//------------------------------//
// The Menace from Earth Part 1 
// Story: Luna's Return Trajectory 
// by Stainless Steel Fox 
//------------------------------//

Charles Conrad Jr, universally known as 'Pete', settled back in the left chair of the Apollo command module as the suit technician strapped him in. Two and one half hours and they'd be hauling freight for the moon. The last three months had been brutal, made no easier by the mission changes to accomodate meeting Luna. But his crew had come through, more or less sane, though the mission was pretty crazy. They'd been slated as primary crew for Apollo 12 since before 11 landed, so he'd followed the intense debate about Luna and what to do with her with particular interest.

There had been the President's phone call to Luna, carried on every news program and dissected in minute detail on talk shows for days afterwards. The bill to recover Luna and afford her aid afterwards had barely squeezed through Congress, but it had gone through. All three of the team had spent hours with Doctor Sagan and talked to Luna themselves, along with Neil and Buzz. If even a quarter of the things she talked about were possible, the US, no, the whole planet was in for the biggest shakeup in history.

"You are secure." Gunter Wendt, the Pad Leader, said and gave his shoulder a firm tap. 

"Thanks." He turned his attention to Richard 'Dick' Gordon and Alan Bean, beside him in the centre and right chairs. Dick, the Command Module Pilot, had been his close friend since their Navy days, the two of them having served together. Al was also ex-Navy, and had been Pete's personal pick as a replacement after their original Lunar Module pilot, Clifton Williams had died in an air crash.  Al had been one of Pete's students, back when he was teaching at Naval Test Pilot School, and had impressed Pete with his ability and attitude. After training and working together, the three of them were closer than brothers. 

"Looks like we're actually doing this. I should rename myself John Carter."

That got a chuckle from the others. Dick replied, "You're the Commander, not a Captain, and the Moon isn't Barsoom."

"But you've got to admit, we are going to the aid of a captive alien space princess, who runs around naked." Pete said with a grin. "Kaor, Princess Luna, at your service."

"You should say that line to Luna, just as you said it." Alan pulled down a checklist. "See if she gets the joke. You've already got that bet going with that reporter. This would prove they don't write our lines for us."

"Maybe." Pete settled down, putting on his 'Mission Commander' face. "Are we on VOX yet? ... Good morning Capcom!"

Gerald Carr, Capsule Communicator replied, "Good morning Apollo 12. How's it looking over there?"

"Still pointing upwards. I'm glad we're going to be in space for the next week, it seems like the entire country's going crazy."

"It's probably going to get even worse when you get back. I hear you almost had a last minute crew change."

"Last minute... Oh yeah, the gorilla." The other two astronauts chuckled as he spoke. "Yeah, when we went to breakfast the stuffed gorilla we adopted as a mascot was at the table sitting in my seat with one of those lifesize plush Luna dolls sitting on its lap. As soon as I saw it I said, 'Somebody should have said if there was going to be a last minute crew change.' I'm not sure which of these two jokers was trying to make a monkey out of me, and they're not telling."

The two hours to launch passed in a flurry of last minute checks, pressure test and scheduled holds. As launch time approached, the weather worsened, though the only indications from inside the capsule was some pattering of rain on the exterior and some slight swaying.

"Abort lights are on, Capcom." Pete said. "We're still good? Looks like the weather's getting interesting."

Gerald Carr, Capsule Communicator replied. "We're about to run the final launch status check. Don't worry, they're not going to call this one off on account of a few drops of rain. Capcom is go! Skip wishes you a good flight."

"Tell everyone we appreciate everything they've done for us." There was nothing left for any of them to do but watch the gauges and report the status.

"This is Launch Operations, The launch team wishes you good luck, and may the wind be ever at your backs."

"Thank you very much." Pete eyed the clock. Three minutes thirty. "GNC is all okay, final checks show go."

There was a tense pause as lights flashed and changed on the panels. "Apollo 12 we have firing command, we've gone over to automatic firing sequence."

"We see it."

"Stages pressurising. Automatic sequence nominal."

Two minutes. "Switching Environmental Control to Internal."

"ECS to Internal, we copy."

