Moon Wraith

Our ship arrived in the moon’s orbit three days ago.  I’m the only one left now.  I can see Earth through the portal but I don’t think I will be making it back.  Hopefully this recording will be a record for those who follow.  No matter what you do - don’t go in the cave. It’s waiting for you.

Sorry I must have fallen asleep. It’s so cold here.  Looks like I have about 12 more hours of oxygen, but I think I’ll freeze to death before I run out of air.  I’m not sure which one I’d prefer. I wonder if I should let the oxygen out and just pass out forever?  I never thought I’d be able to kill myself though so I guess I shouldn’t start now.

Running out of time so I better get started.  I’m going to tell you what happened so you don’t repeat our mistakes. You probably know about the trip over here - we had our communications dish working just fine then.  I’ll start with when we swung around to the dark side, when we lost touch with home.

Kashira guided us perfectly into our orbit and set the autopilot while Gurgurin readied the landers.  We launched our mobile payload first, and then the three of us crowded into the personnel package and headed for the surface.  I can’t remember the last time I felt such childlike glee.  Kash had been to the moon before, but Gurry and I hadn’t and we were both giddy.  We were professional of course, our survival depended on getting this right, but underneath it we were beyond excited and kept trading smiles all the way down.  

We arrived without a hitch, right smack in the middle of the crater within a crater that we had been aiming at.  From here out we sent regular reports back to the ship above us. Little did we know at the time that they weren’t being sent on.  With the communication delay, it didn’t occur to us that it was strange not to receive any reply.  We were focused on establishing the habitat and retrieving the mobile payload.  It wasn’t until about an hour passed that Kash realized the first thing had gone wrong.

“Brasilia, come in. Please reply.” Kash said into the radio.  Gurry and I finished lashing down the last lead line to the stakes and we both glanced over at her.  He was fiddling with a knot and I stood up and said, “What’s up?”

“We never received confirmation from Brazil that we had arrived safely.” She said.

“Huh, you sure? Maybe they double clicked and we missed it?” I replied.  She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at me.

“Yes I am sure.  You know I log everything.  There is no reply in the log.” She showed me the screen which indicated several outgoing transmissions and none incoming.  I looked up above us to where the orbiter would be stationed. Of course I couldn’t see it, but I felt a small bead of sweat run down my spine as my mind began to worry that it wasn’t there any more.  Nonsense, I thought.  Of course it’s there.

“Look we are coming out of the dark side down here, so its definitely out up there.” Gurry came to stand next to me and look at the screen Kash had showed us. She rolled her eyes and pulled the screen back.

“Yes I need two men to double check my work. Thank you.” Gurry and I both mumbled an apology for not believing her initial report, and I turned to watch the Earthrise that Gurry had pointed at.

Despite everything that came after, it was all worth it to me for that moment.  The blue green marble peeked slowly over the lunar horizon, laying in a bed of deep blackness and steady starlight.  A portion of it still shrouded in night, the rest of it covered in swirling clouds, it practically glittered.  I raised my hand and blocked it all out with my thumb.  All of the rest of humanity, and known life in the universe, covered by a thumb. So fragile.  

“Come on spaceman, let’s go get the Rover.  Maybe we will have better luck with the communication package there. Gurry finish establishing the habitat. I want air in there when I get back.  And heat!” Kash said.

“And a warm bath, coming right up Commander.” She grinned at his response, then looked up to her left, raising a hand to gesture and swipe in the air in front of her, accessing the information in the heads up display in her helmet.  A few moments passed and she pointed up the crater behind me.  “That way,” she said and we set off.

I turned the tracker on in my own helmet screen and saw a faint glow in the direction she had pointed.  We found a smooth way up and out of the crater and began bounding across the lunar surface.  I briefly forgot my concern over the communications issue as the joy of this new style of locomotion kicked in.  How many times had I done this in the simulator, hooked up to wires and elastic to practice the right movements?  And I thought those were fun….

Distracted by my elation, I didn’t notice the uneven ground ahead of me and landed on a protrusion I didn’t expect.  My momentum took me to the ground and I rolled slowly across the surface.  I cried out in surprise.  Kash glanced back at that and immediately turned to come back for me.  She reached a hand down and helped me stand up again. I scanned my display to see if anything registered broken or torn.  Nothing.

“You good?” she was looking at me with concern.

“A-OK.  Just some bruised pride.” I grinned sheepishly.

“Well come on then, ya stumblebum. Pay attention to your footing, this isn’t the sim.” She turned back and began bounding again. A moment passed, then she said, “I fell my first time, too. Don’t tell and I won’t.”

“Ha, you? Deal.”

Well I guess I’m here telling, but she isn’t here to reprimand me for it, sorry Kash.  Sorry for letting you down one more time, Kash…

Did I fall asleep again?  Yup, eight hours of Oh Two left.  Neat.  Still so cold.  Too bad the only things we get for blankets are these big aluminum foil looking things.  I have three of them wrapped around me and its still not enough.  Anyway, running out of time here, I better get to the good stuff.

I remember standing there brushing the lunar dust off my suit and watching her bound away when I saw it for the first time.  Then it was just a glow, a little ball of light.  I made a few hand motions trying to get it off my screen before I realized it wasn’t on my display.  It was hovering just above the lip of the next crater, just off to the side of where we were headed.  

“Kash! You see that?” I pointed at the light.  She was almost at the foot of the crater wall and looked up.

“See what?” she asked as she began scanning for the best way up. The light disappeared.

Not wanting to admit to seeing things in space, I changed the subject and pointed to my right: “Uh, that part of the crater over there looks lower. Might be easy going.”

