Chapter No. 33. Discovery.

The cat dropped in the next day. Janet answered the phone and handed it to her husband. "It's NASA."

"Yes?" After a brief discussion, he handed the phone back to his wife to hang it up.

"Now what?" she asked.

"They've discovered a problem which they claim will make most life on Earth become extinct."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yeah, but they didn't give me any details. It has something to do with the Moon."

"Are we going to go to JPL?"

"I suppose we should. It's Saturday and we really don't have anything else to do."

James came in the room. "What's up?"

"We have to go to JPL. They say they've discovered something that could make life extinct."

"Sounds wild."

"Okay, let's go," Robert said.

They appeared in the JPL mission room. Jason was there, along with an African American woman they hadn't seen before."

"This is Vicky Rodgers. She's in charge of Moon missions."

Robert gave her a nod and glanced at Jason before turning back to Vicky. "So, what's the problem?"

"As you probably know, our large moon is responsible for keeping Earth's orbit and spin orientation stable," Vicky said. "The Moon's tidal forces with Earth cause a slowing of Earth's spin and it transfers this energy to the Moon, which makes it move away from the Earth. Normally, this amounts to the Moon increasing its distance from Earth by about 1.5 inches per year. However, we've measured the increase to be above five inches and it seems to be increasing at an alarming rate."

"What could cause the rate to increase like that?" Robert asked.

She shook her head. "We don't know. It's not due to any forces we can discern."

"How is this going to cause an extinction effect?"

"If the Moon gets too far away from Earth it will result in the Earth's spin orientation to change radically over an extended time period, resulting in devastating climate changes."

"You're not suggesting that this climate change is imminent, are you?"

"No, but if the Moon's distance increases too fast, it could be a serious problem."

"NASA has orbital satellites around the Moon. Have you been able to detect what may be causing this?"

"No. We haven't discovered anything that could cause this."

"What about the Moon colonies?" James asked. "Have they found anything?"

"We've ordered all the colonists back to Earth. Russia, China and the EU have done the same."

Robert sighed. "Well, the good news is that the Moon is relatively close to Earth. We should be able to easily go there and see what's going on."

"Do you need suits?" Vicky asked.

"No. We got away without them on the Mars mission." Robert looked at his wife and son. "Let's go see what's happening."

They teleported to a position a thousand meters from the surface of the far side of the Moon. They couldn't talk to one another while in a vacuum, so they used mental communication.

"Man, this part of the moon is completely covered with craters and craters upon craters," James said.

"I don't see anything suspicious," Janet said. "There is something weird about that large crater over there." She pointed to a large mound in the middle of a mile wide crater.

"Yeah, that is different," Robert said. "Let's go check it out."

They flew down and landed near the mound.

"What's this mound doing here?" James asked. "It should have been flattened when the crater was made."

"Yeah, that is odd. Maybe we should try to see if there's a way we could see what's inside there."

"Don't we have X-ray vision?" James said.

Robert squinted. "You mean like superman?"

"Yeah, I think I can see inside it."

"You're right. What the hell is that?"

"It looks like a rocket engine, "James said."

"Maybe It's from an aborted mission," Janet suggested.

"We have to find a way into there," Robert said. "Even though we don't need it to get in, it might reveal a clue as to what's going on here."

They flew around the mound until James saw something. "There's a doorway on the side of the crater," he said, pointing to what appeared to be a round metal shield tucked under an overhang on the edge of the crater.

They landed near the doorway and studied the ten-meter-in-diameter round metal plate with no obvious markings.

"Man, that's a huge door!" James exclaimed.

"We should be able to open it with our powers," Robert said.

They concentrated on the door and it began to crack open, but only slightly.

"We should be able to get in there now," Robert said.

They squeezed past the cracked open door and entered a tunnel, but it was not illuminated. Robert created a small light ball and made it drift up above them, allowing them to see. They walked into the tunnel with the light ball following them and soon ended at what appeared to be an elevator that was enclosed in a metal cage.

"It looks like it only goes down," James said.

"Maybe that's the way to get to the dome," Janet suggested. "But how do we get it to work?"

"I think this is the control panel," James said while examining a metal plate with strange symbols engraved into it.

"Those symbols don't look like anything that belongs to a human language," Robert said.

"Are you implying that they're alien?" Janet said.

"I don't know," her husband replied.

James touched some of the symbols and the elevator descended into the darkness, which suddenly became illuminated by glowing walls.

