"T minus twenty minutes."

"Check!"

"Countdown starts at T minus one minute."

"Check!"

"Last test for inertial controls."

"Test initiated."

"Last test for…"

This was crazy. What they were trying to do, that was crazy too. It was all crazy so how did the three men come to be suspended above the earth's only natural satellite, frantically trying to set alive to engines which on every other attempt had stubbornly refused to show any kind of life.

Two settled himself into his seat. He was tempted to think of it as a reclining seat bur the idea of 'reclining' had no meaning in the weightlessness of space. When the realisation of their almost certain peril had dawned on him, he had felt a deep anger that this stupid situation should ever have happened but now he was resigned to his fate.

"T minus fifteen."

"Check."

Why did he always say 'check'? He suspected it was a throw back to the B movies of his childhood in the small town of River Bend where the only form of communal entertainment was the cinema with its eternal re-runs of films that were by that time, almost a century old. These were black and white crackly films with heros whose names were Buzz or Rocky.

Was this also the reason why he had joined the space corps in the first place? Again, he suspected that it was. So that all so innocent beginning had lead directly to the ludicrous position in which they now found themselves, facing a countdown until they could fire the seized engines to correct for the biggest mistake that any of them could recall. Two wondered whether it had hit the world's news media and just what reaction it would cause, or would the government go for the cover story rather than admit to the grossness of the calculation.

"T minus ten."

"Check. Inertial systems ok!"

Every spare minute of his childhood had been spent with his heros in their tin plate rockets going to Mars and Venus, saving galactic princesses and killing demonic enemies. From then he took the logical, the only, step: he became a Space Cadet. This was easy and the times were good. He passed every known test with flying colours and, after three long tears, joined the Space Corps.

"T minus five."

"Check."

His first mission had been the 2010 outing to Mars and in this moment, all his childhood dreams had come to fruition. The country boy from the small town in the red neck belt was on his way to Mars. This was the proudest moment of his life. To think that it was to end in the horrible mistake.

"T minus three minutes."

It hadn't sounded so silly at the time and the team that had promoted the project were all well known with strings of doctorates as long as your arm.

Use the moon to occult the sun so that they could study the solar flares. It seemed reasonable even now that he was almost certainly into the last moments of his life. The mission was almost trivial considering that they had all been as far as the moons of Jupiter and back. Maybe this had bred sense of over-confidence in the.

The moon spins on its axis once in ever twenty eight and a bit day so take up an orbit which puts the ship on the opposite side in a static position and then, the smallest of manoeuvres would be sufficient to allow them see the flares whenever they wished. All standard stuff so off they went and all went well with the flight.

"Sixty, fifty nine…"

They had established the orbit just as the calculations had indicated.

"Forty nine, forty eight…"

They took the pictures and stored the images for their return to earth.

"Thirty, twenty nine…"

And then the cold started to reach them as their suit batteries lost their charge

"Twenty, nineteen…"

One checked the solar panels.

"Ten…"

They were fully operational.

"Nine.."

But they were in the dark!

"Eight…"

And the manoeuvring thrusters were not functional.

"Seven…"

He had tried to repair them.

"Six…"

But he was too cold now.

"Five…"

They were all too cold.

"Four…"

This was their last chance

"Three…"

to tip them all back into the warmth of the sun,

"Two…"

the result of failure was the longest night that would last forever…

"One, ignition………."

copyright © the author, 2000