by WADE, T I
“Get back to the safety of the base; your suits could have holes in them,” shouted Igor from within the greenhouse and using a handheld. “Captain Pete, you have permission to fire at the others.”
The three shuttles lifted out of the crater unharmed, and with Jonesy in the lead, headed vertical.
“Three aliens two miles south and incoming rapidly to the base,” said Captain Pete. Jonesy thrust the shuttle to face south, and Maggie used the heat and infrared together, locked onto the closest ship and fired. At such close range, she couldn’t miss, but not before the alien ship blasted two more shields at the edge of the farm.
The other two shuttles were still climbing as three more shields erupted into millions of air bubbles. Maggie took out the lead craft.
The third incoming alien craft exploded a second later as America One locked onto it. It seemed that the visitors had certainly not bargained at being shot at from space, but were not yet done.
“Five more alien craft incoming from their base area,” said Captain Pete. “Heading through 20,000 feet, 10,000 knots, moving fast and heading straight for America One. ETA five minutes ten seconds, over.”
“Allen, Michael, we have to head them off,” shouted Jonesy over the intercom, and under full power, the three shuttles disappeared from the base area.
“Commencing laser fire at the incoming ships,” said Captain Pete.
“I have them visual 1,800 miles ahead climbing through 100,000 feet. I’m locked onto the lead spacecraft,” shouted Maggie.
“Fire!” commanded Jonesy and two lasers firings later blew the lead spacecraft into nothing, too far ahead of them to see it explode. The rest suddenly broke apart, and Captain Pete got one as they headed in all directions.
“SB-I, there are only three of the enemy left. Head down to the area we think they are based and circle in case more are launched, and don’t use your shield,” ordered Jonesy. “Captain Pete, close down your shield; that is what they are after.”
“Roger Jonesy, copy that, closing it down…no!” Suddenly, a massive explosion lit up the area where America One was orbiting. The explosion was so large, it could be seen from the base. It was like a bright star had suddenly appeared in the sky.
“America One, America One,” shouted Ryan over the radio as he keeled over ten feet from the nearest entrance into the atmospheric inner room. One of the inner robots grabbed him as he fell. Another was already carrying VIN while the third carried Elder Roo back to the outer hatch. Many of the crew were watching from inside and Igor electronically opened the outer hatch so that the three men could be placed into the docking port together. It closed, and Igor suddenly felt weak as he heard Jonesy shout over the radio that the mother ship was gone, Jonesy had hit one more, and Allen Saunders was after the last one.
“Crew, help them to the infirmary, now!” shouted Igor, and three men lifted the three bleeding bodies up as the inner hatch opened and ran with them to the medical center on the upper level.
“Ten more craft leaving the planet,” said Michael Pitt as his radar began showing ten blips heading up from an area twenty or so miles ahead of him. “I have an exact base location. Sending it now. Have one locked,” and Penny disintegrated the first alien craft at close range. Michael followed them up, Penny hitting one more before Jonesy and Allen swooped down from above two minutes later at full thrust. Allen was still following the original one from the last lot, and it disintegrated as Maggie hit the third of the ten climbing craft. That again sent them in all directions.
“America One is gone. They must be heading to our base, or are wanting our blood. Allen, head back and defend,” ordered Jonesy. “VIN, if you can hear me, get your guys ready to defend; incoming in about ten minutes. Michael, you and me on the attack,” SB-III swooped up as the same type of red beam suddenly lit up the cockpit from the ground and passed him by several feet from his starboard side.
“These guys have real weapons at their base. That was a laser blast or something. Shuttles, take precautionary action,” added Jonesy as Maggie locked onto an enemy craft 70 miles ahead, and nothing happened.
“That red beam has sucked our laser power. I can’t fire for 50 seconds. Powering up now,” said Maggie.
“Got one,” shouted Penny Pitt. She was good, Jonesy knew that. Penny Pitt was the best shot of all of them. “Got a second one…crap that red beam just missed us and took my laser power down, recharging.”
