Ghoulies and Ghosties

The children seemed happy enough, thought Helena.  She was seated on the grassy ground and leaning against a rock padded by John’s jacket.  She looked about the cavern and saw three-year-old Jackie Crawford chasing a soccer ball, Alan happily cheering him on.  There were a few more children about, not all that Alpha could lay claim to, but those of her closest friends.  Paul and Sandra’s two-year-old daughter Hannah watched Jackie’s ball-chasing wide-eyed from the safety of her father’s lap.  Sandra was seated next to them, her legs stretched out in front of her and looking uncomfortable.  That was no surprise.  Tanya and Alan’s almost two-year-old Grigory had crawled into Victor’s obliging arms, and Helena’s own newborn Amanda slept quietly tucked against John’s shoulder.  More were on the way.  Sandra was due any day now, and Tanya in a few more weeks. 

Finding that immense cache of old supplies in a walled off section of the catacombs had been a godsend.  There were no identifying insignia, although what labels were found were written in English.  Not even Victor, the father of Alpha, was knowledgeable of its background.  They found building supplies, electronics old but compatible with Computer, invaluable CO scrubbers, and vast supplies of repair parts for a single-pilot warcraft unrecognized by Alan.  Reconnaissance had reassembled one craft, but its limitations in size and firepower meant most of the parts would be adapted for the Eagles. 

A totally unexpected cache of nuclear warheads had been appropriated by Weapons Section and added to Alpha’s armaments.  Further exploration had found the remnants of three launching silos and even a reinforced landing bay that was much too narrow for any Eagle.  Obviously an unknown military organization had been working on the moon prior to the ILC, but that information appeared lost forever.   Yet another unsolvable Alphan mystery. 

With these extra supplies, the ‘harvested’ lunar water, and establishment of multiple catacomb growing fields, John had finally consented to allow children.  Now, almost four years out from Earth, their numbers had returned to those at Breakaway, and in a year should slowly start to increase.  Given the new supplies and also the technology scavenged from various alien encounters, they had expanded Alpha and now had the capacity for five hundred souls.

It had been Alan’s idea to keep this one cavern as an open play space.  It’s irregular size and sloping floor would have required significant work to be made usable by Hydroponics or Manufacturing.  But what made it awkward for some, made it perfect for growing families.  Full spectrum lights had been placed against the ceiling, hybrid ‘grass’ planted in enriched lunar soil, and even a jungle–gym of sorts was under construction. 

John had initially protested ‘Project Playground’.  He pointed out the resources and time needed to make the space viable could best be spent elsewhere.  Alan had been persistent, though, and finally won John over when he pointed out this deep, thick-walled cavern would also make for an excellent retreat for families the next time Alpha was under attack.

Helena pulled her wandering attention back to the impromptu command staff meeting in front of her.  After a long day in Medical, she would have been happier just relaxing, but when Paul and Sandra had wandered in, John had started talking shop.  And the arrival of Alan and Tanya had clinched it as far as John was concerned.  Calling in Victor seemed the next, inevitable, step.  Only David was missing, and he was on duty in Main Mission.  As always, the work of keeping Alpha going was never-ending, and John was the consummate workaholic.

“... I still want plans for Operation Exodus to be maintained and updated regularly, Paul.  We’re all becoming just a bit too settled for my taste, and if we happen upon a good planet, I don’t want to miss our chance.”

Alan chose that moment to rejoin the group after taking a second to kick the ball gently ‘uphill’ for Jackie to chase. “Won’t happen, John. We find the right planet, we’ll be off this rock in a heartbeat.” The pilot all but flopped down beside Tanya, rolled over on his back and pulled off his boots and socks, proceeding to wiggle his toes in the grass.

“See that we are.”  John’s voice remained serious, but Helena could see his lips twitch.

Seeing his father lying down. Grigory slid off Victor’s lap and tottled over.  He climbed on top of Alan and proceeded to bounce up and down on his father’s stomach. 

“Oof, easy there, mate.” 

