Going over to the Firmament´s control board, Quentin began typing in a long series of characters, as a list of sub-menus appeared before his eyes.
“So… we are switching ships?” Evelyn asked, trying to confirm her suspicions.
“Right now, we´re just trying to stay one step ahead…” Quentin answered, without taking his focus from the keyboard. “What´s their position, can someone keep an eye on that?”
“Still moving South…” Barney told him. “You, uh… you sure this is a good idea?”
“No,” Quentin solemnly shot back, sending a chill down their collective spines. “But either way, I´m going to buy us time. And you guys need to get ready... Like, totally ready: suits, extra tanks, everything.”
The twins heeded his advice, and went over to collect whatever articles were still hanging from their lockers…
“Hang on, what´s the security like?” Quentin demanded, before they could cross the chamber.
Sander pointed a finger at his chest quizzically, surprised to be called upon for such information.
“Yeah, you said you found a hidden door. But that can´t be the main entrance… right?”.
Looking back and forth between 2112 and the Schwab siblings, Quentin grew more impatient with each passing second.
“Well?” he blurted out, as Sander passed the buck on to Lori, with a glance and a shrug.
“I- I… don´t know…” Lori stuttered, sifting through her memories for any additional clues “No… We didn´t see anyone!”
“They entered through a secondary access… but there are multiple options,” 2112 conceded, raising a hand towards their supplies. “However, with so much material to offload, I believe it will be easier to use the hangar.”
The distant volcano gave a guttural boom, shaking the hull around them as if to underline the growing danger.
“OK… but, how to use hangar, if these things are guarding?” asked Pavel, already seeing problems with this plan.
“Da, and we have nothing to fight…” Matvey added.
“I will need to rest soon, but I have received training in lunar combat,” 2112 responded, as if that answered the men´s questions…
But it didn´t need to, because Quentin had finally finished typing.
“OK listen: I´ve just set up the Firmament´s autopilot. Once I hit the sequence, she´s gonna go drive right past the Orbital Outpost. If that doesn´t get their attention, nothing will.”
“What about us?”
“We´ll take the Landshark and the booster, and loop around to the hangar. That´s literally the best I can come up with… what do you think?”
“I… I don´t know. Is it a vote?” Evelyn wondered aloud.
“Yeah, I guess it is…”
The Russians huddled for a second to hash out their thoughts on the matter, which made the Schwabs feel like they should do the same… but as they looked at each other, it became apparent that nobody quite knew what came next.
“I vote we keep running, and hiding…” grumbled Lori, trying to mask her anxiety with anger. “This seems like a really risky, really bad idea.”
“God… I feel so useless and blind!” raged Barney, without raising his voice. “I can´t- We don´t even know-”
“Calm down, honey.”
“Calm! How- They´ve ruined everything! As soon as they fucking show up-” Barney covered his face, trying not to break down. “I thought we´d left this behind… ”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Quentin went over to 2112 and knelt down to be at his eye-level.
“Hey. It´s looking more and more like I´m about to sacrifice my…-our home, to do this,” he whispered, for only 2112 to hear. “This ship is more than a part of me, it´s- maybe this sounds like gibberish to you, but it´s like a… friend,” the man paused, letting his emotions wash over him. “Anyway, uh… we´ll all die if this doesn´t work. So, this base… You´re for real about this?”
The two shared a stare for a few seconds, as Quentin looked at his reflection in the dwarf´s huge, obsidian eyes.
“I am a copy of a copy. You are my family and my priority,” 2112 said at his usual, monotone volume, which had the advantage of reminding the captain that there wasn´t time for drama.
With a nod, Quentin inhaled slowly, stood back up and went to sit in his pilot seat for the last time.
“Suit up and go load up the stuff. If you feel safer with a knife or a slingshot or something, now´s the time to think about it because they´re closing-in fast… And for the love of Christ, someone go get Mieke. I´ve got to properly introduce her to 2112 or this isn´t going to work…”
So he did. In a matter of minutes, Quentin had killed the engine and, after a quick explanation for the distraught woman to better understand the clone´s origin and discovery (that obviously downplayed any possibility of extraterrestrial or demonic affiliation) the crew hurried outside and began loading the Landshark´s trunk with as much supplies as possible, placing the bulkier and more delicate equipment in the booster´s tethers.
