by T I WADE
Mark Allan Richmond Price was his full name and he was with his brother James and his mother in command of the Nevada base where her crew were already flying up parts for the new mother ship in SB-I.
The U.S. under her new President was coming along. Strong ties of friendship had been made with nearly every country on Earth. Only China and Russia still didn’t want communication with the expanding West.
The only time that anybody had flown into China was eight months earlier when Lunar, aboard SB-I with a large chunk of the remains of Astermine’s wealth, flew to Beijing to pay for ten tons of rare earth metals that the build crew and several other companies desperately needed for America Two.
She had been rebuffed on this visit when she took about a quarter of what Astermine had in valuable diamonds and gold to Beijing.
On the second visit eight months later, once she could fly again after the birth, she had trebled the size of the offer and nearly cleaned out Astermine’s underground valuables. All for ten tons of the metals they desperately needed. With hundreds of rough asteroid diamonds and three tons of gold, she blatantly told the Chinese that it was all her father had.
What she stated was nearly true. Only six of the largest basketball-size rough diamonds and a ton of gold were all that was left of Astermine’s riches, and Lunar still needed working capital.
Finally the emotionless and very old-looking “President For Life” of China, who despised Ryan Richmond and everything he stood for, relented, and SB-V had to be called in on its maiden flight under the command of Penelope Pitt to take home the metals that would build half of the first mother ship and get them to the asteroid where they expected to mine the rest.
Hillary Pitt was now also about to get married. The second daughter of Michael and Penny Pitt, who were asleep with Ryan, had been quiet for a number of years, just doing what was wanted of her, flying around the globe. Penelope, her older sister, was already married. Penelope and her Aussie husband, John Malcolm, had been married at the base a year earlier. Many of the older NextGen astronauts were now married, and it was Hillary’s turn to get a new command—captain of the second large shuttle which was still a few months away from her maiden flight into space.
At 23, Hillary was a serious introvert just the opposite of Mars and Saturn, did what was wanted of her, and worked hard at being the best pilot she could be. She was also Lunar’s best friend. Lunar had kept this sought-after position for her longtime friend and confidante since the other more senior astronauts were on missions elsewhere. Her husband was a scientist and head of the Capitol’s large computer department. Joe Roles was a computer geek, had lived computers all his life, and was 30 years old, old enough to remember Hillary’s parents heading into space for the first time.
Her new commander landed SB-V on the old and dilapidated Beijing Airport runway. There wasn’t one flying aircraft, and the area that had been blasted by Astermine’s shuttles several times decades earlier was one of the country’s main cube missile production and launch sites.
The whole place looked like a scrap yard, and the astronaut realized how much firepower they had rained down on this part of the world before she was even born.
The Chinese President, an old man, had not forgotten how he had tried to destroy Astermine’s control of space and in turn had been defeated. Now his country was poor, but rich in rare earth metals as China has always had been. Over 70 percent of these valuable metals had been mined in his country, and now he needed bargaining power with the West to rebuild his country.
Penelope stayed with the shuttle while a forklift and a crane headed towards her open roof cargo bays to deposit the first of seven one-ton cargo pallets into her hold. Her co-pilot and two engineers were already in the cargo bays ready to receive the small metal pallets one by one.
SB-I’s hold, the shuttle Lunar had flown in, was already empty of its treasure that had persuaded the Chinese President to allow the deal and already had three tons of metal in its cargo hold.
The loading took an hour, and with no farewells by anybody the two shuttles launched and headed back to Nevada.
Now, as the asteroid mission began, the rare earth metals were down to less than a ton, as half of the purchased products from China had gone to outside companies. They were also in dire need of as much lithium as the mission could find, also cobalt, nickel and plutonium. Unfortunately lithium was rarer up in space than on Earth, and there was very little Astermine could get its hands on for its new range of batteries. Even Martin Brusk in Israel was struggling to find enough lithium.
Now Pluto Katherine had a heavy weight on her shoulders. She needed to find the necessary metals on this tiny asteroid in the middle of nowhere.
At less than a mile wide, it was small, about four times smaller than the asteroid DX2014 Maggie, Jonesy and VIN had mined decades earlier.
Jack Dempsey had put all his bets that this was the only asteroid within 100 million miles that could give Astermine what it needed. It was this asteroid or nothing.
“I have the roll and pitch of the asteroid set up with the computers. Going down,” stated Pluto Katherine 24 hours after seeing the rock on radar for the first time. She was only two miles from the grey rectangular rock on her port side.
The other craft, now all in formation within 5 miles of the rock, could see the shuttle slowly head towards the designated landing zone and home for the next 20 days.
“I have the clear, smooth LZ centered,” stated Gary her co-pilot. After two years of training on simulators and then the actual shuttles, he and Mark, Lunar’s husband, were as good at flying in space as the girls.
Pluto Katherine took the shuttle in, and as Jonesy had taught her years earlier on Mars, corrected the craft’s movements with the asteroid’s rolls.
“Eight hundred yards off the surface. Landing zone locked and ready. Take her in,” stated Gary.
Pluto Katherine, now with the help of the onboard computers flying the side thrusters, descended and made a soft landing on the asteroid’s metallic surface.
