The Dark Side of the Moon

“Can you help us with any of that?” Benny asked, talking over his friend.

Dr Bale took off his thick goggles and began to wipe them with a cloth he pulled from his space suit pocket. “As you can see, we have a lot of very important work that we’re doing here. But I’ll confer with my colleagues and see what we can do. Contact with Earth would benefit all of us, after all.” He nodded to Todd and Mae. “Between the three of us I’m sure we can come up with a few ideas.”

Todd and Mae both nodded, still holding the trays.

Dr Bale put his goggles back on and then pulled a thin HoloTek hardly bigger than a deck of cards from his pocket. “I’ll be in touch. Call it nostalgia if you like, but I never deleted the resort’s contact information from my HoloTek. I’ll let Pinky know when we’ve come up with something.”

“Oh,” Benny said, kind of relieved at how well this was now going. “Well … Great.”

“As humans, we’re in this together,” Dr Bale said. “Whatever happens next, we must fight united. Now, I really should be getting back to work. Your encounter with the Maraudi this morning has disrupted my schedule.”

“Then I guess we’ll be going?” Benny asked. “Hopefully we’ll talk again soon.”

“Ah,” Dr Bale said, smiling. “I’ve no doubt about that.”

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“OK, so that is not what I thought space camp on the dark side would be like,” Hot Dog said through the comms as they flew back towards the Taj.

“I’m just saying,” Drue said, glancing at Benny, who sat in his passenger seat, “those weapon things could be useful in the future.”

Hot Dog groaned. “I hate that I agree with you about that.”

“How badly do you guys want to shoot that laser cannon he had?” Drue grinned. “I knew we needed space tanks. Remember? I told Elijah that he—”

“Drue,” Jasmine came in, cutting him off. “I don’t like even knowing that those weapons are up here. I always respected Elijah’s stance about not using science to do harm. It’s one thing I definitely think he was right about.”

“I’m with Jazz on this,” Benny said, looking out of the window and nodding towards her silver Space Runner flying at his right.

“Look, I know you don’t want to hurt the aliens, but we should also think about protecting ourselves,” Drue said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those things mounted on top of the Grand Dome in case the Alpha Maraudi came and attacked?”

Benny didn’t disagree, but everything was so complicated. Back in the caravan, they’d kept the amount of weapons floating around the trucks and RVs to a bare minimum, locked up as last resorts. They put their priorities on peace and being welcoming.

So he leaned back in his seat and avoided the question. “I’m just glad he didn’t ask to come back to the Taj with us.”

“Did you hear his voice when he was talking about Elijah and the Taj?” Hot Dog asked. “I was definitely getting some bitter vibes.”

“Uh, he has to want to come back to the resort,” Drue said. “Moon camping looked awful. Like, where were the bathrooms, even?”

“Maybe he’s waiting to have something to offer us so we invite him?” Jasmine asked. “Any person of science would want to have the Taj’s resources.”

“Imagine how excited he’d be if he got Benny’s glove,” Hot Dog said.

“Oh, yeah!” Drue said. “I almost forgot! Benny, you’ve got rock superpowers or something.”

“If I could only figure out how to use them,” Benny said. “When we were near all that alien tech in Dr Bale’s shed, the glove was doing something weird. I don’t know. Like it was vibrating. Buzzy.” He shrugged. “Maybe I should take some of the asteroid samples that we saw in that abandoned alien base and see if I can do something with them.”

“You don’t have to ask,” Drue said, looking over at Benny and winking. “I’ll be the brave one and test it out for you. Just don’t be jealous when I’ve got a living rock statue as a bodyguard.”

“In your dreams,” Benny said.

Suddenly, there were gagging noises on the comms. It sounded like someone was choking.

“What’s wrong?” Jasmine asked.

“Hot Dog!” Drue yelped.

“Gross.” Hot Dog coughed. “What flavour are these protein bars they gave us supposed to be? Sunscreen? Dumpster fire? Oh, man, it’s all stuck in my teeth.”

“They’re probably just Moon dust mixed with water,” Drue said.

“This isn’t funny!” Hot Dog shouted.

But the rest of them were already laughing. Eventually, even Hot Dog was, as they shot over the lunar landscape, heading back to the Taj as quickly as they could. When they were closer to the resort, Drue tapped on the dash, turning off the open comm line while Jasmine updated Pinky on everything they’d seen at Dr Bale’s camp.

“So I know you’re all about not hurting these aliens and stuff, which I totally get,” Drue said, without taking his eyes off their flight path. “But, in the end, if it has to be us or them …”

Benny shifted in his seat. All he could think of was the way Commander Tull had described the aliens when he and Hot Dog had been in the asteroid mother ship. How similar they were to his own caravan family back on Earth. People without a permanent home, just trying to survive.

How many others were on that alien world? How many lives were at stake? How many beings not unlike him and his family? Did they even have families?

His head started to pound. There was so much they didn’t know, and the more he thought about it, the more questions plagued his mind, causing his palms to sweat.

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” Benny said. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Sure,” Drue said, though it didn’t sound to Benny like he really believed it. “But if it does …”

He looked over at Benny, who just stared back at him. He didn’t want to think about what he would do if he was forced to make that kind of decision. The obvious answer – the one that immediately came to mind when he thought about this dilemma – was that he would do everything in his power to protect his family. To make sure humanity was safe. But he didn’t want to have to consider a future where doing that meant killing a bunch of aliens. Or, worse, an entire species.

The fact that so much of this felt like it was his responsibility terrified Benny, and a tiny part of him actually wished they had invited Dr Bale back to the Taj to take over. At least then he wouldn’t feel like this decision rested squarely on the Moon Platoon’s shoulders.

Drue flashed his big white teeth. “OK, you’re right – we’ll figure it out later.” He laughed once. “You impressed? I’m getting better at knowing when to shut up.” He paused. “You’re welcome.”

Pinky was waiting for them in the garage when they returned, pacing back and forth, her intangible body passing through a disassembled hyperdrive. Ramona sat in the pilot’s seat of an oversize Space Runner on one side of the workshop area. As Benny got out of the car, he could hear Pinky talking to her.