Red Hope: An Adventure Thriller - Book 1

by John Dreese

  Connie laughed. She asked, “So, if Lydia married into so much money, why does she work as your assistant?”

  “Who wouldn’t want to spend all day at a beach house?” answered Keller as he grinned.

  They drove past Ferraris and Porsches parked haphazardly among the landscaped trees. On the right side of the driveway was a small vineyard used by Lydia’s husband as a hobby. He got more pride out of telling strangers he was a wine maker than telling them he was a Fortune 500 CEO. They parked under a freshly transplanted, mature olive tree. The group meandered up into the house. They mingled with the dozens of strangers who wanted to meet the famous astronauts.

  While Adam was getting Connie a glass of wine, a man wearing all white walked up to him to discuss the mission. The stranger lifted up a copy of Adam’s space shuttle book and asked him to sign it. Adam beamed with pride.

  “Absolutely, I’d be happy to sign it,” Adam told the man.

  “I bought this copy used. Got it really cheap,” the man said as he handed the book over to Adam.

  “Oh, okay. Well, thank you,” answered Adam with a diminished smile. He signed the front cover and handed it back.

  The stranger vanished back into the mingling crowd where he told a story that made his friends laugh.

  Adam and Connie held hands and wandered through the mazelike mansion. For fun, they counted the bathrooms. So far, they’d gone past five of them. She was using a new pair of leg braces that allowed her to walk without the crutches, albeit awkwardly. Each room had the skin of an exotic animal lining the floors. The walls had a lot of decorative redwood burl.

  They eventually pushed through some doors onto a large wooden patio overlooking the side of the mountain. Below them, they could see the tennis court and swimming pool that accessorized this mansion.

  However, they were not alone. Also on the patio was a folk music group hired to entertain at the party. The band members handed out maracas and tambourines to the guests, so they could become part of the music. Connie was the tambourine goddess for two songs.

  “That was fun,” she said as she handed back the instruments.

  Adam and Connie stood outside overlooking the display of wealth, listening to the surreal sounds of the folk music echo off the nearby mountain slope.

  “I could live like this,” said Adam.

  “Where’s Molly and Keller?” asked Connie.

  Adam stared blankly into his drink.

  “Good question. We don’t ask anymore.”

  Adam and Connie spent the rest of the evening out on that patio avoiding the awkward guests as much as possible. The sky was full of brilliant stars. Adam pointed out which red dot was Mars.

  It was now late spring. Everybody involved with the mission in California flew east to prepare for the manned launch.

  This would be a first of sorts. The Russian Soyuz rocket had been transported across the Atlantic Ocean by barge. It would be launched from a remote platform near the edge of the Kennedy Space Center. This was necessary because the regular NASA launch sites were being used by the Viper9 heavy lift rockets taking supplies up to the Storage Wart on the International Space Station.

  The crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center and quickly acclimated to the pleasant Florida weather. Training continued. They felt right at home getting ready for the big launch day.

  Then one of the crew members vanished.

  Chapter 12

  Kennedy Space Center

  Cape Canaveral, Florida

  “Where on God’s green Earth is our mission leader?” demanded Chris Tankovitch. “The Soyuz crew capsule is launching in six hours!”

  Unlike previous directors, he had taken a very personal role in this entire project and wanted to make absolutely sure nothing went wrong. He personally micro-managed the final physical fitness exams two days earlier, proving they were ready for the mission. However, Chris did allow the crew to relax after that milestone. Keller and Molly celebrated that night with a two hundred dollar bottle of wine brought from California. All was well.

  Things were not going so smoothly, however, on the morning of the launch day. Last night, all four astronauts were in their sequestered dorm rooms. This morning Adam was gone. A panic call went out to all security personnel. They searched the security camera recordings and found video of him going for a morning jog. He went out through the front gates and got into a minivan just after 5:30 a.m.

  The rest of the crew gathered for breakfast along with Chris and tried to make things look normal for the press. One of the journalists soon yelled out, “Hey, where’s the team leader?”

