by T I WADE
Max Von Braun had given Ryan the excellent news that fuel production in Mattville was running according to plan, and which added to any extra fuel needs Chief Astronaut Jones and crew would need to fight the Matts, and even bring aboard some gold if there was time. He and several others had begun to clear the crater from Michael Pitt’s accurate attack on the base decades earlier.
The daily radio broadcast began with good news from Vitalily. The Matts had taken the bait and attacked the plateau, several hundred feet from the base, for the fourth time a few hours earlier. He had set a trap for them by activating the robotic soldiers and placing them at each side of the plateau. Even to a pilot flying his ship pretty close, could he see that these were robots, and not humans wearing spacesuits.
As Vitalily explained to everyone listening, the Matts flying past had seen the movement, and three of them had swooped in for a closer look. Vitalily had the robots just walking around aimlessly and separated from each other.
Then the Matt ships had returned for a third time, and had decided to rid the planet of whatever was walking down there. All seven ships came in on a hover, and within several hundred feet of the robots. Vitalily sent a message for the robots to walk faster, to be less of a target and ordered one of the robots to point at the lead Matt ship. The pilot opened fire, and all eleven soldiers shocked the Matts by immediately firing back.
Even though they destroyed three of Mars’ robotic soldiers, four of their space craft exploded and two more left the crater flying erratically. It seemed only one of the Matt ships got away unscathed and Mars Noble was proud of his men.
Vitalily, and Max in Mattville agreed with Ryan on the radio call that any attack in the future will be a long distance attack, if they attacked again at all. The Matts, everyone knew wouldn’t give up.
Vitalily ended his message that one of the Matt ships had fired a different type of weapon at the outer glass veranda of the base, seconds before the fight, and now everything outside was now demolished.
Max continued the conversation and told the crew over the radio broadcasts from his base on a daily basis, how they were about to clear the rubble to make a temporary landing platform for the shuttles to come in and land only 70 feet from the door they had entered through deep in the tunnel.
“We setup our spare blue shield directly outside the door to the upper base chamber, over.” Max reported as America Two headed back into orbit around Earth. “We powered up the black box through a connection we had our mining robot dig for us through the wall.”
“How did you manage to get the door open?” Mars Noble asked as Assistant Security Officer sitting on the Bridge next to his father.
“Pretty easy young Mars, once we could power up the blue shield inside the cavern where the river is. We connected the shield up to our small fusion plant you guys left us, the 30 Megawatt system, powered it up to 3 percent power and allowed the shield to make a bubble in the chamber wall between the door and the outside blast cavern. We then got the robot to begin scraping at the wall so that the shield allowed it to grind rock off the wall. It had to be on extreme slow, or it just ground against the shield, which did nothing to the wall. So we set up the robot for its highest pressure torque at its lowest speed and it began digging into the wall a week ago, over.”
“Max, you are certainly innovative,” stated Ryan.
“It was quite simple really,” Max laughed several minutes later from millions of miles away. “As long as the mining robot’s grind against the rock was extremely slow, the blue shield allowed it to pass through, touch the rock through the shield, and dig with its maximum torque at about an inch an hour. We had a hole in the six foot thick wall within a day, and an opening large enough for me to climb through with a spacesuit yesterday, over.”
“The shield expanded out through the hole and begun filling the tunnel outside, ingenious Max, over” stated Mars Noble who had seen every inch either side of the wall Max was describing.
“Yes, we increased the power from the fusion plant to 5 percent, and it touched the outside tunnels opposite wall. At 7 percent it enveloped the door. About twelve hours ago, we headed into the shield with spacesuits on, pumped in air, and while we were waiting for the air pressure to mount, we checked the distance to the partly open cavern—seventy-three feet. Bob, Joe and I tied a cord to several canisters full of water, and I repelled down to the bottom of the crater. The crater bottoms out at 77 feet below the tunnel opening. Our next problem is to attack the crater’s roof so that we can make it big enough to set a shuttle down. We worked out, that if we could get the roof to fall in, then we could level the crater floor, and the rock fall should bring it up a few feet or so, over.”
