Movement

Part 5

      The Moon Rover with its crew of two drove out of the airlock and onto a ramp which took it up onto a flat monorail car specially designed to transport vehicles. A magnetic lock engaged and holding the Rover firmly in position. A few minutes later a train bound for Farside base exited an airlock tunnel, stopped and reversed into the siding coupling onto the flat car. A few minutes later the train and cargo were speeding across the vast plain known as Mare Fecunditatis or the Sea of Fertility. It would take just twenty five minutes to reach their destination.  

When the monorail was built the engineers constructed the 560 kilometre stretch of track across the lunar sea as straight as an arrow allowing trains to reach their maximum speed taking just one hour to travel the distance. It was anticipated that several trains per day would eventually use the line, so passing or crossing sidings known as loops had been built approximately every 200 kilometres. The increase in traffic had never happened with only one train per day. It was 240 kilometres to Equator Loop which was slightly misnamed as it was located about 70 kilometres south of the actual lunar equator. 

The trip passed quickly, and less than half an hour later the flat wagon had been left at a short extension siding off Equator Loop. Brad wasted no time in backing the Rover down the ramp. He then drove it the short distance to the communications hut. Donning a space suit he exited the vehicle carrying a box which he took into the hut. Ten minutes later he retrieved two remote cameras from the back of the rover and set them up on short tripods, one on each side of the monorail track.

Climbing back into the rover he explained the set up to Tracy. "The cameras record a continuous feed which is transmitted to the receiver I just set up in the hut. The receiver is connected to the com cable which means I can monitor the feed via a computer back at Mainbase. If we don't find anything today, I can still keep an eye on what's happening out here from the base, or even back on Earth if necessary."

"Very clever," Tracy replied, "Now you still haven't told me how we defend ourselves if we are actually attacked by anything, which I seriously doubt by the way."

Brad pointed upwards. "On the roof...a remote controlled powerful laser."

"Right, so if the monster comes for us, we zap it!" Tracy said with a smile.

"Exactly."

Brad put the rover in gear and drove slowly away from the monorail track out into the sea. He indicated to Tracy a small computer screen which displayed a wavy line. "That's the new radar they recently fitted to these vehicles," he explained, "It will show if there's a depression filled with dust ahead of us. We need to avoid driving into one. Some of them can be quite deep. The thin layer of dust on the ground may help us. Look for any marks in the dust left by something moving about."

The Moon Rover was a vehicle specially built for travelling over the lunar surface. It was tiny home on wheels about the size of a small bus. Behind the driver's seat was seating for five people, then a tiny galley with fridge and microwave oven, then two narrow fold down beds, a small toilet cubicle, an airlock for entry and exit while out on the lunar surface, and finally a small cargo area. The Rover was also equipped with a powerful radio which could access the communications satellites enabling the occupants to make calls over the moon's horizon to either of the bases.

Tracy watched intently through the windscreen as Brad drove in a search pattern back and forth gradually moving further and further away from the monorail track. The ground showed nothing unusual except for wheel marks of a rover which had investigated the same area a few weeks earlier. Soon they left the wheel marks behind as they moved further out.