Gary Tigerman by Orion Protocol

Author:Orion Protocol
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-03-06T22:46:42+00:00

Whether credited or criticized, Deaver’s command decision and pilot Augie Blake’s deft handling of the spacecraft would forever be dissected at the Air Force Academy for the benefit of gonzo freshman cadets.

Once radio contact with Houston was restored and all the shouting was over, the astronauts made a concerted effort to keep their heads down and stick to the script, hoping to dissipate unwanted distractions caused by such hotdog heroics.

But the real history being made by Apollo 18 would be made in secret: when Commander Jake Deaver and Colonel Augie Blake became the first human beings to walk among the ruins of an extraterrestrial city on another world.

After securing the spacecraft and completing the public aspect of their first day on the Moon, the two men suited up, switched to the secure channel for communications, and set out from the landing site in an open rover.

“My God,” Jake said, gawking as best he could through his gold helmet visor.

“It’s awesome.” Augie stopped the $20 million little Jeep-like rover with the huge wheels.

Looking up and out from this vantage point, they could now see what satellite photos only hinted at: they had set down inside the remains of a desiccated dome structure. In all directions, the two astronauts were surrounded by a construct of thin, spidery beams eroded to near invisibility and arching high up into the black daytime sky.

Jake lifted his protective visor, accepting the brief UV hit in exchange for a clearer view. It was breathtaking and hugely exciting. Both men were pumped up like Super Bowl athletes taking the field.

“Holy fuck. It’s big.”

“Houston, y’all should see this damn thing. Wish you were here.”

“We copy, Augie Doggie. You are our eyes and ears.”

But Augie had already hopped out of the Lunar Excursion Module and begun making a deliberate panoramic sweep of the site with a hand-wound eight-millimeter film camera.

“I’m taking a slow pan now. Looks like a lot of broken glass …”

“We copy. Commander, we show your visor in the up position. Over.”

“Roger that.” Deaver pulled the visor back down as he extracted a large-format seventy-millimeter Hasselblad still camera from its compartment in the rover and used the zoom to get close-ups of the long-abandoned alien biosphere.

“Augie’s right. Looks like glass panels on a convex-dome frame …” In a vacuum, glass can be made hard as steel and would be a logical thing for space farers to build with.

Jake documented several shattered silicate panels still clinging to lower sections of the dome, refracting and reflecting sunlight into the lens in smeary little flashes.

“How high is this thing, Dog Man?”

“Ten clicks, easy.”

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