First published in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers in 2018

Published simultaneously in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

Published in this ebook edition in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Full Fathom Five, LLC 2018

Cover illustration © Jacey 2018

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Jeramey Kraatz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008226435

Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008226442

Version: 2017-12-19

For the stargazers

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Attention 2085 EW-SCAB Winners

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Have you read …

Books by Jeramey Kraatz

About the Publisher

Attention 2085 EW-SCAB Winners:

While the threat of the alien asteroid storm headed for Earth has been overcome, thanks to the bravery of the newly minted Moon Platoon, the Pit Crew and Elijah West, I know you are all still filled with questions and concerns. As such, I’d like to update you regarding our current situation and how it impacts on your stay at the Lunar Taj.

All group activities are temporarily suspended until further notice. Due to the high level of alert we’re under, it is requested that all guests at the Lunar Taj stay within the confines of the Grand Dome and the underground bunker. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do! The “video game room”, as many of you call it, is open and equipped with a catalogue of immersive gaming experiences for you to enjoy at your leisure. And don’t forget that your HoloTeks are also packed with custom programs that allow you to design your own Space Runners, holographic racetracks and space suits. Also, please continue to meet in the common rooms on your floor! The best thing we can do in this time of stress is support one another. Remember, whether you flew out into space this morning or sought shelter underground, you are a united force – you are all part of the Moon Platoon.

Meals will continue to be served three times a day both above and below ground, with selected snacks available in the kitchen at all times. Thanks to the Taj’s state-of-the-art gardening and food-storage systems, I promise no one here is going to go hungry. If anyone is interested in seeing how my computerised kitchen functions and manages to feed countless guests, I’d be happy to give you a personal demonstration (bonus dessert!) at any time.

Your safety is my highest priority here at the Lunar Taj. Despite recent events, please rest assured that this resort remains perhaps the safest place in our solar system. With that in mind, please understand that your trip back to Earth will be delayed until we can ensure the voyage is one hundred per cent safe. I know many of you wish to be in contact with your loved ones at this time. Re-establishing communications with our home planet is a top priority.

For everyone who has asked about Elijah West, please let me clear a few things up. Yes, Elijah was taken aboard the alien mother ship that we encountered this morning. Yes, there was an explosion. But – and I say this as the person who perhaps knows Elijah West better than anyone in the universe – I have faith that he will be back at the Lunar Taj as soon as possible.

And, as always, I am available to address any questions or concerns you may have. Just say my name, and I’ll be there.

On a personal note, I want to say how very proud I am of you – yes, all of you. The Elijah West Scholarship for Courage, Ambition and Brains has always attracted the best and brightest Earth has to offer, and the 2085 winners have proven to be exceptional in ways that Elijah could never have dreamed. You truly are the future of humanity.

Pinky Weyve

Lunar Taj intelligence and executive assistant to Mr West

Benny Love stared at Earth through a floor-to-ceiling window inside the Lunar Taj. He’d seen plenty of pictures of the planet taken from space, but he’d had no idea how large it would loom above him from the surface of the Moon until he’d got there. It took up so much of the sky, a rotating ball of sand and water and rock and life that seemed so close, like he could be back there in no time if he just walked out onto the lunar landscape and jumped hard enough. Somewhere – most likely in the golden swathe of the Drylands in the western United States – his caravan was on the move or setting up camp. His grandmother and two younger brothers were probably in the ramshackle RV they called home.

He didn’t know exactly where they were at the moment, but that didn’t matter. The important thing – the reason Benny couldn’t take his eyes off the planet, could hardly even blink as he looked at it – was that Earth was still there. Humanity still existed, still endured.

For now, at least.

He and his friends may have stopped the asteroid storm, but he still couldn’t help but imagine what Earth would have looked like from the Moon if they hadn’t flown into deep space that morning. Would there have been fire? A wall of water so huge that it destroyed cities and mountains? Would he have seen it all the way across the expanse of space?

A voice cut through the hallway Benny stood in, interrupting his thoughts. Drue.

“Uh, so, you haven’t moved since I checked on you, like, five minutes ago,” he said as he came up to Benny’s side. He crossed his arms over the chest of his sleek grey space suit. All the other scholarship winners at the Taj wore the dark blue coveralls with gold stitching that had been waiting for them at the resort, but Drue had brought what seemed like a closet full of expensive clothes with him from Earth. It had been one of the first things Benny had noticed about him.

“It’s kind of creepy,” Drue continued when Benny didn’t respond. Then he pursed his lips a bit and jabbed Benny in the shoulder with an index finger.

“Ow,” Benny said, finally turning to him. “Why would you do that?”

“Oh, so you are real. I kinda thought you were using that bracelet Elijah gave you again and this was some glitched-out, frozen hologram.” Drue put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You’ve got to lighten up, man. We saved the world this morning. You should be exploding with excitement about that.”

“Exploding is kind of the last word I want to hear,” Benny said. He couldn’t help but remember the image of Elijah’s car being sucked inside the alien mother ship – how the creator of the Space Runners and the Lunar Taj had overheated his hyperdrive and sacrificed himself to save them, or at least buy Earth some more time. To buy Benny’s family more time.

He wondered what they were doing in the RV. Maybe still sleeping or waking up to sustenance squares for breakfast or trying to find some shade to park in to get a break from the dust and heat. Maybe they were even thinking of him, wondering what he was doing. Counting down the days until he was supposed to come home.

Drue rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. We beat some alien butt!”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “But it’s not over. We don’t know what they’re going to do next.”

Drue let out an exaggerated sigh. “You sound like Jazz. You two are really killing my Moon buzz.” He turned away and started down the hall. “Pinky wrote a message like we talked about and sent it to all the HoloTeks. Jazz and everyone are waiting for you in the meeting room. Now’s your chance to talk about all the work we have to do next, which I can’t wait to hear about.” He looked back over his shoulder. “There’d better be more lasers involved is all I’m saying.”

Benny’s pulse thrummed as he considered all the things he’d learned in the past few days, trying to figure out which of the many problems they needed to address first. So much of it had seemed impossible. Just hours before he’d stood inside an Alpha Maraudi ship shaped like a giant asteroid. He’d actually talked to an alien, Commander Tull, who was still out there somewhere. Still after Earth.

They’d saved the planet, but they had no way of knowing when the aliens would be back – and they’d lost Elijah.

He took a few deep breaths as he tried to remind himself that the first part was what was really important. All he wanted was to stay in the hallway, staring at his home planet, reassuring himself that it was still there, but his friends were waiting for him. So he swallowed hard, trying to push all the concern out of his mind. Everyone at the Taj was worried, even if that was somewhat hidden by the morning’s success right now. The least he could do to help was try to look like he wasn’t scared.

He found his friends in the meeting room that Elijah West had locked them inside just a few days before when they’d discovered that he had given up on Earth and planned to allow the aliens to destroy it, leaving the EW-SCABers as the last remnants of humanity. Hot Dog Wilkinson peered out of a window overlooking the Sea of Tranquility, twirling a strand of curly blonde hair between two fingers. Drue had plopped down in one of the floating chairs surrounding the holodesk in the centre of the room. Trevone, the only member of Elijah’s Pit Crew to help them out during their preparations over the last few days, sat a few seats over, swiping through holographic maps floating in the air in front of him. Jasmine Wu stood a metre or so behind the older boy, mumbling to herself, her eyes scanning the charts as they passed by.

“Hey,” Benny said as he walked in, coming to a stop at one end of the circular desk. “Sorry. I got a little distracted.”

Hot Dog turned from the window and let out a breath. “There you are. I was starting to think our fearless leader was abandoning us.”

Benny shoved his hands into his space-suit pockets. “I’m not the leader here. We all helped—”

“I know, I know.” Hot Dog walked over to the holodesk. “You keep telling us that, but you really should learn to take some credit.” She frowned. “I hate to say this, but Drue might be right. Maybe you do need to chill out a little.”

Benny looked at Drue and raised his arms out to his side, but his friend just shrugged and spun in his chair.

Pinky, the artificial intelligence in charge of running the Taj, appeared as a hologram in one of the empty seats. Benny had got so used to her popping up out of nowhere that he barely gave the incredible nanotech projectors that brought her to life a second’s thought any more.

“Shall we begin?” Pinky asked, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses. “Or should I send for my favourite scholarship winner, Ramona? She’s currently in one of the basement labs, staying far away from my programming, for once.”

“Let’s not interrupt her,” Jasmine said. She looked to Benny. “Ramona’s working on turning a few Space Runners into makeshift satellites so we can re-establish contact with Earth. Once we find a safe flight path, we can launch them. The problem is that there are still alien asteroids positioned between us and the planet. We’ve sent several unmanned Space Runners to run scans, looking for a way past them, but so far we haven’t had any luck.”

“And we can’t just … go round those asteroids?” Benny asked.

“Obviously the entirety of space isn’t blocked off. There has to be a way to avoid them, but it’s a slow scanning process. We’ve already lost two SRs. These asteroids seem to be – for lack of a better word – programmed to hit anything that gets too close. They’re basically space mines. The Maraudi knew what they were doing when they set them up.”

