Mission Planet Spargus XPP09

Chapter 4: Echoes of Silence

The darkness didn't bring peace. It only made the sounds of the station louder. Every groan of the hull, every rhythmic thrum of the oxygen scrubbers, sounded like a clock ticking down to zero. Josh sat in the command chair, his eyes wide open, staring at the black void where the image of a dying Earth had been just moments ago.

"How long are we going to sit here like this?" Diablo’s voice drifted from the shadows, hollow and trembling.

"As long as it takes to stop seeing the fire when we close our eyes," Josh replied.

"I still see it," Kim whispered. Her voice was thin, like a wire about to snap. "The way the atmosphere ignited. It shouldn't have been that color. Chemistry doesn't work that way."

"Chemistry doesn't matter anymore, Kim," Josh said, his voice flat. "Sleep. That’s an order."

Three weeks later, the silence of the Moon had become their new skin.

Luna Prime felt smaller now. The recycled air had a metallic, sour tang that stuck to the back of their throats. Water was strictly measured to the milliliter, and the food—a tasteless, grey protein paste—was a daily reminder of their status as the last living things in the universe.

Josh stood in the galley, watching Diablo stare at his ration tube. The pilot hadn't shaved in weeks. His charismatic spark had been replaced by a sunken, glassy-eyed stare. He looked like a man who was already dead, just waiting for his heart to get the memo.

"You have to eat it, Diablo," Josh said, leaning against the cold bulkhead.

"Why?" Diablo asked without looking up. "To keep my muscles from atrophying? For what? Am I going to fly a shuttle to a graveyard? Maybe I’ll take a scenic tour of the new Atlantic Ocean."

"Because if you don't, Kim and I have to carry your weight," Josh snapped, his patience wearing thin. "And we’re already carrying enough."

Diablo let out a dry, rasping laugh. "We’re ghosts, Josh. We’re just three ghosts hauntin’ a tin can. Why are we pretending this is a mission? There is no Command. There is no Earth. There’s just... this." He gestured vaguely at the ceiling.

"There's us," Kim said, walking into the room. She looked exhausted. Her lab coat was stained, and her hair was pulled back in a messy, frantic knot. "And there’s the oxygen. Josh, we have a problem."

Josh straightened up instantly. "The scrubbers?"

"The secondary seals in the hydroponics bay are leaking," Kim said, her voice tight with clinical precision. "It’s slow, but it’s steady. Our fourteen-month estimate just dropped to eight. Maybe six if the pressure fluctuations get worse."

Diablo didn't even flinch. "Great. So we get to the end of the book a few chapters early. I was getting bored anyway."

"Shut up, Diablo," Josh growled. He turned to Kim. "Can we patch it?"

"With what? We’ve used all the resin on the exterior coupler maintenance last month," Kim replied. She rubbed her temples, her fingers trembling. "We’re out of supplies, Josh. Out of options. We’re just... we’re breathing ourselves to death."

"I’m going to the server room," Josh said, pushing off the wall.

"The server room? For what?" Kim asked, following him down the narrow, dimly lit corridor. "The environmental controls are on the bridge."

"I’m looking for something else," Josh said. His mind was racing, a spark of pragmatism fighting through the fog of grief. "The Global Command didn't just leave us here to rot. That message... the one about the Seed of Life and the Cycle. It was encrypted with ancient military protocols. Protocols that shouldn't have been in a standard lunar research station’s database."

"You think they knew?" Kim asked, her eyes widening.

"I think they had a contingency," Josh said.

The server room was a cramped, freezing closet filled with the hum of blinking processors. Josh slid into the terminal seat and began bypass sequences he hadn't touched since his training at the Academy. His fingers felt heavy, his joints aching from the cold.

"What are you looking for, Josh?" Kim asked, leaning over his shoulder.

"Site Zero," Josh whispered.

"Site Zero? That’s a conspiracy theory. The 'Secret Base' on the far side? It was a joke among the engineers," Diablo said, appearing in the doorway, his curiosity finally overriding his apathy.

"A joke that required a dedicated, triple-encrypted partition in our main-frame?" Josh countered. He hit a key, and a red warning box flashed on the screen: RESTRICTED ACCESS - LEVEL 9 CLEARANCE REQUIRED.

"How are you going to get past that?" Kim asked. "The Level 9 codes were held by the Joint Chiefs."

"The Joint Chiefs are gone," Josh said. "But the station’s AI has a logic loop. If the primary command structure is non-responsive for more than twenty-one days, the emergency 'Succession of Command' protocol initiates."

He typed in his own ID number followed by a string of zeros. The screen flickered. The red box turned yellow, then green.

"Welcome, Captain Jeremy," a synthetic, emotionless voice echoed in the small room.

A map of the Moon appeared on the screen. It wasn't the standard topographical map they used for rover excursions. This one showed a network of deep-crust tunnels stretching from the Sea of Tranquility all the way to the Aitken Basin on the far side.

"Wait," Kim breathed, pointing at a blinking dot in the center of the dark side. "That’s... that’s not a natural formation."

"It’s a bunker," Josh said, his heart hammering against his ribs. "A deep-crust facility. It’s not on any public record. Look at the power signatures."

"They're active," Diablo said, his voice losing its flat tone, a hint of the old pilot returning. "They’re drawing geothermal energy from the mantle. Why didn't we see this before?"

"Because it’s shielded," Josh replied. He opened a file attached to the coordinates. It was a single text document, dated thirty years ago.

Project Aethelgard. In the event of a terrestrial extinction-level event, surviving lunar personnel are to proceed to the Far Side Facility. The Key is in the silence. The guide is waiting.

"The guide?" Kim asked. "What guide? Is there someone over there?"

"I don't know," Josh said. He looked at the coordinates. They were halfway across the lunar surface, through some of the most treacherous terrain on the Moon. "But I know we can't stay here. The scrubbers are failing, the Earth is a tomb, and we’re just waiting for the lights to go out."

"It's a long way, Josh," Diablo said, stepping into the room. He looked at the map, then at his hands. "The rover isn't built for a cross-hemisphere trek. We’d be betting everything on a thirty-year-old text file."

"What else are we betting on, Diablo?" Josh asked, turning to face him. "The paste? The leaking air? I’m not going to sit here and watch the two of you suffocate because I was too afraid to take a drive."

Josh reached out and tapped the screen, transferring the coordinates to a portable tablet. He stood up, his stature seemingly taller than it had been in weeks. The weight of leadership was back, but this time, it had a direction.

"Pack the rations," Josh commanded. "Everything. We strip the station of medical supplies and the portable oxygen tanks. We leave at dawn."

"Josh," Kim said, her hand on the doorframe. "What if there’s nothing there? What if it’s just an empty hole in the ground?"

Josh looked at the tablet in his hand. The coordinates blinked like a pulse—a heartbeat in the middle of a graveyard.

"Then at least we’ll die on the move," Josh said. He looked his team in the eyes, his voice steady and iron-willed. "But I don't think it’s empty, Kim. Something is calling us."

"The Far Side," Diablo whispered, a strange, half-forgotten smile touching his lips. "The side where no one can hear us scream."

"Or the side where we finally hear the truth," Josh replied. He turned the tablet toward them, the green light reflecting in their eyes. "We have a new mission. We’re going to find out what 'The Guide' is. And then, we’re going to find a way to make whoever did this pay."

He walked past them toward the airlock, leaving the cold silence of Luna Prime behind. For the first time since the world ended, Josh Jeremy wasn't a survivor. He was a hunter.