  Chris smiled to hide his anxiety and said, “He’s just sleeping in a little more. He needs his energy.”

  Chris was taking a mad rush of phone calls. On some, he barked orders. On others, he cowered.

  Four miles away, in a lush suburban green park, a little boy was being pushed on his bicycle through the morning mist by a very proud father.

  “Okay, you got it. Gotta let you go! I can’t keep up!”

  His voice was loud, but the echo melted into the fog.

  “No, don’t let go of me Daddy!”

  “I already did! It’s all you Cody!”

  The little boy rode his bike, very wobbly, down the rolling grassy hill and reached the bottom. The bike slowed and he fell over sideways.

  The boy yelled out, “I did it Daddy! I did it!”

  Adam Alston developed an unfixable grin. He picked up Cody’s bike and pushed it back up the hill. When he got to the top, he saw his wife Connie waving her arm from the bench next to the parked minivan. She held the cellphone up high, yelling a message at him through the humid morning air.

  “NASA wants to know where their team leader is!”

  Adam looked at his watch. The time had come.

  He walked to the parking lot, one hand on the bike and the other holding Cody’s hand. He paused and waited for Catie to ride her tricycle up to them. They ambled back toward the car as a group.

  Adam grabbed the cellphone and put it to his ear. His wife and kids only heard one side of the conversation.

  “Yeah, Adam here. Yes, I understand. No, I wouldn’t want that to happen. Don’t worry. You won’t be the laughing stock. I’m on my way.”

  Adam shrugged his shoulders to Connie and admitted, “It’s time for me to leave. Let’s head back.”

  They piled into the minivan and rolled out of the parking lot. The sound of crushed gravel was replaced by the surging engine, followed by absolute quiet. A silver snake slithered across the desolate road, followed by a billowing cloud of fog.

  The Alston family headed South onto the main road which led straight to the launch facility. After just a few minutes, they reached the main entrance guard shack. A man holding an M-16 rifle leaned over to check Adam’s badge.

  “Welcome back, Captain Alston. We’ve been wondering where you went.”

  The gate opened and the vehicle eased through. It followed the winding road that took them to the large limestone-clad mission prep building. This is where the families had to separate from their astronauts. Adam hugged each member of his family and whispered something to his wife; she laughed out loud. He leaned down to look into the back row of seats where the kids were sitting.

  “I need you guys to take good care of your Mommy while I’m away, okay? Tell all your friends that your Daddy is on a rocket to Mars. It’ll be so cool.”

  “Okay, Daddy, just remember the Space Ice Cream that you promised us.”

  Adam leaned in and hugged each one again before closing the sliding door. He waved to them through the tinted glass and walked toward the building. He disappeared through the industrial gray doors.

  In just a few hours, he would no longer be an Earthling.

  Chapter 13

  The Soyuz engines ignited with a loud grinding roar; every car alarm within ten miles screamed. During the initial jolt, the astronauts looked at each other in disbelief at the ride that lay ahead. They held thei
r breath waiting for the launch tower to release the rattling rocket. Suddenly, it lifted and they were jammed back into their seats. Mission Control announced speeds every ten seconds. After only a minute, the rocket was travelling over one thousand miles per hour and still accelerating.

  Subtle at first, the view outside the window showed the curvature of Earth growing by the second. The deep black of space and the brilliant blue and white of Earth created intense contrasts.

  Adam was feeling nauseous.

  Don’t puke! Don’t puke! he thought to himself.

  The rattling was slowing down. Adam turned to look at his crew. Keller gave him a thumbs up. Yeva smiled a stressed grimace. Molly was invisible. She vomited in her helmet and it coated the visor. She wasn’t flailing for help, so Adam assumed she was okay.

  Aside from the nausea and vomit, the launch of the Soyuz up to the International Space Station went like clockwork. It took the better part of two days for the Soyuz capsule to catch up with the orbiting Space Station and dock with it. When the door opened, a hand reached into the ship followed by a voice.

