America One: War of the Worlds (11 page)

With a perfect atmosphere, the crew could work without spacesuits in the shields, whether it was gardening the vegetable patches, or loading or unloading cargo. The temperature was kept constant with heaters inside each shield that kept the growing of greens at optimal temperature, even when the Martian nights got as cold as minus 120 degrees during the planet’s winter solstice.

Over time, and with the idea of the railway tracks found in the
Matt
tunnel, the same railway type of tracks had been built by the build crew to convey cargo to and from the three blue shields. The train wasn’t very fancy, and they used the same two-carriage train Mars had built for his first foray down the tunnel. This train could carry two full canisters of water at a time. It ran in one side and out the other end’s emergency doors right into the tunnel leading into the base, and into the upper level of the underground section of the base.

The biologists used the train all the time to move produce in and out of the Retreat. The railway was close to where each shuttle parked, and the cargo bays could be filled or emptied pretty quickly. The train was stationed inside the “Porch” when it wasn’t needed.

If the base was attacked, the whole base could be shut down from the outer atmosphere of Mars within minutes, once base command sucked the air from the three shields through pipes into six large tanks inside the base. This process had been refined down to a couple of minutes as the shields were retracted at the same time.

The train was lifted into the forward cargo hold of
SB-IV
. The larger shuttle’s crane was better at moving larger cargo. On earth, each of the two carriages of the train would have weighed about 500 pounds. On the red planet, they weighed only 65 pounds.

Once the train was in, two of the mining robots were lifted in. These robots would use their lasers to cut up the gold into small pieces a foot cubed, which could be placed into the nets brought from earth, Each of the ten nets laid flat were 15 feet square, and could hold 50 to 60 of these square gold blocks.

Mars Noble was taking three of his robotic soldiers. They also had lasers and had been programed to cut the solid gold river into blocks. The soldiers weren’t as accurate at short range as the miners were, and these blocks would be lifted into the cargo holds individually. The soldiers were lifted into the shuttle’s cargo hold as the astronauts and crew going mining exited the “Porch”.

They were wearing spacesuits in the “off” mode and had their helmets in their hand. Even though the cutting was to be done by the robots, somebody had to get the pieces into the shuttles’ holds. Twenty-eight of the crew plus eight astronauts were going with them and were to squeeze into the two shuttles.

SB-III
was going to be loaded with the gold metal first, and then its squashed crew of eight would launch into orbit to relieve the crew in the two shuttles. Then its job was to launch each day and fill up the cargo holds and nets 250 miles above them.

“Feel like we are going for the gold,” joked VIN as he took the co-pilot’s seat next to Jonesy. They both would be heading up with the first load, and taking over to fly the two orbiting shuttles with the Burgos sisters. Maggie and the rest of the astronauts would return in
SB-III
, first to the base where Lunar Richmond would take the shuttle back to the tunnels for reloading.

The two shuttles slowly lifted out of the blue shields, and in the best sunlight the sun could offer on Mars headed towards the gold location. En route they passed Lookout Peak, and then the wreck that had injured Mars and claimed the life of Johnny Walls. Max Von Braun, over the intercom, detailed the story as both craft hovered a couple of hundred feet over the wreck as not to cause a dust cloud. Mars looked at the wreck of the Matt ship he had flown through the shuttle’s camera and found no foot prints at all. The dust had covered any signs of movement, and the craft was already half filled of the ever present red dust.

“Looks just like we left it,” stated Mars Noble ten minutes later looking out at the three round tunnel exits staring at them half a mile away.

“This enemy camp is not that far from our base, certainly not as far as the water, and I can see the three tunnel exits,” stated Ryan.

“Looks the same” agreed Saturn taking their shuttle into land first. Jonesy had stopped atop Lookout Peak” the plateau they had often used incase
SB-IV
was attacked.

Saturn landed her shuttle in exactly the same place she had done a few years earlier, and it seemed that they had never left, except the ooze had changed from a dull yellow to more of an orange color.

