New Hope: Book 1

While Julius was trying to get some shut-eye, resting in quite an uncomfortable position in his seat at the front of the ship, Ellie got to work on the computer. The most important thing at this stage was to restore New Hope’s communications with mission control on Earth. This task only seemed easy. All the signs out there suggested that the radio was operational. The problem was: it really wasn’t.

“Damn, what’s going on here?” Ellie cursed under her breath. “Why isn’t this working?” The motherboard’s whole, the power supply is working, the external antenna is clearly visible from the cockpit’s window and, surprisingly, in good condition despite not the best landing... It should be working! she added in her thoughts not wanting to wake her expedition companion. Julius had gone to the Land of Nod moments ago, which had to mean one of two things: the pain in his arm after several hours from the crash had decreased sufficiently for the captain to be able to nap a little, or the fatigue had kicked in and he had run out of fuel despite the burning pain of the broken limb. No, Ellie had to start up this component at all costs. Their “to be or not to be” depended on it.

After another hour devoted to a meticulous check of each cable and system connections of the radio, Ellie was finally about to give up when suddenly, a loud squeak could be heard from the speakers of the radio console. Ellie automatically covered her ears with her hands, flinching at the piercing sound, while Julius jumped at the noise, almost falling off his seat.

“Jesus, Ellie, I know we have different tastes in music, but what are you listening to? What are those awful sounds?!” yelled Julius trying to get through the metallic sounds coming from the onboard speakers. “Turn it off!” he added. His voice was almost inaudible through the cacophony of shrieks of metal rubbing on metal, the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard and breaking glass.

“I don’t know what it is! I was working on restoring the radio console, and when I turned on the power supply, this came from the speakers,” flinched Ellie. “It can’t be a short-circuit because the console is working properly,” said Ellie. “It must be something else...” she said to herself more than to Julius in a quiet voice, disconnecting the power supply of the radio console, thus immediately stopping the assault on the ears of the landing pod’s crew members.

“You want to tell me that the pod is receiving a signal from the outside? It’s not some short-circuit on the connectors, someone is deliberately transmitting? Who? Why? Most importantly, from where?” asked Julius. “The last time I looked out the window I saw that we had landed inside a crater, and only our craft remained in the orbit. No man-made satellites, which could transmit anything to us,” noted Julius. “Ellie, it can’t be coming from the outside because there’s absolutely nothing there – no radio signal sources - and especially that... something!” Julius pointed to the closest speaker with his healthy hand.

“Julius, I know all that. I understand what you’re saying but you heard it yourself. There was, I don’t know... something was in that signal. It’s not the result of a short-circuit in the connectors. Besides, now that we know what to expect, I’ll turn down the decibels and turn on the transmission again. Maybe the flight control center is trying to contact us?” Ellie said hopefully.

“Perhaps you’re right,” admitted the captain. “Turn it on again. But for God’s sake, warn me next time BEFORE you decide to play heavy metal at the maximum setting,” Julius winked. Ellie smiled, reduced the speaker volume, and activated the radio again. The piercing shrieks once again streamed from the speakers, but this time, the mentally prepared passengers started carefully listening to the metallic sounds.

“Do you hear that?” Ellie asked her companion in surprise after a short while. “There’s a structure there, repeating elements...” the second pilot noticed with increasing excitement. “It almost sounds like a... rhythm?”

Julius pricked up his ears and then nodded in confirmation. “You’re right!” the captain replied with undisguised surprise. “It’s a repetitive modulated signal,” he noted. “Can we determine where it’s coming from? It must be something local. Could the Russians or Chinese have their installations here, which our governments didn’t know about?” asked Julius, though the question was posed more internally than expecting a reply from Ellie.

“It’s unlikely. We monitor all rocket launches from Earth – nothing small can get through the thick network of early-warning satellites, let alone a rocket that had sufficient power to reach here. You have to remember that there are only a few constructions in the world that have a big enough thruster, and none of them was directed at the Moon in the past months,” said Ellie.

There was a moment of silence, and after another minute, Ellie pulled away from thought and reached for the off button of the device, deactivating the radio console.

“Oh well. I don’t know what that signal is but I know it’s stronger than our transmitter. We’re receiving only that and it seems that nothing we want to transmit will get through that something outside. And because the signal is so strong, then its source is probably somewhere close,” said Ellie dryly. “We have to find the source of the signal and turn it off.” There was no other way out. Either they succeed to silence the cosmic screamer or both the astronauts are left to wait in hope that someone finds them. Considering that the next mission was planned for a month later, and they had landed at least several hundred miles away from the planned landing zone, the chances of being found quickly – or ever – were not that great. The Moon may be much smaller than Earth, but it’s still quite a bit of terrain, thought Ellie. To make matters worse, the spaceship was inside some crater, and the bright covering of the hull with no access to light will not be able to reflect it; therefore, nobody from Earth, not even with the biggest telescope, will be able to see them. No, we cannot count on somebody coming here too soon. We have to take matters into our own hands, thought Ellie.

