America One: War of the Worlds (30 page)

“I watched the water drain from the river into the hole in the floor to the lake below,” stated Mars Noble. “Even though it flowed slower than here on Earth, it ran down into the hole with air from the chamber. If this has happened for thousands of years, then much of the atmosphere below can be attributed to being from the base above, and the
Matt
air producers and cleaners.”

“Yes, an excellent statement, son,” stated Suzi. “We added this equation into our numbers, thanks to your report and suit readouts. What surprised us was the lack of perfect air down there after so much time. The air wasn’t being breathed down there, by humans or animals, low carbon dioxide. I’m sure the microbes got used to the slight changes over time, but our results showed us that thousands of years of air leakage mean only one thing: there is a very large cavern down there.

“This is really getting interesting,” stated Ryan excitedly.

“Depending on what area of dry ground there is down there, we might have found Mars’ Atlantis,” Suzi added.

Chapter 13
 
Israel, Mars Attacked and New Engines

The test flight of Martin’s new spaceship didn’t go as planned. Nor did Jonesy’s life after the launch.

Jonesy and Maggie, with Martin in the cockpit launched Martin’s new craft 24 hours after arriving in Tel Aviv. The weather wasn’t an issue. With bright blue skies, and zero wind, it was perfect weather for a maiden flight.

Ryan had loaned Martin three of Astermine’s spacesuits for the flight. Nevada base was about to test its new suits, which had new helmet clasps instead of screwing them on, more protection against cosmic radiation, and a seven hour power pack instead of the old suit’s four.

Jonesy, Maggie and Martin Brusk were wearing them as Jonesy lit up the thrusters, and the noisy craft compared to the silent Astermine ships in the shields, launched vertically. The three astronauts inside couldn’t hear the outside noise, but the different vibrations inside the cockpit did get Jonesy’s attention.

“Martin, you have flown this ship all 23 times in atmospheric conditions in the last three years?”
Jonesy asked as they rose vertically through 5,000 feet.

“All 23 times as pilot,”
Martin replied.

“Do the ship’s vibrations feel the same to you?”
Jonesy asked the man sitting on one of the ship’s rear cockpit jump seats.

“Heading through 10,000 feet, thrusters on 97 percent power,”
stated Maggie from the right-side co-pilot’s seat.

“Maybe a little more vibration due to our fuel tanks being full, and the new heat bricks underneath the floor. Once we obtain forward flight at 95,000 feet, the electric hybrid pulse motor will kick in, and the vibrations should cease.”
Martin replied to Jonesy.

“Heading through 15,000 feet at 500 feet per second, moving thrusters to 12 percent forward thrust
,” added Maggie.

“You still don’t want me to use the blue shield Ryan loaned us?”
Jonesy asked.

“Only in an emergency,”
Martin replied. “
This ship was built to orbit earth, and return without a shield. I want to achieve that first.”

“Jonesy, moving forward a notch to 30 percent forward thrust. We have achieved 100 knots forward speed and climbing at 380 feet per second.”

“Roger Maggie, increase electrical output to 20 percent and decrease hydrogen thrust to 90 percent,”
replied Jonesy, his eyes going over the control console in a millisecond.

It was time for Martin to let the astronauts do the flying, and he shut up.

“Altitude 25,000 feet, forward thrust going up to 50 percent. Hydrogen thrusters at 85 percent, electrical energy at 58 percent and charging for first pulse. That should put our nose at seventy percent angle over horizontal,”
continued Maggie.

Jonesy was flying the ship while Maggie was changing the flight systems and reading out the important flight information to him. They had been sent the planned flight information while still returning from Mars, and had studied it for two months before they had returned to earth. The information had fascinated both pilots. The use of hydrogen thrusters, then electrical pulse power, then plasma thrusters once in space was totally new to them.

“Is our altitude climb rate increasing Maggie?”
Jonesy asked.

“Affirmative, forward speed 490 knots, altitude 39,500 feet, altitude climb currently 890 feet per second,”
Maggie replied.

“Very slow in acceleration, maybe I’m used to faster machines, Martin?”
Jonesy asked.

