AMERICA ONE - NextGen II (Book 6)

by T I WADE

  Once the entire area had been cleared and brushed clean, Mars using all of his powers couldn’t open the cavern roof. Ruler Roo would have to do the job himself.

  Lunar and Pluto Katherine, flying SB-II into Nevada with a gold run a few days later, got in touch with Ruler Roo in Canada. Mary Collins had set up a radio station there for him, as he was wanting to know how his people were getting along. The three shuttles were taking six tons of gold into Washington for smelting into coins, as Joanne wanted more gold to pay for her growing campaign.

  Lunar was surprised that she and the other astronauts could hear Roo so well. The radio reception across the planet was getting better.

  Poor Roo had had enough of snow, Homo sapiens, and Earth for a while. Much to Lunar’s surprise, he wanted to go back to the Nevada base for a break. So did his son by the sound of it, and it was organized for one of the shuttles to drop into Canada to pick him up.

  The flying crew also chatted to Joanne in Washington as they closed on the Capitol. She understood her husband’s needs. They had spoken together often, and it seemed that the ruling Dithers Roo family might be spread all over the solar system in the years to come. She had suggested to her family that they move to Nevada. She couldn’t.

  The gold was dropped at the same location as before, with the spectators getting a view of all three shuttles this time. Lunar, who had been relieved of her gold first, launched and went north to pick up Roo and Jo.

  A day later in Nevada, Dr. Walls got the go-ahead from Roo to move into The Pig’s Snout, once a companion had been found for him.

  Oddly enough they found one in Tow, Roo’s mother. She would be happy to join the doctor in looking after the family heritage site. Unlike the youngsters, she had little interest, in returning to space. Even as a Matt, she was aging, and she thought it important to keep her family thoughts of her young life and her race of people in the desert alive. She had grown up in the cavern, had given birth to Roo there, and she still thought it home.

  Johnny Walls didn’t want to join his father. Instead he now wanted to become an astronaut. It was weird what driving an earthmover did to people.

  The Nevada base was busy. Every inch of space inside all six of the hangars had work desks or labs making the new internal instruments and life support systems for America Two.

  Captain Pete was missing Dr. Nancy, who was back on the island with Saturn. He had been working non-stop with a group of plasma and nano specialists, who had begun figuring out how the shields operated. They had the broken box that Mars’ father VIN had found decades earlier on DX2017.

  Many of the departments weren’t as important as at the beginning of the odyssey. The astro-biology department was still on Mars. That department needed restocking of supplies of plant life, and the list was very long. The robotic and prosthetic departments were still on the red planet, and a group of 36 new and interested scientists were ready for their first flight to continue these programs.

  The thrusters were now made on the island, as the Russians had been moved. Martin Brusk was making the outer skin pieces from the designs given to him by the old team in Nevada. He was to be paid 80 gold bars for what he was doing and given a free flight to Mars and back. The parts being made by him would take about five years to manufacture.

  The second larger shuttle was partly complete and would need thrusters by year-end, so it was time for the crew at Astermine to return to real life and figure out what was going to happen until Ryan Richmond was awakened in close to a decade’s time.

  “Order, please,” shouted Lunar at the first briefing back on the Nevada airfield. All the astronauts were present, as were all heads of departments. As usual, coffee and freshly baked pastries were available. This time Gary and Mark were part of the briefing. “We need to go forward, now please,” she shouted as the crew took their seats. “First, we need to set up a timeline until my father returns to see what we NextGens have achieved in his absence. I want nothing more than perfection in our successes until then. Remember, we are all aging and we only have ten years once hopeful President Dithers Roo is elected next month.”

  Not everyone in the meeting knew where Ryan and the old timers were, but the mention of aging reminded the ones who did. Lunar continued.

