The following hours were some of the most stressful that either Lori or Sander had yet to experience aboard the Firmament, as Quentin´s pill-popping paranoia reached a crescendo that only driving back to the dark side and hiding could satiate… and the man had soon locked himself in the flight deck, to pilot them away from Mons Rümker.

“What are you doing, man?” bemoaned Barney, from the other side of the door. “Mieke´s not even awake… and she´s about to have a baby! You´re, like- this is kidnapping!”

“Go clutch your pearls somewhere else, Barney. We need a safer place…” the captain shot back, rumbling the craft around them as he pivoted the Firmament and picked up speed, “and they won´t even know we´ve moved!”

“Do you want we break in? Stop him?” Matvey asked, a little too loudly.

The cockpit sprung back open and Quentin emerged, to stab an angry finger at the giant man´s bosom.

“I hear something like that again, we have a big problem. You got that? This is my ship… I do whatever the fuck I want!” he railed, glaring up menacingly into Matvey´s eyes. “And I´m not taking anymore chances: no more stationary target… sitting out in the open, while Revis transmits our coordinates to the universe... Sorry! Not my thing.”

Barney and Matvey then watched him march back off to check on Mieke, who was slowly regaining consciousness.

“Where- what happened?” she mumbled, disoriented from her episode.

“You, uh…” Evelyn began, without finishing her sentence as contractions wracked the woman, and provided all the answered needed.

“My baby… is coming!” she gasped, in between spasms. “I want Pieter! Call-”

“I can´t call!” Quentin reminded her, rummaging through the infirmary´s cabinets for anything that might assist her childbirth. “Love spirit ministries… remember?”

Mieke just wailed back desperately, and Evelyn shooed her twins away from the door, to offer her some privacy. Thankfully, by the time the Firmament stopped it´s automated progress deep within an inky valley on the far side of the moon, she´d almost fully dilated, her child crowning.

Happy to let the greenhouse´s ventilation system muffle the infirmary´s unfolding situation, most of the men onboard had migrated towards the garden… until Barney, acting as a secondary midwife to Evelyn´s efforts, ducked his head between the plants to relay that a baby boy named Duncan had been born!

“What a day…” exhaled Sergei. “Is first person ever born on moon! We make history, you know?”

Although no one had much energy left after all the excitement, dinner that night turned into an impromptu party, with a queue forming to see the newborn once Mieke was ready. And, after a few transient glances at the radar, Quentin´s mood improved enough for him to even reconsider their unplanned relocation.

“I mean, really… we wouldn´t be in this situation if Revis had just listened… or even- just had the balls to talk to me off-air ! They know very well that what they´re doing isn´t smart,” he said gruffly, observing Duncan´s small face and smiling almost against his will. “It´s not like I planned on keeping them captive…”

To the Copland´s credit, when they did eventually call the Firmament in-between their broadcasts, a string of apologies were the first thing to exit the Reverend´s mouth… but nonetheless, each conversation with Quentin always devolved into a shouting match, instead of an update on their guest´s condition.

For her part, Mieke seemed to have totally forgotten her earlier troubles in a rush of post-natal endorphins, and thus didn´t request her husband´s presence, bring up 2112´s inexplicable apparition, or seem to want anything that wasn´t centered on the yelling bundle of joy now in her arms. Moreover, as the week progressed, it became clear that the woman was perfectly content to eat her meals in bed, and keep to herself.

Yet even though the siblings rarely spotted her outside of trips to the bathroom, Duncan more than made up for his mother´s timidity by filling the Firmament with screams that surely would have peeled paint from the walls, had there been any.

On the other end of the spectrum, Quentin remained unable to fully divest himself from a lingering fear of impending, terrestrial retribution… and had resorted to picking apart whatever fuzzy, Earth-based television transmissions his satellite dish managed to intercept, in a mostly vain effort to analyse the impact of the Coplands´actions.

“I knew you is secret fan!” joked Matvey, hearing a snippet of Love Spirit Ministries blast through his captain´s headphones one afternoon, on his way past the cockpit.

“Hardy har har,” the man retorted, taking a break from his monitoring to stretch. “Yeah, I don´t know… could be this spot: dark side, low altitude… anyways, Revis´ nonsense keeps leeching in, whenever I get good reception!”

“I remember it always blurry when we used to watch, after Hyundai…” Matvey reminisced.

Still haunted by the name, Quentin lowered his gaze.

“So, are they talk about Revis?

“I mean, a little… I just wish I had better access to the internet, but that data is mostly transferred through underwater cables, so it´s harder to patch-in.”

“OK… is good then, no? We don´t want attention!” the Russian smiled, moving on to a less daunting subject. “Tonight, Schwabs want play… how you say… Pictionary? Drawing game... You want?

Pressed for a response, Quentin gave a little thumbs-up and got back to scouring the airwaves, despite barely detecting a vague acknowledgement -at least in the Western media he understood- that lunar broadcasts were in fact being received… and even then, more as a curiosity than a matter of much importance.

