AMERICA ONE - NextGen II (Book 6)

by T I WADE

  Dr. Messer, the chief astro-physicist, was extremely excited to see the phenomenon that actual water was obtainable on Mars at far below frozen temperatures. The doctor, who would be returning to Earth, had begged Lunar Richmond to be on the flight just for this reason. This unbelievable breakdown in pure physics knowledge was due to the pressure of the actual water from being so deep, and why nobody who wasn’t a physicist in the crew could understand it.

  As deceased Dr. Petra had explained to the astronauts when they were kids, the water being in its natural form had something to do with the heavy atmospheric pressure, the massive depth of the crater, and several other laws of physics that very few really wanted to study as kids. It tasted great though, once forced through the filtration system that the older generation had designed aboard America One years earlier. Even Mars believed that this water they collected underneath the couple of inches of red dust layer tasted better than any of the water he had tasted on Earth.

  As it always looked, the red surface came up to greet him as he descended. The German doctor asked where it was. Even though it had been explained to her that it would be covered by red dust, she still couldn’t believe that they were hovering only several feet off an ice shelf they had always used.

  “The planet is clear of storms as far as we can see from 120 miles altitude, Mars,” stated Captain Pete, who was heading back up to orbit in SB-IV as protection for the ground crew.

  “Copy that, Captain Pete. We are going to be here for a week to fill both craft. I’ve learned to collect as much as you can while the skies are clear, over.”

  “I’ll give you another update in 90 minutes’ time on our next pass over. You guys are certainly not on radar. The radar screens are completely empty around the whole planet, out.”

  Wearing full suits and with helmets attached, Mars went down first and hovered over the exact coordinates Jane Burgos in SB-III gave him. He lowered the craft gently down, and once he had cleared the dust with his thrusters, landed. The shuttle, after the dust had cleared, came in, and once it cleared the remains of the red dust, the usual white ice of the landing pad could be seen.

  Dr. Messer was helped out. She had done hundreds of hours of spacesuit training and, like Dr. Petra before her, nearly walked out too far and plunged into the dust-covered water. She was so excited.

  For the next week working three hours on and three hours off, they filled canisters and repacked them into the two craft. All the canisters could be opened horizontally with hinges, or had an opening where water could be poured in.

  All four of the crew could work in shifts since Captain Pete gave them a weather report every couple of hours.

  When they were done and the two ships were full of water, the shuttle rose and left the crater. The weather hadn’t changed a bit.

  With the water collected and fuel production underway, it was time to use some of the supplies from Earth to check out the enemy area. Without a shield, SB-III headed off one morning a couple of weeks after the water delivery.

  This time Saturn wasn’t staying home. She was happy to fly Mars and Jenny Burgos to the area. They had ten hours of fuel to search the location Pete had recorded. Captain Pete thought he was pretty accurate on co-ordinates he had made during the last battle, but up to the mission not one radar bleep had come up on screen from that or any other area.

  “SB-III to SB-IV, you should be over the horizon. Heading towards the coordinates. Passing by Lookout Mountain at 1,000 knots. I can see the plateau my father, Ryan and the others landed on. ETA your recorded coordinates in twelve minutes, over.”

  “Roger. We came over the horizon 20 seconds ago and will be above you for nineteen minutes, Mars, over,” replied Captain Pete 200 miles above them.

  Mars and the other crewmembers strained their necks looking for anything telltale once they reached the position where Michael Pitt had logged the massive blast that everybody thought was the end of the nasty Matts years earlier.

  The massive crater, from the explosion Igor had reckoned was at least the strength of several large nuclear explosions on Earth, was very evident. This area had been flown over before by Jonesy, VIN, Michael Pitt and Allen Saunders spending a couple of hours looking for any movement after the blast.

  They had recorded every detail they had seen: mountains, hills, open ground, and where the explosion had created the crater. Mars read through them as Saturn kept the shuttle over the crater with long slow turns.

