________
Donner began lobbying his dad to build a runway in the field. He pointed out that their plane would only need at most five hundred meters to take off at the altitude of the farm. And a hard packed grass field would be excellent and it wouldn’t take much to build a hangar for storage. His dad listened but pointed out the difficulty of creating a smooth enough surface for the plane. Donner argued that it would only take maybe a week with some heavy earth moving equipment and a professional that knew how to use it. His dad was noncommittal but Donner noticed he didn’t say no right away.
________
August 22, 2055
By August the Poles had deliberately destroyed their power generation capability plunging the entire nation into darkness. The Turks and Germans had depended on this generation capability to keep their battery powered highly robotic forces moving. Without the ability to easily charge the power packs the military advance stumbled as they frantically sought other ways to supply the troopers over lengthening supply lines.
________
That August the runway was finished as was the hangar and Donner and his dad had flown their airplane into the valley. Donner applied for his student license and began to fly under his dad’s tutelage.
19
Donner started his last year of study at the local high school to get as many math and science courses as he could. By doing so he would graduate a year early. He’d already applied to study aeronautical engineering. Except for price inflation on food and some other goods the war was far away and out of his thoughts.
His fellow students avidly discussed each new bit of news from the battlefield. But when they asked Donner what he thought he usually said, “You know I don’t follow it too much, it will eventually be over and to be honest I don’t think anything will be settled. I’m more interested in graduating and getting my pilot license. Maybe by then the war will be over and we won’t have to speculate. The only thing I’m sure of is that this war will lead to another.”
Donner’s response usually led the questioner to doubt Donner’s patriotism but it wasn’t as much a lack of patriotism as it was a mature and well developed realism. Donner knew history as well as his beloved aeronautics. And he knew the nation state had not existed in the past and no doubt would cease to exist in the future.
What would continue to exist were the men and women that made up that state. Though young he had already learned that a person’s life is well spent providing for others not in the mass but in the particular.
________
The war ended as Donner was starting his last semester of high school. The US after rebuilding its air and space assets launched a massive assault on the Turkish-Japanese coalition stopping just short of complete annihilation of the opposing forces. It then offered terms of surrender that the Turks and Japanese had no choice but to accept.
Just as Donner had said the war settled nothing, the US was still the reigning superpower after the war as before and the Turks and Japanese still faced the same resource and security problems that they had gone to war to solve. Much destruction and the lives of almost fifty thousand people were the only clear outcomes of the war.
Donner got his pilot license and graduated high school with honors. He was well prepared to study engineering and pursue his love of flying.
After his graduation party, Donner and his dad talked.
“Dad, do you think the world will ever learn that war isn't the answer to its problems?”
“No, Donner I don't as long as people are as imperfect as they are. And they are not going to change in this world, maybe the next, but not in this one that's for sure.”
“Those that don't want to fight have no where to go to avoid conflict,” said Donner.
“That's true,” said Jack Jackson. “Except maybe the Mars colonists. They may be far enough from this system of things to avoid the machinations of the world. The moon though is too close.”
“I'd like to go to Mars someday,” said Donner.
“I would too,” said his Dad.
Vigilance
Mars Image - © NASA
1
John Abel Jackson never failed to marvel at the surface of Mars outside his family's dwelling in the Candor City district. The reddish color seen from afar was not as blended close up. Rock outcroppings, wind-carved edges, colored gray, blue-gray, yellow tinged, unlike anything he had seen in pictures or on Earth. Earth deserts, he thought, were boring compared to a Martian plain with copious scattered rocks and distant reddish mountains.
John was just over nine and one-half Martian years old, he would have been a youth of eighteen back on Earth. He was in his first year at the Mars Space Academy in nearby Bradbury City. He was tall at six foot four inches but thin, like many children who were born on Mars. But his strength was equal to any Earthling his age. He had dark brown eyes that could stare piercingly if confronted. He was a typical Jackson male.
He and his dad had come outside on a maintenance expedition. The new EV (Excursion Vehicle) was extremely comfortable and the ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) that drove it seemed to be a big improvement over the last model. The ANI, popularly called an Annie, unlike those in the past learned continually from its surroundings, never making the same mistake twice.
The new spacesuits were comfortable too. They had been developed on Mars for flexibility and durability. The wearer still had to limit his time in the Martian outdoors so as not to become overexposed to the ever present radiation and it was best to schedule outdoor activity in the middle of the day to avoid the worst of the extreme day-night temperature change.
