Mars- The Red Planet Awakens

by Paul Reaver

  “Great work, both of you,” said John. “I’ll leave you to work on perfecting the process.”

  Chapter 15

  With his modified order of laboratory visits today, John arrived at Jose’s lab next.

  Jose said, “Hi, John. How’s it going?”

  “Great,” said John. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

  “I have made some interesting progress,” said Jose. “But interesting does not mean that I’ve made all the progress I want.” He smiled. “At the current level of the project, I can teleport a small object from one platform to another. The greatest distance so far is about 10 feet. The big plus is that I can teleport a live animal – I’ve been working with mice – and they seem completely unharmed after the teleportation is complete. As I am able to expand the size and distance that I can teleport objects, I’ll work with larger animals: dogs, pigs, and the like.”

  “What is your biggest obstacle so far to moving larger objects for greater distances?” asked John.

  “I’m not sure,” said Jose. “There appear to be some inconsistencies with the process. When I apply more power to the sending platform, I still can’t send any item, large or not, more than what appears to be a 10-foot limit. Also, when I try to send an object that weighs more than about 100 pounds, I can’t send it at all.”

  “Well, I’ve asked Abigail and Mark to give you a hand,” John said. “As you know, they’re both good with quantum mechanics, and they said they’d stop by this afternoon.”

  “That’s great!” said Jose. “Two or more heads are better than one.”

  “And no one knows that better than we do,” said John. “I’ll check back with you next week.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jose. He was looking forward to working with Abigail and Mark. He’d had some interaction with both of them before, and they were not only intelligent and capable, but fun to work with.

  Chapter 16

  John stopped in to see Jose the following week. Abigail and Mark were with him, and they were in the middle of some type of experiment. John didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t want to disturb them. He stood there for a few minutes, and then Abigail looked up and saw him.

  “Hi John,” she said. “We’ve got good news.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said John. “Fill me in.”

  Jose said, “Remember when I said I applied more power to the sending platform with no results?”

  “Yes,” said John. “Has there been an update?”

  Jose nodded. “The key to sending larger objects for a longer distance was not to apply more power to the sending unit,” he said. “We can’t depend on having a receiving unit for our teleportation destinations. If we wanted to send a person to the Moon, there would not be a receiving unit there. The vast majority of our teleportation destinations will not have a receiving unit. More power will enable us to send objects farther, but it turns out the problem is the way we were focusing the energy. We have overcome that roadblock. It turns out that it’s a two-phase, simultaneous set of processes that we have perfected. With short distances, we were able to get by with the single-phase process. And we received a cold fusion unit from Max, so we have all the power we need for the two-phase process we’re working with now. We’ve sent larger objects like chairs, desks, and so forth, all with good results. The reason we sent the desk was that we wanted to send something with some density to it. Then we crossed our fingers and sent a pig.”

  “And?” said John after a minute of silence.

  “It worked!” said Jose. “The pig arrived without any ill effects, as far as we can tell. We’ve done medical tests of all kinds to verify that the pig is ok. We specifically used a trained pig – we were able to procure one through our supply channels. I don’t know how they got it, but they did. Pigs are quite intelligent. The point is, after the teleportation was complete, the pig still remembered all of its training. We take that as an excellent sign.”

  “As do I,” said John. “That’s great work, all of you. Are there plans for human trials?”

  “Not until we’ve done a lot more tests with different animals. We are trying to get some primates that have training for speech. If we can teleport them and they retain their speaking knowledge as well as remaining physically sound, we will ask for permission to request human volunteers,” said Jose.

  “Is there a limit to the possible range as far as you can determine?” asked John.

  “Right now, our limit is power,” said Jose. “Max’s most powerful fusion unit is still not powerful enough to transport an object of any mass across a long distance, but it’s only a matter of time before he overcomes that limitation. He thinks he is on the verge of a breakthrough at any time. At that point, we think that we’ll be able to emulate the science fiction shows where we can teleport people and objects from the Earth’s surface to an orbiting spacecraft. As we discussed before, imagine how much time, money, and effort it would save if people and supplies could be sent directly to a craft in orbit instead of having to launch a rocket with a payload that would have to dock with the orbiting ship.”

  “It would be phenomenal,” said John. “How far away do you think you are from being able to send objects for that distance?”

  “Once we have enough power, and probably with a few tweaks, it should not be long at all. Wait! Hang on! Max sent me an interoffice message that he has just come up with a new model of the cold fusion device that is much more powerful – it should be powerful enough to teleport items from Earth to orbit!” said Jose.

  John’s mind went “click”! The space travel pieces were almost in place.

