Entry 2

Lyle's Yard

Entry 2: Rex’s Dilemma – The Rocket Deal

So there I was, sitting in my makeshift lunar base, staring at a blueprint of my current rocket. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong there, but it had seen much better days. The lunar dust had clogged the stabilizers more times than I cared to count, and just last week, the boosters nearly gave out while I was hovering over a crater. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

I had my eye on something much more robust—Lyle’s junkyard rocket. Now this was, just something special. It was a piece of history, a 1950s test shell that was retrofitted with new tech, sturdy enough to get me anywhere on the Moon, or maybe even Mars, if I was feeling adventurous! Lyle had kept it in pristine condition. The man was a master at tinkering, fixing, and, let’s be honest, hoarding just about anything he could find. But the catch was, he never liked to sell!

I’d made small talk with Lyle here and there before. He wasn’t the chatty type, more like gruff and sarcastic, I don’t know, hermit? And he guarded his collection like it was his child. With a couple of security bots roaming the perimeter of his junkyard, no one was getting close to his stash without his say-so. The rocket was his pride and joy, practically gleaming under the lunar sunlight, and every time I saw it, I felt that itch to make a deal.

Today though, felt different. The Moon had been feeling...off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The vendors, the market, even the smaller mining outposts feel a bit...stagnant. As it turns out, the power situation wasn’t helping. There’d been a major accident in one of the solar farms and the battery station, the one that kept the vendors’ operations alive was destroyed. They were rebuilding, sure, and they’d even decided to move the new battery storage underground into a cave to keep it safe. But things weren’t the same, and they were still working on this and power was short. And without enough power flowing, businesses were struggling. And here I was, hoarding Moon Credits like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold!

I couldn’t let this place fall apart. The Moon was my home. I couldn’t watch it crumble just because I’d been sitting on my stash of Moon Credits, unwilling to spend any. So, I suited up and headed out to Lyle’s. The walk wasn’t long, it was actually quite pleasant - but I had a feeling this negotiation wasn’t going to go well.

“Rex,” Lyle grumbled, looking up from his latest project—a security bot, probably tweaking it for even more efficiency. “What do you want today? And don’t say the rocket!”

“Lyle,” I smirked, trying to keep the tone light. “You know me too well.”

“Still not for sale,” he grunted.

“Well, just hear me out,” I said, pulling out a sealed bottle of whiskey from my pack. Lyle’s eyes flickered at that, a slight spark of interest. I knew I’d catch his attention—it was one of those rare bottles from Earth, you know, almost impossible to find now. “I’m thinking... 2.5 million Moon Credits. And this.”

Feeling torn

He looked at the whiskey, then back at the rocket out his window, as if weighing the two. “Not enough,” he grumbled, turning back to his bot. I sighed. Lyle wasn’t going to budge easily. “Alright. How about 3 million Moon Credits, and the whiskey that set me back 200,000k ya know.” He stopped mid-tinker, his hand hovering over a wrench. “3 million, huh and I get the bottle?” I nodded. “It’s a piece of history, Lyle. You’re not going to find another buyer who appreciates it like I do. And you know it!” He stayed quiet for a long moment, long enough that I thought maybe I’d miscalculated. But then, with a heavy sigh, he turned to me. “Ok Deal! But you’re lucky I like whiskey and have been searching for that bottle!”

I grinned, pulling out a heavy bag of credits and dropping them on his workbench! But shortly after that, I couldn’t help but feel, a pang of...something. I’d just spent 3.2 million Credits. But hey I should feel good right! These Credits were going to be burnt from circulation, making the rest of my stash more valuable. But that, well, that just wasn’t what it was about anymore.

For the first time in a long time, I realized the Moon needed me to spend. The vendors, the small outposts—they needed liquidity, movement, to keep the economy alive. I couldn’t sit on my Credits while everything else withered. If this place was going to thrive, I needed to be part of the solution, not the problem.

I handed Lyle the whiskey and sealed the deal. As I left the junkyard with my new rocket, I felt something I hadn’t in a long time—relief. Not just because I’d finally gotten my hands on the rocket, but because I was finally doing something to help the Moon. It wasn’t just about me anymore. This place was bigger than that.

As I fired up the retro beauty, the engine hummed beneath me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was headed in the right direction.

The Moon still had a long way to go, but I was ready to make my mark.