were soon replaced by shadows, darkness, and the mere suggestion of shapes picked out of the glow of the Ranger's engines.
"Computer switch display to rendered graphics." The Ranger's computer immediately superimposed a restored, light image over the darkness of the landscape in the cockpit. With practiced ease Tom slowed the ship to a gentle stop and set it down on the lunar soil, barely disturbing a grain of the soft dust.
Tom touched the control for the radio in the Ranger; the small ship interfaced with the radio in his helmet and opened a communication link, "X-Ray-Delta-Bravo calling Lunar Command. Over."
"This is Lunar Command X-Ray-Delta-Bravo, we receive you. Tom did you wreck that Ranger yet? Over."
"No." Tom grinned, "Actually I am setting on the hind-side . . . "Tom looked out his right viewport, on the very tip of the horizon he could see the winking light of the last relay beacon. " . . . Just beyond Omega beacon."
"Tom, you need to be careful out there, you know that is one of the dead zones." The sound of actual worry in the voice coming from the command base managed to get Tom's attention. "No communications, no sensors, some pretty strange stuff out there for a lifeless ball of rock."
"Command don't worry, I'm still in sight of the beacon. Besides there's nothing out here except for flat terrain, I can see for miles around me. The only thing that can sneak up on me out here is boredom."
"All the same Tom, I really think that you shou . . . . . hzzzzzkkkksssssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzz." The rest of the message was lost as the hiss of radio interference buzzed in the speakers of Tom's helmet.
"Lunar Command, this is X-Ray-Delta-Bravo, come in. Lunar Command I've lost your radio link. I'm switching to Tachyon-Data-Link." A flick of a switch on the central console flashed a quick change in the display screen for a moment and then it went dead. A few seconds later the rest of the displays and controls began to power down. Finally, the main power began to disappear with a dying hum, which took out the interior lights as it went offline. Sixty seconds later all Tom knew was that he was sitting in the dark; his only illumination was from the internal lights in his suit. Eventually even the hiss of the dead radio went away and all that was left was the sound of his own breathing in his ears.
For a seasoned space jockey, panic was not an option here, Tom's pressure-suit was still good and there was still air in his tanks. The foremost state of being in Tom's mind was 'Pissed.' With a hiss of exhaled breath through his teeth Tom resisted the urge to punch the central console, "I knew it, Earth sent us a Ranger with a bad power core."
Sitting the dark cockpit Tom was contemplating the hike he would have to make back to the last beacon and the survival dome there and wait for a rover to pick him up. Because it was completely dark outside he noticed that the field in front of the Ranger was slowly beginning to light up.
In the distance, far ahead of the Ranger, a faint golden glow began to stir above the powdery surface of the Moon. As Tom watched the glow began to intensify, the landscape was slowly starting to brighten and show off details.
Tom sat forward in the cockpit, his eyes locked on what was happening out in front of his little ship. As he watched the glow began to solidify and take on form, it looked sort of like . . . That was all that Tom managed to get, a mere impression, when the thing actually solidified and came at him. The images were lightning fast as the Ranger shook violently around him. Golden eyes . . . talons . . . and wings, wings so large that they seemed to encompass the entire span of Space. Then it was gone. Just . . . gone.
With a friendly hum, the lights and power returned to the Ranger's cockpit, bringing Tom, out of his wide-eyed and stupefied state. As soon as the monitors flashed that the ship was flight-ready the Cheetah yanked back on the control yoke and whipped the Ranger around and sent it zooming back towards the Lightside.
* * * * *
Five dunes away a slim girl rested her head in her palms; she was watching the little Earth-craft zip back towards the side of the Moon where they had their Moonbase. Clucking her tongue, she pushed herself to her feet using her elbows, which were grey and dusty from the Moondust.
Now that she was standing, the girl began to chuckle to herself and dust her dress off, making little puffs of grey Moondust rise and drift back to the surface. To all outside appearances she was really enjoying herself, in spite of the fact that she was standing on the lunar surface without a pressure suit. Slim and delicate, the almost ethereal girl brushed a stray wisp of hair behind her delicately, pointed ear and began slipping back over the dunes.
If one could hear sounds in the airless void of the Moon's surface, one could hear a soft, made up song the girl was singing as she skipped. She only stopped singing and skipping once, and that was to watch the little speck that was the Ranger moving past her viewpoint of the horizon. If you could hear her, you might be shocked at what she said:
"B'Kon was right; Humans are really great fun to play with."