John and his dad had about thirty minutes left to get their work done and get back before the warmth of the day turned into the intense cold of a Martian night. Because of the thin Martian atmosphere the transition from warm Sun to cold night was fast. His dad was working on the programming of a monitoring station while John inspected it for any mechanical problems. The robot that John called Rothmeyer was busy unloading batteries from the EV.
Suddenly John found himself on his back with his chest hurting. He sat up slowly and looked around. The EV was several meters away from him, and there was a cloud of smoke rising above it. Rothmeyer was off to one side in pieces, he couldn’t see his dad. John arose and looked down at his suit, it was darkened across the chest area and his ribs ached but the suit hadn’t breached. He began walking, then running towards the EV.
He arrived at the EV and began yelling for his father before he realized he hadn’t switched on his mic. He switched it on and ran to the other side of the machine. There some meters away was his dad face down. John ran and kneeled down beside his father. Before he turned him over John noticed his dad's back rise and fall. He was breathing. John turned his dad over and was shocked by the condition of his suit. The outer layers around the stomach were vaporized. All he saw was a thin inner layer that the nano-machinery embedded in the suit had quickly replicated. The environmental system was working to replace lost air and maintain body temperature but it couldn’t keep up with the demands placed upon it much longer. John had to get his father to Candor City as soon as he could.
John yelled through the comm-link, “Dad, dad, can you hear me?” His father didn’t respond. John immediately lifted the unconscious body, bent and draped it across his shoulder. He began running towards the nearest rock outcropping.
He placed his father against the rocks facing the setting sun. It was the best he could do for now. He plugged in his Annie to his dad's suit and checked his vital signs and saw they were stable though far from normal. He needed to contact Candor as soon as possible, but how?
John thought.
He turned toward the EV and tried to raise the on-board Annie. No answer. The on board electronics had probably been fried in the explosion.
He thought.
The only things he had for signaling were his suit radio and his Annie. And he realized, maybe his father’s Annie. He ran to his father and searched
until he found the Annie. He unfolded it, apparently it worked. Now what?
The settlement was out of range of any one signaling device. But there might be a way to reinforce the transmission capabilities of the Annies and his suit radio. If he set them all transmitting the emergency signal and then could somehow create an alignment that would sum the radio waves at a distance, like waves of water summing and subtracting, he could create a kind of phased antenna array.
He ran the calculations on his Annie. He set his father’s Annie on a high point. He took his Annie and placed it at the calculated distance. He would be in the middle with his suit radio. The Annies would synchronize with John's radio and each other and auto-adjust their signal's phase without John's assistance. But he couldn't help walking back and forth a short distance as he awaited a response to his call for help.
John paced and paced. The sun was getting lower. The bad news was that his suit was doing all it could to keep him warm. The good news was that the photovoltaics built in were still working and the power levels were holding but that wouldn't be true much longer.
As the darkness encroached John began to feel chilled, dizzy and nauseated. He knew he couldn't stay out much longer. He began walking towards the outcrop of rocks where he had placed his dad. He began to stumble, soon finding himself on his knees crawling and breathing hard. He was almost there when he blacked out.
2
Mars had developed into an independent human outpost since men first set foot there in the early part of the 21st century. But it hadn't been easy. Sure the lethal atmosphere, the unceasing rain of radiation, the need to supply everything that made human life possible were challenges. But the greatest challenge the Mars settlers had faced was bureaucratic in the form of the aging and increasingly irrelevant United Nations.
After Mars was settled the UN determined that any Mars colony was under the auspices of its Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Considerable effort was made on the part of UNOOSA to make this known to the Mars settlers. But the Mars settlers also made considerable effort to ignore everything the UN office announced.
Men had settled underground on Mars because of the protection it offered to human physiology. They had also chosen underground settlements because of their defensive advantages. The Mars settlers had no delusions that the UN would do its best to stir up obstruction and even confrontation for the colonists if it could. It wasn't long until the Mars colonists were discussing freedom from interference. When war started on Earth in the middle of the century the colonists seized the moment to declare their independence. With such a belligerent UN they had nothing to lose.
The UN immediately began a public relations campaign to lure the Martians into subjugation. Secretively the UN leadership used their authority as an extra-governmental agency to offer any country or any person that would bring the Martian colonists to heel a lucrative land grant and contract for managing Mars.
No person or organization took them up on their offer, at least not in public.
