When there were only a few hours to spare, we suited up, took weapons, and waited for the final minutes in the airlock. At last, we touched down, and the hatch opened. It was a bit of a shock to be subjected to even minor lunar gravity after so many subjective months of weightlessness. 142 went down the ladder ahead of me. It was good its suit had an extra sleeve to accommodate its prehensile tail. How annoying it would be to be forced to coil it up inside a suit meant for a tailless quadruped.
I descended the ladder and began moving toward the objective. As we were on the light side, it was easy enough to see. In the low gravity, it has easy enough to hop away so that we were away from the blast radius of the ship's engines as it took off.
We both turned to watch it launch back into the black starlit sky. Its engines burned silently and released a massive gush of orange flame. The first part of the journey was easy enough, as the landscape was mostly flat with a few small hills and craters here and there. Off in the distance, a foreboding mountain range loomed. Not sure how we'd get over that. As we passed into the foothills, I began to scan for the easiest route of ascent. I had climbed a few mountains before back on earth, but this was something different entirely. Huge, jagged peaks stretched across the horizon as far as the eye could see. The indicator light in our helmets pointed the way, yet this gave us no clues about how to surmount the obstacles in our path.
We scrambled up a treacherous scree. There was going to be a lot of hands and feet climbing for a while. It became clear why we had been landed on this side. No enemy would expect an attack from this direction given the difficulty of the terrain. Who dares wins. I remembered reading that from a old military history book. It was the motto of an elite force from some ancient civilization. As I scaled the cliff, I pondered how the basics of war never change. It all boils down to young men willing to risk death. Close with the enemy and kill them. All the other circumstances are just minor details. We scaled the first cliff and surveyed the plateau we had just reached. There wasn't an obvious right way to go, so we just followed direct path as given by the indicator light in our helmets.
I began to wonder how the indicator light worked. Perhaps the target had been marked with some sort of beacon? It didn't really matter. There is a story I like from Buddhism called the parable of the arrow. In it, a warrior is struck by an arrow during a battle. A doctor comes to help him, and the stricken warrior begins asking questions like: what kind of arrow is it? where was it fired from? who might have fired it? And so on. Buddha said asking questions like that is just as useless as asking where the universe came from or what happens after death. That is, even if you knew the answers, you'd still be stuck with the exact same problems. The only knowledge that is really useful is the kind that helps you overcome whatever obstacles you are facing at the moment.
We trudged onward and came to a wide chasm. It was a good thing we both took the multitool with the harpoon attachment. The harpoon was magnetic, but also had a traditional barb. Not sure what metal it was made out of, but it penetrated the moon rock easily. I aimed for a ledge across the chasm and fired. There was a satisfying cloud of regolith from where the harpoon hit. I walked slowly toward the edge of the cliff, took a deep breath, and swung off. In the lower gravity, the speed was much slower, yet it was still a surreal experience, like falling off a cliff underwater. The sensation was like the feeling just as a descending elevator stops, yet it lasted for several minutes. I put out my legs to cushion my fall against the rock face and activated the winch. Every so slowly, I was drawn up the cliff face. I tried not to look down, yet the urge was irresistible. A terrible inky blackness lay below. Being stuck down there would be about as isolated as anything could be.
After my successful ascent, 142 made his maneuver and joined me on the ledge. We pressed on through the boulders along a narrow path. At its end, a large crater lay before us. Going around it would waste too much precious time, so we cautiously descended into it. There was something peaceful about its flat bottom. I looked up briefly to marvel at all the strange constellations. You've never really seen the stars until you've seen them from an isolated, airless moon deep in outer space. Whatever. No time for sentimentality. We had a mission, and it was either them or us. Another hard climb to get out of the crater. We pulled ourselves up and saw almost nothing but a faint light on the horizon. We were now on the dark side, and any light we used would only serve as a bullseye for the enemy. The ground was easier at this point. Just a few regolith dunes here and there and some small craters.
The light grew brighter and more distinct. Various structures became apparent, including some domes, a comm tower, and a huge satellite dish. It made sense that such a remote outpost would be manned by droids as the environment was so hostile to life. We'd agreed beforehand to maintain radio silence as we didn't know what kind of scanners the enemy had. On the ship, we'd flipped a coin to see who'd go infiltrate the base. I lost, so 142 gave me the charge from its cloaking device. The double charge would even the odds a lot. My loadout was the ray pistol and submachine gun I'd practiced with at the weapons range. 142 had the x-ray rifle. There was a boulder field some distance away, and it went to take up an overwatch position there. At this point, we were about 500 meters from the base. That was too close for comfort, but the darkness gave us some security.