  Chapter 17

  He had talked about the spaceship idea with James, his boss, soon after he had the idea. James was delighted with the prospect.

  “That’s phenomenal,” he said. “You’ve got the green light from me to proceed. It just so happens that there is a ship similar to what you’ve described in the final stages of construction, which is being developed by another organization similar to yours. I would like for you to meet with your counterpart from that project and give her all the information she needs to build a second ship in tandem that will be compatible with the equipment from your organization’s projects. I’ll set something up for later on in the week and let you know.”

  That afternoon, John received an e-mail from James that he had set up a meeting for Friday at three o’clock. He showed up in the meeting room about five minutes early. His counterpart was already there, sitting in a chair at the conference table and facing the door.

  “Hi,” she said as he walked in. “My name is Alexandra.”

  “I’m John. Glad to meet you.”

  John sat down at the table as James walked in. “Well, I see you’ve already gotten acquainted,” said James. “Let’s discuss the future.”

  John explained that he had several new technologies that would be ideal for space travel. The only drawback was that he did not have a vehicle in which to install them. He also explained that he did not know what the final configurations of these devices would look like, how big they would be, and exactly how they would operate.

  “Alexandra,” said James, “did you bring the spacecraft layouts so John can take a look at them?”

  “I’ve got them here on my pad. Let me connect to the projector so we can see the images better.” She typed on her pad for several minutes to set up a wireless connection to the screen. The screen was large, occupying the top half of the wall at the end of the room. With a movement of her hand on the pad screen, she put the first image up for display. It was a full view of the spacecraft, as seen from the side. The shape was sleek and modern looking, and John found the body shape to be a cross between the angular shape of the stealth aircraft from several decades ago and the round, smooth lines of the space shuttles. The ship was much larger than he expected.

  Alexandra went through a series of pictures that showed various interior and exterior views of the ship, giving explan
ations of them as she went along. John was impressed with the advanced design and the interior roominess. It appeared that there would be ample space for the equipment his teams would need to install, and still leave plenty of room for the people that would occupy it.

  Once the display of pictures was complete, Alexandra said, “That’s it. John, I sent a copy of this file to you. Any questions?”

  John said, “Got it. Thanks. I don’t have any questions right now, although I’m sure I will.” He smiled. He looked at James and asked, “Have you explained our situation to Alexandra?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Her team has built this prototype that you just saw. It’s not complete, but they should have it done in about a month or so. Two others are in the process of being built, and one of those was going to be considered as a spare. We are going to allocate that one to you.”

  “Great,” said John. “Alexandra, how soon do you expect to have the other two ships completed?”

  “We are looking at about a six-month timeframe,” she said. “At this stage of the build, it would be an ideal time for your teams to install the equipment they need.”

  “That’s what occurred to me as well,” said John. “Can we arrange for my team to take a look at the ship so they can plan their equipment installations?”

  “Certainly,” said Alexandra. “Let me check my schedule.” She consulted her pad for several minutes and said, “How about next Thursday afternoon at two o’clock?”

  John checked his pad. “That should work out fine,” he said. “James, can you arrange to give my people access to that area?” John knew that Alexandra’s project areas were as well-protected as his facilities, and was certain that his various equipment would be safe from prying eyes there.

  “Consider it done,” James replied.

  “John, there is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. It concerns piloting the ship,” said Alexandra. “Do any of your team members have any military flight experience?”

  “Mark and Abigail flew in the Air Force,” said John. “They both flew fighters and cargo planes.” It was obvious why she asked. Someone would need to pilot the ship, and even though Mark and Abigail had flight experience, they obviously would not have experience with this spacecraft.

  Alexandra said, “I would like to have one of my pilots fly with you during your first few test missions. I plan to assign Steve, who is both a pilot and an engineer. The advantage for us is that he will gain experience with this particular ship. He has already done some simulation work with it. Since Mark and Abigail have military flight experience, they can work with Steve and learn how to fly this bird. It’s a plus for both of us. My people have security clearance levels sufficient for them to be around your equipment. If this sounds good to you, we’ll have to set up some training sessions so my people can teach your people. We can start with some training for the controls and follow up with some simulations. When they complete that, all of them will get real hands-on experience when they fly the test missions. It’s going to take some time, but we have to be sure that all three pilots can handle this spacecraft.”

  “That is excellent,” replied John. “I will approach Mark and Abigail to make sure they want to proceed with the training. While I could direct them to do it, I would much rather that they do it voluntarily, and I’m quite sure that they will.”

  “Thanks,” said Alexandra. “Please let me know.”