“Speaking of being blocked off,” Drue said, “how am I still banned from the garage? I’m a space hero now!”

“Because as soon as you got back from the asteroid field you tried and failed to hot-wire one of Elijah’s prototype muscle cars,” Trevone said.

Hot Dog glanced at Benny. “He obviously didn’t take notes whenever you stole that Chevelle.”

“Borrowed,” Benny said.

“Besides,” Trevone continued, “the McGuyvers have enough on their plates trying to repair the SRs that were damaged in the attack. They’re the best mechanics in the galaxy, but they’re only two people. The last thing they need is you causing problems.”

“I was trying to help!” Drue leaned over the holodesk. “We should know what we have to work with if we’re going to war with some aliens.” He shrugged. “Plus, it turns out that prototype didn’t even have an engine in it, so it’s totally not my fault I couldn’t get it started.”

“You’re going to get banned from the entire Taj,” Hot Dog said. “And we’re not going to war with the Alpha Maraudi. We’re …” She trailed off, biting her lower lip.

Drue looked back and forth between Hot Dog and Benny. “Really? Because I bet the aliens are pretty mad that we schooled them this morning. Maybe we should go on the offensive. Though we’d probably need more than lasers if we wanted to take down that big mother ship.” His eyes lit up. “I bet Elijah has all kinds of prototypes for crazy stuff in his files that we could use. Pinky, what have you got for us? Show me the biggest, most ridiculous thing he was working on. Where are all the killer robots like the ones we fought in the video-game room?”

The AI clasped her hands together on the holodesk. “Let’s put a pin in that.”

“We’re not going to attack anyone,” Benny said. “That would make us just as bad as they are. Besides, I told you guys, they’re kind of not what we expected. They’re … more like a space caravan.”

Trying to wrap his head round the idea of extraterrestrial life coming for Earth was one thing, but the realisation that the Alpha Maraudi weren’t really some evil alien race was another, more difficult notion to process. They were just trying to find a new home. Doing everything they could to survive. In a way, Benny understood where they were coming from, and he didn’t want to have to fight them.

That was the real problem, the thing sitting like a heavy lug nut in the pit of Benny’s stomach: what were they supposed to do now? The day before, the stakes had been terrifying, sure, but their goals had been so simple: stop the asteroid storm, keep Earth safe, protect humanity. Now there were so many variables.

And despite his insistence that he wasn’t the leader of the Moon Platoon, it felt like everyone kept looking to him for answers.

“Benny’s right,” Hot Dog said, taking a seat. “I just wish they’d find another place to set up camp.”

“This is like game theory,” Jasmine said, scrunching her eyebrows together. “Another species needs Earth to survive, but so do we. Normally I’d be into a logic problem like this, but it turns out this kind of thing isn’t nearly as fun in real life.”

“So …” Drue said, “we’re taking ‘blowing up the aliens who tried to kill all humanity’ off the holodesk?”

“Pinky, if he gets within a metre of a laser, let me know,” Trevone said.

“What about this guy on the dark side of the Moon?” Benny asked, turning his attention to the Pit Crew member. “Could he help? Any idea how we find him?”

As if the shock of everything that had happened during their battle in space hadn’t been enough, Trevone and Pinky had unexpected news when Benny had arrived back at the resort: the residents of the Taj weren’t alone on the Moon.

“Dr Austin Bale,” Trevone said. He tapped on the desk in front of him and a hologram of a man appeared above it. He was maybe fifty years old in the image, with thick wire-rimmed glasses and a shock of black streaked across the front of his otherwise silver hair. “No clue. He’s spent years avoiding all Elijah’s sensors and expeditions. We have no idea what he’s been up to.”

“How do we know he’s even alive out there, then?”

“Well, for one thing, he was probably the person who left supplies for Hot Dog when she crashed her Space Runner.”

“I didn’t crash,” Hot Dog said. “I was shot down. Big difference.” She leaned back in her seat and clicked her tongue. “I knew I wasn’t crazy to think someone left me stuff. I can’t believe Elijah tried to tell me I was confused.”

“Remind me why we should care about this guy again?” Drue asked. “Let’s imagine that I wasn’t listening too carefully earlier. We had just got back from blowing up a bunch of asteroids.”

“Dr Bale was Elijah’s right-hand man when he began the construction of the Lunar Taj and in-depth exploration of the Moon,” Trevone said. “A renowned astrophysicist and engineer. He was with Elijah when he first discovered the base on the dark side of the Moon.”

“Yeah, yeah, Elijah told us that part,” Drue said. “He wanted to warn Earth about the aliens, but Elijah didn’t want him to. So what’s he doing on the Moon? Why stay up here?”

“Well, things are a bit more complicated than Elijah may have let on,” Trevone continued. “Dr Bale did go back to Earth to warn people about everything he’d seen. He even took a bunch of artefacts from the Maraudi base with him.”

“You mean, he stole them from the Taj,” Pinky corrected. She drummed her holographic fingers on the desk silently.

“Right. But each time he tried to convince them that an extraterrestrial threat was out there some official would call Elijah, who assured them that nothing was out of the ordinary. He, uh …” Trevone paused for a moment. “He told everyone that being on the Moon had caused Dr Bale to lose his mind.”

“Yikes,” Hot Dog said.

“The messages Dr Bale sent to Elijah around this time were … intense,” Pinky said. “So much so that at my recommendation we beefed up security around the Taj. And you wouldn’t believe how much money Elijah spent keeping the man’s comments out of the media.” She shook her head. “I didn’t exist as an AI back then. I was just a human, and I trusted Elijah. I mean, Dr Bale did sound crazy, and he was definitely angry.” She took a deep breath. “Neither of them acted like they should have. And while I don’t love the idea of reaching out to someone potentially unstable, it’s true: he could be helpful.”

“Hopefully,” Trevone continued. “In the end, he came back to the Moon along with a few research assistants who were convinced he was telling the truth. As far as we know, they’ve been living on the dark side ever since. He’s masking his presence somehow, but we find evidence of old campsites every so often.”

“Maybe he’s using some of that alien tech to hide,” Drue said. “Maybe he knows more about these ETs.”

“Eesh,” Hot Dog said. “A few days on the dark side is one thing, but how can someone live out there for years? It doesn’t even seem possible.”

Trevone shrugged. “The man’s a genius. Or so I’m told. I’ve never met him.”

“I have,” Pinky said. “Or, at least, the real me has. And, yes, he is incredibly intelligent. Apart from Elijah, he’s likely to be the only person on Earth capable of surviving out there for so long.”

“But what’s he been doing?” Benny asked, more to himself than the rest of the room.

“That’s the trillion-dollar question,” Trevone said.

“Whatever it is,” Jasmine cut in, “he’s in danger. Scouts from that alien mother ship broke rank in the middle of the asteroid fight. We lost track of them, but they were headed in the general direction of the Moon. If they wanted to hide out, the dark side would be the perfect place.”

“Do we really need his help?” Hot Dog asked. “I mean, we’ve kind of been doing pretty good on our own.”

Benny thought about this for a moment, memories of the last few days flashing through his head – the asteroids, the mother ship, Commander Tull. Finally, he nodded. “We need all the help we can get. We just have to figure out where he is.”

“We could fly out to the dark side to try to spot him visually,” Trevone said. “But I have the feeling he’s the kind of person who finds you, not the other way round.”

Benny nodded. The idea was maybe a little dangerous, sure, but at least it meant they would be doing something.

“OK,” he said. “Then let’s head out.”

“What, now?” Trevone asked.

“Yeah, now. We can’t just sit around here talking all day or waiting to find a way to get in touch with Earth. We have to act, so why not start by finding this guy?”

“Because you’re not in charge,” a voice bellowed from the hallway.

Benny recognised it immediately. When the EW-SCAB winners had been split into four groups on the first day, Benny had ended up one of the Mustangs. The voice belonged to their leader, Ricardo Rocha, the “Beast from Brazil”. Benny spun round to find him standing in the doorway. Behind him were the other remaining members of Elijah’s Pit Crew – Sahar, and Kira and Kai Miyamura.

Ricardo held up a HoloTek as he glared at Benny. “I’m guessing this message came from you? How dare you think you have the right to give orders around here! You don’t get to decide what happens now, or who can come and go as they please. As the oldest member of the Pit Crew, the Taj is under my command.”

“In the event of Elijah’s absence, the chief operating officer would be Max Étoile, general manager and head of guest relations,” Pinky said. “He left, though. And since we don’t have any contact with Earth, the control of the Taj is actually sort of up in the air.” She raised an eyebrow. “Technically, I’m the senior staff member.”

Ricardo’s boots were heavy on the floor as he took a few big steps into the room. “I was his number two, Pinky, and you know it.” The fingers of his free hand curled into a tight fist at his side. “I’m the one in charge, and I say we’re going to find Elijah. Every resource we have will be put to that task.” He pointed at Benny. “That includes you, Pinky, and your friends here. No matter what it takes, we’ll get him back.”

“Ricardo,” Trevone said, standing, “you know things are more complicated than that.”

“No,” Ricardo said. “They aren’t.”

“We don’t even know if Elijah’s still alive.”

