First Steps (Founding of the Federation) (10 page)

Luigi
chuckled. "Now now... be nice."

 ...*...*...*...*...

"Chess?"
Benny observed as Nick moved his rook. Since the good Senator from
Michigan had left early they'd had some free time to get a game in.

"Nothing
gets past you does it?" Nick asked as he studied the board. He
winced. "Oye." Luigi pounced on it with his queen.

"Could
have seen that coming a mile away," Benny replied dryly.

"Oh
go pound sand," Nick snarled sitting back.

"Never
play chess with a genius, you should know this," Benny chuckled
as Nick retreated. "Mate in three moves bub."

Nick
studied the board then sighed and flicked his king over. "Next
time you juvenile delinquent." He got up and brushed his lap off
then picked up his coat off the back of the chair. "I need to
see a man about a budget." Nick waved as he exited.

"Sore
loser," Benny chuckled as Luigi put the tiny chess set away.
""We've dug into the public relations with a will;
hopefully we will get more fruit now that Hollywood is getting on the
band wagon." He waved to the quiet LCD on the wall. "I
heard your working on licensing the rights to a video game? What's
next cereal boxes?" He chuckled.

"Whatever
gets the message out," Luigi smiled, determined to get the job
done and the message to as many minds as possible. He turned to look
out his window. It was snowing lightly.

"Going
to be a cold one," Benny observed. He shivered. "Should
have put a fireplace in here." He shivered again. Luigi picked
up the remote and clicked it. A couple taps and a fireplace came up
on the screen.

"Better?"
he asked Benny.

"Yeah,
if you like having a fireplace at eye level." Benny looked at it
then turned back to Luigi.

"Everyone's
a critic. Give the man an inch he wants a mile." Luigi sat back
smiling.

"Does
everyone have the winter blahs?" Benny asked. They were in DC
for another week before they headed to California. All the traveling
had them either jet lagged or suffering colds. Being away from their
families was taking a toll on some.

"Nah,
just a few." A wet smack on the glass behind Luigi made them
both jump. They looked to see Wanda, Julia, and Mario toss snow
balls.

"Looks
like fun," Benny chuckled.

"Well,
it beats studying pie charts and spread sheets," Luigi got up
and put on his coat and scarf.

"I'll
meet you out there; I left my coat in my office," Benny ran out.

 ...*...*...*...*...

"Musicians,
actors, man, do we have all of Hollywood behind us?" Benny shook
his head.

Mario
smiled. "Mars makes good drama. It is something new, something
interesting. Besides, once one or two started in, the others joined
the band wagon, and now, it is a growing movement."

Benny
shook his head. "Yeah, my son is all excited about the Discovery
channel coverage. Not to mention the live Hulu broadcasts," he
said. Mario smiled.

"Well,
not quite live, there is a time lag," Mario replied.

Benny
shrugged. "Close enough. It's the best reality TV show in
decades. The primary networks are all trying to get exclusive rights
to it.” He shook his head. “We are getting a little flack
from the greens, but so far they are not raising to big a stink. They
aren't happy about the nukes though."

Nick
sighed. "Yeah, I remember. I caught that broadcast about the
carbon footprint of the space program as well."

Luigi
took a sip of his beer then set it down. "I never was a beer
drinker like Mario here is."

Mario
saluted him with the beer. "More for us, right Nick?" Nick
nodded.

"Benny,
think you can rustle up something from the archives to show us
helping with the environment?"

Benny
sat back looking amused. "I'll get Wendy to look. Julia too. I
think there should be some stuff about the global warming research
done on the station and with satellites. Not to mention weather
forecasting in general," Benny replied and then nodded
thoughtfully.

"Good
point," Luigi nodded. "We have the first MAV with a Topaz
three on the Russian star city pad. I was supposed to be there for
the launch, but I have to be in Tokyo for another conference,"
Luigi sighed.

"Better
you than me little bro, twenty minutes babysitting a panel and I
would go postal," Mario chuckled. “I for one am glad to go
see it. Even if I'm going with Bower.”

"Only
twenty?" Benny teased.

"Wow
world record for you," Nick added.

Mario
grumped. "Everyone's gotta be a comedian," he sighed as the
others chuckled.

...*...*...*...*...

