Chapter 1

The Reunion

“What the hell did you guys do to my legs, put them through a ringer?” asked Jonesy trying to stand on his own two feet. “I‘m committed to sleep and you do horrible acts to my body while I’m in la-la land,” he continued wincing with pain while having to cling on to his daughter and weak wife for support as he tried to stand. “Last time I’m going to be put to sleep like a damn dog.”

“Dad, I’m sure your legs will get better after a few hours,” stated Saturn winking at her mother, who looked as pale as, and only a little better than her husband.

“Maybe they should have just chopped those things you call legs off before they put you to sleep,” replied Maggie his wife.

“You OK Jonesy?” asked VIN. “It sounds like you are, since I can hear complaints.”

“Next time I’m flying Cathy Pacific,” replied General Jones.

“Who?” asked his young daughter not understanding.

“An airline that existed before your time dear,” answered her mother.

“Oh! One of those flight companies in the old movies,” added Saturn.

“Stop gabbing ladies, I need to sit down,” added the tall astronaut, and he was helped to the nearest chair where he was belted in. “If these legs hurt so much with little to no gravity, I had better ask Lieutenant Noble if he has a spare pair of metal legs before we reach earth.”

Young Mars Noble rushed up and was asked to help move the poor man.

“And you are?” Jonesy asked bluntly.

“Commander Mars Noble, sir, in charge of getting you guys back to earth in America Two, sir.”

“Good. Any cold beer left on this rock. I need one right now?” Jonesy added. Mars looked towards his father, who nodded no.

“No, sir, but we have tons of it back on earth ready for you, sir” replied the young man Jonesy thought looked a little like his old partner.

“Mr. Jones, you survived I see,” stated Ryan Richmond being helped over by two young ladies towards the older man.

“You been partying during our sleep absence boss? All those young girls around you. You remind me of Hugh Heffner,” Jonesy asked being belted into the seat.

Ryan could see that Jonesy wasn’t looking too healthy. He was sure he wasn’t either as his wife Kathy also looked worse for wear, and so did Maggie, Jonesy’s wife.

“Not quite Mr. Jones,” replied Ryan happy to see that the tall man, and his weird sense of humor had survived.

You remember my daughter Lunar?” Ryan asked. “And this is Jenny, one of the Burgos daughters.

“I remember Lunar and Jenny a lot younger. Hell, I don’t even recognize Saturn, my own daughter. These old kids are all a bunch of real aliens if you ask me. Real Twilight Zone stuff. How long were we under, or asleep? You guys said it would take fourteen years. Apart for my legs that now feel a hundred years old, it only feels like I was put in that test tube a few hours, actually only a few minutes, ago. How come all our kids look so old?”

“Because we are 14 years older, Dad, or do I have to whack it into you,” replied his daughter. That shut Jonesy up, as well as he was needing to puke into a bag one of the youngsters was holding and ready for.

“America Two?” questioned Ryan looking at his elder daughter, Lunar. “She is flying?”

“A real beaut, Dad,” replied Lunar excitedly. “This was her maiden flight into outer space to get you.”

“The wagon wheel design?” he asked.

“Exactly as you, Boris and Igor designed her, but with six times more fire power,” Lunar replied.

“Who is her Flight Commander?” Kathy Richmond asked being helped towards the other astronauts by another young girl. Kathy was still groggy, but in better shape than her husband.

“Commander Mars Noble, no less,” replied her daughter Lunar pointing towards Mars. Kathy still didn’t believe Lunar had grown up so much. “And guess what, Dad, Mom, we NextGeners have fantastic news for you. Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy survived the America One explosion. They are now retired in Australia, and on our very own island with Joanne and Roo. It’s a beautiful island, you are going to love it.”

“Yes, once we get over the gravity conditions. Something I’m not looking forward to in this weak condition,” stated Kathy Richmond leaning over and giving her white-faced husband a kiss on the cheek. “We are not really with it, so give your father and me time to digest all this news. I can’t believe that we have been asleep for 14 years. You look so grown up Lunar…and we have three grandchildren to meet?”

“I have two good-looking boys, Mom, James and Mark, and Pluts has a two-month old baby boy, baby Titan,” replied Lunar with feverish excitement. “He’s a darling and needs his grandmother.”

Throughout the two cryogenic levels of the base inside the asteroid, the same conversations were taking place between parents and their very grown up children they had left as mere teenagers.

“Where is Penelope?” asked Michael Pitt to nobody in particular as he was helped to sit up in the cryogenic chamber. He then watched as his wife Penny who had been lying next to him was assisted by the same young lady to also sit up.

“Vice President, Dad, I’m Shelly” replied Shelly Pitt helping her mother sit up. Shelly was Penelope’s younger sister.

“Vice President of what, Astermine?” Penny asked as a much older-looking Jenny Burgos, and someone she didn’t recognize, came over and literally lifted her husband out of the chamber and helped sit him down an a soft earth deck chair. Once Michael was tied into a chair they lifted her out.

“No, Mom. Vice President of The United States of America,” Shelly responded excitedly helping the two others sit her mother down next to her father.

It took her father a few seconds to respond as her mother Penny also regained composure and together the three of them hugged as a family for several seconds.

“Our Penelope, a politician? What is this world coming to?” stated Penny Pitt aghast. Michael Pitt said nothing but a weak smile crossed his face, like he might have known something his wife didn’t.

Allen Saunders felt worse than his worse hangover during his Air Force Academy days. His head felt even worse than a Jimmy Hendrix drum solo.

He was very dizzy and was laid down on the floor of the room by his eldest daughter Pluto Jane. He would have fallen if it wasn’t for her help. Allen looked around for his wife Jamie and felt even worse when he saw her puking hard into a bag.

He closed his eyes, gripped his daughter’s hand weakly and rested. He certainly wasn’t doing this cryogenic stuff again, until he remembered that a human could only do it once, and now he knew why.

Slowly they all regained some sort of composure but it took many minutes for every person to begin to feel human again.

Igor was very weak, it seemed that it hit some harder than others. Boris was even worse, and luckily Mars and crew had all of Dr. Nancy’s interns with them.

Boris’ heart stopped when he was lifted out of his horizontal chamber and tried to stand up. He immediately slumped to the floor. His fall was cushioned by two of the crew, but he still hit the floor with his head hard, and lay very still.

Immediately two of Dr. Nancy’s “PAs’” she called them rushed over and shouted for the Defribulator one of the crew had carried in. As one ripped open Boris’ Tee-shirt the other powered up the machine and within two jumps, Boris was once again alive, although still unconscious.

Boris would be the first to be carried aboard into SB IV to fly back to America Two, which was thirty miles off the starboard bow of DX2017 and under the captaincy of Jane Burgos.

Jane and her younger sister Jenny had lost their parents in the last attack on The Martian Club Retreat 16 years earlier, and many remembered that they were one of a few who wouldn’t have parents waking up.

Dr. Rogers hugged his wife Nurse Martha once they were awake. In turn they had no son waking them up, as he had died in the same attack.

They were very excited to be told, once they had regained their composures that their good doctor friends, Dr. Nancy, now many years older than them, and Captain Pete were retired and looking forward to the return of the medical team back to earth. Dr. Nancy had given the outbound crew a letter to hand to Dr. Rogers and his wife when they were awakened.

Lieutenant Walls was awakened, so was Vitalily with the more senior Russian crew asking for vodka. Anything was better than they felt. Even a massive hangover would be sweet compared to this cryogenic crap!

After several hours of work making sure that all the waking crew had fluids and drips entering their bodies, and that they were strong enough to survive transfer to America Two, they left DX2017 for the last time.

To all the crew, who had a window to see out of, the new Mother ship did look grand as they left the asteroid and headed in its direction. America Two grew rapidly as they flew towards it.

Ryan and Kathy were adamant to be in SB-IV’s cockpit as they drew near. Together with his daughter, and Jenny Burgos who were piloting the shuttle, they watched as the latest Astermine shuttle approached a brand new mother ship which grew in their forward windshield.

“Twelve laser guns powered by what?” asked Ryan of his daughter as they neared.

“Each of our craft including this one, SB-IV, have new cold fusion power systems instead of the old Plutonium-238 units,” she answered. “Remember, Dad, you sent one of the Matt fusion systems down to Australia when I was a kid to be copied?” Her father nodded. “They have copied that system into several different sizes, and now many parts of planet earth are powered by these cold fusion systems. Mars, Saturn and I will bring you “OldGeners” up to date when you are comfortable aboard the mother ship in our new cafeteria.”

“What did you call us Lunar?” asked her mother with a half-smile on her face.

“Sorry, Mom. Over time we had begun to call you guys “OldGeners”. We have the Matts, the Tall People, the earth scientists, you called us the “NextGeners” and somehow you guys asleep up here got called the “OldGeners”.

“I would assume Captain Pete, Dr. Nancy, Bob and his girls are now older than your mother and I, and are really OldGeners?” asked Ryan.

“You won’t believe the difference 14 years can make,” replied Lunar. “I forbade Dr. Nancy who wanted to be up here to help you guys. She is becoming frail and certainly too old for space flight. How she and Captain Pete made it back to earth, only God knows. Also I forbade Joanne and Roo to join us. Since she is an ex-president, many, it seems, are worried about her coming up into space. They are on the island and will meet us in Nevada once you guys are strong enough.”

“Tell me how Pete got back?” Ryan asked, his face its usual color again.

“We will have a complete briefing on the mother ship. First we need to get you onboard, allow you at least twelve hours of rest, and then Mars, Saturn and I will bring you up to date. Dad, there is a lot of news we need to tell you, so rest for now, and enjoy the sight of America Two, your new mother ship, and a gift to you from all us ‘NextGeners’”.

Chapter 2

The Briefing and Return to Earth.

The “OldGeners” slept. Not only did they sleep the twelve hours Dr. Nancy had suggested was the minimum rest needed, many slept close to 18 hours. Jonesy was the last to wake up after looking like he had passed away 19 hours 33 minutes earlier.

Mars Noble manned the ship’s Bridge while the crew slept with Lunar heading in to take over every eight hours. America Two had already departed DX2017, and was heading back to earth leaving the asteroid to its wayward journey around the solar system.

The latest space ship was a dream to command, and walk around. The Bridge‘s interior layout had been copied from America One’s Bridge, and was slightly larger than its predecessor. The Bridge had been designed with an astronaut briefing area, and still had its three different command sections, Captain’s Command console, Laser Command console and the ship’s flight control center.

The spinning outer “wagon wheel” was a perfect system to walk around—upside down on the roof. There were twelve sections to the circle where doors whooshed open once somebody got within a few steps of them. The extra wide corridor took up a third of the outer half of the wheel, and the living apartments the rest, which comprised of different-sized, two-level apartments,

Below the accommodation area and in the inner wheel area was the cargo bays, twelve of them around the wheel of the ship. These cargo bays were twenty feet high and each section was sealed off by space-proof doors which were opened by the crew using terminals with codes.

The crew could continuously exercise around the upper wheel without stopping, as there were exercise lanes. Set between the two lanes was a white painted line on the magnetic floor boards which hid the underfloor magnets.

With full speed rotation, the outer area of the wheel rotating through space at over 70 miles an hour giving centrifugal force equal to 80 percent of earth’s gravity. For the joggers, or for the crew in their apartments they were stuck to the “floor”, the roof of the ship, and upside down like flies on a ceiling.

One of the outer twelve sections was the medical area, another housed the cafeteria and kitchens, and the other ten sections had up to 20 apartments in each section.

Below this walkway, and inside the cargo bays were the operational departments. There were offices and sections for all the sciences, as well as one section where live plants, and animals were protected in special areas for the passage across to Mars.

America One had been designed by Ryan as a solar system exploration ship. America Two had been changed from Ryan’s initial plans from an exploration ship to a cargo ship, a transporter between Earth and Mars. This ship wasn’t equipped with the seven biological growth cubes in America One to sustain the crew on decade-long journeys.

There were two large columns from the revolving wheel section to the central wheel hub, and the two elevators inside them were far bigger than on America One.

The hub, the central part of America Two was a quieter area of the ship. Here there was no centrifugal force like the spinning of the outer wheel. Only the magnets under the metal floors stuck the crew to the floor, right side up this time.

Towards the rear was the massive thrusters and engine bays looked after by the build crew and mechanics. The central part of the hub was the elevator connection area to the outer wheel, and the forward area lead to the Bridge.

The Bridge on America Two was round in design compared to the oval Bridge on Captain Pete’s ship, and stayed stationary while the rest of the ship above and around the hub moved around it. The forward wall of the Bridge was totally silicone glass and felt like half of a round atmospheric bubble. Inside the Bridge one felt as if they stood in a bubble in space, and could look out forward and sideways without much hindrance. The thin, but extremely powerful and strong skeleton around the dozens of panes of silicone glass was hardly visible.

Ryan was impressed when he entered his new Bridge for the first time. He was still weak, but 17 hours of sleep had helped him regain his normal strength in space, and Lunar was again shocked to see that her father, as he entered the Bridge, hadn’t aged a day since she had left him asleep on DX2017, 14 years earlier. He looked much younger than Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy did back down on earth, and her mother looked her happy self again, exactly as she had remembered her.

“A very pretty view outside, Lunar,” Ryan stated as he entered. His daughter was on duty as Captain.

“You sure can’t get claustrophobic in this fish bowl,” added her mother, her parents arm in arm and helping each other to walk.

Slowly the “OldGeners” arrived. There was no rush, but the smell of freshly brewed coffee from the cafeteria above tempted the recovering crewmembers to hurry up.

Commander Mars Noble entered helping his mother Suzi, who had said very little since she was revived in the cryogenic chambers two days earlier. As usual, and due to her permanent paralysis below her waist, she did not wear her prosthetic legs, and floated in with the guidance of her son.

VIN Noble was behind them, and Lunar was quite shocked how young he looked compared to his son. Father and son only looked around fifteen years difference in age.

“Guten tag all,” stated Suzi smiling at Lunar while she greeted the Bridge. Suzi was still amazed how all these teenagers she had left only a few days ago, it seemed, had all grown up. Lunar, like Mars and Maggie’s daughter Saturn were now adults, had children of their own, and she felt left out that she hadn’t attended the wedding of her only son to Saturn.

“I think I could work in this Bridge for the foreseeable future,” stated VIN looking around in awe. “And this is your domain son?” he asked Mars.

“Well for the time being, and until you want to fight me for the position of ‘Head of Security’, Dad,” smiled Mars. “The laser command center is far more complicated than you used aboard America One, but we could always arm wrestle for it.”

VIN had been told by his son about the loss of Mars’ right arm, the same arm he himself had lost years earlier in the first Matt attack on Mars, and like boys, they had inspected each other’s metal right arms to see which one could respond to the mental commands from the brain. Mars’ more modern arm, made only a couple of years earlier down in Nevada, seemed to work better than his father’s, which was two decades old.

Igor was helped in by Jenny Burgos on one side and her older sister Jane on the other. Poor Igor still looked pale and even though he didn’t feel up to it, there was no way he was going to miss the first briefing on the Bridge.

Vitalily and Boris entered together looking like they had just awakened. They marveled at the Bridge, its size and the large view of space.

Allen and Jamie Saunders entered with Michael and Penny Pitt. The astronauts looked better than poor Igor, and all four walked in unattended.

Dr. Rogers and Nurse Martha were helped in by Shelly Saunders and Hillary Pitt. Both medics had been impressed at the medical service they had received from Dr. Nancy’s Personal Assistants, and told the growing group. Dr. Rogers had always been a softy for cakes and Danishes, often present with the pouches of coffee at these meetings, and couldn’t help himself heading over to the area where the snacks were floating on display.

“Sorry, Doc” stated Lunar as she watched Dr. Rogers do his usual thing, helped over by Shelly Saunders “Made on earth, but frozen for the journey. We haven’t really tested the onboard kitchens for fresh cakes.”

Finally the Jones family entered with Max Von Braun, one of the younger “OldGen” mechanics who hadn’t been asleep, and for the first time the young “NextGen” crew could see the real age difference between crewmembers of the same era.

Max, the build crew member who had helped Mars Noble out of his crashed Matt spaceship on the red planet helped in his secret buddy Jonesy. They belonged to a secret society aboard ship few knew about.

Jonesy still had trouble controlling his legs, but it looked like they were getting stronger. What was surprising to Mars and Lunar was that Max had been one of the young members of the crew who had headed out in America One on the odyssey decades earlier. At that time he had been 35 years younger than Jonesy. Now the age difference had changed to just 20 years, and the crew could easily see the lessor age difference between the two men.

Other than Max, there were none of the OldGeners aboard who hadn’t been to sleep.

Jonesy looked well compared to two days earlier. Saturn, and Max Von Braun, surprisingly to Lunar, ran around the astronaut doting on him like nurses. She had never seen her friend Saturn in this state before. Saturn got him a cup of coffee, then a Danish, then began to look after her mother. Jonesy was then offered a second Danish by Max, and Lunar thought to ask Jonesy what his secret was.

“Crew of Astermine, young, old, and not so old,” joked Ryan as everybody got what they wanted and sat around the Bridge full of crew. “First I want to thank our children, our Astermine children who returned to wake us parents. I want to thank young Max and his crew for looking after our children in our absence. At least we are still loved enough for our kids to come and get us, or, we are really needed down there on earth.”

To Mars Noble, it seemed that Ryan seemed jollier than he had done in the past, and with the more senior members of the crew back he said nothing. Ryan had gone through a lot of personal hell on the red planet before he had gone to sleep.

“It seems that we old fogies have really been asleep for fourteen years. I still can’t believe it, and now understand the surprises on the Matt faces when they found a new breed of people looking at them after centuries of sleep.”

“If we had slept any longer, Saturn could have been older than me,” mumbled Jonesy enjoying his coffee.

“Maybe we should have let you sleep another round or two partner,” remarked VIN Noble. “You were always grumpy when you woke up on our mining expeditions.”

Saturn gave her father-in-law a mean stare, and VIN grinned at her and winked. VIN Noble, a Jones expert, wasn’t going to stand for any of the usual Jones family theatricals.

“Thank you, as usual Mr. Jones,” added Ryan. He felt happy. Everybody had survived, it was good to see all the crew at their new ages of maturity, and the sleep must have done him good as he could put up with the Jones circus for a little while longer. “Lunar, that new shuttle, SB-IV is fantastic, so is this new mother ship. Kudos to you NextGeners…all of you. I saw a second new shuttle docked when we came in. How many ships does Astermine now have operational?’ he asked his daughter.

“America Two, SB-IV the shuttle that lifted you off the asteroid, her twin sister SB-V which brought up our new build crew last week, SB-I, II and III, Astermine I and II, and of course Asterspace III,” Lunar replied.

“Come now children, bring us up to date on everything please,” stated Suzi.

“A good idea,” replied Ryan. “Lunar you have the floor, I’m dying for another cup of coffee, Kathy if you please?”

For an hour, Lunar spoke to the crew about what had happened in their absence. She spent half of her time explaining how Dr. Nancy and Captain Pete had saved their own lives by returning to earth in Ryan’s office no less, and how they were nothing more than a stationary blip of their radars screens when they were found. Then she gave the floor to Mars Noble as Head of Security.

Mars explained his angle of the fourteen years—the journeys to the red planet, the loss of his right arm, the caves he had found, what he had seen in the caves, and what he thought he had seen.

“Running water?” asked Igor. “That’s impossible.”

“As impossible as finding liquid water in Endeavor Crater, Igor?” suggested Jonesy.

“A warm underground temperature? Matts in blue spacesuits, and without helmets?” Ryan asked.

“Did you see any green plants in their habitat?” asked Suzi.

“We will find out on our next journey to The Martian Club Retreat,” replied Mars Noble. “Look at what we have underground in our own base. We have crops, food, we have outdoor crops under the blue shields, and the gravity on the red planet isn’t bad. Yes, we had storms, too many of them, but I believe that maybe the Matts used that area as their base because it had underground running water. And yes Commander Richmond, the temperature inside their base showed up as warm enough for life down there. No, Mom, Johnny and I did not see any vegetation, but I do believe there was an old tree in their windowed off area. I thought I was seeing illusions, but come to think of it, there could have been an old tree next to the river. Now I really want to go back and actually see what is in there.” Mars Noble continued and brought the security side of the company up to date.

Ryan then asked who had dissolved the security space shuttles orbiting for protection, and his daughter replied that she had, and that it had been the right time. The planet was mending, thanks to several countries and ex-President Dithers Roo working hard for eight years to bring the United States back on line.

It took Lunar a while to make the older generation believe that the planet was mending that it was actually pleasant to live in the United States, as in other parts of the world again, and one of theirs was U.S. President.

“Dad, crew,” she continued. “The world is at peace. The people of our country are finding new jobs. Martin Brusk is opening a dozen new space and electric car plants across the country. Other companies that had gone dormant for decades are returning to business, and jobs are being created. Only Russia and China still have a stand-off position against the rest of the world, but I believe that they will have to join the restructure of the planet one day.”

“What about Iran, North Korea, South America?” asked her father.

“Iran is working together with the rest of the Middle East as a unit. North Korea I believe was overtaken by South Korea, Japan and a few other countries while we were away. We haven’t really heard much from that area, but I know that the old dictatorship is gone, and the country is being organized by an interim control government from Canada. South America is also quiet, and I believe restructure is happening all around the world, except Russia and China. We had to fly out the entire Russian production system you had set up there, and now they are working in our base in Nevada, the island. Several of the smaller Russian companies we airlifted out are working with Martin Brusk in the Middle East.”

“If that is all happening down there, then we must make sure that it continues,” stated Ryan, excited.

“That is why we decided on two trade-fitted ships between Mars and Earth, Dad,” Lunar continued. “We NextGeners decided to fit out the ships as cargo vessels. Planet earth really needs what Mars has to offer, and vice versa. The next generation can go exploring in new ships if they want. We NextGeners are all pretty uninterested in any other planets than Mars at the moment.”

“The Rare Earth metals, and the quantities of them we saw in the molten gold from the Matt tunnel will need several cargo flights between the planets to move what we believe is there,” added Mars.

“Martin Brusk begged us to return with as much of the metals as we can ASAP,” stated Saturn. “It seems that Astermine, and the whole world now depends on these metals for modern electronic production.”

“And we have satellite communications again Commander,” added Jane Burgos. “I can’t remember what normal life was like on earth, but the people in Nevada seem to be very happy with what is going on.”

“Dad, they are even refitting out Nellis, your old Air Force Base, and Creech,” stated Shelly Saunders to her father who had once been the base commander at Nellis in Las Vegas.

“You should have seen where we ate lunch in Henderson, Dad,” continued Lunar. “We drove your cars with Sergeant Meyers, before he passed away, and he showed us this restaurant.”

Ryan was quite surprised that his daughters had met an old neighbor of his, and Lieutenant Walls was saddened by the death of his old number two. With Johnny, his grandson being killed, and then Sergeant Meyers passing, the lieutenant had lost family and friends while he had been asleep.

Saturn continued the three-hour long briefing describing the Australian island, Bob Mathews and fishing, Martin Brusk’s base in Tel Aviv, and the base back in Nevada.

Jonesy asked about his Gulfstream, and Saturn stated his aging aircraft was still flying and she had increased the hours by a hundred or so.

The eight-year rule of the United States of America with Joanne as president was then well described by Hillary Pitt. Hillary, who had followed her older sister’s progress since Penelope had left the Nevada base to follow her political dream, described the transition from a country on its knees to a country about to rebound. Penelope had kept close ties to her sister, and had often iMailed and or had videoed reports of success back to Nevada.

Michael and Penny Pitt were congratulated on their daughter’s success. Michael replied that it seemed that every one of the young crew they had left behind had done a superb job in their absence and the OldGeners gave the NextGeners a loud round of applause for the hard work.

It was time to head back to the orbital platform, and many of the older members stayed on the bridge to watch the mother ship heading back to an earth orbit, two days away.

Dr. Nancy had ordered the PA’s to not permit any drinking of alcoholic beverages for at least three days after awakening. The crew regained their strength and as earth filled the windows of the ship again, a party was held in the cafeteria on the third night. Bottles of Australian wine and cold beer were enjoyed by the crew, who didn’t appreciate what it did to their virgin-drinking heads the next morning.

A day later, SB-IV undocked from the mother ship and readied for her first flight to earth with half of the returning crew. Jonesy had been allowed by Ryan to get behind the flight console with Maggie for a short time to view the new ship’s systems, which were virtually exact to the old shuttle’s flight systems. Saturn was a little hesitant at first and had to explain any new controls added to SB-IV.

Once she was done, Saturn, with her father as copilot and flight instructor, took SB-IV back down to earth wrapped in the shuttle’s blue shield

Mars headed down with VIN and Suzi on the first flight, as did Lunar with Ryan and Kathy, Igor and Boris. The Burgos sisters with many of the older astronauts were happy to remain in charge of the mother ship docked at the orbital build platform, and would return with the second half of the crew once they were relieved.

Chapter 3

Ryan Richmond Takes Over Command of Astermine Co.

As usual the wheelchairs had to be used when the arriving crew were helped out of SB-IV by the ground crew who were ready for the return of the OldGeners. Dr. Nancy, and Captain Pete had been flown into the Nevada base for the occasion by Gary Darwin and Mark Price in the Jones family Gulfstream.

Ex-President Joanne, Roo and their two boys had arrived in a different aircraft, still being trailed by two secret service agents who were ordered by Joanne to stand down.

As usual Dr. Nancy with Joanne as her number two fussed over each crewmember as they were helped down the ship’s stairs one by one, and placed into a wheelchair once they had given them a hug.

To Ryan and the others Dr. Nancy had aged, so had Captain Pete and Joanne, as had many of the base crew they had worked with for decades before the cryogenic sleep. Dr. Nancy and her husband did look fit, tanned and healthy, but the age difference between the ones who had been asleep and the ones who hadn’t was startling. Only Ruler Roo looked the same as he did when they had said goodbye.

The pain of earth’s gravitational pull was worse than ever for the extremely weak bodies of the ones who had been asleep. It had been hard enough to walk around on America Two, then the orbital platform, and a few days in space hadn’t prepared them for the harshness of earth’s gravity.

Dr. Nancy made sure that their necks were held up vertically as they were carefully wheeled out of the hot sun and into the medical center. Ryan was wheeled in by Pluto Katherine who wasn’t allowed to introduce her father to her husband or his grandchild until the doctor declared it safe to do so.

“You guys look pale, but oh so young,” stated Dr. Nancy to Ryan while giving him a full flight medical. “I sometimes think that with what Pete and I went through getting back to earth, and the way you look Ryan, we all took the wrong road.”

“We can’t stop aging doc,” Ryan replied weakly. “We might have bought a few extra years, but I’m beginning to remember that I had many vivid dreams while I was asleep. I wonder if this cryogenic sleep might have changed our brains, or our thoughts?”

“Why do you say that?” asked the doctor, suddenly very interested.

“I don’t know but…. I feel different,” Ryan replied. “I feel less stressed for sure. I feel like I’ve just been on a long vacation, and ready for work. Actually I don’t know what I feel, it’s all so new. The growing up of Lunar and Pluto Katherine, and you and Pete. It is taking me a lot of brain power to fathom all this out. I was thinking up there on our return flight that the Matts like Commander Joot and Roo might be different to the warlike Matts we saw on the red planet due to generations of this “sleeping”. I feel very peaceful. Maybe this cryogenic sleep makes one more peaceful?”

“Something to consider, open your mouth Commander, and for me to start a research project on,” replied Dr. Nancy smiling. “Maybe Homo sapiens with warlike tendencies should be put to sleep, cryogenically of course.”

“It seems that we are going to go back and fight those guys for our right to habitat the red planet,” added Ryan once the doctor took the tongue depressor out of his mouth. “I was thinking that Jonesy should be checked out and a research study started on him to see if he has lost any of his cold humor?” Dr. Nancy agreed on that one.

As soon as Kathy and Ryan were wheeled out of the infirmary together, they saw the extensions of the Richmond family in the waiting room.

First they were introduced by their daughters to their new Australian sons-in-law, Mark Price and Gary Darwin and then to Lunar’s two boys, James Ryan Richmond Price who was seven and Mark Allen, a year younger. Pluto Katherine’s baby boy, Titan Gary Richmond Darwin was only a couple of months old and he was placed into Kathy’s arms.

Both Mark and Gary in Astermine astronaut flight suits, Ryan had noticed, had stood to attention and saluted upon meeting the Commander of Astermine. Ryan smiled, told them they were being stupid, and that he could say “Gooday” as well as anybody. Ryan held his arm out weakly for a handshake from each.

“Good-looking family Ryan,” stated VIN from a few feet away, he himself with his two young grandchildren.

“Saturn and Mars have two boys as well?” Ryan asked getting a formal handshake, and finally a hug from Lunar’s boys.

“Michael (Mikey) Victor Noble and Johnny Noble, named after Johnny Walls,” VIN replied. “Go on boys stand in line and shake hands with the boss, the big boss,” joked VIN nodding that they should introduce themselves to Ryan as Saturn and Mars looked on.

Jonesy and Maggie weren’t out of their checkups yet and sheepishly the two young Nobles stood in line and put out their hands.

“Michael Noble, known as Little Mikey, sir,” mumbled Little Mikey as he had his hand shook by Ryan from the wheelchair. Johnny was too shy to speak but held out his hand for a shake.

“That’s my new grandfather,” stated James, Lunar’s eldest son proudly to his buddy Little Mikey standing next to him, and who was a year younger than his best friend.

“That’s my new grandfather over there,” replied Mikey pointing at VIN who smiled back.

“You are supposed to have two new grandfathers,” James added. “Where is the other one?”

“Here,” stated Jonesy being wheeled out by Joanne at the same time as his wife Maggie.

“Mikey, he is a tall grandfather,” added James as they watched in awe as Jonesy first wobbled, and then managed to lift himself out of the wheelchair to stand up right in front of them.

“Yeah,” replied Little Mikey looking up at Jonesy as if he was the Empire State Building. “He sure is tall.”

“And your name is young man?” asked the tall grandfather to the little boy standing below him, and with everyone looking on.

“Michael Victor Noble, sir. Little Mikey for short. That’s my dad and mom over there,” he stated pointing towards Mars and Saturn. “That is my other grandfather” he added pointing to Jonesy’s partner, “and he is half metal.”

“That’s because he got half eaten by a space shark. I should know, he is my partner and I was there,” replied Jonesy looking down at the boy with a menacing stare.

“The same big space shark my mother talks about?”

“Yep!” replied Jonesy, and VIN rolled his eyes. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the space shark reared its ugly head.

“All you boys heard about the space shark?” Jonesy asked the four boys in front of him with a menacing look, and they all nodded silently that they had. “What is your name astronaut?” Jonesy then asked poor Johnny who looked like he wasn’t having much fun. “You had better speak because the space shark goes for the quiet kids first.”

“Johnny Noble, I’m six, and I don’t like space sharks,” he replied looking scared.

“Then your tall grandfather will have to make sure that the space shark doesn’t get you,” Jonesy replied.

Maggie was introduced to the boys by Saturn and they seemed to accept her easier than they had done Jonesy. Once everybody had been introduced to everybody’s children and grandchildren Jonesy got going again speaking to the growing group of boys in front of him.

“You boys started flight simulator yet?’ Jonesy asked while the ladies congregated and chatted over baby Titan.

“Yes, sir,” admitted Little Mikey the eldest. “I’m in Year Three and about to fly jets. I always beat James in propeller dogfights, but he normally beats me in attack helicopters.”

“I can get a C-5 Galaxy off the ground in 800 yards,” added young James Richmond Price proudly.

“Not bad kid,” smiled Jonesy. “I know a guy who can get a real C-5 off the ground in less than 700 yards.”

“Impossible, sir,” replied James not believing what he was being told. “Who is that?”

“Bob Mathews,” replied Jonesy.

“Uncle Bob can do that? How come he never told me? How come you know Uncle Bob, sir?”

“Because you never asked him” Jonesy smiled as he replied “and I taught Uncle Bob how to fly his C-5.”

“That’s not possible,” returned young Mark Allen Richmond price shaking his head and thinking hard. “He is much older than you are.”

Over the usual poolside party that night, with Jonesy finally getting his first evening’s cold beer in his hand, the talking and discussions were loud for an hour or two before Dr. Nancy gave orders to get all the wheelchairs walked off to their rooms for the night. It was also the kids’ bedtime and the pool area became quiet with just a few still of the NextGeners enjoying the cool water until the night cooled, and it was time to sleep.

The next morning the wheelchairs were walked around the hangars in a long line and the still-weak astronauts were introduced to the engineers and scientists.

Dr. Smidt naturally knew all the returning crewmembers, as did about half of the ground crew designing and building parts for America Three. There were many mentions of those who had passed on and Ryan with Kathy in the lead of the wheelchair convoy spoke to everyone who worked for Astermine.

“What was wrong with JD2030 buddy?” asked Ryan his good friend Jack Dempsey when he was wheeled into Jack’s department.

“Ryan, DX2014 was one of a kind. JD2030 was just another plain, ordinary asteroid. Remember thirty years ago when many American companies were keen to head out asteroid mining?” Ryan nodded that he did. “I reckon they had a one in 50 chance of finding an asteroid as rich as JD2030, and a one in a million chance of ever finding a DX2014. I reckon that they would have gone broke asteroid mining with what they knew in 2015.”

“When is the next opposition with Mars, Jack?” was Ryan’s next question. If anybody knew down to the exact day, it was Jack Dempsey and then Dr. Smidt.

“Funny I did my math just yesterday. I thought that would be your first question to me, not your second. Three hundred and eleven days, and it had better hurry up, we are so short of the necessary metals down here to continue the next ship. I was thinking that you might leave a month or two early and try to complete a round trip within a 360 day window. Dr. Smidt and I, and the rest of the crew have worked out a possibility for a return flight, and giving the crew 6 days on Mars to load metal.”

“A real fast cruise speed?” asked Ryan.

“It is possible in one of the shuttles with a second taking fuel reserves with, and it remaining around Mars while the other returned,” Jack replied. “Dr. Smidt thinks that with unlimited fuel reserves, the two new shuttles could reach Mars in a 143-day flight with their current thruster output, and going into orbit three weeks before perfect opposition. One of the shuttles will return 10 days later fully refueled from the other’s cargo bay. Return flight will be 197 days. For every day we delay after the ten-day period will mean four extra days of travel at 89,600 knots. Faster than we have ever travelled before in any of our ships. We are still working on that scenario, but it is going to need three times the usual amount of fuel to get there, and back. We are still working on numbers to bring both shuttles back, though.”

“When will we need to leave for the red planet Dr. Smidt?” Asked Ryan as the older-looking doctor approached the conversation.

“Ja Herr Richmond, in 311 days minus 143 days for travel. Fuel usage goes ballistic for any journey under 143 days. It is possible, I believe to reach Mars in 142.9 days and my latest numbers show a 268 percent use of fuel compared to a normal two-year flight.”

“I’m glad to be back. Dr. Smidt, Mr. Dempsey, Briefing room at 10 sharp tomorrow morning, directly after the astronaut briefing. You may attend the 8 meeting if you wish, and tell your teams to bring your latest numbers to the 10 ‘o clock meeting,” replied Ryan and nodded that he was ready for Jenny Burgos to push him to the next department. It was good to be home.

“Good morning all,” stated Ryan exactly at eight sharp the next morning. He was able to walk again, although in short bursts and had rested well the night before. All the crew were now out of their wheelchairs and had better skin color, but were still very thin. Even Igor and Boris, who had fared the worst from the 14 years of sleep, walked around unaided. Ryan continued. “I’ve asked Dr. Smidt and Jack Dempsey to join us for our next mission briefing to the red planet. It seems that the world is not going to survive electronically unless we return to The Martian Club Retreat and collect another cargo of the metal Commander Mars Noble found outside the Matt tunnel. Due to the last encounter with the Matts who don’t like us very much, we need to go in under heavy protection, and be ready for an attack while we are there. Commander Lunar Richmond spoke to Dave Black at the Retreat a week ago and the weather for you Mars lovers is clear, no storms, and they have had no sight of the enemy since our ships were there. I will be speaking to Dave shortly. Their radios are down due to maintenance and once we get communications again we can get an update on their supplies. Commander Noble, young Mars, what water and fuel reserves did you leave them with?”

“We completed two water collection missions to the crater before we left,” replied Mars. “We were interrupted by the attack, and a nearing storm. We collected one full load of 60 canisters and a part load of 23 canisters to be exact. My aim was to give the crew staying behind at least six years supply of water in case we didn’t return on time. My second idea was to have 500 gallons of emergency fuel at the retreat, enough to top up tanks in one shuttle to head back to earth. The crew have used up the previous six-year supply, I know Dave Black would always keep a supply of water for a longer stay, so I will suggest that we only have about 200 gallons of fuel on the red planet, enough for one water supply mission.”

“Dr. Smidt, a response on fuel needs for your 143 day flight scenario please,” stated Ryan.

“As Commander Noble has just stated, 200 gallons will be of no use to us to aid our next mission in a return flight to earth. Even 500 gallons would not have been a great help. We have to take 100 percent of our fuel with us for an immediate return flight. Somehow, we must increase our fuel supplies on Mars in the near future to get our planned trading flights active and running on a regular basis. I have studied two possible scenarios. Scenario A: two shuttles head to Mars, only one returns. Total fuel usage: 101,168 gallons with a 6-day loading period. Scenario B: both shuttles return after 12 days filling both cargo holds with the Matt metal—147,998 gallons of liquid hydrogen for the round trip, plus 17,000 pounds of oxidizer and other fuel materials. This large increase is due to the delayed, extra flight time back to earth. In other words, the cargo holds of both shuttles will be full with fuel on the outward bound flight, and we will be able to leave 1,000 gallons of fuel on Mars to increase our supplies there. With full fuel tanks, and completely full cargo holds, I estimate our fuel needs to be 150,000 gallons. Just to let you astronauts understand this task ahead, it will take seven launches in the larger shuttles to get 150,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and the oxidizer to our orbital build station. Scenario B means we have to find another 25,000 gallons on top of the 100,000 gallons of fuel we need to find for Scenario A. Where are we going to obtain all this fuel?”

“We still have 10,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen on the island,” stated Lunar.

“And 3,000 gallons at the Pig’s Snout,” added Saturn.

“And 9,000 gallons in reserve here in Nevada,” stated Mars.

“Two thousand gallons up on the orbital station,” added Jenny Burgos.

“Yes, I have calculated what we have, meinen damen and herren,” replied Dr. Smidt, but we will still be short by 125,000 gallons.”

“Lunar, have we used up all our financial resources?” asked Ryan.

“Yes, Dad, apart for the half dozen or so basketball size diamonds down in the underground storage chamber.”

“I’m sure Australia would be happy to lend a hand Commander Richmond,” stated Mark Price, Lunar’s husband staring at both his wife and father-in-law.

Martin Brusk could be squeezed to help out in return for some of the spoils,” added Saturn. “He is the one so desperate for us to get to Mars and back.”

“I’m sure the Canadian government could help pay the fuel tab for their fair share,” added Joanne Dithers Roo. “The current world price shows the realistic shortage of all fuels available around the world. Regular gasoline is still over $29 a gallon country-wide and extra electricity is virtually non-existent to produce liquid hydrogen until more cold fusion plants are delivered next year.

“Maybe the Matt idea of alcohol for fuel was a wise choice after all,” joked Jonesy getting an elbow in the ribs from Maggie as he winked at Ruler Roo.

“My friend General Jones and I are rather partial to rocket fuel,” stated Roo getting much laughter from everyone in the meeting other than Dr. Smidt. He wasn’t yet a member of the society, still didn’t get the inside joke, even though he had been on Mars and had watched the pair consume the same fuel used in the Matt craft. Some people just didn’t have a sense of humor.

“What is the current diamond price Joanne? Surely it has risen in financial trading value?” Ryan asked.

“Gold is still the currency of favor worldwide at $29,400 Canadian per ounce,” Joanne Dithers Roo replied. “Silver, oddly enough is second, currently selling at $3,190 per ounce, and all paper currency is making a comeback. The Canadian and Australian dollars are still worth triple to the U.S. dollar, but we are gaining ground. Diamonds are bought and sold for a lot of money, but only in the technology fields where they are most wanted. I haven’t seen the diamonds you speak of, but I’m sure Martin Brusk, or Mary Collins can help you with loans against them. Remember the cargo you are bringing back, six tons, or twelve tons with two shuttles will make you more fluid, and set you up for a much larger future cargo haul in America Two and America Three in a decade or so.”

“This whole country will still be short of any fossil fuels for farming and industry for at least another decade,” added Dr. Smidt. We still need another five years for fusion plants to be commonplace

“Five billion a shuttle cargo load. Funny that was what is cost me to start this base all those years ago,” reminisced Ryan.

“I cannot fathom how much 7,000 tons is worth?” added Mars Noble. “That is the weight Captain Pete and I reckoned there is to collect.”

“A lot of money,” suggested Jonesy.

“It will take more than our lifetimes to return with that amount,” laughed Ryan. “Dr. Smidt, what can America Two carry in space cargo?”

“Weight is not important in space, as you well know Herr Richmond. But getting the cargo into orbit from the red planet, and then down here onto the surface of earth would take much fuel. Commander Noble and Captain Pete hauled six tons into Martian orbit. It took us a week to load that amount into the shuttle’s cargo bays. With the two larger shuttles working, two loads a month could be transferred and offloaded into the mother ship’s cargo holds, maximum. The math is rather simple—192 tons per Opposition, or trading mission. That is if we have enough fuel to launch 32 shuttles in the 16 months we are there, and we have no attacks by either the Martian storms, or those Matts.”

“Martin Brusk reckons that he needs at least 5 tons a year of the rare earth metals,” added Joanne.

“The planet needs the gold just as much,” suggested Mars Noble, and the others nodded.

“Let us say we bring back 200 tons every two years,” added Lunar. “If there is 7,000 tons up there, and Mars reckoned that we only saw one half of the tunnel system, we will need our entire lifetimes to bring back what we have already found by flying a mother ship heading in opposite directions each Opposition.”

“Better than any asteroid I’ve ever found,” stated Jack Dempsey.

“I’m glad you kept up with our flight training program with our grandchildren, Lunar, Saturn, Mars,” stated Jonesy. “We are going to need as many astronauts as we can train.”

“Well, with two ships and unlimited fuel, we could double the return if Dr. Smidt’s numbers are correct,” stated Pluto Katherine. “We just need to take all five of the shuttles with us.”

There was a few seconds of silence as what Mars Noble had found on the red planet hit home. To return with this bounty would take the rest of their lives, and cost more than any project Astermine had done before.

“My only dream in life was to go to space,” stated Ryan Richmond slowly. “My dream changed once I got there and looked back. I saw what a mess we Homo sapiens have made of this planet. I agree that the love of money is the root of all evil, and will assume that money, or at least the need for it will not go away. Astermine cannot change the greed, or need for money in people, nor is it our job to change the direction of evolution. But, one thing is for sure, we can dictate what our new planet Mars will look like. If it is Astermine’s future destiny in the history books—to bring back all this treasure, so be it. Mars is ours to control once we fight it away from the Matts, or at least attempt to live peacefully with them. We will never fire the first shot in battle on Mars, nor will we let money be the uber-ruler of mankind on Mars. Astermine will bring back this treasure for this planet to modernize itself into whatever evolution has in store for Earth, but Astermine will control what goes on the red planet, at least until the day I’m put underground, here or there.”

Ryan Richmond got loud applause from that briefing that day, nobody applauded louder than Jonesy, much everybody’s else surprise, and his short speech to his crew became Astermine’s destiny for generations of astronauts to come.

Without stating it, Ryan Richmond was back in Astermine’s driving seat.

Chapter 4

Visit to China

It took two months before the astronauts were fit enough to begin the extensive runway jogs again. Even though they had gained 14 years of extra life, the return to an earth fitness was one of the hardest things most of them had ever attempted.

Dr. Nancy stayed on as chief medical officer for the two months and planned out diets, training and even work and sleep patterns, much like she had done in space to get the crew fit again.

Jonesy struggled more than the others with his legs. Dr. Nancy got him on a strict physiotherapy schedule to strengthen his legs while VIN suggested that he go the metal route. He and Suzi never had problems with their metal legs, and passed him easily on every run.

The underground storage was emptied and closed up for future needs. Several dozen of the freezers still worked after decades of use, and what the base didn’t need was handed out to the residents in Tonopah, and as far away as Las Vegas.

Nevada Base was again full of crew, and the daily crowd at the gates dwindled as work was found in other locations.

Television channels grew by one a month, and whenever the Audis and Teslas were taken out for a ride, the crew could see that the roads were getting busier.

Joanne flew into Canada and got Mary Collins to pledge her government to back a loan of liquid hydrogen for the next visit to Mars, 25,000 gallons of the most sort after liquid in the world. Times had changed and oil was becoming a lesser valued liquid, and few countries mined it anymore.

Martin Brusk was invited and flew in to visit his old friend. Now he was an older man than the others, and was shocked how young his friends the “older” astronauts he knew, were, and looked. He was finally told the truth about the asteroid and the Matt base in space with its cryogenic chambers.

Ryan, Jonesy and Maggie were excited to have a flight in Martin’s new hybrid jet, the same one Mars and Saturn had seen on the island. So far Martin had no plans to produce the aircraft until light, mini cold fusion plants were cheaper and readily available.

Australia had already given Astermine much of its country’s liquid hydrogen reserves, but with Gary Darwin and Mark Price heading down under to negotiate with their country of birth, another 15,000 gallons was obtained.

Ryan had his own liquid hydrogen manufacturing plant on the base and even running 24/7 would only produce 25,000 gallons before they left. The mission was still far behind its needs.

It was three months later, and with only 73 days left before the launch of SB IV and SB-V to orbit for the start of their next mission, that the final answer of where there could be possible reserves of liquid hydrogen; China.

Russia, the Russian crew knew, was very limited on liquid hydrogen, the purest quality needed for launch. They had refused any of the cold fusion systems, and if they were producing liquid hydrogen, they would be doing it the slow old-fashioned way. There was no way Russia had any interest in producing hydrogen as a fuel, only gasoline.

“Remember, China was the most modern producer of all electronics in the first one and a half decades of this century,” stated Dr. Smidt at a Design Meeting a few days after the first jog. “I believe that China is the only possibility to find enough fuel for this flight in such a short time.” With Dr. Smidt, Ryan and his crew did some history updating on China.

Within a week, and with help from the other friendly countries, the crew found out that the old ruler of China, the man who had run the country, the leader Ryan and Astermine had repeatedly bombed, had died less than a year earlier. That ruler certainly did not like Ryan, or Astermine and any negotiations would have been fruitless as Lunar could tell them.

The new Premier: Jong Lee Sim was a younger man, only 49, and he had been handed down the country from his father to run. Jong Lee Sim was reputed to be more interested in returning China to its former powerhouse of production than his father. His father had refused to deal with the West, or even Russia for decades, and had led the country down a path of financial ruin.

The crew in Nevada reckoned that Ryan might have a chance to open a door of negotiations with the United States, but the problem was how to get into the country.

Several ideas were discussed by the crew in Nevada, Washington and with the Canadian government in Ottawa and Toronto.

There weren’t any country Ambassadors in Washington. There hadn’t been for 25 years, and China wasn’t just on the other end of the phone. International telephones hadn’t been used for decades either, but were on their way back.

After a few weeks of looking for a way to communicate with Beijing, nobody, including Australia or Israel could offer any ideas.

It was Jonesy, as usual, who had offered the best idea right at the beginning—“just fly into Beijing and land in Tiananmen Square”.

“So, Mr. Jones, you are happy to risk flying into China unannounced?” Ryan asked Jonesy. The conference room was busy with the chief scientists, and several of the astronauts, and on a conference call with The Pentagon, the Defense Ministries in Toronto and Canberra, and with Martin Brusk who was back in Israel.

“I don’t see why it would be such a problem?’ replied Jonesy.

“Well, I believe that Astermine’s destruction of major parts of China since 2017 could be a problem,” replied Ryan. “To date, Astermine has destroyed at least 10,000 Chinese cube satellites, every one they managed to launch. Astermine has laser-blasted their government offices in Beijing, their military launch sites, airfields, aircraft and just about everything else that moved in that country. The U.S., if you remember destroyed everything we didn’t. Mr. Jones I don’t believe they like us Americans very much.”

“Ms. Collins in Toronto did state that the new Premier is interested in returning China to something of its former glory. Commander Richmond, they are certainly not going to achieve that by themselves, and without us,” Jonesy replied.

“I don’t believe that any of the countries on this call can aid, or give you any more information than what we know, and have already passed over to you, Commander Richmond,” stated Mary Collins over the open conference call. “But, I’m going to side with your astronaut. Maybe this is the right time to approach Beijing and offer our assistance. Also, it is the only country left which can give you enough liquid hydrogen for your Mars mission. I believe that Lunar hasn’t told you about her embarrassing visit to Beijing a few years ago, Commander.”

“I was in Beijing seven years ago,” stated Lunar Richmond to her father.

“How come I don’t know about your visit Lunar?” Ryan asked with the entire conference call listening.

“We didn’t know about this visit either,” stated the Australian Defense Minister.

“How did you meet with them?” Ryan asked his daughter quite shocked that she hadn’t told him why she had visited China.

Lunar hadn’t really told anybody about her groveling for Rare Earth metals in China with the old Premier to build America Two. Lunar had been so embarrassed about being mistreated by the Chinese government that she hadn’t even told Saturn or her sister what had actually happened, but had kept it to herself.

“It was certainly a very lousy experience,” she replied slowly. “I was body searched twice, the shuttle I flew in on I sealed down tight and kept the tiny locking mechanism in my mouth the whole time. I had to lay flat on the floor, naked apart from a silk cloth, before the Premier entered and even then I was to lay on the floor while he spoke to me. It took Saturn an hour to fly in so his men could inspect the metal I was paying with for. Saturn re-launched and hovered until the Premier was shown the pictures of the treasure in the cargo hold. It took him another hour to accept the deal. Saturn returned, they unloaded, and then I was told later several helicopters flew in with the rare earth metals on pallets. Twice he tried to rescind on the deal and not pay for the treasure. Twice I warned him that he, and the whole of Beijing would be destroyed within minutes of me not taking off as planned. Twice I was gun butted in the head for talking back to him. Finally I persuaded him to just go through with the deal and take it out on my father when they next met. For five hours I lay on that cold marble floor and thought that I was going to die. That is why I didn’t tell you the whole story, Dad.” Nobody said anything and Saturn, who had landed and protected her own and Lunar’s craft while they inspected Saturn’s shuttle’s hold, had something to add.

“They were not very nice. Jenny Burgos and I held a laser pistol in one hand the whole time they inspected our cargo hold and took photographs. They tried to get into the cockpit and I stopped them by firing the laser into the cement by the man’s feet. The melting cement stopped him fast. Lunar’s shuttle was closed up tight, and I had to stop them from trying to enter it as well. They stopped after a few holes were drilled into the cement by their feet. I didn’t know Lunar was going through such anguish. Shelley Saunders flew in, we had the cargo loaded, Lunar reappeared after several hours and we all flew out.”

“So this is what happened to all the valuables we had in storage,” continued Ryan, “and why you wouldn’t tell me?”

“Well, it was embarrassing, and personal, and it seems the guy is now dead. Good riddance and there is a new younger guy in command,” added Lunar. “I think Jonesy is right. We just go in heavily armed and try to be friendly.”

“I would like to go with General Jones,” stated Mary Collins from Toronto.

“You can add me as an interested visitor,” added Martin Brusk from Tel Aviv.

“I would like to send somebody from the Australian Government,” stated the Australian Defense Minister. The new Aussie DM had been introduced to the crew once, back on the island. “Somebody to report back to me, and I would like to emphasize that our visit there be peaceful, and our mission is to also try to mend broken fences between the West and Beijing.”

“That is why I would like to be there Minister,” added Mary Collins.

The conference call came to an end, and Ryan hugged his eldest daughter, feeling bad for what she had gone through.

Lunar returned that this problem in her life had happened years ago, and that she had forgotten the horrible experience when she had seen America Two fully built for the first time, and she was ready to return to Beijing to meet the new Premier, with armed backup this time.

It took a few days for the travelers to meet up in Nevada, from where the journey was to begin. SB-V was launched into orbit, and the Burgos sisters would be ready to blast Beijing to debris if the visitors were treated as badly as Lunar had been.

This time they all had new communication devices made in Israel that were worn over an ear, much like an old Bluetooth phone, and any conversation between the visitors could be heard from the sisters 100 miles above the crew, and with the new satellites through an entire orbit.

A day later SB-IV launched for its two hour flight to Beijing. Aboard was a really excited group of people who hadn’t flown in a spaceship yet. Mary Collins was ecstatic to finally get a ride with Saturn Jones as pilot. The U.S. Vice President, Vice President Penelope Pitt wasn’t aboard although she had arrived to visit her parents, and had brought a top Chinese speaking aide from the Pentagon who was going. As Vice-President, it wasn’t protocol for Penelope to go.

Also aboard was the Australian Exterior Minister, and an aide who was also fluent in Mandarin.

Vice President Penelope Pitt, who had flown in on her government jet the day before, was happy to be back with her family and old friends. Her secret service agents were told to back off as she spent private time with her family. Ryan was used to secret service agents wandering around the base, and they joined Joanne’s two agents.

Jonesy asked to be copilot for his daughter, but on the outward flight staying within the atmosphere it was an all-girl flight crew with Maggie in the copilot’s seat. Jonesy sat with the VIPs including Martin Brusk, Ryan, Kathy, Lunar, VIN and Mars Noble.

Pluto Katherine had been left as base commander for the five day absence, as the shuttle was heading down to the island for the weekend after the Beijing meeting.

Nobody in the Chinese capital was aware of the arriving shuttle, and as before Saturn brought the craft down into Tiananmen Square to the exact location she had taken off from several years earlier.

People scattered as the large shuttle with its blue shield extended silently lowered itself to the cement of the massive square. Policemen aimed their rifles at the craft, but did not shoot.

Slowly Saturn decreased the shield until it was gone altogether. There were several policemen who were trying to figure out what to do. None fired as the door to the craft opened and the two aides walked out with Lunar and Ryan Richmond towards the closest policeman.

Both Mandarin-speaking aides had been prepped what to say, and within minutes an old jeep drove up and they repeated their messages. The jeep drove off and the group returned to the ship to wait.

Wait they did. It took three hours before a cavalcade of old black sedans and two old battle tanks arrived to take the visitors to wherever they were going to go.

Mary Collins, the Australian Exterior minister, his aide, the U.S. aide, Martin Brusk, Ryan, VIN and Mars Noble, Lunar, and Maggie Jones entered the five cars and they drove off leaving the two old armored tanks with their turrets aimed at the shuttle. It didn’t take long for Saturn and her father to extend the shuttle’s blue shield. Also it would be ten minutes before SB-V would come over the horizon as backup.

The drive took less than 30 seconds before the cars stopped at a large government building on the edge of the Square itself—The Great Hall of The People. Lunar stated to VIN and Mars from her car that this wasn’t the building she had been brought to before. The cavalcade drove to the northern end of the large building, and they arrived as a red carpet was being laid out by workers.

The doors of the cars were not opened and they stayed closed with a soldier outside each door as a group of a few dozen soldiers with musical instruments ran up and quickly gathered to the side of the carpet.

Then the doors were opened by the soldiers in uniform, and the band began playing.

A group of half a dozen Chinese men in suits exited the large doors as the visitors were escorted out of the cars, along the carpet and towards them. They were bowed to by the greeters and were led into the building where there was a table of fresh snacks and drinks.

The food was interesting and different, and still the greeters had not said one word to them, even when the aides had prompted them for conversation.

Then two large doors opened and a single man also dressed in a suit waved them over and into a massive room where a long conference table was waiting. They were waved to sit down. There was one chair for each visitor and an empty chair at the head of the table.

The last chair was filled by a man a few minutes later. He entered the ballroom, headed for the empty chair, bowed deeply to the visitors at the table and sat down. Everybody looked at him as he sat down. On his one side was Mary Collins, on his other Ryan Richmond.

“May I welcome you to a new China, friends,” he stated in perfect English without introducing himself. “I know, or at least have seen photos of some of you, but let me introduce myself, and then I’m very interested to know your names, and titles. My name, In English is Jong Lee Sim. I am the new ruler of China, and have been since my father passed away eleven months ago. The system of ruler ship here in China was changed by my father back to the days of families, and will continue under my rule, and then the rule of my son, who is currently nine years old. My father did not like the West, and his hate for western democracy died with him. He wanted to revert to Dynasty rule and China will reform to this way of governing, except I would like to further our country’s friendship with the rest of the world. Ms. Collins, your face is very familiar to me, so is yours Mr. Richmond. My father used your face as target practice every time we practiced shooting. Sometimes he used your face Mr. Brusk as well, so you are also familiar to me. Exterior Minister Swanson, our countries have not yet spoken, and I was hoping that your country would one day send an envoy to meet with me. Please understand, I cannot make the first move to begin political communications with the West. Our older military generals would not appreciate my moves. Now that you have sort of invited yourselves to China, I can begin to communicate with you and your countries. I also remember your face Ms. Richmond. I watched as my father humiliated you nearly a decade ago. I did not like his ways, but then he was ruler, not me. The rest of you now have the chance to introduce yourselves to me.”

The members around the table did as they were asked, and then a line of men dressed as waiters arrived with what was to be lunch. It was midday in China after all.

The food was excellent and very few words were said over the meal. Wine was refused by the astronauts, and Ryan, but accepted by the politicians.

Once lunch came to an end, and the plates cleared away, Jong Lee Sim asked what he could do for the visitors. “Mr. Richmond, Ms. Richmond, I assume you and your spaceships are the reason for this visit?”

“Yes, Premier, as my daughter negotiated with your father several years ago, and was humiliated by him, I feel that China owes her an apology, and I believe every visitor around this table is owed one as well. I have no ill feelings for China. Your father had the right of every man to rule the way believes is the correct way, whether others like it or not, but not when it comes down to belittling a visitor like he did. Once China officially apologizes to my daughter, and to the table, only then can we, as you described the “tying of your hands” by the generals, can we have our hands untied.”

“Mr. Richmond, you came all this way, and brought these guests with you, just to get an apology for your daughter?” Jong Lee Sim asked seriously.

“That is correct,” Ryan replied looking the younger man in the eyes and his face was as serious as the Ruler’s. The others at the table didn’t move. The Exterior Minister was the only visitor who squirmed in his seat. He wasn’t used to the way Ryan negotiated, and was about to learn.”

“Then I must remember this day,” replied Jong Lee Sim. “I must remember this day in case I need to do what you, Mr. Richmond, are doing for your daughter, saving her face. I might have to do it for my son one day, so I will remember this day.” He then turned to Lunar who was also staring into his face. “Ms. Richmond, on behalf of my country, it’s government and its people, I, Premier Jong Lee Sim of the People’s Republic of all China officially offer you an apology on the way you were treated during your last visit to Beijing. Is there any way I, or the country can make you accept this sincere apology from me, and all the people of China?”

Lunar thought for a few seconds and not a noise was uttered from anybody at the table.

“I will accept this apology Premier if you accept my two conditions?” Premier Jong Lee Sim nodded for her to go on. “I would like to have the borders of China opened for the world to visit, especially the countries represented here today. Everyone here will pledge that their country will be at peace and harmony with your country. My second condition—I would like for you and, or your son to come and visit us in Nevada one day. The reason is that we have a great bunch of kids the same age as your son on the base, and I’m sure that they would love the opportunity to show your son what they are learning in school.”

Premier Jong Lee Sim smiled, and so did Lunar’s parents, Nobody had known what Lunar was going to say, but she did it in proper Richmond fashion. Kathy and Ryan brimmed with pride. Ryan couldn’t have done better himself.

“I, as Premier of The People’s Republic of China agree to your first condition.” He snapped his fingers and two men in suits came running. He talked quickly and they wrote down what he said, then they ran off. He then motioned another man over. He was an old man, and he nodded and walked off in the opposite direction. The table was waiting for the Premier to speak.

“You guys OK in there?” stated Saturn in their ear pieces. It was the first words heard from the shuttle in Tiananmen Square. “The tanks are rumbling off, and it seems that the policemen, all twenty of them now have lowered their rifles and are more like guarding us, than threatening us. Lunar, did you copy?”

“Excuse me Premier,” stated Lunar, and she pressed her earpiece with her hand and spoke. “Lunar Richmond to ground shuttle and orbital shuttle, we are OK down here, and it seems we might have new friends. I will let you know if anything changes, out.”

“Copy that,” replied Saturn, and Jenny Burgos somewhere in orbit around the planet.

“I assume you have received your first condition, Ms. Richmond?” smiled the Premier.

“Yes, Premier, I believe we have, and I hope it never changes in our lifetime,” she replied as a young boy, dressed in Chinese clothing walked timidly towards the table.

“Ms. Richmond, visitors to China, may I introduce Jon Lee Jong, my son.” The boy looked at the table and bowed first to his father, and then to the table. “My son speaks English as well as I do. Maybe it is all the Hollywood films we watch together. I have recently made a new law, an important law that every Chinese Citizen under 50 years old must learn to speak one foreign language of their choice. I decided that English was my language of choice, so was my son’s. Jon Lee Jong, you have been invited to visit the Astermine space site in Nevada, in the United States of America. Would you like to visit?”

“Can I go to space in a spacesuit?” asked the young boy, excitement growing on his face.

“If you are willing to learn how to go to space in a spacesuit Jon Lee Jong,” Lunar replied smiling.

“How long does it take to learn?” asked the boy.

“About eight years,” replied Lunar. “My son is about to learn how to wear a spacesuit.”

“How old is your son?’ asked Jon Lee Jong.

“He will be nine next month, and his name is James.”

“You can join him and my son, Michael. He is 9, and also starts soon,” added Mars Noble, much to the table’s shock that somebody else was speaking out of turn.

“Father, I would like to learn how to go to space,” stated the boy factually and turning to his father.

“What about your lessons?” his father replied.

“I’m sure the American boys have lessons too?”

“I will think about it. Thank you son, you may go.” The young boy bowed to his father, then the guests, turned and walked off in the direction he had entered.

“I need a year for him to finish his current schooling. My son is learning Chinese history, and he must be perfect in this subject, Ms. Richmond. If it is possible, I would like to, as you Americans state in the movies, take a rain check on the offer? Lunar nodded. The Premier continued. “I believe my apology has been accepted and now new friends of China, I will assume that you have other requests for me and my country?”

“The lunch was really good, especially the Roast Duck,” stated Maggie as she sat with Lunar and her husband as they flew towards Seoul, South Korea.

“What happened next?” asked Saturn her father doing the flying, or at least the monitoring of the instruments. The others were all in the Captain’s apartment which had been turned into a seating area for the journey.

“Once Lunar was offered her apology, everyone at the table relaxed and there was even some laughter from both sides,” Maggie continued. “Ryan stated what he needed to complete the scheduled mission to Mars, and the Premier was quiet for several minutes. Then he clicked his fingers and the two same men ran over and bowed.”

“If I bowed so much my back would begin to hurt,” stated Jonesy.

“Don’t forget your legs, Dad,” added Saturn winking at her mother. Since he had returned from DX2017, Jonesy’s legs always seemed to hurt. They hurt when somebody mentioned the word, beer. Same with the words, whiskey and vodka.

What had made Saturn really think was a week or so earlier, when VIN and Suzi Noble caught up with her father on one of the jogs. Saturn and Maggie were about 100 feet behind Jonesy, who seemed to run quite well with his “painful” legs. VIN, with Suzi using her metal legs passed and apologized to the two girls. When the “half-metal” pair reached Jonesy though, he didn’t want them to overtake him, and the burst of speed he managed with his legs in the “bad way” they were, raised both the girl’s eyebrows. Jonesy was like a race horse out of the gate and VIN and Suzi took a couple of seconds to catch him up.

What passed the lips of those three runners wasn’t heard by anybody else, but both Maggie and Saturn had ignored Jonesy’s bleating’s about sore legs from then on.

“The desert was also good and it seemed that we were suddenly all friends,” continued Maggie while Lunar dozed next to her. “Ryan explained that he would like to share some of the gold from Mars with China, if they helped him with liquid hydrogen fuel to get to the planet and back. The Premier reminded Ryan that his country used to have a space agency, and program of its own, until the United States Air Force blew their space station out of the sky, when they nuked an incoming asteroid too close to earth three decades ago. Ryan apologized for his country, so did the U.S. Government aide, and then the Premier told the table the good news that his country still had liquid hydrogen reserves. The fuel was decades old but still useable as a fuel in space. His country had about 80,000 gallons at a secret location, and had already begun making new rocket fuel only a month earlier. Ryan stated that he needed 80,000 gallons within 60 days, and for three tons of gold the new Premier was happy to shake Ryan’s hand.”

“But that is a quarter of the gold we are returning from Mars with,” stated Saturn.

“They get some of the gold, we, and the other countries get the Rare Earth metals,” stated Lunar half asleep. “A pretty good deal, and we won’t need to bargain so hard on the next flight. But Maggie, go on. Saturn you haven’t heard the best part yet.”

“It seemed that a large reserve of liquid hydrogen had slipped the Premier’s mind,” continued Maggie. Saturn looked at her mother inquisitively. “Several minutes later a light bulb went on inside his head, and he told us about the reserves of the hydrogen fuel in South Korea very few knew about. Another 40,000 gallons.”

“That is why we are heading there, to discuss getting that fuel as well?” Jonesy asked, and the two girls sitting in the rear cockpit jump seats both nodded.

It was twelve hours later when the same group sat in the shuttle’s cockpit, this time on the way to the Australian island. They had landed in Seoul, also unannounced as that country still hadn’t communications with the West.

Martin Brusk offered, as he had done so in Beijing, to build South Korea a space shuttle, like the one that had landed. For a new space shuttle the Chinese Premier had quickly forgotten the three tons of gold, and the same happened in Seoul. Martin Brusk would take the five tons of gold as payment for building the two space shuttle bodies, much like the two shuttles he had built for Astermine.

Martin Brusk was as good a businessman as he ever was, and it saved an extra ton of the returning gold from Mars for more Rare earth metals that he needed.

Martin and Ryan were working out the payments and who got what as Jonesy flew them onto Australia. Ryan still had the other countries to pay for the loans of fuel, but Canada had already put the repayment off until the second Opposition in less than three years’ time.

By the time they reached the island, it looked like Ryan Richmond could have enough cash from the first mission to complete the build of America Three.

“Looks like a large reception down there?” smiled Jonesy to Saturn as he brought SB-IV in directly above the island’s airfield. They could see a group of four people outside in the morning’s light of the rising sun outside the main hangar where the shuttles always parked.

SB-V was already reentering earth atmosphere high above the United States and was due to land next to SB-IV in about 30 minutes.

“Don’t mention Bob’s or Beth or Monica’s white hair,” stated Saturn to her father, who’s greying hair had been halted for 14 years.

“Yes, don’t insult your friends by telling them how old they look,” added Maggie knowing that it was certain that her husband would open his mouth in greeting and say the wrong things. That was why he hadn’t been at the lunch in Beijing, and the dinner in Seoul. Now it was breakfast in Australia, and it was time for Jonesy to see his old flying buddies, and the word “old” was very important. What Maggie told him didn’t really help.

Saturn took over and landed SB-IV from 5,000 feet altitude as her father ordered her to do so as he wanted to get out fast and greet his old flying mates.

Seeing the age of his old flying buddies did give Jonesy a shock. Seeing the younger age of their old flying buddies certainly gave Bob Mathews, Beth and Monica a shock. They hadn’t realized that the time out in space for the “OldGeners” was actually an age-saving device.

Jonesy had always considered Bob Mathews to be one of his special friends. They had often flown together throughout their lives, and always seemed to be as one with flying as each other.

One knew what the other was always thinking and the reactions times due to suggestions was always rapid. They had flown Transports together, C-17s, and C-5s in the 1990s, and a few years earlier, when they were fresh out of flight school as budding Second Lieutenants, they had flown fighter jets, first the F-16 Fighting Falcons, and then the first F-15E Strike Eagles in 1989 that had arrived in the ranks of The United States Air force, and at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.

Both men would have stayed with the 336th Tactical Fighter Squadron flying F-15s in North Carolina, but Jonesy’s mouth and both their drinking and bar brawl habits got them moved to flying Transports—C-130s out of Fort Bragg.

It didn’t really matter what they flew as every type of aircraft had its own set of ways to fly it and both men had excelled in every aircraft. To them a C-17, or even a C-130 turboprop was as interesting to fly as was a modern fighter jet.

“You been to a plastic surgeon, Jonesy?” Bob Mathews asked hugging his old partner.

“No, I see you haven’t either,” replied General Jones.

“You haven’t aged a day since we said goodbye in Nevada, what 15 years ago?” Bob added not believing how young his old flying buddy looked in front of him.

“I can see fishing doesn’t help in the age department Bob. No, we were asleep for 14 damn years, and now look at me. Maggie, Ryan, Kathy, Michael Allen and I were put to sleep in these weird and out of this world cryogenic sleep chambers for 14 years, and now look at what we all look like, bleeding kids compared to you. Hi Monica, Beth, like your white hair” nodded Jonesy to Bob’s crew.

“Well, fourteen years of sleep, doing nothing, and having nothing more than a face lift, I’m glad I’m old. Jonesy, I’ve had the best 14 years of fishing a man could ever have while you were acting like Sleeping Beauty,” replied Bob Mathews, very used to Jonesy and what came out of his mouth.

“I’ve heard about your fishing from Saturn and young Mars,” replied Jonesy. “The only problem with not getting old on time, is that I’m still expected to work. A bit of a bummer when I also wanted to go fishing, Bob.”

“I know you are only here for a couple of days. There isn’t enough time to head out, but next time make sure you get a couple of weeks so that I can take you out, and you have your own boat waiting for you down in Brisbane. It has been waiting for you for a couple of years now.”

A couple of days on the island was very relaxing. Apart for one aircraft arriving from Canberra to pick up the Aussie politician, it was very quiet.

Mary Collins and Martin Brusk had arranged to be picked up in Seoul by an Israeli military aircraft at a later date. Both wanted to stay on and do some business with the South Korean government.

Astermine had a small crew that now stayed on the island permanently to look after the company’s assets. Bob, Monica and Beth were in and out and called the island home between fishing trips. Captain Pete was now in charge of the island, and had been happy when Dr. Nancy had finally arrived back after making sure the returning OldGeners were fit to live on Earth.

Joanne, Roo, Joe and her second child also called the island home from home. They enjoyed the quiet life away from the politics of Washington, did not need her secret service detail there, and waited patiently for their return flight to Mars.

Three of the NextGeners, several scientists, and a team of five Russian scientists were the only other crewmembers on the island.

The beaches were great, the pool adequate to teach the children to swim, and the Australian beer cold.

“One more flight to Mars Maggie, and I think we should call it a day,” stated Jonesy one evening over sundowner drinks.

“What happens if Ryan needs us?” she asked her husband, not really caring where she flew into space again or not.

“There are enough astronauts, and within a decade, the third generation, our grandchildren will be taking over as commanders and flight captains. I honestly don’t think we old pilots are in demand so much anymore. Saturn won’t even let me captain her shuttle. It looks like Lunar will command America Two, or young Mars Noble. Pluto Katherine wants command of America Three, and there is no way my tired old legs are stepping on any asteroids again. I think it’s time to see what retirement packages Ryan has in mind. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m at retirement age, or like Bob, long passed it. There, the boss is coming over, I’ll ask,” Jonesy continued as Ryan and Kathy walked over. The little drinks robot Jonesy wanted to keep as a pet handed the couple a glass of wine to the Richmond’s as they walked around the side of the pool.

“It’s time Maggie and I went fishing,” stated Jonesy tactfully as Ryan and Kathy sat down at their table.

