by Bob Lee
Without waiting for a reply, Roy announced, “Coming up on HJ-sep in three, two, one.” The commander flipped the proper switch, heard a loud pop and felt the craft slow immediately. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the back third of his ship fly away. Then he announced, “Lighting the candle now.”
The Stage II rocket ignited with a roar. Roy, Sam and everyone in the back were pressed into their seats and felt a huge weight on their chests as the second stage’s three engines accelerated the craft. Suddenly, the ship started to chug, throwing everyone forwards and backwards about once per second. More screams could be heard from the passengers in the rear.
“Flight, we have pogo here,” Roy yelled at the screen. “It’s speeding up too,” he said as he felt himself pushed forwards and backwards over and over at an increasing rate.
“Pegasus, reduce throttles to seventy-five percent,” Brick quickly stated.
As soon as Roy complied, the effect lessened and then stopped. But then Sam noticed a red light blinking on the control panel and the ship’s computer voice issued a verbal warning. “Um, Mission Control, we have a center engine out. Advise, please,” Sam requested.
“Roger that, Pegasus. Stand by.”
Roger and Sam waited nervously. “I sure hope this isn’t going to be a bad day,” Sam said, using the euphemism rocket men use for when things start going south. “At least everything has smoothed out. Even the folks in back have become quiet. Maybe I should talk to them.” She turned on the back speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re sorry about that. Things should be smoother now. If you look at the monitor, you’ll notice that we are actually already in space and can see the curve of the Earth. We should be a few more minutes under thrust, and then will be in orbit.” And then Sam muttered under her breath, “I hope.”
“Pegasus, Mission Control. Everything looks good from here. Either the hyperjet acceleration or the pogo must have shaken something loose on the engine, but there are no leaks. The other two engines’ gimbals have successfully offset the asymmetric thrust. Throttle back up to a hundred percent, and we’ll just burn the other two engines longer to make orbit.”
“Roger, Mission Control. Throttling up,” Roy said.
# # #
A few minutes later they detached the spent second stage, ignited the Pegasus’ twin rockets, and reached orbit. When they shut down the engines, the bluish grey Pegasus floated serenely in orbit. Roy looked out the window, briefly taking in the beauty of the Earth, and then turned to Sam. “I think you’d better go back and check on our passengers. It’s been eerily quiet behind us for a while.”
Sam got up and slid open the door to the passenger compartment. What she saw shocked her. Three people were floating around the cabin, and one was hanging onto the hair of one of the seated passengers. There was some vomit hovering in one corner of the cabin. The dog was yowling, and the goat was bleating. “Listen up, people,” she shouted. “I told you not to release your seatbelts. Just stay still and I’ll get you reseated.” Sam floated over to one of the compartment bins and opened it. She pulled out a few bags. “Brother Jacobs. Take these and start passing them back. They are barf bags, and if anyone feels the need, please use the bags!”
Sam then floated to each released passenger, and soon had everyone reseated. Luckily there was enough space above everyone that was seated so that she had room to work as she floated around the cabin. She used a large plastic bag from another bin to capture the vomit, and then pushed back towards the flight deck. As she pulled herself through, she turned back to the cabin and said, “That should be the worst of it. We should be underway shortly and then you won’t have to deal with much more weightlessness.” She slid the door shut and returned to her pilot position.
“How’d it go back there?” Roy asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Sam muttered. “But I guess it could have been worse.”
“Well, we’re almost over this first phase. Look there. I can see the AB Cycler coming in.”
Sam looked where Roy was pointing, and saw a bright light drifting across the star field. “Wow, it must be pretty big for us to be able to see it already. I can’t wait to get there. We won’t be weightless and will have lots of space to live in. It will be a luxury compared to what the guys at Burroughs Base had to go through getting to Mars. I read the most recent report on the cycler, and NASA, Bigelow Aerospace and Planetary Resources completed the major sections of its outfitting on its last pass.”