“No change in the weather since our last orbit,”
stated Maggie in orbit.

“Since you are back up there Maggie”
replied Jonesy
“I’ll head in. Keep your radar peeled for movement, especially at low altitude.”

“Roger that Astronaut Commander,”
replied his wife sarcastically.

Saturn smiled as her mother’s sarcasm clearly came through the intercom communications.

“Don’t they ever stop?” asked Ryan.

“I don’t know Commander, you slept with them for 14 years inside DX2017, you should know,” she replied turning down her thrusters to idle.

“It must have been really noisy in their cryogenic bed,” added Mars.

Jonesy landed next to
SB-IV
10 minutes later and Mars Noble, commander for this mission ordered the thrusters to close down. Everybody kept their eyes glued to the radar monitors for at least five minutes after the engines had ceased. Nothing moved.

“I think it safe to screw on helmets,” Mars Noble stated into the intercom. “First group to exit both shuttles. Meet up point in front of the middle tunnel exit before we unload cargo, over.”

Thirty minutes later the first 12 astronauts stood together on top of the ooze, and looked back at the two shuttles staring at them. It was certainly a pretty site.

Sometimes the landscape reminded Mars Noble of Nevada, when the weak sun didn’t turn the surface its usual reddish color. Sometimes both deserts looked the same, but there were always tiny bits of green growth on the bare floor and hills of the Nevada desert.

“I suggest you taller guys do not head inside the tunnel further than the entrances, or you will get back ache,”
stated Mars.
“The real tall people should unload the cargo bays while we shorter people check out the inside of the tunnels for fresh footprints.”

Mars headed into the tunnel with Ryan and Max Von Braun. Carefully he headed down the first tunnel he and Johnny Walls had checked out. The floor where the dust lay was scrutinized carefully. Their old footprints had been filled with fresh dust.

The railway tracks appeared out of the dust about a hundred feet passed the second hole, and so did the old footprints appear. Mars Noble saw that only he and Johnny had walked down this area.

“No new prints,”
Mars stated into his suit’s intercom.
“I think it’s time to head back and see if the carriages are unloaded. Any suggestions on who is coming with me?”

“I think the boss should see what you have seen, first,” stated Max. “He is shorter than I.”

“I think that is a good idea,” added Ryan. They headed back over to the first exit and scared many of the astronauts working outside. The two carriages had been unloaded, and were being carried to the first hole.

Within 15 minutes they were inside the tunnel, and the crew had them on the tracks.

“I lay flat in the first carriage on my stomach, you lay flat on the second carriage,”
instructed Mars Noble to Ryan. They were each helped to lay down flat.
“The first part of the trip will take about 15 minutes to the fork where two tunnels head out. From there we walk, and boss, it is only five feet high all the way, so don’t wear your helmet out on the roof. Boss, when I say accelerate, light the thruster to idle only. Anymore and we will hit the speed of sound. When I say brake, increase the pressure on the brake pedal slightly.”

VIN handed his son a laser pistol, and the hammer they had brought from earth. The hammer was affixed to a handle three feet long and the hammer on earth weighed ten pounds. Here on the red planet it weighed a pound and a half.

Very few words were said as the carriages was gently pushed forward to give them momentum. Then the rear thruster was lit, and on idle easily pushed them down into the tunnel.

The train gradually increased speed as it reached the steeper downhill stretch Mars remembered from the first journey. He asked Ryan to turn off the thruster, they wouldn’t need it for this downward stretch to the fork.

He remembered the tunnel vividly. He had often dreamed about his flight down the tunnel. It was so clean. The walls had been blasted and left totally smooth. So smooth that they felt as smooth as metal, and he wondered of the
Matts
had made them that smooth. It would have taken pretty sophisticated machinery to make the tunnel so perfect.

The light he shone ahead moved along the walls faster and faster, until he ordered Ryan to apply brake pressure. Ryan didn’t apply it hard enough and the fork in the tunnel rapidly came up to meet them. Mars shouted at Ryan to hit the brakes hard, and he felt the wheels lock up underneath him.