  “If Joanne loses, then unfortunately we all have to return to the island in Australia. For those who you who haven’t yet been there, I’m sure many of you would enjoy that, but my dream is to continue my father’s work here on the site where he started it all. As voted during our whole crew meeting yesterday, we counted 52 hands of crewmembers who want to return to Mars on the next available flight. Captain Pete, when is that exactly?”

  “The next opposition is in one year, two months and ten days, or 436 days not counting today. The second opposition, I believe the ETA of ships returning from Mars, begins in 1,165 days. We have four oppositions before we can expect Ryan, Jonesy, VIN and the older crew back. As you asked, Commander, the ETA of our older crew is two months before Opposition Five.”

  “Where are they?” asked one of the older German scientists. “To take so long a flight, they must be out of the solar system.”

  “General Jonesy is setting up a bar and a VIP lounge for Astermine Airlines on Pluto,” joked Mars.

  “Never Never Land,” joked Pluto Katherine.

  “It is not a joke when we older people want to see our boss,” remarked another scientist, a Russian.

  “I’m sorry,” replied Lunar, “Mars, sister, keep your weird senses of humor to yourselves. Herr Dr. Schmidt, my father will be home as soon as he can. Dr. Zonolov, all I can suggest is that you just stay alive until he returns. You will be rather surprised at my father when he gets back to our base here. He will have had a facelift. Now back to work. I have made a few decisions over the last few weeks. Today, I will give you a breakdown of Astermine’s schedule for the next decade. First, we will keep the island active in case we need to retreat back to it. Bob, Beth and Monica will look after our second home for us. A workforce of a dozen Australian military personnel will protect our island home and keep it restocked. We will have two scheduled flights a month from here to the island. Anybody who has down time from their department can spend two two-week vacations on the island per year. I’ve been told that Bob Mathews is organizing a fishing boat for those who are interested in sport fishing. I’m going to assume that once this U.S. election is over, we are going to work here for the rest of the time needed to build the internal structures of both the mother ships I have decided to construct.” That statement caused a commotion, as so far only one mother ship, America Two, was scheduled for construction up in space.

  “Do we need two?” asked Penelope Pitt.

  “Surely one the size of America One is enough?” asked Jane Burgos.

  “Do we have enough crew?” asked Mars.

  “One for me and one for my sister,” remarked Pluto Katherine jokingly.

  “I believe with an opposition every two years between Earth and Mars, we need two, Penelope,” Lunar responded. “These new wagon-wheel design ships will be about a third larger than America One for cargo, Jane. Mars, I have spent several hours discussing crew with Captain Pete. We only need a crew of a dozen or so to maintain one of these new ships on a journey to Mars and back. They are being designed solely for this journey, and to orbit either planet easily for a two-year period.”

  “What about pirates? Or those unfriendly Matts on Mars? Surely we need a larger security detail?” the young Captain Noble asked.

  “More hardware, less crew, I believe, Mars. If America One had been destroyed with a full crew, imagine the loss of life. The only real threat, until more companies or countries here on Earth get to space, is other aliens we didn’t come across, or the nasty Matts on Mars. I’ll let Captain Pete give his views on the subject. We have discussed the possibilities together since we both arrived back here on Earth. Captain Pete.”

  “Thanks, Commander. The blue shield is an easy target for the Matt we
apon, a maser which destroyed America One. Without the shield operative, we believe that targeting is far more difficult for their maser system. The bridge, Ryan and I got the reports back from Jonesy and VIN during their earlier shuttle fight with the nasty Matts, as the commander describes them. Due to this information, the shuttle pilots closed down their shields and were telling me up in America One to do the same when it was destroyed in the second battle. Both Jonesy and VIN Noble, Mars’ father, stated factually in their last reports on the subject given to Ryan, who gave it to Commander Lunar, who gave it to me after the destruction of my ship, that the Matt targeting was pretty lame. Their belief was that these masers were designed to be accurate on opposing ships having a shield as protection, with the shield gladly accepting the maser destruction. VIN said he believed that in a straight fight between our lasers and their masers, we would be far more accurate at a longer distance. He suggested over 1,000 miles. Both astronauts also agreed, however, that the maser is a far more powerful weapon, and an exact strike on the target may not be necessary. The maser blast passing by an object in space could have a destruction radius of several miles, whereas our lasers need to strike the target.”

