Red Hope

by J J (John) Dreese

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Screeeeeech!

  The escape hatch door blew off and spun out into the blackness of space. The cabin depressurized violently sucking all of the poisonous fog out with it. The rush of air outward was so powerful that several of the wall panels popped inward, reacting to the suddenly missing air pressure on the inside.

  Any partially empty water bags exploded creating a shower of ice particles like frozen rain drops. The crystals fell to the floor as the ship accelerated under rocket power. Yeva was ripped from her seatbelt and slammed into the console between her and the empty hatch opening. Adam held her hand tightly to keep her from getting sucked out through the escape hatch.

  Suddenly there was silence.

  The rockets stopped; the ship was in orbit. Everything that had been pinned to the floor was suddenly floating weightless around the cabin interior. Hundreds of loose checklist pages floated haphazardly around Adam and Yeva brushing against their visors. If the flight control computer was still functional, the MM10 engines would kick in soon and start pushing them toward Earth.

  Adam would not let go of Yeva’s hand. The communication headsets weren’t working anymore. He pulled her toward him and swiped the floating papers out of the way so he could see her face. She had blood pooling around her nose, but there was nothing she could do with her helmet on except wait for it to clot.

  Pages from the manuals and ice crystals were floating effortlessly out the open door. The Sunrise peaked over the horizon illuminating the ship exterior like a flare. A bright beam of sunlight barged in through the missing doorway. It tried to reach the two astronauts, but there was too much floating clutter protecting them. The dancing papers and ice crystals created a swarm of shadows and sparkles. Adam squinted as the bright light finally pierced his visor. He looked at Yeva again, but all he could see was the reflection of his own panicked face in her visor.

  Chapter 27

  “It’s all you now, kiddo! Push the pedals!” yelled Connie as she let go of her son’s bicycle. Young Cody pedaled hard. The bike rattled loudly every time the wheels jolted over a dirt clod.

  Connie could now run easily next to his bike just like Adam used to. Cody coasted for a few feet before slowing down. The front wheel wobbled left and right before the boy and his bike fell over together. Connie kneeled down next to him.

  “You did so great honey. I bet you go even farther next time. I’ll be right next to you. I won’t let you get hurt.”

  Cody looked up at his Mom and grinned with a smile, now displaying his two new front teeth that had finally grown in.

  “I know, Mom. Let me try again.”

  A large black sedan turned off the main road and lumbered into the parking lot. It crunched over the gravel and pulled up next to Connie's minivan. She looked up toward it. A slow smile swept over her face as she walked back toward the parking lot. Cody wheeled his bike behind her. A familiar man exited the car and started walking toward them.

  “Hey Connie! Hi Cody,” said the man in a friendly tone.

  “Long time no see, Chris. Cody, you remember Mr. Tankovitch, right?” asked Connie.

  Chris leaned down and shook young Cody’s hand.

  “Young man, I bet you’re a bicycle expert by now. NASA may need you in the astronaut program when you grow up.”

  The little boy smiled politely as he shook his head side to side; he wanted nothing to do with space travel.

  “Mommy, can I go play with my Rescue Bots?”

  She leaned down to look at Cody in the eyes.

  “Sure, and go ahead and put your seat belt on too.”

  She patted him on the head as he put the bike in the back of the minivan. Then he climbed in over the bike and crawled through the interior before finally flopping down into the back booster seat.

  Connie crossed her arms and let out a sigh.

  “So what brings you all the way out here today?”

  Chris smiled and said, “A lot has happened since we lost contact with them a few months ago.”

  "That's quite the understatement," Connie replied.

  "From the way you were running with Cody, can I assume the experimental back surgery worked?" asked Chris.

  "Actually, it's all healed.”

  She did a slow pirouette on the gravel to demonstrate how her spine operation had succeeded.

  Chris laughed and said, “That’s fantastic. I’m glad it worked out so well. I know Adam really wanted that for you.”

  A somber silence rose up between them.

  “Chris, I’m sorry that you lost your job at NASA. I know you were such a hard worker.”

  Chris chuckled.