“No surprises or out-of-the-ordinary magnetic pulls. A low gravity pull, I believe,” stated the astronaut over the intercom. “We were not pulled in like Jonesy described on DX2014,” she added as she shut down the thrusters carefully. “We are down and secure on the surface, not sliding or anything. It seems there is enough of a gravity pull to keep us from slipping across the surface. Thrusters on idle and we are sticking to terra firma, just, over. There is a slight magnetic pull as well, I believe, but was not noticeable with thruster power.”
It wasn’t as flat as it looked from a few miles out. Now it was SB-I’s turn to direct in the three mining craft.
“We have room for one on our starboard bow Astermine One. You are number one for landing,” Gary stated. “We have room for Asterspace Three directly in front of us, but be careful and bring in your front to face SB-II’s starboard side. It will help you with the roll. Asterspace Three, you are number two. Pluto Katherine, your side, over.”
“Astermine Two, it is going to be tight, the surroundings are dark, but you can see depth, and we should have at least ten feet between wing tips. When you come in, face your ship in the same direction my craft is facing. All craft, there is no dust cloud on landing, so don’t worry about dirt in your thrusters, over.”
“Copy that,” stated Shelley Saunders piloting Astermine Two. “Confirming number three for landing.”
Within an hour, all four mission craft were down. Gary and three of the mining crew of scientists and technicians spacesuited up and within three hours had all four craft nailed down with short cords over the undercarriages and metal pegs hammered into the hard, silvery and dull grey surface.
It was dark without the sun, but there seemed to be a glow from many large stars in the heavens with the reflective glow from areas of the silvery-colored rocky areas. This made slight shadows on the areas of the darker-colored rock surface, and it was relatively easy to see any movement around them. To Pluto Kathe
rine, the darkness was as light as a moon-filled night on Earth, but darker than daylight on Mars.
Since Pluto Katherine had walked around on Mars and DX2017, her first step on 2030JD wasn’t of importance to her. It was to her husband, though, on his first spacewalk a day later.
He proudly stepped out, saying “One giant leap for Australia, and a bloody big leap for me, mates,” while carrying a limp Australian flag. He jumped with excitement, the wrong type of excitement, and was grabbed by the two more experienced crewmembers who had walked on asteroids before.
Gary learned very quickly not to get too excited when in space, as there was just enough gravity to stand on the surface.
Once Gary was steady on the surface, he knelt down and proceeded to hammer a hole into the surface to stand his country’s flag up. His wife videoed the formal proceedings from SB-II’s cockpit window, laughing at her husband’s antics in the middle of the recording that was for Australia’s Prime Minister.
On Day Two, the crew readied the MMA. It was pulled out of Astermine One’s rear cargo bay and its table legs outstretched to stand it up.
Once that was done, half of the crew of twelve headed out to begin a search pattern. First they collected the dozen loose light-silvery-colored rocks within feet of the craft and returned them to the MMA.
It told them that the rock was nearly pure iron and of very little use to them. Iron was last on the list of necessary metals they needed to find.
“We must head around our craft in ever growing circles, as Jonesy taught us, and pick up anything bright or of a different color from the dull ones we have already tried,” stated Pluto Katherine.
The asteroid wasn’t flat, as two sides descended steeply downwards away from them, and the other two sides—the front and right-hand sides—actually grew into a hill that rose quite steeply about 30 to 40 feet above the craft. They had landed on a parallel pattern on the rock and the rear area of the asteroid could be seen half a mile behind them.
There weren’t many loose stones and rocks in the near vicinity, so on the second day of exploration, Pluto Katherine led her team up the rise.
It didn’t take them long to stand on the higher part of that side of the asteroid. From this vantage point they looked down at the four spacecraft parked pretty closely together thirty feet below them.
The rise didn’t stop here. There was another flat area about 40 feet wide and then the surface rose another 50 to 60 feet to the next rise. They still had this one more rise to climb, but here on the flat area, and in any holes or crevices, were loose rocks.
“Crew, see if you can find a different type or shape of rock, and put them in a pile so we can take them back down with us,” stated Pluto Katherine to the others. It was slow in spacesuits, and they searched for several minutes and several rocks were picked up. Then they began to climb the rise towards the next top.
Up here, they were on a very uneven area. The surface was full of loose rocks in hundreds of pockmarked holes, as if somebody had aimed at this area with a line of small artillery. They were now on the highest point of their area of the asteroid and both sides and the front area dropped steeply away from them.
The lower rise stopped them from seeing the spacecraft, and this time there was different colored stones, still mostly silver variations, and in several of the holes in the surface.
One of the crew looked over the sides heading out in the other three directions.
“Guys, come and check this out,” he stated. “There is some sort of opening below where I’m kneeling.”
The other five suits headed over and found there was a small cave-type-looking opening about two feet below where they were standing.
“It looks about three feet high and about two feet wide,” suggested Gary Darwin. “A bit dangerous for any of us to work our way in. Too dangerous. We could damage our suits. I think I could get down there, close to the entrance. The right-hand side has an edge going past it. Only a few feet wide, but if I look towards the cliff face and walk past the hole, the surface flattens out and I could then look into the hole.”
