8
9
“The left screen has your Moon operations. You can 
communicate using the drop down menu in this 
yellow app. You can look at CCTV through this one 
with the white logo. And there are lots of others 
that show you things like oxygen, power and so 
on. The middle screen is for talking to lunar space 
station. The right hand screen communicates with 
Mission Control on Earth. Looks like we’ve got a call 
waiting! Go ahead… tap that flashing icon…”
Sasha reaches out a finger and hesitates.
“Really?”
“Yes! Go on!”
Sasha presses it and the face of Josef who had 
given her her final briefing before leaving Earth 
appeared.
“Hello Shackleton. This is CapCom Earth…” then 
Josef leans forward and smiles. “Hi Sasha! I said 
we would be speaking again soon. Don’t look so 
worried. You’ve got your first job to do. I’m about 
to put you on the main screen. Then you just say 
the words we got you to memorise.”
She leads them out of the briefing room. Sasha tries 
to copy her long, half jumping strides. It is so weird 
moving around in the 1/6th gravity and it gets even 
weirder when they reach the foot of the ladder 
into the control tower. The rungs seem so far apart 
but Commander Hopper jumps easily from one to 
the next. Sasha copies and laughs out loud as she 
misses one and almost drops back to the bottom in 
apparent slow motion.
She reaches the top and enters a circular room 
with windows the whole way round. Sasha takes 
a breath as she sees the base on all sides along the 
lip of the crater. On one side the buildings are in 
sunlight with solar panels everywhere. Then, on the 
other side, total darkness with dots of light the only 
thing showing where they are. Hopper touches a 
chair.
“Welcome to Base Control. You sit here, 
commander!”
Sasha looks at the three big screens on the panel in 
front of her with dozens of apps waiting to be used. 
Hopper starts by pointing.

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