  “Welcome to the International Space Station!” yelled an astronaut with a Texas accent.

  During the next four hours, they readied the Little Turtle and double-checked all of the systems. After transferring the last of the supplies from the Storage Wart to the Little Turtle, the crew strapped in for the final leg of this two-stop flight to Mars.

  The commander of the Space Station was the last to check on them. He made sure their belt restraints were all locked down. As he was about to leave the Little Turtle and lock the hatch, he spoke with the crew.

  “Good luck on this mission. Wish I was going with y’all.”

  “You just keep those antennas pointed at our ship so we can maintain communication,” replied Adam.

  “Will do. Godspeed.”

  The commander floated back through the hatch to the safety of the International Space Station. He closed the door and started the locking procedure. A clunk sound finalized what their future had in store. The countdown started for the release of the Little Turtle and the ignition of the MM10 motors. Instead of the gut-wrenching roar of the Soyuz rockets, the MM10’s started up with a gentle push that never stopped. No real noise to speak of. And that was it.

  Days passed and daily calls to home were helpful with the inevitable cabin fever. Adam especially cherished his family video calls.

  “It’s like being in an elevator that is falling faster than it should, but not quite fast enough for you to start floating.”

  Adam was talking directly to the iPad video conference software. On the other end of this video call was his family. They were very excited to get their daily 15 minute call to Dad on the Little Turtle. The astronauts were hurtling through space towards Mars. As of today, they were far enough out for there to be a twenty second delay between when Adam spoke and when he would hear a reply.

  Adam’s daughter Catie laughed and asked, “But I thought you floated in space ships?”

  Adam grinned proudly.

  “Normally that’s true, but this space ship is special. The motors never shut off. They just keep pushing, making us go faster every second. It’s just enough to keep us planted against the floor of the ship. It’s like walking on Earth if you barely weighed a few pounds.”

  Adam laughed and continued, “The launch from Earth to the International Space Station went great aside from me and Molly getting motion sick. The launch from the Space Station toward Mars was a snap.”

  Over the next twenty seconds, Adam’s message would travel from their long-range antenna through the inky blackness of space to the antenna on the Space Station. At that point it would be relayed to Mission Control in Houston.

  A return message would take a similar length of time, but the time lag would get longer and longer as the mission continued. When Mars is closest to Earth, called perihelic opposition, the best-case roundtrip communication time was only about seven minutes. Once they were on Mars, though, due to the planets having moved some distance apart, it would take a full ten minutes or more for the communications round trip (five-plus minutes each way). The longer they stayed, the longer that round trip took. When the two planets are farthest apart, that same roundtrip communication can take almost 44 minutes. Radio waves move very fast, but Mars is very far away.

  “Okay Dad, we’re going to the park after this call. We’ll talk with you tomorrow,” announced Adam’s son Cody.

  Adam looked down briefly, then back at the screen.

  “Okay guys. I’ll talk with you all tomorrow. Love you.”

  The screen went blank.

  Adam closed his eyes for a few seconds and thought of being home. He put on a fake smile, thought about the million dollar bonus, and opened his eyes. He put the iPad back in the cabinet.

  The small amount of fake gravity they were feeling due to the MM10 rockets altered the way Little Turtle was designed. On the space shuttle, there were panels, controls and knobs everywhere because the occupants were always floating and could reach them at any time. If the astronauts were near the floor, they could push off and float to the ceiling.

  Little Turtle was arranged more like a ship on Earth. There were still controls on the ceiling and walls, but nothing on the floor because they were still walking on it, albeit lightly. To make sure the crew could reach the ceiling knobs, it was lowered to only six feet above the floor. Little Turtle was a very cramped workspace that could’ve been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

  The only noticeable noise on Little Turtle was the hissing that was being transmitted by the MM10 rocket engines through the structure and into the cabin. The Moon and the Earth looked to be about the same size now, but both were behind them. Mars still looked like a red dot far away.