  “Will do,” said John. “Alexandra, thanks very much for your time. I’ll look forward to bringing my team members to meet yours next week. James, thanks for arranging the meeting.”

  “I look forward to meeting with you and your team next week,” said Alexandra.

  “Glad to be of service,” said James, with a grin.

  Chapter 18

  On his way back to his office, John mentally went over the details of what needed to happen next. First on the list was to arrange a meeting with his teams. Boy, were they going to be surprised! He smiled to himself. He still thought that keeping the plans for the spaceship a secret until now had been a good idea. Though it probably would have saved some time if his teams had known about the ship when they were building their prototypes, as they would have geared their efforts to that end, by not telling them they created the prototypes to be more generalized. Thereby, this offered more opportunities to use them for various, less specific applications.

  Once he was back in his office, he called each of his team members and set up a meeting that afternoon so he could give them the information about the ship, and show them the pictures that Alexandra had sent to him. The file also contained many technical details that his teams would find useful. He continued to work in his office, and when the time for the meeting rolled around, he headed toward the conference room.

  His teams were already there. “I know all of you have been working very hard on your projects,” said John. “I think it’s time that you knew that there is a single special application that will utilize almost all of your projects. We are going to build a spaceship.”

  The silence in the room was so thick that you could stir it with a stick. Then everyone began to speak at once. “Hold it, hold it,” said John. “I know you all want an explanation. The reason I didn’t tell you until now is that I did not want you to gear your projects to any single purpose. Without having a specific goal for your projects, you would build your equipment for generalized use. This gives us a lot more bang for our buck than building everything for a single purpose like a spaceship. And it was my thought that it would be relatively simple to modify each of the projects to be used with a ship, just as you would modify them for any other application. Granted, this will probably be more of a challenge than other applications. But we have a meeting set up for next week so all of you can see what the actual ship looks like and you can start thinking about how to adapt your equipment. Meanwhile, I’ve got pictures.”

  He went through the series of pictures that Alexandra had sent him, projecting them at the end of the room.

  He said, “I’ll send this file to each of you. There is a lot of technical information that I’m sure you will find essential. There’s no use asking me any questions, as you all know as much as I do now. We have a meeting set up for next Thursday at two o’clock to see the ship. You can get a first-hand look at it then, and I’m sure you can ask all the questions you want at that time. One other thing I want to do is touch base with each of you, so you know what type of applications I have in mind for the ship. That way, you can be thinking in advance about how you might modify your projects to fit these applications.”

  John said, “Mark and Abigail, Alexandra asked me if any of our team members had flight experience. I know that you both flew in the Air Force. Would you be willing to work with one of Alexandra’s pilots for flight training purposes on this new ship?”

  “Certainly,” said Abigail.

  “Absolutely,” replied Mark.

  “Ok, great,” said John. “To start, all three of you will have to become familiar with the current standard controls and propulsion, meaning the two of you and Alexandra’s pilot. When we have completed our ship, it will have different and additional controls than hers, because we’ll need controls that correspond to our equipment. However, I think we need to leave the standard controls and propulsion equipment in place so we can fly the ship in its original configuration at any time if need be, at least for now. We can make modifications later if necessary. This gives us a fallback configuration that we can count on while we install and test our equipment. Once you get familiar with the standard controls, her pilot will work with you so that you can get some simulation time. He will be doing simulations as well. He has done simulations with their craft in the standard configuration. Still, he will need to do some additional simulations with our equipment before doing any actual flying and using that equipment, just as you will. However, you will be doing some preliminary simulations before her pilot does to make sure the equipment behaves as expected. Following
that will be the first few test missions, which will be first-hand learning experiences for all three of you. There is a caveat to that statement. Mark and Abigail, you will be doing all of the actual flying of the bird using our equipment. Alexandra’s pilot will only be along for the ride, but he’ll be right there with you to assist. Ultimately, the ship will be ours alone, so the two of you have to be front and center for our test flights and mission flights. Simulations are one thing; the real world is another.

  “Now, I’d like to discuss how we will use the individual projects for this craft with the person who spearheaded each one.”

  “Mark, you’re up first,” John said, smiling. “Since we would only be using the hydrogen propulsion you’ve developed when the ship is on a planet that has hydrogen in its atmosphere, probably the item you’d want to revisit is making the process more versatile. By that, I mean it would be nice if you could adapt the hydrogen device to pull other atmospheric components out of the air. We’ve talked about it, and I know you have already done some experiments in this area, but it would be nice to nail it down. Since you’ve been helping Joanne and Abigail, please give them any assistance you can both in the evaluation of how to use their technologies on the ship, and installing the technologies when the time comes.”