Cornelius Johnson III was strapped into the cramped seats of the Saturn VII, ready to launch. It was not a comfortable position for him, a powerful man who at six foot three could barely cram himself into the cockpit. There were butterflies in his stomach, despite this being his third mission to the moon. He was the United States’ most decorated astronaut, and the Air Force’s best test pilot, but this time felt odd; the brass was acting odd, brushing off his questions, denying there was anything different about this mission¬¬¬¬ a little too vehemently. He knew something was up, just what it was remained a question. The radio buzzed, and he heard the count -down begin.
“T minus five, four, three, two…”
He steeled himself against the coming launch, which produced nearly 8 G’s of force, effectively gluing the astronaut into his seat for approximately two and a half minutes, until escape velocity is reached.
“…one. Liftoff”
The rocket leapt off the pad, hurtling into the unknown. Everything went as planned, the stages separated on schedule, and in just a few minutes Cornelius was staring at a wide open canvas of stars.
He reported back to base that everything was going well, and began to prepare for the next burn when his radio crackled, and an unfamiliar voice filled the cabin.
“Son, this is General McBadiss, I have a mission for you. Fifteen hours ago our moon base went dark, two days before that we detected a Soviet launch from Kazakhstan. We need you to find out what happened at that base, using any means necessary. There’s a weapon cache 1 klick north east from your landing zone, the base is another 7 klicks east. Go get ‘em Captain.”
The radio crackled off, and Cornelius was left alone with his thoughts.
Thirty-six hours later he piloted the landing craft down onto a wide plain. It was time to start walking, or more correctly, bounding. When he got to the cache he could see that the brass had been good to him; a crate of gyrojet rifles (built specifically for low gravity environments,) along with fusion grenades, and even a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range awaited him. Those dirty commies wouldn’t know what hit them.
The research base was located at the bottom of a medium sized crater, there would be a lot of open ground he had to move across, but hopefully no-one was expecting retaliation so quickly. In a few hours he crested the ridge that surrounded the crater and began scouting the base. It looked entirely deserted, but the scorched exterior and demolished buggy sitting out front told him that something had definitely gone down there. Suddenly he saw movement, the main doors of the facility slid open and a man walked out. Peering through his binoculars Cornelius saw the hammer and sickle on his shoulder.
“The general was right; the Reds were on the moon, our moon.” He thought to himself.
Cornelius sat back behind the rock; he would have to plan this carefully.
He took his time circling around the crater, making sure that he wasn’t detected by the guard out front, or by any sensors that they might have set up. Once at the opposite side of the base he popped up and scanned once again. The coast seemed clear. He backed up, started jogging, and made a massive, flying leap across the crater. Several seconds of hang time later he lightly impacted the roof of the facility and crept to the edge. There, below him, was the lone guard. He quickly drew his plasma rifle, tuned the beam to its thinnest setting, and then took aim at the sentry. All it took was one short burn and a pinprick hole caused the Soviet’s suit to depressurize, killing him nearly instantly. Cornelius dropped down, then picked up the body and tossed it on the roof. Hopefully no-one would find it there.
Slinking inside he came to the inner door (fortunately someone had left it unlocked,) and the airlock worked perfectly. As he came out of the airlock he could see blood splatters on the wall. Not a good sign. He moved soundlessly through the corridors, passing several ransacked offices and labs until he came to what appeared to be living quarters. He could see movement of the other side of a frosted glass door, and flattened himself against the side of the corridor, setting the plasma rifle to a short, precise beam that was perfect for cutting. He slid closer to the door, keeping his weapon leveled at it all the while, until he was close enough to cut out the lock and slip in. There was one Soviet directly in front of him with his back to the door, aiming at several bodies bound and gagged on the floor. He quickly turned up the power and blasted the red right out of the Pinko. He then untied the scientists.
“What’s going on here?” Cornelius growled
“The Reds, they landed a couple days ago, knocked out our coms and vehicles first, and then rounded us up here. They’ve barely given us anything to eat or drink!” One of the scientists said in a rushed, breathless tone.