“We have separate radio receivers in the suits,” she said. “If I go outside and try to go round New Hope with a turned-on radio signal strength meter, I should be able – at least theoretically – to see any signal fluctuations. Perhaps they’ll be high enough to determine the general direction in which the signal is the strongest. From there it’s straight to the signal source,” Ellie continued. “Of course, if we have several meters like this or masts, I’d be able to set up a triangulation and determine quite exactly the origin of this transmission. Unfortunately, we have to go without such luxuries. Your broken arm won’t fit into the suit right now, and even if it did, we’d still be missing one receiver to determine the position of the signal source. The tri in triangulation is from three – it won’t work with two,” said the second pilot sadly.

“My idea is the only solution right now. I can’t do anything more from inside the craft. And this way, at least our chance for rescue will be higher than zero,” she concluded.

“And how do you want to reach the signal source? Assuming even that your crazy plan will work and you find the differences in the signal strength – how will you know how far to go? Besides! How do you want to reach anywhere if the suits weren’t designed for distant walks? And what if the source of the signal is further than you think?” said Julius rightly. “Not that I’m purposefully looking for snags in your plan, but if you go out there like this, you may not return! I won’t let you take that risk. Not at this stage...” he trailed off. “You can take the rover!” said Julius unexpectedly.

“The rover! Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” Ellie was ecstatic. Two six-wheel lunar rovers should be in the hold of the landing pod. They didn’t have any closed cabins, so it would certainly not be a comfortable ride, but the small beasts could move on the dusty surface of the Moon with a speed of up to 20 miles per hour! With something like this at her disposal, Ellie could go a lot further and after charging the rover in the landing pod, also make several round trips. Thanks to this, she could comb through a lot more terrain, drastically increasing the prognosis of their survival on the planet!

“I completely forgot about the rovers!” exclaimed Ellie. “The rover hold was built from reinforced steel and rigid composites. If the cockpit survived the crash in an almost intact state, chances are that the rover chamber with the exploration equipment survived, too!” Ellie yelled. “We have to check it out. Quickly!”

“Woah, hold your horses, young lady!” Julius interrupted Ellie’s joyful rant with a rascally smile. “I know you’re hot-tempered and you’d like everything here and now, but ask yourself this question,” the captain paused meaningfully, “when did you last sleep? How long will it be now, 24 hours? More? It’s been quite a while since the crash and you’ve been working full-speed without stopping. And a tired astronaut, especially on a device that’s moving at quite a speed on the surface of a planet without an atmosphere, is the perfect recipe for yet another disaster,” noted the captain.

“But...” Ellie tried to object.

“No buts!” Julius interrupted. “As the commander of this mission, I’m deciding that, for the moment, nothing is a direct hazard for us, so your expedition in search of some Emerald City can wait until morning. Not that the notion of day and night makes any difference in this crater, because it’s cold and dark here constantly. But you must rest. You’ll only be a risk to yourself if you’re tired on that rover. Not to mention that you’re also a threat to me,” added Julius.

“What are you talking about? What threat to you? I’m going to be alone on the Moon’s surface, remember?” Ellie asked surprised.

“If you get injured, or, what’s worse, you die by falling asleep behind the wheel, then you’ll be leaving me alone in this tin can. I don’t think I have to say that I can’t put my arm into the suit, so I can forget about and only dream of looking for the transmitter, your body, or whatever else is outside on my own,” he added. “My greatest chance for getting out of this situation – win or lose – is ensuring you the best conditions to act. And one of the factors that ensure this is lack of fatigue,” the captain lectured logically. “Please, Ellie, don’t make me give you an order,” he added with a begging tone, suspending his voice at the end of the utterance.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Ellie spoke up again.

“Okay, you’re right, of course,” she admitted. “The adrenaline has been keeping me going but, yes, I can’t remember when I last slept. And if I don’t remember, that’s not a good thing... I’ll get some shut-eye for a few hours.” said Ellie and then quickly added, “But only a few hours! We don’t have food supplies to set up a permanent colony, and my stomach is unlikely to digest our leather seats. We have to get out of here as soon as possible,” said Ellie.

“Fine,” the captain said with satisfaction written all over his face. “In a few hours you’ll take the rover and drive into the dark night to save our butts,” he said with a glimmer in his eye. Then he turned his back to her, to his side, sat up in the seat, and started reading the flight log in the hope of finding something that would explain why they lost their right flight trajectory.

“Just a little longer and I’ll find you...” said Ellie to herself. “I think soon the mystery of the strange transmission will be solved. I can almost feel it.”