“Maybe because it´s a religious show? Barney considered, cackling as his son opened the evening´s festivities by sketching out a humpbacked squirrel. “That´s a pretty specific demographic!”

“Yeah, and a big one,” Quentin nodded. “Christians? Come on… Nah, in my experience, adding religion to any mix usually makes it worse.”

“Some South-African denomination, though? This ain´t the pope we´re talking about here…”

Correctly guessing Sander´s answer, Lori leapt up from her seat to replace her brother, and noticed that her father wasn´t listening.

“Hey, hello? You´re on my team, concentrate!”

“Sorry bunny…” Barney winked.

The men settled back into the game, Quentin capping their discussion off with a final, distrustful whisper.

“Something in my gut tells me this won´t end well…”

Ironically, after the fourth day of Duncan´s quasi-incessant bawling, Quentin´s fear of potential repercussions had molted into a devouring need for tranquility… so, against his better judgement, they began the drive back to save his sanity.

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Only this time, in place of returning exactly to their previous area, he determined it would be nicer for Mieke if they looped behind the volcano, and accessed New Nazareth from a different, flatter venue.

“...and then we won´t have to walk so far,” an increasingly haggard-looking Quentin explained, pointing to an elliptical journey his algorithms had traced for the Firmament on a console beside her. “The route is a little longer, but we can ride the rover right up to the airlock… and then you help me reign-in Revis, cool?”

“OK,” Mieke replied simply, more preoccupied by her infant´s well-being than the details of their trip. “Do you think I can fit Duncan in my spacesuit?”

“Probably… actually, that might be the one saving grace of those acorn-shaped monstrosities!” the man chuckled back, in reference to her unwieldy Russian apparel.

Eventually, everyone had sufficiently woken up to come bid the woman farewell, and they watched Mieke descend through the floor with their captain, baby Duncan secure against her chest.

“Now that´s gonna be one hell of a surprise…” Barney uttered snidely, as the dock slid shut behind them. “I almost considered tagging along, to see everyone´s reaction!”

“Da! Pieter very lucky man!”

“I just need them to reach some kind of compromise, for this radio-thing…” Evelyn added, feeling a cloud dissipate with the pair´s departure, “because I´m tired of Quentin´s hysterics!”

In light of Mieke´s absence, Lori decided that it was a bit useless to keep 2112 sequestered below, and went to free her little gray friend for lunch.

It was soon obvious that most of the Firmament´s passengers preferred talking about their dwarfish companion in the hypothetical, rather than actually having to interact with his alien morphology and robotic mannerisms. What´s more, considering the fact that 2112 didn´t have much of a gastrointestinal track, and that their craft lacked a “nutrition-bath” for him to use, it quickly turned oppressive to have their odd-looking guest join them for a meal, only to then sit and stare silently.

The Russians in particular seemed to consider the clone with extreme weariness, as if he was at any moment liable to cheat them out of something. But even so, the afternoon passed without any major incident, until an aggressive beeping rang out through the ship.

“What the-”

Jumping in unison at the startling sound, the crew stared around in perplexity while Sander called back to the common area, first to reach the radar´s display.

“Oh snap… looks like we´re in for some new neighbors!” he exclaimed. “Wait, is that… three ships?”

As the others swarmed to get a better view of the screen, Pavel noted that the objects currently streaking towards them were far too small or fast, to be any sort of traditional Runner… and tried dialing their captain.

“Quentin, you copy? We have, ah… things on radar, incoming. Quentin?”

It took a few seconds for the Landshark to respond, having just passed the lip of one of Mons Rümker´s posterior pyroducts, and static filled the room.

“What´s that?” the captain radioed back, letting their rover slow to a halt, in the hopes of reinvigorating the spotty signal.

Quentin glanced behind them to the tunnel´s entrance, where a corner of the Firmament could still be seen against the starlit sky, and repeated his question… but at this depth, the conduit´s walls simply gobbled up his frequencies and he gave up.

“Ok, whatever…” he snorted, shrugging to Mieke as he hit the gas again. “They can tell me when I´m back.”

“Hello? Can- do you hear me?” Pavel continued, as the radar-blips drastically slowed their speed as he watched. “Blyat…”

Ominously hovering in the background, 2112 also seemed somewhat worried by the turn of events.

“It would be best if I returned to the outpost… what if they´re looking for me?”

“Are you- is that seriously a possibility?” Barney gawked, his kids already hurrying towards the garden windows. “I… I thought you said your program was like, defunct or something!”

With everything going on, neither sibling could quite remember how to properly operate the automated shutters, so Sander manually yanked on one of the blinds like Quentin had, to glimpse the mysterious vessels… and as he pried, it opened inch by inch and the twins saw a trio of minuscule, billowing specks, lazily parachute onto the mountain´s flank.

“It´s- they´re landing!” Lori yelled, which made her parents dash over as well.

“Try calling him again,” her father ordered. “Something isn´t right…”

But Pavel just shook his head from the cockpit.

