Crimson Dawn

After ten minutes of driving, Lex had passed the massive iron smelting plant and was making his way through the towering, dark residential modules. No lights in the windows, just black blocks stretching into the sky. This was the habitat station.

At the far eastern edge, the massive machines of the open-pit mine rose up. Far beyond them, even higher, loomed the all-encompassing crater wall. Faint shadows from the sideways sunlight gave the rocky cliffs harsh, jagged contours. The constant rain had flooded the rugged valley with methane. The landscape was dotted with shimmering, silvery lakes, like an ocean rising from the ground. The rain-swept surface reflected the stormy sky above.

After following the inner rim of the crater north for eleven miles, Lex spotted a massive crack in the rock. He figured this must be the canyon Tayus had used to leave the settlement.

He let the engine idle, staring into the darkness of the canyon. The vehicle rocked in the wind, the rusty springs squeaking. The crevice swallowed all light. A heavy feeling settled in his chest as he thought about his friend.

"You better still be alive, so you can see the crap I’m going through for you. You’re my friend, man. My only one."

The beams from the headlights fanned out wide, reflecting off the wet rock walls all around. The rain had flooded the cave floor, and the UTV’s wheels spun halfway submerged in methane as it crept forward. In the headlight’s glow, the cave seemed like the belly of some otherworldly beast. But the real monster wasn’t the canyon—it was the Vortex storms outside, raging with full force beyond the sheltering crater walls.

As soon as Lex emerged from the cave, a sharp crosswind caught the vehicle, pushing it off course. That’s when Lex realized he had chosen a vehicle that was way too light. He fought the steering, stomping both boots onto the brake— but the UTV was too light, and it slid uncontrollably down a steep slope.

"Damn it!"

Shocks, flashes of lightning, swirling dust.

A violent jolt.

The vehicle flipped.

Instinctively, Lex tensed his neck. The datapad and helmet flew wildly around the cabin. In quick succession, he glimpsed the sky, then the ground—up, down, up, down, over and over—until the headlights blew out with a loud pop. No more bearings, his sense of balance gone. All he could hear was the endless crunching and cracking until the UTV finally crashed into a boulder at the base of the crater.

The boy hung upside down in his seatbelt, gasping for air. His head was spinning. A sharp crack from the side window gave him no time to recover. He reached for his helmet, which was wedged between the dashboard and the door, but he couldn’t reach it. The cracked side window was bulging inward, pushed by the pressure outside.

With one quick motion, he released the seatbelt and dropped hard onto the glass cabin. He immediately grabbed the helmet, pulled it on and hit the button on his chest console—all in nearly one fluid movement.

He heard another crack, then a hiss—air from the moon’s atmosphere rushing in. He took a deep breath, pulling the cold liquid into his lungs. He immediately coughed it back out. Breathed in again, coughed again, feeling like he was suffocating.

At that moment, the cockpit imploded. He flinched, crossing his arms to shield the visor. A violent swirl of dust and glass shards whipped around him. Milky daylight streamed through the shattered frame of the door, and Lex realized, despite everything, he was still alive. His breathing slowed, though his heart pounded like mad. His wrist computer had a crack running almost diagonally across the screen, but it still seemed to work. The estimated oxygen time left for Lex:

02:07:34

He grabbed his datapad and crawled out of the cockpit. Fuel was spraying from the tank. The fall had ripped both front wheels off the vehicle, while the four back ones still spun in the storm, like they were being moved by ghosts.

Lex braced himself against the wind. Lightning flashed above him; the swirling dust lit up with a blinding glow, and the thunder rumbled so loud, he could still hear it clearly through the liquid in his helmet. He’d only made it a few meters, but the wreckage was already fading into a faint shadow behind him in the sandstorm.

After nearly a mile across the rough moon surface, he glanced at the battery level for the first time—about 40 percent left. A warning tone had been ringing in his ears the whole time, but he’d been trying to ignore it. The Geiger counter built into his suit finally started beeping. Near the crash site, the radiation level was 60 millisieverts per hour, but out here, completely exposed to cosmic rays and radioactive rock formations, the levels were spiking much higher.

I’m really walking through the Radiation Zones. Someone pinch me. I must be insane. If I survive this, I’m going to die of cancer.

In the harsh light, the nearby rock formations cast deep black shadows. The skin beneath the damaged spot in his suit had already gone numb from the biting cold. With the battery dropping to 30 percent, the lunar winds grew so intense that he was struggling to stay on his feet. The radiation reading on his display:

334 mSv/h

The boy had marked the crash site on his map, but without exact coordinates, he could only guess which direction to go. Within a mile, Tayus’s transporter could be hiding behind any rock formation. If he didn’t want to die out here, he had—he glanced at his wrist computer—just under a hundred minutes to not only find Tayus, but to make it back to Orongu with him.

At the base of the crater, strange pillar-like rock formations had formed. The jagged stones loomed above him, crooked and sharp, like the skeleton of some ancient creature. The boy couldn’t understand how such formations could have formed naturally. So many thoughts raced through his mind that he barely thought about his own end. Only when his time dropped below an hour, and the growing fear that he was walking in circles in the sandstorm became unbearable, did panic start to set in.

It was pure luck that he found the haul truck just in time. The stranded vehicle wasn’t near the rock crevice, as he had originally thought, but farther away, out in the open. Seeing the headlights still shining through the swirling sand gave him hope that his friend was still alive.

Is he waiting for someone?

No, that’s ridiculous.

Then why is he just standing there in the middle of the storm?

Lex shielded his visor with his hand and trudged over a frozen sand dune, leaning hard into the wind. He had to climb a small hill before he could reach the ore loader. Without wasting time, he climbed the ladder and hurried across the deck to the driver’s cabin.

The protective grid over the window reflected the bleak landscape in even grayer tones. He saw his own reflection, mouth open, gasping the liquid in and out, but he couldn’t see inside. He couldn’t see Tayus behind the glass. Lex clenched his gloved hand into a fist and banged on the door.

Nothing.

He pounded again. Hammered on the grid.

Then, suddenly, he stopped.

His breath caught in his throat.

Slowly, he lowered his hand, realizing why the ore loader was just sitting there in the middle of nowhere, in the storm.

His banging on the door had stirred up moon dust, and it was sticking to the inside of the window.

Moon dust... inside the driver’s cabin?

Suddenly, the terrible truth hit him all at once.

Tayus. Damn it. No.