“Ah, good call.” She said and headed that way.  I looked for the light for a few more seconds without success, then made for the low lip of the rock wall.  She was halfway up by the time I got to the bottom.

“It should be right over the edge here.” She said as she stood below the last, steepest section of the climb.  She hunkered down and leapt straight up, clearing it easily.  As soon as she did something flashed out at her and she shouted, waving her arms in front of her.  That motion threw her off balance and she missed the top of the crater, kicking a few rocks loose as she windmilled down slowly passed me.  I covered my head as the rocks fell around me, and turned to watch her fall.  She had recovered her natural grace and flipped to land softly on her feet.  That fall would have killed her on Earth, but here she just scattered dust around her and grunted on impact.  

“You ok?” I called down.

She was breathing heavy, but responded, “Yeah.  One sec.” She stood up and looked up.  “What was that? Did you see that?” she asked.

I looked up. I didn’t see anything any more. “I saw some movement, then you were falling. What did you see?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  Hold on, wait there.” She climbed back up to where I was.  “Look, let’s go over there, it will be slower but we don’t have to jump the last bit.” She said and pointed off further to our right.  I nodded.  We scrambled across the crater wall, then up, stopping just below the lip.  She poked her head up slowly and looked around, while I crouched down.

“Nothing,” she said and climbed over.  I followed.  She had stopped and was staring at something; I looked where she was looking and gasped.  

The mobile payload was where it should be. But it was not in the condition it should have been in.  We should have been seeing a crate in the middle of its own mini crater, lined with various thrusters to control descent automatically.  Instead we were seeing wreckage.  Something had torn it open and scattered pieces across the landscape. The Lunar Rover that should have been securely packed within was not going to be getting us back to our landing spot.  The front wheels were ripped off and shredded.  The roll cage lay on the ground, bent and twisted.  Part of the chassis had been crushed and the engine compartment torn asunder. It looked like half of it was missing.

“This was not from the impact,” Kash whispered.  I stared and nodded.

“Look,” I said, “the box is undamaged.” I pointed at the supply crate that had been tucked under the Rover.  

“The lab equipment!” She hissed and began to inch forward.

“Where are you going?? We don’t know what did this!” I looked around frantically, and tried to grab her but missed. She was already running, fixated on salvaging something from the mess.

Just then I heard a crackling voice come over the radio, “Kash, come in, this is Gurry, do you copy?”  She did not respond, still running towards the last remaining box.

“Yes I copy, we are at the cache, but something is wrong.” I replied.

“Yes, something is very wrong.  Where's Kash? I got the habitat up and the air working but no heat yet. I wanted to figure out the communication issue.  We are being jammed.  There is a jammer out here, and I’ve triangulated it to roughly the location of our mobile payload! I’m heading your way. What are you seeing over there?”

I had stopped listening halfway through.  The light had returned, but this time I could see that it was not a light. It was a glowing figure of some kind, and it was drifting near the payload. It almost looked like a silvery cape was draped around it. It must have noticed Kash just as I noticed it. She was almost at the payload when it flew right at her.  She fell backwards to avoid it and it swooped over her head, coming back around to hover in front of the box.  It looked like it had limbs sticking out of the cape (or capes? I couldn’t tell) and it was waving them around.

I heard her say something that sounded like, “Ghostie, get out of my way!” Man, she had some balls on her.  She stood back up and made straight for it. I saw her attempt to push it away, but her arms passed right through it, and she stumbled forward, almost falling on the crate.  She caught herself in time and scooped it up in her arms, then turned and ran back towards me.  The shimmering specter slowly followed after her, but it couldn’t seem to catch her.

Something else could though.  I saw it climb out of the rock wall behind the cache.  What looked like a sliver of shadow in the crater’s edge had apparently been some kind of cave mouth, and a monster dwelt within.  Its segmented body glistened, and I could hear a whirring noise as it skittered down the wall and sped across the surface of the moon toward her.  The specter stopped chasing Kash and turned toward this new creature, but it was as ineffectual at stopping that thing as it had been at dissuading Kash from grabbing the box.  

Kash never noticed it.  She was halfway back to me and began to say something that sounded like, “Jose, was that you?” when it fell on her like a thousand blades.  She went from a spacesuited astronaut to a bloody mist in the blink of an eye.  A chunk of her flesh landed next to me, still encased in a piece of her white space suit, now stained red.  

I froze in horror.  The creature in front me shifted and transformed constantly; I couldn’t look at it, didn't understand it.  My throat was dry; I couldn’t speak but I felt my mouth opening and closing as if I was trying to.  Suddenly a whizzing light sped in front of it and across the open landscape away from me.  The metallic monstrosity immediately gave chase but it couldn’t catch it.  I watched the glowing figure disappear into the cave, pursued closely by the deadly beast.  

When it disappeared, I regained control of myself and fled.  I don’t remember climbing down; I think I jumped.  The bounding effortless run was no longer quite as joyful; it was fueled by sheer terror and adrenalin.  I tried to raise Gurry on the radio as I went but heard no reply.  Static.

The habitat was up and functional when I got back, as Gurry had said, but he was nowhere to be seen.  Even more horrifying though, neither was the lander.  Well, not all of it.  Bits and pieces were scattered around, but the bulk of it was just gone.  I made for the hab door and hid inside.  

I’m still here.  I never saw or heard Gurry again.  I wish I could go back and warn them. I wish I could protect them.  Instead I can just lie here, wrapped in my blankets, and die slowly, hoping that this warning will be heard by whoever comes looking for us. Please don’t.