New Hope: Book 1
10

For the next two days, the astronauts prepared for the arrival of the rescue mission. It was hours away from reaching the Moon’s orbit, and then it would land near the spot where New Hope had crashed. There was more work than one would think. They had to pack their things (though they didn’t have much due to weight restrictions to begin with - every pound sent into space cost tens of thousands of dollars), secure the scientific experiments that survived the hard landing several days before, prepare a thorough report of the prematurely ended mission, which would be used by special committees on Earth for the next months to compile their own comprehensive analyses and conclusions. The more practical things they needed to do included clearing the area of the crash site of the smaller fragments of ground covering and broken pieces of the hull. Otherwise, when the next spaceship landed, the hard and sharp elements of New Hope could go flying at enormous speeds in all directions, creating a barrage of dangerous bullets that could potentially hit the hull of the already weakened wrecked landing pod. The shrapnel could even harm one of the members of the crews. New Hope managed to land on the Moon but it would not be able to return, so with the first Moon mission in decades being only a partial success, nobody wanted to risk it happening again. Now, all conditions had to be perfect and this would not be the case without clearing the crash site.

In the last hours before rescue would arrive, Ellie spent a lot of time on the Moon’s surface taking walks. She tried to get rid of as many hazardous shards as possible, either by moving them to a safer distance or taking them back with her onboard.

In the meantime, Julius, as the captain of the mission, tried to explain to the control center the causes of the accident.

“Yes, I’m sure the source of the disruptions has been neutralized,” said Captain Cousteau into his microphone. He took a sip of his freshly prepared coffee and forgot for a moment that liquids behave differently in low-gravity conditions. Inertia affects liquids regardless of gravity values - this wasn’t news for Julius. The problem appeared when inertia came together with a lower G factor. This meant that every move of the cup resulted in spilling coffee left and right - it seemed as though the 21st century had not been able to invent something like a top with a straw for missions to the Moon.

“You know, Captain, we can’t risk it. Not only do we have to land as close as possible to New Hope, but we must also do this precisely to connect your spacecraft with another landing pod using a self-pump corridor. You said yourself, you can’t put your broken arm into a suit, so we have to move you from your pod to the rescue pod without going onto the Moon’s surface,” said the voice in the receiver. This was John Dickins, one of the new directors in the missions control center. “This can’t happen if there are any interferences, and there’s no way any rescue mission could take place if the device you’ve described tries to take over another spacecraft,” said John. “I don’t want to have to explain to hundreds of journalists during the press conference that we lost not one but two ships and their crews over the course of a single week,” he added.

“That won’t happen. Dr. Ellie has ensured me that the orb is deactivated and it will remain so until it’s necessary. And it won’t be - neither here nor anytime soon,” replied Captain Cousteau.

“Please forgive me. The reassurances of Dr. Johnson, who has blacked out twice in the last few days due to hard blows to the head, are not fully satisfactory for me,” said Dickins.

“It might be true that some of the events observed from Earth seem to confirm parts of her story, but there’s a long road from a strong flash on the Moon seen by our observatories to stories of alien civilizations and mysterious artifacts. We must look at the scientific proof and our knowledge. For now, these indicate that New Hope came up against some failure, which our engineers will look into, then it lost controllability and wasn’t able to brake as a result of taking the wrong trajectory of leaving the orbit,” said Dickins.

“Yes, I know how unbelievable this sounds. The problem is that the recording from astronaut Johnson’s helmet camera confirms her every word - at least of what happened on the Moon’s surface,” replied Julius. “I can’t verify whether the orb really passed on any information to her, but I’ve been working with her for years and I know her very well,” he added. “If Dr. Ellie Johnson claims that the hovering, metal ball showed her events from thousands of years ago and said to find some ancient building in the middle of an icy desert...” Julius paused, “then I believe her. Ellie is an experienced astronaut, a scientist, and an engineer - she means what she says and she wouldn’t just make up this whole story.”

There was a long silence in the receiver. Dickins exhaled quietly and said:

“Perhaps you’re right, Captain. I can’t think of anything else we could do anyway in preparations for the second pod’s arrival. We’re as ready as we could ever be. We must hope that this time, the ship won’t fail, and your magical ball doesn’t decide to crash another spacecraft,” replied the mission director with a sigh.

“Thank you, John,” said Julius in a less formal tone. “We’ll be ready for the other crew. We can’t wait to get back home,” said the captain of New Hope.

“Over and out,” concluded Dickins from the missions control center.

“What an asshole,” said Ellie, who was on the radio call despite being outside of the spacecraft. She remained silent so as not to stir things up and aggravate the situation. She was aware that once they returned to Earth, both she and the captain will be interrogated and probably suspended in their duties. After all, they had crashed a spaceship worth billions of dollars. There would be no end to the meetings of committees, subcommittees, and special committees, and the media hype around the whole debacle would go on for months, if not longer. Now, everybody’s starting to cover their asses because they know that they’ll need to find a scapegoat - someone or someones responsible for causing this reputation disaster. The first mission to the Moon in decades, and such a screw-up, thought Ellie.

“Well, what were we expecting? He’s practically a politician,” he said. “He’s just protecting his butt and getting ready to throw us to the wolves,” sighed Julius. He realized days ago that this event would have its consequences. The US President or important European politicians can’t be held responsible politically. Naturally, it would be the fault of the pilots who failed to conduct the landing. Surely not the agencies or their subordinate professional employees. They’ll blame the old guy - he’s on the verge of retirement anyway. They’ll pat Julius on the back, say how sorry they are, make a show of retiring him, and when the dust settles, they’ll offer a quiet, well-paid position of consultant in some government firm. Just in case he got any ideas about wagging his tongue too much. Perhaps he’ll write a book in a few years. Something to the effect of Memories from the Moon. He’ll get his own morning show and that’s how his years will pass until retirement.

“You do realize that this was probably our last trip to space, Ellie?” asked Julius.

“It has occurred to me. You really think they’ll make us the antiheroes of this mission?” she asked, disheartened.

“That’s what I’d do if I were in their shoes. They probably won’t say directly like that, but the media will make suggestions about the failures on our part. Without confirming it officially, they’ll make us the scapegoats. We’ll probably get fired. Then, when it all goes quiet and they get all their political gains, maybe they’ll offer us some work in a less high-profile project.”

“What about the orb? We’re taking it back to Earth. You think they won’t tell people about it? How will they explain the bright light on the Moon? It must have been visible even with the naked eye!” Ellie objected.

“Ellie, our governments have hidden things before,” sighed Julius. “I’m afraid that if they want to silence us, they’ll do it. And we won’t have much to say about it,” he explained. “You remember Zone 51, Groom Lake, and the famous meteorological balloon from ’46? It’ll be the same thing here. They’ll probably confiscate the orb as soon as we get to the rescue pod, and we’ll never see it again. Maybe it’s best that way,” he said.

“We can’t let that happen, Julius!” she protested. “That’s not fair...” she added quietly when she realized that Julius was right. No government can admit they brought alien technology from the Moon back to Earth. That would lead to a crisis in every arena. And it would be so great that it would be impossible to ever make the fiasco go away. The orb would be a secret, and the public wouldn’t find out about it for decades to come. Maybe never.

“Oh well, it won’t be long until we see what our future holds. The rescue pod will be here in a few hours,” said Julius Cousteau. “Things are sure to go tumbling from then on.”

Julius wasn’t aware, but his words would soon turn out to be prophetic.

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