10
11
There is no reply and Sasha turns in her chair to 
see Hopper staring blankly ahead with her mouth 
open.
“Commander?”
Hopper shows no sign of hearing, so Sasha 
stands up and moves toward her. She reaches 
out and touches her. Nothing. She pokes her 
harder and Hopper’s whole head suddenly snaps 
round to look at Sasha. Her lip is curled into a snarl 
and she growls. Sasha backs away slowly, feeling 
cold inside. Hopper is in front of the ladder hatch 
and clearly won’t move. Sasha gets back on 
the comms.
“Hey Chen. You’re with base security, right? 
Something’s happened to Commander Hopper. 
She’s scaring me. She won’t let me out of the tower. 
Can you send help?”
Chen’s face appears but they look just as worried as 
Sasha feels. “Hey, Sasha. Is she just standing there? 
Saying nothing? Looking like she’s forgotten how 
to speak or do anything?”
Sasha swallows nervously. “Is it really going out 
round the world?”
Josef laughs. “I don’t know if it will be live 
everywhere but I bet it will make the news. Come 
on. You’ll be fine. Ready?”
Sasha nods. Josef presses some buttons and then 
gestures for her to begin.
“Hello Earth. This is Shackleton. My name is Sasha 
Morova and I am proud to be the first youth 
mission controller on the Moon.” 
She can hear applause and Commander Hopper 
pats her on the shoulder. “Well done. That was 
brilliant. We’ll get on with showing you how to do 
things now.”
Hopper shows Sasha how to test the 
communications, and each of the other students 
checks in when called. Then, they move on to the 
screen to call lunar space station. Sasha frowns as 
the screen just shows “CONNECTION LOST”.
“Commander Hopper, what’s wrong with this?”

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