Ray was as low as she had been in a long time.

“This thing is never going to fly,” she swore a little too loudly under her breath.

“Oh it’s not that bad.” Jimmy was always the optimist, he was still young. “At least it killed the wasps. Otherwise we probably would have woken them up when we moved the ship, and that wouldn’t have been pretty.”

“Ehhhhg,” she grunted. It WAS that bad. Every ship had a story to tell and this one had been singing since the first day she worked on it.

The computer had looked like it had been shot out with an unfocused engergy weapon. She had to replace not just the computer but the entire forward harness. That had taken forever, matching up all those charred wires with the pin-outs and diagrams. A couple of them still weren’t quite right she knew. The running lights had gotten crossed up somehow, but maybe it could be fixed in the computer. It was going to have to wait because the inner hull had already been patched up around it.

The no.2 atmospheric thruster had been the home of a quite prolific colony of lunar rave wasps, which evidently went into hibernation in shadow season. She hadn’t known they were there of course. That is until they had tried to start the engine, had started it, sort of, for a very short while. Atmospheric thruster no.1 had fired up so nicely, how was she to have known? The engine was most likely shot now, there’d be no fixing it.

That retching screeching sound had been forever burned into her mind. It was like a couple thousand ball bearings being tossed into a turbine, which is pretty much exactly what it was. The super-hard skulls and stinger beaks of the wasps had probably peaned every surface that was supposed to be smooth. The nest full of larval young had been mulched and pulped into a gooey resin which combined with the fuel and heat of the engine had glued the whole mess into one solid mass. A mass that now was starting to stink.

They had used the crane to move the ship out of it’s parking spot and it had remained there next to it ever since. Ray was using the cave as a storage area and place to work when the few and far between rains came. The tiny moon only had one big cloud system but it did a pretty good job of making sure every bit of the surface got well drenched on a fairly regular basis. She had been working on the ship for over a cycle now and it still hadn’t moved one tinch under it’s own power.

She looked around at the walls of the cave. It looked like it had been scooped out by some sort of large digging machinery. The same regular pattern of grooves went all the way around. “I didn’t know Crazy Flynn had any heavy dirt equipment, I wonder where he’s hiding that?” or maybe he borrowed it, she thought to herself.

“Hey Jimmy are you almost done up there? I’m ready to go.” She yelled to the front of the oblong vessel.

“Yea, just gotta finish adjusting the backwash compensator and I’ll pack it in. Hey can you go put away that welding rig I was using earlier?”

“It’s already done. Anything else you need princess?” she asked him sarcastically.

“Uh you could re-wrap that wiring for landing prow 3 and snake it back through the conduit for me.” She wasn’t expecting anything that involved.

“I’d rather not, how long are you going to be?” she answered testily.

“I’m only going to be another 15 minutes and I bet you can finish the wiring by the time I’m done.” Jimmy said in his usual chipper voice.

“I bet YOU can finish the wiring when I leave your arse here.” Ray muttered under her breath as she walked over to the wiring cluster Jimmy had torn apart earlier.

“What was that? I didn’t copy.” Yelled Jimmy.

“Nothing! I said: Yes my liege, yes!”

“Cause once that’s done all we need to do is flush the cooling system and a quick reboot and we’ll be ready to test it all out tomorrow.” She hated it when Jimmy was the one driving their activity, this was her ship, her nightmare of a ship… but she was thankful for his help.

Sure, there was still a ton of stuff to be done on it but most of what was left would be much easier in low G. If she ever did manage to get it up to the space dock. The thing was just too costly to lift under anything but it’s own power and even that was pretty expensive.

Getting the fuel had not been an easy task either, these particular atmospheric thrusters used stuff that had gone out of use decades if not centuries before. Sure old planets with their centuries old infrastructure still had it, but a start up like this little moon only had the bare essentials, and there were cheaper ways to climb the well. How was she supposed to know any of that?

The refinery fuel was too expensive, and evidently it was being made somewhere else out in the system. She had to get kooky old James Bean brew her up some fuel using that old still of his up in the mountains. It had cost her 4 shipboard water processing coils and numerous little repairs to some of Mr. Bean’s menagerie of questionable equipment. The first two batches hadn’t worked quite right but he hadn’t minded so much, just made her a third.

Anyway after all that, and the bird was fueled up and ready to fly, that’s when everything had turned to shat. Ray was pretty sure that engine would have to be replaced, and the easiest way to replace an engine would be in orbit, but she needed the engine to get to orbit… stupid bugs. There might technically be one other way but it was too risky to really consider.

All in all, It was starting to come together, she had done a ton of work to it. This old girl was mostly mechanical and Ray had replaced every bushing and greased every zerg that she could get to. All the seals still looked good, a tribute to the designers, but you never really knew with seals until you got them under hard vacuum.

The rumble of Dreagars sled came up the driveway much faster than usual. It slid to a halt close to the worksite.

“Hey Ray! Guys! Anyone here?!”

“Hey Drea, yea, what’s up?”

Dreagar seemed to examine them each carefully as they approached. “You guys alright out here?”

“Yea, we’re fine, why what’s going on?”

