Neil Armstrong really needed an aspirin.
He had just landed on the moon, become the first man to touch its surface—and then turned around to see an alien. Contact had gone about as well as could have been hoped, but now what was he to do?
“Houston, what do we do now?” he questioned. “We only have seven hours of air left now.”
Charlie sounded distracted. “Um, well, one second,” he said, before Neil could hear a muffled, “Yes, Mr. President?” He waited anxiously for a few minutes, until suddenly Charlie broke back into the line. “We’re going to take you off the air first,” Charlie said, more confident now. “And there’s someone who wants to speak with you.” Giving no explanation, he quieted, and Neil could hear noises of something being adjusted.
He stiffened as an unmistakable voice came over the line. “Mr. Armstrong,” it said.
“Mr. President!” Neil blurted.
“Mr. Armstrong, you have my thanks for dealing with this situation in such a calm and collected way,” President Nixon complimented. “And I can say with confidence a medal is probably already in the works for you, son.”
“I’m honored, sir,” Neil gulped, stiffening even further as he saw the alien watching curiously in the corner of his eye. “May I ask why you are speaking to me?”
“Of course!” Nixon said. “I’m calling because I need to tell you a few important things. First, no risks are to be taken with the alien or your mission. Let me make that absolutely clear. My number one priority is to get you home safely.”
His voice took on a humorous edge. “A very close second priority, however, is to get that alien down here, where we can examine and question it. We have an unprecedented chance here—the Soviets, even if they launched a mission here within the day—which is highly improbable—could not get to the Moon for three days, and they can’t intercept you on the way back home.
“We don’t know if that will be the case if we have to come back. Apollo 12 is being moved up as far as humanly possible, but this chance may never come again. We need you to use any means at your disposal—short of force—to convince the extraterrestrial to come back with the mission. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Neil said shakily. “I understand perfectly.”
“Good, because America is counting on you—even more so then she was before.” The president ended the conversation, and after a few moments, Charlie came back on the line. “Wow,” he said.
“Yep,”Neil agreed, before shaing his head. He winced at the headache starting to throb in his temples. “Back to business,” he stated.
Turning to the alien, he waved one arm in a beckoning motion, then pointed to the Lunar Module. He turned and took a few of the peculiar hopping steps preferred in low gravity, then turned to see if she had followed.
She had, but certainly not in the way he had expected. Large, feathered wings extended behind her, instinctively flaring with each bounding stride. Neil took a step back in instinctive surprise, putting himself off-balance. How had he not noticed those?
Unfortunately, she overshot her target by a few feet, and slammed directly into Neil.
“Falling, falling!” he cried in panic, flailing his arms to no avail. He fell slowly, taking in the embarrassed and anxious face of the unicorn (It really was amazing how expressive those huge eyes could be, he thought) even as he came into contact with the surface of the Moon fully. He felt a rock dig into the left forearm of his suit, tearing a rip, two inches long, in the tough surface. ‘I’m probably dead,’ he realized with sickening clarity as air began to hiss out of the puncture in his suit. Space countenanced no mistakes.
“Neil!” Both Charlie and Buzz yelled in concern. “What happened?”
“An accidental collision,” he reported as he twisted the heating elements to full, and then slapped a hand over the puncture in his suit, trying to stem the rush of escaping gas. “I’ve got a suit rupture.” He could almost see the air begin to condense and then freeze in a small, but growing plume by his arm. He could also tell instantly both Charlie and Buzz’s faces had blanched.
Charlie cursed, and Buzz said hurriedly, “I’m going to repressurize the LM. Get in here now—if we have to, we may be able to share oxygen for a little bit.”
His arm was already beginning to feel a little colder—the vacuum of space was leaching heat straight out of his suit now. “Coming, coming,” he said, stumbling to his feet as best as he could. He spared a glance towards the—what did you call a unicorn with wings anyway?—alien, who had an expression of shock on its face. It was quickly replaced by fear.
Obviously it at least realized something had gone wrong. Neil turned away fully and made his best time to the lander. He had to let go of the tear to grasp the ladder, and his arm now felt genuinely cool.
As he slipped through the hatch and into the LM, Buzz gave him a once-over. “Houston, it’s going to be close,” he said. “A patch isn’t quite big enough to cover the tear.” He grabbed the handle on the door, ready to close it and immediately jumped back in surprise, swearing, as the alien jumped through the hatch and into the LM. The already-tight space became stiflingly close.
Buzz shut the hatch, and spun to the controls, pushing the buttons that started repressurization. Slowly, air started to hiss into the chamber. Too slowly.