“Yes, it’s another first for this mission. We’ll be the first people riding an asteroid to another planet,” Roy mused. He turned on the rear speaker once again. “Hello astronauts. If you look at the monitor, you’ll see the Aldrin-Bigelow Mars Cycler, which will be our home for the next six months. Prepare for our final burn.”
Roy looked at the video screen in front of him. “Flight, Pegasus is ready for AB Cycler insertion burn.”
“Roger, Pegasus. Be advised that you used up half of your fuel reserves getting to orbit with the second stage engine out. You’re going to need an extended burn with the Pegasus engines to get up to the proper speed for rendezvous and docking with the cycler. We have uploaded new instructions for an optimal burn and you’ll need to let the computer manage the whole process. God speed, Pegasus.”
“Thank you, Mission Control. Pegasus out,” Roy said. Then, reprising a line from an old science fiction movie that his father had made him watch as a kid, Roy stated, “And the monkey flips the switch.”
CHAPTER 3
NASA Burroughs Base, Star-Kissed Habitat, Mars
Mission Biologist Charles Winston sat staring intently at the 3-D display in front of him. His hands twitched ever so slightly the two joysticks he was holding, turning the rock in the rover’s claws. This was the most critical moment. He moved one hand to a dial and zoomed in on the small crack in the rock using the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI. He had seen a glint of green as his rover had traversed the Martian landscape, and had stopped to examine this unique rock. “Yes,” he thought. “Definitely green.”
Slowly he used one hand to select a small pick from the tool repository, and scraped the material onto a microscope slide. He maneuvered the small glass rectangle under the rover’s microscope, which he had nicknamed ‘Mickey’ to go with ‘MAHLI’. Nervously he selected the maximum magnification. “C’mon Molly and Mickey, don’t let me down. This could be it,” he muttered. “This could be what justifies our whole mission. Algae…life.”
The screen in front of him blurred, and then stabilized. It looked like a field of green rocks with jagged edges. “Damn! More crystals!” he said with a shake of his head.
Just then he heard footsteps coming down the ladder behind him.
“Hey Chuck, whatcha got there? Anything interesting?” Geologist Brad Newton said as he leaned over Charles’ shoulder. “Nice, looks like you’ve got either chlorite or some chromium there. Dump a bit into the CHIMRA chamber for chemical analysis.”
“Sure, Brad,” Charles said with a sigh, twisting the joysticks to move the rock over the chamber’s intake scoop. “I was hoping I would finally find something biological when I saw the green color.”
“I told you when we were training in the Atacama Desert in the mountains of Peru not to get too excited whenever you saw anything green,” Brad said with a smirk. “Just because that desert looked like Mars and some places had not seen any rainfall for years, you loved pointing out how algae could be found under rocks and just below the soil where tiny moisture lay hidden. From a geologist standpoint, we know green can come from all sorts of minerals. Plus, the atmosphere is so thin here that any surface moisture quickly evaporates, so finding algae on the surface would be miraculous.”
“Well, then, we’ll just have to go deeper. I was on my way over to that crater we highlighted in our last satellite photo. You remember the one we spotted that looked like it had water trails down its slopes? Well, in any case, I guess since I’m already stopped, I might as well try drilling
a few feet down here to see if there’s anything interesting. I’ll send the rover over to that crater a bit later for more extensive drilling. Do you want to keep me company?”
“Let’s have some lunch upstairs first and find out if there is any news from Earth. Then we can come back and see what the rover digs up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Charles said. “But first, I’ll save us some time and put the rover in drill mode.” He maneuvered the robot to a clear spot, used the joysticks to select a drill bit, and set the rover to auto-drill. Checking the display, he saw the drill start turning and dust pluming into the air. He stood up and turned around to face Brad. “Lead the way, sir.”