“Can´t reach… he too deep!”

“Then- I don´t know… call Revis, or something!”

They switched channels and were once more bombarded by the preacher´s stream-of-consciousness liturgies, as Matvey and his comrades came to join them near the green house with a pair of field glasses.

“If we leave it ringing, he will see…”

So they waited, passing the binoculars among themselves and doing their best to ignore Love Spirit Ministries´ droning sermon… till something out of the ordinary grabbed Revis´ attention, and stopped him cold.

“I- Oh… Pardon the interruption, ladies and gentlemen!” he paused, his euphoric tone slipping ever so slightly, as he turned away from the microphone to look at something… “Who is that?”

Under the assumption that Quentin and Mieke had arrived, the adults backtracked to the flight deck, fully expecting their pending call to now be answered… yet in lieu of a response, all they heard was the groan of twisting metal, punctuated by what sounded like Lood´s distant orders.

“Watch out! Back up…”

Then, after several more seconds of shuffling footsteps and muffled talk, Revis came back on-air:

“There seems to be some kind of machine…” the man began, narrating over the rising vortex of panicked voices around him. “I´m not totally-”

A loud popping noise abruptly cut short his testimony, followed by a woman´s scream.

“It´s drilling our airlock! It´s breaking in!”

“Stay away from the doors… Wai- put your suits on!”

Flabbergasted by what they were listening to, the Schwabs and Russians each turned slowly towards the twins, who had hesitantly joined them around the radio… and the line went dead.

“Uh oh…” Sander swallowed, perfectly encapsulating the moment´s emotions.

As for Quentin, the man remained blissfully unaware of the ongoing catastrophe as he raced down the tunnel… although nothing could have truly prepared him for what he and Mieke were about to witness: Barely a football field away, what looked to be some kind of futuristic trash compactor had bored through the lava-flow´s ceiling, climbed down the curved walls and was now showering itself with sparks, as it perforated the Copland´s front door.

Skidding to a halt on the rough basalt, Quentin could barely believe his eyes.

“Quentin!” Mieke wailed, clutching her son tight. “What is that?”

Before they could comprehend the scene, a different, low-slung vehicle came speeding into view from the far side of the cavern, to take aim at the airlock.

Almost resembling an alligator due to the series of interconnected armour plates that ran along it´s sides, this particular drone wasted no time in locking it´s wheels and extending a stubby barrel…

With a blinding flash, it then launched some kind of projectile that not only tore through the first machine´s rear-end, but annihilated New Nazareth´s fissure entirely, in a deafening explosion!

The Landshark retreated several inches, rocked by a blast-wave that momentarily crushed Mieke and Quentin into their seats and, as they both shook off minor concussions, the droid pivoted to face them, arming a fresh rocket.

“Shit!”

Quentin jerked the steering wheel to the left, blinking neon blotches away from his eyes, and made a U-turn just as the robot refocused its reticule.

However, in its haste to accomplish the mission´s primary objectives, the croc-bot had failed to take into account its competitor´s large, lithium battery… or New Nazareth´s pocket of pressurized air, which suddenly ignited in an even more massive detonation and engulfed the unmanned assailant, just as it was about to reopen fire.

Immediately, the ground under them began to tremble and sag, as if a giant rug had been pulled out from beneath their escaping rover, and Quentin was forced to swerved wildly, to avoid crumbling chunks of regolith that had started dropping down around them from the rocky canopy.

“Hold on!” he warned, heart in his throat as he fought to maintain control on the unforeseen incline they now found themselves climbing.

Another powerful jolt fleetingly lifted the Landshark a few feet off the ground, indicating that some type of seismic chain-reaction had been set in motion… and Quentin gunned it towards the exit, barely daring to peek at their rear-view mirror until they´d burst back out into sunlight.

“Quentin! What is g-” Barney radioed, now back in range…

But there was no time to explain and Quentin slammed on the brakes, cursing his Russian crew-members for having had the temerity to leave the ship.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the captain roared. “Get back inside!”

“Did you get message? Something land when you- ” Sergei began, falling silent as another, stronger earthquake rattled the zone. “Woah…”

High above them, one of the domes on Mons Rümker´s tallest peak simultaneously discharged a titanic plume of ash and Mieke shrieked again, clutching the infant in her suit for dear life.

“OK… we go!”

They scampered back to the dock, bracing against the aftershocks as pyroclastic particles started raining down around them, in a scalding shower of semi-molten magma beads.

Last to embark, Quentin heaved the Landshark back into its slot under a staccato patter of burning pebbles, praying with all his might that the cascade of lava droplets pelting the vicinity wouldn´t hit his spacesuit or any vital components on board… yet it was only when he´d regained the ship´s platform that an even more petrifying sight caught his eye:

In a sizzling blur of melting plastic and steaming metal, the third drone -that had apparently been sent to investigate the Firmament´s earlier location- was now rolling straight for them through the blistering precipitations, it´s target reacquired from the far side of the volcano!