“I was thinking you would say that once we got here,” smiled Ryan.

“I was thinking just the same thoughts,” added Kathy smiling at her husband. “Mars, is fine if you want to burrow down like a mole, but Earth is still paradise, especially this beautiful place.”

“Ask Bob to organize you two a boat,” stated Maggie enjoying her glass of wine. “Let the kids do the flying and leave us to live out our lives right here.”

“I agree with you,” replied Ryan staring at the darkening horizon where the sun had disappeared several minutes earlier. “We need some cash, retirement cash, so if we can get the next load of gold young Noble states is just there waiting for us to pick up. Let us all go and pick up our retirement checks, and let the kids, and grandkids carry on after our final odyssey. We have done our part for humanity, space exploration, and opening up the solar system for future travel. I believe Martin Brusk, shocked at how young we look, now feels very old and wants to join us here.” VIN Noble walked up with his son.

“How much gold did you say was waiting for us, Mars?” Jonesy asked his son-in-law.

“Captain Pete tallied it up at 7,000 tons Commander Jones,” replied Mars respectfully.

“I wish I could get a “Commander VIN Noble” just once out of my son,” interrupted VIN getting his and his son’s order of two cold beers from the robot waiter.

“Is that Earth tons, or Martian tons?” asked Ryan. “I forgot which weight he was talking about when he gave us his report on arrival.”

“Earth tons Ryan,” stated Captain Pete himself as the hard working robot scurried off to get the captain and Dr. Nancy two cold beers.

“And that doesn’t add what could be in the tunnels that weren’t blown out by the explosion,” stated Mars.

“We can’t bring all that back” suggested Jonesy trying to visualize what 7,000 tons of gold looked like. “A few ingots is all Maggie and I need to complete the payments on our boat and head out into the wild blue sea yonder with Bob and his girls. Bob, what gas does your boat use?” shouted Jonesy as Bob Mathews, Beth and Monica joined them.

Once the robot was given the next order, Bob replied. “I use to use only diesel, but now it’s sort of a hybrid diesel boat since Martin Brusk gave us two massive lithium batteries that re-energize with the water flow underneath the boat’s keel.”

“Tell us more Bob,” asked Ryan.

“Well, Martin gave me these two massive battery packs when he arrived for Saturn and Mars’ wedding. They weigh about 200 pounds each and are rectangular about four feet by three feet by six inches high. They came with a dozen lines that are strung underneath the keel of the boat and somehow gather energy while the hydrogen gas engine runs. It is really weird, and you never know when the engines are going to turn on or off.”

“You can be at full speed, or trawling for fish,” added Beth.

“Suddenly the engines go silent and the speed of the boat stays the same,” stated Monica.

“At cruise speed the engines go silent for up to a couple hours. It seems that the batteries re-energize themselves from the forward movement of the boat, even when they are working,” continued Bob getting his beer from the robot.

I’m going to name my buddy waiter robot here, ASS Robot,” stated Jonesy petting it on the head as it passed by. Everybody looked at him quizzically wondering what he had said, and only a couple of the men knew what ASS really meant in Jonesy’s world. Maggie and Saturn never hearing what he said, as usual ignored him.

“When we are trawling, the engines can go quiet all day,” continued Monica looking weirdly at Jonesy as well.

“Night cruising is the worst,” stated Beth. “The diesel engines can give you a heart attack when they suddenly turn on again during the night. Very eerie, but I heard we might be given some quieter hydrogen gas engines soon.”

Mars and Saturn have the same power design in their boat, and so do you VIN, and so do you Jonesy, Maggie,” stated Bob. “Martin told me on his last visit that within a decade, my hydrogen engines will be replaced by re-energizing batteries that replenish 85 percent of their power from the movement of the boat through the water, and the other 15 percent will be achieved from a Nano-type paint he is designing.”

“A black painted boat?” Jonesy asked.

“No, a white Nano-painted boat,” replied Bob. “A paintjob that doesn’t look any different than what my boat has on today.”

“What about rainy days?” asked Kathy Richmond.

“The 15 percent is produced on a rainy day,” replied Beth. “On a sunny day up to 30 percent of the boat’s energy will be more like it.”

“What happened to plain old gasoline or diesel engines?’ added Jonesy. “Or jet turbines, I don’t even see those anymore.”

“You haven’t seen nothing yet,” stated Mars Noble to the older generation. “Wait until the U.S. comes online again. I believe you will see wonders in new technology within the next twenty years.”

“Maybe that’s why God only allows us a century on this planet,” stated Maggie Jones. “Maybe all this new stuff is just too much for one generation to take.”

“I agree with that,” added Jonesy. “I think that fishing for the last 14 years could have been a good idea.”

“But look how young you look, like a damn kid,” Beth stated to the much younger-looking pilot than her partner Bob.

“Yeah, but if we had been left on DX2017 for another round, we could have all had heart attacks looking at all the new technology these kids, and old Martin Brusk will have come up with by then,” replied Jonesy shaking his head.

“Well, one more visit to The Martian Club Retreat for all of us, and then we can go fishing with new electric boats,” suggested Ryan.

“Don’t include Nancy and me in your plans, Ryan” stated Captain Pete. “Bob’s boat is heading out tomorrow morning, and Nancy and I are twenty feet behind him in ours.”

Back in Nevada several days later the astronauts began training for the next Mars mission, 65 days away. The Chinese Premier, and the other countries kept their word, and the fuel supplies from the different countries was flown in by the five shuttles. It took a month and several flights to get the supplies of Liquid Hydrogen into orbit.

The Canadian fuel came in by truck. The Australian supplies were flown in by their Transport fleet by robotic pilots, which made poor Jonesy cringe when he saw what was flying the aircraft: computer boxes.

Israel and Martin Brusk sent in what they could and the Australian Transporters helped to bring in the South Korean supplies over the next month. Still several flights were needed with Astermine’s shuttle fleet to take up the Chinese liquid hydrogen. The fuel cost would have been enormous if Astermine didn’t have the blue shields which brought down the fuel usage in atmospheric flight enormously.

Finally, the fuel was launched and Jonesy and the rest of the older astronauts were again fighting fit and enjoyed the flights into space.

The time came for the final astronaut briefing. They only had rest for a couple of days before four of the five shuttles were to head back into orbit. It was time for Astermine to return to Mars.

Chapter 5

Mission Four to Mars

“Refresh your coffee mugs, ladies and gentlemen, then please sit down, let’s get this show on the road,” shouted Ryan above the usual din of loud-talking astronauts.

Every Astermine astronaut was at the briefing. Even two of the young, third generation pilots-in-training on the simulators had been invited to the first time. Jonesy was the oldest astronaut, Michael Victor Noble at nine, and James Ryan Richmond Price at eight years old the youngest.

Every pilot wore new khaki flight suits given by the United States Marine Corps. Three generals had visited the Nevada base a week earlier arriving in a twenty-year old V-22 Osprey from The Marine Corps Air Station in Camp Pendleton, California.

The three men had brought a couple of dozen Marine Corps flight suits as a gift. They didn’t have small sizes for the third generation, but the girls had got to work on the base and within a few hours the kids in training looked exactly like their older counterparts.

Through the new communication systems now reaching across the United States, the Marine Corps had heard that one of their own had been part of Astermine’s space missions from Day One, and had wanted to meet this soldier.

VIN Noble had chatted to the visitors and had told them what he had done since leaving the Marine Corps decades earlier. They had been impressed and in a ceremony in the conference room had pinned the Distinguished Flying Cross to VIN’s chest. Since he was wearing a real Marine Corps flight suit for the first time in his life, he looked good and Suzi, Mars and young Michael Victor Noble dressed in his new flight suit felt proud.

The three generals had been very interested in VIN’s two metal legs and his metal right arm. They were rather shocked when VIN’s son showed them his metal right arm, and Jonesy could not help but mention that metal seemed to run in the Noble family.

“Let’s get this Mars briefing started,” shouted Ryan as the queue for the coffee urns diminished. His wife Kathy brought him his third cup of the morning, then sat down in the front row. “First off congratulations former Marine Lieutenant Noble on your new medal. It seems that you haven’t been forgotten by the U.S. military. The United States Marine Corps is wanting to work with Astermine on our new robotic soldiers. Lieutenant Noble has been asked to bring one of the robots back from The Martian Club Retreat.”

“What about the cosmic rays, and radiation dangers?” asked Suzi Noble. “Those robots have been outside on the Martian surface for over a decade.”

“About as dangerous as our shuttles sitting outside, in or out of the blue shields,” replied Ryan. “We will encase the robotic soldier in a radiation protective environment for its return flight, and the ground crew will build a new contamination chamber in Hangar One, Suzi. I believe that the transportation of more and more goods from the red planet will need growth in our radiation protective systems, and I have set up a new department here on base to handle the cargo that returns from Mars.”

“It took the gold we returned with on our last flight nearly four weeks, sitting at a far corner of the base, to settle down, and its excessive radiation to vanish before we could actually touch it with our hands,” stated Lunar sitting next to her mother, and her son James.

“We will build a new Mars Cargo Incubation Facility on the north western corner of the base,” continued Ryan. The concrete building will be guarded by robotic soldiers 24/7, and no human will be allowed within one mile, until our robots state it is safe to enter the area. This is what the generals were interested in: how we use robots to do the work of soldiers.”

“Thanks to the Israeli and Australian Air Force’s robotic computer pilot boxes, we human pilots and astronauts will be out of a job pretty soon,” added Jonesy.

“I thought you wanted to go fishing partner?” suggested VIN Noble.

“Well, I do, but I don’t want any metal pilots flying our aircraft,” remarked Jonesy.

“I’m sure that after young James Richmond Price and Michael Victor Noble get their wings, we will be training robots to do all our jobs,” stated Ryan smiling at the room.

“Sounds crappy to me,” added Jonesy. “Maybe I should get a robot to do my flying, and fishing for me, and go and live in a cryogenic box somewhere.”

“Thank you Mr. Jones. Right, our mission, flight commanders and astronauts for Mission Four to Mars,” continued Ryan looking at his notes. “Mission Commander: Astronaut VIN Noble will fly in the lead ship SB III. SB-II: Astronauts Jane Burgos Flight Commander left seat, Jenny Burgos right seat. SB-III: Astronauts John Jones Flight Commander, left seat, Maggie Jones right seat. SB-VI: Astronauts Saturn Jones Noble Flight Commander left seat, Mars Noble right seat. SB-V: Astronauts Flight Commander Lunar Richmond left seat, Kathy Richmond right seat. Backup Astronauts are Shelly Saunders for SB-II, Michael Price for SB-IV and myself for SB-V. Any questions?”

There were none, but Gary Darwin slapped his partner Michael Price on the back. Michael had always wanted to go to Mars, would be the first Australian on Mars, and naturally he wanted to be with his wife.

“Our SB-I Astronauts for delivery of parts to the Orbital Build Station will be under Mission Commander Allen Saunders, and will be Astronauts Jamie Saunders, Michael and Penny Pitt. My daughter Pluto Katherine will be Nevada Base Commander in our absence. Heading out on the Mars Mission with us will be Dr. Smidt, Igor, Boris, Max Von Braun as Head of Build Crew with his crew of two, Vitalily as Head Mechanic with his team of two, Joanne Dithers Roo as Medical Specialist, and of course Ruler Roo, and their two boys Joe and Joot will be the only two children going. That is all, apart for Max Von Braun who is replacing Mars Base Commander Dave Black, who will be returning, and we have Suzi with one of her team of biologists going. The biologist will spend a few years doing food growth research, and will not be returning.

“We are not taking any of the younger members. There is no room, the mission will interrupt their studies, and since this is a fast return mission with only a ten-day deadline on the red planet, our youngsters are staying behind under the guidance of Astronauts Hillary Pitt, and Gary Darwin.”

For two more hours Ryan went on describing everybody’s role on the mission, and back on the base while the crew were away.

The only question on the more experienced lips was what if there was a storm on the planet when they arrived? Ryan couldn’t answer that one.

The briefing ended with a reminder that they were flying space shuttles which were completely full of fuel, and that extra caution had to be taken aboard each ship, and that the shuttles would be flying 25 miles apart, not the usual ten miles, to the red planet. All four shuttles would launch with new parts for America Three an hour apart the next morning, as the fuel was already in orbit.

Three days later Jonesy added a full twenty minute burn to SB-III which would increase the forward speed by 11,000 knots to allow the shuttle fleet to leave earth’s orbit.

Even though SB-III was smaller than the two newer shuttles, VIN Noble was aboard with Suzi. The two smaller shuttles with both cargo areas full of fuel for the return flight, didn’t have much room for more than four in the cockpits. The two larger shuttles had the rest of the crew, nine members squashed into the Captain’s quarter which had been arranged like school dormitories, and filled with beds. To allow everybody to get some rest, there were always two crew on watch in the flight chairs which gave the others room to sleep.

It wasn’t as bad as Jonesy and VIN had dealt with on their first flight to DX2014 in the smaller mining craft Astermine One, but it wasn’t much better, and this flight was 145 days long, including one day for planet orbit on either end of the journey.

“Brings back memories, partner,” stated VIN as he watched the shuttle’s nose gradually turn away from its orbit around Earth and begin to move into the nothingness of space.

“Glad we have roomed before” replied Jonesy, “but it is going to be a long flight.”

“And it is a dry flight for a change, darling,” added Maggie. “It is time Ryan curtailed your alcohol consumption while in flight.”

“Maggie, you don’t think these two semi-grown up men haven’t hidden a bottle of something somewhere on this ship?” smiled Suzi. Suzi had taken her leg supports off as soon as they had reached space twenty hours earlier. For her floating around in space, it was far easier to keep her useless legs tied behind her knees, just like Jonesy had had his legs positioned while asleep.

VIN on the other hand always preferred the magnetic floor and being able to “stick” to the floor with his metal feet to get around. For him it felt more stable.

“I looked everywhere,” Maggie replied as the two men flying the ship looked forward, trying to ignore what being said a few feet behind them.

“General John Jones, have you hidden a bottle somewhere?” Maggie demanded.

“We are out of Low Earth Orbit,” stated Jonesy to VIN sitting next to him, and trying hard to ignore his wife. “Speed: 39,990 knots, and heading into the middle of nowhere.”

“General Jones, you had better answer my question, or Suzi and I will rip this shuttle apart,” demanded Maggie again winking at Suzi.

“All shuttles, this is Command Shuttle SB-III,” continued Jonesy doing his job. “We have you all in formation. SB-II you are 21 miles off our port side, not 25 as the boss ordered. Boss in SB-V, you are 26.5 miles from SB-IV, and lagging behind by a few knots. Saturn in SB-IV, perfect positioning. SB-II and SB-V, Shake a leg and get into perfect formation so I can lock all craft autopilots to the command ship, over.”

Slowly the shuttles were positioned and Jonesy set the Fleet Autopilot system to where all four ships would stay in formation exactly, and the pilots didn’t need to do anything other than monitor their ship’s progress. The autopilot system controlled thrust, forward speed, direction, and fuel usage to keep all four ships in formation 25 miles apart, at the same speed and made sure that minimal fuel was used.

Any of the ships could disengage the Fleet Autopilot, within a second at any time, and Jonesy could disengage the system just as fast if there was a problem.

“Fleet Autopilot engaged, Forward Speed 41,010 knots and climbing. ETA 144 days and three hours to Mars orbit. You may undo your seatbelts and run around the ship if you want. Astronauts just sit back, relax, and contemplate the lack of alcohol aboard for this dry run, out” stated Jonesy smiling.

VIN smiled at his last remark, knowing to whom it was intended. First it was to Ryan, who had suddenly decided that flying would be done without a sip of something before bed. Second, it was to try and make Maggie forget her last question. He was sure that Jonesy had his stash somewhere, and there was no way VIN himself was going to share his hidden bottle of Indonesian Arrack given to him by Bob Mathews. Arrack had been the closest Bob Mathews had found to Rum, during his fishing travels in the southern hemisphere, and had one extra ingredient to the rums of the northern hemisphere: rice.

Bob had given Ryan, Jonesy, VIN and Mars Noble a bottle each from his “Sundowner Drinks” stock from aboard ship, and VIN was sure that all four bottles were hidden aboard the shuttles somewhere, as the female astronauts had not been told about the gifts. VIN, again smiled thinking that Ryan had the audacity to ban drinking aboard, but the chance was that he had his own bottle aboard somewhere. Maybe Ryan had made it a joke directed at Jonesy.

“Suzi, I honestly think my husband is going deaf,” continued Maggie once Jonesy had closed down the intercom communications.

“Going deaf? I thought he had always been deaf, he certainly acts like it,” VIN’s wife replied with him trying to keep a straight face. “My husband would certainly not break any rules. Maggie, lets watch that old Gravity movie from 2014. I quite like that actress, whatever her name was.”

The cockpit aboard SB-III had changed somewhat for this journey. Having a team of builders who could change the interior of the shuttles at a moment’s notice was certainly a benefit. The two rear jump seats had been taken out and exchanged for two more comfortable chairs that could turn into sleeper beds with straps for sleep.

Astermine One, the mining ship had an interior the size of a small mini-van inside the cockpit. SB-III was 50 percent bigger. Their luggage was stacked in the small area between the cargo bay door, which was sealed and the rear of the docking port. There were several cubic feet of hanging space and room for bags on top of a 60-day frozen food storage unit. Here was where Maggie was dying to search for Jonesy’s bottle. She would bet her whole pay check to Mars and back that it was stashed inside there somewhere. She was wrong. Both VIN and Jonesy had found new places to keep their luxuries hidden.

Their water supplies were stocked inside the wall of the ship, between the cockpit and forward cargo bay. It had once been a fuel tank, but had been changed into a water tank decades earlier.

On the opposite side of the docking port which was in front of this wall, behind the two rear seat/beds was an upright freezer where 100 days of food supplies were stored, as well as the space toilet and bag bath unit, a separate compartment in the rear corner of the starboard side of the cockpit.

There certainly hadn’t been many places a bottle could have been stored, but Maggie had forgotten that zero degree temperatures didn’t hurt alcohol, just made it less fluid.

It was a week later into the flight that Jonesy was caught with his hidden bottle, well placed at the rear of the upright freezer, and underneath hundreds of food pouches.

He was on guard and VIN, his partner had nodded off, or looked like he had nodded off in the right seat. Their wives were sound asleep, and had been for a couple of hours before he carefully undid his seat belt and metal shoes, and floated towards the freezer. He made sure that he was as silent as possible, and moved very slowly towards the rear of the cockpit. He knew the door was quiet when it was unlatched, but this time it made the smallest of squeaks and he looked around to see VIN’s eyes open and staring at him.

Jonesy put his finger to his lips and dug underneath the pouches. The food pouches had tiny metal exteriors that made them stick to each other in a magnetic environment, and carefully, and once he had his hand sliding in underneath that shelf’s pouches, he silently pulled up his bottle.

“Why don’t you offer all of us a sip over dinner tomorrow night,” suggested Maggie loudly, turned over and went back to sleep. Suzi also smiled as Maggie said her piece. It had been fun keeping their eyes on General Jones for the last week. She also looked forward to his bottle, as she would open her secret stash towards the end of the flight in a few months when the men needed a shot the most.

“SB-V to SB-III, also to all shuttles, we have something on the extreme edge of our long distance radar,” stated Kathy Richmond over the intercom about a month after Jonesy’s bottle had gone dry. They were seven weeks into the flight, had about 100 days left and were really in the middle of nowhere.

The larger shuttles had slightly more powerful radar systems, and nothing appeared on Jonesy’s monitor.

“Mine is clear,” replied Jonesy as the others came over to view the two main monitor.

“Mine two,” stated Jenny Burgos, on guard in SB-II.

“I have it visual,” stated Mars Noble from SB-IV. “Looks like an incoming asteroid, about the size of DX2017. She’s incoming from 285 degrees on our port side, 129,000 knots and really moving. Hold on, computer states that current trajectory puts it at passing us by about 3,240 miles in front of us in 17 minutes, over.”

“SB-V here, ours states 2,990 miles in 17 minutes 48 seconds, over,” added Kathy.

“I have it visual,” stated Jonesy as a pin prick of a black point entered his radar screen from the left. It was so small that it could have been taken for a piece of dust. As soon as it was picked up the shuttle’s computers analyzed its speed and direction. “My readout states about the same as SB-Vs’.”

“My readout shows 2,890 miles in 14 minutes 59 seconds,” added Jenny Burgos who was closer than any of the other shuttles to the incoming asteroid.

Jonesy did his math. The shuttles were out of view of each other 25 miles apart and all the computer readouts from all 4 shuttles showed the same information within a few percent.

“I will leave Fleet Autopilot on for another 10 minutes, over. There is no, to a slight danger. Our readouts tally, and seem accurate,” replied Chief Astronaut Jones.

Everyone watched as the speck grew slightly and rushed passed their craft 2,940 miles ahead of them. This happened at least once a week or so, and in the old mother ship, America One, the ship would have immediately, and automatically changed direction to compensate for any incoming missiles. In the shuttles, any maneuvers once the Fleet Autopilot was disengaged were done manually, and the excitement for that week headed out into space and was lost on all the radar monitors less than an hour later.

Time began to drag. Earth was now the size of a large star, and so was Mars, out of the window on the starboard side. Actually everything outside looked like a star.

The four craft, still 25 miles apart couldn’t be seen by the other craft, apart from on the radar screen. The intercom was busy every day. With nobody able to hear them in the intercom’s 200 plus mile range, the crew chatted to the other craft about everything possible to chat about.

The radio was used by each shuttle commander once every 24 hours to relay their situation back to Nevada, as well as forward to The Martian Club Retreat. Since everybody who had a radio could listen in, only the needed information was delivered towards Earth and Mars. The shuttle had a code and used it to send the information back to Nevada.

One hundred and thirty-eight days from leaving Earth, Mars was close to being dead ahead, Jonesy had been slowing the four craft on Fleet Autopilot for over a week already, and the red planet was a descent size in the windshields 600,000 miles ahead.

“Jonesy to Dave Black, Jonesy to Dave Black, do you copy, over?” Jonesy stated into the radio. His legs were back into giving him no pain, he worked out for 6 hours a day on the shuttle’s bicycle attached to the roof, and he felt fit, but tired of being in space. He had told Maggie on several occasions that this was their last flight to the red planet, and that he had had enough of space travel. She agreed with him, and both looked forward to the reentry back into Earth’s orbit in 160 days or so, and that would be that. Even VIN and Suzi had agreed in intercom communications between the shuttles, that it was time for the “OldGeners” as they were now called, to go fishing.

VIN and Jonesy had also chatted to Ryan and Kathy aboard SB-V about retirement, and the crew had noticed Ryan’s change of “staying in space” from eager to also thinking about Earth and fishing.

Igor and Boris still had zero interest in fishing and retirement. Jonesy called them space nerds, and it seemed that the two old Russians would be the only two first generation astronauts to stay in space.

“Dave Black to Jonesy, sounds like you are really close, you are so clear,” replied Dave in charge of “The Martian Club Retreat”. They didn’t use ship numbers, or base names in space. Astermine hadn’t done so since they had learned in the early days, that it was best to keep as much secret from anybody listening in, even aliens. “Dave Black to Ryan, Dave Black to Ryan, the mining robots have completed levels four and five as you asked, over.”

“Roger that Dave,” replied Ryan. “We will be leaving most of our exercise equipment with you when we return. I have three new tread mills, two exercise bikes, a rowing machine, and a stepping machine in my craft for you. Any bogeys, or storms since we last spoke seven days ago?”

Nobody wanted a storm on the planet, anywhere near the base. This whole mission would be destroyed if there was a storm during their short visit. Dave Black and the rest of the crew on Mars couldn’t tell much about any possible weather, as they didn’t have a spacecraft that could orbit the planet to check, and only could see as far as their eyes could focus inside the massive crater.

“Negative on both,” replied Dave. “The weather has been the calmest we have ever seen it over the last year. The crops are doing well in the three outside shields once we produced enough air to give them their atmospheres again. Suzi, Dr. Messer has a question for you, are you on radio?”

“Ja,” replied Suzi from SB-III. “I am here. Dr. Messer are you there?”

Dr. Messer was one of the few scientist of the first generation that had stayed on Mars. She was 8 years younger than Suzi and had been just one of the scientists until older members of the crew like Dr. Petra had passed away. Now she was Head of all Science Departments on Mars, and had been one of Suzi’s young interns since she had joined Astermine just before the Odyssey two decades earlier.

“Suzi, Messer here,” as she always called herself, and she always spoke to Suzi in German. “We are going to need two water missions during your stay. If you are leaving again in ten days, we can produce liquid hydrogen again in your absence. We currently have 1,188 gallons of drinkable water in the supplies.” Dr. Messer went on with several dozen questions, which Suzi answered one by one. “We have a problem with some of the fruit trees. I believe it has to do with the light spectrum from only one of the Blue Shields. Do you have another shield with you? I think one has changed color slightly and you might need to take it back with you.”

Ryan didn’t mind that German was spoken as he listened to the base’s chief scientist talk to Suzi for several minutes. They both had a lot to say, and Ryan could understand most of what was being said. His German was a little rusty.

At least if the enemy on Mars were listening in, they spoke Matt and might understand English, but German was certainly a foreign language to them. Joanne, Ruler Roo and their two children could speak German fluently. They had learned English, German and Russian aboard America One, with the Earth Matts on its long journeys around the solar system.

“You must show me the shield,” replied Suzi in German.

Captain Pete and the group of shield scientists working on the shields had gotten far in their research back in Nevada. They could not yet manufacture a shield, but they knew how to tune them, and set the perfect light color coordinates. “We have a shield we can replace it with, and we have enough chocolate aboard to make you sick on my famous chocolate cakes.”

“Ja Suzi,” replied Dr. Messer. “I was hoping that you would hide as much good chocolate aboard as you could. The whole crew down here cannot wait until you get cooking, shatz.”

“We have three more days, and then we too can enjoy Suzi’s wonderful cake,” added Ruler Roo from one of the ships in his fluent German.

“Ruler Roo, good to hear you voice again. Give our love to Joanne and the kids. We look forward to having you all with us again, Auf Wedersehen alle,” stated Dr. Messer as she said goodbye still in German.

“Dave Black here Ryan. Tell young Noble that his robots are doing well, and that we have designed a new one for him. It is sort of working, but we need the Noble touch to get them going. We have put together three units in his absence.”

“Copy that Dave,” replied Mars Noble in SB-IV. “I have a few new parts from home base that will blow you away, over.”

“Ryan, the crew were asking why we are making so much room down here on levels four and five, and why the corridors are so wide, over.”

“We are designing the base to be like our new mother ship,” replied Ryan. “The corridors will have a walkway, a bike path, and a jogging lane, just like you will see on our visit in two years’ time. Dave ever been to Las Vegas?”

“Sure, decades ago when I was a kid, and a couple of years before I joined Astermine. I remember staying at the Bellagio with my parents,” Dave responded.

“I went with several of the crew to Vegas just before we left,” continued Ryan. “The place was totally run down. You know I grew up in the area. What hit me straight between the eyes, was how people had adapted to a weak economy and had changed the buildings to make it easier to live in them. Can you remember a shopping mall, and what they looked like inside?”

“I think so,” replied Dave Black. “I didn’t need to be in Las Vegas to see a shopping mall. They were massive inside shopping centers. Hundreds of stores large and small, and half a century ago everybody in the States went to the mall. Ryan they are on every other movie we watch down here. Remember, our movies are all from that era.”

“Sorry Dave, I forgot about the movies. Of course you know what a Mall is. Well, the people back on earth now live in the malls.”

“Why?” asked Dave with the rest of The Martian Club Retreat listening in on the PA system.

“It seems that as time went by while we were in space, shops and nearly everything closed down in the States. Even the Vegas Strip became a ghost town. The shops closed up and went out of business in the Malls. Even Walmart and Costco disappeared, times were so bad. These malls had everything people needed to move into them. The small shops became apartments. The larger stores were sub-divided and dozens of families lived together protected by their numbers. Funny, a few stores stayed, and even got resupplied. There was a massive mall in south Las Vegas where I visited a few weeks after I arrived. Dave, you wouldn’t believe it but 25,000 people now live in that Mall.”

“It must have been a big mall.” replied Dave.

“Yes, one of the biggest in the country. I remember it being built just before we left on the odyssey nearly three decades ago. This mall has the most perfect living conditions, conditions I want built into the Mars base, and you won’t believe what I found aboard our new mother ship?”

“We will have two mother ships, right?”

“Affirmative, two trading vessels, Dave, but what I saw onboard our new ship was the exact same style living conditions that I saw in that Mall in Vegas. Wide corridors. Different lanes in the corridors for walking, biking and jogging. The mall in Vegas is totally its own entity in living conditions. It has a food court, a shoe store, clothing store, and food market. The rest of the old shops are apartments, and everyone gets around the inside corridors by bike, skate boards, or walked. Even the outside parking bays for cars have been built up and been joined to the inner corridors. If I hadn’t seen the way the Mall has transformed into a perfect living environment, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“So, we here are going to life exactly the same way? That is your idea?” Dave asked.

“Yes,” replied Ryan. “The new way the people on earth are living, co-habituating in malls is the exact way we are going to live aboard our mother ships, and where you are. It will make us Homo sapiens feel more like we are at home when we travel.”

“OK,” replied Dave not yet seeing Ryan’s vision.

The long conversation ended as many of crew on both ends were trying to work out why this was so important.

To Ryan, it was easy, and seeing the way the people lived in the old mall, made him realize what had gone wrong on the first mother ship as well as on the Martian planet itself. The living quarters had not been optimized to a perfect level for habitation by humans.

Nobody really thought it that important, but Ryan wanted perfection before he retired from space travel, and he believed he had found the way. People living on Mars, or in the trading ships would live in the exact same conditions that they would be used to on earth. He even wanted to build a massive new mall on the Nevada base.

Chapter 6

Lots of Gold

“Disabling Fleet Autopilot,” stated Jonesy three days later and 250 miles above the Martian surface. They had activated all the shields in case they were attacked on arrival, and one by one the commanders took over the controls of their craft for the first time since leaving earth orbit. “SB-IV prepare for transfer of fuel to SB-II Maggie our excess fuel to SB-V, and the exchange of personnel.”

Only two of the ships were heading down to the surface. The two orbiting shuttles, full of fuel for the return flight and the extra fuel for the other two shuttles in their rear cargo bays would stay in orbit as protection. As usual there would always be one shuttle orbiting above the base on Mars at a time.

The ships heading down were to enter the Martian atmosphere with enough fuel to fetch water, and then head to where the gold was situated.

As the ships were launched to head back up with gold, they would be refueled in orbit as the gold was moved aboard to fill the forward cargo bays.

Four large nets had been brought with them, and the nets left outside in space would hold the balance of the gold until the second two ships took their fuel back for the return flight and leave enough room in the cargo bays to load the nets of gold. Sometimes working in zero gravity conditions had its benefits.

Also, the crew would take turns heading up and down to give everybody a few days at the base before heading back to earth.

“I remember teaching you as a student pilot on one of the water runs,” stated Jonesy to Lunar as they flew SB-III to the water lake down deep in the crater.

“Yes, it was the only time some of us ever flew a real first flight,” returned Lunar in the copilot’s seat.

“I flew three water flights during training as well,” added Mars Noble who was sitting in one of the rear chairs and next to his father VIN.

“I learned much of my flying when Jonesy was bored in the Astermine flights to DX2014,” stated VIN. “I reckon I flew most of those legs.”

“Except takeoff and landings,” admonished Jonesy.

“I did everything flyable on the second trip,” stated VIN. It all seemed so long ago and everybody needed to remind each other what had actually happened. “Remember the time you couldn’t get Astermine I off the asteroid, Jonesy? I honestly thought we were going to die that day.”

“Jonesy to Maggie,” how is the weather looking up there, darling?’ continued Jonesy speaking to his wife who was now orbital Flight Commander in SB-V, 250 miles above them.

“Still a nice hot day with low clouds, and a slight chance of rain,” mimicked Maggie copying a weather announcer down on earth.

“Cut the crap lady, give me a weather report,” joked Jonesy as he took the shuttle in to, and down into the depths of the crater.

“This is “cut the crap lady” giving you the latest weather report to friends and foe alike. It hasn’t changed since you last asked an hour ago Mr. Jones! What do you expect a minute by minute report. If it changes I’ll let you know, so do your job and shut up. Love from “cut the crap lady”, out.”

VIN smiled, as did the others listening in. Maggie hadn’t taken Jonesy’s mouth since they had been married, and there always seemed an open conflict of words between her, and also Saturn when she got into the fray. It seemed that the Jones family thrived on their continuing conflict of words.

As usual the flat red area where the water was hadn’t changed. Jonesy used his thrusters and cleared the couple of inches of red dust off the surface and landed on the same piece of ice everyone had done many times.

Mars Noble was in a hurry. He really wanted to get back to the tunnels and to show a few others what he had found, but two water missions had to be completed first.

The two shuttles had landed first at the base, where the crew was to have a free day before beginning the water collection.

The Martian Club Retreat was as Mars Noble had left it years earlier. Dave Black’s hair had gone white. Two of the occupants had died of natural deaths. They had joined Jonesy’s mother and father in the outside graveyard, which would one day become nearly as famous as Arlington.

Overall, the Mars crew were thin and very pasty looking compared to the crew he had left back in Nevada. For the first time since Astermine had first achieved space travel, the returning astronauts could see what differences living on both planets did to the human body.

They had seen the slight changes over time on their own return flight to Mars. They had launched, the crew were tanned, fit and muscular. They had then looked as healthy as any Homo sapiens living on Earth.

The tans faded after a week to ten days, the skin color reverted back to normal, and during the third and fourth weeks aboard the shuttles, their skin color became pale and sallow.

Their muscles, even though they trained four to six hours a day slowly decreased in shape and size. The lack of gravity was the cause of this change. Again a month after leaving earth’s orbit, the entire crew had lost any additional muscular shape they had made on Earth, and everybody was thin, scrawny, and most even looked like they had the same build.

On Mars, the crew were even thinner and paler than the returning crewmembers. Dave Black was as tall as Jonesy, over six feet, but weighed in at 145 pounds. Jonesy was checked over when he reached the base, and his weight was 165 pounds. VIN, and even Ryan weighed in at much the same weight, and the difference in weight between the Mars crew and the returning crew was put down to diet, namely luxuries brought from Earth.

And there were luxuries aplenty for Dr. Messer, Dave and the Mars crew. Items were brought out from hideaways from every member of the flight crew.

Naturally Suzi had the most chocolate, even though the cocoa plants at the retreat were healthy and doing well. She and her new helper, Max Von Braun expertly cooked up a dozen of her famous chocolate cakes for everyone, and the reserves of beer and wine produced on the planet were given out in a celebration of Ruler Roo returning to lead his people.

Suzi had begun to consider Max Von Braun very special, once she had realized that her son owed his life to this brave man.

Life was a day of fun and celebrations on the first day, a rest day, for the crew on the planet. Ruler Roo was ceremoniously given the control of The Martian Club Retreat. The two craft had landed under the blue shields, which connected directly to the base, and after Ruler Roo was given the title, Mars Noble proudly showed his father his growing army of robotic troops.

Like they did when young Mars Noble was a little boy, VIN and Mars spacesuited up walked with his son around the plateau.

“There is the Rover over there, Dad,” stated Mars to his father pointing to what seemed a small hill of dust about 100 yards away from the edge of the plateau. “Opportunity has moved since I last saw it. I’m sure the strong storms lift up the Rover and move it.”

“I wonder if NASA, or whoever built Opportunity wants it back,” replied VIN thinking.

“Maybe we should take the machine back to Earth, I’m sure somebody wants to look it over. We have enough room in the larger shuttles,” replied Mars.

“Well, we have the last coordinates for Rover Curiosity as well,” added VIN. “I remember I checked out the coordinates and it was on the opposite side of the planet. I’m sure I can get Ryan to give us permission to do a low level planet orbital check before we leave, and we could pick up that Rover as well, if it is still in its last recorded position.”

“Well, we have enough gas,” replied Mars, “as long as we leave a day early, and I think that looking for the storm that mysteriously disappeared has some importance, but first, on Day Four, I want to show you that tunnel I found.

Jonesy landed SB-III first on the ice shield, and SB-IV came in a few minutes later, once the dust had cleared.

Time was the essence on this trip. The first day was the only day of rest before the shuttles left. It was with much gratitude that the base was found without a storm. Somebody had been listening to many prayers on the way over, as the Martian Club Retreat had been easily seen by the cameras on the first orbit.

Throughout the 3 orbits before landing, nobody had seen a storm on the red planet. It seemed that the storm, or storms that had plagued them before had just disappeared. The Martian atmosphere looked still and clear all the way round.

As soon as the thrusters were powered down, the several crewmembers fitted into SB-III’s forward cargo bay in spacesuits were hoisted out by Mars through the cargo bay roof doors. By the time SB-IV landed all seven of the crew had opened a clear area on the water and were using the long-armed buckets to fill the first canister.

Half a dozen more crew members exited the second shuttle the same way and carried canisters to the water’s edge to begin filling them. They had 15 hours before they needed to lift off, and they were all to work three hours on and three hours off to let the suits recharge.

SB-IV had a second shift of six more crewmembers in her rear cargo bay who would continue filling the aluminum canisters while the first crew rested.

Ryan had reckoned that they could fill at least 3,000 gallons of water on each trip to the watering hole, and 5,000 gallons was the minimum he wanted to transfer.

The work wasn’t that hard in the low Martian gravity, but it took teamwork to fill the 60 canisters they had brought. Sixty canisters if filled could hold 6,000 gallons, or one hundred gallons per canister. It took three men about an hour to fill a canister, and the canisters first had to be lifted out of the shuttle’s open cargo roof doors with a crane, each canister carried over to the where the filling was taking placed, stood upright, the hole in the top opened, filled, sealed and then it took four men to carry them back to the ship. This time they were singularly hoisted up by the crane into the cargo holds.

The crew worked hard and rested hard for the time they had between taking the suits off and putting them back on again. The remaining astronauts always ready in the cockpits, one in each, listened to the weather reports from above, any messages, and timed the outside crew. After two shifts, they had their turn outside.

Jonesy worked hard with VIN and Mars Noble. The crew could work fast, but they needed to make sure that no accidents happened. A ripped spacesuit, or collision of crew or ship could mean death if they weren’t carried into a shuttle fast enough. Two of Dr. Nancy’s medical crew worked outside, and were always ready to take over if a crewmember was injured.

On the first flight, they lifted off 24 hours later with approximately 3,900 gallons, or 39 filled canisters.

On the second flight three hours after the water had been unloaded in one of the blue shields, some of the tired crew as well as some fresh crewmembers headed back. This time it would be easier as they only had 25 more canisters to unload, more canisters were waiting for them at the site.

Again Maggie, or Jenny Burgos in SB-II gave the water detail a weather report every hour until since nothing had changed, they downgraded the reports to every orbit.

For Mars, the weather was as perfect as it would ever be. The temperature outside the hard working suits crept up to above freezing on both days. On the second day it actually reached 35 degrees Fahrenheit on VIN’s suit readings. The sun was bright for the red plant, the atmosphere clear and there was no movement of lazy dust around them.

Again they lifted off for the second and last time or that mission with 41 canisters filled, a record for the crew.

As Jonesy flew back to the base with Saturn behind in SB-IV, he surveyed the landscape while the rest of the crew slept. The yellow, brown and red surface never changed. He began to see the peaks and valleys where water had once flowed millions of years earlier. Even the storms didn’t change the topography that much. VIN Noble was nodding off in the copilot’s seat. He had worked hard, and Jonesy let him sleep.

The second load was taken off by the base crew while the men and women who had worked so hard had twelve hours to rest. The next mission, the one Mars Noble was waiting for was in the opposite direction, and twenty minutes closer flying time than the water.

Once Mars Noble was rested, he headed up to the command center where Dave Black was showing Max Von Braun the ropes of base command. From the command center Mars got his robotic guards active, and four of them headed out to the coordinates programed to them. Mars’ could see with their cameras, and the four robots easily picked up the broken remains of Rover Opportunity and carried it back to the plateau. The other Rover wouldn’t be so easy to save as it was on the other side of the planet, nearly 5,000 miles away.

The crew rested while the base’s crew readied the two shuttles for the flight to the tunnels.

Working inside the blue shields was much easier than with spacesuits in the Martian atmosphere. The shields were connected to each other by overlapping, and also connected to the underground base overlapping the “Porch”, the remains of the outer room built with the silicone glass panels when they had first arrived.

With a perfect atmosphere, the crew could work without spacesuits in the shields, whether it was gardening the vegetable patches, or loading or unloading cargo. The temperature was kept constant with heaters inside each shield that kept the growing of greens at optimal temperature, even when the Martian nights got as cold as minus 120 degrees during the planet’s winter solstice.

Over time, and with the idea of the railway tracks found in the Matt tunnel, the same railway type of tracks had been built by the build crew to convey cargo to and from the three blue shields. The train wasn’t very fancy, and they used the same two-carriage train Mars had built for his first foray down the tunnel. This train could carry two full canisters of water at a time. It ran in one side and out the other end’s emergency doors right into the tunnel leading into the base, and into the upper level of the underground section of the base.

The biologists used the train all the time to move produce in and out of the Retreat. The railway was close to where each shuttle parked, and the cargo bays could be filled or emptied pretty quickly. The train was stationed inside the “Porch” when it wasn’t needed.

If the base was attacked, the whole base could be shut down from the outer atmosphere of Mars within minutes, once base command sucked the air from the three shields through pipes into six large tanks inside the base. This process had been refined down to a couple of minutes as the shields were retracted at the same time.

The train was lifted into the forward cargo hold of SB-IV. The larger shuttle’s crane was better at moving larger cargo. On earth, each of the two carriages of the train would have weighed about 500 pounds. On the red planet, they weighed only 65 pounds.

Once the train was in, two of the mining robots were lifted in. These robots would use their lasers to cut up the gold into small pieces a foot cubed, which could be placed into the nets brought from earth, Each of the ten nets laid flat were 15 feet square, and could hold 50 to 60 of these square gold blocks.

Mars Noble was taking three of his robotic soldiers. They also had lasers and had been programed to cut the solid gold river into blocks. The soldiers weren’t as accurate at short range as the miners were, and these blocks would be lifted into the cargo holds individually. The soldiers were lifted into the shuttle’s cargo hold as the astronauts and crew going mining exited the “Porch”.

They were wearing spacesuits in the “off” mode and had their helmets in their hand. Even though the cutting was to be done by the robots, somebody had to get the pieces into the shuttles’ holds. Twenty-eight of the crew plus eight astronauts were going with them and were to squeeze into the two shuttles.

SB-III was going to be loaded with the gold metal first, and then its squashed crew of eight would launch into orbit to relieve the crew in the two shuttles. Then its job was to launch each day and fill up the cargo holds and nets 250 miles above them.

“Feel like we are going for the gold,” joked VIN as he took the copilot’s seat next to Jonesy. They both would be heading up with the first load, and taking over to fly the two orbiting shuttles with the Burgos sisters. Maggie and the rest of the astronauts would return in SB-III, first to the base where Lunar Richmond would take the shuttle back to the tunnels for reloading.

The two shuttles slowly lifted out of the blue shields, and in the best sunlight the sun could offer on Mars headed towards the gold location. En route they passed Lookout Peak, and then the wreck that had injured Mars and claimed the life of Johnny Walls. Max Von Braun, over the intercom, detailed the story as both craft hovered a couple of hundred feet over the wreck as not to cause a dust cloud. Mars looked at the wreck of the Matt ship he had flown through the shuttle’s camera and found no foot prints at all. The dust had covered any signs of movement, and the craft was already half filled of the ever present red dust.

“Looks just like we left it,” stated Mars Noble ten minutes later looking out at the three round tunnel exits staring at them half a mile away.

“This enemy camp is not that far from our base, certainly not as far as the water, and I can see the three tunnel exits,” stated Ryan.

“Looks the same” agreed Saturn taking their shuttle into land first. Jonesy had stopped atop Lookout Peak” the plateau they had often used incase SB-IV was attacked.

Saturn landed her shuttle in exactly the same place she had done a few years earlier, and it seemed that they had never left, except the ooze had changed from a dull yellow to more of an orange color.

“No change in the weather since our last orbit,” stated Maggie in orbit.

“Since you are back up there Maggie” replied Jonesy “I’ll head in. Keep your radar peeled for movement, especially at low altitude.”

“Roger that Astronaut Commander,” replied his wife sarcastically.

Saturn smiled as her mother’s sarcasm clearly came through the intercom communications.

“Don’t they ever stop?” asked Ryan.

“I don’t know Commander, you slept with them for 14 years inside DX2017, you should know,” she replied turning down her thrusters to idle.

“It must have been really noisy in their cryogenic bed,” added Mars.

Jonesy landed next to SB-IV 10 minutes later and Mars Noble, commander for this mission ordered the thrusters to close down. Everybody kept their eyes glued to the radar monitors for at least five minutes after the engines had ceased. Nothing moved.

“I think it safe to screw on helmets,” Mars Noble stated into the intercom. “First group to exit both shuttles. Meet up point in front of the middle tunnel exit before we unload cargo, over.”

Thirty minutes later the first 12 astronauts stood together on top of the ooze, and looked back at the two shuttles staring at them. It was certainly a pretty site.

Sometimes the landscape reminded Mars Noble of Nevada, when the weak sun didn’t turn the surface its usual reddish color. Sometimes both deserts looked the same, but there were always tiny bits of green growth on the bare floor and hills of the Nevada desert.

“I suggest you taller guys do not head inside the tunnel further than the entrances, or you will get back ache,” stated Mars. “The real tall people should unload the cargo bays while we shorter people check out the inside of the tunnels for fresh footprints.”

Mars headed into the tunnel with Ryan and Max Von Braun. Carefully he headed down the first tunnel he and Johnny Walls had checked out. The floor where the dust lay was scrutinized carefully. Their old footprints had been filled with fresh dust.

The railway tracks appeared out of the dust about a hundred feet passed the second hole, and so did the old footprints appear. Mars Noble saw that only he and Johnny had walked down this area.

“No new prints,” Mars stated into his suit’s intercom. “I think it’s time to head back and see if the carriages are unloaded. Any suggestions on who is coming with me?”

“I think the boss should see what you have seen, first,” stated Max. “He is shorter than I.”

“I think that is a good idea,” added Ryan. They headed back over to the first exit and scared many of the astronauts working outside. The two carriages had been unloaded, and were being carried to the first hole.

Within 15 minutes they were inside the tunnel, and the crew had them on the tracks.

“I lay flat in the first carriage on my stomach, you lay flat on the second carriage,” instructed Mars Noble to Ryan. They were each helped to lay down flat. “The first part of the trip will take about 15 minutes to the fork where two tunnels head out. From there we walk, and boss, it is only five feet high all the way, so don’t wear your helmet out on the roof. Boss, when I say accelerate, light the thruster to idle only. Anymore and we will hit the speed of sound. When I say brake, increase the pressure on the brake pedal slightly.”

VIN handed his son a laser pistol, and the hammer they had brought from earth. The hammer was affixed to a handle three feet long and the hammer on earth weighed ten pounds. Here on the red planet it weighed a pound and a half.

Very few words were said as the carriages was gently pushed forward to give them momentum. Then the rear thruster was lit, and on idle easily pushed them down into the tunnel.

The train gradually increased speed as it reached the steeper downhill stretch Mars remembered from the first journey. He asked Ryan to turn off the thruster, they wouldn’t need it for this downward stretch to the fork.

He remembered the tunnel vividly. He had often dreamed about his flight down the tunnel. It was so clean. The walls had been blasted and left totally smooth. So smooth that they felt as smooth as metal, and he wondered of the Matts had made them that smooth. It would have taken pretty sophisticated machinery to make the tunnel so perfect.

The light he shone ahead moved along the walls faster and faster, until he ordered Ryan to apply brake pressure. Ryan didn’t apply it hard enough and the fork in the tunnel rapidly came up to meet them. Mars shouted at Ryan to hit the brakes hard, and he felt the wheels lock up underneath him.

The carriages slowed and they stopped ten feet passed the fork.

“Where does this one go?” Ryan asked as he began to lift himself of his ride.

“Straight into the hole that Michael Pitt blew up when he demolished this part of their base,” Mars replied. “If the brakes had failed, we would be exiting the shaft about now at full speed and would have a fifty to sixty-foot drop to the ground below.”

“Well, with the lessor gravity, we should survive the fall?” Ryan suggested.

“You can try it boss, I’ll watch you from here,” remarked Mars jokingly.

He grabbed onto the hammer hard and passed the laser to Ryan. Then he backtracked to the fork and with his helmet light on full power, headed up the tunnel to where he knew the water in the river, and glass panels had been.

Nothing had changed. The tunnel led through the sections that had been blasted black. Then the gold layering returned to the tunnel and he helped Ryan through the hole in the wall where a door had once stood. As he had seen on his first visit, the door had been half ripped off its hinges, and its silver shape could be seen melted into the wall lining.

A hundred steps further on another half-ripped open wall appeared in his light, they climbed through the second hole, which was slightly smaller than the first hole, and then Mars saw part of the tunnel he hadn’t seen on his first visit.

He and Johnny must have both missed the continuance of their tunnel. It was very black and Mars realized that this was the hole the blast had come through, as the next wall would be the solid see-through wall.

Mars stopped Ryan and he gingerly shone his light down the tunnel. There seemed to be a light at the end, but Mars first wanted to show the see-through wall to show Ryan. He wanted to see if the tree was there.

As expected, he reached the see-though wall that sealed him off from where the bodies in blue suits were.

“Time from start is 27 minutes,” stated Mars looking at his suit’s readouts. “Temperature has risen to one degree above zero Celsius, and there seems to be lesser radioactivity around us, as Johnny and I had before. My suit’s Geiger counter is not rising.

Mars checked for the tree. Yes, it was there. He had thought he had seen a tree, a very old tree, and it was there, small withered, but it still had a few green leaves on it.

“So there is a tree?” asked Ryan looking through the wall and seeing the tree.

“As before I count seven skeletons in blue suits, and without helmets,” continued Mars. “And there is the small river, which Johnny and I believe is running water. Why, because the bodies don’t have helmets, and we know that the Matt suits can’t handle space conditions, so there must be an atmosphere in there.”

“I can’t believe it,” replied Ryan. Then he inspected the see-through wall. “I bet this is silicone glass, much like we made for the porch.”

“Johnny and I had to return at this time,” stated Mars remembering his last visit. “We ran out of time, but you and I have been quicker, and still have time.”

“Your hammer is not going to go through that silicone glass wall. I believe the laser will fry us and the wall if we try to use it to open the wall, so I reckon we need to get in through that door in the rear of this room, or whatever it is,” suggested Ryan.

“Yes, we saw that door the last time,” replied Mars. “I bet that this tunnel will lead us to that door. We have time, plus the 30 minutes I know it will take us to get back so I think 20 to 25 minutes will be safe boss.”

The two men continued down the tunnel to the light, and carefully helped each other through another blasted metal wall. Here, the Geiger counter began to vibrate telling Mars of heavier radiation once they had both passed through.

Mars shone his light and continued. As usual it was only five feet high and he had to bend over to progress.

“My back is beginning to really hurt,” stated Ryan behind him.

“Mine two” added Mars “but I’ve found the door, or what looks like a flattened door where the rear entrance should be. I want to check to see where this tunnel leads to. I can see light at the end and bet it goes into the blast hole the forward tunnel leads to.”

He was right, seventy feet later the same massive cavern well over a hundred feet across and 50 to 60 feet deep opened out from the same hole in the roof, and his helmet light as he shone it around.

“This must have been their space port, or power setup,” suggested Mars. “I’m sure the cold fusion explosion, or whatever was in here, was the explosion Michael Pitt described in his reports.”

“I believe you are spot on young Noble,” Ryan replied. “I am starting to feel like Indiana Jones on his travels, and my back really needs a rest.”

They headed back to where the rear door was, and Mars found it to have the usual Matt door panel in the wall by the side of the door. It was blue, which meant there as power somewhere, but it wouldn’t open, there wasn’t atmosphere both sides.

Ryan sat down on the floor to rest his back and suggested to Mars to try the panel. It didn’t work. Mars sat down also to rest and looked at his readout. It was close to time to go back anyway.

It took them 30 minutes, not 40 minutes like the first time with Johnny Walls, to reach the others who already had the robots out and who were cutting through the yellow metal. The red dust had been cleared and the dull gold could be seen in the diming light of the sun.

The day was over, the robots could work 24/7 and it was time for the crew to return to the shuttles. Everybody wanted to know what Indiana Jones and his sidekick had seen.

The intercom was well used that night in all directions. Maggie listened to Ryan’s tale high above in orbit, and the whole of The Martian Club Retreat listened in as Ryan’s communication was fed through the base’s PA system.

“A better base than here?” suggested Dave black from the retreat.

“What do you mean?’ Ryan asked.

“Well, if they have running water, we won’t have to ever fly to our oasis to fetch water ever again,” Dave replied.

“But we don’t know if these guys are still on the planet, and they won’t take lightly to us taking over their base,” replied Ryan.

“They don’t take lightly to us being here in the first place,” added Jonesy.

“So, we might as well move in, and add running water to our base luxuries,” stated VIN Noble, this time in SB-IV with Mars and Saturn for the night.

The idea was discussed at length and Ryan told his crew that he would make a decision once he and Mars had inspected what was left of the base. It certainly wasn’t a strong structure after the massive explosion nearly 2 decades earlier.

The night passed slowly for Ryan and Mars Noble. Vivid flash backs of the skeletons of the Matts blended in to both their dreams and thoughts, and slowly a new Martian day loomed over the horizon.

Before they could head down the tunnel again, the blocks of gold had to be carried into the cargo hold of SB-III so Lunar could fly her into orbit. The robots had done well during the night and there were over 20 large slabs that needed to be hoisted up and through the roof doors of the forward cargo bay. These large slabs would have weighed 400 to 600 pounds on Earth, but with the much lower gravity on Mars, two astronauts still had to struggle to move the heavy slabs still weighing up to a hundred pounds apiece on.

The first three hour shift was used to move the cut up gold while the mining robots added more to be loaded. The second spacewalk shift four hours after they had returned to the shuttles caught up with the speed of the robots and it was decided that SB-III leave with one and a half cargo bays full of the dull yellow metal.

A tally was made, and Max Von Braun told the others that he reckoned that the shuttle was heading up with over 3 Martian tons of the gold, its maximum weight.

Ryan didn’t even want to work out what this was worth on Earth. That was the least important fact. More importantly he wanted to get down the tunnel again.

Both men had to wait another night as dusk was fast on Mars and as Lunar took off layering the mining robots with dust, the sun set over the horizon and the temperature plummeted from plus 5 degrees Celsius to minus 30 degrees in the first hour alone.

The stars came out, white and bright and the crew could see SB-III go overhead on its first orbit 70 miles above them and speeding over the black sky lit up from the sun at 11,000 knots.

Aboard SB-III the cockpit was squashed as usual. The two astronauts had the best places in their flight seats. The two jump seats had two crewmembers each perched on them, and the other two sat on the small floor space between the seats. The door to the cargo bay was sealed as the gold was still dangerous to the astronauts. They couldn’t wear their spacesuit helmets, and had their suits on recharge while they sat in the cockpit.

Over time, Ryan’s scientists had bettered the spacesuits and these 8 suits the crew were wearing were the thinnest suits to date. It was only the second suit design which allowed the wearer to actually feel comfortable while wearing them.

Early the next morning, again the first shift was to carry the cut gold blocks to where the crane could hoist them into the larger shuttle. The smaller crew worked hard and managed to move all the robots had cut up before their three-hour shift ended. Now Ryan and Mars, after a four hour break could head back down the tunnel.

“How are you going to get in?” Max asked Mars in SB-IV during the rest period. Over sachets of scrambled eggs laced with vitamins, and green vegetables, they discussed how to open the door with less damage.

“Do you have a crowbar handy?” Mars asked the build crew leader jokingly.

“No, but we could do VIN’s old trick of holding a helmet full of air to the outside panel. It has worked before.” Max replied.

“How are we going to keep the atmosphere in the cavern once we open the door, Max?” asked Ryan.

“I think one of us enters through the tricked-open door, the door will immediately close once it realizes that air is escaping. If there is leakage, which we know will happen, the other person outside will see a puddle of air on the roof, depending on which is heavier, the Martian atmosphere or the internal atmosphere. Mars, I think you should go in with a video and the laser. You said it was lit up in there, so you should be able to record whatever you see.”

“With our last timed movements in and out, I will have about 20 minutes in there,” Mars added looking at Max.

“Mind the space sharks,” quipped Saturn from her flight seat.

“Of course, I’ll finally get to bring one back for Jonesy,” Mars replied smiling at his wife. “I’ll make sure it is still alive and get you to look after it.”

“I can time you from outside,” Ryan added.

Finally, and after two days of waiting, that afternoon they set up the two carriage train, and headed down the tunnel.

At the same time, Jonesy was jetpacking the fifty feet over to SB-V with a cord to get a hug from Maggie as the crew prepared to unload the gold.

This time the gold weighed nothing, and one net at a time, with two astronauts in control, was jetpacked from the one shuttle to the other along the tight cord. Compared to the hard work down on the planet, it took just two hours to move the treasure into SB-V’s forward cargo hold. Jonesy was quite surprised how much bigger the larger shuttle’s cargo bay actually was. SB-V’s forward cargo bay was a third full with the first load.

“We have two more loads of gold to bring up to fill up this cargo bay,” Jonesy muttered to Mark Price, his jetpack assistant. “I’m glad Bob Mathews didn’t bring the Dead Chicken on this mission to fill up. We would be here for eternity.”

“It is so beautiful out here,” Mark replied. “I can now see why you and VIN used to just sit out here and watch the stars go by.”

“I suppose,” replied Jonesy. “That was so long ago, but I think I’ll continue our hobby on my last space flight home. Thanks for reminding me, and I’ll remember to invite you. Ever heard of space sharks?”

“Yes, Commander Jones. I had heard of your stories long before I met you,” laughed Mark into his breather. “Your stories used to scare the living daylights out of my wife when she was a few years old. Thanks to your stories, she isn’t as keen on spacewalking as the others are.”

“Well the space shark didn’t scare Saturn or Pluto Katherine,” remarked Jonesy propelling himself out of the hold with the empty net to refill it.

“I don’t think anything could scare those two girls,” was the reply from Mark.

Chapter 7

Mars Underground

Mars and Ryan whizzed down the tracks much faster than before. There was urgency in this journey, and Ryan hit the brakes perfectly when Mars ordered him to do so.

They left the carriages after turning each one around, readying their getaway in case something, or someone followed them. The rear thruster had more than enough speed to push them back up the tunnel at speeds faster than a human could run.

They headed immediately to the silicone glass wall to make sure nothing had changed in the interior cavern. Nothing was amiss. Then they found the back door, as Mars called the metal door with the panel.

“Sometimes I hate wearing these suits,” stated Mars. “We can’t hear anything out of them, our vision is stunted to forward sight only. At times like this I would love to hear what is going on around us, and see through the sides of my eyes.”

“I understand, I felt the same when I spacewalked during the odyssey,” replied Ryan. “I expected space sharks to come out of everywhere when I was out spacewalking. Mars, if you took off your helmet right now, you still wouldn’t hear anything. There is no atmosphere to hear anything through. That Mr. Jones certainly started something with his space shark stories. I reckon that he has made the first Martian fairy tale that could be told to our next generations. Now let us get you in there and see what is new on this planet.”

Mars’ adrenalin was soaring when he filled the helmet with a bubble of air from the small emergency air tank Ryan was holding. He handed the full helmet to Ryan who placed it around the panel a second after Mars pushed the panel with his hand. Mars was standing in front of the door, and felt like he would be swept over by a massive bubble of air. It attacked him as if it was escaping from an air tank.

“Get in there quick,” stated Ryan and helped Mars through the rushing air of the open door. The atmosphere was escaping and as he entered, the door closed immediately Ryan pulled the helmet away.

Mars stood up for the first time in an hour. The cavern was larger and higher than the tunnel, and he took his bearings as the air stilled around him.

“Can you hear me, Ryan?” Mars asked.

“Very faintly,” Mars just heard Ryan’s reply. It was very faint, and Ryan sounded like he was a hundred yards away.

“That you Mars? What are you doing on the intercom?” asked a surprised sounding Jonesy 250 miles above him.

“Yeah, I can hear you as if you are sitting right next to me here in SB-IV,” added Saturn from the shuttle outside the tunnels. Mars nearly fell over with surprise.

“How come you can hear me, Saturn, Jonesy?” Mars asked totally shocked.

“I don’t know,” replied Jonesy first. “What has changed?”

“It sounds like you are sitting next to me with your helmet on,” added Saturn.

Mars looked around. The chamber reminded him of the chambers on DX2017, about the same size. It was light inside the chamber and the walls glowed pink, which reminded him to look at his suit’s external readouts. What he saw around him really surprised him.

“I’m in the chamber I told you guys about, the one with the old tree and running water. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

“What are you seeing?” asked Saturn.

“Describe exactly what you see,” stated Jonesy.

“Mars, can you hear me? Who are you talking to?” asked Ryan faintly.

“Ryan, I can hear Jonesy and Saturn clearly. I can hardly hear you. I think I’ll look around and then we must figure a way out, or we could lose all the atmosphere in here. But, first let me tell you my readouts. Oxygen: perfect. Carbon Dioxide: low. Nitrogen: low. Helium: very high, at the borderline of dangerous. Temperature: I can’t believe it, around 56 degrees Fahrenheit, or 13 degrees Celsius. Air pressure: low but I could just about survive taking off my helmet. It might have had prefect air pressure in here if we hadn’t opened the door and let the air out.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” ordered Ryan faintly.

“Ryan, give me a few minutes,” continued Mars Noble suddenly excited. “I want to look at the river and the tree. Dad, where are you?”

“Mars, Jonesy and I are heading back down from SB-V,” VIN replied. “I can’t figure out why we can hear you from inside that tunnel.”

“Dad, you remember the Matt bases you checked out around the solar system?” Mars asked.

“Yes. By what you have described, it sounds like your readouts are similar to what I found,” VIN replied.

“I have light, the base has power. I see what looks like a see-through door about ten feet to the side of the back door to the exploded cavern. The door to the globe room has a red colored panel on one side of the door. How do I open it?”

“Push the panel with your glove. If that doesn’t work, place your left hand over it. You will have to remove your glove. Your hand should be safe. If not you need to use your eyeball. What is your radiation readout?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t even show any. Maybe my radiation sensor is broken?” Mars replied. Everybody else kept quiet and listened.

“Can’t be, or all your readouts would be dead,” responded VIN. “The lack of radiation was something I was surprised at visiting DX2017 for the first time. I also thought my readout was broken. There was zero radiation in the asteroid, but the bases on the planets showed higher than normal radiation levels. I think the Matts have a system that cleans the air more thoroughly.”

“Copy that, Dad,” replied Mars.

Before he moved, his instincts made him want to look around the cavern. He had been in DX2017 twice. Once to send the OldGeners to sleep, and the second time to pick them up. All the doors had already been open on both visits. This cavern made him feel like he was in the upper cavern on the asteroid. It was laid out exactly the same way. The light was the same. There were what looked like doors control panels in exactly the same places. And it was empty apart for the several blue suited skeletons, the old withered tree which stood as high as the roof, and the one-foot wide river of clear liquid that ran slowly past the tree. The water looked a few inches deep, and it looked like the floor of the base had been built around the trickle. The floor was an inch or two higher than the river, and the river ran through natural rock, not the metal floor material. Then he saw a second door about ten feet away from the door he had fallen through.

“Ryan, I’ve found another door closer to the blasted cavern. Going to the door now Ryan. It looks like you need to continue down the tunnel about ten feet. The door is in the wall at a 90 degree angle to you, so it looks like you need to turn a left hand corner before you will see it.”

“Copy that Mars, moving now. The tunnel is getting lighter. I see no door. Wait. I have turned a corner into a ten-foot long tunnel, and reached what look like a door in DX2017. Like yours it has a security panel, and it is blue again.”

“Mars, you have 107 minutes before the end of your 180 minute spacewalk session,” stated his wife as clearly as if he was sitting in the copilot’s seat next to her.

Mars acknowledged her. “I can’t figure out why they would have two doors if the Matts can’t survive out of a livable atmosphere?” Mars stated loudly to the others. “I know, the whole tunnel had atmosphere, and Michael Pitt destroyed the atmosphere in the tunnel when he opened up the cavern. Wow! This whole place was an atmospheric Matt base. Then why are there seven dead Matts in here?” Mars asked his father.

“I would assume the door was open when Michael Pitt blew up the part of their base, and it didn’t close fast enough. Maybe those Matts died of air concussion, the blast wave. If it melted all the gold off the walls, it must have really done a number on their bodies. Or there was a radiation spike from the blast. I would assume that the doors just didn’t close fast enough. I can’t say more if I can’t see the layout.”

“I think you are right, Dad. The door slid open when I pushed the panel. I’ll try the globe room door. Dad, Ryan, it won’t open. Why won’t the globe room door open?”

“The Matt systems on the other bases wouldn’t work if it wasn’t safe to open. The door won’t open because there is not enough atmosphere on your side. You will have to wait a few minutes.”

“Dad, what about Ryan? I can breathe in here. The air pressure is slightly higher.”

“Mars we can’t speak to Ryan. Tell him to get on the train and return to the exit. I’m going to have to get down there. I’ll return with Ryan or Max. Tell him not to hurry and make a mistake. It sounds like you are safe in there, but you are going to need to take off your helmet and turn down your suit. I’ll bring a suit charger with me. Did you copy, over?”

Mars stated that he understood what to do, and told Ryan to head back to the tunnel exit. VIN was going to come down and help him. He suddenly felt very alone.

Ryan did as he was ordered. He understood the situation as much as VIN and Mars did. VIN had been trapped in a room before, and had survived. It sounded like Mars was in the same predicament, but this time in a safe situation, and he carefully headed back to the tunnel where the carriages waited.

Since it was already turned around, Ryan fired up the small thruster, lay on his stomach, gingerly opened the throttle and slowly the two carriages moved forward. Ryan could see where he was going this time, there was no spacesuit in front of him, and he opened the throttle to climb up the hill to the exits.

Within 30 minutes, he could see the dying light of the sun’s ray’s coming through the first exit. He realized that VIN would be returning in the dark. He couldn’t as his spacewalk time was coming to an end. Max Von Braun or Dr. Smidt would have to go with VIN.

Mars now had all the time in the world if he removed his helmet and closed down his suit’s power. Like any youngster, his inquisitiveness was at full strength.

The astronauts could remove their own spacesuit helmets, but it was easier and faster if someone else unscrewed it for them. He first checked his readouts. Nothing had changed, except the air pressure had risen a few more degrees, which was better. It seemed that the base was still fully functional. Then he carefully headed towards the first skeleton and knelt down at the remains.

It took him a full minute to carefully inspect the bones, then the teeth, and finally he touched the fingers, the closest bone. Only the skull and the hands were not covered. These two items wouldn’t have saved the man as these suits couldn’t take space conditions.

There was dark coloring on the rock close to where the skull lay. The skull looked alright, but it could have been slightly misshapen. The heads of the Matts were different to his own. He looked hard at the stain, and believed it to be a blood stain. Any remains on the metal floor area were long gone, but it looked like the stain on the rock had remained. The stain was pretty close to where the person’s ear would have lain, and he concluded that possible bleeding from that area of the person’s head was most likely. He also concluded that it seemed that the body had fallen and lain still. There was no sign that the Matt had moved, or tried to crawl after the body had hit the floor. The body was lying mostly on its back, and didn’t look like it had tried to move. That meant that the death could have been instantaneous, and not over a long period.

“VIN and everybody listening, I reckon a blast killed these people. If they had died from radiation poisoning, they wouldn’t be laying like they are. I am going to remove my helmet, over.”

“Copy that,” replied Saturn. “We are still waiting for Ryan. Your father and Max will return to your position on the train, over.”

“Good, I’m fine down here. The readouts haven’t changed and it’s time to go and find my space shark, Commander Jones,” joked Mars nervously.

“Just be careful young Mars,” replied Jonesy. “They have a tendency to sneak up on you and bite you in the butt.”

“Shut up, Dad,” added Saturn defending her husband. “Poor Mars doesn’t need your crap. He’s most probably scared enough as it is right now.”

“Well stated, Saturn,” added VIN Noble.

Mars smiled at the antics going on outside the tunnel. His father and Jonesy had often both gone where no men had gone before, and now it was his turn to be brave and see what secrets this base had. The three door security panels he could see were all red, which meant he could now open them. He also knew what should be behind each door, if this base was built the same as the other Matt bases. Mars decided to try the most forward door first, the one that should lead into the globe room, then the command center.

He checked his suit, he had 60 minutes of time left, and he decided to open the first door to see if there was an atmosphere the other side.

The first door wouldn’t open when he pushed the red panel, so he did what VIN had tried on DX2017 decades earlier. He unscrewed his left glove and placed his warm hand on the panel.

“If there is a vacuum the other side, it shouldn’t open, like Ryan’s door, is that correct, Dad?” Mars stated out aloud.

“Correct, son. The door could have a red light on your side, but if there isn’t an atmosphere on the other side, it will not open, like Ryan’s door not opening when he tried,” his father replied. “Unless it is damaged, or its systems aren’t working. I would keep your helmet if I were you, until you have opened the door.”

“I was thinking the same thing, Dad, I’ll try and open the doors before I take off my helmet.” The door to the command center did not open. “Dad, my hand does nothing, it looks like I have to use my eye. Is it the right or left eye?”

“Right eye, and unfortunately you have to remove your helmet. Sorry, son, it has been so long since I have had to open a door. I’m getting a little old.”

“Don’t tell Bob Mathews that,” remarked Jonesy. “He wouldn’t believe you, partner.”

Mars waited for thirty minutes, now had no choice but to remove his helmet, and he might as well turn off the power in his suit to save it at the same time.

It took him several minutes, and unscrewing his own helmet made him dizzy. Normally he closed his eyes when somebody unscrewed it for him, and so did the other astronauts.

Finally he lifted it off and immediately his ears tuned into any sounds around him. A gurgling sound make him snap around. It was faint, and he opened his eyes to see and hear that the small stream was actually making a sound when it disappeared into wherever it was going.

The light was brighter in the room without his helmet and he couldn’t help but walk over to check out this liquid. With his helmet off, he could now smell, hear and see from his side vision. The smell was faint but the lingering smell of human death was still there, although very faint. The air he breathed smelled good, and it didn’t make him dizzy. The only sound was the gurgling of the water and the same very faint hum of machinery, like back at base, or inside DX2017. The systems were still working. His eyes took a second to get used to the bright light around him, and once he checked the entire room, peered down at the running water.

“It runs slower than it did on earth,” he thought. It might be an illusion but he was sure that the water seemed to move in slow motion compared to the slant of the rock it was running down.

Then he remembered that without his helmet on his head, he had lost contact with the rest of the crew, so he stood up and replaced his helmet without screwing it down.

“Dad, Jonesy, Saturn can you hear me, over?”

He got confirmation that they did all at once, and he told them that he would be offline, and should he touch the water running down the rock?

“I think it safe,” replied VIN. “If it is the centerpiece of their room, they wouldn’t have left it open if it was dangerous, like an acid, and any liquid gas like methane wouldn’t stay in liquid form.”

“It could only be water, or something we have never seen before,” added Ryan who had just returned to the shuttle to recharge his suit. “Mars, how much life do you have in your suit?”

“Thirty-seven minutes, 38 seconds. I have just turned the power systems off.” Mars replied. “I believe my suit has enough energy to get me back to the shuttle if I had the carriage. I really want to touch this liquid,” he stated.