Mario
smiled as he looked around. The politicians were out in force. Zubrin
was doing his best to handle the media and political attention.
“Nothing like kissing ass in weather like this,” Mario
grumbled.

“Wonder
if they get frostbite?” Commander Bower asked behind him.

He
chuckled. “Yeah.” He tried to get a glimpse of the giant
rocket out on the horizon, but the snow was just too blinding.
“Damn.” He pulled out his binoculars and took another
look. Steam was starting to drift around the rocket.

“Just
wait, two more years...” Bower sighed.

“Yeah.”
Mario grunted. “For you and Luigi maybe, I am on the second
flight. Four for me.” he sighed.

“T
minus thirty seconds and counting,” a voice over the intercom
said then repeated the countdown in Russian.

“Glad
we went with English as the base language. No way I could learn
Russian or French,” Bower chuckled.

Mario
chuckled again. “Me too.” He looked the vehicle over once
more than let the binoculars down. “Hope this works, we can't
afford a screw up,” Mario sighed looking over his shoulder at
Bower. Bower nodded, holding up her crossed fingers. He snorted and
crossed his own.

“Ten...
nine... eight...” Mario hastily turned back to the launch.

“Don't
watch with the binoculars, the initial flare can be bright.”
Bower warned.

“Gotcha.”
Mario nodded.

“Ignition.
We have lift off,” the accented voice was professional, but had
a hint of pride as the craft began to lunge into the sky.

“Damn
you’re not kidding!” Mario tried to turn away from the
blinding flash. Slowly it rose on a column of smoke exhaust.

“Biggest
rocket in decades,” Bower sighed reverently watching it go.

“Go
baby go,” he said softly.

...*...*...*...*...

"We're
still getting flack from Senator Nathaniel over that rover factory.
He wants us to build a brand new facility in his home state."
Nick looked up from his report to Luigi who looked tired.

"Do
we need his support?"

Nick
looked down at his report. "We have a comfortable margin now.
Long term is anyone's guess," he replied. Luigi sighed scrubbing
his face with his hands as Nick took a pull of his beer.

"We
don't need another factory, using an existing one works fine. Tell
the dear Senator from Wisconsin to piss up a rope. Nicely,"
Luigi replied. Nick sputtered. Luigi chuckled as Nick wiped up the
mess.

"You
evil little... You know I can't tell him that!"

Luigi
smirked as he got up. “I'm going to the skin suit test.”

“I'll
join you in a minute,” Nick replied.

...*...*...*...*...

They
watched as the girls bounced around in the vacuum chamber. The Mars
suits were working well. Designed as a skin suit, they used space age
materials to tightly grip the skin. A breathing tank was fitted on
each of their backs. "Re-breathers?" Nick asked looking
over to Benny.

Luigi
shook his head. "Straight quill for now, we will get the
re-breathers in next gen. Right now we are testing the coolant and
pressure." Latisha tripped and fell.

Benny
winced. "Damn. That's gotta hurt." Nick shook his head as
the girl got up. She was sobbing a little over the radio. "Bad?"
She looked up, clutching her knee.

"Vacuum
burn," Luigi replied with a grimace. A tech in an old fashioned
pressure suit was already coming over to check.

"Damn,
must sting. Should pad the knees and elbows."

Nick
shook his head. "Stings like a son of a gun actually, the welts
last a long time too. We may need another layer." Nick nodded
but Julia shook her head.

"No,
that just covers the area; you can still breach it underneath. Then
it is harder to patch. Maybe a removable pad?" She made a note.
They watched as the tech bandaged the wound.

"Are
you going to stop the exercise?" Nick asked.

Latisha
looked up and shook her head vehemently. "No, I'm okay," he
said. They could hear the catch in her voice but she was steadying.

Benny
looked at her vitals. "She's okay; it just caught her off
guard," he observed. Latisha nodded. "Shall we continue
ladies? This time with a little more finesse." Latisha smiled
but gave him a one finger salute. Benny chuckled.

"Now
now, what would my wife thing if she caught you making promises like
that?" he teased. Latisha and Tess chuckled.

...*...*...*...*...

Nick
examined the model. It looked like a cylinder, with a thruster on one
end, and a cluster of habs around a docking port on the other. It was
wrapped in hoops. He fingered one. "Careful!" a tech
cautioned. He jerked his hand back like he had been scalded. "Sorry,
it's just they are very delicate." The tech looked the model
over. "I had a fumble fingered congressmen chew it up the other
day. Took me hours to fix it," he sighed as he adjusted his
glasses.

