Pursuit
Almost immediately, Murphy sensed something was wrong.
He looked at the commander-in-chief beside him, Shakhlin Popolov. "Does the lunar orbital service module still have fuel?"
"Yes. We set some aside. There should still be about a third of the fuel left in the service module."
The Undetectable Extension Charm had given the spacecraft a huge surplus of space and mass. The rocket used in this launch plan had actually been designed to carry a crewed lunar lander capable of taking at least three people there and back. By comparison, the unmanned exploratory lander now used less than a fifth of the target payload. Leaving all that spare mass unused would have been a waste, so they had reserved more fuel in the service module.
"Detonate it," Murphy said.
"What?" Popolov was startled.
The lunar exploration mission had not even begun yet. Now that something seemed to have gone wrong with the lander, the service module could at least still observe some data from lunar orbit. Blowing it up just like that would be far too much of a waste.
"Is there a problem?" Murphy asked.
"Technically, it wouldn't be difficult..."
It was extremely hard to make a spacecraft fly safely and steadily into space, but if you wanted it to explode, that really was not all that difficult. A slight adjustment to the engine parameters would be enough to produce an explosion.
"Then send the command. Now! That's an order!" Murphy said.
As he watched the large screen, where a green point of light was rapidly approaching the service module's rendezvous orbit, a powerful unease rose in Murphy's heart.
There really was something on the far side of the moon!
Without guidance and without fuel, the lander had actually broken free of lunar gravity on its own and was