A Moon’s Heartbeat
The wooden panels of the corridor were caked in a patchy layer of dark green mold that clung to every surface. The most dense patches bulged out from the panels and pulsed in unison. With each pulse, Sam stumbled and her vision swam. She couldn’t tell if the pulsing sound she heard came from the bulges or her own internal heartbeat. Searching for an escape, she staggered forward, trying her best not to touch the mold.
Ahead of her stood a door made of dark wood. Each pulse caused the mold to expand in waves, the patches growing, overlapping the door’s edges, then receding before the next pulse caused it to happen again. The patches grew larger with every pulse. A green tide was coming in, and Sam knew she had to escape it. She sprinted for the door, the pulses growing faster along with her heartbeat. Approaching the door, Sam reached out to open it. The handle was unyielding. Black metal failed to turn. A wave of green poured across the door and swallowed Sam’s hand. The door was no longer made of wood, it was simply a panel of mold. It seemed to recognise her, and refused to let her go. Fear overtook her as she realised that there was no escape. Time slowed as the next pulse drew the rest of Sam into the door. Her scream of frustration and fear was stifled as her head was absorbed into the unrelenting dark green surface.
Sam started into wakefulness as her heads-up display chirped a proximity warning. The Benbecula had arrived in orbit around the moon of Phore. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, reaching out to dismiss the warning on her screen. Even as the details faded from her mind, Sam recalled that she’d had thisnightmare before, on the day that the Benbecula had entered Phore’s solar system.
This job was far from the excitement and glory that she had pictured for herself when she enlisted with the Outer Planet Protection Agency. She had imagined that most of the job would be tracking pirates, and the rest would be convincing them that it wasn’t worth arguing with an OPPA enforcement craft, before inevitably blowing them out of the cosmos. She had become even more expectant of adventure when she was paired with Mavis Rucker, one of OPPA’s most infamous bounty hunters, but based on their conversations over the past three months, it seemed that all Rucker was interested in was an easy job and reliable pay. She didn’t even seem interested in recounting her war stories, Sam lamented, as she typed in a hailing message for Phore and adjusted course to get closer to the craggy moon.
Instead of space battles and adventure, Sam had been sent on a year-long job escorting a low ranking tax bureau agent around the outer fringes of human space.
“I felt a course change. Are we there?” came Blake’s anxious voice over the intercom. Nobody liked hearing from the tax bureau, and those who lived in their own little fiefdoms at the very fringes of human civilisation had a tendency to believe themselves unbound by the law. That was why the bureau enlisted OPPA to ensure that no tax inspectors wound up missing. It’s easy to hide a body when you have easy access to infinite space or the heat of a star. This was Blake’s first tour, and he seemed an oddly sensitive soul for tax agency work. Sam guessed that a few tours like this would toughen him up. Maybe that was part of the training. She pondered.
“We’re beginning our landing cycle. Buckle up.” Sam responded, furrowing her brow as she searched for Phore’s communication beacon. When nothing appeared, she searched again, drumming her fingers on the side of her display as the Benbecula’s sensors scanned for signals.
“You think they’re avoiding us?” Mavis asked, appearing over Sam’s shoulder and making her flinch. Damn, she still moves like a cat, thought Sam as the Benbecula’s scan finished. No signals.
“I don’t know why they would. This is an unscheduled inspection. Nobody knows we’re coming here, and these fringers don’t have the scanners to see us coming.” Sam offered.
“Folks out here don’t care for being contacted by anyone.” Mavis stated matter-of-factly as she pulled herself into her jockey rig. “Records say it’s just one homestead on this moon. Maybe their comms equipment is broke. Either way, we ain’t taking any chances.” Mavis added, sipping from her flask as she scanned the file on Phore. “Howard Homestead. Established almost a century ago. Family came out here to mine asteroids. Keep themselves to themselves. Entirely automated workforce.” Mavis listed off the information in the records as she sent the registered site co-ordinates to Sam’s console.
“So they’re shy and inbred?” Sam smirked as she began the descent to the moon’s surface.
