America One: War of the Worlds (37 page)

“We were several thousand miles behind you guys,” stated Michael Price. “I saw two flights of 7 appear on our radar just before we headed over the horizon.”

“Interesting,” added Jonesy.

“Reminded me of aircraft taking off from an old aircraft carrier back on Earth. Only one or two can take off at a time,” stated Allen Saunders.

“That’s it, the last piece of my plan!” stated Jonesy his mind being refreshed by the hot coffee.

“Please elaborate,” Ryan asked.

“OK, we haven’t actually seen where these guys launch from. I was in their old cavern where Fob and his boys launched from. The interior of the cavern is massive. I fitted into the hole Max has enlarged. I reckon, maximum three of their ships could take off through their old cavern roof door at any one time. The underground cavern is far bigger than below the old roof door area, so there could have been nine, maybe twelve enemy ships in the cavern, fully armed and fuelled when Michael hit the place, plus the cavern door must have been open when he blew the darn place up. It must have been heavily protected, and the blast from their exploding spacecraft blew out the entire launch pad, but I reckon an even larger explosion must have happened below the ship cavern, in the power room, and the thick lava walls Max told us about saved part of Mattville from total disintegration.”

“I agree,” interrupted VIN. I was looking at the crater on camera when you went in partner. The blast was very powerful, and was directed up and away from the living quarters.”

“Maybe the weight of the lake of water and its surrounding lava?” stated Igor, and that led to food for thought.

“We could assume so,” added Ryan deep in thought. The launch pad is further out and away from the lake. The inside wall of the lake is near vertical where the spiral staircase is, I’ve been down there, so that there could be 70 feet of rock or more, as you suggested Igor, frozen molten lava, between where the
Matts
had their power plants. We have always found their fusion power plants far below the bases and on the deepest level.”

“So my laser beam might have entered the open launch area, blown up the spacecraft in there, and somehow the blast reached their power plant and that caused the massive atomic explosion?” asked Michael Pitt.

“Something like that,” smiled Igor. “I don’t think that one or two cold fusion power plants exploding would cause so much damage, so they must have had far more stuff down there.”

“An atomic power station or something?’ suggested VIN.

“Or their blue shield production department,” added Boris. “With what Captain Pete and Dr. Smidt have found out from the blue shield black boxes, this explosion could have been several energized production and power systems all exploding at once. And I agree with Ryan that 70 feet of solid frozen lava must have been thick enough to save part of the base, the water underneath, and maybe the water, like sand, dispelled the energy of the blast from the base.”

“I got it!” exclaimed Maggie and Suzi together. Suzi looked at Maggie to tell first, and nodded that what she said was Suzi’s exact thoughts.

“They must have been launching out of a blue shield. Remember how violently
America One
exploded when she was hit?” Everyone caught her drift.

“And they could have had a dozen, or dozens of blue shields set up down there,” added VIN.

“That’s how they get around,” smiled Ryan. “From one blue shield to another, like we did. They fill them will air, and I believe that even that long rail tunnel had active blue shields in it.

“Correct,” added Mars Noble. “Three holes, meant three shields exactly where the open holes were. They were overlapping the shields in both directions down the tunnel, or at least to the wall we found. The wall we found stopped the blast, but the explosion blew up the black boxes. They took out several feet of rock when they exploded.”

“And we analyzed that destroyed wall of the tunnel to be steel-hard frozen lava,” added Igor.

“I like it when a plan comes together,” smiled Ryan. “Chief Astronaut Jones, your plan please.”

Twelve hours later the five shuttles, fully fueled headed down towards the red planet.

VIN had asked that Commander Fob be drugged for other 12 hours and be transferred to
SB-I
before they had awakened. He wanted the Matts out of
America Two
, and the commander could sleep peacefully behind them while Michael and Penny Pitt fought his tribal members.

The three children were with Mars and Saturn, in
SB-IV
in their Captain’s apartment and also fast asleep.