“You haven’t heard?”

No

“Um something really crazy is going on, there’s a town meeting about it right now. It’s been all over the radio.” They had been listening to Jimmy’s collection of smooth jazz.

“We haven’t heard, what is going on?”

“We gotta go right now, drop everything and come with me. I’ll explain along the way. You’re not gonna believe it!”

They hopped in the vehicle and Dreagar tore off for town. Along the way he told them. They didn’t believe it.

“So wait, you’re telling me that people are turning into animals?”

“Yea well part of them at least. I saw Joe Marish with my own two eyes. He’s got a wabbit paw for a left hand, I’m not shatting you.”

“Like an actual wabbit’s paw? Or like his hand is furry like all covered in wabbit fur?” Jimmy was always so technical.

“No, like it was no longer a hand at all but an animal’s paw, it had those little pad things and nails or claws or something, I don’t know what it was. But get this, I haven’t even told you the strangest part! When he started getting really upset he did this like mewling or something, it sounded like what a sad wabbit might do.”

“What?” asked Ray while watching the road come at her faster than normal with Drea at the helm.

“Dreagar how much have you been drinking today?”

“Not a drop, I swear! I’m telling you he was mewling, and the more he did it the more worked up he got and the more he did it until he burst into tears and had a little nuzzle with his wife. He was just changed!” Ray and Jimmy listened in stunned disbelief.

“He kept muttering something about the land changing right in front of him but we couldn’t really make it out.”

“And there’s other strange reports too.” Dreagar continued. “Supposivly Mordi Lavendolf’s algae farm disappeared.”

“What do you mean it disappeared?”

“It’s gone, totally gone, all the planters and hoses and everything, totally gone, but get this.” Dreagar gulped for air while whipping the skid through the vacant town streets. The warning blazeons (bracsons? Braziers? Bacons? mmm bacon, Beacons?) were going off.

“He said it was replaced with a patch of grass! Grass! Real blades of green grass!”

A lightning strike sounded nearby and the wind was beginning to kick up dust as they pulled up in front of the Cinema. It also happened to be the town meeting hall as it had the most seating of any place in town. THey also sometimes did music there sometimes in the sunday seasons, it was nice. The doors were open and someone was ringing a bell. Inside, all hell was breaking loose.

Evidently the operation on Mr. Snodgersons Daughter had gone well and the offending appendage (in this case her left foot and lower leg) had been successfully amputated and was undergoing inspection. Neither the doctor nor the clerk had any sort of theory at this point. The overwhelming point that was made was that everyone should just remain calm.

Just then the inner doors burst in, letting in a little of the storm that was beginning to kick up outside. Johnny Dupree who had been standing guard on the door walked in, soaked head to toe.

“It’s gone, it’s gone, everything is going away! Are we gonna go too?” he yelled as several people rushed to assist him.

“What is is Johnny?”

“The mountain! Widowers Peak! It’s gone, just gone.”

Poor Johnny was obviously distraught, but there was no telling what he had seen. “I’m going to check it out for myself.” Said Ray as she ran out the door.

“Ray, hold up,” yelled Dreagar following her. Jimmy and a couple other townspeople trailed behind.

Dreagar caught up to her before she reached the big dip in main street, the spot you got a great view of Widower’s Peak from. They reached it together and stared through the exacerbating storm.

“Wow, it really is gone.” Ray was saying. As they stared into the darkening afternoon sky, Jimmy and the others gathered around them adding in their own exclamations.

“Theres no sign it was ever there, no shape in the sand or anything,” someone was saying.

“But there is something there, isn’t there?” Ray suggested. “There’s the ground, all that sand and rocks, where did that all come from?”

THey were looking at her blankly and she was getting soaked. She turned and started heading back to the hall, not saying a word to the thin steam of people walking out to look for themselves.

As she approached the Cinema a thin arm grabbed her from an alleyway and pulled her into the shadow. Her hand went reflexively to her front pocket where her awl was always stashed.

She felt a wave of peaceful compassion wash over her and drown out the brief moment of terror. She was eye to eye with the same Maltavian she had seen before.

“Whhhhhhy sthhhhhil hhhere? Yhhhou Shhhould Nhhot bhee hhhhhere. Ghhoo, gho NOW!” it gasped at her. She tore away from it’s grasp.

“Don’t touch me again! And don’t do that mind thing to me either!” she yelled as she ran back to the Cinema. Still, he might be strange, but that alien was starting to make sense.

She listened in the background as the place buzzed with chatter. Flynn arrived soaked to the bone, he had evidently been out in a skiff craft to check on something. He came in and went right up to Mayor McRakin. They had a brief conversation and then the Mayor turned and rang his bell to make an announcement.

Just then, there was a bright flash in the room and a corner of it disappeared, opening the building up to the storm outside. The ground where the floor and walls and chairs had been was now covered with grass. Then somebody screamed and Ray realized the most disturbing thing. There had been people sitting in those chairs. Where the chairs had been was now nothing but grass but in that grass, rolling around and looking like they were trying to figure out what had happened were several large fuzzy animals. A couple looked like some sort of ape and the others were large catlike creatures. They were about the same size as a human.