Alan picked up the thin, tow-headed boy and tossed him up in the air a few times.  Shrieks of laughter rewarded him, followed by Tanya’s scolds not to get the child too wound up before bedtime.

“Ah, come on, Tanya.  What good’s having a playground if you can’t cut loose?” 

“Then you can chase him around our quarters until he falls asleep.”  Tanya’s sultry voice brooked no good for her husband if he delegated that chore to her.  

Helena enjoyed watching the relaxed interplay among the adults and children.  The past few years had seen hard times with loss after devastating loss, not to mention the constant fear of extinction.  The children had brought back hope.

“Alan, how many of the trainee pilots are at performance level?”

John seemed determined not to relax.  Helena glanced at Sandra and Tanya.  They both looked tired, but she knew neither was comfortable interrupting the Commander.  Well, she didn’t have that problem, and by the look on Alan’s face, neither did he.  She saw Alan and Paul exchange a quick look.

“None of them.  Yet.” 

Alan scooped up the soccer ball Jackie had managed to kick back to the group.  Helena smiled encouragingly at the child.  He had so far grown up a normal, happy three-year-old, despite the tragic death of his mother.  Bereft of both parents, Alan and Tanya had adopted the little boy without a second thought.

“John, how about a joining me and Paul in a game?  We could run the kids around.  Until they fall asleep.”  Alan shot a wicked grin at Tanya who just sighed.

Helena nudged John with her foot and nodded meaningfully.  John looked mulish for a moment, then resigned himself gracefully.  The chain-of-command remained intact, but now was tempered by the reality of living in space with a closed community that knew each other all too well. 

John passed Amanda back to Helena and stood, joining Paul and Alan, who had just finished pulling on his shoes. The three men gathered all the children who could kick a ball and led the way to where the ground was reasonably flat.  The men kicked the ball between themselves, letting the children chase and catch it. 

“Thank you, Helena.”  Sandra’s quiet voice sounded weary.

“You’re more than welcome.   John sometimes forgets the rest of us need our down-times.  How are you doing?  Any contractions?”