Since the
Matt
ships hadn’t headed up to attack the mother ship he assumed that they didn’t know the ship was 500 miles above them orbiting the red planet. He had gotten Ryan’s permission for Jonesy to try and get them back to the retreat and to stay there with food and water until the battle was over.

The ‘hornet nest’ didn’t quieten down. While the shuttles were heading down and in daylight hours, flights of enemy ships headed to and from their base to the area of the Retreat, and to where their three downed spacecraft were. It wouldn’t take them long to send a flight up into space and search for the mother ship, so the next attack had to be quick and fast.

The hardest part for the crew aboard
America Two
was to answer one of Jonesy’s questions, and VIN spent the twelve hours the astronauts were resting on the cameras looking for the cavern where the enemy were spewing from. Jonesy had asked if he should do what Michael Pitt had done, and try to get a laser beam into the launch cavern while it was open, and possibly destroy the base. Ryan gave the order to do so, added that it was necessary to stop the launches, and would give them time to enter the base through the tunnel.

Igor added that if the cavern and the blue shield inside exploded, it would stop any more attacks from the enemy, at least until the reserves arrived from Ceres. Ryan had no choice.

VIN struggled to get an open view of the cavern door. From 500 miles high, the cavern was a speck of dust in the 5 mile square area the crew knew the base to be.

What shocked VIN when he saw actually three spacecraft emerging directly from the side of a mountain, was the cavern door wasn’t horizontal in the ground, but a hidden large vertical door in the side of the large mountain.

Michael Pitt shook his head when he was told about the final beliefs of the destruction of his successful hit on the horizontal door in the floor of the plant decades earlier. His laser beam must have been fired at the enemy ships, just as they had appeared out of the door in the first area. It had been a one in a thousand shot.

VIN immediately relayed the photos, and told the astronauts that Jones had been right. The vertical door was large enough for three spacecraft at a time, he saw the interior blueness of a blue shield and the door was open for less than thirty seconds.

Now that he knew where it was, and while the mother ship was above that part of the planet, VIN recorded when the door opened and closed. All he had to do was to watch the spacecraft exiting and entering.

Unfortunately with orbiting, he only had seven of the eleven hours of daylight of one day to record their movements, and they were not regular.

Once they were through and into the weak atmosphere, Jonesy flew the flight down in a near vertical dive the remaining 260,000 feet, or 50 miles, and a couple of thousand miles east of the base.

He wanted to get to the enemy launch pad before they opened for business at dawn.

Once they got down to the planet, the astronauts took turns putting on their helmets while they circled.

“VIN to Jonesy, bad news, one spacecraft exiting the door, over.”

“Crap!”
replied Jonesy.
“Isn’t it still dark down there, the twit is two hours early?”

“Yes, but it seems they do fly at night, partner,”
VIN replied smiling.
“You must time your attack for either 19 minutes from now, or your initial planned timing of your attack 36 minutes from now. You can only attack when we come over the horizon and be above you for the longest period possible. We are heading over the horizon in 4 minutes. A second group of three heading out, over.”

“I’ll take the first slot and start early in 16 minutes, partner. Pilots, remember to fly north up and towards the mother ship if we get attacked close to the ground. We will have hornets all around us pretty quickly, over.”

Jonesy’s perfect plan had already gone array. Now he was told the bad news that the first enemy ships were heading spaceward, VIN and the rest of the crew knew that they were looking for the mother ship.

“The next group of three, heading out and immediately upwards,”
added VIN.
“Time between launches, their usual 210 seconds. Goodbye for 19 minutes, out.”

“Copy that partner. All flight crew buckle your belts we are going after them. Maggie time and distance to target?”

“Full thrust 10 minutes, 2,100 miles to target,”
replied Maggie.

“Martian terrain is not higher than 4,800 feet above the plant floor between us and the base,”
stated Jonesy.
“Climb to 5,000 feet, and I want 97 percent power, stay in a 5-mile formation behind me. We will fly up vertical and clear the highest group, turn 180, then catch the rest on the way down.”

“Enemy forward speed climbing through 1,000 knots, altitude 17,000 feet,”
added Maggie as Jonesy pushed his throttles forward to the red line, and all five shuttles moved outwards to give themselves room as they accelerated.

