AMERICA ONE - NextGen II (Book 6)

by T I WADE

  “One thousand eight hundred feet altitude, speed 1,200 knots, seven bogeys 200 miles at 5,000 feet altitude and they are a few minutes west of Captain Pete’s exact coordinates, over,” stated Jenny to Mars ten minutes later.

  We are back,” interrupted Saturn. We dropped like a stone and have been at full power for fifteen minutes. Jenny is accurate with Captain Pete’s coordinates. He is in the cockpit with me. If they have radar they are going to see me soon. Lasers looking for them now.” As Saturn said that, Jenny’s voice returned over the intercom.

  “Bogey’s turning 180 degrees, heading skywards towards Saturn. They will fly over our position in three minutes.”

  “Hold your altitude until I give the order, Jenny,” Mars stated.

  “Wow! Blue something, like a constant laser beam, passed my cockpit window. There’s another one. They are shooting at me,” stated Saturn with much shock and surprise in her voice.

  “Jenny, lock onto the rear three targets. Saturn, lock onto the three most forward targets coming your way. I see the blue laser lines stretching up. Jenny, on my count of three of three, full thrusters, head up towards your targets and start firing. I’m going up now to surprise them. Johnny, hang onto your lunch packet, here we go,” and Mars’ brain gave fast mental orders to his ship which suddenly rose its nose and at full power screamed upwards towards the enemy now visible around 10,000 feet above him, directly in front of his cockpit and about to fly directly overhead.

  “Blue lasers all around us, four targets locked in twenty seconds, Mars!” added Saturn with more urgency.

  “Jenny, one, two, three, go!” ordered Mars as he approached the seven Matt craft in front of him, and a second later he flew right through their formation at full speed, scattering the startled pilots in all directions.

  “First craft hit, missed second craft. They are really turning hard. Third shot missed third craft, fourth shot hit second craft,” Jenny stated, firing on the locked targets as fast as she could muster.

  Mars rolled his ship over on its back and turned to ride through the scattered pigeons to take their fire and saw two blobs of smoke where Jenny had hit. Now there were blue lines of Maser fire all around him as the five, then four remaining craft fired at the “hawk” flying vertically down towards them.

  “I’m hit!” shouted Mars.

  “Targets locked, firing now,” stated Saturn, and she most probably saved his life, as another maser close hit would have destroyed his craft.

  “Two down, two to go, Jenny!” shouted Saturn “Take the one closest to the base!” she ordered.

  “I can’t, my laser is overheated.”

  “No problem, girl, I’ll have them locked in a second or two,” Saturn replied, wanting to see what had happened to her husband.

  The larger shuttle was flying straight and level on autopilot 80 miles above the war zone, the ship on automatic so that she could use all her experience on the laser. Now it was time to save her husband’s life.

  “Wing area destroyed, on full vertical thrust power, have sort of control, going down, but have control, I think,” stated Mars rapidly over the intercom and went back to mental thoughts to control his craft.

  Like a spinning helicopter he lost altitude, and even though the thrusters were on full power, he still struck the flat Martian surface with enough force to bounce off the ground hard.

  “Saturn, one to go. Bogey is heading west again. Twenty seconds until I have firepower back up,” stated Jenny.

  “No problem,” replied Saturn, and a new blob of smoke could be seen by Jenny as the last enemy craft disintegrated several miles in front of her.

  “Radar clear apart from you Saturn,” Jenny added.

  “Jenny, get down to Mars’ crash site. I see his craft on camera, it’s a mess. You have fully suited up crew, so get there girl, fast!”

  Jenny was a damn good astronaut, and she threw SB-III down towards the site as fast as she dared and decided on a landing zone within 100 feet of the broken ship. Since there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, it wouldn’t burst into flames, but that didn’t mean that the two aboard were still safe.

  As she came in, her co-pilot, her older sister Jane, who was still suited up, and one of the build crew, Max, activated the inner hatch. Max got in and activated the docking port to go through as fast as possible.

  “We are down, crew,” stated Jenny.

