The Mobile Exploration Vehicle – or MOBY as it was more commonly known – reached its new coordinates at 8:00 pm Houston time. The survey team inside parked the vehicle, checked their suits and the rovers that they’d use to get around the rocky and inhospitable surface in the morning, and then decided they were past due for dinner.
Over warmed up MRE’s, the three men and two women pored over maps and discussed their routes for the next few days. They’d go out in teams of two, and while it would seem easy-peasy to have Team Red cover the eastern half of the grid square, and Team Blue the western half, when you took into account that the Moon’s surface was pitted with craters and debris, plotting around these obstacles added a considerable level of difficulty to the task.
Team Blue would be made of up Nigel Harding and Rebecca Johnston – both seasoned veterans out on the surface - and Team Red would be Jimmy Angelini and Marcus Bryant. Marcus was a greenhorn who was still learning his way around, so it made sense to team him up with Jimmy who was the overall Technical Lead for the entire team. Sarah Petrie would stay behind with the MOBY to monitor their support systems, and keep track of everyone’s progress.
With everything set, they broke for the evening and headed to their quarters for a good night’s sleep to prepare them for the long day ahead.
The next morning after a quick breakfast, the teams made sure their rovers were fully charged and programmed with their set routes, then suited up. Sarah checked each team member’s suit in turn, making sure everything was fully secured and patting each member twice on the back once they passed muster. Once everyone was ready, Sarah left the loading bay, and buttoned it up. From behind the airlock door, she lowered the ramp to the surface and waved at the others as they gave her thumbs up and headed out.
Once the ramp was back up and the bay secure, Sarah headed to the cockpit. From the wide front window she could see the two rovers waiting. She pushed a button on the control panel, and a large screen with an attached keyboard rose up. She typed in some commands, and the screen lit up into quadrants. On the left hand side she could see the live camera feeds from both of the rovers…Red on top, Blue on the bottom.
Over on the right side of the screen, the upper quadrant showed the life support levels of the team’s suits, along with maintenance info on the rovers. The lower quadrant showed a CGI map of the grid square they were exploring, with red and blue dotted lines showing the routes the rovers were to follow, and dots marking where they were currently located. Once the cameras and communications had been tested and confirmed to be working, she gave them the all clear to head out.
If everything went well, they’d have this grid square surveyed in two to three days. Along with searching for pockets of Helium-3 for their company to mine, they were also looking for mineral rich meteorites to collect, and anything else that might be of interest to scientists back at headquarters. Anything they found would be marked with little beacons, so that the respective teams would know where to find them.
Along with monitoring the two teams, it was also Sarah’s responsibility to find a good place to move and park the MOBY for the next day. She scanned the map on the screen, and zoomed in on a nice central location that would be easy for the two teams to access from their respective routes. She plugged in the coordinates, and the MOBY’s navigation computer fired up the large vehicle and began to roll it slowly and carefully to its next stopping point.
Sarah hated being stuck in the MOBY, and would much rather be out with the survey teams. She had a doctorate in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines, which was being wasted staring at a screen all day long. At the same time, she felt a heavy sense of responsibility for her teammates and their wellbeing, which balanced out her distaste for being left behind.
After nine hours out, she called for the teams to start heading back home. The first day in the new square had gone smoothly, and they were ahead of schedule. Once everyone was back, suits were checked and hung, and the rovers plugged in to charge for the night.
The team had dinner in the common area, and bickered over what movie to watch, finally settling for a newish comedy that amazingly no one had seen before. Nigel popped some popcorn, and they spent a pleasant couple of hours laughing and joking together before heading to bed for the night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day started the same as the first. The teams were out, the MOBY was in motion, and Sarah was bored. About 1:20 pm, Rebecca piped in, “Hey Sarah, we’ve found an OOPART.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, “Are you sure?”
“Check the camera, see for yourself.”
Sarah blew up the feed from Team Blue’s rover, and cammed around. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s straight ahead. We’ll be on it in a few minutes.”
Sarah focused the camera straight ahead, but the quality of the picture suddenly pixilated, and she couldn’t get a clear view. “Dammit! The camera is acting up, and I can’t see it!”
Team Blue aimed the lights of the rover on the object, and stopped. After releasing their seatbelts, they got out and moved slowly towards the anomaly. Nigel reached it first, and stretched out a hand, and his touch started it bobbing slightly back and forth.
Sarah’s voice broke in, “Guys? Are you there? What is it? I can’t see it!”
Nigel stared at in wonder, “It’s…a unicorn.”
“What the fu…a unicorn?”
Rebecca piped up, “It’s a spring rider, Sarah, in the shape of a unicorn.”
“It’s not possible!”
“Girl, we’re staring right at it. There is nothing else it could be.”
“Can you bring it back with you?”
Nigel crouched down and brushed away the dust and rock at the base, “That’s the thing, love…it’s bolted to the ground like it’s been here for years.”
Back at the MOBY, Sarah sat back in disbelief, “Can you put a beacon on it?”
Rebecca fished a beacon out of her pack, turned it on, and put it on the object, “You getting any signal?”
“No, nothing’s coming through, just like the other teams reported with theirs. OK then, record its coordinates, and try to get pictures. Use the film camera…these things seem to screw around with the digital ones.”
“Will do,” Rebecca said as she went back to the rover for their backup camera.
“Nigel, are you getting any odd readings from it…anything that could be causing the camera and beacon interference?”
“Negative, Sarah. At least, not anything our equipment can read. No radio signals, no radiation of any kind, nothing on UV or Infrared, either.” Nigel straddled the toy and sat on it gingerly.
“Noted, thanks.”
“Nigel, what are you doing?” Rebecca chided.
“Take a picture, Becca…for scale purposes.”
“Yeah, for scale purposes my ass. You just want a picture of yourself on the thing.”
Nigel began to ride it in earnest, rocking it back and forth “OK, that too.”
Sarah’s voice broke in, “Stop dicking around you two. Get the pictures, and get back to work. We’ll forward everything on to headquarters for analysis once you get back.”
“Ma’am, yes Ma’am,” Nigel intoned as he stood, “just trying to make light of it, so I don’t run away screaming from the damn thing.”
Sarah sighed, “I know, I’m sorry Nigel…you know what, pack it in and head back. I’ll call in the other guys, and we’ll call it a day. We’re ahead of schedule anyway.”
“With pleasure, m’Lady.”
The mood on the rover was somber as they headed back. This was the third OOPART that had been found by surveyor teams spread across the Moon’s surface. It had been easy to discount the first two as they hadn’t discovered those themselves, but now that they’d found one of their own, it wasn’t so easy to make light of it.
Rebecca looked over at Nigel, “What in hell is going on, babe?” she asked quietly on their private channel.
Nigel looked over at her and shrugged, “I don’t know, Becca…I just don’t know.”
Author's note: This may be an ongoing story, or this may be what I call a "Snippet". Snippets are random story ideas that knock around in my head that have no real plot, they're just sort of one offs. So if you don't see anything more on this story, don't be surprised.
This particular Snippet was inspired by this picture I found on my Tumblr yesterday...