  “Are you talking about microwave energy? Microwave blasts in space? Like a microwave oven?” asked Gary Darwin, rather surprised at this new information.

  “Yes, Mr. Darwin, and please do not interrupt me. You newbies will be brought fully up to date on modern electronic space warfare long before you travel there,” admonished Captain Pete. The other crewmembers knew well enough not to interrupt the captain. “So we need to design our new mother ships and our two new shuttles, SB-IV and SB-V, with more laser and, hopefully, maser firepower as well one day and keep crew numbers down to a minimum until we know for sure that we will not have any more trouble from those guys who destroyed my ship. It really needles a good captain to lose his ship. Questions?”

  “We know where the masers, or what is left of the masers, are. I would like to form a group who is willing to go first and set up our Martian base for occupancy before the next crewmembers arrive, then find out if the nasty Matts survived the last fight,” suggested Mars. “If they did, and we don’t have shields extended, it could be a fair fight and we could attempt to get some of their weapons. Who wants to join me?” Several hands shot up, including Gary Darwin’s and Mark Price’s and the other two Australians present.

  Mike Jones and Paul Getty had resigned from the Australian Air Force just before the crew had left the island. They weren’t being left behind, but Prime Minister Soames had met with them personally on their last day and made them promise to return after training and become the first astronauts of the new Australian space program about to get underway with Martin Brusk’s help.

  The four Australians, two married and two about to be married, were now part of the astronaut program. Simulators and other flight training equipment had been pulled out of the Nevada base’s underground cavern, its entrance now under a new secure hangar, and readied for their space flight training.

  Lunar gave her husband a beady eye, and he resolved to drop his hand, his eyes pleading with the boss.

  “You will still be using one of our current shuttles if you leave in the next six months, Mars,” continued Captain Pete. “I recommend you wait at least a year, or at least until closer to the next opposition, when SB-IV is fully fitted. Then you can take more than a dozen crewmembers, since there seems to be more than can fit in SB-III just in this room. Plus the closer you leave to the opposition, the less travel time you will need.”

  Lunar thanked the captain and turned towards the German scientist.

  “Dr. Schmidt, you have gone through the plans for America Two. You are in charge of spaceship part production here on the base and in space. Can you give us an idea when America Two could be ready to head through space?”

  “Ja, danke schon, Commander Richmond. We have spent several weeks now breaking down the plans into a time log. It is helpful that the outer skin layer is so forward in production in Israel. It will be far quicker to make America Three than America Two. Our first mother ship was made over two decades ago, and with a vibrant production industry across the United States. Today, we can only depend on a few companies to make our internal systems, instead of the hundreds decades ago. I expect that we may need to set up several new departments or even companies here in Nevada to meet our needs. I understand that with Frau Dithers Roo becoming President, it will help get this country back on its feet, but it will take time, time we do not have. Commander Richmond, I have two answers for you. Our best answer: if we have unlimited funds and rare earth metals, to get our resources made locally. And a second recommendation: if we have to wait for the U.S. economy to become a manufacturing economy again.”

  “I’m ready,” stated Lunar.

  “Ten years, maybe eight if we have everything we need on time. Twenty years if we don’t.”

  “And America Three?” Lunar asked.

  “Ja,” he stated again, scratching his head. “I would say four years of manufacture in space on a single assembly line once we have enough metals. We know that we will not have the resources down here or up there for two ships to be built at once in orbit. So I would say at best 12 to 14 years from now there will be two craft for travel to Mars. That is with all the help you offered me from NASA, Israel, Canada, Australia, the metals needed for production, and parts and systems manufactured here and locally,” the German replied.