“Get close and smell it first,” suggested Jonesy. “If it is whiskey or vodka, I’ll be along in a hurry.”

“You would, Dad, remarked Saturn. “Mars be careful.”

“OK, going offline. Dad, Max, how are you doing?”

“Max and I are working to head down the tunnel. We have two extra helmets, a hand laser to cut you out if necessary, an air tank each with fifty minutes breathing supply, a suit charger, and our knowledge. By what Ryan told us, we should be with you in thirty minutes. My suit hasn’t had time to fully recharge. I have 74 minutes of spacewalk time, and an air tank, so I might need to join you. Max is fully charged and has 170 minutes. Heading into the tunnel now, out.”

Mars removed his helmet and took three large breaths of air. The suit was off and nothing was being pumped into his helmet. The air smelled and it was cool in the cavern, but was no worse than being back inside the Retreat.

He knelt down by the water and put his nose as close as his suit allowed him to get: about a foot from the water. He sniffed and smelled nothing out of the ordinary. Then he lay down on the ground on his stomach and got closer to the liquid. Again it didn’t smell like anything. It was clear, totally clear of any sediment. He touched it and the shock of ice cold of the water went up his arm and he realized that this liquid was like ice, or close to it.

Mars got up, headed to the source, an open hole in the side of the room a few feet higher than the floor. The liquid came out of a small hole in the wall about two feet above the floor and fell to the floor where it exited the room in a tiny hole in the floor several feet from the source. In all the stream lazily dropped about a foot from its journey through the chamber.

Again he touched the water. It was as cold as the first touch. The room didn’t warm up the water at all, even though it took about a minute to flow along the seven feet of stream. He had nothing in his suit to collect a sample, so he thought that waiting for VIN to arrive was the best option, before going any further.

Mars Noble headed back to the door to the command center and knelt down, as his father had taught them in a class on the Matt bases, in front of the panel. His eye looked into the red panel and suddenly a bright light hit his eyeball, as his father had warned. It blinded his right eye, but he had closed his left eye so that he could see out of it into the room when the other was blinded. The light went off, he continued to kneel to make himself a smaller target, closed his right eye and opened his left to see the usual part of the wall slide open silently.

He didn’t move as his left eye surveyed the scene behind the door. The next room had three globes on stands, just like the globes in the bases VIN had found. The room was empty of life. Mars continued to kneel as his view was stuck watching lights brighten and dim slightly on one of the globes.

VIN had taken photos and video of when he had opened some of these rooms on other planets, wearing his helmet when he could open the doors without taking it off. Mars had his video camera and he started recording.

The young man stood up once he realized he was still alone. Now he knew what his father had gone through when he had entered the cavern on the blue planet for the first time, shock finding the hole with the mining spider missing.

He walked carefully across to the globes. One was very recognizable, it was Earth. The second was Mars, the planet he was currently on, and the third one looked familiar and he had to reconstruct his astronomy lessons. The third globe really glowed brightly in several areas. Mars was very dim and had one bright light while Earth was dull and had no glow at all.

“Must be Enceladus…or maybe Europa,” Mars said aloud to himself. There was nothing else in the room, apart for a red door panel which glowed opposite the door he had come in through. “That will be the command center. I’ll check that door and then see if my father is on the other side of the wall,” he again said loudly to himself, and wondering why he was suddenly talking to himself.

This time the door swooped across and disappeared into the wall when he tried it with the palm of his hand. He couldn’t figure out why some worked one way and others needed his eye to open.

Again the command center was empty of any life form, human or otherwise. The console was where it had been in the other bases, and he quickly walked over and checked the readouts.

All the NextGeners had been taught the Matt base layouts as part of their school curriculum by VIN, Commander Joot, and Roo, and everything that had been found had been passed on as teaching.

What Mars then looked for was an automatic reaction on his part. He had done the same to open the Cryogenic chambers the OldGeners were asleep in on DX2017. It was underneath on the bottom side of the console and he turned the entire command console upside down.

“Yes!” he shouted to himself. There were controls to open the cryogenic area below this level. There could be somebody asleep in the chamber down there, and then he heard faint tapping coming from behind him. He cocked his head listening, and then remembered that his fathers was due in the first chamber.

He began to screw on his helmet and after a few turns he could hear VIN shouting for him through the intercom.

“Mars, Mars, we are here outside the metal door. I have 32 minutes of suit power left. I need to get in. Can you hear me, son? Respond please!”

“I hear you, Dad, coming out,” he replied and headed over to the metal door still screwing on his helmet. He worked fast. His suit was slightly powered up and he breathed fresh clean air through the suit. It had been cold in the rooms, and he felt the wave of heated air move upwards into his helmet. “Dad, you remember how to get the door to open?”

“We have an extra space helmet with us and two bottles of air,” VIN replied. Mars could just hear his father. “Max is going to hold the helmet over the panel like Ryan did for you. Mars, make sure your suit is working correctly, there could be a deadly fall in air pressure once the door opens. I will slip through, join you, and as soon as I’m through the door will close again.”

“Helmet on the door, Mars, pumping air into it now,” added Max Von Braun.

“Mars, is your helmet tight?” his father asked.

“I’m halfway,” Mars responded.

“Running out of time for me to make a return to the ship, turn that helmet fast kid,” VIN replied. “Mars, Max, I’m pushing the door panel now!”

His helmet was safe, half screwed on, VIN was gambling that such a small change in air pressure and loss of air wouldn’t be much of a risk to his son, but space wasn’t a place to gamble. Mars managed to turn his helmet two more times, closing his eyes not to get dizzy. He opened them.

Unfortunately Mars forgot that the pressure of the opening door could pull him with the escaping air, and as the door opened he was propelled into the opening. He connected hard with his father who was fighting to get in and a few seconds was lost as VIN had to take the hit on his suit by his son. His metal legs, always as strong as ever pushed him forwards and Mars literally bounced off his father and back into the room.

At the exact same time, Max ripped the helmet off the wall outside the cavern, and the door whooshed shut.

Mars was pushed hard to the floor, and he felt parts of his backpack hit the solid floor hard. Immediately he felt the air pressure inside the suit change and he motioned to his father by placing his glove over his throat. This meant that he was in trouble and VIN knelt down and began unscrewing his son’s helmet as fast as he could. He knew what his son was going through, he had been in the same position.

“Dad, Dad, I have no air!” he squawked in the dying pressure.

“I’ll have your helmet off in two minutes,” replied VIN.

“You OK in there,” both astronauts could hear Max outside faintly, which reminded VIN to check his suit’s readouts before he finished unscrewing his son’s helmet.

The room’s air pressure was on the borderline, and the air just breathable at 491 millibars. It didn’t matter how perfect the air mix was if there wasn’t enough to pull the air into ones lungs. The room was much the same pressure as in Mars’ helmet.

He had to make decisions fast. As he unscrewed Mars’ helmet, he looked around. The door to the globes and command center was still open, Mars had put something in the way to stop both doors closing. He knew that the pressure would equalize, he moved fast, dragging his son’s body and suit along the floor through the first door, through the second into the command center, he kicked Mar’s hammer out of the way and hit the door panel hard once they were inside.

Mars was still conscious, as he carefully lifted the helmet off and his son grabbed the small emergency air tank he had brought with him.

“Max, I think we are OK in here for the time being. You get back up the corridor and call me once you are safely aboard the shuttle. Mars is breathing but he needs a new space suit to exit this cavern. Jonesy where are you, over?”

“Left SB-III, heading to SB-IV over.”

“I suggest you return and collect an extra suit from SB-IV for Max. Mars has messed up this suit big time, and we will need an extra suit down here, over.”

“Roger that,” replied Jonesy.

VIN had been told by Mars how clear the reception was inside the cavern, and talking to Jonesy and listening to Saturn, was still a shock on how clear the reception actually was. Mars winked at him, and he checked his readouts.

The pressure had climbed and was slightly above borderline at 510 millibars. VIN had been in every one of the Matt bases, and knew how good they were at replenishing vital air supplies. He couldn’t speak to Mars, but held up 5 fingers, 5 times, telling him that he needed to breathe from the air tank for 25 more minutes.

“Max, are you on your way?” VIN asked 5 minutes later looking at the console. He noticed immediately what his son had already inspected as the console was already turned upside down.

“On my way, just wading through this massive bubble of air that is spreading out down the corridor,” Max replied so faintly that VIN had to cock his head to one side to hear the message.

“Max copy that, I have my hands full here, be safe. VIN to Jonesy, we need every small teenage size spacesuit aboard SB-V. We will also need Roo and Joanne, and medics. Bring food and water supplies. You will have to head to the Retreat to collect them, as well as the cryogenic IV supplies, more suits, and whatever the medics will need to resuscitate sleeping Matts, over.”

“Copy that partner. Will relay the message to Dave Black, over.”

“Copy VIN, will search for suits,” added Jenny Burgos in the larger shuttle.

Mars could see his father talking fast, but could not hear a word. He wanted to tell his father about the cryogenic chambers, but he was still dizzy, and the rich air from the tank wasn’t helping. There was always a far higher quantity of oxygen in the tanks than in normal air.

Both men waited another 20 minutes. VIN checked his readouts, 565 millibars, and showed Mars that he was about to pull the breather out of his mouth. Mars nodded, took his last big gulp of air, which made him even dizzier, and let VIN take out the breather from his mouth. VIN waited until Mars opened his eyes, breathed out, and breathed in the air in the room.

VIN could see that his son struggled more than usual, but the pressure was rising, and it was safe. Mars gave him the thumbs up and closed his eyes. He closed the air tank and continued to look at his son’s face.

Suddenly VIN was the one gulping for air, his suit was dying, and he had forgotten the time. He motioned to Mars, who unscrewed his father’s helmet in record time while VIN struggled to breathe in his suit’s remaining air.

The air tasted beautiful and clean to VIN when his helmet was removed, then he thanked his son.

VIN realized how much experience time gives a person. Mars had done everything right, but he himself hadn’t. His son hadn’t thought of the air surging him forward when the door opened, he had. This space stuff was certainly a continuous learning experience.

For VIN, it would have been an instinctive move to hold onto the side of the wall, or back away. Unfortunately, in space there weren’t often second chances, and one tiny mistake could easy result in death.

“Thanks for saving my life, Dad,” Mars stated.

“I wasn’t that far from losing my air either, son,” he replied having to breathe hard. “It looks like we are stuck in here, at least until the cavalry arrives. I can recharge my suit and add air from the second tank. The air pressure will be back in in my suit and the cavern out there in about an hour. Until then we keep the door shut. Your suit is unserviceable, mine has no air for a while, so it will be a risk to open any doors until we know we can exchange suits. I have a suit recharger for mine, and we have twenty minutes of air in your air tank.”

“How did you find the cryogenic chambers on the other bases? Were they breathable when you opened them up?” Mars asked.

“Yes, stale horrible tasting air, they all had bad air and low oxygen, and very cold.

I think the cold air is of more danger to us than the air quality. The Matt systems normally replenish the whole base, not just certain areas. The heating system in here still works, the air replenishment systems works, so I’m sure that the whole place will return to normal. But it’s the stale air in the cryogenic room, the extra carbon dioxide and helium that gets me, so we don’t go in there.”

Mars had noticed that his father’s voice had risen an octave or two.

“So has yours, son,” stated VIN knowing exactly what his son was about to say.

Back at the Martian Club Retreat, there was excitement in the air, especially among all the Matts. There was a chance of meeting some of their own, even though they weren’t very friendly.

Jonesy had relayed the message to the base, and Roo was the most excited of all. Joanne and Lunar were also rushing around checking on suits and IVs and Joanne had one other medic who had trained in medicine, and good at spacewalking.

The crew aboard SB-V and Saturn in SB-IV were checking out their supplies. SB-II was also orbiting 15,000 miles behind SB-V and a tally of equipment was checked there by Jane Burgos.

Max Von Braun was back in SB-III, and Ryan in SB-IV was working out how to get more spacesuits.

“Two canisters loaded full of equipment standing upright and tied down on the forward carriage and one driver, lying or sitting on the rear carriage, is all we can take down in one trip,” Max stated over the intercom to the astronauts who could hear him. “Pack the canisters as full as you can. We can fill medical equipment and IVs into one canister, and we can pack a new suit for Mars, and extra two air tanks in the other for my first journey. I can do a second trip with two more canisters. I would suggest the two teenage spacesuits in SB-V and food and water. I can head down twice, and get the four canisters delivered, leave the equipment in the tunnel and return to rest. Jonesy is going to take the same amount of time to land, pick up the crew and equipment from the Retreat and get back here. Each return journey will take me just over an hour. We believe we have enough extra food and water supplies to fill one canister, Boss.”

“We have four more emergency air tanks, and enough medical equipment, food and water onboard for a few Matts,” continued Ryan. “When Mr. Noble senior comes back on line, tell him to sit it out down there. Also prepare him to open the door. At the same time we need to continue our gold recovery efforts, so those who are not part of this rescue continue with your schedules, out.”

Both father and son sat propped up on a wall. It was tiring to take off the spacesuits, and they needed a breather first.

“Why did you return with so little life left in your suit, Dad?” Mars asked.

“I’ve done this before, son,” VIN replied. “I helped design the systems in the new suits from the wearer’s point of view. I have also spacewalked more than anybody in Astermine, I think. The scientist’s asked me what was important for the astronaut when they redesigned the suits after our odyssey. I asked for a larger reserve time, and why we only were allowed 180 minute space walks?”

“Yeah!” I always wanted to ask why we are only allowed 3 hours,” added Mars.

“First, these new suits were better than the first suits made in the early days. That was why they were redesigned in the first place. These new power units last an extra ten minutes more than the old suits. I know I was the test dummy back in Nevada. I got 3 hours 17 minutes out of a suit. It took two of the fastest scientists 4 minutes to get my helmet off. I wanted new connection systems on the helmets, but Ryan didn’t consider it necessary.”

“Why didn’t they develop a better connection? I’m sure NASA had a faster way to remove their helmets?” Mars asked.

“Time was not on our side, plus NASA and all the other space agencies were either closed down, or not talking to Astermine. There were little international communications after the nuking of the asteroid blew everything in orbit into little pieces. We had hundreds of modifications to work on and unscrewing ones helmet was more to the back of the queue. So I know that my suit has an added ten minutes of power, and air support, plus Ryan was adamant that 180 minutes was maximum for a spacewalk. He was right. Nobody had really pushed the limit yet, and nobody really knows how much more cosmic radiation will enter our suits during a fourth hour. The three hours on, three hours off maximum work schedule has been safe and has worked well, so there was no need to fix it. I had enough time in my suit to get back to the shuttle and being inside the confines of the tunnel was helping decrease the cosmic radiation. Now let’s look at your suit, and figure out what to do next.”

Carefully, VIN inspected Mars’ suit. The rear box had taken the fall badly, and had been split open. It was much the same problem he had gone through years earlier, and he noted that the suits be made in the future with stronger materials. It was cold inside the suits since they were switched off, and they decided to leave the suits on for the time being. At least Mars’ suit would protect his body when the door was opened.

They waited 45 minutes, then VIN moved the recharger to Mars’s suit. It might work.

Mars spent the next several minutes helping VIN on with his helmet. It was semi-recharged, enough to breathe and listen to what was being said. VIN heard and responded to the updates on what was happening, then needed his helmet off again. Mars unscrewed it for him.

“Look like we are here for a little while longer. They are hauling down supplies from the shuttle outside, as well as from the shuttles in space and from the Retreat. We could find a dozen Matts, or even more asleep down in the chambers.” VIN told his son.

“Remember the door to the cryogenic chambers on DX2017 took 12 hours to open once we pushed the “open” buttons. Dad, we could see if these work the same way. If so, we could then check out the rest of the cavern. I want to show you the globes, and see where that stream goes to. I reckon we should open up the lower level in the cavern, and check that area out. It should be safe for me, I have my suit on and air in the emergency tank. Got any food?”

“Actually I have, son. Thanks for reminding me,” and VIN opened the outer flap of his suit’s leg pocket, then the anti-radiation flap and finally the thick zipper to his suit’s right leg pocket to the inside of his suit. He pulled out two sachets of scrambled eggs, and handed them over to his son. “I have two Aussie chocolate bars, one for each of us for later. It seems we have enough water.”

Once they had eaten the two sachets, and placed the empty sachets back in their leg pockets, they both got up and VIN pushed the red panel to the cryogenic chamber. Nothing happened except that the same hissing sounds they had heard on DX2017 could now be heard deep beneath them. The system would increase the temperatures inside the chambers and the room, and in about twelve hours, the door would open.

There was nothing else to do but wait, so VIN opened the door to the Globe Room. He breathed in to check the pressure. It was a little harder to breathe in the Globe Room than the command center but it was safe for them to breathe.

“Europa I believe,” stated VIN looking at the globe. “It must be. That is a long journey for these Matts to travel, but they got to Mars and back from Earth, and the ships they attacked us with are certainly big enough for the small guys to spend a year or so in space.”

“Maybe that’s why it took us so long to see them again, Dad?” suggested Mars. “Look at how the three globes are lit up differently.”

“Earth is dark. It means that they have no ships or crew on Earth, I reckon,” replied VIN. “Mars has two small pricks of light. Right here, and they are side by side. I would bet my bottom dollar that there are either ships, or people right here, and it tells us that the other end of the tunnel in inhabited.”

“If it is Europa, it is certainly lit up,” added Mars. “I counted twelve lights in all. Six sets of two lights, like the two here on this planet.”

“And the lights are brighter, far brighter on the white planet, which means to me that the third planet is their main planet, their headquarters, and there are a lot of bases there, at least a dozen.

“Look, Dad,” stated Mars peering at the globes very closely and very carefully. “Is it my eyes going wonky, or are there also lights in between the two globes Mars and the white planet? They are so small, it could be my imagination.” VIN bent over and looked at the globes very carefully.

“Well, strike me down, I think you are right, there seems to be tiny lights in between the plants. Mars, I’ll douse the wall lighting,” and he headed back to the console and turned down the heat.

With the heat turned down, the walls dimed and he knew it would get colder in here over time, but a few minutes didn’t matter.

“I see them, Dad!” shouted Mars from the next room. “I count about sixteen tiny lights. There is a pin prick of single light and then seven lights behind it. About an inch behind the seven lights is another 8 lights in the same configuration.”

“Formations of spaceships. The Matts seem to work in sevens. Maybe two of the ships are command or supply ships or something. Damn! How far is Europa from Mars? I’m sure it is Europa. We didn’t visit that planet on the odyssey. I’ll have to get Lunar to notify Nevada and give us an accurate distance. They might be coming to attack us, or replacing the numbers you guys destroyed on your last visit. Nothing moves fast across the solar system. They have an asteroid belt to get through between the two planets. I think we have lots of time before they arrive, so help me on with my helmet again kid.

Ten minutes later, and with Mars studying the three globes, VIN tried to get in touch with Lunar Richmond aboard SB-V. He only got Ryan in SB-IV down on the surface. Ryan told VIN that the orbital shuttles were flying together and one was moving equipment needed for delivery to the planet’s surface to the other, and both not in radio range.

VIN told Ryan of what he had seen, and Ryan stated that he would get the information back to Lunar and Base Nevada, and he immediately began working on solar system distances on his shuttle’s onboard computers.

VIN and Mars studied the planets carefully for a few more minutes before heading back to where the stream was.

“The water or whatever it is, is very cold, Dad, be careful,” Mars stated.

“I brought a test bottle to get it tested back at the base,” his father replied. “I don’t think we have anything to test the liquid here on the shuttles, but if it is in fact water, it looks very clean.”

“I checked the wall it is coming out from. The Matts have a tiny hole where the water exits from the side wall,” added Mars. “The liquid sort of oozes out of the hole like syrup. To me it looks like water. I felt it with my finger and my finger hasn’t fallen off yet, nor does it hurt. The wall is solid where the water comes out of, it flows down the stream in a lazy way, then disappears into another tiny hole in the floor there. It must take atmosphere with it, so the air systems are replenishing what the water takes with it down the hole.”

VIN looked first and then tapped the wall where the water came out of. Then he followed the stream with his eyes until the water fell into what looked like a tiny bath plug and disappeared.

“You can sure find interesting stuff,” remarked VIN to his son. “The wall is solid and certainly not hollow. What is fascinating is that this whole water drainage thing reminds me of the old bathtubs we had in North Carolina when I was a child. The water flows out of a tap, then down the drain once it has been used. I’m sure that they must have gone down another level to see where the water went. I want to check the Matt toilet, they might have connected its outflow to whatever is underground.”

The door to the chamber they had entered into the base from the tunnel opened on VIN’s touch. He thought for a few seconds then spoke.

“Mars, the Earth Matt bases had the tunnel to the forward and rear caverns. Here the nasty Matts have a door, and the tunnel to the rear area is much larger, and the doors over 6 feet. The tunnels everywhere are 5 feet tall, yet in here you and I can stand, and the caverns are the same, with the same height of the roof. I know what is missing. The stairs going up to the second level in the forward cavern. This cavern is different to the Earth Matt bases, and the tunnel system is also different.”

“Why, Dad?” Mars asked.

“Well, remember how the Matt Inventers at the Pig’s Snout invented things?” Mars nodded. “I will bet my pay that all the information given to the inventors originated from these space Matts who visited them what, 10,000 years ago. The globes are the same. The bases are much the same. Every room in this base is as it was on DX2014, and the other bases we visited. I think the inventor Earth Matts changed the designs over time, or parts were copied wrong when they were handed down the generations. I bet the toilet is in the same place though. Let’s look?”

The complicated door to the toilet was exactly where they expected to find it: in the hallway just passed the rear door to the tunnel. As usual they looked into the cavern, and saw no sign of movement.

“There should be the three usual storage rooms the wall in-between the front and rear caverns,” stated VIN. “I only see one door in the wall. That’s weird.”

The musty toilet, or the seat above a deep hole in the planet was exactly the same. There was little smell, and it hadn’t been used in a long time. VIN looked into the system. The hole was there when he pushed the only lever and the bottom area beneath the toilet opened.

“Well that goes somewhere under here, and it doesn’t stink. I might have to use it soon.” stated Mars.

“Let’s try the storage door first,” continued VIN. The way down might be behind that single door. We need to see if the water and the toilet outflows are connected.

“This time the door didn’t open to VIN’s hand’s warm touch.

“We’ll be in trouble if either of us lose our only remaining hand,” Mars suggested smiling.

“I never thought of that,” smiled VIN as he bent down to use his eye. The usual bright light blasted back at his eye and the door opened. “At least we know there is some sort of an atmosphere behind the door when it opens.”

The air rushing out of the door immediately made them very dizzy, so VIN shut the door.

Its cold down there, and there is real weak air,” stated VIN having to hold onto the wall. “I saw a staircase. I’ll get my helmet on, you leave your helmet off and breathe from the air tank. Let’s see where it goes, then we come straight back up and close the door.”

Twenty minutes later they were ready, and Mars opened the door this time with his eye, as his father already had his helmet on. It took Mars several seconds to get his sight back in the one eye, and with his father looked into what he thought should be a storage room full of food or water. Instead it was nothing more than a five-foot high hole in the rock, and a stairway leading down into a dark hole.

“I’m starting to feel like Indiana Jones again,” stated Mars hesitantly staring into the hole.

“I hate spiders,” stated his father jokingly to himself as they couldn’t hear each other, and Mars thought that he had heard his father’s thought.

“What’s wrong with spiders,” Mars thought back, but he didn’t get an acknowledgement.

Gingerly VIN bent down, jammed the hammer he was carrying to stop the door from closing, and began to go down the stairs. Mars followed.

As Mars put out both hands for support he noticed, with his father, that there was a red panel on the outside of the door in the rock wall, and there were no staircase to hang onto.

The tunnel darkened and Mars counted the steps. He had counted 20 when the tunnel’s light from the still partly open door above them disappeared and he was in total blackness.

“I think I see light bouncing off the one side,” thought VIN. Mars, for the first time in a long time, knew for sure that he had heard his father’s thought. The staircase had gone around in circles and Mars reckoned that they had made at least two circles.

“We have completed 30 steps, Dad,” he thought hard, but didn’t get a response. They had thought together years earlier when Roo and Commander Joot had taught them to telepathically think with them.

Mars worked out that each step was about six inches high, and then he also began to see a dim light flickering on one of the walls by his feet. They continued, and Mars noticed that the air on his face was getting colder.

A circle later and on his 50th step, his feet showed shadows. He continued down the spiral staircase and saw below the level of a roof and into a new chamber.

VIN was still standing on the last step, and Mars stopped two steps behind him.

For a very long minute, both men just looked. There was a dull but seeable light, and they were standing in what looked like another large underground cavern. The light above his father’s helmet was much like a single earth light bulb, and showed less than ten feet of light round them.

Mars looked at the ledge his father was about to stand on. It was only three or four feet wide, and it gently dipped down into liquid, the same clear liquid as they had seen above.

The lake, or whatever it was, disappeared into the darkness and he could see at least 10, maybe 12 feet over the water before it disappeared. The light certainly wasn’t very strong.

VIN motioned Mars to head back up. VIN quickly filled two sample bottles and carefully they retracted their steps until the door closed behind them, and they were back in the Matt base. There Mars helped his father off with is helmet.

“I think the light switched on down there when we opened the door up here,” suggested VIN.

“Want to go for a swim, Dad?” joked Mars nervously. “I heard you hate spiders. I heard you, Dad! I heard you like we used to think when I was a kid. Did you hear me?”

“Sorry, Mars I wasn’t listening. We must start work again on our telepathic thinking. I forget we used to think to each other. Everybody just talks loudly these days, and no I don’t want to go for a swim right now,” smiled VIN. “That is real space shark territory down there. We need more light to see how far the water, or the cave spreads out. At least we know that the toilet empties in a separate location and not into the water. I think the Matts dug down and their machine found this hole in the ground, and they somehow with that lousy air built the staircase to descend down. With what I could see in the dim light, and if this is water, we have more water down here than we could ever fly from the crater to the base in a hundred years. I can see that the water depth about ten feet out looked at least five or six feet deep.”

“And very clear,” added Mars. “My suit readouts said the air pressure was far too weak for us to survive down there for more than a few minutes, but there is air in that cavern. It must have entered with the water dropping in. I wonder how big that place is down there.”

“I got two samples, and I think the toilet is usable. The piping doesn’t connect with the water,” stated VIN knowing that it would have to be used soon by both of them.

As VIN and Mars talked about looking for a way down to the lake over an hour earlier, SB-V was now above the tunnels as Jonesy was heading to the Retreat.

Lunar was waiting for a radio message back from Earth. As soon as she had come into intercom contact on her last orbit, Ryan had given her Mars’ message.

“Relay it to Nevada,” Ryan had told his daughter. “You also have your computers to do the calculations figuring out the distance the enemy still have to travel. VIN Noble suggested that he thought the globe to be Europa, and that the ships had travelled one third of the distance between the two planets. The distance from Europa, or Jupiter to Mars is only a few thousand miles difference.”

Ryan already had his calculations, but he wanted to make sure that his agreed with the others.

Less than an hour later and on Lunar’s next orbit Ryan found that the difference in distance was much the same as his figures from her computers, as well as Earth’s. The conclusions of speed of these craft flying through space were also about the same.

All three computations put Europa approximately 492,222,000 million miles from Mars, and the incoming enemy spaceships still 281,565,980 miles from the red planet. They calculated that the craft were currently 110 days into their journey. It seemed they had left Europa when Mars was at its closest point to Jupiter.

Jupiter had a slower orbit of the sun, traveling just under 30,000 miles an hour forward speed. The red planet travelled through space on its closer orbit at its usual 54,000 miles an hour.

Arrival date on Mars: 281 days was what the computers agreed would be the Matts travel time to reach the red planet.

Ryan had also received some good news from the base in Nevada. One of Dr. Smidt’s team had reunited an old friendship, and the person concerned was also an old friend of Ryan’s, an ex-NASA astronaut from the old days. Franklin had been an astronaut and a physicist, and had worked with the old International Space Station, the ISS program.

Franklin and a team of specialists had developed a plasma rocket engine at the beginning of the century, once he had retired from spaceflight.

Ryan remembered his old friend Franklin well. He had nearly taken Franklin’s plasma thrusters instead of the liquid hydrogen thrusters for space travel, but the plasma engines had needed vast amounts of electrical power to feed them, and at that time Ryan didn’t yet have the Plutonium-238 from Russia. The plasma thrusters had needed nuclear power, and unfortunately by the time he had the nuclear power it was too late to change engines.

Then came the couple of decades when only the attack cubes were launched into space, and Franklin’s plasma engines, like most of the companies researching equipment for space exploration, went dormant.

Ryan chatted with Igor, also an old friend of Franklin’s, waiting for the time to pass for Jonesy to return to the tunnels. Igor and Boris were currently up with Lunar in SB-V, and were waiting for the next visit to get their rides back to the base.

“I was really excited about the plasma rockets,” Ryan stated over the intercom.

“We all were, especially Franklin’s paper about a possible 39-day flight time to Mars,” stated Igor from high above.

“I actually studied all I could on the plasma engines during the odyssey,” added Max Von Braun sitting in the cockpit with Ryan, and waiting for his next trip down the tunnel. “Actually, Vitalily’s crew and my crew wanted to build a replica during the long days of the odyssey, but we couldn’t find any designs or plans in the information storage units.”

“Well, if you remember boss, I was with you when you met Franklin in Texas,” added Boris. “How old is Franklin? It’s a miracle he is still alive.”

“I reckon he must be in his early nineties,” suggested Ryan. He was older than all of us, by at least a decade.”

“And we now have 14 extra years on the man,” stated Igor.

“Well, the secure iMail message I received from Dr. Smidt’s number two, Dr. Geiger states that Franklin’s company is now run by two of his sons-in-law, both plasma physicists who never stopped working on development,” continued Ryan. “He sent me a three page iMail on this new and exciting project. “Dr. Geiger wrote that very little new hardware production had taken place in Franklin’s company since 2018, due to a lack of materials. It seems that that a lack of materials didn’t stop their research though. Franklin has been in contact with Martin Brusk and other companies over the last two decades, and Martin took an interest in the plasma engine early on. Martin has even begun production of plasma thrusters in a new location in the old Silicone Valley area.”

“Weren’t the original plasma thrusters for the International Space Station in around 2015-17?” asked Max. “That was the most recent press release we had aboard America One.”

“Yes,” added Igor. “Two hundred kilowatt thrusters that could reduce the fuel usage of the station by 95 percent annually. The thrusters gave out about 6 Newtons of thrust. They even tried a solar powered support system on the ISS, but never got it up and running. Just not enough power. They don’t run in atmospheric conditions.”

“Well, 200 kilowatts is nothing for us today with our cold fusion power units. Our smallest unit now puts out 30 Megawatts,” returned Boris.

“That tiny motor wouldn’t get any of our ships moving very fast,” added Vitalily from SB-V.

“That’s the exciting part,” continued Ryan. “It seems that their research over the last two decades has been a 50 Megawatt thruster size unit, 250 times more powerful. Martin Brusk is working on it, and has been without our knowledge for 9 months, and with what Franklin’s company manufactured 25 years ago, it won’t take long for Martin to redesign the new possibilities into a test engine.”

“Why did Martin Brusk get involved?” Max asked.

“Martin Brusk is the best businessman I know, always looking out for new ideas. I’m sure he and Franklin had first met around the time I was moving into Nevada,” Ryan answered.

“Maybe that’s why he designed that hybrid electric aircraft, your old Gulfstream, Commander,” Saturn suggested sitting next to him over the open conversation.

“Of course,” added Ryan excitedly. “Saturn, you are as clever I think you are. You hit the nail on the head. Mate the cold fusion plant and his hybrid aircraft system for atmospheric flight, to a plasma thruster for space, and Martin’s company Earth-Exit will have an atmospheric hybrid ship that can head into space and whizz around the solar system as fast as his Teslas. Amazing! …and well thought out young Saturn.”

“Wow! That Martin is sure a sneaky devil,” joked Maggie listening in. SB-III had just come over the horizon and was listening in to the conversation.

“Plasma thrusters huh! I know that the Air Force was doing research on them as well around then, but their ideas was nothing like those guys in Texas,” added Jonesy far below his wife.

“How long before testing?” Igor asked.

Dr. Geiger said that the new engine could be tested later this month,” Ryan replied. “What really changes the playing field is that even though these engines are useless in atmospheric conditions, during long distance space travel, our fuel usage could decrease by more than 75 percent at current speeds. I did some calculations an hour ago, and worked out that one 50 Megawatt plasma thruster would be perfect for the smaller shuttles, two thrusters for the larger shuttles, and eight thrusters could give America Two a far quicker journey through space to Mars. Franklin designed these thrusters to work like Ion Drives, constant thrust throughout the journey for acceleration and then braking. I believe that our ship’s design might have to be changed as it needs to be turned around for braking, just like our shuttles do currently. Four engines will equal our current thrust. With 8 engines and 12,000 Newtons of forward thrust instead of 6,000 Newtons, the mother ship will accelerate as fast as the shuttles in a shorter time to a far higher cruise speed very rapidly with their massive amounts of power, and we could coast the mother ship for about 50 percent of the journey. Heavy acceleration and coasting with 8 engines could actually use less fuel than a 4-engine constant burn. I have Nevada working on the scenarios right now, and need to get our fuel usage down to 20 metric tons for each return trip. The old NASA shuttles had rocket fuel tanks that ejected once the Karman line was reached. Those tanks held 12 to 15 metric tons. That is the size of the two fuel tanks needed aboard America Two for a round trip journey to Mars, or we have to rebuild the ships and make them larger.”

“Going onto long finals into the Retreat,” stated Jonesy.

“Let us all get back to our current situation crew,” added Ryan.

The shuttle landed and crew exchanged places. Ruler Roo and Joanne were ready with medical equipment, food, water, and four other crewmembers loaded in the equipment then got in themselves. Jonesy’s shuttle still had quarter tanks, which was enough for two flights to the tunnels and back.

Equipment and supplies were unloaded, then loaded, and it wasn’t long before the shuttle was ready to launch out of the shield and head back to the tunnels.

VIN and Mars rested for a while figuring what to do next. Once they had returned to the upper level, and chamber, they had checked every corner of the base. It was clean, as clean as a bank vault, and all they could do, was to wait for backup, and for the cryogenic chambers to open. They had seven hours to go and it was time for a chocolate bar, all the way from Australia.

Jonesy had his new cargo and crew aboard and was climbing way from the crater.

“A vastly different sky from when I remember us being trapped by the storm,” stated Ruler Roo from the jump seat behind Jonesy.

“It’s been awhile since you have been up here on the red planet, Roo?” replied Jonesy, as he swung the shuttle’s nose round towards Lookout Peak on Lookout Mountain, which would creep over the horizon in ten minutes or so.

“Yes, I am so happy to be back,” Roo replied. “I am ready to lead my people like my wife did back in the United States.” To Jonesy it was funny to hear an alien to the Homo sapiens world, describe his birth country as if he had always lived there. “I did not like living in Canada, it was too cold,” Roo continued.

“Want to feel the temperature out there?’ Jonesy interrupted the smaller man, smiling. “It is colder than frozen vodka out there, Mr. Ruler Roo.”

“Yes, but we are always warm in the base, and the gravity is not so harsh,” Roo replied.

“I think the opposite of course,” added Joanne sitting next to her husband on the same jump seat. A second crew medic and one of Max’s build crew were sitting on the other jump seat. Maggie had rejoined her husband from the Retreat, and was again his copilot.

All the crew had spacesuits on, and inside the forward cargo hold, where the gold had been removed up in orbit, were seven spacesuits of different sizes and helmets, all the extras on the planet.

Two were teenage suits, two were kid suits, and the smaller suits would fit a smaller Matt very well, but the remaining three suits were full size, and Joanne hoped there were a few larger Matts, than the usual five feet tall.

“Talking about frozen vodka, Mr. Chief Astronaut Jones,” replied Roo, and then paused to figure out if Jonesy was using his sense his humor or not. The Matts, when they had been found, were a humorless group of people, but Jonesy and a few others had shown the Matts that it wasn’t very difficult to learn how to find, and then use a sense of humor. Naturally, with Jonesy teaching them what was funny and what wasn’t, the Matts’ new sense of humor was more of a sarcastic nature. “Now Chief Astronaut Jones that I am the official Ruler of the Matt base here on Mars, I will have to refuse any beer or vodka you offer me. Of course, my wife can partake if she wishes.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day, Maggie,” replied Jonesy winking at his wife in the copilot seat. “It certainly wasn’t a good idea to teach you Matts how to drink. Less booze for the rest of us. Lookout Mountain will pass on our starboard side,” continued Jonesy trying his part of being a tour guide. Since everybody, bar Joanne and Roo had seen the mountain before, his comment caused little reaction.

“Ruler Roo, you have to do what you have to do, but after what Joanne has gone through running Washington, I reckon she should have first dibs on your alcohol ration,” added Maggie. Jonesy looked at her from the corner of his eye, but said nothing.

“I see you on radar, Dad,” stated Saturn from the tunnels in front of them. “What altitude are you cruising at? My screen should have picked you up far earlier.”

“Just checking up on my ex-student,” replied Jonesy smiling.

“Darling, we are nearly rubbing our behinds in the dirt,” added Maggie. “Any lower and we would need rubber tires, or a submarine. Your father is in one of his moods, darling. Just ignore him, ETA to you in seven minutes, over.”

Jonesy brought the smaller shuttle in perfectly, and landed in the exact location he had taken off from the day previous.

“A nice landing Mr. Jones,” remarked Ryan from the copilot seat in SB-IV as the dust storm covered them over as it always did.

“How long has VIN and Mars been in the safe cavern?” asked Maggie.

“Maggie, VIN has been there for several hours. We have still 190 minutes before we expect the cryogenic chamber door to open. Mars has been in there for 11 hours now,” Ryan replied.

“I have a few food items ready for them,” added Saturn.

“We have a few chocolate bars and snacks for them as well,” remarked Maggie. “Who is heading down the tunnel, who needs to get helmets on?”

“Ruler Roo, Joanne and your medic Patricia, and Max and me from this ship,” replied Ryan. “Max believes that two of us can fit on the train with only one canister. Everybody else can begin walking down the tunnel and rolling the canisters to help save time. The shortest will be picked up last. We all have to enter the cavern at the same time. Max reckons that working fast, he can do a round trip in 20 minutes or less each time if we walk, and if he drops us all the fork. Max and Joanne will head down first with the medical equipment, food and water in the first canister. We can fit only one of the bigger suits inside a canister, so we will take the balance of the suits down as we need them. One of the adult suits will be packed into the second canister for Mars. Two teenage suits will be packed into a third canister. Mr. Jones, you will be in charge up here while I’m down there. As we have heard, we have excellent communications once we are in the area with an atmosphere. Crew we will ride this mission as we see it, out.”

Twenty minutes later, the five crewmembers entered the tunnel rolling three canisters, all they could maneuver at this time, and Max readied the train for its first journey. Dusk was settling in and nobody was expected to return until at least daylight. Also, it would be the longest time many of them would be outside a base or a shuttle in space. They had three hours to enter the cavern where VIN and Mars were safe.

Chapter 8

Oh Hi!

“It is going to be tight to turn the carriages around inside the tunnel,” Max lectured the crew on how to turn them around. The two carriages had been built at the retreat purposefully to fit inside the tunnel, and be turned around in the tightest situation. There was less than an inch either end of each carriage inside the tunnel, but with two people working, it was possible.

Once the demonstration was done he continued. “I will take Joanne down to the fork. The fork is about 400 to 500 feet from the cavern entrance we will use. Joanne and I will turn the carriage round and I will leave her with the canister. Joanne, it will take me about 20 minutes to get back to you with Ryan and the next canister. I will pick you up, Ryan, as you are the next tallest, and your back will be hurting by then. Then, once I return on my second trip I will pick up Patricia, then Ruler Roo, and we will go from there, understand?”

Joanne gulped. She was to be left alone in the middle of space-nowhere, down a tunnel that looked like a mining tunnel, and she wondered what Washington would have said about her future demise. She then smiled, it was good to be back with the crew.

The journey down was fast. Max had done this journey enough times to get it right, and he applied the brakes on the rear carriage and brought them to a halt a foot past the fork. He and Joanne turned the carriage around the fork gave them ample room to work. He showed her where to wait with the canister and headed back up the line. Max’s light quickly disappeared and Joanne was left alone.

“Crap!” she said to herself aloud as nobody could hear her. “I never wanted to be a damn miner!”

All she had was her helmet light and a flashlight to see around her. Other than that it was totally black along all three of the tunnels as night had fallen outside. If there had been light, there wasn’t any now.

What seemed like forever, a faint light could be seen shinning differently on the tunnel wall in the direction of the exit. Max and Ryan returned like an underground train coming into the station much to her relief.

Ryan got off with the second canister and Joanne watched as the two men turned the train around, and Max again headed back up the steep slope of the tunnel. She was quite shocked to hear voices again as they worked.

Ryan put his canister on its side and sat down.

“Gee, my back hurt quick,” he told her. “We had crept along about 600 feet before I needed to sit and straighten my back. I don’t know how young Mars got down all the way the first time.”

“Who is taller?” Joanne asked.

“I think me by an inch or two,” replied Ryan.

Again the light of the helmets on the train appeared. Max dropped off Patricia, the second medic and her canister. She was only a few inches shorter than Ryan.

Ryan checked his suit readouts for the umpteenth time as Max disappeared back up the tunnel.

“Any change?” Joanne asked.

“Nope” replied Ryan nodding his head “except the temperature has dropped a few degrees. I can’t understand the difference. When Max returned to us, the temperature closer to the exits was 30 degrees below zero Celsius, and dropping like a rock as it usually does. Here it is only one degree below freezing Celsius. I believe there must be some sort of heat in this mountain, or whatever we are in. It can’t be the Matt power systems. They wouldn’t change temperature so far from the base.”

“It could be a volcano, or there could be lava underground, like Earth?” suggested Joanne.

“Could be, but there has never been a mention of possible lava, or a hot center on Mars before, but with this heat, it could be possible,” replied Ryan.

“Will the Matts just walk out once the door opens?” asked Patricia.

“There are two systems we have found so far,” replied Ryan. “On DX2017, both times, we had to enter and actually release the chambers one by one.”

“Yes, I know I was there for the OldGeners release, but VIN told me that on Titan, or one of the moons, I can’t remember which, the Matts just walked out when the door opened,” replied Patricia.

“I can’t remember either” replied Ryan “but it seems for some unknown reason, the Matt cryogenic systems are built differently in different locations.”

“Maybe an advance in technology?” suggested Joanne.

“Well, I would assume that this way, the system we are about to work with, is the real way Roo and the Matts were taught,” stated Ryan as the light of Roo’s helmet lit up the tunnel in the direction they were coming from. “Whatever happens, we must be ready if there are Matts alive in there.”

For the fourth time, Max returned with Roo, who at five feet tall had managed half a mile before Max had returned to pick him up.

They turned the train around, left the train and rolling their canisters headed up the rear tunnel. Max stopped them at the see-through door, and they all saw VIN and Mars sitting next to a real river, and a real old-looking tree and chatting. Max hit the wall hard with his hammer and both men suddenly looked at them then Mars proceeded to help VIN on with his helmet.

“Can you hear me?” VIN asked several minutes later, once his suit and helmet were working.

“Just,” replied Ryan.

“OK, Mars must head into the command center and the door be closed before I open the outer door,” continued VIN from inside. “Max, I will hit the door three times, you fill the extra helmet that is on the floor with air, and place it on the outer panel. Hit the door three times Ryan, and I will open the door. There will be the usual powerful gush of air and bubbles, and you all must enter this cavern as fast as you can. Max will then remove the helmet from the panel, the door will close quickly, then Max you must head back up so we can communicate with you from inside the shuttle.”

Everyone nodded, they were all experienced, and they readied the canisters and themselves to enter an alien base.

The door opened as it had the last time, and VIN held onto the wall so that he wasn’t pulled into the way of the incoming crewmembers as they worked their way inside the cavern. Max pushed two of the members from the rear, and within 20 seconds they were in, four crew and three canisters, and as Max removed the helmet full of air, the door closed rapidly.

“We need at least thirty minutes for the pressure to build up,” VIN stated loud and clear to the others again. “Max can you hear me?”

“Just,” was the faint response.

“How much air did we lose?”

“About the Nevada base’s swimming pools worth,” Max replied. “It is dissipating along the roof of the tunnel. It was down to my waist a few seconds ago. I’m out of here. Talk to you in 40 minutes from SB-III, out.”

VIN looked at the others, then at his readout. Being the most experienced spacewalker in Astermine, he was naturally the person in charge. Ryan had less than half the number of hour’s spacewalking VIN had.

His readout showed that the air pressure was dangerously low, this time well below the borderline of 500 millibars, the temperature had dropped from 56 degrees to near freezing, and they had no choice but to wait. He had checked the time the door would open, and they had 34 minutes before they needed to be inside the command center when the door to the cryogenic chamber was scheduled to open. That was of course if it opened as the previous doors had done. Also, since Mars didn’t have a workable suit and helmet, it wasn’t possible to speak to him.

Ten long minutes passed, and VIN and Ryan helped the two medics to ready the equipment. The four IV’s were setup on their legs. The medical tools to insert the needles and all the other equipment were laid out on a solar blanket that had been placed in the medical container to keep a patient warm.

“Ten minutes are gone, and the air pressure is at bare minimum, temperature ten degrees above freezing Fahrenheit. Mars does have an air bottle with him, and three beats on the door will get him ready to breathe,” stated VIN. With his hammer from its clasp on his leg, he wacked the door three times, and seconds later got the same response from the other side.”

VIN pushed the panel a minute later, but the door still didn’t open.

“This door will not open until its safe on both sides, and Max has the only extra helmet. I think we need another 15 minutes before we try again. At least we know Mars is still alive,” continued VIN who didn’t know what was happening on the other side of the door.

Unknown to the rest of the crew, the door to the cryogenic chamber had already opened. It had opened as the outer door to the space vacuum inside the tunnel had been opened by Max. Somehow something had prompted the door to the cold room to open, and Mars was lucky he was wearing his suit.

Although his suit was off, the suit itself still protected the young man from the blast of sub-zero air that gushed out of the cryogenic chambers as he sat on the opposite wall looking at the door. It nearly scared the bejesus out of him as this thick cloud of icy vapor, due to the lower than usual air pressure in the command center, suddenly swirled around him.

He instinctively turned on his suit, but it was virtually lifeless, apart for his readouts, which began to flash.

“God, it’s got cold in here!” he stated loudly out of shock than anything else. He looked down at his left forearm, where his computer was situated and saw the reason why. “Crap!”

The air in the command center had gone down in a split second from 56 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 65 degrees. His inner suit although warmer at 38 degrees, was rapidly slipping down the scale, and he squeezed the soft part underneath his helmet ring with both hands to seal it off. His breath, even though the pressure was climbing back to normal hurt his lungs it was so cold. He let go of his throat, grabbed his helmet and placed it over his head. He knew that his suit and helmet had air in it, and at least he could breathe a few breaths of warmer air escaping from his suit once he had the two connected.

After he had turned the first rotation of the helmet, warmer air filled his lungs, and he knew that if he was struggling with the temperature, so was every other living person in the room. He still couldn’t see much, as he was sitting in a dense fog.

He sat there for several minutes, until the air in the suit and helmet got harder to breathe and he was getting very dizzy. He needed to take off his helmet, so checked his readouts. The temperature was rising, albeit very slowly. It was now a warmer 50 degrees below zero.

Suddenly he heard three taps on the door to his right. He had just removed his helmet.

“Oh! I suppose it’s time to breathe in cold mountain air and go skiing, or something those people did on the icy mountains on Earth,” stated Mars to himself, got up, skid over to the door, and whacked his helmet on the door three times.

“Why are you doing that? Why is it so cold in here? Who is controlling the command center?” clicked somebody rapidly in Matt from directly behind him. He couldn’t freeze, he already was semi-frozen, and he knew that whoever had said that was in the same position.

“Who are you?’ clicked Mars in perfect Matt. Mars couldn’t see anybody through the fog. He couldn’t even see his readout, or even his feet on the floor below him. The command center was a perfect white cloud of nothing.

“Commander Fob, Commander of this base. Why was I woken up?”

“We are here to rescue you,” replied Mars blindly. “It has been many years since the explosion. How many are there of you to rescue?”

“Just me and three of the young. My chamber was setup to open early, the others are warming and still asleep. Why can I not see you?”

“Because the outer tunnel is destroyed and I needed to enter from the destroyed area,” Mars replied trying to win some time. He wasn’t armed, and he hoped this Matt wasn’t either.

“How can you do that? Our suits are not designed for the vacuum. Do you have a better suit? I hope so. It is about time the home base came up with a suit like those vermin on the blue planet,” was the reply.

“We have, but it was damaged when I had to force the door open,” Mars replied. He moved carefully and sat down in the corner of the command center to make himself as small a target as possible.

“You are speaking badly. You do not speak like we used to. Have times changed? How long have I been asleep? I had to activate sleep with the three survivors two days after the explosion. We had run out of food and water in the command center.”

“Times have changed,” replied Mars. He could just see his readouts again. The temperature had risen several degrees, it was getting easier to breathe, and he thought that the cloud was thinning. It wouldn’t be long before they would be able to see each other, and he grabbed his hammer on the suit of his leg.

He sensed the other person in the room head over to the console. Mars wasn’t an expert on how the command center operated, and he heard the Matt’s hand feel around the console.

“I am turning on the power to maximum,” and as the Matt said that, the walls in the room brightened, Mars felt a movement of air in the room, and the dense fog began to swirl towards the roof. Suddenly they could see each other.

“You are a new person from the blue planet…from that base we tried to destroy,” stated the short Matt in the usual blue suit. “You are not one of us, but you speak the language of our people from the blue planet. I should have realized the difference in the language, but my head is still spinning from the sleep.”

Mars looked at the small man. He looked just like Commander Joot, the Matt these people had killed on the attack on the retreat. He wore the broach of a “Commander” and the man’s face as still very white and pale, just like his father VIN had looked when he had revived him on DX2017.

“I come in peace to save you,” was all Mars got out before the man simply folded onto the floor next to the console. Suddenly there was a rapid tapping on the door, and it slid open, Mars saw four crew in full spacesuits.

VIN stared at his son. The poor boy looked frozen, and he immediately checked his readouts. The temperature in this room was far below freezing, but the air entering with them should heat it up a bit.

Ryan immediately opened the canister he had just rolled in, turned it upright and pulled out a complete spacesuit and helmet.

Mars didn’t need a second suggestion. His teeth were beginning to do a drum solo in his head and the two medics immediately began helping him to take off his dead suit.

He didn’t complain about the cold when the suit was slipped off his shivering body. He knew how to get into a suit without looking, and his eyes did not stray from the small Matt his father was lifting onto a solar blanket one of the crew had stretched out on the floor. Once the Matt was on it, VIN took another blanket out of the other canister, and placed it over the sleeping form.

VIN must have said something over the intercom inside their helmets, as one of the medics moved towards the small person. The suited person grabbed an IV fluid system from the cavern, placed it next to the blanketed Matt, cut away the suit around the man’s small arm, and injected the lifesaving vitamins, minerals and fluid from the IV pouch into the inert body.

Mars was dressed in the new suit. He was too cold to help much and Ryan placed the helmet on his head and began screwing.

“Can you hear me?” Mars heard Ryan ask a couple of minutes later as the warmth from the suits heating system gave him a bath of beautiful hot air.

“Yes, boss. I have intercom connection. God! It was cold out there,” replied Mars as his new helmet was screwed on so everybody could hear him. “I spoke to the Commander before he keeled over. He is Commander Fob, there are I think he said, three others in the chambers, all kids.”

“Max, you back in the shuttle?” Mars heard his father ask.

“Yep! Been here thirty minutes,” was the reply.

“Is there anybody else who can sort out that train thing?”

“Negative VIN, not on this shuttle, or SB-IV,” Max replied.

“I think you being in the tunnel for most of your last spacewalk spared you the usual cosmic radiation loads. I need more suits down here. We have one suit for this guy Mars found, and one other. We need the kid suits. Can you get two kid suits into one canister?”

“Easy, we have tried it before” Max responded. “But we have only two kid suits. The tallest kid will have to be fitted into one of the teenage suits you have down there already. I can be ready in an hour, but need your permission to exit before my three-hour rest limit, and its dark and minus 100 Celsius out there, over.”

“What do you think Mr. Noble?” Ryan asked the most experienced man in the room.

“I know the tunnel is hiding us from direct Cosmic rays. I would do it if it was necessary,” VIN replied looking at Ryan. “We only have about an hour before those sleep chambers open, and even if the rooms are back at normal temperature, the kids’ real small bodies waking up will shiver themselves to death, like you and I did when we woke up on DX2017. Remember boss, we’ve been there and done that.

“Joanne how many space blankets do we have?” Ryan asked.

“Three plus the two on the commander guy,” she replied.

“I saw the guy turn up the support systems to full power. I didn’t even know there was a switch for that,” added Mars.

“I had found it while on Titan or Enceladus,” responded VIN. “I should have thought about increasing the systems to full power, but forgot. This age thing is getting to me.”

“I’m willing to help Max,” piped in Saturn.

“I think Saturn and I are the shortest aboard the shuttles right now,” stated Maggie.

“Both girls are shorter than me,” added Jonesy.

“How many spare adult suits do we have aboard?” Ryan asked.

“Three,” replied Max.

“OK, Max rest for a 60 minute period from your shuttle entry,” ordered Ryan. “At least that will give you a break. Saturn, Maggie, get ready and pack two canisters. One with two of the kid suits, the other with extra food, water, and IVs. We will also need as many suit rechargers as you can fit. Also, I think a pistol or something in that department will be in order. Max when should we expect you?”

“Say 75 minutes. Who is staying, who is coming back to the shuttle?”

“We only need one in here. Maggie can stay and come through the door with the canisters, you and Saturn head back to SB-IV. We need both craft ready at all times. Saturn have your copilot prepared to follow Jonesy at a moment’s notice. We don’t know if this guy had telepathic contact to the other part of the base, Ruler Roo is down here, so we will get Roo questioning him once he comes around, out.”

Max was good. An hour and 20 minutes later he had picked up Maggie on the second trip, and was already heading down the tunnel with canister for the second time towards Saturn sitting in the darkness like Joanne had at the fork.

The commander was still unconscious, and he was on his second small pouch of IV fluid.

VIN and Mars had checked out the two levels of the cryogenic chambers and both had felt Déjà vu. The whole system was an exact replica of the one on DX2017, except that the units were single sleepers, not doubles like on the asteroid.

All the sleep units in the entire bottom section of the chamber were empty, except one. Scrolls that looked like reports, or daily logs on sheets of a canvas type material were found in the closest unit to the stairs.

Both VIN and Mars could pick out a few words in Matt here and there when they tied to read the first scroll, but they had Ruler Roo begin to go through the papers until the commander awoke.

On the upper level both men could see that the three chambers were changing. There was no way to tell how far they were through their heating process, so Patricia stood by them while Ryan and Joanne guarded the commander.

“He looks as old as any Matt I have ever met,” stated Ryan to Joanne.

“Roo told me that their history records at the Pig’s Snout told that these Matts they met centuries ago could live a very long time,” replied Joanne looking at the sleeping Matt. His face had regained the usual Matt coloring, and the man could awaken at any time. “They could live far longer than Roo’s tribe, as it seemed that actuate recordings were kept on arrivals and departures, and the same visitors were described and named over half a century. Did you know that the recordings from the Pig’s Snout showed that over 1,000 female Matts, and over 600 children were taken from the Pig’s Snout?” Ryan’s head movements showed that he didn’t.

“I wonder what happened to them?” he replied.

“We can ask the Commander when he wakes up,” stated Roo from across the room going through what he had just been given by VIN and Mars.

Ryan looked at his readout. “We should see crew outside in a few minutes.” He got up and headed into the larger cavern where he saw movement through the see-through door.

“Max is here,” Ryan stated to VIN and Mars, and the three of them returned to cavern to ready opening the door. This time Mars would be ready for the gush of air. The door to the command room was closed, and they told Max to add air into the helmet.

Maggie was pushed in by Max. Saturn rolled in the first canister with both gloves. The rolling canister went into the cavern easier than Maggie, and then Max pushed in the second with his foot. The door closed as Max removed the helmet from the panel and the crew looked at each other. Mars had not even had time to hug his wife, but he had managed to throw out the two liquid samples VIN had collected. Once the door was shut the astronauts inside the cavern could just hear Saturn and Max stating that they were returning to the exits.

“The robots are doing a stellar job cutting up the gold, but if some of you don’t return from visiting the Matts soon, we are going to be behind in loading the precious metal into the cargo holds.” Max relayed to Ryan before their voices disappeared.

“You OK Maggie?” Ryan asked.

“Sort of. I like the tree and the river. Look it even has a sort of waterfall.”

“You should see the lake under here,” added Mars. “It is cold down next to the water but there is enough water down there for a long time.”

“I think we need to get back to Roo and the medics,” VIN suggested, and he checked his readouts. “This time the pressure loss was half of what we lost the last time. I think 10 minutes is enough before we open the door.”

“I want to see the lake,” stated Ryan.

“Me too,” added Maggie.

“I think we can all get down and back in ten minutes, but I will have to recharge my suit pretty soon,” replied VIN, and Mars led the way past the toilet to the stairs.

In a line and ten stairs part, the four headed down to the lake below. The tiny light was on when Mars, who was leading the group reached the two-foot wide flat area just after the last stair.

“Be careful, don’t slip, or get near the liquid. It could still be an acid or liquid methane for all we know,” stated VIN as he squeezed onto the shelf, the opposite side of the stairs and facing his son.

“Very weird, the atmospheric levels in here,” stated Ryan looking at his suit’s readouts. “High amounts of helium. Nitrogen is here in good quantities, although low. Same with oxygen, nearly deadly without a helmet on, and CO2 at very low levels. I wonder what could have caused this air down here?”

The water gushing through that hole for thousands of years, thanks to the Matt air systems,” answered Mars.

As all four astronauts reached the bottom, the added light from four suit helmets showed more than before. Ryan has a flashlight with him, so did VIN and the six lights then lit up the cavern as never before.

It was far bigger than both Mars and VIN expected. Maggie gave a gasp at seeing the lake and Ryan was silently in shock.

“This is far more valuable than all that gold out there,” Ryan stated looking over the view.

Even with all the lights on, the far wall couldn’t be seen. This time they could see at least 150 feet, and still the lake didn’t end.

Ryan asked if VIN could dip his spacesuit with its readout into the liquid to see what it would come up with. But first he asked VIN to place his hammer into the liquid.

“If it is acid, it will eat the hammer, or at least do something to it. If it is liquid methane, I don’t think any harm will come to the hammer. If it is water, it could only freeze on the hammer,” he told VIN.

“Remember I have metal or human tissue hands. Which one do you want removed first?” VIN joked. He lent over the water having his other arm tightly on the stair railing and for a whole minute, he submerged the hammer in the water. He pulled it out and they all inspected it. Nothing had changed.

“I hate to tell you this, but I put my finger into the liquid upstairs,” mentioned Mars sheepishly.

“Well thanks for letting us know, son. If it was acid, you would be down to three human fingers by now,” replied Ryan sternly. “VIN, Saturn should have the samples Mars gave her in the shuttle soon. I suggest she give them to Jonesy in SB-III and he return them to the base for testing. And I think that we are going to need a few more spacesuits with a couple more build crew in them to catch up with our gold hauling.” VIN nodded.

“VIN, give your suit arm a few seconds in the water. At least we can get a temperature,” Ryan replied. VIN did so and the temperature came back that the liquid was five degrees above freezing Fahrenheit, exactly what he and Mars had thought it was.

Back up the stairs, Ryan noticed that they had been away from the cavern for nine minutes, and Mars checked his readouts, noticed that the pressure was again above the danger level, and pushed the door panel.

The four astronauts were shocked to see a mess of equipment in the command center, Roo and Joanne were sitting on top of the Matt who was moaning and struggling to get up. Both crewmembers seemed in command of the situation and smiling at them as the door opened.

The pressure was safe enough and with their suits getting low on power, the astronauts began unscrewing each other’s helmets.

As Maggie unscrewed Ryan’s helmet, Ryan gave orders to Jonesy to collect the liquid samples from his daughter before she boarded her shuttle, head back to the Retreat for reinforcements to help loading the gold in the cargo holds, the cryogenic units were about to open, and they all needed to go offline.

Ryan could see that the chamber door was open and Patricia was in there. Joanne mouthed to the astronauts to hurry up.

Within minutes their helmets were off. The air pressure was low, it was quite hard to breathe, but Ryan knew that it could only get better.

“VIN, please come and hold this man,” shouted Joanne in English. “He is writhing like a rattlesnake. Patricia needs me, and you Ryan, in the chamber. The units are about to open.”

VIN helped Joanne climb off, and helped the little man up once Roo got off him.

“I told you I was stronger, and younger than you Commander Fob, and you don’t have a tall wife to help you,” stated Roo to the Matt in his own language as VIN grabbed the man with his metal arm.

The commander began to struggle again, and VIN applied a lot of pressure. His metal hand could have squashed the poor Man’s old arm easily, and the Matt began to realize that this Tall Person’s arm was strong, and maybe not of bone and skin.

“I will stop trying to get away if you ease your grip,” stated the Commander and he stopped struggling. “You are made of metal?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks to your attack on our base, I was standing outside, and thanks to you commander, I lost my arm. That’s why I might just rip your arm out of your body, and then we’ll be quits,” replied VIN in perfect Matt menacingly.

That quietened down the Matt. Mars smiled as he took off his right hand glove off, and showed the Matt his hand.

“Your second attack,” stated Mars.

“What second attack? We have only attacked you once,” the Matt replied.

“Maybe you were asleep when I lost my arm, so maybe I won’t rip your other arm from your body,” Mars smiled.

“I need some water. I am in need of water. I will not fight you metal robots. Let me go,” stated the Matt. Mars eyed his father, who let go of the man. What astounded them next was what the Matt did. VIN hoped that he knew what the Matt was going to do and shielded the man from seeing the globe of Mars as he passed through to the main cavern. The man was thirsty. He didn’t bother to look in the direction of the globes as he walked out of the command center, bent down by the river and took a long drink of the ice cold liquid.

“Well, I suppose that is our liquid test done. I want the tests returned from Doctors Messer and Smidt before we drink from the water,” ordered VIN to the crew as Patricia exited the cryogenic area with a tiny Matt in her arms.

“Mars, Roo get a second blanket ready,” ordered Patricia. “This little thing is a baby, like your second son Roo. I’ll put him down on the space blanket and you get ready to cover him.”

Commander Fob was hustled back into the command center by Mars and VIN each side of him. Again he didn’t bother to look at the globes.

The medic cut away the sleeve of the space suit and within seconds had IV fluid entering the tiny body. Commander Fob, with VIN behind him entered to see what was going on.

Joanne exited the foggy chamber with a second child, a little larger than the first. Ryan was right behind her with the third person.

Each Matt was placed on a space blanket on the floor, fed through an IV and a second blanket put over to warm them up.

The space blankets designed by NASA decades ago worked extremely well to keep a person warm.

“Who are the children?” Roo asked the commander quite concerned.

“They were playing by the river when I believe the explosion occurred,” Commander Fob replied. “We always had drilled into our people that they head into a safe area if they heard any noise or rumbling outside the base. I was in the command center, they were scared by this massive rumbling in the ground all around us, and immediately ran in. The door closed behind them. I saw others running into the river chamber when the doors shut. They were not quick enough.”

“The door closed because atmosphere was lost?” VIN asked.

“No,” replied Fob. “The doors closed because of the vibrations. I checked on my command console and assumed that somebody had attacked our base. Then I tried to reopen the door, but the light glowed blue, which meant that the air the other side wasn’t safe to open the door. The children, one is a family member of mine, but not my son, had some food with them, and as base commander, I always keep supplies of water and food in case the door closed unexpectedly. It had happened to this door before, and I was waiting for a repairman to arrive from our headquarters.”

Ryan, Mars, Roo and VIN checked on the children. They were asleep, would be for several hours, and the medics and Maggie were looking after them.

“So what happened to you next?” VIN asked with the crew in the room listening in. All the crew in the room had been on the odyssey, and all spoke fluent Matt.

“My communications with the rest of my base were broken,” Fob replied, and got a shock when Roo, and then VIN and Mars tried to converse with him through the Matt system of mental telepathy.

Commander Fob was extremely shocked that these aliens could communicate like his race. It took him a full minute collect himself.

“We know you never communicated with your controls, only with your minds,” he heard one of the two Tall People think to him.

“My friends are as good as you and your people in communicating,” added Roo mentally. “Do not try and trick them. They do not like you very much and are very warlike. I believe they do want to hurt you for the deaths of their friends by your space fighters.”

A very slight smile crossed VIN’s face. He couldn’t have thought it better than what Roo had just told the commander. To make sure that he looked like he meant business, he picked up the laser pistol and thought to the commander.

“This little machine caused that explosion you felt all those years go,” VIN added making up the story. “We asked for peace, and yet, your pilots shot at unarmed people, and killed many of us. I could leave you and these unimportant children here, and when we leave finish the job the explosion didn’t.”

VIN’s sentence was so believable that Roo placed his hand on VIN’s arm to calm him unknowing that VIN was already calm. VIN had lost most of his want for vengeance whilst sleep for 14 years. Commander Fob carried on in Matt aloud.

“I was told by others in our base, the second chamber that there were people alive there, and that I should try and get down the tunnel to them. I tried the door but it wouldn’t open. My people tried to come and get us, but I assume you know already that our suits are not protective in the vacuum conditions. They told me that the tunnel was open to the vacuum, and there was no way we would survive. Nobody was coming. After a day of consideration, the children and I realized that since we were not already dead, the air and heat systems were still working the only way we might live was to go to long sleep. That is all I can tell you. Did anybody on the other side survive?”

There was no response, and VIN put his hand in the air to warn the others not to talk.

All VIN had been taught about interrogation back in his young days in Force Recon in the Marine Corp came back to him. It was time to learn where Homo sapiens stood in the solar system compared to these Matts.

Everybody including Ryan stared at VIN waiting for him to say something. It took a full minute before the ex-Marine said his next word, and his fidgeted with the laser pistol, while he looked down at the ground.

Mars looked at Commander Fob. He stood straight, but he seemed to be slightly afraid of what VIN’s next move would be. So was Roo, and Joanne who understood what was actually going on, placed a reassuring hand on her husband’s shoulder in front of her.

VIN pulled the weapon up to his face and looked at it carefully. Then he looked at the commander.

“Is that all you have to tell me?’ VIN asked in a cold tone.

“I asked you if any of our other people survived?” asked the commander slowly, knowing that he was on dangerous ground.

“No,” replied VIN in one word, and Joanne squeezed her husband’s shoulder again to keep him quiet. “I assumed the explosion was your power plant, but it still runs. You are lying to me Commander Fob, or you would be already dead, not nearly dead.”

“No, the explosion wasn’t our power plant. We had the very large power plant for the spaceships and the crews, and the spaceship part of our base was in that direction,” the commander pointed to where the open hole in the ground now existed.

“That is nothing but a deep hole in the ground bigger than this cavern,” VIN replied. “The tunnels are completely broken, and so is the other base. What was inside the other base, and why did you have such a long tunnel to get there?” VIN asked. The room as so silent that one could have heard a pin drop.

The commander’s face screwed up he was thinking so hard. Now he knew that it was his spaceship hangar that had exploded, and that it seemed the blast had broken through all the protective sections his men had built along the tunnel. Also if he tried to telepathically contact any other in the other base or anywhere else in the solar system, these people would hear him. He was trapped, mentally and physically.

“How did you get to me in here?” he asked, one question still burning in his brain. “It seems that your suits are good in vacuum space?”

We entered through the big hole in the other area of your base,” VIN lied. “That area was blown up when the base attacked us a few years ago, and when my son lost his arm.”

“Are their spaceships destroyed as well, the whole base?” the commander asked now looking rather shocked.

“Yes” stated Mars angrily “and your men killed my pilot, my best friend. Dad shoot him!”

Roo rushed forward and fell on his knees in front of VIN. Roo was the only team member who didn’t understand what was going on. “Please friend VIN. Don’t shoot Commander Fob. Please! We Earth Matts don’t like violence. Please don’t kill him and the children!”

“Joanne, take your husband away,” ordered VIN turning around to Joanne and winking. “Shut him up in the toilet or something. Ryan will you help her please?”

Roo was dragged away screaming into the river room, and the pleadings from the poor man was heard until a door closed, and his begging was silenced.

There Joanne explained to her husband that his best friend VIN was only kidding. He was making the commander scared to get information, and slowly Roo calmed down while Ryan rejoined the group.

“These stupid Earth Matts know nothing about war, not like you and me, hey commander?” smiled VIN directly looking the commander in the face. The commander suddenly realized that his predicament was far worse than he thought a few minutes earlier. These Tall People weren’t even nice to the Earth Matts he had often heard about. “You are the only Matts alive on this planet, commander. Europa, the white planet, I believe your headquarters we attack next.”

Commander Fob now understood that these Tall People had the means to walk around in the vacuum of space, and they knew where the white planet was. It was called Gook in Matt, the planet had been Matt Headquarters for as long as the history scrolls said so, for over 200,000 Earth years, and he had been born there, as had over 500,000 other Matts in their history books.

He began to understand that their second base—Mars had now been destroyed by the Earth’s Tall People he felt a twinge of sadness. The ancient Tall People had also destroyed their base on the blue planet 10,000 years ago. It had been on the same area of land that these people came from. He knew that because it was in the history scrolls, he had visited Earth himself 25 years ago, and had witnesses the Tall People’s destruction of their own satellites through their own intertribal fighting. He had watched with happiness, the complete destruction of everything orbiting the blue planet, thinking that his base on Mars was now safe for centuries to come.

He hadn’t seen the surviving space craft surrounded by the same blue shield they had given to the Earth Matts so many centuries ago, and he had been shocked a few years later to see Tall People on his own planet.

Now these Tall People were standing in his very own command center, and telling him that they knew about Gook. He suddenly wanted to see the globes outside in the Globe Room, to see if the reinforcements were on their way, the same reinforcements he had asked for 15 years ago. He tried to peer over the shoulder of the very tall metal Tall Person, who could think like him, and the man immediately saw his movement.

“No, sorry Commander Fob, your globes are now ours,” he heard the tall metal person think to him, and then to the other metal person. “Mars, can you find something to blindfold the commander with, until we get a suit on him and out of here.”

“You had better bind his hands behind his back” VIN stated to Mars in English, a language the commander didn’t understand.

“Ryan, it seems that the commander knows about the incoming flights from Europa,” stated VIN.

“I think it important to find out what is in the rest of this base,” replied Ryan. “Are you sure he doesn’t understand English?”

“I don’t believe so, but I’m nearly there,” VIN replied as he watched his son rip off a piece of a space blanket and begin wrapping it around the Matt’s eyes.

“I think as soon as we dress these kids, we need to leave here,” stated Ryan.

“Joanne I need to sedate the commander. Do you have anything in your box of tricks, Doc?” asked VIN. Joanne nodded that she had.

“Commander Fob. I will allow you and these three children to live, if you answer my questions truthfully,” carried on VIN thinking in Matt and looking at the commander’s face who couldn’t see him back. “If you answer my questions correctly, I will also ask our commander to declare peace with your people on the white planet. We know your spaceships are coming to this planet. We count 16 ships.” That made the commander relax slightly and the muscles of his face relaxed into a twitch a grin for a split second, thought VIN. He continued verbally in Matt. “Since you have 16 spaceships coming here, that means that your forces in the white planet have 16 less ships, and that will help our fleet of ships heading there right now. We knew about your base out there a long time ago, and since you attacked us here on the red planet, my commander felt it would even the battle if we attacked your white planet first. Also there is nothing left to attack here on this planet. Are you ready to answer my questions?”

