AMERICA ONE - NextGen (Book 5) Read online

  With radio silence the order of the day with the ground crew, Bob Mathews watched as if he were in a theater watching a science fiction movie. The craft lifted up very slowly to about one hundred feet, and then slowly began floating in the direction of the crater thirty miles away.

  “Forty percent thrust, forty-five; it feels as if we are moving. This is very weird, guys. The bubble is acting as if I am still in space. Fifty-five percent downward thrust and we are off the ground.”

  “Maggie, you are in space, you have a vacuum around you,” said Ryan excitedly, stating first names, something he didn’t often do with his astronauts.

  Maggie was a competent helicopter pilot, even better than her husband, and both of them had flown dozens of hours of VTOL on Earth takeoffs on and off the moon, many planets, and even asteroids, but never acting as a helicopter on Earth with five times more powerful gravitational pull than the planets. Normally, at minimum 95 percent power, the loaded shuttle left Earth and headed skyward without the blue shield. Now, with no cargo, nearly empty tanks and the slight weight of six passengers in the crew compartment, the bubble had somehow helped her off the ground with very little thrust. Even on testing, SB-III couldn’t lift off the ground under 75 percent power.

  Maggie flew the shuttle as if it was a helicopter, slowly at first, but as her confidence rose, faster and faster.

  “Remember to stay below 5,000 feet,” said Ryan. He could see her approach through the new Israeli surveillance cameras.

  To Bob Mathews, there was absolutely no noise coming from the shuttle’s thrusters. Normally he would have needed ear plugs standing this close. It was as if the noise was corralled inside the soap bubble.

  “That is amazing,” said Bob as he climbed into the Chinook and headed to the cockpit. “Beth, start her up, let’s follow. Ryan told us to stay at least a mile from the shuttle. I can see why.”

  They couldn’t catch the fast moving bubble. Maggie took just ten minutes to fly the thirty miles to the lip of the crater. All she had done was point the shuttle’s nose forward and then slowly turn the thruster from vertical to an angle pushing air behind and downward at the same time, so the craft moved forward. Once she was moving forward, she gently increased the engine thrust to sixty percent. As if without any air drag, the shuttle’s forward speed rapidly increased to over 250 knots, and the crater grew quickly out of the western horizon.

  The Chinook just taking off had no chance to catch her, and came in thirty minutes later to land on the edge of the crater opposite from where Maggie was already down, next to the other interesting spacecraft a little smaller than the shuttle.

  For poor old Bob Mathews this was all getting a little too much fiction, and by the time the helicopter landed, the soap bubble around the shuttle was gone.

  “All safe and sound on our new base,” said Ryan as the Chinook landed. The two landings he had witnessed were certainly something new in normal Earth conditions. He had seen the bubbles work for years out in space, but seeing them here on Earth was an awesome sight. If it had been for him, then it had certainly been an interesting experience for the newbies.

  Astermine and part of its crew on Earth were safe in a crater in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Now it was time to discover what the Pig’s Snout had hidden away, and Ryan gave the permission for the second set of two craft to enter the next day.

  Chapter 8

  Okay, So You Want War?

  Igor and the other six crewmembers in SB-III’s crew compartment hadn’t returned to Earth’s gravity for a decade and were as weak as the others had been on their first visit. A helmetless Maggie helped Igor out of the craft’s side entrance and actually carried him away from the side of craft.

  Saturn Jones ran up to hug her mother, who handed her Russian copilot over to a NextGen, he was so light. Mars Noble was tall and strong enough to carry the embarrassed Igor to the unmanned medical center.

  Once Maggie hugged them, she returned to the shuttle and with her experienced daughter helped the unsuited passengers out one by one. Dr. Nancy was first. She was to look over the two Matt astronauts and then the others, once she was carried in and able to regain a little strength, balance and composure.