________
Kwaya Sinchi had connections. Through one of those connections he was in touch with the head of UNOOSA, through another he was in touch with an underground movement of hackers and criminals. These were people who would do anything for money and who had the agility to avoid serving time for their illegal deeds. Kwaya had the money to pay, inherited from his ancestors. And like his more famous ancestor Kwaya believed that “Mars represents the main obstacle to a stable and just world order.” The UN had planted the seed that Kwaya with his underground connections hoped to bring to fruition.
Kwaya welcomed the unofficial envoy from UNOOSA to his Mediterranean villa. The envoy was there secretly to discuss the latest incident on Mars.
“You are sure Mr. Sinchi that there can be no connection between the recent incident on Mars and the UN? After all we haven't exactly been secretive in our wishes for the future of Mars.”
“I can assure you,” said Kwaya. “The person I have engaged has complete anonymity. This is not the first large scale political action he has taken part in. You will remember perhaps the United States and Mexico border skirmishes of a few years ago.”
The envoy nodded.
“He contributed to their instigation,” said Sinchi. “The 'Society for Open Borders' had almost convinced the American government at the time to remove border restrictions. The Mexican and South American cartels would have been greatly harmed had this occurred. They hired him and a few others and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Very well,” said the envoy. “And you are guaranteeing that the UN will not be connected with this Martian incident?”
“Again,” said Kwaya a bit exasperated. “Yes, absolutely.”
Sinchi continued, “We all know that a government, any government, can only claim legitimacy if it can protect the territory it governs. I intend to show the colonists of Mars, and by extension the countries here on Earth that have shown their support for the colonists by quitting the UN and joining the Mars backed Solar Federation, that their Federation can not protect them. This particular target was chosen because of its relations with Mars activists here on Earth. Incidents will continue until they are convinced, and I assure you no one will connect them with the UN.”
3
“You're a lucky man,” said Dr. Arnold.
“You mean surviving the explosion?” asked Abel Jackson. Abel was a transplant from Earth. He was shorter than his son by a few inches but had Jackson eyes. His voice was commanding when he spoke, which was rarely.
“No, that you have a son who can think on his feet.”
“You're right there Doc, John's one of a kind.”
“How is he?” asked Dr. Arnold.
“Oh, he's fine.”
“It was a good thing he landed in that warm, soft sand when he collapsed preventing any more damage to his suit.” said Dr. Arnold.
“Well, he was lucky there, he might not have lasted the thirty minutes in the cold that it took the rescuers to arrive,” said Abel. “But you might say he made his own luck by quick thinking.”
“I agree,” said Dr. Arnold. “Have you seem him today?”
“Yeah,” said Abel. “He was in here this morning before heading to school. Telling me all about the investigation into the explosion.”
“Have they determined anything?” asked the doctor.
“Only that it wasn't a malfunction,” said Abel.
“What do you mean?” asked Dr. Arnold.
“Well, it is still early in the investigation but the data trail points to some sort of tampering with the power relays I'm afraid.”
“Oh no,” said the doctor.
________
After the doctor had left, Abel called the settlement's only law officer. Because of his experience in the militia Daniel Keys was unanimously elected to perform the duties of local sheriff. “Hello Daniel,” said Abel. “I was just wondering if anything might have turned up since the last time we talked.”
“Hi Abel, how are you?”
“I’m fine and feeling stronger all the time.”
“Good to hear,” said Daniel. “As far as the investigation is concerned, I’m afraid there isn’t anything new to report. But I have called for assistance, I thought the more heads involved the better.”
“Probably true Daniel,” said Abel. “But be careful that they are the right heads.”
“I know what you are saying Abel, I only called those I knew personally from my militia training. I believe they will be trustworthy.”
“Well, I should be out of here in a few days Daniel, I’d like to meet with you and your posse at that time.”
Daniel laughed, “Okay Abel, see you then, goodbye.”
“Goodbye Daniel.”
Just then John’s head popped inside the door. “Hey dad,” he said. “Okay to come in.”
“Sure John, I’m wide awake.”
“Feeling better?” asked John.
“I feel fine son, normal anyway,
I’m thinking I should be out of here by next week.”
“And what does the doctor say?” asked John sternly.
“Ha!” said Abel. “You won’t catch me there, the doctor is the one that suggested it just this morning.”
“That’s great news dad.”
“How was the academy?” asked Abel.
“It was great and the ride there and back is amazing. You wouldn't know you’re moving over a thousand kilometers an hour except when you start or stop, of course. Earth's got nothing better. And when we get this underground system between all the settlements it will really boost the economy. I almost wish I had to take the ride everyday instead of just one day a week.”
From the Earth: A Future Chronology Anthology Page 12