America One: War of the Worlds (46 page)

“We need to capture whatever the
Matts
have there, and hopefully our inhabiting this dwarf planet will hinder the
Matts
traveling to the red planet,” stated VIN immediately from a security standpoint.

“We certainly don’t need to mine for several of the Rare Earth metals for a century or two,” added Igor looking at his notes. “From Mars’ records of ingot numbers, and backed by Max doing a second count last week, we believe to have 789,990 12 inch cubed ingots in total stored in the two chambers. The gold ingots the crew brought with them are 5 times the size of our regular-size gold ingots on Earth, or 2,000 ounces. The quality is identical to our ingots on Earth. Each bar in Earth’s gravity will weigh 137 pounds, or just over 62 kilograms. Dr. Smidt reported to me yesterday that gold was worth $2,455 per ounce 24 hours ago, which puts each of the 185,000 plus gold ingots at just under $5 million each.” There were sounds of shock and everyone looked at Igor to do the math. “OK, OK, just the gold inside the caverns is worth $925 billion. Nearly one trillion dollars, crew! And some of the Rare Earth metals are worth double down there.” There was silence as the number was chewed on.

“I can get gold bathtub fittings on my boat,” joked Jonesy. “Hey, I can get a bigger boat!”

“So as not to sink with your new gold fittings,” joked VIN.

“Igor, the rest of the ingots please?” asked Ryan not seeming very perplexed. Money didn’t really mean anything to him anymore.

“Mars and Max brought in 125 ingots, 25 were pure gold, ten were each osmium, neodymium, lithium, erbium, scandium and one we have always struggled to find anywhere on earth, and what I believe much of the
Matt
technology is produced with—gadolinium. Gadolinium is important in manufacturing lasers and I believe their maser technology, and most importantly: neutron capture for the blue shields. This is also one of the most important metals for computer memory. The last ingots were the most valuable: five ingots of rhodium and unbelievingly 15 ingots of iridium. As you know Martin Brusk would sell his soul for unlimited amounts of lithium and especially iridium.”

“Boss” interrupted Boris always more to the point. “Those are just half of the metals we need to find to build modern technology, and the others will be in the Asteroid Belt. That is why we need to capture Ceres, takeover their base, and then we will need all the mining help the rest of planet Earth can give us.

“So, the future plan for Astermine” continued Ryan “and our two large ships my daughters built, are to travel backwards and forwards between Mars and Ceres?”

“That would be one small step for us, and one giant leap for mankind,” replied Igor simply. Ryan now understood what his destiny was: to continue in the footsteps of his three boyhood heroes—Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

“Weather is sunny on the Martian Gold coast,”
joked Max on his next newscast a few days later.
“The second section of silicone-glass is in, the gold melted on the first tunnel hole, two feet of soil and another foot of rocks and stones covers it. From outside, and apart for the dusty gold mounds, it never looked like a hole ever existed.”

We have done a few changes to the train. I hope you don’t mind Jonesy, but we took out what was left of your cockpit chairs out of SB-III and set them up on the train. We are wanting to build a second set of carriages, and plan on five in all. Ryan, we need two more chairs, and then we can have four people riding in style down the track with a caboose on the end for cargo. The trip with the two chairs worked well and Joey and I covered the journey to the other base in 27 minutes. We are doing a few alterations to the wheels and suspension and I still think the train can do it in 20 minutes. An even better idea. If you want Dr. Smidt to work on a new train, we could increase the track to head right through to the end of their Base Three, and build a turning system each end. Also a train made in Nevada could be made longer. I suggest a ten-seat passenger train with caboose, and a ten carriage cargo train for supplies. Just my suggestions. The lights from Ceres to Europa are still heading in the same direction. Some of the lights have disappeared in the second group. I believe they have landed on Ceres. I’m sure they don’t have landing facilities for all their spaceships, so some could be resting and refueling. End of message, over.”

As
America Two
began braking for Ceres, two weeks ahead
,
the astronauts planned a system of attack.