  Commander Joot and Elder Roo, both wearing one of Ryan’s teenager-sized spacesuits and helmets, had climbed out of the side of their craft an hour earlier, with the help of two strong kids their own size, Lunar Richmond and Penelope Pitt. They had been carried into the special medical tent reserved for arrivals. The onlookers seemed a little surprised when Commander Joot and Elder Roo pulled themselves out of their craft. The astronauts looked like children, extremely short.

  The Matt shield had been turned off, but the two wore full suits on Ryan’s orders, to hide them until the time was right to introduce them to the newbies.

  The America One crewmembers already on Earth, like on any airport apron, pulled refueling hoses, thickly protected from the heat, up to connecting nozzles from the Dewars. The ethanol and liquid hydrogen supplies had already been carried and buried in the sand by Bob Mathews the day earlier. The crew began refueling the shuttle just like the Matt craft. Pipes, buried in the sand to keep them cool, had already been positioned directly under each craft’s designated landing area.

  Maggie and Igor joined Commander Joot and Elder Roo, chatting with each other in Matt, describing the flights and landings. The six new crewmembers were helped into the cordoned-off area by Mars and Saturn one by one. They had been brought to help set up the new base with electronics, computers and enough equipment to run the craft in and out from the Pig’s Snout.

  Thirteen of the newbies, now preparing for their first flight, were scheduled to be checked over by Dr. Nancy when she regained the use of her legs. Dr. Walls was then introduced to his mentor, who immediately began ordering him around as if he was her student.

  The crater’s living quarters were under large military desert camouflage tents supplied by the Australians. Three tents were currently up and as far away from the landing areas as possible. The crater was large, about 800 feet across, but it was quickly filling up with spacecraft, helicopters, tents and equipment.

  “Jonesy promised us a swimming pool when we arrived. Where is our bathing pool to help us strengthen our limbs?” Dr. Nancy shouted out to Ryan as she was carried past him in the control room.

  “Oh damn, I have totally forgotten about the pool the Australians delivered,” he replied to Dr. Nancy walking into the medical center. “The Aussies made us a prefabricated aboveground temperature-controlled pool out of a new type of foam, twenty feet across and five feet deep. It is still inside one of the hangars with three pallets of water. Sorry Doc, I’ll get the Chinook to head back and pick it up immediately.”

  Ryan walked out of the tent and into the hot desert sun. It was already well over a hundred degrees, but beautiful dry air was very pleasant. It was even drier than he remembered in the Nevada desert, or was it his imagination? The balance of the crater’s habitants were erecting a fourth tent, while all the arrivals were being carried by the America One children into the medical area.

  Only Lieutenant Walls was on guard by the two spacecraft, while four crewmembers monitored the refueling. The spacecraft were both sealed, and their silver coloring would keep the desert heat at bay inside the cockpit and cargo holds until loading.

  Two of the six full Dewars left behind when they had exited had been lifted up into the crater by the large helicopter and buried ten feet under the surface of the sand to keep them cool. Even the pipes to the four separate landing zones had been buried to keep the refueling as cool as possible. The liquid hydrogen pipes were a foot thick, most of the width being insulation to keep them cool during the refueling process. One pipe loading alcohol connected to Joot’s craft, and 500 gallons was pumped into the craft’s only tank. The refueling of the two totally different spacecraft was like night and day.

  There were four more Dewars filled with liquid hydrogen on the airfield thirty miles away, and
up here in the crater they only had enough fuel for the first two shuttles. The Matt craft was certainly easier to refuel, and could take the same amount of cargo, but none of their passenger compartments had ever been found on Enceladus, Mars, or the asteroid. Commander Joot couldn’t figure out what had happened to them, and was hoping to find at least one in his old base. If he could find a passenger compartment, crewmembers could be taken into space in his ship as well as cargo, and the shuttles could remain orbiting Earth. It was pretty difficult to refuel them inside the crater and return them into space.

  Maybe it would be easier once the Matt base beneath them was uncovered, and Ryan looked over to see Bob Mathews and Jonesy’s father working the earthmovers, already digging the first hole where the commander had shown them while he had hovered above the exact spot.