When the Howard Homestead came into view through the Benbecula’s cockpit windows, it became clear that something was awry. The site’s electricity seemed to have failed, including the emergency running lights, designed to guide aid when it arrived. This site had been registered as operating less than six months previously. The darkness and silence unsettled Sam. She swiped a finger over her controls and the search lights mounted in the Benbecula’s nose illuminated what she was searching for. The main dome was a drab and dilapidated affair, with little in the way of personality or decoration. It reminded Sam of the mission template constructs that she’d studied in history class. White plasteel plates formed boxy shapes, designed to be easy to assemble, maintain, and expand if required.
A landing platform squatted on hundreds of tall metal struts at the end of a long tunnel, which ran south, connecting it to the main dome. The platform was a thousand square metres of metal decking with the Howard mission emblem stencilled in yellow paint. At its northern end, an enormous black scorch mark indicated the site of a substantial explosion, and the remains of a cargo hauler lay on the moon’s surface, its hull ripped open and exposed to space, visible through a shredded hole in the edge of the platform.
“Is that one of their haulers? It must have exploded during take off or landing.” Sam asked as she drew in closer for an inspection.
“Sure is. It’s got Howard branding all over it.” Mavis responded casually, as if she’d seen dozens of crashed haulers. “Looks like they mangled the beacon as well.” Mavis added, pointing through the cockpit’s screen to the twisted wreckage of a comm beacon at the corner of the platform. “It can’t have been during the crash though. The hauler’s trajectory is all wrong for that.” She was right, thought Sam. The scorch mark across the platform seemed to radiate out from the remains of the comm beacon.
Uncertain of the cause of the damage, and unwilling to risk landing on an unstable platform, Sam swung the Benbecula around and set her down on a patch of relatively flat surface rock on the south side of the platform.
Moments after the landing gear contacted the surface, Sam was rocked by a wave of nausea and dizziness that seemed to come from nowhere. Her head throbbed with the sound of her own pulsing heartbeat. Surprised, she closed her eyes and sat back in her seat, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the arms of her chair. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. After a moment, she opened them again, and the feeling had almost entirely dissipated. Sam glanced across at Mavis, who hadn’t noticed Sam’s little episode. Not wanting to appear weak, Sam wiped her brow and left the cockpit, unsure what had just happened to her.
Five minutes later, the team assembled in the galley. Blake’s anxiety seemed to have escalated as soon as they’d shared their initial assessment of the site with him. His life was spent with the reassuring certainty of numbers and statistics. Out at the fringes of humanity’s reach, he was learning that very little was guaranteed.
“Stay on the Benny until we’ve had a chance to scout around. It’s quiet out here, and I have a theory.” Mavis instructed Blake, using the confident voice she reserved for negotiating pay with clients.
“You think they’re hiding?” Sam asked as she nervously adjusted her pistol for the third time in two minutes.
“Could be they were tipped off that someone was about to visit and ask them to cough up some credits.” Mavis nodded. Blake’s eyes had focused in the middle distance, as if he was imagining being back home. “But it could be that they’ve had some catastrophic equipment failure that’s knocked out their comms and power. If they’ve got emergency supplies in the main dome, they’ll be ok.” She followed up, trying to keep everyone calm. “Sam – you check the hauler and I’ll inspect the landing platform. I’d like to know what happened here before we go knocking on the door.”
“You got it.” Sam confirmed, trying her best to remain stoic.
“That works for you, Blake?” Mavis asked, her concern adding an earnestness to her question. If the Howards were belligerent, it wouldn’t help if the TCB agent wasn’t on his A-game. At the sound of his own name, Blake snapped out of his daydream, his Adam's apple bobbing as he gulped and looked up at Mavis, trying his best to remain professional.
“Absolutely. Let’s get this over and done with.” He attempted a casual smile, but it came out looking a little manic.
Sam followed Mavis down the Benbecula’s boarding ramp. Her suit’s spotlight illuminating a cone in front of her. Mavis was pointing towards the main dome. A faint green light shone through the smoky perspex and toughened glass of the dome. It seemed to expand and contract, the light growing slightly brighter every time it expanded. Sam felt a trickle of cold sweat run down her back.
“That doesn’t look right to me. You think it’s a problem with their reactor?” Sam asked.