  Adam stuck his head up into the upper flight deck control room and commanded, “Okay folks, it’s 9:00 a.m. Let’s take care of the morning checklists.” He climbed back down the short ladder, grabbed his checklist, started pushing buttons, and turning knobs.

  Molly was already checking the oxygen supply and carbon dioxide filters. After that, she would check the food supply for any signs of spoilage or damage. Yeva was looking at the chemical supplies that would be used during the exploration phase. It included some acids and other volatile substances that needed human tending.

  Keller was still sitting in the command chair in the upper room.

  After the checklists were done, the crew hung them back up on their Velcro hooks and started preparing lunch. Although they had some fake gravity, they still ate typical space food as a cost savings. It was the normal stuff. Mashed potatoes, pureed steak, etc. all squeezed out of tubes or bags. Adam popped up the table and sat down next to it. Molly and Yeva joined him. As they ate, Molly said, “Adam, tell us one of your stories where you almost died.”

  “Hmmm, a challenge,” he said as he took a bite of the steak puree, instinctively chewing even though that wasn’t necessary.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I got hit in the becuzzif?”

  The two women looked at each other and smiled.

  “No, you did not,” said Yeva.

  Adam started, “Well, there was this time... Wait, hey Keller! Are you coming down here to eat or what?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. Just finishing up,” said Keller as he sat in his chair, shaking.

  Adam returned to his story. “Okay, so when my friends and I were in high school, we were hired by a farmer to remove some large rocks from a newly ploughed section of his field. So we got some shovels and pry bars and went to work.”

  He looked at them to see their anticipation and took another drink of steak.

  “So we removed all the rocks except for a huge one,” he said as he lifted up his arms to show how big it was.

  “I put my shovel under the edge of that rock and pried and pried. It wasn’t budging, so I put the shovel all the way under it, and the handle was sticking out, you know, like at a 45 degree angle? T
he plan was to jump up on the shovel handle. Well, I jumped, and I did get onto it, except once it flexed down to the ground, my feet slid off, and it came up and smacked me right in the testicles. Can I say testicles?”

  Molly was laughing so hard that liquid steak sprayed out of her nose. Adam grabbed Molly’s shoulder and asked laughingly, “You’re not going to puke, are you? You look a little green!”

  She laughed even harder.

  “So anyway, it hurt so bad. I was sure I broke my pelvis, and there was probably blood involved. I yanked down my shorts and asked if my becuzzif was bleeding.”

  Adam was laughing himself now.

  “So my friends are all on the ground laughing, and one says, ‘No, but my eyes are bleeding from laughing so hard’.”

  Yeva was laughing quietly and asked, “So what is a becuzzif?”

  “It’s called that ‘becuzzif’ it wasn’t there, my guts would fall out the bottom.”

  Yeva started to laugh out loud now.

  Some rustling noises came in from above. Keller climbed down the stairs and, without saying anything, he rushed into the latrine and shut the door. They heard the rattling sound of a pill bottle followed by the sound of the vacuum-powered sink.

  After a few minutes, the door opened and a relaxed Keller emerged.

  “Come join us for lunch,” commanded Adam.

  “Oh, I’m not hungry just yet.”

  Adam looked at Keller and saw he was covered in sweat.

  “Are you feeling okay? What’s going on?” asked Adam.

  Keller didn’t say a word and walked toward the short ladder to climb upstairs. He got to the second rung before a prescription bottle fell out of his pocket. He tried to grab it, but his hand knocked it away. It slowly flew across the room heading toward the floor. When it hit, the lid popped off and pills sprayed everywhere.

  Keller’s eyes were wide open. The ladies didn’t know what to think. Adam lurched for the bottle, but Keller pushed off the wall with his feet and reached it first. Adam tried to grab it from his hand. A struggle ensued as each tried to grab the bottle from each other. Finally, Keller punched Adam in the stomach, wrenched the bottle away, and ran over to the ladder. He stood still.