“Not a problem for the mining robot to be setup to level the floor,” stated VIN Noble. You could attach a metal club to its mining claw and beat the rock to flatten it, over.”
“Yes, a good idea VIN,” replied Max a while later. “Since we still have a few months before you guys arrive, I think we could have a crater fit for at least one of the larger shuttles to land. Ryan, we could use an elevator system to haul the cargo up the seventy-foot level to the tunnel entrance. We have nothing here we can refit to do that, even in 13 percent gravity. We will have enough air in the shield to try the door tomorrow, over.”
“VIN can throw up the supplies with his super metal legs and arm to you guys in the tunnel,” smirked Jonesy. “Nothing is impossible for Super Metal Man.”
“One day you might need a little metal, Mr. Jones,” replied VIN. “You are not retired yet partner, and I’ll let those Matts know which shuttle you are flying.”
“Herr Von Braun, Smidt here. It won’t be difficult to design a cargo lift system,” added Dr. Smidt from Nevada Base. “Von Braun, give me the exact measurements of what you need, and I will build you something hydraulic. Please remember, it will need a perfectly flat surface to work from, over.”
Overall, the six-hour long conversation between the bases was very fruitful that day. It was a pity that Mattville only had one shield. There was a couple at the Retreat, but they had no way to transport them until the mother ship arrived, but at least the area could be readied as a permanent base for Martian operations.
Chapter 14
A New Revelation or Two
The time arrived to return to red planet, for many the last time they would ever see Earth.
Even though the Matts didn’t have as sophisticated fire power as Astermine did, they were still a formidable force, even though they had already lost a dozen ships before they had finally annihilated Mars Noble’s eleven soldier robots.
The metal men had fought bravely, and had repelled three attacks before the last man fell to maser fire from a flanking attack while he was trying to shoot three ships flying directly in front of him a mile away.
The entire series of battles had been seen and recorded on the dozen cameras around the base, and the final soldier had killed his second victim seconds before he had erupted into a blast of blue energy.
Mars Noble was sad that he had lost his men. Only the day before the last man fell, the Marines in Camp Lejeune had reported how fantastic these soldiers were to Mars’ father.
“When we retire, Dad, we can go into the soldier robot business,” and Martin Brusk, overhearing the conversation between son in SB-IV and VIN flying dogfights with Jonesy in SB-III, stated that he would be happy to back the new venture.
The crew had gotten used to crew and friends of Astermine always listening in on their conversations. All communications in space was through radio or intercoms, and at such close range to earth there was little privacy.
Now the last shuttle, SB-V with the mother ship’s commander, Lunar, and her sister flying up the last 5 tons of water and fresh rations had arrived and docked onto the last docking port. Lunar, still closing down the shuttle, gave her father orders for America Two to undock from the Orbital Space Platform, and begin orbiting Earth for departure.
Lunar’s shuttle was f
ull of fresh produce for the flight to Mars. As usual Ryan had tried to make it a dry mission, but he knew that in every nook and cranny in all the shuttles was stashed away contraband for the voyage. At least they would eat fresh, unfrozen food for the first couple of weeks into the journey.
The reason Lunar had arrived at so late was to carry up the new hydraulic system Dr. Smidt and his team had designed for the crater. Also Martin Brusk had disappointedly headed back down to Earth. There was an emergency at one of his production plants that needed his attention.
The doctor and Max Von Braun had spoken for the last several weeks about the hydraulic lift system, and Mattville had a flattened ramp and landing area thanks to the robot miner and its metal club.
“Take her to warp speed Mr. Sulu,” joked Ryan to Igor who was actually controlling the ship’s computers.
“Aye, aye Captain,” Igor replied in his best Star Trek accent.
They would need three orbits of Earth to increase speed to leave orbit, and immediately the computers programmed the ship to increase her speed to take her out of the traffic-jammed LSO.
