America One: War of the Worlds (35 page)

“So you could hear their commander’s tactics VIN, when you are there in the middle of battle?” Ryan asked.

“If it is motional like Emotive telepathy, it goes out to everybody.” VIN answered all Dr. Nancy’s unanswered questions two mites later when he received the communication, and everything about two minds thinking together became as clear as the sound of a bell.

Vitalily responded telling the crew what they thought Commander Fob knew. What surprised VIN was that nobody had told the captive that they had crew in his old home. The commander had been led to believe that he had been rescued, the Homo sapiens from Earth had left, and he was still on the red planet in the enemy base.

Then a spark of realization hit VIN Noble like a lightning bolt. The three young children were with the crew, free to learn, and relate any information they heard.

Vitalily had inadvertently beaten VIN to this conclusion. Being a Russian, he was more guarded about information than the Americans, and had disconnected the intercom speakers on the fifth level weeks earlier.

This was the level the
Matt
children and Commander Fob resided, and he had certainly made sure that Commander Fob didn’t hear any radio messages. This was certainly a stroke of luck to Ryan and the crew. The three children had constantly stayed on the fifth level.

Slowly a whole new plan came to Ryan. Now that a mother ship could complete a return journey to Mars and back each Opposition with the new plasma engines, the second ship could go somewhere else.

Chapter 15
 
War of the Worlds—Act One

“Is there any way that Commander Fob, or any of the
Matts
in their spaceships, or on Ceres or Europa could know of our arrival?” Ryan asked VIN a hundred days into the voyage.
America Two
had reversed itself a couple of weeks earlier and was using its ten plasma thrusters to slow for their arrival to the red planet.

Mars was still a large, bright star in the sky when they had turned the Bridge’s view rearward, and Earth was no bigger. The crew were already reading for arrival.

“We must always assume they know,” replied VIN. “Boss, I wanted to ask a question. Of what use is the Martian Club Retreat to us as a base, since we have a far better base in Mattville?”

“Igor, Boris and I are thinking of closing it down until it is needed, say as a storage facility, or for population growth in the future,” Ryan replied while the two were on the Bridge. “What do you think Head of Security?” Ryan asked the younger man.

“If I was in command, I would sneak in and land at the Retreat, have all the crew ready with belongings to board our empty shuttles, and take them to Mattville,” VIN replied.

“What about the four
Matts
?” Ryan asked.

“Easy, I would put the children on
SB-V
, keep Commander Fob on another, and let the enemy decide whether to destroy their own people,” VIN replied.

“A good plan,” replied Ryan. “And what about the other side of the
Matt
base?”

“We need to rid ourselves of their spacecraft on the planet, and then take over the second half of their base,” VIN replied.

“I get your drift Marine,” Ryan smiled. “Then we fill all our spacecraft up with the captured
Matts
, and then head out into space to battle the incoming forces?”

“I hadn’t thought that far” returned VIN looking at his commander “but yes, that sounds like a good plan that is if they care about their own. Somehow we might be surprised how little these nasty
Matts
care about themselves. For every good tendency the Earth
Matts
have, these space
Matts
seem to do the opposite. Also the others in space will know of our takeover, and that will be the time to head out to attack.” Jonesy had joined the two men discussing strategy.

“I don’t believe having civilians aboard our ships will change anything,” Jonesy stated. “They attacked the Retreat knowing that the Earth
Matts
were inside on the first two occasions, and recently when Fob was a prisoner.”

“I hate to say it, partner, but I think you are right,” joked VIN.

“Pity, we could have worked out a nice peace accord, where we all live happily ever after on the red planet,” stated Ryan. “Commander Jones, what do you think about them having a resupply base on Ceres? Commander Noble?”

“Hopefully, if we capture their resupply depot, base, or whatever they have on that rock, it might stop them from being able to cross the distance with more ships,” replied Jonesy. “I’m hoping that they cannot fly between Europa and Mars without a pit stop, and if that is so, then we have solved our problem for the time being.”