Pluto nodded, and Gary, with a cord attached to his belt, and hanging onto the hands of two other crewmembers, headed down the foot-wide slope facing the others. He reached the bottom, which was about ten feet below the top, looked up and gave a thumbs-up sign.
Then he stuck his head into the hole and described what was in there.
“Watch out for any space sharks,” slipped out of Pluto Katherine’s mouth. She had loved Jonesy’s space shark stories as a child and couldn’t but add to the moment.
“You and your sharks, love,” replied Gary. “Sorry, there aren’t any down here, but there are silver rocks. I’d say about a few hundred. The cave is larger inside than at the entrance. It looks just like a cave on Earth. It’s about six feet high, and the same horizontally. I can’t see much, but my torch, sorry, flashlight, is showing me a few different shiny rocks. We are going to have to open the hole wider to get in.”
For several minutes, he chipped away at the sides of the entrance with his small rock pick, and shards flew off around him and in every direction.
Spacewalk time was running out, so it was necessary to head back to the safety of the craft after helping Gary back up the walkway. He had one of the cave stones in his hand. As they headed down, each crewmember had a rock from the upper layer in their left hand. Once they reached the mid-level, each crewmember picked up a rock from the mid pile with their right.
A few minutes later the results from the MMA were better from the mid-level stones, but not what they wanted. The rocks from the mid-level had good traces of cobalt, nickel and neodymium, one of the needed rare earth metals. All three of these metals were on the importance list, as most of the thruster parts, connections, and hundreds of small magnets could be made in orbit for the build from these.
What was really important to Astermine was that if they found these metals in space they wouldn’t need to be launched up from Earth.
Pluto Katherine was excited. They wouldn’t be going home empty-handed. The highest level stones showed even higher trace results, and Gary kept his stone until last. He was hoping he had risked his safety for something worthwhile. “C’mon, Gary, we can’t wait out here until we all die. Put your fancy rock into the tray. Let us all see what the space shark fairy gave you!” stated his wife excitedly.
He opened the tray, let his rock slowly drop, closed the tray and pushed the box into the MMA.
As usual the computer took several seconds to analyze the rock, and finally the results showed up on the MMA’s monitor and in all the ship’s cockpits; sperrylite, 81 percent; native platinum, 11 percent; rhodium, 2 percent; iridium, osmium, palladium, ruthenium, 1 percent. There was a howl of excitement from many. They had hit the jackpot.
Sperrylite in itself was platinum arsenide and had most of the metals, but not in a pure form. It was number three on their list and needed to be analyzed.
The others shown on the monitor were the rest of the list, but a few of the knowledgeable immediately noticed that the amounts of the rare earth metals were rather small in size.
Over a celebration glass of wine, each celebrating their success in all the different craft at the same time, the astronauts felt that they had so far succeeded in their mission.
There was far less excitement the next day when, after several hours spent opening the hole, only three canisters of the valuable metal was pulled out of the cave. That was it.
“Maybe there are other caves or deposits,” suggested Pluto Katherine that night in SB-II. The crew weren’t unhappy, just disappointed that the three full canisters would weigh about half a ton back on Earth. A twentieth of what Lunar had purchased from China.
While the cobalt and nickel were still very valuable, half of the crew searched the rest of the asteroid for any signs of more treasure. Rocks and stones were brought from every corner of the asteroid but turned out to be iron ore or cobalt and nickel.
G
ary even began digging into the cave floor and walls and hammered in a couple of feet, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
On the last day before they needed to leave, a small rock was found by one of the crew pretty close to Gary’s cave. It had been a foot deep in a crack in the surface, and she had levered it out with her hammer.
Excitement rose again within the crew as the stone, the size of a marble, showed the exact breakdown of rock the cave had given them. Pluto Katherine immediately gave orders for all the craft to prepare for launch. They had eight hours before they needed to leave, and forty-five canisters of the cobalt/nickel rock were already in the cargo holds as well as the three canisters with the valuable platinum metals.
The craft headed up and away from the asteroid. Pluto Katherine had the exact coordinates of where the last stone had been found, and she blasted the area in long powerful laser bursts for two hours, using as much laser as she dared in such a short period.
Twice the laser overheated, and twice her power in the shuttle dropped to dangerously low levels.
Then the crew in SB-II waited for three more hours before heading back down to the landing zone, as the asteroid showed no signs of breaking up.
The parking area was untouched, but higher up on the mid-level there were new loose rocks everywhere, dislodged by the laser-slicing of the rocky surface above. The upper level was a mess of melted holes and furrows feet deep. Some areas still glowed with heat or energy from the dozens of blasts.
“It looks safe. We still have thirty canisters to load. Let’s just fill them up with whatever is loose,” ordered Pluto Katherine as the other three ships returned to the surface.
For 48 hours they worked hard in three-hour shifts, half of the crew collecting rocks while the other half tried to catch an hour or two of sleep.
They needed to leave at the end of the designated departure window, as the asteroid was now travelling in the opposite direction to Earth. Every hour they delayed meant ten extra hours of travel. Already the crew would be 45 hours behind the deadline.