Ghost Moon Part 2: Journey into the Junk Moon

Junkers are heroes of the future, traveling across galaxies in search of space trash to snare. They transport their finds and sell them to industries, museums, archaeologists, and wealthy collectors. Granny the Captain, Edward the First Mate (an Artificial Intelligence), and young Alex live on The Amber Cow, a junk ship designed to deal with any garbage that comes its way.

One day, Granny has exciting news: the Cow’s sensors have picked up a Junk Moon not far ahead. In the past, resource-hungry worlds mined moons for the ores they needed. When they’d dug out everything of use, they would fill the empty sections with trash, turning it into a Junk Moon. Then, they would drive the moon to the edge of a Dead Zone — blank areas of space with few planets or stars, where nobody went — and give it a shove. Out of sight, out of mind.

Alex is intrigued, but Edward has collected many frightening stories from the Omniweb. “Dead Zones are full of monsters! And Junk Moons are said to be haunted!”

In spite of Edward’s worries, they change course to explore the Junk Moon. When they get within visual range, they can see why the moon has left the Dead Zone. An impact crater shows where an asteroid hit, knocking the moon out of the Dead Zone — and straight into the gravitational field of a star! There is little time left before the moon and all of its treasures will be destroyed.

* * *

Time was short — every second that passed, the moon was being dragged closer to a fiery death — but they couldn't just rush ahead the moment they docked. They still had to be careful.

The Amber Cow’s extendable docking gangway sealed itself with a hiss onto the entrance to the moon’s loading bay. Edward went first through the air locks, to check the temperature and oxygen levels.

He had his camera and communicator switched on, which was standard procedure, and they could hear how his metal boots clicked rhythmically across the metal walkway that they could see leading along the side of the loading bay. The sound echoed back from the walls, making a clicky-clacky pattern.

“I’ve set my timer,” he called back through the communicator. “Four hours and counting, before we have to get away from here. I’ve found what looks like an Info Dispenser. I’ll see if I can download the mining map.”

As they waited, Alex checked the spare flashlights one more time. Her heart was thumping uncomfortably fast.

Edward’s voice came through once again. “I’ve finished the download and re-checked my sensors. All okay. Not too hot, not too cold, and all the oxygen you could want. Looks like the miners didn’t bother to take the greenhouse apart.”

Mining moons had their own life support system — breathable air and drinkable water produced by a greenhouse cavern. It was the first thing that was built when the miners landed and had to be up and running before mining proper could begin.

The other thing all mining moons had were maneuvering engines. Just basic thrusters — nothing super powerful — but enough to keep the moons in a good, steady orbit while they were being worked on.

“Hey — if the greenhouse is still operational, do you think that means the engines might be okay too?” said Granny as they passed through the airlock onto the walkway to meet him.

“Do we have time to go and check?” said Alex.

“If we could use the thrusters to counter the star’s pull, or at least slow it down, that would buy us time,” said Granny.

“Right,” said Edward. “We’ll go to the engine room first then.” He consulted the map he’d downloaded onto his arm display. “This way.”

They hurried through a maze of hallways carved out of the body of the moon. It wasn’t far — but when they got there, any hope of starting up the old engines was dashed.

“Whoa, what happened here?” said Alex.

The engine casings gaped open and half a dozen thruster cylinders lay scattered across the floor.

“The miners took the power converter crystals,” said Granny. “See that empty bracket there, at the tip? The older technology used special crystals to convert the electricity into driving force. The thrusters are still here, but they’re useless without the converters.” She gave one of the thrusters a kick. “If I had the converter crystals, I’m pretty sure I could get the engines going, but without them, there’s no chance. And without the crystals this moon is going nowhere — except into the star. So we better collect the best of the junk while we can.” She consulted the map on Edward’s arm. “That’s where we need to get to: the Great Cavern. That’s where they’ll have packed the junk.”

They gathered themselves and headed back into the tangle of twisting tunnels.

“How did they ever find their way through this?” said Alex. “This place is a jumble!”

“The miners followed the seams of ore through the rock,” Edward explained, “digging along wherever the ore led until they broke through into another tunnel… or the ore ran out.”

“This moon must have been full of ore then,” said Alex as they took yet another turn.

“Full of ore and now, hopefully, full of junk,” said Edward.

“Junk riches, just waiting for us!” exclaimed Granny.

“Us… us… us…” came strange hissing echoes back.

“Sorry,” whispered Granny. “Odd places, these old moons.” And for the next several minutes, nobody said anything at all.

They came to another fork in the tunnels, and Edward referred to the map again.

“This way,” he said and headed off down the left hand passage. “Just along here and then…”

He stopped short.

“What’s wrong?” asked Granny and Alex in unison.

“Look! There’s a wall!”