Neil checked his air gauge. Already, it had dropped a notch, and the needle was moving steadily downwards. It wasn’t much above half now.
Of more concern, however, was the fact that the relentless, near-absolute-zero temperature of outer space was systematically stealing all the heat from his body. He couldn’t feel his arm at this point, and his left side was cold now.
The heating elements in the LM were worthless until it was pressurized. He may not asphyxiate, Neil realized, but it seemed much more likely he would simply freeze to death before the air warmed up sufficiently.
Neither of the humans had paid attention to the alicorn—pegasus—being, but it had been paying rapt attention to the silent drama unfolding in front of it.
Something changed in its expression, Neil noted absently, as the air spewing out of the tear in the spacesuit began to slacken and he started shivering. It had gone from fascinated and worried to determined.
Then, its horn glowed with a strange, shimmering blue light. Buzz lurched away from it as best as he was able, but there wasn’t much room in the capsule and Neil couldn’t move at all. Something was going to happen.
Neither even realized that Charlie had been frantically calling to them for at least a minute. “Tranquility! What’s going on?” he demanded, but still they refused to respond.
Down on Earth, he threw his headset down in frustration.
On the moon, Neil watched with alarm as the glowing horn touched the rip in his suit. The nimbus of energy surrounding it was hot—he could feel just a little bit of it with numbed nerves, but he supposed it would have been a little painful had they been fully functional.
With a burst of heat, the light flashed painfully bright, blinding Neil even through his polarized faceplate. He was too cold now to do much than blink (he couldn’t feel very above his hips or below his chin now—it was at the least a moderate to severe case of hypothermia), but he heard Aldrin gasp. “It’s fixed!” he cried in bewilderment and elation.
The alien withdrew its head, smiling broadly, and Neil examined his spacesuit in fascination. It was indeed fixed—there was no sign it had ever been torn in the first place. It huffed broadly, a cloud of condensed water vapor puffing from its mouth.
As the heating coils in his suit began to make slow progress on warming him back up, Neil finally noticed the yelling of Charlie. “What is going on up there?” he was screaming in perplexity.
“Houston, this is Tranquility,” Neil said tiredly. “I’m going to be fine. The alien did... something, and it fixed the tear in my suit. I’ll live.” He could hear cheering erupt behind him. “Also, did I mention the unicorn has wings, too?”
“Right, copy,” Charlie said, too relieved to even really listen.
Neil said halfheartedly, “Well, I guess I got the alien in the LM, right? Perhaps not in the way we wanted, but it’s done now.”
Buzz said, “Your attempts at humor are really bad today, Neil,” in an equally bad attempt at some kind of humor. The irony was not lost on either of them.
The click of a phone came over the line, “Mr. Armstrong, you are one lucky man,” Richard Nixon said. “I thought I said that not endangering yourself or the mission was the first priority!”
“With all due respect, I didn’t exactly plan for a suit breach, sir,” Neil replied. “It just happened. Luckily, it turned out well and everybody is alive.”
“Again, son, you’re lucky,” Nixon reaffirmed. “But good work. And God be with you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Neil said, and then leaned back with a sigh. There was no removing the suits until the LM warmed up, and that would be a matter of quite some time. The alien appeared to be content to wait, perhaps knowing the situation, and Buzz was busy monitoring both him and the LM’s status.
Neil needed a few more aspirins than he had previously, but everything was fine.
For now, at least.
I love this! Thank you very much for the story and keep it up!
Okay, this was wonderful. And I hope for a bit more of Luna's perspective, or possibly some actual dialogue once they're back on the shuttle.
And I can't wait to see what happens next.
3877408 I'm not even sure if they can speak the same language. But yes, more of Luna's perspective would be nice.
3877821
They communicated well enough in the first story.
3877828 Not so much in this one, though. She has yet to say a single line so far. And she didn't seem to immediately grasp what was wrong when his suit got torn, even when they were in the LM.
3877842
Well, she didn't have any problem in the absence of atmosphere. It's only reasonable it would take her a while to realize they did.
Yes! The sequel has begun!
The Sequel has landed. I repeat, the sequel has landed.
This is pretty good! I just love the suspense of waiting for what will happen!
One small step for Luna
. . .
Wait the sequel's out now?!
barefoottriathlete.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/awesome-day.gif
I can't wait for more.. This has my attention.
YUS! I was beginning to thing FiMFic had shut down it's update feature, since none of my tracked stories have updated for a goodly while .
But then this story came, and it couldn't have been a better end to the dry spell that's been my inbox .