“He may have survived the blast,” Kai said. “You know him.”

“If he did, he’s probably waiting for us to come and save him,” Kira added.

“Look, I’m just as concerned as the rest of you,” Trevone said, “but—”

“Are you?” Ricardo interrupted, glaring at the other Pit Crew member. “Because, without your help, would they have taken the Space Runners out in the first place? No. Elijah would still be here.”

“Don’t you put that on me.” Trevone’s voice was softer now. Benny thought he saw one of his hands shake. “It was Elijah’s decision to join the fight in the end. That was his call. That’s why we went up there.”

“Also, we saved the world,” Hot Dog said, raising her hand. “Let’s not forget that part.”

“What does that matter?” Ricardo asked, turning his furious gaze to her.

“So you were fine with Earth getting demolished and letting everyone die except us. Great. Good to know.” She shook her head. “I wonder when all of you stopped thinking for yourselves and just started repeating whatever Elijah told you.”

Trevone looked down at the holodesk. Sahar’s piercing eyes narrowed as the Miyamura twins both scoffed, looking bored. Benny could see the muscles in Ricardo’s jaw clench before he spoke again.

“Elijah had everything worked out. And you ruined it.”

“Hey,” Benny said, raising both palms into the air. “We’re all in this together now. If we start fighting each other, we won’t get anything done.” He gestured to the holodesk. “We’ve been going over how to get back in touch with Earth and what to do next. There has to be a way to save the planet. You remember what Elijah said, right? When he was in that tractor beam? He told us to finish what we started. That was his last order.”

Ricardo opened his mouth to say something, but only grunted and stared down at the floor. “I don’t care about what happens to Earth or these aliens. I only care about finding Elijah. I won’t stop until we do.” He looked back up at Benny. “It would be smart to stay out of my way.”

“Ricardo,” Pinky said, jumping to her feet, “there’s something happening underground. A few EW-SCABers have got into a bit of an argument about resources on one of the floating greenhouse platforms.” She sighed as she shrugged. “It would be best if you could address this before things get out of hand. Unfortunately, Elijah never got round to installing hologram projectors underground, so I’m little more than eyes and ears and a disembodied voice down there. Plus, the kids who went down there instead of flying out to try to stop the asteroids were following the Pit Crew, not me.”

Ricardo gave the AI a long look before glancing at the others.

“This isn’t over,” he said. He looked at Trevone and then cocked his head towards the door. “I could use your help with this. Some of the kids underground have been looking for you. It’s time for you to rejoin the Crew.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, though no less intense. “You owe it to Elijah to help his plans succeed. To get him back.”

Trevone nodded slowly and excused himself from the table. And then the Pit Crew was gone.

Silence settled on the room. Eventually, Benny spoke.

“So, the Pit Crew could be a problem. We may have convinced Elijah that Earth was worth saving, but I’m not sure Ricardo got the message.”

“Saving the world and Elijah aren’t mutually exclusive,” Jasmine said. “But he seems to think they are.”

“I can’t believe I kind of liked that guy,” Hot Dog said.

“Kind of?” Drue asked. “The jersey of his you stole is still in the rubbish bin over there.”

“It happens to the best of us,” Pinky said. “But cut him some slack. These wounds are fresh, and Elijah meant everything to his Crew. This isn’t easy on any of them.”

“So is everything OK underground?” Benny asked. “The EW-SCABers who decided to hide down there … It’s not getting bad or anything, is it?”

“Serves them right if it does,” Drue said. “We saved Earth.”

“How about you wait and hold that over their heads once we’re sure the planet is gonna stay saved?” Hot Dog asked.

“What? It’s true!”

“Maybe.” Hot Dog leaned back in her seat. “But arrogance has never been a good look for you.”

Drue gasped a little. Benny turned to Pinky. “So, like I was asking …”

“Don’t worry.” The AI smirked and inspected her holographic nails. “The Pit Crew will find things are in fairly calm order down there.”

“You tricked them?” Jasmine asked.

“I was merely de-escalating the situation here.” She shrugged. “No offence, but I don’t think the four of you could take on the Pit Crew if they tried to stop you from leaving, and I happen to agree that Dr Bale could be of some use – despite the horrible things he said about Elijah. If you want to hunt for him, I’d say now is the time to do it.”

Benny scrunched his eyebrows together as he looked at Pinky. Ever since Ramona had fully unlocked her personality, she’d been a huge asset to him and the others. Without her help, there was no way they would have been able to stop the asteroid storm. Still, he hadn’t had time to give much thought to the fact that with the AI’s newfound freedom, she’d also have the ability to act on her own accord. Fortunately, she seemed to have agreed with him and his friends so far, but if the AI turned against them, there was little they could do at the Taj.

“OK,” he said. “If there’s a dude living in some crater out there, we have to find him. Maybe he knows a way to help us get rid of those asteroids. Or how to communicate with the aliens or stop their ships – anything would be helpful.” He grinned. “So, who’s up for an exploration of the dark side?”

“Just the four of us?” Hot Dog asked.

“Yeah,” Drue said. “The original Moon Platoon.”

“Everyone’s still really shaken up by everything that happened earlier,” Benny said. “It’s probably not a good idea to send the whole fleet out when we’re honestly not even sure what we’re looking for yet.”

“Ricardo seems to have actually caused an argument underground trying to figure out what was going on, so you probably don’t have to worry about the Pit Crew for a little while. Get a plan together and go,” Pinky said. “You coming, Jazz?” Drue asked.

She nodded. “I guess now is as good a time as any to test out the things I learned in Hot Dog’s crash course. We should gather some supplies first, though. Drue, can you grab some extra first-aid kits and food and water just in case we run into any trouble? Or if Dr Bale needs help? Hot Dog, maybe see what kind of heat sensors the McGuyvers might have.” She turned to Pinky. “Any records Elijah has about Dr Bale and where you found these campsites would be useful in forming search parameters.”

“Gladly,” the AI said. “I’ll transfer everything I have to your HoloTek and we can form a strategy together.”

“Right,” Benny said. “Let’s take ten and meet down in the garage?”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” Hot Dog said.

Benny started to respond, telling her for what felt like the hundredth time that day that he wasn’t their leader. Instead, he nodded, and headed for the lift.

He wasn’t sure why he was going to his suite in the Lunar Taj until he was there alone, and suddenly his breathing was heavier and his pulse was racing as questions rushed through his mind. How had he become such an integral part in the survival of his family, his planet, his species in just a few days? And, perhaps more frightening, what would have happened if he hadn’t gone to the Taj? He took a seat on the edge of his bed and tried to get a hold of himself. They had a next move, which was good. But driving off to the far side of the Moon to search for some mysterious scientist who may or may not be able to help them didn’t seem like it was enough. Especially when his family’s safety was concerned. Whatever happened, he had to keep them safe. Somehow.

Benny looked at his nightstand where a silver hood ornament had been displayed for most of his stay on the Taj. It hadn’t been all that long ago that his father had given it to him, before the man had trekked into the desert in search of water and never returned. But it was gone now, left behind in the alien ship and no doubt destroyed when Elijah West blew up his hyperdrive engine, and Benny suddenly wished more than anything that he could hold it again, as if doing so would make the homesickness that was growing in his chest go away.

Now a gold glove sat on the nightstand, the one thing Benny had taken from the alien spacecraft – the only way they’d managed to escape. He picked it up and slid it over his hand. It covered his palm, but his fingers stuck out. He made a fist, then spread his hand out again. Analysis in the Taj’s research labs had confirmed that the glove was made up of unknown elements, which hadn’t exactly been a surprise. On the alien ship, it had somehow controlled the rock walls of the craft, allowing its wearer to open up doorways. But he didn’t know how it worked, and so far it had been useless on the Moon. He’d smashed it against the ground outside, but nothing had happened.

Still, if he was going out in a Space Runner, he felt like he should have it with him. Just in case.

There was a beeping in his room, and then Pinky’s voice.

“May I have a word?”

“Uh, sure,” Benny said.

The AI appeared in front of him.

“Benny …” She paused for a moment. “I don’t disagree with the choices you’re making right now. In fact, I think you’re doing everything in your power to try to figure out the problem of the Alpha Maraudi. But that’s the issue. I’ve been monitoring your heart rate, and I’m a bit concerned that you might be pushing yourself too hard. I don’t want you to burn out. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break and trying to relax.”

“Relax?” Benny asked. “How am I supposed to relax? If anything, we’re not moving fast enough. What if the aliens are already on their way back to the Earth? What if they’re on the Moon. What if at any moment—”

“You aren’t making me feel any better.” Her expression softened as she put her hands on her hips. “I know a lot about you, Benny. All your background information and application materials are stored on my servers. I’ve watched you rally the kids here and lead them to victory. I can’t imagine how tough that’s been. I know …” She sat down on the bed beside him. “I know you’re worried about your family. Alejandro. Justin. Your grandmother. The rest of your caravan. But you have to take care of yourself, too.”

“There’s just so much going on,” Benny said, staring down at the shining metal on his palm. “How do I know if what we’re doing is going to work or help us at all?”