Commander Fob said nothing for a few minutes. His head was still swimming from the 15 years of sleep, the cold of the nitrogen, the bad news, and he needed to think clearly.

“I am ready,” the commander replied softly.

“Why did you attack our base when we asked your astronauts for peace?” VIN asked.

“You Tall People tricked us many years ago on the blue planet. We came in peace to visit you from the white planet. We couldn’t find our tribe we left on your planet. The green and cool area we always visited them was a hot dry desert, so we looked into the cooler areas to the south. There we found tall, dark people, who tried to kill us every time we tried to talk to them. We found a few people who looked like us, and we met with them. They did not speak our language, although they spoke one much the same. These short dark people couldn’t tell us anything about our people, so we headed north of the new desert. Here tall white people like you sent their animals they rode on to attack us. They attacked us every time we landed. They killed several of us, and then we moved to set up a base on the same land you come from.”

“How do you know this?” VIN asked quite socked at this. These Matts had lived on the North American continent 3,000 years ago.

“My ancestor, Commander Hoo documented these travels in our history scrolls,” replied Fob. “They lived on this land for two generations, setting up a base so that they could find the tribe we had lost. They never found them, and were repeatedly attacked by the local people, killing many on each side. We grew to hate all the Tall People on the blue planet, and our tribe vowed to attack them wherever we found them. We left the blue planet and set up this base. My ancestor, Commander Gut was the first commander, my father the tenth and I was the eleventh.”

“And this is your command center?’ asked VIN. The Matt nodded. “If you had your spacecraft here, and your command center here, why did you build such long tunnels?”

“We needed the water I think you have already found underneath, and the metals we needed to manufacture our base and spaceships was a long way from here. So we had to join the two areas up, and this base was made of two areas: the command center with the water, and the metal section with the builders. My ancestor, the fifth commander completed the tunnel when my father was very young, like that boy you first brought out of the chamber. That is my brother’s son, and my brother died flying one of our spacecraft you destroyed.”

Slowly the other side of the story came together to those listening. There wasn’t much to do apart to make sure the children were warm, and the suits recharged.

“So you attacked the base we Matts lived in because the Tall People had attacked you on the blue planet?” asked Roo. He had returned several minutes earlier, once he had calmed down, and as the commander had begun his story.

“It is in my orders to do so, from my ancestors who built this base, and we must continue to do so until either we are all dead, or you leave us alone,” was the commander’s simple reply.

“These Tall People only want peace,” added Roo. “My wife, that tall women sitting there was the ruler of that area you lived in. Now a younger person rules, and she and I, Ruler Roo have come here to rule our Matt base on the red planet. Does that mean you will always attack us, until we are no more?’ Roo asked the commander.

“Yes,” replied the Commander. “We must do what it states in our history scrolls. My people on the white planet, many thousands of them with many spaceships have the same history scrolls, and we must do what our ancestors say.”

“What happens if we leave you alone on the white planet, and you leave us alone on the red planet?” asked Ryan, who hadn’t spoken to the commander before.

“If it is one day written in our history scrolls by the Ruler, then it will be so for our future generations,” replied Fob.

“So which side of your base was the largest?” VIN asked trying to keep control of the situation.

“Of course that side,” replied the commander. “This side was for all flight commanders, inventors, our pilots, and family only. The other side was for miners, builders, teachers, young pilots, and ranks lower than Commander.”

“So the other side had more space ships than this side,” VIN asked.

“No,” Commander Fob replied.

“So that was why we destroyed 27 ships on the second attack, and when I lost my arm?” Mars injected, his father looking at him but staying quiet.

Commander Fob stared at the younger man. He was puzzled. The younger man showed him his metal arm as proof of the battle.

“I destroyed none of your crew,” Mars stated. “I was flying an Earth Matt ship. Actually I was flying Commander Joot’s spaceship. He was a good friend of mine, the Matt commander your brother killed in the first attack,” Mars stated.

“That ship has no weapons,” Commander Fob replied.

“Correct commander. Your brave pilots from the other side knew that it was a Matt ship, but still they shot me down.”

Commander Fob shook his head. “They were only to attack Tall People spaceships, not our own, and there were not twenty-seven ships, unless new ships had arrived from the white planet.

Nobody said anything for a few minutes, then one of the children groaned, and the two medics attended the boy.

“So how many of your people died in here? We only counted 5 bodies outside?” VIN asked.

“You are correct. Our flight commanders and two inventors. The rest of my crew, and pilots died in the explosion. Forty in all,” was Fob’s reply.

“And the second explosion?” VIN asked.

“Were there any survivors?” Fob asked.

“No,” replied Mars.

“Forty-five pilots, 21 builders of spaceships, 21 growers of food, 21 miners of metals, 20 children and I believe 3 teachers of the children, soon to be Inventors. My wife was one of the growers of food, and she and I were separated when the explosion occurred. I have said enough, do what you want of me and the children, and I hope our ships arrive from the white planet and kill you all. Even you Ruler Roo, who has taken a Tall People wife.”

VIN nodded, and Joanne smiled at the commander kindly when she gave him the sedative.

“I’m not angry with you commander,” she stated in perfect Matt. “I just hope you all forgive us one day for all our bad deeds against your people. What I am giving you will make you sleep, and Ruler Roo and I will make sure the three children live.”

Being a small man, the sedative meant for somebody of VIN’s size, the commander was asleep seconds after Joanne gave him her speech.

“It’s time to get out of here,” stated Ryan in English. “Well done Noble family, at least we know what we are up against us from next door. First we need to get these children, ourselves, and both shuttles back to the Retreat. It seems the lines of communications have been broken from here. I’m sure he is scared to communicate telepathically since you guys will hear what he says.”

“I would have heard the commander thinking to the others,” replied VIN. “He didn’t try, I believe.”

“At least we know that there must be still enemy spacecraft on this plant,” added Mars. “We only destroyed seven in the second battle.”

“And 137 Matts, minus the killed pilots, could still be alive” added Maggie.

I only remember seeing one single seat fighter during the battle,” stated Mars.

“It had a yellow nose in front of the pilot?” VIN asked.

“Jonesy and I blew one up with a yellow nose and so did Allen Saunders in SB-I during the first battle. He wrote it in his report,” stated Maggie.

“Talk to me Maggie, you are ex-Air force. What do the numbers represent, the difference between pilots and ships? They don’t tally,” asked Ryan.

“We have two flights of 16 ships heading towards this planet. It seems the commanders fly single seat aircraft. That means two wings of seven, each with a flight commander,” Maggie replied. “Fob stated that there were flight commanders here, and who died in the explosion. The first battle was only five ships. I assume Fob’s brother was the flight commander. Why he had four spaceships including his when they come in flights of seven, I can’t tell you. Maybe repairs were going on, or parts were needed with two of his ships, but I think a nearly two dozen aircraft in the hangar blowing up certainly must have added to the explosion. The explosions we saw when their aircraft blew up were certainly very powerful explosions. They must have several craft in the other section. It sounds like only one flight commander was there at the time of the explosion. He died when they attacked Mars and the others. The other one died here. All I can say Ryan is that there are still too many aircraft over on the other side with maybe one commander to lead them. Whether they can fly or not is not a number I want to attack, with two shuttles.”

Chapter 9

A New Home for Many

It took a whole day to get everyone back to the shuttles. The children were given a tiny sedative to keep them asleep and they were dressed into the spacesuits.

By the time this was done, Max had completed a full three-hour rest period, and he headed down the tunnel with the train.

Jonesy had reached the Retreat, was collecting three more crewmembers to help carry the gold and had just enough fuel to do one more trip to the tunnels and back.

The first group were ushered into the cavern, fully suited up when Max arrived and opened the door. Patricia, Maggie, Joanne and the three children literally spilled out of the cavern when the door opened, each holding a child.

Luckily, no damage was done to any of the suits, and VIN, Roo, Ryan and Mars had no choice but to wait in the closed command center for the air pressure to return. Their suits needed recharging.

Max took Joanne and the smallest child up first. Joanne lay on her back on the forward carriage and held the child in her arms as Max guided them up the tunnel. There Saturn was ready to carry the child back to the shuttle. Joanne followed, saw the others still carrying the gold squares into the cargo holds, and began work as her suit was freshly charged.

Max returned with the canister Saturn had carried to the tunnel with the extra suit, and this time he returned with Patricia and the next child. Saturn was back on the flight deck, but gave Patricia help over the intercom where to take the child.

Maggie was next, and Max completed the three journeys in two hours 10 minutes. He had just time to head down one more time.

Again he had to open the door to the cavern. He passed in the canister and Mars, pushed out by his father, was carrying the sleeping Matt Commander in Roo’s suit. Roo would have to wear an adult suit on the way up. It was far too big for him, he wouldn’t be able to walk in it, but he was to be carried by VIN and his powerful metal limbs.

Max headed up for the fourth time showing Mars how the girls how he had done it. Once at the tunnel entrance Max headed into the shuttle with Commander Fob while Mars headed over to Joanne and Maggie both helping with the gold carrying.

His suit was fresh, he was happy to be outside again. It was a nice Martian morning, and the weather clear. The piles of cut up blocks of gold were growing. At the moment there were only four of them carrying a block between two people back to SB-IV’s cargo bays. The shuttle’s cargo bays were nearly full, and once both shuttles were filled, they would swap places with the two shuttles above. This was meant to happen on Day 5, and they were already a day behind.

VIN couldn’t open the door to get the suit for at least six hours due to the increased lowering of the pressure with two exits of personnel.

Since both suits were recharged, they donned their suits so that they could find out what was going on, on the outside. Roo was happy to take a nap.

“Dad, you have been using more fuel than expected down on the surface,” stated Lunar in orbit in SB-V high above. Ryan and crew had only been down inside the planet for less than twelve hours, but to them it felt like a lifetime. “Jonesy can get back to the retreat and back to the tunnels one more time, but SB-III will take all the retreat’s fuel to get back into orbit. You are going to need a water flight for the base to make new fuel if Jonesy uses up all theirs. Also we have less than five days before we are due to blast out of orbit, and the computers show that you are nearly a ton behind schedule on the gold collection. We need to regroup on our mission, Dad.”

“I agree Lunar,” Ryan replied. “VIN managed to get the information out of our captive, and it seems that the Matts still have a powerful space force on the planet.”

“What about our crew on base?” Lunar asked. “They could be attacked and the base destroyed before we return.”

“I am analyzing that problem at the moment. VIN what do you think?”

“Lunar, we have found enough water down here to last us a hundred years. I know you didn’t hear Maggie’s statement on the enemy space craft and their commanders, I don’t believe our base will be attacked until their ships arrive from Europa. Maggie believes that they have few to no flight commanders, and without them they might not fly. I’m sure they have the same globes on the other base, as well as on Europa. The light from this base has been off since Commander Fob and his kids went to sleep, so they don’t know if anybody else survived down in this part of their base. They couldn’t get in or out of here anyway if they needed to rescue their commander. They need proper space suits, so until their robots have repaired the tunnel and have an atmosphere back in the tunnel, this base is far safer than the retreat. One thing I noticed, the Mars globe light from this base did not go on when we woke the Matts. Maybe there is a delay in its program. We could unplug them, or something so that they don’t light up when we move in and out. I think its necessary to move some of our crew staying behind into this base, especially the chemists. There is enough water down here to fill up every fuel tank we have back at the Retreat. Lunar that is my thinking at this time. I’ll turn this conversation over to your father, as I haven’t thought past the fuel production, out.”

“Dad, if we moved crew into that base, we will use even more of the fuel we need to get back to earth,” stated Lunar.

“I know that girl, but we must do something. Captain Pete and Doctor Nancy got back, I think we can too, even if we have to tow each other part of the way. VIN and I will think up a plan, you get your computers to do the same. We’ll discuss the situation when I get back aboard SB-IV, out.”

Ryan, Roo, and VIN left the Matt base three hours later. Max did a great job in ferrying them back up to the tunnel exits. By that time, and without helmets on to power up their suits for the exit, VIN, Roo and Ryan had devised a grand plan.

The next part of the operation would take 24 hours, and both ships, as full of weight as the astronauts thought safe, launched away from the still-working robots.

Jonesy, his cockpit full of the new Matts with Max, Roo and VIN squashed in as guards headed back to the Retreat while Saturn headed straight into orbit.

SB-III was heavy, but with her light fuel load, the ship flew straight and true to the Retreat. Here Dave Black was waiting for them inside the blue shield with two of the crew as guards to take Commander Fob into custody.

“We have every gallon for liquid hydrogen ready to load aboard your shuttle, commander” stated Dave as Jonesy headed into the retreat an hour later.

“Better start fueling her immediately, Dave,” Jonesy replied. “We are going to have a base meeting in an hour, and after that even I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is that SB-III has to head up soon to take transfer of the rest of the fuel out of SB-II’s cargo bays before she can come down to load up with gold.”

“Can everybody hear me?” asked Ryan over the intercom an hour after the refueling of SB-III had begun. It would only take two hours of refueling to clean out every drop of fuel on the base.

“SB-V, reading you clear, Dad,” replied Lunar.

“SB-II, same,” stated Jenny Burgos

“SB-IV, altitude 97,000 feet, we have ten minutes before we head over the horizon on Orbit One, over,” added Saturn.

“The crew of SB-III are here at the retreat, so are all base crewmembers listening in down here,” continued Ryan. “Security commander VIN Noble, Ruler Roo and I had a couple of hours down the depths of this planet to hash out a plan, and we would like a vote from everyone whether you accept it or not. Of course a majority vote wins. As most of you have already heard, there is a beautiful lake of water underneath the Matt base. I have just seen Suzi’s reports on the water, and it far cleaner and pure than we get from the crater. So far VIN and I have surmised that there are at least one million gallons of it ready for us to use.”

Ryan stopped talking as there were whistles, and sounds of excitement from many listening in in the cafeteria where he was speaking in the Retreat. He was sure that many in the ships were also happy with the find.

“There could be ten times, a hundred times that much water, but our lights weren’t powerful enough.”

“Any fishing holes?” asked Jonesy which got much laughter.

“Thank you Mr. Jones,” smiled Ryan. “We’ll check for you on the next visit, but I believe you are heading back to earth for good, are you not?” Jonesy nodded his head smiling at his boss, but saying nothing. “We have found out from the Matt commander that there is a possibility of more spaceships in their base we haven’t entered yet. I believe let sleeping dogs lie, and I do not want to waken that hornet’s nest until we return with more firepower on our next visit in 18 months’ time. We also believe that there is a flight of 16 spacecraft heading towards this planet from the Jupiter Moon Europa. They left about 100 days ago, and will arrive within the next 200 to 300 days. Why they are coming, we don’t know, but I surmise they are coming to join up with what is left of their space force on this planet to destroy our base. Ruler Roo suggested another alternative. His suggestion is to repair the other side of the base we haven’t visited yet. VIN reckons on both, and I tend to agree with both of them. We all agree that it will not be easy for the Matts to reach the water without spacesuits. Robots will have to fix the holes, seal the tunnel, and then they need atmosphere. Years of work just to get across to their much needed water supplies I’m sure. The Matts are believed to be headquartered on Europa. We ancient Homo sapiens destroyed them, and beat them off Earth over 3,000 years ago. Now they believe we are going to beat the crap out of them, and throw them off this planet, and then Europa, their headquarters. I understand their problem and would like to see if we could somehow set up a peace accord with them.

“After speaking at length to my security commander, and Ruler Roo, I feel that the captured base with the unlimited water supply is safer to have as our new hideaway until this problem with the Matts is solved. Therefore, I will get the returning shuttles to first land at the Martian Club Retreat to take all the crewmembers who want to set up our second base on this planet. All three of us believe that if they do attack us, they will attack our original base, and there is no reason they will ever attack what is left of their own base. The water is just too valuable. I know there are crewmembers who want to remain here at the Retreat. There are enough food supplies to last the crew here until we return, and then some, so the blue shields can be taken down and taken to the new base for protection. I’ll let VIN Noble tell you his ideas, and what he thinks will happen to the Martian Club Retreat while our shuttles are not available to protect you. Then Suzi for the biologist crew, Ruler Roo on behalf of his tribe, and finally Vitalily, or Max, whoever wants to offer their side.” Ryan handed the microphone to his security officer.

“As you all remember I was here for the first attack on this base,” VIN began. “I stood outside and saw the hate these Matts have against us. My son was in the second attack, and saw how deadly their ships can be. I have interrogated Commander Fob, the captured Matt commander, and seen the dislike he has for Homo sapiens. I cannot blame him, but I cannot fix his problems and scars that happened thousands of years ago. Nobody can. The Masers they attacked us with can destroy at least the top two levels of the Retreat. I don’t believe their Masers are powerful enough to reach our third level where our cold fusion plants currently are. If they can, this base is going to blow a massive new crater in his already cratered skyline. We have five levels in the Retreat and the crew remaining will, over the next few months, move our two power systems down to Level Five. I think that a skeleton crew should remain here, and be ready to live deep underground. If there is an attack on this base, the top two levels will be destroyed, but you will have the mining robots to dig you out. I will let Suzi explain the benefits of the move.”

“Ja, a million gallons of water, maybe just a drop in the Martian underground ocean. This is a dream any astro-biologist could dream for. Imagine the possible life forms down there. We could increase our hydroponic farming underground, even use a shield underground for added production if we can find room. I will work on a report of chemosynthesis versus photosynthesis, but will need ideas from Dr. Smidt here, and my team back in Nevada. We must not rely on our shield farming above ground until the Matts are peaceful towards us. We cannot lose any shields until Captain Pete and his team have managed to produce new ones. The last time I talked to him back on Earth, his team told me that it could take as long as 10 to 15 years before they could make a shield. I would like every biologist to move to the new base with everything we have, leave supplies for the crew staying behind, and I will organize a backup power system for our new home with the return of our ships from Earth. I will give you my complete report once the time is right back on Earth. Dankeschoen.”

“Ruler Roo, your suggestions for our tribe please,” continued Ryan.

“We are about to go off the air. Fill us in when we return overhead in 18 minutes, out.” stated Saturn from SB-IV.

“I have spoken to a few of the crew who are the more experienced Matts. Members who could one day become Ruler after I’m dead. My wife Joanne also spoke to members of the crew. I have also spoken to the three children we saved, and to Commander Fob for a few minutes since he returned from the tunnels. First I believe Commander Fob must go back to Earth. He is a danger to himself and to us Earth Matts with his hatred for everybody but his own tribe. The children, I believe, do not have this hatred inside them, and are happy to become one with our family. VIN stated that we should all keep eyes on them, and I believe he is right. We want to move to the base with water, and hope we can build a bigger and better base with the mining robots. It seems that the arriving Matts will not be able to visit us until the tunnels are repaired, and we will be hidden from them until the ships return in two years’ time. I would prefer to make peace with the Europa Matts, but I have seen that it could be impossible. I will leave that problem up to Mr. Richmond.”

Roo handed the microphone to Max Von Braun who got up to give the “Builders” and “Mechanics” side of the meeting to all the crew.

“I have been down those tunnels enough times for one week,” joked Max. Everybody gave him a round of applause for his hard work. “After speaking to VIN and Mars Noble, I didn’t enter the cavern. I believe that fifty of the crew could live comfortably in there immediately, 80 with a squeeze, and everyone in a few months once we use the available tunnels. We will have to be careful, but we can dug as long as we don’t destroy the underground lake underneath the whole base. There seems to be a good 50 feet of lava rock between the base and the lake. The explosion has given us a real opportunity for new life here, and I can go further with this while I am Base Commander. I have discussed the explosion crater with the others, and we believe that with alterations, like the collapsing of the natural roof above it, we could make an underground landing zone out of it, and it could be naturally protected by a new roof cavern door, like at the Pig’s Snout. There are recordings of excessive radiation, but the shields will take care of that problem in the short term.

“There are undamaged tunnel areas that could be sealed and made larger for apartments and corridors. I walked in all the tunnels and counted 200 feet of undamaged tunnels that still have their linings. That is more than enough space to increase our base round these specific areas. Our new areas won’t have this coating of gold and rare earth metals, but as yet we haven’t needed them in the Retreat. Unfortunately, we cannot move everybody in until the shuttles return so we need a skeleton crew to maintain the Martian Club Retreat. My crew are working on setting up a relay station to communicate between both bases and will have it ready before the shuttles leave. We are going to place a transmitter working on solar power on top of Lookout Mountain. If it doesn’t work before the shuttles leave, we will have to relay messages via earth, or via any spacecraft in space. That could take up to 20 minutes to send and receive a message, a little late for a warning of sorts, but better than nothing. That’s all I have.”

“So, crew, we expect to leave 101 crewmembers here, including the three new children,” continued Ryan. “I think we can take about 80 of you plus equipment, food and supplies in four shuttle loads. How we astronauts get back to earth is our problem, and at least we have radio communications with Nevada Base if we have a problem. I need some of you to stay here at the Retreat. Vitalily has offered to be the Martian Club Retreat Commander until we return. Max will be the new base’s commander. The Head of Security and I have decided that the three new children and Commander Fob will stay in the Retreat. We cannot take him back to earth, so Vitalily’s team will build a holding unit and keep him comfortable until our return. The reason is telepathically and he or the children communicating our travels to their headquarters. We will return as soon as possible and the new thrusters that are being discussed back on Earth could get us back here before the next opposition, I believe in less than 500 days. We will keep you informed from Earth, and I believe everybody in here will be safe as long as they live on the lower levels. Also there will be no more growth outside the base, so show the Matts when they arrive and do a fly past that nobody lives here anymore. If they land our Noble fighting robots will introduce themselves to them. The robots will be controlled from inside the base and the other dozen cameras already hidden so that you Vitalily can see what is going on outside. You will have eleven of the twelve robots. One is returning to earth with us. VIN Noble promised the Marines. Remember crew and leaders, these robots are as deadly to their aircraft as one of our shuttles is, they can hit a spacecraft ten miles away, and their craft have to get pretty close to be accurate on tiny ground targets. On top of the robots, we have our laser field guns, and every laser pistol will stay here on base. I don’t believe our robots will win the war, but they could deter a few attacks by the Matt ships. Everybody needs to vote whether to stay here, or to go. Meeting adjourned.”

Over the next hour, friends joined friends. Ruler Roo, Joanne and the two boys had to go to the new base, as all the Matts were going. Only Tall People, fighters were allowed to stay behind. Vitalily and his crew wanted to stay. So did several of the Mars crew who had made this base their home. Two of Max’s crew wanted to stay, and the final numbers were 83 and 18.

In return for staying Vitalily and the group of seven Russians at the base wanted some luxuries: a hundred cases of Russian vodka, other Russian luxuries and a hundred tins of caviar as payment for defending the base. Also they wanted to go home on the next journey

Ryan smiled at the order. If anybody could defend this base, it was the group of Russians who had built all the robots, the laser guns, and knew how to use them. It was a small cost compared to the billions invested in setting up the base in the first place.

The move was immediate, once the suits were recharged. Ryan gave orders for Jonesy and Mars Noble to head back to the tunnels with the first five crewmembers. Mars had done the run to the cavern before and would get them inside, each with a canister of supplies. Mars Noble reckoned he could do it in three hours, and then he and Jonesy would head up into orbit to fill up the shuttle’s fuel tanks from SB-II’s cargo bays, as Saturn as about to do from the cargo bays of SB-V. This would free up the shuttle’s cargo bays to be filled with gold once the shuttles came down. They first would land at the retreat, pick up crew and head over to the base. Mars would return with SB-II to help Max move the crew and supplies to the new base. All this had to be done in four days, or they would be late for the return flight to Earth.

Meanwhile Vitalily and crew were beginning work on a third carriage to join the train. It would be ready when Lunar arrived in SB-V the next day.

At least Ryan had half of the load of gold for Earth. He knew that on the next trip America Two would be joining the mission, and hopefully fly faster with new thrusters, which would give the crew time to return to Earth with a full cargo. Her twelve powerful laser guns would certainly double the firepower, and everyone knew that the return would be the start of the battle for the red planet.

Chapter 10

A New Plan

The crew were exhausted as the four shuttles, on full thrust, headed out of Mars’ orbit to where Earth would be in 179 days. They had passed their departure deadline by 27 hours. Twenty-seven hours meant 29 days of extra flying, and SB-III was about to have half her fuel supply sucked out of her by the larger shuttles.

Once that happened in a few hours, Jonesy would have about as much chance of getting back to Earth as Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy had aboard the “Office”. Actually he had less chance, he wasn’t as experienced as Captain Pete.

First, it was time for sleep, and most of the crew in the last two shuttles fell in exhausted sleep once Jonesy set the Flight Autopilot with the shuttles 25 miles apart.

The last four days had been a grind, especially for the spacewalkers on the surface carrying the gold into the empty cargo bays.

SB-V had headed down with full fuel tanks, an extra 1,000 gallons of fuel in her rear cargo hold, and had spent twelve hours at the retreat with every inch of spare room being loaded with the new carriage for the train, and canisters full of plants, and shrubs. They packed in chickens and rabbits sedated in canisters with slow leaking bottles of oxygen to keep them alive. These sealed animal canisters needed to get into the cavern first. Lunar’s shuttle carried 20 crew members, and the entire chemist’s lab to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. She would need three more flights to take in everything needed for the new base to survive.

Max flew with her on her first flight, and he would have Vitalily helping him this time. Both men had practiced how to strap three canisters at a time in a triangular formation to each of the forward two carriages. They could take down a crewmember and 23 canisters in four trips within their three-hour spacewalk period leaving the canisters to be carried into the cavern on the fourth trip.

They managed this with only minutes of air time left in their suits when they returned to SB-V. Ryan wasn’t happy but the two men had carried one biologist, two dollys for moving the canisters, 23 canisters, all the animals into the cavern and had closed it down destroying much of the air pressure. It didn’t matter though as three hours later and with fresh suits, they destroyed the air pressure for the second time this time rolling in the second biologist and another 23 canisters full of plants and shrubs.

By this time the animals were in the command center, and safe. The first biologist who had exited the shuttle minutes before the fourth journey still had a fresh suit, had waited 110 minutes before the air pressure had regained enough strength to open the door to the globe room and command center. Then he had wheeled in the canisters one by one, and set up the animals in their fold down cages which had been packed with them into the canisters.

By the time the door closed to protect him from the next entrance, he had set up 100 meat chickens, 50 egg layers, 50 breeding chickens, 40 rabbits and 100 baby rabbits in their cages in the two rooms, and had only lost two chickens in the process. Now he had two hours to feed them before trying the door to allow in the second biologist.

By his time, the chemistry lab had been taken down the tunnel by Max who had taken over from Vitalily. The chemistry lab was 40 canisters, which didn’t need to enter the door until they were needed to be set up. Another 20 canisters of supplies were taken down, and three crew. Again the door was opened, and the three crew headed into the cavern with three canisters of water and food, and the radio.

These quick openings, Max knew would only take an hour before the pressure was safe again and it wasn’t long before the three crewmembers opened the inner door to enter the globe and command center.

Outside the tunnels the crew heading back to Earth were working three hours on, three hours off filling the refilling the shuttle’s cargo holds with the gold.

By the time SB-II arrived 24 hours later with Mars Noble aboard, two full cargo holds of suited up and ready to go crew, and every canister left in the retreat full of supplies. Since it wasn’t necessary to take water, or fuel, each protective canister was full of vital supplies, and personal items.

By the time the Burgos sisters flew in in SB-II, SB-V’s first cargo hold was full of gold, and thirty crewmembers were inside the cavern.

Jonesy was now alone as security in orbit while SB-IV arrived six hours after SB-II with another 20 crewmembers aboard to be transferred into the new base. This was her only flight to the tunnels, and once she dropped off the crew, Saturn launched her shuttle back into orbit.

The carriages were working nonstop. With Max, Vitalily, VIN and Mars working them, they went up and down every 20 minutes carrying canisters or crew. The canisters were piling up outside the cavern and in the tunnel towards the exploded hangar area. Here they waited until the crew arrived. The team carried down 4 crew at a time, two on each carriage. As soon as two loads of canisters were unloaded by VIN or Mars at the bottom of the tunnel, four crewmembers exited the shuttles and headed down the tunnel. They all had fresh suits on and waited like Joanne had first done for the second group.

Once all eight were there, and the earlier group of eight had exited the cavern into the safe globe room, the door was opened by somebody inside and all eight crew headed in carrying 8 canisters. Whoever was outside the door rolled in several more and four canisters each holding a spacesuit taken off by crew inside the globe room were rolled out. They were then tied onto the carriages and the next crewmember who needed a rest, headed up to wait out his three hour rest period.

Even with the exchanges, the available suits ran out, and it delayed the system for six hours while they were returned to be used again and again.

After 48 hours, 83 crew were safe inside the globe room and command center, and the final 80 canisters of supplies were left to be taken down.

As the canisters holding the suits had returned for the next person to wear, the canisters were refilled inside the cargo bays, or delicate items inside the shuttle atmospheres.

While Vitalily, VIN and Mars jockeyed the canisters down, every other available crewmember from the retreat, including all the Russians, loaded the gold.

SB-V was finally full of her gold cargo 12 hours before their destination time limit, and then they worked in three-hour shifts to fill SB-II.

Down below, the carriages with the last canisters of vital equipment for the base trundled down, VIN and Mars rolled in canister after canister into the cavern through the opened door for a solid twenty minutes. The whole area round them in the tunnel was like a lake of air slowly seeping away.

They’d rolled in the last of the canisters as Vitalily arrived with the last six. These were quickly carried in and the door closed. VIN had used duct tape to keep the helmet sealed around the door panel, and the man who had opened the door headed up to the shuttles with the crew as he was returning to the retreat.

“There is only twenty percent air pressure left in the cavern Max,” stated VIN. “I wouldn’t open the door for at least 48 to 60 hours. We are out of here buddy. See you in a couple of years.”

They got a muffled response from Max, and the team headed up the tunnel, full of a sea of air bubbles heading in every direction, for the final time.

The bubbles moved so fast that they were escaping through the tunnel exits when the three men began lifting out the carriages one by one and loading them into the cargo hold of SB-II.

The larger shuttle, crammed full of people needed to return the retreat’s crew back to the base.

SB-II was three quarters full of cargo when Ryan, who had worked outside as hard as any of his crew stated that enough was enough, and it was time to return to earth.

Both shuttles said goodbye to the tunnels, and the astronauts could see the area of the missing yellow ooze as high as 5,000 feet above the surface. They had moved about a tenth of the gold so far.

The two shuttles flew back to the retreat, unloaded the crew staying behind, and all extra space suits. They unloaded the train into the blue shield, squashed the two canisters holding the dissected robot soldier into the cargo bay, and within an hour of landing, headed up into the darkening sky of a Martian dusk.

Ryan and Kathy, who had worked as hard as the rest slept in the dormitory in SB-V, while Lunar accepted the Flight Command Autopilot, and with Shelley Saunders monitored the shuttle’s gauges as they drew away from the red planet.

Lunar’s husband Michael and Dr. Smidt had worked hard outside, and their eyes were red and had black bags, and were asleep before they had even left the Martian atmosphere twelve hours’ earlier. Michael was still sleep twelve hours later, and Lunar let him rest. She was proud of him.

There hadn’t been much time for goodbyes, and there were many friends staying behind. The sleeping areas were half empty, and there was a lot more room for the return journey.

Roo, Joanne and the kids were in the new cavern. Patricia the second medic was in the Retreat. Max was base commander, and Dave Black was happily returning to Earth board SB-II.

VIN was onboard SB-V, and Suzi was with Saturn in SB-IV. It had been a real rush, and most of the returning crew weren’t in the ships they were meant to be. Even Maggie was aboard Lunar’s shuttle fast asleep. She had been one of the last to get aboard, and she had worked as hard as any crewmember out there.

There had been a plan put together by Ryan, Igor, Boris and Jonesy as Chief Astronaut, but as yet, nobody had been told the plan how on they were going to get back to Earth. Everybody had just fallen asleep after launch from the retreat.

Lunar was worried. All of the four shuttles did not have enough fuel to reach Earth due to running 27 hours late of the return deadline.

Due to the delay, they had to travel an extra 1,740,000 miles to reach Earth. It didn’t sound much, but Earth would be traveling away from them, or in a similar direction they were traveling at over 60,000 miles an hour. Also, she in SB-V and Jonesy in SB-III had used more fuel than had been reserved for them, and Lunar felt much like Captain Pete had felt trying his best to get back to Earth the last time.

Ryan, Igor and Boris were still sleep in SB-V. Igor and Boris, although older than many of the crew had worked as hard outside next to Ryan carrying in the gold.

It took a few more hours before the crew began to wake, and water, food, and coffee was brewed for the crew in SB-V who looked like they had been overworked too long. Lunar was quite surprised that her father was rather calm and serene, drinking his coffee pouch. Nobody seemed worried that they might not get back to the blue planet.

“Dad, when are you going to tell us about your ideas to get us back to Nevada?” Lunar asked handing Maggie, and then her husband a pouch of hot coffee.

“Give Igor, Boris and I a few minutes to freshen up. I want to send a message to Pluto Katherine first, and then talk to Max, and Vitalily, and Mr. Jones while the message is on its way.

Lunar had done a daily report to Nevada. The loading of the gold, and delivery of crew and supplies into the new base had taken everybody else’s time. The team back on Earth were worried, and their computers had told them the same story the astronauts knew: that getting back to earth with the delay would be a problem.

Several minutes later a report was sent to Nevada, and Ryan got on the intercom. The intercom was an open channel between all ships and anybody only within 400,000 miles.

“SB-V to Martian Club Retreat, do you copy, over? Vitalily, are you or one of your crew on radio, over?”

“Retreat to SB-V, copied that, Patricia here. Vitalily is still sleep. Want me to get him, over?”

“Negative, let him sleep. He deserves some rest. Patricia how is the base, over.”

“As usual, nothing on radar. It is a nice morning down here, cameras working well, no sign of storms, but there is a wind out there. We will begin hauling in the topsoil later, and expect to close down two of the three shields as planned within ten days, over.”

“Remember, nothing, even the topsoil is to be left on the upper two levels. Thanks Patricia. Max you there at the new base, over?”

“Reading you loud and clear boss,” replied Max. “Patricia, how are you reading me, over?”

“Still very faint, but clear Max,” replied Patricia.

“I could just hear you too,” replied Max. “Lookout Mountain must be up and running, but at minimum power. Maybe the relay’s solar panels need a few more days of sunlight to power up 100 percent, but at least we have comms. Boss, the crew here are pretty squashed, but we need to wait out the 60 hours VIN suggested to get a decent air pressure back into the rest of the base. The temporary space toilet is working well, some are actually sleeping in the cryogenic chambers. They say it is pretty comfortable, more comfortable than space blankets on the floor. All our beds are still in the cavern, so we will set up the base day after tomorrow. By the way several of the biologists collected water from the river before entering the globe room. The water here tastes far better than the water from the crater. Also Ruler Roo and Joanne want to name this new base Mattville. Mattville, Planet Mars, The Universe is our new address for the postal service when they get to space deliveries. Tell them we need a new zip code.”

That made all the crew listening in smile. Max continued. “Tell Suzi that due to our water tasting, we should have a superior wine and beer supply for her, and Jonesy when they return, and we all hope that both of them change their minds about retirement and return to visit. Tell Suzi that the air from the base is leaking with the water into the underground cavern. She had asked me that question a few days ago. Also I have sent the exact atmosphere densities to your onboard computers. The air is still pretty deadly down there, and we will wear suits if or when we go down there, over.”

“Great job, Max,” replied Ryan. ‘We will be in contact again in 24 hours, out. Mr. Jones, you are awake since your name was mentioned I assume?”

“Max can be persuasive at times,” Jonesy replied from SB-III.

“Have you thought about our plan to get home?” Ryan asked with the entire crew in space listening in. By now everybody was awake in the shuttles.

“Yes, and I think it will work, as long as I can have my wife back,” Jonesy replied.

“Of course, Commander Jones, we’ll ship Maggie priority mail as soon as the postal service gets out here to deliver our mail,” joked Ryan.

“A little sooner would be nice,” remarked the Chief Astronaut. “I’ve spent the last 12 hours doing an analysis of what you, Boris and Igor suggested. My computers state that we must transfer my fuel to the shuttles within the next 20 hours, and then I will have enough reserve fuel to complete a 12-minute full burn. That will change my direction 11 degrees in front of where you guys will reach your orbit of Earth. My fuel reserves will be enough for 300 hours of side thruster operation, good for 291 days of controlled flying. My forward speed will be steady at 51,000 knots and ETA Earth, is never. SB-III, and I, will miss Earth by 41 million miles on its first pass when you guys get there in 197 days’ time, and 13.77 million miles as it passes by my deceased body a year later. I am dry, was not offered one hundred cases of vodka like you promised that Russian Goat Vitalily, and have supplies for 243 days aboard.”

Lunar, who hadn’t heard the plan was shocked at what Jonesy reported.

“And you want me to climb board with you darling?” laughed Maggie from SB-IV. “You must be joking? Look at the bright side, you can last twice as long without me?”

“Well, I’m sure a quiet retirement alone in space would relax you, Dad,” added Saturn sitting next to her mother. “It will give you plenty of time to look for that space shark of yours.”

“Thank you ladies. Please allow the chief astronaut to continue with his report,” stated Ryan smiling.

“That is my report Boss, unless you want a detailed description of my upcoming death,” Jonesy added and was quiet.

“Sounds like a good thriller. Boris and I, and a few others would love to watch that scene Mr. Jones,” joked Igor.

“Pluto Katherine to SB-V, Pluto Katherine from Astermine, Base Nevada for Ryan Richmond. Your return message over?” came Ryan’s younger daughter’s scratchy voice over the radio from many millions of miles away. It was still a thrill for all the crew to once again have communications over such long distances, even though it took twenty minutes to reach Earth and return. “We have completed your computer calculations given to us 10 hours ago. We are happy to state that the rendezvous of SB-I and SB-III is possible in 120 days’ time. SB-I will leave Earth’s orbit in 17 days. We have enough fuel on base to fill both cargo holds of SB-I and we agree to a return flight of 122 days from the refueling and resupply of SB-III to LSO on your numbers. Total flight time for SB-III, we calculate is 242 days, for your three shuttles: 178 days, for SB-I: 229 days. We suggest you need to make two changes, which will decrease total flight time for SB-III by 7.9 days to Earth LSO orbit. SB-III must only increase its deflection angle by 10.15 degrees, not 10.97 degrees, and a full 17-minute burn is needed to reach a forward speed of exactly 52,600 knots. We understand that your fuel flow will be in reserve guidelines, but we can have Astermine I ready at the Orbital station to give you guys a splash and go once you get close. I await your reply, out.”

“SB-V to Nevada Base. Message received and understood,” replied Ryan over the radio. “I will compute in your changes and will report back in 24 hours. Looking forward to seeing you and the kids soon. Say hi to hubby and the whole crew. We here all hope things on Earth are getting better. Tell Martin Brusk I need a meeting on our return. Love you Pluts, out.”

“Tell your daughter that I need Allen Saunders and Michael Pitt to fly SB-I, and bring a few bottles along for the ride. It’s certainly going to be a long ride home.”

“Thank you for volunteering, Mr. Jones,” replied Ryan smiling.

“Oh! That’s what you call being given orders” joked Jonesy back, and the entire crew knew the new plan, and relaxed.

Chapter 11

Return to Earth

As planned, 90 percent of SB-III’s fuel aboard was split three ways between the other shuttles.

Six hours after the radio message SB-V, with VIN and Mars spacewalking outside, nosed up to within 30 feet above Jonesy’s cockpit. The father and son refueling team had already been outside for 15 minutes and had taken a 40-foot refueling hose with.

“It is beautiful up here spacewalking,” Mars told the crew as they floated in deep space at 49,000 knots, and the red planet in all its glory could be seen beginning to look further away.

“You can’t believe how pretty the red planet looks from out here,” VIN told the crew listening in.

“Mind that American space shark,” stated Vitalily from The Martian Club Retreat, nearly 58,000 thousand miles below the two spacewalkers.

“Yes, I heard the space shark has a real taste for anybody named Jones,” joked Max Von Braun from the new “Mattville”.

“Glad we are Noble fellows then,” joked VIN screwing the hose to the fuel connection under SB-V’s right wing.

“Mattville? What’s wrong with you guys down there,” quipped Jonesy not being done out of a few sarcastic remarks. “Lunar take your bird up another 6 feet girl, you are too close. Max, Mattville for heaven’s sake. It sounds like a two-bit hick town in Kansas, or Mississippi. Even Maxville, or Rooville has a better ring to it, or even Little Washington? That would make Joanne right at home. I got it, how about a fancy name like “Washington on Mars”. That would bring all the rich snobs to visit and set up homes.”

“Thank you Mr. Jones smiled Ryan. When Jonesy really got going he was hard to stop. Lunar have you cleared the 6 feet from SB-III yet?”

“Done,” replied Lunar. “VIN, how does it look from your angle?”

“Looks perfect Lunar, jet packing down to Jonesy now,” was the reply.

“Max, at least you didn’t call it Vodkaville, or even Marscow, like Vitalily, Igor or Boris might have asked for,” continued Jonesy cracking up in a happy mood while looking up through the cockpit window and waving at his partner.

“Shut up partner, keep your Cessna steady, I’m incoming and about to attach the hose now,” ordered VIN, and seconds later the refueling began.

“There goes all my fuel. Remember, I wanted my wife and a bottle of something in payment for all this liquid hydrogen being stolen by my best friend of all people,” added Jonesy.

Maggie spacewalked over to Jonesy from the other shuttle, helped by Mars and his jetpack ten minutes later.

The refueling had gone as planned with the three shuttles taking their allocations of fuel from Jonesy’s shuttle suggested by the scientists down in Nevada.

SB-III burned first, and slowly moved forward at a slight angle away from the rest of the pack still in close formation, and only 100 feet apart. Many watched and waved through the cockpit windows as Jonesy and Maggie slowly accelerated as they changed direction. To Maggie, if she was going to be stranded in space, it would only be with her husband.

Jonesy completed his 17 minute burn, separate to the others and the lone shuttle headed away 10.15 degrees to starboard from the others. Earth was going to pass by in front of SB-III in a couple of months’ time, from left to right if they didn’t get a visit from Santa Claus.

Saturn gave the usual Jones-style reassuring verbal jokes as SB-III floated away in front of them on the radar screen.

An hour later and with Jonesy out sight, and a hundred miles off their directional path the three shuttles began a much longer 55-minute burn, which would get them up to their cruising speed to reach Earth, still 29 days late.

Nobody ever found out if there was illegal goods in the canister of emergency rations and water, which headed over on a short cord behind Maggie, but extremely bad singing could be heard from somewhere in space two days later when the pair was already 47,000 miles behind, and on a different angle of trajectory to the shuttles in formation.

VIN, sitting in SB-V and listening to the horrible noise, somebody might make when being eaten by a space shark, mentioned to the others that he had heard this type of pain before: on the first and second asteroid mining expeditions.

The three shuttles exited Jonesy’s radar three days later, but the radio communications were still clear.

Max reported in from the new base; the pressure had equalized and the crew were unpacking all the canisters and the new home was already looking better.

Vitalily complained that Mattville hadn’t been called a Russian name, like Jonesy had suggested, and said his base’s changes were running according to plan.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones reported that they were watching movies and floating popcorn at each other to catch with their mouths, something nobody was really interested in hearing, and Nevada was as usual hot and dry, stated Dr. Geiger in his report to Ryan,

Dr. Geiger told Ryan that the country was getting better each day, and that Ryan must contact the Chinese Prime Minister when he returned. Martin Brusk had been contacted and would meet Ryan when he got back. Martin had good news for Ryan. Captain Pete was working on his shield project, a few breakthroughs had been made, and Pluto Katherine reported that they had good reserves of liquid hydrogen on base again.

Life aboard the three shuttles went back to exercise, sleep, eat and more exercise. Nobody was looking forward to going through the harshness of Earth gravity again. It got worse each time they returned, or was it age?

Jonesy and Maggie were alone in SB-III, and enjoying their private time together, and by the time Allen Saunders and Michel Pitt launched from the Nevada base with their third load of hydrogen fuel for the Orbital Build Station two weeks later, the lonely shuttle, SB-III was a million miles behind the other three.

At the build platform, where America Two was moored, as well as half of America Three, there was enough fuel in SB-I’s rear cargo bay to refuel SB-III, and return both flights to Earth.

“SB-I to SB-III and SB-V, do you all copy over?” asked Allen Saunders a few days later as he and Michael Pitt released the shuttle from its docking station on the platform and readied the craft to orbit the blue planet and then head to their destination, 122 days away.

“SB-V to SB-I, this is Lunar, on course, on time, and nothing much to see out here. Dad is fine, so is Mom and your Shelley is currently copilot, and Hillary is also ready to say hi” stated Lunar’s voice over SB-I’s speakers thirteen minutes later.

“Six minutes outgoing delay, a minute to reply, six minute incoming delay,” stated Michael to Allen in the copilot’s seat setting the rear thrusters for a 20 minute burn for their first orbit.

“They are getting closer. We should hear back from Jonesy in two minutes,” replied Allen Saunders.

Allen was correct, except that Jonesy was 20 seconds faster than expected. Jonesy was getting closer albeit much slower than the other three shuttles.

For the next hour, and through the delays Allen and Michael chatted with their daughters, who bought them up to date on their journey home. Since the radio transmissions were totally open for anybody to hear, the crew were careful in what was said.

“Martin Brusk to Ryan Richmond,” interrupted a voice into the Saunders’s family conversation, and everybody became silent to listen in.

“SB-V to Martin Brusk, this is Lunar, wait one, until my father can get to the mic. He is just getting off the exercise bike, over,” Allen and Michael heard a quarter of an hour later. A few minutes later Ryan came over the air.

“Hi Martin, this is Ryan.”

The hard part of any radio conversation was the audience waiting many minutes to get a reply from the other side. As Allen and Michael drew away from Astermine’s Orbital Build Station they waited.

Allen was nearly as brown as Michael. He had been fishing with Bob Mathews off the Australian coast up to 24 hours before launch when the call had come in that several of the crew were getting a ride in SB-I across the planet from Nevada to the island, where Michael was to pick up Allen.

Allen had been ready, and was already close to shore when they saw the shuttle begin its vertical drop into the island from high above.

Michael, his father African American was naturally darker than Allen. Michael had been teaching the third generation kids simulator flight instead of having a vacation.

Ex-General Allen Saunders had literally smelled of fish when Bob and the girls dropped him and his wife Jamie off at the pier, and with shouts and waves to the shore personnel watching, headed straight back out to sea.

Twelve hours later, and after cleaning up, he was piloting the shuttle into orbit.

“Hi Ryan,” came the response from Martin Brusk 30 minutes later. “Glad to hear you are still exercising up there. First things first. You will have video feed on your next flight. We have designed a system in California which will zip video feed with a radio message in both directions. Time to receiver is still the same: the speed of light at 186,000 miles a second, but we will have HD sound and visuals from now on. Our planet is getting its act together finally after 30 years of down time. If you remember our recent conversation about plasma power, our friend Franklin’s company has come up with the goods. I gave them products built by me, and they sort of mated their hardware to mine. Your credit is good with me, so I have 20 new thrusters under production for you. I will not say anymore, other than their specifications are 5 percent better on power and economy than we first thought. I have contacted our friends in Australia and Canada to design fusion power system output to match each individual unit. They will run completely separate from each other, can be individually controlled, and will use the same connected wireless control software. I believe one backup fusion power unit per four thrusters is necessary addition to the system. Weight is half a ton per system, so not a real problem to lift them up to your build station. I would feel better with the system I’m designing you for you to have backup a gazillion miles in space. Cost is only ten million per four thruster system. We want you to test the first unit off the production line here in California in about eight months.

“Lastly, remember your old Gulfstream jet I was playing around with? It is now totally rebuilt and I believe can take a family of four into a LSO orbit for about a week. Unfortunately, I don’t have a heat shield to solve the reentry heat, so need your help on that one. Otherwise, I am on good terms with most countries. There isn’t one war, or disturbance down here at the moment, but I’m sure things will change. How long can Homo sapiens stay peaceful? Remember our friend from Asia? His son is ready for your return and the boy is extremely keen to begin his training, and so are several others from around the world. With your help, I want to build a privately funded International Astronaut Training School, either here in California, or at your base in the neighboring state. Tell ex-President Dithers Roo that Washington is in good shape, thanks to her and the current President, and Vice President Penelope Pitt. I look forward to your return. Your daughter and Dr. Geiger kindly gave me your ETA and I’ll be glad to wheel you across the tarmac on that day. Over and out, Martin Brusk.”

It was a long message, but it filled the crew with hope. Their home planet was at peace, production was going forward, and they all looked forward to returning home, apart for the gravity.

Jonesy and Maggie heard the same message a minute after Ryan, and weren’t that happy that they had to wait an extra two months to reach Earth. Jonesy was happy about the new thrusters, and hoped he would be home to be a part of some of the tests before they retired and went fishing.

Joanne Dithers Roo and the entire crew on Mars received the message a minute after Jonesy and Maggie, and she was pleased that things in her old home city were going well. She felt a little homesick, but had promised to stand beside her husband on the red planet.

Within three days, Allen and Michael, now back at home in the aging but still reliable shuttle SB-I, could see earth receding behind them on their radar monitor, and got down to doing what the rest of the Astermine crew in space were doing; exercise, eat, sleep, and more exercise.

“SB-I to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, we see you on radar at 405,000 miles. Are you still alive out there?” asked Michael Pitt as the tiny blip of light showing the other shuttle began to low green on the very edge of their monitor.

Maggie had called into Base Nevada the day before, and told everybody that they were fine, and on vacation.

Long-term flying and doing very little in space did different things to different people, and many just switched off and contemplated life. Many knew Jonesy was one of them, until a light bulb went on in his head several hours later, and he used the intercom only the two craft in range could hear.

“Michael, Allen, Jonesy here, I hope you have a few Christmas presents for us. Christmas passed a couple of weeks ago, and Santa forgot to stop by, over.” Surprisingly, and with Maggie smiling, they received back a well-rehearsed song.

“A dozen new movies, eleven bars of chocolate, ten packs of dried fruit, nine frozen packs of smoked fish, eight packs of Australian chewie toffee, seven pouches of frozen limes, a six-pack of beer, five bottles of a special green cocktail mix, four bottles of bourbon, three bottles of something Russian, two bottles of tequila, a bottle of French Champagne for the New Year you missed, and a partridge in a pear tree,” sang the two incoming astronauts, badly, and who had especially purchased Jonesy’s and Maggie’s special desires. Both men had spent weeks rehearsing their song aboard ship.

“Yes, I was hoping you darlings would remember my Margaritas,” shouted Maggie back excitedly.

“Sounds like one of us should put one of our shuttles on autopilot, let it fly itself, and all get together for a party, life isn’t all that bad anymore,” added Jonesy.

“Not on my watch,” replied Allen. “But I’m sure one of us could come over at a time and we could have two parties.”

“Sounds even better,” replied Jonesy. “Allen put your pedal to the metal, and curve in to form up with us?”

“You are currently 378,000 miles out at our ten o’ clock. Your forward angle is 169.05 degrees to us. I’m going to hit the side thrusters for a change in angle in thirteen minutes at 300,000 miles. Michael has your forward speed, ours, and is setting up the maneuver in the computers as we speak, over.”

Exactly like Jonesy and VIN had curved in to fly next to the asteroid on their first mining flight, Michael and Allen did the same. Using side thrusters, their shuttle’s nose slowly turned the 169 degrees over several hours until they were on the same course as SB-III.

Been told by Jonesy that his shuttle still had several days of side thruster fuel left, they didn’t rush, and once the two craft were heading to where they would plant themselves in about 123 days, the two experienced astronauts were only about 2,000 miles behind SB-III.

“Not bad boys,” stated Jonesy as SB-I aligned itself 2,019 miles behind his shuttle. “Your forward speed is showing at 59,450 knots, a little too fast for our 56,550 knots, but throw out the anchor and bring her in on my starboard beam.”

“We have 85 percent full reverse thrusters on” replied Allen “and should be forming up on your starboard side in about an hour.”

“I’ll ice bucket the champagne for you guys.” Joked Michael Pitt. “Don’t tell me Jonesy your ship is completely dry?”

“Nearly my friend, very, very close to being a dry ship.”

“We’ve been saving a tot of good old vintage, 5 year-old Mars-made Russian vodka for each of us on your arrival,” added Maggie. “I bet ours tastes sweeter than the non-vintage potato liquor you guys have. A planetary tasting should be exciting. I’ve had to nearly break my husband’s neck not to steal it, and lost a few of my nails, over.”

Both men laughed. There was only one person in the world or the solar system who could control their Chief Astronaut.

Slowly the two craft closed to each other, and Allen’s shuttle could be seen floating in on the starboard side. Being an old fighter pilot, Allen brought his ship in close, and there was only twenty feet between the two shuttle wingtips when the reverse thrusters closed down.

“You look better than an old FedEx truck heading up the driveway with deliveries,” remarked Jonesy.

“I should think so with what we have aboard for you guys,” replied Michael Pitt.

“We need to refuel you first,” added Allen. “Your speed has been off slightly, and you are 16,780 miles behind the position we expected to meet you at.”

“I know, I know,” replied Jonesy already getting help from Maggie to climb into a suit. “It wasn’t for bad driving. I didn’t want to burn the rear thrusters in case they sucked up more fuel than we had anticipated. Our tanks are breathing fumes already, and once we have the jungle juice you guys brought, we can add a few seconds to the first burn. I’m heading out with the jetpack in 12 minutes. Who’s refueling hose are we using, who is coming to join me, and bring our canister full of goodies with you? Remember I like a full service gas station, and I want the windshield cleaned and the oil checked.”

“Yes Mr. Jones, Sir,” joked Michael Pit in a good attempt at a southern drawl, also getting help to suit up. “Whatever you want Mr. Chief Astronaut, Sir, but any more crap from you, and I will make you sign for your FedEx delivery, which is rather impossible in space.” Maggie smiled at that one.

Twenty minutes later, the two shuttles were in the usual refueling position, the one above the other 35 feet apart. It didn’t really matter who as above or below. With zero gravity the liquid fuel flowed in either direction pushed and pulled by two tiny electric motors.

The temporary cargo bay fuel bladders which held the extra liquid hydrogen were connected by pipes to one of the six fuel tanks in each shuttle.

Once Michael gave Allen the go ahead, and Jonesy the same to Maggie, an electric pump motor either pumped or sucked the fuel across. Since there was no gravity, the system ran quickly. As the fuel was sucked out of SB-I’s one wing tank, a second motor was started which sucked the fuel from the temporary bladders into the tank. This stopped a mass exit of fuel from all the ship’s fuel tanks in case there was a situation where the hose broke or became separated.

Much the same happened in SB-III. As the fuel entered the wing tank, electric pumps the size of a computer mouse distributed the fuel evenly through the six unsealed tanks.

To fill SB-III’s tanks took all the fuel out of the forward cargo hold, half of the fuel out of the rear, and the whole operation took over two hours.

Both men stayed close to their nozzles making sure that they stayed attached to their ships, and gave commands to their pilots if the distance between the semi-taunt cord bound between the two ships’ docking ports shortened.

“It is really weird to spacewalk in the middle of nowhere,” remarked Michael Pitt as he looked around, and for once in his life, there was no Earth, Mars, asteroid, or space station close to them. They were literally in the middle of nowhere.

“VIN and I used to just sit at the end of two cords and watch the solar system pass by when we were traveling to asteroid mine,” replied Jonesy.

“Who was flying the ship?” asked Michael.

“Mr. Auto Pilot, he’s a darn good pilot in a straight line,” mused Jonesy.

“One more minute of fuel flow and we are ready to burn ourselves out of here,” stated Maggie, Allen began reducing the flow from the bladder to the wing tank, and once closed would allow the remaining fuel from the cargo bay bladder to enter his own tanks.

Michael Pitt unscrewed his nozzle once Allen gave him the OK, Jonesy unscrewed the other end and jet packed along the cord between the two craft with it over to SB-I where it was rolled into its compartment.

Allen knew that Jonesy wasn’t leaving without his canister, and prepared to open the outer hatch of his docking port.

“FedEx delivery canister in position and secured with a 100-foot cord to the inner docking hatch, ready for jettison. Do you want to sign for it Mister Jones?” joked Allen also trying to perfect his U.S. southern drawl. Jonesy floated himself upwards towards the roof of the ship with Michael.

“Maybe he can’t write and needs to take off his space glove to give us a thumb print?” added Michael.

“You guys go and joke with somebody else, now eject my canister Mr. Saunders. It is full of very important illegal space merchandise, and I’m glad Ryan is too far away for intercom communications.”

“Don’t thank me Mr. Jones, thank “ASS”, the society you started all those years ago, remember?” joked Allen. Maggie had never heard of a society called “ASS” and made a mental note to ask husband. She would never know until years after they had retired.

Allen did as ordered by his boss and Jonesy. Michael was ready when the canister floated out of the outer docking hatch. Jonesy expertly grabbed the cord next to the canister, slapped Michael on the helmet playfully as he passed the astronaut and pulled himself along the cord to his own ship’s docking hatch.

Once the canister was inside the port, and the outer hatch closed, Maggie could open the inner hatch, float in the canister, and place it in the forward cargo bay. Even though it had been outside in space for only a couple of minutes, it needed any cosmic radiation it had collected on its skin to disperse. The ship’s systems would clear any harmful radiation within a few hours.

Once Jonesy had released the cord attached to the canister, and the cord between the ships to the docking port, Michael pulled his cords in. Both men completed their outside cleanup work, and were then ready to enter the ports themselves. They waved at each other and entered their ports at the same time, only minutes before their three-hour allowance

Chapter 12

Earth and America Three

Ryan felt his excitement grow when the Orbital Build Station slowly grew in the shuttle’s forward windshield.

America Two was tethered to one side of the cubed station, and the growing America Three on the other. He knew that work had slowed on his third mother ship due to lack of metal materials needed, and which he had on board.

The head of Astermine had waited 6 months from leaving Mars to see this sight, and now as they neared, he and the crew could see nearly five decades of thought, design and production coming to fruition.

“Looks pretty powerful,” stated Ryan to Dr. Smidt, Igor and Boris standing with him in the cockpit of SB-V.

“I agree,” replied Igor.

“A view we have wanted to see since we first started work with you, what 45 years ago,” added Boris.

The third mother ship was only 60 percent complete, and the three shuttles arriving at the orbital station would drop off a ton of the precious rare earth metals needed in nearly every part of her build process. The rest of what was needed was needed down at the base.

Ryan could see that SB-I had done what it was supposed to do before leaving to find Jonesy and Maggie: launch up several of the smaller panels and equipment. There were parts and systems in protective coverings floating next to the half built ship.

The larger panels, the outer skin of the ship, needed one of the larger shuttles to bring them up from the Nevada base, and since the shuttles were about to return, the rest of the ship could now be brought up.

“Pretty cool,” stated Lunar sitting in the left seat and with her father standing next to her.

“Yes, a dream coming true,” replied Ryan.

“And a lifetime’s work it sounds like,” stated Lunar’s husband Michael from the right copilot’s seat. “I’m sure Pluto Katherine can’t wait to command her new ship.”

“The next time we head back to Mars, it is in ships, not shuttles,” remarked Ryan.

So far the return flight has worked out perfectly. Thanks to Jonesy and Maggie giving up their fuel, the three shuttles, although low on fuel reserves themselves, were ready to head back down into Earth’s gravity. Before that though, the supplies needed by the build crew up in orbit needed to be offloaded.

The supplies had been off limits to the crew in the cargo holds due to it being radioactive. Over time the radioactivity had lessened, but throughout the return journey, the cargo bays had been sealed.

Ryan had wanted to return with at least 12 Earth gravity tons of gold and rare earth metals. What they had was close, but it was nearly impossible to weigh each piece before it was placed in one of the cargo holds. They had tried for the first couple of days, but they had given up on trying to analyze the earth weight of each of hundreds of pieces in Martian gravity conditions.

In the end they had carried whatever the mining robots had cut free, and placed the lumps in the hold.

The last shuttle to be filled, SB-II only had two thirds of her two cargo bays filled before they had to leave. Ryan reckoned that he was about a ton behind on his cargo, but whatever he had was worth a fortune to his production plants, and several production plants down on the blue planet.

Thanks to the blue shields, the shuttles could enter with a heavy load, but before then, a small amount from each cargo bay was to be unloaded to make sure the shuttles did not enter earth’s atmosphere too heavy.

The crew knew that SB-III and SB-I had connected a couple of weeks earlier, and were only a day behind their estimated rendezvous at the orbital build station in a couple of months’ time.

As the shuttles docked to their docking ports above and underneath the main build cube building America Three, the crew were really looking forward to having more freedom than they had on the 190-day journey, and at the same time cringed at the thought of the gravity that no matter how much they exercised in space, still hurt when they arrived back on terra firma.

SB-V’s crew exited last. Ryan was happy to be among old friends who were doing their one-month build shift up in space.

Earth was one again a beautiful sight 250 miles below them as they looked through the windows around the large interior of the cube, enjoying the vastness of space through larger windows.

There were several parts, including the complete ship’s Bridge under development inside the cube. The cube was really big inside compared to the shuttles, and the whole Bridge of the third ship fitted inside the main build area of the cube.

“Have you thought about the change in thrusters yet?” asked Joe, the man in charge of this month-long shift. He and several others were floating without spacesuits, as the cube had as perfect an atmosphere as down on earth. The only difference was the lack of gravity, which made items light to move, but difficult to control and tie down. Their job was to complete the electronics of the bridge, the galley, the medical area, and all three areas were well on the way to completion.

“I’m looking at a meeting with Martin Busk as soon as I get down, Joe,” Ryan replied to a man who was a decade younger than Ryan, but looked older.

“Just remember boss, the shuttles are more of a problem to refit than the mother ships, as they still need atmospheric thrust for launch on earth. The plasma thrusters are not light in weight down there,” Joe stated to Ryan, Igor and Boris while pointing towards Earth, “and you still need the same hydrogen thrusters to get the shuttles up here.”

“We have analyzed that problem over the last couple of months with very little to do Joe, and feel the shuttles are not going to change their units for now,” replied Ryan. “Thank you for your input, and I think that thrusters to speed up the journey between the planets is what we need right now. While we have a potential war on Mars, I don’t want to burden our fighters down with extra engines that slow them down in light atmospheric battle.”

The arriving crew all went on a tour of the inside of the cube enjoying the space, and looking at the advancement of parts of a ship they could one day live on.

Three days later and with enough gold and rare-earth metals loaded out to complete certain parts of the third ship, the shuttles left the station an hour apart, extended their blue shields and headed into orbit for reentry to the Nevada base.

One by one, they came into land vertically from 100,000 feet. From altitude, nothing much had changed, except that the radar screens were busy with new commercial air traffic going from east to west and west to east at low altitudes above Earth’s surface.

“Nevada base to arriving shuttles,” stated Dr. Geiger over the intercom as they flew over on their last orbit 5,000 miles and 10 minutes apart. For one whole minute, all three shuttles were within site of the base, and the private intercom could be used instead of the public radio. “Beware that there are airlines flying across the country again. As yet there is no Low Space Orbit traffic other than yourselves, but the old flight windows and commercial air corridors are working. We do have our 25 mile “No Fly Zone back” from Air Traffic Control Las Vegas, over.”

SB-V came in first this time. Dr. Smidt, Ryan, Igor and Boris were keen to get back on the ground and start work.

“SB-V to Ground Control, we are heavier than expected. The ship is a little sluggish than usual, but the shield is doing its job. Altitude 27,000 feet and descending at 750 feet a minute, over.”

“Ground Control to SB-V copy. The apron is clear and you can put her down in front of Hangar Five, over.”

“SB-IV to Ground Control, we are 1,190 miles to overhead the base. Forward speed 6,580 knots, altitude 280,000 feet. ETA overhead in 7 minutes over.”

“Ground Control to SB-IV copy. SB-V will be on the ground in 5 minutes, over.”

“SB-II to Ground Control, coming over the horizon, forward speed 13,900 knots, altitude 600,000 feet. Overhead the base in 14 minutes, over.”

“Ground control to SB-II, copy. You are 3 minutes too early. I suggest you do a wide 360 over Hawaii, or Los Angeles over.”

“SB-II roger, we will take our time and do some sightseeing,” replied Jane Burgos.

“SB-V to shuttles, I am heavier than expected. I suggest you take extra care once you begin vertical descent, over,” added Lunar as she came down towards the apron.

With Lunar, Saturn Noble, and Jane Burgos flying the three incoming ships, it was an all-girl astronaut affair.

The first shuttle came in and Martin Brusk with several others who had arrived the day before to welcome the astronauts back, got ready behind the wheelchairs once the shuttle was down.

As usual, it was a hot morning in Nevada, and with very little breeze, the larger shuttle came down in its blue shield as silently as it had departed a year earlier. Lunar, with ground support, brought her in a hundred feet outside the large doors of Hangar Five, and much like any large airport, there was a team of ground crew ready to tow the shuttle into the shade inside the hangar once the blue shield was retracted.

As soon as the first shuttle was on the ground Mark Price retracted the blue shield, and by the time Saturn Jones in SB-IV was descending vertically through 80,000 feet, Hangar Five had its door closing.

Martin Brusk, Mary Collins from Canada, and the base’s medical staff were ready as the crew wobbled down the short staircase one by one. Ryan was out first and Martin shook his hand before his friend collapsed into the wheelchair. Martin helped him get comfortable, placed a hat and sunglasses on the pale-looking astronaut and whisked him out of the side hangar door, over the hot apron and towards the medical unit. Mary Collins wasn’t far behind wheeling Kathy Richmond, and Dr. Geiger was happy to have is boss Dr. Smidt back.

“You should have seen the inside of the new base we have named Mattville, Martin,” stated Ryan as they made it across the apron before Saturn landed the second shuttle a couple of hundred feet away. SB-VI came down silently outside Hangar Six, and Martin and Ryan turned to watch it touch down once they were in the shade of Hangar One.

“Mattville, an interesting name,” replied Martin Brusk. “I think it’s getting time for me to join you guys before I get too old for space travel. Am I invited?”

“If you deliver the thrusters for America Two on time, I think you can travel with us back to the red planet, and see how they operate,” joked Ryan as they headed over to the infirmary.

“What about the shuttles?” Martin asked.

“Igor, Boris and I have decided that since we might have a war on our hands when we return, we are going to leave the shuttles in the same configuration we have now,” Ryan replied. “They have proved themselves in battle, and if we add another rocket motor to their rear, it could only weigh them down in the weak Martian atmosphere.”

“And how long do I have to produce how many plasma thrusters for America Two, now that your order has changed?’ Martin asked as they got to the infirmary doors.

“Tomorrow,” smiled Ryan as he was wheeled into the cold air conditioning of the infirmary.

“How many plasma thrusters?” Martin asked.

“Do you want my final answer?” Ryan asked surprised to see that a very brown and healthy Dr. Nancy was shouting orders in all directions to the infirmary crew of a dozen medics.

“Good morning Ryan, as usual you look all washed out,” smiled Dr. Nancy giving her old boss a quick hug. “Martin, wheel him into the first cubicle on your right please, and lift him onto the bed. He won’t be heavy. We never are when we return from space. I’ll be in there in a minute. Kathy, you look very pale dear but looking better than your husband. Mary, cubicle two please. Ryan, I decided to combine my return to check up with my medics to your return, and to say hi. Pete is also here working in Hangar Two.”

As ordered the two wheelchairs entered the curtained off cubicles so that the returning astronauts could get a full checkup, normal procedure for every return from orbit.

“Martin, Igor Boris and I did weeks of studying the numbers you radioed to us,” continued Ryan. “We decided that due to a possible attack on our first base by Matts on their way from Jupiter’s moon Europa, we need to return as fast as possible, once the next Opposition window opens, in 17 months’ time. Our final number of thrusters is due to our build crew needing to fit them in a triangular configuration. We want to power the mother ship up with ten thrusters. Four, three, two and one in a triangular configuration.”

Martin helped Ryan get onto the bed and lie down on his back. Ryan wasn’t wearing a space suit, but was dressed in the usual Astermine blue flight suit.

“Since you told us nine months ago that you are already in production of Franklin’s plasma thrusters,” Ryan continued “we hope that the ten thrusters will available with separate cold fusion power plants within three months to begin installation.”

“Close, I know the power plants will be ready in Australia, and we should have the final testing done within 60 days,” Martin replied. “I assume all your shuttles will need to be docked to the mother ship for the ride? There is no way they will keep up with your America Two with ten plasma thrusters. What about fuel for the return flight? Are you going to take it with you?”

Ryan smiled and looked at his old friend before Dr. Nancy shuffled Martin out of the cubicle. “Martin, you don’t understand how much water we found on Mars.”

Fuel was now the least of Ryan’s worries. With the new plasma thrusters decreasing a round-trip flight time by 40 percent, even with a massively overpowered mother ship they would never have a problem again. The fuel savings on ten thrusters versus four would allow the mother ship to resupply all five shuttles on Mars for an extended time. Ryan smiled as Dr. Nancy went over his aging body.

Even though they now had unlimited supplies of water on Mars, Astermine’s need to turn it into liquid hydrogen was actually diminishing. Soon, and with the new plasma thrusters, his dream of a regular flight to Mars and back every year was becoming a reality. Ryan Richmond’s childhood dreams were becoming very real.

“I’m getting very bored,” stated Jonesy to Maggie at about the same time Ryan was having his checkup on Earth.

“Go and take a walk in the park,” suggested Maggie working hard on the bicycle above him.

“How long before we officially retire?” asked Jonesy, who had asked the same question to his wife every 24 hours for the last week.

“One day less than you asked yesterday,” Maggie replied. “I know, suit up and head over to Allen’s ship for a game of chess or something. I have a new eBook I want to read, one Allen iMailed to me from Jamie, so I can command the ship until you return.”

The crew could play chess, or a hundred other games through the ship’s computers, but being together and playing a chess game on a real metal-surface board with metal pieces was far more fun. Also Maggie was the best chess player in the company, and Jonesy could get some practice in with the boys.

“Allen, Michael, I’m heading over once I’ve suited up to beat you guys in a game of chess,” stated Jonesy over the intercom.

“Beat us at chess?” laughed Michael. “We can both beat the crap out of you blindfolded and with our hands behind our backs.”

“Actually Michael, not with our hands tied behind our backs, Jonesy will steal all our liquor,” joked Allen, and which made Maggie smile.

“Want a wager?” Jonesy asked seriously.

“Of course Mr. Jones,” quipped Allen. “Bring over one of your bottles of bourbon or vodka. We’ll be happy to drink it for you.”

“I hope one of you will be a designated driver,” added Maggie. “You know how tough these solar system speed cops can be.”

“Maggie you have Flight Autopilot on command on your ship,” replied Michael. “We don’t need to drive, we just need to follow you.” Maggie responded.

“And what happens if a piece of rock attacks and I need to separate us. You guys will not be much good at getting out of its way.”

“Hopefully we won’t care,” added Jonesy smiling and getting ready to climb into his suit.

The computers on board SB-III, which were controlling both craft on autopilot were always moving them around objects that placed themselves on the radar monitors. Often they were straight ahead and moving slowly, or rapidly coming in at an angle. Nine times out of ten sightings, the computers could control the situation.

About one a week a really fast asteroid caused the computers to set off the alarms where they might need human intervention to dodge the bullet. Since both radars monitored out 400,000 miles, it took a really fast asteroid or piece of rock to set off the alarms, but usually the crew had several minutes to divert around the incoming missile.