For the next half-hour, talk turned to small, comfortable things.

~~~~~~~~~

“What was that?”  Helena suddenly knew something was wrong.  Sandra and Tanya obviously sensed it, as did the men.  The children continued to chase the ball. 

There it was again.  A fine vibration.  Tanya looked at her hand on the ground, then at Helena, her eyes becoming wide with apprehension.   “Moonquake?”

There was a rumble deep underground followed by a sharp crack both felt and heard, and then a sense of vertigo.  Helena clutched Amanda to her chest and hunched over her knees, from the corner of her eyes, she watched helplessly as Tanya lost her balance and fell backwards, barely catching herself from hitting her head on a rock.  Alan arrived out of nowhere, sprinting to Tanya’s side, but ended up tripping over a new ridge in the ground and landing heavily on his side.   The lights stuttered and faded to a low glow.   Through the shadows, Helena saw Paul throw his body protectively over Sandra and Hannah, shielding them from the rock dust falling from the ceiling.  She lost sight of Victor, but could hear his voice behind her giving reassurances to Jackie that all would be all right.  Where was John?

It was over in a moment.  The low lights faded even more and went dark.  The emergency lights failed to kick in.  It was completely silent. 

“Helena? Victor?”

John’s voice, from the far side of the cavern.

“Here, John,” Helena called and could hear him make his way toward her as the others reported their status.  Everyone was soon accounted for, the cries of the children oddly reassuring.  Just then, the emergency lights flickered on, their glow a muted red through the hazy, too still air. 

“Helena, are you okay?  The baby?”  John knelt at her side.  His dark hair was now grey with rock dust, a small trickle of blood on the side of his face from where rock shrapnel had hit.  “My commlock isn’t working.  Yours?”

Helena did a quick once over on the crying infant.  She was dusty, but fine.  She checked her commlock. It was dead, as was her bio-sensor.  Computer would be unable to find them.  She looked up to John and shook her head indicating both devises.  He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, then both stood to check on the others. 

“Paul, Alan, let’s see if we can get out of here. Sandra, see if any of the commlocks are working, or if you can get them to.  We need to find out what’s going on.”

A quick assessment concluded the tunnel to the cave was blocked beyond their ability to manually clear, although Paul thought he heard movement on the other side.  Victor found no evidence of environmental compromise, but the still air warned them life-support was minimal, or absent.  And not the least, Tanya had the children, now including Amanda, gathered around her, scared but quiet.

Helena watched as John paced restlessly through the gloom.  After several futile laps around the cavern, he turned to the others, spread his hands in frustrated resignation and shrugged.  “Well, we wait.”

John sat down next to her.  She laid a hand on his leg, a small smile of sympathy on her face.  Patience had never been counted among John’s virtues.  Perhaps if he had someone to look after he wouldn’t be so edgy.  Helena looked to see who had Amanda, and found the infant now asleep in Sandra’s arms.   Helena sighed.  That idea was out.  Since the birth of Amanda, Helena’s newest maxim had become ‘never wake a sleeping baby’.  Amanda could stay where she was for now, and John would no doubt fret no matter what he did.

Helena watched as Victor stretched out on the ground.  Several times it had looked like he was about to say something, but Helena saw him look at the children and then remain silent.  The older man rested his head against his clasped hands and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.  His face and uniform was the same grey as John’s, and herself, Helena imagined.  The others tried to rest and wait as best they could.

Not knowing what was going on in Alpha was torture.  And if life support couldn’t be reestablished within the next few hours, they would start to feel the effects of numbing cold and oxygen deprivation.  Not a pleasant thought.  Helena forced herself to stay calm.  Certainly David had teams out looking for them, unless the damage on Alpha was too widespread, and then it wouldn’t matter if they were found in time or not.

Minutes felt like hours, but finally, the whispered rush of air caused the suspended rock dust to dance in the shadowy light.  Before anyone could comment, the commlocks all came to life simultaneously in a static-filled cacophony.  The young communication tech’s voice was multiplied seven-fold, echoing loudly off the rock walls.

“Commander Koenig, Dr. Russell, Mr. Morrow, can you hear me?”

John was the first to answer.

“Koenig.  Yes, we hear you.  What’s happened?”

David Kano’s voice answered.  “A level six moonquake, Commander, centered under the far periphery of the NDA 2 crater.”

John looked at Victor.  “That’s the strongest one since Breakaway, John.  I had thought things stable under NDA2, but obviously I was in error.”

“Any more signs of activity, David?”

“Negative, Commander.  Sensors are quiet and everyone is accounted for, except the command staff, and Jackie Crawford.” 

Helena thought she heard a note of panic in the usually un-flusterable David.