“You don’t. In the same way Elijah didn’t know if his first Space Runner prototype would fly. And you didn’t know if you could stop the asteroids. Sometimes you have to just believe in yourself and take a leap of faith.”

“I’m pretty sure Elijah did a million tests on the Space Runner before he took it out. And it’s not like we were flying blind up there earlier. We had all your charts and graphs and had tested some of the lasers ourselves.”

“Benny, I’m trying to comfort you here, and as a holographic facsimile with no physical body, you’re going to have to work with me a little on this.”

He snorted, and then took a deep breath.

“Is there anything else I can do or say to make this easier?” Pinky asked.

Benny looked over at her. “Do you really think Elijah’s alive? I know you said so in the thing you sent out, but …”

Pinky stood and took a few slow steps away from him. “I don’t know,” she said. She turned to the screen that made up the wall across from Benny’s bed. Suddenly, videos of Elijah filled the space. He jetted across lunar mares in souped-up muscle cars. He winked at the camera while waving to Taj guests. In a smaller video in the background, he presented what must have been the real Pinky with a bouquet of shiny chrome roses. The AI smiled a sad smile. “But, despite all the mistakes he made, I really hope he is.”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “Me, too.”

Pinky shook her head. The screen went black again. “Jasmine and Hot Dog are already down in the garage. You don’t want to keep your friends waiting.”

“Right,” Benny said. “And, uh … thanks, Pinky.”

“You were right in your application video, you know. You already have changed the world. I have the most advanced processing power of any computer known to man, and there’s no scenario my processors can run in which your father wouldn’t be beaming with pride at your accomplishments.”

And then she was gone.

Benny took one last look at his hand before pulling off the golden glove and shoving it into the pocket of his space suit. Then, he took a deep breath and headed for the door.

Everyone else was in the garage by the time Benny made his way down. The warehouse-like building hadn’t changed much since the first time Benny had seen it a week before: a ceiling of bright white light reflected off the dark, polished floors, and the acrid scents of electronics and oil hung heavily in the air. Almost all the classic cars that had been retrofitted as Space Runners or Moon buggies had been hidden away underground by the McGuyvers – the solar system’s best mechanics – just in case the asteroid storm had managed to break through the Taj’s defences. The only vehicles left were the ones they’d attached mining lasers to and flown into space earlier that day. Those Space Runners sat in neat lines on one side of the room, some blackened and scorched by enemy fire. On the other side, Jasmine chatted with Pinky and Ash McGuyver while Hot Dog catalogued the contents of a supply box in front of her. Off to the side, Drue sat in a chair with his arms crossed and lips pressed together in a sulk. Bo McGuyver, a huge, hulking man, stood over him, staring down at Drue over the bridge of his crooked nose while wiping his greasy hands on the front of his coveralls.

“I told you, I’m not going to touch anything I’m not supposed to!” Drue said. Bo remained silent. “Do you even know who I am? Who my dad is? I’m a Lincoln. We are very important on Earth.” As Benny walked by, Drue perked up. “Hey, tell him it’s OK for me to be here!”

Before Benny could answer, Jasmine’s voice rang through the garage. “Yes! Here!”

Benny raised a finger to Drue. “One sec.”

Drue huffed but stayed seated as Benny made his way to the huddle. “Tell me you’ve got some good news,” he said.

“Jasmine thinks she’s figured out where this Bale guy might be hiding out,” Hot Dog said. “So much for Elijah being the smart one.”

“Well, maybe,” Jasmine said. “And I’m sure Elijah could have found him if he’d actually tried to. From everything Pinky and Trevone mentioned, it sounds like a reunion with Dr Bale wasn’t a big priority to him.”

“True,” Pinky said. “I think he’d rather have forgotten the man ever existed.”

“Anyway, I looked at places where it seemed like he’d been camping based on evidence the Pit Crew or Elijah came across while exploring. Which, honestly, is mainly just a few footprints and Space Runner landing marks. Dr Bale and his team did a great job of cleaning up after themselves.”

She pulled on one chrome corner of her HoloTek to extend it and then held it up to Benny, showing him a map of the far side of the Moon with several yellow dots on it.

“I think he was hiding in the Daedalus crater for a while, but given when the footprints were discovered and factoring in the amount of time it would have taken to get to Hot Dog and leave her supplies after she went down, this might be his movement pattern.” She tapped on the screen and blinking lines connected the dots. “Fortunately, he’s heading closer to us.”

“Yeah,” Hot Dog said, pointing to the dot on the left side of the HoloTek. “Turns out there was some kind of energy ping around here right after I got shot down and before you guys found me.”

“It was just before our satellites were destroyed,” Pinky said. “The energy signature was comparable to that of a hyperdrive engine.”

“I’d suggest we search this group of mares,” Jasmine continued, gesturing to a spot on the map. “It’s actually not far from the alien base, relatively speaking, which means it’s possible that’s where he’s headed. Maybe for shelter. He might have seen the storm coming.”

“Uh.” Hot Dog groaned. “Didn’t we kind of leave a big hole leading into the underground tunnels back there? Maybe we should get that fixed.”

Ash McGuyver snapped her gum. “Bo and I will take care of it, no problem.”

“Perfect!” Drue said, springing into the middle of their group. “So, what, we’ll just head out and search the crater. Easy.”

“It’s not that simple.” Jasmine waved two fingers across the map, zooming in. “These mares – if he’s even there – can be almost a hundred kilometres in diameter.”

“Uh, can you talk to me in miles, Jazz?” Benny asked. “Or, better yet, how many Tajs is that?”

“The search area is the size of two or three cities. Big ones.” She shook her head. “Honestly, how has everyone not picked up the metric system yet?”

“Don’t lump me into your science shaming,” Drue said. “My tutors taught me both. This should still be pretty easy, though. It’s a whole lot of nothing out there, right? Plus, don’t we have sensors and stuff like that?”

“Heat sensors, energy sensors, you name it,” Ash said. “But if Bale has a way of messing with those, you kids are on your own.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Drue asked.

“One last thing,” Pinky said, furrowing her eyebrows a bit. “Remember that Dr Bale and Elijah don’t have the greatest history together. And in a way … you are sort of intruding on his territory.”

“Yeah,” Benny said. He looked at Drue. “We’ll be careful.”

Even as Benny spoke, though, Drue was racing towards the Space Runners. “I call whatever goes fastest!”

“You’ll take the laser-armed SRs or you’ll stay here,” Ash yelled after him. She wiped her hands on her coveralls. “That boy’ll be the death of me.”

“Jazz, you’ll navigate us, yeah?” Benny asked as they made their way to the vehicles.

“Sure,” she said, but her cheeks flushed a little. “Just, uh, don’t mind me if I get a little behind. I haven’t had much actual experience flying these things.”

Hot Dog winked at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.”

They slid into four of the Space Runners with Mustang-red stripes painted across them. A holographic map appeared on Benny’s windshield, a blinking line cutting across the projected lunar surface.

“Here’s our path,” Jasmine’s voice came through the comms, filling the cabin of Benny’s vehicle. “I suggest a diamond flight pattern so we can keep an eye on the surface and each other.”

“Agreed,” Hot Dog said. “Benny, you take the front, Drue and I will take the sides, and Jasmine can bring up the rear.”

Benny waited for Drue to protest that he should take the lead, but he didn’t say anything.

“All right,” Benny said. “Pinky, open up the auxiliary pressurisation tunnel. Uh, please.”

And then they were off, shooting one by one out of the Grand Dome and into the stillness of the Moon’s imperceptible atmosphere.

“Race you guys to the mare,” Drue said over the comms. His Space Runner shot forward. “Last one there has to tell Ricardo we left.”

“Formation, Drue,” Hot Dog said. “We went over this.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He took his spot at Benny’s right again.

“We’re a good half-hour away from this search zone,” Jasmine said, “but we should keep an eye out for anything odd, just in case.”

Benny laughed a little to himself, thinking what a strange thing this was to hear, considering the fact that they were setting out to hunt for a mysterious doctor hiding on the dark side of the Moon to possibly recruit him in their effort to save the Earth from aliens. All of it was odd. Even the fact that Benny was sitting in a Space Runner. Despite the fact that this car had been in battle earlier that day, the inside was still sleek and clean, the surfaces all polished and the artificial-leather seats buffed. He caught his reflection in the rearview mirror and realised that he was pretty clean, too. At least compared to what he usually looked like in the Drylands, where it was impossible to scrub off all the dust even when they did have enough water to bathe, and his black hair was usually stiff with dried sweat, sprouting out in all directions. When he’d first got to the Taj, he’d felt so out of place. Even in the Space Runner on the way up to the Moon, he’d managed to get dirt everywhere because it had spilled out of his bag.

But now he’d changed. And for some reason that made him miss home even more.

Eventually, they were flying across the far side of the Moon. Benny pressed his face against the passenger window, looking at the pockmarked landscape below him.

“I thought it’d be darker,” he said. “I mean, it seemed darker when we were by that alien base.”

“Probably because we were in a crater,” Jasmine said. “The dark side of the Moon isn’t really dark. It’s just the side we can’t see from Earth.”

“Hey, remember when Iyabo was telling us that story about skeletons roaming the dark side?” Drue asked.