Only once had an asteroid, the size of a house, entered their screens so fast that they had less than a minute to react, and even then, a change in direction at 72,000 miles an hour by a hundred feet took less than a second. Only once in thirty years of flying, and that was aboard Astermine II on the second asteroid mission to DX2014.

“What stocks do we have? What should I take as a bet?” Jonesy asked his wife.

“Well, I have only three pouches of Mars wine left. We have two bottles of vodka, and a bottle of bourbon. I think it not wise not to take a bottle with you. You are going to lose it and then you’ll be grumpy for the rest of the flight.”

Jonesy thought as he was putting on his suit. “What is worth more on this ship than bourbon or vodka?” he asked Maggie, smiling.

“Water,” she replied.

Her husband nodded in agreement, and searched for the empty bottle of vodka they had finished the week before. Maggie watched as her husband pressurized in water into the empty vodka bottle from their reserve and twisted its cap back on.

“A good idea my darling, you are going to tell them that its water, not vodka in that bottle?” she asked skeptical of her husband’s honestly. Jonesy smiled at her, said nothing and continued to put on his suit. “Don’t tell me you are going tee total?” Maggie asked, a very weird thought coming to her.

Still smiling he handed her his helmet to crew on. “I do hope we get better helmets for the next flight,” he stated pulling “a red herring across the trail.”

“What next flight, you are retiring right?” Maggie asked.

“Oh yes! I forgot that we do have a life other than sitting in these tin cans,” remarked Jonesy as she slipped the helmet over his head.

Maggie shook her head. Her husband was starting to lose it in her book, and she must remember to ask him about this “ASS” society the others had mentioned. As far as she was concerned, the ASSs in this crew were the male astronauts. She was so right

Twenty minutes later, she watched out of her side windshield as her husband jetpacked over to the other shuttle. “I think the time has come General John Jones to put you out to ASS pasture,” she stated loudly to herself, and tied herself down to do some reading.

“This isn’t vodka!” shouted Allen Saunders over the intercom a week later, and after both men had beaten Jonesy in all of the six chess games played.

“Nobody said it was,” smiled Jonesy from the bicycle back in SB-III. He was about finished for this period’s exercising, and Maggie was below him getting ready to listen in to the usual traffic. It was morning in Nevada, the weaker sun had just set at both bases on Mars, and to the crew in both shuttles it didn’t matter what time it was. They had no sunsets and sunrises, just 24 hour periods that never changed.

Michael Pitt was asleep, Allen Saunders had finished his workout, completed a bag bath, supper and he was also checking the radio for the timed incoming messages from both directions. It was time to have his first shot of his winnings, won by easily beating Jonesy in three games of chess. It had only cost him and Michael two thirds of a bottle of their vodka between the three of them while they had played the six games to win the whole bottle from Chief Astronaut Jones.

Allen Saunders had sat back, smiled at his remembrance of Jonesy’s face, which looked pained as he had handed over the vodka bottle, Allen had felt superior in chess, and was winning something that really hurt his friend. He opened the bottle and took a swig.

“What do you mean it isn’t vodka? I beat you in chess to win this bottle,” Allen replied, waking Michael Pitt.

“I told you never to trust that SOB,” stated Michael, the other shuttle could hear, and Michael headed back to sleep.

“I never told you it was anything but a bottle,” stated Jonesy untying himself from the bicycle, and floating down to his seat.

“But, but…” replied Allen as Ryan’s voice over the radio shut him up.

“Nevada Base to The Martian Club Retreat, and Mattville, do you copy. Nevada Base to The Martian Club Retreat, and Mattville, this is Ryan Richmond, do you copy, over”

“I won a bottle of vodka fair and square. I actually won vodka, not damn water whipping your ass in three games,” continued Allen Saunders knowing that replies to Nevada’s outgoing message would take about 7 minutes, or minimum 210 seconds each way before it would pass them by in the opposite direction.

“I bet you a bottle to beat you at chess. I didn’t say what was in it,” Jonesy replied smiling to himself.

“Crappy cheater,” remarked Maggie to her husband from the right hand seat. “Allen, I will suggest that in future, you check the merchandise before you accept any bets from my husband. I know he will never lie, but bend the truth, yes, and you and I both know there is something that doesn’t tick properly in his brain.”

“And that lousy malfunction is sure getting worse,” laughed Michael Pitt as he floated into his right hand seat for the radio conversation.”

“I’ll never trust that guy again,” replied Allen Saunders knowing that he should have known better, and began contemplating what he could do to Mr. Jones to return the favor. Silence reigned on the two shuttles 100 million miles from earth, as they waited for the radio acknowledgements and reports.

“Martian Club Retreat to Base Nevada,” was the reply from Vitalily, another of Jonesy’s friends who fallen for the same trick two decade earlier on board America One returning from Saturn to Earth. “Night has fallen. Temperature outside is minus 112 degrees Celsius. Zero wind, a clear day with nothing moving outside. We have cleared the last of the topsoil from the outer plateau, and expect to close down the last shield when the time comes. It is still a blessing to have the shield, we all enjoy walking and sitting outside in the shield and will miss it when we need to take it down. We have nothing much else to report. Our captive is becoming friendlier, and we are working all angles to see if we can get more information out of him. He and I were talking earlier, and he finally decided to try our latest batch of red wine. Much unlike Ruler Roo in Mattville, the commander still dislikes rocket fuel,” joked Vitalily knowing that Ruler Roo was definitely listening in the other base, everybody was. “What was interesting was that glass of red wine loosened his tongue, like it does to the Chief Astronaut.”

Maggie smiled at her husband, whose face muscles didn’t even flutter at his mention.

Allen Saunders raised a real shot of vodka at that remark. This time his shot glass had been filled from their last onboard bottle. Thanks to Jonesy, their ship would be totally dry in ten days as Michael and he usually enjoyed two shots each per day.

“His only remark that was new” continued the radio message “was that if we wanted to see more about his old base that we should swim in the lake under the river. I believe he said that to kill us with the cold, as a sort of joke,” added Vitalily. “Message to Max, I think that you should try and build a canoe or boat or something, and look further into the underground lake of yours. Something about the way he said it made the hairs on my neck stand up. That is end of my message, over.”

“Mattville to Base Nevada, this is Max with my daily report. First Vitalily, we copied that, thank you for the idea but we have already thought about going out on the underground lake further, but have nothing here in the base we could make a floating devise out of. Nevada, I suggest you think of something that can handle freezing water, small enough to fit down the stairs, maybe in pieces, and bring it with you. I was thinking of an air boat, one of those old Zodiac air boats we could blow it up from an air tank once we got it down the stairs. I don’t even think you could carry a canoe down there. I don’t believe there is canoe short, or narrow enough on Earth. A cord tied to a spacesuit, and water wings, the things kids used to play with in swimming pools back home is an idea. Remember the larger than normal door is only six feet tall, the staircase down is circular. We cannot get anything down there longer than eight feet or width wider than two feet. I have tested the fact. We tried to get a pole down there to fit a second light on, and we had to shorten it to get it down the stairs. I’m thinking there is enough dry surface to maybe build something small down there, so an air boat is the best bet, and bring as many as you can. Other than that, this new base is great but I say that every day. The water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen is at full speed. We are processing about 50 gallons of water from the river per day. The crew are happy, and prefer this establishment to the old one. Boss, Ruler Roo wants to say hi.” There was a pause as Roo came to the mic.

“Ryan, Roo here. The three new children are blending in well with the others. I heard what you were discussing with Vitalily, and with Max. I had asked the children about the underground cave a few days go. The eldest boy, his name is Det, has been underground to the lake before for a few seconds. The air was too bad for him to breathe and he nearly perished. Commander Fob didn’t allow anybody down the stairs, except for tribe members elected by him who tried to do what Max is discussing: to float across the water. Det told me that in his lifetime, he had heard of three attempts, each with a single Matt in a blue spacesuit heading down the stairs. They never were seen again, and I suggest extreme caution. Det believes there is something out there that has eaten the three people, but that is also a child’s suggestion. My family is fine, the base very nice and we all look forward to your return. Please tell Mr. Jones that I have stopped drinking, and that he should do as well. Max will be ready to report in again tomorrow, out.”

“Yes, Mr. Jones, listen to your friend Roo, and stop drinking,” stated Allen over the intercom once the message had passed them on its way to Earth via the radio.

“SB-III to Nevada base, Jones on radio,” stated Jonesy ignoring what Allen had just said. “Nothing to report from our two ships. We are on course and ETA LSO: 37 days. Our food supplies are good, water supplies, are good, fuel supplies are excellent, and I will not be taking Ruler Roo’s advice, over.”

“Didn’t think so,” stated Maggie.

“I didn’t think so either Maggie,” added a still grumpy Allen Saunders from the neighbor shuttle. “We are going to be dry in a week, ten days if we ration ourselves further.”

“Don’t blame me,” replied Jonesy.

A boat, huh!” thought Ryan loudly twenty minutes later as the messages arrived one after the other, and in order.

“Sounds like a horror movie,” stated Kathy Richmond sitting next to him. “Those poor Matts heading into the dark unknown and never being seen again.”

“The bad air would have killed them within an hour or so,” added Dr. Smidt.

“I’m not going down there, wherever it is,” added Pluto Katherine. “Lunar, did you go down there?”

“No, but Dad did.”

“Is it that scary?” Pluto Katherine asked her father.

“Not really,” Ryan replied. “No more scary that landing on a moon, or asteroid for the first time.”

“You know Ruler Roo gets excited about most things,” added Kathy.

“Maybe a gunboat, or gun-canoe might be needed?” added Lunar. “I’m sure VIN knows about those things from his Marine days.

“Martin will be landing in his new jet/spacecraft in a few minutes. Dr. Smidt please go through the messages for anything we missed. Also the coordinates of Mr. Jones’ radio transmission for a readout of his location to Earth. I want to see this new design of Martin’s, land.”

The doctor nodded as Ryan picked up his old handheld radio and headed out of Hangar One with his three girls in tow. They joined several others who were already watching the skies round the base.

“New radar contact 180 miles due east, incoming at 680 knots altitude 60,000 feet,” stated the PA system from the control tower.

“Too high for a commercial jet,” stated Ryan, as his radio squawked.

“Nevada Base this is Martin Brusk, do you copy over?” Since there was still far less traffic in the air than two decades earlier, 70 percent less, there wasn’t a real need for radio protocol as yet.

“Martin, Ryan, we have you 180 miles out, over.”

“Roger, old friend that is me descending through 58,000 feet,” replied Martin. “It sure is always a nice view up at these higher altitudes than before. You can see a curve in the Earth’s horizon at 75,000 feet, over.”

“Not as nice as when you see our planet grow from a star into a blue ball,” replied Ryan.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to my first trans-planet flight with you guys next year.”

“You are really trusting your new plasma thrusters,” smiled Ryan.

“Yes, good news, we will be ready to ship the first six in two months’ time, but I will tell you more when I get down. Nevada base control, I will be landing vertical from 30,000 feet, over.”

“Nevada base tower to incoming aircraft, we copied that. I am transmitting our coordinates for your vertical descent to your onboard computer IP over. There will be ground personnel for a visual descent if you need it, over.”

A couple of minutes later, the crowd on the apron could see a white speck descending directly above where a ground controller was walking out with batons.

Ryan’s old Gulfstream, which certainly didn’t look anything like a Gulfstream, or even an old fashioned jet anymore, came down to land.

Compared to the silence of the shuttles landing in their blue shields, Martin’s craft still sounded like an old Harrier Jump jet, and all put their hands to their ears for the last few hundred feet of descent.

“Still pretty noisy,” stated Ryan shaking his friend’s hand as he exited the weird looking craft several minutes later.

“Yes, unfortunately not something I have perfected yet,” replied Martin smiling. “I look forward to my new toy being as quiet as my old Teslas one day.”

Martin Brusk’s air/space craft was looking more and more like Ryan’s shuttles in shape, although three times smaller than the smaller shuttles. Its wings were more rounded than the shuttles, and its body looked twice as wide as Jonesy’s Gulfstream stashed away on the island. To Ryan, Martin’s toy looked more like something on test with NASA.

Martin and his copilot were taken in for coffee to Hangar One and twenty minutes later Ryan’s Heads of Departments were called in for a meeting.

“Ryan, crew, and scientist of Astermine Co., I finally accept your offer to travel to Mars on your next mission in America Two. My wife, unfortunately has no interest in joining me, and I will be traveling alone. My main interest is to fulfil my dream of one day getting to Mars. I always said that I would never come back once I got there, but with your new mother ship and with Franklin’s new plasma thrusters I am building, and have exclusivity with him, I believe I will be coming home. Also, I hope to travel to Mars with you faster than any man has ever traveled in space before.”

“Our information on flight times and speeds tally with yours I assume Martin?’ Ryan asked smiling.

“I believe yours are more accurate, Ryan, but yes we will top 100,000 knots in space for the first time, and far above it with a 500 ton ship. The 49-day journey my figures show is really exciting.”

“Our figures showed 47 days?” Ryan asked.

“OK. My question to you Ryan, if you use 10 percent less fuel for a 49 day journey, I can’t see why extra 2 days matter?”

“Only on the first flight,” smiled Ryan in return. “Like the Titanic wanting to set records crossing the Atlantic centuries go. One record flight only and then it is least amount of fuel to move freight. We can also load two more days of Rare earth metals.”

“Ryan, what do you envisage as freight on a regular schedule? Also what you envisage as what Mars will look like once it is safe for normal citizens to live on the red planet?” Ryan thought for a few seconds before answering Martin. He had dreamed of this all is life. Over time, his dreams had changed as new knowledge about the red planet made the changes necessary, but he told Martin his thoughts.

“I believe we can populate Mars with thousands of new citizens. Most of the cities will be underground, as I feel we should have originally built in safe areas on Earth. It saves energy to have 56 degrees around your home 24/7. We humans on Earth waste so much of our resources due to bad planning, short term thinking, and no futuristic thought to our actions. On Mars I feel we can begin a new world with more thought to saving energy, raw materials, and a new way of life. In my lifetime, I would like to see 10,000 Earth people move to Mars. We now have good water supplies. If we can figure out how these blue shields work, we can have acres, even square miles of above ground farms growing everything we grow here on Earth. It is so simple if we can control the heat, humidity, altitude and light. For example, we could have a cooler winter climate in one shield for winter vegetables, and right next door have a humid, equatorial, high-altitude climate for crops like coffee and cocoa. We can import the bugs we need, and not import the pests we don’t. We can import birds to pollinate, bees, ants to aerate the soil, and we can control what goes on in different areas of vegetation. We can live underground in harmony with constant temperatures, and Martin, the most important factor is about us humans moving to Mars. How it will change us in body and mind? How will we differ from Earthlings in a century, or a thousand years?” Ryan took a mouthful of coffee, and then continued.

“We have seen how the Matts are so different to us. What I hope we Homo Sapiens living on Mars will change to become a more peaceful race, more secure in our ways of life, understand that we are a only part of universal nature, and that we don’t own it. My dream Martin, is to see a peaceful world on Mars, happy people, and growth in production and science to new levels we have never seen on Earth. That Martin Brusk has been my dream since I was a child. Being bullied at school made my dream even more real to me. I understand I will not perfect the human race, but I believe I can make the Human Race cleverer, and a better group of people, nothing more.”

A round of applause from the crew round him showed that Ryan wasn’t alone in his dream.

“Since I heard you say the same speech when we were younger Ryan” smiled Martin “I look forward to seeing something change in us Homo Sapiens before I die. Now let me give Astermine the update you all have been waiting for on the new plasma thrusters. We had 12 of the new 50 kilowatt thrusters in our first two batches of production. Since you only need 10, we have two aside and are working faster on the ten you need for America Two. They weigh in at 10 pounds under 2 tons each, or 3990 pounds. They are each 33 feet long and 12 feet wide. Since I produced your larger shuttle version, two complete plasma thrusters will fit through your larger shuttle roof doors and into your cargo bays. We suggest that you launch them into orbit directly from our plant in Israel, and we will supply you the fuel for the seven launches needed to get the ten engines, and the necessary installation equipment for your ship.

“We have strived for as little installation work as possible, but your ship’s entire rear engine bay will have to be ripped out and modified before they can be installed. This is going to take you six weeks of solid 24-hour shiftwork by your orbital build crew. I have discussed his with you and your section chiefs while you were away, and you know what needs to be done. We have the outer shell and interior engine modifications we are building for you ready at my plant for you to launch up, starting tomorrow.”

For two hours the meeting went on. The only new information was the exact weight and size of the new thrusters.

At the end Ryan asked Martin if his new ship as ready for its first flight into space. Martin replied that it wasn’t, but would be in a couple of months’ time. There was an ignition problem switching from its atmospheric thrusters to its small 20 kilowatt plasma thruster, and the plasma engine was back on the design tables in Tel Aviv.

Ryan had actually thought that Martin’s craft was ready for its test flight, but at least Astermine’s Chief Astronaut would be back by the time it would be ready for its maiden flight into orbit.

Martin was ready to collect the second half of his promised gold and Rare Earth metals though, and Ryan told him that the two tons of radioactive-free treasure would be on the shuttle flight to his plant the next day.

The crew had celebrated a couple of weeks earlier, and the day the deliveries of promised gold had been flown out to the countries in payment for the liquid hydrogen fuel to pay for the return light from Mars. The celebration was that not counting what was onboard Jonesy’s shuttle, but they already had 85 percent of what they had returned with. They had so far beaten the promised cargo load by nearly half a ton.

Five weeks later, Jonesy and Allen Saunders swung into their first orbit around the blue planet, and which would be their slowing orbit to meet up with the Orbital Build Station.

It was good to be home. The final flight for Jonesy and Maggie had been a long one, and both were excited to see that two more sections of America Three had been built and connected, and the third mother ship was coming along.

Both shuttles docked at the station and it was the first time that Allen and Jonesy had met since that fateful day that Jonesy had turned vodka into water. Ever since the chess games, he had stayed away from spacewalking over as if there was a plague onboard.

Maggie had had enough and had stolen one of her husband’s last two remaining bottles two weeks before they were due to reach orbit, and unbeknown to her husband, who was asleep, had taken it across with some other luxuries they would not need.

Jonesy had sulked for three days when Maggie told him that he had lost a bottle overboard, and she was beginning rationing both of them as this was their last bottle.

Once Jonesy had complained to the other shuttle that they were drinking his stock, they had happily told their boss in several words what he was, and what a savior and an angel his wife was.

“Been dry a while?” sniggered Allen as they cleaned up and put on fresh flight suits in the change rooms aboard the station.

“Poor little Chief Astronaut. Did your wife sell you out, shame?” added Michael Pitt, both men feeling zero towards their commander.

He was retiring in a few days, and Jonesy was heading off to go fishing forever. Actually both Michael and Allen, and their wives Jamie and Penny were also thinking about doing the same thing. They hadn’t spoken publicly over the radio to their spouses since they had left to pick up Maggie and Jonesy, but they would when they returned to Nevada. It all depended on if Ryan had enough NextGen astronauts for the next mission, and both men had bet each other that he didn’t.

“Hey, boys,” replied Jonesy smiling at two of his best friends. “Just think, in a year’s time, I’ll be tanned, well stocked with everything I want, and eating fish every day for the rest of my life. You guys will be flying around that red planet, eating pouches of scrambled eggs and wondering when you might sneak a shot of each other’s moonshine.” He laughed and continued getting rid of the flight suit he had worn for the last week.

They had 24 hours up in the station before leaving for their return to earth. A third of Jonesy’s cargo was to be unloaded at the station.

“First of all welcome home Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. Saunders, Mr. Pitt,” stated Ryan a few days later as he welcomed his astronauts and Heads of Department to the first briefing for the next mission, less than a year away.

They got a standing ovation from all the astronauts. Thanks to them, the other three shuttles had reached Earth two months earlier.

“Thanks to our Chief Astronaut and his wife, we have achieved much down here, and at the Orbital Space Station in the last couple of months. I would also like to congratulate them on their retirement from Astermine. Thanks to their children, Maggie and John Jones have a beautiful fishing boat to spend the rest of their lives on. Thanks to Astermine, they also have a 30-year old family runaround that Saturn tells me now has 720 hours total time, thanks to her and Commander Noble Junior.” Ryan was referring to the old family Gulfstream 550, something Jonesy was very fond of.

“I hope my daughter and son-in-law have looked after my ride in my absence,” remarked Jonesy.

“Space-shark checked, and the refrigerator is on, cold, and full,” replied Saturn with a tear in her eye.

This was her parent’s final farewell. The party was that evening, and a few days before Jonesy and Maggie were catching a ride over to Martin’s plant in Israel, and then down to the island.

Martin’s new craft was finally ready for its maiden flight into space and the Jones couple were happy to be its test pilots. There was nothing more important in Jonesy’s flying career, than testing new craft.

“At least our liquor stocks will be safe from the space shark,” mussed Allen Saunders, and that caused much laughter. It seemed the whole astronaut crew agreed with him. Even Ryan smiled, remembering the odd occasion his hidden stocks had fallen short.

“I think we pilots all have a deep sense of gratitude for our Chief Astronaut’s wife…”

“And my old Air Force Flight Commander, Colonel Maggie Jones, nee Sinclair,” added Jamie Saunders and interrupted by Penny Pitt.

“And mine of course,” added Penny Pitt happily.

“And Mine!” added Saturn Jones loudly, and not being left out. “My father taught me how to fly, my mother kept me flying, and I believe that is the same is for all of you astronauts.” Again there was a loud round of applause at the truth given straightforwardly by Saturn.

“I will have the last word before we have the farewell party in the Jones’ honor tonight,” stated Kathy Richmond. “I want to thank Maggie, who was also my wing person for a couple of years in the United States Air Force, and with Astermine. She is the best in the business, my best friend. Her husband has always been a very lucky man. But equally, what I believe General John Jones did for all of us, was to teach us, test us, and keep us human with his jokes and remarks. Astermine would have been a pretty boring place to work without my hero, and friend, Jonesy, and I’m going to really miss the space shark stories on our next voyage.”

That night was one of the best parties the crew at Astermine had ever had. A band had been brought in from Las Vegas, a middle-aged group, and who had been together from 2012 and had played throughout the bad years. “The Imagine Aliens” were not cheap, but the farewell party wasn’t a cheap affair.

Everybody who was somebody was there. Air Force Two had landed late in the afternoon with the Vice President, Penelope Pitt aboard. A Canadian Government jet had arrived an hour later with Mary Collins and her family, and Ryan got the shock of his life when an hour before dusk, Air Traffic Control in Los Angeles told Astermine’s tower to expect one aircraft: an old Boeing 787 Dreamliner in 45 minutes from The People’s Republic of China.

Many of the crew were talking and chatting in the conference room when the announcement was made over the PA system, and the room hushed with disbelief.

Ryan immediately looked around. He hadn’t invited anybody from China. He was about to offer a diplomatic invitation through the Vice President for the new president to visit his base, but was going to talk to Penelope about it that very evening.

He looked round the conference room and immediately saw young Saturn Jones and Mars Noble looking at him, Saturn was whispering in her husband’s ear and looking rather guilty.

“They are still flying that Boeing Dreamliner the Chinese government purchased from Seattle in 2015?” stated Dr. Smidt. The German doctor was an avid aircraft enthusiast, and if anybody wanted to know anything about any aircraft in the world, he knew all the facts. Even Jonesy asked him a complicated question every now and again, and the good doctor always had an answer. “That aircraft was the last purchased by China, and delivered only weeks before the real troubles between the U.S. and China began.”

Dr. Smidt had been invited by Jonesy to be part of the crew for Martin’s test flight the next week, but refused due to his research work with Suzi.

Commander Saturn Noble, Commander Mars Noble, in my office, now,” ordered Ryan, and sheepishly the two NextGeners, and Lunar Richmond uninvited, headed to Ryan’s control center.

“You too Lunar?” Ryan asked as his eldest daughter entered.

“Yes, Dad I am the one to blame. Saturn and Mars just did the grunt work last week, stopping off in Beijing on their way to the island to deliver the invitation.

“And who is aboard that aircraft, who are we expecting?” Ryan asked trying to figure out why he wasn’t told of this invitation, and for what.

“You were really busy with these new plasma engines, so I thought to help you. I thought it a good time for me, who was the one insulted by the last Premier, to invite the young boy, his grandson over to join us to begin his training. Remember I invited the boy when we were in China, and I thought it prudent to continue the inviting last week.”

“Lunar, I don’t really think that an adult party is a good time to invite the, what, ten year old son of a country leader to show off Astermine, and our base here?” asked Ryan. “I can’t imagine me asking Mr. Jones, and several other ex-military personnel to stay sober at this farewell party as we have a special visitor?” he asked questioningly.

“I didn’t expect the boy to arrive so soon, Dad. I certainly didn’t even expect a reply before the party,” replied Lunar understanding why her father was questioning her decision to invite the boy.

“OK you three setup this. It is just bad luck that the boy is arriving at a bad time, so you three will chaperone Jon Lee Jong, I believe his name is, around, and away from the party. Who knows what Mr. Jones might do at his party? Maybe the damn space shark might finally arrive, or our beloved Chief Astronaut might start skinny dipping in the pool or something.”

With that Ryan stormed out of his office. Saturn smiled at Lunar. Mars looked sheepish, and Lunar just did what youngsters do, she looked up at the ceiling and asked why parents were so demanding.

The Chinese Boeing came in on long finals from the west once permission was given. The apron at Astermine was filling up.

All five shuttles were currently on base and inside three of the hangars and away from prying eyes. Guards had been posted on the corners of each of the hangars and nobody apart from Ryan, Lunar and Pluto Katherine would be allowed in.

Outside, and still looking like an Orca whale, Air Force Two, an old Boeing 757 that was well passed its time, but in perfect condition stood protected by secret service agents. It hadn’t flown officially for two decades, as a few of the presidents had elected to fly smaller, more luxurious Gulfstream jets during the bad days of little to no oil.

Ex-Presidents Dithers and Somes had flown in the newer jets, but ex-President Dithers Roo had brought back the old 747s and 757s as a proud remembrance of a once powerful country and its airline manufacturing history out of Seattle.

The same with Canada. They had used non-descript aircraft whenever flying from their country into the United States, and had reverted back to official Air Force aircraft once President Dithers Roo was elected into office. Mary Collins had flown in on an old Airbus A310, which was flown by Canadian Air force pilots.

Australia was too far for officials to fly in just for a party, but Ryan had got permission from Jonesy for a couple of Australian Air Force pilots to fly in Bob Mathews, Beth and Monica in Jonesy’s private jet for the occasion.

The retired pilots were now all past flying aircraft. Even Beth, who had flown last a year earlier had given up due to bad eyesight, and Jonesy needed his family runabout for him and Maggie to get back to the island anyway.

Martin Brusk and his wife had arrived a day earlier. He had flown in on a small Israeli Air Force transport jet to collect the ton of gold waiting for him, and to attend the party.

Now another large aircraft was about to land, and Ryan got on his handheld and arranged ground crew to assist in parking.

Many watched as the white aircraft with nothing more than the bright red and gold Chinese flag on its tail slowed down the long runway, and within minutes was being shown where to park.

“I see we are becoming very international,” shouted Mary Collins sliding up to Ryan’s side. “Who is aboard?”

“I believe the son of the Chinese Premier,” replied Ryan.

“A good day for him to arrive,” smiled Mary Collins loudly feeling Ryan’s dilemma.

“A good day for the United States,” shouted Penelope Pitt as she and Martin Brusk joined the two.

“Maybe not a good day for Jonesy and his antics?” suggested Martin.

“Now we have the Chinese coming to my retirement party?” shouted Jonesy himself coming out onto the apron to see the taxing aircraft. “Who the hell invited them?”

“Go ask your daughter Mr. Jones,” Ryan shouted back as the aircraft stopped and its engines cycled down at the far side of the apron.

Steps were moved from one of the other aircraft for the new one, and the welcoming committee walked forward. Astermine only had one set of stairs for large commercial aircraft, and they weren’t in the best condition. The group moved forward expecting to see a ten year old boy step out, and then the aircraft prepare for departure.

They were very mistaken. Two Chinese men in suits walked down the stairs and nodded to the welcoming committee, then the Chinese Premier himself walked down the stairs followed by a pretty lady, and then the expected son.

“Oh shit!” Lunar heard her father say under his breath and she smiled.

“These “OldGeners” just never relax, she mumbled to Pluto Katherine now standing next to her.

Nobody was dressed for the occasion. Nobody from the Chinese Government had visited the United States for nearly 40 years, and now when they did, it was on a private air base and to a bunch of happy people who were about to party. Ryan quickly looked round as the Premier made his way down the rusted staircase. The Premier wasn’t looking at the people gathered, but at his feet so he wouldn’t fall.

To Ryan’s organized mind, all he saw was the most underdressed, and casual bunch of people one could find at any beach, or casual party in the world. He swallowed hard and suddenly his panicking brain realized that the Chinese Premier as also dressed in smart casual, and not wearing a suit.

“Mr. Richmond, I hope you can forgive me for flying in unannounced,” stated the Premier as he reached the ground and bowed to Ryan. Ryan tried to bow back but there was enough room to bow properly, so he took a step back and bowed. “I completely understand that you are all not prepared for me and my family, but we come as friends, and are not on an official visit. I do hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course not smiled Ryan,” slowly gathering his composure. “We are having a party tonight. As you see we have several official aircraft who have flown in guests. You are most welcome to join us Premier. We are having a retirement party for our chief astronaut, we don’t have fancy residences here, but I’m sure I can find you a comfortable apartment.”

“Not necessary Mr. Richmond. We have all my wife and I need onboard, but we would like to see where my son is going to stay. Our reason for our unannounced visit is to drop him off. We are on an official visit to Mexico in a few days’ time, and we have time before we need to leave.

The Premier, his wife and son were introduced to all in attendance. Even Jonesy found it possible to bow, and then was impressed when the Premier stretched out his hand to shake Jonesy’s western style.

“General John Jones, you attacked and fired on our country three times I believe,” stated the Premier smiling at the tall man.

“Actually four times, and I believe I only fired once. My wife fired on you once, and then my partner here, Lieutenant Noble fired on you twice. I was flying the shuttle the other three times. So I believe that once is the correct answer, sir,” stated Jonesy smiling back at the Premier, with Ryan looking up at the heavens this time.

“It’s a pity you are retiring General Jones. My son was looking forward to learning to fly with you,” stated the Premier’s wife.

“You guys certainly know more about me than I know about you,” replied Jonesy impressed.

“That is our job as leaders of a country, not a spaceship pilot, Air Force General Jones,” smiled the Premier and nodded to VIN who had just arrived.

“Yes, you can blame me, I shot at your country twice I believe,” stated VIN bowing to the family.

“I think it was two times as well Marine Lieutenant Noble now we were told Air Force Colonel Maggie Jones fired on us once,” replied the Premier.

The introductions were finally done, and by that time Ryan was fully composed, except for how much information the Chinese family knew about each of them, and the crowd headed back to the pool area.

Pluto Katherine and Lunar carried Jong Lee Jong’s two small suitcases, chatted to him like long lost friends and were impressed with his perfect English.

One everybody got used to the arrival of the first family, and that they were also partial to a spot or two of alcoholic beverages, the party got going and ended late into the next morning.

Everyone once again used to Earth’ gravity had worked out since reentry to regain their fitness, in exercise and other subjects, like swimming and beer.

At one time after midnight, Jonesy was drunkenly chatting to the Ryan and the Chinese Premier, who were both as equally drunk, and since Jonesy had flown over China so many times, could recite most of the country’s geography to the Premier, who was very impressed.

The next morning was a late start. There was no runway running, no early scientists arriving for work. Even breakfast turned into Brunch, and a day off was declared by all.

The aircraft departed over the next couple of days and young Jon Lee Jong, now nicknamed Lee, once he had said goodbye to his parents began his astronaut career under the watchful eyes of the Richmond daughters and the simulator instructors.

Jonesy and Maggie packed up their belongings. For once in his life, he was quiet and reserved. The couple had spent most of their life working with Astermine and the rest of the crew. It was weird, and due to the extended time of space travel, they had few friends outside the company.

Allen Saunders was promoted to Chief Astronaut and he laughed in the briefing three days after the party that he didn’t expect to be in his new position very long.

Both Allen and Michael Pitt, and with their wives put in for their retirements at the briefing, but Ryan pleaded with them for one more mission to Mars and back.

“I believe our Martian Club Retreat will be attacked by the arriving Matt ships when they reach the red planet,” Ryan explained to the whole astronaut crew once he had thanked Jonesy and Maggie for their service to Astermine. “We are already losing two of our most experienced, and Allen, Jamie, Michael and Penny, I need age and experience when we go and challenge the Matts for our planet. I will ask the four of you to complete this next mission to Mars. When we return, I believe that we will have control of humanity’s second planet for habitation, and then I think that Kathy and I will join you in sunbathing, fishing and relaxing on our island. I think that once this mission is over, many of the OldGeners at Astermine will call it a day, and there will be room at the inn on our island for anybody who wishes to join us. Then I will hand over the control of our company back into the competent hands of our Nextgeners, and their children.”

There was a round of applause on that statement, and it was time to say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Jones.

The Gulfstream jet was fuelled, and Martin’s Transport jet, with its valuable cargo were ready to head towards Tel Aviv.

Bob Mathews, Beth and Monica were passengers in the yellow Jones ride, and it was a good distance to their destination. All of the pilots had done this route a dozen times before, and Bob was happy to ride with Jonesy upfront for the first stint, while the girls chatted in the cabin.

Saturn was in tears as she said goodbye to her parents. She, Mars and the growing boys, both in astronaut school with Lee, said their goodbyes. This time it really felt like goodbye.

VIN was staying on for this one mission as Suzi was really excited to get back to Mattville. Her team of biologists had completed their research on the findings of air densities, temperature and pressure down in Mattville’s lake cavern, and Suzi and Dr. Smidt would be giving their reports the following day.

The ex-Marine was losing his partner, a partnership that had stretched all the way from that fateful day he and Jonesy had met in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Two men without a purpose, and destiny had given them one.

There were lots of hugs, and Jonesy waited patiently for Maggie to say her goodbyes. Jonesy was ready to go fishing, but had this one job to do for Martin first.

On a clear blue-skied day, the 30 year old Gulfstream left the base for Europe, Jonesy thinking that it was the last time he would see the place destiny had given him everything he had ever wanted. As usual he came around and from the west gave his old friends a fly by only feet above the runway at full throttle, wiggled his wings, and then headed skywards towards the east coast.

The meeting the next day was subdued and quiet. The space shark had left for good, and many of Astermine’s staff squeezed into the conference room for Suzi’s report on the new base on Mars. Her main topic was explaining chemosynthesis to the crew.

“Many microorganisms in dark regions of the oceans use chemosynthesis to produce biomass from single carbon molecules. Two categories can be distinguished. In the rare sites at which hydrogen molecules (H2) are available, the energy available from the reaction between CO2 and H2 (leading to production of methane, CH4) can be large enough to drive the production of biomass. Alternatively, in most oceanic environments, energy for chemosynthesis derives from reactions in which substances such as hydrogen sulfide or ammonia are oxidized. This may occur with or without the presence of oxygen.

Many chemosynthetic microorganisms are consumed by other organisms in the ocean, and symbiotic associations between chemosynthesizers and respiring heterotrophs are quite common. Large populations of animals can be supported by chemosynthetic secondary production at hydrothermal vents, methane clathrates, and even isolated cave water like we have on the red planet. We don’t believe chemosynthesis is any different underground on Mars, as we have deep in our Earth caves, or in the depths of our sea. It has long been hypothesized that chemosynthesis may support life below the surface of the red planet, Europa and many other planets.”

“You stated Europa?” interrupted Ryan. Suzi nodded. “Well, “continued Ryan” I will assume that this is why the Matts live on these two planets. They have somehow controlled this chemosynthetic system. How could they do that?”

“Easy,” replied Suzi. “Nanobots.” The astronauts looked at her in disbelief.

“Glad my father isn’t here,” added Saturn. “He would be asleep or telling us that these nanobots eat space sharks, or something stupid.”

“I agree, Saturn,” Ryan stated. “Suzi tell us about nanobots.”

“Molecular nanotechnology, or MNT for short is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis.”

“Wow! We are really getting a biology lesson today,” stated Lunar Richmond. Biology wasn’t her favorite subject. She was more of a physics person. Suzi smiled at Lunar. At about this time in her lectures about her subjects, the astronauts’ eyes usually glazed over.

“Mechanosynthesis is distinct from nanoscale materials but based on the ideas of one of my mentors, Richard Feynman, who had a vision of miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products including nanobots. This advanced form of molecular manufacturing would make use of positionally-controlled mechanosynthesis guided by molecular machine systems. MNT would involve combining physical principles demonstrated by chemistry, other nanotechnologies, and the molecular machinery of life with the systems engineering principles found in modern factories. I will not go on about this fascinating topic, but I believe nanobots can change the way we live on the red planet, and here on Earth.”

“So what you are saying, is that from these microbes, we could make little robots to make things, and clean our air?” Ryan asked.

“A nanobot could separate nitrogen from the Mars air, and take care of the microbes that are adding to the basic atmosphere that is already in place. They could be made to help make food by keeping our plants alive, and lastly, they could be programmed to actually build stuff.

“Also, adding to Suzi’s description of nanobots, they could be programmed into weapons and defenses,” stated Dr. Smidt.

“So how did this cave become a cave in the first place?” asked Allen Saunders.

“I’m not a geologist, but from what I know from Earth, this cave was most probably a lava vent a billion or more years ago,” continued Suzi. “At one time, and before the planet lost its atmosphere, maybe a billion or so years ago, the hole to the planet’s atmosphere sealed, and the Martian atmosphere was caught in the cave before it disappeared on the surface. Since then possible microbes, or the simplest alien life form, survived in the caves, multiplied, and from any ammonia in the soil, excreted carbon dioxide and ammonia into the atmosphere. From this ammonia, nitrogen was added to what was already in the air inside the cave. We show a high nitrogen content in the air, 76 percent, 12.9 percent oxygen or 550 millibars, a very low level of carbon dioxide, with 1.5 percent argon and 2 percent helium. There is water vapor, although less than 1 percent volume which makes a very dry and stable atmosphere inside the cave. To change the recipe of gases in the cave we can setup large air distilleries inside the cave itself, electrolyze the water into oxygen and hydrogen, and manufacture carbon dioxide.”

“Since I did study Chemosynthesis in university, one of my many subjects,” added Dr. Smidt. “If we added light down there, we would not kill the current microbes, light won’t hurt them, and we will be able to grow green vegetables, grasses, trees, anything green and begin photosynthesis, which will produce their own oxygen, and since plants feed off carbon dioxide, we will need a good supply of it down there.

“So let’s get this straight. Whatever aliens are down there are nothing bigger than tiny microbes and hopefully no space sharks?” asked Lunar Richmond.

“With what we already have down there” suggested Ryan “we could make the underground cave habitable for humans with a little help from tiny nanobots. Then we use of the water to add more oxygen into the underground atmosphere while we breathe out the needed carbon dioxide, and turn the hydrogen made from the electrolysis into fuel?” Suzi and Dr. Smidt nodded. “Am I right, in one meeting here in Nevada, we could have solved all the red planet’s habitation problems, and also maybe here on earth?”

Ryan shook his head at what this crew were learning. This was mind blowing.

“Ja,” replied Suzi. “It could take a year, two or ten, but whatever is down there, and depending on the cave’s volume, we could one day feed an underground city with all that water.

“I don’t believe added air pressure or increased oxygen quantities will hurt the microbes down there either,” added Dr. Smidt.

“Going back to what VIN and Mars Noble, and you Ryan recorded on your suit readouts while down in the cave, the only real problem in the cave is oxygen pressure and zero carbon dioxide,” stated Igor who had listened intently and been deep in thought for some time. “Since the water temperature is above freezing, the only other problem for human and animal habitation is enough pressure to breathe in oxygen. If not we will end up with altitude pulmonary edema, or high altitude high cerebral edema. You all know this, it is one of our first subjects for astronaut training. All the suit’s readouts recorded 549 to 550 millibars of oxygen down there. Depending on how much more oxygen we can produce down there, and the cave’s volume, we could increase the oxygen quantity for humans and animals to breathe and control it pretty quickly. We just need to increase the atmospheric oxygen from 550 millibars to at least 750 millibars for our survival down there.”

“Humans have survived as low as 475 millibars for up to two years,” interrupted Boris “which is equivalent to living at a 19,500 foot altitude here on Earth. Anything below 400 millibars means zero food digestion in humans, zero sleep and early death. Of course a sea level pressure of over 1,000 millibars would be perfect for habitation.”

“One thing I cannot understand,” asked Ryan. “Roo said that one of the kids actually went down there, how did they manage to build the stairs?” Ryan asked.

“The Matts have lived in space for thousands of years. I believe they can handle different variations of gases than we can,” replied Suzi. “I talked this over with Dr. Nancy before she left for the island. “Bad air will kill us in a few minutes. The Matts enjoy higher amounts of helium and argon, three times as much as we are used to, so that young man must have been dizzy at those levels, but remember their door to the underground cave opened for us to enter. Although dangerous, the Matt system doesn’t consider those amounts deadly. As far as getting those steps built, all I can reply to that, was it was a long time ago, thousands of years ago, and there must have been more oxygen at that time.”

“I watched the water drain from the river into the hole in the floor to the lake below,” stated Mars Noble. “Even though it flowed slower than here on Earth, it ran down into the hole with air from the chamber. If this has happened for thousands of years, then much of the atmosphere below can be attributed to being from the base above, and the Matt air producers and cleaners.”

“Yes, an excellent statement, son,” stated Suzi. “We added this equation into our numbers, thanks to your report and suit readouts. What surprised us was the lack of perfect air down there after so much time. The air wasn’t being breathed down there, by humans or animals, low carbon dioxide. I’m sure the microbes got used to the slight changes over time, but our results showed us that thousands of years of air leakage mean only one thing: there is a very large cavern down there.

“This is really getting interesting,” stated Ryan excitedly.

“Depending on what area of dry ground there is down there, we might have found Mars’ Atlantis,” Suzi added.

Chapter 13

Israel, Mars Attacked and New Engines

The test flight of Martin’s new spaceship didn’t go as planned. Nor did Jonesy’s life after the launch.

Jonesy and Maggie, with Martin in the cockpit launched Martin’s new craft 24 hours after arriving in Tel Aviv. The weather wasn’t an issue. With bright blue skies, and zero wind, it was perfect weather for a maiden flight.

Ryan had loaned Martin three of Astermine’s spacesuits for the flight. Nevada base was about to test its new suits, which had new helmet clasps instead of screwing them on, more protection against cosmic radiation, and a seven hour power pack instead of the old suit’s four.

Jonesy, Maggie and Martin Brusk were wearing them as Jonesy lit up the thrusters, and the noisy craft compared to the silent Astermine ships in the shields, launched vertically. The three astronauts inside couldn’t hear the outside noise, but the different vibrations inside the cockpit did get Jonesy’s attention.

“Martin, you have flown this ship all 23 times in atmospheric conditions in the last three years?” Jonesy asked as they rose vertically through 5,000 feet.

“All 23 times as pilot,” Martin replied.

“Do the ship’s vibrations feel the same to you?” Jonesy asked the man sitting on one of the ship’s rear cockpit jump seats.

“Heading through 10,000 feet, thrusters on 97 percent power,” stated Maggie from the right-side copilot’s seat.

“Maybe a little more vibration due to our fuel tanks being full, and the new heat bricks underneath the floor. Once we obtain forward flight at 95,000 feet, the electric hybrid pulse motor will kick in, and the vibrations should cease.” Martin replied to Jonesy.

“Heading through 15,000 feet at 500 feet per second, moving thrusters to 12 percent forward thrust,” added Maggie.

“You still don’t want me to use the blue shield Ryan loaned us?” Jonesy asked.

“Only in an emergency,” Martin replied. “This ship was built to orbit earth, and return without a shield. I want to achieve that first.”

“Jonesy, moving forward a notch to 30 percent forward thrust. We have achieved 100 knots forward speed and climbing at 380 feet per second.”

“Roger Maggie, increase electrical output to 20 percent and decrease hydrogen thrust to 90 percent,” replied Jonesy, his eyes going over the control console in a millisecond.

It was time for Martin to let the astronauts do the flying, and he shut up.

“Altitude 25,000 feet, forward thrust going up to 50 percent. Hydrogen thrusters at 85 percent, electrical energy at 58 percent and charging for first pulse. That should put our nose at seventy percent angle over horizontal,” continued Maggie.

Jonesy was flying the ship while Maggie was changing the flight systems and reading out the important flight information to him. They had been sent the planned flight information while still returning from Mars, and had studied it for two months before they had returned to earth. The information had fascinated both pilots. The use of hydrogen thrusters, then electrical pulse power, then plasma thrusters once in space was totally new to them.

“Is our altitude climb rate increasing Maggie?” Jonesy asked.

“Affirmative, forward speed 490 knots, altitude 39,500 feet, altitude climb currently 890 feet per second,” Maggie replied.

“Very slow in acceleration, maybe I’m used to faster machines, Martin?” Jonesy asked.

Wait until you feel the first pulse, Jonesy. It’s going to rattle your teeth,” returned Martin.

“I was scared about that, I’m sure this pulse is going to remind me of Ryan’s old hydrogen pulse engines from 25 years ago.”

“Oh no, not those again,” added Maggie. “Jonesy we are getting too old for back breaking work. Forward speed 510 knots, altitude 44,700 feet altitude climb 970 feet per second, 83 percent electrical energy to first pulse.”

The first pulse when it came, felt like somebody had just added nitrous oxide to the fuel mix, and it really hurt the pilot’s backs.

Oh! That hurts!” stated Jonesy as their speed increased painfully and Maggie called out the numbers.

“Forward speed 1,190 knots, altitude 61,000 feet altitude climb 4,950 feet per second.”

“I didn’t realize that the first pulse would hurt so much,” added Martin Brusk as the second pulse came, and hurt, even more than the first. “Ouch! That one really hurt.”

“Bloody hell! Shouted Jonesy as the electronic pules got considerably worse, pulsing out the back once every 20 seconds, and by the sixth pulse, and at 239,000 feet, he ordered Maggie to switch off the Electric pulse system, brought the nose down, and increased the hydrogen thrust power to 40 percent to glide back down to earth.

“Gee that hurt,” stated Martin. “None of my engineers thought that the pulses would hurt after the first one. Well, I suppose it is back to the engine drawing boards and we didn’t even get to try the plasma thruster.”

“Well, we gave your ship a new altitude record. We just passed 245,000 feet when we began to head down,” stated Maggie feeling sorry for Martin.

“Instead of playing with this one, why don’t you just build a few more of those shuttles you built for Astermine and keep one for yourself,” suggested Jonesy as they headed down in a low circle over Russia.

“I think you are right. I think it is the right time for me to retire from inventing new forms of transport, buy me a fishing boat and come and join you guys.” Both pilots greed with Martin Brusk on that one.

Twenty-four hours later and still with aching backs, Mr. and Mrs. Jones and passengers, took off after saying farewell to their old friend, and with Bob, Beth and Monica headed south over the Indian Ocean, the equator and to new happy fishing grounds.

“Martian Club Retreat to Base Nevada, Martian Club Retreat to Base Nevada, we are under attack over,” came in the stressed voice of Vitalily, three months after the Joneses had headed away from the island on their new fishing boat behind Bob Mathews and crew. Jonesy had finally gone fishing.

Back in Nevada, the first five plasma rocket engines had been completed in Tel Aviv, had been launched up into orbit a week earlier, and were being built into the open rear area of America Two.

The second batch of five motors were 3 hours from being launched up from Israel aboard three of the shuttles. It was not the time for a Mayday call.

Ryan, who was in Tel Aviv and about to copilot SB-III into orbit with one of the engines, asked Dr. Smidt in Nevada to handle the emergency until he was in space.

There was nothing anybody could do. With monitoring the lights between the planets in Mattville, Max Von Braun had kept all personnel in all bases up-to-date on the advancement of the Matt ships from Europa to Mars.

The 16 Matt ships had disappeared from between the two planets in the globe room a month earlier, and everybody now knew it was just time before something happened.

Inside the Martian Club Retreat, the top soil was safe three levels down. The blue shields were retracted and safe on the lowest level, and the daily reports from Vitalily, showed increasing anxiety from the crew waiting for an attack.

The top two floors of the base were empty all objects. Even the base’s command center had been moved down to the third level underground.

From the last attacks, the crew had realized that the Matt’s Masers could only reach through a maximum 30 feet of rock at most. The last deaths from the first attack had been on the top two levels, where 20 to 30 feet of Martian rock had allowed the electrical impulses to run through the rock and electrocute the crew inside, like an electrical storm.

There hadn’t been holes made in the protective layer of Martian surface by the masers, but the charges had somehow reached in and destroyed people and electrical equipment.

Jonesy was fishing. So was Maggie as they trawled on autopilot a mile or so behind Bob Mathew’s boat. For three months now they had rested, drank beer and eaten fish until the excitement of the never ending supplies had worn off.

The Jones’ water home had everything they wanted. Bob had shown where they could exchange currency, on the mainland and in the city of Cairns from a wholesale store, whilst on their maiden voyage. To head out for weeks at a time, the fishing boats had needed to be stocked up with water, food and luxuries, and Jonesy enjoyed his luxuries.

On Astermine Island, few supplies had reached the store rooms recently. With few crew actually living on the island, flights of supplies from the Australian government were down to a couple a year.

Both the Joneses had received a retirement gift from Ryan, each a pouch of cut diamonds from Antwerp Ryan had kept for such purposes many years earlier, and a steel box with freshly minted Mars gold. The retirement gift of diamonds, and a couple ingots worth of gold minted into coins each astronaut would receive on retirement had many years of purchasing power for a good life.

Paper money was still used in Australia, but nobody accepted U.S. dollars in that country, only their own dollars. Bob Mathews, who had been given gold for his retirement package, as well as Beth and Monica, had found a place to exchange it in Cairns, ten hours sailing from the island.

Here, a jewelry store owned by a lady about the same age as Bob Mathews, and who had been in the gold trade all her life, was happy to exchange the yellow metal into Australian dollars.

On the Joneses’ first voyage on their new fishing boat, Bob had headed them to Cairns, and the Goldsmith’s shop.

“Gooday,” stated the lady behind the counter as the five of them, Beth, Monica, Maggie, Jonesy and Bob entered the shop. As usual the door omitted a tinkle when it was opened and much to Jonesy’s surprise, the lady with her grey hair up in a bun, and looking more like one of his old school teachers welcomed them in. “Bob Mathews, Beth, Monica, good to see you again. These two must be the Joneses’ you warned me about?”

“Word travels fast around here,” returned Jonesy.

“Not as fast as your gold is about to. I really liked that stuff Bob brought in the last time he was here. Some bull crap about it coming from Mars. Even an aborigine knows there is no gold on Mars.”

“Well it just so happens ma’am that there is gold on Mars,” replied Jonesy.

“And how would you know that Mr. Jones, I assume?” the grey-haired lady replied looking at the ex-astronaut as if he was a naughty child in her class.

“Because I’ve been there, and I picked up this gold myself.”

The shop owner’s eyebrows raised at that statement, and she looked at Jonesy sternly.

“Oh you have, have you? And my cat is an alien?”

“I’m sure that is not impossible,” replied Jonesy smiling at the lady. He was beginning to like her.

“Oh, OK American travelers, what do you have for me this time?” she continued smiling and getting down to business.

“Do you want diamonds from an asteroid, or gold from Mars,” Jonesy asked seriously, not noticing the three ladies smiling behind him.

“Asteroid diamonds are lovely this time of year,” stated Maggie to the lady.

“Now that ruins it,” stated the lady looking at Maggie and putting her hands on her hips. “I know the men are cuckoo, now it turns out you ladies are just as bad.”

“Want to see my original asteroid wedding ring?” Maggie asked. The lady nodded showing a slight interest for politeness sake.

“Oh my God! That is not real. It can’t be!” the lady replied, her face going white and nearly falling over with surprise. She put out a hand on the counter to steady herself.

Maggie had just pulled her original wedding ring out of its separate silk pouch. Dangling from her right hand was a necklace with a massive, a really massive flawless, D-color diamond studded with smaller diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

When Ryan had described the ordered wedding ring from this diamond Maggie had actually picked up herself on DX2014 decades ago, both Maggie and Suzi, whose ring was even bigger, decided to get smaller rings and turn the large diamonds into necklaces.

“Yes that is what we, the weird people you think we are, picked that up on an asteroid floating past,” Jonesy stated.

Beth and Monica had both seen the necklace a couple of times before, and were still both enthralled with the beauty of it.

“Now why are you carrying that thing around Mags?” asked Jonesy quite surprised that his wife had it on her.

“Just in case we need beer and gas money,” Maggie replied.

“Honey, you could just about buy this whole city with that thing,” the lady added.

“Sounds fine with me,” smiled Maggie. ‘I’ve never owned a city.”

The jeweler carefully touched, and then picked up the necklace. It was heavy. She brought out her loupe and carefully looked through it at the large stone in the center of the necklace display.

“My god! This is real. How big is the diamond?” the jeweler asked Maggie.

“Sixteen carats,” Maggie replied.

“Absolutely flawless,” replied the lady searching with her powerful jewelry loupe for flaws. “I have rarely seen a flawless diamond in such a high color, and never seen a diamond this size. There is nothing I could do with it, this necklace is far too valuable for a small shop like mine, but I might believe your asteroid story a bit more.” She handed the necklace back to Maggie trembling slightly. “I never believed I would see anything so perfect in my life.”

Maggie then took off her three-diamond wedding ring and gave it to the lady to view.

“Three perfect diamonds, as perfect as the large diamond. I could move this ring if you give me enough time, it is also worth a fortune,” the jeweler stated looking up at Maggie.

“Thanks but no,” replied Maggie, and took our one diamond out of the pouch Ryan had given her for retirement. “That is my wedding ring, but I’m interested in selling this one.” Jonesy also pulled out a similar pouch, and put a second diamond on the table.

“I want a lifetime’s worth of good eating and beer from this one,” he told the lady.

“Hmm! Even better,” she stated picking up Maggie’s diamond first. “I would guess a little over three carats, color a D or an E, and as flawless as the others by the look of it. I’ll give you my savings for it? You say it is from a real asteroid?” Maggie nodded. “You just to be happened to be in space, this asteroid floated by and on it was this diamond you picked up?”

“And this one, and about 10,000 more,” added Jonesy pointing at his, and totally screwing up the poor lady’s day. “If you are really nice to us, I’ll tell you a true story about space sharks.”

The grey-haired lady couldn’t afford both diamonds at the same time. She told Jonesy to come back in a few months, and she would look for potential buyers of stones so valuable. While they waited, the jeweler asked the group to look after her shop while she went across the road to the bank and withdrew everything she had.

An hour later the five walked out and to lunch in the best restaurant they could find. As it was very usual with fishermen, on land a large steak was the order of the day. Maggie had an attach case full of money, and was buying.

Three months later, and the time Jonesy was thinking about another visit to the “school teacher” looking lady in the jewelry store, the news about the attack on The Martian Club Retreat was relayed to both boat radios from high above.

“SB-V to Jonesy or Maggie, do you copy over?”

“Hi Lunar, you up there circling us like a seagull again?” replied Jonesy.

“A little higher than a seagull, and yes, I’ve just taken the last two plasma engines up to the mother ship, and heading back to Nevada. How’s the fishing, over.”

“I eaten enough fish to last me awhile,” replied Jonesy who was packing his boat ready for a return voyage to Cairns for beer.

“Well, we are all missing you back at base. You and Maggie. The retreat was attacked a few hours ago. No deaths but Vitalily reckons they will be back very soon. It seems they really tried to destroy the base. Vitalily thinks that there were about 30 of their ships from the camera footage. Dad is up here in SB-III and on the intercom assembling everybody for Mars, over.”

“Thirty ships, that sounds like their whole force including those heading in from Europa,” Jonesy stated.

“Max Von Braun told us a few weeks ago that there is a second group of lights showing up on the area between Europa and Mars in Mattville’s globe room. There are 28 new lights, and it seems another 28 have just left the white planet a few days ago, over.”

“Lunar, that is a lot of enemy for Astermine’s fleet. Lunar wait one, Jonesy to Bob, how many days are we out from Astermine Island, over?’

“Full speed, 45 to 46 hours, over,” replied Bob from the other boat.

“Lunar, tell the island to get dinner ready for you. Do you have enough fuel to pick Maggie and me up?”

“I was hoping you would say that Mr. Jones. Affirmative, Mark and I could get down in about 17 hours, and wait for you. I believe we could get a top up from our island fuel tanks if we need a splash and go….”

“Have you left any Aussie beer for us on the island, mate?” Mark Price Lunar’s copilot asked.

“Mark, I’m sure there is some, but stocks are low there, and we’ll take whatever there is, as well as any remaining cans on our boats. Bob and I were about to head down to Cairns to get a few tons of supplies, over.” Replied Jonesy.” Mark thanked the fisherman in advance.

With both boats at high cruise, they reached the island dock in 46 hours, and chatting to an aging Lieutenant Walls, who now was retired and in charge of the island, Jonesy and Maggie readied to hop aboard the shuttle waiting for them.

Maggie found the two astronauts in the pool being served cool drinks by the ever-present robotic waiter while Jonesy was tying down the boat for a long-term stay.

Lunar had told them about the second attack 36 hours after the first. The first one had been at dusk, the second one at dawn. Mark reckoned that the second attack had been timed to catch anybody on the base by surprise.

Jonesy said goodbye to Bob and the girls as Bob’s boat headed out and onwards to Cairns for supplies. Jonesy told Bob that his next return was for good, but he and Maggie had to rid the red planet of these little bad guys first.

Within an hour of docking SB-V, with every beer and luxury on the island on board, launched skyward and disappeared from view.

“Glad to have you back, Mr. and Mrs. Jones,” smiled Ryan seven hours later and as the sun set over the western Nevada horizon. “I was wondering if you could stay away.”

“Not with so many juicy targets to lock onto,” smiled Jonesy. Maggie winked at Ryan, then hugged Kathy.

“We have to finish what we started, and against that many odds, you need us,” she told Ryan.

“Is America Three ready?’ Jonesy asked Ryan feeling that he had been away for years.

“Mr. Jones you have been away for a short 3 months. The next opposition is still a year away, and the third mother ship just had its ninth section out of twelve fitted last week. Unfortunately, she will not be ready for the fight.”

“So what are we going to do for a year?” Jonesy asked.

“The plasma thrusters will be fitted and ready on America Two in about three to five weeks. Then she will need a month of tests. During that time, you can bring yourself up to fitness for space travel, and then begin battle training all our astronauts at the orbital build platform. Dr. Schmidt and his team are working on when we can leave Earth, but any departure in the next four months is out of the question. Since you are back Chief Astronaut Jones, Mr. Saunders is happy for you to take over again. I want the best space fighter astronauts you can make out of all our pilots heading over. This time, we are not coming back until the planet is secure, or we are all dead.”

Five weeks later, the plasma thrusters were ready for testing on America Two. The work had been completed as fast as possible, and for the last two weeks Jonesy had given lectures to the team of astronauts up on the build station.

The crew was already living in America Two, and had been since launching up 14 days earlier.

The astronaut team comprised of the oldies: Jonesy, Maggie, Allen and Jamie, Michael and Penny, and Ryan and VIN as backup pilots. Kathy Richmond did not want to fly into battle. She considered herself too old, and she preferred to learn how to back up her daughter Lunar, who was now official Captain of the mother ship.

The “NextGeners” were excited, and ready to go into battle mentally. Saturn Noble was NextGen Flight Leader, and the astronauts were her husband: Mars, Shelley Saunders, Jane and Jenny Burgos, Lunar’s husband Mark, Pluto Katherine and her husband Gary.

Pluto Jane Saunders and Hillary Pitt, both pregnant were now the flight trainers for the kids in flight simulators back on Earth.

Lunar Richmond and her father were both happy that Jonesy and Maggie had returned. Over time the astronaut numbers was dwindling somewhat. Penelope Pitt was Vice President in Washington. Kathy Richmond felt too old to fly, and most of the younger Nextgeners were going through marriage and parenthood.

The Third generation, the youngsters were still a couple of years away from getting their wings, and Astermine had seven children in flight training, not counting the Chinese boy.

This mission was certainly the last mission for the OldGeners. If they hadn’t slept for fourteen years, they would all be too old to fly, and with five shuttles still active, and the two new mother ships, there certainly wouldn’t be enough astronauts to fly the Astermine fleet for at least a decade.

What was opposite down on Earth, was that pilots of commercial aircraft, as well as fighter aircraft were being phased out, and replaced by robots. These robotic pilots were no more than lumps of machinery in the forward part of the aircraft where the cockpit used to be.

Jonesy had been shocked a week before he had launched back into space when he had seen a new videoed program from Boeing on the new pilots of commercial flight.

The program for the news networks showed new aircraft which didn’t have a flight deck or cockpit. Instead there were no cockpit windows, and the entire area where the flight cockpit had once been, was now full of electronics. These electronics, didn’t even look like robots, but square blocks of electronics that were computers which flew the aircraft. There would be no more human hands on in case something went wrong. Like the drones in the days of VIN Noble’s military career, these aircraft could be flown from the ground if necessary.

“No more pilot pay packets, eight hour flight maximum’s per day, or pilot unions, these new pilots an fly 24/7,” stated the news feed Jonesy was watching with the kids, the third class of Astermine astronauts. Many of the older crew were also in watching. Television, or video streaming was back, stations were cropping up across the country, and once again news was 24/7 as well. “Flights will be on time, no chances of pilot errors, and flight tickets will be cheaper again in the future. With the cheap tickets comes a higher cost for everything on board. At least the last remaining necessity will still be free on board all U.S. flights: going to the bathroom. Congress enacted a law today halting U.S.A. Air’s bid to charge passengers to go to the toilet during a flight. The airline has charged passengers for a month now, even on long flights, ten dollars a time to use the onboard bathrooms. In a unanimous vote, Congress deemed this as a right of any passenger to use free bathroom facilities on any mode of transport…”

“I would certainly be using the bathroom more if I had tin cans flying me round,” stated Jonesy, and making the youngsters laugh. “You guys might be the last known human pilots, so respect your opportunity.”

Apart for certain topics on the news these days, the news was mostly good. The new Chinese boy, Jon Lee Jong saw his parents in Washington on an official visit to the city, and being toured around by the country’s Vice President Penelope Pitt.

Relations with most of the world’s countries was on the mend. The USA and China had just completed a plan for ten years of growth together. Russia and the Republic of Korea with Korea whole again for the first time in nearly a century, were visiting each other. Israel were talking peace and assistance to much of the Middle East, and even the continent of Africa was on the mend.

Apart from communication satellites going up on a monthly basis, the only other machinery heading up into space were military “Watchdogs”, new cameras heading into orbit to monitor the planet for problems. These “Watchdogs” as they were known, were not only for military purposes, but also to survey the planet for every purpose one could imagine. Most of the “Watchdogs” made in Israel, Australia and Canada were sold to companies checking on acid rain, ozone, pollution and air and sea temperatures for weather.

As usual, some were armed and some were not, and as Astermine’s astronauts launched into Low Space Orbit, each time they had more and more traffic on their radar monitors.

“It’s getting like a Walmart parking lot up here,” stated Jonesy as he and Maggie flew their old and faithful shuttle, SB-III into space for the first time since returning from Mars.

“What is a Walmart parking lot?” several of the kids who were watching Jonesy’s launch telemetry on inboard and outside shuttle cameras from their classroom as he and Maggie headed into space.

“Something even I don’t know what it is,” stated Pluto Jane Saunders, their NextGen instructor.

“An old style American supermarket chain before the large stores and malls all became motels and apartments for communal living,” explained Dr. Smidt who was also in the classroom, and watching the video feed of the Jones’ ride into space.

“Right kids, I’m powering the thrusters down to 27 percent as we enter into our orbit. Young James Richmond Price, what is our altitude, and expected altitude, boy?”

“Current Altitude 93.7 miles, expected altitude 17 minutes into launch: 95 miles, Commander Jones, you are out by over 1 mile,” young James, now 12, replied.

“My cockpit computer states 16 minutes 47 seconds flight time, boy,” stated Jonesy coldly.

“Flight time now 17 minutes, what is my altitude young Richmond Price?”

“Exactly 195 miles Commander,” replied the boy sheepishly.

“That is what accuracy means future astronauts,” Jonesy lectured. “For every mile you are out on any part of your flight means extra fuel usage to get you back in track, understand?” stated Jonesy into his camera and monitor placed so he could see and hear the lesson. In turn the kids had direct to access to the astronauts as no helmets were being used on launches anymore.

The blue shields were well used, and never seemed to get old. Pete had told Jonesy before launch that new progress on their own production of the blue shields was happening each month.

“Expected orbital forward speed at mile 119 altitude, young Mikey Noble?” Jonesy asked his own grandson, who was a year older than James Richmond Price.

“Exactly 21,970 knots, sir,” replied the youngster looking at the readouts. “Your speed is seven knots over, Commander Jones,” the small boy replied.

“Always remember, more speed the better at the beginning of a long flight. It will slowly bleed off in time without too much side-thruster fuel usage. Young Noble, why do I have my speed higher than expected?”

“To get ahead of the space shark, Commander Jones?” interrupted young Titan, only seven and in his second year of astronaut lessons. Jonesy smiled.

“Yes, and to get ahead of the space shark, young Titan Richmond Darwin, but Mikey Noble, an answer to my question please?”

“Always stay ahead of the plan. You tell us all the time,” replied the young future astronaut.

“Remember pilots, it is always easier to slow than to speed up. Less fuel and less time, but as my copilot would say, it is maybe better to be on time. That is the tiny difference between my flying and Captain Maggie Jones’ flying. Both ways are as good as each other in my book, and you only fail flight test if you’re behind the time, understand?” lectured Jonesy to the class of eight, 120 miles below him.

Life aboard America Two was comfortable, roomy and the perfect setup to keep the astronauts used to Earth’s gravity conditions.

On each shift, of which there were three a day, the crew ran around the corridor of the wheel. Since the centrifugal force of the rotation was 80 percent of Earth’s gravity, it was a good run. At any time, any member of the crew could head out of their apartment and see a group running.

For the newbies, it took a few rounds to get used to it. Everybody ran on the corridor floor, which was the roof, upside down and their heads faced the Bridge and engine room in the middle of the ship.

Jonesy and Maggie were running 5 miles a day. Each astronaut had to run at least 3 miles per day and complete an hour of bicycle riding and an hour workout in the gym.

For the OldGeners keeping fit was becoming harder and harder. To keep up with the NextGeners was near to impossible, and every day Saturn and Mars swept by their parents at least twice per run.

Even Ryan was slowing up, and the OldGeners knew that their time of space travel in command of vessels was coming to an end. They were just getting too old.

The mechanics fitted the new thrusters to the mother ship, and then the testing began. At the same time, Asterspace Three, the smaller mining vessel, and now a student flight trainer in its blue shield was heading up and down with liquid hydrogen for the mother ship.

This was what the two oldest students, Little Mikey Noble and James Richmond Price were getting their first real flights into space in under the Captaincy of Shelley Saunders and the Burgos sisters.

Martin Brusk, although a busy man wasn’t letting up on his first space flight, and was piloted up into orbit by a proud ten-year old under training. While the pregnant teachers taught down in the classroom, the astronauts had a student as a copilot, and once a week, launched up with 2 tons of fuel.

Martin Brusk, Little Mikey and James were aghast at seeing for the first time the size of the mother ship floating around in space. Both young astronauts would go on to become very famous astronauts one day, in entirely different careers.

Even while the fuel savings of liquid hydrogen by using the cold fusion plants was incredible, the ten plasma thrusters at 50 Megawatts apiece were thirsty beasts.

Hydrogen fuel, with an oxidizer usually oxygen, was the old form of thrust. The speed of the ignited hydrogen exiting the thrusters was the force that moved the ship forward.

An electric rocket used electrical power from 10 of the 23 onboard cold fusion power plants to accelerate the hydrogen, the propellant, out of the back of the engine. The exhaust speed of the hydrogen propellant was far greater in electric rockets, making them much more efficient, but the level of thrust was much lower and restricted their operation for use only in space.

By using the hydrogen with a far greater exhaust speed, the use of the hydrogen fuel was, comparing electric engine size to non-electric engine size: 85 percent more efficient. With more than twice the engines needed for space travel, the use of liquid hydrogen was reduced by only 55 percent, due to far higher and quicker travel speeds obtained with double the needed power.

That meant that America Two still needed its fuel tanks full, and the large tanks were also meant to refuel the five shuttles, which still used the old-type engines.

All the shuttles had brought up their cargo bays filled with bladders of fuel or supplies on each launch, and life aboard the mother ship was becoming as routine as it had been during the decade long Odyssey in America One.

“So when can we leave,” Jonesy asked to Ryan in the bridge a week after his last arrival. As usual, Lunar, the ship’s Commander, Ryan, Martin Brusk learning space flight, Igor and Boris were on the Bridge working out all the travel scenarios possible. Jonesy entered early and to grab a freshly made pouch of coffee. As it often happened, the astronauts drank so much coffee that the pouches usually ran out and more pouches had to be filled in the cafeteria rotating on the wheel above.

“Distance to Mars is now shortening daily,” Ryan stated to Jonesy. “The two planets are getting closer, but we are on the opposite side of the sun to Mars.”

“As usual Earth is chasing Mars down since we are closer to the sun, and have a shorter circuit,” added Igor “but we must first catch up and get on the same side of the sun as Mars is.”

“We have a possible scenario that we could activate in 8 weeks’ time,” stated Boris. “Once we get to a certain distance behind Mars, we could head out and angle between the two planets instead of going directly across space to Mars during the time of the Opposition’s open window and that would mean leaving in five months’ time.”

“What are the travel times?” Jonesy asked as the rest of the astronauts entered for the morning’s briefing.

Ryan did cover that, and explained the two opportunities to the crew once they had tied themselves into the conference chairs on the Bridge.

“With the extra thrust and speed of these new plasma thrusters,” Ryan added “we have two scenarios. Scenario One: we can extend the Opposition travel window by one month either side and have an eight month window every 26 months. What is important with this increase in time is that with the expected reduced fuel usage due to the new thrusters, we can travel to Mars, and return within the same window with a realistic amount of fuel. Before we needed to wait it out for the next Opposition. This also gives us a 109-day journey as the new window opens, or a 47-day journey at the most opportune time. Both time frames will use the same tonnage of fuel. Scenario Two: If we extend the window a further month either side, we will then have a ten-month window out of 26 months between Oppositions. Again, with the second expansion of travel, our travel time increases, and we will double our fuel usage for a 139 day journey either way.” Ryan paused for a mouthful of coffee.

“Better than what Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy, and Mags and I did,” commented Chief Astronaut Jones, and VIN Noble rolled his yes. VIN Noble was wondering how long Jonesy could stay quiet.

“Thank you Mr. Jones,” replied Ryan still happy to have Jonesy, and his mouth back. “These two scenarios give us a 20-day period to offload and on-load cargo. This means that once America Three is operational, a ship could leave each planet cross on their journeys to the other planet, drop off and load up cargo for the return flight, and return to its base every Opposition. This was my dream when I was a kid—to have an annual spaceflight to and from each planet. Now, going back to Vitalily’s, and Max’s ideas about stopping these attacks. Since the Matts had attacked the Retreat three times, and still we haven’t received any loss of life, we all believe we have some time to get there. Vitalily believes that since no movement or retaliation from us has been seen by the Matts from our base as yet, they don’t even know if we are inside, and will back off until they do see movement. As from yesterday, I have given Vitalily the OK to set a trap for the Matts by using Mars Noble’s armed robots. Their non-vacuum spacesuits do not give them the chance to enter and invade our base, even if they do see movement on the plateau and want to actually attack. Our crew are totally safe.

