Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (20 page)

C
ARMEN WATCHED
from the Tower as another dome was inflated with fresh air mined out of the very surface of the moon. The Tower – everyone on site was already calling it that – wasn’t very big yet. But it would be, in time. It was two stories tall, and would grow to at least fifty. One nifty thing about lower gravity – you could build a crazy tall structure. The plan was to extend the height of the tower clear out of the crater, so that they would have direct line of sight to other nearby bases, and so that the tip of the tower would never be in shadow.

“How many domes will there be, in all?” her father asked. He spoke softly. She could hear regret in his voice, and worry, and loved him for all those things and more besides. She looked away from the construction, met his eyes, and smiled.

“Who knows? At least twenty. But I think it will grow larger. Much larger.” They’d found even more reserves of water ice on the moon. With careful recycling of the oxygen, they could eventually have hundreds of people living here, maybe thousands, without ever bringing up another drop of water from Earth. The greatest expense of expanding the lunar city was always bringing up water and air. Without those as a factor, who knew how large they could grow in time?

She turned back to watch the work being done. They were silent for a long moment, and she wondered if he would ever say what he was thinking. Her father was a good man, but he was as stubborn as they came.

“I’m sorry, Carmen,” he said after a long pause.

She turned her head sideways to look at him. “For?”

“For getting in the way. You never would have been in danger if I hadn’t...”

“Yes, I would have. We’ve been through this. You still had to go to Earth,” she ticked off each statement on her fingers, “the shuttle still would have been hijacked, and I still would have had to rescue you.” She grinned, taking some of the heat out of the statements.

He nodded, waving his hands in surrender. “I know. I agree! Allow an old man his remorse, woman.” Then he put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“About staying out here?” she asked. She was being coy, and that really wasn’t fair to him. She relented. “Or about Patrick?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Yes,” she answered back, eyes wide open, a broad smile on her face. “Truly, dad, I haven’t felt so sure of anything since I was in medical school. They need you on Earth to help make that cure even better. And they need my help out here, to help prepare defenses so that we’re ready for whatever comes next.”

Carmen looked back out the window. This wasn’t going to just be a city. It was going to be Earth’s first line of defense against whatever came at their home planet from out there in the stars. It still wasn’t public knowledge that the virus had been built as a weapon. That information was still highly classified. But humanity now knew that it wasn’t alone. There were other things out there – and at least some of them were unfriendly.

She’d become very famous, very fast. Everyone in the world knew Carmen Rosa as the woman who had saved the human race. She’d gone back to Earth with Patrick and her father for a short while, and burst into tears the first time someone had come up to her, knelt down, and kissed the hem of her shirt. She’d cried the second, third, and fourth times, too. By the fiftieth, all she wanted to do was be someplace away from all these people. She couldn’t possibly live up to their expectations.

So she argued for a base on the moon. The material existed. And the virus was clearly a first strike weapon, designed to clear any indigenous life out of the way. The virus might have been something that some alien race simply seeded out into the universe. Or it might be the precursor for an actual invasion.

If it was the latter, the invasion would likely not be far behind. A base on the moon would be easier to launch ships from than their mother planet. They could keep things secret there which would be much more difficult to hide, back on Earth. And the governments which knew about the existence of aliens didn’t want to spread the word yet. They worried it would case a panic.

They gave Carmen her base. They even put her in charge, as executive director of the base. In turn, she named Patrick as the base administrator. The military was sending people up, too. Mostly Air Force and Navy. She’d need to learn how to get along with them, but she’d worked with the military in the past during outbreaks in some rough corners of the world. She could do it again.

She heard someone cough behind her and turned, beaming. She knew that gentle cough by now. Patrick smiled back, coming up alongside her.

“Doctor Rosa, your shuttle is just about ready to depart,” Pat said.

Carmen took her father’s hand. “Come. I’ll walk with you there.”

Doctor Rosa reached out a hand to Pat, who accepted the gesture gravely. The two men shook, and then partway through the shake the older man smiled and pulled the younger into a hug that surprised both Pat and Carmen.

“You did well out there, my boy,” Doctor Rosa said. “Take care of each other. And keep in touch!” he admonished Carmen.

“We will, dad,” she replied.

Rosa stood there, nodding at both of them a few times, almost absently. Carmen didn’t miss the hint of moisture in his eyes. She could feel her own eyes tearing up a little, too. She’d never lived so far away from her father as they would be now. Then he turned on his heel, and walked away. Carmen heard him whistling a little tune as he walked.

“Well, he’s in a good mood,” Pat commented once the doctor was out of earshot.

“He does seem to be,” Carmen admitted. She laced her arm around the small of Pat’s back. “Wonder why?”

He looked down at her. “He loves you. And you’re happy. That makes him happy.”

“Mmmm. You make me happy,” Carmen said.

“I’m glad.”

They looked out the window at the domes growing steadily on the crater floor. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Carmen said, heaving a deep sigh.

“We do,” Pat agreed. “But first, I thought you might want to come inspect our new quarters with me? We should make sure everything is just right.”

Carmen could feel her cheeks heating up. “I’d love to.” She was sure everything would be as right as it could be. And she was looking forward to every moment of it.

T
hanks for reading
! I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure. It was certainly fun to write. This book was something of an experiment for me, trying out new characters, in a different setting, and merging the themes of science fiction adventure stories with those of romance.

I’m really pleased with the result, and glad I was able to share it with you.

This story was originally intended to be a stand alone novel. But I’ve already gotten feedback asking for more. So I’ll likely write some new stories around the moon base that Carmen and Patrick are building together. They might feature centrally in some of those tales, or might just show up on the edges of others. But we’ll see them again.

After a lot of thought, I’ve also merged these tales into the Accord series timeline. This story happens about five years before the events in the short story “Accord of Fire” (which you can get for free by clicking the link in this book), and about twenty five years before “Accord of Honor”.

If you’ve enjoyed this book, you might want to check those out as well!

I love hearing from readers. If you have questions or thoughts about the book, please feel free to drop me a line at
[email protected]
- I try to reply to every email I get from a reader.

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