“Maggie?” shouted Jonesy to his copilot as he was catching up to three of the craft heading toward the base.
“Twenty seconds to power up,” she shouted back. “There goes that red flash again, aft of us. I think we are heading out of range. It took my power down again. Allen, they are coming to you. I have you on radar 100 miles ahead. Don’t let them blast you; they will take away your laser.”
There came an explosion twenty or so miles ahead as Jonesy pushed the throttles to absolute full power.
“Got one,” said Jamie. “Got a second. Damn, there was a red flash from the third. Just missed us, I have no laser power.”
“Three to go. I have one bogey on radar forty miles ahead and approaching our base from the south,” said Jonesy.
“Locked on, have to wait 7 more seconds,” added Maggie. Seven seconds to Jonesy was like eternity, but he kept up with the enemy craft. “Powered up, firing now.”
As the Matt craft fell apart on Maggie’s second shot, its red beam erupted from its nose, now only a few miles ahead, and one of the shields blew up on the base. Suddenly, two more erupted and a second craft disintegrated as it flew in from the north.
“VIN’s guys got one as it flew over,” shouted Fritz Warner into the base radio.
“Last one is mine, guys,” said Jamie Saunders as the last outside shield exploded, and so did the last alien craft, less than a mile south of the retreat.
The Martian Club Retreat, or what was left of it, suddenly went dark. Night had fallen on the whole area.
“State fuel reserves on shuttles immediately,” ordered Jonesy.
“SB-I still on half tanks,” reported Penny Pitt.
“SB-II same, just over half,” added Jamie.
“We have enough to return to the alien base. Let’s go!” replied Jonesy, and the three shuttles headed back.
“Ryan, VIN, you there?” asked Jonesy as he used his side thrusters to turn his shuttle into a 180 degree bank.
“Ryan is unconscious but alive, and VIN is the same. Both have bad skin injuries due to cut suits. Joot is dead, Roo is alive, just,” reported Fritz Warner.
Thirteen technicians, two females and three children dead down here on the mid-level. The power room holding the spare black boxes went up like an atomic explosion. The rock floors, metal doors and thick walls saved the rest of us on the other levels. What about the mother ship. We can’t get Captain Pete?” asked Igor in a high pitched voice.
“I think they got it,” replied Jonesy. “The shield must have exploded inside the ship. He was retracting it when we saw an explosion. They must have been sitting ducks up there. We don’t have enough fuel to get that high, so we are going to make sure that they don’t come back.”
“Any ideas, guys?” Allen Saunders asked as they flew into formation for the ten minute ride back to the alien base.
“Their ships would have been protected inside the blue shields,” said Maggie.
“Yes, I was thinking of that. I believe they can’t extend their own shields and use that red laser, or whatever is was,” added Penny Pitt.
“That’s right, they couldn’t protect themselves and fire their weapon at the same time. Just like we can’t fire our lasers inside the shields.”
“Most probably a maser,” said Mars Noble over the radio and from the base. “Be careful, that maser could take you out if it gets near your black boxes.”
“Their weapon seems to target the energy of the boxes, active or not active,” added Igor. “It went in directly to our power room.”
“Go on,
” demanded Jonesy. “What the hell is a maser?”
“A maser is a device for the creation, amplification, and transmission of an intense, highly focused beam of high-frequency radio waves,” added Mars. “Igor, go on?”
“Yes, a maser works like a microwave oven. Maser stands for ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.’ Maser waves are much closer to an ideal single-frequency source than those of ordinary radio transmitters. As a result, the maser output can be transmitted over fairly large distances with relatively little loss. I can only assume that the red you are seeing is its strength, and it works totally differently from a laser.”
“So we must just stay away from it,” Jonesy asked. “I need to know what we are working with here. Five minutes to attack.”
“I would assume by what you told me that an active shield would attract the maser beam by its energy field, like lightning. Hopefully your closed shields aren’t as attractive, or you would be all fried. Don’t use your shields,” Igor responded.
