America One: War of the Worlds (36 page)

In Jonesy’s forward cargo bay was Dr. Smidt’s new hydraulic lift. In the much lighter Martian gravity, it only weighed 600 pounds. On earth it had been a heavy cargo haul at a couple of tons.

Once the dust had cleared, and there was a lot of it this first landing, the hoist lifted the single unit out of the cargo bay and placed it exactly where Max wanted it.

Max and his crew had already been taught by Nevada Base on how to operate it, and from now on they wouldn’t need the corded ladders to climb down the 60 feet to the newly flattened cavern floor.

“Jonesy, it will take us about 30 minutes to setup the stabilizers and crank up the hydraulics, then we can clear your second cargo bay,”
stated Max slapping Mars’ on the shoulder as he climbed down the ladder from the docking port and the two men spacesuit-hugged each other gently.
“Mars we had to repair the poor miner several times when it fell opening up the roof. I think you need to look at it. It sort of hobbles sideways instead of walking like a spider.”

“I now understand why the opening is just big enough,”
replied Jonesy.
“Don’t expect a damn machine to do a real man’s work.”
Max looked at Mars.

“Don’t worry Max,”
laughed Mars and punched his good friend Max on the face of his helmet.
“Jonesy is just pissed off that robots are flying commercial and military aircraft instead of human pilots back on Earth.”

“They are?”
Max replied.

“Lunar is going to have a real tight fit in here. How far are we from Mattville?”
Jonesy asked.

“Seventy feet,”
replied Max,
“plus the sixty feet up to that tunnel entrance up there,”
he stated pointing to where two cord ladders were draped down the side of the cavern.

In the three craft waiting on the top of Lookout Mountain, the crew, once the suits were again cleansed with a damp cloth, undressed and were happy to be with new faces. They wouldn’t be heading to Mattville for another 15 hours.

The lift was tested, and it worked well. It had support struts that made sure it didn’t topple over, it was so high. As it headed upwards empty for a test run, the six “X’s” of the frame build extended, and it reached the 60-foot tunnel entrance with ease.

In the rear cargo bay were sections of a put-together room, ten feet cubed. It was made out of panes of the same silicone glass the outer room of the Retreat had been made of before it was destroyed.

It comprised of 25 x 5 silicone glass panes that were carried onto the lift and with Max and Mars standing on them, lifted themselves with a handheld controller upwards to the tunnel.

The other two crew unloaded the connections to seal the panels together. Also in the cargo bay were two new mining robots, several lengths of six-inch thick plastic-silicone tubing, several electric motors and a couple of canisters full of frozen earth products for the crew.

The panels were readied outside the tunnel door everybody had used to enter the base, and shortly afterwards the rest of the cargo was there as well.

“Joey, I have the helmet over the panel, open her up,”
shouted Max, and the door opened as it had done the last time Mars was there and the air came out like a wave in the sea.

As fast as possible they carried the equipment in against the tide of escaping air, and it wasn’t long before the door was closed.

“Now what?”
asked Mars.
“I only have 40 minutes suit time.”

“We have the globe room set up as a halfway point,”
replied Max.
“We leave everything out here, the five of us enter the small globe room using the helmet method, and we have air tanks ready inside.”

Mars entered the globe room. He now had to wait 10 minutes until the air pressure from the air tank inside the room brought the oxygen up to be able to open the door to the command center. It would also be several hours before the chamber would be safe again to venture in to build the smaller room from the silicone glass panels around the entrance to the tunnel, and due to its smaller size, and with less air loss would decrease the wait time from hours to minutes. It was then that the War of the Worlds started.

“We have three unidentified bogeys heading towards us, 300 feet at 290 knots,”
stated Saturn Noble atop Lookout Mountain.
“They have just passed your position, Dad, and I picked them up a few seconds ago. They must be from the other side of the Matt base.”

“I wonder how they know we are here?”
Mars asked.

“Maybe they don’t, my hatches are closed, powering up thrusters now,”
added Jonesy.

