The others climbed into the vehicle. Lana and Nathan took the back seat while Bulco sat behind the wheel. “Nori, we’re ready,” he said.

“Everyone got their spacesuits on?” her voice came over the comms.

“Yes,” Lana answered.

“Opening the main hangar door.”

The Hummer shook violently as the air was rapidly sucked out of the hangar and into the void of the moon’s atmosphere. Bulco waited until the hangar door was fully lowered, forming a platform to the surface. A light console flashed on at a wave of his hand and the large engine hummed into life. He started driving, slowly leading them down the platform.

The front wheels touched the surface and an instant later they were speeding along its gray surface.

“Holy shit, we’re driving on the moon!” Bulco shouted.

Lana laughed nervously. “We are, aren’t we?”

Bulco studied the console. “The seal is working; we have breathable air in here. We should take off the masks to conserve the suits’ oxygen.”

They each retracted their suit’s masks, making them fold back around their necks.

Lana wiggled between the front seats, getting into the seat next to the Engineer.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the large man protested.

She ignored him and started working the console. A blinking dot appeared on a holo display and a dotted red line extended from their location toward it. “Just making sure you don’t take a wrong turn somewhere,” she said lightly.

“We’re driving inside a mostly flat canyon,” he grumbled. “Not many options to get lost around here.”

“It’s just up ahead,” she said. “Five hundred meters.”

They rounded the giant boulder that stood between Unity and their target and a vast open plateau spread before them.

“I don’t see anything.” Bulco frowned.

“Just keep driving. Four hundred meters.”

The Hummer plodded forward effortlessly, not even bouncing as they drove over the rocky surface.

“Two hundred meters,” Lana said, her voice starting to sound stressed.

“Still not seeing anything, and I can see all the way to the canyon walls,” Bulco said.

“One hundred meters,” Lana said anxiously. “It’s just up ahead.”

“Still not seeing any-- Hold on!”

The Hummer screeched to a halt, stopping several meters away from the edge of a large hole.

Lana gulped and looked at the crater they had almost plunged into. It was roughly fifty meters in diameter, and almost invisible from a distance against the flat terrain. They only noticed it when they were almost on top of it.

Bulco was first to recover from the shock. “What the hell could be down there?”

With shaking hands, Lana tapped the console. “I don’t know … this Hummer doesn’t have real sensors, only some basic indicators. The outside temperature is about ten degrees warmer. Whatever’s down there gives off a lot of heat.”

“Helmets up,” Bulco said and reached for his door’s handle.