The Air Force hideout at Fort Collins was known by the Cyborgs, but they’d found it impossible to enter. Once the computer controls were shut dwon by the humans, entry was no longer a threat. Thus, so goes the logic, if they could not get in and they established a kill zone around it, no one could get out.
There were no communications facilities, so the people inside were trapped, supposedly assured an agonizing death at some date not far away. Sooner or later, the Cyborgs figured, supplies would run out.
But, the Cyborgs did not yet understand mining. Colorado, from top to bottom, is a honeycombed land, with mines running from one point to another, and crossing here and there. And only the old fashioned paper maps showed the way.
More, it was just a matter of those many busy people, like ants, digging by hand to connect more of the mines, then finally, out to the various silos, each containing an essentially lifeless rocket. But of course, each of those was a war machine.
Now, in a shortsighted program, mankind could renew the signals, arm the rockets and blow the entire world to bits. But that was not the plan. Longer range thinking had them for a far more specialized use.
It took some serious brainpower to design the conversions, and then put them in place. But humans, though they may not always show it, have lots of brainpower when it comes to survival.
The engines were originally designed to push the rocket to LEO, or low earth orbit, then allow the guidance system to find the target, start the descent, and with near pinpoint accuracy, destroy it.
Now, each engine was enhanced by fifty percent, upgraded to the latest fuel and the most explosive combustion system, which would push the vehicle much farther out, nearly the highest orbit altitude, easily one hundred thousand miles. The moon is a mere two hundred thirty-five thousand miles, on average.
This was easily accomplished because gravity was already conquered at that point and, once directed, the rocket simply coasted at high speed toward the moon.
But not all the fuel was used. The vehicle would make a targeted run for the moon, aligning itself with thrusters and radar, to find the point where the habitats were to grow, these on the far side of the moon, not far from the ‘horizon.’
Some minor changes were made to allow forward thrusters that could slow the rocket to a crawl… something not necessary in the quick arrival and detonation of the original purpose.
The final fuel would flow through those reverse thrusters and positioning nozzles to slow the rocket to the point that it was nearly at rest, sliding down on the moon’s much less gravity. The rockets were one way, only. Any damage was insignificant, as long as the cargo was available, intact. But, then, of course, each rocket, itself, was several tons of useful material.
And here, they had seriously worked to make the cargo area as big as possible, without expanding the body’ circumference. The silo was dug down deeper by nearly fifty feet. But they could not change the silo’s diameter. Not without drawing attention. So, the rocket had to fit through the silo’s collar.
While the digging and refitting were going on, specialized engineering techs cut the rocket through the midsection, just as if making a stretch limo. They added in a midsection to increase the total length to one hundred and fifty feet.
Restructuring the support mechanism was a nightmare, but mechanical and electrical engineers live for these challenges.
General Washington kept the others up with the status, without revealing the location of the rockets. In fact, with those involved in transportation, he gave them six key points set up to accept the delivery off of flat bed trains. “Should be no problem for the trains. The old fashioned diesels do not require computers, and for the most part, the Cyborgs ignore ‘em. They think the non technical stuff cannot hurt them. Their loss, right?”
Admiral Morgan, on the phone with two others, a simple conference system, landline, no computers, agreed, “Yes, and to all of those moving materials, do NOT use your new flatbed dollies and such. Anything computerized is a danger. If you do not have equipment, I will find some Navy muscle for you!”
The drop off points for the steel panels, and there were many panels, were from five to fifty miles each from the rockets. That was many miles of mostly straight line tunnels, cut twenty five feet wide and fifteen feet high, one hundred feet and more underground.
The panels were fifty feet long, and twenty feet wide, stacked and bound five to a load. As half inch titanium, they were very heavy, but then, they were designed to hold back space.
The Russian was confused. “How are you going to get them into the … uhh… units, down the… Well, I mean…” He could not say rockets and silos an international land line calls.
“Not your concern Dogis. We have plans for it, but we cannot discuss it, right?”
“Right. So, we have set up the same system here, but I am not privy to the progress. You are handling it, right?”
“Yes, Doctor. So, we need the materials in five days. Get on it!”
Dogis had a good question, even if it was inappropriate. The long panels could not stand up in the tunnel, on any edge. Instead, they could be carried on a flat bed trailer, hauled by battery run tugs, all the way to the silos.
Fortunately, the control rooms near the silos were forty feet high and easily dug down in the places that mattered, made deeper, so when the panels arrived, they could be manipulated to a vertical stand, then placed inside the rocket. All it required was dumb equipment, like mechanical arms on the tugs, with a man driving the unit. And it worked.
One of the engineers took a break, then spotted Colonel Patricia Kholer, who was responsible for the acquisition, manufacture and load up of all materials. He sauntered over, waiting while she delivered instructions to a pair of loaders operating specially equipped arms.
“Uh, Colonel? I have a suggestion?”
“Ah, Lieutenant Stark. What is it?”