“Thank you for coming. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Do you have any idea what they’re here for?” Cornelius asked.
“Yes, we were developing a new weapon, a mechanical suit for use in low or no gravity combat situations, we think they came here to either steal the suit itself or our notes on it, fortunately we destroyed most of our notes, and it appears that they did not come with enough heavy lift equipment to remove the device itself.”
“And where is this… device?”
“Sublevel two, section Delta, you can’t miss it, large, open area, imposing mech suit. You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Okay, stay here, put the gags back on, hide this body somewhere, these Commies are about to catch lead poisoning.”
The corridors were quiet, empty as he made his way down to sublevel two. As he got closer he began to hear low, mumbled speech. He soon entered onto a balcony, above a large open room. That room was covered in boxes and lab equipment, all crowded around a towering, mechanical shell, about eleven feet tall and heavily armed. Around it lounged eight Communists, fiddling idly with their weapons. He sat back behind the railing and took stock of the situation. He had 3 fusion grenades, a plasma rifle that was nearly dead, and 100 rounds of gyrojet ammunition, which would become useless if they moved any closer than they already were.
He locked and loaded the gyrojet rifle, pulled the pin on two of the grenades, lobbed them towards the group, and came up shooting. He took out one soldier before the grenades went off, one of which bounced wide and vaporized a pile of computers and boxes, the other sailing straight into the middle of the group; three more down, four to go. He no longer had the element of surprise, and quickly moved to another position along the railing before firing off several more rounds towards the Commies; he heard a thud, then a loud grunt. One less to deal with.
Suddenly, a whirring noise, and the sound of grinding metal filled the air. Someone had powered up the mech. Pulling out the plasma rifle, he turned up the power dial as far as it would go, and focused the beam into a tight stream. Coming out of cover he swept the beam across the room; in the half second that it lasted he destroyed several million dollars’ worth of scientific equipment, computers, and two communist thugs. Now he just had to deal with that infernal contraption. Bullets started impacting all around him as the mech locked on to his location and opened fire.
He was between a rock and a hard place; lunar stone pressing against him on one side, and cold metal on the other. That was when a thought struck him, or maybe it was a chip of stone. He quickly unscrewed a large panel from the wall - these were strong enough to withstand a disastrous decompression event without warping - they should be able to stop bullets for a short time. Thanks to the moons low gravity he was able to hoist the piece easily. Crouching low behind the panel he inched his way forward until, near the edge of the platform, he took a giant leap. He kept the plating pointed at the machine while he sailed through the air, and in one smooth motion grabbed the top of the mech, jammed his last fusion grenade into its coolant tubes, and somersaulted off. The explosion ripped through the machine, instantly killing its pilot and sending bits of shrapnel flying outward across the room. Fortunately for Cornelius, he had catapulted himself to safety.
Shortly afterward he retrieved the captured scientists, and after commandeering the Soviet’s vehicles they headed back to the landing site. However, when they arrived Cornelius had a horrible realization. There were six (surviving) scientists, but only five extra seats. Someone would have to remain behind. Thankfully, this situation was quickly rectified when the scientists informed him that,
“No-one really likes Ted anyway.”
(Ted was not harmed when the cleanup crew arrived several days later to demolish the base.)
They boarded the rocket, and began the long trip home.
The crowd cheered as he stepped down from the capsule, thousands upon thousands of happy smiling faces. Although he had been the object of adoration many times in the past, this topped them all. He was complete. Each step took him what seemed like ages, elongating this moment, savoring every second of it, but when the ground met the soles of his shoes, a strange sound could be heard above the crowd, faint at first, but slowly growing louder. An alarm going off.
“An alarm for what?” Is all that he had time to think before the ground started slipping away.
The people’s faces faded in the background, the roar of the crowd grew fainter and fainter, as that terrible alarm surrounded him, cocooned him in the grating, blaring noise. He opened his eyes, opened them to the cold, bare walls of his small apartment, to the thin sheets that barely kept him warm at night, to his dead end job where he didn’t make quite enough to get by.
“What a dream,” he mumbled.