Benny did. How could he forget? The girl from Cameroon had painted such a clear picture of long-forgotten scientists pounding on the Grand Dome, desperate to get back inside the artificial environment. He’d tried to remember every detail to tell his brothers when he got back home – the perfect scary bedtime story.

“Well,” Drue continued, “what if it wasn’t an urban legend? What if that’s what this doctor and his friends are? Moon zombies.”

“Drue, are you getting enough oxygen in your Space Runner?” Benny asked.

“I’m just saying. They’ve got to get out of their space suits and wash them sometimes. Maybe all the radiation out here messed them up. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie? This is a classic zombie setup.”

“That’s actually kind of true,” Hot Dog said.

“Not you, too,” Benny said.

“What? After everything that’s happened to us today, you want to draw the line of impossibility at Moon zombies? I head-butted a space Medusa earlier.”

“OK. Good point.”

Benny looked down at the craggy surface, imagining a dozen decomposing figures clawing their way out of the dust, mouths gaping as they reached towards the sky, towards them. He couldn’t help but think of the skeletal faces of the flying robots they’d blasted in the video-game room, which seemed like forever ago. Surely Elijah hadn’t modelled them on Dr Bale and his assistants … right?

“I’m not even going to begin to poke holes in this idea,” Jasmine said. Then, after a pause, she continued. “But if I were going to, I’d start by—”

“Hey, guys,” Hot Dog said, cutting into the comm feed. “I think I see something.”

“Strange,” Jasmine replied. “The scanners aren’t picking anything up, and we’re not very close to the mare.”

“Not on the ground.” Her voice was wavering now. “Above us.”

It took Benny a moment to see what she was talking about, but then there it was. A dark spot, blotting out a few stars. A smudge of deep purple against the black sky.

And then there were more, four – no, five jagged shapes.

“Oh crap,” Benny muttered as the shard-like alien ships shot towards them.

“Evasive manoeuvres!” Hot Dog shouted as the ships sped closer.

Benny paused for only a second before twisting his flight yoke to the left, remembering some of the basic skills Hot Dog had taught him and the rest of the Moon Platoon in her piloting crash course. His Space Runner veered, dropping towards the dark crater below.

Moments later, the five alien ships were upon them; the same type that had come out of the mother ship during the asteroid storm. Their hulls were shaped like jagged arrowheads shooting through space, made out of some deep purple mineral. The backs of the crafts were capped with gleaming silver devices, as though some kind of metallic claw had latched on to the ships.

“They must have some sort of cloaks up,” Jasmine said. “They’re not on my radar. I can’t get a target lock.”

Benny glanced at his instrument panel, but only their four Space Runners showed as blips on the holographic screens.

“If they attack,” Hot Dog said, “keep weaving. Just make sure we don’t hit each—”

She stopped as ice-blue bolts of energy rained down around them.

Benny swerved, narrowly avoiding one of the blasts. He’d been hit by one of these before, and the result had been a total loss of control over his vehicle. All Space Runners were equipped with moderately strong antigravity shields, but from what he could tell they didn’t offer all that much protection from whatever advanced weaponry the aliens had.

“I’m monitoring the situation!” Pinky’s voice filled his car. “I’m calling more of the Moon Platoon to the garage for backup, but their ETA is twenty minutes at least.”

“There’s no time,” Benny said. “Keep everyone else safe at the Taj. Be on high alert. We don’t know how many of these things are out here.”

“Benny …” She paused. “Please be careful.”

He pushed his flight yoke forward and dived towards the Moon’s surface, two ships in pursuit. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

“All those foster families were right,” Jasmine squeaked through the comms. “I should have played flight sims and video games instead of studying so much!”

Above Benny, his friends were fighting. Hot Dog and Drue were by far the most adept at manoeuvring, their Space Runners spinning and darting around the alien vessels as they shot the lasers mounted to the fronts of their cars. But Jasmine was holding her own, too. She’d flown well away from the others and was sniping from a distance with precise shots. One of them hit the rear of a ship, causing the metal on the back to explode in an eruption of sparks.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, her voice full of astonishment. “I hit one!”

“Woo-hoo!” Drue shouted. “Nice shot, Jazz!”

“Looks like the backs of their ships are their weak spots,” Hot Dog added. “We know where to aim. Take ’em down!”

“I hope I didn’t injure the thing inside,” Jasmine said.

“Uhhh,” Drue groaned into the comms. “Not exactly what I’d be worried about right now.”

“Our goal isn’t to hurt them,” Benny said.

“Sure, but I don’t think these dudes are trying to be very careful when it comes to my own safety.”

Benny watched the damaged alien ship fly up into outer space – hopefully retreating. That was one down. At least they weren’t technically outnumbered now – even if two ships were still gaining on him.

He clenched his jaw as his Space Runner jetted towards the ground, the dark surface of the Moon filling his windshield. Alarms began to go off throughout the cabin as he got closer. When he was within just a few metres of smashing into the lunar crust, he pulled back on the flight yoke and levelled out. He shot across the crater floor, pushing his car’s hyperdrive as hard as he could as he twisted the flight yoke back and forth, avoiding enemy fire. For a split second he wished he were in something with wheels – he wasn’t doing badly in the flying car, but he definitely would have felt more at home on the ground, in a buggy or something he was more familiar with. In the rearview and side mirrors, he watched the alien ships loop around each other, trading shots at him, before finally one of the crafts took position above the other, the two of them lining up directly behind him.

“Not good, not good, not good,” he muttered to himself as sweat began to bead on his forehead. Suddenly, a barrage of red lights flashed on the windshield. He was about to hit the crater wall.

“Ahhh!” he shouted as he wrenched the yoke to the left just in time, until he was flying sideways, following the curve of the wall and dodging sharp outcroppings of rock. The two alien ships followed suit, firing their energy blasts. The cavern wall below him exploded with each missed attack, spraying debris and dust up all around Benny’s Space Runner.

He tightened his grip on the flight yoke as he struggled to make out the terrain in front of him, and, for a flash, he remembered a day he hadn’t thought of in a long time. A few years before, his caravan had raced across the Drylands trying to outrun an approaching sandstorm. Benny’s grandmother and brothers were in the RV, but his father was behind driving a truck full of gear at the time and had let Benny ride with him, buckling him into the passenger seat and covering his mouth with a bandana in an attempt to spare him from getting a mouth full of sand. It had seemed to Benny like they’d flown across the dunes at the speed of light, the two of them bringing up the rear of the group as they tried to reach an abandoned farm with a working well they’d planned on camping at for a while. They’d almost got there, too – Benny could see the huge, rusty barns just a few miles away – but in the last stretch the wind picked up, blowing sand across their path until Benny couldn’t make out the other vehicles and trailers that had been in front of them. His father hit the brakes, and in seconds they had stopped.

“Standard procedure,” his dad had said. “Nothing good’d come from driving in a storm like this.”

The sound of the storm was so loud around them that Benny could hardly hear him.

“But so close?” Benny had said.

His dad had just shaken his head and pulled off his own bandana now that he was sure the sand engulfing the truck wasn’t going to get in too badly.

“What if we went over a cliff? What if we ran into someone from the caravan?” he’d asked as he slid his seat back and put his boots up on the dashboard. “Nah, we’ll wait it out. There’s no GPS or stars to help us through something like this, and it’s too easy to get lost when you can’t see where you’re going. Only a fool would try.”

Benny couldn’t say that he’d always been able to see exactly where he was going the last few days, but the memory did give him an idea.

He aimed his Space Runner’s laser as low as it could go and began blasting the crater wall beneath him, gouging a deep trench into the rock and sending clouds of debris floating into the paths of the ships behind him. He had just a few seconds of invisibility to work with and he tried to make the most of it. Pulling up on the flight yoke, he flew in a loop, hoping to take the ships by surprise.

And he did. Or one of them, at least. His laser hit its crystalline wing, causing it to ram into the crater wall and fall behind. The other ship, however, dodged him and corrected itself so quickly that Benny didn’t have a chance of avoiding its counter-attack. A bolt of energy slammed into the pilot’s side of his Space Runner with such force that Benny was sure the whole car was going to break apart as he banged his head against the side window, straining against his seat belt. Lights all over the dashboard started blinking as he struggled to both catch his breath and regain control of the vehicle. But it was too late. He was too close to the ground, and before he could pull up on the yoke the car slammed into the bottom of the crater, spinning over the craggy ground, throwing Benny around until finally it skidded for twenty metres and came to a stop upside down.

Smoke began to fill the cabin of Benny’s Space Runner. Coughing, he hurled himself against the door a few times. On the third try, it gave, and he rolled out onto the surface of the Moon, the force-field helmet of his space suit automatically appearing round his head and filling with oxygen. He half crawled for a few seconds before managing to get to his feet just in time to see the alien ship returning, circling around and heading straight for him.

He tapped on his collar, trying to connect to his friends’ comm systems. “Guys? Anyone? I’m kind of defenceless down here!”