The leftover US Army was full of talented people. They went underground with the defeat of any fighting units, but they still had their skills. “Ma’am, the specs on this unit call for the passenger box, the pilot cabin, to be at the top, then the panels, which reach almost to the bottom. There is twelve feet of space between the top of the steel panels and the bottom of the passenger compartment. For these things carrying people, we could put in an ISS level kitchen, bath and such, with minimal change in weight. I mean, it is a four day ride.”
Patricia knew that there was only this one freight rocket carrying four to six engineers. The main unit carrying sixteen professionals would go out of Houston. “How long would it take to make the improvement?”
“I can use most of the material from the silo control room. A bit antiquated, but I can adjust it to work. Maybe a day.”
“Make it half a day, Lieutenant, and make it work. Go.”
Again, a credit to ingenuity and Army go power, it was done well before the planned lift off. The weight had hardly changed, maybe by one or two percent, as the panels were extremely heavy and provided the highest percentage of mass.
She reported in to Washington that all of her systems were go, and told him about the add on.
“Good job. And that will be useful upstairs, too. How long did it take?”
“Twelve and a half hours, General, though time could vary with materials and the workers. This one knew what he was doing… Sir.”
“I am going to put the same system, but not functioning, as a prefab for the engineers… on… well, once they get set up. That will help, Pat. Good damned job!”
“Thank Lieutenant Stark, Sir. He came up with it, implemented it on time. We are good to go. Still on time for all of them?”
“Yes. Enough. Thank you!” The General cut the connection before one of them said something stupid by mistake.
So, before it was over, each group managed to load up several million tons of material and tools, along with life support systems to install, and so on. The habitats would start relatively small, a single unit, and grow fast.
The first system left Houston on June 30, 2181. It contained sixteen crew, in four teams of four, all specialists in construction of prefab buildings, and all heavily trained to survive the trip and the work. And all military. Discipline would be tight. Soldiers loved discipline, and civilians? Well, not so much.
Each team had a Commander, and one of those, Commander Christine Washington, the pilot. Sr. Commander Edward Harmen had a shade more seniority, but for some reason had failed miserably at the simulators. Probably because he had not flown anything at all in his entire career. It can happen.
The sleek shuttle carried only people and spacesuits. Some survival gear was included, but nothing in the way of building supplies or freight. It was a much lighter weight than the freight units, which would carry one complete habitat system, including air, water, waste, climate control, mechanical tugs and even two small, portable nuclear power plants.
But, this one was a reconditioned shuttle system, private enterprise, as opposed to the defunct NASA. It was smuggled out of a hidden, underground hangar in Houston, stretched to allow sixteen people, including the pilot and copilot. It had also been totally refitted to complete stealth. No radar could read it, on the ground or in the air. The Cyborgs might note the activity, but not understand the purpose.
The engineers slipped it out to the longest runway, full of the people it needed. When ready, it lit up, paused like a dragonfly for flight, nose down, tail slightly up, then shot down the runway and into the sky, out over the Gulf of Mexico. This done in hopes that the Cyborgs might not notice. Or, if they did, they would see no threat. After all, the hope of all mankind rode on the shoulders of this event.
It was a large step, of course, for all of the species. They were headed to build the first construction office on the moon.
The Cyborgs, of course, immediately recognized a launch, not because radar saw anything at all, as the entire thing was under stealth to the max, but there is no masking an exhaust column forty five miles long from satellite eyes. It pointed up at a steep angle, headed for the troposphere. Definitely an illegal launch.
Too, visual was not stealthed. Those same eyes would have a glimpse of an oncoming launch vehicle but it would be quick, at best. But even the satellites could not lock weapons on such a dim target.
However, for their own protection, the Cyborgs had turned off all laser satellites soon after declaring the world stabilized. It would take them a half an hour to initiate them, and they quickly began the process.
They had no idea where the thing that launched might be aimed. But imagine the robotic mind in a simple pair of words. Every single satellite said, “Initiation Failed.” Yet, still, they did not know that they had been locked out of the Star Wars system.
Then, before the Cyborgs could figure out what was happening, and why, four more truly outdated, but refurbished rockets lifted from Nebraska, all headed straight up. Hundreds of miles apart, they went up flawlessly, out of sight in minutes.
Tracking these rockets and thier smoke was easy, but after that, it was guesswork. Here, the Cyborgs did not emulate the humans. They were not equipped to deal with ‘What-If’s’.
When the rockets did not reenter the earth’s atmosphere, there might have been a collective sigh of Cyborg relief, figuratively, even if they did not understand it. Perhaps the humans were taking the rockets out of reach.
But none of the equipment designed to abort the launch or destroy the vehicles, on any of them, had any effect at all. Controls long in place by the USAF and even the US Army did not stop them. Not even Nasa’s magic bullets made a difference. All five disappeared and did not come back…
CHAPTER 10
There were four Commander-level Navy personnel on board the human flight. It flew like an airplane, with a great deal of room on board for a four day flight. Comfortable, shot like an arrow, all they had to do was wait.
Christine, pilot, began seeing the approaching horizon where the sun stopped and darkness began on the moon, and she began easing the speed back. But, again, simulators are not the real thing. She found herself coming in too fast the first time, and had to circle, not an easy thing in the cumbersome shuttle.