The shuttles accelerated through the weak Martian atmosphere rapidly. For the first time for decades, fuel was not a problem, and it didn’t matter how much they used up to get behind the enemy. Surprise was the more important factor, and Jonesy knew that the cavern door could spit out three more aircraft every 210 seconds.

“Our forward speed 3,890 knots altitude 5,000 feet, enemy lead formation, four craft 1,300 knots at 21,000 feet. Second enemy formation: three craft 790 knots at 11,000 feet. Third, new enemy formation: three craft 590 knots at 6,000 feet,”
stated Maggie as the darkness around them showed them nothing. She was the only person allowed to call speed and distance on the radio until laser lock would be called by all ships. She would also call the first lock. From then on it was every crew for themselves.

“Accelerating through 7,500 knots, altitude 5,000 feet, 1,200 miles to target. Enemy lead formation 1,550 knots, 27,000 feet. Each group is climbing in formation, and I now have 4 groups on radar.”

Since all five shuttles had the same power to mass ratio they accelerated rapidly. Each ship was at 97 percent power. They rarely used emergency power over 97 percent, but this was one of the times. Jonesy waited until the exact moment.

“Forward speed 17,970 knots, 5,000 feet, 400 miles to enemy base,”
stated Maggie a few minutes later.
“Lead enemy formation: 2,100 knots heading up at 78 degrees to vertical attitude at 49,000 feet, and heading due north. Now five groups behind the lead group. Nineteen enemy on radar. Gunners, activate your weapons.”

“SB-I, II and III, we attack the first group of four, SB-IV the second group of three, SB-V the third. Remember our vertical attack training. We head up, we shoot, we turn, we go down, and we attack all the way down to the ground,”
ordered Jonesy.

“Speed 19,700 knots, 250 miles to target,”
added Maggie.

“Hundred percent power, all shuttles go to 81 degrees to vertical…now! I will take middle two bogeys, Allen the outer right, Michael the outer left,”
stated Jonesy rapidly.

Jonesy eased his shuttle spaceward. He couldn’t turn out so quickly at such high speed, and it took several seconds and 90 miles before the five shuttles headed directly up and towards the tails of the lead enemy groups high above, and directly in front of them.

It was also a plus that the enemy were flying in groups of three for the two larger shuttles.
SB-IV
and
SB-V
each had three lasers, which could be locked on three separate targets. The three smaller shuttles only had one laser each, and at the speed they were flying only had time for one, maybe two targets each.

Like a hare after a tortoise, all five shuttles rapidly closed to their respective groups, climbing seven times faster than the enemy.

As they passed the lower groups still fifty miles away, whether they saw or even knew the shuttles were there, they had little time to maneuver. It seemed to Maggie they didn’t.

“All enemy still on course, heading upwards in tight formations,”
she told the others.
“Distance to lead target 90 miles.”

“Pilots throttle back to safe thrust for first loop,”
added Jonesy a second later.

“SB-III, I have lock,”
Maggie stated.

“SB-II, I have lock”
added Jamie Saunders, the excitement could be heard in her voice.

“SB-IV, I have lock on three Bogeys,”
stated Saturn calmly.

“SB-I, locked on left forward bogy,”
added Penny Pitt as calm as she usually was.

“SB-V, I have lock on third group, three bogeys,”
stated Michael Price as excited as Jamie’s voice had been. For Michael it was his first space battle, and he had waited all his life for this moment.

“Fire!”
Ordered Jonesy.

As the shuttles silently screamed in for battle, all nine lasers emitted their beams at once, and there were nine point blank explosions as they flew through the area the enemy were flying.

“Turn now,”
ordered Jonesy, as Maggie locked onto the lead enemy ship and blew it into a massive blue fireball a couple of miles in front of
SB-III
.

Like a well-rehearsed Coup de Ballet, the shuttles looped as tightly as they could. All five ships went up at their different altitudes and over in a vertical loop. Their speed was still high, and it took several seconds and nearly 50 miles before they swung down vertically seconds later.