by John Dreese
Adam glanced over at the small cabinet housing the poisonous Red Hope containers; there were still two left.
How ironic, Adam thought. Right when they could’ve used it, they were in the one situation where they couldn’t.
Pages from the manuals and ice crystals floated 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. His eyes darted around, thinking, searching, hoping, accepting.
Chapter 27
Earth
Fog rolled silently across a rural Texas road, billowing down a shallow hillside. As the Sun rose, the fog lifted revealing a park meadow rarely visited anymore.
“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, his wheels 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, happily displaying the 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.
“Hi, Connie! Hi, Cody!” said the friendly man.
“Long time, no see, Chris. Cody, you remember Mr. Tankovitch, right?” asked Connie.
Chris leaned down and shook 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 speak with Cody at eye level.
“Sure. 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. Cody climbed in over the bike and crawled through the interior, finally flopping down into the back booster seat.
Connie crossed her arms and let out a comfortable 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," replied Connie.
"From the way you were running with Cody, can I assume the experimental back surgery worked?" asked Chris.
"It’s been like a miracle cure. It’s all healed.”
Connie did a slow pirouette on the gravel to demonstrate how her spine operation had succeeded.
Chris laughed and said, “That’s fantastic, Connie. I’m glad it worked out so well. I know Adam really wanted that for you.”
An uncomfortable silence rose up between them.
“Chris, I’m sorry that you lost your job at NASA. I know it meant the world to you.”
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 Houston and Moscow; let alone the bombs wiping out our deep space communications network. I made out pretty easy, if I may say so.”
“You know, Chris, I wonder if the Russians are recovering as quickly as we are. It was a terrible thing; all those lives...”
“We lost a lot of good people. So did they. Both countries are rebuilding, but it’s a slow process. We will overcome this.”
Chris moved some gravel around with his foot to avoid what he had to say next.
“A friend of mine who still works at NASA told me about some, um, new information. I wanted to share it with you before the news media gets it. This is strictly confidential, okay? It’s serious stuff.”
She answered in a worried tone, “Yes, of course.”
“Okay. Some of the surviving engineers at NASA finally got the deep-space antennas at Goldstone back online last month. That's a remote antenna complex out west. They were able to re-establish partial communication with the Curiosity Rover, but without the long-range antenna on the space station, there was no way to communicate with the Little Turtle. NASA was in the process of building a duplicate of the long-range antenna here on Earth when, suddenly, the new Mission Control Center up in Fort Worth reported getting a beacon signal from the Little Turtle.”
Connie looked confused.
“I don’t know what a beacon signal is. Does that mean that the ship started working again? Is the signal 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 onto 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. It’s because the faceted side is usually facing Earth. By complete accident, it’s very stealthy and hard to track. Normally, the long range antenna makes it light up like a Christmas tree on radar. Not this time though. The beacon signal caught them by surprise.”
“Okay, but what does it mean?” asked Connie.
Chris looked over the top of his glasses at Connie.
“It means the ship is still alive. The crew was able to at least launch off the surface of Mars. It means the Little Turtle is coming 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…,” Chris trailed off.
He looked down to search for the right words.
“There’s really 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 hit the news. I don’t want to give you any ideas that Adam is coming home alive. It’s just not in the cards.”
Connie rocked side to side, crying. Through the tears, she said, “But there is a chance? Some hope?”
Chris shook his head.
“I’m so sorry, Connie. I don’t think so.”
She brought her hand up to wipe away the tears that crowded on her cheeks and looked down, unable to make eye contact.
“Okay, I gotcha. I understand,” whimpered Connie.
She looked up at Chris suddenly.
“Do you think he died a foolish death?”
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.
“Let me answer you this way. I’m not supposed to tell anybody this yet – I’m not even supp
osed to know about this - but we finally figured out what the early Martian discovery was that ultimately brought down their 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.
“You might think that an advanced culture like theirs would’ve touted 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, a medicine of some type, 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 effectively cured cancer and any other disease that has to do with runaway 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 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 society wasn’t ready for the results of their discovery. 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 rubbed his chin with his hand.