  After ten minutes and to coincide SB-IV’s next flyby, they set off for Captain Pete’s coordinates about 30 miles north. That area hadn’t been looked at yet.

  “Captain Pete, we can see caves, or what look like blow holes in a wall of a hill,” stated Mars over the radio. “This hill is about three miles from the edge of the blast site, and it certainly doesn’t look natural. I may be mistaken, but there are what look like rivers of dirty red, yellow ooze below the three holes that look like they were exploded from inside out. We are still at least 25 miles from your coordinates. What do you think? Over.”

  “I would check out my coordinates first. This new site is on your way back to base. Check it on the way home. You still have several hours of daylight, and there are no storms I can see, over.”

  “Copy that. Will do,” replied Mars.

  There was very little they could see over the captain’s coordinates. They rose up to 10,000 feet for protection and scanned the entire area a couple of times, seeing nothing but natural rock, hills and valleys. Saturn lowered the altitude by half and again nothing out of the ordinary was seen by the three astronauts.

  Captain Pete gave them a three-minute warning that he was about to head over the eastern horizon, and Mars risked going down to 2,000 feet.

  As SB-IV headed over the horizon, they left the coordinated area, having seen nothing, to return to the cave site.

  “You want to look down there?” Saturn asked her husband.

  “Hell, why not? I’m positive that those caves or holes were connected to the blast. We might find tunnels or some sort of connection to the blast area. It looks like the blast holes the waves crash through the rocks on our island in Australia. Saturn, remember Beth and Monica told us how the sea erupts through the holes from underneath and over time makes them bigger? Well, those three holes look exactly the same, except there is no sea down there.”

  “And that ooze, that dirty-looking ooze looks really weird. I want to go with you, Mars,” added Jenny Burgos, helping Mars on with his helmet.

  “Keep the thrusters on idle, land and face the laser towards the general area. If you see us running out of there, shoot at anything chasing us,” joked Mars over the intercom once his helmet was on and he helped Jenny on with hers.

  “Funny, Mr. Noble,” remarked Saturn as she brought the shuttle in about 100 feet from the nearest hole. The hole was about thirty to forty feet higher than the level ground she was landing on, and the second and third holes were about the same level, but over 100 yards apart. Mars was right. To her keen eye, there could be a tunnel behind the holes. The hardened rivers of melted ooze looked hard, dead, and not dangerous.

  The yellowy lava-looking stuff was only twenty feet or so from where she looked down at the edge of it, and suddenly it looked all too familiar.

  “Do you know what that oozy stuff looks like?” Saturn asked the other two over the intercom.

  “Looks like gold ooze!” replied Jenny Burgos laughing.

  “If it is,” laughed Mars, “it must be hundreds of times more than we pulled out of the cavern in the Sahara.”

  “Oh god, I hope it’s not. I’m sick of carrying around bloody yellow gold,” replied Saturn, not impressed.

  “I just don’t understand why it oozed out of those three holes,” Mars added.

  “Remember your father telling us about the silver lining in all the Matt caverns?” added Jenny. “You know, the breakdown of their silver walls? Osmium, radium, palladium and platinum? Maybe these nasty Matts lined their tunnels with p
ure gold. I reckon that the explosion weakened these three holes, the blast through their underground tunnels melted the gold lining, and it flowed out like water until the cold external atmosphere hardened it. I’ll bet you a month’s beer ration that I’m right.” Mars agreed that she was on the right track.

  “Maybe I can have a gold-lined cave one day, husband,” smiled Saturn as she set the inner hatch to active, the thrusters on idle, and she watched her husband enter the inner docking hatch.

  “It looks like it could be very possible,” replied Mars, entering the docking port. “And look at the bright side, darling. That crap is not so heavy here. It will be about 85 percent lighter.”

  Mars nimbly climbed down the ladder draped down the side of the shuttle. He had done this a thousand times. So had Jenny, and once her feet landed he headed towards the yellow ooze. As he closed, he noticed that the ooze wasn’t only yellow. It had silver flakes in it. Large silver semi-melted pieces that actually looked like the wall lining inside the Matt bases.