  “That’s just the way it works. A new president gets elected and they clean house with the government appointed employees. Besides, it’s nothing compared to the devastation in Los Angeles, New York and Houston; I mean, the bombs wiped out all of our satellite communication antennas too. I made out pretty easy if I may say so.”

  Chris moved some gravel around with his foot to avoid what he had to say next.

  “Some of my friends still inside NASA have given me information and I wanted to share it with you before the media got ahold of it. This is strictly confidential, okay? It’s serious stuff.”

  She answered in a worried tone, “Yes, of course.”

  “Okay. So, some of the surviving engineers at NASA finally got the antennas back online last week. Yesterday, the new Mission Control Center reported getting a beacon signal from the Little Turtle.”

  Connie looked confused and said, “I don’t know what a beacon signal is, but does that mean that the ship started working again? The signal is coming all the way from Mars?”

  Her expression turned to one of hopefulness.

  “Not exactly, the beacon signal is a simple data stream that the autopilot sends out as it gets near Earth. It uses a short-range transmitter on the Little Turtle. The main purpose of the beacon signal is to help Mission Control lock in on its position. It's a bit of a last minute duct-tape fix to a design problem we thought might pop up.”

  Chris looked over at the minivan and then back at Connie. He continued, “The Little Turtle is notoriously hard to track with radar because the faceted side is always facing Earth. By complete accident, it’s very stealthy. Normally, the long range antenna makes it light up like a Christmas tree on radar. Not this time though. The beacon signal caught them all by surprise.”

  Connie questioned, “But there’s no way it could’ve lasted all these months, right? What does it mean?”

  Chris looked over the top of his glasses at Connie.

  “It means the ship is still alive. It means the crew was able to at least launch off the surface of Mars. It means that Little Turtle is coming back home.”

  Connie’s eyes welled up with tears. She said, “You mean, somebody on board is still steering it? Maybe? Possibly?”

  Chris shook his head side to side.

  “No. Well, there’s a remote chance…,” stuttered Chris.

  He looked down to search for the right words.

  “There’s no chance they’re still alive. It’s most likely been on autopilot for the last few months. I doubt the crew could’ve lived this long with the three of them onboard. Besides, the beacon signal says that only one emergency life support system was activated after takeoff. Whatever happened wasn’t good. I wanted to tell you firsthand before this hits the newspapers. I don’t want to give you any ideas that Adam is coming home alive. It’s just not in the cards.”

  Connie was rocking side to side and crying. Through the tears, she said, “But there is a chance? Some hope?”

  Chris shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Connie brought her hand up to wipe away some tears that had crowded on her cheeks.

  She looked down unable to make eye contact and said sadly, “Okay, I gotcha. I understand.”

  Connie suddenly looked up at Chris and asked, “Do you think he died a foolish death?”

&
nbsp; Chris didn’t expect a question like that.

  “I’m…” he said before pausing again for several seconds. Connie could tell that he desperately wanted to tell her something.

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we finally figured out what that early Mars culture discovered that ultimately brought down their whole society. The translation was very difficult because it used chemical equations that our chemists didn’t understand until just recently.”

  Chris paused. His mind searched for the right words.

  “So, you might think that an advanced culture like theirs would’ve toted interplanetary space travel or anti-gravity as their quintessential achievement, but most of the walls in that room were a presentation of a chemical equation and how to manufacture it. Our own chemists are trying to synthesize it here on Earth right now. The Martians invented a way to control cell growth rates. They could slow it down, speed it up, or maybe even stop it.”

  Connie furled her eyebrows in confusion.

  “I don’t get why that's important Chris,” said Connie as she wiped some hair from her face.

  “Being able to control cell growth rates has far reaching consequences. In addition to slowing down the aging process, they essentially cured cancer and any other disease that has to do with uncontrolled cell growth. To them, treating cancer was probably like we treat heartburn today. Take some medicine and the cancer goes away. They didn’t have to worry about exposure to carcinogens or radiation because, well, anybody who got cancer could be cured. They were smart enough to know that their greatest achievement was something that would save the lives of so many people. Not interplanetary flight. Not anti-gravity. Just a cure for something that has dogged us since the dawn of time.”

  Chris crossed his arms and continued explaining.

