Back to the Moon-ARC

“Because, my dear,” Mbanta said, “if they are in the sun, then their ship will glint at us.”

“I see. So, I’ll scan and look for glints?”

“Great idea, Sharik,” Maquita Singer agreed.

“Let me know if you find anything,” Paul ordered.

“Roger that.”

“Paul!” Graves called.

“Yes, John?” He swam his way to the fat engineer’s seat. “Got something?”

“Well, I once made about seventy million dollars off of a video game that involved fighting aliens on a Moon base on the far side of the Moon. I put into the game a lot of detail regarding how to calculate orbits and such.”

“Really? Had no idea about that.”

“Well, at any rate, the signal was strongest when we were here.” Graves pulled up the time-of-flight view of their orbital location that each of them had as a screensaver at their respective stations. Graves pointed out their location and then continued. “The antenna-beam angle was simple to figure. I designed a satellite-phone network for communications in Africa once, made millions. So, our antenna was covering this footprint on the surface of the Moon, and from the signal strength we could narrow their location down to this spot here.”

“Holy…” Paul looked at the map of the Moon where John had overlaid his calculated spot. “That’s the size of a state!”

“Yes, but now we know which state. I’d suggest Bridget look there. We will be out of line-of-sight in a matter of minutes. We might also point our directional feeds that way as well. We might pick them up again.” Graves looked neither proud of himself nor careless. Paul felt the man’s expressionless explanations were just part of his personality. This was the kind of thing Graves did all his life. It was nothing unusual for him.

“Right. Good job, John.” Paul pushed over to seat 3B. “Bridget, did you get the map coordinates from John?”

“I’m zooming out on that area now.” Bridget worked feverishly at the touch screen. She had become proficient at the controls of the little spy telescope system over the past two years of training. Paul saw no need in taking over. By the time he managed to get into her seat or back to his, it might be too late. He pushed off and floated back to the pilot’s seat. “Good, keep looking.”

At the pilot’s seat, Paul strapped down and started training the high-gain directional antenna across the general location that Graves had calculated, listening with the volume all the way up. Had there been an eleven on the controls, he’d have used it. He closed his eyes and listened hard.

“Paul!” Bridget shouted, followed by the others. It startled him.

“What?”

“We have a glint! I’m zooming in now.”

The spot was more than two hundred miles away. At that range, the telescope could resolve trashcan-sized objects. Bridget zoomed all the way in on the glint and then brought the contrast and brightness of the image back up to normal. And there it was.

“…mumble mumble God, please! Do you hear us! This is Harmony. We crash-landed seven days ago. We only have air for another eight. We only have functioning this low-power transmitter and have no means of getting home. Can you respond? Dreamscape please reply!”

“Harmony, I read you. Dreamscape copies! Do you hear me?”

“Dreamscape! Please help us. There are four of us… static…help, need air and evacuation… STATIC.”

“Harmony! Do you copy? Harmony, Dreamscape heard you. If you hear us, we WILL relay this information back to Earth!”

“I got some nice video of their lander. If that is what you’d call it.” Bridget Wells put the imagery data up on all the screens she had access to.

“Wow! Look at that there.” Mbanta pointed at the large divot in the lunar surface that scratched out up to the lander. The Chinese spaceship appeared to be on its side, and there was a gaping hole near its bottom.

“Talk about being up a creek,” Graves said.

“They’d need a lot more than a paddle,” Thibodeau added.

“Right. Good work, everybody. There is nothing more we can do for them at this point.” Paul looked out the window as they moved away from the Chinese crash site. They would be in radio contact with Earth in just a few minutes, and then all they could do was send the data they had taken. For now, Paul had a lump in his throat.

No one in the cabin of the small spaceship looping behind the Moon on the world’s first space cruise uttered a word for the next several minutes. The crew of Dreamscape had turned out to be a fairly capable bunch, with hidden talents. Mbanta understood cameras, imagery, and finding needles in haystacks. That suggested to Paul that he might have some involvement with African military or intelligence groups, but he had no way of knowing that. Bridget Wells had followed her training and run the ISR telescope like a trained Air Force spy. But it was John Graves who had really stepped up. Paul had known the man was smart and a computer-savvy engineer just this side of Bill Gates, but he hadn’t understood the depth of the man’s knowledge. Paul had a new respect for his crew. Sure, they were all rich fat cats that sometimes seemed spoiled rotten. On the other hand, they had skill sets that enabled them to become those rich fat cats. Except perhaps Mbanta, who was born into it, and even he wasn’t useless after all.

It wasn’t until Paul heard the voice of his friend Rob Anderson in his headset that he moved away from the window and back toward the command chair. Suddenly the chair looked a whole lot smaller. In fact, the Dreamscape looked a whole lot smaller and much more fragile.