OK, time to low crawl. I made my way to a crater a few meters deep. I had some enhanced optics in my helmet, and I used them to peer over the rim. There was a pair of what I guessed were sentry guns scanning the perimeter. Hopefully they didn't have thermal or radar sights otherwise my cloaking device was useless. When I saw a good piece of cover about 100 meters away, I engaged the cloaking device and sprinted for it. Or rather, I hopped as fast as I could with my legs outstretched. Once I was set, I turned off the cloak and used a laser pointer in my gauntlet to signal to 142. I knew he would not reply, but just the same, it gave me confidence. This time just flashed the laser once. Once I was ready for the assault, I'd flash it twice. I was hiding by a gap in the perimeter wall. The sentry guns were behind me and continued to mindlessly sweep the area in front of them.
I picked up a pebble and threw it at the gap to see if it bounced off a force field. Nope. The way was clear. I engaged the cloaking device again and peeked around the corner. I saw a droid guard put its palm up to a sensor, and this act caused an airlock to open. Not sure why base with just droids would have airlocks. That implied there were lifeforms which required an atmosphere inside the base. Military intel isn't always wrong, but it is always incomplete. Even so, the basic objective remained. Somehow, I had to get inside, find the reactor, and either disable or destroy it. After thinking it over for a few minutes, I decided my best course of action was to signal 142 so the diversionary attack could begin. Then, in the chaos, I'd cloak, grab a guard's hand, and use it to enter the base.
I turned and flashed my laser twice in my partner's direction. Then I peeked around the corner again and waited for the guards to react. After about 30 seconds, I saw a pair of guards start to move when one motioned the other to stay put. Jackpot. I cloaked and bounded toward him. Fortunately for me, he was close to the access panel, and it hardly resisted as I yanked its hand to the sensor to open the airlock. I rushed inside and turned off the cloak just after the outer door closed. I was certain the guard ignored the event as a random glitch. After a moment, the inner door opened, and I made for a stairwell. I figured it would lead to an observation tower, and that would give me a vantage point for both observing the diversionary attack and getting an idea of where the reactor might be.
Sure enough, off in the distance, I could see the muzzle flashes and plasma bolts of a lunar firefight. From what I could tell, it was an even match, and neither side would either advance or retreat for a while. Our reinforcements had managed to disable the sentry guns on the other side of the base. The destroyed hulks glowed orange and sporadically spurted sparks and neon blue plasma. I presumed also that a majority of the garrison had left to counter the diversionary attack, so I was more or less free to explore the base. I figured the reactor would be near the antenna as it would require enormous power to broadcast across interstellar distances. I returned to the ground floor and headed for it. Along the way, I bumped into a creature that was exiting an adjacent corridor. I fell down and immediately fired a burst at it. Whatever it was, it was now dead and charred beyond recognition. I felt a twinge of guilt. On its purple coverall uniform were various medals I presume to show rank and organization as well what could have only been a name tag. I swiped the name tag and took a picture of the corpse with my tablet device.
I had a hunch he was the reactor operator, as whoever owned this base would prefer a sentient lifeform over a droid to run the most expensive equipment. It was becoming increasingly clear that in a universe where everyone was expendable, droids were the most expendable of all. I came to a large room with a control panel and a device that looked like the reactor aboard the ship. If it wasn't this, it was their fault for not giving me more intel so I could blow up the right thing. I backed up from the control panel and fired a burst across its length. It sparked and flamed as warning lights flashed and alarms blared. I fired a shorter burst into reactor vessel before turning and bounding as fast as I could back the way I came. After a few seconds, an explosion shook the building. As I passed the creature I'd slain earlier, I felt compelled to take it with me.
I came out the airlock and made my way back to the gap in the perimeter wall. There, I let down the corpse, and pawed a shallow grave into the regolith as the ground shook with more explosions. It's hard to explain exactly why I dug the grave. I felt sorry for it, because whatever it was, it was an intelligent being that most likely did not deserve to die. Its body would surely have been disintegrated by the explosions now rocking the base, but at least this way, its comrades would hopefully find its remains so they could have a proper funeral. So many questions were swirling in my mind. First and foremost was: who are we fighting and why?
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