Tranquility

“Come on, now,” the man with the buzz cut said with a laugh as he stuffed a chili cheese fry in his mouth. “You can’t be serious.”

“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” said the man with the short, curly hair in front of him. “There’s an alien base on the moon. On the far side.”

The conversation was one that the waitress at the small diner in Florida had heard before. The place, a little hidden greasy spoon just outside of Cape Canaveral, was a favorite among the astronauts, and inevitably, when any were looking at preparing to go into space, they came to the diner for a last meal before beginning a pre-flight quarantine. And the conversation always turned to aliens.

“Yeah, well, this time next week, I’ll be up there, and I guarantee I won’t see aliens.”

“I bet three month’s pay that you’ll at least see a UFO while you’re there.”

“My wife would kill me if I bet that much, even if the bet was that safe. No dice.”

The other astronaut turned and looked at the window into the kitchen. “How about you, Jerry?” he called over. “You want in on the bet that Alex will see UFOs while he’s up there, or even aliens?”

A face looked back at him. “What are we betting?”

“Three month’s salary.”

That had the cook’s attention. He stepped out from the kitchen and approached the table. “You’re aware, my boy, that I don’t make nearly as much as you do, right? One month’s salary for you could very well be half a year or more for me.”

The cocky young astronaut laughed. “That’s fine. It’s only fair if it’s an even proportion.”

Jerry grinned. “You’re on, Tom. I’ll happily take your money. There are no aliens on the moon.”

“Pfft. What do you know? You’re no astronaut. You’ve never been to the moon.”

“You’re right. I’m definitely no astronaut. And I’ve never been to the moon. Would be totally crazy if I had. Still. There are no aliens living on the moon. Might be one dead one, in a lab beneath the surface, being studied by the god Tsukuyomi in an attempt to discern the threat to Earth.”

Alex laughed. “That base run by a secret government organization or something?”

“As a matter of fact…well, between you and me, the government doesn’t run it. But Tsukuyomi tolerates the presence of the human researchers.”

“Tsukuyomi?” Tom asked.

“Japanese moon kami,” Jerry explained. “Basically gods. He used to be married to the sun goddess, Amaterasu – now there was a fine piece of ass – but she dumped him after he killed Uke Mochi for trying to feed him food she literally vomited up.”

“Vomited up? What, were they birds?”

Jerry laughed.  “No, though that would have solved the whole ordeal.” He looked over at Alex. “You really should get in on the bet. You’re missing out on easy money.”

Alex shook his head. “Nah, you taking Tom’s money is more than enough for me.” He got up and threw a fifty dollar bill on the table. “Keep the change. Catch you when I get back, Jerry.”

** * **

“Captain Ibanez reporting in. Houston, everything is nominal. We’re t-minus five minutes from landing.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

Well, no UFOs yet. He carefully piloted his lander towards the clear area just outside of the lunar research base. “Tranquility Outpost,” he radioed. “This is Captain Alex Ibanez. I have a full cargo bay and could use some assistance getting these supplies unloaded.”

“Good to hear your voice, Captain. Tell Doctor Hawkins we’ve got her lab ready to go, if she wants to head inside and leave the grunt work to those of us with only one PhD.”

“Don’t worry, boys, I’m carrying my own weight,” Evangeline Hawkins answered with a smirk. “Just help me make sure my helmet’s on right.”

The next two hours was pretty boring and routine. Or, at least, as routine as things get when walking on the moon’s surface. They loaded the motorized cart with all the supplies they’d brought, and then drove it over to the entrance to the underground facility.

Like most NASA structures out in space, the moon base was pretty cramped. Alex’s uncle’s “tornado shelter” was far larger. After all, the man planned to use it to survive any possible apocalypse, riding out Armageddon in style. So, unlike the US government, he’d spared no expense.

Of course, the moon base had cost far more than a simple bunker. But government being what government was, they’d been forced to find ways to cut corners on things they might have wanted in order to make sure they could get what they needed.

** * **

The next few days were pretty uneventful. Alex had gotten roped into exploring a cave that they’d found, so that was neat. It was within the trench next to the base itself. And excitingly, there were traces of water ice within. If they could find a larger source of water, that could be the catalyst for expanding the base significantly. Not having to haul in water would make things a lot simpler.

It was on the fifth day that someone doing an EVA saw something on the moon’s surface. They said it looked like a man. He was wearing a turban, and, upon spotting them, he played some kind of flute.

Something answered the silent melody, a great, toadlike beast with no eyes and a slavering maw ending in a snout covered in tentacles. The astronauts ran, and barely made it into the airlock, shutting the door behind them as the twelve foot tall beast slammed into the door. Quickly, they made their way inside, calling for the others.

Alex was the first they ran into. “Perth, what the hell, man? You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“There’s something out there. Some big monster. I think it’s trying to eat us! We have to radio for help!”

“Okay, calm down. We’ll head to the radio.” Alex didn’t point out that should ground control even believe them, it would take days at the minimum, though weeks was more likely, before anyone could be sent to help them.

Of course, that would assume that the radio was even working, which it wasn’t. “We’re trapped!” Frank Perth said. “There’s no way out!”

There were a number of shockwaves through the ground, as if something was striking the moon’s surface. One of them was so large that it caused the lights themselves to flicker. That was when Alex began to believe them.

Hitting the button for the internal radio, he called out, “Emergency meeting. Everyone please report to the mess. We have a situation.”

A couple minutes later, the last of the astronauts arrived, there were ten in all. “What’s going on, some kind of meteor storm?” Hawkins asked, the bags under her eyes from being woken visible even on her ebon skin.