  “Opening outer hatch now,” stated Max. “Out, hatch closed. Jane, its ready for you. Going down the ladder now.” He reached the ground within a minute of the shuttle touching down and wobbled like a chicken as fast as he could over to the broken ship.

  It was cracked open in the center, the rear area had hit first, and the entire cargo bay was open to the killer atmosphere of Mars. The rear area of the cockpit screen above the pilots was also cracked, and he aimed for this area.

  The first sight of the crew inside was not good. He knew that Johnny had been sitting in the rear seat. The broken screen of the cockpit had entered his suit underneath the helmet, in his neck area. Large red blood globules were spreading out in the cockpit around him.

  Max grabbed what was left of the canopy and with a force of strength pulled off the see-through silicon above the forward pilot’s head. Now he could see inside both cockpits. Both pilots had injuries, red blood droplets were floating everywhere, and he reached for his spacesuit’s knife and cut through Mars’ seat belts first. He noticed that Mars’ right arm was sort of floating at a weird angle.

  It wasn’t difficult to float out the forward pilot. He heard Saturn’s questioning, but ignored her pleas.

  His leg was grabbed and Jane was underneath where he stood.

  “Jane, give me a sec and then carry Mars back to the ship. Jenny, your sister will need help getting the commander up and into the docking port. His suit is open on his right arm, so hurry, I’ll get Johnny out.”

  As Max lifted Mars out, he was shocked to see that Mars’ right arm was barely hanging onto his body just above the elbow. It had been nearly sliced off by the silicon, so he grabbed for a short cord that was around his waist, quickly applied as much force as he could and tied a tourniquet around the upper arm. Then he remembered that Dr. Nancy was actually in the shuttle a hundred feet away. “Doc, his right arm is nearly sliced off just below the shoulder, I have a crappy tourniquet around it, and blood is still flowing. Get ready, he needs you. Jane, go!”

  For Jane, and the low Martian gravity, it wasn’t difficult to carry Mars over to the shuttle. Saturn’s voice was still filling her helmet.

  “Saturn, shut up. I have Mars and am taking him over to the ship. Keep this channel clear!” she ordered, and Saturn obediently became quiet.

  By the time she got there, two more spacesuits were out of the ship, and one helped her up with Mars while the other headed over to help Max.

  Max looked at Johnny. Johnny was one of his young friends, a person who he admired as one of the NextGens. Max was thirty years older than Johnny, andhad taught him much, as Max had been with Astermine as one of the teenage kids that had headed out on “The Odyssey”. The poor boy’s eyes were glazed over. He was already dead. “Johnny did not make it, Doc. You only have one patient. I will get Johnny out of here and carry him back, over.”

  Mars was handed down through the docking hatch in a bloody mess, and Dr. Nancy, who always carried a large bag of medical gear, ordered an area clear. “Pete, get his body over there, now. You find something better to stop the blood flow,” and with large medical scissors she began to cut away Mars’ cord around his arm and then his bloody suit. “Jenny, once everybody is aboard we need to get back to base. Hold on, I have most of my operating gear aboard SB-IV for the flight home. Jenny, we need to get up there ASAP.”

  Within minutes, Max and his helper had Johnny’s body aboard and the outer hatch closed as Jenny took her shuttle up fast.

  Chapter 20

  We Can’t Go Down

  It was a few days later when Commander Mars Noble
found out if he was alive or not. His first mental thoughts was that he wasn’t dreaming, but there was somebody holding his hand, his left hand. He could feel that he was tied down to a bed, and that he was in space, not on Mars. The gravity was non-existent.

  It was quiet. He couldn’t hear a sound. That was not normal. Even where there was no gravity, there was air, and within the atmosphere of base, or on the shuttles, somebody was usually talking, or making some sort of noise. But it was very quiet, too quiet, and he tried to open his eyes. Then he heard noise.

  “Captain Pete, he’s coming around,” he heard his wife say, and he tried to squeeze the hand holding his. He tried for a second time, and then got a return squeeze. “Dr. Nancy, are you awake? I felt his hand move,” and Mars tried to smile. This was a sweet dream, or was it? Then the last few seconds of flight returned to him.