“I don’t think their red beam can be as accurate without the attraction of the deployed shields,” added Mars Noble.
“I think you’re right. America One was thousands of miles away when it was hit,” Jonesy replied. “Guys, we must be in enemy territory, so spread out like we do on Earth. Let’s flatten the area around where the red beams come from.”
The first red beam came up to them at the speed of light and missed all the shuttles by a mile. It did take out all their laser power though. Jonesy told them to split up and keep at least ten miles between them.
The second red beam from the same place passed by SB-III 30 seconds later. By the time the third beam lit up SB-III and closed down Maggie’s laser for the third time, Penny Pitt was far enough away to keep her power and with one blast directly where the red beam had come from, a massive explosion suddenly turned the night into day for miles around.
For the first time in his life Jonesy saw the mushroom of what looked like a nuclear explosion 15,000 feet below them. Immediately all three shuttles headed away under full throttle.
“Climb, climb! That thing is massive down there,” shouted Jonesy as his radio went into static.
Jonesy pushed his thruster throttles as hard forward as he could and the hydrogen thrusters took them into space. “Maggie, deploy our shield,” he ordered as the blast of energy climbed faster than they were and was rapidly catching up.
The blue shield grew around them as they climbed and suddenly they felt heavy Gees in their back as the energy belt hit them. The pain in the back was as bad as Jonesy remembered on the old hydrogen pulse thrusters they had used decades earlier, as he fought the shuttle to keep it in a straight line. “You won’t believe this, but our forward speed is climbing 27,000 knots at 120,000 feet, from 10,000 knots at 70,000 feet a few seconds ago.
“Ours too; we have our shield extended and have been thrown around like a baseball in here,” Jonesy heard Allen Saunders shout.
“Pitt, Michael Pitt, are you still alive?” asked Jonesy.
“Affirmative, I think. We were heading away from the blast at full power and Penny extended the shield as soon she saw that mushroom thing. It seems the radios work inside our shields.”
“Copy that, Michael. Good shot, Penny! Glad everybody is alive; the energy blast has passed us, and the explosion is gone. I think it’s time to go home. Our fuel is low. I don’t think any Martians survived that blast down there. SB-III to Mars base do you copy?”
“Mars base to SB-III, what the hell was that, an earthquake? This whole place rattled worse than somebody trying to shake us apart. Two people had shelves fall on them but we are okay, over,” said Mars Noble.
Chapter 21
What Now?
Both Dr. Walls and Dr. Rogers were working on Ryan in the operating theater when the astronauts, now with spacesuits to exit their craft, entered through the docking ports one by one. The refueling technicians, twelve of them, were already suited up and outside under Mars Noble’s orders, ready to refuel the shuttles as they came in. The robots had been automated and had placed themselves over the plateau, ready for a second attack.
Jonesy was happy to see the three mining craft undamaged and standing in their row, but now without the protection of the shields.
There wasn’t one shield left outside on the plateau and fields, and that meant all their crops, all five acres of them, were gone. So was the mother ship. The vacuum of space had retaken all the work the biology team had spent over a decade nurturing and growing, apart from the young plants in the greenhouses inside the chamber. In three short hours, the short Martian history books had changed forever.
Slowly, glum faces entered the debriefing room as they changed out of their suits.
Inside the chamber, the top level was a mess. There were broken shelves and supplies from the earthquake everywhere. The blast was far away, but many mentioned that it was as powerful as anything they had felt on Earth.
The second level, where the black boxes had been stored, was completely blackened and buckled and looked like a raging inferno had gone through. There were charred remains of bodies in a line, and the astronauts began looking for their loved ones. The broken and bent doors down to the new lower chamber had just been opened, and there Jonesy found Saturn who was tending to bleeding children. Down on this level there had been no deaths, and all the children and people not needed upstairs had taken cover with the NextGen astronauts in charge.