John heard it also.  He shot Helena a tight grin.  “Well, don’t worry.  We’re all here alive and well, but trapped.  How’s Alpha?”

“Fine, Commander. A few minor injuries according to Dr. Mathias.  The only significant damage was in the Catacombs.”

“Lucky us,” Alan muttered, grinning when Paul answered him with a comment Helena could not hear.

David’s voice continued.  “Rescue teams are working on clearing the tunnel, sir. They estimate...” David looked off-screen, “approximately one hour.”

“Understood.  Keep me apprised.”   John thumbed off his commlock and looked at the people in front him.  “Alright, people, we might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

John sat back down next to her. She leaned against his solid warmth, shamelessly borrowing from his strength.   He turned her face toward his.  His hand came up to wipe off a fair amount of dirt and grime.

“You okay?”

“Yes.  Just scared, and worried about Sandra and Tanya.  This sort of fright could provoke labor.  And I’d rather not attempt a delivery down here without my equipment.  Sandra had a difficult labor last time, and Tanya is too early.” 

“The rescue teams are already at work, Helena. It should be just another hour.”

Helena nodded.  She scanned the people around her with a practiced eye.  Victor looked well, artificial heart and all, and had gathered Jackie to his side.  Paul looked more worried for Sandra than anything else, while Sandra was staying focused on Hannah and Amanda.  Tanya was pale but keeping calm.  Alan had managed to break his arm in his fall, and probably a few ribs, but even so had Grigory laughing at their predicament.  She looked back at John.

“If it’s only a few hours, we should be okay.  And if we can get the children to sleep the time will pass quickly for them. What are you doing, John?”

John’s expression was not the worried one she expected.  He wore a small quizzical grin as he continued to wipe her face.  He leaned in and spoke softly.

“You look like a little girl wearing a very messy Halloween mask.”  John looked about the dark cavern, no doubt seeing the haze from the emergency lights reddish with rock dust flickering against the rough lunar walls.  Helena had the sudden mental image of some weird version of hellfire and brimstone.  John’s smile grew broader.  “All we need is a campfire and some marshmallows and we’d be set to swap scary stories.”

Helena chuckled.  “And we’ve certainly had our share of those here on Alpha.  No one on Earth would ever believe us.  What we’ve been through makes those old Halloween fright movies look tame.”

“Halloween?”  Paul kept his voice down to not frighten the children, but Helena heard the question.

“October, 31^st, Paul, ‘trick or treat’.  Ghosts and things that go bump in the night.  Children would dress up in costumes and go door to door begging for candy.  If they didn’t get any, there was always the threat of a ‘trick’.  It eventually got to the point, in the States at least, where adults would dress up and have elaborate parties. Sometimes adult ‘tricks’ could become quite nasty.  Not my favorite holiday, for certain.”

Victor sat up and paid more attention.  “I believe it derives from ‘All Saint’s Day’, Paul, on November 1^st where the Church commemorated all its saints.  In medieval England the festival was known as ‘All Hallows’.  The night, or eve, before, all the evil sprits had the chance to come out and play, come daylight their power was vanquished by the saints.  Hence, ‘All Hallows Eve’, or ‘Halloween’.”

“Ah.  Halloween.  Not something we did in Britain, at least when I was growing up.”  Paul nodded, now understanding.

“Nor, I.”  Sandra’s quiet voice chimed in.

Alan moved in closer from the other side. “Nope, not in Oz either.”  He looked at Tanya, who shook her head.

“All Saint’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Russian Orthodox Church.  There is nothing like this ‘trick or treat’.”

John was looking at Victor with open admiration. “Victor, is there anything you don’t know?”

“Well, hmm.”

Helena thought Victor looked slightly embarrassed at the praise.

“I don’t know how to get us out of here.”

That brought a smile from John. 

Helena watched John as he looked about the group.  She could almost tell what he was thinking.  In the dim, hazy light, each of them varying shades of grey, some bleeding from cuts, and Alan with his broken arm... well, they did look rather ghoulish.  And heaven knew they had seen things horrific enough to make a saint’s hair go white.

Helena’s memories flitted through many moments of sheer terror since Breakaway, but kept returning to one.  “My worst memory was on the Darian ship.  Reduced to cannibalism...”  Helena shuddered.  All the men present had been on that mission.  “I didn’t think I would ever come home from that charnel ship.  That box where they killed Lowry, that they forced me into...  Well, I’ve never been so afraid in my life.” 

Helena looked at John, her face momentarily stark with recalled fear and terror.  As usual, it was Alan who broke the tension.

“Huh.  What’s scared me the most?  Besides proposing to Tanya that is...” Alan ducked away from an anticipated swat, grinning widely in Tanya’s direction, “well... that would have to be the time off Atheria.   

