Read Chapter 22: Decision Point

The emergency shelter’s recycler hummed a low, failing note as Elena peeled back Liang’s thermal blanket. His skin had the grayish translucence of a man bleeding internally, and the bandage she’d improvised from a med-kit was already blooming dark at the edges.

“He needs a real surgeon,” she said, not looking up. “Not me, not a field kit. He’s got a punctured lung, maybe a ruptured spleen. I can keep him alive for maybe six hours if we’re lucky.”

Jack crouched by the hatch, one hand pressed to his thigh. The motion was subtle—he thought she hadn’t noticed—but Elena had catalogued every micro-grimace for two days now. His leg was getting worse, not better. She didn’t have the bandwidth to fight him about it. Not yet.

“Options,” he said.

“Two.” Elena adjusted the drip line, checking the flow. “Nearest hospital module is thirty klicks east. Closer, but it’s a FieldCare pod—basic trauma suite, no surgical capacity. They can stabilize him, but he’ll need evacuation after.”

“And the base?”

“Fifty klicks northeast. Fully stocked med-bay. Surgical robot, whole setup.” She hesitated. “There’s a problem, though.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “There’s always a problem.”

“The direct route cuts through the Kessler Basin. Radiation spike zone—old reactor debris from the ’34 crash. We’d get maybe ten minutes of exposure before we’re looking at acute radiation sickness ourselves.”

Jack limped closer, peering down at Liang’s slack face. “So we take the long way around. Adds an hour, maybe two.”

“He doesn’t have two extra hours,” Elena said flatly. “And neither do we, if that internal bleeding picks up. I’m guesstimating, but I think he’s got a single window here. We either get him to the base on the direct route, or we don’t get him anywhere alive.”

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the shelter’s failing air scrubber. Through the viewport, the lunar horizon was a razor-sharp line of grey and black. Somewhere out there, the base they’d fled was burning again—or not. The smoke from earlier had been distant, secondary. She tried not to think about what they’d find when they got back.

“There’s another option,” Jack said slowly.

Elena’s head snapped up. “What kind of option?”

“The old shield-line transports used to run through the Basin during the construction phase. They had lead-lined cabs, four-inch plating. Designed to punch through the worst radiation zones with the crew inside mostly intact.”

“Mostly?”

“The ’34 models had some shielding gaps in the rear access boots. But the main cabin—drivers and passengers—was rated for eight hours in worst-case exposure.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, wincing as the motion pulled at something in his side. “There was a maintenance depot near this ridge. Scouted it on a mapping run six months back. If one of those transports is still there, we could make the direct crossing with Liang in the back.”

Elena stared at him. “You want to hot-wire a decommissioned vehicle from a depot that’s been abandoned for a decade.”

“I want to save his life,” Jack said quietly. “And ours. The hospital module doesn’t have the equipment. The base has everything—but the route kills us. The transport solves both.”

She checked her oxygen gauge. Forty-three percent. The numbers cycled through her head like a mantra: travel time, exposure limits, Liang’s deteriorating vitals, Jack’s hidden injury, the mystery at Relay 7, the sabotage cell that had destroyed her career and murdered her friend. It all came down to a single decision.

“The depot,” she said. “You’re sure it’s there?”

“Ninety percent.”

“That’s not a hundred.”

“On the Moon, nothing is.” He met her eyes, and for once there was no challenge in his gaze, only a worn-down honesty. “But I’m sure enough to bet his life and mine on it. And yours, if you’re coming.”

Elena looked down at Liang. His eyelids fluttered once, a ghost of consciousness, then settled. If they took him to the hospital module, he’d live long enough to die of complications they couldn’t treat. If they went to the base, he had a real shot—if the radiation didn’t kill them first, if the transport actually started, if nothing else went catastrophically wrong.

“I’m coming,” she said. “Let’s move.”

---

The depot was exactly where Jack had said it would be—a low, reinforced bunker half-buried in regolith, its exterior faded to a sickly orange by decades of micrometeorite strikes. The access door was sealed, but the manual override casing had been pried open years ago. Rusted tools and a faded tool bench told the story: someone had already stripped this place.

Elena’s heart sank as Jack played his headlamp across the interior. The transport was there—a massive, six-wheeled behemoth covered in dust—but its front panel gaped open, cables hanging loose like severed tendons.

“It’s been cannibalized,” she said.

“Not entirely.” Jack was already climbing into the cab, moving with a careful stiffness that betrayed his injury. He pulled a tangle of wiring from the open panel, examining the ends. “They took the comms array and some sensors, but the power cell and drive cables are intact. The ignition’s been bypassed, not disabled. Whoever stripped it was in a hurry.”

He reached under the dash and came up with a small, grimy toolkit still sealed in its pouch. “Lucky break.”

“How long?”

“Ten minutes, maybe. You keep him stable.”

Elena climbed into the back compartment, which was fitted with two fold-down bunks and a chemical toilet. The shielding was thick enough that the interior felt like a vault. She laid Liang out on the lower bunk, re-taped his bandage, and checked his pulse. Weak but steady.

“He’s holding,” she called forward. “Talk to me.”

“Main power line’s corroded. I need to bypass the regulator—” There was a clang, then a curse. “—and wire it direct. Should have enough juice to get us to the base.”

“And the radiation?”

“Cabin’s rated for eight hours. We’re looking at maybe three-quarters of the Basin crossing if I push the speed.” Another clang, followed by the sound of something heavy being kicked. “It’ll be tight. But we’ll make it.”

Elena watched Liang’s chest rise and fall. His breathing was shallow now, scattered. She pressed two fingers to his carotid again and felt a tremor under the skin—something arrhythmic that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

“Jack,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “He’s crashing.”

A pause. Then the cab’s dashboard flickered to life, casting the interior in pale green light. The transport’s engine coughed once, twice, then roared—a deep, mechanical vibrato that shook dust from the ceiling.

“Then we better not waste time,” Jack called back. “Strap him in. We’re leaving now.”

Elena secured Liang into the bunk’s restraint harness, then braced herself in the jump seat beside him. The transport lurched forward, grinding over regolith as Jack hauled it out of the depot and angled toward the Basin.

Through the forward viewport, she could see the radiation zone’s marker pylons—rusted, leaning, their warning lights long dead. Beyond them, the ground shimmered with a faint, deadly shimmer. A graveyard of old reactor debris and something worse.

“Hold on back there,” Jack said. “This is going to get rough.”

The transport picked up speed, climbing over the first ridge of the Basin. Elena reached down and took Liang’s hand. His fingers were cold, but they twitched—just once—as if he knew someone was there.

Then the cabin’s radiation counter began to click. Softly. Then faster.

Jack glanced at the gauge and said nothing. The clicking grew louder, a relentless pulse, and Elena watched the numbers climb past the safe threshold and keep climbing.