  He was spinning hard, the ship wouldn’t complete his commands. He had dreamed about this several times, and then he realized that he must have been talking to the ship, not thinking to it. Then, no matter what he tried, it hit something hard, he could see red in front of his helmet, and then the dream would start all over again.

  “No, no! that is not the way to fly Roo’s ship,” he heard himself tell himself, and then a weak voice came through his thoughts. It sounded like Captain Pete.

  “Mars, Mars, can you hear me? Squeeze Saturn’s hand if you can,” stated Dr. Nancy, or was it Captain Pete in a very weird voice. Then he heard Dr. Nancy’s voice. It sounded like she was lying next to him.

  “How can I fly this ship and squeeze Saturn’s hand at the same time,” he heard himself again tell himself. “Oh! I suppose I can do two things at once,” and he applied pressure to the hand holding his.

  “I felt something,” he heard his wife blurt out, and he tried to smile.

  “Mars, try and open your eyes. You are aboard SB-IV. Try and open your eyes,” he heard Dr. Nancy order him. Unbeknown to him, she was in the second bed in the medical room, nearly as weak as he was.

  He tried. It was hard. His eyelids wouldn’t move. This is weird, he thought, and tried harder. Suddenly the lightness of the overhead lighting pierced eyes. It was bright, so he shut them again. Then he was again ordered to open his eyes, and slowly his eyes got used to the light and the blurred shape looking at him.

  “That you, sweetie? How is Mikey?” he heard himself ask.

  “We are fine, Mars, can you see me?” she responded.

  “Sort of, my eyes aren’t working very well. Your face is very blurry.”

  “Mars, Saturn is going to give you a sedative to make you sleep for several hours. You need rest, and one of us will be by your side, so sleep,” he heard Dr. Nancy say to him, and then peace and quiet returned to his thoughts and the flying and the spinning went away.

  He awoke to see Saturn holding his son and both were staring at him. This time his eyes worked better and they came into view. He smiled and both Saturn and Mikey smiled back.

  “Where’s Johnny?” he asked. “Is he ok?”

  “You had a bad crash, Mars, and are badly injured. No, Johnny didn’t make it. Rest, you have just had an operation,” Saturn replied.

  It took the injured commander a few more days to regain his strength. He seemed to take the loss of his left arm better than the loss of his co-pilot. Johnny was a good guy and a real loss to the team.

  Saturn told him what had happened after he blacked out. So did Max and Jenny who arrived a day after he was strong enough to sit up in bed and talk.

  “It seems I have a lot to thank you for, Max, Jenny” stated Mars weakly as the man who saved his life stood with his magnetic shoes on at the side of the bed.

  “You would have done the same for me and any of the crew,” Max replied. “Sorry about young Johnny. He was good lad, and I believe he died very quickly.”

  Mars wanted all the facts, and Saturn nodded to Max to tell the story. Max described how the ship had looked. It was a mess, and so were the two crew inside. He told Mars how Johnny had died, and how Mars’ arm was a mess dangling in space.

  Saturn added that Mars had lost so much blood, and there was only one Rh Negative blood donor aboard, and Dr. Nancy had been bedridden for several days herself after she had ordered her accomplise, Saturn to take out as much blood as possible to give to Mars. Captain Pete had actually completed the operation of removing his arm and closing the wound, under the guidance of his wife.

  If Dr. Nancy hadn’t been aboard, he would not have survived with such a rare blood group. Only Little Mikey was the third person aboard with the same blood group, and he was too small to give blood.

  The doctor, helped by her husband, looking weak and frail, entered wearing her magnetic shoes. Mars thanked her for giving him life. She smiled back at him and sarcastically told him to look after her pints of blood. She was really missing them.

  The next day, Max returned. He was part of the build crew and had a prosthetic arm with him. “Remember your father lost his right arm?” he asked.

  Mars smiled. “I remember that old arm of his very well. I actually helped you build it, remember?”

  “Well, we can do a few changes to this arm we made for your father, sort of turn it from his to yours, and strap it on you. He wore this one until we made a better one for him. This doesn’t have all the doodads his new arm has, but at least you will have something until we can get you a new arm made when we reach Nevada.”