Okay, so that's the scene set. What has happened I wonder?
My guess is that the Elements somehow duplicated Luna in two places - the one we know and this echo of her in our universe, but that's just a guess. It's just as likely this is an AU.
It must be a bit of a tight squeeze in the Eagle right now. There's just enough room for three if Luna is sitting on top of the ascent engine's machinery enclosure (an approximately 3-foot diameter cylinder extending up about a foot from the cabin floor). The accommodations on Columbia are going to be even more cramped, but there should be room enough for her under the crew couches in the storage area just above the heat shield. Even so, everyone is going to get very familiar with everyone else on the 84-hour journey to Earth.
So, the people have just got their first taste (of many, I think) of unicorn magic.
3878820 One... giant leap for Nixon's polls.
3880147
Well yeah, Nixon would be able to get away with whatever if he was incharge during first contact.
Watergate? Who the hell cares! Aliens, man!
How much does Luna weigh in this universe? I'm dubious that they would have enough fuel in the Lander to rendezvous with the CSM.
This is such a great idea for a story. I can't wait to see how you handle it from here.
Outstanding! You're fixing the only problem with the original story - that it was only one chapter!
A most lovely continuation!
3880153 Watergate was seriously overblown.
Especially when you dig into history and find out the stuff other Presidents got away with.
Epic looking forward to more of this!
I'm intrigued by this concept. It's fun and fanciful. With a few spelling and grammar correction, it could be even better. I will be watching this story. If it keeps up this way, it will join my favorites.
I sense a great number of highly expensive items will be thrown out of the LEM in rapid sequence, causing scientists around the US to scream in agony. The question is just how many pieces of cake did Luna eat before being sent to the moon? If they can't throw away enough stuff to make the return trip with the fuel they have, they're severely screwed. Reminds me of a movie where there was a kid who stowed away on one of the Apollo missions, Stoway to the Moon.
3878868
Why, thank you for the compliment!
3881733
Please, if anyone here notices any spelling or grammar issues, PLEASE quote them and point them out so I can fix them. These are not beta'd (speaking of, any volunteers for betaing? ), so sometimes errors slip through despite my best efforts.
I hope luna would learn all about Humanity!
Needs to be "Than".
I sympathize, I hate it when typos like that slip through into my work. Hopefully others will get any more I might have missed.
Also, good work! I'm enthralled, and honestly very, very excited for the next installment.
Dis gun be good!
I'm probably the only one that could possible be bugged by this, but heat transfer doesn't work that way...
Heat can be transferred through conduction, convection, or radiation. Or it can be generated or dispersed through pressure changes. Conduction and convection are non-issues, as air is the transfer medium here, and the suit is positively pressurized, meaning that warm air is leaving. And with no outside supply of air, there is no temperature change due to this. Radiation is out as a factor due to the fact that most of the surface area of the suit is still intact, and you don't need a seal to prevent radiant heat transfer.
Neil would experience a few degrees of temperature drop from the depressurization; but he would suffocate long before that even became noticeable. Of course, he would also become light headed, dizzy, get tunnel vision, and if it's a large leak he could even get a case of the bends.
On a last note - Something most people don't realize is that a vacuum is the most perfect insulator available. Without any matter to transfer energy through conduction or convection, radiation is the only means to reduce an objects energy. And that is by far the slowest way to cool down.
I think you got the depressurization danger wrong. And the part about temperature, for that matter.
Heat transfer happens via convection and infrared light, so any rapid cooling action would be the result of the boiling off of water from direct exposure to the vacuum as described in the first article; if only the pressurizing part of the suit was torn into, that wouldn't be happening, and if it was, it would not merely be his arm that would be experiencing the problem.
I'm not actually an expert in the subject, but I just know enough that presenting insta-freeze as the primary danger here is wrong.
Looking forward to more, regardless.
3883187 You are not the only one. It always bothers me when some bases a plot point on a misunderstanding of science. Much like the movie Gravity come to think of it.
One other issue, in the first chapter you are writing from Luna's perspective which means you should only include information that she knows. She has no way of knowing the astronauts names. they should be referred to as 'the alien creatures.'
I'll follow it for now, but am withholding a like until both issues are fixed.
So if I got this right........"one small step for man, one 'giant leap' for princess Luna."
This is looking to be my new favorite fim fic!!!!
I absolutely LOVE the concept and am looking forward to every chapter in the future!!
A warning for the future however........