Suddenly they were all shouting in his helmet, on their way to rescue him. But even as they raced towards the crater, he realised they’d never make it in time. The ship coming after him was too fast, and in the low gravity, there was no way he’d be able to avoid its blasts for long. It was homing in on him now, already within range to attack. Benny could see a surge of blue light on the back of the ship. This was it.

Suddenly, a bolt of gold light shot forth, briefly illuminating the dark corners of the crater and striking the side of the alien craft. The ship exploded in a flash of fire, quickly snuffed out by the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. The few remaining pieces of the ship then fell towards the surface in a rain of smoking metal and minerals. Benny hit the ground and covered his head as the wreckage battered the rocky crater floor around him.

When he was sure that it was over he got to his knees, looking about, breathless. The alien ship had practically disintegrated, and the pilot inside …

The others were still shouting through the speakers in his collar, telling him that the two remaining ships were retreating after the explosion. He scanned the direction the gold bolt had come from.

And then he saw it. In the shadows near the crater wall there was some kind of vehicle that was too big to be a normal Space Runner. He watched as a long, cannon-like tube folded back into the hood of the craft as it lifted off the ground. It hovered in the air for a few seconds before jetting towards Benny.

Sweating and shaking, he held his breath and clenched his fists as the craft landed near him. The pilot-side door opened. A figure wearing a space suit that was patched in several places stepped out. Whoever it was also wore a force-field helmet that was completely black, as though they had an inky egg for a head.

Benny had just enough time to breathe a sigh of relief that the figure looked human before the person was upon him, with one giant gloved hand round his neck, lifting him off the ground, fingers pressing against his collar.

“Stop!” Benny shouted, beating his fists against the figure’s broad chest.

Then there was a beep inside his helmet and the hand let go. Benny drifted back down to the ground as a man’s voice, low and gravelly, came out of his collar speaker.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Benny Love,” he replied in a wheeze as he scrambled to his feet. His hands immediately went up to his throat – the man had been manually connecting their radios, not attacking him. Or at least, he didn’t think he’d attacked him. Behind him, his friends’ three Space Runners landed.

The man tilted his head and pressed something on the back of his neck. His helmet slowly became transparent until Benny could see who was standing in front of him. The man’s hair was matted and oily, grey but for a streak of jet-black across the front, contrasting the ghostly pallor of his skin. A thick, dark beard pushed up against the inside of his force-field helmet. He stared at Benny through thick goggles.

Benny gaped at the man. “Um …” he started. “Dr Austin Bale?”

The man raised one bushy eyebrow and nodded.

“Are you OK?” Hot Dog shouted as his friends rushed to his side.

Jasmine stopped in her tracks when she saw Dr Bale. “It’s you.”

“Well, that was easier than I thought it would be,” Drue said. Then he frowned. “Except for the aliens, I guess.”

Dr Bale looked them over one by one, stopping on Hot Dog. “You, I recognise. The girl in the crashed SR.”

Hot Dog just nodded.

“It was a matter of good fortune for you,” Dr Bale continued. “I’d gone to see if the Taj was still standing after our radar picked up on that approaching storm.” He looked to Benny. “You’re welcome for saving your life just now.”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “I mean, you’re right. Thanks! Sorry, I just … guess I didn’t expect to find you so fast.”

“You came looking for me?” he asked.

Benny nodded as his mind spun, hardly believing their luck. This man – the elusive scientist they’d been searching for – had utterly annihilated one of the alien ships with some sort of weapon unlike anything Benny had ever seen.

He had so many questions.

Dr Bale’s nose twitched, his overgrown beard and moustache scratching against the inside of his helmet.

“There’s nothing for you here,” he said, turning back to his big Space Runner. “Go back to your fancy hotel. Tell Elijah to keep a leash on his children. This is my side of the Moon.”

“Wait,” Benny said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here. Elijah’s not at the Taj any more.”

Dr Bale stopped, turning back to them slowly, staring at Benny. “What do you mean he’s not there?”

“It’s … kind of a long story,” Benny said.

Dr Bale narrowed his eyes before glancing at the sky. “It’s not safe to be out here. You may have damaged the other four crafts, but they’ll be back.”

“How did you …? I mean, that level of … Where? Up here?” Jasmine asked, the questions spilling out of her mouth.

Dr Bale took a moment to look at each of them again, and then back at the three Space Runners parked a few metres away. Finally, he nodded towards his own vehicle. “Why don’t I show you? My campsite isn’t far.” He glanced back at Benny. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

There was something oddly familiar about the inside of Dr Bale’s vehicle. A coating of dust covered the consoles – touch surfaces that were scratched and practically obsolete compared to those inside the Space Runners Benny had been in. In fact, everything seemed dated, from the switches where there could have been holographic buttons right down to the strumming acoustic guitar that was pumping out of the speakers. The whole thing felt like a vehicle better suited for the caravan than the Moon, though it must have had a solid environmental system in it since Benny’s helmet had automatically disappeared after they’d taken off.

He glanced in the side mirror to make sure his friends were still following close behind, three chrome brush strokes against the black sky. They’d been hesitant to let him ride alone with Dr Bale when the man had suggested he do so, but Benny had figured if they were going to ask him for help, they should at least try to be friendly. And Dr Bale had just saved his life.

Benny turned his attention to a gear lever between him and Dr Bale. He’d seen them on Earth on the rare occasions that the caravan stumbled across ancient cars with primitive transmissions, but he couldn’t imagine what one was doing here.

Dr Bale must have noticed his staring, though he didn’t look over at Benny when he spoke, his voice deep. “It controls the cannon. Not the most delicate instrument, but it gets the job done. As you saw.”

Benny swallowed hard, thinking of the alien ship: there one moment, gone the next.

“So …” he began, unsure exactly what to say. “You have a … I don’t know. It looks like a space truck?”

“We call this the Tank. It’s my own design.”

“That makes sense.” Benny paused. “Powered by one of Elijah’s hyperdrives?”

Dr Bale grunted, which Benny took as a yes. He continued.

“And you built it to take down the Maraudi ships?”

At the mention of the alien species by name, Dr Bale raised an eyebrow. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “I saved you back there, so you owe me a little explanation as to why four kids are wandering around out here alone. I assume you’re some of Elijah’s scholarship winners.”

“You know about the EW-SCAB?”

“Just because I’ve been living on the dark side for a while doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of what’s going on in our solar system. I’ve been back and forth to Earth regularly over the years.” He tried to smooth his beard down – finally free from the helmet, it was still curling up at the end. “Besides, Elijah’s not the only one who can launch a satellite.”

“So you’re in contact with Earth?” Benny jerked forward. “Could you—”

“Don’t get excited. That asteroid storm last week killed our communications. I take it the same can be said for the Taj’s. From what I can tell it destroyed almost every usable satellite for hundreds of thousands of miles.”

Benny hunched back in his seat. “Oh.”

There was a brief silence between them before Dr Bale spoke again. “Did he send you?”

“Did who send us?”

“Elijah,” he said, his voice dropping even deeper at the last syllable. “Of course he did. Summoning me to that gaudy metal palace of his after the Maraudi finally made a move. I suppose he’s seen reason at last and is ready to enact countermeasures. No doubt he’s lobbying on Earth, trying to play the role of the white knight. I just can’t believe he sent a bunch of children out to find me. He could have had the decency to come himself.” He glanced at Benny. “Tell me he at least had military forces piloting the fleet that went out this morning.”

“You don’t know,” Benny said. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d have to explain everything that had happened in the last few days, to Dr Bale. “Uh, where do I start? OK, so you know about the aliens and that Elijah was using the EW-SCAB to recruit kids to basically sort of be the last of humanity once the Alpha Maraudi came for Earth …”

Benny went on, catching the man up to speed as best he could. By the time he was finished, Dr Bale’s face was contorted in disgust, his lips twisted and teeth half bared.

“The idiot, he …” Dr Bale said, his eyes flashing wide for a second. Then he took a breath and adjusted his goggles as he shook his head. “Of all the preposterous ideas he had, I don’t know why the plans behind the scholarship should surprise me. I always assumed the Taj would become a stronghold for the elite. I suppose I have to give him at least a sliver of credit.”

“Yeah, well, things obviously didn’t turn out like he planned,” Benny continued. “We found out about the aliens and confronted him. I guess the important part is that a bunch of us weren’t going to let Earth get destroyed, so we flew to the oncoming asteroid storm and tried to blow it up.”

“How? I thought Elijah didn’t have any weapons at the— Ah, wait. The lasers I saw you shooting. Let me guess, they were for excavating?”

“Yeah,” Benny said.

Dr Bale nodded. “Hmm. Very clever.”

“They worked pretty well until the aliens attacked. We did our best, but in the end it was Elijah who showed up and saved us. He got sucked into this big asteroid – a mother ship – by a tractor beam and overheated his Space Runner’s hyperdrive.”

“Causing it to explode.” Dr Bale pursed his lips for a moment. “Yes, I see. And the mother ship?”

“Retreated. I was inside it for a while. It was like the whole thing was made of rock. But I could breathe in there. My helmet didn’t come on.”