“Definitely weird, but sensors would have detected any radiation leaks. These old reactors were made for generation ships. They fizzle out sometimes, but they don’t explode. I’m going to take a look at the platform. If we need to evacuate, then I’d rather we did it from up there.” To punctuate exactly what she meant by “up there”, Mavis turned on her suit’s jets and leapt the ten metres up to the landing platform. Sam took one look over at the main dome’s growing green light, then ignited her own jets and launched herself into the air.
Landing lightly on top of the ruined hauler, Sam cast her light through the torn open hull of the wreckage. The hole was easily large enough for her to drop through. After a scan to confirm it was safe, she dropped inside and landed in the hauler’s cargo hold, which was entirely empty. Black scorch marks lined the walls and ruined equipment was scattered everywhere, suggesting that something had exploded in here as well. She tapped a button on her suit’s gauntlet and opened a comm line to Mavis.
“Mav, I’m inside. It looks like there was an explosion inside the hauler. That’s what tore it open.”
“R- ruh” came a garbled response from Mavis. Maybe interference? The radiation out here was probably messing with comms.
Eager to get out of the hauler and finish the job, Sam strode towards the cockpit. Inside, the body of the pilot was buckled into his rig. Sam flinched as she passed into the enclosed space and came face to face with the hauler’s pilot. She’d seen plenty of death, but this face was contorted into an expression of terror, his eyes wide and mouth wide open. His face was a glittering death mask of ice crystals. He was half-buckled into his rig, and in his arms, he clutched his flight recorder box. A blue light on top blinked, showing that something had been recorded. As respectfully as possible, Sam pried the recorder out of the pilot’s arms and pushed the playback button. A hologram of the pilot in his rig was projected in front of Sam. He was hurriedly flicking dials and attempting to get the hauler airborne. His face was beaded with sweat. With a whine, the hauler’s engines shut down, and the pilot leaned back in his rig.
“That’s it. They’ve remotely shut me down.” he stated, resignedly. “It’s for the best. Cleaner to just end this all here.” The pilot pulled what Sam recognised as a mining explosive detonator out from his pocket. He keyed in an ignition code and pulled the trigger. An enormous explosion could be heard in the background. “Comm tower is done for. That was the easy bit.” The pilot leaned forward in his chair. “If anyone finds this recording, you need to make sure that nothing gets off this moon. It’s corrupted. Contaminated. We brought something back from the mines. Something intelligent. It wants to leave. To spread. To consume. Your body. Mind. Maybe soul, even?” He keyed in another ignition code, his finger trembling as he wrapped it around the trigger. “If you’re watching this, it’s already too late.” He closed his eyes as his finger squeezed the trigger and the recording ended abruptly.
With tears in her eyes, Sam launched herself back through the hole in the hauler and towards the Benbecula. As she got airborne, she spotted that the main dome’s airlock was open and a blinding green light shone from inside. More alarmingly, the Benbecula’s engines had been ignited. Her ship was preparing to depart. She landed close by and raced up the boarding ramp as it retracted. Sam keyed the airlock release code into the control panel, and it responded with an angry buzz and the explanation AIRLOCK OVERRIDE: RUCKER, M. Desperately, Sam grabbed the airlock override. The handle was unyielding. Black metal failed to turn.
“Mavis, what are you doing?” Sam yelled, unable to mask her fear. No response. The ramp finished retracting and Sam dropped to the ground beside the ship. Taking a couple of steps back, Sam ignited her suit’s jets and landed herself on top of the Benbecula’s hull just as its engines burst into life. Half running, half stumbling, Sam made it to the cockpit and peered down through the glass and into the interior. All she could see were the tops of Mavis and Blake’s heads. What is that little bastard doing in my rig? Sam thought, her thoughts coming faster than she could triage them, as she saw Blake’s hands working at her control panel.
As if sensing her presence, both Mavis and Blake slowly twisted to look up at Sam. Terror gripped Sam and an unbidden scream tore itself from her. Unable to look away, Sam stared, wide-eyed, into the pulsing green points of light that had once been Mavis and Blake’s eyes.
I wrote this piece and submitted it for Cymera’s 2026 sci-fi short fiction contest. Submissions were limited to 2500 words.