  “Beth,” shouted Ryan to Bob’s girls helping to erect the tent. “When you are done, take Monica and Lieutenant Walls and head down to the base. There is a swimming pool on a large square pallet. Use the forklift, connect it under the Chinook and place it as close to the medical tent over there as you can. There are three pallets of water that need to return with it.”

  She gave him the thumbs-up and got on with erecting the tent.

  What Commander Joot told Ryan during the flight debriefing an hour later was interesting. Ryan was shown on the computer that the Matt craft had hovered at exactly 1,500 feet above the sand on the crater before changing position to land. The commander’s craft had said that he was 1,660 feet above his exact Matt landing place. Somehow his craft was still either gathering information from below the sand, or it was in the memory of his onboard computers.

  With 40 feet needed for a cavern to accommodate the Matt craft that meant that the earthmovers would need to dig about 120 feet to where the top of the Matt cavern’s roof level should be. If it was strong enough to hold all this sand, it was certainly strong enough for the earthmovers to move around on top of it.

  He decided to don a full spacesuit, and ordered the shorter commander to do the same. So far nobody outside the old America One crew had seen a Matt. The new members didn’t know why the earthmovers were working so hard, and Ryan thought that the secret needed to be kept for a few more days. It took VIN and Suzi 15 minutes to help dress the men, one in an adult suit and the older man in a teenager suit. Then with sun visors down so nobody could see their faces, they headed outside.

  This time the heat and sunlight didn’t hit Ryan as he exited the shade. The suit kept out everything, even the noise and communication around them. It was totally silent apart from his breathing, slow and methodical.

  “Can you remember the crater?” Ryan asked Commander Joot in English for a change. Only the command center could hear them.

  “Yes, like I was here a month ago. I cannot think how all this sand got in here.”

  “Several thousand years of dust storms I would imagine,” Ryan replied. “So describe the crater to me, Commander, if you would be so kind.”

  “It was very green. Large trees surrounded the crater. They were very old, and I always remember that when we exited in our spacecraft, the shield was the only reason the trees stayed upright.”

  “So you did not get any sand, rocks, or debris on takeoff into your base’s cavern?” asked Igor, now manning the command center.

  “Oh no,” Joot replied. “I remember the cavern roof door very well. It had a lip a few inches high that swept any debris on the roof backward as it opened. The cavern was kept extremely clean, and the roof entrance was only opened on launch, a training flight, or landing. We trained in flight outside, on top of the roof. The cavern was for long-term storage, design, and cargo loading only. We had a sunshade, a second level above the door, for training use. There was no sand, and when I was here only rain blew in when it was open. Four of those times were my two landings and takeoffs to space with cargo. Two were from our leader, and some were other commander’s takeoffs and landings. When the blue asteroid was near Earth, every ship was filled with cargo, and often four ships took off together one after the other to travel into space. There are 24 cryogenic chambers inside the cavern, and more nitrogen than on the planets, far more. There is a smaller entrance over there with stairs going down.” He pointed to the area that Bob and Jonesy’s father were looking at digging. “My craft was the closest to the small exit, about thirty feet from where I usually landed.”

  “Igor, did you get that?” Ryan asked. “Send out little Mars Noble with my mobile radio. Commander Joot needs to show them where the diggers must start.” Within a minute the young boy arrived. Like his father, he always took his duties seriously.

  The two spacesuits walked with Mars over to Bob and Joseph Jones. The two men were rather shocked to see two alien-looking beings heading toward them with young Mars.

  The commander grabbed a rock, and with it, drew a rectangle about 50 feet wide and 30 feet long.

  “Mr. Mathews, Mr. Jones, please dig in this area,” said Ryan through his mobile radio so that the others could hear. Then the two suited figures walked to the far edge of the rectangle to the middle of the crater. “Gentlemen, directly below this area is a smaller entrance door, with which we can enter into the underground chamber.”