“Right, astronauts and security personnel, we are leaving intercom communications with Earth in about six hours,” began Ryan, Flight Operations Commander in the cafeteria 2 days later. The speed had increased faster than any space vessel had achieved since Man began traveling in space.
The three orbits had been completed and as usual the spinning America Two, with five shuttles and Asterspace Three the old mining cargo ship docked around her, headed towards an empty area of space that would one day have the red planet in it.
“We are about to head through 46,000 knots forward speed, and if you want to say goodbye to anybody privately though the intercom system at Nevada Base, or Astermine Island in Australia, you had better do it after this briefing. After that it is open radio communications only. Chief Astronaut Jones, please give us the list of astronauts selected to fly the combat missions.”
“Thank you Commander. Guys we have trained now in all the combat scenarios Head of Security VIN Noble and I, and my wife and co-pilot could think of. We have all completed 35 hours of combat flight. We are as ready we will ever be to take on anybody in space, and especially with our OldGen experience, around the atmosphere of the red planet. I know some of you haven’t had the practice of flying in the weak Martian atmosphere yet, and that is why all five shuttles will be captained by pilots who have. It does take a little getting used to. Harder to maneuver than Earth’s thick atmosphere, but easier than in the vacuum of space.
“Me, and my wife will be Combat Commanders in SB-III. Allen and Jamie Saunders in SB-II. Michael and Penny Pitt in SB-I. For our NextGeners, we OldGeners might be a little slower than your maneuvering abilities, but all six of us have flown thousands of hours in our shuttles, have the experience of all atmospheric and deep space flight conditions, and have all been in battle. We will always go into battle first.
“Commander of SB-IV is Mars Noble, who has been in battle in many different space shuttles, as well as having Matt-craft experience. His co-pilot is Saturn Noble. Saturn has agreed that her husband can fly equally well as she can, but he can also listen to any enemy Matt thought chatter through his telepathic abilities.
“Finally, Commander Lunar Richmond and her husband Mark will co-pilot SB-V. Commander Richmond has had battle experience, and her husband has the best natural ability of flying I have ever seen. His reactions are quicker than anybody here. I have taken weeks to decide these teams, and these decisions have been made to give us our best chance to win this war. We are heavily outnumbered. For all we know they could have thousands of spacecraft in dozens of bases across the planet, but we have to go on what we know. What we do know is that there are many enemy spaceships currently on the red plant. Thanks to Mars Noble’s robot soldiers there aren’t as many as there used to be. We also know of more flights on the way from Europa, but they are expected to arrive 20 to 25 days after we do. This will give us the opportunity to do battle with what is on the planet first, then pause, lick our wounds, and hopefully surprise attack the incoming reinforcements a day or so out from the red planet. I will leave our laser strength to my partner, VIN Noble.”
Jonesy sat down. There hadn’t been too many surprises, except Saturn was Mars’ co-pilot instead of being the other way around. Also Mark Price was in and Pluto Katherine Richmond, an expert astronaut was not.
“I wish I was heading into battle with my partner, but everybody knows he favors his wife,” joked VIN as he got up to speak. “To keep the records straight, I have fired more lasers out of a shuttle than anybody here, but I believe Maggie is a prettier co-pilot than me.” VIN was in a good mood, and he got much laughter and sarcastic comments from the thirty crewmembers present. “I think Jonesy is either getting afraid of his own space shark or he needs Maggie to direct him and his aging eyesight when to bank left or right.”
“Thank you Mr. Noble,” commented Jonesy impersonating his boss.