Jonesy couldn’t fly, but Maggie could, and wanted to. She was now the most experienced pilot, and Saturn was more than happy to allow her mother to take her shuttle’s left seat. Mars had another job, and would be working with his father.

Pluto Katherine was given the promotion of Head Gunner aboard the mother ship, and with Jenny and Jane Burgos, and Gary Darwin being the only male, they were a formidable laser force.

Lunar and her husband kept their positions on
SB-V
, and every thought of what lay ahead on Ceres went through the morning briefings.

Max’s next report a week out from Ceres was what the crew aboard
America Two
wanted to hear. The large formation of
Matt
ships were heading away from Ceres and towards Europa. They were already putting distance between them and where they had rested. Ryan and his crew wondered what was left on the dwarf planet. They knew the
Matts
wouldn’t leave their supply station unarmed.

They found out 50,000 miles from the tiny planet about a tenth the size of Earth’s moon, seven days later.

“Bogeys on radar, 16 enemy ships heading towards us from the white planet, currently at 15,000 feet above the surface, 40,000 knots forward speed. Location of enemy ships’ exit position from planet now logged on computer.” stated radar as the last briefing had just started. At the same time, Max’s radio message came through. As usual he sounded happy. All the crew seemed to be happy living in Mattville.

“Great news on two successful projects,”
Max began as the crew readied for an attack on their ship in about 2 hours.
“Third silicone glass panel in place, the gold has been poured, we will be attempting a walk tomorrow from the base to begin piling the dirt and rocks. We moved the shield outside before we closed the final hole. It is pretty noticeable out there but as yet we haven’t seen anything on radar. I’m getting pretty sure we are the only people on this planet.
The idea is for three guys to live and work inside the shield covering the gold with rocks and dirt. The shield is only a quarter inflated, and has enough air in there for three guys for several days. Joey and I will be heading out with the crew of three for the 3-mile walk outside the tunnel, and will return within our 4-hour limit. We will return to walk back with them once the job is done. I know you want the latest on the Matt ships. I headed through the tunnel yesterday, 12 hours ago. All the ships are still heading in the same direction, and we can see an advancement of travel of the large flight. With your distance suggestions, the closest ships are now more than a week away from returning to Ceres, once you attack. We finally had time to inflate the Zodiac, once we had carried it down to the lake below us. Ruler Roo and Joey headed out, paddling with the two oars with cords tied to the rear of the boat. They rowed for an hour, and we let out ten cords, 3,000 feet before we had to bring them back. They saw a never-ending roof above their heads, and it sloped upwards at a gradual pace. It had risen to about 40 feet when they reached the end of the cord line. Other than that they saw nothing, only water and roof, so that lake down there is far bigger than we ever thought. A never ending supply of good old fashioned water. End of message, over.”

Ryan asked Max to head back to the globe room a soon as he could, as they were about to be attacked. He wanted an update to see if the ships had turned around.

Nobody aboard the mother ship could understand how the enemy knew they were in the vicinity, and even Roo was asked back on Mars. He didn’t know either.

The
Matt
ships headed straight for the mother ship so they knew Ryan and crew were heading towards them. The two shuttles were ready and an hour later undocked to engage the enemy.

VIN and Mars were aboard
SB-IV
as passengers and sat in the rear cockpit seats as the two experienced astronauts headed straight towards the 16 enemy ships.

“Distance to enemy, 27,000 miles, shuttles, I don’t want you out further than 3,000 miles ahead of us,”
ordered Kathy Richmond from the Bridge. Ryan still didn’t trust himself to lead the defense of the ship, and Kathy being an ex-Air force colonel had filled the gap while VIN was on his mission.

At about 10,000 miles to target, the mother ship could open fire, although not very accurately. The same could be said about the shuttle lasers from 7,000 miles.

Even though great speeds were obtained in space, it also took a long time for distances to be covered. The mother ship was heading towards the planet at a slowing 27,000 knots, the enemy ships were heading towards the mother ship at 40,000 knots, so it still took an hour before anything happened.