  Commander Joot drew a square within the first rectangle, about the size of double doors. “We don’t want to dig out the whole crater until we need to. The roof door is round, and opens from the middle out.” Commander Joot then spent a good ten minutes making a far larger circle, over 120 feet in diameter, which covered much of the west side of the crater. “This is the main cavern door. Hopefully we don’t need to dig it out just yet.”

  Then the two suits did their best to walk up to an area next to the crater wall and directly to the side where the square door had been drawn. Ryan was quite surprised to see that there were old holes in the slope, broken and wind-softened steps that led up the side of the crater wall, and now he and the commander were walking on solid rock, not sand.

  Within ten minutes they stood on top, next to the crater lip, and there was a flat area several feet wide. Mars still trailed behind them, and Ryan told him to tell his father about these four lookout points when he arrived the next day.

  “There are four staircases and a platform, one there, there, and there,” said the commander, pointing around the crater lip. Ryan couldn’t see them.

  Mars had other chores, and he nodded and ran down the 100 or so stairs far faster than the two suited men had gone up.

  They looked out at the desert stretching as far as the eye could see. The mountainside a couple of thousand feet down to the desert floor was steep and rocky. The slope down reminded Ryan of his skiing days in Bavaria with Suzi.

  Commander Joot explained to Ryan that a very large lake and a river flowing eastward covered much of the area outside the crater to the west. The rest was lush tropical vegetation, large trees, thick growth, and lots of animals even though they were vegetarians. Ryan wondered how all this had just disappeared.

  Once back, out of his suit and resting, he had a chance to think, and he realized that they most probably now had only a certain amount of time before somebody would come calling. His main worry was that the Big Bad Three might be angry enough to throw nuclear weapons at him, now that he was in the middle of nowhere. It was important to leave as soon as they had searched the Matt base, and the southern hemisphere was beginning to sound safer.

  It would take at least a day and a half to get SB-III back into space with all the new crewmembers aboard. VIN would arrive in twenty hours and could help protect the crater, and that meant he would have two of his shuttles on the ground, half of his laser firepower, completely useless for about ten hours. Or were they?

  Ryan had Base Control viewing the cameras around the clock, and he was now as well protected as he could ever be, on the airfield and up inside the crater. He heard the Chinook start up and then head out, and his second situation came to mind; sending SB-III up with an extended shield. He decided to go
to the medical center to talk to Igor and Commander Joot.

  “Commander, please explain to me for the millionth time how these shields save you so much fuel on takeoff?”

  The commander smiled as Igor was wheeled in by his daughter Lunar from the control center and back to the medical area. The other weak astronauts were still being checked over by Dr. Nancy, who was now administering her examinations in one of the other Nevada base’s wheelchairs they had brought. Kathy Richmond wheeled the doctor around.

  “Ryan, the vacuum inside the shield helps the craft float up virtually weightless,” replied Commander Joot in near-perfect English. “Kathy told me that it works like a balloon here on Earth. Also, there is an important change in the way Earth’s gravity pulls on my craft inside the shield. If I were one rank higher, I would have been taught these technologies. The thrust propels the craft through the atmosphere rapidly, and somehow the direction of the movement is directly related to the thrust direction of the thrusters. You saw me reduce height with my thrusters facing upward, hover, and then thrust my craft horizontally through the air. I reduced thrust and, being closer to the Earth’s surface, a weak gravity automatically continued my descent.”

  “That’s it!” said Ryan. “That is my problem. Commander, your craft can thrust downward: in other words your thrusters were facing upward, pushing you down when you descended, right?” The commander nodded. “That is the problem I couldn’t figure out the answer to, but not on takeoff, thank God.”

  “Our major thrusters can only face down, or horizontal, not upward,” added Maggie.

  “Correct,” added Igor weakly. “We had not noticed such a difference in the Matt thrusters. Why should we? Our shuttles never needed to be pushed downward. Gravity always did that for us without using the shields.”