# # #
Probe Spit felt a sequence of faint vibrations through its sensopads. It could tell that the ground was not being shaken by an earthquake or a meteoroid shower. “This is too regular for that,” it thought. “This is unexpected, but not unanticipated. I’d best expedite the mini-hoppers.” Spit had one in storage that it could release immediately, but it would need more to cover all approaches to the crater. The probe directed its recently erected micro-factory to create three additional hoppers, and then released a picogram of antimatter down the magnetic conduit for the energy that would be required.
Spit methodically took the already created hopper from storage and attached bits of sand and rock across its back for camouflage. It then directed the mini-hopper towards one rim of the crater in which it sat. Probe Spit’s eye periscoped up out of the sand, and followed the puffs of dust as the hopper zigzagged its way to the top of the crater wall that was nearest to the detected vibrations.
Spit brought its Stage Two checklist into main memory. Since it had detected a vibration anomaly, the checklist demanded caution. The probe could not deploy its precious cargo just yet. The proper response for this scenario was to create defensive weapons. Which ones it created would depend upon the discoveries of the hoppers.
# # #
Charles finished climbing the stairs and stood in the middle of the circular upper deck of the habitat. Behind him, a set of four private rooms curved in a semicircle. On his left was a recreation area, with a large screen on the curved outside wall of the habitat, and an inflatable couch facing it. On his right was the kitchen and dining area, and he saw that Commander Grant Stiles and Mission Engineer Sergey Andreovich were already seated and eating.
Charles directed his comment at the squat sulky Russian. “Serge, I hope you haven’t made us borscht again for lunch,” he chided.
Sergey looked up from his soup to gaze at the Mission Biologist. He had finally become used to the nickname his American comrades used, which they pronounced ‘Serj,’ but when he was in a foul mood it grated on him. He remembered as a child that the American President Bush had nicknames for many of the world leaders, and had called the Italian Prime Minister ‘Shoes’ and Prime Minister Putin ‘Pootie-Poot.’ At least his American companions were not so crass. Still, the thought made him grouse a bit. “If I had some good Russian beets, I would have been, how you Americans say, in seventh heaven by now,” he said in his gruff voice. “But you give me these twisted little pale things from the greenhouse. I thought you were a master geneticist?”
“Now, now, Serge,” said Brad. “Chuck is doing the best he can. You know the early Mars probes found huge amounts of calcium perchlorate in the soil. We prepared for that as best we could, but it’s still taking a while to build up a robust plant system.”
“That’s right,” Charles said. “The perchlorate is toxic in these amounts, so first I had to introduce specially modified bacteria into the soil. It’s finally down to a reasonable amount, and the plants can survive. Plus, we can now go into that section of the greenhouse with minimal protection. But since we’re the first mission to Mars, we need to experiment with multiple types of plants and bacteria if we are ever to fully colonize this planet.” Charles couldn’t help grinning as he continued, “I’m trying to get some herbs to grow for you too, you know. I assume you don’t want to keep drinking that so called ‘Russian Tea’ that NASA created for you that uses tea, cinnamon, cloves and Tang?”
“Bah, I suspect you Americans still have Tang left over from the Apollo missions to the Moon and are trying to rid yourselves of it finally by foisting it upon your Russian comrades. But still, I must say that it does make a pretty good Russian tea. You should try it.”
“Um, thanks but no thanks,” Charles said. He then turned to the Commander. “Grant, do we have any new communications from Mission Control or JPL?” he said, using the acronym for the Jet Propulsion Lab which monitored all robotic missions in the Solar System.
“Yes, we had a few this morning,” Commander Grant Stiles stated. “First, it looks like the colonists successfully made it to orbit and are on their way to meet up with the AB Cycler.”
“They better take good care of it,” said Brad. “That’s our ride home. It will be nice to have all that room on the way back plus radiation shielding against cosmic rays and solar flares. I wouldn’t want to go back the way we got here, stuffed in the Orion III Command Module for seven months and huddling in the safe room for a couple of days for protection from that solar flare. I’ve gotten used to the extra room we have here in the hab.”