"We're not there yet though. Part of the manufacturing process requires the use of anti-gravity and, unfortunately, that technology is either still on Mars or - if we’re lucky - inside the Little Turtle, on its way home. That's the vital missing piece. I hope 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. Rest assured: Adam did many great things.”
Connie’s eyes overflowed with tears.
“Yes, but I still miss him so much,” she cried as she hugged Chris.
“It sounds like he went there for a good reason, then?” asked Connie.
“Yes,” answered Chris. “He went there for the best reasons.”
Connie nodded her head and wiped her eyes.
“Okay, Chris. Well, thank you for coming all the way out here. I won’t tell the kids about the news; I don’t want to give them false hope. They’re having a hard enough time as it is.”
Connie walked to the minivan and opened the door. Her head tilted up; she looked over at Chris who hadn’t moved. She climbed into her seat and sat there silently. Cody played with his robot toys in the back seat. She started the engine, pulled onto the road and drove away.
Chris stood there 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 much more about what Adam had done on Mars, but he would never tell Connie about it.
Chris walked toward his car, but slowed down. He paused and changed direction, meandering down a dirt bike path that ran near a casting pond. There was no bench nearby. He sat down in the inviting grass to enjoy the quiet solitude. He had a peaceful view of the calm water right in front of him.
Birds flew overhead as Chris watched the puffy cumulus clouds consume the bright blue sky. The strong smell of freshly cut grass wafted past. It reminded him of that night spent observing Halley’s Comet with his dad. Chris looked to his left and then to his right. Finally, he looked straight upward and said, “Show me a miracle, Adam. Make me a believer again.”
Somewhere just beyond the Moon, a ship raced home toward Earth, still several days out. The spacecraft closely resembled a haggard and fragile turtle shell. Contained within its delicate walls was a small cube-shaped gift of technology from ancient ancestors of mankind – a gift to ourselves across an ocean of space and time.
The escape hatch door was gone. In its place, the opening was now sealed over by a stack of metal cabinet doors, located on the inside and held in place with cabin air pressure alone – the handiwork of desperate souls. Only half of the MM10 motors were operating. Extended out from the ship was a long nylon strap. The far end of the 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 was a solitary set of green eyes, staring outward through the glass. Bloodshot and barely blinking, they were transfixed on the familiar ocean-covered planet floating in front of them. The eyes were exhausted from the strain of not knowing the right thing to do for so long.
Now, they trembled with blue hope.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
SNEAK PEEK:
For a sneak peek at what happens in the final BOOK of the RED HOPE 2-BOOK series, please send an email to [email protected] and I will send you the Prologue. It's a work in progress, but the Prologue is pretty stable at this point.
ONE-MINUTE REVIEW:
Thank you for taking a chance on this first-time author. I hope the story was as much for for you as it was for me. Please let me know what you thought of it with a review on Amazon.com. Short? Long? The length of the review doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be a wordsmith or a spelling bee champ to write a helpful review. Every kind word helps. If you were entertained by Red Hope, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what I’m doing right and what I need to work on. Just like any new skill, I rely on feedback to improve. There's a review link at the very end of this book or you can just CLICK HERE FOR A QUICK REVIEW.
SEND AN EMAIL:
Do you have any questions? Find any typos or embarrassing technical errors? Please share it with me via email to [email protected]. I read every email and I respond.
TWEETS:
Follow my attempts at humor on Twitter:
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FACEBOOK:
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THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE MOTORS:
The Murch Motors MM10 propulsion technology is loosely based on the magneto-plasma-dynamic thruster concept. If you want to learn more, here is a useful link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoplasmadynamic_thruster
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, from read-throughs to moral support. Jason Defenbaugh was an editor from the very beginning when the book consisted of one chapter. Yulia Gaydutskaya helped make sure the Russian names were realistic. Kristin Warthen helped me find my missing commas, but ended up fixing my grammar as well as making the book easier to read. Elena Greer 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. Pointwise helped me find President Daggett Jennings. 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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Dreese enjoys stories about a
dventure, technology, business and people. Red Hope is his debut novel. The second part to Red Hope is being written right now.