Alan Bean  flipped switches. "Bringing up re-entry batteries."

The countdown continued. Power switched over to internal and Pete made one final check of the Guidance system. At 10 seconds there was a whirring noise as the fuel pumps started up and a sharp thump and rumble at 8 seconds as the engines ignited. Capcom called out, "Ignition! 3... 2... 1..."

"Liftoff!" Both Pete and Gerald said the words at the same time as the Saturn V majestically rose from pad 39B. "The clock's running."

Al Bean called the times and Dick Gordon, as Command Module Pilot monitored the trajectory. "Cleared the tower."

"Roger," Pete acknowledged, "Cleared the tower. I got a pitch and a roll program, and this baby's really going!"

"Man is it ever!" Dick agreed.

As they passed twenty seconds Pete gave a relieved, "It's a lovely lift-off. It's not bad at all." 

Just over ten seconds later, the fates showed they were listening in. Pete had just notified Cap Com that the roll program was complete, and received an acknowledgement when there was a white flash, and the indicator panel lit up like a Christmas tree as an alert signal started sounding out. 

"What the hell was that!" Dick exclaimed, checking his panels. "I've lost a whole lot of buses!"

The three astronauts spent the next few seconds trying to figure out what was wrong, then they had another shock as the primary 'eight ball', the attitude indicator, started to tumble; meaning the capsule's Inertial Measuring Unit, also known as the platform, had failed. Pete had his hand on the Abort handle the whole time, ready to use the Launch Escape System to pull the Command Module clear, but despite the instrument failure in the cockpit, the first stage seemed stable and steady, possibly because the Instrument Unit in the Saturn V third stage, which was actually controlling the flight at this point, was unaffected by whatever had happened to the Command Service Module.

He updated Mission Control. "Okay, we just lost the platform, gang. I don't know what happened here; we had everything in the world drop out."

As Cap Com acknowledged, Dick added, "I can't - There's nothing I can tell is wrong, Pete."

"I got three fuel cell lights, an AC bus light, a fuel cell disconnect, AC bus overload 1 and 2, Main Bus A and B out." Pete was trying to figure out how everything could have gone south at once. 

Al had been sliently working his section, but suddenly piped up. "I've got AC!" 

So the AC power system was up despite what the board showed. "You've got AC? Maybe it's just the indicator? What do you got on the main bus?"

"Twenty four volts... which is low!"

"We've got a short on it of some kind. But I can't believe that's accurate..." 

Pete was interrupted by the voice of  Cap Com. "Apollo 12, Houston. Try SCE to Auxiliary. Over."

"FCE... what the hell's that?"

"Fuel Cell...?" Gordon queried.

"SCE. SCE to Aux!" Gerald repeated.

Al Bean spoke up, reaching for a switch. "I know what that is... SCE to Aux."   

The displays cleared, and the Gyro Display Coupler, the backup to the main Attitude Indicator started to give sensible readings again. The fuel cells were still off-line, and Al was about to reset them on orders from the ground until Gordon called out to wait for staging. There were a few seconds of tense waiting as the first stage shut down and separated, jerking them forward in their seats, then a slam as the second stage with its five J2 engines kicked in, pushing them back in their seats. 

After a few seconds of continuous thrust, Pete relaxed, "Okay. Now we'll straighten out our problems here. I don't know what happened; I'm not sure we didn't get hit by lightning."

Al brought the fuel cells back into circuit, and things started to clear up. The IMU was still off-line, but they had good attitude data from the GDC. As the three astronauts checked over the space craft and went through the procedures to jettison the Escape tower, things calmed down. 

"Man alive, that happened!" Pete exclaimed. "That was..."

Gerald quipped back, "I know, we had a couple of cardiac arrests down here too!" 

As the second stage continued to burn without issue, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief, at least as much as they could under the G forces of the second stage thrust. 

"Man, oh man..." Gordon exclaimed. 

"Wasn't that a sim they ever gave us?" Conrad joked.

"Jesus! That was something else. I never saw so many... There were so many lights up there, I couldn't even read them all. There was no sense reading them because there was - I was - I was looking at this; Al was looking over there..." The other two were laughing by this time at the utter bemusement in Dick's voice.

