Enigma by Terrance Mulloy

Author:Terrance Mulloy [Mulloy, Terrance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 48140949
Publisher: Tiny Empire Pty Ltd
Published: 2019-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

L ucas and the others were standing outside the mess hall, talking amongst themselves in tense whispers. Zoe was seated at a rec table inside, sipping on a warm mug of soup Perez had prepared from her own rations supply.

“…I think she’s full of shit,” Mitchell said, arms folded as he leaned against the wall.

“Damn right,” Adams said in agreement.

Lucas wasn’t sure what to believe. “Something very bad happened here. There’s no denying that.”

Adams scoffed. “You really gonna buy that Little Green Men story? Come on, man.”

Mitchell threw a look over his shoulder to check on Zoe. “Yeah, more like she got cabin fever and sabotaged the fucking habs.”

Chakma idly stroked the stubble on his chin. Like Lucas, he had a ton of questions - none of which seemed to be getting answered. “I doubt that, Mitchell. SAT images showed no structural damage to any igloos. If she blew anyone out of an airlock without depressurizing first, half the base would have been destroyed.”

“And where did their SAT go?” said Perez. “There’s no evidence in the logs that anyone was messing around with any orbital trajectories.”

Mitchell wasn’t having any of that. “Maybe she just deleted the evidence before we got here.”

Kwong turned to Chakma. “Could be a mascon basin.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Adams looked at Mitchell, shook his head, and then turned to Chakma. “English, perhaps?”

“You’re standing on the Moon and you don’t know what a mascon basin is?”

“Chakma, just assume not everyone standing here graduated from Stanford.”

“I graduated from Cal-Tech.”

“And I from West Point, smartass.”

Lucas clapped like a coach trying to pipe down his team.” Guys, cut it! Chakma, if you would.”

Chakma composed himself and went back to the task at hand. “Right… well, gravity on the Moon is not consistent. It fluctuates in varying degrees over the surface. We call them mascon basins.”

“Think of them like coral reefs, hidden beneath the ocean waves,” added Kwong.

“Exactly. And for decades they were a mystery. They caused havoc with some of the early lunar missions. NASA lost a bunch of probes until they finally figured out that large concentrations of mass underneath the lunar surface can change the gravitational field. These can easily push something off course - even crash it into the surface.”

“Thing is, this particular SAT model was designed with its own thrust propulsion and stabilizers. If it ever got caught in a mascon, it could easily maneuver out of and plot a new orbit - just like swimming free of a rip current.”

“Then someone must have purposely shot it down, or knocked it off course,” Mitchell said.

Chakma nodded grimly. “That’s the most probable scenario. I’d say it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

Perez glanced over at Zoe, who was still sitting there, vacantly staring at the wall, clutching her mug of soup. “We need to get out to that antenna array.” Perez turned to Lucas. “Take a look for ourselves.”

Lucas chewed his bottom lip, finally nodding in agreement. He glanced at his readout. “We don’t have enough O2 to trek on foot.

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