Dr Bale twisted the end of his beard while staring out at the landscape in front of them. He nodded a few times but didn’t say anything. The silence was just starting to get uncomfortable to Benny when the man finally spoke again. “Colour me impressed. The lasers were a good idea, but they’re primitive at best. You’re lucky you didn’t all get yourselves killed. You never should have had to go after the Alpha Maraudi yourself – for that, I must apologise on behalf of all the adults who failed you. Fortunately, I’ve been working on a means of combating these invaders since we first encountered them all those years ago.”

Benny glanced at the bonnet of the car where the cannon had disappeared. The word invaders lingered in his ear. “Yeah, I can see that. But, actually, the Alpha Maraudi aren’t what you and Elijah—”

“Who’s running the Taj now that he’s gone?” Dr Bale asked, cutting him off. “Not that simpering fool Max, I hope.”

“Uh, that’s kind of a good question. Pinky’s sort of in charge.”

“Pinky Weyve?” He let out a single grim laugh. “Elijah’s personal-assistant-turned-girlfriend-turned-computer is in charge of the most sophisticated artificial environment humanity ever created?”

“Well, yeah,” Benny said. “She and one of Elijah’s Pit Crew thought you might be able to help us figure out what to do next.”

Dr Bale made a noise, but his lips never parted and Benny wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a groan. “So the Taj has lost contact with Earth and is being run by a bunch of kids and an AI.”

“Basically,” Benny said, and for some reason he got the feeling in his gut that maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say to the man with a grudge against Elijah West. He tried to change the subject. “Plus, you know … We figured we should warn you. If there were aliens on this side of the Moon. We’d tracked some headed this way at the battle this morning.”

“As you saw, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“Right.” Benny looked at the gear lever again. “And, uh … where are we going?”

Dr Bale nodded at the giant, shallow crater they were shooting towards. “Home sweet home.”

Benny looked through the windshield, but there was nothing but empty space and rock ahead of them. “I don’t see any—”

There was a slight shimmer as they passed through some sort of hologram field, and then suddenly everything outside the Tank changed.

“Holy whoa,” Benny murmured as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, his eyes darting around.

“Holographic environmental mimicry equipped with sensor cloaks,” Dr Bale said. “The site’s invisible from the outside, obviously.”

Half a dozen boxy, dull metal sheds lined the right side of the camp, thick-looking canvas hanging over the doorways. Nearby, two older-model Space Runners were parked beside a row of trailers and what looked to Benny like some sort of missile launcher. The centre of the site was filled with tables and benches, most of which were piled high with gadgets and tools like something out of the Taj’s research labs. To the left, three tents made of shining silver fabric had been pitched.

All round the perimeter, Benny could make out a sheen of distortion in the air that must have signalled the boundaries of the hologram.

“This is the reason I don’t show up on radar,” Dr Bale continued. “We’re not seen unless we want to be seen. Our vehicles have it, too.” He pointed to a black box on the dashboard and touched a button in the centre. The box glowed red as a glimmer of light spread over the outside of the car, and then suddenly all Benny saw when he looked out at the bonnet was the surface of the Moon.

Benny shook his head and blinked several times. “This is insane,” he said. “This is the coolest use of holograms.”

Dr Bale grunted in approval and pulled the box off the dash. The Tank was visible again. He tapped the button on the box and its red glow disappeared. “Magnetically attached stealth drives. You should count yourself lucky that the aliens attacked. You never would have found me otherwise.”

Dr Bale parked near the tents and opened the door to his craft. Benny expected his helmet to power on, but it didn’t. He took a few deep breaths – there seemed to be plenty of oxygen.

“That shield includes an environmental system,” Dr Bale said. “Not unlike the Grand Dome around the Taj, only this one has a permeable shell. Think of it as a bubble, not a force field.”

“As long as it doesn’t pop,” Benny said to himself as he stepped out of the car, noting that the gravity felt like Earth’s.

Behind them, three Space Runners landed, the pilots jumping out as soon as they touched the ground.

“What the what?” Drue asked. “It looked like you guys had disappeared and then I almost crashed in surprise when I went through … whatever that was.”

“Yeah, same,” Hot Dog said, looking around with wide blue eyes. “Did we just, like, teleport somewhere?”

“Not at all,” Jasmine said, her voice breathy. “This is a mobile research lab hidden by some type of holographic field.”

“Precisely,” Dr Bale said, crossing his arms. “Welcome to the most important location in the solar system as far as humanity’s future is concerned.”

Benny looked at his friends as Dr Bale spread his arms wide, taking a few steps away from them. Hot Dog raised her eyebrows at him, while Jasmine squinted, trying to make out what was on the tables. Drue glanced around, curling up one side of his face like he’d just smelled something disgusting.

“He’s been living in a place like this all these years?” he whispered.

The cloth draped over the door of one of the sheds was pulled aside, and two figures stepped out, both wearing patched space suits that looked like they were a size too big on each of them. They were both in their late twenties, Benny guessed. One was a pale man with perfectly square glasses and blond hair tied back in a small bun. The other was a woman with dark skin and her hair shaved short, almost to the scalp. They both paused just outside the shed entrance, staring silently at the new arrivals.

“We have … guests?” the man asked.

“Children,” the woman pointed out.

“Ah, and these are my research assistants, Todd and Mae,” Dr Bale said. “They’ve brought news from the Lunar Taj. Elijah West is gone.” He glanced back at Benny and the others.

Mae and Todd looked at each other, obviously stunned by this news.

“Then he must have been involved in the attack on the asteroid field,” Mae said.

“If he’s gone,” Todd started, “then who—”

“I know we all have questions,” Dr Bale interrupted him. “But our guests have been through quite an ordeal. Why don’t you two dig up some refreshments.”

The two researchers nodded to him, stared at Benny and his friends for a beat, and then disappeared back inside.

“What are you doing out here?” Jasmine asked. “What is all this stuff? What was that explosion earlier?”

Dr Bale started for one of the nearby sheds and Benny and the others followed. “Why don’t I show you?” he asked. “If Pinky sent you, am I right in assuming she gave you some background on my history with Elijah?”

“A little,” Benny said.

“Yeah,” Drue agreed. “Sounded kind of … rough.”

Hot Dog smacked his arm.

“‘Rough’ indeed,” Dr Bale said. “Elijah and I … We were very different men. At one point in my life I considered myself a mentor to him. It took a long time for me to realise that in order for that to have been true, Elijah would’ve had to have viewed himself as a student. That was never the case, despite the difference in ages. He was always a visionary or a revolutionary. Never a student.” He stopped at the shed’s entrance and turned to them. “Though, when it came down to it, he was more than willing to take on the role of a god, wasn’t he? Allowing Earth to go out with a whimper while building his own civilisation up here. Picking and choosing who would live and who would die. He gave up on humanity, but I didn’t. Even when they laughed at me.” His voice was turning into a soft growl now, and he was looking around the campsite, not at any of the kids in front of him. “Even when Elijah made me look like a fool, I found those who would listen, like Todd and Mae. I kept preparing.”

He suddenly seemed lost in thought, like he’d forgotten what he was saying or that he had an audience of four in front of him.

“Um, preparing what?” Drue asked.

The man didn’t say anything.

“Uh, Mr – I mean Dr Bale?” Hot Dog asked.

Dr Bale took a deep breath and then looked at them, smiling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “My mind works so much faster than my mouth that I’m usually several thoughts ahead of whatever it is I’m talking about.” He laughed a little. “And, let’s be frank, it’s been a while since we’ve had visitors. Let’s get to the point, shall we. Benny, you asked me in the car what your next move should be.”

He pulled back the canvas in the doorway, opening the shed to them. Inside, beneath harsh overhead lights, were rows and rows of overflowing shelves. Benny’s eyes moved over the locked chests, canisters labelled with all sorts of warning signs he didn’t recognise, HoloTeks, computer terminals covered in switches, blinking lights everywhere, and what looked to him like dozens of items that resembled the cannon that had taken down the alien ship, sitting alongside a stockpile of what Benny could only describe as futuristic guns.

“Dude,” Drue muttered, and Benny couldn’t tell if he was terrified or out of his mind with excitement.

“What is all of this?” Jasmine asked, stepping forward and peering into the shed.

“An armoury,” Dr Bale said. “Your next move is simple. You must protect Earth.”

Jasmine blinked, looking back and forth between Dr Bale and the weapons inside the shed. “You’ve been up here this entire time creating some sort of Moon arsenal?”

“That’s merely a portion of what we’ve been doing,” Dr Bale said, letting the flap fall back down, hiding his armoury once again.

“I can see why you and Elijah didn’t get along,” Jasmine continued. “He was completely against the further weaponisation of the human race.”

“And look how that worked out for him,” Dr Bale said quickly, his eyes wild for a flash.

“He could have survived.”

Dr Bale’s features softened. “Well, I suppose we don’t know what happened, exactly.”

Benny shifted his weight. “What are you planning to do with those?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea already after seeing what the Tank could do.

The man took a long breath, but before he could answer, Drue was talking again.

“Uh, also, where was all this earlier when we were gluing mining lasers to the fronts of our Space Runners and going to stop the aliens ourselves? Because I bet we could have used some of this.”

“We did OK on our own,” Hot Dog said.

“I got blasted by one of those ships!”