"Everything looked great except we had all the lights on..." Pete acknowledged an update from Capcom with, "Okay. We're all chuckling up here over the lights. We all said there were so many on we couldn't read them."

Al chipped in, "Let's hope meeting up with Luna will be less of a problem."

"Well, that's my job." Pete quipped. Despite Al Bean's title, Pete was the primary pilot for the Lunar lander. Al would act more as a flight engineer, monitoring the LM systems. "At least we have someone on the ground to catch us if I leadfoot the descent burn."

"Great, now I have a picture of Luna with a size 5000 catchers mitt stuck in my head. Thanks for that." Al shot back, equally flippant.

Cap Com broke in, "12, Houston, give us Omni-Delta."

"Roger!" all joking put aside, Al reached out and switched the radio channel over to the requested omni-directional antenna. Pete confirmed it, "Roger. Going to Omni Delta." 

The flight continued, the moment of excitement past, as they continued to boost up towards Low Earth Orbit.

&&&

Eighty four hours and quarter of a million miles later, they had just completed their first TV broadcast after placing themselves in lunar orbit. The deceleration burn on the far side of the moon had gone off perfectly, putting them in a low orbit with the perilune only 63 miles above the surface. They'd swept across the lit face of the moon, and were about to make their first pass over the landing area on the northern edge of the Ocean of Storms.

This also meant they'd soon be able to communicate directly with Luna for the first time. She'd arrived at the landing area a month ago; fortunately, she'd already previously visited Surveyor 3, the unmanned probe that had landed there. It was one of the original mission objectives for Apollo 12; they were to examine how it had held up in lunar conditions. She'd rebuilt her magic VHF radio relay at the new site, and had been tasked to make sure the landing zone was clear. One of the other objectives of Apollo 12 was to demonstrate a precision landing as close to Surveyor as they could get without spraying moondust over it with their exhaust.

"12, Houston. We estimate that you should get AOS from the landing site within the next two minutes." Paul Weitz, a fellow astronaut, had the current shift as Cap Com. "Your VHF is in active mode?"

"Roger, Houston." Pete replied. He looked over at Al Bean, "Do we have VHF?" 

Al checked his board and gave a thumbs up. The omni-directional VHF antennae were used for voice communication, and were the reason they had to be fairly close to the landing site to talk to Luna directly. The antenna was relatively low power, and without a lunar ionosphere, VHF was strictly line of sight, so the bulk of the moon had blocked signals from the landing site up till now.

"Confirmed Houston." Pete replied. "Looking forward to wishing Luna a good morning!"

"Well, you'll soon have your chance. Landing site call sign is 'Mare Cognitum.' Luna will initiate contact."

All three astronauts groaned at the call sign, Pete added, "Someone must have been saving that one!"

Weitz seemed unphased, a chuckle in his voice. "Don't blame me, blame the IAC."

Al asked, "Okay, I get it, Luna is a mare who knows a lot, but what does the IAC have to do with it?"

Pete answered, "You don't know? Oh yeah, you weren't there for that particular briefing. In 1964, back when Ranger 7 impacted in the Ocean of Storms, the International Astronomical Commission named the region around it the Known Sea, Mare Cognitum. I'm just surprised that no-one made the connection before now." 

"You're just annoyed you didn't think of it first." Dick quipped.

Pete fake-glowered at him for a moment, then grinned, "Yeah, pretty much..."

A new voice came over their headsets, faintly at first. "Ahoy, Apollo 12, This is Mare Cognitum base!"

"Mare Cognitum, Apollo 12. We hear you." Pete replied. "It's good to talk to you again, Luna." In the background he heard Dick telling Houston they had aquisition of signal on Mare Cognitum.  

"Indeed, 'tis a most glorious morn! It is Sir Pete speaking?"

"That's right, but there's no need for the sir." This was an old, familiar thing from the previous times they'd talked. Even if she no longer claimed a royal title, she still considered every astronaut a knight, and titled them as such. 

"Your courage, and that of your companions, deserves no less." Luna replied. "Are both Sir Richard and Sir Alan well?"

