“Waddya mean? You ain’t having it.”
“You can use grain for so many different things in a kitchen.”
“What are you? Some kind of closet chef or something?” Junkyard man was sweating.
“Let’s assume you have an antimatter generator I want to see it before I trade for it.”
“What have you got to trade with me? A couple of bottles of this Earth shit ain’t gonna be enough.”
Jethro knew that. But he also knew that his two bottles of ‘Earth shit’ were just enough to cloud Junkyard man’s thought processes.
“What would you say if I told you I can get you as much alcohol as you can you drink for the rest of your life.”
Junkyard man leaned forward. “How in the hell can you do that?” Sceptical but definitely interested, Jethro had found his weakness.
“I want to see the antimatter generator.”
“If I had one and I show it to you. You could kill me and take it.”
Jethro was getting tired of messing around. “I could kill you now and find your antimatter generator using a detector.”
Which I haven’t got but I’m not going to tell you that.
Jethro stood up. “If the alcohol is of no interest to you, we’ll leave you in peace.”
As Jethro and the Gunny reached the door.
“Wait. As much as I can drink you say.” Junkyard man wiped his lips with a cloth and then took another swig. He had finished the first bottle and unscrewed the cap on the second bottle. “Where from?”
“Show me the antimatter generator.”
“Oh fuck it, we’re all gonna be killed by aliens soon anyway. Follow me.”
They left the shack. Jethro asked Gunny to go and fetch Brains.
Junkyard man led them to a large metal container at the rear of the Junkyard. He scanned his eye and the door opened.
“In there.”
Brains had arrived with Gunny. “Brains take a look.”
As Brains entered, Jethro saw all the other stuff in the container. There were weapons, armour, and even a couple of hoverbikes. He suspected it was illegal for Junkyard man to have them but he didn’t say anything. Brains returned from the depths of the container.
“It’s an old model, one of the originals and slightly unstable.”
“Will it get us back to Earth?”
“It might. Or it might explode and kill us all.”
“Brains. I need you to make a decision on this. Can we use it? Yes or no?”
Brains didn’t answer immediately. She seemed to be calculating something in the Butterscotch coloured sky. Finally. “Yes, but…”
“No buts Brains. Do it to the best of your ability. OK?”
“Aye aye sir.”
“Oy?” Junkyard man. “Sorry to interrupt your love-in, but that has to be paid for first.”
“Calm down sir. Let me get a couple of things from my hoverbike and I’ll meet you back at your house.”
Junkyard man was muttering under his breath, but he appeared to accept the situation.
chapter 35
“So where’s my booze then?” Junkyard man was halfway down the second bottle of Soy wine.
“We have to make it.”
“What?”
“Moonshine,” said Jethro. “Have you never made Moonshine before?”
Junkyard man’s eyes lit up as he shook his head.
“Let’s go into your kitchen.” Jethro was surprised when he got into the kitchen area of the shack because it was clean and tidy. He had seen a bit of it when he observed Junkyard man making the tea and coffee earlier but he hadn’t noticed how clean and tidy it was.
“Wifey used to like it like this. Keep tidy it in case she comes back. Even though she ain’t.”
“Are you taking notes?” Jethro asked.
“Recording it.” Junkyard man pointed to a camera that Jethro didn’t notice.
Jethro first showed him how to make a simple alcoholic drink using fruit juice and yeast. “It’s important the fruit juice has no preservatives, or they will kill the yeast, and it’s the yeast that turns sugar into alcohol.”
“So no yeast, no alcohol?”
“That’s about it.”
“How come you know all this?”
“I’m a farm boy. All farmers on Earth know this. Alcohol is so expensive and restricted.”
Jethro made a few bottles using Apple juice, then put them in the refrigerator. Then he showed him how any vegetable juice could be used by adding sugar.
Finally he showed Junkyard man to make potato vodka.
“Boil potatoes and sugar for two to three hours until you get a liquid mess called mash. Strain the mash into bottles, add yeast. Cover bottles with a finger of latex glove with a pinprick hole in it for a valve, to release carbon dioxide as the liquid ferments. Let them ferment for three days or so. Distill it, cool it and drink it. Or better, distill it twice for better quality.”
Junkyard man had nearly finished the second bottle of Soy wine. It was a good job he was recording because after he had drunk the second bottle he wouldn’t remember much of what Jethro was showing him.
Jethro made a simple distiller from a large stainless steel pan, a large bowl filled with ice to act as a condenser on the top and a steamer insert and glass bowl to collect the condensed liquid. He also told Junkyard man about the temperatures.
“All of this is on the cloud if you can get to it.” Jethro wrote down the addresses.
He cleared up the mess he had made in the kitchen because Junkyard man was out of it. There were twelve bottles in the fridge plus another six fermenting in a cupboard. Jethro wheeled Junkyard man into his bedroom and lifted him out of the tracked wheel device and lay him on his bed.
Jethro felt his job was done and left some written instructions and closed the door of the shack as he left the airlock. He doubted Junkyard man would wait the few days to get a better brew but that was his choice. The aliens might not let him wait that long. He also locked the security gate on his way back to the ship.