“Well, yes,” said Granny. “There’s nothing strange about a wall.”

“But that wall shouldn't be there. According to the miners’ map, this tunnel should lead directly to the Great Cavern.”

“Well, there must be some kind of error with the map.”

They retraced their steps and tried another passage. This one had lots of turns to the right — so many turns to the right that they suddenly found themselves coming out again exactly where they’d started from.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Granny.

“We really don’t,” said Edward. He turned the sound up on the timer for a moment. 3 hours, 25 minutes, 4 seconds… 3 seconds… 2 seconds…

“Okay,” said Granny. “You can turn it down. Where do we go next?”

Edward peered at his arm display and tapped it a few times. “Let’s head for that spiral ramp — along this tunnel, here — and see if we can get access indirectly, through the passages off that.”

Granny led the way.

“It’s like the moon doesn’t want us to find the Great Cavern,” Alex whispered to Edward. The eyebrows on his face display waggled as if in agreement.

At least the ramp was where it was supposed to be. But as they headed down, further into the center of the moon, Alex kept seeing flickers of movement out of the corner of her eyes. No matter how quickly she turned her head, though, there was nothing there.

Granny felt something too, because she kept looking back over her shoulder and then shaking her head, until finally Edward asked what was wrong.

“Nothing,” said Granny. “It’s just… no, it’s nothing.”

“I think some of my sensors are glitching,” said Edward. “It’s the strangest feeling… just as if we were being watched.”

“There!” gasped Alex, spinning round. But there was nothing to see.

“It’s the light from the flashlights flickering against the walls,” said Granny. “Easy to imagine more, but no. That’s it.”

Alex sighed, feeling slightly embarrassed. There was more to being a Junker than just studying and passing exams. To earn a Junker jacket, you had to explore where there was junk without being paralyzed by fear. Alex would never get her jacket at this rate.

“This way,” said Edward, consulting the map.

Alex took a deep breath and followed him.

They turned into another tunnel that was just like all the other tunnels, except that in this tunnel, the sound of their feet and the echoes of their voices were replaced by something new — in this tunnel, there were strange creaking noises coming from the rock around them.

“You know what?” said Granny, slowing down. “I think we maybe better call it a day. I think the star's gravity is starting to make this moon unstable.”

“It’s all the tunneling,” said Edward, slowing down too. “That must have weakened it.”

The creaking stopped. So did Granny, Edward, and Alex. For a long moment, there was only the sound of two humans and an AI, listening really hard.

“Or maybe we still have time…” muttered Edward.

Granny rubbed her nose and then made up her mind. “No. Something’s not right. We’re leaving — come on!”

They turned to go — and suddenly, the rock around them started shaking violently. The creaking was back, rising to a shriek. Alex screamed — light blinded her as Granny’s flashlight spun wildly up into the air and then was cut off by blackness. A gust of wind blew up into her face, dry and full of grit — at her feet, the floor disappeared. Granny had vanished — Edward and Alex teetered on the edge of an abyss — at the last second, Edward shoved Alex hard so that she fell back onto the floor before he too was gone.

For a moment, she couldn’t move, all the air knocked out of her lungs. Then she scrambled across the floor and peered over the crumbling edge of the hole.

“Granny! Edward!” she screamed. “Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

But it was too dark and too deep to see to the bottom. The sides looked horribly steep and hard to climb. If they could climb. If they were all right.

“Granny? Edward?” She meant to shout again, but this time her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. She held her breath, straining to hear. For a long, horrible moment, there was nothing. And then, from down below came the welcome sound of Granny.

“How stupid is this! I’ve broken the flashlight!”

“I’ve broken my legs,” said Edward.

Alex’s brain started racing like a squirrel in a gyroscope. How could she get them out? Edward was too heavy for Granny to drag to safety by herself. How much time did they have left before the moon impacted the star?

“Alex?”

It was Granny.

“Alex, we’ve fallen into another tunnel. Go back up the ramp and see if you can find a way down to this level.”

Alex jumped up.

“Stay there,” she called to them. “Don’t move! I’ll find you. I’ve got the extra flashlights, Granny, and together we can carry Edward, and we can get back to the Cow.”

“Sounds good to me,” Edward’s voice drifted up.

“Hurry, Alex!” Granny called. “Hurry!”

There was a note of panic in her voice that Alex had never heard before. It made her heart clench.

“Okay,” she called down, and edging away from the hole, she began to run back the way they'd come, aware of the seconds ticking away with every step. As she ran, the tears came, and once she started crying, she found she couldn’t stop. She wiped her eyes so she could see properly, but they just filled up again. Everything blurred and seemed to change shape as she rushed past. Her breathing was ragged and noisy and echoed in a way that sounded as if sobs were coming from the walls themselves.

She kept on running.

She didn’t dare look back.

To be continued…