"Had a bit of a stuffed up nose earlier," Al replied, "But I'm fine now."

"Fine here! Though we had to run through a bit of a storm on take-off." Dick added. "You should be able to see us."  

"For sooth I can. You have deployed the landing legs on your lunar module." That surprised all three of them. While they were less than 70 miles above the lunar surface at this point, and lit up by the sun from astern and below, a human would have seen only a bright dot. Luna must have vision like a hawk to distinguish such small details. "If you look down, you should be able to see my signal in return."

The command module was oriented with its windows still looking down towards the surface from where they'd been showing the TV audience close-ups of the moon. Pete grabbed the monocular they'd been using from one of the temporary storage bags and rose up to window 2. It proved un-needed, the point of light flashing on and off was quite clear, but even with the monocular he could see only the thin black line stretching from it that had to be her shadow from the low sun on the North Western edge of what looked like Surveyor crater. 

There were also a couple of other features, a small circle and dot that looked different from the normal craters, and a second object that cast a shadow of about the same height as Luna, neither of which were on the original Surveyor images from what he remembered.

"We see you Luna, what's the light?"

"A shade I made from the remains of that gold fabric on Apollo 11. It makes a formidable heliograph, as well as guarding me from the worst of the sun's rays. I have many other things to show you, so descend quickly."

"Sorry, Luna, we've got several more orbits to go before we're in position." Pete said.

"Can'st see that. Your orbit is offset, you are already past me and almost at the nadir of your orbit. For certes you shall need to encircle the moon several times to align your path with this landing area, mayhap twelve or thirteen." Luna gave a small sigh, "It boots not, Shalt possess my soul in patience for a few hours more."

Pete looked back at the others, surprised, and then replied, "That's a lot to get from observing us for a few minutes, or were you given a detailed plan of our landing trajectory?"

"Was not, but 'twas simple to beagle out. At so short a distance, could'st sense your range, course and speed with ease, e'en with my diminished powers. I have been on this orb long enough to know its effect on such astrolites as have passed close by. You are going too fast to remain at this low height, and while still accelerating, the increase is almost gone. So your path must begin to rise soon to its zenith on the far side. Knowing your position and speed, your orbit and its period are easy to deduce, and this sluggard globe's slow rotation tells me how long it will take to rotate under your course."  

"That's impressive. You can judge velocity and distances that accurately? Is that a part of your natural abilities, or a spell?"

"In part talent, in part centuries of experience. As a skilled baker knows the quality of their dough, or a slinger his shot, I have long learned to discern and chart the future paths of celestial objects. Those objects I can see and focus on, their movements I can also sense, e'en without actually holding them in my horn's grasp, as one might feel the air flowing over a wing."

"What are the conditions there?" Alan asked. "Is it clear of obstructions?"

"Indeed it is, I have prepared it most carefully." Luna's voice took on a joking tone. "While the weather is not within my control, it remains sunny, with no chance of storms, despite the location."  

That got a laugh from all three astronauts. Once they'd stopped, Pete asked, "Would those preparations include the structures we can see near you?"

"You have the right of it, I knew you were worried about dust so I have cleared away the loose dust from around the site, and hardened an area about twenty yards across to provide a clear parking lot. 'Tis as well that whatever correspondence exists between this moon and mine own, allows me to manipulate its substance with greater ease than normal. The parking lot is encircled with black, and hath a black cross in the center. Further, it is a place of power, enchanted to reject dust, so it will remain clear. The others are my radio relay circle and a shelter I built for myself." 

"Sounds like you've been busy, but why did you call it a parking lot? Landing pad would be better, or is there a problem with the translation?"

"But Sir Pete, I was using your own term for it. When we talked of your planned landing, you dids't call the place 'Pete's Parking Lot'. And so I have dubbed it."

That got more laughs from the other two, and even Cap Com, while Pete groaned. He had used that term multiple times in training and preparation, he just hadn't realised that Luna had picked up on it. Well, it was now a part of the official record, so best to just roll with it. Though he'd like to know if it had been an innocent mistake or if he'd just been pranked by an alien space princess. 

