The shockwave blew Jejomar off his feet and a lightning flare blinded him. A rolling dust cloud fuelled by hot gases burst from the centre of the moon-base as pieces of debris flew into the air. Big structural beams were blasted into space and smaller pieces were jettisoned like bullets. Some smashed into clusters of retreating Masama before they had time to react. There was no air to convey the sound of devastation, but the explosive convulsion tore through him, a wave of heat and radiation passed through in an instant. Some of the energy from the impact was converted into light, creating an instantaneous brilliant flash, lighting up the Sea of Serenity with a giant strobe. The wave passed through him, and Jejomar rolled onto his knees, dazed, and disorientated. He was telepathically linked with all of his people, and he felt several connections disappear as some of the Masama were killed by flying chunks of shrapnel before the channel they shared was severed by the electro-magnetic blast.
Ojerime was next to him, he reached out to her, and they staggered to their feet together. He was blind and deaf. He could not see through the dust clouds. His mind fumbled for the telepathic link, but there was just white noise in his head. Cut off from his people, he had never felt so lost and isolated. He staggered around, holding onto Ojerime. They gave each other support as they looked for survivors. The thick dust was slowly settling, and pieces of moon-base rained down on the surface around them. Jejomar looked around but had no sense of direction until the dust finally settled and he got his bearings from the surrounding crater rim and the slopes of Montes Haemus. He immediately thought of his daughter. He cried out her name, but no-one could hear.
Dakila had been the closest. When they became aware of the shuttle hurtling towards them, he gathered the children from the creche and secured them in a transporter. They should be safe inside the tunnels underneath the mountain by now, but Jejomar could not contact anyone to confirm. Bulan had been playing with the other children, six of them fitting colourful shapes together, building blocks and chalk drawings. Jejomar’s hard heart melted when he spent time with his daughter. She had the telepathic implant installed but wasn’t quite ready to use it. Jejomar could sense her mind when she was close, a jumble of happy, inquisitive innocence and adventurous ideas. He loved spending time with his daughter, she made him feel optimistic about the future, a future he had believed was impossible after Lago made them all sterile. And now their moon-base was obliterated, and their connection severed.
Jejomar had ordered the evacuation as soon as he was aware of the shuttle, opening his mind entirely to their telepathic network and sending the equivalent of an alarm to his people. “We are under attack, there is a shuttle approaching on a collision course. We must evacuate the base. Go to the lava tunnels of Montes Haemus, go there now, leave no-one behind.”
He had moved quickly through the moon-base, making sure everyone was following instructions. He was in constant telepathic communication with the entire Masama family, but some were reluctant to leave, those tending the vegetation in the green-room were trying to take plants with them in air-tight containers. Jejomar ushered them out and continued to check every area. The vacuum hardened Masama could simply walk out an airlock and onto the surface, the exo-suits they wore were self-contained. Some did not seem to realise the urgency of the situation. They had never envisaged an attack from a suicidal shuttle.
Once he was sure there was no-one left inside the base, Jejomar met Ojerime and the last few remaining Masama in the airlock. It seemed to take an eternity to wind down. They sealed their suits and ran out onto the surface of the Moon. He immediately looked up and sighted the incoming shuttle. It was a bright flaring light in the dark sky like a comet with a faint vapour trail. They moved quickly away from the moon-base, towards Montes Haemus in the distance. Jejomar kept an enhanced eye on the shuttle, rapidly growing bigger and heading directly for the base. He stopped and turned to watch the impact, it happened in the blink of an eye. Their fragile home was razed in an instant.
The shuttle had smashed through the swarm of drones they sent to intercept. The drones looked stationary compared to the speed of the shuttle, but the collisions ripped it apart. One of the wings was shredded, several drones smashed into the booster arrangement at the stern, tearing them away and lighting up the sky with brief, incandescent, superheated explosions. The other wing took some hits but somehow stayed attached. Jejomar watched the lumbering Tobias VI as it tried to gain speed and move into the path of the shuttle. It narrowly missed a head-on collision, hitting the side, scraping down the hull and ripping its other wing off. The incoming shuttle was fast disintegrating, its structure torn apart as it hurtled towards the moon-base. The collision with the Tobias had sent its remains into a spin, the hull cartwheeled closer, surrounded by flying fragments of debris that hammered down into the regolith where he stood, watching helplessly before he was blown off his feet.