“So our idea is to use Scenario Two: the ten month window around the next Opposition, and sort out our problem. We will have 20 days to sort out the Matts before the mother ship needs to return to Earth. Now going back to our test flight. We will complete our test flight around the moon, return to orbit around earth, and then use all our smaller craft to refuel the mother ship. If our plasma rockets test flight is a success, we could leave for the red planet at the beginning of Scenario Two: in 8 weeks’ time, or to be more precise: 57.5 days from now.”

“Once we are up to cruise speed in the mother ship, we can continue fight training in the shuttles on the way,” stated Jonesy.

“Yes, once our cruise speed is attained by the mother ship, in about two weeks of acceleration to an estimated 130,000 knots, it was still seem that we are not moving, and our shuttles can fly around like bees in a hive,” Ryan smiled.

“Unfortunately, since we are turning the mother ship around, and using full reverse thrust to brake for ten days before meeting the red planet” added Igor “the shuttles will need to be re-connected to America Two for the complete braking period.”

“My astronauts are ready, but we must train just to keep our reactions as fast as possible,” stated Jonesy.

As usual, any flights back to Earth were for fuel, and with liquid hydrogen now in abundance on Earth, the price had dropped considerably, and the gold reserves from the last mission were paying for what fuel they needed.

The new thrusters were ready to be tested, and under full power, and with two of the five shuttles connected to the mother ships’ docking ports, Lunar Richmond, Commander of America Two accelerated towards the moon 170,000 miles away.

It was far too short a distance to get the ship up to any cruise speed America One had achieved, but from the acceleration graphs, the distances to all the planets in the solar system could be easily computed.

As usual there was no sense of movement inside the ship as it accelerated from 27,000 knots to 41,000 knots before the ship was turned around to begin braking for three orbits around the moon.

Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin would have appreciated the speed and comfort Ryan’s crew achieved during their ship’s maiden flight to the Moon and back, Ryan Richmond and Martin Brusk reckoned.

Martin Brusk was commended by Ryan once the ship reentered a LSO around Earth 20 hours later. For the first time ever, humans had flown to the moon and back within one day.

The fuel burn was analyzed and they had enough aboard for the return trip to Mars and back, as well as each of the five shuttles having 20 hours of flight time at full burn.

Max Von Braun had given Ryan the excellent news that fuel production in Mattville was running according to plan, and which added to any extra fuel needs Chief Astronaut Jones and crew would need to fight the Matts, and even bring aboard some gold if there was time. He and several others had begun to clear the crater from Michael Pitt’s accurate attack on the base decades earlier.

The daily radio broadcast began with good news from Vitalily. The Matts had taken the bait and attacked the plateau, several hundred feet from the base, for the fourth time a few hours earlier. He had set a trap for them by activating the robotic soldiers and placing them at each side of the plateau. Even to a pilot flying his ship pretty close, could he see that these were robots, and not humans wearing spacesuits.

As Vitalily explained to everyone listening, the Matts flying past had seen the movement, and three of them had swooped in for a closer look. Vitalily had the robots just walking around aimlessly and separated from each other.

Then the Matt ships had returned for a third time, and had decided to rid the planet of whatever was walking down there. All seven ships came in on a hover, and within several hundred feet of the robots. Vitalily sent a message for the robots to walk faster, to be less of a target and ordered one of the robots to point at the lead Matt ship. The pilot opened fire, and all eleven soldiers shocked the Matts by immediately firing back.

Even though they destroyed three of Mars’ robotic soldiers, four of their space craft exploded and two more left the crater flying erratically. It seemed only one of the Matt ships got away unscathed and Mars Noble was proud of his men.

Vitalily, and Max in Mattville agreed with Ryan on the radio call that any attack in the future will be a long distance attack, if they attacked again at all. The Matts, everyone knew wouldn’t give up.

Vitalily ended his message that one of the Matt ships had fired a different type of weapon at the outer glass veranda of the base, seconds before the fight, and now everything outside was now demolished.

Max continued the conversation and told the crew over the radio broadcasts from his base on a daily basis, how they were about to clear the rubble to make a temporary landing platform for the shuttles to come in and land only 70 feet from the door they had entered through deep in the tunnel.

“We setup our spare blue shield directly outside the door to the upper base chamber, over.” Max reported as America Two headed back into orbit around Earth. “We powered up the black box through a connection we had our mining robot dig for us through the wall.”

“How did you manage to get the door open?” Mars Noble asked as Assistant Security Officer sitting on the Bridge next to his father.

“Pretty easy young Mars, once we could power up the blue shield inside the cavern where the river is. We connected the shield up to our small fusion plant you guys left us, the 30 Megawatt system, powered it up to 3 percent power and allowed the shield to make a bubble in the chamber wall between the door and the outside blast cavern. We then got the robot to begin scraping at the wall so that the shield allowed it to grind rock off the wall. It had to be on extreme slow, or it just ground against the shield, which did nothing to the wall. So we set up the robot for its highest pressure torque at its lowest speed and it began digging into the wall a week ago, over.”

“Max, you are certainly innovative,” stated Ryan.

“It was quite simple really,” Max laughed several minutes later from millions of miles away. “As long as the mining robot’s grind against the rock was extremely slow, the blue shield allowed it to pass through, touch the rock through the shield, and dig with its maximum torque at about an inch an hour. We had a hole in the six foot thick wall within a day, and an opening large enough for me to climb through with a spacesuit yesterday, over.”

“The shield expanded out through the hole and begun filling the tunnel outside, ingenious Max, over” stated Mars Noble who had seen every inch either side of the wall Max was describing.

“Yes, we increased the power from the fusion plant to 5 percent, and it touched the outside tunnels opposite wall. At 7 percent it enveloped the door. About twelve hours ago, we headed into the shield with spacesuits on, pumped in air, and while we were waiting for the air pressure to mount, we checked the distance to the partly open cavern—seventy-three feet. Bob, Joe and I tied a cord to several canisters full of water, and I repelled down to the bottom of the crater. The crater bottoms out at 77 feet below the tunnel opening. Our next problem is to attack the crater’s roof so that we can make it big enough to set a shuttle down. We worked out, that if we could get the roof to fall in, then we could level the crater floor, and the rock fall should bring it up a few feet or so, over.”

“Not a problem for the mining robot to be setup to level the floor,” stated VIN Noble. You could attach a metal club to its mining claw and beat the rock to flatten it, over.”

“Yes, a good idea VIN,” replied Max a while later. “Since we still have a few months before you guys arrive, I think we could have a crater fit for at least one of the larger shuttles to land. Ryan, we could use an elevator system to haul the cargo up the seventy-foot level to the tunnel entrance. We have nothing here we can refit to do that, even in 13 percent gravity. We will have enough air in the shield to try the door tomorrow, over.”

“VIN can throw up the supplies with his super metal legs and arm to you guys in the tunnel,” smirked Jonesy. “Nothing is impossible for Super Metal Man.”

“One day you might need a little metal, Mr. Jones,” replied VIN. “You are not retired yet partner, and I’ll let those Matts know which shuttle you are flying.”

“Herr Von Braun, Smidt here. It won’t be difficult to design a cargo lift system,” added Dr. Smidt from Nevada Base. “Von Braun, give me the exact measurements of what you need, and I will build you something hydraulic. Please remember, it will need a perfectly flat surface to work from, over.”

Overall, the six-hour long conversation between the bases was very fruitful that day. It was a pity that Mattville only had one shield. There was a couple at the Retreat, but they had no way to transport them until the mother ship arrived, but at least the area could be readied as a permanent base for Martian operations.

Chapter 14

A New Revelation or Two

The time arrived to return to red planet, for many the last time they would ever see Earth.

Even though the Matts didn’t have as sophisticated fire power as Astermine did, they were still a formidable force, even though they had already lost a dozen ships before they had finally annihilated Mars Noble’s eleven soldier robots.

The metal men had fought bravely, and had repelled three attacks before the last man fell to maser fire from a flanking attack while he was trying to shoot three ships flying directly in front of him a mile away.

The entire series of battles had been seen and recorded on the dozen cameras around the base, and the final soldier had killed his second victim seconds before he had erupted into a blast of blue energy.

Mars Noble was sad that he had lost his men. Only the day before the last man fell, the Marines in Camp Lejeune had reported how fantastic these soldiers were to Mars’ father.

“When we retire, Dad, we can go into the soldier robot business,” and Martin Brusk, overhearing the conversation between son in SB-IV and VIN flying dogfights with Jonesy in SB-III, stated that he would be happy to back the new venture.

The crew had gotten used to crew and friends of Astermine always listening in on their conversations. All communications in space was through radio or intercoms, and at such close range to earth there was little privacy.

Now the last shuttle, SB-V with the mother ship’s commander, Lunar, and her sister flying up the last 5 tons of water and fresh rations had arrived and docked onto the last docking port. Lunar, still closing down the shuttle, gave her father orders for America Two to undock from the Orbital Space Platform, and begin orbiting Earth for departure.

Lunar’s shuttle was full of fresh produce for the flight to Mars. As usual Ryan had tried to make it a dry mission, but he knew that in every nook and cranny in all the shuttles was stashed away contraband for the voyage. At least they would eat fresh, unfrozen food for the first couple of weeks into the journey.

The reason Lunar had arrived at so late was to carry up the new hydraulic system Dr. Smidt and his team had designed for the crater. Also Martin Brusk had disappointedly headed back down to Earth. There was an emergency at one of his production plants that needed his attention.

The doctor and Max Von Braun had spoken for the last several weeks about the hydraulic lift system, and Mattville had a flattened ramp and landing area thanks to the robot miner and its metal club.

“Take her to warp speed Mr. Sulu,” joked Ryan to Igor who was actually controlling the ship’s computers.

“Aye, aye Captain,” Igor replied in his best Star Trek accent.

They would need three orbits of Earth to increase speed to leave orbit, and immediately the computers programmed the ship to increase her speed to take her out of the traffic-jammed LSO.

“Right, astronauts and security personnel, we are leaving intercom communications with Earth in about six hours,” began Ryan, Flight Operations Commander in the cafeteria 2 days later. The speed had increased faster than any space vessel had achieved since Man began traveling in space.

The three orbits had been completed and as usual the spinning America Two, with five shuttles and Asterspace Three the old mining cargo ship docked around her, headed towards an empty area of space that would one day have the red planet in it.

“We are about to head through 46,000 knots forward speed, and if you want to say goodbye to anybody privately though the intercom system at Nevada Base, or Astermine Island in Australia, you had better do it after this briefing. After that it is open radio communications only. Chief Astronaut Jones, please give us the list of astronauts selected to fly the combat missions.”

“Thank you Commander. Guys we have trained now in all the combat scenarios Head of Security VIN Noble and I, and my wife and copilot could think of. We have all completed 35 hours of combat flight. We are as ready we will ever be to take on anybody in space, and especially with our OldGen experience, around the atmosphere of the red planet. I know some of you haven’t had the practice of flying in the weak Martian atmosphere yet, and that is why all five shuttles will be captained by pilots who have. It does take a little getting used to. Harder to maneuver than Earth’s thick atmosphere, but easier than in the vacuum of space.

“Me, and my wife will be Combat Commanders in SB-III. Allen and Jamie Saunders in SB-II. Michael and Penny Pitt in SB-I. For our NextGeners, we OldGeners might be a little slower than your maneuvering abilities, but all six of us have flown thousands of hours in our shuttles, have the experience of all atmospheric and deep space flight conditions, and have all been in battle. We will always go into battle first.

“Commander of SB-IV is Mars Noble, who has been in battle in many different space shuttles, as well as having Matt-craft experience. His copilot is Saturn Noble. Saturn has agreed that her husband can fly equally well as she can, but he can also listen to any enemy Matt thought chatter through his telepathic abilities.

“Finally, Commander Lunar Richmond and her husband Mark will copilot SB-V. Commander Richmond has had battle experience, and her husband has the best natural ability of flying I have ever seen. His reactions are quicker than anybody here. I have taken weeks to decide these teams, and these decisions have been made to give us our best chance to win this war. We are heavily outnumbered. For all we know they could have thousands of spacecraft in dozens of bases across the planet, but we have to go on what we know. What we do know is that there are many enemy spaceships currently on the red plant. Thanks to Mars Noble’s robot soldiers there aren’t as many as there used to be. We also know of more flights on the way from Europa, but they are expected to arrive 20 to 25 days after we do. This will give us the opportunity to do battle with what is on the planet first, then pause, lick our wounds, and hopefully surprise attack the incoming reinforcements a day or so out from the red planet. I will leave our laser strength to my partner, VIN Noble.”

Jonesy sat down. There hadn’t been too many surprises, except Saturn was Mars’ copilot instead of being the other way around. Also Mark Price was in and Pluto Katherine Richmond, an expert astronaut was not.

“I wish I was heading into battle with my partner, but everybody knows he favors his wife,” joked VIN as he got up to speak. “To keep the records straight, I have fired more lasers out of a shuttle than anybody here, but I believe Maggie is a prettier copilot than me.” VIN was in a good mood, and he got much laughter and sarcastic comments from the thirty crewmembers present. “I think Jonesy is either getting afraid of his own space shark or he needs Maggie to direct him and his aging eyesight when to bank left or right.”

“Thank you Mr. Noble,” commented Jonesy impersonating his boss.

“As Head of Security, it is my duty to back you pilots up with America Two’s fire power to eliminate as many enemy as possible, as well look after your butts. You won’t have wingmen, you pilots will act independently of each other, and I will be using this ship’s 12 laser weapons to their fullest extent. For this I need the best gunners and will have Pluto Katherine, her husband Gary Darwin, and young Jane Burgos, our real sharpshooter as assistant gunners. Like you copilots in the two larger shuttles, each of us up here will man three lasers each. That is the maximum any human can handle, and we will resume gunner training here on the Bridge for the rest of the voyage. We have 21 lasers against an enemy of who knows. If America Two is destroyed, you astronauts will have lousy odds, so we protect each other. The boss, Igor, Boris, my son Mars and I, as the Security Department have decided to increase the mother ship’s orbital altitude to 500 miles above the red planet and not our usual 200 miles. We will not use any blue shields, nor will you. Dr. Smidt, Igor and Boris spent a few weeks calculating that at this higher altitude, they can do a sort of non-central orbit. This means that instead of orbiting around the center of the planet, we can cheat a little and orbit several degrees to one side. Using side thrusters we can stay in a non-central orbit, and be in sight of the area 70 percent of every orbit, instead of only 50 percent. It is just a pity we cannot do a high geostationary orbit and be up there for you 24/7. Igor can explain it better, but 70 percent is better than 50. Twenty-one lasers will certainly be a mighty firepower, but America Two has to be in sight of the battle area to help you guys. I doubt that too many enemy vessels will be present in the first attack, but who knows Matt tactics. They have shown with the flanking attack on the last soldier that they understand tactical fighting, and I’ll bet everybody here that they will time their attack when America Two is out of sight. I’m sure they have ways and means of knowing where the mother ship is over the horizon. How, we have never found out but we must assume they will. Until America Two is in sight of the shuttles, you are on your own. That is why we came up with our new ‘fly towards us’ maneuver. We will use this maneuver if more than 20 enemy blips are seen.

“Our ‘fly towards us’ maneuver will take effect as soon as 20 or more enemy bogeys are seen on radar. All shuttles will climb and head towards where the mother ship will arrive over the horizon. At full thrust and at full climb, you will lessen the time we can take part in the fight by 50 percent. I will leave you with the idea that 21 guns instead of 9 versus hundreds of enemy is a better bet. Max Von Braun has now seen at least another 160 enemy ships, 20 flights on their way from Europa. What is in our favor, in the second phase of what I’m going the call the war of the worlds, is that we will all be together when we head out to attack them as one force. We will not have a planet getting in our way.” VIN sat down.

Pluto Katherine wasn’t happy about not being an astronaut going into battle. A few had turned towards her, and had seen her face go white as she was told she would be flying.

“Pluts, I cannot have both my daughters in battle out there. I gave the order to have both of you in different ships for battle. Please understand,” Ryan stated to his daughter. He got very little response from her.

As the ship’s speed grew, earth got smaller, and life became the routine of space travel.

“We saw the Matt ships circling us yesterday, over,” Vitalily stated in the daily radio broadcast several days later. By this time America Two was traveling through space at 77,000 knots, planet Earth was receding behind them, the moon was another star, and the ship’s crew were content. With fresh provisions kept cold, they ate as well as on the island, and still had a few days before scrambled egg and frozen orange juice pouches made their way back to the cafeteria.

“Could you count them, over,” VIN asked. The conversations were long and very drawn out with the time lapse of distance.

“I believe we saw seven enemy craft in one camera shot,” Vitalily replied a few minutes later. “They are getting closer, now brave that nobody is firing at them. I went outside a couple of days ago to see what was out there, and what they were seeing from the air. The veranda, or porch area with the two exit doors and outer room is a tangled mess of metal. Even parts of the silicone glass was melted, which shows the high temperatures of their masers. I’m not a physicist, but I can see melted glass out there, and silicone has such a high melting point. To anybody flying past the retreat, it looks broken, the dust has covered up any footprints and vegetable gardens, and I would believe nobody is living here. I think we are now safe from maser attacks until you arrive, over.”

“Is the single docking port in the tunnel to the outside working OK, over?” Ryan asked Vitalily.

“Yes, but it will be difficult to get supplies in here. We will have to slide them through the port one by one. Boss, otherwise we are as safe as underground moles, but would prefer to be in Max’s first class accommodations. I think this base is not needed anymore, over.”

“I believe it could be used to intern captured Matts or something,” suggested VIN, and Ryan nodded.

His first base’s importance was at an end, but he was extremely excited to see what the rest of the Matt base, their new home had in the way of luxuries in the second part of the base. It was imperative that they either beat the Matts and make them leave, or what he really wanted: to befriend them and everybody live in harmony on the red planet. Only Ryan thought it a possibility.

Max’s message that day shocked the Astermine crew to its core. There was another part to the Matt story that hadn’t been told yet.

“You guys won’t believe this but, many of the large incoming fleet of ships have disappeared from between the two globes of Mars and Europa, over,” Max explained.

“How can that be?” Ryan asked the crew on the bridge. “Max, could you elaborate more, over?”

Waiting for the reply, Igor and Boris began researching what was between Mars and Europa. Of course there was the Asteroid Belt. They all knew the Asteroid Belt well as they had all passed through it twice on the odyssey. The Asteroid Belt was an expanse of millions of asteroids situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter around 280 million miles from the sun.

“The asteroids in the belt range from 600 miles in diameter, all the way down to particles of dust,” stated Igor. “I’m going to search for any large asteroids currently in-between the two planets. Although there are millions of objects in the asteroid belt, we know from journeying through it, the belt is not densely populated,” continued Igor looking at the positioning of the planets on his computer monitor. “Since they are scattered over a vast area, we should be able to pinpoint a large mass of rock. I will check with the guys at NASA. Hopefully they are back to tracking near earth asteroids, and hopefully other organizations can tell us what is presently between Mars and Jupiter.”

Max was told not to worry. He didn’t have the equipment needed to map deep space. The main problem Igor and Boris had realized living underground, was the lack of sight on the planet’s surface, and in space. They had three different-size camera telescopes in the cargo bay aboard the mother ship and wanted them placed in different areas of the red planet so that deep space could be viewed from the underground bases.

“Spacecraft Dawn, a mission from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California studied two objects in the Asteroid belt between 2011 and 2016,” stated Boris going over the history of what man knew about the belt. I did a study on Dawn while we headed through the Asteroid Belt for the first time when we headed towards Jupiter. Dawn first studied the large asteroid Vesta, and then the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. In the first part of its mission the craft successfully entered into orbit around Vesta in July 2011, taking high resolution images and studying the asteroid over a period of 15 months. On Vesta, the mission crew didn’t find much apart from ancient frozen lava, pyroxene.”

“Asteroid pyroxene is not a bad find out here,” stated Ryan. “It is not the most valuable find, but pyroxene from the asteroids can have excessive amounts of magnesium, zinc, lithium, scandium and vanadium. Martin Brusk would give me anything for massive amounts of lithium for his batteries, and scadium. Sorry to interrupt you Boris.”

“Dawn then studied the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015, and that could be a secret Matt base,” continued Boris.

“And guess what!” added Igor excitedly. Ceres is currently in position between the two planets.

“Slowly, slowly,” stated Ryan. “Boris, the reasons it could be a Matt base please.”

“Ceres is a ball of rock and ice 590 miles in diameter. Ceres is the largest asteroid in the belt and the only named dwarf planet in the inner Solar System with just under 5 percent of the mass of our own moon. I’m bringing up the dwarf planet’s history up now. OK, here’s more,” stated Boris his eyes searching his computer screen. “The surface is probably a mixture of water ice and various hydrated minerals such as carbonates, dolomite and iron-rich clay minerals. In January 2014, emissions of water vapor were detected from several regions of Ceres…the surface area is approximately equal to the land area of India or Argentina…big enough for habitation. The Dawn mission results were that Ceres’s roundness was inconsistent with an undifferentiated body, which indicates that it consists of a rocky core overlain with an icy mantle. Dawn found that Ceres has water frost on its surface. Ultraviolet observations by Dawn detected statistically significant amounts of hydroxide ions near the dwarf planet’s North Pole, which is a product of water-vapor dissociation by ultraviolet solar radiation. Dawn’s 100-km-thick mantle has ice volcanoes, like what we found on Enceladus. In other words, there is more underground water on Ceres than there is on Earth, or the red planet, and there is gravity, even an atmosphere, although both weaker than on Mars. The ice volcanoes depict a source of power, likely radioactives trapped in its inner rocky core. Lastly, the surface of the dwarf planet is relatively warm, minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit on a warm day, which gives the Matts the same underground base opportunities of Mars.”

“So this dwarf planet could sustain life. Why didn’t we think of visiting it on the way to Jupiter?” Ryan asked.

We never got close enough to it on the way out, or on our return journey, and we had so many moons to decide what to look at, this dwarf planet was of no interest,” Igor replied.

“As usual, everything we want to find is right under our noses,” returned Ryan smiling.

Over the next week, and with information coming in from several different sources on Earth, Ceres was directly in-between Mars and Jupiter, and when Ryan read up old reports suggesting that Ceres could be an “oasis in the desert” between Mars and Jupiter, he knew his crew were right. He asked Vitalily to interrogate Commander Fob to see if he would reveal this base.

Fob refused to say anything, but Vitalily stated that the Commander looked quite shocked when he was asked about a stopping point between Europa and the red planet.

What really shocked Ryan though was when Igor told him that this tiny dwarf planet had a larger window of travel from Earth, than to Mars. Ceres circled the sun more like Earth did, and a flight could leave Earth for Ceres every 16 months, versus 26 months for Mars, even though it as always further away. More fuel would be needed on this round trip from earth, but now having plasma engines, that wasn’t such a problem anymore. Ryan knew where he wanted to go next.

For weeks Ryan pondered why he had travelled so far in the solar system, when there were gems of solar system perfection closer to Earth. He even became miserable thinking that he had wasted a whole decade of life travelling to Jupiter and Saturn when he could have just traveled around the asteroid belt.

Cathy Richmond did remind him that he might have wasted a decade, but he had gained more being asleep on DX2017 for 14 years, so he still had time.

America Two went into cruise mode for ten weeks at 129,000 knots, and Jonesy and the astronauts could go back to flight training for battle. To them, the mother ship wasn’t really moving in space, and nothing had changed with the added speed.

What was a change of plans to the Astermine crew was the 40 days the lights increased and decreased between the two planets in the globe room in Mattville. It seemed that the incoming enemy were resting, or refueling, or not even coming to Mars? Maybe they were preparing to defend Ceres from humanity?

It was not to be, as 40 days after disappearing, Max told everybody that all the lights had reappeared and looked like they were heading in his direction. Ryan accepted the fact, but the enemy stopover had given them extra time between fighting the enemy on the planet, and the new arrivals getting into battle territory.

“Dr. Nancy, can the Matts telepathically communicate over such vast distances?” Ryan asked the doctor down in Australia during the briefing the next morning. The briefing, small and on the Bridge was with VIN, Mars, Jonesy, Igor, Boris and himself, and about telepathy.

“There are four forms of telepathy in Parapsychology,” Dr. Nancy replied five minutes later. “The first is Latent, or deferred telepathy, which I do not believe is part of the Matt abilities, and second: Retrocognitive telepathy, or the transfer of information about the past, future or present state of an individuals’ mind to another person. This second form could be how your captive at the Retreat is communicating with others on Mars, or anywhere in the Solar System. Much like the theory of parallel universes, I don’t believe that distance is a problem. The idea of thought between two minds could be faster than the speed of light, or instantaneous at any distance. Dr. Smidt, your crew’s thoughts on what I have just said, so far?” asked the doctor to the team in Nevada.

During the odyssey, and after meeting the Matts decades ago, the science and medical teams had studied telepathy, and had often tested the Matts in every humane way they could. Even Mars Noble had taken part in the fun, and often treasure hunt-type tests as a child.

“I would say either Retrocognitive, or Superconscious telepathy doctor,” Dr. Smidt replied a few minutes later.

“Thank you, Dr. Smidt and team. Ryan, let me continue. The third form is Emotive telepathy. I won’t go into it, but I feel it doesn’t have anything to do with our discussion. I agree with Dr. Smidt on Superconscious telepathy though. SCT as we have termed this form is the simplest, easiest form to understand. Its definition is: tapping into the Superconscious to access the collective wisdom between two or more minds, human or animal. SCT is the way we believe most animals and birds communicate: danger, food, flight, change of direction or basic thoughts to a herd, or a mate, over.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” replied Ryan, the other crew members around the universe still listening in.

“That opens up a big door of thought,” stated Igor. “What the doctors have just stated is that Commander Fob is communicating with the incoming spaceships, and his tribe on Europa.”

“And they know where he is, and the Matts on Mars know about our entrance into the other part of their base,” added Boris.

“That means he has been lying to us all along,” added VIN. “He knows that we are not in the other side, and they are waiting for us. And they know Commander Fob is in the Retreat. That is why they are returning to the base, to somehow see movement, and maybe save him.

Ryan thought for a moment, and VIN continued over the radio.

“VIN to Vitalily at the retreat. I have a question. What does the Commander know? I want an exact description of what you, or your crew have told him, over.”

“VIN Noble, Mars Noble, you guys communicate with the Matts like I do. I have heard nothing telepathically for years. Have you?” Dr. Nancy asked while America Two was awaiting a response from Mars.

“Negative,” replied VIN. “I remember Commander Joot being able to speak selectively to other Matts. Remember, he taught me, and it is when you to see the one person in your mind you want to communicate with, and then you have a private line, or think of two or more people and you have a conference call. I don’t believe any of the Matts can communicate with more than a few at any one time. Of course one person can verbally tell all the others. Dr. Nancy, going back to your four forms of telepathy, I used to watch birds fly in North Carolina when I was a kid. I was always amazed how a tight flock of birds, or fish in the sea could all turn instantly. That form of telepathy is your third one—Emotive telepathy. I believe that it is important. I think that they use all four forms of telepathy at different times. Maybe using Emotive telepathy like a flock of birds or a school of fish when their spacecraft are fighting us.”

“So you could hear their commander’s tactics VIN, when you are there in the middle of battle?” Ryan asked.

“If it is motional like Emotive telepathy, it goes out to everybody.” VIN answered all Dr. Nancy’s unanswered questions two mites later when he received the communication, and everything about two minds thinking together became as clear as the sound of a bell.

Vitalily responded telling the crew what they thought Commander Fob knew. What surprised VIN was that nobody had told the captive that they had crew in his old home. The commander had been led to believe that he had been rescued, the Homo sapiens from Earth had left, and he was still on the red planet in the enemy base.

Then a spark of realization hit VIN Noble like a lightning bolt. The three young children were with the crew, free to learn, and relate any information they heard.

Vitalily had inadvertently beaten VIN to this conclusion. Being a Russian, he was more guarded about information than the Americans, and had disconnected the intercom speakers on the fifth level weeks earlier.

This was the level the Matt children and Commander Fob resided, and he had certainly made sure that Commander Fob didn’t hear any radio messages. This was certainly a stroke of luck to Ryan and the crew. The three children had constantly stayed on the fifth level.

Slowly a whole new plan came to Ryan. Now that a mother ship could complete a return journey to Mars and back each Opposition with the new plasma engines, the second ship could go somewhere else.

Chapter 15

War of the Worlds—Act One

“Is there any way that Commander Fob, or any of the Matts in their spaceships, or on Ceres or Europa could know of our arrival?” Ryan asked VIN a hundred days into the voyage. America Two had reversed itself a couple of weeks earlier and was using its ten plasma thrusters to slow for their arrival to the red planet.

Mars was still a large, bright star in the sky when they had turned the Bridge’s view rearward, and Earth was no bigger. The crew were already reading for arrival.

“We must always assume they know,” replied VIN. “Boss, I wanted to ask a question. Of what use is the Martian Club Retreat to us as a base, since we have a far better base in Mattville?”

“Igor, Boris and I are thinking of closing it down until it is needed, say as a storage facility, or for population growth in the future,” Ryan replied while the two were on the Bridge. “What do you think Head of Security?” Ryan asked the younger man.

“If I was in command, I would sneak in and land at the Retreat, have all the crew ready with belongings to board our empty shuttles, and take them to Mattville,” VIN replied.

“What about the four Matts?” Ryan asked.

“Easy, I would put the children on SB-V, keep Commander Fob on another, and let the enemy decide whether to destroy their own people,” VIN replied.

“A good plan,” replied Ryan. “And what about the other side of the Matt base?”

“We need to rid ourselves of their spacecraft on the planet, and then take over the second half of their base,” VIN replied.

“I get your drift Marine,” Ryan smiled. “Then we fill all our spacecraft up with the captured Matts, and then head out into space to battle the incoming forces?”

“I hadn’t thought that far” returned VIN looking at his commander “but yes, that sounds like a good plan that is if they care about their own. Somehow we might be surprised how little these nasty Matts care about themselves. For every good tendency the Earth Matts have, these space Matts seem to do the opposite. Also the others in space will know of our takeover, and that will be the time to head out to attack.” Jonesy had joined the two men discussing strategy.

“I don’t believe having civilians aboard our ships will change anything,” Jonesy stated. “They attacked the Retreat knowing that the Earth Matts were inside on the first two occasions, and recently when Fob was a prisoner.”

“I hate to say it, partner, but I think you are right,” joked VIN.

“Pity, we could have worked out a nice peace accord, where we all live happily ever after on the red planet,” stated Ryan. “Commander Jones, what do you think about them having a resupply base on Ceres? Commander Noble?”

“Hopefully, if we capture their resupply depot, base, or whatever they have on that rock, it might stop them from being able to cross the distance with more ships,” replied Jonesy. “I’m hoping that they cannot fly between Europa and Mars without a pit stop, and if that is so, then we have solved our problem for the time being.”

“That is until they build bigger or better ships, which can complete the journey nonstop if that is the case,” added VIN.

“We have to go and get Ceres,” added Igor joining the discussion. “Ryan, maybe Mars has riches for us. Maybe it has all the gold, and a few of the Rare Earth metals we will ever need, but Mars certainly won’t have the range of treasure the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt will have. I read once that each asteroid could be worth $100 billion on Earth, and how many asteroids are out there?”

“Our annual voyage for America Three,” mused Ryan, the big new plan coming into play in his mind.

Over the next weeks, the big new plan formed, the crew prepared for arrival, and Vitalily and his crew packed up and got ready for a fast move.

Down in the Retreat, the seventy-five available canisters were packed up. Only the fourth level was cleared, and several important pieces of machinery and personal belongings from the fifth level packed without the Matts’ knowledge. Life around the Matts went on as usual. The idea was not to warn the other Matts on the planet until most of the equipment was moved.

The top soil could stay. So could the water and fuel supplies until they were needed. The power plant and temporary command center on the third level was to stay. Any items that didn’t fit into the full canisters, were packed into piles, and empty canisters would be sent in through the docking port.

Aboard the mother ship, 32 empty canisters were loaded into one of the shuttles to be taken down. So was three tiny spacesuits and a teen suit for Commander Fob, as well as drugs to send them to sleep for the transfer.

Five days before America Two was due to go into orbit around the red planet the plan went into action. The five shuttles fully fueled, undocked from the mother ship and with full thrusters headed towards the growing planet.

Vitalily had kept a 24/7 surveillance and record of the flybys by the enemy, and it seemed that they now did a mission once every seven days. Fuel must be a problem for them, Jonesy reckoned as the flybys had dropped from seven spacecraft every few days to a routine two spacecraft once a week.

Jonesy had set the arrival time for the five shuttles to enter orbit 12 hours after a flyby. By this time the enemy were back in the confines of their underground ground base, and hopefully not able to see their arrival.

Mars and Saturn Noble had added that the entire time they had collected gold from outside the tunnel, nobody had arrived to attack them, so maybe the Matts didn’t have as good a radar system as Astermine did.

Mars also added that no Matts knew they were in the vicinity until Commander Fob was woken up, and nobody passed overhead while they filled the cargo holds.

“OK we are 10,000 miles apart, 200 miles altitude, and slowing through 17,000 knots,” stated Jonesy as they headed into their first orbit. “Remember astronauts once you get overhead the Retreat on the first pass, begin your descent for your next two orbits. Our north/south orbit will keep us at least 400 to 500 miles away from flying overhead their base. I will be going in to land on Lookout Mountain to keep watch. No more intercom communications until I tell you I’m in position, out.”

Instead of the usual west to east orbit the shuttles had always done, they were on a north to south orbit. Mattville was just under 400 miles from the Retreat, and in an easterly direction. If the Matts had radar, there was nothing Jonesy could do to hide, but nobody thought the Matts had radar. They used telepathy to get around.

Three hours later Jonesy came into land a few hours before dawn on Lookout Mountain. SB-III had been there before and had its exact landing coordinates in its computer memory.

Michael and Penny Pitt went into the Retreat first in SB-I. All the astronauts were fully suited up with helmets to protect them from the incoming cosmic radiation about to enter into the cockpits from the base crews’ suits. They had already stacked all the full canisters a few feet from where Michael was landing SB-I, and Michael had two crewmembers aboard to unload the 15 empty canisters and lift in 15 of the full ones.

It took several seconds before the red dust cleared from Michael’s thrusters and the crew got to work. The roof cargo doors were opened, the cargo lift was ready and the swapping of the canisters took place from the rear cargo hold.

At the same time three of the Retreat’s crew helped carry out four more canisters, then climbed in through the docking port one by one into the forward cargo hold.

Within 15 minutes, Michael launched, and headed towards Lookout Mountain, as Mars and Saturn descended through 20,000 feet flying SB-IV the larger shuttle, and for their thirty-minute stop.

This time the dust wasn’t so bad. The space suits for the Matts were part of the cargo, and 25 canisters were lifted aboard into the rear hatch. The lift then lifted six of the Retreat crew into the forward hatch, which closed, sealed and air was pressurized into the bay.

When it became safe to undress the suits were first wiped down with wet cloths, the suits taken off and packed into six empty canisters. The canisters were then ejected through the shuttle’s docking port one by one and Vitalily helped them down to the ground where they were injected through the base’s docking port where the canisters were wiped down. Now everybody had a space suit in the base, even though with the wet wipe downs, they were subjected to higher than normal amounts of cosmic radiation.

“Your guys OK Vitalily?” Mars asked as the man moved away from his shuttle and gave him the thumbs up sign. There were still nine of the crew, Vitalily, and the four Matts in the base.

“We are running to plan, only two minutes late Mars,” replied Vitalily as he backed away as SB-IV’s thrusters began to lift the shuttle off. “The captives have been asleep for several hours. We drugged them during dinner last night. We have ten of the new canisters full, five to go, we have the three crew suited up and ready for SB-II and we will be out of here by dawn if the bad guys decide to look us up. They shouldn’t as they only flew by two days ago. At least the dust is gone, over.”

Mars lifted the shuttle off, turned, and like a helicopter taking off, headed up and away to join the others halfway to Mattville and on top of the mountain.

Allen and Penny Saunders were next in the third smaller shuttle, and took the same load Michael Pitt had in SB-I. They didn’t have empty canisters to eject, but had a different cargo to load.

The different cargo was that two of the sleeping Matt children had been carried fully suited and placed into the docking port one by one. Once a third member of the base’s crew was aboard, Allen headed out to join Jonesy.

SB-V had the largest load to pick up. Lunar brought the final shuttle in minutes after Allen had vacated the landing zone, and Vitalily and the remaining crew rolled out the last of the canisters Michael Pitt had brought in. The last of the canisters were loaded into the rear hold, then Commander Fob and the third child were lifted in with the cargo hoist.

Finally, and 19 minutes after landing, Lunar launched and as quickly as possible headed away from the empty base.

“I heading over to Max,” stated Jonesy as Michael Price stated their launch over the intercom.

As Lunar headed up to take Jonesy’s perch atop the mountain, Jonesy headed down to the tunnels. Lunar had the most powerful solar radar system aboard her shuttle, made by Martin Brusk in Tel Aviv, and while she would be on top of Lookout Mountain, Michael Price was to setup the system and begin its seven-day power-up cycle.

From atop the mountain it could find bogeys above 2,000 feet, scan pretty deep into the canyons, and had an accurate sight range of 500 miles.

Saturn Noble had taken over control of her beloved shuttle enroute to Lookout Mountain while Mars readied to swap shuttles. Shelley Saunders took the copilot’s seat while Mars headed into the docking port and was ready to exit as Saturn brought her in on the starboard side of Jonesy, ready to launch off the mountain. Mars scampered out and entered SB-III’s docking port and did not enter into the cockpit. There was no need as he was just hitching a ride and getting out twenty minutes later.

“Have you directly overhead, Jonesy,” stated Max as SB-III came overhead of the semi-open cavern. The mining robot had taken away as much of the roof directly above the flattened landing zone as needed.

In the meantime, the crew inside SB-V were transferring its two sleeping Matts into SB-II and once Jonesy was out of visual sight in the cavern, Allen and Penny’s crew were to take off the sleeping Matts’ helmets and head back up to rendezvous with the mother ship.

Dawn was just breaking as SB-III slipped into its new home, a very large cavern with its tiny roof entrance just large enough to fit any of the shuttles one at a time.

Max and three of his crew were suited up and ready to help offload, what was to them the most important cargo of the mission.

In Jonesy’s forward cargo bay was Dr. Smidt’s new hydraulic lift. In the much lighter Martian gravity, it only weighed 600 pounds. On earth it had been a heavy cargo haul at a couple of tons.

Once the dust had cleared, and there was a lot of it this first landing, the hoist lifted the single unit out of the cargo bay and placed it exactly where Max wanted it.

Max and his crew had already been taught by Nevada Base on how to operate it, and from now on they wouldn’t need the corded ladders to climb down the 60 feet to the newly flattened cavern floor.

“Jonesy, it will take us about 30 minutes to setup the stabilizers and crank up the hydraulics, then we can clear your second cargo bay,” stated Max slapping Mars’ on the shoulder as he climbed down the ladder from the docking port and the two men spacesuit-hugged each other gently. “Mars we had to repair the poor miner several times when it fell opening up the roof. I think you need to look at it. It sort of hobbles sideways instead of walking like a spider.”

“I now understand why the opening is just big enough,” replied Jonesy. “Don’t expect a damn machine to do a real man’s work.” Max looked at Mars.

“Don’t worry Max,” laughed Mars and punched his good friend Max on the face of his helmet. “Jonesy is just pissed off that robots are flying commercial and military aircraft instead of human pilots back on Earth.”

“They are?” Max replied.

“Lunar is going to have a real tight fit in here. How far are we from Mattville?” Jonesy asked.

“Seventy feet,” replied Max, “plus the sixty feet up to that tunnel entrance up there,” he stated pointing to where two cord ladders were draped down the side of the cavern.

In the three craft waiting on the top of Lookout Mountain, the crew, once the suits were again cleansed with a damp cloth, undressed and were happy to be with new faces. They wouldn’t be heading to Mattville for another 15 hours.

The lift was tested, and it worked well. It had support struts that made sure it didn’t topple over, it was so high. As it headed upwards empty for a test run, the six “X’s” of the frame build extended, and it reached the 60-foot tunnel entrance with ease.

In the rear cargo bay were sections of a put-together room, ten feet cubed. It was made out of panes of the same silicone glass the outer room of the Retreat had been made of before it was destroyed.

It comprised of 25 x 5 silicone glass panes that were carried onto the lift and with Max and Mars standing on them, lifted themselves with a handheld controller upwards to the tunnel.

The other two crew unloaded the connections to seal the panels together. Also in the cargo bay were two new mining robots, several lengths of six-inch thick plastic-silicone tubing, several electric motors and a couple of canisters full of frozen earth products for the crew.

The panels were readied outside the tunnel door everybody had used to enter the base, and shortly afterwards the rest of the cargo was there as well.

“Joey, I have the helmet over the panel, open her up,” shouted Max, and the door opened as it had done the last time Mars was there and the air came out like a wave in the sea.

As fast as possible they carried the equipment in against the tide of escaping air, and it wasn’t long before the door was closed.

“Now what?” asked Mars. “I only have 40 minutes suit time.”

“We have the globe room set up as a halfway point,” replied Max. “We leave everything out here, the five of us enter the small globe room using the helmet method, and we have air tanks ready inside.”

Mars entered the globe room. He now had to wait 10 minutes until the air pressure from the air tank inside the room brought the oxygen up to be able to open the door to the command center. It would also be several hours before the chamber would be safe again to venture in to build the smaller room from the silicone glass panels around the entrance to the tunnel, and due to its smaller size, and with less air loss would decrease the wait time from hours to minutes. It was then that the War of the Worlds started.

“We have three unidentified bogeys heading towards us, 300 feet at 290 knots,” stated Saturn Noble atop Lookout Mountain. “They have just passed your position, Dad, and I picked them up a few seconds ago. They must be from the other side of the Matt base.”

“I wonder how they know we are here?” Mars asked.

“Maybe they don’t, my hatches are closed, powering up thrusters now,” added Jonesy.

“We have seven minutes before heading over the horizon,” stated VIN Noble from America Two above them. “Jonesy we won’t be here to back you up. I think that Commander Fob being put to sleep for longer than his usual rest time might have stopped communications, and they are heading to the base to see if anything has changed. I reckon Fob has been in contact with them all along. Mars you were really lucky to get the information out of him while you did after you woke him up. He must have been disorientated or something for that period after his cryogenic sleep. I know I was for days. He knows we know what he told us, we tricked him, and he certainly will be of no use to us anymore.”

“So they know something has changed,” added Ryan also from above. “Chief Astronaut Jones the ball is in your court.”

Saturn you have too many crew aboard, my two extra guys are putting on helmets, I’ll let them out, you take them and I’ll come down to back you up Jonesy,” stated Michael Pitt over the intercom.

“Three isn’t too bad, but backup always appreciated,” replied Jonesy. “Taking off in three minutes. Lunar in SB-V, head up a couple of hundred feet and hover to keep them on your radar.”

Jonesy knew that the enemy wouldn’t see a change in the outside area of the Retreat, as the last shuttle‘s thrusters would have cleaned any evidence of anybody being there. The enemy’s leaving just after dawn also reiterated his belief that the Matts didn’t like flying at night. Every time they had flown to date it had been in daylight hours.

“Boss,” stated Jonesy as he rose SB-III out of its hiding place. “I feel that being given an opportunity to decrease their numbers must be taken. Lesser the numbers, betters the odds in my book.”

“Three bogeys flying past directly below us, still at 300 feet, and 290 knots. They are certainly not in a hurry, or conserving fuel, over” stated Saturn.

“SB-III, SB-I, you have permission to engage, only if they fire first,” stated Ryan. “We will not be in position to help you, and your new hiding place, SB-III could be found by the enemy on their way back, over.”

“Jonesy, I’ll slip off the mountain behind you as you come past,” added Michael Pitt. “The first of the two crew is going through the hatch now.”

Ten minutes later and as Maggie always added, Jonesy dragged his butt along the planet’s surface even lower than the Matts in front of him, and smiled as SB-I maneuvered in behind him.

“Glad to have you as wingman,” stated Jonesy.

“Glad to have the opportunity Mr. Jones. Wouldn’t miss it for the world, and Penny likes the odds on Round One.”

“Laser hot and ready,” stated Maggie.

“Same here Mrs. Jones,” smiled Penny Pitt.

“Bogeys approaching the Retreat,” added Lunar. “Still only three enemy blips on radar, over.”

Jonesy and Michael increased thrust. “SB-I you still have canister cargo onboard, so keep behind me and don’t forget you are heavier than me. Since they must fire first, I’ll go in to get shot at. No silly maneuvers from you guys. They will most probably swoop on the Retreat a couple of times, then head back towards us. Maggie, Penny fire on my command. Michael, I’ll try and give you a decent firing angle. Michael, turn seven degrees to starboard.” Astermine’s chief astronaut set up a perfect flanking attack for Michael.

The three swoops of the enemy on the Retreat, captured on the base’s cameras, still live, showed the three craft firing at the doors into the underground base. Ryan immediately gave permission to fire. This gave Jonesy time to put a hundred miles in a northeasterly direction, turnabout and head in also from Michael’s flanking angle.

The three enemy ships were directly in their sights as they passed by on the return light, this time at 1,000 feet altitude.

“Maggie take lead bogey, Penny the furthest ship from us…lock lasers…fire,” commanded Jonesy, and the two ships disintegrated on the first beam of energy.

All four pilots had fought these enemy before and expected what the third bogey would do before the pilot knew it himself. The third ship went to full power and like a rocket headed vertical.

Maggie missed on her second shot, but Penny didn’t, and as the third ship went vertical, it exploded in a blue mas of energy less than 3 miles ahead of them.

“Bogeys exited to stage right, Lunar get back down, SB-IV, SB-V, be ready on idle. We are heading back to you to hide until dark, no more radio communications until dark, out.”

Jonesy and Michael Pitt just made it back atop the mountain before the angry bees left the hive. Now they had the exact coordinates of the enemy base and they could count the enemy ships as they, one after the other headed out in all directions.

The third pilot must have got a message through. Mars stated that he had heard a short telepathic cry, and so had VIN on the other side of the planet.

All four shuttles, with their thrusters on idle, watched as a wing of eight enemy craft passed by below them twenty minutes later. It was followed by another wing of seven aircraft, and then ten minutes later a third wing of seven.

Jonesy didn’t want to fight so many this day as the other three shuttles needed to get rid of their cargoes, Allen Saunders needed to return, and America Two be in the right position. At least he knew that with an attack on their base, they would be the attackers, and he could time the next act to perfection.

The crew on all the Astermine shuttles watched their radar screens, watching the enemy’s reaction as the mother ship came over the horizon. Jonesy did not want VIN to fire unless the enemy rose up to attack the ship, and it seemed that the Matts, either couldn’t see the ship above them, or they knew it was far out of range. Also the four Matts were still asleep and about to be transferred into America Two. VIN asked the medics to keep them asleep for another 12 hours.

For the rest of the daylight hours, enemy ships passed backwards and forwards below the high mountain hideaway. At one time there were 29 enemy ships on radar. Jonesy hoped that they didn’t rise up to altitude, and somebody heard his wish.

It seemed like weeks, but the weak sun finally went down, and so did the bees return to the hive.

A couple of hours later, Saturn in SB-IV headed down into the cavern first to unload. The new room was up, the suits recharged, and Mars, Max and four others were waiting for her.

She squeezed the larger shuttle in through the hole and into the much larger cavern beneath, and once the dust had been spewed out of the cavern with her side thrusters, she opened her roof cargo doors.

The Retreat crew were hoisted out first, and then the canisters strapped to pallets. It took an hour to unload, as the shuttle held far more than she had loaded on at the Retreat.

Saturn watched as the crew in threes were first lifted up the 60 feet by the new lift, nearly three times higher than her cockpit level.

Then the hoist part of the new hydraulic lift was connected to the cords of the full pallets, left where her hoist operator had left them, and the pallets were lifted directly up to the tunnel. Here a crewmember had a new machine designed by Dr. Smidt, which lifted the pallet off the hydraulic platform and the pallet disappeared into the tunnel.

“It looks like our loading systems back in Nevada Base,” stated Mars as she wiped him down, then helped him unscrew his helmet and gave him a big hug. “I was hoping those nasty Matts wouldn’t find you up on the mountain. These new helmets are sure faster to unscrew, but I wish we had the latest ones under development.”

“Next mission,” Saturn replied.

Lunar came in to unload, while Saturn returned to the mountain top. Max could now stay out for four hours with the new, more modern suit he had been given from SB-III the day before. There were only six available on this mission, and they were for the loading crew working outside. Only Mars had one of the new suits. The others were being worn by Max and his crew.

Six hours after dark, Vitalily was finally reunited with his fiend Max, and SB-I headed back into a north/south climbing orbit into space, followed by the other three shuttles.

Chapter 16

War of the Worlds—Act Two

“You certainly kicked up a hornet’s nest,” stated Ryan 24 hours later as the eight tired astronauts floated onto the bridge.

“Three down, many more to go,” replied Jonesy smiling and looking for a pouch of fresh coffee.

“We’ll have a quick briefing, then you guy have 12 hours while we refuel your ships,” continued Ryan. “The hornets might have calmed down a bit by then”.

“We counted seven flights, 51 enemy ships out at one time a few hours go,” added VIN who had been chatting to Allen and Jamie Saunders.

“We must have been on the other side” replied Maggie “I only counted 36.

“Me too,” added Penny Pitt.

“We were several thousand miles behind you guys,” stated Michael Price. “I saw two flights of 7 appear on our radar just before we headed over the horizon.”

“Interesting,” added Jonesy.

“Reminded me of aircraft taking off from an old aircraft carrier back on Earth. Only one or two can take off at a time,” stated Allen Saunders.

“That’s it, the last piece of my plan!” stated Jonesy his mind being refreshed by the hot coffee.

“Please elaborate,” Ryan asked.

“OK, we haven’t actually seen where these guys launch from. I was in their old cavern where Fob and his boys launched from. The interior of the cavern is massive. I fitted into the hole Max has enlarged. I reckon, maximum three of their ships could take off through their old cavern roof door at any one time. The underground cavern is far bigger than below the old roof door area, so there could have been nine, maybe twelve enemy ships in the cavern, fully armed and fuelled when Michael hit the place, plus the cavern door must have been open when he blew the darn place up. It must have been heavily protected, and the blast from their exploding spacecraft blew out the entire launch pad, but I reckon an even larger explosion must have happened below the ship cavern, in the power room, and the thick lava walls Max told us about saved part of Mattville from total disintegration.”

“I agree,” interrupted VIN. I was looking at the crater on camera when you went in partner. The blast was very powerful, and was directed up and away from the living quarters.”

“Maybe the weight of the lake of water and its surrounding lava?” stated Igor, and that led to food for thought.

“We could assume so,” added Ryan deep in thought. The launch pad is further out and away from the lake. The inside wall of the lake is near vertical where the spiral staircase is, I’ve been down there, so that there could be 70 feet of rock or more, as you suggested Igor, frozen molten lava, between where the Matts had their power plants. We have always found their fusion power plants far below the bases and on the deepest level.”

“So my laser beam might have entered the open launch area, blown up the spacecraft in there, and somehow the blast reached their power plant and that caused the massive atomic explosion?” asked Michael Pitt.

“Something like that,” smiled Igor. “I don’t think that one or two cold fusion power plants exploding would cause so much damage, so they must have had far more stuff down there.”

“An atomic power station or something?’ suggested VIN.

“Or their blue shield production department,” added Boris. “With what Captain Pete and Dr. Smidt have found out from the blue shield black boxes, this explosion could have been several energized production and power systems all exploding at once. And I agree with Ryan that 70 feet of solid frozen lava must have been thick enough to save part of the base, the water underneath, and maybe the water, like sand, dispelled the energy of the blast from the base.”

“I got it!” exclaimed Maggie and Suzi together. Suzi looked at Maggie to tell first, and nodded that what she said was Suzi’s exact thoughts.

“They must have been launching out of a blue shield. Remember how violently America One exploded when she was hit?” Everyone caught her drift.

“And they could have had a dozen, or dozens of blue shields set up down there,” added VIN.

“That’s how they get around,” smiled Ryan. “From one blue shield to another, like we did. They fill them will air, and I believe that even that long rail tunnel had active blue shields in it.

“Correct,” added Mars Noble. “Three holes, meant three shields exactly where the open holes were. They were overlapping the shields in both directions down the tunnel, or at least to the wall we found. The wall we found stopped the blast, but the explosion blew up the black boxes. They took out several feet of rock when they exploded.”

“And we analyzed that destroyed wall of the tunnel to be steel-hard frozen lava,” added Igor.

“I like it when a plan comes together,” smiled Ryan. “Chief Astronaut Jones, your plan please.”

Twelve hours later the five shuttles, fully fueled headed down towards the red planet.

VIN had asked that Commander Fob be drugged for other 12 hours and be transferred to SB-I before they had awakened. He wanted the Matts out of America Two, and the commander could sleep peacefully behind them while Michael and Penny Pitt fought his tribal members.

The three children were with Mars and Saturn, in SB-IV in their Captain’s apartment and also fast asleep.

Since the Matt ships hadn’t headed up to attack the mother ship he assumed that they didn’t know the ship was 500 miles above them orbiting the red planet. He had gotten Ryan’s permission for Jonesy to try and get them back to the retreat and to stay there with food and water until the battle was over.

The ‘hornet nest’ didn’t quieten down. While the shuttles were heading down and in daylight hours, flights of enemy ships headed to and from their base to the area of the Retreat, and to where their three downed spacecraft were. It wouldn’t take them long to send a flight up into space and search for the mother ship, so the next attack had to be quick and fast.

The hardest part for the crew aboard America Two was to answer one of Jonesy’s questions, and VIN spent the twelve hours the astronauts were resting on the cameras looking for the cavern where the enemy were spewing from. Jonesy had asked if he should do what Michael Pitt had done, and try to get a laser beam into the launch cavern while it was open, and possibly destroy the base. Ryan gave the order to do so, added that it was necessary to stop the launches, and would give them time to enter the base through the tunnel.

Igor added that if the cavern and the blue shield inside exploded, it would stop any more attacks from the enemy, at least until the reserves arrived from Ceres. Ryan had no choice.

VIN struggled to get an open view of the cavern door. From 500 miles high, the cavern was a speck of dust in the 5 mile square area the crew knew the base to be.

What shocked VIN when he saw actually three spacecraft emerging directly from the side of a mountain, was the cavern door wasn’t horizontal in the ground, but a hidden large vertical door in the side of the large mountain.

Michael Pitt shook his head when he was told about the final beliefs of the destruction of his successful hit on the horizontal door in the floor of the plant decades earlier. His laser beam must have been fired at the enemy ships, just as they had appeared out of the door in the first area. It had been a one in a thousand shot.

VIN immediately relayed the photos, and told the astronauts that Jones had been right. The vertical door was large enough for three spacecraft at a time, he saw the interior blueness of a blue shield and the door was open for less than thirty seconds.

Now that he knew where it was, and while the mother ship was above that part of the planet, VIN recorded when the door opened and closed. All he had to do was to watch the spacecraft exiting and entering.

Unfortunately with orbiting, he only had seven of the eleven hours of daylight of one day to record their movements, and they were not regular.

Once they were through and into the weak atmosphere, Jonesy flew the flight down in a near vertical dive the remaining 260,000 feet, or 50 miles, and a couple of thousand miles east of the base.

He wanted to get to the enemy launch pad before they opened for business at dawn.

Once they got down to the planet, the astronauts took turns putting on their helmets while they circled.

“VIN to Jonesy, bad news, one spacecraft exiting the door, over.”

“Crap!” replied Jonesy. “Isn’t it still dark down there, the twit is two hours early?”

“Yes, but it seems they do fly at night, partner,” VIN replied smiling. “You must time your attack for either 19 minutes from now, or your initial planned timing of your attack 36 minutes from now. You can only attack when we come over the horizon and be above you for the longest period possible. We are heading over the horizon in 4 minutes. A second group of three heading out, over.”

“I’ll take the first slot and start early in 16 minutes, partner. Pilots, remember to fly north up and towards the mother ship if we get attacked close to the ground. We will have hornets all around us pretty quickly, over.”

Jonesy’s perfect plan had already gone array. Now he was told the bad news that the first enemy ships were heading spaceward, VIN and the rest of the crew knew that they were looking for the mother ship.

“The next group of three, heading out and immediately upwards,” added VIN. “Time between launches, their usual 210 seconds. Goodbye for 19 minutes, out.”

“Copy that partner. All flight crew buckle your belts we are going after them. Maggie time and distance to target?”

“Full thrust 10 minutes, 2,100 miles to target,” replied Maggie.

“Martian terrain is not higher than 4,800 feet above the plant floor between us and the base,” stated Jonesy. “Climb to 5,000 feet, and I want 97 percent power, stay in a 5-mile formation behind me. We will fly up vertical and clear the highest group, turn 180, then catch the rest on the way down.”

“Enemy forward speed climbing through 1,000 knots, altitude 17,000 feet,” added Maggie as Jonesy pushed his throttles forward to the red line, and all five shuttles moved outwards to give themselves room as they accelerated.

The shuttles accelerated through the weak Martian atmosphere rapidly. For the first time for decades, fuel was not a problem, and it didn’t matter how much they used up to get behind the enemy. Surprise was the more important factor, and Jonesy knew that the cavern door could spit out three more aircraft every 210 seconds.

“Our forward speed 3,890 knots altitude 5,000 feet, enemy lead formation, four craft 1,300 knots at 21,000 feet. Second enemy formation: three craft 790 knots at 11,000 feet. Third, new enemy formation: three craft 590 knots at 6,000 feet,” stated Maggie as the darkness around them showed them nothing. She was the only person allowed to call speed and distance on the radio until laser lock would be called by all ships. She would also call the first lock. From then on it was every crew for themselves.

“Accelerating through 7,500 knots, altitude 5,000 feet, 1,200 miles to target. Enemy lead formation 1,550 knots, 27,000 feet. Each group is climbing in formation, and I now have 4 groups on radar.”

Since all five shuttles had the same power to mass ratio they accelerated rapidly. Each ship was at 97 percent power. They rarely used emergency power over 97 percent, but this was one of the times. Jonesy waited until the exact moment.

“Forward speed 17,970 knots, 5,000 feet, 400 miles to enemy base,” stated Maggie a few minutes later. “Lead enemy formation: 2,100 knots heading up at 78 degrees to vertical attitude at 49,000 feet, and heading due north. Now five groups behind the lead group. Nineteen enemy on radar. Gunners, activate your weapons.”

“SB-I, II and III, we attack the first group of four, SB-IV the second group of three, SB-V the third. Remember our vertical attack training. We head up, we shoot, we turn, we go down, and we attack all the way down to the ground,” ordered Jonesy.

“Speed 19,700 knots, 250 miles to target,” added Maggie.

“Hundred percent power, all shuttles go to 81 degrees to vertical…now! I will take middle two bogeys, Allen the outer right, Michael the outer left,” stated Jonesy rapidly.

Jonesy eased his shuttle spaceward. He couldn’t turn out so quickly at such high speed, and it took several seconds and 90 miles before the five shuttles headed directly up and towards the tails of the lead enemy groups high above, and directly in front of them.

It was also a plus that the enemy were flying in groups of three for the two larger shuttles. SB-IV and SB-V each had three lasers, which could be locked on three separate targets. The three smaller shuttles only had one laser each, and at the speed they were flying only had time for one, maybe two targets each.

Like a hare after a tortoise, all five shuttles rapidly closed to their respective groups, climbing seven times faster than the enemy.

As they passed the lower groups still fifty miles away, whether they saw or even knew the shuttles were there, they had little time to maneuver. It seemed to Maggie they didn’t.

“All enemy still on course, heading upwards in tight formations,” she told the others. “Distance to lead target 90 miles.”

“Pilots throttle back to safe thrust for first loop,” added Jonesy a second later.

“SB-III, I have lock,” Maggie stated.

“SB-II, I have lock” added Jamie Saunders, the excitement could be heard in her voice.

“SB-IV, I have lock on three Bogeys,” stated Saturn calmly.

“SB-I, locked on left forward bogy,” added Penny Pitt as calm as she usually was.

“SB-V, I have lock on third group, three bogeys,” stated Michael Price as excited as Jamie’s voice had been. For Michael it was his first space battle, and he had waited all his life for this moment.

“Fire!” Ordered Jonesy.

As the shuttles silently screamed in for battle, all nine lasers emitted their beams at once, and there were nine point blank explosions as they flew through the area the enemy were flying.

“Turn now,” ordered Jonesy, as Maggie locked onto the lead enemy ship and blew it into a massive blue fireball a couple of miles in front of SB-III.

Like a well-rehearsed Coup de Ballet, the shuttles looped as tightly as they could. All five ships went up at their different altitudes and over in a vertical loop. Their speed was still high, and it took several seconds and nearly 50 miles before they swung down vertically seconds later.

By this time the shocked Matts far below were heading away in all different directions.

Ten down, less to go,” sang Jonesy as his head banged hard and his stomach wanted to puke, the Gees on his body, even with the weak Martian gravity, were at max. They wouldn’t have been able to pull maximum Gees if they weren’t wearing helmets, and the three smaller, sleeker shuttles turned quicker and were on the next prey seconds faster the two larger ones.

“Target locked, firing,” stated Maggie and there was an explosion several miles below her.

“Target locked firing,” added Jamie a few seconds later.

“Enemy base coming into sight at 37,000 feet altitude,” stated Penny Pitt. Michael and Penny were heading straight down to do their mission: to get a shot through the open cavern door. “Damn, the cavern door is already closing, too late, locking onto one of the enemy. Damn missed that one, he was too fast. Michael 200 seconds before the door opens.”

“I have a bogey, no two coming in behind me,” shouted Lunar excitedly. “Heading up vertical.”

“SB-I, copied you, Lunar, I’m climbing, see you on radar,” replied Michael Pitt quickly.

“Locking onto first bogey Lunar,” added Penny and it blew out of the sky as she gently pushed her red button. The other one wasn’t far behind and it blew up before Penny could lock onto it.

“Put that one down to me,” stated Saturn smiling.

“Penny get that door timing right. Allen you have a bogey on your tail, stay low, turn hard right, go vertical now,” ordered Jonesy and Maggie cleared the area behind SB-II’s tail.

Suddenly the area was empty of enemy craft. The radar only showed the five shuttles within a hundred mile radius until a formation of seven blips on the radar appeared rapidly from the surface a second later and headed rapidly upwards towards SB-II a couple of miles away. The maneuver was exactly the same as Jonesy and his astronauts had done on the first pass.

“Oh crap! Seven bogeys coming up fast. Allen you are closest, loop over, head down, then go for the mother ship, you will have all seven on your tail in a few seconds,” stated Jonesy over the intercom calmly and turned his shuttle directly towards the incoming Matts. “All lasers, lock onto incoming. SB-II needs help here.”

“Door opening in 37 seconds, Jonesy” stated Michael Pitt.

“SB-I, You have time to get one off Allen’s tail. Go for it and then turn back to get the door,” ordered Jonesy.

“Locking on to three targets at 7 miles, firing” stated Saturn.

“Target locked at 3 miles, firing” added Maggie.

Only two tiny explosions grew into fireballs in front, but neither of the Jones were looking outside, they were concentrating on their radar screens.

“Got one missed two, locking again at 5 miles,” added Saturn. She was quick, maybe a little too quick, thought Jonesy as he saw the remaining enemy ships quickly close on SB-II.

“VIN, over horizon, orders please,” stated a new voice.

“VIN, SB-II is heading to ground. Hit any bogeys directly behind him, now!” shouted Jonesy.

VIN didn’t have time to respond as suddenly SB-II disappeared into a massive fireball. “Oh shit,” he stated and trained his three of the mother ship’s twelve lasers on the perpetrators behind the fireball.

One by one the remaining five enemy were blown from the sky as everybody fired at whatever they could lock on to before someone else got it.

By this time Michael and Penny Pitt had turned, and were heading back to the enemy base. They had 10 seconds before the door would open and Michael pushed SB-I to 100 percent power.

Jonesy, his mind refusing to accept what he had just seen, pushed the flash from his mind, turned as hard as he could and headed back to help Michael.

“SB-III to SB-I we are twenty miles behind you at 77,000 feet at full power,” stated Jonesy. His wife had gone quiet.

“Three seconds to door opening turning in now, will attack directly from front,” stated Michael.

Michael and Penny Pitt didn’t see the seven more Matt ships climb up over a high mountain 30-odd miles behind them, but Jonesy did.

“Where are all these enemy ships coming from?” he thought aloud as he turned towards them. “VIN check your radar, seven new bogeys from nowhere.”

“Thirty miles behind you Jonesy,” stated Mars as he also saw the enemy arrive out of nowhere on his radar screen.

“I have new flight coordinates, maybe a second base exit, or even another base or something,” added VIN far above. “Laser crew lock onto seven new targets now! Fire at will!”

A third group of seven enemy ships suddenly went vertical right behind the mountain Penny Pitt was heading for as the door opened, Penny’s camera and laser were already locked on it. They were less than ten miles from the door when the seven new Matt ships swooped over, down the side of the mountain and began firing at them from dead ahead. Michael saw that they were directly in-between them and the door as Penny took out her first enemy ship directly in front.

“Coming in from your left,” stated Lunar in SB-V as Michael saw two more Matt ships destruct in massive blue explosions only three miles ahead of them.

“Locked onto second Matt ship, firing,” stated Penny as their SB-I lurched ever so slightly.

“Aim for the blue shield we need to blow it, three more bogeys exiting. I think we are hit,” Michael stated calmly as more Matt ships blew up a mile from his position, thanks to VIN and his crew. His ship buckled to and fro from the near explosions but he kept SB-I on track, he thought smiling with determination.

Unbeknown to him his controls was damaged. Penny continued to fire at the blue shield inside the gaping mouth of the cavern, but Michel’s basic controls had suddenly locked. He couldn’t control SB-I anymore.

“Michael pull up!” shouted Lunar as her copilot hit the first target exiting the cavern mouth forty miles behind the action.

The two remaining enemy ships began to turn, and one disintegrated as the blue shield blew up behind it.

Michael Pitt flew straight into the exiting blast from the open cavern at full power.

The second explosion deep inside the cavern mouth added to the first, and exploding energy blew out of the open mouth of the mountain like a dragon breathing fire. It lit up the dark sky for miles around the cave, and caught the last of the three Matt ships trying to climb out of the way.

“Mars, SB-IV, you have two Bogeys coming in from your Starboard beam, turn directly towards them,” shouted Jonesy as Maggie locked onto another bogey and blew it out of the sky.

“I think we have one on our behind,” stated Maggie to Jonesy.

“Hold on,” replied Jonesy and again went up into a full 360 degree vertical loop at full power.

Much of SB-III’s rapid forward speed had been drained off on their first attack when they had swept up from 5,000 feet to 50,000, but the maneuver still felt like having a brick in Jonesy’s stomach. The turn was so tight that the Matt ship, definitely a rookie behind him had just started following SB-III around in the vertical circle when Maggie blew it out of the sky.

“Mom, Mars needs some help here” stated a scared sounding Saturn as Jonesy turned towards SB-IV.

“I see four bogeys behind SB-IV,” stated Lunar.

“I am locking on three at ten miles,” added Michael Price and as Maggie locked onto one, four explosions lit up the area behind Saturn’s tail.

“All four enemy off your tail, son. Mars sharp turn to port, then vertical to America Two,” stated VIN as his crew searched for more enemy ships.

Again the sky was empty of enemy aircraft, and three lonely shuttles headed up vertically into a higher, safe altitude.

Like all space or air battles, it was over in minutes.

The feelings of loss was felt once the high of battle was gone. Nobody talked for several minutes, and the three shuttles circled at 30,000 feet scanning their radars.

“I think it is time to enter their tunnel,” suggested Mars Noble over a very silent intercom.

“Good idea, son,” stated VIN from above. “Max you there?”

Everybody knew the numbers. They’d all seen the two friendly blips disappear from the screens, and nobody had to say anything. VIN, being in battle often before, was much quicker to react than the other astronauts. Ryan, in the Bridge of America Two, and Kathy were not able to contain their shock and stared at their screens as if in a trance.

“Max here,” as the reply.

“Max suit up. Mars will meet you at the tunnel entrances. Take Vitalily and three more in new suits, take mining robot and hand lasers. It’s time to pay the Matts a visit. All astronauts, the commander is in shock. I’m taking over command of the mission. All shuttles to give aerial support to SB-IV, then return to mother ship once Mars Noble is dropped off at the tunnel entrances. You have about forty minutes to dawn.”

The tunnel entrances were only a mile or so from the still-lit open flaming mouth of the mountain, and Saturn landed while the other two ships circled a few miles away. Mars was fast, He was already in the hatch when Max told VIN that they were suited up, getting supplies, and they should be at the tunnel entrances within 30 minutes.

“Go Saturn, go,” ordered Mars as he reached the entrance a few minutes later. “You are in danger sitting there. I’m fine, get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” replied his wife.

“Saturn Jones, takeoff,” ordered VIN. “Get out of there. That is an order. Mars will be fine. He has suit time to reach Mattville if need be.”

Mars watched as a minute later SB-III came swooping over him as Saturn left the planet. She turned on her father’s orders and followed his shuttle out of view. Mars was now alone.

Inside he cried. Allen and Jamie, and Michael and Penny were his friends. With Jonesy and Maggie and the OldGeners, they had taught him everything he knew, and he certainly did not think why they had to die. He sat down on a lump of gold, and cried like a baby, quiet sobs going through his spacesuit.

Everybody on the intercom could hear him, and as the ground crew increased their speed getting to him, the five astronauts were all silent as they left planet Mars, and headed into the weak sunlight thousands of feet above.

Chapter 17

The Other Half of Mattville

“You OK, buddy?” asked Max 35 minutes later handing Mars a hand laser. Vitalily handed him a remote suit charger unit. “Joey and Pete, and the robot are on their way up on the train.”

“I think so,” sniffed Mars.

They waited saying nothing for twenty minutes until the light of the simple train appeared coming up the tunnel from Mattville.

“Let’s go and see what’s left,” added Vitalily getting up off the lump of gold he was sitting on. “It sounded like SB-I did a pretty good job. Those Pitts sure make big explosions. To us in Mattville it felt like a massive earthquake.”

“Michael and Penny have, or had a pretty good record of destroying things,” replied Mars still sniffing and getting off his lump of gold.

Dawn was breaking and the light from the explosion had long disappeared as he followed the five crew members and the mining robot that walked down the short tunnel like a spider.

As soon as Max reached the metal wall, he programed the spider to begin its laser in a circle on the vertical wall. Nobody cared if there was a blue shield on the other side or not.

As the round circle of the wall lazily fell towards them twenty minutes later, they saw the telltale sign of a blue shield begin to protrude through the three-foot wide circle.

“One more shield for us,” stated Max as he bent down and slowly entered the hole in the wall.

With lasers at the ready, one by one the crew entered the enemy base. Max left the robot at the entrance, its job done. The crew couldn’t take the train either as the wall was not open where the tracks went in, and they would have to bend over and negotiate the five-foot high tunnel without it.

The tall crew managed 500 yards before they rested. They rested where the black box of the shield was setup in a hole in the wall.

Unlike the first tunnel Mars are went down, this one showed no signs of damage. The shield had prevented any explosion from getting into this area. It also meant they had another 500 yards to go.

“This is real back breaking work,” stated Max as they reached to where they expected the tunnel to end. Instead, they found the end of the first shield blended up against a second shield, and slowly each of the crew passed through the double wall and rested.

Five hundred yards later, they reached the second black box. This time they were happy to sit around the box and stretch their backs to loosen them up.