“We have seven minutes before heading over the horizon,”
stated VIN Noble from America Two above them.
“Jonesy we won’t be here to back you up. I think that Commander Fob being put to sleep for longer than his usual rest time might have stopped communications, and they are heading to the base to see if anything has changed. I reckon Fob has been in contact with them all along. Mars you were really lucky to get the information out of him while you did after you woke him up. He must have been disorientated or something for that period after his cryogenic sleep. I know I was for days. He knows we know what he told us, we tricked him, and he certainly will be of no use to us anymore.”

“So they know something has changed,”
added Ryan also from above.
“Chief Astronaut Jones the ball is in your court.”

Saturn you have too many crew aboard, my two extra guys are putting on helmets, I’ll let them out, you take them and I’ll come down to back you up Jonesy,”
stated Michael Pitt over the intercom.

“Three isn’t too bad, but backup always appreciated,”
replied Jonesy.
“Taking off in three minutes. Lunar in SB-V, head up a couple of hundred feet and hover to keep them on your radar.”

Jonesy knew that the enemy wouldn’t see a change in the outside area of the Retreat, as the last shuttle‘s thrusters would have cleaned any evidence of anybody being there. The enemy’s leaving just after dawn also reiterated his belief that the
Matts
didn’t like flying at night. Every time they had flown to date it had been in daylight hours.

“Boss,”
stated Jonesy as he rose
SB-III
out of its hiding place.
“I feel that being given an opportunity to decrease their numbers must be taken. Lesser the numbers, betters the odds in my book.”

“Three bogeys flying past directly below us, still at 300 feet, and 290 knots. They are certainly not in a hurry, or conserving fuel, over”
stated Saturn.

“SB-III, SB-I, you have permission to engage, only if they fire first,”
stated Ryan.
“We will not be in position to help you, and your new hiding place, SB-III could be found by the enemy on their way back, over.”

“Jonesy, I’ll slip off the mountain behind you as you come past,”
added Michael Pitt.
“The first of the two crew is going through the hatch now.”

Ten minutes later and as Maggie always added, Jonesy dragged his butt along the planet’s surface even lower than the Matts in front of him, and smiled as
SB-I
maneuvered in behind him.

“Glad to have you as wingman,”
stated Jonesy.

“Glad to have the opportunity Mr. Jones. Wouldn’t miss it for the world, and Penny likes the odds on Round One.”

“Laser hot and ready,”
stated Maggie.

“Same here Mrs. Jones,”
smiled Penny Pitt.

“Bogeys approaching the Retreat,”
added Lunar.
“Still only three enemy blips on radar, over.”

Jonesy and Michael increased thrust.
“SB-I you still have canister cargo onboard, so keep behind me and don’t forget you are heavier than me. Since they must fire first, I’ll go in to get shot at. No silly maneuvers from you guys. They will most probably swoop on the Retreat a couple of times, then head back towards us. Maggie, Penny fire on my command. Michael, I’ll try and give you a decent firing angle. Michael, turn seven degrees to starboard.”
Astermine’s chief astronaut set up a perfect flanking attack for Michael.

The three swoops of the enemy on the Retreat, captured on the base’s cameras, still live, showed the three craft firing at the doors into the underground base. Ryan immediately gave permission to fire. This gave Jonesy time to put a hundred miles in a northeasterly direction, turnabout and head in also from Michael’s flanking angle.

The three enemy ships were directly in their sights as they passed by on the return light, this time at 1,000 feet altitude.

“Maggie take lead bogey, Penny the furthest ship from us…lock lasers…fire,”
commanded Jonesy, and the two ships disintegrated on the first beam of energy.

All four pilots had fought these enemy before and expected what the third bogey would do before the pilot knew it himself. The third ship went to full power and like a rocket headed vertical.

Maggie missed on her second shot, but Penny didn’t, and as the third ship went vertical, it exploded in a blue mas of energy less than 3 miles ahead of them.