Jonesy and Maggie hugged Saturn, then headed back up to the top level to the operating theater. It was closed, and Lieutenant Walls, armed, stood outside.
“Sorry, Jonesy. The doctors don’t want to be disturbed. VIN looks like he’ll make it. One of his arms looked pretty blackened from the loss of atmosphere out there. Ryan the same. Elder Roo looks the worst. I was told they should all make it, and I will give you any news once I get it.”
As the adrenaline subsided in the astronauts, reality came back as they headed for the briefing room.
“There is no hole in the wall, so how did the three spare black boxes get hit?” Jonesy asked Igor as the last two astronauts entered.
“The maser radio frequency can penetrate walls without leaving a hole,” replied Igor. “The two children were standing right in the line of fire and were cooked as black as meat can be microwaved. They were young Jacob Rogers and his new wife, who we believe were heading up to help in the medical unit. Dr. and Nurse Martha don’t know yet.”
Jonesy noticed that Igor was disheveled and most of his body was blackened.
“You okay, Igor?’ he asked.
“Me? Sure. I was down on the mid-level trying to see who had perished, and I was helping find the bodies. Mars Noble was very glum in the command center.”
It wasn’t good news with the dead. Max Burgos and three of the design technicians were killed. So was Hans Smidt and his new wife. The aging head of many departments, Dr. Martha Von Zimmer, and one of her team were also killed in the blast.”
“Where is Suzi?” asked Maggie, suddenly sick to her stomach.
“She was helping control the children. I have seen her. She is a mess but okay,” replied Igor. “What happened to Captain Pete?”
Jonesy told him what he knew, and everybody was quiet for several seconds, the shock of the loss of the mother ship slowly sinking in.
“It seems we have lost all of our food production,” Jamie Saunders added quietly.
“Yes, about 90 percent,” replied Igor. “The chickens and rabbits are fine, but there is no way we can survive with just the greenhouses inside the cavern. We have less than three month’s supply of vegetables in storage. And our liquid hydrogen manufacture is now virtually non-existent, kaput.” That made the briefing room silent for a long time.
“We still have three shields,” suggested Jonesy.
“Yes, that’s right,” replied Igor, the shock of the attack dulling his thinking. “We will have to get them out there once the shuttles are refuele
d. Hopefully the soil isn’t ruined. Not my area of knowledge.”
After twenty minutes, the official list of the dead was complete. They had lost many of the best.
Captain Pete and Dr. Nancy were gone. So was Mr. Rose, three of his team and seven of the technicians in charge of hydrogen fuel production. Thirteen crewmembers had gone up in the mother ship.
In the base, there were sixteen charred bodies, and Commander Joot, killed outside in the first blast. He had been the closest to the red beam as the blast had destroyed the first shield. Max Burgos was gone, and the team manufacturing the robots. Dr. Martha and Hans Smidt were dead, two of the best scientists on the base, and that really would hurt production. There weren’t many of the best left, as Dr. Petra Bloom had died a year or more before the attack.
The briefing ended with the message that the shuttles would be refueled within three hours. Jonesy suggested that at least one crew would stand guard in one of the shuttles for a 24-hour period. He and Maggie would be first, and his black box be taken out and placed where the first shield had blown up. Igor and Mars Noble headed toward the infirmary to give the medical team the bad news.
The only good bit of news came from the outer greenhouse two hours later. There was just enough stored atmospheric air in the tanks for one shield, and production in the upper level could soon start for a second one, once the necessary water was collected.
Jonesy and Maggie were glum when they boarded SB-III. They had seen the despair of Nurse Martha and then Dr. Rogers on learning about the loss of her only son. The medical team had worked for two hours before anybody was allowed in to tell them.
Saturn and Mars helped set up the shield in spacesuits, as soon as the shield and its power unit had been retrieved from underneath SB-III. Once the atmosphere was released into the shield, they climbed in through SB-III’s docking port and were helped off with their suits.