“VIN to Max, how are you doing, over?”

“Hopefully the enemy haven’t learned English yet,” replied Max into his helmet’s intercom. “We cut through the wall, are about a mile in, reached a second shield, and must be at worst halfway. Can you get shorter guys to do this next time?”

“We don’t have very many short Tall People aboard,” replied VIN trying to make a joke.

“Maybe get the girls to do this exploration thing. They are shorter than us,” replied Max.

“Not us astronauts,” stated Maggie at close to six feet tall and heading over on SB-III’s first orbit. “Max, the large cavern door is still open, so there is zero atmospheric conditions in that part of their base, over.”

“Copy that, thanks Maggie. Come on guys let get to the end of this shield,” and Max got up to continue the bent-over walk.

They all had the new suits on which gave them four hours of suit time, and they reached the end of the tunnel 190 minutes into their timed allowance.

The atmospheric readouts inside the blue shields were good. They could have taken off their helmets and breathed at any time, but they wanted to be ready in case they had to pass through an area which didn’t have air. At the end of the second blue shield they found that the next shield was missing.

As they gently walked out of the protection of the shield, they could stand and they quickly saw that they were inside the cavern. The large cavern door was open several hundred feet in front of them.

“Max to VIN, do you copy?”

“Your voice has changed, more static, but you are still coming through clear enough to hear you, over,” replied VIN.

“We are in the cavern. The door is open, the whole area around us is black and there are large puddles, or globules of melted gold everywhere. I think I can see piles of what must have been be three spacecraft up squashed against the rear wall. Three ships or something. They are about three feet high, and piles of totally black melted metal. SB-I is not here. I would assume that they died instantaneously and must have been vaporized, over.”

“Any signs of life?” VIN asked.

“We walked through two shields, still operational and with oxygen, so there is a power plant still working, I would assume below us. I see another blue shield on the opposite side of the hangar, or cavern. It looks like to me that the blast took out the shield, or shields inside the cavern, and did not destroy the others in the tunnels. I’m counting dozens of pieces of blue space splatted up against the walls, and even in the pools of melted gold, over.”

“I would assume that Penny didn’t hit the power supply on this hit,” replied VIN. “Last time, SB-I took out the cavern in Mattville, the blast was ten times bigger than what I saw from up here. Proceed forward, and with caution. Remember nobody can fire a laser through a shield wall, so you are totally safe inside the cavern, unless they have weapons we don’t know about.”

Carefully, they inspected what was left of the piles of what had been spacecraft, and hundreds of pieces of blue Matt space suits. There wasn’t much left of the dark-stained pieces of space wear, but there seemed to be far more pieces of blue suits than for six pilots. Mars and Max agreed that at last a couple of dozen or more people died in the explosion when the blue shield in the cavern lost its atmosphere.

“I count six remains of suits in the flattened and burnt out piles of spaceship metal,” stated Vitalily.

“VIN, tell Jonesy that he can count off another three enemy ships on his tally. I bet knows how many we have hit,” suggested Max.”

“Twenty-two. We went through the video and sound recordings of hits, and I’ll check with him when he comes back round,” VIN replied.

The crew looked hard and studied every particle inside the cavern while keeping careful eyes on the blue shields either side.

Max and Vitalily inspected the blue shield on the other side. It was also extended into a five-foot high tunnel about twenty feet long. They couldn’t see through the other side, but there was light, and the inside of the blue shield was empty.

Max turned his gaze to look at the evidence in the cavern itself. The blast must have blown out everything except the three heavy spacecraft, as the cavern was totally clean of dust or debris, as if somebody had swept it. There was not one piece of evidence that SB-I had ever flown into the cavern. Apart from the torn pieces of suits splattered on the blackened walls and roof, and dozens of tons of melted piles of gold on the floor by the walls, the cavern was clean and empty.

“Remember Max, Commander Fob was inside SB-I with Michael and Penny,” stated VIN.

“Well he isn’t anymore,” Max replied “there is not one shred of evidence that our ship was in here. That blast must have blown everything other than those three ships out the door.”

Just before their suit time ran out, they reached the open cavern door. They were about a hundred feet above the flat surface of the dusty red planet outside, and Mars noticed a panel at the edge of the opening that looked like it controlled the door. It was not blinking, but glowed a very dull red so he pushed it, and the massive door a hundred feet wide and twenty feet high began to silently close downwards from above his head.

Not expecting the door to still work, Max relayed to VIN that the door was working, and VIN ordered them to return to the safe shield area to recharge their suits and rest.

They rested, unscrewing their helmets as the small suit chargers gave their suits a recharge. It would take two hours, and the latest chargers each had two full chargers inside them.

The air inside the blue shield smelt like it had in all the other Matt bases, old and stale, and their voices were slightly higher pitched with the extra helium.

“What do you think, Mars?” asked Max as they ate an Australian chocolate bar, and drank a pouch of high energy liquid.

“Their bases are all much the same, except that extra tunnel on the other side,” replied Mars. “I’m sure they have a lower level in this base. The spaceship exit cavern in Mattville was lower than the rest of the base. I think this one is the other way around since we are a hundred feet above the Martian surface.”

“The doors to the underground level must have been closed, and SB-I’s attack did not reach the power plants as it did in Mattville?” Max replied.

“Well, Mattville had two separate survival power systems,” added Max. “Maybe this side of the base was a second cavern for the ships. It seems the same size, but SB-I didn’t destroy the main power plant, so it must be below this level. Also Jonesy mentioned that there could even be a third part of this base as all the enemy spacecraft couldn’t have exited from here. Now we’ve seen the size of this cavern, I tend to agree with him.”

“Then what is over there on the other side?” asked Vitalily.

“Globe room and command center, I expect” replied Mars. “Maybe another hangar, or cavern full of spaceships.

While the men had their helmets off, they didn’t have intercom contact with VIN who had gone over the horizon anyway. There was currently nobody to talk to outside the base, so they discussed their next moves among themselves.

“The shields will have protected anybody not standing inside the cavern,” stated Max.

“There must be Matts alive on the other side, as well as behind any protective door we find in the base. We are going to have to go through this whole base before we can make it safe,” added Mars. “I remember the separate hangar on DX2017. The door was hidden, my father couldn’t find it, but when he was shown it by Commander Joot he had to walk down a long tunnel to get to it. I bet all these bases are connected, and we are going to have to find a door to where the rest of their ships are parked.”

“If we find an unused black box shield, we could fill this cavern again, pump air into it and then bring in the shuttles. The door doesn’t seem damaged,” suggested Vitalily.

“The whole door retracts into the rock of the mountain. The door was completely protected when the explosions occurred,” added Max.

“They certainly work hard to make their bases livable,” stated Joey, one of Max’s men.

For two hours they rested and ate and drank what little they had while their suits recharged. Sitting in the low tunnel in the blue shield they saw nothing, no movement whatsoever.

“We have 8 hours of suit time before we need resupply,” stated Max to VIN up in the mother ship once they connected their helmets.

“There must be food and water somewhere in the base,” replied VIN. “Check the storage units usually behind the wall opposite the entrance to the globe room. You have air to breathe. The shuttles will be up here in ten hours. I cannot let them return individually until we have found the other enemy fighters. Max, you either turn back now for Mattville, or head forward and survive on what you can find in their base. We have never known them to be armed with hand weapons. We were very shocked to find out the hard way that they had Masers on their ships. Shoot first if attacked, but I think you’ll find a bunch of very scared Matts down here, and you have my son to talk to them telepathically, over.”

“How is the boss?” Max asked.

“Doing OK. He is still beating himself up about the loss of crew, but casualties were going to happen sometime. We at Astermine have had it too good for too long, and he didn’t do very well with the loss of life during the first attack either. The boss is not a soldier, just a CEO who is not use to battle fatalities. Max, make your decision and let me know, over.”

Max looked at the others, who all nodded to go forward, and replied.

“We are going in VIN.”

“OK, well done. Just remember to leave a few minutes of charge in your suits in case we have to fly in to pick you guys up. I would suggest you open the cavern door again so we can get in to rescue you. You don’t have time on your side, and we are heading out of range in a few minutes. Good luck, out.”

Max signed off and they readied themselves to go door to door. The hand lasers were checked by firing a short burst at the roof of the cavern, then they opened the large door.

“You hear any chatter with your helmet on?” Max asked Mars Noble.

“Negative, very quiet on the telepathic airwaves. My helmet wouldn’t stop any thoughts,” Mars replied.

Carefully they entered the blue shielded tunnel on the other side of the cavern one by one, and as VIN had taught them, at least ten steps apart when they walked across the empty cavern floor and through the tunnel. It was nearly impossible to run in a spacesuit. Mars and Max went first. The rest waited for orders.

They exited the shield at the end of the tunnel and the inside of the Matt base looked the same as all the others, and the doors were all closed.

“There is the globe room door. That will lead us to the command center. Maybe we can see the other base in the command center,” suggested Mars. “My dad told me that on DX2017 or in one of the bases I can’t remember which, he saw a camera showing him the outside. It worked for a while then went dead.”

“I wonder why the Matts have these blue shields activated inside their base?” Mars asked seconds before he was about to open the door to the globe room.

“I think that they must have had to use them when the first explosion occurred,” replied Max. “I’ve had much time analyzing the outlay of Mattville, and how these guys built anything in space without real spacesuits. They built everything in the vacuum of space while inside these shields”.

“That’s right! Thanks Max,” exclaimed Mars. “Something I have been wondering about for years just clicked. They couldn’t have built anything without these shields.”

“Then that’s why they went for our shields every time they attacked,” added Vitalily.

“But how did SB-I destroy the cavern shield? They used Masers to destroy ours, and we know that our laser beams just increase the energy of the shield. They don’t destroy it?” Mars asked.

“I think that SB-I was so close, that the energy blast and the explosion of the enemy ship exiting was too much for the shield,” replied Max. “Captain Pete reckons that the shield can take several energy blasts from hundreds, or thousands of miles away, but not from point blank range. That’s why the Matts don’t fly with their shields extended. They know the limitations of the shields. We are still learning those limitations.”

“Then how did Mattville explode?” Mars asked.

“I think the shield wasn’t extended at the time, the cavern open and SB-I’s laser blast went right in and the exploding energy inside the cavern caused a lightning bolt of pure energy to fizzle down into the lower levels, or caught several fully fueled ships about to take off, and the explosion from those ships blew up the power plants. Now open the door Mars and let us see what’s inside?”

Mars pressed the panel, and the door to the globe room opened. Inside there was no blue shield, and the room was empty of people. The globes, the same ones in Mattville were there, and so were the tiny light depicting the reinforcements on their way from Ceres.

The command room was also empty, and the door to the cryogenic chambers found in the other bases didn’t exist. There was no door panel.

“Nobody would have been hurt in here, and the air is good” stated Mars looking at his suit readouts on his arm.

“They must have run for cover,” Max replied.

“There is still no chatter in my head, not even a whisper.” added Mars.

They headed back out and back into the main base. There were the usual three doors to the storage rooms, and they were opened one by one.

Again there was nobody in the rooms, and in two of the three rooms there was ample growth of vegetation inside a blue shield. It looked exactly like the inside of one of their shields back at the Retreat.

The third room had vats of water, fruit and vegetables. There were oranges, bananas, apples, and several types of berries grown in the other two rooms. The usual massive vats of water were nearly empty, and Mars told Max that he bet that the vats held the water from Mattville, and that the base was running out of the precious liquid.

They had been in several bases and they all knew exactly where the stairs was down to the lower level. What interested Mars was that the room had the usual stairs up to the second level above the command room, and he suggested to up and clear the area before they head down.

“VIN to Max, VIN to Max, a report please,” stated VIN gain coming over the horizon.

“We’ve checked the globe room and command center. Both empty but the globes are there. We have found food production under two blue shields, supplies of fruit, and we have found water so we can survive in here for a while. We are checking up the stairs before heading down, over.”

“Max, good idea. Report what you find.”

There were two door panels on the upper floor, Mars pressed the first one, the others had hand lasers at the ready, and as they did at each door, protected themselves stepping back behind the sides of the door as it opened.

“How many rooms empty of people are we going to find?’ Mars asked Max as they entered the room.

This room was again a storage room, and the crew realized that they had hit the jackpot. Instead of people, there were dozens of black boxes on shelves.

“Dad, you are not going to believe this?” Mars asked his father.

“Go on, son,” Mars replied.

“Twenty…22…28…32 black boxes, 32 blue shields. This first room is full of boxes of blue shields.”

“Wow!” was all VIN could say.

The second room had other different types of what looked like electrical supplies. Most of the items nobody had ever seen before.

“Any weapons, or weapon-type looking electronics?” VIN asked.

“Negative, but I think we have a decade or two of new inventions, whatever these things are,” replied Max. “I wish we had found some of this stuff in Mattville. We could have pulled it apart by now.”

“It looks like the shuttles have to return ASAP,” VIN replied and asked them to clear the rest of the base. “Remember guys, check the toilet, and sometimes there is a rear area behind the food stores,”

The toilet was empty. Mars asked Max to help him remove his helmet, sniffed the air and had Max screw his helmet back on. This toilet had been recently used.

The rear area certainly wasn’t empty. There was a pile of black soil in a large mound, and seven large 15-foot tall cubed square supplies of something covered over with some sort of cloth. Mars and Max pulled the first two cloths away and gasped. They were looking at mountains of tons of silver metal, each square block was perfect ingots of metal about a foot cubed. They could see the edges of the cubes piled up

They pulled all the covers off and each was the same underneath, except the colors varied between light silver, and dark greyish metals colors.

“Dad, what is 15 times 15 times 15?” Mars asked.

“Three thousand three hundred and seventy-five, why?”

“Times that by seven, Dad,” Mars asked.

“What have you found, son? The number is 23,625.”

“One foot cubed ingots of what looks like pure refined Rare earth metals, 23625 ingots in total,” Mars replied.

He got no answer for several seconds.

“Mars, try to pick one up,” asked Igor from high above.

“Can’t” replied Mars “the top of the square block is too high. Igor you do the math on a lump of metal a foot cubed.”

Max and the others smiled and headed for where they knew would be a door in the floor to a lower level. Max pushed the red glowing panel, and backed away as the door opened. Nothing happened once the door slid open, but the open hole to the lower level was large, far larger than any door in any of the other bases.

Max and Mars both peered down and saw a staircase heading down, a double width staircase, and there was light down there.

Slowly and carefully, and one by one Max and Mars headed down the stairs telling Joey and the others to keep guard above in case somebody wanted to trap them down there.

Mars and Max entered into the biggest underground cavern they had ever seen. It was the mine of the Matts.

It was massive, far bigger than the spaceship caverns, far bigger than the underground sea. They could just see the rear of the cavern about 150 yards away.

There were a hundred stairs down to the cavern floor, and they found downed tools and machinery as if the mining crew had left in a hurry.

“They have been mining in here for decades, I reckon centuries,” stated Max, totally shocked at what he was seeing.

“Look at that yellow vein down that wall!” stated Mars looking at the right-hand sidewall of the cavern.

“VIN, can you hear me?” Max asked.

“I don’t think so,” replied Joey from above. “They are about to head over the horizon again. I can relay what you want to say Max.”

“Tell VIN, that we have just found the mother lode of mines. There is a vein of what looks like nearly pure gold on one wall. It is about 100 yards wide, a 100 feet high, and looks so nice I want to take a bite out of it, it’s so yellow.”

Mars and Max counted the dropped tools. Hammers, mining roots, there was even a square smoking machine of some sort that was making a pure gold ingot. Somebody had turned it off before they had left.

“I didn’t see any gold ingots up there,” remarked Max.

“Me neither,” replied Mars. “I’ve counted the tools. I think there were at least a hundred people working down here. Where are they?” He looked around and found what he was looking for—a red door panel. There was a panel directly under the stairs they had walked down.

“Vitalily, please come down,” ordered Max. “Joey, Pete, Mike, you protect the door. Vitalily, we have a door to open down here.”

If they had thought they had found treasure, what was behind the door shocked them to their cores.

Mars pressed he panel once Vitalily was with them and the lights in a second massive cavern blinked on, and showing them more gold ingots that they had ever seen. Even compared to the gold they had found at the Pig’s Snout, this was utterly unbelievable.

The three men looked and said nothing for a whole minute.

“You guys OK down there?” asked Joey worried.

“I think so. Where is everybody?” replied Mars weakly. “Max, I was there when we opened the Pig’s Snout and saw the gold chests, thousands of them. This is at least a hundred times more, a thousand times more. We couldn’t take all this in our lifetimes, even our children’s lifetimes.”

The new cavern was not as high as the mine, but was at least a few hundred feet across and the same wide. Again there were foot-cubed ingots, just like they had seen in the machine. The gold ingots were in square piles of 15 wide, long and high with corridors around each cube.

Mars and Max went around the walls looking for any doors, and counting the rows at the same time.

“No doors my side,” stated Mars.

“I’ve found one, a big one” replied Max.

“Fifteen lines of fifteen square piles of gold,” added Mars. “I think you are right, but each pile is perfect. There must be more.” He reached Max without finding a red panel, and Max pushed the panel to see lights blink on in the new room.

This cavern was smaller, about half the size of the last one, and only a quarter full of gold, and this time there were more piles of the silver metals, the same amount as they had found upstairs.

The shock was wearing off and they counted other 14 piles of gold, another one was been built and several unfinished built piles of the silver metals.

“I think we can retire for a while with all this,” stated Max sitting down on a sort of chair by the door. He was still trying to take this all in.

Then they remembered that time was not on their side, and there were no more doors down here, at least no red door panels. The three men checked carefully, not finding a door in either of the storage warehouses, and returned to the mine.

It took all three of them 30 minutes going along all the walls in the base looking for any signs of a door. Then they looked at every inch of the floor and ended up in the area the ingot smelter was.

“No doors,” stated Mars seeing a brand new cooling block of gold on a trolley. He wanted to pick it up and even in the light Martian gravity, he had to work hard to lift it.

“No doors,” added Vitalily and Max together.

“Time is running guys,” remarked Joey from above.

“I’ll carry this up,” Mars stated. “Max try and remember the numbers of piles, let’s check out the upstairs. There must be a door somewhere.”

If there was a door, there wasn’t a Panel to go with it, and they ran out of time trying to find one.

Chapter 18

War of the Worlds–Act Three

“What do you think, Max?” VIN asked his crew after America Two came over the horizon.

“We have thirty minutes left in our suits. With one more recharge, at worst we could get back up the tunnel, reach the train and get back to Mattville. Or you come and pick us up, and we can have all the black boxes, the electronics, and a few of the silver and gold ingots ready to be picked up. The black boxes are worth it by themselves,” replied Max.

“We could shut the black boxes in the tunnels down, and leave the front door open,” added Mars. “Nobody is going to come visiting if there is no atmosphere, today or forever.”

“Max, crap! We have three bogeys on radar!” shouted VIN. “Incoming, two miles east of you at 5,000 feet.”

“The outer door is closed, Dad,” replied Mars as he turned and suddenly saw the large outer door begin to open. “Was closed,” Mars added. “Dad, the door is opening. I think we’ll have company soon.”

“Take cover,” ordered VIN. “Stay hidden in the blue shields. We can shoot them down from up here, but I want to see what they do first. Maybe they want to talk. I believe we now have the coordinates of their other door. It is a mile east of you, a second vertical door inside the next mountain to you, Max.”

“They can’t get out of their ships, Dad, there is no atmosphere in here for them, over.”

“I don’t think they want to get out, son. I think they know you are in there, and they might arrive firing into the cavern.” If they shoot, shoot back. If they want to talk, Mars, talk back. They must know we can communicate telepathically. Your hand lasers will damage them. Max, Vitalily, remember your lasers aren’t as powerful as the ones Mars’ robots had, but you could still damage their ships.

As the five men scrambled across the large cavern to the exit tunnel as fast as their spacesuits would let them, the door continued to open. The spaceships were fast and the first ship entered the cavern just as the door fully opened. Mars was still carrying his gold, and gently slipped through into the blue shield as the fighter hovered in and began turning to face the other direction—towards the blue shield on the command center side of the cavern.

Suddenly it fired and the blast rocked the shield they were in.

Max and the crew got down on the floor and wiggled their head and shoulders through the shield wall as a second fighter entered the large cavern. It turned towards them, as the first fighter spewed Maser beam down into the tunnel, the other side of the cavern.

“Fire at both!” shouted Max and all five lasers erupted at the same time as the spacecraft’s forward pilot looked at them straight in the eyes. Mars could see the Matt pilot staring straight at him as he pulled his trigger and the spacecraft suddenly exploded in a blast of bright blue light.

The men’s bodies were literally forced back into the shield by the blast that wobbled the shield wall like jelly. Then a second explosion rocked them again and the light in the cavern, and their shield was so bright that they all closed their eyes from the intense light.

Mars opened his eyes. He checked for pain. He didn’t have any. The shield was still around them and he saw another blast light up the cavern from outside, and the door began to close.

“Max, Mars, Vitalily, guys” can you hear me,” sounded a very distraught VIN Noble from high above.

“I think so, Dad,” replied Mars looking around. Max looked fine, his eyes, through his helmet visor looked fine. “Max my suit. Is it OK?”

“Can’t see any holes or tears. Mine?”

“Looks OK to me,” Mars replied.

“The shield is still around us, so we must be still in one piece.” What happened out there?” asked Vitalily.

They all looked out into the cavern through the shield wall and saw littered pieces of wreckage where the two Matt ships had hovered seconds earlier. There was no fire as there was no oxygen, but the glowing remains still looked red hot, and the cavern was full of black debris floating everywhere.

“Two enemy craft destroyed,” stated Max to VIN.

“Good, we saw two go in and I decided to take out the third ship outside.”

“The first guy blew out the shield on the other side by the command center. He couldn’t have seen us scurry into the opposite side,” Mars added.

“So they weren’t coming to have tea, and I never heard one word telepathically spoken in Matt,” stated VIN.

“Me neither,” replied Mars shaking his head, still not believing he was still alive.

“OK, guys, here is how it is going to play out,” replied VIN once the men had checked themselves for any damage. “Mars, I think the Matts have figured out a way to keep you and me out of their conversation. I’m sure Fob told them all about us. Three destroyed enemy decreases the odds. Max, crew I want you to stay there. I doubt they will be back until our shuttles appear. Once the shuttles have been refueled, I’m sending them back down. As far as I’m concerned, there can’t be many enemy fighters left, they only have one exit hole we believe, and the three shuttles with us above them should be enough to end this once and for all. Check to see what damage has been done. These Matts are now desperate, and I can’t see a way they can ever return to this part of their base. So I think they are trying to destroy everything down there before heading out to Ceres or Europa, and I’m really worried that they might try and destroy Mattville as well. I’m sure they have thought that we might already be where their water supply is, and want to destroy that as well. So, I’m ending this war on Mars once and for all. Keep one shield up for yourselves to survive in, close any others down. Get all the black boxes you can find with you so they can’t light them up. And we’ll be down tomorrow to pick you up. Out.”

Fifteen hours later, and several hours before dusk at Mattville, the three shuttles undocked from America Two and headed down towards the red planet.

Ryan was a mess. He was in his apartment being looked after by Kathy. The loss of four of his astronauts, his best friends was a shock to his system, and like the first attack at the Retreat decades earlier, he couldn’t take it. Some people were meant to be soldiers, and some weren’t.

Gary Darwin had replaced Mars. Saturn got her left seat back as Captain of SB-IV, and was glad to have Gary as laser gunner and copilot.

“Pilots, you are fully fueled and rested,” stated VIN, still in command of America Two. He had been decreasing the mother ship’s altitude down while the crew had rested. The ship was already passing through 240 miles above the surface of Mars. “Remember our fallen. These guys certainly don’t know how to negotiate, so we now take all their ships out. I don’t want to see one enemy spacecraft flying over the Martian surface ever again. Our decrease in altitude will halve your decent and ascent time, and our lasers will be at point blank range for the battle. America Two will now be in the firefight, and my team of gunners will defend the ship. Jonesy, Saturn, Lunar, you guys back each other up, but remember one of you has to close down that third base, like Michael and Penny did if our new robot misses. Please don’t commit to its destruction like SB-I did, Igor and Boris will destroy it. There might be more Matt bases on Mars, but with the gigantic size of this establishment, I don’t think so. I will continue to decrease altitude down to 120 miles, the lowest we can orbit. This time we are giving them everything we have.”

“You head down as far as you want, partner, but make sure we have a mother ship to go home in. Remember I have a decade or so of good fishing time ahead of me,” replied Jonesy. “And Igor kept that drone away from me.”

Igor and Boris were now flying Asterspace Three. The mining ship had been docked on the mother ship as an escape pod, or could have had its cargo hold filled with treasure and flown independently to an Earth orbit if need be. Instead, and on VIN’s orders after seeing the third base entrance, and the destruction of SB-I, VIN had gone back to military tactics, and had made a drone out of the unarmed mining ship.

The drones high above him when he had fought as a Marine in Iraq had given him the idea to use the mining ship as a weapon instead of a piloted shuttle. Also they were low on numbers so he had ordered Igor and Boris to setup the ship’s external cameras for drone flight.

It had taken a team of spacewalkers a couple of hours to change the cameras on the mining ship, take out the emergency supplies, and add all the explosives they had on board America Two. VIN’s idea was for a shuttle to take out the blue shield from a distance when the door was open, and if the door was closed, plough the mining ship into the closed door at full power.

Asterspace III had detached itself an hour before the shuttles and was well on her way down to the surface.

Since the mother ship had still to orbit the red plant, they couldn’t see arrivals or departures from the Matt base at all times. VIN had wanted to leave one of the shuttles orbiting the planet to keep eyes on the area the whole time, but hadn’t given the order as even the superior Matt forces had to rest and refuel.

He was confident in his own ship’s twelve lasers for defense, and it would actually help them if some of the enemy spacecraft tried to climb high enough to attack the ship. It would split their forces. VIN kept the forward speed of America Two far higher than its usual orbital speed, which decreased blind time, but unfortunately also decreased time over the target.

It was five minutes after Jonesy had replied to him, and seconds before the three shuttles headed over the horizon of the planet far ahead of the mother ship when eight bogeys came around the opposite horizon, behind him climbing up to the 150-mile altitude line.

“VIN to Jonesy, Eight bogeys rising directly behind mother ship. Distance 17,000 miles, 49,900 knots at 140 miles altitude. ETA 21 minutes. You need to come around behind them, over.”

“Copy that, partner. Can’t you do anything without me,” smiled Jonesy calmly. This maneuver from the enemy had been anticipated, and VIN had wondered why they had taken so long. There was no place to hide at such high altitude. “Shuttles 97 percent power, decrease altitude to 220 miles, we have bogeys 29,000 miles ahead,” Jonesy’s voice continued over the intercom and the three refueled shuttles accelerated forward at 97 percent burn.

“VIN, eight more bogeys just emerging out of the horizon haze behind us: distance 17,870 miles, twelve degrees below and directly to Port of the first group,” stated Pluto Kathrine manning her three laser cameras.

Each set of three laser cameras were searching different parts of space, and the vast horizon of the red planet. “These guys are really moving, lower than the first group but climbing near vertical at 99 miles. Forward speed 50,000 knots. ETA 13 minutes. Gee, I nearly missed them, sorry.”

“A good maneuver on their part,” replied VIN also smiling. “They wanted us to focus on the first group. Gunners, keep your cameras peeled on the area below us, even above us, and monitor your whole section of space. It looks like we are about to have the mother of all battles.”

“Asterspace Three still alone and coming over the horizon behind us for her second orbit, 17,000 miles behind at 200 miles altitude,” stated Igor.

“How far from the bogeys?” VIN asked.

“Six thousand miles, on their portside, incoming enemy have already passed underneath the mining ship,” Igor replied. “They couldn’t have climbed high enough to attack it. I’m sure they will on their next orbit.”

“Take Asterspace Three down at full power,” VIN ordered. “We have to take out one of her orbits Igor. I want her ready on her next pass by. Speed unimportant. Pluto Katherine lock onto your group of bogeys. The rest of you scan the skies. We need to find any more formations before we let them know, we know they are there.”

It would be several minutes before their own shuttles would reappear around the horizon, and there was nothing to do but let the enemy think they hadn’t been seen. The hunter was now becoming the hunted.

“I see a third group!” shouted Penny Burgos, Gunner Four.

“So do I!” stated her older sister Jane manning the third set of guns.

“Why are you guys searching the same area?” VIN asked surprised.

“We are not. I’m in my Starboard sector. Eight bogeys rising up vertically over the horizon, altitude 160 miles, incoming directly at us at 49,900 knots. ETA 17 minutes, over.”

“I have seven bogeys exiting horizon at 60 miles altitude, close to vertical at 49,000 knots on our Port side ETA 25 minutes, over.”

Where the hell are all these extra ships coming from?” VIN asked.

“VIN, I have radar footage from our mining ship coming in. Both the last groups seemed to have launched from their third door,” replied Boris. “Footage shows launches in sets of three, 210 seconds apart. They grouped up and headed upwards as the radar went off line from the base on the last orbit. They are launching while we are out of view.”

“Boris I want that door taken out on the next pass. Set her up for a direct trajectory into the door,” ordered VIN.

VIN waited a full minute, then got the latest flight info from all his gunners and radar operators. It had taken several seconds, but the incoming enemy, all 31 of them were now high enough over the horizon to be continuously monitored on radar.

America Two was continuously going over the round horizon of Mars at 23,000 knots, and the radar blips kept coming and going until all the aircraft were high enough, close enough, and permanently on everybody’s radar screens.

“Radar, keep eyes glued to the front in case they surprise us even more with more ships. I hope Jonesy and team are at speed. This is certainly going to be close.”

“Closest bogeys, 11,000 miles behind us, 79 miles lower,” stated the tracker on the close-system radar system from somewhere in the ship, three minutes later.

“Igor, what range do you reckon the bogeys are accurate at?” VIN asked.

“They took out America One easily at 3,350 miles from where the dogfight was taking place, but they aimed at the energy of the blue shield. We actually don’t know, but I would guess semi-accurate at 5,000 miles, maybe within 3,000 miles for higher accuracy.” VIN thought for a couple of minutes while his gunners and the radar crew continued to scan the extremely large area of space all around the mother ship.

Two minutes later they prepared to come over the horizon, and he would be able to see the enemy base for the first time in 14 minutes.

VIN needed to stage a correct attack time. He needed to coincide the blowing up of the door, with Jonesy and his team giving at least covering fire for the unmanned mining ship as it went in, as well as coincide America Two to be over the battle area.

It was near impossible. The enemy had played their hand early and the mother ship would be forced to fight her battle, and destroy the enemy, all within the next 11 minutes, before she went over the horizon again. His computers told him that Jonesy would take at least three more minutes to catch up and enter the battle behind them.

VIN’s laser range was better than the Matt masers. He had twelve lasers and four gunners to play with. They, like Jonesy’s shuttle had one each, and he was sure that the re-fire times were much the same. All VIN really had as an advantage was his further range of the lasers. He would have to fire first, or otherwise Astermine and its boss weren’t returning to Earth.

Time began to slow as it always does when adrenalin began to flow through the crew’s veins. It seemed to take forever before radar control barked out their next report. By this time the gunners were ready to lock onto targets.

“Closest enemy, group one: seven bogeys 6,200 miles, 23 miles below us, 50,100 knots. ETA within semi-accurate range 110 seconds. Group two: eight bogeys at 7,200 miles, 17 miles below us, 50,900 knots. Both will reach within a 5,000-mile range at the same time. Group Three: eight bogeys at 9,300 miles 49 miles below us 49,900 knots. Group Four: again eight bogeys at 9,700 miles, 39 miles below us 50,400 knots, over.”

“Our current altitude 207 miles, 22,650 knots forward speed at 95 percent full power, over.” Added Igor in charge of actually flying the mother ship.

All VIN could do was wait. He waited another minute which felt like a whole year before he barked out orders.

“Gunner Two, lock onto Group One, lock your lasers together for an individual target. Lock onto outer starboard aircraft first, mid-power bursts. Fire on my command. Gunner Three, second group, same scenario outer starboard target. Gunner Four, lock onto Group One’s outer portside aircraft, work inwards to Gunner One, then everybody lock onto port spacecraft of second group. Wait for my command.”

VIN was Gunner One, and he locked onto the third group. He wondered if the ships would scatter once they were fired upon, and he would continue to fire at the further ships, until somebody got through.

The first maser must have erupted from one of their ships.

“An electrical pulse passed us two miles out on our port beam. It was noticed on the sensitive electronic surveillance equipment,” stated the engineer on the Bridge. “How come we didn’t see it?” VIN asked.

“I believe because we are above the weak Martian atmosphere,” stated Igor looking at VIN.

“They must be checking and calibrating their firepower, hoping for a miracle hit. Like artillery, they will get more accurate as they fire,” stated VIN. “I wonder if they can see their shots, or are they as blind as we are?”

“I’m sure they can see them,” Igor replied. “We certainly can’t.”

VIN had fought them before and knew how they played the game. He wondered how many of these Matt astronauts, many fresh from Europa via Ceres, had been in the first or second attacks. There couldn’t be many as most of their ships had been destroyed in the fire fights.

A second, then a third electrical pulse was registered as they passed much closer to the mother ship, less than a mile off the starboard beam this time. The fourth pulse was even closer and only about a half mile out, and again on the starboard side. Still VIN didn’t command his crew to fire.

“Gunner Two on Group One, locked and ready, outer starboard target,” stated Pluto Kathrine.

“Gunner Three on Group Two, locked and ready, outer starboard target,” stated the Jenny, the younger of the Burgos sisters.

Gunner Four on Group One, locked and ready, outer port side target,” stated her sister Jane.

VIN wondered what the Matt pilots would think if they knew that three young girls were about to blow them out of the sky.

Bogey Groups One and Two inside 3,000 mile barrier,” stated radar a minute later.

“Hey partner, you still there to take us home?” asked the scratchy voice of Jonesy.

“Twenty-nine seconds early Mr. Jones,” smiled VIN as three more maser pulses were registered at once, only a few hundred feet above the wheel of the ship.

“Partner, we have been at 100 percent power for the full allowed six minutes, pilots reduce to 97 percent immediately. What’s happening?”

“Thirty-one enemy ships directly in front of your position. Once you see them on radar, head in and attack the bogeys closest to you. Asterspace Three is heading in on this pass in about seven minutes, she will need an escort, over.”

“They sure breed fast, faster than damn rats, astronauts confirm when you have radar locks,” replied Jonesy.

Even at full power, Jonesy and the shuttles were only 9,000 knots faster than the enemy, and three times faster than the slower mother ship in front. They had been descending while the enemy were ascending.

When the blips filled their radar screens a few seconds later, Jonesy knew that it would still take a few minutes to get into battle range, unless something happened, and VIN was about to do that something.

“Gunners, fire at will, fire now! Make every shot count. They are beginning to part our hair and it will only take a few hits to destroy this ship.”

In the same second, all twelve of America Two’s lasers opened up and the lights in the bridge began diming every ten seconds as so much energy was being used.

The girls were good, and three explosions were seen on the first salvo, and another three on the second. VIN missed his first locked target 5,500 miles out in the third group, but got it on the second.

The closest group was gone in the first thirty seconds, the second group slightly slower and 35 seconds after the first group was eliminated.

By the time the third and fourth group gave up on their attack, they saw none of their ships in front of them, VIN had hit two of the eight from long range, and leaderless, they headed vertically back down towards the Martian surface and safety.

The fourth group still untouched also headed down in the direction of the Martian atmosphere, and their change in direction gave Astermine’s three shuttles the opportunity to cut the corner, they dived and gained rapidly on the descending craft.

“Commander, all three shuttles still 1,100 miles behind Group Four, but cutting the corner and catching fast,” stated radar.

“Gunners, continue firing at will until radar tells us our shuttles are close to arriving in our kill zone,” ordered VIN.

The four gunners now ramped up to full power, and one by one the explosions followed the enemy ships diving out of range. Three more erupted before Igor spoke.

“Asterspace Three is 4,000 miles to target, how she is holding up I don’t know she wasn’t designed to fly in any atmosphere at such velocity. ETA five minutes.”

“Laser locked on closest ship, firing now,” stated Maggie a second after Igor’s voice gave them the information.

“Radar shows three more Matt ships climbing away from the Matt base. Mother ship gunners, halt your fire on the retreating ships,” stated the radar chief on America Two. “Mother ship gunners only, aim for the three new bogeys over.”

Maggie’s second beam exploded the enemy ship 700 miles in front of her.

“All shuttles, side thrusters on full rear thrust, or we won’t pull out of this dive, fire at will, over.” Ordered Jonesy already slowing their ships down.

The gravitational pull on Mars, less than 15 percent of Earth’s didn’t add much to increase speed in a dive. They were already at maximum, and their shuttles weren’t accelerating much since they had already further reduced forward thrust down to 80 percent on Jonesy’s orders.

The weak Martian atmosphere did little to hinder the entrance of a spacecraft heading down vertically, but it had to be respected. Once they were back inside the weak atmosphere thirty seconds later, the Matt ships tried to spread out in different directions. Jonesy warned his pilots.

“Easy on the sticks guys. Oops! There goes a poor Matt, tried to outmaneuver the atmosphere,” stated Jonesy seriously as an explosion blossomed out forty or more miles below them, and still at over 70 miles above the surface. “Thrust down to 60 percent, full reverse thrust on your side thrusters, and don’t change your attack angle by more than a few degrees at any one time. You OK up there partner?”

“Up here and alone thank god,” replied VIN. “You guys certainly heading down in a hurry. We have hit one of the three exiting ships, expecting more to come out in 20 seconds, over.”

“Target locked, here’s one for my friend Jamie,” stated Maggie determinedly and another Matt ship exploded miles head of them.

“Got one!” added Gary Darwin.

“About time,” replied Jonesy. It was Gary’s first kill.

“SB-V, we have two down, over,” shouted Michael Price excitedly.

“Here’s one for my friend Penny,” stated Maggie and Jonesy raised his eyebrows. His wife was certainly on form today as a third explosion brought down the numbers.

“Second bogey destroyed 17 miles north of the base. Three more exiting. These are heading out in all directions, over,” stated the mother ship’s radar crewmember. “Two enemy ships still in a vertical dive 57 miles above the surface 40 miles apart. Lone enemy bogey now heading south and climbing. I think the lone bogey has seen our incoming mining ship. Three new bogeys heading vertical east, north and west, seven miles from the door. Door closed, expected to open in 160 seconds. Asterspace Three turning in at 67,000 feet, 185 seconds from target, over.”

“Good job Igor, Boris,” commented VIN. “Jonesy Asterspace Three needs protection, over.”

“Copy that, partner, we are pulling out of our dive and descending in that general direction. Saturn, Lunar, keep on those two bad guys’ tails.

“One bad guy,” replied Gary getting his second kill.

Gary got his third, which pissed Mark off as he missed his target as their pilots had to begin pulling the shuttles out of their dives still at 100,000 feet above the planet’s surface and at a rapid 47,000 knots. Mark, eyes glued to his camera was shocked to see the enemy he had missed still heading down and it only began pulling out a few seconds after Lunar.

The Matt ship didn’t make it and at full speed managed a pull out of his dive, but headed straight into the side of a mountain Michael Price suddenly realized was Lookout Mountain.

The two larger shuttles felt like being in very nasty roller coasters as they bottomed out at less than 10,000 feet and began to head back up again to continue losing speed and following the three new enemy clambering for altitude.

The three bogeys didn’t have a chance as the two shuttles, seconds apart swept through them like hawks after pigeons and two explosions lit up the dark night sky.

“Two bogeys to go,” stated VIN. “Jonesy, Asterspace Three 30 seconds from impact, door should be opening.”

“Copied Partner, catching up to lone bogey, damn Maggie missed, door dead ahead 35 miles out.”

“Door is opening, there is a blue shield inside the cavern. Somebody I need that shield taken out,” ordered Igor looking through the approaching mining craft’s forward camera.

“SB-V, we are coming around, 8,000 feet, have door visual. Michael lock onto inside of cavern,” ordered Lunar.

“Laser locking,” replied Michael calmly. As he said that three Matt ships exited the gaping blue shield inside the cavern. They immediately dipped down below the bright blue hole, and like snakes in the grass turned and headed away in different directions.

Less than a second later Michael had the laser blasting away at the blue shield as a speck of something entered his camera view. It was Asterspace Three, and much like what had happened to SB-I, the blue shield exploded a split-second before the unarmed mining ship went in and seconds later, the same massive blast erupted out of the mouth of the cavern, and with it pieces of debris flew out in all directions.

“Three new bogeys and one old one,” added Lunar as she pulled up and nearly collected SB-III. They both headed directly over the exploding mountain less than half a mile apart.

“Wow, that was a big blast,” stated VIN. “Heading over the horizon, see you in 12 minutes, alive hopefully, out.”

“Reduced the old ones down to zero, astronauts. Three shuttles left. All shuttles head vertical to pull the new enemy up with us,” ordered Jonesy, and under full power they headed back up into the dark night’s sky full of bright stars.

Mars, Max, Vitalily and the two others had been listening into the fight outside since the beginning. There was nothing they could do and Mars was disappointed that he wasn’t up there. Gary Darwin, it seemed was doing a good job.

The crew inside the blue shield were blind. They had no way to see what was going on outside, but listened to the battle commentary on one handheld radio like people on Earth used to listen to sports on the radio.

“It seems several more and we are out of targets,” stated Mars to Max and the others. They were about to fit on their helmets. Asterspace Three was incoming to the mountain next door to theirs, and the explosion could really rock their boat.

The crew underground knew that there was a tunnel connection to the rest of the Matt base, which was about to be attacked, but they hadn’t found it. Max had also closed the outer door so that the crew controlling the incoming ship wouldn’t get the cavern’s mixed up.

“Door closed, expected to open in 160 seconds. Asterspace Three turning in at 67,000 feet, 185 seconds from target, over.” They heard Igor state over the radio and they screwed on each other’s helmet to ready for the explosion.

They didn’t know what could happen. The power could go out, which meant that the blue shields would disintegrate or close themselves down. They had fully recharged suits, and were expecting to return immediately to Mattville, down the tunnel, if the shields went out.

The explosion when it came was a deep rumble that could even be felt inside the shield. Pieces of tunnel rock and stones began to lazily fall through the shield. The crew looked up and dodged the several rocks falling through the roof of the shield.

Since the shield was up tight against the tunnel, the pieces of the planet that separated itself from the walls, just fell through the shield.

Mars looked out once he had dodged the falling objects and saw the same happening inside the large cavern. Most of the pieces were small, the size of his fist, but one piece the size of his head fell lazily to the floor, and shattered into a few pieces. Other than that, the lights and the shield stayed on.

The rumbling and quake stopped after a few seconds, and the crew braved heading out of the shield to check the damage.

“All shuttles head vertical to pull the new enemy up with us,” the underground crew heard Jonesy say through their helmets and they headed one by one across to the other side. It was a mess, the first blue shield had exploded and there were burn strips along the walls through the tunnel.

There was no blue shield behind the first one and Mars looked back into the cavern to see a massive pool of air floating underneath the rocky oval roof of the cavern. The large bubble of air was as far down to the top of the cavern door ten feet below the highest section of the roof in the center.

“We’ve lost the air from the forward cavern,” Mars stated to Max.

“The other rooms should be fine, but I think we should set up a new shield before we enter the mining cavern. The shield will protect that areas’ air from spilling out,” replied Max.

“Mars, Max, stay off the air, we have a battle up here,” ordered Jonesy from high above and the two men went about their work to set up the new shield with hand gestures only. Max knew that they had plenty of full air tanks in Mattville.

“I see one bogey heading vertical, the other two are dragging their tails on the ground somewhere off radar,” continued Jonesy at 50,000 feet above the planet surface. By this time their speed had dropped off back to normal and the three shuttles circled and waited.

“These guys are flying different,” stated Saturn noticing a change in their tactics.

“Well done girl, I noticed that as well,” replied her father. “I bet these three pilots are the more experienced pilots. The flights mostly had a leader, I bet these guys are their best, which means their last. Pilots treat these guys as veteran pilots. I believe that the single ship ascending is a trap, Maggie and I will head down to intercept. As far as we know there are three remaining fighters. Any more than three and that means they have another base we haven’t found, then we hightail it back into space, over.”

There wasn’t any good reason to wait around for America Two to arrive back over the horizon, so Jonesy added full thrust and headed down to take on the climbing enemy ship 37,000 feet below him.

Jonesy knew it was a trap, and he still headed in smiling as the enemy spaceship turned over once it saw Jonesy descending and headed down towards the ground.

“OK, guys, Saturn, Lunar I need wingmen. I’ll flush out the others and you guys sort them out.” Jonesy leveled out of the dive and followed the lone ship through a canyon as the two other shuttles headed down. SB-III caught up with the slower ship, and Maggie was locking onto the target dead head, when it turned through a ninety-degree corner in the canyon valley and Jonesy had no choice but to head upwards. His ship was going too fast to take the corner and he went skywards at 97 percent full power.

“Jonesy you have two bogeys on your tail,” shouted Saturn to her father as she turned in to cut them off. She already knew that she wasn’t close enough for Michael to get a clear lock and she went vertical under full power to try and cut the corner. As she did that the third bogey Jonesy had been following rose vertically up out of the canyon miles ahead to follow his two buddies who were already heading through 40,000 feet, 15,000 feet behind Jonesy

In the weak atmosphere of the planet, Maggie in the copilot’s seat watched as they rose skywards and two maser beams passed within several yards of their shuttle.

“Maybe a few tactical maneuvers might be in order, darling,” she stated simply to her husband as they rose under full power.

“I need another 60,000 feet, then I have a fancy idea in mind,” replied Jonesy squeakily, the rush of the climb at 21,000 knots taking his breath away. “You just ready your locking mechanism and leave the firing to me, and tighten down your seat straps, I’m just hoping the wings stay on this bird.”

It took several seconds before Jonesy reached his wanted altitude. Four more maser beams had passed within yards of their craft, and the enemy weren’t losing ground. It was just a matter of time before one of their maser beams took out SB-III, and they knew it. They were also prepared for Jonesy’s next maneuver.

Down below, the two other shuttles were behind the third bogey, which had realized the same mathematical negative as Jonesy had, and had turned over in a loop to head back down to hide on surface.

Jonesy had no choice but to do the same and at 100,000 feet he looped the shuttle upside down and around in a 180 degree turn as fast as the next to zero atmosphere allowed him to do.

Maggie did her best to lock onto a target on their way down, but the loop was too fast, the distance too far and she had no time for a lock.

“Who do you think I am, Maverick?” Maggie complained to Jonesy as the two ships behind them did exactly the same maneuver. “Now we are really in the crap Mr. Jones. They are going to blow us into tiny little bits. Bang goes your fishing retirement.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” smiled Jonesy in return.

“They are right behind us and even closer on our damn tail,” she replied not happy about her husband’s command of the situation.

“Ready to shoot down some pigeons Mags,” Jonesy replied calmly. “Watch this, and be ready. I saw this trick on The Matrix.”

Jonesy hit all his side thrusters and only one of his two aft thrusters at the same time, and with Maggie unbelieving, whipped the shuttle around 180 degrees. As they began flying backwards, vertically and directly towards the ground, he leveled the ship out and added full rear thrust to the rear thrusters, and full forward power to the side thrusters.

SB-III had never been flown like this, but at so high an altitude, and with virtually no atmospheric conditions, she didn’t seem to mind reversing her butt towards earth.

“Lock and destroy,” ordered Jonesy and Maggie, forgetting her discomfort about her husband’s erratic flying, locked her laser on the closet target now coming directly towards them at speed.

The Matt never had a chance and the ship exploded less than 10,000 feet above the reverse-falling shuttle.

It took the laser less than two seconds to lock onto the first ship, then another two seconds to lock on the second ship as it came through the first ship’s massive explosion. Even the laser wasn’t fast enough as the second ship exploded as it flew directly through the mass of energy, and Maggie began to feel sick heading backwards at speed.

“Hang on,” stated Jonesy and he whipped the shuttle around to complete the 360 degree maneuver.

Unfortunately, even Jonesy had out flown himself and his shuttle this time. They hadn’t wiped off very much speed in the ten or so seconds they were in reverse mode, and as the shuttle wiped around in a much lower altitude, small external parts separated themselves from the main fuselage of the spaceship.

“Crap!” mentioned Jonesy as the shuttle changed its pattern of flight. SB-III became a vibration as she plowed towards the Martian surface still in a near vertical dive. He struggled with the controls as he spoke to the others.

“Saturn, Lunar, where is the last bogey?”

“Somewhere down in these canyons, Dad,” replied Saturn.

“We are doing a sweep of the entire area, but he has gone to ground,” added Lunar.

“We saw the two explosions high above. Are you OK,” Saturn asked.

“You father is driving like a madman,” replied Maggie calmly, Jonesy was too busy trying to get control of the shuttle.

“I think she is pulling out,” added Jonesy as the nose ever so slowly came up.

At 9,000 feet above the planet’s surface the shuttle began to fly straight and level.

Jonesy was sweating, so was Maggie as she watched the hard surface of the planet rapidly come up to greet them, then began to pass them by as Jonesy kept it on straight and level, trying to catch a breath.

As Jonesy brought her nose up to gain altitude the last Matt rose out of one of the valleys and locked his maser onto their aircraft. It was a quick lock and he had one short burst before Gary Darwin in SB-IV had locked onto him and Gary ended his space flying career for good.

The short maser blast, a mille-second of energy melted the very rear of Jonesy’s engines and thruster openings, and cut through the walls of his underfloor fuel tank like a knife through butter. His rear thrusters stopped powering the shuttle as the three quarter-full fuel tank began peeling away the floor of the aircraft.

“We are hit!” stated Maggie over the intercom as they still rose up into the Martian sky.

“No thrusters, but we still have 19,000 knots on our side. We are going to have to put her down,” added Jonesy still gaining height. He watched as the speed bled off. He managed to get her up to 17,000 feet before what was left of his controls began to want to act independently of him and the computers, and she began going down.

“Do you have side thrusters?” Jonesy heard Mars Noble add as they headed back down. This time he had little control of the craft, and realized that what control he had, apart from gliding, was the still-working tiny side thrusters.

“Affirmative, Mars,” he replied.

“You aren’t going to survive out there if you break up your suits. We have a blue shield and oxygen in the second cavern. If you can bring her in through the opening, it saves us climbing out to get you.”

“I get your drift Mars, but I have no visual. Most of my systems are down,” replied Jonesy.

“I’ll take you in, Dad,” added Saturn. “I have you on radar five miles away and 4,000 feet above us.

“Better hurry Saturn, our cockpit is pulling itself apart,” added her mother watching a tiny crack appear in the wall of the cockpit beside her. It slowly cracked forward and disappeared behind the console to be followed by a second one.

“Turn ten degrees to starboard, Dad,” stated Saturn. “You are twenty miles from the cavern, and you are decreasing through 12,000 feet. Your speed is just over 500 knots.”

Jonesy had never landed on an aircraft carrier, but he began to picture trying to land on one. Mars told him the cavern was about 250 feet from the door to the back wall and 300 hundred feet long. On an aircraft carrier, they had systems to stop aircraft, this base didn’t, and he prepared the side thrusters as they glided towards the mountain.

“Dad, you are too low and too fast,” quipped Saturn now on her father’s left wing only 100 yards away.

“Don’t tell me how to fly girl,” was the reply and Maggie smiled.

“What a way to die, right in front of my own daughter,” she thought.

“Mars, what ground clearance do we have between the planet surface and the bottom of the entrance?” Jonesy asked.

“About 100 feet. The surface is pretty flat outside the cavern door,” was the reply. “We can’t get down there.”

“OK, we are coming in,” replied Jonesy now seeing the gaping hole in front of him.

Suddenly the entire cockpit windshield blew out and for once Jonesy was happy to be wearing his suit helmet, even though he hated the thing.

“Do we still have fuel escaping Saturn?” Jonesy asked as he reached bottom and kept the shuttle a few feet off the planet’s surface.

“You had a white steam of ice pouring out behind you, but it’s gone now,” she replied.

“All the better,” he replied as the craft slowed and began to get difficult to fly.

At the last moment he raised the nose, bought it up into a stall and angled the two tiny thrusters under the wings to push downwards, at full power.

He entered the large cavern door just missing the roof, but the tail of the shuttle was ripped off as it smashed the floor section of the cavern at just over 100 knots.

The two underneath thrusters at full power stopped the ship whipping itself onto the floor, and SB-III landed for its final time, and slid directly cross the open cavern and slamming into the rear wall with a heavy impact.

Chapter 19

The Secret Base

Saturn Jones hovered SB-IV in seconds later and she saw the five suited figures already all over what was left of her father’s shuttle.

“Mars?” she asked her face pale and her hand shaking slightly as she brought the large shuttle into the cavern and landed 100 feet from the wreck.

“Your mother is alive and looking at me,” replied her husband. “Her helmet is cracked and leaking, Joey and Pete will carry her into the blue shield to keep air around her until we have your dad out. Prepare your docking hatch, then lift SB-IV off an inch or two and edge as close to the shielded tunnel as you can. Maggie’s suit seems to be working, she looks very dazed. Joey go and open the outer door, its closing. Saturn, I’m working on your father. His legs are trapped between the console and his flight seat…trying to get the seat to retract…but its stuck. Max, Vitalily…pull that seat back. Pete, give me the emergency oxygen bottle, quickly.”

Mars could see that Jonesy was unconscious, and his face was turning blue. His suit wasn’t working and he was unscrewing his helmet as fast as he could.

“Mind your legs, Mars, I’m going to hit the seat legs with a laser burst,” ordered Max, and a second later flames, and sparks erupted all around them, and the seat collapsed and fell back against the cockpit rear wall.

Mars felt sick as he looked at Jonesy’s mangled suit legs. They had been pinched completely between the seat and the front of the shuttle when it had hit, and Jonesy was lucky the suit was not torn.

“Max, Vitalily cut a cord quickly, Jonesy‘s legs must be bleeding inside his suit around his knees, get a tourniquet on both legs above the knee, tight. I have his helmet off and he’s breathing oxygen. Saturn when we get them in, you head straight up to the mother ship.”

Joey rushed back from opening the door. It would now stay open for a few minutes. It wasn’t difficult to get Maggie out, the right-hand side of the cockpit was completely open, and the outer shell detached and scattered around the crash site.

As tourniquets were tightly bound to stop the bleeding from Jonesy’s legs, Maggie was carried over by Joey and Pete through the shield wall to be able to breathe. Gary jumped down the six feet from the wing with a new helmet and followed them in. He needed to get it on Maggie’s before she could go through the docking hatch and into the shuttle.

Within two minutes of the crash, Jonesy was lifted out by the other three, his legs dangled uselessly as they carried him straight to SB-IV, got him up onto the wing, they climbed on, lifted him up and placed him ungainly into the docking port and closed the outer hatch.

“Saturn lay him down flat on a bed and strap him down when you get him through, keep your thrusters on idle,” ordered Mars as they jumped off to help the others. Gary was still screwing on Maggie’s helmet, and she winked at Mars as he looked into her face. She was OK. “Gary needs to reenter first, and we will lift in Maggie, she’s OK I think, then Saturn, you head up. The mother ship should be above us and you head all the way up, depending on your fuel. You should have enough.”

Within five minutes, Maggie was lifted into the docking pot and closed the outer hatch, Gary was already inside, the crew took cover and Saturn lifted off, Joey had the door open for the third time, and carefully she hovered out. Seconds later, the door began to close as she disappeared from view.

“VIN to Mars, give us an update over, medics are preparing for their arrival up here,” and Mars told his father what he had seen.

“SB-IV to mother ship heading up at 97 percent power,” stated Saturn.

“I’ve given Jonesy morphine and a sleeper to slow his heart beat,” added Gary Darwin behind Saturn in the tiny Captain’s apartment. “The three Matt kids are sitting together with him. I’m doing the same for Maggie just in case she has internal suit bleeding. I will then unscrew her helmet. Jonesy is breathing shallow, but on his own and breathing the cabin’s air, over.”

Gary Darwin, like every astronaut and crewmember had multiple hours of medical training. Thanks to the hundreds of hours of space travel time, and each of them knew how to react in an emergency.

“Copy that, medics here have no suggestions for you, well done Gary. Mars your sitrep please, over” asked VIN from orbit.

“SB-III is a total mess, a complete write-off, luckily empty of fuel. We are going to collect any supplies from her and suggest Lunar enter in an hour to pick us up. We will get all the black boxes aboard. We have three full hours of suit time left, so we should do a final check of the base before we close it down. Lunar, Max and crew would like a ride back to Mattville. It will save them an hour of tunnel walking, over.”

“SB-V to Mars, we still have good fuel reserves. There are no new bogeys on radar, so I will put her down and wait for you,” added Lunar.

It didn’t take long to empty what was left of SB-III. There were two reserve spacesuits, one black box, a couple of emergency tanks of oxygen, and as Mars found, a third of a bottle of what looked like a forbidden liquid in Jonesy’s left-side wall flight pocket. The rest of the ship was crumpled, except for the area around the docking hatch, which still looked operational.

The ground crew then returned to the other tunnel to complete the check of the base before they were flown out. Lunar had landed by the broken tunnel to await orders to pick them up. America Two headed over the horizon with SB-IV heading rapidly up to join them. Both of the casualties were stable, Gary reported.

The tunnel on the other side, as the ground crew found out was blackened and badly scared from the explosion of the blue shield and the maser attack. The atmosphere was gone, and since they had an extra helmet, they did the usual helmet trick, and Mars and Max slipped through the door into the Globe room before it slammed shut again.

The first shock was when the two men bent down to look at the lights in the globe room. The red planet had gone dark, there were no lights left on the planet they were on, and it seemed that the dozens of tiny lights between the two globes had stopped. There were no more of the tiny blue streaks behind the hundred or so lights that showed them the direction they were traveling in.

The command center was as it had been before except that there were a few lights flashing on it. Neither of the men knew what these lights meant, and it didn’t matter anyway they were fully suited up.

There was nothing else to do, so they left it as it was until their next visit, and told Vitalily to “helmet” the door again.

The rest of the base was as it had been, but the second shock was waiting for them down in the mining cave, once they had held a helmet to the door panel. It hadn’t been like this on the first visit.

Nothing had changed in the massive cavern, except that there were three new bodies on the floor, three Matt bodies in blue suits, and they looked dead. Mars immediately looked at his suit’s external readouts. The air pressure was down, and the amounts of pressure at minimum.

“Guys let’s get these guys into the blue shield!” shouted Mars, Max jammed the door from closing with his suit’s hammer, while Vitalily, Joey and Pete wobbled forward, picked up a light body each and hurried back through the vacuum of the tunnel and cavern to the safety of the blue shield. Mars and Max stayed.

The two men were shocked to see the outline of what looked like a gold tunnel hatch in the middle of the yellow vein of gold. The hatch was closed, or as closed as the men had managed to close it, but not closed enough to blend perfectly into the wall as it was slightly bent, or damaged.

“Tunnel to the rest of the base?” suggested Mars to Max, who said nothing, nodded and readied his hand laser. Mars walked over, opened the hatch an inch and peered inside. It was dark in there. He readied his laser, turned on his helmet light, and pulled the handheld flashlight from its suit’s pocket.

Then both Max and Mars swung the three-foot wide round hatch open and the atmosphere from the large cavern diluted itself even more, began to flow into the hatch and along the roof of the solid gold tunnel.

“Joey, we need a guard down here,” ordered Max over the intercom as Mars stepped through the hatch. Joey returned within a minute and Max followed. Joey closed the gold hatch to stop the atmosphere from diluting any further.

It was beautiful in there, pure gold around them apart for blue-suited bodies lying at intervals along the floor of the tunnel. Mars turned each one over, and their faces showed the death of asphyxiation in the vacuum of space. He checked his readouts at the first person—there was no air for these guys to survive.

As he progressed down the long tunnel, the suits became blacker, and dirtier from what looked like the explosion. The last three of the 31 bodies they counted were totally burned and their suits black, when they arrived at the end of the tunnel. They had reached the entrance of another base.

“What do you think, Mars?” Max asked catching up to the younger man who had halted from going into the cavern.

“It looks like only three made it before they ran out of air in the tunnel,” Mars replied. “I didn’t see any black boxes in the tunnel, so this part of the base’s air was controlled from the command center, and completely separate from the mining cavern. Two complete separate air and heat systems, I reckon,” Max agreed.

They headed into the base itself. Another dozen more bodies were blackened and burned inside the first area. It wasn’t the cavern where the spaceships had exited, but the normal area of the base, and there was the usual door to another globe room and command center.

“There could be people alive in there,” Mars suggested, hit the blue-lit panel this time, and the door opened. “No air both sides, air on either side it would be red, and it opened. Wow!”

The globes were destroyed and the door to the command center was closed. It also had a blue panel, and it opened like the first door.

The command center had been trashed quickly, and Mars looked for the door he thought he might see. This time the door to the base’s cryogenic chambers was there, and this one was red.

“I think it is better that whoever is in there should stay asleep for a while?” suggested Mars to Max.

“Definitely, a few thousand years won’t be a problem, I’m sure,” replied Max. “I wonder how many sleep chambers they have in this base. The walls are still glowing with light, and it seems air is returning to these rooms. My readouts are showing a positive climb in pressure, helium and oxygen.”

They exited the still open doors and closed the first one from the cavern to the globe room. Mars knew from the other Matt bases, that there was a good chance, 12, 24, or even 36 Matts could be going to sleep inside this cryogenic chamber, and wouldn’t be a threat to them at the moment.

They continued their search and headed past the toilet, which was always in the same place, and into the rear of the base. Again there were a dozen or so bodies, not burned like in the forward area, but were as asphyxiated.

The storage rooms in the center were full of supplies, in the three storage rooms, and they were empty of bodies. They checked every door they could find, and there was nothing of interest.

“Didn’t some of the bases have an electrical store room off from the globe room?” asked Max. Mars nodded and they headed back.

There was a panel they had forgotten, and it was red, which meant it wouldn’t open for a while due to the bad air quality in the globe room, they closed the connection door again and headed for the furthest area of the base through the forward section: the hangar area.

This spacecraft cavern was as large as the previous one, and was as blackened and dirty with scraps of spacecraft everywhere. The door was closed.

“I wonder if they had those garage openers, like they had on houses in those old movies?” Mars replied. “It would certainly be handy here. Max do you know how much space we have in this base? It is massive!”

“Certainly exciting,” replied Max still looking in awe at the size of the cavern. “About a hundred times bigger than the Martian Club Retreat, enough room here for at least a thousand people to live. Gee, we could play space ball, or even soccer in these massive caverns. I bet they have so much survival equipment and power plants down below, this place has been here for centuries, and was surely meant to survive for centuries more.”

“And a fancy metro or subway train to travel in-between,” added Mars. “I don’t think soccer would work with the low gravity, maybe American football or English rugby? I certainly do not want to check the lower levels without re-enforcements, and nobody is walking around here except us with real spacesuits on.”

“And if we one day manage to get all those ingots out of here, there will be room for maybe another three thousand people,” continued Max. “I could be the first Mayor of Mattville, but first what are we going to do with these bodies. I count six piles of spaceship junk in here. That flattened piece of metal on the rear wall is all that’s left of Asterspace Three. She certainly went up with a bang, I can’t see another part of her bigger than a quarter. So they had six more spaceships, and there are a couple of dozen more pieces of suits in here, and six still with body parts in them.”

“With what we got out of Commander Fob, I don’t believe there could be a group of Matts hiding somewhere. Many were shot down in their spacecraft. I’m sure they sent the women and children into the sleep room while the rest of the men, the builders and ground crew readied to fight. There can’t be more than 20 or 30 going to sleep,” replied Mars.

“The three survivors will tell us,” added Max “but let’s see if we can get that storage room door open.”

This time it opened, and the two men lifted up the only contents of the room and placed seven black boxes, and several other pieces of electrical looking “I don’t know what it is, but it looks important” stuff into a wooden case.

It wasn’t too heavy in the Martian gravity and Mars and Max struggled with it back down the tunnel to the bigger mining cavern. To them this could hold a whole football field it was so big, and the two ingot caverns were nearly as big.

“I measured the square footage in here, we could make this into a football stadium,” stated Joey as they passed him the case.

“We were just saying the same thing,” replied Mars being helped through the hatch.

The three of them headed through the second section and entered the blue shield to find the three Matts, who were being given water and food by Vitalily, while Pete held a laser on them. Vitalily had his helmet off, and spoke into the handheld.

“These are three of the base builders, stated Vitalily looking up at the helmeted figures. All the Astermine crew spoke fluent Matt. “They were the closest to the mining cavern when the explosion happened. They had to close the door as the tunnel’s oxygen exploded and just managed to get it shut. They were the builders for the tunnels, all the way from Mattville, so they will be handy to fix our holes.”

“Then we could get our subway operational,” stated Max.

“What are your names?” Mars thought in Matt, and got absolutely no response from any of the three small brown men sitting in front of him. “I must have lost my telepathy,” stated Mars verbally to the others.

“I heard you,” stated Ruler Roo clearly in his mind from Mattville three miles away, and which made Mars jump. “I think they have all cut off our frequency. I didn’t know it was possible, but there is something new I must learn. It sounds like you have some new friends for our tribe?”

“Three builders” thought Mars “and dozens more going to sleep in the cryogenic sleep chambers”… and he was interrupted by Max’s voice, and who didn’t know he was talking to Roo.

“I think we should get Lunar in, Mars.”

It was time to leave. There was so much work to do, and so much to see, the lower parts of the bases they hadn’t yet inspected. It was a shame to have to leave. Lunar was called in as it was dangerous for her to be alone out there.

“Yes, of course, Vitalily, get the two suits on these guys, Lunar will have a third. They will have to go down the tunnel with you, but I think we should drug them first,” stated Mars. “These guys will have to wear them on the train to Mattville. There is no other way. The rest of you, we have ten minutes, let us get as many of those ingots as we can.”

The others, all wearing helmets headed back through the hangar cavern, into the mining cavern and made for the ingots.

“Any ingots,” ordered Mars and they headed into the second cavern where the high 15 foot-high blocks were not yet complete and each person grabbed one from a different pile. They were heavy and they carried two of them at a time to the door forced to stay ajar with Max’s hammer. “Leave them just outside the door, we can carry them from there to the shuttle. They wouldn’t be back for a while, and the air would replenish itself before thy returned.”

They managed three trips before Lunar asked somebody to open the door, and minutes later and a fourth load of ingots, SB-V edged gently into the cavern.

The cavern was big, but so had been SB-IV and now SB-V. The larger shuttles were about three times larger than the much smaller Matt spacecraft that now lay all over the terrain outside, and he worked out that both the remaining shuttles could fit in the cavern, parked carefully.

“Vitalily, once you have their suits on, give them a sleeper in the neck, then attach their helmets and carry the prisoners over. Lunar can open the inner hatch. Lunar they will be asleep don’t worry. We can suit the third one inside the shuttle once we are out of here. Lunar, we need 45 minutes to load, is Michael helmeted yet?”

“Just finished Mars, getting into the docking port now, mate” the Aussie replied.

“Lunar, open the forward cargo bay’s side door,” asked Mars and seconds later the door opened outwards to the empty cargo bay.

The cargo bay was totally empty for battle, apart for three empty canisters tied down to a screwed down floor pallet, and within seconds Max was in the cargo hold placing the black boxes in one canister while Joey placed the ingots Pete and Mars lifted in into another. At four feet above the ground the ingots were pretty easy to lift up and onto the floor of the shuttle.

Max packed up the 15 black boxes, closed the canister and began to help pack in the ingots into the third canister.

“Come on guys lets fill up these canisters, at least Martin Brusk or Dr. Smidt will be happy to get a little treasure,” stated Max, and they all headed into the cavern to collect more. Michael Price was awe-struck by what he saw, but was pressed forward by Mars.

“This place is a treasure drove. It’s a bleeding sports stadium in here it’s so big. Are those are all gold bars over there?” he asked as he was gang-marched forward.

Within thirty minutes, and allowing for suit time for Max and crew to get back into Mattville, they carried in and filled up the two canisters and the area around the canisters with 100 silver and 25 gold ingots.

The drugged prisoners had already gone through the docking hatch one by one, and Mars, who was last in the cavern opened the cavern’s outer door and had time to climb into the forward cargo bay. Lunar closed it and readied to exit.

The crew saw the large cavern door close as they headed away, as if it was saying goodbye and knew there was no more traffic in or out.

The flight was short, less than 15 minutes before Lunar brought SB-V into Mattville’s cavern. Here the prisoners were carried out by Vitalily’s crew of five guys and taken up the lift, through the tunnel and into the new chamber.

Enroute VIN had given the order for Vitalily’s Russian crew from the Retreat to suit up and join the crew in SB-V. They were going to Ceres and only had an hour to pack up all their private belongings.

Max said goodbye to Mars once Mars had given him ten of the black boxes. The rest were heading out on the next part of the journey.

“Take care buddy, I’m going to try and get those holes filled and our subway running before you get back. Fly safe and see you soon. I hope Jonesy makes it, or I‘m going to have to run ASS. I want a report on his condition each communication, understand?”

They hugged spacesuit style and Mars entered the docking port last, and Lunar lifted out of the cavern once Max was safely in the tunnel.

A day later, and with only two of the six ships connected to America Two, the mother ship headed out of orbit, and twelve hours later was on her way to Ceres, two months away.

Chapter 20

War of the Worlds—Act Four—Ceres

Jonesy slept for a week before he regained consciousness. The first face he saw was his daughter Saturn, and he smiled when she called her mother that he was awake. At least she was OK.

“Where are we?” he mumbled to Saturn, very weak.

“In the mother ship on our way to Ceres, the Matt base and refueling station on the dwarf planet in the Asteroid Belt,” Saturn replied.

“My legs don’t hurt as bad as they used to,” Jonesy stated smiling as the pretty face of his wife came into his vision. He noticed that she had a black eye, and a bandage down the one side of her face. “Looks like you need a better chauffeur,” he stated accepting a kiss from Maggie.

“You need more rest,” she replied smiling. “The medics are going to keep you resting for a few more days but we’ll be close by.”

“I know, and I’ve done it before. Who has the good news and who has the bad?” joked Jonesy looking at the only two girls left in his life. He knew that the third girl, SB-III was no more. “And can I get a small shot of something before the bad news is spelled out?”

“Certainly not Herr Jones,” smiled Suzi as she floated in with VIN and an older looking Ryan Richmond. “Even if they allowed drinking in Bavarian hospitals, you are not in one at the moment.”

“How are you feeling partner,” smiled VIN.

“God! With all these people smiling at me, the news must be bad. You guys will turn me to drink with all this smiling crap!” Jonesy replied.

“I’m the bearer of the report partner, don’t shoot the messenger. You ladies can stay or go, up to you,” stated VIN continuing to smile and looking at the ladies around the astronaut.

“I would prefer it in private, with the boys, maybe I’ll get a drink that way,” he replied trying hard to smile back at his smiling friends. The girls nodded, they knew Jonesy would be happier to be with his partner, and Suzi had made sure that VIN wasn’t carrying anything liquid. It was a man thing!

“VIN, tell me the good news first,” Jonesy asked once the ladies had left. “Ryan you look tired?”

“Yes, the loss of four good friends but at least you and Maggie made it. And I have a miniature of JD Bourbon for you. VIN was checked by Suzi, but nobody checked me.” He smiled, opened the tiny bottle and let Jonesy suck out its contents. Jonesy tasted the sharp liquid, smiled and his pale face took on some color.

“Now I know I’m still alive, is that the good news partner?”

“Most of it,” replied VIN. “Apart for half of your brain, we all know you were never given the other half, you are OK from the waist upwards. You have a broken right arm, which will mend and is encased in soft silicone. You have two eyes, two ears, your taste buds work and Maggie is fine, as you have seen.