“We have lots to do still before we even think about leaving,” said the Commander. “The second set of messages was regarding one of JPL’s satellites in orbit. It detected a meteor which hit in that crater you were planning on sending the rover to. Mission Control wants us to send the rover there immediately and analyze any fresh meteorite fragments that we can find.”
“Okay, Brad and I are on it,” Charles said. “We were just doing some intermediate drilling and the rover should get there later today.”
“Good. We also received a few news items from home. It appears that the Defense Department and the National Security Agency are in a tizzy because they’ve detected increased activity at the Chinese Moon base in Shackleton crater. It looks like they are building some sort of launcher, and the spooks are worried that they could be setting up a mass driver to send Moon rocks into orbit. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, has been pushing for the militarization of space for a long time. The Defense Department is looking for more funding for a defensive shield in case our latest tensions with both China and North Korea escalate. Apparently the Chinese just sold another batch of our bonds to finance their Moon base and support their troops in occupied Asia, and the markets have crashed yet again.”
“I can’t believe they would sell those bonds again,” Charles said. “It would hurt their economy too.”
“I guess they think the national prestige is worth it,” the Commander stated, “and they have enough that they can afford to wait out the downturn.”
“Do they anticipate another recession?” Brad asked.
“It looks like it,” Grant said. “We’re lucky we got this Mars mission. The way things are headed, this could be the one and only shot NASA gets if we don’t discover life or something else dramatic. In fact, a buddy of mine told me that the only way the colonists could afford the price of their expedition was because all the private U.S. companies gave them deep discounts in order to keep their people employed. The bottom fell out of the space tourism market and there was no money coming in. They couldn’t even really finish the cycler. As part of the deal, the colonists have to perform some upgrades and maintenance during their trip.”
“You Americans and we Russians were so dumb,” Sergey interjected. “We let the Chinese and North Korean alliance set up a base in the best spot in the solar system. The Shackleton crater at the south pole of the Moon is the perfect place for a country to dominate space. It has water to drink or to create rocket fuel. It has sunlight on the crater rim for twenty-four hours a day for power. With the Moon’s light gravity, you can cheaply launch fuel to orbit, to Earth, or anywhere else in the solar system. If they ever get a fusion reactor working with the helium-3 that can be found there, it will give t
hem power for many lifetimes. We should have been there first,” he said, slowly shaking his head.
“Well, we’re here first, and that’s what counts right now,” Grant said. “And I doubt the North Koreans and Chinese will try any more stunts after what they pulled back in ’29 when they invaded all of Southeast Asia.”
“You seem to forget, my friend, that they claimed good reasons for their invasion,” Sergey said. “The rising sea levels due to climate change contaminated the groundwater and caused many of the farms of the region to become inundated with salt. The Chinese stated that the resulting famines and coastline devastation required them to take over the whole area in order to help the people survive.”
“We all know that’s just an excuse, Serge.”
“That is America’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. You are always so sure,” said Sergey.
“In any case, it seems that the Chinese still have their hands full controlling all of Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia,” the Commander said. “The reports say they did it in order to get increased access to resources in the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Thailand allowed themselves to be ‘Finlandized’ in order to avoid invasion, and now do whatever the Chinese say. They took a page out of history with how Finland avoided being invaded by the Soviet Union long ago. The Chinese then threw a bone to North Korea and gave Kim Jong-un landlocked Laos. He has his hand full because for some reason, they just won’t believe that he is their new god. No, I think occupied Asia is going to keep the Chinese and North Koreans away from any new big ventures for a while.”
“I certainly hope so,” said Brad. “Could you imagine if we had them crawling all over Mars too? Knowing them, they’d probably contaminate the planet with Earth bacteria and be poking into our business and interfering constantly. It’ll be bad enough when those colonists arrive, but at least they’ll probably stay pretty much to themselves.”