The few townsfolk who had been sitting on the edge of the blast weren’t unaffected and several were just beginning to notice their new fuzzy appendages. Then what had used to be Mrs. Starsparkle stood up. Evidently she had been in one of the chairs on the edge of the (what the heck was that thing?) blast radius. Her entire head and one shoulder and arm were catlike creature but the rest was still human. She (it) held her (it’s) head with one hand and one paw, shaking it slowly back and forth. Teary droplets fell from it’s (her) feline eyes. One of the unaffected townsfolk screamed and there was a chaotic panic as the room emptied.

The creatures that had been townsfolk seemed to gather together with others of their same kind and then scamper off into the night. Those with still human parts seemed to gather around any family member that wasn’t still screaming at them in horror. Flynn walked calmly up to the Mayor who was still standing there absently ringing his bell.

“Ok Phil, well I think we’ve seen enough. We knew there was something strange about this place when we first found it all those years ago, now I guess we know what.” The mayor had stopped ringing and seemed to recover his senses.

“What the heck it going on Flynn, I don’t have any idea!?”

“No I don’t exactly know either, but I’d guess whoever or whatever did the terraforming is suddenly interested in this place again. Or maybe it’s just moving on to the next stage of development. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve got to get everybody that we can off this moon and fast.”

“Yea… yea, you’re right there.”

“Ok, well you round up everyone you can and get them off planet any way possible. Get those booster rockets packed and lauched ASAP, only let them bring bare essentials and food and water over clothing and possessions. Anyone with a ship is probably already humping it out of here, but see if you can get them to take any many people as possible.”

Mayor McRakin was a sharp guy and he was now fully returning to his senses. “Ok ok, yea gotcha. Still even if we pack those rocket capsules out that’s still only going to take care of maybe half of the population.”

“Yea, well you just do the best you can and then round up whoever’s left and willing to go and get them out to my place by first light. There’ll be some stragglers but don’t waste too much time on them, if there not out there by daybreak that’s just too bad.”

“So you did work on that ‘Plan B’ contingency afterall, good on you Flynn, always thinking ahead.”

“Yea well don’t congratulate me until we’re all off this rock. Oh and tell everyone that we’ll rendezvous at the docking platform in orbit. Ray’s hard work may end up saving us all.”

The Mayor looked straight at Ray who was still trying to process all of this and nodded at her knowingly. He then looked around the room. Mrs. Starsparkle was now surrounded by her family who was attempting to comfort her.

“Hey what do you think we should do with the “changed” ones?” the mayor asked Flynn.

“That’s a tricky one, we don’t know if this thing is contagious or what? I’ll leave that decision up to you and stand behind whatever you decide.”

The mayor walked over to the Starsparkles and went right up to the formerly boisterous family. Mr. Starsparkles had his arm around his wife who was still holding her head in greif. “Hey there James, how are you guys holding up?”

“Oh you know, my wife is turning into a werecat, but other than that we’re just peachy.” The misses burst into a new round of feline sobs. “What is going on here, mayor?”

“That’s what we’re tying to figure out. Can I talk to her?” Without waiting for a reply, the mayor moved in closer and kneeled down directly in front of the shaken woman. He reached out and took her human hand in one of his own and held the paw appendage with the other.

“Hello there Mary, how are you doing?” She carefully looked up at him, and mewled softly. “Ok ok, don’t try to talk, lets just do yes and no questions, can you nod your head Mary?” She nodded. “Ok great, is your name Mary?” She nodded again, her pointy ears twitching. He carefully examined her animal arm and the part of her neck where the skin turned to fur.

“I don’t think this is a disease or anything, it’s more like she was just changed at a cellular level and only where that flash point had occurred.” He looked around the meeting room edge where a few chairs were cut perfectly in half. Ray was already poking at the edge of one of the chairs. It was as clean a break as there ever could be. Like someone had turned the chair off with a switch. She had been sitting right in one of those chairs.

“Those that were entirely in the blast radius were changed completely, but because she was on the edge there’s still some of the old Mary in there.” Mary began sobbing again at his words. “It’s ok darling, we’re going to take good care of you and get this all straightened out.” The mayor assured her.

Flynn was busy typing commands into his datapad. “Ok, I’ve got to go prep. Ray, you’re with me. Have your friends round up their families and get out to our place ASAP!”

Ray looked at Jimmy and Dreagar who were still standing there shell-shocked.

“Hey! Snap out of it you two.” They both looked at her. “I don’t know what Flynn has planned but there is no way I’m leaving my ship behind after all the work we’ve put into him.” Get your families out to the yard and get that thing buttoned up and prepped to fly.

“But you’ve only got one thruster, Ray, you can’t launch on one thruster.”

“Let me worry about that,” Ray replied. “Just get out there and get her ready to go.”

“Ten-Four Captain!” said Jimmy.

“Ray! Hey, be careful out there ok.” Dreagar said concerned.

“I will, you too.” She replied and then had to run out the door to keep up with Flynn.

She didn’t have any idea what was going on but she was sure of one thing. Things were changing on this moon and they needed to get off it, and fast.