  “Unfortunately, their culture wasn’t ready for their good fortune. Mars is smaller, so their food resources couldn’t keep up with the exploding population. They destroyed their planet by trying to keep everybody fed. Our experts are sure that Earth is different. We can absorb that kind of population growth. That’s what they say anyway."

  Chris pointed his finger up in the air to highlight his next point.

  "We're not there yet though. Part of the manufacturing process requires the use of anti-gravity and, unfortunately, that information is either still on Mars or, if we’re lucky, inside the Little Turtle. That's the missing vital piece. And I hope to God Adam put it on that spaceship.”

  Chris walked closer and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Connie, your family’s sacrifice will ultimately save the human race from infinite misery. Now, incidentally, there were some other things in that pyramid. One part was a map of other sites and the Curiosity is on its way there right now.”

  Chris paused and then finished his thought, “Rest assured, Connie, Adam did many great things.”

  Connie’s eyes started overflowing with tears.

  “Yes, but I still miss him so much,” she cried as she hugged Chris. She asked, “It sounds like he went there for a good reason then?”

  “Yes,” answered Chris.

  “He went there for the best reasons.”

  Connie nodded her head and stood back, wiping her eyes.

  “Okay, Chris. Well, thank you for coming all the way out here. I won’t tell the kids about it; I don’t want to give them false hope.”

  She walked to the minivan and opened the door. Her head tilted up and she looked over at Chris who hadn’t moved. She climbed into her seat and sat there silently while Cody played with his robot toys in the back seat. She started the engine and drove down the road. Connie was gone.

  Chris stood there a long time reflecting on what had taken place; his journey all the way from visiting Keller Murch's beach house to getting a team of astronauts to Mars. He knew so much more about what Adam had done on Mars, but he would never tell Connie about it.

  Chris started walking toward his car. He changed direction and instead meandered down a dirt bike path that ran near a casting pond. There was no bench nearby so he sat down in the inviting grass and enjoyed the quiet solitude. He had a peaceful view of the calm water right in front of him.

  Birds flew overhead as Chris watched the setting Sun through purple clouds. The sunsets had been brilliant since the bombs dropped. The strong smell of freshly cut grass

  wafted by and reminded him of that night spent observing Halley’s Comet with his dad. Chris looked to his left and then to his right. Then he looked straight up at the turquoise sky and said out loud, “Show me a miracle, Adam. Make me a believer.”

  Halfway between the Earth and the Moon a ship raced home, still several days out. The spacecraft closely resembled a haggard and fragile turtle shell. The escape hatch door was gone. In its place, the opening was now covered by a stack of metal cabinet doors located on the inside and held in place with air pressure alone. Only half of the MM10 motors were operating. Trailing behind the ship was a long nylon strap. The far end of that strap was wrapped around the waist of a very still space suit.

  The porthole windows around the ship were cracked, but still in place; all fogged except for one. Barely visible behind that window in the dark cabin was a solitary set of green eyes staring outward through the glass. Bloodshot and barely blinking in total silence, they were transfixed on the bright blue planet they had desperately longed for across an ocean of time and space. The eyes were exhausted from the worry of not knowing the right thing to do for so long. Now they trembled with blue hope.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book was written with the support of many helpful people. I am forever grateful to them.

  My wife Lee supported this project in many ways including read-throughs of the final drafts. Jason Defenbaugh has been an editor from the very beginning when the book consisted of one chapter. Yulia Gaydutskaya helped make sure the Russian names were realistic. Elena Greer read the rough draft and taught me the importance of character dialogue. She also used her skills as a professional artist to create the fantastic cover art. Jan Batts is an author and journalist whose contagious enthusiasm inspired me to follow through on this story. Chris Sideroff shared some of his wit and funny stories. Jason and Estee Valendy helped clarify part of the story that needed to be just right. Last, but not least, is Kurt Chankaya. His stories about the scientific exploration of Mars were my first real introduction to the idea of manned missions to the Red Planet.

  Thanks everybody. Enjoy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Dreese is an engineer, programmer and author who lives in Texas. He has a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from The Ohio State University and he can solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than 90 seconds (on most days).