New Hope: Book 1

As soon as she was out of the tilting airlock hatch, fully dressed in her suit and helmet, Ellie was confronted by the dark surface of the Moon and the penetrating darkness of space with billions of shining dots on the horizon.

Wow, not even the best dark-sky park could deliver a view like this, she thought.

Indeed, the Moon technically has minimal atmosphere. It’s made up of whatever the solar wind blew off Earth, and the level of oxygen on its surface, or air at all, is practically negligible. There is nothing to suppress the light of the faraway stars and they can be observed in their true form. The Earth’s atmosphere obscures most of the stars’ light reaching our planet and additionally distorts their view. The wind, pollution, gases – they all give the impression that stars twinkle. The largest telescopes, before starting their observations of the night sky, shoot a laser beam into the upper atmosphere layer to determine the light deflection. Then the telescope mirrors must be set to compensate for any deformation and make it possible to see the objects in the sky in the best light. There’s no atmosphere on the Moon, so whatever the naked eye sees is exactly as it is, she thought.

Ellie’s gaze swept the edges of the crater once more but she could see only their fragments. Even though New Hope crashed on the side of the Moon that was visible from Earth, meaning the daytime side, there was complete darkness inside the crater. That’s what no atmosphere did - either everything is perfectly lit or it is covered in pitch black. On Earth, the atmosphere reflects the sun rays making it possible to see for hours even after sunset. This is not the case on the Moon. If the sun does not reach the places directly, it’s invisible and extremely cold.

Ellie switched on her suit lights and turned toward the wrecked landing pod. The view before her took her breath away. It became incredibly clear at that moment - there was no hope to rescue the wreckage. It lay tilted at a sharp angle on a rocky ledge which clearly stopped it after sliding several hundred feet along the Moon’s surface when it hit. The force of the crash must have been so powerful that the elements of the engine exhausts were thrown about far from the pod’s body. The entire area was littered with the remains and torn-off fragments from New Hope’s hull. Ellie was surprised that the damage to the cabin itself was so inconsiderable seeing the tonnage of materials scattered on the vast area of the wreckage.

“Well, it seems that lifting the pod back up somehow or returning to orbit is a no-go,” she said to herself.

Her suit’s lights did not reach far so Ellie couldn’t assess the damages behind the wreckage. Nonetheless, what she saw was enough to know that it was a miracle that they both survived the collision. They escaped certain death only thanks to the lower gravity and working engines. Nobody could have survived such a catastrophe back on Earth. The high acceleration of Earth’s gravity would lead to an even faster and more powerful impact, crushing both the astronauts’ bodies.

Extra points for lower gravity, she thought.

Ellie inspected the hull and around the lock to the compartments where the rovers were. She was surprised to find that the damage was, in fact, very small considering the scale of the catastrophe. The entrance wasn’t crushed, so it was most probably possible to get inside and release the rover onto the ground. It wasn’t going to be easy with the sharp angle at which New Hope was tilted but luckily it wasn’t sitting on the door. Or falling through it to the Moon’s surface and becoming more seriously damaged. Otherwise, any exploring would have been off the table.

Ellie approached the lock and skillfully unlocked the shield covering the switch used to open the chamber. The only thing left to do was to press the green button and open the lock.

“Please, work,” whispered Ellie, then she pressed the switch.

The lock to the rover chamber started opening with a hiss of escaping air.

“Phew!” she sighed. Ellie couldn’t bear the thought of having to cut the hull open with a torch and force her way inside. Both astronauts had been through enough and having to devote the time they didn’t have to gain access to the rover would have made matters even more difficult.

Now that the lock was wide open, Ellie could see inside. Just as she expected, both rovers, despite being fastened to the walls and floor, now lay one on top of the other. The force with which they hit the ground tore apart the holding brackets. The vehicles were probably quite beaten up. “Please, let one of them work,” she prayed. All she had to do now was to push the rover through the slanting lock, and hopefully, she could commence exploring. Luckily, low gravity conditions made this task much easier for one. Back home, it would need at least two people to get this done. The rover weighed over 200 kilograms, but on the Moon, it was less than only around 1/6th of that. Nonetheless, its dimensions were still the same so pushing it through the opening that was a tight fit anyway was still a challenge.