“As Head of Security, it is my duty to back you pilots up with America Two’s fire power to eliminate as many enemy as possible, as well look after your butts. You won’t have wingmen, you pilots will act independently of each other, and I will be using this ship’s 12 laser weapons to their fullest extent. For this I need the best gunners and will have Pluto Katherine, her husband Gary Darwin, and young Jane Burgos, our real sharpshooter as assistant gunners. Like you co-pilots in the two larger shuttles, each of us up here will man three lasers each. That is the maximum any human can handle, and we will resume gunner training here on the Bridge for the rest of the voyage. We have 21 lasers against an enemy of who knows. If America Two is destroyed, you astronauts will have lousy odds, so we protect each other. The boss, Igor, Boris, my son Mars and I, as the Security Department have decided to increase the mother ship’s orbital altitude to 500 miles above the red planet and not our usual 200 miles. We will not use any blue shields, nor will you. Dr. Smidt, Igor and Boris spent a few weeks calculating that at this higher altitude, they can do a sort of non-central orbit. This means that instead of orbiting around the center of the planet, we can cheat a little and orbit several degrees to one side. Using side thrusters we can stay in a non-central orbit, and be in sight of the area 70 percent of every orbit, instead of only 50 percent. It is just a pity we cannot do a high geostationary orbit and be up there for you 24/7. Igor can explain it better, but 70 percent is better than 50. Twenty-one lasers will certainly be a mighty firepower, but America Two has to be in sight of the battle area to help you guys. I doubt that too many enemy vessels will be present in the first attack, but who knows Matt tactics. They have shown with the flanking attack on the last soldier that they understand tactical fighting, and I’ll bet everybody here that they will time their attack when America Two is out of sight. I’m sure they have ways and means of knowing where the mother ship is over the horizon. How, we have never found out but we must assume they will. Until America Two is in sight of the shuttles, you are on your own. That is why we came up with our new ‘fly towards us’ maneuver. We will use this maneuver if more than 20 enemy blips are seen.
“Our ‘fly towards us’ maneuver will take effect as soon as 20 or more enemy bogeys are seen on radar. All shuttles will climb and head towards where the mother ship will arrive over the horizon. At full thrust and at full climb, you will lessen the time we can take part in the fight by 50 percent. I will leave you with the idea that 21 guns instead of 9 versus hundreds of enemy is a better bet. Max Von Braun has now seen at least another 160 enemy ships, 20 flights on their way from Europa. What is in our favor, in the second phase of what I’m going the call the war of the worlds, is that we will all be together when we head out to attack them as one force. We will not have a planet getting in our way.” VIN sat down.
Pluto Katherine wasn’t happy about not being an astronaut going into battle. A few had turned towards her, and had seen her face go white as she was told she would be flying.
“Pluts,
I cannot have both my daughters in battle out there. I gave the order to have both of you in different ships for battle. Please understand,” Ryan stated to his daughter. He got very little response from her.
As the ship’s speed grew, earth got smaller, and life became the routine of space travel.
“We saw the Matt ships circling us yesterday, over,” Vitalily stated in the daily radio broadcast several days later. By this time America Two was traveling through space at 77,000 knots, planet Earth was receding behind them, the moon was another star, and the ship’s crew were content. With fresh provisions kept cold, they ate as well as on the island, and still had a few days before scrambled egg and frozen orange juice pouches made their way back to the cafeteria.
“Could you count them, over,” VIN asked. The conversations were long and very drawn out with the time lapse of distance.
“I believe we saw seven enemy craft in one camera shot,” Vitalily replied a few minutes later. “They are getting closer, now brave that nobody is firing at them. I went outside a couple of days ago to see what was out there, and what they were seeing from the air. The veranda, or porch area with the two exit doors and outer room is a tangled mess of metal. Even parts of the silicone glass was melted, which shows the high temperatures of their masers. I’m not a physicist, but I can see melted glass out there, and silicone has such a high melting point. To anybody flying past the retreat, it looks broken, the dust has covered up any footprints and vegetable gardens, and I would believe nobody is living here. I think we are now safe from maser attacks until you arrive, over.”
“Is the single docking port in the tunnel to the outside working OK, over?” Ryan asked Vitalily.
“Yes, but it will be difficult to get supplies in here. We will have to slide them through the port one by one. Boss, otherwise we are as safe as underground moles, but would prefer to be in Max’s first class accommodations. I think this base is not needed anymore, over.”