Page 76 of Tempted by Celestial Bodies

blue moon

Lily Riley

chapterone

anya

Moon Station AlphaLunis - Day 72 of Mission: Rebirth

There’sa dead body outside my window. It’s definitely not human.

I stare at it for a moment, keeping my panic tightly leashed thanks to extensive training and sheer force of will.You can’t panic in space.Observe first, then freak out.

Five irregular limbs sprout from a bulbous, wolf-sized body—or possibly a head. Short, reddish-orange fur covers it completely and I can’t make out any discernible facial characteristics. It reminds me of a five-legged ginger tarantula, except for its massive size.What the hell is it?

There’s no way it came from Earth. The creature doesn’t look like any of the known alien species I recognize from my training. I squint slightly, and I can see a light dusting of fine gray silt coating its fur where it touches the ground in a small impact crater. Yet, there are no footprints or tracks marring the powdery soil anywhere near it. Did it crash into the surface from some distant trajectory?

Or did something put it there?

I’m supposed to be alone on this shithole lunar station while the rest of my crew takes their well-earned leave. My restrained panic finally breaks its tether and I suck in deep, rasping breaths.Icy dread raises goosebumps on my skin and my heart hammers a tattoo of fear in my chest when I consider that perhaps I’m not as alone here as I thought.

Whatever the corpse is, it certainly wasn’t there when I went to sleep last night at zero dark thirty. I glance down at my bio-cuff to check the time—well,Earth Novaship time—0530. That means that at some point in the last five hours, a dead alien creature crash-landed right outside my room in theAlpha Lunisstation. But there’s no other disturbance I can see from my small round window, and the fact the body didn’t vaporize on impact suggests…

No. It couldn’t have been placed there. Surely, there’d be tracks. The station’s scanners would’ve picked up a signal from another ship. I would have seen something, heard something, or sensed something. It can’t be there.How is it there?

I squeeze my eyes shut and turn away from the window.Maybe when I look again, it’ll be gone.There’s a comforting hum from the station’s artificial gravity generators and if I stand still enough, I can feel the distant vibrations of the massive football stadium-sized plasma heaters working around the clock to melt the ice embedded in the lunar poles. The off-gassing vents mile-high geysers of steam into the air, which slowly condenses into what will become the new atmosphere on the moon. Humanity’s last resort and fledgling hope.

I take a sip of water from the aluminum flask tied to my bunk’s bedpost and turn back to the window.

The body is still there—not a hallucination, then. My pulse races fast enough that my bio-cuff beeps in warning, asking if I’m having a medical emergency.

“Calm down, Anya,” I tell myself. “First thing’s first: figure out what you’re dealing with and then send in a report. Someone will come. It’s a fucking alien—theyhaveto come.”

My soft voice has a metallic echo in the spartan bedroom, but it gives me a strange sense of courage to hear my plan out loud. Heartened, I strip off my thin cotton pajamas and start layering my daily uniform: insulating layer first, followed by thick, utilitarian coveralls and my metal-soled boots. I twist my platinum blonde hair into a severe knot on top of my head, wash my face and brush my teeth in the tiny sink in my room. One of the best parts about living here alone is that I can listen to my choice of music without anyone giving me a hard time, so I crank the Billie Holiday through the station’s PA speakers. “Blue Moon” warbles throughout the dead space and soothes my frazzled nerves. I mentally prepare for my next task: searching the entirety of theAlpha Lunisstation for an interloper.

If there’s even the remotest possibility of an alien intruder, I should be smart and bring protection with me, but this outpost isn’t a military installation and weapons are hard to come by. Plasma blasters are forbidden inside the station due to risk of depressurizing accidents, so the best I can do is grab an eighteen-inch monkey wrench and a small, handheld plasma torch from my toolbox.

My stomach rebels at the thought of breakfast, but I manage to choke down a bland green nutri-cube to power me through my search. With that, I steel my nerves, roll some of the tension from my shoulders, and open the heavy door leading into the main corridor of the station living quarters.

Blue-white LED lights flicker on as I make my way through the station, barely daring to breathe. I search rows of empty berths in the living quarters, all pristine and ready for the relief crew that will arrive in four months. I quickly clear the med bay, science labs, and the mess hall, all sealed and untouched in sanitary stasis. No signs of life.

The command pod in the center of the complex is my second-to-last stop. I consider taking the time to contact the base and let them know I’m not alone on this station.How would they respond?I wonder.

Looking out the main window of the command pod, I watch the distant formerly blue-green marble swirl in desolate streaks of brown and white. In the velvety blackness beyond, stars twinkle and shimmer—evidence the plasma heaters and lunar steam are starting to work and the beginnings of the new, proto-atmosphere are forming. In my opinion, there’s something warped about altering the landscape of our ever-constant, gentle gray moon, but it makes for one hell of a view.

Too bad there’s no one to share it with.

A soft throb of loneliness unfurls in my chest, but I shove it down.My crew is a month out on their way to theEarth Novacolony ship and the next group won’t arrive for some time.Not that I’d sit and watch the stars with anyone on my crew. A hysterical giggle bursts from my lips when I think of the dead alien in my front yard—perhaps they came for the view, too.

Not likely.

When humans first made contact with extraterrestrials ten years ago, it was all so anticlimactic. No abductions, no invasions, no two-way contact: just the confirmation that somewhere in the distance, other beings existed. More importantly, they existed and wanted nothing to do with us. Who could blame them? What sentient species would care about a decimated population on a dying world? We’re a guttering candle too dim to bother extinguishing.

The remnants of humanity evacuated into hideous, unwieldy colony ships that still orbit the parched, choked, utterly cooked rock I can’t bring myself to miss. My family was gone long before the colony ships were built, and besides, I’ve always been too in love with the endlessness of space and the promise of the stars to feel homesick for Earth.

As a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut. I wanted to explore distant galaxies, befriend alien species, discover new worlds. Instead, I’m as good as a graveyard shift grease monkey trying to turn an old, abandoned deep space research station into a terraforming luxury resort. Apparently, I’m the only unattached solitary loser they could find to help lead the re-engineering mission on the old lunar station, tasked with getting it prepped and ready for the first wave of colonists wealthy enough to buy their way off the ships.

I rub at the hollow ache in my chest when I think about all the couples and families planning on a future here onAlpha Lunis.What I wouldn’t give to have the hope of my childhood dreams again. My own future stretches out before me like space: vast, unknowable, embarrassingly isolated.

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