“How’s it going Brains?”
“Not very well sir. The antimatter generator has a crack in it. I’m not sure how safe it is.”
“We have no choice Brains. Is there anything you can do to make it safe?”
“We’ve welded a case around it but it’s not tested or anything.”
“We can test it on our way back to Earth. How long until we’re ready?”
“We’re ready now sir.”
Gunny came into engineering. “Who’s going to fly this thing sir?”
“Unless anybody has any better ideas, me.”
“Have you flown one of these before?”
“No Gunny I haven’t. But I have flown a sim version on the Asteroid races game.”
Gunny Rock was shaking his head. Jethro saw Fraser mouthing something and he didn’t need to be able to lipread to know what it was.
“Gunny. Arrange for a check of the heat shielding for our re-entry to Earth and can somebody check there are parachutes and they’re good.”
Jethro received an OK on the checks.
“All hands to stations Gunny. We take off in fifteen minutes.”
Jethro went to the bridge, his bridge. However, the pride he had as he walked through the bridge doors was completely smashed by the time he reached the Captain’s chair, his Captain’s chair because there was no chair, it wasn’t there. He was going to have to sit in the co-pilot’s chair which instead of being on a plinth in a central position on the bridge was at the front next to the navigator at the main control panel. An ambition crushed.
He switched on the intercom. “This is your captain speaking,” that gave him a thrill. “Make sure you are all strapped in. This could be a bumpy ride.”
The good news was that because of a lower escape velocity and less atmospheric friction, it was easier to get off the surface of Mars and into space. The bad news was that when they reached Earth there was much more atmospheric friction to contend with
so the heat shields had better be working and there was higher gravity so the parachutes had better be working too.
Jethro performed the pre-flight checks as he had done a hundred times before on his sim at home but he was no way complacent because this was for real. The engines were making all the right noises according to what he could remember from his sim.
Jethro was about to raise the Methuselah into hover mode when he saw movement on his monitor. It was Junkyard man and he was waving his arms. Maybe he did want to go with them. Jethro held back.
“Gunny. Go and see what he wants.”
Gunny Rock responded and left the craft to talk to Junkyard man. Jethro could see them have an animated conversation but it was apparent that Junkyard man didn’t want to come with them and that he was shooing Gunny Rock back onto the craft.
Gunny returned.
“He says the aliens are heading this way and no, he doesn’t want to come with us. He says we need to get a move on.”
“Thanks. Buckle up Gunny.”
Jethro raised the Methuselah off the ground then pulled up the nose pointing it skyward. He pulled back the throttle lever to give the craft some thrust and felt the slow transition into acceleration mode. They were on the way home back to Earth.
Then the Methuselah rocked to one side and but for being belted in, Jethro was almost thrown to the floor.
“What the fuck?”
“Sir. We’ve been hit on the Starboard bow.”
Jethro looked at the Starboard monitor and saw one of the larger teardrop ships of the aliens. It had fired on them.
“Man the Starboard guns. Immediate return fire.” Jethro said over the Intercom.
“Already on it sir,” replied Gunny.
Jethro felt the craft shake as the Starboard guns stared firing. He watched the alien craft take the blast full frontal but to didn’t appear to be affected.
“Brains. Are you watching this? Tell me what’s happening? What do you think?”
“It appears sir that the alien craft has some kind of protective force field around it.”
Shit.
Jethro could see now that there was an invisible field around the alien craft that was deflecting the firing from their guns.
“Gunny hold your fire.”
“Sir.”
Then the alien craft was hit again from a blast.
“Gunny. I said stop firing.”
“Not me sir.”
Jethro zoomed in on his Starboard monitor. He saw on the ground at the Junkyard that one of the containers they hadn’t looked in had dropped its sides to reveal some sort of ground based cannon and Junkyard man was at the controls.
“Sorry Gunny. It was Junkyard man.”
The alien craft fired again at them.
Jethro dropped the Methuselah into a dive and the alien’s shot missed.
“Sir?”
“Brains report.”
“I believe the alien craft had to drop its shields to fire on us.”
“Gunny. Did you get that?”
“Yes sir. Understood.”
Immediately there was fire from the Methuselah towards the aliens and the alien craft stopped firing but not before Jethro could see a small explosion on the side of the teardrop and another on the underside of the alien craft. Jethro saw the shields go up and Gunny stopped firing.
Jethro was ready and he gunned the Methuselah up again towards space. This time there was no blast from the aliens and after a few minutes they were in space and heading away from Mars.
Jethro hoped his new friend, Junkyard man, would be OK.
chapter 36
Jethro sent Brains out for a spacewalk to look at the damage to the Methuselah.
He returned with bad news. “Not good sir. There is damage to the heat shield. It needs repairing or we’ll burn up when we enter the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Very good. Search the ship and tell me if you have the kit required to repair it.”
But the search found nothing. There was no kit of the required complexity to repair the ship. Most of that kind of stuff would have been stored on board as kits and they would have been removed when the ship was scrapped.
Jethro assembled the team.
“Any ideas as to how we can repair the ship?”
Nobody could come up with anything.