You currently have this set up as LUNA FROM A THOUSNAD YEARS AGO. So don't confuse the current Luna with the 'old timey' Luna. She comes from a time when there was NO TECHNOLOGY, she was co-ruler of a DIARCHY, and is currently coming from a time that was full of fighting and survival (discord, Sombra, etc.). That last one could be a "common ground" that could be gained between herself and the humans. Also....... You know....... "We liked the moon so much we wanted to go there!!!".............<.<....... Not really but you get the point.
Is this story somehow being written backwards though time? Should I expect the next chapter a couple days ago?
Welp, now we know what the 'stars' really were!
Vivas Homo Sapiens!
3884931 Both, maybe?
Yes! A SEQUEL!!!! THE FUN HAS BEEN DOUBLED!
I'm liking this. My only complain is that it feels a little short.
I'm curious as to why Buzz or Neil haven't commented on the fact that a space horse is surviving with no air in 100 C temperatures.
Hmm... how heavy would Luna be? How much delta-V does it take to go into Lunar orbit. How much delta-v does it take to return to Earth from Apollo Lunar Orbit? How efficient are the Columbia/Eagle engines?
3884957 ahh, I see what u said there.
3886198
The temperature of outer space is actually around 4 Kelvin (~ -269 degrees Celsius)
3892000
Correct, if they were in DEEP space. Did you forget where they are?
They're not in space, they're on the moon that's being illuminated and heated by the sun. The temperature gets to roughly 100 C.
3892014
But the moon has no atmosphere, the vacuum is 4 Kelvin while the surface of the moon is about -100 degrees Celsius
3892036
Incorrect. Only deep space, devoid of light and energy, is it 4 Kelvin, the moon does have an atmosphere, even if it is a thin one, and the moon's temperature drops to ~-180 C, but that's it's absolute coldest and not heated by the sun.
Which it does. The sun is there. Look up. Does it somehow not warm the moon?
No, because that's foolish. Science agrees with me.
3885177 3882780
Thanks for showing me those! They'll be fixed shortly. Also, regarding the paragraph indents-- It's annoying, but not exactly incorrect as such, so I think I'll just let that one pass. I don't want to have to tab every single paragraph in the story.
3892069
3883187
3883188
The idea is, Neil actually has about 7 hours of air remaining (and about half that without any CO2 recycling). Even with a suit breach, he has quite some time before all that air escapes. But the air being replaced has been in his air pack, not heated as much as Neil's body itself was (There was no need for it), and in fact some of it was liquid O2 to save space for the initial oxygen-- and liquid O2 is very, very cold. Therefore, as air gets rapidly replaced from the suit breach, it is colder. As such, Neil starts losing body heat rapidly as the air has no time to get heated while in his suit. Just a general description based on my understanding of the A7L suit. And if, well, that's incorrect, it's a bit late to change that now.
And as for Luna knowing Neil's name, this part takes place after they've exchanged names. It was her musing on the recent past, but she does know his name.
3892069 Yes, the sun does warm the Moon, but not so much its extremely thin atmosphere-- the rays just pass right through it. The surface of the Moon is hot-- the space more than a few feet above it, not so much. Hotter than deep space, yes, but definitely not 100 C.
3893106
Considering she hasn't frozen, it's safe to say she hasn't burned either; 100 C can scald flesh. Considering she previously said she exhausted all means of fun, that leaves one of mankind's favorite past times: dreaming. You sleep lying down, not standing on your feet, or hooves in this case.
Even so, her body can still conduct the heat from the moon's surface, be it the dark side or the light side, disregarding magical interference of course. Considering we landed on the light side, I conclude that's where she was. She did say they landed not too far from her "resting spot" after all. It's more typical to rest lying down, not standing up.
I assume she uses magic to keep herself alive, but I'm fairly certain she spent her time in 100 C heat, at least for the moments preceding the landing.
On a side note, don't forget about the decontamination procedures. The entire lunar crew was quarantined and checked for possible intergalactic biological contaminants. With Luna on board, that compounds the necessity.
3893106
Ooooh, it was from the air being pushed in. Okay, that makes a lot more sense, it just wasn't clear that's what was happening in the story.
3893357
Yes, indeed! There shall be quarantine. On that note, Luna is already surviving in vacuum, which is FAR harder than surviving at 100 C. Suffice it to say that heat resistance comes as part of the whole "Can live unprotected in space, the thing with the most ways to kill you ever. Except for Australia" package.
Niel and Luna fail their attempt at Two Player QWOP in space
like very much. this could make a great full story.
ITS NOT WHAT YOU THINK ME AND MY SON WERE TAKING DRUGS TOGETHER AND HE WROTE THE ANSWERS ON MY ARM