Jejomar looked around as the dust settled, a metal hand still clamped onto Ojerime’s arm. In between the clouds he could see clusters of Masama gathered around the remains of the moon-base. Most of them had evacuated to a safe distance but some had been caught in the blast. As the dust cleared further, he could see bodies lying on the surface. He had come to rely on their telepathic link, it was so natural, communicating with thought. He felt vulnerable, detached from his people, deaf and blind without the reassuring hum of telepathy in the back of his mind. It was the Masama’s strongest sense and Jejomar had not realised how much he depended on it until now. It was incredibly disorientating to suddenly be without it. Now there was silence in his head. The only sound he could hear was the distressing noise of his own sorrow for the deceased Masama and the anxious concern for his daughter.
Jejomar and Ojerime went to help the remaining Masama as they dragged the injured and the dead further away from the wreckage. Multiple explosions briefly illuminated the shattered remains of their home as pressurized equipment exploded. Their telepathic link flickered back into life as the magnetic emissions from the explosion faded. Jejomar could hear bursts of conversation, cries for help and screams of pain as the link was re-established. He called out with his mind. “Where is Dakila and the children? Has anyone seen the transporter?” But no-one could locate them. Jejomar clung onto the hope that they were safely inside the lava tunnels, beyond the range of their telepathic cries.
Dust hung in the vacuum from the explosion, slowly drifting back to the surface. Small bits of debris that had been blasted into the sky fell back to the surface like dry leaves in the low gravity. Then the storage containers of helium3 exploded. Jejomar felt like time had stopped. The next horror seemed to unfold in slow motion. The helium3 stockpile was kept outside the moon-base in compressed liquid form. Stored in hundreds of cannisters like large thermos containers awaiting delivery to Earth. The cannisters were blown away horizontally across the surface, igniting as they went. Each one exploding in a mini fireball, tumbling across the flat plain of Mare Serenitatis, and quickly burning out as their concentrated fuel was expended in hundreds of searing hot flares. Jejomar watched a single container scream towards him like a guided missile, centimetres above the surface. It hit a rock in front of him and was catapulted over his head, narrowly missing his helmet. He turned in time to see the somersaulting cannister explode as it smashed into the surface. The momentum sending it spinning out across the regolith, spouting bursts of short-lived fire. He could feel more telepathic connections severed as his brothers and sisters were caught by the flying cannisters. He looked down at the rock in front of him and realised how lucky he had been. He reached out and touched Ojerime, just to make sure she was still there, not trusting his senses anymore and reassured by the physical connection. Their telepathic space was filled with more screams of alarm and cries of pain.
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They slowly regrouped and did what they could to help the injured. Jejomar sent out increasingly frantic enquiries about Dakila and the transporter full of children, but there was still no news. Ojerime made a personal connection as they toiled in the dust. “It was the same shuttle Lago used. Jejomar, it was a suicide bomber, a kamikaze. It must have been a revenge attack for the human Dakila killed.”
Jejomar’s anger was building as he dragged dead Masama away from the blast zone. He was already contemplating retaliation. He suspected Ojerime was correct, this was an emotional, suicidal, act of revenge for the killing of the human Christophe. Since they had left, Jejomar had not thought about the man or his ludicrous proposal that had resulted in his death. The idea of turning the Moon into a tourist attraction for wealthy humans was worse than ridiculous, it was insulting. During that conversation with Christophe, Jejomar could sense Dakila was close to violence. He told him not to lash out, but Dakila had acted on his instincts when he had cut the man’s head off and Jejomar could not stop him.
Dakila had lost control of himself, but Jejomar agreed with his motives. They had to show that the Masama would not be taken advantage of. Ever again. They would not be exploited, and they were not for sale. Killing Christophe was an example, to ensure other humans would not try something similar. To keep them away from the Moon. Jejomar had also been glad just to have the annoying little man shut up. As he worked in the dust, helping the injured and dead Masama, Jejomar suspected Ojerime was right. This disaster was revenge for killing the human. In hindsight, decapitating him was an overreaction. But it had been done and these were the consequences.
He had to find his daughter. He reached out to try to connect with Dakila again but still could not locate him. He left the wounded and the dead and ran around the circumference of the blast zone. Dodging chunks of burnt twisted metal and clusters of Masama helping the wounded. He reached the track from the moon-base to the mountain and finally, he detected a weak signal from Dakila, injured but alive. He raced through the dust towards the signal. Dakila had been thrown a few metres from the transporter. His legs had been blown off and the bloody stumps were freezing into the ground. What was left of his exo-suit had sealed and his helmet was circulating the remaining oxygen. Dakila was barely alive, but he held onto a shred of consciousness. Jejomar stared at the transporter in horror, unwilling to accept what he was seeing.