“I don’t need to produce any more children.” Jonesy stated.

“We wouldn’t want too many Jones in the solar system, the Matts especially don’t want any more of your type, and yes if you were young, you still have the possibility of more children,” replied VIN accepting a miniature from Ryan, who drank one himself.

“Well that should keep Maggie happy,” Jonesy remarked. “All this good news is getting too much, I’m ready for the bad news now, partner.”

“Remember when Suzi and I overtook you at first day we were running around the airfield, decades ago?’ VIN asked.

“Oh crap! Now all three of us can beat everybody else around the runway?” Jonesy asked. VIN smiled and nodded, his partner was always quick.

“You got another one of those bottles, boss?” Jonesy asked. “At least my legs don’t hurt so bad anymore.”

“No, but I have a Russian vodka, just one left,” Ryan replied.

“I’ll pay you back on Earth,” and Ryan let the contents of the second bottle be sucked down Jonesy’s throat.

“At least my legs won’t give me that crappy pain from the damn sleep chamber made for midgets anymore,” Jonesy replied enjoying the flavor and licking is lips. “How much did I lose VIN?”

“Both legs just above the knee. Look at the good side. You still have more leg than me, and I can still fly, and go fishing and hunting,” replied his partner.

To VIN, Jonesy just seemed to accept the loss of his legs. Maybe it was because he himself, and Suzi had been legless for so long, and he had proved to Jonesy that he had never been prevented from being part of the team.

The medic came in, increased one of Jonesy’s drips and within minutes he was sound asleep.

Dr. Smidt, down in Nevada had already been given the new order and measurements for another set of the most modern prosthetic legs.

“Max, how is the spacesuit training coming on, over?” asked Ryan from America Two’s Bridge two weeks later. The ship had just gone from acceleration-mode to coast-mode at 120,000 knots, and once again the planet he was speaking to was a bright star far behind them. Both the red planet and the mother ship were travelling much in the same direction, and Ceres would be getting closer to both for a further two weeks, before Mars’ orbit began to pull it away from the dwarf planet inside the Asteroid Belt. The Matts had timed their arrival well, hence the reason for America Two to head to the tiny planet as soon as possible.

“No need for the three captives to have spacesuit training,” replied Max a few minutes later. “We took video feed of the three holes and the builders showed us how to place a black box inside the middle hole. It is extended both sides of the tunnel wall area, inside and out, and we are heading there once a day with half a dozen air tanks to fill the shield with air. In 48 hours, we will be able to move into the shield with a power connection, food, water and I will have my build crew to remain in the shield and fill the holes, over.”

“Have you sensed any communications between them and their guys on Ceres?” asked VIN.

“Yes, there has been contact, we can tell from our questions to them about communications but they seemed scared to tell us anything. I think they will come over to our side over time, but they can never be trusted, over,” Max replied.

“I agree,” replied VIN. “They will travel back to Earth with us on our next flight to Mars in two years’ time. Our fuel reserves are below half, and we cannot return to Mars on the way home. Max, I need you to head into one of the other globe rooms and see if there is any sign of enemy ships still heading to Mars, or if there are more ships heading from Europa to Ceres. No rush but within a week will do, over.”

Not much was happening. The Martian Club Retreat was closed down, and its cameras showed no visits. Mattville was a busy place but quiet and safe. The three captives had been blindfolded when they had been taken into the new base, and were told that they were in the base the Matts always attacked. So far it had seemed to work.

Nothing had been seen flying on the solar-powered radar system on top of Lookout Mountain. Max had a direct link to the radar system, and there had been no spacecraft anywhere in the vicinity of the 500-mile radar range since it had come on line, three days after SB-V had left the planet’s surface.

It was exactly a week later when VIN received an answer to his questions.

“We have molded and fitted the first of three curved silicone glass panels to fit inside the tunnel to wall off the first hole,” began Max on a long, now once a week report. “Since silicone glass has a higher melting temperature than gold, we are going to get a smelter out there into a second shield, then melt a lining of gold and cover it with Martian soil to seal the holes from cosmic, X-ray and gamma radiation above the glass panel. We worked it out that an eight-inch wall of gold under a foot-thick soil layer should give us the safety of traveling through the tunnel without needing spacesuits. I headed through on our little train all the way down the tunnel to the other base while the guys fitted the panel. We have cleared the tracks and it took me an hour at a very careful speed to get there. I reckon we can do it in twenty minutes, once we have experience in running the train. The whole base the other side of the protective blue shield is back to a normal Matt atmosphere, so we can begin filling the tunnel with air from both sides once it is completely sealed in about a month. I checked the globe room. The best news, the enemy ships have all turned round. The red planet globe is still dark and there are enemy spaceships both sides of Ceres. They are all travelling in the same direction, back towards Europa. I counted 70 tiny lights heading from Ceres to Europa and 160 lights heading towards Ceres from Mars. So we know that the enemy have at least 230 enemy fighters. I cannot be accurate, but I believe that the 70 lights are about a tenth of the way from Ceres to Europa, and the 160 lights are much closer to Ceres than the other group. That is my report, over.”

Over the next day, the crew worked on the Bridge’s computers checking the estimated distances Max had given them. The enemy ships heading back from Mars were a week out from Ceres, and the flights heading towards Europa were a month out on their journey from the dwarf planet. There was no way the furthest enemy ships could return fast enough to defend Ceres once America Two got there. It also seemed that America Two had well over twice the cruising speed of the Matt ships, and the astronauts reckoned that 50,000 knots was their maximum speed, as they had seen all the Matt ships at this maximum speed throughout the battles.

The mother ship was still a month away from the planet, and the next report from Max in a week would be very important.

“I’m getting to like this floating stuff,” stated Jonesy to VIN and the Bridge crew a day or so later when he floated into the bridge with the help of Suzi, who was floating with him, and Maggie who was wearing metal shoes, and propelling both of them along.

“I bet floating in here is harder than flying a shuttle,” smiled VIN as his partner entered.

“You’re right,” remarked Jonesy. “No flight controls, and I have to push myself off the walls and roof, even the floor sometimes. This is certainly uncontrolled flight.”

“Today’s briefing is about Ceres,” began Ryan once Vitalily and his crew, and the security team had arrived for morning coffee. “Even though we have this large stock of ingots, we humans still need a base in the Asteroid Belt. That is where the real mining is, and we need to defend Ceres from attack once we get it. Comments please.”

“We need to capture whatever the Matts have there, and hopefully our inhabiting this dwarf planet will hinder the Matts traveling to the red planet,” stated VIN immediately from a security standpoint.

“We certainly don’t need to mine for several of the Rare Earth metals for a century or two,” added Igor looking at his notes. “From Mars’ records of ingot numbers, and backed by Max doing a second count last week, we believe to have 789,990 12 inch cubed ingots in total stored in the two chambers. The gold ingots the crew brought with them are 5 times the size of our regular-size gold ingots on Earth, or 2,000 ounces. The quality is identical to our ingots on Earth. Each bar in Earth’s gravity will weigh 137 pounds, or just over 62 kilograms. Dr. Smidt reported to me yesterday that gold was worth $2,455 per ounce 24 hours ago, which puts each of the 185,000 plus gold ingots at just under $5 million each.” There were sounds of shock and everyone looked at Igor to do the math. “OK, OK, just the gold inside the caverns is worth $925 billion. Nearly one trillion dollars, crew! And some of the Rare Earth metals are worth double down there.” There was silence as the number was chewed on.

“I can get gold bathtub fittings on my boat,” joked Jonesy. “Hey, I can get a bigger boat!”

“So as not to sink with your new gold fittings,” joked VIN.

“Igor, the rest of the ingots please?” asked Ryan not seeming very perplexed. Money didn’t really mean anything to him anymore.

“Mars and Max brought in 125 ingots, 25 were pure gold, ten were each osmium, neodymium, lithium, erbium, scandium and one we have always struggled to find anywhere on earth, and what I believe much of the Matt technology is produced with—gadolinium. Gadolinium is important in manufacturing lasers and I believe their maser technology, and most importantly: neutron capture for the blue shields. This is also one of the most important metals for computer memory. The last ingots were the most valuable: five ingots of rhodium and unbelievingly 15 ingots of iridium. As you know Martin Brusk would sell his soul for unlimited amounts of lithium and especially iridium.”

“Boss” interrupted Boris always more to the point. “Those are just half of the metals we need to find to build modern technology, and the others will be in the Asteroid Belt. That is why we need to capture Ceres, takeover their base, and then we will need all the mining help the rest of planet Earth can give us.

“So, the future plan for Astermine” continued Ryan “and our two large ships my daughters built, are to travel backwards and forwards between Mars and Ceres?”

“That would be one small step for us, and one giant leap for mankind,” replied Igor simply. Ryan now understood what his destiny was: to continue in the footsteps of his three boyhood heroes—Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

“Weather is sunny on the Martian Gold coast,” joked Max on his next newscast a few days later. “The second section of silicone-glass is in, the gold melted on the first tunnel hole, two feet of soil and another foot of rocks and stones covers it. From outside, and apart for the dusty gold mounds, it never looked like a hole ever existed.”

We have done a few changes to the train. I hope you don’t mind Jonesy, but we took out what was left of your cockpit chairs out of SB-III and set them up on the train. We are wanting to build a second set of carriages, and plan on five in all. Ryan, we need two more chairs, and then we can have four people riding in style down the track with a caboose on the end for cargo. The trip with the two chairs worked well and Joey and I covered the journey to the other base in 27 minutes. We are doing a few alterations to the wheels and suspension and I still think the train can do it in 20 minutes. An even better idea. If you want Dr. Smidt to work on a new train, we could increase the track to head right through to the end of their Base Three, and build a turning system each end. Also a train made in Nevada could be made longer. I suggest a ten-seat passenger train with caboose, and a ten carriage cargo train for supplies. Just my suggestions. The lights from Ceres to Europa are still heading in the same direction. Some of the lights have disappeared in the second group. I believe they have landed on Ceres. I’m sure they don’t have landing facilities for all their spaceships, so some could be resting and refueling. End of message, over.”

As America Two began braking for Ceres, two weeks ahead, the astronauts planned a system of attack.

Jonesy couldn’t fly, but Maggie could, and wanted to. She was now the most experienced pilot, and Saturn was more than happy to allow her mother to take her shuttle’s left seat. Mars had another job, and would be working with his father.

Pluto Katherine was given the promotion of Head Gunner aboard the mother ship, and with Jenny and Jane Burgos, and Gary Darwin being the only male, they were a formidable laser force.

Lunar and her husband kept their positions on SB-V, and every thought of what lay ahead on Ceres went through the morning briefings.

Max’s next report a week out from Ceres was what the crew aboard America Two wanted to hear. The large formation of Matt ships were heading away from Ceres and towards Europa. They were already putting distance between them and where they had rested. Ryan and his crew wondered what was left on the dwarf planet. They knew the Matts wouldn’t leave their supply station unarmed.

They found out 50,000 miles from the tiny planet about a tenth the size of Earth’s moon, seven days later.

“Bogeys on radar, 16 enemy ships heading towards us from the white planet, currently at 15,000 feet above the surface, 40,000 knots forward speed. Location of enemy ships’ exit position from planet now logged on computer.” stated radar as the last briefing had just started. At the same time, Max’s radio message came through. As usual he sounded happy. All the crew seemed to be happy living in Mattville.

“Great news on two successful projects,” Max began as the crew readied for an attack on their ship in about 2 hours. “Third silicone glass panel in place, the gold has been poured, we will be attempting a walk tomorrow from the base to begin piling the dirt and rocks. We moved the shield outside before we closed the final hole. It is pretty noticeable out there but as yet we haven’t seen anything on radar. I’m getting pretty sure we are the only people on this planet. The idea is for three guys to live and work inside the shield covering the gold with rocks and dirt. The shield is only a quarter inflated, and has enough air in there for three guys for several days. Joey and I will be heading out with the crew of three for the 3-mile walk outside the tunnel, and will return within our 4-hour limit. We will return to walk back with them once the job is done. I know you want the latest on the Matt ships. I headed through the tunnel yesterday, 12 hours ago. All the ships are still heading in the same direction, and we can see an advancement of travel of the large flight. With your distance suggestions, the closest ships are now more than a week away from returning to Ceres, once you attack. We finally had time to inflate the Zodiac, once we had carried it down to the lake below us. Ruler Roo and Joey headed out, paddling with the two oars with cords tied to the rear of the boat. They rowed for an hour, and we let out ten cords, 3,000 feet before we had to bring them back. They saw a never-ending roof above their heads, and it sloped upwards at a gradual pace. It had risen to about 40 feet when they reached the end of the cord line. Other than that they saw nothing, only water and roof, so that lake down there is far bigger than we ever thought. A never ending supply of good old fashioned water. End of message, over.”

Ryan asked Max to head back to the globe room a soon as he could, as they were about to be attacked. He wanted an update to see if the ships had turned around.

Nobody aboard the mother ship could understand how the enemy knew they were in the vicinity, and even Roo was asked back on Mars. He didn’t know either.

The Matt ships headed straight for the mother ship so they knew Ryan and crew were heading towards them. The two shuttles were ready and an hour later undocked to engage the enemy.

VIN and Mars were aboard SB-IV as passengers and sat in the rear cockpit seats as the two experienced astronauts headed straight towards the 16 enemy ships.

“Distance to enemy, 27,000 miles, shuttles, I don’t want you out further than 3,000 miles ahead of us,” ordered Kathy Richmond from the Bridge. Ryan still didn’t trust himself to lead the defense of the ship, and Kathy being an ex-Air force colonel had filled the gap while VIN was on his mission.

At about 10,000 miles to target, the mother ship could open fire, although not very accurately. The same could be said about the shuttle lasers from 7,000 miles.

Even though great speeds were obtained in space, it also took a long time for distances to be covered. The mother ship was heading towards the planet at a slowing 27,000 knots, the enemy ships were heading towards the mother ship at 40,000 knots, so it still took an hour before anything happened.

When it did it happened fast. The Matt ships began firing as they always did, far out and they began calibrating their shots. This time there was nowhere to hide and as the radio disturbances in the space around the attacking ships told them the enemy was firing there was nothing they could do. The lasers would produce a beam that could be seen by everybody, but the maser firings couldn’t be seen by the Homo sapiens, only registering on their equipment as sort of radio wave disturbances.

The first battle began quickly once the opposing forces got into range. SB-V and Michael Price got the first hit at 6,100 miles, Saturn got the second and the first volley from America Two hit five out of fourteen still in formation.

The Matt ships immediately changed direction and headed out in all directions as their ships began exploding around them. It was imperative that the Astermine astronauts not allow the enemy within 5,000 miles of the mother ship, and both shuttles at full power headed out behind as many as possible to cut off the attacking enemy.

Saturn got her second and the mother ship cleared the other three in front of her lasers. With empty space around her, Maggie turned towards SB-V heading in the opposite direction and she saw another puff of an exploding ship far in the distance followed by two more.

“I have a bogey on my tail,” shouted Lunar as Michael blew up a Matt ship less than 10 miles in front of him.

“Not anymore,” replied Jenny Burgos smiling. “Six bogeys still on radar.”

“As air battles always ended up, the fight became spacecraft following one another, trying to get a hit. It was over within minutes as the four gunners aboard the mother ship picked off the rest from a safe distance.

Then the two shuttles headed towards the white dwarf planet 40,000 miles ahead of them.

Max’s voice came over the radios an hour later telling the Astermine crew that the 160 ships had turned around and were heading back to Ceres. Kathy Richmond believed that they would be a week too late to help their fellow crew members.

“OK, astronauts” stated Kathy once Max had been thanked for his report. He had been asked by Igor to do the same the next day. “We need this planet to be ours within 24 hours, the enemy will be here in week, and we need to be ready for them. You guys know what to do. We just have to see if they have any outside ground defenses around their base, or bases, over.”

It was weird to see a laser beam this time speed pass the two shuttles as they closed on the little planet an hour later. Up to then nobody knew that the Matts had similar weapons, and at 10,000 miles, it was pretty accurate.

“Maggie to Kathy, they have ground cover, lasers, semi-accurate up to I’d say about 12,000 miles, so keep your orbit outside their range of fire until we have destroyed their ground defenses, over.”

Three more beams of green laser swept passed them, the onboard computers locating and memorizing each blast.

“SB-V, so far we count two ground sites, less than a mile apart, over,” stated Saturn.

“Copy that,” replied Michael Price. “I confirm locks on two sites, hold on, two more beams headed passed us about a mile off our starboard bow. They both came from a new site. My computer readouts show a line of three gun sites about 600 yards apart, my cameras are locking onto them. Distance to target 5,700 miles, over.”

“Lunar increase our separation distance by another 10 miles, over.” Stated Maggie.

A minute later the area around both craft had beams passing within a couple of miles. The lasers weren’t accurate, but they were getting closer.

Maggie ordered Lunar to change direction and they headed at an angle to the plant and within 12 minutes, and at 15,000 feet came over the enemy base area from the rear. Their computers locked onto the locations of ground fire and as they passed overhead weaving about two of the three gun placements erupted into balls of blue energy.

“They had blue shields over their gun placements. I counted five in total, two destroyed,” stated Michael Price as they once again headed over the horizon at speed.

“I counted five blue shields,” agreed Saturn. “Mars and VIN are helmeting up, VIN said to go around one more time, over.”

The planet was small, and the shuttles struggled to keep a sensible orbit at high speed. There was little to no gravity on the planet.

Again as they passed overhead at a different angle they blasted the gun placements getting two more as three ships suddenly went spaceward from the same locations, right in front of the two shuttles. The two different flights of spacecraft missed each other by less than a mile.

Saturn was fast and hit one seconds before Michael Price got the second, and they headed over the horizon as America Two opened up at the outgoing craft. They were still out of any real range, and Kathy hoped the enemy ship would rise up to attack her. She was right.

Maggie took SB-IV down rapidly and landed behind a slight rocky rise the computers stated was half a mile from the last gun placement. Lunar had headed over for her third pass, the laser gun placement hadn’t fired, Michael didn’t get an explosion, and SB-V went vertical behind the five climbing enemy ships.

VIN, already inside the docking port, and feet off from the surface was already opening the outer hatch. He closed it and within seconds, Mars was climbing into the port and a minutes later he floated gently down from the wing and not realizing the lack of gravity bounced twenty feet high to join his father behind what looked like a lightly-colored rocky outcrop.

They watched as SB-VI rose, rapidly turned and headed upwards and away from the Matt base like a helicopter dropping troops.

“We have very little gravity, be careful and tread lightly,” VIN told his son. “This gravity is less than on DX2014.

They peered over the top of the outcrop and saw what looked like a blue shield in the distance about 600 yards away. It wasn’t that easy to see it, as the colors of the planet’s surface wasn’t black, or grey like the asteroids or planets, but was more of a pink sandy color.

Three more Matt ships floated out of three different places the same distance and headed spaceward after Lunar. Only SB-V was in communications range. Maggie and the mother ship were over the horizon. The space above the planet’s surface seemed alive with light. It certainly wasn’t all sunlight.

“VIN to Astronauts, three more ships heading up.”

“Copy VIN, will look out for them and relay to the others,” replied Michael Price. VIN heard him get his message to the other two ships, as SB-V headed away somewhere and the radio went quiet.

The two men carefully headed towards the blue shield. Where the ships had exited from, both had seen the telltale signs of more blue shields, and five minutes later they saw two tiny explosions slightly larger than bight stars high above them, and Saturn giving out the good news.

As it was always in a spacesuit, there was no noise, or anything apart from any light entering the helmet visor from outside, or radio communications from inside the suit. Both men carefully looked around every few steps, their hand lasers at the ready.

Both carried sacks in their left hands, explosives and even a few old fashioned hand grenades in VIN’s pack he had stashed away since the early days. Mars had seen them, and had asked what the six baseball-size balls of steel were.

They reached a round blackened area forty feet across. Both men could see that it had once been a type of weapon pointing upwards, it was a blackened slither of metal, and the explosion had been from a blue shield exploding.

“Mars and I are in the blast area, do not fire at the base, over.”

“Copy that,” stated all three ships’ pilots now high above them. Saturn had been telling Lunar that she had got one when VIN came up on radio.

“Two more up here and the skies are clear,” added Saturn.

The fifth blue shield was 50 yards away, and they headed in that direction, the surface of the planet dark around them. VIN made sure that he and Mars were not silhouettes against the lighter area of space around the planet by making sure that they higher ground behind them. Their silver suits blended in well with the landscape. Inside the blue shield, they could see two Matts handling some sort of ten foot long weapon, its end was sticking out of the shield wall. The blue shield was just big enough to fit in the men and the weapon, and VIN slunk in behind the men and just had enough room to get his body in before one of the men turned to face a silver helmeted spacesuit giant two feet higher than he was.

VIN was fast, and very strong for a half-metal person, and before Mars could slip through the blue wall, VIN had connected both Matts on the head hard with his sack of explosives. He was sure the hand grenades had helped send the two small Matts to sleep.

Instinctively Mars crouched as the explosives hit the second man a split second after hitting the first. His father used a lot of power in the swing, and both Matts slipped to the ground and lay very still.

As the second man gently fell to the floor, a large cavern door began to open in the flat ground twenty yards from where they were standing, and the blueness of another interior blue shield lightened the light surface.

“I think more ships are exiting,” stated Mars over his radio. “Fifth ground unit is ours for future use. VIN is going to try and use their own weapon on their own craft.”

“Copy that 70 miles from target, both shuttles coming in at low level, will get them if you guys can’t. Tell us when we can enter the fight, over,” replied his mother-in-law.

Three more ships exiting from the cavern, we don’t know if there are more exit doors out there. Hard to see from zero altitude, over.” stated Mars.

“Sorry I can’t figure out how to work this thing,” added VIN. “You guys up there go ahead, there is a metal hatch into the base next to the weapon. Just don’t kill the shield. Mars let us make ourselves welcome.”

As VIN said that two lines of laser light appeared from over the horizon and a massive blast lit up the planet’s surface a few hundred feet directly above them. VIN pulled Mars into the shield as parts of hot metal began ricocheting against the wall of the blue shield.

They quickly prepared to enter the vertical ladder down into the bowls of the planet, and lights were dimmed as a second explosion suddenly lit up the surface of the planet above, and the horizontal door began to slowly close.

It was dim when they entered the large cavern one after the other on a metal ladder that dropped down to the surface forty feet below. They were pretty much invisible behind a slatted metal protection tube around the ladder, and they could see more spacecraft being prepared in the wide cavern below. As fast as they could they scaled down the long ladder, both feeling vulnerable.

“Third bogey is history” stated Penny Burgos far too loudly from America Two over their helmet intercoms and nearly made VIN fall the remaining ten feet. He wouldn’t have hurt himself as the gravity was extremely weak.

VIN looked around as he reached the floor while Mars waited above him, still hidden by the metal shield.

“What do we do now, Dad?” Mars asked.

“I don’t know, trash the place,” replied VIN as his attention was diverted to the cavern wall right next to their position. “Look! There are hangar doors in the cavern walls. One has just opened. Go up ten feet Mars, I need to hide.”

Through the open slats in the metal work, both men watched as a robot pulled out what seemed the last Matt spacecraft from a hole in the cavern wall. The area the spacecraft was pulled out of did not have a blue shield, there were no Matts in the long tunnel like cavern that stretched into the planet for at least a couple of hundred feet. It seemed the robot was pulling out the last aircraft in that tunnel, as another three ships in the cavern, and inside the blue shield lifted off as the large cavern door opened above them.

“Three more enemy ships exiting in about 30 seconds,” started VIN into his intercom. “Don’t explode the blue shield Lunar, or Mars and I will be toast, over.”

“Copy that,” replied Lunar. “Setting up for a fly pass, 48 miles out. No bogeys up here VIN. Maggie will be coming over horizon in about 60 seconds. These guys are timing it perfectly for us, over.”

“It looks like there are three more bogeys after this flight about to exit, and they are out of reserves. I want to try and save the last three Matt ships so that we can have a space force here until we get new ships, over.”

VIN continued watching as the three ships exited spaceward, leaving the floor area for the last three to be pulled out of three separate storage tunnels. Under robotic power, they entered into the blue shields filling the large cavern and six Matts walked towards the ships to pilot their craft.

“Have the three ships visual,” stated Lunar from above. That gave VIN the information he was wanting. He took his laser off safety, pulled Mars’s spacesuit leg to tell him to follow, and made his move.

VIN Noble walked in the direction of the pilots. They seemed to be the only Matts in the cavern. He was sure that the cavern was being controlled from the command center, and he didn’t know if they had any forms of video or not, but he took his chances.

The six pilots did not see him until he ordered them to stop in Matt telepathically.

He was quite surprised that they did, and looked around to see him approaching at least 70 feet away. It had been a long time since he, or Mars had actually thought to a Matt. On Mars they had seemed to have been able to suppress any telepathic communications. Here it seemed back to normal.

“Who are you ugly ones. You are very tall, and not wearing a blue suit?” one of the Matts questioned the two large and silver-colored forms walking towards them. All six pilots were looking at the two forms in ungainly silver suits approach them. The Matt pilots seemed unafraid and arrogant.

“We are the Tall People from Earth destroying your space craft up there. We destroyed your bases and we will destroy this base and all of you unless you give it to us, now!” VIN ordered.

The six pilots turned and ran for the command center, as a robot suddenly headed towards them from the same area. With ease VIN and Mars halted it in its tracks with two laser bursts.

As the pilots ran for cover, there was a bright light from above and as the cavern door to outer space closed, pieces of spacecraft bounced off the blue shield roof above them. VIN and Mars couldn’t run in their suits, so they headed for cover in-between the three spacecraft sitting ready for launch.

Two more robots on what looked like riding tank tracks headed out from the command center area, VIN and Mars didn’t hesitate, and whatever these robots were, melted to a halt.

Suddenly they knew what the Matts were doing, as the blue shields, five of them covering the cavern began to get smaller. These Matts didn’t understand that the enemy wore real spacesuits.

The two men waited until the blue shields had totally disappeared and then VIN walked towards where he knew the cavern door opener was and pushed the red panel. The large cavern door began to open.

“All astronauts, it seems we have an inside conflict between Mars and me, and the remaining Matts. Mars and I are going to try and fly out two of their ships. The blue shield is gone. They are trying to kill us by retracting the atmosphere. Do not, I repeat do not engage any future enemy ships exiting the open cavern with no blue shield, over.”

“We copy that Mars. I’ll relay your message to the mother ship and SB-V.” replied Maggie. “We have one bogey left up here, and we’ll await your exit. There are no other exit places we have seen from up here, over.”

“I wonder what those little robots do?” Mars asked VIN as he opened the underfloor door to one of the three Matt ships.

“I learned a long time ago never to ask a Rottweiler, or a Pit Bull whether he is going to bite me or not,” replied VIN doing the same. “I bet they either bite or fry you.”

“What is a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull?” asked Mars getting into the forward cockpit and closing the door and its attached flight seat he was sitting in. As usual he was squashed into the forward cockpit, but, like his father, he had flown Matt ships for hundreds of hours, and these Ceres ships looked identical to the Earth Matt ships.

“An Earth dog,” replied VIN remembering that his son had lived much of his young life away from planet Earth.

“Using telepathic thought they warmed up the alcohol-driven Matt engines, and VIN noticed that the cavern door was closing above them. He turned the ship towards where he knew the command center to be and mentally fired his ship’s maser.

The whole cavern exploded into green, red and blue flashes of at looked like lightning bolts, and sparks flew everywhere. The wall where the command center was literally melted, part of the wall opened up, there were explosions behind the wall, and the door suddenly stopped moving.

Before the Matts could close them in, he launched and headed through the gap and out into the blackness of space as the cavern went pitch dark. Mars was a few seconds behind.

“Mars, land where we were dropped off by Saturn, then we go back in,” VIN ordered his son.

He brought his ship down, and within a minute had the door open and he was stepping out of the tight seat as Mars landed a hundred feet away.

This time, as they reached the surface gun platform there was no blue shield, but the hatch opened to let them in as VIN pulled it open manually.

“Leave your helmet light off. This time we go down in the dark,” VIN told Mars. “Son, you fly the third ship out and await my orders. I’ll check what is going on in there. VIN to Saturn, we have two of their ships parked where you let us out. There are no more enemy coming out of that hole in the ground apart from Mars. Just keep your eyes peeled for any other holes Metalman needs to destroy, over.”

Saturn stated that the flight crew above them were all standing by and circling, as the two men retraced the ladder back down into the base.

Within ten minutes Mars was leaving the cavern, and VIN headed towards the damage he had done to the base. It wasn’t a pretty sight. A dozen Matts were burned and littered around the command center floor with another three badly burned Matt bodies who looked much older and heavier than the others by the console.

The only light still on was the blinking door panel light to where the cryogenic chamber was in all the other bases. That meant that the power was still on and the base’s systems still working. Also there wasn’t a globe room in the place it was usually. The melted door a few feet from the destroyed part of the door led straight into the base.

There were outlines of several more what seemed like bodies strewn round in the forward section of the base as he peered through the broken door, and he saw the outline of one the tank-tracked robots waiting for him. The robot disappeared into sparks and the laser beam from VIN’s weapon turned it over on its side, but not before VIN noticed what looked like a tiny weapon the size of a school pencil sticking out of its tiny turret.

Suddenly the walls began to glow again, as if the system was rebooting itself. He checked his suit readout, and it showed little to no atmosphere in the area of the base. That meant that there were no Matts alive in the area he was in and he quickly checked the forward part of the base finding no more surprises. He opened the three storeroom doors on the rear wall, and since there was no air, they stayed shut.

None of the Matts could enter what was left of the command center, or the cavern, so VIN called it a victory. The base, or what was left of it was theirs, and he checked what worked on the command center’s console before he climbed out of the cavern, leaving the large roof door in the open position.

Chapter 21

One Giant Leap for Mankind

That was thirteen months ago, and VIN was now standing in the Blue Room of the White House in a new astronaut uniform the base in Nevada had put together for the occasion.

Twenty of the Astermine crew were also standing around the blue room eating snacks and carrying cups of coffee. It was already midday and lunch was to be served afterwards.

VIN and Suzi were chatting to the President and Vice President of the United States of America, and their spouses while news crews set up around the large room.

“What did you do then?” asked Penelope Pitt, the Vice President. She and her sister, who was standing next to her and the others had just returned from the burial.

Penelope, dressed in black, was in her eighth year as Vice President, and was looking forward to handing over the reins of leadership to the next Vice President.

The cold Washington weather was grey and snowy outside, and the room was aglow with light and conversation, and the warmth was appreciated.

Everybody had just returned from Arlington Cemetery, where four coffins had been lain to rest with full military honors.

It had taken a year to return, and the four members of Astermine were finally laid to rest. General Allen Saunders, Colonel Jamie Saunders, Captain Michael Pitt and Colonel Penny Pitt had been given everything the country could offer to be given in a full military burial.

“There wasn’t much left to do,” replied VIN Noble. “We wanted one of the ships to return to Nevada to figure out its maser system. We returned the other two back into the cavern for protection, and Vitalily and his Russian crew are still there bettering the base for future mining expeditions.”

“And there were no captives, or Matts alive?” The President asked VIN.

“We set the blue shields back up on our next visit 24 hours later, Madam President, and even before the atmosphere had returned to the cavern, we flew the two Matt ships in and several of us searched the base from top to bottom. The entire base was an exact copy of all the others except that it didn’t have a globe room. Why, there was nobody alive to ask, but there was never a Ceres globe in any of the Mars globe rooms. Maybe they didn’t consider it a planet or something. We know the cryogenic sleep chambers are occupied. We could tell from the operational fusion power system on the base’s third level. Otherwise the base was very short on supplies. Mars and I believed that the resupply of the Matt ships heading back to Europa had emptied the base of supplies.”

“And the ships had turned around once your attack as over?” the Vice President asked.

“Max told us 24 hours after the attack,” continued VIN. “The 160 ships had resumed their journey towards Europa. We actually got back into Earth’s orbit at the same time they disappeared around Europa.”

“The news crews are ready, we have 15 minutes” stated a lady coming up to the group.

The ceremony was to be televised throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and several other countries around the world. Martin Brusk and family were there, so was Mary Collins and hers. Mary Collins often wondered what it was like in the White House when her father was President. She hadn’t been born then

There were several world leaders and dignitaries in the Blue Room, and it was certainly a grand affair. The Australian Prime Minister was there, proud of his boys. They were to be given their country’s medals once they arrived back in Australia. Even the Chinese Premier was there as guest of the President, as well as his son, now proudly wearing an Astermine Astronaut-in-Training flight suit.

The hundred people or so sat, the Blue Room settled down, and the Vice President was introduced up to the podium.

“Today, my parents were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Captain Michael Pitt and Colonel Penny Anne Pitt had given all to their country from their teenage years. Both were former United States Air Force pilots, and both died from direct fire while fighting enemy forces out in the solar system while working for Astermine Co. General Allen Saunders and Colonel Jamie Saunders, former United States Air Force pilots also died in the same fight, and that battle gave us on Earth our first permanent base outside the limits of our planet, on Mars.

“Many astronauts have left our planet for Mars, I being one of those brats, and with my sister we both learned to fly spacecraft, and learned what living in space is all about. I have been to Mars, and Enceladus and Titan. So has our last President of The United States of America, President Joanne Dithers Roo, who gave eight years of her life to lead this country, and now lives on Mars.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” was stated on the lunar surface over 80 years ago by another famous American, Neil Armstrong, who with his competent team of astronauts: Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins was the first man to step on another body in our solar system. My parents also had a good team around them. So did Pluto Katherine and Shelly Saunders’ parents. We all had a fantastic team around us. Thanks to NASA, this country believing in future space travel, and Astermine, one day our children will travel across our solar system with as little thought we in Washington think today of flying to New York.

“Thanks to one man’s dream, one American’s dream to go to space has made this all happen for us and our children. Thanks to Ryan Richmond, born in the State of Nevada, we humans now have the opportunity to travel far and wide, do research, learn outside our borders, and mine other planets and the Asteroid Belt for the minerals and metals we desperately need here on Earth. Thanks to Ryan Richmond, and our crew of 500 living and deceased personnel at Astermine, we humans now have the chance to travel throughout our solar system.

“We already have a base on Mars, and a direct launch on a return flight every two years. We also have a regular flight to the Asteroid Belt and back every two years, to Ceres, where we as a planet can begin mining the asteroids for all the metals we need here on Earth. Thanks to the modern and comfortable Astermine ships, mining companies from around the world can get a ride to Ceres to setup their own mining operations. The United States and NASA, China, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan and France have already booked passage for the next Ceres flight seven months from now. Astermine has had over 290,000 queries from individuals and companies wanting to move to Mars, just in the last couple of months.

“Thanks to Astermine, seventeen companies here in the United States join another dozen companies in seven countries building spaceships for the next deployment of humans throughout our solar system. The new infrastructure Ryan Richmond has set up will be a $100 trillion industry in the next decade, all thanks to one man’s dream, and not letting others get in his way. Thanks to many people from around the world believing in this one man’s dream, we as a planet have entered into the space-era of future human existence.

“I would like to ask the President of the United States to join me, and my family, the crew of Astermine to come forward and to be presented with medals, civilian and military for the work they have done for our country, and our planet.”

The President of the United States of America gave out the posthumous medals first—the Air Force Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross Medal to the four recipients’ daughters.

Ryan Richmond received the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. His wife Kathy, also a former USAF pilot received with General John Jones standing on new metal legs, and his wife Colonel Maggie Jones the Air Force Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Many of the recipients were getting the medals for the second time.

Former Marine Lieutenant VIN Noble received the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross.

The rest of the Astermine crew, including Suzi Noble, Igor, and Boris received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Both Richmond daughters received this medal, as did Vice President Pitt and her sister Hillary, along with Pluto Jane Saunders, her sister Shelley, Jane and Jenny Burgos, Captain Pete, Dr. Nancy and Dr. Smidt.

A couple more medals were still due to be given out to the crew who were not on Earth that day, and afterwards once the news teams had left they all headed in for an informal White House lunch.

Both Jonesy and VIN were interested in what the fancy drinks the White House would serve them for lunch. It was fancy all right, but they both raised their eyebrows when they were told. Funny enough, everything offered as wine for lunch had been made on Mars, thanks to Suzi.

“I bet we are having chocolate cake for desert,” mused Jonesy loudly slapping his partner on the back.

Epilogue

The Martian Club Retreat

The first base built by Astermine on the red planet was reopened on the next visit by America Two. An American/Chinese company had leased the base for four years to do research of mostly biological and chemical tests. The team of ten were to be resupplied by America Two on the next visit. It was the first time these two countries had worked together for many decades.

Two new members from Martin Brusk’s development headquarters in Silicon Valley joined the team on the second visit by the mother ship two years later with an invited team of four Russian scientists.

Unfortunately, the distance from Mattville was too far for a subway connection, but the base received one of Martin Brusk’s new robotic Planet Hybrid Delivery Craft, or PHDCs with Martin’s two new crewmembers. This electric space-hybrid spaceship the size of a small Cessna was flown by robotic pilots, could fly two crew to Mattville, load up with supplies and return in 24 hours. The supply craft shared one of the two shields as a garage, and both outer blue shields were directly connected to the recently rebuilt and much larger silicone-glass see-through porch on the front of the base.

The outer shields, connected to the porch used much of the stored top soil from the base as a green vegetation area for the biologists and some say raucous parties could have been heard from the outer porch on occasions, if there was a real atmosphere. Nobody knew what being grown inside, or outside on the plateau, but the blue shields were very busy growing all sorts of green stuff.

After four years, the scientists left, their experiments complete, the blue shields remained as a parking area and the base was purchased and turned into the solar system’s first ever “Bed and Breakfast”.

An about-to-be famous thirty-foot long bar was built in the new Porch which gave customers beautiful vistas of the Martian scenery, and the spacecraft detailing service in the parking shields where space travelers often had their windshields cleaned before heading the last few hundred miles into Mattville. It was rumored that The Martian Club Retreat had been purchased from Astermine Co, for one U.S. dollar.

Many also say that a holograph of a well decorated astronaut was the focal point behind the bar. The astronaut was dressed in full space suit attire, with a helmet in the crook of the astronaut’s right arm, and the holograph proudly stared up into the heavens.

There were two graves outside the retreat on the plateau, and one day a holograph of Earth flowers appeared at the head of both graves. The fifty-foot high holograph was so beautiful, visitors enquired about being buried here. Unfortunately it was a private cemetery and public burial access was not allowed.

Even though the cemetery grew around the first two graves, more, even larger holographs appeared over time, the lights from the private burial ground could be viewed from a low orbit, and the cemetery was renamed “The Place of Earth Flowers”.

Over time, the cemetery became enclosed, the holographs were moved outside and inside the expensive and large silicone-glass dome building, a blue shield was installed, a power system was added and atmosphere became a permanent fixture.

Anybody visiting the Retreat’s famous bar could rent a spacesuit and walk through the dozens of holographs of flowers around the building, or aimlessly walk through the gravestones inside, and see the cemetery’s internal blue beauty. “The Place of Earth Flowers” became an added attraction for many a visiting space traveler.

Some people even say that The Martian Club Retreat was the secret headquarters for “ASS”, the largest illegal contraband company in the entire solar system, but that must have been just hearsay.

Mattville

Max Von Braun officially became Mayor of Mattville on the first delivery of supplies from Earth two years after the war ended. A decree from Ryan Richmond and a vote of confidence by the inhabitants gave him his first four-year term as mayor.

Dave Black returned with the first supply ship as Astermine’s new Head of Security to return with the first load of valuable ingots back to earth.

With the mother ship’s first arrival came 50 new permanent residents and dozens of new robots of all sorts.

A year later, the first and semi-destroyed landing cavern “Welcome Station” was nearing completion for shuttle flight arrivals and departures. It had an eight-foot thick wall of gold around the walls that was so smooth that a space pioneer could see one’s face in its gold’s reflection.

The mining robots had worked for 12 solid months and over 48 tons of gold had been smelted to pretty up the one and only official Astermine entrance to Mars. Many visitors mentioned that it could one day be the most valuable spaceport in the whole solar system.

The large and newly laid cavern door above was being crafted from the stocks of Rare Earth metals, and one of Astermine’s cargo shuttles could land in the cavern through the blue shield, and the cavern door close over it. They had copied the design from the still-working Matt door on Ceres.

America Two in orbit 90 miles above the red planet was unloaded and reloaded by the old, and refurbished mining ships Astermine I and II, the work ships she had returned with. Exactly 6,400 one–foot cubed ingots, the equivalent of 400 Earth tons of metal of all types were loaded into her cargo bays.

“Welcome Station” as it was now called was the first area of civilization on Mars visitors would see when they landed, and was designed by the inhabitants to be far prettier than any airport or subway station on Earth.

“Welcome Station” also became the beginning of the “Martian Line” two years later.

The new track wound around the flight apron and one could disembark from the arriving shuttle from one of Astermine’s mother ships, go through customs, enter the Subway station, and then travel with their baggage to any of the other three stops on the line—Mattville I, II, and III.

Dr. Smidt had brought the original Martian Subway System on the earlier supply visit. The equipment included new titanium track, and a high-speed railcar that could complete the 3.5-mile distance to Mattville III’s own turn-around system in ten minutes without stops. With stops it took 30 minutes each way, and ran robotically.

The train itself was comprised of twelve individual two-seat compartments called bubbles where customers travelled in comfort without needing a spacesuit, and in a first class seat for the short ride. Behind the 12 bubbles was a larger caboose bubble for cargo, suitcases and pet cages.

Spacesuits were a thing of the past, apart from rental walking excursions outside the base for tourists.

Mattville I would soon become the vacation resort for the rich and famous of the solar system. The newly arrived robotic miners opened new areas, and everything was brought in by Dr. Smidt and his team to allow the base to grow and flourish.

Ruler Roo was the base’s Matt President, and worked closely with the base’s mayor to build a successful and vibrant society. Roo had his wife’s experience from her Washington days to back him up. The Roo’s even got their own antique Oval Office furniture, a gift from the new U.S. President, a man for the first time for many years.

The largest new system of transportation America Two brought with her on her first voyage was a barge. It arrived in a thousand pieces, and with a floating dock it was to be pieced together on the lake below the base.

Before it could be begun, another system arrived on the same delivery, from the company, Otis in the U.S. This was the first cargo elevator on Mars, and it took a year for the robots to dig a hole in the lava wall and the ever-growing build crew to install the massive 20 feet by 10 feet elevator to head down the one level to the lake.

They worked inside a blue shield while large amounts of air was pressurized into the underground cavern by a dozen new air-production systems also brought from earth in that cargo load.

On America Two’s next visit two years later, she carried 100 new permanent residents and the first 20 filthy rich tourists to Mattville. The barge was nearly ready and a few days later while the loading of another 6,400 ingots was underway, a team of four wearing the latest five-hour spacesuits headed out with GPS and across the vast underground lake.

During the first two years of air production by the machines the size of mini-vans on the level above, the air and pressure was only a quarter of what was needed for humans to breathe.

Radio contact was maintained and massive search lights swept the water as the 50-foot barge slowly crossed the Martian Sea for the first time. Max and Roo were both aboard, and Joanne had been left to run the planet incase they were eaten by space sharks.

Within an hour after crossing two miles of open water, they reached what looked like a beach. There were no waves, apart for the water ripples from the ship, and Ruler Roo was brave enough to be the first to be helped off the side of the barge, and stand on his new territory.

The gently rising beach was pure sand, a flamingo pink color in the searchlights from the barge, and the frontier crew walked across the fine sand a hundred feet before they reached a higher plateau about twenty feet above the water line. The cavern roof was still about fifty feet above their head as they stood on the flat plateau which was about a hundred yards at its widest point.

The crew walked the entire plateau, which seemed crescent moon shaped and they walked close to a half a mile before reaching either end, which connected the plateau to the beach below. The beach also ended here, and disappeared into the clear waters of the lake.

Then the boat then headed along the wall of the cavern taking four miles of travel before they arrived back at the floating platform, much to their relief.

The next day, and with more sightseers on board, including women and children, they encompassed the entire lake in four hours. The cavern was massive, and it would take at least eight more years, and more machinery to give a breathable atmosphere to the beautiful lava-sealed hole inside the Martian mountain.

Roo and Max gave their reports, and two dozen larger air machines arrived on the third visit as well as a thousand large tanks of air from earth.

The crew could do little until the air pressure rose, so they worked on Mattville II and III for those years.

Each base had its own power and air systems, and backups were added from the mother ship’s cargo bays.

The two old and still space-worthy Astermine mining ships were now based here in the second cavern, Astermine’s Space Headquarters where the remains of SB-III had long been cleared.

On Vitalily’s suggestion years earlier, Max and crew had looked for any tunnels where the Matt spaceships could have been stored, and only found one hangar after days of searching. The spacecraft hangar was nearly 100 yards long and, opening the door wearing spacesuits, they found a fully operational Matt ship inside, right at the rear of the tunnel that could have stored at least 30 craft.

America Two also arrived on her third visit with another 100 new residents and 200 extremely wealthy tourists who would stay in the comfortable base until the mother ship returned to take them home in 18 months. A much older-looking Martin Brusk and his entire family finally made it to Mars, in style.

Mattville III became the health oasis of the solar system. Again it was rumored that the third section of the underground base had been purchased for one U.S. dollar.

Here tourists and crew alike could be given medical wellbeing in beautiful disgustingly luxurious conditions. Patients were pampered, every luxury and need catered for. Even the center’s focal point “The Fruit and Salad Bar” made of old redwood from Earth was a bar counter as long as the Retreat’s external unit.

As America Two visited every couple of years, equipment by the ton was shipped in. New shuttles arrived and docked onto the mother ship which helped carry the equipment down, and the ingots up.

Max Von Braun served 12 years as mayor before he died peacefully in his sleep. He was actually overnighting at the Martian Club Retreat with President Roo for a weekend’s “ASS” member’s only, poker game and had just been shuttled in by the Retreat’s limousine shuttle service when he passed away.

Thanks to Mayor Max von Braun, Mattville had become a vibrant town of 3,500 permanent inhabitants, 300 scientists, and enough accommodations to look after 1,500 wealthy tourists at a time for their 18-month vacations.

With the help of many crews who had come and gone, there were large areas of underground farms, and much of the unused facilities the Matts had kept spacecraft and supplies in, were now private businesses including beer and wine production, rare earth metal, gold statues and artwork, clothing manufactures and many luxury products found on Earth as well.

What Max didn’t live long enough to see, was the fourth station of the Martian subway station finally completed. That took another year before it came on line extending the subway system another three miles ending at the Martian Lake’s beach and vacation accommodations.

Ruler Roo called the subway station “Station Max” after the mayor, and once it was completed growth erupted around the lake’s beach area. Here Martian tourism grew faster than in Las Vegas, was prettier, and within two decades of man living on Mars, was the one place to see the really rich and famous at play.

Unfortunately the water was far too cold to swim in, but pools of hot water graced the beaches and the public could hit the hot water pools first, then freeze themselves in the clear fresh waters of the Martian Sea.

Max Von Braun joined others, happily buried at the Martian Club Retreat Cemetery. He never returned to be given his medal from an appreciative American President, but it somehow appeared next to his gravestone less than a year after his passing.

Ceres Base

Vitalily and his crew spent the first year repairing and bringing the Ceres Matt supply base back online. With constant communications, all the crews of Astermine worked together to better their bases.

Money wasn’t a problem once America Two returned to Earth with its first cargo from Mattville.

America Three arrived twice in the first 30 months with 800 tons of equipment for Ceres Base. With her came a new crew of fifty builders on her first visit who would take over from Vitalily and his team while they vacationed back on Earth for a year.

Included in the cargo manifest were tons of the latest asteroid mining tools, systems, and supplies, and dozens of robots. Eight new cold fusion plants and eight new air-production plants arrived as well, and the larger crew, with designs from Astermine in Nevada, began to turn the small mining supply base into the Mining Mecca of the Asteroid Belt as it is known today.

America Three could do an out and return flight to Ceres every 14 months, due to the dwarf planet’s weird orbit, and where Mattville grew in beauty, Base Ceres grew in ugliness.

A mining base didn’t need to be pretty, but it did need to have the basic requirements of a center for miners and workers, for work and for play.

Eight new large spaceship caverns, with roof doors, were mined out. These didn’t have solid gold walls, but had the pretty pastel-colored Ceres rock walls much like the rest of the Matt supply base. Each of these caverns was to be rented out to a mining company, or a country wanting to base themselves on the dwarf planet.

It was a weird design but each of the caverns had been designed like a spider with eight legs and the legs were half mile-long tunnels which led to the central base the Nobles had captured during the Battle of Ceres.

These eight new caverns had their own spaceport cavern, crew accommodations including apartments, barracks, kitchens, and mining storage warehouses. But whatever the company needed from central storage shipped in by America Three’s shuttles, had to be walked through “The Ceres Bar and Grill” and its famous 70-foot long Redwood bar counter to get down to the supply rooms, shops, leasing agents, and the planet’s command center beneath the large establishment.

Again there was a holograph of a famous astronaut nobody, apart from the initial crew and a few others had ever heard of, behind the bar. The bar and grill was the focal point for fun and relaxation after a hardworking year or more out on an asteroid somewhere.

Vitalily and his guys didn’t like their vacation on Earth very much, the gravity was too hard on their old bones and gave them aches and pains, so they returned to Ceres. The aging Russian returned to run the Astermine part of the operations leasing out equipment and robots, as well as running the “The Ceres Bar and Grill” and living a life of luxury as an original “ASS” member.

It took a couple of visits by America Three before the whole base was full of international miners. Over 15,000 mining crews from eight companies and or countries were based on Ceres and worked hard using Astermine-leased small shuttles to head out to neighboring asteroids.

A year or two after the base was full, America Three wasn’t the only spaceship plying these routes. The first Chinese mining ship arrived with the Chinese Premier’s teenage son as Bridge Commander. A second ship, a Russian mining ship arrived a month later following America Three. Onboard were two of Astermine’s third-generation Astronauts commanding the large vessel.

All the pilots seemed to know each other and were old friends. They often called Vitalily, Grandpa, and soon their numbers increased when Martin Brusk’s three large mining vessels arrived a week later, also with commanders whom many of the first astronauts knew.

Ceres was a really busy base, far nosier than Mars would ever be, apart from “The Martian Club Retreat”, and you never knew who you could meet drinking at “The Ceres Bar and Grill.”

Vitalily, did receive his medal when he returned to Earth for his one and only vacation. He also fished for a few weeks with the ever-growing fishing fleet out of Australia, and he had asked, when the time came, to be buried next to his best friend Max.

He was buried a few months after Max had checked in. An unknown spaceship, very modern and very fast, carried his body, and the bodies of his crew members, one by one, to the famous and beautiful burial site, nearly as famous as Arlington in Virginia.

Base Nevada

Astermine and crew continued their design and development in Nevada once Ryan and his wife retired.

Dr. Smidt had as much work to do as before his boss’s retirement. The good doctor did not enjoy fishing, got sea sick at the mention of a boat, but like many had been happiest flying in the comforts of zero gravity.

But, he had a job to do, and as a German he wanted to finish a lifetime’s work before he passed on. Dr. Smidt was quickly becoming the oldest member of the crew. Many of his teachers and mentors had passed on, and he wanted to finish their work too. Now that Mars and Ceres were bases to be built, he talked to both Max and Vitalily daily to get new ideas and designs drawn up for what the two men needed.

Ryan had left the running of Nevada base to Dr. Smidt. Igor and Boris, who like the doctor weren’t that excited about fishing, or sunbathing on an empty island somewhere, and all three got down to work. They didn’t know anything else, and they had been given to reigns to run the whole conglomerate called Astermine Co.

Base Nevada grew rapidly once America Two arrived back with its first cargo load of ingots. New machine shops grew out of thin air. New designs for new ships sprung off the drawing boards, and were within a few years, real ships.

The designs of tiny Astermine I and II were bettered and new self-contained long-term livable mining ships came to fruition. Even larger ships would be their resupply vessels for the manned mining ships, and nearly everything in supplies was robotically flown. New Astermine shuttles were designed and became the robotic fighters of space. The larger shuttles Martin Brusk’s company built became robotic cargo haulers or robotic fighters, as needed.

Also Franklin’s fuel efficient plasma thrusters were produced for the next decade by the hundreds, as fast as Astermine’s development needed them. Astermine and Martin Brusk had exclusivity for these engines for 25 years, and no other space company could build ships that were a third as fast or as fuel efficient as Astermine’s

Within four years of Ryan’s and Kath’s retirements, there was not one area of free ground left on Base Nevada Dr. Smidt managed to complete most of his work before he was buried next to his friends in the famous cemetery fifteen years later. He often visited The Martian Club retreat, his favorite place for “ASS” team poker and “The Ceres Bar and Grill” three times to captain and compete with the Earth “ASS” poker squad several times, often riding in the “ASS” Chairman’s private space shuttle.

By the time he retired at 94, there were many of his old friends already in attendance at the beautifully designed and laid out underground cemetery on Mars.

Ryan and Kathy Richmond

Ryan never went into orbit again. As he said himself, he was too old, he had done his time in zero gee, and the door to the solar system was open for everyone. He and Kathy wanted no more space travel. Together they had flown several billion miles, and had, had enough.

The island in Australia was where Ryan and Kathy relaxed. They had everything they wanted, thanks to the Australian Government, which received its fair share of cargo arriving every couple of years from Mars, and then from Ceres once Astermine began to purchase the raw asteroid ore from the two private companies on the planet who only had an interest in mining for money, and not the metals.

On every second flight to Mars, America Three joined her sister since there was far more cargo to return from Mars than Ceres, and under command of the Richmond sisters and their husbands, both ships travelled with full cargo holds to the red planet and back returning with thousands of tons of fine treasure.

Apart from one other ship, they were the only ships allowed to return with mostly the Rare Earth metals, and lesser amounts of gold. The silver metals always went up in value, but more than 40 tons of pure gold imported at any one time reduced the world’s value of the yellow metal down by sizeable amounts.

Kathy refused to travel anywhere apart from into retirement, and made sure her husband did the same. It took a year of planning and giving out Ryan’s workload to others, but a year after they had lunch in Washington, they made their home in a beautiful new house on Astermine Island.

Ryan headed back to Base Nevada every now and again for the second year. His last visit was to see the shuttles bringing down the ingots of metal from Mattville II. Martin had joined him on the trip, after Ryan was flown in to Tel Aviv by his new robotically flown private jet.

Like many of the OldGeners, Ryan and Kathy also retired from flying. Even VIN who was far younger than Ryan believed that he was too old to fly, and this job was left to the NextGens.

With Ryan and Kathy went many others of the old crew back to the island. Ryan had again handed out retirement packages, the rest of the diamonds and gold from the cavern below the airfield, and payments from the ingots they had brought back.

Only the very large basketball diamonds remained in the near empty secret cavern underground. There was no market for these, and unbeknown to Ryan would become very valuable sometime in the distant future.

Ryan and Kathy spent much time with the OldGeners as each one decided in which direction to go for retirement.

Bob Mathews was now in his last year or two of fishing. So were Beth and Monica and Bob always joked that his boat was full of geriatric fossils wanting to catch the next big one.

Jonesy and Maggie built a new house on the island. So did VIN and Suzi, but fishing had been their wanted retirement hobby for a few decades now and once Jonesy got what he wanted out of his old boss over a dozen private meetings, headed out with Maggie, VIN and Suzi to plow the fishing grounds shown to them by Bob and his crew.

In their third year of retirement they returned just once to Nevada, were shocked at the growth the base had seen. It wasn’t recognizable anymore, and they scampered back to the peace and quiet of the island. They had left the growth of Astermine to Dr. Smidt, Igor and Boris, and they never went back to space, until both were ready to visit the place on Mars people were dying to get into.

Lunar flew five more flights to Mars and back before she retired at the grand age of 41. Lunar Richmond and her husband returned to the island to spend time with her aging parents. Her husband, Michael Price was also close to his family. Lunar’s son James Richmond Price became America Two’s second commander.

Pluto Katherine and Gary Darwin lasted 6 flights before they retired to the island and allowed Lunar’s second son Mark to become America Three’s Commander for the next twenty years, until both ships were taken out of service due to new, faster and larger ships supplying the ever-growing solar system.

Like their grandparents and parents, a special place on Mars became their resting place many years later, transported there by their sons and daughters. The Richmond family had their special family area in the resting place of all past, present, and future Astermine Astronauts.

The Astermine Crew

With the return to earth, the end of the war of the worlds, many of Astermine’s crew called it a day going to space. Only the dedicated astronauts, astro-biologists and physicists, and others who liked zero gee kept launching into the large black vacuum of a growing society.

Pluto Jane Saunders loved teaching and became the Director of the Astronaut Training School on Nevada Base. Her best friend Hillary Pitt flew with America Two a few times with her friends Lunar and Michael, then joined Pluto Jane to teach.

With the two very competent astronauts in command of the “The Astermine Astronaut Training School” several years later, commissioned many new astronauts every year from many different countries.

Penelope Pitt retired from politics and spent the rest of her life with her family in California where she kept in contact with her old friends and was one of the few who was buried on Earth. She and her best friend’s sister Shelly Saunders purchased a wine farm, and often had competitions on which planet produced the best wines.

Dr. Rogers and Nurse Martha spent the rest of their lives together lecturing about space-medicine at John Hopkins University before joining Ryan and Kathy Richmond on the island for a peaceful last few years.

Dr. Nancy and Captain Pete enjoyed their island home, theirs the first of 37 houses on Astronaut Avenue, which grew around the hill overlooking the main beach of the island and just south of the marina.

Captain Pete gave up trying to produce the world’s first blue shield. It took Homo sapiens another decade after his death to finally achieve the captain’s work. Dr. Nancy visited the Nevada Base Medial Center a couple of times, and was a guest lecturer at John Hopkins a few times. Other than that, they enjoyed each other’s company, their neighbors and were of the many who one day retired to another planet, laying with the Rogers at the Retreat.

Bob Mathews went to space on his last flight and beat Beth and Monica to their resting places on the red planet by a decade. He was taken up by the son of a good friend and placed in his resting digs by a couple of youngsters he had helped teach to fly.

Igor and Boris did not outlast Dr. Smidt, and they were taken up to the red planet aboard the mother ship they had helped design as young men, America Two. They died within a year of each other, and headed up on the same flight. They were some of the early colorful holograph residents outside The Martian Club Retreat. They helped build Base Nevada to become the largest space technological center in the world, and enjoyed what they were doing to the very end.

The Pig’s Snout became a retreat for Matts returning on the flights to vacation on Earth. Ruler Roo’s mother looked after the temple long after her husband’s death, and was buried in the same place she was born, many centuries later. She lived longer than all of the Homo sapiens she had met on her travels.

Roo, Joanne and the boys visited her twice before Joanne joined the gang at the Retreat.

The Matts lived longer than the Tall People and Ruler Roo ran Mattville until his son took over from him a century after the launch of the base. He lived out his years teaching young Matts about Homo Floresiensis and Homo sapiens, Earth Matts and Europa Matts, and making sure that the history of the Earth Matts was never forgotten.

Mattville changed much over time and during Ruler Roo’s later years. He saw many come and go. He watched as generations of NextGeners became adults and commanded expeditions and odysseys deep into the solar system. Roo made many pilgrimages to The Martian Club Retreat to visit his old friends, and play poker, and saw much of the new world where people travelled the entire solar system, fought new wars, met old adversaries, and made new friends, but that is another story.

Jones

It took Jonesy a year before he got comfortable walking around like his partner. With Maggie’s help he was pretty confident standing when the President of The United States pinned the same medals on him that he had received from an earlier President.

Jonesy told the Vice President that day that he and Maggie were retiring from running around the solar system without alcoholic beverages, and that the Vice President should retire and spend the rest of her life with her family. That was something Penelope’s parents Michael and Penny Pitt would have liked, and he had a great plan for her in California.

Maggie described how proud her parents were of Penelope, and her sister, as Allen and Jamie were proud of their daughters, and when the Vice President asked about Saturn’s future, the Joneses replied that she was already extremely busy, and that was all they said.

The Gulfstream was put into the Astermine Museum in Nevada. Nobody flew such antiquated aircraft anymore, and the yellow aircraft was placed under the wing of the still white “Dead Chicken” each aircraft having the names of its pilots on a plaque for visitors to see. There were also red and silver vintage cars in perfect condition in the museum, old military vehicles, and whole and parts of famous spaceships, returned from space.

As it grew, decades later the large establishment where Hangar Two once stood, became a well-visited museum which held extremely valuable antiques.

Fishing was the order of the day once Jonesy had a dozen very long orderly chats with his old boss back on the island. Over drinks, and as usual General John Jones demanded this and that, and many which made Ryan smile and feel young again. Life without Jonesy would have been very boring in space.

Ryan didn’t really care anymore, his daughters and trusted employees ran Astermine, and he granted Jonesy all his wishes. He signed any papers Jonesy wanted from him, and as he left the last discussion, he watched and smiled happily, as his mischievous ex-Chief Astronaut walked out on the latest robotic legs headed over to continue his discussions with Saturn and Mars Noble, and had a solar system-sized plan ahead of him.

In return, Ryan’s last wish was to be buried with his family on the other side of the Retreat’s cemetery, not the side Jonesy and the rest of his society’s members would be buried in the future.

Noble

VIN and Suzi were younger than most of the others, and enjoyed many years of traveling the waters of the world.

The Noble family was entwined to the Jones family by marriage, and that lasted far into the future. VIN often remembered his younger years and often Suzi was told of the antics he and his partner got up to before they became astronauts. Suzi baked her famous chocolate cake whenever neighbors came over and now named her cake “Rose’s Chocolate Cake”. It had taken her a long time to get over the death of her best friend on America One.

VIN and Suzi enjoyed fishing with Jonesy and Maggie and tied up at all their old watering holes and haunts like the Seychelles to reminisce about the old days.

Thanks to VIN and two more visits into space, much of the work of the future was begun, and then left to a very specialized group of younger astronauts

After a decade of nonstop space flight after VIN, even Mars and Saturn took it easy and moved in close to them on the island.

VIN and Jonesy always knew with a smile why all their grandsons were so busy. They did really miss them, but life’s too good to worry about all the youngsters’ futures. They were already doing far better than they ever had. Also, the grandkids always visited them when they visited Earth.

VIN and Suzi Noble had never asked for much, had enjoyed their work, had many stories to tell their great grandchildren, and enjoyed every day together for the rest of their lives.

Astermine’s Secret Society (ASS)

For many of the crew the story didn’t end there. Friendships and alliances had always blossomed on the long space voyages, and often many topics were discussed that would have been discussed on planet Earth.

Many of the early discussions had to do with the consumption or production of alcohol. During the days that Ryan, or the astronaut’s wives ordered a dry ship on the long space journeys, Astermine’s Secret Society strengthened.

First, it was called the “Allegiance of Space Travelers”, then “The Odyssey Society”, then “The Drinker’s Code” when they secretly met in Ryan’s office aboard America One, the same office Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy nursed back to Earth. Thanks to ASS there were always secret stashes of luxury food and drink for secret meetings in the office. Dr. Nancy did thank ASS’s Chairman, once only for their lives. They wouldn’t have made it if Captain Pete wasn’t a knowledgeable member and knew what was hidden where.

Nobody really knew who actually formed the society first, but all the blame was put on one man. In the beginning less than a handful of the crew knew about “The Club” as it was often called.

Most of the crew on the Bridge of America One certainly didn’t know about this secret society of space travelers, and only when the solar system got its communications back did this organization really flourish.

Initial meetings were often toasted with forbidden alcohol in the ship’s engine rooms. Then when Mr. Rose joined as an active member, much to the surprise of many, many meetings were then held in his office. Here they tapped the new brews, and monthly production. Taste meeting were held to better the production quality, and Suzi never knew that many of the people around her belonged to this forbidden type of society.

The members were of different nationalities and tribes. There were tall and short members, and each one took the secret oath, never to give up on the others in the group.

Suzi often had thoughts that her husband could belong to a group like this. He was caught with others in the office one time when Kathy Richmond banned alcohol for months aboard the mother ship. What put Suzi off the scent, was that Ryan himself was caught, and he would never belong to any club, or immature boy’s thing!

Maggie often discussed their husband’s plight and childish misdeeds with her girlfriends. Suzi often mentioned that anything was possible with this bunch of misfits, but Maggie never knew about the society. Nor did any of the other wives, or many of the male astronauts.

Allen Saunders or Michael Pitt were never members, but Mars Noble was a member before he was even old enough to drink, thanks to his then girlfriend Saturn who as the only female member of the society, was the gofer at the time.

Vitalily was the third initial member of the group, Dave Black was next who brought young Max Von Braun into the fold, who finally persuaded Mr. Rose who was offered a lifetime honorary membership, which the man gracefully accepted. Others also became important members. Dr. Smidt took years, but he finally joined after a raucous party at The Martian Club Retreat one very late night when the rest of the crew were asleep. Martin Brusk was the only non-space traveler member, and he was invited due to his enjoying a few with the club members secretively one night at the Pig’s Snout. One of the more interesting members was Roo, who became an honorary board member once he partook in alcoholic beverages. He became the Society’s third chairman many years later and thanks to him the society continued long after the underground retirement of many of its initial members. His son took the Astermine’s Secret Society into the next century as Fourth Chairman further than his father had done. But again that is another story.

VIN, the second member, enlisted the Captain of the mother ship, and youngest member of the group ever to be part of the Society, his grandson at the age of seven. Little Mikey Noble had a lifetime of success working inside the secret society and became its second Chairman once its one and only honorary chairman finally stepped down once he had organized the new solar system and had really retired.

Thanks to ASS’s first chairman, The Sammy Davis Junior Bar and Grill was a rousing success in Base Nevada, and with its one-piece 50-foot Redwood bar counter.

The Martian Club retreat was purchased from Ryan for one U.S. dollar. The very successful massive 300 seat “Sinatra Club” with its 60-foot Redwood bar counter in Mattville I was organized by the Mattville’s new mayor. So was the very expensive 25-foot “Fruit and Juice Bar” in Mattville III’s medical center organized by the traveling suppliers Mars and Saturn Noble, and it didn’t sell juice.

The Ceres Bar and Grill was one of the Society’s best investments, and millions were made from the thirsty asteroid miners who spent much of their earnings in this establishment.

These are only the beginnings of a hundred famous stops around the solar system. They flourished and became the “steps” around the solar system. Even real aliens and even a space shark or to were said to drink in them now and again.

Liquid supplies, casino machines, dancing girls, and anything space travelers wanted were shipped in very modern secret space ships made in California by a very famous motor car and spaceship company. Cargoes of up to 40 tons flew into and between the society’s establishments, and at all times cargoes of 40 tons of gold or Rare Earth metals were shipped back to earth in ships far faster than Astermine had ever had.

Sometimes three flights could be achieved to Mars each Opposition and many more to Ceres where the miners were really thirsty, and badly in need of entertainment.

Astermine’s Secret Society gave back to Astermine in many ways. There were always secret supplies stashed away on long voyages by its members, for its members. The cemetery at The Martian Club Retreat was a giving, benevolent part of the society, and strangely enough the resting place of all of its members, and many non-members. Even the society’s only Earth Member was buried in the cemetery years later.

Much is still secret what this very powerful solar system-spread society did over time, its foundations, its simple decree, its growth, its famous members, and how Astermine’s Secret Society ran the entire solar system for centuries to come, but that is another story.

Books by the Author

The Book of Tolan Series (Adult Reading)

Banking, Beer & Robert the Bruce —Hardcover and eBook

Easy Come Easy Go —Hardcover and eBook

It Could Happen —eBook draft format only

AMERICA ONE Series (General Reading)

AMERICA ONE —eBook, Paperback and Audiobook

AMERICA ONE II, The Launch —eBook, Paperback and Audiobook

AMERICA ONE III, The Odyssey —eBook and Paperback

AMERICA ONE IV, Return to Earth —eBook and Paperback

AMERICA ONE V, NextGen —eBook

AMERICA ONE VI, NextGen II—eBook (May 2014)

AMERICA ONE VII, War of the Worlds—eBook (September 2014)

INVASION USA Series (General Reading)

INVASION USA I: The End of Modern Civilization —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA II: The Battle for New York —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA III: The Battle for Survival —eBook and Paperback

INVASION USA IV: The Battle for Houston … The Aftermath —eBook and Paperback

The Banker’s Club (Teenagers and Adults)

The Banker’s Club I: Defaults —eBook

The Banker’s Club II: Acquisitions —eBook (February 2014-15)

The Banker’s Club III: Withdrawals —eBook (April 2014-15)

About the Author

T I WADE was born in Bromley, Kent, England, in 1954.

His father, a banker, was promoted with his international bank to Africa, and the young family moved to Africa in 1956.

The author grew up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and his life there is humorously described in his novel, EASY COME EASY GO, Volume II of the Book of Tolan series. Once he had completed his mandatory military commitments, at 21 he left Africa to mature in Europe.

He enjoyed Europe and lived in three countries, England, Germany and Portugal, for 15 years before returning to Africa, Cape Town, in 1989.

Here the author owned and ran a restaurant, a coffee manufacturing and retail business, flew a Cessna 210 around desolate southern Africa and finally got married in 1992.

Due to the upheavals of the political turmoil in South Africa, the Wade family of three moved to the United States in 1996. Park City, Utah, was where his writing career began.

To date, T I Wade has written fifteen novels.

The author, his wife and two teenage children currently live 20 miles south of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Go back to Contents

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 The Reunion

Chapter 2 The Briefing and Return to Earth.

Chapter 3 Ryan Richmond Takes Over Command of Astermine Co.

Chapter 4 Visit to China

Chapter 5 Mission Four to Mars

Chapter 6 Lots of Gold

Chapter 7 Mars Underground

Chapter 8 Oh Hi!

Chapter 9 A New Home for Many

Chapter 10 A New Plan

Chapter 11 Return to Earth

Chapter 12 Earth and America Three

Chapter 13 Israel, Mars Attacked and New Engines

Chapter 14 A New Revelation or Two

Chapter 15 War of the Worlds—Act One

Chapter 16 War of the Worlds—Act Two

Chapter 17 The Other Half of Mattville

Chapter 18 War of the Worlds–Act Three

Chapter 19 The Secret Base

Chapter 20 War of the Worlds—Act Four—Ceres

Chapter 21 One Giant Leap for Mankind

Epilogue The Martian Club Retreat

Mattville

Ceres Base

Base Nevada

Ryan and Kathy Richmond

The Astermine Crew

Jones

Noble

Astermine’s Secret Society (ASS)

Books by the Author

About the Author

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 The Reunion

Chapter 2 The Briefing and Return to Earth.

Chapter 3 Ryan Richmond Takes Over Command of Astermine Co.

Chapter 4 Visit to China

Chapter 5 Mission Four to Mars

Chapter 6 Lots of Gold

Chapter 7 Mars Underground

Chapter 8 Oh Hi!

Chapter 9 A New Home for Many

Chapter 10 A New Plan

Chapter 11 Return to Earth

Chapter 12 Earth and America Three

Chapter 13 Israel, Mars Attacked and New Engines

Chapter 14 A New Revelation or Two

Chapter 15 War of the Worlds—Act One

Chapter 16 War of the Worlds—Act Two

Chapter 17 The Other Half of Mattville

Chapter 18 War of the Worlds–Act Three

Chapter 19 The Secret Base

Chapter 20 War of the Worlds—Act Four—Ceres

Chapter 21 One Giant Leap for Mankind

Epilogue The Martian Club Retreat

Mattville

Ceres Base

Base Nevada

Ryan and Kathy Richmond

The Astermine Crew

Jones

Noble

Astermine’s Secret Society (ASS)

Books by the Author

About the Author