Project Overworld

- "It's beautiful!" Xena exclaimed.

Their destination had gotten quite a bit closer compared to yesterday, and the only natural satellite of the Earth was definitively a lot more impressive from up close. Although Keith has already had the occasion to land on the Moon, the sight of the giant satellite did not leave him unfazed.

However, what shocked him the most was the appearance of the Earth from such a distance. Even though he knew this planet was about eight thousand miles of diameter, he had a hard time convincing himself as such.

'It's just as I remembered. Last time around, I was a bit pressed by time but I'll settle down and enjoy my stay on the Moon from now on.' Keith meditated. Turning back towards his comrades, he noticed most of them had their faces stuck on the few windows installed throughout the c.o.c.kpit of the 'Triple S'.

Letting out a soft chuckle, he realized it was their first time seeing the Moon from up close. Leyla seemed the most unfazed by this situation as she continued getting busy around the c.o.c.kpit. She was checking the various fuel values which were displayed on a few screens while making sure their trajectory would be perfect for the landing phase. Keith decided to join her a few seconds later, assisting her in her tasks.

He felt like it was not fair to let her do all the work since this flight would be affecting their future as a company.

- "Don't bother with the tertiary eastern engine, we won't be needing it until the landing phase." He told her.

- "Yeah, I figured as much. I'm having troubles with stabilizing our direction, though."

- "Isn't my program supposed to take care of it somehow? It should be an upgrades version of the one I used when I first landed on the Moon."

- "It seems like the vehicle is turning ever so slightly towards the satellite and I need to constantly input against it."

- "Ah, I think our cargo isn't properly taken into account by the vehicle's computer, my bad."

- "Don't worry about that, we should still be able to land on the Moon and even make our way back to the EOSS with the remaining fuel we have in our tanks." Leyla reassured him.

Keith raised his head upon hearing his friends laugh in the distance. It seemed like they got bored of watching the Moon and started playing some card games together. Tyler tried making a house of cards but the vibrations caused by the 'Triple S' kept on knocking his build over.

He could not help but smile at this sight before focusing back on his work.

- "They're just like children." He commented.

- "Aren't we all? Look at you smiling like an idiot teenager..." She retorted.

- "What, me?!" Keith exclaimed while pretending to be offended.

- "Haha, now let me focus on this task if you'd please." She concluded before re-inputing a change in their direction. After a while, though, she was the one who broke the silence : "We've come a long way, haven't we?"

- "Two hundred and thirty-one thousand miles to be precise." Keith responded in a jokingly manner.

After hitting him on his head, she continued : "Come on, you know what I meant! I was talking about everything we've done since you've recruited us. I still remember clearly my work for Starise and I feel like it hasn't been that long since then."

Keith let out a chuckle before getting serious again : "It has, though. We've spent almost one third of the time since the launch of this server altogether. However, it's true that these last few years have being going at an extremly fast pace. And to answer to your question, we've sure progressed a lot since then. We're on our way to establish on the Moon, after all."

Leyla nodded at those words while making sure their trajectory was still the one she intended to follow. They stayed there for another hour until everyone started activating themselves among the space shuttle. It was finally time to activate the landing procedures.

Every Spacol members sat down at their assigned seat and buckled their large belt against their body. Since the Moon had no atmosphere, things would not get as heated as it did when landing onto the blue planet. However, it did not mean they could be reckless and ignore their security ruleset.

With Leyla as a pilot and Keith as a co-pilot, the 'Triple S' started following the curve of the natural satellite while slowing down. During that time, the other members of Spacol made there were no concerning event happening to their space shuttle.

It took a dozen of minutes before the vehicle slowed down sufficiently for them to witness the landscape of the Moon pass before their astonished eyes. Another couple of minutes later, they were close enough to the satellite that Leyla and Keith had to struggle against its gravitational force by burning a bit of their fuel jerkily.

Keith pushed a button to deploy the landing gear of their shuttle as they were slowly making their way towards the ground. Finally, after a total of five days and a few hours, the 'Triple S' landed on the Moon.

Jim, Michael, Tyler and Xena all jumped off of their seats and started celebrating this event by jumping around and clapping their hands altogether. Keith and Leyla made sure to turn off every composant of their vehicle before unbuckling their security belt.

- "We did it!" Michael exclaimed.

Keith tried calming down his close friend by saying : "Hey, you're gonna pass through the floor if you keep on jumping like that."

- "Man, you need to learn having some fun too!" The young man replied before raising the hands of his friend like he was some sort of a wrestling champion.

Keith could not help but smile at this attempt to cheer him on, but he decided to go around the cargo of the shuttle in order to check whether anything has been thrown to the ground due to their landing. Fortunately, nothing seemed to have broken so he came back to the c.o.c.kpit and started putting on his space suit. His friends had already equipped themselves by the time he got there, so he simply cut off their oxygen supply before opening the large doors of their c.o.c.kpit.

Activating the radio-wave emitter he had installed in his suit, Keith started addressing himself to his friends : "The Starise group did make a lot of references to the Apollo missions, but their statements did not hold much of a sense back then. In fact, humanity had already stepped on the Moon before and their landing there did not change a lot for humanity as a whole. However, I'm pretty sure this next step of us will have a huge impact for our future as a race, and I hope we'll keep on advancing towards grander schemes." He proclaimed in a solemn tone before turning towards the exterior. "To infinity and beyond!" He exclaimed while jumping out of the c.o.c.kpit, his right arm stretched ahead of him.

His friends could not help but laugh at this childish reference and followed him close after. The landing of the 'Triple S' seemed impeccable. Their future base location was situation just a few dozen yards away from there and they managed to land on the flatest area in their surroundings.

Keith raised his thumb to the attention of Leyla and went to the back of their vehicle to open the large cargo door. In the meantime, his friends discovered this alien lanscape and the unfamiliarity its gravity. Tyler did fall to the ground a few times before understanding how he should be moving around here.

Leyla could not help but worry at the sight of Tyler's clumsiness and immediately went and checked all over the young man's space suit to see if it had any scratch. Fortunately, the materials used for these new space suits were quite a lot sturdier than the one they used on the EOSS. As such, Tyler did not have any unwanted repercussion after falling over some Moon rocks and started familiarizing himself to the sensation of low gravity.

They all joined Keith after a while and started unloading the cargo of their space shuttle. There were so much stuff in there that it would certainly require a whole day for them to sort everything and get all the essential resources off the vehicle. However, they were not that pressed of time.

They had, in fact, planned for several months of oxygen supply, and that was not even considering the fact they would be disconnecting from time to time. Jim and Xena did leave them a bit after they landed on the Moon, since it was late into the night for the both of them.

And so, for the rest of the day off of work they took for the occasion, the four others started moving a few tanks towards the location of their base and inspected the work accomplished by their various machines. It was a pretty soft first day on the Moon, but no doubt things would get a lot busier during the next few weeks.

They had a factory to build from scratch as well as a few miles long pipe to assemble, after all. Saying goodbye to his friends, Keith disconnected from the game and went to sleep after taking a small shower.

'We're finally here!' He exclaimed in his mind. He still had a hard time believing he was going to spend all of his free time on the Moon for the next several months. Excited as ever, Keith tried his best to calm down until slumber took a hold of him.