The carriages slowed and they stopped ten feet passed the fork.

“Where does this one go?”
Ryan asked as he began to lift himself of his ride.

“Straight into the hole that Michael Pitt blew up when he demolished this part of their base,”
Mars replied.
“If the brakes had failed, we would be exiting the shaft about now at full speed and would have a fifty to sixty-foot drop to the ground below.”

“Well, with the lessor gravity, we should survive the fall?”
Ryan suggested.

“You can try it boss, I’ll watch you from here,”
remarked Mars jokingly.

He grabbed onto the hammer hard and passed the laser to Ryan. Then he backtracked to the fork and with his helmet light on full power, headed up the tunnel to where he knew the water in the river, and glass panels had been.

Nothing had changed. The tunnel led through the sections that had been blasted black. Then the gold layering returned to the tunnel and he helped Ryan through the hole in the wall where a door had once stood. As he had seen on his first visit, the door had been half ripped off its hinges, and its silver shape could be seen melted into the wall lining.

A hundred steps further on another half-ripped open wall appeared in his light, they climbed through the second hole, which was slightly smaller than the first hole, and then Mars saw part of the tunnel he hadn’t seen on his first visit.

He and Johnny must have both missed the continuance of their tunnel. It was very black and Mars realized that this was the hole the blast had come through, as the next wall would be the solid see-through wall.

Mars stopped Ryan and he gingerly shone his light down the tunnel. There seemed to be a light at the end, but Mars first wanted to show the see-through wall to show Ryan. He wanted to see if the tree was there.

As expected, he reached the see-though wall that sealed him off from where the bodies in blue suits were.

“Time from start is 27 minutes,”
stated Mars looking at his suit’s readouts.
“Temperature has risen to one degree above zero Celsius, and there seems to be lesser radioactivity around us, as Johnny and I had before. My suit’s Geiger counter is not rising.

Mars checked for the tree. Yes, it was there. He had thought he had seen a tree, a very old tree, and it was there, small withered, but it still had a few green leaves on it.

“So there is a tree?”
asked Ryan looking through the wall and seeing the tree.

“As before I count seven skeletons in blue suits, and without helmets,”
continued Mars.
“And there is the small river, which Johnny and I believe is running water. Why, because the bodies don’t have helmets, and we know that the Matt suits can’t handle space conditions, so there must be an atmosphere in there.”

“I can’t believe it,”
replied Ryan. Then he inspected the see-through wall.
“I bet this is silicone glass, much like we made for the porch.”

“Johnny and I had to return at this time,”
stated Mars remembering his last visit.
“We ran out of time, but you and I have been quicker, and still have time.”

“Your hammer is not going to go through that silicone glass wall. I believe the laser will fry us and the wall if we try to use it to open the wall, so I reckon we need to get in through that door in the rear of this room, or whatever it is,” suggested Ryan.

“Yes, we saw that door the last time,”
replied Mars.
“I bet that this tunnel will lead us to that door. We have time, plus the 30 minutes I know it will take us to get back so I think 20 to 25 minutes will be safe boss.”

The two men continued down the tunnel to the light, and carefully helped each other through another blasted metal wall. Here, the Geiger counter began to vibrate telling Mars of heavier radiation once they had both passed through.

Mars shone his light and continued. As usual it was only five feet high and he had to bend over to progress.

“My back is beginning to really hurt,”
stated Ryan behind him.

“Mine two”
added Mars
“but I’ve found the door, or what looks like a flattened door where the rear entrance should be. I want to check to see where this tunnel leads to. I can see light at the end and bet it goes into the blast hole the forward tunnel leads to.”

He was right, seventy feet later the same massive cavern well over a hundred feet across and 50 to 60 feet deep opened out from the same hole in the roof, and his helmet light as he shone it around.

“This must have been their space port, or power setup,”
suggested Mars.
“I’m sure the cold fusion explosion, or whatever was in here, was the explosion Michael Pitt described in his reports.”