Chameleon is Hope

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Chameleon was Dread. Which didn’t surprise Mallory, since Chameleon was always Dread for him. Under the circumstances, he thought, perhaps it was best, today, that Chameleon was Dread.

“We’ll never make it,” said Dread. “It’s too far. We don’t have enough air. We are going to die.”

Mallory laughed, the sound going flat inside the helmet of his spacesuit. Behind him, Lunar Defense Complex 3 was a blackened pit in Mare Nubium; a crater so new the dust was still settling, black and scorched, all around the hole, giving the overhead stars a misty shimmer that covered Mallory’s suit with black snow whenever he stood still long enough.

And ahead, somewhere ahead, was his only chance for survival.

“Ah, my dear Dread! What adventure, what challenge. This is what living is all about. This is what legends are made of.”

Dread groaned.

Mallory replayed the last battle in his mind. The Cascadian invasion fleet was broken, defeated. The last great cruiser swept low over the Moon, its alien pilot desperate or dead, its winged mass turning, dipping. LDC-3 fired its main batteries in desperation. A hit. Another. The cruiser, sliced almost in half, disappeared over the horizon. But not before that great bird gave birth to one tiny, red egg.

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