“No, no, no, no, no,” Lana said. “We have to find another way.”

“Relax,” Nori said, her eyes shining in excitement. “I got this.”

She pressed on the gas and turned the wheels toward the elevation on their left. The Hummer’s engine roared even louder as it churned the rocks and climbed the side of the hill, gaining altitude.

The hill ended. The ground dropped beneath them and then they were flying over the fissure.

Lana screamed, Nathan whimpered, and Bulco’s knuckles turned white as he grabbed the edge of his seat.

For several gut-wrenching seconds, it looked like they were not going to make it, but then the giant wheels grabbed the edge and catapulted them forward.

“Wooohooo!” Nori shouted.

“You’re crazy!” Lana screamed as Nori laughed exuberantly.

The terrain became smoother after that and they were able to cover the rest of the way with relative ease.

Once they got closer to their destination, Nori turned the Hummer to scale the side of a large boulder at a near vertical incline, a feat that was only made possible by the moon’s low gravity. They reached the top, and finally the Hummer came to a stop. The land stretched below them, revealing several kilometers of uneven terrain. At the center of it stood several perfectly square blocks of dark metal.

Nori turned back to her still reeling passengers and grinned at them excitedly. “Found it.”

***

The Hummer drove forward slowly, its passengers on high alert for signs of danger as they neared the metal blocks, but there was no movement.

“Looks abandoned, don’t you think?” Nori whispered.

“I don’t see any spaceships,” Bulco whispered back.

“Why are we whispering?” Lana whispered as well.

Bulco gave her a pointed look. “So the aliens don’t hear us. Obviously.”

“But sound doesn’t carry out here in space.”

“Oh.” The large man looked at her sheepishly. “I guess we don’t need to whisper then,” he said in his normal voice.

“I think I see something behind those boxes,” Nori said. The metal squares were about ten meters in length and five meters in width. She slowed the Hummer-come-moonlander and bypassed one of the boxes.

A giant metal pike slammed into the ground in front of the Hummer. Nori cursed and hit the brakes, barely avoiding ramming into it. Another pike landed on their other side and another one behind it.

“We’re trapped!” Bulco shouted.

Something large and bright shone in front of them. Lana gasped as a gigantic head rose above the metal box. It was perfectly round and full of glowing, projector-like, eyes. “It’s a Warped!” she screamed.

Before either one of them could act, the giant monster opened its mouth. A steady stream of blocks poured out of it into the open top of the box. The four companions exchanged bewildered looks. The flow ended, then the thing’s eyes dimmed and the head pulled back, the legs following.