“Bogeys exited to stage right, Lunar get back down, SB-IV, SB-V, be ready on idle. We are heading back to you to hide until dark, no more radio communications until dark, out.”

Jonesy and Michael Pitt just made it back atop the mountain before the angry bees left the hive. Now they had the exact coordinates of the enemy base and they could count the enemy ships as they, one after the other headed out in all directions.

The third pilot must have got a message through. Mars stated that he had heard a short telepathic cry, and so had VIN on the other side of the planet.

All four shuttles, with their thrusters on idle, watched as a wing of eight enemy craft passed by below them twenty minutes later. It was followed by another wing of seven aircraft, and then ten minutes later a third wing of seven.

Jonesy didn’t want to fight so many this day as the other three shuttles needed to get rid of their cargoes, Allen Saunders needed to return, and
America Two
be in the right position. At least he knew that with an attack on their base, they would be the attackers, and he could time the next act to perfection.

The crew on all the Astermine shuttles watched their radar screens, watching the enemy’s reaction as the mother ship came over the horizon. Jonesy did not want VIN to fire unless the enemy rose up to attack the ship, and it seemed that the
Matts
, either couldn’t see the ship above them, or they knew it was far out of range. Also the four
Matts
were still asleep and about to be transferred into
America Two
. VIN asked the medics to keep them asleep for another 12 hours.

For the rest of the daylight hours, enemy ships passed backwards and forwards below the high mountain hideaway. At one time there were 29 enemy ships on radar. Jonesy hoped that they didn’t rise up to altitude, and somebody heard his wish.

It seemed like weeks, but the weak sun finally went down, and so did the bees return to the hive.

A couple of hours later, Saturn in
SB-IV
headed down into the cavern first to unload. The new room was up, the suits recharged, and Mars, Max and four others were waiting for her.

She squeezed the larger shuttle in through the hole and into the much larger cavern beneath, and once the dust had been spewed out of the cavern with her side thrusters, she opened her roof cargo doors.

The Retreat crew were hoisted out first, and then the canisters strapped to pallets. It took an hour to unload, as the shuttle held far more than she had loaded on at the Retreat.

Saturn watched as the crew in threes were first lifted up the 60 feet by the new lift, nearly three times higher than her cockpit level.

Then the hoist part of the new hydraulic lift was connected to the cords of the full pallets, left where her hoist operator had left them, and the pallets were lifted directly up to the tunnel. Here a crewmember had a new machine designed by Dr. Smidt, which lifted the pallet off the hydraulic platform and the pallet disappeared into the tunnel.

“It looks like our loading systems back in Nevada Base,”
stated Mars as she wiped him down, then helped him unscrew his helmet and gave him a big hug. “I was hoping those nasty
Matts
wouldn’t find you up on the mountain. These new helmets are sure faster to unscrew, but I wish we had the latest ones under development.”

“Next mission,” Saturn replied.

Lunar came in to unload, while Saturn returned to the mountain top. Max could now stay out for four hours with the new, more modern suit he had been given from
SB-III
the day before. There were only six available on this mission, and they were for the loading crew working outside. Only Mars had one of the new suits. The others were being worn by Max and his crew.

Six hours after dark, Vitalily was finally reunited with his fiend Max, and
SB-I
headed back into a north/south climbing orbit into space, followed by the other three shuttles.

Chapter 16
 
War of the Worlds—Act Two

“You certainly kicked up a hornet’s nest,” stated Ryan 24 hours later as the eight tired astronauts floated onto the bridge.

“Three down, many more to go,” replied Jonesy smiling and looking for a pouch of fresh coffee.

“We’ll have a quick briefing, then you guy have 12 hours while we refuel your ships,” continued Ryan. “The hornets might have calmed down a bit by then”.

“We counted seven flights, 51 enemy ships out at one time a few hours go,” added VIN who had been chatting to Allen and Jamie Saunders.

“We must have been on the other side” replied Maggie “I only counted 36.

“Me too,” added Penny Pitt.