“Jenkins and Perth reported seeing something when out on EVA,” Alex answered. “Some kind of creature.”

“Don’t be silly,” Hawkins answered. “Aside from maybe – MAYBE – some microscopic organisms surviving in a frozen state, there’s nothing living on the moon. Well, present company aside.”

“And we all know Ibanez has no life, so there’s no guarantee there’s life even in here,” another astronaut quipped.

Everyone laughed, but the jovial moment was suddenly cut off as the entire compound shook. “What the hell was that?”

“It’s the monster!” Perth quailed, his momentary relief replaced by absolute terror.

“Sorry,” said a voice from the shadows in the next module. “No monsters left, I’m afraid. That tremor you felt was just the sound of a drunk Russian man suplexing a boat.” As he stepped forward, no one could believe their eyes. Standing before them was a man in a long black coat with a hood pulled over his head, though they could see that one of his eyes was covered by an eyepatch adorned with some kind of strange symbol.

“Stay back!” one of the astronauts yelled, brandishing some kind of tool as a melee weapon.

The hooded man rolled his eyes. “Is that really the right way to greet someone who teleported all the way to the moon to come help you out?”

Alex blinked. “Okay, I’m going to need you to convince me that you’re not a hallucination brought on by a failing CO2 scrubber.”

The hooded man laughed. “He said you’d be the first to come to your rational senses if I had to make contact. Alright, fair enough. Name’s Cole. Graham Cole. I don’t really care whether you use the first or last name to address me. I died a bit over a year back. Remember that series of church fires in the southwest last year? Yeah, that was me. Finally got revenge on the angel that killed me. And before you ask, the eyepatch is to hide the demonic eye given to me by the succubus who regenerated my soul after the angels ate most of it.”

The silence in the room was palpable. Then Alex blinked. “Okay, I’m convinced. There’s no way my subconscious comes up with that answer even on LSD, much less CO2. Tell me, Graham, why are you here?”

“Like I said, to save you all. Well, sort of. You see, officially, you’re all dead. The public’s gonna wake up to find that there was some kind of explosion in the lab and you all died. Unofficially, the record will state that one of the Black Galleys appeared on the wrong part of the moon, and besieged by the Moon Beasts, you all went down fighting, setting off an explosion and taking them with you. Now, if there are no further questions, we can get going.”

“Where are we going?” Dr. Hawkins asked.

“To the secret base underneath the surface of the moon, of course.” He held his hand up to his head in a shape mimicking old-school telephones. “Ilya, you up there buddy?” Everyone could hear a burp in response, seeming to come from the man in black’s fingers. “Pleasant. Well, we’re about to teleport, you got the remains and the ship piled close to the lab?”

“Da,” came the reply.

“Alright. Teleport incoming.”

** * **

The next few hours were even stranger for the astronauts. They were greeted by a bunch of government-types and shown around the massive underground laboratory complex. The whole facility was set in a several miles diameter cavern illuminated by some kind of glowing fungus and heated by…well, no one was quite sure what heated it. But it was a solid 24 degrees Celsius in the cave, and the lake out in front of the building was liquid and apparently perfectly drinkable.

The strangest part, perhaps, was that gravity within the cave seemed to be a single G, except in a few labs where they were studying things that required the moon’s normal lower gravity. Well, the strangest part that the scientists were willing to think about.

None of the new arrivals even spoke about the building on the other side of the lake, the one that looked to be a giant Shinto temple. The one with the trio of dragons lazing about in the grass. Nor did anyone discuss how the cafeteria seemed to be serving traditional Japanese cuisine as its primary offering.

But eventually, Graham Cole returned. He pointed a finger at Alex. “Hey, boss wants to speak with you. Time to go to the other side of the lake. Hope you brought your pool floaties.”

“What?” Alex asked, bewildered. “We’re gonna swim?”

Cole laughed. “Look, I know you’re a little shell-shocked, but you really need to lighten up. No, we’re not gonna swim. I’m teleporting you.”

“Why him?” Perth asked.

Cole shrugged. “Well, either the boss has a job for him, or I dunno, wants a pretty face to join him for dinner? Look, it’s above my pay grade. I kill monsters that harm people. Boss says bring Captain Ibanez, I’ll bring Captain Ibanez. Beats the hell out of explaining to the fourth customer this morning that this isn’t the coffee chain they’re used to and our drink sizes go by such unintuitive names as small, medium and large.”

Without awaiting any further questions, Cole snapped his fingers, and Alex found himself standing outside the massive temple on the other side of the lake. The dragons barely even seemed to notice him. “Do we just go inside?” he asked Cole, who was nowhere to be found.

“Well, it’s traditional to knock before entering someone’s home, my boy,” a familiar gravelly voice answered him from beyond the now open doors. “But yes, please do come in. Just take off your shoes first.”

“Jerry?!” Alex asked.

The figure within was illuminated by pale moonlight. He looked a lot like the diner manager, though he was definitely a Japanese man and was wearing a yukata. “So, about that whole never being to the moon thing? Yeah, turns out that wasn’t entirely accurate, my boy. Now come inside. I’ve got you a plate of chili fries to eat while we discuss a job opportunity.”

“Job opportunity?” Alex asked, still struggling to understand what was going on.

Tsukuyomi grinned. “Ever hear of Cthulhu? Because I have his ‘not dead which can eternal lie’ corpse in stasis here on the moon. Thought you might be interested in assisting the team studying him. Now come on, get in here before you chili fries get cold.”