"So
this is the new Plasma Ferry?" Nick asked.

"Yup,
the second gen version. The hoops are superconductors," the tech
explained. The tech looked up with a grin. "Bought the recipe
from the same people supplying the superconductors for power cable in
New York and California," he sighed.

“Going
to be hell to get it through congress,” Nick said. He shook his
head. The tech nodded sobered.

...*...*...*...*...

"Transhab?"
Zubrin asked looking over the station model. Luigi nodded as he
studied it.

"Mars?"
Nick asked.

"Yeah."
Luigi answered.

"Why
do we need one?" Zubrin asked.

"Bigelow
is offering us a deal on it. I want a place where we can dock for
several reasons. We can stockpile supplies, use it as a base in orbit
to explore the moons, dock if there is an emergency, all sorts of
things." Luigi shrugged. "Besides, the station itself is
only two hundred fifty million dollars." He looked up as Nick
goggled at him.

"You're
kidding right? It cost the US over one hundred billion for the ISS!"

Luigi
chuckled. "Yeah, well, most of the cost of this design is
because of that research. The transhabs..." Luigi shook his
head. "I know it is a bit scary to live in a balloon, but it
makes sense in economic and weight terms. Also scale and space. For
the cost of one hard habitat cylinder off the shelf we could have six
transhabs with triple the size," Luigi sighed. "Short
sighted bureaucrats," he grumbled.

Zubrin
chuckled. "You’re just now figuring that out?" He
chuckled with Nick.

 ...*...*...*...*...

Mario
grimaced as they entered the living room. "Somehow I remember it
being bigger."

Luigi
shook his head. Everything looked bigger on paper or on a computer.
And the mock ups they had seen had been made out of plywood and
hadn't taken into account supplies and other things. When they were
finished and stocked the craft would have just barely enough room to
move around in for a long time. "That's because the last time
you and I were in one of these I was eleven and you were thirteen."

Mario
shook his head. "Wait, I remember going in a couple years ago.
The desert one," he said looking at his brother.

Luigi
shook his head. "No, we went into the MAV mock up remember?"
They hadn't admitted to Zubrin just how much of a pair of Mars nuts
they really were.

Mario
sighed. "Okay, so, six people in a four bedroom single wide two
story tuna can shaped trailer." He looked around. "I call a
bed."

Luigi
chuckled. "Well, the first two teams have married couples on
them, so they will
share
beds."

Mario
grimaced. "NASA dating service?"

Nick
chuckled. "With that mustache and squat look, you need all the
help you can get," he teased.

Mario
turned a scowl on Nick then back to his brother. He pointed his thumb
at Nick. "Got a hammer? I think we have a goomba to squish."

Luigi
chuckled as Nick waved his hands. "No no, not the super Mario
brothers!" They all laughed for a moment. "Singles are in
here." Nick waved to a small bedroom. "Like the
Constellation, it is a bunkhouse. We are still debating using bunks
or hammocks."

Mario
grimaced. "With my back, stick to the bunks. Besides, I wouldn't
want to be stuck in a hammock if we maneuver."

Nick
nodded. "Good point.”Luigi?"

Luigi
looked around. "He has a point, but keep the hammock idea in the
nutty idea folder. If we expand her to twelve people, we may need
it."

Mario
and Nick looked around. "Twelve? In this? Are you nuts?"
We'd never get that many in here! Life support wouldn't make it!"
Nick said in exasperation.

Luigi
chuckled. "Oh ye of little faith. We're going to use the plasma
rockets as ferries remember? So it has an aero shell, and cargo can
be a separate flight, so we can convert the bottom lab deck into a
duplicate of this and get six to twelve per level. We don't need a
lot of life support, since the flight time is forty days..."

Mario
nodded. "Still need a reserve and buffer in case of Murphy
little bro," Mario cautioned.

Luigi
nodded. "I have it covered. In fact, I had a virtual sim created
not too long ago. We can check it out after lunch. I am debating
uploading it to a game engine and putting it on a dedicated server
for the crew and later the public to explore..." They were using
the game engine and virtual walk arounds to help get the word out and
to generate interest. Over a million people visited the site daily to
see the hourly updates.