  “Thank you, Dr. Schmidt. For those of you who are hearing this for the first time, Astermine Co. has gone into lengthy agreements with Joanne Dithers Roo if she gets into power. She will give us everything this country has to offer for our space program. NASA still has active production plants. So do several companies under government control. It seemed her father collected profitable companies and put them under governmental control during his time in office. Astermine Co. has agreements in place with the Canadian government by which we can get much needed systems faster than waiting for them to be produced here. Israel, through Martin Brusk, is ramping up its production in the areas we need and will produce parts for us. Australia is on the same wavelength. It seems that money still talks in this world of commerce. Dr. Schmidt, as I asked you for figures in old U.S. dollars, what will these mother ships cost us?”

  “In old U.S. Dollars, and using your father’s calculations on the same plans he worked on, about $90 to $120 billion each.” Everybody gaped at the scientist.

  “How do we get that sort of money?” asked Mars, as shocked as the rest.

  “Easy,” smiled Lunar. “Asteroid mining, and collecting a quarter of a trillion dollars in gold from friendly asteroids, Captain Noble, just like your father, Maggie and Jonesy did. Collecting the gold in The Pig’s Snout was child’s play to what we need to do on a few asteroids. And we want rich asteroids with gold or rare earth metals.”

  “Two hundred and fifty billion! That is a lot of money,” injected Mark Price, unable to stay quiet any longer.

  “Well, look at the bright side. About five percent of what we need is already in storage, unfortunately not the current currency of choice, diamonds, and less than five miles from where we are seated,” Lunar smiled. “We will have to wait until diamonds regain a decent value again before we can use them to pay for manufacture. My plan is to have the first of our new shuttles, SB-IV, under the captaincy of Mr. Noble here, head to Mars six months before the next opposition. He will reopen our base and leave a small group of biologists and security there, once he has determined the planet is safe. The Mars Noble Mars mission could be a two-year mission. The second shuttle will be ready for operation by the time the Mars mission leaves, and its prime job will be to haul the parts for the build of America Two into space. This part of my plan is where we will need most of you newer astronauts. Two of the smaller shuttles, SB-I and SB-II, will aid in this project. That leaves us with three mining craft and SB-III, as well as one of the two Matt spacecraft. The other Matt craft will be
docked to SB-IV and will head with the mission as a reconnaissance craft. The third part of my plan is for you more experienced astronauts. Using SB-III as protection, I want all three Astermine mining craft to head out to an asteroid to mine for gold, or as Dr. Schmidt and the scientists have suggested more importantly, rare earth metals. They tell me that the rare earth metals are more valuable to Astermine than gold. Any extra amounts of these products wouldn’t be used as currency, but in more of a bartering system, our treasure for the parts to build our ships. Martin Brusk is heading over from Israel next month to discuss what metals he would be happy to receive instead of cold gold cash.”

  “So the rare earth metals we found on DX2017 would be of more value to us?” Mars queried.

  “Dr. Schmidt, you best answer that,” suggested Lunar.

  “Herr Captain Noble. I did much work with your father, and I believe I had the same conversation with him 20 years ago. What I said to him then is twice as important now. Approximately 75 percent of everything we are going to build into the two mother ships will need rare earth metals. Iridium, osmium, palladium, and platinum are just a few. Then we will need large amounts of cobalt, silver, tungsten and a dozen other metals. We will be able to produce hundreds of parts in cobalt, platinum and nickel in space so we won’t need to carry the heavy metal up from here. Many metal parts can be designed and produced up there with 3-D scanners and printers. Ja, so here is the bottom line in my departments. Each of those printers also needs rare earth metals to work, therefore we could get as many printers as we want from suppliers here in the U.S.A. in return to giving the company who manufactures them more than enough of the metals they need. Understand, Herr Noble? China in 2003 to 2019 produced the vast majority of rare earth metals. That was twenty years ago. Then the war began. Since then the planet has been starved of these precious items.”