"Roger. Well, we wanted to demonstrate a precision landing with the LEM, looks like I've got a target. Though you could have just made sure the bigger rocks were cleared."

"Indeed, but I wanted to do something nice for you, my friends. I eagerly await a chance to show you everything else." 

Luna's voice, which had been strong and clear, was now starting to fade again. 

The Cap Com, Weitz, who had been silent apart from the laugh, spoke up. "Hello, Apollo 12, Houston. We estimate LOS in 9 minutes, and LOS with Mare Cognitum in 2 minutes. Say your goodbyes for now."

"Roger on that, Houston. We're almost at our scheduled meal time, anyway." Pete switched his attention. "Luna, it was great talking to you, but we're about to lose contact. We'll contact you again on the next pass."

"Shalt await your return with baited breath... or would if I could breathe properly." She gave a resigned chuckle. "I look forward to meeting you all in person at last, I have many things to show you, and gifts to give."

"We're looking forward to it too. Apollo 12 out."

&&&

Pete looked out and down as they began the terminal section of the descent, hoping to see the planned landing site more clearly. Apollo 11 had been considered a success just for landing, but one of the other objectives of Apollo 12 apart from meeting up with Luna again, was demonstrating a precision landing. The LEM descent stage had a better fuel reserve, since Dick had used the CSM main engine to 'ferry' the LEM spacecraft into its descent trajectory before separating and boosting back up into orbit. 

This in turn meant that the Ascent stage could carry more cargo to the surface and more fuel in its expanded tanks, not enough to lift Luna, but enough to bring some additional material back up to orbit. The Apollo 13 descent stage would be the full extended mission version with larger tanks, minus a rover, which would mean they could fully fill the expanded ascent stage tanks they were trialing on this mission.

They'd swept across the lit surface of the moon, droppping towards a perilune of just 50,000 feet. Powered Decent Initiation had gone off without a hitch, and they'd smoked it right down the centre of the grove, a couple of hundred feet low, but that wasn't an issue. They were well within range of Luna's transmitter, but on the previous pass they'd agreed that she would simply listen in unless they called.

"Standing by for P64." They'd been travelling engine forward, with the front of the lander facing skywards, using the decent stage to brake. Program 64 would flip them over so the engine faced down as well as forward, setting them up for the approach phase and giving them their first good view of the landing site. Al Bean acknowledged monitoring the Primary Guidance Computer, which should perform the transition automatically.

He did his best to look through the footplate windows, where the horizon was just visible. "I think I see the crater... I'm not sure."

"Coming through 7!" Al called out for 7000 feet altitude. "P64... P64, Pete!"

The call was superfluous, the pitching forward of the LEM was obvious. "Roger, P64."

Pete examined the lunar surface through the upper windows, checking against the graduated markings of the Landing Point Designator. The PGC would handle the next phase of descent, and report a number Al would read off, corresponding to an marking on the LPD that lay in line of sight with the place it would land. He enabled the hand controller that would allow him to adjust the targetted landing point. "That's it, that's LPD."

Gerald Carr was once again Cap Com, but his acknowledgement of the program change was background noise as Pete searched for 'the Snowman' a distinctive pair of craters; one of which was the crater where Surveyor had landed, dubbed with stunning originality, 'Surveyor crater'. 

Was that... there it was, and they were headed right for it. "Hey, there it is! There it is! Son-of-a-Gun! Right down the middle of the road!"

The long shadows of the early morning sun threw everything into sharp relief, and the five crater chain that Surveyor crater was a part of was clear, but he had a way to confirm. "Mare Cognitum, Apollo 12, give me a light!"

A series of flashes sprung up from the edge of Surveyor crater. "Cans't see my signal?"

"Outstanding!" Al Bean was working the PGC, getting the numbers for where the computer thought it would land, which translated to a marking on the LPD. "42 degrees Pete!"

"Your signal is clear, Mare Cognitum." He checked the indicated marking which showed them landing short of the flashes. "LPD is targetted right for the center of the crater."

"Will you look at that!" Al exclaimed. "There it is baby!"

"I can't believe it!" It was one thing to look at maps and photographs, and talk to Luna via radio, another thing entirely to actually see the place with their own eyes. Though at the moment it was little more than a thumbnail fragment in size.