“OK. Assume we can’t repair the ship. If we enter the Earth’s atmosphere we’ll burn up. Ideas?”
“Don’t enter the Earth’s atmosphere,” Fraser said.
Walker swung an arm at him. “Stupid idea Fraser.”
“No,” said Jethro. “He’s right. We could dock at the space station and contact Earth.”
“Sir?”
“Yes Brains.”
“The space station has been slowly dismantled for scrap because of the success of the Moonbase.”
“Of course.”
Silence.
“Sir?
“Yes Fraser.”
“Moonbase.”
“Moonbase, of course.” Jethro acknowledged. “Brilliant Fraser. Maybe we’re not doomed after all.”
There was a ripple of laughter as the team recognised one of Fraser’s sayings.
“We can land at Moonbase.”
“Don’t we need heat shields to land on the Moon?” asked Walker.
“Tell them Brains.” Jethro thought he knew but he gave Brains the chance to shine.
Brains explained to the team that because the Moon had no atmosphere, heat shields were not necessary.
Jethro briefed the team to prepare for a Moon landing. Jethro didn’t want to land at the Moonbase in case there were problems so his plan was to land in a large crater next to Moonbase and the team would have to walk the short distance.
Their Mars suits would be sufficient protection for them and there was enough air in the Methuselah tanks to refill all their personal supplies.
Jethro tried to communicate with Moonbase using the on board communicator. There was no reply. Did that mean the aliens had already reached Moonbase? He told Walker to carry on trying but after an hour there was still no reply. Brains told him that Moonbase would have communication equipment that could receive their transmissions and they should be able to send back. This worried Jethro.
They reached the Moon without any further difficulties and went into an orbit so that Jethro could use the scanners to recce Moonbase. They spotted it and everything appeared normal from their position. There were lights on in Moonbase but Jethro could see no movements. He tried communicating again when they were directly over the base but still got no reply. He had no choice, he couldn’t land on Earth so had to take the risk of landing on the Moon.
“All hands to stations. I want the turret gun manned the instant we touchdown and Code Orange for everyone. I’m taking her in to land.”
Jethro set course for the crater which was the size of Wales so he couldn’t miss it although he didn’t want to walk the length of Wales across the Moon’s surface to reach Moonbase when they landed.
When he was above the crater, he chose a likely landing spot from the chart. The crater floor was in complete darkness so he put all the ship’s external lighting on. He engaged the underbelly thrusters and rotated the side, forward and rear thrusters for a vertical landing. He had to adjust the power ratio of the thrusters to stabilise the craft into a horizontal position but that was probably since they were old and they needed cleaning and maintenance so that they were synchronised.
The Methuselah felt a bit odd, not like it was on Mars when they were in hover mode, but maybe that was down to the fact that gravity on the Moon was half that of Mars. Jethro reduced thrust on all thrusters simultaneously but instead of slowly lowering the craft towards the ground they began to rotate and had Jethro not immediately put all thrusters back to sufficient power they would have tipped over and possibly plummeted towards the ground upside down.
“Sorry about that.”
He tried again reducing the power of the thrusters and
immediately the craft started to rotate again.
“Brains to the bridge.”
Brains entered the bridge and sat as indicated by Jethro.
“Brains. I think one or more of the thrusters either doesn’t work at all or is faulty. I’m going to try some manoeuvres and I want you to monitor the power output of the thrusters on that screen and tell me which ones are playing up. OK?”
“Sir.”
Jethro carefully manipulated the controls in tiny increments telling Brains what he was doing, each time affecting the level of the craft, until Brains indicated she had worked out what was going on.
“Two of the Starboard thrusters are below power.”
“That must be where we were hit. Thanks Brains.”
Jethro strapped himself in tightly and told his crew to do the same. He feathered the controls, pausing each time to see what the reaction was in the pitch of the craft before he feathered the controls again. Slowly the Methuselah lowered into the black of the dark bottom of the crater until it bumped onto the ground.
“Yes!”
“Calm down team. We’re not home yet. We don’t know what’s waiting for us.”
chapter 37
The News
Alice: “And today back due to popular demand we have one of the world’s leading Cephalopodologists in the studio, Professor Carol Amari from the San Diego University of Marine Biology. Hello Professor.”
Cal: “Cal, please.”
Ted: “OK Cal. Just one question really, to allay the fears of some of our viewers and listeners who have contacted us. How vicious are Humboldt Squid?”
Cal: “Squid are almost harmless.”
Alice: “You said almost Cal.”
Cal: “Did I. Well. They have a beak.”
Alice: “A beak? You mean like a bird. Next you’ll be telling me they can fly. Ha ha ha.”
…silence…
Alice: “Cal?
Cal: Yes they have a beak like a bird, a bit bigger than most bird beaks. Maybe up to a foot long. It looks just like a parrot’s beak
Alice: “Parrot beaks can be quite vicious Cal. Are Squid beaks vicious?”
Cal: “No. I wouldn’t say so. Not really.”
Ted: “Didn’t I hear about a colleague of yours. Professor Susan Smith?”
Red Dust of Mars Page 13