  Mars was still slow, very weak and his brain worked very slowly from the medications. He smiled at Max and thanked the man.

  “Saturn, you told me about the fight and the crash. Was the radar clear when you left? Are the crew safe on the planet? Why aren’t we returning?”

  “Radar was as clear as it was since we arrived,” she replied. “We counted seven enemy craft. They looked identical to the Matt ship you were flying except that they had one gun-looking thing sticking out of their nose, like the refueling rig of an old Earth fighter. I saw them clearly through the laser cameras. What I did notice was that two of the spaceships were single-seaters, and one other I got the camera sharp on before Jenny blew it away had twin seats. So they do have different types of spacecraft. We saw seven and we got seven kills. They got one, you. Once you were aboard, Jenny needed to return to the base to deliver the water. We had the time, as Dr. Nancy had stopped the bleeding and was already giving you blood. She beat the storm by a few hours, literally threw out the water canisters with the help of everybody at the base, and then headed up. Max went in and got you this arm from your father’s belongings.

  “We headed up with the returning crew in case the storm was a big one, left the 63 crew down there who were staying, and the storm clouded over the base a few hours later. It is still there and the whole area looks like a massive hurricane is just sitting over our base. We have learned one thing being up here. Captain Pete, who has been by Dr. Nancy’s side since we got up here, reckons that the storm is much smaller than when he was orbiting a few years ago in America One. There is one big storm, and it seems to move, then stop, then move again, and it has a few smaller storms skirting around it. The big storm covers about a twentieth of the whole planet. I think it just wanders around the planet, and Captain Pete thinks it has lost much of its power. Several of the scientists down at the base liked the news we told them and a day later came back with ideas that this is a storm that looks like it will soon blow itself out. We already have bets that the base will be covered for about six months to a year, and then this smaller storm will move off, or just disappear.”

  “So the crew down there are safe from attack for the time being?” Mars asked.

  “And with your 12 robots, they could have easily taken out those seven craft once they were within range, so we are now stuck up here, and they are safe down there,” replied Saturn.

  The decision was made that there was nothing that the crew in orbit could do for the crew down at The Martian Club Retreat, and a course was set for Earth.

  They w
ere 5 months early for the beginning of the next opposition window, and their return flight would take 271 days instead of the 179 expected trip. A position was plotted by Captain Pete, who was back in the command seat, and the two shuttles left orbit after saying farewell to the crew by intercom below them.

  The only mistake Captain Pete made leaving Mars, or Dave Black on the planet’s surface, was not to check all the radio systems, which were turned off. There was no need, for they had talked down to the planet only through the intercom since they had arrived, and nobody heard being called from Earth millions of miles away. Neither Captain Pete nor Dave Black knew that Astermine now had solar-system-size radio communications directly from Nevada.

  Chapter 21

  Thank God!

  There was no rush to get back to Earth. There actually was, inside the minds of the crew, but in space, Homo sapiens couldn’t yet bend the rules to get somewhere in a hurry. There was no way they could shorten the journey, and once the red planet had disappeared from view in the rear view mirror, life in the two shuttles, flying in formation 10 miles apart, went back to reading, learning and studying anything that took their interest.

  Mars regained his health after a few weeks, and the build crew worked on his arm. Since cybernetics was a major part of working the arm from brain impulses, much of the work Mars Noble had to do was instructing his new arm to understand what his brain wanted. It was exactly what his father had learned on two occasions, when cybernetics were introduced to his metal legs right at the beginning of his employment with Astermine and when he had to learn how to use his new right arm.

  There were only two of the older crewmembers aboard SB-IV apart from Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy. Max Von Braun and Paul Weathers had been part of the build crew that had studied under the even older scientists in the fields of mechanics, propulsion, robotics and cybernetics. Max, who had saved Mars’ life, and Paul had made the robots on the Mars base, serviced and kept the shuttle thrusters in perfection, made the new arm for VIN Noble, and were two of the most experienced members of the crew aboard for the mission.