The thin atmosphere and the light gravity did indeed throw things off, just as Michael had said. Without atmosphere, the thing practically flew like a brick. But with thrusters and a magic touch from her talented fingers, she managed to get it turned around.
On the second try, she landed the shuttle, the hard way, as they had no landing strip. But the flat desert they had chosen was enough to get the big thing down, even if it was an ugly process.
The shuttle came in fast, then used huge steel covers to redirect the flow of the engines to the front. The thing stalled, ten feet up, and landed hard on the two sets of back and mid landing gear.
This brought the nose wheel down quickly. It was a hell of a stop, but like everyone agreed, the alternative was much worse.
It had taken three days, twelve hours and twenty minutes from liftoff to landing. A record trip. They’d planned to arrive six hours before the first freight unit, and the Commanders quickly brought their naval construction teams to full readiness.
Suits had been donned before landing, a precaution, and now they were checked, carefully. On the somewhat tinny comm gear, as in old fashioned, Commander Edward Harmen, leader, dubbed Senior Commander, gave out his instructions. “Before we step into that void, every person has a buddy. Both of you check each other, every seal on the suits, look for damage, for misalignment, anything at all. Frankly, if you lose your buddy, you will be doing twice the work!”
So, if for no other reason, everyone was determined not to lose a buddy. Finally, the door was opened into an airlock system. The shuttle had settled on its oversized central wheels, four each in two packs, having compressed the big, jointed legs with three foot diameter steel pads, so the air lock was five feet off the ground. But, this hapless shuttle was forevermore parked.
A place to hide if things got rough. But a deathtrap, too, if no one came to their rescue. The answer to that was build the first habitat, quickly and perfectly. Then, they could scavenge parts from the shuttle as needed.
They descended the steps to the ground, finding the suits much less cumbersome on the moon then on Earth. And, yes, it was indeed an odd picture, seeing the sleek flight shuttle resting on the moon with Earth just peeking over its shoulder on the horizon. All work was planned on the back side of the moon, away from this edge to avoid discovery. They were parked just backside of the dividing line.
Commander Washington took her small team, herself and three others, across the sandy plain they had been sent to prepare. “The habitats will be huge. But they will rest on big feet, so our only concern is relative flatness, with no obstructions. But the rockets coming in need flat, sandy ground away from the building area. Police the grounds!”
All four teams fell to scouring their respective assignments for obstacles. There were none. Anything bigger than a fist was tossed far out off the field, and in low gravity, less than 20% of Earth, this was easy to do. In fact, it was fun, even if serious. A strong arm could throw a big rock a hell of a long ways.
It was six hours later, almost right on time, that a ghostly silent rocket arrived, looking oddly like a toy, even if it was over a hundred and forty feet long, and weighed in over a million tons. Well, at least on Earth. Here, it was less than 200,000 tons. But then, most of that was cargo. And it slowed to a crawl, using reverse thrusters, right up there in plain view. Already, it began to sink towards the moon’s surface.
Christine quickly stepped out on the field, carrying a klunky transmitter, which looked every bit like something you would use for radio controlled airplanes, antenna and all. The difference was in size, the joystick and buttons built with fat fingered space suits in mind.
As she manipulated the thumb sticks and the wheels, the rocket, hardly a quarter mile up, stopped, emitted some more thrusting flares and slow
ly descended toward the surface.
The landing was not textbook, of course, because the closer the big thing got, the faster it dropped, caught up in the growing gravity until the too small thrusters were nearly useless. It thumped down hard enough to shake the ground under their feet, yet five hundred yards away. Just in case.
The men and women crawled all over it, carefully, secured it, checking for damage and reported it to be in perfect condition. They even opened the large, lengthwise door, preparing to drive the two moderate sized, battery operated lifter tugs out onto the sand. There was no vacuum, no atmosphere, just hollow rocket, packed with a single habitat and all it required.
Then, not forty-five minutes later, came the second unmanned unit. The second Commander in line, Bill Michaelson, was determined to do better than the ‘girl,’ but it was the same thing all over again. Grinning ruefully through his face shield, he returned to the others as the third commander prepared for his arriving freight rocket.
In fact, only one settled in properly, but at the hand of a pilot, in the only other manned rocket. This had a crew of only six, added expertise, if it were needed.
Now they had more than they could use, but that freed up the upper echelon to supervise, leaving the actual construction to better hands, Twenty two people can do a lot more than sixteen.
Everyone was ecstatic that nothing was broken, nothing lost, and even the doors worked. The loading tugs were tracked out from the belly of each beast, two per, and they, too, worked perfectly.
Charging the batteries would occur at off hours, using the original shuttle. Without oxygen or atmosphere, gas engines would have been useless.
The commanders did the supervising, adding direction, caution and administering the occasional reprimand when someone pushed too hard. These were all Navy construction men and women, very adept at underwater work, and though the suits made the work similar, as the gravity made the stuff less heavy, there was still a lot of mass to look out for. Once it got to swinging, it was damned hard to stop.
The Resolute Page 4