“The transporter, destroyed. Jejomar, the children.”
Behind Dakila was the remains of the transporter. It had been hit by the severed wing of the shuttle and was completely destroyed. The wing had scythed through the machine on an angle. Smashing through the passenger compartment and into the driver’s seat. There had been an explosion, blowing the remains of the machine apart. Jejomar frantically searched through the burnt, twisted metal. The children were too small for exo-suits, they had no protection. He realised they couldn’t have survived this carnage. He found an infant’s car seat, amazingly still intact but empty. It was stained with blood. His daughter’s blood. He found some recognisable remains of Bulan with the other children. Jejomar stood there amidst the carnage, motionless, cradling his dead daughter. Feeling nothing but devastating grief, and boiling rage.
***
Ojerime found him but could not connect. There was nothing to say. No words could comfort him. She put her arms around Jejomar and the remains of Bulan and she wept with him. Around them the dust was settling, the whole destructive sequence from the shuttle appearing to the collision with the moon-base had only taken seconds. What was left was a lifetime of devastation. There was nothing left of the moon-base, only a shallow crater littered with debris. Everything had been destroyed, leaving a quiet, dusty bowl, as if the collection of domes had never existed. Ojerime’s home was even more precious because it was so fragile. On Earth, their houses were just a place to sleep and eat, here on the Moon they were the difference between life and death. Many Masama were dead, but Ojerime thought of the green room. The lush, oxygen rich, carbon-devouring vegetables were a symbol of their ingenuity and adaptability. All gone, vapourised in an instant.
A transporter arrived to take them to the lava tunnels. Ojerime secured the unconscious Dakila and went back to help Jejomar. He was still standing amidst the wreckage, head bowed, unmoving, holding the broken little body of Bulan in his arms. She began the awful task of finding the remains of the other children. Her compound eyes wept as she retrieved their frozen, mangled bodies and took them back to the transporter where she wrapped them in foil. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. None of the children were hers, but they had been raised by the Masama community and she knew and loved them all. She couldn’t find all of them. She stopped searching, paralysed by grief, and looked up at the bright blue Earth above. The view was the same as always, but Ojerime felt a twist of revulsion and hatred as she stared at the Earth. She couldn’t blame the entire planet for what had happened. Could she?
Ojerime eventually coaxed Jejomar back into the waiting transporter with the help of Kurzawa, the driver. He remained silent. There was nothing to say. She circled him in their telepathic space, a black hole of despair. They arrived at the lava tunnels of Montes Haemus where the Masama had been renovating the biggest tunnel with the intention to live there. Caverns had been sealed but they were not properly habitable yet. Injured Masama lay on the rocky floor, tended by the able-bodied survivors. Luckily, they had relocated their biggest 3D printer and several smaller ones, already busy manufacturing urgent supplies.
They put the dead in one small airless cavern. Stripped of their exo-suits, wrapped in foil. There were fourteen bodies, including five smaller parcels, the remains of the children. But more bodies were arriving as the transporters delivered the last of the living, the injured and the dead. Ojerime helped where she could. There was a dark silence in the telepathic space as the survivors dealt with the tragedies. The caverns were busy with hastily installed medical facilities for the wounded, operating tables, and sterile surgical equipment on the bare rock. The dead would all be recycled, including the children. That was the way of life on the Moon. All matter and energy would continue in some form. The dead Masama would be utilized to help the rest of them survive.
Ojerime followed Jejomar, unnerved by his silence. She did not know how to even attempt to offer comfort. She placed her hand on his shoulder as he held on to the little foil bundle and watched his people. They walked through the tunnels. Ojerime could sense the collective angry confusion, like an oppressive cloud of dread that filled the dark spaces. She should stay with Jejomar. She followed him into the airless cavern where he laid his daughter to rest. He lingered there, counting the dead, then turned and embraced Ojerime. Their titanium suits made it awkward but inside Ojerime could sense Jejomar’s mind returning from the dark spaces it had been.
“My daughter is dead and any contentment I had died with her. Many of our people are dead, our friends and relatives.” Jejomar stopped as another body was bought in. “The humans will pay. I will have revenge.”