Eyes on the horizon in case any of the drones appeared, the group proceeded to watch Quentin step off the dock to join them. As he came closer, Pavel saw tears streaming down his cheeks and turned his mic on to comfort him… but Quentin just shook his head and went to type the destination coordinates into the rover, before taking a seat.
Following his lead, Sander and Lori climbed aboard behind him… and noticed that for the first time since their arrival, their captain was armed: strapped to his thigh, a Velcro holster held one of the rivet-guns from the ship.
Evelyn brought up the rear by straddling a pile of rations and crouching down to grab a hold of the overburdened Landshark´s headrest. With an appreciative nod to his wife, Barney turned the vehicle on just as Quentin hit the Firmament´s autopilot and the ship lurched to life.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
2112 was the last to mount up… and, as he nestled his little body on one of the booster´s vent-flaps behind the Russian trio and a still-sobbing Mieke, they watched Quentin´s masterpiece drive up the slope and disappear over the crest. Looking to her brother, Lori knew that he felt it too… and a cold nausea gripped the group, at the sight of their home going away.
The vehicles then drove off single file, following a nearby ridge as far North as it would allow, before making a beeline to the outpost that was supposed to minimize the risk of all being spotted. But as soon as they´d passed the escarpment, it immediately became apparent that they were no longer the sole tenants of the moon, as odd debris now marked the previously pristine landscape of chalky stone.
A frayed ripcord here… and spent casing there…
It was hard to say, as they drove by and Barney dialed in his binoculars, if the pieces came from flyover refuse or something more sinister… but what was unmistakable however was the ominous cloud that had arisen to their right, where New Nazareth once stood.
With his eyes dead set on the path ahead, Quentin pushed all other thoughts from his mind and let his passengers act as lookouts, while they kept rumbling forward.
After a few more stressful -if totally uneventful- minutes crept by, each of them knew that they must be drawing close… and that´s when Evelyn saw an incomprehensible sight: on the same plateau they had crashed upon months ago, something that bizarrely resembled a refrigerator had landed, and was digging around in the soil.
Tapping on Quentin´s head, she pointed to the out-of-place craft until he saw it and course-corrected accordingly, giving the strange machine a wide berth.
They barreled down a bumpy hill until the terrain flattened out, and actually had to hold onto Lori as they skid through a rock field, lest they eject her in the process... but finally, the bunker glided into view, appearing from around a final crater´s edge only hundreds of yards in front of them.
In the distance, the Firmament´s tiny contour rolled dutifully ahead, having masterfully baited a dueling pair of droids to chase after it… and as they watched the pursuit recede beyond their line of sight, Quentin grimaced at the tell-tale flashes of tracer ammunition lighting up his doomed ship.
He decelerated to let the booster catch up, and when they drew level to the Landshark, Pavel pointed to a crescent-shaped aperture in the pale bedrock ahead. Nodding back, 2112 ran over to the hangar´s access-pad and entered his identification code.
“Wait, are we sure that´s all of them?”
As the giant, off-white door slowly retracted, the group suddenly found themselves standing beneath a large, circular craft, seventy feet wide by forty feet tall, which had been built to look exactly like a typical flying saucer… and facing a four-legged android, that only seconds earlier had been preparing the “alien” ship for departure.
“Shit!” Barney cursed, instinctively.
Spotting the vehicles, the almost canine machine unplugged itself from a wall-mounted modem and jerkily scampered over to the lip of the tarmac. It then raised two long tubes on its back and in seconds, the Landshark´s windshield and steering wheel began to melt, as an invisible, yet very focused laser beam connected with the rover´s hood.
“Look out!” Sander belted, hearing his mic echo as he pushed his sister down.
Barney protected his eyes by veering left, while the Russians cut right, hitting the gas to loop around an old forklift for cover. Before they completed their turn (or Quentin could even think of returning fire with his rivet gun), 2112, who now stood only dozens of feet away from their assailant, sprinted towards the machine.
The robot changed targets, deeming his nearby presence a more imminent threat, and spun around to shift its aim… yet seemed wholly unable to get a bead on the clone. In fact, his short, naked body seemed to flow through the atmosphere-less environment as if he were swimming, tracing graceful, violent arcs from side to side, and using the inertia to his advantage.
After suffering a few blisters as the drone fired wildly in a failed retreat, 2112 ripped one of directed-energy weapons off its posterior and began bludgeoning the machine into submission with it.
“Holy shit… he´s winning!”