"Interesting," Robert noted. "The lighting is built into the walls." He made the light ball vanish.

They walked along a tunnel that was over a thousand meters long, and when they arrived at the center of the dome, what they saw made them realize that something wasn't right.

"There is no way this was built by humans," Robert said. "The metal beams that hold that engine in place don't register as any known alloy."

His wife squinted at him. "How do you know that?"

"I used my x-ray vision to probe them, and I could see the alloy composition."

"Way to go, Dad!" James exclaimed.

"Why would someone build a dome structure to place an engine in it?" Janet asked.

Suddenly, the engine came to life, prompting the startled superheroes to step back away. The engine blasted a hot stream of plasma ions down into a deep hole.

"Okay, now this makes sense," Robert shouted over the loud noise. "This is why the Moon is moving away from the Earth."

"It's as if they created a hidden rocket engine to move the Moon," James said.

"Why would anyone do something that?" Janet asked.

"Obviously, they are trying to make the Earth uninhabitable," Robert said. "We have to find a way to shut this thing down. In the meantime, record a video of this."

Janet turned her phone on and began recording the engine in operation.

"There's a control panel over here," James said, gesturing to a large panel held up by two cylinders.

Robert and Janet walked over to him and studied the metal panel with strange symbols engraved into it.

"How are we going to know which symbols to touch to stop this thing?' Janet said.

Robert held his hand over the symbols without touching them. He closed his eyes and moved his hands around over the symbols. After several minutes of doing this he actually touched some of the symbols in a sequence.

The engine shut down.

"Are you proficient in alien languages, Dad?" James asked him, grinning.

"Not really. I'm not sure how I figured the sequence out."

"How are we going to permanently stop this from working?" Janet asked.

"Before we can do that, we have to figure out how it actually works," Robert said.

James walked over to a large metal tank. "I think this has liquid hydrogen in it."

"That's weird," his father said. "Liquid hydrogen is very cold. It's not easy to maintain it for any time period."

"Yes, but the Moon is really cold and there's no atmosphere, at least not a significant one."

Robert smiled. "Yeah, I forget that we aren't feeling how cold this place really is. It's probably only a few degrees above zero K."

"It probably went up to at least a hundred K when the engine ran," James said.

"Ok, let's record what we're seeing here. That's the only way they're going to believe us."

Both Janet and James began photographing the equipment and control station.

"I think I found a way to shut this down permanently," James said. He pointed to a large thick cable running from the wall.

Robert used his x-ray vision to look into the concealed chamber from which the cable emanated. "Yeah, there's a nuclear reactor in there. If we disconnect it from the engine, that will shut it down."

"I think this coupling can be disconnected," James said.

"Okay but do it with your powers. Don't touch it."

He did, and it was a good thing because it showered off sparks.

After they had photographed as much as they could, the superheroes teleported back to the JPL mission room.

Jason and Vicky were surprised to see them so soon.

"What happened?" Jason asked, his eyes wide with excitement.

"We found out why the Moon is moving away from Earth," Robert said. "But you're not going to believe us."

Both Jason and Vicky blinked several times.

"We found an ion-propulsion engine inside an underground domed chamber. The engine is secured to the Moon by means of very strong metal alloy beams sunk down deep into the Moon's mantra. It's automated to fire for extended periods of time to slowly move the Moon away from Earth. We have no idea who put it there, but my guess it's alien in nature. No Earth based civilization could have installed it there."

"Hopefully, you have proof of this," Jason blurted.

"Yes, we do." He gestured to his wife. "Download your videos and photos to their computer."

Janet began the process and when Jason and Vicky saw them, they were astounded.

Robert rubbed his forehead as if he were unsure of what to say. "I think it would be wise to show what we've recorded to the Russian, Chinese and the EU space agencies. It's going to take a unified effort to figure out what all of this means."

"Is there any chance that this has something to do with your conflict with the demons?" Vicky asked.

"It's possible, but I don't think it is. This looks to me like an alien encounter. Our discovery of life on Enceladus would suggest that alien life is all over the universe, and that there is a high probability of intelligent species being out there."

Jason and Vicky exchanged glances before Jason turned to Robert. "Okay, we'll show this to our government and see what they think."

"Good luck with that," Robert said with a sly grin. "Politicians are not all that bright when it comes to science."

Jason gave him a slight grin in recognition of a well-known fact.

The Steris family returned home and braced for the uproar that they knew would come out of what they had discovered on the Moon.