About a quarter of an hour later, Ellie had freed the first rover from the confines of the compartment and pushed it outside. Even though the vehicle fell slowly and gracefully from a height of about three feet, it stirred up an enormous cloud of moon dust. Once it had settled, Ellie started checking the vehicle’s condition. It seemed to be pretty much intact. Some of the protruding elements had bent but there were no serious damages at first glance. She sat behind the wheel of the rover and pressed the start button. These state-of-the-art rovers were powered by a specially built lithium-ion battery that was fully charged before the start of the mission. Once exhausted, it could be charged again by connecting it directly to the charging station inside the pod’s compartment. It should be enough to drive several dozen miles. “During the 3.5 hours of driving far from the landing pod, this gives me a coverage of... at least 30 miles one-way,” she calculated quickly. “Let’s hope that disrupting signal isn’t further away, otherwise I won’t be able to reach it,” said Ellie gloomily.

Thankfully, after a few failed attempts, which were caused rather by being out of practice than actual damages to the rover, she started the vehicle. “Finally, some good news!” she rejoiced. Next, she went on to start the radio paired with the suit. No surprise there. The only signal that she was receiving was the horrific squeaking sound. “So, you’re still here. Hm...,” she said to herself. “Lucky I have an idea on how to find you.” From the pocket of her suit, she took out a device that was the size of the first cell phones used in the 20th century. The radio signal strength meter was a device that could very precisely measure the strength of a radio signal, obviously. Ellie hoped that when she set the antenna in various directions, she could determine where the signal is coming from. Even small differences in strength should help decide which way she would need to go.

She turned on the meter and walked around the landing pod’s wreckage, slowly pointing the antenna all around. The differences in signal strength were indeed quite subtle but the needle was pointed in one direction significantly more strongly. The signal was very much there. Strong enough to jam the pod’s radio. However, the needle pointing in one direction meant something else: the signal must be located somewhere nearby! If it was far away, it wouldn’t have moved much, but the high amplitude of fluctuations indicated a very close location of the mysterious source.

Ellie got into the rover again with excitement. She started the engine, and slowly but competently, drove around the ship and aimed the vehicle toward where the piercing radio signal appeared to be coming from. It was pitch black in the crater, so Ellie turned on the road lights of her convertible, lighting up the landscape in front of her some hundred feet into the darkness. Not that much but for the relatively low speed the rover could drive, it had to be enough. “Besides,” she thought, “it’s enough to stop me from rolling off some ledge. I did promise Julius that I’d be careful. Somehwat.”

As soon as she had passed the debris of the wreckage, Ellie increased her speed, glancing from time to time at the needle of the signal strength meter. She had to be sure she was using every minute spent on the Moon’s surface as wisely as possible - the amount of oxygen in the tanks and energy in the vehicle’s batteries were finite, after all. How long will she have to drive to find the cause of not being able to call for help? Will she find it at all?

Ellie had driven a few miles with this thought in mind when she noticed it was starting to get increasingly steep. The rocks and rubble under the car were also increasing in number. She had to significantly reduce her speed and drive even more carefully. “Damn, I don’t have time for this!” she cursed. The needle on the meter was leaning more and more. She must be getting closer to the target. But why is there so much rubble? “I thought the Moon was mostly covered by powdery moon dust, not piles of rocks,” she mumbled to herself.

At that moment, when she thought the surface would thwart her plans and slow her down, the cause of this entire mess suddenly appeared before her eyes as if from nowhere. She hit the brakes barely stopping in time to avoid a collision. “Woah!” Ellie was hypnotized by the view. “Oh, God...,” she added, though she was never religious in the first place. She was rather firmly grounded and left spiritual matters of the clerics. She preferred to focus on the here and now, believing that her own decisions governed her fate — not some higher power. But in these circumstances, it slipped out. Ellie thought she would find some kind of Chinese installation or a broken Russian rover that started transmitting strange signals.

But THIS was beyond her wildest expectations.

She parked her vehicle a few feet from the target.

In front of her, hovering 5 feet off the ground and surrounded by concentrically arranged rubble was a basketball-sized silver, metallic sphere, and its surface was covered by peculiar symbols that resembled hieroglyphics.

“Either somebody invented some antigravity technology and forgot to tell the rest of the world about it or I’m on Candid Camera...,” she said with disbelief.

Just to make sure she was in the right place, she pointed the radio signal meter toward the mystifying object. The needle had reached the end of the scale! “Gotcha!”. And Ellie was mesmerized.