by T I WADE
“Not something I wanted to know about, kid…here we go!” and VIN watched as his side thruster point downwards again. We are climbing; I think no fuel in the tanks is helping….105 feet….107 feet and we are moving forward.” Astermine One glided out of the opposite lip of the crater less than a dozen feet over the surface of the asteroid.
It wasn’t over yet. “Thrusters down to 90 percent, we are still climbing away 189 feet, 210 feet, we are out of the pull, thrusters down to 60 percent. Maggie where are you, we are coming round, I need to get her down quickly!”
“On your starboard side about 300 feet from us; surface looks flat and clear of rocks,” stated Kathy.
“Roger that; coming in fast, I have you visual…thrusters at 50 percent, ion drives off.”
Jonesy brought her in and fast, like a helicopter dropping off troops in a battle. He even flared out the 140-foot craft as one would a helicopter, and Maggie was sure that the legs would break as they hit the surface and bent. Slowly the legs took the force, the craft stopped its downward movement, and Astermine One came to a rest with no broken legs.
“Well done, Mr. Jones, perfect flying!” shouted Maggie and he smiled as a bead of sweat slid down his face. He switched off the overworked thrusters, hearing applause from the other craft. He looked over at VIN who was just sitting there: ramrod straight, his face white.
“We did it, kid!” Jonesy stated.
“We could have taken off all our cargo and it would have been easier,” he stated.
“Well, my calculations were a few percent off, the pull stronger than I thought, but we are out and it worked. Now, as long as we haven’t damaged the engines, we came in at 45 percent power, so I reckon we can get off here with at least eight tons of cargo.”
****
Ryan was ecstatic when the message came through from Astermine Two that both craft were out of the crater and stated that he needed a drink, and a bottle of Vodka mysteriously appeared from one of the desks.
****
The latest message from Ryan that morning informed them that they needed to sit tight for another week. Both men didn’t seem to mind, as it decreased the workload somewhat and they could take it easy. They decided to still head over to the other craft and go down into the crater.
The two men spacewalked across to Astermine Two. The gravity certainly wasn’t as heavy up here; actually, VIN strode too hard on one of his first steps and bounced off the asteroid a foot or two. Sleeping conditions had also changed; they felt light, and although they did not float off the surface of their chairs, they awoke often thinking they had.
Maggie and Kathy were happy to welcome them into their craft, once they had removed the full canisters from her hold, and they squashed in for the flight back into the crater.
Before they left, both men had to sit in the second room. It was not pink as they had been told, but had two narrow naval-type bunk beds with extra shelves and storage underneath. A small two-foot wide aluminum desk was on one side and what looked like a tiny bar refrigerator on the other. Jonesy looked at Maggie inquisitively, who opened it to show him real food! Fruit, the promised bottle of vodka, a half-full bottle of real orange juice, and several packets of cookies looked back at him. On a shelf above the fridge was a single-cup coffeemaker. His mouth hung open when he saw the stash. He and VIN were certainly traveling third class!
This time Maggie had no problem getting the empty craft down. The space walkers still had two hours of walk time, and they managed to get a dozen of the light canisters into the third hold and the rest of the heavy canisters into the fourth hold. This time Jonesy calculated that they had closer to six tons on board, plus his and VIN’s weight.
Maggie was not shy with the power this time, and they left the crater floor at 95 percent power and shot up into space 200 feet before she reduced the thrusters to 20 percent power and brought the craft in to the same landing place next to the canisters.
Jonesy immensely enjoyed feeling the extra power of Astermine Two after their close shave with the crater wall the day earlier.
They still couldn’t all sleep together in the bigger unit, so even though their three hours had been used up, they headed back to their craft after the girls had given them each a mouthful of the gift from Ryan.
Over the next several days, Jonesy and VIN were flown into the crater where they filled the rest of the empty canisters from Astermine Two with the lighter silver rocks, which seemed endless. The sweeper worked well and, as a team, with VIN guiding the sweeper and Jonesy hauling the canister next to it, they filled two canisters an hour. After three more days lifting everything they had out of the crater, they piled up everything that was staying behind, and left the crater for the last time. They had time and the two men took a day off spending time in Astermine Two’s compartment. Clean and tidy, it felt like a tent and they were camping and enjoying each other’s company, out of their suits and enjoying the real food.