“OK, sure, it didn’t go perfectly.” She thought for a second and then rolled her eyes at him. “Also, I was sucked into the mother ship and almost put in some kind of alien zoo, so, who should be complaining here?”

Dr Bale grunted. “We didn’t see this asteroid storm coming until you’d already deployed. We don’t have scanners like those found in the Taj. For the most part, we’ve made do out here, but our equipment isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. We didn’t have a dozen spare satellites to launch after the first wave.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now, if we had the resources of the Taj, that would be another story altogether.”

Benny swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought Dr Bale would be like, but he definitely didn’t expect him to be showing them a bunch of weapons within minutes of their finding his camp. And the way he talked about Elijah and the Taj was tinged with something that didn’t sit well with Benny, despite Dr Bale’s calming, precise manner of speaking. The man may have been a genius, but the last time Benny had put his faith in someone on the Moon who supposedly knew better than him and his friends, Earth had almost been destroyed.

Still, they needed all the help they could get, and this man knew the Alpha Maraudi. Plus, he had saved Benny’s life. He kind of owed him the benefit of the doubt.

“You said you were working on other projects,” Jasmine said. “Is there anything else here that could help us?”

Dr Bale nodded and began to walk to the next shed. Once he was in front of them, Jasmine turned to look at Benny. Her lips were pressed together tightly, and her eyes were wide as she shook her head.

“I know,” Benny mouthed silently.

“The key to progress and success is to never rule out any possibility of advancement, no matter how remote,” Dr Bale said as they followed him. “That’s one thing Elijah and I agreed on. The difference between us is that Elijah’s thoughts were always stuck in his own solar system, whereas I have a much more open mind.”

He held the flap covering the entrance of the shed back and let the four of them walk inside. When Benny saw the circuitry-filled stone terminals pulsing with a dim green light, he immediately recognised what they were looking at. This was Alpha Maraudi technology, the same kind he’d seen in the alien mother ship and …

“The abandoned Moon base,” he murmured as he took in the dozens of asteroid chunks sitting on a table and a hologram of a three-sunned solar system in one corner. There were other things, too, that he didn’t recognise: tools made out of some red metallic substance, glass cylinders housing various mineral samples floating in mid-air, and what looked like pieces of bone – long, narrow and a dull bronze in colour.

He swallowed hard.

“So you’ve seen it,” Dr Bale said.

“Yeah,” Hot Dog said. “It’s, uh … kind of a long story.”

“You scavenged these things,” Benny said. “That’s why it looked so empty when we were there.”

Dr Bale stepped forward, picking up one of the asteroids as big as his fist. “Scavenge implies that these items were cast-offs from the Maraudi we found. These items were … inherited after the extraterrestrials no longer existed. We brought what we could back to the resort with us. Well, the building site, at least. Everything was still under construction.”

“Oh,” Drue said. “I get it. This is the stuff you took from the Taj when you left.”

“I didn’t steal anything, if that’s what you’re implying.” Dr Bale turned away from them slightly, surveying the items in the shed. “We found that base together, and contrary to what he may believe, Elijah does not own the Moon. I had as much a right to anything in that base as he did. Earth had a right to these things. Besides, what was he going to do with such important resources? Bury them away in his resort and pretend he was untouchable? Let them languish in some research lab? I couldn’t let that happen.”

There was a strange sensation against Benny’s right leg as Dr Bale spoke. Not quite strong enough to be called a buzzing, but some sort of dull energy, like the feeling he got when his HoloTek vibrated from across the RV and he could just barely, almost intuitively register it. He slid his hand into the pocket of his space suit, fingers grazing the golden glove.

It felt warm to the touch.

“And what have you learned?” Jasmine asked, stepping further into the room, looking at the collection of artefacts that had originated light years away.

“Plenty,” Bale said. He held up one of the asteroid rocks. “You see, these beings are engineers beyond our wildest dreams. Imagine being able to create new elements. Stones that are partially organic, able to grow, veined with energies. Minerals you could control given the correct type of frequency. The way they’ve learned to use metals and rocks … They could reshape Earth if they wanted to.”

“That must be why their ships look like pieces of quartz,” Jasmine said.

“So, they can control rocks?” Benny asked. “How? With, like, their minds?”

“Of course not,” Dr Bale said. “With science. They have instruments of their own.” He paused, smiling a bit as he walked over to a black case. He flipped it open, and, as he held up its contents, Benny’s heart jumped.

It was a metallic glove, much like the one he had. Only this one had a gash through it, like something very hot had sliced through the palm.

Hot Dog glanced at Benny. He nodded slightly. The others kept their eyes forward, even though they both knew he had an alien glove of his own. It was still humming in his pocket, and for a moment he almost took it out. But he didn’t. Something about the excited way that Dr Bale talked made him think the scientist would demand to have the glove if he knew that Benny had it. And given the shed they’d just seen, if Dr Bale wanted it, he could probably force them to hand it over.

“When we found the aliens,” Dr Bale said, “I saw one of them control the door to their base with this, growing it into the huge slab it is now. Another – the Maraudi that got away … it looked like he was using it to control his ship.”

Benny swallowed hard. Maybe this glove was going to come in handy.

“So, what about this one?” Jasmine said. “Can you show us how it works?”

Dr Bale looked at the gash in the glove’s palm. “Maybe I could if it were whole. But Elijah was careless with the architectural laser he was wielding when we made first contact.”

That’s when Benny remembered the details of the story Elijah had told them about when he and his top scientist had discovered the base – how there’d been a fight, and none of the aliens left on the Moon had survived. He shuddered as his eyes again fell on the bone-like items on the shelf.

It was almost difficult to imagine that all this had happened years and years ago, before the EW-SCAB had ever been created. And yet, here they were now, dealing with the ramifications.

Dr Bale made his way to the hologram in the corner. “This is their solar system. You’ll note that the middle of these three red dwarf stars is larger than the others. That’s because it’s expanding. Observe.” He reached into the hologram and seemed to pull on it, until the whole image zoomed in on a blue and brown ball floating near one of the stars. “This is where they come from. And, as you can see …” He pressed on something at the base of the hologram, and slowly the star began to expand until it was overtaking the planet completely. “They’re in trouble. I’m not sure what the timetable is on this – we haven’t exactly been focusing on learning their language or communications techniques – but they’re obviously looking to take Earth … Benny, you said you could breathe on their spaceship?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think they need our atmosphere?” It was more of a question than he meant it to be, considering Commander Tull – the alien in charge of the mother ship he’d been on that morning – had told him flat out that this was the reason. But Benny was preoccupied with something else. “So … you know they’re not coming to take Earth just because they want to conquer it, then. They’re coming for it because otherwise their species will die.”

Dr Bale nodded. “Let me guess. Elijah was still imagining they might turn the Earth into a destination planet. Some sort of vacation resort for wealthy extraterrestrials.” He let out a single, deep laugh. “Ever the entrepreneur.”

“But, if you know that …” Benny started, shaking his head. “If you understand that they’re just looking for a new home, why not use your skills to try to save their planet instead of making weapons to fight them. Maybe you could stop their star from expanding. Then they wouldn’t need Earth.”

“Who’s to say that they wouldn’t take it anyway?” Dr Bale pulled on his beard. “In all honesty, their technology is far more advanced than ours. If they can’t figure out a way to save themselves, there’s no way I’m going to. Plus, my boy, when you’re my age – when you’ve seen the things I’ve seen – you stop putting hope in the best possible solution and start to bet on the one most likely to come out in your favour. Or in this case, the favour of all mankind. We have to be able to defend ourselves if – when they return. That’s why I’ve designed these weapons. I’ll be waiting for them if they show their tentacled heads here again. The safety of our planet and our people is the highest priority. Everything else is negotiable.”

Benny swallowed hard. His friends didn’t say a word. The only thing that broke the silence was a rustling behind them. Benny turned to see Todd had pulled back the shed’s canvas door flap. He and Mae both held trays with silver packages on them.

“It’s probably not anything like Taj food,” Todd said, “but we technically did break out the good stuff.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Mae suggested. “After a while, you forget that most of your protein comes from soy powder.”

Benny had eaten enough sustenance squares back on Earth to know that wasn’t true, but he kept his mouth shut as they followed Dr Bale and his assistants out into the centre of the camp. Todd and Mae passed out the little silver pouches.

“Thanks,” Drue said, taking his. “I think.”

“So, you’ve come for help,” Dr Bale said, crossing his arms. “I suppose you’re hoping to take some of these weapons back with you now that you’ve seen them. But I must say, they were not meant for children to use, despite the bravery you showed this morning.”

“No,” Jasmine said, taking a step forward. “We didn’t come here for weapons.”

Dr Bale looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement. “Oh?”

“We came for information,” she continued. “Guidance. And to warn you.”

“And to get in touch with Earth,” Benny said, stepping up beside her. “That’s one of our biggest priorities.”

“I mean, we’ll take some of those weapons,” Drue said from behind them. “If you’re offering.”

Hot Dog sighed. “If you really want to save humanity, you won’t give him anything remotely dangerous.”

“Hey,” Drue said. “I—”

“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.”

“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.

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