“That is until they build bigger or better ships, which can complete the journey nonstop if that is the case,” added VIN.

“We have to go and get Ceres,” added Igor joining the discussion. “Ryan, maybe Mars has riches for us. Maybe it has all the gold, and a few of the Rare Earth metals we will ever need, but Mars certainly won’t have the range of treasure the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt will have. I read once that each asteroid could be worth $100 billion on Earth, and how many asteroids are out there?”

“Our annual voyage for
America Three
,” mused Ryan, the big new plan coming into play in his mind.

Over the next weeks, the big new plan formed, the crew prepared for arrival, and Vitalily and his crew packed up and got ready for a fast move.

Down in the Retreat, the seventy-five available canisters were packed up. Only the fourth level was cleared, and several important pieces of machinery and personal belongings from the fifth level packed without the Matts’ knowledge. Life around the Matts went on as usual. The idea was not to warn the other
Matts
on the planet until most of the equipment was moved.

The top soil could stay. So could the water and fuel supplies until they were needed. The power plant and temporary command center on the third level was to stay. Any items that didn’t fit into the full canisters, were packed into piles, and empty canisters would be sent in through the docking port.

Aboard the mother ship, 32 empty canisters were loaded into one of the shuttles to be taken down. So was three tiny spacesuits and a teen suit for Commander Fob, as well as drugs to send them to sleep for the transfer.

Five days before
America Two
was due to go into orbit around the red planet the plan went into action. The five shuttles fully fueled, undocked from the mother ship and with full thrusters headed towards the growing planet.

Vitalily had kept a 24/7 surveillance and record of the flybys by the enemy, and it seemed that they now did a mission once every seven days. Fuel must be a problem for them, Jonesy reckoned as the flybys had dropped from seven spacecraft every few days to a routine two spacecraft once a week.

Jonesy had set the arrival time for the five shuttles to enter orbit 12 hours after a flyby. By this time the enemy were back in the confines of their underground ground base, and hopefully not able to see their arrival.

Mars and Saturn Noble had added that the entire time they had collected gold from outside the tunnel, nobody had arrived to attack them, so maybe the
Matts
didn’t have as good a radar system as Astermine did.

Mars also added that no
Matts
knew they were in the vicinity until Commander Fob was woken up, and nobody passed overhead while they filled the cargo holds.

“OK we are 10,000 miles apart, 200 miles altitude, and slowing through 17,000 knots,”
stated Jonesy as they headed into their first orbit
. “Remember astronauts once you get overhead the Retreat on the first pass, begin your descent for your next two orbits. Our north/south orbit will keep us at least 400 to 500 miles away from flying overhead their base. I will be going in to land on Lookout Mountain to keep watch. No more intercom communications until I tell you I’m in position, out.”

Instead of the usual west to east orbit the shuttles had always done, they were on a north to south orbit. Mattville was just under 400 miles from the Retreat, and in an easterly direction. If the
Matts
had radar, there was nothing Jonesy could do to hide, but nobody thought the
Matts
had radar. They used telepathy to get around.

Three hours later Jonesy came into land a few hours before dawn on Lookout Mountain.
SB-III
had been there before and had its exact landing coordinates in its computer memory.

Michael and Penny Pitt went into the Retreat first in
SB-I
. All the astronauts were fully suited up with helmets to protect them from the incoming cosmic radiation about to enter into the cockpits from the base crews’ suits. They had already stacked all the full canisters a few feet from where Michael was landing
SB-I
, and Michael had two crewmembers aboard to unload the 15 empty canisters and lift in 15 of the full ones.

It took several seconds before the red dust cleared from Michael’s thrusters and the crew got to work. The roof cargo doors were opened, the cargo lift was ready and the swapping of the canisters took place from the rear cargo hold.

At the same time three of the Retreat’s crew helped carry out four more canisters, then climbed in through the docking port one by one into the forward cargo hold.