  “I think you are right, Jenny,” Mars stated, looking down at the tip of the yellow ooze. He bent down and with his space gloves got his fingers underneath a small end triangular end of whatever it was. The flow felt like it was only a thin layer on the surface of the hard ground. He stretched his legs and pulled upwards, straightening his back.

  Jenny was surprised to see the ooze bend upwards for several inches before breaking off. Mars nearly fell into her, so she put her hands out to stop him from falling.

  He smiled at her through his visor, holding up a piece of the yellow stuff about the size of his helmet.

  “We can get this tested in the lab,” he told the two listening in.

  He returned to the shuttle and placed the object by the ladder. He certainly wasn’t going to forget it, and it wasn’t very heavy. Actually, nothing on the planet was really heavy.

  He beckoned Jenny to follow him and headed up the steep slope towards the closest hole. Saturn was surprised how big the hole was. As her husband got closer, he got smaller. By the time he had walked up to the entrance, the hole was three times as high as he was, all of twenty feet high.

  He waved to her and could just see her looking up at him through the cockpit window.

  “I have you centered on the laser, darling. I reckon I could commit the most perfect murder right now, nobody around to see the crime, so you had better behave, Mr. Noble,” she joked.

  “A typical Jones,” Mars replied.

  “Don’t forget I’m a witness, Saturn,” added Jenny. “You would have to get rid of both of us. This hole is sure big.”

  “Just look inside and get back here, you two,” Saturn replied. They could both hear a little worry in her voice.

  Mars stepped onto the yellow stuff. Both of them had walked up the side of the flow. It was about twenty feet wide and only about a foot high, and neither of them wanted to walk on it. The gaping hole was as wide as it was high, and they had no choice but to step onto the flow to look inside.

  Both spacewalkers had a hand laser in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Mars shined his flashlight into the cave and couldn’t see much. He had to enter the cave to see more.

  Gingerly, he entered, ordering Jenny to stay out. The yellow ooze continued into the cave for several feet, then stopped. Mars looked around. “I see a much smaller cave inside the blast hole. Less than six feet high. I’m going to have to go in further to see what is in the smaller area. If I see anything like a space shark or something, Saturn, I’m out of here.”

  “Oh shut up, Noble,” complained Saturn. It was one of her father’s stupid jokes, and as kids they both had to put up with the “space shark” more times than they could remember. Actually, she missed her father very much, and she wouldn’t really mind a real space shark suggestion from him right now.

  Mars headed in further. The yellow ooze felt slightly soft under his feet. It sort of cushioned his steps. He entered into the smaller area and realized that Jenny was right. A tunnel led off in both directions towards the other two holes, and he could see a sliver of light about 100 yards in both directions.

  “I know it is an underground tunnel,” stated Mars excitedly. “It is only about five feet high, perfect for a Matt to walk down it. This tunnel is about the same height as the tunnel on DX2017, the tunnel to the spaceship my father couldn’t find. I think you are right, Jenny. We have found an entrance to a base.”

  “You have 133 minutes of spacesuit time left,” stated Saturn from the shuttle.

  “Thanks. Jenny, come to me and hold your flashlight down the tunnel to my right. That is the direction to the blast. I’m not walking three miles bent over, but I’m going to see what is down the tunnel. We need a few Matts with teenage spacesuits or Dr. Messer to walk down the tunnel. She’s so short she should be able to do it standing up.”

  “Mars!” exclaimed Jenny Burgos and Saturn together.

  “Jenny, once I get to the other hole, you head down the other way to the third hole. Then return to this one and wait for me.”

  Jenny nodded that she understood, and he bent forward and began walking down the tunnel. It curved with the cliff. He had looked at the cliff before he had entered and saw that it stretched back the way they had flown in for about half a mile. Then the cliff and hill disappeared into a flat surface.

  Mars reached the other hole, walked out and nearly got shot at by Saturn. She swore at him to tell her before he appeared, or she would become a widow. Her trigger finger was very itchy.