"Apollo 12, thy course is true. Shalt maintain my vigil and warn if it strays."

"Understod, Mare Cognitum."

Al was just as excited, but didn't let it stop him from working. "Guide it in. 42; we're passing 3500. Coming down at about 99 feet a  second. You're looking good."

"Intrepid, Houston. Go for landing." Confirmation from the boys on the ground was the final thing he needed to be able to commit to landing. They swept down as Al continued to call out height and fuel remaining. Pete adjusted the LPD as they closed to bring them up out of the crater, onto the rim. They were on track for the favourite of the four landing sites on the crater rim that they'd discussed and planned for, and the one Luna had apparently prepared.

They were still half a mile out, and around 400 feet up, but now they could clearly see the artifical structures on the Northern rim of Surveyor crater. The only one that was clear was set apart from the other two, the tiny oval with a black rim and a black cross shape in the centre, just as described. Pete did one last adjustment to the LPD and then switched obver to program 66, manual control.

"Luna's been busy!" Al exclaimed. "You're in P66."

"Got it. I'd say so." As he spoke he killed their descent rate, giving himself time to reposition. "Luna, NASA should get you to build all their moon bases." 

"I'm most glad it meets with you approval?"

"Above and beyond... " He drifted the capsule forward and to the right as it started to descend again. "I got to get over to my right, I'm going to put us down right on the cross."

"330 feet, down at 4... 13 percent fuel, you've got the gas... 300 feet coming down at 5..." With All calling the board, the two of them worked like the well oiled machine they'd trained as, sweeping around the northern rim and slowing to terminal decent over the landing area which could now be seen as a lighter circle, at least 20 yards across, with the black cross and rim. "50 feet, coming down, watch for dust..."

They'd both seen the camera foorage from the Apollo 11, camera, and expected the last few seconds to be obscured as the thin dust layer around the pad was blown away despite Luna's aid, but the view below them remained almost competely clear.

"30 feet, coming down at 2, plenty of gas.... You've got it made, bady... Contact light!" Pete eased off the thrust, calling out "Drop!" as the LM dropped the last few inches and kissed the surface. 

As they went through the routines of shutting down the engine, and all the other immediate housekeeping tasks, they had a chance to see the other two objects clearly. One was a black hemisphere, with white objects sticking out at intervals, while the other was recognisable from the photos taken by Apollo 11, the radio relay circle, though it also had a thick black border around it. From beyond it, galloping towards the area was Luna herself, carrying a square of gold coloured Kapton as big as she was with no visible means of support other than a faint blue glow.  

"Houston, Intrepid. We are down at site 3 and safe! Luna built us a regular base here! I can report we had minimal dust, I had VFR all the way in." Pete looked down at the pad. By his estimate they were a couple of feet forward of dead centre. "I wish you could see this, we'll show it as soon as we unship the camera."

"Roger, Intrepid."

"Huzzah! A most elegant landing, Sir Pete!" Luna's voice was far clearer than Carr's.

"Got to say, the landing pad helped, and the lack of dust."

"Was nary a chore. It made a fine final test of my photo-thaumic panel design, which powers the anti-dust spell; 'tis normally used to keep armour and clothing clean in the field. Should also clean your suits when you step back on it from outside the circle."

"That should be useful, as long as it doesn't remove any samples." In truth, Pete was slightly stunned. It was one thing to talk to her over the radio, another to actually see her firsthand. However, training reasserted itself. "You can show us everything after we've made pickup and completed the initial surface tasks, for now we've got to check over this bird and get ready for our EVA. Okay, Houston. Are we Go or Stay?"

"Intrepid, Houston. You're Stay; and if you'd like to recycle and try it again, we'll talk to Sims." 

That got a laugh from the  LM crew. Carr was referring to their repeated simulated landings, which they'd drilled endlessly.

"No, we're good!"

"Well, best get on with your schedule. I suspect there's a pack of feral scientists clawing at the doors to discover Luna's latest rearranegment of the laws of physics."

"Understood," Pete chuckled, as Al said, "Let's go off Vox."