The moon stretched out before Ellie, a desolate expanse of grey dust and jagged craters, lit by the faint, ghoulish glow of Earth in the sky. She sat in the cockpit of the Lunar Dawn rover, her breath fogging the inside of her helmet. It was heavy, just like her shoulders.

The comms were silent, a faint hiss the only sound beyond her own ragged breathing. The oxygen gauge blinked an urgent red—Only 12 hours remaining. She’d stopped crying an hour ago when the weight of her situation settled like a stone in her chest. No one was coming. Not in time, anyway.

It had been a routine mission, or as routine as living on the moon could be. Ellie was a geologist with the British Lunar Outpost, stationed in the Sea of Tranquility. She’d joined a six-person team to analyze core samples and map the moon’s ancient history. The base was a marvel—hydroponic gardens humming under artificial lights, solar arrays glinting in the perpetual sunlight. Ellie loved it up here, the stillness, the way Earth hung like a blue jewel against the black void. She’d even started calling it home. But then the quake hit.

No one had seen it coming. Lunar tremors were rare, not even a footnote in the mission briefings. This one split the habitat open like an eggshell, venting air and lives into the vacuum. Ellie had been in the lab, cataloging samples, when the alarms blared. She’d scrambled into her suit, heart pounding, listening as the walls buckled. The emergency rover was her guardian angel. She’d made it out of this desperate situation while the others… didn’t. She couldn’t think about that now, or it would stop her breathing completely.

“Think brain think.” She muttered to herself, knowing darn well she was just trying to avoid losing her marbles.

She’d driven 50 kilometers and was looking for the secondary comms relay, a skeletal tower shimmering on the horizon. The rover’s battery had sputtered out just as the sun dipped below the lunar hills. This left her stranded in shadow. The cold was seeping through her suit now, even though she could still hear the faint hum of the heating system.

She shifted in the seat, probably for the fifth time in the last minute. Her gloved hands felt clumsy as she checked the controls again.

Nothing. Dead.

Ellie thought of her mum back in Bristol, probably glued to the telly, twisting that tatty woolen scarf she always wore. “My girl’s a bloody astronaut,” she’d crowed to anyone who’d listen in the local pub when Ellie got the call-up. Not an astronaut, Mum—just a scientist with a knack for rocks and a stubborn streak. She’d give anything to hear that proud laugh again.

The silence was suffocating. On Earth, there was always noise. It could be the wind rustling leaves, the distant hum of traffic, or gulls squawking over the harbor, trying to steal any passerby’s fries. Here, it was just her, alone with her thoughts. She flicked on the rover’s external torch, its beam cutting through the darkness to illuminate the regolith.

Something glinted—a shard of metal, half-buried. Her heart skipped, but it was just debris, maybe from an old Soviet lander. No miracles today.

She opened the rover’s log, her voice shaky but clear. “This is Dr Eleanor Harper, mission geologist, Lunar Dawn. Day 17, 03:42 GMT. I’m alone. The team’s gone—Ravi, Kate, all of them. The base is compromised. If this gets back, tell my mum, Janet Harper, I love her. Tell her I saw Earth from up here, and it was worth it.” She stopped, swallowing hard, and saved the file.

The oxygen gauge beeped—11 hours. She pulled her knees up, resting her helmet against them, and stared at Earth through the cockpit window. It looked so close, a fragile marble of blue and white. She wondered if anyone was looking back. Maybe her mum, maybe the mission control team in London, scrambling to make sense of the disaster. The news would’ve broken by now: Lunar Team Lost in Quake. She pictured the headlines, the BBC bulletins.

A crackle pierced the silence. The comms panel flickered, a weak signal stuttering through. “Harper, this is Odyssey Control, do you read? Ellie, come in!” The voice was faint, cutting in and out, but it was real.

“Yes! I’m here!” she shouted, fumbling with the controls. “Rover’s dead, 50 klicks east of base. Oxygen’s at 11 hours. Please, tell me you’re coming.”

Static buzzed, and then the voice returned. “We’ve got you. Rescue’s launched. ETA 14 hours. Conserve air, Ellie. You’re not alone.”

Fourteen hours. She’d be three hours short. Panic clawed at her, but she forced it down, slowing her breathing. She switched off the torch, plunging the cockpit into darkness, and focused on Earth’s glow. “Hold on,” she whispered, to herself, to the promise of rescue. “Just hold on.”

The moon stayed silent, but for the first time, she clung to a tiny, squirmy thread of hope.

This was written by our contributing writer, Suzanne Latre.