  Once he was past the large blast hole to the outside, the tunnel began to slope downwards, and he realized that it would continue underground. The walls got dark around him as he went forward, and he realized that he couldn’t hear anybody else. He tried contacting them but didn’t get a response. “I’m going to need more people to set up an intercom connection,” he stated to himself and continued.

  His back became sore, and he suddenly realized that he was staring down at tracks rising out of the dust and dirt on the floor. Not foot tracks but old rusty tracks such as he had seen on the base in Nevada—old railway tracks. They were about two feet apart. As the dust from the holes thinned, no longer covering the floor, two metal-looking tracks emerged. He flashed the light forward and the tunnel with the new tracks disappeared into the darkness 200 feet ahead of him.

  He suddenly didn’t want to go any further and turned around to retrace his steps. He was happy when he could only see the prints of his space boots and the two straight metal tracks had disappeared back into the dusty floor surface.

  “Mars, Mars!” He could hear Jenny calling him.

  “I can hear you again, Jenny,” he replied. “I’m about fifty feet from the other hole. I’ll head out that hole and you head out from the center one. Saturn, don’t shoot. Sundance and Butch are coming out.”

  “Funny, husband, I was getting worried there for a while. Jenny was calling your name for ten minutes.”

  “I was just taking a walk,” replied Mars. “When a man has gotta go, he’s got to go. Actually, there are straight metal tracks in there. You know, like the ones we read about in our history books and saw at the edge of the Nevada base. It looks like a rail train track. Something used to go through that tunnel. Weird, very weird, but at least we have found their hideout.”

  Saturn watched both astronauts exit the two holes at the same time. It wasn’t long before Jenny entered the inner hatch. As Mars had requested, a canister was passed through the hatch by the two girls, so he could place the gold-colored object into it. He passed it back through the hatch to the two girls, and then pulled up the soft ladder and entered the hatch.

  “Sure is pretty out there,” he told Saturn as Jenny helped him remove his helmet.

  “Sure, like a walk in a red desert park,” replied Saturn sarcastically. “What did you see down your rabbit hole, Alice in Wonderland?”

  “Two railway tracks and much evidence of a blast, a real hot blast,” replied her husband smiling at his darl
ing wife, who was still a Jones. “Ms. Noble, Ma’am, I saw no space sharks, Ma’am. I saw me some railway tracks and no train. Maybe the train’s not coming, Ma’am. I do declare it could be blown up,” he stated, mimicking an American accent from the south he had often heard in the older movies.

  “Where did they go?” his wife asked with Jenny smiling and looking on.

  “They went into the distance, beyond where my back began to hurt. Shorter people can go further, but I’m not ’til that thar train comes again.”

  He placed the canister into the rear cargo hold and closed all hatches throughout the ship in case it was contaminated.

  On the ride back to base with the two girls piloting the shuttle, Mars told Captain Pete, who was once again over them, that there was absolutely no signs of any enemy. There were signs that the destroyed enemy base did have a connection to the captain’s recorded coordinates or in that general area, but they needed a few new ideas on how to navigate possibly twenty miles or more of underground tunnels.

  Captain Pete asked him why he thought the blast had destroyed that specific area of the tunnel. Mars came up with the idea that maybe there was a closed door or hatch further along the tunnel and the blast had nowhere to go once it reached there, an extreme pressure point. Captain Pete agreed and decided that he didn’t need to spend the next few weeks orbiting the planet if there weren’t any enemy.

  SB-IV returned to the base the next day, and Captain Pete got the news with the rest an hour after he had landed. By then the crew had dissected the blob of yellow material that Mars had returned with, and the results were astounding, especially to the physicists on base.

  The three crew had been correct about gold. As Dr. Messer read out the findings, the results struck Captain Pete like he had been hit by a brick. He suddenly had the answer to both the richness of the blue color of the shields and why the silver walls inside the Matt bases glowed with the full light spectrum at different temperatures.