Within 15 minutes, Michael launched, and headed towards Lookout Mountain, as Mars and Saturn descended through 20,000 feet flying
SB-IV
the larger shuttle, and for their thirty-minute stop.

This time the dust wasn’t so bad. The space suits for the
Matts
were part of the cargo, and 25 canisters were lifted aboard into the rear hatch. The lift then lifted six of the Retreat crew into the forward hatch, which closed, sealed and air was pressurized into the bay.

When it became safe to undress the suits were first wiped down with wet cloths, the suits taken off and packed into six empty canisters. The canisters were then ejected through the shuttle’s docking port one by one and Vitalily helped them down to the ground where they were injected through the base’s docking port where the canisters were wiped down. Now everybody had a space suit in the base, even though with the wet wipe downs, they were subjected to higher than normal amounts of cosmic radiation.

“Your guys OK Vitalily?”
Mars asked as the man moved away from his shuttle and gave him the thumbs up sign. There were still nine of the crew, Vitalily, and the four Matts in the base.

“We are running to plan, only two minutes late Mars,”
replied Vitalily as he backed away as
SB-IV’s
thrusters began to lift the shuttle off.
“The captives have been asleep for several hours. We drugged them during dinner last night. We have ten of the new canisters full, five to go, we have the three crew suited up and ready for SB-II and we will be out of here by dawn if the bad guys decide to look us up. They shouldn’t as they only flew by two days ago. At least the dust is gone, over.”

Mars lifted the shuttle off, turned, and like a helicopter taking off, headed up and away to join the others halfway to Mattville and on top of the mountain.

Allen and Penny Saunders were next in the third smaller shuttle, and took the same load Michael Pitt had in
SB-I
. They didn’t have empty canisters to eject, but had a different cargo to load.

The different cargo was that two of the sleeping
Matt
children had been carried fully suited and placed into the docking port one by one. Once a third member of the base’s crew was aboard, Allen headed out to join Jonesy.

SB-V
had the largest load to pick up. Lunar brought the final shuttle in minutes after Allen had vacated the landing zone, and Vitalily and the remaining crew rolled out the last of the canisters Michael Pitt had brought in. The last of the canisters were loaded into the rear hold, then Commander Fob and the third child were lifted in with the cargo hoist.

Finally, and 19 minutes after landing, Lunar launched and as quickly as possible headed away from the empty base.

“I heading over to Max,”
stated Jonesy as Michael Price stated their launch over the intercom.

As Lunar headed up to take Jonesy’s perch atop the mountain, Jonesy headed down to the tunnels. Lunar had the most powerful solar radar system aboard her shuttle, made by Martin Brusk in Tel Aviv, and while she would be on top of Lookout Mountain, Michael Price was to setup the system and begin its seven-day power-up cycle.

From atop the mountain it could find bogeys above 2,000 feet, scan pretty deep into the canyons, and had an accurate sight range of 500 miles.

Saturn Noble had taken over control of her beloved shuttle enroute to Lookout Mountain while Mars readied to swap shuttles. Shelley Saunders took the co-pilot’s seat while Mars headed into the docking port and was ready to exit as Saturn brought her in on the starboard side of Jonesy, ready to launch off the mountain. Mars scampered out and entered
SB-III’s
docking port and did not enter into the cockpit. There was no need as he was just hitching a ride and getting out twenty minutes later.

“Have you directly overhead, Jonesy,” stated Max as
SB-III
came overhead of the semi-open cavern. The mining robot had taken away as much of the roof directly above the flattened landing zone as needed.

In the meantime, the crew inside
SB-V
were transferring its two sleeping Matts into
SB-II
and once Jonesy was out of visual sight in the cavern, Allen and Penny’s crew were to take off the sleeping
Matts’
helmets and head back up to rendezvous with the mother ship.

Dawn was just breaking as
SB-III
slipped into its new home, a very large cavern with its tiny roof entrance just large enough to fit any of the shuttles one at a time.

Max and three of his crew were suited up and ready to help offload, what was to them the most important cargo of the mission.