DRILLWAKE

The job is simple. The crater is not.

SELENE Industrial prints you on the Moon with one task: cut ore out of a crater and keep the relay to Earth fed. You get a drill the size of a house, two hand drills, an oxygen hose, a radio and a robot called ORRIN. You do not get to keep the ore.

First-person view holding the SELENE survey tablet: a ground scan radar, rock layer, depth and the core under your boots — Survey tablet · ground scan

Drive the drill. Or send it.

Ride DW-01 from the cab, or stand outside and run it from the tablet while the metal station plays. Hand drills for the close work, a jetpack for the climbs, a hose that pays out behind you until it doesn't.

DrillDW-01, cab or remote
Lost it?The pad prints a new one, billed
AirHose up to 150 m, then the suit tank
RadioThree stations, SELENE ads, Apollo beeps

A tunnel cut into grey moon rock, an ore vein running along its floor into the dark — Tunnel · ore vein · −40 m

Every thirty minutes, the crater heals.

A reformation wave rolls across the crater and the rock grows back. Your tunnels close, the ground you took is gone, and anything still down there gets sealed in. Dig out on the suit tank or don't.

Cycle30:00 per shift
QuotaRises every shift
CaughtSealed in a pocket, hose cut

Night vision in a cave 25 metres down: a long-legged spider crouched over a clutch of pale eggs — Night vision · clutch · −25 m

Something down there is alive.

The spiders feel tremors. They hang on the walls and the ceiling, guard their clutches, and come for you when you run, shoot or drill too close. Light burns them. Three clones came before you and what is left of them is still down there. Around 450 metres under the crater floor, something is beating.