“Yeah, I just couldn’t release that a-bomb on the asteroid.  I’ve never pushed so many buttons or wished so hard in my life.  I almost broke the yoke on Eagle One bouncing that damn bomb on the surface of that rock.   I didn’t really expect to walk away from that one.  By all rights the radiation should have fried me to a crisp like poor Zoref.  The only thing I can think is Arra must’ve been working overtime watching out for me out there.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, until Tanya broke the silence.

“Yes, poor Zoref.” 

Alan reached out his hand and took Tanya’s. 

“Sorry, love.  Didn’t mean to remind you of that.”

Helena watched Tanya close her eyes.  “Poor, poor man.  He was just after the warmth of the solarium lights, but when he looked at me, it was if he would take my very soul.  It was like be stalked by a wild creature.” 

Tanya opened her eyes but would not look at anyone. She seemed even paler than before.  She looked down at the sleeping Grigory, smoothing his hair while still keeping tight hold of Alan’s hand.

Paul and Sandra exchanged looks.

“Do you still have that animal skin?” 

Helena rather thought Paul’s look was playful, quite unusual for the normally reserved Controller.

Sandra smiled slightly, blushing.  “You know I do. And the fleas that came with it.”  Quickly composing herself, Sandra looked at Helena.

“I know you do not remember it, but the worst thing that has happened to me was you standing over me with the knife blade ready to strike.  I was certain I was going to die.”

Helena felt awful.  Intellectually she knew she could not be held accountable, but to think she, a healer, threatened to kill a friend.  “I’m so sorry.”

Sandra shook her head. “No, Helena. I do not hold any blame.  It was just a moment I never want... to be in again.”

“Halloween. You know, we have been haunted by a real ghost.”  Paul looked at the others. “I never would’ve believed it possible except I saw Mateo’s ghost at that séance.  My blood still turns to ice when I think about it.  And I don’t mind admitting I didn’t sleep all that well for weeks after Mateo died.  I kept expecting to see that thing every time I turned a corner.”   Paul looked at Victor who was stoking his chin, apparently deep in thought.  “Did you ever find a way to explain what happened back then?”

Victor sighed. “No.  No, I never did, Paul.  But ghost or not, I accept it happened.  But I’ll tell you, there is one thing I don’t want ever to go through again.”

That caught Helena’s attention; Victor was almost unflappable.  Exploding nuclear dumps only had him scratching his head; black suns were a cause for breaking out the sixty-year-old brandy; the research into the secret of eternal life merely a source of fascination.  What would Victor find terrifying? 

A sad, gentle smile crossed Victor’s face as he looked at Helena and John. “Being sent away from my friends in their moment of need.  Gwent could do no worse to me than that.”

Helena reached out to touch Victor on his arm.  She was deeply touched, and by the look on John’s face, so was he.

“Alright John, you’ve heard our darkest confessions. What put your knickers in a twist?”  Alan was looking at John with frank curiosity. 

John didn’t answer immediately.  Helena knew he had nightmares he’d never admit to anyone but her.  She wondered if he’d tell the truth.  He did.

“Balor.  How to kill an immortal?  When I couldn’t get away from Balor and out of the airlock, I thought for sure we both were going out.  But I also remember thinking it was worth it to get that bastard out of Alpha and away from all of you.” 

A profound silence followed John’s confession.  Balor had threatened them all with unending horror, but he had seemed to have a special vindictiveness toward John.

Grateful John had survived, Helena realized he had been looking only at her.  He took her hand and gently kissed her fingers, as if he had forgotten the others present.  Looking at John’s careworn face, Helena thought how these strange events would eventually become the bedtime tales for their children and grandchildren. 

The sounds of rocks being pushed aside and the rush of air scattering the airborne dust interrupted Helena’s thoughts.  Rescue had arrived.  Soon there was the expected confusion of adults gathering up children and rescuers hurrying in.  Nurses circulated passing out water and checking for injuries.  Helena reclaimed an awake and fussy Amanda.  After a quick conference, Bob Mathias insisted Sandra sit in a wheelchair and accompany him to Medical to check on the pregnancy.  As expected, Sandra protested, but Paul overruled her.

After a final quick check on his people, John led the way out, already delegating plans for an emergency escape route from the cavern.  Helena followed, very relieved to be returning to the clean air and white lights of Alpha.  Then, recalling a certain chief pilot’s habit to evade medical care, she waited for Alan to escort him, Tanya and the children to Medical.   Alan draped his good arm around Tanya and pulled her close for a kiss.  Finally relaxing, Tanya smiled a whimsical smile as she looked at her husband.

“Alan, I wonder what David’s greatest fear would be?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one, Tanya.”

Helena couldn’t help but smile at Alan’s wicked grin.

“Turning off Computer!”

15 October 2007

MGK