The next day VIN and Jonesy emptied and reloaded thirty of the lighter canisters into Astermine One’s holds, securing them down.
It took another two days to load the canisters into Astermine Two. The heavy canisters were now a third of the weight, but each one of the sixty canisters in both craft returning home had to be properly secured in the holds.
They then took over the fuel cylinders allocated to them and spent three hours carefully transferring the liquid hydrogen into their permanent fuel tank from outside. Astermine One ended up with half- full tanks of hydrogen fuel, enough to lift off and get back to earth. It would have been touch and go if they had left earlier, but the delay saved them flying time back to earth.
Maggie still had full tanks once all of her cylinders had been emptied and she could always tow them, or Jonesy tow her, when they were close enough to Ivan.
After the last day of packing rocks they left, eleven days past the original departure date, 900,000 miles closer to earth, and their trip twenty-four hours shorter.
It was time for another day off and Jonesy did his numbers for Ryan. He would only send them to him once they were space borne. He had six tons aboard.
Maggie’s load of the eighteen canisters of platinum and twelve of the shiny rocks weighed out at only 14,000 pounds, or seven tons, far less than the original twenty tons Ryan had anticipated. VIN had also cut the analyzer out of the hold in the crater, after disconnecting it from their craft.
“Thruster on, tanks at half, here we go, hold thumbs girls, and he pushed the throttles forward to gain output. Fifty percent….60….70…getting light….85…..95 percent, we are off and out of here!” shouted Jonesy enthusiastically.
“Thruster on, tanks full, watch this power, Jonesy,” stated Maggie. “Forty….45 percent, we have lift off and going home! I’m already looking forward to a real bath.”
In formation, Maggie allowed Jonesy to lead. He wasn’t wasting time. Jonesy had allocated half of his fuel for liftoff, and he had only used half of that, so he used the extra hydrogen with the ion drives to accelerate. Within an hour, and by the time he let the computers take over, he was well over 30,000 miles an hour.
A day later, the thrusters were pointing forward, already thrusting once an hour to slow them down. They were heading directly to where Ivan would be seventy-two hours from then.
Ryan sent them dozens of congratulation messages, even when he was told of the lesser cargo weight on board both craft. His fifth message duplicated what Jonesy already surmised, that they would go on their second mining trip with the more powerful thrusters installed in Astermine One, and return with thirty full canisters. Ground control had computed 90 percent power for a full twenty-ton load for a liftoff above the crater.
The cargo manifest made Ryan even happier after VIN reported that they were returning with six tons of platinum, a ton of iridium, six tons of rhodium and about half a ton of palladium.
Ryan sent them a message six hours later saying that their load was worth three-quarters of a billion dollars and the six tons
of rhodium, at today’s prices worldwide, was worth more than the other three metals all put together.
They rested over the next two days and then began preparing to meet up with Ivan. As they neared to within twenty miles, they could see the first five sides of the first cube welded together. It far outsized the original Ivan by nearly three times, and they were surprised at how big the new space station would actually be. The first cube was floating with a long cord attached to Ivan and Ivan was kept in trim by the two shuttles on her sides. Jonesy remembered that they were ten days late and that the shuttle must have just arrived.
As they neared, one of the shuttles separated itself from Ivan, and with Penny on the intercom guiding him, Jonesy first rotated and docked Astermine One into position over the middle docking port. Ryan wanted both types of rock which meant that they needed to unload Astermine Two first.
Within an hour VIN, with a happy Suzi to help him, unloaded eight of the platinum canisters and ten of the rhodium canisters into the shuttle’s empty cargo hold.
VIN also loaded all the other samples he had brought in an empty food canister from the supply compartment. It weighed about 300 to 400 pounds and was also placed in the cargo hold. Only four people could head down to earth in the shuttle’s cockpit and the Astermine pilots had this privilege.
While Maggie, Kathy, Jonesy and VIN said their goodbyes and headed away from Ivan in the loaded shuttle, Michael went out to place the final eight panels unloaded from the second shuttle, and Penny maneuvered Astermine Two onto the last docking port. It was getting like a traffic jam up there.