Wait until you feel the first pulse, Jonesy. It’s going to rattle your teeth,”
returned Martin.

“I was scared about that, I’m sure this pulse is going to remind me of Ryan’s old hydrogen pulse engines from 25 years ago.”

“Oh no, not those again,”
added Maggie.
“Jonesy we are getting too old for back breaking work. Forward speed 510 knots, altitude 44,700 feet altitude climb 970 feet per second, 83 percent electrical energy to first pulse.”

The first pulse when it came, felt like somebody had just added nitrous oxide to the fuel mix, and it really hurt the pilot’s backs.

Oh! That hurts!”
stated Jonesy as their speed increased painfully and Maggie called out the numbers.

“Forward speed 1,190 knots, altitude 61,000 feet altitude climb 4,950 feet per second.”

“I didn’t realize that the first pulse would hurt so much
,” added Martin Brusk as the second pulse came, and hurt, even more than the first.
“Ouch! That one really hurt.”

“Bloody hell!
Shouted Jonesy as the electronic pules got considerably worse, pulsing out the back once every 20 seconds, and by the sixth pulse, and at 239,000 feet, he ordered Maggie to switch off the Electric pulse system, brought the nose down, and increased the hydrogen thrust power to 40 percent to glide back down to earth.

“Gee that hurt,”
stated Martin.
“None of my engineers thought that the pulses would hurt after the first one. Well, I suppose it is back to the engine drawing boards and we didn’t even get to try the plasma thruster.”

“Well, we gave your ship a new altitude record. We just passed 245,000 feet when we began to head down,”
stated Maggie feeling sorry for Martin.

“Instead of playing with this one, why don’t you just build a few more of those shuttles you built for Astermine and keep one for yourself,”
suggested Jonesy as they headed down in a low circle over Russia.

“I think you are right. I think it is the right time for me to retire from inventing new forms of transport, buy me a fishing boat and come and join you guys.”
Both pilots greed with Martin Brusk on that one.

Twenty-four hours later and still with aching backs, Mr. and Mrs. Jones and passengers, took off after saying farewell to their old friend, and with Bob, Beth and Monica headed south over the Indian Ocean, the equator and to new happy fishing grounds.

“Martian Club Retreat to Base Nevada, Martian Club Retreat to Base Nevada, we are under attack over,”
came in the stressed voice of Vitalily, three months after the Joneses had headed away from the island on their new fishing boat behind Bob Mathews and crew. Jonesy had finally gone fishing.

Back in Nevada, the first five plasma rocket engines had been completed in Tel Aviv, had been launched up into orbit a week earlier, and were being built into the open rear area of
America Two
.

The second batch of five motors were 3 hours from being launched up from Israel aboard three of the shuttles. It was not the time for a Mayday call.

Ryan, who was in Tel Aviv and about to co-pilot
SB-III
into orbit with one of the engines, asked Dr. Smidt in Nevada to handle the emergency until he was in space.

There was nothing anybody could do. With monitoring the lights between the planets in Mattville, Max Von Braun had kept all personnel in all bases up-to-date on the advancement of the
Matt
ships from Europa to Mars.

The 16
Matt
ships had disappeared from between the two planets in the globe room a month earlier, and everybody now knew it was just time before something happened.

Inside the Martian Club Retreat, the top soil was safe three levels down. The blue shields were retracted and safe on the lowest level, and the daily reports from Vitalily, showed increasing anxiety from the crew waiting for an attack.

The top two floors of the base were empty all objects. Even the base’s command center had been moved down to the third level underground.

From the last attacks, the crew had realized that the
Matt’s
Masers could only reach through a maximum 30 feet of rock at most. The last deaths from the first attack had been on the top two levels, where 20 to 30 feet of Martian rock had allowed the electrical impulses to run through the rock and electrocute the crew inside, like an electrical storm.

There hadn’t been holes made in the protective layer of Martian surface by the masers, but the charges had somehow reached in and destroyed people and electrical equipment.

Jonesy was fishing. So was Maggie as they trawled on autopilot a mile or so behind Bob Mathew’s boat. For three months now they had rested, drank beer and eaten fish until the excitement of the never ending supplies had worn off.