When it did it happened fast. The
Matt
ships began firing as they always did, far out and they began calibrating their shots. This time there was nowhere to hide and as the radio disturbances in the space around the attacking ships told them the enemy was firing there was nothing they could do. The lasers would produce a beam that could be seen by everybody, but the maser firings couldn’t be seen by the Homo sapiens, only registering on their equipment as sort of radio wave disturbances.

The first battle began quickly once the opposing forces got into range.
SB-V
and Michael Price got the first hit at 6,100 miles, Saturn got the second and the first volley from
America Two
hit five out of fourteen still in formation.

The
Matt
ships immediately changed direction and headed out in all directions as their ships began exploding around them. It was imperative that the Astermine astronauts not allow the enemy within 5,000 miles of the mother ship, and both shuttles at full power headed out behind as many as possible to cut off the attacking enemy.

Saturn got her second and the mother ship cleared the other three in front of her lasers. With empty space around her, Maggie turned towards
SB-V
heading in the opposite direction and she saw another puff of an exploding ship far in the distance followed by two more.

“I have a bogey on my tail,”
shouted Lunar as Michael blew up a
Matt
ship less than 10 miles in front of him.

“Not anymore,”
replied Jenny Burgos smiling.
“Six bogeys still on radar.”

“As air battles always ended up, the fight became spacecraft following one another, trying to get a hit. It was over within minutes as the four gunners aboard the mother ship picked off the rest from a safe distance.

Then the two shuttles headed towards the white dwarf planet 40,000 miles ahead of them.

Max’s voice came over the radios an hour later telling the Astermine crew that the 160 ships had turned around and were heading back to Ceres. Kathy Richmond believed that they would be a week too late to help their fellow crew members.

“OK, astronauts”
stated Kathy once Max had been thanked for his report. He had been asked by Igor to do the same the next day.
“We need this planet to be ours within 24 hours, the enemy will be here in week, and we need to be ready for them. You guys know what to do. We just have to see if they have any outside ground defenses around their base, or bases, over.”

It was weird to see a laser beam this time speed pass the two shuttles as they closed on the little planet an hour later. Up to then nobody knew that the
Matts
had similar weapons, and at 10,000 miles, it was pretty accurate.

“Maggie to Kathy, they have ground cover, lasers, semi-accurate up to I’d say about 12,000 miles, so keep your orbit outside their range of fire until we have destroyed their ground defenses, over.”

Three more beams of green laser swept passed them, the onboard computers locating and memorizing each blast.

“SB-V, so far we count two ground sites, less than a mile apart, over,”
stated Saturn.

“Copy that,”
replied Michael Price.
“I confirm locks on two sites, hold on, two more beams headed passed us about a mile off our starboard bow. They both came from a new site. My computer readouts show a line of three gun sites about 600 yards apart, my cameras are locking onto them. Distance to target 5,700 miles, over.”

“Lunar increase our separation distance by another 10 miles, over.”
Stated Maggie.

A minute later the area around both craft had beams passing within a couple of miles. The lasers weren’t accurate, but they were getting closer.

Maggie ordered Lunar to change direction and they headed at an angle to the plant and within 12 minutes, and at 15,000 feet came over the enemy base area from the rear. Their computers locked onto the locations of ground fire and as they passed overhead weaving about two of the three gun placements erupted into balls of blue energy.

“They had blue shields over their gun placements. I counted five in total, two destroyed,”
stated Michael Price as they once again headed over the horizon at speed.

“I counted five blue shields,”
agreed Saturn
. “Mars and VIN are helmeting up, VIN said to go around one more time, over.”

The planet was small, and the shuttles struggled to keep a sensible orbit at high speed. There was little to no gravity on the planet.

Again as they passed overhead at a different angle they blasted the gun placements getting two more as three ships suddenly went spaceward from the same locations, right in front of the two shuttles. The two different flights of spacecraft missed each other by less than a mile.