****
As the shuttle flew into earth’s re-entry, and all signals blacked out, Ryan’s phone rang.
“Mr. Richmond, Tom Ward here, with General Mortimer aboard. We’re an hour out, and heading over to your field from Washington. You seem to have a problem. I heard from the Federal Reserve that you might be bringing illegal contraband into the country. Congress wants us to inspect your entire operation, and I have three platoons of US army on board a C-17 several minutes behind us. I want you to clear your field immediately and open all your hangars for inspection. I have Joe Bishop flying in from Los Angeles, and we are all due over your field in fifty-five minutes. Understood?”
“No, I don’t understand, Mr. Ward. Do you have a search warrant? And you are not entering my airspace with threats. This happens to be my airspace, Mr. Ward. I own it as a United States citizen.”
“You don’t own crap, Richmond! All land belongs to the United States government and you, as a citizen, do not own U.S. occupied land. And no, I don’t need a search warrant. Members of Congress never do and I have one Congressman with me, who will give the orders to search your entire airfield.”
“What for?” asked Ryan puzzled. “What laws have I broken?”
“We will read you your rights when we arrive.” And the phone connection clicked off.
Ryan’s first call was to Nellis Air Force Base. He told General Saunders what was happening and that he had an incoming shuttle from the west. The General said that troops and Air Force jets would be on the way from Nellis within ten minutes.
Then Ryan called his friend Bill at NASA. Bill was currently at Edwards Air Force base, twenty minutes flying time away, and about to takeoff for Florida, and would swing by. Then Ryan called his friend at the Federal Reserve, who knew nothing about what was going on. He was about to land in Los Angeles and would also immediately divert to Nevada.
After that call, Ryan called his good friend, the ex-U.S. president who suggested that he get a couple of news crews on the ground fast. He could do that for him and said that he knew the ABC, NBC and CBS reporters in Las Vegas, and they all owed him a favor.
Lastly he called the new President of the United States of America. He was politely told that the president was unavailable and please, don’t call back.
Then he sat down in shock. He hadn’t broken any law, state or federal, apart from transferring the plutonium from Turkey through Nevada and then into space. They could never prove anything, and there were absolutely no laws on this continent saying that he could bring non-dangerous cargo in from space, unless Congress had just passed one in the last few days. That was impossible since no law passed by Congress was law until passed by the Senate and the President of the United States signed it, and he was sure the president hadn’t recently signed anything. He had friends there, and he would have been told.
At least the shuttle would be down with Jonesy, his best pilot at the controls, before the airfield’s air space was invaded by a swarm of bees.
It was going to be close, and he believed he could get the shuttle parked and in Hangar Six before the bad guys arrived. He still had forty minutes before Ward and Bishop arrived, and Jonesy was only twenty five minutes out, with a very heavy shuttle and coming in fast!
Books by the Author
The Book of Tolan Series (Adult Reading)
Banking, Beer & Robert the Bruce – Hardcover and eNovel
Easy Come Easy Go – Hardcover and eNovel
It Could Happen – eNovel
AMERICA ONE Series (General Reading)
AMERICA ONE – eNovel and Paperback.
AMERICA ONE II – The Launch – due out Christmas 2012.
AMERICA ONE III – The Journey – due out Spring 2013.
INVASION USA Series (General Reading)
INVASION USA I: The End of Modern Civilization – eNovel
INVASION USA II: The Battle for New York – eNovel
INVASION USA III: The Battle for Survival – eNovel
INVASION USA IV: The Battle for Houston … The Aftermath – eNovel
INVASION EUROPE: The European Side of the Story – 2013
INVASION ASIA: The New Chinese Wang Dynasty – 2014
INVASION USA V: The New America – 2014
INVASION USA Series: Paperback Editions
INVASION USA I: The End of Modern Civilization – August 2012
INVASION USA II: The Battle for New York – August 2012
INVASION USA III: The Battle for Survival – August 2012
INVASION USA IV: The Battle for Houston … The Aftermath – September 2012
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 nine novels.
The Author, his wife and two teenage children currently live 20 miles south of Raleigh, North Carolina.