The Jones’ water home had everything they wanted. Bob had shown where they could exchange currency, on the mainland and in the city of Cairns from a wholesale store, whilst on their maiden voyage. To head out for weeks at a time, the fishing boats had needed to be stocked up with water, food and luxuries, and Jonesy enjoyed his luxuries.

On Astermine Island, few supplies had reached the store rooms recently. With few crew actually living on the island, flights of supplies from the Australian government were down to a couple a year.

Both the Joneses had received a retirement gift from Ryan, each a pouch of cut diamonds from Antwerp Ryan had kept for such purposes many years earlier, and a steel box with freshly minted Mars gold. The retirement gift of diamonds, and a couple ingots worth of gold minted into coins each astronaut would receive on retirement had many years of purchasing power for a good life.

Paper money was still used in Australia, but nobody accepted U.S. dollars in that country, only their own dollars. Bob Mathews, who had been given gold for his retirement package, as well as Beth and Monica, had found a place to exchange it in Cairns, ten hours sailing from the island.

Here, a jewelry store owned by a lady about the same age as Bob Mathews, and who had been in the gold trade all her life, was happy to exchange the yellow metal into Australian dollars.

On the Joneses’ first voyage on their new fishing boat, Bob had headed them to Cairns, and the Goldsmith’s shop.

“Gooday,” stated the lady behind the counter as the five of them, Beth, Monica, Maggie, Jonesy and Bob entered the shop. As usual the door omitted a tinkle when it was opened and much to Jonesy’s surprise, the lady with her grey hair up in a bun, and looking more like one of his old school teachers welcomed them in. “Bob Mathews, Beth, Monica, good to see you again. These two must be the Joneses’ you warned me about?”

“Word travels fast around here,” returned Jonesy.

“Not as fast as your gold is about to. I really liked that stuff Bob brought in the last time he was here. Some bull crap about it coming from Mars. Even an aborigine knows there is no gold on Mars.”

“Well it just so happens ma’am that there is gold on Mars,” replied Jonesy.

“And how would you know that Mr. Jones, I assume?” the grey-haired lady replied looking at the ex-astronaut as if he was a naughty child in her class.

“Because I’ve been there, and I picked up this gold myself.”

The shop owner’s eyebrows raised at that statement, and she looked at Jonesy sternly.

“Oh you have, have you? And my cat is an alien?”

“I’m sure that is not impossible,” replied Jonesy smiling at the lady. He was beginning to like her.

“Oh, OK American travelers, what do you have for me this time?” she continued smiling and getting down to business.

“Do you want diamonds from an asteroid, or gold from Mars,” Jonesy asked seriously, not noticing the three ladies smiling behind him.

“Asteroid diamonds are lovely this time of year,” stated Maggie to the lady.

“Now that ruins it,” stated the lady looking at Maggie and putting her hands on her hips. “I know the men are cuckoo, now it turns out you ladies are just as bad.”

“Want to see my original asteroid wedding ring?” Maggie asked. The lady nodded showing a slight interest for politeness sake.

“Oh my God! That is not real. It can’t be!” the lady replied, her face going white and nearly falling over with surprise. She put out a hand on the counter to steady herself.

Maggie had just pulled her original wedding ring out of its separate silk pouch. Dangling from her right hand was a necklace with a massive, a really massive flawless, D-color diamond studded with smaller diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

When Ryan had described the ordered wedding ring from this diamond Maggie had actually picked up herself on DX2014 decades ago, both Maggie and Suzi, whose ring was even bigger, decided to get smaller rings and turn the large diamonds into necklaces.

“Yes that is what we, the weird people you think we are, picked that up on an asteroid floating past,” Jonesy stated.

Beth and Monica had both seen the necklace a couple of times before, and were still both enthralled with the beauty of it.

“Now why are you carrying that thing around Mags?” asked Jonesy quite surprised that his wife had it on her.

“Just in case we need beer and gas money,” Maggie replied.

“Honey, you could just about buy this whole city with that thing,” the lady added.