America One: War of the Worlds

by T I WADE

  “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 co-pilot 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 co-pilot 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 bot
h 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.”