But unfortunately, their peril wasn´t over: having incapacitated the far-off Firmament and, sensing no further movement aboard it´s lifeless husk, the two drones had soon doubled back towards the outpost in search of new mission objectives… with in this case, Raytheon´s prized creation taking out its Boeing-assembled competitor, thanks to a little opportunistic friendly fire.
A barrage of lead shattered the Landshark´s engine just as Barney revved it, jerking them to a stop and sending Evelyn into the front seat… but somehow, they evacuated their broken rover in seconds flat, to seek shelter behind a thick coil of hoses near the entrance.
Unable to pick up speed due to Mons Rümker´s seismic churnings combined with the kick from its constant shooting, Raytheon´s wheeled, armored turret ground it´s way forward, spraying the hangar with volley after volley of 50. cal bullets in a weird stop and go pattern, where it zoomed forward during every reloading sequence and then slowed down again.
Seizing his chance, Matvey grabbed Mieke by the shoulders and abandoned their booster to seek refuge behind one of the roof´s support beams… and not a second too soon: Struck in the chest as the turret reopened fire, Sergei flinched and crumpled against the joystick, scraping his way along the wall in a large circle, until he´d taken most of the paint off of his vehicle.
The booster then kicked forward, flinging Pavel to the floor and embedding itself in one of the guide-railings beneath the saucer with a sickening crunch.
“Brat!”
2112 turned towards the impact… but as he went to go help, the fast-approaching droid bounced some type of grenade across the tarmac and he barely had time to brace against the explosion: In a blinding flash of kinetic force, the stunned clone felt himself be lifted to the ceiling by the blast!
From this new height, he saw that the outpost´s activation sequence had indeed been started… watching in a daze how the UFO slowly rotated like a giant rotary phone, beneath suspended rows of stasis-pods.
And with each click, another of his copies mechanically slid into the saucer, through a circular little aperture…
Bullet after bullet…
His oversized head ricocheted off one of the rafters before the lessened gravity could drag him back down, and he collided heavily with the spaceship´s rounded hull. The already damaged guide-railing buckled under his extra weight and instinctively, 2112 hugged the metal to his cheek, to keep from slipping off.
One by one, the remaining security cables snapped as the saucer slid from its perch, whipping violently in every direction… yet again, a winded Matvey reacted faster than his friend and again pulled Mieke to the side in the nick of time.
Poor Pavel on the other hand, wasn´t so lucky and disappeared under the falling UFO.
Losing his grip as the saucer dropped, 2112 hit the ground hard. Despite miraculously retaining consciousness, he immediately knew he was concussed and struggled to roll over… but his legs were too shaky.
Thankfully, a pair of strong arms came to his rescue and yanked him up, for the Schwabs had seen an opportunity through the bomb´s dust cloud and were making a run for it, while their captain fired his industrial stapler in an adrenalin-fueled panic.
“Fuck! You!” Quentin screamed impotently, emptying the last of his tool at the deadly drone in a cathartic -if failed- attempt to provide cover-fire for their climb up the tilted saucer´s rim.
By chance, the craft´s tumble had allowed for some slack in one of the loading-ports, and Matvey scampered over to pry the malfunctioning segments apart before holding it open for the others. Half-blinded from the earlier laser, Barney then jammed 2112 in the hole head-first, hoping he´d know what to do.
The little man did indeed disappear into the dark, wet tube… and so Mieke followed, shimmying through the confined space while baby Duncan wailed beneath her sweaty spacesuit. Both twins followed, with their parents right behind them and finally, only Quentin and Matvey remained.
“Go!” he yelled. “Buistra!”
Quentin nodded and climbed in, just as a round grazed Matvey´s hip. As his exposed flesh began to freeze, the Russian giant groaned in pain, and with the last of his strength, bent over to plummet through the aperture at his feet.
On the other side, he landed in a passed-out heap without seeing the interior of the ship… Although there wasn´t actually all that much to take in, at first.
That all changed as soon as 2112 found the controls and switched on a circuit of deep red lights to reveal the strangest ship that the Schwabs had yet to encounter. But before anyone could even try to comprehend what they were looking, 2112 sat down and pressed his little, bulbous fingers against a pair of dimpled discs.
The saucer throbbed around them, went level… and everyone, save their tiny pilot and Matvey, flew off their feet.
2112 then twisted his wrists and sent all eight passengers sliding along the floor to the back of the bridge, in a thunderous acceleration.